The MacGuffin

Another Top 5 segment from The MacGuffin. This time Allen and Brandi share their top 5 character actresses.

This segment is also available on Stitcher and iTunes. The audio version can be downloaded directly from here. After you’ve watched the video please vote in our poll and share which one you think is the best.

In honor of Contraband, Spencer and Greg discuss Mark Wahlberg. Then they take a look at the apocalypse on film, before giving DVD picks of the week.

Another Top 5 segment from The MacGuffin. This time Brandi and Allen share their top 5 underdog films.

This segment is also available on Stitcher and iTunes. The audio version can be downloaded directly from here. After you’ve watched the video please vote in our poll and share which one you think is the best.

Everyone loves an underdog film. Not only that, but everyone loves a sports/underdog film. They come about nearly every year, and they usually follow the same pattern: a person down on their luck, financially unstable, with a family in disarray and a life on the brink of disaster. Through hard work, dedication, and perseverance, they rise out of the ashes to become the champion of their sport and magically fix everything about themselves in the span of a few hours. Cue the heavy emotional music, add a couple of tears, a pinch of sugar, and bam! You’ve got yourself a finely made sports/underdog story with all the trimmings you can ask for! Warrior (2011) follows this outline pretty much step by step, and does it well. The twist here is, instead of one person’s journey to redemption, you have a pair of brothers. Two underdog stories for the price of one.

Another Top 5 segment from The MacGuffin. This time Brandi and Allen share their top 5 non-actors turned actors.

This segment is also available on Stitcher, iTunes, and Zune. The audio version can be downloaded directly from here. After you’ve watched the video please vote in our poll and share which one you think is the best.

Spencer and John give their predictions for the 2011 Academy Awards, before closing out the episode with their DVD picks of the week.

Obviously, to limit the amount of good films that come out in a single year to only ten is ultimately unreasonable. To take a group of films and say, “these are the best of the year” is a pretty bold statement, because there are a ton of movies that come out. Does this list include films that have come out from all over the world? Does it include animated movies, documentaries, TV movies, or short films? How do you rank a romantic comedy from America over a hard-hitting melodrama from Europe? You can’t, and for a while I scratched my head trying to put my chosen films in an order that made some sort of sense. I guess for me, there are two reasons why a list like this exists: 1) It gives me the opportunity to put the spotlight on a film or two that may not have gotten the attention I feel it deserves, and 2) it gives you (the reader) the chance to tell me how very wrong (or right!) I am in picking these movies.

I heard from different places that 2010 was a “down” year in movies. As I look over the movies on my list, and some of the ones that just missed the cut-off, I would tend to disagree. Yes, the summer blockbuster season did have a lack of notable entries, but the beginning of the year, and particularly the end, showcased a strong number of movies, some of which we may be still be talking about well into the future. As I tried putting my list together, I had to continually push it off because of a certain big movie that I had to watch before setting my group in place. Even now, with my list complete and here before us, I’m almost certain that I’m going to run in to another movie down the line that could have easily made its way to a spot if I’d only had the opportunity to see it earlier. But that’s what so great about the movies, it is continually growing, continually changing, continually bringing something new and fresh every week. I’ll gladly take another movie year like 2010 if it gives me the same amount of quality that it has here.

But enough blabbering, let’s get to the list:

A discussion about Darren Aronofsky, his career, and his latest film Black Swan. Featuring Luke Burbank from TBTL.