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PODCAST

Off Screen Death

Michael Denniston and David Giannini

A podcast about all the things we must do before the inevitable. Mostly watching movies. However one host intends to use that time wisely by looking at respected lists of curation from the likes of Sight And Sound or the AFI"s Top 100. Meanwhile the other watches a lot of STARZ. Really. An unreasonable amount of STARZ. And yet he heroically finds the time to podcast. Before he dies. This is OFF SCREEN DEATH. Hosted by Michael Denniston and David Giannini. Artwork by Nathan Thomas Milliner. Music

tv & film film history

All Episodes

00:41:33

The Mothman Prophecies (RT 52%)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/09/09

"A gaudy yet grim science-fiction horror movie of such surpassing silliness, humorless intensity and stylistic overkill that watching it may actually put you in a state of paranoia. Why are these moviemakers persecuting us?" Michael Wilmington of the Chicago Tribune does not seem okay. However we are ESPECIALLY if it involves Richard Gere, America's greatest of the silver foxes. Pair him up for another entry in the Gere and Laura Linney two handers as they take on a giant bug that likes to make

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00:29:46

Black Widow (#1 on Disney Plus Premier Access)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/09/06

"Black Widow represents the MCU looking back when it should be moving forward. Everything about the movie seems small, even the big action set pieces." James Berardinelli gives words to our comments but not our feelings. Mike and Dave talk about the small scale, road trip camaraderie between ScarJo and Florence Pugh, and touch on why it’s suddenly ok to make fun of superhero nonsense. We also briefly discuss why we are Team ScarJo in the lawsuit connected to this small scale, small profit movie. We

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00:35:55

The Conversation (1001 Films #604)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/08/20

"Squeezed in right after The Godfather and before Part 2, just two of the most treasured pieces of cinema, Coppola made another film that actually may be his best." Sean Price of The Spool gets it just right according to both of our hosts. As is our habit on accepted classics, we veer off course a little bit to talk about THE CONVERSATION as science-fiction, Mike’s Mormon upbringing (?), and Judy Greer?? It will (mostly) make sense when you listen. But not to worry, we spend most of the time

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00:33:21

The Nines (RT 65%)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/08/17

"August is on solid ground when he's riffing on Stephen King and celebrities, but he's stretching when he tries to be David Lynch, which would require a distinctly different kind of brain damage." Robert Davis of Paste Magazine manages to be both kind and extremely unkind in one sentence. But he's got nothing on our first featured Letterboxd user Emaann! It takes about a half hour to do not much more than that as we discus John August's THE NINES. Some of the topics of concern: Ryan Reynolds faces

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00:24:38

Opening Weekend Wasted w/ FALSE POSITIVE

Off Screen Death ·

2021/08/12

"The apparent desire by the core creative team to break from their wilder, messier material by giving FALSE POSITIVE A24 gloss--is understandable. But for a movie with this much blood, it doesn't leave much of a stain." We disagree, Katie Rife of the AV Club. For if we can't count on Pierce Brosnan as an evil gynecologist in a movie... what new releases can we count on? So get in your stirrups and prepare for the warm touch of our LAST Opening Weekend Wasted. Until something really good comes out

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00:31:35

Claudine (RT 57%)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/08/11

"A rather simple love story about two experienced and jaded adults." In a splat review, Janet Branagh’s of the Apollo Guide accidentally hits on what exactly there is to love about this movie! Mike and Dave talk about how refreshing it is to see two adults (each with their own problems) fall in love and build something together. Join us as we do our best to “save” CLAUDINE from the unnecessarily mean film critics. Join us (and the Criterion collection) as we celebrate a truly underseen

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00:28:55

Opening Weekend Wasted w/ FATHERHOOD

Off Screen Death ·

2021/08/10

"The film, directed and co-written by Paul Weitz, too often goes for the easy resolution, the syrupy payoff and the sense that every character in Matt's orbit is just, like, really really nice." What's wrong with nice, Kevin Maher of The Times? Well... some things are wrong with what one host dubs ABOUT A BOY 2 (such is his fandom of The Auteur Paul Weitz) but the NICER host just wishes people would leave Kevin Hart alone. Kevin Hart in this new release on Netflix, that is. Kevin Hart the real

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00:49:43

The Godfather (AFI #2)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/07/28

"The Godfather shows that there is still life in the massive production engineering which made Hollywood studios the wonder of the entertainment world in their great days." Alexander Walker of the London Evening Standard unwittingly guides us in our conversation not only of THE GODFATHER, but of where studios should go from here. Mike and Dave both struggle to pinpoint The Godfather of streaming, but weirdly we land on SET IT UP (Mike) and MANCHESTER BY THE SEA (Dave). Of course, yes, we talk about

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00:40:08

Opening Weekend Wasted w/ IN THE HEIGHTS

Off Screen Death ·

2021/07/27

"They don't make 'em like this any more, truly. For just a second, even those among you who won't be seeing this anyway might wish they did." Danny Leigh of the Financial Times with a strangely threatening positive review for Jon M. Chu's film adaptation of Lin-Manuel Miranda's musical IN THE HEIGHTS. We try not to threaten anybody but possibly each other and one host is bringing the film version of RENT as his weapon of choice. The other? He tries to understand the upset of Twitter and loses even

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00:47:47

Million Dollar Arm (RT 65%)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/07/22

"You can see the stuff 'Million Dollar Arm' throws at you from miles away, but that doesn't stop this baseball movie from being genially enjoyable." Kenneth Turan of the Los Angeles Times goes for the obvious BALLS analogy... which we would never do. In particular when talking about Jon Hamm or Lake Bell. No... we would never do that. Wouldn't even cross our deviant minds. THANKFULLY we have a guest to get us back on the subject of balls of the sporting kind with Web Bist of TRILOGY IN THEORY. He

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00:31:51

Opening Weekend Wasted w/ DREAM HORSE

Off Screen Death ·

2021/07/21

"I didn't find any great pleasure in seeing a story play out (the way) I knew exactly how it was going to play out." Peter Rainer of FilmWeek seems like a bit of a grump and if you've listened to this podcast then YOU KNOW that WE KNOW of what we speak. Look... we're not going to pick on DREAM HORSE. We are just happy that Toni Collette is not in HEREDITARY. Or something like it. Although she does come a bit unglued about this horse. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts/Spotify Twitter @offscreendeath

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00:59:27

The Last Picture Show (AFI #95)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/06/27

"The scene where Sam imparts his wisdom to young buck Bottoms may be the saddest, loveliest moment in 1970s American cinema. And that's saying something." Tom Huddleston of Time Out speaks much more elegantly about Sam than we do, but we have more fun. We invite guest Derek Stewart of The Grand Gesture and Your List, My Command to talk about a formative film for him, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW! We talk about a little bit of everything; including the difference between big city and small town living,

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00:29:29

Opening Weekend Wasted w/ CRUELLA

Off Screen Death ·

2021/06/24

"These clothes are the boldest element of a movie that otherwise wears its supposed punk-rock influences like a kid discovering Hot Topic for the first time." Angie Han of Mashable isn't wrong... but that's kind of mean. Although that may be keeping in the spirit of this cat fight (for the girls, calm down) between Emma Stone and Emma Thompson in the latest attempt from Disney to keep remaking the same story over and over. Okay, so even our show notes are becoming a bit mean for a family film that

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00:32:49

Wild Mountain Thyme (RT 26%)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/06/18

"One remains staggered that sentient human beings who walk upright and use cutlery believed this was a respectable use of their valuable time." Donald Clarke of the Irish Times is harsh but fair in his assessment of yet another star vehicle that misuses the talents of one of your host's favorite leading ladies. You know... we are beginning to see a trend here of women in Hollywood not getting the best material befitting of their talents. Perhaps that's a trend someone should look into. Not us

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00:38:14

Opening Weekend Wasted w/ FOUR GOOD DAYS

Off Screen Death ·

2021/06/17

"These are important stories that should be seen, but audiences need more than scripts that are primarily acting exercises." Nell Minow of RogertEbert.com is a true professional in her distaste for awards chasing films like FOUR GOOD DAYS... but as amateurs talking into a tin can over a Zoom call we are free to get down into the mucky muck and not care much for Mila Kunis without teeth. Even if one of us did pay discount Tuesday prices for the privilege. Our guest on the other hand, Derek of The

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00:41:45

Touch of Evil (Sight and Sound #57)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/06/03

"The film has always been a favorite of those who enjoy visual and dramatic flamboyance." From probably our best known critic, Roget Ebert, and we agree! TOUCH OF EVIL is proof that even movies on all of these pretentious lists can actually be fun. We take a look at what amounts to a B movie, but with a great director at the helm. We also touch on the objectionable brownface of Charlton Heston (of all people) as a Mexican officer of the law, as well as the glorious acting ability and beauty of Janet

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00:35:14

Opening Weekend Wasted w/ THE WOMAN IN THE WINDOW

Off Screen Death ·

2021/06/02

"Watching it, you have to wonder exactly what kind of movie anyone though they were making." Alissa Wilkinson of Vox plainly states what we agree with, that this movie is a complete mess and a mishmash of poor choices. Join Mike, Dave, and returning guest Web of TRILOGY IN THEORY (finally here for a movie with pasty white people) as we try to work through the convoluted story. We fear that we won’t be much help. Web can barely recall the name of the movie after about 25 minutes of

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00:38:13

Remember My Name (RT 67%)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/06/01

"Throughout REMEMBER MY NAME the actors work hard to fulfill the surface requirements of scenes that have no dramatic foundation, and the results are often skittish and baffling." Unlike Janet Maslin of the New York Times one host can't get enough Anthony Perkins so we return to him as a leading man in this episode. This produces troubling results as the other host thinks he's a "nice guy" in this somewhat hard-to-find film (unless you aren't an animal and have Turner Classic Movies) and that brings

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00:39:27

Opening Weekend Wasted w/ HERE TODAY

Off Screen Death ·

2021/05/31

"This is maybe one of the worst movies I've ever seen. It's just terrible, awkward, stiff, and never funny." Filmweek’s Christy Lemire says in one sentence what we do in about 40 minutes. If you think details are important, listen to our show. It’s better than reading, anyway. Those details? Well... Billy Crystal is not funny. HERE TODAY is bad at manipulation. A discussion of whether or not a stick of butter is kinky. Billy Crystal is not hot enough to be in this movie. We provide this service

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00:58:53

Psycho 1960 (AFI #14) and Psycho 1998 (RT 39%)

Off Screen Death ·

2021/05/13

"The first American movie since TOUCH OF EVIL to stand in the same creative rank as the great European films" “As Norman Bates, Vince Vaughn makes us better appreciate how much Anthony Perkins brought to the original project.” Same title, same shots (mostly), slightly different results from the critic’s circle. In our Mother’s Day episode (get it? Sorry.), Mike and Dave take a close look at the classic, PSYCHO. To get a slightly different angle, Dave finally watches the remake from 1998, which Mike

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99 results

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