The Magnificently Huge Podcast

This week on The Magnificently Huge Podcast, Brian, Chris, and Eric travel back to the impossibly distant world of 2019—a simpler time when our biggest concerns were whether Cats looked too horrifying and whether Martin Scorsese was going to make us sit still for three and a half hours. And holy shit, 2019 had some movies. We look back at a year that gave us Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Jojo Rabbit, Knives Out, Ford v Ferrari, Joker, Avengers: Endgame and approximately seventeen hours of Robert De Niro sitting down very carefully in The Irishman. Hanging over all of it is the knowledge that these movies arrived during the final full year before everything got very, very weird. Audiences were still packing theaters. Streaming hadn't completely swallowed Hollywood. People casually touched their own faces in public. Nobody had a favorite brand of mask. We had no idea how good we had it. 0:00 - Intros 5:50 - Fresh Shit 6:45 - Babylon Berlin 16:30 - Phantom of the Opera (touring) 23:10 - Bang My Box: The Robin Byrd Story (HBO) 26:30 - Tell It To The Judge (1949) 31:00 - Movies of 2019

Death to Smoochy is a misunderstood, underappreciated classic so far as we’re concerned, and anyone who says otherwise is damaged goods. So say us! This 2002 comedy directed by Danny DeVito and starring Robin Williams, Edward Norton and Catherine Keener disappeared almost immediately after it was released to a chorus of negative reviews. Roger Ebert himself named it The Worst Movie of the Year (which is something, considering that ridiculous Rollerball remake had also come out back then). In short, Ebert and the rest were flat out wrong, kids, and that is a hill we are willing to die on. We love this one so much, we just had to discuss. But is it a true black-comedy or not? Our verdict may shock you! 0:00 - Intros 8:45 - The Audacity (AMC) 14:00 - The Elephant Graveyard: How Comedy Drowned in a Radioactive Cesspool of Corruption and Depravity 19:35 - Deadpool & Wolverine (2025) and also Loki (Disney+) and Supergirl (2026) 28:25 - Another Simple Favor (2025) 32:10 - The Invite (2026) 36:00 - The Hot Rock (1972) and lost media 43:50 - Death To Smoochy (2002) Here’s a link to that Elephant Graveyard video: https://youtu.be/wn9pQb4ukBo?si=_DpnrrED-bZWrsMV

This week, we review “Redux, redux” - an indie darling of multiversal travel, revenge, gun fights, human drama… which makes it sound like it’s good. We do a full tear-down of this woulda-shoulda-coulda been great film, and try to figure out how they could have fixed it. (And if you disagree, let us know - we love abuse!) We also complain and critique all of the other film and television entertainment we’ve been ingesting like blood hungry ticks. Magnificently Huge ticks! 0:00 - Intros 8:22 - You Can See Everything Trailer and the Elon Musk documentary 14:30 - Silo (Apple TV) season 3 22:00 - The Chair Company (HBO) 25:55 - Half Man (HBO) 30:35 - High Plains Drifter (1973) 36:40 - Redux Redux

From the master of movies about the Poorly Educated voting block, Taylor Sheridan’s “Hell or High Water” is a brilliant - if forgotten - neo-western with Chris Pine, Ben Foster and Jeff Bridges. Largely overshadowed by Sheridan’s television work, true fans of the western film genre need to give this one a fresh look. It has hints of No Country for Old Men and Way of the Gun, with subtle notes of mushroom and hibiscus. It’s a playful amuse-bouche. Wait, what were we talking about? 0:00 - Intros 9:45 - Weird Al Yankovic live 18:05 - The Vampire Lestat 19:50 - Marc Maron 20:20 - The Stray Cats 22:40 - Thomas Dolby 26:45 - Gail Daughtry And The Celebrity Sex Pass (2026) 30:45 - Pizza Movie (2026) 35:45 - Hell or High Water (2016)

Peter Jackson made his American studio debut back in 1996 with a horror-comedy called The Frighteners that should have done better…. But it came out the same month as the biggest film of ‘96, Independence Day, and the same day as indie powerhouse Trainspotting. As such it died almost on arrival, both commercially and critically. But The Frighteners holds distinction because its production made The Lord of the Rings possible. That’s mostly why we re-watched it, since some folks seem to enjoy this cult-favorite. It is a career bridge for Jackson, mos def - and if anything else, it’s a good example of what can go wrong when a studio gets its hands on an up-and-coming director with talent to burn, but one with very little industry clout. In the end, that’s probably the most frightening thing about this odd movie. 0:00 - Intros 6:40 - Death Decoded 7:45 - Count Binface 9:50 - Spider Noir 11:55 - Spider-Man: Brand New Day (2026) 17:45 - Doctor Strange 22:45 - AI is bad and Neuromancer is an upcoming show 27:00 - Masters of the Universe (2026) 34:05 - Wham! Ten Days In China (2026) 40:05 - The Frighteners (1996) Here’s the Death Decoded video: youtube.com/watch?is=22LL3IUNGEcBx0mc&v=SNxA8vShXZ0&feature=youtu.be Here’s a link to the Count Binface music video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uj5LUE2LIGA&list=RDUj5LUE2LIGA&start_radio=1