The Mad Max Saga comes to a close (for now) with FURIOSA, the highly anticipated action epic that serves as a prequel and world-building expansion to 2015's FURY ROAD. Does it live up to its predecessor or fall short of expectations? Does it add much to the Mad Max universe or is it merely Fury Road DLC? How does it stack up to the sickest of all Dr. Miller's works, LORENZO'S OIL? All these questions and more will be answered in this podcast, broadcast straight from the Wasteland of Toronto, ...
WITNESS ME! (listen to the pod) PLEASE WITNESS ME!The Mad Max Saga continues with what may be the greatest long-gap/legacy sequel of all time: MAD MAX: FURY ROAD. Max is back to begrudgingly help save the day with some new friends... Imperator Furiosa, Toast the Knowing, Cheedo the Fragile, Nux... we have all these characters. Furiosa must free the enslaved wives of the vicious warlord Immortan Joe by driving the fury road and also Max is there. Is this one of the greatest action movie o...
Thunderdome: Two men enter, one man leaves. But today it's more like two men enter, one man already inside, three men talk into microphones, two men exit, one man stays where he is because special guest Zack Kotzer joins us to talk about MAD MAX BEYOND THUNDERDOMEhe third and, for a time, final Mad Max movie. Aunty Entity, Master Blaster, Pig Killer, the feral desert children, we've got all these characters. This entry is somewhat Star Warsified and relatively family friendly, but does i...
My life fades. The vision dims. All that remains are memories. I remember a time of chaos, ruined dreams, this wasted land. But most of all, I remember The Franchisees, the men we called Alex and Ben and special guest Jordan 'Mad Max Rockatansky' Seccareccia.Mad Max 2. The Road Warrior. One of the greatest and most influential movies of all time. No hot takes here! RIP Steve Albini and Roger CormanNext week is Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome. Two or possibly three podcasters enter. One podcaster l...
Ladies and gentlemen, rev your engines! All the way from post-apocalyptic London, England it's 'Mad' Maxim Gertler-Jaffe, joining Benno and Lexo for a poddo about the original MAD MAX film by director George Miller. Throw a shrimp on the barbie, Australia dingo koala Malcolm Turnbull. It's a classic of independent action cinema and the beginning of a beloved and ever-evolving franchise!Before we talk about the wasteland we discuss the latest edition of the Hot Docs Canadian International Docu...
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[loud beating and flogging noises]ahhh! ohhh ouch ohhh nooo! ow! owww! We’re back ahhh stop oh god ow! With a new episode on a film from the twisted mind of Mel Gibson ouch! Joined ahh ohhh ow owwww by returning guests AHHH Jordan and Katherine. [flogging continues]We talk about ow ouch oh god why have you forsaken me owww the life and career of Mad Mel before diving into a rapid fire round ahh ouch ohhhh of movies we’ve seen recently. Then we get to the film of the week ahhh stop oh god...
He has risen again! He being Jesus Christ of course, our lord and saviour and friend of the pod. Alex and Ben are back with Part II of the epic Christ Quadrilogy where they explore weighty themes like religion, resurrection, sin, and salvation. This week we're covering Martin Scorsese's (and Paul Schrader's) THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST. Joining us are returning guest Jordan Seccareccia and, finally completing the Westelaken Exodia, Lucas. We talk about our experiences with religion and...
I loooove you Jeeeesus Chriiiiist. Jesus Christ I loooove you, yesss I dooooo.Happy April everybody! We here at The Franchisees are good, honest, god-fearing folk and have decided to celebrate the death and resurrection of friend of the pod and future guest, Jesus of Nazareth. We've picked a quartet, a tetralogy, or (much more stupidly) a quadrilogy of Christ films to push together into one big holy franchise. First up is the late Norman Jewison's crunchy hippie Christ classic, JESUS CHRIST S...
Ted has risen! Ted 2 unto others as you would have Ted 2 to uh yourself.We're back with the sequel to Seth MacFarlane's lovable children's film TED, the appropriately titled TED 2. Ben was lukewarm on the first Ted film and Alex remembers disliking Ted 2 when he watched it on a plane many years ago... how will the lads feel about Ted 2 now? Well, it is an improvement! Funnier, sillier, more gags. The main plot is kind of weird and gross but what were you expecting? Anyway, this is a shor...
We're back this week with a new franchise, TED. Everyone's favourite Seth MacFarlane project behind Family Guy but ahead of everything else he's done. Since there's a new Ted TV series we thought we'd revisit the lovable foul-mouthed bear and see if he's still funny (or if he ever was in the first place...)We start the episode by discussing the life and work of funnyman Seth MacFarlane. We reminisce about the good old days of Family Guy and how we grew out of it, which jokes worked for us and...
The spice continues to flow on our latest episode: DUNE: PART TWO, the epic conclusion to Denis Villeneuve's adaptation of one book. We have a very special guest joining us this week, fellow sandman and spicelover Alex Baigent! This brings us 3/4 of the way to having the entirety of the band Westelaken on the show. Soon we shall collect them all!Before we get into Dune we talk about some other movies: Akira Kurosawa's DREAMS, TROUBLE EVERY DAY, THE LONG DAY CLOSES, THE CROWD, and STARSHIP TRO...
It's DUNE time again, the spice must flow, the podcast must uhhh ummmm be recorded and released.What a wonderful, special episode we have for you. Joining us is major spice-head Aren Bergstrom, a huge Dune fan, cinephile and fellow movie podcaster. We do talk about Dune, don't worry, but first we have an extended riff on hot button film criticism and culture topics: Lights Camera Jackson, They Shoot Pictures Don't They, Film Twitter, Letterboxd, LexG, and so much more. We also talk about...
Beer is the mind killer, the sleeper has awakened from a drunken nap. And many more Dune-related jokes I’m sure! We’re back with an exciting and relevant franchise: the DUNE films. This week we start by discussing (eventually) David Lynch’s 1984 adaptation. Is it a failure or a secret success… or something in between? We also touch on Alejandro Jodorowsky’s Dune attempt, MADAME WEB, MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, INSOMNIA, and also a glimpse into the hell that is YOU, ME AND DUPREE.We of course m...
Martin Scorsese baby. The god! We're back with his 1986 cool guy classic, THE COLOR OF MONEY. Paul Newman is back as Fast Eddie Felcher, older and wiser (?), not playing pool but anymore but still hustling. He meets a young, hot shot hot shit pool prodigy Tom Cruise and takes him and his streetwise girlfriend under his wing. Can Fast Eddie show the kid the ropes? Can the kid tame his impulse to showoff? Will Eddie ever get back in the game? Is pool a legitimate sport?All these questions answe...
We're back and squeezing in a short "franchise" before DUNE unto others as we'd have DUNE unto ourselves. We chose something good for a bit of a change of pace: THE HUSTLER. Directed by Robert Rossen (who joins the Elia Kazan club of Communist name namers who also made some great films), THE HUSTLER is a film about having that grindset, the money mindset, of #winning 24/7 365... or is it? ...is it in fact... the opposite??Alex and Ben talk about pool, Communism, On Cinema at the Cinema, ...
Jurassic World Dominion NO COLONYou don't have to watch this movie! You could go outside! You don't have to have seen this movie to enjoy this podcast, we don't even talk about it until an hour in! Don't do this to yourself, you're better than that!I'm serious, don't bother! Do some chores, call your mom, get a start on your taxes for god's sake. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram @thefranchisees and email us at thefranchiseespod@gmail.comJoin us next week for something good for a change...
We're back to discuss the 2nd film in the JURASSIC WORLD series, JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM. It's a real doozy so thank god we're joined by our special guest Rob McLay, a musician and passionate dinosaur rights advocate. Rob raises an important question: we agree dinosaurs should be granted rights... but should they also receive the right to vote? Join us for an in-depth political discussion that brings new meaning to the phrase "vote blue no matter who"...Also discussed are a few other m...
It's Jurassic's World, we're just living in it. That doesn't really make sense I guess. But maybe there was a time when rebooting the Jurassic franchise didn't make sense either... makes you think. I'm sure glad they decided to make more swell dino movies for us that don't suck!We discuss legacy sequels and Chris Pratt and Colin Trevorrow and all sorts of other stuff. Ben thinks this movie is "not so bad", especially when knowing where this rebooted trilogy ends up. Alex thinks it's "pretty b...
Ben eats a bagel, the boys respond to legitimate fan mail, and discuss the stirring final chapter of the Jurassic Park trilogy.