Time After Time

Helena has Covid and the only cure is...more time travel romcoms of course! (And medicine; we believe in medicine.) This fun time travel romp has everything: a pretty lady, a cute dog, and a lesbian graveyard time-travel witch. Unfortunately, it also has some inconsistent rotting fruit and a bunch of fatphobia. Oh well, you can't have it all, but you can have a lesbian graveyard time-travel witch, and maybe that's enough. 

"I'll be back." -- What Michael Jalkio must have said after our Premature episode, because, he is, indeed, back! Thank goodness! We needed his expertise in coding and California to tackle this little-known movie about a cyborg hanging out in Los Angeles. You will learn everything you never wanted to know about the making of this film, which actor had their eyebrows insured, and just how many women involved in this film went on to marry James Cameron. (Hint: It's more than 1.) We also do eventually get to the substance of this film, which is fun! And full of cool lady characters! And mind-bending cyclical time-travel! Come with me if you want to live! And by "come with" obviously we mean "listen to", and by "me", obviously we mean "this podcast episode".

Well, we avoided it for as long as possible, but it turns out, all roads lead back to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU as the kids call it. Luckily, queen of time travel and our hearts, Rachel McAdams, is here to help ease the transition as she once again waves bye bye to a man she loves as he gets to galavant through time. There is so much to discuss in this film, from the problematic Nepal of it all to the time-traveling apple that is going to ruin Paige's marriage. And did you know that Benedict Cumberbatch is a huge weirdo? More on that inside. 

Please come on in to our big science company offices as we review what may or may not be the first ever time loop story in the history of the world this week! If you are an eagle-eyed timeslut, you will observe that the movie we are reviewing this week, 12:01, came out the same year as Groundhog Day and, apparently, it was a whole thing. We discuss all of this as well as women in STEM, sexually-harassing girl bosses, and a shockingly unproblematic romance that starts with some light stalking and murder. Enjoy! 

It's our first two-parter! How exciting 4U! We're back with Tree and Carter and all our friends, who seem to have aged two years over night, but that's somehow not the most confusing time-related lore going on here. Buckle in, it's a long ride, but we have lots of fun talking about if you should kill your parents for your college boyfriend.  Content Warning: There's a suicide montage in this movie that we discuss for a few minutes around 44 to 46 minutes in. 

On Monday the 18th, we celebrate the birthday of both Theresa "Tree" Gelbman AND, more importantly, the birthday of her death-fueled time loop! This little time loop is truly a bundle of joy and has that new time-loop smell that we just can't get enough of. Anyway, this movie is a near-perfect combination of time-loop hijinks and murder-mystery hijinks, so enjoy! And don't take a lady to Subway on your first date! 

You know that classic thing where your husband cheats on you in 1979 so you get back at him by bragging about this hot guy you're seeing in 1899? But then you find out your 1899 boyfriend is going to die if you don't get this magic dress on fast enough to stop a duel? Tale as old as time. Come on this classic journey with us as we discuss whether Jennie is time traveling or just spiraling, whether this 1899 dreamboat is really just an old-timey fuck boy, and whether we will ever be able to see cookie jars the same way again. 

Paige finally convinced Helena that ONE movie of the most popular time travel trilogy of all time fits into our "time travel romance" genre (emphasis on the ROMANCE). And boy, howdy, are we both glad she did. Did you guys know Back to the Future movies are good? And that good movies are fun to watch? Wild. We learn new things every day during these unprecedented times. Also, Paige would like to take this moment to apologize in advance for mispronouncing Mary Steenburgen's name over and over and over again. She is one of our time travel queens, so there is really no excuse. Except that these are unprecedented times, ok? 

Are you already in your post-holidays slump? Well, fear not, because it's time to travel back in time to when it was still Christmas so we can bring you one last Christmas magic-filled time travel romp. Yes, that's right, carol-ers and all. Because who doesn't love a good carol? Honestly, your hosts. Nor do we really like all the preachy "back in the good ol' days" themes of this movie, but hey, what would the holidays be without some inter-generational passive aggressive cracks about tradition and the youths? 

Happy Second Covid Christmas everyone! Merry Maskmas! Hope you are all staying safe, and we all know the safest activity during the holidays is to sit by yourself and listen to a podcast, specifically this podcast. And as our holiday gift to you...WE HAVE A NOONER! Woooo! Yes!!!! This movie is so bad that Paige at the end has to convince Helena to change her rating from 12:00 to 12:05 just so y'all don't have to gouge your eyes out if you stumble upon this movie. But the ways in which it's terrible all make for great conversation fodder, and we are honestly very funny in this episode. We made each other laugh all the live-long day. Also, another present because we spoil you so, you get a mini-review of a SECOND movie halfway through the episode, the ho-ho-holiday classic, Ocean's 11! Buckle up, because even if we don't make you laugh, we also won't make you cry. And, apparently, that's enough. 

Choo Choo! All aboard the Christmas train! It's that special time of year again, when all the time travel is fueled by Christmas magic and the lesson to be learned is always about love. The first installment in our 2021 series of Christmas-time-travel-romance movies, Next Stop, Christmas makes a lot of interesting choices -- starting with the comma in their title. They also have some fun stunt casting, very attractive leads, and some pretty great romantic banter. Don't worry, we still take a lot of issue with other aspects of the movie though, namely the bad acting, the problematic takes on divorce and adoption, and, most importantly, the idea that a hot, young Manhattan doctor would live in Yonkers. Grab your shiny gold ticket and hop on before our train disappears into a time vortex! 

CW: This movie talks a lot about suicide (and not very well might we add). Thus, we also talk a lot about suicide in this episode (hopefully slightly less poorly?). If you don't want to listen to that, feel free to skip this episode. However, you should definitely listen if you think that any girl that was sort of mean to you in high school deserves to die. This movie is real wish fulfillment for that. But not if you want the girl that was like, the meanest to you to die. She will continue to avoid any capital punishment because her parents got divorced, so she has suffered enough. Also, sorry, but that mean girl who dies? She's not even that sad about it. She's actually pretty happy to play martyr because she had some good times in high school and that's a life, ya know? So really, not sure who this movie was for in the end, but it definitely wasn't us. Enjoy!

Timesluts, Broadway fans, lend us your ears! This week we got to add a little Broadway flavor to the pod in the form of not one, not two, but THREE Broadway faves starring in a mediocre time travel movie (yes, we are counting that time that Orland Bloom was in a poorly reviewed Romeo and Juliet for a minute)! Will this be the closest thing we ever get to a time-travel musical? Maybe. Will we ever stop hearing about “The La Jolla Days”?? Definitely not.

Oh, you haven't heard of My Future Boyfriend? The ABC Family Original Movie starring that guy from 7th Heaven? Wow, you're uncultured. Well, no matter, we will introduce you to this cinematic classic and try not to get too distracted along the way by 7th Heaven and The Giver. But also, we're going to get too distracted along the way by 7th Heaven and The Giver. Also, stick around after the credits for a truly uninformed discussion about Natalie Wood. 

Oh hell to the yeah, time sluts! Almost a year to the day after we had our very first guest on the podcast, we have our very first repeat guest! And, crazily enough, it's the same person! And still the person that lives with Paige! Because we are creative and resourceful! Anyway, welcome back to your ears, Liam Bouquet, a PHD candidate in politics who is still banned from Twitter and still coparents Paige's dogs. However, unlike last time, Paige and Liam are now married so everything is different and nothing is the same. Liam insisted we watch this movie after sitting through part of the garbage that was The Tomorrow War (see our 9/1/2021 episode), and this movie is, indeed, a much better version of that movie! Please enjoy all of our thoughts, mainly on how weird Tom Cruz is, but also on this movie and that we liked it. 

Welcome to Time After Time, the podcast where, this week, as our guest aptly put it, we are "Guy Pearce-ing through Time". Yes, you can expect that wit and more as we are joined by Vince Hannam of Camp Kaiju: Monster Movie Talk to discuss the time travel romance/monster movie, The Time Machine. This 2002 version of the H.G. Wells classic is trying to do so much and ends up saying so little. It also has the most beautiful time machine we've seen so far, a plethora of very campy monsters, and the sassiest 800,000 year-old hologram you could conceive of. Check out Camp Kaiju on Instagram (@camp_kaiju). You can also follow both your hosts (@paigeilyssa821 and @helaylay234) and our guest (@vshannam) individually on Instagram.

Everyone, take a deep breath and let out a sigh of relief, because this movie, TIME FREAK, is truly a return to form for our little ol' podcast -- a slightly-bad romcom.  This is why we're here: on this pod, on this planet, on this temporal plane. We're here only to go over this problematic romance fueled by less-problematic time travel. Anyway, this movie is fun, and we have fun discussing it. It is also unethical according to our time-travel ethics standards, so we also have fun discussing that. You also get a bonus mini-episode mixed in where Helena explains the plot of a DIFFERENT time-travel movie that she started watching and then banned from the podcast forever. What is the movie?! Why did she have to stop it 40 minutes in?! Tune in to find out! And never stop keeping an eye out for time-travelers trying to trick you into marrying them. 

This movie has everything: A super-jacked J.K. Simmons! A delightfully hilarious Sam Richardson! Chris Pratt shooting things in the face! And so many daddy issues! What more could we want? I mean...besides better pacing, a more interesting plot, and less-confusing politics. Spoiler alert --  This movie is shockingly boring. But luckily, this episode is not. We are as witty as ever, Helena is as thirsty for J.K. Simmons as ever, and the trains outside our window are as long as ever. 

It's the movie that is sort of our namesake, TIME AFTER TIME! How exciting! We discuss the title trajectory from this movie to our podcast on the episode, and obviously Cyndi Lauper is involved. We also discuss other, arguably less important, historical figures, H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper. Were they friends? Are they the only two people that were at all relevant to late 19th century London? Do they belong in the same movie? These are some questions this movie accidentally poses. It also poses major questions about its own genre and time travel itself that we attempt to work through with our trademark nuance and class.  

Today, we complete our trifecta of Netflix Original time travel romcoms with Naked. Do you like our podcast but wish we did more close readings of 90s R&B Ballads? Well, your prayers have been answered. Buried in this beautiful episode is an answer to the age old question of "Does Brian McKnight's hit 'Back at One' actually make sense in any way?" We also have a super nuanced conversation about how nudity is, in fact, very funny. Please follow along while we try to figure out what this movie thinks should take top priority in your life: marriage, jobs, fatherhood, marriage as job, fatherhood as job, marriage as fatherhood, lottery tickets, lottery tickets as marriage, lottery tickets as marriage job. You'll get it later.