Mildly Pleased
308 episodes - English - Latest episode: 15 days ago - ★★★★ - 5 ratingsWhether we're reviewing movies, making top 10 lists about random topics in pop culture, or coming up with bizarre screenplay pitches, you can bet we're not getting too worked up about it.
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Episodes
The Pick: eXistenZ
April 11, 2024 01:15 - 1 hour - 164 MBThis week on The Pick, we’re going back to the ’90s (again) and back to David Cronenberg (again) by taking a look at 1999’s eXistenZ (which is not pronounced how you’d think). Yet, despite the familiarity inherent in this episode’s Pick, it’s far from a run-of-the-mill movie, even if it does feel fairly par for […]
The Pick: Cabin Boy
March 27, 2024 00:41 - 1 hour - 160 MBWe are, once again, back. We’re also back on our bullshit reviewing a movie with a cult following and a strange cultural footprint that we’ve been meaning to get to the bottom of. In honor of its 30th anniversary, we’re taking a look at Cabin Boy, the first and only big-screen collaboration between Chris Elliott […]
Most Anticipated Movies of 2024
February 05, 2024 23:11 - 2 hours - 266 MBAfter a bizarre year for cinema, we set our sights on… possibly another bizarre year for cinema. That’s right, we’re doing our annual look ahead to our most anticipated (and least anticipated movies) of the new year. In 2024, superhero movies seem to be out (unless you’re talking about our least anticipated list) and what’s […]
The Twelfth Annual Mildly Pleased Awards
January 08, 2024 08:01 - 2 hours - 288 MBJust when you thought 2023 was over, we’re here to take a slightly belated look back at the year that was. Kicking things off before we get into posting our Top Tens of 2023 over on Mildly Pleased is, of course, the award show that bears the site’s name. We’re talking about awarding the “good […]
The Pick: The Preacher’s Wife
December 20, 2023 04:00 - 1 hour - 168 MBEvery time an underrated Christmas movie is acknowledged, an angel gets its wings. Or at least, that’s what we’d like to think after talking about The Preacher’s Wife, a Christmas movie that we enjoyed quite a bit despite it not being one of the big holiday movies everybody watches this time of year. We delve […]
The Pick: Notting Hill
December 05, 2023 18:30 - 1 hour - 203 MBWe’re back in romantic comedyland, looking once again at Richard Curtis’s wish-fulfillment shenanigans (and another Julia Roberts movie) with a discussion of 1999’s Notting Hill. Even though we split on this one, it’s a fairly cordial conversation full of British accents and debate over the charms (or lack thereof) contained by its co-star Hugh Grant. […]
The Pick: The Pelican Brief
November 28, 2023 04:10 - 1 hour - 191 MBNeedless to say, the gap between this latest and our last episode hasn’t been all that… brief. It wasn’t helped by the fact that The Pelican Brief is an overwhelming passable but unremarkable film, and one that pales a bit compared to some of the other John Grisham adaptations that were filling multiplexes in the […]
The Pick: Wolf
October 28, 2023 03:03 - 1 hour - 144 MBWe end this Shocktober (for the most part) with a movie that’s hard to even categorize as a horror movie, even if it tackles one of the most iconic movie monsters. 1994’s Wolf sees the odd pairing of Mike Nichols’ actor-centric directing with modern-day werewolves and the results are… pretty fun if you’re willing to […]
The Pick: Cat People
October 08, 2023 14:18 - 1 hour - 121 MBAs we make our way through Shocktober, this week we take a look at a horror movie of sorts (or perhaps an “erotic fantasy”) with the 1982 remake of Cat People. We discuss how effectively the film expands on its horror-noir inspiration and whether director Paul Schrader was the best person to bring this source […]
The Pick: Blue Thunder
September 27, 2023 21:44 - 1 hour - 122 MBWe’re rollin’ in with another episode of The Pick, this one aimed at the helicopter-fueled action flick Blue Thunder from 1983. We discuss pretty much every aspect of its modest cultural imprint, including its short-lived TV adaptation, as well as our fondness for its stars, Roy Scheider and John’s good friend Malcolm MacDowell. Weirdly enough, […]
The Pick: Mystery Men
September 15, 2023 07:01 - 1 hour - 124 MBAfter our usual summer break, The Pick is back with another batch of episodes that we kick off with 1999’s Mystery Men. What started as an intended tribute to the late Paul Reubens also ended up being a tribute to Smash Mouth frontman Steve Harwell, who also passed away before we recorded this episode. We […]
The Seventh Annual Criterion Month Draft
June 27, 2023 02:17 - 2 hours - 200 MBIt’s that time of year again, when we take a break from the many blockbusters crowding our theaters and take a look back at cinema’s past and all of its various artistic triumphs and oddities. This year, Sean tries to power through some of his Criterion box sets, John picks some Tarantino favs as well […]
The Pick: Mamma Mia!/Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again
June 14, 2023 19:13 - 2 hours - 172 MBSince this will be our last episode of The Pick for a little while, it’s overstuffed with plenty to keep you satisfied as we set our sights on Criterion Month. Not only do we review both 2008’s Mamma Mia! and its questionable yet miraculous sequel, we also sneak in a mini-review of Fast X, which […]
The Pick: Boiler Room
May 26, 2023 12:54 - 1 hour - 141 MBWith Fast X currently in theaters, we’re taking a look back at Vin Diesel’s early career, back when he wasn’t exclusively racing cars and being Groot in movies. However, what we didn’t expect when picking Boiler Room was that we’d actually be getting a whole lot of Giovanni Ribisi, which was just as much of […]
The Pick: 42
May 15, 2023 07:01 - 1 hour - 138 MBThis week we’re talkin’ baseball in honor of the plethora of sports going on now by taking a look at a movie celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, 42. It’s a movie that’s plenty likable but probably could’ve been better if it had been put in the hands of a director more distinct than Hollywood […]
The Pick: Willard (2003)
May 02, 2023 16:17 - 1 hour - 164 MBIf for some reason you’re looking for real sickos content, then look no further than our discussion of the 2003 remake of the furry horror flick Willard. It’s perhaps the most divided response the three of us have had to a movie reviewed on The Pick, since one of us liked the movie quite a […]
The Pick: Three Thousand Years of Longing
April 21, 2023 07:01 - 1 hour - 145 MBYour wish is our command! Assuming your wish was for us to record a somewhat delayed review of an 8-month-old movie that not enough people saw in theaters. This week we’re talking about George Miller’s strange and sultry follow-up to Mad Max: Fury Road while also providing a brief history of djinns as well as […]
The Pick: Super Mario Bros.
April 05, 2023 21:21 - 2 hours - 173 MBAfter our usual end-of-the-year and Oscar-induced break, we’re back with another season of The Pick! On the eve of a new Mario movie coming out this week, we take a look back at the first time Hollywood attempted to bring this massively popular but hard-to-adapt property to the big screen. So far, reviews of the […]
Most Anticipated Movies of 2023
January 30, 2023 08:01 - 2 hours - 201 MBAfter looking backing at 2022, we finally turn our eyes to the future. While the film industry is still in somewhat of a weird place, there is still plenty to be excited about for the coming year in film. Well, there’s also plenty to be a less excited about as well, since there is (as […]
The Eleventh Annual Mildly Pleased Awards
January 18, 2023 00:08 - 2 hours - 224 MBFor the first time in what feels like a while, the year preceding our new one doesn’t feel like it would be entirely painful to revisit. In fact, it could be a mildly pleasing endeavor. That’s why we’re once again looking back at the year in things that were good but not great. Whether it […]
The Pick: Avatar: The Way of Water
December 24, 2022 05:08 - 2 hours - 177 MBWe just couldn’t close out this year on Mildly Pleased or The Pick without getting wet and wild while learning the way of water. It’s a super-sized episode for a super-sized film, which includes a journey through the life and career of James Cameron and how he ended up at such an award-winning and financially […]
The Pick: Reindeer Games
December 16, 2022 21:24 - 1 hour - 143 MBWe three kings bring curiosity for Ben Affleck’s early stardom on this holiday installment of The Pick. The episode is a dive into the year 2000’s somewhat forgotten Reindeer Games, the last film directed by John Frankenheimer and the first to ask what would happen if a bunch of incompetent criminals robbed a casino while […]
The Pick: The Money Pit
December 02, 2022 17:56 - 1 hour - 130 MBThis episode took us a little while to record, since our own Sean Lemme was busy moving into a new house, not unlike Tom Hanks and Shelley Duvall in this episode’s film, albeit with less destruction. As our lone Hanks-giving pick this year (if you can even call it that considering it’s December), the movie […]
The Pick: The Addams Family
October 28, 2022 19:27 - 1 hour - 139 MBWith spooky season coming to a close, we spend some time in the residence of the ookiest of all families, The Addamses. We do this by first delving into the history of this fictional family that originated with Charles Addams’ New Yorker cartoon that was turned into a TV show that has always seemed to […]
The Pick: Morbius
October 09, 2022 14:24 - 1 hour - 131 MBThis time on The Pick it is, unfortunately, morbin’ time. In the midst of Shocktober season, we dive into the recent film portrayal of one of the spookier superhero villains and live to regret it. This is quite possibly the worst movie we’ve reviewed so far on The Pick, but that doesn’t mean we don’t […]
The Pick: The Transformers: The Movie
September 27, 2022 20:04 - 1 hour - 162 MBThere wasn’t any specific tie-in or reason really for us to be talking about the 1986 animated Transformers movie, other than the fact that Sean and John bought the movie on blu-ray a while ago and have needed a reason to watch it. Regardless, it gives us an opportunity to talk about the history of […]
The Pick: In The Line of Fire
September 13, 2022 00:44 - 1 hour - 138 MBAfter a summer break from podcasting, we’re back with The Pick to talk about one of the more acclaimed movies directed by the recently departed Wolfgang Peterson, 1993’s In The Line of Fire. It’s a movie that somehow we had all not seen until now and that despite being nearly 30 years old, features a […]
The Sixth Annual Criterion Month Draft
June 20, 2022 07:01 - 2 hours - 166 MBWith July less than two weeks away, it’s about time we draft our picks for Criterion Month once again. This is the annual podcast where the three of us take turns picking what movies from the Criterion Collection we’d like to review on this blog over the course of next month. Most years there aren’t […]
The Pick: My Big Fat Greek Wedding
June 12, 2022 07:01 - 1 hour - 130 MBSince it is wedding season, we’re taking a look at the biggest, fattest, Greekest one the movies have ever seen. John’s got some bones to pick with this light and breezy romantic comedy, while also marveling at the fact that it was an absolute monster hit back in 2002. Also, since this is the end […]
The Pick: Jupiter Ascending
May 31, 2022 15:55 - 1 hour - 139 MBThis time around, we round out our trio of episodes looking at The Wachowskis’ misunderstood non-Matrix movies. We discuss why this one has had less of a cult following than Speed Racer or Cloud Atlas since its release, as well as why audiences didn’t connect with it at the time despite its efforts to craft […]
The Pick: Basic Instinct
May 13, 2022 21:54 - 1 hour - 124 MBWe’re back with another sleazy movie from the ’90s with one of the most-parodied movies of its time, Basic Instinct. We dig a little bit into the movie’s status as one of the quintessential erotic thrillers as well as how Michael Douglas came to embody this very particular type of sexy murder mystery. We try […]
The Pick: The Devil’s Advocate
April 22, 2022 07:01 - 1 hour - 132 MBOnly in New York! This week we’re taking a look at a decidedly sinister and satanic look at NYC with the supernatural lawyer oddity that is The Devil’s Advocate. We discuss both Keanu Reeves’s perplexing accent as well as how Al Pacino arrived at the bombastic persona he embraced in the ’90s. Pacino’s turn as […]
The Pick: Altered States
April 15, 2022 07:01 - 1 hour - 124 MBWe’re a little late in posting this tribute to the late, great William Hurt. But hey, it’s always a good time to get in the tank. This episode, we go deep into this hard-to-classify sci-fi/horror oddity about a university scientist who goes from experiments in sensory deprivation tanks to drug-induced hallucinations to becoming a violent […]
The Pick: Batman & Robin
March 19, 2022 16:03 - 2 hours - 166 MBThis time on The Pick, we take a break from Oscar talk to focus on that damn caped crusader who’s back in theaters again. After sharing some thoughts on The Batman, we delve into a deeper conversation about 1997’s Batman & Robin, a movie notorious for sinking the run of blockbusters that started with Tim […]
The Pick: Sneakers
March 07, 2022 22:25 - 1 hour - 161 MBThe gang’s all here for an especially sneaky episode of The Pick! After a lengthy break, we’re back with a tribute to perhaps the most legendary actor we’ve lost so far this year — Sidney Poitier. Of course, we do it by picking the movie of his that is most in line with this podcast’s […]
Top Ten Most Anticipated Movies of 2022
January 29, 2022 02:25 - 2 hours - 193 MBWe’ve got another pretty long podcast this week as we finally look to the future by sharing our most anticipated (and unanticipated) movies of 2022. Much like last year, it’s hard to say with confidence that every single one of these will be released over the course of the year, though this skepticism prompted Sean […]
The Tenth Annual Mildly Pleased Awards
January 19, 2022 01:53 - 2 hours - 231 MB2021 wasn’t the worst year ever… technically. But it also wasn’t anything approaching mildly pleasing. Still, as has been the case for ten years now, we once again convene to celebrate the year’s achievements in pop culture that was good but not great. This time, we opted to cut out some categories that didn’t seem […]
The Pick: Cloud Atlas
December 10, 2021 20:53 - 1 hour - 133 MBMerry Hanksmas! So… the last movie in our Hanksgiving trilogy of episodes took us a little longer to finish. Some of this could be due to how long Cloud Atlas (and the movie we reviewed before it) is, and some of it could be due to the fact that we’re just not very good at […]
The Pick: The Green Mile
November 20, 2021 14:46 - 1 hour - 136 MBHanksgiving continues with what might be Tom Hanks’ longest movie (don’t quote me on that), The Green Mile. We dive into its Steven King origins and how director Frank Darabont has been one of King’s more successful adaptors, even if he can’t seem to get a movie made these days. We also have a little […]
The Pick: The ‘Burbs
November 12, 2021 19:46 - 1 hour - 119 MBHappy Hanksgiving, everyone! That’s right. Throughout the month of November, we’ll exclusively be reviewing Tom Hanks movies on The Pick, since why not spend some time with America’s Dad before you’re forced to do the same with your own family in a few weeks? We start things off with The ‘Burbs, a movie that came […]
The Pick: Dune (2021)
October 29, 2021 20:24 - 1 hour - 116 MBWell, it finally happened. We’ve finally arrived at the release of Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation of Dune, a film we’ve been waiting for ever since the three of us (plus Matt Carstens) did a Dune book club during the early days of the pandemic and then did an episode of The Pick talking about the book […]
The Pick: The Many Saints of Newark
October 11, 2021 03:22 - 1 hour - 147 MBOhhh! Marone! It may be Shocktober, but there’s still nothing scarier than a mob hit. This week we’re talking about the big screen return (that kinda ended up being a small screen return due to streaming) of The Sopranos. We take a trip back to Jersey with The Many Saints of Newark by reminiscing a […]
The Pick: Venom
October 01, 2021 07:01 - 1 hour - 146 MBWith Venom: Let There Be Carnage hitting theaters this week, we’re taking a look back at the original film, the rare case of a superhero movie that we all basically just ignored. It’s hard to say whether Venom convinced us to see this new installment, but at the very least it gives us a reason […]
The Pick: Rock ‘n’ Roll High School
September 21, 2021 03:54 - 1 hour - 135 MBWe just wanna have some kicks, we just wanna get some clicks! This week, in honor of the return of school that accompanies any September, we’re enrolling at Rock ‘n’ Roll High School. Coming from the same blog/podcast feed that hosted a show called Rokk Talk, we can’t help but get into talking about the […]
The Pick: A Touch Of Zen
September 13, 2021 23:54 - 1 hour - 115 MBAnother week has gone by and Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings is once again at the top of the U.S. box office. Who knew that releasing a Marvel movie in theaters without the option of streaming could actually make you a bunch of money? While touching on Shang-Chi a bit in this […]
The Pick: Candyman
September 03, 2021 07:01 - 1 hour - 140 MBDon’t say his name 5 times, but feel free to listen to this podcast 5 times (you know, in case you miss some of the nuances). In lieu of the Candyman remake that came out last week, we’re taking a look at the original 1992 film while also offering a few thoughts on how the two […]
The Pick: The Talented Mr. Ripley
August 27, 2021 07:01 - 1 hour - 142 MBAs another strange Summer comes to a close, we take a trip to Italy by talking about 1999’s The Talented Mr. Ripley. We do a bit of a deep dive into the many past (and future) adaptations of author Patricia Highsmith’s most famous creation as well as a brief look at Highsmith’s career. This conversation […]
The Pick: The Suicide Squad
August 17, 2021 01:20 - 1 hour - 131 MBWe’ve reassembled the squad for the first episode of The Pick of 2021! Hopefully this will be another fun and fruitful run of episodes that will see us continue to do what we do best — forcing each other to watch movies and then talk about them. This episode sees us diving into a recent […]
The 5th Annual Criterion Month Draft
May 24, 2021 07:01 - 2 hours - 187 MBAnd we’re back with our first podcast in quite some time! Just as the NFL draft happens each Spring, a far more important draft also happens this time each year, where we pick what movies we’ll be reviewing for Criterion Month. Like every year, it’s an odd exercise in talking about movies we haven’t seen […]
Top Ten Most Anticipated Movies of 2021
February 05, 2021 08:01 - 2 hours - 173 MB2020 was a weird year for movies, to put it mildly. 2021 will most likely be just as weird, as we look forward to films that will mostly be available on streaming while still holding out hope that a few choice releases will make their way to theaters by the end of the year. While […]