Fin

 

Welcome to the end of the run. Zach Lachenbruch, Brandon Beardslee, Alex Biggs Small, and Karl Borneman reflect on the years of creating Box Office Battle. We talk about the matchups, personal battles, mistakes, and wonderful surprises that we ran across making our beloved podcast. And of course we talk about a lot of movies both amazing and tragically awful. Join us for our new podcast launching next week, Not Safe for Network. You can subscribe to it today.

Mirrormask vs Return to Oz (1985)

 

This week's theme for the podcast is children escaping trauma through fantasy lands. First up is Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman's Mirrormask, where a girl wishes to be the death of her mom, and then winds up in a fantastical world after her mom gets sick.  Next is Disney's follow up to The Wizard of Oz decades later, which follows Dorothy checking into a psych ward to get electroshock therapy in Return to Oz.

Reviews: My Octopus Teacher, Coming 2 America, One Night in Miami, Minari, Judas and the Black Messiah, I Care a Lot, Nomadland, and Godzilla vs Kong

 

This week we talk about the Oscars a bit with reviews of My Octopus Teacher, One Night in Miami, Judas and the Black Messiah, Minari, and Nomadland. We also discuss Coming 2 America, I Care a Lot, and Godzilla vs Kong.

Zack Snyder's Justice League

 

This week on Box Office Battle we cover all four hours of Zack Snyder's Justice League. Is it better than the original? Will it reopen the Snyderverse? Will Batman brandish guns like he's in Boondock Saints? The answers lie within the podcast.

Moon vs Predestination

 

This episode of Box Office Battle centers on films where the main characters are all the same person. First Sam Rockwell is an astronaut who rescues someone and discovers that they're the same person in Moon. Then Sarah Snook/Ethan Hawke play a woman/man who is their own lover, mother, father, child, protagonist and killer in the time travel movie Predestination.

Brick vs Shaft (2019)

 

This week on the podcast the theme is movies where Richard Roundtree has a cameo. First is a detective noir film set in high school with Joseph Gordon Levitt, Brick. In the other corner is the fifth Shaft movie, but the third called Shaft, 2019's Shaft. 

Weird Science vs The Stepford Wives (1975)

This week the theme of the podcast is movies where men create women. First Wyatt and Gary use their computer to create a smoke show that has magical powers and bends to their every whim in Weird Science. Then, tackling misogyny in a very different way, we discuss 1975's The Stepford Wives where Joanna is forced by her husband to move away from her life in New York only to give up her very identity in this classic film.