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.

Miller's Crossing vs Harlem Nights

 

This episode of the podcast has Gabriel Byrne starring in the gangster Coen Brothers Film that doesn't give you the high hat...Miller's Crossing. Then Eddie Murphy's passion project with Richard Pryor and Red Foxx gets a second look in Harlem Nights. We're doing films with underground gambling this week.

Cronos vs The Man From Earth

 

This week on the podcast the them is tales of immortality. First up: Guillermo Del Toro's feature film debut, Cronos. A grandfather comes to posses a device that will allow him to live forever. But as the blood lust builds you're left to wonder if it's worth the price. Then we cover the indie film The Man from Earth. A professor is leaving town, and reluctantly admits to his circle of friends that he has been alive since the days of the cavemen...which goes hand in hand with a shocking revelation.

The Fly II vs Road House 2 vs Dirty Dancing Havana Nights

 

For this edition of the Box Office Battle podcast we talk about classic movies from the eighties: The Fly, Road House, and Dirty Dancing. Then we discuss their sequels, and why they didn't live up to the originals. We also talk about the first two Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movies, and premier Ice Cast!

Cube vs Pi

 

Movies about math with geometric titles is the subject of the Box Office Battle podcast this week. First, people are trapped in a Cube in the movie, well uh...Cube. Then a mathematician goes too far down the rabbit hole and finds the name of God in numbers, and then has to poke his brain until he forgets it in the Darren Aronofsky classic Pi.

Gentlemen Broncos vs Naked Lunch

 

For this episode of Box Office Battle we pit two movies about writers against each other. First Jared Hess offers a story of a thirteen year old who gets his story adapted into an awful movie, and at the same time his story is ripped off in a best selling novel in Gentlemen Broncos. Then Cronenberg's avant guarde adaptation of the William S. Burrows classic, Naked Lunch.

Brigsby Bear vs Airborne (2012)

 

This week on the podcast it's the films of Mark Hamill. A man is rescued from a bunker having been kidnapped his entire life. He's trying to adjust to reality, but all he wants to do is finish a movie his kidnappers made in Brigsby Bear. Then members of an aircraft battle a storm, hijackers, and a Chinese god in Airborne.

But I'm a Cheerleader vs Saved

 

Natasha Lyonne plays a cheerleader who is forced to accept her sexual orientation when sent to a gay conversion camp and finds love in But I'm a Cheerleader. Then Jena Malone is a devout Christian who realizes the world isn't what she believed when she gets pregnant in Saved! This week the podcast is covering movies that have plots that involve gay conversion camps.

Rating influential superhero movies

 

This episode of the podcast has Biggs and Karl going through the history of influential superhero movies and figuring out whether they are underrated, overrated, or properly rated.

Discussing Mank and Citizen Kane

This week the Box Office Battle podcast has guest Janalee Minton on to talk about everything you need to know about the classic movie you probably should have seen by now: Citizen Kane. Then, after doing all the homework for potential viewers, we review David Fincher’s new Netflix offering Mank.