Can a war film also be a comfort film? This month we're exploring that question. First up this week, special guest Martin Harries of Film Vs. Film Podcast joins us to discuss one of his favorite comfort picks and a perennial rewatch around the holidays with family, The Guns of Navarone. We talk about the paradox of comforting war films; Carl Foreman's script, which placed mythmaking far above historical fact; J. Lee Thompson's directing style, which balanced blockbuster action sequences with philosophical and moral quandaries; the stellar cast, featuring David Niven, Anthony Quinn, and Gregory Peck in a surprisingly morally grey role; and we make connections between The Guns of Navarone and the many films that borrowed from its formula, including The Dirty Dozen, Star Wars, the James Bond films, and Guardians of the Galaxy. Join our team of specialized film analysts and come on a mission with us!

Have you ever wanted to go back in time to right a wrong? Whether it's correcting an injustice, avoiding a mistake, or preventing an accident, all of us would love to get a second chance to make things right. In Frequency, John Sullivan (Jim Caviezel) gets to live that fantasy, when a freak solar storm causes a disturbance in earth's magnetic field that allows him to communicate with his father Frank (Dennis Quaid) thirty years in the past. Messing with time does have its consequences though, and the ripple effect of their initial change causes many other problems that Frank and John have to race to correct before their window of communication closes forever. In this episode (part of our dads defying space-time month), we talk about Toby Emmerich's screenplay, which flawlessly combines multiple genres; Gregory Hoblit's directorial approach, which grounds sci-fi/fantasy elements with real science; the end credits song by Garth Brooks that ties it all together; and our personal experiences with the film, including Georgia's essay in World Film Locations: Toronto. Come surf the radio waves with us!

To celebrate Fathers' Day in June, we're turning our attention to a pair of films about dads and time travel. (It's a niche, but there are more options than you think!) For our first selection, we're going with Christopher Nolan's Interstellar, which combines complex theoretical physics concepts with a deeply emotional story of a father and daughter, whose bond crosses time and space to quite literally save the world. We do our best as liberal arts kids to discuss the work of physicist Kip Thorne, wormholes, black holes, the effects of the relativity of time on space travel, and time as a physical dimension, while we also explore topics closer to our comfort zone, like the implicit humanism in Hans Zimmer's beautiful score, Matthew McConaughey's deeply emotional turn as Cooper, and Jonathan Nolan's beautifully balanced screenplay. Prepare to board the Endurance and cross the universe with us!

What happens when Star Wars superfans make a Star Wars movie? Rogue One - the missing piece of the Star Wars saga we never knew we needed. It started as a pitch for a standalone Star Wars story from an ILM Visual Effects Supervisor, got a director who had vacationed in Tunisia to visit Star Wars sets and always wanted to be a member of the Rebel Alliance, and was cast with a diverse group of Star Wars fans from all around the world. As a prequel to Star Wars: A New Hope, Rogue One ties in perfectly with the original trilogy, teaching us that the hope started with a ragtag group of rebels on a very personal mission to steal Death Star plans from an Imperial data vault. We're a couple of Star Wars hope junkies from way back, so this one hits us right in the feels. Come save the dream with us!

May the fourth be with you!! To celebrate Star Wars day, we're talking about the last film of the original trilogy (and the only one we haven't yet discussed), and we've brought back the brilliant Christopher Witty (previously on our Goodfellas and Mr. Nice Guy episodes) to help us break down Return of the Jedi. We talk Ewoks, Palpatine, the question of Luke Skywalker's loyalty, Darth Vader's big change of heart, Princess Leia's transformation from firebrand politician to rebel leader, Jabba the Hutt, Han and Lando going legitimate, Max Rebo and the jizz-wailers, special effects, puppetry, sound effects, John Williams's score, and so many other awesome facets of this classic film, in a super-sized episode packed with trivia, laughs, and great memories of a movie that shaped all three of us as 5-7 year olds. Come overthrow the empire with us!

"WARRIORS, COME OUT TO PLAY-AY!"

For the second of our juvenile delinquency duo of films, we cover Walter Hill's 1979 cult classic The Warriors. The film is adapted from Sol Yurick's 1965 novel of the same name, which itself is adapted from Xenophon's Anabasis. Walter Hill takes this classical text and filters it through youth gang culture, comic books, and classic film westerns, using a soundtrack from Barry De Vorzon that fuses synth and rock, imaginative costume choices from Bobbie Mannix for creatively named gangs, and a cast of then-unknown actors who have gone on to become household names. Can you dig it? We've got a heavy rep, so press play to check out our little piece of turf.

April is John's birthday month, and this year, we're highlighting his adolescent penchant for juvenile delinquency with a couple of cult favorites. First up is Francis Ford Coppola's adaptation of S.E. Hinton's novel, Rumble Fish, starring Matt Dillon and Mickey Rourke. Conceived of as an art film for kids and an antidote to Coppola's previous Hinton adaption of The Outsiders, Rumble Fish brings together existential philosophy, German Expressionist film, and a percussion-forward score from Stewart Copeland of The Police to tell the story of Rusty James and The Motorcycle Boy. We discuss parallels with Shakespeare and Christianity, themes of freedom and time, the use of color in a mostly black and white film, and many other topics. Channel your inner street tough and punch play (right in the face) to hear all about this amazing film!

It's showtime! The second film in our celebration of cinematic sandworms is Tim Burton's 1988 horror comedy Beetlejuice. John and Georgia hit the dunes of Saturn by way of East Corinth, Vermont, to dig up the ghost with the most. We talk about Michael Keaton's career-defining performance as the titular unhinged bioexorcist, the stellar on-camera practical effects and Oscar-winning makeup, the comedic talents of the all-star cast (including the incomparable Catherine O'Hara, whose Delia Deetz could be a prototype for the zany Moira Rose of Schitt's Creek), the changes in the story from original script to finished film, and our take on Tim Burton's philosophy of death. Grab your copy of The Handbook for the Recently Deceased and meet us on the other side!