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Total Movie Recall

Steve Albertson & Ryan Mixson

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Total Movie Recall is a free-wheeling film nostalgia podcast in which hosts Steve Albertson & Ryan Mixson each have painstakingly assembled a list of movies that have touched them in some way at a specific moment in their lives. The hosts alternate rolling dice at the end of each show to determine which film will be explored in the following episode. TRM is produced independently in Los Angeles and Denver.
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we go to the suck. Steve develops a thousand yard stare reserved for veterans of nightmare wars and mediocre podcasts. Ryan chalks up another point in the Irresponsible Father column, reflecting on his father’s prudent decision to let him watch this vision of insanity at a tender age yet again. If you listen to this…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we watch the first Manic Pixie Dream Girl ever on screen, who is not a girl at all, but is most decidedly a woman. It’s the perfect post-2020 movie, and not just because of the constant suicides. It’s twee and precious and we absolutely loved it. Harold & Maude (1971) d. Hal Ashby w. Colin Higgins Music by: Cat Stev…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we learn that while some stories never end, mothers do, and that’s the beginning of how a serial killer is made in this unflinching look inside the mind of one disturbed little boy. Hang in there with us, listen to this, and watch it again and try to tell us you didn’t witness a psychotic break as this poor boy retr…
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Ah, the good ole days of passing around R rated spank tapes. This movie is so trashy, it gave Charlie Sheen HIV. Wild Things (1998) d. John McNaughton Starring: Kevin Bacon Neve Campbell Matt Dillon Denise Richards Daphne Rubin-Vega Bill Murray When teen debutante Kelly fails to attract the attention of her hunky guidance counselor, Sam, she cries …
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Remember the innocent 90s, when white directors thought they had the N-word pass for some reason? What do you think their “woke” movie would look like? Probably like this, where the N-word is replaced by horrific rape and Mexican jokes. This proto-edgelord movie was looked at as such a good time romp that it was considered the perfect vehicle to tr…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we try to decide whether this is a charming, unique film about staying true to yourself, or a nightmarish descent into the insanity that comes with living in a barren, desolate landscape like rural Idaho, where the Uncle Ricos of the world keep subterranean dungeons for unsuspecting Debs. This might say more about w…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, these two born-insecure honkies break down the seminal Blaxploitation movie of 1975 and do a pathetic job of trying to reconcile its progressive vision of black empowerment with the misogyny of the pimp game. It gets complicated. Dolemite (1975) d. D'Urville Martin Story by: Rudy Ray Moore Starring: Rudy Ray Moore D…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, things get Freudian as they did for every little boy who stared confusedly at Jessica Rabbit and wondered what was happening to them. Handsome, chiseled leading man Bob Hoskins soldiers on in spite of the bleeding ulcer all that booze gave him, and Christopher Lloyd goes to eleven with his unhinged, terrifying perfo…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we take a hard pivot from all the toxic masculinity of weeks past and Steve shows his gentle, romantic side. Somehow, Ryan makes this about his sad sack heartache but in the end, everybody calms down and moves on with a nice mutton, lettuce, and tomato sandwich. The Princess Bride (1987) d. Rob Reiner w. William Gol…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Ryan stares out the window of his furniture-less modernist home at the endless, uncaring ocean while Steve sleeps on the floor with his hand gripped around his pistol. The pseudo-philosophy of this movie seems deeper than it is because it’s endlessly reflected in all the glass buildings of Michael Mann’s uber-mascul…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, two white guys talk about hip hop culture in a totally convincing way when they put on their mustard-colored overalls to go to the House Party. Steve, a sentient walking issue of Pitchfork, schools Ryan on the infinite subgenres of hip hop while Ryan, to no one’s surprise, gets a little weepy at touching father-son …
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This week on Total Movie Recall, the pressures of competing at a professional level with all the concussions, cocaine, infidelities, and painkillers almost make Steve request to be traded during the free agency period after he and Ryan bicker about Oliver Stone’s divisive 1999 film, Any Given Sunday. Does Steve’s complete lack of interest in profes…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan discover that there’s actually an antidote to getting punched really, really hard. The cultural divide proves too much for Ryan in this wild, fantastic, hallucinatory Kung Fu epic of many names. The story is incomprehensible, the fights are nonsensical, but Steve still finds it defensible, while Ryan …
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This week on Total Movie Recall, it’s Steve’s turn to not get it when Ryan forces him to snooze this way through the 1997 hambone, The Devil’s Advocate. This movie has it all -- a grand guignol of sex, violence, operatic depictions of Hell and Satan, Keanu swinging and missing, Pacino putting his blood pressure medication to the test -- and yet, so…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Ryan gets his hipster comedy credentials revoked after Steve makes him pay $3.99 to watch the 1994 not-so-classic comedy, Cabin Boy. Ryan simply cannot understand the cache this movie has in the “alt-comedy” world, or as he likes to call it, the “non-comedy” world (now that’s funny!). Steve would explain it, but you…
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This week on the Total Movie Recall Holiday Special, Steve and Ryan visit the mopey, gothy early 90s when Generation X looked to the high school Gloom King Tim Burton to express their so dark vision of Christmas. Stop motion animation is such a labor intensive craft that creates beautiful visions that aren’t all that interesting, which is going to …
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This week on Total Movie Recall, things get grim and a little too close to 2020 reality for comfort. Definitely don’t watch this movie if you’re fresh out of rehab, which Ryan can tell you all about. The future is bleak, but if it’s also as ruggedly handsome as Clive Owen is and has the greatest single-take of all time, it might not be so bad. This…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, our bodies go through some changes that we don’t know how to deal with as we take in a John Landis double feature with Thriller & An American Werewolf in London. We really just need somebody to talk to about it. What’s that, Dad? You’re busy? Okay, I’ll just go on the internet and learn some deeply ingrained, proble…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve holds Ryan’s hair back while he cries and dry heaves and rocks back and forth like his cat just died, because there has never been a movie more perfectly designed to make him cry like The Sixth Sense. Misunderstood children? Check. Put-upon mothers just trying their best? Check. An exasperated but committed ps…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we acknowledge that The Wizard of Oz is, yes, a classic. However, it’s missing a certain je ne sais quoi, and we try to put our fingers on exactly what it needed. We conclude that classic, whimsical children’s film needed more childhood lobotomy, forced imprisonment, Queens pulling their own heads off, and Veruca Sa…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan wonder why kids are scared of the stupidest boogeymen. The Leprechaun haunted Ryan for his entire childhood, waiting in dark corners, making it unable for him to pee in the middle of the night. If only he had watched the movie when he was seven years old, and seen how stupid, unscary, unwitty, and hal…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan put on their codpieces and fret over the innocence of teenage girls around David Bowie. Don’t get us wrong, we love this movie, but why does this charming children’s tale have a character named after the part of the anatomy responsible for transporting sperm? And why do so many sequences resemble sper…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, the age of innocence is over, and somehow what was supposed to be a fun episode about a trashy, campy, forgotten 90s horror movie becomes a despairing yawp into the empty air about the power structures that let abusive, predatory men get away with everything. Don’t worry, we still find time to talk about the golden …
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan offend approximately 1/7th of the world’s population, which has historically gone very well. Ryan’s love of fairy tale settings don’t truck with Steve, who favors Disney’s gritty, street-level crime drama Aladdin. Ryan gets vulnerable about the deterioration of his mental health in this dumpster fire …
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This week on Total Movie Recall, one man’s fun trash is another man’s not-fun trash. Steve gets typically indignant at Ryan’s casual, cruel dismissal of somebody’s labor of love, and Ryan reaches heretofore unplumbed depths of his warped psyche, exploring the lingering effects of watching movies like Killer Klowns at too tender of an age. This is w…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we take a big shit on Boomers and their cheap nostalgia for a “better time.” A time when a bunch of baseball-loving kids’ black friend would have had to walk home to his segregated neighborhood. A time of nuclear anxiety because our megalomaniacal leaders were determined to blow up the world. A time when women were …
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Ryan takes us on a journey through time and memory to show us his origins as a film-lover, a man, and, lo, a human. Sure, he could have said his favorite movie was some snooty, intellectual piece of New Hollywood cinema, but that would be a lie. It’s a VHS that his father got him as part of a $5.99 Big Mac giveaway …
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we destroy our nasal septums with 1983’s Scarface. Ryan presents a cogent, detailed thesis on this film’s central character as a metaphor for the all-eating, never-satiating, soul-crushing machine that is capitalism, and Steve counters with “No he’s not.” Touché Steve… touché. Scarface (1983) d. Brian De Palma w. Ol…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we watched the Sophie’s Choice of talking pig movies — Babe: Pig in the City. You might remember it as a sweet children’s fantasy movie about cute talking animals, but that’s just your brain trying to protect you from the harrowing nightmare that is this film. Dogs are hung from chains and drowned in front of us. Cr…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we find a new zest for life in 2001’s Amelie. Steve gets wistful recalling his time working in a porn shop, and Ryan reveals his ignorance about Paris. But is it ignorance? Don’t we kind of all know what Paris is really like? Smelly and smoky and rude? Not according to Amelie. Paris is a place of magical realism, tr…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan watch the most subtle satire ever made — Starship Troopers. What exactly is this movie skewering? We’re not sure. We thought we might have figured it out with the Nazi uniforms and Leni Riefenstahl shots and Aryan actors, but then we got distracted by the nudity and gore and decided not to think about…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan stare into the eyes of a childless middle age and watch 1987’s Raising Arizona. Steve has a good laugh watching what he sees as a silly, light comedy and Ryan is gripped by yet another existential crisis watching a moving meditation on fatherhood, adulthood, leaving the reckless ways of youth behind, …
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This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan light a candle for all the former child stars doing porn and robbing gas stations and lament the end of trashy 90s television — the genital warts of American society. We watched The Cable Guy and discovered that Americans would rather have their comedic heroes talking out of their rectums than critiqu…
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This week on Total Movie Recall, we stare into the void and find out that hipsters are terrible people that treat the mentally ill like zoo animals and Ryan swears he’ll never wear skinny jeans again. Steve declares that the word “genius” is thrown around way too much and that it should only be applied to people who discover new kinds of particles …
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The Fly (1986) d. David Cronenberg Starring: Jeff Goldblum Geena Davis John Getz This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan enter the telepod together and come out as a new, single entity — the Brundlehost. They get sentimental revisiting the powerful tragedy of David Cronenberg's The Fly, and Ryan acts like he's the first person to ever notic…
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Naked Gun 33 1/3 (1994) d. Peter Segal writers: Pat Proft, David Zucker, Robert LoCash Starring: Leslie Nielsen Priscilla Presley George Kennedy O.J. Simpson Fred Ward Kathleen Freeman Anna Nicole Smith This week on Total Move Recall, Steve holds Ryan's white, cisgendered, ignorant feet to the fire as they revisit and are repulsed by the humor of T…
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Suspiria (1977) d. Dario Argento written by: Dario Argento, Daria Nicolodi Starring: Jessica Harper Stefania Casini Flavio Bucci Udo Kier Joan Bennett This week on Total Movie Recall, we test our feminist bona fides and flex our rigorous academic muscles dissecting the precise and not-at-all haphazard imagery of Dario Argento's giallo horror film, …
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Mad Max (1979) d. George Miller Starring: Mel Gibson as Max Rockatansky Joanne Samuel as Jesse Rockatansky Hugh Keays-Byrne as Toecutter Steve Bisley as Jim Goose Tim Burns as Johnny the Boy Roger Ward as Fifi Geoff Parry as Bubba Zanetta The Interceptor, a modified 1973 Ford Falcon XB GT coupe The second season of Total Movie Recall comes roaring …
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Donnie Darko (2001) d. Richard Kelly Starring:Jake GyllenhaalJena MaloneDrew BarrymoreMaggie GyllenhaalMary McDonnellKatharine RossPatrick SwayzeSeth RogenNoah Wyle This week on Total Movie Recall, in a long time coming, Ryan finally loses his effing mind as Steve shoots a time/space wormhole from his chest while watching 2001's crazy bananas Donni…
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Ghostbusters II (1989) d. Ivan Reitman Starring:Dan AkroydHarold RamisBill MurrayErnie HudsonSigourney WeaverAnnie PottsRick MoranisPeter MacNicol On this week's episode of TMR, Steve and Ryan watch 1989's not-quite-classic sequel Ghostbusters II. Ryan talks about the time he broke his dad's heart and may have inadvertently killed the family dog, S…
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Ninja Scroll (1993) d. Yoshiaki Kawajiri This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan go toe-to-toe with their verbal martial arts prowess—leaping from rooftop to rooftop, through bamboo forests and dodging ninja stars and killer bees. Steve goes into hyperdrive with tales of sex, drugs and violence, while Ryan tries to wrap his head around the …
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The Sword in the Stone (1963) d. Wolfgang Reitherman Produced by: Walt Disney Starring:Rickie SorensenSebastian CabotKarl Swenson This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan relive the vile union of a pedophilic wizard and his would be king pupil. Ryan remembers a simpler time when he'd eat sugary snacks at his creepy neighbor's house while get…
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Oldboy (2003) d. Chan-wook Park Starring:Min-sik ChoiJi-tae YuHye-jeong Kang This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan take on the roles of Oedipus and Sophocles as they regress deep into their subconscious to cope with the brutal realities of Seoul's gritty underbelly. Steve comes to terms with his unquenchable thirst for revenge, Ryan doubl…
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High Fidelity (2000) d. Stephen Frears Starring:John CusackIben HjejleTodd LouisoJack BlackLisa BonetCatherine Zeta-JonesJoan CusackTim Robbins This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan compare the soul sapping abyss of their previous relationships with that of Rob from High Fidelity. Steve talks about hunting down ex-girlfriends to demand an…
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The Goonies (1985) d. Richard Donner Writers:Steven Spielberg (story)Chris Columbus (screenplay) Starring:Sean AstinJosh BrolinJeff CohenCorey FeldmanKerri GreenMartha PlimptonKe Huy QuanRobert DaviJoe PantolianoAnne Ramsey This week on Total Movie Recall, we go back to a time when Corey's ruled the world. We watched 1985's classic "The Goonies" an…
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The Rocketeer (1991) d. Joe Johnston Starring:Billy CampbellJennifer ConnellyTimothy Dalton Alan ArkinPaul Sorvino This week on TMR, we flash back to the Art Deco past and get into a big fight about... well, exactly what Art Deco is. A movie about a remarkably mentally healthy Howard Hughes; angelic, heavenly creature Jennifer Connelly; an underrat…
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Battle Royale (2000) d. Kinji Fukasaku Starring:Tatsuya FujiwaraAki MaedaTakeshi KitanoChiaki Kuriyama This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan finally have the psychotic break that was inevitable since this show began. They watch the 2000 Japanese classic "Battle Royale" and have PTSD flashbacks about hormonal insanity in middle school, adm…
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The Untouchables (1987) d. Brian De Palma Starring:Kevin CostnerSean ConneryAndy GarciaRobert De NiroBilly Drago This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan throw Italian and Irish racial slurs around like its 1929. Steve tells us about growing up as a little street scamp on the mean streets of Chicago, Ryan is the only lapsed Baptist in the wo…
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Before Sunrise (1995) d. Richard Linklater Starring:Ethan HawkeJulie Delpy This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve and Ryan drop their ironic, cynical pose and reveal the wounded romantic inside. Steve tells us how this movie helped him during those in-between-relationship periods of booze and ice cream, Ryan reflects on his parents' mortality, and …
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The Blair Witch Project (1999) Starring:Heather DonahueJoshua LeonardMichael C. Williams This week on Total Movie Recall, Steve & Ryan participate in the most horrific thing imaginable - spending a week alone in the woods with three insufferable film students. The guys talk about how susceptible to the scares they were (and decidedly still are), ho…
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