Quaid In Full - Episodes Tagged with “'00s Movies”

S07E04: Smart People

Sarah D Bunting — Fri, 21 Apr 2023 10:00:00 -0400

Dennis Quaid fiiiinally nails the frumpy-prof part in 2008's Smart People -- but in the service of a first-draft story about damaged, pedantic, chafey people whose immaturities don't line up. One of those film-fest darlings you never hear about again until it shows up on one of the lesser Showtimes at 3:30 PM on a weekday, Smart People retreats from interesting ideas, keeps key decision-making scenes offscreen, expects us to believe a Revenge villain got a poem accepted to The New Yorker, and wastes good performances from Thomas Haden Church and Elliot Page...but at least wardrobe figured out they shouldn't make Quaid wear specs this time. The prosthetic-belly debate, the verbal fop dial, and another SDB rant about onscreen physicians not putting their hair up -- ring the bell, school's in on an all-new Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 5
QQQ score: 7.25
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 412

SHOW NOTES

S07E03: Battle For Terra

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 13 Apr 2023 09:15:00 -0400

We understand why Dennis Quaid wanted to do 2007's Battle For Terra; it's unclear why BFT wanted him. The star-studded, labored comment on corruption and colonization -- you know, for kids! -- doesn't maximize Quaid's talents (or screentime), and while it's better than a lot of animated kiddie content, neither of us is planning to watch a bunch of retro-3D'd sperm with forehead jewelry fighting to survive again. Davey & Goliath exposition, broadly modular dialogue, how you get a G rating with a Mount Weather reference, cricket/manatee collabs, and the grudging admission that the big eyes worked, in the latest episode of QIF.

Overall score: 5.25
QQQ score: 1.5
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 405

SHOW NOTES

S07E02: American Dreamz

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 06 Apr 2023 09:00:00 -0400

We're thrilled to welcome This Had Oscar Buzz co-host (and TWoP Idol co-recapper emeritus) Joe Reid to the podcast to dig into American Dreamz, a satire of both competitive singing shows AND mid-aughts American politics that does one thing quite a bit better than the other -- and puts all three of us in mind of better movies like Dr. Strangelove and Dick. Cheney slapstick, peak Chris Klein, when Hugh Grant's doing more than he should, the custody battle over the set's one Dick Casablancas wig, Quaid as figurative Ken doll, the return of positive Ebert, and great galoot work all figure in our discussion of a movie we didn't hate...but also barely remember watching. Grab a golden ticket and some freedom fries and cue up an all-new Quaid In Full!

Overall score: 6.17
QQQ score: 6.17
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 398

SHOW NOTES

Special Guest: Joe Reid.

S07E01: Yours, Mine & Ours

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 09:00:00 -0400

Welcome to the (really) long-awaited seventh season of Quaid In Full -- and to the chaotic, unrealistic, and utterly Nickelodeon Yours, Mine & Ours. Critics in week-before-Thanksgiving mode weren't terribly charitable to this 2005 remake of the Ball/Fonda original, but despite the first film's cultural anxieties not really translating to the 21st century; beleaguered stunt pets; Chekhov's sailboat; an utter lack of clean-up or food-logistics credibility; as many family-film tropes as bad child actors; and the horror of a child going to town on a pile of gummi worms like he's Clemenza in a Godfather restaurant scene, for what it is, it's fine. But is Dennis Quaid fine for what he's asked to do? Climb into a rowboat full of stuffies and read the depositions in the matter of Aggrieved Hamster v. Sherwin-Williams: it's an all-new Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 5
QQQ score: 8
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 391

SHOW NOTES

S06E11: Flight Of The Phoenix

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 07 Apr 2022 09:30:00 -0400

You've seen 2004's Flight Of The Phoenix before -- not just the Jimmy Stewart verzh from the '60s, but every "ragtag group with various animosities bands together to beat insurmountable odds, with an assist from ILM CGI" flick before it. As NOT the best pilot we ever saw, Dennis Quaid's Frank Towns throws John Wayne, Barth from You Can't Do That On Television, and a crappish Bill Clinton imitation into a blender to assay a backstory-free brat to whom everyone from Dr. House to EMT Riley to Eowyn is looking for salvation. How long have they been out in the Gobi? How much water is left? Why are Chekhov's nomads wearing Converse? And why did the same single rock in the entire desert that killed Sam Winchester then save Dennis Quaid? A lot of questions, a lot of callbacks to Enemy Mine in the season finale of Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 4.5
QQQ score: 6
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 35

SHOW NOTES

S06E10: In Good Company

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 31 Mar 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Or, How To Not Exactly Succeed In Corporate Satire While Actually REALLY Trying. We might have felt differently about In Good Company if we didn't live in the Republic of Bezos, in a timeline with Succession, but we do, we do, and a movie that tries to send up corporate machinations really needs to have an R rating to work with. Still, this gentle, dated, clueless-about-BFAs-and-NYU "Hallmark movie for boys" isn't unpleasant, and DQ is quite good in it despite being obliged to dribble a basketball AND deliver a Notwork speech during the big boss's TED talk. Past its sell-by date, but still safe: it's an all-new Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 5.5
QQQ score: 8
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 28

SHOW NOTES

S06E09: The Day After Tomorrow

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 24 Mar 2022 09:00:00 -0400

Defector.com's David J. Roth returns to talk about The Day After Tomorrow, which was marketed as an Important Must-See back in 2004, and almost uniformly savaged by critics who seem not to have understood the point of AN ACTION MOVIE. But your commentators all quite enjoy it, despite all the Hollywood Sciencing, the lonesome death of a Law & Order-verse stalwart in a Paramus mall court, direwolf Colorforms, protagonists stopping to look at the special effect that's trying to kill them for a full ten count, and a baffling chapeau choice from our boy DQ. How many actors were asked before Quaid? What exactly happens to the English royal family? And could this movie make Dick Cheney's heart grow one size? Slip into a 78-lb. snowsuit and join us for an all-new Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 7.67
QQQ score: 7.17
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 21

SHOW NOTES

Special Guest: David J. Roth.

S06E08: The Alamo

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 17 Mar 2022 09:45:00 -0400

Remember The Alamo (...sorry; we had to) -- 2004's "featureless sphere of re-consideration" of one of the country's most notorious battles starring Dennis Quaid as Sam Houston? If you do, our condolences, although despite a bloated runtime, racist music cues, a script that makes the dad from The Conjuring recycle cannonballs, and a misapprehension of what's actually still interesting about this chapter of history, we didn't end up with a super-low overall rating. DQ, however, doesn't seem to know how to play this particular C-plus person, and his reverting to Sling Blade voice in scenes with Billy Bob Thornton is a choice that doesn't work out for him. Slap on some $100 million sideburns, grab a copyright-compliant cutlass, and jump in a hole: it's an all-new Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 5.5
QQQ score: 3.25
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 14

SHOW NOTES

S06E06: Cold Creek Manor

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 03 Mar 2022 09:30:00 -0500

Did anybody in this movie...see a movie? Today we're contemplating 2003's Cape Farm, aka Cold Creek Manor, aka 33 1/3 Short Sound Drops That Shouldn't Have Made SDB Laugh. A putative thriller in which Dorff On Golf somehow manages to haul a dead pony into a swimming pool, our "city slicker" hero tries to charm the psychotic locals with Brandy Alexanders, children have eyeteeth the size of quarters, and a cemetery is added to the kids' chore wheel, Cold Creek Manor is mostly bad -- but at least Dennis Quaid doesn't make it any worse, so while you're fleeing the godless city for Sling Blade-on-Hudson, cue up an all-new Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 3
QQQ score: 5.25
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 0

SHOW NOTES

S06E05: Far From Heaven

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 24 Feb 2022 09:00:00 -0500

Welcome to MASTADQ: Mark And Sarah Talk About Dennis Quaid! Mark Blankenship slid into the guest chair (not a euphemism) to discuss Far From Heaven, the line between melodrama and tragedy, and how Todd Haynes's 2002 homage to Douglas Sirk and "women's pictures" lets the paintings that are Cathy and Frank Whitaker become real. Sarah revisits a ten-year-old review that wasn't fair to Quaid's performance; Jeb files his ratings from his score-poisoning sickbed (and unearths another DQ-blocking runner); and we all wonder how to rate a performance that won awards, but isn't very Quaidy. Take a break from sourcing the Whitakers' living-room furniture and listen to an all-new Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 7
QQQ score: 8.33
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 112

SHOW NOTES

Special Guest: Mark Blankenship.

S06E04: The Rookie

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 17 Feb 2022 09:30:00 -0500

Liz Roscher of Yahoo! Sports and Kevin Goldstein of Fangraphs defied the MLB lockout to join us for The Rookie, an above-average baseball movie about Jim Morris's midlife journey to the majors that is therefore below average generally. How's Dennis Quaid's pitching form? How's his dad-cap form? Is the fictional Jim Morris a solid DILF but a bad high-school coach? Why didn't the nuns in the (interminable) first act go off in the third? And does the movie make the lede in the obit, or get crowded out by classics like Jaws 3D? Editing actors to look like athletes, a suicide-squeeze play only one panelist noticed ('cause she has to), and yet another guest who's "more of a Randy Quaid guy": it's an all-new Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 5.10
QQQ score: 7.88
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 105

SHOW NOTES

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Kenneth Turan's review in the L.A. Times
Ebert's review
S02E10 on Jaws 3D
Liz Roscher on Yahoo! Sports and at Hittin' Season
Kevin Goldstein at Fangraphs and on the Chin Music podcast

Special Guests: Kevin Goldstein and Liz Roscher.

S06E03: Dinner With Friends

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 10 Feb 2022 09:00:00 -0500

We went into Dinner With Friends expecting a filmed TED Talk on the Rashomon of a disintegrating marriage; instead, we got the American Kennel Club metaphor wheel, disproportionate anger about balsamic vinegar, and a surprising argument in favor of casting Andie MacDowell -- AND Dennis Quaid, who turns in a pretty Quaidy performance either despite or because of Remy McSwain blocking. We had our issues with the 2001 TV movie (Quaid as a food writer who can't pronounce "pomodoro," for one; the dearth of car talk after a dinner-party meltdown, for another) and we didn't agree on Quaid's spectacles, but at the end of 94 minutes, the cumulative effect of stagey construction, Steve Winwood, and good-faith revelations was positive. Fix yourself a rum and tonic and pick a vegetable: it's the latest Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 7.25
QQQ score: 7.5
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 98

SHOW NOTES

S06E02: Traffic

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 03 Feb 2022 09:00:00 -0500

Zack Handlen joins us for 2000's Soderbergh Oscar magnet Traffic, which at least one of your co-hosts forgot Dennis Quaid was even in, much less that he played a sleazy Mob-fixer lawyer whose wardrobe erodes really weirdly over the 2.5-hour runtime. Is Quaid miscast? Is this the last time we'll contend with Topher Grace on this podcast? Which plotline is the weakest here, and does Traffic suffer from breaking ground we've seen covered a thousand times since thanks TO Traffic? All these questions, plus '50s-pulp scaremongering, 17-year-old dickheads who read too much, who "invented" Mexico As Yellow, and making our peace with the word "propulsive." Crank us up to jam the bug: it's an all-new Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 8.5
QQQ score: 5
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 91

SHOW NOTES

Special Guest: Zack Handlen.

S06E01: Frequency

Sarah D Bunting — Thu, 27 Jan 2022 12:45:00 -0500

If YOU had a time desk, you too would invite Rolling Stone's chief TV critic, Alan Sepinwall, to burn messages into it about Frequency, the year-2000 time-travel/father-son therapy/serial-killer thriller that kicks off QIF's sixth season. Twenty minutes of clumsy exposition to lead off, "special" effects, Pissy Cop Wife tropes, Chekhov's Mets trivia, Qing Of Queens accentry, and repeated violations of the prime directive AND quantum physics...the movie has zero business working, and yet, we're putty in its hands. Find out why we think that is, and which Emmerich owes Alan five bucks, in the season premiere of Quaid In Full.

Overall score: 8.17
QQQ score: 6.5
Days since a lost Kuffs accident: 84

SHOW NOTES

Special Guest: Alan Sepinwall.