Filmjitsu! The Podcast that wields films as deadly weapons

On this episode of the podcast that wields films like deadly weapons, Mike is sent straight into the molten chaos of Volcano (1997), the disaster of a disaster movie starring Tommy Lee Jones, Anne Heche, and what appears to be a Hell of a lot of molten Velveeta flowing through the streets of Los Angeles. Directed by Mick Jackson, this late-’90s spectacle swaps out an actual volcano for an endless surge of lava, asking audiences to accept city management and seismology as a substitute for action. After Mike’s review, the guys count down their Bottom Five Misnamed Movies, picks that highlight some seriously misleading marketing with titles that just plain don’t match the movie they’re attached to. Then it’s time for Dueling Double Bills, as the guys square off with another pair of loosely connected double features before Mike closes things out by assigning Jay his next cinematic punishment, because on Filmjitsu the cycle of suffering never truly cools.

On this episode of the podcast that wields films like deadly weapons, Jay is forced to endure Roar (1981), the infamous “no animals were harmed” production where, somehow, nearly every human involved absolutely was. Starring Tippi Hedren and directed by Noel Marshall, this real-life experiment in living alongside big cats quickly becomes a chaotic showcase of exactly why that should never be attempted on film or otherwise. After the main review and a heartfelt and unexpected eulogy for a long-passed dear friend, the guys count down their Bottom Five Cats. From domestic nuisances to full-on man-eating nightmares, these are cinema’s least effective, most frustrating, and downright dangerous felines. Then, the show welcomes back Dueling Double Bills, as Mike and Jay once again square off with a pair of loosely connected double features and argue over whose picks actually make sense. Finally, because vengeance is a dish best served immediately, Jay closes the loop by assigning Mike his next punishment, proving once again that on Filmjitsu, the cycle of cinematic suffering never truly ends.

Justice arrives on this episode of the podcast that wields films like deadly weapons. Mike and Jay finally tallied the listener poll results for 2025's Dueling Double Bills series, and because the guys tied during last year’s competition, they were saddled with an appropriately cursed outcome. Jay must face the chaotic animatronic pairing of Tammy and the T-Rex and Howard the Duck, while Mike somehow ends up with Tammy and the T-Rex as well, but this time the Denise Richards–starring B-movie is teamed with the subterranean oddity Alien from L.A., starring Kathy Ireland. That’s right: three movies! One with a crying dinosaur, another with the most irritating voice ever committed to film, and a shocking bit of film-history trivia involving the unlikely origins of Pixar. Along the way, one of your hosts may genuinely begin to lose his sanity and threaten to quit the show. After the reviews, the guys launch into a rapid-fire Bottom Fives lightning round, with each list tailored to the themes of their respective double bills. And finally, because the wheel of cinematic suffering must always keep turning, Mike assigns Jay the next punishment in this never-ending cycle of movie mayhem.

With Oscar season upon us, Mike and Jay revisit one of the most debated Best Picture winners of the modern era: Crash (2004), Paul Haggis’s ensemble drama about race, prejudice, and the tangled moral collisions of Los Angeles. Hailed in 2005 as urgent and important, and dismissed just as quickly in the years since as heavy-handed and self-congratulatory, Crash now lands in a cultural moment where its subject matter isn’t theory or metaphor, but headline news. Did the Academy get it right, or is this prestige cinema that mistakes volume for insight? After the main review, the guys count down their Bottom Five Stereotypes, spotlighting the most tired, reductive character shortcuts Hollywood keeps pulling from the shelf. Then it’s time for a round of Kick Two, Pick Two celebrating the career of Robert Duvall, before the long-awaited reveal of the listener poll results that will determine which Dueling Double Bills Mike and Jay will be forced to endure for the next episode. And the award for white-guy concern teetering on virtue-signaling goes to... Filmjitsu!

In one of the stranger twists of fate, Mike slaps Jay with the exact movie Jay had been planning to assign next: the sun-bleached slab of questionable ‘80s excess known as Blame It on Rio. The infamous 1984 comedy stars Michael Caine and was directed by Stanley Donen, yes, the very same Stanley Donen who gave us Singin’ in the Rain. This time, however, decorum is tossed aside in favor of ribald “laughs” and some deeply uncomfortable subject matter. Did Jay recoil at the film’s themes and its eyebrow-raising approach to teen sexuality, or is there some strange middle ground where material like this can be examined without completely torching the conversation? The guys dig into it during the main review, and afterward count down their Bottom Five Black Sheep, misfires from Grade-A filmmakers whose D-list efforts quietly lurk in the shadows of otherwise celebrated careers. The guys next play a heart-felt game of Kick Two, Pick Two honoring Catherine O’Hara, the eccentric and endlessly hilarious star of film and television who passed away in late January. Finally, Jay shifts the blame away from Rio and places it squarely onto Mike, unveiling his next punishment: yet another cinematic misadventure dredged from the bottomless pit this podcast proudly calls home.