Podcast: Kraven the Hunter (2024)

We finally did it! After months of promises we finally got around to covering the (probably) last of Sony's Spider-Man-less Spider-Man movies. It's 2024's Kraven the Hunter, starring Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ariana DeBose, and Russell Crowe.

After a cold open action sequence in a Russian prison that serves as Aaron Taylor-Johnson's sizzle reel for his Bond audition, we are transported to the distant past of probably around 2012. Sergei (Taylor-Johnson) and Dmitri (Fred Hechinger, the Tim Robinson-looking fellow who played Caracalla in Gladiator II) Kravinoff are taken out of boarding school by their mob boss father Nicoli (Crowe) after their mother's suicide. The best healing can only be done once they hunt down a lion serial killer in the savanna named Zar.

Unfortunately, Zar gets the drop on Sergei and he's horribly mauled. However, the lion's blood, combined with a magic potion administered by passer-by Calypso (DeBose) brings him back to life AND gives him Captain America-level superpowers. He leaves home and heads to Siberia to murder poachers and hone his skills.

Years later, Dmitri is kidnapped by rival mob boss Aleksei (Alessandro Nivola) a.k.a. the Rhino, who he got a surgical procedure to turn into a rhino man unless he's constantly pumping anti-rhino venom into his body through a backpack. Sergei, now going by Kraven, goes off on a series of expensive-looking adventures to save him.

Can Kraven save his brother in time? Who's really behind this kidnapping? And, most importantly, when does Kraven get his VEST? You'll have to listen to find out!

Podcast: The Return of Swamp Thing (1989)

Tubi? Jim Wynorski? Comic book movie? Sometimes I think we parody ourselves. Your Stupid Minds comes to you this time around with 1989's The Return of Swamp Thing, starring Heather Locklear, Louis Jourdan and Wynorski muse Monique Gabrielle.

Picking up after the events of the last movie, as best we can surmise Swamp Thing killed Dr. Anton Arcane (Jourdan) but it didn't take, since he specializes in Ra's al Ghul style immortality practices. So Swamp Thing, a.k.a. Alec Holland, wanders around the Louisiana bayou campily beating up monsters and cajun caricatures. It vaguely resembles Alan Moore's run of the comic; as if someone recited major plot points from memory to the screenwriters while they watch TV.

Meanwhile, Abby Arcane (Locklear) goes to her step-father's swamp compound in some vague attempt to learn more about her dead mother. She's met by Dr. Arcane's menagerie of 80s misfits: buxom British scientist Dr. Lana Zurrell (Sarah Douglas), asthmatic other scientist Dr. Rochelle (Ace Mask, who as far as we know is not a homunculus assembled from Jim Carrey movie titles) and mercenary Miss Poinsettia (Gabrielle).

There's some plot point about using Abby's blood to create an immortality serum (since she has the "exact genetic code" of her mother, which is not how genetics work). Meanwhile some crawfish-fed local youths try to snap a picture of Swamp Thing using their dad's $5,000 camera.

Will Swamp Thing save the day? Will he and Abby have sex after hallucinating off a flower he picked off his body? Can Swamp Thing drive a Jeep? You'll have to listen to find out!

Podcast: Belly of the Beast (2003)

One night in Bangkok makes a soft man mumble! Your Stupid Minds heads to Thailand and returns to the Steven Seagal well with one of his transitional films from theatrical to direct-to-video. It's 2003's Belly of the Beast!

Jake Hopper (Seagal) is an ex-CIA agent whose daughter Jessica (Sara Malakul Lane) is kidnapped by... some group in Thailand. They also, coincidentally, kidnap her friend Sara (Elidh MacQueen), who happens to be the daughter of a United States Senator which sparks a covert international incident.

Hopper tells his dead wife goodbye and immediately plods off to Southeast Asia to find his daughter. The CIA suspects the Islamic fundamentalist group Abu Karaf is behind the kidnapping, but Hopper, based on nothing, already knows it isn’t them. He takes some time to beat up a group of aggro young men menacing sex worker Lulu (Monica Lo), who immediately starts following Hopper around like a lost puppy. He also stops off at a Buddhist temple to meet up with his former partner Sunti (Byron Mann) and boost his mysticism stats in order to fend off Buddhist voodoo from an evil monk, who Hopper also knows about somehow.

What follows is a series of competently directed action set pieces from veteran Hong Kong director Ching Siu-tung. Apparently Ching disagreed with Seagal about how the fight scenes should be directed; Ching wanted them to be interesting and dynamic, while Seagal wanted them to be bad and boring. Ching won this fight and the result is lots of fluid action with coverage of Seagal brought in only when absolutely necessary. The wrapping around these action scenes is a bunch of spy intrigue mumbo jumbo, goofy mysticism, and dialogue where Seagal can show off the phonetic Thai he learned five minutes before the shoot.

Will Hopper find his daughter? Is Abu Karaf behind it? Is this jacked glistening general with a British accent the real bad guy? You’ll have to listen to find out!

Podcast: Future Kick (1991)

Your Stupid Minds searches through the depths of Tubi to find a Roger Corman low budget direct to video dystopian cyborg film. It's 1991's Future Kick, starring Meg Foster, Chris Penn, and Don 'The Dragon' Wilson.

It's the far-off future of 2025. Earth is ravaged by environmental disaster. Los Angeles is in ruins. Governments have collapsed and been replaced by mega-corporations. So absolutely nothing like our present.

Howard (Jeff Pomerantz) is a rich guy who lives on the moon who creates interactive virtual reality stories. His wife Nancy (Foster) tries one out before his trip down to earth. During his earth trip, a woman reveals that New Body, one of those aforementioned mega-corporations, is murdering people and harvesting their organs. This is all done with the help of Hynes (Ed Lottimer), a psychotic killer with giant Vega-like blades on his hand. Hynes murders him, and Nancy must come down to earth to solve his murder.

Meanwhile, Walker (Wilson) is a Cyberon, one of ten experimental cyborgs hunted down by earth's paramilitary police. He's the last of his kind, and makes his way turning in bounties and wearing cool sunglasses.

Will Walker help Nancy solve her husband's murder? Did Corman reuse some old space battle footage? Will there be a completely embarrassing twist at the end? You'll have to listen to find out!

Podcast: Inferno (2016)

Your Stupid Minds returns with loads of airport novel chills and spills in the third (and almost certainly final) entry in the Dan Brown Cinematic Universe (DBCU): 2016's Inferno.

Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) wakes up in a hospital in Florence with amnesia. He must, with the assistance of a suspiciously helpful British doctor Sienna (Felicity Jones), piece together the last few days and figure out why people are shooting at him. It turns out evil billionaire Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) has created a virus to wipe out half of the earth’s population. Surely bringing the planet to 1975 levels of people will solve all our woes and not just delay them for a few decades!

Langdon must run through a series of tourist attractions and frantic cuts to uncover the clues to the location of the virus. Zobrist, the nerd that he is, has hidden its location in a series of antiquities related to Dante's Inferno. Langdon uses his skills as a Harvard symbologist and middle aged museum-enjoyer to piece the puzzle together.

Expect a series of twists and turns that you'd need to have brain damage not to foresee! Luckily Langdon does have brain damage, which makes his cluelessness slightly more believable.

Podcast: Gunner (2024)

We’re a movin' and a groovin' into 2025 with a low budget direct-to-something action film starring Morgan Freeman and the third Hemsworth brother Luke. It's 2024's Gunner!

Lee Gunner (Hemsworth) is a special forces veteran Medal of Honor recipient returning home from Afghanistan after four tours to his home town of Clinton in the state of The South. After stumbling upon a drug lab in the forest, his two sons Luke (Grant Feely) and Travis (Connor DeWolfe) are kidnapped by a gang led by Dobbs Ryker (Mykel Shannon Jenkins), son of imprisoned drug lord Kendrick (Freeman).

Using his special forces training, hundreds of smoke bombs, and extremely jarring music cues, Gunner whizzes past stock After Effects CGI muzzle flashes to rescue his boys. How will be save his boys, and can he recover the truckloads of fentanyl the DEA seized in the process? Can he reconcile a broken relationship with his sons and vaguely Eastern European ex-wife Claire (Yulia Klass)? You’ll just have to listen to find out!

Podcast: Country Hearts Christmas (2023)

Your Stupid Minds continues its tradition of low budget Christmas movies with wrestlers in them with Country Hearts Christmas, starring Chris Jericho and others.

Tori (Lanie McAuley) and June (Katerina Maria) are sisters seeking to become country music stars in Nashville. This was most likely set up in the previous movie Country Hearts, but that doesn’t involve Christmas so who cares? The sisters catch a big break and get a spot on a popular Christmas Eve live television show, but there’s one massive problem. They need to go to church! The women hem and haw about having to be on TV on the day before Christmas, missing key family events like church and... opening pre-Santa presents? Bear in mind, these women are adults and can still make it on Christmas Day, but that isn’t enough.

Their dad Bones (Jericho) is a former rock star who has sobered up since his rock days. He spends his days Facetiming various family members to meddle in their personal affairs, traversing the cathedral-like hallways of his cavernous McMansion, and trying to get his horses to have sex with each other.

June husband Justin (Jeff Irving) is lonely while his wife is in Nashville, drinking heavily, and having financial troubles. Why he can’t run a failing winery in Nashville with his wife is beyond us. Meanwhile Tori has a love triangle (or square? Maybe a Love Sputnik, since all the lines need to connect back to her?) with three different dudes.

We could go on about the plot forever, but I can assure you the first world travails of this extremely co-dependent family are just as boring on screen as written. There’s also a product placement for Zillow so egregious it’s basically a 30 second commercial in the middle of this movie. Enjoy!