almostcultclassics

Early Access: Episode 46 - Brewster's Millions (1985)

Brewster's Millions 2?!

Thoughts on Brewster's Millions and Walter Hill?

JOKER but it stars Jerry Lewis

Sidetracks - The Jerry Lewis Tapes Vol. II

The Jerry Lewis Tapes Vol. II - Preview

The Grumpy Jerry Lewis Interviews with VIDEO!

Sidetracks - Listening to Jerry Lewis Interviews

Off the Radar - Meet the Parents (1992) THE ORIGINAL

Patreon Exclusive: Joe's Shelf - Dragonslayer (1981)

Patreon Exclusive: Off the Radar - Fever Pitch (1985)

New Merch Store!

New Segment: Joe's Shelf - Sharky's Machine (1981)

Patreon Exclusive: Ace Ventura Revisited

Hey everyone! Here's the follow-up to our episode on The Cable Guy. This time, we talk more about Jim Carrey, starting with the documentary Jim & Andy, along with some other Andy Kaufman projects. Then we move on to Ace Ventura: Pet Detective and Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls. We had a very Siskel & Ebert take on those two movies so be sure to let us know in the comments who you're siding with!

Once again, the audio here isn't great but I tried to improve it as best as I can. Thank you again for your support! We hope you enjoy.

Early Access: Episode 45 - The Cable Guy (1996)

Thank you so much to everyone who provided feedback on that little sample of our fuck-up. You made us realize it wasn't as bad as we were making it out to be. So, without further ado, here's our full episode on The Cable Guy. I normalized the audio and did some minor enhancing and I think it sounds way better than the sample did. Still, it's not perfect but definitely listenable.

On this ep, we discuss Ben Stiller's career at length, including his directorial work (Reality Bites, Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty) and some of his early acting roles (Hot Pursuit, Heavyweights, Flirting with Disaster, Zero Effect).

We have a fun Patreon ep on Jim Carrey coming as well that will also have to be enhanced but we'll have it to you soon! Thanks again for all the patience, support, and feedback. We're currently finalizing an arrangement that will allow us to record more content, more frequently that we'll be updating you on soon. Stay tuned!

The Unplugged Cable Guys

Hey everyone. Good news, bad news situation. We sat down and had a lively chat about The Cable Guy yesterday and felt great about the episode. Later, I went to edit it and to my horror discovered that there had been an issue during the recording. Turns out our mics and soundboard did not pick up any of our audio BUT the internal mic on my Macbook was rolling. So, we have the audio but it's not great.

I sound OK, as I was facing the computer, but Ryan sounds a bit muffled and distant as he was sitting across from me. So, we have some options here and we wanted to get your feedback before we move forward. I'm attaching the first three minutes from the episode so you can hear the quality for yourselves and give us some feedback. We basically have three options on how to proceed:

1. We release the episode as is as a Patreon exclusive. The total runtime is about 2 hours. Do you feel you'd be able to listen to audio of this quality for that long?
2. We throw the audio into an AI enhancer. Still won't sound great but Ryan would be a bit better, though we would be sacrificing some clarity as well.
3. Ryan and I re-record an abridged version of our discussion. Obviously, we'd lose some of the spontaneity that came from the initial recording but it could be fun to remark on what assholes we are and have fun with a second take.

We'd love to hear your feedback as loyal listeners of the show to help us resolve this calamity. We appreciate your patience and continued support as we figure out how to make the best of the situation!

Next episode updates!

Hey everyone, we're planning to finally record our episode on The Cable Guy towards the end of the week. In addition to that movie, we've each been watching a lot of Ben Stiller's early film work, both as a director and a star. We'll touch on his work in films like Heavyweights, Permanent Midnight, and Reality Bites. I also revisited Tropic Thunder and watched Zoolander for the first (and most likely last) time.

The Patreon show will focus more on Jim Carrey as we'll be revisiting the first two Ace Ventura movies. (Sorry, no Ace Ventura Jr.) I know Ryan is also very eager to finally check out Jim & Andy...

Anyway, drop some more suggestions in the comments of things we might be overlooking and also give us your thoughts on The Cable Guy for us to read out on the show!

Thanks for your continued patience & support!

February P.O. Box Pickups!

Hey everyone, here's what was sent to the PO box over the last month. Thanks to everyone who mailed us something! Even if you didn't send anything in, I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of these movies in the comments. I'll definitely be checking out a few of the Burt Reynolds movies that Joker sent for the next catch-up so leave some recs.

I'm also using this an excuse to plug the three Kino Lorber BluRays (Hot Pursuit, Summer Rental, Uncle Buck) that I did audio commentaries for as they are all out now!

Early Access: Movie Catch-up - Winter Extravaganza

Not sure how we got this carried away talking about what essentially amounts to seven movies, but here we are! We were going to split this into two parts but I think it honestly flows better as one loooong one. On it, we discuss mostly newer releases theatrical and streaming releases. Spoilers are heavy so consult the timecodes below:

Joe’s BluRay Viewings - 00:00:00

Nosferatu (2025)... again - 00:14:27

Wolf Man (2025) & Universal Monster Movies - 00:24:38

The Tom Green Documentary (2025) & Freddy Got Fingered (2001) - 00:39:56

Saturday Night (2024) - 01:13:33

Flight Risk (2025) - 01:42:42

Flight (2012) - 01:53:50 

Here (2024) - 02:03:13

If you've seen any of the movies we talked about, let us know what you thought of them in the comments!

We got a bit carried away...

We had a lot to say on Movie Catch-up. Stay tuned...

Next episode updates!

Hey everyone, we're planning to record a movie catch-up in a couple of days and then we'll get to The Cable Guy later this month. We might have some time to check out any recent movies you feel are worth talking about so feel free to leave some recommendations. As it stands, we plan to discuss:

Here (2024)

The Tom Green Documentary (2025) & Freddy Got Fingered (2001)

Flight Risk (2025)

Wolf Man (2025)

Saturday Night (2024).... which Ryan & I already know we will have very different opinions on.

Patreon Exclusive: Confessions of a Dangerous Mind (2002)

Hey everyone, here's the follow-up to our last episode where we talk about another hitman comedy, Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, which was George Clooney's directorial debut. Ryan also revisited two other Charlie Kaufman films, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Synecdoche, New York. We also got sidetracked a bunch and talked about other topics like The Gong Show in its various iterations. Enjoy!

Early Access: Episode 44 - The Matador (2005)

Hey everyone, here's our newest episode on 2005's The Matador - a really unique black comedy starring Pierce Brosnan and Greg Kinnear. Before getting to the plot of the movie, we also discuss some other Pierce Brosnan movies such as The Long Good Friday, Nomads, Taffin, The Thomas Crown Affair, GoldenEye, and The Tailer of Panama.

Stay tuned for our follow-up on Confessions of a Dangerous Mind!

What did you think of The Matador?

It's that time again! Let us know what you thought of this month's movie The Matador and we will read some of your comments out on the show. Feel free to talk about anything that relates to the movie and its stars, especially Pierce Brosnan.

Also, I am going to try to put together more Revisited video pieces. I'd love to use audio from our past Patreon shows in particular so if there's a previous discussion on one of those shows that you feel would be great with a visual element, let me know! Think about movies we've talked about briefly, like when we went through Frank Oz's filmography or discussed the Monty Python movies. I've organized all of our bonus episodes into a collection so they can be found more easily now: https://www.patreon.com/collection/1286622/

Withnail & I Revisited (with visuals)

Hey everyone! I had so much fun putting together our Batman Forever Revisited video that I decided to do it again. This time, I wanted it to be for a movie that we are way more fond of and it's hard to top our fondness for Bruce Robinson's Withnail & I. Enjoy!

Discussing David Lynch

You might have seen this go out on our podcast feed a couple of days ago but with David Lynch's passing, I decided to cut together our David Lynch discussions from previous movie catch-ups in tribute to him.

Listening back to these conversations, I am motivated to finally get around to watching more of his work so I'd love to hear what some of your favorite Lynch movies are. Ryan makes a pretty good case for The Straight Story in both segments so I may start there.

January P.O. Box Pickups!

Hey everyone! We've decided to start posting pictures of items sent to our PO Box rather than going through them in-depth at the top of the Patreon show from here on out. We figured this would be a better way to share what's been sent with you and to create more communal discussions on everything.

Anyway, here's what we received over the last couple of weeks. If you sent any of these items, leave a comment below about why you sent them with any other general thoughts/opinions you have on them. We encourage everyone else to hop in with their own thoughts as well. Special shoutout to Thomas for getting us those S. Craig Zahler novels that we talked about, can't wait to dive into them. Lots of great items here though so thank you to everyone who sent stuff in!

Any of our Patrons can send us mail, though we strongly prefer stuff related to movies and the podcast. That address is:

Hats Off Entertainment c/o Joe Ramoni

744 South Street #257

Philadelphia, PA 19147

Batman Forever Revisited (with visuals)

Hey everyone! I decided to sync up clips of Batman Forever with our discussion of the movie from the most recent movie catch-up, as teased at the end of the last post.

A lot of listeners have asked to do this for certain episodes and I figured this would be a good chance to try it out. I can't promise we'll do this too often, as it took a long time to source all of the clips, but it was still a lot of fun to put together and I think it really elevates our review of the movie. Let us know what you think and if you'd like to see more of this type of stuff in the future.

Early Access: Movie Catch-up - Favorites of 2024

Hey everyone! Here's the latest movie catch-up. Though not planned, this ended up being a discussion on some of our favorite pieces of media of the year, due to the delays in recording and us doing the Alec Baldwin Sidetracks ep in favor of a movie catch-up last month. There are also a few other random movies that got lumped in here that don't fall into that category. (Sorry to disappoint, but Wicked was NOT a favorite of the year). As always, this is a spoiler heavy episode so I've included timecodes below for stuff you want to avoid spoilers for:

00:00:00 - Indiana Jones and the Great Circle

00:10:40 - The Apprentice

00:23:50 - The Penguin (2024) & Batman Forever Revisited

00:40:33 - Anora

00:57:25 - Wicked

01:07:03 - Nosferatu & The Lighthouse

01:16:30 - Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl

01:18:47 - The Substance

Also, I've been experimenting with taking some of our discussions from the show and synching them up with clips of the movies we're talking about to act as trailers for our content. They'll basically feel like unscripted Hats Off videos, if you're familiar with my content on that channel. After listening to this episode, I feel the Batman Forever discussion will make a great first video for this series and I plan to start work on it soon so stay tuned for that!

Patreon Exclusive: More Kurt Russell Movies

Hey all! Here's your exclusive episode on three MORE Kurt Russell movies. This time we're talking about Tango & Cash (1989), 3000 Miles to Graceland (2001), and Bone Tomahawk (2015). Also, apologies for the low volume on the last episode. I had the wrong setting checked on the export which bumped the sound down considerably. Should be resolved with this episode but let me know if there are any issues. Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

I'm also debuting the new and improved podcast logo and branding with this episode. I wanted something that kept the style of the old logo but made the title of the show pop more visually. I also put our names on the same level so Ryan would stop hounding me about equal billing. Such a prima donna. Anyway, let us know what you think!