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1999: The Podcast: Daily Summaries Delivered
by John Brooks and Julia Sirmons
Was 1999 the best year in movie history? We think it might be! John Brooks, Julia Sirmons, and special guests work their way through all the year has to offer, one movie at a time, and we’ll ask special guests to share their memories of this amazing year and the movies that made it unforgettable. Unfortunately, nobody can be told what 1999: The Podcast is… you have to hear it for yourself!
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- 1 weeks ago1h 8m
See Also: THIRTEEN GHOSTS (2001) - with Kristin Battestella
Happy Halloween! We're joined by critic and horror maven Kristin Battestella to discuss the 2001 remake of the William Castle horror schlock B-movie Thirteen Ghosts (or, in this case, uh...Thir13en Ghosts) Is it scary? No! But is it fun? Also no! We talk about the difficulty of remaking B-movies, how great practical effects and set design aren't enough, and the weird joy of truly deranged performances when actors have no idea what movie they are actually in! PLUS! We recommend our Halloween go-tos!
- 2 weeks ago52 min
See Also: TOMORROWLAND (2015)
Brad Bird's second live action film Tomorrowland was released in 2015 to a great deal of hype and high expectations. Bird was flying high on s string of critically acclaimed animated features, including The Iron Giant (which we covered recently), The Incredibles, and Ratatouille, in addition to his hit entry into the Mission: Impossible franchise Ghost Protocol. But Tomorrowland was Bird's dream project and sometimes...that can be a problem. It's a hard movie to hate. But it's also very hard to love. What went wrong? And should Bird stick to animation? We'll talk about it in this week's special SEE ALSO episode.
- 4 weeks ago1h 25m
THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR - with Nitish Pahwa
Appropriately the 113th-highest grossing movie of 1999, The Thirteenth Floor opened on May 28th in 4th place behind The Phantom Menace, Notting Hill, and The Mummy It was the third Cartesian nature of reality philosophy movie set against computer simulation realities in three months, following The Matrix in March and Existenz in April. The Thirteenth Floor was just the 2nd English language feature from German filmmaker Josef Rusnak, it came following his work as 2nd Unit Director for 1998’s Godzilla, directed by Roland Emmerich who serves as a producer here. With production design by Blade and Mystery Men’s Kirk Petrucelli, and starring journeyman actor Craig Bierko alongside then newcomer Gretchen Mol, with Dennis Haysbert, Vincent D’Onofrio, and the great Armin Mueller-Stahl, The Thirteenth Floor is an admirable failure, but it's well worth the price of admission (free, on Tubi). Rejoining us is journalist Nitish Pahwa, with whom we talk musicals, philosophy, and scientology.
- Sep 29, 20261h 28m
(Rerelease) OCTOBER SKY - with Amanda Jane Stern
No new episode this week, but please enjoy this rerelease from a year ago, about a movie with a lot of connections to our last episode, The Iron Giant: October Sky was the 63rd-highest grossing movie of the year, just behind The 13th Warrior. Opening on February 19th with just shy of $6 million, it went on to gross $34.7 million worldwide on a $25 million budget. October Sky was adapted from the memoir Rocket Boys (an anagram of "October Sky") by NASA engineer Homer Hickman and directed by Joe Johnston, beautifully shot by journeyman cinematographer Fred Murphy with a score by Mark Isham it starred newcomer Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Lauren Dern, William Lee Scott, Chad Lindberg, Natalie Canderday, Chris Ellis, and in a really wonderful performance, American Pie’s Sherminator himself, Chris Owen. A critical hit and modest commercial success, October Sky was largely forgotten by the time award season rolled around, and it is now a fondly if faintly remembered gem (as well as the breakout film for its young star!) This week, Julia and John welcome actor/writer Amanda Jane Stern from the podcast Don't Be Crazy to talk about her new film, Joe Johnston's aggressively earnest style, and boys and their rockets. Amanda is on Bluesky @amandajanestern.com
- Sep 15, 20261h 12m
THE IRON GIANT - with Sam Summers
Our episodes on robots and animation have finally led us here: The Iron Giant, one of 1999's most notorious duds, and also one of its most beloved films. The Iron Giant was the feature directorial debut of Brad Bird, who would go on to direct landmark Pixar films The Incredibles and Ratatouille and now serves in Pixar’s senior creative team. Unfortunately released in the highly competitive first week of August, coming in at #9 behind the likes of, among others, The Thomas Crown Affair, Runaway Bride, The Blair Witch Project and, also debuting that weekend, the box office behemoth The Sixth Sense, going on to make just $23 million on a budget of $70 million. How and why did such a lovely movie featuring a giant robot (and inspired by the suicide of Sylvia Plath) fail? We discuss that and a lot more with someone who would know: Dr. Sam Summers, co-host of the Disniversity podcast, and a lecturer on Animation History and Theory at Middlesex University in England.
- Aug 25, 20261h 43m
See Also: A.I. - ARTICIAL INTELLIGENCE (2001) and DISCLOSURE DAY (2026)
Following up on our discussion of Bicentennial Man, we discuss two movies, starting with the 28th highest-grossing movie of 2001, Steven Spielberg's A.I. - Artificial Intelligence. A.I. has a lot of connections to 1999, since it was originally meant to be directed by Stanley Kubrick, who died in 1999, and starred two of 1999's Best Supporting Actor Oscar nominees, Haley Joel Osment and Jude Law. It's also proven stunningly prescient and holds up in a way that makes it arguably better now than it was 25 years ago. Spielberg's latest, Disclosure Day, while appearing to share a lot of DNA with A.I., is...less good. And John rants about it a lot.
- Aug 5, 20261h 5m
BICENTENNIAL MAN
Bicentennial Man was the 40th highest grossing movie of 1999, opening December 17th in 4th place and taking in $87 million dollars worldwide on an almost literally unbelievable $100 million dollar budget. It's also the one movie of the year to star the late Sam Neill. Directed by Chris Columbus with script by Elia Kazan’s son Nicholas Kazan, based on the short story “The Bicentennial Man” AND the novel “The Positronic Man” by Isaac Asimov, with perhaps the most phoned-in score James Horner ever wrote, Bicentennial Man stars Robin Williams, Sam Neil, Embeth Davidtz, Wendy Crewson, Oliver Platt, Kiersten Warren, Hallie Eisenberg, John Michael Higgins, Bradley Whitford, Stephen Root, and noted January 6th Capitol Insurrectionist, Jay Johnston. This week, John and Julia talk "family films", uncanny valleys, Williams, and, of course, Sam Neill.
- Jul 21, 20261h 19m
TOY STORY 2 (Revisited)
This summer's Toy Story 5 is unique among Toy Story movies in that it's a direct continuation of the story of Toy Story 2, so we decided it was a great time to take a second look at Toy Story 2! Originally conceived as a direct-to-video sequel, Toy Story 2 opened November 19, 1999, bringing in $487 million worldwide and going on to become the 3rd-highest grossing movie of the year. The film brought back Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Annie Potts, Laurie Metcalf, R. Lee Ermey, Estelle Harris, from the first film, adding Joan Cusack, Kelsey Grammer, Wayne Knight, and Ariel the Little Mermaid herself, Jodi Benson as Barbie, and this time Randy Newman brought in Sarah McLachlan to help craft the most famously devastating three minutes in the whole series.
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About 1999: The Podcast
Was 1999 the best year in movie history? We think it might be! John Brooks, Julia Sirmons, and special guests work their way through all the year has to offer, one movie at a time, and we’ll ask special guests to share their memories of this amazing year and the movies that made it unforgettable. Unfortunately, nobody can be told what 1999: The Podcast is… you have to hear it for yourself!
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