goodpods headphones icon

To access all our features

Open the Goodpods app
Close icon
headphones
header image

1999: The Podcast

John Brooks & Joey Lewandowski

Profile image

1 Creator

Star filled black icon

5.0

(6)

Profile image

1 Creator

Was 1999 the best year in movie history? We think it might be! John Brooks and Joey Lewandowski will 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!
Profile image
Profile image
Profile image

5 Listeners

Star filled black icon

5.0

(6)

not bookmarked icon
Share icon

All episodes

Best episodes

Top 10 1999: The Podcast Episodes

Best episodes ranked by Goodpods Users most listened

play

06/27/22 • 88 min

Star filled black icon

5.0

American Beauty was 1999's Best Picture winner at the Academy Awards. And it was an unstoppable behemoth when it came to end of year accolades, cleaning up as well at the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs, SAG, and more. Critics practically tripped over themselves digging deep into their vocabularies to properly articulate the film's genius.

And yet, 23 year later, the consensus seems to be that the film is...bad.

So what happened (beyond the dark revelations of Kevin Spacey's long history of terrible, abusive behavior and sexual assault)? And is there anything left to make American Beauty a film that can still be appreciated? Is anything about American Beauty still beautiful?

This week, John and Joey are joined by the Addington siblings, Aislinn and Tobin, co-hosts of CageClub's very own The Contenders podcast.

They discuss their journeys from loving and then really, really hating Sam Mendes and Alan Ball's strange, misguided, ambitious, and hopelessly outdated failure.

play

06/27/22 • 88 min

Profile image
Profile image

2 Listeners

comment icon

1 Comment

1

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
play

04/18/22 • 56 min

Star filled black icon

5.0

Former Minnesota Vikings punter and current science fiction author ("Otaku") Chris Kluwe joins us to discuss our first movie from our Essentials series - The Matrix.

Released on March 31, 1999, written and directed by the Wachowskis and starring Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Laurence Fishburne, Hugo Weaving, and Joe Pantoliano, The Matrix was something of an unexpected hit that would go on to become a cultural phenomenon.

To this day, we use terms like "glitch in the Matrix" and "red pill" in memes and casual conversation because the things the reference are nearly universally recognizable.

Kluwe joined John and Joey to talk about their memories of seeing it for the first time, how well it has aged, and how it has influenced his own writing.

Find John on Twitter @ProbablyRealJB

Find Joey on Twitter @soulpopped

Find Chris on Twitter @ChrisWarcraft

For more on Chris's book Otaku: https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250203939/otaku

play

04/18/22 • 56 min

Profile image
Profile image

2 Listeners

comment icon

1 Comment

1

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

The Phantom Menace was, at the time, universally referred to as "the most anticipated movie of all time", and it's unlikely that any movie will ever again carry that distinction.

But with anticipation like that, how could it not disappoint? The movie has gone on quite a journey in the last 23 years, from "the first Star Wars movie in 22 years", to "the biggest disappointment of the summer", to "the worst Star Wars movie", to now, where it finds itself beloved by a generation of fans who grew up on it and admired by older fans who have come to overlook its obvious flaws in favor of its considerable (and many) charms.

Just in time for Star Wars Day, May the Fourth, Star Wars fans (and prequel lovers) Brian Silliman and Matt Romano, the hosts of the Star Wars podcast Return of the Pod, join us to talk about all the ups and downs of The Phantom Menace, and how the film has become a nostalgic favorite and continued to find new fans two decades later.

(NOTE: John keeps referring to the span between RotJ and TPM as 17 years. It was 16. John is old and time is an illusion. 1999: The Podcast regrets the error.)

Check out Return of the Pod on the web.

Return of the Pod on Twitter: @ReturnOfThePod

Brian on Twitter: @BrianSilliman

Matt on Twitter: @mattromano

play

05/02/22 • 108 min

Profile image
Profile image

2 Listeners

comment icon

2 Comments

2

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
play

07/11/22 • 77 min

Star filled black icon

5.0

Fight Club may well have been 1999's most important box office bomb. With a budget of $65 million, the film barely made back half that at the domestic box office, and barely cleared $100 million worldwide.

Yet it remains one of the cult classics of the 1990s, and people often remember it being a lot more successful than it was. A lot of that has to do with the format that would define film in the pre-streaming era of the late 90s and early 00s: DVD.

Its themes of toxic masculinity, cultural decay, overbearing capitalism, fascism, and how all those things are expressed in violence seem particularly relevant today.

And so this week, John and Joey invited Amanda Moore (aka Frank) - who spent a year infiltrating the world of the alt-right and neo-Nazis and has spent her time since exposing them and writing about her experience - to talk about her love of the film and how well it reflects what is happening beneath the surface of American culture today.

You can find Amanda on Twitter @noturtlesoup17 and on TikTok at noturtlesoup17

play

07/11/22 • 77 min

Profile image
Profile image

2 Listeners

comment icon

1 Comment

1

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Stanley Kubrick’s final film (and perhaps the nail in the coffin for Hollywood's most famous couple), the psychosexual thriller Eyes Wide Shut, was released on July 16th, two days after the limited release of The Blair Witch Project, and on the day that birthed a thousand QAnon conspiracy theories as John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette Kennedy died in a plane crash while everyone in America kept listening to Destiny’s Child’s Bills Bills Bills.

The film was, at the time, well received if not overwhelmingly praised by critics and audiences.

But it’s worth noting that the critical division is unusually stark, with critics who reviewed it positively giving the film overwhelming praise and vice-versa, with very little in between (Slate’s David Edelstein called it “a somnolent load of wank,” for example).

And, to be fair, many critics have given the film a second look and come to their senses.

But the question now is not whether or not Eyes Wide Shut is a great film (it is) but whether or not it’s Kubrick’s greatest film.

In this episode, John and Joey welcome New York Magazine feature writer Lila Shapiro, who wrote the 2019 essay What I Learned After Watching Eyes Wide Shut 100 Times for Vulture.

Check out more of Lila's work here.

play

05/30/22 • 68 min

Profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

The Sixth Sense was 1999's most unexpected phenomenon. And it really was a phenomenon.

Filmed on a $40 million budget, the film made a respectable $26 million its opening weekend, but great reviews and word of mouth propelled it to a $293.5 million domestic box office gross and a worldwide gross of just shy of $673 million.

It was the only movie to stay #1 for 5 weeks aside from The Phantom Menace, and, most impressively, it made at least $20 million all five weekends it was #1, making more than $29 million its final weekend.

Not bad for a decidedly not-action movie centered around Bruce Willis, a year after Armageddon and then at the early stages of the waning days of his star power, and a relatively obscure child actor named Haley Joel Osment, and written and directed by an almost entirely unknown filmmaker named M. Night Shyamalan.

So much of The Sixth Sense rests on its legendary plot twist, so already knowing how it ends, we invited Stephanie Gagnon, host of the horror book podcast Books in the Freezer, to join us in taking another look at the movie to see if it still holds up as a haunted horror movie.

Check out Books in the Freezer here.

play

06/13/22 • 75 min

Profile image

1 Listener

comment icon

1 Comment

1

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Starring Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard as themselves – or people who happen to have their exact names – and written and directed by Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, 1999's 10th-highest grossing film, The Blair Witch Project was produced on a budget of less than a half million dollars and grossed $248.6 million at the box office.

One of the founding films in the "found footage" genre, the film was perhaps most famous for the unprecedented marketing campaign that led up to its release.

The movie made innovative use of a relatively novel outlet called "the World Wide Web" and deliberately blurred the lines between fact and fiction, giving the film an air of reality that actually fooled some its audience into believing they were watching real documentary footage.

Heralded by critics for its ingenuity as well as its genuine scares, Blair Witch may well have been the buzziest of buzzy movies ever. But its legacy is slightly more complicated. While it was a huge hit with the public at the time, it is less liked by audiences now, who often complain that the movie doesn't hold up on its own, having relied too much on the multimedia "project" of which the film is merely the final ingredient.

This week, we talk to Blair Witch superfan and host of American Hysteria Chelsey Weber-Smith about what made it a great movie then and why we should still love it today.

Chelsey on Twitter: @AmerHysteria

play

05/16/22 • 79 min

Profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
play

04/04/22 • 53 min

Was 1999 the best movie year ever? We think it might be, and in this podcast we’ll be exploring the movies that made that year so memorable. Before we start, we invited journalist and author Brian Raftery, who quite literally wrote the book on the movies of 1999 — Best. Movie. Year. Ever.: How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen — to share his thoughts on why it was such an important year for movies and for our culture.

Find John on Twitter @ProbablyRealJB

Find Joey on Twitter @soulpopped

Find Brian on Twitter @BrianRaftery

For more on the book, Brian's website is https://www.brianraftery.com/

play

04/04/22 • 53 min

Profile image

1 Listener

comment icon

1 Comment

1

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
play

07/25/22 • 69 min

Boys Don’t Cry holds a 90% Rotten Tomatoes critics score and a pretty astonishing 86% Metacritic. And with scores like that, one might get the impression that was and is a universally admired classic.

Billed as a dramatization of the events leading up to the 1993 rape and murder of 21-year-old trans man Brandon Teena, it was nominated for 57 major awards and won 37 of them.

14 of went to star Hilary Swank, 6 to costar Chloe Sevigny, and 8 to writer director Kimberley Peirce.

And Swank of course won the Oscar for Best Actress, while Sevigny was nominated for Best Supporting Actress.

But critics at the time almost always misgendered Brandon in their reviews. And the film effectively erases the trans identity of its protagonist, which some argue is the result of a conscious and unforgiveable narrative and creative decision made my Peirce, who cast a cisgendered woman to play Brandon and who shut out essentially all input and participation from anyone in the trans community.

In the 23 years since its release, Boys Don't Cry has not aged well. But this week's guest, writer and trans horror historian Logan Ashley Kisner, argues that it's not all about aging - Boys Don't Cry is a fundamentally, irredeemably transphobic film.

Find Logan Ashley on Twitter @transhorrors and find links to his writing at linktr.ee/transhorror

His essay on Boys Don't Cry is available here: “Boys Don’t Cry” Has Always Been Violently Transphobic

Trans Rights Organization Links:

play

07/25/22 • 69 min

Profile image

1 Listener

bookmark
plus icon
share episode
play

03/13/22 • 0 min

play

03/13/22 • 0 min

Profile image

1 Listener

comment icon

1 Comment

1

bookmark
plus icon
share episode

Show more

Toggle view more icon

FAQ

How many episodes does 1999: The Podcast have?

1999: The Podcast currently has 35 episodes available.

What topics does 1999: The Podcast cover?

The podcast is about Film History, Podcasts, Tv & Film and Film Reviews.

What is the most popular episode on 1999: The Podcast?

The episode title 'American Beauty: "Roses" with Aislinn and Tobin Addington' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on 1999: The Podcast?

The average episode length on 1999: The Podcast is 80 minutes.

How often are episodes of 1999: The Podcast released?

Episodes of 1999: The Podcast are typically released every 14 days.

When was the first episode of 1999: The Podcast?

The first episode of 1999: The Podcast was released on Mar 13, 2022.

Show more FAQ

Toggle view more icon

Comments

5.0

out of 5

Star filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey IconStar filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey IconStar filled grey Icon
Star filled grey Icon

7 Ratings