Magellans at the Movies Nathan Magalhaes

For as long as there has been television, there has been The Simpsons. Well, that’s an exaggeration, but not by much, since The Simpsons aired a full two years before the Soviet Union was dissolved. This legend of prime-time TV took the world by storm when everyone was first introduced to its titular family of corn-colored stereotypes, and while the painful collapse in its quality since then is a saga of deterioration worthy of Edward Gibbon, for about ten years The Simpsons reigned supreme. By the time of The Simpsons Movie, a 2007 animated comedy directed by David Silverman, the show’s decline and fall was well underway, but was a feature film the cure for flagging ratings ailing The Simpsons proper? Er . . . no, but still, the movie was popular and well regarded enough that it’s often considered a brief reflection of the glory days by fans. This brings us to two relatively new fans: Nathan and Elliot Magalhães, who have both watched the show’s first eleven seasons and then bowed out because whoof. Neither one had any particularly strong memories of the film, so they’ve decided to revisit it and hand down their verdict on todays’ brand spanking new episode of Magellans at the Movies. D’oh-n’t you want to get listening?
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Love. It, ah . . . it’s all warm and fuzzy? Look, we’ve done like four movies about love now, I’m fresh out of ways to say that love is a multi-faceted, complicated aspect of the human experience. Hollywood, however, is emphatically not out of things to say about love, or at least they think there’s still new ground to be broken on the subject. That’s why one hundred and thirty-four years after the first motion picture was made Park Chan-wook decided to make himself a romance in the form of Decision to Leave. To be fair to PCW, his is not a straightforward tale of boy meets girl. Decision purports to introduce elements of mystery, thriller, and crime into its story, and by most accounts it succeeded. And by our account? Well, for that answer my friend you’ll have to listen to today’s episode of Magellans at the Movies wherein Park Chan-wook fan Nathan and Park Chan-wook skeptic Elliot will be taking a look at this critically acclaimed piece of Korean cinema. If you decide to leave without listening to the whole thing, I’ll be shattered, so get it started and don’t touch that dial until we’ve had our say!
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Well, folks, we’ve made it. Magellans at the Movies has hit the big one-oh-oh. Over the course of the last two years we’ve told you about our tastes in directors and TV shows, we’ve established hilarious jokes and classic catchphrases like “Would you listen to it casually?” and “Life is hard and full of disappointments”, but the bulk of our time spent in cyberspace has been dedicated to reviewing a full ninety movies for your listening pleasure. We hope you’ve enjoyed your time with us; maybe you’ve decided to check out a movie you may otherwise have missed, maybe you’ve had a few laughs, or maybe you’ve just successfully killed some time. Whatever your experience, we’re glad to have been some small part of your movie-going life. In honor of the Magellans at the Movies hundredth episode, we’re bringing you a series of questions designed by and posed to the brothers themselves in the hopes of elucidating their thoughts on art, art criticism, and movies specifically. If that sounds like fun to you, then grab some popcorn and please enjoy. Here’s to another hundred!
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Why can’t we all just get along? It’s a question that’s hounded human civilization since the moment a guy eating pizza crust-first, a guy eating pizza from the edge inwards, and a third guy starting at the point of the slice and working his way north all shared a meal with each other and realized that the term “civilization” is subject to audience interpretation. The obvious answer, of course, is that human beings are simply too tribal and their cultural differences too intractable for the global group-hug pacifists and diplomats have been trying to organize since the three great tribes of pizza consuming etiquette were at war. The obvious response to that, of course, being that, for all their bellicosity, there have almost always been those in even the most insular cultures that are ready to extend the hand of friendship across societal divides, suggesting that it may be individual cells of isolationism occupying places of authority that are the true drivers of so much conflict. It’s a tricky question, and one whose answer, in all likelihood, is more complex and multifaceted than any clunky metaphor about how people eat pizza can encompass. Thus, the issue of peace in our time will continue to be puzzled over, even in movies like the Planet of the Apes franchise (phew, we got to the connection eventually). This long-standing pillar of the American cinematic canon enjoyed a tremendously successful reboot in the 2010s, one that frequently contended with intercultural conflict with maturity, intelligence, and thoughtfulness, and now that a few years have passed, they’re ready to have another crack at it in the form of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, a 2024 sci-fi action thriller directed by Wes Ball. Nathan and Elliot have been vocal about their skepticism of this rebooted reboot, but strong reviews have convinced them to check their suspicions at the door and give peace a chance. Was their receptiveness rewarded? Only one way to find out! Listeners together strong!
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I have no breezy, jokey description for this one. Stephen Spielberg’s 1993 film Schindler’s List is a devastating film about overwhelming darkness and a single bruised, weary speck of light in the midst of the seemingly endless shadows. Please watch it if you haven’t.
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Ladies and gentlemen, there are moments in life when it comes time to face the music. Old wrongs that must eventually be answered for, debts that must be repaid, orangutans that must be returned to their home rain forests after a brief but disastrous stint as your exotic pet. What I’m saying is that we all make bad choices and eventually the bill for those errors comes due, but we can be thankful that, for most of us, the cost of our various indulgences in vices won’t be the loss of our heads. Not so for those foolish enough to behead the mysterious bark-skinned interloper who crashes our office Christmas parties. Because while you and I are smart enough to give such obviously paranormal entities and their oblique games of returned blows a fairly wide berth, there are those who, through arrogance or excesses of youthful exuberance, just can’t keep a good head on their shoulders. Such is the lot of young Gawain, protagonist of The Green Knight, a 2021 dark fantasy film directed by David Lowery and based on the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by a man whose name has been forever lost. The Green Knight is a ponderous, sometimes surreal, sometimes frightening trek through a warped vision of classic Arthurian legend. It’s not for everyone, but for those who are buying what this movie is selling, it rarely fails to impress. The Green Knight is visually spectacular and thematically dense, and that makes it prime fodder for the less visually appealing but equally dense hosts of Magellans at the Movies. Grab your mail and don your helmet and let’s do this thing!
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