At first when we saw that Mel Gibson had left us a voicemail, we were really thrilled... but then we listened to said voicemail. Yikes.

What a lovely day it is when you find yourself speeding through a post-apocalyptic wasteland, guzzling mother's milk, guzzoline, and sand... so much sand. Mad Max: Fury Road is a "barely-time-to-stop-and-catch-your-breath" production that manages to divert the energy of two stars nearly coming to blows into something that somehow enhances the experience for all us lowly, water-addicted viewers. The visuals, production design, sets, and stunts are out of this world, and there's no mystery as to why it won the Oscar for Best Editing.

Chow down on this pursuit thriller, for this movie really is "a movable feast," if you will.

chroniclesofcriticpod@gmail.com except for you Mel.. no more messages from Mel.

Well... out of respect for the subject matter of this movie, we'll probably keep the horsing around in this description to a minimum. But if the film can open with an intentionally light-hearted, borderline stereotypical depiction of young gay men in the early '80s, then let me just say—what a lifestyle these lads were living at the outset of this film. It was the Top Gun volleyball scene meets the beachy goodness of Weekend at Bernie’s. And are you the "tight-green-banana-hammoc" or "Napa-Valley-chardonnay-in-a-wicker-basket" type of beachgoer?

From there, the film does the best it can with its budget and young cast to chronicle the lives—and the heart-breaking experience—of the AIDS crisis as it began to ravage communities through the 1980s. This is a wonderful yet harrowing human story of loyalty, commitment, fear, and love. The movie does an excellent job of introducing the lived experience of a very specific time, place, and culture to the world at large.

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In the immortal words of DMX, "X Gon’ Give It 2 Ya!" — and boy, does this movie ever give it to us! The costumes, the miniature work, the sets, the acting, the stunts, and Huge Jacked-Man’s guttural Wolverine yell that sinks Rod Steiger’s 'January Man' yell-acting to the bottom of a medical-grade aquarium faster than a she-ninja full of Adamantium.

This might just be the movie that made the studio X-ecs realize the neo-superhero franchise had real potential — launching us into the Marvel-ized world we know today. Or maybe someone just really wanted an "X-cuse" ...an "X-Twose?... to film Hugh Jackman in his birthday suit. We may never know.

This movie is fun. Maybe it’s starting to show its age ever so slightly, but a pristinely “X-ecuted” early-aughts action romp worth its salt — and one that still holds up today — will always be a yeah from me, dawg. Oh and Shawn Connery and Chewbacca show up... sort of.

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Well, it finally happened... we’ve stumbled into Martin Scorsese’s favourite innovation in film—the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Before the corporate juggernaut that is Disney began force-feeding us this particular IP ad nauseam, there was a brief period of time known as “Phase 1,” when we all finally got to experience what it would be like to watch the ultimate crossover episode play out in all its glory on the big screen.

Great VFX, snappy writing, and the “face that launched a thousand ships” of a movie that would spearhead a sort of gold rush, leading to the domination of superhero movies in cinemas and tv screens for more than a decade (and counting). The Avengers is the ultimate buster of blocks, featuring the hardest of... abs... and I’m here for it.

Also, if you’re here to see Sean Connery, Uma Thurman, Ralph Fiennes, Jim Broadbent, Diana Rigg, or Honor Blackman—those are horses of entirely different colours...

A tiger, a bear, a black panther and a man-cub walk into a bar - and manage to re-create the true Disney classic that is... checks notes... The Lion King? Seriously, the number of shot-for-shot recreations of that movie is astounding, considering that the source material for this production was supposed to be some other intelectual property altogether.

The visuals are stunning, (voice) acting is mostly there, and everyone and their mums on Rotten Tomatoes seems to think this movie is the bees knees.

Shout out to Jon Favreau's commitment to pushing the CGI envelope and providing us with a digital Gigantopithecus that manages to throw shade at both DJT and Marlon Brando all at the same time. Shout out also to the antagonist in this movie for definitely, being absolutely, 100% in the right.. except for when he threw that dog off a cliff.. that sure was pretty ..."ruff"...

Bridge... Brijet... Bridjt.. Briget.. how on Earth do you spell this damn name? Oh well, guess I'm illiterate. You know who definitely isn't illiterate? The amazing team of, book-writing, script penning, comedic geniouses that created the razor-sharp and laugh-out-loud movie that may just even be Emily's favourite flick!

Expertly acted, the delightfully witty characters fly of the page and onto the screen to deliver us the endlessly entertaining playboy that is Hugh Grant's Daniel Cleaver, the second coming of Mr. Darcy in Colin Firth's Mark Darcy, and the delightfully relatable everywoman that is Renée Zellweger's Bridget Jones.

Join us for a wonderful movie we all like to call "Bridget Jones's Diary".... because that is it's name...

What, another DOUBLE FEATURE?! What is it about movies from 2004 that makes us itch to watch more than one at a time? Speaking of itching, something tells me a few characters from The Girl Next Door are no strangers to that particularly 'prickly' sensation...

Join us as we watch a walking bag of hormones, morning wood, and teenage naïveté, fumble around in the dark trying to land the insert "shallow-as-a-wading-pool, blonde sex-symbol, manic-pixie-dreamgirl archetype" here—in a movie that throws around more uh... "legacied" f-words than a bunch of high school hockey bros in an uncomfortable locker room.

It’s crass, it’s crude—but damned if it isn’t a magnificent time capsule and exaggerated snapshot of the early-2000s, all-American high school experience.

Oh, and then there’s the other movie, where everything dies at the end… not least of all Ron Howard’s once-ambitious and genuinely promising plans for what had, by all accounts, started off as a really good idea for a compelling film. Woops.

Come for the creature fights, stay for the VFX. But don't forget to bring your tomatoes to throw at the screen, because the real monsters in this movie are all the scenes that force you to endure what might be the most expositional dialogue you've ever heard since that time you accidentally turned on "descriptive video" on your TV or "Windows Narrator" on your laptop.

And yes, rolling your eyes as the screenwriter crams a step-by-step, pseudo-science, explanation of everything happening right in front of you down your throat—like you're foie gras—is just as frustrating as figuring out how to turn off those aforementioned accessibility features without throwing your laptop down the stairs.

You won’t remember any of the characters' names. The random skills and abilities will conveniently manifest for characters out of nowhere, despite their job titles being something like "linguist" or "geologist," will confuse you. But by God—the VFX teams knew the assignment. And hey, while this film didn't win any Oscars, I have heard that it does hold the Guinness World Record for "being part of a franchise with the most films that nobody remembers seeing or hearing about".

Everyone, enjoy your Scionic Uplink. Hmm... wasn’t that what happened to Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow's marriage?