The Weekly Stuff Podcast #311 – The Best Films of the Decade, 2010-2019

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, television, and video games. You can subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link. 

For our final show of 2019, we’re kicking off a three-part podcast series celebrating the best of the decade, starting today with the Best Films of the 2010s. Jonathan’s been a working film critic and film academic for most of the past ten years, and while Sean’s been to the movies less frequently this decade, 10 years is still plenty of time to see some truly great films. So today, we’re counting down the best of the best – each host has a Top 10 list of the decade’s greatest films, and Jonathan also has an additional 40 (!) honorable mentions, bringing his list to a round 50. All told, we’re discussing dozens of great films today, from George Miller’s Mad Max Fury Road to Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life to the Persona 3 movie series we podcasted extensively about over the years, and sending both 2019 and the decade out with a real bang. 

Enjoy, and thanks for another great year – and a great decade! – of podcasting. See you on the other side. 

Stream The Weekly Stuff Podcast Episode #311

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The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

Jonathan Lack's Top 10 Films of 2019

2019 has been one of the greatest years for film in my lifetime, and an incredible end to the decade in cinema. We’ll be talking at great length about the best films of the 2010s on this week’s Weekly Stuff Podcast, where I’ll be presenting my Top 50 films of the Decade. But for today, I’m honing in on what a special year in film 2019 turned out to be; a year of diverse voices churning out great, challenging, and unique films around every corner; a year where well-established masters turned in astonishing visions alongside wildly talented first- or second-time directors; and a year where movies continually found incredibly deep wells of humanity as the world around us seemed increasingly devoid of it. 

My process for creating this list was not as rigorous as it’s been in the past, with no accompanying screener binge. It didn’t feel necessary, as I went to the movies a lot more in 2019 than I have in recent years, motivated in part by what a bounty of promising options were laid out before me. I didn’t see everything I wanted to – no individual can – and there are certainly a few films I never got around to (including The Lighthouse, Marriage Story, and 1917) that I feel pretty sure I would have loved. But so it goes, and the list I have before me is so strong it’s hard to feel much regret. Every one of the films in my Top 5 this year is a genuine all-timer, an instant classic I think we’ll be processing for many years to come. I don’t think I’ve ever had such a densely concentrated set of greatness on a year-end Top 10 – and the films in the ‘bottom’ 5 are, of course, no slouch. Nor are the many Honorable Mentions we’ll get to at the end, a list of 20 additional titles I loved and/or found in some way particularly compelling this year, arranged alphabetically to create an even wider picture of this great year in film. 

So without further ado, continue reading after the jump for The Top Ten Films of 2019…

The Weekly Stuff Podcast #310 – A Weekly Stuff Christmas Carol

It’s time for another Christmas episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, television, and video games. You can subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link. 

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and welcome to our 2^nd annual Weekly Stuff Christmas Special! After we gave a live-reaction to Pokémon Christmas Bash, the worst Christmas album of all time, on last year’s special, we’re upping the ante this year with a live performance of the worst adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol money can buy: A ‘Christian’ Carol, an Evangelist stage play that shifts the action of Dickens’ text from Victorian London to the American Old West, transforms the central theme from learning the value of kindness and generosity to accepting Jesus Christ as one’s lord and savior, and includes the phrase “mumbo jumbo churchy talk nonsense” a staggering nine times! With Sean in the lead role of Ebenezer Scrooge and Jonathan playing the surprisingly verbose narrator and the ‘Angels’ of Christmas past, present, and future, it’s an extremely silly good time as we read to you one of the few truly awful adaptations of the Charles Dickens classic. 

Enjoy, and come back next week for the start of our three-part ‘Best of the Decade’ series! 

Stream The Weekly Stuff Podcast Episode #310

Download 'The Weekly Stuff' Episode #310 as an MP3

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

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Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

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The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

The Weekly Stuff Podcast #309 – Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Review

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, television, and video games. You can subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link. 

Disney’s Star Wars Sequel Trilogy came to a close this week with The Rise of Skywalker, Episode IX in the long-running saga and the final adventure for characters like Rey, Finn, Poe, and Kylo Ren. And it’s a pretty baffling finale too, built on a terrible script with nonsensical plotting, confusing character motivations, and a collection of the worst and stupidest twists Star Wars has ever seen. The cast is game, John Williams does his thing, and the visuals are occasionally nice, but this is bottom of the barrel for Star Wars – and, if we’re being perfectly honest, a pretty fun movie to rip into for three hours on this podcast. We discuss the film in excruciating detail, and finish out the show by chatting about episodes 6 and 7 of The Mandalorian, which were so spectacular they’re pretty much the exact qualitative polar opposite of Episode IX. 

Enjoy, and come back Wednesday for our 2^nd annual Weekly Stuff Christmas Special – which will be a crazy amount of fun! 

Stream The Weekly Stuff Podcast Episode #309

Download 'The Weekly Stuff' Episode #309 as an MP3

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

Follow Sean Chapman on Twitter!

The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

Weekly Suit Gundam #12 – Victory Gundam Review & Discussion

It’s time for Weekly Suit Gundam, a show exploring the world of Mobile Suit Gundam from the The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman. You can subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link. 

Our first year of Weekly Suit Gundam comes to a close as we reach the end of the Universal Century with 1993’s Mobile Suit Victory Gundam, the final full series set in the Universal Century and the last before creator Yoshiyuki Tomino took a break from the franchise and Sunrise branched out into Alternate Universe stories. Victory Gundam is famously one of the darkest installments in the series, with a large cast, a shockingly high mortality rate, and the youngest protagonist so far in 13-year-old Uso Ewin. It’s also one of Gundam’s most commonly underrated achievements, an imperfect but frequently brilliant series that contains some of the best moments, characters, action sequences, and episodes, and which lingers long after one finishes watching. We dive deep with the series, but also reflect on our first year of the Weekly Suit Gundam podcast, look towards the future, and discuss Fathom Events’ recent theatrical screening of Char’s Counterattack to celebrate Gundam’s 40^th anniversary. 

Enjoy!

Stream Weekly Suit Gundam Part #12

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The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure. 

The Weekly Stuff Podcast #308 – Xbox Series X Announcement & Game Awards 2019

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, television, and video games. You can subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link. 

The Game Awards weren’t as eventful in 2019 as they have been in previous years, with the big exception of Microsoft surprising everyone with the formal unveiling of the next generation’s Xbox…and its terrible, horrible, no good very bad name: the Xbox Series X. There’s a lot of promising stuff to be excited for in Microsoft’s new system, but that name is a breathtaking stinker somehow even more confusing than the third Xbox being called the Xbox One, and we have…thoughts. The awards themselves are also discussed, along with trailers for Hellblade II, Final Fantasy VII Remake, and Bravely Default II, and we make fun of a very bad looking Fast & Furious game. 

Enjoy, and come back Thursday for the next episode of Weekly Suit Gundam, where we’ll be talking all about 1993’s Mobile Suit Victory Gundam! 

Stream The Weekly Stuff Podcast Episode #308

Download 'The Weekly Stuff' Episode #308 as an MP3

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

Follow Sean Chapman on Twitter!

The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.

The Weekly Stuff Podcast #307 – Death Stranding, Pokemon Sword & Shield, Xbox News, and more!

It’s time for another episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman, a weekly audio show that explores the worlds of film, television, and video games. You can subscribe for free in iTunes by following this link. 

We’ve got two big video reviews for you this week, as Sean tells us all about the wacky world of Hideo Kojima’s Death Stranding, and Jonathan gives final thoughts on Pokemon Sword & Shield. One of these games is very straightforward to discuss, and one is more…um, confusing, but both are well worth your attention, and they were a lot of fun to talk about. We also talk about our respective Thanksgivings and go over some Black Friday purchases, including Jonathan’s shiny new Xbox One SAD edition, before diving into some news, including reports about Microsoft’s plan for the next-generation Xbox and Disney’s refusal to let Star Wars characters be gay. And at the end, we discuss episodes 4 and 5 of The Mandalorian, which continue the show’s hot streak. 

Enjoy! 

Time Chart:

Intro: 0:00:00 – 0:02:10

Stuff: 0:02:10 – 0:42:10

News: 0:42:10 – 1:23:50

Pokemon Sword & Shield: 1:23:50 – 1:43:34

Death Stranding: 1:43:34 – 2:36:00

The Mandalorian: 2:36:00 – 2:53:33 

Stream The Weekly Stuff Podcast Episode #307

Download 'The Weekly Stuff' Episode #307 as an MP3

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!

Subscribe for free to 'The Weekly Stuff' in iTunes!

Follow Jonathan Lack on Twitter!

Follow Sean Chapman on Twitter!

The Weekly Stuff with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman is a weekly audio podcast, and if you subscribe in iTunes, episodes will be delivered automatically and for free as soon as they are released. If you visit www.jonathanlack.com, we also have streaming and downloadable versions of new and archival episodes for your listening pleasure.