Podcast: A Line of Fire (2025)

In his attempt to distance himself from the increasingly tedious God's Not Dead franchise, David A.R. White tries out a standard action thriller with the finest washed up actors Hollywood has to offer. It's 2025's A Line of Fire, starring Cuba Gooding Jr., Jason Patric, Katrina Bowden, and Scott Baio.

Cash (White) is a retired FBI agent, widower, great dad, fantastic cook, and patriot with amazing hair who everyone likes and is cool. When his former partner is gunned down at a yacht party by GTA Online maniacs on WaveRunners, her niece Jamie (Bowden) retreats to a safe house and calls Cash for help. He takes time out of being the greatest dad and man who's ever lived to save her, gunning down meaty goons with CGI muzzle flashes and computer squibs.

Despite being the greatest FBI agent to ever live and smartest man alive, he seems unconcerned that every time he calls his former FBI buddies for help, his plans are thwarted by the homicidal drug cartel. Josef (Patric) knows his every move: casting his chess piece acolytes across the board via Facetime from his Southern California McMansion. Meanwhile, Javier (Gooding Jr.) traipses around his chaste Miami fully-clothed strip club, fielding Zoom calls for his drug empire over the sound of quiet club music.

Can Cash save Jamie and his daughters (who are of course kidnapped) in time? Can he trust his former FBI colleagues, such as the Nick Offerman-y Rocco (Tommy Snider) or the fashion homunculus Joan Rycker (Eve Richards, whose acting is so bad it makes me question the order of the universe)? You'll have to listen to find out!

Podcast: The Red Maple Leaf (2016)

Your Stupid Minds comes at you with our first foray into the filmography of Canadian auteur Frank D'Angelo. Off the heels of his infamous Sicilian Vampire, Frank brings back his menagerie of geriatric Hollywood stars to investigate the kidnapping of the American ambassador's daughter in 2016's The Red Maple Leaf.

The synopsis will be difficult since we suspect Frank locked in his cast before finishing the script, so there are big names with absolutely nothing to do whose scenes could have been excised entirely and it would have made the movie more coherent.

Special Agent Alfonso Palermo (D'Angelo) is the best detective in Canada. His wife (Mira Sorvino) and daughter (Addison Holley) are killed in a car accident that leaves him miraculously without so much as a bruise. He mourns their loss through binge drinking and working really hard (because he’s so good at his job).

When the U.S. Ambassador to Canada's (Michael Paré) daughter is kidnapped, Al is sent in to investigate. He immediately starts antagonizing the dad, since he had an affair before. Well, he of course turns out to be right and his infidelities are the cause of the kidnapping. But we don't know that until Frank ambles through the film lackadaisically talking to a series of octogenarian Oscar winners and nominees.

Featuring James Caan as a U.S. Senator, Kris Kristofferson as the President, Martin Landau as some driver, Paul Sorvino as Al's (not Mira Sorvino's) dad, Robert Loggia as some former governor, Doris Roberts as his wife, and Margot Kidder as his psychologist. Everyone I just mentioned is now deceased. Doris Roberts and Robert Loggia died before the movie came out. Among the alive stars includes Armand Assante, Eric Roberts, and Daniel Baldwin.

Podcast: Born Bad (1997)

Another episode, another low-budget Corman special shot in Southern California. It's 1997's (or 1999's? Unclear) Born Bad!

After a daring daylight convenience store heist where the born bad kids steal eight beers and $3.28 worth of snacks, Evan (Patrick Renna) targets the born bad kids for their biggest score yet: the local savings and loan! His step-dad is the president of the bank, who tries to impress his new son by flashing around bank blueprints and safe codes during dinner. They use this insider knowledge to... sneak into the bank at night? No. They just bust in with Point Break masks and rob the joint in the middle of the day. But the blueprints give them an important edge: they know the safe is the big metal room in the back.

The crew includes leader/hothead Craig (Ryan Francis), even bigger hothead Bullet (Michael D. Weatherred), burnout moron Marco (Corey Feldman), girl Laura (Heidi Lenhart), and normal guy Brian (Justin Walker). Brian was recently accepted to Bard, and his parents are unable and unwilling to fund his college aspirations, so Brian agrees to the robbery to fulfill his eastcoast rural liberal arts college dreams.

As you can probably guess, these petty criminal morons mess everything up. Sheriff Larabee (James Remar) clocks the robbery immediately and singlehandedly causes a hostage situation by calling the teens while they're still inside the bank. Everyone except Brian goes insane after two hours trapped inside the bank.

Will they live to tell the tale? Is the sheriff ever going to get them that helicopter? Can Corman find a way to include some sexual assault into this picture? You’ll have to listen to find out!

Podcast: Twin Sitters (1994)

Your Stupid Minds returns to the bottomless well of content that is the Barbarian Brothers (at least until we run out of Barbarian Brothers movies) with 1994’s Twin Sitters, a movie that rips off Mr. Nanny wholesale but posits the question “what if there were TWO big beefy guys instead of one?”

Peter and David Falcone (played by Peter and David Paul, respectively, since it’s entirely possible they are incapable of responding to any first name but their own) are two muscle-bound goofballs who need money to open their own Italian restaurant. When they stop a trio of assassins in a playground in which they just happen to be hanging out, the target of the assassination, Frank (Jared Martin) hires them to guard his two nephews.

Frank has turned state’s witness and plans to testify against an evil mob-like guy Leland Stromm (George Lazenby) for dumping toxic waste improperly. The two goons go to Frank’s mansion in their monster truck to guard the nephews, but wait a minute… the nephews are also… twins???

If you’ve seen Mr. Nanny you know how this goes. The twins, Bradley and Steven (Christian and Joseph Cousins) enact a series of escalating “pranks” on their guardians that border on (or are) attempted first degree murder. Eventually the twin sets become friends, but can they stay out of danger in time for the uncle to testify?

Podcast: Gotti (2018)

Direct download.



Your Stupid Minds reviews the movie that critics DON’T want you to see, the years-in-the-making pro mafia propaganda film starring a dimming Hollywood star: Gotti!

John Travolta assumes the titular role in some of the best wig work of his career. John Gotti is a low-level goon in the Gambino crime syndicate who gets the opportunity to move up the ranks through a targeted assassination. He kills the guy but completely borks the killing and goes to jail for the crime. He spends the rest of the movie in and out of prison, squinting and assuming a horrible accent, yelling at his kids, yelling at his underlings, telling horrible jokes, killing his boss in an unsanctioned hit, being the boss for a while, and dying in prison. The movie determines this man is a hero.

Also starring Travolta’s wife Kelly Preston as scenery-chewing Victoria Gotti, and Spencer Rocco Lofranco as John Gotti Jr., which the movie inexplicably becomes about after Gotti Sr.’s death. Since Gotti Jr. consulted heavily on the film, the entire experience reads like a love letter to poorly implemented and flamboyantly executed crime, without actually showing what the mob does to earn money. Directed by Kevin Connolly (E from Entourage) with a disjointed mix of voice over, flash back, and 30 second nonsense scenes that go nowhere.

Some Notes:

• Pitbull inexplicably wrote and performed an entire custom soundtrack, complete with references to Miami and smears against Sammy "The Bull" Gravano.
• In a collection of scenes interspersed throughout the movie, John Travolta plays an old, bald, wrinkly Gotti dying in prison. We're 100% convinced Travolta is not wearing makeup nor a bald cap.
• Chapo Trap House reviewed the movie a few weeks ago. Though we are both devoted Grey Wolves, we deliberately avoided listening to their episode until after it was recorded. Any similar riffs are purely coincidental.

Podcast: Blood Money (1991)

Direct download.



Your Stupid Minds delves into the depths of Amazon Prime to find a scratchy VHS transfer television edit (for a channel that doesn’t exist) of 1991’s Blood Money (a.k.a. The Killer’s Edge). Starring Wings Hauser (father of Cole), Academy Award nominee Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces, Nashville), and catcher’s mitt face himself, the late Robert Z’Dar (Maniac Cop 2, Soultaker).

Jack (Hauser) is a homicidal alcoholic with crippling PTSD, but he’s a cop so he’s the good guy. Miller (Z’Dar) is a wannabe mob boss who raids a counterfeit operation to nab millions in fake bills. Jack and his line-flubbing partner Burt (Joe Palese) must track down the perpetrators. It turns out Jack and Miller are old army buddies from ‘nam.

Can Jack catch him in time? Will he get over his overwhelming toxic masculinity, alcoholism, violent tendencies, probable body odor, and general insecurity? Was that siren in the soundtrack for a reason, or did they just film on the street?

Some Notes:

• Watch Blood Money on Amazon Prime.
• Robert Z'Dar laughs (jovially) in this film.
• Even though she's second billed, Karen Black is in a sum total of about three minutes of screen time.
• The version on Amazon has all the swears and (presumably) sex scenes removed for some reason.

Podcast: Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

This time around on the Your Stupid Minds podcast we present Episode 0: the secret lost podcast pilot. We originally recorded Lucky Number Slevin as our first episode back in February 2012, but ended up recording a WHOPPING 35 minutes instead of the 20 we were originally going for, so we shelved this one for a rainy day.

One of our most loathed movies, Lucky Number Slevin tells the needlessly complex and Tarantino-esque story of Slevin Kelevra (Josh Hartnett), a bath-toweled man with an impossible no-way name who navigates the machinations of two themed mobs, one led by The Boss (Morgan Freeman), the other by The Rabbi (Ben Kingsley). Slevin smugs his way through the misadventures, along the way courted by Manic Pixie Dream Girl Lindsey (Lucy Liu), and his own elaborate ulterior motive. Bruce Willis’s hairpiece also makes an appearance.

Some Notes:

• You'll notice a bit of a tonal difference between this episode and more recent ones. We originally planned to be more conversational and analytical before ultimately opting to tell more jokes about duck titties and dogs playing banjos.
• There's also a bit more initial exposition about why we started the podcast and our background in bad movies. We may be a little overly-explanatory but we wanted to make sure people knew what a podcast was and how movies exist.
• We really hope someone will write a fanfiction for The Warriors explaining the rift in the Softball Furies.

Direct download.

Podcast: Jade (1995)

The dour looking woman from Men in Black and Dogma (Linda Fiorentino) and David Caruso (YEEEAAAAHHHHHHH!!!) star in this Joe Eszterhas-penned William Friedkin directed erotic thriller about a detective Assistant District Attorney investigating his ex-girlfriend as a possible murderer. Aside being very well shot, and some really awesome car chases, this leaves something to be desired. The ending is also especially infuriating.

Jade made an abysmally low amount of money at the box office; $9 million total gross for a $50 million budget. This effectively killed David Caruso's movie career and stymied Friedkin's ability to work even more.

Some observations:

• Do check out some of the chase scenes on YouTube. If Friedkin is good at anything it's a chase scene.
• Some of the "kinky sex" shown in this film resembles the baffling fake sexual tips of Cosmo.
• Eszterhas's other flop Showgirls (which we've also reviewed) came out a mere three weeks before Jade. You think this affected some of the reviews?

Deadfall (1993)

Like the end of the month itself, we close July with a Nic Cage performance so intense it will melt children's popsicles if they sit too close to the screen. In 1993, we finally got an encore performance of a Coppola directing an Estevez, in the grand tradition of Apocalypse Now and, uh... The Outsiders. It's... not great.

A taut 90's photoshop.