Retro Spectacles

The NeverEnding Story: A Dark 80s Classic They Wouldn't Make Today

Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:30:00 GMT

Retro Spectacles continues "Good, Good for Its Time, or Good for My Time?" with Mitcz's pick: The NeverEnding Story. Wolfgang Petersen's 1984 fantasy is remembered as a whimsical childhood staple, but a rewatch reveals something much heavier. This is a movie that opens on a grieving, bullied boy and spends 90 minutes putting its heroes through loss after loss.

The practical effects hold up better than most modern CGI. Built for roughly $27 million, reputedly the most expensive film made by a European studio at the time, every creature on screen is a physical puppet operated by teams of specialists. The grief allegory, the Giorgio Moroder synth score and Limahl theme, and the handmade monsters all combine into something that dates beautifully rather than badly.

Mitcz & Teddy dig into the surprisingly dark themes, the truth behind the Artax drowning myth, author Michael Ende's lawsuit and war with the production, the 1980s dark fantasy landscape from The Dark Crystal to Labyrinth, and land on their verdict.

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The Sandlot : Good For Its Time? Just Good? Needs Work?

Wed, 01 Jul 2026 15:00:00 GMT

Retro Spectacles kicks off a new series, "Good, Good for Its Time, or Good for My Time?" with Teddy's pick that also doubles as a Fourth of July celebration: The Sandlot. Mitch saw it for the first time a month ago with zero nostalgia attached. Teddy grew up watching it on cable until it felt like he owned it. The question: does a beloved coming-of-age classic hold up when you strip the nostalgia away?

The verdict is unanimous. Dennis Leary plays against type as a stepdad who isn't a jerk but has no idea how to parent. James Earl Jones elevates the entire third act with five minutes of screen time and a first-name-basis familiarity with Babe Ruth that only he could pull off. And Benny the Jet Rodriguez remains the blueprint for what it means to be cool enough to sprinkle cool dust on someone who has none.

Mitcz and Teddy dig into what ages well and what doesn't, Benjamin Franklin Rodriguez as a Fourth of July icon, poor Bertram getting lost in the 60s, and why the Sandlot's version of America is the one worth celebrating.

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Toy Story 5 (Franchise Deep Dive : Toy Story)

Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:30:00 GMT

Spoiler warning: this episode goes deep into every plot point, twist, and ending of Toy Story 5.

Retro Spectacles closes out the Toy Story franchise deep dive with a full spoiler review of Toy Story 5. After weeks of deepening skepticism across six movies, both hosts walked in expecting to be underwhelmed. Pixar pulled it off again.

Jessie takes center stage in the franchise's most parent-oriented installment, tackling screens vs. toys, cyberbullying, and what happens when a weird kid finds another weird kid. Joan Cusack delivers one of the best voice performances of the franchise, Greta Lee's Lily Pad continues the Pixar tradition of warm-voiced not-quite-villains, and Conan O'Brien's Smarty Pants single-handedly earned the franchise's first PG rating with a poop joke bonanza.

Mitcz and Teddy dig into all that, plus whether Woody even needs to be in this movie, Buzz's unfortunate devolution into a lovesick bumbler, the criminal absence of "You've Got a Friend in Me," the Bonnie trilogy confirmation, and more. Plus, Teddy and Mitcz reveal their final rankings for all films in the franchise.

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Lightyear (Franchise Deep Dive : Toy Story)

Wed, 17 Jun 2026 15:00:00 GMT

Retro Spectacles nears the finish line on the Toy Story franchise deep dive with the spin-off that broke Pixar's streak. "Lightyear" (2022) opens with a title card: "This is the movie that Andy fell in love with in 1995." Teddy and Mitcz reject that premise within minutes. What was pitched as "Andy's Star Wars" landed as something far more somber and introspective than anyone expected from a Buzz Lightyear movie.

As a standalone sci-fi film, it's genuinely good. As a Buzz Lightyear movie, it's unrecognizable. Tim Allen publicly called it disconnected from the toy. The audience agreed. Lightyear broke Disney's 30-year CinemaScore streak, returned only half its budget, and led to 75 layoffs at Pixar including director Angus MacLane.

Mitcz and Teddy dig into all of that along with the Tim Allen vs. Chris Evans casting, the manufactured culture war over a two-second kiss, and what this flop means for Toy Story 5. Plus, dual ratings for Lightyear depending on whether you judge it as a standalone film or a franchise entry.

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Toy Story 4 (Franchise Deep Dive : Toy Story)

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 17:00:00 GMT

Retro Spectacles continues the Toy Story franchise deep dive with the sequel nobody asked for that made a billion dollars. Toy Story 3 closed the book on the Andy trilogy with a Best Picture-nominated goodbye. Toy Story 4 survived John Lasseter's Me Too departure, Rashida Jones and Will McCormack walking off the project, and a near-complete rewrite to deliver something tonally different from every Toy Story before it. More existential than whimsical, more dramedy than adventure, and anchored by Tony Hale's Forky asking what it means to be alive while Woody makes the most controversial decision in franchise history.

Keanu Reeves steals the movie as Duke Kaboom through a blind Canadian-only casting search, Christina Hendricks' Gabby Gabby becomes the first Toy Story villain who wants the same thing the heroes want, and Annie Potts returns as a reinvented Bo Peep designed from the ground up by Pixar's all-women Team B.

Mitcz & Teddy dig into whether Woody's ending is growth or betrayal, Forky as Pixar's most unlikely mascot, Tim Allen allegedly phoning it in, Disney's $10 billion box office year, the plush rush sequence, Tarantino calling Toy Story 4 a perfect film, and why both hosts land on the same order for their franchise ranking.

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Toy Story 3 (Franchise Deep Dive : Toy Story)

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Retro Spectacles continues the Toy Story franchise deep dive with Toy Story 3, the trilogy closer that almost became a very different movie before Pixar reclaimed Woody, Buzz, Andy, and the emotional finale that defined the end of the Andy years.

Before Lee Unkrich’s version became a Best Picture nominee, Disney’s Circle 7 Animation had been developing a Toy Story 3 about a malfunctioning Buzz Lightyear recalled to Taiwan. Then Bob Iger watched a parade at Disneyland Hong Kong, realized every major new character was Pixar, bought the company for $7.4 billion, and handed the franchise back to the original brain trust. What they delivered was one of the great sequel payoffs in movie history: Ned Beatty’s Lotso as one of Pixar’s best villains, Michael Keaton’s Ken as the character’s biggest pop culture moment before Ryan Gosling, and a final 10 minutes that hit like an emotional extinction-level event for anyone who has ever looked at childhood through their parents’ eyes.

Mitcz & Teddy break down the Circle 7 disaster, the incinerator scene, Spanish Buzz Lightyear, Sid’s garbage truck cameo, whether Toy Story 3 should have been the end, and more.

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Toy Story 2 (Franchise Deep Dive : Toy Story)

Wed, 27 May 2026 07:00:00 GMT

Retro Spectacles continues the Toy Story franchise deep dive with the 1999 sequel that almost never happened. Disney wanted a cheap direct-to-video sequel. Pixar said no. Then somebody accidentally deleted 90% of the film's files. Then John Lasseter scrapped the script and rewrote it in a weekend. And somehow, "Toy Story 2" emerged as one of the greatest animated sequels ever made.

Toy Story 2 was in rarefied air as a full animated theatrical sequel, and that some consider it superior to the original puts it in a class of its own. Joan Cusack's Jessie is one of the best character additions in sequel history, Wayne Knight is pitch-perfect as the gloriously greedy Al McWhiggin, and Kelsey Grammer's Stinky Pete rounds out a new cast that gives the film an emotional depth the original only hinted at.

Mitcz & Teddy dig into the Steve Jobs vs. Michael Eisner contract war, the fan theory connecting Jessie's original owner Emily to Andy's mom, and Mitcz's rant about why Andy owning a vintage Woody doll makes zero sense without a deeper family backstory. Plus: Pixar's technical flex from dust particles to crushed Cheetos, the Wayne Knight cinematic villain universe, the best animated sequels of all time, childhood toy nostalgia, the death of channel surfing, and the legendary blooper reel.

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Franchise Deep Dive : Toy Story & Pixar's Story

Wed, 20 May 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Retro Spectacles launches its first-ever franchise deep dive with the animated classic that started it all: Pixar's 1995 "Toy Story," directed by John Lasseter, starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Wallace Shawn, Jim Varney, John Ratzenberger, and Annie Potts.

Mitcz & Teddy break down how Steve Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas for pennies, the infamous Black Friday screening that nearly killed the project, Joss Whedon's uncredited script rescue, Randy Newman's iconic soundtrack, why plastic toys were a tech limitation turned creative masterstroke, and John Lasseter's complicated legacy from Pixar's golden age through his #MeToo departure.

Plus: the 1995 box office, the rise of PlayStation alongside the decline of physical toys, a deep character study on Sid, and why this G-rated film is darker than you remember. All building toward Toy Story 5 this June. Get your spectacles on and join us!

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Rage Against the Machine, Grief, and Angst (Palate Cleanser)

Wed, 13 May 2026 22:39:06 GMT

Retro Spectacles continues the palate cleanser with Part 2 of the albums that shaped Mitcz & Teddy's adolescence. Teddy's pick: Rage Against the Machine's 1999 album "The Battle of Los Angeles."

After his father died suddenly of a heart attack when Teddy was 11, nothing at home sounded like what he was feeling until Bulls on Parade came on TV. From there, Teddy traces how Rage Against the Machine, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson, At the Drive-In, and Tool became the secret soundtrack to grief, anger, and identity in a household where listening to Trent Reznor could get you accused of betraying everything your father believed in.

A track-by-track breakdown of Testify, Guerrilla Radio, Maria, Calm Like a Bomb, Sleep Now in the Fire, Born of a Broken Man, and War Within a Breath, exploring Zack de la Rocha's underappreciated lyricism, Tom Morello's otherworldly guitar work, and how the album's themes shaped Teddy's comedy, politics, and worldview.

Plus: Hidden Gems rankings and the Toy Story franchise deep dive teaser. Get your spectacles on and join us!

Links to Teddy's playlist (including full "Battle of Los Angeles" album) can be found at : https://retrospecspod.com/episode/palate-cleanser-rage-against-the-machine-grief-and-angst

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Dead Kennedys & Punk Awakening (Palate Cleanser)

Wed, 06 May 2026 15:00:00 GMT

Retro Spectacles hits pause on the deep dives for a palate cleanser. Before the next series kicks off, Mitcz & Teddy each picked an album and related songs that had a huge impact on their adolescence.

In Part 1, Mitcz tells the story of the summer before 7th grade when his best friend Kevin handed him Dead Kennedys' 1981 EP "In God We Trust, Inc." with a punk mixtape on side B: Subhumans, TSOL, Operation Ivy, pre-Dookie Green Day, Crimp Shrine, and Dead Milkmen. That same summer, a break-in at an empty apartment, a snitch note gone wrong, and a pair of handcuffs in the principal's office pushed him straight into the arms of punk rock.

Mitcz and Teddy also rank each other's Hidden Gems picks, connect Jello Biafra's anti-Reagan lyrics to 2025 politics, talk first concerts (Social Distortion opening for the Ramones), the Gwar-to-Dead Kennedys pipeline, and why punk never really leaves your system.

Teddy's album drops in Part 2. Get your spectacles on and join us!

If you want to listen to the album and Mitcz's Playlist for this episode, visit : https://retrospecspod.com/episode/palette-cleanser-dead-kennedys-punk-awakening/

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Hidden Gems : Election (1999) & Life (1999)

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 20:33:03 GMT

In the final episode of our inaugural series about Hidden Gems (movies Mitcz & Teddy feel deserve more credit), we both picked comedy films from a year packed with hits : 1999. First up, Mitcz picked the Matthew Broderick & Reese Witherspoon MTV Film "Election" about an exceedingly ambitious high schooler trying to win it all and a teacher - played by Broderick - who has one chance to serve her a little humble pie. Teddy picked the criminally underrated "Life", starring the dynamic comedy duo of Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence as two down on their luck wrongly convicted lifers in the deep American south, serving out a life sentence together.

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Hidden Gems : The Frighteners (1996) & Small Soldiers (1998)

Wed, 22 Apr 2026 07:00:00 GMT

The penultimate Retro Spectacles series opener "Hidden Gems" episode is here with a bang! But what's a hidden gem? We think you'll agree with our picks today, but we define them as art (in this case movies) that we think got lost in the shuffle but are much better than the lackluster fanfare they received at the time and continue to have today.

First up is the last film Peter Jackson made before he became THE Peter Jackson, household name and still-current keeper of the Lord of the Rings big screen adaptations : the dark horror-comedy "The Frighteners". Starring Michael J Fox in an out of character grifter jerk who wrangles his ghost buddies to help him pull easy scores on residents until Death Itself comes to town to wreak havoc.

Then, we close out with a wild ride in the form of 1998's "is it a kid's movie?" Joe Dante helmed "Small Soldiers". When a small town (probably criminal, let's be honest) kid gets his hands on the latest prototypes of toys equipped with military grade microprocessors and a directive for destruction, all hell breaks loose and it's mayhem in the streets as the titular small soldiers bring all the Ruckus with a capital UCKUS.

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Episode Links

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Hidden Gems : The Island (2005) & Brazil (1985)

Wed, 15 Apr 2026 07:00:00 GMT

The Retro Spectacles inaugural series "Hidden Gems" reaches its 3rd installment today. What's a hidden gem to Mitcz & Teddy? Simply put : art (in this case movies) Mitcz & Teddy have determined are much better than the size of the audiences they originally captured.

In this episode, we go back to a pre-Transformers Michael Bay hidden classic THE ISLAND about a pair of escaped research facility members out on the run for their freedom who, along the way, learn the awful truth of their existence and the facility they escaped. Then, we roll it all the way back to 1985 to a movie that had no chance of success but studios let Terry Gilliam try it in anyway in BRAZIL - a movie about a bored man in a dystopian land who finally has a dream to pursue, and now the weight of the deep state is after him for it.

We explore the characters, the actors, the themes, the time around these movies, their lack of box office success, their enduring legacy, controversies, where the directors went from here, and some of our pet theories and so much more in between and all around. Get your spectacles on and join us!

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Hidden Gems : Payback (1999) & Lucky Number Slevin (2006)

Wed, 08 Apr 2026 07:00:00 GMT

Retro Spectacles continues the deep dive into "hidden gems" - the movies Mitcz & Teddy have determined are much better than the size of the audiences they originally captured.

In this episode, we dive into the 1999 action revenge (dark comedy?) Mel Gibson film "Payback", about a man who will stop at seemingly nothing to get back what was stolen from him. We also go deep into the world of the 2006 action thriller (part mystery) Josh Hartnett film "Lucky Number Slevin", about warring factions of the city's two largest gangs and the lead character who's mistaken identity gets him wrapped up in more than it looks like he can handle.

In between, and all throughout, Mitcz & Teddy explore how these movies got on their radar, their enduring legacies, and Teddy goes deep on practically every actor's background and projects. Get your spectacles on and join us!

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Episode Links

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Hidden Gems : The Mothman Prophecies (2002) & 1408 (2007)

Wed, 01 Apr 2026 05:47:12 GMT

In this first episode of Retro Spectacles : Mitcz & Teddy decided to kick things off by each picking 5 movies they consider "hidden gems" - movies that we feel like didn't get their due, and/or have gone under the radar despite being every bit worth their runtime.

Starting off, we paired up two all-time classic psychological horror films. Teddy's pick was the 2002 Richard Gere film "The Mothman Prophecies", about a WaPo reporter investigating a small-town mystery. Mitcz's pick was the 2007 John Cusack film "1408", about a grifter author who investigates haunted hotels and he finally meets his match.

In between, and all throughout, Mitcz & Teddy cover their first experiences with these films, ghost stories, how they'd react in each setting, and so much more. Get your spectacles on and join us!

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Episode Links

Where to watch The Mothman Prophecies
Where to watch 1408
Buzzfeed Unsolved on The Mothman
Matt Damon explains DVD golden era
(wikipedia) The Mothman Prophecies book
(wikipedia) The Mothman Prophecies movie
Mothman Prophecies TV show project
The 1408 scene Mitcz references that's better than a trailer
(wikipedia) 1408 movie
(wikipedia) 1408 short story by Stephen King

For all relevant episode links, our social media accounts, and contact info, please visit retrospecspod.com

If you'd like to support us directly, please visit patreon.com/retrospecs

If you dig this, a review on your podcast app of choice is GREATLY appreciated and helps us rise to the top, where all the pretty people like yourself can slip on their Retro Spectacles!

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