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One doesn’t simply walk into a “Lord of the Rings” episode—at least not without a 20-year anniversary and amateur Tolkien scholar Brent Rivers on one’s side. On today’s blockbuster Be Reel, our fellowship reflects on an all-time great film trilogy, assessing LOTR’s bizarre relationship to star power, how Peter Jackson adapted almost anti-modern novels, and how the trilogy’s approach to franchise filmmaking stands alone.

After many Thanksgivings spent sneaking away to record supersized episodes of Be Reel, we finally do the sensible thing and just cover films about Turkey Day itself. The trio of “Planes, Trains & Automobiles” (1987), “Home For The Holidays” (1995) and “The Ice Storm” (1997) explores the great lengths families go to gather, despite cornucopias of evidence that perhaps they shouldn’t.

By Wes Craven‘s third decade reinventing Hollywood horror, the “Nightmare on Elm Street” creator found himself asking, “What’s the point of all this slashing?” He then embarked on a third act of socially critical and self-reflexive scary movies: “The People Under The Stairs” (1991), “Wes Craven’s New Nightmare” (1994), and “Scream” (1996).

Before the DM or chatroom, if you wanted to connect with a stranger pseudo-anonymously, you bought a personal ad. This week, Be Reel seeks three films with classified ads as inciting incidents: “Desperately Seeking Susan” (1985), “Single White Female” (1992) and the now 20-year-old “Ghost World” (2001).

It’s not yet August, but this summer has already smothered the United States in multiple record-breaking heatwaves. As with any crisis, Be Reel looks to the movies for wisdom, catharsis, and lunacy.

In honor of “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” (1971) turning 50, we’ve constructed a podcast category about bizarro adults and the puzzle worlds they make for kids.

Hollywood is a self-reflexive industry, and filmmakers a self-reflexive bunch. Case in point, if Be Reel were to undertake “Movies About Making Movies” as a podcast category, it would include more titles than we could probably watch in a year.

Despite directing with one of the most distinct voices in action-movie history, John Woo’s evolution is among the most amazing elements of a career-best known for blazing barrels, shadow selves, and “heroic bloodshed.” To celebrate the Hong Kong legend’s 75th birthday, Be Reel looks back at a career that took off so dynamically in 1986 with “A Better Tomorrow” that it altered Hong Kong fashion and movie-going practices.

No matter your age, no matter your fear tolerance, there’s a moment in most every Henry Selick film you’re certain you’ll be devoured. Boogie men, nightmare rhinos, and button-eyed imposter moms leap toward the lens from the famous stop-motion animator’s menagerie of monsters.

If you want to take a shallow view of how today’s Be Reel amnesia trifecta ended up all falling in the 1996-2001 range, blame it on two hosts in their early-30s. But we would argue there was something in the water in the five-year window that gave us “Memento” (2001), “Mulholland Drive” (2001), “The Long Kiss Goodnight” (1996), not to mention the first of the ‘Bourne‘ movies.

Decades before he carried Batman’s breakfast, grunted “bah-humbug” at the Muppets, and launched a thousand mediocre Cockney impersonations, Michael Caine mostly played transgressors.

Kasi Lemmons is the rare filmmaker as comfortable in dreamworlds as histories. This week, Be Reel celebrates the groundbreaking director’s 60th trip around the sun by discussing three of Lemmons’ best-known films: “Eve’s Bayou” (1997), “Talk To Me” (2007), and “Harriet” (2019).

This Valentine’s Day, “The Silence of the Lambs” celebrates 30 years of haunting imaginations and changing serial-killer cinema forever. On this week’s Be Reel, Noah and Chance appreciate the many inimitable qualities of Jonathan Demme‘s 1991 classic, including its lack of genre fealty, its simultaneous intensity and restraint, and how it perfectly positions Clarice Starling as the true detective (so to speak) and Hannibal Lecter as a beyond-memorable side dish.

Though he made his best films in an era when auteurism was redefining American cinema, Alan J. Pakula never quite landed (or sought) the name recognition of peers like Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, or William Friedkin.

Dolly Parton is a true American icon. For her 75th birthday, Be Reel revisits the country superstar and EGOT nominee’s three most significant film roles in “9 to 5” (1980), “The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas” (1982), and “Steel Magnolias” (1989).

On December 12, a man called David Cornwell passed away in the English countryside. He was 89 and worked under the alias John Le Carré, a pen name that added a mysterious and sophisticated aura to 60 years of spy novels that were often quietly hellbent on demystifying the very genre he mastered.

When it comes to films about screenwriters, the challenge seems to be creating a movie that is not only itself an entertaining, self-contained experience but also one that illuminates the creative process that led to other notable work. This week on Be Reel, we look primarily at the new David Fincher film, “Mank” (2020) about Herman J.

Ahead of Bruce Lee’s (would-be) 80th birthday, Be Reel marvels at the spinning kicks, inimitable shrieks, and star wattage of the global icon. LISTEN: Alison Brie Talks ‘Happiest Season,’ ‘Promising Young Woman’ & Making Art That Matters [The Fourth Wall] This week, we dive into the Dragon’s fascinating life and numerous afterlives with the help of Lee biographer Jeff Chang (“Can’t Stop Won’t Stop”) and sociology professor / Tae Kwon Do black belt Lory Dance.

In honor of both the late Sean Connery and the 25th anniversary of “GoldenEye” (1995), Be Reel looks back at the debuts of every actor to embody 007: Connery, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan, and Daniel Craig—with a courteous nod to George Lazenby, too. LISTEN: A Very Tim Curry Halloween [Be Reel Podcast] Each actor brings different qualities to Bond in a franchise that tends to over-correct more than evolve.

It’s Halloween week, and nobody embodies the committed costuming and eerie camp of the holiday quite like Tim Curry. This week on Be Reel, we celebrate and reappraise the British legend’s iconic games of dress-up: “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” (1975), “Legend” (1985), and “It” (1990).

For the 30th anniversary of “To Sleep with Anger” (1990), Be Reel dives into the work of principal “L.A. Rebellion” director Charles Burnett.

An acclaimed novelist, performance artist, and independent filmmaker, Miranda July is a genre of her own—quite literally—this week on Be Reel. LISTEN: ‘Best In Show’ At 20: Christopher Guest Invented The Community Theater Of Bizarro Docs Before It Became Reality [Podcast] We’re searching for answers to this alienation human condition in the just-released “Kajillionaire” (2020), “Me and You and Everyone We Know” (2005), and “The Future” (2011).

Riding the ever-growing sensation of “This Is Spinal Tap” (1984) and freshly inspired by a chance encounter with an amateur production of “Annie Get Your Gun,” Christopher Guest cemented his filmmaking voice in the mid-1990s. With “Waiting For Guffman” in 1996 and then “Best In Show” (20 years old this week), the “Saturday Night Live” alum strung together an unlikely wave of bone-dry ensemble comedies.