Read it and Weep

It's easily the movie I've watched the most in my childhood, and the one that's had the biggest effect on my life. And yet it's been over 10 years since I've watched it. Will it hold up? To help me answer the question I brought on poker writer Zachery Elwood for some insight into the pokeriest parts. This is one of our longest episodes ever, but it'll breeze right by, hopefully!

I haven't mentioned it in a while, but I run another podcast called Pack Your Mics, about the Bravo cooking show Top Chef. Since we didn't have a new episode this week, I thought I'd throw you this for you to check out. It's from season 16 episode 2 of the show and we're joined by very special guest, Chef Jim Smith who competes on the show! If you like it, make sure to subscribe. And we'll be back with more Read it and Weep next week.

It's the most special, most magical episode of Season 2! Alex visited a theme park he hasn't been at since he was 16, Walt Disney's California Adventure, to see if it holds up. It's got new rides, new branding on old rides, and old rides that are still weird. And it's not quite Disneyland.

In another very special episode of Read it and Weep Season 2, we ate a bunch of candy from our youths and tried to decide if it held up. Some of it definitely didn't. And by the end of the episode, we weren't holding up well either.

It's our easiest quest of season 2: does the 1993 Bill Murray classic "Groundhog Day" hold up? (Yeah of course but let us have this, we have six more weeks of winter to get through.)

When Candice was a kid her and her family used to laugh and laugh at the 1986 film Soul Man. Will we still laugh at the light-hearted black-face comedy? Or just cringe ourselves to death? Find out!

And this is a first. Comedian Phoebe Bottoms choose her #DoesItHoldUp topic from a genre we've never discussed before on our TWO seasons of the show. An album. Specifically the breakout album from often-a-punchline Canadians Nickelback. Does it hold up? Or is it sad because of the way it reminds me of high school?

Season 2 continues with our focus on movies as biography. We explain the game "What is this song about?" that's shaping season two. Guest of honor Hunter Donaldson picked Fight Club to find out if it holds up. Alex and Anthony had similar history's with it. So does it? Uh...

To start out the new season, we're doing a series of episodes on the theme, Does It Hold Up? We're inviting really cool, funny people on, asking them to pick a topic that meant a lot to them as a youth, and trying to decide if they still feel the same way about it. We started things off with comedian Simon Gibson (catch him on the Amazon original series Inside Jokes) and he made us watch Pee-wee's Big Adventure. Alex had never seen it before. Will he like it? Find out!

It's the most often played Christmas movie in America and it's undoubtedly a classic. But is it good? Or is it just a 2+ hour GoFundMe for a banker who doesn't communicate with his wife? We've got an esteemed panel to discuss it including a first time guest who's never seen it before!

People kept raving about how delightful this little British bear is but I had to see for myself. Our one and only bear movie of Grizzmass 2018, we watched and completely adored this movie. Plus! The invention of the new game FAN FACTS. Super fun. Keep em coming!

It's the Christmas movie that has kids everywhere raving, "I like when the bad guys get hit in the face." But does the facial-abuse comedy hold up to adult scrutiny? Find out!

We all know Christmas needs to be saved. No, not from commercialism, paganism, secularism, and the conspiracy of atheists who insist we acknowledge the existence of other people but saying "happy holidays." Oh no. Kirk Cameron thinks Christmas is perfect the way it is, it just needs to be saved from religious people not enjoying it enough. So he's helped produce a movie where he uses the power of insane logic to justify everything he was going to do anyway.

What better way to end our first ever James Bond month than with the parody that changed the Bond franchise. So we dug up the low-budget comedy from our childhoods that was quoted to death, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. We wonder aloud whether or not it holds up, and settle on kinda. Grab your nostalgia hats and Swedish penis pumps and dive in.

James Bond hasn't always been a famous international man of mystery. Briefly, he was a mysterious Australian international man of mystery. For one day and one day only, he was played by George Lazenby (peach), a model with an ocean-deep chin notch. Is he the worst James Bond? The best? Underrated? Not Yet Rated? Find out! Also of note, this includes the saddest James Bond scene, the weirdest, the most uncomfortable daughter-auction, and an allergy based harem.