Reels & Wheels

Phantasm is a brilliant horror movie that bends reality and deals with heavy situations of confronting mortality and loss. It's also got a kick-ass 1971 HemiCuda that went on to become a mainstay vehicle of the Phantasm movie series. For this episode, James and Sid are honored to be joined by one of the stars of the Phantasm series, Reggie Bannister and his wife, Gigi. Not only are they a great couple to talk to with lots of great information on the movie, they are both huge car enthusiasts. Want to find out what sleeper Reggie drag raced when he was young? Want to find out what kind of experimental car Gigi got to drive (and crash)? You're only going to find it here on Reels and Wheels! A big Reels and Wheels thank you to Reggie and Gigi for joining us on the podcast - please drop by their website, www.reggiebannister.com to find out what's going on, including a big project they are working on. Follow @ReelsandWheels, @SidBridgeComedy and @S2KJames, subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and leave some feedback!

Wouldn't it be great if there was a line of toys that took everything you loved about your other toys and mashed them all together?! Like if you could have the best of Transformers AND GI Joe AND James Bond's cars AND the Spy Hunter car AND Bruce Wayne's gadgets?! That was M.A.S.K. This 1985 cartoon was Kenner's attempt to market a high-quality line of toys with a TV show meant to stoke kids' imaginations. It wasn't as successful and enduring as other toy lines or cartoons, but it sure was awesome. James and Sid talk about the pilot episode of M.A.S.K. - it's a strange mixture of excellent and terrible. It's both smart and dumb at the same time. It defies description. Watch it again with Reels and Wheels.  @ReelsAndWheels @S2KJames @SidBridgeComedy

Could this be the greatest movie ever? At Reels and Wheels, we don't need to spend a lot of time extolling the virtues of Evil Dead 2 - Sam Raimi's brilliant directing and visuals, Bruce Campbell's amazing physical acting skill - it speaks for itself. We're just here to talk about a special 1973 Oldsmobile Delta 88. Alan Vannucchi - comedian and horror movie expert - joins Sid and James to talk about the movie and the car.  Dubbed "The Classic" by Raimi, the Oldsmobile is HIS car - since he was a teenager. It somehow sneaks into every Sam Raimi movie (kind of like his brother, Ted).  Just how omnipotent is this Olds? Do Alan and Sid do a good job making James love this movie? Can Sid make the case that the 1973 Delta is really a beautiful car that deserves praise among collectors? Subscribe and follow us! @Alan_Vann_, @S2KJames, @SidBridgeComedy, @ReelsandWheels and leave us some feedback! Groovy.

This week, Sid and I review the 90s Blockbuster spectacular, The Rock.  Starring Nicholas Cage, Sean Connery, and Ed Harris, a Humvee, a Ferrari, and hours of helicopters. We are joined by Tobias Ellis on this one, and it's loads of fun.

In 1991, Ridley Scott took a break from directing stuff like Alien and Blade Runner and allowed himself to be convinced to helm Thelma and Louise - and that was history. Joining Sid and James is a great friend and hilarious comedian, Holly Owens.  Thelma and Louise is an iconic feminist road movie. It's a slice of life on film that is beautifully shot, painfully realistic, and packed with great characters - even the car. The 1966 Ford Thunderbird driven by our protagonist gets refreshingly characterized, accompanying Thelma and Louise throughout their struggles.  Follow @ReelsandWheels on social media - subscribe on iTunes or Stitcher and leave feedback! Find Holly online (@HollyPoops) and catch her show, The Sunday Funnies, every Sunday at 8pm at Cozzy's Comedy Club. Don't forget to follow Sid (@SidBridgeComedy) and James (@S2KJames), too!

If you were anywhere near childhood in the 1980's, KITT was probably your hero and Knight Rider was probably the greatest TV show EVER. At least, that's how Sid & James felt then and still feel today. Christian Lee of PlaidDadPlog.com and DadSews.com joins Sid and James to talk about Knight of the Phoenix, the pilot that began KITT's illustrious TV career. To Christian, it didn't hold up as good TV - oh well. You can't win 'em all... One thing's for sure - The Knight 2000 - a car with a distinguished voice and plenty of awesome gadgetry - is a scene stealing hero and attempts to replicate him in the new millenium have fallen painfully short. What made this so awesome? Why was it better to create a car show without corporate support from the carmaker at first? Get ready to relive your childhood and learn a few things! Subscribe! Follow @ReelsandWheels on social media! Follow Sid - @SidBridgeComedy and James - @S2KJames and find Christian at www.plaiddadblog.com and at www.dadsews.com! 

GoldenEye was a turning point for the James Bond Franchise - both in terms of actors and cars! After years of delay, Pierce Brosnan was finally able to step into the roll he was born to play in a movie that represents a generational shift in the franchise. GoldenEye also marks the first of a three-movie deal with BMW to provide the trademark James Bond supercars. BMW turned up the hype with the introduction of the beautiful Z3 roadster, but the car got very little screen time. How did things work out with BMW? Why was the car barely in the movie? How does this movie rank among other Bond films? Joining us is comedian and car enthusiast David Beck! David jumps right in and helps us understand how some of the cars in the movie would really fair against each other. Subscribe to Reels and Wheels on iTunes or Stitcher and leave us feedback! Follow @ReelsandWheels on social media and follow Sid (@SidBridgeComedy) and James (@S2KJames), too! Find David Beck on Facebook and at www.whoisdavidbeck.com!

Ok, we admit it. This is a super fun movie. Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby features Will Ferrell in full Will Ferrell mode. In retrospect, the guy is extremely funny. What really knocks this movie out of the park is an excellent supporting cast, most of whom are playing against type. Joining Sid and James to talk about this movie and the state of NASCAR is comedian Tim Loulies! Tim gives great insight into the NASCAR experience and all the pieces that make this movie a quotable and extremely fun comedy. And James talks some Formula One jargon just to balance things out. Tim Loulies is a touring comic and the teacher at the Virginia Beach Funny Bone comedy school. He runs comedy shows at Derls and Mario's restaurants as well as on the Spirit of Norfolk. Find Tim on social media by searching "Tim Loulies!" As always, follow @ReelsandWheels on Facebook and follow Sid (@SidBridgeComedy) and James (@S2KJames). Don't forget to leave us some feedback!

A touch of creativity and the help of a good writer COULD HAVE produced a noteworthy sequel to one of the greatest car movies of all time, Smokey and the Bandit. Instead, everybody failed. Our hero Hal Needham failed to produce anything more than a week retread of the previous movie, our stars (with the exception of Jerry Reed) failed to show much interest in their own performances, and Pontiac failed by producing the most anemic, gawdy, Trans Am with 1980 Turbo Trans Am. Smokey and the Bandit II might have made a few kids happy. It might have made its money-grabbing producer happy, and it might have made Hal Needham happy on payday, but it sent what could have been a bankable franchise into a downward spiral it would never recover from. Jerry Reed tries his best to make this movie great - and it's not without its moments - indeed, a stunt man performs a record-setting jump that's mostly buried in the climactic game of chicken at the end of the movie - but it's not enough.  This movie, like Burt Reynolds' fla

Edgar Wright has created a masterpiece. This kick-ass car movie isn't just set to music... it's part of the music. Baby Driver goes a step beyond when it comes to car chase choreography and it's a car movie with great characters and plenty of fun easter eggs. Ed Carden of The Pushers (owners of The Push Comedy Theater) once again joins James and Sid, this time to bring his expertise as a huge fan of Edgar Wright's work.  This movie is going to be a requirement for any car lover's collection. How confident was Edgar Wright in this movie? Pretty confident - the entire opening chase featuring a red Subaru WRX is available for free on YouTube.  How amazing was the choreography? What would your getaway car be?! Enjoy this episode of Reels and Wheels! Find Ed Carden at the Push Comedy Theater - www.pushcomedytheater.com - we especially recommend you catch him during one of their legendary "Improvaggedon" shows! Catch Sid @SidBridgeComedy and James @S2KJames on Facebook or Twitter. Subscribe to Reels and Wheels on i

The Love Bug... Cute Disney movie? Yes. Awesome racing movie? Even more so, yes! Sid and James are joined by Jason Torchinsky of Jalopnik to talk about the movie that started the Herbie franchise, the awesome cars that played supporting roles, and the surprisingly great racing scenes of The Love Bug. Not only is Jason a writer for Jalopnik, but he's also a VW Beetle owner and he's unusually passionate about this movie. When you give The Love Bug a second viewing as an adult, you start to understand why. Herbie is up against some amazing race competition - C2 Corvettes, Jaguars, Lamborghinis, and of course the ultra rare, Buick V8 powered Apollo GT. Racing scenes convey a sense of danger and excitement that you honestly wouldn't expect from a kids movie, and Herbie - a sentient VW that doesn't talk, manages to convey quite a few complex emotions, including a pretty intense suicide attempt.  The laughs are there, too - with Buddy Hackett shedding his foul-mouth stand-up persona to play the silly sidekick and Da

Ah, the glorious world of late 1980's horror. In Warlock, a witch hunter doing battle with the titular Warlock in colonial America follows his adversary forward in time to the 1980's in order to stop him from destroying the world. Dragged into the middle of this mess is our protagonist, played by Lori Singer, who joins Redfearn the Witch Hunter on his quest to save the world from evil paganism - all while depending on a daily driver that's unsafe at any speed. Yep, our hero drives a Corvair. James makes Sid pull double duty as host AND guest, as Sid has previously owned two Corvairs and can talk about the car from first hand experience. Was this movie really bad? Was it good? What factors sabotaged it from being great? And was the Corvair all that bad?! Was it actually unsafe at any speed or was Ralph Nader just an idiot? (Actually you probably know the answer to that one). Subscribe to Reels and Wheels on iTunes or Stitcher and leave us some feedback! Follow @ReelsandWheels, @SidBridgeComedy and @S2KJames!

YES IT'S A CAR MOVIE! Sorry. We've already had that question a few times before people even knew we were recording this episode. Comedian/Member of Plan B Improv and friend of the show CB Wilkins joins James and Sid to talk about Spaceballs! In this epic Mel Brooks comedy, the Star Wars universe is parodied so well that George Lucas himself blessed the movie, telling Brooks it would be a great action film even without the Star Wars references. And he's right. Brooks did an amazing job constructing this parody of the scifi universe, creating great characters and an infinite number of quotable lines. And yes, there are iconic cars - particularly Lonestar's ship, which is a barely modified 1986 Winnebago. Princess Vespa cruises in a space Mercedes, and the evil Spaceballs comb the desert in a Volkswagen Thing! Subscribe to Reels and Wheels on iTunes or Stitcher and leave us some feedback! Find CB Wilkins online @CBWilkinsTweets and www.planbimprov.com. Find us, @ReelsAndWheels, Sid @SidBridgeComedy and James @S2

Celebrating 40 years of Smokey and the Bandit, Reels and Wheels recently hosted a meetup at a screen of one of the greatest car movies of all time. James was joined by a group of autocrossers who debate what would make a great bandit car today. It's a fun conversation and a great way to celebrate one of our favorite movies!   Need more? Check out our original episode on Smokey and the Bandit: http://reelsandwheels.libsyn.com/smokey-and-the-bandit  

William Friedkin directed The Exorcist and The French Connection. If you ask him which film he considers to be his magnum opus, his will proudly name his biggest box office failure, Sorcerer! Sorcerer (1977) is a film about four desperate men stuck in third world South America forced to truck unstable explosives through the jungle. Confused yet? There's nothing supernatural about this movie, unless you count the two trucks - a pair of 1951 GMC M211's named Lazaro and Sorcerer. Sorcerer failed in the box office because many factors: It's misleading name, people being confused since the first 15 minutes are not in English, and it just happen to hit the theaters at the same time as Star Wars. It's a shame because this movie is awesome. Joining us to soak in the awesomeness is script writer, film buff and comedian Jeff Davis. We discuss the craziness behind the scenes of this film, the nature of the trucks, and how to bring great films like this one to a wider audience. Follow @ReelsandWheels and subscribe on Sti

Paul Newman was a fixture in the car racing universe. How did it happen? Winning. Newman saw the script for the 1969 movie about a car racer and his love life and decided to make sure it was elevated from movie-of-the-week status to big budget box office picture.  Winning was about a race car driver who focused on succeeding at Indianapolis at the expense of his marriage. And it kind of sucked. Joining us is Heyward Wagner, Director of Experiential Programs for the Sports Car Club of America. Heyward has first hand knowledge of Newman's impact on the SCCA racing scene and agrees with James and Sid that the movie kind of sucked. How accurate was its portrayal of various forms of racing? What good came from the movie? (Spoiler: Lots of good came from the movie) Can a "great" racing movie be made today? Follow @ReelsandWheels and subscribe on Stitcher and iTunes. Find Sid and James- @SidBridgeComedy and @S2KJames on social media. Interested in all the great things Heyward is doing for the SCCA? Find out more her

So you need a sequel to your exciting car racing movie, but your Disney overlords want you to sell tons of toys and give them more Larry the Cable Guy... Do you blow them off or go all in? Well, Pixar went all in. Cars 2 is one of the most critically panned movies Pixar ever created. In some ways, it's terrible. In some ways, it's positively brilliant. Pixar doesn't half-ass anything and Cars 2 is a fun spy thriller with plenty of shiny toys for the kids and lots of in-jokes for adults.  Joining us to talk Cars 2 is one of our favorite repeat guests, comedian Derek Williams! Derek and James defend the movie to Sid, who kind of sees their point. Yeah, it's a little ridiculous, but for us car guys it's not a bad thing - it's actually a good way to expose our kids to different forms of racing outside of NASCAR thanks to the variety of race cars in the movie.  Which is the best race car? Does the movie treat lemons fairly? What's Sig from Deadliest Catch doing in there anyway?! Follow @ReelsandWheels on iTunes an

Animal House. It invented the view of fraternities in movies. Heck, it could be argued that it even reshaped the fraternity experience on college campuses nationwide (even though it was based on real experiences that were tamed DOWN for the movie). No matter how you look at it, National Lampoon's Animal House is a groundbreaking comedy that stands the test of time. And, oh yeah. It's a car movie. Central to the plot of this movie is the 1964 Lincoln Continental with it's iconic suicide doors, trusted to Kent Dorfman by his brother... only for it to become THE DEATHMOBILE!  Joining us for this podcast is Rick Bruner. Rick knows his comedy. He's the manager of the Virginia Beach Funny Bone. He also grew up working around cars - including a time when he worked in a car museum that housed such iconic vehicles as the Muenster Coach, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and cars owed by Clark Gable and Greta Garbo. We have a lot of fun talking about the college experience, the cars, the comedy and trying to figure out how the

In 2007, Transformers returned to the big screen. A new generation was turned on to new versions of the toys that made it so fun to be a kid in the 1980s, but now Michael Bay was in charge. Joining Sid and James to talk about 2007's Transformers is Gabriel Owens, AKA The Salty Seaman (YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/recharge138). Gabriel has a show called Military Bullshit where he points out inaccuracies in movie portrayals of the military. He joins us to talk about the cars of Transformers and the military BS. Between explosions and Megan Fox running in slow motion, Transformers is actually a fun movie. James and Gabriel plead the case to Sid that Michael Bay's insanity doesn't ruin this movie - sure, there are the usual complaints, but in retrospect, it's a fun shot of energy to something we grew up with.  General Motors paid to play in this movie so most of the good guys are GM cars. How did those choices work out? How does this movie stack up from a military standpoint? Subscribe to Reels and Wheel

On this episode of Reels and Wheels, Sid and James tackle another essential car movie... the 1973 classic, American Graffiti! They are joined by Brett Stillo of the 5 Minutes of Trouble podcast... and someone who has had some close encounters with the cars of American Graffiti and with its director, George Lucas. American Graffiti launched an entire genre. George Lucas was looking to make a movie with a soul that also documented his youth around a long gone car culture. Cruising was how people kept up with each other because the internet existed and before gas shortages, over-regulation and insurance companies ruined cars in 1973. Make sure you subscribe to Reels and Wheels on Stitcher or iTunes and leave feedback! Follow us @ReelsandWheels, @S2KJames and @SidBridgeComedy, and find Brett @5MinutesofTrouble!