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This pairing takes a long, serious look at the perils of alcoholism, with two classic films. Starting off, it's the first film to have the same individual win the Academy Awards for Best Director and Best Screenplay for the same project. In writer/director Billy Wilder's "The Lost Weekend," from 1945, we're introduced to writer Don Birnam (Ray Milland, who also won the Academy Award for Best Actor for this film) who is getting ready to leave for a long weekend of writing on a farm out in the middle of nowhere. His brother, Wick (Phillip Terry) is going with him, and has taken great pains to make sure that Don is taking no alcohol with him, as Don is an alcoholic. Don's girlfriend, Helen St. James (Jane Wyman) stops in to encourage him and send him off with a few small gifts. All the while, Don is desperately trying to get a bottle of whiskey he's hung out his window on a string into his luggage without Wick or Helen seeing him. After Wick discovers the bottle and dumps it out, they both depart, leaving Don frantically searching his apartment for one of the other bottles he's hidden... to no avail: Wick has found them all and disposed of them. But the arrival of their cleaning lady tips Don off to a ten-dollar bill she's supposed to receive for her work. Instead, Don lies about finding it and, after she departs, heads off to the liquor store, and then the bar. There, he's served and admonished by bartender Nat (Howard Da Silva), and flirted with by local call girl Gloria (Doris Dowling). This begins a booze-fueled spiral that might just be terminal, depending on Don's choices and Helen's commitment. Also starring Frank Faylen, Anite Sharp-Bolster, and Frank Orth.

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Our second feature in our pairing of Cohen Brothers movies was their follow-up to last week's film! In 2000's "O Brother, Where Art Thou," the brothers took the classic Greek myth of "The Odyssey" and set it during the US's great depression in the 1930s! Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), along with fellow convicts Pete (John Turturro) and Delmar (Tim Blake Nelson) have escaped from a chain gang and are on the run from the law, headed for Everett's family cabin to retrieve a million dollars in stolen money that's supposedly buried there. After bring freed from their shackles by Pete's cousin, the three are later turned in by that same relative. After a daring escape, they meet up with a young black man named Tommy Johnson (Chris Thomas King) who tells them he's just sold his soul to the Devil in order to be able to play his guitar like a master. The four end up visiting a small, independent recording studio run by a radio station man (Stephen Root), and they record a version of "Man of Constant Sorrow" as the "Soggy Bottom Boys." The end up falling in with George "I'm not Babyface!" Nelson (Michael Badalucco) for his third consecutive bank heist and miraculously manage to get away! Meanwhile, their recording of "Man of Constant Sorrow" has become a huge hit, and music industry folk are also trying to track them down... to offer them a contract! From there, the story just gets deeper and more complicated, but n the end Everett, Pete, and Delmar get almost everything want. Almost. Also starring John Goodman, Holly Hunter, Wayne Duvall, and Daniel von Bargen! Plus, the trio reveal which two classic cautionary tales about the perils of drinking will make up the next pairing!

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This pairing celebrate the work of writer and director brothers Joel and Ethan Cohen! First up, made in 1998 but set at the beginning of the 90s, "The Big Lebowski" follows the misadventures of a man named Jeffrey Lebowski (Jeff Bridges), although he prefers to be known as "The Dude." He's at home, when two men break into his home, threat him with bodily harm if he doesn't cough up the money to pay his wife's debts, and then they urinate on his rug. Unfortunately, the Dude isn't married, and the men clearly have the wrong guy. Later, at a bowling alley, his friends Donny (Steve Buscemi) and Walter Sobchak (John Goodman) hear the Dude's tale of woe and Walter convinces the Dude to visit the "other" Jeffrey Leboswki and seek restitution for his ruined rug! The next day, the Dude meets the "big" Lebowski (David Huddleston) and his aide Brandt (Philip Seymour Hoffman). The "big" Lebowski flat out refuses to make the Dude whole, but on his way out, he lies to Brandt and ends up taking a rug from the mansion home with him. Unfortunately, this is just beginning of what becomes a comedy of errors when the "big" Lebowski's wife, Bunny (Tara Reid), gets kidnapped, and he and Brandt hire the Dude to deliver the ransom money and get her back! But, due to Walter's interference, things don't go as planned and the story just continues to spin out of control from there. Also starring Julianne Moore, Peter Stormare, Flea, and John Turturro!

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Our talk show, "From the Balcony," is usually for our Patreon supporters, but we wanted to share this one with everyone as a big "THANK YOU!" to everyone who listens to our show! Were it not for you, we wouldn't still be going 9 years after we started! This is the story of how this podcast began as an idea from a comic and sci-fi convention, and what it means to the three of us that you're listening and have been for all these years!

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