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Published by Tony, Phil, Thom
The Movie Loft Podcast features three Boston boys, Tony, Phil and Thom, in an old barn loft talking about '80s movies and memories. The name and premise is also a nod to a titular Boston institution, The Movie Loft, featuring Dana Hersey, which ran on WSBK TV-38 throughout our formative years. This project started as an excuse to capture our conversations for posterity. Highlighting a different movie in each episode, we revisit some long forgotten memories, and in the process weave together a documentary of our salad days. The point of this show is not to walk anyone through a movie scene by scene - we’re well aware you’ve been watching these flicks for decades. The aim is to discuss our deep appreciation for what it took to get each picture made, where we were when we experienced them, and how they’re a part of the zeitgeist of their times. Sure, we have some opinions, maybe even a few “hot takes”, but we’re really just here for your entertainment. Hopefully you’ll finish each episode feeling like you had a seat at our table.
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Send us Fan Mail Just like I told you before. Another episode with some jolly old tales of Malden life.
Send us Fan Mail Here's a quick hit from the loft. These are movies that always seemed to be on the cable box '85. And I got caught up in them every time. It was like the O.G. doomscroll, but with a great return. Don't even ask my how the '85 episode is longer than the '81–'84 episode.....
Send us Fan Mail Study aid for the Green Line Physical Characteristics test.
Send us Fan Mail SPEED LIMIT: AWKWARD In this episode, we’re breaking down the 1985 classic Back to the Future, directed by Robert Zemeckis. We follow Marty McFly (Michael J. Fox), a guitar playing, skateboard riding, teenager who accidentally erases his own existence. While Dr. Emmett "Doc" Brown (Christopher Lloyd) turns a DeLorean into a time machine, proving that if you’re going to mess with the space-time continuum, you might as well do it with gull-wing doors. Marty gets stuck in 1955 and has to play matchmaker for his own parents. He meets the younger, significantly nerdier George McFly (Crispin Glover), who is essentially a human doormat, and Lorraine Baines (Lea Thompson), who develops a crush on Marty that makes the us all want to hide under our seats. It’s a bold cinematic choice to have a mother flirt with her future son, but hey, it was the '80s! Meanwhile, they have to dodge the town bully, Biff Tannen (Thomas F. Wilson), a man whose intellectual capacity is roughly equivalent to the dump truck of manure he ends up covered in. And a fantastic supporting cast who keep the 1950s (and '80s) feeling alive. From Jennifer Parker (Claudia Wells), Marty’s supportive girlfriend who spends most of the movie waiting on a porch, to the stern Mr. Strickland (James Tolkan), who has apparently been bald and angry since the dawn of time. We also can't forget the musical stylings of Marvin Berry (Harry Waters Jr.), who calls his cousin Chuck to let him know he found that "new sound" Marty stole from the future. It’s a wild ride and a great reminder that your parents were once just as awkward as you are.
Send us Fan Mail Here's a quick hit from the loft. These are movies that always seemed to be on the cable box between 1980-1984. And I got caught up in them every time. Hypnotic. It was like the O.G. doomscroll, but with a great return.
Send us Fan Mail Another brotherly tale of 28 and 36 Spring Street lore. Go ahead and google map it for reference. Maybe you can even follow the foot chase a little.
Send us Fan Mail This is a minisode on one of my favorite films. One that feels so real for my age and station at the time that I feel like I could walk right into it. Just deserved a revisit. Hope it doesn't put you to sleep.
Send us Fan Mail A John Hughes/Chris Columbus joint, Home Alone is the heartwarming tale of an upper-middle-class family who go to Paris and accidentally leave their youngest child behind like an extra carry-on they didn’t feel like paying for. Eight-year-old Kevin McCallister—played by a pint-sized, eyebrow-acting Macaulay Culkin —responds to this minor hiccup by eating junk food, watching gangster movies, and turning his house into a suburban Saw trap for two burglars whose crime is mostly being too stupid to quit. Those burglars are Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern , delivering what may be cinema’s most sustained assault on human skulls outside of a cartoon. In a way, Home Alone is basically It’s a Wonderful Life if George Bailey wished everyone away and immediately started committing war crimes against local criminals. While Catherine O’Hara panics her way across continents and John Heard quietly realizes he’s a terrible father, Kevin learns that family matters… but also that you can permanently disable two grown men with household items. It’s Christmas magic, but with more concussions and far fewer angels getting their wings.
Send us Fan Mail 'Twas the week before Christmas, when all through our house Not a creature was stirring, not even that big mouth Our stockings were hung by the chimney with care In hopes that the MPD would stay in the Square The renters were nestled all snug in their beds While visions of alchy bums danced in their heads And mummy in her Star Market smock and I in my head spin hat Had just settled our brains for a long winter's nap When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter Away to the window I flew like a flash Tore through the plastic and threw up the sash The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow Gave a lustre of midday to objects below When what to my wondering eyes did I see But a rented U-haul and my brotherly thieves With their friend Paul as the driver so lively and drunk I knew in a moment this was more than a funk More rapid than eagles these coursers they came And one whistled, and shouted, and gave them all aim To the top of the porch and to the back driveway wall Now stash away! Stash away! Stash away all! As leaves that before the wild hurricane fly If police should appear, they'll slip away sly So up to the back of the house the coursers they flew With a truck full of trees, and all those wreaths too And then, in a twinkling, I heard all the proof The prancing and pawing of each Chippewa boot As I drew in my head, and was turning around Down Spring Street came the throngs with a bound They weren't dressed in furs, but heard something afoot And their money was crisp as in our hands it was put Departing with a bundle of pine they had flung on their back Bought from the neighborhood peddlers open round back Their eyes—how they twinkled! Their dimples, how merry! Their cheeks were like roses, their noses like a cherry! Their droll little mouths drawn up like a bow While bolt cutters and work gloves lay muddied in snow Held was the stump of a lead pipe tight in his hands To make them believe the trees were shorn from our own Robbin' Hood land Some even sold by a broad with a slim little face Our mother the matriarch known to put all in their place The chubby and plump, the blind and the deaf And we'd chuckle when at our back door she'd offer a right or a left As occasionally with a wink of an eye and a tilt of a head Some renters were left on sidewalks thought to be dead Jamie spoke not a word, but went straight to his work Knocking out redwood Big Bob; without even a smirk Now back to the telling of our story at hand, the one of the boys selling trees minus the brand Rarely giving a wave, from the peak of back porch stairs Knowing the close shave averted from one of their dares He reached for his pocket, to his team he gave a bundle Knowing those fine trees were now homed with the humble Then I heard him exclaim, ere he walked out of sight— “Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good fight!”
Send us Fan Mail It’s Thanksgiving, and we're carving up some Planes, Trains and Automobiles , and it’s not just as a holiday classic, but as a masterclass in comedic discomfort delivered by two legends at the peak of their powers: Steve Martin and John Candy. Martin is a symphony of simmering fury. A brilliant performance of the slow-motion dissolution of a WASP executive’s sanity. Meanwhile, Candy's a bulldozing force of good-natured, oblivious optimism. Martin’s precise, explosive rants are only possible because of Candy’s seismic, childlike sincerity. Elevating what could have been a simple road trip comedy into a biting, yet ultimately heartwarming, testament to the fact that even the most insufferable human beings deserve a little mercy... but only after they’ve endured absolute hell.
Send us Fan Mail The Monster Squad (1987) is what happens when a bunch of middle school monster nerds decide to take on Dracula, the Wolfman, and the rest of Universal’s greatest hits — armed mostly with sarcasm, bike helmets, and the power of friendship. The film was unfairly dismissed when it came out, possibly because audiences weren’t ready for a movie where a kid yells, “Wolfman’s got nards!” and somehow, it becomes cinematic poetry. Over the years, The Monster Squad has crawled out of its coffin and earned its cult status — a true hidden gem for anyone who loves practical effects, 80s charm, and kids who apparently skipped all adult supervision. It’s equal parts monster mash and love letter to classic horror, proving that sometimes the movies we ignored at the box office are the ones that stick around in our undead hearts forever.
Send us Fan Mail Another pull from one of The Malden Chronicles episodes that's worth a revisit.
Send us Fan Mail Jacob’s Ladder is part psychological horror, part spiritual breakdown, and all sweaty paranoia. Tim Robbins nails it as a Vietnam vet whose post-war life turns into a fever dream of demons, flashbacks, and truly bad subway etiquette. It's the kind of movie that makes you question reality, mortality, and why anyone would trust a chiropractor named Louis with existential advice. Come for the psychological trauma, stay because you can’t tell what’s real anymore.
Send us Fan Mail People, places and things.
Send us Fan Mail Grab your flamethrower and your blood test kit, because we’re thawing out John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982) — the frosty freakshow where Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wilford Brimley, and the gang learn the hard way that trust is dead and the dog is definitely not okay. And remember, it’s not paranoia if your best friend’s head just grew spider legs. And that Entertainment Tonight intro music I used just happens to be from June 25, 1982. Youtube is a strange and wonderful place.
Send us Fan Mail Groovy.
Send us Fan Mail This is a special double header is brought to you hot from theater to loft. Bask in the greatness of a franchise that we're glad to see propagate through the decades. From Leslie to Liam, and Priscilla to Pam. Chef's kiss.
Send us Fan Mail July 3, 1984, 5:30 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time. "Burt, I...I think things are gettin' outta hand!" If that isn't the understatement of the '80s. Return Of The Living Dead is serving up more brains, just in case all that mystery meat in them hotdogs you ate on the 4th whet your appetite. James Karen, Linnea Quigley, Clu Gulager and Don Calfa bring the heat in this comedy horror. Sure, pitting punks against zombies might be a staple of the genre now, but at the time it was a radical idea. Like chocolate and peanut butter, give me more please. Now! The heat in the barn made us a little lethargic on this July episode. If I didn't know any better, I might have thought there was some 2-4-5 Trioxin in the air.
Send us Fan Mail "My name's Louden, Louden Swain. Last week I turned 18. I wasn't ready for it. I haven't done anything yet. So I made this deal with myself. This is the year I make my mark." What to say about Vision Quest? It's a staple of any well rounded '80s film diet. Unless you're cutting weight at an unhealthy rate. And let it be known, since I don't think I quite drove it home during this episode....this is one of my all time (unlikely) favorite movies. Matthew Modine and Linda Fiorentino make this a most pleasurable trip into making one's mark on the eve of adulthood. Michael Schoeffling delivers as Kuch in one of the better roles of his short film career. Frank Jasper as Shute! A nicely stacked cast against a fantastically stacked soundtrack, with Tangerine Dream bringing up the rear on the score. As Elmo would say "it's ain't the one hour and forty seven minutes....it's what happens in the one hour and forty seven minutes." Fairly profound. He also said "A cooze doctor in outer space?", so...
Send us Fan Mail This scientific romp was part of the ultimate trio released in August 1985. Real Genius, Weird Science, and My Science Project were released within one week of each other and just one month after Back to the Future. With Martha Coolidge at the helm, this movie spared the usual sophomoric fare we all love the '80s for. I love those sentence-ending prepositions. I ain't know much, but I know what I like. And I likes me some Val Kilmer. With no pandering to the usual bully/nerd tropes, this movie was rewritten and executed in a way that reveres the nerds and underdogs, full stop.
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Observed September 11, 2026. Cached outside the daily freshness window; the positions keep the date they were taken on.
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