Zen Pop

Cathy, Todd, Jacey, Camryn, and Skylar draft their way through 10 movie categories: horror/thriller, rom-com, animated, 80s, since 2020, based on a book, sports, most rewatched, holiday, and honorable mention. Snake draft order, 10 rounds, everyone answers every category exactly once.

Whose picks are closest to yours?

Part 1 of 2.

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Cathy and Todd continue their summer blockbusters series with Terminator 2: Judgment Day, James Cameron’s 1991 sci-fi action landmark that grossed $519 million on a then-record $102 million budget and won four Academy Awards. They cover the best behind-the-scenes stories, including how Billy Idol was originally cast as the T-1000 before a motorcycle accident took him out, how Edward Furlong was discovered at a Pasadena Boys a...

Cathy and Todd discuss Gladiator, released in 2000 and directed by Ridley Scott, it stars Russell Crowe as Maximus, a Roman general betrayed by the Emperor’s son Commodus, who murders his own father Marcus Aurelius to seize power, then orders the execution of Maximus and his entire family. Sold into slavery and forced into the arena, Maximus fights his way back to Rome for one purpose: vengeance. With a box office of $466 mil...

Cathy and Todd continue their summer blockbusters series with Raiders of the Lost Ark, the George Lucas and Steven Spielberg collaboration born from a beach conversation in Hawaii, diving into the film’s origins, iconic casting (Tom Selleck almost got the role), and the chaotic Tunisia shoot where nearly the entire cast and crew got food poisoning. They rank history’s oddest movie titles, wrestle with the film’s d...

Cathy and Todd kick off their summer blockbuster series with Top Gun (1986), directed by Tony Scott and produced by Simpson and Bruckheimer, which turned a $15 million budget into $357 million worldwide and made Tom Cruise a superstar. The episode covers the Scott brothers’ contrasting Hollywood legacies, the Navy’s behind-the-scenes script approval that reshaped the story, plus fun trivia like Cruise’s height-cor...

Cathy and Todd discuss Mel Brooks’ Spaceballs for Zen Pop’s space month, a 1987 Star Wars parody following Lone Starr and his half-man half-dog sidekick Barf as they rescue Princess Vespa from Dark Helmet and the incompetent President Skroob (whose name is literally an anagram of Brooks). The cast includes Bill Pullman, John Candy, Rick Moranis, Daphne Zuniga, Joan Rivers, and Dom DeLuise as Pizza the Hutt. They discuss...

Cathy and Todd discuss Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar for Space Month – the dying Earth, the wormhole near Saturn, the black hole that swallows decades of a man’s life while his daughter grows old without him. They get into Matt Damon showing up two-thirds through as a villain nobody knew was in the movie, why Anne Hathaway’s love speech is the whole point of the film, the fact that Nolan grew 500 acres of...

Cathy and Todd discuss Apollo 13 (1995) for Space Month, Ron Howard’s docudrama starring Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, Bill Paxton, Gary Sinise, and Ed Harris, based on the true story of NASA’s near-disastrous 1970 lunar mission. The film was nominated for nine Academy Awards and grossed over $355 million worldwide, cementing its place as one of the great survival stories ever put on screen. They discuss the complicated legac...

It’s Space Month on Zen Pop, and Cathy and Todd are talking about E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, the Steven Spielberg film he called the first movie he ever made for himself. They discuss why it dominated 1982 and held the all-time worldwide box office record for eleven years, the Reese’s Pieces deal that made Mars look very foolish, the Atari game so bad they buried it in the desert, and why at its core this movie is real...

Cathy and Todd discuss Rocky IV, the 1985 film that Sylvester Stallone wrote, directed, and starred in, grossing $300 million on a $31 million budget and spending six weeks at number one over Christmas. They break down Apollo Creed’s shocking death at the hands of Ivan Drago and the real story of Brigitte Nielsen sliding a photo under Stallone’s hotel room door and landing a role he wrote specifically for her. They dig ...

Cathy and Todd discuss Rocky 3, the 1982 sequel where Stallone ditched everything that made the first two movies feel real and ended up with the biggest hit of the franchise anyway. They talk about where Mr. T came from, how Hulk Hogan got hired, and how Stallone dropped 40 pounds so fast it caused memory loss. They get into how “Eye of the Tiger” only exists because Queen said no, the statue that Philadelphia didn&rsqu...

Cathy and Todd discuss Rocky II (1979), the Sylvester Stallone-written and directed sequel that earned $200 million worldwide and briefly became the highest-grossing sequel ever made. They break down the film’s best behind-the-scenes stories and hidden details, make the case that Apollo Creed is actually the more compelling character in the film, and explore how Rocky II quietly lays the emotional foundation for the entire Cr...

Cathy and Todd discuss Rocky (1976), a film that feels more like a documentary than a traditional sports movie, set in the working-class neighborhoods of Philadelphia and made on a shoestring budget by writer and star Sylvester Stallone and director John G. Avildsen. The story follows Rocky Balboa, a small-time boxer and part-time debt collector living an almost invisible life, who unexpectedly gets a shot at the heavyweight title ...

To celebrate spring and baseball season, Cathy and Todd discuss Major League, the 1989 baseball comedy that wasn’t supposed to be a huge hit but ended up sticking around for decades. They get into the cast including Tom Berenger, Charlie Sheen, Wesley Snipes, and Rene Russo and the behind-the-scenes details, like filming in Milwaukee instead of Cleveland and Sheen having legit pitching skills. They also talk about the tone of...

Cathy and Todd discuss Dirty Dancing and how a low-budget film about a summer romance became a cultural phenomenon and why it still resonates. They explore how it’s not just a love story between Johnny and Baby, but also a deeper look at class tension, autonomy, and a girl finding her voice. They dig into behind-the-scenes tension, surprising casting what-ifs, and the film’s groundbreaking abortion storyline set in pre-...

Cathy and Todd discuss Billy Elliot (2000), the British film set during the 1984–85 miners’ strike about a working-class boy who secretly pursues ballet while his community expects him to box and follow the rigid rules of masculinity. Using the film as a lens, they also discuss the documentaryLouis Theroux: Inside the Manosphere, exploring how ideas about what boys “should” be, tough, unemotional, traditiona...

Dance month continues as Cathy and Todd discuss the 1983 film Flashdance, directed by Adrian Lyne and written by Tom Hedley and Joe Eszterhas, a movie that helped define the early-1980s MTV-style of filmmaking with its fast cuts, dance scenes, and unforgettable soundtrack. Starring Jennifer Beals as Alex, a young steel mill welder who dances at night while dreaming of becoming a professional dancer, the film blends working-class am...

Jump back! Cathy and Todd discuss Footloose to kick off Dance Month! Directed by Herbert Ross and released in 1984, Footloose made Kevin Bacon a star and helped define the MTV-era teen movie. But beneath the music this $8 million film (that grossed over $80 million worldwide) is really about grief, fear, father-daughter tension, and a town trying to outrun tragedy. Cathy and Todd discuss the culture clash between Ren and Reverend M...

Cathy and Todd discuss The Wedding Singer and why this Adam Sandler–Drew Barrymore rom-com lived fully inside the 80’s, the music, the clothes, and all that emotional earnestness. They talk about the chemistry that made it work and the unexpectedly sharp stuff underneath, and what happens when genuinely open-hearted people fall in love with each other. They get into Steve Buscemi’s awesome chaotic presence and why...