This week, Gavia and Morgan dive into the nineties classic "Men in Black," directed by Barry Sonnenfeld and starring Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones as special agents tasked with supervising Earth's alien population. They discuss the film's political subtext, the star personas and winning performances of its lead actors, Sonnenfeld's visual panache as a director, and more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan break down "WandaVision," the MCU's first show on Disney+, starring Elizabeth Olsen and Paul Bettany. They consider its place in the wider Marvel universe, critique its lack of depth, and much more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss John Cassavetes' 1977 film "Opening Night," starring Gena Rowlands as an alcoholic actress struggling with a lead role in a Broadway play. Topics include Cassavetes' fascinating career, his collaboration with Rowlands, the film's treatment of the theater, and much more.
While we wait to discuss Wandavision next week, please enjoy this rerun episode from a couple years back about one of our favorite films, Todd Haynes' "Velvet Goldmine." Topics include our history with the film; its relationship to David Bowie, "Citizen Kane," and Oscar Wilde; career-defining performances from Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Ewan McGregor, and Christian Bale; and more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss Warwick Thornton's film "Sweet Country," an Australian neo-Western examining colonialism and starring actors including Hamilton Morris, Sam Neill, and Bryan Brown. Topics include the film's engagement with the Western genre, its unflinching and intelligent depiction of racism, the role of women in the film, and more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss Craig Roberts' indie dramedy "Eternal Beauty," starring Sally Hawkins as a woman with paranoid schizophrenia. Topics include the film's stylistic influences, its frustrating treatment of mental illness, performances by Hawkins, Billie Piper, and David Thewlis, and much more.
For their 200th (!) episode, Gavia and Morgan take a trip to James Cameron's celebrated epic "Titanic." They discuss the trope-laden but irresistible romance between Kate Winslet and Leonardo DiCaprio, Cameron's dictatorial directing style, the phenomenon surrounding the film and its stars after its release, and much more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the 1993 animated film "Batman: Mask of the Phantasm," an extension of "Batman: The Animated Series." Topics include the film's relationship to the TV series, its homages to classic American and German cinema, its approach to the familiar cast of Batman characters, and much more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss Sidney Poitier's highest-grossing film, "A Patch of Blue" (1965), in which Poitier stars as a man who befriends a young, blind white woman played by Elizabeth Hartman. They discuss Poitier's storied career, the film's complex treatment of race and disability, Hollywood in the 1960s, and much more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan revisit Kenneth Branagh's classic 1993 adaptation of William Shakespeare's "Much Ado About Nothing," starring a glitzy ensemble of actors including Branagh himself, Emma Thompson, Denzel Washington, and many more. Topics include Branagh and Thompson's peculiar careers, Shakespeare on film, the influence of Shakespeare's comedies, and more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan share their picks for the top 10 films of 2020, highlighting a range of films that have sadly not gotten their due this year as a result of the pandemic shutting down theaters. They discuss their choices, which include indie features in a range of genres, documentaries, foreign language films, an animated movie for children, and more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan finally watch Christopher Nolan's much-delayed blockbuster "Tenet," starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, and Kenneth Branagh. They, alas, bemoan its incoherent plotting, lousy treatment of women, muddy sound design, and more.
This week, Morgan and Gavia revisit the beloved romantic comedy "The Philadelphia Story," starring Katharine Hepburn, Cary Grant, and Jimmy Stewart. They place the film in the context of other romantic comedies from the 1930s and 1940s, consider the stars' public personas in conjunction with their roles in this film, discuss the movie's treatment of class and gender, and much more.
This week, Morgan and Gavia discuss Kenneth Lonergan's undersung epic "Margaret" (2011), starring an expansive cast including Anna Paquin, J. Smith Cameron, Mark Ruffalo, and Matt Damon. Topics include the film's fraught post-production history, its stellar ensemble cast, Lonergan's mastery of character and dialogue, and much more.
This week, Morgan and Gavia dissect David Fincher's new film "Mank," a biopic of Herman Mankiewicz, the screenwriter of "Citizen Kane." They critique the film's approach to pastiching 1940s movies, question the decision to cast Gary Oldman in the lead role, dive into the film's discrepancies with the life of the real Mankiewicz, and much more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan conclude their deep-dive into Peter Jackson's "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy with an episode on "The Return of the King," the triumphant final film of the series. They discuss the film's lasting legacy in Hollywood; its successes (and weaknesses) as an adaptation; all those endings; fine performances from Billy Boyd, Sean Astin, and others; its sweep of the Academy Awards; and more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the trippy world of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead's 2017 microbudget horror flick "The Endless." They praise the film's innovative use of visual effects technology and tight storytelling technique, compare it to other indie horror films, and more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan delve into the world of Ronald D. Moore's "Battlestar Galactica: The Miniseries" (2003), a childhood favorite of Gav's that Morgan is watching for the first time. They discuss the changes in television storytelling over the last twenty years, the way the show enacts and flouts sci-fi conventions, the superb female characters, and more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan dive into the second installment of Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Two Towers." They discuss the film's departures from the novel, the difficulties of adapting the source text, Howard Shore's score, Andy Serkis' mesmerizing performance as Gollum, and much more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan dig into Ben Wheatley's woefully misguided remake of "Rebecca," the 1940 classic by Alfred Hitchcock. They compare the new movie, starring Armie Hammer and Lily James, to the original as well as Daphne du Maurier's beloved novel; bemoan its misunderstanding of the source material; critique its mystifyingly incompetent script; and (alas) much more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan report back from the London and New York Film Festivals, where they (remotely) watched a host of exciting new films, including installments from Steve McQueen's "Small Axe" anthology, starring Letitia Wright and John Boyega among many others; Chloé Zhao's buzzy new film "Nomadland," starring Frances McDormand; German auteur Christian Petzold's new film "Undine"; Mads Mikkelsen vehicle "Another Round"; Frederick Wiseman's new documentary "City Hall"; and many more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss Emilio Estevez's 2019 drama "The Public," which stars Estevez as a sympathetic librarian, Michael K. Williams as a homeless man who instigates an overnight occupation of the library on one of the coldest nights of the year, Alec Baldwin as a police negotiator, and many more. Topics include the film's muddled politics, its frustrating employment of the white savior trope, and more.
This week, Morgan and Gavia discuss Jane Campion's 2009 masterpiece "Bright Star," a biopic of the Romantic poet John Keats. Topics include brilliant performances from Ben Whishaw, Abbie Cornish, and Paul Schneider; Campion's feminist approach to the biopic genre; Keats' biography; and much more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the 2003 film adaptation of Louis Sachar's beloved children's classic "Holes," starring Shia LaBeouf, Sigourney Weaver, Tim Blake Nelson, and many others. They discuss the novel's cultural impact, Shia LaBeouf's storied life and career, the film's political dimensions, and much more.
This week, Morgan and Gavia dive into the first installment of Peter Jackson's epic "Lord of the Rings" trilogy, "The Fellowship of the Ring." They discuss Tolkien's how background and intellectual interests informed his novels, the translation of those novels onto the screen, exceptional performances from actors in this movie including Ian McKellen and Viggo Mortensen, and how Tolkien and Jackson's treatment of race and gender land in 2020.
This week, Morgan and Gavia discuss Charlie Kaufman's trippy new film "I'm Thinking of Ending Things," starring Jessie Buckley as a young woman considering breaking up with her boyfriend, played by Jesse Plemons. Topics include Kaufman's history of experimental, self-referential screenplays; excellent performances by Buckley and Plemons; and the film's core ideas about heterosexual relationships and its muddled ending.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the pyrotechnic 1988 live action-animation hybrid "Who Framed Roger Rabbit," directed by Robert Zemeckis. They praise the film's technical accomplishments and its use of cartoon and noir tropes, discuss its place in the Disney canon and its effect on the Disney Renaissance of the 1990s, and much more.
This week, Morgan and Gavia discuss the 1990 film "Quigley Down Under," starring Tom Selleck as a sharpshooter who travels to Australia in the 1860s for work. Topics include the film's troubling depiction of Aboriginal people, white savior narratives, Tom Selleck's career and on-screen charisma, Alan Rickman's performance as the film's villain, and more.
This week, Morgan and Gavia discuss the most critically acclaimed show of 2020, Michaela Coel's "I May Destroy You." Coel co-directs, writes, and stars in this rumination on trauma and consent. Topics include the show's masterful command of tone, its digressive storytelling technique and radical approach to telling a story about rape, racism in the British film and television industry, and much more.
This week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the critically acclaimed film "37 Seconds," directed by Hikari and starring Mei Kayama as Yuma, a young woman and manga artist with cerebral palsy. Topics include the film's treatment of disability and Hikari's troublesome statements on this topic, Kayama's strong performance, other depictions of physical disability on film, and more.
