Are You Screening? Podcast

This week we're catching up more with some republish episodes, and here we're looking at The Brutalist and a couple of others as we were trying to wind up the year.

This week we're finally nailing down our Best of the Year lists, and despite the fact that we say every year is crazy, this one is really nuts when it comes to our lists... at least if you compare them to a lot of other critics. So much money was dumped into things that were supposed to launch onto everyone's radar this year, and so many of them bombed, were rather awful, or both. So what gets on the list, and how does that compare to titles that won awards? Tune in to find out and learn about the movies that shined in '24 Plus, we get to Mickey 17, which should have gotten a lot more attention, even if we didn't exactly love it.

We have a few episodes left in our republishing effort and this week we've got Nosferatu. We kick off taking a shot at Eggers and an interview celebrating the box office success of the film, and then let you in on all the reasons it is mostly underwhelming.

It's that time again, we have to get on to our yearly lists, but before we dive in there, we thought we better touch on the movies we haven't covered, because we don't want people thinking we just didn't see the films that pop up on other people's lists... or that got nominated for things... or won things. We're checking boxes as fast as we can and running though films this week, and you may be surprised to learn which films we need to highlight (because they probably won't be on our Best List)

Awards season has wrapped with the Oscars, but before we get to a rundown of noteworthy films we haven't covered next week, and our Best of the Year lists the week after, we have to visit a truly underwhelming Marvel film. Captain America: Brave New World could barely hold our attention, and it seems fitting to get it out of the way before we start talking about good films.

We continue our insane adventure of republishing/catching up with Joker: Folie a Deux, Brothers, and My Old Ass. It's the strange kick off to the year's film with huge budgets that bombed and a couple of smaller titles that were quite a bit better than expected. The sequel to the massive hit ought to have made plenty of money, but it had trouble long before it came out, and rightly so. We'll let you in on these and more... including just some director bashing.

We're continuing our insane republish/catch-up extravaganza with The Instigators & Jackpot!...two movies that, depending on which of us you side with, maybe are at best unnecessary. We also run through some TV this week, because... at the time... there was a lot we wanted to champion and weren't sure they would get enough attention. Check out our thoughts and share, like, subscribe, and otherwise trick your friends into listening to us.

We continue our catch up/republish adventures with Deadpool & Wolverine, as wild and screwy a movie as 2024 could manage. We also take a helluva shot at the Olympics and the insanity of events.

As we continue with our catch up/republish episodes, we get to Inside Out 2, one of the best of the year, and the impossible to search IF (Imaginary Friends), and finally Beverly Hills Cop: Axel F. It made for a strange episode, because Inside Out 2 was almost indescribably good, but somehow wasn't quite a 10/10, and the other two were passable while filled with flaws that make them potentially annoying.

As we continue to catch up/republish we look at Furiosa and Hitman this week. Two movies that coud hardly be more different, and both a bit disappointing in their own ways. Furiosa, while serviceable and filled with moments of fun, doesn't live up to the expectations set for it, and Hitman just couldn't seem to get out of its own way and wouldn't commit to a story. Give a listen for all the details and be sure to subscribe and share.

This week (?) we're bringing you our Can't Win Awards (again... sort of), and The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. Massive apologies to our fans as many of our episodes over the last six months have been up and down, seemed to be up but weren't really, and have had all sorts of other problems. And, that doesn't even cover some serious delays in publishing. We'll be catching up rather quickly, so further apologies as we shotgun many episodes from the past few months.

This week we look at The Fall Guy and if there's one overall theme to looking at this one, it's that we were both surprised that it worked out pretty well, despite some goofy moments, AND we were just as much surprised by the extent to which this bears no resemblance to the original show... at all. Still, it's mostly a fun, popcorn jaunt with some heart and it surely serves its purpose and hasn't really, in our humble opinion, managed reviews that make a lot of sense, by some anyway.   To our fans, some technical and personal difficulties have thrown us for a loop over the summer, and episodes that seemed to be live weren't. Because of this, we'll be pushing out quite a few in fairly rapid succession. Thanks for tuning in, and rest assured we aren't going anywhere.

Two movies that... serve a purpose perhaps, but don't offer much. "Roadhouse" and "Ricky Stanicky" both had more potential, and both can't get out of their own way. Remember, you can also catch the video version of our podcast now on YouTube.

It's that time again, and as much as it is perhaps unnecessary to rewarn people of the worst movies last year, it's now in a list! Thankfully, we don't need to overly revisit bad movies, which means we can also bring you a couple of recent Netflix releases, Damsel and Spaceman. We'll let you know what to stay away from, if you've managed it so far, and who knows what else we'll get up to.

The second part of the Dune extravaganza actually managed to surprise, though it had some flaws and a strange ending. As much as we liked the first installment, there was a lot that could go wrong. Tune in and find out what we thought about the massive undertaking, why it worked, and why it occasionally didn't.

This week we are taking on the Best of the Year, but it's also our first episode that we are also doing on video.  Things might sound a little strange here and there, and that'll be why. Also, this one got away from us a bit on length, mostly because we had a lot of Honorable Mentions. It was a wild year to be sure, which made lists both easier and harder, but at the very least ours aren't the same as everyone else's. Please also check us out on YouTube, and like and subscribe there, etc.

This week we actually just cranked through a lot of films to end the year before next week when we dare to offer you our Best of the Year list. We hit too many to go over, including such winners as Past Lives and Dream Scenario, and ended up with some of our biggest differences ever, which was really surprising in some cases. This was largely a result of Shane hating everything and me being a sucker... apparently. Tune in to find out about several movies you need to check out so that you are fully informed (let's say) going into the Best of the Year.

As we run headlong toward our Best of the Year list, and the Can't Win Awards, we're trying like hell to get through as many films as possible... and it only works so well. This week we finally get to Oppenheimer, which hit us pretty much as we expected... tune into to find out what that means. We're also looking at two real gems of the year, even if we didn't rate one of them that highly, May December and American Fiction.

This week we finally look at Killers of the Flower Moon as we head into our wrap up of as many movies we didn't get to as possible before our Best of the Year list and our "Can't Win" Awards. Killers didn't really impress us, as is perhaps the case with several of the biggest titles this year, and we'll let you know exactly why. Also, in a bit of a strange move as we waste time when we have better things to do, we talk about the Oscar snubs and how I unfortunately caused them, or predicted them, or something. Finally, we're briefly revisiting The Night Agent and only because I mentioned it previously on the show after only watching three episodes.

The Critics Choice Awards happened and it was a great show once again. This week we look over the winners and let you know how we feel about them (and sometimes what I actually voted for), and we review (though rather quickly) The Holdovers and Saltburn. The Holdovers got Paul Giamatti the win, and as we mentioned in a previous episode, he deserved it, and it was a year with some serious competition. Saltburn hasn't managed a lot of love, and is becoming famous simply for the talk surrounding a couple of... well, odd, scenes, but the follow up to Promising Young Woman is still quite good... if odd.

You may be expecting our usual, end of year shotgun blast of reviews where we try to hit as many movies as possible each episode, but because this year threw off our ability to get a couple of episodes out - even as we prepare to add video to the mix - we've decided to run through some of the major categories of the Critics' Choice Awards nominations in order to highlight and discuss said nominees that way. We will get you our take on several of the most noteworthy films that way, and review them "better" later, so at least you have some ideas going into award season. We are also covering Leave the World Behind this week, though briefly, and mostly for a quick laugh.

In a wildly rare move... sort of, we are only covering one film this week, Poor Things. As usual for the pre-award rush, we've been hyping the fact that we would need to share several movies per episode, but this week... accidentally, we are laser-focused on Yorgos Lanthimos' latest, and this treat with Emma Stone, Mark Ruffalo, and Willem Defoe is certainly worthy of our attention... even if it isn't quite the 10/10 I was expecting. It is close though.

This week we are really gearing up for awards season, which seems crazy. Before we get too close to four or five films a week territory, we have a couple of big titles to tackle, and neither of them impressed us much. The Marvels is getting a wild world of pro and con commentary, but where does it really land, and why? The Killer, which is weirdly, The K__.ller, owing to the graphic novel, is a lot of potential that doesn't really amount to anything as cool as it should have been.

This week we are taking a look at what turns out to be a truly special movie, Five Nights at Freddy's, at least in terms of messing with our ratings. We're also covering a couple of other films, including Totally Killer. As much as it may seem absolutely crazy, because we are very serious film critics, Five Nights played havoc with our thoughts about rating movies. So much so that we have been inspired to revisit our show from ages ago where we dive deep into how we come to our ratings. Look for that somewhere around the new year with our yearly lists and awards.

We're avoiding a lot of Halloween this week, but there's still "Haunting" in the title. While horror, or at least horror-ish, titles are moving around the box office rankings, we're looking at A Haunting in Venice, the third effort of a semi-vanity project.... just like in our last show. Is this one worth your time, or has this gone on too long?

This week, as we move from stellar box office, to the curious case of a winning holiday weekend... to the box office black hole, we're looking at the third installment in the increasingly curious Equalizer franchise. This one is a vanity project that won't die, and while the first one was... fair enough, it's becoming hard to tell why we ever picked the name in the first place. Does this one hold up? Is it worth your time? We'll let you know, and we're going to jump into a few other things as well.

The shocking blockbuster that is Barbie has taken the year's box office by storm, and it is at the center of intense debate and... unusual awards talk. So where does the film land when not merely analyzing the feminist debate within, and how does the film showcase Margot Robbie, Greta Gerwig, and Ryan Gosling, apart from making a lot of money? We'll let you know how well this one delivers. Apologies for the a massive technical failure throwing things off a bit in the episode.

The Impossible team is at it again, sort of, and this time they find themselves up against a whole new kind of enemy. The cultural boogeyman of the decade is AI and there's no reason our Impossible heroes shouldn't jump on the bandwagon. It's no secret that Cruise uses the franchise to... work out some fantasies, and the question has long been whether or not it all comes together to deliver something that holds up to the first couple of films. We'll let you know where this one lands. We've also got some bonuses for you, running you through some of your other screening options.

After a bit of a break we are running full steam into massive, tentpole season, although many of them don't seem to be doing quite as well as we might hope.  There was a time that Indiana Jones might have made twice as many movies and the all would have killed, but we aren't exactly in those times, and the question of whether or not a new Indy adventure is worth it is... well, a fairly live question. We'll let you know if this one is worth your time, and we have some bonuses to discuss as well.

As we start to hit the big-money releases, we're going to look at the new, animated Spider-Man effort. The first one smashed into the cultural awareness in a way we haven't seen in a while, and there are high hopes for this one, but will it live up to the fascination? With the potential to become an epic sub-franchise of the superhero genre, this one could be the key. We'll let you know if this one has what it takes.

As we approach some really big titles hitting theaters, we're taking on Sisu and looking at some other titles that may easily get overlooked. The box office ahead looks to be dominated by a few titles, but the numbers aren't quite reaching expectations and we're going to continue to try to showcase other options... in case Barbie isn't for everyone.

As we move into the summer, and some truly big releases, Fast X hits the scene and the potential puns abound.  Is this one the charm? Do the high revving thrills and surefire excitement have surprises in store? Is this worth watching at all? Even if you haven't seen any of the others? We will dodge a lot of these questions and many more as we try to wrap our heads around reviewing this one. Or, we'll let you know where we stand after less than positive reviews of the 9th installment.

It's time for more Marvel adventure, but Guardians of the Galaxy isn't quite the same beast after two previous movies and appearances in several other features. This one may focus on a character, giving us our villain, but it seems not to focus on anything. We'll let you know if you need to get this one and we'll hit up one or two other things as well.

This week we're trying to catch up with three titles - Super Mario Bros, Renfield & Cocaine Bear. It's a wild mix to cover all at once and spans a lot of potential tastes, and unfortunately none of them really wowed us. We'll let you know if you need to seek any of these out and give you some quick takes on a few other things, like Picard, and the strange way a lot of these titles seem to connect.

As the theatrical window slows a bit, we're looking at some streaming release titles before getting into the late April/May black hole. A couple of surprises here, odd as they turned out to be, as Tetris and Murder Mystery 2 didn't really turn out the way we thought they would, for good or ill.

This week finds us borderline astonished with Dungeons & Dragons, though I liked it even more than Shane. This may well survive the entire year as the most surprising film of the year. Screwy fun, not too serious, and solid characters turned what could have been a "fan only" snooze into a popcorn hit.

This week we're reviewing John Wick 4 and looking at how it connects (or doesn't) with the entire franchise.  Can Keanu's neverending endurance and ability to take punishment spawn a movie on its own? Is a stunning stung/FX highlight reel a story? Is there something wrong with the financial situation worldwide in John Wick's universe? We'll look at all these questions and more, plus we've got mail!

There's finally a fair number of decent possibilities in (or approaching) theaters, but something about 65 drew us in. Tune in and we'll let you know if this somewhat screwy idea can be made into something exciting, and if Driver can carry things when he's mostly on his own. Here's a hint, this worked a lot better for one of us than the other.

It's our awards show time again as we give you our picks for the "Can't Win" awards. Our picks to help highlight performances and films that just have no chance of winning "real" awards. A very interesting selection of movies this year, although I couldn't quite follow my own guidelines and ended up giving a few nods to the same movie, which doesn't spread as much love as I want from this whole idea. Tune in and find out where we think the underappreciation was felt most strongly last year.

Some technical difficulties pushed us back with this episode, but the wait is over for the Worst Movies of 2022, which I know everyone was looking forward to. It was an easy year for picking bad movies, but we also give some insights on other worst lists, which confuse us greatly. We also give our quick take on Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania, which didn't win us over.

It's finally time and despite our best efforts there are still a couple of films that made our lists that we didn't have time to cover throughout the year. Find out what blew us away and let me tell you, there are some surprises. As usual, we will also call out those movies that are on everyone else's lists that just aren't actually worthy.

It's our last show to squeeze in everything we can before we hit you with our Best of the Year lists and things get a little dodgy in the rush. This week we look at Tom Hanks remaking A Man Called Ove in a film that truly Americanizes most of the best notes out of things, and Bill Nighy remaking Kurosawa's Ikiru in a film that is nearly perfect (spoiler warning for next week's list). We also go back to The Whale and Empire of Light as we try to make sure we mention everything getting awards season attention before revealing our picks for the year.

We continue this week trying to knock out everything we can before the Oscars. We're notoriously bad at that, but we manage a good look at Triangle of Sadness and Tar. Two films that couldn't be less for everybody, but are worth checking out. Next week we are going to have perhaps our strangest episode ever as we tackle A Man Called Otto, Living, and at least five other films in one show.

This week we take a break from trying to get through every movie of the year before awards, because some awards happened. We'll run through the Critics' Choice Awards winners and discuss the highlights, great wins, and the things we think are a little silly. We're also going back to Violent Night, to further give a break from awards season, in case anyone missed this whacktastic delight over the holidays.

This week we're catching up with Glass Onion as we try to cover everything as fast as we can with awards looming (and passing). We'll also look at The Pale Blue Eye, a Christian Bale vehicle which bizarrely is going almost completely unnoticed.

As awards close in (and pass by) we're trying to get to as many films as we can, but in all honesty... we're bad at that. This week we had to go back to Glass Onion, because in all the rush we passed by that one in past weeks. The main struggle with this one seems to be between those who think it is better than the original and those that find it not quite as good. Either way, high praise. We'll let you know where we fall on that strange spectrum. We're also covering The Pale Blue Eye, the Christian Bale vehicle that has gone almost completely unnoticed. The battle of Netflix titles is on and whatever rating they ultimately get, we're going to recommend watching both of them.

The big thing this week is obviously Avatar: The Way of Water and listeners may know that we don't both have the same feelings about Cameron, or Avatar. Is this one worth the mountains of box office cash? Is it worth anything? We'll let you know. We will also give you a bit of a rundown of the nominations for the Critics' Choice Awards and while I won't exactly give away my voting, it probably isn't to hard to tell where I'm leaning.

As awards season starts truly rocking, with CriticsChoice noms and a lot of critic group and other awards coming out, we're looking this week at some of the (sorry) smaller things out there. Although, Pinocchio is hitting things pretty hard on the animated front. Both Bones and All and The Wonder seemed like they were going to get a lot more attention a few months ago, but as the year winds down, they just aren't what people are taking about... but should they be? Tune in and we'll let you know where this ones ought to be sitting in the list of the year's films.

This week we are diving into awards season with our usual reckless abandon, hoping to cover the films you most need to know about as nominations hit and we close out the year. Three big titles to cover means we can't give any of them what they might deserve and as far as nominations go, these are films you are going to hear about a lot, but are they really deserving of the hype? The Fablemans practically got nominated a year ago, She Said seems like it's a lock to get attention just on the subject, and The Banshees of Inisherin is blowing everyone away.

This week is our last bit of normalcy heading into awards season and we're taking this opportunity to cover a couple of films that aren't the biggest releases. For the next two months we will probably be running through several films per week and the smaller things will, as always, not get the attention they deserve. All Quiet on the Western Front is probably our main pick for films that are going to be overlooked, and while we didn't love Wendell & Wild exactly, it's worth a look. We also chime in on Strange World, The Banshees of Inisherin, Wednesday, and a lot more.

This week we run through as many possibilities as we can at a time when movies and series utterly bombard us with choice. Wakanda Forever is the big name, but we'll also cover Enola Homes 2, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, and many more. We may not have liked everything, but with Rosaline, Causeway, Inside Man, The Good Nurse, and still more, if you can't find something you'll love, we just can't help you.