The Cult Popcast

Dave! What can you say about this show? It's on Hulu. It's funny, sad, inspiring, frustrating… and delightfully weird. Dave Burd is unapologetically himself - but can he learn from his mistakes? Can he grow the f up and find true love? Let's find out together.

Ted Lasso premiered in 2020 right when the world needed it most. The spirited positivity and optimism of the titular soccer coach filled people with hope through the covid lockdown, and made AppleTV+ a must have service in its opening year. Now, three seasons later, Ted's story is over, but his legacy will live on in our hearts.

A lot of great shows have wrapped in the last year, and here's another one. After five successful seasons, Amazon Prime's The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel is taking a bow. Filled with charm, laughs, and a fantastic cast, showrunner Amy Sherman-Palladino's comedic period piece will be missed.

Here's a fun idea for a show: a ridiculous jury trial where everything is fake and everyone is an actor, except for one regular guy who's not in on the joke. Freevee's new original series Jury Duty is just that. It's actually hilarious, and most people haven't even heard of it. Check a look. (recorded before it  was nominated for any awards)

Oh wow. HBO's quirky action-speckled dramedy Barry has come to curtain call, and show creator/writer/director/actor Bill Hader is ending it on his own terms. Love it or hate it, there's really nothing on TV like it. Filled with surprising twists, surreal existentialism, and topical commentary, Barry's final season is nothing if not creatively bold and original.

The Mandalorian Season 3 has dropped, and things are starting to heat up. But despite making some big moves in the story, Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau's Disney+ Star Wars series is still prone to rambling and meandering. Let's get it together, guys! This show still has such huge potential…

Succession Season 4 is now over, and the Shakespearean saga of the Roy family has officially come to a close. With a story and setting that deftly satirize the turbulent sociopolitical times we're living in, it's no surprise that HBO's hit show has captured the zeitgeist for several years now. It's hilarious, it's sad, and hopefully the people watching have learned something.

| Review | Holy Moses, Ari. You've really outdone yourself this time. Beau is Afraid is the third feature film from Ari Aster, the acclaimed A24 auteur who gave us Hereditary and Midsommar. This film is not like either of those, though. This is a batsh*t insane surrealist odyssey into the deeply troubled mind and memory of Beau Wassermann, played by Joaquin Phoenix. Strap in boys and girls. And please, be sure to take this podcast with water.

| Review | The bad batch is back, and it's looking like a much needed win for Disney+. We pick up with Omega and the squad as they're running dangerous odd jobs just to make a living out in this new Imperial controlled galaxy. Meanwhile, illusive new threats are rising in dark corners of the Empire. I'm just going to say it: The Bad Batch Season 2 is some good Star Wars.

| Review | You're a wizard, Steven! We've got another video game cast today to talk Hogwarts Legacy, the Wizarding World action RPG from Avalanche Software and Warner Bros Games released earlier this year. Set a hundred years before the events of Harry Potter, this carefully crafted open world experience has arrived amidst some controversy. But is it good? Special guest Matt Amick is here to help us sort it out.

| Review | AppleTV+ continues to build up their growing catalog of uplifting dramadies with Shrinking, where Jason Segel plays a grieving therapist who throws caution to the wind and starts telling his clients what he really thinks. Hijinks ensue. Amd they got Harrison Ford in there too!

| Review | How do you like them Jordans? Benjamin Affleck and Matthew Damon are reunited once again in Air, the new historical bi-epic that chronicles the signing of young basketball prodigy Michael Jordan to a flailing running shoe company called Nike. Man the 80's were cool...

| Review | Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is a movie that nobody expected to be as good as it was. It was hilarious, clever, and full of heart, all while wrapped in this vividly depicted fantasy world. Clearly John Francis Daley and Jon Goldstein love the source material. Hey, you guys wanna play DnD sometime?

| Review | Dread it, run from it, Nintendo arrives all the same. And now it's here: The Super Mario Bros. Movie has smashed records to become the second highest grossing animated film of all time. That's over a billion bucks, courtesy of Brooklyn's little red plumber turned multidimensional hero.

| Review | All this, for a dog? Almost a decade after Keanu's titular once-retired hitman took the world by storm, he's back to end his desperate crusade, once and for all. With the stunts and world-building as wonderfully ambitious as ever, John Wick: Chapter 4 shows this franchise still has gas in the tank. Rest in peace Lance

| Review | After over thirty years in the making, VFX legend Phil Tippet has finally completed his twisted stop motion passion project, Mad God. If you enjoy darkly macabre and generally insane art, then this one-way descent into dystopian hellscape is the fever dream for you.

| Review | Accomplished Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul is a master of the slow, meditative cinema. His latest film, Memoria, is no exception; it's a fascinating sensory experience that asks big questions and answers very little. Don't worry though, Tilda Swinton is here to hold your hand.

| Review | Korean cinema is back on the menu with Park Chan-wook's Decision to Leave. Typically known for his stylish and provocative plots of sensual trysts and violent revenge, Park cools off just a little here to capture a more contemplative and intimate noir between an insomniac detective and his supposed femme fatale. From the camera play to the language dynamic - there are some pretty cool cinematic tricks on display.

| Review | Four years ago, Shazam! was a breath of fresh air in the messy DC superhero pipeline of the time. It's sequel, Shazam! Fury of the Gods tries to capture that lightning in a bottle for a second time. Unfortunately, the movie seems doomed to failure because of massive delays, and then dropping shortly after the announcement of a hard James Gunn flavored reset for the entire Warner Brothers DC catalog. Well, there are worse ways to spend two hours on a Saturday.

| Review | Finally, a really good video game adaptation. You wouldn't think it would be that hard to pull from years of highly successful IP, but here we are (looking at you, Halo). HBO gets it though. They've just created another cultural sensation with The Last of Us, a big budget television take on the classic Playstation action-adventure game of the same name. It's been 10 years since this story took the gaming world by storm, but it's more relevant now than ever.

| Review | Apex predator, high on cocaine… yeah, this is cinema. Elizabeth Banks' Cocaine Bear is a campy B-movie premise wrapped in Hollywood quality production - it's a fun, bloody, hilarious, terrifying, and heart-warming romp with a great cast. In the words of that one kid, “It seems like the kinda thing that stays with a man forever.”

| Review | Ladies and gentlemen, the next era of the Marvel Cinematic Universe has officially kicked off with Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. While deeply flawed in many ways, the latest Peyton Reed flick does give us more of the fantastic actor Jonathan Majors. There's also some fun quantum realm aliens and Paul Rudd. Everybody likes Paul Rudd!

| Review | The boys have a super-mega-cast cooked up for today, as Gabe runs Steven through some recent horror/thriller movies he's seen on his own. First is Knock at the Cabin, the hot new Shyamalan joint about a family contending with what may or may not be the end of the world. Next comes Missing, a stylistically inventive mystery about a girl trying to locate her mom after she's disappeared in another country. Then we've got Infinity Pool, Brandon Cronenberg's original story of a vacationing couple who discover a dark and twisted secret in their host country. And last but certainly not least, we have Skinamarink, a heavily atmospheric and very experimental micro-budget horror film that's making waves for the sheer audacity of its execution.

| Review | Is it future or is it past? The long standing and successful intellectual property Pokémon takes the stage with the current generation named Scarlet and Violet. Steven finally gets to gush about something he sort of likes… or likes a lot? who's to say really? Get ready to hear a whole lot of Pokémansplaining.

| Review | Another year, another smugly tone-deaf circlejerk of the cultural elite… but we just can't look away. And many questions linger: will there be another era defining slap? Will there be upsets and bad jokes and wildly ostentatious outfits that make it impossible to see the stage if you're sitting right behind the person in question? Let's find out together. Get in loser, it's the 95th Academy Awards.

| Review | Pray for mercy from... Puss in Boots! The swashbuckling feline is back and better than ever for his second “solo” film following up the original Shrek spin-off back in 2011. We catch up with Puss in his later years, as years of adventuring and roguish heroism have left him on the last of his nine lives. Deftly layering heavy themes with wholesome, hilarious fun and spectacular animation to boot, this is a flick everyone can enjoy.

| Review | It's been almost a decade since Alejandro Iñárritu's legendary one-two punch of Birdman and The Revenant. His new Netflix production, Bardo, is a meandering and meditative existential wide lens nonlinear dream walk through the director's own inner self. His fears and insecurities, his loves and passions, his view on family and history and politics and culture - it's all here, laid bare and put to screen like a surrealist stage play. It's messy, but life is messy.

| Review | I think it's nice that we share the same sky. Aftersun is a dreamy and wistful slice of life that tells the story of a father and daughter on holiday at a fading little resort in Turkey. Loosely inspired by writer/director Charlotte Wells' own childhood experiences with her father, this haunting piece of fiction is a charming coming of age story set against a pervasive and foreboding sense of sadness. But first, a quick review of the new James Gray picture Armageddon Time - another film inspired by a writer/director's childhood.

| Review | Do nothing. Stay and fight. Or leave. Sarah Polley's big screen adaptation of the Miriam Toews novel Women Talking is the final Best Picture nomination we've yet to cover for this year's Academy Awards. Described as “an imagined response to real events,” it's a powerful story with a lot to say about religion, gender roles, power dynamics, institutionalized violence and oppression… you get the idea.

| Review | In November 2020, Donald Glover tweeted that Atlanta seasons 3 and 4 would be some of the best television ever made, on the same level as The Sopranos. Well, the show is over now, and the TCP is here to evaluate. However you feel about it, one thing is for sure: there is really nothing else like it on TV.

| Review | War is hell, always has been - but World War I was a new kind of hell for its time. Originally a novel published in 1928, Netflix's All Quiet on the Western Front is a retelling of that infamous conflict, from the perspective of a group of young German men fighting in it. Initially filled with nationalistic pride and eager to serve their country, the boys are quickly hardened and hollowed by the terror and grim brutality of trench warfare. Joining the cast to break it all down is casual historian and wartime expert Bryce Reif.

| Review | You'd think the dynamic duo of Sam Mendes and Roger Deakins would turn out some kind of spectacular and ambitious movie, especially after their last banger, 1917. But Empire of Light is not a globetrotting thrill ride or wartime epic. It's about a quiet little theater in a small coastal town in 1980's England. Outside of the beautiful cinematography and some fantastic performances, this probably isn't going to be one for the books.

| Analysis | Why choose your body over time? French pop sensation Phoenix has risen from the ashes of the pandemic with their seventh studio LP, Alpha Zulu. Coming in strong with new riffs on their classic sound, this album aims to be as timeless as The Louvre it was recorded in. But is it? Check a listen...

| Review | Adapted from Samuel D. Hunter's stage play of the same name, Darren Aronofsky's The Whale marks the triumphant return to the big screen for 90's heartthrob and action star Brendan Fraser. It's a small but powerful story of love, loss, and that old familiar struggle against the dark void of depression. This is a tough film to swallow.

| Review | Lights, camera, action! Babylon is 2022's latest and greatest sensationalist love letter to the history of Hollywood and cinema as an art form. It's Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood meets La La Land and set in the roaring twenties (with perhaps a little extra coke-fueled craziness thrown in). Whether or not it's your cup of tea, it's clear Damien Chazelle is one hell of a director. This is a wild, irreverent, fun movie. And holy smokes, Margot Robbie!

| Review | We are not in Kansas anymore! Avatar: The Way of Water is finally out in theaters after a decade of production, and James Cameron is keen to make a few more billion dollars at the box office. Wait, there's gonna be three more? Bro.

| Analysis | Hop on the band wagon, this train's leaving. We're talking Bros, White Noise, Jeremy Render, 1899, Golden Globes, and our top ten films of 2022. You will hear a sneak peek at our feelings on Avatar, Babylon, The Whale, and many more.

| Review | Mike White's smash HBO hit is back with a new season! The White Lotus is a seasonal anthology series which means we also have a new resort location and ensemble cast as well. (Except for our queen Jennifer Coolidge who is back to kick some ass.) Come watch another group of rich and privileged morons be miserable in paradise. This time, with more sex.

| Review | There's a deep sense of irony in Luca Guadagnino making a movie about cannibalism after directing Armie Hammer in Call My By Your Name (whose career was recently upended after being exposed for a wild cannibalism kink). Art imitates life. Anyway, based on Camille DeAngelis' novel, Bones and All is an introspective coming-of-age American road trip story with a great cast. And cannibalism. This one is real gory, folks.

| Review | Everyone knows the classic tale of the wooden boy whose nose grows when he lies, but the original story from the 19th century is quite different from the Disney version we've come to love over the years. Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio delivers a fresh and yet thematically faithful version of the familiar fable, complete with wonderful little musical numbers and gorgeous stop-motion animation. We've got ourselves another home run from Netflix.

| Review | This is what revolution looks like. Let's call it… war. Produced for Disney by the brilliant Tony Gilroy, Andor is a shocking testament to the true narrative potential of Star Wars. This first installment of a two season series details the brutal beginning of the Rebel Alliance, whose efforts culminate in George Lucas' original trilogy. While there are familiar hallmarks of the franchise, there's also rich worldbuilding, intriguing drama, nuanced performances, and an appropriately timed philosophical treatise on the insidious rise of fascism all to the tune of HBO quality writing and production. This is Star Wars like you've never seen it. And you should see it.

| Review | An object that seems densely layered, but in reality, the center is in plain sight… that would be Rian Johnson's Glass Onion, the latest entry from the auteur in what will be a series of films inspired by the many novels of Agatha Christie. Returning to center stage is Daniel Craig as Benoit Blanc, the world's preeminent detective, back with his definitive southern charm to unravel yet another devious mystery.

| Review | Family, art… it'll tear you in two. Steven Spielberg is one of the most celebrated and accomplished directors of all time, and The Fablemans is his chance to finally tell his own story. A dramatized account of the master storyteller's formative years, this movie is just as much a love letter to Spielberg's own family as it is to the craft and history of cinema.

| Review | The man, the myth, the Green Ranger is gone... and it feels that a great White light in the world has gone with him. We've never met him but he has left an indelible impression on Steven since his youth. We are here to talk about the legacy and passion that JDF left behind.

| Review | A quasi sequel episode to us previously talking about Netflix's The Crown. We're talking all things royal today as we discuss season five as well as the recent Harry and Meghan doc... also produced by Netflix. 

| Review | Please don't say mouthfeel. The Menu is a sleek and stylish comedy-thriller with sharp commentary on consumerism and class. Helmed by veteran prestige television director Mark Mylod, this carefully portioned film is a decadent experience amidst the mass produced garbage competing for your attention. Just take a bite and see.

| Review | I was going to write a witty description for this episode, but my small, soft brain is numb due to the sheer amount of superhero media Steven is making me consume. I will say this: the Guardians of the Galaxy are cool, and so is Kevin Bacon. See you in May for Volume 3.

| Review | Time for some season's beatings! Santa Claus comes to town in Violent Night, a jolly little Christmas action flick that takes itself just the right amount of seriously. With equal parts Die Hard, Home Alone, and Bad Santa, this might be another holiday staple. Merry Christmas you filthy animals.

| Review | In August 2020, Chadwick Boseman passed away. The Black Panther's legacy was iconic, and director Ryan Coogler determined not to recast the character, but to continue his story through his family. While not a perfect film, Black Panther: Wakanda Forever is an inspired and bittersweet end to “Phase Four” of the MCU, and it introduces newcomer Tenoch Huerta as Namor, ruler of the underwater kingdom of Talokan (Atlantis).

| Review | The dead speak! Tales of the Jedi is a short and sweet anthology of bonus Clone Wars episodes designed to fill out the lives of two beloved characters in particular: Count Dooku and Ahsoka Tano. We get more Qui-Gon, need I say more?

| Review | “I just don't like ya no more.” What happens when your best friend suddenly stops wanting to have anything to do with you? Enter Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson in The Banshees of Inisherin, a darkly humorous drama from Martin McDonagh set in 1920's coastal Ireland.