The Strange Harbors Podcast

Arguably one of the best action franchises of all time comes to a presumed end with Mission: Impossible — The Final Reckoning. Somehow, the most divisive entry yet, Christopher McQuarrie and Tom Cruise's latest attempt to save movies as champions of the analog finds Ethan Hunt once again fighting the rogue AI known as The Entity. Are its two barnburner stunt extravaganza's enough to stick the franchise's landing? Find out as we discuss our rankings, fan service, and the quest to preserve the moviegoing experience altogether.

Critically-acclaimed Andor has returned. Politically sophisticated and emotionally bracing, Tony Gilroy's Star Wars series about the birth of a rebellion has returned for a second and final season. Does it live up to its first season's incredible highs and adult-minded storytelling? We discuss and review the show, its odd release schedule, and where it ranks within the shaky Star Wars canon.

In 2025, do the MCU doldrums continue, or is Jake Schreier's Thunderbolts a return to form for a flagging superhero universe? Does it rise above its grating marketing to deliver something with actual, emotional honesty? With Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, and Lewis Pullman at the helm of a misfit gang of anti-heroes, the chances aren't bad. Tune in for our full review.

It's that time of the year again where we make our friendly bet on the season's box office results. After two years in a row of Amir taking the bag, Derek and Jeff are trying extra hard in 2025 to take down the reigning champ, but will everyone's lists be different enough? Tune in as we predict the winners, losers, and wild cards of the summer.

Ryan Coogler's Sinners is one of the year's best films: a purposefully messy vampire metaphor just overflowing with passion and ideas, painted across a tapestry of folklore, diegetic blues, and epic horror. It's why we go to the movies. We discuss its deep roster of incredible performances and its myriad of themes that catapult it beyond standard bloodsucker fare.

On this week's podcast, we review the latest streaming sensation on Max and the spiritual successor to ER, The Pitt. A medical drama like no other, the series prides itself on its realism and its real-time, 15-episode conceit. It just so happens that one of our co-hosts, Dr. Amir Touray, is well-equipped to review the series in a way most of us aren't able to. How accurate is the show? Is this the best new series of 2025? Tune in and find out.

Director David Ayer re-teams with Jason Statham for another professionally titled actioner: A Working Man. Following up last year's The Beekeeper, will the duo recapture the absurd magic of their debut? We review the film and discuss the careers of both Ayer and Statham.

For our first television episode of 2025, we review the long-anticipated revival of Marvel's Man Without Fear — Daredevil: Born Again. Is the new series able to find the best version of itself despite extensive reshoots and behind-the-scenes shakeups? Charlie Cox and Vincent D'Onofrio slip back into the roles like a pair of comfortable shoes, but is it enough to carry it all? Tune in and find out our thoughts.

This week, we review director Steven Soderbergh's second film to be released in as many months. Black Bag sure is steamy — Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett playing married spooks certainly heightens its seductiveness — but its real heat lies in its surprising juxtaposition, honing in on a passionate kernel of loyalty and devotion within a sea of spy-versus-spy cynicism: the ultimate, lean expression of “couple goals.” We talk about its razor-sharp screenplay, riveting performances, and unexpected economy.

It's been six long years since the last Bong Joon-ho film, Parasite, swept through the 2020 Oscars, including the prize of Best Picture. A beloved filmmaker that has brought us both intimate, grounded thrillers as well as propulsive genre yarn, Bong Joon-ho is once again dipping his toe into sci-fi class warfare with Mickey 17. Featuring Robert Pattinson in multiple roles and another "freaky little guy" routine, does Mickey 17 continue the South Korean director's streak of bracing storytelling?

A welcome respite from Jimmy Kimmel's irony-pilled sarcasm, the 97th annual Academy Awards found late-night legend Conan O'Brien in the host chair. Jeff, Derek, and Amir break down the broadcast and the nominees, from the winners to the losers, the graceful to the ugly. We discuss Anora's historic evening, a weird in-memoriam tribute, and the longest acceptance speech in Oscar history.

This week, after a long month of lists, recaps, and Oscar nominated heavy hitters, we lighten the mood with the gory, splatter-filled Stephen King adaptation of The Monkey. Oz Perkins' second film in a year, The Monkey stars both Theo James and Christian Convery in dual roles, Tatiana Maslany, Colin O'Brien, Adam Scott, and Elijah Wood. Does Perkins follow up last summer's Longlegs with a potent mashup of Final Destination and Stephen King? Or does this horror comedy fizzle out?

It's incredibly easy to overpraise something like Brady Corbet's The Brutalist just for its degree of difficulty and the unlikelihood of it even existing, but it's the real deal: a living Great American Novel plucked from time. We sit down and review the three-and-a-half-hour epic - complete with intermission - and discuss its performances, ambition, and staggering scope.

This week we review RaMell Ross's Nickel Boys, an adaptation of Colson Whitehead's novel of the same name. The story of two Black boys who form an unshakeable bond at a segregated reform school in the Jim Crow South, Nickel Boys transcends its first person conceit, its Oscar-bait trappings, and the swerve of its twist ending to deliver a major work of American cinema. Keep an eye on this one.

As per tradition, we follow up the best of 2024 with our Most Anticipated Films of 2025 episode as Jeff, Derek, and Amir list what's got them excited going into the new year. Running the gamut of indie gems to the massive blockbusters, tune in to find out what's on our hotlist for 2025!

Another year of cinema in the rear view as we count down our personal top tens of 2024. A year that highlighted the limits of accessibility for some of its best films, 2024 gave us the most varied lists we've ever had on the show with showings across all genres. What made Jeff, Derek, and Amir's lists? What were honorable mentions? Tune in and find out.

At 94-years young, Clint Eastwood is still going strong with his latest meat-and-potatoes legal thriller, Juror #2. Featuring a murderers' row of actors and a premise to die for, is Eastwood's latest just a redux of your dad's favorite movie from the mid 90s? Or is there something more than meets the eye?

Happy new year! We ring in 2025 by reviewing podcast favorite filmmaker Robert Eggers' latest historical horror: his grim vision of the vampire classic, Nosferatu. We talk vampires, Dracula, and Eggers' slavish devotion to granular detail. Does it continue his streak of bracing period terror, or is it more of a hindrance this time around? Tune in and find out.

This week, we review Cannes and awards season darling Anora. Another exploration of director Sean Baker's working class milieus, this story of a fiery stripper who falls in with an immature son of Russian oligarch is a barnburner showcase for Mikey Madison, Mark Eydelshteyn, and Yura Borisov. Does it live up to its festival hype?

For better or worse, Bertrand Bonello's The Beast is one of the most memorable movies of 2024. A discombobulating sci-fi trip through time that stars Lea Seydoux and George Mackay, it explodes the kernel of loneliness at the center of Henry James' 1903 novella - The Beast in the Jungle - into something much more...perplexing.

2024's challenger to last year's "Barbenheimer" phenomenon is here in the form of the Gladiator II and Wicked double feature. We review both highly anticipated films, and our discussion just might surprise you! Tune in and find out!

This week we review Edward Berger's Conclave, a papal conspiracy thriller in the guise of a serious business, hiding a goofed-up B-movie underneath. We talk about its twists and turns, its murderers' row of a cast, and its absolutely preposterous ending. Will this make our best-of-the-year lists? Tune in and find out!

This week, we review Aaron Schimberg's under-the-radar indie darling, A Different Man, an unlikely companion piece to this year's The Substance and may even overtake it as the essential 2024 text on self-hatred and the self-wounding blade of wish fulfillment. Effortlessly smart without an ounce of ostentatious force, this is a movie with a million layers underneath its cruel, nasty joke of getting exactly what you want. Tune in to our review!

This week we review Pascal Plante's Red Rooms, an under-the-radar indie that's taken the horrorsphere by storm. A serial killer thriller that finds power in its restraint and shocking prescience, Red Rooms is an evil — yet vital — film to understand the stranglehold of postmodern, screen-abetted detachment. We discuss our culture of macabre obsessions, parasocial madness, and growing numbness, as well as Juliette Gariépy's incredible performance at the center of this film.

This week we review the new Max series continuing Matt Reeves' The Batman saga: The Penguin. Starring Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, Rhenzy Feliz, and Clancy Brown, the eight-episode miniseries details Oz Cobb's rise from Gotham nobody to connected crime boss. We review the first five episodes.

This week, we review Todd Phillips' highly anticipated sequel, Joker: Folie à Deux. Is it a misbegotten misfire? Or is it a movie with a strange set of balls? Is it both? We discuss its interesting metatext, spiteful movies, and the odd throughline between Joker 2 and Megalopolis.

Self-financed and over 40 years in the making, Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis is the most divisive movie of the year. Is it an unmitigated disaster or an old master's magnum opus? Or is it somewhere in between? We're all divided on this one, but we can all agree on one thing: you've never seen anything like this before, and you might not ever again.

Once again transmogrifying old-school exploitation into her own feminist styling of New French Extremity, Coralie Fargeat trades in the empowered bloodletting of 2018's Revenge for body horror. Your mileage may vary with The Substance, but whether you wince, cackle, or simply abandon the theater out of disgust, one thing is quite clear: it's quite unforgettable.

Director Jeremy Saulnier follows up his brutal downers of Green Room and Hold the Dark with a politically angry new action thriller. With a star-making turn from actor Aaron Pierre, Rebel Ridge rides into the pantheon of contemporary suspense in ways that might be surprising, especially if you're expecting more sanguine violence from Saulnier. We discuss all the ways Rebel Ridge subverts your typical action tropes to deliver something fresh.

It's a deeper cut this week as we dive straight into a smaller, VOD action gem with Bren Foster's kinetic martial arts actioner, Life After Fighting. We review this by-your-bootstraps indie gem that puts big budget blockbusters to shame with its brutal confidence and unbelievable choreography. We're giving away what we thought about it right here, but that's because we want all of you action fans to see this immediately.

Fede Álvarez takes over the reins of Xenomorph terror with Alien: Romulus. In this episode, we review the first Alien movie in seven years, and the first in over a decade to depart from series godfather Ridley Scott. Does Álvarez chart his own path with his tense, gorehound pedigree from Evil Dead and Don't Breathe? Or is it just a rehash of better movies before it? Listen and find out.

It's not an M. Night Shyamalan film without some divisiveness. We discuss his new Josh Hartnett vehicle, Trap, his late career stylings, and the pros and cons of his heightened realities. Is Trap one of Shyamalan's best? Or is it another dud?

We return to television this week to conduct a postmortem on the controversial second season of HBO's House of the Dragon. The Game of Thrones spinoff has its fans split down the middle with a divisive finale, and season in general, as the Greens and Blacks head to war. We discuss the contention at the center of the series' reception, as well as give our own differing thoughts.

Deadpool joins the Marvel Cinematic Universe proper in Shawn Levy's Deadpool & Wolverine. Or does he? We review the 34th film in the MCU. Can the Merc with the Mouth and the wayward X-Man band together to save Marvel's flagging Multiverse fortunes? Or is it just another parade of cameos and fan service?

Sequel, reboot, re-quel, revival, whatever you call it, Twisters is here. We review Lee Isaac Chung's followup to the 1996 smash hit. Does it avoid legacy sequel traps, or does it lean into them? Does the summer of Glen Powell continue? Tune in and find out!

Oz Perkins' fourth feature-length horror film rides upon a wave of hype. From its cryptic teasers to the hyperbolic reception as "one of the scariest movies ever," Longlegs has quite a reputation to live up to. Is it really something special? Or is it just a hodgepodge pastiche of better movies? Tune in and find out.

Another week, another prequel. We review A Quiet Place: Day One, directed by pod favorite filmmaker Michael Sarnoski (Pig). Will a new Quiet Place away from the Abbott Family sidestep prequel doldrums? Will Sarnoski once again subvert genre convention with the human element? Tune in and find out!

Just through star power alone, Jeff Nichols' The Bikeriders is an elegy for the home of a band of outsiders and misfits, eroded by time into something much more sinister and encroaching. We discuss the trio of movie stars at the film's center and its surprising power through familiar tropes.

The fourth installment of the Bad Boys franchise finds Mike Lowery (Will Smith) and Marcus Burnett (Martin Lawrence) on the run from a criminal conspiracy. 2020's Bad Boys For Life struck gold with new directors Adil El Arbi and Bilall Fallah taking over the action reins from Michael Bay. Will they succeed again? Tune in and find out.

Funny and sexy cinema is back! This week, we tackle Richard Linklater's latest film: Hit Man. We discuss the filmmaker's storied oeuvre, the film's capital "M" movie star performances in Glen Powell and Adria Arjona, and its knottier-than-expected questions of identity. It's steamy, uproarious, and just a little twisted.

One of the best shows on TV finally makes its return. This week, we review the first four episodes of Interview with the Vampire's second season. The second season finds Louis and Claudia on the run after supposedly killing Lestat, and the pair travel the world in search of more of their own kind. Does the new season live up to the series' pristine reputation?

George Miller has huge shoes to fill: his own. A follow-up to one of the best action movies ever made, Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga is a long-awaited prequel to the 2015 high-octane whirlwind. Nearly a decade later, does Miller have what it takes to live up to an impossible standard, or is he doing something completely different? Tune in and find out.

We are back with our second annual Summer Box Office Wager! After our disastrous predictions last year (bad for us, entertaining for you), we're back for another round of predicting this season's biggest movies. Have we learned our lessons? Or will we miss big again? Find out and follow along!

Back by popular demand, we're catching up with Marvel's hit animated series: X-Men '97. We spent the first episode praising the first stretch of the season for its freshness and surprisingly mature handling of its mutant heroes. Does it stick the landing? We review the rest of the season and its sprawling three-part finale.

This week, we review Luca Guadagnino's electrically charged tennis drama, Challengers. Joined by special guest Ashley Zhang, we discuss the trinity of great performances from Zendaya, Mike Faust, and Josh O'Connor, as well as sing our praises for a rare blockbuster-level crowdpleaser that's still full of blood, vitality, and texture.

It's nun week as we head into a rare double feature episode, this time covering Michael Mohan's Immaculate and Arkasha Stevenson's The First Omen. Nunsploitation is back! Or is it? We tackle these twin movies with eerily similar subject matters and themes, both movies centered around young novitiates who uncover sinister conspiracies within their convents. It's a nun showdown. Which horror movie will come out on top? Listen to find out!

This week we are talking about Alex Garland's new film, Civil War. A movie that attempts to sidestep politics to tell a story about wartime journalists, Garland's latest is another stab at ambitious speculative fiction. We discuss its touted "apoliticism," its technical prowess, and its treatise on the state of journalism. Does it succeed, and more importantly, does it actually have anything to say? Tune in and find out.

This week, we review Dev Patel's debut as director and action star: Monkey Man. A passion project years in the making marred by delays and production troubles only to be saved last-minute by producer Jordan Peele, Patel's kinetic actioner has plenty to prove. Can it rise above its muddled storytelling to deliver its throat punches and kicks in the teeth? Tune in and find out.

Obvious nostalgia bait or the start of something special? This week we're discussing the Disney Plus revival of X-Men: The Animated Series. Bringing back the iconic series right where the original left off over 25 years ago, X-Men '97 reunites new and old talent for Marvel's first big push for mutants before the live action movie.

This week we review director Rose Glass' sophomore feature, Love Lies Bleeding. A lesbian crime thriller in the vein of The Wachowskis' Bound, the film stars Kristen Stewart, Katy O'Brian, Ed Harris, Jena Malone, and Dave Franco. Does it live up to Glass' searing debut, 2019's Saint Maud? Tune in and find out.

We're a week late, but here's our coverage of the 96th annual Academy Awards in the year of Barbenheimer. As usual, we discuss snubs, surprises, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Who won? Who should've won? Once again, we give the rundown.