Episode Reviews

Retro Format In the Streaming Era - Star Trek: Strange New Worlds s3

"Through the Lens of Time" quintessentially represents the series' most recent season

Walk & Talks

We'll Always Have Paris - Before Sunset

How would you spend your life if you only had 80 minutes left to live it?

The Terminator

James Cameron & The Art of the Sequel - Terminator 2: Judgment Day

In which James Cameron shows the difference between plot and story

Emmys

2025 Primetime Emmy Awards Pre-cap

Time to see how the winds are changing...

Building the Top 250

Freshening Up A Genre-Medium - The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

The distance from the birth of cinema to Leone's third film is roughly the same time span as this to our present. How long until we can get something this good with the zeitgeist of the now?

2025 James Cameron rewatch

Close Encounters of the Aquatic Kind - The Abyss

It's like a second draft but by a different film maker and with a different emotional core

Monthly Check-in

September 2025 Check In

Hello! We’ve gone through another month! Hope you’ve been safe and well! The first half of the month was hectic. Lots of little trips and life getting in the way of all the work to do. I had almost two months lead time on watching the films for

Martin Scorsese

This Is America - Taxi Driver

One Travis Bickle was enough in 1976. How many are around today?

2025 James Cameron rewatch

Space Marines & Space Mothers - Aliens

James Cameron's sequel to Ridley Scott's sci-fi horror classic flips to an entirely new genre... but most people misunderstand why it works like it does

Building the Top 250

Life During Wartime - Dunkirk

Christopher Nolan's World War II epic turns a legendary miracle into a small, intimate, personal tone poem

The Terminator

We Were Both Young When I First Saw You - The Terminator

It's a love story, baby, just say yes

Theatre

An Easy Road That's Paved With Good Intentions

What do a 400 year-old play, Netflix's first original TV series, and a YA book from a couple years ago have in common?

Joss Whedon

She Always Did Love To Dance - Serenity

Joss Whedon's theatrical debut was a sci-fi blockbuster that brought Firefly to a close, but in the wake of his cancelling, does it still hold up?

2025 James Cameron rewatch

Should It Count? - Piranha II: The Spawning

James Cameron has disowned his schlocky B-movie directorial debut, wishing it excised from his canon. Should it be?

2025 Films

Fragmented Narratives - Weapons Review

Zach Cregger's followup to Barbarian is a smash at the box office, but one complaint is more of a feature than a bug

Building the Top 250

Fame's Shallow Ocean - Sunset Boulevard

Billy Wilder's 75-year-old celebration of old and new Hollywood buts up against the value of fame and celebrity. And it's probably even more relevant now than it was when it first came out

Monthly Check-in

Aug 2025 Check-in

I need to read more books...

Building the Top 250

Kerouacking - Midnight Run

Bounty hunter Robert De Niro. Shady accountant Charles Grodin. A cross-country road trip. Hilarity ensues.

2025 Films

Everything's Fine - The Fantastic Four: First Steps Review

The non-diegetics of Marvel Studios have become more interesting than the diegetics

Steven Spielberg

Stoikey Muzhik Values - Bridge of Spies

Spielberg's 60s Cold War drama depicts the American justice system at work and is more relevant today than it was on release ten years ago.

Television

Stumbling Into a New Format - The Leftovers s1

Sometimes, a creator clashes with the rules of how things normally work. If they're lucky enough, they break the rules when they find something that works.

Wachowskis

Catharsis Without Synthesis - Cloud Atlas

The Wachowskis bring multiple timelines together without the use of time travel

Superheroes

The Highest Fidelity - Zack Snyder's Watchmen

Adaptation is more than just building a simulacrum

James Gunn

A Brighter Tomorrow - Superman (2025)

It's everything we want it to be

Building the Top 250

Dreams Are Just Memories While We Sleep - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

Relationships are so much more than a cost/benefit analysis