Down To Watch

Down to Watch is already a bit into the short month of Feb with some new shows that might have tried to sneak past you, as if you didn't have Dan and Raul to catch 'em for you! This month, it's all about the Big Game, a couple of fancy shows, and some real-world stories worth diving into. The documentary world has tales of killers in the woods and on the soccer pitch and some stories of Texas from proper storytellers. On the drama side, we have ninjas, avatars, spy couples, astronauts, and shoguns vying for precious TV time. Larry David has earned his sendoff, awards season is in full swing, and The Walking Dead is back: TV is doing all the things!

Winter can be a cold wasteland of television, but Down to Watch has a couple of new winter streamers to get cozy with. Dan and Raul spent part of their winter TV trip in sunny SoCal with a couple of sons of a triad boss in The Brothers Sun. The new Netflix action-comedy maybe does one genre better than the other, but with a breezy runtime and bouncy dialogue, the show managed to hook at least one host. The other half was spent dipping into the latest incarnation of a spooky crime anthology with deeply macabre musings - True Detective: Night Country. With more supernatural, more unending night, and more title punctuations than any season before, Jodie Foster leads a talented ensemble through a frigid nightmare that proves charming and unnerving in its first ep. Do these shows have what it takes to warm our TVs this winter? Answers are within! 

The year in television usually starts slow, so the DtW is taking advantage and covering classics and cult favorites from the 80s that defined how stories would be told forever. This week, Dan and Raul caught a couple of episodes of the landmark show Moonlighting, a moment of network lighting in a bottle that made Bruce Willis and Cybil Shepard household names, put new spins on many classic film genres on the small screen, and introduced a level of writer creativity we still benefit from today. That doesn't mean the show is flawless; however, it remains an artifact of its time, and they don't make them like they used to!

This week, DTW bravely returns yet again to the 80s for a highly essential work starring Cher and Nic Cage.  But Dan and Raul were pleasantly surprised to find the movie is about much more than the stars and not just a run-of-the-mill rom-com…we follow the trials and tribulations of an entire NYC Italian family filled with many interesting characters.  Yeah, there had to be a discussion about the title ‘Moonstruck’ and what that exactly means, but the movie makes us understand with many songs and dialogue references to the actual moon, too!  Come for Cher, stay for Dukakis, and after listening to this pod, you surely will be able to answer her eternal question, “Why do men chase women?”

The new year brings new stories to the big and small screens alike, and Down to Watch has your January all lined up! Dan and Raul welcome 2024 as they carefully work through the minefield known in some circles as "dumpuary", an early-year dumping ground for content that is expected to disappoint studios. There might be a show or two worth mentioning, as the guys cover the Mean Girls musical, a new Marvel entry, prequel shows for the movies Sexy Beast and Ted, another drug empire story from the Narcos crew, and much more. Make a resolution to be Down to Watch this year! 

This week, DTW returns to the time-traveling travails of Loki, the Marvel god who has seen his character in this self-titled Disney+ series given extraordinary depth and importance in the MCU.  Dan and Raul are joined per usual by Marvel-stalwart Jonnie to ruminate on what has proven to be not as satisfying a season of TV as the first was, with less dimension and creativity yet wonderful actors playing interesting characters attempting to do all they can with the plodding and beleaguered story.  We got Back to the Future, Groundhog Day, and even some flavors of Bill & Ted at play with the zany time-slippings and manipulations of realities at play; the guys discuss all angles, good and bad.  The Marvels movie and the MCU at large are discussed at length as well, during what has proven to be a pivotal and creatively confusing/stagnating time for Marvel Studios.  So fix your TemPads and join these pod variants as we journey together toward our glorious purpose! 

It's Mutos in the snow with two new shows on Down to Watch this week! Dan and Raul tried out a couple of first episodes from the new television season, starting with the MonsterVerse canon entry, Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Apparently, throughout the last few Godzilla movies, a secret organization called Monarch has been involving itself in the business of monsters. The new series travels back and forth between pre and post-monsters arriving in human cities, using Kurt and Wyatt Russel playing the same characters to connect the stories. The guys also started watching A Murder at the End of the World, a murder mystery for the true crime-saturated, tech-billionaire world. A lengthy first episode introduces a collection of whodunit tropes with a modern, grown-up style. Are these shows massive monster hits, or will they be left out in the cold? Either way, Portishead comes up!

This week, DtW is down to watch a movie or two! Dan's been to the theater a bunch recently, and Raul wants to know what's going on in the fresh popcorn stores. They get into several new movies, both streaming and in picture houses, from big-name draws like Scorsese's Killers of the Flower Moon (in theaters; AppleTV in December) to Argentinian indie horror When Evil Lurks (Shutter). Pod favorite, David Fincher, is back behind the big camera with The Killer (Netflix), Alexander Payne donates The Holdovers (in theaters) and Sofia Coppola tells the story of Priscilla (in theaters), and Dan was there for all of em. If you, like Raul, were wondering if Dan enjoyed the inspirational true swimmer story, Nyad (Netflix), then this is the pod for you!

DTW continues the 200th episode celebration by, once again returning to the 80s for more shuckin' and jivin', but this time adding a bit more adult edge and sexiness. Special Guest, Hannah joins Dan and Raul, who have not seen this essential 80s classic, to explore exactly what makes this such a fan-favorite movie. The pod pals dive into the successes, discussing the intricate and creative dance sequences but also, um, the main character, apparently an 18-year-old with a full-time job as a welder and fully furnished loft apartment...! Yep, and she starts a relationship with her 30something-year-old boss who white-knights all over the place, power dynamics be damned! Come for the dancing, stay for the pop songs (all winners) galore, and be a maniac! maniac! by hitting play on this here pod!

This week, Dan and Raul kick off the first of two 200th episode specials with pod bestie Natalia and iconic 80s dance epic, Footloose! Episode timing aside, the double feature of 80s dance planned for the podcast milestone starts with a classic movie and a classic guest as the podfriends gab about Kevin Bacon's seemingly unchanging aura, kids behaving badly across generations and losing yourself to anger-dancing in an empty warehouse, possibly in silence. The 80s gave us a pair of dance movies that would go on to be imitated and spoofed for how emblematic of their time they would prove to be; this is one of 'em!