In our series "Catching Up On", we watch a classic movie that is new to us, and we discuss how we experienced the movie with fresh eyes and try to understand its historical context and cultural impact.

This week we watch "The Wizard of Oz", a fantasy musical from 1939 directed by Victor Fleming and starring Judy Garland, Frank Morgan and Margaret Hamilton, about Dorothy who is transplanted by a tornado from Kansas to the magical land of Oz and has to find a way home while evading the schemes of the Wicked Witch.

We talk about how we experienced the Wizard of Oz as someone who has no childhood nostalgia for it and how it compares to what we had picked up through cultural osmosis, go over the highlights of the nightmarish production of the movie that is terrifying even by early Hollywood standards, whether the movie works as a story on its own merits and where breaking the usual rules of storytelling works for the movie and where it doesn't, whether the Wicked Witch is a good villain, and whether we would show this movie to our hypothetical children, and much more.

Check out our other fantasy movie reviews:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5O7bUTf5FmPBrVRUFKRgJo

This week we review and discuss The Running Man, a science fiction action movie directed by Edgar Wright and starring Glen Powell, William H. Macy and Emilia Jones, about a man who joins a deadly game show as the only way he can earn the money to afford life saving medicine for his child.

We talk about the movie's handling of topics such as inequality, poverty and class warfare and why we were pleasantly surprised by that, in what ways the dystopia the movie predicts came true 20 years ago but isn't all that relevant anymore today, how the movie's world in which people volunteer to be oppressed by the media they consume relates to the realities of social media and AI that we live in today, why the ending felt underwhelming and what we thought it should have been, and much more.

Check out our other science fiction movie reviews here:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5EeVLUSNMTrp1spnkKtiQj

This week we review and discuss Predator: Badlands, a science fiction action movie directed by Dan Trachtenberg and starring Elle Fanning, Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi and Reuben de Jong about a young Yautja who embarks on an impossible hunt to earn his place in his clan, and encounters a synth on a similar mission.

We talk about whether the movie succeeds at fleshing out the Predators and whether telling a story from their point of view worked for us, whether it deserves its nearly universal acclaim and if it made us want to see more of the Yautja and their honor culture in future movies, how the movie handles its themes of found family and succeeding in spite of your heritage or whether that topic is played out, we try to understand why this movie was the most polarising for us in a long time and whether it was the movie's fault, and much more.

Check out our other science fiction movie reviews here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5EeVLUSNMTrp1spnkKtiQj

In "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time.

This week we revisit Good Bye Lenin!, a 2003 german comedy movie directed by Wolfgang Becker and starring Daniel Brühl, Katrin Sass and Maria Simon, about a son trying to hide the collapse of socialist East Germany from his mother as she is recovering from a heart attack.

We talk about how the historical and political satire lands with people who are not already familiar with German history and culture, how the satire succeeds by not punching down but rather empathising with the people who lived through the events the movie depicts, the expert use of dry irony, and why this movie remains timely and relevant more than 20 years later, and much more. 

Related playlists:

Comedy movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0UbLhXlobg6OWrwfsEQhkf

2000s movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4OKfR0jJ3YbyEwv4SorfOo

This week we review and discuss Shelby Oaks, a supernatural horror movie directed by Chris Stuckmann and starring Camille Sullivan, Sarah Durn and Keith David, about a woman determined to find her sister, who went missing while investigating the mysterious abandoned town of Shelby Oaks.

We talk about whether the movie's mixed found footage and conventional filming style worked for us, why the ending was the strongest part for us that is not supported by the largely unmotivated mystery that dominates the rest of the movie, why this movie gives Youtube critics becoming filmmakers a bad name, how much slack viewers should give first time filmmakers and what can be expected on a story level from people who have studied movies for decades when they make their own movie, and much more.

Check out our other horror movie reviews here:


https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nEzAuLhmPeQVt6eJGStPn

This week we review and discuss The Hand That Rocks The Cradle, a thriller movie directed by Michelle Garza Cervera and starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Maika Monroe and Raul Castilla, about a family who hires a nanny only to discover she has a sinister motive and is scheming to break up their family.

We talk about how this movie compares to the original and how the changes it makes impact the story, why the nanny's motivation was broken in the adaptation and not really replaced with something that fits the new focus of the story, why Maika Monroe should not play Batman, we discuss numerous plotholes that plague the plot, and why its ending is so puzzling, and much more.

Check out our other thriller movie reviews here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/3ZMvBTTdz3apWAwvvcU6x5

In our series "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time. Our conversation focuses on the experience of someone watching the movie for the first time today and their reaction.

This week we revisit Oculus, a 2013 psychological horror movie directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Karen Gillan, Katee Sackhoff and Brenton Thwaites, about a brother and sister who try to prove that a demonic mirror is responsible for the deaths of their parents 11 years earlier.

We talk about how this movie follows in the tradition of The Exorcist in that is examines supernatural horror through a rational lens and is a more compelling story for it, how the movie benefits from making both sides of its conflict competent so that when one side triumphs it feels earned and satisfying, how this movie shows that the Hollywood ending is a crutch and more movies should have tragic endings, and much more.

Related playlists:

Horror movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nEzAuLhmPeQVt6eJGStPn
2010's movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4OKfR0jJ3YbyEwv4SorfOo
Halloween season reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/58HVIHc2oHh93OrGsDRuuY

This week we review and discuss Black Phone 2, a horror movie directed by Scott Derrickson and starring Mason Thames, Ethan Hawke and Madeleine McGraw, about Finney and Gwen who investigate the history of the masked serial killer the Grabber, which leads them to discover a sinister past involving more victims of the masked killer.

We talk about why this movie movie is a perfect example of an unnecessary sequel that lacks direction, why Gwen as the main character can't carry this movie and is set up to fail at this task by the script, why none of the expansions of the Grabber's lore managed to get us interested despite the movie itself not being actually bad and several moments being well done by themselves and why that wasn't enough for some of us, and much more.

Check out our other horror movie reviews here:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nEzAuLhmPeQVt6eJGStPn

In our series "Have You Seen?" we discuss a movie that some of us know well and others have just now seen for the first time. Our conversation focuses on the experience of someone watching the movie for the first time today and their reaction.

This week we revisit 30 Days of Night, a 2007 horror movie directed by David Slade and starring Josh Hartnett, Melissa George and Danny Huston, about a small town in Alaska that is invaded by a pack of vampires during their annual month without sunshine.

We talk about how this movie went against the grain at the time by depicting its vampires as brutal monsters that act like pack predators, how the setting of a remote Alaskan town informs and enables the survival horror, whether the ending worked for us and when heroic sacrifices work in fiction, what defines vampires in the first place and why their powers and weaknesses are so varied compared to other horror monsters and how that impacts storytelling, and much more.

Related playlists:

Horror movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5nEzAuLhmPeQVt6eJGStPn
2000's movie reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4OKfR0jJ3YbyEwv4SorfOo
Halloween season reviews: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/58HVIHc2oHh93OrGsDRuuY

This week we review and discuss Tron: Ares, a science fiction action movie directed by Joachim Ronning and starring Jared Leto, Greta Lee and Jeff Bridges, about ENCOM and Dillinger Systems trying to find a piece of code that will allow their AI creations exist in the physical world, and an AI agent who goes rogue against his creator in search of this code.

We talk about why this movie didn't work for us on a character and story level, why the unconvincing protagonists are a particular weakness of the movie, why we were bored by the spectacle that should have been the main attraction, why Tron: Ares is not a movie about AI and what a proper treatment of that topic might look like, and much more.

Check out our other science fiction movie reviews here:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5EeVLUSNMTrp1spnkKtiQj