Nightmares. Sleep paralysis. Stuff that freaks us out. Good and evil. Rodney Ascher. Is this a documentary or a glorified TV movie?

We have a wide-ranging discussion (debate?) about Ayn Rand, why she loved movies, and the various effects that her voice and influence had over this 1949 film adaptation of her smash hit novel, The Fountainhead.

We take another journey into the dark and stormy mind of Todd Solondz to give our dark and stormy thoughts on Life During Wartime, his de facto sequel to Happiness.

We mow through Red State, a film that goes in many unexpected directions. Sex, religion, politics. What is our relationship with the movies of Kevin Smith? How neatly does this one fit into the canon? How do Smith's attitudes towards religion inform movies like this and Dogma?

We welcome our second guest in a row into the lair to discuss Belly, the 1998 Hype Williams hip hop/gangster movie fever dream. What do DMX and Nas capture with their performances here? How about Louie Rankin? What does this movie mean to us?

ft. Jason Threlkeld

We welcome in our first guest in a long while to do a three man weave on Logan, the beloved 2017 Marvel movie about everyone's favorite moody yeller with claws. How many times does Hugh Jackman scream at the sky in Logan? What makes this movie work so well? What could have made it better? 

ft. Carlos Rice

We take a gander at Downsizing, a movie that made significantly less money than it cost. How much did the marketing of the movie play a role in its disastrous box office showing? Is this a satire? What IS this movie? How many different kinds of genres and issues is it trying to hit? Does it succeed?

We turn the mic on after seeing Mank and give our immediate reactions to it. Why did David Fincher make this movie? How did Mank stack up against the expectations we had for it going in? Does Mank put a new spin on the titanic Citizen Kane, or can it stand alone as a work of art without prior knowledge of Kane and Orson Welles?

We knew this would happen eventually, and it finally did here: Marcus and Matt stumble into a really bad movie that the person picking it (in this case, Matt) didn't realize was bad because he hadn't seen it in forever. 

We tore into Mystery, Alaska pretty relentlessly. What is this movie about? Is it about what it purports to be about, even a little bit (no)? Can the great Russell Crowe salvage this mess, even a little bit (no)? Did we enjoy watching this trainwreck, even a little bit (absolutely)? 

This is a fun conversation that serves as a guided tour on what makes a movie bad. Enjoy!

Revenge comes home as we break down Blue Ruin, a very good movie that I put off watching for years. Why do certain movies stay on our Watchlist forever? And why is this one of them?