Peak Viewing

Many aspects of The King of Comedy (now over 40 years old) feel incredibly timeless. It’s a story of fanaticism and parasocial relationships that feels possibly more relevant today in the age of the internet than it did in the age of television personalities. We discuss this unique brand of cringe comedy, Scorsese’s slightly more subtle stylistic touches, office layouts, and come up with a bunch of great ways to mispronounce Rupert Pupkin. Plus: the final (?) segment of “Free Streaming Service Ads Breakdown!”

Last week we bet big that Raging Bull would be the first truly amazing film of this miniseries. And this week, we’re pleased to say: we were correct! Everything seems to have come together at just the right time for this to be a truly stunning work of art: Robert De Niro’s passion, Martin Scorsese’s redemption, and Thelma Schoonmaker’s pitch-perfect editing. And that’s before we even get to Joe Pesci! We also discuss the best movie-within-a-movie movies, our embarrassing lack of familiarity with Stallone, Viola Davis’ interest in cats acting, and some theory on why black and white and color in film usually don’t mix well.

If you find yourself trying to watch the currently un-streamable film New York, New York, it’s recommended you take a break every time you can’t stand De Niro anymore. Unfortunately, the troubled nature of this movie’s production—Scorsese’s cocaine addiction and extramartial affair, Minelli’s discomfort with improv, De Niro’s obsessive method acting—seeps into the final product, resulting in a movie so uncomfortable that the fantastic music and brilliant final act is not enough to save it. We try to come to terms with these mixed feelings, along with how this fits into Lucille 2’s backstory, why Damien Chazelle is clearly so influenced by this film, and how much we’re cashing all our chips in on next week’s movie.

They said it couldn’t be done. They said two cis white men who liked movies couldn’t make it to 28 years of age without having seen Taxi Driver. And yet somehow that was true, until this week. Let’s just say right now is, uh, not the best time to be watching a movie from the perspective of a troubled, violent, lonely male figure, and as a result we’re not too thrilled about this film. Thankfully we’ve packed this episode with as many tangent-spawning questions as possible, including: how much money is Travis Bickle making? Why did Ron Howard name his kids like that? How does one become superstitious? Why are we so bad at guessing children’s ages? How many “gangster” movies have we seen thus far this miniseries? Why does Samuel not watch anime if he’s already read the manga? And maybe most pointlessly: what sorts of ads does Pluto show when you watch this movie?

Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore is Scorsese’s second (and ostensibly last) movie to center around a female protagonist, showing off a more sincere side to his filmmaking that we don’t always see. Alice’s struggles (beautiful rendered by an Oscar winning performance from Ellen Burstyn) have a timeless quality to them, even if aspects of the ending feel quite dated. We get into all that as well as personal stories of food poisoning, walking home alone, and eating in locally owned diners. Also, we misremember Talia Shire’s role in The Godfather!

As the year 2025 starts to wind down and we look back, we gotta say: not a lot of good stuff happened this year! Despite that, we both came to the table this week with a list of some of our favorite art that came out in this year. Join and listen to us ramble about puzzle games, YouTube essays, LEGO sets, JRPGs, sad indie music, Warhammer podcasts, books about lonely people, and a very very large baby.

James Cameron’s long-awaited third Avatar film is here, and it sure looks and sounds a lot like the last one! Rather than simply re-release our Way of Water episode (which we could do given how similar these two films are), we come to you this week with all our freshest takes on Fire and Ash, AI-generated commercials, Odyssey trailers, franchise subtitling, hair on Pandora, legs on snakes and whales, and Verang’s whole freaky deal. Plus, a collective fifteen minutes of banter centered around Spider’s bladder.

Babe wake up, a new Benoit Blanc mystery came out! Wake Up Dead Man is a movie with a lot of things on it’s mind: faith, truth, pragmatism, confession, Our Current Moment, judgment, guilt, compassion, sheep, wolves, all wrapped up in an extremely well told Biblical allegory. We’re big fans, even if we have a qualm or two. After making sure we spoil the ending of the movie in the first five minutes, we discuss induction stoves, using VHS tapes in 2025, Hillbilly Elegy, Netflix buying Warner Brothers, and much more.

Mean Streets feels like an upgrade in (almost) every way from Scorsese’s first film, continuing a lot of the same kinds of characters and situations we saw there. Neither of us have been wowed yet in this miniseries, but we’re certainly getting a better idea of what Scorsese is all about! We also talk about directors and their fetishes, how hard it is to exercise, working with friends, and the lack of resolution in this film. We also do our best to not devolve into stereotypical Italian-American accents, and let’s just say we did not always succeed!

Scorsese’s second film is similar to his first, in the sense that we can really only recommend it for completionism purposes. Outside of a few very impressive stylistic flourishes, the bulk of this movie is exploitation sensuality and violence. If that’s your thing, you’ll have a great time! If you wish the titular Bertha and her interiority were the focus, you’ll be let down! Other topics discussed include the sketchy origins around the source book, the board game Monopoly, Samuel’s new last name, car aerodynamics, and the eternal question: is it better to be nailed to the cross through your wrists or your palms?