Read it and Weep

Okay I think we finally found one that has nothing to do with the current situation. We watched the apocalyptic--ah shit now I see it.

Ignoring that, it's a movie about robots fighting but it's good, and excuse for the professors to talk about James Cameron.

• The terrible alternate ending to Terminator 2
• The terrible alternate ending to Titanic

It's a scary time, sure. But you know what's scarier? A wet skull alien bursting out of your chest. So there's that.

• We previously watched Alien: Resurrection.
• We recommend Under Pressure - A documentary about The Abyss (which we also watched)
• Hunter recommends Patrick Willems's Youtube video about James Cameron
• Anthony recommends Jodorowsky's Dune

In another accidentally very related issue, today we watched the Alfred Hitchcock classic Rear Window. Just like Jimmy Stewart, we're all stuck at home watching true crime stuff, so it really is perfect. Also given Hitchcock's past, we introduce a new segment, "Um... Is This Okay?"

Hunter recommends watching s06e21 of Star Trek: TNG "Frame of Mind"

Completely unrelated to any topical events, we sat down to watch an existential plague movie about how we all die eventually and it's meaningless. Okay, it's definitely not that bleak. It's really a movie about a love of board games. Also it's an important work of film. Enjoy!

Hunter recommends this song by Scott Walker summarizing the movie:

Because of the virus, school is closed for a week. So we rolled in a TV cart and sent our best thoughts to Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson! We talked about Thomas The Hank engine's career, mostly focusing on A League of Their Own (1992) which features a very rare site, Tom Hanks being hard to like. We hope they recover quickly and that Chet Hanks gets his life together.

I didn't expect, when I started this class, for so much of film knowledge to be about samurai. But apparently it's really important. Find out why when class convenes to discuss the epic (man it's so long) samurai film from the 50s.

Anthony recommends behind the scenes videos of horses who know how to fall.

Anthony recommends watching the opening credits to Enter the Void and also the ripoff, the All of the Lights music video EPILEPSY WARNING

I don't really get comic book movies. So in this special Office Hours episode, I sat down with Professor Lopez to discuss why these films have taken over and what makes them good. We also had an interesting talk about studios and how the same one that made The Emoji Movie made this.

Learn about Donald Trump's (unsurprisingly) bad taste in movies:

• An Oral History of Trump's Love of Bloodsport
• Trump is mad Parasite won best picture
• Trump misses the point of Citizen Kain

Anthony recommends They Shall Not Grow Old on HBO

Alex recommends reconsidering Freddy Got Fingered even though Roger Ebert hated it.

This week on Slightly Condescending Film School, Alex brought a movie that he really enjoyed, and was a huge box office hit, but also doesn't fit the patterns of box office hits. It's not a sequel, it's not an adaptation, and nobody in it has magical powers. So how could something so good also be popular?

We talk more about writer/director Rian Johnson and in our new segment Employee of the Month we talk (a little bit at least) about the role of the production designer. Plus we recommend you follow the cinematographer Steve Yedlin on Twitter @SteveYedlin.

Well that didn't go how I'd expected. I asked the professors and fan favorite Amanda Linebaugh (@amandable) to talk to me about the career of Quentin Tarantino and while I didn't learn much about the craft of film-making, I did get a lot to think about regarding him as a person. Also, we continue our season-long discussion of pizza boxes.

Alex and Hunter meet alone for a special Office Hours edition of Slightly Condescending Film School. They talk about Citizen Kane, yes, but they talk a lot more about pizza boxes, the role of directors, and listener emails. It's a really good episode.