Screeners Podcast

What better way to celebrate election season than by watching a documentary about a partisan summer camp in Texas? At least, that's what Boys State looks like to us at first glance. We're sure it's far more nuanced than that.

Since this is clearly a light release week, let's also take some time to catch up on what else the hosts have been streaming lately, then—why not?—work on our Flickchart list a bit.

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HBO Max is here, like it or not. Some Screeners might just be in the latter group, since they're having trouble getting access to it through no fault of their own (thanks, cable companies and Amazon!).

Anyway, they've put all their eggs in Seth Rogen's basket for their first feature-length movie, An American Pickle. It's a . . . dramedy about a Jewish time traveler? Sure; why not. It's also over in less than 90 minutes, so if it's bad, at least it won't be bad for that long. If it's good, it won't overstay it's welcome. Let's watch it; what do we have to lose?

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We don't know what the next Oscars will look like, but if there's one awards show that should have a banner year, it's the Emmys. We've certainly had plenty of time to check out the nominees. The streaming platforms (even some of the newer ones) play an unsurprisingly large role here, so we'll have to have a little chat about whether that's warranted.

Once we've complained about why our favorites didn't make the list, let's . . . well, let's do some more complaining. We spend a lot of time on the show making "best of" lists, but no one ever talks about the opposite of the best — until now. Welcome to the inaugural "worst movies ever" list. "But wait," you say. "If it's the worst movies ever, can't there by definition be only one list?" Nah. When you start digging into repressed memories like this, you're always bound to come up with more than you started with. Plus, there's a new Mortal Kombat movie coming out next year.

Enjoy!

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Special Guest: Tyler Howat.

Our "best of" episodes have been a lot of fun so far, and it's been a minute since we've done one. What better decade to return with than the 90s?

Sure, Chad was probably pushing middle age by then, but it's right in the childhood nostalgia sweet spot for several of the Screeners, so we should be able to find some good arguments in here somewhere. Without further ado, here are the categories we'll cover:

...as always, though, there are no rules, so Chad will probably slip something else in there since he has adult memories from this era.

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Special Guest: Tyler Howat.

At under (under!) 90 minutes, Max Barbakow's Palm Springs shouldn't be too hard to make it through...unless its familiar plot devices make it insufferable. The reviews so far suggest it's worth the modest amount of time it asks for, and it does star Andy Samberg so the only question remaining is whether it gets the Screeners seal of approval. Only one way to find that out...

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Special Guest: Tyler Howat.

After all those months of trying to score tickets from shady scalpers and even shadier “legitimate” ticket outlets, Disney+ has finally scored us seats to Hamilton, and couch seats at that. Despite all the criticism from people who insist on getting things “accurate”, the musical has obviously been a massive hit. Does it translate to TV, though? The Screeners are here to help you decide!

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Special Guest: Tyler Howat.

If you listened to our review of Devs and thought, "That's great, but can't you give me something longer to watch?", we've got your back. ESPN's docuseries The Last Dance is longer than Devs by a solid 2 hours. So there.

"But I don't like sports," you say. Don't worry; we've got that viewpoint covered too. We'll tell you what's up.

And if that's not enough, or if you've already watched The Last Dance (we know; it ended a couple weeks ago), we'll give you a list of other things to catch up on by talking about our top 3 movies and TV shows of...the first half of the year. Surely there's something in there you haven't seen—it's not like you've been holed up at home for the past three months or something, right?

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They've been saying that the summer movie season is canceled for at least a couple months now, but that's not stopping some heavy hitters from putting new work out there. This week has seen big releases from both Spike Lee and Judd Apatow.

First up, Da 5 Bloods (available on Netflix) follows a squad of black soldiers from Vietnam who return to the country decades after the war. That's all we'll say about the plot, but you know Spike Lee's got some themes on his mind, and this release comes right in the middle of a time when a lot of people are ready to discusss them.

Next up, Pete Davidson's partial autobiography, The King of Staten Island (available for on-demand rental). Judd Apatow has really dialed in his ability to maintain solid humor while serving up emotion over his past few films, so a story that covers loss in 9/11 and some of Davidson's not-so-secret personal struggles should make for a good watch, but things can always go sideways. Is this a hit or a miss?

And why not throw in a Top 3 for the fun of it, eh? Inspired by Spike, why not talk about our favorite movies with digits in the title? Seems like a little more fertile ground for discussion than "movies with an NYC burrough in the title", at least.

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Special Guest: Tyler Howat.

Before we get into our regularly scheduled reviews for this episode, we want to take a moment to acknolwedge the tremendous amount of pain that's come to the surface in America (and elsewhere) over the past 2 weeks. As a bunch of white people on a media podcast, we're not going to try to offer any answers, but we also don't want to sit in silence while fellow humans cry out for justice. We want to instead show solidarity by taking some time out at the beginning of our episode to talk about the ways we've been trying to educate ourselves. There are a number of resources out there for learning about life experiences in our country that differ greatly from our own. We'll only be able to mention a few, but maybe we'll come up with one you aren't familiar with. If so, check it out.

After that, we'll go back in time to the 1970s for the new Hulu series Mrs. America, which focuses on a different fight for justice, the campaign for the Equal Rights Amendment. When we've talked about whether Uzo Aduba, Cate Blanchett, and Sara Paulson do the subject justice, we'll...switch gears entirely and review Netflix's Space Force. Steve Carell's new comedy covers our military's newest branch in all its dubious marketing glory, but does it hit its target?

And once we've covered those, we're still not done! HBO just unleashed a whole new streaming service onto the world...except the parts of the world that use Roku or Amazon streaming devices to get their content. HBO Max has all the HBO stuff, but also a lot of not-HBO stuff, like Friends and Rick and Morty, and supposedly there's going to be new exclusive content as well — because what good is a new service if it can't be used to fragment the market further? Anyway, it sounds mostly great, especially if you were subscribing to HBO already...and, again, don't have a Roku or Amazon device. That's only a double-digit percentage of you, right? Should be fine. We'll tell you just how great it is, though, because we wouldn't be media addicts if we didn't.

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Special Guest: Tyler Howat.

If there's ever been a summer that the Screeners should have some content for a What Have You Been Watching segment, it's this one. So let's go ahead lead off with that.

Next, Paramount's The Lovebirds is currently the top movie on Netflix. We're not sure if that's an indication of quality per se, but Netflix did need a comedy/romance co-starring Kumail Nanjiani to compete with The Big Sick, so at least this is...that, but with some murder too? Sure, if that's your thing.

And no, the IMDB game is not just a time-filler—and to prove it, we're going to end the episode with it. See? Guess we showed you.

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