In this episode of Second Cut, Jacob and Sam look at the strange, mournful, mythic cinema of David Lowery, from his North Texas indie roots to his work with Disney, A24, and his new film Mother Mary.

We talk about Lowery’s background outside the usual Austin/Los Angeles filmmaking pipeline, his recurring collaborators, his relationship to Terrence Malick-style imagery, and his ability to move between studio filmmaking and intimate personal projects. Then we dig into two of his most distinctive films: A Ghost Story and The Green Knight.

In A Ghost Story, we discuss grief, time, Rooney Mara’s infamous pie scene, Casey Affleck under the sheet, the boxed-in aspect ratio, Daniel Hart’s music, and the film’s haunting vision of love, memory, and cosmic recurrence. Then we turn to The Green Knight, David Lowery’s atmospheric adaptation of the Arthurian legend, starring Dev Patel as a not-yet-knightly Gawain forced to confront honor, fear, temptation, and the stories men tell about themselves.

Along the way, we also touch on Pete’s Dragon, Peter Pan & Wendy, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints, The Old Man & the Gun, and why Mother Mary feels like another step in Lowery’s career-long obsession with myth, longing, and haunted spaces.

Subscribe for more film criticism, history, and theory-driven conversations.Follow Second Cut:YouTube: @SecondCutPodSubstack: ⁠https://secondcutpod.substack.com⁠Socials: @SecondCutPodEmail: ⁠[email protected]⁠Chapters00:00 Intro

00:46 Why we’re talking about David Lowery

02:00 Lowery’s North Texas background

04:10 Early filmmaking and self-taught roots

07:06 Ain’t Them Bodies Saints and Lowery’s breakthrough

08:24 Malick comparisons and Lowery’s style

09:41 Recurring collaborators and creative team

12:32 Lowery as editor and hands-on filmmaker

14:40 Awards, recognition, and Mother Mary

15:43 Pete’s Dragon and Disney remakes

18:53 Peter Pan & Wendy and mythic storytelling

20:46 A Ghost Story begins

21:19 Is Casey Affleck really under the sheet?

22:36 Grief, death, and the emotional premise

25:25 Time loops, houses, and cosmic loneliness

27:36 The pie scene and Rooney Mara’s performance

31:00 The neighbor ghost and waiting for someone

34:45 The hidden note and the mystery of release

37:25 The prognosticator scene and cosmic meaning

41:13 Aspect ratio, marriage, and autobiography

43:30 Low-budget production and Lowery’s intent

45:38 Daniel Hart’s music and emotional overwhelm

49:10 Final thoughts on A Ghost Story

50:33 The Green Knight begins

51:02 Arthurian legend and Gawain/Gowan pronunciation

54:13 How Lowery changes Sir Gawain

57:42 Atmosphere, pacing, and mythic ambiguity

58:47 Jacob’s reaction to The Green Knight

1:00:14 Robert Eggers comparisons

1:04:12 Side quests, folklore, and structure

1:06:23 The temptation test and the green sash

1:08:45 The vision of Gawain’s future

1:10:27 What Lowery was trying to adapt

1:12:16 Looking ahead to Mother Mary

1:13:51 Final thoughts on David Lowery

1:14:40 Plugs and outro

Music:Awakening (Instrumental) by Wataboi⁠https://soundcloud.com/wataboi⁠Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0Music promoted by FDL Music⁠https://youtu.be/X2oQNUOmk2k

Anne Hathaway has been a Disney princess, a rom-com lead, Catwoman, an Oscar winner, and one of the most recognizable American movie stars of the 21st century. But what actually makes her work on screen?

In this episode of Second Cut, Jacob and Kieran look at Hathaway through two very different performances: Andy Sachs in The Devil Wears Prada and Fantine in Les Misérables. Using James Naremore’s ideas about film acting as a loose framework, they ask what makes a performance readable, natural, expressive, and suited to the film around it.

Along the way, they talk Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly, Emily Blunt and Stanley Tucci stealing scenes, whether The Devil Wears Prada is really about a woman becoming “bad” or just becoming good at her job, Tom Hooper’s sung-through approach to Les Misérables, Russell Crowe’s Javert, Victor Hugo, French revolutionary context, and whether Hathaway’s Oscar-winning Fantine is a great performance, a great Oscar clip, or both.

Follow Second Cut:
YouTube: @SecondCutPod
Substack: https://secondcutpod.substack.com
Socials: @SecondCutPod
Email: [email protected]

Chapters

00:00 Intro
00:49 Why Anne Hathaway now?
02:08 First encounters with Hathaway
05:48 Rom-coms, “movies for women,” and The Hustle
07:25 Hathaway’s star power and theater background
09:49 James Naremore and how to judge film acting
14:03 The Devil Wears Prada
17:32 What is The Devil Wears Prada really about?
23:12 Andy Sachs, career success, and the boyfriend problem
29:21 Miranda Priestly and the missing cost of ambition
31:53 Emily Blunt, Stanley Tucci, and the supporting cast
33:34 Anne Hathaway’s performance as Andy
40:06 Does the film only feel deeper than it is?
43:19 The Miranda movie we wish existed
48:52 The Devil Wears Prada 2 speculation
50:53 Les Misérables and Tom Hooper returns
54:38 Les Misérables plot summary
57:00 Sung-through musicals and pacing
1:00:35 Valjean, Javert, and the French rebellion
1:01:32 Anne Hathaway as Fantine
1:04:57 The 2012 Supporting Actress race
1:09:54 Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, and Javert
1:12:53 Performance without dialogue
1:14:07 I Dreamed a Dream
1:14:47 Sweeney Todd energy and the innkeepers
1:19:21 Why the revolution material drags
1:24:55 French history and assumed context
1:26:32 What Tom Hooper could have changed
1:29:27 Final thoughts on Anne Hathaway
1:30:27 Looking ahead to Hathaway’s upcoming films
1:30:59 Plugs and outro

Music:
Awakening (Instrumental) by Wataboi
https://soundcloud.com/wataboi
Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0
Music promoted by FDL Music
https://youtu.be/X2oQNUOmk2k

In this episode of Second Cut, we talk about one of cinema’s coolest tricks: watching a single actor become multiple people. Because of Michael B. Jordan’s Oscar-winning twin performance in Sinners, we get into what makes multi-role acting so compelling, why it so often leans comic, and what separates a gimmick from a real performance. Then we dive into Alec Guinness playing nearly an entire murderous aristocratic family in Kind Hearts and Coronets, Peter Sellers splitting himself across the madness of Dr. Strangelove, and Jordan’s physically and emotionally distinct twins in Sinners. Along the way, we talk class satire, Cold War absurdity, vampire assimilation, and the filmmaking tricks that make one actor seem to exist twice on screen.

Chapters00:00 Intro

00:52 The phenomenon of actors playing multiple roles

14:32 Kind Hearts and Coronets

44:51 Dr. Strangelove

1:15:53 Sinners and the Oscar context

1:20:35 Getting into Sinners proper

1:31:56 Why Michael B. Jordan’s performance works

1:34:19 How the twin shots are pulled off

1:37:46 The vampires, assimilation, and cultural memory

1:46:13 The climax and final Sinners thoughts

1:48:44 OutroMusic: Awakening (Instrumental) by Wataboi https://soundcloud.com/wataboiCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0Music promoted by FDL Music https://youtu.be/X2oQNUOmk2k

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, but a lot of Frankenstein movies spend surprisingly little time letting women matter inside that story.

In this episode of Second Cut, Jacob, Sam, and Kieran dig into Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), and Lisa Frankenstein (2024) to ask what happens when “female-focused Frankenstein” movies are still mostly about male creators, male desire, and male control.

They get into James Whale’s camp classic, Peter Cushing’s Hammer mad scientist, Diablo Cody and Zelda Williams’ coming-of-rage monster romance, Mary Shelley’s goth legacy, queer readings, Hammer excess, and why Lisa Frankenstein feels closest to a version of Frankenstein cinema that actually remembers its author.

Chapters

00:00 Intro
01:22 What even counts as a “female-focused Frankenstein” movie?
04:08 Mary Shelley, teenage goth genius
11:42 Del Toro, stage versions, and better female presence
20:13 Bride of Frankenstein
37:50 Where is the bride, actually?
43:58 Transition to Frankenstein Created Woman
1:00:48 Hammer takes Frankenstein back
1:32:29 Lisa Frankenstein
1:38:28 Why the movie doesn’t fully connect
1:47:09 Burton, Reiniger, and the visual lineage
1:53:45 Final thoughts on Lisa Frankenstein
2:00:00 Plugs and outro

Music: Awakening (Instrumental) by Wataboi https://soundcloud.com/wataboiCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0Music promoted by FDL Music https://youtu.be/X2oQNUOmk2k

What are the Razzies actually for? In this episode, we use the Golden Raspberry Awards to talk about bad-movie culture, awards as spectacle, and why so many infamous flops are really stories about ego, stardom, and show business.

Using Showgirls, All About Steve, and Hurry Up Tomorrow, we ask whether the Razzies are a useful counterweight to prestige culture or just another way Hollywood turns failure into entertainment. Along the way, we get into Paul Verhoeven, Sandra Bullock’s bizarre Razzie/Oscar weekend, The Weeknd’s self-mythologizing, and the difference between a movie that is trash, a movie that is fascinatingly broken, and a movie that is simply unbearable.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction

00:56 What are the Razzies actually for?

04:00 Razzie origins and how they started

09:52 Membership, voting, and repeat offenders

12:42 Why these three films

13:50 Showgirls and Razzie infamy

15:15 Verhoeven, Joe Eszterhas, and the film’s setup

21:56 Is Showgirls misunderstood or just bad?

36:49 Showgirls at the Razzies

42:55 Final thoughts on Showgirls

43:57 The real link between all three films: stardom and show business

45:14 All About Steve and Sandra Bullock’s Razzie/Oscar weekend

51:07 All About Steve plot recap

01:04:17 Why All About Steve fails

01:08:20 All About Steve Razzie results

01:12:56 Hurry Up Tomorrow and this year’s Razzies

01:16:23 How Hurry Up Tomorrow got made

01:20:23 Symbolism, fandom, and the ego problem

01:31:37 Why the film’s themes feel thin

01:36:20 Ending and interpretation

01:41:41 Ranking the three: bad, entertaining, or unbearable?

01:51:38 Our own Razzie ballot

01:53:54 Outro

Music: Awakening (Instrumental) by Wataboi https://soundcloud.com/wataboiCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0Music promoted by FDL Music https://youtu.be/X2oQNUOmk2k

In this episode of Second Cut, we remember Robert Duvall by looking at three performances across three different decades: his brief but unforgettable debut as Boo Radley in To Kill a Mockingbird, his Oscar-winning turn in Tender Mercies, and his late-career western authority in Open Range.

We talk about what made Duvall such a singular screen presence: the restraint, the stillness, the emotional precision, and the way he could dominate a film without ever seeming to push for attention. Along the way, we get into Gregory Peck and Atticus Finch, why Tender Mercies feels strangely forgotten, Kevin Costner’s pacing in Open Range, and the kind of actor Duvall was in both epics and intimate dramas.

Chapters

00:00 Robert Duvall memorial intro

01:07 Career overview and why Duvall mattered

05:37 The art of underplaying

14:42 To Kill a Mockingbird

24:24 Gregory Peck and the Atticus Finch debate

36:00 Boo Radley and Duvall’s debut

42:44 Tender Mercies

49:04 Oscar context and the Pacino question

59:26 Why Tender Mercies faded from memory

1:05:05 Open Range

1:08:38 Costner’s pacing and the film’s setup

1:13:39 Why Duvall anchors the western

1:22:42 Final thoughts on Open Range

1:25:39 Other great Duvall roles

1:28:45 Outro

Music:Awakening (Instrumental) by Wataboi https://soundcloud.com/wataboiCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0Music promoted by FDL Music https://youtu.be/X2oQNUOmk2k

For Black History Month, we’re looking at American Black film history through three major points of entry: Oscar Micheaux’s Within Our Gates (1920), Sidney Poitier’s In the Heat of the Night (1967), and Nia DaCosta’s Little Woods (2018).

We talk about what gets left out of standard film-history narratives, the importance of Black filmmakers and performers in shaping American cinema, and how race, representation, authorship, and opportunity have changed across the medium’s history. Along the way, we get into Micheaux as a pioneering counter-cinema figure responding to The Birth of a Nation, Poitier as a defining screen presence of the civil-rights era, and DaCosta as a modern filmmaker whose career points toward a different Hollywood than the one that came before.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction: Black Film History and the Canon

08:28 Early Representation and Canon Blind Spots

18:47 Oscar Micheaux and Within Our Gates

33:13 Within Our Gates: Plot and Themes

41:37 From Early Hollywood to Sidney Poitier

44:22 Sidney Poitier and In the Heat of the Night

01:04:22 Iconic Scenes, Production Context, and Legacy

01:19:04 Nia DaCosta and the Modern Industry

01:36:50 Little Woods: Plot, Themes, and Debut Direction

01:51:44 Closing Remarks

Music:

Awakening (Instrumental) by Wataboi https://soundcloud.com/wataboi

Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0

Music promoted by FDL Music https://youtu.be/X2oQNUOmk2k

Pirate movies used to be Hollywood’s A-list spectacle, then they vanished, then Disney revived them, and now they’re gone again. In this episode, we trace the genre’s DNA from Treasure Island and Captain Hook to the “pirate code,” and we dig into how censorship and shifting cultural politics pushed classic swashbucklers to soften (or outright reroute) piracy into privateering, smuggling, and honor-bound adventure. Using three cornerstone films to chart the whole arc—Captain Blood (1935), The Black Swan (1942), and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)—we follow pirate cinema from the silent-era template and studio-era craftsmanship to modern franchise engineering.

Along the way, we get specific about what the genre does on screen: character dynamics that turn criminals into folk heroes, action staging that has to sell bodies-in-motion against water-and-ship logistics, and the craft toolbox, that makes the sea feel cinematic rather than staged. We break down the set pieces, the musical identity, and why Black Pearl hit the sweet spot that later sequels struggled to replicate.

Chapters

00:00 The Golden Age of Pirate Films

02:58 Pirate Tropes and Their Evolution

05:57 The Influence of Literature on Pirate Cinema

08:56 The Silent Era and Early Pirate Films

12:03 The Swashbuckler Era: Captain Blood and Beyond

14:59 Censorship and the Portrayal of Pirates

17:58 The Resurgence of Pirate Films in Modern Cinema

20:47 The Black Swan: A New Wave of Pirate Stories

57:22 The Transition from Privateers to Pirates

01:00:38 Character Dynamics and Romantic Tropes

01:02:08 Visual Effects and Cinematography in Pirate Films

01:06:04 The Impact of World War II on Film Production

01:08:39 The Evolution of Pirate Characters in Cinema

01:12:15 The Role of Captain Jack Sparrow

01:14:38 The Plot and Themes of Pirates of the Caribbean

01:20:15 Sword Fights and Action Sequences

01:25:49 The Musical Score and Its Influence

01:39:26 The Legacy of Pirates of the Caribbean

Jacob, Kieran, and Sam delve into the cinematic works of Park Chan-wook, focusing on his notable films such as Oldboy, The Handmaiden, and Decision to Leave. We explore the themes, character complexities, and visual storytelling techniques that define his films, as well as the impact of Oldboy on global cinema, the use of humor in dark narratives, and the cultural context of Korean cinema.

Read us here: https://secondcutpod.substack.com/

Follow us everywhere @SecondCutPod

Music:

Awakening (Instrumental) by Wataboi https://soundcloud.com/wataboi

Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0

Music promoted by FDL Music https://youtu.be/X2oQNUOmk2k

Chapters

00:00 Exploring Park Chan-wook's Cinematic Range

02:52 The Vengeance Trilogy: Themes and Impact

06:07 Character Complexity and Moral Ambiguity

08:55 Visual Style and Symbolism in Park Chan-wook's Films

12:02 The Role of Humor in Dark Themes

15:05 Cinematic Techniques: Zooms and Recontextualization

18:01 Realism in Action: Vulnerability of Characters

21:06 Cultural Context and Global Influence

23:58 Conclusion: Park Chan-wook's Legacy

29:31 Exploring Psychological Thrillers

31:46 The Shock Factor of Oldboy

36:36 Unpacking the Plot Twists

41:37 Character Analysis: Odeh Su

46:30 Cinematic Techniques and Influences

55:40 Themes of Memory and Identity

01:01:42 Exploring The Handmaiden's Themes

01:08:05 Cultural Context and Historical Significance

01:15:19 Character Dynamics and Performances

01:21:31 Narrative Structure and Twists

01:27:57 Dark Humor and Absurdity in Storytelling

01:30:43 Final Thoughts on The Handmaiden

01:33:24 First Impressions and Rewatch Value

01:34:37 Character Dynamics and Relationships

01:36:56 Plot Twists and Moral Dilemmas

01:39:57 Technological Elements in Storytelling

01:43:05 Hitchcockian Influences

01:48:34 Visual Storytelling and Cinematic Techniques

01:55:06 Final Thoughts and Interpretations

100 (YouTube) episodes in, we're doing something surprisingly tough: choosing and watching our favorite movies.Jacob chose The Big Lebowski, Kieran chose North by Northwest, and Sam chose A Matter of Life and Death; three totally different classics that have all earned lifetime rewatch status for very different reasons.This isn't an argument over which is best, it's a dicussion of what makes a favorite from craft, comfort, timing, identity, and the weird personal mythology that makes a movie stick.Read us here: https://secondcutpod.substack.com/Follow us everywhere @SecondCutPodMusic:Awakening (Instrumental) by Wataboi https://soundcloud.com/wataboiCreative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported — CC BY-SA 3.0Music promoted by FDL Music https://youtu.be/X2oQNUOmk2k