The A.V. Club Presents Film Club

Last week, The A.V. Club put out a call for questions from you, readers of the site and loyal listeners of our weekly podcast, Film Club. This week, critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife are answering a selection of them on a very special AMA episode. Press play below to hear their thoughts on the future of movie releases, which of each other’s reviews they disagree with the most, and much more. And apologies in advance if they didn’t get to your query—we’ll likely do this whole thing again down the road.

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Valentine’s Day is Sunday, and to celebrate this annual rush for florists, chocolatiers, and greeting-card magnates, The A.V. Club has rolled out several odes to romantic pop-culture. It’s Love Week, you saps! The festivities continue on this uncharacteristically mushy episode of Film Club, wherein critics (and usual cynics) A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife talk about cinematic love stories, from the Golden Age of 194os screwball courtship to the rom-com dregs of the early 2000s. They close things out with some recommendations for this weekend’s collective date night. Because it’s you, dear listeners, we really love.

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Every January, thousands of people fly into Utah and then descend on the sleepy ski town of Park City for the annual movie-lover summit that is Sundance. Not this January, though. Because we’re still snowed in, so to speak, by the dangers of an ongoing pandemic, America’s most popular and prominent film festival went largely online in 2021. Did this change in format change the fabled Sundance experience? And how were the films themselves this year? Reporting “from” Sundance—which it to say, their living rooms—critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife discuss this unusual year for the festival, including some of its most prominent and talked-about titles.

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This episode comes with a warning up top, but don’t worry: All the classic films whose big twists are revealed on this week’s episode of Film Club are at least a couple of decades old. And although whether there’s such a thing as a term limit for spoilers is part of the conversation, we’re not just ruining movie plots for our listeners at random. Our critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife approach the topic of spoilers from both a historical and a practical perspective, discussing the origins of spoiler culture as we know it today, how they handle spoilers in their own work, and how much they like to know about a movie or TV series before diving in.

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An extended eligibility window for a pandemic Oscars means that this year, awards season will extend well into the spring. But for their first episode of 2021, our critics are setting the prestige pics aside and celebrating a January tradition: Crappy horror movies. Since 2012's The Devil Inside, the cinematic calendar has reliably featured a throwaway studio horror title on the first weekend of January. And although the streak was broken this year, this week’s Film Club dives in to this ignominious run and asks: Are any of these movies actually worth watching?

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Yesterday, The A.V. Club posted its list of the best movies of 2020. That was, of course and as it always is, a group effort—a picture of the year in film as determined through consensus as much as singular passion. For the latter, you can peruse the individual ballots, which provide a look at how all 12 contributors voted. Or you can press play on the podcast below—the year’s final episode of Film Club, in which our critics, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife, run down their respective top-1o lists and discuss their own favorites of 2020. Admittedly, there’s some consensus between the two of them, too.

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It’s mid-December, and for many people, that means the Christmas season is in full swing. Far be it from us at The A.V. Club to deny anyone their annual holiday traditions—including the yuletide staples, like It’s Wonderful Life or A Christmas Story or Home Alone, that grace televisions (and, in normal times, movie screens) every year around this time. But what about those who are just a little sick of the regularly scheduled programming, who want to find something different under the proverbial tree this December? On this very special holiday-themed episode of Film Club, critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife discuss some of their favorite alternative Christmas picks, from the new classics that haven’t yet earned their spot in the canon to some dark counter-programming for all the incorrigible Grinches out there. Don’t worry, though: They also find room to sing the praises of a couple of more traditional films. Because it wouldn’t be Christmas without a few ol’ chestnuts.

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Once upon a time, movies and television were mortal enemies, and pretty easy to tell apart, too. But the lines that once separated these two mediums have been blurring for a while now—a process that’s only been accelerated by the rise of streaming platforms, where everything is just content for the algorithm. And this year, as movie theaters closed their doors in the face of a deadly pandemic and people began watching everything at home, the distinction between big and small screen entertainment seemed less relevant than ever. But have we really reached the point where the two are one and the same? On this week’s episode of Film Club, critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife are joined by a very special guest, TV Club editor Danette Chavez, to discuss our strange new media landscape. Don’t worry: Twin Peaks comes up, of course.

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It seems that the Academy Awards are still happening next year, just a little later than usual. What that means is that an abnormally long awards season is upon us! On this week’s episode of Film Club, critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife discuss two high-profile Netflix releases vying for a spot in the race: David Fincher’s Mank and Ron Howard’s Hillbilly Elegy. But because it’s not all awards hopefuls out this autumn, they also make room for Freaky—the perfect chaser of genre fun after a double feature of Oscars aspiration.

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Werewolves had a moment in 1981. Excluding Wolfen, whose killer canines technically don’t fit the species description, Hollywood produced not one but two odes to the lycanthrope that year: John Landis’ Oscar-winning An American Werewolf In London and Joe Dante’s franchise-launching The Howling. But which of these shaggy horror comedies was best in show? We polled Twitter earlier this week. Now, on our final Halloween-season episode of Film Club, critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife are picking different dogs in this fight. Welcome to The Premise Dome, full moon edition!

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