The A.V. Club Presents Film Club

Halloween is imminent, and if you’re anything like us, you’re getting in the holiday spirit with some of your favorite seasonal staples—going back once more to those timeless classics of the scary-movie genre, like Michael Meyers returning to Haddonfield right on schedule. But while Halloween, like Halloween, never gets old, there are options for those looking to watch something new this October, something they don’t know line for line or kill for kill. On this week’s episode of Film Club, critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife run down their five favorite horror movies of the year, most of which will be available to watch from home by the 31st. And they overlap on only one film. Hint: It may or may not involve an invisible man.

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Most people use the terms “horror movie” and “scary movie” interchangeably. But that raises a question: Does a horror film really have to be scary? And are some scares better or more valuable than others? On this week’s episode of Film Club, critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife discuss these questions, as well as the horror genre’s regular tactics for getting under an audience’s skin. They then confess which movies frighten them the most.

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Everybody has classic movies they’ve somehow never seen. On this week’s episode of Film Club, we’re addressing two of them in a new feature called The Blindspot Challenge, wherein our critics, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife, confess and then fill in the biggest gaps in their moviegoing history. And because it’s October, both films are of the horror variety: Katie finally catches up with Richard Donner’s satanic blockbuster staple The Omen, while A.A. Dowd gets around to the influential French shocker Eyes Without A Face. But what major horror milestone have you never seen?

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It’s tough to pinpoint the exact origins of the expression “elevated horror.” But it was sometime around the middle of last decade that someone coined the term to refer to a new renaissance of atmospheric, critically acclaimed scary movies like It Follows, The Babadook, and The Witch. Is it a useful distinction or just a condescending buzzword? On the first of four episodes Film Club is devoting to spooky Halloween fare this October, critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife discuss what qualifies as elevated horror, while also getting into both the popularity and the backlash to the label and movement.

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Last week, The A.V. Club marked the serendipitous release of two new films from Antonio Campos and Sean Durkin with a Watch This series on Borderline Films, the New York City-based production company co-founded by Campos and Durkin alongside fellow filmmaker Josh Mond (James White).

This week on Film Club, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife continue the discussion with reviews of those films. We start off with a discussion of The Nest, a haunted house movie (of sorts) starring Carrie Coon and Jude Law that marks Durkin’s first outing as a director since 2011's Martha Marcy May Marlene. Then the discussion turns to The Devil All The Time, Campos’ stab at bleak Appalachian pulp featuring Robert Pattinson, Tom Holland, and an all-star cast.

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Greetings from the Toronto International Film Festival, a.k.a. our living rooms. Because of COVID, this year’s edition of the fest has been mostly online. Our film critics, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife, have been covering it from home over the past week, writing about the best and biggest titles at this unusual, virtual version of the annual movielovers’ summit. On today’s episode of Film Club, they discuss the challenges and nuances of attending a film festival from your couch, and also get into several of the most high-profile selections, including Nomadland, Ammonite, and One Night In Miami...

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After a month spent digging into the filmography of Christopher Nolan, you’d think our critics would be perfectly situated to really understand the nuances of Tenet. You’d be wrong. This week, Film Club turns into a confession booth, as both A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife divulge that the blockbuster auteur’s latest spectacle left them feeling more than a little lost.

Meanwhile, the second film discussed on this week’s episode, Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking Of Ending Things, is just as complex in its storytelling as Tenet, but its emotional through line resonated much more clearly with our critics. It probably doesn’t hurt that Dowd has read the book, however.

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Welcome to Film Club, the A.V. Club’s movie discussion series. Each week, A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife (and occasionally some special guests) will gab about the week's new releases, explore various corners of the film industry, and examine the lasting impact of some of history's biggest films. 

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Today, we're introducing Push The Envelope, a new podcast where The A.V. Club editors and celebrity guests come together to discuss the Emmys, Oscars, Grammys, Globes, and more. From dream nominations to current snubs and surprises to favorite moments from past ceremonies—if someone’s passing out trophies, we’re talking about it.. Future episodes will cover everything from the VMAs and Tonys to the latest critical darlings of all forms of entertainment, but Push The Envelope kicks off with four episodes focused on the 72nd Primetime Emmy Awards.

Every Friday leading up to the Sept. 20 ceremony, TV editor Danette Chavez and managing Editor Erik Adams will join editor-in-chief Patrick Gomez in analyzing the nominations and predicting what we can expect from the upcoming at-home telecast. Push The Envelope will also feature interviews with some of the folks you’ll see in that telecast; in our first episode, you’ll hear from The Good Place’s D’Arcy Carden and Schitt’s Creek’s Catherine O’Hara. The three episodes that follow will focus on the limited series and movie, drama, and comedy categories, and feature conversations with Uzo Aduba (Mrs. America), Tituss Burgess (Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Kimmy Vs. The Reverend), Nicholas Braun (Succession), some of the Watchmen creative team, and more.

And if the TV isn’t your thing for some reason, don’t fret—this podcast is a year-round effort and we’ll be moving on to discuss other topics posthaste, with more celebrity guests and members of the A.V. Club staff joining the conversation. For now, we hope you’ll subscribe to Push The Envelope, available wherever you get your podcasts.

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For the past three weeks on Film Club, our critics A.A. Dowd and Katie Rife have embarked on a deep dive into the films of Christopher Nolan. And our final installment in the series is as twisting and complex as it gets, as we discuss the blockbuster trio of Inception (2010), Interstellar (2014), and Dunkirk (2017). Is Nolan’s reputation for making chilly films that are full of ideas, but short on emotion, justified? Have our opinions of his work changed after spending the last month seeped in his filmography? And how did he manage to put out a such an ambitious series of $100 million-plus epics, with only a few years in between?

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