For a goofy franchise that started with gangsters stealing DVD players and wound up with a Pontiac Fiero going into space, The Fast and the Furious movies are a pretty fantastic lens through which to view the last quarter-century of Hollywood economics. From the DVD boom and bust to the internationalization and diversification of ticket-buyers to questions of propriety surrounding the digital resurrection of deceased actors to the desire for all-encompassing franchise-based “cinematic universes,” the series has ridden every economic wave buffeting the movie business since the original’s release in 2001. 

Author Barry Hertz does a wonderful job of weaving that story amidst the tangle of egos and artistic energy that makes up the Fast series in his new book, Welcome to the Family: The Explosive Story Behind Fast & Furious, the Blockbusters that Supercharged the World. Full disclosure: I’m not a particularly big fan of the series, so I was a little skeptical when I agreed to check out Barry’s book. But even if you don’t really care about the Fast and Furious movies, there’s more than enough behind-the-scenes drama and economic intrigue to keep you riveted. And it’s a must-buy stocking stuffer for anyone in your life who lives their life a quarter mile at a time.

On this week’s episode, I’m rejoined by Chris Yogerst, author of the new book from the University of New Mexico’s “Reel West” series on The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. We discussed the making of the film, its place in the western canon as a sort of natural ending point for the traditional westerns made by John Wayne and John Ford, and the surprisingly political nature of the film’s central struggle between the frontier and civilization. If you enjoyed the episode, check out the book (or pick up the pristine 4K, on which Paramount did a fine job of making the film look good as new). And make sure to share it with a friend!

I’m joined by Dave Itzkoff on this week’s episode to discuss Paddy Chayefsky’s classic film, Network. Dave literally wrote the book on Network in his history of the film, Mad As Hell, and had lots to say about the making of the movie, the minds behind it, and its ongoing relevance to our daily lives. I know what you’re thinking, I can practically hear your thoughts: A movie about corporations taking over news divisions and fearing problems from the FCC holding up mergers because they don’t like coverage? What does that have to do with anything happening today? But I think we can squeeze out a similarity or two to our current moment.

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Tom Nichols—staff writer at the Atlantic, professor emeritus at the U.S. Naval War College, and all-around nuclear arms expert—to discuss Kathryn Bigelow’s new nuclear war film A House of Dynamite. On this episode, we discuss how his students reacted to previous nuclear panic films like The Day After and Threads, what the new film from Bigelow and writer Noah Oppenheim gets right about the current state of our nuclear preparedness, and what keeps Tom up at night about the current White House’s nuclear posture. 

You can read Tom’s pieces on A House of Dynamite here and here, and he has another up about what the Trump White House doesn’t understand about nuclear weapons here. You can read my review of the film here. And if you have thoughts, please sound off in the comments or share this episode with a friend!

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Katey Rich and Christopher Rosen of The Ankler to preview the awards season and give you tips on what to check out (spoiler: Hamnet’s gonna be a big one this year) and discuss the exquisite art of Oscar prognostication. (If you enjoy this episode, make sure to check out The Ankler’s Prestige Junkie newsletter and show.) For the record, you can see my nomination guesses here at the Ankler Pundits site.

One of the things we delve into is the weird position Oscar pundits find themselves in, as they are torn between portraying the world as it is and trying to subtly change things to reshape the world in their image, as the predictions themselves have been known to shape the outcome of races. And that’s why I am staking a claim here: Delroy Lindo deserves a god-dang Oscar nomination for his work in Sinners. 

Look, don’t get me wrong: Lindo has deserved Oscar gold for some time. He absolutely deserved it for his work in Da Five Bloods, for instance. But I celebrate the man’s entire body of work. I would give him a lifetime achievement award simply for his pronunciation of “sesame cake” in Congo. The man’s a damn legend and it’s about time the Academy gave him his due. 

But he especially deserves it for the work he does in Sinners, a movie that seems lined up to snag a whole boatload of Oscar nominations, including best picture. Yes, yes: Michael B. Jordan’s dual performance as Smoke and Stack is the showcase of the film. But Lindo’s turn as Delta Slim embodies the soul of the movie; he is the embodiment of the life of a musician, of a black musician, in the American South at a time when simply being black could mark you for death. And he’s just funny as hell in the role, delivering these slightly off-kilter line reads that no one else could have pulled off. 

Give the man his Oscar gold already! At the very least, give him the nomination. The people demand it! Leave your favorite Lindo performance in the comments, if you would. I’d like to prove that this man deserves his plaudits. 

Hey, so, I wanted to pull an episode from the archive this week because it’s relevant to the big movie hitting theaters this weekend: Black Phone 2 follows up the surprise 2022 hit, The Black Phone, resurrecting The Grabber (Ethan Hawke) and his iconic mask. Back before that movie came out, I talked to Jason Baker of Callosum FX Studios about helping design the mask for that movie (as well as for WWE stars and the band, Slipknot) and his work with the legendary Tom Savini. We also discussed Jason’s documentary about Savini, Smoke and Mirrors, which you can rent for just 99 cents from Apple (or buy for just $1.99) or stream for free on Tubi. And if you enjoyed this re-run, please share it with a friend!

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Raoul Peck (I Am Not Your Negro) to discuss his new documentary, Orwell: 2+2=5. We talked about his upbringing in Haiti and having to flee a dictatorial regime there, how social media and AI manipulations help degrade the idea of objective truth, and what can be done to combat this scourge. If you enjoyed the episode, I hope you check out his documentary: it’s playing in New York City and Los Angeles now, and you can find showtimes here. It should be expanding across the country here in the coming weeks, including showtimes in Dallas, Atlanta, Minneapolis-St. Paul, and elsewhere. 

Hey, before you listen to this week’s episode, do me a favor and watch the short film we’re going to be discussing. It’s only 17 minutes long, and if you’re between the age of 31 and 45 or so, I think it’ll trip a lot of your nostalgia circuits. (It’s fun for all ages, but Yourgo said this was the age range that best responded to the movie.) Here's a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=snpT2i7B6Mk

Fun right? OK, now you can listen to the episode. It’s a good chat about the nature of online trolling and a simpler time when we believed our votes (for the top songs on Total Request Live) really mattered. If you enjoyed our discussion, share all this with a friend, would you?

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Nate Soares to talk about his new book, cowritten with Eliezer Yudkowsky, If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. It’s a fascinating book—some will say fearmongering and sensationalist; I, frankly, think they’re overly optimistic about our ability to constrain the development of general intelligence in AI—in large part because of how it’s structured. Each chapter is preceded by a fable of sorts about the nature of intelligence and the desires of intelligent beings that look and think very differently from humans. The point in each of these passages is less that AI will want to eliminate humanity and more that it might do so incidentally, through natural processes of resource acquisition. 

This made me think about how AI is typically portrayed in film; it is all too often a Terminator-style scenario, where the intelligence is antagonistic in human ways and for human reasons. We talked some about how storytellers could do a better job of thinking about AI as it might actually exist versus how it might be like us; Ex Machina is a movie that came in for special discussion due to the thoughtful nature of the treatment of its robotic antagonist’s desires. If this episode made you think, I hope you share it with a friend!

On this week’s episode, I’m joined by Matt Roller, the creator and showrunner of the new Netflix animated show Haunted Hotel. We discussed his background in television, how it helped prepare him for the long (shockingly long!) process of creating a full season of animated television, and why he is reading the comments. The show is live on Netflix now and I hope you check it out … and give it the preferred two (not one!) thumbs up, for the reasons Roller laid out in this episode. And if you enjoyed THIS episode, I hope you share it with a friend! (I could also use a thumbs up or two myself, you know.)