The Rolling Tape

Today, we're heading back to Westeros. After more than two years away, House of the Dragon is finally back for its long-awaited third season.

And it's time for the Dance of the Dragons, the war we've been waiting for and the conflict fans have been asking to see fully erupt. The season opens with the absolutely insane Battle of the Gullet and only gets more chaotic from there. We get major character deaths, some major new players to talk through, dragons literally everywhere, and, of course, Rhaenyra Targaryen finally taking the Iron Throne and dealing with all the chaos that follows.

Today, we're going to talk about Season 3 as a whole including the characters, the biggest moments, our favorite performances, and where exactly the series goes from here.

On this episode:
Jake Fittipaldi
Nandita Joshi
Timmy Lee

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Website & Publications: www.therollingtape.com
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Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller

Before we officially get into the buzz of the fall festival circuit, it’s good to take a step back in time and reflect on bygone eras of planetary history. Today in fact, we’re embracing that by going 200 million years in reverse to the age of dinosaurs with David Robert Mitchell and The End of Oak Street. 

The End of Oak Street is written and directed by David Robert Mitchell as his third feature film after It Follows and Under the Silver Lake. It stars Anne Hathaway, Ewan McGregor, Maisy Stella and Christian Convery as a family whose suburban neighborhood has been transported from 1982 into prehistoric times.

We review the movie and then blind rank 25 dinosaur movies. 

Our pre-episode Patreon exclusive conversation features:

• D23 Announcements 
• X-Men Casting
• Animals Teaser
• Practical Magic 2 Trailer

On this episode:
Danny Jarabek
Adam Patla
Jacob Diedenhofer
Mariana Fabian
Tate Fowler

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Podcast Website Link
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Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller

Welcome back to In The Queue, a new show in The Rolling Tape network of podcasts that answers the question “What should I watch this weekend?” Every month, we line up what’s in theaters, what’s headlining our watchlists, and what we recommend adding to yours. 

We kicked off this series all the way back in March and then went on summer vacation for 6 months, who's to blame us? But at long last we are back to report on our findings from the watchlist shuffle and discuss what we've seen recently at home and in theaters.

As always, to keep our own watchlists in check, we end with a recommendation game where we randomly select a movie from each other’s Letterboxd watchlists to watch before the next episode. This month we filtered by romance and comedy to celebrate the one night a year when it's legal for singles to have sex. Listen next month to hear our reports.

Films mentioned:
Letterboxd List

On this episode:
Danny Jarabek
Des Mack
Cameron Ritter
Red Broadwell

Support the show

Subscribe for Early Access and Video:
The Rolling Tape Patreon

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Have questions? Email [email protected]

Podcast Website Link
Website & Publications: www.therollingtape.com
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Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller

In just a few weeks, Venice, Telluride, New York, and Toronto will kick off a new cycle of anticipated awards contenders, with premieres and early reactions that will reshape our already exhaustive Oscar predictions. This is where some of our assumptions about certain films will go to die, or be validated. Who's to say?

Even though films like Digger, The Social Reckoning, and Dune: Part Three will premiere later in the fall and winter, movies like Wild Horse Nine, Ink, The Debut, Behemoth, and Elsinore will be shown to audiences for the first time over the next several weeks. And yet, all of that may feel somewhat moot, because every other film is being overshadowed by the Trojan horse that is Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.

The big-budget epic has already passed $1 billion at the global box office, including more than $400 million domestically. It boasts a 94% on Rotten Tomatoes, an 88 on Metacritic, and a 4.4 average on Letterboxd. Perhaps we're just spinning our wheels here, and Nolan is once again going to sweep the industry awards—we just don't want to admit it to ourselves. Whatever happens, we still have more than 70 slots to fill across 18 categories, and today we're going to focus on half of them.

We're giving you our pre-Fall Festival Oscar predictions for Best Picture, Best Director, all four acting categories, and both screenplay categories. We'll also touch on some of the below-the-line technical categories as an extra treat.

This is our last chance to truly theorize, fantasize, and project our hopes onto some of these films before we've actually seen them. Once the fall festival season begins, we'll have reactions, reviews, and new information that could completely change the race.

Our guest:
Dean Coburn

On this episode:
Paul Rai
Owen Wilczek
Jacob Diedenhofer
Adam Patla
Claire May Lewis

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Subscribe for Early Access and Video:
The Rolling Tape Patreon

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Podcast Website Link
Website & Publications: www.therollingtape.com
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Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller

You know what's more romantic than living under an authoritarian government where you can only have sex for one night of the year? Finding your true love for life. Time to nut up for Will Gluck's One Night Only, starring Monica Barbaro and Callum Turner. 

Written by Travis Braun and based on his Black List script. The film follows two hapless romantics, Monica Barbaro's Allie, a hopeful romantic looking for something more, and Callum Turner's Owen, a recently dumped hopeless romantic.

They happen to be two aimless singles navigating the one night of the year when premarital sex is legal in their society. As the night stretches on, what begins as a quest for a hookup turns into a series of awkward encounters, side quests, and run-ins with a society built around enforcing the government's strict rules on sex. Allie and Owen eventually realize that what they really want is each other, and that maybe they don't need to take advantage of the twelve-hour window at all. They can wait until the next morning, or, if necessary, the other 364 days of the year.

Love and fascism are in the air, and to help me celebrate our new puritanical reality, we're going to take a look at One Night Only and some of the greatest romantic-comedy couples in cinema history. We review the latest dystopian romantic comedy and rank some of cinema's best romantic-comedy couples. 

Our pre-episode Patreon exclusive conversation features:

• Wonka 2 Delayed
• Primetime Trailer
• X-Men Casting Announcements

On this episode:
Paul Rai
Des Mack
Nadia Arain
Risa Bolash

Support the show

Subscribe for Early Access and Video:
The Rolling Tape Patreon

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Have questions? Email [email protected]

Podcast Website Link
Website & Publications: www.therollingtape.com
Social Platforms on Linktree

Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller

While it didn’t debut at Fantasia Fest (that honor belongs to SXSW this year), A Safe Distance also played at the Montreal-based festival. An eighty-five-minute thriller, A Safe Distance follows Alex (Bethany Brown) as she goes camping with her long-time partner in the forest of Canada. Shortly into their stay,  Joey (Chris McNally) pops the question to Alex. She says no. And, well, things don’t go as expected after that. 

The Rolling Tape's Ethan Simmie was joined by Director Gloria Mercer and cast members Tandia Mercedes and Bethany Brown to discuss making a film that “is about contemporary relationships, toxic masculinity,” and being in a relationship “where it feels like you are not being true to yourself”.

A Safe Distance has currently has distribution secured for the US and Canada but does not have an official release date.

Follow the film online:
A Safe Distance

Follow our interview host online:
Ethan Simmie

Support the show

Subscribe for Early Access and Video:
The Rolling Tape Patreon

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Podcast Website Link
Website & Publications: www.therollingtape.com
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Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller

It's the opening weekend of Spider-Man: Brand New Day, but I don't think we can conclusively say it'll be part of this upcoming awards conversation—outside of a potential Best Visual Effects nomination. So instead of focusing on that amid the hundreds of millions of dollars being made by The Odyssey and Spider-Man, there's a much smaller film quietly holding its own at the box office, The Invite, directed by and co-starring Olivia Wilde, alongside Seth Rogen, Edward Norton, and Penélope Cruz.

A24 acquired the film of the Sundance Film Festival for more than $12 million, and it has quietly become one of the studio's biggest success stories of the year. It's now approaching $40 million worldwide, including roughly $20 million domestically and nearly $16 million internationally. Critically, the film has been a standout as well, earning a 97% on Rotten Tomatoes, an 82 on Metacritic, and a 4.0 average on Letterboxd.

Its performance is starting to resemble another Sundance acquisition from A24: Past Lives, which went on to earn Best Picture and Best Original Screenplay nominations at the 96th Academy Awards.

So, today we discuss The Invite's Oscar chances, as well as A24's broader awards strategy this year. With a slate that includes Club Kid, Primetime, and The Debut, could the studio once again land multiple Best Picture nominees once again?

We also discuss films like The Invite and Past Lives more broadly—movies that live on the fringe of the Best Picture race and ultimately sneak into the lineup thanks to widespread passion and strong overall support from Academy voters. We rank 17 of our favorite (or not so favorite) fringe Best Picture nominees that fit that mold.

On this episode:
Paul Rai
Danny Jarabek

Support the show

Subscribe for Early Access and Video:
The Rolling Tape Patreon

Listen Here:
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Have questions? Email [email protected]

Podcast Website Link
Website & Publications: www.therollingtape.com
Social Platforms on Linktree

Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller

It’s episode 200 of our weekly Monday show, and what better way to celebrate than with the 38th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and the fourth film in the MCU Spider-Man film series. It's also National Spider-Man Day which is celebrated annually on August 1st. The date marks the anniversary of the character's first comic book appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15, published in August 1962 by Marvel Comics creators Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

The film is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, and written by Chris McKenna and Erik Sommers. Tom Holland stars as Peter Parker and Spider-Man, alongside Zendaya, Sadie Sink, Jacob Batalon, Liza Colón-Zayas, Jon Bernthal, Florence Pugh, Tramell Tillman, Marisa Tomei, and Mark Ruffalo.

We review Destin Daniel Cretton’s entry to the Tom Holland era of Spider-Man, discuss recent MCU news out of San Diego Comic-Con, and turn the tables on our weekly mini-game where I’ll be posed with questions and trivia regarding the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Our pre-episode Patreon exclusive conversation features:

• The Thomas Crown Affair Trailer
• Wicker Trailer

On this episode:
Danny Jarabek
Joshua Mbonu
Adam Patla
Paul Rai
Cameron Ritter
Ethan Simmie 

Support the show

Subscribe for Early Access and Video:
The Rolling Tape Patreon

Listen Here:
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Have questions? Email [email protected]

Podcast Website Link
Website & Publications: www.therollingtape.com
Social Platforms on Linktree

Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller

We celebrate the 20th anniversary of She’s The Man by breaking down the film and “women in sports” movies. We also give some of our favorite recs from the genre and look at the progression of sports films over the past two decades. 

She’s The Man, loosely based on Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, stars Amanda Bynes as Viola Hastings, a high school soccer player who disguises herself as her twin brother, Sebastian, to play on the boys' soccer team at a rival boarding school, after her own school cuts the girls' team. The film also stars Channing Tatum and Laura Ramsey.

On this episode:
Sara Ciplickas
Sasha Raquel
Bobbi Miller

Our guest:
Paige Irwin

Support the show

Subscribe for Early Access and Video:
The Rolling Tape Patreon

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Have questions? Email [email protected]

Podcast Website Link
Website & Publications: www.therollingtape.com
Social Platforms on Linktree

Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller

In a barren post-apocalyptic world with no humans, a barter system of sunflowers for scrap parts, and robots, Zap is very lonely. In his scavenging one day, he finds the broken body of another robot. His curiosity gets the better of him, and he takes this robot home, in hopes of reviving it. As we follow Zap on his journey, the theme of Sunspark remains ever clear: how far are you willing to go to help a complete stranger?

It’s a theme that director Danny Bourque discusses as he joins The Rolling Tape to talk about the new 4K animated short. He divulged his creative process, his excitement for the screening at Fantasia Film Festival 2026, and even some insight into how he created the robot noises. Bourque also discusses his experience as a solo and independent filmmaker. He is a Slamdance Anarchy Award Winner, Regional Student Academy Award Finalist, and has done professional work with Hasbro's Star Wars and Transformers IP. 

Sunspark had its Canadian Premiere at Fantasia on July 18, with a subsequent screening on July 19. 

Follow the interviewee online:
Danny Bourque, IMDB, Website, Instagram 

Follow our interview host online:
Mariana Fabian

Support the show

Subscribe for Early Access and Video:
The Rolling Tape Patreon

Listen Here:
Spotify
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Have questions? Email [email protected]

Podcast Website Link
Website & Publications: www.therollingtape.com
Social Platforms on Linktree

Credits:

• Theme music: Eugene Rocco Utley & Karl Vincent
• Artwork: Danny Jarabek
• Editor: Danny Jarabek
• Assistant Producer: Evan Miller