Watch This Tonight

My guests are Brian Gatewood and Alessandro Tanaka, writers of the new Apple+ film Sharper starring Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan, Jon Lithgow, Justice Smith and Brianna Middleton. We discuss the film’s genesis, the protective factor of Julianne Moore, Brian and Alessandro re-branding themselves as screenwriters, and how the film only exists because Alessandro was cleaning out his hard drive of old material.

Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best film recommendations. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.

Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).

Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm

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The reader report on the script for Unforgiven is one of the most scathing critiques I’ve ever read. I was able to find the original document on the internet, and it is the central part of this episode, as we break down why Sonia Chernus, an accomplished writer of Westerns herself, was so wrong about this Best Picture winning Clint Eastwood film, originally titled "The Cut Whore Killings" (this may have influenced the original reception of the script, understandably). As we've found on previous episodes going behind the scenes, the writer of the screenplay, David Webb Peoples, did not initially like what became arguably the most quoted line of his own film. I also found the original alternate ending in the production draft of the screenplay, and read it on this episode.

Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best film recommendations. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.

Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).

Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm

Thanks for listening.

Don't be put off by the mixed critical reaction, running time and box office performance - Babylon is FUN, exhilirating, often funny, and perhaps most importantly never boring. It's big and messy and crazy, but I kind of loved it. If you love movies, I don't know how you can not get some enjoyment out of this film. Currently streaming on Paramount+, or available to rent on VOD. I was on the fence about watching it because it seems like it got such a mixed response, but let me tell you - get off the fence and watch it. This film, written and directed by Damien Chazelle, starring Brad Pitt, Margot Robbie, and a ton of other great actors, is a film that deserves to be seen at least once, to make up your own mind about.

Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best film recommendations. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.

Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).

Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm

Thanks for listening.

Contact - I went deep behind the scenes on this, the surprisingly tense creation of one of the most altruistic, life-affirming movies ever - later to cause lawsuits from Francis Ford Coppola and George Miller. Key creatives at all levels (cast, crew, writers, directors) differed wildly on the best way to tell the story. The film of an entire scene involving thousands of extras was destroyed. Somehow, what emerged was a great movie, one of the great alien contact films ever made.

Do you like Contact? It is surprisingly divisive, but I personally adore this film. I'd love to know what you think of it.

Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best film recommendations. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.

Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).

Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm

Thanks for listening.

Christoph Waltz stars in the new Amazon Prime series The Consultant, a bizarre show that I admittedly almost bailed on after the pilot, only for it to completely redeem itself for me with a strong second episode that manages to crystallize all its seemingly disparate elements into an engaging nightmare boss slash Whiplash-the-TV-series format, that totally worked for me. A dark sense of humor and a reliably great performance by Waltz make this a fun watch, especially if you’ve ever had a super-demanding job. But my advice is to seriously consider skipping the pilot entirely and just start on Episode 2.

Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best TV recommendations. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.

Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm

Thanks for listening.

Rather than do a straight Gladiator episode, I decided to go deep on the notoriously troubled production of the film, as well as touch on recent news about the sequel starring Paul Mescal, AND drop some insane true history facts about the absolutely deranged things that went on in the real Colosseum, including a lot of grisly spectacles so unhinged they could not possibly have been in the film. Plus a bit of impromptu theme-songing. Enjoy.

Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best film recommendations. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.

Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm

Thanks for listening.

Apple+ keeps throwing up impressive content. This is a movie that is impossible to market, and I almost didn’t watch it for that reason. I’m glad I did. Sharper is an incredibly written film that reminds me of great con films of the past, but has its own clever, unique structure. It also has a great cast (Jon Lithgow, Julianne Moore, Sebastian Stan) and is directed with great style and flair. I had a great time watching this film and was very impressed with the complexity (yet without it being confusing) of its plot. I was very entertained by it.

Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best TV recommendations. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.

Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm

Thanks for listening.

Sometimes you're in the mood for a great documentary, something that will teach you about a subject, enrich you as a person, and still entertain you. A bad documentary is like a homework assignment. A stellar documentary can feel life-altering. On this episode of the podcast, we've got three recommendations for excellent documentaries, all of which happen to be available on Netflix. Thanks for listening.

Come back to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for the best TV recommendations. Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you're enjoying the show, and mention a movie or TV show you want me to cover (and I will). Subscribe for future episodes.

Watch This Tonight is a movie recommendation podcast and TV recommendation podcast, produced by Voyage Media. You can find other Voyage Media podcasts at voyagemedia.fm

Two resident Shymalan-heads here just choppping it up. My guest this episode is screenwriter Phil Clarke, and we discuss M. Night's latest film Knock At The Cabin, starring Dave Bautista. Would this movie be 45-seconds-long if it was my family? Are we sure The Village wasn't great (we both defend it)? Did Shymalan's divergence from the source book improve or hurt the story? Why is this movie already out on VOD (it is, I checked)? Is Shymalan kind of the last man standing making genre films that aren't 200M bonanzas or 2M indies?

Come to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for best movie recommendations. Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).

Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you enjoy the podcast, and mention what movie or TV show you’d like me to cover (and I will).

Thanks for listening.

Another spin of the Netflix roulette wheel, this is Synchronic, from the trippy filmmaking duo of Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, it is reminiscent of their previous film The Endless but with a bigger canvas and bigger names (Anthony Mackie and Jamie Dornan). An almost-impossible movie to market, which is likely why you haven't seen it either. Super-weird, but yet surprisingly grounded-feeling, Justin and Aaron have a unique ability to make you feel like you are witnessing something magical in real life. Does the whole movie work? Listen and find out.

Come to Watch This Tonight as your podcast for best movie recommendations. Reach out to us @BenamorDan (Twitter), watch_this_tonight (Instagram) or @watchthistonightpodcast (TikTok).

Please leave us a five-star review on Apple Podcasts if you enjoy the podcast, and mention what movie or TV show you’d like me to cover (and I will).

Thanks for listening.