Blind Spots & Second Thoughts

Heather hasn’t seen Dr. Strangelove …or: How I stopped worrying and learned to love the bomb. That’s right, we sit down to watch the 1964 black and white dark comedy about the cold war and mutually assured destruction from Stanley Kubrick starring Peter Sellers and George C. Scott. Is the movie relevant today? Is it actually funny? What’s with all the silly names like General Turgidson and Slim Pi...

Dan hasn’t seen Bring It On This is not a podcast, it’s a cheercast. We’re going back to the year 2000 for the classic high school movie Bring It on, starring Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku, and Gabrielle Union. What will Dan think of this time capsule of a high school cheerleading movie? Only one way to find out!

Heather hasn’t seen Captain America: The First Avenger Grab your best girl, pick up your most spangly outfit, and head back to the 1940’s to punch Hitler and save the day! We continue Heather’s first time through the Marvel Cinematic Universe with Chris Evans’s first foray as Steve Rogers in 2011’s Captain America: The First Avenger, also starring Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Sean, Tommy Lee Jones, an...

Heather doesn’t remember Star Wars And of course the only people who haven’t seen Star Wars are the people in Star Wars. And that’s because they lived them. They lived the Star Wars. Join us in a galaxy far, far away as we watch the OG, the original, the one that started it all, the 1977 theatrical cut of Star Wars (no special edition here, Han definitely shoots first). We dive into Heather’s extr...

Dan hasn’t seen Carrie Just in time for Mother’s Day, Dan watches the 1976 horror classic Carrie for the first time. The movie, adapted from the novel by Stephen King, directed by Brian DePalma, and starring Sissy Spacek and John Travolta, is iconic, but do the scares hold up in a modern context? Is the movie even really that scary? And also, how much of a creeper is Brian DePalma, anyway? Find ou...

Heather hasn’t seen Forrest Gump You read that correctly. The Academy Award winner for Best Picture. Tom Hanks’ second Oscar win. Heather has never seen 1994’s Forrest Gump, starring America’s Sweetheart Tom Hanks and Robin Wright. In this episode we talk about what Heather thinks she knows about the movie and the movie’s impact on pop culture. After watching it, we’ll talk about our feelings on h...

Heather hasn’t seen Ocean’s Eleven Somehow, Heather missed the star-packed 2001 Ocean’s Eleven starring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Matt Damon, and Andy Garcia…until now. Does Steven Soderbergh’s cool direction hold up, or do the questionable fashion choices and Don Cheadle’s accent derail the movie? Find out what Heather thought in our first anniversary episode! Notes https://theasc...

Heather hasn’t seen Rogue One: A Star Wars Story Heather may have the world’s most unique perspective on Star Wars, so we’re diving into a galaxy far, far away with Rogue One! We talk about Heather’s relationship to Star Wars (you will never guess which Star Wars content she’s watched), talk a little bit about the TV show Andor, and talk a lot about the famously troubled production of Rogue One. C...

Dan hasn’t seen Seven Brides for Seven Brothers Bless your beautiful podcast-listening hide, wherever you might be! In this episode, Heather shows Dan the classic 1954 musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Has the movie aged well as a subversive look at relationships and gender dynamics, or is it wildly problematic? Spoiler alert: it’s the second one, but are the songs at least any good? Find o...

Heather hasn’t seen Thor We continue Heather’s journey watching the Marvel Cinematic Universe for the first time with 2011’s Thor, featuring the introduction of Chris Hemsworth and Tom Hiddleston to the MCU. Is the movie worthy of the power of Thor, or is it mid enough to be banished to Midgard? Why doesn’t Heather recognize Anthony Hopkins, and what other random actor WILL she recognize? Find out...

Heather hasn’t seen Star Trek First Contact Borg attacks! Time travel! And a new starship Enterprise! What does Heather think of 1996’s Star Trek First Contact, directed by Jonathan Frakes and featuring the Star Trek The Next Generation cast, Alice Krige, and James Cromwell? Does the movie boldly go into the action movie genre, or does it end up losing the distinctiveness of Star Trek in its assim...

Heather hasn’t seen Citizen Kane SPOILER ALERT: Rosebud is a sled. Pretty much everyone knows that fact about the 1941 movie by Orson Welles, which is widely considered one of the best films ever made. But what does Heather think about it, watching it for the first time 85 years later? We talk about how much of an impact on pop culture and filmmaking the movie has had, what parts of the film hold...

Heather hasn’t seen Iron Man 2 We continue Heather’s journey into the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2010’s Iron Man 2, starring Robert Downey Jr. , Mickey Rourke, Scarlett Johansson, and introducing Don Cheadle taking over the role of James “Rhodey” Rhodes! Does Iron Man 2 stand as one of the weaker entries in the MCU, or has it aged gracefully? What went wrong (or right?) during production to ma...

Dan hasn’t seen Hairspray Settle in to 1960’s Baltimore, as for the first time, Heather shows Dan a movie for the podcast. How does 2007’s musical version of Hairspray hold up? We talk about the movie’s music, motifs, and style, and the history of this adaptation of a stage musical adaptation of a John Waters original film. What did Dan think about the songs? The stacked cast including James Marsd...

Heather hasn’t seen The Incredible Hulk You’re making me podcast. You wouldn’t like me when I podcast. Get ready to Hulk-out with us as we dive into the green-skinned stepchild that is the second entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe: The Incredible Hulk, starring Ed Norton, Liv Tyler, and Tim Roth playing a…thirty-nine year old? We talk about the merits (or not) of the movie, how it pays homage...

Heather hasn’t seen Star Trek Generations Set your podcast players to “stun”, as we dive into the first cinematic outing of Captain Picard and the Star Trek: The Next Generation crew in 1994’s Star Trek Generations. We discuss Heather’s journey from being clueless about Star Trek to fandom, how the movie got made in a rush, nepo babies in Starfleet, and French captains with Victorian British Chris...

Heather hasn’t seen Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind Clear your mind and meet us in Montauk, because we’re going to be discussing the 2004 classic mind-bender of a film starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, written by Charlie Kaufmann, and directed by Michael Gondry. Does the cerebral examination of love and relationships hold up 20 years later? And what connection do Napoleon Dynamite and Th...

Heather doesn’t remember Iron Man We take our first steps into the wide, wide universe of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with 2008’s Iron Man, starring Robert Downey Jr. as the titular hero. This movie, directed by Jon Favreau, kicked off the entertainment juggernaut that is the MCU, so even though Heather has technically seen the movie before, we’re going to revisit it to start our Marvel superher...

Part two and recap of Fight Club Fight Club is a 25 year old movie that still has a lot to say, so we had a lot to say about it, too! We pick up where we left off from part one, and dive into the recap of the movie. We talk about themes of masculinity vs. femininity, decay and destruction, how the movie is relevant today, and why the Olsen Twins and Jigsaw are very relevant to Fight Club. Make sur...

Heather hasn't seen Fight Club. We are going to break the first and second rule and talk all about David Fincher's 1999 movie Fight Club, based on the novel of the same name, starring Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, Helena Bonham Carter, Jared Leto, and Meat Loaf. We talk about the big twist of the movie and if Heather knew it before seeing the movie (spoiler: she did). We'll also get into how the movie age...

Heather hasn't seen Groundhog Day. If you're ready to look at the 1993 classic Harold Ramis film starring Bill Murray with fresh eyes, then we got you, babe, as Heather has somehow managed to avoid this cultural institution. We discuss the ethics of time looping, how the language of movies has changed since 1993, and the ancestral genetic memory of character actors. 00:00:00 Groundhog Day 00:01:51...

Heather hasn't seen The Nice Guys. Travel back with us to seedy 1977 Los Angeles and Shane Black's buddy comedy detective noir from 2016 starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe! In this episode we discuss the different classifications of firearms according to Heather, if the movie qualifies as a "romp", and what a more appropriate title would have been. 00:00 - What does Heather know about The Nic...

Heather hasn't seen Napoleon Dynamite. In our inaugural episode of Blind Spots & Second Thoughts, we explore the deep character study that is Napoleon Dynamite. Is the movie actually a depiction of neurodivergence, or is the titular character simply a huge jerk? How does the movie hold up 20 years later? Exactly how creepy is Uncle Rico? And what about Kip's hard-fought emotional journey? Reli...

"What do you mean, you haven't seen it?" Blind Spots & Second Thoughts is a podcast featuring Dan and Heather (that's us!), a couple of movie lovers -- and a couple -- who love to have occasionally deep, but more often than not, incredibly silly conversations about movies. In each episode of Blind Spots & Second Thoughts, we'll pick a movie that one of us has seen, and the other hasn't. Us...