Single Serving Cinema

Tim and Tay talk comedy (Apatow & otherwise), late '90s pop, and board games in this episode that looks at Game Night. This recent comedy breathed fresh air into the genre by returning to a few simple techniques while updating a few dated tropes.   Max & Annie’s weekly game night is kicked into high gear when Max’s visiting brother Brooks arranges for a fake kidnapping. The three coup...

Tim and Tay discuss their first animated feature and first Hayao Miyazaki feature on the podcast: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, which offers a compelling heroine for young and old viewers alike, embodying the idea that violence and war only lead to more of the same. The success of Nausicaä would allow Miyazaki to co-found Studio Ghibli and subsequently release some of the most beloved animat...

Tim and Tay are joined by Rob (our very first guest on the podcast) to talk about bureaucracy, kaiju films, and more in a discussion about 2016's Shin Godzilla. This 2016 installment in the 67-year Godzilla franchise examines how the modern Japanese government (and allied forces) would respond when a skyscraper-sized lizard comes ashore to wreak havoc in Tokyo. Shin Godzilla was written and d...

Tim and Tay talk about the career of Canadian filmmaker Denis Villeneuve, and examine a powerful scene that marks the turning point for Incendies' protagonist Narwal Marwan. Incendies tells the story of Canadian twins that travel to their mother's native country in the Middle East to uncover her hidden past amidst a bloody civil war. Told in parallel, the two generations’ stories examine...

By examining an infamous, potentially movie-breaking scene in Ocean's 12, Tim and Tay explore just how much of Soderbergh's audacity this franchise can bear before it falls apart. Ocean’s 12 , the second installment in Steven Soderbergh’s Ocean’s trilogy, finds the gang on the clock to repay their mark from the first film, casino mogul Terry Benedict (Andy Garcia). In order to pay back w...

Tim and Tay talk Sam Raimi’s post-Spider-Man return-to-horror, Drag Me To Hell , and how one scene in a parking garage shows off everything the director has mastered since his start in the early ‘80s.    Drag Me To Hell is a 2009 horror feature directed by Sam Raimi, starring Alison Lohman, Lorna Raver, and Justin Long. Lohman plays Christine Brown, an ambitious loan officer who, in the pursuit of...

In the premiere episode of Single Serving Cinema, Tim and Tay explore a deceptively simple and highly functional scene in the spiraling, multi-layered narrative of Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige .  The Prestige tells the story of two rival stage magicians in Victorian-era London, and their obsessive pursuits to gain superiority, no matter the cost. Directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Christi...

Tim and Tay dive into a pair of scenes from Andrew Niccol’s thought-provoking and economical sci-fi film Gattaca . Can a simple race from shore to horizon reveal a person’s potential?  In the “not too distant future”, advances in eugenics have lead to a genetic caste system — those with manufactured, ideal genetics, and those conceived naturally, possessing the expected hereditary pitfalls and ris...

Tim and Tay discuss Trey Edward Shults’ feature debut Krisha , its expert use of horror tropes and its endlessly frugal composition.  Krisha is a 2015 family drama about a recovering addict and alcoholic in her sixties attempting to reconnect with her family over Thanksgiving. Directed by Trey Edward Shults, Krisha stars his real-life aunt Krisha Fairchild in the eponymous lead role, and was produ...