2 Cents Critic

Tune in as Kate Hergott ( Bookwild ) returns to the podcast for a dive into The Hunting Wives, the 2025 Netflix sapphic soapy drama-thriller series that adapts the May Cobb novel of the same name about the sordid darkness that rises up out of a small-town Texan community when a body is found in the woods. The utter camp of this show, religious trauma, the difference between the labels “lesbian” an...

Tune in as Rolo Tony ( @PoorOldRoloTony ,  These Guys Got Juice , and  Unsourced Wall Radio ) rejoins 2CC to cover Vanilla Sky, the 2001 surrealist romantic drama/thriller film about a rich and vain playboy whose seemingly perfect life gets thrown down a strange and disorienting road in the wake of a car crash. When this movie is (and isn’t) effective at persuading the audience to feel bad for an...

Tune in as Sydney ( @sydsbooked ) partners up with the podcast for a plunge into Compound Fracture, the 2024 queer YA thriller/horror novel by Andrew Joseph White about a trans teenage boy who’s trying to figure himself out and pursue his socialist politics while fighting back against the violent and cop-enforced bigotry of his West Virginian home. The socially awkward obstacles that come with neu...

Jumping onto the show today is Lila Riesen, who’s written her YA debut novel  Free Radicals  and then her YA coastal noir book  Rainsong . Tolkien and Narnia fanfiction, Free Radicals being a personal representation of Lila’s Afghan ancestry, squeezing in time to write while being a full-time mom, the genre-bending and the lovable sisterhood that Rainsong offers up, and Jenny Han’s work stand out...

Tune in as Paul ( @trygraptor ) hops onboard the program to discuss The Gorge, the 2025 sci-fi action thriller horror romance movie about the partnership that grows between two top-notch snipers who’ve been assigned the task of guarding a mysterious gorge. The eerie creature design, ziplining across an entire gorge and other cutesy moments in this genre-bending ride, the surprisingly varied questi...

Tune in as Rolo Tony ( @PoorOldRoloTony ,  These Guys Got Juice , and  Unsourced Wall Radio ) re-collaborates with the podcast for a breakdown of The Fly, the 1986 sci-fi body horror movie about a scientist whose brilliant intellect pushes him down a gruesome road while inventing a teleportation machine. The surprising amount of time that this film spends being a tragic love story, shining a spotl...

Tune in as Andy ( Fat Dude Digs Flicks Movie Podcasts ) jumps back into his guest chair to unpack Bring Her Back, the 2025 horror film about two orphaned step-siblings who tumble down a spiral of terror after falling under the care of a foster mother who seems cheerfully eager to look after them. The subtle abuse that gaslighting inflicts against its victims, authentic disability representation, S...

Tune in as Rolo Tony ( @PoorOldRoloTony ,  These Guys Got Juice , and  Unsourced Wall Radio ) returns to the program to cover Dead Calm, the 1989 thriller about an Australian couple who tries to move past a devastating loss together by sailing on a yacht through the Pacific Ocean, which results in them running into danger after saving a lone man from a sinking schooner. George Miller’s involvement...

Tune in as Paola and Nadhya ( Sis Flicks Podcast ) collaborate with 2CC for a review and recap of The Charm Offensive, the 2021 rom-com novel by Alison Cochrun about a dating reality show whose producer, with his romanticized view of love in hand, finds himself growing very close with the anxious and nerdy tech millionaire who’s starring in the program. The meticulously manufactured setting in whi...

Tune in as Jessica Hart ( Totally Bombed ) hops back onto the podcast for a dive into The Perfection, the 2018 thriller-horror movie about a former cello prodigy who connects with a fellow student from the academy she had once attended as a child, kicking off a journey into the darkness that they’ll both have to endure. The difficulty of talking about this ambitious journey and the multiple genres...

Tune in as Rolo Tony ( @PoorOldRoloTony  and  These Guys Got Juice ) jumps back onto the podcast to examine The Voices, the 2014 movie that uses black comedy, thriller, and horror to tell the tale of a plumbing fixtures factory worker whose hallucinations direct him down a path of chatting with his talking pets and wrestling with his murderous side. Rooting for Ryan Reynolds to pick bold and inter...

Joining the podcast today is Halley Sutton, who has written two neo-noir thriller novels,  The Lady Upstairs  and  The Hurricane Blonde —both of which have had their own previous episodes dedicated to them. Considering the deep love that both Halley and Arthur share for the dark and gritty world of noir, you’ll hear plenty of chatter about that in this discussion. Favorite femme fatales, tuning in...

Tune in as James Willey ( Movie Good or Movie Bad? ) heads back to 2CC for a plunge into Shin Godzilla, the 2016 kaiju film that follows Japanese officials who have to contend with the slowness and incompetency of their bureaucratic government while facing the threat of a giant monster. The many job titles that pop up in this movie, the darkly comedic edge that accompanies its political satire, Hi...

Tune in as Seth Vargas ( Movie Friends ) reunites with the show for a review and recap of Rent-A-Pal, the 2020 psychological drama-horror movie about a lonesome bachelor in 1990 who builds up an increasingly obsessive bond with a charming “friend” of sorts that he’s found in a VHS tape. Whether or not this film goes into supernatural territory, the dated world of video dating services, and Andy’s...

Tune in as Rolo Tony ( @PoorOldRoloTony  and  These Guys Got Juice ) jumps back onto 2CC for a breakdown of Sweet Smell of Success, the 1957 film noir about the scheme that a gossip columnist and a publicist cook up to sabotage a relationship that the columnist’s 19-year-old sister is in. Calling someone a cookie full of arsenic and other pieces of endlessly quotable dialogue, the vehemently anti-...

Tune in as Hannah, Rebecca, and Sarah ( Can I Spoil Something? ) stride back to the podcast for a chance to unpack The Hurricane Blonde, the 2023 neo-noir thriller novel by Halley Sutton about a former child star who gets pulled into a mystery surrounding the drowning of an actress who looks eerily similar to her sister—the sister whose star had been rising up in Hollywood before a strangulation c...

Tune in as Rolo Tony ( @PoorOldRoloTony  and  These Guys Got Juice ) circles back around to the show to cover Special Effects, the 1984 thriller/horror movie about a murderous filmmaker who tries to recover his rocky career by basing his latest project on a killing that he himself carried out and recorded on camera. Drawing parallels between this flick and Body Double, the ruthlessly biting commen...

A filmmaker is joining the podcast today! That’s Ava Maria Safai, the director behind the 2023 body horror short film “ZIP” and the 2025 horror movie Foreigner. Arthur was fortunate enough to discover her through  “ZIP,”  which you can find on YouTube thanks to ALTER’s platform for terrifying and imaginative horror media. Appreciation for Final Destination, using “ZIP” to call for the liberation o...

Tune in as Robert “Stew” Stewart ( Stew World Order ) strides back onto the podcast to discuss 5 Centimeters per Second, the 2007 anime coming-of-age movie about the love and connections that drift in and out of a yearning boy’s life over the course of several years. Reading Takaki through a lens of depression, the other adaptations of this film fleshing out the narrative a little more, 5 Centimet...

Tune in as Pride Month reaches its conclusion on 2CC, where we’ve spent all of that time directing the focus towards queer art! And now for the fourth and final episode of June, Misty Rose ( @mistyroseva ) circles back around to the podcast for a dive into Bound, the 1996 neo-noir erotic thriller about the lesbian affair between an ex-convict and the girlfriend of a mobster, with the two women coo...

Tune in as Pride Month keeps rolling down its path on the program! For this third episode of June, Clayton Jones II ( Men Who Like Men Who Like Movies Podcast ) is regaining his guest chair to unpack Banana Fish, the 2018 crime thriller anime series about a 17-year-old street gang leader and a 19-year-old photographer’s assistant who get drawn into a criminal conspiracy involving a dangerous drug....

Tune in as Pride Month advances onward with the focus that 2CC is giving to queer media! For this second episode of June, Joshua R. Pangborn ( Sidekick Productions ) re-collaborates with the podcast for a review and recap of Bit, the 2019 horror movie about an 18-year-old trans woman who moves to LA and encounters a lesbian vampire gang that’s on a mission to hunt down predatory men. Subverting va...

Tune in as the podcast dives into Pride Month and spends all of it covering queer media! For this first episode of June, Katrina ( @katrinaslibrary ) is jumping back onto 2CC to explore Light from Uncommon Stars, the 2021 speculative fiction book by Ryka Aoki that follows the interconnected stories of a trans girl who runs away from home and dreams of being a violinist, a music teacher who has sac...

Tune in as Rolo Tony ( @PoorOldRoloTony  and  These Guys Got Juice ) hops back onto the program for a review and recap of Dream Lover, the 1994 erotic thriller about a recent divorcee who jumps fast into another relationship with an alluring woman, only to find that there may be more to her than it seems at the outset. Comparing this to Gone Girl and You, James Spader being an expert at sleaziness...

Tune in as Rolo Tony ( @PoorOldRoloTony  and  These Guys Got Juice ) hops back onto the podcast to navigate Strange Days, the 1995 tech-noir thriller that follows the last two days of 1999 as an LAPD vice cop-turned-black marketeer and a bodyguard/limo driver rush to uncover a criminal conspiracy involving illegal technology that records your memories and physical sensations for other people to vi...