2 Cents Critic

Tune in as Booktwt buddy Alysha (@alypil_aja) stops by for a review of Pixar’s latest film, Turning Red! Even before Disney+ started streaming it on March 11, it had already garnered quite a bit of positive reception surrounding its subtext on puberty for adolescent girls and menstruation, which have long been social taboos. On top of breaking down all this and more, the hosts chat about complex m...

Tune in as Torry (Ready to Be Petty) visits the show to cover The Spanish Love Deception, the 2021 contemporary romance by debut author Elena Armas. Having originally been self-published by Armas and won the Goodsreads Choice Award for Best Debut Novel of 2021, TSLD’s enemies-to-lovers/grumpy x sunshine/fake dating/slow burn love story between engineering coworkers Catalina Martín and Aaron Blackf...

Tune in as Sam Dixon and Sammi Skorstad (Hardcover Hoes) take their seats around the table for a thorough breakdown of Legendborn by Tracy Deonn. Arthur had put this 2020 YA contemporary fantasy on hold for the longest time in his digital library with the intention of covering it on 2CC. Now, it’s quite gratifying to reach the point where everyone can talk about 16-year-old Bree Matthews’s quest t...

Tune in as Shelby Schwieterman and Sam Frontera (The Rom Complex) hang out on 2CC to cover the 2001 rock ‘n roll medieval sports adventure, A Knight’s Tale. They also chat about Nike product placement, the aural creativity of foley artists, and whether or not Rufus Sewell always plays villains (considering Arthur looked up The Man in the High Castle post-recording and found out that he does i...

Tune in for Arthur’s dissection of The Book of Boba Fett, the Disney+ Star Wars spinoff series that takes place after the events of Season 2 of The Mandalorian. For the first time ever, fabled bounty hunter Boba Fett is in the lead role as he—with the aid of assassin ally Fennec Shand—endeavors to take control of the criminal empire that had once been ruled by Jabba the Hutt and then Bib Fortuna....

Tune in as comedians and podcasters Johnna Scrabis and Sabrina B. Jordan (Mean Book Club) join the show to unpack their thoughts and feelings on 2012’s Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn (Dark Places, Sharp Objects). What is quite possibly one of the most iconic examples of domestic noir—you could also just call this genre “psychological thriller”—to have been published over the past decade is reaching it...

Tune in as Arthur teams up with Raye (Not Before Coffee! a Bookish Podcast) to discuss The Maid, the murder mystery novel that longtime editor and debut author Nita Prose just published on Jan. 4, 2022. It follows 25-year-old hotel maid Molly Gray as she finds business mogul and one of her workplace’s most loyal guests Mr. Black dead in his room, then gets wrapped up in the ensuing investigation....

Stopping by for a conversation is Jody Feldman, author of The Gollywhopper Games series (a childhood favorite of Arthur’s), The Seventh Level, and the upcoming YA thriller No Way Home, which will be published on August 2, 2022. She chats with the giddy fanboy that is Arthur about her character-naming and puzzle-creating processes, being a flashlighter rather than a plotter or a pantser, the o...

Tune in for Arthur’s coverage of Eternals, the 26th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. More importantly, it’s the MCU flick that features the most diverse cast thus far in contrast to all the straight white men who have dominated the majority of this superhero franchise for the longest time. But it also received gobs of critical backlash and currently holds the spot of being the lowest-ranked...

In the house today is microbiologist-turned-author Desirée Calderón de Fawaz, who wrote and illustrated the 2017 picture book Tata’s Earrings, then penned her debut novel Quetzalli’s Last Song, the first entry in the Brum Hesles Series. Listen to Arthur chat with her about topics like her former work in microbiology, the gorgeous illustrations in QLS, the strides that have (and haven’t) been...

Tune in for Arthur’s breakdown of It Happened One Summer, the Schitt’s Creek-inspired rom-com novel by Tessa Bailey (Fix Her Up, Window Shopping). On top of giving his thoughts on the opposites-attract romance between high-maintenance Instagram socialite Piper Bellinger and grumpy fishing captain Brendan Taggert, Arthur draws numerous correlations between It Happened One Summer and Elle Kenne...

Today’s guest is author Lacie Waldon, whose debut novel, The Layover, is a vacation rom-com that mixes The Hating Game with The Unhoneymooners. In this episode, you’ll hear Arthur and Lacie cover subjects like her background as a flight attendant, her upcoming book From the Jump (which will be published on July 19, 2022), being a pantser, favorite sitcoms like New Girl and Frasier, the debata...

Tune in as J.W. Friedman and Chris Collision hop over from the bad-book podcast I Don’t Even Own a Television to break down Verity, the 2018 psychological thriller novel by bestselling romance author Colleen Hoover (It Ends with Us, November 9). The chills never stop as the book follows broke thriller writer Lowen Ashleigh on the trail of dark secrets she uncovers while ghostwriting for comatose a...

Tune in as Arthur welcomes comedian Guy Bradford onto the show’s first episode of 2022 to chat about Hawkeye, the final Marvel Cinematic Universe series to have streamed on Disney+ in 2021. On top of discussing Clint Barton, Kate Bishop, Maya Lopez/Echo, Pizza Dog, and more, the hosts go on to address talking points like the dedication of LARPers, how appropriate it is for TV shows and movies to i...

Tune in for Top Ten Trail: 2021 Edition, the first retrospective event of its kind on 2CC in which Arthur ranks his top ten books, movies, and TV shows of the year. What polarizing Goodreads Choice Award winner turned into a Top Ten Book? How did a certain sci-fi neo-noir flick become a Top Ten Movie in spite of the disrepute it carries as a critical and financial turkey? Which Disney+ MCU series...

Tune in as Arthur’s Mom returns for the third week in a row to cover Night at the Museum, the 2006 fantasy comedy in which struggling inventor and deadbeat dad Larry Daley becomes a night guard at the Museum of Natural History and learns the exhibits come to life at night thanks to the ancient magic of an Egyptian tablet. Inconsistent tablet rules, quick thoughts on the Night at the Museum sequels...

Tune in as Arthur’s Mom returns yet again to 2CC for a breakdown of The Polar Express, the 2004 animated Christmas movie adapted from Chris Van Allsburg’s 1985 picture book of the same name. The episode also covers morbid fan theories for TPE and other Christmas flicks, Arthur‘s surprisingly amenable attitude towards the notorious motion capture animation, and the many near-death experiences that...

Tune in as Arthur’s Mom returns to 2CC for a discussion on Home Alone, the 1990 Christmas classic whose third act could have expanded into its own feature-length home invasion thriller. The hosts also touch on the state of airport security pre-9/11, the possibility of magic granting Kevin’s wish, and never being too old to be afraid. Directed by Chris Columbus (Harry Potter), Home Alone stars Maca...

Tune in for Arthur’s thoughts on The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo🌠, the 2017 fiction novel by Taylor Jenkins Reid (Daisy Jones & the Six) that follows 79-year-old Hollywood superstar Evelyn Hugo as she bares to amateur magazine reporter Monique Grant the joys, the agonies, and all the shades of gray in between that constitute her long and complicated life. Monique’s job is to memorialize all...

This isn’t any regular old review, listeners. Nope, 2CC is presenting its first ever author interview (albeit one that kicked off with a technical blunder)! Arthur has brought on historical romance author Manda Collins, whose work includes A Lady’s Guide to Mischief and Mayhem, the Studies in Scandal series, and the Ugly Ducklings series, with her latest release being An Heiress’s Guide to Decepti...

Tune in for Arthur’s two cents on Netflix’s Red Notice, the high-flying heist flick that cost a whopping $200 million, making it the Big Red N’s most expensive original production to date. Additional side topics include the application of Last Action Hero logic to Red Notice, the ruthlessness of strangulation as a murder method, and the surprising number of times that Arthur brings up 2015’s Ant-M...

Tune in for Arthur’s breakdown of the well-constructed flashbacks, the memorable fight scenes, the fleshed-out villainy, and more in Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, the 25th movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the superhero franchise’s first entry to star a predominantly East Asian cast. Directed by Destin Daniel Cretton (Just Mercy), Shang-Chi stars Simu Liu, Awkwafina, Meng’er...

Tune in as Liam Gareau (Deep Feels podcast) hangs out on the program to discuss Finch, the Apple TV+ flick that launches Tom Hanks, a dog, and a robot on a buddy road trip through a solar flare-ravaged world. Plus, the episode includes bonus bits like Arthur failing to recall that Hanks is a two-time Oscar winner, the hosts’ shared admiration for Jeffrey Wright, and a Garbage Town deep cut. D...

Due to a slight alteration in the schedule, 2CC is launching Off the Cuff, an experimental bonus series that may or may not continue in the future. Arthur’s mom makes her guest-hosting debut to chat with her son about Apple TV+’s The Morning Show, the cast of Christopher Nolan’s J. Robert Oppenheimer biopic, the Baroness in The Sound of Music, the bottle of spoiled milk that is Chris Pratt, whethe...

Tune in for Arthur’s opinions on It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover, author of numerous books like November 9, Ugly Love, and Verity. Following 23-year-old protagonist Lily Bloom as she falls in love with neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, Hoover’s 2016 New Adult contemporary romance is an empathetic and heart-wrenching navigation of the cycle of domestic violence and the reasons why someone would stay wit...