2 Cents Critic

Tune in as Fake-Dating February advances forward with the third episode of the month, where Brett Salter ( Irish Salt ) rejoins 2CC for a breakdown of Love to Hate You, the 2023 Netflix K-drama that follows the chaos and romance between a misandrist lawyer and a misogynistic celebrity. The absolutely wacky comedy that this show is willing to dive into, being grateful that a certain subplot doesn’t...

Tune in as Fake-Dating February keeps rolling onward with this second episode of the month, where Tyler Hewitt ( Dumb-Dumbs & Dragons ,  Jesters of Ravenloft ) teams up with Arthur again to review and recap Anyone But You, the 2023 enemies-to-lovers and fake-dating rom-com that’s loosely based off of the Shakespeare play Much Ado About Nothing. The terrifying nature of those huge huntsman spid...

Tune in as Fake-Dating February kicks off on 2CC in honor of the hijinks and machinations that turn artificial love into authentic love! For this first podcast of the month, Arthur’s buddy Anna ( @banananna024 / @formergleek ) is circling back around for a review and recap of To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, the 2018 Netflix rom-com whose fake-dating scheme that Lara Jean Song Covey and Peter Ka...

Tune in as Andy ( Fat Dude Digs Flicks Movie Podcasts ) slides back into his guest seat for a breakdown of Virtuosity, the 1995 sci-fi action thriller that sends a prisoner with a police officer background on a mission to stop a serial killer who’s managed to escape his birthplace of virtual reality and is now terrorizing the real world. The investment that director Brett Leonard puts into VR thro...

Tune in as Jessica and Saunya, along with Dawn Marie in spirit ( Opinionated Lushes ), team back up with Arthur to rank their top ten books of 2024 (with some good old disclaimers). Reading an ostensibly nonfiction book about UAPs as science-fiction, the importance of portraying mental health sensitively, existential dread over the state of our world, and the misogyny festering within nice guys an...

Tune in as Arthur's friend Noah ( @NoahBManiac ) hops back onto the program so that they can reflect on the film journey of 2024 by presenting their rankings of the top ten movies from that whole year. A defense of the intentional comedy and camp in Trap, appreciation for immersive and palpable sound design, a striking connection that The Substance shares with Nightbitch, and the beauty of Say...

Tune in as Vanessa Ondi ( Best Week Ever Podcast ) returns to 2CC so that she and Arthur can take a look back on 2024 and rank their top 10 TV shows of that year. Apple TV+ doing a horrible job at promoting its media, creeps and perverts in Hollywood, and Vanessa’s story about having met Mark Duplass stand out as some of the topics for this episode. Create your  podcast  today!  #madeonzencastr He...

Tune in as Brett Salter ( Irish Salt ) jumps back into his guest chair for a breakdown of Reminiscence, the 2021 tech noir movie that feels strongly evocative of predecessors like Strange Days, Inception, and Chinatown while presenting the ways in which humanity has sunk back into old memories as an escape from the flooding and the climate change that’s plaguing its near-future dystopia. The humid...

Tune in as Christmas wraps up on the podcast for this fourth week of December! Dustin Holden ( Dustin Can Read & Watch  and  The Rewatch Recap ) hops back onto the program to discuss Happiest Season, the 2020 Hulu rom-com that follows lesbian couple Abby and Harper as they make sudden plans to visit Harper’s family for Christmas—a plan that veers off-course when it’s revealed that she had neve...

Tune in as the merriment continues on this podcast for the third week of December! Andy ( Fat Dude Digs Flicks Movie Podcasts ) is jumping back onboard to talk all about The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year, the 2024 Christmas novel by Ally Carter that blends together romance with a cozy mystery in the mansion of a famed author who goes missing. The insidiousness of gaslighting, the comfy cheese o...

Tune in as the program keeps the holiday season rolling onward for the second week of December! This time around, filmmaker friend Robyn Zabukovec ( @TheFinalGirly ) hops back into her guest seat for a breakdown of Better Watch Out, the 2016 Christmas horror-comedy that follows a 17-year-old babysitter and a couple adolescent boys as they try to fend off a home invasion during Christmastime. An ar...

Tune in as 2CC properly embraces the holiday season with a full month of episodes to go along with that cheery theme! For this first week of December, Robert “Stew” Stewart ( STEW World Order ) is jumping back into his guest chair for a review and recap of The Nightmare Before Christmas, the 1993 stop-motion animation classic that takes us to Halloween Town and the shenanigans that its beloved kin...

Tune in as Rick ( Pixel Project Radio ) collaborates with Arthur for a review and recap of Pet, the 2016 thriller that uses its familiar premise of a man stalking a woman to deploy some interesting and unnerving twists and turns. The debatable efficacy of how this movie explores the psychology and the power play at the core of its tale, an autistic-coded reading of Pet that leads into a tangent ab...

Tune in as author and podcaster Brett Salter ( Irish Salt ) jumps back onto the program for a breakdown of The Game, the 1997 mindfuck thriller in which a mysterious corporation takes an investment banker who rules over his lonesome life with the fist of a control freak, then makes it their mission to rip away any grasp he has on what’s real and what’s manufactured. A quick and negative review fro...

Tune in as filmmaker Joshua R. Pangborn ( Sidekick Productions ) returns to the podcast for a breakdown of Marvel’s Agent Carter, the two-season MCU TV show that premiered in 2015 and follows secret agent Peggy Carter as she embarks on espionage missions with the help of a few allies while wrestling with the daily challenges and misogyny that come with living as a single woman in the 1940s. A disa...

Tune in as Jameson Pfeifle ( @sdfilmthoughts ) teams up with Arthur for a review and recap of The Hunger, the 1983 erotic horror film that follows a vampire couple, the accelerated aging that has suddenly plagued one of the partners, and the human gerontologist who gets caught up in their alluring and dark world. The neo-noir layers that are given off by this movie’s heavy atmosphere, playing arou...

Tune in as Vanessa Ondi ( Best Week Ever Podcast ) jumps back into her guest seat for a discussion on The Wedding Planner, the 2001 rom-com starring Jennifer Lopez as a diligent wedding planner whose latest gig sees her contending with a cheater, a stalker, a statue’s broken schlong, and other sorts of shenanigans. Steve being a douchebag (albeit one who’s relatively more bearable compared to the...

Tune in as Arthur’s friend Anna ( @formergleek ) rejoins 2CC for a breakdown of The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood, the 2021 rom-com book whose fake-dating and grumpy/sunshine shenanigans are based off a Reylo fanfic that Hazelwood had written on AO3. Comparisons between the fanfic and the book, Hazelwood’s apparent lack of geographical knowledge, the frustrating stab that this romance tries to...

Tune in as Arthur’s buddy Cyn ( HEISTERS ) joins the podcast for a breakdown of The Invisible Guest, the 2016 mystery-thriller movie about a businessman who has to cooperate with a lawyer in order to come up with a sufficient defense that can prove his innocence after he’s been accused of murdering his lover in a locked hotel room. The debatable plausibility of some logistical bits and pieces in t...

Tune in as Dustin Holden ( Dustin Can Read & Watch ,  The Rewatch Recap ) collaborates with Arthur once again to review and recap Once Bitten, the 1985 vampire movie that takes its audience on a campy ride as a high schooler becomes the latest target of a centuries-old vampire who requires the blood of male virgins in order to sustain her youth and immortality. Bits and pieces of vampire lore...

Tune in as Arthur’s pal Robyn Zabukovec pops back up on 2CC for a discussion on Shallow Grave, the 1994 thriller that follows an obnoxious trio of British flatmates who descend into paranoia after dealing with the corpse and the big bag of money that have fallen into their laps. The black comedy that this film manages to smoothly blend in with its suspense, appreciation for onscreen blood that avo...

Tune in as Andy ( Fat Dude Digs Flicks Movie Podcasts ) hops back onto the podcast for a review and recap of the 2019 revenge thriller novel The Golden Cage by Camilla Läckberg, which follows a housewife who’s stuck in a loveless marriage and ends up embarking on a quest of ruthless retribution against the patriarchal forces that have been oppressing her for far too long. The ways in which this ou...

Tune in as Makayla ( Your Friendly Neighborhood Blerd ) jumps onto the podcast for a breakdown of First Kill, the 2022 lesbian vampire Netflix series that follows the forbidden romance between two teenagers—one who’s of the literally bloodsucking sort, the other who’s of the monster-hunting variety. It’s a shame that this only had the chance to stream for a couple months before the big red N sudde...

Tune in as Shawn Murphy ( Men Who Like Men Who Like Movies Podcast ) rejoins the program to review and recap Color of Night, the 1994 erotic thriller that takes us on a wild and atmospheric ride with a color-blind psychiatrist who gets himself caught up in a murder mystery and a steamy affair simultaneously. An intense BTS feud that led to different cuts of this movie being released, drawing inspi...

Tune in as Arthur’s pal Anna hops back into their guest seat for a deep dive into Upload, the Prime Video series that follows a technologically advanced near-future in which people have figured out a way to, well, upload their consciousness into a digital afterlife. Running for three seasons since 2020, this show, which feels reminiscent of The Good Place, has been renewed for a fourth and final s...