Can We Still Be Friends? – A Movie Podcast

Nate and Ryan pick out their 5 favorite movies of 2020 and take time to dig deeper into I’m Thinking of Ending Things written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, and Time, a moving documentary directed by Garrett Bradley. For this episode, Nate and Ryan each picked a movie from 2020 that they… Continue reading

The holiday season winds down as Nate and Ryan discuss The Holiday, the 2006 romantic-comedy from writer/director Nancy Meyers. Listen in as we discuss the highs and lows of all that star power, what this movie gets right, and how much we’ve missed Jude Law. Is The Holiday in your holiday… Continue reading

For the second annual T. Hanksgiving, a celebration of all things Tom Hanks, Nate and Ryan are watching A League of Their Own, the 1992 hit directed by the late, great Penny Marshall. Listen in as we discuss Hanks as not quite leading man, praise the strength and brilliance of Geena… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan celebrate the most wonderful fright of the year by re-watching The Babadook, written and directed by Jennifer Kent. We wish you and yours a very merry (and scary) 7th annual Holiday Spooktacular! As usual, we’re celebrating by watching a horror movie, and this year’s choice might be a… Continue reading

For the first time, Nate and Ryan review a movie from this year, breaking our routine for the one and only Spike Lee and his 2020 film Da 5 Bloods streaming on Netflix. Nate and Ryan chose this movie before the heartbreaking news of Chadwick Boseman’s death, but as anyone who… Continue reading

Reflecting on their own history with learning about racism, Nate and Ryan re-watch American History X. As it was for so many people (especially white men) their age, American History X served as one of the first visceral looks at racism in modern America. However, the rhetoric of Edward Norton’s Derek Vineyard… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan talk about what they’ve been watching with all this time on their hands. Listen in as they share recommendations and explore what makes them gravitate to a certain sort of movie during these uncertain times. We apologize for the change in our plans to watch Bend it Like… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan watch an under-seen gem in Elaine May’s curve ball of a gangster movie, Mikey and Nicky. The story of the making of the movie is almost as quietly legendary as the film itself, as May shot an unbelievable 1 million feet of film and took 3 years… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan watch Bridget Jones’s Diary and discuss their feelings about it, until they turn their critical eyes on themselves. The episode ends up being quite a departure for CWSBF as we realize just how problematic it is that we feel the need to weigh in on movies that aren’t… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan rewatch Mary Harron’s 2000 horror satire American Psycho and discuss how frighteningly timeless her vision of greedy late ’80s masculinity is. Christian Bale’s Patrick Bateman has become iconic, but is he iconic for the right reasons? Listen in as Nate and Ryan talk about the humor and the… Continue reading

In a CWSBF first, Nate and Ryan talk about their favorite ten movies of the last decade. On top of the list of movies, listen in as Nate and Ryan reflect on the last ten years in movies and make new-decade resolutions for the next ten years of movie watching.… Continue reading

This month, Nate and Ryan celebrate T. Hanksgiving by re-watching Cast Away. In what may be a new tradition, this November Nate and Ryan give thanks for Tom Hanks by discussing his performance as Chuck Noland in Robert Zemeckis’ 2000 film about a man lost on a deserted island with… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan re-watch Tim Burton’s 1994 homage to the world’s worst director, Ed Wood, to celebrate the 6th annual Holiday Spooktacular! Tim Burton and Johnny Depp teamed up to bring the life and work of Ed Wood to new audiences, and in the process, offered a celebration of underdogs and outsiders… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan watch Roger & Me (1989), Michael Moore’s groundbreaking documentary about the rapid decline of Flint, MI after the shuttering of several GM plants. 30 years later, the plight of Flint and the struggles of the United Auto Workers continue to be in the news. Listen in as… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan are back from a brief break to discuss Spike Lee’s masterpiece Do the Right Thing. In celebration of the film’s 30th anniversary, Nate and Ryan are doing an appreciation episode to give a much deserved re-watch to a movie that has proven to be more timely and prescient… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan discuss Bob Fosse’s 1979 semi-autobiographical fever dream, All That Jazz. Listen in as they plumb the depths of their knowledge of dance, compare Bob Fosse with Kanye West, and try to figure out what’s going on in those damn hospital scenes. What are your thoughts on All That Jazz?… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan put on their Sketchers and Prada backpacks and roam the halls of Padua High School as they rewatch 10 Things I Hate About You, the ’90s teen rom-com to end all ’90s teen rom-coms.  Join in as they reminisce on nights at Blockbuster video, gush over the eternally… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan kick-off the summer blockbuster season with Guillermo Del Toro’s 2004 adaptation of Hellboy. While the moody, lovelorn Hellboy might not exactly fit into today’s world of gigantic comics cinematic universes, Nate and Ryan talk about where Hellboy fits in the landscape of Del Toro’s monstrous heroes and how… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan return to the ’90s to re-watch Good Will Hunting, the movie that made Matt and Ben household names. The charm of director Gus Van Sant’s biggest commercial hit never really stuck with Nate and Ryan, so they’re giving it another go. Listen in as they find out… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan invite back special guest Evan Mather to talk about Alfonso Cuaron’s 2006 Children of Men.  Though not especially successful on its release, Children of Men has received new attention as critics and fans can’t help but notice that Cuaron seemed to know exactly what issues the world would be… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan revisit the widely loved comedy Step Brothers to talk about what is so appealing about the team of Will Ferrell, John C. Reilly, and Adam McKay. With Ferrell and Reilly back in theaters to much uninterested shrugs, and Adam McKay nominated for his 5th Oscar after winning his… Continue reading

It’s a romantic Christmas for Nate and Ryan as they discuss Love Actually, the 2003 holiday rom-com starring Keira Knightley, Hugh Grant, and most of the other British movie stars you can think of in the pre-Benedict-Cumberbatch era of British movie stars. Celebrating its 15th anniversary, Love Actually has become an annual… Continue reading

In 2010, the conversation around Facebook was mainly something like, “Holy crap, my parents are on Facebook. Should I delete my account?” Eight years later, the conversation is more like, “Holy crap, an enemy power hijacked our democracy and nationalism has a very visible platform and white supremacists have a… Continue reading

For the 5th Annual Holiday Spooktacular, Nate and Ryan discuss another bona fide classic, John Carpenters’ Halloween.  John Carpenter’s cheap, fast horror flick defied the odds and set a new standard for the genre, and as it’s celebrating its 40th anniversary, it seemed like the perfect time to relive “the night HE… Continue reading

Nate and Ryan discuss their first Alfred Hitchcock classic, 1958’s Vertigo.  As the film has gained more and more respect over the years, Nate and Ryan decided that it was time for them to really examine this beloved psychological mind-bender.  Like so many hallmarks of cinema before and since, Vertigo befuddled critics and… Continue reading