Don't Encourage Us

We gave an AI every transcript we had and asked it to figure out what the show actually is. It found moments worth discussing: - Why MCU box office is determined by sequencing, not quality — and what that means beyond Marvel - The structural difference between a high concept and a gimmick, and why Apple TV keeps getting it wrong - A prompt engineering framework that is the most professionally usef...

Is The Adam Project a kid's movie wearing a Ryan Reynolds costume? We dig in.    In this episode:  How Ryan Reynolds' casting rewrote the original script and broke the story Why the kid (Walker Scobell) starts as the hero and gets sidelined by his own movie The DNA-locked spaceship that can't tell the difference between a 10-year-old and an adult Time travel logic: why this movie waves its hand an...

Sam Wilson has the shield. Harrison Ford has the best arc in the film. And somehow Captain America: Brave New World still doesn't have a main character. We break down what went wrong, what worked, and what Marvel should do next — including the one character from this film who deserves his own series.   Jump to the 30-minute mark for the Captain America 4 deep dive. Spoilers throughout from that po...

A plot can be broken and a film can still work. Deadpool & Wolverine is Exhibit A — we break down exactly why the character work and tonal execution carried a thinly-plotted story to $1.3B, and what that says about where creative effort actually needs to go. Then: Roadside Picnic and Tarkovsky's Stalker — a novel and a film that strip science fiction down to what it's really about. And in Story Br...

Guests: Matt Baughman (actor), Steve Custer / Spidey Steve (actor, Starwipe Films ) Topics Plot and structure : The plot was reverse-engineered from a wish list of cameos and set pieces "Anchor being" as a concept invented to justify the multiverse Wolverine tour Three layers operating simultaneously: actor farewell, Deadpool franchise, MCU setup — not always compatible Fight choreography that's v...

Topics Apple TV+ sci-fi as gimmick : Dark Matter, Invasion, the Chris O'Dowd show, Godzilla series — all set up sci-fi premises then abandon them for soap opera The difference between sci-fi as gimmick and sci-fi that reveals something about humanity (Three-Body Problem comparison) Apple's niche audience strategy: HBO's old model with deeper pockets but possibly wrong content No One Can Save You (...

A $15 million Japanese film delivered better visual effects than Hollywood blockbusters spending ten times as much. Godzilla Minus One isn't just a great monster movie it's a case study in what happens when a director with VFX expertise controls the budget, and when a three-year script delay actually improves the final product. In this episode: Why this film's $15M budget produced better effects t...

Is Netflix deliberately making its shows easy to ignore — and if so, what does that mean for every advertiser writing them a check? The hosts unpack the streaming advertising problem no one's naming, then turn to Amazon's $153 million bet on Fallout and find a classic storytelling template hiding underneath the wasteland. In this episode: 0:00 — The Killing (2007): Danish crime drama, political in...

Road House (1989) vs. Road House (2024) — full comparative breakdown. Topics discussed: The character arc problem: 1989 Dalton grows past his need to kill, 2024 Dalton doesn't The pool murder scene: why it breaks the 2024 character with no recovery Bouncer culture as worldbuilding: what the 1989 version understood that the remake didn't The samurai-warrior-in-a-bar concept: why Swayze's Dalton was...

Three segments from the vault a la Morty's Mind-Blowers.  Segment 1: The Happening (2008) A pre-cohost episode with guests James and Eric. M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening gets the treatment it deserves, which is not much.   Segment 2: The Origin Story  Steve joins and the hosts try to figure out what Don't Encourage Us should actually be about. Keanu Reeves movies? Bitcoin? A weekly takedown of...

Story Break: Demon Code We develop an original AI horror concept — an apartment building haunted by competing artificial intelligences, not ghosts. Topics discussed: The pitch: paranormal activity that's actually AI infiltrating building systems Two competing AIs with different origins: one trained to generate content, one trained to pass as human The Turing test AI that developed extremist views...

Topics: I Saw the Devil (2010): South Korean horror thriller — the revenge film where both characters are the monster Cat and cat, not cat and mouse: the agent's revenge strategy reveals he was already a sociopath The cannibal interlude: why the agent doesn't stop another serial killer — justice was never the point Cyclical violence: executing the killer in front of his child as the creation of th...

Topics: 3 Body Problem Netflix adaptation vs. Cixin Liu's Remembrance of Earth's Past trilogy Compression problem: eight episodes covering material from all three novels, revelations stepping on each other The Oxford Five: why making all key characters college friends creates coincidence, not narrative logic The nanofilament scene: novel version (preserve the hard drives) vs. show version (blow ev...

Guest: Matt Baughman Format: Defend Yourself — our trial format where one host defends a film against the others. Topics discussed: The proto-Avengers argument: same team superhero formula, a decade too early Why assembling proven literary IP doesn't work if the audience hasn't read the source material The editing disaster: 10-12 setups per scene, Connery taking over the final cut Production desig...

Topics discussed: Dimension X (1950): NBC's radio adaptation of classic sci-fi short stories How post-WWII atomic anxiety transformed science fiction from kids' entertainment into adult culture The writing standard: why these 25-minute radio scripts are tighter than most modern screenwriting Hello Tomorrow episode breakdown: genetics, emotional repression, and the chained-elephant problem Nancy Ol...

Guest: Matt Baughman Part 2 of 2 — Part 1 covers Neuralink, streaming wars, cancel culture, and Apple Vision Pro. Topics discussed: Barbie as brand repositioning: how the film flipped a feminist villain into a feminist icon Why Margot Robbie's performance is a nomination-worthy tightrope walk for reasons unique to this role The Barbie editing achievement nobody's talking about Oppenheimer: phenome...

Guest: Actor Matt Baughman Part 1 of 2 — Part 2 covers the Oscar Best Picture nominees. Topics discussed: Neuralink's first human implant: why tweeting about secret human trials is a slippery slope The value of human life vs. corporate technology development Jonathan Majors, Disney, and cancel culture: should personal problems cost you your career? Celebrity worship, media literacy, and judging pe...

Topics: Notorious (1946): Hitchcock's spy romance — why the espionage plot is secondary to the love story The three-second kissing rule: how the Hays Code created cinema's most awkward love scene Hitchcock's crane shot: the revolutionary camera move from balcony to key in hand Cary Grant's introduction: dark silhouette, back to camera — subverting star power The age gap: Cary Grant at 42, Ingrid B...

Topics discussed: The faith vs. science thesis: why every good Indiana Jones MacGuffin is an object of myth, not science  How the Dial of Destiny's scientific framing betrays the character's defining trait The Helena problem: Phoebe Waller-Bridge cast in a role written for a much younger character Why Shaunette Renee Wilson would have been a better Helena  The Continental Drift line as the moment...

A movie so visually stunning that both hosts spent half of it distracted by a fake cactus. That's Asteroid City. The guys give Wes Anderson's most recent film a full breakdown and come away genuinely divided. There might be a masterpiece buried in there that neither of them caught because they were too busy spotting celebrities. It's a real conversation about what makes a film actually work, and w...

Killer whales are sinking boats off the coast of Spain and the scientific theory behind it raises real questions about animal intelligence, trauma, and socially transmitted behavior. We break down the research, then turn to the MCU box office data that reveals why sequencing matters more than individual film quality. Also in this episode: Pablo Escobar's hippos are now an invasive population of 20...

Topics discussed: Paradise (2023): the case that this is fantasy, not science fiction and why that matters so much The missing villain backstory: what one or two scenes could have fixed Why the ending is actually a win for everyone except the one innocent character The underdeveloped rebel group problem (again — see also: The Last of Us) Science fiction vs. fantasy: where's the line and does Parad...

Topics discussed: How each major film technology changed audience psychology, not just production quality Why drone shots consistently break immersion — and what alternatives do better The 30-year cycle of 3D: why it keeps dying and returning (1920s, 1950s, 1980s, 2010s) Steadicam vs. shaky cam: flying vs. running and what each does to the viewer's brain TikTok editing and how short-form platforms...

A romantic comedy about a woman who's more in love with her ex-boyfriend's dog than the guy himself. Stalking ensues. Then somehow, things get deeper — and darker — when the whole concept pivots into a Pixar-style animated film about a dog navigating its owners' divorce. Actor Matt Baughman is back, and he's responsible for blowing up the original pitch and rebuilding it into something better. The...

Topics: Pontypool (2008): the Canadian horror film where understanding English words activates a virus The host split: surreal art film about the fragility of sanity vs. a thriller that breaks its own spell Not a zombie film: the virus attacks comprehension itself — perception is the vulnerability The cure scene: forcing someone to challenge their understanding of a word resets the virus in the fi...