Film Explorers

Happy holidays from the four of us! As is tradition every December on the show, we sit down for one big dive into all of our picks for the holiday season in one massive Holiday Special. Jackson walks us through what may have been a miscalculated pick with BETTER WATCH OUT, Josh brings us through the darkly comedic and horrifying world of EYES WIDE SHUT, Joey cozies up the vibe with RUDOLPH THE RED...

PREPARE TO BE ENTERTAINED. This week we're wrapping up our 2024 slate of films by covering the last in our Denzel Washington marathon, Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR II. We talk about our complicated feelings about the first Gladiator, Denzel absolutely eating the rest of this cast alive, rhinos in the Colosseum, and electing a monkey to be emperor. We also debrief Josh's experience with Wicked, litigat...

This week, we're wrapping up our retrospective of the films of Denzel Washington with Joel Coen's (and Shakespeare's) THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH. We talk about Joey's obsession with German expressionism, Kathryn Hunter always going underappreciated, and if having the most insane style imaginable is reason enough to give us yet another Shakespeare adaptation. We also talk about our slate for next month...

PASSION. TRADITION. MIX IT UP. In a typical hard left turn for us out of the action genre, this week we cover Mira Nair's MISSISSIPPI MASALA, a stunningly steamy romance set very near to where a lot of us grew up. We talk about diving into a West African history that we aren't familiar with, Denzel at his most charismatic, and how romance films work best when you're unbelievably attracted to both...

SOME WILL KILL TO HAVE IT. HE WILL KILL TO PROTECT IT. As our Denzel Washington marathon continues, we move forward a bit in his career and cover the Hughes Brothers' THE BOOK OF ELI. We talk expressions of religion in modern film, Denzel at debatably his coolest, and finally getting Mank himself on the show. We also talk about being way too busy to watch as many movies as usual, catching up on Th...

CREASY'S ART IS DEATH, AND HE IS ABOUT TO PAINT HIS MASTERPIECE. Spooktober is over, and as we approach the release of one of the year's biggest films in Gladiator II, we're knocking out some blindspots in the filmography of one of the titans of the film industry: Denzel Washington. This week we tackle his 2004 film from the great Tony Scott MAN ON FIRE. We talk revenge narratives, 2000s editing s...

FEAR WHAT'S INSIDE. In what will probably become one of our most controversial episodes so far, we finally tackle one of our nemeses (nemesises? nemesi?!) Alex Garland and his 2018 sci-fi horror ANNIHILATION. We talk about not seeing the vision, how digital cinematography can make or break your movie, and why some people just need a new writer. We also talk about Saturday Night, Passing, Evil Does...

HOW DO YOU KILL SOMETHING THAT CAN'T POSSIBLY BE ALIVE? After some more adventurous choices the last few weeks, Josh brings us back to basics with some more Stephen King and a second John Carpenter in 1983's CHRISTINE. We talk about what it means to gender your vehicles, having the worst most awful protagonist imaginable, and how Christine shapes up among the rest of Carpenter's films. We also spe...

DO YOU WANT TO MEET A GHOST? It's just getting scarier, babes. We're diving straight into J-Horror with Kiyoshi Kurosawa's PULSE, an absolutely terrifying film about all those little ghosts that are hiding right behind the screen you're currently reading this on. We talk about the rise of Internet technology, our childhoods finding random horror shorts on little corners of the web, and how reversi...

“WE DON'T WANT TO GIVE ANYBODY SLEEPLESS NIGHTS." Spooktober Vol. 2 is upon us, and as part of our favorite season of the year, we're tackling 1992's GHOSTWATCH, a film that's truly unlike anything we've ever covered. We talk tricking your audience, ghosts lurking in the background, scarring childhood memories, and one of the most insane production stories we've ever heard. Also plenty of Megalopo...

MEMORY BURNS. Quick little disclaimer: we do talk about topics relating to depression and suicide this episode. If any of that content is particularly sensitive to you, feel free to skip around with the chapters. Wrapping up our month of all female directors with Charlotte Wells' AFTERSUN, a movie that seeps so deeply into your subconscious that you don't even realize you're as sad as...

In a hard shift into what has to be our deepest dive into arthouse cinema and the avant-garde art scene, we go back to 1976 for Chantal Akerman's NEWS FROM HOME, a film that left us legitimately speechless. We talk about how personal the film is to all of us, how painful it is, and how optimistic we can truly be about it all. Chapters: 00:00:00 Intro 00:03:26 What We Watched 00:10:17 Surprise...

REVENGE NEVER LOOKED SO PROMISING. Disclaimer: we talk about some really difficult content this week, since Promising Young Woman is a film about sexual assault. We always include chapters in our episodes so you can skip around, but if you feel in any way uncomfortable with that material, feel free to skip our discussion of the film. Love you all <3 This week, Joey brings us to the explosive wo...

LITTLE ENGINES CAN DO BIG THINGS... In a really interesting double feature with last week's episode, we take a trip to Jackson's childhood with his pick for a September filled with only female directors, THOMAS AND THE MAGIC RAILROAD directed by Britt Alcroft. Alec Baldwin snorting something that can't not be an allegory for some kind of drug, Peter Fonda hiding in a cave and giving ab...

ENCHANTED DANCING IN A MAGICAL WORLD! In one of our longest and silliest episodes to date, we take the plunge into the magical world of BARBIE IN THE 12 DANCING PRINCESSES, guided by our good friend and Barbie historian Carson! She lectures us on the history of the Mattel straight-to-DVD Barbie films, the unsung lore, and why these movies mean so much to her. Of course, we respond by focusing way...

ONCE HE FOUGHT FOR A DREAM. NOW HE'S FIGHTING FOR LOVE! A huge conclusion to our sequel month run with one of Sutherland's favorite movies of all time, ROCKY II! If you thought Blade Runner was heated...it still is but this one is also incredibly contentious! We talk how to construct a good sports movie. Are they ever really about the sport? And we break down Josh's infamous claim abou...

CAPTAIN JACK IS BACK! After three weeks off from recording, we're so unbelievably back talking about one of the most iconic films to our generation, PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: DEAD MAN'S CHEST. We talk about theme park rides being adapted into film, grungy gross visual effects that have never been surpassed to date, and why need a billion more pirate movies. We also spend a while talking th...

THE KEY TO THE FUTURE IS FINALLY UNEARTHED. You know the movie, I don't have to intro it for you. BLADE RUNNER 2049 is one of the most beloved movies of the 2010s, an instantly iconic film of the science fiction genre. We talk through Roger Deakins being at the top of his game, Ryan Gosling hitting that thousand-yard stare, and we answer the question you're asking: is Denis Villeneuve the...

JUSTICE IS COMING. Unfortunately, we have once again been reached. In this very special throwback episode of Film Explorers, we return to the genesis of the show with one of the longest running bits in our short history, JACK REACHER: NEVER GO BACK. We talk studio cash-grabs, Tom Cruise clenching his jaw in every single close-up, and actively forgetting movies as you watch them. We also debate the...

PROTECTING THE EARTH FROM THE SCUM OF THE UNIVERSE. This week, we're rounding out our blockbuster slate for the month of July with another classic '90s Will Smith joint MEN IN BLACK! We talk about Josh staying winning with these picks (don't worry, that doesn't last long), Vincent D'onofrio being one of the great unsung actors of all time, every alien in this movie just being t...

A SIMPLE WESTERN ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN DREAM. In a very special bonus episode for Josh's birthday, they chose one of their all-time favorite films to get the feature presentation treatment on the show with Kelly Reichardt's FIRST COW! We talk through the beauty in Reichardt's photography of nature, breaking the way we talk about love out of the confines of the English langua...

HE IS AFRAID. HE IS ALONE. HE IS THREE MILLION LIGHT YEARS FROM HOME. In a month where we're covering some of the biggest blockbusters of all time, we had to go to the father of them all: the man, the myth, the legend Steven Spielberg and his seminal '80s classic E.T. THE EXTRA-TERRESTRIAL. We talk aliens drinking Coors Banquets, aliens eating Pez, aliens making friggin bikes fly in the ai...

If you've been craving more random bonus conversations, do we have something perfect for you. Here's nearly two hours of Josh and Sutherland having a stupid laid-back conversation about a bunch of movies they haven't seen yet! Seriously though, Oscar predictions at this point in the year (and always) are just for fun, so we're just goofing. But we talk about so much stuff, from Dun...

REVENGE IS COMING. Listen, I know what you're thinking. Why are we covering the second movie in one of the worst film franchises to ever grace the silver screen? We haven't even covered the first one! My answer is, I don't know why we watched TRANSFORMERS: REVENGE OF THE FALLEN. I'm pretty sure all four of us collectively blacked out watching it and then woke up when the credits st...

EARTH. TAKE A GOOD LOOK. IT MIGHT BE YOUR LAST. We're going back, back to the one that started it all. Somehow Roland Emmerich returned, and after we loved his universally panned Moonfall, what do we all think of his undisputed American classic INDEPENDENCE DAY? We talk big stupid dumb action, we talk patriotism on film, and of course, we just had to talk Moonfall. Jackson also watches Fast Fi...