Filmspotting

Aaron Sorkin has said his new The Social Reckoning is not a sequel so much as a companion piece to David Fincher’s The Social Network, which Sorkin also scripted. Whatever you call it, though, these two films are undeniably linked, not just by Sorkin’s involvement, but especially by their interest in the tech-bro enigma that is Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. So this week we’re...

Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette is back in theaters this week for its 20th anniversary. In 2017, along with a review of Coppola's The Beguiled, Josh and guest host Angelica Jade Bastien shared their Top 5 Sofia Coppola Scenes. Unlock the full archive, Filmspotting Discord, ad‑free + bonus episodes, and more when you ⁠join  the Filmspotting Family⁠ .  See omnystudio.com/listener for priv...

From none of the people who brought you Barbie comes a new film inspired by (or mandated by?) the Mattel corporation. It’s Matchbox: The Movie ! And it stinks. But in what ways exactly does it stink? The answers may surprise you. Matt and Jordan discuss. Plus, Jordan’s thoughts on the conclusion of Prime Video’s Carrie limited series, which was reviewed on last week’s show;...

Can a movie change your life? In a 1960s interview, Stanley Kubrick posed a deceptively simple provocation: "I wonder what percent of people ever actually encounter a work of art that changes them." This week, New York Times Chief Film Critic Manohla Dargis joins Michael Phillips to test this proposition against a lifetime of moviegoing. Together, they reflect on films that expanded their sense of...

With the fall film festival season (mostly) in the rearview and release dates set through the end of the year, Adam and Josh hold a Fall Movie Preview Draft that sees them largely ignoring obvious picks like Avengers: Doomsday and Dune: Part Three in favor of battling over some of the most intriguing indies still to come. Plus, a review of Aaron Sorkin's The Social Reckoning and Massacre Theatre....

Primetime is a far-from-straightforward take on a true story, using the mid-aughts TV phenomenon  To Catch a Predator and especially its host, Chris Hansen, for a darkly comic exploration of the morally murky place where ambition and justice overlap. It’s a tonal high wire act that gets a lot of mileage out of Lance Oppenheim’s expressively stylized direction and strong performanc...

The 1991 movie year turns 35 this year. T2, Barton Fink, Boys in the Hood . In 2014, Adam and Josh looked back a mere 23 years for their Top 5 of '91.     See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Stephen King’s Carrie has been adapted for film twice, has endured a sequel and even a Broadway musical, and now Mike Flanagan has brought the writer’s debut novel to the small screen in a limited series for Prime Video. Flanagan is a peerless adapter of King’s work, but does any version of Carrie need to be eight hours? Matt and Jordan discuss. In the Rec Seg, recommendations fo...

Hollywood has been dying for more than a century. At least, that's what people keep saying. This week, Michael Phillips explores one of the industry's favorite prophecies of doom: producer David O. Selznick's famous comparison of Hollywood to ancient Egypt, "full of crumbled pyramids" destined to disappear into the sands. Joining Michael are Rep. Laura Friedman, whose congressional district includ...

Not everyone hates Digger . The big swing from star Tom Cruise and director Alejandro González Iñárritu was met with chilly box office and hostility from critics, but Adam and Josh (yes, even Iñárritu skeptic Adam!) found lots to like — especially after the film’s bold transition from politically-charged farce into something completely different. Plus...

Lance Oppenheim’s Primetime paints problematic TV phenomenon To Catch a Predator — and especially its host, Chris Hansen — as an enterprise fueled by ambition, amorality, and a tenuous grasp of journalistic ethics. Those qualities put us in mind of the cursed collaboration between desperate press agent Sidney Falco and influential columnist J.J. Hunsecker in 1957’s Sweet Sm...

With Cruise back in ac-tor mode in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Digger , we're sharing our 2017 consideration of "the last movie star"'s long and storied career.  Unlock the full archive, Filmspotting Discord, ad‑free + bonus episodes, and more when you ⁠join  the Filmspotting Family⁠ .  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

For the first show of Scare-tober, Jordan and Matt take a look at the Shudder Original Goody Goody, a low-budget home-birth horror tale from first-time feature director Raymond Creamer. For a seasonally appropriate streaming watch, you could do worse. You could also do better, which is why Matt and Jordan use this week’s “Rec Seg” to suggest a couple of titles inspired by Goody G...

Chris Klimek convenes a showdown between arguably the two most influential slasher films ever made: John Carpenter's "Halloween" and Wes Craven's "A Nightmare on Elm Street." One helped define the modern slasher, introducing audiences to the silent, implacable force of Michael Myers and transforming suburban streets into sites of terror. The other revitalized the genre six years later with Freddy...

For the debut episode of their new sport and film podcast, Adam Kempenaar and University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communication colleague Travis Vogan, PhD, are joined by scholar Seán Crosson, PhD, to discuss Harold Lloyd’s 1925 silent comedy The Freshman . Together, they explore the massive box-office hit’s treatment of masculinity and football, and how the film helped shape...

Two weeks after their Pantheon Project review of David Lynch’s Blue Velvet , Adam and Josh take on the director’s 2001 mind-bender, Mulholland Drive , to celebrate its 25th anniversary. For a film with a reputation for being impenetrable, they find it surprisingly rich with clues while retaining all of its singular power. Plus, a Golden Brick nomination for If I Go Will They Miss Me ,...

There’s a lot to enjoy about  The Weight : the tactile 1930s Oregon setting, strong performances from Ethan Hawke and Russell Crowe, a premise that allows for multiple suspense sequences. But Padraic McKinley’s directorial debut is arguably lacking in thematic heft and visceral grit, particularly when compared to the other film in this pairing. So after considering how The Weight...

Ahead of December's Doomsday , Avengers: Endgame is back in theaters. Here's Adam and Josh with their original 2019 review—including spoilers. Unlock the full archive, Filmspotting Discord, ad‑free + bonus episodes, and more when you ⁠join  the Filmspotting Family⁠ .  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Starring Russell Crowe and an all-grown-up Jacob Tremblay (“Room” “”Wonder”), Netflix’s Unabomber was a promising title on the fall streaming slate. Unfortunately, director Janus Metz’s exploitative biopic about the notorious domestic terrorist (and manifesto author) comes up well short of expectations. But Matt and Jordan use the film as an excuse to reco...

Film critic and author Marya E. Gates joins Michael to explore perhaps the simplest, most influential direction ever given to an actor: "Be natural." The phrase is associated with pioneering filmmaker Alice Guy-Blaché, who posted the reminder in her New Jersey studio more than a century ago. As one of cinema's earliest storytellers, Guy-Blaché helped establish film as a distinct art...

Adam and Josh welcome Filmspotting SVU co-host Matt Singer for the Top 5 Comedy Boom Movies. Singer’s new book, “Funny Business: The Old-School Wedding Crashers and Knocked-Up Virgins Who Changed Comedy Forever” documents the Frat Pack era of studio comedies that dominated the box office from the early 2000s to the mid-2010s—and gave a generation a lifetime’s worth of...

With Ethan Hawke back in theaters in the period adventure The Weight, we're sharing Adam's 2018 interview with the always thoughtful and insightful actor. Unlock the full archive, Filmspotting Discord, ad‑free + bonus episodes, and more when you ⁠join the Filmspotting Family⁠ .  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The new Netflix comedy Best of the Best introduced Matt and Jordan to the world of collegiate competitive Bollywood dance, and they left converts: to the dancing, to stars Maitreyi Ramakrishnan and Priyanka Kedia, and to director Lena Khan’s winning movie (which has a joke-filled script written by comedian Hassan Minhaj and writing partner Prashanth Venkataramanujam). In the Best of the Best...

Padraic McKinley’s The Weight isn’t a remake of The Wages of Fear, though it feels deeply indebted to the H.G. Clouzot classic in its thrilling depiction of a group of outlaws on a near-impossible mission across deadly terrain. William Friedkin’s 1977 cult favorite Sorcerer technically isn’t a Wages remake, either — Friedkin insisted it was his own adaptation of the o...

Film critic and author Alonso Duralde joins Michael Phillips to explore a piece of filmmaking wisdom from Vincente Minnelli: that a picture which stays with an audience is built from “a hundred or more hidden things.” Drawing on films ranging from Meet Me in St. Louis , Some Came Running , If Beale Street Could Talk , and Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma , they consider how product...