Peak Viewing

The end is here! Season 2 of Andor is officially in the books, and we’ve got one last batch of episodes to go over. Come for the incredible Kleya/Luthen backstory and cozy Yavin IV vibes, stay for the endless tangents about Jabba the Hutt’s son, morbid physical media thoughts, folding laundry movies, and our existential uncertainty towards the future of Star Wars.

The third batch of episodes is here, and it is the best of season two of Andor. Despite that, this week we have (mostly) come to terms with the fact that this will never quite be the same as season 1. Even though we still really really enjoy it! After that we get into several tangents about the immaculate production design, the introduction of the Force into this show, the prevalence of Jedi knowl...

Spy stuff is happening! Syril is given a job to do! Wilmon is huffing gasoline! The Ghorman spiders are… well, actually we didn’t see as much of the Ghorman spiders as we had hoped, but this second batch of episodes in season two of Andor is still a decidedly fun time. Your co-hosts both had bad weeks in the Real World and were a bit distracted watching their weekly space opera, so please enjoy th...

(CW: Discussion of the sexual assault scene occurs at 1:26:00 - 1:31:00.) Andor season 2 is finally here, and we’re here to say: it seems good? Between the myriad of harvests, weddings, and WWII-esque meetings, the first three episodes of season two seem to be a drastic shift in terms of the storytelling structure, so this week we unpack all of our thoughts on that. We also find lots to say about...

Jason Bourne marks the end of the Jason Bourne franchise for now (or maybe forever?), and what a bummer to go out on. Paul Greengrass and Matt Damon return to completely annex The Bourne Legacy, and give you everything you already know and love about Bourne. It seems like every time we find something to like about this film, we take two steps back and find another thing that doesn’t work at all. W...

The legacy of The Bourne Legacy is that it’s not so good, and oh no, those rumors are mostly true! Tony Gilroy’s return to the franchise was a clear attempt by the studio to expand this into its own cinematic universe, and as a result the movie we got is bogged down by a lot of setup that goes nowhere. But that doesn’t mean we can’t ask the hard hitting questions: Why wasn’t Oscar Isaac the lead i...

They said it couldn’t be done, but here we are this week with not one, but two movies to talk about! We’re taking a quick detour away from Bourne to talk about the two films that Tony Gilroy directed before The Bourne Legacy, the quintessential legal masterpiece Michael Clayton and the regrettably befuddling Duplicity. Join us as we talk about too many loaves of bread, miracle hair creams, Realm a...

The Bourne Ultimatum was once the end of the franchise, and it is the epitome of going out on a high note. This action-packed thriller has got something to say, which is why we spend nearly two hours trying to figure out what exactly is it saying! Whether it’s mid-2000s American geopolitics, Bourne’s relationship to water, the perils of a multi-billion dollar entity operating with no oversight, or...

Paul Greengrass has entered the Bourne franchise, which can mean only one thing: it’s time to activate the shaky cam! The Bourne Supremacy may not achieve the same highs as The Bourne Identity, but this follow-up gives us two instances of perhaps Bourne’s most iconic move: calling people on the phone while staring at them through a window! Come for the convoluted web of conspiracies that is the pl...

In preparation for the second season of Andor, we’re diving headfirst into Bourne, the early-to-mid-2000s action franchise written for the screen (mostly) by Tony Gilroy. This efficient thriller holds up surprisingly well given the time period, and it’s making us ask lots of questions. Questions like: How much of Bourne’s amnesia is a parallel for the PTSD veterans experience? What does the color...

After a release date that has changed damn near seventeen times, Mickey 17 is finally here! Bong Joon Ho’s follow-up to the Oscar-winning Parasite is a big-budget sci-fi romp that carries over several themes from his previous work. But we’re left wondering: why does it feel so unserious? Are we really in a good place to receive Mark Ruffalo’s performance? Why are there ten more Mickeys than the bo...

This week we are finally jumping on a bus bound for New York City to talk about the definitive film from the 7th Academy Awards: It Happened One Night. This wildly successful film became the template for practically all romcoms for the ensuing 90 years, but we’ve got some questions. Questions like: Have the Oscars ever been good about rewarding the best films? What should you eat with this movie,...

We cannot stress this enough: if you have not watched any of the movies in this miniseries, you owe it to yourself to check out Manhattan Melodrama. This crime drama about two brothers is easily the best written (it did win Best Original Story at the 7th Academy Awards, after all) of the bunch, and as a result it holds up remarkably well. We discuss some of our favorite shots from old “one take Wo...

The third and final musical of this miniseries gets covered this week with One Night of Love. Is this the most forgettable one from the bunch? Maybe. However, by this point we come to some genuine insights around how prolific musicals were at this time in Hollywood, as well as how much the gender dynamics of these films has to say about the 1930s. Also we have a revolutionary idea for pizza boxes...

Cleopatra is the last of the “unstreamables” in our miniseries on the 7th Academy Awards, and despite its costume designs it was actually released after the Code was being enforced. This historical epic from Cecil B DeMille might be historically inaccurate and say more about 1930s society than it does the fall of the Roman Republic, but at least it features an opulent seduction sequence on a barge...

(CW: There are brief discussions of sexual assault from about 48:00 to 54:00. There is also discussion throughout of a wolf being killed with someone’s bare hands, a real thing that really happens in this movie. Maybe skip this week if you don’t want to hear about either of those topics!) This week’s film walks a very fine line between racist caricature of Inuit people, and empathetic portrayal of...

Our second musical this miniseries is a raunchy adaptation of a raunchy operetta, it’s Ernst Lubitsch’s The Merry Widow. This one stands as a great example of a pre-Code film released post-Code, but even with the pre-Code changes restored it’s unfortunately not a very good film! Topics discussed include the lackluster soundtrack, a reoccurring poor son of a bitch, and our personal theories about h...

Viva Villa! is a hard movie to find, any honestly, for good reason! This pretty racist biopic starring a white man as Pancho Villa is probably the most problematic movie we’ve covered, and as a result it’s not a very easy movie to appreciate. We walk through how this misguided Oscar-winning film came to be, discuss how it’s content is a good example of the pre-Code era, and read quotes from one of...

It’s time to go back! We’re starting the year off by going back 90 years and covering the winners at the 7th Academy Awards in 1935, beginning with The Gay Divorcee which won Best Song. This musical was the second of many collaborations between Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire, but it also features a diverse cast of overbearing aunts, bumbling lawyers, and concertina-playing racist stereotypes! List...

This week we’re carrying over an annual tradition from our previous podcast, and going over some of our favorite art that came out last year! Join us as we share our lists of favorite movies, books, TV shows, YouTube videos, poker games, 4X expansions, comedy shows, rap battles, board games, and much more.

The time has come to succumb to the darkness. Bunker down, because we are an appetite which will only be satiated by spending over two hours talking about the new Nosferatu film. In between discussing how this fits into both the Eggers filmography and the storied vampire canon, we also discuss the multitude of nightmarish sequences, the themes (or lack thereof), and the Count’s truly magnificent v...

Who remembers Dracula 2000? Even having watched it this week, we struggle to recall this Weinstein-produced adaptation that features Dracula going where he’s never gone before: New Orleans! We also discuss the wonderful retail chain Virgin Megastores (#sponsored), the problems with modernizing this particular story, and the dubious science behind the cross-section of blood and DNA. Plus: what does...

In many ways, Francis Ford Coppola’s Bram Stoker’s Dracula is the most faithful adaptation to the source novel. In many other ways, it is approximately ten times hornier. In between trying to make sense of those two contrasts, we also grapple with the American actors in this movie, the many physical transformations of Dracula himself, the barrage of unique stylistic visual effects, and our own per...

Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht (which was simply called Nosferatu the Vampyre in America) is perhaps the most “out there” movie in this series so far. It is slow, nihilistic, and cruel, but those are all things we really appreciate about it. (Or maybe not, Samuel might hate this movie by the end of the podcast!) Join us as we recap it and talk about what wet foods Jonathan reminds us of, the terribl...

Hang on a minute, is the Hammer Film version of Dracula the definitive Dracula movie? This adaptation from 1958 (which was called Horror of Dracula over here in the States) takes some intense tonal swings, while somehow staying the truest to the source novel. Topics discussed include what would happen if we drank a lot of blood, why this movie is so much better than the other Hammer productions we...