The Fan & The Critic

We talk about movies featuring current/former wrestlers. These are not movies about wrestlers, but instead usually "bad" action movies with wrestlers in the lead or supporting roles. We then each rate these movies on 4 categories and Ben uses his advanced analytics to determine the King of the Hill of the Fan & The Critic. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has us thinking about every Greek mythology movie ever made — so Ben and David join Carson and Paolo to crown the best Zeus and Hercules, argue over which myths Hollywood still hasn't touched, and cast our own Greek Mythology Cinematic Universe. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Ben and Elon stop by to talk about the movies that made us who we are — the ones we watched too young, the ones that hit different now, and the ones we're a little embarrassed to admit shaped us. It starts sentimental, gets weird, gets serious, then gets weird again, and somehow ends with a horror movie game. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Carson and Paolo run down their Top 10 movies of 2025. Carson's list is the usual pretentious indie picks, except this year Paolo's is almost entirely horror — proof that nine years in, we still don't watch the same movies. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Carson built a Christmas movie trivia quiz that wildly overestimates how much anyone else knows about Christmas movies, Ben included. Spoiler: not everyone has watched Scrooged (1988) twenty-plus times like Carson has, and that shocks him every single time. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Ben and Peter join Carson and Paolo to dig into the horror franchises that have lasted longest and the ones that should've stopped a sequel or two ago. Expect strong opinions, dumb tangents, and at least one franchise we change our minds about mid-conversation. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Peter comes back to talk 80s fantasy movies and our ongoing D&D campaign, and yes, it's another two-hour episode. We had a great time recording it — whether you have a great time listening is between you and your podcast app. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Carson gets tied to a chair (figuratively, mostly) and forced to sit through a stack of movie musicals, including Wicked and Emilia Pérez, and finds at least one nice thing to say about each. Our guests actually know what makes a musical good or bad, which helps. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Ten years after Rogue One split the Fan and the Critic right down the middle, Andor season 2 landed and somehow both of us liked it. So we go back and rewatch Rogue One to see if time — and Andor — changed our minds about a Star Wars movie we couldn't agree on. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Four dudes sit around and talk about how much they like Jackie Chan. His movies, specifically — though honestly, also just him. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Carson and Paolo run down their Top 10 movies of 2024. As always, Carson leans indie and pretentious, Paolo leans Hollywood and dumb, and somehow the list still works. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

It's the end of the year, there are great new releases everywhere, and somehow we decided to spend our limited movie-watching time on the two worst ones instead: Joker 2 and Megalopolis. We don't know why we do this to ourselves either. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Seven years into this podcast and we'd somehow never done a zombie movie episode, despite it being a genre we all love. Ben and Carlos join us to fix that — except instead of the obvious picks, we go deep on two movies almost nobody's heard of: One Cut of the Dead and Seoul Station. Spoiler warning applies, and we mean it this time. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Everyone's seen the original Starship Troopers. Almost nobody's seen its two terrible direct-to-video sequels — except us now, and Aleks and Dan, who we dragged back for round two of this suffering. We rank all three and explain why you should probably stop at the first one. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Ben and Carlos are back, this time bringing their own horror movie recommendations for us to sit through. Will we like them? Will we regret this entire series? Tune in to find out. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Two sequels, two very different outcomes: Dune Part Two and Rebel Moon Part Two went head-to-head in our minds as the year's biggest 'part twos,' and somehow the blockbuster everyone praised let us down while the one everyone wrote off became the year's best surprise. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Carlos makes us sit through some of the best horror movies of recent years, including entries from The Conjuring and Annabelle universe, and we get extremely off-topic while doing it. Ben and Carson also try to participate while quietly admitting they were too scared to watch some of it the whole way through. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

It's been a while since we did a whole episode on one movie, but Rebel Moon demanded it. Is it the worst thing we watched all year? Is it secretly almost great? We still don't have a straight answer. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Carson and Paolo run down their Top 10 movies of 2023 — Carson's still picking pretentious indies, Paolo's still picking dumb Hollywood blockbusters, and somehow it's a list with something for everyone. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Four dads get together to talk about watching movies and being dads, featuring Ben and Stephen — which is exactly as wholesome and exactly as off-the-rails as it sounds. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Antoni joins us to review Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, and then we go all the way back and rank his entire filmography from worst to best. It's a long one, but if you've ever wanted to hear two podcasters argue about where Tenet belongs on a Nolan tier list, this is it. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Who is the greatest movie sidekick of all time? Carson, Paolo, and Kyle each bring their own nominee, argue over what even counts as a sidekick, and land on one definitive winner. Instagram: thefanandthecritic Check out Kyle's podcast, Kyle and Dave vs The Machine, where a machine forces them to watch and review movies from a particular year. Find it at: https://kdvstm.transistor.fm/ (or everywher...

What makes a movie or TV adaptation actually work — sticking close to the source material, or taking real creative liberties? Tracey from the movie podcast Off My Shelf joins us to dig into book and IP adaptations and where the line is between faithful and free. Instagram: thefanandthecritic Check out Tracey's podcast, Off My Shelf, where she reviews movies right off the shelf for her DVD. Find it...

We didn't learn the first time. Four years after our first deep dive into Asylum Studios' gloriously bad low-budget movies, Dan and Mena return to help us officially declare ourselves experts in their tricks — Two Headed Shark Attack, Jurassic Domination, Atlantic Rim: Resurrection, and Dracula: The Original Living Vampire included. Instagram: thefanandthecritic

Would you rather live in the MCU's Quantum Realm or on the island of Inisherin? Carson and Paolo's answers are exactly what you'd expect, and somehow they explain everything about why one of them loved Ant-Man 3 and The Banshees of Inisherin and the other didn't. Instagram: thefanandthecritic