The Juggernaut

It's our annual countdown of our favorite movies! We'll spend some time counting down our top 10 films of 2025, while also tackling each other's lists. Ranking art is kind of silly, but if this is a way for you to find some new movies to watch you might not have otherwise heard of, it's worth it! Thanks for your support!   NOTES: Follow our show on Bluesky - https://bsky.app/profile/harrisfootball...

It's our annual movie conversation! Cousin Josh joins, and we go back and forth listing our favorite movies from 2024. Don't read any further in these show notes if you prefer to avoid spoilers!           Josh's Top 10 Movies Of 2024: 10. The Substance 9. La Chimera 8. Do Not Expect Too Much From The End Of The World 7. Conclave 6. Dune 2 5. Strange Darling 4. The Brutalist 3. A Real Pain 2. Anora...

It's our annual tradition! Harris and Cousin Josh will count down their favorite movies of 2023 and talk about why they work (and sometimes why they don't). Maybe you'll enjoy our opinions, or maybe we'll just put a few different movies on your radar screen. Thanks for listening!   Josh's Top 10 Movies Of 2023: 10. Bottoms 9. You Hurt My Feelings 8. The Deepest Breath 7. The Holdovers 6. Anatomy O...

Are we the last podcast to do a year-in-review for cinema in 2022? Probably! But that just means you've already forgotten all the films you saw last year. Today, we'll remind you, and hopefully give you some leads on movies from around the world you might've missed. 

We have an annual tradition of reviving our beloved Juggernaut podcast to list our favorite movies of the previous year. So let's do it! These are our top films for 2019, counted down in order. Will Harris go artsy? Will Josh go populist? You'll have to listen to this super-sized podcast to find out! Thanks for checking in with the ol' Juggernaut! Guest: Cousin Josh.   NOTES: Follow Chris - @Harri...

Let's count down our favorite movies of 2018 with our traditional guest on such occasions, Josh Fischberg, a.k.a. Cousin Josh from the Harris Football Podcast. We've watched a lot of films -- some even in black-and-white! some even in non-English languages! -- and winnowed our lists. Our hope is you'll find it fun to hear us talk about your favorites, and maybe that you'll be introduced to some ne...

Our annual tradition of counting down our favorite movies of calendar years continues, with a discussion of the best in cinema from 2017. We're firmly of the opinion that ranking art -- and even giving awards for art -- is stupid, but people like lists! And what's great about shows like this is: hopefully it exposes you to stuff you've not seen, and it makes your world a little bigger and a little...

In just three seasons and 28 episodes, "The Leftovers" has taken a place among the great series ever created. Damon Lindelof and Tom Perrotta discuss grief and the unknown, and how they translated a fringe HBO series about what's left behind after The Rapture into a sci-fi, psychological, spy, family drama that resonates so loudly in our connection-free times. Notes: Learn more about Tom - tomperr...

Damani Baker was a little kid when his family got caught up in the U.S. invasion of Grenada. That's a crazy story: Ronald Reagan invading a tiny island nation for flimsy reasons. But that's only part of Damani's documentary, "The House On Coco Road." Damani also digs into his family's history and his mother's activism in what is legitimately one of 2017's most moving films. Notes: Check out Damani...

Our buddy Josh Larsen has a new book entitled "Movies Are Prayers," and it's the jumping-off point for a fun conversation about films that give us "religious experiences." Whether that means a connected feeling to God (if that's something you believe in) or simply an understanding of the world beyond your own skin, we think you'll take away a deeper sense of how powerful cinema can be.   Notes: Ch...

"Then We Came To The End" is one of the greatest and funniest novels about having your soul crushed at work that's ever been written. Joshua Ferris came by his knowledge of office life legitimately: though he always wanted to be a fiction writer, he spent time in an ad agency, understanding how tough it is to give away your creativity to a big company. Now it's ten years later, and Josh has writte...

Carl Newman is the beating heart of the New Pornographers , and the New Pornographers are amazing. They've been around since 2000's "Mass Romantic," and seven great records later, they're still going strong. We talk with Carl about how the music industry has changed, the role of the artist in discouraging political times, and how musical boredom has redefined his personal musical outlook. Notes: F...

You know Matt Ross as eccentric billionaire Gavin Belson from "Silicon Valley" and Alby Grant from "Big Love" and many other roles. Now Matt is an acclaimed writer/director, having helmed 2016's excellent "Captain Fantastic," for which lead actor Viggo Mortensen was nominated for a Best Actor Oscar. Matt tells us about his non-traditional childhood, his Juilliard training, and how to find truth in...

J.D. Dillard was a Star Wars kid way after the original movies came out, partly because his dad was a Navy pilot and partly because Star Wars was too cool to resist. Now he's directed a sci-fi/superhero mashup movie called "Sleight," and he tells us what it's like to grow up as a black nerd, what it's like to call J.J. Abrams friend and mentor, and what it's like to come out of Sundance a red-hot...

Charles Bock is a great crafter of sentences and his two novels, "Beautiful Children" and "Alice & Oliver," use his control of language to evoke the kind of compassion and empathy we need more of in our lives. This interview is about dealing with illness and loss, growing up in Las Vegas, finding strength in emotionally difficult art and what it's like to be an NFL beat reporter. You'll love it.  ...

Victor LaValle is yet another writer who went to Cornell, continuing the "Cornell Mafia" theme of our show. Victor also happens to be a fascinating guy with a great personal story, and his fiction skirts the line between "literature" and "genre" in a way that makes him both popular and profound. We can't recommend his work more highly! Notes: To donate to  CHIRLA.org   Check out Victor's work - ht...

Adam Reed is kind of a genius. Just don't tell him that. We talk with the creator and primary writer of "Archer" about his television-saturated childhood, his shiftless young adulthood, his accidental stardom, and why assholes make great TV characters. "Archer: Dreamland" begins April 5th on FXX. Notes: Check out Adam's work - Here Watch Archer - Here Check out Chris's new novel - WarOnSoundbook.c...

Noah Hawley makes "Fargo" for FX, which a lot of people know about. Fewer people know that Hawley also is the man behind the wild, experimental, quasi-superhero show "Legion," which is about to wrap up its first season. Alex McLevy from the AV Club joins today to make the case that "Legion" is one of the best things going on TV right now: the perfect superhero series for people who are damn sick o...

Steve Conrad has been in the screenplay business for as long as he's been an adult, but with "Patriot" he finally got to see a project all the way from conception to execution, and the results are wild and incredible. Season 1 is full of belly laughs -- it features a folk-singing spy who kills people for a living -- but it's also a deeply weird and satisfying journey into the heart of American mas...

Porochista Khakpour is an artist, a journalist, an Iranian-American and an academic, and that makes her story as relevant and resonant today as it's ever been. She talks about leaving Tehran at age three, her extreme Type-A childhood reaction to the immigrant experience, and what it's like to try and break down misperceptions about being "The Other" in today's America. Notes:  Follow Porochista -...

You love countdown shows! And we love doing 'em every so often, too! Today, our buddy Todd VanDerWerff from Vox.com  rejoins us, and we count down our favorite TV shows that have aired in the 2010s. Where will your favorites finish? Prepare to be amazed and outraged! Notes: Check out Todd's amazing articles - vox.com/authors/todd-vanderwerff Follow Todd - @tvoti Check out Chris's new novel - WarOn...

"O.J. Made In America" is a heavy favorite to win the Best Documentary Feature at the 2017 Oscars. Producer Caroline Waterlow describes her journey to this lofty point, including a love of research and doing the hard jobs that others didn't want to do, and which helped her manage the incredible amount of O.J.-related footage for the film. Notes: Follow Caroline - @cwaterlow Catch up on O.J. MIA - ...

The hardest thing to do in TV is master tone. We've all seen so many shows! We aren't exactly aware the moment a show's tone has failed us, but we do get a sense that things have gotten "less believable," or that the show is "all over the place," or that it "doesn't know what it wants to be." Sarah-Violet Bliss and Charles Rogers are two of the creators of a fave new series of ours, "Search Party,...

Grammy-winner John Congleton is one of the most sought-after record producers in indie music today, both because he's insanely talented and because he hates being bored. In his own uncompromising career as a rock musician, John pushes buttons and boundaries with a wild mix of rock, jazz, and noise, and his production career conveys a similar impatience with doing what's expected: his collaboration...

We watched a whole lot of movies so you don't have to! Join us in our annual tradition where Chris and Josh count down the Top 10 Films of 2016. Chris' Top 10 Films Of 2016 10. Arrival 9. La La Land 8. 10 Cloverfield Lane 7. Toni Erdmann 6. Louder Than Bombs 5. The Fits 4. American Honey 3. Moonlight 2. The Handmaiden 1. The Lobster Josh's Top 10 Films Of 2016 10. Arrival 9. Nocturnal Animals 8. P...