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This week we’re delving into another tale of fathers and sons - albeit one heavily informed by Dungeons and Dragons, and featuring two elf brothers played by Chris “Mario” Pratt and Tom “Spida Boy” Holland attempting to temporarily resurrect their dead father. Onward may be one of Pixar’s more mid movies, but that doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable in its own way. Discussions of April Fools pranks, c...

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in. -Leonard Cohen, "Anthem" On January 29, nearly ten months after the release of this episode, our guest star Chris, along with his friend Patrick, were killed in a freak car accident that also badly wounded Patrick's brother James, aka YouTuber Schaffrillas Productions. Chris was a great guy with a wicked sense of humor, and his presence...

From one low budget Sundance award-winner to another, here’s the movie that put Noah Baumbach on the map - and notched him his first Oscar nomination. Can you believe that this was the same Noah Baumbach that cowrote Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted? I certainly can't. It’s The Squid and the Whale! Intro song: monma - Winter Days Outro song: HOME - Before the Night Where to watch the movie: http...

Can you believe it? The Oscars! Just a week away! For the first time ever, we spend about an hour discussing this year’s Oscar nominations, and make our predictions for several of the categories based on how much we like them and/or how much we want them to win. Listen to this episode before you tune into the Oscars on March 27 and see how many of our collective picks take home those little golden...

Vote for the 25th episode of Watch This here: https://forms.gle/BU9HggQbXHdnofUb8 With St. Patrick’s Day on the horizon, we watch a movie Lizzie Borden is sure to hate. Hopefully she won’t come after us. Anyway, this is a simple, almost slight movie with some amazing songs courtesy of Marketa Irglova and Glen Hansard, the latter of whom plays a guy known only as Guy, but he’s no… The Guy. It’s Onc...

This week we’re watching the first film in the smash John Wick franchise. And boy is it a wild ride, taking cues from anime and martial arts movies, always good places to take inspiration from. And it’s got Keanu Reeves, who’s always breathtaking, alongside Bruno Madrigal and Norman Osborn. It’s John Wick ! Intro song: HOME - Flood Outro song: Mariya Takeuchi - Plastic Love Where to watch the movi...

This episode is dedicated to legendary director Ivan Reitman (1946-2022). We gave you a Big Fish last week, now we’re giving you something else entirely: the old Razzle Dazzle. That’s right, it’s the 2002 Oscar-winning Best Picture, Chicago! Partly because our own Riley was in a local production (be sure to hear her stories about that), partly because of John C. Reilly (who was nominated for an Os...

After losing an entire weekend to busy schedules and football, we manage to get some time to take a trip into the world of Tim Burton to hear Albert Finney spin some tall tales involving catfish, circuses, and that guy from Expedia’s Super Bowl commercial. Oh yeah, he also did some spaceball stuff. And the Trash Man is here also. It’s Big Fish! Intro song: Kainbeats - beauty in everything Outro so...

For my special birthday episode, I get us all to watch a movie where a bunch of teenagers break out into spontaneous poetry in Los Angeles. Except that, as usual, we spent more time oogling over Katie Mitchell’s Letterboxd (as you do) and the Space Jam website (IT’S STILL UP!!!) than being interested in what’s essentially the lighter and softer Magnolia. We’re California Dreamin’ on such a winter’...

Let the dark harvest begin! The Sony/Netflix crowd-pleaser gets the Watch This treatment this week. It was worth pushing back my birthday episode, so Riley (who's been busy with her IRL friends) could be onboard for this particular commentary. And I gotta say, it’s one of the most fun movies any of us have seen in a long time - and possibly the most engaged we've been with any movie since...Blues...

An unexpected change of plans (we will do Mitchells Vs. the Machines after my birthday episode next week, don’t worry) leads us to an Amblinesque sci-fi flick starring Michael Shannon; the guy who killed Han Solo; and someone who looks like the lead singer of Imagine Dragons. Along the way, we forget about the movie, share our thoughts on the latest entertainment news (RIP Meat Loaf and Louie Ande...

This week we’re watching the late-2000s time capsule about a guy who starts a band and enters it into a battle of the bands. But not everyone’s as interested in quirky 2000s movies as I am, so we spend a lot of time reminiscing about our earliest memories, reading famous copypastas in the style of the famous and good YouTuber Chills, and taking the piss out of NFTs (seriously guys, just stop). It’...

This episode is dedicated to four legends that we lost in the past few weeks: Betty White (1922-2021), Sidney Poitier (1927-2022), Peter Bogdanovich (1939-2022) and Bob Saget (1956-2022). We kick off our 2022 episodes with possibly our best film yet. Everybody (and by everybody, I mean everybody who’s seen it) loves Chungking Express , especially the one and only Quentin Tarantino, who was respons...

As 2021 comes to a close, we gather around to discuss our favorite and least favorite moments from the movies we watched during the year - and share our hopes of what’s to come in the year ahead. Plus, we find out what our first episode of 2022 will be! I just want to take this opportunity to thank everyone who’s been listening regularly to Watch This during these past few months. Whether you only...

As a bonus holiday treat, we look at not one, but two holiday-themed shorts from famous auteurs made to promote clothing lines: Wes Anderson’s “Come Together” for H&M, and Luca Guadagnino’s “O Night Divine” for Zara. The former tells a short but sweet tale set on a train conducted by Adrien Brody, while the latter is a fully fleshed-out story set at a fancy hotel, featuring John C. Reilly as m...

This week we welcome our first special guest, Hal, for our last official Christmas episode of 2021, and oh gosh oh gee we sure picked a good one. The Muppet Christmas Carol is your typical Muppet production with a strong emotional center and some tunes that butter our eggrolls. In other words, pure kino. Except for the fact that Kermit said a certain meme line during an otherwise emotional scene....

Our third Christmas film for 2021 is our most oddball pick yet, holiday or not: the critically-acclaimed Scottish zombie holiday musical comedy Anna and the Apocalypse! It’s a rollicking good movie with all the potential to become a cult classic. But will you find it a bit too gruesome to make it part of your holiday viewing every year? It’s up to you. Also we spend some time in artflow.ai making...

Our Christmas movie marathon continues with another movie partly set in the North Pole - but thankfully Santa’s not played by Paul Giamatti this time around, but by none other than Charles Muntz. It’s pretty standard holiday fare, standard enough for us to go into a long-winded tangent on Wikipedia vandalism. But it’s still a neat dig nonetheless! YTV The Zone’s Blizzard featurette: https://www.yo...

With the Christmas season now officially in full swing, we watch a movie about Santa Claus and his forgotten brother. It’s our first big slander episode, and just like Santa’s reindeer, the tangents are flying high - partially because I really don’t want to think about a certain actor in this movie. But in spite of his presence, we still had a lot of fun! Intro song: Sesame Street - Christmas Over...

This episode is dedicated to the great Stephen Sondheim, who passed away the day this episode was recorded. "If you can know where you’re going, you’ve gone. Just keep moving on." (from Sunday in the Park with George) For our last episode of 2021 before our first Christmas movie marathon, we watch another acclaimed NYC-set indie gem where Oliver Platt shows up again. Along the way, we discuss our...

In anticipation of Thanksgiving and all it entails, we invite you to feast on this big-hearted indie sleeper about one plucky young lady’s best worst Thanksgiving ever. Pieces of April seems to be better known these days for being namedropped in the last episode of Bojack Horseman than for its own merits, which frankly is a crime, because it should be a required watch for any family, regardless of...

This week we’re getting sporty with a fairly recent true-story flick featuring Oscar winner Emma Stone as tennis legend Billie Jean King, squaring off against Michael Scott. Is it worth the “racket”? Is Emma Stone really convincing as a tennis player? And how much more tangents and James Corden slander can we squeeze into this episode? Find out when we witness the historic Battle of the Sexes ! In...

We’re taking a big leap (you know, the way a frog leaps) this week with our first episode devoted to an animated film - and where better to start than with Disney’s last big 2D-animated musical princess spectacle? Well, I can think of a few better movies to start off on, but this is the one the wheel happened to land on this week. Anyway, we’re lucky that Disney hasn’t officially announced that th...

UPDATE 4/6/22: This episode has been getting renewed attention thanks to Adult Swim bringing back Pibby for their April Fools stunt this year. While I'm happy to see this happen, the other episodes of Watch This have been left in the dust, which is a shame because they're much better and funnier than this one. I strongly recommend you listen to our episodes on Chicago, The Blues Brothers, The Mitc...

For our first ever Halloween episode, we dive into one of the newest offerings on Disney+: Muppets Haunted Mansion ! While we don’t have that much to say this time around (it’s the shortest thing we’ve ever covered on the podcast), rest assured that this is still a spooky, star-studded time for all. Just don’t forget to bring your death certificate! Intro song: emaycee - Long Nights Outro song: Vi...