Watch This Tonight

Come for my meet-cute encounter with Guillermo Del Toro, stay for discussion of his new Netflix anthology horror show, Cabinet of Curiosities. The first episode is a great evocation of the premise, with a creepy original story starring Tim Blake Nelson who buys the world's creepiest storage unit. The concern with a show like this is that it can be dashed off, B-level material from A-level creative...

Watch This Tonight gets out of the house for this episode, about the out-of-nowhere smash hit horror film Smile. Smile is just finishing up its theatrical run, so if it's still playing in your area I encourage you to seek it out, otherwise it should be available on streaming on Paramount+ and VOD rental within a few weeks from this recording. I can't think of a movie that better breaks down the su...

In an unprecedented turn of events, for the first time ever on Watch This Tonight, we're doing the same show, again, because Episode 9 of Andor is so good it immediately vaulted to being the number one show on television for me. The unconventional theme of the series, that no one will rebel against authority unless they are so oppressed they have absolutely no other choice, comes to fruition acros...

I have no memory of my first viewing of this film, because at the time I was (one of the only times in my entire life) under the influence of a substance the younger characters in this film adore. So it seemed like a great movie to revisit now, when I'm closer to the Seth Rogen character, vs. when I first saw the film (when I was closer to the Dave Franco character). Neighbors is an almost ideal m...

Ahhh Italy. You don't have to have seen Season 1 of HBO's The White Lotus to enjoy season 2. Just hop on the boat with Michael Imperioli, Jennifer Coolidge, F. Murray Abraham, Aubrey Plaza, and Theo James and luxuriate in the Italian sun at another White Lotus resort, replete with troubled relationships, lust, existential crises, opulence, and of course some dead bodies as well. Are you watching?...

Barbarian is an impossible movie to talk about without spoiling. So instead, I decided to talk about Justin Long, and why he might be horror cinema's most underrated and accomplished jack-of-all-trades, great as the wet-blanket boyfriend in Drag Me To Hell, the nightmarish victim of Tusk, and the loathsome misogynist of Barbarian. Is Justin Long secretly original horror cinema's MVP? Let me know y...

Possibly the most prolific killer in American history. He didn't use a knife, or a gun. He used medication, and the hospital system. He killed people at their most vulnerable, and what makes this story so frightening is that anyone reading this could have been a victim of Charles Cullen if he was working at the hospital you were treated at. The Netflix film about this story, starring Oscar winners...

A crime thriller that is arguably just as much an arthouse horror movie, this Netflix film takes an unexpected path into its story, inspired by an infamous true crime from Australia. Joel Edgerton and Sean Harris are tremendous in a nightmare version of Donnie Brasco, with strong shades of Zodiac. This is not going to be for everyone, but if you dig its dreamy, creepy mood, this is a unique, compe...

Bizarrely a comfort food movie for me, I'd love to know if Martin Scorsese's The Irishman works similarly for you. Arguably handicapped because its massive length makes for a trickier watch on streaming, despite being nominated for 10 Oscars it still feels like The Irishman has gone slightly under the radar considering its budget (the film was made for a quarter of a billion dollars) and pedigree...

Who watches The Watcher? Apparently, a lot of people. This instant hit for Netflix benefits from a great, creepy, what-if-it-happened-to-you premise. But the real fun of it is the darkly subversive nature of the show's relationship to its main characters (Naomi Watts and Bobby Canavale's family) and the murderers' row (at times it feels like literally so) of stellar supporting actors (most notably...

For Halloween, I wanted to give you an evergreen pick that is on my short-list of awesome movies not everyone has seen, Leigh Whannell's Upgrade, starring Logan Marshall-Green. What makes this movie so great is that it's kind of Saw meets a Jackie Chan movie, with everything that comparison entails (brutal twists, comic, inventive action). And if anything, the lighter touch the film has in spots o...

We're all trapped by our families. This is the central idea that makes The Sopranos great. I had no understanding of this as a 17-year-old, when I first tried to watch this television series. I had a much better understanding of it as a 33-year-old doing nighttime feedings of my newborn second child, which is when I binged the show in a couple months. What age did you watch The Sopranos? How did i...

If you missed this in theaters like me, and you were debating watching it now, definitely do it. The Black Phone is an instant horror classic, from Ethan Hawke's villain's iconic mask, to Scott Derrickson's strong direction (particularly of child actors), to the sharp writing by Scott and C. Robert Cargill, to the underlying brilliance of Joe Hill's short story which finds a fresh way into a ghost...

Rockstar creative team (pilot written and directed by Tom McCarthy, of Spotlight) lead what is in some ways like a TV sequel to the Oscar-winning film Spotlight, starring Hilary Swank as a hard-charging reporter who is embroiled in scandal and ships off to a small newspaper in Alaska, where she uncovers an epidemic of missing and murdered indigenous women. Is it perfect? No. It wobbles out of the...

Found a fresh way into this, as I did with The Departed, I'm bringing you the top 5 lines that are in the Snatch script, which are NOT in the final film, as means to further illustrate what makes the movie so singular (Guy Ritchie's unique voice). I have probably watched Snatch 55 times. Is Snatch your favorite Guy Ritchie film? If not, what is? Let me know at dan@voyagemedia.com, or @BenamorDan (...

A Gerard Butler nightcap that'll have you shaking your drink from the tension, this movie really surprised me. It overachieves in every way. Reportedly made for a 35 million dollar budget, it looks like a 100 million dollar film. A seemingly familiar premise is enlivened by a smart narrative tweak and incredible, carefully calibrated, maximum suspense at every turn. I was sleeping on Greenland, an...

Some nights, you just want to watch Gerard Butler beat up a bunch of people to find his wife. Last Seen Alive, at time of recording, is the NUMBER ONE movie on Netflix. So apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way. Certainly, this is a programmer, but it's an elevated programmer film. It's got a great, what-would-you-do premise, a fast-paced and engaging plot, and a great cast of supporti...

Perhaps the best example of this subject, Judd Apatow's film This Is 40 is a completely different viewing experience if you watch it in your 20s (like I did when it first came out) or approaching 40 (like I am now). What to a younger viewer might seem frivolous or small in stakes or plotless, to an older viewer feels one thousand percent true to life. The movie is funny no matter what age you watc...

Don't be thrown by the title, this show is fresh, funny, and surprisingly TV-MA at times in its humor. Given the pedigree (from Steve Levitan, co-creator of Modern Family, starring Keegan Michael Key, Judi Greer, Rachel Bloom, Paul Reiser, and Johnny Knoxville), we should never have doubted it. If you've got an itch for a great half-hour comedy, Reboot on Hulu is exactly that. Let me know your tho...

We get all versions of Jon Bernthal here. Prison Jon Bernthal. Suave Jon Bernthal. Vulnerable Jon Bernthal. The great unexpected discovery of this Showtime series, American Gigolo, though, is the sparkling romantic chemistry between Jon Bernthal and Gretchen Mol, who are exploding off the screen in every moment they share. The show has some bold choices that may or may not work for all viewers, bu...

The film equivalent of a charming fun criminal cousin coming to visit, Den of Thieves is Gerard Butler having the most pure joy of his career, unhinging his jaw to not just chew but completely consume the scenery, ably supported by Pablo Schreiber in what is effectively this film's version of the DeNiro role in Heat. While the movie has many similarities to that film, it still makes its own way, e...

Tony Gilroy, Tony Gilroy, Tony Gilroy. The unique circumstances of this Disney+ Star Wars streaming television show are that Tony came in off the success of Rogue One, with the creative freedom and backing to push Star Wars into real moral ambiguity, and insert his own unique authorial voice into the mix. He's arguably an ideal candidate, because Tony's storytelling is simultaneously so classical...

The best show you've been sleeping on, Amazon Prime's TV series Zero, Zero, Zero is a stunning accomplishment that interweaves one story of a massive cocaine shipment across multiple countries, with a stellar international cast (including Gabriel Byrne, Dane Dehaan, Andrea Riseborough), haunting music from the Scottish rock band Mogwai, and assured, compelling direction from the great Stefano Soll...

There is no other podcast about this movie exactly like this one. THE DEPARTED is my favorite movie of all time, but I didn't want to do just any THE DEPARTED podcast. So I went back to the William Monahan screenplay, and found the five best moments in THE DEPARTED original screenplay that are NOT in the final film. Many people will prefer other Martin Scorsese films, but for me this remains my fa...

An Amazon Prime hidden gem, Emergency is a clever, subversive, fresh take on SUPERBAD through the lens of race in America. Consistently funny while also threading in an undercurrent of social commentary, and even some sneaky horror beats, this is a true original movie cloaked in the fabric of a familiar classic. A great, fast, engaging watch, this film is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. Let m...