Watch With Jen™

Though they've started opening bigger tentpole movies earlier and earlier with each passing year, Memorial Day weekend has traditionally been the time when the summer movie season really gets underway as top titles begin raking in huge box office returns. Of course, 2020 is the exception to that rule so for this week's Watch With Jen film recommendations bring that feeling of summer back with a ha...

Jen Johans recommends 5 great films for you to stream this week. Topics discussed: What Jack Kerouac and Nick Hornby characters have in common; rock star professors; Ethan Hawke as philosophizing preacher or shaggy dog; three Frenchmen who really know how to scare; the female battle with politeness; empowering women in horror; the power of female sexual fantasies; women without men and how that dy...

In addition to 5 excellent streaming recommendations, topics this week include: new Patreon tiers and rewards, winning or losing the pronunciation battle, literary adaptations and the stars and directors who love them, nice Bobby vs. scary Bobby, an embarrassing Jen anecdote involving Uma Thurman, crushing on shorter boys, cell phone addiction, Captain America getting Fast and Furious while saving...

From the mean streets of Brazil to life in Witsec in San Diego to a hangout picture from a pissed off Howard Hawks to Janis Joplin almost jumping out of her shoes onstage to a thirteen-year-old witch coming into her own in a Studio Ghibli classic, Jen serves up 5 great films from the HBO Max streaming library for your viewing pleasure. Originally Posted on Patreon on 9/25/20 here : https://www.pat...

Episode 6 might be an all-timer in illustrating just how much Jen's cinematic tastes and interests run the absolute gamut. Topics discussed include: Hugh Grant, relationships from brother filmmakers to brotherhood, The Godfather , Cain & Abel, MMA, Beethoven, Jerry Maguire , cool girls, '60s French pop music, Pixie Mary Poppins, buying too many books on Kindle, the facade of perfection, women with...

Jen Johans jumps as far back as 1939 for her first film recommendation today & then jumped back into the 21st century with 4 others that she hopes you'll love. Topics discussed include: Netflix over-choice, Ginger Rogers, Bill Pullman and Rufus Sewell's onscreen luck with the ladies, that sometimes it's okay to just say no to Christopher Nolan movies, Alfonso Cuaron can tackle Dickens (damn it!),...

Pull up a chair, plug in your headphones & settle in for 5 film recommendations & 40 minutes of quarantine fun. Topics discussed this week include: the wisdom of Martin Scorsese & Roger Ebert, writer-directors Jay & Mark Duplass, hospital in-room movie selections, women kicking ass on film (whether people buy tickets or not), action movie franchises, Angelina Jolie, Tom Cruise, why you should neve...

In addition to sharing 5 new titles that just might help liven things up around your house, topics discussed this week include: The Cadillac of microphones, Michelle Pfeiffer using & fighting against her beauty, Neil Simon, an imaginary Michael Haneke film festival, Howard Hawks: Hawksian Women & Men in Love, & digging the flawed side of Denzel Washington. Stay safe and stream on! Originally publi...

The training wheels have started to come off in the second episode of Watch With Jen & our host begins to talk. After news and notes on Episode 1, you'll find 5 stellar film streaming picks that Jen Johans would undoubtedly make you watch if you were hanging out in real life. She serves up spicy anecdotes about how Scorsese's lasagna ruined Quentin Tarantino's dating life, why dating fellow creati...

After 14 years and 2,500 reviews published on FilmIntuition.com (and thousands of odes to movies on Twitter @FilmIntuition), Jen Johans has kicks off her first podcast - Watch With Jen - where she recommends 5 great streaming movie recommendations each week for you to enjoy. Originally uploaded on Patreon (3/3/20): https://www.patreon.com/posts/34563654 Theme Music: The Guitarist by Jahzzar, Free...

A staff writer at WBUR's The ARTery and a contributing writer at North Shore Movies , Sean Burns was Philadelphia Weekly 's lead film critic from 1999-2013 and worked as the movie section contributing editor at The Improper Bostonian from 2006-2014. Having graduated from NYU's Tisch School of the Arts and received an award for excellence in criticism from The Greater Philadelphia Society of Profes...

A positive, sunny, and earnest spirit on social media, where she's known as The Film Bee (or @TheFilmB on Twitter), Bee Garner is the founder and editor of the website In Their Own League, which is dedicated to promoting diversity on film and shining a light on the roles that women have played in cinema throughout history. Additionally, a freelance writer who contributes to such outlets as Next Bi...

Fresh, knowledgeable, and funny, film critic Danielle Solzman remembers not only the first movie she saw on the big screen - which was The Land Before Time - but also recalls falling in love with film while watching Jurassic Park and Star Wars in the mid-1990s. A Kentucky native, Danielle initially relocated to Chicago to study improv and sketch comedy and although instead, she transitioned to bec...

A prolific crime writer, Nikki Dolson's work has been published in such well-respected places as Shotgun Honey , Tough , Thuglit , and Bartleby Snopes . Additionally, the author of what she affectionately describes as "a novelish thing" called All Things Violent , Nikki has also released a short story collection entitled Love and Other Criminal Behavior . With outstanding taste in not only crime m...

A well-respected veteran critic who is based in New York, Glenn Kenny has written for publications such as Premiere Magazine - which is where I first read his byline in the '90s - as well as Film Comment , The Village Voice , and Rolling Stone . He also contributes reviews to The New York Times and RogerEbert.com. Additionally, a film professor at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Gl...

A gifted, in-demand composer of film, television, theater, and dance scores, Tony-nominated and Drama Desk award-winner Grant Olding is often brought onboard projects early on to help shape the narrative as well as craft the music. Impressed with his musical contributions to the animated 2013 musical Saving Santa with Tim Conway and Tim Curry, I first met Grant on Twitter after I reviewed the film...

A Los Angeles based film critic, journalist, podcast host, and event moderator, the witty and wonderful Katie Walsh reviews weekly film releases for the Tribune News Service and The Los Angeles Times . Additionally, a frequent guest host of the Maximum Fun podcast Switchblade Sisters and one half of Miami Nice (which is the video podcast she hosts alongside our friend Blake Howard), Katie's work h...

A gifted film writer, critic, and historian with an engaging, inquisitive voice and bylines at such prestigious outlets as The New York Times, Vulture, The Playlist, and others, Jason Bailey is the editor-in-chief of the site Crooked Marquee. Additionally, the author of four books on film on such wide-ranging topics as Pulp Fiction and Richard Pryor, Jason's fifth book, on one hundred years of New...

An eye-opening and thoughtful writer with a special focus on film criticism and history, Christina Lane has written the books Magnolia , Feminist Hollywood: From Born in Flames to Point Break , and the critically acclaimed new title Phantom Lady: Hollywood Producer Joan Harrison, the Forgotten Woman Behind Hitchcock . The Chair of the Department of Cinematic Arts at the University of Miami, Christ...

Delightful, irreverent, and incredibly funny, Maria Lewis is an author, screenwriter, and journalist based in Australia. After first getting her start as a police reporter, Maria's writing on pop culture has appeared in publications such as the New York Post , The Guardian , Penthouse , The Daily Mail , Empire Magazine , Gizmodo , Huffington Post , The Daily and Sunday Telegraph , i09 , Junkee and...

As friendly as he is thoughtful, host Jen Johans greatly enjoyed her chat with Rotten Tomatoes certified, Chicago based film critic Robert Daniels. Chronicling his interest in writing about film from his time in college when he launched a film site and also took a life-changing film course with a terrific professor and local filmmaker, Robert gives us the scoop on the Chicago critic scene and prov...

Back in the '90s, one of Jen's favorite things to do on a Friday night was visit her local mom and pop video store and cruise the shelves, particularly the Staff Recommends section, which more often than not consisted of clever, buried treasure you might've missed on a casual walkthrough. A crime movie buff with a specific interest in the trashy, low-budget indies we both came of age watching in t...

The always adorable entertainment writer Kristen Lopez returns to Watch With Jen & Friends for the first time since Episode 3 to talk gorgeous men, formative crushes, the embarrassment that comes with working in a field that puts you in direct contact with the objects of your affection, her fruitless search for hot English majors, and other things that together she and Jen probably shouldn't admit...

Insightful, hard-working, and incredibly prolific, Brian Tallerico is the editor-in-chief of the prestigious RogerEbert.com website and the president of the Chicago Film Critics Association. A friendly and thoughtful writer and engaging conversationalist, it was an honor to talk to Brian about growing up with a love of movies, his advice to up-and-coming writers, as well as his background passiona...

One of the first film critics that Jen remembers reading religiously as a girl growing up in Minnesota in the 1990s, Chris Hewitt has the unique distinction of having been hired to review movies for both of the primary newspapers in her home state. Originally working at "The St. Paul Pioneer Press," thirty years later, Chris is now covering film for "The Minneapolis Star Tribune." Friendly, engagi...