This week, Gavia and Morgan break down Amazon's new "Lord of the Rings" adaptation, the TV show "The Rings of Power," which takes place thousands of years before Tolkien's novels. They analyze the show's relationship to Peter Jackson's films, discuss whether the show's efforts to diversify succeed, break out some deep Tolkien lore, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan finally get to talk about Jordan Peele's third film, the UFO spectacular Nope. The film stars Daniel Kaluuya and Kiki Palmer as siblings who own a horse ranch... and discover there's a strange object lurking above their valley. Topics include Peele's increasingly ambitious career, this film's complex themes, dazzling performances from Palmer and Kaluuya, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan revisit a modern classic, Magic Mike XXL, starring Channing Tatum as the titular Mike, Joe Manganiello and Matt Bomer as his stripper pals, Jada Pinkett Smith as an old flame, and more. Topics discussed include the film's radically chill depiction of masculinity, Tatum's charismatic performance and career, and the forthcoming sequel, in production now.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan celebrate the late James Caan by watching Thief (1981), Michael Mann's debut film, which features Caan's favorite of his own performances. In the film, he plays a skilled but small-time safecracker who gets involved with organized crime. Topics discussed this episode include Caan's life and career, Mann's influential style, this movie's delightfully realistic depiction of safecracking, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Morgan and Gavia discuss Persuasion — no, not the recent Netflix adaptation, but ITV's 2007 version, starring Sally Hawkins as Anne Elliot and Rupert Penry-Jones as her estranged lover Wentworth. Topics include the film's relationship to Jane Austen's novel, its interpretation of Regency-era dress and hair, Sally Hawkins' tremendous performance, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan talk about the eighties cult classic Road House, starring Patrick Swayze as the greatest bouncer in the world, who travels to a small Missouri town to whip a dive bar into shape. Topics discussed include the film's relationship to classic Hollywood westerns, Swayze's magnetic star presence, the film's boundless homoeroticism, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the classic musical The Court Jester, starring Danny Kaye as a hapless circus performer forced to go undercover as a court jester as part of an elaborate seditious scheme. The film also stars a young Angela Lansbury, Basil Rathbone, and Glynis Johns. Topics include the film's connection to other medieval satires, the influence of vaudeville on Hollywood performance, Danny Kaye's motor-mouth, and much more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the summer's biggest blockbuster: Tom Cruise's long-anticipated reprisal of his iconic role as Maverick in Top Gun: Maverick. They break down how the sequel compares to the original, analyze how the practical stunts and effects contribute to the action, and salute the heroics of Cruise, certifiable maniac and Hollywood icon.
Read MoreGavia and Morgan return after a brief break with an episode on French horror classic Diabolique, directed by H.G. Clouzot and starring Véra Clouzot and Simone Signoret as women who collaborate to murder their abuser. Topics discussed include the film's pioneering use of horror and thriller tropes and techniques, how its classical style compares to the French New Wave, the relationship between the two central female characters, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the delightful Pre-Code romantic comedy Design for Living, directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Miriam Hopkins, Fredric March, and the incomparable Gary Cooper in a hopeless love triangle. Topics include the film's startling candid approach to sex, the contrasting star personas of its actors, and director Lubitsch's famous je-ne-sais-quoi.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan discuss Cheryl Dunye's nineties lesbian classic The Watermelon Woman. A fictional film that incorporates elements of documentary, it stars Dunye as a character named Cheryl who, like the real Dunye, embarks on a project investigating Black women in Old Hollywood films. Topics include the movie's engagement with Old Hollywood, its depiction of a lesbian community, Dunye's approach to political filmmaking, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan finally review The Batman, the latest film to reinvent the Dark Knight. Directed by Matt Reeves, the film stars Robert Pattinson as an isolated, emo Bruce Wayne, Zoe Kravitz as Catwoman, and a full cast of character actors in the ensemble. Topics include Pattinson's performance, what this film brings to the Batman canon, gratuitous violence, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan debate the virtues of Robert Eggers' latest historical reconstruction, The Northman, which stars Alexander Skarsgård as Amleth, a prince who becomes obsessed with revenge after witnessing his uncle (Claes Bang) murder his father (Ethan Hawke). The film also features Nicole Kidman as his mother and Anya Taylor-Joy as a young Russian witch. Topics discussed in this episode include Eggers' obsessive commitment to historical accuracy, whether his humorless and violent take on the revenge plot offers anything new, an appreciation of Nicole Kidman, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan dive into the internet television sensation-du-jour, Our Flag Means Death. This pirate comedy stars Rhys Darby as the "Gentleman Pirate" Stede Bonnet, a somewhat hapless newcomer to the scene who's living out his midlife crisis through piracy, and Taika Waititi as Blackbeard, the fearsome rogue who's tired of all that marauding... and gets a new lease on life when he meets Stede. Topics include the show's glorious central love story, its refreshingly unremarked-upon queer supporting cast, a stunningly good central performance by Waititi, and how it succeeds and fails in engaging with history.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the classic Star Trek film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, a.k.a., The One With the Whales. After rescuing Spock in the previous film, the crew is now faced with the task of saving the world — which they can only do with the help of humpback whales, which takes them back in time to 1980s San Francisco. Topics include this movie's refreshingly chill vibes, Save the Whales, 1980s time travel films, and much more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan tackle a horror classic: Rosemary's Baby, which stars Mia Farrow as a dutiful wife unwittingly carrying the devil's child and John Cassavetes as her self-absorbed husband. Topics discussed in this episode include the film's long influence, its depiction of gaslighting by husbands and doctors, how to talk about a feminist classic directed by a sexual abuser, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan dive into Deep Water, the long-awaited new film from Adrian Lyne, the master of the erotic thriller. The film stars Ben Affleck and Ana de Armas as an unhappily married couple whose chief occupations include breeding snails and having affairs, respectively. Topics under discussion in this episode include the film's tortured release, its shaky screenplay, and the pleasures of watching a film for grown-ups.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan discuss the French romantic comedy Populaire, set in the 1950s in the world of competitive speed typing. Topics include the film's relationship to 1950s Hollywood rom-coms, the charms of its stars Romain Duris and Déborah François, and the real-life history of speed typing competitions.
Read MoreIn this week's episode, Gavia and Morgan pronounce Fresh, the new cannibalism romance starring Sebastian Stan and Daisy Edgar-Jones, dead on arrival. Topics discussed include the director's lack of familiarity with the horror genre, the film's clueless approach to feminism, an incredibly racist Black best friend character, and more.
Read MoreThis week, Gavia and Morgan celebrate the centennial of F.W. Murnau's masterful adaptation of Dracula, the 1922 film Nosferatu. They discuss the collaborative nature of he project, its influence on later vampire films, its transgressive treatment of sex, and more. They also discuss the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, a pulpy reinterpretation of history that stars John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe as the director and star of Nosferatu.
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