Prizes practical blockbuster filmmaking, big star performances and Scorsese-era craft; an unabashed defender of late-period Ridley Scott. Dislikes messy modern blockbuster scripts and over-reliance on CGI. A sucker for Denzel and for horror and sci-fi legacy sequels.
Stances
Was entertained but rates Gladiator II well below the original
Denzel Washington is the reason to rewatch it
The film wanted the original's pyramid structure without doing something different
Wanted Gladiator II to have the guts of Before Midnight
Humor: Mock-aggrieved nitpicking and tangents about food, friends and money.
In their words
“I was entertained.” (0:13:17)
“I'm mostly in the bag for everything he does.” (1:12:12)
The most openly critical voice on Babylon: admires the virtuosity but says the opening party rings hollow, and that the film holds together less well than he remembered. Relates to P.J. Byrne's character. Fan of scene-level filmmaking, Brad Pitt's persona work, golf and public courses, and menswear (J. Crew, Uniqlo). Sucker for bits like Trump impressions and Zyn.
Stances
Babylon is a collection of great scenes that does not quite congeal
Hive-adjacent, not in the hive
Seeing movies in theaters with a crowd adds to the experience
Humor: Slow-burn self-deprecation and bit commitment (the Zyn pouch, Trump voice, the J. Crew detour).
In their words
“and it rings hollow to me, which is perhaps the point” (0:26:34)
“The scenes the individual scenes are popping, but the actual movie is maybe not holding together as well as it did in the theater that I remember.” (2:12:00)
Heat is his number one and Manhunter his yearly rewatch; likes messy reclamation projects like Miami Vice. Loves Ferrari and thinks Mann went out on a high note. Big on the 'fusion' of classical and digital Mann.
Stances
Ferrari is a deeply satisfying film in his top five of the year
Miami Vice's mess is the point
Mann's themes are men and their obsessions
Humor: Grand and self-mocking, with extended comic metaphors.
In their words
“I'll never give birth, but it's the closest. It's what I imagine it's like.” (0:03:50)
Loves being manipulated by filmmakers and Fincher's subjective craft; adores the Smiths-as-joke and the sound design. Reads the film as the ultimate control-freak movie and Swinton's character as the life the killer could not have. Dislikes nothing here and calls it possibly his favorite movie of the year.
Stances
Fassbender's killer is an unreliable narrator lying to himself
The film is about the fallacy of control
The killer kills Swinton because she has a normal life
Humor: Excitable and self-aware, jokes about shaking in his chair and fashion and food habits.
In their words
“I love being manipulated by filmmakers.” (0:05:42)
“I think he killed her because no loose ends.” (0:44:38)
Loves big-screen Hollywood entertainment and communal theatrical experiences, with a horror streak (Barbarian, Speak No Evil). Loves Cate Blanchett, Martin McDonagh and Top Gun: Maverick as his number one. Admits being a little embarrassed by how populist his list is.
Stances
Hollywood theatrical experiences fired him up this year
Speak No Evil is the most effective horror film of the year
Top Gun: Maverick delivered after two years of hype and is better than the original
Humor: Boisterous and profane; fond of analogies like Stairway to Heaven and quoting Boogie Nights.
In their words
“I'm almost like at once defiantly excited about my list, but a little bit embarrassed by it.” (0:23:50)
“And it still fucking rocks.” (1:26:04)
“it's probably the most effective horror movie I've seen this year.” (0:48:20)
Loves The Firm, Collateral, Edge of Tomorrow and a Hollywood ensemble movie; thinks Born is Cruise's best performance and Jerry Maguire his most appealing.
Stances
Pushes for The Firm
Cruise now treats himself as the Rock
Fallout is exceptional
Humor: Big physical impressions and dad-style tangents; keeps asking about the rules.
In their words
“I am going to say the firm just because I also think that that is in a lot of ways, like among the best casts he's ever been a part of.” (0:40:33)
He loves cheap, anxiety-heavy genre pieces, B-minus horror movies and anything that makes him squeeze the popcorn box. He picked events that freaked him out over big hits, leaving Get Out and the Blumhouse hits off his top five. He can't stand Black Swan-style foot-breaking discomfort and doubts that Cabin in the Woods is scary at all.
Stances
Horror should dominate the audience
Genre lines (thriller, horror, terror) matter
Directors drift away from horror naturally
The B-minus horror movie is the best B movie
Humor: Cheerful self-deprecation and tangents, such as confessing to spoiling Cabin in the Woods in an NBA post.
In their words
“The B minus version of a horror movie is my favorite kind of B minus movie.” (0:34:47)
“I like that, I like feeling things.” (0:52:03)
“I spoiled Cabin in the Woods in like an NBA blog post for like 1000s of people.” (0:41:38)
A TV-first critic who came to Disney through Marvel and Star Wars rather than the legacy titles, and who loves teen entertainment and character actors such as Mark Maron. Dislikes late revival movies and fan-service compression; a sucker for crowd-roar moments like the Endgame hammer.
Stances
Will send his streaming money elsewhere than Disney+
Skeptical of Eternals and of revival movies
Counterprogramming may be dead
Moviegoing is about circumstances and shared reactions
Humor: Wry and conversational, setting up riffs such as the 1992 podcast called Smells Like Teen Spirit.
In their words
“And I will be sending my streaming money elsewhere.” (0:02:08)
“I think he takes his craft really seriously.” (0:19:29)
Reveres Spielberg's craft (lighting, camera movement, editing, music) and calls him a film school; picks Empire of the Sun as a personal favorite. Loves rewatchable, tightly made movies like Jaws, Raiders, and Jurassic Park and likes Munich, A.I., and Tom Cruise in War of the Worlds. Cold on Spielberg's explicit kids' movies.
Stances
Spielberg is his film school
Jaws is the perfect movie
Spielberg's kid-targeted films (Tintin, BFG) don't work
Munich's opening is the best
Humor: Warm, enthusiastic riffing and impressions; walks the line between sincere and goofy.
In their words
“It's my film school.” (0:03:04)
“Jaws is a perfect movie.” (0:35:06)
Their shows' recurring bits
Running bits, not opinions; a critic read aloud is cited, not present.
The Big Picture
Drafts: Hosts and guests draft films in rounds; every pick is a recommendation with an argument.
Hall of Fame: A star's or director's best, ranked and argued.
Countdowns: Ranked lists, top five or top ten.
Blank Check with Griffin & David
The box office game: Guessing the film's opening weekend and what it was up against.
The sung theme: "Blank Check with Griffin and David", sung; the transcriber garbles it.
The Rewatchables
Apex Mountain: The moment a star peaks; where on the mountain a performance sits.
Who Won the Movie: The hosts name the person who came out of the film best off.
The Ebert review: Roger Ebert's original review and star rating read aloud. Ebert is cited, never on the show.
Casting what-ifs: Who was almost cast, or who should have been.
Most rewatchable scene: The scene each host would stop on while flipping channels.
Aged best / aged worst: What holds up and what does not.
Picking Nits: The little things in a film the hosts love that they don't think totally work: the nits.
Double feature: The film each host would pair it with; a programming pick.
Their claims
Showing 201–300 of 854 claims.
theme (theme):
Internal Affairs → Unfaithful.
Apex Mountain candidates for imagining a spouse with someone else: Unfaithful and Indecent Proposal.
“Unfaithful is a big one when gear after he kills the sculptor.”
lineage (lineage):
Internal Affairs → Deep Cover.
Deep Cover was conceived as a sequel to Internal Affairs; Michael Tolkin and Henry Bean got involved in writing it.
“Deep cover was conceived as a sequel to this movie.”
lineage (lineage):
The Last of the Mohicans → Heat.
Heat is described as the urban version of Last of the Mohicans, a step in Mann's progression toward The Insider.
“Then you've got heat, which in some ways is the urban version of Last of the Mohicans.”
craft (craft):
The Insider → The Last of the Mohicans.
The Insider is where Mann starts making wild formal decisions, after the romantic landscape painting of Mohicans and the urban Heat.
“And then Insider marks where man starts making all these really wild formal decisions.”
craft (craft):
Dante Spinotti → The Insider.
Spinotti shoots most of the film handheld from someone's collar to visualize the characters' life-changing decisions.
“He also shoots the insider, but they're essentially trying to visualize what it's like for people to make decisions.”
career (career):
Russell Crowe → Al Pacino.
Pacino gets three decades to be Al Pacino while Crowe gets five years, a statement about the movie business.
verdict (verdict):
Michael Caine → The Cider House Rules.
Caine won supporting actor for Cider House Rules after being passed over, a Susan Lucci situation.
craft (craft):
Marvin Gaye → The Big Chill.
'I Heard It Through the Grapevine' is a purposeful, perfect song choice for the moment everyone hears Alex has died.
“Like, it's a purposeful choice to use that song at that moment, you know, and like just those little details that he, make sure he gets right”
craft (craft):
Meg Kasdan → The Big Chill.
Meg Kasdan helped curate the soundtrack with Lawrence Kasdan, choosing songs that were popular to these characters in 1968-69.
“I guess Meg Kazden, Lawrence Kazden's wife, you know, helped curate the soundtrack and worked with him on it.”
theme (theme):
The Big Chill → Tootsie.
The Big Chill is part of a lost wave of 80s serious comedies like Tootsie, Lost in America, Baby Boom, Broadcast News.
“I also feel like this has aged well as one of the signature serious comedies of the 1980s.”
craft (craft):
John Bailey → The Big Chill.
Bailey's dissolve from the stitches on Alex's wrist into the rows of farmland outside the church.
“they were shooting the field outside the church where they see all the rows of like farmland and he's like, 0 my god, this matches perfectly with the stitches on Alex's wrist.”
craft (craft):
John Bailey → The Big Chill.
The camera in the one-house movie moves with purpose, subtle zooms and pans, because editor and cinematographer trust each other.
“But if you look at how the camera's moving, like very subtle zooms panning very purposefully around, like, it seems perfunctory, but if you pay close attention, it's really purposeful”
craft (craft):
The Band → The Big Chill.
'The Weight' playing over Meg at the dining table is singled out as a best needle drop.
“I just really like when like Meg's shattered and she's sitting at the dining room table smoking and like the shoe boxes are there and the wait's playing.”
theme (character echo):
A Bronx Tale → The Godfather.
Sonny is said to be more like Vito than Sonny Corleone: guns bring heat, so keep them out of the neighborhood.
“I think Sunny is more like Vito Corleone than he is like Sonny Corleone”
contrast (contrast):
A Bronx Tale → Goodfellas.
The Pauly-to-Jimmy shift in Goodfellas parallels the old-neighborhood-boss versus cocaine-and-silencers mafia, which this movie sits on the nostalgic side of.
“Pauly is like, we all sit around and and eat sausage and and like, we fix the neighborhood and keep it safe”
lineage (influence):
A Bronx Tale → The Sopranos.
Ryan argues A Bronx Tale influenced The Sopranos more than any other movie, with Sonny and Tony Soprano close in how they hold the neighborhood.
“I think Bronx Tale... influenced the Sopranos more than any other movie, but I don't think people think that.”
unmapped (betting on yourself):
Chazz Palminteri → Sylvester Stallone.
Palminteri's refusal to sell the one-man show without starring is compared to Stallone and Rocky.
unmapped (same year):
A Bronx Tale → This Boy's Life.
Both De Niro father-figure films came out in 1993; This Boy's Life is also chosen as the double-feature partner.
“It's amazing to think that this and this boy's life is the same year, you know?”
career (career):
Chazz Palminteri → Bullets Over Broadway.
His Oscar nomination for Bullets Over Broadway came the next year, so his Apex Mountain case is for that year.
“he gets nominated for Bolts over Broadway for an Academy.”
people (performance comparison):
A Bronx Tale → Stanley & Iris.
Asked if this was De Niro's only normal movie marriage, they cite Stanley and Iris with Jane Fonda as another functional one.
theme (motif):
A Bronx Tale → The Godfather.
The 'thunderbolt' moment of instant love appears in Michael and Apollonia, in Goodfellas, and in this film's Jane.
career (career):
Dale Launer → Ruthless People.
Launer wrote a cottage industry of adult comedies (Blind Date, Ruthless People, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels) not made anymore.
“Dale Larner, had like a little bit of a cottage industry of adult comedies”
career (career):
Eastbound & Down → This Is the End.
Kenny Powers as a houseguest; the public's perception of McBride from Foot Fist Way and Eastbound.
“what if Kenny Powers was just like at our house, you know?”
theme (theme):
Neighbors → This Is the End.
Neighbors is the last gasp of the Apatow arc where the guy realizes he has to grow up, one last big blast.
“neighbors is kind of like the last gasp of that where it's like these people who have a kid who, like, haven't party in a while, but like they have one last big blast.”
theme (theme):
Knocked Up → This Is the End.
Rogen and Goldberg add heart: the pull of sacrifice for a friend runs from Superbad and Knocked Up into this film.
“sacrificing yourself for like the greater good was super bad with knocked up.”
career (career):
This Is the End → The Wolf of Wall Street.
Apex Mountain check: Jonah Hill, Wolf and This Is the End the same year, probably worth Moneyball.
“I mean, this is Wolf and this is the end, right?”
what-if (what-if):
This Is the End → Project X.
One crazy night party like Project X married to Night of the Living Dead; Project X offered as a double feature.
people (producer excess):
Beverly Hills Cop II → Don Simpson.
Ryan says he thinks of the sequel as directed by Simpson and Bruckheimer because of their 80s cocaine excess.
“I kind of think of this one as directed by Don Simpson and Jerry Bruckheimer because it has all of the 80s cocaine excess that I associate with them during this decade.”
theme (sports analogy):
Eddie Murphy → Luka Doncic.
Murphy-centered scenes are likened to a team built around one heliocentric player taking a fadeaway.
“It's like watching a team with one heliocentric good player.”
lineage (tone lineage):
Beverly Hills Cop → 1970s cop movies.
The first film feels like an extension of 70s cop movies, especially the Detroit material, while the sequel feels glossy and 80s.
“There's a world in which that almost feels like an extension of like 70s cop movies.”
unmapped (star power on set):
Beverly Hills Cop II → Fast & Furious (series).
Cop II is likened to the domino that taught stars they can be late, improvise, and force productions to scramble, as with Vin Diesel's approval of action sequences.
“You could be late. You can improvise and like they just have to scramble to make it work because you're the price of admission.”
unmapped (set behavior):
Beverly Hills Cop II → Cobra.
The Stallone Cobra stories about nobody being allowed to talk to him mirror the star-run chaos on Cop II.
“And we did Cobra a few months ago and there was the Stallone stories about nobody in the set was allowed to talk to them or interact with them and it just everybody had lost their mind at this point.”
unmapped (screaming comedy):
Another 48 Hrs. → Eddie Murphy.
Murphy's funny stuff there is mostly screaming, unlike his subtler early work selling the other actors.
“A lot of like his quote unquote funny stuff is just kind of him screaming.”
industry (franchise fatigue):
Roger Ebert → Die Hard 2.
Ebert in 1987 may have felt the way people feel now about Marvel: bloated 80s action sequels getting less funny.
“You see the way things are going and you're like, oh, like these 80s bloated action movies are just going to get less funny and more incoherent.”
theme (era shift):
Do the Right Thing → Eddie Murphy.
Do the Right Thing marks the shift at the end of the decade away from Murphy's sole mainstream prominence.
“Things like do the right thing come in and then it starts to shift.”
unmapped (Brigitte Nielsen / Tony Scott):
Beverly Hills Cop II → Cobra.
Nielsen wore a terrible wig in Cobra, a film the show covered, and had worked with Stallone and Schwarzenegger before this one.
“She's in Cobra with a terrible wig on, which we covered in the Cobra watchables than this.”
career (career path):
Brigitte Nielsen → Rocky IV.
Nielsen rose in Red Sonja and Rocky IV (Ludmilla Drago), then Cobra, then Cop II, which both say is her best part.
“I think this is the best part she's ever had, right?”
unmapped (missed star-maker):
Brigitte Nielsen → Steven Soderbergh.
Gina Carano got a Soderbergh movie; Nielsen never found her Soderbergh who would build something for her.
“She never found like her Soderberg, who just kind of stared at her up and down.”
unmapped (modern equivalent):
Brigitte Nielsen → Charlize Theron.
If Nielsen came along now she would be making Atomic Blonde and Furiosa type roles, as Charlize Theron does.
“if Brigitte Nielsen was around now, she would probably be making atomic blonde and like Furiosa and stuff.”