It’s time to finally talk about such serious things as digital fur technology and the perils of tribalism – you’ve been begging for it, we’re finally talking about Cats. Our first Class of 2019 film discussed on the podcast, Cats was announced

162 – The Good Dinosaur (with Kyle Amato)

Sep 13th, 2021 1h 54m

We’re doing something a little different this week and setting our sights on one specific Oscar category: Best Animated Feature. This episode, Kyle Amato joins us to talk about The Good Dinosaur, one of the few box office and critical disappoin

161 – The Mule

1 Sep 6th, 2021 1h 27m

Many of Clint Eastwood’s most recent films have arrived in quick turnaround, going from announcement to filming to release in a head-spinningly short amount of time. In 2018, he had one of his fastest productions ever with The Mule, a story of

152 – De-Lovely

Jul 5th, 2021 1h 44m

Birds do it, bees do it; let’s do it, let’s talk De-Lovely! Reuniting Kevin Kline with his Life As A House director Irwin Winkler, the film casts Kline as the legendary songwriter Cole Porter. Also starring Ashley Judd as his devoted wife Linda

151 – Lucy in the Sky

Jun 28th, 2021 1h 47m

We’ve got another long anticipated episode this week! In 2019, Natalie Portman teamed up with Fargo creator Noah Hawley to bring to the screen a highly fictionalized account of a NASA astronaut who suffered a psychotic break and stalked her lov

149 – The Prize Winner of Defiance, OH

Jun 14th, 2021 1h 53m

Can you believe it’s only our third episode discussing Julianne Moore? This episode we’re diving into the mid-00s period between nominations for Moore with 2005′s The Prize Winner of Defiance, OH. Starring the eventual Oscar winner in the true

148 – Concussion

Jun 7th, 2021 1h 35m

Finally, we are telling the truth! In 2015, Will Smith took on another biopic with Concussion as Dr. Bennett Omalu, the forensic pathologist whose research on chronic traumatic encephalopathy experienced by football players found opposition wit

146 – The Place Beyond the Pines (Focus Features – Part Four)

May 24th, 2021 1h 49m

This week, our Focus Features miniseries brings us to The Place Beyond the Pines, Derek Dianfrance’s epic, novelistic tale of fathers and sons. The film reunited Cianfrance with his Blue Valentine star Ryan Gosling as a motorcyclist who turns t

145 – Lust, Caution (Focus Features – Part Three)

May 17th, 2021 1h 45m

We’ve come to the midpoint of our Focus Features miniseries with a work from a modern master, 2007′s Lust,Caution from Ang Lee. An erotic thriller set in Hong Kong and Shanghai during the Japanese occupation, Lust, Caution follows a breakthroug

144 – Possession (Focus Features – Part Two)

May 10th, 2021 1h 48m

Our Focus Features miniseries continues with the first official Focus release, 2002′s Possession. Adapted by Neil LaBute from A.S. Byatt’s celebrated novel, the film follows Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart as poetry scholars who fall in love

143 – The Muse (Focus Features – Part One)

1 May 3rd, 2021 1h 44m

We’re kicking off our May miniseries on Focus Features with the winner of our Listeners’ Choice poll, 1999′s The Muse. To kick things off, we’re looking at how Focus was birthed from the previous companies of USA Films, October Films, Gramercy

141 – Carlito’s Way

1 Apr 19th, 2021 1h 43m

We return to the filmography of Brian DePalma this week with 1993′s Carlito’s Way. The film reunited DePalma with his Scarface star Al Pacino as Carlito Brigante, a former criminal struggling to go straight after his release from prison and his

140 – A Home At The End Of The World

1 Apr 12th, 2021 2h 2m

After the success of The Hours in 2002, author Michael Cunningham was a hot commodity in prestige cinema. At the same time, Colin Farrell emerged as the next big thing and was seemingly inescapable at the movies. The two converged in 2004 for A

139 – Carnage

1 Apr 5th, 2021 1h 55m

After becoming a Broadway sensation, landing the Tony Award for Best Play and lead acting nominations for each member of its acting quartet (including a win for Marcia Gay Harden), Yasmina Reza’s God of Carnage looked primed to become yet anoth

138 – All the King’s Men

1 Mar 29th, 2021 1h 27m

We’re finally getting around to one of the most notorious of aughts era failed awards plays, Steven Zaillian’s All the King’s Men. A remake of the former Best Picture winner and originally heavily predicted in the 2005 season, the adaptation wa

137 – Live By Night

1 Mar 22nd, 2021 1h 40m

After landing a Best Picture winner that famously left him without a Best Director nomination for Argo, Ben Affleck made his director-star return in 2016 with Denis Lehane adaptation Live By Night. Affleck cast himself as a criminal caught betw

298 – A Perfect World

7 days ago 1h 44m

Early in the 1990s, two westerns emerged as Best Picture winners when the genre was first thought dead: Kevin Costner’s Dances with Wolves and Clint Eastwood’s Unforgiven. In 1993, those heralded actor-directors would unite for A Perfect World,

297 – To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar

14 days ago 1h 55m

Why not derail an originally planned episode to close pride season with a beloved queer 90s film with three praised performances? In 1995, To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar spun a tale of three drag queens on a road trip that get

296 – Take Shelter

21 days ago 1h 57m

We return this week to one of the Oscar years we bemoan the most, 2011, to talk about Jeff Nichols’ Take Shelter. After Michael Shannon landed a surprise acting nomination for Revolutionary Road, it seemed he’d somewhat cornered the market on o

295 – Let Them All Talk

28 days ago 2h 12m

Say it with us: confusion! In our episodes where we have discussed 2020, one of the major conversations we’ve yet to really tackle is the confusion around what films would be considered theatrical while most of the country’s theatres were close

294 – The Notebook

Jun 3rd, 2024 1h 51m

The May miniseries is over and we’re kicking off June with a dose of movie monoculture with 2004’s The Notebook. Adapted from the Nicholas Sparks romance novel, the film’s journey to the screen attracted a range of huge Hollywood names from Ste

293 – Hair (with Natalie Walker) (70s Spectacular – 1979)

May 27th, 2024 2h 6m

The 70s Spectacular comes to a close this week with actress Natalie Walker joining us to discuss 1979 and Milos Forman’s adaptation of Hair. The brainchild of Galt MacDermot, Gerome Ragni, and James Redo, Hair took Broadway by storm in the late

292 – New York, New York (with Katey Rich) (70s Spectacular – 1977)

May 23rd, 2024 2h 12m

The 1977 Oscar year is famously when Annie Hall triumphed over the cultural behemoth of Star Wars, but elsewhere Martin Scorsese followed up his Taxi Driver Best Picture nomination with a big swing and a miss. The Ankler’s Katey Rich is back on

291 – The Ritz (with Christina Tucker) (70s Spectacular – 1976)

May 20th, 2024 1h 45m

We’re on to 1976 (go sign up for our Patreon for 1975 and our Exception episode on Tommy!) and Christina Tucker rejoins us to talk about the 70s Spectacular’s wildest movie, The Ritz. From the play by Terrence McNally, the film is a mob farce s

290 – The Front Page (with Roxana Hadadi) (70s Spectacular – 1974)

May 16th, 2024 2h 18m

1974 brings us to one of the final films of Billy Wilder, which also reunited a screen duo beloved by both Oscar and audiences, Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthau. Vulture writer Roxana Hadadi is back to the show to talk about The Front Page, an of