More Than One Lesson

It’s always a bit strange to me that the “road movie” is even a genre. It’s a weirdly specific format and structure, and while I don’t have any problems with it, I always wonder what draws people to that particular type of story. Maybe it’s the wonder of seeing different places, maybe it’s the pressure cooker of people trapped together in a vehicle (a plane, train, or automobile, if you will) for long periods of time. Maybe it’s the unlikely connections between people, which has become a staple of the genre. Whatever it is, people are still making road movies and will continue to do so. While Hannah Fidell’s The Long Dumb Road may not bring anything strikingly new to the road movie, the wit and the performances make it a worthwhile watch.

[…]

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss Alfred Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train.

Two years ago in my review of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, I wrote that, “It’s difficult not to be wary of films detailing the backstories of our favorite movies.” Thankfully that movie was a far cry from The Phantom Menace. Instead of being a direct prequel to the Harry Potter series that focuses on Dumbledore, it was a film with entirely new characters in a different time and place in the history of the Wizarding World. Its hero, Newt Scamander (Eddie Redmayne) was not your typical protagonist. Withdrawn, he isn’t yearning for adventure and he has no desire to do battle with anybody. He just wants to be left to take special care of the “fantastic beasts” he loves so much and to help the rest of the Wizarding World understand them as he does. Newt would likely be someone the hero would meet along the way in most movies. An odd but likable helper who might be there to lend a hand for a couple of scenes in the second act. Maybe he’d show up again at the end after the climactic action sequence. His being the lead gave Fantastic Beasts a unique feel.

[…]

You’d expect a film with such a gimmicky title as Ralph Breaks the Internet to be little more than a sequence of pop culture sight gags and hopefully clever one-liners. You’d maybe expect an overwrought moral conclusion about the toxic dangers of how technology has irrevocably damaged our society. Perhaps you’d even expect a tidy little ending where our characters have all learned a valuable lesson but nothing has really changed very much.

What you probably wouldn’t expect – or at least I didn’t – is a strikingly thoughtful and often genuinely touching film about the both painful and hopeful nature of friendship and community. You certainly wouldn’t expect it to be one of the best sequels Disney has ever produced. I mean, come on… it’s called Ralph Breaks the Internet, for crying out loud.

[…]

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss Stephen King’s epic The Stand. 

In this minisode, Tyler recounts his experiences as a grad student and teacher.

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors.

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss Tobe Hooper’s Poltergeist.

“If society got its ideas about people with disabilities from TV,” states disabled actor Robert David Hall (CSI) at the beginning of CinemAbility: The Art of Inclusion, “they would think that basically we’re either pathetic or superpeople.” It really only takes a cursory trip through our movie and TV memory banks to know that Hall is correct about that. Director Jenni Gold’s documentary is a thorough examination of why and how this idea has taken root. She goes back to the earliest depictions of the disabled on screen, beginning with Thomas Edison’s 1897 short, The Fake Beggar.

[…]