More Than One Lesson

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss Drew Goddard’s The Cabin in the Woods.

In this minisode, Tyler talks about his experiences at school and his reaction to the election.

In this episode, Reed and Nathan discuss David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows.

Jacob interviews Variety’s “Mentor of the Year”, Craig Detweiler.

While it would be unfair to ask any film to be on par with one of the greatest ever made, when a movie chooses to open its story in 1942 Casablanca, it’s going to have a lot to live up to. While Allied boasts Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard as its leads, a screenplay by Steven Knight (Locke), and direction by Robert Zemeckis, it’s no surprise that it is not in the same league as Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca.

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It is no longer surprising when a new Disney animated feature contains stunning visuals, memorable and moving songs, or funny and engaging characters. The studio has long been not only the pioneer for feature-length animated storytelling, but often the gold-standard bearer. So the fact that Moana, the latest entry in that ever-growing canon of classics, contains all of those elements was certainly no shock.

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In this minisode, Tyler and Josh discuss Vincente Minnelli’s Gigi, the Best Picture of 1958.

First contact with alien races has been depicted in many different ways through the history of science fiction. Some stories are about invasions, others offer hope of friendship with far away worlds, but always there is uncertainty and at least some degree of fear for the characters in their forever changed universe. Arrival doesn’t put all of its cards on the table right away in that regard but it does engage the heart as well as the head throughout, which is always welcome.

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Reed and Nathan discuss Scott Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose.

It’s difficult not to be wary of films detailing the backstories of our favorite movies. Between the disastrous Star Wars prequel trilogy and the decision to turn the relatively short novel The Hobbit into three bloated films adding up to the length of a full day’s work, there was reason to be concerned about Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. If it hadn’t been for the fact that Harry Potter novelist J.K. Rowling was writing the screenplay herself, it would have been hard to see it as much more than a desperate cash grab by Warner Bros. Especially when it was recently announced that there would be five films in this new series set in the Potterverse, decades before Harry was even born. It turns out that Rowling was all the reason fans needed to feel confident because this first film in the series is a complete joy to watch.

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