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Heads up to listeners, this episode includes sensitive discussions of abuse due to the nature of the film. It's Primetime! The new Robert Pattinson vehicle is a neon-lit, morally murky movie about ratings and perversions of justice that serves as an astonishing acting showcase for Pattinson and costars Merritt Weaver and Skyler Gisondo . It's also a hit, and yet another feather in Pattinson's cap, after The Drama succeeded earlier this year, and with Dune III on the horizon. We're joined by the incredibly well-traveled Jessica Kiang of Variety and The Berlin Film Festival to discuss. We discuss the film, its unintended documentary companion piece Predators, the phenomenon of To Catch A Predator, and how all of that is filtered through this very slick film, the first narrative feature from director Lance Oppenheim. Next week, we'll be having a very measured discussion of the normal-looking film "Digger". Email us: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In this bonus episode: After a month of festival hopping, we're back in the studio to discuss the fall festival season, its big premieres, and paint a very rough picture of how award season is shaping up. But first, we take a question from the mailbag to demystify the fall festival circuit and how these giant star-studded events actually work. Email us! [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Conflict of interest disclosure: Critical Darlings is a fully owned subsidiary of The Umbrella Corporation. Today we're joined by David Sims of Blank Check and "friend of" one of this film's featured performers (Critical Darlings' Executive Producer) Griffin Newman, to discuss Zach Cregger's adaptation of the Resident Evil video game series. Resident Evil is Cregger's third triumph in a row, after Barbarian and Weapons, and captures the game series' campy but grotesque sensibility in a completely fresh way that's resonating with audiences, critics, and even the vast majority of gamers. We go deep on Resident Evil lore, whether Resident Evil 4 is the greatest game of all time, and how the movie's bullet-counting, rummaging-through-drawers set pieces manage to evoke the series without introducing any classic Resident Evil lore. We also get into the history of the Resident Evil film series, different approaches to video game adaptations, and whether this movie will usher in a new age of less literal game adaptations. Next week, it's lights, camera, Pattinson, with Primetime! Email us! [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As Richard and Alison are jet-setting across Venice, Europe, and Toronto, North America, we bring to you a special pre-recorded mailbag, featuring your voicemails and questions! We get into our favorite end-credits songs; the IPs we'd love to see adapted; our imagined Oscar-worthy biopics; the festival circuit; the history of digital media; The Oscars, and much more. We also unlock new Richard and Alison lore, including Rent message boards, Mulder and Scully fanfic listservs, male weepies, and even more discussion of Empire Of Light. Next week, pull out your Umbrellas, because it's raining zombies in Zach Cregger's Resident Evil. You can still email us! [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Get your dipping sauces ready, it’s Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma! Starring Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder, this meta horror picture goes to some very strange places that nonetheless right feel at home with Schoenbrun’s dreamy-sexy vision: a haunted summer camp, an underground eldritch video store, and an emotionally moving Counting Crows music video to name just a few.   Though dripping in fountains of blood, the movie is also a sensitive depiction of sex and desire as refracted through Einbinder’s character’s obsession with the in-universe Camp Miasma. Camp Miasma is a past-its-prime, problematic horror franchise whose masters have now employed Einbinder's character, a young director, to create a “woke” reboot. She travels to the Pacific Northwest to meet the mysterious starlet of the first film, played by Anderson, who lives at the old campground, and both women unspool.  Alison recently wrote a profile of Schoenbrun in Vulture, and has been immersed in their work for some time, including their upcoming novel. We’ll get into their trajectory from We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, to I Saw the TV Glow, to Camp Miasma, and discuss its extremely dense themes, it’s incredible centerpiece musical sequence, go long on the mystic veil of childhood video stores, and much more. Plus, five whole minutes of The Dog Stars!  Next week, it’s mailbag time!  Email us! [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

After an absurd and depressing attempt by David Zaslov to bury Coyote Vs. Acme, it’s finally in theaters. What’s more, it’s great, making WB’s attempts to shelve the movie for a tax write-off seem all the feckless. Rescued by the odd-duck distributor Ketchup Entertainment, the movie is a corporate satire and legal thriller about culpability and justice in a world stacked against the little guy—represented by the character of Wiley Coyote, and Will Forte, as Coyote’s ambulance-chasing attorney. Today we’re joined by Looney Tunes expert Connor Ratliff, of The George Lucas Talk Show, Connor Ratliff’s Presents The Acting Class,⁠ Dead Eyes, and more, to discuss the movie, its rocky history, and a great deal of Looney Tunes lore. We get into a history of Ketchup, the movie’s surprisingly heartfelt center, which Looney Tunes are MAGA, and get into a little behind-the-scenes discussion with the help from Connor, including some of the film’s notable absences, and Senator Elmer Fudd’s official political affiliation. Next week, we’re going to Camp Miasma! See you then.  Email us! [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ey wanna leahn howta shuck an oystah? Jaya Saxena of the new, worker-owned food publication Ravenous, joins us to discuss Tony, the micro-biopic about a pipsqueak version of Anthony Bourdain learning to love food in Provincetown, Mass.  From director Matt Johnson of Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie, and Blackberry, comes a fictionalized take on Bourdain’s early years. The script loosely covers about a chapter and a half from Bourdain’s hallowed Kitchen Confidential: the book that helped turn him from a working chef into one of the most important food writers in America. Bourdain’s reputation precedes him, but Tony largely sidesteps the mythology by downsizing Tony into a wannabe writer in need of a good ass-kicking.  We discuss Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential, the allure of bad boys from greater Massachusetts, what exactly goes into a Lobster Thermidor, refillable ketchup bottles, and the movie’s depiction of drugs and suicide. Finally we get into our favorite food movies (Tampopo! Eat Drink Man Woman! Ratatouille!) and do our recommendations. Next week, watch for falling anvils, it’s Coyote Vs. Acme.  Email us! [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dinosaurs are back in business this week, with The End of Oak Street, an original blockbuster about shooting dinos in the face while getting chomped by various raptors, dactyls, and giant primordial snakes.  We’re joined by Indiewire’s Matt Singer, host of Filmspotting: SVU, and author of the upcoming book Funny Business, to discuss the film, its blend of Amblin-influenced family filmmaking with director David Robert Mitchell’s acidic bite. The movie uses its familiar tropes to lull the audience into a lull before ripping those tropes apart, making the film stranger and darker than the marketing let on. Still, it’s been a hit with critics, if not with audiences at large.  We discuss how the story unfolds, Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway’s performances, the joys of shooting raptors in the face, sad giant snake monsters, The Last House, and break down the ending and what the movie is really about—Climate change, maybe? We also get into JJ Abrams’ trajectory as the head of Bad Robot, which produced the film, the state of puzzle box film and TV, and finally do our recommendations.  Next week, it’s lobster roll season, with the Anthony Bourdain biographical picture, Tony.  Email us: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In a technofascist parallel reality, singles are only allowed to have sex one night a year: it’s One Night Only, AKA The Sex Purge!  Comedian Josh Gondelman joins us to discuss this deeply strange film which has taken the box office by…not very much. Is that more evidence for the slow fade of theatrical rom coms, or is this just a really, really weird movie?   Directed by Will Gluck, and starring Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro, We’re split on the movie’s charms, but we’re mesmerized by the movie’s vision of fascism + rom-com shenanigans. We discuss the movie’s world building, blacklist scripts, Callum Turner lookalikes, it’s lack of comedian supporting characters, the state of the rom-com, and the movie’s both-sides-ing of its own high concept premise. Check out Josh’s newsletter That’s Marvelous, to get up to date tour info, and mail us at [email protected].  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Griffin Newman swings back from Spain, Europe, to discuss Spider-Man: Brand New Day! Brand New Day is likely the biggest movie of the year, maybe of all time, depending on how you count. From the seemingly bulletproof Spider-Man formula to the unquestionable star power of Tom Holland and Zendaya, we should have seen this coming! On this episode, we go long to discuss the special appeal of Spider-Men of today and yesteryear, the Tom Holland phenomenon, his perpetual boyishness, The Punisher Meets Archie, spider puberty, bathhouses, the X-Men and their soon-to-be integration into the MCU, in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, and wonder if the movie is maybe a metaphor for Gen-Z lockdown FOMO.  Next week, it’s The Sex Purge, AKA One Night Only! Email us: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Come for the Les Miz karaoke takes, stay for The Invite. New York Magazine’s Emily Gould joins us to discuss Olivia Wilde’s sexy, awkward comedy of domestic manners starring herself, Seth Rogan, Edward Norton, and Penelope Cruz. Set in an aspirational San Francisco apartment owned by a deeply neurotic twosome, they collide with the sexy couple upstairs at an impromptu dinner party staged by Wilde's character Angela. Their night, and the movie itself, swings from polite nicety to anger to sadness to horniness, ultimately arriving at a poignant question: what relationships are worth saving, and when is it time to just move on? Both as a director and performer, The Invite is destined to become a calling card for Wilde. Among many things, we discuss her unusual Hollywood trajectory, the studied aesthetics of aspirational apartment living, Esther Perel, firefighter aesthetics, dinner party etiquette, Les Miz, steak knives, woo woo treatements for back pain, and San Francisco real estate.   Next week, everyone has forgotten about him, except for us! It’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Send us mailbag questions, comments, and gossip: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Daddy, tie us to the mast, we’re off to see The Odyssey! Christopher Nolan’s epic about a dad going out for cigarettes has vanquished all foes, critical, commercial, and discourse-able. To unpack it all, we’re joined by Vulture’s Fran Hoepfner. Nolan’s Oppenheimer follow-up both revisits and expands the director’s thematic palette. Among many aspects of the film, we discuss Nolan’s controversial choice to reject many of the signifiers of sword and sandals epics, his thematic quirks, the massive scale of the film, and how the ultimate hero’s journey is also a reflection of Nolan’s own filmmaking journey. We also get into spoilers (with warning), the movie’s possible political aims, and where Nolan might go from here. Finally, we do our Nolan rankings. Next week, we’re swinging with Olivia Wilde’s The Invite.  You can email us now! We’re doing an upcoming mailbag episode, so feel free to drop us a line at [email protected]  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You’re welcome…again! This week we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel of Disney’s “live-action” remakes, with Moana.  As noted on last week’s episode, Producer Ben Frisch is out on a Minions-related leave of absence, so we’re joined by Producer Ben Hosley, to talk about this especially contrived-feeling cultural product. It used to be that Disney remakes were sure to break a billy at the box office, but that’s no longer the case, with only the recent Lilo and Stitch remake having any legs. Moana’s disappointing landing makes us wonder if the steam is truly run out of the remake machine.  While the movie itself is a little flimsy, it affords us the opportunity to go deep on its most controversial performance and star, Dwayne “Mr. Rock” Johnson, as Maui. Like the remakes themselves, Johnson used to be an undeniable box office draw, but in recent years his films have also begun to disappoint. We do a career retrospective to try and puzzle out what, if anything, has gone wrong. Next week, we’re joining the boys on the boat, with The Odyssey. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Minions are back with a film designed to pander…to us! On this episode, three Minions neophytes try to make sense of Minions And Monsters, where the round yellow ones land in 1920s Hollywood. among Chaplin, Keaton, and all of Gen Alpha’s favorite silent film stars. For two of us at least, it worked! We also discuss Minions lore: The movie posits that the species consists of roving tribes of task rabbits, and raise questions about their mortality, reproductive cycle, edibility, and of course their role in 20th century geopolitical conflict.  We also discuss our relationships to animation generally, the film’s character design, its ode to 2022’s Babylon, and the place of Hollywood nostalgia in our era of corporate consolidation and general pessimism. Also, a special message to the Critical Darlings community from producer Benjamin Frisch. Next week: It's Moana, you're welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week we’re Gunn-ing for Supergirl, with filmmaker and video essayist Patrick Willems! Supergirl is the second feature film in the new DC cinematic universe, now helmed by Guardians of the Galaxy mastermind James Gunn. Gunn’s 2025 Superman breathed new life into one of the genre’s biggest icons, but Supergirl blew a raspberry at the box office, despite the good vibes surrounding the new DCU. Supergirl, directed by I, Tonya's Craig Gillespie, borrows liberally from Gunn’s style, but in imitating Gunn, it shows just how difficult it is to pull off his deft mix of humor, spectacle, and heart. Patrick walks us through the movie’s source material, the acclaimed comics miniseries Woman of Tomorrow, and how the film follows and diverges from that book’s True Grit-inspired journey, often to negative effect. We also get into Milly Alcock’s performance as Supergirl, the needle drops, Krypto and the Superhorse (!), and what this movie means for the future of the DCU. Next week, we’re all in on Minions (Babylon Version) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices