June 24th, 2018
With Matt out due to hay fever-related illness, Ed is joined by returning guest Emily Benita to talk about long movies. Why does it feel like movies are getting longer? Is there a certain kind of story that best suits a longer runtime, or is it all in the way a story is told? Which of the two movies about Abraham Lincoln released in 2012 is better? There's only way to find out: LISTEN TO THE EPISODE.
00:00:00 - 00:06:15 - Intro
00:06:16 - 01:00:31 - Ed & Emily discuss long movies
01:00:32 - 01:06:15 - SRS Recommends & Outro
June 11th, 2018
In one of the loopier episodes in recent memory, Matt and Ed discuss heist movies by way of World War II propaganda films, Birch/Hird confusion, and ill-fated BBC sitcoms of the '90s. They also talk about missing out on Doc/Fest, memories of bad Q&As, and toxic Star Wars fans.
00:00:00 - 00:13:40 - Intro
00:13:41 - 00:41:41 - News
00:41:42 - 01:24:30 - Matt & Ed discuss heist movies
01:24:31 - 01:31:12 - SRS Recommends & Outro
June 3rd, 2018
Matt and Ed check in on the Bluth family and the goings in - get this - Beverly Hills in the fifth season of Arrested Development, the first half of which debuted on Netflix this week. Has the shift back to a more traditional format after the more experimental fourth season helped the show regain some of its pizazz? How does splitting the season in half affect the dense storytelling for which the series has always been known? Did the now-infamous New York Times interview cast a pall over the new season? They tackle all of these questions, and also find time to discuss the only slightly surprising cancellation of Roseanne.
00:00:00 - 00:27:04 - Intro & News
00:27:05 - 01:18:46 - Matt & Ed discuss Arrested Development Season 5
01:18:47 - 01:25:28 - SRS Recommends & Outro
May 27th, 2018
A Star Wars movie? In May? It's more likely than you think.
Matt and Ed check in on the LucasFilm saga, a whole five months after the last time, to discuss the totally fine Solo: A Star Wars Story. Which actors rise to the occasion and who lets the side down? What's up with those dice? How could it have been more like MacGruber? These are just some of the questions they address in their comprehensive, spoiler-filled rundown of the perfectly coherent product of a chaotic production.
00:00:00 - 00:16:34 - Intro & News
00:16:35 - 01:22:17 - Matt & Ed talk about Solo: A Star Wars Story
01:22:18 - 01:28:30 - SRS Recommends & Outro
May 20th, 2018
Inspired by the recently released remixed version of Arrested Development's fourth season, Matt and Ed discuss instances where creators re-edited their own work, and the at times noble, at times crassly commercial, reasons behind them. They also talk about the brief, terrible cancellation of Brooklyn Nine-Nine and sift through some of the news stories that came out of Cannes over the past two weeks.
00:00:00 - 00:22:41 - Intro & News
00:22:42 - 01:00:20 - Matt & Ed discuss Directors Cuts and Arrested Development: Fateful Consequences
01:00:21 - 01:06:26 - SRS Recommends & Outro
May 14th, 2018
Returning guest Jack Rhoden joins Ed this week to talk about The League of Gentlemen, the much beloved and macabre comedy group who recently celebrated the 20th anniversary of their Perrier award win with three Christmas specials. Those episodes saw the cast return to the horrible, yet charming, then even more horrible town of Royston Vasey in order to reprise their vast array of terrifying and funny characters. Jack and Ed discuss their respective histories with the show, the work that the team has produced in the years since, and which elements of the series feel problematic in 2018 and which feel oddly timely.
May 6th, 2018
Matt and Ed discuss Netflix's Love, the romantic comedy-drama starring Gillian Jacobs and Paul Rust. In addition to praising the show's command of tone and its sprawling, surprising cast, they explore how it compares to co-creator Judd Apatow's other work, highlight the ways in which it manages to capture the feel of modern dating and Los Angeles, and its abundant supply of funny theme songs for movies that don't actually have theme songs. They also wax poetic about Childish Gambino's "This is America".
00:00:00 - 00:10:13 - Intro & News
00:10:14 - 01:03:16 - Matt & Ed discuss Love
01:03:17 - 01:11:33 - SRS Recommends & Outro
April 29th, 2018
Matt and Ed have a very SPOILER-heavy conversation about Infinity War. That's pretty much it. For the love of all that is holy, don't listen if you don't want pretty much the entire film's plot revealed. Enjoy!
April 15th, 2018
That's right: Jurassic Park turns 25 years old this year and death will come for us all. Matt and Ed discuss the legacy of Steven Spielberg's groundbreaking blockbuster, the ways in which it changed how films are made and sold, and why it became a touchstone for an entire generation (even if they don't like it as much as a lot of people do). They also dig into the Netflix-Cannes feud, the Apu controversy surrounding The Simpsons, and pay tribute to Milos Forman.
00:00:00 - 00:36:30 - Intro & News
00:36:31 - 01:15:10 - Matt & Ed discuss Jurassic Park
01:15:11 - 01:21:08 - SRS Recommends & Outro
April 8th, 2018
When it was published in 2011, Ernest Cline's Ready Player One got a fairly warm reception as a diverting mashup of pop culture, gaming, and accessible quest narrative, wrapped up in a warm, comforting blanket of nostalgia for the ephemera of the 1970s and 80s. Over the past seven years, its reputation has proven much more divisive, in part because of Cline's subsequent work, but mostly because the kind of geek culture he celebrated has become much darker and more complicated. Matt and Ed talk about all that in regards to the film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, as well as Amazon's big-budget TV gambles and the dystopian potential of Birmingham.
00:00:00 - 00:25:48 - Intro & News
00:25:49 - 01:09:15 - Matt & Ed discuss Ready Player One
01:09:16 - 01:17:06 - SRS Recommends & Outro
March 26th, 2018
Inspired by the hand-wringing over the middling performance of Red Sparrow and this tweet by Zoe Kazan, this week's episode is all about movie stars. How has movie stardom changed since the star system first took shape in the early days of Hollywood? Are there any movie stars in the traditional sense now that Hollywood is so franchise focused? Is stardom ultimately more harmful than helpful? Matt and Ed consider all of the above, as well as which recurring characters from Sex and the City they wouldn't vote for.
00:00:00 - 00:16:36 - Intro & News
00:16:37 - 01:05:12 - Matt & Ed discover Movie Stars
01:05:13 - 01:15:25 - SRS Recommends & Outro
March 11th, 2018
For their 200th episode, Matt and Ed are joined by returning guest Emily Benita for a SPOILER-rich discussion about the third season of The CW's Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, and why its depiction of mental illness (combined with amazing songs, a brilliant cast, and a remarkable tonal flexibility) make it one of the best shows on television. They also determine once and for all which way the characters from The Office would have voted in the Brexit referendum.
00:00:00 - 00:04:09 - Intro
00:04:10 - 00:39:50 - News
00:39:51 - 01:27:57 - Matt, Ed and Emily discuss Crazy Ex-Girlfriend
01:27:58 - 01:35:11 - SRS Recommends & Outro
March 4th, 2018
Following on from last year, when Ed picked the best Best Picture winners in Oscar history, Matt and Ed join forces to highlight the times when The Academy got Best Director right. Also, since the episode was recorded mere hours before this year's Oscars, they try to predict the major awards so that their foolishness can be preserved for all time.
February 25th, 2018
Inspired by some recent stories about people rediscovering ER, Frasier and Friends on streaming services, Matt and Ed spend this week's episode talking about the joy of eschewing the glut of new TV shows in order to dig into the classics, as well as what those older shows can teach us about how television, and culture more generally, have changed. They also discuss the great GQ profile of Brendan Fraser, what their great-grandparents would make of their current jobs, and the pitch for the Friends finale that Ed wrote when he was 16.
00:00:00 - 00:05:17 - Intro
00:05:18 - 00:21:11 - News
00:21:12 - 01:14:16 - Matt & Ed discuss discovering older TV shows
01:14:17 - 01:21:25 - SRS Recommends & Outro
February 21st, 2018
BONUS EPISODE!
Matt and Ed check in with Star Trek Discovery after the end of its first season. Did the series overcome Matt's inherent Star Trek skepticism? Did the show's charming cast make up for its at time rough writing? Were there too many shocking twists? Was Jesse Plemons' character in The Post an assassin? All these important and totally relevant questions are raised and answered in this episode.
February 19th, 2018
Ryan Coogler's Black Panther, the 18th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, opened last week to great reviews and record-breaking box office, so Matt and Ed sat down to discuss the cultural and social significance of the film, particularly in regards to whose stories get told by Hollywood. They also shrug at the then-freshly announced BAFTA results and decide which actors could play a "young, sexy" Churchill.
00:00:00 - 00:12:38 - Intro & News
00:12:29 - 01:00:42 - Matt & Ed discuss Black Panther
01:00:43 - 01:07:28 - SRS Recommends & Outro
February 12th, 2018
Netflix surprised everyone last Sunday when they announced that the third film in the Cloverfield franchise would be debuting on their streaming service immediately after The Big Game, despite nobody having seen it and there being no advance hype or build up. But was this a bold new approach to film distribution, or the result of Paramount, desperate to offload a bad film, finding an outlet for it? Why not both? Matt and Ed address these questions and more as they address the considerable flaws of The Cloverfield Paradox, and the greater conundrum of Netflix itself; a service which has the potential to bring films to a huge audience instantaneously, but which more often than not serves as a place where films go to be forgotten.
They also discuss the first Solo trailer and others bits of Star Wars news, get excited about the forthcoming Black Dynamite followup, and note the deaths of John Mahoney, Reg E. Cathey, and Johann Johannsson.
00:00:00 - 00:04:35 - Intro
00:04:36 - 00:38:17 - News
00:38:18 - 01:23:21 - Matt & Ed discuss The Cloverfield Paradox and Netflix more generally
01:23:22 - 01:31:16 - SRS Recommends & Outro
February 5th, 2018
The second season of The Good Place wrapped up this week, so Matt and Ed talk about why it's one of the most exciting, adventurous and moving sitcoms of all time (not to mention super funny). Be warned: there's plenty of spoilers, so best wait until you're fully up to date with The Good Place. They also discuss the New York Times article on Uma Thurman, whether Guillermo del Toro has the Best Director Oscar in the bag this year, and the surprising way in which Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle is like Titanic.
00:00:00 - 00:29:07 - Intro & News
00:29:08 - 01:08:12 - Matt & Ed discuss The Good Place. Again: SPOILERS.
01:08:13 - 01:13:31 - SRS Recommends & Outro
January 29th, 2018
The nominations for the 90th Academy Awards were announced this week, so Matt and Ed talk about the movies they were happy to see get nominated (Get Out) and the ones they weren't (Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri), as well as what the nominees say about the Oscars as an institution at a time of social upheaval and introspection. They also get mad about Peter Rabbit and mourn the deaths of Dolores O'Riordan, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Mark E. Smith.
00:00:00 - 00:04:31 - Intro
00:04:32 - 00:30:13 - News
00:30:14 - 01:21:51 - Matt & Ed discuss the 2018 Oscar Nominations (spoilers for Three Billboards from 49:00 until 01:01:30
01:21:52 - 01:28:16 - SRS Recommends & Outro
January 14th, 2018
As awards season kicks into high gear, Matt and Ed talk about who they think are the best actors working today, a discussion which inevitably gets derailed by talk about Method Acting as an exercise in performative masculinity, the ways in which critics devalue comedic performances, and Adam Driver's chest.
00:00:00 - 00:27:28 - Intro & News
00:27:28 - 01:14:51 - Matt & Ed talk about the best actors working today
01:14:52 - 01:19:20 - SRS Recommends & Outro
