First Thoughts on "Birth"
Jonathan Glazer’s Birth opens with a voice-over on a black screen, pooh-poohing the notion of reincarnation, before moving into a long, high-angle tracking...
Bonus Episode: 2004 After Show
On this week’s after show, Jason and Mike finish up a hearty title list from the lightning round, discuss Jason’s first full year as a film critic (and the...
Headlines for 2004
The UN declared 2004 the International Year of Rice, so I think we can all get behind that. In January NASA landed the Spirit and the Opportunity on Mars,...
Episode 31: 2004 with Hunter Harris
Pop culture expert, Substacker extraordinaire, and fellow flyover country escapee Hunter Harris joins Jason and Mike to talk about the Year of our Lord 2004,...
First Thoughts on "Ciao! Manhattan"
We have some history, Ciao, Manhattan! and I. This 1972 experimental film first came onto my radar when it appeared as part of a massive program of New York...
Bonus Episode: 1972 After-Show
On this, our very first after-show bonus episode, you’ll hear a rowdy, deleted conversation from our talk about 1972 with Oscar-nominated production designer...
Headlines for 1972
January 30 - the British Army killed 14 unarmed marchers in Derry, Northern Ireland. Most of our audience probably first heard about this event in the...
Episode 30: 1972 with Judy Becker
We’ve welcomed critics, authors, actors, directors, and on and on—but this week, we welcome our very first production designer, and Judy Becker is one of the...
First Thoughts on "The Fugitive Kind"
“It’s Xavier,” he mumbles. “With an X or an S?” comes the reply, and an early hint at the kind of pointed metaphors The Fugitive Kind will traffic in. No,...
Headlines for 1960
In January Jacques Piccard and Don Walsh became the first humans to reach the lowest spot on earth when they went into the Mariana trench. Keep that in your...
Episode 29: 1960 with Alexandre O. Philippe
Alexandre O. Philippe has funneled his life-long cinematic obsessions into movies of his own, which is a great gig if you can get it. I first became aware of...
First Thoughts on "Roman Scandals"
As you may have seen, we’ve just announced a new paid subscription tier. One of the perks of that tier is a weekly “headlines” post, in which Mike not only...
Headlines for 1933
As you may have seen, we’ve just announced a new paid subscription tier. One of the perks of that tier is a weekly “headlines” post, in which Mike not only...
An announcement!
Hey folks, Jason here. So we’ve been hinting at this for a while now, but we put together a video to make it official: beginning June 1, we’re offering a...
Episode 28: 1933 with Megan Abbott
Megan Abbott is one of the most prolific and acclaimed crime novelists of our time - an Edgar-award winner, and the author of The Turnout, Give Me Your Hand,...
Episode 27: 2011 with Kristen Meinzer
Kristen Meinzer was already a movie podcaster during her very good year, 2011 - when she noticed a trend of women behaving badly in mainstream movies that...
Episode 26: 1996 with Sergio Muñoz
“My god, they’re posting another SXSW episode?!?” Yes, shut up, this is the last one. Sergio has been one of my favorite people on Twitter for a while now,...
Episode 25: 1946 with Stephanie Zacharek
I initially got to know Stephanie Zacharek through her then-husband Charley Taylor, one of my professors at NYU and one of my critical heroes, as was...
One more thing for 1989!
I pulled out my copy of Spike, Mike and found the photo John mentions in the episode - taken by Janet! - of the giant Roger & Me poster next to the giant...
Episode 24: 1989 with John Pierson
It’s hard to overstate how important John Pierson’s book Spike, Mike, Slackers & Dykes was to me when it came out in the mid-1990s. I was just becoming a...
This is a soft launch!
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