Critical Darlings

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.


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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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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