What better way to celebrate election season than by watching a documentary about a partisan summer camp in Texas? At least, that's what Boys State looks like to us at first glance. We're sure it's far more nuanced than that. Since this is clearly a light release week, let's also take some time to catch up on what else the hosts have been streaming…

HBO Max is here, like it or not. Some Screeners might just be in the latter group, since they're having trouble getting access to it through no fault of their own (thanks, cable companies and Amazon!). Anyway, they've put all their eggs in Seth Rogen's basket for their first feature-length movie, An American Pickle. It's a . . . dramedy about a Jew…

We don't know what the next Oscars will look like, but if there's one awards show that should have a banner year, it's the Emmys. We've certainly had plenty of time to check out the nominees. The streaming platforms (even some of the newer ones) play an unsurprisingly large role here, so we'll have to have a little chat about whether that's warrant…

Our "best of" episodes have been a lot of fun so far, and it's been a minute since we've done one. What better decade to return with than the 90s? Sure, Chad was probably pushing middle age by then, but it's right in the childhood nostalgia sweet spot for several of the Screeners, so we should be able to find some good arguments in here somewhere. …

At under (under!) 90 minutes, Max Barbakow's Palm Springs shouldn't be too hard to make it through...unless its familiar plot devices make it insufferable. The reviews so far suggest it's worth the modest amount of time it asks for, and it does star Andy Samberg so the only question remaining is whether it gets the Screeners seal of approval. Only …

After all those months of trying to score tickets from shady scalpers and even shadier “legitimate” ticket outlets, Disney+ has finally scored us seats to Hamilton, and couch seats at that. Despite all the criticism from people who insist on getting things “accurate”, the musical has obviously been a massive hit. Does it translate to TV, though? Th…

If you listened to our review of Devs and thought, "That's great, but can't you give me something longer to watch?", we've got your back. ESPN's docuseries The Last Dance is longer than Devs by a solid 2 hours. So there. "But I don't like sports," you say. Don't worry; we've got that viewpoint covered too. We'll tell you what's up. And if that's no…

They've been saying that the summer movie season is canceled for at least a couple months now, but that's not stopping some heavy hitters from putting new work out there. This week has seen big releases from both Spike Lee and Judd Apatow. First up, Da 5 Bloods (available on Netflix) follows a squad of black soldiers from Vietnam who return to the …

Before we get into our regularly scheduled reviews for this episode, we want to take a moment to acknolwedge the tremendous amount of pain that's come to the surface in America (and elsewhere) over the past 2 weeks. As a bunch of white people on a media podcast, we're not going to try to offer any answers, but we also don't want to sit in silence w…

If there's ever been a summer that the Screeners should have some content for a What Have You Been Watching segment, it's this one. So let's go ahead lead off with that. Next, Paramount's The Lovebirds is currently the top movie on Netflix. We're not sure if that's an indication of quality per se, but Netflix did need a comedy/romance co-starring K…

Seems like most of the Screeners are either lazy or...too not-lazy, so we only have two hosts this time. Well, two plus a very special guest—we won't tell you who it is, but you won't want to miss their review. Two hosts means a pretty quick episode, but we'll be talking about Scoob! — mostly because there's an exclamation point in its title — and …

With both a movie and a season of TV on the schedule for this episode, we have no shortage of content to cover. You'll have to bear with us, though; it's a little heavy on the HBO. We can't help it—if you've got the goods, you've got 'em. First up, a not-so-quick discussion: Universal has discovered they can make money streaming their movies. Who k…

Extraction. Chris Hemsworth's in it. All the cool kids are watching it, and we know at least April couldn't wait to review it. By the end of the episode, you should be able to tell if it's worth your somewhat-less-scarce-than-before streaming time, or if we should only let Jason Statham do action movies. But that's not all! Reese Witherspoon is bac…

In these trying times, we need...escapist content, and lots of it. Movies usually only last a couple hours unless we're talking Scorcese or Jackson, and that's just not enough. How about a TV series? FX has one of those, and it's made by the Ex Machina guy and has Nick Offerman in it. Those are good enough reasons, right? Right. Let's talk about De…

You may have heard about an upstart streaming service called Quibi—at least, you probably have if you watched the Super Bowl. It's an entire platform built around the premise that people often only have 10 minutes or less at a time to consume media. When we pitched this idea to our our sweatpants drawer, it said, "Well, bless their hearts", but we'…

There are many possible reasons for the sudden overwhelming popularity of Netflix’s Tiger King docu-series. Perhaps the most likely is that Netflix is hard-selling it everywhere—including, as we found out the other night, after the last episode of The Crown, despite the unlikelihood of that particular binge-watch combo. Maybe it’s the cute little k…

Now that so many of us are looking at an extended staycation, the Screeners thought it would be a good time for a prequel to our Best of the 2010s episode. Why review one movie when we can review 28? The real problem, of course, is what to call the decade we’re talking about. “The aughts” is too 20th-century, “the two thousands” takes too long to s…

As you might have noticed, life is...different right now, and media is changing along with everything else. We have one more theatrical review for you—Disney’s Onward, but it seems like the only question will be “should you stream this once it’s on Disney+?” since you probably shouldn’t go to the theater by the time this episode is released. Thanks…

Fans of horror movies and reboots rejoice! This episode’s main feature is Blumhouse Productions and Leigh Whannel’s reimagining of The Invisible Man. The filme stars Elizabeth Moss, so you sort of know it’s going to be a departure from the H.G. Wells novel that is its namesake, but maybe that’s a good thing. Guess you’ll have to listen to find out.…

There weren’t any compelling big releases this weekend, so the Screeners (including a couple estranged friends!) have decided to huddle around their mics and talk about what’s been on their own screens, big and small, recently. Netflix, networks, movies—we’ve got ‘em all, and we’re not afraid to make fun of them. And since we have five—count ‘em, F…

And the 2020 Oscars wager award goes to...just kidding; you’ll have to listen to find out. There definitely was a winner, though; we’re almost sure of that. You may have noticed that first paragraph was fairly short. That’s because we had to save space for the title of the movie we’re reviewing this episode. Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emanc…

We’re less than a week away from the 92nd Academy Awards, and with so much credibility on the line, you knew the Screeners would have to get together one final time to second-guess each other and maybe even convince themselves to change their own picks. Can Daniel be talked out of anything? Probably not, but stranger things have happened. If you wa…

In case you hadn’t noticed, we’ve switched decades! If that’s not an excuse to do another look back/best-of episode, we don’t know what is. Ten years is a lot of ground to cover, but the Screeners have trained for this. We’ll not only cover each host’s top 10 (or top 1, for the less talkative hosts among us) movies, but also: Best in genere (from a…

It’s been nearly seventeen(!) years since the last Bad Boys movie, and Will Smith and Martin Lawrence are not what you’d typically call “boys” anymore (OK, if we’re being honest, they were decidedly post-adolescent for the last one too). That has not stopped the long-awaited Bad Boys III (now Bad Boys for Life) from finally being shot and released,…

At Screeners HQ, we practice not so much a “new year, new you” lifestyle as a “new year, new retrospective” one. Yes, you could accuse us of looking forward by looking back, but this podcast is about movies, not armchair psychology, so...there? Anyway, we’ll be covering our standard fare: Top 10 movies of 2019 Most disappointing movie of 2019 Film …

From one awards show to another. The 2020 Oscar nominations have been announced, so you know Daniel’s going to have a few things to say. The others might even get a couple words in too. Tune into this bonus episode to see how everyone’s feeling about their awards brackets, and what snubs annoyed them most. And when you’re done listening, start talk…

This year’s Golden Globe Awards were just handed out, and in case you haven’t been on Twitter lately, we’re not going to spoil Ricky Gervais’ monologue here. Let’s just say that the other celebrities who made it to the mic were a little more...complimentary of the industry. We have some commentary on the awards too, of course, but Gervais either st…

Little Women may have been the 19th century equivalent of a supermarket novel, but its staying power is pretty indisputable. We’re on film adaptation number 7 so far, and this one might be the best one yet, if you listen to the critics. Will the Screeners agree? Speaking of big-screen adaptations of classic novels, there are enough of those for a T…

Most people might be spending time with their families right about now, but the Screeners aren’t most people. There’s a new Star Wars movie (Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, to be annoyingly precise), so of course we saw it, and of course our Christmas gift to you is a review of this third-longest Star Wars film. There’s probably not much more to …

Winter is the season for dramas, and Honey Boy is no exception. It’s of course more dramatic when you learn it’s a true story, so we thought we’d ask a couple Screeners to bare their own souls about their childhoods, and...OK; we didn’t do that. We are going to review the movie, though, and we probably won’t even mention Transformers once (mostly b…

We’re definitely in the middle of the Christmas season here in the US, but the Screeners keep ignoring Josh as he begs everyone to be patriotic and review some Hallmark movies like God intended. Instead, we’re talking about Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story this time. The movie features Adam Driver, whom you may remember from a recent Amazon movie abo…

The first Screeners episode of December is anything but short on content—the two movies we’re reviewing represent nearly 6 hours of total runtime. That’s not stopping the critics from gushing about either of them, but this is our show, so we’ll get the final word, thanks. Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman, now on Netflix after a short run in the theat…

When the Screeners have two reviews in a single episode, it’s pretty rare that they have anything to do with each other. Well, this is the exception that proves the rule. Our theme this episode is...um...”kids”. No, they’re not both kids’ movies per se, but they’re at least about family-friendly entertainment, so we’ll take what we can get. You kno…

Thrill ride or not, it would seem that most of the Screeners didn’t, um, race to the theater to see Ford v Ferrari. Guess they just live their lives in the slow lane. They should get into gear and go see the movie. Just kidding; we had a few more scheduling conflicts than normal for this episode—and yes, we’ll stop with the clichés, since you asked…

Parasite, despite its subtitles, is a social media darling. Is it a thriller? A mystery? A dark comedy? Yes. So go to the theater and do some reading; at least you’ll be able to keep up with the memes. That’s not all, though; we have news from a much more lucrative franchise to discuss. Disney’s new streaming service, Disney+, is live now, and it b…

Sarah Connor is back, but that doesn’t seem to be helping Terminator: Dark Fate at the box office. In fact, it’s a bit of a bomb so far. That’s never stopped the Screeners from reviewing a movie before—but even more disappointing than the ticket sales is the fact that Chris couldn’t be here for this episode. Surely Arnold doesn’t have a chance for …

It looks like October is turning into Netflix Month on the Screeners. We just got done talking about El Camino, and since then, two — two! — more big releases have hit all the streaming devices near you. For this episode, we’ll be taking on Dolemite Is My Name and The Laundromat. Before we do, though, audience participation time: If you had to gues…

We’re not sure whether Aaron Paul or Vince Gilligan just needed some cash, or whether it was Netflix’s version of Skynet that came up with the idea for El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, but the title sort of puts the odds in favor of the computer. Whatever its provenance, though, it’s ready to stream now, and there’s a chance it’s the best new relea…

The new Batman movie isn’t really a Batman movie, but it’s definitely getting attention. Whether that attention (and Joker itself) is good or bad all depends on your perspective. We won’t take any position here; there will be plenty of time to do that in the episode. We have four hosts for this one, another who saw it but couldn’t make the recordin…

Goldfinch may have been the first hint, but fall is definitely here now. Lined up (or “queued up”, as they say across the pond) for this episode, we have an intimate space drama starring Brad Pitt and a grand period drama starring...England. As we write this, Downton Abbey actually has a one-point edge on Ad Astra in terms of Rotten Tomatoes score,…

If you heard the results of the Screeners’ box office wager, you know that Daniel was...less than pleased. Turns out he was so unhappy that he’s invented another contest just to redeem himself. This time, we’ll be picking Oscar nominees. The rules are similar to those for the box office wager, but Daniel has doctored them in his favor. Also: Money …

Summer is still alive and well on the calendar (and the thermometer), but the summer box office race is officially over, so it’s time to pay the piper. Who will take home the 2019 Box Office Wager crown? ...what’s that? Of course there’s an actual crown! This contest means something, you know. The winner gets to...to...look; it’s important, alright…

It seems like just yesterday that we reviewed It, but turns out it’s been, like, 2 years since It was released. It’s funny how it works, you know — sometimes it seems like time moves so slowly, but then you think about it, and it’s been over 30 years since It first happened. It comes and goes as it pleases, it seems. OK, it’s probably time to stop …

Ready or Not isn’t exactly a summer blockbuster by normal box office standards, but it’s already earned twice its budget, so that’s something, right? It’s a horror comedy that uses a wedding dress as a murder weapon to kill rich people, so that has to at least be worth a Screenes review. And while we’re talking about murder, Netflix’s Mindhunter is…

Everything comes in at least a pair in Hollywood, and this year’s novelty seems to be the classic rock ‘n’ roll montage set in England. First we had the Beatles bonanza that was Yesterday, and now there’s the Springsteen retrospective of Blinded by the Light. The dive into the catalogs of music greats is just the gimmick of these movies, though; th…

It’s August. It’s hot, and the studios don’t seem to be doing all that much to convince us to brave the walk from our cars to the theater. What better time to review all the things you can watch at home that we haven’t had time to talk about yet? And once we’re done with the small army of mini-reviews, the Screeners look to the future with a Top 3 …

After the insanity that was the last Fast & Furious movie, what could they possibly think of next? If you said “they join the Space Force”, we applaud your creativity—that’s what we would have done, too—but apparently that’s not the answer. The answer is “turn Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham into a comedy duo” and name the movie like it’s some kin…

Quentin Tarantino’s back for movie number 9, and whether or not you believe he’ll really retire after 10, you know the Screeners couldn’t pass up an opportunity to annoy Josh by talking about Once Upon a Time ... in Hollywood. Maybe he’ll even show up to take the abuse. And while we’re at it, why not just make the Top 3 about Tarantino too? That sh…

Comic-Con’s just wrapping up in San Diego, so now’s the perfect time to talk about all the hottest new trailers. Maybe we’ll even find out about Tyler’s latest cosplaying adventure. OK; we’ll talk about The Little Mermaid in due time, we promise. For now, though, Disney has remade an even bigger property in full live-ish action glory. These things …

The third season of Netflix’s Stranger Things is live now, and instead of going to Burger King to participate in a questionable marketing campaign, why not listen to the Screeners’ take on the latest episodes? Guest host Curtis Templeton from nostalgia tour de force Beyond the Backlot is here to contribute his two cents, so this is sure to be a goo…