Message Dan and Mike

We're back with part two of our San Diego Comic-Con recap, picking up where we left off on day two and carrying through to our final thoughts on the whole experience. This time we get into the chaos of Hall H, including a wristband standoff that turned into a two-hour, half-mile trek around the building just to get denied entry — twice. We also break down the panels that delivered and the ones that didn't: Lanterns surprised us with how much footage HBO was willing to show, the Spaceballs panel gave us a genuinely fun hour with Josh Gad, Rick Moranis, and Daphne Zuniga, and Collider's Showrunners on Showrunning brought out heavy hitters like Greg Daniels and Damon Lindelof. On the flip side, the Simpsons panel turned out to be one of the biggest letdowns of the weekend, with no voice cast in sight — though the one clip they did show us, imagining a world where Homer and Marge never met, ended up being a genuine highlight.

We also talk about a memorable, unplanned panel with Ashley Eckstein, our In-N-Out Burger verdict after years without a real hamburger, and the strange logistics failures that plagued the entire convention, from the trolley system to a parking garage that seemed built for a fraction of the actual crowd. Along the way we cover some of our favorite cosplay of the trip, a touching moment with Sergeant Slaughter in the autograph line, and the small personal wins that made the trip worth it, including meeting Judith O'Dea and catching wind of the Johnny Depp Ebenezer Scrooge reveal that had the internet buzzing all week.

We close things out with an honest, no-holds-barred recommendation on whether Comic-Con is actually worth attending, plus a look ahead at the box office moment we're in right now, with the Odyssey and Spider-Man both performing well and Avengers on the horizon. It's a candid, occasionally chaotic wrap-up of a trip that gave us plenty to talk about.

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We're back from our first San Diego Comic-Con with press credentials, and this episode kicks off a two-part recap of the entire experience. Part one covers our arrival, the scramble to find the convention center on San Diego's trolley system, and the reality check that comes with picking up press badges for the first time. We also take a detour to Seaport Village for tacos and a beer with a view of the harbor, then head north to UC San Diego for a surprise highlight of the trip: Shredding the Multiverse, a concert reimagining television and film scores from shows like Cobra Kai, Spider-Man, and The Penguin with a full orchestra and rock energy.

From there we walk through preview night, our first real taste of the exhibit hall, complete with two-hour lines, an ocean of vendors, and a candid discussion about what press credentials do and don't actually get you at a con this size. We get into a few Comic-Con-brain moments (yes, we coin the term), some sibling bickering about San Diego weather, and a genuinely strange arcade cabinet encounter that turns into its own little subplot.

The back half of the episode dives into two of our favorite panels from day one. First, a look at the upcoming Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, opening in Los Angeles this September, and why it's a celebration of storytelling and visual art far beyond just Star Wars. Then we sit in on Brad Bird's career retrospective panel, tracing his path from The Iron Giant and The Incredibles to Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol and his surprising, nearly two-hundred-episode history with The Simpsons. Bird also previews his new animated sci-fi noir series Ray Gun and drops a small but exciting update on the status of Incredibles 3.

It's an exhausting, funny, occasionally chaotic first day, and we haven't even gotten to Hall H yet. That's coming in part two, along with days two and three of the convention. Thanks for riding along with us on our first Comic-Con as press, sore feet and all.

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We're reviewing John Cassavetes' Opening Night (1977), starring Gena Rowlands, as part of our dive into the Criterion box set of five Cassavetes films. This is a filmmaker some call the father of independent cinema, and we get into why he had to finance his own work, act in other people's movies to bankroll his next project, and watch this one bomb so badly on release that the studio pulled it from theaters.

We talk through the film's play-within-a-play structure, the way Cassavetes shoots actors slipping in and out of character backstage, and the ambiguity at the center of the story: is the young fan who dies early in the film a real ghost haunting Rowlands' character, or a figment of her imagination as she confronts getting older? We land in different places on that question, and we get into why Cassavetes never spells it out for the audience.

We also spend some time on Rowlands herself, tracing one brother's first exposure to her through Gloria back in 1980 without even realizing Cassavetes directed it, and talking about how she and Cassavetes never won a competitive Oscar despite being nominated multiple times between them. Ben Gazzara, Joan Blondell, and a scene-stealing cameo from Peter Falk all come up, along with a tangent on Cassavetes' work with Kubrick-adjacent actors and comparisons to other directors who financed their own films outside the studio system.

Before we get into the review, we also talk about our upcoming trip to San Diego Comic-Con, where we'll have press credentials for the first time. We're already deep into schedule chaos trying to figure out how to cover a five-day, eighty-plus-page event as first-timers, so expect a recap episode when we're back.

If you've been meaning to start exploring Cassavetes and don't know where to begin, we make the case for Opening Night as an entry point, and let you know the whole five-film Criterion box set is currently half off.

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Rocky turns 50 this December, and Sylvester Stallone just turned 80 — so we're marking both with our very first Stallone review. A broke, unknown actor with bit parts in mob films turned down nearly $400,000 from the studio, wrote the script in three days, and sold his own dog to make the one movie he refused to let anyone else star in.

We get into the guerrilla filmmaking behind it: a budget under a million dollars, a 28-day shoot, no permits, tarps hauled in to fake the Philadelphia skyline in New York, and a training montage stitched together from footage grabbed wherever they could get it. We talk about the producers mortgaging their homes to finish the film, the choreographers who walked off over how the fights were staged, and Stallone ultimately taking the choreography credit himself. We also cover the film's two Godfather connections through Talia Shire and Joe Spinell, the legacy of Burgess Meredith, Carl Weathers, and Burt Young, and how Rocky beat out a stacked 1976 Best Picture field that included Taxi Driver, Network, and All the President's Men.

Whether you've seen Rocky fifty times or somehow never seen it, we make the case for why it still holds up as one of the most complete films ever made. Come for the trivia, stay for the argument about whether this is truly a perfect movie.

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We saw Supergirl opening weekend and couldn't disagree more. Dan's defending it. Mike thinks it's one of the worst films he's seen in years. No fence-sitting — just a real debate about whether Craig Gillespie's DCU origin story actually works.

We break down Milly Alcock's performance as Kara Zor-El, the galactic revenge story adapted from Tom King's Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, Jason Momoa's Lobo and what his presence actually adds (or doesn't), villain Krem (Matthias Schoenaerts) and whether he lands, the late arrival of the suit, the Krypton lore that's already dividing DC fans, and what David Corenswet's Superman cameo contributes. We also get into the box office disappointment, the mixed critical reception, and whether any of that should change how you feel walking into the theater.

Did the DCU get its Supergirl right? Let us know where you stand.

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Four months ago we did a first look on Project Hail Mary and walked away genuinely excited. Now that we've seen it — Dan nearly three times, Mike once — we're ready to give it a full review.

Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist moonlighting as a middle school teacher who wakes up alone in deep space, no memory intact, on what amounts to a suicide mission to save Earth from extinction. The film is dense and ambitious, and once it finds its footing — roughly an hour in when Grace meets the alien life form Rocky — it becomes something pretty special.

We talk about what Lord and Miller pulled off here given the scope of the production, Gosling's continued growth as one of the most versatile actors working today, and the inspired work from puppeteer James Ortiz and his team of five (the Rocketeers) in bringing Rocky to life. We also get into the book-to-film changes, the runtime debate (the first cut was reportedly three and a half hours), cinematographer Greig Fraser's contributions, Sandra Hüller's Eva Stratt, and an unexpected Meryl Streep cameo that earns its laughs.

We draw comparisons to The Martian, weigh in on the ratings discrepancy between Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and debate whether a sequel is even a good idea. Dan recommends it. Mike calls it a great family film. We both agree it could have been tightened.

Project Hail Mary is streaming now on MGM+/Amazon Prime Video and may still be playing in select theaters near you.

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Message Dan and Mike

We finally got Dan in front of Cool Hand Luke for the first time, and this one did not disappoint. The 1967 Stuart Rosenberg film stars Paul Newman as Lucas Jackson — a decorated, easygoing war veteran who ends up on a Florida chain gang and absolutely refuses to be broken. It's a simple premise with a whole lot going on underneath it.

We dig into what makes the film work, starting with Paul Newman's performance, which is somehow both understated and completely magnetic. George Kennedy won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Dragline — and we get into the wild behind-the-scenes story of how he paid $5,000 out of pocket to a consulting firm just to get his name in front of Oscar voters. It worked. His only Oscar, but it paid dividends for the rest of his career.

We also talk about Strother Martin as Captain and Morgan Woodward as Boss Godfrey — a character who says nothing the entire film and still manages to be one of the most menacing screen villains either of us has seen. The supporting cast is stacked with actors who weren't famous yet: Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, and a young Rance Howard (Ron Howard's father) all make appearances.

The conversation covers the film's obvious spiritual imagery — the crucifixion pose after the egg-eating scene, the cross-shaped road in the final aerial shot, the Christ-like arc of Luke's story. We also trace the film's clear influence on what came after it: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, First Blood, The Shawshank Redemption — you can draw a straight line from Cool Hand Luke to all of them.

On the craft side, the cinematography by Conrad Hall is remarkable — this is the same DP who later won Oscars for Road to Perdition and American Beauty. And Lalo Schifrin's score, which became so ubiquitous it ended up as the theme for ABC Nightly News, gets its due as well.

100% on Rotten Tomatoes. 92 Metacritic. In the Library of Congress. If you haven't seen it, this one's a must.

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Message Dan and Mike

We're two episodes into Apple TV+'s new adaptation of Cape Fear, and we have some thoughts. The series, which dropped its first two episodes on June 5th, stars Javier Bardem as Max Cady, Amy Adams as attorney Anna Bowden, and Patrick Wilson as her husband Tom — a family now living under the shadow of a man they may have wronged. Scorsese and Spielberg are both on board as executive producers, which raises the bar considerably.

We came in with full knowledge of the source material. Mike read John D. McDonald's original novel, and both films — the 1962 version with Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck, and Scorsese's 1991 remake with Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte — are part of the conversation throughout. What we were hoping to see is a reimagining that earns its place alongside those films. What we got, at least in these first two episodes, is something we're still trying to make sense of.

The issues start early. Javier Bardem's portrayal of Max Cady lacks the menace that both Mitchum and De Niro brought to the role in very different ways. His introduction at the fundraiser gala — rambling speech, handed the microphone without hesitation, no security in sight — was hard to take seriously. The violence skews gratuitous in a way that feels less like intensity and more like a substitute for it. There are subplots involving the teenage son, an online chat that's clearly not what it seems, and a mysterious masked figure in a green trench coat that we couldn't make heads or tails of. The series also appears to be steering toward a version of events where Max Cady may actually be innocent — which, if true, is a significant departure from everything that makes this story work.

We also noticed an Easter egg worth mentioning: Wesley Strick, who wrote the screenplay for the '91 film, shows up in a cameo as an ER doctor.

We're essentially split after two episodes — one of us is out, the other is holding on to see what episode three brings. We'll check in again if the series turns things around — and if you don't see another Cape Fear episode on the channel, that's probably your answer.

If you've seen the films, read the book, or are watching the series yourself, we want to hear from you — especially if you're a Javier Bardem fan and think he's bringing something to the role we're not seeing yet.

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