Movie HighLow

Afleveringen

• 
  SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018) | Understands Spider-Man Better Than Any Other Movie (High) 31.07.2026 22min

  We went High on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and honestly, this might be the easiest High we have done in a while. Not because there is nothing to talk about, but because the movie knows exactly what it is doing. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) is not just a great animated superhero movie. It is the best Spider-Man movie because it understands Spider-Man as an idea: anyone can wear the mask, everyone gets knocked down, and nobody knows they are ready until they jump. That is what makes this movie feel so fresh. It takes one of the most rebooted, reworked, overexposed characters in pop culture and somehow makes him feel brand new without betraying what Spider-Man means. Miles Morales is not a gimmick, a replacement, or a remix for the sake of it. He is the perfect way into the story because his whole journey is about realizing that being Spider-Man is not about being Peter Parker. It is about choosing to get back up. In this episode, we revisit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman, and talk about why it still feels like such a major turning point for superhero movies and animated films. Written by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman, the movie stars Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy, Mahershala Ali as Uncle Aaron, Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis, Luna Lauren Vélez as Rio Morales, Liev Schreiber as Kingpin, and Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir. That is a stacked cast, but the movie never feels overcrowded. Somehow, it throws the whole Spider-Man toy box at the screen and keeps the emotional center completely clear. The biggest thing we talk about is the movie’s three core themes. The first is the most obvious: anyone can wear the mask. That line could have been corny, but the movie earns it. Miles is a Brooklyn kid dealing with school, parents, expectations, awkwardness, fear, and the terrifying realization that he has been handed a responsibility he does not know how to carry. The randomness of the Spider-Man origin matters. A normal kid gets bitten, gets power, and has to decide what kind of person he is going to be. The second theme is that whatever you are going through, someone else understands. That is why the multiverse works so well here. In a lot of modern superhero stories, the multiverse feels like a machine for references and cameos. In Into the Spider-Verse, it is a machine for empathy. Miles thinks he is alone, and then the universe literally breaks open to show him that he is not. Peter B. Parker, Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker, and Spider-Ham are all different, but they share the same loss, weirdness, isolation, and responsibility. They all know what it feels like to be the only one, until they realize they are not. The third theme is the one that makes the movie really land: Spider-Man always gets back up. We talk about how the movie uses that idea over and over until it becomes the emotional spine of the story. The final fight, with Miles down and his father yelling, “Get up, Spider-Man,” works because the whole movie has been building to that moment. It is not about whether Miles is strong enough. It is about whether he can believe he is ready before anyone can prove it to him. We also spend a lot of time on the animation, because this movie looks incredible. It does not just look like animation inspired by comic books. It looks like a comic book came alive: halftone dots, paneling, motion smears, texture, color, frame-rate choices, and images that feel printed instead of polished into plastic. The style has become more common since, but this movie still feels like the one that blew the doors open. The heart of the episode, though, is the relationship between Miles Morales and Peter B. Parker. Middle-aged, divorced, sweatpants Spider-Man is a perfect idea, but the movie is smart enough not to turn him into a bitter joke. Peter B. is tired, out of shape, and
• 
  GHOSTBUSTERS (2016) | IP Karaoke (Low) 24.07.2026 29min

  We went Low on Ghostbusters (2016), but not for the reason the internet spent a decade screaming about. The problem was never that women were the Ghostbusters. Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones are all funny performers, and there is absolutely a version of this cast that could have worked. The problem is that this movie never feels like it has a strong reason to exist beyond the fact that Ghostbusters is a valuable brand. That is the real issue we keep coming back to in this episode. Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters does not feel like a movie made from love, enthusiasm, or a killer comic idea. It feels like intellectual property karaoke: a studio taking a song everyone already knows, handing the mic to talented people, and hoping recognition will do half the work. The result is not offensive so much as frustratingly forgettable. It has proton packs, ghosts, slime, cameos, the logo, the car, and the song, but very little of what made the original stick. Main Discussion In this episode, we finally watched Ghostbusters (2016), directed by Paul Feig and released in 2016, after talking about Bridesmaids the week before. That comparison matters, because a lot of the same creative energy that works beautifully in Bridesmaids works against this movie. Bridesmaids thrives on looseness, riffing, escalation, and performers finding comedy inside emotionally clear scenes. Ghostbusters tries to use a similar improvisational approach, but this is a bigger genre machine. It needs a stronger spine. The movie follows Erin Gilbert, played by Kristen Wiig, who is trying to be taken seriously in academia when an old paranormal book reconnects her with Abby Yates, played by Melissa McCarthy. Abby is working with eccentric engineer Jillian Holtzmann, played by Kate McKinnon, and eventually the team is joined by Patty Tolan, played by Leslie Jones, an MTA worker with a deep knowledge of New York history. Together, they uncover supernatural activity tied to Rowan, a lonely hotel janitor trying to open a portal between the living and the dead. That sounds like enough for a fun sci-fi horror comedy, but the movie never really builds momentum. We talk a lot about the baggage this movie carried before it even came out. Fans had spent years hearing rumors about a real Ghostbusters 3 with the original team. Then Harold Ramis passed away in 2014, and that version of the dream died with him. When this reboot arrived with a new cast, new continuity, and no real continuation of the original story, it was always going to face resistance. The discourse around the movie got ugly fast, and we do not excuse the sexist, racist, or misogynistic backlash. But we also think that backlash created a shield around the movie, where it became harder to say the simpler truth: the movie just did not look very good, and then it was not very good. You cannot guilt people into liking a blockbuster. You have to make it undeniable. There are highs, though. The biggest is Kate McKinnon as Holtzmann, who comes closest to creating something that feels new and specific to this version. She has the energy of a lab goblin in goggles, a mad scientist who may or may not understand normal human behavior. The Pringles “salty parabolas” line, the mannequin bit, the gun lick, the sideways delivery, all of that gives the movie some actual comic texture. The problem is that Holtzmann is mostly a vibe. She is funny to watch, but the movie never gives her a real arc or builds anything around her. We also talk about Chris Hemsworth as Kevin, the impossibly beautiful and impossibly stupid receptionist. There is a funny inversion in taking Thor and making him the bimbo secretary, and Hemsworth commits to the bit. The “Michael Hat” joke works, and some of the physical comedy lands. But even that joke gets pushed too far. Kevin starts as a funny reversal and slowly becomes another sketch character the movie keeps returning to without enough variation. The real Low is t
• 
  BRIDESMAIDS (2011) | Friendship, Failure, and Food Poisoning (High) 17.07.2026 26min

  We went High on Bridesmaids, because this is the kind of studio comedy we just do not get enough of anymore. It is loud, gross, awkward, emotional, over-the-top, and built around the kind of female friendship that movies still do not explore as often as they should. Bridesmaids (2011) is not just “women doing a Hangover.” That undersells what makes it work. This is a movie about watching your best friend move into a new phase of life while your own life is actively falling apart. That is the real engine of the movie. Annie Walker, played by Kristen Wiig, is not simply jealous that Lillian is getting married. She is grieving the version of their friendship where she was the first call, the default person, the one who mattered most. The wedding is the MacGuffin. The actual story is what happens when adulthood starts pulling a friendship apart, and one person is not ready to let go. In this episode, we revisit Bridesmaids, directed by Paul Feig and written by Kristen Wiig and Annie Mumolo, as one of the last great mid-budget studio comedies of its era. It came out in 2011, right near the end of a run where movies like this could still become huge cultural events: big cast, big set pieces, quotable lines, emotional core, and enough room for performers to actually play. The movie stars Kristen Wiig as Annie, Maya Rudolph as Lillian, Rose Byrne as Helen, Melissa McCarthy as Megan, Wendi McLendon-Covey as Rita, Ellie Kemper as Becca, Jon Hamm as Ted, and Chris O’Dowd as Rhodes. That cast is loaded, and the movie knows how to use them. It has the rhythm of sketch comedy, the looseness of the Judd Apatow comedy era, and the emotional structure of a friendship breakup movie. What makes Bridesmaids special is that it treats female friendship with the same insecurity and arrested development that male friendship comedies had been mining for decades. Annie and Lillian are not polished movie-women sipping wine and dispensing life advice. They are goofy. They put chocolate on their teeth in a restaurant. They do weird voices. They make each other laugh in the way only people with years of shared history can. The movie needs that early coffee shop scene because it proves the friendship before Helen shows up and starts threatening it. Helen, played perfectly by Rose Byrne, is one of the smartest parts of the movie. On the surface, she is Annie’s nightmare: rich, composed, elegant, socially polished, and seemingly designed in a lab to replace her. But the episode gets into how Helen is not just a villain. She is lonely too. Her perfect life is a performance, and by the end, when she admits she does not really have female friends and barely sees her husband, the movie lets her become human instead of just leaving her as the rich mean-girl obstacle. Then there is Melissa McCarthy as Megan, which is still one of the funniest breakout comedy performances of the 2010s. It is easy to forget now how fresh that performance felt at the time, because so many later movies tried to turn McCarthy into some version of Megan again. But here, it works because Megan is not just random chaos. She ends up having the clearest emotional function in the movie. When Annie is at her lowest, Megan is the one who tells her the truth. She does not coddle her. She calls her out. “You’re your problem, Annie. And you’re also your solution.” That is real friendship. We also spend a lot of time on the movie’s set pieces, because Bridesmaids has several all-timers. The engagement party speech scene is brilliant because it keeps going past the point of comfort. Annie and Helen keep taking the microphone, escalating the emotional warfare, and the longer it lasts, the funnier and more painful it gets. The food poisoning dress fitting is probably the scene most people remember, and for good reason. It is gross, obviously, but it is not just gross to prove that women can do bodily-function comedy too. The joke has structure. Helen refuses the sketchy restaurant food, ev
• 
  HOOK (1991) | Spielberg at Sentimentality Overload (Low) 09.07.2026 36min

  On this week's Movie HighLow, we went Low on Hook, but this is one of those Lows that comes with a lot of affection. We love so much of this movie. We love Robin Williams as Peter Banning slowly finding his way back to Peter Pan. We love Dustin Hoffman chewing through every syllable as Captain Hook. We love Rufio, Smee, the Lost Boys, the practical Neverland sets, the John Williams score, and the fact that this movie has lived rent-free in the heads of an entire generation. The problem is that Hook (1991) is not lacking magic. It has too much of it. This is Steven Spielberg turned all the way up: big feelings, big music, big sets, big reaction shots, big sentimental buttons on top of other sentimental buttons. The heart of the movie works. Sometimes it works beautifully. But then Spielberg keeps underlining it, circling it, adding one more speech, one more tear, one more “Mommy,” one more floating old man, until the movie starts giving itself a toothache. In this episode, we revisit Hook, directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 1991, as a movie that feels almost impossible to judge cleanly. It is technically a Low, but it is also a movie with images, performances, and emotional beats that still absolutely work. The big argument is that Hook could have been close to a perfect kids’ adventure movie if someone had been willing to trim the fat. The setup is strong: Peter Banning, played by Robin Williams, is a work-obsessed corporate lawyer who has forgotten that he was once Peter Pan. He misses his son Jack’s baseball game, takes business calls during his daughter Maggie’s play, and treats family time like an interruption. When Captain Hook kidnaps his children and drags him back to Neverland, Peter has to rediscover imagination, play, and the part of himself he abandoned when he grew up. That idea is great. It is simple, emotional, and very Spielberg. The movie works best when it connects Peter becoming Pan again with Peter becoming a better father. The scene where Moira, played by Caroline Goodall, tells Peter that his children still want to play with him but will not want that forever is one of the best scenes in the film. Watching it as a parent makes it hit even harder. It is not just a speech about “work less, love your kids more.” It is about how quickly childhood disappears while adults are busy convincing themselves that everything else is urgent. We also spend a lot of time on the things Hook gets absolutely right. Rufio, played by Dante Basco, is the biggest High. He was created for this movie, but he feels instantly iconic: the hair, the chant, the rivalry with Peter, the moment he kneels and gives the sword back. He makes complete sense as the teenager the Lost Boys would rally around after Pan disappeared. His death still hits, maybe too hard, but the character himself is one of the movie’s great inventions. Bob Hoskins as Smee is another huge High. Every time he shows up, the movie gets funnier. He and Hoffman have a perfect rhythm together, and Hoffman’s Captain Hook might be the definitive live-action version of the character for a lot of people who grew up with this movie. He is theatrical, pathetic, vain, dangerous, funny, and totally obsessed with the rematch he has been waiting decades to get. The Lost Boys scenes are where Hook feels most alive. Their practical sets, basketball courts, skate ramps, ragtag costumes, and late ’80s / early ’90s energy give Neverland a tactile quality that would probably be flattened into green-screen sludge today. We talk about how the sets look like sets, but in a way that works. Neverland feels like a giant playground built out of memory, fantasy, and production design money. And then there are the three scenes we think are almost perfect. The Moira speech. The “Oh, there you are, Peter” scene, where Pockets stretches Peter’s face until he sees the boy underneath. And the imaginary dinner scene, where Peter finally learns to play again and the empty plates fi
• 
  JAWS (1975) | Less Is More (High) 03.07.2026 35min

  We went High on Jaws, because of course we did. But the reason Jaws (1975) still works is not just “the shark is scary.” The shark is barely in the first half of the movie. What makes Steven Spielberg’s Jaws an American classic is restraint: character, geography, patience, silence, dread, and the confidence to let the audience imagine more than the movie actually shows. That is the whole argument of this episode. Jaws became the modern blockbuster, but what modern blockbusters often forget is that this movie is not great because it is big. It is great because it knows exactly when to be small. The broken shark did not ruin the movie. It saved it. Spielberg had to withhold the monster, shoot from its point of view, lean on John Williams’ score, and build suspense out of what we cannot see. Limitation forced creativity, and the result is one of the most perfectly constructed thrillers ever made. In this episode, we revisit Jaws, directed by Steven Spielberg and released in 1975, as the movie that changed summer movies forever while also teaching a lesson Hollywood mostly misunderstood. It stars Roy Scheider as Police Chief Martin Brody, Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper, Robert Shaw as Quint, Lorraine Gary as Ellen Brody, and Murray Hamilton as Mayor Larry Vaughn. Yes, it is a shark movie. But more importantly, it is a movie about a town, a family, a local economy, fear, denial, responsibility, and three men who all understand the shark differently. We start with the thing everyone knows: the John Williams Jaws theme. There is no way to talk about this movie without talking about those two notes. But what we focus on is how simple the theme is, and why that simplicity matters. The shark is not a complicated villain. It swims. It eats. It keeps coming. The music becomes the shark’s identity long before we actually see the creature. It is not overworked or overexplained. It is primal, repetitive, and inevitable. That simplicity carries into Spielberg’s direction. We talk a lot about Jaws as a “less is more” movie, especially compared to the kind of overstuffed spectacle that followed in its wake. Spielberg does not show the shark too early. He builds Amity Island first: the beach, the politics, the holiday weekend, the local business panic, the normal rhythms of a community that does not want to believe something monstrous is in the water. That is why Chief Brody works so well as the center of the movie. He is not a superhero. He is a nervous police chief afraid of the water, trying to do the right thing while everyone around him tells him not to overreact. We get into how Brody knows, almost immediately, that something is wrong after Chrissie’s death. He wants to close the beaches. The mayor stops him. And when Alex Kintner is killed, the guilt lands on Brody in a way that feels deeply human. One of our favorite scenes in the whole movie is not a shark attack. It is Brody sitting at the kitchen table after Mrs. Kintner slaps him, completely wrecked, while his young son Sean imitates him. Brody starts making faces back at him, then asks for a kiss “because I need it.” That moment is why Jaws is not just a monster movie. It is grounded in family, shame, fear, and love. We also dig into Matt Hooper, who arrives as science, money, expertise, and impatience with small-town nonsense. Hooper is arrogant, but he is right. He validates what Brody already knows. When he examines Chrissie’s remains, the whole scene plays on his face, because his reaction tells us everything we need to know. Then there is Quint, one of the greatest character introductions in movie history. Before he even speaks, his nails on the chalkboard cut through the chaos of the town meeting. Robert Shaw makes Quint feel like a man carved out of salt, trauma, and stubbornness. He is not just hunting a shark. He is hunting something that has been chasing him since the USS Indianapolis. The movie’s second half is where we really light up. Once the Orca leaves A
• 
  SUPER MARIO BROS. (1993) | Never Deserved The Hate (Low) 26.06.2026 27min

  On this week's Movie HighLow, we went Low on Super Mario Bros., but with a pretty major asterisk: this movie never deserved the hate it got. We won't argue that Super Mario Bros. (1993) is a great adaptation, or that it cleanly captures the spirit of the Nintendo games, or that the story makes sense in any normal way. It is messy, compromised, weird, overdesigned, and occasionally completely insane. But that is also what makes it so much fun to watch.  In 1993, Mario did not really have a movie-ready story. He had a brother, a princess, a turtle monster, coins, pipes, mushrooms, Goombas, and a lot of jumping. So directors Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton had to invent a live-action movie from a video game that was basically pure iconography. What they invented is bonkers, but it is also far more creative than people give it credit for. In this episode, we revisit Super Mario Bros., starring Bob Hoskins as Mario Mario, John Leguizamo as Luigi Mario, Samantha Mathis as Princess Daisy, and Dennis Hopper as King Koopa. The movie was a box office disaster, got hammered by critics, and became the go-to example for why live-action video game movies were supposedly doomed. But watching it now, the story is a lot more complicated than that. The first big argument we make is that the usual complaint against this movie, that it is too different from the games, does not totally hold up. Different from what, exactly? By 1993, Super Mario Bros. was a beloved franchise, but it was not some dense cinematic mythology. There was not a sacred three-act Mario text waiting to be adapted. The movie takes the basic material and turns it into a parallel-universe dinosaur dystopia where a meteor split reality in two, mammals evolved in our world, reptiles evolved in Dinohattan, and a missing meteorite shard could merge both dimensions. That is not faithful in a literal sense, but it is an actual idea. Honestly, Super Mario Bros. was doing the multiverse before the multiverse became every studio’s favorite emergency button. Dinohattan is basically Jurassic New York, and the movie’s weirdness is part of what makes it interesting. It is not the Mushroom Kingdom from the games, but it has its own grimy, steampunk, fungus-covered personality. We talk a lot about the Blade Runner comparisons, but what stood out on this rewatch was how much the movie also feels like it is chasing the shadow of Tim Burton’s Batman. It takes something bright, silly, and childish, then tries to make it darker, stranger, and more adult. That approach clearly did not work for everyone, but we have a lot of affection for it. Kids’ movies in the ’80s and early ’90s were just different. They were allowed to be creepy, gross, inappropriate, and occasionally traumatizing. Super Mario Bros. fits right into that era alongside things like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Batman, and The NeverEnding Story. The movie has strippers, fascist cops, fungus rebellion, de-evolution machines, and Goombas with tiny heads and giant bodies. Is that a weird fit for Mario? Absolutely. Is it boring? Not even for a minute.  We also give the movie credit for how many game references it actually does work in. The rocket boots turn Mario’s jumping into something that can function in live action. Big Bertha becomes a human version of the giant red fish. The Shy Guy influence shows up in the masked construction-site goons. The flamethrowers nod toward the fire flower. The fungus becomes a strange version of the Mushroom Kingdom. Even the idea of the king being transformed into fungus feels like it has roots in Super Mario Bros. 3, where kings are magically turned into other creatures. The movie is not accurate, but it is not careless. The casting is another place where the movie works better than its reputation. Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo actually have a believable older brother / younger brother rhythm. Hoskins has that gruff, working-class warmth, and Leguizamo gives Lu
• 
  WHIPLASH (2014) | In Spite Of Fletcher? Or, Because Of Him? (High) 18.06.2026 38min

  On this week's Movie HighLow, we go High on Whiplash because it is one of the rare movies about greatness that does not let greatness off the hook. It looks like an inspirational story about a young jazz drummer pushing past his limits, but the more we talk about it, the darker it gets. Whiplash (2014) is not just asking whether Andrew Neiman becomes great. It is asking what he has to cut out of himself to get there. That is the real question of the episode: does Andrew become great in spite of Fletcher, or because of him? And the uncomfortable answer we keep circling is that it might be because of him. That does not make Fletcher right. It does not make his abuse noble. But it does make Damien Chazelle’s Whiplash a much more complicated movie than a simple mentor-from-hell story. This is a movie about ambition, control, humiliation, obsession, and the cost of becoming the person you think you’re supposed to be. In this episode, we dig into Whiplash, written and directed by Damien Chazelle, and why it still hits like a snare drum to the face. The movie stars Miles Teller as Andrew Neiman, a young jazz drummer at the fictional Shaffer Conservatory, and J.K. Simmons as Terence Fletcher, the terrifying conductor who treats music education like psychological warfare. The movie won Oscars for Simmons, editing, and sound mixing, and honestly, all three wins make perfect sense. This thing is built like a pressure cooker. The central debate is Andrew’s transformation. By the time we get to the final performance at Carnegie Hall, Andrew does become something different. He takes control of the stage, pushes past Fletcher’s sabotage, and turns “Caravan” into a declaration of war. But we also talk about how even in that moment of victory, he still hands control back to Fletcher. That final exchange of looks between them is thrilling, but it is not cleanly triumphant. Andrew gets Fletcher’s approval, and that might be exactly the problem. We spend a lot of time on Fletcher because J.K. Simmons gives one of those performances that feels almost unfair to everyone else in the movie. He is part jazz instructor, part drill sergeant, part horror villain. The “not my tempo” scene is the obvious centerpiece, but what makes Fletcher so scary is not just that he screams. It is that he knows exactly when to lower his voice, when to charm, when to humiliate, and when to make an entire room afraid to breathe wrong. He does not simply teach through fear. He builds a world where fear is the tempo. The episode also gets into Fletcher’s philosophy, especially the idea that there are “no two words in the English language more harmful than good job.” We do not dismiss that line outright, which is part of what makes the conversation interesting. There is something seductive about Fletcher’s argument. Maybe comfort does kill greatness. Maybe some people only reach their full potential when someone refuses to let them settle. But the movie also gives us Sean Casey, the former student whose story reveals the human wreckage behind Fletcher’s method. For every Andrew who might become Bird, there may be someone else who gets destroyed. Miles Teller’s performance as Andrew is another major High. He has to start the movie with this open, almost boyish hunger and then slowly harden into someone who has internalized Fletcher’s cruelty. We talk about the family dinner scene as one of the clearest examples of that shift. Andrew is patronized by relatives who do not understand what he is chasing, and he finally snaps back with the kind of contempt Fletcher has been teaching him. The “Lincoln Center” gut check from his father is brutal because it cuts through Andrew’s self-mythology for just a second. That father-son relationship, with Paul Reiser as Andrew’s dad, becomes one of the most emotional parts of the discussion. His father is not trying to crush him. He is trying to keep him human. The movie theater scene with the Raisinets is small, but it says so mu
• 
  THE HAPPENING (2008) | Be Scientific, Douchebag (Low) 12.06.2026 33min

  The Happening is a bad movie with a genuinely good idea trapped inside it, which might be the most frustrating kind of bad movie. On paper, M. Night Shyamalan making an R-rated eco-horror film about nature turning against humanity should at least be creepy. The planet mounting a defense against us? Plants communicating through airborne neurotoxins? Mass panic spreading through the Northeast? There is a real movie in there somewhere. But The Happening (2008) keeps finding the least frightening version of every possible choice. Wind blows through trees. Grass sways. People stare blankly. Mark Wahlberg says science words like a man who has never been inside a classroom voluntarily. And somehow, a movie built around mass suicide, environmental collapse, and social breakdown becomes funny in ways it absolutely does not seem to understand. That is why this episode goes Low. Not because the concept is worthless, but because the execution is so bizarre that the movie becomes less of a thriller and more of an accidental comedy about hot dogs, lawnmowers, lemon drinks, and the least convincing science teacher in film history. In this episode, we try to answer the obvious question: is The Happening still terrible, or has time been kinder to it? After rewatching it, the answer is that it is still terrible, but in a way that is almost impossible to look away from. This is not some forgettable bad movie where nothing happens. Too much happens. People jump off buildings, feed themselves to lions, lie down in front of lawnmowers, and deliver lines like they are speaking a language recently invented by aliens. We spend a lot of time talking about where The Happening sits in M. Night Shyamalan’s career. This is not a lazy “Shyamalan was never good” conversation. He had already made The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village, so we know he understands suspense, dread, silence, and atmosphere. That is part of what makes this movie so confusing. He takes a concept that could work and then builds it around one of the least cinematic villains possible: the wind. And that becomes one of our biggest problems with the movie. Wind, trees, and grass are not automatically scary just because the score says they are. You can only cut to ominous leaves so many times before the threat starts to feel like aggressive landscaping. Because the plants themselves cannot do much visually, the movie leans on the suicide imagery, and the best version of that comes right at the beginning. The construction worker scene is probably the movie’s strongest sequence. It is eerie, simple, and genuinely upsetting. Bodies falling one after another from a building is an image that actually works. But after that, the movie keeps trying to escalate, and the deaths start getting more ridiculous than horrifying. The lion scene. The lawnmower scene. The shotgun house. The movie clearly wants these moments to be shocking, but they often play like slapstick with blood. We also get into the whole neurotoxin explanation, which sounds science-adjacent until you think about it for more than five seconds. If the toxin shuts off self-preservation, does it also shut off pain? Reflexes? Panic? The basic human instinct to move when something horrible is happening to your body? The movie wants the rules to sound scientific, but every new death makes the logic feel shakier. Then there is Mark Wahlberg as Elliot Moore, one of the strangest pieces of casting in modern studio horror. We talk a lot about how hard it is to buy him as a gentle, thoughtful science teacher. It is not just that he feels miscast. It is that every line seems to become more awkward once he says it. “Be scientific, douchebag” basically becomes the thesis statement for the whole performance. Zooey Deschanel as Alma has her own problems too. While she is not inherently a bad actress, this movie gives her almost nothing that works. Her relationship drama with Elliot is supposed to give the story emotional w
• 
  TAXI DRIVER (1976) | Martin Scorsese’s Most Disturbing Masterpiece (High) 05.06.2026 36min

  Taxi Driver is not great because Travis Bickle is cool, misunderstood, or secretly right. It is great because Martin Scorsese, Paul Schrader, Robert De Niro, and Bernard Herrmann drag us close enough to understand him without ever letting us feel safe around him. That is the central tension of this Movie HighLow episode: Taxi Driver (1976) still feels disturbingly alive because the movie understands loneliness before it becomes ideology, isolation before it becomes violence, and fantasy before it becomes a headline. Fifty years later, Scorsese’s film still has a pulse because it does not flatter the audience. It asks us to sit in Travis’s cab, hear his thoughts, absorb his disgust, watch him mistake obsession for purpose, and then deal with the fact that the world might reward him anyway. That is why this one goes High. Not because it is easy to watch, but because it gets harder to shake every time you revisit it. This episode digs into Taxi Driver as one of those movies that may not fully hit the first time you see it. The argument here is that good movies provide answers, but great movies ask questions, and Taxi Driver is nothing but questions. What does Travis Bickle actually want? Is he trying to save anyone, or just looking for somewhere to aim all that rage? Is the ending real, fantasy, afterlife, media mythmaking, or some nightmare combination of all of it? A huge part of the conversation centers on how Paul Schrader’s script builds Travis through voiceover without using it as a shortcut. The journal entries are not just exposition. They are a trapdoor into Travis’s head. Lines like “my life needed a sense of someplace to go” become the key to the whole character. Travis is not tethered to anything. He has no politics, no real relationships, no taste, no emotional vocabulary, and no understanding of how to live among other people. So when Betsy, played by Cybill Shepherd, appears to him as an angel in the filth, he turns her into a symbol before he ever sees her as a person. That failed date with Betsy gets a lot of attention here because it is one of the most tragic and uncomfortable scenes in the movie. Travis has the right impulse at first. He works up the courage to speak to her, asks her out, and somehow gets further than he has any right to get. But then he takes her to a porn theater because that is the only version of “the movies” he knows. The episode’s take is that this is what makes Travis so disturbing and sad at the same time. He is not trying to offend her. He simply has no idea how warped his own normal is. The discussion also spends time on the movie’s split structure: the first half built around Travis’s fixation on Betsy, the second around his fixation on Iris, played by Jodie Foster. Foster’s performance is described as especially upsetting because she is both performing adulthood and visibly still a child. The diner scene, where Iris behaves like a kid while trying to act like someone much older, becomes one of the clearest examples of how finely tuned the film’s supporting performances are. And then there is Harvey Keitel as Sport, a character who is charismatic for about half a second before the horror of what he represents takes over. The episode points out how strange and important the scene between Sport and Iris is because it is the one major moment that steps outside Travis’s direct point of view. In a movie so locked into Travis’s head, that break matters. The biggest High, though, is Scorsese’s direction. The episode keeps coming back to how subjective the filmmaking is: the Alka-Seltzer fizzing like pressure in Travis’s skull, the cab being washed by fire hydrant water like some failed baptism, the camera drifting away from Travis during his painful phone call because even the movie can barely stand to watch him. Taxi Driver is not just about a man losing his grip. It is shot like the grip is already gone. Bernard Herrmann’s score also gets singled out as essential. It moves bet
• 
  Movie HighLow Returns June 5th! 25.05.2026 1min

  Movie HighLow is back. After a very reasonable, not-at-all-concerning multi-year pause, Dom and Dee return June 5 with new episodes about the best and worst that cinema has to offer. Some episodes are HIGH episodes: classics, masterpieces, and movies worth revisiting. Some episodes are LOW episodes: disasters, trainwrecks, and movies where you start wondering if anyone on set knew they were making a movie. And sometimes, the best movies have lows, the worst movies have highs, and a few movies leave us completely confused by both. Subscribe now so the first new episode is waiting for you when Movie HighLow returns June 5. Send your HIGHS and LOWS to MovieHighLow@gmail.com.
• 
  THE FANATIC (2019) | A Complete Tonal Mess (Low) 13.02.2021 37min

  This movie never decides what it wants to be. In The Fanatic, you’ve got a character study, a thriller, and a dark comedy all fighting each other… and none of them really win. And somehow, that’s what makes it so... fascinating?   We break down: Why the tone is completely all over the placeThe strange (but committed) performance from John TravoltaHow the movie keeps undercutting its own serious momentsAnd why this story almost works… but never quite gets there   👉 It wants to be disturbing👉 It ends up being confusing👉 And sometimes… accidentally funny   🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1494972813 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow
• 
  GIGLI (2003) | A Hollywood Disaster That Embarrasses Everyone (Low) 30.07.2020 1u 23min

  GIGLI is more than a notorious flop. In this episode, we get into why it feels so uniquely humiliating: a tabloid-era Bennifer vehicle, a studio-mangled gangster movie turned awkward rom-com, and a cast stranded inside material that never finds the right tone. We talk about the film’s broken kidnapping plot, Ben Affleck’s bizarre performance choices, Jennifer Lopez’s underwritten “tough” character, the movie’s wild tonal swings, and the sense that everyone involved is trapped in a project that got away from them. We also get into the larger story around the film, including Martin Brest’s career after the release, the movie’s overstuffed two-hour runtime, and the one stretch almost everyone remembers: Christopher Walken somehow wandering in and stealing the whole thing. Is Gigli truly a disaster… or is there something weirdly fascinating hiding underneath?   🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1494972813 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow
• 
  BACK TO THE FUTURE (1985) | Why It Still Feels Like Movie Magic (High) 30.04.2020 1u 14min

  BACK TO THE FUTURE is one of those movies that can feel endlessly familiar and still hit like the first time. In this episode, we get into why Robert Zemeckis’ classic still feels so alive: the perfect Marty McFly and Doc Brown pairing, the airtight script, the escalating stakes, the DeLorean as an all-time great movie image, and a finale that still plays like pure cinematic adrenaline. We also talk about Michael J. Fox’s performance and why it was so essential, the emotional weirdness of Marty becoming his mother’s crush, the brilliance of Hill Valley as a self-contained world, Alan Silvestri’s score, the joy of the Johnny B. Goode sequence, and why the last stretch at the clock tower remains one of the great endings in blockbuster filmmaking. Plus: a few nitpicks, some sequel talk, and a firm stance that this is one movie Hollywood should leave alone. ⚡ 1.21 Gigawatts of analysis. Let’s go.   🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1894669466 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow  
• 
  TITANIC (1997) | Overrated… or a Masterpiece? (High) 16.04.2020 1u 13min

  James Cameron’s TITANIC is one of those movies that became so huge it almost invited backlash, but revisiting it now, the real story is why it still lands. In this episode, we talk about the film as both a massive technical achievement and an unapologetically emotional crowd-pleaser, with a romance that can feel corny and deeply effective at the same time. We get into James Horner’s haunting score, Cameron’s mix of practical and digital effects, Kate Winslet’s central performance, Billy Zane’s gloriously hateful villainy, the movie’s class politics, and the way Titanic balances historical tragedy with pure Hollywood melodrama. We also talk about where the movie feels most alive, where it shows its seams, and why Rose’s story ultimately carries more weight than the film’s more formulaic love-story mechanics.   🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1894669466 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow  
• 
  12 MONKEYS (1995) | Time Travel, Madness, and the End of the World (High) 02.04.2020 1u 5min

  Why do Terry Gilliam’s movies always feel just a little… off? In this episode, we get into why the film still feels so unsettling and alive, from its warped visual language to the way it turns time travel into something tragic, paranoid, and psychologically unstable. We talk about Gilliam’s direction and why his surreal style is such a perfect fit for James Cole’s fractured point of view, the film’s blend of post-apocalyptic sci-fi and time-loop storytelling, Brad Pitt’s unhinged and funny performance as Jeffrey Goines, and the role reversal between Bruce Willis and Madeleine Stowe as the story keeps shifting its sense of reality. We also dig into the airport memory, the Army of the 12 Monkeys misdirect, the movie’s layered rewatch value, and the small details that make it feel so strange and specific. 🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1894669466 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow    
• 
  JAWS: THE REVENGE (1987) | The Shark Franchise Breaking Point (Low) 27.03.2020 48min

  Jaws: The Revenge is where one of the greatest blockbusters ever made finally turns into pure franchise absurdity. In this episode, we talk about how the movie turns shark terror into family vendetta nonsense, and why that makes it both embarrassing and weirdly entertaining. We get into the movie’s wildest choices, from the idea of a shark personally targeting the Brody family to Ellen Brody’s near-psychic connection to the threat in the water. We also talk about the sequel problem, the way Jaws gets reduced from a landmark film into a hollow brand, and why this entry still has some camp value if you meet it on its own ridiculous terms. Along the way, we cover Michael Caine as Hoagie, the painfully forced romance, the recycled echoes of the original film, the infamous ending, and the handful of moments that are funny for reasons the movie probably never intended. 🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1894669466 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow      
• 
  BIG (1988) | This Movie Hits WAY Different as an Adult (High) 06.03.2020 50min

  You ever watch Big as an adult and realize… it’s not the same movie? This week on Movie HighLow, we revisit Big—the classic Tom Hanks film that somehow hits even harder the older you get. What starts as a fun “kid becomes an adult overnight” story turns into something way deeper. 🎡 A wish gone wrong 🧸 A dream job at a toy company 💔 And a reminder that growing up isn’t always what you think   We break down: Why Tom Hanks’ performance is still unbelievably convincing as a kid in an adult body How the movie changes depending on when you watch it The balance between comedy, fantasy, and something surprisingly emotional And… yeah… that relationship (you know the one)   🎹 Plus: The iconic piano scene The weirdness you definitely didn’t notice as a kid And why this movie still works decades later   🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1894669466 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow  
• 
  KNIVES OUT (2019) | The Most FUN Murder Mystery in Years (High) 27.02.2020 1u

  This is how you do a modern murder mystery. This week on Movie HighLow, we break down Knives Out—the insanely fun, layered whodunit from Rian Johnson that surprised us way more than we expected. 🕵️‍♂️ A dead mystery novelist 🏡 A house full of suspects 🎭 And a detective with a very questionable accent   At first, it feels like a classic whodunit… …but then the movie flips the formula on its head.   We get into: Why this might be the most fun murder mystery in years How the movie gives the audience more information than the characters (and why that works) Daniel Craig’s surprisingly hilarious performance Why Ana de Armas becomes the emotional core of the story And how this script rewards you even more on a rewatch   🎬 Plus: The “live-action Clue” vibes That insane ensemble cast (seriously, everyone shows up) The twist… and the twist behind the twist   🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1894669466 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow  
• 
  JACOB’S LADDER (2019) | This Remake Shouldn’t Exist… (Low) 20.02.2020 49min

  Did this remake need to happen at all? This week on Movie HighLow, we’re diving into Jacob’s Ladder (2019)—a remake of a cult classic that… doesn’t quite justify its existence. 🪖 A war medic haunted by trauma 🧠 Hallucinations that blur reality 😈 And a story that never quite lands   At first, it feels like it might work… …but the deeper it goes, the more it falls apart.   We get into: Why the movie feels rushed from the start The problem with revealing too much too early Why the twist doesn’t hit the way it should The overuse of CGI horror vs practical effects And the biggest issue: it doesn’t bring anything new to the story   🎬 Plus: Some surprisingly decent visuals and shot composition A few ideas that almost work And why this might just make you want to rewatch the original instead   🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1894669466 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow      
• 
  ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND (2004) | The Most Honest Love Story Ever (High) 14.02.2020 1u

  If you could erase someone you loved… would you? This week on Movie HighLow, we’re diving into Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind—a film that’s as heartbreaking as it is brilliant. 💔 A relationship falling apart 🧠 Memories being erased ❄️ And two people who can’t seem to stay away from each other   This isn’t your typical love story. It’s messy. Honest. Painful. …and uncomfortably real. We get into: Why this feels more like real relationships than most movies Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet completely flipping their usual roles The genius of Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay and non-linear storytelling How the memory-erasing concept actually works (and why it feels believable) And why the middle of this movie is where it truly becomes unforgettable   🎬 Plus: The small, painfully real moments that hit the hardest Why this is one of our all-time favorite films And the question that sticks with you long after it ends…   👉 Is it better to forget… or to remember, even if it hurts?   🎧 Listen on your favorite platform: Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/movie-highlow/id1894669466 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5F6GMoqeJcahbZtk592a9a   📲 Follow Movie HighLow: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/moviehighlow