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Star Wars is good again! Ed blows the dust off the podcast and is joined by co-host emeritus Matt Risby to talk at length about the first season of Andor, the Disney+ series created by Tony Gilroy which, against all odds, is one of the best Star Wars-related things ever. They talk about the quality of the show's writing, the way it engages with the nature of fascism, and whether Babu Frik will see jail time. Plenty of spoilers ahead, so watch out. To keep up with what Matt has been up to lately, check out his TTRPG podcast The Bad Spot on YouTube, and subscribe to his Patreon if you're so inclined.

In this episode, which was recorded a few months back (hence the very out of date news section) Emily announces that she is leaving the show, and the show goes on hiatus.

After a few weeks away, Emily and Ed catch up on some of the big news stories they missed, including The Oscars, that slap and its fallout, Ethan Coen striking out on his own, Bruce Willis retiring, and The Guest 2 getting a soundtrack despite not existing.

This week, Emily and Ed talk about films and TV shows that explore the idea of toxic femininity, with particular emphasis on Showtime's Yellowjackets. They also talk about Glaswegian architecture as it relates to The Batman.   00:00:00 - 00:13:55 - Intro & New 00:13:56 - 00:48:54 - Emily & Ed discuss Toxic Femininity in Films and TV 00:48:55 - 00:52:48 - SRS Recommends & Outro   Links - Be Kind Rewind's "Ruth Gordon's Unique and Defiant Journey to Oscar" as recommended by Emily - Dance Craze (1981) as recommended by Ed - Ed's appearance on the Games of Film podcast talking about The Matrix and its weird, ambitious videogame spin-offs

This week, inspired by this interview in Anne Helen Petersen's Substack with Scott Meslow, author of From Hollywood With Love: The Rise and Fall (and Rise Again) of the Romantic Comedy, Emily and Ed discuss the past, present and future of the romcom. Is the genre in rude health, as suggested by the increased number of them being made for streaming services? Or is it on life support, since romcoms generally don't get big theatrical releases anymore and (with some very notable exceptions) rarely break through to the broader culture as they did in their heyday of the '80s and '90s? Also, wasn't Nora Ephron the greatest? (That last one is of course rhetorical.) 00:00:00 - 00:10:11 - Intro 00:10:12 - 00:46:27 - Emily & Ed discuss the state of the 00:46:28 - 00:50:51 - SRS Recommends & Outro Links - Trainwreckords: Katy Perry's "Witness" by Todd in the Shadows, as recommended by Ed

This week, Emily and Ed discuss the 2022 Oscar nominations, and offer suggestions for how they would fix the Oscar's ongoing popularity and identity crisis, including adding new categories, changing eligibility rules, or encouraging broader public engagement from The Academy. Note: this episode was recorded before the announcement that eight awards would not be given out as part of the main ceremony this year. Suffice it to say, that's a very bad idea for fixing what is wrong with the Oscars. 00:00:00 - 00:22:24 - Intro & News 00:22:25 - 01:04:02 - Emily & Ed talk about the Oscars and how they would fix them 01:04:03 - 01:08:34 - SRS Recommends & Outro

This week, Emily and Ed talk about the bad movies (or at least movies they really dislike) that stick with them, whether it's because they have good ideas that they execute badly, they're so perplexing that they demand more consideration just to understand why they don't work, or because everyone else insists they're good. 00:00:00 - 00:17:23 - Intro & News 00:17:24 - 00:53:30 - Emily & Ed discuss bad movies they can't stop thinking about 00:53:31 - 00:57:46 - SRS Recommends & Outro Links - The Pudding, as recommended by Emily

This week, Emily and Ed discuss the importance of curation in an age defined by streaming services, as well as the ways in which many of the big services limit the capacity for people to discover new things and broaden their horizons. They also talk about "Sundance inflation" and the gutting of the AV Club by corporate ghouls. 00:00:00 - 00:28:30 - Intro & News 00:28:31 - 00:57:55 - Emily & Ed discuss curation in the streaming age 00:57:56 - 01:04:10 - SRS Recommends & Outro Links - Line Goes Up - The Problem with NFTs by Dan Olson, as recommended by Emily

It's Emily's birthday (or it was a few weeks ago)! To celebrate, she and Ed discuss movies that have no clear protagonist. They also try to fix the acting categories at the major awards ceremonies. 00:00:00 - 00:14:04 - Intro & News 00:14:05 - 00:57:09 - Emily & Ed discuss films that have no clear protagonist 00:57:10 - 01:01:45 - SRS Recommends & Outro Links - Monsters and Mullets, the newsletter by A. Perry, as recommended by Emily

To mark the start of a new year, Emily and Ed run down their best films/TV shows/albums/games/books/etc. of 2021. They also talk about Lindsay Ellis quitting YouTube and the deaths of Jean-Marc Vallée and Betty White. 00:00:00 - 00:14:58 - Intro & News 00:14:59 - 00:28:32 - Honourable Mentions 00:28:33 - 01:33:54 - Emily & Ed talk about their Top 10s

To mark the 20th anniversary of the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Emily and Ed talk about their love of the trilogy, its legacy, and whether Aragorn should have ended up with Eowyn. 00:00:00 - 00:12:37 - Intro & News 00:12:38 - 00:50:29 - Emily & Ed talk about The Lord of the Rings films 00:50:30 - 00:55:35 - SRS Recommends & Outro Links: - Here's A Spy Movie on YouTube, as recommended by Emily

Given the, er, divided response to Lady Gaga's performance in House of Gucci, now seems like the perfect time to talk about musicians acting in movies. In addition to discussing the ways in which movies play with or against a musician's public persona, Emily and Ed talk about musicians who achieved recognition for their performances, those for whom recognition proved elusive, and those who transcended the need for films to bestow them with acclaim. They also talk about the deaths of Stephen Sondheim and Antony Sher, new details about the split between Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, and the news that The AV Club will soon be forced to move to L.A. from its longtime home of Chicago. 00:00:00 - 00:22:45 - Intro & News 00:22:46 - 00:55:14 - Emily & Ed discuss musicians acting in film 00:55:15 - 01:01:05 - SRS Recommends & Outro - Link to the FastPass episode of Defunctland, as recommend by Emily

Content Warning: As part of the main topic we discuss the plot of The Last Duel, so there is brief discussion of rape and sexual assault. Inspired by the shifting viewpoints in Ridley Scott's The Last Duel, Emily and Ed talk about movies that play with ideas of perspective, and the ways in which cinema can uniquely handle the idea of showing a story from the vantage points of multiple characters.

This week Emily and Ed discuss the difference between a gimmick and a premise, as they relate to movies, as well of examples of gimmicks that work so well that they cannot be extricated from a premise. They also talk about the ratification of the IATSE contract, #FreeBritney, and the deaths of Mick Rock and Dean Stockwell.   00:00:00 - 00:19:26 - Intro & News 00:19:27 - 00:50:47 - Emily & Ed discuss Gimmicks vs. Premises 00:50:48 - 00:55:11 - SRS Recommends & Outro   Link to the Bandcamp page for Billy Nomates, as recommended by Emily

On this week's episode Emily sits down with director Arthur Jones to talk about their documentary The Six, which tells the story of the six Chinese survivors of the Titanic, and how their experiences of discrimination in the face of calamity continue to resonate over a century later. For further information about The Six, including planned screenings, please visit the film's website. 00:00:00 - 00:02:42 - Intro & (extremely brief) news 00:02:43 - 00:50:58 - Emily interviews Arthur Jones about The Six 00:50:59 - 00:54:03 - SRS Recommends & Outro

In this (belated) Halloween episode, Emily and Ed discuss scary moments in movies that aren't strictly speaking horror movies. 00:00:00 - 00:19:06 - Intro & News 00:19:07 - 00:48:34 - Emily & Ed discuss scary moments in non-horror movies 00:48:35 - 00:51:28 - SRS Recommends & Outro

This week, Emily and Ed talk about some of their favourite examples of sprawling (or "bloated" if you want to be a little less charitable) art, running the gamut from the fiction of Paul Auster to the Yakuza series of video games. 00:00:00 - 00:27:27 - Intro & News 00:27:28 - 00:52:54 - Emily & Ed discuss sprawling art 00:52:55 - 01:00:23 - SRS Recommends & Outro

This week's show and tell finds Emily and Ed bringing two distinctive but very different visions: Bill Ross IV and Turner Ross's creative non-fiction film Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets and James Wan's gothic delight Malignant. They also talk about recent film news and the new SNL cast. 00:00:00 - 00:39:02 - Intro & News 00:39:03 - 00:57:13 - Emily & Ed discuss Bloody Nose, Empty Pockets and Malignant

Inspired by Ed's first ever viewing of Event Horizon, Emily and Ed talk about what it takes for a film that rips off another film to overcome that stigma. They also talk about how amazing Sandra Bullock is, Nicholas Sparks movie posters, and the "low-stakes Uncut Gems" week that Ed had. 00:00:00 - 00:27:40 - Intro & News 00:27:41 - 00:58:16 - Emily & Ed discuss good rip-offs 00:58:17 - 01:04:10 - SRS Recommends & Outro

It's been a few weeks since Emily and Ed last recorded, so they catch up on some of the biggest news stories that they missed, as well as the 20th anniversary of 9/11. Links: - As recommended by Emily, "At the Turtle Club in the Shadow of 9/11" on Defector