Screeners Podcast

City destruction never looked so good! Join the Screeners as we finally move away from superheroes for a brief respite and tackle something completely different – a giant, earth-shaking, laser-shooting monster. You know you want to hear if our little group of self-appointed critics agree with the masses about this latest summer blockbuster!JUMP CUTS24 has returned to prime time after a 5 year break… is it meeting our expectations? Is it, perhaps, exceeding them? Or is it just a disappointing network attempt to compete with the premium channels’ superior programming?Ever wonder why certain TV shows seem to dazzle the masses, but leave you feeling less than impressed? We certainly do. Let’s talk about these shows… and see if we agree.After mentioning some amazing TV title sequences on last week’s episode, we decided to have a whole jump cut in honor of the greatest TV title sequences of all time (or at least in recent memory).And finally, two trailers have debuted recently that deserve our rapt attent

The Screeners tackle another comic book film this week… will Melody be able to handle yet another masked guardian? Josh is still out learning to be a daddy, so long-time friend of the show Rob Reid joins the Screeners for this jam-packed episode.NEVER-ENDING JUMP CUTS – DO WE USE THE BUZZER ON EVERY SINGLE QUESTION?Another exclusive programming contender has entered the ring… XBOX Originals has announced a new content line-up to launch in June. But is it worth the watch? Let’s find out if street soccer captures the interest of the Screeners.Sony has announced a new storage device… a cassette tape. Is this a joke of some sort, or is there just nothing new under the sun? Although a cassette tape that can hold 3700 blu-rays worth of storage may be of some interest after all.And now the outrage that has taken the world by storm! Comixology sells to Amazon and destroys their own app when they get rid of the in-app purchase feature. (Okay, perhaps there is only a select group of people who care about this at a

Screeners welcome a new guest host to the team while Josh plays hooky…apparently having a baby takes precedence over movie talk with his Screener pals. We see how it is, Josh. Without the balance of Josh’s contrary perspectives, will the Screeners be able to restrain their positivity about the latest installment from the Marvel universe? We shall find out.CAN THE MEDIAS KEEP US ENTERTAINED?We begin with the question that is surely on the minds of all Screeners podcast listeners… what else are these people doing to entertain themselves in the world of media? Our answers might shock you… or perhaps not.Chad informs the Screeners that movie theaters are losing their younger demographics of viewers and they are blaming those newfangled mobile devices! How dare anyone suggest that the industry may have to adapt?Next up, it appears that NBC has completely run out of imaginative ideas and will be outsourcing their show writing to anyone with a computer and a creative concept! Will one of the Screeners be the ne

Russell Crowe is back in theaters, and apparently destroying music in Les Miserables wasn’t enough for him, because now he’s trampling on the story of Noah and the rest of the Bible too—or at least that’s what some of your Facebook friends think. We’ll get there, but first we’ve got a lightning round to shock you with.Hollywood is Dying; Long Live the Indie SceneThe recent SXSW show may have struck a huge blow for a topic dear to the Screeners’ hearts:  the democratization of filmmaking. A distribution company called VHX marked the end of their private beta, declaring open season on their platform for indie content creators everywhere. A marketplace like this could be the difference between an audience of 10 and one of 10,000 or more...so when will we see Chris’s first Michael Bay fan fiction hit our computer screens?From something all the Screeners seem to care about, we move to something pretty much no one does—the cast for the new Fantastic Four movie. The only reason we’re talking about it is because

The Screeners are back yet again to stare into the abyss of media and see if it stares back—and if you recognize that reference, our main event is right down your alley. If you don’t...listen anyway. We managed to record an episode within a month of the last one; we feel we deserve some credit.Anywho...Jump Cuts.The Segment Formerly Known as Jump CutsEvery episode, the Screeners introduce the rules of their lightning round, then they proceed to ignore those rules. It’s become a tradition at this point. We blame Chad, right? Sure, why not? In fact, the first two topics this time took so long that they’re the only “jump” “cuts” we have this episode. They’re doozies, though.As you may have noticed if you pay attention to video games or browse the Internet from time to time, Titanfall, the new darling of the Xbox One, was released last week to much hype and fanfare. Chris and Chad went to the store immediately and begged to have their money taken; Josh, however, is slightly more stubborn (in case you hadn’t notic

Another Oscars ceremony has lumbered by, and you know what that means—the Screeners have been at their microphones for a whole year! Cue the confetti and cocaine...what? No cocaine? What kind of party is this, anyway? We’ll never get the stock brokers to show up now!Let’s see—1 year, 18 episodes...that means we’re doing at least twice as much of this as Downton Abbey, right? And practice makes perfect, so take that, England.From Fresh Wounds to Ancient HistoryWe start off this episode’s Jump Cuts by taking a little more time on something we only mentioned in passing last episode:  Our memories of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Each Screener recaps their favorite Hoffman roles, and the diversity of genre and tone in the movies that have stuck in everyone’s hearts is a testament to Hoffman’s range and screen presence.Next up, an opinion piece from the LA Times dares to go against the grain of popular culture and call out House of Cards as everything that’s wrong with Netflix culture. Apparently the show has no re

Editor’s note: We didn’t dedicate a section of the episode to discussing this, but we wanted to express our continuing sadness at the recent passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman. A talent as piercing as his brings characters to life in a way that made us at times uncomfortable, at times sympathetic, but always admiring of the person who so fully embodied the words on the page. We saw ourselves in his insecurity, we raged with him at the injustices he suffered, and we worried that there might be more of ourselves in him than we’d like.Along the way, many of us became transfixed by his performances and failed to note the very real problems that the very real Philip did not hide from the public. We were surprised to learn (or relearn) that he had a long history with a variety of drugs and were shocked when the disease overtook him. In the wake of the tragedy, many of us felt a loss deeper than we’d felt before at the news of a celebrity’s death, sudden or not. Perhaps we all feared vicariously for ourselves one las

The Christmas sequel season is upon us, and even though the Screeners have been busy decking the halls and raising money for Josh's critically needed heart enlargement surgery (because it's two sizes too small...ba-dum chh), they couldn't resist getting together for just one review. And if you're going to see one sequel this year,  we're betting it'll be The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. It is the second movie of the second trilogy of the biggest franchise of our generation,  after all (with apologies to Kanye for stealing his pointless hyperbole shtick).The Hobbit has hit #1 at the box office for 3 weeks in a row, but was it worth the Screeners' time? OK...did at least the three Screeners with normal human sentiment like it? Listen and find out—it won't take too long; we promise.Oh, and Happy New Year!

With Thanksgiving upon us, you might expect the Screeners to take a couple leisurely weeks off, much like your favorite late-night shows, but they’re having none of it. Hollywood’s releasing blockbusters at the end of November, so they’re here to deconstruct them...after Jump Cuts, of course.How Do You Solve a Problem Like...Christmas?The holidays have arrived, so we might as well enjoy them in the lightning round. Chris starts us off by soliciting the Screeners’ favorite holiday movies. They manage to come up with almost entirely different lists, and Josh has even seen a couple of the movies on them. Christmas miracles do exist!And speaking of classic holiday joy, NBC is bringing back the Christmas musical. Except instead of finding the next Bing Crosby, they’ve cast Carrie Underwood to star in a revival of the stage version of The Sound of Music. We’re going to go ahead and assume that everyone’s first reaction is a bewildered, “Wait...what?” But could it work?From red and green all the way to noir:  M

This episode marks a milestone in Screeners history:  For the first time, literature has made its way to the main event. Well, science fiction literature. And it’s only there because it was made into a movie. And we had to temper even that by following it with a review of a comic book movie...look; stop harshing our buzz, alright? We’re trying to encourage Chris to read here; cut us some slack!Old People and the Pixels They Can’t SeeBefore the Screeners get into the double-feature main event, though, you know we gots to have us a lightning round. The questioning this time starts out with a winter movie preview. The fall/winter season it typically the bulwark of your more artsy/contemplative films, but Josh seems somehow saddened by this year’s prospects. At least Keanu Reeves is back in the spotlight; that has to be good news, right? Wait, no; “good” wasn’t the right word there…If the winter’s disappointing, at least next year will bring the advent of 4K (or UHD, or whatever the marketers are calling it

You may have noticed that, much like your favorite TV shows, the Screeners took a summer hiatus there for a bit. We figured it was time to tell you that this scheduling decision was part of an avant-garde social experiment to probe the liminal boundary between media and media commentary, and...OK, it was all Chad’s fault. Chad just didn’t love you enough to see Closed Circuit with the rest of us. There, we said it. Does it feel better to know the truth? Does it?!OK, now that the unpleasantness is out of the way, it’s time for the most popular segment to ever come first in the Screeners lineup, Jump Cuts!Stay Classy, DreamworksRon Burgundy’s baaa-aack. Not in a movie - not yet, at least. He’s back in SUV ads. SUV ads? Yes, SUV ads. (Yes, those are all different links. So is this one. Oh, and one more.) And you know what? Ron Burgundy can be in ads for smooth jazz for all we care. He’s Ron *%&$ Burgundy.In a tangentially related story (if you were listening last year, or whenever our last episode was), a co

This time on the Screeners, we reunite the powerhouse filmmaking team that brought us Good Will Hunting! ...OK, so one of our Jump Cuts is about Ben Affleck, and Matt Damon’s in the Main Event movie. Like you’ve never exaggerated.Movies, and Books that Approximate Them (01:48)So Ben Affleck is Batman now, at least for one movie, which of course drove the Internet into a frothing frenzy of insanity. Does this really matter, though? Really? We can probably count on one of the Screeners to not care, but what about the movie fans in the group?Next, you’ve heard of movie adaptations of books, but how about an autobiography based on a fictional movie character that may or may not have been loosely based on a real person? If you’re confused, good; that means you were actually reading that last sentence. But it seems like this is really happening:  Ron Burgundy’s autobiography is coming out in November. Will you read it? Will anyone?After those two heated, profound discussions, the Screeners have to take a step

We’ve got a lot to talk about this time, and for once the episode has a loose sort of chronology to it. Jump Cuts touches a bit on some pre-production issues, our Main Event review of The Wolverine looks at the final product, and the Cutting Room Floor anticipates the post-release judgement of an award show. Enough talk; let’s dive right into the lightning round.Would This Be the “All-Is-Lost-Moment” or the “Dark Night of the Soul”?We start out Jump Cuts with a quick tour of the on-demand libraries boasted by various cable companies. At least, that’s what the Screeners who still have cable talk about...Even if there are still a few good ones out there, though, darkness has been looming past the edge of Hollywood’s silver lining for a few years now. Movie plots seem to be converging more and more, due in large part to the influence of a suspiciously specific book and the encroachment of machines into the business of art. The Screeners can’t resist a bit of prognostication:  Will all the sameness flatline

Just when you were beginning to think the heat had fried their Internet connections, the Screeners are back to take some more shots at summer movies and look forward hopefully to some promising entertainment in the fall.The lightning round starts out with a quick look at Monsters University. Some would say that Pixar’s offerings have been a little unsteady recently, and others would say that’s an understatement, but did they pull a Lloyd with their latest sequel? Has Josh even seen it? Will we ever stop asking questions we already know the answer to? After that, it’s on to a new program that Sony and Disney are debuting in some international markets - the “day-and-date” release model Steven Spielberg recently predicted. They’re letting would-be moviegoers stream feature films at home while they’re still in theaters. Any guesses as to which Screeners are all for this experiment? Place your wagers now; we’ll wait.That’s enough Hollywood talk, though—a sentiment that more and more screenwriters seem to be a

Comic book superhero summer blockbuster number two is upon us! Believe it or not, this excites some of the Screeners (read: Chad) more than others, but say what you will; Man of Steel is not light on discussion points. Before we get to them, though, there’s that little business of the lightning round.Microsoft Folds; Is Hollywood Next?First, injustice rears its ugly head as Josh is forced to respond to Chad and Chris’s 45-minute bonus episode within 60 seconds—which, as we all know, is hardly enough for him to pronounce two five-syllable words and include a dramatic pause to let a bad joke sink in. In fact, he only gets the chance to respond at all because after that episode was recorded, Microsoft caved to cries of foul play from (Luddite) console gamers. There’s more to say about this than will fit in to a normal Jump Cut, so...yeah; you can guess what happens here.It’s interrupted by some mention of Apple’s recent WWDC proceedings, where they unveiled the new iRecycle workstation and the iOS 7...let’s call

The Electronics Entertainment Expo just wrapped up in L.A. and there is a lot of video game news to talk about. Chad and Chris wanted to take a little longer than a "Jump Cut" segment would allow, so... here is our first ever Bonus Episode! Enjoy.

Just when you thought the show couldn’t get any more magical, the Screeners are back for some more sleight of film. Now You See Me came in second at the box office last weekend, and it edged out Fast and Furious 6 for a spot in this week’s main event. As we sit back and prepare to be amazed, though, we have a lightning round to speed through...or not.Sequels, Adaptations, and the Critics Who Spoil ThemJump Cuts starts off with a tribute to the thrilling conclusion of everyone’s favorite trilogy. That’s right, they’re talking about The Hangover Part III. How many nights of partying can the Screeners take before they realize they’re too old for this sort of thing? You might be surprised...Next on the list:  Summer is always sequel season, but it’s not every day they pull an 80’s sci-fi classic out of the vault for a follow-up. The recently announced Blade Runner sequel is the exception that proves the rule. Ridley Scott’s at the helm, but the writer of such Hollywood gems as Fantastic Four and Green Lanter

Activate your seat restraints, because tonight’s going to be a bumpy ride through space as the Screeners take a long, hard look at JJ Abrams’ newest addition to the Star Trek franchise. Before we jump to warp, though, let’s take a few minutes to acknowledge that a couple other things did actually happen during the last two weeks.Republicans and Books Relevant in the 21st Century? Who Knew?For starters, John McCain—someone who might not normally be associated with media innovation—introduced a bill to end the time-honored tradition of cable channel bundling. In case the jargon is new, “bundling” is that thing where you get a cable subscription because you want to watch Mad Men and Doctor Who, but you end up subsidizing UFC Fight Night and Here Comes Honey Boo Boo in the process (or, um, vice versa). Turns out McCain’s been working on this for awhile, with little success thus far. Does he have the Screeners’ support?They know they talk about trailers a lot, but Chad can’t resist a quick chat about two he saw du

Toddlers and Movies Made for ThemThe Screeners start out this week’s Jump Cuts by proving they’re not completely self-absorbed—it seems the next generation might have a bit of a media problem, and the Screeners have a solution. You’re welcome, toddlers. Listen carefully, and you’ll also gain some key insight into Chris’ views on marriage.Next up is a mini-review of Pain & Gain, Michael Bay’s latest...let’s just say “effort”. It’s a movie ready-made for Chris; can Josh convince him otherwise, or is there a twist in the works? Remember, folks; it’s all a true story.After a rousing discussion of Michael Bay’s merits as an auteur, the tone turns sober as the Screeners ponder a recent Danny Boyle interview. The director gave his take on the state of modern cinema, and it’s not entirely rosy. Do today’s movies reflect the difficult yet rewarding complexity of life, or is Hollywood just filling seats? If so, whose fault is it? Finally, the four have some words for the theater industry and their new crop of tie-i

From Childhood to Childish PlotlinesJump Cuts starts off with a trip down memory lane as the Screeners spend some time reminiscing about their favorite childhood TV shows - but not before Josh spoils the fun by pointing out the ulterior motive for the question itself before everyone has time to figure it out for themselves. We also begin to wonder what Melody is hiding, as her “favorite show” may or may not have existed...Meanwhile, in the almost-present, The Place Beyond the Pines was released on March 29. With such a unique film, the Screeners couldn’t resist taking some time to talk about nuance—well, nuance, and those who avoid it at all costs (not that any of our hosts fall into the second category, of course).Inching ever closer to current events, our third question makes a brief stop in April to visit the annual National Association of Broadcasters show in Las Vegas. None of the Screeners made it out there this year, but they still have their eyes on some new gear, most notably the Movi stabilization s