Weekend Watchlist: Don’t Worry Darling, Avatar and Athena
[Izon by Trent Walton fades in, plays alone, fades out]
MIA Hi! Welcome to Weekend Watchlist, a look at what’s screening and streaming, brought to you by The Letterboxd Show. I’m Mia, they’re Slim...
SLIM Hello!
MIA And together we’ll dig through what’s dropping this weekend, last weekend, recent trends on Letterboxd and we’ll also take a peek at our own watchlists—all under 30 minutes or your money back.
SLIM Mia, Don’t Worry Darling plus Avatar—are you kidding me? In this episode, we’ll also talk about Athena, Sidney, your community reviews that are tagged ‘Weekend Watchlist’, thank you for that by the way, and of course, we’ll talk about our own shuffled watchlists later in the show. It might be our biggest episode ever, to be honest.
MIA It really might be, especially with the Don’t Worry Darling hype at peak levels with—okay, can I just say it’s on 134,000 watchlists...
SLIM It’s insane.
MIA That’s so many! Oh, this is coming out in theaters, y’all know it’s going wide. It has Harry Styles in it, it’s gotta go wide. Here’s the synopsis—although I’m sure you already know: “A 1950s housewife living with her husband in a utopian experimental community begins to worry that his glamorous company may be hiding disturbing secrets.” Uh oh...
SLIM Uh oh... uh oh... First of all, that’s a lot of watchlists. The media tour, like they had that premiere a couple of weeks ago. You couldn’t scroll through Twitter without seeing a meme about the cast seeing that premiere for the first time. Right? It was nuclear.
MIA It was nuclear. There was no way to escape and I didn’t even want to escape. I was happy in there.
SLIM You were absorbed, you just laid down and started scrolling as long as you could.
MIA Oh yeah, it was fun in there. I can’t lie, I was having a lot of fun—not saying anything, I don’t add anything to the convo, but I am there, I am looking. [Mia laughs]
SLIM Yeah, you lurk, you lurk.
MIA Oh, I lurk. I really wish I had gotten to see it ahead of time, so I could have an opinion on this one for everybody, because that’s really what I’m looking forward to most, is being able to have an opinion on this one, an informed opinion.
SLIM Olivia Wilde, this is her follow up to Booksmart. Florence Pugh, amazing actor. So you’re excited, you’re finally excited. You need to see this, right? Everyone is talking about it, it’s time to have an opinion on this dang movie.
MIA I do think that everybody needs to see it so that we can all have our own unique and informed opinions. [Mia laughs] So I think that unfortunately, it does have to be a box-office hit for that reason.
SLIM Do you see any early buzz, early reviews coming in for Don’t Worry Darling?
MIA Yes. Yes. So it’s been coming out in LA a little bit, so some of my friends have been able to see it.
SLIM Oooh.
MIA Yeah, they just went and saw it.
SLIM Some friends, they didn’t even invite you?
MIA I know! I’m like, ‘Wait...’ Oh, I was texting them. I was like, “So how could you do this to me?” [Slim laughs] “So you knew that there was a screening and...” no, I’m kidding. [Mia laughs] But there’s a couple of reviews out there. Here’s one from Katie Walsh: “While what’s underneath the beautiful veneer of The Victory Project is dark, twisted and sinister, below the shiny, stylized surface of Don’t Worry Darling, there is just a jumble of provocative and ultimately incoherent ideas. The synapses are firing, they just fail to connect.”
SLIM What a line, holy smokes, from Katie, to wrap up that review.
MIA I love Katie, well she’s a critic for The LA Times, so she’s a professional.
SLIM NBD.
MIA She knows what she’s talking about.
SLIM You probably couldn’t attend the Don’t Worry Darling screening because you were at a Minions tattoo party at the time.
MIA You’re right, you’re right. [Slim laughs] My friends and I were all getting Minions tattoos instead of seeing Don’t Worry Darling... Damn!
SLIM We cracked the case. We cracked the old case! [Mia laughs] So I’m excited to see some reviews coming in for Don’t Worry Darling. At a certain point, some people will probably be ready for Don’t Worry Darling to be over, but there’s a big percentage that are not ready for that yet, and they’re ready for this to roll on for as long as possible.
MIA It’s finally, it’s finally coming out after what feels like years and years of discourse and weird drama and everything. So now’s the time! Now’s the time to worry, darling.
SLIM You know what else is the time? It’s time for Avatar to get released in theaters. James Cameron, this is on 53,000 watchlists, so doesn’t even shake a stick at Don’t Worry Darling. It’s getting re-released in theaters. Everyone re this was a big—this was like the 3D movie, way back when, when this came out. If you’re not familiar with the synopsis, I’ll read it for you. “In the 22nd century, a paraplegic Marine is dispatched to the moon Pandora on a unique mission, but becomes torn between following orders and protecting an alien civilization.” Now we have some DMs flying around on Slack—me, you, Mitchell. There was not a whole lot of Avatar love in those DMs. Can you confirm?
MIA Oh Slim! Don’t leak our Slack DMs! [Mia & Slim laugh]
SLIM This is a safe space, The Letterboxd Show is the safest space in podcasting. We know that.
MIA Yes, no, we know that, we know that, yes. I would be honored and thrilled to share my thoughts on Avatar, because this was my first time seeing it. I just saw it for the very first time in my whole life.
SLIM Really?
MIA I know! [Mia laughs]
SLIM Holy smokes.
MIA I somehow escaped the Avatar boom of 2009. I don’t know what happened. But yeah, I just, I had not seen it. So I did get to see it in Dolby 3D.
SLIM Do you log it?
MIA I logged it, but I didn’t rate it.
SLIM No rating on this log job. [Mia laughs]
MIA Because I didn’t know how to rate it! I didn’t know, because it’s... honestly, it’s just not my type of movie. I really respect the advancements in CGI technology and how it looked and how... you know, I respect it. I have a lot of respect for it.
SLIM Sure.
MIA Even if I didn’t necessarily connect with it. So that’s why I’m just kind of tapping out and I want you to share your love of Avatar.
SLIM Mia might run for office after this segment.
MIA I’m being a diplomat. [Slim laughs]
SLIM Her PR team is giving her the thumbs up behind the camera. I can see them in the background. I love Pandora. I wrote my notes, “I love Pandora. I don’t give an efffff.” And I had like a long ‘F’ in my notes. I’ve been to Disney World with my wife and son. Flight of age is one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had on this planet at an amusement park. It’s so fun. I’m not going to go see this in theaters, but I am excited for [Avatar: The Way of Water], which is coming at the end of the year. I’m a little bummed that Jim Cameron is going to be making Avatars for the next twenty years. I’d love for him to like, you know, make something else. I just watched True Lies—
MIA Yeah, like Titanic 2?
SLIM What about Titanic 2, Titanic 3...
MIA Titanic 4, Titanic 5...
SLIM Titanic 6!
MIA Yeah... [Mia & Slim laugh]
SLIM So I—
MIA What were you saying about True Lies, I interrupted you because I had to say a Titanic joke.
SLIM I did just rewatch True Lies for the first time because that’s streaming for the first time maybe ever. It’s on Hulu right now in the US.
MIA Whoa.
SLIM So if anyone has not seen Arnold and Jamie Lee, two visions, and Jim Cameron together, by all means check that out. So I love Pandora. I honestly don’t think I’ve logged Avatar since I started using Letterboxd. But I will be watching it in advance of [Avatar: The Way of Water] with my dear friends on 70mm.
MIA Oh yeah I think—well, okay, one more thing about Avatar is I do think it’s really cool how like, after it came out, deforestation completely stopped, we stopped imperialization, we stopped imperializing countries, we stopped colonization, we stopped displacing Indigenous people. I thought it was really cool that the world was saved in 2009. So... once [Avatar: The Way of Water] comes out, I mean... world peace will be achieved, I assume, right? I mean, if that was the most successful film of all time...
SLIM Is there anything Jim Cameron can’t do? That’s the question at this point.
MIA Well, he’s about to solve every problem... [Mia & Slim laugh] Every single problem.
SLIM December, everything is solved. Soph, who helps us out with transcripts, left a review: “Not enough people talk about how Pandora is basically just the world from Rayman?”
MIA Yes, I was really wanting to play video games during the movie. I just kept thinking like, “Oh, that reminds me of this video game and this video game and this video game.” [Slim laughs] It’s interesting how much—I feel like a lot of video games have also taken from Avatar, now that I’ve watched it and I’m a gamer girl, I’m like, ‘Ohhh, this is where all the ideas come from!’
SLIM We’ve got nine more of these coming, Mia! You gotta buckle up! Nine more movies coming!
MIA No, I’m in. Like, I will be watching all of them. Don’t worry. Don’t worry.
SLIM Same. Same.
MIA Because I need to find out how to save the world, it seems this is what—yeah, we’ll find out. Don’t worry.
SLIM Stay tuned.
MIA Okay, okay, let’s leave Pandora. Let’s go back to Earth, ground ourselves in reality a little more with Athena, directed by Romain Gavras on 5,000 watchlists, coming out on Netflix this weekend. Here’s the synopsis: “Hours after the tragic death of their youngest brother in unexplained circumstances, three siblings have their lives thrown into chaos.” Here’s a little more info about the synopsis from The Hollywood Reporter: “The Netflix thriller in Venice competition chronicles the conflict that rips apart three brothers when video circulates of their youngest sibling apparently being killed by cops.” Yes, very much down to earth.
SLIM Very much more grounded in reality than anything on Pandora. I watched the trailer for this. I didn’t really have any background info. This thing looks intense AF. It takes place in Paris, and we added that little line about The Hollywood Reporter because the synopsis doesn’t really give you an idea of what to expect with this movie. But this reminds me, just the trailer alone, reminds me of, is La Hein? La Haine?
MIA Oh! Yes, yes.
SLIM You know, those kids that are mixed up with cops and running around town, so I was getting almost modern vibes of that. And it looks big, like this looks like an expensive production. And I know the director has done previously some music videos, which I think have become like super popular over the years. So this looks really good, I added it to my watchlist as soon as I watched the trailer.
MIA No, this looks, this genuinely looks incredible. I love the poster. Check out the poster on the Letterboxd page. We have a review from Matt: “Athena is such a muscular flex of filmmaking from Romain Gavras. A propulsive and adrenaline-pumping modern Greek tragedy with several jaw-dropping tracking shots and chaotic displays of civil unrest in Paris.” Yes, I was seeing reviews about how the opening shot is just like an incredible piece of filmmaking.
SLIM This is on Netflix, so you don’t have to go anywhere, so just fire this up, get some popcorn.
MIA Oh, it’s so accessible.
SLIM Love a good Netflix couch movie. This looks a little heavier than your normal fare to be honest, but...
MIA Yeah, heavier than what they’re usually putting out. [Mia laughs]
SLIM Yes, yes. Just real quick, before we look back at last week, Sidney, a documentary on Sidney Poitier, is also available on Apple TV+ this weekend, Reginald Hudlin directed. “This revealing documentary honors the legendary Sidney Poitier, iconic actor, filmmaker and civil-rights activist featuring interviews with Denzel Washington, Spike Lee, Halle Berry and more.” And I recognized Reginald’s name from the listing, I actually think the first time I’ve ever read or watched anything from him, he’s been writing Black Panther, the comic book, for many years and that’s a great run. So if anyone is trying to dip their toe in comic books, head your shop and get Reginald’s run on Black Panther, very good.
MIA And then watch his documentary on the legendary actor.
SLIM That’s right. What a weekend. What a weekend you have planned. Comic books and documentaries...
MIA And going to Pandora. [Slim laughs] Don’t forget, you have to fit that in. [Mia laughs]
SLIM Yes, that’s a very busy weekend, so plan accordingly.
MIA It’s 4.5 light years away, so...
SLIM Get hydrated, you gotta stay hydrated. So let’s look back at last week, what do you want to call out this past week? Any releases? Any reviews that jump to mind?
MIA So speaking of Netflix, and their usual lighter fare, this movie dropped out of nowhere last week, Do Revenge. You heard of this, Slim?
SLIM I heard there was some Twitter chatter about it. And I was like, what the heck is this movie? And I feel like we should know because we do a podcast about movies coming out.
MIA Because it’s our job to know what’s coming out... [Mia & Slim laugh] It’s what we’re paid to do, yeah. I know... Ha ha ha! Oops. But, yeah, I saw like a clip of Sophie Turner yelling, “I don’t doooo cocaaaaine!” [Slim laughs] I saw that clip, and I was like, ‘What? What is this?’ [Mia laughs] That’s what convinced me to watch this. So I’ll just read, I’ll read the synopsis real quick, this is on Netflix. Okay. “A dethroned queen-bee at a posh, private high school strikes a secret deal with an unassuming new student to enact revenge on one another’s enemies.” So it’s kind of like a modern, Gen-Z version of Strangers on a Train. [Mia laughs]
SLIM Mmm...
MIA Which is wild.
SLIM That’s cool.
MIA Maya Hawke’s character—Maya Hawke is in the film—and she is actually reading the Strangers on a Train book in the movie. Yeah, so...
SLIM Ohhh, nice little nod.
MIA So they know, they know, yeah, little Easter egg. So that’s directed by Jennifer Kaytin Robinson. And it’s a lot of, it’s a lot fun! I’m having fun. I love a revenge teen movie, just like no matter what, I have fun with those.
SLIM 3.5 average right now.
MIA Yeah! 3.5 average, I don’t know why this just kind of came out of nowhere. But Maya Hawke’s being gay. Sarah Michelle Gellar is the school principal.
SLIM Oh, nice.
MIA Yeah. And Sophie Turner shows up! So, Do Revenge! Go Do Revenge!
SLIM What more do you need?
MIA What more would you need?
SLIM I went to—you know the Hallowe’en is coming real soon?
MIA Oh, yeah.
SLIM The Hallowe’en.
MIA The Hallowe’en. [Slim & Mia]
SLIM They started to open up, you know, the Spirit Halloween stores, so I went in there with my wife and they had a Creepshow tee, like a long sleeve. It looked like a Rucking Fotten knockoff.
MIA Oh, yeah.
SLIM You know how they do. So of course, I bought that. And then I started watching the Creepshows again, this week, to try to get into the mood, you know, the Hallowe’en mood. First one was fun. Second one, not so much. But there’s some cool, fun stories. I miss those like, horror-anthology movies.
MIA Me too.
SLIM I think like, V/H/S has started to kick up some of that a little bit more. But we need more. Come back. Come back to us.
MIA I agree. Yes. I love the horror anthologies. And I think there’s a new V/H/S coming out this year, even. They keep doing ’em.
SLIM There’s like a new V/H/S every six months.
MIA I know! As there should be.
SLIM If we get nine Pandoras, we can have twenty V/H/Ses, by god.
MIA Exactly! The budget is a fraction!
SLIM Pearl dropped last week, and that’s sitting at a 3.9 average right now on Letterboxd.
MIA Yeah!
SLIM People are loving Pearl...
MIA They cannot get enough of Pearl literally slaying. [Mia laughs]
SLIM Did you see the quotes from Scorsese that came out?
MIA Yeah!
SLIM He saw Pearl, he had nightmares.
MIA He had trouble sleeping! [Mia & Slim laugh]
MIA Our poor, sweet boy saw Pearl and he can’t sleep.
MIA Aw no...
SLIM We need to get him some help. Brent left a review: “Pretty sure the dance sequence was worth two stars and Goth’s monologue is definitely worth two stars.” That’s from Brent. So yeah, there was a lot of reviews calling out Mia’s monologue towards the end being like, you know, amazing, incredible.
MIA Let’s see. Oh, See How They Run also came out, lest we forget. Here’s a review from Kayla: “A self-referential whodunit with a drunken Sam Rockwell muttering in an English accent? Don’t have to tell me twice. The marketing for this movie was non-existent! Who didn’t do their job on that one, eh?” [Slim laughs] That’s kinda true. That’s another one that just kind of came out.
SLIM Yeah, there’s a lot—
MIA No shade to marketing! We love you so much in marketing.
SLIM We love you marketing. We love you out there.
MIA We love you.
SLIM Almost as much as Mia loves that Snapple she’s drinking off to the side.
MIA I am drinking a Snapple. Prickly pear and peach white tea...
SLIM Should we bring up this Snapple drink that you are drinking? They’ve owned the elements, right? They’re branding the elements.
MIA Yeah, yeah. So it’s... [Mia laughs] this is just for fun. Yeah, so it’s air. I wish I could show everybody what it is. But they do have new Snapple. It’s prickly pear and peach white tea and I’m addicted to it. So I hope they pay me for that. I think that was worth about 20,000... right? [Slim laughs]
SLIM 20K! Yeah, Snapple—
MIA 20K, Snapple, pay up!
SLIM Send the cashier’s check, “Care of Mia...” in LA please.
MIA Mia, just Mia. [Mia & Slim laugh]
SLIM Just Mia. Emma saw The Woman King which came out last week, that’s also sitting at 3.9 average. “A somewhat historical, action-packed epic that could be in conversation with Gladiator or Braveheart as one of the bests in the genre. It’s multi-layered and tackles many subjects from the Atlantic Slave Trade to sexual trauma.” The Woman King definitely still getting a lot of positive reviews from last week.
MIA Yes, I really want to see that one this weekend, especially in a theater on the big screen. Viola Davis, eff us up.
SLIM Imagine if you were sitting down in that theater, you had an ice-cold Snapple sitting down to watch The Woman King.
MIA Ah, ice-cold prickly pear and—what’s it called? Prickly pear and peach white tea Snapple, for The Woman King. [Slim & Mia laugh]
SLIM I can just start seeing some branded content coming to your Twitter , you’ll say something and then it’ll just say like hashtag-ad at the end.
MIA #ad. Oh, I can’t wait to do my first hashtag-ad. [Slim laughs] Let’s check out the Letterboxd Top 50 of 2022 and see what is at the top of the list for movies released this year. Let’s see... oh, you know what, Slim? This could be the biggest update ever...
SLIM For real?
MIA For real! No, for real. I would never lie to you. Jack added a boatload of the major Oscar contenders and Fall Fest movies. Here we go. The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg’s ode to cinema, debuts very high at number six.
SLIM Wow.
MIA And it was the TIFF People’s Choice winner!
SLIM I really wanted I Like Movies to be the People’s Choice winner.
MIA Aw, yeah.
SLIM So I’d love for us to do a recount if possible, TIFF. Let’s connect. [Mia laughs] Let’s hop on a call and get to the bottom of this.
MIA Oh, and then this one, I’m very excited for, The Banshees of Inisherin is at number sixteen, it’s a Venice winner. We’re getting that Colin Farrell buzz! I’m so excited! He has been having a year.
SLIM Yeah, he’s had a great few years.
MIA A great few years!
SLIM The last couple years. Geez Louise, Colin. He’s got a great agent.
MIA Yes. And he’s got four, this is his fourth movie coming out this year.
SLIM Holy cow.
MIA And then we also have Women Talking at number 23. This is yet another one that I’m excited for. You know, if they have ‘women’ in the title, I’m gonna go see it. But this is adapted from an excellent novel, and it’s directed by Sarah Polley, an excellent filmmaker, and I’ll be seeing it at New York Film Festival in a couple of weeks. So I’m very much looking forward to it.
SLIM Cream of the crop coming out in the last couple of weeks, jumping into the Top 50 real quick. Let’s look back at our own watchlists. Every week we shuffle our watchlists and we have to watch the first thing that gets shuffled as we view our watchlists. I shuffled and got The Outfit, that was my movie that I had to watch before today. And Monday rolled around and I forgot that I had to watch this so I panicked and then I fired it up. This is John Flynn, 1973, Robert Duvall, Karen Black, Joe Don Baker. I wrote in my review, Joe Don Baker, his head of hair is incredible. In this movie. I didn’t even know he was like this young. I’ve seen Joe Don Baker, as like, he’s a quote unquote, ‘character’ actor. So he’s in a lot of stuff, but man, he looked fantastic in this movie. It reminded me a Bullitt in a lot of ways, Steve McQueen Bullitt with that Mustang, because I had rented that when I was working at the video store and it was one of my earliest memories of seeing like a gritty, you know, ’70s-ish movie with revenge and stuff. And it definitely reminded me of that. And I had not realized at the time but this was based on a Richard Stark novel. And if you had, anyone had read the Parker comics, the Parker graphic novels by Darwyn Cooke, it definitely fits right into that. So if people like this kind of movie—and second time mentioning comics this week, it’s like I have a scheme, I have a trick up my sleeve. Go to the comic-book shop and get Darwyn Cooke’s Parker, they’re gorgeous. And they’re really accessible for people that love these kinds of movies. So that was my movie. I’m back! Four stars. I’m back in the good graces of my watchlist.
MIA Yes! Oh man. Oh, I’m so relieved. You were really in a slump for a little bit.
SLIM I was. I was pretty depressed about the whole thing. [Mia laughs] But I’m back. What about you? What did you watch?
MIA Okay, so I got, I got a funny one. I got Who Took the Bomp? Le Tigre on Tour, and I am very proud to be the 269th person to log this one on Letterboxd. [Mia & Slim laugh]
SLIM Nice.
MIA But yeah, so Le Tigre is one of my all-time favorite bands. I may have said a little bit about this last week, so sorry if I’m repeating myself, but they are a queer, feminist, electro-punk trio from the late-’90s, early-2000s, fronted by Bikini Kill’s Kathleen Hanna. I don’t get to talk about music much on here as it is a movie podcast, but I’m a major riot girly. So this was a very, very neat and validating and very specific-to-my-interests time capsule. Their first album Le Tigre is one of my all-time favorites. It has a song called ‘What’s Yr Take on Cassavetes’ that I base my personality off of. [Slim laughs] I cannot recommend it enough. I also was thrilled that a another person watched this, thank god.
SLIM Oh...
MIA Kaden also watched and tagged ‘Weekend Watchlist’ and their review was just: “YASSSSSS GAY PEOPLE!!! Heart eyes emoji, rainbow flag emoji, crying emoji.” [Slim & Mia laugh] So, yeah.
SLIM I love it. I love it. There’s so many—I love just everyone tagging your reviews ‘Weekend Watchlist’, there’s so many that I sift through each week. And it’s awesome to see people us on these journeys and tag their movie. So that was fun to see.
MIA Oh yeah, speaking of...
SLIM Uh oh.
MIA We have some reviews to read.
SLIM Let’s do it.
MIA Perfect, oh, perfect segue. Ohhh, god, yes. [Slim laughs] Oh, that’s what we live for.
SLIM Snapple, are you paying attention now? [Mia laughs] Are you paying attention now?
MIA Where’s that 20k? Okay. [Mia & Slim laugh] So here, let’s see, et’s see—oh, we’ve got my gal Mrs. Harris. her? She went to Paris.
SLIM Oooh, yup, yup.
MIA Mhm. Mhm. So we have a review from Ocean: “I’d do the same for a pair of air force ones.” [Slim laughs] So true. Slim, once you watch it, you’ll really get that joke.
SLIM Aye caramba.
MIA But you’re going to have to watch it.
SLIM Before I watch it, we have to spotlight a close friend of ours, and that’s Marcel the Shell with Shoes On.
MIA Ah yes, friend of the pod, Marcel.
SLIM To be fair, this one was last week and I didn’t catch it in time from JoJo Wild, their review: “I didn’t think this was gonna be a movie I was gonna check out soon, but since Weekend Watchlist wouldn’t shut up about it, I had to. Three weeks ago I lost my sibling and watching things has been kind of hard. Marcel the Shell is so gentle, though, so wholesome, exactly what I needed.” Thank you, JoJo.
MIA Aw, JoJo Wild... Ohhh... Oh man.
SLIM I keep trying to tell my my wife and son, I was like, “When’s it family movie night? When we firing up, Marcel the Shell [with Shoes On]?
MIA Oh, yeah. It’s time to cry as a family.
SLIM It is. It’s always time to cry.
MIA It’s always time to cry, especially as a family unit. [Slim laughs] Oh, we should mention review from Dave Horwitz: “Extra half star added just by virtue of the fact that it exists. Someone made a lil slow-burn mystery comedy with little fanfare and not only does it work, it’s fun as hell. I laughed a big handful of times.” Confess, Fletch!
SLIM Yeah, someone hit me up on Twitter and asked about Confess, Fletch, I pretty much said, “You know, we only have 30 minutes, and then we have to give refunds if we run out of time.” But I grew up on Fletch, my brother was a huge Fletch fan with Chevy Chase. So that movie is like, imprinted on me. So I’m trying my best to find time to watch Confess, Fletch, and this is moving it further up my watchlist after Dave’s review.
MIA Kyle MacLachlan is in it too, your friend’s favorite actor. [Slim laughs]
SLIM He was vilified in Discord after that review, I might add. So there were some Kyle fans that rose in his honor, so to speak.
MIA I hesitate to say, ‘good’ but... [Slim laughs] Hm, interesting.
SLIM So let’s head to our watchlists, we have to shuffle again. I am going to filter my service by streaming-only. I only want to watch movies that are streaming only. And then I’m going to sort by Shuffle and I have to watch the first movie that appears. First movie is... [shuffle sound plays] Evilspeak, 1981. “Bullied by classmates, a pudgy military-school student fights back by computer with the devil.” Clint Howard is the star of this movie. [Slim laughs]
MIA Wait, by computer with the devil?
SLIM He fights back “by computer” with the devil.
MIA He fights back by computer with the devil. Okay, okay... [Slim laughs]
SLIM I guess—the poster, he’s sitting at a computer looking evil. And this is streaming on Shudder. It’s at a 3.0 average. My close personal friend Dale gave it two-and-a-half stars, so it’s not exactly beaming...
MIA Ooh, high praise. [Mia & Slim laugh]
SLIM We’ll see how that goes. What about you? [shuffle sound plays]
MIA Well, I also got a creepy movie. [Slim gasps] Yeah, yeah! Just in time for almost-October, I suppose. Not quite there, but it’s May, 2002, directed by Lucky McKee. Here’s the synopsis: “Psychological horror about a lonely young woman traumatized by a difficult childhood, and her increasingly desperate attempts to connect with the people around her.” This sounds right up my alley. This sounds made for me. The only reason I’m nervous is because I do know there is a cat-death scene in this one.
SLIM Oh no... should we reroll? Are you okay with that?
MIA No, no, no. I’m just gonna have to cover my eyes, I suppose, and mute.
SLIM We need timestamps for the scenes, it’s like that website where you know when to go the bathroom when you see a movie in theaters.
MIA Ye,s we need that for this. Oh my god. But I’m going to be really brave, I’m gonna be really brave and I’m going to watch May, because I really have—this has been on my watchlist for a really, really long time and I think it has potential to be one of my favorites. But that cat thing is really... that’s why I’ve been putting it off.
SLIM Everyone listening please send your positive vibes to Mia on this journey.
MIA Thank you...
SLIM Please, reach your hand out as you’re listening and send all your positivity towards Mia.
MIA Thank you so much. Wow, also I want to say that this is a wash with four and four and a half stars from my mutuals.
SLIM My god.
MIA People are loving—Anna Ferris is in it. Oh my god, I’m gonna watch this right now.
SLIM You know what will help this viewing? Having an ice-cold Snapple in your hand as your watch.
MIA Ohhh, an ice cold, prickly pear and peach white tea Snapple. [Slim & Mia laugh] Yeah!
SLIM So dumb... [Slim & Mia laugh]
[Izon by Trent Walton fades in, plays alone, fades out]
SLIM Thank you for listening to Weekend Watchlist, brought to you by The Letterboxd Show. You can follow Mia, Slim—that’s me—and our HQ page on Letterboxd using the links in our episode notes and our co-host Mitchell might be returning very soon, from assignment, from four faves. If you want to listen to more Mitchell, check out the other episodes in this feed. They did a fantastic job on those interviews, and check them out. They’ll be back soon.
MIA Thanks to our crew and thanks to Letterboxd member Trent Walton for the theme music ‘Izon’. Thanks to Jack for the facts and Sophie Shin for the episode transcript. And to you, for listening. Weekend Watchlist is a Tapedeck production.
[Tapedeck bumper plays] This is a Tapedeck podcast.