EPISODE 070: LESSONS IN FILM GENRE

Featuring: Singin' in the Rain (1952); The Sound of Music (1965); The Little Mermaid (1989); Mamma Mia! (2008)

Lights! Camera! Music! Kevin & Ryan talk the history of musicals, the inherent meta-ness of the genre, and why The Sound of Music is one of the greatest films of all time. The longest regular episode to-date, and it is well-deserved!

EPISODE 069 (nice): CINEMA MINISERIES

Featuring: Pokemon: The First Movie (1998); Pokémon the Movie 2000 (1999); Pokémon 3: The Movie (2000); Pokémon 4Ever (2001); Pokémon Heroes (2002)

Ash, Pikachu, Misty, Brock, Ryan, & Kevin. We journey into our youth to see if the Pokemon movies have the sauce and find out just how close they came to greatness (one of them anyway).

There's no proper episode this week, but listen in and get a taste of what topics we are diving into in the coming weeks and months!

EPISODE 067: CINEMA MINISERIES

Featuring: Treasure Island (1950); Muppet Treasure Island (1996); Treasure Planet (2002)

ARGH MATEY. Long John Silver may be one of the most interesting characters in all of media, and in this episode Ryan and Kevin speak about how him and many of the other themes and characters of Treasure Island have evolved over the decades. Plus our pitch for the next Treasure Island adaptation!

EPISODE 067: CINEMA SINGLES

Featuring: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001)

Following the Disney Renaissance of the 20th century, things began to putter out, or more aptly, sink into the ocean. As children of the 90’s, Ryan and Kevin remember Atlantis fondly and discuss its place in animation history. Plus the “Fart Theory™.”

EPISODE 066: LESSONS IN FILM MOVEMENTS

Featuring: Reefer Madness (1936); Up in Smoke (1978); How High (2001); Pineapple Express (2008)

WR&P goes deep undercover to expose the true ills of society: Marijuana! Ganja! The Devil’s Lettuce! Listen in as Ryan and Kevin explore the history of the stoner film genre, all the way from the propaganda film of the 1930’s to the buddy comedies of the late 20th century, and beyond.

EPISODE 065: LESSONS IN FILM GENRE

Featuring: A Bug’s Life (1998); Chicken Run (2000); Robots (2005)

At the dawn of the new millennia, animated films began its rapid transition from physical medium to computer generation and changed the film industry altogether. Steve Jobs’ Pixar signaled the move away from Disney’s 2D cell animation and Aardman’s claymation, and foreshadowed the complete tech takeover that Hollywood has been experiencing since the 2010s. With months-long labor strikes, VFX artists unionizing, and Hollywood studios monopolizing nearly every other week, the phrase “means of production” carries a double meaning when it comes to critiquing the film industry from a Marxist perspective. To gain an elementary understanding of how Marxist theory operates, WR&P cohosts Ryan and Kevin throw it back to the early aughts and the late 90s with three animated children’s flicks from three different animation studios that echo sentiments of class consciousness, consumption, and materialism.

EPISODE 064: LETTERBOXD TOP 250 SHUFFLE

Featuring: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964); Raging Bull (1980); The Father (2020); I’m Still Here (2024)

In a new episode of WR&P’s Letterboxd Top 250 Shuffle, Ryan & Kevin pin two cinema classics against two recent Oscar darlings. Despite the drastic jump in time, this particular collection is rare in its thematic cohesion. As our own reality tears at the seams, these four films build a portrait of this slow descent into destruction. Although these stories originate in history and/or fiction, the threat of nuclear warfare, the impacts of toxic masculinity, the complete loss of identity and memory, and fascist governments ripping apart families are all current events which continue to affect our society today.