This week on Down to Watch... NAUGHTY! Dan and Raul watched Silent Night, Deadly Night, the holiday slasher from 1984 that translates Santa-related trauma into bodies upon bodies. After Billy Chapman goes through a handful of awful Xmas related experiences both at 5 and 8 years old, the final flash forward sees an 18 year old Billy working at a store and through his demons. However, after having the responsibilities of the store Santa thrust upon him, he unleashes a b-movie's worth of axe-chops and box cutter stabs, enough to land this scrappy horror flick firmly in the land of cult classics. There's no garbage day, but there's plenty of trashy fun to be had here!
This week on Down to Watch, our hearts grow two sizes in one episode! Dan and Raul watched the 2000 live action remake of How the Grinch Stole Christmas starring Jim Carrey to get into the holiday spirit, Who-style. Ron Howard made an extended version that includes backstories for some of the classic Seuss characters and leans deeply into the aesthetic of the Chuck Jones Looney Tunes-esque cartoon special from the 60s. A bevvy of comic and character actors fill in Whoville's community of revelers who are too focused on materialism and are poised to learn a lesson delivered by a very un-jolly fellow. Make your Christmas green and furry by giving it a watch and giving us a listen!
This week on DtW, it's all spirit fingers and stolen routines with Bring It On! Dan and Raul caught another anniversary film with the 2000 cheerleading competition flick that is turning 25 this year. Kirsten Dunst, Eliza Dushku and Gabrielle Union all star in this slightly spoofy sports story centered around a suburban championship cheer squad and their new leader finding out their trophy-winning moves were plagiarized from an inner city team. As a film that seemingly bridges classic film tropes and modern cinema sensibilities, it manages to stay entertaining and relevant a quarter century after release and definitely worth a watch. The cheerocracy has declared you listen to this pod!
This week on DtW, it's holiday travel at it's best/worst in Planes, Trains and Automobiles! Dan and Raul braved the winter wilds of 80s airports and depots to follow fast frenemies Del and Neal played by John Candy and Steve Martin respectively in this classic story about a trip home for Thanksgiving. The two travelers are seemingly as mismatched as their trip is fraught with implausible calamity, but they make an incredible duo on screen and might actually be just what each of these Chicago castaways needs. This one is beloved for a reason, and if you needed a reason to pop this on around turkey time, this podcast serves as an appetizer OR dessert!
This week, DtW is enjoying the one from many in Pluribus! Dan and Raul are excited to get into the new AppleTV series from Vince Gilligan, mastermind behind Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul. This show that sees Rhea Seehorn as Carol, one of the last independent people in the world after a signal from space acts as a virus that turns all of humanity into one being with an interconnected mind. This hive mind is peaceful, friendly and helpful in making Carol's existence as comfortable as possible, at least until they can figure out how to remove her individuality. She may protest, but the collective creature is so sure she'll love it that it sounds like maybe she will not have a choice. What's this show about and what makes these two first episodes so great? I bet our two hosts can figure it out if they just put their minds togeth... wait a sec.
The It that It is all about is back and DtW is feeling quite Welcome to Derry! Dan and Raul went into It with some expectations and so far It has delivered both scares and gross-outs, often together. The town of Derry is tortured by an active Pennywise the Dancing Clown every 27 years with this series investigating each occasion going backwards in time per season, and this season lands perfectly in line with 60s era discrimination. Two families in the idyllic Maine hamlet will deal with what it means to be a racial minority in a town that is steeped in evil even when the ghoulish title character is hibernating. Add to that a military operation to weaponize Derry's scariness and the usual youthful angst that goes along with an It story and it's a powder keg of creepy chaos that has already exploded in buckets of viscera and mountains of madness. Come see if we all float down here!
We're looking forward to the rest of the year on this week's Down to Watch! Dan and Raul are looking at the winter weather watchlist and picking out great gifts for listeners good and bad alike. Nov has plenty to pick from including a surreal sci-fi story from Apple called Pluribus, an American history lesson with great actors in Death by Lightning and Danes doing dangerous secret stuff again in The Beast in Me. There's a true life tales as well with Alex vs A-Rod, a remake worth a look with The Running Man, and while December is a little empty we're gonna see the return of Fallout, Stranger Things and the whole of Kill Bill in theaters. Santa's coming down early and he's got some tv for ya!
Down to Watch lines up an evening of scares with 2011's Fright Night! Dan and Raul are squaring a spooky circle they started last year with the 1985 original by checking out the second go-round with Colin Farrell, Toni Collette, Imogen Poots and Anton Yelchin in the main roles (we still get an Ed but lose a Billy). This retry at a horror version of Rear Window has the advantage of 20+ years of horror history to draw inspiration and experience from in order to turn this send up of b-movies that ended up as one itself by addressing the mistakes of the first and bringing these characters into the 2010s, an ideal position for a cast and crew to tackle the dreaded remake. Do these modern filmmakers make good on the promise of a clever premise and talented cast or is this an uninspired rehash of the first foray into fang territory? Vegas odds are good!
This week, DtW is going to Alaska to see about some chairs! Dan and Raul caught a couple of pilot episodes for The Last Frontier and The Chair Company. In Frontier, we revisit the idea of a bunch of Cons in the Air when a prison transport crashes near remote Faibanks, and Frank the local marshalls have to contend with dangerous fugitives in the area while an arriving CIA agent has to lock down one specific asset she's lost. Codenamed Havelock, this asset was added to the transport roster at the last minute and he's got skills that make him very dangerous to the rest of the cast. On the other side, The Chair Company sees the perennially intense and awkward Tim Robinson take his over the top characters into a long form story about shame, aging and how hard you can freak out without throwing everything away. Lead character Ron has an embarrassing event escalate into an absolute collapse of decorum while he runs down a seemingly real conspiracy surrounding the titular company. What do these shows have in common? They're on this pod!
This week on Down to Watch, it's a dangerous business being a truthstorian! Dan and Raul caught a couple eps of The Lowdown, Hulu's new drama from the creator of Mare of Easttown. The cool new series follows Ethan Hawke as an indie reporter getting the dirt on the powerful people in town. He's great at lots of things, like being a dad, getting the scoop, and receiving a whooping. But how many punches to the face make a great reporter in this promising new tale based loosely on a true story? Maybe this pod knows!
Spooky season is upon us and Down to Watch is rattling up some new TV! Dan and Raul have sifted through the tricks and treats of October and have filled your round plastic pumpkin pale with a bit of everything. There's Tim Robinson getting weird at The Chair Company, Pennywise making people feel Welcome to Derry and something like Con Air redux in The Last Frontier. Scary stuff includes animated Avengers with a hankering for brains while the theaters welcome back some freaky favorites. There's docs and true stories and a cartoon about spies so make sure to double check your haul and dig in!
This week, DtW has just one Task! Dan and Raul previewed the new HBO crime/family drama in the monthly upcoming TV shows ep and after hearing good things about the premiere, it's time to tackle the first two eps. The story follows dual protags with mirrored lives, as a priest turned FBI agent searches for a crew robbing trap houses in the area led by a secretly vengeful family man down on his luck. Both characters have heavy and complicated tragedies hanging over them while the dope dealers make moves against them. Does the drug house have a nice score within or did we come up empty handed and running for our lives? It is your TASK to listen!
This week, Down to Watch isn't afraid to go back in the water after 50 years of Jaws! Dan and Raul reminisce about the first blockbuster that set the stage for a summer of big budget blowouts, a series of sequels and copycats and a lifetime of Spielberg flicks. Bruce, the big mechanical shark that didn't work right during production, is the star here as the world learned to be afraid of even land-locked bodies of water, but there's plenty passed the gray-skinned chomper to praise regarding one of the most influential and beloved horror movies ever. Is it worth releasing to theaters a half-century after it's first swim in the sea? Heck yes! And more, so listen up!
This week the DtW crew is out of the office but into The Paper! Dan and Raul are subscribed to the new spinoff from The Office, borrowing the creator and a single character from the original show. Greg Daniels continues to draw attention thanks to the legendary status of the original program, despite his previous attempt in Space Force falling well short of his original hit with Steve Carrell. This time he brought Oscar along for a look at a branching story about paper, a fading newspaper in this case, owned by a company more interested in delivering quality toilet paper rather than reporting. Is this the social bend Daniels needed to take with his next project or are we missing the hook of empathizing with lives that resemble those of it's audience? Extra, extra, the answers are within this pod!
It's back to school time again, and despite societal collapse it still means new TV shows for DtW to talk about! Dan and Raul are happy to see returning friends from Tulsa royalty to multi-unit based murderers but the real fun is in all the new friends to be made. There's a serious Task from the Mare of Easttown creator, a Billionaire's Bunker from them that made Money Heist and The Paper from The Office's originators. The Savant is searching for killers, Chad Powers is trying to find a second chance and Epic Ride: Universal is looking to push your nostalgia buttons. We bet you can find something to watch in this episode, so let's get back to it!
It's all synth and sunglasses on Down to Watch this week as the summer heat is the perfect temp for a trip to 90s Florida! Dan and Raul watched the pilot and season 4 finale of the original Miami Vice TV series, a show that gave us slick detectives, fast cars and boats, and hit tunes to fill out a crime drama with a new feel. The cultural impact of this show was so great that Crockett and Tubbs became names even people who have never seen the show can recognize, and the style of Miami Vice has been honored with homages, spoofs and ripoffs throughout the next decades of TV history. All that said, does the show still hold up as a fun and cool undercover cop show or has it's cover been blown as a dated exercise in cringe? Give in to your vices and give it a listen!
Finally, the long-awaited and eagerly anticipated Alien TV show has arrived! Dan and Raul fancy themselves pretty well-versed in the 'Xenomorpho-verse' so they were stoked to see what accomplished TV-creator extraodinaire, Noah Hawley, had in mind for the expansion of this very popular universe. Listen to the guys iterate on the details that link stylistically the many interesting ways the OG Alien movie gets referenced while offering many new characters that include cyborgs, synths, and the newly spawned hybrids. Corporations battle for control of Earth in 2120 and the many aliens are just part of this sci-fi, horror punchbowl, so listen ahead to see if the guys are drinking the Kool Aid or wishing Ridley never allowed this to happen!
The burning hot Down to Watch summer is stretching into August with a rock solid addition to the MCU that's anything but invisible, girl! Dan and Raul can't talk about the Fantastic Four: First Steps without the stalwart Jonnie to round out the comic adaptation team, and the three launch into a space spanning story about parenthood that brings Marvel's first family to the big screen again. This round, the story is expected to tie into the ongoing timeline that's being shepherded by the House of Mouse as opposed to the previous stand-alone attempts, but is the franchise cache enough to make this into a Galactus-man-sized hit or do the crowds clamor for the original cloud-based menace of the older films? There's a baby in this one!
Down to Watch is back to the monthly map of new series and favorite franchises just in time for an awesome August! Dan and Raul have the details on the worlds we're returning to, including a surprising "sequel" to The Naked Gun trilogy, the Alien franchise landing on Earth as a TV show, Wakanda goes animated and John Cena is Peacemaker again but now with a new Superman. That's not to say the new stuff isn't exciting, as our hosts are very excited for the upcoming film Weapons, from Zach Kregger of Barbarian fame. Also new to TV is a reality doc about The Biggest Loser, a funky claymation telenovela on Adult Swim, the story of Hawaiian war between the islands and another series from the creator of Bojack. This is plenty to look forward to, but if looking back is better then Jaws and TMNT are coming back to theaters. So much stuff for the fellas to talk about, and for you to listen!
Down to Watch is up in the sky with the birds, planes and the 1978 Superman! Dan and Raul ride the current Kryptonian hype and watched the film that inspired the new incarnation as well as so many other films. Christopher Reeve gives us a man of steel that has yet to be topped, the music is an iconic ode to the character and the special effects are charming enough to make you believe a man can fly. Come take that flight with DtW, we promise minimal poetry!