We Wanna Watch

This week's Rick's Pick for WE WANNA WAIL is Spellbound (1945) directed by Alfred Hitchcock! After a long intro about Primetime, Digger, and caring about people around you, we talk about this movie's fun and silly visual style, Hitchcock's Fisher Price Baby's First Therapy story, and the chemistry between Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck. Plus: the return of an old favorite.

It's called improv. It's what great actors do. But not all improv comes from great actors, as this podcast demonstrates! This week's Lane's Frame for our continuing WE WANNA WAIL series is The Sixth Sense (1999) directed by M. Night Shyamalan! We talk about this movie's tight screenplay, Bruce Willis' movie star power, and Haley Joel Osment's unbelievable performance. Plus: what are the best phone calls in movies?

This week's Rick's Pick WE WANNA WAIL is The Shining (1980) directed by Stanley Kubrick! Enjoy our second longest episode ever as we discuss all the cool ass shit in this movie, you know what it is, don't mess with me, just let this cozy listening wash over you.

Follow along with our little game here.

Follow Lane on Letterboxd here.

Follow Ricky to his house in Philadelphia here.

.WE WANNA WAIL continues with this week's Lane's Frame, The Green Mile (1999) directed by Frank Darabont! After a long intro about Lane's scary movie marathon this year and Ricky's attempts to see Buddy (2026) in theaters, we talk about this movie's sentimentality, stellar performances, and the racism of King's original novel.

Watch Key & Peele's Magical Negro Fight here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jInlO6-JTww

Follow Lane on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/toadsona/

Join the 2026 Vulture Movie Fantasy League with the mini league name "we wanna watchers": https://moviegame.vulture.com/

Happy scary season watchers 👻 Our first WE WANNA WAIL of the season is Rick's Pick, A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) directed by Wes Craven! After a brief intro about antiquing, we talk about this movie's gross iconography, cozy atmosphere, and so-so performances. Plus: what's with all the sex and death? Does horror seem to have a preoccupation with those topics or what??

This week's Lane's Frame is The Searchers (1957) directed by John Ford! After a weirdly intense discussion about the ethics of documentarian intervention in their subjects, we go loooong talking about John Wayne's star power, this movie's thorny racism and characters, and the gorgeous cinematography tying it all together. Plus: a little game.

In honor of Dolly Parton's recent passing, this week's Rick's Pick is Nine to Five (1980) directed by Colin Higgins. After a brief intro about serial killer weaponry (?), we discuss this movie's progressive politics, uneven pacing, and hilarious performances from Dolly, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda.

This week's Two Reeler is Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026)! We cover our histories with Nolan, argue over people's expectations for this movie, and drive quite a few overplayed jokes into the ground. Plus: misophonia warning.

This week's Lane's Frame is The Cider House Rules (1999) directed by Lasse Hallström! Sure, fine.

This week's Rick's Pick is F for Fake (1973) directed by Orson Welles! This is the closest I have ever gotten to murdering Ricky.

This week's Lane's Frame is The Straight Story (1999) directed by David Lynch! Our return to Lynch is as gentle and wistful as the movie itself...not! Features a little game.

This week's Rick's Pick is Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993) directed by Mamoru Oshii! After some Odyssey talk, we dive into this movie's sophisticated premise, inconsistent animation, and colonial criticism. Plus: Bankruptcy makes his podcasting debut in a big way.

This week's Puliter Prize-winning episode is a Two Reeler! We discuss Rick's Pick, Man with a Movie Camera (1929) directed by Dziga Vertov, and the long-awaited Lane's Frame Grizzly Man (2005) directed by Werner Herzog. One of our gentler episodes, despite the runtime! We needed to recover our dignity and minds after last week's shenanigans.

This week's Lane's Frame (or is it?) is The End of the Affair (1999) directed by Neil Jordan. This episode is a weird one for reasons that become clear quickly.

This week's Rick's Pick is Fiddler on the Roof (1971) directed by Norman Jewison! We digress for quite a bit about Obsession (again...) and the current era of horror (AGAIN!) in relation to the movie musical before segueing into a discussion about this movie's interesting characters, uneven tone, and showstopping songs.

This week's Lane's Frame is Sweet and Lowdown (1999) directed by Woody Allen! Our discussion about this movie is quite brief because it is slight and frothy. But sometimes that's good too, right?

This week's Rick's Pick is Nightcrawler (2014) directed by Dan Gilroy! The spiritual successor to Se7en mayhaps? We talk about Gyllenhaal's star quality, the comparison of this movie to Taxi Driver or Network, and the datedness of its anti-journalism themes. We also digress about video games for like 15 minutes, because we have to do that monthly.

Our last two Pride Pics of 2026 are The Matrix (1999) directed by The Wachowski Sisters and I Saw the TV Glow (2024) directed by Jane Schoenbrun! Is transness about unplugging or plugging in? Why can't Ricky do the Agent Smith voice? Should Anthems for a Seventeen Year‐Old Girl be in every movie? All that and more on this long-ass episode!

Our Pride Pics continue with Happy Together (1997) directed by Wong Kar-Wai and Fight Club (1999) directed by David Fincher. With Happy Together, we talk about our trouble connecting with the characters and story and the bury your gays trope; with Fight Club, we somehow talk about everything except the movie for 90 minutes? Weird episode!

Life is a cabaret! Or is it? Our Pride Pics continue this week with two bangers: musical drama Cabaret (1972) directed by Bob Fosse and psychological drama Beau Travail (1999) directed by Claire Denis. Eso son Reebok o son Nike?

Happy Pride Month Watchers!! This week's pride pics were Ed Wood (1994) directed by Tim Burton and Being John Malkovich (1999) directed by Spike Jonze. Identity issues galore! Is the human experience inherently lonely or is that specific to men? Fetishes! Being Jesse Plemons? Is this anything? Plus: a not-so-brief intro about Curry Barker's Obsession!

This week's Rick's Pick is Se7en (1995) directed by David Fincher. DETECTIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This week's Lane's Frame is Margaret (2011) directed by Kenneth Lonergan! You think this movie is about a bus crash but really it's about a trainwreck. We go long about the depth of this movie's characters and compare it to every single Mike Leigh film we've covered. Plus: Ricky prepares a little game!

This week's Rick's Pick is The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989) directed by Peter Greenaway! We both come to this movie a little cooler than Drowning by Numbers, but don't worry: Ricky spends a looong time talking about vore. Plus: a little game.

The cat, TOTALLY out of the bag: it's The Insider (1999) directed by Michael Mann! We open this week's Lane Frame with a loooong digression about Taco Bell and breakfast foods before getting into Mann's oeuvre. We chat about his use of color, the effectiveness of the camerawork, and Al Pacino's energy levels. Plus: Ricky tries to explain some internet shit to me and I still don't understand it tbh. Hopefully you do, WWWatchers.

Please enjoy this microreview of Hoppers (2026) directed by Daniel Chong by WWWatchers Corb and Jorge 🦫

Ugly, Stupid, Dogshit. This week's Rick's Pick was Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) directed by Glenn Ficarra and John Requa. Why does this movie hate women? Why is Steve Carell so unfunny? Why haven't we watched La La Land yet?

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026) directed by Michael Jelenic and Aaron Horvath. It's a Lane's Frame, it's a Chris' List, it's a B-Syde, it's a bad movie and a major letdown. This episode is unlistenable and if you make it all the way through you deserve a statue in your honor.

This week, in honor of the iconic singer's birthday, we have on special guest Maria for our first Maria's Movie: Selena (1997) directed by Gregory Nava. While this movie falls into some stereotypical biopic beats (simple storytelling, mediocre acting, boring direction), Maria schools us on Selena's life and music and why she deserved a better movie. Plus: Ricky's ex-wife revealed.

This week's Lane's Frame is Creed (2015) directed by Ryan Coogler! Our celebratory episode on this year's Best Actor winner Michael B. Jordan open with a long digression about sports, the ren faire, and, of course, MBJ's former Friday Night Lights costar. Is anyone surprised that Ricky thought Rocky was a real guy?

This week's Rick's Pick is the kung fu classic Enter the Dragon (1973) directed by Robert Clouse! Ricky's expectations may have been mismatched with this iconic entry from Bruce Lee's filmography, but they were nowhere near as mismatched as his skills were for our little game. Also, if the audio sounds shitty, that's on me, I'll do better next time.

This week's off-the-cuff Lane's Frame is Apocalypse Now (1979) directed by Francis Ford Coppola! Our first FFC gives us ample opportunity to discuss some familiar faces like Martin Sheen, Dennis Hopper, and the Vietnam War. Plus, a little game.

This week's special guest Christopher is back with a choice off the Chris' List, Ex Machina (2014) directed by Alex Garland! We spend about a third of this episode talking about the movie, another third talking about AI, and the last third bullshitting about important topics like "what is your favorite Pokémon" and "what does the Thing taste like".

This week's Lane's Frame is Hospital (1970) directed by Frederick Wiseman (RIP)! We delve into the recently deceased director's work for the first time to mixed results, as you can really tell Ricky did not want to talk about this movie lol. Nevertheless, we have a spirited discussion about the healthcare system, investigative journalism, and specialized bigotry. Plus: is calling him "LeoDio" catching on? I swear I've said it once or twice and now all my friends call him that.

This week's Rick's Pick is O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) directed by Joel and Ethan Coen! We discuss George Clooney's movie star persona, the Coens' slapstick tendencies, and the Odyssey as a greater cultural artifact. I can just FEEL Ricky getting deflated about this movie over the course of the episode.

George Clooney Bobbles His Head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZgUclE5J-w

This week's B-Syde is Ghost Dog: Way of the Samurai (1999) directed by Jim Jarmusch! We talk about this movie's understated visual style, great soundtrack, and Black men's affinity for Japan. Plus: Ricky incorrectly states that Forest Whitaker was on the Boondocks :/ and during Black History Month...

This week's Rick's Pick is Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) directed by Philip Kaufman! We meander quite a bit on this episode as we discuss this film's paranoid cinematography, cool 70s look, and complex, perhaps reactionary worldview. We talk about The Thing (1982) a lot and we talk about weird gross stuff even more. Plus: Ricky describes wrecking his car two days after his birthday without a shred of self-awareness.

Happy birthday to Lane

This week's Rick's Pick is the inscrutable Drowning by Numbers (1988) directed by Peter Greenaway! After a looooong discussion about upcoming 2026 films, we talk about this movie's shaggy, charming style and its counting motif. Also, kind of funny in retrospect that we DIDN'T play a little game for this movie.

This week's Lane's Frame is one of the most Acting movies of all time, All About Eve (1955) directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz! We talk about George Sanders as an early candidate for Get This Guy Off The Screen, Anne Baxter's whole Thing, and, of course, Lane's continued affinity for cool heavy vintage phones. This is the Chop Not Slop version of the episode because I cut out like 25 minutes of us arguing about fandom in the beginning, lol.