Critical Darlings

Blank Check Productions
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  • Film Reviews
  • Updated weekly

Welcome to Critical Darlings: a podcast about the movies everyone is talking about, one new release after another. Every week, critics Richard Lawson and Alison Willmore cover the latest film driving the conversation—from big summer blockbusters to festival favorites, buzzy streamers, and major awards contenders. New episodes every Thursday. We’re a Blank Check Production! To catch up on our first miniseries covering the 2026 Oscars season, check out Blank Check on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Stick around on this feed for new episodes going forward.  Produced by Benjamin Frisch Subscribe to Richard's newsletter, ⁠⁠Premiere Party,⁠⁠ and read Alison's work ⁠⁠at Vulture.  Follow @blankcheckpod on ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠!

  1. 1 day ago

    “Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma” And Video Store Nostalgia

    Get your dipping sauces ready, it’s Jane Schoenbrun’s Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma! Starring Gillian Anderson and Hannah Einbinder, this meta horror picture goes to some very strange places that nonetheless right feel at home with Schoenbrun’s dreamy-sexy vision: a haunted summer camp, an underground eldritch video store, and an emotionally moving Counting Crows music video to name just a few.   Though dripping in fountains of blood, the movie is also a sensitive depiction of sex and desire as refracted through Einbinder’s character’s obsession with the in-universe Camp Miasma. Camp Miasma is a past-its-prime, problematic horror franchise whose masters have now employed Einbinder's character, a young director, to create a “woke” reboot. She travels to the Pacific Northwest to meet the mysterious starlet of the first film, played by Anderson, who lives at the old campground, and both women unspool.  Alison recently wrote a profile of Schoenbrun in Vulture, and has been immersed in their work for some time, including their upcoming novel. We’ll get into their trajectory from We’re All Going to the World’s Fair, to I Saw the TV Glow, to Camp Miasma, and discuss its extremely dense themes, it’s incredible centerpiece musical sequence, go long on the mystic veil of childhood video stores, and much more. Plus, five whole minutes of The Dog Stars!  Next week, it’s mailbag time!  Email us! CriticalDarlingsMailbag@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  2. 3 Sept

    “Coyote Vs. Acme” And The Great Ketchup Rescue (With Connor Ratliff)

    After an absurd and depressing attempt by David Zaslov to bury Coyote Vs. Acme, it’s finally in theaters. What’s more, it’s great, making WB’s attempts to shelve the movie for a tax write-off seem all the feckless. Rescued by the odd-duck distributor Ketchup Entertainment, the movie is a corporate satire and legal thriller about culpability and justice in a world stacked against the little guy—represented by the character of Wiley Coyote, and Will Forte, as Coyote’s ambulance-chasing attorney. Today we’re joined by Looney Tunes expert Connor Ratliff, of The George Lucas Talk Show, Connor Ratliff’s Presents The Acting Class,⁠ Dead Eyes, and more, to discuss the movie, its rocky history, and a great deal of Looney Tunes lore. We get into a history of Ketchup, the movie’s surprisingly heartfelt center, which Looney Tunes are MAGA, and get into a little behind-the-scenes discussion with the help from Connor, including some of the film’s notable absences, and Senator Elmer Fudd’s official political affiliation. Next week, we’re going to Camp Miasma! See you then.  Email us! CriticalDarlingsMailbag@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  3. 27 Aug

    “Tony” Or, Bourdain Begins (With Jaya Saxena)

    Ey wanna leahn howta shuck an oystah? Jaya Saxena of the new, worker-owned food publication Ravenous, joins us to discuss Tony, the micro-biopic about a pipsqueak version of Anthony Bourdain learning to love food in Provincetown, Mass.  From director Matt Johnson of Nirvana The Band The Show The Movie, and Blackberry, comes a fictionalized take on Bourdain’s early years. The script loosely covers about a chapter and a half from Bourdain’s hallowed Kitchen Confidential: the book that helped turn him from a working chef into one of the most important food writers in America. Bourdain’s reputation precedes him, but Tony largely sidesteps the mythology by downsizing Tony into a wannabe writer in need of a good ass-kicking.  We discuss Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential, the allure of bad boys from greater Massachusetts, what exactly goes into a Lobster Thermidor, refillable ketchup bottles, and the movie’s depiction of drugs and suicide. Finally we get into our favorite food movies (Tampopo! Eat Drink Man Woman! Ratatouille!) and do our recommendations. Next week, watch for falling anvils, it’s Coyote Vs. Acme.  Email us! CriticalDarlingsMailbag@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  4. 20 Aug

    “The End Of Oak Street” Is Dino-mite (With Matt Singer)

    Dinosaurs are back in business this week, with The End of Oak Street, an original blockbuster about shooting dinos in the face while getting chomped by various raptors, dactyls, and giant primordial snakes.  We’re joined by Indiewire’s Matt Singer, host of Filmspotting: SVU, and author of the upcoming book Funny Business, to discuss the film, its blend of Amblin-influenced family filmmaking with director David Robert Mitchell’s acidic bite. The movie uses its familiar tropes to lull the audience into a lull before ripping those tropes apart, making the film stranger and darker than the marketing let on. Still, it’s been a hit with critics, if not with audiences at large.  We discuss how the story unfolds, Ewan McGregor and Anne Hathaway’s performances, the joys of shooting raptors in the face, sad giant snake monsters, The Last House, and break down the ending and what the movie is really about—Climate change, maybe? We also get into JJ Abrams’ trajectory as the head of Bad Robot, which produced the film, the state of puzzle box film and TV, and finally do our recommendations.  Next week, it’s lobster roll season, with the Anthony Bourdain biographical picture, Tony.  Email us: criticaldarlingsmailbag@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  5. 13 Aug

    “One Night Only” Is The Sex Purge (With Josh Gondelman)

    In a technofascist parallel reality, singles are only allowed to have sex one night a year: it’s One Night Only, AKA The Sex Purge!  Comedian Josh Gondelman joins us to discuss this deeply strange film which has taken the box office by…not very much. Is that more evidence for the slow fade of theatrical rom coms, or is this just a really, really weird movie?   Directed by Will Gluck, and starring Callum Turner and Monica Barbaro, We’re split on the movie’s charms, but we’re mesmerized by the movie’s vision of fascism + rom-com shenanigans. We discuss the movie’s world building, blacklist scripts, Callum Turner lookalikes, it’s lack of comedian supporting characters, the state of the rom-com, and the movie’s both-sides-ing of its own high concept premise. Check out Josh’s newsletter That’s Marvelous, to get up to date tour info, and mail us at criticaldarlingsmailbag@gmail.com.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  6. 6 Aug

    “Spider-Man: Brand New Day” Enters The Money-Verse (with Griffin Newman)

    Griffin Newman swings back from Spain, Europe, to discuss Spider-Man: Brand New Day! Brand New Day is likely the biggest movie of the year, maybe of all time, depending on how you count. From the seemingly bulletproof Spider-Man formula to the unquestionable star power of Tom Holland and Zendaya, we should have seen this coming! On this episode, we go long to discuss the special appeal of Spider-Men of today and yesteryear, the Tom Holland phenomenon, his perpetual boyishness, The Punisher Meets Archie, spider puberty, bathhouses, the X-Men and their soon-to-be integration into the MCU, in the upcoming Avengers: Doomsday, and wonder if the movie is maybe a metaphor for Gen-Z lockdown FOMO.  Next week, it’s The Sex Purge, AKA One Night Only! Email us: CriticalDarlingsMailbag@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  7. 30 Jul

    “The Invite” Or, Who’s Afraid Of Olivia Wilde? (With Emily Gould)

    Come for the Les Miz karaoke takes, stay for The Invite. New York Magazine’s Emily Gould joins us to discuss Olivia Wilde’s sexy, awkward comedy of domestic manners starring herself, Seth Rogan, Edward Norton, and Penelope Cruz. Set in an aspirational San Francisco apartment owned by a deeply neurotic twosome, they collide with the sexy couple upstairs at an impromptu dinner party staged by Wilde's character Angela. Their night, and the movie itself, swings from polite nicety to anger to sadness to horniness, ultimately arriving at a poignant question: what relationships are worth saving, and when is it time to just move on? Both as a director and performer, The Invite is destined to become a calling card for Wilde. Among many things, we discuss her unusual Hollywood trajectory, the studied aesthetics of aspirational apartment living, Esther Perel, firefighter aesthetics, dinner party etiquette, Les Miz, steak knives, woo woo treatements for back pain, and San Francisco real estate.   Next week, everyone has forgotten about him, except for us! It’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day. Send us mailbag questions, comments, and gossip: criticaldarlingsmailbag@gmail.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

  8. 23 Jul

    “The Odyssey” And Christopher Nolan’s Sad Dad Triumph (With Fran Hoepfner)

    Daddy, tie us to the mast, we’re off to see The Odyssey! Christopher Nolan’s epic about a dad going out for cigarettes has vanquished all foes, critical, commercial, and discourse-able. To unpack it all, we’re joined by Vulture’s Fran Hoepfner. Nolan’s Oppenheimer follow-up both revisits and expands the director’s thematic palette. Among many aspects of the film, we discuss Nolan’s controversial choice to reject many of the signifiers of sword and sandals epics, his thematic quirks, the massive scale of the film, and how the ultimate hero’s journey is also a reflection of Nolan’s own filmmaking journey. We also get into spoilers (with warning), the movie’s possible political aims, and where Nolan might go from here. Finally, we do our Nolan rankings. Next week, we’re swinging with Olivia Wilde’s The Invite.  You can email us now! We’re doing an upcoming mailbag episode, so feel free to drop us a line at criticaldarlingsmailbag@gmail.com  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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About

Welcome to Critical Darlings: a podcast about the movies everyone is talking about, one new release after another. Every week, critics Richard Lawson and Alison Willmore cover the latest film driving the conversation—from big summer blockbusters to festival favorites, buzzy streamers, and major awards contenders. New episodes every Thursday. We’re a Blank Check Production! To catch up on our first miniseries covering the 2026 Oscars season, check out Blank Check on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Stick around on this feed for new episodes going forward.  Produced by Benjamin Frisch Subscribe to Richard's newsletter, ⁠⁠Premiere Party,⁠⁠ and read Alison's work ⁠⁠at Vulture.  Follow @blankcheckpod on ⁠⁠Twitter⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠, ⁠⁠Threads⁠⁠ and ⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠!

Information

  • Creator
    Blank Check Productions
  • Years Active
    2026
  • Episodes
    38
  • Rating
    Explicit