Movie HighLow

Movie HighLow | Movie Reviews & Film Analysis
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Movie HighLow is a movie review and film analysis podcast about the best, worst, and weirdest movies cinema has to offer. Each episode, we revisit iconic films, cult classics, Hollywood disasters, bad movie masterpieces, and misunderstood flops to find the HIGHS, the LOWS, and the moments that deserve a second look. Some movies are great. Some are terrible. Some are both. From iconic classics to fascinating disasters, we’re here to figure out why. Film analysis • Movie breakdowns • Movie reviews • High vs Low • Film podcast

  1. 2d ago

    NINE DAYS (2021) |The Masterpiece Nobody Saw (High)

    We went High on Nine Days, but this is a very different kind of High for us. This is not a massive cultural touchstone, a blockbuster, or one of those movies everyone already agrees is a classic. Nine Days (2021) is a small, quiet, underseen film with an enormous idea: what if, before you were born, you had to interview for the chance to live? That premise could have turned into something overly abstract or painfully sentimental, but Edson Oda’s Nine Days does something much more powerful. It uses tube TVs, VHS tapes, one isolated house, and a vast salt flat to ask one of the biggest questions a movie can ask: what makes life worth living? And instead of answering with speeches about destiny or meaning, it answers through small human moments: a peach, a bike ride, a joke at dinner, a scream from the top of a mountain, someone seeing you clearly before you disappear. In this episode, we talk about Nine Days, written and directed by Edson Oda, as one of the best movies almost nobody talks about. The film stars Winston Duke as Will, Zazie Beetz as Emma, Benedict Wong as Kyo, Bill Skarsgård as Kane, Tony Hale as Alexander, Arianna Ortiz as Maria, and David Rysdahl as Mike. It is a high-concept drama with an indie-scale approach, and that combination is exactly why it works. The setup is simple and devastating. Will lives in an isolated house surrounded by salt flats, watching human lives unfold through old television screens. When one of those lives ends, several unborn souls arrive at his door and compete for the chance to be born. Over nine days, Will interviews them, tests them, studies them, and decides which one gets to enter the world. But the longer the process goes on, the more the movie shifts away from the question of who deserves life and toward the question of whether Will can remember why life mattered to him in the first place. We spend a lot of time talking about how original this premise feels, especially now. This is the kind of small, high-concept adult drama that used to have more room in the movie landscape. Today, it feels like films either get made for very little or get inflated into giant franchise products, with almost nothing in the middle. Nine Days feels like it belongs to that missing middle: thoughtful, emotional, strange, ambitious, and built for adults who want a movie to sit with them after it ends. One of the biggest Highs is the movie’s minimalism. It could have buried itself in explanations about heaven, purgatory, angels, souls, or the mechanics of the afterlife. Instead, it keeps the world grounded and almost mundane. Will and Kyo have a job. There are groceries. There are reports. There are tapes. There are TVs stacked in a little house. That normalcy makes the otherworldly elements feel more haunting, not less. The movie does not need glowing portals or enormous visual effects. Its mystery works because it stays intimate. We also talk about the POV footage on the televisions. The idea that Will watches lives from the inside, through each person’s direct experience, is beautiful and immersive. It makes life feel both ordinary and miraculous. The movie finds meaning in the images that pass by quietly in the background, which is really the whole point. Most of life is not the big defining event. Most of life is the stuff we barely notice while it is happening. The performances are another huge High. Winston Duke has to play Will as buttoned-up, clinical, wounded, and deeply compassionate all at once. He is detached because he has to be, but we can feel how much the work is destroying him. Every time he recreates a final wish for one of the souls who is not selected, the movie becomes almost unbearably tender. He is there to comfort them before they disappear, and then he breaks when they are gone. Zazie Beetz as Emma is the soul of the movie. Emma represents the thing Will has forgotten: curiosity, presence, openness, and awe. She shows up late because she is probably looking at the sky, the ground, the light, the air, and everything around her. She does not play the interview game the way Will wants her to. She asks questions. She notices things. She eats a peach not because she is hungry, but because she can. That is the whole movie right there. The central debate of the episode is whether Will makes the right choice. He chooses Kane because he believes Kane is better equipped to survive the harshness of the world. Will sees Emma’s openness as a kind of vulnerability, maybe even a fatal one. He is not trying to be cruel. He is trying to protect the world from swallowing another person like him. But that is what makes the choice so heartbreaking. Emma may not be armored, but she might be exactly what the world needs more of. She refuses to argue why someone else should not live. She refuses to turn existence into a competition built on tearing another person down. To Will, that means she is not ready. To us, it might mean she understands life better than anyone else in the room. We also talk about the ending, which is perfect. Emma’s final request is not for Will to create a fantasy for her. It is for him to perform the monologue from the one moment in his own life when he felt seen. When he recites Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself” across the salt flats, the movie reveals that Emma’s gift to him is remembrance. She reminds him of the joy he once had, the art he once loved, and the life he has spent years reducing to a job. Our one Low is small but worth discussing. Late in the movie, another interviewer arrives with information that confirms Amanda’s death was suicide. We understand why the movie does it, because it gives Will a clear trigger for his spiral, but part of us thinks the uncertainty might have been stronger. Not knowing would have left Will trapped in the same painful space the audience is in: trying to make peace with something that cannot be fully explained. Still, Nine Days is a High because it is generous in a way very few movies are. It deals with grief, suicide, loneliness, and the terror of not getting the life you hoped for, but it is not really a movie about death. It is a movie about why life matters. It asks us to sit with pain, then gives us gratitude. Nine Days 2021 review Edson Oda’s Nine Days Winston Duke as Will Zazie Beetz as Emma Benedict Wong as Kyo Bill Skarsgård as Kane Tony Hale as Alexander Nine Days movie ending explained Nine Days as an underseen indie film Auditioning for life in Nine Days Tube TVs and VHS tapes in Nine Days Salt flats cinematography Nine Days and the meaning of life Emma’s final request Walt Whitman Song of Myself scene Will and Amanda’s death Grief and suicide in Nine Days Why life is worth living Small moments in Nine Days Nine Days as a high-concept adult drama

  2. Sep 8

    THE PRESTIGE (2006) | Nolan's Secret Hiding in Plain Sight (High)

    We went High on The Prestige, and this is one of those Highs where the movie almost feels built for this podcast. Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige (2006) is not just a movie about magic. It is a movie constructed like a magic trick, and the more you watch it, the more you realize Nolan has been showing you the secret from the beginning. He tells you what the trick is, puts the evidence in front of your face, and then waits for you to notice. That is why this movie keeps getting better every time we return to it. The secret impresses no one. It is the trick you use it for. That line is the whole philosophy of the movie. The Prestige is about obsession, performance, sacrifice, ego, grief, rivalry, and the terrible things people will do to be the one left standing when the audience applauds. In this episode, we revisit The Prestige, directed by Christopher Nolan, starring Christian Bale as Alfred Borden, Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier, Michael Caine as Cutter, Rebecca Hall as Sarah, Scarlett Johansson as Olivia, and David Bowie as Nikola Tesla. This is one of Dom’s favorite Nolan movies, and honestly, the case is not hard to make. It has everything Nolan does best: fractured timelines, obsessed protagonists, nested mysteries, a final reveal that changes the whole movie, and an ending that does not stop asking questions after the credits roll. The first big idea we talk about is that The Prestige is Christopher Nolan’s love letter to filmmaking. The three parts of a magic trick, the pledge, the turn, and the prestige, are basically the three acts of a movie. You show the audience something ordinary. You transform it into something impossible. Then you bring it back in a way that makes them wonder how you did it. Nolan understands endings better than almost anyone, and this movie is almost entirely built around the power of a final act that makes you immediately want to start the movie over. We also talk about how the opening image of the top hats in the woods becomes a perfect bookend with the final image of Angier’s bodies in the tanks. The movie begins with duplicates, death, and a mystery we do not yet understand. Then it slowly teaches us how to read what we have already seen. That is the magic trick. The movie is not hiding the secret so much as daring us to look closely enough. The performances are a huge High. Christian Bale has one of the most difficult jobs in the film because, on first viewing, he has to play Borden as a man divided by his own nature. On rewatch, once you know the truth, you realize he is playing two different men sharing one life. That makes every scene with Sarah more painful. When she says, “You don’t mean it today,” the line works one way the first time and a completely different way once you understand the trick. She is not married to a complicated man. She is married to a lie that keeps changing shape. That is where the movie’s emotional cost really lands. Sarah is not part of the trick by choice. She is collateral damage. She knows something is wrong, even if she cannot name it. The tragedy is that the person she loves is only partly available to her, and sometimes not even the right person at all. The same goes for Julia, Angier’s wife, whose death becomes the wound that drives the rivalry. These women are where the men’s obsession lands, and the movie is very clear that the cost of greatness, ego, and secrecy is not only paid by the men chasing applause. Hugh Jackman is just as strong as Angier because his performance shifts so carefully. At first, Angier feels like the more sympathetic character. He loses his wife in a horrible accident, and his anger at Borden makes emotional sense. But as the movie goes on, he becomes the more frightening figure. He is the showman who cannot invent the trick, so he steals, sabotages, and eventually builds his entire life around beating Borden. Jackman also gets to play Root, the drunken double, and that performance lets the movie show its own form of cinematic magic right on screen. We also get into Michael Caine as Cutter, who functions as the engineer, the conscience, and the father figure of the movie. His final confrontation with Angier is devastating because he realizes how deeply he has been used. When he tells Angier that the sailor who almost drowned lied, that drowning was not peaceful, that it was agony, the line reframes every version of Angier’s trick. It is one thing to build an illusion. It is another thing to build it out of repeated death. Then there is David Bowie as Tesla, which is almost too perfect. Tesla feels mythical before he even appears, and Bowie brings exactly the right strangeness to him. The Tesla and Edison rivalry mirrors Borden and Angier beautifully. Borden is the craftsman and illusionist. Angier is the showman. Tesla is the visionary. Edison is the man who knows how to sell the future. The whole movie is about incomplete men trying to steal the missing piece from someone else. The biggest debate in the episode is not whether the movie works. It clearly works. The real question is how many secrets the movie is actually carrying. Every rewatch turns into a game of figuring out which Borden we are watching, what Sarah truly understands, how much Cutter knows, and whether Angier ever really understood the cost of what he was doing. Our one Low is barely a Low. It is a nitpick about Tesla’s machine. The movie seems to establish that the machine creates a duplicate roughly 50 yards away, with the hats and the cat appearing outside the workshop. But when Angier first uses it, the duplicate appears close enough for him to shoot at point-blank range. It is probably done for visual clarity and storytelling economy, but in a movie this carefully built, even a tiny rule inconsistency stands out. Still, that is us looking for a flaw because we legally have to pretend the movie has one. The Prestige is a High because it is not just clever. It is emotional, cruel, elegant, and endlessly rewatchable. It is a movie about incomplete people, and maybe that is why it never feels completely finished in your head. Nolan shows us the trick. He tells us the secret. Then he leaves us wondering why we still wanted to be fooled. The Prestige 2006 review Christopher Nolan’s The Prestige Christian Bale as Alfred Borden Hugh Jackman as Robert Angier Michael Caine as Cutter Rebecca Hall as Sarah Scarlett Johansson as Olivia David Bowie as Nikola Tesla The Prestige ending explained The pledge, the turn and the prestige “Are you watching closely?” Borden and Fallon twist Angier and the Tesla machine Robert Angier’s clones The Transported Man trick Borden vs Angier rivalry Sarah and the cost of obsession Cutter’s “it was agony” reveal Tesla and Edison rivalry The Prestige as Nolan’s best movie Movie magic and magic tricks Why The Prestige gets better on rewatch

  3. Aug 28

    DISTURBING BEHAVIOR (1998) | Fisher-Price Clockwork Orange (Low)

    We went Low on Disturbing Behavior, but this is exactly the kind of Low we like having around. Disturbing Behavior (1998) is not a great movie, but it is absolutely a late ’90s guilty pleasure: brainwashed preppies, creepy adults, Pacific Northwest fog, alternative rock needle drops, weird cafeteria tribes, mind control surgery, and James Marsden drinking a carton of milk like the world’s oldest high school student. The episode’s central argument is that this movie has a much better idea than its final cut knows how to handle. It is a story about adults underestimating teenagers, dismissing their fear, and trying to surgically remove everything messy, rebellious, hormonal, and individual about them. Then the studio seems to have made the most thematically perfect bad decision possible: cut out the meat of the story and get to the end faster. In this episode, we revisit Disturbing Behavior, directed by David Nutter and released in 1998, as a movie that lives on a very specific shelf: flawed, compromised, overcooked, underwritten, but somehow still alive. It stars James Marsden as Steve Clark, Katie Holmes as Rachel Wagner, Nick Stahl as Gavin Strick, Bruce Greenwood as Dr. Caldicott, and William Sadler as Newberry. It is one part teen thriller, one part suburban conspiracy movie, one part watered-down A Clockwork Orange, and one part vulgar episode of Dawson’s Creek with brainwashing. The premise is genuinely creepy. After a family tragedy, Steve moves to Cradle Bay, a town where the lawns are too clean, the adults are too calm, and the popular kids, known as the Blue Ribbons, act less like high school students and more like honor roll cult members. They are polite, athletic, well dressed, academically successful, and deeply punchable. At first, they just seem like overachieving suburban nightmares. But Gavin, the local conspiracy-minded outsider, knows something worse is happening. In Cradle Bay, teenage rebellion is not treated like a phase. It is treated like a defect. That is the idea that makes the movie worth talking about. The real villain is not just Dr. Caldicott. The real villain is conformity. We talk about how much this movie reflects a late ’90s fear of being processed into sameness. This was an era obsessed with nonconformity, individuality, outsider identity, and not joining the pack, even while corporations were selling that rebellion back to teenagers through Hot Topic, soundtracks, and movie marketing. Disturbing Behavior accidentally captures that contradiction perfectly. The biggest High is Nick Stahl as Gavin. He is the standout because he understands exactly what kind of movie he is in. Gavin gets a lot of stylized, overwritten late ’90s dialogue, and in the wrong hands it could have been unbearable. Stahl makes it work. He plays Gavin as a sarcastic wiseass who is smarter and more capable than anyone gives him credit for, including maybe himself. His lunchroom breakdown of all the high school tribes is a very familiar ’90s teen movie scene, but this version works because Gavin and U.V. make it funny, specific, and weirdly memorable. Another major High is William Sadler as Newberry, who might be the movie’s most interesting character. He is funny, strange, and hiding in plain sight, a janitor who clearly understands much more than anyone realizes. His rat-killing obsession feels like a metaphor for what is happening in the school, and Sadler gives the movie the kind of weirdo character-actor energy that makes it more fun than it probably has any right to be. We also give credit to the atmosphere. The Pacific Northwest setting gives the movie a cold, eerie, almost Twin Peaks quality. The cinematography has some legitimately great images: the opening cliff overlook, the Blue Ribbons silhouetted on the docks, and the smoky high school hangout spaces. The score is cheesy, but the soundtrack is a time capsule. The Flys’ “Got You Where I Want You” is still a banger, and the music video feels like its own little late ’90s cultural artifact. The biggest Low is studio interference. The theatrical cut runs only 84 minutes, and you can feel the missing material. Deleted scenes apparently filled in Steve’s brother’s suicide, the backstory of Cradle Bay, and the larger sociology behind why the town would accept Caldicott’s Blue Ribbon program. Without that context, the movie feels stitched together. It has the shape of a sharper satire, but not all the connective tissue. The missing Cradle Bay backstory especially hurts. If the movie had shown that the town was traumatized by out-of-control teenagers causing a fatal crash, then the adult conspiracy would make more sense. Instead, the parents mostly come off like passive participants with plausible deniability. Are they knowingly sacrificing their kids’ individuality, or are they just looking the other way because the Blue Ribbon kids get good grades and stop causing trouble? The movie never fully decides. We also debate the implant rules. Are the Blue Ribbons supposed to be docile Stepford kids whose hormones trigger violence, or are they more like an invasive Body Snatchers group that protects itself and expands its reach? The movie seems confused. Sometimes they are smiling yogurt-shop preppies. Other times they are basically a prison gang in letterman jackets. By the third act, everything goes completely off the cliff, literally and figuratively. The asylum sequence is over the top, the operating room feels like Jacob’s Ladder crossed with A Clockwork Orange, and Bruce Greenwood shouting “Science is God” is hilarious. But even when it is ridiculous, Disturbing Behavior stays watchable. It is not secretly a masterpiece, but it is not disposable either. It has real late ’90s thriller juice, a creepy premise, a killer soundtrack, and enough strange choices to keep us talking. Disturbing Behavior 1998 review David Nutter’s Disturbing Behavior James Marsden as Steve Clark Katie Holmes as Rachel Wagner Nick Stahl as Gavin Strick Bruce Greenwood as Dr. Caldicott William Sadler as Newberry Disturbing Behavior as a guilty pleasure Blue Ribbons and teen conformity Cradle Bay conspiracy Late ’90s teen thriller movies Disturbing Behavior soundtrack The Flys “Got You Where I Want You” Pacific Northwest horror atmosphere Disturbing Behavior and Twin Peaks comparisons Fisher Price Clockwork Orange Studio interference and deleted scenes Gavin’s original ending Disturbing Behavior implant rules “Science is God” Why Disturbing Behavior still works

  4. Aug 21

    PSYCHO (1998) | Copied Hitchcock Shot For Shot. What Went Wrong? (Low)

    We went Low on Psycho (1998), and not in a fun, “this is secretly fascinating” way. This might be the most frustrating Low we have covered, because Gus Van Sant’s Psycho is not just a bad remake. It is a remake that keeps copying the body of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho while missing the soul. The problem is not that remakes are automatically inferior. Some of the best genre movies ever made are remakes. The problem is that this movie breaks the one rule a remake has to follow: add something without taking away what already worked. That is the central argument of the episode. Everything this version attempts to add, from color to extra shock imagery to Norman Bates masturbating at the peephole, actively makes the original feel smarter by comparison. It copies Hitchcock’s choices while removing the reasons those choices mattered. In this episode, we talk about Psycho, directed by Gus Van Sant and released in 1998, as one of the strangest remake experiments in studio history. This is the infamous almost shot-for-shot remake of Psycho (1960), now in color, set in the late ’90s, and starring Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, Anne Heche as Marion Crane, Viggo Mortensen as Sam Loomis, Julianne Moore as Lila Crane, William H. Macy as Arbogast, and Robert Forster as the psychiatrist. We start by making something clear: remakes are not the problem. John Carpenter’s The Thing, David Cronenberg’s The Fly, and different versions of Invasion of the Body Snatchers prove that remakes can be brilliant when a filmmaker has a new angle, a new nightmare, or a new reason to revisit the material. But Psycho (1998) does not feel like a movie with a new idea. It feels like a post-Good Will Hunting vanity experiment that somehow became a major studio release. There are a few highs, and we give the movie credit where we can. The casting is at least interesting. Viggo Mortensen as Sam Loomis is probably an improvement over the original version of the character. Making Sam more rugged, blue collar, and believable as a hardware store owner gives him a little more texture. Anne Heche is also better than her Razzie nomination suggests. In the early scenes, she finds a way to take the original dialogue and make it feel more modern, sharper, and less melodramatic. Her Marion has a harder edge, which makes sense for a late-’90s version of the character. We also liked Robert Forster as the psychiatrist. In the original Psycho, the psychiatrist explanation at the end is one of the weakest parts of the movie because it goes on too long and feels too theatrical. Forster plays it much cleaner, faster, and flatter, almost like he is reading the facts instead of performing a lecture. That is one of the few places where the remake finds a small way to improve a specific piece of the original. The opening shot is another technical high. Hitchcock wanted to move from the city into a hotel room in a way that 1960 technology could not fully support. Van Sant can actually execute that idea more fluidly. We also noticed the little detail of the fly buzzing in the opening hotel room, which creates a subtle bookend with the ending and Mother’s “I wouldn’t even harm a fly.” That is the kind of addition that works: small, connected, non-destructive. But then the movie gets to the Bates Motel, and the whole thing starts falling apart. The first major problem is the decision to shoot in color. Hitchcock could have used color in 1960, but black and white was a defining part of Psycho’s visual identity. Removing it means the remake needs a new visual idea, and Van Sant seems to land on green: green dress, green sheets, green credits, green everywhere. But what does it actually mean? Greed? Envy? Rot? Money? The movie keeps underlining the color without turning it into a real idea. Then there is Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, which becomes one of the episode’s biggest debates. We respect the swing. Coming off Swingers, it is interesting that Vaughn wanted to show another side of himself. He can play nervous, awkward, wounded, and strange. But physically, he feels wrong for Norman. He is too tall, too imposing, too capable of overwhelming the room. Norman Bates should not look like he could reach across a desk and fold Sam Loomis in half. The parlor scene shows the problem most clearly. In Hitchcock’s version, the scene works because of stillness and restraint. Anthony Perkins hides Norman’s rage under politeness. Van Sant moves the camera, and Vaughn plays the scene more aggressively. Suddenly, Marion does not seem like she has had a revealing conversation with a troubled man. She seems like she wants to get out of the room before he kills her. The biggest Low, hands down, is the peephole scene. In the original, Norman watching Marion is disturbing because of implication: voyeurism, repression, shame, desire, control. Van Sant turns the implication into text by showing Norman masturbating while watching her. We hated it, not because it is disturbing, but because it is stupid. It takes subtext and flattens it into shock value. The mystery disappears, the nuance disappears, and the scene becomes awkward in a way it should never be. We also get into the extra imagery Van Sant adds to the movie’s most famous sequences: clouds during the shower scene, a masked woman and a lamb during Arbogast’s death, live birds during the fruit cellar reveal. These additions feel like insecurity. If the experiment is to remake Psycho shot for shot, then do it. Let the scenes stand. Do not flinch. But the movie does flinch. By the end, Psycho (1998) feels less like a remake made out of need and more like a dare. As a private film school exercise, it might make sense. As a theatrical release, it feels baffling. You can copy the blocking, the dialogue, the camera angles, and the structure. But you cannot copy tension by tracing a chalk outline around the original. Topics Discussed Psycho 1998 review Gus Van Sant’s Psycho remake Psycho 1998 vs Psycho 1960 Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates Anne Heche as Marion Crane Viggo Mortensen as Sam Loomis Julianne Moore as Lila Crane William H. Macy as Arbogast Robert Forster psychiatrist scene Shot-for-shot remake experiment Why Psycho 1998 failed Psycho remake in color Green symbolism in Psycho 1998 Psycho 1998 shower scene Norman Bates peephole scene Bates Motel remake comparison Anthony Perkins vs Vince Vaughn Gus Van Sant after Good Will Hunting Psycho remake box office bomb Copying Hitchcock without understanding him

  5. Aug 14

    PSYCHO (1960) | The Movie That Knows What's Wrong With You (High)

    We went High on Psycho, because this is one of those movies that is not just important because film history tells us it is important. Psycho (1960) still has teeth. It still feels dangerous. It still knows how to get under your skin, not just by scaring you, but by making you question where your sympathy is going while you watch it. That is the real genius of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho. It does not simply show us a murder and ask us to be horrified. It moves us through the story in a way that makes us complicit. First, we understand why Marion Crane steals the money. Then we feel her panic on the road. Then she is murdered in the shower. And somehow, only a few minutes later, we are watching Norman Bates try to sink her car into the swamp and quietly thinking, please go down. That is the trick. Hitchcock does not just kill the person we thought the movie was about. He starts moving our morals around. In this episode, we revisit Psycho, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and released in 1960, as one of the most groundbreaking horror-thrillers ever made. The film stars Janet Leigh as Marion Crane, Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates, Vera Miles as Lila Crane, John Gavin as Sam Loomis, and Martin Balsam as Detective Arbogast. We talk about why the movie still works even when you already know the twist, and how the second viewing becomes a completely different experience from the first. The first major High is Bernard Herrmann’s score, which somehow did not even get nominated for an Oscar. That feels insane now, because the music is inseparable from the movie’s identity. The score attacks before the story even begins. The strings feel like guilt, panic, split identity, and violence all at once. It sounds like the movie is being cut into pieces, which is exactly what Hitchcock is about to do to the audience’s trust. We also talk about how much Hitchcock lets the camera tell the story. Psycho is full of visual storytelling that does not need dialogue to explain itself. Marion does not have to announce that she is going to steal the $40,000. Hitchcock pushes in on the envelope, pans toward the suitcase, and we understand the decision forming in her mind. The opening shot does something similar on a larger scale: the camera moves toward Phoenix, toward a hotel window, toward a private room where people are doing things they maybe should not be doing. From the beginning, the movie makes us feel like we are watching something we are not supposed to see. That becomes one of the episode’s biggest ideas: Hitchcock makes us complicit before Norman ever enters the movie. Marion is wrong to steal the money, but the movie gives us just enough context to understand her desperation. She is trapped in a life that feels too small. She wants a future with Sam Loomis, but money keeps standing in the way. The man flashing the cash is a creep who treats $40,000 like disposable “buying off unhappiness” money. So when Marion runs, we know it is wrong, but we are already leaning toward her side. Then Anthony Perkins enters the movie, and everything changes. Perkins as Norman Bates is the biggest High of the episode. He does not play Norman like a monster. He plays him as shy, boyish, awkward, wounded, and almost sweet. That is what makes him terrifying. His harmlessness is the disguise. The stammer, the smile that hangs a beat too long, the nervous posture, the way he seems both eager for connection and afraid of what connection might awaken in him, all of it makes Norman feel like a new kind of screen monster. The parlor scene is where the whole movie starts to reveal itself. Marion and Norman sit among the stuffed birds, talking about his mother, but really talking about him. When Norman says his mother is “as harmless as one of those stuffed birds,” the movie is basically telling us the ending if we know how to listen. The birds matter. The framing matters. Norman’s fixation on preserving passive things matters. He wants to control what might leave him. And then there is the shower scene. We talk about it not just as an iconic horror moment, but as a scene built around vulnerability. Marion has no chance. She is naked, exposed, defenseless, and attacked in a place where people are supposed to be safe. Like Jaws made people afraid of the ocean, Psycho made people afraid of the shower. One of our biggest debates is whether the second half of Psycho is as strong as the first. The movie famously restarts after Marion’s murder, and historically that is one of its great shocks. But we talk about how Marion and Norman feel like modern movie characters, while Sam and Lila feel more like characters from an older era trying to solve a movie that has already moved past them. That connects to our biggest Lows. Sam Loomis feels like the weakest link, not because he ruins the movie, but because next to Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins, he feels less alive. The $40,000 math clue is also clunky in a movie that is usually so elegant visually. And the psychiatrist explanation at the end goes on way too long, explaining the monster after the movie has already shown us everything we need to know. But then Hitchcock and Perkins almost redeem that speech with the final Norman scene. Norman sits in the blanket, barely moving, while Mother’s voice takes over. The eyes, the tiny smile, the “I wouldn’t even harm a fly” moment, and the superimposition of Mother’s skull over Norman’s face are still chilling. The psychiatrist explains the monster. Anthony Perkins becomes the monster. By the end, Psycho is a High because it is more than a landmark. It is alive. It lies to us about whose story we are watching, turns us into accomplices, and then asks what kind of people we were while we watched. Psycho 1960 review Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho Janet Leigh as Marion Crane Anthony Perkins as Norman Bates Vera Miles as Lila Crane John Gavin as Sam Loomis Martin Balsam as Arbogast Bernard Herrmann’s Psycho score Psycho shower scene Norman Bates and Mother Bates Motel Marion Crane steals $40,000 Psycho car sinking scene Hitchcock visual storytelling Psycho parlor scene Stuffed birds symbolism in Psycho Psycho ending explained Psycho psychiatrist scene Norman Bates final shot Why Psycho changed horror movies

  6. Aug 7

    MADAME WEB (2024) | Franchise Homework Disguised As A Movie (Low)

    We went LOW on Madame Web, and this is not one of those sneaky affectionate Lows where we secretly want to defend the movie. This is a real LOW. Madame Web (2024) has psychic spiders, future Spider-Women, a villain trying to prevent his own death, a 2003 setting, Pepsi product placement, Uncle Ben, Peter Parker’s birth, and Dakota Johnson as a clairvoyant paramedic who can see time fold in on itself. That should at least be interesting. Instead, Madame Web feels like a movie that is not interested in being a movie. It is interested in being phase one of a cinematic universe rollout. It does not tell a complete story so much as scatter breadcrumbs for possible future stories that, after this thing landed, nobody seemed especially excited to see. Coming right after our Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse episode made the contrast even worse. One movie says anyone can wear the mask. This one says nobody gets to wear the mask yet because Sony’s calendar has not approved it. In this episode, we talk about Madame Web, directed by S.J. Clarkson, as a movie with a handful of workable ingredients and almost no idea how to turn them into a meal. The film stars Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb, a New York paramedic who develops premonitions after a near-death accident. She ends up protecting three teenage girls, Julia Cornwall, Anya Corazon, and Mattie Franklin, played by Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor, from Ezekiel Sims, played by Tahar Rahim, a spider-powered villain who believes they will eventually kill him. That is not the worst setup in the world. In fact, we try to be generous early on and point out that Cassandra’s power could have worked. The idea that she does not just have a traditional Spider-Sense, but instead experiences fragments of the future before snapping back into the present, is actually a decent cinematic hook. There is a version of this movie where her powers feel less like a gift and more like a panic attack. She sees terrible things, does not fully understand them, and has only seconds to change the outcome. The problem is that the movie keeps using that idea as a substitute for action instead of a way to create action. A good set piece should escalate. It should have geography, cause and effect, danger, improvisation, and momentum. In Madame Web, too many scenes play like rehearsal footage for something that has not happened yet. We see the bad version, time snaps back, and then Cassandra avoids it. After a while, the premonitions stop building suspense and start draining it. The train sequence is the first time the movie almost works. Cassandra is trying to protect the girls, Ezekiel is hunting them, and her visions give her just enough information to move them out of danger. For a couple of minutes, we can see the shape of a better thriller. We compare it to Minority Report, where Samantha Morton’s character guides Tom Cruise through a mall using flashes of what is about to happen. That is the best version of what Madame Web is trying to do. This movie gets maybe ten percent of the way there and then gives up. The 2003 setting is another idea that could have been interesting. If the movie wanted to use that period to avoid smartphones, explore post-9/11 New York, or build some specific cultural texture, that could work. Instead, it mostly drives past a Blockbuster Video and hopes millennials clap. Worse, the movie keeps making choices that do not even feel right for 2003. Information moves too quickly. The period details feel shallow. The setting becomes another ingredient the movie refuses to cook. Then there is Dakota Johnson’s performance, which becomes the most visible problem because she is at the center of everything. To be fair, the script gives nobody good dialogue, emotional reality, or a playable arc. But Johnson’s line readings are so flat and detached that it starts to feel less like Cassandra Webb is emotionally guarded and more like Dakota Johnson is angry she has to be in Madame Web. The movie seems to want Cassandra to be closed off, but there is a difference between character detachment and actor detachment. We also get into how strange it is that Cassandra is a paramedic. Her job is literally to save and connect with people, but the movie presents her as someone who barely seems to understand basic human interaction. Kids draw her thank-you pictures and she reacts like she has been handed a parking ticket. If the movie wanted her to be cold, technical, isolated, or emotionally removed, there were probably better professions to give her. The biggest Low is the script. The dialogue is radioactive. “Don’t do dumb things” feels like placeholder text that accidentally survived every draft. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m hangry” is both a bad joke and a questionable 2003 period detail. The Christmas Carol references are so on the nose that the movie might as well be holding up flash cards that say “future” on them. We also talk about Ezekiel Sims, who should have been a pulpy, comic-book villain but ends up being a total nothing. His motivation is simple enough: he sees a future where the three girls kill him, so he tries to kill them first. That could create a fun self-fulfilling prophecy. Instead, he mostly wanders through the movie in a Spider-Man-adjacent costume because the plot needs someone to chase people. The product placement is another major Low, especially the Pepsi integration. Product placement does not automatically ruin a movie, but when your final action sequence is built around a giant Pepsi sign, it becomes impossible to ignore. It feels connected to the larger problem: everything in Madame Web is hedged. It hedges toward a sequel, toward Spider-Man, toward future heroines, toward mythology, toward brand integration. Everything except the actual story. By the end, Madame Web is exhausting because it is franchise homework. It asks us to care about Cassandra, the girls, Ezekiel, Ben Parker, Peter Parker, future Spider-Women, magical spiders, and a cinematic universe that never justifies itself. Into the Spider-Verse takes franchise material and turns it into emotion. Madame Web takes franchise material and turns it into obligation. Madame Web 2024 review S.J. Clarkson’s Madame Web Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Webb Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims Adam Scott as Ben Parker Madame Web as a Low episode Madame Web and Sony’s Spider-Man universe Why Madame Web failed Madame Web premonition powers Cassandra Webb as a paramedic Madame Web train scene Madame Web vs Minority Report Ezekiel Sims villain problem Madame Web 2003 setting Pepsi product placement in Madame Web Madame Web dialogue problems Spider-Women setup with no payoff Peter Parker’s birth in Madame Web Madame Web as franchise homework Madame Web vs Into the Spider-Verse

  7. Jul 31

    SPIDER-MAN: INTO THE SPIDER-VERSE (2018) | Understands Spider-Man Better Than Any Other Movie (High)

    We went High on Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, and honestly, this might be the easiest High we have done in a while. Not because there is nothing to talk about, but because the movie knows exactly what it is doing. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse (2018) is not just a great animated superhero movie. It is the best Spider-Man movie because it understands Spider-Man as an idea: anyone can wear the mask, everyone gets knocked down, and nobody knows they are ready until they jump. That is what makes this movie feel so fresh. It takes one of the most rebooted, reworked, overexposed characters in pop culture and somehow makes him feel brand new without betraying what Spider-Man means. Miles Morales is not a gimmick, a replacement, or a remix for the sake of it. He is the perfect way into the story because his whole journey is about realizing that being Spider-Man is not about being Peter Parker. It is about choosing to get back up. In this episode, we revisit Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, directed by Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey, and Rodney Rothman, and talk about why it still feels like such a major turning point for superhero movies and animated films. Written by Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman, the movie stars Shameik Moore as Miles Morales, Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy, Mahershala Ali as Uncle Aaron, Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis, Luna Lauren Vélez as Rio Morales, Liev Schreiber as Kingpin, and Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir. That is a stacked cast, but the movie never feels overcrowded. Somehow, it throws the whole Spider-Man toy box at the screen and keeps the emotional center completely clear. The biggest thing we talk about is the movie’s three core themes. The first is the most obvious: anyone can wear the mask. That line could have been corny, but the movie earns it. Miles is a Brooklyn kid dealing with school, parents, expectations, awkwardness, fear, and the terrifying realization that he has been handed a responsibility he does not know how to carry. The randomness of the Spider-Man origin matters. A normal kid gets bitten, gets power, and has to decide what kind of person he is going to be. The second theme is that whatever you are going through, someone else understands. That is why the multiverse works so well here. In a lot of modern superhero stories, the multiverse feels like a machine for references and cameos. In Into the Spider-Verse, it is a machine for empathy. Miles thinks he is alone, and then the universe literally breaks open to show him that he is not. Peter B. Parker, Gwen Stacy, Spider-Man Noir, Peni Parker, and Spider-Ham are all different, but they share the same loss, weirdness, isolation, and responsibility. They all know what it feels like to be the only one, until they realize they are not. The third theme is the one that makes the movie really land: Spider-Man always gets back up. We talk about how the movie uses that idea over and over until it becomes the emotional spine of the story. The final fight, with Miles down and his father yelling, “Get up, Spider-Man,” works because the whole movie has been building to that moment. It is not about whether Miles is strong enough. It is about whether he can believe he is ready before anyone can prove it to him. We also spend a lot of time on the animation, because this movie looks incredible. It does not just look like animation inspired by comic books. It looks like a comic book came alive: halftone dots, paneling, motion smears, texture, color, frame-rate choices, and images that feel printed instead of polished into plastic. The style has become more common since, but this movie still feels like the one that blew the doors open. The heart of the episode, though, is the relationship between Miles Morales and Peter B. Parker. Middle-aged, divorced, sweatpants Spider-Man is a perfect idea, but the movie is smart enough not to turn him into a bitter joke. Peter B. is tired, out of shape, and emotionally bruised, but he still loves being Spider-Man. That is what makes his mentorship with Miles so satisfying. The “leap of faith” idea pays off twice: first when Peter tells Miles he will not know when he is ready, and later when Miles sends Peter home with the same lesson. In that moment, they both save each other. One of the biggest takeaways from this episode is that Into the Spider-Verse uses intellectual property as imagination, not obligation. After talking about Ghostbusters (2016), this felt like the opposite end of the spectrum. That movie used a beloved brand like a reheated meal. Spider-Verse takes one of the most famous superheroes ever and expands the mythology in a way that feels generous, emotional, funny, and necessary. We also talk about how the movie handles villains better than most superhero films with crowded casts. Kingpin has a simple but effective motivation rooted in grief. The Prowler works because the reveal that he is Uncle Aaron gives Miles a personal stake that hurts. Even with multiple Spider-people and multiple villains, the story never loses focus because everything comes back to Miles. The one Low is barely a Low. If we are really digging for a nitpick, Gwen Stacy’s arrival in Miles’ school before he even gets bitten feels a little sweaty. Compared with how cleanly the other Spider-variants are introduced, Gwen being blown into last week and enrolling at Visions Academy is maybe the one loose thread. But that is us looking for a flaw in a very clean sweater. By the end, this is an easy High. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is funny, beautiful, emotional, stylish, and completely alive. It understands that Spider-Man is not one person. Spider-Man is the moment you are scared, unready, overwhelmed, and still choose to jump. Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse review Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse 2018 Miles Morales as Spider-Man Shameik Moore as Miles Morales Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker Hailee Steinfeld as Gwen Stacy Nicolas Cage as Spider-Man Noir Mahershala Ali as Uncle Aaron Brian Tyree Henry as Jefferson Davis Liev Schreiber as Kingpin Bob Persichetti, Peter Ramsey and Rodney Rothman Phil Lord and Rodney Rothman screenplay Anyone can wear the mask Spider-Man always gets back up Into the Spider-Verse animation style Best use of the multiverse in superhero movies Miles Morales and Peter B. Parker relationship What’s Up Danger scene Leap of faith scene Stan Lee cameo in Into the Spider-Verse Prowler reveal and Uncle Aaron Kingpin’s collider and multiverse plan Spider-Gwen origin Why Into the Spider-Verse is the best Spider-Man movie

  8. Jul 24

    GHOSTBUSTERS (2016) | IP Karaoke (Low)

    We went Low on Ghostbusters (2016), but not for the reason the internet spent a decade screaming about. The problem was never that women were the Ghostbusters. Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon, and Leslie Jones are all funny performers, and there is absolutely a version of this cast that could have worked. The problem is that this movie never feels like it has a strong reason to exist beyond the fact that Ghostbusters is a valuable brand. That is the real issue we keep coming back to in this episode. Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters does not feel like a movie made from love, enthusiasm, or a killer comic idea. It feels like intellectual property karaoke: a studio taking a song everyone already knows, handing the mic to talented people, and hoping recognition will do half the work. The result is not offensive so much as frustratingly forgettable. It has proton packs, ghosts, slime, cameos, the logo, the car, and the song, but very little of what made the original stick. Main Discussion In this episode, we finally watched Ghostbusters (2016), directed by Paul Feig and released in 2016, after talking about Bridesmaids the week before. That comparison matters, because a lot of the same creative energy that works beautifully in Bridesmaids works against this movie. Bridesmaids thrives on looseness, riffing, escalation, and performers finding comedy inside emotionally clear scenes. Ghostbusters tries to use a similar improvisational approach, but this is a bigger genre machine. It needs a stronger spine. The movie follows Erin Gilbert, played by Kristen Wiig, who is trying to be taken seriously in academia when an old paranormal book reconnects her with Abby Yates, played by Melissa McCarthy. Abby is working with eccentric engineer Jillian Holtzmann, played by Kate McKinnon, and eventually the team is joined by Patty Tolan, played by Leslie Jones, an MTA worker with a deep knowledge of New York history. Together, they uncover supernatural activity tied to Rowan, a lonely hotel janitor trying to open a portal between the living and the dead. That sounds like enough for a fun sci-fi horror comedy, but the movie never really builds momentum. We talk a lot about the baggage this movie carried before it even came out. Fans had spent years hearing rumors about a real Ghostbusters 3 with the original team. Then Harold Ramis passed away in 2014, and that version of the dream died with him. When this reboot arrived with a new cast, new continuity, and no real continuation of the original story, it was always going to face resistance. The discourse around the movie got ugly fast, and we do not excuse the sexist, racist, or misogynistic backlash. But we also think that backlash created a shield around the movie, where it became harder to say the simpler truth: the movie just did not look very good, and then it was not very good. You cannot guilt people into liking a blockbuster. You have to make it undeniable. There are highs, though. The biggest is Kate McKinnon as Holtzmann, who comes closest to creating something that feels new and specific to this version. She has the energy of a lab goblin in goggles, a mad scientist who may or may not understand normal human behavior. The Pringles “salty parabolas” line, the mannequin bit, the gun lick, the sideways delivery, all of that gives the movie some actual comic texture. The problem is that Holtzmann is mostly a vibe. She is funny to watch, but the movie never gives her a real arc or builds anything around her. We also talk about Chris Hemsworth as Kevin, the impossibly beautiful and impossibly stupid receptionist. There is a funny inversion in taking Thor and making him the bimbo secretary, and Hemsworth commits to the bit. The “Michael Hat” joke works, and some of the physical comedy lands. But even that joke gets pushed too far. Kevin starts as a funny reversal and slowly becomes another sketch character the movie keeps returning to without enough variation. The real Low is the structure. This movie mistakes riffing for construction. A good comedy scene is not just funny people saying funny things. It needs setup, escalation, reversal, and payoff. That is why the food poisoning scene in Bridesmaids works: there is a clear internal logic, and the comedy escalates from the situation. In Ghostbusters, too many scenes feel like the camera was pointed at talented performers long enough in the hope that something would happen. Key Debates & Takeaways The biggest debate in the episode is whether this needed to be a Ghostbusters movie at all. The cast has chemistry. Paul Feig knows how to direct comedy. The performers are talented. So why chain them to a beloved franchise if the movie is not going to justify that choice with a fresh point of view? We also get into the team dynamic, which never fully clicks. The original Ghostbusters had clear roles: Venkman was the cynical hustler, Ray was the enthusiastic believer, Egon was the deadpan brain, and Winston was the working-class audience entry point. In the 2016 version, everyone has traits, but the group never becomes a fully defined team. Erin and Abby have a friendship backstory, Holtzmann is weird, Patty knows New York, but the emotional and comic engine never locks in. The cameos are another major Low. Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Annie Potts, and Sigourney Weaver showing up should be fun, but instead the cameos keep reminding us of the better, more iconic movie we are not watching. Dan Aykroyd quoting “I ain’t afraid of no ghosts” as a cab driver is not a victory lap. It just makes us want to turn this off and watch the original. By the end, Ghostbusters (2016) is not the worst movie we have covered. It is worse in a different way: it evaporates. It has motion, noise, effects, and a few decent jokes, but almost no residue. The original gave us proton packs, traps, Slimer, Stay Puft, Ecto-1, “This man has no dick,” and “We came, we saw, we kicked its ass.” This one gives us flashes of talent trapped inside a reheated franchise meal with 40% of the flavor. Topics Discussed Ghostbusters 2016 review Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot Kristen Wiig as Erin Gilbert Melissa McCarthy as Abby Yates Kate McKinnon as Holtzmann Leslie Jones as Patty Tolan Chris Hemsworth as Kevin Ghostbusters 2016 backlash Ghostbusters 3 and Harold Ramis Why Ghostbusters 2016 failed Ghostbusters as IP karaoke Ghostbusters 2016 vs Ghostbusters 1984 Ghostbusters 2016 cameos Bill Murray Ghostbusters 2016 cameo Dan Aykroyd cab driver cameo Rowan Ghostbusters villain Holtzmann gun lick scene Wonton soup joke Ghostbusters reboot box office bomb Why Ghostbusters 2016 is forgettable

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Movie HighLow is a movie review and film analysis podcast about the best, worst, and weirdest movies cinema has to offer. Each episode, we revisit iconic films, cult classics, Hollywood disasters, bad movie masterpieces, and misunderstood flops to find the HIGHS, the LOWS, and the moments that deserve a second look. Some movies are great. Some are terrible. Some are both. From iconic classics to fascinating disasters, we’re here to figure out why. Film analysis • Movie breakdowns • Movie reviews • High vs Low • Film podcast

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  • Creator
    Movie HighLow | Movie Reviews & Film Analysis
  • Years Active
    2020 - 2026
  • Episodes
    30
  • Rating
    Explicit
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    © Copyright 2026 All rights reserved.
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    Movie HighLow