How to Make Films and Influence People

Andrew Curzon and Peter Kimball
  • 5.0 (7)
  • Film Reviews

In this podcast, we talk about our own approach to screenwriting and filmmaking, discuss great works of cinema, and blasphemously imagine how they could be remade. Each week we tackle a movie widely considered to be a "great film". We ask the important questions: How would you remake this as a family film? What's the no-budget version? How do you turn this into a 10-episode Netflix series? Join us as we walk through our creative process, share updates from our screenplay, and talk about what we've been watching lately.

  1. 1d ago

    You Can See Everything

    Peter and Andrew dig into You Can See Everything, the documentary directed by Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim, which follows Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes right before she heads to prison. The hosts wonder why Holmes and her partner Billy Evans ever let Fielder into their home in the first place, especially given his reputation for weaponizing deadpan silences and brutally blunt questions. Rather than feeling like a typical true-crime profile, the opening stretch plays out like a tense mental boxing match between Holmes and Fielder, where both refuse to break character while parsing through technical half-truths, legal semantics, and what it actually means to lie. The conversation then turns to the film's wild mid-movie pivot: bringing in Amanda Seyfried, who famously played Holmes in The Dropout. Seyfried comes in as a breath of fresh air and an audience surrogate, offering genuine emotion and even clashing with Billy on camera, before the film veers into full-blown reenactments of scenes the crew couldn't shoot. Peter and Andrew praise how unpredictable and thrilling the nearly three-hour film feels, noting that by the time Fielder and Seyfried are running lines by a fireplace at the end, the line between reality, rehearsal, and pure performance has completely dissolved.

    You Can See Everything

  2. 2d ago

    Halloween

    Peter and Andrew tackle John Carpenter’s 1978 horror landmark Halloween, exploring how its ruthless simplicity, masked boogeyman, and indie ingenuity created the modern slasher genre. They analyze the film’s masterful suspense mechanics—from the groundbreaking opening sequence shot entirely from a child killer's first-person POV to the eerie wide shots of the Shape lurking behind suburban hedges—and examine why Michael Myers is far scarier as an unexplained, faceless embodiment of pure evil rather than a psychoanalyzed villain. The hosts debate whether the movie stands as a genuine work of cinematic art or a clumsy, low-budget indie that merely laid the structural groundwork for films that came after, break down the subversion of safe 1970s suburban sprawl where parents and authority figures are completely absent, and praise Jamie Lee Curtis’s resourceful final girl for fighting back. In their blasphemous remake segment, the guys brainstorm how to retool the slasher classic: pitching a family-friendly neighborhood adventure where kids dodge distracted babysitters who invent an urban legend boogeyman to keep control (or a gentle community mystery about tracking down a wandering elderly neighbor with dementia); blowing the scale up into an existential big-budget thriller set inside a peaceful paradise afterlife where souls are terrorized by an unstoppable killer in heaven, or stripping it down to a micro-budget indie shot entirely from the killer's point-of-view; and expanding the story into television through either a 10-episode 1963 prequel chronicling Michael’s family life and childhood leading up to his sister’s murder or an Arkham Asylum-style procedural following the other mental patients who escaped Smith's Grove on that stormy night. Plus, Peter and Andrew look back over their entire catalog to crown the "Champion of Champions" across 50 episodes of film discussions. They announce the ultimate aggregated winners for Best Performance (Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight edging out Daniel Day-Lewis in There Will Be Blood), Most Thought-Provoking Film (a tie between Do the Right Thing and Fight Club over Parasite), Best Scene (The Godfather baptism montage beating No Country for Old Men and Casablanca), Most Fun Watch (Pulp Fiction over The Empire Strikes Back), Hardest Film to Recommend (Andrei Tarkovsky’s Mirror), and Easiest Film to Recommend (The Empire Strikes Back). Topics covered: Babysitting market economics, white flight and suburban dread, why serial killers without backstories are scarier than psychoanalyzed ones, comparing Michael Myers to the shark in Jaws, yell-at-the-screen horror tropes like dropping the kitchen knife, and whether Silence of the Lambs is the true high-water mark for psychological terror.

    Halloween

  3. Oct 23

    The Empire Strikes Back

    Peter and Andrew celebrate their 50th regular episode by tackling the 1980 galactic masterwork The Empire Strikes Back, exploring how it avoids the sophomore slump to stand as the undisputed pinnacle of the Star Wars saga. They analyze the film’s bold narrative architecture—how it builds upon the lived-in world-building of A New Hope without getting bogged down in exposition, balances three distinct genre storylines across its middle act, and enriches its villains by showcasing Imperial middle-management politics and Darth Vader's manipulative limitations. The hosts debate whether the film functions as a self-contained work of art or strictly as a brilliant second act, examine the psychological weight of Vader's parental ambitions versus Luke's defiance, and break down the cultural impact of Billy Dee Williams stepping into the cape of Lando Calrissian. In their blasphemous remake segment, the guys brainstorm how to retool the space opera classic: pitching a brutal, Rated-R Quentin Tarantino–style adaptation that ditches blaster cauterization for graphic severed-limb violence, visceral monster horror, and darker Imperial cruelty; stripping the scope down to a low-budget survival hunt confined entirely to the snowy wastes of Hoth or a claustrophobic chamber piece aboard the Millennium Falcon centered on the friction, repairs, and romantic tension between Han, Leia, Chewie, and C-3PO; and expanding the narrative into television through either a lighthearted 20-to-30-minute sitcom following a suburban Stormtrooper dad or an alternate-timeline 10-part prestige drama where Luke accepts Darth Vader’s proposition on Cloud City to overthrow the Emperor and rule the galaxy together. Plus, Peter and Andrew hand out their coveted milestone awards for their last 10 film discussions (Singin' in the Rain, City of God, Casablanca, No Country for Old Men, Blade Runner, Fletch, Cléo from 5 to 7, Zero Dark Thirty, M, and The Empire Strikes Back). They face off over Best Performance (Chevy Chase vs. Corinne Marchand), Best Scene (the coin toss vs. the runway goodbye), Most Thought-Provoking Film, and the Easiest and Hardest titles to recommend to modern viewers. Topics covered: Sacrificing a hand to become a Jedi, why Hoth remains the greatest snow battle in cinema history, Darth Vader's absolute lack of interpersonal HR skills, Lando Calrissian as the ultimate reluctant businessman hero, and why children's movies can still be towering works of cinema.

    The Empire Strikes Back

  4. Oct 16

    The Social Reckoning

    Peter and Andrew continue their in-theater review series by diving into Aaron Sorkin’s 2026 political tech-thriller The Social Reckoning. In their spoiler-free review, the hosts compare the film to 2010’s The Social Network, assessing how the shift from a David Fincher helmed, multi-layered character study of Mark Zuckerberg into an All the President's Men or Spotlight-style investigative procedural alters the narrative engine. They discuss the rhythmic charm of Sorkin’s trademark dialogue, debate whether the repetitive hurdles dilute dramatic tension, and question if the film's revelations will age better for future audiences than they play today.

    The Social Reckoning

  5. Oct 16

    M

    Peter and Andrew explore Fritz Lang’s 1931 early-sound landmark M, examining how its chilling procedural drama revolutionized suspense and psychological horror. They break down Lang’s pioneering formal techniques—from ominous auditory motifs like Hans Beckert whistling “In the Hall of the Mountain King” to expressive cross-cutting and the eerie use of complete silence. The hosts unpack the film’s moral and historical complexities, analyzing the parallel manhunts mounted by the Berlin police and the organized criminal underworld (Ringvereine), the tense kangaroo court tribunal that puts societal vengeance on trial, and the unsettling prescience of its themes amidst the political unrest of Weimar Germany. In their signature remake segment, the guys pitch three blasphemous reimagining scenarios: translating the high-stakes manhunt into a lighthearted school mystery where a student contraband candy- or gum-selling ring investigates a campus thief to clear their names and avoid faculty crackdowns, handing the original 1931 Berlin script to David Fincher with a $100 million budget to craft a visceral, big-budget psychological period thriller, stripping the production down to a contained, zero-budget legal drama set entirely inside the underworld kangaroo court where an appointed advocate shares a complicated personal history with the accused killer, and expanding the narrative into a gritty, multi-episode HBO-style period procedural exploring the dual police and mob investigations against the backdrop of 1930s Berlin, complete with a disgraced private detective hired by the criminal syndicates. Plus, the hosts catch up on what they've been watching, discussing the innovative low-budget filmmaking of Christopher Nolan’s debut feature Following (1998) and the singular, comedic world-building of Jared Hess’s Napoleon Dynamite (2004). Topics covered: The legendary studio pushback over the film's original title (Murderers Among Us), why early talkies were far darker and more mature than modern audiences assume, Peter Lorre’s humanization of Hans Beckert’s psychology, and the creative necessity of taking big, weird swings in independent cinema.

    M

  6. Oct 9

    Digger

    Peter and Andrew return to their theatrical review series to break down Alejandro González Iñárritu’s ambitious, high-budget satire Digger. The hosts dissect Tom Cruise’s eccentric, high-energy lead performance as a ruthless, aging oil tycoon whose Arctic drilling triggers a global environmental crisis. In their spoiler-free review, they evaluate whether the film's abrasive tone, heavy-handed messaging, and over-the-top caricatures succeed as Coen-style farce, while questioning why an 80-year-old billionaire was cast with a heavily prosthetized Cruise instead of an age-appropriate veteran actor. Topics covered: Tom Cruise’s real-life friendliness on the Paramount lot, the narrative pitfalls of movies that over-explain their own comedy, swinging for triples versus home runs in blockbuster cinema, and whether cutting the outer-frame narrative could have saved the story.

    Digger

  7. Oct 9

    Zero Dark Thirty

    Peter and Andrew dig into Kathryn Bigelow’s controversial, Oscar-winning 2012 drama Zero Dark Thirty, tracking its gritty decade-long chronicle of the manhunt for Osama bin Laden. They analyze the movie's uncompromising structural choices—opening on real 9/11 emergency audio before immediately dropping into brutal black-site interrogation scenes, following the singular obsession of Jessica Chastain’s Maya, and making the bold narrative leap to an objective, procedural final act where the lead character is entirely absent from the Abbottabad raid. The hosts debate the film's moral gray zones, address whether it truly endorses enhanced interrogation or presents a bleak historical reality, and question how a film made so specifically for and of its post-9/11 cultural moment will age for future generations. In their signature remake segment, the hosts tackle the blasphemous challenge of redesigning a story defined by bleak geopolitical trauma: pitting an official, sanitized press-briefing edit against a Zootopia-style animal habitat investigation for a family-friendly version, stripping the narrative down to a zero-budget office drama told via computer monitors or an intense single-room cat-and-mouse interrogation play, and either fleshing out Maya’s 10-year desk-level intelligence hunt into a prestige episodic procedural or taking a wild detour into a multi-cam family sitcom where the lead character's mother-in-law happens to be the operative who tracked down bin Laden. Plus, the guys answer a listener question from Jerry about buyer's remorse at the cinema, walking out of horror movies like Longlegs, and the "barbell" strategy of choosing theater-worthy spectacles versus quiet dramas that demand zero at-home distractions. In "What We've Been Watching," Andrew goes in completely blind to the new action-comedy-horror Resident Evil, and Peter reviews Nate Bargatze’s throwback dad comedy The Breadwinner. Topics covered: Surviving movie theaters with newborn babies in Babybjörns, casting Chris Pratt and Joel Edgerton before their blockbuster eras, the bizarre wartime crossover of using Drowning Pool’s "Bodies" for both gym workouts and interrogation sessions, real-life military intelligence psychological bluffing, and why the ending of Zero Dark Thirty works.

    Zero Dark Thirty

  8. Oct 2

    Cléo from 5 to 7

    In this episode Peter and Andrew dive into French New Wave master Agnès Varda’s 1962 landmark Cléo from 5 to 7. Together, they break down the film’s daring real-time structure, its shift from symbolic color tarot cards to stark black-and-white realism, and how Cléo’s two-hour wait for medical biopsy results transforms from narcissistic dread into human connection. Before dissecting Varda’s classic, the hosts share behind-the-scenes updates on their own screenwriting process—including navigating festival runs on zero-dollar budgets, the value of shelving finished drafts for fresh eyes, and reverse-engineering a new micro-budget feature script designed to super-serve a hyper-specific niche. Then, in "What We've Been Watching," Andrew gives high praise to all six seasons of the vampire mockumentary series What We Do in the Shadows, while Peter dissects Clint Eastwood’s 1997 misfire Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, examining why an all-star cast and great book don't always translate into compelling cinema. Finally, the show wraps with their signature "Blasphemous Remake" segment, reimagining Cléo from 5 to 7 as a high-stakes elementary school recess drama, a Cold War espionage thriller a la Day of the Jackal, and a Parisian anthology television series. Topics covered: High school wrestling coaching philosophies applied to terminal diagnoses, why commercial indie film often mirrors Hollywood rather than reinventing the medium, and navigating the eerie tension of Paris street crowds staring directly down the lens.

    Cléo from 5 to 7
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About

In this podcast, we talk about our own approach to screenwriting and filmmaking, discuss great works of cinema, and blasphemously imagine how they could be remade. Each week we tackle a movie widely considered to be a "great film". We ask the important questions: How would you remake this as a family film? What's the no-budget version? How do you turn this into a 10-episode Netflix series? Join us as we walk through our creative process, share updates from our screenplay, and talk about what we've been watching lately.

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