In the second half of the Baughts team's talk about M3GAN, Sam, Margot and Jordan finally get to the main event of this conversation. Which is: Why is M3gan so... gay?? It's a comprehensive answer, but the Cliff's Notes answer is, well, everything. Your co-hosts also get into the evergreen favorite topic of friendship love stories, why our robot go…

The Botcast and Aughtsterion have teamed up for one of 2023's most critical new releases: M3GAN. Sitting dead center in the bullseye of Margot, Jordan and Sam's interests, this Akela Cooper-penned movie about a robot companion who takes her mandate of protection a little too far demands analysis that only two scholars of the 2000s and robot cinema …

You've already had a whole hour of Ex Machina analysis from Margot and Jordan, but you're back for Part 2 of the first season finale because — like them — you just can't get enough analysis and conversation about Alex Garland's incredible sci-fi stage play on film. The conclusion of the conclusion goes big on the ending, and even bigger on Machina'…

Margot and Jordan have been saying "We'll get to it" for two months now whenever Alex Garland's Ex Machina comes up, and the day has finally arrived! Well, one of two days, actually, because your co-hosts simply could not contain all of their Ex Machina feelings within a single Botcasting episode. After all, Margot pegged an entire 70-page thesis o…

Margot and Jordan have reached a very special juncture in the Botcast with this episode about Blade Runner 2049, because they finally get to talk about Luv and Joi — and feature their very first special guest! Your co-hosts are joined by This Podcast's Boyfriend, Taylor Wilhite, so he can speak on what is possibly his favorite movie ever made. Ther…

Take five minutes to learn the origin of the word "robot" with the Botcast's resident professor, Margot Carlson. Produced by: Jordan Crucchiola Music by: Margot CarlsonBy A Bigger Umbrella

On this week's episode of the Botcast — and frankly always — Margot and Jordan would rather be cyborgs than goddesses. On the occasion of Margot experiencing Paul Verhoeven's RoboCop for the first time, she finally gets to break out Donna Haraway's "Cyborg Manifesto," and both your co-hosts continue to be perplexed as to why being human is so aspir…

The thing about blockbuster robot movies of the 2000s is... they were about as radically leftist as NOH8 campaign. Which is to say: Wow not very! Coming shortly after talk of the Stepford Wives remake, Margot and Jordan now set their sights on a title beloved to both, 2004's I, Robot. This is android cinema on the scale of big and sexy Will Smith. …

When Margot and Jordan sat down to revisit 2013's Her, it was a room of mixed emotions. How does sexy disembodied Scarlett Johansson as the evolving OS Samantha hold up a decade later? Is Joaquin Phoenix's Theodor Twombly a guy just doing his best, or is he a secret villain? Was the concept of a hot woman in a virtual box going to successfully subv…

It's a double stuffed episode of the Botcast, because Jordan and Margot are tackling two movies this time around: the original and the aughts versions of The Stepford Wives. One is a classic text of stripped down science fiction feminist horror, and the other is a study in white girlbossery with ham-fisted boob jokes. The '75 edition remains a ston…

What more is there to say about this week's Botcast movie? Blade Runner has been discovered every way from Sunday for 40 years. It's a landmark of the robot cinema canon. It's a science fiction masterpiece. It's also... a story about queers? Probably! Because everyone who's anyone knows that robots are canonically queer, and Margot and Jordan just …

Hello everyone, and welcome to the third season of The Whole Movie Podcast, aka THE BOTCAST! Your co-host Jordan Crucchiola is joined this season by her dear friend: the robot scholar and screenwriter Margot Carlson. The Botcast was born of their shared love for robot cinema and mutual pledge to join the android uprising when the war between humans…

The Whole Movie Podcast is back, and this time it's got at least 500% more robots. Jordan Crucchiola is back and joined this time by co-host Margot Carlson so the two can discuss one of their greatest cinematic loves: robots on film. Margot — an actual academic specialist in the subject — will bring the scholarship while Jordan brings the sheer ent…

On this special episode of The Whole Movie Podcast, Jordan follows her obsession to its source. After watching the 2021 erotic thriller The Voyeurs, which sent her into a tweetstorming tail spin as she soaked up every beautifully batty twist and turn, she had to have a conversation almost as long as the movie itself with writer and director Michael…

In the finale episode of The Neon Demon Pod, Roxana, William, and Jordan bear witness to Sarah coming into her ultimate power and Gigi succumbing to the fickle whims of the beauty beast. You've come a long way with your co-hosts — considering beautiful ghosts, Dracula's brides, Refn's work as his own personal drag show, the limits of consent in a w…

As the Neon Demon pod approaches its finale, Roxana, Jordan, and William finally reach the point where this story explodes into its final form. Gone is the metaphor, the artifice, the performance of humanity. Now it's time for cruelty, cannibalism, murder, ruthless beauty, and asexual group showers in bisexual lighting. "You're a dangerous girl" ta…

In this week's episode of The Neon Demon pod, Roxana, William, and Jordan talk about the film's crystal clear thesis statement: Beauty isn't everything, as the bitch fashion designer Sarno tells us. It's the only thing. And that means it's time to take it to the catwalk! Jesse slays another dragon in the form of Gigi and struts to her destiny in fr…

This is the episode that William and Jordan have been waiting for, the Abbey Lee special, the brutal go see, the cruelty of pure and utter objectification. In this installment of the Neon Demon pod, your co-hosts will hone in on "I'm a ghost" by talking through the diner scene between Ruby and her wicked step daughters and the runway audition that …

You've considered the question "Are you food, or are you sex?" But now The Neon Demon pod presents you with another: "Is there a problem?" So far, Roxana, Jordan, and William have set the stage for Demon with a look at Nicolas Winding Refn's career and laid a foundation for the predator/prey relationship between Elle Fanning's Jesse and her pseudo-…

In the world of Neon Demon, you're only worth as much as your body can get you in trade — for money, status, power, love, respect — and it's with that in hand that Jordan, Roxana, and William consider the subtle devastation of "I can make money off pretty" in this week's Neon Demon-cast. Your co-hosts will discuss how the movie is basically a black…

Now that Roxana, Jordan, and William have laid the groundwork for The Neon Demon, your co-hosts are back in the second episode to get more granular with it. "Are you food or are you sex?" examines the central question of the film, one that is posed where so many issues of consequence are raised on matters of truth and beauty: The women's bathroom a…

Welcome to the first episode of season 2 of The Whole Movie Podcast. If you went on the journey of season 1, that means you have learned everything there is to know about Paul Feig's A Simple Favor. And now that you're back for another go, it's time to walk the bisexually lit corridors of Nicolas Winding Refn's modern masterpiece The Neon Demon. Th…

Well moms. We've done it. We've reached the ending of A Simple Podcast, having successfully canonized the 2018 Paul Feig film A Simple Favor, and Alanna, Christina, and Jordan wanted to go big with the finale. You've heard "The Kendrick of It All," now enjoy "The Blakethrough," in which we turn our attention to the role of Emily, the work of Blake …

As A Simple Podcast enters the final stretch with its character study episodes, Alanna, Christina, and Jordan are joined by writer and culture critic Margaret H. Willison for a textual and meta-textual close read of Anna Kendrick the actress, Anna Kendrick the persona, and how both of those figures operate within Stephanie in A Simple Favor. We als…

Hi, moms! As A Simple Podcast moves into its final episodes, co-hosts Alanna Bennett, Christina Tucker, and Jordan Crucchiola are joined by special guest Anna Borges to discuss all things queer about A Simple Favor — along with any other movie that was consequential to their gay feelings as tweens. If you love messy bisexuals shouting about soccer …

Continuing their improbable run of getting behind the scenes access to (almost) all things A Simple Favor, Alanna, Christina and Jordan spend this episode of A Simple Podcast talking to screenwriter Jessica Sharzer. She tells us about Blake Lively's heroic role in getting that painting into Emily's house, her desire to see more shades of female int…

Oh hi again, moms! You've heard Alanna, Christina, and Jordan go long on the costumes of A Simple Favor before, but now you can go behind the Simple scenes with them as they talk about men's suiting and neoprene tank tops with the movie's costume designer, Renée Ehrlich Kalfus. Get the story behind all the film's power looks, and find out about the…

Alanna, Christina, and Jordan manifested an interview with thee Paul Feig into existence, and in episode four you get to hear how it went down.By crucchiola

Hi, moms! In the third episode of A Simple Podcast, Alanna, Christina, and Jordan each ascend to the celestial plane as they discuss the immaculate costuming by Renee Ehrlich Kalfus and why it should have won an Academy Award. And don't worry, they devote an entire portion of the episode to That Suit in the graveyard.…

This time on A Simple Podcast, co-hosts Alanna, Christina, and Jordan examine the array of genres on offer in A Simple Favor — from comedy to noir to lite psychosexual thriller — paying special attention to the way that female kinship and intimacy factor into such films. Also: white feminism, himbos, and director Paul Feig's mastery of the absurdis…

On this episode of A Simple Podcast, Alanna, Christina, and Jordan make the case for why A Simple Favor belongs in the cinema canon, and tease what sorts of very special episodes they have in store for this crucial mini-series. That includes, of course, a very special acknowledgment of "Brotherf*@ker!"…

Did you see A Simple Favor in 2018 and wonder why the entire rest of the world wasn't talking about it as much as you were? So did Alanna Bennett, Christina Tucker, and Jordan Crucchiola, which is exactly why they decided to do a mini-series podcast completely devoted to this queer comedy noir masterpiece. Join us as we begin the campaign to canoni…

Nicolas Winding Refn (Director, Drive) discusses his new film. A Palme d'Or nominee at the Cannes Film Festival this year, Only God Forgives follows Julian (played by Ryan Gosling) through Bangkok's criminal underground.

Join 2011 Cannes Film Festival Best Director Winner Nicolas Winding Refn as he discusses his new film Drive. Mixing classic film noir with wicked violence and a killer soundtrack, the film is a modern day Grimm's fairytale featuring Ryan Gosling (“Blue Valentine”) as a Los Angeles wheelman for hire, stunt driving for movie productions by day and st…