Second Cut

After Star Wars became a cultural and box-office phenomenon, filmmakers around the world rushed to make their own space adventures. In this episode of Second Cut, we look at Battle Beyond the Stars, Starcrash, and Star Odyssey to ask what happens whe... more

HBO documentaries built their reputation on access, scandal, prestige, and difficult truths. In this episode of Second Cut, we look at The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee and Bama Rush to ask what happens when a documentary is shaped ... more

John Waters built a career out of bad taste, queer counterculture, and the glamour of outsiders. We discuss Multiple Maniacs, Divine, the Dreamlanders, underground shock cinema, and Waters’ move toward the mainstream with Cry-Baby. Along the way: Cat... more

In this episode of Second Cut, Jacob and Sam dig into the history of mummy movies, from Universal’s Egyptomania and Boris Karloff’s original monster to Hammer’s The Mummy from 1959 and Stephen Sommers’s blockbuster The Mummy from 1999.

We talk Peter... more

In this episode of Second Cut, Jacob and Sam look at the strange, mournful, mythic cinema of David Lowery, from his North Texas indie roots to his work with Disney, A24, and his new film Mother Mary.

We talk about Lowery’s background outside the usu... more

Anne Hathaway has been a Disney princess, a rom-com lead, Catwoman, an Oscar winner, and one of the most recognizable American movie stars of the 21st century. But what actually makes her work on screen?

In this episode of Second Cut, Jacob and Kier... more

In this episode of Second Cut, we talk about one of cinema’s coolest tricks: watching a single actor become multiple people. Because of Michael B. Jordan’s Oscar-winning twin performance in Sinners, we get into what makes multi-role acting so compell... more

Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, but a lot of Frankenstein movies spend surprisingly little time letting women matter inside that story.

In this episode of Second Cut, Jacob, Sam, and Kieran dig into Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Frankenstein Create... more