Binge Movies: Rankings and Reviews

John Milius, Ranked

EPISODE 195: An American Original! – No apologies, no half-measures, all fire. (ft. Joe Buttice)

Episode Description:
This week, Jason is joined by Joe Buttice (Reel Spoilers) to lock and load a ranking of five films tied to the myth, the man, the cigar-smoking cinema warlord: John Milius. Whether writing frontier survival epics or directing operatic war fantasies, Milius brought a thunderous, unapologetic voice to American film.

Strap in for manifest destiny, surfboard theology, Cimmerian steel, and teenage guerrilla warfare.

Films Ranked:

• Jeremiah Johnson (1972, writer) – The loner as legend in a snow-covered survivalist western.\

• Dillinger (1973) – Milius’s directorial debut, mixing gangster cool with mythic Americana.

• Big Wednesday (1978) – A lyrical, wave-soaked ode to brotherhood and the end of an era.

• Conan the Barbarian (1982) – Barbarism, Nietzsche, and epic vengeance in the Hyborian Age.

• Red Dawn (1984) – Wolverines! Teenage insurgents defend America in a Cold War fever dream.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Joe defends Red Dawn as both fantasy and prophecy

• Jason meditates on Big Wednesday as the most personal of war films

• The complicated politics, masculine myth-making, and the man behind the bombast

 

 

Sinners (2025)

INSTANT REACTION:

Trying to leave their troubled lives behind, twin brothers return to their hometown to start again, only to discover that an even greater evil is waiting to welcome them back.

Criterion Collection Vol 2, Ranked

EPISODE 194: Elegant, epic, existential, and electric. Volume 2 goes to 11 (ft. Megan Kearns)

Episode Description:
Jason returns to the closet of cinema history to crack open another stack from the Criterion Collection! From enchanted castles and sinking ships to philosophical chess matches, outback odysseys, and the loudest band in England, this lineup is as diverse as it is iconic.

Films Ranked:

• Beauty and the Beast (1946) – Cocteau’s poetic dreamscape of love and transformation.

• A Night to Remember (1958) – The definitive Titanic film, long before Leo and Kate.

• Walkabout (1971) – A haunting vision of isolation, survival, and cultural collision.

• The Seventh Seal (1957) – Bergman’s meditation on mortality, meaning, and the black plague.

• This Is Spinal Tap (1984) – The rockumentary that turned it up to eleven... and never came back down.

Jason and Megan wrestle with the big questions: Could anyone make the Seventh Seal today? Does Spinal Tap still hit as hard in the age of memes? Is A Night to Remember secretly the most profound film of the bunch? And where does Walkabout fit into the pantheon of coming-of-age stories?

ALSO:

• Cocteau’s magic mirrors and movie sorcery

• The layers beneath the surface of A Night to Remember

• Existential laughs in chain mail

• Why the line between satire and reality might be thinner than we think

 

David Lynch, Ranked

EPISODE 193:  Through a Dream, Darkly — Ranking David Lynch (ft. Molly Razz)

Episode Description:
This week, we tumble headfirst into the subconscious as Jason is joined by the enigmatic Molly Razz to rank five of David Lynch’s most haunting cinematic visions. From industrial nightmares and small-town secrets to Hollywood hallucinations, we tackle the big questions:
What is real? What is a performance? And where does that damn radiator song keep coming from?

Films Ranked:

• Eraserhead (1977)

• The Elephant Man (1980)

• Blue Velvet (1986)

• Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

• Mulholland Drive (2001)

Is Eraserhead a surreal masterpiece or an anxiety dream gone on too long? Is Fire Walk with Me the secret key to Twin Peaks? Does Mulholland Drive mark the apex of Lynch’s dream logic? And how many mysteries can be packed into one velvet curtain?

Molly brings razor-sharp insight, Jason brings existential dread, and together they attempt the impossible: ranking the unrankable.

PLUS:

• The legacy of Lynchian dread

• The fine art of being uncomfortable

• Molly’s theory on Blue Velvet and American repression

• A brief trip into the Black Lodge (we think)

Black Bag (2025)

INSTANT REACTION: Five original films hit theaters and failed to draw audiences. When we say we want more original movies who are "we" and do "we" mean it?