Episodes

WE MADE IT TO 100! It’s been a great journey to get here. I’ve learned a lot along the way and met some amazing people. To celebrate, I share some reflections, have listeners and past/future guests share their favorite films ...

In stop-motion animation, Wes Anderson found the perfect medium for his controlled, detail filled style while still being tangible enough an animation style to surprise you with emotion. To celebrate his Fantastic Mr. Fox and...

Tintin is a unique film in the Spielberg filmography as his only fully animated film. Because of this, this discussion is full of interesting topics like his forging into motion capture technology, the sense of playfulness fe...

Desert settings always make for a great cinematic experience! This was just as true for Nolan’s Oppenheimer even if the desert was being used for something highly problematic. In this episode, we take turns drafting our favor...

With Oppenheimer turning into a cultural phenomenon (aka Barbenheimer) in the lead up to its release alongside Barbie and its subsequent financial success and critical acclaim, Christopher Nolan has emblazoned his name onto t...

The 1990s and 2000s were some of Spielberg’s most successful decades! We see him come into his own as a director and mogul of the movie industry. He solidifies his legacy as a household name, and silences his harshest critics...

There is nothing quite like a scene that happens underwater. One of my favorites comes from The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou when Steve and the rest of his crew have a transcendent moment encountering the infamous Jaguar Sh...

Harrison Ford has been one of the most treasured American actors since his breakout role as Han Solo in Star Wars and was solidified as a film icon as Indiana Jones when Raiders of the Lost Ark released only a few years later...

Nearly 20 years after Indiana Jones rode off into the sunset with his father, Spielberg returned to our favorite tomb-raiding professor of archaeology in his older years with Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. In the opinion of my...

Hostage and kidnapping stories actually have a rich history in film. From serious dramas, to edge-of-your-seat thrillers, to comedies, there was a lot of great cinema to choose from for this week’s movie draft. This draft fol...

Munich is one of Spielberg’s least discussed movies and undeservedly so. It displays some of his best action set pieces, contains serious contemplative political and ethical questions, and has all of the iconic Spielbergian s...

As a belated companion to our Catch Me If You Can episode, we are doing a movie draft of Leonardo DiCaprio performances! Leo is arguably the biggest movie star of his era. Making the turn from young heartthrob to a medium for...

With his adaptation of the sci-fi classic War of the Worlds, Spielberg continues his 2000s science fiction fun with yet another 9/11 coded film with a broken family and troubled father. Join me and the Nerds & Jesus podcast a...

Have you ever thought of watching movies as a spiritual practice? Abby Olcese’s book Film for All Seasons: Experiencing the Church Year at the Movies explores this idea by taking the stories that inspired the church calendar ...

With The Terminal, Tom Hanks rejoins Steven Spielberg for their third collaboration and certainly their most lighthearted to date. This film represents some of the worst and best of Spielberg. It is charming and fun at times ...

The 2025 Oscars are here! With the ceremony coming up this Wednesday, I went through all the categories from production to design to cinematography to the big categories of acting, directing, and best picture. Some categories...

What do you get when you combine the star studded power of Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks with the blockbuster filmmaking genius of Steven Spielberg with a globe-trotting, fast paced crime drama? Turns out you get a really g...

The stardom of Tom Cruise might have been at its peak in the 80s and 90s, but his steady work throughout his career shows that he has that timeless star quality that people go to the movies to see. He has moved from fatherles...

Minority Report feels like the deepest dive into hard sci-fi that Steven Spielberg has ever attempted, and it is also his first collaboration with fellow Hollywood superstar Tom Cruise. That combination makes for an interesti...

While artificial intelligence has burst on the scene as a huge cultural topic in recent years, there is a long history of AI stories in film. This week, we do a movie draft of films dealing with artificial intelligence. We ta...

With A.I. Artificial Intelligence, Steven Spielberg dove headfirst into sci-fi storytelling more than he ever had before. With incredible production design, another great child performance for Spielberg in Haley Joel Osment, ...

It is a new year, and we could all use a bit of inspiration. So, this week I share my Top 5 Inspirational Movies list along with Melvin from Cinematic Doctrine. This is obviously not the definitive list of inspirational movie...

Largely considered the best (or one of the best) WWII movies ever made, Saving Private Ryan showed that Spielberg could make just about any kind of movie and do it masterfully. We talk about how he pulled it off, his collabor...

If you are like me, you likely grew up watching Disney Animated Classics! There are a ton of great ones from early films like Snow White and Pinocchio to more recent additions like Moana and Encanto. In this movie draft, we b...