Message Dan and Mike

Four months ago we did a first look on Project Hail Mary and walked away genuinely excited. Now that we've seen it — Dan nearly three times, Mike once — we're ready to give it a full review.

Ryan Gosling plays Ryland Grace, a molecular biologist moonlighting as a middle school teacher who wakes up alone in deep space, no memory intact, on what amounts to a suicide mission to save Earth from extinction. The film is dense and ambitious, and once it finds its footing — roughly an hour in when Grace meets the alien life form Rocky — it becomes something pretty special.

We talk about what Lord and Miller pulled off here given the scope of the production, Gosling's continued growth as one of the most versatile actors working today, and the inspired work from puppeteer James Ortiz and his team of five (the Rocketeers) in bringing Rocky to life. We also get into the book-to-film changes, the runtime debate (the first cut was reportedly three and a half hours), cinematographer Greig Fraser's contributions, Sandra Hüller's Eva Stratt, and an unexpected Meryl Streep cameo that earns its laughs.

We draw comparisons to The Martian, weigh in on the ratings discrepancy between Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, and debate whether a sequel is even a good idea. Dan recommends it. Mike calls it a great family film. We both agree it could have been tightened.

Project Hail Mary is streaming now on MGM+/Amazon Prime Video and may still be playing in select theaters near you.

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Message Dan and Mike

We finally got Dan in front of Cool Hand Luke for the first time, and this one did not disappoint. The 1967 Stuart Rosenberg film stars Paul Newman as Lucas Jackson — a decorated, easygoing war veteran who ends up on a Florida chain gang and absolutely refuses to be broken. It's a simple premise with a whole lot going on underneath it.

We dig into what makes the film work, starting with Paul Newman's performance, which is somehow both understated and completely magnetic. George Kennedy won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Dragline — and we get into the wild behind-the-scenes story of how he paid $5,000 out of pocket to a consulting firm just to get his name in front of Oscar voters. It worked. His only Oscar, but it paid dividends for the rest of his career.

We also talk about Strother Martin as Captain and Morgan Woodward as Boss Godfrey — a character who says nothing the entire film and still manages to be one of the most menacing screen villains either of us has seen. The supporting cast is stacked with actors who weren't famous yet: Dennis Hopper, Harry Dean Stanton, and a young Rance Howard (Ron Howard's father) all make appearances.

The conversation covers the film's obvious spiritual imagery — the crucifixion pose after the egg-eating scene, the cross-shaped road in the final aerial shot, the Christ-like arc of Luke's story. We also trace the film's clear influence on what came after it: One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, First Blood, The Shawshank Redemption — you can draw a straight line from Cool Hand Luke to all of them.

On the craft side, the cinematography by Conrad Hall is remarkable — this is the same DP who later won Oscars for Road to Perdition and American Beauty. And Lalo Schifrin's score, which became so ubiquitous it ended up as the theme for ABC Nightly News, gets its due as well.

100% on Rotten Tomatoes. 92 Metacritic. In the Library of Congress. If you haven't seen it, this one's a must.

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Message Dan and Mike

We're two episodes into Apple TV+'s new adaptation of Cape Fear, and we have some thoughts. The series, which dropped its first two episodes on June 5th, stars Javier Bardem as Max Cady, Amy Adams as attorney Anna Bowden, and Patrick Wilson as her husband Tom — a family now living under the shadow of a man they may have wronged. Scorsese and Spielberg are both on board as executive producers, which raises the bar considerably.

We came in with full knowledge of the source material. Mike read John D. McDonald's original novel, and both films — the 1962 version with Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck, and Scorsese's 1991 remake with Robert De Niro and Nick Nolte — are part of the conversation throughout. What we were hoping to see is a reimagining that earns its place alongside those films. What we got, at least in these first two episodes, is something we're still trying to make sense of.

The issues start early. Javier Bardem's portrayal of Max Cady lacks the menace that both Mitchum and De Niro brought to the role in very different ways. His introduction at the fundraiser gala — rambling speech, handed the microphone without hesitation, no security in sight — was hard to take seriously. The violence skews gratuitous in a way that feels less like intensity and more like a substitute for it. There are subplots involving the teenage son, an online chat that's clearly not what it seems, and a mysterious masked figure in a green trench coat that we couldn't make heads or tails of. The series also appears to be steering toward a version of events where Max Cady may actually be innocent — which, if true, is a significant departure from everything that makes this story work.

We also noticed an Easter egg worth mentioning: Wesley Strick, who wrote the screenplay for the '91 film, shows up in a cameo as an ER doctor.

We're essentially split after two episodes — one of us is out, the other is holding on to see what episode three brings. We'll check in again if the series turns things around — and if you don't see another Cape Fear episode on the channel, that's probably your answer.

If you've seen the films, read the book, or are watching the series yourself, we want to hear from you — especially if you're a Javier Bardem fan and think he's bringing something to the role we're not seeing yet.

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