Across the Movie Aisle

<div><p>On this week’s episode, Alyssa is on vacation so Sonny and Peter talked about smoking cigarettes and getting cancelled. (No, seriously: <a href="https://theankler.com/p/cigarettes-get-a-sequel-hollywoods">It’s cool to smoke again</a>, maybe, and <em>Outcome</em> is Jonah Hill’s attempt to reckon with getting soft-canceled for entirely silly reasons.) Make sure to swing by Thursday for our bonus episode on <em>Exit 8</em>. And if you enjoyed this episode, please share it with a friend!</p></div>

<div>We’ve got a special bonus bonus episode this week with a special guest: <a href="https://mikepesca.substack.com/">Mike Pesca, of The Gist!</a> You can check out Mike’s Substack here, including his famed <a href="https://mikepesca.substack.com/p/the-pitt-asshole-tracker-curtis-larson-dr-robby-debate">“Asshole Tracker”</a> for <em>The Pitt</em>, which is the subject of this week’s bonus bonus episode. Mike and I both love the show, though we have some nitpicks. (Peter’s only watched a couple of episodes; he just likes hanging out and talking about movies and TV shows with friends.) Anyway, this is a fun one, a little spicy, it’ll be available for subscribers only until Friday afternoon, I think. Give the paying folks a little something extra for their hard-earned dough, you know? If you want to sign up and join the convo, do so here!</div>

<div>On this week’s episode, we talked a bit about video game movies (tied loosely to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/30/movies/mario-minecraft-video-games.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share">this <em>New York Times</em> piece</a> on the genre’s successes and struggles) and then dove into <em>The Drama</em>, the new Robert Pattinson/Zendaya film from A24. It’s a fun movie to talk about! We honestly only scratched the surface. If you have more thoughts, leave them in the comments!</div>

<div>On this week’s episode, we talk about Sora pulling the plug on its AI video division. What does that mean for the industry? Are movies simply too small for AI to waste compute on? Then we review <em>The Housemaid</em>, a movie that rests somewhere in the liminal space between enjoyable trash and outright garbage. Which way do we come down on it? You’ll have to listen to find out!</div>

<div>On this week’s episode, we discuss the killing of the <em>Buffy the Vampire Slayer </em>reboot, which was unexpectedly spiked by Hulu after several months of dawdling. Then we reviewed <em>Project Hail Mary</em>, a movie Peter describes as “preposterously charming.” Is it that good? Listen to find out! And if you loved the movie, discuss with your fellow listeners (and your humble podcasters!) in the comments!</div>