Down To Watch

Down To Watch is a long-running conversation about movies and television between two friends, Dan and Raul, and it makes no attempt to sound like a review desk. The show has a rhythm of its own. One host starts a thought. The other cuts in to correct it, widen it, or drag it somewhere unrelated. Episodes frequently open with a guessing game before the actual subject is named — a description of a mask with little bars over the teeth, or fried chicken skin worn as a disguise, delivered as a riddle the other host has to solve. Recent subjects include 48 Hrs., where the pair spend real time on Nick Nolte's capacity for yelling and note that he was forty-two in the film, roughly their own age now. There is an episode on Manhunter. One on Scream, which turns into an appreciation of red herrings, the absurd ones especially — the dad, Henry Winkler holding a mask up to his face. A full season of Wonder Man gets covered, and one host connects the show's day-player storyline to his own time doing background work in Hollywood, including an action assignment where, as the other puts it, his actions spoke louder than words. Alongside the single-title episodes, there are monthly premiere rundowns for both TV and film. These follow a set shape: check what came out, admit how much of the previous month's list actually got watched, then look ahead. The split is consistent and funny — one host works through a surprising amount of it, the other watches almost none. Their critical vocabulary is plain. Judgments arrive through comparison, personal viewing history, and cast trivia rather than formal analysis, and a phrase like very watchable, but not great does more work here than a rating ever would. Streaming numbers, word of mouth, and the gap between audience reception and critical reception all get weighed, usually in passing. The talk tolerates tangents well: a discussion of one film slides into a neighbouring one, into a casting memory, into a comedian nobody can name. Nothing is over-explained, because the two of them already share the reference set. What holds it together is that the digressions keep folding back. However far the conversation wanders, it returns to a clear opinion about whether the thing is worth your evening. It is a hangout with an argument inside it, for people who like both parts.