HooperCast Movie Hour

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Film criticism with detours and bite.

The gist

HooperCast Movie Hour treats movies and television as an excuse for sharp, casual conversation. Reviews of titles like Alien: Earth, Relay, Longlegs, and Train Dreams sit alongside jokes about bad cameras, damaged SD cards, wardrobe habits, and the strange logistics of recording.

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About HooperCast Movie Hour

HooperCast Movie Hour is a long-running film-and-television review show where criticism rarely arrives in a straight line. It likes the detour. One episode opens with tattoo bumps and shirt rotation habits before Gran Turismo is even the point. Another starts with old recording-session memories, an accidental apple problem, and beard maintenance. A Wake Up Dead Man discussion begins in the practical misery of corrupted audio, backup tracks, decaf, water, and a burned hand. The mess is part of the rhythm. Once the show lands on a movie or series, though, it has real critical habits. It watches for structure. It cares about how an audience is led toward a feeling. Relay becomes a case study in subdued acting, low-energy thriller mechanics, and the danger of asking viewers to feel tension without earning it. Alien: Earth gets filtered through poster design, franchise fatigue, xenomorph imagery, and skepticism about renewal as proof of quality. Longlegs is handled with the mix of fear, quotation, and laughter that often follows memorable horror. The show also stretches beyond weekly review duty. Art vs the Artist spins out into a separate conversation about problematic creators, cancel culture, ownership, and the uneasy moment when appreciation collides with new context. That episode signals a broader interest in film culture, not just fresh releases. The texture is informal and blunt. It sounds like people who have been talking together for a long time, complete with recurring names, callbacks, interruptions, and jokes that sometimes need correction midstream. The appeal is not polish. It is the combination of lived-in rapport and practical movie literacy: a willingness to say a movie is dull, to explain why setup and payoff matter, and to admit when a side conversation has become the episode.

Made for: Suited to listeners who like casual movie-and-TV conversations with real craft opinions underneath the banter. It fits fans of genre reviews, horror talk, streaming-era criticism, and long-running inside-joke chemistry.

What sets it apart: The show’s criticism is wrapped in recording-room spillover: technical problems, daily-life mishaps, and jokes often become part of the review’s texture. It stands apart by moving easily from poster gags and performance notes to bigger questions about structure, audience expectation, and separating art from artists.

In their own words

Engage with the creative process and join hosts Conner and Dustin as they use film and television as templates for the discussion of topics such as storytelling, representation, corporate consolidation, life affirmation, and challenging one's opinions.

Why you'd press play

This is the movie chat where you get screenplay notes after the Mr. Fantastic poop theory.

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your superhero criticism to ask which scenes actually earn a character's transformation
honest verdicts that can land on "soft recommendation" or "wait for streaming"

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

film and television reviewsstory structure and payoffgenre expectationsstreaming versus theatershorror and sci-fi franchisesperformancesrecording mishapsart versus artist debates

Talks about

TV & Film Film Reviews TV Reviews

Best episodes of HooperCast Movie Hour

Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.

#566: Dial It Back (“Relay”)Nov 28, 2025

A measured look at how Relay's restraint weakens its thriller momentum and payoff.

HooperCast treats Relay as a quiet cat-and-mouse thriller whose tension never quite rises to match its premise. The discussion tracks Sam Worthington's company representative as he tries to identify Riz Ahmed and work out what Lily James knows, but the incremental discoveries,…

#529: Stream the Leg (“Cobra Kai” Series Review)

A Cobra Kai primer that keeps franchise enthusiasm in check.

HooperCast makes smart use of a bonus slot with a Cobra Kai review that also doubles as a preview for Karate Kid Legends. The discussion gets its shape from the contrast between Dustin, who has seen the show, and the host, who has not, and it moves cleanly from William Zabka and…

#481: Art vs the Artist

A loose, candid talk about film love, moral baggage, and what still deserves a place on the shelf.

HooperCast Movie Hour turns a familiar culture-war question into an easygoing, mildly uneasy conversation, as Connor, Dustin, and Callan weigh where art ends and the artist begins.

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Find your next episode

About HooperCast Movie Hour

In their own words

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Best episodes of HooperCast Movie Hour

Podcasts like HooperCast Movie Hour

Episodes

#529: Stream the Leg (“Cobra Kai” Series Review)

#578: Kuhschmiggity (“Wake Up Dead Man”)

#577: Dresser Dreams (“Train Dreams”)

#576: I Realized I Didn’t Care (“Alien: Earth”)

#575: One-Man Homeless A-Team ("Reacher")

#574: Sniff the Coffee Beans (“Hacks”)

#573: Don’t Lose Hope (“The Handmaid’s Tale”)

#564: The Defiler (“Conan O’Brien Must Go”)

#572: Another Marvel Story (“Ironheart”)

#571: Boats Aren’t France ("Friendship")

#570: Dead Wife Comedy (“Shrinking”)

#569: 5 Percent of a Poopy Bed (“Presumed Innocent”)

#568: An Upsetting Evening (Best Movies of 2005)

#567: The Anti-Armageddon (“Don’t Look Up”)

#565: Blood Corn (“Jurassic World: Rebirth”)

#563: G for Geesus (“Predator: Killer of Killers”)

#562: Danger Horse (“Death of a Unicorn”)

#561: Bill Barbecue ("The Accountant" 1 & 2)

#560: Lilo & SonofaBitch (“Lilo & Stitch”)

#559: A Terrifying Stupid (“One Battle After Another”)

#558: Botched Legacy (“Bosch: Legacy” Series Finale)

#557: Thank You, Sal Saperstein ("The Studio")

#556: Ambiguously Middle-Aged (“Nobody 2”)

#555: Always Trust Apple Hands (“KPop Demon Hunters”)

#554: Ferris Witcher (“Weapons”)

#553: Mississippi Frame of Mind (“Daredevil: Born Again”)

#552: Too Much Plot (“Together”)

#548: Too Many Cats (“Love is Blind”)

#551: Spike the Baby (“The Naked Gun”)

#547: The Hole Really Works (“The Fantastic Four: First Steps”)

#546: Cinemalier (“The Vast of Night”)

#545: Braindead Idiot (“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”)

#544: An Honest Jimmy (“Superman”)

#543: Marry Me, Kerry Condon (“F1”)

#542: Chimp Laughter (“Megan 2.0”)

#541: Zombie Dong (“28 Years Later”)

#540: Real People Things (“Superman and Lois”)

#539: A Revelation..of Something (“The Life of Chuck”)

#538: Sleep the Leg (“Karate Kid: Legends”)

#537: Sorry, Bros (“Ballerina”)

#536: The Stagehand Slave (“Heretic”)

#535: It’s Buzz Aldrin’s Fault (“Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning”)

#534: I’ve Always Wanted a Human Body (“Silo”)

#533: Yolked Bugs (“The Day the Earth Blew Up”)

#532: Slightly Proclave (“Conclave”)

#531: Devour Feculence (“Severance”)

#530: Bob in the Box (“Thunderbolts”)

#528: Dead Sexy (“Sinners”)

#527: Planting My Grave (“The Electric State”)

#526: Casting is Magic (“Anora”)

#525: Everything the Lorne Touches (“Saturday Night”)

#524: Peter Lives (“Grand Theft Hamlet”)

#523: The Sound of Meat (“The Substance”)

#522: Turned on by Animals (“The Wild Robot”)

#520: Old Men Yell at The Cloud (“Juror #2”)

#519: Confess to the Baby (“My Old Ass”)

#518: Waiting for Superman (“Creature Commandos”)

#517: Too Cartoony & It Will Not Stand (“The Penguin”)

#516: No Cap (“Captain America: Brave New World”)

#515: Homework (Marvel Catch Up, Winter 2025)

#514: Diddly Squat (The Ridley Scott Episode)

#513: How to Help a Franchise Die

#512: Helm ManslaughterHands (“The War of the Rohirrim”)

#511: Sad One–Sided Comb-Over (“Nosferatu”)

#510: This Money is So Loud (“Sonic the Hedgehog 3”)

#509: The Kyle Movie (When You Mismarket Your Film)

#508: So Jazzed ("Transformers One")

#507: Full Blown Robot Racist (Best Movies of 2004)

#506: A Commute Unknown (“A Complete Unknown”)

#505: No Hope (“Smile 2”)

#504: Little Goat Suit (“Wicked”)

#503: Whose Wife Is It Anyway? (The Orlando Wedding Recap Episode)