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Kelsi and Trey are educators searching for meaning in movies and shows! The Extra Credits podcast covers new releases with deep dives, interviews, and more. Listen on Apple and Spotify!

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'Kingdom of the Apes' Spoiler Conversation with Director Wes Ball

Today we explore Wes Ball's Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes as one of the more impressive and thoughtful blockbusters of the 2020s, then tackling the greater Apes universe, its sometimes-radical politics, and the future of this IP on our most recent episode. We also rank The Planet of the Apes films and explore the Caesar trilogy of Rise, Dawn, and War below!

Recent reviews

The Housemaid

The Housemaid

★★★½

A genuinely fucked up psychosexual, nightmarish thriller that arguably laid the foundation for South Korean cinema’s class-conscious suspense, yet its messy gender politics feel more like a blueprint for the misogynistic erotic thrillers that followed. The film vilifies women as volatile threats, not just seducing but dismantling male life. It’s laughably intense melodrama brings some levity, but it fails to critique male entitlement; psychologizing its working-class female lead without an empathetic lens. Watched this after Bong Joon-ho framed it as a…

Truly astonishing blend of practical and digital. The amount of seamless composites in this is mind-blowing, it’s like half the shots. Shoutout production designers and VFX artists making less-elevated genre films feel so real.

The Woman King

The Woman King

★★★★

Taught The Woman King as part of our Global Middle Ages/Early Modern unit. As a Social Studies teacher, I sometimes use historical films as counter-narratives—especially to highlight perspectives erased or co-opted by European historiography. The Woman King is a complicated artifact; while it takes historical and dramatic liberties, its portrayal of the Dahomey Kingdom challenges dominant narratives and encourages critical engagement with the politics of historiography. Rather than accepting colonial accounts at face value—like the overused Robert Norris’ 18th-century writings,…

Toy Story 2

Toy Story 2

★★★½

Has some of the most clever jokes of the Toy Story franchise but easily the lightest story. The most made-for-TV screenplay of the bunch. Very odd this became the “cool” sequel to name as an idiosyncratic sequel-favorite—very, very fun tho!

Liked reviews

The Housemaid is basically only male anxiety. Male anxiety about what would happen if women treated men like how men treat women (systemically not individually). Our main male character is technically in the position of power as a patriarch and a teacher, and when his power goes unchecked, his world is safe and normal. But as soon as a student is inappropriate to him, his grip on male power (specifically sexual dominance) disappears. He is the one being desired inappropriately.…

Koepp is a reliable and even venerable hack who always tips you to the origin of the pitch; Fassbender is playing a bespectacled secret-keeper with an icy affect and a blind spot where his wife is concerned who is literally named George. Not subtle! (Too bad Fassbender couldn't convert this part into a proper Smiley audition, as Macfadyen landed the role just this week.) I thought Koepp's collaboration with Soderbergh in Kimi yielded the best results of the late period,…

flawed film / fascinating crisis of the auteur

a movie about how simping for your wife will save the world