The Long Take Review

If you’re like us and you love movies but also want your cinephilia validated by points awarded in an online competition, then you’ve come to the right place! Every year we at The Long Take Review head on over to Vulture to participate in the MFL or Movies Fantasy League. We come up with pithy usernames and then proceed to unwisely spend 100 fake dollars on this year’s films to create a roster. Films on your roster can earn points for box office revenue, awards recognition, critical reception, and — new this year — Letterboxd scores. Greg, P.T., and I skip over explaining the rules and cut straight to sharing our picks, giving some unsolicited advice about how to balance your budget, take big swings, or, in some cases, spend big to play it safe.
Note that when we recorded this on Tuesday September 15th, we did not yet know that La Bola Negra would go on to win the People’s Choice Award at TIFF (the Toronto International Film Festival). As you listen to the episode, try to hear the exact moment I get egg on my face because I had La Bola Negra in my lineup but took it out because it’s a Netflix movie.
When you register for Vulture’s Movie Fantasy League, type ltrpod under “League Name (optional).”
Subscribe to The Long Take on Substack to chat with our community about your picks and progress week to week! We’re hoping to get a regular subscriber chat going to invite trash talk and punditry galore.
Image Credit: Vulture
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Summer’s coming to an end, and for those of us invested in the health of the box office, it was a great one. In fact, the U.S. box office broke an all-time record with 4.76 billion! This made our annual look back at summer movie season all the more celebratory as we shout out our favorites in a dozen superlative categories. We give credit to multiple films in each, and not just juggernauts like The Odyssey and Spider-Man: Brand New Day; smaller movies you may have missed get their flowers too. Whose our class clown or cutest couple? And how many films from this past spring will P.T. try to smuggle in either intentionally or unintentionally? (He does both.)
This is a spoiler-free episode! We did our best to avoid spoilers throughout the. entire episode. Occasionally we issue an ad hoc spoiler warning, but even then we were intentionally vague.
Image Credit: Vanity Fair, New York Times, and The Hollywood Reporter
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All music licensed through Epidemic Sound.
Logo art: Illustration 73265080 © Worldofvector | Dreamstime.com


Get full access to The Long Take at thelongtake.substack.com/subscribe

On September 22nd, director George Lucas and business leader Melody Hobson will unveil their brainchild, The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, to the general public in Los Angeles. On September 5th, P.T., Greg (yes, Greg who lives across the country!), and I were lucky enough to visit the museum early, as a part of the Member Preview. And then, as if that weren’t enough, we ended the day with Maestro of the Movies: A Tribute to John Williams at the Hollywood Bowl.
In this episode of The Long Take Review, we not only recount our joyful in-person reunion; we reflect on the layout and philosophy of the museum, our favorite pieces, the Star Wars of it all, and what Lucas and Hobson might be trying to say about art, narrative, pop culture, and privilege. Listen in to hear about early film history, critical theory, art and cultural capital, as well as the story behind the previously unaired Star Wars Detours animated series.
We go into SPOILER MODE at the 30:20 minute mark. If you don’t want to hear about specific pieces in the museum or other details that may color your experience visiting for the first time, you may listen safely until then.
Image Credit: The Lucas Museum of Narrative Art website
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All music licensed through Epidemic Sound.
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Whether or not they are personally into the films of Jane Schoenbrun, critics largely agree that the director of We’re All Going to the World’s Fair (2021), I Saw the TV Glow (2024), and now Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma (2026), is a singular auteur, making films that no one else would or could make. Their first two films were critical darlings of the Sundance Film Festival, and their latest work, a surreal meta-satirical slasher film, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where it won the Queer Palm.
To parse the film’s complex story swirling around questions of genre, gender, sexual awakening, pop culture, and queer identity, we had to bring in our resident horror expert, Professor Sarah Hastings. She fills us in on the history of slasher films that inspired Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma, nerds out with Jen about feminist film theorist Laura Mulvey, and helps us better understand what might be real or not real in the film. Greg and P.T. also say smart things in between making awkward yet witty jokes about sex, death, summer camp, and, of course, dipping sauce. Take a dip with us in a conversation that is as lofty and fun as the film itself.
We go into SPOILER MODE at the 30:34 minute mark. If you don’t want to be a part of that jump scare, you can listen until then.
Image Credit: NPR
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All music licensed through Epidemic Sound.
Logo art: Illustration 73265080 © Worldofvector | Dreamstime.com


Get full access to The Long Take at thelongtake.substack.com/subscribe

For many Oscar pundits and fans, the 91st Academy Awards, held on February 24, 2019, and honoring the films of 2018, became the most notorious when Green Book, a heartwarming odd couple comedy about a black pianist and his white driver, won Best Picture instead of presumed favorite, Alfonso Cuaron’s poignantly personal historical drama about a Mexico City family and their housekeeper, Roma.
And so, of course, for our sixth Oscar Fairy Flashback episode, we wanted to confront this controversial year (and believe me when I say we deeply considered shying away from it and turning the clock back in a different direction). As with all Oscar Fairy Flashbacks, we share what we want to change about the winners and nominees, were we to be in the good graces of the all-powerful Oscar Fairy. We each have ten points plus whatever we had remaining from the last OFF episode to spend. How any Oscars will we take away from Green Book and its fellow Oscar villain, Bohemian Rhapsody?
Image Credit: Screen Rant
Here’s some more detailed context to show that this Oscar year has a mixed record to say the least.
Four films won multiple awards:
-Bohemian Rhapsody: 4 wins (Actor [Rami Malek], Editing, Sound Editing, Sound Mixing)
-Green Book: 3 wins (Picture, Supporting Actor [Mahershala Ali], Original Screenplay)
-Roma: 3 wins (Director, Cinematography, Foreign Language Film)
-Black Panther: 3 wins (Score, Production Design, Costume Design)
-That is certainly a list of movies. Other films that won awards: The Favourite (Actress [Olivia Colman]), If Beale Street Could Talk (Supporting Actress [Regina King]), BlacKkKlansmen (Adapted Screenplay, finally getting Spike Lee a competitive Oscar), Spider-Man: Into the Spiderverse (Animated Feature), A Star Is Born (Song, netting Lady Gaga her first Oscar), Vice (Makeup & Hairstyling), and First Man (Visual Effects)
-Other nominated movies include The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, Can You Ever Forgive Me?, Cold War, First Reformed, Isle of Dogs, Mary Poppins Returns, Avengers: Infinity War, A Quiet Place, At Eternity’s Gate, The Wife, and Solo: A Star Wars Story
-There were also some notorious snubs, including Paddington 2, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, Crazy Rich Asians, Hereditary, and Widows
Buckle up, because we have a lot of work to do!
You can listen to The Long Take Review on Substack, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.
All music licensed through Epidemic Sound.
Logo art: Illustration 73265080 © Worldofvector | Dreamstime.com


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