The Extra Credits
The Extra Credits is hosted by two teachers searching for meaning in your favorite movies and shows. We cover new releases with movie drafts, ranking games, interviews, and more!
Episodes
Kelsi and Trey take a complicated deep dive into Paul Thomas Anderson’s One Battle After Another (2025), the bold new epic starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Benicio Del Toro, Teyana Taylor, Regina Hall, and Sean Penn. Is it a modern masterpiece or an important piece of big budget art considering our political moment? A bit of both! Sign up for free on our Patreon (link below) to unlock our full Phantom Thread deep dive and other exclusiv...
Kelsi and Trey's Mailbag 2025 episode is here: we talk pod origin lore, real vs. fake IMAX, and the movies that defined the year - Black Bag, 28 Years Later, Sinners, Weapons, and more. We get into the biggest disappointments (Mickey 17, Highest 2 Lowest), the actors everywhere in 2025 (Pedro Pascal, Chalamet, Butler), plus our scariest horror moments and best theater experiences. Next up: PTA’s One Battle After Another, and fo...
Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest is bold, stylish, funny, and frustrating all at once. In this episode, Trey and Kelsi explore Spike’s return to the crime thriller with Denzel Washington and Jeffrey Wright grounding the story, and A$AP Rocky stepping in as a surprising antagonist. We dig into how the film tries to channel the social bite of Inside Man, and the moral weight of Kurosawa’s High and Low, but often veers into goofy tangents...
Kelsi and Trey return to update you on a few things: send your questions for our upcoming Q&A mailbag, programming mainfeed/patreon updates for September, and diving into all the buzz out of Venice and Telluride. From Emma Stone’s ovation in Bugonia to Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein to Jeremy Allen White in Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere. If you haven’t already, sign up as a free member on Patreon! You’ll instantly get...
Kelsi and Trey review Zach Cregger’s movie Weapons, sharing how they spoke with Cregger and how he sent them the screenplay after hearing their Barbarian deep dive (available now on Patreon). They dig into the current wave of modern horror shaped by filmmakers like Jordan Peele and Ari Aster, then explore how Cregger has quickly made his mark by balancing sharp genre thrills, dark humor, and deeply weird vibes into a style all his ...
In anticipation for Zach Cregger's new movie Weapons, Kelsi and Trey re-released their conversation with Cregger for a SPOILER-filled deep dive of Barbarian. Their deep dive of Barbarian is free for free members on Patreon below! Weapons deep dive coming very soon.
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Kelsi and Trey explore Akira Kurosawa’s The Hidden Fortress on Patreon. This is just a free sample. In the full episode, we kick off our Kurosawa journey by unpacking the film’s influence on Star Wars and diving into its narrative structure, tone, and characters. It’s part of our ongoing series pairing classic Kurosawa films with deeper Star Wars deep dives!
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Kelsi and Trey are back to discuss superheroes: we break down James Gunn’s Superman and Marvel’s Fantastic Four: First Steps, two attempts to reboot tired franchises with sincerity and with varying results. First, we dive into Gunn’s earnest, squirrel-saving cutie Superman, Corenswet’s surprising star turn, and the film’s big ideas about media and occupation. Then we get into Fantastic Four's gorgeous retro-futurist world, Juli...
Our Star Wars deep dive continues on Patreon with Attack of the Clones—arguably the wildest entry in the prequels. We tackle Anakin’s emotional spiral, the politics of Star Wars fans, Jedi agents, and...sand. We also talk about the silly-emotional tragiromance of it all! This is a free 15 minute Patreon preview, but you can join us on Patreon to unlock the full four-part series (Episodes 1, 2, 4, and 5).
Kelsi and Trey dive deep into Ari Aster’s bold and chaotic new film Eddington—a post-pandemic western satire that takes aim at America’s digital echo chambers. We break down the film’s story, its genre-blending style, standout performances from Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, and Austin Butler (but an underused Emma Stone), and debate whether Aster’s ambition outweighs the film’s messiness. Go below to sign up for Patreon to hear ex...
This is a free sample from our conversation on David Lean’s Lawrence of Arabia (1962), the sweeping desert epic that looms large over George Lucas’s vision for his Star Wars saga as a whole. We dig into the film’s imperial critique, Peter O’Toole’s mesmerizing performance, and how Lean turns scale into a tool of psychological storytelling. For the full episode head to our Patreon at the link below.
Our four-part Star Wars deep dive series is now live on Patreon—starting with a free 15-minute preview of our epic Star Wars -Phantom Menace breakdown. From podraces, to tariffs, to Darth Maul's double-bladed duel of the fates chaos, we unpack the Star Wars mythology, this era of Lucas, this massive indie production, and our relationship to the divisive prequels. Join us on Patreon to unlock the full four episode series (Ep's 1, 2,...
Danny Boyle and Alex Garland return to the franchise they helped define with 28 Years Later . A bold, emotional, and politically charged vision of our past, present, and future. We break down the film’s story, style, themes of myth-making, isolationism, nationalism, and standout performances from Jodie Comer, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Ralph Fiennes, and breakout star Alfie Williams. We also look ahead to where this trilogy could go nex...
This full episode is free for a limited time on our Patreon!
Sign up as a free member using the link in the episode description below.
In this Patreon episode, we dive deep into the 28 Days Later franchise—breaking down its lo-fi horror legacy, Danny Boyle’s kinetic filmmaking, the breakout performances from Cillian Murphy and Naomie Harris, and Alex Garland’s sharp political commentary. We also talk about the early buzz for 28 Years...
This is a free sample from our conversation on William Wyler's Ben-Hur (1959), the epic that helped shape George Lucas’s cinematic imagination and paved the way for Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. We talk about Ben-Hur's blend of myth, spectacle, and spirituality, how its structure mirrors the Skywalker saga, and why Judah Ben-Hur walks so Anakin Skywalker can...get his legs cut off. For the full episode, including our compl...
FULL FREE EPISODE ON PATREON – In this special sample episode, we dive into Mission: Impossible (1996), the film that launched Tom Cruise’s iconic run as Ethan Hunt. We break down Brian De Palma’s stylish direction, that legendary langley heist, and the beginning of one of cinema’s greatest action franchises. This is a full deep dive into the spy thriller that changed the genre forever. Listen to the full episode now (free for all ...
Today we dive into Celine Song’s Materialists, a glossy, thematically ambitious romcom that left us more intrigued than moved. Following the quiet power of Past Lives, Song pivots hard...playing with genre conventions to critique romance as transaction, intimacy as performance, and dating as capitalist spectacle. We talk about how the film tries to reclaim a dying genre while simultaneously dissecting it, why the trio of Pedro Pasc...
Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest is the sleek, stylish spy thriller that basically invented the modern action movie and laid the blueprint for the Mission: Impossible / James Bond franchises. We break down its iconic set pieces, paranoid energy, and why Cary Grant running from a crop duster still rips. This is a 5-minute sample from our full #1 Boy Movie Club episode. To hear the entire deep dive, head to our Patreon below.
In our episode on Jerry Maguire, we dive into Tom Cruise and Cameron Crowe’s genre-blending masterpiece as both a rom-com and sports drama that dissects the emotional and professional crash out of a self-interested man. Alongside this, we break down the broader arc of Cruise’s career—from 1980s heartthrob to 1990s dramatic powerhouse to post-2000s action icon—and how Jerry Maguire stands at a critical turning point: a film that bri...
Kelsi and Trey review Wes Anderson's newest film The Phoenician Scheme and also trace the five distinct eras of Anderson’s career. Anderson’s latest pastel-laced genre experiment is part espionage caper, part theological road movie, and part anti-capitalist fever dream. We break down how this film fits into the “post-Grand Budapest” phase of his work, explore its sub-narratives and surreal spiritual detours, and celebrate its q...
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