Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith explore On Golden Pond (1981), a film about identity at the end of life, the persistence of childhood hurt, and the possibility of connection in the shadow of death.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith unpack Tokyo Story as a quiet reckoning with aging parents, drifting children, and the emotional cost of modern life moving too fast to look back.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith discuss Make Way for Tomorrow (1937) and how ordinary decency, practicality, and exhaustion slowly erode responsibility toward aging parents.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith return to Weapons, correcting a rushed first recording and unpacking its abuse allegory, generational parasitism, and the dangerous desire for simple answers.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith recap the year with their first ever awards show.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith trace Jeremiah Johnson’s journey from escape into solitude, through an accidental gathering of strangers that becomes a real family, and how its loss traps him in a cycle of violence he never truly recovers from.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith explore how the quiet persistence of women’s work—and a single act of moral courage—reshapes a frontier story built on male bravado.

Jim Groom and Michael Branson Smith explore how The New Land reveals the frontier not as mythic violence but as decades of labor, loss, and quiet perseverance.