Movies 101

On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss a pair of streaming films that feature protagonists going through tough times. The first is the first directorial venture from the actress Kristen Stewart titled “The Chronology of Water.” They follow that with a look at the bewildering Chinese import “Resurrection.”

Looking for a new movie to watch? You now have so many options on so many different streaming services that you might get overwhelmed and give up before you even start browsing. That also means a lot of good movies inevitably fall through the cracks. On this week’s show, Nathan Weinbender, Mary Pat Treuthart and Dan Webster sift through the last 5 years of cinematic offerings and unearth a few that they think deserve a wider audience.

On this week’s show, Nathan Weinbender, Mary Pat Treuthart and Dan Webster look at the ongoing trend of so-called “legacy sequels,” films that revive cultural properties after years—and sometimes decades—of dormancy.

On this week’s show, Nathan Weinbender, Mary Pat Treuthart and Dan Webster recap their time at the recent Seattle International Film Festival. They talk about the SIFF experience and highlight some of their festival favorites.

On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss a pair of streaming films. The first is a Belgian film by the Dardenne brothers titled “Young Mothers.” The other is a U.S.-based documentary about a Southern city titled “Natchez.”

Film festivals typically, but not always, feature films that will hardly ever play at your local metroplex. Yet is possible, though again not always, to be fans of both mainstream and festival films. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss the latest Hollywood wannabe blockbuster, “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” and then reveal what they expect from the 52nd Seattle International Film Festival, which kicks off May 7th.

One common source of drama involves putting characters in difficult situations. How they react can, and often does, result in powerful individual acting performances. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss two films that put characters in difficult situations. The first is “I Swear,” the based-on-real-events story of a man with Tourette’s Syndrome. The other is “Mother Mary,” a film starring Anne Hathaway as a pop star attempting a comeback who is forced to face secrets from her past.

Among the several filmmakers whose work demands to be seen, Steven Soderbergh—for many of us—ranks somewhere in the Top Ten. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss Soderbergh’s newest film, “The Christophers,” which stars the great stage actor Ian McKellen. They follow that with a look at the latest film by the Palestinian-American director Cherien Dabis titled “All That’s Left of You.”

It’s no secret that the success or failure of a movie depends largely on how well we can relate to its central characters. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss a pair of films boasting protagonists with wildly diverse appeals. The films are the theatrical release “Fantasy Life” and the streaming feature “Outcome.”

Intensity and tension are important aspects of art. And this is especially true in cinematic art. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss two films that explore the meaning of tension in two different ways. The first is “The Drama,” a study of a couple about to be married who begin to obsess over something from the past. The other is “Crime 101,” an exploration of the lives of several desperate characters, one of whom embarks on a plan to get rich quick.

Some people find foreign films intolerable. Others of us seek them out simply because they tend to offer something different from the usual Hollywood fare. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss two foreign films that are radically unique: the Oscar-nominated Spanish-French film “Sirāt” and the French film “Alpha.”

Though the possibility, not to mention practicality, of interstellar space travel remains in doubt, that hasn’t stopped moviemakers from exploiting the idea. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss the latest sci-fi space venture, “Project Hail Mary,” a Ryan Gosling vehicle based on Andy Weir’s best-selling novel. They also share their choices for, as they like to say, “their favorite space-travel movies that aren’t ‘2001: A Space Odyssey.’”

The Motion Picture Academy has had its say, and that means that we can now have ours. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss the 98th Oscars broadcast, the wins and the shoulda-beens. Then they discusss another music-themed documentary, this one featuring the former Beatle Paul McCartney, Amazon Studio’s “Paul McCartney: Man on the Run.”

Forget the Golden Globes, the BAFTAs or the SAG awards, it’s the Oscars broadcast that movie fans care most about. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss the 98th Academy Awards, who is nominated, who has the best chances of winning and who they each think should win.

As with most art forms, movies depend heavily on tradition—either by embracing it or countering it in new, original ways. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss the importance of two cinema giants, artists who in their respective ways represented the best that moviemaking has to offer: the Oscar-winning actor Robert Duvall and the master documentary director Frederick Wiseman.

February and March are famously not-great months for new movie releases, with Hollywood dumping some of its most forgettable products into theaters and focusing all its energy on the Academy Awards. But Spokane movie fans are in luck, because they’re about to have access to an embarrassment of cinematic riches from around the world. On this week's show, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss the five documentary features vying for the Oscar on March 15th and then preview the upcoming Spokane International Film Festival, running March 6th to 8th.

Characters in peril, whether physical and/or emotional, tend to make good movie material, especially when those of us in the viewing audience can relate to what’s going on. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss a pair of movies that feature characters in various stages of duress. The first is the latest adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel “Wuthering Heights.” They follow that with the wild time-travel venture “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die.”

We all live in communities of one sort or another, but it’s each of our individual stories that filmmakers tend to explore. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss three movies that focus on characters and how they interact, both positively and negatively, with the communities to which they belong—or, in some cases, merely encounter. They begin with “Magellan,” a film about the Portuguese navigator Ferdinand Magellan. And they follow up with “The Plague” and “Peter Hujar’s Day.”

It’s been a few years since the feminist MeToo movement took root. Yet it’s still going strong, at least it is in the movie industry. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss three different examples of cinematic woman-power. “Send Help,” starring Rachel McAdams is one. “The Housemaid,” starring Amanda Seyfried and Spokane’s own Sydney Sweeney, is another. And as a third, they add in “A Private Life,” a French film that stars two-time Oscar winner Jodie Foster.

On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss the recent Academy Awards nominations, the hits, the misses, the utter melodrama of it all. First, though, they take a look at "The Testament of Ann Lee," Mona Fastvold’s look at the woman who founded the offshoot of the Quaker church known as The Shakers.

As current events tell us, life—at times—is strange. And one of the most dependable movie themes involves characters who act strangely. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss two films peopled by characters who don’t act in manners that most of us would consider, for want of a better term, normal.

For movie fans, there’s nothing quite like losing yourself at a film festival. And that’s true whether we’re talking about Spokane’s annual event or something just a bit more national—or, more to the point, international. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart first discuss the newest film by Park Chan-wook, titled “No Other Choice.” But then Mary Pat and Dan share their recent experience attending the 37th Palm Springs International Film Festival.

We’re entering the new year, and as always there is hope that life will improve. But we’re still left with the remains of the year that was. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss a pair of 2025 films that made a number of Best-of-the-Year lists: Josh Safdie’s "Marty Supreme" and Brazilian filmmaker Kleber Mendonça Filho’s "The Secret Agent."

Yes, it is now 2026, a year that at the turn of the century seemed, well, a century away. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart will be doing what they annually do: giving their impressions of the past year’s films—the good, the bad and the ugly.

Every week, we here at Movies 101 central talk about the movies we see. Only on occasion, though, do we address movie-watching itself. On this week’s show, that’s exactly what Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart will do: talk about the contemporary moviegoing scene as the end of year 2025 approaches, whether that involves going to a theater or simply staying at home and taking advantage of your favorite streaming service.

Of all the human emotions, save possibly grief, regret may well be the most incapacitating. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss a pair of films that, each in its own way, focuses on characters who suffer from regrets that prove nearly, if not completely, paralyzing.

Few things in life are more powerful, or painful, than the relationship between parent and child. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender, and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss two films that explore such relationships.

As every filmmaker from D.W. Griffith to Jean-Luc Godard would tell you, no theme provides more fuel for a movie than crime does. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender, and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss two movies that focus on characters who don’t so much flirt with crime but embrace it wholeheartedly.

Over the years, we here at Movies 101 headquarters have made no secret of our admiration for the films of Martin Scorsese. And we’re not about to stop now. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender, and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss the Apple TV five-part biographical miniseries “Mr. Scorsese” and offer up thoughts about some of the man’s choicest works.

When it comes to movie characters, those showing signs of mania often make for the most interesting storylines. On this week’s show, Dan Webster, Nathan Weinbender, and Mary Pat Treuthart discuss two films that focus on such characters. The first is director Lynne Ramsay’s “Die My Love,” and the second is Guillermo del Toro's “Frankenstein."