Finish him. Or at least finish the plot. Mortal Kombat II arrives with the promise of the full tournament, a new roster of fighters, and the long-awaited arrival of Johnny Cage — played by Karl Urban — as the wisecracking Earthrealm champion fans have been demanding since 2021.

Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast take on Simon McQuoid's sequel to the 2021 reboot, written by Jeremy Slater. The film pits Earthrealm's champions against Shao Kahn (Martyn Ford) and the forces of Outworld, with Jessica McNamee, Josh Lawson, Ludi Lin, Lewis Tan, Joe Taslim, and Hiroyuki Sanada all returning, and Adeline Rudolph and Tati Gabrielle joining the fight as Kitana and Jade. Mike and Chris weigh in on whether the sequel improves on its predecessor or lands with all the dramatic weight of a finishing move on easy mode.


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Deep in the Brazilian Amazon, indigenous forest guardians risk their lives to defend ancestral lands from illegal loggers — and the fate of the entire rainforest hangs in the balance. We Are Guardians follows indigenous guardian Marçal Guajajara and indigenous leader Puyr Tembé as they stand at the frontlines of this fight, while on the other side, illegal logger Valdir struggles to survive and sees no other way forward than continuing to cut. 

Mike talks with co-directors Chelsea Greene and Rob Grobman about the making of this award-winning documentary. Directed by Edivan Guajajara, Greene, and Grobman, and produced by Academy Award winner Fisher Stevens with Leonardo DiCaprio serving as executive producer, We Are Guardians has earned accolades including Best Documentary at the Raindance Film Festival, the International Green Film Award at Cinema for Peace, and the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Mostra São Paulo International Film Festival. 

Greene and Grobman join Mike to discuss how they brought this urgent story to the screen, the challenges of filming in a contested and dangerous environment, and what they hope audiences will carry with them. Follow the film on Instagram and TikTok at @weareguardiansfilm.


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She's not her cousin. Kara Zor-El (Milly Alcock) arrived on screen in Supergirl with a chip on her shoulder and a body count on her conscience — a cosmic revenge story light-years removed from the sunnier mythology of Superman. Whether the DCU's second theatrical outing delivered on that premise is another question entirely.

Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast dig into Craig Gillespie's Supergirl, written by Ana Nogueira and adapted from Tom King and Bilquis Evely's acclaimed comic miniseries Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow. The film stars Alcock alongside Eve Ridley as Ruthye Marye Knoll, Matthias Schoenaerts as the villain Krem of the Yellow Hills, Jason Momoa as Lobo, and David Corenswet reprising his role as Superman. Mike and Chris take stock of what works, what doesn't, and what Alcock's performance promises for the character's future in the DCU — box office results notwithstanding.


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From his 1933 debut as a tragic fairy-tale monster to his current reign over an ever-expanding Monsterverse, King Kong has spent more than ninety years proving that beauty isn't the only thing capable of killing the beast — time certainly hasn't.

Mike talks with film historian and self-described Kongophile Ray Morton about the revised and updated edition of his book King Kong: The History of a Movie Icon (Bloomsbury Academic). First published in 2005 as the definitive account of the King Kong phenomenon, Morton has extensively revised and expanded his original tome to cover decades of new material — from Kong's animated incarnations and stage productions to the Kong variants, spoofs, and projects that never made it to the screen. The updated edition concludes with the most recent films placing the great ape within an ever-expanding "Monsterverse," and is packed with photographs and based on extensive new research and exclusive interviews. 

Morton and Mike dig into the creation of the Kong character by Merian C. Cooper, the making of the 1933 original, and what it is about this particular giant ape that has kept audiences captivated across every era of cinema.


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This is the Way — but is it the right way to bring the galaxy's most beloved odd couple to the big screen? After three seasons on Disney+, Din Djarin (Pedro Pascal) and Grogu trade the small screen for an IMAX-sized adventure, with the stakes raised and the runtime expanded accordingly.

Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast discuss Star Wars: The Mandalorian and Grogu, directed by Jon Favreau from a screenplay by Favreau, Dave Filoni, and Noah Kloor. Set in the aftermath of the Empire's fall, the film finds Din Djarin and his apprentice recruited by the New Republic — represented by Colonel Ward (Sigourney Weaver) — to take on the remnants of Imperial warlords, with Jeremy Allen White joining the cast as Rotta the Hutt. Mike and Chris break down whether the franchise's leap to theaters was a triumph or a stumble, and what it means for the future of Star Wars.


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Western month begins here. Lucio Fulci's Massacre Time (1966) arrived in the wake of Django riding a wave of Italian genre fever, and it announced something different lurking inside the spaghetti Western: a director with a genuine appetite for cruelty. Franco Nero plays Tom Corbett, a gold prospector summoned back to a hometown now wholly owned by the Scott family — their name on every building, their violence on every street corner. Waiting for him is his brother Jeff (George Hilton), drinking himself to death, and Junior Scott (Nino Castelnuovo), a white-suited sadist with a bullwhip and nowhere near enough supervision.

Mike White, Spencer Parsons, and Joe Odber dig into Fulci's pre-horror career, Fernando Di Leo's crime-inflected screenplay, the film's feudal vision of capitalism, and the charged dynamics of the Scott family — Oedipal, theatrical, and deeply strange. They also trace Junior's lineage forward to a certain plantation dandy in a white suit.


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The truth belongs to seven billion people. That's the promise of Disclosure Day, Steven Spielberg's return to science fiction and to the extraterrestrial obsessions that have haunted his work since Close Encounters of the Third Kind. Whether audiences are ready to believe is a different matter.

Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast sit down with the summer's most buzzy Spielberg event film. Written by David Koepp from a story by Spielberg, Disclosure Day follows a cybersecurity whistleblower and a meteorologist caught in the aftermath of a government cover-up about alien life. The film stars Emily Blunt, Josh O'Connor, Colin Firth, Eve Hewson, and Colman Domingo, with a score by John Williams — his thirtieth collaboration with Spielberg. Mike and Chris weigh in on whether the film lives up to Spielberg's legacy or settles for familiar comfort.


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Thirty years after Boy Meets World made them household names, Danielle Fishel (Topanga), Rider Strong (Shawn), and Will Friedle (Eric) launched a rewatch podcast and hit the road — and directors Chris Levitus and Zane Rubin were there to capture it all. Mike talks with Levitus and Rubin about Doc Meets World, their feature documentary premiering at the 2026 Tribeca Film Festival.

The two filmmakers discuss how a phone call from Strong turned into a three-year project, why a $20,000 union fee inadvertently shaped their entire approach, and what it took to make a documentary that works just as well for viewers who never watched the show. They also break down the division of labor — Rubin as archival hunter, Levitus as editor — and the painstaking work of crafting an opening that could bring any audience up to speed before the real journey begins.

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Twenty-five years ago, a group of idiots convinced MTV to let them hurt themselves on television. Now, Johnny Knoxville and the Jackass crew are back one last time — older, creakier, and somehow still willing to do things that no sane human being would consider.

Mike White and Chris Stachiw of The Kulturecast pay their respects to Jackass: Best and Last, the fifth and final installment in the franchise, directed by Jeff Tremaine and produced with Spike Jonze. The film blends never-before-seen new stunts — tailored, inevitably, to a cast now well into their fifties — with archival footage and greatest hits from across the franchise's history, featuring the full returning roster: Knoxville, Steve-O, Chris Pontius, Jason "Wee Man" Acuña, Dave England, Preston Lacy, and Danger Ehren, alongside newer members Rachel Wolfson, Zach Holmes, Jasper Dolphin, and Poopies. Mike and Chris reckon with what Jackass meant, what it spawned, and whether this farewell sticks the landing.


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Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver inspired millions with her celebrations of nature, attention, and the examined life — yet she remained one of American literature's most intensely private figures. Filmmaker Sasha Waters spent years building an intimate portrait of Oliver from the inside out: sifting through thirty to forty boxes of correspondence, notebooks, and personal photographs before they entered the Library of Congress, and tracking down a long-lost video recording that captures Oliver speaking publicly for the first time about surviving childhood abuse.

Mike talks with Waters about the making of Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World (2026) — her path into documentary filmmaking through the school of Barbara Kopple, the subjects that have chosen her over the years, the creative problem-solving demanded by a subject who rarely allowed herself to be filmed, and what it felt like to introduce the film to a sold-out crowd of 1,100 at the Missouri Theatre during its world premiere at True/False. Waters also reflects on her parallel career as an experimental filmmaker and educator at VCU School of the Arts, and the pleasures of a good pie shake.

Mary Oliver: Saved by the Beauty of the World opens theatrically July 3, 2026, and airs on PBS American Masters on August 25, 2026. Find Sasha Waters online at pieshake.com and on Instagram @pieshakepictures.


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Fifty years on, The Rocky Horror Picture Show remains the longest-running theatrical release in cinema history — and it shows no signs of stopping. Linus O'Brien, son of creator Richard O'Brien, joins Mike to discuss Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, his feature documentary tracing Rocky's unlikely journey from a Royal Court Theatre upstairs production to a global midnight-screening phenomenon.

Linus talks about growing up in the house Rocky built — guitar songs in the kitchen, shadow casts at the Beacon Theater, and a father who always expressed himself through music. He discusses the editorial partnership with editor Avner Shiloah, the structural decision to let the songs carry the film, and why celebrities like Jack Black and Trixie Mattel were included only when they had something specific to say. He also teases the case for a Shock Treatment documentary and his next project, Almost Normal, on neurodivergence and its impact on society.

Strange Journey is now available on digital platforms and Blu-ray.

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