There are film podcasts that aspire to scholarship, and then there is Fear and Loathing in Cinema, which aspires mostly to survive its own conversations. Imagine a 2 a.m. diner where the coffee has become sentient, the fries surrendered hours ago, and two friends are treating cinematic failure with the seriousness usually reserved for constitutional law.
This week, Bryan Kluger and Preston Barta willingly wander into M. Night Shyamalan’s The Last Airbender, which is a film so catastrophically misguided it briefly convinced audiences that one of Hollywood’s most fascinating directors had misplaced his compass entirely. Before Shyamalan rediscovered himself by making horror movies on a shoestring budget, he somehow said yes to a blockbuster that bends everything except good judgment.
The mystery isn’t why The Last Airbender fails. That’s evident almost immediately. The mystery is whether anything besides James Newton Howard’s magnificent score escapes the wreckage. Bryan insists on looking anyway. Preston, ever the optimist, searches for humanity in the ashes but does he find anything? Nope. Against all odds, they find something even better though. They find a very funny and insightful conversation.
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WRITTEN BY: BRYAN KLUGER
Bryan Kluger is an entertainment critic, writer, and podcast host with a deep love for film, horror, and pop culture. His work has appeared in outlets such as Arts+Culture Magazine, High-Def Digest, Screen Rant, The Huffington Post, The Drudge Report, Fark, and Boomstick Comics. He hosts My Bloody Podcast and Fear and Loathing in Cinema Podcast, along with a weekly radio show, where he brings sharp insight, humor, and an unabashed passion for movies to every conversation.
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