The Intensely Casual Commentaries

Upstream Color: Medium Difficulty and When Creators Do Bad Things

Tue, 12 Aug 2025 17:05:15 -0400

A commentary on of my favorite movies, Upstream Color. I discuss how my view of this movie has changed over time, as well as what makes a story "medium difficulty" and possible interpretations of the story.

The Transformers: The Movie

Fri, 03 Jan 2025 18:50:31 -0500

Released in 1986, a terrible movie from a toy company would attempt to shove a message down its audience's throat that they couldn't accept. Join us as we discuss how this movie's failures predicted the failures of modern Hollywood storytelling and should have served as a warning to studios of the dangers of putting their desired message ahead of entertainment.

The Five-Year Engagement (2012) and Negative Quality

Tue, 04 Oct 2022 18:50:04 -0400

The Five-Year Engagement is a movie that has huge appeal to us in every way but one: it's really bad. In this commentary we use the The Five-Year Engagement to explain the various ways a story can force you to disbelieve it and ruin your experience, no matter how much you want to enjoy it.

Frozen (2013) and High Quality Storytelling

Sun, 04 Sep 2022 14:33:39 -0400

We comment on Disney's Frozen and why we regard it as an example of high quality storytelling despite the fact that neither Chris or I particularly like. In particular, Frozen presents it characters with interesting dilemmas and flaws while it also carefully sets up its twists so that when they occur they are surprising without triggering disbelief.

Sideways (2004) and the Dimension of Appeal

Sat, 30 Jul 2022 16:36:36 -0400

The Intensely Casual Method uses three dimensions to evaluate whether a story will be worth your time and money. All of us at Intensely Casual love the movie Sideways, and it's Logan's favorite movie. That makes it an ideal subject for us to discuss the element of appeal, the dimension that considers the emotions stories generate in us, positive and negative. People generally choose to experience stories based on appeal, but as we discuss in the commentary strongly liking or disliking a story can leave you blind to its actual merits or faults.

Dune (1984) and the Dimension of Context

Tue, 19 Oct 2021 19:23:43 -0400

As we approach the release of Denis Villeneuve's new film adaptation of Frank Herbert's novel Dune, Logan and Chris look back at David Lynch's adaptation of Dune released in 1984, and use it to introduce the dimension of context and explore the many ways the it influences how and why we find value in the stories we experience.

Ghostbusters (2016) (Answer the Call)

Fri, 15 Oct 2021 21:43:19 -0400

In this commentary, Logan and Chris discuss one of the movies that made the Intensely Casual project necessary, the 2016 version of Ghostbusters, and how changes in the way movies are made led to a product that failed to provide value to most of its audience.

Ghostbusters (1984) and High Value Stories

Thu, 14 Oct 2021 19:28:38 -0400

A DVD style commentary on the theatrical version of the 1984 movie Ghostbusters, in which we introduce the Intensely Casual Method and use it to evaluate what gives this movie such enduring value.