Don't miss the Awesome Movie Year podcast!

With hosts, film-critic Josh Bell and comedian/film-maker Jason Harris

As a movie critic, I’m always disappointed to hear people claim that the current year has been bad for movies, or that no good movies have been made since or before a particular time. There are great movies made every year, in all different genres and styles, and celebrating those movies is what the podcast Awesome Movie Year is all about. My co-host Jason Harris and I take on a different year in each season of the podcast, breaking down the movies in a variety of categories, from awards (Best Picture, Sundance Grand Jury Prize, Cannes Palme d’Or) to pop-culture impact (box-office champion, future cult classic, biggest flop) to our personal picks and more. In our first season, we’re looking back at the movies of 1994, and future seasons will jump around throughout movie history.

Jason and I have been friends for almost 25 years, and we’ve always talked about movies together. Jason is a filmmaker, a journalist and a stand-up comedian who’s written, produced and directed numerous short films and video projects. I’ve been a film critic since 2002, first at Las Vegas Weekly and now at a variety of outlets online, as well as on local TV and radio. Our producer David Rosen is the creator of the excellent movie podcast Piecing It Together, which takes new movies and analyzes their influences.

When Jason and I were in high school, we wrote a screenplay for a sequel to the 1992 softcore bikini epic Miracle Beach, because a movie producer that Jason knew owned the rights and said he’d read our script. That movie was never made, but two decades later, we have a podcast.