Searching For Atticus
Media & Entertainment Podcasts
Kofi, Blake and Rich are three guys who grew up without dads in their lives. On each podcast, we watch a movie, talk about the themes and moments that stick with us, and try to figure out how they speak to our own experiences as fathers, husbands and friends. From heart-racing action to heart-breaking drama, from nail-biting suspense to gut-busting comedy... we cover it all. Yeah, we hit on some heavy stuff, but we also laugh – a lot. There's a new podcast every other Friday.
Kofi, Blake and Rich are three guys who grew up without dads in their lives. On each podcast, we watch a movie, talk about the themes and moments that stick with us, and try to figure out how they speak to our own experiences as fathers, husbands and friends. From heart-racing action to heart-breaking drama, from nail-biting suspense to gut-busting comedy... we cover it all. Yeah, we hit on some heavy stuff, but we also laugh – a lot. There's a new podcast every other Friday.
Location:
Canada
Description:
Kofi, Blake and Rich are three guys who grew up without dads in their lives. On each podcast, we watch a movie, talk about the themes and moments that stick with us, and try to figure out how they speak to our own experiences as fathers, husbands and friends. From heart-racing action to heart-breaking drama, from nail-biting suspense to gut-busting comedy... we cover it all. Yeah, we hit on some heavy stuff, but we also laugh – a lot. There's a new podcast every other Friday.
Language:
English
Episodes
Belfast w/ Dr. Cahal McLaughlin
5/6/2022
On the morning after an historic election in Northern Ireland, we discuss Kenneth Branagh's childhood remembrance of the start of The Troubles - with filmmaker and professor Cahal McLaughlin of Queen's University, Belfast. As a child, Dr. McLaughlin lived only a few streets away from the street portrayed in the film. As an adult he works to bridge the divide between Northern Ireland's communities as Director of the Prisons Memory Archive.
"Belfast" challenges us to consider a number of...
Duration:01:30:00
The Father
4/22/2022
Anthony Hopkins and Olivia Colman star in Florian Zeller's masterful drama about the struggles of a man suffering from Alzheimer's disease and the daughter who cares for him.
The film earned five Oscar nominations and two awards - including Best Actor for Hopkins and Best Adapted Screenplay for Zeller and Christopher Hampton).
Blake, Kofi & Rich wrestle with the film's many difficult issues: How do we best understand those suffering from brain disease and dementia? How do we balance our...
Duration:01:10:24
The Batman with Dr. Brandon Bosch
4/8/2022
For this conversation about the latest big-screen take on the Dark Knight, we've called in a bit of an expert. Dr. Brandon Bosch teaches in the Sociology and Political Science Departments at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He's published scholarly works looking at authoritarianism and the role of women in the Batman films.
Blake, Kofi & Rich talk with Brandon about the enduring appeal of the Batman character, the similarities between Paul Dano's portrayal of the Riddler and the QAnon...
Duration:01:05:09
The Power of the Dog
3/25/2022
Benedict Cumberbatch, Jesse Plemons, Kirsten Dunst and Kodi Smit-McPhee star in Jane Campion's much-lauded slow-burn thriller set in the American West.
Kofi, Blake & Rich wade through the story's themes of loneliness, isolation, toxic masculinity and damage. We talk about bullying and being bullied, about the savage criticism levelled at both the film and the filmmaker, and we have a little fun with the Benedict Cumberbatch Name Generator.
Clips in this podcast are ©Netflix
#powerofthedog...
Duration:01:05:54
The Atticus Journals - "Do you think about race?"
3/18/2022
It's Spring Break, so we're taking a little respite from our full-length episodes and sharing two smaller conversations this week.
In the first, Kofi poses a provocative question.
While discussing the Oscar-nominated "King Richard," Kofi asked Rich and Blake if race had ever factored into a decision they've made while parenting. The answers are both simple and complicated.
We'll return next week with a look at another Oscar nominee: The Power of the Dog, directed by Jane Campion and...
Duration:00:12:18
Ocean's Eleven
3/4/2022
George Clooney and Brad Pitt head up a band of lovable rogues in Steven Soderburgh's master class in "cool."
Blake, Kofi & Rich talk about what makes this movie so rewatchable, why law-abiding citizens such as us love a good heist movie and why George Clooney is such an icon of modern manhood.
Rich also shares a bunch of trivia and inside info surrounding the film. After all, he's seen it more than a hundred times.
And Blake looks into whether the "pinch" portrayed in the movie would...
Duration:01:12:04
King Richard
2/18/2022
Will Smith turns in a sensitive and nuanced performance as the ambitious and complicated Richard Williams - father to not one, but two of the greatest players in the history of women's tennis.
The movie follows the remarkable rise of Venus and Serena Williams from the gang-infested hard courts of Compton, California to Venus's debut on the pro tour. But the focus is on Richard and the challenges he both overcomes and creates with his 78-page plan for his girls' success.
Rich, Kofi & Blake...
Duration:00:56:46
The Atticus Journals - "Safe Sport" with Allison Forsyth
2/11/2022
Rich talks with former World Cup ski racer Allison Forsyth about how to coach athletes and hold them accountable without crossing the line into outdated abusive behaviour.
The conversation sprouts from our podcast on the movie "Miracle" - based on the true story of the US Olympic hockey team's upset victory over the USSR and subsequent gold medal at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympics.
In the film, coach Herb Brooks (played by Kurt Russell) employs some old-school tactics that are just not...
Duration:00:30:42
Miracle
2/4/2022
With the Winter Olympics underway, Blake, Kofi & Rich take a look at Miracle - the story of the greatest upset in sports history, when an unsung team of American college hockey players beat the mighty Soviet Union at the 1980 Olympics in Lake Placid, NY on their way to winning the gold medal.
The movie features the best hockey cinematography ever. It also does a superb job of capturing both the malaise of the late 70's and the thrill of the Miracle on Ice.
As inspiring as the story itself...
Duration:01:05:52
In the Heat of The Night
1/21/2022
Kofi, Blake & Rich pay tribute to the late Sidney Poitier with a look at one of his most iconic roles: homicide detective Virgil Tibbs in Norman Jewison's "In the Heat of the Night."
The film is a murder mystery laced with the racial intensity of the Deep South, featuring some crackling exchanges between Tibbs and the good ol' boy police chief played by Rod Steiger.
In his work both on-screen and off, Sidney Poitier's strength of character pushed white audiences to reconsider their notions...
Duration:01:15:45
Training Day
1/7/2022
Denzel Washington wins the Best Actor Oscar and Ethan Hawke earns a Supporting Actor nomination in the portrayal of what has to be the worst "first day on the new job" of all time. Directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Ayer, Training Day is a tense thriller that tells the story of a young cop (Hawke) eager to earn a spot on the LAPD narcotics squad and the corrupt detective (Washington) who manipulates him through a day filled with drug use, conspiracy and eventually,...
Duration:00:51:16
Die Hard
12/24/2021
New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) ruins a perfectly good Christmas Eve in Los Angeles for Hans Gruber and his friends (Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov & Al Leong among others) - at least that's how director John McTiernan is said to have approached this Christmas classic.
Rich, Blake & Kofi discuss why Die Hard IS a Christmas movie; how intense experiences can engender quick bonds between men; and how we cast people as villains or allies in our own lives.
Happy Holidays!
Duration:01:01:52
The Atticus Journals - "Christmas Top 5"
12/19/2021
"For me, the holidays aren't complete without..."
Kofi, Blake & Rich each offer a Top 5 list of movies, TV, music & books that get us in the spirit of the season. Some will be familiar. Others might spark a new tradition.
Share your Christmas must-haves with us on Facebook and Instagram - @searchingforatticus.
Duration:00:30:50
Elf
12/10/2021
Will Ferrell's infectious enthusiasm delights in Jon Favreau's Christmas classic about a fully-grown man - raised as one of Santa's elves - who heads to New York in search of his birth father.
Elf treads through some familiar Christmas tropes, but as Blake points out, the themes at the heart of this movie would be relevant at any time of year. Buddy the Elf (Ferrell) is a man-boy searching for his own identity, and his father Walter (James Caan) is a man who has lost perspective on how to...
Duration:00:47:40
No Time to Die
11/26/2021
Even if we weren't enormous James Bond fans, we'd be talking about Daniel Craig's last turn in the role. No Time to Die presents a very different Bond from even the man we talked about a few episodes ago in Skyfall.
This is a James Bond who's in and out of love, betrayed and hurt - maybe even disposable.
How does that reflect our times? Does it make Bond more heroic, or simply more mortal?
SPOILER ALERT: Don't worry. If you haven't seen the film, you're good for the first half of the pod...
Duration:01:01:40
Whale Rider
11/12/2021
Niki Caro's heartfelt story of love, tradition and inspiration is one of our favourites. Whale Rider follows the complicated relationship between village elder Koro (Rawiri Paretene) and his granddaughter Paikea (Keisha Castle-Hughes).
Despairing over the decline of the Maori people he leads, Koro seeks a successor among the village's first-born sons - all the while ignoring and even chastising Paikea for the leadership qualities she can't help but express.
Rich, Kofi & Blake discuss the...
Duration:01:00:52
Get Out
10/29/2021
It's Hallowe'en - so we HAVE to talk about a scary movie. But Jordan Peele's 2017 masterpiece is no run-of-the-mill horror flick. Get Out takes the casual racism and stereotyping that people of colour experience every day and turns it into a provocative "social thriller."
Blake and Rich are full of questions for Kofi about how we interact about race within our own friendship. We discuss how black people are objectified, how they are made to feel invisible, and how Jordan Peele and an...
Duration:01:03:57
The Royal Tenenbaums
10/15/2021
Blake, Kofi & Rich set out to tackle Wes Anderson's offbeat comedic tale of a disbarred, disgraced and despicable father who sets out to con his way back into the lives of his grown-up genius children - and somehow ends up connecting with them. Along the way, Blake shares some very personal details of his childhood that some listeners may find disturbing. This is a conversation that starts with us discussing about quirky comedy and leads to a deep dive into the challenges and rewards of...
Duration:01:11:15
Skyfall
10/1/2021
There's no hiding our excitement at the upcoming release of the new James Bond movie, No Time To Die. But as we anticipate the next appearance of 007, Rich, Kofi & Blake are talking about Skyfall - the movie that reset the Bond franchise. Well, Skyfall is where we start... More than anything, this is a conversation about who Bond is, what he represents and why on earth we love this man who lies and kills, and in whose story so many women appear to be completely disposable.
#007 #notimetodie...
Duration:00:57:54
Truth & Reconciliation Special - Revisiting Troy Hill
9/30/2021
Following our conversation about the movie Big Fish, Blake reached to Troy Hill - an Indigenous educator, a father and a son to a larger-than-life man whose stories, like those portrayed in the movie, seemed to defy authenticity.
The conversation was supposed to be about how one reconciles such tall tales with reality. But Blake and Troy ended up talking about a different kind of truth and reconciliation – one that’s particularly relevant as Canadians mark the first national holiday...
Duration:00:22:06