Contrary what David Jaffe claimed on his blog last week, I prefer reading text or listening to podcasts to watching videos when it comes to digesting criticism and commentary.

Those ubiquitous to-camera Youtube videos, with their inevitable follow-up responses and rebuttals hold literally no interest for me. But this series of video-casts, or whatever they’re called, entitled ‘Reel Geezers’ is a delightful exception to what is possibly an unnecessarily snooty rule on my part.

In each episode two Hollywood veterans discuss the latest theatrical releases in a chatty and informal but insightful style. Lorezno Semple is the screenwriter responsible for the screenplay to Flash Gordan as well as over sixty episodes of the televised Batman series while Marcia Nasatir is a still-prolific producer.

While you might expect their approach to dick-flick Superbad or the super-violent, post-modern Cohen cowboy tale No Country For Old Men to be one of generational confusion, disgust and ‘this would never have happened in my day’ attitude, in reality the pair are witty, knowing and, thanks to their experience and wisdom, able to effortlessly cut through spin and hype. To be honest, it’s just refreshing to hear a some open-minded, accessible, honest and informed movie discussion that’s not coming from late-twenties nerds.

That the couple frequently disagree on the effectiveness of particular narrative techniques, quality of story elements and whether the use of the word ‘penis’ is acceptable or not gives the videos a lovely tension. Judging by Youtube’s view statistics the Superbad episode (a film that Nasatir rates as being ‘one penis up and one penis down’) below has been very popular but the rest of their output has only raked in a few thousand views a piece. You should hop on before the bandwagon departs.

Sadly, we’ll likely have to wait another thirty to forty years before we have some knowledgeable octogenarian game designers who can unpick videogames in a similar way.