Sometimes all we need is just a hug...
- The friendship between Alan and Jonathan in general counts. They enjoy watching movies together, joke around a lot, discuss topics with equal respect for each other's insight and just regularly demonstrate a healthy and positive friendship with each other. It's rare for a video not to end with them smiling and/or laughing together. And when things get emotional, they are always there for each other.
- This is actually a proper philia relationship. In case you needed a model.
- During their Terminator 2: Judgment Day video, Alan opens up about his mom being much like Sarah Connor, showing love through criticism. He understands and respects that she was trying to push him to be his best, but admits that sometimes he just needed a hug, not a lecture. Alan breaks down remembering some of the more difficult times in his relationship. Jonathan watches for a few seconds, before getting up and giving his best friend the hug he clearly needs in that moment.
- Also just in general, how open both men are about how the films they watch and discuss emotionally affect them. Alan cries in most videos at emotionally arresting moments, and while Jonathan isn't as quick to tears as Alan, he cries sometimes, too. Neither man feels the need to put up a brave front, to deny their emotions, or to lament that they would not be "proper" men because of crying. Many comments in many videos thank them for "demolishing toxic masculinity one tear at a time."
- In the Gollum video, Alan praises the groundbreaking CGI work that went into bringing Gollum to life, outright stating that, while CGI is something of an easy target these days, lots of people put lots of time and effort into it, and that effort should be respected even if the end result isn't to someone's liking. Dismissing CGI in its entirety as awful is dismissing the efforts of thousands of people who work in the field, and that's not nice.
- In their video on Harry Potter and bullies, they show how Harry initially deals with bullies by staying out of their way as much as possible, enduring the behavior, and not fighting back. But he fights Malfoy right from the start. Why? Because Malfoy insulted Ron. They point out that whenever Harry finds the courage to fight evil, it's usually because someone insulted, threatened, or attacked someone that he loves.
- In the analysis for Good Will Hunting, Alan gushes about how much of an impact Robin Williams had on his life and how much he misses him while Jonathan praises Robin's character for being the ideal therapist Jonathan strives to be.
- In Part 2 of their analysis of The Hunger Games Jonathan recounts a time when he asked an old theatre friend of him and Alan's called Joel about how he's able to act consistently well without bombing once. Joel told him that his advice was to think that there is probably even just one person in the audience who needs him to cheer them up and the motivation to be there for that person was enough for him to perform as well as he could. Jonathan says that this advice has stuck with him and it helps get him through his nerves even when doing Cinema Therapy.
- It's kind of sweet in a nerdy, intellectual way how Alan's always gushing about the animation.
