Movies with Mikey

Movies with Mikey is a YouTube film series made by Mikey Neumann, a Plano resident who spent 16 years at Gearbox, the Frisco game studio behind Borderlands. The Dallas Observer reported that the show began in 2014 as a special program on the Chainsawsuit YouTube channel, an extension of Kris Straub's comics, videos and other creative projects; Paste dated its start to 2013. Neumann made the series at home in his free time. In 10- to 15-minute episodes he broke down the history and highlights of movies he had loved as a kid, and later he let fans vote on which film he would cover next. Paste reported that early episodes tried to make viewers rethink films widely considered bad, and that Neumann traced his love of movies to The Popcorn Channel, a Dallas channel that showed theater showtimes and trailers.

In March 2017 complications from multiple sclerosis put Neumann in the hospital, and he left Gearbox soon after. He opened a Patreon for the show on June 4, 2017; by June 9 more than 1,300 backers were paying more than $7,000 a month. Chainsawsuit then expanded into contract work for small game studios, with Neumann as president, while he kept making monthly Movies with Mikey episodes. Paste wrote in January 2018 that Neumann had an Emmy nomination and was working on the show full time, and that its first live show was scheduled for January 20 at the Alamo Drafthouse in Richardson. The event listing's web address billed it as a FilmJoy presentation.