Tag Archives: aliens

Fun Size Episode 58 – A Human Soup of Band-Aids and Pee

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We continue our chat with Michael Warbington, as we look at the trajectory of big-budget franchises and the knee-jerk fan anger that Martin Scorsese’s criticisms of “theme park” movies vs. “cinema”….and maybe he has a good point?

And maybe we should really stop complaining about the apparent theatrical monopoly of blockbusters and start championing smaller independent films, like The Paper Tigers instead.

And finally, has toxic fandom finally drifted into a form of self-harm for some people, as one Disney fan on social media starts drinking water out of Walt Disney World’s public fountains and rating its taste?

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Fun Size Episode 54 – Birds Aren’t Real

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We’re joined by Australia’s own Paul Hix from Waiting for Doom – the Doom Patrol Podcast, to dig into the latest and strangest conspiracy theory: Bird Trutherism!

Counterfeit avians? Feathered Cameras in the Sky!? Why does it feel like the desire to answer serious questions in the most unserious ways has gone frighteningly mainstream?

Has the legalization of marijuana in many states left us doomed to a future where pot smoking will be branded tragically…uncool?

And we get an opportunity to grill our Aussie guest on an outsider’s view of American culture and cuisine. Do we have things that scare and confuse others as much as vegemite does us? (Spoiler: yes, we do.)

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Black Ops Episode 1 – Real Sociopaths Work for Goldman Sachs [DECLASSIFIED!]

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[As we continue our show hiatus, it has been decided by the fine people who support us on Patreon that we are going to make public — or ‘declassify’ — one of our Patreon-exclusive Black Ops episodes every month. This month, our patrons have personally selected this episode to help fill the gap! Consider it a look back at the ‘Before Times’]

Original Patreon release date: July 1, 2016

Here is the very first of our special, off-the-books “Black Ops” episodes, recorded back in January of this year with guest Greg Hatcher!

We dig into how morally abhorrent a fictional protagonist can be and not lose your sympathy. And catapulting past our ethical thresholds, we look at the horrific morality of Jack Bauer’s Bush-era enthusiastic torture-palooza!

Plus, we throw a little love at the anti-fascist satire of Paul Verhoeven’s Starship Troopers.

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Black Ops Episode 16 – An Infinite Loop of a Second Act

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In our new episode, we talking about endings!

We chat a bit about Henry Cavill taking on the lead role in a Netflix Witcher series, and why Disney should make one less live-action remake and do some good in the world!

And finally, we look at recent pop culture endings — Game of Thrones, Avengers: Endgame, Deadwood, the Walking Dead comic book, and the Fox X-Men franchise — and look ahead to future endings with Quentin Tarantino’s to-be-produced tenth and final film.

What stuck the landing, and what left us cold?

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Fun Size Episode 22 – Practical Porgs: It’s Not a Sex Thing, Yet

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We sit down with our friend Todd Maxfield-Matsumoto to drill into pop culture ephemera and random nonsense.

Mike revels in the schadenfreude of having a movie theater rewards card and we all wonder when Johnny Depp became box office poison for us.  We touch on the recently released Blade Runner 2049, and how it stacks up against both the original, and other recent attempts to resurrect once-great franchises.

We ponder whether the Last Jedi‘s porgs are the next coming of the Ewoks or Jar Jar Binks. And we speculate about whether we actually want to see Jerry Lewis’ intentionally-lost Holocaust clown movie, the Day the Clown Cried.

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Mike is Back on the Fire and Water Podcast!

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Mike recently sat down and recorded a guest appearance on the Fire and Water Podcast with its co-host Rob Kelly – the graphic designer behind our cool panelist Bio pictures!

Their topic: the Aliens franchise — for a start. From there, they bled into a discussion about all sorts of things pop culture-y and nerdy.

Enjoy!

Episode 14 – M. Night Shyamalan

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What if there are no coincidences?

Mike and Casey count their sick days, stock up on hotdogs, and run from gently swaying trees with returning panelist and artist, Roslyn Townsend and Ask an Atheist‘s Rebecca Friedman! This month, we’re diving into the meteoric rise, and precipitious fall of a promising filmmaker whose career trajectory still confuses us, M. Night Shyamalan.

We discuss his brief absolute dominance of both Hollywood and the box office with the Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. We explore his current status as the cinematic butt of many jokes with the Happening and After Earth. And we look at how the writer-director’s legacy remains a subject of debate, speculation, schadenfreude and commiseration.

Music: 
“Mr. Glass” from Unbreakable by James Newton Howard

Previously titled: “Swing Away, M. Night”

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