Tag Archives: fascism

Fun Size Episode 77 – A Plague of Ricks

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This month, we’re upturning the rocks of our childhoods and looking at all the bugs and worms, like the uncomfortable fact that serial bully and sexist Rick Berman still has any relationship to Star Trek media anymore, and how growing up sometimes means having our love of franchise media becomes more complicated.

Plus, a quick rundown of the history of professional wrestlers owning (and not owning) the rights to their own names — and that one time that Vince McMahon tried to “recast” a couple of names he owned with new wrestlers.

And why are all the worst people named Rick?

And lots more unhinged leftist rantings! We drop the mask and chat about the evils we’re all complicit in by living under capitalism. You know, because we’re a pop culture podcast!

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We’re Hosting Another Movie Screening to Benefit PNW Starbucks Workers United!

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We are proud to announce that Radio vs. the Martians! is going to be returning to The Beacon Cinema to sponsor another theatrical screening to benefit the Pacific Northwest Starbucks Workers United relief fund! And this time, we’re watching one of Arnold’s finest. The one, the only, the increasingly frighteningly plausible science fiction action dystopia: The Running Man.

When: Thursday, March 23rd @ 7:30 pm

Where:  The Beacon Cinema at 4405 Rainier Ave S., Seattle, WA 98118

Cost:   Tickets at $12.50 each, with all admissions for PNW Starbucks Workers United

You can buy tickets now, but seats are limited!

RADIO VS. THE MARTIANS presents …THE RUNNING MAN

If you have never seen this seminal piece of 80’s sci-fi action absurdity, you’re our next Runner.

Directed by Paul Michael Glaser (yes, that’s Detective Starsky), who would later gift all of humanity with KAZAAM, THE RUNNING MAN‘s B-movie, primed-for-video-rental-shelves aesthetic is smashed together with God-Emperor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s A-list charisma.

Arnold plays falsely-convicted war criminal Ben Richards, whose punishment consists of “voluntary” participation on America’s Most Popular Game Show™ THE RUNNING MAN. Can he survive being hunted by increasingly cartoonish “Stalkers,” celebrity killers who rip and tear for top ratings? Will there be a parade of satisfyingly bombastic kills? Will Arnold deliver the best comebacks ever written (penned by Die Hard scribe Stephen E. DeSouza)? You bet your sweet ass!

A cast of recognizable 80s regulars accompany Arnold, including Maria Conchita Alonso, Yaphet Kotto, Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Mick Fleetwood and Dweezil Zappa, to name a few. And we would be remiss if we didn’t include Family Feud host Richard Dawson, as the delightfully malevolent Damon Killian.

Although based on one of Stephen King’s early novels (under the pseudonym Richard Bachman), very little of the original material survives, instead being supplanted by a glorious pastiche of 80s action, sci-fi and pop culture tropes. Sautéed in TOP GUN and BEVERLY HILLS COP composer Harold Faltermeyer’s delicious synthwave score, this film is a treat for the senses.

This screening is sponsored by the RADIO VS. THE MARTIANS! podcast as a benefit for the PACIFIC NORTHWEST STARBUCKS WORKERS UNITED labor union, and 100% of the admissions will be donated to their Relief Fund.

Episode 52 – Django (1966)

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He killed for gold… He killed for his woman… He killed for himself!

After a month off, we’re back! And this time, we’re dragging a coffin through the desert with the Camp Director and President of Camp Quest NorthWest, Michael Warbington, and diving into the notoriously violent 1966 spaghetti western by director Sergio Corbucci, Django!

When a mysterious gunslinger named Django drags a coffin into a tiny border town caught in the middle of a bloody war between Mexican paramilitary bandits and a Klan of hooded racist Southerners, he sets off a bloody chain of death, vengeance, robbery, and even more death. But is Django here to save this town, or will he just bury it under corpses in his quest for revenge?

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Fun Size Episode 60 – George Lucas Martyrs

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We’re back with Chelsea Rustad to dig into the big questions. Have we hit the barrier when technological advances on video quality, frame rate and sound are butting up against the point where human senses can no longer perceive the difference in quality?

What about cars? Clothing? Is there a point where an expensive T-shirt can’t really get much more technologically advanced than a cheap one, and it makes no sense to charge big prices for it?

Plus, we touch on the recent lawsuit by the estates of Stan Lee and Steve Ditko to nullify the Marvel copyrights to the characters created by those artists, and the knee jerk reactionary response from some fans. And maybe…just maybe, we’d get better stories if these characters were allowed to lapse into the public domain.

And we talk about history’s greatest victims of targeted oppression: gamers.

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Episode 44 – Fight Club

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“We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars, but we won’t. We’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.”

In the first Single Serving Selection in over a year, we are Jack’s complete lack of surprise. We’re stealing human fat from dumpsters and peeing into fancy soup with friend of the show Patrick Johnson. This month, we’re breaking the first two rules, because we’re talking about 1999’s Fight Club.

Is this David Fincher dark comedy a brilliant and scathing satirical deconstruction of toxic masculinity and how disaffected men can be drawn into extremism and violence? Or is it a shallow and pretentious edgelord glorification of the same thing? Or is it somewhere in between? We dig into the cult film we all adored as young twenty-somethings and dissect it under the harsh light of 2021.

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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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Fun Size Episode 42 – Hey, I Know That!

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We chat a bit with Tobiah Panshin about that great intangible that gets people’s ire up: Fan Service!

What is it? Why is it used as a pejorative? Is it ever a welcome thing? Why does it both delight and frustrate? Amuse and Annoy? We delve into the wherefores and whyfores and try to figure it all out.

Note: This episode was recorded before our last Fun Size episode in October, and we hadn’t seen Joker yet.

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Fun Size Episode 41 – Clown Ronin

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We sit down some more with Patrick Johnson to share our mixed feelings about Todd Phillips’ bleak and controversial Joker film.

We dig a bit into the film’s strong lead performance by Joaquin Phoenix and its very on-its-sleeve cinematic inspirations from films like Taxi Driver, Death Wish and the King of Comedy, and try to figure out whether it actually works or not. Does it transcend both its pastiche elements and its comic book origins, or is it a well-made and ambitious mess?

The answer is…complicated.

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Black Ops Episode 8 – This Is Not Funny, You’re Not Funny, and I Don’t like You

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In our newest episode, we talk more with Patrick Johnson about video game violence and how it does — and mostly doesn’t — apply to real life.

We take a long hard look at the trainwreck that is the filmography of Adam Sandler, why his movies are so ugly and stupid, and struggle to say something nice about him. We explore the wide pendulum swing of the quality of Netflix’s original programming. And finally we dig into their poorly realized original film, Bright and wonder what could have been.

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Podcasta la Vista, Baby! Episode 7 – Conan the Barbarian

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“Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women.”

Crom, we have never prayed to you before. We have no tongue for it. Podcasts please you, Crom…so grant us one request: grant us a discussion with Greg Hatcher of the Atomic Junk Shop blog! Together we will travel back to an age undreamed of, and discuss the bloody fantasy epic that put Arnold Schwarzenegger on the map: 1982’s Conan the Barbarian!

An adaptation of the classic Robert E. Howard pulp hero, Conan of Cimmeria is a warrior, a thief and a slayer of men. After the slaughter of his parents and tribe by a doomsday snake cult, Conan is enslaved and made into a gladiator. Thus begins his quest for bloody vengeance with sword, and axe and his own bare hands.

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Fun Size Episode 5 – So Many Props Made of Real, Atomic Matter

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In our second Fun Sized episode this month, Mike and Casey continue their talk with Rebecca Friedman, and get into their feelings about the new Star Wars movie, the Force Awakens.

Also, we say goodbye to the recently departed Alan Rickman and David Bowie.

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