Tag Archives: joe preti

Episode 60 – Zardoz

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Into a world of eternal life, he brought the gift of death

This month, we’re eating green bread and refusing to go to Second Level meditation with Joe Preti of the late View from the Gutters comic book podcast to dive into the weird and psychedelic science fiction cult film, 1974’s Zardoz!

In the year 2293, Zed is a murderer disciple of Zardoz, a floating stone god who arms and commands him and other “exterminators” to roam the post-apocalyptic wasteland and kill human survivors. After learning the terrible truth of Zardoz – that the god is actually an airship –  the disillusioned Zed stows away aboard his “god” and is delivered into the Vortex, a hidden city of immortals that created Zardoz to manipulate humanity. Thrust into a bored and stagnant society that has forgotten about passion, sexuality and death, Zed’s very presence threatens to tear their fragile civilization apart.

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Fun Size Episode 83 – The Best Chris

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We’re back in the studio with Joe Preti, and talking about Martin Scorsese’s three hour crime epic, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City.

Plus, a conversation about the death of the movie star as the driver of cinema. Are there any modern stars who can transcend their signature characters or franchises and elevate any movie they star in? And we lay our cards on the table: Hemsworth, Evans, Pratt and Pine. Who is the best and worst Chris?

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Fun Size Episode 79 – The Assassination of Willow by the Coward Disney+

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We’re back again with Joe Preti, and chatting about the emerging streaming epoch and its tremendous downsides as corporate studio overlords start making things you love disappear, making it impossible for these shows and movies to find new fans — and for their creators to get paid for their work.

The streaming services are getting worse and more expensive and several beloved shows that have never gotten a Blu-Ray release are fading into the ether. So is it time to bring back… physical media? And now that pirating is the only way to get certain movies and TV shows… does anybody still remember how to use bit torrent?

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Episode 58 – Hudson Hawk

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Catch the Excitement. Catch the Adventure. Catch the Hawk.

We’re breaking into the Vatican and trying to get a good cappuccino with Joe Preti as we reappraise the much maligned — and genuinely underrated — 1991 Bruce Willis box office bomb about daring heists and alchemical miracle machines: Hudson Hawk!

Eddie “Hudson Hawk” Hawkins is the world’s most famous cat burglar. He’s just gotten out of prison, he’s trying to go straight, and he just wants a good cappuccino. But instead he’s being blackmailed — by local mobsters, his parole officer, a pair of psychotic billionaires, and even the C.I.A. — into stealing the artifacts of Leonard da Vinci from the Vatican museum, so they can reassemble his legendary device for turning lead into gold, and destroy the world’s economy! So now, Hawk and his best pal Tommy have to save the world in just six minutes and change. How about it? “Side by Side“?

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Fun Size Episode 68 – Nobody Gives a Fuck About Rutherford B. Hayes

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We’re continuing our chat with Joe Preti, for a deep dive into the topics that really matter.

We perhaps spend too much time, dissecting the many pathological lies and shitty behavior of 90s action star Steven Seagal, and we explore the two qualities a person can have in combination that can precipitate a downfall (or at least make you wish that it had). We explore the new Elvis Presley biopic, and the fleeting myth of cultural immortality. Do some things and people just deserve to be forgotten? And do only the truly worst people in the world achieve true notoriety? And isn’t being totally forgotten in a way… kind of liberating?

And we share a special announcement about the future of Fun Size episodes!

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Podcasta la Vista, Baby! Episode 27 – Raw Deal

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The system gave him a raw deal. Nobody gives him a raw deal.

We’re back! This month, we’re slicking back our hair and dodging cakes with Joe Preti, and infiltrating the inner circle of the mostly-forgotten organized crime action flick: Raw Deal!

Disgraced ex-FBI agent Mark Kaminsky is living in exile as a small town sheriff when he’s contacted by an old mentor from the bureau. Thirsty for revenge after his son was killed protecting a witness in the Luigi Patrovita mob trial, he sends Kaminsky deep undercover — and off the books — into the Patrovita inner circle. Now this one-man wrecking crew must enact bloody revenge and perhaps earn his job back in the FBI.

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Episode 48 – Sin City

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“I grab myself one last lungful of night air. Then I trade it in for a smoky soup spiced with sweat and vomit and booze and blood. I know the flavor well.”

After more than two years, we’re back with another panel episode! And this month, we’re tossing back some cheap booze at Kadie’s Saloon and making some bad decisions with Joe Preti, and Kit Laika, and get our filthy mitts on Frank Miller’s hyper-stylized, two-fisted neo-noir comics franchise that defined all things grim and gritty in the 1990s: Sin City!

After a rise to comics superstardom with Daredevil and Batman, Frank Miller turned his trademarked hard-boiled style up to eleven with a series of interconnected hyperbolic crime stories, set in the fun house mirror world of Basin City, a desert town populated entirely by lowlifes, mobsters, prostitutes, corrupt businessmen, assassins, creeps, killers, crooked cops, dirty politicians, and one hulking unkillable brute named Marv.

Illustrated in a stunning highly contrasted black and white, Sin City was a perfect distillation of everything comics readers loved and hated about the comics of a controversial and often problematic master of the craft.

Music: 
“Cool Vibes” from Film Noire by Kevin MacLeod

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Black Ops Episode 20 – Difficulty Is Kind of the Point

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After over a year, we’re back with a new Black Ops podcast, we join Joe Preti to continue our conversation from last month.

We talk about Mike’s acquisition of a hardcover omnibus collection of the 1983’s Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe, a remarkable creation of a pre-internet age and a time capsule of a time gone by, and wax nostalgic for why obsolete continuity can be a treasure to revisit.

We dive into one of the more contentious discussions on the topic of video games: difficulty settings. Where some games like Bloodborne and Demon’s Souls strive for unforgiving challenge, other games are trying to make themselves more accessible and less frustrating through “Story mode” difficulty that doesn’t try to murder you.

And then there’s the Battletoads jet ski level…

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Fun Size Episode 53 – Rest in Piss, You Piece of Shit

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In our latest plot to lose any conservative listeners, we’re back!

We’re chatting with Joe Preti, who offers his defense of the much-maligned and frequently buggy Cyberpunk 2077. We dig into the often unreasonable expectations of both gamers and game companies, and why the video game industry exploits their workers and releases unfinished, broken games.

Is online gaming inevitably toxic and ugly? Are we doomed to racism, selfish teammates and endless griefing? Can we bake solutions into the programming of the games themselves?

And why does it seem like everyone on the political Far-Right from Ben Shapiro to Steve Bannon to Adolf Hitler, is a medicore failed artist, movie producer or screenwriter?

And we say goodbye to a dead radio icon with all of the respect and dignity he deserves.

NOTE: The Skype audio was not up to our usual standards, but we still think it’s listenable. Our apologies! No apologies are offered to Rush Limbaugh.

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Fun Size Episode 47 – Quarantine Titans Go!

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On this “very special episode,” we continue our remotely-recorded chat with Joe Preti, as we try — try, mind you — to talk about stuff that’s making us happy during the Time of “the Quar.”

From the wholesome joys of the new Animal Crossing game for the Nintendo Switch, to the Aardman claymation goodness of Wallace & Gromit and Shaun the Sheep, we’re looking for something positive in a world gone weird and scary.

We talk about a Charles Bronson movie where he’s an aggrieved watermelon farmer looking for revenge, and look in on Joe watching Beverly Hills 90210 for the first time. And we battle it over that immortal question: what’s better? 90210 or Saved by the Bell?

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Fun Size Episode 46 – Quarantine Titans

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We’re back! Sort of…

In a special remotely-recorded quarantine edition of the show, we sit down with Joe Preti of the View from the Gutters comic book podcast to pine for long lost sources of food, like the cafeteria at Joe’s work and a couple of local sandwich shops.

We ask: has the quality of McDonald’s food gotten worse since we were kids, or were we blinded by a child’s epicureal standards? Has junk food in general gotten worse?

We also talk about how good Adam Sandler movies could be if only he tried. And Batman v. Superman comes up, and… we just can’t not.

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Fun Size Episode 40 – The Fucking C-Word

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We sit down again with Tobiah Panshin to open up a bit about medical scares and Mike’s recent testicular cancer diagnosis and treatment. We dig into the heavy emotional weight that comes with getting scary news from a doctor. We also look at how the fictional depiction of cancer in popular media really doesn’t prepare you for the reality of even a highly treatable cancer.

Plus, we chat a little about the recent, strange anxiety about vaping, and how it compares to past moral panics like video games, rap music, Satanism, and Dungeons & Dragons.

Oh, and don’t vote for Joe Biden. He’s just awful.

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Fun Size Episode 37 – Skoodenfroodie

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We continue our chat with Joe Preti, as things get a little bit loud.

In a discussion of recent adaptations, sequels and reboots, we look a bit at the then-impending end of HBO’s Game of Thrones, its prose origins and how it all seems to be heading towards a conclusion that can’t help but disappoint.

How should we interface with crossmedia adaptations of stuff we love? How upset should we get, when we feel they get it wrong?

And then things go completely off the rails, because we really, really, really fucking hate Nazis and don’t think they should be allowed to have a moment’s peace.

NOTE: This conversation was recorded before the airing of the last two episodes of Game of Thrones.

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Mike Appears Again on the View from the Gutters podcast!

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Avengers Assemble!

In honor of the release of Avengers: Endgame, Mike is back on the temporarily-out-of-retirement View from the Gutters podcast, to participate in their first ever, Avengers Fantasy Draft!

Mike joins Tobiah Panshin, Joe Preti, and Brant Gillihan-Eddy to draft our own five-member Avengers line-ups.

Check it out and let them know which drafted Avengers team you think is the best (hint: it’s Mike’s!)

Podcasta la Vista, Baby! Episode 19 – Sabotage

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Leave no loose ends.

This month, we get scorpion neck tattoos and stock up on Axe body spray with returning guest Joe Preti of the House of Jack and Stan, to work through the needlessly ugly and mean-spirited crime ensemble: Sabotage

John “Breacher” Wharton is the commander of a hard-drinking, corrupt DEA strike force, who after a bloody shootout, decides to steal 10 million dollars from a drug bust. Now, having barely escaped an internal investigation, Breacher and his crew find that their stolen money is missing, and they are being murdered, one by one.

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