Tag Archives: vigilantes

Episode 56 – Vengeance (2022)

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Find the story before it finds you.

This month, we’re joined by Chelsea Rustad chair of the Puget Sound Socialist Party and the author of Inherited Secrets: Memoir of America’s Groundbreaking Genetic Witness to  draw thematic connections between seemingly disparate elements and using that to get to the bottom of B.J. Novak’s directorial debut, Vengeance!

New Yorker writer Ben Manalowitz finds himself in West Texas after a late night phone call from Ty Shaw, the brother of a girl he used to hook up with. Ty’s sister Abilene has died of a drug overdose, but he is convinced she was murdered. And mistakenly believing that Ben and Abilene had a serious relationship, he wants Ben to help him avenge her death. Seeing this as a huge opportunity to build his career with a big true crime public radio podcast, Ben agrees to investigate. Ben smugly imagines a story about how tragedy and regret propel people in believing conspiracy theories to avoid accepting hard truths. But as he starts to dig, he begins to question: what if Abilene really was murdered?

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Fun Size Episode 72 – Highway to Heaven, Except He Breaks Peoples’ Fingers

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This time, we’re talking about our undying love for the Denzel Washington Equalizer movies, and how they can be a strangely bloody salve for our woes in these trying times.

We dive into the often-morally iffy world of middle-aged action revenge fantasies, and what the targets of those films’ righteous violence says about the people who make them. What separates a justified cathartic experience from right-wing reactionary paranoia?

Plus, we explore the messy, contradictory, and morally confused Black Adam, and try to figure out who the hell that movie wants us to root for.

Also: come out to our special movie screening on December 8th in Seattle and support the PNW Starbucks Workers United labor union relief fund!

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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 61 – Artisanal Trash

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We’re back with a quick bite of conversation from last month with Chelsea Rustad. We’re talking about the profound disappointment that was Halloween Kills, particularly in how it was a direct sequel to an inventive and surprising 2018 relaunch that was actually really good. Really.

Is it the fate of sequels, especially horror sequels, to inevitably get dumber and trashier? And isn’t it better to proudly be trash, than be trash, but pretend to be something better?

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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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Mike Makes a Guest Appearance on Midnight…the Podcasting Hour!

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Mike makes his first appearance on Ryan Daly‘s Midnight…the Podcasting Hour to wreak bloody vengeance upon a tale of DC’s favorite murdery ghost! We dissect Adventure Comics #435‘s 1974 horror tale, “The Man Who Stalked the Spectre” by Michael Fleisher and Jim Aparo.

Hunting a gang of rabid killers, undead detective James Corrigan finds that both he and his ghostly alter-ego are being investigated by a relentless and naive magazine reporter. Add one-part Death Wish to one-part Freddy Krueger and mix liberally until the bad guys have to hosed off the walls!

Check it out!

Fun Size Episode 48 – The New Quarantine Titans

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As time bends and brains melts in the heart of the “Quar,” we’re joined by longtime friend of the show and writer for Emmys.com, David Gutiérrez… and things get weird.

We get into everything from circumcising our children to wanna-be movie theater comedians. We try to understand the confusing relationship of rockstar film critics Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and try to figure out when Bruce Willis and Harrison Ford stopped trying to be good at their jobs.

Finally, we try to retroactively fix the Rambo franchise (and action/revenge films in general) into something a bit less racist and burdened with conservative “white guy baggage.”

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Hex & Violence Episode 4 – The Latest in Pickling Technology

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“That’s Jonah Hex, his own damn self. He’s killed more men than Hell has souls.”

After a long absence, we return with our fourth episode! This time, Mike and Casey claw our way through Jonah Hex’s 1993 Vertigo makeover as a weird western horror character in the five issue mini-series Jonah Hex: Two Gun Mojo by writer Joe R. Lansdale and artist Timothy Truman!

After being falsely accused of murdering a fellow bounty hunter, Jonah Hex runs afoul of short-tempered townsfolk, embittered Apache raiders, and Doc “Cross” Williams, a murderous snake oil salesman, grave robber, and conjurer who raises the bodies of the dead and bends them to his will — including the corpse of famed Western folk hero, “Wild” Bill Hickok!

JONAH HEX CONFIRMED KILL COUNT: 65 (+24 this episode)

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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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Fun Size Episode 25 – Fuck You, It’s Hitler!

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We continue our chat with friend Patrick Johnson to chat about some actor faces’ leave them with little choice but to be cast as villains, and how sometimes playing against type can be great.

We debate the merits of the new Duncan Jones Netflix feature, Mute. And then, we take a critical look at the new Bruce Willis-helmed Death Wish remake, and why this probably isn’t the best time to release it.

And finally, we are puzzled by the weird surge of conservative media voices and fans being horribly offended by what they see as the unfair treatment of Nazis, the KKK and racist characters as villains in popular entertainment. Our hot take? Nazis are fucking assholes.

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Black Ops Episode 6 – The World Outside of Travis Bickle’s Car

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In an episode, we look at the perhaps-necessary anachronism of period stories where the protagonist has strangely modern social attitudes. Does anyone really want the cowboy you play in a video game to be casually racist for the sake of accuracy?

And we look at the way that outlier characters like Jonah Hex, John Constantine, and the Punisher nominally co-exist in a shared universe that they’re mostly incompatible with.

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Fun Size Episode 18 – A Nesting Doll of Weird

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We continue our talk with Greg Hatcher and dive into the world of comic books and beyond!

We reminisce about Marvel’s 1970s misfit superhero team, the Defenders, and an absolutely batshit tale from writer Steve Gerber that includes stolen brains, absurd body horror, elves with guns, and the soul of an evil wizard trapped in the body of a baby deer!

Plus, we look at the strange turn that comic book scribe Mark Millar’s work has taken in his new series Huck, which is a radical departure from his regularly shocking, cynical and violent stories.

We talk about fan entitlement and the ups and downs of finite vs. ongoing storytelling.

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Fun Size Episode 11 – Why Would Daredevil Need a Flashlight?

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neondemon

Mike and Casey sit down with Jeremy Whitman to try to wrap our brains about two strange things that defy description and even logic.

First is a used book Mike snatched up at work — possibly written by someone on an F.B.I. watch list — that is a far-too-comprehensive instructional manual for beating the shit out of people with a maglite flashlight.

And then Mike and Casey try to decompress from the experience of recently watching Nicolas Winding Refn’s bizarre new film, “The Neon Demon.”

Because…holy shit, you guys.

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Fun Size Episode 9 – Something, Something, Iron Man

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Civil-War

We’re joined by Ask an Atheist‘s Sam Mulvey, who politely tolerates listening to Mike and Casey talk about Captain America: Civil War. And evidently, both of us take different sides.

And we ask the question, what are conspiracy theorists like in the Marvel and DC Universes? When you live in a world where the president can be — and has been — replaced by an alien duplicate, are there any ideas that left that can make you look like a crackpot?

We wax poetic about the 2004 Denzel Washington vigilante movie, Man on Fire, and how for many years, it was Mike’s Punisher movie.

And Mike says goodbye to legendary comic book creator Darwyn Cooke.

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Fun Size Episode 8 – No, Jack Bauer!

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nojack

We sit down with Greg Hatcher and Sam Mulvey to continue our talk on vigilante justice, including our feelings about the anti-terrorism torture-sploitation action show that was 24.

We dig into the sad exploits of local “real life superhero” Phoenix Jones and why he turns the superhero-loving Mike into a J. Jonah Jameson.

And we dive into Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice, and how Zack Snyder’s vision of these characters is equal parts stupid, pretentious and insecure.

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