Episode 57 – Sorcerer (1977)

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WANTED. Four men willing to drive a cargo of death to escape a life in hell.

This month, we’re going on a jungle suicide mission with Camp Director and President of Camp Quest NorthWest, Michael Warbington, and plunging into the gritty, globetrotting William Friedkin classic about desperate men looking for a way out of purgatory: 1977’s Sorcerer!

Four men exiled in a corrupt South American country, hiding from their pasts and unable to afford the bribes necessary to escape their fates, are given an opportunity to get out. An American getaway driver, a Palestinian militant, a disgraced French investment banker, and a Mexican hitman must drive two trucks across 218 miles of narrow mountain roads and dense jungle, to deliver a cargo of dangerously unstable dynamite to put out a raging oil fire. But if the rotten bridges, armed bandits, and leaking nitroglycerine don’t kill them, growing mistrust and despair just might.

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Fun Size Episode 75 – Literal Toilet Money [CLIP]

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We’re back yet again with our 75th Fun Size episode, exclusive for our Patreon supporters!

This month, we’re continuing our talk with Carol Brouillette, and it may be time to crown Dave Bautista as the greatest professional-wrestler-turned-actor of all time. We look at his choices, roles and performances from Knock at the Cabin to Blade Runner 2049, and compare him to his squared circle contemporaries like Dwayne Johnson and John Cena.

Then we chat about the type of gimmicky overpriced restaurants for the uber-rich that marry pretentiousness to a giant price tag. What separates fine dining from obscene performative consumption that doesn’t taste good, isn’t filling, and costs the same as a month’s rent? Can you even feel like a good person eating something like that?

To unlock this episode in its entirety — and many episodes more! — just support us on Patreon with at least one measly dollar a month!

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Podcasta la Vista, Baby! Episode 28 – Terminator: Dark Fate

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Choose Your Fate.

This month, we’re joined by Carol Brouillette of the Hands Free Football podcast, and returning (one last time?) to the franchise that made Arnold Schwarzenegger the king of Hollywood in the legacy sequel, Terminator: Dark Fate!

Twenty years after the events of Terminator 2, a young woman living in Mexico City finds herself targeted by two time travelers from an entirely new post-apocalyptic future. One is Grace, a cybernetically-enhanced soldier from the human resistance with orders to protect her, and the other is a new model of Terminator programmed to… you know. But help is soon found in the form of an older Sarah Connor, who saw her son John murdered soon after she prevented SkyNet’s creation, and from the very familiar-looking T-800 Terminator who killed John and spent the last two decades developing a conscience.

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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.

Fun Size Episode 74 – That’s How You Get an Independence Day! [CLIP]

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We’re back with yet another new Fun Size episode, exclusive for our Patreon supporters!

This month, we’re continuing our chat with Chelsea Rustad, and we’re looking at billionaire narcissists getting booed, and the ethics of hidden camera comedy shows.

Where is the line when it comes to comedy based on a person not knowing they’re on television? What if they know they’re on TV, but think they’re on a “serious” reality show, instead of a spoof? Who is the butt of the joke, and when does it go from funny to mean-spirited?

To unlock this episode in its entirety — and many episodes more! — just support us on Patreon with at least one measly dollar a month!

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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 73 – But, She Has a New Hat! [CLIP]

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We’re back with another new Fun Size episode, exclusive for our Patreon supporters!

This month, we’re continuing our chat with Kayleigh Casterline, and digging into the intersection of sports, video games and capitalist rent-seeking.

The new wrestling game, AEW: Fight Forever, is claiming that it won’t ask you to buy an entirely new game every year, the way that their rival the WWE does (not to mention the NFL, the NBA or MLB). They say they’re going to sell you a game once, and then update it.

What is the promise of this approach? What are the potential pitfalls? What happens to your video game roster when another wrestler does something unspeakable?

Plus, more media has entered the public domain! And we’re one year out from the most famous rodent of them all joining the army of the publicly-owned!

To unlock this episode in its entirety — and many episodes more! — just support us on Patreon with at least one measly dollar a month!

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Episode 55 – The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

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“In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.”

This month, we’re riddling in the dark and escaping the goblin caves with Kayleigh Casterline and revisiting J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic 1937 fantasy book that introduced readers to the world of Middle-earth, The Hobbit!

Bilbo Baggins is a hobbit who enjoys peace and quiet comfort, and never does anything unexpected to make the neighbors talk. So nobody is more surprised than him when he finds himself railroaded by the wizard Gandalf into accompanying a band of exiled dwarves on a quest reclaim their kingdom and treasure from a fire-breathing dragon! Now thrust into a wider world full of goblins, wood elves, secret doors, giant spiders and magic rings, the homebody Bilbo finds in himself a dormant courage and resourcefulness than he could have never imagined.

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

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We’re back with a second Fun Size episode this month, exclusive for our Patreon supporters!

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!

To unlock this episode in its entirety — and many episodes more! — just support us on Patreon with at least one measly dollar a month!

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Fun Size Episode 71 – That’s Capitalism, Baby! [CLIP]

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We’re back with another new Fun Size episode, exclusive for our Patreon supporters!

This month, we’re chatting about the wonder of the public domain and open source software, and how it helps make our show possible and helps create community — and how capitalism puts up walls and exploits them to seek rent.

We talk a bit about how the world’s richest douchebag tech bro finally gave us the nudge to get our show off of Twitter, just in time to watch him burn it to the ground. A billionaire narcissist and the internet’s favorite hellscape: those crazy kids deserve each other!

Who ever said that capitalism was a meritocracy? Spoiler: it’s billionaires.

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

P.S. – Mike doesn’t actually smoke. He wanted to be clear about that.

To unlock this episode in its entirety — and many episodes more! — just support us on Patreon with at least one measly dollar a month!

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

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This December, we are proud to announce that Radio vs. the Martians! is going to be sponsoring a theatrical screening of the craziest, bloodiest martial arts film of all time, Riki-Oh: the Story of Ricky, to benefit the Pacific Northwest Starbucks Workers United relief fund.

When: Thursday, December 8th @ 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…. RIKI-OH: THE STORY OF RICKY!

You’d be hard pressed to find a movie as strange, bloody, absurd, or thrilling to watch as RIKI-OH: THE STORY OF RICKY, but this 1991 Hong Kong martial arts splatterfest is truly something special.

Directed by Shaw Brothers veteran cinematographer Lam Ngai Kai and headlined by a then-18 year old Fan Siu-wong as kung fu Hercules and flautist, Ricky Ho, this crowd-pleasing cult film really tests the limits of good taste and how many ways one can creatively destroy a human dummy on film.

In the far future year of 2001, all prisons have been privatized into for-profit businesses (can you even imagine?). The latest inmate is the eponymous Ricky, convicted of manslaughter for avenging his girlfriend’s murder with his inexplicable superhuman strength and mastery of Qigong.

What follows is structured much like a video game, as Ricky battles a super-powered menagerie of increasingly bizarre and gimmicky convicts deputized by the prison’s evil Warden and his hook-handed Assistant Warden (played with a cartoonish glee by Siu-wong’s own father, Fan Mei-sheng), whose glass eye bafflingly doubles as a mint dispenser. Just go with it.

As Ricky is elevated to an almost Christ-like champion of the facility’s abused and oppressed prisoners, he literally destroys his opponents with his bare hands, impressive fight choreography and some charmingly hilarious special effects.

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.

Fun Size Episode 70 – Selling Diet Pills on Instagram [CLIP]

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We’re back in the studio with a new Fun Size episode, now a monthly exclusive for our Patreon supporters! This month, we’re continuing our talk with Kirby Green, for a chat about reality television and the “Am I the Asshole?” sub-reddit.

So, reality television isn’t real. I mean, duh. Or is it sometimes? And does it actually matter? Aren’t we – like most scripted programs on TV – just agreeing to believe the reality we’re given for the sake of a story?

And Mike remembers The Joe Schmo Show, an accidentally wholesome faux-reality show from the ugliest decade (the aughts) on the douchiest network (Spike TV). Producers decide to play a prank on a real guy on a fake reality show, only to have to haphazardly change their mean-spirited plans when their subject turns out to be a lovably kind doofus.

To unlock this episode in its entirety — and many episodes more! — just support us on Patreon with at least one measly dollar a month!

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Episode 54 – Shiver: Selected Stories by Junji Ito

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“I am a horror maniac who prefers to stay at home.”

This Halloween, we’re chugging down salad oil and hiding from our balloon dopplegangers with returning friend of the show, Kirby Green, and see if our sanity can can survive the brain-melting onslaught of Junji Ito’s collection of his shorter manga works, in Shiver: Selected Stories!

In this anthology of the legendary manga artist’s favorite short stories, we get just a little bit closer to stomach-turning madness. A rare vinyl record claims the hearts and minds of all who listen to it, driving some to theft and even murder. A mysterious jade idol inflicts a curse on those to keep it, boring countless holes into their bodies — bringing a deadly chill and becoming irresistible to burrowing insects. A hospital patient reports that the subjective length of their dreams is getting longer and longer, triggering a startling transformation in their mind — and their body. In these stories and more, we remind ourselves of the Ito’s uncanny ability to permanently stamp our brains with the most disturbing and visually stunning weirdness.

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Fun Size Episode 69 – Two Degrees From Luke Skywalker [CLIP]

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We’re back with a new Fun Size podcast, now a monthly exclusive for our Patreon supporters! This month, we’re back with Sam Mulvey to get nerdier than we have for a while.

Mike takes the rough draft of his new “Bechdel Test”-esque thought experiment about media worldbuilding for a spin and tries to punch holes in it.  Are our large shared universe worlds really as large and expansive as they appear to be, or is that just an illusion to hide something much smaller and more insular?

And in probably more depth and exhaustive detail than necessary, Mike talks about his love and fascination with J.R.R. Tolkien and his Middle-earth legendarium, and Sam gets the opportunity to talk more about Frank Herbert’s Dune than he’s ever done before on the show.

To unlock this episode in its entirety — and many episodes more! — just support us on Patreon with at least one measly dollar a month!

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Episode 53 – The Blues Brothers

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“It’s 106 miles to Chicago, we’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses.”

This month, we’re getting the band back together with the Station Manager of KTQA 95.3 FM in Tacoma (and former Illinois resident) Sam Mulvey. We’re on a mission from God to drive our car through John Landis’ anarchic car chase musical guest-starring a Mt. Rushmore of classic R&B/soul artists from Aretha Franklin to James Brown: The Blues Brothers!

Released from a 3-year prison sentence, “Joilet” Jake Blues is reunited with his brother Elwood and learn that the Catholic orphanage they grew up in is about to be shuttered unless it can pay an outstanding $5,000 property tax bill in the next eleven days. Now on a mission from God, the Blue Brothers must reunite their ne’er-do-well rhythm and blues band to put on a big show, no matter how many shopping malls they have to drive through. But first they must outrun a rival country western band, a gang of neo-Nazis, a heavily armed mystery woman, and seemingly every cop in the state of Illinois.

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