Episode 323. We read the first two volumes of The Terrifics, a DC story featuring fan-favorite characters from James Gunn's Superman, in a format that feels more like Marvel's Fantastic Four. The best of both worlds! Mr. Terrific, Metamorpho, Plastic Man, and Phantom Girl find themselves literally stuck together -- if they're more than a mile apart from each other, they'll all explode -- and have to turn themselves into a real working team to solve a multiversal crisis. We discuss Plastic Man's ability to be truly, mind-bogglingly ANYTHING, classic Jeff Lemire sadness, "science" adventures, and if Alan Moore has ever once in his life jumped.
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Episode 322. We watched the first two seasons of Poker Face, the mystery comedy show created by Rian Johnson for Peacock. Charlie Cale is a cocktail waitress on the run from her casino's mob goons because of her uncanny ability to tell when someone is lying. She travels across the country trying to keep a low profile as she takes odd jobs and stumbles into mysteries. We discuss the feast of character actors and extremely niche settings in these murder-of-the-week episodes, the escalation from small town petty crime to regional mafia empires to a serial killer nemesis, what the "Good Buddy" plotline could turn into, and we demand an episode of ONLY smokey-voiced character actresses.
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Episode 321. For our annual Nicolas Cage weekend, we watch our earliest Cage yet in 1987's Raising Arizona. In this Coen Brothers caper, an infertile couple kidnaps a baby from a family of quintuplets, intending to raise him on their own, until criminals and manhunters get in their way. We discuss the movie's sincerity, the iconic chase scene, the tattoo mystery, John Goodman screaming, and how every small town movie just takes us back to Napoleon Dynamite.
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Episode 320. We bring our racecar nonsense to The Review Show by watching the 1971 movie Le Mans, set in the real 24-hour motorsports endurance race through the French countryside. We discuss the film slowly building anticipation before the race actually starts, Steve McQueen's movie star identity intertwining with cars and motorcycles, waxing philosophic on the roar of the engine, and watch sponsorships.
Link to Patrick H. Willems' video essay on Grand Prix: https://youtu.be/JPnTm8C_OfY?si=iQKOwlgnMz2rSZVH
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Episode 319. We quick-change into our capes for an episode on Richard Donner's 1978 Superman: The Movie. This has all the classic Superman iconography you know and love, plus a complicated real estate scheme where Lex Luthor wants to sink the California coastline to make a new one. We discuss the strange pacing that makes you wait nearly an hour to see Superman in action, the surprisingly sincere romance (and horniness), Jor-El being a busy dad with two jobs, Midwestern wheat fields, how we expect James Gunn's Superman to emulate this or step away from it, and if we'll ever see a big-screen Superman with a mullet like that one comic from the 1990s.
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Episode 318. We return to the world of Valiant comics to read the first three volumes of Faith, from writer Jody Houser. Faith has always worked with a superhero team, but now she's setting out on her own to live in sunny Los Angeles and fight crime her own way, while keeping up a day job as a pop culture blogger. We discuss Faith's important role as a plus-size superhero and how the story doesn't need to call attention to how unusual that is, the endless barrage of nerdy references, mid-2010s time capsule moments, befriending your clone, and tips for going to your first comic con.
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Episode 317. We want to believe in this week's episode, a look back at the The X-Files movie from 1998. This movie, sometimes known under the subtitle Fight the Future, was released in theaters between seasons 5 and 6 of the TV show but tells a standalone story. Mulder and Scully are fighting for their careers, their lives, and their connection to each other as they're embroiled in a plot to release an ancient alien virus into the world. We talk about how this movie goes big while staying close to the roots of the show, textbook moves for writing an investigative partnership will-they-won't-they romance, the bees, the grandson with the broken leg, and how this is unique in the history of TV shows being turned into movies.
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Episode 316. It's a Review Show first as we try to dissect a sketch comedy show with no traditional narrative, I Think You Should Leave with Tim Robinson. This show premiered on Netflix in 2019 and made a mark with its focus on absurd escalations to everyday awkward interactions. We discuss how the show reflects a post-pandemic lockdown hyper-awareness of social interaction, the lack of recurring characters, the buff boy contest, Dan Flash shirts, and how Karl Havoc plays better if you know the story of Jim Carrey undergoing CIA torture resistance techniques just to put on his Grinch makeup.
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Episode 315. We watched the 2016 comedy I Was a Teenage Wereskunk, an homage to 1950s B-movies made on a shoestring budget. A teenage boy is sprayed by a magical skunk while he's trying to look at boobs and now he turns into a murderous skunk monster whenever he gets horny. We discuss how the movie is a deft parody of a variety of genres, the tiny house, the sexy pancakes, our new favorite character Deputy Gary, and trying to understand mid-century cultural tropes like beatniks and the Lover's Lane.
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Episode 314. We pay tribute to the late director David Lynch by watching his 2001 film Mulholland Drive. An aspiring actress finds a mysterious amnesiac woman hiding in her new Hollywood apartment, sparking a close bond between the two women, and a search for truth and identity. We ask whether it's possible to spoil the ending of this inscrutable movie and discuss its origins as a failed TV pilot, clues that don't lead you anywhere, selves within selves, the symbology of the jewelry box, and how many times Patrick Fischler was cast in other movies as an homage to the Winkie's scene.
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Episode 313. It's finally here: the episode where Kyle makes Melissa watch a Gundam. We watched Mobile Suit Gundam I-III, three movies on Netflix that are abridged compilations of the original 1979 TV show. In a war-torn future, young Amuro Ray finds his way into a mech suit and struggles with the moral conflicts of becoming a soldier losing members of his newfound family. We discuss how Gundam is more about the tragedy of war than it is about pew-pew-pew space fights, characters who are introduced just to die, what purpose the little kids serve in the story, discovering the sadness in your workaholic dad, and how the plot of The Big O sounds cool until you get to the part where the giant robots are named "megadeuces."
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Episode 312. We read the first two volumes of the Love Everlasting, from Tom King and Elsa Charretier. This is a psychological horror comic about a woman who finds herself trapped in a series of stereotypical romance stories, never sure when she's really falling in love and when she's just going through the motions trying to get out of this story and escape. We discuss the variety of vintage romance comic tropes, the mysterious cowboy who enforces the rules of this world, finding true love at the end of your life, and comparisons to The Prisoner.
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Episode 311. We catch up to the current season of For All Mankind, as the show reaches the 1990s and begins the race for Mars, with a private company launching its own voyage alongside the USA and Russia. We discuss how the show has proven itself adept enough at drama in the early seasons to earn a few wild comedic moments now, having one specific human villain, and spending too much time on setup when we're ready to be introduced to a situation in media res. Kyle demands a sovereign colony on Mars. Melissa just wants Margo and Sergei to kiss again. We get very excited about homages to Lost.
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Episode 310. We watched the first two seasons of For All Mankind, an Apple TV+ drama that looks at an alternate world history where the space race never ended, with each season jumping forward years to see a new era of exploration. We discuss the balance of tense space missions with equally tense interpersonal drama at home, how the show feels sprawling but also limited in only showing us the American or Russian side, breaking narrative rules, surprisingly nuanced supporting characters, and one of the best season finale cliffhangers in TV history.
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Episode 309. We're talking on Sunshine, and don't it feel good! We watched the sci-fi thriller from director Danny Boyle and writer Alex Garland, about a space mission to launch a nuclear bomb that will revive the dying Sun and save Earth from death by ice age. The mission is thrown into chaos when the crew hears a distress signal from the first ship who attempted this mission and failed under mysterious circumstances. We discuss the cast of breakout stars and how the movie feels like it could be a hit new release this year and not a box office flop from 2007, strange stylistic choices, cosmic horror, a troubling haircut, and just what the 20th Century Fox logo is supposed to be. Is that a building? Can you go inside??
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Episode 308. It's an explosive start to 2025 as we watch all of the Bourne franchise: the trilogy of The Bourne Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum, the not-really-a-reboot The Bourne Legacy, and the attempted return to form with Jason Bourne. These movies follow an amnesiac secret agent as he attempts to uncover the corrupt government program that took his memories in exchange for deadly skills. We discuss the context of action cinema in 2002 and how the series adapted to industry changes like cinematic universes, the Matt Damon screen persona, the unique values of the oft-maligned Bourne Legacy, DVD bonus features, the Bourne Stuntacular at Universal Studios Orlando, and how these movies all have the same end credits sequence.
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Kyle and Melissa are here for a chill end-of-year celebration, looking back on our year in podcasting and looking ahead to our 2025 goals. We give out our Review Show awards, play a game of "What the Hell Were We Talking About?", run through our recent cinema experiences, talk about fancy cocktails and fancy mansions, and finally share our thoughts on the weird twist in the otherwise conventional neo-noir show Sugar.
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Episode 307. In our final Review Show of the year, we rewatched Severance before season two premieres in January! Employees at a shadowy mega-corporation can choose to undergo a "severance" procedure, where their brain is divided between work memories and personal memories. A group of severed employees who know nothing outside of their office start to wonder what the purpose of their work actually is, what their outside lives are like, and what it'll take for them to escape. We discuss the myriad mysteries of the show and how the character motivations are the most compelling secrets of all, Ricken's attempts at philosophy, the seemingly empty company town, new departments we want to see in season two, and Cobel's "Hey Arnold" shrine.
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Episode 306. We watched the 2018 limited series Escape at Dannemora, from director Ben Stiller. In this drama based on true events, two inmates start affairs with a civilian prison employee, and manipulate her to get them the tools they need to break out. We discuss how everything falls apart after the escape, the diegetic soundtrack of 2015 radio pop hits, tiny doll pants, and how a reference to Happy Gilmore has actual thematic resonance to the story.
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Episode 305. They should've sent a poet... instead they got podcasters. We connect with Contact, the 1997 sci-fi drama from director Robert Zemekis, based on a novel from Carl Sagan. Dr. Ellie Arroway has spent her life listening to the stars, and the stars finally have a message for her. Humanity scrambles to decode an alien transmission and determine what to do with this new knowledge, and what it means for their very concept of facts vs. faith. We discuss the story's approachable and universal take on "lowercase f" faith, the eccentric billionaire who lives in a plane, that legendary mirror shot, and the rare sci-fi story that's comforting more than it is cautionary.
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