Club members get access to a live recording of Lunch with Jim & A.Ron every Friday at 1pm, where members get to ask questions in real time. On the fifth anniversary of Lunch with Jim & A.Ron, we started reheating previous lunch episodes and making them available to the public for the first time.
In Episode #5, originally aired on 11.15.14: Jim and A.Ron throw down in the Skymall challenge. It’s simple, we take an issue of Skymall, and take turns drafting our dream items from each page. In the end, we judge who had the best haul. Who wins? YOU DECIDE!
In Episode #4, originally aired on 10.31.14: Jim and A.Ron swap scary stories and just generally get creep on All Hallows’ Eve!
In Episode #3, originally aired 10.31.2014: Happy Halloween! Jim and A.Ron wax poetic about their favorite beer of all time, and knock back a 750ml on air!
Jim and A.Ron flex their creative muscles and get into the holiday spirit by carving a bulbous orange vegetable. The spirits of darkness are appeased. They discuss their complicated upbringing preventing them from carving pumpkins sooner; the big things happening with business podcasts; ratings and reviews on iTunes; the guys anticipate the first ever Walker Stalker Con; Jim & A.Ron are incredulous about how incredulous the protagonist of Outlander is about sexism; J&A suffer with being perfectionists; and they search for podcast recommendations.
Nicholas Ragovis / AKA Doctor_Nick, victor of the Bald Move Fantasy Football League, has come to claim his spoils; a commissioned podcast! He has a great film for us, the 2006 German film The Lives of Others. Written and directed by Henckel von Donnersmarck, the movie offers a look into the brutal repression and paranoia of the East German State Police during the 80s, and the effects it had on the lives of those that had to live under it. But there is hope in the form of a Stasi captain that has to confront his own conscious and humanity during an assignment to monitor an esteemed playwright. This movie has us thinking about totalitarian regimes past, current, and future, the strength of the human spirit, and how we as citizens need to keep the hands of the joyless off the levers of state power.
Special thanks to Hatorian, who by right of conquest in the Bald Move Fantasy Football leagues has won his prize; a commissioned podcast of his choice. He has chosen wisely, selecting the classic 1994 prison/drama/inspirational The Shawshank Redemption. This is a nearly perfect piece of filmmaking, with a confidence in pacing and direction from Frank Darabont matched by the nuanced work of the film’s two leads, Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman. We had a lot of fun watching and discussing this one Hatorian. Hopefully, it won’t be the longest podcast of your life…
Michael from Arlington, Virginia was nice enough to commission this podcast in honor of his lovely and talented wife, Susanna. Michael wanted to do something positive with his commission. He wanted to recognize and celebrate the hundreds and thousands of people; the artists, craftsmen, pencil pushers, the caterers, that collectively make our favorite movies and television shows possible. So often the below the line types toil near anonymously from project to project, but not on this podcast. Using the special feature, “Star Wars Within A Minute” as a guide, we go department by department to talk about the things small and large the contribute to your average Hollywood blockbuster. Whether you’re moved to sit through credits, study more about filmmaking, or perhaps look for a local project to get involved in, we hope you enjoy this podcast.
Special thanks to returning commissioner Sean Ray for having us devote a few hours to Oliver Stone’s 1991 political thriller, JFK. The film is a weird duck. In our opinion, the movie is a work of pure flim-flam. However, it’s also one of my favorite movies to watch, because it’s a really well done, and interesting piece of flim-flam that belies it’s crazy long run time and features Oliver Stone using every last ounce of his considerable film-making skill to confuse, beguile and bedazzle his audience. This movie is so star studded that few films are capable of approaching it on acting wattage alone. The sound track by John Williams hits all the right notes, from sweaty, cigarette-hazed and mentally crazed late night conspiracy theories to soaring patriotic hymns. Aside from it being, you know, mostly fiction, we’re also uncomfortable with the Grand Gay Conspiracy angle that’s being pushed. But it also sparks a lot of conversation about conspiracies in general, America’s uncomfortable relationship with Vietnam and the truth, and just why the hell is material related to the JFK assassination still classified, anyway?
Thanks to Sean Ray for commissioning the classic 1992 western, “Unforgiven”. Directed by and starring a perfectly-aged Clint Eastwood, the story has him reconciling the man he was in his drunken youth with the man he wants to be, and more importantly, the man his dead wife would have him be. Where does he come down on it? It’s a classic so you probably already know but one of us didn’t and the discussion is interesting.