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This is a podcast where Jim and I, using tools created for the purpose, randomly generate a title for a fictional TV show. We then pitch ideas to each other based on what that show would be like if it were real. We like to call it, “Quit Yer Pitchin’!”
Jim is off traveling the world this week, but Nina Perez from Project Fandom joins the lonely A.Ron to talk about the latest episode of AMC’s The Walking Dead which… isn’t half bad as far as these things go. Lots of Simon, an effective Rick vs Negan scene, and one of the most disgustingly awesome set pieces in all of The Walking Dead history combine to make for an entertaining episode. Sure, Rick’s back to being a loon, the garbage people are still garbage, and Oceanside has clearly lost their collective minds, but that’s why we said it’s “not half bad” instead of “pretty good”.
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Watch us record the podcast, including all the sound checks, flubs, and riveting research breaks that you’ve always wished you could see… Hey, at least you can hear the podcast before anyone else.?
Special thanks to Stephen Moore, whose original commission of Home Alone we thoughtlessly trampled upon during our holiday revelries. For his make-good podcast, he has selected the classic 1973 horror film, The Exorcist. Directed by William Friedkin and starring Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, and Jason Miller, it tells the harrowing tale of a mother who turns to Catholic priests as her last hope when her daughter gets possessed by an ancient evil spirit. I’ve got to be honest, I was skeptical that the film would hold up, but does it ever. Not only does it still manage to be genuinely disturbing, but it elevates the form of the horror flick into a generally excellent film in terms of art.
Jim and A.Ron are here to say goodbye to Carl, and to have the debate about whether or not we should be saying goodbye in the first place. While acknowledging this is an above par episode of The Walking Dead by AMC Studios standards, it commits several offenses, chief among them the decision to undercut a fairly effective scene of a father and surrogate mother saying tearful goodbyes to their son with yet. More. Morgalizing. Everyone involved is too good for what they’re doing, perhaps even including us, but we’ll be here to continue to catalog the decline of a once great television empire.
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Come watch the episode with us. If it’s bad, we’ll make fun of it. If it’s good… well, we’ll still make fun of it, just a little less seriously.
We spin up Netflix’s Altered Carbon after we’ve decanted it for a few weeks, to see what we make of it in our final analysis. Cool concepts, excellent design, and decent sci-fi action are slightly undercut by sometimes silly and hammy execution, and a failure to take ideas to their logical conclusion. Still, we’re always down to ponder futurism and human singularities, so we dig it. It will be interesting to see if and how they decide to proceed with future seasons!
We’ve just seen Annihilation, and boy are our minds blown. Written and directed by Alex Garland and starring Natalie Portman, Oscar Isaacs, Tessa Thompson, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, it features a plot that it is alien, wondrous, unfathomable, and terrifying, with visuals to match. It compares favorably to The Arrival, and is the kind of movie we wanted Alien: Covenant to be. It’s just too bad that Paramount had so little faith in the film, in our eyes they had something special on their hands, and we feel sorry for the international audience that is going to see this for the first time on the small screen. For everybody in the US, Canada, and China, go see this film!
Special thanks to Freddy C, friend of the pod and one of the heroes from our recent Groundhog Day charity drive, who commissioned the epic 1995 crime thriller, Heat. Directed by Michael Mann and starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Val Kilmer, among many, many other notable stars, it features some of the best looking and sounding action ever committed to film, not to mention an inspired mano a mano acting showdown between some of the greatest actors of their generation.
Jim and I will be back for the back half of season 8 of AMC’s The Walking Dead. Whether that is exciting or depressing is very much up to the individual, but it’s a fact, so today we’re previewing the next 8 episodes. What do we think about Gimple’s promotion? Is Carl really going to die? What did we think of the pre-season trailers and marketing? And who lives and who dies this season? We contemplate all this and more. See you Sunday night for the LiveWatch!