Bald Move Pulp - Black Mirror Season 4

Welcome to our coverage of Black Mirror, where you’ll never know whether you’ll have a heart wrenching or heart warming experience, but it will definitely revolve around the implications of technology and culture.  From Star Trek simulations, ultimate dating apps, and murderous robotic dogs, this season hits some amazing  highs, but for the first time also hits some fairly deep lows.  Or maybe what’s most amazing is how the show remains fresh and original four years into it’s creative process?  All I know is there are few things Jim and I like discussing more than futurology.  Enjoy!

The Lost Boys (1987)

Special thanks to Saylor from Santa Cruz, the latest Bald Move Fantasy Football champ to claim their prize for winning the league.  Emerging from the pile victorious, he has selected the 1997 vampire flick, The Lost Boys.  Helmed by Joel Schumacher and chocked equally full of cool and hilarious moments and extremely questionable decisions, the film manages to confound and delight.  Why is 16 year old Corey Haim taking baths and being tucked into bed by his mother?  Why is there a shirtless oiled up, muscle bound sax player?  Why is Rob Lowe gazing seductively from Haim’s bedroom closet, and more importantly, why is Jim completely oblivious to his siren’s call?  Is the grandpa a vampire or what?  All these questions and more are explored in the depth to which they deserve.

Bald Move Prestige - American Psycho (2000)

Today’s podcast was commissioned by Rylan, by virtue of his victory in the famed Bald Move Fantasy Football league.  To the victor go the spoils, and Rylan has claimed the 2000 slasher/satire/thriller, American Psycho.  Directed by Mary Harron and starring Christian Bale, the movie is dark, disturbing, hilarious in places, and provoked a lot of thoughts and opinions from Jim and I.  What does it mean to be a sociopath, how much of this film is reality and how much is fantasy, what does it say about society and the conflict between our stated and actual values?  

Bald Move Prestige - Black Rain (1989)

Special thanks to Sean Ray (previous commissioner of the Insidious series, and Blood Simple) for commissioning this late 80’s Ridley Scott crime thriller, Black Rain.  Michael Douglas plays a cop alongside Andy Garcia that gets mixed up in a gang war between the Yakuza and a rival upstart over counterfeit US currency.  The film explores the intercultural exchange as Douglas’s corrupt and brash NYC cop runs into the brick wall of Japanese police decorum and honor, but how successful it is in that exploration is an open question.  The film is great looking, has some solid action sequences, and hilarious Michael Douglas hair, and it’s concepts don’t quite stand the test of time.  But Andy Garcia’s chest hair is magnificent.  

Bald Move Prestige - The Post (2017)

We saw The Post tonight, the star-studded retelling of The Washington Post’s decision to publish the Pentagon Papers, the internal history commissioned by the Dept. of Defense that detailed the long list of failures in America’s involvement politically and militarily in Vietnam, risking financial ruin and jail time.  Told from the perspective of the owner of the Post, Katharine Graham (Meryl Streep), and her editor Ben Bradlee (Tom Hanks), as they wrestle with their own cozy relationships with previous and current presidential administrations and the legal, financial, and ethical risks of defying the government.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a more impressive cast,  the film is gorgeous and extremely well written and tells a powerful and important story of how vital a free press is to the health of our nation.