How well the movie captures the feel of 1980s suburban America

The experience of watching it with adult eyes

Whimsy, magic, and nostalgia

The underrated soundtrack

The Cyndi Lauper of it all

How quickly and easily we get to know the 4 main characters

The Sloth/Chunk relationship is the film’s beating heart

Has Chunk secretly been the movie’s MVP this whole time?

Andy and Stef’s roles in the film: good or underserved?

Mama Fratelli: the most unlikely and terrifying antagonist

Does the plot of this movie actually make sense?

The wishing well scene: cringe or crucial?

Justice for Stef

* Updates on The Mandalorian and Grogu.

* Starfighter, a newly announced film from Shawn Levy and Ryan Gosling.

* Maul: Shadow Lord, because we just cannot quit Darth Maul.

* Ahsoka: S2 is shooting. Hopefully they’ll remember the main character is a dynamic personality, and not a stoic monk with head tails.

* Pouring out a cold one for everything we didn’t get an update on.

Andor: S2:

* Contrasting the goals of S1 vs S2.

* The Dedra and Syril of it all.

* Our favorite storylines from the first 3 episodes.

* How Andor continues to reflect what’s happening in America.

* The magnificent Mon Mothma.

* Minor concerns about S2.

Dissecting the overall not-great vibes.

Was it better when there was less Star Wars?

Kathleen Kennedy, misogyny, and the awkwardness of discussing her tenure.

The market-driven approach to Star Wars is failing.

The allure and inherent danger of a Darth Vader series.

Can Star Wars survive without nostalgia-driven content?

The upcoming slate of films that may someday be released, maybe.

What Jeff would do if he was in charge of Lucasfilm.

I’m planning on doing another pod soon about the state of Star Wars, which is an ongoing concern.

The announced cast for Doomsday:

Chris Hemsworth as Thor

Vanessa Kirby as Sue Storm / Invisible Woman

Anthony Mackie as Sam Wilson / Captain America

Sebastian Stan as Bucky Barnes / The Winter Soldier

Letitia Wright as Shuri / Black Panther

Paul Rudd as Scott Lang / Ant-Man

Wyatt Russell as John Walker / U.S. Agent

Tenoch Huerta Mejia as Namor

Ebon Moss-Bachrach as Ben Grimm / The Thing

Simu Liu as Shang-Chi

Florence Pugh as Yelena Belova

Kelsey Grammer as Dr. Hank McCoy / Beast

Lewis Pullman as Bob / Sentry

Danny Ramirez as Joaquin Torres / Falcon

Joseph Quinn as Johnny Storm / Human Torch

David Harbour as Alexei Shostakov / Red Guardian

Winston Duke as M'Baku

Hannah John-Kamen as Ava Starr / Ghost

Tom Hiddleston as Loki

Patrick Stewart as Professor Charles Xavier

Ian McKellen as Erik Lehnsherr / Magneto

Alan Cumming as Kurt Wagner / Nightcrawler

Rebecca Romijn as Mystique

James Marsden as Scott Summers / Cyclops

Channing Tatum as Remy LeBeau / Gambit

Pedro Pascal as Reed Richards / Mr. Fantastic

Robert Downey Jr. as Victor Von Doom / Doctor Doom

Bestill my nerdy heart.

Balancing out my enthusiasm for the cast is my doubts about the rushed nature of the film and the short-term mentality of casting RDJ as Doctor Doom.

Is this the greatest villain origin story ever?

Oswald’s journey from sympathetic anti-hero to villain we still kinda like.

The difference between Oswald and Tony Soprano.

Are monsters born or made? (Or is it sometimes both?)

Family, culpability, and shared madness.

Who had the most tragic end?

Hopes and predictions for how this show will fit into the evolving Batman narrative.

Why does Hollywood keep selling us the same stories?

Creativity vs authenticity.

How photography informs Sheila’s writing.

The role of curiosity in creativity.

Deciding what to work on / how we spend our lives.

Does writing about pop culture matter?

When are comparisons good and when are they bad?

The role of play and joy in creativity.

Our writing processes and how we inject humor.

How do you know what something is done?

Our dream projects.

Pop culture topics discussed: St Elmo’s Fire, Star Wars, The Penguin, Dwayne Johnson, Jim Henson, The Proclaimers

The battle for Victor’s soul.

The tragedy of Sofia Falcone and her dark rebirth.

Reconsidering Oswald in light of the Sofia-centric episode.

My deliciously divided loyalties.

Giving gravitas and pathos to one of the silliest villains ever created.

Comparisons to Gotham, the Fox TV show that covered the same ground.

The many ways this show gets us to root for Oswald Cobb, who’s clearly a bad guy.

Oswald’s superpower.

The brilliance of Colin Farrell’s performance.

Victor and Oswald’s relationship, and how it may be what turns Oswald into the Penguin.

Sofia Falcone is far more than just a crazy killer.

The role of family in the development of both Oswald and Sofia.

Why do we play fantasy football?

How fantasy football is played

Our first fantasy experience

Preventing fantasy football from ruining your life

The origin story of our 20-year-old league

The components of a good league

Why the draft is the best time of the year, and draft tips

Some picks we love and regret from this year’s draft

The contrived circumstances that led to the movie and its real-life inspirations

Daniel LaRusso’s mom was sus

The summer movie feels

Daniel LaRusso: kind of a punk

Mr. Miyagi is channeling Yoda

The role of surrogate fathers

Johnny Lawrence: greatest 80s bully?

The tournament is an unassailable sports movie moment

Breaking down the Cobra Kais

The climactic Daniel v. Johnny fight

The legacy, including the Cobra Kai show

Link City:

Daniel LaRusso's Crane Kick Shattered the Space-Time Continuum and Doomed the Valley

The Johnny Lawrence Story by Patton Oswalt

- How Top Gun made an impression on an impressionable youth

- The incredible soundtrack (minus “Take My Breathe Away”)

- How Top Gun is a High School Sports Movie

- Why Top Gun is a love story (and not in the way you think)

- This is the sweatiest movie of all-time

- Maverick’s problematic elements

- The Tom Cruise of it

- Favorite call signs

- How Top Gun treats masculinity

Link City:

All the ‘Top Gun’ Call Signs, Ranked From Worst to Best of the Best

- Our Star Wars origin stories

- Better movie: A New Hope or The Empire Strikes Back

- The opening crawl

- Why is it so difficult for Hollywood to create good sci-fi and fantasy?

- Why Tatooine is the best Star Wars planet

- The Western elements of Star Wars

- The Special Edition and Han Solo

- Celebrating Princess Leia and Grand Moff Tarkin

- Why the trench run is the greatest ending of any Star Wars movie

- Reconsidering the Darth Vader and Obi-Wan Kenobi of A New Hope with everything we learn about them in later films

- Is Star Wars better because it focused completely on the Skywalkers?

- Wondering WTF The Rise of Skywalker was doing

- Our top 5 Star Wars films

- Comparing notes on various Star Wars TV shows: Rebels, Resistance, The Clone Wars, The Bad Batch, Ahsoka.

Link City:

Credits and Canon

Krista on Medium

- The relationship between storytelling and lore

- The tension between story and gameplay

- Storytelling via gameplay

- Emergent gameplay

- The surprising absence of narrative in classic games

- Roleplaying games and player agency

- Adaptations: What separates good ones from bad ones

Games Discussed In This Episode:

- Final Fantasy I, VI, and VII

- The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past, and Ocarina of Time

- Red Dead Redemption

- Harmony: The Fall of Reverie

- Animal Well

- Thomas Was Alone

- Unpacking

- Baldur’s Gate I and III

- Disco Elysium

- Mass Effect

- The Last of Us

- Elden Ring / Dark Souls

- Skyrim

- The Sims

Link City:

Is ‘Final Fantasy VII Rebirth’ a Big Flop?

How ‘Tears of the Kingdom’ Obliterated 30 Years of Zelda Lore

What’s Next for The Legend of Zelda?

Why the ‘The Last of Us’ Season Finale Sucked

As for the story? Funny thing, that. There isn’t really a story to speak of. A creepy old man lures you into his dank cave to give you a flimsy sword and sends you out into the world with the equivalent of “lol, good luck, bro.”

I didn’t miss the lack of an overarching narrative at all. In fact, I found it refreshing. No cutscenes, no exposition, no real dialogue. Just exploration and gameplay.

This game is the definition of retro cool. Modern games could learn a thing or two from it.

- Is Hacks the best show about comedians?

- Why Deborah Vance (Jean Smart, straight fire) is one of the most complicated characters ever created.

- Exploring the relationship/mentorship at the heart of the show.

- How Hacks celebrates the act of creativity, lays bare the cost of the creative life, and uses its two protagonists to depict the journey.

- The most painful scenes to watch.

- Deborah as a capitalist maven and how that identity aligns with her Las Vegas persona.

- How Hacks depicts the realities of misogyny in the entertainment industry but is also hopeful.

- Looking ahead to Season 4.

Link City:

The League of Extraordinarily Funny Women: 50 Trailblazers of Comedy (Sheila’s Book)

Stay Curious (Sheila’s Newsletter)

Flavors of Tecmo Bowl

Why Tecmo Super Bowl for the NES is the ultimate edition

Idiosyncrasies of Tecmo Bowl

Playing Tecmo Super Bowl in 2024

Memories of playing in the 90s

Best teams and players

Is Tecmo Super Bowl the greatest sports video game ever?

Is Tecmo Super Bowl the best game on the NES?

Breaking down the crawl

This galaxy is resting on the shoulder of only two Jedi

The majesty of the opening sequence

Favorite battles from the live action Clone Wars

Anakin is a disaster, Padme is plot furniture

Palpatine living his best life

The Republic was a surveillance state?

Everybody was Jedi fighting!

A brief postmortem on the Prequels

Link City

The Mando-Verse Has Given New Life to Species Long Gone Stale (paywalled; only $3 a month!)

Why Baylan Skoll is One of the Most Interesting Star Wars Characters (paywalled; only $3 a month!)

The Most Tragic Star Wars Character is Not the One You Think (free read!)

25 Years Later, The Phantom Menace Remains an Uneven Yet Thrilling Nostalgia Trip (free read!)

What Star Wars Means to Me (free read!)

Putting the war in Star Wars

How Rogue One stitches into the existing narrative

Thoughts on returning characters

How Disney-era Star Wars delivered on the promise of classic characters

Why tragedy works in Rogue One and fails in the Prequels

Rogue One, Andor, and gray heroes

Favorite moments

A postmortem on the short-lived anthology series

The tension between personal storytelling and fan expectations

Link City

Justin’s website

Write Now: How To Pursue Your Dream And Start Writing Today!

Star Wars articles

Where does Temple of Doom rate in the Indiana Jones franchise?

How this movie led to the establishment of the PG-13 / UK 12 rating system

Is Temple of Doom a divorce movie?

Opinions on the opening song & dance

Mola Ram and cultural landmines

Kate Capshaw as Willie Scott

Which Indy film has the best Harrison Ford performance?

Favorite sequences from the film

Link City

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom: Racist, Sexist, Too Violent?

Simon’s website

Simon’s newsletter

Simon’s books

My hopes and dreams of the Clone Wars vs the actuality of them

Breaking down the opening crawl

What are the galactic politics, exactly?

The blind arrogance of the Jedi

The troubling relationships at the heart of Episode II

The assassination subplot

Moments I dig

Why this is the worst George Lucas Star Wars movie

What do you think happened to spoon boy?

Remembering the ‘What is the Matrix?’ ad campaign

Working at Blockbuster Video in 1999

What is The Matrix? (The film)

Exploring the mysteries of the Matrix

Why this movie is J.J. Abrams’ wet dream

Philosophy and The Matrix

How The Matrix nailed the chosen “One” narrative

The two problems with the movie

Link Potpourri

Dune is the Only 'Chosen One' Prophecy that Makes Any Kind of Sense (paid read, but a membership is super reasonable!)

1999: When Gen X Disillusionment Had its Moment on the Big Screen (free read!)

Neo is a Gen X Icon (free read!)

The Matrix: Revisited — 5 Thoughts On the Old Films as a New One Debuts (free read!)

The story behind the “Duel of the Fates” theme.

My 5 favorite lightsaber fights. (Number 4 will shock you! I’m dead serious. I expect to lose some subscribers over it. And possibly some friends.)

The dark times: The post Return of the Jedi years.

A new hope: The Phantom Menace was the most anticipated movie of all-time.

May 19, 1999: Seeing The Phantom Menace the first time.

My favorite things from The Phantom Menace.

My top 5 The Phantom Menace one-hit wonders.

Unanswered questions raised by this movie.

The enduring legacy of The Phantom Menace.

Link Potpourri

25 Years Later, The Phantom Menace Remains an Uneven Yet Thrilling Nostalgia Trip (free read)

The 7 Most Baffling Things in Star Wars (free read)

The top 10 MCU films according to Rotten Tomatoes

Does The Winter Soldier have the MCU’s best cold open?

Breaking down Steve’s notebook

4 reasons this is the best MCU film

Hailing Hydra

The top 10 MCU films according to me1

Plus a brief cameo by my cat and my neighbor’s lawnmower

Marvel Link Potpourri

How the Steve Rogers & Bucky Barnes Bromance Defined the MCU (paid post)

Not Every Hero Wears Mother's Drapes: Celebrating the Unsung Heroes of the MCU (free!)

Marvel's Fall From Grace Continues With No End In Sight (free!)

Watching ‘Avengers: Endgame’ in the Theater Absolutely Blew Me Away (free!)

Why Thor Is the Greatest Avenger (free!)

Disney & Marvel Studios have been Mishandling Black Widow for Years (free!)

I’m Conflicted About My Feelings For a Supervillain (free!)

This Episode Covers

* Where does D&D fall on the scale of nerdy activities?

* A super brief and probably slightly inaccurate history of D&D.

* How the Game Is Played.

* What a Dungeon Master does (hint: it doesn’t involve whips or gimp suits).

* What the other players do (hint: it typically involves derailing whatever the Dungeon Master’s plan is).

* Dungeons & Dragons & Me

* My favorite classes.

* How I started during the era in which D&D got you beat up.

* The Legacy of D&D.

* The 4 Types of D&D Players.

Further Reading & Related Stories

I have written about D&D. Like, a lot. Here’s a cornucopia of nerdish delights.

Paid Reads

The Absolutely True Story of How Dungeons & Dragons Saved My Life

This is a companion article to the podcast, going into a lot of detail about how and why I got into D&D. It’s deeply personal, and though I try to keep it light, the subject matter gets a bit heavy.

Free Reads

* The Delayed, Exquisite Pain of Growing Up Too Soon

* Playing Dungeons & Dragons Will Make You a Better Writer

* Dungeons & Dragons Has Given Me a Childhood I Never Had

* How a New Player and ‘Macho Man’ Rekindled my Love of D&D

* The 10 Best Celebrity ‘Dungeons & Dragons’ Players

* 5 Things I Learned Running a Hex Crawl in Dungeons & Dragons

* These 5 Takeaways From ‘The Hobbit’ Films Will Improve Your Dungeons & Dragons Game

What's in this episode:

- Guessing the favorite TV shows of recent US Presidents.

- Familiar faces who got their start on The Wire.

- How and why the very first scene haunted me the entire season.

- My favorite characters and scenes.

- Hopes for season 2.

- Audio footnotes.