Shows
The BookshelfPopular fiction across space and time, and queer bush doof thriller in Thomas Vowles' Our New GodsThe latest best-selling novels from Taylor Jenkins-Reid (Atmosphere) and Fredrik Backman (My Friends) explore 1980s astronauts, ambition and romance; and teenage anguish, friendship and art. Emotive and cinematic, how often is popular fiction written for the screen?Speaking of the screen, screenwriter Thomas Vowles’ debut novel Our New Gods takes us on a twisted psychological thriller through gay saunas, bush doofs, and the grit of Melbourne’s queer scene.BOOKSThomas Vowles, Our New Gods, UQPFredrik Backman, My Friends (Translated from Swedish by Neil Smith), Simon and SchusterTaylor Jenkins-Reid, Atmosphere, Hutchinson Heinemann(Keep scro...
2025-06-1954 min
The BookshelfOn stage at Adelaide Writers' Week with Niall Williams, Charlotte Mendelson and Brian CastroThis edition of the Bookshelf was recorded on stage at Adelaide Writers' Week on Sunday 2 March – with Irish writer Niall Williams (Time of the Child), English writer Charlotte Mendelson (Wife) and all the way from the Adelaide Hills, Australian writer Brian Castro (Chinese Postman). How and when do they do their best reading, what have books meant to them, what are their influences and touchstones? With a surprising swerve or to into the bath and to the funeral of a beloved author.BOOKS MENTIONEDLaurence Sterne, worksJames Joyce, works, UlyssesSa...
2025-03-1354 min
The BookshelfOn stage at Adelaide Writers' Week with Niall Williams, Charlotte Mendelson and Brian CastroThis edition of the Bookshelf was recorded on stage at Adelaide Writers' Week on Sunday 2 March – with Irish writer Niall Williams (Time of the Child), English writer Charlotte Mendelson (Wife) and all the way from the Adelaide Hills, Australian writer Brian Castro (Chinese Postman). How and when do they do their best reading, what have books meant to them, what are their influences and touchstones? With a surprising swerve or to into the bath and to the funeral of a beloved author.BOOKS MENTIONEDLaurence Sterne, worksJames Joyce, works, UlyssesSa...
2025-03-1354 min
History ShelfKing James VI and I Part 4This is the conclusion to what has become the King James VI and I saga. In this episode you get to hear about James last scheme to get himself out of debt, Anne of Denmark makes another appearance, and we meet another one of James's lovers. His name was George Villiers, and he may have been the love of James's life.
History Shelf Merch:
https://history-shelf.creator-spring.com
Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/HistoryShelfPodcast
Fiverr:
https://www.fiverr.com/kortney_jewell/advertise-for-you-on-my-podcast
Riverside Link:
https://riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_2&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=historyshelf
Amazon Link:
...
2024-02-2040 min
Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchStation ElevenTwo Nerds got really really excited about Station Eleven, so excited we ended up talking for almost two hours. We watched the show at a perfect time. Our kid had a class on Shakespeare, so there was a lot of Hamlet discussion in the house already. Indeed, I decided to pick up the book again because the kid and I drove down to watch the most recent staging of Hamlet at the Guthrie. There's other metatexts in the show, but Hamlet is definitely the most important one. Something something, the rest is silence.
2023-12-031h 52Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchFive Nights at Freddy'sFor this episode of Two Nerds, we're joined by a "subject matter expert," our kid, Traveller. Traveller was super into Five Nights at Freddy's when he was a wee child, so he's got the lore-dump for us. I gotta say, I did not expect the places FNaF lore ended up going, boy howdy.
And just to save you a search, I looked up fan-made song which ended up as the end credits music in the FnaF movie. It's by The Living Tombstone, and a version of that song can be found here.
2023-11-101h 27History ShelfAnne BonnyAnne Bonny was not your typical 18th century woman. She didn't crave the domestic life. Instead she longed for adventure. So she donned men's clothing and took to the seas defying the law and gender norms.
Content Warning:
7:07 -7:17
History Shelf Merch:
https://history-shelf.creator-spring.com
Patreon:
https://www.patreon.com/HistoryShelfPodcast
Fiverr:
https://www.fiverr.com/kortney_jewell/advertise-for-you-on-my-podcast
Riverside Link:
https://riverside.fm/?utm_campaign=campaign_2&utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=rewardful&via=historyshelf
Amazon Link:
https://www.amazon.com/b/?node=11601506011&_encoding=UTF8&linkCode=ib1&tag=kortney0c-20&linkId=3d61959f57d3bc0c303494faf049bc56&ref...
2023-10-1023 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Twilight Saga: Breaking DawnTwo Nerds finish up their re-watch of the Twilight Saga movies with Breaking Dawn. The filmmakers split the fourth and final book in the series into two films, so we decided to put them back together in this podcat. Which ended up making a super-sized episode, because we definitely have some things to say. Breaking Dawn has some of the most memorable scenes from the series, both good and bad. The pregnancy and childbirth are wheels-off bonkers, but everything involving the Volturi and Michael Sheen is an utter delight.
2023-07-091h 36Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Twilight Saga: EclipseContinuing on with our Twilight movie festival, we watched Eclipse. Of the four movies, we have the least to say about this outing, though I'm not sure why. Maybe because the series hasn't really gone off the rails yet; maybe because not a lot actually happens.
2023-06-2836 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Twilight Saga: New MoonTwo Nerds continue on to the second of the Twilight movies: New Moon. We get really excited when we glimpse a bunch of movie posters in a scene in a theater, but that turns out mostly to be a dead end. We also chat about how the Romeo & Juliet intertext is trash, and how awesome both Michael Sheen and blowing your clothes off into to confetti is.
2023-05-161h 04Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Twilight Saga: Twilight!Two Nerds decided to watch the Twilight Saga again, because this whole series is fascinating and enjoyable on its own terms, while also being 100% bonkers. Twilight is actually the least bananas of any of the movies (or books the movies were based on), though it still managed more than a couple moments of complete WTFery. So, to address a couple things said in this podcat: The review I mention from my Goodreads days can be found here, and Catherine Hardwicke -- the director of Twilight -- did indeed direct a film called Thirteen, about how complicated adolescence can be...
2023-04-1950 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a Couch28 Days LaterTwo Nerds decided to watch 28 Days Later again, partially because I wanted to see how closely it mapped to John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids -- from which writer Alex Garland avowedly lifted the opening -- and partially because I have a thing about child zombies. (You can read my round-up here.) We talk a lot about child zombies and how they tend to be used very specifically and pointedly in narrative, and I manage to get up on my hobby horse about Hershel from The Walking Dead.
2023-02-2352 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchAll the MummiesTwo Nerds recorded a whole ass podcat about the movie Nope, then my damn phone ate it. So to console ourselves, we went ahead and watched all the Mummy movies -- The Mummy (1999), The Mummy Returns, The Scorpion King, The Mummy (2017), and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. This may seem like a non sequitur, but there's a connection between Nope and The Scorpion King: The family in Nope are horse trainers, and worked on The Scorpion King before the director decided to go with camels. Then one of the main characters, O. J., wears a The Scorpion...
2023-02-1545 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchMoonfall: A Moon What FallsIt’s been a hot minute since Two Nerds saw the movie Moonfall and recorded a podcat about it. I went back to finish my degree, and then there was a bunch of other life stuff that sucked up our emotional energy. But now, degree in hand, we’re back! Just to help you follow along at home: though I eventually remember his name, the person I’m called Not!GeorgeClooney is Patrick Wilson. At the end of the podcat, Richard notes he’ll watch this movie again when he forgets he’s seen it. Turns out, about four months is...
2023-01-3056 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchHalloween EndsBeginning a year ago, Two Nerds went on journey to watch all the movies in the Halloween franchise. It's been quite a ride, finally terminating in Halloween Ends, which wraps up the most recent trilogy begun with 2018's Halloween. The original Final Girl gets her final showdown with Michael Myers.
2022-11-0245 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchTales of the Walking DeadTwo Nerds didn't go into Tales of the Walking Dead, the anthology series set in The Walking Dead universe, expecting much. Whoo boy, did the the series exceed expectations, and then some. The unique stories in Tales of the Walking Dead have a lot of fun in what has been an often joyless landscape, twisting in genres and shifting through time.
2022-10-0258 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchIt's Morbin Time!I'm not saying that Two Nerds are always entirely sober, but certainly for this, our discussion of the film Morbius, we were half in the bag. Bit it was ok ok because it was Morbin time.
2022-08-2742 min
Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchHalloween KillsSlogging on through the Halloween movies, Two Nerds watched the most recent Halloween (which brings the count up to three whole ass movies titled Halloween), and its sequel, Halloween Kills. These two movies dispense with every single Halloween sequel so far, and are instead direct sequels to John Carpenter's original Halloween. Most importantly, these films jettison any familial connection between Michael Myers and Laurie Strode, which was introduced in Halloween II, and was most decidedly not part of Halloween itself. Not including the Rob Zombie Halloween, these are probably the most competent Halloween movies to date, which -- and...
2022-05-2456 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchR U 4 Robots?Two Nerds got a request we watch Automata, a steampunky short about a human private detective, his robot partner, and a murder mystery. This made us consider what robots do, as a trope, and what questions narratives with robots tend to pose. Mostly, we came back to the concepts of sentience, autotomy, and humanity, and how the robot shows those concepts in tension with one another. We speak at length about the middle section of a film called Doomsday Book, which concerns an enlightened robot, Blade Runner, the novel Autonomous by Annalee Newitz, the various androids in the Alien...
2022-05-041h 08Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchWalking Dead, Season OneAs this is the final season of The Walking Dead -- a series which has taken myriad twists and turns over the years -- Two Nerds decided to go back and watch the first season of Walking Dead again. It was a rewarding exercise because it turns out that season really holds up, but then also because of how much has changed, and we didn't quite notice while it was changing. The biggest difference was the zombies themselves: first season walkers are tool-users the way they are in OG Night of the Living Dead (which is the first modern...
2022-04-191h 19Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchScre4mIn which Two Nerds discuss the fourth of the Scream franchise, which was made a decade after the other 3, and evinces a slightly different sensibility than the rollicking meta-irony of the first three.
2022-03-1954 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Scream TrilogyTwo Nerds decided to do a deep dive into the Scream movies, as the fifth installment was just released, 25 years after the first. The first three Scream movies, all directed by Wes Craven, constitute a trilogy, while the fourth was made after a significant hiatus. In this podcat we discuss the first three only. The Scream movies had come up while we were talking about the new Matrix movies and the Halloween franchise: Like The Matrix, they're absolutely made out of the 90s. As such, they introduce a level of irony not in evidence in the Halloween movies.
2022-02-2355 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchMindbendersTwo Nerds was contacted by a friend of ours recently who put in some requests for podcat subjects. On the list were some titles we'd already tackled, like Another Earth and Shane Carruth's Primer, and some we hadn't yet, like Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. This got us thinking about movies which are mindbenders: often high concept, maybe a little arthouse, and definitely out to blow your mind. Science fiction can be especially fruitful for mindbending, as it allows the artist latitude to mess with reality itself, to present extreme circumstances and and mine them for their philosophical possibilities.
2022-02-0356 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Matrix ResurrectionsAs Gen Xers, Two Nerds have some pretty Strong Feelings about the Matrix movies, so it was with some trepidation we watched The Matrix Resurrections. A late-period fourth movie appended to a long-completed trilogy almost never goes well (e.g. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull). Also ominous: only Lana Wachowski returned to helm the film. Though their careers have been diverging a little in the past decade, the Wachowskis are a filmmaking pair like the Coen Brothers or Merchant-Ivory: it's hard to imagine them apart.
We were very pleasantly surprised, which seems a f...
2022-01-281h 10Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Most Dangerous GameCompleting the B-movie "trilogy" Two Nerds began when we watched Cosmic Sin and Breach, we sat down and watched Apex, a movie in which a group of rich jackholes hunt a strangely blasé Bruce Willis. Apex ended up being one of a long line of adaptions of the 1924 short story, "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. Examples include the 80s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, The Running Man; Surviving the Game with Rutger Hauer and Ice-T; even an episode of OG Star Trek. (You can catch our discussion of Cosmic Sin and Breach here.)
Things got a little mo...
2022-01-2058 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchRetcons and Reboots: Halloween H20 and Rob Zombie's HalloweenContinuing with our deep dive into the Halloween movies, Two Nerds discuss Halloween H20 and its sequel, Halloween: Resurrection -- in which Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode -- and Rob Zombie's reboot of the Halloween franchise. The series reaches a nadir with Halloween: Resurrection, but Zombie absolutely breathes new life into the material
2022-01-031h 29Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchHalloweens 1-6This Halloween, Two Nerds foolishly decided to watch all the Halloween movies. This installment covers Halloweens one through six, which exist on the same timeline, more or less. These movies cover roughly two decades of horror filmmaking, and it's interesting to watch the changes, if nothing else. Also, a whole mess of actors who will go on to more notable careers get their starts in movies where they die horribly before the opening credits.
2021-12-0955 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchDenis Villeneuve's Dune, Part 2Part the second of our discussion of Denis Villeneuve's take on Frank Herbert's Dune. We discuss the film after the Atreides land in Arakeen: how terrifying lasguns are, what a badass Duncan is, how funny coffee services are, and one spicy hot take about Game of Thrones. Enjoy!
2021-11-1656 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchDenis Villeneuve's Dune, Part 1Two Nerds crawled out of their mouse hole to go to the actual movie theater to see Denis Villeneuve's new Dune adaption, which is the the first time we'd been to the theater since the pandemic started. This was definitely the movie to break the seal for: a landscape picture on a galactic scale. We fairly loved Villeneuve's take on Herbert's classic, even if there were some things we wish had made it from the page to the screen.
2021-11-0953 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchFrank Herbert's Children of Dune: The MiniseriesIn which we discuss the SyFy channel's miniseries which encapsulates the second two of the Dune trilogy by Frank Herbert: Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. Though the production was written, produced, and largely acted by the same people, the clunkily titled Frank Herbert's Children of Dune was significantly better than it's predecessor, Frank Herbert's Dune. Though I think the miniseries isn't essential viewing for anyone other than Dune stans, it does feature a tiny baby James McAvoy in his first major role, and largely shirtless to boot.
2021-11-0337 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchDavid Lynch's DuneContinuing in our exploration of all things Dune, Two Nerds discuss David Lynch's 1984 film adaption of Dune, which was famously troubled production, critical failure, and pretty bonkers. It was also hugely formative for me. There are at least several cuts of the film out there, and we watched two of them: the 2 hour theatrical version, and the 3 hour version which was cut for television, disowned by Lunch, and has the director credited as Alan Smithee. (The Alan Smithee version also credits the writer as Judas Booth, as Lynch felt he'd been both betrayed and assassinated by the producers, lol.)
2021-10-2958 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchJodorowsky's DuneIn which we discuss the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, which details Alejandro Jodorowsky's efforts to make a movie version of Dune in the 70s. Some of the stories told by Jodorowsky are so bonkers as to strain credulity, but he's an incredibly entertaining raconteur. Jodorowsky's concept was way too out there for the money people in Hollywood at the time, so the film was never produced. However, Jodorowsky and his producers gave all the major studios a Tolstoyesque book with extensive concept art which storyboarded the entire film. The documentary argues this chapbook ended up influencing a huge number of s...
2021-10-2752 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchFrank Herbert's Dune: the MiniseriesIn the second installment in our series on all things Dune, Two Nerds discuss the 2000 SciFi (before it became SyFy) channel's miniseries entitled Frank Herbert's Dune. It's ... not great: seriously mis-cast, with weird pretentions of theatricality, but a totally gonzo lighting designer. The late 90's stylings of the production design were pretty fun, even if mostly this series misses the mark.
2021-10-1655 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchDune. Arrakis. Desert planet.With the premiere of the Villeneuve Dune just around the corner, Two Nerds have decided to revisit all things Frank Herbert. This first outing is a discussion of the book Dune and Frank Herbert's work more generally. We touch on the Dune series, God Emperor more specifically, and The Dosadi Experiment. We also discuss Herbert's complicated legacy: One of the reasons we both love Dune is because of Herbert's takes on religion, ecology, and politics, while acknowledging his works may not resonate because of misogyny, fat-phobia, and homophobia.
2021-10-1551 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchGeneration Ships in FilmTwo Nerds sat down to watched the recent film Voyagers with some excitement, because there are a vanishingly small number of actual generation ships in film. There are oodles of long haul ships, like the Nostromo, where its crew and passengers are put in hibernation of some kind. There are precious few fictional voyages where the ship's population will live out their entire lives on board, and whose children will, and grandchildren; where the destination is so far away that it will take lifetimes to get there. (I'm also talking film, not books, because there are tons of generation...
2021-09-2743 min
The Small Business ShowcaseMilawa Cheese Co: Ceridwen BrownHow do you take what you've been given and make it your own?Milawa Cheese Company was founded in 1988 by David and Anne Brown, in the hopes of bringing European-inspired cheese to Australia. As time passed, the business grew, eventually becoming a nationally distributed brand. Listen as their daughter Ceridwen speaks about what it was like taking over the family business, and the plans she has for the future of Milawa Cheese Co.Milawa Cheese Co: www.milawacheese.com.auKaizntree: www.kaizntree.com
2021-09-1325 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchGroundhog Days: Two Distant StrangersTwo Nerds finally watched Two Distant Strangers, an Oscar-winning short film which takes the Groundhog Day premise of a single, repeating day, and applies it to a situation where a white cop shoots a Black man over and over again. (So content warning for racist violence.) We watched a lot of Groundhog Day-like narratives a while back, and the way Two Distant Strangers centers Black America makes the central premise feel very very different. One film it reminded me of was a local Minneapolis film from 2018 called Black, which was retitled Black in Minneapolis and rereleased in 2020.
2021-09-1226 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchHackers: Hack the Gibson!1993 was a good year for movies about the nascent Internet, apparently, because both The Net and Hackers were released that year. Two Nerds sat down and watched both. Both are very 90s time capsules, but Hackers is significantly more fun. Two Nerds talk about aol, 90s optimism, 20 lb laptops, our eternal love of Matthew Lillard, and so much cyberpunk.
2021-09-0449 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchPontypoolWe've been on hiatus for a bit, but we're back with one of my favorite movies by one of my favorite writers: Pontypool. Tony Burgess adapted the screenplay from his novel, which is titled called Pontypool Changes Everything. Pontypool is kind of a zombie movie, though the mechanism of transmission and specific expression of the contagion is unusual: whatever is making people violently attack each other is transmitted by language.
2021-09-0253 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchBruce Willis Has Hair: The Fifth ElementOur other listener asked if we'd done a podcast about The Fifth Element, so we watched it again. You guys, that was totally off the hook. Apparently, in the intervening decade or so since the resident nerds last viewed The Fifth Element, we'd also seen a bunch of other stuff which has made us seriously rethink what was going on in that movie. Most specifically: the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune and the 1981 animated anthology Heavy Metal. We totally owe you one, Michael.
If anyone has suggestions for what we should watch next, give us a shout. I can't...
2021-07-0955 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchCellTwo Nerds decided to watch Cell, the movie adaption of the same-named Stephen King novel, which is about a pulse sent over cell phones which makes anyone who hears it homicidal. (King also co-wrote the screenplay.) This is our second foray into zombie narratives, which is pretty funny because the "phoners" of Cell are unusual zombies, more in the line of the hacked people in Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash.
2021-07-0342 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchArmy of the DeadTwo Nerds sat down and watched the newest Zach Snyder movie, Army of the Dead, which is really exciting me because zombies are 100% my wheelhouse, and this the first zombie movie we've discussed. Like a Zach Snyder film, this podcast got a little out of hand in terms of run-time. Listening to this again, I realize the zombie allusions come hot and heavy, so I'm going to try to keep a running total of the various references we make. It's also a lot.
Army of the Dead, dir. Zack Snyder
Night of the Living Dead, di...
2021-06-231h 28Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchBlade Plumber: Super Mario Bros.Two Nerds recently learned of a new cut of 1993's super bonkers Super Mario Bros. movie, put together by the fine people at The Movie Archive. This new cut restores 20 minutes of excised footage, making the movie, if anything, more bonkers. The copy I watched was on the Internet Archive, but that appears to have been taken down. There's a mirror available here, but I don't know how long that will stay up either.
2021-06-1854 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do ItTwo Nerds watched the most recent movie in the Conjuring universe, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It, which is the third to focus on Ed & Loraine Warren, and the eighth overall. We also recently watched The Exorcist and Poltergeist, as all deal with spiritual possessions of one kind or another.
2021-06-1154 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchCops in the FuturrrrrreTwo Nerds watched three movies that are about the justice system (or policing more generally) in futuristic dystopias: Demolition Man, Judge Dredd, and Robocop. The first two are very similar: both mid-1990s, with Sylvester Stallone as the lead. Both were (at least partially) reactions to Rodney King and the L.A. Riots. We included Robocop, which was made earlier in 1987, as a contrast with the other two. Robocop ended being the most upsetting of the three, as so many aspects of its dystopia are just, like, regular in contemporary America.
2021-05-261h 06Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchBlissWe went into the movie Bliss pretty cold. The really quite terrible blurb said something about how maybe reality is a computer simulation, and that sounded close enough to our theme of alternate realities that we gave it a go. Like Colossal, its TV Guide entry poorly describes what is actually going on in the movie. The movie features cameos by Bill Nye the Science Guy and continental philosopher Slavoj Žižek, whose name I mangle several times. Yet again, we mention The City & The City, China Miéville's novel about two cities which are superimposed over one another, but...
2021-05-2251 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchBruce Willis is BaldBack in the day, you could tell if a Bruce Willis movie was going to be any good depending on whether he had hair or not. Given the movies Cosmic Sin and Breach, that rule of thumb no longer applies. Both movies involve space zombies of varying origins.
2021-05-1539 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchCloverfaithThe subject of this episode is the ways faith and/or religious doctrine is used differently in explicitly Christian films like The Remaining or Left Behind, and films that use religious lore more like mythology. In this instance our example is a movie called The Possession, but movies like The Exorcist or The Prophesy would fall into this category as well.
2021-05-1245 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchAlternate Realities: CoherenceTwo Nerds discuss two movies that deal with parallel universes: the not very impressive Alpha Gateway, and the absolutely delightful Coherence. We also talk a bit about Counterpart, a previous podcast subject, and China Miéville's The City & The City. While it seems like time travel narratives, especially those that go back in time, focus on regret, parallel universe stories focus more on the question of the essential self.
2021-05-031h 07Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchMortal KombatsTwo Nerds watched both the 1995 and 2021 Mortal Kombat movies back to back, then sat down for a little chat. The 1995 Mortal Kombat was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who also wrote all and directed most of the Resident Evil movies to date. (Apparently there's a prequel coming out this year called Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, which he isn't involved in.) The 2021 Mortal Kombat is much less goofy than the first iteration -- it's definitely going for a more naturalistic tone -- but that's not always successful. Partially because there's only so much realism you can wring out o...
2021-04-3051 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchCounterpartAs part of our exploration of parallel worlds, Two Nerds discuss the spy thriller series Counterpart. J.K. Simmons plays a double role as Howard Silk, each of whom are members of a shadowy U.N. agency in two different versions of reality. One is a stupendous badass, and the other a colorless drone. The two versions of reality are in something of a cold war with one another, and the two U.N. agencies -- and the two Howard Silks -- are on a slow-moving collision course. It's such a good series.
2021-04-271h 08Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchMonster HunterTwo Nerds sat down with our Gen-Z consultant (aka oldest son, Leo) to watch Monster Hunter, a Paul W.S. Anderson movie based on the eponymous video game series. We'd never played any of the games, so Leo was on hand to nitpick inconsistences. I think the resident Nerds were more inclined to be forgiving of Monster Hunter's failings, because we're old in not invested in the source material, but Leo made a very compelling case that a lot of the potential was squandered.
2021-04-1742 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Nevers: PilotTwo Nerds watch the first episode of HBO's The Nevers, a steampunk Buffy the Vampire Slayer slash X-Men hybrid. The Nevers was created by Joss Whedon, who then apparently "stepped away" some time after all the allegations about his behavior on the set of Justice League. Whatever his involvement, the series is undoubtedly Whedonesque, with familiar character types and relationship dynamics. As a steampunk series, there are also easy comparisons to Carnival Row, which was incredibly beautiful and hopelessly boring; His Dark Materials, which is a great book series, disastrous movie, and uneven HBO series; and Miss Peregrine's Home...
2021-04-1341 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe First of All Parallel WorldsTwo Nerds have spent the last few episodes discussing time travel, repeating day, or otherwise timey-wimey narratives. Adjacent to that (and often overlapping) are stories that explore parallel worlds. In this outing, we discuss the movies Sliding Doors and Another Earth, and touch on a series called Counterpart. Sliding Doors is a rom-com from 1999, and Another Earth a melancholy indie movie from 2005. Counterpart is something like a spy thriller, with two alternate Earths in a cold war of sorts.
2021-04-1254 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchKnowingTwo Nerds were lovingly trolled by our listener, and ended up watching Knowing, a predestination wig-out starring Nicolas Cage, which was described by Richard as "Kirk Cameron's screenplay and directorial adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard writing Childhood's End." It made us have some Serious Feelings.
This one's for you, Ian.
2021-04-0446 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchGodzilla vs KongIn a very special episode, Two Nerds discuss the most recent (and possibly the last) MonsterVerse movie: Godzilla vs Kong. We decided to make a theme of it, so we also watched a movie called Colossal, which is about a giant monster who appears randomly in Seoul, Korea, and whose motions are tied to a young woman in the States. Colossal ended up being considerably more intense than we expected.
We also mention the other MonsterVerse movies -- Godzilla, Godzilla: King of Monsters, and Kong: Skull Island -- and the Matthew Broderick Godzilla movie.
CW: do...
2021-04-0247 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchBoss Level: Groundhog DaysAfter we thoughtfully examined three films with repeating day scenarios -- Groundhog Day, Palm Springs, and The Map of Tiny Perfect Things -- in Groundhog Days, we found a fourth repeating day movie: Boss Level. This one is significantly shootier than those other three!
This is a tiny bonus episode where we somewhat giddily talk about this ridiculous movie.
2021-04-0217 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchIt's Not a Time Cave: Time TrapTwo Nerds round up all the movies they watched on a lost Sunday, which include three timey-wimey narratives -- Time Trap, Source Code, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time -- and a slight detour to the Snyder Cut. This episode marks the end of our inquiry into time travel narratives.
2021-03-2944 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchTime Lapse CrimesIn a bonus episode, two nerds somewhat tipsily discuss Timecrimes and Time Lapse, two movies which mess around with the concept of predestination. For some godforsaken reason, the extremely silly film Final Countdown, in which the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz travels back in time, comes up again.
CW: sexual assault.
2021-03-2444 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Only One Awake: Groundhog DaysContinuing on with our exploration of narratives that use time as a device, we discuss three movies which take place in time loops, where the characters wake up and relive the same 24 hours over and over: Groundhog Day, Map of Tiny Perfect Things, and Palm Springs. This episode is slightly super-sized, because apparently we had a lot to say about this narrative conceit.
CW: suicide, depression, addiction
2021-03-241h 14Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchHot Tub Time MachineContinuing with our time travel narratives, we discuss Hot Tub Time Machine, with a side of Back to the Future and Groundhog Day. We also discuss The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K Le Guin, The Butterfly Effect, Primer, The Final Countdown and the latter two Back to the Future movies.
Mistakes I could use a time machine to correct: A movie about the last mortal person on Earth is incorrectly identified as Mr Roboto, but was actually called Mr Nobody. Groundhog Day was also made in 1993, not the mid-80s. I'm sure there are some other mis...
2021-03-1853 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchA Perfect Day: Time Travel StoriesTwo Nerds Sitting on a Couch wrapped up our inquiry into teen dystopias last week with The City of Ember, which is kinda funny because the book is aimed younger than teen, and it's not really a dystopia. After a period of despondency, we decided our new theme is going to be time travel! Rather than go through the travels in time one by one, we've aggregated the last five movies into one podcast. So you can follow along at home, the five movies we watched were 24, The Final Countdown, Primer, The Time Machine, and Frequently Asked Questions about...
2021-03-1054 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Last Teen Dystopia: The City of EmberFor our final outing into teen dystopias, two nerds sitting on a couch watch The City of Ember. The City of Ember ended up being significantly different from the other young adult dystopias we watched, while still relying on some of the same tropes. Plus star-nosed moles and Bill Murray.
2021-03-0751 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchEuphemizing Euthanasia: The GiverContinuing our streak of young adult dystopias, two nerds sit on a couch and discuss the movie version of Lois Lowry's The Giver.
2021-03-0257 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchDivergent: AllegiantTwo nerds sitting on a couch discuss the third and ultimately final Divergent movie, Allegiant. The Divergent series, both the books and movies, is contemporary with a whole bunch of other teen dystopias, most notably The Hunger Games. They're set in a post-apocalyptic Chicago with a rigid caste system based on personality.
We thought even less of this installment.
2021-03-0248 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchDivergent: InsurgentTwo nerds sitting on a couch discuss the second Divergent movie, Insurgent. The Divergent series, both the books and movies, is contemporary with a whole bunch of other teen dystopias, most notably The Hunger Games. They're set in a post-apocalyptic Chicago with a rigid caste system based on personality.
We didn't think much of this installment.
2021-02-2533 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchDivergent: The Myers-Briggs DystopiaTwo nerds sitting on a couch discuss the first of the Divergent movies.
The Divergent series, both the books and movies, is contemporary with a whole bunch of other teen dystopias, most notably The Hunger Games. They're set in a post-apocalyptic Chicago with a rigid caste system based on personality. There are spoilers galore for Divergent, in addition to other Young Adult dystopias and related media.
2021-02-2554 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Maze Runner Trilogy: The Death CureIn which two nerds sit on the couch and discuss the third and final of the Maze Runner movies: The Death Cure. We do not recap the first two movies, so this is best listed to after our recaps of The Maze Runner and The Scorch Trials. The Maze Runner series, both the books and movies, is contemporary with a whole bunch of other teen dystopias, most notably The Hunger Games, and follows a group of teens in a survival situation. As always, there are spoilers.
2021-02-1851 minTwo Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Maze Runner Trilogy: The Scorch TrialsTwo nerds sitting on the couch discuss the second of the Maze Runner movies: The Scorch Trials. We do not recap the first movie, so this is best listened to after our recap of The Maze Runner. The Maze Runner series, both the books and movies, is contemporary with a whole bunch of other teen dystopias, most notably The Hunger Games, and follows a group of teens in a survival situation. As always, there are spoilers for both The Scorch Trials and related media.
One small correction: I get Giancarlo Esposito's first name wrong...
2021-02-181h 00Two Nerds Sitting on a CouchThe Maze Runner Trilogy: The Maze RunnerTwo nerds sitting on a couch discuss the first of the Maze Runner movie trilogy.
The Maze Runner series, both the books and movies, is contemporary with a whole bunch of other teen dystopias, most notably The Hunger Games, and follows a group of teens in a survival situation. There are spoilers galore for The Maze Runner, in addition to other Young Adult dystopias and related media.
One minor correction to something I say in the podcast: there were three Divergent movies made, not two. I was confused because I knew they ne...
2021-02-1637 min
Listen To: This High-Impact Full Audiobook For Knowledge Hunters.Animals Make Us Human by Meg Keneally, Leah KaminskyPlease visithttps://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/453953to listen full audiobooks.
Title: Animals Make Us Human
Author: Meg Keneally, Leah Kaminsky
Narrator: Meg Keneally
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 5 hours 12 minutes
Release date: November 3, 2020
Genres: Animals & Nature
Publisher's Summary:
A response to the devastating 2019-20 bushfires, Animals Make Us Human both celebrates Australia's unique wildlife and highlights its vulnerability. Through words and images, writers, photographers and researchers reflect on their connection with animals and nature. They share moments of wonder and revelation from encounters in the natural world: seeing a wild platypus at play, an echidna dawdling across a bush track, or...
2020-11-035h 12
Download New Full Audiobooks in Non-Fiction, Animals & NatureAnimals Make Us Human by Meg Keneally, Leah KaminskyPlease visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/453953 to listen full audiobooks. Title: Animals Make Us Human Author: Meg Keneally, Leah Kaminsky Narrator: Meg Keneally Format: Unabridged Audiobook Length: 5 hours 12 minutes Release date: November 3, 2020 Genres: Animals & Nature Publisher's Summary: A response to the devastating 2019-20 bushfires, Animals Make Us Human both celebrates Australia's unique wildlife and highlights its vulnerability. Through words and images, writers, photographers and researchers reflect on their connection with animals and nature. They share moments of wonder and revelation from encounters in the natural world: seeing a wild platypus at play, an echidna dawdling across a bush track...
2020-11-0303 minDownload New Full Audiobooks in Non-Fiction, Animals & NatureAnimals Make Us Human by Meg Keneally, Leah KaminskyPlease visithttps://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/453953to listen full audiobooks.
Title: Animals Make Us Human
Author: Meg Keneally, Leah Kaminsky
Narrator: Meg Keneally
Format: Unabridged Audiobook
Length: 5 hours 12 minutes
Release date: November 3, 2020
Genres: Animals & Nature
Publisher's Summary:
A response to the devastating 2019-20 bushfires, Animals Make Us Human both celebrates Australia's unique wildlife and highlights its vulnerability. Through words and images, writers, photographers and researchers reflect on their connection with animals and nature. They share moments of wonder and revelation from encounters in the natural world: seeing a wild platypus at play, an echidna dawdling across a bush track, or...
2020-11-035h 12
THE MOULD CHEESECAST#4: Ceridwen Brown, Milawa Cheese Co. (Milawa, Vic)The Brown family's (and Milawa's) contribution to Australian cheese cannot be underestimated.
It all started thanks to some encouragement from their good friend (and other cheese legend) Richard Thomas, David and Anne Brown got in there and gave it a crack at the Milawa Butter Factory in 1988.
The rest, they say is history, but it’s also the present. Many in the Australian cheese community still credit much of their early inspiration to the Brown family, especially that of Anne, including co-founder of MOULD, Nick Haddow from Bruny Island Cheese.
Very sadly, Anne pa...
2020-05-2527 min