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FilmspottingSuperman Review, Top 5 Superman Movie MomentsAdam and Josh reckon with James Gunn’s SUPERMAN and then consider all the Supermen for their Top 5 Superman Movie Moments. Plus Massacre Theatre and more.
This episode is presented by Regal Unlimited, the all-you-can-watch movie subscription pass that pays for itself in just two visits.
(Timecodes will not be precise with ads; chapters may start early.)
Intro (00:00:00-00:01:52)
Review: “Superman” (00:01:53-00:37:29)
Filmspotting Family (00:37:30-00:41:28)
Next Week / Notes (00:41:29-00:49:32)
Massacre Theatre (00:49:33-00:54:56)
Top 5: Superman Moments (00:54:57-01:39:31)
Credits / New Releases (01:39:32-01:42:55)
Links:
2025-07-181h 47
FilmspottingTop 5 Batman/Superman Moments with Glen Weldon and Chris Klimek (Archive)With a new SUPERMAN coming to theaters, we're sharing a Top 5 from the Zack Snyder era: Batman/Superman Moments featuring Adam joined by Pop Culture Happy Hour's Glen Weldon and Chris Klimek. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
2025-07-0947 min
A Degree Absolute!Merry Christmas With the Moms and Dads: Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable XVIII — Hall Deckening, Part OneWARNING: THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE OF THE BELOVED AND INFLUENTIAL PODCAST "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" Yippe kai yay, Christmas lovers. It’s your buddy Chris — sans Glen this time — with yet another installment in the metronomically reliable and stereoscopicaly hi-fi-able yuletunes eclectic and inexplicable compilation series. This is installment 18 — they grow up so fast! Which makes it the Ulysses S. Grant edition in the schema of U.S. Presidents. In the discography of Prince, may he rest in power, this would be the Emancipation edition. It’s the Tomorrow Never Dies entry, in EON productions James Bond parlance. ...
2023-12-2536 min
A Degree Absolute!Yulemix 2022 Side BWARNING: THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE OF THE BELOVED AND INFLUENTIAL PODCAST "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" The yulemix enters its Pierce Brosnan era with this seventeenth senses-shattering installment! It's another paradoxically digital yule (ana)log, optimized to obfuscate and illuminate your holiday season. Each side will conveniently fit onto a one side of a 100-minute cassette. Break off those recording tabs and commence hall-decking, revelers! "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" SHALL RETURN!
2022-12-2355 min
2022-12-091h 00
A Degree Absolute!The Airborne Yuletide Event [Side A]WARNING: THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE OF THE BELOVED AND INFLUENTIAL PODCAST "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" The yulemix enters its Pierce Brosnan era with this seventeenth senses-shattering installment! It's another paradoxically digital yule (ana)log, optimized to obfuscate and illuminate your holiday season. Each side will conveniently fit onto a one side of a 100-minute cassette. Break off those recording tabs and commence hall-decking, revelers! "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" SHALL RETURN!
2022-12-0252 min
A Degree Absolute!The Computer Wore Menace ShoesIt's a Y2K-pop extravaganza as Chris and Glen emerge from their unplanned and unannounced hiatus to dissect 72-year-old Patty McG's brief-but-memorable guest appearance reprising the role of Number Six for (the final eight minutes of) the Season 12 Simpsons episode "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes." Cowabunga! The Simpsons, season 12, episode six — "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes" Written by John Swartzwelder Directed by Mark Kirkland Originally aired December 3, 2000 Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on...
2022-11-1456 min
A Degree Absolute!BRASS TARGET with Keith PhippsOur guest Keith Phipps is not just a sterling critic and a dad — an essential component when we cover a movie as openly paternal as 1978’s post-WWII espionage thriller Brass Target. He is also the author of new book examining the career of a singularly idiosyncratic actor. A Degree Absolute! endorses Keith’s book Age of Cage absolutely. And Brass Target? Well, minute-for-minute, it has the most undiluted Patty McG purity rating of any film we’ve covered save perhaps for Braveheart. It’s much harder to find than that one but worth the hunt for those such as we...
2022-08-041h 46
A Degree Absolute!Darling / Schizoid / Checkmate (THE PRISONER 2009, part two)It's More Talk About A-Frames and Holes as we slog dutifully through the back half of The Prisoner's 2009 Jim Caviezel-and-Ian McKellen-starring update. It turns out Chris did review Serenity, the Steven Knight film he referes to 54 minutes into this episode. Read that review if you wish! Darling, Schiozid, and Checkmate Written by Bill Gallagher Directed by Nick Hurran Initial airdate: November 15 & 16, 2009 Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Write or send a voicemail to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adeg...
2022-07-201h 17
A Degree Absolute!Arrival / Harmony / Anvil (THE PRISONER 2009, part one)We’ve got good news and bad news for you, Villagers: After a long sojourn examining Patty McG’s eclectic-not-checkered filmography, we’ve returned to Prisoner content… in the form of the 2009 Jim Caviezel-and-Ian McKellen-starring update. At Glen’s suggestion, we are devoting a mere two episodes to this six-episode series, because inflation. Who’s hungry for a wrap? Arrival, Harmony, and Anvil Written by Bill Gallagher Directed by Nick Hurran Initial airdate: November 15 & 16, 2009 Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Write or sen...
2022-07-061h 15
A Degree Absolute!A TIME TO KILL with Linda HolmesMatty McC meets Patty McG in the battle you didn’t know you wanted to McSee! Look, A Time to Kill, the fourth big-studio adaptation of a John Grisham legal thriller to hit theaters in a 37-month period during the first Clinton Administration, is not a great showcase for our man Patty McG. There are just too many high-caliber, high-profile, and high-maintenance players in its stacked cast, and probably too much studio pressure for him to get away with anything weird. (Braveheart, released 14 months earlier, was a long time ago.) Company-man director Joel Schumacher seems to have sa...
2022-06-082h 04
A Degree Absolute!BABY, SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND with Jordan MorrisTerrible fonts! Racist tropes! Puppetty brontos! A doomed marriage! A movie that was made for no one! Plus Paddy McG phoning it in - hardly a single trilled R! Listen, and catch the opposite of a fever! Prolific podmedian & Eisner Award nominee Jordan Morris joins us to carbon-date a seminal document of his dino-loving youth, BABY, SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND! Starring Rachel the Replicant, The Greatest American Hero, For He's a Julian Fellowes, & Patty McG as the heel. Baby, Secret of the Lost Legend Screenplay by Clifford and Ellen Green
2022-05-251h 35
A Degree Absolute!ALL NIGHT LONG with Casey Erin ClarkMOOR COWBELL! Slip into your cardigan, roll yourself a jazz cigarette, and prepare to savor one of Patty McG's most sinister heel turns as our lovely theme-song singer Casey Erin Clark joins us to deconstruct All Night Long, director Basil Dearden's 1962 adaptation of Othello set in the London jazz scene. PLUS! Casey draws upon her expertise as a voice coach and musician to examine several of McGoohan's most distinctive vocal performances, and presents her findings to the court. All Night Long Screenplay by Neil King and Paul Jarraco Directed by Basil Dearden
2022-05-042h 02
A Degree Absolute!KINGS AND DESPERATE MENA movie for McGoohan die-hards that creator Alexis Kanner the Once-Boxed sued the makers of Die Hard over! Paddy McG and Kanner! Squaring off, with a Montreal radio show as their Thunderdome. A film with all the makings of a taut thriller involving hostages, a building wired with explosives, and McG in fine form: Rolling them Rs! Slamming them consonants! Playing drunk! Almost evincing sexual-adjacent desire! Features more overlapping dialogue than if you played Nashville, A Wedding, and McCabe & Mrs. Miller all at once! Kings and Desperate Men Shot 1977; released (sort of) 1981 Write...
2022-04-061h 33
A Degree Absolute!THE MOONSHINE WARPatty McG's first major project after The Prisoner wrapped up in early 1968 was The Moonshine War, for Sex and the Single Girl director (and title-song lyricist!) Richard Quine. Quine did not write this film's remarkably concise and descriptive title song, "The Ballad of Moonshine," leaving that to Hank Williams, Jr. The great crime writer Elmore Leonard adapted the screenplay of The Moonshine War from his own 1969 novel. No one will argue it's on the level of later, adapted-by-other-screenwriters Leonard translations like Get Shorty, Jackie Brown, Out of Sight, or the TV series Justified, but the seeds are here.
2022-03-231h 27
A Degree Absolute!THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA with Josh SpiegelDoes Mister-not-Doctor Andrew MacDuhui (Paddy McG) hate pets? (He does not, no matter what his low-information neighbors in the fictional Scottish town of Inveronoch think.) Did Walt Disney hate cats? (Our very special guest Disney expert, Josh Spiegel, makes a compelling case.) Were animals harmed during the making of this motion picture? (Most certainly, regrettably.) Our principled stand against pandering to the Internet's insatiable appetite for cat content crumbles as we pad, paw, 'n' claw our merryish way through... The Three Lives of Thomasina Written by Robert Westerby, from...
2022-03-092h 00
A Degree Absolute!THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH with Margaret H. WillisonOn February 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan introduced a band from Liverpool, England formerly known as The Quarrymen to an estimated 73 million viewers of his primetime CBS variety show. And down the dial on NBC, the anthology series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color drew an audience of something less than 73 million for the first installment of its three-part The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh, an adaptation of Russell Thorndike and William Buchanan's novel Christopher Syn starring our man Patty McG as an 18th century man of the cloth* by day/masked-smuggler-by-night who helps the common people by... paying their taxes, we think...
2022-02-231h 41
A Degree Absolute!SILVER STREAK with Ronald Young Jr.Pop some vitamin E before listening, because it's gonna be hug 'n' munch all the way to Chicago! Solvable host Ronald Young, Jr. joins Glen and Chris to examine Silver Streak, ostensibly a hybrid romantic thriller / buddy comedy that gave the world the long-running Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor screen partnership and was a huge hit upon its release in 1976. America's bicentennial anum was a great a year for movies, more despite Silver Streak than because of it, but hey, the movie features a loveably smarmy Columbo-era Patrick McGoohan as the despicable villain. Along with a lot of trite and...
2022-02-091h 42
A Degree Absolute!BOXING DAY SPECIAL: Let's Talk About Christmas (2019 yulemix)CAUTION: This is not an episode of A Degree Absolute! This is a halldecking aid. Happy Boxing Day, Degree Absolutionists! With Glen still waging his one-man war on Christmas from the sunny heathen hinterlands of Miami, I, Chris, have made an executive decision to use up our vacant server space this month to re-present my 2019 holiday mixtape, "Let's Talk About Christmas!" And if you don't want to talk about, hear about, or think about Christmas, fear not! You can skip this non-episode entirely and catch us when regular programming returns in January. I wr...
2021-12-261h 45
A Degree Absolute!Cheer Is the Mind-Killer—Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable XVI [Side B]#Yulemix21 ABIDES! In this second half of my XVIth senses-shattering installment in the apparently unkillable Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable series, Chris attempts penance for preempting your regularly-scheduled podcast with my mixtape by roping Glen & Casey in for some festive preamble before we get to the damn tape. Those halls aren't going to deck themselves, merrymakers!
2021-12-231h 11
A Degree Absolute!Yulemix 2021This is not an episode of A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! This is a halldecking aid. A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! shall return. What this is is the sixteenth installment in what has become a venerable holiday tradition that invariably makes me feel unhinged in the final couple of months of each year. Sixteen! They grow up so fast. The Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable compilation series, most installments of which remain available to stream—I wish this had not become a joke—my Soundcloud is now as licensed to drive as any Cory. In the chronology of the EON Productions James Bond film...
2021-12-1257 minA Degree Absolute!BRAVEHEART with Alexandra PetriIt's primae noctis for your ears because we can put it off no longer: The quintuple-Academy Award-winning a-historical epic Braveheart is the most widely seen and, your hosts agree, best latter-day expression of undiluted Patrick McGooted. The Washington Post's Alexandra Petri returns to discuss her journalist doppelganger, the New York Times' Alexandra Petri, and to share with Glen the virgin Braveheart experience. Freeeeeeeeeeeedommmmmmm! Given the volume of Star Wars talk that seems to follow (the Post's) Petri around, it's a wonder we forgot to mention that Braveheart was produced by Alan "Laddie" Ladd, Jr., who 20 years earlier...
2021-11-171h 54
A Degree Absolute!Our Top Six TwosTHERE CAN BE ONLY TWO(s) as Chris & Glen rank their top six on this week’s exciting episode! Thanks to @UrbanSpaceMan64 for suggesting the topic. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek Arranged by Casey Erin Clark and Jonathan Clark Vocals and Keyboards by Casey Erin Clark Guitar, Percussion, Mixing by Jonathan Clark Bass by Marcus Newstead "Break Me Ge...
2021-11-0358 min
A Degree Absolute!MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTSIt’s the Notorious V.R.G. v. the founder of the Jackson Fivehead in this 16th century showdown among two dope queens—and we don’t mean Timothy Dalton & Ian Holm! PLUS: Jimmy Stewart! Current Release Corner! Dispatches from the French of Liberty, Kansas! Mary, Queen of Scots Written by John Hale Directed by Charles Jarrott Released December 1971 Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our...
2021-10-271h 31
A Degree Absolute!THE HARD WAY with Patrick FlynnIt's Patty McG v. Lee Va C as Original Cast host Patrick Flynn joins Chris & Glen to discuss the existential 1980 thriller The Hard Way. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek Arranged by Casey Erin Clark and Jonathan Clark Vocals and Keyboards by Casey Erin Clark Guitar, Percussion, Mixing by Jonathan Clark Bass by Marcus Newstead "I Learned the Hard...
2021-10-061h 47
A Degree Absolute!Shattered VisageChris and Glen discuss Dean Motter & Mark Askwith's 1988 four-volume comic book sequel to the unclassifiable and unforgettable TV series. The A Place to Hang Your Cape interview with Dean Motter we discuss in this episode is here. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek Arranged by Casey Erin Clark and Jonathan Clark Vocals and Keyboards by Casey Erin Clark...
2021-09-251h 25
A Degree Absolute!THE PHANTOMAn increasingly besotted Glen & unceasingly bemused Chris wax purple on THE PHANTOM, 1996’s two-fisted failed franchise starter with Billy Zane as the 30s comic strip hero who coulda been called WHITE PANTHER & Patty McG as the Ghost Who Walks™ ’s… Ghost Dad? The Phantom Written by Jeffrey Boam Directed by Simon Wincer Released June 7, 1996 Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute...
2021-09-081h 54
A Degree Absolute!SCANNERS with Alexandra PetriDemocracy dies in dorkiness this week as the brilliant Washington Post columnist, essayist, playwright and retired (?) Emo Sith Lord Alexandra Petri joins us to autopsy David Cronenberg's 1981 explosive migrane of a cult classic Scanners, featuring 24 minutes of a possibly first-billed, maybe third-billed, but unequivocally box-named-on-the poster Patty McG as a, um, North American mad scientist named... Dr. Ruth. Glen is determined to spark an international incident by dismissing Steven Lack, the picture's aptly named lead player, as "Canadian hot" while assessing future Lion in Winter star Michael Ironside as "Philadelphia hot." It's a ripe program, this one...
2021-09-011h 34A Degree Absolute!Mail Call! The Dog Days of Summer EditionChris freestyles and epic poem about getting his iPhone replaced and eventually he and Glen dig deep into the too-long-neglected mailbag. Casey sings a reader-penned jingle. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek Arranged by Casey Erin Clark and Jonathan Clark Vocals and Keyboards by Casey Erin Clark Guitar, Percussion, Mixing by Jonathan Clark Bass by Marcus Newstead "Nobody Does It B...
2021-08-2756 min
A Degree Absolute!ESCAPE FROM ALCATRAZ with Jesse ThornMaximum Fun? More like maximum security! Maximum Fun podcast network founder and San Francisco native Jesse Thorn joins us this week to tunnel through the crumbling walls of Escape From Alcatraz, the 1979 Clint Eastwood-starring dramatization of the real 1962 prison break, featuring Patty McG as…The Warden. Stunt casting doesn’t get any stuntier, though Glen and I differ on exactly how much The Artist Formerly Known Only as Number Six contributes to the 115-minute picture in his roughly 10 minutes of screen time. Escape From Alcatraz Directed by Don Siegel Screenplay by Richa...
2021-08-181h 43
A Degree Absolute!McGoohan on COLUMBO with Linda HolmesDID YOU KNOW that Columbophiles are properly nomenclatured Columboheads or Trenchcoatheads? DID YOU KNOW that fans who divide their sympathies equally among Patrick McGoohan and Peter Falk are formally designated McGalks? Pal Linda Holmes joins Glen & Chris to investigate Patty McG’s historic run as a four-time Columbo killer / five-time Columbo director. Brandon Routh, the George Lazenby of Supermen despite being admirably heighted to the role, also gets a surprising quotient of airtime on this typically tangent-tolerant episode of our private, personal, by-hand, punchcard-driven podcast! Read Linda's November 2020 essay on her pandemic discovery of...
2021-08-111h 41A Degree Absolute!LOST in America with Jen ChaneyVulture TV critic and noted Lindelofologist Jen Chaney joins us to examine the influence of THE PRISONER on subsequent stranded-by-the-seaside puzzle-box shows like LOST. Plus we once again pop The Hatch on the mailbag. Read Jen's definitive oral history of the LOST finale here! Follow her on Twitter here! Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek Arranged by Casey...
2021-07-281h 37A Degree Absolute!Some Impersonal NewsWrite to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek Arranged by Casey Erin Clark and Jonathan Clark Vocals and Keyboards by Casey Erin Clark Guitar, Percussion, Mixing by Jonathan Clark Bass by Marcus Newstead
2021-07-2102 min
A Degree Absolute!Fall OutPatty McG has claimed he was driven out of England after this puzzling final episode of The Prisoner debuted on Feb. 1, 1968. McGoohan admitted to financier Lew Grade that he'd been bluffing a year prior when he told the moneyman that he had an ending in mind for the strange new series he'd proposed. While this episode certainly reflects its creator's exasperation and exhaustion, it's more satisfying than any conventional resolution of the show's myriad mysteries could possibly have been... isn't it? "Fall Out" Written and directed by Patrick McGoohan Original airdate...
2021-07-141h 45
A Degree Absolute!Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling (the band, the filmmakers, the supertalented PRISONER superfans)I (Chris) have long suspected The Prisoner is a show with a particular appeal to creative people, and I love to be proven right. Do Not Forsake Me Oh My Darling is a Prisoner-inspired punk duo comprised of filmmakers/musicians/writers/creators/etc. Sophia Cacciola and Michael J. Epstein. When we saw their video for "Arrival" — a meticulous, two-years-in-the making recreation of The Prisoner's opening title sequence — we knew we had to meet them. From this wildly ambitious and improbably successful short film, they graduated to making features, as they tell us in a conversation that reaches far b...
2021-07-071h 02
A Degree Absolute!Once Upon a TimeShot in December 1966 under the title "Degree Absolute" and not broadcast until more than a year later when it became The Prisoner's penultimate — and, we agree, ultimate — episode, "Once Upon a Time" is the real thing. A bottle episode that locks GOAT Number Two Leo McKern and Number Six in the black-box "Embryo Room" and compels them to reenact the Seven Ages of Man that that glover's son from Stratford wrote about, shooting it almost killed McKern. And talking about it almost killed us! Our private, personal, by-hand, punchcard-driven discursive dissection of this epistemological epic is more tangent-tolerant than ever...
2021-06-301h 58
A Degree Absolute!EXTRASODE: Village Mailbag, Indoors & OutChris and Glen respond to listener email and then take up a tactical position on the western emplacement of Glen's Remote Mountain Stronghold to discuss their IRL reunion and promised viewing of Rob Marshall's Best Picture-winning 2002 film version of John Kander & Fred Ebb's Chicago. Which has precisely nothing to do with The Prisoner but hey, we are, famously, a tangent-tolerant podcast. Then they read a few more listener emails. It's a bit anticlimactic, honestly. But the reunion was lovely, as are your emails. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! L...
2021-06-261h 01A Degree Absolute!ICE STATION ZEBRA with Matt GourleyWhat If Jimmy Page played a session with Stillwater? Our podcastin' inspiration Matt Gourley joins us for a Cinerama epic of an episode that we didn't plan to release on Father's Day week, but the cookie happened to crumble serendipitously. Because our subject is a genuine, certified, no-foolin’ Dad Movie, Ice Station Zebra, based on The Guns of Navarone author Alistair MacLean's novel Ice Station Zebra. The moderately thrilling Cold War thriller that Patty McG cheated on The Prisoner with is an all-star affair featuring Rock “The Dwayne” Hudson, Ernest “Resistance is Futile” Borgnine, Jim “One Night in Miami” Br...
2021-06-231h 36
A Degree Absolute!The Girl Who Was DeathNumber Six must elude the tender embrace of a lady who probably uses pseudonyms at least as often as he does in a late-in-the-run-but-lavish filler episode that sends up the spy genre circa ’67 & burns plenty of Sir Lew Grade’s money. (He refused to finance a floated 90-minute version.) Justine Lord and Kenneth Griffiths are your magnificent guest stars, and Patty McG appears to be having a grand old time in the relatively few scenes where he's onscreen. Apparently he was called back to Los Angeles for a few more weeks of shooting on Ice Station Zebra late...
2021-06-161h 33
A Degree Absolute!Living in Harmony with Ben BlackerProlific screenwriter, prosewriter, comic book writer, and podcaster Ben Blacker — co-creator of the magnificent monthly-live-show-turned-podcast The Thrilling Adventure Hour, and its delightful Western parody feature, Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars, among his many other notable and impressive credentials — joins us this week to dissect "Living in Harmony," perhaps the curviest of The Prisoner's curveball episodes. With script editor George Markstein out, Patty McG and David Tomblin put out a call for The Prisoner story ideas. Ian Rakoff, a film editor with no prior screenwriting experience, responded with a pitch for a Western-themed episode, and did not learn until...
2021-06-091h 19
A Degree Absolute!Do Not Forsake Me Oh My DarlingIt seems Patty McG had softened his "don't call it television because television cuts corners and we'll never ever do that" position by the time of The Prisoner's much-abbreviated second and final season, because for most of the production of this week's episode he decided his time would be better spent in Los Angeles co-starring in John Sturges' unmemorable 1968 thriller Ice Station Zebra with Rock Hudson, Ernest "Resistance Is Futile" Borgnine, and Jim Brown. "Chimes of Big Ben" screenwriter Vincent Tilsey got the unenviable job of coming up with a Prisoner story that would require neither the...
2021-05-311h 39A Degree Absolute!A Change of MindNumber Six's Public Enemy Number Six act is getting tired — and what is alternately referred to within a single scene as The Committee, The Council, and The Commission will tolerate it for only so long before they decree that their prize captive must undergo Instant Social Conversion. It's a procedure so chilling that Number Eighty-Six (the marvelous Angela Browne) must narrate it step-by-step, and very, very slowly, so as not to induce panic. John Sharpe is our unctuous, openly misogynistic Number Two. Happily, we get to see Six's homebuilt crossfit gym in the woods once again. "A Ch...
2021-05-261h 31A Degree Absolute!It's Your FuneralThere's an assassination plot afoot in The Village, and Number Six must protect his oppressor to spare his fellow Villagers. Derren Nesbitt is our Number Two and Annette Andre is our Girl Friday. Neither one of them could stand their scene partner an (uncredited) director, Patty McG. Pink-blazered henchman Mark Eden didn't hate him, but he did resent his attempt to strangle him on camera. This creative tension results in one of The Prisoner's most rewarding episodes, replete with crossfit and and Kosho and lots more. Plus, listener mail! "It's Your Funeral" Written...
2021-05-191h 18
A Degree Absolute!Hammer into AnvilPride Goethe before a fall. To boldy Goethe where no one has gone before. Just how well do you know your Johann Wolfgang von Goethe? Patrick Cargill is back from "Many Happy Returns" and in Number Six's crosshairs after he drives a woman to suicide two minutes into the episode. And so begins Six's campaign of vengeance via psychological warfare. >Featuring Basil Hoskins as Number Fourteen, the man who challenges Six to an ostensibly (per the script) dirty, not-according-to-Hoyle game of... Kosho. Written by Roger Woddis Directed by Pat...
2021-05-121h 30
A Degree Absolute!CheckmateWe are all of us pawns, my dear, in this quintessential Prisoner episode that some observers believe should've aired third in the run but didn't surface until much later. Wherever it belongs, what is undisputed is that it combines an underdeveloped chess metaphor with another conspiracy to escape The Village and an important life lesson for Number Six about how one should treat one's fellows. You might say that the real jailbreak was the friends he utterly failed to make along the way. But on the plus side, Peter Wyngarde is this episode's Number Two, and his s...
2021-05-051h 26
A Degree Absolute!Dance of the DeadIt's Carnival in The Village, and Dance of the Dead — an episode that was nearly scuttled on account of Patrick McGoohan's disdain for it (and refusal to shoot at least part of its climactic scene) — offers a fascinating glimpse into The Prisoner's conflicting aesthetic priorities. Marry Morris, our latest Number Two, is a memorable malefactor whom Glen admits he’d like to have as his mom. He also laments the undisciplined nature of her color-coded-or-not telephone system, and goads Chris into railing against the cosmic obliviousness of umbrella-users. You also get a great heel turn by Aub...
2021-04-281h 14
A Degree Absolute!Many Happy ReturnsThe first half of this episode is dialogue-free! This episode of The Prisoner, that is, not this episode of A Degree Absolute!, though that's the sort of formal experimentation we'd be game to try. Anywho, Number Six awakens in an inexplicably raptured Village and opts for the seaborne escape route, where starvation, pirates, and intrigue await. As does Georgina Cookson, on whom Glen has developed a serious crush. PLUS: Listener mail! Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and...
2021-04-211h 02
A Degree Absolute!EXTRASODE! With I AM NOT A NUMBER author and REPO MAN writer/director Alex Cox!SPOILERS AHOY for the entirety of the 54-year-old television series The Prisoner! You've been warned! Save this episode for later if you haven't yet seen the whole series! Lifelong Prisoner fan Alex Cox joins Chris to talk about his 2017 book I Am Not a Number: Decoding the Prisoner, and What It's All About. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek Arranged by Casey Erin Clark and Jonathan Clark Vocals and Keyboards by Casey Erin Clark Guitar...
2021-04-1744 minA Degree Absolute!The GeneralGlen is under the influence of digital vermouth and under the spell of John Castle in our dissection of "The General." Wherein Number Six gets anger-cruised and Kirks a computer, and Colin Gordon "returns" as Number Two from "A.B. & C." — an episode obviously intended to follow this one, but which was broadcast before — apparently having survived his encounter with a tumescent scarlet telephone handset and the unheard but clearly menacing voice on the other end of that line. One hundred percent entry; one hundred percent pass! Write the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute@gmail.com
2021-04-141h 03
A Degree Absolute!The Schizoid ManNumber Six comes face-to-immobile-face with the only opponent who can truly make him doubt his resolve: Himself! It's the The Parent Trap episode. It's "Mirror, Mirror" episode. It's the Double Impact episode. It's the if-I'm-not-me-who-da-hell-am-I-episode. It's the episode that teaches us that fingering an electric socket may on rare occasions be quite necessary, despite what your parents and teachers would have you believe. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail Follow @NotaNumberPod Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music and Lyrics by Chris Klimek Arranged by C...
2021-04-0758 min
A Degree Absolute!Free For AllIt's election time in The Village and Number Six is the frontrunner! Eric Portman, this episode's Number Two, greets him thus: "Good morning, good morning! Any complaints?" And of course Six has complaints. He's like Portnoy: famed for his complaints. Featuring the lovely Rachel Herbert as Number Fifty-Eight, his irrepressibly enthusiastic and enthusiastically unintelligible driver/assistant/etc. Or is she? This is the episode in which our dearth of a title song with lyrics gets well and truly solved. And in which a voicemail from a listener sparks a discussion of Number Six's... likability.
2021-03-311h 20A Degree Absolute!A. B. & C.Chris and Glen revisit the first of The Prisoner's nonessential episodes. It features Peter Bowles telling Patrick McGoohan “I want you,” a classic John McClane-style air-shaft constitutional, some dodgy fisticuffs, the plot of the 2010 Christopher Nolan film Inception, and a milk-drinking Colin Gordon as a Number Two menaced by an alarmingly erotic red phone. Nonessential, you say? Will we ever hear about Number Fourteen's Wonder Drug or this dream-viewing technology again? Perhaps, dear listenter. Perhaps. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Follow @NotaNumberPod!
2021-03-2458 min
A Degree Absolute!The Chimes of Big BenNumber Six attempts to escape The Village with the help of a newcomer named Nadia and a "basically primitive" abstract art project with a hard-to-overlook nautical vibe. He also finds out where The Village is. Unequivocally. Indisputably. Maybe. Featuring the first of the great Leo McKern's appearances as Number Two! Follow us @NotaNumberPod Write us at @degreeabsoluteatgmail dot com
2021-03-1745 min
A Degree Absolute!ArrivalChris & Glen embark upon their first look back at Patrick McGoohan's 1967-8 British sci-fi series The Prisoner in many years and hope that the show's ethos — "militant and individualistic," in the expression of one of The Village's ever-changing Number Twos — will turn out to be something more generous than it seems. Also, will Number Six ever be nice to a woman?
2021-03-081h 09
Vishnu PrasadBlade Runner 2049Writer Chris Klimek joins Stephen Thompson and Glen Weldon to discuss Denis Villeneuve's sequel to the Ridley Scott cult classic Blade Runner.
2017-10-0620 min
Vishnu PrasadThe Magnificent Seven and FleabagWriter Chris Klimek and NPR Editor Tanya Ballard join Stephen Thompson and Glen Weldon to review the remake of The Magnificent Seven. Then, they chat about Fleabag, a dark British comedy currently streaming on Amazon. Plus, What's Making Us Happy.
2016-09-3030 min
Vishnu PrasadJason Bourne and Suicide SquadCritic Chris Klimek and NPR Editor Tanya Ballard-Brown join Stephen Thompson and Glen Weldon for a discussion of two summer blockbusters, Jason Bourne and Suicide Squad. Plus, What's Making Us Happy this week.
2016-08-0536 min
Vishnu PrasadSmall Batch: Swiss Army ManGlen Weldon and Chris Klimek debate the merits of Swiss Army Man, the new indie comedy referred to as the Daniel Radcliffe farting corpse movie.
2016-07-2606 min
Vishnu PrasadBatman V Superman and Pop Culture ObjectsWriter Chris Klimek joins Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, and Glen Weldon for a discussion of Batman V Superman and how to build a better blockbuster. They also discuss pop culture objects they wish they owned. All that, plus What's Making Us Happy.
2016-04-0145 min
Vishnu PrasadHail, Caesar! and Entertainment About EntertainmentFilm critics Bob Mondello and Chris Klimek join Linda Holmes and Glen Weldon for a discussion of the new Coen brothers film Hail, Caesar! Then the panel chats about why Hollywood loves to make films and television about the entertainment business.
2016-02-1942 min
Vishnu PrasadThe Hateful Eight and the Evolving Theatrical ExperienceThis week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson and Chris Klimek discuss new Quentin Tarantino film The Hateful Eight. Then, from recliners to 30mm to Smell-O-Vision, it's an examination of the ever-changing movie theater experience. All that, plus What's Making Us Happy.
2016-01-1542 min
Vishnu PrasadThe Martian And What We've Learned About Other JobsThis week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson and Chris Klimek discuss the fun astronaut flick The Martian. Then they'll discuss what pop culture has taught them about other professions. All that, plus What's Making Us Happy.
2015-10-0945 min
Vishnu PrasadMr. Robot and Title SequencesThis week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson and Chris Klimek discuss the summer hit series Mr. Robot. Then they'll discuss title sequences, and share some of their favorites from both television and film. All that, plus What's Making Us Happy.
2015-09-0441 min
Vishnu PrasadSmall Batch: Fantastic FourIn this Pop Culture Happy Hour extra, Glen Weldon and Chris Klimek discuss the latest attempt to turn the Marvel Comics super-team into a blockbuster film franchise.
2015-08-1104 min
Vishnu PrasadWet Hot American Summer And Mission: ImpossibleThis week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Stephen Thompson and Chris Klimek discuss an unlikely Netflix prequel, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day Of Camp.
2015-08-0741 min
Vishnu PrasadSmall Batch: Terminator GenisysIn this Pop Culture Happy Hour extra, Glen Weldon talks with Chris Klimek about Terminator Genisys, the latest film in the long-running sci-fi action franchise.
2015-07-0709 min
Vishnu PrasadSmall Batch: Mad Max: Fury RoadIn this Pop Culture Happy Hour Extra, Glen Weldon and Chris Klimek discuss Mad Max: Fury Road, director George Miller's cinematic return to a post-apocalyptic wasteland that boasts a weirdly thriving car culture.
2015-05-2109 minVishnu PrasadAvengers: Age Of Ultron and Pop Culture PariahsThis week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, Glen Weldon, and Chris Klimek discuss Avengers: Age of Ultron, covering everything from the fighting, exploding, and if Thor is really necessary. Then they'll talk about pop culture pariahs: the bands that get no respect, movies that are shorthand for things that aren't cool, and even the selfie stick. All that, plus What's Making Us Happy.
2015-05-0852 minVishnu PrasadThe Comedians and CameosThis week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, Glen Weldon, and Chris Klimek discuss the new FX series The Comedians, starring Billy Crystal and Josh Gad. They'll discuss its relatives in the broader family of show business stories and backstage satire. Then they'll take a look at the briefest of acting triumphs: the cameo. From football players who are a little wooden to politicians who should have stayed in their offices, they'll chat about what cameos are and how they work. All that, plus What's Making Us Happy
2015-04-1042 minVishnu PrasadNick Hornby's 'Funny Girl' And Book AdaptationsThis week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Glen Weldon, Barrie Hardymon, and Chris Klimek discuss Nick Hornby's new comedic showbiz novel Funny Girl. Then they'll talk about book to film adaptations. All that, plus What's Making Us Happy.
2015-03-2045 minVishnu PrasadJupiter Ascending and On-Screen ChemistryThis week on Pop Culture Happy Hour, NPR Monkey See's Linda Holmes, Stephen Thompson, Glen Weldon, and Chris Klimek talk about Jupiter Ascending, the latest film from the Wachowski siblings. Then they'll use the premiere of 50 Shades of Grey as an excuse to talk about the importance of on-screen chemistry. All that, plus What's Making Us Happy This Week.
2015-02-1344 min