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Originally intended as a light, comedic riff on the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West, Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball soon outgrew that modest ambition and became one of the most popular action-adventure serials in modern storytelling. Soon expanding into a multimedia franchise, the Dragon Ball saga was spun off into at least twenty theatrically-released anime films; Ryan and Latisha discuss one of these movies in this recording.
The topics in this episode's dialogue include Dragon Ball's roots in Asian folklore, how the storytelling in Dragon Ball emphasizes delayed gratification, how the character arc of Vegeta is (for many) substantially more relatable and satisfying than Goku's, and how Dragon Ball's subtextual points about interracial relationships and mixed race children conflicts with common assumptions about the franchise's ties to fascist ideology.
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Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation earns the esoteric distinction of being the first original animated movie to be released direct to video in the United States. That sounds like a minor fact (and it is), but the movie's commercial success paved the way for a cottage industry of similar projects to flood department stores and video rental establishments for decades to come. It's also an entertaining and enjoyable snapshot of the time and place where it was created, showing its audience a glimpse of how the Looney Tunes were perceived by the world at large in the early 1990's.
Ryan is joined by Sylvan and Cheryl for a discussion of this meaningful pillar of millennial nostalgia. Talking points include the labored creation of Tiny Toons, why the home video market was considered an ideal platform for the characters, and how the very existence of Tiny Toons functions as an interrogation of Golden Age Bugs Bunny shorts and why their appeal has lasted as long as it has.
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The smash success of Universal's 1931 Frankenstein adaptation made a sequel practically mandatory. Director James Whale felt that it'd be impossible to top the first film and was therefore reluctant to return, but the studio eventually lured him back with a juicy paycheck, a promise to greenlight one of Whale's passion projects, and nigh-total creative control over what eventually became Bride of Frankenstein.
Still assuming that the gothic atmosphere and graphic scares of Frankenstein couldn't be replicated, Whale chose to go in a more campy, theatrical, and melodramatic direction with the follow-up. While the production did run overbudget, Bride did strong box office and is now considered one of the few movie sequels to surpass the quality of its predecessor.
Ryan is joined by Cheryl and Sylvan for a close read of this beloved sci-fi horror comedy. Talking points include the story's approach to scientific advancement, the movie's very self-aware use of Christian allegory, and whether Bride's heavy application of queercoding was a conscious filmmaking choice by Whale (and whether or not that matters).
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Taking place in a world where the United States and the Soviet Union are engaged in an arms race over shrink ray technology, Fantastic Voyage has the premise of a low budget B movie. 20th Century Fox, however, cast the film with prominent movie stars, spent lavishly on special effects, and promoted the film with an aggressive marketing campaign. While it didn't quite make it to profitability during its initial box office run, Fantastic Voyage easily made up for that shortfall when it came to television broadcasts and theatrical rereleases. Its basic plot, where a crew of scientists are reduced in size so they can enter the body of an injured man and perform delicate brain surgery from within, has been imitated and lampooned in countless films and TV programs.
Ryan is joined by Cheryl, Pete, and Sylvan for a roundtable deconstruction of this interesting time capsule of mid-60's Hollywood. Discussion topics include the general history of size changing in fiction, the film's reliance on Cold War paranoia, the historical context that informs the narrative of Fantastic Voyage, and why shrinking stories appeal to audiences across a wide array of historical eras and cultural dispositions.
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Produced for an unusually high budget in the nascent years of the character, the seventeen animated shorts starring Superman marked a significant high water mark in the Golden Age of Animation. Crafted with care and using tech that was on the bleeding edge of film animation, the shorts were highly successful and made a significant impact on both the cartoon medium and the development of Superman as a pop culture institution.
Ryan is joined by Sylvan, Sarah, and Carlos for a long discussion about six of these colorful, intense, and expertly-stylized films. Talking points include war propaganda, Great Man Theory, objectivism, 1930's pulp tropes, the concept of the Übermensch, and how Superman gradually shifted from being a quasi-socialist champion of the oppressed to an arbiter of the status quo.
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Produced on a whim by a bunch of art students in between their proper assignments, the first Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared Short went viral on YouTube. Centering on some hapless puppets experiencing existential horror through vividly graphic musical numbers, Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared struck a chord with an online audience receptive to its ambiguity and strangeness. The unexpected success of the initial video led to a crowdfunding campaign for additional shorts and, after a failed pilot, a television program.
Ryan is joined by Rachel for a closer look at the first run of Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared. Talking points include the deliberate uncertainty of the narrative, how the medium of online video affected perception of Don't Hug Me, I'm Scared, and what these shorts have to say about neoliberalism, individuality, and absurdism.
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Riffing on Hans Christian Anderson's "The Little Mermaid", Ponyo centers upon a young sea creature who bonds with a little boy on the surface world. Their budding relationship, however, is put to the test when the fundamental balance of nature is placed in jeopardy by both magical interference and humanity's poor stewardship of the oceans.
Directed by Hayao Miyazaki with care and studious attention to detail, Ponyo connected deeply with audiences and grossed more than any other Studio Ghibli production to date.
Ryan is joined by Cheryl and Sylvan for a close look at this beloved film. Talking points include ecology, the revisions made to the source material, and ham.
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One of the most popular authors to ever write anything, Agatha Christie would inevitably find Hollywood eager to adapt her work to the silver screen. As per usual, the quality of their many attempts has been uneven at best, but the enduring appeal of the murder mystery means that it's hard to imagine that we won't keep seeing new takes.
Murder on the Orient Express, arguably Christie's most iconic work, has gotten a number of high profile interpretations in cinema. Ryan, along with Cheryl and Sarah, examine the versions from 1974 and 2017 in this recording. Naturally, they compare the two films against each other in terms of acting, directing, and fidelity to the source novel, but thematic discussion also turns to class consciousness and the ethics of vigilante revenge killing.
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Following the disappointing reception of X-Men: The Last Stand (2006) and X-Men Origins Wolverine (2009), Fox decided that a soft reboot of their superhero franchise was in order. Set in the 1960's, X-Men: First Class juxtaposes the formation of the team alongside the Cuban Missile Crisis and the usual metaphors regarding civil rights. A profitable film interpreted as a badly-needed course correction, X-Men: First Class resulted in three direct sequels and is still frequently cited as one of the better entries in the franchise.
Gigantic X-nerd Ryan is joined by Sylvan, Sarah, and Nicole for a discussion about this sleek, polished, nostalgic, and interesting film. Talking points include assimilationism, respectability politics, Kennedy-era optimism, and whether it's appropriate to use the Holocaust as a plot point in a superhero movie.
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Largely greenlit because The Beatles felt that an animated feature would settle their three picture deal with United Artists without requiring much effort on their part, the cast and crew of Yellow Submarine were given a shoestring budget and a mere 11 months to crank out a completed movie. Somehow, the team supervised by director George Dunning and character designer Heinz Edelmann overcame these hurdles, delivering a cheeky, fantastical, and imaginatively surreal fairy tale that was quickly embraced by both Beatles fanatics and animation nerds.
Ryan is joined by Rachel for a conversation about this psychedelic work of pop art fancy. Discussion topics include the ever-shifting aesthetics of the film, the influence that Yellow Submarine had on later works, and the shadow that the Fab Four cast on the wider landscape.
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Aside from Gone With The Wind, Meet Me in St. Louis is the most popular film released by MGM during the Golden Age of Hollywood. A lush, sentimental, and deeply nostalgic musical centered on a middle class family going through personal changes during the 1904 World's Fair, this film charmed critics, wowed audiences, got a heap of Oscar nods, established Vincente Minnelli as a director, and furthered Judy Garland's status as a romantic lead.
Ryan is joined by Sylvan for a closer inspection of this seasonal perennial. The behind-the-scenes drama of the film gets a fair bit of attention, but time is also taken to examine Meet Me in St. Louis as a holiday staple, a work of auteur filmmaking, and as a paean to a glorious past that never quite existed.
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Originally written as a vehicle for Bill Murray, The Santa Claus was rebuilt around the comedic persona of sitcom actor Tim Allen and thrust into theaters shortly before the onset of the 1994 holiday season. While greeted with lukewarm reviews that damned it with faint praise, The Santa Claus was still a sizable hit that (briefly) established Allen as a movie star. This film also had legs; after several periods of dormancy, The Santa Claus was spun off into an enduring franchise.
Ryan is joined by Cheryl and Sarah for a closer look at this yuletide snapshot of 90's pop culture. Talking points include the film's approach to psychoanalysis, the shifting cultural attitudes towards divorce, auteur theory, and how Allen's brusquely "masculine" style of comedy plays into hegemony, the cult of tradition, and male insecurity
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Due to their penchant for solving problems by punching things, superheroes aren't inherently conducive to Christmas stories. They can, however, function as handy counterprogramming in the same way as semi-ironic seasonal fare like Die Hard, Gremlins, or Silent Night, Deadly Night. As such, most popular superheroes have been featured in yuletide-themed fare over the years.
Ryan, Cheryl, and Jacinta are all dorky millennials, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that they feel that the pinnacle of superhero Christmas can be found in the DC Animated Universe, a series of cartoon programs beginning in 1992 with Batman: The Animated Series. For this recording, the three of them examine two holiday episodes of Batman in addition to an episode of the Justice League show that followed it.
In addition to elucidating upon the talents of producer Bruce Timm, writer Paul Dini, and the multitude of animators, directors, and voice actors who made these cartoons special, Ryan, Cheryl, and Jacinta delve into the evolution of the DCAU's art direction, how network censorship affected DCAU content, and what makes for a good TV Christmas special overall.
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One of the most noteworthy slashers of its period, Candyman centers upon a Chicago semiotics student (Virginia Madsen) who blunders into the wrath of a supernatural folklore spirit (Tony Todd). Based on a Clive Barker short story that uses ghosts to symbolize income inequality in Liverpool, writer/director Bernard Rose moved the setting to Chicago and gave the narrative a subtext that comments on American racism.
Ryan is joined by Rachel for a lengthy discussion about this atmospheric, moody, and complicated film. While citing a handful of the extensive academic commentary done on Candyman, Ryan and Rachel remark upon how Candyman was made, the contemporary reactions to the film, and how its storytelling reflects America's relationship with urban decay, affordable housing, policing, superstition, symbolism, segregation, stereotype, and the white savior trope.
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Loosely adapted from the metafictional children's novel written by Michael Ende, The Neverending Story centers upon a young boy (Barret Oliver) who gets immersed into a fantasy book whose plot seems to be magically affected by how it is read. The most expensive film produced outside of America or the Soviet Union at the time, The Neverending Story failed to catch on in an especially competitive 1984 film market in the United States. It did, however, sell lots of tickets overseas and, thanks to TV broadcasts and home video, attract a significant cult audience of fantasy nerds all over the world.
Ryan is joined by Cheryl, Toby, Pete, Sarah, and Jacinta for an intimate chat about this colorful and layered touchstone of 1980's pop culture. Discussion points include fatalism, post-modernism, and how the audience is the final collaborator in all works of art.
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Centered upon the vivid imaginations of a family of anthropomorphic blue heelers, Bluey is an animated children's television show that has taken the world by storm thanks to its endearing characters, playful sense of humor, and emphasis on gentle parenting and unstructured play. In many ways, Bluey has captivated parents more than its target demo of toddlers; Sylvan is a big fan and their choice of Bluey as a podcast subject was pretty much inevitable.
Ryan and Cheryl are also present for a discussion centering on Bluey episodes featuring Muffin, a fan favorite character. Talking points include childhood development, friction between siblings, what it means for a kid to be "special", the reasons why millennials in particular connect with Bluey, and how Ben Shapiro's Bluey knockoff fails to understand the appeal of Bandit, Chilli, Bingo, and the gang.
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Derived from Erica Schmidt's musical retelling of Edmond Rostand's oft-staged play, Cyrano stars Peter Dinklage as the titular protagonist. Caught in romantic intrigue alongside him is Haley Bennett as Roxanne and Kelvin Harrison Jr. as Christian. The basic plot of this version isn't too different from most of the traditional renditions, but several key alterations are present in both the text and the subtext of Cyrano; this is apparent both in the dialogue and in the songs composed by Aaron and Bryce Dessner of The National.
Ryan is joined by Sylvan and Cheryl for a discussion about this striking (if uneven) film. Talking points naturally include unrequited love, the pitfalls of escalating lies, and Sylvan's pet peeve about casting Hollywood musicals with actors who don't have professional singing ability.
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Released when the Pokémon multimedia franchise was at the zenith of its initial mania, Pokémon: The First Movie received critical scorn but easily became an unqualified smash due to its passionate international fanbase of 6-11 year olds. Very much in this demographic is Latisha, who joins Ryan for an in depth talk about this interesting time capsule of late-90's pop culture.
Ryan and Latisha do go into Pokémon's origins in gaming and how it was quickly spun off into manga, anime, trading cards, and lots of other mediums, but much of the thematic conversation touches upon the film's commentary about animal cruelty, the then-recent advent of cloning, and existentialist philosophy. There's also discussion about what the central appeal of Pokémon could be, why it endured past its fledgling years as a fad, and what its influence on the wider world may be.
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Looking to take on a more commercial project after the lackluster box office of the critically acclaimed The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928), writer/director Carl Theodore Dreyer decided that a horror movie was the way to go. Loosely adapted from Sheridan Le Fanu's story collection 'In a Glass Darkly', Vampyr was filmed on location in the French countryside with a cast primarily composed of non-actors. Its shoestring budget forced the filmmakers to rely on symbolic imagery and allusive atmospherics rather than spectacular effects work.
Vampyr was released to a severe critical drubbing and an actively hostile audience (a riot broke out in Vienna when dissatisfied theater patrons were denied a refund). However, Vampyr was reappraised decades later and is now considered an intriguing example of how artists of the silent era approached the advent of talkies.
Ryan is joined by Sarah and Cheryl for a close look at this evocative cult film. Discussion points include Vampyr's debt to German Expressionism, its key place in the evolution of the cinematic vampire, and the religious subtext of its storytelling.
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Writer/director Nicholas Meyer is best known for his contributions to the better Star Trek films of the 1980's, but he was noticed by the Federation due to Time After Time, a quirky romcom in which a time traveling H.G. Wells pursues Jack the Ripper across 1970's San Francisco. Anchored by a cast that includes Malcolm McDowell, David Warner, and Mary Steenburgen, Time After Time charmed audiences and has been spun off in a multitude of ways.
Ryan, Cheryl, and (especially) Sylvan were far less charmed by Time After Time; the general consensus among them is that this movie is dated, clumsily edited, and oddly reactionary about the subjects that it claims to be progressive about. Discussion topics for this recording include the fetishization of serial killers, how H.G. Wells' socialist beliefs are addressed in Time After Time's stated text, the storytelling's ambivalent approach to feminism, the sexual tension between the protagonist and the antagonist, and the reason why everyone in this film runs like a Muppet.
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