Ep. 043 – Sick Movies by Sick People for Sick People: Some Nicolas Roeg Films
Although grossly unsung, Nicolas Roeg is one of the more interesting filmmakers in the history of cinema. Unsung, but in this episode Chad and Bill sing his praises loudly. Join us, won’t you?
Show Notes:
01:57 – The Man Who Fell to Earth.
06:41 – We throw a wrench at Rip Torn.
12:29 – Hello, Thin White Duke.
13:45 – Not quite as much death as Rogue One.
15:03 – Don’t Look Now.
19:07 – The Bad Timing of Art Garfunkle.
21:21 – All aboard for Track 29.
25:59 – The significant Insignificance.
30:52 – We uncover the shocking link between Roeg’s The Witches and J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books.
36:57 – Roald Dahl.
Thanks for listening!
Trailer for The Man Who Fell to Earth:
https://youtu.be/KUtJ5FnwfCk
Trailer for Don’t Look Now:
https://youtu.be/AUWB-Kw4FiM
Interview with Donald Sutherland about Don’t Look Now.
https://youtu.be/wKbjATtxS6w
Connect With Your Nerdstalkers:
Bill Hunter – writer, and creator of video game history website The Dot Eaters
Chadwick Gendron – writer, musician and creator of the Canadian Culture Thing
Our Website: http://nerdstalking.com/
Social Media Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NerdstalkingPod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nerdstalking/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nerdstalking/
Ep. 40: Post-Apocalyptic Films
Killah cockroaches! A new ice-age! Blossoming mushroom clouds! This episode, Bill and Chad crawl out of their underground bunker and survey the blasted and irradiated landscape of post-apocalyptic films. You maniacs! You blew it up!
Show Notes:
01:11 – The end is nigh! The apocalyptic Doug Ford.
02:44 – Chad reveals the horrific political skeleton in his closet.
04:24 – A definition of the term “post-apocalyptic”.
05:45 – Environmental apocalypse: The Lorax.
07:07 – The inevitable zombie apocalypse: 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead.
16:17 – Escape from New York.
17:45 – Still trying to get a grip on the meaning of “post-apocalyptic”.
20:45 – A Boy and his Dog.
30:40 – The Mad Max films.
34:48 – Damnation Alley.
39:00 – Snowpiercer.
45:09 – Yet more defining of “post-apocalyptic”.
47:39 – The 70’s Charlton Heston post-apocalyptic cycle.
53:01 – Mortal Engines.
Thanks for listening!
A Boy and his Dog trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YkJV19sxKgc
Official video for Tina Turner’s We Don’t Need Another Hero:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq4aOaDXIfY
Dawn of the Dead (1978) trailer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yd-z5wBeFTU
Trailer for Mortal Engines:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fupYIggOq38
Connect With Your Nerdstalkers:
Bill Hunter – writer, and creator of video game history website The Dot Eaters
Chadwick Gendron – writer, musician and creator of the Canadian Culture Thing
Our Website: http://nerdstalking.com/
Social Media Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NerdstalkingPod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nerdstalking/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nerdstalking/
Ep. 037 – Worldbuilding in Movies
So, have you ever walked out of a movie theatre thinking you just didn’t like that film, but you’re not sure why? It could be that the filmmakers didn’t put enough thought and effort into good worldbuilding. In this episode of Nerdstalking, we ponder what worldbuidling means, and look at some examples of it in action, good and bad.
Show Notes:
03:03 – What worldbuiding means.
04:33 – The future world of Back to the Future.
05:46 – The worldbuilding of Star Wars.
09:26 – Not ready for the crappy worldbuilding of Ready Player One.
11:44 – The mythology of Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings.
13:08 – Game of Thrones.
15:21 – Minority Report.
24:46 – The Fifth Element.
25:56 – Heavy Metal.
29:22 – Why is so much worldbuilding just Arabian markets?
32:24 – Blade Runner.
34:04 – A dystopian future built on still photos: La Jetee.
36:06 – Bill calls Chad by Bill’s son’s name.
37:22 – An example of lousy worldbuilding: Tron.
42:31 – Yet more crappy Ready Player One.
43:58 – The Alien movies.
Thanks for listening!
La Jetee captioned in English on YouTube:
Back to the Future Part. II trailer:
Blade Runner (1982) trailer:
The Fifth Element trailer:
Connect With Your Nerdstalkers:
Bill Hunter – writer, and creator of video game history website The Dot Eaters
Chadwick Gendron – writer, musician and creator of the Canadian Culture Thing
Our Website: http://nerdstalking.com/
Social Media Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NerdstalkingPod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nerdstalking/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nerdstalking/
Ep. 036 – The ‘Back to the Future’ Movie Trilogy
Forget Ready Player One’s appropriation of the famous DeLorean, Bill and Chad jump in their own time machine and go back to the past and examine the movies of the Back to the Future trilogy. Get ready for 1.21 Gigawatts of rollicking adventure!
Show Notes:
BTTF 1 – 01:51 to 21:38
01:51 – One of those perfect films.
03:08 – Marty McFly invented Chuck Berry.
04:06 – “Is it okay to go back and have sex with your mother?”
05:32 – Examples of how well put-together the film is.
13:47 – How did Doc & Marty start their bromance?
16:56 – Every dog should have a boy.
18:11 – Chad points out some anachronisms in the film.
21:38 – It’s your cousin Marvin. Marvin BERRY!!
BTTF 2 – 25:49 to 43:24
25:49 – Jennifer sleeps through the rest of the trilogy.
31:10 – Some good worldbuilding.
34:54 – A darker film.
36:27 – Chad meets the ape-shit crazy Chrispin Glover.
39:12 – Chad finds a visual homage to the 1960 Time Machine movie.
43:24 – The best part of BTTF 2: Marty goes to 1955. Again.
44:33 – Count Floyd arrives.
BTTF 3 – 48:27 to 55:05
48:27 – Doc Brown’s letter from 1885 doesn’t make sense.
50:19 – At least BTTF 3 doesn’t need a chalkboard lecture.
52:37 – Bill’s insensitive Indian joke.
55:05 – The terrible train ending.
Thanks for listening!
Rocket 88, the first Rock n’ Roll record:
A visit to the Back to the Future filming locations 30 years later:
Doc Brown and Marty reunite on Back to the Future day, 2015 on the Jimmy Kimmel show:
Connect With Your Nerdstalkers:
Bill Hunter – writer, and creator of video game history website The Dot Eaters
Chadwick Gendron – writer, musician and creator of the Canadian Culture Thing
Our Website: http://nerdstalking.com/
Social Media Links:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/NerdstalkingPod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nerdstalking/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nerdstalking/
Funny Dubbed Milking Scene in The Last Jedi
Say what you might about Star Wars: The Last Jedi, (and Nerdstalking does say, a lot, in our review of it here: http://bit.ly/2BefOJK), but at least it has the singularly strangest scene of any big-budget movie of at least the last ten years, if not further back. Heroine Rey has tracked down reclusive Jedi Luke Skywalker, who summarily refuses to train her in her Force powers. After following Skywalker around his desolate island to determine what is keeping him so busy that he can’t help her out, she make a harrowing discovery of just what a fallen Jedi does to get some protein in his diet.
Solo: A Star Wars Story Teaser Trailer, Now With More Millennium Falcon
Alden Ehrenreich doesn’t really seem much like Han Solo, but at least Disney plays to their strengths in this trailer: lots and lots of the fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy.
Scary Effin Halloween Moments: Rosemary’s Baby (1968)
Rosemary’s Baby was a blockbuster when it was released in the late 60’s, and its brilliant conceit of putting gothic horror themes of Satan and his followers in the environment of the bright NYC apartment of a young couple was groundbreaking for the time. It paved the way for other urban horror hits like The Exorcist and The Omen, and was a profound influence on writers like Stephen King. The movie culminates in this scene when Rosemary, played by fragile waif Mia Farrow, discovers the true nature of her newborn child. Her plaintive question at the end reveals the horror of her progeny more than any make-up job could.
Scary Effin Halloween Moments: Carrie (1976)
Any kid coming of age in the 70’s was permanently scarred by the ending of this flick, based on the first published novel by Stephen King. Director Brian DePalma lulls you into a sense of calm with a tinkling soundtrack and a diffuse lens… and then gives you one hell of a jolt.
Speaking of Stephen King, I complained in Nerdstalking Podcast IT Review that that movie had too many jump scares. You can probably trace the lineage of the cheapest of all film frights to this moment in Carrie. Still, it’s fun to look back on a time when it wasn’t the overused trope it is today.
Great Effin Moments in Film: Aliens (1986)
When it comes to great film moments, this one has an edge. As a fan of the original Alien (1979), I was wondering a couple of things when I was in the theatre watching this scene from the 1986 sequel. First, since the crew has woken up from cryogenic sleep and they’re gathered in mess eating a meal, is someone gonna start convulsing and you-know-what pop out? You have to wait for a full chest-bursting scene later (and they already kind of pulled the trigger on that earlier in the film, as well).
The other question they answer here is, as with Ash in the first film, is there a shady android among them? The answer comes in this great scene, where Bishop (Lance Henriksen) exhibits an otherworldly skill with a knife, at the expense of eternal whipping-boy Hudson (Bill Paxton).
Great Effin Moments in Film: Taxi Driver (1976)
Great moment in film: Time to wash all this scum off the street.
Ep. 023 Remembering Jim Carrey’s Funny Years
Remember when Jim Carrey was funny? We do, along with a breakdown of the Captain Marvel comic book character, and a discussion of why things always end up sucking. All in this detours episode of Nerdstalking!
Here Comes the Spider-Man Theme Covers: Moxy Früvous
18 days, 18 goddamn glorious 1967 Spider-Man TV show theme song covers! Because a spider has 8 legs, and if you take the 1 away from 18 you get 8! Here’s Day 4:
Walloping Websnappers! I’m not sure why so many Canadians are showing up on a list of Spidey theme covers, but maybe there just wasn’t that much to watch on Canadian television so everyone remembers the cool-weird TV show in re-runs in the 70’s and 80’s. At any rate, here are the Canadian clown princes of acapella doing their rendition, with that patented Früvous silliness thrown in. It really packs a punch.
Swinging in on Day 1 was: Michael Bublé
Swinging in on Day 2 was: The Ramones
Swinging in on Day 3 was: Aerosmith
Here Comes the Spider-Man Theme Covers: Aerosmith
18 days, 18 goddamn glorious 1967 Spider-Man TV show theme song covers! Because a spider has 8 legs, and if you take the 1 away from 18 you get 8! Here’s Day 3:
Rockers Aerosmith did the 60’s Spider-Man theme song thing for the first theatrical Spidey film in 2002, and a lively tune it is, at that. Aerosmith guitarist Joe Perry would later compose the theme to the 1994 Spider-Man animated show, containing some guitar riffs and lyrics that reference the 1967 original. Aerosmith’s version disappointedly never got an official music video, but trust someone on YouTube to cut one for us. Walk this way and we’ll take a look at it:
Swinging in on Day 1 was: Michael Bublé
Swinging in on Day 2 was: The Ramones
