We’re very late in getting this out. But starting a new semester as a teacher, getting a hurricane in your backyard, and desperately trying to get caught up on everything has a tendency to put you pretty behind on everything that isn’t work-related. But we’re back. Podcasts are still happening, and we’ve got plenty to share! Here we go:
A new issue has arrived! In the 14th edition, we share a whole lot of movie discussions, from Wonder Woman to Spider-Man: Homecoming, some weird facts and science debates, and other podcast wonders. We hope you find something new to listen to! Here we go:
It’s been a long time since I’ve posted one of these. Since the Skiffy and Fanty crew collectively listen to more podcasts than there are episodes of our show (totally scientific, promise), it’s about time we brought the Around the Podosphere back to share some of the goodness worming its way into our ears. So, here goes:
Morgan Filchberger is the last 911 Dispatcher to be promoted to Detective after floppy-armed robots replaced the entire workforce. Anyone else might be bitter about that, but Morgan has failed the Department of Uniformed Detectives Exam five times. Now, he’s living the dream: the pay is good and he gets to tell his high school buddies that he’s a real badass. That is until members of the Irradiated Blue Man Group start showing up dead and partially digested in the streets of Orlando. With Captain Northrup Wilkinson and the union representative of the IBMG breathing down his neck, Morgan wonders if he’s really cut out for the detective life… Enter Felicia Guffman, a smartmouthed rookie slash amateur thespian with a penchant for unfinished Greek tragedies and Morgan’s new partner. If there’s one thing Felicia does well, it’s propping up mediocre (male) members of law enforcement to make them look good. Call it a gift. Or a curse. Whatever you call it, Felicia has been putting her talents to use since graduating from the Louisiana Academy of Detective Youths four years ago. And a bunch of dead glowing blue guys aren’t going to keep her from making a name for herself, even if she has do it by making Morgan into a hero before exposing him for the fraud that he is.
I’ve just re-watched Mortal Kombat, the less-than-stellar 1995 video game adaptation directed by Paul W.S. Anderson. The same director who would two years later direct a far better film, Event Horizon (2007), which has the unfortunate reputation of being a movie most people hate. Why did I watch Mortal Kombat…again? Two reasons. First, I needed something to write about for this column, and it just seemed fitting that a 20-year-old film from my childhood happened to be streaming on Netflix. Second, I wanted to re-experience something from my childhood to see how well it would hold up. An experiment, if you will. And while other films from the 90s (and 80s) have not so much held up as become interesting in other ways as a result of age, Mortal Kombat is one of those gems that, frankly, has always been ridiculous. I just couldn’t see it when I was 11.
(Trigger warning: this review involves discussion of sexual assault, trauma, and gender violence.) Two years after the release of his gritty and noisy murder-fest, The Driller Killer (1979), Abel Ferrara returned to the director’s helm with Ms. 45 (1981), a revenge “fantasy” film. Though Ms. 45 still demonstrates some of that rawness present in Ferrara’s first feature film production, it is by far a smoother film, making excellent use of its mostly unknown and untested cast, especially Zoë Lund, the protagonist from which the title, Ms. 45, gets its name. Of Ferrara’s early films, Ms. 45 is certainly the most compelling, if not because it is a tighter, thematically expedient production, then because of its somewhat brutal (and uncompromising) exposure of the sexist underbelly of NYC — a common theme, it seems, in Ferrara’s work.
