DAC Episode 321 - The Random Canon #48: Robot Jox (1989)

they are dead. they are robot jox! but they’re also live dogs.

What happens when you finally allow D.J. Kirkbride on the podcast? According to his rider, all Kirkbride appearances must be accompanied by a discussion of Stuart Gordon’s 1989 mecha-magnum opus Robot Jox. Written by Joe Haldeman, Robot Jox is a strange remix of The Iliad, but with robots and vat-grown humans. Would Homer, given the opportunity, have called his epic poem Robot Jox? We think yes. Listen below or find us on your giant mecha podcaster of choice.

DAC Episode 320 - The Random Canon #47: A Life Less Ordinary (1997)

why is that hair.

What do you when you’re coming off of a run of excellent films, including the nastiest low-budget crime thriller of the ‘90s and a generational cri de coeur about heroin use and Edinburgh street life? Well, you go a wee bit radge and end up making A Life Less Ordinary. Is it a crime thriller? A rom-com? A thesis on the nature of love? A comedy about angels trying to steer a couple towards true love? Sure, why now. Mostly remembered for Ewan MacGregor’s unflattering haircut and a Claymation ending that wraps up a loose plot point, it’s a fascinating and not uncharming misfire from Danny Boyle and John Hodge. Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.

DAC Episode 319 - The Random Canon #46: Hudson Hawk (1991)

what a live, live dog is this hawk.

What happens when newly-minted superstar Bruce Willis decides to co-write a screenplay? You get… Hudson Hawk, an unhinged live-action cartoon that feels like the spirit of Max Fleischer inhabiting a ‘90s action movie. What the hell is Richard E. Grant doing in this? What is Sandra Bernhard doing? What in god’s name is David Caruso doing? Why does Andie MacDowell spend so much time doing a dolphin impersonation? This freaking movie, man.

Listen below or sing along on your podcatcher of choice as Adam and Aidan shake their collective heads and bask in the over-the-top glory that is Hudson Hawk.

DAC Episode 318 - The Random Canon #45: Nashville (1975)

a dead lion singing about live dogs.

Part of the Robert Altman subset of The Random Canon, Nashville may be Robert Altman’s masterpiece. Adam and Aidan barely make a dent in this freewheeling, twang-heavy apotheosis of Altman’s attempt to capture substance through his particular style. Listen below or find us on your podplucker of choice.

DAC Episode 317 - The Random Canon #44: Strange Days (1995)

the livest and coolest of dogs from strange days (1995).

Hello friends, and welcome to Destroy All Culture, newly conceived as an Angela Bassett stan podcast. From here on out, even when we’re not talking about Bassett’s performance in Strange Days, that will be the subtext.

Nonetheless, there are all sorts of non-Bassett things in Strange Days we’ll be discussing, such as other performances, script, shooting, mise-en-scène, music, and so on. Come with us as Adam tries to calm Aidan down about Angela Bassett. Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.

DAC Episode 316 - The Random Canon #43: The Hidden (1987)

a live dog dealing with a soon-to-be-dead lion.

Welcome to one of Aidan’s favourite ‘80s cult sci-fi films. Also, welcome to an hour of Aidan trying to persuade Adam that The Hidden is a worthy addition to the canon of ‘80s cult sci-fi films. Is he successful? Spoiler alert: sorta.

Unfortunately for Adam, he’s not the one who does these writeups. The Hidden is a weird, rough gem of a movie that packs in gooey alien special effects with a pointed critique of Reagan-era greed and consumerism. You should watch this movie every Christmas with your family.

ADAM [imagined]: This movie was okay but it was derivative and kind of dumb. It looked like the filmmakers wanted to make a Terminator knockoff that was also a Thing knockoff, so I guess they succeeded?

AIDAN: You aren’t the real Adam so I win this argument. The Hidden rules.

ADAM [imagined] Foiled again or something.

AIDAN: Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.

DAC Episode 315 - The Random Canon #42: The Paper (1994)

now there’s a live dog.

Do you like relentless images of clocks? Are you looking for a movie obsessed with the minute details of printing presses? Are you nostalgic for a time when newspapers had their own printing presses? Are you nostalgic for a time when people read newspapers and didn’t get their worldview from @queefbugler420? If so, may we recommend Ron Howard’s The Paper? It has all these things and more (more meaning Michael Keaton, Robert Duvall, Glenn Close, Randy Quaid, Marisa Tomei, and every character actor ever assembled from the mid ‘90s). Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.

DAC Episode 314 - Season Two of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Ranked

one day to be a dead lion, but for now, a live dog.

Get hype! Get ranked! Adam and Aidan are laying out season two of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds on the table and sorting them out. It was an astonishingly strong season, but rankings by internet randos are a necessary and brutal process. Which one is best? Which ones didn’t quite work? You will know the definitive answer if you listen below, or find us on your pod emanator of choice.

DAC Episode 313 - The Random Canon #41: The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988)

in matters animal, vegetable and mineral, he is the very model of a modern live dog.

In 1988, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen was released, and the world would never be particularly different afterwards. One of the shaggiest of Terry Gilliam’s shaggy dog stories, the movie gained notoriety for its troubled production and its callous treatment of Sarah Polley. Adam and Aidan go over the highs and lows of one of Aidan’s favourite films from the late ‘80s. Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.

DAC Episode 312 - The Random Canon #40: Airheads (1994)

dudes rock, 1994

Who can argue with the sublime stupidity of Airheads? Michael Lehmann’s heavy metal update of Dog Day Afternoon (Rod-ney-King! Rod-ney-King!) is certainly not a masterpiece, but there are some inspired moments of goofiness, as well as committed performance from Brendan Fraser. Let’s get a petition for a cut without Michael Richards climbing through the vents in a lame Die Hard parody.

DAC Episode 311 - The Random Canon #39 - Johnny Mnemonic in Black and White (1995/2021)

tfw you’re about to hitch a ride on the information superhighway.

In the spring of 1995, Johnny Mnemonic was released on an unready world as a would-be blockbuster. Instead, what the public got was a B-movie with arthouse sensibilities buried under beams of neon and plumes of fog. In 2021, director Robert Longo released a black and white cut of the film, unchanged except for a careful colour grading that turned its clanky ‘90s aesthetic into an alternate future noir. What other movie features a cybernetically enhanced dolphin and Dolph Lundgren as a deranged assassin-monk? No other movie but Johnny Mnemonic. In black and white.

DAC Episode 310 - The Random Canon #38 - Broadcast News (1987)

two live dogs, but sometimes you kind of wish albert brooks’ character was a dead lion.

Hollywood loves taking apart the business of moviemaking, but satires on broadcast journalism are relatively scant. But who needs quantity when you’ve got Broadcast News? Holly Hunter, Albert Brooks and William Hurt play the world’s most toxic throuple* as the storms of Reagan-era economics start bashing network television news against the rocks. Listen below or find us on your podcatcher of choice, which is a sentene that the characters in Broadcast News could not imagine saying.

*Okay, it’s a love triangle, not a throuple. Let me have my dreams, people. They’re all I’ve got left.

DAC Episode 309: The Random Canon #37 - Get Shorty (1995)

remember when travolta was cool? i do.

The movie that poured a bottle of Perrier on the Elmore Leonard adaptation drought, Get Shorty is still one of the funniest and sharpest Hollywood satires ever made. Adam and Aidan make a case for why you should stop listening to them and just watch the movie. But if you’re determined to hear our thoughts on the matter, listen below or find us on your Applecaster of choice.

DAC Episode 308: The Random Canon #36 - Mississippi Grind (2015)

a dead lion and a live dog. or maybe it’s the other way round.

Hey folks! Ever wanted to watch California Split, but you’re barred by law from looking at George Segal’s face? Well, your horse has come in, because Ryan Boden and Anna Fleck made Mississippi Grind for just such an occasion. Adam and Aidan dig into this odd, dreamy character study about two gamblers who team up and head down to Mississippi for the score that will redeem their debts and wipe away all their problems. Just kidding, they can’t escape their problems. They’re their own worst problem. Listen below, or find us in that great Apple Podcast in the sky.

DAC Episode 307: The Random Canon #35 - Hook (1991)

julia roberts wishing she was not in hook (1991)

In 1991, I saw Hook. I did not like it. In 2023, I saw Hook and did not like it again, but with the benefit of 32 years of experience and maturity, I found myself not liking it for different reasons. Despite my undying film snobbery, though, there are genuinely enjoyable moments in this strange tunneling into the anarchic joys of childhood. One thing’s for sure: Dustin Hoffman being mean to children will never get old. Listen below or rustle up an Apple Podcast for yourself.

DAC Episode 306: The Random Canon #34 - Sneakers (1992)

live dogs, each and every one.

Some movies are perfect. Some movies have the coolest cast ever assembled. Some movies feature a Cray supercomputer hanging out in the background as a piece of set design. Sneakers is one of those movies. Listen below or Apple yourself a Podcasts.

DAC Episode 305: The Random Canon #33 - Miracle Mile (1988)

collect call from a dead lion, will you accept the charges? the charges are nuclear apocalypse btw

If your child ever says to you: “Mommy/Daddy, what’s a cult movie?” you can pop out a Blu-ray of Miracle Mile. Like so many other movies we’ve talked about on Destroy All Culture, Miracle Mile largely takes place over the course of a single night, as Harry Washello (Anthony Edwards) attempts to flee the city with the girl of his dreams, Julie Peters (Mare Winningham). Why are they trying to get out? That’s both a spoiler and a twist that turns Miracle Mile from a meet-cute LA rom-com into a dread-soaked nightmare. Or it may just be a misguided tourism video for the La Brea Tar Pits. Who knows? Listen below or do the Apple Podcasts thing you do so well.

DAC Episode 304: The Random Canon #32 - The Rocketeer (1991)

tfw you look out the window of the plane and you see a live dog

Nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be. On this week’s episode, Adam and Aidan talk about the strange and brilliant The Rocketeer - a movie that whiffed at the box office but has undergone a critical and popular reappraisal over the years. It’s like Master and Commander, if Russell Crowe had a jetpack and Paul Bettany was a struggling actress. Listen below or find us on Apple Podcasts or, as they say, wherever you get those dadgum things.

DAC Episode 303: The Random Canon #31 - Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)

one live dog and one dead lion in a movie that valorizes dead lionhood.

For a certain demographic (Gen X and elder millennial men, I suppose), Master and Commander is a source of great pleasure. Maybe it’s the camaraderie between British tars (soaring souls, free as mountain birds etc.), the careful replication of shipboard conditions, the tense naval battles, or the joke about the lesser of two weevils (the best scene in the film by a nautical mile).

Or maybe they enjoy the way Russell Crowe squatted down over this movie and smeared his titanic ego over every frame. Don’t like it? Toe the line, nerd, we’re fighting the French. Listen below or spot us in dense fog with the podscope of your choice.

DAC Episode 302: The Random Canon #30 - Dora and The Lost City of Gold (2019)

Live dog, no dead lioning.

Welcome to a lighthearted about a tragically deluded young girl who speaks to an imaginary audience and is clearly in need of institutional hel- WAIT EVERYONE ELSE CAN SEE THAT FOX? WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?

Casual listeners may wonder why two grown men are sitting down to talk about the live-action adaptation of Dora The Explorer. The first reason is that Adam kept assuring Aidan that it was worth watching. The second reason is: this movie is an insidious attack on our basic categories of reality. Dora is not an enthusiastic and slightly unhinged young woman who believes that an unseen audience needs help with basic Spanish; she is an object of imaginative quantum mass that distorts reality around her. Magic temples, musical numbers and talking foxes are all par for the course when she enters the scene. Anyway, listen below or find us on a lost iTune, somewhere in the heart of a dense internet.