DAC Episode 341 - Steve Jobs (2015)
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Is there anyone on Earth who looks less like Apple founder Steve Jobs than Michael Fassbender? Scientifically speaking, no. Researchers have identified several species of paramecia that bear a greater resemblance to Jobs than Fassbender. Nevertheless, Fassbender radiates a kind of blinkered intensity that could only belong to a monomaniac on Jobs’ scale. Pair that with Sorkin’s script and it makes for a surprisingly gripping and focused portrait of obsession. Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.
DAC Episode 340 - The Founder (2016)
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a live dog who should have been a dead lion.
Who would have thought to make a movie about Ray Kroc, a man with the personality of a Big Mac wrapper? The people who made The Founder, I guess.
DAC Episode 339 - The American President (1995)
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sigh.
Here’s Adam and Aidan attempting to square their love of Aaron Sorkin with 1995’s The American President, a movie in which Michael Douglas plays the very best president. He’s almost brought low, but he fixes his problems by giving a big impromptu speech at the end, restoring America’s virility in the process. Is this podcast an autopsy? Therapy? Listen below (or find us on your podcatcher of choice) and decide for yourselves.
DAC Episode 338 - The Long Kiss Goodnight (1996)
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a dead lion reborn in the body of a live dog
Imagine a world in which Geena Davis became a bad-ass ‘90s action star. The Long Kiss Goodnight is like a dream of that world. And brother, it’s a pretty good dream. Listen below, or find us wherever your podcasts roam free.
DAC Episode 337 - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
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four live dogs in a galaxy of dead lions.
One thing in the universe, besides death, is certain: there can be no final form of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. The story has existed as a radio play, a series of novels, a television show, and a feature film. The 2005 movie has its defenders (one of whom is named Adam P Knave) and mortal enemies (one of whom is named Aidan Morgan). Listen below as they gently push back at each other’s opinions! If you’re still undecided on the quality of the film, you can go and watch it for yourself - but Aidan would advise against it.
DAC Episode 336 - Jason X (2001)
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That’s one live dog right there facing off with two virtual lions.
Every so often, a movie comes along that so perfectly embodies the moment of its release that it should be taught in history courses as the purest emanation of a given age. Such a movie is Jason X, a movie so 2001 that Stanley Kubrick is lucky he never lived to see it. A space ship with an interior that looks suspiciously like a Laser Quest franchise, populated by hot people in improbable knitwear getups? Hell yes. It’s the turn of the millennium, people. It’s time to take our horror franchises into space on a reasonable budget. Listen below as Aidan and Adam enjoy the hell out of themselves.
Also, there’s a David Cronenberg cameo. I don’t know what else you want from a movie.
DAC Episode 335 - Michael Clayton (2007)
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she’s fucked. she’s so fucked.
Spoiler alert: Karen Crowder (Tilda Swinton) is fucked. She’s so fucked. Michael Clayton (George Clooney) isn’t the guy you kill. He’s the guy you buy. If this movie is about any one thing in particular, beyond the moral abyss of corporations and the ways in which community and meaning will pop up like connected air sacs on a sheet of bubble wrap, it’s about the wisdom of proportionate response. You can’t kill Michael Clayton because his kind is unkillable. He’s an interchangeable part of the machine. And if you don’t get that? If you push the Michael Claytons out of the moral abyss and leave him on the lip, casting his eyes around as he remembers the truth of humanity? Then you’re fucked. You’re so fucked.
DAC Episode 334 - Three Days of the Condor (1975)
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It’s time for Three Days of the Condor, Sydney Pollack’s masterpiece of Cold War paranoia, a film which suggests that mild-mannered English majors can hold their own in a cat-and-mouse spy game - if they look like Robert Redford, that is. Listen to Adam and Aidan as they dissect the politics of their childhoods and place bets on how long they’d survive if Max von Sydow tried to murder them.
DAC Episode 333 - Destroy All Connors! #6 - Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
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never has a live dog live dogged more.
Hold on a moment. Did they make a decent Terminator sequel, at long, long last? Well, kind of. It’s largely great! Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzenegger are back, Mackenzie Davis is great as always, Diego Luna makes for a great robot. Even Natalie Reyes, who takes a bit of a back seat in the midst of all this nostalgic star power, acquits herself well.
No amount of quality was going to rescue Terminator: Dark Fate, which tanked at the box office and seemed to hand reactionary fodder over to the Dipshitosphere. Nonetheless, we talk about the highs and lows as the Terminator story draws to a close. Until the next time someone tries to kick at this metallic can. Listen below or find us on your podmachine of choice.
DAC Episode 332 - Destroy All Connors! #5 - Terminator: Genisys (2015)
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whatever.
Ahahahaha. This movie sucked.
“But,” you ask, “how exactly did it suck? Was it an earnest attempt to reboot the franchise with yet another trilogy-starter? (yes) Was it an egregiously miscast snorefest that tried to hit all points on the graph but somehow missed every single one? (yes) Did it convince you that Skynet is Genisys? (no, Skynet is Matt Smith) Is it a fact in the movie that Sarah Connor’s father used to take her to a concrete bunker under a bridge? (yes) Is that bizarre fact ever explained or explored?” (no)
Glad you asked that very long-winded multi-part question. Listen below for the answers, or find us on your podcast machine of choice.
DAC Episode 331 - Destroy All Connors! #4: Terminator Salvation (2009)
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hello domino’s? Do you deliver to the apocalypse?
Hey! Who wants a new Terminator movie? It’s got everything! It’s got the original T-800… with Arnold’s face CGI’d onto a bodybuilder. It’s got Sarah Connor… on a series of audio cassettes. And it’s got John Connor - in several scenes! Oh, and Kyle Reese pops up. But most importantly, it’s got *checks notes* fan favourite Marcus Wright, played by Sam Worthington. Who’s Marcus Wright? Oh, I thought you were a real Terminator fan. You could be forgiven for not hearing about Wright, because this is the first time the character’s appeared in the franchise. He’s the main character.
Oh yeah! Terminator Salvation is the story of Marcus Wright, a guy who was sentenced to death before the Machine-Human War but finds himself mysteriously alive in the future. Who is he? Really? Who is Marcus Wright? I hope you’re invested in the answer to that question, because that’s what you’re getting in Terminator Salvation. Listen below or find us on your podcaster of choice.
DAC Episode 330 - Destroy All Connors! #3: Terminator 3 (2003)
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one lion soon to die, one cyborg, one live dog.
It’s time to answer everyone’s questions about Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Do you have any questions about Terminator 3, aside from Why was this made? and Where’s Linda Hamilton? There’s a small chance we might have the answer. Listen below or find us on your podnabber of choice.
DAC Episode 329 - Destroy All Connors! #2: Terminator 2 (1991)
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a live dog in a world of soon-to-be-dead lions.
What is there to say at this point about Terminator 2: Judgment Day? That it’s a big ole crowd pleaser that updates the Wallace Beery wrestling pic for the ‘90s? That its florid sentimentality is the key to its success? That it’s a hell of a lot of fun? Maybe there’s nothing more to say, but we spend a solid hour saying it anyway on this week’s podcast. Stick around for the Destroy All Culture definitive ranking of all the Terminator films we’ve watched so far!
Next up: Terminator 3: Rise of the MacHines.
DAC Episode 328 - Destroy All Connors! #1: The Terminator (1984)
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an undead lion.
Welcome to Destroy All Connors!, a DAC mini-series that looks at the Terminator franchise.
One morning in Rome in 1981, James Cameron woke from feverish nightmares. In his dream, a chrome skeleton emerged from flames. He started sketching his dream on hotel stationery. Three years later came The Terminator, a lean and twisty sci-fi horror about a young woman being stalked by a metal nightmare in human skin from the future.
Adam and Aidan talk at length about the movie, including the accusations from Harlan Ellison that Cameron had ripped off an episode of The Outer Limits called “Soldier” (Aidan actually watched the episode in question, and he is here to tell you that Cameron’s movie does not involve a kindly philologist taking in a confused soldier from the future). Listen below or find us on your podcatcher of choice.
DAC Episode 327 - The Random Canon #54 - Under Siege (1992)
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something about live dogs and dead lions here. i don’t know.
Before we recorded this podcast, Adam promised to lead with a question that he promised would ruin my enjoyment of the movie. Little did he know that his question would actually UNCOVER THE KEY TO THIS MOVIE’S GREATNESS.
What is it that makes 1992’s Under Siege great? Is it the dolphin in that one shot from the opening sequence? Gary Busey in drag? The movie’s acknowledgment that the ideological void left by the end of the Cold War would be replaced not by a coherent vision of the global order but by hucksters willing to use the language of utopian ideals to cover up their crimes? Is it the idea that Steven Seagal is as good at making bouillabaisse as he is at driving knives through the lymph nodes of mercenaries? Listen below, or find us on your podcatcher of choice, to find out!
DAC Episode 326 - The Random Canon #53: Johnny Dangerously (1984)
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whatever.
In every life, some rain must fall. In every movie podcast, a Johnny Dangerously is going to happen. This is the movie that fueled a thousand dirty jokes for 12 year old boys in the ‘80s. Adam and Aidan discuss what works, what doesn’t, and why it was they decided to watch it in the first place. Listen below or find us on your podcatcher of choice.
