Well, first things first: we're sorry to have left all of you hanging. But as you all know, it aint over until the fat lady sings and we've been dealing out dieting recipes. This is our bon bons of the past year: that is, the best stuff from the movies we watched for Pod Hard in 2020. We list, among many things, best geezer alert, best taken aback-moments, best doll-action, best chase scenes, best camera techniques, best all around stunts and best douchebag behaviour from the hero. Thanks for li...
Jan 22, 2021•1 hr 16 min
Yeehaw! Pod Hard is finally trampling all over the western genre and starts off in the best possible way - by watching one of the all-time greats, John Ford's Stagecoach. Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist are instantly smitten with the iconic stock characters that share a ride through Apache territory in 1880 and applaud Ford for his flawless tension building. Orson Welles saw Stagecoach 40 times before directing Citizen Kane. This film was his film school! John Wayne is the original Arnold S...
Aug 14, 2020•46 min
Pod Hard is back... with another swashbuckler? Well, yes. But don't worry - The Prisoner of Zenda absolutely nails a key aspect of action films: the banter. The swordplay is okay at best, but the relentless and poisonous banter between Ronald Colman and Douglas Fairbanks Jr is simply tops. Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist discuss slippery handshakes, the opposite of baby skinned David Niven, how to hold a cigarette like a nazi officer, elevator gazes, the framing of castles and a geezer goin...
Aug 06, 2020•35 min
Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist celebrate the twentieth episode of English speaking Pod Hard with a swashbuckler-special! Three adventure movies directed by Michael Curtiz and starring Errol Flynn are on the menu today. To help seal the deal the Pod Hard-duo is accompanied by their first guest: Alex Rallo, better known as the enigmatic and all-knowing action connoisseur @HeadExposure on Twitter. Alex is a die hard fan of swashbucklers and brings class, wit and analytical prowess to the proc...
Jul 23, 2020•1 hr 31 min
Another musical? Has Pod Hard lost track of it's purpose, to investigate the evolution of the action genre and... oh wait, Fred Astaire is machine gunning down his entire entourage of background dancers while tap dancing the sound of the bullets? Carry on. Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist watch Top Hat, the perhaps best of the Fred Astaire & Ginger Rogers-pairing, and are once again energized by a zany musical with great character actors, funny dialogue and amazing dance numbers. The dyn...
Jul 15, 2020•37 min
Some say he's the best director of all time - but can he handle oneliners, epic brawls and gun ballets like a McTiernan or a Woo? Yes and no. Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist face off with their first Alfred Hitchcock-film in their ongoing quest through action movie history: The Man Who Knew Too Much. And while it certainly isn't one of the best flicks signed by the Master of Suspense it does have an absolutely fabulous scene where Leslie Banks is throwing chairs at villains while an old lad...
Jul 08, 2020•33 min
Film noir was "invented" in America in the 40s right? Well, it all depends on how you wanna define it. Some say the German Expressionism of the 20s was film noir in a sense, but one thing is for sure: Tomu Uchida's Keisatsukan (Police Man) is film noir. Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist watch a movie of two halves: the first a pedestrian insight into life as a police man in Japan during the 30s, the second a descent into sleuth territory. Isamu Kosugi's cop turns into Humphrey Bogart stalking...
Jul 04, 2020•38 min
Time to unleash the legs of Jimmy Cagney! Pod Hard-cicerons Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist watch their first musical in their ongoing quest through action film history and are utterly mesmerized by the insanity that is Footlight Parade. Cagney plays a theater director who start making prologues, small live musical numbers set before movies in cinemas. Everybody involved in the productions are fast-talking on a Groucho Marx- or Katharine Hepburn-level and zingers, comebacks and sexual innue...
Jun 26, 2020•27 min
It's time to pull out the big guns - in the form of one big-ass ape hell-bound for destruction! This week Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist watch one of the all-time classics: King Kong. The special effects may be a bit dated in some regards, but for the most part they hold up surprisingly well - as does the ingenius sound design. The main monkey is showing off a lot of emotions and nuanced character traits. Kong is idly checking out dead bodies, wrestles a T-Rex with the pizzazz of a showman...
Jun 15, 2020•37 min
Once upon a time, in the early 30s, gangster movies were all the rage. Tommy guns, the Chicago skyline and prohibition speakeasies filled the big screen as hardboiled men treated the world as their own personal oyster. In much the same vein Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist share their opinions on Scarface, the perhaps most "dangerous" of the early gangster movies. Paul Muni excels as the titular hoodlum in a performance that combines the mannerisms of Cosmo Kramer from Seinfeld and the Itali...
Jun 06, 2020•45 min
Pod Hard bid The Roaring Twenties a fond farvel as we move into the 1930s. Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist see their first sound film, the Howard Hughes-directed air battle-extravaganza that is Hell's Angels. Sure, the story is a drag and the two male actors playing the leads give the adjective "wooden" a bad name but Jean Harlow virtually explodes on screen in her first starring role and the action, the action is flabbergastingly good! We are treated to not only one, but TWO greatest-explo...
May 26, 2020•29 min
Bring out your lederhosen and your trusty pick axe - it's time to go mountain climbing with Pod Hard! Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist watch The White Hell of Pitz Palu (Die weiße Hölle vom Piz Palü), a bergfilme nowadays perhaps most known as a reference - and part of a cover story - in Inglorious Basterds. And it's a very odd movie, to be sure. Action fans might be disappointed as the movie in total only delivers around 10-15 seconds of undeniably great doll action in the Swiss mountains. ...
May 19, 2020•29 min
Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich sure know how to destroy large populated areas with computers, but when you need to wreck a town for real there's only one lunatic for the job: Buster Keaton. Steamboat Bill Jr is a powerhouse of a movie and utterly, utterly bonkers. Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist loose themselves in a discussion about stop and continue-pans, compare hands to toilet lids and reads way too much into facial hair. Meanwhile Buster pulls out all the stops as he glides through th...
May 12, 2020•1 hr 52 min
Up, up and away! Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist reach for the sky in this episode of Pod Hard. The first ever Oscar-winner for best picture, Wings, soars high above the rest of the action films of 1927 with spectacular dog fights, ingenious camera movements and daredevil movie making at the forefront. The film also include a (serial) killer impression of Crispin Glover, a bromance turning gaymance, an American flag on a trembling biceps, Clara Bow playing hide and seek with German bombers,...
May 07, 2020•48 min
Silent movies sure love their trains. So when Pod Hard reach the year 1926 Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist come face to cowcatcher with the train movie to rule all train movies - Buster Keaton's The General. The podcasting duo battle each other for the fanciest superlatives when describing this masterpiece, talk about how the curves of the railroad tracks sets up for one of the most impressive shots within a shot in movie history, discuss the gliding capacity of Buster Keaton and desperatel...
Apr 28, 2020•1 hr 23 min
What do you get if you add some under-cranked action footage of samurai warriors moving in unison, staccato-like editing of emotional turmoil, a camera moving away from the fight with everybody chasing after and the presence of fear and respect amongst the participants to one and the same movie reel? Well, first and foremost you'll get some good stuff in your hands - and you're most likely watching Japanese samurai flick Orochi (The Serpent). Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist discuss this del...
Apr 20, 2020•40 min
Silent movies - a bore? Prepared to get schooled! Jonas Högberg and Anders Hultqvist are flabbergasted. Never would the podcasting duo have imagined such heights for action cinema as they are confronted with when watching Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr and Harold Lloyd's Girl Shy in this episode of Pod Hard. One thing's for sure: all the people making lists about the best chase scenes in movie history have apparently not watched any 1924-flicks! Buster is riding a motorcycle sitting on the steering...
Apr 07, 2020•1 hr
Move aside! The comedy giants of the 20s are back with a vengeance when Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist turn the clock forward to 1923. Harold Lloyd is climbing buildings, Buster Keaton is leaping off of them. In this episode of Pod Hard Lloyd's Safety Last and Keaton's Our Hospitality form a highly enjoyable double feature filled with real perils high above street level in skyscraper town and in the wild rapids of the West. Buster Keaton's father show off his kung fu-skills, an old geezer ...
Mar 28, 2020•37 min
Disappointment cradles Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist in this week's episode of Pod Hard. 1922 isn't a great year for action. Not even the loopy mad-man Douglas Fairbanks is able to save the day with his adaptation of Robin Hood. Some fancy fencing and drawbridge-climbing aside, it's a spectacularly boring movie. Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd isn't up to par either. Apart from the beautiful finishing brawl in Lloyd's Grandma's Boy there's simply too much plodding plotting going on. But wa...
Mar 17, 2020•45 min
Take note, action movie-buffs, in the year 1921 a movie called Action was made! Unfortunately it appears to be lost, which means Jonas Högberg and Anders Hultqvist turn their scrutinizing gaze to Douglas Fairbanks and his swashbuckling ways yet again. The Three Musketeers is the feature of the week as Pod Hard keep steaming on through cinema history, chasing pratfalls and fisticuffs. Harold Lloyd's Never Weaken, Buster Keaton's The Goat and Shōzō Makino's Gōketsu Jiraiya provide some silly extra...
Mar 08, 2020•1 hr 8 min
Finally, Pod Hard has reached the roaring twenties in tracing the roots of action movie history, and 1920 should be considered a seminal year for action aficionados. Buster Keaton becomes a leading man, producing and directing intricate set piece-driven comedy and Douglas Fairbanks enters his swashbuckling phase with gusto. One man is a stone face devoid of emotion, the other all smiles and grins. Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist watches One Week and The Mark of Zorro, reporting on the actio...
Feb 24, 2020•35 min
Get ready for a jam packed episode on the origin of action cinema as Pod Hard panelists Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist tear into the 1910s. People are now truly getting the hang of things like editing, pacing, set building and camera placements - and are doing crazy ass stunts. Especially women! The trains are out of control but pioneering stunt bad asses Helen Holmes, Pearl White, Anna Q Nilsson and Gene Gauntier know how to quickly adapt to dangerous situations. Comedian legends Roscoe A...
Feb 14, 2020•52 min
What happens in Sweden stays in Sweden... until now. The fine fellows producing Pod Hard, a podcast about action movies, have started using their vocal cords in an anglo-saxon way. Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist have also made a small reboot to their style and will be tracing the history of action movie cinema for quite some time going forward. In this first episode we are dialing the clock all the way back to the 1800s, discussing photographic guns, fence jumping pumpkins, Michael Bay-pre...
Jan 24, 2020•39 min
THIS IS FOR THE FANS! Pod Hard vinkar hej då till 2019 på bästa sätt - med en mustig podd om decenniets bästa actionfilmer och en hel rad årsbästalistor om filmerna som Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist sett under året som gått. Detta inkluderar klassiska listor som Bästa Douchebagbeteende Från Hjälten, men mestadels nytt trams som Bästa Skurkar Som Bevisar Sin Skurkighet, Bästa Weapon Unleashed, Bästa Jacka och Bästa Bomb I Brallan. Förutom allt detta trevliga spoilar Pod Hard-duon sin nya p...
Dec 29, 2019•1 hr 56 min
PLAYTIME #3! Jonas Högberg och Anders Hultqvist saliverar som St Bernhard-hundar i veckans avsnitt av Pod Hard. På menyn hittar vi nämligen en av tidernas fetaste actionfilmer: Aliens. Anders hyllar James Cameron för att han monterar åtminstone sina 80-talsfilmer med tydligt definierade byggklossar och är så förtjust i Sigourney Weavers leading lady-egenskaper att han kan tänka sig att byta ut alla andra skådespelare mot The Rock. Jonas beskriver Alien som teoretisk kurragömma och Aliens som tri...
Nov 21, 2019•1 hr 5 min
PLAYTIME #2! Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist fortsätter att se filmer med leksugna individer, den här veckan The Hitcher, en skräckaction som heter duga med en Rutger Hauer i sitt livs roll. Följ med när oskuldsfulle ynglingen C. Thomas Howell plockar upp Hauer en stormig natt och får sitt liv förstört de kommande dagarna. Filmen bär på en drömsk kvalité - samtidigt som den levererar feta biljakter med Terminator-minnande tunggung. Rutger Hauer har en närvaro som ingen annan, blir motiverad...
Nov 14, 2019•44 min
PLAYTIME #1! Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist betar av en riktig klassiker i veckans avsnitt av Pod Hard: The Warriors. En gång i tiden spred den här serietidningsinspirerade tappningen av gängkrigen i New York både moralpanik och genuin panik i takt med att riktiga gäng besökte biograferna för att se sig själva porträtterade på vita duken. Nu för tiden är det svårt att inte skratta åt de ganska töntiga typer som Coney Island-gänget The Warriors möter på sin nattliga färd hem från ett urspår...
Nov 08, 2019•39 min
PLATTAN I MATTAN #5! Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist tar den här veckan sig an en riktig klassiker i bilfilmsgenren: Vanishing Point. En film om en man som beslutar sig för att köra bil snyggt och snabbt och inte stanna för nån. Eftersom det är en 70-talsrulle blir det en hel del krängande karosser, dammoln, skuttande bilar, värmedaller och romantiska landskap - och faktiskt inte sådär jättemycket action. Anders är klart besviken och tampas irriterat med ett par bångstyriga allegorier som h...
Oct 17, 2019•30 min
BUDDY BADTOBER #1! Det är Nobelpris-tider, vilket gör att Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist kan kosta på sig ett par tre stycken "äntligen!". Äntligen en 70-talsrulle i podden igen! Äntligen en film med lite skönt häng igen! Äntligen gör Clint Eastwood entré i Pod Hard! Thunderbolt and Lightfoot är en film i samma anda som Pod Hard-favoriten Freebie and the Bean, och märkligt nog kom båda filmerna samma år, 1974. Clintan spelar en förbrytare som ligger lågt efter ett uppmärksammat bankrån. Je...
Oct 11, 2019•43 min
SPELFILM #5! "Det finns inte en enda film baserat på ett tv-spel som faktiskt är bra", är en generell åsikt som folk gärna viftar med när fenomenet ska diskuteras. Men Jonas Högberg & Anders Hultqvist vet bättre. I veckans avsnitt ser Pod Hard-duon Hong Kong-rullen Future Cops och fäktas om att fyra av de allra mest positiva superlativen när de återberättar den utflippade handlingen. Future Cops är en mycket märklig icke-officiell filmatisering av Street Fighter-spelen som saknar all rim och...
Oct 04, 2019•44 min
