Episode 292. In preparation for Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, we caught up on the trilogy of Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011), Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014), and War for the Planet of the Apes (2017). These films act as a prequel to the original 1968 movie, showing how apes gained human intelligence and eventually drove humans out of their civilization. We discuss the sub-genres in each movie, from prison break to political thriller, the impressive mo-cap performances and thoug...
May 08, 2024•1 hr 30 min•Season 7Ep. 292
Episode 291. We conclude Apple April by watching season one of the Apple TV+ espionage drama, Slow Horses. MI5 agents who have notorious failures but who aren't incompetent enough to be fired are demoted to Slough House, an outpost where they do menial tasks under the command of the misanthropic Jackson Lamb. This team of misfits has a chance to prove themselves when they stumble upon a kidnapping conspiracy that may have been orchestrated by one of their own M15 bosses. We discuss how the show ...
Apr 24, 2024•1 hr 21 min•Season 7Ep. 291
Episode 290. It's Apple April, where we're exploring content from Apple TV+. This week is the first season of Hello Tomorrow!, a 2023 workplace dramedy set in a retro-futuristic world. Jack Billings left his family behind to become a traveling salesman for Brightside, a timeshare development on the moon. When his son unknowingly attends one of his sales seminars, he decides to take the boy under his wing as a new employee, waiting until the right moment to reveal that he's his long-absent father...
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr 44 min•Season 7Ep. 290
Episode 289. We're discussing Jordan Peele's 2019 horror film Us, about a family whose beach house is invaded by horrifying dopplegangers of themselves, after the mother survived an encounter with one of them when she was younger. We discuss the puzzling origin of these doubles and the unnerving abruptness of the movie's ending, dream logic, liminal spaces, and buff nerds. Click here to watch a video of this episode. (00:00) - Intro (00:04) - Welcome and banter (01:35) - Non-spoiler thoughts on ...
Mar 27, 2024•1 hr 26 min•Season 7Ep. 289
Episode 288. Friend of the show and master of electricity Ignacio Rojas joins us to talk about Weathering With You, a 2019 anime movie from director Makoto Shinkai. 15-year-old Hodaka runs away from home to start a new life in Tokyo, where he meets Hina, another teenager working to support herself and her kid brother. Hina is secretly a "sunshine girl" who can summon the sun and banish clouds, which the two use to earn money during an intensely rainy season, but the power could cost Hina her lif...
Mar 13, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Season 7Ep. 288
Episode 287. We read the 12-issue DC limited series The Human Target, from writer Tom King and artist Greg Smallwood. Christopher Chance is the Human Target, a secret operative you can hire to masquerade as you and take the hits from your enemies. He drinks a poison meant for Lex Luthor and has only 12 days left to live. He's determined to use this time to solve who is behind this assassination attempt, and all signs point to a member of the Justice League International. We discuss how much DC k...
Feb 28, 2024•1 hr 28 min•Season 7Ep. 287
Episode 286. We watched the 1985 detective show Moonlighting, an early "dramedy" and legend in will-they-won't-they romance. After a crooked accountant steals her money, former supermodel Maddie Hayes bets everything on her one remaining business asset, a small detective agency. She teams up with the goofy but effective PI David Addison, and the two bicker and flirt while solving a variety of odd crimes. We discuss the jarring shifts from poignant drama to screwball comedy, the receptionist who ...
Feb 14, 2024•1 hr 36 min•Season 7Ep. 286
Episode 285. We watched season one of the Netflix animated series Blue Eye Samurai. At the time when baby Mizu was born with blue eyes, all outsiders were banned from Japan and the only white men known to be in the country were heinous criminals. After growing up an outcast, Mizu is now an adult trained in the sword, determined to find and kill those men. We discuss the impressive fight choreography, the surprising amount of blood and sex, horny poetry, and characters with speech impediments. Cl...
Jan 31, 2024•1 hr 29 min•Season 7Ep. 285
Episode 284. The Whatnauts answer the call to discuss all four movies under the Ghostbusters banner: the 1984 original, the 1989 sequel, the 2016 soft remake, and the 2021 "rebootquel" Ghostbusters: Afterlife. We discuss how the franchise has always appealed to children even when it wasn't made for them, how anyone can become a ghostbuster, city pride, spooky paintings, when do homages start to feel repetitive, Stephen King vibes, and what we want to see from the new Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire ...
Jan 17, 2024•2 hr 1 min•Season 7Ep. 284
Join us for the 8th anniversary retrospective, which we've now declared will be called a Grand Prix! Just try to stop us!! Kyle and Melissa gather for our annual pizza awards banquet for favorite Review Show topics, best performances, biggest surprises, and for the first time ever, a two-time Dream Date winner. We also debut a new structure for the Review Show and Captain's Log starting in 2024! Master of electricity Ignacio joins us for a rousing discussion on southern California theme parks, a...
Dec 20, 2023•2 hr 34 min
Episode 283. Happy holidays! We're ending the year by watching a two-part Christmas special from the animated family sitcom Bob's Burgers: season 8 episodes 6 and 7, titled "The Bleakening." When the family's Christmas tree is stolen from a party at their restaurant, Linda and Bob search for the culprit to get their kids' handmade ornaments back, while the kids suspect an anti-Santa known as the "Bleaken," who will prevent them from getting any presents. We discuss Linda's sincere love for the c...
Dec 13, 2023•45 min•Season 6Ep. 283
Episode 282. Somebody stop us! We're talking about the 1994 living cartoon that is The Mask. Stanley Ipkiss is a hapless pushover who discovers a mask that, according to the original DVD packaging, "brings his innermost desires to wild, screaming life!" We discuss the Looney Tunes antics, impossible pajamas, piles of loose cash, the discovery of Cameron Diaz, and the '90s and early 2000s run of pulp stories harkening back to the '30s and '40s. Click here to watch a video of this episode. (00:00)...
Dec 08, 2023•1 hr 32 min•Season 6Ep. 282
Episode 281. We conclude our discussion on the original Hellboy comics, covering volumes 10-12, where Hellboy has to finally face his world-changing destiny and pay the ultimate price to stop others from using him in their malevolent plans. We discuss the one-shot stories bringing Hellboy to luchador matches in Mexico and the haunted woods of Appalachia, what the devil looks like if Hellboy has already taken the classic devil look, and how having your heart ripped from your chest generally means...
Nov 29, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Season 6Ep. 281
Episode 280. We had an A+ time with this B-movie, Brendan Steere's 2017 bad-on-purpose creature feature The VelociPastor. After priest Doug Jones sees his parents die in a car fire, he travels to China to clear his head, and encounters a mystical artifact that turns him into a velociraptor. He decides to use this power for good, ridding his city of drug dealers and ninjas. We discuss the moments of genuinely interesting film technique, calling a man younger than you "son," our admiration for Car...
Nov 22, 2023•1 hr 31 min•Season 6Ep. 280
Episode 279. We watched the puzzling 2019 neo-noir film Under the Silver Lake, written and directed by David Robert Mitchell. Sam is an aimless slacker who falls for a cute new neighbor, and after he finds her apartment suddenly vacated, he becomes determined to find the missing girl. A series of cryptic clues leads him through LA's hipster party scene all the way to a conspiracy in the shadowy upper echelons of society. We discuss the detailed codes and easter eggs hidden in the film, Andrew Ga...
Nov 15, 2023•1 hr 59 min•Season 6Ep. 279
Episode 278. We watched the 1966 Ingmar Bergman film Persona. A young nurse is hired to care for an actress who went mute after a breakdown. The two go to a secluded beach house to recuperate, with the nurse constantly talking in hopes of coaxing her patient out of this psychosomatic state, while the identities of the two women start to blur. We discuss the avant garde imagery, the unnervingly sparse settings, and who that mysterious boy is supposed to represent. Click here to watch a video of t...
Nov 08, 2023•1 hr 28 min•Season 6Ep. 278
Episode 277. Happy "Helloween" as we continue discussing the adventures of our pal Hellboy, with volumes 7-9 from writer Mike Mignola and new artist Duncan Fegredo. Old foes return to strike at Hellboy, and he learns surprising secrets about the human half of his lineage. We discuss the introduction of mainstream King Arthur mythology into this series based on more obscure folklore, making out with a goat, and crashing on a ghost's couch. Click here to watch a video of this episode. ★ Support th...
Oct 30, 2023•1 hr 16 min•Season 6Ep. 277
Episode 276. We watched season one of the 2017 Netflix crime thriller Mindhunter, based on true events. In 1977, the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit begins a groundbreaking study into serial killers, traveling the country to interview incarcerated murderers to learn more about their patterns and processes, in the hopes of identifying future killers and stopping them before they start. We discuss the show's own haunting and darkly comedic patterns, making friends with the abyss, and exploding birds...
Oct 24, 2023•1 hr 55 min•Season 6Ep. 276
Episode 275. We watched the 1998 horror movie The Faculty, from writer Kevin Williamson and director Robert Rodriguez. A mis-matched crew of high school students come together when they suspect their teachers are being taken over by aliens, and they need to use a popular new homebrewed drug to kill the alien queen and save those who have been infected. We discuss the twists on traditional high school archetypes, a very subtle theater kid joke, alluding to sex but not actually seeing it, and stan...
Oct 18, 2023•1 hr 22 min•Season 6Ep. 275
Episode 274. We watched the 2014 black and white Iranian skateboarding vampire romance A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, from writer/director Ana Lily Amirpour. In the lonely town of Bad City, Iran, a young man working to pay off his father's debt to a local drug dealer encounters a mysterious girl who stalks the city at night, preying upon its oppressors. We discuss the mix of genres from spaghetti western to teen coming-of-age romance, how exciting a very slow scene can be, and how we wish the...
Oct 11, 2023•1 hr 21 min•Season 6Ep. 274
Episode 273. We're kicking off our annual all-horror October with 2013's Afterlife with Archie comics, from writer Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and artist Francesco Francavilla. Jughead's beloved pup Hot Dog has been hit by a car, and when he asks Sabria the Teenage Witch to bring him back to life, he comes back wrong. Hot Dog bites Jughead, starting a zombie apocalypse in Riverdale. Archie, Betty, Veronica, and a crew of other traumatized survivors have to leave their town behind to go look for help....
Oct 04, 2023•1 hr 39 min•Season 6Ep. 273
Episode 272. We're continuing our ongoing monthly series reading Mike Mignola's Hellboy comics, talking about volumes 4-6 in this episode. Hellboy continues to deal with arcane magic forces trying to use him to summon an apocalypse, as well as the BPRD treating one of his fellow supernatural beings as a disposable tool instead of a teammate. Fed up with being a pawn in someone else's plans, Hellboy goes off to travel the world on his own, but finds it difficult to escape his past, even at the bo...
Sep 27, 2023•1 hr 39 min•Season 6Ep. 272
Episode 271. It's back-to-back Giamatti as we watch 2004's wine nerd movie Sideways! Divorced and depressed Miles takes his buddy Jack on a bachelor's weekend to California wine country. Jack wants to score some action before his wedding, while Miles just wants to lose himself in the pinot noir, struggling to reciprocate the advances of a friendly waitress at a local restaurant he frequents on these trips. As Jack's dalliances bring chaos to their vacation, Miles has to step up to help his frien...
Sep 20, 2023•1 hr 40 min•Season 6Ep. 271
Episode 270. To honor the 50th anniversary of hip-hop this year, we watched the 2015 biopic Straight Outta Compton, about the founding of N.W.A. Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, DJ Yella, and MC Ren form the prolific rap group against the backdrop of their southern California town stricken by gang violence, hoping to bring catharsis to their community and control their own futures. The group faces censorship threats, police aggression, trickery from their manager, death, disease, and other tragedies, ...
Sep 13, 2023•1 hr 41 min•Season 6Ep. 270
Episode 269. We watched the self-contained first season of the anthology crime series True Detective from 2014. Detectives Cohle and Hart investigate a seemingly occult killing of a young woman in rural Louisiana in 1995, chasing down myriad leads and eventually taking down the killer -- or so they think. In 2012, after new clues are brought to light and the two retired detectives are grilled by newer members of the force, the strained partnership reunites for a final showdown with the murderer ...
Sep 06, 2023•1 hr 49 min•Season 6Ep. 269
Episode 268. Our new monthly ongoing book club is reading Mike Mignola's original Hellboy comics from the 90s, three volumes a month until we've completed the series! Hellboy is a demonic being summoned by Nazi occultists in the 1940s, but adopted as a child into the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense. He grew up traveling the world to investigate the supernatural and protect the innocent from the threats whispered about in folktales and ghost stories. As he closes each case, he also deal...
Aug 30, 2023•1 hr 33 min•Season 6Ep. 268
Episode 267. We listened to season one of the audio fiction podcast Mockery Manor, from Long Cat Media. It's 1989 in England, and teenager JJ has a summer job at Mockery Manor theme park. She's joining her twin sister Bette, who's already settled into her job there and has developed her own alliances and romances with the fellow young workers, which doesn't help the tense relationship between these sisters. JJ feels even more isolated when she discovers possible missing persons and murder cases ...
Aug 23, 2023•1 hr 35 min•Season 6Ep. 267
Episode 266. Extra, extra! It's a Review Show first! We're covering a filmed production of a live stage performance with Newsies: The Broadway Musical on Disney+. It's 1899, and gangs of young boys are living on the streets and selling newspapers with the hopes of moving up in the world. When the publisher suddenly raises the prices the boys have to pay to get their papers, and refuses to compensate them for what they can't sell, the kids unionize and strike. With the help of a rebellious girl r...
Aug 16, 2023•1 hr 41 min•Season 6Ep. 266
Episode 265. It's morphin' time! We read the first three volumes of the 2016 Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers comics from Boom Studios, written by Kyle Higgins and Steve Orlando. After Tommy was brainwashed into becoming Rita Repulsa's fearsome Green Ranger, he defected to the heroic Power Rangers and is still struggling to fit in and shake off these traumatic memories. Rita keeps launching destructive attack plans as the Rangers adapt to a new team member they still barely know, who could take the...
Aug 09, 2023•1 hr 37 min•Season 6Ep. 265
Episode 264. We've reached the fourth and final season of The Good Place! The team works on a new experiment to purposefully coach people in another simulation to reach the actual good place, struggling to replicate their own personal journeys in becoming better people. When our friends finally get to spend time in the good place, they realize that it poses its own challenges and that infinite heavenly possibility may be an unsustainable way to live your afterlife, leaving the team to try and im...
Aug 02, 2023•1 hr 29 min•Season 6Ep. 264
