Nerd Lunch

Michael and Rob are joined by Michael DiGiovanni and William Bruce West to imagine a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie that includes characters from the wide array of toys, movies, and TV series that Marvel Comics has licensed over the years.

Michael and Rob continue watching their way through the Mission: Impossible movies with Christopher McQuarrie's debut in the series, Rogue Nation. Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Jeremy Renner are back, but how does Sean Harris measure up as the villain? And then there's Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. Is this the entry that will supplant Mission: Impossible III as our favorite? Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to tune in and find out.

Michael and Rob welcome Michael's friend and Kill All Monsters partner Jason Copland to talk about Jason's new graphic novel, Full Tilt. Successfully funded on Zoop in an hour, the book is a non-stop scifi noir action thriller. Jason talks about its inception and the creation process, but there's also some Kill All Monsters talk and we wrap up with a discussion of some of our favorite other "full tilt" stories in various media.  Full Tilt promises to be a unique story in a beautiful package and there are currently no plans to publish it traditionally, so please be nice to yourself and order your copy on Zoop right away.

Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger wrap up their digression into 1967 unofficial Bond movies with a look at Charles K Feldman's spoof, Casino Royale, starring David Niven, Ursula Andress, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, and Orson Welles. It's a classic train wreck of a movie, but does that mean that it's no good? We talk about what happened behind the scenes during production, critique the jokes, and try to make sense of the plot.

Michael and Rob reunite with their old friend Carlin Trammel to talk in a very spoilery way about the recent, third season of Star Trek: Picard. This isn't part of After Lunch's official Star Trek Trek discussions, because those won't get to Picard for a long time. We just couldn't wait that long to talk about the season.  And again, lots of spoilers in this episode.

Michael, Rob, and Pax talk about what they've been watching and thinking, leading to conversations about New Girl, Shrinking, Star Trek: Picard, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, John Wick, Chapter 4, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Ted Lasso, The Mandalorian, Murder, My Sweet, Nope, The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek, former fandoms we used to enjoy, Easter traditions, and dream RPG settings.

Michael, Rob, and Pax talk about what they've been listening to and reading lately, leading to topics like the intersection of faith and feminism, different approaches to film podcasting, the novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Bono's memoir Surrender, Pax's reaction to Michael and Rob's Ghost Protocol episode, Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, ‘90s Batman comics, and Batmobiles in general. Check out the After Lunch website for images of some of the Batmobiles that come up.

Evan wasn't able to join us last episode when Michael, Rob, and Jody Collins rebooted Marvel Comics, so in this episode, he shares his ideas for all-new versions of Thor, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men.

Back in Episode 165, we speculated what Marvel Comics might be like if they took a year off from publishing superhero comics and focused on other genres instead. In this sequel episode, Michael, Rob, and Jody Collins return to imagine how Marvel might reboot their most classic superhero series with brand new, completely different concepts and characters. Evan wasn't able to join us for this one, but stay tuned for an upcoming episode in which he reveals his own ideas for reboots of all eight series.   And stay tuned at the end of this episode for important information about the After Lunch dress code.

Michael and Rob continue their journey through the Mission: Impossible films with the fourth in the series, Brad Bird's Ghost Protocol. 

Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger take a detour from the main James Bond series to watch Italy's OK Connery (aka Operation: Kid Brother) starring Sean Connery's younger brother as a famous secret agent's younger brother who's pulled into a spy caper. Thanks to the super popularity of Goldfinger and Thunderball, lots of Bond spoofs and rip-offs came out around this time, but OK Connery is unique for including iconic actors from the actual Bond movies, including Lois Maxwell, Bernard Lee, Daniela Bianchi, Adolfo Celi, and Anthony Dawson. But is it any good? Our panel may not all agree.

Michael, Rob, Evan, and Pax talk about what they've been watching and thinking about. Topics include The Last of Us, Quantumania, Marlowe, Adam Driver vs dinosaurs, Bono and the Edge talking to Dave Letterman, Pumping Iron, Party Down, Creed 3, behind the scenes making a major Disney animated movie, villains as main characters, buying cars, engaging with ridiculous ideas, and the difference between openness and vulnerability.

A couple of episodes ago, Michael and Rob talked about JJ Abrams' Mission Impossible III and the TV show Lost came up. Michael mentioned an episode of the old Dragonfly Ripple podcast where Annaliese Trammel shared her thoughts on the first two seasons with her dad, Carlin. It was a wonderful bit of podcast history, but it's not easily available anymore, so we're rerunning it. Please enjoy.

Michael, Rob, Evan, and Pax talk about what they've been listening to and reading. Topics include teenage stupidity, pocket symphonies, which Enterprise we'd want to serve on, De La Soul and music licensing, annotated books, Barry Allen goes to Marvel, Batman: White Knight, The Big Sleep, and Nothing.

Michael and Rob talk about JJ Abrams' contribution to the Mission: Impossible series, starring Tom Cruise, Ving Rhames, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Michelle Monaghan, Billy Crudup, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Maggie Q, Simon Pegg, Laurence Fishburne, and Keri Russell.

Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger talk about Sean Connery's fourth adventure as James Bond in Thunderball. Lots of music discussion in this one, praise for Paula Caplan and Fiona Volpe, and awe at Largo's impressive sense of fashion.

Michael, Pax, and guest Noel Thingvall (with input from Evan as well) recall their favorite films of 2013 and how they feel about them now. And they might get into some of the big stinkers of 2013 as well.

Michael, Rob, Evan, and guest Jody Collins imagine a reality in which Marvel Comics takes a year off from publishing superhero comics to focus on other genres. What genres should they pick? What stories should they tell? And what creators should write and draw them?

Michael wraps up his series of solo episodes about Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels with his last book: The Man With the Golden Gun. Heavily influenced by the three films that had come out by then, it's a hint at the direction the series might have taken had Fleming lived long enough to write more. Whether that's a good thing or not is up for discussion.

Michael, Rob, Evan, and Pax talk about what they've been watching and thinking about, including Willow, Velma, The Last of Us, She-Hulk: Attorney at Law, Ford v Ferrari, Black Adam, Gotham Knights, The Banshees of Inisherin, Pluto TV, Shrinking, how faithful adaptations should be, sleep, where we live, and planning a Sleepy Hollow trip.