Nerd Lunch

We’re moving out of silly comedy territory with this episode, but till in the comedy genre for now. This one’s a little bit darker though. From 2003, it’s Bad Santa, starring Billy Bob Thornton, Tony Cox, Lauren Graham, Bernie Mac, and John Ritter. Talking with Michael about it is his pal and occasional podcasting partner, Dan Taylor. This one might get a little naughty.

Yesterday, Michael DiGiovanni and Michael May talked about Christmas Vacation and how - during their prep for that conversation - they discovered the existence of a weird sequel called Christmas Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure. Of course they had to come back and talk about it. And they invited Paxton Holley to do that with them.

We’re re-running a stretch of silly comedies from the Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast, so of course we can’t get too far into that without talking about National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. That’s exactly what Michael May and Michael DiGiovanni did and Michael May's opinion of the movie changed as a result.

Yesterday we shared a discussion of the 1994 movie Mixed Nuts, so we’ll stick with the silly comedies for a bit. In this episode, Michael and his son David talk about Seth Gordon’s Four Christmases starring Reese Witherspoon and Vince Vaughn and an awesome cast of co-stars like Mary Steenburgen, Robert Duvall, Sissy Spacek, Jon Voight, Jon Favreau, and Kristin Chenoweth.

The last couple of days, we reshared discussions that Noel Thingvall and Michael had about the classic Christmas in Connecticut and its remake. Today we’re making a trilogy of it and sharing Noel’s other appearance on the show where he introduced Michael to a Christmas comedy he'd never even heard of before. It’s Mixed Nuts starring a huge cast that includes Steve Martin, Madeline Kahn, Liev Schreiber, Rob Reiner, Parker Posey, Robert Klein, Juliette Lewis, Adam Sandler, Rita Wilson, Jon Stewart, and Garry Shandling.

Yesterday we re-ran a conversation between Noel Thingvall and Michael about the 1945 classic, Christmas in Connecticut. We mentioned a couple of times in that conversation that there’s a remake of that movie, so of course Michael and Noel also had to talk about that one. The remake was a TV movie from 1992 starring Dyan Cannon, Kris Kristofferson, and Tony Curtis. And most remarkably, directed by Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Yesterday we re-ran a conversation that Rob and Michael had about the 1949 movie Holiday Affair on Michael's old Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast. Today, it’s another movie from the ‘40s and even more of a classic. From 1945, it’s Christmas in Connecticut starring Barbara Stanwyck. Our guest for the episode was Noel Thingvall, who’s also been on After Lunch a few times in the last couple of years.

This Christmas season on After Lunch - like with the last couple of years - we’re going to be re-running a bunch of episodes from Michael's old Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast. This is going to be an especially busy year though, because we’re running discussions of what we call Holiday Spirit movies.  Unlike Tangential Christmas movies, these are undeniably about the Holiday Season, but without a lot of fantastical elements like Santa or his elves and reindeer. If there’s magic, it’s going to be subtle or ambiguous. There are a lot of these movies though - it’s easily the biggest category that we talked about on Sleigh Bell Cinema - so we’re going to be running an episode a day for the next couple of weeks.    To kick this off, we want to start with a movie that Rob and Michael keep referring back to. In fact, it’s come up in the last three episodes on the show. From 1949, it’s Holiday Affair starring Janet Leigh, Robert Mitchum, and Wendell Corey. And featuring Colonel Potter himself, Harry Morgan, in a small rol

This year on the podcast we're going to be all about Holiday Spirit movies: films that are undeniably about Christmas, but don't heavily feature supernatural or magical elements like toy-making elves or flying reindeer. We'll be re-running a bunch of discussions of these kinds of movies from Michael's old Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast, but to kick things off, Michael and Rob talk about Kristen Stewart and Mackenzie Davis in Happiest Season. The movie seems like a standard romantic comedy at first, but there are plot twists and a fantastic cast that includes Mary Steenburgen, Alison Brie, Aubrey Plaza, Victor Garber, and Dan Levy. And stay tuned for a spoiler-filled discussion of Hannah Waddingham: Home for Christmas at the end.

Michael and Rob welcome back Jacob Bean-Watson to talk about another tangential Christmas movie this year. Though it may be more than just tangential. It's Roy Del Ruth's It Happened on Fifth Avenue, a charmingly relevant story about a group of homeless people who take shelter in a mansion over Christmas (although unbeknownst to most of the group, some of them are the house's actual owners). The movies stars Victor Moore, Hazel's Don DeFore, Gale Storm, Ann Harding, Charlie Ruggles, and Gilligan's Island's Skipper himself: Alan Hale Jr. 

As the Christmas celebrations continue on After Lunch, Michael and Rob welcome back Jody Collins to the show to talk about one of his favorite Christmas movies. It's Serendipity, starring John Cusack, Kate Beckinsale, Jeremy Piven, Molly Shannon, Bridget Moynahan, and John Corbett. The movie is a sweet and funny love story with some lovely surprises, but it also raises philosophical questions about fate, free will, and the romantic notion of The One. 

Happy Holidays! To kick off a busy Christmas season on the show, Michael and Rob welcome back Mike Westfall (Advent Calendar House) to discuss this year's Christmas Carol adaptation. It's Edwin L Marin's 1938 film starring Reginald Owen as Scrooge and Gene Lockhart as Bob Cratchit. The movie makes severe cuts to the story while adding other plot elements, but that's not all. There are also bad wigs, the most cheery Fred ever, a super cute Ghost of Christmas Past, and much much more.

Michael, Rob, Jody Collins, and Becky Tyler each create a mixtape with ten of their favorite '80s songs. Some songs have personal importance, others are simply iconic, but all 40 help define the decade musically for our panel. Listen and let us know which playlists most reflect your taste and what songs (whether we mentioned them or not) best exemplify the '80s for you.

Michael and Jess finish Universal's solo Frankenstein movies with The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) before checking out the introduction of Lon Chaney Jr's iconic werewolf character in The Wolf Man (1941). Then they wrap up with the creation of Universal's Monster Cinematic Universe in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).

Michael, Rob, and Karen continue their Bondathon with a game-changing entry in the series, The Spy Who Loved Me. Co-starring Barbara Bach and featuring Caroline Munro, it introduces new recurring characters like Jaws and General Gogol while also raising the bar for sheer spectacle. But is it also good?! 

Michael and his wife Diane visited upstate New York for Halloween. They eventually ended up in Sleepy Hollow to spend time with the Headless Horseman, but also got to visit with one Mr Rob Graham and his wife Collette. In this special in-person recording, Michael and Diane talk with Rob about their Sleepy Hollow adventure and Rob shares his and Collette's recent spooky trip to Universal Studios and Disney World in Florida. 

Moby the Bard and his Bunnymen companions check into an inn to clean up after their recent griffin hunt. But their sleep is interrupted by screams and murder, leading the trio to investigate and assist a former pirate accused of the crime as well as his adopted daughter. Dungeon Master Ben Graham leads Rob Graham, Jeff Somogyi, and Michael May in their first full Dungeons & Dragons adventure together. Be sure to check out Episode 183 for the players' discussion of their histories with the game and the introduction to Ben's world.   And visit the After Lunch website to see maps from the adventure: The City of Trellan and a sketch of Jackson's exploration of the Drop Inn.

Michael and Jess open the sarcophagus on Universal's first three Mummy movies: The Mummy (1932), The Mummy's Hand (1940), and The Mummy's Tomb (1942).

With the recent release of Mike Flanagan's adaptation of The Fall of the House of Usher, it seems like a good time to rerun this conversation about Edgar Allan Poe between Michael, Jessica Hickman, and Darla Ecklund from the old Filthy Horrors podcast.  The episode begins in a cemetery as we dig into "The Cask of Amontillado," "The Masque of the Red Death," and "The Raven," with side-trips to other Poe stories and favorite adaptations of his work. Note: It was windy at the cemetery and the sound overwhelms the discussion a few times during that section of the episode. We cleaned it up as best we could, but if it's bothersome, you might want to skip ahead to about 21 minutes into the show. At that point we've moved inside and the audio is clear for the remainder of the episode.

Happy Halloween! Michael, Rob, Pax, and Becky finish the Underworld films with a visit to the ice vampires as they talk about whether Blood Wars is a satisfying conclusion to the series.