Nerd Lunch

Michael, Rob, and Pax chat about how reading goals affect reading enjoyment, death and funerals, life as a cartoon animal, Matthew Reilly’s YA book (The Secret Runners of New York), Old Habits (a Die Hard spec script turned novel), Adventures of Superman: Jon Kent, Floyd Gottfredson’s Mickey Mouse comics, The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz, Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, current Star Trek comics, and Elvis and Ann-Margret movies.

Michael, Rob, and Pax visit the Planet of the Apes! Kicking off a bunch of discussions about the simian series, we start with a quick conversation about Pierre Boulle's novel before exploring the 1968 movie that started a phenomenon. 

Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger close out the Sean Connery era of the Bond films with Diamonds Are Forever. They talk about the return of Connery, whether it's a worthy follow-up to On Her Majesty's Secret Service, and the wisdom of hiring a jazz musician and Crispin Glover's dad to play assassins. The movie's directed by Goldfinger's Guy Hamilton and also stars Jill St John, Charles Gray, Lana Wood, and Jimmy Dean.

We're soon going to start a new horror-focused series of episodes called After Lunch After Midnight featuring Michael and his pal Jessica Hickman. It's sort of a spin-off of another podcast called Filthy Horrors that they did together with their mutual pal Darla Ecklund. So to introduce After Midnight, we thought it might be good to rerun the first episode of Filthy Horrors in which Jess, Darla, and Michael talk about their history with horror, the kinds of horror they like, and lots of examples of favorite horror movies, TV shows, books, and comics.

Michael and Rob wrap their Mission: Impossible movies watch-through (for now) with the new entry in the series: Dead Reckoning, Part One. They talk about all the spoilers and whether second viewings changed their perspective on anything. Well, one thing in particular, but sure, everything else, too.

Michael, Rob, and Pax finish this months Lounge with discussion about their personal movie rating systems, Sherry Thomas’ Lady Sherlock series, Daniel Pemberton movie scores, The Haunting of Bly Manor, the second season of Schmigadoon!, more about Ted Lasso, Kate Beckinsale in Love & Friendship, Nimona, modern Luddites, The Flash, Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny, Alamo Drafthouse, their top three favorite comic book artists, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts, maybe a little bit about the new Mission: Impossible movie, and much much more.

Michael, Rob, and Pax chat about farting soulmates, '90s revamped superheroes, Pax’s idea for a Batman ‘66 Season 4 crossover, Philip Marlowe in The Little Sister, Hammer Frankenstein and the Hammer House of Podcast, Men both Gray and Thin, weekly comics reading, crappy Spider-Man novels, the darkening of the Harry Potter books, and lots of other things.

Michael, Rob, and Delaney Graham continue their Star Trek Trek with season 4 of Discovery. Find out what we thought of the butterfly people, the new Federation President, all that jargon (The DMA! Species 10-C! The Orb! The Hyperfield!), and the most contentious element of the season: Zora. 

As Hasbro begins building its cinematic universe in real life, Michael and Rob welcome Jeeg and David May to talk about how they would do it. Following the MCU model, each person has picked a Hasbro game or toy to adapt into a movie that then connects somehow into the other movies, all leading to an Avengers-style crossover blockbuster. Madness or genius? You decide!

While Michael and Rob wait for Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning, Part One to come out, they follow up Henry Cavill's performance in Fallout with another Cavill spy movie, Guy Ritchie's The Man from UNCLE.

Since we just talked about On Her Majesty's Secret Service last episode, now seems like a good time to revisit this conversation from Michael's old Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast in which he talks with Carlin Trammel about the movie and how (or if) it functions as a Christmas movie.

After some Goldfinger and Thunderball trivia that you can play along with, Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger talk about George Lazenby's grounded and human James Bond, Diana Riggs' lovely and kickass Tracy di Vicenzo, and Telly Savalas' tough and brutish Ernst Stavro Blofeld. It's an unusual entry in the series, but is it also good? Once they settle that, the panel wraps with some On Her Majesty's Secret Service trivia, too.

Michael, Rob, and Michael DiGiovanni talk about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Star Wars Visions Season 2, Ted Lasso Season 3, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, the Our Man Flint movies, Hammer's Frankenstein movies, Peter Pan and Wendy (2023), streaming service avatars, Fast X, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Silo, Disney’s Stan Lee documentary, how our buying and reading of comics has changed, aging and wisdom, budgeting entertainment time, and other things they've been watching and thinking about.

As Pax recovers from vacation, Evan returns to the Lounge for a bit with Michael, Rob, and guest-lounger Michael DiGiovanni. In this first half of the discussion, the conversation includes butt tattoos, underwear preferences, Joe Hill, nepotism, how horror works in books vs film, jazz trombone, William T Riker, Fourth Chair Carryover Questions, the difference between the book and movie versions of Prisoner of Azkaban, The New Classic Film Jerks, the Off Panel comic book interview podcast, the Purple Stuff podcast, letting your kids introduce you to new music, celebrity podcasts, Action Comics, Dawn of DC, Star Trek: Double Double by Michael Jan Friedman, Cassandra Cain as Batgirl, and X-Men comics.

Michael and Rob welcome Erik Johnson and Noel Thingvall to create a fourth season of the Adam West Batman series by crossing it over with other late-'60s TV shows. In addition to the new guest-characters, some of the stories also include new villains pulled from comics of the day and played by popular actors of the period. 

Michael and Rob finish their Mission: Impossible movies catch-up with a discussion of Fallout. Henry Cavill, Vanessa Kirby, and Angela Bassett join the series while other favorites return. But is that, plus emotional closure and fantastic stunts, enough to make this one of our favorite in the series?

This extra-sized episode opens with Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger answering trivia questions about Dr No and From Russia With Love. The questions are multiple choice, so play along as you listen.    After that, the panel returns to the official Bond film series with Sean Connery's first last appearance in the role. And they are not in agreement about the quality of this film. They'll talk about why before wrapping up with more trivia, this time about You Only Live Twice.

Michael, Rob, and Pax experienced some technical difficulties in the lounge before they got around to thinking about anything this month. But they did get to talk about what they've been watching, including Perry Mason, Season 2, John Wick, Chapter 4, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Renfield, Sisu, Strange New Worlds, Air, Fast X, Bruce Lee, Philip Marlowe, The Black Phone, and Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Michael, Rob, and Pax talk about what they've been listening to and reading, including their favorite podcasts and comics, but also Harry Potter audiobooks, Cameron Crowe's novel Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story, Circe by Madeline Miller, Raymond Chandler's The High Window, and additional thoughts on Rogue Nation and Picard, Season 3. All of this, plus a new Ask Us Anything segment thanks to listener voicemail from our pal Jody Collins.

After Michael, Rob, Jeff Somogyi, and Ben Graham talk briefly about their various experiences playing Dungeons & Dragons and their expectations for the game, Ben leads the rest of the party into a quick encounter with a sheep-stealing griffin. Assuming the group survives, this is the first of a series of adventures that will also see William Bruce West joining the fun in future episodes. Roll a d20 and make a Fun Check.