It’s time for a brand new episode of The Flickcast. The podcast about stuff nerds love. This week it’s Episode 440: The One After 339.
This week Chris and Joe jump into discussions about a whole slew of new and recurring topics. Some of these include the new “teaser” for Star Trek: Picard featuring a not so surprising new character and, of course, the second episode of the Marvel/Disney+ series Loki and the “realism” of Star Wars. They also get a little personal and talk about moving forward after the pandemic and Chris’ feelings about Elon Musk.
In addition to the above, you can also probably expect the usual “more.” They do seem to go on and on a bit, don’t they? In fact, this episode is a long one, so buckle up.
If you like the show, please consider rating or reviewing it on Apple Podcasts, or your podcast app of choice. Every rating or review helps. And if you’re really feeling it, consider supporting the show on Patreon. That would be cool.
Thanks for listening!
As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, Instagram or, yes, even Facebook. Or shoot us an email. We don’t mind.
It’s time for a brand new episode of The Flickcast. The podcast about stuff nerds love. This week it’s Episode 439: Loki’s Infinite Army of the Dead.
This week Chris and Joe get back to basics and jump into discussions about a whole slew of new topics. Some of these include Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead, the new Mark Whalberg/Antoine Fuqua film Infinite and, of course, the first episode of the Marvel/Disney+ series Loki. They also talk vaccinations, moving forward after quarantine and some of Chris’ favorite audiobooks he listened to on vacation.
In addition to the above, you can also probably expect the usual “more.” They do seem to go on and on a bit, don’t they? Tangents are a way of life for these guys.
Still, tangents can can be fun sometimes . . . and even informative. So they’re gonna keep going on them. Was there really any doubt?
If you like the show, please consider rating or reviewing it on Apple Podcasts, or your podcast app of choice. Every rating or review helps. And if you’re really feeling it, consider supporting the show on Patreon. That would be cool.
Thanks for listening!
As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, Instagram or, yes, even Facebook. Or shoot us an email. We don’t mind.
Last time on War Movie Mondays Again we featured the film Kelly’s Heroes. This time it’s the 1969 Guy Hamilton directed classic Battle of Britain. This film depicts the valiant struggle of Great Britain’s Royal Air Force against the onslaught of the numerically superior German Luftwaffe during the summer of 1940
The film opens as France falls in May 1940, and the British and their allies avoid capture with the massive evacuation at the coastal city of Dunkirk. With time to regroup and strengthen their home defenses, the British lie and wait for Hitler’s forces to eventually invade England.
The film is told through a collection of fighter squadron groups (English and German) who are veterans in the skies over France and the low countries during early 1940. Like many films of the mid to late 1960’s, Battle of Britain has its fare share of brilliant English and German actors. Screen legend Sir Laurence Olivier leads the cast as Chief Air Marshal H.C. Dowding who helped to coordinate British forces to total victory in the battle.
Other screen greats include Harry Andrews, Michael Caine, Edward Fox, Trevor Howard, Curt Jurgens, Ian McShane, Kenneth More, Nigel Patrick, Christopher Plummer, Michael Redgrave, Ralph Richardson, Robert Shaw, Patrick Wymark, and Susannah York.
It’s time for a brand new episode of The Flickcast. The podcast about stuff nerds love. This week it’s Episode 438: Pre MCU Superhero Movies.
This week Chris and Joe deviate a bit from the usual banter and, instead, focus on a specific theme. This week’s theme, as you can probably guess from the title of the episode, is Pre MCU Superhero Movies. So, anything before the current MCU lineup, which pretty much began with 2008’s Iron Man, is fair game.
What are some of the movies they picked? Well, you’re just have to listen to the episode to find out. No spoilers here, at least this time.
In addition to the episode’s theme, you can also probably expect the usual “more.” They do seem to go on and on a bit, don’t they? Tangents are a way of life for these guys.
Still, tangents can can be fun sometimes . . . and even informative. So they’re gonna keep going on them. Was there really any doubt?
If you like the show, please consider rating or reviewing it on Apple Podcasts, or your podcast app of choice. Every rating or review helps. And if you’re really feeling it, consider supporting the show on Patreon. That would be cool.
Thanks for listening!
As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, Instagram or, yes, even Facebook. Or shoot us an email. We don’t mind.
It’s time for a brand new episode of The Flickcast. The podcast about stuff nerds love. This week it’s Episode 437: The Flickcast Legacy.
On this week’s episode Chris and Joe get back to discussing new and upcoming things happening in the world of pop and nerd culture. Some of these include Star Wars fatigue, the Netflix series Jupiter’s Legacy, the recent trailer for The Eternals and some Eternals backstory, Harry Potter novels and movies, Daniel Craig career advice, and the sci-fi/action film Attack the Block.
There’s also the usual more, which seems to just crop up during every episode. They can’t hep it. Tangents are a way of life for these guys.
Still, sometimes those targets can be fun . . . and even informative. So yeah, back off, man.
If you like the show, please consider rating or reviewing it on Apple Podcasts, or your podcast app of choice. Every rating or review helps. And if you’re really feeling it, consider supporting the show on Patreon.
Thanks for listening!
As always, if you have comments, questions, critiques, offers of sponsorship or whatever, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, Instagram or, yes, even Facebook. Or shoot us an email. We don’t mind.
As we did with Western Wednesdays Again, we’re bringing back another favorite feature: War Movie Mondays. And kicking things off is 1970’s Kelly’s Heroes. Written by Douglas Barnett, War Movie Mondays explores a different film in the “war movie” genre each week with him offering his unique take on the film, details about the production and whole lot more.
So, we’re pleased to bring you the first installment of what we’re now calling “War Movie Mondays Again.” Yes, we know, another great title. How do we do it? Talent. Enjoy!
– Chris
Kelly’s Heroes is a war film that has all the great elements of an old fashion, rousing epic that keeps your attention all the way through. Set in the late summer of 1944 as the allies swept across occupied France, Kelly (played by the ever cool Clint Eastwood) and his squad of screwball infantry men find out that the Germans are holding over sixteen million dollars worth of gold bars in a bank thirty miles behind enemy lines.
Tired of the politics of infantry life and the gross inefficiency of their Captain, Kelly and the rest of the squad run by tough sergeant ‘Big Joe’ (Telly Savalas), cook up a scheme to go behind the lines with three M-4 Sherman tanks to rob the bank. As the movie poster states: “They set out to rob a bank and damn near won a war instead.”
With Kelly’s Heroes, Eastwood began his second collaboration with director Brian G. Hutton, who had directed him a year earlier in the highly successful Where Eagles Dare (1969) — a movie which solidified Eastwood’s status as a major box office star. One thing making Kelly’s Heroes such an interesting film is the fact it was released in 1970, just as the U.S. was beginning to downsize its presence in Vietnam.
Other films such as M*A*S*H, which came out in the same year, mirrored that of the country’s current attitude towards the war in Vietnam and was considered to be escapist entertainment. ‘Oddball’ (Donald Sutherland) graces the screen as World War II’s only hippie who commands the three Shermans who accompany Eastwood’s squad to steal the gold.
It’s time for another edition of Revisiting John Huston. This week it’s the 1942 film In This Our Life.
Huston’s second film, In This Our Life seems to be somewhat lost to history, and, coming after The Maltese Falcon, that’s understandable. I’m not sure what the prevailing mood was in the ‘40s, but if a director were to offer a similar follow-up today, I imagine that more than a few critics would likely be salivating to label him a one-hit wonder.
That’s not to say that In This Our Life is a bad movie, it’s just okay. The story, adapted from the Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel about two sisters, one good, Roy (Olivia de Havilland), one bad, Stanley (Bette Davis). The significance of their masculine names is unclear.
Roy is married to Peter, a doctor, while Stanley’s engaged to Craig, a lawyer. However Peter’s carrying on an affair with Stanley. The night before her wedding, Stanley elopes with Peter, who subsequently divorces Roy, leaving her and Craig to find comfort with each other, and the two eventually get married.
So, Stanley and Peter = bad; Roy and Craig = good. Rounding out the dichotomies are William, the girls’ racist, hard-drinking uncle, who harbors a rather disturbing crush on and shares an incestually suggestive relationship with his bad niece (the scene where she greets him with a flurry of tickles and he mentions the “present” in his pocket is only one among many that tiptoe the censor’s pen), and Asa, the girls’ kindly father.
It’s time for another edition of Western Wednesdays Again. This week it’s the 1954 release Vera Cruz, a film that’s often name-dropped in the discussion of “Great and Influential Westerns.” Starring genre heavy-weights Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster, every synopsis you read about this film likely promises adventure, a Mexican countess and bromance. Don’t believe them.
Vera Cruz is set in the midst of the Mexican Revolution of 1866, a time when mercenaries and adventurers crossed the border in search of profitable employment. In fact, it’s the very same setting as Two Mules for Sister Sara. Who knows, if fanfic had existed in the good old days, someone might have written a sexy crossover. Thank goodness it didn’t and they didn’t.
The film wastes no time in setting up Ben Trane (Cooper) and Joe Erin (Lancaster) as that most reliable of Western archetypes: the broken down Confederate, and the daring mercenary. Their characters are rigidly defined within the first ten minutes over the matter of horseflesh. Trane shoots his injured horse because it’s suffering.
Erin responds by selling him a stolen one. Despite their inherent differences, they bond after a skirmish. Trane then joins Erin’s mercenary band. After that, they ride to the next Mexican hamlet seeking riches and their guns are immediately sought after by the Juaristas and Emperor Maximilian.
It’s time for another edition of Trailer Time. Today’s teaser/trailer comes from our friends at Marvel and is for the highly anticipated movie Eternals.
After getting 12 seconds of footage recently from Marvel featuring the Eternals, today the Marvel team dropped an actual teaser for the upcoming film. And we have to say, it looks pretty epic. But did you really expect otherwise?
In case you’re not familiar, Eternals features a group of immortals originally created by the Celestials who “after an unexpected tragedy following the events of Avengers: Endgame, reunite to protect humanity from their evil counterparts, the Deviants.”
You know what that means, of course? Expect a lot of epic battles and Marvel’s usual dose of humor. In fact, you even get a bit of that in this teaser. Stay to the end. It’s pretty funny.
Eternals, originally created by the great Jack “King” Kirby, is written by Chloé Zhao and Patrick Burleigh and directed by Chloé Zhao. It stars Gemma Chan, Richard Madden, Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, Kit Harrington, Salma Hayek and Angeles Jolie.
It hits theaters and, one would suppose, streaming on Disney+ on November 5. Until then, check out the teaser below.
It was 41 years ago today that one of the greatest sci-fi epics of all time was released in theaters. We’re talking, of course, about the sequel to Star Wars, then known simply as The Empire Strikes Back. But it wouldn’t be simple for long.
When Empire was released it instantly blew up and ushered in a more mature version of the Star Wars universe complete with bigger stakes, more action, romance, drama, suspense, improved visual effects and quite a twist ending, to put it mildly.
That twist, still often misquoted to this day, was one of the seminal events in many a young sci-fi fans life and marked a turning point in sci-fi movies that endures to this day. Sure, Empire didn’t invent the “twist” ending, but it damn sure brought it to millions of new fans around the world.
In short, we love this movie. And 41 years later it’s still one of our favorites of all time, especially for our Editor and podcast co-host Chris Ullrich. To him, there’s pretty much nothing better.
So, happy 41 Empire Strikes Back and thank you for being great then, and still being great today. We love you and we know you know. We also promise never to tell you the odds.
The Empire Strikes Back stars Mark Hammill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Anthony Daniels, David Drowse, Kenny Baker and Billy Dee Williams. It’s written by Lawrence Kasdan and Leigh Brackett, produced by George Lucas and directed by Irvin Kirshner.
