300 300

Stop! Sparta-time... This week we review the obligatory 300 for our 300th podcast. Every one of our prior episodes like a fallen Spartan at Thermopylae, buff, ripped, free, and bloody. A perfect exercise in the notion of style-over-substance, 300 delivers a healthy plate of jingoism and old-timey masculinity to pump up our inner Conan the Barbarian. What is it about the "few against many" theme? Not sure, but suffice it to say the Spartans weren't your typically boot-strapping citizen soldiers. Atop a slave-fueled pyramid scheme, Mark and Matt ponder King Leonidas of Sparta's "freedom" rallying cry. I suppose everything's relative (and not exactly fair) in love and war.

Download: 300

299 Apocalypto

This review we go pre-Columbian with the Gibson action-chase film Apocalypto. Despite the criticism of its classic period Mayan portrayals, Apocalypto is a violent action film akin to modern fair. Why set it in during the Mayan fall? Why not? Despite it's odds-and-ends of Meso-american history, it commits no greater sins than your average sword and sandals epic. What Gibson shows us is something no one has ever seen in Hollywood films. Ever wondered what it might be like to be atop a Mayan period during an eclipse? Apocalypto gives you a peak, and for what its worth, it is distinctly memorable.

Download: 299 Apocalypto

298 Hard Target

We get around to finally putting out another podcast, and this time? The Woo/Van Damme joint Hard Target! Complete with doves, sub-machine guy dude on dirt bikes.. this film has it all for those pining for a Cajun flavor Hong Kong actioner! Can we dismiss Van Damme's Belgian-Cajun creole and Wilfred Brimley's only known un-codgery film role? Yes we can! If you like a boot kick to the head at 40 mph hour along with class-warfare themes, order up some Hard Target!

Download: 298 Hard Target 

297 Enter the Dragon

"Wwwaaaah! Chewaaaah!" Time to Enter the Dragon with our Seattle homey Mr. Bruce Lee! Even though heavily borrowed from similar spy tropes, Enter the Dragon was daring in its marketing. While kung fu theater was a Hong Kong staple, bringing it into the US mainstream required a multi-prong (and multi-racial) tact that brought out Mr. Lee's savvy. "A white guy, a black guy, and and Asian guy walk into a bar/death-ring tournament..." Unfortunately Mr. Lee's pioneering legacy still has a long way to go. Asian leading men in the US mainstream are still absent for the most part some 45 years later, much to our detriment.

Download: 297 Enter the Dragon 

295 Fire and Ice

This go 'round we review the Bakshi/Frezetta joint Fire and Ice from 1983. For its time, a solid outing by the sorta like 'em/hate 'em Bakshi (Cool World anyone?). Crutching heavily on Frazetta's muscular fantasy exotica, the look of the film and its rotoscoping bring to life the static comic book "je ne sais quoi." Matt laments the luke warm relationship with adult themes and animation while bemoaning the silly look of today's live-action comic book fair. We both take a nostalgic journey into the sci-fi book cover art of yor, discussing our favs. While not to be left out, the mall standard Thomas Kincaid (painter of light) is given his due credit for his pre-historic matte work on F&I. Sadly, his fantasy contributions never usurped his twee cottage themes beloved by grandmothers in middle-America.

Download: 295 Fire and Ice

294 Krull

Matt and Mark review the 80's sci-fi/fantasy fusion film Krull! Diametrically opposed, Matt and Mark square off about what Mark liked and Matt did not! A highly derivative epic, Krull attempts to mash-up the tropes of high fantasy classic quest with something a little more Star Wars. Does it work? Despite its many stumbles of illogic and poorly sketched motivations, Krull is a well-filmed and produced popcorn movie with a decent set of supporting characters and a few trippy set pieces. Nostalgia may have been Matt's greatest enemy here, while Mark enjoyed it for what is... whatever that may have been.

Download:  294 Krull

293 Two-Lane Blacktop

It's Matt and Mark's 7th Anniversary of doing the podcast, and for this go 'round we finish up with our 70's car movie theme with the artsy Two-Lane Blacktop. With a set of steamy hunky rock n' rollers racing about in a built out 55' Chev, this is as American as it gets... or is it? TLB has been debated as a 'metaphor' due to the sparseness of its character sketches (if they can even be called sketches at all), but what they're a metaphor for and what archetypes they represent are not obvious or clear. In the end, we don't really know these characters other than what meaning we graft on to them. Despite it's subtext, the film captures the early 70's zeitgeist of the post-Love era, which if anything, is an interesting cultural time more and more alien to us 21st Century folks.

Download:  293 Two-Lane Blacktop