063 River's Edge

What if there was a murder and nobody cared? This week Matt and Mark enter the teenage nightmare of River's Edge, starring the always enigmatic Crispin Glover, along with Keanu Reeves, Ione Skye, and an ever-crazy Dennis Hooper. Based after a real life murder, River's Edge dares you to blame the film's psychological phenomena on the usual suspects (drugs, alcohol, societal breakdown, the media, etc...) but in providing no answers, it forces the viewer to ask deeper and more troubling questions about the human animal.

Download: 063 River's Edge 

062 Apocalypse Now

Time to make a friend of horror! This week Matt and Mark attempt to get at the heart of Francis Ford Coppola's Heart of Darkness adaptation, the Vietnam masterpiece Apocalypse Now, starring Martin Sheen, Robert Duvall and a rotund Marlon Brando. Probing the dark corners of Kurtz's psyche, Matt and Mark dwell on the fundamental themes of A.Now, for better or worse, depending... A multi-themed film deserves its due, and perhaps long winded,  Matt and Mark attempt to give this monstrously important film its day in court.

Download: 062 Apocalypse Now

061 Pink Floyd The Wall

Forgoing the Pink Floyd fanboy trivia, Matt and Mark explore the quiet desperation of Bob Geldolf's Pink character in the The Wall. What happens when you write off your fellow man, embrace your cynical side, and dismiss one's need for meaningful personal relationships? Roger Waters explores this idea using music and evocative visuals in this cult "rock opera". If you could only take one music video to to the dark side of the moon, we highly recommend The Wall (take that Axl Rose and your November Rain!).

Download: 061 Pink Floyd The Wall

060 War Games

Shall we play a game? Galaga? or Donkey Kong... maybe Pac Man? In War Games, Matthew Broderick's character David (a fellow Snohomish High alum!) was pining for something more in home gaming, which leads him to the Pentagon's NORAD launch computer WOPR/Joshua. More of a tangential podcast than most, Matt and Mark cover many topics including extinction events, AIs, and Ally Sheedy's strange attraction for the John Lennon-esque professor Falken. War Games gave hope to thousands of shut-in hackers that it's theoretically possible to one day make out with a chick.

Download: 060 War Games

059 Aguirre The Wrath of God

In 1972, Werner Herzog released the cult masterpiece Aguirre the Wrath of God starring the mad acting genius of Klaus Kinski. Matt struggles to verbalize the proper analogy for this obsessive story of hubris and doom, while Mark points out religion's seemingly absurd (yet obvious) place in the New World's conquest. Regardless, Aguirre is an amazingly shot experiment in gonzo/guerrilla film making that would go on to be heavily borrowed by other directors like Francis Ford Coppola and Terrance Malick.

Download: 059 Aguirre the Wrath of God

058 Being There

Life is just a state of mind! Yes, in a way, and if you have the mind of Chauncey Gardener, played brilliantly by Peter Sellers in the Hal Ashby film Being There, that mind is a little... lacking? Matt and Mark share differing opinions regarding the film, with Matt criticizing the film's dated satire while Mark basks in the 'alien-like' preternatural Chauncey. Regardless, Being There hits the right notes and manages to avoid going the 'full retard', laying the groundwork for cultural feel-good hits Forrest Gump and Rain man.

Download: 058 Being There

057 Ghost in the Shell

Conjuring the 'ghost' of the bygone 90's cyberpunk era, Matt and Mark review Mamoru Oshii's anime classic Ghost in the Shell, released in 1996. Pondering such Sci-Fi topics as the Technological Singularity, we discuss the viability of a world dominating artificial intelligence and how the GITS's Puppet Master may fit such a paradigm. But more importantly, we discuss whether or not anime cyborgs are truly anatomically correct.

Download: 057 Ghost in the Shell