Thursday, 25 December 2014

PODCAST: Santa Claus: The Movie & Blackadder's Christmas Carol (Joe & Christmas Do a Thing)


Festive balls, kids! Episode 4 of our podcast intersects with the timing of that new craze, Christmas, so we thought we'd dip a toe in and really get a sense of what it's all about. Well, we didn't really. We just watched two things we liked and talked about them.

Chris is endlessly fascinated by things that are big news for a short space of time and then become almost obscurely small not too long after their initial release (like Peter Gabriel's legitimately big hit single Steam). One of the things he considers to meet these criteria is Santa Claus: The Movie, a curious mixture of festive whimsy and anti-consumerist polemic that, ironically, also had a major tie-in deal with McDonalds.

Joe, meanwhile, likes comedy that's funny. That may seem reasonable but we all know that there are entire series and channels predicated on the fact that some people don't care if a comedy is funny or not. This being the case, he's keen to share one of the most successfully funny Christmas programmes the UK has to offer (no, not the 2014 Catchphrase Christmas Special with Warwick Davies, but that's a fine guess), I, of course, refer to the merry, messy Blackadder's Christmas Carol.

Luckily, all this jollity gave us enough good tidings to plough through a particularly difficult and soul searching question from our listener Kirsten, in which we'll hope you'll indulge us our attempts to answer.

Anyway, that's enough of this overly-wordy blog entry, just sit back and relax as...


Sunday, 14 December 2014

PODCAST: 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Trek: The Motion Picture - two sides of "slow sci-fi"


You'll always find contrary opinions to even the most popularly-held beliefs, but as a general rule, Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey is much loved, or at least respected, whereas Robert Wise's shepherding of the Star Trek crew to the silver screen eleven years later in Star Trek: The Motion Picture is frequently the subject of much scorn or mocking. Do we feel this opinion is fair, or are we hoping for the so-called "Slow-Motion Picture" to have a cultural renaissance?

Join Joe and Chris as they take a cursory look at "slow sci-fi", movies such as Solaris, Interstellar, Sunshine, Gravity and the like. This is very much an opinion piece rather than a researched attempt to review or educate, so there's going to be errors.

Listen to SLOW SCI-FI

(playlist on Spotify)

Wednesday, 3 December 2014

PODCAST: "Very Cute Trouble"



Welcome to episode 2. Just a ramblecast this week about stuff that's been on our minds and to ease us in as we get to grips with this kind of "without a net" format where we suddenly realise that our four years of podcasting experience means nothing.

Lots to talk about, of course: the Star Wars trailer, C.M. Punk's recent revelatory podcast appearance, the Texas Chainsaw Massacre series, trying to enjoy the Bayonetta games without feeling like a creepo perv and failing to create the right sense of detached coolness with our potential titles for the next James Bond movie.


Join Joe & Chris as they...  DO A THING!