The Great Comedy Villains
We’re talking all our favorite snobs, bullies, sex pests, bureaucrats, supervillains and…golfers?
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Big Ideas
Topics too broad or odd to fit in another particular category
On Arnold Schwarzenneger
Chris Prentice returns to discuss the meteoric rise of possibly the biggest, most unlikely and unique star in the history of Hollywood: Arnold Alois Schwarzenegger. No one did it like him. Is that because he is a one-of-a-kind talent, or because he is just an inhuman brick that can only play cyborgs believably?
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What If The Oscars Took Comedy Seriously?
In this episode, the guys contemplate an alternate reality where the Oscars are biased toward broad, capital-C Comedies rather than stately costume dramas and respectful biopics. Which is very important cultural commentary, and definitely not just an excuse to talk about how incredible Bill Murray is in KINGPIN.
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Stephen King’s The Dark Tower
As a sort of counterpoint to all the fawning over Peter Jackson’s LOTR trilogy, John and Al look at another adaptation of an epic fantasy series that fell flat on its face. Both have intense love for Stephen King’s magnum opus, despite wildly different views of the ending stretch.
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Bioware Prequel – on Dungeons & Dragons
Frame Work branches out into gaming, with a look at the most sneakily influential piece of culture of the last half century, the OG table-top role playing game, Dungeons & Dragons. The original idea was to examine its role in shaping the video game industry, but before that the party finds a great deal to
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Special Report – ALIEN and ALIENS Are Actually Great!
Before kicking off their next David Fincher series with the deeply imperfect ALIEN3, John and Al geek out over Ridley Scott’s perfect creature feature ALIEN and James Cameron’s perfect sequel ALIENS. They gush over the incredible creature design, intricate world-building, forgotten plot twists, and Cameron’s facility at making R-rated movies for kids.
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ADVENTURE, HO!
John embarks on a semantic quest to define the genre of Adventure films, leading Al through a series of puzzles and pursuits that hits all the notes one would expect:. The correct pronunciation of “Cary Elwes”. Historical revisionism. The quality of Charlie Hunnam’s agent. The relationships between The Goonies and Da Vinci Code. And more
On Artificial Intelligence In Fiction
John and Al attempt to chart the history of rowbuts on film, and how a genre long defined by allegorical significance is beginning to clash with a modern reality where computer intelligence manifests as less Kunta Kinte from ROOTS and more Jerry Lundegaard from FARGO.
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TV SET – Lovecraft Country and the Challenge of Horror on TV
Finally, two white guys talk about LOVECRAFT COUNTRY. The main focus is in how it disappointed in the scares department, which leads to more general discussion of horror and how hard it is to do it in the TV format.
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