Quasar Sniffer

Timothy Dalton might be the best part of that movie, and is pretty great in everything, and 'The Rocketeer' is definitely not terrible the way, say, 'Catowman' is. I just think it could have been a lot better, just like Joe Johnston's 'Captain America,' which has a great and enthusiastic cast (with a game Brit playing a Nazi villain). Not terrible; just very unengaging and it could have been better. As for 'The Phantom' itself, it's been a while since I've actually seen it, though I do remember some terrible things about it. I may have to re-watch it for a proper evaluation... which I will do if it does become an episode.

Anyone not listening to The Dead Authors Podcast is doing his or herself a disservice. Anyone missing out on MANZOOKS on said podcast is doing his or herself an even greater disservice.

When Hollywood tried its hardest to make Billy Zane a legitimate leading man, the world responded with a collective "no thank you." The trio of "mid-1990s pulp adaptations that could have been legitimate franchises but just resulted in disappointing films" needs to be addressed in some manner on HDTGM. I mean, they all SHOULD have been great (Alec Baldwin as The Shadow? A Rocketeer movie from the studio that arguably thrived/created that fantastical version of Art Deco the character lives in), but it never really happened. I think The Shadow is the least likely of the three of these to have become a franchise anyway, but it's also the one most similar in structure to the current wave of superhero movies, so I think it's equally worthy of an episode. FURTHER SIDE NOTE: The Rocketeer is another movie fucking ruined by Joe Johnston... or at least one that should have been great but was ultimately disappointing. Captain America and the Benicio del Toro Wolfman movie are two other examples. Seriously, how does this guy keep getting work?

Truth. The amount of joy I got from any and all iterations of MST3K as a child was unparalleled. It improved my life, for serious. Even if I had no idea what they were talking about half the time. Watching a Joel episode as a 12 year old without instant Internet access? That equals lots of missed references, but I still loved it.

I love this game. So would this movie be, maybe, "Blind Child With Sick"? "Battle: Church Organ"? "Gross Benifer Sex"?

More idiocy from this movie: "Most amazing of all, my sense of sound gave off a kind of... Radar Sense." OH, you mean like fucking SONAR? You're making a movie about a superhero with superhuman hearing and you still talk down to your audience to such an extent that you think the concept of sonar is beyond them? It's like describing boxing training as "the class that taught me how to punch good." Leland Orser's credit sheet makes me think of another possible movie game, in which we think of ways to describe a character in the credits besides the credited name. "Guy Forced at Gunpoint to Shred Whore With Razor-Tipped Strap-On in Sex Dungeon" is clearly better than "Crazed Man in Massage Parlour," so maybe Matt Murdock in this movie could more accurately be described as "Poor Man's Batman Except He's Red" or "Guy Who Uses His Blindness to Pick Up Chicks in Coffee Houses"?

Leland Orser, aka "The guy who was forced to fuck the prostitute using a knife-dildo in 'Seven,'" looks even more emasculated in this movie than he did while screaming "He had a gun in my mouth!" while sweaty and clad in fetish leather. Also, this is a movie so fucking incompetent, it uses House of Pain in the soundtrack to introduce Bullseye in an attempt to make the character seem intimidating. Ben Affleck is in no way at fault for the crapitude of this thing. I know the dated nature of the soundtrack has been stated before, but that was an embarrassingly tired reference by about a decade even with this piece of garbage was released.

With both the Boomer the Dog story and the Hell's Angels student in Germany suffering from depression, I wonder how many of these County stories actually stem from, you know, legitimate mental illness? I mean, if Boomer the Dog is a schizophrenic or is suffering from delusions that require medication that he cannot afford, does it stop being funny and become just sad?

I guess an out-of-his-mind-on-drugs version of Duck Vitale is more personable, relatable, and polite than the real-life version.

Good God, I love Huell Howser. Anyone so genuinely enthusiastic about dogs eating avocados is the EXACT right person to be hosting a travel show. I feel like his internal monologue is constantly "WOW AMAZING!" and it is adorable. On the opposite end of the sincerity spectrum, I can't imagine what it was like for the actors or people on set of for that 'Days of Our Lives' Chex Mix thing. Like, "shit, we have to memorize and shoot pages and pages of dialogue every day concerning the most nonsensical shit, and now, FUCKING CHEX MIX?!?!"

Anymore, I can't hear or even see the name "Gary Marshall" without hearing Paul F. Tompkins saying it in-character. Get him to watch this movie and guest on the podcast and I think we will strike comedy gold. "Call me Gary!"

I certainly understand not allowing your six-year-old to play any GTA, Saints Row, or other such explicit video games. However, I would hope you trust your 14-year-old to be able to tell the difference between video games and reality. As Not the Narnold pointed out, Koechner himself has participated in creating some incredibly profane and even violent content for entertainment, which is totally fine. I love a lot of filthy and violent entertainment, as well as G-rated content. But criticizing a video game; in which a player has the choice of what kind of narrative to participate in, profane, violent, or otherwise; just seems extremely hypocritical to me and took all the fun out of this podcast.

Help me out here, Earwolf fans. I'm not going to say that Horatio Sanz has never made me laugh, but when he does, it's never been worth it, either in an SNL skit or a podcast. I think I kind of cracked a smile during the "BEEF OVER" exchange, but that was the extent of my reaction. What am I missing?

I love that in the "Beyond Vaudeville" clip, the guest is introduced as being from a comic book convention. This show is basically what conventions were like in the 1980s and 1990s, yet have somehow transformed into one of the most potent and powerful forces in pop culture. From plate-spinning in a "Eye of the Beholder" pig-faced Twilight Zone mask to Robert Downey Jr. as Iron Man in 20 years. I find this fascinating.

"What was writing for KISS like?" "Profitable." BOOM! If Pete Holmes were here, he would call that "laser fucking accuracy." Fowley's moments of comic genius are all the more fascinating considering he spent half the podcast hazily blabbing about the functionality/disfunctionality of his genitalia. As far as my own... functionality goes, I may not be into ankles, but I do fancy myself some ghosts and space travelers, so this episode speaks to me.

I love the fact that Jake and Jenny Johnson had never met before this, but were IMMEDIATELY able to riff on how much of a scumbag/good guy Andy Levy is. Laughs were had.

Yeah, the Willy Wonka thing. I feel like you could have pitched this movie as a prequel to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, to show how such a lovably WACKY character came to be in charge of a factory... but then this movie happened. I also feel that this movie is part of why people started to really hate on Robin Williams. There are parts, especially the scenes between him and Robin Wright, where he's just doing Robin shtick, but it's not funny or charming or even interesting to watch, it's just awkward. The scenes are designed for him to be awkward, so not only is there this base level of Uncomfortable in the scene, but Williams is spewing out unfunny statements in his trademark way, elongating an already laborious sequence. Ugh. And he did 'The Fisher King' the previous year. What happened?

This movie is so fucking frustrating. Some of the visuals are absolutely gorgeous, especially the outdoor scenes in the field,* while others just scream "1990s"-type ugliness. It's also bizarrely prescient about the use of automated drones in warfare... but it's handled in such a clumsy and uninteresting way. And yeah, that fucking music. The worker song is like something you'd use to satirize the glorification of factory life, the kidn of glorification you might see in the Soviet Union, but here it's used literally and showed to be actively enjoyed by the factory workers. What the FUCK is going on? *http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0105629/trivia?item=tr0726854

Yeah, the Aikido characteristics that PlanBFromOuterSpace and cat & beard mentioned are what I was referring to. That's a particular style of martial art that's pretty hard to get across on screen unless you have someone extremely talented and charismatic doing the fighting, like Bruce Lee in 'Enter the Dragon.' Not that Bruce Lee was doing Aikido, just that he was able to film the use-your-opponent's-momentum concept and make it cinematic and interesting. When you have someone like Seagal, co-starring with someone like DMX in a movie like 'Exit Wounds' (directed by the guy who brought you 'Doom' and 'Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun-Li'), you get what looks like dudes running into the wall for no reason while Seagal stands there squinting. "Narcissistic egomaniacal juicebox" indeed. I am not an expert but I sure love to talk like one! ANYWAY, fuck, and I mean FUCK this movie for having the balls to actually include scenes from 'Casablanca.'

I adore this movie. It's legitimately fucking weird and inexplicable (How Did This Get Made? indeed), but I'm just so glad it exists. Alex Winter has my eternal admiration for accomplishing this feat of filmmaking I-don't-know-what. A unique combination of studio miscalculation, a filmmaker's ambition, and opportunity brought to life this commercial bomb and artistic victory. I use the word "artistic" in all seriousness too. Sure, that "Rastafar-EYE" pun is extra dumb, but this is a movie willing to spend the money to actually build those animatronic suits just for that fucking pun. I mean, that's fucking insane. And I love it.

I think Scott Pilgrim came at a time when the studios were convinced that a big Twitter following and a very positive Comic-Con response were directly analogous to enormous box office returns, which obviously turned out not to be the case. I love the hell out of the movie, but I think it was just another example of how movie studios didn't know how to handle the gem that they actually had. In any case, I love the Cornetto Trilogy in its entirety. So good.

Anyway, about this movie in particular, I'm only about 30 minutes in and I already feel like Paul's intro into the actual episode should start with, "Ever wonder what 'Seven' would be like if it were made by people who can only count to five? Well, wonder no longer! We watched 'The Glimmer Man..."

I've always found Seagal to be really frustrating as an actor and as an action star. He's someone who clearly has spent a ton of time trying to learn about and understand Japanese and Chinese culture, Buddhism, and martial arts. His actual martial arts techniques are pretty legitimate, at least when compared to the kind of spinkick-parade nonsense done by guys like Jean-Claude Van Damme and Chuck Norris. However...he's a self-aggrandizing, lying egomaniac. Not to mention he's just a terrible actor with all the charisma of a wet fart. He's also in movies that are either terrible or only watchable because they are insane or ridiculous. It's like if the makers of 'Crank' took themselves seriously and did shit like have Chev Chelios spout lectures on the environment or eastern philosophy. I can take such things from Bruce Lee, but not Seagal. Speaking of Bruce Lee, ACTUAL LINE FROM THE MOVIE: "He took those guys out like Bruce Lee, only better."

With more Star Wars coming and the awfulness of the Prequels and even the Holiday Special extraordinarily played-out at this point, I think this would be a great choice for an episode. Good News Nerds: There is still further depths down the Star Wars craphole for stuff worth making fun of, and that's coming from someone whose nerdom comes directly from his love of Star Wars.

I honestly don't understand this board sometimes. I mean, no, it's not the most original movie, but neither are 90% of all studio releases. This one was photographed far more beautifully than 99% of studio releases, had great music, and had well-done action sequences. To compare this to HDTGM dreck like Bridemic, or even other studio releases like After Earth, I think it plain off-base. I can understand just not liking a movie; having it rub you the wrong way. I usually HATE the use of clones in science fiction since it usually just feels like a big ol' copout... but I don't feel that for this movie, but I do have illogical hate for other clone/copies in genre stuff. It's not that illogical hate I don't understand, since I clearly share that for some things, but to equate Oblivion with the shitty excuses for narratives like, say, a Transformers film is unfair to even Scientologists and the miscast Morgan Freeman.