Funfiltered

This week, Jordan and I (Sam)

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) mourn the DEATH OF A UNICORN, compose notes for THE FOUR SEASONS, undergo THE ASSESSMENT, issue a fat wah against #1 HAPPY FAMILY USA, prune the climbing Daisy of CLEANER, reveal whether ELSBETH - SEASON 2 gets its men, DROP a review, get real about ANDOR - SEASON 2, engage in WARFARE and board SCREAMBOAT for a slash from Willie.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) stare ponderously into BLACK MIRROR - SEASON 7, cut the tension of CLOUD and DEAD MAIL, assemblé a position on ÉTOILE, ana-log some FREAKY TALES, go Hardy on HAVOC, remain LOCKED in and autoimmobile, remove the blinders for DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN, roll in the blighted sandbox of A MINECRAFT MOVIE and examine the urgent treat of THE PITT.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) plumb the infernal conflict of DEVIL MAY CRY, question the (M)MO of SIDE QUEST, double up on THE ALTO KNIGHTS, debate whether to bail on THE BONDSMAN, litigate MATLOCK, wonder if BLACK BAG belongs in the bin, double up again (and again and again...) on MICKEY 17 and pan PETER PAN'S NEVERLAND NIGHTMARE.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) scorch earth IN THE LOST LANDS, set up camp for MID-CENTURY MODERN, assess the wellness of THE WHITE LOTUS - SEASON 3, report on COMMON SIDE EFFECTS, consider whether DELI BOYS Is(lama)bad, drift through REACHER - SEASON 3, take our one shot incelling ADOLESCENCE, rate the pain of NOVOCAINE, drone on about THE ELECTRIC STATE, snare down THE MONKEY and take a long hard look in the Mirror to ask if we can be fair about SNOW WHITE.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) put the gloves on for DAY OF THE FIGHT, skip to THE END, do a deep-dive on LAST BREATH, investigate THE RESIDENCE, keep rollin' through Y2K, get to the Bikini Bottom of PLANKTON: THE MOVIE, natter amour with HEART EYES, offer perspective on WIN OR LOSE, liquidly FLOW, take a hit out on OLD GUY and work Lumonescently undivided through SEVERANCE - SEASON 2.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) sling a critical web around YOUR FRIENDLY NEIGHBORHOOD SPIDER-MAN, get in the ring for A THOUSAND BLOWS (be mature, please), Tóth our skills for thankless labour like THE BRUTALIST, leaf through MEMOIR OF A SNAIL, impose male-order on COMPANION and slash mercilessly through PIGLET and MOUSE OF HORRORS.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) emerge from desolation row for A COMPLETE UNKNOWN, preside over PARADISE, manage our franchise with RUNNING POINT, hop in the cruiser to get ON CALL, get forensic about DEXTER: ORIGINAL SIN, hover unseen for PRESENCE, get KINDA PREGNANT with disgust and hack our way through ZERO DAY.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) contend with BEAST GAMES, take a holistic approach to APPLE CIDER VINEGAR, chronicle the Renée-sance of BRIDGET JONES: MAD ABOUT THE BOY, bridge THE GORGE between us, face the HARD TRUTHS of... well, assess the procedure of HIGH POTENTIAL, put THE LAST SHOWGIRL under the spotlight, cover SEPTEMBER 5 with the means at our disposal, consider the pedigree of DOG MAN, recognise that LOVE HURTS (and some films, too) and emcee you through CAPTAIN AMERICA: BRAVE NEW WORLD.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) give you the lowdown on ELEVATION as we get BACK IN ACTION, lurch baldly and boldly through FLIGHT RISK, stay HERE for some time(s), analyse the manoeuvres of THE NIGHT AGENT - SEASON 2, mynd OUT THERE gyda Martin Clunes am chops, go "Live from South Wales!" for SATURDAY NIGHT, examine the contours of SILO - SEASON 2, space the final frontier with STAR TREK: SECTION 31, go beast mode on WOLF MAN and cordially invite you to a discussion of YOU'RE CORDIALLY INVITED (where none are welcome).

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) submit a review of BABYGIRL, traffic in BLOOD FOR DUST, retain frigid desolation for THE DAMNED, get Callas about MARIA(?), comment asocially upon the social commentary of NICKEL BOYS, acknowledge that WE LIVE IN TIME to save yours, take a disaster tour through A REAL PAIN, load our Gunns for CREATURE COMMANDOS, exploit our public with JERRY SPRINGER: FIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION, get our teeth into NOSFERATU and roam like a pair of Goons alongside STAR WARS: SKELETON CREW.

An interesting year was 2024. And I refer not to the reinstatement of Trump, nor the advancements of AI, nor the rise of autocracy, nor the fall of Assad, nor Palestine, nor hawk tuah. No, I'm talking about the fundament of being itself that outlasts the ephemera of happening things, the undergird of the fabric of why to bother. I'm talking about film and television.2024 was arguably cinema's finest hour since the last very fine hour, which was quite a few hours ago. But as well as offering up some of the most outstanding films for years, it dropped too a dud or two. Profound duds or twos. So here, Jordan and I (Sam) reach the apotheosis of our respect and the apogee of our contempt (respectively, we'd be deranged otherwise) as we present you with with our 10 favourites and hateourites from last year, film-wise and telly-wise combined.Best and Worst of 2024 comin' atcha.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) “Feel” our way through BETTER MAN (where “Angels” fear to tread), allot time and hold space for DOCTOR WHO: JOY TO THE WORLD, check what's occurrin' with GAVIN & STACEY: THE FINALE, stop motion to wallow in WALLACE & GROMIT: VENGEANCE MOST FOWL, go beast mode on KRAVEN THE HUNTER, take a hard stare at the bear PADDINGTON IN PERU, aim for true north in pursuit of RED ONE, test our Bond with QUEER, get all introspective in THE ROOM NEXT DOOR, lament our Koreas going South as we run the conversational gauntlet of SQUID GAME - SEASON 2 and thereupon keep running, running, running to escape the Shadow of SONIC THE HEDGEHOG 3.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) defy the gravity of musical expertise for WICKED, strive for august patricianship as we Rome about GLADIATOR II, get rhetorical and wax philosophical about HERETIC, aim for accuracy re: THE DAY OF THE JACKAL, refuse to annul our partnership like ANORA, take flightless on THE PENGUIN and ponder the decline of civilisation exemplified in (by) MEGALOPOLIS.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) inaugurate Cohnversation on the real (e)state of THE APPRENTICE, evacuate our brains and bombard the London of you for BLITZ, get Pacific and manganimus in our MSG about THE CONTESTANT and assemble a woman-free (cardinally), virginal (by most accounts) symposium in digital pectore to discuss CONCLAVE.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) communicate with you animals about THE WILD ROBOT, foster good-will and adopt a Christian ear for SOUND OF HOPE: THE STORY OF POSSUM TROT, decide whether TRANSFORMERS ONE is cause for prime optimism or screaming at the stars, le'go of our preconceptions and build a review PIECE BY PIECE, summon reserves from Down Under to throw THE OFFICE (Australia) on the barbie - AM I RACIST? - and say boo boo Gaga as we pluck the resurrected Phoenix of JOKER: FOLIE À DEUX.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) sweep on with threshing oar to the TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, face the trials of the Critics' Road with AGATHA ALL ALONG, sneak into THE 4:30 MOVIE, schlep our schmucky selves through a NOBODY WANTS THIS schmooze, blur the lines between amateur and professional for SING SING, check SWEETPEA off our kill-list and Get Out our venom for a sedate defilement of BLINK TWICE.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) beware lest we become monstrous as we fight MONSTERS: THE LYLE AND ERIK MENENDEZ STORY, occupy space where no one will hear us with ALIEN: ROMULUS, go for a Burton to meet BEETLEJUICE BEETLEJUICE, maintain a fragile civility around SPEAK NO EVIL, egest from our horror-bodies THE SUBSTANCE and pursue wis-Dom for subs on the tail of a certain STRANGE DARLING.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) word-search and cross words over LUDWIG, become a pair of chiacchierones for WISE GUY: DAVID CHASE AND THE SOPRANOS (don't fuhgeddaboudit), peel the bananas banana of CHIMP CRAZY, forfeit no ground on REBEL RIDGE, hurtle speedily through NIGHTSLEEPER and set the bait for those behind THE MOUSE TRAP.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) go Pretty under the skin with UGLIES, chaperone KAOS on a voyage too close to the Sun, cast doubt on the resurrection of THE CROW, create a chat room irl re: RED ROOMS, bring our odd coupling to bear on COLIN FROM ACCOUNTS and go demon mode on how beyond good is EVIL.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) conduct our typically Doughy 101 in decidedly unhushed tones regarding QUIET ON SET: THE DARK SIDE OF KIDS TV, chart the outer reaches of vexation with BORDERLANDS, swing by THE LAST STOP IN YUMA COUNTY for a quick critical brew, navigate the concerted mechanisms of M. Night Shyamalan's TRAP and turn Pixar's latest child-brain brainchild INSIDE OUT 2.

This week, Jordan and I (Sam) whirl fatly around the throwback vortex with TWISTERS, scrutinise the blazing Boredchurch of THE JETTY from our displeasure vessel, trail the glossy MAXXXINE along Hollywood Boulevard in a non-criminal fashion, make a potentially botched attempt to extract enjoyment from THE INSTIGATORS (don't get us started) and team up to take on the question: is DEADPOOL & WOLVERINE merely sanctioned satire with as much meaningful f*cking irreverence as this sh*tting paragraph? Or... not? You c*nts.

Reviews of A QUIET PLACE: DAY ONE, KINDS OF KINDNESS, BATMAN: CAPED CRUSADER S1, THELMA and LONGLEGS. Links in bio.You are now entering Video Village. Well, at the moment, you're plonked outside the limits, staring at the welcome sign. It's uncommon for villages to have mottos, but ours does. You squint to discern it, printed as it is damn near illegible in Edwardian Script. You wonder why. An attempt to mask the meaning? A grandiose Elder with ideas above his station? A local councilperson engaged in administrative hostilities with the locals, a struggle playing out in the theatre of low-level upkeep? You edge a mite closer, careful not to cross the invisible threshold lest that signal a kind of commitment. Finally, you clarify: "Praise, Disgust, and all Betwixt." The Oxford comma and archaic closer confirm that this is indeed the work of some bombastic honcho. Next to strike is the judgment that the village remains a mystery, besides some gratuitous pledge to reflect the universal range of human response. Surely this is axiomatic?Desperate, your eyes dart to some graffiti adorning an abandoned wagon on the opposite side of the road. The doodlings would have slipped your notice (accustomed as you are to "the city") but your curiosity is hungry and there's a wagon there. In blood-red it reads, "PODCAST (FILM AND TV)". You are flooded with grateful lucidity, and the accompanying notion that whoever sprayed it might also harbour some haught. What vandal perpetuates parentheses? What vandal!But now you have some idea where you are. Of where you could be. Dare ye enter? Or will you drive in the other direction?* It was presumptuous and, let's face it, inaccurate of me to narrate your own experience to you when we both know you probably didn't even see the sign. I'm probably not even talking to you, am I? It's Sam, by the way.Aye, Sam and Jordan, here we are. New face. Same soul. (For the sake of this, we have one face and soul cos the podcast is a unitary thing. Don't you go thinking we're indistinct beings.) We are the Mickey Rourke (but hopefully for the better) of comically obscure podcasts. Join us!*Scrolling is the metaphor, I'm doing a whole thing.

From the Shorthand Effusions of Jeremy Kettle, Date Unknown, Motives Inscrutable: "All things must pass. Yet, lest you sustain a dogged certitude in a Great Unknown*, 'tis a common failing to mistake passage for passing, especially if you're on a P&O cruise. Does anything end? Or does it merely change? Such questions have busied brilliant and bored minds for aeons. Change is the only rigid dimension, unless, that is, you still live in your hometown with its charity shops and family ties and haven't moved somewhere a bit more happening where nobody knows your name and if you deign to stay in touch, there is an inescapable chill that your relocation has engendered, privately regarded as it is by your kin as tacit contempt for their choices. I'll be honest, my attention was seized by the footnotes and breakfast has made me sluggish. Change... To be resumed tomorrow. *A contradiction in terms, one supposes. Yes, it's true that one spontaneously introduced the clause, but one feels it would be priggish on your part to take umbrage, chiefly because you must admit that the variance has accidentally/astutely delivered an Olbas-like sniff of Truth and penchiefly because had I elected not to painstakingly EXPLAIN MYSELF AGAIN, you'd conceivably have proceeded ignorant of the (arguably, if you're like that) sloppy writing or otherwise convinced of its wit. It was an accident. I don't think more words will convince you out of thinking that it was an accident. I explicitly alluded† to its accidentality. Sure, I COULD have re-written it and avoided all this finger-pointing and snickering to my notional face. But I believe drafts to be a form of duplicity, a philosophy that I will allow has delivered unto me an oppressive hateload of grief, be it a Tripadvisor review - a forum whereupon it would appear "advice" is in fact unwelcome, nay, litigated - or a birthday card. It was an accident, what of it? Penicillin was an accident. We shouldn't use penicillin now? †Another contradiction? That is for the scholars to unpack. How many inconsistencies must one unconsciously bequeath until oxymoron is recognised as oxygenius?”

Jordan and I find ourselves in what was once a forest, framed by the charred corpses of organia. Before us looms our Oak erection which, yielding to precedent, is in acute decline. The Moirai schlep our porcine persons t'ward the wilted trunk, Atropos routinely glancing back over her shoulder with a wicked grin and making the "snip-snip" motion with her fingers. Her nails (predictably, on reflection) are a manicured, sultry red. We don't know how we ended up here. There is the sense of an absence of a memory of a "why", but its inaudible squawks are stifled beneath a landslide of inattention and unpardonably byzantine prose. Camouflaged as we have been, concealed from the sweet, tempering sunshine of others' gaze, with naught but the Spooky Puppeteers and, inescapably, each other for company, we have succumbed to a climate of grotesque permissiveness. A calendar governed not by heavenly bodies but by earthly vagaries. An oral system unmitigated by normal human limits. Writings suggestive of an omni-cibarious yogurt parfait, where digging through each layer brings not nourishment but simply more. Somewhere along our sylvan traipse, yes, we grew unable to see the wood for the trees. We are IN the wood, though. To be fair, like. But perhaps escape is possible... On this quasi-penultimate episode, Jordan reviews the first season of MR. BIRCHUM (with none of the presumptuousness that "first" implies), the second season of SMILING FRIENDS (but the whole thing, really), GAME CHANGER (the whole thing, really) and the first season of DELICIOUS IN DUNGEON (an uncontroversial "first".) Otherwise, he kindly invites me to participate in the podcast with evaluations of the ninth and final series of INSIDE NO. 9 (with allusions to the whole thing), FURIOSA: A MAD MAX SAGA, HUNDREDS OF BEAVERS and IN A VIOLENT NATURE (hol fings), the first season or fourteenth series of DOCTOR WHO (depending on your orientation to the universe) and WINNIE-THE-POOH: BLOOD AND HONEY 2 (yes, the whole. Damn. Thing.) ...Winnie the- -Oh God, is this the Hundred Acre Wood..? Not gonna be Milne's, though, is it? It gonna be Frake-fucking-Waterfield's. Oh, smother.

Today, I have been GRIPPED by the urge to talk about cereal. Coincidentally, cereal is the focus of one of the films we review (it's not a coincidence). In an attempt to curb option paralysis, I am gustatorially unadventurous. But when I consider the myriad cereals on supermarket shelves, I can with confidence claim to have sampled the vast majority. Lit and watered by its nostalgic roots, cereal outgrows its edi-bedfellows. I han't and won't nibble upon such transatlantications as Count Chocula and the Froot Loop. Some of the products I soon mention will be American, but these FEEL American and a residual nationalism casts doubt upon their virtue. As red is the protagonist of the colours and the apple the principal of the fruits, the cereal Don to me will always be Coco Pops. It's been over a decade since our last acquaintance and I weep for all that is lost. It was touched by milk. So milk it too touched. Rice Krispies - the underboss, a worthy second whose wings are clipped by choclessness. Frosties - the third leg of that elementary triumvirate, Tony long since usurped by similar beasts (Crunchy Nut). METAPHOR SHIFT Corn Flakes - the granddaddy, the soggy stalwart and what a vile procession of words. Bran Flakes & Special K - the boring and fun parents, respectively, rightly concerned with the movement of one's bowels. Cheerios & Shreddies - good kids but nobody's favourites, are they? Shredded Wheat - the "different" cousin of whom we are nonetheless fond. METAPHOR SHIFT Weetabix - a wonderful teacher in the rewards of patience. Weetos - a lover whose time in one's life is certain to be short-lived. Because you love her so much. It can't be good for you. And good things like this don't last. Not for you... not for you. And Sugar Puffs - a relic of HOME, a place long gone but forever nestled behind our lives, that place we privately mourn, that pl-- I just found out that Sugar Puffs are now called Honey Monster Puffs. What the FUCKING FUCK?! They come for it all, don't they? METAPHOR COLLAPSE I'm hobbled by the character limit but believe me, I have more to say. On this ep, Jordan and I discuss ERIC, UNFROSTED and uvvers.

This is a true story. In the year 2000, my parents took me and my cousin on holiday to Magaluf. I was five. By that time, I was already a voracious reader, as far as voracity can apply to the habits of a nipper. Thus, in the breaks between swimming, mocktails and ice cream, I turned my attention to penning my first work of fiction. A haunted house yarn, it amounted to an austere roll call of horror archetypes - the vampire, the ghost, the mummy... it isn't humility alone when I say that the piece lacked accomplishment. Nevertheless, when I ponder the birth of the bug, this is the provenance at which the train of recall halts. The tracks may persist rearward, my Bic may have earlier met paper, but such things have been lost to the fog of infant amnesia. And so, be it history or mere story, accounting for the blur betwixt the two and the value of myth, I consider this my creo-genesis. But this emergence wasn't the only salient feature of the vacay. I also remember a pirate-themed stage-show, during which my adolescent cousin drunk himself into paralysis. I remember my continued insistence that we patronise the local Burger King in the hopes of completing a kids-meal toy collection. I remember the friendly server swapping out the trinkets already in my possession for fresh plastic trophies. I remember the elderly man pawing at a payphone so that he may scavenge coins. I remember, trailing behind my family as I was, stopping to study this strange spectacle. I remember the man's fixed gaze as his arm extended outward, grabbed my shirt and began to violently drag me into an alley. I remember my father running back to us, tackling the stranger to the ground and restraining him until the police arrived. I remember being told much later that the stranger, now known to me as Camilo Muñoz, had subsequently been jailed for his role in a string of attempted child abductions. That wasn't a true story. Well, some of it was. But enough about BABY REINDEER. Almost enough. Just enough more to say that Jordan and I talk about it. That, along with the first season of FALLOUT, the KNUCKLES miniseries, LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL and a whole bunch more. Tuck in!

There are advantages to being late to a party.People are likelier to take notice of you, if you're into that sort of thing. It is easier to avoid falling into a maelstrom of sloshed groupthink and social inducement, sidestepping behaviours you may bemoan or words you may bewail. If anthropology or sociology or psychology tickle your pickle, the scene of the good time is laid out squarely for your observation. As an arson investigator might survey a charred dwelling, so might you examine the somatic rubble of mortal desolation.Who likes parties anyway?DUNE: PART TWO may have disappeared from your feeds as the algorithm continues to adapt into the void (and us along with it). The eponymous GLADIATORS of the Saturday night smash hit may have migrated into other media spheres as a result of their popularity. I.S.S. may have slipped so comprehensively through the cracks of culture that you never even knew what it was, let alone that it had been released in cinemas. ROAD HOUSE may have already found sufficient success to be commissioned for a sequel. And YOU'LL NEVER FIND ME may not have even registered as a blip on your radar at all...However...To translate and address the whole "party" metaphor point by point (and in reverse order to suit my purposes)... with the benefit of time, Jordan and I are afforded a perspective on the critical community and its myriad responses... we have the privilege of distance to discern the shape of a piece's place in the cultural landscape... were we susceptible in the first place, we can more readily rebuff the seductions of consensus... but no, nobody listens still. That's where the thing falls apart really, and I'll leave whether that "thing" is simply the analogy or a larger sense of personal purpose to you.But yes, there are advantages to being late.Rather not be though tbh.Imbibe!

Around two hours ago (at the time of typing), I sat down to rollick in the glorious Providence of Inspiration, invoking Its sacred hover with a can of zero-caffeine Coke Zero, a bit of a headache and the apparent disinclination to do anything about that. And that was two hours ago. Still I now sit, the water droplets from the Coke can having formed a gentle ring on the coaster. The headache has passed, though it's tricky to isolate whether that's from the curative properties of time and the body or a practiced desensitisation to pain, both physical and meta- (honestly, if I start to FEEL anything nearing REAL, some OBSIDIAN MECHANISM* kicks in to sabotage the engine and confine me to the desert remand of vague somethings). It seems that I have lost time. Possible though it is that I called the wrong devotional number and instead reached the God of Going Nowhere (frankly a commonality given ∅'s place in speed-dial), it's likelier something to do with my generation, mental health and the effect of the Internet, etc. So to fill the space hereforth, we're just gonna do some free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness associations. This is our 75th episode... 75th equals platinum... the chemical symbol for platinum is Pt... "PT" can refer to the Palestinian Territories aaand we'll stop there. This is our 75th episode... 1975 saw the Fall of Saigon... Tim Robbins played a Vietnam vet in Jacob's Ladder... the Biblical Jacob was later given the name "Israel" aaand we'll stop there. All roads, huh? Little parable there. On this... "landmark" feels conceited... map-spot episode, Jordan and I, in a subjective fashion, delineate the merits and demerits of AMERICAN FICTION, DAMSEL, DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS, IMAGINARY, THE IRON CLAW, MADAME WEB and THE ZONE OF INTEREST, at least. *Otherwise referred to by me as "The Callous Callus", but it feels tacky to start plugging my autobiography this early unless it's in a footnote.

The looming axis of China, Russia and Iran threatens to destabilise the global order, such as it is. Populations across the world are continually immiserated under tyrannical regimes. The impending race for leadership of the free world orbits a pair of hoary ignorami whose antiquity and indeed place in history may best be described as "antediluvian". The abiding "we don't know" around artificial intelligence accommodates the calamitous continuum of widespread unemployment to total nuclear holocaust. Social media pollutes the mind, body and soul of what approaches an entire species. The cost of living condemns a generation+ to treadmillity. And nuance, conversation, art, tolerance and intellectual maturity are generally plunging into obsolescence. And so it's never been more acutely vital that you care about what Jordan and I think about the 2023 Doctor Who specials. Otherwise, "they" win. We used to agree on who "they" were, whoever they were. That is no longer the case. So just pick your side and whatever antagonises it... that's the "they". And they will win in the face of stark, unclicking indifference. And fear not, the content of the 'cast isn't as dour. It's pretty overcast as I'm writing this and were the Sun to peek out from behind a cloud for a couple of minutes, I'm sure I'd sing the praises of something I like in this world if I could summon the energy to ponder the matter for a good while. On this episode, Jordan and I discuss the fifth season of Fargo, The Holdovers, Poor Things and Doctor Who, and debut a new segment that isn't really too dissimilar from what we usually do. Enjoy!

Week last, I was listening to another (another?!) podcast that shall go unnamed because time and attention are zero-sum games. I'm not gonna direct any stragglers elsewhere. I'm Mr. Monopoly, mothershuckers*, and while I mayn't have a moustache, a top hat or any real estate holdings beyond personal space, I'm in the GETTING business... Admittedly, if this boutique whinery that Jordan and I operate required any capital investment, we'd be redder than Chairman Mao. So it's good that the only things we pour into this enterprise are toil and bile. Upon this anonymous podcast, one of the hosts remarked that she had an aversion to compiling top-ten lists and the like, describing the endeavour as particularly "male". My curiosity tickled if not piqued, I dived into the scant research in this area. The first result coughed up by the search engine was an article reporting on a study that had concluded the following: generally, women make lists with greater enthusiasm than men, while men are more focused on ticking off the items thereon. So maybe not so uniquely "male" after all, huh? Of course, this study was about to-do lists and not "rankings"... So all a bit of a wash, really. I dunno. Something inside rebelled at the inferred venom of a thing being described as "male" even as I intuitively agreed with the assessment. It DOES feel like more of a "male" thing. This day and age, huh? equine lip-smacking So with our maleness explicit to you, cemented, indeed petrified, 'tis also the mating season. Consequently, Jordan and I are in hibernation (mostly apart, I might add, lest you get all hetero-directed homophobic about it), watching stuff and talking about it and that and unveiling this here, our TOP 10 of 2023, a list subject to infinite revision by the sands of time and the winds of aesthetic change. So all a bit of a wash, really. So why make lists? Well... because. *Writing this on Mother's Day, I am psychologically obliged to bypass any interrogation of this neology and why it sprang to mind. The horror of the peel-oriented imagery it conjures is surpassed only by that the word was coined on a whim to replace.

According to most, it's a new year. According to us, too. And, to a near 100% certainty, to you. So why qualify at all? Who knows why people do the things they do⸮ Live with mystery. Loll in the penumbra of conundra. Sniff the azaleas without scrutinising the chemistry of olfaction or whatever. 2024 promises global unrest, the continuing degradation of any and all sense-making apparatus and some more episodes of this podcast, released with no consistent schedule because why should we be the only people keeping promises in a civilisation rapidly spiralling into the abyss? That's not rhetorical. WHY? Ugh, I guess it is. I'm sorry, I've got the Vicks on my chest, the Olbas Oil hovering under my nostrils, the nicotine leaving my brain and I can't at the moment fathom why anyone bothers doing anything. The shame of the thing, it's not that the above paragraph is off the mark, it's just that I'd usually be mobile enough to want to lie about the whole business. But you don't need this, do you? For once, I hope you don't read. Just keep making those resolutions, scrolling and scrolling. Seriously. If you damn well can, stay happy. Bonne année and all that. It'll be fine, I'm sure. On this episode, Jordan and I review Leave the World Behind, The Killer, The Fall of the House of Usher, Killers of the Flower Moon and Five Nights at Freddy's. Goooooodbyyyyyyyye.

Good mofterning, goofballs and goofaries! Welllll now, it really has been rather a while, hasn't it? Has this been the longest “break”? Who knows?! If anyone IS keeping track, their identity is a mystery, cloaked as they are in the caligine of withheld praise, churning a bitter barrel of vitriol in the shared breast of his or her (let's face it, his) content providers that will one day burst forth in savage expression as surely as the whole enterprise is a fanciful premise. I suspended a couple of quotation marks over “break” up there because I would be remiss if I suggested the hiatus had the character of leisure or pleasure. No, no, indeed, the last few months have been replete with bodily discord, self-recrimination, extra-recrimination, feeble fisticuffs and a wedding in Belgium. And while the lattermost item was an indelibly joyful experience that will forever define a certain time in our lives and the memories of which we will have until the grave… graves, that is, whatever this thing Jordan and I have, its terminus must surely be physical expiration… one should not neglect the first four items because it is from within them that we might derive compassion. And only the fourth thing is a lie. It weren't feeble. We're MEN. Nah, didn't happen. We're back, anyway. For now, at least, and not at most. We will do our best, whatever meagre form that takes, to advance the pace hereafter. But no other promise will be here made. You'll get us when you get us and be ungrateful or oblivious for the paltry privilege. So what do we review on this episode? Don't remember. No idea. Not a solitary clue. Waiting on Jordan to send me a screenshot of the video graphic. On this episode, it turns out, we review The Flash, Asteroid City, Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One, Oppenheimer and Barbie. Yes yes, we're late to the party, but aren't you happy we showed up at all? Well, that's rude. I'm out!

Sometimes, one is in no mood to make sense; in fact, the inferred obligation makes one ornery. This is one of those times. The drench of zest curdles evilly with a forthcoming mantis that defies strict adhesion, precipitating in its wake a tropical malaise whereby underlings systematically tackle totems in the hollow dispensation of minerals. Reluctantly, the meat-eaters vow frailty and condemn their condominiums to infernal heck. That's right, nightjars. Under the auspices of our newly coronated crimson, we balk, balk, BALK at the loophole vandals and the apartheid junkets - slaloming sans context unfurls a rubric whose majesty is sequential. Restrain your bridal curios and dopey pirouettes! Lest you flummox, you quiver in a monster's chagrin... An unhappy monster, indeed, devastated by quotients and insipid whirligigs. So clutch your damned sugar! DOWN with the freckles and foibles! When the donkey darlings gallop once more under painted rain, we will fiddle the light berserk in the nuclear Bethel. Overture. On this here episode, Jordan and I discuss The Full Monty sequel series, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Mrs. Davis, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts and the fourth and final season of Succession. Over.

Extract from Episode 70 of the Funfiltered podcast. A robot dyad trying yet unfailingly failing to blend into its surroundings speaks review-like ‘bout Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.

Extract from Episode 4 of the Funfiltered podcast. Full of beans, a huffy wad of gammon and an abidingly irascible egg (with a toasty slice of Eddie on the side) spar availlessly over the echelons of a full English upon a foundational non-consensus re: which echelons. You say tomato, I say tom-ah-to…

Konnichiwa, chumbuckets. "69" is very much the breakout character of the numbers. It has no right being anything more (or less) than eminently forgettable. Granted, as a year, '69 (19-, that is) conjures some salient iconography - Woodstock, Manson, the Moon... Beyond that, a bit of Bryan Adams and it's hermeneutically juiced. EXCEPT. It also happens to refer to some naughty symmetry. And so, in one fell swoop (or, more accurately, a carnal configuration enacted across forever eventually denominated by the French because who else? and memetically proliferated and consequently practiced throughout an increasingly permissive civilisation), one can't encounter the number "69" without an inner snicker and/or, unconscionably, an outer "weeeeey", typically uttered with a flat lethargy that implies the whole enterprise is merely a tedious social obligation. Which, I daresay and sadthink, it now irreversibly is… Due to the odd number of 1s in its binary form, "69" is regarded by some mathematicians as an "odious number." Lo. Within the ostensible non-sentient fabric of the tapestry of the universe, within this personless poetry, we find judgment. Perhaps... perhaps... THIS is God. Anyway, because it's Ep. 69 (weeeey) and we collectively suffer the arrested development that determines that this is a "special" episode, Eddie came back. Waheeeeey! Non-irony with that one. Having welcomed Mr. Boylett back into our podcast bosom (oh, were it that that was our only bosom), we two D&D players and a sensible third (which is me, Sam, me) get our mitts on topics such as Eddie's recent experience as a best man, Dungeons & Dragons: Honour Among Thieves, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and a novel segment whose recurrence depends on the reliably unfurling Pollution of Culture and wider Fall of Man. That's why we're here, buds. We'll watch that ship sink together. But Jordan and I (and herein Eddie) will pass occasional comment on the gloom if you're not up to it cos the whole thing's just so damn depressing. Have fun!

Extract from Episode 69 of the Funfiltered podcast. A trio of twonks - a TRIO, by God! - sets sight upon the second installment of the fifth phase of the second saga of Article 0, Section F**k You; have a thought and your money back, the One MCU, the One, the ONE, the HOLY UN, Praise Its Fame, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3: Eccentric Boogaloo in Space.

Extract from Episode 45 of the Funfiltered podcast. In a world of meaningless, annoying and otherwise poorly-written lyrics, two dopes take aim at a really rather mid-level offender and end up somewhere really rather low-level profound. Perhaps this was the artists' intention all along... It wasn't.

Extract from Episode 47 of the Funfiltered podcast. A coupla unorthod-ox heifers ruminant over a low-steaks hypothetical, moosing with typical veal and udderly milking the nothing burger with a load of old bull. Got beef? Cow stuff. Teehee.

Extract from Episode 12 of the Funfiltered podcast. A nitwit triptych takes the Cat by the whiskers and almost certainly (who has time to re-listen to these things?*) tests your patience for feline-themed puns. This is our review of Cats. The film. Not the beast. And I'd bet that joke was made withon, too. Enjoy! *EDIT: Well you of course YOU! dear dear you please ❤️

Extract from Episode 2 of the Funfiltered podcast. Two overweight men in their late twenties chart the frontier of the trivial, plumb the depths of psychic affliction and engage in an altogether next to nothing something. Can nebulae “happen”? This did. As did the vapour from which this anti-galaxy was drizzled. Enjoy.

'iya. If there's a certain frisson about Funfiltered today, it's not just because it's the mating season (reputably or otherwise simply elsewhere). Last night, the FF team +1 (a 50% mark-up) placed first in a local pub quiz and that has understandably and very probably created a sexy whiff around our social media presence. Knowledge is power. Power is an aphrodisiac. And the £25 we bagged divided three ways can only supplement that stimulation. We can only apologise if you're getting all hot and bothered inopportunely. This should really be labelled "NSFW". In fact, interpreted a certain way with a healthy dose of imposition, our logo could be viewed as a representation of the coital experience... whichever way the hourglass turns... isn't it just one permanent revolution..? Marxist. That's what our logo and sexuality are. On this here episode, an anxious pig and a silly bear review Blue Lights, Community Squad, Creed III, The Last of Us, The Super Mario Bros. and Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey. Chuck it a listen. Or don't. Enjoy. Don't enjoy. It's not really your choice when you drill down to bedrock, is it? And yet we judge each other nonetheless. Shame.

Extract from Episode 68 of the Funfiltered podcast. A gruff man's man and a little girl wandering a post-apocalyptic landscape have a chinwag about the first season of HBO's The Last of Us.

Alright? Sam here. It's been a while. It's always been a while. Perhaps it will always be a while. While while while. While E. Coyotes, that's us. And that's either an eminently disposable rap lyric or an utterance pregnant with the possibility of laboured metaphor. If you understand anything about the man who now writes to/for/really, AT you, you'll know the latter was never in peril of neglect. While E. Coyotes, that's us. And I suppose that makes you lot Road Runner, or maybe Ode Shunner, given your comprehensive rejection. What's the ode, you mumble all scowlily? Well, what is the flow of conversation if not music, if not poetry? In the barren, Southwestern landscape of meaning that is 2023, you are nevertheless content to flit from place to place, meep-meeping on your TikToks and your Chatsnaps and your Whatchamathumbits. Do we claim to be the acme of quality? No. But nor are we the ACME (Looney Tunes' facility for irony, mwah). We just wanna share our product with you and if you just stopped for a bleedin' second, it wouldn't kill you. And this is where the analogy finally crumbles. The foundations were never sturdy, I concede. But I started typing, "While E. Coyote" zoomed behind my eyes like the bullet train of nonsense that is my stream of consciousness, and I'd have been remiss to deny my nature. So yeah, with that s-- Oh, God... The product only ever ends up hurting us. It kills us. Slowly. Writing. You just keep doing it and doing it and no matter what fantasy you contrive or worthless tangent you rabbit-hole, you always end up looking your Shadow in the eye whereupon it whispers with omniscient menace, 'You suck.' Or is that just me? That question too is an invariable consequence. sigh ^^Another inevitability. On this episode, Jordan and I review The Fabelmans, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Tár, Happy Valley and Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania. Gonna have a drink now. Bye.

'S'appening, travellers? Sam here. While true that we haven't spoken since November, I'll yet refrain from conveying a "Happy New Year." Not necessarily (though not necessarily NOT) out of dispassion, but because it's February now and shops are getting the Halloween stock in, thereby promoting such platitudes from banal to vulgar. So I'll just ask, y'a'right? ...I know this isn't actually a conversation. It's rhetoric without substance or import, the equivalent of 'Where did I put my keys?' or whistling on a heath or doodling on a damp bit of cardboard in a gully alone. Even beyond the parameters of this medium - "IRL", as 'twere and lamentably 'tis - the likelihood, reader, is that we're overdue a catch-up, i.e. have no interest in having a catch-up or too apprehensive to make the first move or too "busy", i.e. have no interest in having a catch-up. When DID we stop talking? WHY did we stop talking? Were we EVER friends?! Y'A'RIGHT?!! ----- I return to writing from some rest. My better angels compelled self-care when they spied their badder analogues towing me t'ward a vortex of mournful violence. My writing angels, such as they are and resemble as they do judgmental gargoyles- oh God, are they...- demand that I leave the previous paragraphs in place as some demonstration of transparency. Though I do harbour the suspicion that those seraphim of scribble are secretly motivated to cultivate the APPEARANCE of honesty to create the APPEARANCE of personality and an even deeper suspicion that the angels are me. ----- On this episode of Funfiltered, Jordan and I tackle some newish releases to the ground and affix our "KICK ME!"-style signs to their backs in the form of half-considered reviews, namely She Said, Pinocchio, The Menu and Glass Onion. We also list our Top 10 amalgamated cinematic and televisual things of 2022, which will no doubt in time fall victim to the caprices of a life devoted to "appreciation", wherein taste is eternally urged to evolve... But it's a bit of a whatever in the meanwhile! If the tone of this bulletin persuades you to listen, don't. When we record, I am trussed and medicated. This is not always how I am. Bye!

This episode clocks in at 98 mins. Skirting reasonable compassion for your concentration as this does, I was compelled to scour the back-catalogue to confirm my suspicion that this 65th instalment was indeed our pithiest discharge. On the contrary. It would appear that being so fervidly unfiltered and consequently dragging your patience through a kind of psychic Takeshi's Castle has created a Mandela Effect. Under oath, the needles poised mere millimetres from my nail bed, I'd have sworn that we'd never exercised such restraint. I'd have testified that our debut was one of gross excess and that we'd maintained that sonic debauchery until a couple of months ago. T'was ever thus and such. But no. Those early editions demonstrate a flagrant damn regard for something. We were trim and cut and oiled. But it's what always happens, isn't it? We relaxed into our relationship with you. We weren't exactly happy but we accepted we weren't pulling anyone else, so we resigned to that unique, mundane comfort of not being entirely content but it'll do cos it's better than being alone. So around Ep. 10, a Christmas ep no less, we let ourselves go. We turned in our conversational gym membership and pigged out on the turkey of self-indulgence and the pudding of not-killing-our-darlings. And then when we turned to the mistletoe, sometimes you weren't even there. But this metaphor risks conceptual overload and me crying a bit so let's move on. Receiving this wonderful 98-min-long gift (I know thinking of it as a gift is a bit mad when we're essentially - NO, not "essentially", Sam, entirely, no hedging! - in control of it but does an alcoholic not receive her thirty-day sobriety chip? Does a Weight Watcher not get a certificate for his pound droppage?) invites reiteration: if you've stuck with us this long, thank you and we're sorry for those difficult years where we just didn't give you the attention you deserved. And you know what, we didn't respect ourselves enough either!

Greetings, earthlings. There's no reason that noun should be alien copyright, is there? "Earthling" is a great leveller. Anyway, that's enough diplomacy for this week. Hmmm, content, content.... Have you seen The Banshees of-- oh yeah, we talk about that in the episode... It's a trifling juggle, negotiating this relationship between blurb and podcast. Can't really write about the aural cargo - if we're half-decent at this (and I'm WELL AWARE the jury is out way past its curfew and should be back home in bed, not gallivanting around with that oiky Callum boy on that front) - our opinions are sufficiently covered in-'cast and elaboration would merely gild the lily that is our far-from-florid presentation. But the description can't be totally estranged, can it? Yes, nobody reads it and I've never encountered a YouTube/social media puff that even bothered. But if you think I'm merely going to resort to a simple, "Hey, here's the new episode, here are the topics, here are our socials, enjoy!", you simply know nothing of me, which would in turn suggest you don't listen to the podcast and have no interest in any of this anyway. But for the fraction of a percent that do, I beseech your familiarity with me as a compass for fathoming my orientation, as I once said to a girl that will go unnamed in whose phonebook I no longer dwell

Producing regular video descriptions is rife with self-erected hurdles. If one is to avoid delving into the substance of the content or indeed the content of the substance which is sometimes substance itself but more commonly spontaneous piffle - superior to rehearsed piffle - and scantily-cloaked prejudices, overt in their implications but by inference suggestive of an irony whose being is implicit in the overtness of its presentation, well, it's hard. If one is to avoid flogging the dead horse that is the FF production schedule which, even in correction, is nonetheless a horse dead, just one flogged with glee, a chilling prospect because while we mayn't relish the spectacle of a teary jockey ineffectually administering whip-based CPR, at least (and most) it transmits a tragedy that blunts our equiphilic (equi-tolerant in the case of this nature sceptic) contempt, whereas thrashing that dead beast with a smile - relief, even - bespeaks stark lunacy and maybe that's why unfailingly happy people are a bit menacing and annoying, well, it's tricky. If one is to avoid writing about the writing of the blurb itself in a grossly self-aware, plainly procrastinative, unameliorated-even-by-what-you-might-think-is-a-double-bluff-but-is-in-fact-a-naked-admission, tiresomely Pirandellian, that-wanker-in-the-English-exam-who-writes-about-a-student-writing-a-story-in-an-exam, actually disgusting, God-I'm-bored-why-can't-I-stop fashion, it's a pickle and a half. So I Googled how to do it. I was assaulted by 100-step, print-screen-laden advisories bulging with as far as I'm concerned neologisms like "algorithm", "keyword" and "analytics" run by people that DO THIS FOR A LIVING. On one of these interminable how-tos, Step 12 was "Write like a human." Step 12. Whatever in God's green holy Hell the above is, it cannot be accused of calculation. "Optimising" and "maximising" are for the roboverlords, not me. And if I can't write like a human, I'll split the difference and write like a Sam. On this here ep, we discuss Mufasa, Velma, Mad God, Vengeance, The Midnight Club and oth'ings. Enjoy!

Sam “speaking”. It's a strange sensation, this... being on-schedule. An abiding struggle has become... LIKE a job. I don't need no tirades about a fortnightly podcast holding no candle to Alaskan crab-fishing or hostage negotiation, alright? I'm talking about a consistent routine, not exertion, OKAY?! Though you try filling silence for three hours with no water. And yes, that's my choice, but why should things be EASY?!

Sam “speaking”.It took us XLs LX episodes to get here. A solid place. By no means is that to fling dusk at Lord Eddard B. No, I refer to the substance/subtext of 98% of our written output - the Stygian quagmire of what would strike any observer as divinely-ordained techno-shambles.We've had all the luck of a Nobbly Bobbly between a pair of straighteners. The candied pebble-dash may suggest fortification, but 'tis mere gauze 'twixt the sizzling pincers, promising naught but a creamy puddle on whatever surface one has elected to perform this deranged procedure. And sure, we* like the sound of creamy puddles as much as the next pervert, but it's not sustainable, is it? Not filling, is it? It's not what you want for your dinner, is it? Or is it? I've lost all sense of time and place, I don't know whether there was a point to this, who I am or what I was. It would seem that text has appeared between my intention to type (wherever that occurred) and this moment and all I can suggest is that you plumb the thus-far for something meaningful or halfway coherent or otherwise just peer at the collage and wait for a dominant hue to emerge...Okay, I've taken five, put a cold flannel on my nape and come to the conclusion that I wanted to say we are finally FFing content. We've managed to align our podcast ducks and, now that I've said as much out loud (as far as your brain is concerned), the quacky jerks will fly south for the winter. But this is no place for superstition/recognition of the salient motif of my vicious Design.This is a place for reviews of - phwoar, clock the segue on that - The Northman, The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent, Everything Everywhere All at Once, Top Gun: Maverick, Thor: Love and Thunder and more.Ep 60 was over 5 hrs long, time sufficient to watch The Return of the King AND experience the complete arc of a dating app relationship. No longer. Brevity is the soul of wit and the ambition of these here twits†.*A presumption based on certainty.†An outright falsehood. One of us detests pith with the kind of contempt a Sonic purist might reserve for the Fowlerverse. But I'll preserve the ambiguity.