Movie Title Name Game

Joined by extremely special guests Kyle as Oswald Beckert, Phil as Antoine, and Jenny as Vanessa and Terese, Movie Title Name Game brings season 1 to a climatic conclusion in an audio trailer play for season 1's guest-panel-selected winner: Achilles Gene.  The story of facing our demons, within and without.  Grab your popped corn and hold on to your hats because this is an action packed sci-fi thriller that is one heck of a ride!   

In this episode we are joined by our esteemed panel: Cara, Carmen, and Izel.  They will be in the hot seat, judging the films of this season in head to head competition, ultimately deciding the victor of Season 1 of Movie Title Name Game.  Also a special special guest, a weird echo for the first part of the episode!   

Harold is at a crossroads in his life: his marriage is on the rocks, his career as an academic in question, and to make matters worse, he somehow gets lost in the fog in Big Sur.  The fog brings him to a place of natural wonder where the sounds and light cast a spell that seem to have him trapped in a mysterious, sensuous,  liminal space.   He must search within himself and through the enchanted surroundings to find his own healing so he can return to the world.  Years later, Harold will help guide his granddaughter Sara to this timeless place as their two stories intertwine, showing it is never too late to reconnect to what is most essential, in The Hanging Gardens of Big Sur. 

Fred is a good natured home remodeler in Carlsbad, California.  He has been trying to hold his family together since his wife died giving birth to his youngest son, Andy, ten years back.  Keeping the family from splintering apart is getting harder with each passing year, as Fred watches his four boys grapple with the world and Fred's own rules and difficulty in connecting.  But, when Fred has a stroke and is unable to speak, all of a sudden, all of his sons' coming of age are accelerated.  What keeps a family together, when the world seems to be trying to pull it apart?   Incremental Work.  

Uncle Ronny is a dreadneck, part rasta and part rugged rural survivalist.  He lives a humble life in Sutter Butte, feeling a bit like he sacrificed his dreams for he can't remember what.  He has a near death experience eating BBQ at a family gathering and when he awakes covered in a sheet in his nephews' truck, he panics and makes a run for the woods.  Dave, a dutiful DMV worker, sees the road revival take place and fearing foul play sets about searching for the awakened corpse.  A Grateful Dead cover band concert will draw Ronny out of the woods and into his authentic self, possibly solving the country's political polarization problem in the process... in Bumper Sticker Savior.  

Cynthia has always been a bit old for her age.  In her late twenties, she works for the St. Louis historical preservation commission and preserves jam as a pastime.  But all that is about to get shaken up when a bird drops a mysterious element into one of her batches.  Those who eat it seem to be possessed by prodigious musical expression.  However, when the local high school bench warmer, Ernesto, eats a little too much it becomes clear too much jamming comes at a cost.  As Ernesto lies comatose in a hospital,  Bruce, the local science teacher, is trying to implicate and hold Cynthia responsible for the mysterious  new outbreak.  Cynthia is running out of time and will need some help from unlikely friends to figure out the cause and antidote of the 'jam syndrome'.  What she discovers will change the understanding of the history, and future, of their town.

Young Daryl's epilepsy made it difficult for him to fit in at school and into his wealthy family's expectations.  Now in his mid-thirties, Daryl searches for peace while living out of his van, which is currently parked in Acapulco, Mexico.  While back in San Diego at a family gathering trying to raise money for his bar, he bumps into an old flame, Sophia, and her daughter Fannie.  When Sophia needs to rush off and leaves Daryl to care for Fannie, everything starts to go a little sideways before everyone learns to give each other a little space... and room to wiggle.  

Karen is a lovely kindergarten teacher from Mill Valley in Marin, California.  But, after her husband's death and retirement she is struggling to find purpose and what do with her time.  That is until the local SPCA fundraiser in the park sparks her interest in community engagement.  Not willing to let Larry and his skewed set of values shape her neighborhood, she digs in her heels to fight the power.  Only to find, the power she may be fighting against is love...

Where will our fortune lead?  Who knows but in the meantime everybody is eating at Aimee's family's restaurant, a no frills establishment in San Francisco's Chinatown.  The year is 2021, and as Aimee tries to find her own place, inside or outside her family, life circumstances push her closer to home and the issues she thought she could run away from.   As the world seems to fray around the small universe of the restaurant, Aimee and her eclectic cast will have to decide, do they reach out, or continue to drift further apart.?  Fortune Cookie.  

Ralph Eggers is 17 and can't help from pushing back against authority.  His small midwestern town and 'ordinary' family don't seem to hold his interest, and increasingly his respect.  But, while Ralph is making all the noise, other members in the family are secretly struggling.   Often under the radar, youngest brother Ryan causes heads to turn when his science fair project nearly burns down the school.  Sometimes it can be hard to see real trouble coming in the constant roar of false alarms.  

In a world plagued by violence on a personal and societal level, Vanesa and her oddball group of lab mates in Paris may have stumbled on the genetic markers for aggressive behavior.  Now her company wants to test a therapeutic to try and pacify prisoners in a pilot prisoner release program.  Vanesa's own son struggles with a mood disorder, and they both grapple together to figure out how far they are willing to go to protect humanity from itself.  Achilles Gene.  

Bessie McDudd hates her name and never quite felt at home in her rustic background on the Irish countryside.  A childhood love of astronomy has landed her at a cutting edge space exploration company in Dublin.  Her parents, opposites in their own right, are fighting to keep their dairy farm as they resist getting pushed off their land.  Bessie's experiments at her work have her rethinking the vision of the future she thought was building, as she looks towards home to find direction in a time where everything seems to be spinning out of control.  The Milky.