Ribbon of Memes: Latest posts

Roger and Nick blend cinematic apocalypse with cinematic disaster as we go back to what was at the time the most expensive film ever made, 1995's Waterworld. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger conclude our look into 1950s visions of nuclear apocalypse (for now) with World Without End (1956), Panic in Year Zero! (1962, but it feels very 1950s so we kept it in) and On the Beach (1959). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick haul on our lead BVDs and revisit several 1950s visions of nuclear apocalypse and its aftermath. This episode, Five](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0043539) (1951) and The World, the Flesh and the Devil (1959). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger aren't going to face 1984's The Ice Pirates sober. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Is it a lovable bumbler? Roger and Nick visit one of the films that turned Disney back towards animation, 1981's Condorman. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger sew our limbs back on for 1993's The Nightmare Before Christmas. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick consider another candidate for "the first Talkie", the first feature-length all-talking film: 1928's Lights of New York. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger strangely fail to don blackface as we visit the "first talkie" (I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that), 1927's The Jazz Singer. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick cintinue not to touch E. T. as we view 1984's Starman. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger look at the three films that made Hammer's reputation as a horror studio: The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Mummy. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick become miracles of modern science in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger obsess over past wrongs and set up baroque murders with a glamorous assistant in The Abominable Dr. Phibes, Dr. Phibes Rises Again, and Theatre of Blood. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick get terribly macho ans sweary (we're role-players, we can handle it) with Glengarry Glen Ross (1992). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger are old war buddies in the casino-robbing business in Ocean's Eleven (1960 and 2001), Twelve and Thirteen. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick return to the John Carpenter well, with the low-budget action piece Escape from New York (1981). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger strap jet engines to our naughty bits and take a dangerous look at Top Gun (1986) and its rather belated sequel Top Gun: Maverick (2022). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick conclude our werewolf mini-season (for now) by jumping forward another twenty years, to Ginger Snaps (200) and Dog Soldoers (2002). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger continue our highly selective werewolf season with two films from 1981 noted for their transformation sequences: The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Werewolf films arguably began with 1935's Werewolf of London, but Roger and Nick choose to begin our werewolf mini-season a little later, with The Wolf Man (1941) and Cat People (1942). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

It was intended as a tax write-off, but ended up winning four Academy Awards and the first ever Palme d'Or. Nick and Rger look at Ernest Borgnine's big break in Marty (1955). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download The story about the tax write-off isn't well documented, and we relied heavily on the "Lights, Camera, Tax Break" epispde of Tim Harford's Cautionary Tales audio production.

Time to don our red-silk-lined capes and listen to the creatures of the night ("meow") as Roger and Nick take a look at the 1980s vampire boom, in particular The Lost Boys (1987) and Near Dark (1987). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

In part two of this double episode, Nick and Rger look at more parodies of Hitler on film, with Look Who's Back (2015) and Jojo Rabbit (2019). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

In part one of a double episode, Roger and Nick look at parodies of Hitler on film, with The Great Dictator (1940) and The Producers (1967). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger are glad to be out, er, back, as we drive headlong into The Italian Job (1963) with a brief mention of its not-as-bad-as-expected remake The Italian Job (20033) Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick look at the state of the art in big-budget SF in the years just before Star Wars, with the serious doom-mongering of Silent Running (1972) Soylent Green (1973) and Logan's Run (1976). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger fire up the old ukuleles and wonder if this will finally be the comedy Roger likes, with 1959's Some Like It Hot. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick watch that classic of misdirection Rashomon… or do we? Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger get our leather and spikes back on to look at the latest Mad Max film, 2024's Furiosa. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick preen our beards to indulge in Scandi Disaster with The Wave (Bølgen) and The Quake (Skjelvet). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger look at some earlier Hitchcock, with 1951's Strangers on a Train and 1948's Rope. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick are joined by Michael Cule to consider what Orson Welles did to Shakespeare in 1965's Chimes at Midnight. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger, with special guest MaryAnn Johanson, ask whether 2019's Midsommar is the "smart horror" we've been waiting for. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick are invited to get all male-gazey again, in 1960's Psycho and 1954's Rear Window. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger cross off the boxes on the family tree as we consider 1949's Kind Hearts and Coronets. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick put on the sunglasses and drink the Flavor Aid, in 1989's They Live. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger, joined once again by special guest MaryAnn Johanson, look at Kieslowski's final and most successful work: Three Colours Blue, Three Colours White and Three Colours Red. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick know enough to follow the stream downhill, in 1999's The Blair Witch Project. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger get wet and steamy as we consider 1972's The Poseidon Adventure. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick celebrate our third anniversary doing this podcast. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger look at the sort of Epic! film that just doesn't get made any more, 1962's Lawrence of Arabia. (Actual historica accuracy can wait by the back door in case we need you.) Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick won't last long enough on the streets to starve, in 2002's Cidade de Deus. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

This Orson Welles guy may be fine on the radio, but can he make a movie? Nick and Roger look at his directorial debut, 1941's Citizen Kane. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick get hot in the dust once more in 2007's No Country For Old Men (2007). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger continue our efforts to become a John Carpenter podcast with a look at his second film, 1976's Assault on Precinct 13. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick don our trenchcoats and explore the sewers with The Third Man (1949). We also commend to your attention the Orson Welles Findus outtakes. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger take on our first banned film (not certified in the UK until 1954, "X"/"18" certificate until 1987) with 1925's Battleship Potemkin) . Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick continue our exploration of the world of finance with The Big Short (2015). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger take on our first documentary (arguably, not a film at all) with 2011's All Watched Over by Machines of Loving Grace) . If you haven't watched it, we recommend the Wikipedia summary of the subject matter. Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick try not to worry our pretty little heads about the Gaslight (1940) and Gaslight (1944). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Nick and Roger are heading back to the pig farm as we discuss A Simple Plan (1998). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download

Roger and Nick are living in faded glory as we invite you to visit us in Sunset Boulevard (1950). Your browser isn't showing you an HTML5 audio player. Download