Podcast appearances and mentions of walter peck

Are you on social media? Of course you are. So follow us!  Twitter: @MemberTheGame Instagram: @MemberTheGame Twitch.tv/MemberTheGame Youtube.com/RememberTheGame Facebook.com/RememberTheGamePodcast TikTok.com/@MemberTheGame And if you want access to hundreds of bonus (ad-free) podcasts, along with multiple new shows EVERY WEEK, consider showing us some love over at Patreon. Subscriptions start at just $3/month, and 5% of our patreon income every month will be donated to our 24 hour Extra-Life charity stream at the end of the year! Patreon.com/RememberTheGame And you can check out Daniel's streams at: Twitch.tv/stpd_mnky I might love the Ghostbusters as much as I love video games. Unfortunately, most Ghostbuster video games suck. So when it was announced that a new game, WITH the original cast, was in the works? Well, I lost my freaking mind. I think this game is fan service cranked up to 11. You get to join the Ghostbusters, use a proton pack, hang out at the firehouse, and catch ghosts. Janine is there. Walter Peck shows up. You fight Stay Put, for fuck sakes!!!! I don't think the game under the Ghostbuster makeup is as good as it could be, but at the end of the day it doesn't really matter. When you wanna talk Ghostbusters, who ya gonna call?? My buddy Daniel. We both adore what this game means to the Ghostbusters community, but we also both think it could have been a little better from a gameplay perspective. And how the hell are you not gonna let us drive the Ecto-1?! And before we get to bustin', I put together another edition of the Infamous Intro! This week, someone asks which gaming magazine I'd read, renew, and remove? Which video game character would make the best Canadian Prime Minister? And why don't I like Retronauts?? Plus we play a round of 'Watch One, Remake One, Erase One', too! This one features 3 games based on movies: Spider-Man 2, The Warriors, and Goldeneye 007. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You may know William Atherton from Day Of The Locust, The Hindenburg, Looking For Mr. Goodbar, and Real Genius or you may better remember him for vigorously questioning the environmental safety of ghost busting or for receiving a blow to the face which rings in a very Merry Christmas in Die Hard.  Bill began his career on the stage, performing in Broadway plays by David Rabe, John Guare and Arthur Miller. The Ghostbuster and Die Hard franchises brought him to Hollywood and he joins us to discuss his fascinating history, his heroes and influences and his range of experiences with such performers as Anne Bancroft, George C. Scott, Donald Sutherland, Karen Black, and Diane Keaton. Did you know that Bill sings What'll I Do in Nelson Riddle's Great Gatsby score!? He tells us all about it and talks about recognizing the greatness of Stephen Spielberg even as a baby director when Bill stared in Sugarland Express. He remembers how Anne Bancroft would not stop talking about Mel Brooks on the set of The Hindenburg, he shares what he learned from the casts of Lost and Desperate Housewives and he addresses the internet's most time-honored question, is Die Hard a Christmas movie?Plus, Fritz and Weezy are recommending Will & Harper and Nobody Wants This on Netflix.Path Points of Interest:William AthertonWilliam Atherton on WikiWilliam Atherton on IMDBGift of DemocracyMedia Path PodcastNobody Wants This on NetflixWill and Harper - Netflix

In this week's episode, I rank the movies and streaming shows I saw in the first half of summer 2024. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction, Writing Updates, and Reader Question Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 210 of the Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is July 19th, 2024, and today we are discussing the movies and streaming shows I watched for the first half of summer 2024. Before that, we'll have an update on my current writing projects and then we will go into Question of the Week. So, my current writing projects. I'm pleased to report that the rough draft of Half Orc Paladin is finished at about 81,500 words. Next up, I'm writing a short story called Paladin's Hunt that newsletter subscribers will get for free in ebook form when Half Orc Paladin is out, hopefully in early August. I'm also 23,000 words into Ghosts in the Tombs. I'm not 100% decided what I'm going to write next once Half Orc Paladin is out. I have to make a decision soon obviously, but it's probably going to be either Shield of Conquest or Cloak of Illusion. In audiobook news, the audiobook Wizard-Thief, as narrated by Leanne Woodward, is almost done. It's just got to get through the various approvals at the audiobook sites, so hopefully that should be out in early August. Recording is going to start very soon on Shield of Darkness. So that's where I'm at with my current writing projects. We have a question about the Shield War series from reader EM, who writes in to ask: I was rereading Shield of Darkness and occurred to me that Connmar Pendragon would have had a much easier time finding his way to Owyllain if he had a Corsair Lord or whatever they called themselves back then, who had the Hidden Eye navigating for him. Am I right and this will be revealed in the Shield Wars series? No, Connmar did not have a Corsair or anyone with the Hidden Eye ability navigating for him, and he basically found his way to Owyllain by accident. At that time, there were people living on the Isle of Kordain, but they hadn't really coalesced around the Corsairs of the Isle of Kordain as their national identity yet. I mean the process was underway but hadn't reached the form it would by the time of the Frostborn series. And while some of them had the Hidden Eye ability, they hadn't quite fully understood what it meant yet, and they hadn't lived on the isle long enough for the mutilations from the dwarven engines to fully take hold. We'll reveal more details about that in Shield of Conquest when I write that as my next book or the book after my next book. 00:02:26 Question of the Week Now on to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire enjoyable discussion of interesting topics. This week's question: subscription services such as Kindle Unlimited, Spotify, Netflix, Thrive Market and Xbox Game Pass are an inevitable part of modern life. If you have a subscription service, which one is your favorite? No wrong answers and bear in mind that “subscription services all cost too much and I hit them all with the fiery consuming heat of 1,000 cores of 1,000 suns” is a perfectly acceptable answer as well. Surabhi said: Disney Plus, because Marvel movies are my therapy. Ray says: I only use Bookbub and Google Play. Justin says: I do not use subscription services. I prefer to purchase the books, games, and programs I buy outright rather than rent them. Connectivity can be a problem where I am so being able to read, work, or play without being tethered to the Internet is a good thing. That is something to keep in mind when considering a subscription service. If you have questionable Internet connectivity in your area, that may not be the best choice to sign up for a subscription service that relies on the Internet. Our next comment is from Venus, who says: I can't afford any subscriptions services, although if Barnes and Noble did one for ebooks, I'd consider working something out. I refuse to support Amazon and don't like the fact that apparently books on Kindle Unlimited can't be anywhere else. That is indeed one of the annoying features of the Kindle Unlimited program, which is why only four of my 153 novels are currently on Kindle Unlimited. Barbara says: my husband and daughter subscribe to some streaming services, but I'm not sure which ones. I don't subscribe to any. I don't watch television. I already own the games I play and I purchased my digital books so I don't have to give them back. John says: I think I get by far the most bang for the buck from Amazon Prime, but my favorite subscription service is probably my local weekly seafood delivery service, Sea Forager. Bonnie says: I gave up the ones I had because I don't watch TV anymore and can't afford it. I have Prime, but only really use it for ebooks. If I need background noise, I use local radio. Local radio remains free, so I suppose that is the most cost effective of all the subscription services. Juana says: Kindle seems to have the most content and good price. I looked at the other platforms, too. Becca says: I have Prime and agree it has a ton of benefits. I canceled Netflix because it doesn't work on my TV. Hulu has some great shows (I recommend Crazy Fun Park, an Australian teen show about ghosts and friendships and changes. Surprisingly mature and well-acted). William says: given the sheer quantity of great Star Wars series that Disney produces, theirs is hard to beat. Gary says: Spotify. David says: for value, you can't beat Prime: movies, free shipping, and music. Netflix is very good for original content and Hulu for old stuff. And Joseph says: I also have Prime mostly for the free shipping. Everything else there is just a bonus. I also have Kindle Unlimited. Totally worth it for me as I read daily and read two or three hundred books a year. That is down from 400 to 500 the first couple years of retirement. It is diverse enough that I can always find a good read. For myself, the one I enjoy most is Nintendo Switch Online. I'll pay for a month of Netflix when they have something I want to see and then we'll cancel again after I've seen it.  I used to have Xbox Game Pass, but all I ever actually play on the Xbox is Skyrim, Starfield, and the first three Halo games, so there is no point in keeping it. But Nintendo Switch Online lets you get the classic Mario and Zelda games from the NES and Super Nintendo era. Given that Nintendo's attitude towards the legacy properties tends to veer between complete indifference and wrathful litigation depending upon the month, it's good that Nintendo offers a relatively affordable way to get them legally because at my age, sometimes the best way to relax at the end of the night is to just play a few levels of the original Super Mario Brothers. So that's it for Question of the Week this week. 00:06:26 Main Topic: Summer 2024 Movie/TV Show Review And now let's move on to our main topic: 2024 Summer Movie Roundup, Part 1. Summer always has a lot of movies, so I usually split the Summer Movie Roundup post in two halves and this would be Part 1. I was surprised at the number of sports movies I watched this time, since, as I've mentioned before, I don't usually follow professional sports all that closely. That said, while the NFL and the NBA might not have quite the cultural hegemony they had at their peak in the 1990s and early 2000s, they're still hugely central to American culture. I don't think you can really understand the United States without grasping the central role of professional sports in mainstream culture. I expect there's a similar phenomenon with association football clubs in the UK and many European countries. Besides, one of the abilities of good storytelling is to make you interested in a story about a topic you might not otherwise care about, like athletic shoes. So here are the movies and shows I watched in the first half of summer 2024, ranked from worst to best. As always, the rankings are totally subjective and based on nothing but my own opinions and observations. So first up is Madam Webb, which came out in 2024. Oofffff. This wasn't quite the crime against cinema that the Internet thought it was, but it still wasn't great. Sony has the rights to a bunch of Spider-man adjacent characters, and the company is holding those in a death grip and has been trying to make a Spider-man Cinematic Universe happen for some time, with mixed results. The Tom Hardy Venom movies had been pretty good, the others, not so much. The plot of Madam Webb: cynical and jaded EMT Cassandra Webb works with her partner Ben Parker (later in the Uncle Ben of Spider-man fame) and is almost drowned in an accident. While drowned, Cassandra starts developing precognition and clairvoyant powers. She starts seeing visions of three young women who will be murdered by a powerful real estate developer named Ezekiel. Turns out that Ezekiel has Spider-man powers that also include precognition, and he wants to kill the girls before they someday kill him. The scenes where Cassandra wonders if she is going mad, but gradually starts to realize that she can see the future were actually quite good and cleverly laid out since they did in sort of a time loop where she experiences the event before it happens. That said, this movie could have been an interesting concept, but it didn't really work. For one thing, the dialogue was just clunky. Dialogue is a hard, hard art to master, both in movies and writing novels (as I know first-hand). But Madame Webb didn't get there. Many of the dialogue scenes were just wooden. Additionally, the movie felt padded and drawn out, which is interesting because the runtime was under two hours. Ultimately, I think Madam Webb succumbed to the illness of a shared cinematic universe. It felt like the incomplete prologue to a more interesting movie, and not every side character in the Spider-man mythos needs an origin story. The trick to making a shared cinematic universe is that each movie must stand alone on its own, especially in the beginning, and the stories have to be interesting. Madam Webb, alas, couldn't quite manage either. Overall grade: D- Next up is The Acolyte, a streaming series which came out in 2024. There is quite a furor about this show on social media, but you can't believe most of what you see on social media. To be blunt about it, I've come to believe that social media is designed to induce mental illness in as many of its users as possible in order to increase their time spent on the site, which in turn raises ad revenue. Very cynical. But I suspect that's the basic business model of Facebook and YouTube, which is why you see so much rage-filled clickbait on both sites, since that's what drives engagement and increases revenue, but that's a problem beyond the scope of a movie review podcast episode. Back to The Acolyte. I would say that The Acolyte wasn't the crime against cinema that YouTube thought it was but instead an uneven mixture of some strong points and some weaknesses. The plot: former Jedi Osha has left the Order and is working as a mechanic on a trade federation starship. Meanwhile, a woman who looks exactly like her has started murdering Jedi Masters. Osha is arrested for the murders, but her former teacher, Jedi master Sol, quickly figures out that the murderer is in fact Osha's twin sister Mae, who has been presumed dead for the last sixteen years. Osha reluctantly tagged along with Sol to help track down Mae, which means she needs to delve into the dark secrets of her past and discover who trained Mae to be a Jedi killing assassin. The Jedi assume a renegade member of the Order must have trained Mae because the Sith had been extinct for a long, long time. Or have they? This show did have its strong points. The lightsaber fights looked good and were fun to watch. Lee Junge-jae as Sol, Manny Jacinto as Qimir, Charlie Bennett as Yord, and Dafne Keen as Jecki all gave good performances. In particular, they stole episode 5, which was overall the strongest episode of the series. The design of the Sith Lord's helmet (dubbed Darth Teeth or Smilo Ren by the Internet) was good. The nods to the old Expanded Universe, like cortosis ore, were nice. There was enough of a compelling mystery -who is the Sith Lord and what actually happened in the twin's past- that can hook the viewer through to the end of the series. The show also did a good job of showing how complacent and political the Jedi had become, to the point where 100 years later the Jedi High Council would meet with Supreme Chancellor Palpatine every day for thirteen years and completely failed to realize that he was in fact the Sith Master who had been pulling the strings all along. That said, I think the show did have four significant problems. 1: the whole good twin/evil twin thing was kind of lame. Playing identical twins is hard for any actor, and sometimes I had a hard time keeping track of whether Osha or Mae was in a particular scene. I kind of wish the characters had been brother and sister, or at least not identical twins so they had been easier to tell apart. 2: As much as I appreciated the nods to the Expanded Universe, I think it relied too heavily on them and assumed the audience had a high level of Star Wars knowledge, like the weird Force cult where Osha and Mae grew up. In the Expanded Universe, there are all kinds of weird half-baked cults with an incomplete knowledge of the Force that run into serious problems when they encounter an actual Jedi or an actual Sith. One advantage of visual media over novels is that it's much easier to show instead of tell, but I don't think Acolyte explained its premises well. The Mandalorian explained its premises better, gradually exposing the viewer to the Mandalorian's culture as he dealt with the Monster of the Week. Mando gradually learned about the Force and the Jedi, a race of enemy sorcerers, as he tried to save The Child from the Imperial Remnant. By contrast, The Acolyte kind of dropped viewers into the middle of things, didn't bother to explain any ambiguities, and simply assumed they would all understand the references. 3: The problem with the Jedi Order is that its philosophy is essentially stupid. The reason for that is that Jedi philosophy is basically a highly watered-down version of 1970s style Hollywood Buddhism, which is itself a tremendously watered down version of actual Buddhism. The Jedi are basically left with “don't feel fear or anger” and “don't get attached to people” but lack the religious and philosophical underpinnings which would allow those concepts to make sense in actual Buddhism. In real life, eventually we learn that both suppressing anger and fear or allowing it to dominate us is unhealthy. Both anger and fear serve useful functions. Fear warns of danger and anger is a good response when one is forced into circumstances where you have no choice but to fight. Anger and fear make for good servants, but awful masters, but Jedi philosophy completely misses that point. 4th and finally: the show was the wrong genre for the kind of moral relativism it had. Moral relativism worked well in Andor, which was a spy thriller about criminals gradually realizing that they had to fight the Empire and do terrible things while doing it. That worked because Andor was a spy thriller. By contrast, The Acolyte was about Kung Fu space wizards using space magic that literally comes in good and evil flavors. Moral relativism works less well in that kind of setting where there is literally good or evil space magic. So I would say Acolyte was a mixed bag. I admit, if there's a second season, I'll watch it just because I want to see what happens, but given Disney's significant financial woes, that seems unlikely. Overall grade: C- Next up is Unfrosted, which came out in 2024. It is an absurdist comedic retelling of the creation of the Pop Tart breakfast food, told as sort of a parody of corporate biopics like Ford versus Ferrari and Air (which we will talk about later this episode). This movie was silly and kind of dumb, but it knew it was silly and kind of dumb and so leaned into it and therefore worked. Jerry Seinfeld plays Bob Cabana, a high-ranking employee of the Kellogg cereal company, which is locked in a bitter rivalry with the Post cereal company for the breakfast market. One day Cabana uncovers everyone at Post is working on something that will upend the breakfast market, a fruit filled breakfast pastry that can be toasted. Alarmed with this information, the CEO of Kellogg, Edsel Kellogg III (played by Jim Gaffigan as a sort of parody of ‘60s era U.S. business executives), launches a crash effort to match Post's effort. Cabana must recruit a heist style team to build Kellogg's breakfast pastry, including numerous obscure figures from 1960s pop culture. The race is on to build the Pop Tart. Anyway, this was an entertaining movie, but it has no connection to factual accuracy. Also, Bill Burr was hilarious as President Kennedy. Overall grade: B- Next up is The Hit Man, which came out in 2023. It is an amusing cross between a dark comedy and a sort of Hitchcockian thriller. Glenn Powell plays Gary Johnson, a mild mannered and somewhat ineffective philosophy professor. Due to his skill with electronics and microphones, he frequently helps out the police with sting operations. One day, the officer who usually goes in for sting operations gets suspended for beating up some teenagers and having it go viral on viral on YouTube. Gary is drafted at the last minute to go undercover as a hit man and get a suspect to contract his services. Gary does it so well that the Police Department uses him more and more and Gary starts disappearing into his roles as various hit men in a sequence which is quite funny. This works well until Gary meets Madison, a woman who wants him to kill her abusive husband. Gary talks her out of it and starts seeing her, a situation which quickly escalates out of control. It was interesting that the movie went through a sudden genre shift about 1/3 of the way through, from dark comedy to love story, a bit darker than I usually prefer, to be honest, but enjoyable nonetheless if you don't mind the strong language. That said, I watched this right after Madam Webb and the contrast between Webb's clunky and wooden dialogue and the much better written Hitman was night and day. What was interesting was that the movie only cost $8.8 million to make. Given the economic climate, I expect we will see more of this: movies that have to be disciplined about keeping the cost down, as opposed to the enormous 295 million budgets of something like Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Overall grade: B- Next up is Boss Level, which came out in 2021. This movie is best described as Groundhog's Day but as an action movie. Former Special Forces soldier Roy Pulver, played by Frank Grillo, is caught in a time loop that repeats the same day over and over again, which always ends with him getting killed by assassins that have been hired to hunt him down. This happened after he tried to reconnect with his former girlfriend, a scientist working on a secret project overseen by the sinister Colonel Ventor, played by Mel Gibson. For a variety of reasons, let's just say at this point in his career, Gibson is very believable in a villain role. At first, Roy succumbs to despair in the time loop, but then decides to spend the endless day trying to reconnect with his estranged son. Eventually, this causes him to rally and fight back against the loop and he realizes that his ex-girlfriend deliberately put him into the time loop because he was the only person she knew who could stop Colonel Ventor's evil plans for his project, which turns out to be a time machine. I'd say the biggest weakness of the movie is the opening, which is a sort of record scratch “you're probably wondering how I got here” opening I complained about in Episode 203 of this podcast. Also, I think it maybe should have been five to 10 minutes longer. The ending is sort of implied but it would have been far more satisfying to have actually been shown what would happen. But overall, I like this movie. Solid B-level thriller/science fiction stuff. It's interesting to compare this to Groundhog's Day because Groundhog Day had to spend so much time establishing the premise because the plot idea of a time loop wasn't as widely known back then as it is now, whereas nowadays you just say “Groundhog Day loop” and most people will immediately know what you're talking about. Overall Grade: B Next up is Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire, which came out in 2024. This wasn't quite as good as Ghostbusters: Afterlife, but I still enjoyed it. In this one, Ian Spengler's daughter, her good-natured boyfriend, and her teenage children have returned to New York City to restart the Ghostbusters business. They were bankrolled by original Ghostbuster Winston Zeddmore, who is now a wealthy businessman funding a variety of ghostbusting projects. When one of Zeddmore's employees stumbles across a dangerous artifact holding a powerful ice ghost, both the new and original Ghostbusters must team up to save the day. I really like how the new Ghostbusters films handle the original characters. The original characters are no longer the main focus but they're now mentoring the new characters and providing advice and support. I like this a lot better than the Disney/Lucasfilm approach of the original character as being sad old losers that the new characters must rebel against and then surpass. It was also great that actor William Atherton returned as government apparatchik Walter Peck. Back in the first movie, Peck was an officious EPA inspector who accidentally released a ghost horde upon New York. In the grand American political tradition of tradition of failing upward, he is now the mayor of New York City and still hopes to disband the Ghostbusters. I think the movie's biggest weakness was that it was too complicated and there were a lot of different characters and moving parts to keep track of. Overall grade: B Next up is Inside Out 2, which came out in 2024. It is a terrifying descent into the nightmarish hellscape that has the mind of the average teenage girl. I am, of course joking (though, if you have teenagers, you know that I'm only mostly joking) but Inside Out 2 is a strong follow up to the first movie. In the first movie, the anthropomorphized representations of emotions (Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear and Disgust) tried to control themselves inside the mind of young girl Riley. At the start of the second movie, Riley is now 13 and doing pretty well, but then puberty kicks in. Suddenly new emotions arrive in her head: Ennui, Envy, Embarrassment, and Anxiety. Anxiety in particular runs amuck and seizes control of Riley's mind. As Anxiety starts to send Riley spiraling out of control, the other emotions have to rally behind Joy and find a way to save Riley's mind and sense of self. It is both quite funny and poignant. I can see why this movie cleared a billion dollars. As of early July 2024, is the biggest box office movie of the year so far. Overall grade: A Next up is Ford versus Ferrari, which came out in 2019. This is a biopic of the rivalry between Ford Motor Company and Ferrari in the 1960s, which is an interesting bit of history. In the ‘60s, Ford Motor Company, under the leadership of Henry Ford II (founder Henry Ford's grandson), decided it needed a cooler image, much like how Microsoft bought a bunch of indie gaming studios in the 2010s so Xbox would seem cooler. So Ford Motor Company spent years negotiating with Enzo Ferrari to buy Ferrari's company. At the last minute, negotiations collapsed and Ferrari famously went on a rant insulting Ford as an ugly company that made ugly cars and also called Ford II a lesser man compared to his famous grandfather. This was a major public failure and humiliation for Ford Motor Company, and needless to say Ford II took this very, very personally. He threw a ton of resources behind Ford's racing car project with one goal: beat Ferrari at the famous Le Mans 24 hour race. To pull this off, Ford recruited Carroll Shelby (played by Matt Damon), a former racing driver who turned to race car designing because a heart condition no longer let him race. Shelby needed a driver, so he recruited Ken Miles (played by Christian Bale), a talented driver and mechanic with a combative streak and knack for making enemies. Shelby, Miles, and their team set out to build the GT40, Ford's first proper racing car. Since this is all in the historical record, it's not a spoiler to say that they succeeded in the 1966 Le Mans race. Ford Cars finished in first, second, and third positions, locking out Ferrari entirely from the podium. This was a very enjoyable biopic. All the actors disappear into their roles and give strong performances. The racing scenes all look cool. It is also interesting from a historical perspective to see how the Ford executives had a very bad habit of acting like feudal lords who would dictate their will to the consumer rather than what they actually were, which is merchants who needed to give the customer what they wanted. This attitude was one of several reasons the US auto industry hit very hard times in the 1970s. I'd say the only thing wrong with the movie is that it feels too long, though for the life of me I'm not sure what they could have cut. Overall grade: A Next up is The Last Dance, which originally came out in 2020. I originally watched this back during peak COVID, but after watching Air (which I will discuss shortly), I decided to watch this again to refresh my memory. The Last Dance is a documentary about the Chicago Bulls NBA team and the renowned three-peat champion streak back in the 1990s. I have to admit it is an amusing feeling to have lived long enough that things I lived through are now considered history and have prestige Netflix documentaries made about them. The documentary mostly revolves around the career of Michael Jordan, though it includes interviews with many other people involved in the experience of the Bulls championship run, including brief interviews with two ex U.S. Presidents. The documentary got a lot of criticism for focusing too heavily on Jordan and portraying him in a positive light, especially from the other members of the 1990s Bulls team. Interestingly, I thought Jordan did not really come across all that great on the show. He seemed somewhat vindictive and petty and prone to holding on to grudges for decades. He was presented as the sort of man who is afflicted with an all-consuming competitive streak, who is irresistibly compelled to win at everything he does, even if it's a casual golf game between friendly acquaintances. For that matter, professional basketball players in general all tend to be highly competitive type A personalities who like to win and hate to lose. Getting them all to agree on an account of events beyond the objectively observable facts is probably impossible. Despite that, I suspect the simple fact is that the Bulls would not have won their championships without Jordan. There's no denying that Jordan was probably one of the most famous people on Earth in the 1990s. Honestly, no one can stand up to that kind of scrutiny well, especially after a personal tragedy like when Jordan's father was murdered in the mid-1990s. When Jordan talks about how winning requires complete focus and absolute dedication, I'm afraid that he's right. Winning in the competition at a level like the NBA does require 110% focus, even to the detriment of every other aspect of one's life. I've heard athletes say that champions have no balance and Jordan himself seems to be a living example of both the benefits and the extremely high personal costs of that. Amusing anecdote: when I originally watched this documentary in late 2020, I texted my brother that he should check it out because I thought he would enjoy it. His response was something along the line said he had seen when it first came out on ESPN and I really ought to engage with the culture more. Overall grade: A Now for the best movie I saw in the first half of summer 2024 and that would be Air, which came out in 2023 and is related to our sports documentary topics. This is a movie about Michael Jordan and his family negotiating deal with Nike about the Air Jordan shoe. I didn't expect to like this movie very much, but it turns out it is quite excellent. As I mentioned earlier, in full disclosure, I have minimal interest in the NBA and while I could tell you the NBA team of the US state in which I currently reside, I think if pressed, off the top of my head, I could probably tell you the name of maybe five other NBA teams. Additionally, I lived through the 1990s and had no money for all of it, and so at the time I really resented the peer pressure around Air Jordan shoes and other sports apparel, because that stuff was always so expensive. As I mentioned, I had no money. All that aside, that shows Air was a good movie because it made me care about a story involving a topic in which I have no interest and perhaps mildly dislike. Anyway, the movie's plot is set in 1984. Matt Damon (back again) plays Sonny Vaccaro, who was working with Nike's struggling basketball shoe division. At the time, Nike was the biggest maker of running shoes in the US that had only a minimal presence in the basketball shoe market. Vaccaro has the idea of building a shoe brand entirely around an upcoming young NBA rookie named Michael Jordan. At the time, this was an enormous gamble and had never been done before, but needless to say, it paid off for the company in a big, big way. All the actors gave good performances and the dialogue was sharply written, simultaneously conveying the character of the speaker and moving the plot forward. If you want to learn how to write good dialogue, you could do much worse than to watch Air. I recommend this movie, even if like me, you have zero interest in sports apparel. Perhaps that is one of the functions of art, to give you glimpses of worlds into which you would otherwise never visit. Overall grade: A+ So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you find the show enjoyable and useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

UNDERRATED OR ACTUALLY NOT GOOD?! Ghostbusters Frozen Empire Full Reaction Watch Along: https://www.patreon.com/thereelrejects  Save Money & Cancel Unwanted Subscriptions By Going To https://rocketmoney.com/rejects  Ghostbusters Frozen Empire Reaction, Recap, Commentary, Analysis, Spoiler Review, Ending Explained, & Post Credit Scene! Join us as we dive into the latest installment of the Ghostbusters franchise, featuring the return of iconic characters and thrilling new adventures. In this movie, the Spengler family teams up with the original Ghostbusters to battle an icy threat in New York City. In "Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire," the Spengler family returns to the iconic New York City firehouse, joining forces with the original Ghostbusters. The original team has developed a top-secret research lab to advance their ghost-busting technology. However, the discovery of an ancient artifact unleashes an army of ghosts, casting a death chill upon the city and threatening a second Ice Age. Both the new and old Ghostbusters must unite to protect their home and save the world from this icy threat. This sequel to "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" is set to release in 2024. The cast includes Bill Murray as Peter Venkman, Ernie Hudson as Winston Zeddemore, Annie Potts as Janine Melnitz, William Atherton as Walter Peck, Dan Aykroyd as Dr. Raymond Ray Stanz, Paul Rudd as Gary Grooberson, Carrie Coon as Callie Spengler, Finn Wolfhard as Trevor Spengler, Mckenna Grace as Phoebe Spengler, Celeste O'Connor as Lucky Domingo, Logan Kim as Podcast, Emily Alyn Lind as TBA, James Acaster as Lars Pinfield, Patton Oswalt as Dr. Hubert Wartzki, Kumail Nanjiani as Nadeem Razmaadi. Follow Andrew Gordon on Socials:  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MovieSource Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/agor711/?hl=en Twitter:  https://twitter.com/Agor711 Support The Channel By Getting Some REEL REJECTS Apparel! https://www.rejectnationshop.com/ Music Used In Manscaped Ad:  Hat the Jazz by Twin Musicom is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ POWERED BY @GFUEL Visit https://gfuel.ly/3wD5Ygo and use code REJECTNATION for 20% off select tubs!! Head Editor: https://www.instagram.com/praperhq/?hl=en Co-Editor: Greg Alba Co-Editor: John Humphrey Music In Video: Airport Lounge - Disco Ultralounge by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Ask Us A QUESTION On CAMEO: https://www.cameo.com/thereelrejects Follow TheReelRejects On FACEBOOK, TWITTER, & INSTAGRAM:  FB:  https://www.facebook.com/TheReelRejects/ INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/reelrejects/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thereelrejects Follow GREG ON INSTAGRAM & TWITTER: INSTAGRAM:  https://www.instagram.com/thegregalba/ TWITTER:  https://twitter.com/thegregalba Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Mayor Luskey is up for reelection, and the team convinces Chase to run against him – but when Chase wins, it turns out they've created a monster! How Lawful Neutral is TOO Lawful Neutral? Can the town survive Chase going Walter Peck on Doc Greene's lab? And has Luskey learned one single lesson? Join us this week for "Mayor May Not"!

Welcome to the Munsons at the Movies podcast. Each episode we delve into the filmography and impact of a randomly selected actor. In this episode, we explore the career of William Atherton. Best known for his roles as Richard Thornburg in Die Hard (1988), Walter Peck in Ghostbusters (1984), and Professor Hathaway in Real Genius (1985), Atherton built a career on being one of the best assholes on-screen. Joined for the 6th time by Dan Craig, we explore Atherton's charismatic start as Clovis in Spielberg's Sugarland Express (1974), his bizarre story coming out story on the Donahue show, his excellent character names over the years, attempt to explain why he hasn't done more voice work throughout his career, and Kyle unironically defends Bill's performance in Bio-Dome (1995). How does Atherton rank on the Munson Meter? Listen to find out.

On this episode, we continue our informal miniseries on the 1980s movies of director Martha Coolidge with a look back at her 1985 under appreciated classic, Real Genius. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   Before we hop in to today's episode, I want to thank every person listening, from whatever part of the planet you're at. Over the nearly four years I've been doing this podcast, we've had listeners from 171 of the 197 countries, and occasionally it's very surreal for this California kid who didn't amount to much of anything growing to think there are people in Myanmar and the Ukraine and other countries dealing with war within their borders who still find time to listen to new episodes of a podcast about 33 plus year old mostly American movies when they're released. I don't take your listenership lightly, and I just want you to know that I truly appreciate it. Thank you.   Okay, with that, I would like to welcome you all to Part Three of our informal miniseries on the 1980s movies of director Martha Coolidge.   When we left Ms. Coolidge on our previous episode, her movie Joy of Sex had bombed, miserably. But, lucky for her, she had already been hired to work on Real Genius before Joy of Sex had been released.   The script for Real Genius, co-written by Neal Israel and Pat Proft, the writers of Bachelor Party, had been floating around Hollywood for a few years. It would tell the story of a highly intelligent high school kid named Mitch who would be recruited to attend a prestigious CalTech-like college called Pacific Tech, where he would be teamed with another genius, Chris, to build a special laser with their professor, not knowing the laser is to be used as a weapon to take out enemy combatants from a drone-like plane 30,000 feet above the Earth.   ABC Motion Pictures, a theatrical subsidy of the American television network geared towards creating movies that could be successful in theatres before playing on television, would acquire the screenplay in the early 1980s, but after the relative failure of a number of their initial projects, including National Lampoon's Class Reunion and Young Doctors in Love, would sell the project off to Columbia Pictures, who would make the film one of the first slate of films to be produced by their sister company Tri-Star Pictures, a joint venture between Columbia, the cable network Home Box Office, and, ironically, the CBS television network, which was also created towards creating movies that could be successful in theatres before playing on television. Tri-Star would assign Brian Grazer, a television producer at Paramount who had segued to movies after meeting with Ron Howard during the actor's last years on Happy Days, producing Howard's 1982 film Night Shift and 1984 film Splash, to develop the film.   One of Grazer's first moves would be to hire Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, writers on Happy Days who helped to create Laverne and Shirley and Joanie Loves Chachi, to rewrite the script to attract a director. Ganz and Mandel had also written Night Shift and rewrote the script for Splash, and Grazer considered them his lucky charm. After trying to convince Ron Howard to board the project instead of Cocoon, Grazer would create a list of up and coming filmmakers he would want to work with. And toward the top of that list was Martha Coolidge.   Coolidge would naturally gravitate towards Real Genius, and she would have an advantage that no other filmmaker on Grazer's list would have: her fiancee, Michael Backes, was himself an egghead, a genius in physics and biochemistry who in the years to come would become good friends with the writer and filmmaker Michael Crichton, working as a graphics supervisor on the movie version of Chricton's book Jurassic Park, a co-writer of the screenplay based on Chricton's book Rising Sun, and an associate producer on the movie version of Chricton's book Congo.   Once Coolidge was signed on to direct Real Genius in the spring of 1984, she and Backes would work with former SCTV writer and performer PJ Torokvei as they would spend time talking to dozens of science students at CalTech and USC, researching laser technology, and the policies of the CIA. They would shape the project to something closer to what Grazer said he loved most about its possibility, the possibility of genius. "To me,” Grazer would tell an interviewer around the time of the film's release, “a genius is someone who can do something magical, like solve a complex problem in his head while I'm still trying to figure out the question. I don't pretend to understand it, but the results are everywhere around us. We work, travel, amuse ourselves and enhance the quality of life through technology, all of which traces back to what was once an abstract idea in the mind of some genius.”   When their revised screenplay got the green light from the studio with an $8m budget, Grazer and Coolidge got to the task of casting the film. While the young genius Mitch was ostensibly the lead character in the film, his roommate Chris would need a star to balance out the relative obscurity of his co-star. A number of young actors in Hollywood would be seen, but their choice would be 25 year old Val Kilmer, whose first movie, Top Secret!, had not yet opened in theatres but had hot buzz going for it as the followup film for the Airplane! writing/directing team of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker.   Fourteen year old Gabe Jarret, whose only previous film work had been in a minor role in the 1981 Tony Danza/Danny DeVito comedy Going Ape!, would land the coveted role of Mitch, while supporting roles would go to Coolidge's former costars Michelle Meyrink, Deborah Foreman and Robert Prescott, as well as William Atherton, who at the time was on movie screens as Walter Peck, the main human antagonist to the Ghostbusters, as Chris and Mitch's duplicitous professor, Jerry Hathaway, and Patti D'Arbanville, who had made a splash on screens in 1981 as Chevy Chase's long-suffering girlfriend in Modern Problems.   Shooting would begin on Real Genius in Southern California on November 12th, 1984. Most of the film would be shot on sets built at the Hollywood Center Studios, just a few blocks west of the Paramount Studios lot, while several major set pieces, including the memorable finale involving Professor Hathaway's house, a space laser and 190,000 pounds of popcorn, were shot in the then quiet suburban area of Sand Canyon, a few miles east of Magic Mountain, a popular theme park and filming area about 45mins north of Hollywood Center Studios. Outdoor scenes standing in for the Pacific Tech campus would be filmed at Occidental College in Eagle Rock and Pomona College in Claremont, while some scenes would be filmed at General Atomics outside San Diego, standing in for an Air Force base in the film's climax. Shooting on the film would finish after the first of the year, giving Coolidge and her editor, Richard Chew, about seven months to get the film in shape for a planned August 7th, 1985, release.   Going in to the Summer 1985 movie season, Real Genius was positioned to be one of the hit films of the summer. They had a hot up and coming star in Val Kilmer, a hot director in Martha Coolidge, and a fairly solid release date in early August. But then, there ended up being an unusual glut of science fiction and sci-fi comedy movies in the marketplace at the same time. In March, Disney released the dinosaur-themed Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, which was not a good film and bombed pretty bad. In June, there was the artificial intelligence film D.A.R.Y.L., which was not a good film and bombed pretty bad. In July, there was Back to the Future, which was a very good film and became one of the biggest successes of the year, and there was Explorers, Joe Dante's followup to Gremlins, which featured Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix as teenage boys who build their own spacecraft to explore outer space, and although it was one of the best movies released in the summer of 1985, it too bombed pretty bad.    But then, in a seven day period in early August, we had Weird Science, which was not very good and not very successful, Real Genius, and My Science Project, another Disney movie about a glowing orb thing from outer space that causes a lot of problems for a lazy high school student looking for something to use for his science class final, which is one of the worst movies of the year, and bombed worse than any of the other movies mentioned.   Weird Science, John Hughes' followup to his surprise hit The Breakfast Club, released only six months earlier, would open on August 1st, and come in fourth place with $4.9m from 1158 theatres. In its second weekend of release, Weird Science would lose 40% of its opening weekend audience, coming in fifth with $2.97m. But that would still be better than Real Genius, which opened on Wednesday, August 5th, which would come in sixth in its opening weekend, with $2.56m from 990 locations. My Science Project, opening on August 7th, could only manage to open in 13th place with $1.5m from 1003 theatres. That would be worse than a reissue of E.T. in its fourth weekend of release.   In its second weekend, Real Genius would only drop 14% of its opening weekend audience, coming in with $2.2m from 956 locations, but after a third weekend, losing a third of its screens and 46% of its second week audience, Real Genius would be shuttled off to the dollar houses, where it would spend another seventeen weeks before exiting theatres with only $12.95m worth of tickets sold.   However, it is my personal opinion is that the film failed to find an audience because it was perceived as being too smart for a simple audience. Real Genius celebrates intelligence. It doesn't pander to its audience. In many ways, it belittles stupidity, especially Mitch's moronic parents. Revenge is dished out in the most ingenious ways, especially at the end with Professor Hathaway's house, to the point where the science behind how Chris and Mitch did what the did is still actively debated thirty-eight years later. Caltech students served as consultants on the film, and played students in the background, while Dr. Martha Gunderson, a physics professor at USC whose vast knowledge about lasers informed the writers during the development stage, played a math professor on screen. Finally, to help promote the film, Martha Coolidge and producer Brian Grazer held the first-ever online press conference through the CompuServe online service, even though there were less than 125,000 on the entire planet who had CompuServe access in August 1985.   Today, the film is rightfully regardless as a classic, but it wouldn't make Val Kilmer a star quite yet. That, of course, would happen in 1986, when he co-starred as Tom Cruise's frenemy in Tony Scott's Top Gun. Gabe Jarret would eventually become Gabriel Jarret, appearing in such movies as Karate Kid 3, Apollo 13 and The American President, and he continues to work in movies and on television to this day. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Michelle Meyrink, who would quit acting three years after making Real Genius, but we'll talk about that on our next episode. And, of course, William Atherton would cement his reputation as the chucklenut Gen Xers love to hate when he played the cocky television reporter Dick Thornburg in the first two Die Hard movies.   And with that, we come to the end of this episode. Thank you for joining us.    We'll talk again next week, when Episode 111, on Coolidge's 1988 comedy Plain Clothes, is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

On this episode, we continue our informal miniseries on the 1980s movies of director Martha Coolidge with a look back at her 1985 under appreciated classic, Real Genius. ----more---- TRANSCRIPT   From Los Angeles, California, the Entertainment Capital of the World, it's The 80s Movies Podcast. I am your host, Edward Havens. Thank you for listening today.   Before we hop in to today's episode, I want to thank every person listening, from whatever part of the planet you're at. Over the nearly four years I've been doing this podcast, we've had listeners from 171 of the 197 countries, and occasionally it's very surreal for this California kid who didn't amount to much of anything growing to think there are people in Myanmar and the Ukraine and other countries dealing with war within their borders who still find time to listen to new episodes of a podcast about 33 plus year old mostly American movies when they're released. I don't take your listenership lightly, and I just want you to know that I truly appreciate it. Thank you.   Okay, with that, I would like to welcome you all to Part Three of our informal miniseries on the 1980s movies of director Martha Coolidge.   When we left Ms. Coolidge on our previous episode, her movie Joy of Sex had bombed, miserably. But, lucky for her, she had already been hired to work on Real Genius before Joy of Sex had been released.   The script for Real Genius, co-written by Neal Israel and Pat Proft, the writers of Bachelor Party, had been floating around Hollywood for a few years. It would tell the story of a highly intelligent high school kid named Mitch who would be recruited to attend a prestigious CalTech-like college called Pacific Tech, where he would be teamed with another genius, Chris, to build a special laser with their professor, not knowing the laser is to be used as a weapon to take out enemy combatants from a drone-like plane 30,000 feet above the Earth.   ABC Motion Pictures, a theatrical subsidy of the American television network geared towards creating movies that could be successful in theatres before playing on television, would acquire the screenplay in the early 1980s, but after the relative failure of a number of their initial projects, including National Lampoon's Class Reunion and Young Doctors in Love, would sell the project off to Columbia Pictures, who would make the film one of the first slate of films to be produced by their sister company Tri-Star Pictures, a joint venture between Columbia, the cable network Home Box Office, and, ironically, the CBS television network, which was also created towards creating movies that could be successful in theatres before playing on television. Tri-Star would assign Brian Grazer, a television producer at Paramount who had segued to movies after meeting with Ron Howard during the actor's last years on Happy Days, producing Howard's 1982 film Night Shift and 1984 film Splash, to develop the film.   One of Grazer's first moves would be to hire Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel, writers on Happy Days who helped to create Laverne and Shirley and Joanie Loves Chachi, to rewrite the script to attract a director. Ganz and Mandel had also written Night Shift and rewrote the script for Splash, and Grazer considered them his lucky charm. After trying to convince Ron Howard to board the project instead of Cocoon, Grazer would create a list of up and coming filmmakers he would want to work with. And toward the top of that list was Martha Coolidge.   Coolidge would naturally gravitate towards Real Genius, and she would have an advantage that no other filmmaker on Grazer's list would have: her fiancee, Michael Backes, was himself an egghead, a genius in physics and biochemistry who in the years to come would become good friends with the writer and filmmaker Michael Crichton, working as a graphics supervisor on the movie version of Chricton's book Jurassic Park, a co-writer of the screenplay based on Chricton's book Rising Sun, and an associate producer on the movie version of Chricton's book Congo.   Once Coolidge was signed on to direct Real Genius in the spring of 1984, she and Backes would work with former SCTV writer and performer PJ Torokvei as they would spend time talking to dozens of science students at CalTech and USC, researching laser technology, and the policies of the CIA. They would shape the project to something closer to what Grazer said he loved most about its possibility, the possibility of genius. "To me,” Grazer would tell an interviewer around the time of the film's release, “a genius is someone who can do something magical, like solve a complex problem in his head while I'm still trying to figure out the question. I don't pretend to understand it, but the results are everywhere around us. We work, travel, amuse ourselves and enhance the quality of life through technology, all of which traces back to what was once an abstract idea in the mind of some genius.”   When their revised screenplay got the green light from the studio with an $8m budget, Grazer and Coolidge got to the task of casting the film. While the young genius Mitch was ostensibly the lead character in the film, his roommate Chris would need a star to balance out the relative obscurity of his co-star. A number of young actors in Hollywood would be seen, but their choice would be 25 year old Val Kilmer, whose first movie, Top Secret!, had not yet opened in theatres but had hot buzz going for it as the followup film for the Airplane! writing/directing team of Zucker, Abrahams and Zucker.   Fourteen year old Gabe Jarret, whose only previous film work had been in a minor role in the 1981 Tony Danza/Danny DeVito comedy Going Ape!, would land the coveted role of Mitch, while supporting roles would go to Coolidge's former costars Michelle Meyrink, Deborah Foreman and Robert Prescott, as well as William Atherton, who at the time was on movie screens as Walter Peck, the main human antagonist to the Ghostbusters, as Chris and Mitch's duplicitous professor, Jerry Hathaway, and Patti D'Arbanville, who had made a splash on screens in 1981 as Chevy Chase's long-suffering girlfriend in Modern Problems.   Shooting would begin on Real Genius in Southern California on November 12th, 1984. Most of the film would be shot on sets built at the Hollywood Center Studios, just a few blocks west of the Paramount Studios lot, while several major set pieces, including the memorable finale involving Professor Hathaway's house, a space laser and 190,000 pounds of popcorn, were shot in the then quiet suburban area of Sand Canyon, a few miles east of Magic Mountain, a popular theme park and filming area about 45mins north of Hollywood Center Studios. Outdoor scenes standing in for the Pacific Tech campus would be filmed at Occidental College in Eagle Rock and Pomona College in Claremont, while some scenes would be filmed at General Atomics outside San Diego, standing in for an Air Force base in the film's climax. Shooting on the film would finish after the first of the year, giving Coolidge and her editor, Richard Chew, about seven months to get the film in shape for a planned August 7th, 1985, release.   Going in to the Summer 1985 movie season, Real Genius was positioned to be one of the hit films of the summer. They had a hot up and coming star in Val Kilmer, a hot director in Martha Coolidge, and a fairly solid release date in early August. But then, there ended up being an unusual glut of science fiction and sci-fi comedy movies in the marketplace at the same time. In March, Disney released the dinosaur-themed Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, which was not a good film and bombed pretty bad. In June, there was the artificial intelligence film D.A.R.Y.L., which was not a good film and bombed pretty bad. In July, there was Back to the Future, which was a very good film and became one of the biggest successes of the year, and there was Explorers, Joe Dante's followup to Gremlins, which featured Ethan Hawke and River Phoenix as teenage boys who build their own spacecraft to explore outer space, and although it was one of the best movies released in the summer of 1985, it too bombed pretty bad.    But then, in a seven day period in early August, we had Weird Science, which was not very good and not very successful, Real Genius, and My Science Project, another Disney movie about a glowing orb thing from outer space that causes a lot of problems for a lazy high school student looking for something to use for his science class final, which is one of the worst movies of the year, and bombed worse than any of the other movies mentioned.   Weird Science, John Hughes' followup to his surprise hit The Breakfast Club, released only six months earlier, would open on August 1st, and come in fourth place with $4.9m from 1158 theatres. In its second weekend of release, Weird Science would lose 40% of its opening weekend audience, coming in fifth with $2.97m. But that would still be better than Real Genius, which opened on Wednesday, August 5th, which would come in sixth in its opening weekend, with $2.56m from 990 locations. My Science Project, opening on August 7th, could only manage to open in 13th place with $1.5m from 1003 theatres. That would be worse than a reissue of E.T. in its fourth weekend of release.   In its second weekend, Real Genius would only drop 14% of its opening weekend audience, coming in with $2.2m from 956 locations, but after a third weekend, losing a third of its screens and 46% of its second week audience, Real Genius would be shuttled off to the dollar houses, where it would spend another seventeen weeks before exiting theatres with only $12.95m worth of tickets sold.   However, it is my personal opinion is that the film failed to find an audience because it was perceived as being too smart for a simple audience. Real Genius celebrates intelligence. It doesn't pander to its audience. In many ways, it belittles stupidity, especially Mitch's moronic parents. Revenge is dished out in the most ingenious ways, especially at the end with Professor Hathaway's house, to the point where the science behind how Chris and Mitch did what the did is still actively debated thirty-eight years later. Caltech students served as consultants on the film, and played students in the background, while Dr. Martha Gunderson, a physics professor at USC whose vast knowledge about lasers informed the writers during the development stage, played a math professor on screen. Finally, to help promote the film, Martha Coolidge and producer Brian Grazer held the first-ever online press conference through the CompuServe online service, even though there were less than 125,000 on the entire planet who had CompuServe access in August 1985.   Today, the film is rightfully regardless as a classic, but it wouldn't make Val Kilmer a star quite yet. That, of course, would happen in 1986, when he co-starred as Tom Cruise's frenemy in Tony Scott's Top Gun. Gabe Jarret would eventually become Gabriel Jarret, appearing in such movies as Karate Kid 3, Apollo 13 and The American President, and he continues to work in movies and on television to this day. Sadly, the same cannot be said for Michelle Meyrink, who would quit acting three years after making Real Genius, but we'll talk about that on our next episode. And, of course, William Atherton would cement his reputation as the chucklenut Gen Xers love to hate when he played the cocky television reporter Dick Thornburg in the first two Die Hard movies.   And with that, we come to the end of this episode. Thank you for joining us.    We'll talk again next week, when Episode 111, on Coolidge's 1988 comedy Plain Clothes, is released.   Remember to visit this episode's page on our website, The80sMoviePodcast.com, for extra materials about the movies we covered this episode.   The 80s Movies Podcast has been researched, written, narrated and edited by Edward Havens for Idiosyncratic Entertainment.   Thank you again.   Good night.

Ghostbusters Welcome to The Guys Review, where we review media, products and experiences.  **READ APPLE REVIEWS/Fan Mail**Mention Twitter DM group - like pinned tweet @The_GuysReviewRead emails theguysreviewpod@gmail.comTwitter Poll Ghostbusters         (im starting to hate the swedish translation of movies. Now in swedish Ghostbusters is called Ghostleague) Director: Ivan Riteman Writers: Dan Aykroyd. Harold Ramis. Rick Moranis(uncredited) Starring:  Bill MurreyDan AykroydSigourney WeaverHarold RamisRick MoranisErnie Hudson  Released: June 8, 1984 Budget: $30M ($85,700,096.25M in 2022) Gross US & Canada $243,578,797M   ($695,824,211.55M in 2022) Opening weekend US & Canada $13,578,151M in JUN 10, 1984 ($38,788,294.92M in 2022) Gross worldwide $296,578,797M ($847,227,714.92M in 2022)  Ratings:   IMDb 7.8/10 Rotten Tomatoes 63% Metacritic 71% Google Users 86%   Here cometh thine shiny awards Sire. My Lord Tucker the Wanker second Earl of Wessex. Lord of the Furries. Heir of Lord baldy the one eyed snake wrestler. Protector of Freedom units. Step Sibling with funny feelings down stairs. Entertainer of uncles. Jailor of innocent. Spanker of innocent milk maids and stable boys. The toxic wanker. Big Cheif sitting doughnut. Teepee giver to the great Cornholio. Edgar Allan Poe's shaved muse. Academy Awards, USA 1985NomineeOscarBest Effects, Visual EffectsRichard EdlundJohn BrunoMark VargoChuck Gaspar Best Music, Original SongRay Parker Jr. For the song "Ghostbusters".  BAFTA Awards 1985WinnerBAFTA Film AwardBest Original SongRay Parker Jr. For the song "Ghostbusters".NomineeBAFTA Film AwardBest Special Visual EffectsRichard Edlund   Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA 1985WinnerSaturn AwardBest Fantasy Film   Golden Globes, USA 1985NomineeGolden GlobeBest Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or MusicalBill Murray Best Original Song - Motion PictureRay Parker Jr. Song: "Ghostbusters"  Golden Screen, Germany 1985WinnerGolden Screen  Grammy Awards 1985NomineeGrammyBest Album of Original Score Written for a Motion Picture or Television SpecialRay Parker Jr.Kevin O'NealBobby AlessiTom BaileyGraham RussellDavid FosterJay GraydonDiane WarrenMick SmileyElmer Bernstein Hugo Awards 1985NomineeHugoBest Dramatic PresentationIvan Reitman (director)Dan Aykroyd (written by)Harold Ramis (written by)  National Film Preservation Board, USA 2015WinnerNational Film RegistryNational Film Preservation Board Online Film & Television Association 2021WinnerOFTA Film Hall of FameSong "Ghostbusters"  Online Film & Television Association 2016WinnerOFTA Film Hall of FameMotion Picture Young Artist Awards 1985WinnerYoung Artist AwardBest Family Motion Picture - Musical or Comedy First Time you saw the movie? Plot: After Columbia University parapsychology professors Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz, and Egon Spengler experience their first encounter with a ghost at the New York Public Library, the university dean dismisses the credibility of their paranormal-focused research and fires them. The trio responds by establishing "Ghostbusters", a paranormal investigation and elimination service operating out of a disused firehouse. They develop high-tech nuclear-powered equipment to capture and contain ghosts, although business is initially slow. After a paranormal encounter in her apartment, cellist Dana Barrett calls the Ghostbusters. She recounts witnessing a demonic dog-like creature in her refrigerator utter a single word: "Zuul". Ray and Egon research Zuul and details of Dana's building while Peter inspects her apartment and unsuccessfully attempts to seduce her. The Ghostbusters are hired to remove a gluttonous ghost, Slimer, from the Sedgewick Hotel. Having failed to properly test their equipment, Egon warns the group that crossing the energy streams of their proton pack weapons could cause a catastrophic explosion. They capture the ghost and deposit it in an ecto-containment unit under the firehouse. Supernatural activity rapidly increases across the city and the Ghostbusters become famous; they hire a fourth member, Winston Zeddemore, to cope with the growing demand. Suspicious of the Ghostbusters, Environmental Protection Agency inspector Walter Peck asks to evaluate their equipment but Peter rebuffs him. Egon warns that the containment unit is nearing capacity and supernatural energy is surging across the city. Peter meets with Dana and informs her Zuul was a demigod worshipped as a servant to "Gozer the Gozerian", a shapeshifting god of destruction. Upon returning home, she is possessed by Zuul; a similar entity possesses her neighbor, Louis Tully. Peter arrives and finds the possessed Dana/Zuul claiming to be "the Gatekeeper". Louis is brought to Egon by police officers and claims he is "Vinz Clortho, the Keymaster". The Ghostbusters agree to keep the pair separated. Peck returns with law enforcement and city workers to have the Ghostbusters arrested and their containment unit deactivated, causing an explosion that releases the captured ghosts. Louis/Vinz escapes in the confusion and makes his way to the apartment building to join Dana/Zuul. In jail, Ray and Egon reveal Ivo Shandor, leader of a Gozer-worshipping cult, designed Dana's building to function as an antenna to attract and concentrate spiritual energy to summon Gozer and bring about the apocalypse. Faced with supernatural chaos across the city, the Ghostbusters convince the mayor to release them. The Ghostbusters travel to the apartment building roof as Dana/Zuul and Louis/Vinz open the gate between dimensions and transform into demonic dogs. Gozer appears as a woman and attacks the Ghostbusters then disappears when they attempt to retaliate. Her disembodied voice demands the Ghostbusters "choose the form of the destructor". Ray inadvertently recalls a beloved corporate mascot from his childhood, and Gozer reappears as a gigantic Stay Puft Marshmallow Man that begins destroying the city. Against his earlier advice, Egon instructs the team to cross their proton energy streams at the dimensional gate. The resulting explosion destroys Gozer's avatar, banishing it back to its dimension, and closes the gateway. The Ghostbusters rescue Dana and Louis from the wreckage and are welcomed on the street as heroes.  TOP 5​Before the Ghostbusters become established in New York City, they release a commercial to advertise their services. The three original members — Peter Venkman (Bill Murrey), Ray Stantz (Dan Aykroyd), and Egon Spengler (Harold Ramis) — appear on television, with the number 555-2368. During the film's theatrical release in 1984, Ivan Reritman ran that very same commercial, which allowed people to call in. Callers would hear a pre-recorded message from Bill Murray and Dan Aykroyd, who announced that they were unable to answer as they were busy busting ghosts! The number received 1,000 calls every hour, 24 hours a day, for several weeks! Sadly, the line is no longer operational, so if you're being troubled by strange noises in the middle of the night, or you're experiencing feelings of dread in your basement or attic, we don't know what to tell you!“Ghostbusters” is such an iconic title — so much so, that many fans still haven't noticed that, following the opening scene in the New York Public Library in the original 1984 film, the title that appears on the screen is actually two words and not one, reading “Ghost Busters”! Before the filmmakers settled on the now iconic title, Dan Aykroyd originally considered the title “Ghost Smashers”, while “Ghostbreakers” was also an option. The sign outside the Ghostbusters fire station in New York even had variations of these titles during production. “Ghostbusters” wasn't available because of Filmation's Ghostbusters (1975), an unrelated TV series (there's also a 1986 cartoon). In the end, Columbia Pictures obtained the rights, while The Real Ghostbusters (1986 — 1991) was so named to distinguish it from the Filmation version.Despite becoming one of the most iconic characters in the entire Ghostbusters franchise, Slimer is never actually name-dropped in either of the two movies, Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II (1989). However, he was referred to as “Onionhead” by the crew of the original film. The “ugly little spud” wasn't actually named “Slimer” until the animated show, The Real Ghostbusters, in which he's part of the team. It's this that inspired his more friendly cameo in Ghostbusters II, in which he offers Louis Tully (Rick Moranis) a ride in a town car. Slimer isn't the only ghost in the original movie who isn't referred to by the name we now know him by Gozer's two minions, Vinz Clortho/the keymaster and Zuul/the gatekeeper are never referred to as "terror dogs", despite the hellhounds now being synonymous with the name.As well as being called “Onionhead” by the crew members of the original 1984 film, Slimer also went by another name — “The Ghost of John Belushi”, something Dan Aykroyd started. Aykroyd has since confirmed that Slimer was heavily inspired by the late John Belushi. For starters, the green spook's hankering for food was based on Belushi's cafeteria scene in National Lampoon's Animal House (1978). The role of Peter Venkman was originally written for the actor, however, he passed away while Aykroyd was working on the script in early 1984. While there are no direct references to the actor in the film, there are plenty throughout IDW's Ghostbusters comic book series, some of which even feature Belushi's character, “Joliet” Jake Blues, from The Blues Brothers (1980), which also stars Dan Aykroyd as Elwood Blues.Once the Ghostbusters cross the streams, the rift between the two dimensions causes the Marshmallow Man to explode, raining down marshmallow on the unsuspecting New Yorkers below. But getting that amount of actual marshmallows to dump on the film's extras was implausible. Instead, Edlund's team collected 500-gallon batches of shaving cream to substitute for the remnants of Mr. Stay-Puft. William Atherton, who played EPA villain Walter Peck, was skeptical about having such a large amount of heavy cream dropped on him, so they tested the idea on a stuntman using only 75 pounds, and it knocked him to the ground. The stuntman was okay, and another smaller batch was collected to dump on Atherton for the final take in the film. **TRIPLE LINDY AWARD** **REVIEW AND RATING**TreyChrisStephen .5Tucker .5 TOP 5Stephen:1 Breakfast club2 T23 Ghostbuster4 Sandlot5 Color out of space  Chris:1. sandlots2. T23. trick r treat4. rocky horror picture show5. hubie halloween Trey:1) Boondocks Saints2) Mail Order Brides3) Tombstone4) Very bad things5) She out of my league Tucker:1. T22: Tombstone3: My Cousin Vinny4: Ghostbusters5: Scream WHAT ARE WE DOING NEXT WEEK? Web: https://theguysreview.simplecast.com/EM: theguysreviewpod@gmail.comIG: @TheGuysReviewPodTW: @The_GuysReview - Twitter DM groupFB: https://facebook.com/TheGuysReviewPod/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCYKXJhq9LbQ2VfR4K33kT9Q Please, Subscribe, rate and review us wherever you get your podcasts from!! Thank you,-The Guys

*REBOOT IT MERCH IS AVAILABLE NOW:* http://tee.pub/lic/L2Fboy63Wa4 The Reboot Crew is on a job-seeking tour of the only game left in Hollywood: Streaming services! But our list of potential employers is dwindling fast, as we arrive at the offices of Netflix partner Sony to tackle their most frustrating property: Ghostbusters! Dan Aykroyd, Harold Ramis and Ivan Reitman captured lightning in a bottle when they mashed up blue-collar comedy, Lovecraftian horror and lo-fi sci-fi to create 1984's Ghostbusters. With all-star turns from Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Ernie Hudson and Rick Moranis, the film became one of the most unexpected hits of the 80s. But after 7 successful seasons of animated TV and one disastrous live-action sequel, the 90s could not figure out what to do with these ectoplasmic plumbers. A bevy of almost-made sequels plunged the series into development hell. Then, in 2016, a reboot exploded the franchise back across pop culture with the force and fury of a containment unit shut down by the d**kless Walter Peck. Having never met a reboot they couldn't redo, Sony responded to the non-troversy by doubling down, so a new Ecto-1 will ride AGAIN this year! But lukewarm word-of-mouth already has the studio itching for a third do-over... What's the Crew to do with a franchise that has more baggage than a cruise ship? Let's just say...The good guys dress in black, remember that, just in case we ever face to face and make contact. But it won't go how you think. BILLY BUSINESS: https://www.twitter.com/billyapatterson ED GREER: https://www.twitter.com/edgreerdestroys RON SWALLOW: https://www.twitter.com/dorkyswallow PRODUCER BILL: https://www.instagram.com/seebilldraw HOT TAKES W/ BILLY BIZ: https://billybusiness.podomatic.com​​ THE GREATEST POD: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-greatest-pod/id1567676356THE GREATEST POD YOUTUBE: https://youtu.be/h63dQbnlFt0 THE GREATEST POD PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/TheGreatestPod​​ --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/ron-swallow/support

It is finally here! The episode Steven has been waiting for, it's all about The Ghostbusters. We do a play-by-play of the original film as well as a discussion of the cast, visual effects, the nostalgic music oh and of course Walter Peck gets a mention. As always if you enjoy our show or just want to say 'Hi' don't forget to follow us on all our socials @Nerdsinpyjamas

Ahoy, Motherfuckers! In preparation for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, we decided to dedicate this month to the Ghostbusters franchise, beginning with the almighty classic released in 1984. The movie is nearly flawless, except for the issues that Derik had with it, and we had an absolute blast watching it and discussing the many ways that Peter Venkman is a jerk. Also, Walter Peck was right, and Al Powell worked in New York before moving to LA, just like John MacClaine. Enjoy. Leave an email at HindsightMovieRevues@gmail.com Twitter: @ThatCoolBlkNerd, @HindsightRevues, @Rashanii Websites: http://www.singlesimulcast.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HindsightMovieReviews, Become a Patron at http://www.Patreon.com/singlesimulcast Donate to the show at http://www.buymeacoffee.com/sscast

Ahoy, Motherfuckers! In preparation for Ghostbusters: Afterlife, we decided to dedicate this month to the Ghostbusters franchise, beginning with the almighty classic released in 1984. The movie is nearly flawless, except for the issues that Derik had with it, and we had an absolute blast watching it and discussing the many ways that Peter Venkman is a jerk. Also, Walter Peck was right, and Al Powell worked in New York before moving to LA, just like John MacClaine. Enjoy. Leave an email at HindsightMovieRevues@gmail.com Twitter: @ThatCoolBlkNerd, @HindsightRevues, @Rashanii Websites: http://www.singlesimulcast.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HindsightMovieReviews, Become a Patron at http://www.Patreon.com/singlesimulcast Donate to the show at http://www.buymeacoffee.com/sscast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/hsmr/message

GHOSTBUSTERS When college profs Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler lose their university jobs, they decide to go freelance, de-haunting houses in a new ghost removal service., their first order of business becomes saving beautiful cellist Dana Barrett and nerdy Louis Tully, who've inadvertently opened the gates to an interdimensional being who wants to destroy our world! Craig, Alan and guest Zaki Hasan (@ZakisCorner on twitter) talk about awful nerd dating techniques, the defense of Walter Peck, horror comedies and the movie “Ghostbusters” on this week's Matinee Heroes! Show Notes 1:04 Craig and Alan welcome Zaki Hasan to find out what his podcast The Movie Film Podcasts is up to and what his favorite 80's films are. 7:52 Craig, Alan and Zaki discuss "Ghostbusters" 43:02 Recasting 1:16:16 Double Feature 1:18:36 Final Thoughts 1:21:02 A preview of next week's episode "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" Next week we start a special month long look at the Lord of the Rings trilogy starting with "Fellowship of the Ring - Extended Edition"

GHOSTBUSTERS When college profs Peter Venkman, Ray Stantz and Egon Spengler lose their university jobs, they decide to go freelance, de-haunting houses in a new ghost removal service., their first order of business becomes saving beautiful cellist Dana Barrett and nerdy Louis Tully, who’ve inadvertently opened the gates to an interdimensional being who wants to destroy our world! Craig, Alan and guest Zaki Hasan (@ZakisCorner on twitter) talk about awful nerd dating techniques, the defense of Walter Peck, horror comedies and the movie “Ghostbusters” on this week’s Matinee Heroes! Show Notes 1:04 Craig and Alan welcome Zaki Hasan to find out what his podcast The Movie Film Podcasts is up to and what his favorite 80's films are. 7:52 Craig, Alan and Zaki discuss "Ghostbusters" 43:02 Recasting 1:16:16 Double Feature 1:18:36 Final Thoughts 1:21:02 A preview of next week's episode "The Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring" Next week we start a special month long look at the Lord of the Rings trilogy starting with "Fellowship of the Ring - Extended Edition"

Who ya gonna call?? Ivan Reitman wrote and direct the epic blockbuster 1984 comedy/fantasy film starting Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, Ernie Hudson, Harold Rammis, Signorney Weaver, Annie Potts and Rick Moranis. Ghostezz causing mucho ruckus in NYC. Our second segment Ghostbusters 2, reprising their roles, 5 years have past since our heroes saved the city but went out of business thanks to Walter Peck. They find a river of pink jizz slime, a painting of Viggo the Carpathian stirring up some mess with Dana Barrett's infant son Oscar. It's up to the boys of supernatural ass kicking to save the city and Dana's son from ol Viggo goofy looking butt. Also hear some interesting tales of witnessing ghostly/paranormal experiences my damn self...

Everything is proceeding as we have foreseen as the On Second Watch crew reviews our FIRST Star Wars movie. We put our fandom and nostalgia to the test as we jump right to the conclusion of the original trilogy and review 1983 American epic space opera film Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi----------Movie DetailsDirected by Richard Marquand, with a screenplay by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan, Music by John Williams. Starring Mark Hamill, Harrison Ford, Carrie Fisher, Billie Dee Williams, Anthony Daniels, David Prowse, James Earl Jones, Ian McDiarmid, Kenny Baker, Peter Mayhew, Frank Oz, Warwick DavisBudget of ~$40mil, made roughly $450mil in the box officeCurrently a 8.3 on IMDb----------Ko-fi Break Shout Out - Cazzy - https://ko-fi.com/gatchastitch - Cazzy has some incredible cross-stitch available featuring your favorite video games and other geeky pop culture characters. Go check them out and support them on Ko-fi for as little as 3 poundsKo-fi Gold winners announced in the episode! If your name was called, claim your prize at https://www.oswpodcast.com/contact/----------Special Thanks to our friends for sharing their nostalgia with us!"Walter Peck" - https://twitter.com/WizardOfFriesRon and CW from my favorite Facebook group, Positively Star Wars - https://www.facebook.com/groups/1449004295129130Also, check out Ryes Dyes on Facebook and Instagram and order your custom dyed discs to get you ready for some more disc golf this yearFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/ryesdyesdiscsInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/ryes_dyes----------All you awesome people that supported us on Ko-fi since our Super Mario episode will have a special shout out when we release our Batman review so stay tuned for that. Make sure you secure your spot to be included in this very special shout out by heading to https://ko-fi.com/movie and also gain access to our special Star Wars movie ranking episode made exclusively for Ko-fi supporters.----------Request a personalized shout out - https://ko-fi.com/movieCommission a movie review of your choice! - https://ko-fi.com/movie/commissionsCheck out all our episodes and subscribe – www.oswpodcast.com Twitter – www.twitter.com/oswpodcast1Facebook – www.facebook.com/oswpodcastInstagram – www.instagram.com/oswpodcast

This week the Plotaholics remain in the 1980s as they pick apart a film about when a young Bruce Wayne and a young Rachael Maddow went to college that one time and learned under Walter Peck about how to build a laser beam for Captain Knauer.That's right! We are talking the 1985 film, Real Genius--starring Val Kilmer, Gabriel Jarret, Jon Gries, and William Atherton. This film is a pretty straight forward college angst film complete with 4 montages and a partridge AND a pear tree. Have fun because next week is going to be a Hum and/or Dinger!Random topics of conversation:Can you pop popcorn with a laser?Nickelodeon is broadcasting the NFL complete with virtual slime cannons!Steelers/ Browns!Support the show (https://plotaholics.com)

This week the gang wonder how can the same shit happen on the same podcast twice??? We are talking 1990's Die Hard 2.They talk about naked William Sadler, Dennis Franz's head exploding, Al Powell cameos, character actors, Paul sticks up for Walter Peck in Ghostbusters and, of course, Harrison Ford's sperm.Listen to us on itunes, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Stalk us on Facebook and Instagram or send us your sweet nothings at davesvideograveyard@gmail.com. #diehard2 #dieharder #johnmcclane #brucewillis #filmpodcast #moviepodcast #davesvideograveyard

Travis and Xaunivayer tell you who the real antagonist of this film is, and spoiler it isn't Walter Peck.

Welcome back to another installment of I Hate It When They Fight-Minisodes where K and E drag their friends into the fight. This week, they are once again joined by Joel, from Friends & Flayers Podcast who is back for more blood.As a standing rule, the guest picks the question. Joel asks was Walter Peck from Ghostbusters intentions right or wrong?Join the fight and choose a side on Instagram and Facebook at /whatshouldwewatchpodcast or on our poll on Twitter @WSWWatchpodcast. Friends & Flayers is a Dungeons and Dragons actual play podcast where they test the theory that there is no wrong way to play every week. Episodes available at Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. A member of PodNation. Be sure to check them out on Twitter @FriendsNFlayers or on Instagram at friends_and_flayers.

It is that time of year when the snow falls (if you live in the proper climate), and you cuddle up with your loved ones with egg nog (eww), hot chocolate, or apple cider to watch a Christmas classic as the epilepsy lights flash on the artificial tree in the corner. Yes, kiddies. Cuddle up and watch the Christmas Classic (with no question), DIE HARD! The 1988 story-driven, yippie-ki-yay motherfu$king classic that launched Bruce Willis from TV leading man (Moonlighting was such a great series!) and into the stratosphere as an action film juggernaut at a time when action heroes were named Schwarzenegger, Stallone, Van Damme, and Norris! This is also the film that brought the amazing Alan "Professor Snape, Metatron, Hans Gruber" Rickman into our loves. Die Hard is outstanding. It's so great that the Plotaholics spent a good bit of time talking about all other kinds of craziness before getting into the meat of this film. It's so good we needed to throw in the filler! There is very little to complain about here.Oh yeah. We went there. Prepare to Die Hard to the greatest Christmas movie of all time!Random Topics of Conversation:Our national cinematic history is full of examples of leading men and women who started their acting careers in a specific genre of film and made the crossover. This episode discusses Bruce Willis (obviously), but also Robert Downey Jr., Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Heath Ledger. We also speculate on Robert Pattinson's forthcoming turn as the caped crusader in Matt Reeves's The Batman.Shane admits to having a weird and unexplainable crush on Kristen Stewart (K-Stew, if you're nasty). He blames this affinity on her role in the Jesse Eisenberg vehicle, Adventureland (also starring Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig).The guys spend an inordinate amount of time coming up with scenarios for 10 Things I Hate About You fan-fiction. Also, what if Adam Sandler was an Avenger? Or what if all of Adam Sandler's characters were cast as different Avengers? About a month ago, Steve Carrell told Ellen that he thought a better idea than a reboot of The Office would be taking the cast of The Office and rebooting other shows. His suggestion: Cheers. The Plotaholics offer some of their own suggestions: Star Trek, Third Rock from the Sun, The Wonder Years, and so forth.Finally, what makes a Christmas movie a Christmas movie? And is Die Hard a Christmas movie? We finally get around to the advertised content at around 33 minutes in, so feel free to skip ahead if you are a curmudgeon who dislikes shenanigans and revelry. Support the show (https://plotaholics.com)

**Game Talk starts at 16:05** Oh Ghostbusters... I love this damned franchise. Ghostbusters and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were my life as a kid. I had the action figures, movies, cartoons, clothes, books, toys, halloween costumes, and of course, video games. This was one of the games I rented over and over again. Pretty well every time my brother and I convinced our Mom to let us rent games for the weekend, Ghostbusters found it's way into the pile. We refused to admit it wasn't good.  Well, I'm thirty-five now. And it's time to face the music. The horribly repetitive 8-bit music. Ghostbusters on the NES is not a good video game. I'm sorry, Mr. Aykroyd... (Many people have said that versions of this game on other consoles, such as Atari, Commodore 64 and Master System are a little better. I've never played any of them, so we're sticking to the NES version.) I actually beat this game for the first time this week, prepping for this podcast. No cheat codes, turbo controllers, nothing. Just a little patience. OK, a lot of patience. The entire game is one boring grind to save money to buy gear  to beat a boring level where you do nothing but climb 23 flights of stairs. Then you get one fun boss fight, and then the most infamous end screen in gaming history.  If you just read that and thought, "why the hell would anyone play this??", you get it. We don't know why we played it. But a lot of us did... I wanted to cover a scary game for Halloween, and seeing as this is a nostalgia podcast, I saw this week as a perfect opportunity to review not only a treasured game from my childhood, but a "scary" game as well. The ghosts won't scare you in this game, but it'll still give you nightmares.  I'm solo this week, and I hope enjoy this trip down memory lane as we look back at the Walter Peck of NES games; Ghostbusters. 

In this special Labor Day episode, Jon and Andrea make an afterlife road rally. Andrea talks about racetrack landscape variety, Jon sympathizes with Walter Peck, and both of them discuss historical ghost gimmicks.   Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/x-meets-y/id1387742226 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/X-Meets-Y-210568946385392/

Walter Peck from the EPA wants you to turn down the AC. A bigger raise for America. Facebook paying John Kyle to save face. Paul Ryan moves to the swamp. How to value assets. Where to put all those European ISIS captives?

Walter Peck from the EPA wants you to turn down the AC. A bigger raise for America. Facebook paying John Kyle to save face. Paul Ryan moves to the swamp. How to value assets. Where to put all those European ISIS captives?

In this episode we return to Trillium, Oregon to visit our fictional hero and the “James Bond” of the public sector, Ben Cromarty.  As true fan-boys of author Scott Lazenby, we were enthralled to partake in a new bureaucratic adventure.  However, as Ben began slipping in and out of statutory loopholes without hesitation or remorse, aligning himself with questionable nonprofits, throwing basic principles of competitive procurement to the wind, and hobnobbing with venture capitalists, we found ourselves questioning our loyalty and devotion.  Is Ben a double-agent fixated on watching his state government burn?   Did Ben sell us all out for a few craft beers and a couple hipster friends?  Are the feds Ben’s next target?  Can a humble EPA agent named Walter Peck save us by shutting this whole mess down? Dear bearcats, you only live twice: once when you are born and once when you stare true bureaucracy in the face.  Let the intergovernmental mayhem commence! Sorry for the lack of episodes…. It has been a cruel summer in bearcat country.   We will attempt to get back to our biweekly production as soon as our schedules show a little mercy.  Please feel free to express your disgust: redtaped@outlook.com  (email) and @RedTapedPodcast (Twitter).  Book: State of the City by Scott Lazenby Drink: The Vesper (If want to get drunk while increasing your deadlift, Coach Rip will show you the way: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgL2IWuXiy8 ) Upcoming Episodes: The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton State of the Pod- Midyear Review The Five Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

We wrap up 2018, or I guess start 2019 with a free from show where we revisit old topics, add to or amend our prior positions on things, or just hit topics we really didn’t throughout the year. In this weeks show we hit on:Walter Peck in Ghostbusters - was he REALLY the villain?Why Ragemaster doesn’t want a sequel for The Thing from The Things perspective, and why Scott doesStar Trek DiscoveryThe failure of DC’s moviesStranger Things Season 3How Disney nearly killed Star Wars Sci-Fi Malady RSS

A team of disgraced, mad scientists threaten the citizens of New York City with nuclear powered backpack lasers. It's up to one man, overworked government employee Walter Peck, to expose the scientists' elaborate fraud and prevent their dangerous inventions from destroying the city. We're joined by Ian MacIntyre (the Beaverton) for this special Halloween episode. Edited by Andrew Ivimey and produced for the From Superheroes network. Visit www.FromSuperheroes.com for more podcasts, YouTube series, web comics, and more.

Imagine a world where the conspiracy theorists, the tinfoil hat people, the doomsday preppers and alien abduction survivors were all right on the money. Where everything they said or feared came true. That’s what it would feel like to live in the Ghostbusters’ universe. Which raises the question: how do we define and construct a conspiracy theory, and who gets to decide the difference between that and cutting-edge journalism or science? Because telling the difference isn’t always easy. Just ask Walter Peck.

In 1984, three adventerous entrepenuers took a chance on a risky business (no not that one, wrong 80s movie). No, these daring men were to be called Ghostbusters. They would challenge the notion that spooks, spirits and free floating vapors did in fact exist and could be trapped, removed, and stored.And lo Gozer threatened the populace, and it was the Ghostbusters that they called (because Ray Parker Jr asked them who they would call).Ray, Igan, Peter, and Winston join forces (and streams) to save New York City and the world from the prehistoric bitch and the overgrown marhsmallow sailor.Walter Peck iniitates the sign and he may or may not be d-ckless. If you're not floating three feet above the bed, or preparing to save the world from 6'2" flat-top Swedish Models, take a moment an leave us some feedback  on our Facebok page https://www.facebook.com/wriosmr/ or email us at  wrios2016mr@gmail.com or catch us Twitter @OurshelvesW

Ho Ho Ho! We're stuffing your stocking with a special episode where we look at the famous, "(The) Night of the Meek" from not one, BUT TWO different Twilight Zone eras! How do they compare? A "Honeymooner" vs. an "Empty Nester". Piglet vs. Walter Peck. Creepy Elves vs. Bad 80's Special FX. Which decade does it best? Give it a listen and tell us what you think!

"What is so special about Josh Baskin?” “He’s a grown up!” The Spoiler team are back and we all reckoned it was criminal that we still hadn’t looked at a Tom Hanks film yet. We’re rectifying this by kicking off series 6 with Penny Marshall’s 1988 fantasy comedy ‘Big’. While Andy and Rachael both grew up with ‘Big’, Paul lives up to his reputation for procrastination by only having seen it for the first time a couple of days ago. While this precludes Paul from joining in with the rest of the team’s impromptu recreation of the ‘Shimmy Shimmy Coco Pop’ song, the magic of this charming film proves as effective on a 41 year old man as it was on two wide-eyed pre-teens. Andy reluctantly recounts his inadvertent encyclopaedic knowledge of body-swap comedies and reveals how he himself fared when he took on the Ice Wizard (spoiler: his hesitancy cost him dearly!). The team also discuss some of ‘Big’s more questionable elements, such as the scene of “hand-on-bra action” between a 13 year old boy and an adult woman. Rachael wonders whether switching the genders of the lead characters would have made a difference to audience reactions and, of course, highlights the importance of the score in diminishing our misgivings. While Andy tries desperately to stop a determined Paul from asking all the questions you’re not supposed to ask about the Zoltar machine, everyone appreciates the authenticity of the classic ‘Heart and Soul’ piano scene, bum notes and all, but Rachael wonders whether ‘Big: The Musical’ might have been a step too far. Elsewhere, inspired by John Heard’s performance as Paul Davenport, Andy reveals his top 5 baddies who weren’t really that bad, including Walter Peck from ‘Ghostbusters’, the hyenas from ‘The Lion King’ and Eddie Cochran’s parents in the rock ‘n’ roll classic ‘Summertime Blues’. This week’s scale: Big or Gib (and yes, it is a word!)

Persona 3 - Part 4 Please be aware due to the nature of the game suicide is discussed. Yukari finally confronts Mitsuru on her drama and the Countess throws wine in Theresa's face; things get very Ghostbustersy ten years ago thanks to the Kijiro Group's shenanigans; the very regrettable Operation: Babe Hunt; the detailed simulation that is Dead or Alive: Xtreme Beach Volleyball; there are several covers of Persona songs by talented singers John and Vanessa; and finally, this is basically the Breastcast as we discuss a wide range of breast topics, not limited to support, animation and sizing. This week: We play through the August Full Moon Operation! Next week: We play through the September Full Moon Operation! Twitter: @squarerootspod Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/486022898258197/ Email: squarerootspodcast (at) gmail (dort) com Our theme song is courtesy of Sapphire. Original Artist(s): Shoji Meguro & Yumi Kawamura English Lyrics by: Merr, Sapphire, & Y. Chang Instrumental by: SHADOWFOX2 and Zach Striefel. https://www.youtube.com/user/StrawberryCreme26 Check her out on twitter at @sapphberry  

This week our Bearded Heroes Ricky and Shayne are join by Zombies Ate My Podcast host Bob Fournier and they discuss 1984's Ghostbusters, tuning up the gate keeper, ghost blow jobs, and Walter Peck having no dick!

In which Danielle Moonstar is the Wolverine of the New Mutants, Henry Peter Gyrich is the Walter Peck of the Marvel Universe, Michael Rossi is no Peter Corbeau, Xavier is For more information on this and other episodes, check out xplainthexmen.com!

(NSFW!) Walking Dead is a show without fear. Archer. Suicide Squad. Your first R rated movie. Ghostbusters 3. Walter Peck was right! Incredibles 2. FF2? Wolvie 2? Bats vs Supes vs Cap3. AMERICA! SLComicCon FanX. Black Widow & Punisher. Ladyhawke. Lost Boys. King of Comedy. Lots more!

(NSFW!) Walking Dead is a show without fear. Archer. Suicide Squad. Your first R rated movie. Ghostbusters 3. Walter Peck was right! Incredibles 2. FF2? Wolvie 2? Bats vs Supes vs Cap3. AMERICA! SLComicCon FanX. Black Widow & Punisher. Ladyhawke. Lost Boys. King of Comedy. Lots more!

This week... a Filmspotting Top 5 so wacky and unbelievable, Walter Peck might just show up to learn more about what it is we do here. Adam and Josh countdown their Top 5 Movie Crackpots and celebrate Mark Duplass week with reviews of two new movies featuring everybody's favorite "Humpday" star: "Your Sister's Sister" and "Safety Not Guaranteed." Plus, interviews with the directors of those films, Lynn Shelton and Colin Trevorrow.  This episode is presented by Squarespace.com.  :00-10:47 - Interview: Lynn Shelton10:48-19:28 - Review: "My Sister's Sister"Music: "Big Machine," Mark Duplass20:51-22:36 - Squarespace23:03-30:24 - Massacre Theatre30:25-38:29 - Polls / Notes 38:30-59:41 - Interview: Colin Trevorrow59:42-1:04:29 - Review: "Safety Not Guaranteed"Music: "Playing Dead," Breathe Owl Breathe1:05:28-1:11:18 - Donations1:11:37-1:40:29 - Top 5: Crackpots1:40:30-1:44:18 - Close MUSIC - Ryan Miller/Guster - Breathe Owl Breathe NOTES - Massacre Theatre winner: Ashleyanne Krigbaum LINKS - Filmspotting's Summer Docs class - Adam on "Prometheus" Slate Spoiler Special - Top 5 Crackpots SPONSORS / PARTNERS - Squarespace: Use code FILM6 - Fandor.com/Filmspotting - The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith- iTunes  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices