Episode 44 - Some Legal Eagles Soar, Some Go Splat

Randy requested "courtroom drama." Joe selected Dominick Dunne's retelling of the O.J. Simpson trial Another City, Not My Own. Amy chose  The Lincoln Lawyer starring Matthew McConnaughey.

Show notes

What We're Into Lately:

Randy - U2's new tour. And Mad Max: Fury Road

Amy - Still more of The X-Files 

Joe - H is for Hawk by Helen McDonald and Up in the Air (better late than never)

• The incomparable Joe Bob Briggs (aka John Bloom) 
• Clearing up some of O. J. Simpson's criminal record: He was convicted in 2008 on multiple felony counts and sentenced to 33 years in prison with the possibility of parole. He was granted parole from some of the convictions in 2013, but is continuing to be held for other charges. It is possible he could be released in 2017.
• Court TV launched on July 2, 1991. On January 1, 2008, it was renamed TruTV.
• The novel The Lincoln Lawyer was published in 2005.
• The AV Club's "Random Roles" with Bob Gunton. 
• The beginning of the McConnaissance is hard to pinpoint... Was it with his excellent comedic cameo in Tropic Thunder (2008)? But that was followed by Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (2009) - which Amy will happily defend but was critically drubbed and a commercial flop. The Lincoln Lawyer comes out in March 2011, followed later that year by Bernie and Killer Joe. So was Lincoln Lawyer the very tiniest beginning of the McConnaissance? Maybe.

Music

Intro: "The Miracle (of Joey Ramone)" - U2
Outro: "Hot Rod Lincoln" - Charlie Ryan and the Livinsgton Bros.

Next Episode

Joe's chosen the theme "Let's get the band back together." Amy and Randy both went with metaphorical bands rather than actual ones. Randy's giving us all the chance to rewatch Galaxy Quest and Amy's reaching back for Donald E. Westlake's Hot Rock.

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Episode 38 - Controversy!

Randy asked for works that were controversial at the time of their release. 

• Joe chose D. H. Lawrence's classic piece of smut, Lady Chatterley's Lover.
• Amy selected Dirty Harry singled out by both Pauline Kael and Roger Ebert as "fascist" at the time of its release

Show notes

Intro Music: "Dirty Harry Theme" by Lalo Schifrin

• Reviews of "Dirty Harry" at the time of its release: 
• New York Times - Roger Greenspun
• Roger Ebert
• Lalo Schifrin did indeed write the theme for the television series "Mission: Impossible"
• The closest I could find to the quotation Joe alludes to is one from Shirley MacLaine: "I am an expert in hookers. I'm an expert in doormats. I'm an expert in victims. They were the best parts."
• Andre Braugher played Frank Pembleton on "Homicide: Life on the Street"
• The Irish film Joe was trying to remember is actually titled "Waking Ned Devine"
• "Dancing with the Stars" returns March 16.  Here's the cast of "stars"  
• Willow Shields played Primrose Everdeen in "The Hunger Games" 
• Redfoo was born Stefan Kendal Gordy and is the youngest son of Motown founder Berry Gordy, Jr. 
• Here's an image of Cris Collinsworth, then and now. The hair's been trimmed, but it's still basically the same style

On the next episode

Joe returns to his Irish roots, just in time for St Patrick's Day, and asked us for tales of urban Ireland.

• Randy chose John Ford's 1935 film The Informer.
• Amy originally chose Colin Bateman's Murphy's Law, but it proved a bit difficult to obtain via library methods. So the pick was switched after recording to Colin Bateman's 1995 novel Divorcing Jack.

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Episode 37: The Cat Came Back

Amy wanted Cats!

• Randy chose Timothy Findley's 1984 novel, "Not Wanted On The Voyage."
• Joe selected the 1979 classic, Ridley Scott and Dan Bannon's "Alien."

Show notes

Intro Music: "Wildcat" by Ratatat
Exit Music: "The Cat Came Back" by The Countdown Kids

• Amy and Randy had a real back and forth on whether Jupiter Ascending is a lot of fun or it it's just a big pile o' shit. (Trailer)
• Randy wants to recommend everyone see The Last Five Years (trailer) and Paddington (trailer).
• Joe's wholeheartedly recommending the new Joe Lynch and Salma Hayek thriller Everly (his review and the trailer) but is only somewhat recommending Alien Outpost (trailer)

On the next episode

Randy decided that he wanted us to plumb the depths of past depravity and so asked us to pick works that were controversial back in the day.  Joe picked the 1928 D.H. Lawrence novel Lady Chatterly's Lover (Goodreads) and Amy chose the 1971 Don Siegel vehicle for Clint Eastwood, Dirty Harry (trailer).

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The Hugo and Nebula Novel Project #2: 1955

1955

Hugo Winner: They'd Rather Be Right

Nebula Winner: None Awarded

Hey, remember when I started this project and I was all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed about working my way through the winners over the years?  This book almost derailed the entire thing.

They'd Rather Be Right (serialized in 1954 in Astounding Science Fiction, published as a novel in 1957), written by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley, may be one of the oddest examples of an award winner you'll run across.  Usually, you can make some justification for a book or movie wining an award, based on other people having different tastes or wanting to make a point with their votes or some such reasoning.  But with this book...jeez, it's just not good and everyone seems to agree on this.  It's a mystery all over the place why this middling piece of early '50s psychobabble won the award and it's universally regarded as the worst novel to win the Hugo.

The book's problems (and a short plot description involves scientists creating a supercomputer that can improve people's minds to the point where they suddenly are immortal and telepathic and the effect this has on society, and that's about all you need to know about that plot) can be boiled down to:

• Stock characters that are wooden to the point of being useful only for making furniture out of.

• Dialogue that is less conversation than diatribe.

• The worst excesses of '40s and '50s science fiction's obsession with psychiatry being able to solve the world's problem.  Even Asimov could barely pull it off with psychohistory, and these guys are not Asimov.

• Writing of male and female characters that is sexist towards both sides, which is almost a neat trick.

Really, it's just plain a bad novel and took me forever to get through.  It's completely out of print and should probably stay that way.

Random Technobabble: Not technobabble this time around, just an example of the terrible writing:

"Then a broken, almost sobbing, sigh escaped him, inadvertently. 'There is nothing so terrible as a mob of enraged human beings,' he murmured."

What Should Have Won in 1955:  Still no runner-ups in 1955 for the Hugo voting, but almost anything else published that year should have won.   Leaving aside the fantasy novels (1955 was the year The Magician's Nephew and Return of the King came out), there's a bevy of good choices:

• Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Jack Finney

• Earthlight, Arthur C. Clarke

• October Country, Ray Bradbury

Any of those could have won and no one would say boo.  This is a terrible, terrible winner and I'm glad I never have to deal with it again.

My Hugo Novel Rankings So Far:

1. The Demolished Man (1953)
2. They'd Rather be Right (1955)

Next Time: The 1956 winner, Robert Heinlen's The Double Star.

Episode 31 - One Order of Scandal, Hold the Olivia Pope.

Episode 31 and we have a guest host! Amy's off galivanting in Europe so we brought in previous guest host Becca Gross.  She chose the theme of Hollywood Scandals, giving us a chance to revel in the dirt of Hollywood past.

Joe's chosen "The Cat's Meow" as the movie, which is a "semi-true story" about a murder that occurred at a star-studded gathering aboard William Randolph Hearst's yacht in 1924.

Randy's picked Full Service: My Adventures in Hollywood and the Secret Sex Lives of the Stars by Scotty Bowers with Lionel Friedman. It's a dishy account of one man's sexual adventures, and the others he helped arrange, in the Hollywood of the 40s, 50s, and 60s.

Show notes

Intro Music: "TMZ" by Weird Al Yankovic (YouTube)
Exit Music: "Private Eyes " by Hall And Oates (YouTube)

• Becca and Joseph have been watching and enjoying Arrow, which keeps getting better in it's third season.
• Randy and Joseph talked a bit of the new USA show Benched, which shows some fun potential and is a good showcase for Eliza Coupe.
• Joseph recommended the new podcast I Was There Too, where Marr Gourley talks with actors who were in the background of classic film scenes. The first episode has Paul F. Tompkins talking There Will Be Blood, which is a great start.

On the next episode

Amy's back!  Randy had the theme for this time around and we'll be talking Creating Art.

• Amy chose the 2012 movie Ruby Sparks (Available for digital purchase, but I got it from the library). Paul Dano (coincidentally, from There Will Be Blood, accidentally creates a living person from his novel and things go weird.
• Joseph chose the 1891 novel The Picture of Dorian Gray (Project Gutenberg link).  Randy is happy it's a short novel this time.

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Episode 25 - Boys of Summer

Emile Hirsch, Paul Rudd, and Paul Rudd's moustache in David Gordon Green's "Prince Avalanche"

For Amy's chosen theme of "The Summer that Everything Changed," Randy and Joe went dude-centric with their choices, entirely by accident. Randy chose Stephen King's novella "The Body," the basis of the movie "Stand by Me." Joe chose David Gordon Green's 2013 film "Prince Avalanche." 

Also discussed:  Rush (The USA network show), Only Lovers Left Alive, Twin Peaks, and Guardians of the Galaxy.

For the next episode, Randy chose as a theme "Mysteries." Joe chose Denise Mina's Garnethill for us to read and Amy chose Zero Effect to watch. 


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Show Notes:

For the record, William Goldman has adapted three of Stephen King's works for the Screen: Dreamcatcher, Hearts in Atlantis, and Misery.

Raynold Gideon and Bruce A. Evans are both credited as writing the screenplay for Stand by Me.

The real life wildfires referenced by Joe are known as the Bastrop County Complex fire of 2011. 

Music: 
Intro music by The Motels

Exit music by Explosions in the Sky and David Wingo. Explosions in the Sky not only scored the movie, they were the ones who suggested the film to Gordon Green in the first place. 

Episode 24 - This One Is Stacked!

This week, Libraries and Librarians!  We talk ordering systems, the philosophy of trying to keep everything, how libraries can disappear and of course, how to look fabulous when becoming a librarian in 1990s New York.  The movie was 1995's Party Girl and the book was Alberto Manguel's The Library At Night.

Also discussed:  The Witches Of East End, Obvious Child, The Astronaut Wives Club, From The Earth To The Moon, In The Shadow Of The Moon, Ex Libris, The To-Do List.

For the next episode, Amy chose the theme; we'll be talking "The Summer That Changed Everything."  We'll be watching 2013's Prince Avalanche (which is streaming on Netflix) and reading Stephen King's "The Body" (which is collected in Different Seasons).

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Show Notes:

Amy refers to high heels for books so that they would be the same height on shelves; that was not Johnson but Samuel Pepys, whose library is still maintained at Magdalene College at Cambridge.

I refer to Jorge Luis Borge's at one point and mention a story he wrote about an infinite library.  That is "The Library Of Babel," which is available here.

The essay that Amy references on actors and range & actors who have that one great groove is here.

Intro music:  "Swinging Long," by The Magnetic Fields

Outro music: "Librarian", by Morning Jacket

Episode 22 - "I like my Muffin toasted."

 
Weddings! We read the 1932 novel Cheerful Weather For The Wedding and watched Robert Altman's A Wedding.

Next week: Randy has us choosing stuff we have to struggle to find good things to say about. Joseph chose the movie Boondock Saints and Amy chose the novel Ethan Fromme.


Also discussed this week: Jersey Boys, Midsomer Murders, Pie in the Sky, QI, Rev and Deadwood.

Show Notes: Sorry about the sound of the rain on my side of the conversation.   I didn't mean for it to sound like we were recording in the middle of a Frankie Avalon & Annette Funicello movie.


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Intro music: "The Wedding March," by Queen
Outro music:  "Chapel of Love" by Better Midler

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Episode 15 - Revisiting the Wilderness of Childhood

This week, we revisited things that we enjoyed in our teenage years.  I chose Robin Hood (the 1973 Disney animated version) for the movie and Amy chose Robert Cormier's The Chocolate War for the novel.  We talk horrid villains, recycled animation, the songs of Roger Miller and Randy presents why Robin Hood is a Tea Party movie.

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For next episode, Amy chose the theme and we're doing Shakespeare Reimagined.  I chose Terry Pratchett's Lords and Ladies (Midsummer Night's Dream) for the novel and Randy chose West Side Story (Romeo & Juliet) for the movie.

Amy is recapping Dancing With The Stars for the Baltimore Sun again this season and here is her cast preview.

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Episode 14: Time Keeps On Slipping

We discuss Agatha Christie's The Clocks and the 2009 movie Timer, along with mocking mystery novel contrivances, debating the ethics of having your romantic destiny determined by a wrist timer and why Hercule Poirot is kind of a dick.

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Next time we're revisiting childhood favorites.  Amy chose the novel The Chocolate War and I chose the 1973 animated version of Robin Hood.

Amy's New Project: LibraryLinks

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Episode 6 - The One Where We Talk Fluids

This week, we talk clones! We watched Darren Aronofsky's The Fountain and read Cat Patrick's The Originals and had all sorts of fun discussions on bald spacemen and Dolly The Sheep, among other things.
Comment!  Poke fun!  Argue!

iTunes Link

Podomatic Link

Episode 5 - Myths, Mythsteps and Mythadventures

Joseph, Randy and Amy discuss the book "The Arrow's Flight" and the movie "Weird Science."  We talk Greek myths, bad 80's movies and just how the hell you pronounce Pyrrhus and Philoctetes.

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Amy's coverage of Dancing With The Stars for the Baltimore Sun can be found here.