Reserved Recommendations

Ever since the 80's, when my schoolfriends were obsessed with the big brightly-coloured musclemen of the WWF (before it became WWE) I have been peripherally aware of pro wrestling. However, aside from a brief and furtive stint of watching the Attitude Era, I've never really watched much of it. For a few years now, AEW has been challenging WWE as the Other Big Franchise in the world of pro wrestlin...

I am still watching the thing I need to watch to do the next mainline episode, so instead you get a bit of a grab bag. I talk about the writing I've been doing for a new game that you could test if you want, a cool blogpost by Morgan Davie (https://morgueisprettyawesome.com), and my new(ish) website https://hugh.go.haume.nz, as well as the tiresome continuing tendency for dudes to shit the bed (in...

In which I attempt to puzzle out precisely why I have suddenly been subjected to a lot of second-hand low-stakes beef among people who want to be Facebook influencers, and why one of them ended up in court recently. Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

With the sad passing of National Treasure Sam Neill, it seemed only fitting that we look at probably his weirdest role - Andrzej Żuławski's 1981 divorce-(monster)-horror movie "Possession". Neill plays Mark, a spy (and dog assassin?) who abandons his job in order to return to his family, only to find that his wife Anna (a truly haunted-looking Isabelle Adjani) has been having an affair, and wants...

"The Polar Express" (2004) is a divisive movie, in which 6 separate Tom Hankses (Toms Hanks?) hold conversations with one another in different voices and neither of the two primary characters actually have names. It attempts to adapt a very quiet, dreamlike picture book into a riotous early 00's 3D animated adventure movie and makes a series of completely deranged choices in trying to bridge that...

Saul Bass is a guy whose work you have definitely seen, even if you don't know it. Between 1954 and 1995 (along with his wife Elaine) he provided title sequences and posters for a staggering array of movies, in addition to designing some of the most recognisable and iconic logos for major American corporations. In 1974, he made his directorial debut with a quiet, meditative, cerebral science ficti...

Russ Meyer's "Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill!" (1965) might be the ur-example of a cult movie. Widely derided as trash on its release, it has been re-evaluated as a camp classic and is now regarded (amongst other things) as part of the weird overlap of Venn circles where the creator's thinly-disguised fetish (in this case enormous powerful women running amok) also leads to an oddly-empowering portray...

Amid the global panic about the rise of fascism, I take a second to wonder if there's a different right wing form of power consolidation on the menu, and look to fiction for possible answers. Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

I take a solo minisode to explain what I've been up to for a month and a half, and how Winston Peters Has Always Been Like This. Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

"The Howling III: The Marsupials" (1987) was genuinely the stuff of schoolyard legend when I was in primary school in the early 90s, due to a notorious sequence involving a female lycanthrope giving birth to a "joey" who seeks refuge in her pouch. I did not, however, know what this rumoured movie was *actually called* until I came across author and journalist Asher Elbein (www.asherelbein.com) on...

Originally started by Peter Furler and George Perdikis in 1985, Newsboys are such an enduring mainstay of Christian rock that the band is still going strong absent any of the original members. Over that 40 year career, their sound has changed so drastically that if you say that you either love or hate Newsboys, the only logical response is "which Newsboys?" In addition, if you are a Kiwi or Aussie...

Admittedly, I love me a novelty instrumental cover (ask me about my surf rock habit) but I've never really understood the cringe that greets the mention of ska music. Part of this is probably being a kiwi - we have a different relationship with the pop-punk side of ska music than Americans do - but I've always felt like people who didn't appreciate the genre just hadn't found the good stuff yet. E...

Prompted by last episode, in concert with a conversation about Normality the RPG, and a viewing of Cargo (2017), I talk about an idea cooking in the back of my head about the ways that people who say and do horrible things act like victims. Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

In a rare "reversed recommendations" situation, I recommend something for someone else to watch! I talk to Ross Palethorpe (@rossthesedays) about Denis Villenueve's 2013 film "Enemy" - a strange, hostile, deeply yellow movie which I first encountered as an online movie reviewer back when it was relatively new. We really get into it on this one (once Ross gets past cursing me for making him watch "...

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers is a very weird show indeed - a fact that is literally baked into its DNA as an adaptation of a Japanese costumed hero series which (as we'll hear) does not have a consistent plot or cast from series to series. It also has an odd relationship with New Zealand, as it was banned here very early on, and remained banned well into the period where it was actually being made...

This episode I chat to Dr Lewis Tennant (lately the host of Verbal Highs, and also the brains behind the annual NZ Podcasting Summit) about an era of reggae music from the 1990s, exemplified by artists like Sizzla and Capleton. We go deep on the history of the music, its underlying philosophy, and the factors that give this specific era its unique sound. Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with th...

"Phenomena" (1985) is a movie that is hard to describe without sounding insane. Jennifer Connelly (aged 14, one year out from breaking through in "Labyrinth") stars as a high school girl with the mysterious ability to commune with insects. When she is sent to an exclusive Swiss boarding school for girls, she becomes embroiled in a series of gruesome murders of students which she must investigate w...

Nightbreed (1990) is an absolutely fascinating movie. It's Clive Barker flexing his muscles after the massive success of Hellraiser (1988) and really letting loose with an elaborate dark fantasy full of implications about complex mythology and cosmology, a gorgeously-stylised world, and many MANY weird little guys. It's also an incredibly ambitious movie that never quite manages to realise its amb...

What happens when Dan Aykroyd at the absolute peak of his popularity as both a comic powerhouse and a dramatic actor gets a vast budget, and more or less total creative control to make a movie? He makes "Nothing But Trouble" - an ambitious, star-studded, and (to be charitable) tonally-confused horror comedy which flopped at the box office and is more or less universally panned to this day. A pair...

David Cronenberg's 1986 movie "The Fly" is among his best-regarded, and is an absolute classic in the canon of gnarly, gloopy, practical-effects mostly-80s body horror movies. It's also an oddly poetic tragedy about watching someone you love succumb to something awful and inevitable, and a character study that follows a sympathetic oddball's transformation into an absolute monstrosity. Erin MClean...

Scottish author Iain Banks is probably best known (under the name Iain M. Banks) for his iconic Culture novels, which had a titanic impact on far-future "space-operatic" science fiction. His debut novel, 1984's "The Wasp Factory" is significantly less well-known. It is an INCREDIBLY divisive book which, love it or hate it (early editions published four full pages of both rabidly positive *and* neg...

I ruminate on useful ways to think about one's enemies' motives, prompted by considering the obscure horror movie "Jugface" (2013) in contrast with other depictions of fictional "death cults". Produced by Manawatū People's Radio with the support of New Zealand On Air.

In the absence of a new mainline episode, I decided to do a parallel upload of this special I recorded for Waitangi Day this week. Waitangi Day and the Treaty of Waitangi occupy a complicated place in New Zealand's public consciousness, especially in light of the current debate around David Seymour's Treaty Principles Bill. In this special longform interview for Waitangi Day 2025, Hugh talks to Dr...

"Hair metal" is, right off the bat, a disputed term. It began as a way of disparaging the pop glam metal of the 80s in comparison with the more "authentic" grunge movement that was becoming more fashionable in the early 90s, but was embraced by some fans of the genre as a catch-all term for groups who wouldn't necessarily have considered themselves part of the same scene at the time. However you s...

I'm back! I decided I'd like to get to ep 100 before I wrap this thing up, so that's nice. In this episode I have a bunch of thoughts prompted by the passing of David Lynch, and witnessing other people's takes on his life and work. I also get a bit into That Vulture Article re: the evolving Gaiman situation but I don't say anything very graphic or descriptive. Produced by Manawatū People's Radio w...