After Lunch

Michael and Jess watch  House of Frankenstein  (1944),  House of Dracula  (1945), and  Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein  (1948), the movies where Frankenstein's Monster, Dracula, and the Wolfman all share the story together. But first, we catch up on other horror movies we've been watching like  Burnt Offerings  (1976),  Strangler of the Swamp  (1945), and  Lisa Frankenstein (2024).

Michael, Pax, Evan, and Noel reconvene the Top 10 Years Later panel to look back at their favorite movies from 2014. And, in some cases, re-evaluate if those films are still favorites.

Continuing our  Planet of the Apes  series and moving into the modern prequels, Michael, Rob, and Pax discuss Rupert Wyatt's  Rise of the Planet of the Apes . It stars James Franco, Freida Pinto, David Oyelowo, John Lithgow, Brian Cox, Tom Felton, and Andy Serkis as Caesar.

The villain is a cliché, Bond is a clown, and the name of the movie is just embarrassing. Michael, Rob, and Karen talk about whether or not those factors affect the enjoyability of Roger Moore's penultimate Bond film. 

Michael, Rob, and Pax finish this month's Lounge talking about the first book in Seanan McGuire's October Daye series,  Gargoyles  comics, Greek mythology novels,  The Wind in the Willows  meets Agatha Christie, more Narnia,  Gray Man , and  Dresden File s, the hardest foods to give up from each food group,  Argylle ,  Lisa Frankenstein ,  Dune  movies,  Madame Webb ,  Hilda , Monarch: Legacy of M...

Michael, Rob, Pax, and Evan talk about important topics like backing into parking spaces, automatic windshield wipers and headlights, imaginary friends,  The Holdovers ,  The Artful Dodger , jazz,  Three Musketeers  movies,  Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition  by David Nirenberg,  Moriarty: The Devil's Game , making time to write, and podcasts about JFK and Jack the Ripper.

Michael and Rob are joined by Adam Pope and William Bruce West from the  Remember That Show?  podcast to discuss and vote on comics' greatest villains, ultimately arriving at the Greatest Comics Villain of All Time. 

Michael and Jess talk about Bela Lugosi as Dracula in Tod Browning's 1931 classic, but also the famous vampire's children: Gloria Holden as  Dracula's Daughter  and Lon Chaney Jr as  Son of Dracula .  But first, discussion of other horror (or horror-connected) movies:  Gretel & Hansel  (2020),  The Midnight Meat Train  (2008),  The Sadness  (2021),  The Belko Experiment  (2016),  The Mean One  (20...

Having experienced the extravagance of  Moonraker , Michael, Rob, and Karen are not upset at all when the Bond series goes back to basics in  For Your Eyes Only . John Glen makes his directorial debut, Roger Moore returns as an age-appropriate Bond, and there are plenty of twists and turns with Carole Bouquet (sigh), Julian Glover, Topol, and... is that Charles Dance?

Michael, Rob, and Pax revisit Tim Burton's  Planet of the Apes  reboot to see if it's as bad as conventional wisdom and our panel's own memories say that it is.

Michael and Jacob Bean-Watson talk about Fox's final effort to get a  Planet of the Apes  TV series going, this time with a Saturday morning cartoon on NBC. (Michael probably says CBS in the discussion, but that was the live-action show. Fox partnered with a different network for the cartoon.)  Return to the Planet of the Apes  featured animation by  Jonny Quest  creator Doug Wildey and the voices...

Michael, Rob, Pax, and Evan wrap up this month's Lounge with talk about  Red Dead Redemption 2 , revisiting  Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning ,  Gran Turismo ,  Meg 2 , the  Scream  movies, more Elvis flicks,  The Orange Years: The Nickelodeon Story , Season 2 of  Reacher ,  Lupin ,  The Gilded Age , retirement plans, old technology, finishing the Philip Marlowe novels,  Middlegame  by Seanan...

Michael, Rob, Pax, and Evan - yes, Evan! - sit around talking about neckties, JFK, the  Script Apart  podcast on  Midnight Mass  and  Mission: Impossible , the Planet of the Apes, Rob's new car, ice cream, salad dressing, vampire hairstyles, an oral history of Nickelodeon,  Meddling Kids , variations on  A Christmas Carol ,  Godzilla Minus One ,  Little House on the Prairie ,  American Nightmare ,...

Michael and Jacob Bean-Watson watch the short-lived, but (let's just spoil it) excellent live action  Planet of the Apes  TV series starring Roddy McDowall, Ron Harper, James Naughton, and  Star Trek 's Mark Lenard. 

Michael, Rob, Kay, and Robert Zerbe look back at their favorite movies, shows, and books of 2023, check in on their pop culture predictions and resolutions from the year, and make new ones for 2024.

Michael, Rob, and Pax finish their exploration of the classic  Planet of the Ape s series with the fifth and final entry,  Battle for the Planet of the Apes . There are budget issues and a confusing timeline to talk about, but also some great characters and cool dilemmas. 

Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger kick off the new year with one of the most infamous Bond movies. James Bond goes to space and pigeons do double-takes in the over-the-top,  Star Wars -inspired  Moonraker . Is it fun? Is it garbage? Or is it both?

Happy New Year! We took a little break from our Apesathon during the holidays, but we're back with the penultimate entry in the original series:  Conquest of the Planet of the Apes . It's a bold, challenging movie with some things to say about power and the civil rights movement. It also has a couple of endings and some continuity issues. Which all means that there's plenty to talk about.

Michael and Jess talk about the first three movies in Universal's Invisible "Man" series:  The Invisible Man  (1933),  The Invisible Man Returns  (1940), and  The Invisible Woman (1940). Including that last one turned out to be a controversial decision, so we talked about that, too.

Merry Christmas! On this 25th day of December, we're sharing our 250th episode of  After Lunch and it's a jolly one. Michael and Rob are joined by Pop Culture Retrofitters Michael DiGiovanni and Christian Nielsen to nominate and vote on their favorite movie and TV Santas. We've made our lists and checked them twice; it's time to decide who is the best representation of Santa Claus. 

Wrapping up this season's series of  Sleigh Bell Cinema  reruns, Michael and Rob talk about one of their favorite Christmas movies,  Love Actually . The movie's celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, so we're ending these reruns by showing it some love (while also talking about its faults).

We're down to our last two  Sleigh Bell Cinema  re-runs for this season and these are biggies. Today it's one of Michael's family's absolute favorites: a movie that they cannot safely get through the holiday season without watching. We're talking about Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, and Vera-Ellen in  White Christmas. And since it's such a tradition with Michael's family, it's appropri...

It's a clinker! This last week before Christmas we have three final Christmas Spirit movies to discuss and they're all biggies. This first one is the cable classic  A Christmas Story from 1983 and talking with Michael about it is the one and only Paxton Holley.

This episode will be the last of our daily releases for the month. From here to Christmas we'll be going every other day. But we think we've saved the best for last. Not the best conversations necessarily. Those have all been great and so will these. But like  Home Alone  yesterday, these next few movies are some of Michael's favorite holiday films. True classics like  While You Were Sleeping , wh...

Yesterday we shared an episode where Evan Hanson and Michael talked about the movie Krampus , where a kid gets irritated with his family and then has to defend his home from malignant forces. That's also what happens in today's movie as Michael and his son David discuss the classic, Home Alone .