Gobbledygeek

This week, Wesley "Wezzo" Mead stops by for more abuse. He joins Paul and Arlo to once again discuss Chris Carter's seminal sci-fi series The X-Files ; this time, the gang talks season 8, the last pre-revival season to feature David Duchovny as a (semi-)regular. They discuss how frustrating it is the show can't let go of Duchovny when it clearly needs to; why the introduction of Robert Patrick as...

Nostalgia, some say, means pain from an old wound. This week, Paul is nursing pain from a fresh wound: his immense disappointment at the way Steven Spielberg's adaptation of Ernest Cline's Ready Player One has turned out. Spielberg's big-screen reworking of the tale of a young boy immersed in a virtual reality game called the OASIS, using pop culture as currency to find freedom, is loud and overwh...

Time, she has been wrinkled. Tesser on over as Paul and Arlo discuss Ava DuVernay's big screen adaptation of Madeleine L'Engle's beloved fantasy classic A Wrinkle in Time . The boys discuss how the film differs from the novel, for both better and worse; what a strong find Storm Reid is in the lead role; how the film is admirable for willing to be absolutely ridiculous; why it's so important DuVern...

Ahoy and salut! Kicking off a series of occasional musical episodes--as in episodes about musicals; nobody wants to hear our boys sing--inspired by Paul's love of This Is Me , he and Arlo gear up for a tuneful Geek Challenge . They are both intensely on brand: Arlo challenges Paul to Jacques Demy's deceptively candy-colored 1967 classic The Young Girls of Rochefort , while Paul forces Arlo to endu...

Self-destruction. Division. Separation. Annihilation . These are the frivolous, lighthearted concerns of Alex Garland's latest film, a mind-expanding sci-fi trip that finds Natalie Portman, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Tessa Thompson, Gina Rodriguez, and Tuva Novotny exploring "Area X," a mutated piece of land encompassed by the full-on-double-rainbow-all-the-way that is the Shimmer. What's going on here...

First-time guest Phaicia "Fe" McBride joins Paul and Arlo as they take a direct flight to the African utopia of Wakanda, courtesy of Ryan Coogler's Black Panther . King T'Challa's first feature film marks the 18th entry in the Marvel Cinematic Universe; it also marks a long overdue watershed moment for mainstream black culture. The gang discusses why Black Panther is so important and exciting; how...

Alas, poor Yorick! We knew him, a fellow of infinite wisecracks, of most ridiculous immaturity. We hath borne Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's Y: The Last Man on our podcast ten times, and now, how abhorred (and a little relieved) in our imagination it is! Our mics rise at it. Here laid those narrative devices about which we kvetched we know not how oft. Where be Guerra's glorious artwork now? Va...

Come one, come all to The Greatest Showman , Michael Gracey's musical retelling (or is that reshaping?) of the life of circus impresario P.T. Barnum. Paul and Arlo are joined by first-time guest Nate Curtiss, whose obsession with the film rivals Paul's well-documented mania. The gang discusses the film's message of tolerance and inclusion, why it's a better musical than La La Land , and if it's a...

Come on in; the water's fine. Sarah Kosheff joins Paul and Arlo to discuss Guillermo del Toro's The Shape of Water , freshly nominated for 13 Academy Awards. Del Toro's girl-meets-fish romance is one of last year's most ravishing, visually sumptuous films, and the gang discusses why exactly that is. (Spoiler: they don't all quite agree.) Topics of discussion include Sally Hawkins' and Doug Jones'...

No TV show is at its best seven seasons in, as Paul, Arlo, and special British guest Wesley "Wezzo" Mead can attest. The gang has just watched season 7 of Chris Carter's seminal sci-fi series The X-Files, and they have questions: Why would anyone think that was a satisfying resolution to the Samantha Mulder storyline? Why is Dana Scully, one of the greatest female characters in all of genre fictio...

Ladies and gentlemen, we are through the tweeting glass. First-time guest Sarah Kosheff joins Paul and Arlo to discuss Charlie Brooker's sci-fi anthology series Black Mirror in general, and the new fourth season in particular. The gang discusses how the series explores the intersection of technology and society, if the "what if phones but too much" line of criticism is reductive, if the idea of a...

Yorick's gang (there's gotta be a snappier name, right?) inch closer to destiny in Y: The Last Man - Vol. 9: Motherland, as Paul and Arlo near the end of their Four-Color Flashback discussion of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's beloved comics series. The boys once again rehash their frustrations with putting this series under the occasional monthly microscope, leading Arlo to posit that maybe dif...

This is not going to go the way you think. Indeed, in a rare occurrence, the stars (and their wars) have aligned to allow Paul, Arlo, and their Avatar Returns co-host Eric Sipple to agree that Star Wars: Episode VIII - The Last Jedi is one of the best blockbusters in years. The gang discusses why that is, including the surprising directions in which writer-director Rian Johnson takes the story, it...

That venerated institution, the Geek Challenge , takes to the bright blue sky with a pair of retro '90s flicks. First up, Paul challenges Arlo to Joe Johnston's 1991 Billy Campbell-starring adventure The Rocketeer , a proto- First Avenger that mixes pulp fiction with '30s Hollywood. Then, Arlo challenges Paul to Gary Ross' 1998 directorial debut Pleasantville , which finds Tobey Maguire and Reese...

This week, Paul and Arlo return to their Four-Color Flashback exploration of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's Y: The Last Man with Vol. 8: Kimono Dragons . Joining them for the first time in a while is once and future 90 700 Club host Chance Mazzia. Frustrated by some of the detours this Japanese misadventure takes, the gang gets around to asking the question that's hung over this entire FCF seri...

For a return to our regularly scheduled pop culture chatter, Paul and Arlo ride their hammers to the faraway world of Asgard, which is in a spot of trouble. Avenger and heir to the throne Thor Odinson must defend his people from the villainous Hela; along the way, he gets imprisoned by an eccentric weirdo named the Grandmaster and is forced to do battle with the Hulk, his infamous "friend from wor...

So, what's new? We miss anything? Gobbledygeek returns with a Very Special Episode wherein Paul and Arlo attempt to explain why the show went away for a couple months and how exactly it's coming back. They made almost no attempt to prepare for this discussion, so it's a little awkward, a little uncomfortable, and we're not gonna lie, there's some tension between our co-hosts. But the minions are b...

Six years in, how is The X-Files handling Mulder and Scully's relentless quest for the truth? To investigate this particular mystery, Paul and Arlo have once again abducted Wesley "Wezzo" Mead from the U.K. The gang discusses how the sixth season of Chris Carter's seminal sci-fi series handles the movie's revelations; how the production move from Vancouver to L.A has affected the tone; if this sea...

Come and listen to my story about a guy named Dan; a poor prospector, a self-made man. And then one day, to California he drew, and up from the ground come a-bubblin' crude. Blood, that is. Capitalist blood. For the third in our Ten Years Later series (we're in the market for a snappier name), Paul and Arlo turn to Paul Thomas Anderson's study of American monster/oilman Daniel Plainview, There Wil...

Appropriately, this month's Four-Color Flashback entry is riddled with flashbacks, as Y: The Last Man - Vol. 7: Paper Dolls takes a look at Agent 355 and Ampersand's pasts to give us a taste of what must be going through their heads in the present. Ensley F. Guffey, co-author of Wanna Cook? The Complete, Unauthorized Guide to Breaking Bad , joins Paul and Arlo to continue their exploration of Bria...

Sun, spray, bullets, and blood: Christopher Nolan's Dunkirk recounts the worst beach trip in history, as 400,000 Allied troops were trapped by the Nazis in Dunkirk, France. The word Paul and Arlo keep coming back to as a descriptor is "relentless." 107 minutes of third-act intensity, Dunkirk may be the purest expression of Nolan's watchmaker-precise skill. The boys discuss the film's three interwe...

War for the Planet of the Apes ! Huh! Who is it good for? The answer would be cinephiles searching for an intelligent, emotionally and politically resonant blockbuster. Welcome to Paradise 's Kenn Edwards joins Paul and Arlo to discuss Matt Reeves' final installment in the so-called "Caesar Cycle," which may be the bleakest monkey movie in history. (Also, they're not monkeys. Just ask Arlo's fianc...

It's a Wiley whammy as first-time guest Heather Wiley joins Gobbledygeek 's very own Arlo Wiley in teaming up to finally take down Paul. Actually, this is a pretty convivial episode, as all three agree that Spider-Man: Homecoming is not only one of the better Spider-Man movies--some on this podcast would venture to call it the best--but one of the better entries in the Marvel Cinematic Universe th...

This week, Paul and Arlo put the pedal to the metal and drop the needle on Baby Driver , the latest nerd fantasia from writer-director Edgar Wright. Filled with rock and soul classics, Wright's first American film is a high-concept car chase musical that nevertheless plays things a little straighter than his British/Canadian ventures. The boys discuss their favorite music cues, whether or not the...

Landlubber Yorick Brown sets sail for Australia in Y: The Last Man: Vol. 6 - Girl on Girl , and Paul and Arlo are on hand to detail his nautical adventure. Now that their year-long Four-Color Flashback journey through Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's beloved comic book is more than halfway over...the boys have an existential crisis and ponder why it's been so difficult to discuss their journey. I...