Hard N.O.C. Life

On Hard NOC Life , Dominic and Keith welcome Lauren Lola -- who took a moment out of her busy CAAMFest schedule -- to talk about Hamilton and Mandalorian season 2 coming to Disney+. Over the last few weeks, Disney+ announcements have turned the nerd world upside down. In addition to all of the casting news surrounding season 2 of The Mandalorian -- namely, Rosario Dawson, Temuera Morrison, and Kat...

On Hard NOC Life , Dominic and Keith discuss the end of Star Wars: The Clone Wars on Disney+ and how it re-contextualizes the prequel trilogy for the better. Before diving in to the Clone Wars finale, they discuss Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez adding to her NOC cred by her recent embrace of Animal Crossing. What's #NerdPoppin this week: Dominic reminisces about Into the Badlands on the anniversary of i...

This week's Hard NOC Life is the most ambitious crossover event in history as Dominic , Shawn , and Keith welcome a vast array of friends of the pod for probably the longest episode in the show's existence. Joining the regulars on Zoom for this special event are NOC contributors Lauren , Raymond , and Jason (plus NOC cub reporter Emi ), Black Girls Create co-founders Bayana and Robyn , Middle Geek...

This week on  Hard NOC Life, Dominic and Keith take a time machine to the 1990s and discuss Bobby Brown's Ghostbusters 2 opus, new jack swing, and the Chicago Bulls documentary, The Last Dance . First, they debate the merits of Ghostbusters II and Bobby Brown's singular theme song before breaking down the Instagram Live battle between Babyface and Teddy Riley. Speaking of that VERZUZ battle, they...

This week on  Hard NOC Life, Dominic schools Keith on Dune mythology as they attempt to predict what the post-coronavirus world will look like. They also dive into the Spider-Man movie debate from twitter, with Dom once again coming to the defense of the Marc Webb-directed Amazing movies. Speaking of Spider-Man directors, they also discuss the rumor that Sam Raimi is taking the reins of Doctor Str...

Dominic and Keith look at movies that feel different watching post-pandemic -- namely,  The Dark Knight Rises and  Watchmen. First, they Disney's reshuffled movie schedule and whether people will still even want to see Black Widow in November, either because of the virus or because of the election. Then, they note how Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises feels both prescient and outdated in 2...

Dominic and Keith are still talking about how COVID-19 is changing the nerd pop landscape. This week, what will "normal" even look like? Up first, they talk about watching Star Trek , both  Discovery  and  Picard  and why Dom really digs the former and Keith was disappointed with the latter. Then they switch topics to coronavirus (of course) and mourn the loss of the 2020 summer movie season. And...

For the fourth week in a row, Dominic and Keith continue to discuss COVID-19's effect on the nerd pop landscape. Movie theaters are closing, the Olympics have been cancelled, and people across the country are being ordered to shelter at home. Pop culture may seem inessential in a time like this, but the arts is what keeps people going. To that end, the hosts contend with the future of On-Demand en...

This week on Hard NOC Life , Dominic and Keith are joined by fashion photographer and Birds of Prey superfan Lauren Nakao Winn . Back in February, Lauren's Birds of Prey twitter appreciation thread went viral when it was retweeted by Cathy Yan. Now that the entire world has gone viral with COVID-19, Warner Bros. is releasing Birds of Prey on digital this Tuesday -- months earlier than previously p...

This week on Hard NOC Life , Dominic and Keith continue to discuss how Coronavirus is upending the nerd pop landscape. For the next several weeks, life across the globe is changing fundamentally, and pop culture is no different. From the suspension of pro sports to the indefinite delay of blockbuster movie releases, the hosts discuss the impact COVID-19 is having and how they're coping. One of tho...

This week on Hard NOC Life , Dominic and Keith discuss the effect Coronavirus panic has had on the nerd pop landscape. Since the episode was recorded on Friday afternoon, events such as Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle and South by Southwest in Austin have been indefinitely postponed. MGM has moved the opening of the anticipated 007 movie, No Time to Die , from April to November, and theaters aro...

This week on Hard NOC Life , Dominic and Keith dig deeper into the leaked script for the original version of Star Wars Episode IX. First, the hosts consider Lucasfilm's latest storytelling initiative, Star Wars: The High Republic   and what it means for the future of the franchise. Then, they spend the rest of the podcast discussing details from Colin Trevorrow's original take on Episode IX, title...

Shawn returns to once again join Dominic and Keith to talk about what's #NerdPoppin, this week on Hard NOC Life ! The hosts catch up on what they've been nerding out about. Of course, these leads to a brief discussion about the Birds of Prey movie because that's all this podcast wants to talk about. Then Shawn discusses the launch of John Jennings' Megascope imprint for Abrams, as well as DC Comic...

This week on Hard NOC Life , Dominic and Keith continue their discussion of Birds of Prey and share their thoughts on Robert Pattinson as Batman. Later, Friend of the NOC Preeti Chhibber returns to the show to talk about a couple of new Dev Patel movie trailers . The hosts continue to heap praise upon Cathy Yan's sort of retitled Birds of Prey while digging in to some of the criticisms levied agai...

On a brand new episode of Hard NOC Life , Dominic and Keith celebrate the best DC movie ever made, Birds of Prey (that's right, we said it!)  Dominic explains why  BoP  is the Asian American superhero movie he's always wanted while Keith battles against many of the criticisms against the film. They also try to understand why the movie didn't resonate with the moviegoing audience and why that's fue...

With  Birds of Prey  ready to break box office records, and a brand new YA graphic novel from DC Comics, the shadow of Cassandra Cain descends upon a brand new episode of Hard NOC Life ! Dominic and Keith share their excitement for this weekend's premiere of Birds of Prey in theaters by recounting their favorite Asian Batgirl stories. Then, Keith sits down with novelist Sarah Kuhn , author of the...

On a new episode of Hard NOC Life , Dominic , Shawn , and Keith return to the Final Frontier and review the CBS All Access Original Series, Star Trek: Picard . Before they dive into their thoughts on  Picard , the crew share some news -- Shawn just completed the sixth annual Black Comix Arts Festival in San Francisco, while Dominic gives an update on the podcast,  Occupy Me . Then they get into mo...

It's a Post-Crisis Hard NOC Life this week as Dominic and Keith break down the epic, five-episode crossover on The CW. Last week, The CW pulled off one of the most improbable events in recent memory. Mashing up five different superhero shows (six, counting Black Lightning ), the annual crossover event not only tied all of the CW-verse shows into a single universe, it also canonized nearly every li...

On Hard NOC Life this week, Dominic and Keith share their thoughts on the Academy Award nominations and break down the latest superhero movie trailers. Since Hollywood is obsessed with reboots, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences decided to reboot "Oscars So White" after a couple years of progress. And while Black Panther broke the superhero glass ceiling last year , the Academy's love...

Hard NOC Life is back and all-new for 2020! Dominic and Keith return to wrap up their tour through the galaxy far, far away by sharing their thoughts on Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker . Instead of breaking down the film's plotholes and shortcomings, they decide to compare and contrast Rise of Skywalker to other 2019 pop cultural landmarks. Jumping off a recent post by Keith, they examine how TRO...

After 42 years, the Skywalker Saga comes to a close with the release of The Rise of Skywalker. Keith was joined by Jamie Noguchi to screen the movie at Baltimore's historic Senator Theater. Here are their instant reactions. SPOILERS! All this and more on Hard NOC Life ! Watch it on your screen, hit "play," and check this. Subscribe to all of the podcasts in the Hard NOC Media family on Apple Podca...

With Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga at the end of the month to look forward to, Hard NOC Life is going to be a Star Wars podcast for the month of December. Because there aren't enough Star Wars podcasts on the internet! Each week, Dominic and Keith will be breaking down a different trilogy that make up the beloved Star Wars franchise. This week, they are joined by Britney Mona...

With Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga at the end of the month to look forward to, Hard NOC Life is going to be a Star Wars podcast for the month of December. Because there aren't enough Star Wars podcasts on the internet! Each week, Dominic and Keith will be breaking down a different trilogy that make up the beloved Star Wars franchise. This week, they rewind the clock four deca...

With Rise of Skywalker and the end of the Skywalker Saga at the end of the month to look forward to, Hard NOC Life is going to be a Star Wars podcast for the month of December. Because there aren't enough Star Wars podcasts on the internet! Each week, Dominic and Keith will be breaking down a different trilogy that make up the beloved Star Wars franchise. And because they decided to go in numerica...

For the last two weeks, the most riveting show on television was actually the impeachment hearings. So naturally, Dominic and Keith convened an episode of Hard NOC Life to talk all about it. In addition to an analysis of the hearings, both the real one and the Bizarro World one -- as well as the Democratic Debate one-off in the middle of everything -- they also take a shot at fancasting the major...