No Gods, No Monsters

Join our Patreon to hear the full episode! $1 a month gets you everything we do. Check it out at patreon.com/nogodspod. We break down the new trailer for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire that dropped on Valentine's Day. We talk Jesus, Thunderdomes, Mighty Joe Young, semen, Bolsonaro, and of course the hidden spoilery stuff hidden in quick flashes (spoilery stuff is toward the end with a warning).

We are joined by Pinko Snob to discuss the pinnacle of pre-9/11 post-9/11 zombie films. Is this an anti-civilization film playing on concepts from Deleuze and Guattari to critique the state, patriarchy and capitalism? Or a film about loneliness and father issues?

We conclude our discussion of the Monsterverse series. Like the kids in the show, we have a lot of questions, very few answers, and plenty of mean things to say.  

We each talk about five of our favorite films we watched for the first time in 2023 (that didn't come out in 2023), along with some honorable mentions that didn't make the cut. Sign up on Patreon for the full episode: patreon.com/nogodspod

We plug into this Cronenberg flick which depicts the modern human experience as a collage of existentialism, unconscious drives, media violence, sexual urges, influencing machines, theology, technology, capitalism, and desire (for desire for desire). We emerge diseased without a flamethrower in sight.  

Join our Patreon to hear the full episode! $1 a month gets you everything we do. Check it out at patreon.com/nogodspod . Rabbit put himself through the torture of watching all 10 Saw movies that have been released so far, and Charlie and Barto hang out while he describes, reviews, and ranks them all.  Alternate episode title: Jigsaw Puts The "Traps" In "Bootstraps"

We had a ton to say about this classic comedic horror flick. We touch on the historical werewolf, the Wolfman and the Holocaust, Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer, Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents and so much more.  

We discuss the first half of the new Monsterverse series, including its world-building of a society in the aftermath of kaiju, the portrayal of Monarch and its parallels with the non-profit industrial complex, and of course the characters and new Titans. Check us out on Patreon .

Episode 1! Charlie talks about movies he watched recently. Barto and Rabbit hang out too. Join our patreon for the full episode: patreon.com/NoGodsPod

New Godzilla!! We discuss how the latest Toho film handles its portrayal of the Japanese government during WWII, its theme of survivors guilt, what Godzilla represents in this new imagining, and of course the powerful use of effects. 

Join our Patreon to hear the full episode! $1 a month gets you everything we do. Check it out at patreon.com/nogodspod . In this episode we share our thoughts on the first full trailer for Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire. We make some predictions for the movie, give thoughts on the style, and read out some Youtube comments. Enjoy the dialectic struggle between hype machines and anti-hype machines!

We're joined by merritt k as we continue through the Heisei series in this bananas time traveling kaiju flick. Is the film an attempt to push Japanese nationalism or a warning about the country's late '80s financial bubble? Are the eco-terrorists a force for good or evil? Is this the best Ghidorah yet, or is he mid? Check out merritt's short stories on OtherStrangeness.com, her work on patreon.com...

We continue or UFO movie streak with this Spielberg classic. Our discussion revolves around the somewhat contradictory nature of the film's liberal message, and touches on themes of misogyny, family, the false promises of technology, authority and fascism, secular gods, translation, and lines of flight.    Support Palestinian Liberation! https://www.mecaforpeace.org/donate/

Send aid to Palestine: https://www.mecaforpeace.org/donate/ https://www.map.org.uk/donate/donation-details/484   A kaiju movie brimming with '80s anxieties, this film splices together fears of genetic engineering, international oil conflicts, environmental destruction, the cold war, psychic powers, and bioweapons into one grotesquely beautiful adversary.   

We discuss this practical effects-driven British alien film and how it plays with ideas of identity, parenting, and gender, mostly in ways that involve eggs.  Things get slimy, things get Oedipal. 

We decide this is probably the least racist Kong movie and Barto tries to make the case that it's also the most biblical. 

We interrupt our scheduled programming to discuss the brand new Gamera anime! We talk QAnon conspiracies, paranormal phenomena and homages to kaiju history, while we attempt to tease out a coherent stance on authority from the show.

We discuss the film's portrayal of spectacle and how it relates to capital, entertainment, our views on nature, and the history of paranormal phenomena. And we use a bit of Guy Debord's "The Society of the Spectacle" to do it. 

Godzilla is back in his first film of the Heisei era. He's bigger but so is everything else so we'll call it a wash. We talk Star Wars, nuclear proliferation, how the film envisions Japan within the structure of the Cold War, and Godzilla as the ouroboros.

When they brought Blair Witch to the suburbs, the filmmakers behind Paranormal Activity accidentally gave us a peak into the bubbling anxieties of upper-middle class America before the 2008 housing crisis, as well as the toxic masculinity that was normalized in the era. Scary stuff!

After a brief discussion of Gamera: Super Monster we each pitch our ideas for new Gamera films. There’s neoliberal greenscapes, bigfoots (big feet?), adrenochrome-eating space aliens, and… Gamera! We hope you enjoy this unique No Gods episode!

We discuss Riki-Oh, a kung fu movie set in a dystopian future where all government services—including the prison that’s the film’s centerpiece—are capitalist franchises. There’s a lot of gore, a lot of shirtless buff guys, and a lot to talk about. 

With a budget almost as big as its ape, did this reboot pull off the magic of the original? Listen in as we discuss this as well as the psychosexual anxieties, critique of capital, reactionary racism, and environmentalism in the film.

Spoilers! We extra recommend you watch this movie before you listen. Content warning: discussions of sexual assault. We attempt to unpeel the layers of this tight and witty horror flick, which plasters together themes of internalized patriarchy, gentrification, Freudian subjectivity, seeing through the lens of capital, and how a legacy like Reagan’s lives on after he dies. We forgot to rate the fi...

We discuss the Showa Era Godzilla and Godzilla-adjacent movies! If you like our episodes that cover those films, and want to hear us nerd out even more and rank them all, then this is the episode for you! Here are some groups fighting for trans people in Missouri: https://linktr.ee/promomissouri https://www.stlmetrotrans.org https://centerproject.org If you know of other groups you think we should...