Purely Academic with Jonathan Lack & Sean Chapman

With Jonathan on vacation, we pre-recorded an extra-special episode. As you probably know, I attend the University of Colorado Boulder, and as a film student there – in an excellent, outstanding film program, I should make clear – I have been exposed to some strange films. Some very strange films. Some films the content of which I cannot discuss in polite conversations. Some films I cannot honestl...

It’s a busy week on the show, as we have some major video game news and developments to discuss – including a new interface for the Xbox One and a major Nintendo Direct – in addition to two of the biggest releases of the year in Rise of the Tomb Raider and especially Fallout 4. Sean and I have spent a lot of time with these games so far, and neither disappoints. Alas, this week’s Doctor Who, “Slee...

As if yet another tremendous episode of Doctor Who wasn’t enough to celebrate, this week, we get to rejoice over the release of the latest James Bond movie, Spectre! Well, sort of. The movie wasn’t that good. We talk about it. But, because there’s a new 007 movie, I undertook the insane task of ranking every James Bond movie, from worst to last, and we talk about all of them – all the highs, all t...

This is a sad episode. There are some fun topics. We finally get to talk about the new Dragon Ball Z movie, Resurrection ‘F’, which is a blast. It’s a lot of fun to watch, and to talk about. And Doctor Who is still on a hell of a roll, with the latest episode, “The Zygon Invasion,” continuing the show’s hot streak. But the bulk of this episode is devoted to reviewing the latest game in one of our...

On this week’s show, we devote some time to the new Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer, in addition to exploring various odds and ends, like my experience seeing Crimson Peak, or playing the new Dragon Ball Z game, while Sean continues his in-progress review of the new Witcher 3 expansion. I give a guide to James Bond 101 for newcomers to the long-running franchise, in anticipation of Spectre, a...

This week’s show is a busy one, as we cover some recent news in movies and video games, before jumping into a big slate of reviews. Sean gives his initial impressions on the new DLC for The Witcher 3, Jonathan reviews the recent films Steve Jobs and Bridge of Spies, and we both discuss the PS Vita game Persona 4: Dancing All Night in spoiler-y detail. And finally, we dive deep into the latest epis...

In what should have been a light week, we somehow recorded for close to two hours, talking first about the Star Wars: Battlefront beta on PS4, which transitions into a discussion about the state of Star Wars as we approach The Force Awakens. The hype train is in full effect, but why does everyone seem to feel so generally apathetic towards the franchise these days? We explore that and other issues...

This is a light, grab-bag style week on the podcast, as Sean gives his initial thoughts on Persona 4: Dancing All Night for the PS Vita, Jonathan talks about this weekend’s new movies – including Ridley Scott’s The Martian and Robert Zemeckis’ The Walk – and both of us discuss the latest Doctor Who episode, “Under the Lake,” which was excellent. Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to da...

The episode begins with some catch-up on Super Mario Maker and Destiny, before we jump into this week’s Doctor Who review to talk about “The Witch’s Familiar.” It’s a damn good episode, and makes for a good discussion. But the bulk of the show this week is devoted to a crazy, niche, awesome top 10 list: The Top 10 Persona Vocal Songs. If you don’t know what Persona is, you are probably a new liste...

If you’ve been listening to this show for any length of time, you’ll know that Doctor Who is one of our two primary obsessions here. That means this is a pretty great week for the podcast, as not only did Doctor Who return for its ninth (modern) series on the BBC, but the Persona series – the object of our other primary obsession – was shown off at the Tokyo Game Show, with a new preview – and new...

After looking over the history of the Metal Gear Solid franchise on last week’s show, we dive in full with the latest installment of the franchise, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This is one of the most acclaimed games of the year, but is it, well…any good? Sean and I aren’t exactly crazy about it, and the many, many, many problems on display with this game make for a lively, heated discuss...

With Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain the big video game release of the past week, this week’s episode dives into the history of the entire Metal Gear Solid series, as we look back on every major entry in the franchise from the original Metal Gear Solid on the PSOne all the way to Peace Walker on the PSP. If nothing else, this is an endlessly fascinating franchise, and there is plenty to discu...

We continue our summer recollections with several video game topics, as Sean gives his final thoughts on The Witcher 3, I profess my newly discovered love for the Metal Gear Solid series – just in time for next month’s The Phantom Pain – and Sean counters with his general sense of confusion and frustration at the entire Metal Gear saga. We are in complete agreement, however, about the absolute gre...

In this week's big summer catch-up episode, I discuss my recent trip to Austin, Texas for Rooster Teeth’s annual RTX convention, while Sean talks about his time playing J-Stars Victory Vs. Plus for the PS4. We then jump into some movie discussion, chatting about films ranging from Ant-Man to Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection ‘F.’ And in the end, we even follow up on an article I wrote in May about the a...

Given our recent, unexpected hiatus, we wound up missing the releases of several major summer movies we meant to cover in depth. So while this is coming a little later than planned, we have recorded a ‘summer movie catch-up’ episode, in which we share our thoughts on all the films we have been meaning to talk about. I give some quick thoughts on Spy and Jurassic World – one of which I find to be p...

E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo, is underway this week in Los Angeles, bringing with it a flurry of news from all corners of the gaming industry. As we do every year, we have devoted an entire episode to the show, breaking down press briefings from Sony, Microsoft, Bethesda, Nintendo, and more, analyzing all the big announcements, and discussing which games have us the most excited to play i...

It's a busy episode this week as we tackle lots of recent movie news - ranging from major Star Wars trailers and announcements, to the reveal of Jared Leto's delightfully idiotic Joker design - before diving into a full review of the first season of Netflix's "Daredevil." It's an exciting show that more than lives up to the legacy of the existing cinematic universe, and there's lots to d...

This time last year, we reviewed the first of the new four-part film adaptation of our all-time favorite video game, Persona 3. Now, the second film in the series has finally reached Blu-Ray, and we go in-depth to explore why "Persona 3 The Movie #2 - Midsummer Knight's Dream" is an absolutely astounding film. Also discussed are Sean's final thoughts on "Bloodborne," our take o...

In another ‘grab-bag’ style episode, Sean and Jonathan run the gamut from discussing the recent James Bond Spectre trailer, Trever Noah taking over from Jon Stewart as host of the The Daily Show, recent updates to the PlayStation 4, and all the major announcements from Wednesday’s Nintendo Direct stream. Then, for our main topics, Sean reviews Bloodborne, the new sensation for the PS4, while Jonat...

On this week's belated installment of The Weekly Stuff Podcast, Sean and Jonathan swap some funny stories, dive into an assortment of recent film and gaming news - including the much-anticipated Persona 5 trailer and the announcement of Marvel's new Spider-Man movie - and offer opinions on two recent video games in Dragon Ball Xenoverse and Hotline Miami 2. It's a fun, freewheeling episode that sh...

It’s been a little over a year since the respective launches of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – topics we’ve covered in depth over the life of this podcast – and with that in mind, and coming off what was a pretty rough year for video games overall, we check in with the state of this new generation of home consoles (including Nintendo’s Wii U) to discuss where things have improved, where they’ve...

On the first episode of the new year, we look back at 2014 to count down our Top 10 Favorite Video Games of the past year. Was this a disappointing year for gaming, or did it have some unexpected gems? We talk about all this and more, before transitioning into a discussion of the third and final 'Hobbit' film, and how Peter Jackson's new trilogy functions as a whole. Finally, we once again talk Do...

Jonathan counts down the Top 10 Films of 2014 on this special bonus mini-episode of The Weekly Stuff Podcast. Read Jonathan Lack’s movie reviews and stay up to date with all our podcast projects at https://www.jonathanlack.com Subscribe to JAPANIMATION STATION, our podcast about the wide and wonderful world of anime: https://www.japanimation-station.com  Read Jonathan’s book 200 Reviews ...

On a belated, busy episode of the Weekly Stuff Podcast, we discuss lots of topics from the month of November, including our reactions to recent video games like Persona Q, Far Cry 4, Dragon Age: Inquisition, and Halo: The Master Chief Collection. We also discuss some recent movies and movie trailers - including the much-hyped teaser trailer for Star Wars Episode VII - and finally, talk about the d...

With the eighth series of Doctor Who having wrapped up with its finale episode, "Death in Heaven," we take an in-depth look at the final episodes of the season, before transitioning into our overall thoughts on the series as a whole. This was a year with a whole lot of great content, but did it work on the whole? Other topics discussed include Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, upcoming vid...