Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie

What a calm and uneventful week in the Tolkien fandom! We're back to discuss the Rings of Power trailer and the hyperbolic, useless "discourse" that followed it. We talk about fandom and emotional investment, lore and the limited rights that Amazon has to Tolkien's work, and then we take a trip down memory road to remember some other times that beloved properties were rebooted or continued years a...

Autumn de Wilde's 2020 adaptation of this Jane Austen classic is just as magical and faithful to the source material as the 2005  Pride & Prejudice,  but it has a strikingly different tone and style. We discuss the gorgeous composition and machine gun editing of this film and try to understand why it feels so relentlessly surprising and fun. Expect a strange but earned comparison to Mad Max: Fury...

Here we are, at the grand finale of our Tolkien coverage! To honor the occasion, we've gone through all of our old notes and put together a fun little retrospective, covering: our best running theories and ideas from the past two years, a compilation of the things that most surprised us along the way, and our updated opinions on the Peter Jackson movies. We also crown an MVP for the series and cho...

"The Voice of Reason 2" & "A Grain of Truth" Come for the vampires and the silver sword, stay for allusions to classic American literature and brutal refutation of Pascal's wager. Sapkowski is a master of pacing and pivots, and this story was just a joy for us to read. We discuss the story's quiet, pointed navigation of faith, hope, "monsters" and humanity - and the terrible difficulty of living y...

Lions and tigers and divisive experimental animation styles oh my! We're taking a look at Ralph Bakshi's 1978  Lord of the Rings  adaptation today and neither of us has ever seen anything like it. We discuss our first impressions and take a closer look at the mechanics of Bakshi's "mixed media" approach to animation. There are so many different art styles and directions on screen at any given time...

We're switching things up again today to look at a painting - in this case one of Vincent Van Gogh's most provocative works,  Head of a Skeleton with a Burning Cigarette.  Maggie's got all the historical and academic context ready to go and Cam's got a laundry list of intriguing, baseless ideas - this is still Second Breakfast.  We discuss the painting as a commentary / reaction to the art world's...

Discussion of  The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King [Extended Edition] in Glorious 4K!   This finale is so operatic and meticulous that the occasional flaws really stand out. This film's editorial work masterfully expands on the book by integrating the scattered storylines to create powerful new echoes and parallels between our characters' movements. The violence is ratcheted up to such a...

Holy monarchy, Batman! We were absolutely blown away by this (as the film labels itself) "fable of a true tragedy". Join us as we dive into the Kubrickian elements of this film and the ways in which the audience is supremely unsettled by Diana's experience in the Royal Family. Kristen Stewart shines brighter than all the Crown Jewels combined, as her outstanding performance makes us question over...

Discussion of  The Lord of the Rings, The Return of the King [Extended Edition] in Glorious 4K!   Maybe more than any of the other Peter Jackson Middle-earth movies, ROTK  is a story of interpretation and addition. Some characters and chapters are cut entirely, but in their absence we get to see a brand new account of Aragorn's parlay with the army of the dead, an expansion of Elrond's influence,...

Christopher Tolkien is back with the fourth volume of his  History of the Lord of the Rings,   Sauron Defeated . We discuss the unused epilogue starring a middle-aged Sam updating his daughter on the futures of some beloved characters - and then he gives the most heartbreaking monologue about "Mr. Frodo" that you could possibly imagine. We also get some revelations about the magic cancer than affl...

Well this one is an emotional rollercoaster - the last Tolkien chapter has arrived, and we finally get a peek behind the curtain! Tolkien gives us a glimpse of Middle-earth's heaven and much more information about the strange magical cancer that awaits everyone who spends too much time with a magical object. Then Sam takes his place as the new historian / protagonist / leader of the Grey Company,...

"The Voice of Reason 1" & "The Witcher" Boom! The first short story of the Witcher universe starts off with a bang. Morality, politics, wizards, violence - this story is teeming with provocations and hints about the world that Geralt of Rivia finds himself in. We work through a dozen of these fascinating mission statements in an effort to find out what kind of fantasy story Andrzej Sapkowski is cr...

GEE WHIZ this chapter is divisive, and Cam and Maggie certainly  have differing opinions on it! Join us for a big ole discussion about satisfying story structure, Tolkien's geopolitical commentary, curtain calls, "strong men," wartime leaders - and all the usual stuff about ghosts and echoes.  We also talk about some of  your  wonderful feedback and end the episode with a MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT about...

Join Maggie and Cam as they dive into Maggie's favorite movie of all time. We dig through all the structural / stylistic choices that make this a perfect adaptation of the book, even when it seems to diverge from the source material, including: tracking shots, color palettes, quick zooms, discordant types of humor, and Matthew McFayden's choice to play Darcy as a tragic supporting character trappe...

Can you go home again? Does "home" change or do  you  change? Tolkien meditates on these questions beautifully in this chapter, which feels like a throwback to early  Fellowship.  Geopolitics and class critiques come roaring back as Gandalf and our hobbits do the fascinating, boots-on-the-ground work of building and maintaining alliances. Also, Bill the Pony's fate is revealed at long last. Feedba...

End of the year, time for lists and rankings! Well, we thought it was stupid to rank and number and limit things by genre / medium. So instead, Cam and Maggie have prepared top five lists for the best works of art they discovered this year and then the best works of art that actually  came out  this year. Expect twists, shocks, surprises, and then don't be surprised when they completely agree on t...

Listen to Cam's silly little Christmas fable,  The Christmas Donkey : https://cameronfucile.bandcamp.com/track/the-christmas-donkey Tolkien's 3rd  LOTR  epilogue evolves some metaphors and further develops his "cyclical" view of time and history. We see a wedding and a funeral. We see new mentors crowned and old ones cast aside. The "Old Man" trope returns and Aragorn's arc ends with the bitterswe...

Ho ho ho. Today we're covering one of Cam's stories, a silly and dark riff on Christmas classics called The Christmas Donkey.  Listen to the story here: https://cameronfucile.bandcamp.com/track/the-christmas-donkey   We start with a discussion about self-imposed creative limitations before Cam describes the specific challenges that face Christmas stories and his ridiculous production schedule for...

Join Cam and Maggie for their continued death march through Tolkien's dramaticized appendices - I mean, Tolkien's  endless epilogues - uh, how about  quickly tying up loose ends in an increasingly dreary parade of curtain calls - hmm, let's just call it the chapter where everyone finds love. We discuss the  accelerated pacing  of Éowyn and Faramir's courtship while trying to figure out what she tr...

Oh boy -  a highly stylized, black and white Shakespeare adaptation from A24, that we got to see early, in IMAX? It's like our own personal bat signal was shot into the clouds. This adaptation is fantastic , and we've got the full breakdown for you in this episode. Denzel Washington gives a controversial, unorthodox performance that divides Cam and Maggie, but they are united in their love of for...

"The hour of doom" comes to a close as our storylines finally merge back together for the first time since  Fellowship.  Frodo and Gandalf seem to be powering down now that their Quest is complete, and Cam argues that Gandalf the White has actually merged back together with Gandalf the Grey too. We work through his evidence for that theory and then, just as things get back on track, Maggie suggest...

We're heading back into Christopher Tolkien's History of Middle-earth  once again this week for some fascinating insights into JRRT's creative struggles with Book Five. Denethor's cruelty was carefully calculated at every turn, and Gandalf became more of an active player in the story in each successive draft. Cam also finds some precedent for his "eyeball" theory from last week, and we learn more...

We're finally here, at the "end of ends" – Sam and Frodo reach Mount Doom and destroy the One Ring, but is all as it seems? We sure don't think so. Theology comes roaring back in Tolkien's writing, but his hobbits have placed their faith in themselves and the quest, not a higher power. Similarly, as they accept the fact that the end of the quest will also probably be the end of their lives, they d...

It's our 100th episode! To celebrate, we're finally taking a dedicated look at the Harry Potter series of books / audiobooks / movies and exploring their titanic, continued influence on our lives. We grew up with this series, and it forever shaped our generation's perception of art and culture. Perspective is the theme through this conversation as we look back on what we see differently now, the m...

At one point, we compare this chapter to The Revenant. The quest has never been more grim, grimy, or urgent. Cam and Maggie argue that this gauntlet is the first time that Sam and Frodo have ever truly, fully shared the burden of their mission – Frodo carries the Ring and Sam keeps hope alive for them both. We discuss the many loaded structural echoes that contribute to the dread and drama of this...