Second Breakfast with Cam & Maggie

Well hot damn, is there anything cooler than a sandworm? Cam and Maggie finally saw Denis Villeneuve's Dune , and they are just head over heels for the world of Arrakis. There's so much to talk about – that rare feeling of falling in love with a brand new franchise, the similarities / influences / comparisons to Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings – and a whole section where we unpack...

Book Six of LOTR starts off with a bang as Sam takes over as Ringbearer / protagonist and Tolkien immediately forces him to re-enact Die Hard. Cam continues to develop his "Grey Company" theory as Sam tries to play all the role of every member of the original fellowship and survive his awful journey through the tower. We discuss the Ring planting visions of temptation in both Frodo and Sam's minds...

Join Cam and Maggie for a rootin' tootin' good time as they talk about Chuck Palahniuk's fantastic Substack newsletter, how good Succession is, and how they definitely didn't just get back from their honeymoon after getting married live on the podcast in front of a studio audience at the top of the Empire State Building. Oh and I guess Maggie read The Hound of the Baskervilles too, so we talk abou...

Nazgûl and orcs and hill trolls oh my! The finale of Book Five of LOTR sees our heroes ride into a trap and parlay with the flaming skull known as the Mouth of Sauron. It's some fantastic heavy metal stuff, and a piping good chapter of Tolkien. We break down the importance of time jumps in this chapter, and their effect on the reader. Tolkien rallies the reader into a confident sprint before dropp...

Christopher Tolkien is back again the third book in his  History of Lord of the Rings  series,  The War of the Ring . Cam read the first half of the book and collected all the most fascinating, illuminating tidbits (like a truffle pig). He and Maggie discuss them in their usual academic, whimsical fashion. Revelations include: Saruman as a failed wizard, the Palantir's secret origins, Daddy Tolkie...

Of all the chapters we've covered so far, this one probably benefits most from our close reading analysis. Aragorn gathers the captains for a Council of Elrond redux, but the differences from that first meeting are extremely revealing. We finally, and quietly, learn the limits of Gandalf the White and "doubt" is introduced as the most powerful weapon against enlightenment / knowledge. Tolkien also...

Cam and Maggie recount their experience seeing throwback rock-metal supergroup Fuzz at Mohawk in Austin and discuss their new perspective on the 1978 classic Halloween after seeing it at a drive-in. We also work through some great listener recommendations inspired by the Halloween Special last week, and then read / react to a wonderful email about Tolkien's callback-laden use of fire imagery, the...

Hold on to your helmets, this chapter is all about Aragorn's rise to power as he leapfrogs past Gandalf the Grey, Faramir, and even Gandalf the White to become the guy everyone trusts to lead them in the fight against Sauron. We're introduced to the "black shadow," a mysterious illness that physicalizes all of the imagery that's been smothering Gondor, and who emerges with the miracle cure for all...

Boo! We're in the home stretch of Spooky Season, so today we're looking at a ton of different horror movies. Think of this episode as a bunch of overly specific recommendations from overenthusiastic friends. Cam and Maggie have prepared answers to the following prompts: - Their personal game changers in the horror genre - Movies that are better the second time you watch them - The most haunting, s...

Well I guess we spoke too soon last week – this battle isn't quite over yet! Denethor sweeps into the story to battle the ghost of Gandalf the Grey for the Most Disappointing Father Award and then after he dies Gandalf kinda excuses all of his bad behavior by blaming Sauron. Cam is not convinced. We break down the active theological interference of the God of Middle-earth in this chapter and his d...

The year is 1971: we just went to the moon, Nixon is President (woops), Disney World just opened...and Led Zeppelin is singing about Tolkien. Join Cam and Maggie as they break down one of Zeppelin's most Middle-earthian songs. Ringwraiths, the Dark Lord, and magic runes abound - and Arthurian legend is thrown in for some spice. This kaleidoscope of folklore and magic imagery eerily reflects the Ba...

Oh boy – what a finale. I don't think we've ever been this excited for an episode, even Maggie's recap feels like a spirited campfire reenactment of the chapter. The Witch King rises to previously unknown heights, eclipsing Smaug and Saruman and almost retaking the power of Tolkien's almighty fire imagery – but then Éowyn shows up and ruins his whole day. The power of light and gold (and Aragorn)...

" Join us! " as we celebrate the 40th anniversary of this stone cold classic. Sam Raimi's 1981 masterpiece  The Evil Dead is somehow both the funniest horror movie ever made and also one of the most disturbing. We were lucky enough to see it on the big screen recently and oh boy did it give us a lot to talk about. Bruce Campbell's performance (arguably the greatest lead performance in the genre's...

Echoes and mirrors and callbacks – oh my! We've got a new Gandalf the Grey and a new Gandalf the White in this chapter, as the mysteriously well-informed Ghân-buri-Ghân appears and Théoden undergoes a glorious promotion. At the same time, we see Pippin's dread through Merry's eyes as the Rohan arrive with an answer to the fire imagery that has overwhelmed Gondor. We end the discussion with a strik...

TLDR: This comic shows artists who sell their creations to corporations bound and gagged in the seventh circle of Hell as the characters they created (Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, the Hulk, Wonder Woman, the Joker, Wolverine, etc.) are trapped in a prison cell begging for freedom and screaming the word "injustice" into the abyss. Who can save them? Maybe no one, maybe Spawn , or maybe Spawn's cre...

Pippin just might have overtaken Sam as the MVP of Lord of the Rings. He's certainly braver and more badass than Merry or Frodo now – this chapter sees him literally run into fire and revive hope for all of Middle-earth, with zero friends or allies, against overwhelming odds! Flaming torrents, Nazgûl, the sorcerer Ringwraith King of Angmar, trumpets and hunters and "innumerable" orcs – this battle...

Ooh what a strange break from Lord of the Rings! Not really, political intrigue is the back bone of every world-building story, regardless of drama - one of the most frequent Game of Thrones  directors also directed 34 episodes of  The West Wing.  And as we get deeper and deeper into the Rohan / Gondor relationship in LOTR, Tolkien's increasing interest in geopoltical intrigue is threatening to ou...

Merry is our new POV character and Tolkien is marinating us in metaphors! Join Cam and Maggie for a romp through Middle-earth geopolitics and callbacks and echoes but still no Bill the Pony. Our lead hobbit hears a battle song and realizes he's about to live his own little tune when the group reaches Gondor – where everyone might die! Tolkien shocks us both when he abandons nature and description...

Join Cam and Maggie for a gleeful discussion of James Wan's  Malignant.  Spoiler alert for the whole episode - don't worry if you don't read the descriptions, we say it at the beginning of the episode. There's so much to talk about with this movie, and by golly it's just nice to see a filmmaker at the top of their game having this much FUN. Cam tracks all the moments of humor and wonderful over-th...

What a chapter title! Who is the Grey Company – is it the new, lean and mean fellowship led by Aragorn or is it the parade of metaphorical ghosts and literal corpses that now follows our heroes? Join Cam and Maggie for a spirited investigation of this question and many more. Aragorn really comes into his own here as the one true successor to Gandalf the Grey, and we've got quotes and theories galo...

Back to the books! Join Cam and Maggie for their first foray into Gondor, as Pippin takes the reigns of story and Gandalf the White becomes just as much of a disappointment as his predecessor. Oh and hey what's up with Denethor? Is he a magical, telepathic, wrathful leader or just a terrible father? Tolkien upsets the binary black / white imagery of Middle-earth here with the ominous white tree of...

Join Cam and Maggie for a discussion of David Bruckner's unnerving, masterful new horror film,  The Night House.  So many of our  Lord of the Rings  discussions have centered around echoes and twisted callbacks, and this film takes those ideas and runs a marathon with them. As a work of surreal grief horror, the story deftly avoids all the major modern tropes and pitfalls of the subgenre and brill...

Discussion of The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers [Extended Edition] in Glorious 4K! Join Cam and Maggie dive into the second half of Peter Jackson's glorious Two Towers adaptation and find a whole host of echoes across the Middle-earth filmography. Théoden goes full Thorin, Helm's Deep turns into the Battle of the Five Armies, the Ents save the day with water superpowers just like Arwen did in...

Join Cam and Maggie for a technicolor exploration of David Lowery's spectacular new film, The Green Knight. You know how much we adore A24 folkloric horror and this movie is quite honestly the bee's knees. Our discussion begins with an investigation into the calm surrealism that Dev Patel's masterful performance lends to the whole film, before we look at its episodic, almost color-coded story stru...

Discussion of The Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers [Extended Edition] in Glorious 4K!   Join Cam and Maggie for an hour of Aragon worship and Théoden hate, in equal measure. The first disc of Two Towers is as much of a devastating villain showcase as the book was, and we're back to break down some new theories, callbacks, and even a call forward to the best moment in the Hobbit trilogy. Maggie is...