Sequelcast 2 and Friends

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and Alex Miller discuss the career of the late Fred Willard. Fred Willard started honing his comedy chops with Vic Grecco in Greenwich Village in the late 1950s. After joining The Second City in Chicago, he founded the comedy troupe Ace Trucking Company which led to dozens of gigs on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Aside from his hundreds of appearances o...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, William Thrasher, and special guest Brock Wilbur ( co-author of Postal from Boss Fight Books ) discuss Mission Asteroid, the third adventure game released by Sierra under their original name On-Line Systems. Meant to be a shorter and cheaper adventure game aimed at new players, Mission Asteroid has a science-fiction theme. An asteroid is going to smash into Earth, and y...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and Thrasher discuss Highlander III: The Final Dimension. Outside of the US, this was released as Highlander III: The Sorcerer. Connor MacLeod (Christopher Lambert) finds Kane (Mario Van Peebles), another evil Immortal itching to have a sword fight.  A sort of remake of the original, Highlander III sends Connor back to New York City, gives him an adopted son John (Gabrie...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and Thrasher discuss Stitch! The Movie. Stitch struggles with his inner evil nature as Lilo tries to bolster his goodness.  A cheap feature-length pilot for Lilo & Stitch: The Series, Stitch! The Movie starts to introduce the remaining 625 experiments that preceded Stitch. The villain Dr. Jacques von Hämsterviel (Jeff Bennett) is more obnoxious than funny. Its plot reeks...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and William Thrasher discuss Wizard and the Princess. Adding color to the graphics that made Mystery House a smash, Wizard and the Princess is a worse game. Long mazes clutter up the flow, puzzles are more obtuse, and the ending is not worth the journey. Its focus on variants of fairy tale tropes is a preview of the eventual King's Quest series designer Roberta Williams...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and Thrasher discuss Highlander 2: The Quickening. Another immortal from Connor's past returns to instigate sword fights.  An odd Highlander entry with a zillion different cuts, Highlander 2: The Quickening leans harder on the science-fiction angle with an overt ecological message to boot. Director Russell Mulcahy returns to give us some dandy visuals (cyberpunk bird men...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and Alex Miller discuss Lilo & Stitch. An alien crash lands in on Kaua'i, Hawaii. Chaos ensues as intergalactic bounty hunters attempt to retrieve it.  Released in the death throes of Disney's 2D animated feature period, Lilo & Stitch was a surprising hit. Given a mandate at a company retreat to pitch a lower budget feature along the lines of Dumbo, first-time...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and Alex Miller discuss the state of movie theatres in the age of the COVID-19 pandemic. Self isolation mandates have been in place around the globe in several countries for months now. Movie theaters have had to close up shop and peddle their wares as pricey rentals for $19.99. However, this is cheaper than a date at the movies. We pontificate on how this mig...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and Thrasher discuss Highlander. Immortal beings battle each other throughout the centuries. The start of a long-running franchise that spun-off animated and live-action TV series, Highlander deftly combines fantasy, romance, and historical fiction with MTV bombast and explosions into an unforgettable mixture. Original songs by Queen and a score by Michael Kamen help mak...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and Thrasher discuss Lethal Weapon 4. Riggs and Murtaugh battle the Chinese Triad. More humorous than Lethal Weapon 3, Lethal Weapon 4 has a secret weapon with Chris Rock as the potential son-in-law of Murtaugh's daughter. It takes quite a bit for the story to get rolling. Jet Li brings a real dynamism to the fights. There's a fight sequence on the highway that's super s...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and Thrasher discuss Lethal Weapon 3. Riggs and Murtaugh investigate crooked cops.  Lethal Weapon 3 is a bit tired. Danny Glover gets better character work here and Rene Russo is fun as a love interest for Mel Gibson, but it feels like everyone but Glover is going through the motions. Joe Pesci's frosted hair looks awful.  Follow the show on Twitter @Sequelcast2 Like our...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and Thrasher discuss Lethal Weapon 2. Riggs and Murtaugh go up against South African drug smugglers. Screenwriter Shane Black builds on the character work he did in Lethal Weapon to deliver one of the best action sequels of all time. This has the famous toilet gag and introduces Leo Getz (Joe Pesci) as a funny supporting character. His rant on Subway is just about perfec...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and Alex Miller discuss Jay and Silent Bob Reboot. They also interview Nathan Rabin on his new books The Weird Accordion to Al and Postal; the latter is co-written by Brock Wilbur. You can purchase The Weird Accordion to Al direct from Nathan via Paypal for $20 at  nathanrabin@sbcglobal.net . You can purchase Postal from its publisher Boss Fight Books at https...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and Alex Miller discuss Final Episode, the final film in the original Battles Without Honor and Humanity series. The yakuza go legit by becoming a political party.  A nice coda to the original quintet of flicks in this series, Final Episode features the same combination of complicated plotting, rare comedy, and fierce action. Ends on a note of real tragedy. Fo...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi and Thrasher discuss Lethal Weapon. An old cop and a loose cannon cop team up. The start of a franchise, Lethal Weapon is more character focused than other action franchises like Die Hard or Rambo. Director Richard Donner frames the action in a clear style so the audience is never lost as to what is happening. Gary Busey is great as the villain in this.   Follow the show...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and Alex Miller discuss Police Tactics, the fourth film in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series. Police close in on the yakuza as their battles become more brazen. Featuring a thick plot as always, Police Tactics opens up the scope a little bit. You start to get the feeling the yakuza are on the run. The ending makes it feel like the last of the serie...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, and Thrasher, discuss Aladdin and the King of Thieves. Thieves try to get Aladdin to be one of their team. Going for a heavier story this time, Aladdin and the King of Thieves focuses on a lot of unresolved Daddy issues. The songs are worse, but the voice acting is more interesting. Robin Williams is back as the Genie, and solid character actors John Rhys-Davies and Jer...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, Jersey Jason, and Sarah discuss The Return of Jafar. Jafar comes back to battle Aladdin.  Although the animation isn't nearly as slick as the first, things move at a fun pace. Robin Williams did not reprise his part as the Genie, so instead we have Dan Castellaneta subbing in; Castellaneta would later voice the Genie for the Aladdin animated series.  Follow th...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, BJ, and special guest Lindsey (freelance artist) discuss the animated feature film Aladdin. A genie causes a lot of property damage. Based on the most famous tale from One Thousand and One Nights, Aladdin features a zippy comedic score with jokes to match. Robin Williams as the Genie is the obvious standout, but Gilbert Gottfried as Iago the Parrot is no slouc...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and Alex Miller discuss Proxy War, the fourth film in the Battles Without Honor and Humanity series. Violence between yakuza gangs continues with great relish.  A return to the complicated plotting of the original, Proxy War ratchets up the wealth and sloppiness of the rival yakuza families. Characters and plot twists assault the viewer with the series' typica...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and Alex Miller discuss the career of the late Stuart Gordon. After getting his start directing plays, Stuart Gordon went on to write and direct several acclaimed horror and science-fiction motion pictures including Re-Animator, Dagon, and The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit. Gordon also worked on episodes of Masters of Horror, Fear Itself, and Honey, I Shrunk the Ki...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and special guests Jane Jensen ( Writer/Designer of the Gabriel Knight Trilogy ) + Tyler Smith ( Host of Battleship Pretension ) discuss the Gabriel Knight trilogy of computer games. A thriller writer becomes embroiled in a supernatural world that is not unlike the very novels he writes. One of Sierra's darker franchises, the Gabriel Knight games combined the...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and special guest Mladen Luketin ( Host of the Extra Sequential Podcast ) discuss Jurassic Park III. Dinosaur piss proves useful.  A movie full of toyetic dinos, Jurassic Park III drops all pretension from The Lost World: Jurassic Park and takes audiences on a ride that's not too shabby. The premise for this movie changed several times and went through several...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, and special guest Mladen Luketin ( Host of the Extra Sequential Podcast ) discuss The Lost World: Jurassic Park. A man under duress returns to a different island filled with dinosaurs.   A darker sequel that has almost nothing to do with the book, The Lost World: Jurassic Park has one or two good sequences but lacks a cohesive structure or compelling character...

Hosts Mat Bradley-Tschirgi, Thrasher, Jersey Jason, and BJ discuss Jurassic Park. Dinosaurs in a theme park go haywire. A creature feature with a champagne budget, Jurassic Park represents the dawn of seriously impressive digital effects and the sunset of practical effects in special effects technology. George Lucas shed a tear when watching the first rendered CG scene from this flick, prompting h...