The Desert of the Reel: A Movie Podcast

Mystery Men (1999) is a personal favorite of Jason's! He hasn't had a long list of things he loved in a very long time. We talk about parts that made us laugh but then analyze the film's deeper meanings. We ask about what larger contexts should we be connected to. We look to see if "All Star" by Smash Mouth is a deep song. What ideals of human perfection should we be striving for? And analyze the...

The third episode of our Star Wars season and the first of the Star Wars movies Jason likes. This episode focuses heavily on the excellence of Palpatine, both the actor and the character, as well as on the pacing failures of the film. The Philosophy of the Reel focuses on the real-world applications of the prescriptions for good and evil the film provides. We cover a number of film studies aspects...

Umm.... yeah. I had thought Nukie (1987) was the worst movie ever made. Now, I'm not so sure...

The second episode of our Star Wars season! Jason likes it more than Phantom Menace but struggles with Samuel L. Jackson. We talk building a perfect society based on Anakin's morals, the bad love story, the flaws of the jedi's, the ethics of cloning, being mindful of our thoughts, and more bureaucracy! Is it better than than the previous movie? What do you think of the prequels? Email us your thou...

Welcome to the second season of Desert of the Reel! For the next few months, Ryan is forcing Jason to experience the Star Wars theatrical releases, many of them for the first time. In this episode, we ponder how The Phantom Menace could have been made with its racist stereotypes, lack of acting, wooden dialogue, and the fact that a quarter of the movie is about podracing, which has nothing to do w...

Jason is very excited to talk about 2019's I Am Mother . He could have talked about the many different ideas from this movie for hours. A film with three characters but a lot of big ideas. In the future when all humans are gone, a girl is raised by a robot named Mother. However, things may change for her when a mysterious woman knocks on the door, changing everything. Besides talking about the exc...

For this episode, Jason chose a PG-13 horror movie called Lights Out (2016). While it's not a perfect horror movie, there's much to be loved and admired in the careful craftsmanship of this film. Your hosts discuss the director's bootstrap film-making abilities, the ways in which light shapes reality, the hierarchy of loyalist ethics, and the natural vs. spiritual impact of horror movies. What did...

For our final episode, we review our final thoughts on the MCU. We talk about what Jason's preconceived notions were before he started watching and what he thinks about it when it is all said and done. We go over the results of our super official poll! And we reveal our final rankings of every single MCU movie. We share our final thoughts and set up our next franchise, Star Wars! But first, next w...

While The Marvels (2023) is a massive dumpster fire of terrible dialogue, mediocre CGI, terrible lighting choices, and a plot stolen from Spaceballs (1987), we all agree the Kamala Khan is a bright light in an otherwise dismal cinescape. However, this film does inspire critical-thinker-in-chief Ryan to come up with four excellent questions that Donald and Jason bat around. Also, this episode featu...

The penultimate Marvel episode! Guardians of the Galaxy 3 gives us so many incredible moments. We discuss what we liked and didn't like, look at the philosophy, and analyze the story. Jason may or may not like the emotional ending. Is Drax the best Marvel character? Is this the best trilogy in the MCU? This movie offers many great ideas to analyze and discuss. Can we have a utopia in this life? Wh...

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania finds our hosts with very little to talk about, but they still manage to talk about it for 45 minutes. They discuss the (many) short-comings of the film and the (few) impressive elements. Most interestingly, Ryan brings in and discusses the genre of fantastical realism, with its Latin American roots, authors, and artists. We hope you enjoy! What are your thoughts...

Wakanda Forever finds our hosts with a lot to talk about. It might not live up to the first movie, but there are many big ideas to discuss and analyze. Jason brings a list of different dichotomies we can see in this film: faith vs science, desire vs duty, and tradition vs progress to name a few. We discuss the concept of othering, graphics, and especially dealing with death. When someone dies, how...

In this episode, we discuss Marvel's Werewolf by Night (2022) as an homage to horror from days gone by. But our conversation doesn't stop there! We use this short movie as a springboard to exploring the horror genre as a whole, from the role of classic horror monsters in our collective memory to Ryan's Q&A for horror-lover Jason, through the crucial social role horror has always played and lan...

Thor Love and Thunder sees a split between the two hosts. Are you a fan or is this a misstep? Which do you agree with more? We talk about what we like and attempt to explain what flaws we see. Does this movie suffer from unsatisfying payoffs? We talk about Loyalist ethics and how to change the world by helping people within our own spheres. What can you do within your limits to become happy? Jason...

A divided reaction to Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness . Ryan feels this entry into the MCU canon is better than the first, while Jason gets hung up on the logical flaws. More than that, though, this movie enables your two hosts to get deep into their real-life experiences with disappointment, regret, and learning to be present. There are great insights in this episode from both your host...

Has Spiderman No Way Home given Jason his favorite MCU movie? Has it been worth it to suffer all the Marvel movies to get to this point? We hear a brief recap of the film and then get into the philosophy of Spiderman! We talk about what makes him so great and ask if he is now considered the "poster child" of all superheroes. Is he the best superhero of them all? There are also a lot of c...

This week, we invited special guest Martin Harris to endure Eternals (2021) with us! Basically, there's almost nothing redeeming about this movie, other than the concept (which was great!) and the director pushing boundaries with the visual style. None of us really cared about the characters, the planet, or the universe by the time we were done watching this movie. It did provide us an excelle...

Every Jason's choice is a movie that he thinks is worth your time, and in this episode, Thank You For Smoking (2005) is all about his favorite topic, rhetoric! We can't stress that we do not condone smoking (we are high school teachers after all) but this movie isn't about how everyone should smoke... or is it? This movie is all about critical thinking, arguing, and how things are allo...

First, we'd like to apologize for missing a week for the first time in podcast history. Our editing/recording software randomly became unavailable to us, and then school started. It took us a while to find a suitable replacement, but now we're back on line! This week, we analyze and discuss Shang Chi (2021)! There is a lot to talk about with this MCU origin story. Both Jason and Ryan agree...

We have another mailbag episode where we respond to an email we received! We are sorry we had to push back the Marvel schedule. It is the first week of school for us high school teachers and our time got crunched! It will be back to the regularly scheduled program next week! We go over the worst and best movies we watched this summer. Which ones have you seen? Which ones do you agree with? Any mov...

This episode is when we had a 40-minute tangent that needed to be its own episode. We talk about the history of television, how streaming has affected the industry, and what may happen or NEEDS to happen next. Jason and Ryan have disagreements about what streaming will/should lead to. Are audiences going to suffer the consequences that streaming is currently building to? Or will streaming lead the...

The first MCU movie is in phase four. Is it a strong start? We talk about what we liked and didn't like in Black Widow's first and only solo outing. There are some pretty big problems. But we also talk about the role of our past and how it influences our present. How does it shape us? Does this movie suggest that you don’t need to worry about your future?  Doctor Dietz also talks about the...

We saw Deadpool and Wolverine in theaters opening night and stuck around for a discussion! So we might not have our usual structure where we dive into the philosophy and ethics, but we had fun talking about the movie. Spoilers will be shared! Jason is also not here but joined for this episode is previous guest Christy and new guest Logan! There is a lot to talk about and laugh about! What are your...

This week, Jason chose 2009's Triangle , a mixed genre film that you should know nothing about going into. Both Jason and Ryan agree about the excellence of this film, from its pacing to the tightness of its storytelling. Ryan dives deeply into allusions, connections to Greek mythology, and cultural analysis. Jason guides us through a philosophical discussion of what it means to know yourself...

In our Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) episode, Ryan and Jason argue whether this is a terrible movie or a fun romp. In either case, both agree that this movie offers us an opportunity to consider a number of interesting ideas, like the nature of truth, how is reality constructed, and who are you when someone dies. In the end, Jason is persuaded that Mysterio is actually quite an effective bad gu...