The Middle of Culture

It's Spider-Verse season! While we originally planned to discuss the recent release of Across the Spider-Verse this week, we made a last minute decision (mostly for scheduling reasons) to start with the first film, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. And you know what? That was the correct decision. It is a movie that is so incredibly well and lovingly made that it is worth watching again and then...

It was finally Peter's turn to pick something, because he finally felt like he was in a position to do so. This week we took a look at the most recent issue of Uncanny Magazine, issue 52. Uncanny is an online magazine published every two months of speculative prose, poetry, and nonfiction works. Peter has been a subscriber for a bit now, but hasn't dived in and this seemed like a good time to fina...

Gamera returns! And with him comes the reckoning of some serious psychological trauma. In this conclusion to the trilogy, the movie takes a much darker and more psychological turn, and in the end, is it better for it? Listen along as we discuss our thoughts and opinions of this concluding movie.

Gamera returns! This week we dive into the second installment of this relatively recent Gamera trilogy, and see the might turtle take on Legion, a wild upside down crab looking monster. If you enjoyed the first, this one is sure to please, as it really takes everything about the first and levels it up in significant ways.

It should have been Peter's turn to come up with something. Should have. But like the solid that they are, Eden saved the day from Peter's incredibly overwhelming life to offer up a trio of kaiju films for us to watch, enjoy, and discuss. We kick this trio of episodes off with the 1995 film Gamera: Guardian of the Universe. If you aren't familiar with Gamera, listen and decide if you want to make...

What is a close encounter? And how many kinds are there? Well, there must be at least three, because this week we discuss our experiences watching the 1977 Steven Spielberg classic movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. We also discuss some recent media we have been enjoying. Join us as we take this trip with a cast of eclectic characters.

We're no strangers to talking about music here on The Middle of Culture. And while, years ago, Eden and Peter shared many similar musical tastes, those tastes have diverged and matured. This week, we discuss essential albums that have shaped the way we listen to music, and the types of music we enjoy. Come along, as we discuss our most influential albums.

This week Eden decided to challenge Peter with some anime. Anyone who has listened has heard Peter lament about his inability to really get into anime, but there has to be a first time for everything, right? Well, turns out, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury just might be that. Listen in as we discuss the prologue and first three episodes from this most recent Gundam series.

Our winter of X-content is over. This journey has lasted many months, and culminates in X-Men: Dark Phoenix. Look folks, this movie has the lowest Rotten Tomatoes score of any X-Men movie, by a significant margin. It is worse than Black Adam, and boy howdy, that movie is an abomination. This is a right stinker, and we end on the lowest of lows. Or do we? Listen as Eden and I discuss our surprising...

This week we take a journey. After a brief discussion of the announced DCEU projects (can you say completely underwhelming?) we travel to 1940 by way of the 1973 Spanish film (that's Film with a capital F) The Spirit of the Beehive . It is one of Eden's very favorite films, and boy howdy, did Peter have a challenging time getting into it. But it makes for a very interesting discussion on the Spain...

Our winter of X-content is coming quickly to a close with the penultimate movie, 2017s Logan. Both Eden and I were a bit nervous to watch this one again. We have fond memories of it being very good, but that was 5+ years ago. Does it hold up to further scrutiny? Or should we have lived with our fond memories and left it at that? Take a listen with us and you'll find out.

This week both Eden and I felt a bit low energy, so we went with a topic that didn't require too much energy or effort to prepare for. And, perhaps a little surprisingly, at least to me, it turned into a really fun and interesting discussion about tabletop role playing games. Join us as we discuss our journey with TTRPGs as well as our thoughts about some recent announcements about the, by far, bi...

Folks, this has been a real roller coaster. There have been highs, and there have been lows, but this week, I am pretty sure we have hit the very lowest low so far. Join Eden and I as we discuss X-Men: Apocalypse. Heads up, this movie is really, really bad. But the conversation was pretty dang good.

It should have been another entry in our Winter of Excontent. But alas, life just kicked me hard. In the balls. So, we are just sort of free wheeling it this week, with an extemporaneous discussion of some of our favorite media of the year, including music, books, movies and games.

This episode was a little different. Generally, we talk about the media and entertainment we have been consuming. However, today we wanted to talk about our efforts at creating media of our own. November is known as National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), and has been for about the last 25 years. Independently, turns out Eden and I both decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. We thought i...

The Summer of X has become the Fall of X, or even the Winter, depending on where you live. This week we talk a bit about games, music and then dive into the latest X movie, Days of Future Past. We discuss it's merits and Peter discusses that, despite those merits, he really, really doesn't like this movie. Or the holiday season. He has stress and needs to manage it better.

As children of the 80s, the entertainment of that time has always been highly influential for both myself and Eden. One of those influences is that of giant robots. Yes, that's right folks, this week we are ranking, reviewing, and discussing a handful of giant robots over the years. But not just any robots, these are all Mecha, robots controlled by humans. Join us as we walk down memory lane and r...

The Summer of X is now the Fall of X officially as temperatures cool off and we follow The Wolverine to Japan. Eden and I discuss what we are in to these days, and then dive into James Mangold's first movie centered on good old Logan.

Over the course of our lives, we all have opportunities to develop certain skills. Eden and I have both spent many years honing some of those skills. Yet they have, in some cases, been in very different areas, as I so painfully discovered in trying to read over 700 pages of Elf Quest comics in a few weeks. Join us as we discuss the first half of volume 1 of the classic Elf Quest comic, and reflect...

Everyone is a fan of something. Or often many things. But do we define ourselves and our personalities by our fandoms? If so, perhaps we should find meaning in something more real. Because that seems to be when fandom becomes toxic. This week we discuss toxic fandom, in the setting of the recent backlash of The Rings of Power. And then, we just may be grateful that Eden and I don't define ourselve...

These days, you can find a video game for almost anything. A longstanding, but increasingly broad category of games are those that fall under the "simulation" genre. There are classics, like SimCity and The Sims, that almost everyone knows about. But what about more niche sim games? Euro Truck Simulator, Farming Simulator, Lawn Mower Simulator, and the game that kicked off today's topic, Power Was...

This week the Summer of X returns with X-Men Origins: Wolverine. We remembered it wasn't a great movie. Critically it did worse than the previous installments in the series. So, we knew what we were getting into, didn't we? No. No, we did not. Nothing prepared us for the experience that was revisiting this movie. I won't say more though. Just listen and hopefully you will find yourself laughing al...

War. War never changes. And neither does the world after an apocalypse! Or at least that is how it appears in much of post-apocalyptic fiction. That's on the docket this week, after a (what was going to be) brief recap of some recent Marvel Studios topics. First, we talk about *Thor Love and Thunder*, some final thoughts on the recently wrapped up *Ms. Marvel*, and finish out our Marvel talk with...

Life sometimes gets in the way. And that happened to us this week. Between travel and being away from home we weren't able to put together and episode that would meet the quality we expect from ourselves. But we will be back in 2 weeks with a great topic courtesy of Eden!

A wet fart. I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed. Those two comments pretty much sum up our thoughts about X-Men: The Last Stand. Bad, but not bad enough to be fun, this was a movie that just fell flat in so many ways. It messed with the mythos of the X-Men in incomprehensible and stupid ways, it treated many of its characters very poorly, and is just a dud all the way around. But, it was a lot of f...