Michael May's Blog, page 80

Thundarr Road | Battle of the Barbarians

Thundarr and friends travel to San Francisco's Chinatown where they encounter an evil wizard who hires a barbarian warrior to fight Thundarr. Is the showdown everything we hoped it would be? David, Noel, and I talk that out alongside discussions of Chinese stereotypes, the appropriateness of dragons, and the best way to escape a slime pit.

Greystoked | Tarzan's New York Adventure (1942)

Noel and I are joined by my pal writer Martin Powell (Dark Horse Comics' Jungle Tales of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs Comic Strips) to discuss the final chapter in MGM's Tarzan series. There's a lot to talk about, including Noel's spotting Elmo Lincoln (the first screen Tarzan) in the cast.

Hellbent for Letterbox | ¡Three Amigos! (1986)

There's a lot of laughing and quoting in this episode when Pax and I talk about the 1986 Western comedy starring Steve Martin, Chevy Chase, and Martin Short.

Also: quick reviews of Gone Are the Days (2018), The Ballad of Lefty Brown (2017), and the comic book The Undertaker, Volume 3: “The Ogre of Camp Sutter” by Ralph Myer and Xavier Dorison.

Mystery Movie Night | The Terminator (1984), Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997), and Unthinkable (2010)

Dave, David, Evan, and I are joined by the one and only Jeff Somogyi ( Down the Rabbit Hole ,  Talkin' Chopp ) to talk about time travel, killer robots, and what could possibly connect those things to Samuel L Jackson's torturing Michael Sheen. It's very funny.

00:02:15 - Review of The Terminator

00:32:24 - Review of Austin Powers

00:52:34 - Review of Unthinkable

01:18:46 - Guessing the Connection

'Casting Off | Atragon (1963)

David and I are joined by our friend Charles Potomac ( The Last Hometown ) to discuss Toho's shockingly relevant giant submarine vs sea monster commentary on nationalism. We talk about the themes, but also of course about submarines, kaiju, and ancient underwater civilizations.

Hellbent for Letterbox | The Legend of the Lone Ranger (1981)

Pax and I talk at length about the financial and critical disaster that was William Fraker's Legend of the Lone Ranger, starring Klinton Spilsbury, Michael Horse, and Christopher Lloyd. But along the way, we also cover other iterations of the masked rider's adventures, including the original radio dramas, the 1938 serial, the Clayton Moore TV show, and a couple of cartoons.

Also in this episode: Pony Express mail featuring two lists of Must See Westerns as compiled by comics writer Chuck Dixon:

"Must See" Westerns

A More Advanced List of Western Movies

Dragonfly Ripple | Captain America - The First Avenger

To get through the long wait before Avengers 4, David and I are rewatching the Marvel movies and some of the TV shows in more or less chronological order. We begin with the WWII adventure, Captain America: The First Avenger, paying special attention to characters and story seeds that become important in later films.

Mystery Movie Night | Blue Hawaii (1961), Lilo & Stitch (2002), and Train to Busan (2016)

Evan takes the hosting chair and picks his first set of movies. Can you figure out what a trainload of zombies has to do with Hawaii and Elvis before Dave, David, special guest Paxton Holley, and I do?

'Casting Off | Blackbeard's Ghost (1968)

You know about Pirates of the Caribbean and Treasure Island. In this episode of our nautical film podcast, David and I are joined by our friend Rob Graham to talk about the other Disney pirate film, starring Dean Jones, Peter Ustinov, Suzanne Pleshette, and Elsa Lanchester.

Nerd Lunch | Solo Drill Down

Everyone's talking about Solo, so the Nerd Lunch gang decided to check it out and record their thoughts. And they invited me to join them. Online opinions are apparently split on it, but we all pretty much agreed about its quality. Take a listen and see if you agree, too.