More Than One Lesson

In this episode, Tyler and Josh are joined by writer Reed Lackey to discuss his involvement with the grindhouse movie The Victim.

Some time ago, evidently while most of us were sleeping, somebody snuck into our world and stole Christmas away. Some of us realized it sooner than others, but more and more of us are noticing it as years go by.

We’re not quite sure who this little “Grinch” was that came in and snatched our beloved Christmas from us. Some believe it was those evil retail marketers who, in an effort to increase their profits, steadily commercialized Christmas so that now all the holiday amounts to is the acquiring of gifts we don’t really need often given to people more out of obligation than genuine goodwill. Some people blame the non-religious, whose continual efforts to remove religious symbolism from the celebration of the season has diluted the “real reason” for the season and caused it to become nothing more than a hollow cultural ritual (except to those people who really “know what’s going on” of course). There are dozens of other suspected culprits whispered about in homes across America (suspects as vague as “a general apathy” and as specific as “President Barack Obama”). There is only one thing on which nearly everyone agrees…

Christmas is not what it used to be. And somebody’s responsible.

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It’s going to be another 2 months until The Walking Dead comes back with another batch of 8 episodes to complete this season, and I’m immensely looking forward to it. In the past few episodes, the series has evoked feelings within me that I haven’t had since Lost was airing.

That reference might not sound appealing to everyone. To me, Lost currently remains to be my favorite show of all time. When it aired, I had never watched any of HBO’s original series, so the show introduced me to the possibilities and quality in a television show. The show’s run, and especially its finale, garnered a lot of backlash from viewers who had become invested and were dissatisfied with the show’s ultimate destination. What Lost all came down to, in the end, was its characters. Now, maybe I’m alone, but if I want to engage with and invest in a show, the most important thing for me are characters. While the mysteries and sci-fi elements of both Lost and The Walking Dead make them inherently geeky (a quality that never loses points in my book), what makes each of them great are the relationships, trials, and evolution of their characters. Similarly, while the show title of Lost was really referencing the “lost” state of the characters’ souls, I use the same approach when looking at the name The Walking Dead.

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD

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In this episode, Tyler and Josh discuss Spike Jonze’s Where the Wild Things Are and Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.

EPISODE BREAKDOWN
00:00:44- Intro, The Unemployed Mind
00:07:25- Where the Wild Things Are
00:45:40- Alice in Wonderland
01:21:05- Sermon Recommendation- “Love and Lust”
01:23:50- Episode wrap-up, newsletter

In this sermon, Tim Keller discusses the difference between covenant and consumerism.

DOWNLOADABLE MP3

Tyler was recently on the movie/TV podcast Queue the Day.  This episode was recorded several months ago, but only recently posted.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

Apartment Hunt from The Unemployed Mind on Vimeo.

Every good drama needs at least one moment provocative enough to leave you dwelling on it long after you’ve left the theater or turned off your TV. These moments could be inspiring, or thought-provoking, or shocking, or heartbreaking, or all of the above simultaneously. I would like to tell you about Flight, the movie directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Denzel Washington. Most specifically, I’d like to tell you about its “one moment.”

SPOILERS AHEAD

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Reed Lackey received a Theater Arts degree from Gardner-Webb University in 2002, and has written for both stage and screen since he was twelve years old. His story, The Victim, was recently released on DVD and Blu-Ray starring Michael Biehn. He also wrote the first mini-series for the comic book serial, The Mis-Adventures of Adam West. In addition to these published works, he has written multiple short films, stage plays, sermons, short stories, and essays on theology and devotion. He currently lives in southern California with his wife and son.

Follow Reed on Twitter- @ReedLackey

In this episode, Tyler and Josh discuss Sean Durkin’s Martha Marcy May Marlene and John Frankenheimer’s The Manchurian Candidate.

EPISODE BREAKDOWN
00:00:44- Intro, The Podcast Awards
00:03:15- The Unemployed Mind episode 4
00:05:45- It’s a Wonderful Life, The Walking Dead
00:07:35- Newsletter
00:11:00- Martha Marcy May Marlene
01:23:00- The Manchurian Candidate
01:40:50- Episode wrap-up