More Than One Lesson

In this episode, Tyler and Josh discuss James Gunn’s Super and Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver.

EPISODE BREAKDOWN
00:00:45- Intro, newsletter, The Podcast Awards, The Unemployed Mind, For The Title
00:07:55- Super
00:52:05- Taxi Driver
01:15:35- Episode wrap-up, Struck by Lightning, Sermon Recommendation- The One Resolution You Need to Make

In this sermon, Rankin Wilbourne discusses the importance of reminding ourselves of the Gospel.

The last couple of days have been very strange for me.  It has been a true roller coaster of emotion.  It has been a time of introspection and self analysis.  And, no, this actually has nothing whatsoever to do with my depression.  This came about because of a television show called “Deadliest Warrior.”

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Every January 1st, I think of all the movies that are now 10 years old.  Doing so used to make me feel old and out of touch, but these days I’ve found it to be an interesting examination of changing culture and tastes.  It’s fascinating to see which movies remain in the collective mind and which have faded.  It was particularly interesting to think about it this year, as 2003 marked the beginning of a new blockbuster Pirates of the Caribbean franchise while capping off the successful Lord of the Rings film series… only to have it resurrect ten years later in the form of The Hobbit.

It has also been interesting to see how my personal tastes have changed.  Some of these movies were my favorites at the time, but have faded, while others I found to not be particularly interesting, but now love.  Perhaps this is the case with you, too.

So, as of now, the following movies are now ten years old:

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In this episode, Reed Lackey returns to discuss Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life.

Christmas is my absolute favorite time of the year.  I’m the guy who has the radio in his car set to the station that plays Christmas carols 24/7, the guy who enjoys stringing up half-burnt out multicolor bulbs in 20 degree weather, the guy who devotes more care to dressing up the presents he bought than he does to dressing himself.  Yes, if Christmas were a drink, I’d proceed to get blackout drunk as soon as Santa closed out the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on November 24^th and wallow in holiday delirium tremens all day December 26^th.

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It may be part of growing up. It may be part of living in a big city. It may be due to changes in the culture. But whatever the reason, I more and more regularly hear people talking about why they don’t like Christmas. To some, it’s much ado about nothing. To others it’s an altar to materialism. Some see Christmas as an out-of-date tradition; as corny as “Frosty the Snowman.” And from a certain perspective, they’re right.

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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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