Nerd Lunch

Since we just talked about On Her Majesty's Secret Service last episode, now seems like a good time to revisit this conversation from Michael's old Sleigh Bell Cinema podcast in which he talks with Carlin Trammel about the movie and how (or if) it functions as a Christmas movie.

After some Goldfinger and Thunderball trivia that you can play along with, Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger talk about George Lazenby's grounded and human James Bond, Diana Riggs' lovely and kickass Tracy di Vicenzo, and Telly Savalas' tough and brutish Ernst Stavro Blofeld. It's an unusual entry in the series, but is it also good? Once they settle that, the panel wraps with some On Her Majesty's Secret Service trivia, too.

Michael, Rob, and Michael DiGiovanni talk about The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, Star Wars Visions Season 2, Ted Lasso Season 3, Unicorn: Warriors Eternal, the Our Man Flint movies, Hammer's Frankenstein movies, Peter Pan and Wendy (2023), streaming service avatars, Fast X, Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, Silo, Disney’s Stan Lee documentary, how our buying and reading of comics has changed, aging and wisdom, budgeting entertainment time, and other things they've been watching and thinking about.

As Pax recovers from vacation, Evan returns to the Lounge for a bit with Michael, Rob, and guest-lounger Michael DiGiovanni. In this first half of the discussion, the conversation includes butt tattoos, underwear preferences, Joe Hill, nepotism, how horror works in books vs film, jazz trombone, William T Riker, Fourth Chair Carryover Questions, the difference between the book and movie versions of Prisoner of Azkaban, The New Classic Film Jerks, the Off Panel comic book interview podcast, the Purple Stuff podcast, letting your kids introduce you to new music, celebrity podcasts, Action Comics, Dawn of DC, Star Trek: Double Double by Michael Jan Friedman, Cassandra Cain as Batgirl, and X-Men comics.

Michael and Rob welcome Erik Johnson and Noel Thingvall to create a fourth season of the Adam West Batman series by crossing it over with other late-'60s TV shows. In addition to the new guest-characters, some of the stories also include new villains pulled from comics of the day and played by popular actors of the period. 

Michael and Rob finish their Mission: Impossible movies catch-up with a discussion of Fallout. Henry Cavill, Vanessa Kirby, and Angela Bassett join the series while other favorites return. But is that, plus emotional closure and fantastic stunts, enough to make this one of our favorite in the series?

This extra-sized episode opens with Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger answering trivia questions about Dr No and From Russia With Love. The questions are multiple choice, so play along as you listen.    After that, the panel returns to the official Bond film series with Sean Connery's first last appearance in the role. And they are not in agreement about the quality of this film. They'll talk about why before wrapping up with more trivia, this time about You Only Live Twice.

Michael, Rob, and Pax experienced some technical difficulties in the lounge before they got around to thinking about anything this month. But they did get to talk about what they've been watching, including Perry Mason, Season 2, John Wick, Chapter 4, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Renfield, Sisu, Strange New Worlds, Air, Fast X, Bruce Lee, Philip Marlowe, The Black Phone, and Star Trek: Lower Decks.

Michael, Rob, and Pax talk about what they've been listening to and reading, including their favorite podcasts and comics, but also Harry Potter audiobooks, Cameron Crowe's novel Fast Times at Ridgemont High: A True Story, Circe by Madeline Miller, Raymond Chandler's The High Window, and additional thoughts on Rogue Nation and Picard, Season 3. All of this, plus a new Ask Us Anything segment thanks to listener voicemail from our pal Jody Collins.

After Michael, Rob, Jeff Somogyi, and Ben Graham talk briefly about their various experiences playing Dungeons & Dragons and their expectations for the game, Ben leads the rest of the party into a quick encounter with a sheep-stealing griffin. Assuming the group survives, this is the first of a series of adventures that will also see William Bruce West joining the fun in future episodes. Roll a d20 and make a Fun Check.

Michael and Rob are joined by Michael DiGiovanni and William Bruce West to imagine a Marvel Cinematic Universe movie that includes characters from the wide array of toys, movies, and TV series that Marvel Comics has licensed over the years.

Michael and Rob continue watching their way through the Mission: Impossible movies with Christopher McQuarrie's debut in the series, Rogue Nation. Ving Rhames, Simon Pegg, and Jeremy Renner are back, but how does Sean Harris measure up as the villain? And then there's Rebecca Ferguson as Ilsa Faust. Is this the entry that will supplant Mission: Impossible III as our favorite? Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to tune in and find out.

Michael and Rob welcome Michael's friend and Kill All Monsters partner Jason Copland to talk about Jason's new graphic novel, Full Tilt. Successfully funded on Zoop in an hour, the book is a non-stop scifi noir action thriller. Jason talks about its inception and the creation process, but there's also some Kill All Monsters talk and we wrap up with a discussion of some of our favorite other "full tilt" stories in various media.  Full Tilt promises to be a unique story in a beautiful package and there are currently no plans to publish it traditionally, so please be nice to yourself and order your copy on Zoop right away.

Michael, Rob, and Karen Flieger wrap up their digression into 1967 unofficial Bond movies with a look at Charles K Feldman's spoof, Casino Royale, starring David Niven, Ursula Andress, Peter Sellers, Woody Allen, and Orson Welles. It's a classic train wreck of a movie, but does that mean that it's no good? We talk about what happened behind the scenes during production, critique the jokes, and try to make sense of the plot.

Michael and Rob reunite with their old friend Carlin Trammel to talk in a very spoilery way about the recent, third season of Star Trek: Picard. This isn't part of After Lunch's official Star Trek Trek discussions, because those won't get to Picard for a long time. We just couldn't wait that long to talk about the season.  And again, lots of spoilers in this episode.

Michael, Rob, and Pax talk about what they've been watching and thinking, leading to conversations about New Girl, Shrinking, Star Trek: Picard, Shazam: Fury of the Gods, Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, John Wick, Chapter 4, The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, Ted Lasso, The Mandalorian, Murder, My Sweet, Nope, The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek, former fandoms we used to enjoy, Easter traditions, and dream RPG settings.

Michael, Rob, and Pax talk about what they've been listening to and reading lately, leading to topics like the intersection of faith and feminism, different approaches to film podcasting, the novel Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, Bono's memoir Surrender, Pax's reaction to Michael and Rob's Ghost Protocol episode, Raymond Chandler's Farewell, My Lovely, ‘90s Batman comics, and Batmobiles in general. Check out the After Lunch website for images of some of the Batmobiles that come up.

Evan wasn't able to join us last episode when Michael, Rob, and Jody Collins rebooted Marvel Comics, so in this episode, he shares his ideas for all-new versions of Thor, Iron Man, Doctor Strange, Spider-Man, Hulk, Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men.

Back in Episode 165, we speculated what Marvel Comics might be like if they took a year off from publishing superhero comics and focused on other genres instead. In this sequel episode, Michael, Rob, and Jody Collins return to imagine how Marvel might reboot their most classic superhero series with brand new, completely different concepts and characters. Evan wasn't able to join us for this one, but stay tuned for an upcoming episode in which he reveals his own ideas for reboots of all eight series.   And stay tuned at the end of this episode for important information about the After Lunch dress code.

Michael and Rob continue their journey through the Mission: Impossible films with the fourth in the series, Brad Bird's Ghost Protocol.