After Lunch

Pax, Rob, and Michael talk about a lot of things in this first half of this month's lounge: The Rise of Skywalker, Wonder Woman on TV and in comics, Stranger Things Season 5, Stephen King and Maurice Sendak's Hansel and Gretel, and Scott Bradlee's Postmodern Jukebox, for example.

Starting a new project for the new year where we read 12 Stephen King novels, Michael and Jess talk about all things Carrie. And not just the book, but also all the movies, and even the musical.

Michael is joined by Pax, Kay, and Robert Zerbe to look back on the art and pop culture of 2025 and also to peek ahead at what's coming in 2026.

Michael, Rob, and Pax embrace their f8 as they talk about The Fate of the Furious, the first post-Brian movie in the series and the beginning of #JusticeForHan. Can we forgive Deckard Shaw for his crimes? And if we do, can we forgive ourselves?

While Pax remains in London to close a different case, Jacob, Michael, and Rob hit the moor to talk about the Hammer adaptation of Hound of the Baskervilles, starring Peter Cushing as Sherlock Holmes, André Morell as Watson, and Christopher Lee as Sir Henry Baskerville.

Michael and Jess talk about the horror! We start with a little on The Menu and A Ghost Story for Christmas, then a little more on Ted Naifeh's first Courtney Crumrin volume, The Night Things, and then a lot on Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's From Hell and Jack the Ripper in general. That finishes our 2025 of horror comics, so we also talk about our focus for 2026.

Better late than never, but Michael, Pax, and Rob finally complete last month's lounge with conversation about Christmas podcasts, werewolf movies, Universal Monsters comics, Hamnet, an update on Pax's Young Guns signatures, and movies we've never seen on the big screen, but want to.

Merry Christmas, everyone! Preston A Whitmore II's This Christmas may not be a super popular holiday movie, but Michael thinks it's underrated and under-discussed, so he's invited William Bruce West and David May to watch and talk about it. The movie stars Loretta Devine, Delroy Lindo, Idris Elba, Regina King, Keith D Robinson, Mekhi Phifer, and others as members of a family coming together for the holidays after a few years apart and everyone has secrets. Shhh!

Michael and Rob welcome Sue London and Michael DiGiovanni to come help build a cinematic multiverse out of our favorite Christmas specials. We've assigned each other a couple of specials each to crossover, then once we've revealed our mashups, we work together to create an Avengers-style feature combining all eight of the original ideas. It's nice, it's occasionally naughty, but most of all it's fun. Merry Christmas!

In the first part of a sort of crossover with the Advent Calendar House podcast, Mike Westfall joins Michael and Rob to talk about an unusual version of A Christmas Carol. From CBS's 1954 anthology variety show, Shower of Stars, it features Fredric March as Scrooge, Basil Rathbone as Marley, and bunch of questionable songs. And be sure to tune in next Sunday to ACH for Part Two in which Michael and Rob will join Mike to discuss another musical Christmas Carol, 2004's A Christmas Carol: The Musical starring Kelsey Grammer, Jason Alexander, Jane Krakowski, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Jesse L Martin, and Geraldine Chaplin.