Afterthoughts

It's an anime-heavy Recommend or Refute this week. Ryan breaks down the laboriously titled Mobile Suit Gundam: The Witch from Mercury (2022), Dixon discusses the Robert Altman comedy classic M*A*S*H (1970), and John talks about the American dub of the Japanese anime Kureyon Shin-chan (2006).

This week we're embarking on a journey into the subconscious dream space of David Lynch. Join us as we attempt to decipher one of the great cinematic masterworks of the 21st century, Mulholland Drive (2001).

We've got the whole crew back in the studio this week. John breaks down 2010: The Year We Make Contact (1984), the overlooked sequel to Kubrick's groundbreaking masterpiece. Ryan revisits a controversial childhood movie with Steven Spielberg's Hook (1991), and Dixon Kelly Reichardt's latest indie dramedy Showing Up (2023).

DISCLAIMER: This episode contains the sound effect used from the film to render tinnitus, it's only used in the opening trailer clip used. If you are sensitive to this sound, skip to timecode 1:46 to bypass it.

On this episode of Afterthoughts, Ryan, John, and Dixon talk about the existential dread of loss, grief, and change endured in Sound of Metal (2019). We could make some puns about high notes, low notes, and resonation, but... c'mon, that's poor form for this subject matter. Speaking of poor form, John started learning ASL and he's going to attempt to share some of what he learned on the podcast. He doesn't quite grasp that it's an audible medium, not a visual one, but we humored him.

Auto-generated transcript provided by sub-par AI techniques. Apologies to our deaf and hearing-impaired audience --an attempt was made to accommodate. If there are tools better suited for this that won't break the bank, please send us more info at [email protected]

John and Ryan are joined again by special guests Jimmy & Erika for an animation heavy Recommend or Refute episode. Do the new animated offerings of 2023 like Ruby Gillman: Teenage Kraken and Nimona serve up anything worth watching? Has John fallen off the "good movies" wagon this early with his submission of The Bees? All of these questions and a Nostradamus-inspired recommend from Jimmy are ready for your eager ears in this episode of RoR!

After 20 years of production, The Venture Bros. series has been capped off with Radiant is the Blood of the Baboon Heart (2023). Never heard of the Venture Bros.? Wondering if you should watch through the Venture Bros.? John and Ryan --joined by new guests Jimmy and Erika-- celebrate the series, review the new movie, and hopefully give you the itch to dive in yourself and see what it's all about.

On this episode of Recommend or Refute, John tells us a story about the unhinged Little Red Riding Hood movie Freeway (1996), Ryan admirably manages to make zero in-law jokes during his review of the new comedy The Out-laws (2023), and Dixon fans the flames of interest around Robert Bresson's The Trial of Joan of Arc (1962).

This week we're discussing the incredibly timely sci-fi film The Congress (2013), in which Robin Wright, playing herself, is faced with the choice of whether to sell her likeness to a Hollywood studio that will use it to make artificially generated movies. Sound familiar? Ari Folman's prescient work also explores drug use, virtual reality, and class division in a society crumbling under late stage capitalism. Join John, Dixon, and Ryan as they embark on this trippy animated journey into the not so distant future.

We've got a stacked Recommend or Refute episode this week. Ryan talks about his family's experience watching the David Bowie puppet movie Labyrinth (1986), Dixon stays in the western genre with John Ford's epic masterpiece The Searchers (1956), and John finally dives back into the wild world of David Lynch with Twin Peaks (1990).

On this week's episode, John, Dixon, and Ryan are riding through your town to fuck shit up and rain down unholy vengeance upon your sinful head as they discuss Clint Eastwood's classic dark western HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER (1973) and the evolution of the western genre that began so innocently once upon a time.