Book Retorts

To kick-off the new year Sam brings the 1990 Stuart Gordon mech fighting film Robot Jox! Welcome to the distant future, post World War III, where war has been outlawed, somehow. Instead, the world has decided the more sensible way to settle international disputes is via single combat in mechs. While undoubtedly cool as heck, Sam has several issues with the concept on a practical level. The capitalist Market is locked in a perpetual battle with the communist Confederation. The latest battle is for control of Alaska, but when an errant rocket fist leads to the accidental death of hundreds of spectators (why are there spectators?!), Achilles, the hero of the Market, hangs up his robot gloves and retires. This makes room for the genetically engineered super soldiers to step-up to the fight, but there’s only one problem: Achilles has the hots for one of them by the name of Athena. This leads to the most pressing question about this movie: Is it clever satire, or just another sexist 80’s flick? We may not have an answer to that, but we do know this movie has kick-butt robot fights, so that’s worth something for sure. So join us for some good ol’ fashioned, Cold War 80’s action!

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

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Sam’s back with another game for Danielle which he calls: What’s in a Name? Sam wants to take a moment to look back on some of the not terrible things that happened in 2021, so he pulls four books that were published that year and, using only the titles and author names, asks Danielle to guess the plots of those books. Danielle does remarkably well, and may even have improved on one book, but the real winner is all of us for learning about some new things to possibly read, and some fun alternate plots. So join us for another fun game to ring in the new year!

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

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This week Danielle gets her revenge on Sam by asking him to recap the previous Winter Bizarre episode Snowmageddon. Listen as Sam remembers a series of non-snow related disasters, but literally nothing else that happens in this SyFy movie. While his recall fails, Sam does take the opportunity to accidentally make Snowmageddon a better movie by misremembering events as being more exciting than they actually were. Is his half-remembered version better than the original? You decide!

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

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Partial Recall is back! This week Sam challenges Danielle to recap the recent Spook Retorts episode about the movie Wolves. While Danielle does admirably well on the start of the plot, when it comes to the character names, especially the “Three C’s” she just can’t seem to get it right. So join us for this not-too-distant trip back into our catalogue!

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

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For part two of this year’s Winter Bizarre Danielle brings the third installment of the Netflix film series with The Princess Switch 3: Romancing the Star. Margaret is the queen of the small European country of Montenaro who happens to have two identical doppelgängers: Former Chicago baker now princess Stacy and Fiona, her cousin and former kidnapper of Stacy. Montenaro is hosting an international Christmas festival (which is, apparently, a thing) and the Vatican has loaned them the Star of Peace, a relic belonging to St. Nicholas. Due to security that can charitably be described as “utter clown shoes” the star is immediately stolen. Under the threat of excommunication, Margaret commutes her felonious cousin’s sentence so she can tap her criminal network to track down the star. Fiona puts her large network of one person to work and identifies that the star is being held by a nefarious hotelier. Instead of informing Interpol—who are investigating—of this development, Marget, Fiona, and Stacy plan a comically amateur heist that involves flirtation, sexy laser dancing, and, of course, lots of switching. The consequences for failure are almost certainly death at the hands of the villainous hotelier, which Sam thinks is a fair bit worse than excommunication for not heisting the star back. Throughout all of this, Sam has serious questions on the state of the Montenaro monarchy, which seems rife with nepotism, incompetence, and princess switching. Despite that, Danielle and Sam come up with a pretty good pitch for The Princess Switch 4, so Netflix, if you’re listening, call us!

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

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Even though we have a short episode today, Danielle couldn’t resist sharing the very weird 2015 cross-over comic Archie vs. Predator. Yes, that Archie, of comic and cartoons fame, meets the alien hunter and, spoiler, things do not go well for him and his friends. There’s not much more that needs to be said here, this is one that can only be even marginally understood by experiencing it.

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

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If you like our content and want more of it, please consider supporting us on Patreon.

Sam kicks-off this year’s Winter Bizarre with 2013 ABC Family/WWE made for TV movie Christmas Bounty. Tory Bell is an average private elementary school teacher living in Manhattan and dating a handsome, wealthy man named James. All this changes when she gets a mysterious phone call from a gangster threatening her for putting him in jail years ago. So Tory bails on her boyfriend to return to New Jersey to seek the help of her family, all of whom are bounty hunters, to bring this gangster back to justice. This includes working with her ex-bounty hunter partner and former boyfriend Mikey Muscles (a.k.a. Beefcake). Somehow, this family of professional bounty hunters cook up the dumbest plan, which involves finding someone named Big Donna at a mall and putting a brick-sized GPS tracker in her purse. Against all reason, this works and they find the gangster in the only location this movie seems to have paid for: A dingy warehouse. Through a series of circumstance too contrived to relate, James shows up in this warehouse, and Tory scrambles to hide her bounty hunter past from him, for some reason. Eventually, after a shootout at a Christmas tree lot (yes, really) James is kidnapped and Tory must risk crashing a mob wedding to save him. Also, this whole time Mikey Muscles has been pursing Tory, never having gotten over her, even though she’s dating what is possibly the best man in the world. It’s no spoiler to say Tory returns to her small-town roots and boyfriend, though what is a surprise is that she does this in just the worst way imaginable. James, we’re sorry, you’re a prince and you deserve better.

Be sure to check out the Mind Duck Books podcast on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

For more delightful weirdness, follow us on Bluesky or YouTube.

If you like our content and want more of it, please consider supporting us on Patreon.

It’s that time of year again where Danielle and Sam share the media and tropes they are thankful for. This year Sam has a special gift for the world: The word “thanker”. You’re welcome, world.

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

For more delightful weirdness, follow us on Bluesky or YouTube.

If you like our content and want more of it, please consider supporting us on Patreon.

As they gear up for the holidays and their annual Winter Bizarre, Danielle and Sam are dropping some shorts so they don’t explode from being too busy. So enjoy as Sam puts Danielle through the horrors of a new game show he calls “We know your thoughts, but what do they think?” Which, aside from being just super catchy title, Danielle finds less challenge in the game itself and more in just remembering any of the titles for the media they’ve done on this show.

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

For more delightful weirdness, follow us on Bluesky or YouTube.

If you like our content and want more of it, please consider supporting us on Patreon.

This week Danielle brings the 2011 Jessica Park novel Flat-Out Love. Julie is a typical teen moving to Boston to start school. Somehow, her plan to rent an apartment sight unseen turns out to be a scam, and she goes to stay with some family friends. Julie quickly starts inserting herself into everyone else’s business. Not that there isn’t business to get into, what with the youngest daughter carrying around a cardboard cutout of the eldest brother, Finn, since he’s traveling in Africa. Meanwhile, the parents are totally checked-out and most of the responsibility of taking care of Celeste falls to their middle, college-aged son, Matt. Everyone refuses to tell Julie anything about why Celeste needs Flatt Finn, and Matt tells her to leave it alone, but leaving things alone is beyond Julie. She starts talking to human Finn on Facebook, but he is equally unhelpful. Meanwhile, Julie decides to mess with Celeste by using Flat Finn to manipulate her into doing things outside of her comfort zone. After some confusing shenanigans involving a fear of heights, or possibly just escalators and elevators, Julie dumps her perfectly nice barista boyfriend because she’s falling in love with Finn on Facebook, something which is clearly a good idea. However, the family’s big secret around Flatt Finn will shake Julie to her core, only not really since it’s pretty obvious and also not really terrible or shameful, but since everyone in this book kinda sucks (except Celeste and Flatt Finn, who only gets a pass because he’s cardboard) there is, of course, drama. So join us for a book that begs the question: Why are there two more sequels, and when can we read them?

Be sure to check out I Drink Your Podcast, especially the Into the Wild episode featuring Danielle. You can find them on Twitter @IDYP_Podcast, Instagram @idyp_podcast, and listen wherever you get your podcasts.

Theme: Earning Happiness by John Bartmann.

For more delightful weirdness, follow us on Bluesky or YouTube.

If you like our content and want more of it, please consider supporting us on Patreon.