Brainwaves

Christmas is officially here, and Jason’s making up for the holiday season he missed while filming in Tokyo. Barry makes his case that Trading Places is the Christmas movie that should’ve replaced Die Hard, and Jason shares what it was like filming the Roku Christmas movie How to Fall in Love by Christmas with Teri Hatcher… on roller skates.

Plus, why Bill Murray’s Scrooged still holds up, the surprisingly heavy Saved by the Bell “Home for Christmas” two-parter, Seth Rogen’s The Night Before, the He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special, and the Batman: The Animated Series classic “Christmas with the Joker.”

What’s your forgotten Christmas classic? Let us know, and catch the full video episode on YouTube at @thebrainwavespodcast.

0:00 Cold open
0:20 Kicking off the holiday season
1:22 Trading Places (the new Die Hard?)
4:22 How to Fall in Love by Christmas
6:28 Scrooged
8:35 Saved by the Bell: Home for Christmas
11:38 The Night Before
13:48 He-Man & She-Ra: A Christmas Special
15:14 Batman: The Animated Series & Batman Returns
16:00 Wrapping up the holiday picks

Brainwaves: Two brains. One frequency.
Jason Reilly & Barry Nixon · brainwavespod.ca

A day or two after we recorded last week, we learned we’d lost our captain. This week Barry and Jason sit down to pay proper tribute to Sir Patrick Stewart, the man who gave us Jean-Luc Picard, and Professor X too.

We walk through the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes and films that show his full range, from the quiet heartbreak of The Inner Light to the courtroom fire of The Drumhead. On the TV side: Allegiance, The Inner Light, Tapestry, Family, The Drumhead, and Sarek. And on the big screen: Logan, X-Men, Star Trek Generations, and X-Men: Days of Future Past.

There will be no one else like him. Thanks for listening, and we’d love to hear your favorite Picard moment.

Brainwaves with Jason and Barry. New episodes weekly.

How much blood is too much? Jason and Barry get into the goriest moments in movies, from DC's brutal new Clayface (2026) to Kill Bill, Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and American Psycho, and go to war over where great filmmaking ends and gratuitous gore begins.

They break down the eyeball-and-guts overload of Clayface, why Tarantino makes violence feel like art, the Reservoir Dogs ear scene that still makes them squirm, and the American Psycho horror that lives entirely in your head. Is there a line, and who gets to draw it?

Timestamps:

0:00 A Scene You Won't Unsee

0:44 Clayface (2026): Is DC's New Horror Too Much?

5:59 Guts, Eyeballs & Gratuitous Gore

11:45 The Kill Bill Sword Fight: Gore Done Right

12:39 Tarantino & Pulp Fiction's Shock Moment

13:38 Reservoir Dogs & the Ear Scene

14:49 American Psycho: The Horror in Your Head

16:04 Where's the Line? Realism vs Cartoon Violence

17:05 Final Thoughts

Enjoying the show? Follow Brainwaves and leave a quick rating, it genuinely helps new listeners find us. And tell us your pick: what's the goriest movie you secretly love?

New episode every week.

What makes a movie so good you can only watch it once? Barry and Jason dig into the masterpieces that are too powerful, too disturbing, or too devastating to ever put on again.

The Silence of the Lambs, so creepy Barry can't watch it with headphones on. Schindler's List and Saving Private Ryan, Spielberg at his most unflinching. Requiem for a Dream and Black Swan, Darren Aronofsky's descents into hell. The Passion of the Christ, The Road, and the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. All brilliant. All unforgettable. All films you watch once, feel wrecked by, and swear you'll never sit through again.

What's your "one and done" movie? The one you loved but can never rewatch?

Brainwaves with Jason and Barry. Two GenX guys figuring out midlife one pointless debate at a time.

Freddy, Jason, or Michael Myers, who reigns supreme? Just in time for Halloween, Barry and Jason rank the greatest horror franchises and the movies that still scare them senseless.

They get into A Nightmare on Elm Street 2 in glorious 4K, why The Silence of the Lambs is still too creepy to watch with the headphones on, the pure nightmare fuel of Longlegs and Weapons, the gloriously bad Leprechaun series (yes, the one with baby Jennifer Aniston), and the eternal debate: Nightmare vs Friday the 13th vs Halloween. Plus Barry's doomed Indiana Jones costume and the designer who gave him nightmares of her own.

What's the horror franchise you'd crown number one?

Brainwaves with Jason and Barry. Two guys figuring out midlife one pointless debate at a time. New episodes weekly.

Tom Cruise just had the lowest-grossing opening weekend of his entire career with his bizarre new movie Digger, so naturally, Barry loved it. While critics and audiences stayed away, Barry is convinced it's a secretly brilliant, two-twist masterpiece (and so is Guillermo del Toro, apparently). Jason is pretty sure Barry just talked himself into it.

Then the real debate: the two of them count down their all-time favorite Tom Cruise movies. Minority Report, A Few Good Men, Magnolia, Jerry Maguire, Top Gun: Maverick, Collateral, Rain Man, and the great Mission: Impossible question, which entry reigns supreme? From Risky Business to the latest death-defying stunt, they go deep on the most bankable movie star alive, Scientology couch-jumping and all.

What's your number one Tom Cruise movie?

Brainwaves with Jason and Barry. Two guys figuring out midlife one pointless debate at a time. New episodes weekly.

Two GenX guys go down concert memory lane, the legendary shows, the epic letdowns, and the bands that defined a generation.

Jason relives seeing Guns N' Roses in 1992 at the absolute height of their fame, with Metallica as the opening act and Faith No More, right after the infamous Montreal riot. Barry recounts the underwhelming "karaoke" Sex Pistols reunion (surviving members, a fill-in singer, they left early), the electric energy of The Offspring playing Ixnay on the Hombre front to back, and an unforgettable R.E.M. show with Michael Stipe as the ultimate showman.

Plus Bon Jovi in the snow, Mötley Crüe, Madonna, Bad Religion, and the great R.E.M. debate: Jason has never liked them, and Barry is determined to change that.

The shows we'll never forget, and a couple we'd like to.

What's the best concert you ever saw?

Brainwaves with Jason and Barry. Two guys figuring out midlife one pointless debate at a time. New episodes weekly.

Last week it was regrets. This week, the opposite: the purchases Barry and Jason treasure most and would never, ever sell.

Barry shows off his ultra-rare Ghostbusters "ghost trap" trilogy set and his out-of-print Conan Chronicles. Jason makes the case for the Batman four-film collection that looks and sounds stunning even when the movie is near unwatchable, the Mad Max set built around the masterpiece that is Fury Road, and a decade-old Real Ghostbusters cartoon set that somehow survived a stint in his backyard shed.

Two collectors who buy to keep, not to flip, and the stories behind the discs that matter most.

Which one would you save from a fire?

Brainwaves with Jason and Barry. Two guys figuring out midlife one pointless debate at a time. New episodes weekly.

Ever bought a Blu-ray you instantly regretted? Barry and Jason come clean about their worst physical media purchases, the 4K discs, steelbooks, and Arrow releases they should have left on the shelf.

Jason confesses to the Spawn Arrow release (a near-unwatchable movie with no disc swag), the Last of Us steelbook he'll never rewatch, and $750 worth of giant collectible Marvel comic reprints too big to even fit on a shelf. Barry owns up to the Welcome to Derry steelbook, Shin Godzilla (all shin, no Godzilla), an $18 clam chowder gone wrong, and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Double Black that smelled like a burning campfire.

Plus the golden rule they're swearing by: never buy a TV series in 4K (with two Star Trek exceptions), and never, ever buy anything sight unseen.

What's the purchase you regret most?

Brainwaves with Jason and Barry. Two guys figuring out midlife one pointless debate at a time. New episodes weekly.

Star Trek turns 60, and two lifelong Trekkies celebrate the only way they know how: ranking the series, defending their favorites, and arguing about where it all went wrong.

Barry and Jason go deep on The Next Generation (their shared number one), Deep Space Nine and the Dominion War, and why Strange New Worlds lost the plot with the Muppet and musical episodes. Plus the deep cuts only real fans remember, Wrath of Khan vs Star Trek VI, Christopher Plummer's all-time great villain, why there's still no Next Generation in 4K, the Enterprise theme song debate, and a Star Trek comics rabbit hole.

From Spock to Picard to Captain Pike, 60 years of Trek in one very nerdy conversation.

What's your favorite Star Trek series?

Brainwaves with Jason and Barry. Two guys figuring out midlife one pointless debate at a time. New episodes weekly.