Matinee Manatees

"Idiocracy" is 20 years old THIS MONTH! Anyone else know this one?

A textbook "cult classic", Idiocracy made less than half a million dollars when it was first released in 2006, but it's seen been hailed by some as not only an insightful comedy but a terrifyingly prescient prediction of modern society's downfall. But does it hold up? Float along with the manatees as they get waaaay more political than usual. The fed rolled back protections for wild manatees this last month and we're mad! Skip this one if you're already saturated with mentions of current societal problems, but otherwise float along with the manatees as they discuss the classics, like: how much of this has actually already happened? Is President Camacho even a bad president, really? Is this scenario possible without some kinda Morlock situation going on? And, does anybody still think IQ actually means anything? (One of the manatees has tested higher than Einstein and is living proof that, no, it doesn't.)

(Spotify for Podcasts is such a bad service that they've now taken to re-flagging episodes they've already flagged that have already been explicitly cleared of copyright violation by both their own investigation and the copyright holder himself. We're looking into returning to libysn as quickly as possible. Anchor.fm was good, spotify bought it, it is no longer good.)

Sometimes you just wanna watch an old favorite, you know? For us, that's Paul Verhoeven's 1987 genre-making classic, Robocop. Starring Peter Weller and Kurtwood Smith and made for a much smaller budget than you'd think, Robocop's a slim hundred minute satire of US corporatism and creates one of the most iconic characters in American sci-fi.

Set in the near future, Robcop contemplates an unthinkable world where an enormous corporation is endeavoring to gentrify major urban areas and replace human workers with AI, set against a backdrop of increasingly militarized police and privatized public services. Can you imagine?

Float along with the manatees as they enjoy this old favorite once again, snark about modern politics, and of course discuss child-rearing and the appropriate age at which ultra-violence can help a child be better adjusted, among other important topics. Float along and have a watch, it's Robocop.

(Spotify For Podcasts is such a bad service they've taken to taking down episodes that were already explicitly cleared of copyright infringement by both the podcaster and the copyright holder. We are looking into switching back to libsyn as soon as feasible.)

It's a Patreon poll winner! Well, technically, it tied, but this was the one that didn't have subtitles, so, same same. Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) was a commercial flop, but will it perform better with an aquatic audience than it did with land-based audiences? Do you need to have seen Jacques Cousteau's films to get the jokes? What the heck is an IMU? These and others are the questions that, uh, we ask, while, you know, watching this movie. And talking about it. On a podcast.

Sometimes you just wanna watch an old favorite, you know? For us, that's Paul Verhoeven's 1987 genre-making classic, Robocop. Starring Peter Weller and Kurtwood Smith and made for a much smaller budget than you'd think, Robocop's a slim hundred minute satire of US corporatism and creates one of the most iconic characters in American sci-fi.

Set in the near future, Robcop contemplates an unthinkable world where an enormous corporation is endeavoring to gentrify major urban areas and replace human workers with AI, set against a backdrop of increasingly militarized police and privatized public services. Can you imagine?

Float along with the manatees as they enjoy this old favorite once again, snark about modern politics, and of course discuss child-rearing and the appropriate age at which ultra-violence can help a child be better adjusted, among other important topics. Float along and have a watch, it's Robocop.

(Originally published in April; get your stuff together, Spotify. Anchor never pulled stuff like this.)

It's a Patreon poll winner! Well, technically, it tied, but this was the one that didn't have subtitles, so, same same.

Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) was a commercial flop, but will it perform better with an aquatic audience than it did with land-based audiences? Do you need to have seen Jacques Cousteau's films to get the jokes? What the heck is an IMU?

These and others are the questions that, uh, we ask, while, you know, watching this movie. And talking about it. On a podcast.

It's a Patreon poll winner! Well, technically, it tied, but this was the one that didn't have subtitles, so, same same. Wes Anderson's The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (2004) was a commercial flop, but will it perform better with an aquatic audience than it did with land-based audiences? Do you need to have seen Jacques Cousteau's films to get the jokes? What the heck is an IMU? These and others are the questions that, uh, we ask, while, you know, watching this movie. And talking about it. On a podcast.

This time we're delving into the... is it alright to call it a cult classic? The reviled-in-it's-theatrical-cut-but-beloved-in-it's-director's-cut-version Ridley Scott epic, Kingdom of Heaven, form 2005, starring Orlando Bloom and Eva Green. A period drama about the crusades, Kingdom of Heaven tells the story of a guy who's somehow just a bit better at everything than everybody else who shows up in the middle of a bunch of crazy religious people and is asked to fix everything and then angrily ignored until it's unsalvageable. As a relatively lucid American living through the early 21st century, I have never felt more seen. Put your parallel-recognizin' hats on and float along with us, will you?

Short answer, our episodes keep getting taken down for copyright infringement until we challenge the decision and are allowed to reupload them. Hope it's not messing with your feed too much! New episode coming tomorrow.

Matinee Manatees is taking a stand: if they can play carols during October, we can watch spooky movies in December! We go back to the Halloween season well with Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" from 1992, the movie that dares to ask: just how horny can a person get before the rest of us need to cut their head off? Turns out: very. Float along with the manatees through OCEANS OF TIME as they ask the important questions, like: do vampires just really like empires in decline? What season did the Simpsons really jump the shark? And, of course, could Dracula run a successful mayoral campaign in the contemporary US? They also talk about the movie. You know, a little.

REUPLOAD! (There was an issue with the episode art, apologies.)

It's October again, and you know what that means: spooky movies! Or at least, movies we think are going to be spooky until we actually watch them. This month, we checked out Roger Corman's "Frankenstein Unbound" from 1990, starring friends of the show William Hurt and Raul Julia. A bizarre mashup of Frankenstein, Back to the Future, Knight Rider, and Army of Darkness, and starring some of our favorite actors, we were shocked that we hadn't heard of this movie before. Until we saw it. Then it kinda made sense.

Float along with the manatees as they discuss paradoxes, an embarrassingly outdated understanding of neurology, and what is and isn't an acceptable way to treat a car, and whether or not this should have been an episode of Star Trek. Don't worry, it's not actually all that scary (although definitely watch the movie in question first if you plan on showing it to any kids).