Read it and Weep

Look, if you’re shipwrecked on an island since childhood with just your cousin, then it’s okay to have sex, right? That’s the premise of The Blue Lagoon, the execution of one filmmaker’s cousin-fantasy. Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins are those 14-year-old cousins and they spend most of the movie naked (though they used body doubles, they swear). Despite it being a sex movie, it’s actually pretty boring. And of course, casually racist. But we find a way to enjoy talking about it because it’s wet, and for #WetMonth, that’s all we ask.

Thanks to our newest Meat Buddies Lala from Baltimore, Stacey from San Diego, and GRAY-em Mc-RAY from Palmdale, California!

GET WET STAY WET, everybody.

Captain Jack Sparrow is back on the high seas with more elaborate set pieces, sexual innuendo, and a drinking problem that is getting less charming and more seriously worrisome. In Pirates of the Caribbean 5: Deadmen Tell No Tales, a zombie franchise stumbles through a convoluted story about pirate ghosts and Greek gods. It’s not great, but it’s also still kinda fun and definitely better than the last two, so set your expectations accordingly and you may be entertained.

Also this week we dove into #WetMonth with a very special panel discussion of News of Wetness about Shark Week, Will Smith’s heirs, and the moon!

Thanks to our newest Meat Buddies Heidi Fiedler, Megan from Kansas City, and Clare from Windsor, CT!

GET WET STAY WET

It’s time to get wet and stay wet once again, Meat Suits! Wet Month is back and we’re putting on our monoflippers to kick it off in style with the 80s mermaid classic Splash.

Splash follows Tom Hanks and his pervert brother John Candy who can’t seem to find love. But Tom meets the woman of his dreams, a naked, mute Daryl Hannah who turns into a mermaid when she gets wet.

Despite some weird sex stuff with John Candy, it actually holds up super well and our diminutive panel had a great time watching it and discussing it.

Thanks to our newest Meat Buddies David Webster and Sean Campbell!

Happy Wet Month, everybody! GET WET STAY WET

Holy dinosaurs, you guys. We somehow have put out 400 episodes of this show. Even if you don’t think the content is good, we’re impressive by volume.

For this momentous occasion, we got the original team back together and capped off Revisit Month by re-reading the book that started it all, Twilight by Stephanie Meyer. Have our opinions changed? Have we gotten softer? Were we… wrong? FIND OUT.

And on a personal note, I can’t thank you enough for listening to this show. It’s been a weird and wonderful eight years, and I’m so excited to keep working on making it better. And the reason I can do that is because of you. Whether you donate or comment a bunch or are just a lurker, I appreciate you. Thank you.

Thank you to our newest Meat Buddies Michelle Saint and Joanna Bernat!

For part three of our Revisit Month, the Meat Buddies chose for us to rewatch Battlefield Earth. The year was 2000 and to celebrate the new willenium, John Travolta made a vanity picture adaptation of the terrible science fiction novel by his friend L. Ron Howard. The movie wasn’t just a huge flop, it was also a huge financial fraud that caused the production company’s bankruptcy.

The rewatch really didn’t have a big change for us. We didn’t like it the first time, we still didn’t like it this time. Although sitting through it a second time allowed us to notice small things like how sad the horses must be because the #horsefuture doesn’t seem very bright.

Thanks to our newest Meat Buddy Julie Heilman!

Revisit Month continues with a return to our very first sponsored Topic. Wild Animus is a book that nobody wants to buy, but thanks to Rich Shapero giving away hundreds of thousands of copies, many people have touched it. And it’s touched us; hundreds of episodes later, it’s still one of the most painful books we’ve ever read.

This time around we’ve got a slightly different panel that offers a very different take. Well, we all still hate it, but this time at least we had one guest who’s tried acid.

To jog your memory: Ransome is a the self-named main character who does acid and runs around Alaska pretending to be a sheep until he dies. His girlfriend pays for all of this by working two jobs. And we pay for all of it with 10 hours of our lives lost FOR A SECOND TIME.

Bonus: Here’s the 5-star review I wrote on Aminazon last time around.

Thanks to our newest Meat Buddy Professor Games!

Back in 2012 we reviewed a weird fan-fic documentary about the then-scariest reality TV star / politician Sarah Palin. It was created by then-unknown evil mastermind Steve Bannon. Oh how much has changed.

To kickoff Revisit Month, and our 8-year anniversary month, we’re going back to The Undefeated to see if (a) Sarah Palin remained undefeated and (b) if your opinions about her have changed since then.

In short, they have, though not necessarily for the better. And our opinion of this unbelievably bad film-making by Bannon hasn’t changed at all. Oh man it’s bad.

Periodically I like to check in and see what Ezra’s son Caleb is watching. He’s my real barometer of the 5-and-order crowd. But this time I wanted to get a second opinion, so I asked my friend Tyler Boeh what HIS son was watching, and low-and-behold both little ones are into Bubble Guppies, which means it has to be good.

And it kinda is! I’m sure some parents are sick of it, but as a non-parent just watching a few, I was surprised at how much I liked it. The songs are too long and overly produced, but they’re also really catchy and the educational value is modest but real.

I had jury duty this week, so I made everybody watch my favorite episodic background show Law & Order. Not SVU, the one with all the oogie stuff. Not any of the other numerous spinoffs in the Dick Wolfiverse. Just plain law and normal order.

I love this show for reasons I can’t quite explain, but mostly it’s the competence porn. I love watching people who care about stuff doing it very well. And that’s what L&O is about. I also love great acting, different twists on a predictable theme, and shows that portray comedy club owners as monsters.

I also had RiaW favorite Amanda on the show because she knows lots and lots about forensics.

Nobody likes the new The Mummy movie starring Tom Cruise. Well, nobody but Alex, who loves it. While he plants his chair firmly on the wrong side of history, everybody else discusses what they didn’t love about it: it feels disjointed, trying too hard to make a cinematic universe, Tom Cruise is too old to play a pervy 30-year-old dickhead.

It’s a fun conversation about this show’s favorite thing, mummies. Speaking of which, this week’s episode is sponsored by Unwrap My Heart, the novel we wrote about mummies and romantic stuff. Buy it now!