Reel Deep Dive

Reel Deep Dive

By Ryan ValentineArtsPerforming Arts
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Reel Deep Dive episodes

  • Mortal Kombat (1995)

    One of the most prominent subgenres in action cinema is the "tournament movie": this is a film where the protagonist enters a fighting contest where they battle a series of incrementally more powerful opponents before facing off against the main villain at the climax. While effective in popular movies like Enter the Dragon (1973) and Bloodsport (1988), this structure might be even more suitable to the medium of video games. Mega-popular game franchises like Street Fighter (1987) and Mortal Kombat (1992) make strong use of the tournament movie template.


    This episode of Reel Deep Dive explores the 1995 attempt to take Mortal Kombat, a video game spawned from an attempt to tie into a Jean Claude Van Damme movie, and reverse engineer it into its own tournament movie. Joining Ryan is Peter Cronan, host of the Fearless Films podcast. Together, they'll discuss Mortal Kombat's threadbare plot, cheeseball special effects, clunky acting, appropriation of Eastern philosophy, use of techno music, and (admittedly pretty cool) fight choreography. The themes of this dialogue include the history of video game censorship (and how it parallels movie censorship), the issue of adapting a gory, exploitative, and trashy game franchise into a PG-13 movie that parents could take a 10-year-old to, and Mortal Kombat's curious legacy as a 90's camp "classic". 

    50 min
  • Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse (2018)

    For this episode, we're taking the 2018 animated superhero hit and using it to examine the techniques of animation, the limits of heroic narrative, and how the monomyth template of Joseph Campbell is used by Hollywood screenwriters.


    And, since this is a kid's movie, Ryan is joined by his nine year old nephew Toby (who struggles with the audio equipment somewhat). Ryan's a cynical old nerd who overanalyzes everything (hence this show's existence), but Toby's smack dab in the midst of the demo that this type of film is marketed to; grabbing a bit of his perspective  is something this program believes to be worthwhile.

    50 min
  • The Mark of Zorro (1920)

    Not every fictional character has the longevity of Sherlock Holmes, Hercules, or Dracula. Some popular figures fade to the position where most people seem to vaguely know who they are without anyone seeming to give a damn about them. Such is the fate of Zorro, the proto-superhero who fights for justice in colonial-era California.


    For this episode, Ryan digs into the 1920 silent action film that put Zorro on the map while cementing star Douglas Fairbanks as the archetypal costumed swashbuckler. Talking points include the movie's cinematography, its pioneering stunts, the nature of its source material, and why Zorro got supplanted in the popular imagination by imitators like Batman.

    14 min
  • Citizen Kane (1941)

    The first episode of a podcast usually involves people struggling with the audio equipment (and there's some of that here). So, with that in mind, it's probably unfair to expect the maiden voyage of a movie podcast to have a firm sense of identity in place.


    Knowing that we're still figuring things out, we thought that we'd start things off with the simple topic of what's allegedly the greatest film of all time (insert sarcasm gif here).

    Join Ryan Valentine and Rachel Bolton as they deconstruct Orson Welles' 1941 magnum opus. Talking points will include Citizen Kane's many technical innovations, the most prominent thematic motifs of the story, the debatable utility of labels like "greatest of all time", and how President Donald Trump claims to love this movie while missing the central irony of a guy like him doing so.

    29 min

About Reel Deep Dive

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Does the world really need yet another movie podcast?