The Review Show

It's episode 100! We tried a new and special format for this episode. We challenged ourselves to a debate about one of our favorite story genres and asked, what is the best superhero movie? Kyle's champion: The Russo Brothers' Captain America: The Winter Soldier. Melissa's champion: Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2. Two humble New York boys face off! We discuss the strengths and flaws of both movies, how they fit into the larger superhero movie canon, and how they make us feel like we could be heroes. Thanks for coming along with us on this podcast journey these past two years!

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Episode 99. This week we watched the true sports story Remember the Titans. Melissa had never seen it before, and Kyle had seen it dozens of times, since he's from the location of this story and it mentions his own high school! The year is 1970 and two segregated schools are integrating and forming a new football team. The coach is determined to make this the best season possible, no matter how tough he has to be, and team harmony is his top goal. Boys of all different backgrounds need to come together and be friends as well as athletes if they want to make their new school a success.

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Episode 98. We're taking our first good look at X-Men this week and reading the 2012 graphic novel X-Men: Season One, from writer Dennis Hopeless and artist Jamie McKelvie. In this contemporary re-telling of the original comics, teenage telekinetic Jean Gray is upset about leaving her normal home and school behind to live at Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. She doesn't want to be trained for battle, even if it is to help mankind and show them that mutants can be heroes. It's also stressful being the new kid and the only girl on the team. Jean, Cyclops, Angel, Iceman, and Beast are learning to be heroes and successful young adults in this great intro book for new X-Men fans!

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Episode 97. We both watched season one of the Amazon Prime comic book comedy The Tick, and Kyle got confused and also watched season two! As a kid, Arthur witnessed a terrible superhero fight that not only claimed the lives of the heroes and villain involved, but also killed his innocent bystander father. As an adult, he's haunted by that trauma and convinced that villain The Terror faked his death and is still secretly controlling the criminal underground. A mysterious but earnest new superhero called The Tick encourages Arthur to team up with him and finally defeat The Terror, saying that destiny is calling them to greatness. Can this bewildered partnership convince a city that their greatest threat is making a comeback?

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Episode 96. We're back with another episode of our ongoing monthly series covering The Venture Bros, now discussing seasons 3 and 4. Newlyweds The Monarch and Dr. Mrs. The Monarch are learning to be a successful criminal couple as she encourages him to pick a different arch nemesis. The Venture family find themselves under attack from new villains rising to fill the gap The Monarch has left in their lives. Dean is still harboring a crush on Triana, and Hank makes his first normal teenage friend in a surly local boy named Dermott, who may be already have ties to the family. Meanwhile, Phantom Limb still lurks in the shadows, plotting his revenge.

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Episode 95. This week, Ignacio from Crossplay joins Kyle and Melissa to discuss the 2016 anime film Your Name. Taki and Mitsuha are a teenage boy and girl leading different lives in different parts of Japan, with no idea that the other person exists. They find themselves experiencing vivid dreams of living another life and discover that these dreams are real -- they've been switching bodies at random! The two leave notes to get to know each other and figure out this strange connection they've established. But when the connection is severed, the two go on an incredible heart-wrenching journey to find each other again and meet in person for the first time.

Episode 94. This week we watched Wes Anderson's 2012 feature Moonrise Kingdom. It's 1965 in a small island town off the eastern US coast. Sam and Suzy are two troubled youths who fall in love through pen pal letters and decide to run away together, prepared with little more than Sam's scouting knowledge of the island. But they're being pursued by every adult they know, plus Sam's entire scout troop, armed with the same tracking skills. This island is preparing itself for the storm of the century, figuratively and literally.

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Episode 93. This week we read the first two volumes of Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodríguez's comic Locke & Key, soon to be a Netflix series! After their father is brutally murdered in a home invasion, the Locke kids move across the country back to his childhood home, a sprawling New England mansion known as Keyhouse. They're dealing with loss, fear, reinventing themselves for a new life, and now, magic. Keyhouse is full of mysterious keys that open portals to fantastic abilities, but the kids don't know where they came from or how they work. Why does their father's murderer want these keys? Who is the cryptic spirit down the well that calls to them about the keys? Why was their father so insistent that this house would keep them safe if it seems full of dangers?

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Episode 92. We're starting something new on The Review Show! We're going to watch a longer series through to completion, covering part of it one episode a month. This month, it's seasons one and two of the Adult Swim cartoon The Venture Bros. Dr. Rusty Venture, former boy adventurer, hasn't grown up into the same dazzling super-scientist that his father was. Struggling with upholding the legacy, he drags his sheltered teen twins Hank and Dean around the world in a series of sci-fi misadventures, under the watch of aggressive family bodyguard Brock Samson. The family encounters foes of all kinds, including butterfly-themed villain The Monarch. He has sworn himself as Rusty's arch-enemy for unknown reasons, even when his partner Dr. Girlfriend tries to convince him he can do better. Join us next month when we discuss seasons three and four!

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Episode 91. This week we watched the 2019 horror-comedy Ready or Not. Grace is marrying into a board game dynasty, and her new in-laws have a tradition when someone joins the family: on the wedding night, the whole family gathers at the mansion to play a game together. Grace picks the wrong game. She's going to hide, they're going to seek, but she discovers that they plan to kill her once they find her.

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