Episode 262. To herald the coming of Barbie, we watched another movie about a candy-colored retro icon forced to contend with the modern world: 1995's loving satire, The Brady Bunch Movie. The Bradys struggle to collect $20,000 to save their home, while their unscrupulous neighbor tries to sabotage them, hoping to sell their land to develop into a mini-mall. As the family faces their own individual conflicts -- like jealousy, tattling, two dates for the school dance, and performing in a big talent show -- their bond remains strong and they're here to bring their sunny familial love to the entire neighborhood.

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Episode 261. We read the standalone graphic novel from Ram V and Filipe Andrade, The Many Deaths of Laila Starr. When humans become immortal, the goddess of death is out of a job. Her "retirement" is to be reincarnated as a human, and she arranges to live in the same city at the same time as the future inventor of immortality, with plans to kill him and get her old job back. She finds herself in a loop of accidental deaths and reincarnations across the years, encountering the inventor at different stages in his life, dealing with deaths of loved ones, and she learns what death and life truly mean to humans.

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Episode 260. We celebrated our second annual "National Treasure Weekend" watching another Nicolas Cage movie, 2002's Adaptation. Charlie Kaufman is hired to adapt Susan Orlean's nonfiction book The Orchid Thief into a Hollywood screenplay. As he deals with the book's lack of easy narrative structure, his loneliness and low self confidence, and his identical twin brother Donald pestering him in his own journey to become a screenwriter, Charlie spirals into distraction. The movie is everything the screenplay within the movie is: layers of flashbacks, fantasies, and the natural history of the world itself circling around each other in a search for connection.

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Episode 259. We continue our coverage of The Good Place by talking about season three, with the fourth and final season discussion coming next month. Michael has reset the timeline so the humans are alive again on Earth, trying to be better people after their near-death experiences, but he and Janet soon have to reveal themselves after too much meddling. With the realization that every action affects your points total to get into either the good place or bad place, the humans travel the world, encouraging their friends and family to lead better lives. Still, nobody is sure how many points you need, and they discover that there may be a flaw in the system that prevents even the best people from reaching the good place.

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Episode 258. We watched the 1996 movie The Watermelon Woman, the first feature film directed by a Black lesbian. Cheryl is an aspiring filmmaker working in a video store and trying to make a documentary about a Black actress from the 1930s and 40s credited only as "The Watermelon Woman." As she works to uncover this woman's identity, she discovers a queer history that echoes her own personal romantic life.

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Episode 257. We watched the original 2002 run of the adult animated show Clone High, which now has a new reboot season streaming on Max! Government scientists have cloned famous historical figures, who are now teenagers trying to navigate high school. Joan of Arc has a crush on Abe Lincoln, who has a crush on Cleopatra, who has an on-again-off-again relationship with JFK, while Ghandi just wants to party. The teens deal with romantic angst, living up to their historical counterparts, a mad scientist principal, and classic "very special episode" teen dangers like littering, smoking raisins, and appearing on the Canadian Spring Break Dance show hosted by Ashley Angel from O-Town.

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Episode 256. We watched the 1983 sci-fi fantasy movie Krull! Prince Colwyn and Princess Lyssa are to be married, for both true love and to unite their kingdoms to form a stronger army against the invading Slayers and their mysterious leader known only as The Beast. When the Slayers attack the wedding and kidnap Lyssa, Colwyn has to travel across the land of Krull to rescue her. He obtains the legendary Glaive weapon and a band of seers, sorcerers, and brigands to help him defeat the Beast and stop its reign of terror across the galaxy.

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Episode 255. We're back to talk about season two of The Good Place, and we'll be watching season three next month. Michael is continuing to reboot his hellish good place simulation, but Eleanor keeps solving the puzzle. He confesses his scheme to the humans this time, and asks that they team up with him to keep the lie going, to avoid punishment from his bosses. In exchange, they insist he join them for ethics lessons. As Michael and Janet both become more human, the humans realize all they've already been through together, and as they grow closer, they form a pact. They think they've figured out how they can get into the real good place -- but they'll only go if all of them can get in.

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Episode 254. We're kicking off summer with the sweaty, tense 1953 movie The Wages of Fear. A massive fire strikes an oil field in South America, and the oil company needs to transport nitroglycerin from one base to another, to cause an explosion to extinguish the fire. Four men take the job, desperate to earn the money to leave their small town. The terrain is rough, the nitroglycerin is volatile, and the men have to drive painstakingly slow if they want to finish this job alive.

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Episode 253. We watched the short-lived 2008 cartoon The Spectacular Spider-Man! A teenage Peter Parker, still new to being a superhero, struggles to balance his crime-fighting with going to high school, taking pictures for the Daily Bugle, being there for Aunt May, spending time with his friends, and dating, or even figuring who to date. Surrounded by a rogues gallery of foes and a wide cast of peers, he tries to keep his loved ones safe and his identity a secret.

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