The Review Show

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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Episode 252. We're starting another ongoing monthly series, talking about season one of the 2016 sitcom The Good Place, and we'll be back to discuss season two next month! Eleanor wakes up to discover that she's dead and has been sent to the "good place," a mysterious heavenly neighborhood where she has the house of her dreams and her true soulmate. This is a reward for all of Eleanor's good deeds on earth -- except this isn't the right Eleanor, she was sent here by mistake, and she's determined to keep that secret so she doesn't get sent to the "bad place." As she tries to learn to be a better person, she realizes that she isn't the only one keeping secrets, and there may be other imposters around her.

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Episode 251. We return to our nostalgic favorite, the 2004 indie movie Napoleon Dynamite, to discuss why it still charms us twenty years later and ask if it has kept its cult classic status. Napoleon is a high-schooler in the small town of Preston, Idaho, trying to impress his peers, get his family to respect him, and find a date to the school dance. He deals with a delusional uncle, petty teen judgement, his best friend's run for class president, a time machine scam, and getting a steak thrown in his face.

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Episode 250. We celebrate the milestone of our 250th episode by reading the silly and satirical 2016 Flintstones comics from Mark Russell and Steve Pugh. The Flintstones are living in a modern take on the same ancient city of Bedrock, dealing with issues like religion, politics, war, and consumerism, trying to be the best people they can as the help forge civilization itself.

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Episode 249. We can't watch the new Mario movie without taking a good hard look at the old one first. We watched the 1993 Super Mario Bros movie, specifically the "Morton-Jankel" directors' cut with unfinished extra footage. Mario Mario and Luigi Mario are brothers, plumbers, New Yorkers. When their new friend Daisy is kidnapped by goons who take her through a mysterious portal at her paleontology dig site, they follow her, armed with nothing but their wits and wrenches. The brothers fight to rescue Daisy and take down the megalomaniacal King Koopa and his machine that can evolve dinosaurs into humans, and devolve humans back into primordial slime.

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Episode 248. We watched the first season of the Netflix animated series Arcane, based in the world of League of Legends. Amidst conflict between the high-class metropolis of Piltover and its neglected and crime-ridden undercity of Zaun, sisters Vi and Powder fight to stay alive and make a difference for their community. After a mistake that costs the lives of their friends, the sisters split up and meet again years later, when Powder is now known as the unpredictable terrorist Jinx. As Piltover scientists work to develop magical hex tech to improve their city, they find that Jinx and other criminals could exploit it, leading them to question if their invention should be destroyed.

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Episode 247. We are now full members of the family as we finish all the movies in the Fast Saga: Furious 7 (2015), The Fate of the Furious (2017), F9 (2021), and some bonus talk on the spinoff movie Hobbs & Shaw (2019). The family rescues a kidnapped hacker who created an omnipotent software called God's Eye, with Brian enjoying one last action-packed job before he leaves for a quiet life with Mia and their kids, as the series honors the late Paul Walker. Then, the family believes that Dom has turned rouge on them, teaming up with the mysterious techno-terrorist Cipher, but Dom is only doing this to protect a special new member of the family. Finally, the long-estranged Toretto brother Jacob appears, embroiled in a plot that could end the world, as the family reunites with another long-lost member to stop him.

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