Two Nerds Sitting on a Couch

Completing the B-movie "trilogy" Two Nerds began when we watched Cosmic Sin and Breach, we sat down and watched Apex, a movie in which a group of rich jackholes hunt a strangely blasé Bruce Willis. Apex ended up being one of a long line of adaptions of the 1924 short story, "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. Examples include the 80s Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, The Running Man; Surviving the Game with Rutger Hauer and Ice-T; even an episode of OG Star Trek. (You can catch our discussion of Cosmic Sin and Breach here.) 

Things got a little more bonkers when we screened The Hunt, another recent adaption of "The Most Dangerous Game", in which rich woke liberals hunt "deplorables". This premise made The Hunt a target for the right wing outrage machine before anyone had actually seen the movie, which ended up delaying the release by half a year and sending it straight to streaming. This is actually hilarious, because The Hunt's satirical subjects are more left than right; it's never the hunters in these sorts of movies who are the good guys, it's always the hunted. But it's an outrage machine, not a carefully considered comment machine, so. 

Continuing with our deep dive into the Halloween movies, Two Nerds discuss Halloween H20 and its sequel, Halloween: Resurrection -- in which Jamie Lee Curtis returns as Laurie Strode -- and Rob Zombie's reboot of the Halloween franchise. The series reaches a nadir with Halloween: Resurrection, but Zombie absolutely breathes new life into the material

This Halloween, Two Nerds foolishly decided to watch all the Halloween movies. This installment covers Halloweens one through six, which exist on the same timeline, more or less. These movies cover roughly two decades of horror filmmaking, and it's interesting to watch the changes, if nothing else. Also, a whole mess of actors who will go on to more notable careers get their starts in movies where they die horribly before the opening credits. 

Part the second of our discussion of Denis Villeneuve's take on Frank Herbert's Dune. We discuss the film after the Atreides land in Arakeen: how terrifying lasguns are, what a badass Duncan is, how funny coffee services are, and one spicy hot take about Game of Thrones. Enjoy! 

Two Nerds crawled out of their mouse hole to go to the actual movie theater to see Denis Villeneuve's new Dune adaption, which is the the first time we'd been to the theater since the pandemic started. This was definitely the movie to break the seal for: a landscape picture on a galactic scale. We fairly loved Villeneuve's take on Herbert's classic, even if there were some things we wish had made it from the page to the screen. 

In which we discuss the SyFy channel's miniseries which encapsulates the second two of the Dune trilogy by Frank Herbert: Dune Messiah and Children of Dune. Though the production was written, produced, and largely acted by the same people, the clunkily titled Frank Herbert's Children of Dune was significantly better than it's predecessor, Frank Herbert's Dune. Though I think the miniseries isn't essential viewing for anyone other than Dune stans, it does feature a tiny baby James McAvoy in his first major role, and largely shirtless to boot. 

Continuing in our exploration of all things Dune, Two Nerds discuss David Lynch's 1984 film adaption of Dune, which was famously troubled production, critical failure, and pretty bonkers. It was also hugely formative for me. There are at least several cuts of the film out there, and we watched two of them: the 2 hour theatrical version, and the 3 hour version which was cut for television, disowned by Lunch, and has the director credited as Alan Smithee. (The Alan Smithee version also credits the writer as Judas Booth, as Lynch felt he'd been both betrayed and assassinated by the producers, lol.) 

In which we discuss the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune, which details Alejandro Jodorowsky's efforts to make a movie version of Dune in the 70s. Some of the stories told by Jodorowsky are so bonkers as to strain credulity, but he's an incredibly entertaining raconteur. Jodorowsky's concept was way too out there for the money people in Hollywood at the time, so the film was never produced. However, Jodorowsky and his producers gave all the major studios a Tolstoyesque book with extensive concept art which storyboarded the entire film. The documentary argues this chapbook ended up influencing a huge number of science fiction films in the late 70s and 1980s, and it's not hard to see echoes in film even now. 

One quick correction: I refer to Jodorowsky as Mexican, which is partially true. He was born in Chile, but has spent most of his adult life dividing time between France and Mexico. 

In the second installment in our series on all things Dune, Two Nerds discuss the 2000 SciFi (before it became SyFy) channel's miniseries entitled Frank Herbert's Dune. It's ... not great: seriously mis-cast, with weird pretentions of theatricality, but a totally gonzo lighting designer. The late 90's stylings of the production design were pretty fun, even if mostly this series misses the mark. 

With the premiere of the Villeneuve Dune just around the corner, Two Nerds have decided to revisit all things Frank Herbert. This first outing is a discussion of the book Dune and Frank Herbert's work more generally. We touch on the Dune series, God Emperor more specifically, and The Dosadi Experiment. We also discuss Herbert's complicated legacy: One of the reasons we both love Dune is because of Herbert's takes on religion, ecology, and politics, while acknowledging his works may not resonate because of misogyny, fat-phobia, and homophobia.