Two Nerds Sitting on a Couch

We went into the movie Bliss pretty cold. The really quite terrible blurb said something about how maybe reality is a computer simulation, and that sounded close enough to our theme of alternate realities that we gave it a go. Like Colossal, its TV Guide entry poorly describes what is actually going on in the movie. The movie features cameos by Bill Nye the Science Guy and continental philosopher Slavoj Žižek, whose name I mangle several times. Yet again, we mention The City & The City, China Miéville's novel about two cities which are superimposed over one another, but are barred from interacting physically with one another. 

Back in the day, you could tell if a Bruce Willis movie was going to be any good depending on whether he had hair or not. Given the movies Cosmic Sin and Breach, that rule of thumb no longer applies. Both movies involve space zombies of varying origins. 

The subject of this episode is the ways faith and/or religious doctrine is used differently in explicitly Christian films like The Remaining or Left Behind, and films that use religious lore more like mythology. In this instance our example is a movie called The Possession, but movies like The Exorcist or The Prophesy would fall into this category as well. 

Two Nerds discuss two movies that deal with parallel universes: the not very impressive Alpha Gateway, and the absolutely delightful Coherence. We also talk a bit about Counterpart, a previous podcast subject, and China Miéville's The City & The City. While it seems like time travel narratives, especially those that go back in time, focus on regret, parallel universe stories focus more on the question of the essential self. 

As part of our exploration of parallel worlds, Two Nerds discuss the spy thriller series Counterpart. J.K. Simmons plays a double role as Howard Silk, each of whom are members of a shadowy U.N. agency in two different versions of reality. One is a stupendous badass, and the other a colorless drone. The two versions of reality are in something of a cold war with one another, and the two U.N. agencies -- and the two Howard Silks -- are on a slow-moving collision course. It's such a good series. 

Two Nerds sat down with our Gen-Z consultant (aka oldest son, Leo) to watch Monster Hunter, a Paul W.S. Anderson movie based on the eponymous video game series. We'd never played any of the games, so Leo was on hand to nitpick inconsistences. I think the resident Nerds were more inclined to be forgiving of Monster Hunter's failings, because we're old in not invested in the source material, but Leo made a very compelling case that a lot of the potential was squandered. 

Two Nerds watch the first episode of HBO's The Nevers, a steampunk Buffy the Vampire Slayer slash X-Men hybrid. The Nevers was created by Joss Whedon, who then apparently "stepped away" some time after all the allegations about his behavior on the set of Justice League. Whatever his involvement, the series is undoubtedly Whedonesque, with familiar character types and relationship dynamics. As a steampunk series, there are also easy comparisons to Carnival Row, which was incredibly beautiful and hopelessly boring; His Dark Materials, which is a great book series, disastrous movie, and uneven HBO series; and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, which has great art direction but still bugs me. Salman Rushdie's Booker prize winning novel Midnight's Children gets discussed in the same breath as X-Men, which made me have an attack of the giggles. We're on the hook for episode two, but The Nevers wasn't amazing or anything. 

Two Nerds have spent the last few episodes discussing time travel, repeating day, or otherwise timey-wimey narratives. Adjacent to that (and often overlapping) are stories that explore parallel worlds. In this outing, we discuss the movies Sliding Doors and Another Earth, and touch on a series called Counterpart. Sliding Doors is a rom-com from 1999, and Another Earth a melancholy indie movie from 2005. Counterpart is something like a spy thriller, with two alternate Earths in a cold war of sorts. 

Two Nerds were lovingly trolled by our listener, and ended up watching Knowing, a predestination wig-out starring Nicolas Cage, which was described by Richard as "Kirk Cameron's screenplay and directorial adaptation of L. Ron Hubbard writing Childhood's End." It made us have some Serious Feelings. 

This one's for you, Ian.