What Did We Miss?

Jeff Ferrara from the Game Sharks Podcast returns! Jeff can often be found hunched over a computer or staring at his phone watching some form of competitive video gaming, much to his older brother Matt's confusion and consternation. On this episode Jeff tries his best to make the case for esports by showing Matt some of the more famous matches from this burgeoning industry. Video games included in the discussion are League of Legends, DOTA, Super Smash Bros., Tetris, Street Fighter, and many more. They also discuss how eports has gained in popularity throughout the world, the barrier to becoming a fan, how it's surpassing regular sports in viewership, and the steps the industry needs to take to become accessible to everybody.

Jeff is one of the hosts of the Game Sharks Podcast, a weekly show where they discuss video game news, trends, and the stuff they're playing. Follow them on Instagram (@gamesharkspodcast) and subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Google Podcasts!

Marvel Comics released some of their most recent popular and critically acclaimed comics from their paywall and made them available for everyone to enjoy during the pandemic. They included but were not limited to a six issue run of Kelly Sue Deconnick's Captain Marvel, the first six issues of Ta-Nehisi Coates' Black Panther, Jane Foster as Thor, Tom King's irreverant take on Vison, and the introduction of Kamala Khan as Ms. Marvel. This provided a perfect opportunity for Tony to catch up on some modern marvel comics and for Matt to revisit some recent favs. They discuss comic book reading habits, diversity of characters and creators, the difficulty of jumping into a new Marvel series with 50+ years of continuity, and the story telling potential of a limited issue series.

This week, in honor of the release of Bill and Ted Face the Music, Matt and Tony are talking about Freaked, the 1993 cult deep cut directed and co-written by Bill himself, Alex Winter. Freaked is one of those early '90s cable staples, the kind of movie that a lot of kids caught by accident (and probably when their parents weren't paying attention). Abandoned by the studio only to die quietly to empty theaters, Freaked is the quintessential cult film - lots to love and criminally overlooked.

Winter plays a smug, Hollywood It Boy who gets roped into a plot involving an evil conglomerate, a carnival sideshow, and a group of grotesque mutants. It's all an excuse for gag-a-minute comedy, gloriously gross-out practical effects, and the sweet sounds of the Butthole Surfers. It is, in short, a hilarious and gnarly time capsule of whatever was in the air in the early '90s.

Matt checked out Sunny Day Real Estate's influencial 1994 debut album, 'Diary', way back in the late '90s and decided that it was not for him. 20 plus years later, an older, and hopefully wiser, Matt gives the band that defined the early sounds of emo music another chance. Along for the ride is Chris Revill, the enthusiastic host of the amiable podcast, 'Let's Chat!' After a back and forth conversation where the two discovered they had a lot of overlapping taste, Revill, a major fan of emo, pop punk, and ska music selected Sunny Day Real Estate as his blind spot. Along with a seemingly endless amount of tangents that spring forth from both host and guest, they discuss the music that defined their youth, whether or not you can enjoy an older band whose music has been pilfered by countless bands that followed, and the many breakups and history of the band.

You can listen to 'Let's Chat!' here. Follow 'Let's Chat!' on twitter and instagram.

"What's Up, Doc?", Peter Bogdanovich's 1972 screwball classic, may be an atypical Barbra Streisand movie, but it was Matt's introduction to the singer, actress, and filmmaker. While maybe not the perfect intro to Streisand, it's still a personal favorite of Matt's, so it felt right to share with newcomers Brian and Christina of the Old Roommates podcast. They discuss the enigma that is Barbra Streisand, the many films that inspired Peter Bogdanovich, the greatness of Madeleine Kahn how, how screwball comedies had fallen out of fashion by the '70s, and just how much character development you need to make a wacky comedy like "What's Up, Doc?" work.

Brian Masefield and Christina Walsh host Old Roommates, the only weekly podcast that revisits pop culture through a middle-aged lens. Find them on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/oldroommates/

Jurassic Park is one of the most popular and influential big-budget, special-effects driven action movies of all time, and returning guest Chris Knott, of We'z Talkin' Weez' 2 Thee and the Blue Album Battle podcasts, has never seen it. Chris joins Tony and Matt to talk about the movie's lasting influence on modern blockbusters, its mix of practical and digital effects, Steven Spielberg's approach to action filmmaking, and why Chris has missed out on so many important science fiction and action movies. Tony and Matt share stories from their youth about the lasting impression Jurassic Park has had on them and the trio play a game of "what Steven Spielberg movies have I not seen."

Chris Knott is a musician and co-host of the Weezer podcasts We'z Talkin' Weez' 2 Thee and Blue Album Battle

Bill Bartholomew is the host of Bartholomewtown, a daily podcast with a mix of on-the-street reporting and interviews with Rhode Island politcians, buisness owners, and activists. Bill has played in local bands for nearly twenty years and this is how he meet Matt. The two play catch up and share stories about playing local shows, how the local music scene has changed, and how the DIY aesthetic applies to making podcasts. The far-ranging conversation covers everything from Bill's love of public radio and the genisis and inspiration for his podcast, to all things Rhode Island. In the spririt of What Did We Miss Bill introduces Matt to some of the local musicians and podcasters that he may be missing out on.

Tony has been vaguely threatening Matt with the prospect of doing an episode on a classic PC point-and-click adventure game for months, and at long last he's followed through on that threat. This week he finally gets his way by introducing Matt to LucasArts' classic 1993 adventure game: Sam and Max Hit the Road. Based on the comic book by Steve Purcell, the game is a comedy noir about a smartmouthed dog and a rabbit who solve crimes as a pair of freelance detectives. Blending Saturday morning cartoon style and slapstick with a side-eye reverence for mid-century kitsch and roadside tourist traps, Sam and Max might be the reason Tony's sense of humor is what it is.

There's a lot of TV. Like a lot. And for one reason or another, Matt and Tony just hadn't got around to Succession... until now. The story of a disgustingly wealthy family of disgusting people being disgusting to one another certainly fits in with the last couple decades of prestige TVs anti-heroes and morally bankrupt creeps, but did it work for our hosts?

With a new James Bond movie coming sometime this year, WDWM had globetrotting, action-heavy spy stories on the brain, which is how we landed on one of Matt's favorites, Steven Soderbergh's Haywire. Starring former MMA fighter Gina Carano - who recently had a standout role as Star Wars merc Cara Dune in The Mandalorian - Haywire isn't just her debut in a leading role, it was a film entirely built around and for her. Carano leads an insanely stacked supporting cast and steals the show from all of them in this down and dirty tale of mercenaries, double crosses, and international intrigue. She also gives plenty of brutal beatdowns in some amazing, no-frill action sequences that let her show off what made her a star in the ring and why she was a star in the making on screen.