The World's Only Podcast™ about bizarre, overlooked, and misbegotten media
Jen and Tim just can’t figure out why audiences were so lukewarm about this fun pulp adventure, The Phantom from 1996.
Phantom creator Lee Falk enthused about the movie in a 1996 interview, singling out Billy Zane for particular praise.
As Tim mentioned, The Phantom struck a chord with the people of Papua New Guinea. See examples of war shields of the PNG highlands featuring the character.
Jen and Tim welcome @bitterkarella to talk about a tWisTeD comic book movie, the Spawn before Spawn, Faust: Love of the Damned!
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Read an interview with director Brian Yuzna to learn more about Fantastic Factory, the production company that brought you that titty inflation scene. He also talks about The Guyver!
If you found yourself confused by our reference to ”Two Wet Bears,“ you can watch it on YouTube. It’s an attempt to pass off a pencil test as a finished animated short, and features almost every year at Jerry Beck’s Worst Cartoons Ever panel at Comic-Con. (Also listen to our episode with Jerry about the Monkees’ sole feature, Head!)
This is the Sara Matthews Bitter Karella was talking about, by the way. Apparently she was uncredited in Repossessed, in spite of her memorable appearance. For shame!
Too much of a pussy for this xXxtreme anti-hero? Why not enjoy our episode with tons more pussy, Cats on Park Avenue!
Paul Jay returns to talk with us about Warren Beatty’s greatest love! No, not women— by all evidence it’s Dick Tracy. Also, we are interrupted by a dog.
View one of Beatty’s rights-maintaining Dick Tracy specials, in which he’s interviewed by Leonard Maltin while in character as his favorite comic strip detective.
We’ve talked about Warren a couple of times before on the show— once with beloved recurring guest Sean Morris for Bulworth, and once to inagurate the whole dang podcast with our Ishtar episode!
Niel Jacoby (@fuckinalpamare on Twitter) joins us to ask: just what the hell is Immortel, ad vitam? It appears to be an incomprehensible dystopian flick based on an incomprehensible graphic novel. We spend a lot of time mocking the movie’s incredibly cavalier attitude towards sexual assault.
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The film is based on a graphic novel by Enki Bilal. Remarkably, Bilal was allowed to direct the film in spite of having only one feature and a couple of shorts under his belt.
Along with films like Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow and Sin City, Immortel, ad Vitam was part of a new wave of “digital backlot” movies. This refers to movies made entirely in a green screen environment.
We highly recommend Niel’s very funny podcast (and maybe the only one about Timothy Spall), Spall Talk!
For some much better big-budget sci-fi, try our episode on Event Horizon.