Man of Steel Podcast and Woman of Steel Fundraiser

Today's offering is a twofer of links:

Firstly, the first-ever one-man Consumed Podcast. Because Nat is on set and Max is in California, I ventured alone to Man of Steel. It's a shorter episode than usual, where I have to go give it up for Snyder and Cavill outperforming my expectations. There's also a short Spoiled segment at the end, arguing against the film's one major misstep. I can't spoil what that is, though, unless you listen.

You can download Consumed: Man of Steel
right here.

This episode is dedicated to Vira Gunn, our second link. Vira is a wonderful young woman who I've had the privilege of knowing since I was in high school. She has struggled with serious health problems for much of her life and fought through every one of them. But recently her neurological disorder mounted and she suffered a catastrophic shunt failure, requiring three surgeries in three weeks. It's wiped out her savings, her family can't afford to visit her, and she is in far too much pain to deal with this.

Because I've known her for over a decade, I can vouch that this cause is very real. You should not have to stay up worrying about money when the nurses are demanding you sleep post-op. I have been stranded without financial help post-op and it bankrupted me. She does not deserve this. We can help her.

So if you can donate anything, it's welcome. She has a PayPal account set up right on her Tumblr. If you can't afford anything right now, you can tweet this, share this on Facebook or Google+ or Reddit or wherever the internet is found.

Thank you for reading, and listening. I hope you enjoy the podcast.

Consumed Podcast: Horror Edition

Delayed by long travel times and Hurricane Sandy, John and Max finally got together in the wee hours of Halloween to discuss some great and accessible Horror. In particular, three unusual takes on staples of dark fiction: serial killers, vampires, and ever-loving zombies.

First was The Perfect Host, starring David Hyde Pierce as the world's most polite hostage (and possibly a terrifying murderer). If that movie was too cheeky, then they moved to John Ajvide Lindqvist's breathtaking vampire novel, Let the Right One In, and its bar-setting film adaptations. The podcast closed with discussion of the phenomenon around The Walking Dead - the little indie comic that turned into a blockbuster TV show, a novel, two videogames, and quite possibly a movie, all in shockingly short order. The Walking Dead is all about human morality tested by the zombie apocalypse, and the boys discussed how Telltale's videogame adaptation relishes in putting the hard choices into your hands.

So, feel like a little scary chat? Then you can get the latest Consumed right here.

Dark Knight Rises Podcast

So back on July 21, Nat Sylva and I hit the premiere of Dark Knight Rises, rushed home and recorded the timeliest podcast for Dark Knight Rises imaginable. It was comprehensive, covering the scripting, acting, ties to the previous films, the score, the handling of new and old characters - we were pretty proud of ourselves.

Today, on September 15th, the episode finally went on-god-damned-line.

It's been funny watching the relevance of this episode languish, as the opening weekend passed, and then the movie slipped from first place, and then from the top ten movies in the country, and is now well on its way to DVD. I could almost record a podcast about how doomed this podcast was.

Now, I don't want to point fingers (lies, I really do), but this is finally out of the archives. Spoiler-heavy, an in-depth discussion of one of the summer's biggest movies and a retrospective on Nolan's revival of the Batman franchise. You can download the episode totally free right here.

Consumed 8: Skyrim, Dark Souls, Secret of Kells &

The latest episode of Consumed is up today. It's actually not the latest, but a behemoth "lost" episode from several months ago. It manages to transcend time by leading in with Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim, and discussing particular problems that game has that Dawnguard hasn't fixed. Is it just generic Fantasy? Why are blockbuster games so entrenched in world-building that was trite in prose decades ago? And when does filling out a giant world cause creativity to collapse and eat itself?

Nat Sylva and Max Cantor considerately waded through all these issues, and then into Dark Souls, Skyrim's big competition that's due to leap from console to PC soon. Max has some inspired ranting on why the two franchises are nothing alike, and why he can't stop playing it. Even though this is a lost episode from months ago, Max actually still hasn't stopped.

The most provocative topics came from our discussion of The Secret of Kells, a beautifully animated film with some serious trouble handling race. We debated token roles in media, as well as the popular theme of "HERO THINKS TRADITION IS BAD" and how ambitious such writing rarely gets.


We were also joined by educator Ross Dillon, since he had keys to the apartment and Max hasn't taken any self-defense classes. Ross begged us to discuss Aaron Sorkin's Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, the show too smart for its own good that 30 Rock trampled to death a few years ago. It had a strong heart, and we discussed how the series had aged since its brief run, and the incredibly gutsy elements the cast managed to get onto network television. The stance on Cocaine V. Drunk Driving is still stunning to me.

You can download the podcast or shout feedback right here.

Consumed Episode 7: Legend of Korra, Diablo 3

Consumed Episode 7 is up today. It features the full crew of Nat Sylva, Max Cantor and myself, covering two primary topics and some new experiments in media.

The first big topic is a season round-up of Nickelodeon’s The Legend of Korra. We scratched our heads over the ending, but have to praise an excellent piece of animation. Or at least, two of us did. One of us may have ditched out in the first episode.

The second topic is Diablo 3 and its dreaded Battle.net. Having experienced so many ridiculous errors and played so many hours of a fun game, I have a lot to say on it. We got into my favorite underlying topic as well: if Diablo 3 is a great game, or just a competent execution on a genre that is always fun when done competently.

Korra and Diablo sandwich our experiments: each of the hosts brought something they deeply want our audience to watch, and each of us got sixty seconds to convince you. I won't spoil mine, but I will promise that it allowed me to discuss Goku Vs. The Terminator. Please vote in the Comments on which thing (or things) you were actually swayed to check out.

You can get Consumed Episode 7 for free right here.

Consumed Podcast: Prometheus

Max Cantor and I met up for the Prometheus premiere this weekend. I'm a tremendous admirer of Ridley Scott's Alien, and Max is a terribly nice guy, so naturally we held our breaths for about an hour of run-time before murmuring that something was wrong. Was it the screenplay, the pacing, the direction, the revelations...?

Sitting intimately around a single mic, we discussed the movie's many opportunities and failures. About halfway in we broke for an impromptu Spoiled, so if you're desperate to hear about the movie without discovering its deepest secrets, you can break there. I guarantee you'll want to stay for the naked Fassbender ramble.

Consumed 6 is available for free right here. It's got all the shallow characters and bloody butt cheeks you could ask for.

Consumed Episode 5: Cabin in the Woods, Fez and The Warded Man

Consumed Episode 5 is out today! It’s a free MP3 download with some of the farthest-reaching discussions on any of our podcasts yet.

For me, the most interesting conversation came from Peter V. Brett's The Warded Man. It's a rare Fantasy novel that hits the ground running, in its case opening with a nocturnal demon attack. It led me to ask my co-hosts why Speculative Fiction prose usually starts out so slow, low-action and thick with exposition. We considered George R.R. Martin, N.K. Jemisin, C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien, and J.K. Rowling, and explored why films and videogames in the same genres usually start off much faster. We’d love your thoughts on this topic in the Comments over there.

We also discussed the mind-bending puzzle game, Fez, and why so many people either adore it or walk away from it (us podcasters were split on the love it/leave it). We wrapped up with Cabin in the Woods, the meta-Horror film which seems destined to be overlooked this year. While the conversation eventually devolves into self-censorship to avoid spoilers, I recommend listening just to hear me embarrass myself trying to describe Anna Hutchinson making out with a stuffed wolf head, and whether we can talk actor-host Nat Sylva into doing the same.

You can download the episode and leave feedback right through this link.