TMTYR Episode #15: A Heinlein Timeline (Predestination)

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TMTYR Episode #15: A Heinlein Timeline (Predestination)
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Ringing in the new year with a brand new film, the Pavement Pounders discuss the new film Predestination, currently in limited theaters and video on demand.  The film is adapted from Robert Heinlein’s 1959 short story “-All You Zombies-“.Predestination_poster

Boys will be boys, and the Pavement Pounders got caught in a temporal underwear discussion loop.  It’s not pretty.  Seth could’ve edited it out, but for all we know, that would unravel the fabric of reality.  Get it?  Fabric?  I’ll be here all week.

Rankings!:

Colin/James/Seth:

  • Movie
  • Story

Notes:

Next Up: Predestination and Zombies?

Been a bit quiet here since Christmas, but we’re ringing in the new year with a good old-fashioned bit of “Wait, what?”Predestination_poster

Ethan Hawke’s new limited-release film Predestination will hit some theaters and video-on-demand this weekend, and since it’s based on a very short story (“-All You Zombies-“), we’ve chosen it for our first episode of 2015.

Warning #1: It’s not actually about zombies.

Warning #2: It’s on the weird side.  Way on the weird side.  At least the story is.  Tune in later this month and find out if the movie is equally bizarre.  (Or watch it yourself and let us know.)

In the meantime, head over to Blastr to get a look at the beginning of the film and read the story (linked in the article).  Then lob us a comment on Facebook or here about what you think.  We may be also recording this weekend, so if you get your comments in soon, we’ll use them.

 

TMTYR Episode #14: Double the Marley, Double the Fun! (A Christmas Carol)

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TMTYR Episode #14: Double the Marley, Double the Fun! (A Christmas Carol)
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"Muppet christmas carol" by IMP Awards. Licensed under Fair use via Wikipedia.

Merry Christmas to all!

In honor of the holiday, the Pavement Pounders read Charles Dickens’ 1843 novella A Christmas Carol and watched four adaptations: Scrooge (1951, starring Alastair Sim),  The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992, starring Michael Caine), A Christmas Carol (1999, starring Patrick Stewart), and Scrooged! (1988, starring Bill Murray).

We also discussed other versions we’d seen and gave some general Christmas-movie-viewing recommendations.

Thanks to everyone who listened this year.  Our first episode was recorded in December 2013, so we’re officially a year old now!

Don’t forget to go check out our friends at The Sci-Fi Movie Podcast, as they’ve got a special Christmas episode up today.

Pounder Rankings!

Colin:

  • A Christmas Carol (1999)
  • Scrooge (1951)
  • The Muppet Christmas Carol
  • Scrooged!

James:

  • The Muppet Christmas Carol
  • A Christmas Carol (1999)
  • Scrooged!
  • Scrooge (1951)

Seth:

  • Scrooge (1951)
  • The Muppet Christmas Carol
  • A Christmas Carol (1999)
  • Scrooged!

Favorite adaptations (Top Three):

Seth:

  • A Christmas Carol (1984, George C. Scott)
  • The Muppet Christmas Carol
  • Scrooge (1951)

James:

  • A Christmas Carol (1984, George C. Scott)
  • The Muppet Christmas Carol
  • Scrooged!

Colin:

  • A Christmas Carol (1999)
  • A Christmas Carol (1984, George C. Scott)
  • The Muppet Christmas Carol

Other versions watched by any or all Pounders:

  • 1901 silent film
  • 1935 Seymour Hicks film
  • 1949 TV Adaptation (narr. by Vincent Price)
  • 1970 Albert Finney musical Scrooge!
  • 1971 animated short (Scrooge voiced by Alastair Sim)
  • Blackadder’s Christmas Carol
  • Mickey’s Christmas Carol
  • Disney’s A Christmas Carol (2009, Jim Carrey)

Notes:

TMTYR Episode #13: Cheesy Quilla-desa (A Boy and His Dog)

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TMTYR Episode #13: Cheesy Quilla-desa (A Boy and His Dog)
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This time out, the Pavement Pounders review the 1969 Nebula Award-winning novella A Boy and His Dog, by Harlan Ellison, and the 1975 Hugo-winning film adaptation of the same name.1976 movie poster for the movie 'a boy and his dog'.jpg

 

We did it so you don’t have to.  This one comes with a content warning: If you’re uncomfortable with a story involving a lot of language and discussion about rape and sexuality, you might want to give the story a miss.  The film has far less language but a fair bit of nudity.  So you can just tune into our discussion and save yourself the trouble.

Special Thanks to Emily for letting us dirty your dishes and poop on your floor.

Pounder Rankings!:

Colin:

  • film
  • novella

James:

  • novella
  • film

Seth:

  • film
  • novella

Notes:

Weighing Harlan Ellison-themed episode options

As discussed in the latest episode, we’re considering what kind of Harlan Ellison-themed episode we should do.  The two options are:

  1. A Boy and His Dog.  It’s a novella and a film, so it totally fits with our model.  It’s just that it’s a bit, well, rapey.  Seriously, there’s a bunch of rape in it, and while it’s still probably worth discussing (disgusting?), we’re not sure we want to do it.  Then again, it’s a cult classic, so if our idea was to cover classic sci-fi, this should be on the list.  Ugh.
  2. The Terminator.  Stay with me a second.  Ellison got a post-credits acknowledgement after raising a stink about the movie being based on an episode of The Outer Limits he wrote.  So we could read I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream, which is also sort of related in theme, then watch the episodes “Soldier” and “Demon With a Glass Hand”, then watch The Terminator and give our opinions about what kind of case Ellison had.  Could be fun!

Ultimately, we’ll be able to decide on our own, but it’d sure make it easier if we got some listener responses.  So lob us a comment her or use our poll thingy:

TMTYR Episode #12: Speak Softly and Carry an Electrified Pitchfork (The Thing)

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TMTYR Episode #12: Speak Softly and Carry an Electrified Pitchfork (The Thing)
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ThingPosterIn Episode #12, the Pavement Pounders discuss John W. Campbell’s 1939 novella “Who Goes There?” and the three films (at least loosely) based on it, including 1951’s The Thing (From Another World) and the 1982 and 2011 films titled The Thing.

Colin is right about something!  Seth accidentally defends the Star Wars prequels!  James forgets to plug in the mixer!

(We ended up only getting the recording on the laptop mic.  It’s never happened before, at least since Jurassic Park…)

Pounder Rankings!:

James:

  1. “Who Goes There?”
  2. The Thing (1982) and The Thing (2011), combined into one film
  3. The Thing (From Another World)

Colin:

  1. “Who Goes There?”
  2. The Thing (1982)
  3. The Thing (2011)
  4. The Thing (From Another World)

Seth:

  1. The Thing (1982)
  2. The Thing (2011)
  3. The Thing (From Another World)
  4. “Who Goes There?”

Notes:

TMTYR Episode #11: Some Of My Best Friends Are Drac (Enemy Mine)

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TMTYR Episode #11: Some Of My Best Friends Are Drac (Enemy Mine)
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In the first episode of Take Me To Your Reader, Season Two, the Pavement Pounders examine the 1985 film Enemy Mine and the Hugo and Nebula Award Winning novella on which it was based.  The movie didn’t win nothin’.

Enemy mine.jpg
“Enemy mine”. Via Wikipedia.

Pounder Rankings!:

Seth/Colin/James:

  • novella
  • movie

Notes:

Season Two Plans!

For those of you who lacked the patience to wade through two hours of Triffid-cast, you missed a couple of things:

  1. Arguments.  Entertaining ones.  Seriously, it’s good stuff.
  2. Our plans for Season Two!

We’re going to dial back our cadence from every two weeks to about once a month.  If this is unacceptable, lob us a comment.  Otherwise we’re doing what we want!  The long cadence is just to make the whole thing a bit more relaxed and to give James a fair chance to get all the reading done.

Of course, even if you listened in, we had a rather chaotic discussion of what topics we’d be hitting, but a few emails and pavement poundings later, we’ve got our (still tentative) list.  We’re just going to rotate selecting the next item, starting with Colin.  So our first two rounds of selections are these:

  • Colin: Enemy Mine, by Barry Longyear – Enemy Mine (1985 film)
  • James: Who Goes There?, by John W. Campbell – The Thing from Another World (1951 film), The Thing (1985 and 2011  films)
  • Seth: The Body Snatchers, by Jack Finney – Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956 and 1978 films), Body Snatchers (1993 film), The Invasion (2007 film)
  • Colin: The War of the Worlds, by H.G. Wells – The War of the Worlds (1938 Radio Drama, 1953 film), War of the Worlds (2005 film)
  • James: We Can Remember it For You Wholesale, by Philip K. Dick – Total Recall (1990 and 2012 films)
  • Seth: The Manchurian Candidate, by Richard Condon – The Manchurian Candidate (1962 and 2004 films)

We’re planning about ten episodes for Season Two, so even if we hit everything on this list, there’s still four open slots for suggestions from the unwashed masses (that’s you).  Hop over to the Podcast Queue page and look at the other titles we’ve compiled (by no means a complete list) and leave a comment here or there with anything else you’d like to see us cover next season.  We’ve already started on our reading for the first three, so we could even slot in a suggestion at the fourth spot.

We’ll probably be recording our Enemy Mine podcast in the next week or so, which means you’ve got a few days to send us some feedback.  The Contact Us page has all the details on how to do that.  So do it!

 

TMTYR Episode #10: Day of the Torrence (Day of the Triffids)

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TMTYR Episode #10: Day of the Torrence (Day of the Triffids)
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Dayofthetriffids.jpg
“Dayofthetriffids” by Reynold Brown. Licensed under Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

In Episode #10, the Pavement Pounders discuss the influential and criminally under-read (at least in the U.S.) The Day of the Triffids, by John Wyndham. The 1962 British film adaptation as well as the 1981 and 2009 BBC mini-series adaptations are also discussed. We’re considering this the end of Season One of Take Me To Your Reader, so we went out with a bang here, discussing the book and three adaptations, as well as having a rather extended discussion of just what makes a good adaptation.  Sparks fly, and there may be a bit of hair-pulling and an insult here or there.  Honestly, though, we actually like each other. (We’ll be back in September, probably, with new episodes.)

Pounder Rankings!:

Colin:

  • book
  • 1981 miniseries
  • 2009 miniseries
  • 1962 film

James:

  • book
  • 1981 miniseries
  • 2009 miniseries
  • 1962 film

Seth:

  • book
  • 2009 miniseries
  • 1981 miniseries
  • 1962 film

Notes:

 

Discussing adapted Sci-Fi at its best—and worst

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