Nerd Lunch

Rob, Michael, and Pax finish up this month's Lounge talking about retirement, the After Lunch lounge schedule, Guy Ritchie's Fountain of Youth, the fall of the Jedi, the Lilo and Stitch remake, and our experiences as young nerds.

Michael and Jess talk about the comics anthology The Dark Horse Book of the Dead and Something is Killing the Children by James Tynion IV and Werther Dell'Edera. Among other horrory things.

Rob, Michael, and Pax sit around talking about Ballerina, You Rang: An Addams Family Podcast, more Final Reckoning, Star Trek: Open a Channel - A Woman's Trek by Nana Visitor, Pride and Prejudice, Redshirts by John Scalzi, and whatever else comes up.

Following up on a topic from Nerd Lunch Episode 181 (which was also the first appearance of Wolverine), Michael, Rob, Pax, and David May create more cinematic universes around movies (but not just movies) that don't already have them. Tune in and check out our ideas for series built on WarGames, Capcom, Anchorman, and The Last Voyage of the Demeter.

Michael, Rob, and Pax cover Paul Walker's emotional, final ride with his Fast and Furious family in Furious 7. The movie also features Jason Statham back as Deckard Shaw after his brief appearance in the previous one, a couple of other cameos from earlier films, and the introductions of Kurt Russell and Nathalie Emmanuel to the series.

Michael and Rob watch the latest (and last?) Mission: Impossible movie starring the whole gang from the last movie plus Angela Bassett, Tramell Tillman, Hannah Waddingham, Katy O'Brian, and Nick Offerman. Spoilers abound of course, but considering that the movie is generally getting positive reviews, it seems right to provide an additional warning that neither of us loved the film. We loved some things about it and talked freely about those, but there are also many, many things that frustrated us, and we talked freely about those as well. 

Our James Bond project is complete, now let our Sherlock Holmes project begin. Rob and Michael are joined by Pax and Jacob Bean-Watson in order to explore the Great Detective as portrayed on Film and TV. We're not taking a methodical approach, but just taking turns picking whatever adaptation strikes our fancies. Rob is up first and chose the 1976 TV movie, Sherlock Holmes in New York starring Roger Moore as Holmes, Patrick Macnee as Watson, John Huston as Moriarty, and Charlotte Rampling as Irene Adler.

Pax, Rob, and Michael continue this month's lounge talking about Cobra Kai, A Stitch in Time by Andrew J Robinson, Golden Age Wonder Woman, All Our Wrong Todays by Elan Mastai, pop culture Mount Rushmores, and the Agatha Christie mini-series Towards Zero.

Pax, Rob, and Michael talk about autograph collecting, Thunderbolts*, podcast wives, the podcast Heist with Michael Caine, the Goldie Vance graphic novels by Hope Larson and Brittney Williams, and more Sherlock Holmes. And Michael's son David stops by to talk about the One Piece manga and other things.

To celebrate the conclusion of our massive James Bond project, our panelists Michael, Rob, and Karen welcome fellow Bond fans Becky Tyler, Jacob Bean-Watson, and Jody Collins for a fun game, reviewing our favorite elements of the series. We draft our favorite Bond actors, villains, gadgets, and features from a dozen other categories to create our own inter-era Bond mash-up films. We laughed, we gasped, and we hurt each other's feelings in this super fun episode about everyone's favorite super spy.

Michael, Rob, and Pax get back in the cars to talk about the return of the Fast and Furious family as they try to rescue an amnesic Letty from the machinations of supervillain Owen Shaw (Luke Evans).

Michael, Rob, and Karen finish (for now) their James Bond movie project with the final Daniel Craig and the final Eon Productions entry in the series. It's No Time to Die, also starring Léa Seydoux, Rami Malek, Lashana Lynch, Jeffrey Wright, Ana de Armas, and the usual cast of allies.

Michael and Jess talk about the comics Fangs by Sarah Andersen and Rachel Rising: The Shadow of Death by Terry Moore.

Michael, Pax, and Rob finish this month's Lounge talking about an Irene Adler novel, Kraven the Hunter (2024), Anora (2024), Black Doves (2024), Young Guns autographs, and the scariest things to crawl on you and/or haunt your house.

In the first half of this month's Lounge, Michael, Pax, and Rob are visited by Noel Thingvall. Topics include pets, death, Kraven the Hunter comics, Sherlock Holmes stories, Kamen Rider, X-Men comics, old Nerd Lunch episodes, Peter Dinklage as Hercule Poirot, and Ruth Ware's One Perfect Couple.

Following up on our C2E2 conversation about things that could be improved by monkeys, robots, or Michael Caine, please enjoy this special rerun of the first time that topic appeared on the Atomic Geeks podcast. With special thanks to Carlin Trammel for the idea and Christian Nielsen for the audio and permission.

You don't put Christian Nielsen, Michael DiGiovanni, Carlin Trammel, Shawn Robare, William Bruce West, Rob Graham, Michael May, Jeeg, and Paxton Holley in a room together and not record a podcast. While at C2E2, the group (minus Jeff Somogyi who sadly was not feeling well that evening) gathered in Christian and DiGio's hotel room to revive the classic Atomic Geeks topic: "Monkey, Robot, Michael Caine." Each person suggests a movie, TV show, event, etc. and discuss what would best improve it: a monkey, a robot, or... well, you'll see.

In 2015, the Nerd Lunch crew met up with most of the Atomic Geeks and assorted members of the Fourth Chair Army at C2E2 in Chicago. Ten years later, it's time to get together again with even more friends. The group this time included Carlin Trammel, William Bruce West, Jeeg, Paxton Holley, Jeff Somogyi, Shawn Robare, Michael May, Rob Graham, Christian Nielsen, and Michael DiGiovanni. In this audio diary, we learn about how the trip came together, check in with the attendees at various points of the weekend, and tease a very special podcast episode that we recorded there and will be Coming Soon.

Michael and Rob invite Michael DiGiovanni, Christian Nielsen, and Paxton Holley to help cast an imaginary remake of Silverado. Each of our five casting directors have scoured Hollywood for the perfect actors to update the roles of Emmett, Paden, Mal, Jake, Rae, and Cobb, plus other characters we wanted to think about. We've brought our top candidates to the conference room to make final decisions, but also to discuss possible tweaks to the script and even suggest a director.

Michael, Rob, and Karen discuss the penultimate Craig Bond film, Sam Mendes's Spectre, co-starring Léa Seydoux, Christoph Waltz, Andrew Scott, and Dave Bautista.