Nerd Lunch

Michael and Jess talk about Halloween and other spooky things, including the comics Vampire Hunter D: Message from Mars and 30 Days of Night.

Rob, Pax, Jacob, and Michael reconvene our Sherlock Holmes panel to talk about lots of Holmes stuff, including Murder by Decree starring Christopher Plummer and James Mason as Holmes and Watson on the trail of Jack the Ripper.

Michael, Rob, and Pax go back into the Fast and Furious timeline to watch Better Luck Tomorrow, an early Justin Lin film that both he and actor Sung Kang have retroactively declared to be the first appearance of Han from the Fast and Furious series. It's a crime movie, it's a high school movie... it's a Fast and Furious movie? We talk about how well it works in all three of those categories.

Michael, Rob, and Pax welcome very special guest, Tyler Mane (X-Men, Rob Zombie's Halloween) to resurrect an old topic from After Lunch's early days. We each nominate fighters, locations, and complications and discuss Who Would Win? Of course Sabretooth vs Michael Myers comes up, but there are many more epic battles to talk about and argue over.  Be sure to check out Tyler's new graphic novel, The Last Spartan: Red Tape, co-written with Christopher Priest.

Kolchak: The Night Stalker started as a couple of TV movies, but when it became a TV series it struggled and only lasted 20 episodes, finally becoming a cult classic thanks to late night reruns. Michael, Rob, and guests DeAndre and Sophie discuss how they would tweak the series to be even better than it was. And also about what they love and wouldn't want to change.

This is the part of the show where Michael and Jess talk about horror, including this month the graphic novels Heathentown by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman and Plunge by Joe Hill and Stuart Immonen.

For this month's Sherlock Holmes movie, Michael, Rob, Pax, and Jacob go way back to the silent era for Sherlock Holmes starring John Barrymore as Holmes, Roland Young as Watson, and Gustav von Seyffertitz as Moriarty. It's also William Powell's first movie and features Reginald Denny in a small, but important role.

Finishing this month's Lounge, Pax, Rob, and Michael talk about the novel that inspired Gymkata, amusement parks vs theme parks, cozy video games, work spaces, the new Ultimate Spider-Man, and meeting Oscar Goldman.

In this month's Lounge (last month's Lounge, actually, but Summer travelling slowed us down a bit and we're behind), Pax, Rob, and Michael dig deeper into the Superman and Fantastic Four movies than we were able to last time, plus Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Gymkata, and Fantastic Four podcasts, Appaloosa by Robert B Parker, Bono’s memoirs, and more.

Returning to a classic Nerd Lunch topic, Michael, Rob, Becky Tyler, and Ben Graham each pick a single element from a movie or TV show that we want the rights to. And we of course explain what we would do if we had those rights.

Michael and Jess talk about horrific things they've been watching and reading, including the comedically bloody Grizzlyshark comics and the vampire Western graphic novel West of Sundown.

Michael, Rob, and Pax grab their gas guns and hop back into the buzzing car to watch The Green Hornet Strikes Again. Even though it was released in the same year as the serial it's a sequel to, there's a new actor playing Green Hornet (Warren Hull this time, instead of Gordon Jones). But Keye Luke is back as Kato, Anne Nagel as the awesome Case, and perhaps less excitingly, Wade Boteler as the bumbling stereotype Michael Axford. We didn't all love the first Green Hornet serial, so let's see how this one compares.

Jacob, Michael, Rob, and Pax talk about the TV movie Sherlock, aka Sherlock: Case of Evil starring James D'Arcy as the sexiest Holmes at the beginning of his detective career. Vincent D'Onofrio plays Moriarty, Richard E Grant is Mycroft, and Gabrielle Anwar shows up with some crucial information.

Michael, Pax, and Rob finish this 50th Lounge episode talking about celebrities who represent us, Interior Chinatown, X-Men/Star Trek crossovers, Jurassic World Rebirth, the Beastie Boys Book audiobook, and Stinker Lets Loose! by Mike Sacks (aka James Taylor Johnson).

On this 50th Lounge episode, Michael, Pax, Rob - and introducing PJ Holley! - talk about history podcasts, unproduced Superman movies, Sharks Of The Corn, Indiana Jones, The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie, Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books, and how to invade an ensemble TV show.

Carlin Trammel brings a special episode presenting a recent panel he moderated at Infinity Con Tallahassee, talking with monster makers Christopher Burdett and Mark Maddox about their approaches to crafting compelling creatures in art.

Michael, Rob, and Pax start a new series of episodes in which we'll sporadically visit all of the Predator and Alien movies. In chronological order. So first up is Dan Trachtenberg's Prey, starring Amber Midthunder, Dakota Beavers, and Coco as Sarii the Wonder Dog.

Michael and Jess talk about some horror movies they've been watching, then a classic collection of Charles Addams comics and Junji Ito's Gyo, Volume 1.

Returning to the classic Nerd Lunch topic, Michael and Rob are joined by guests Dan Taylor (Catacombs & Comedians) and Ron Ankeny to talk about actors we'd like to see in something again. First we play casting agents, each bringing an actor who hasn't had enough work lately for our tastes. We discuss each one and the kinds of roles they play, or that we would like to see them play. Then we enter the Writers Room and create an idea for a movie to showcase them all. It's a great time and we created (we think) a great movie.

Our Sherlock Holmes panel Pax, Jacob, Michael, and Rob talk about Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce's second outing as Holmes and Watson. They'd appeared together in The Hound of the Baskervilles earlier that same year, but this one's an original story (loosely based on a play by William Gillette). It's still a Victorian adventure before the series changed studios and went modern with the next film. It also stars Ida Lupino as Holmes' client and George Zucco as Moriarty.