Podcast: Lightyear & Prey

Lightyear & Prey

Greetings, programs, and welcome to another episode of the Awesome Friday Podcast. This week we’re talking about two new Disney releases: First, the latest Pixar Studios animated feature, Lightyear, followed by Prey director Dan Trachtenberg’s prequel to to the 1980s action horror classic Predator.

There are streaming links powered by JustWatch a little further down this page, and the episode should be live wherever you listen to podcasts (including on this page) now.

Join us!

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Review: ‘Free Guy’ is a love letter to gaming and just the dose of summer fun we’ve been waiting for

FREE GUY

If there’s a film genre with an uneven history, it’s the video game movie. Sure, there are some good movies based on video games, but not many. Free Guy, the first big release from 20th Century Studios in a post-Disney acquisition world, posits that maybe the best way to make a video game movie is not to adapt a game directly at all.

Adapting instead of the gameplay and tropes of massively multiplayer online shooters like Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto Online, the film ends up being a love letter to gaming itself rather than any game specifically.

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Review: ‘Jojo Rabbit’ is charming, but muddled satire

Jojo Rabbit

This is a movie that should be right up my alley. It has an acclaimed comedic writer/director known for films that strike exactly the tone that taking on a difficult subject like the Nazis is suited for, with an all-star cast and a premise just out there enough to maybe sneak in some real lessons without the audience knowing.

And it almost works. That’s not to say that Jojo Rabbit is a bad film. It’s actually a fine film. It has more than a few big laughs and a couple of great performances, but it never quite gels into something more.

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Awesome News: Saturn Awards, Creative Emmy Awards, Kung Fury, AppleTV+, Disney+, and more!

Kung Fury

Another week gone by, another literal ton of news to go over. Welcome to the third edition of Awesome News! This week we cover the Hugo Award and Creative Emmy Awards winners, Hailee Steinfeld joins Hawkeye, AppleTV+ launch date and price, Disney+ full launch day roster, a feature length Kung Fury is still happening, Michael Fassbender is working with Taika Waititi, and new movies from Funko Pops (yes, really) and M Night Shyamalan. No word on a collaboration between those two. Yet.

Anyway let’s get to it.

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Review: Thor Ragnarok

I really miss the sci-fi movies of my childhood. Big, colourful, often funny, always exhilarating; so much fuel for imaginary spaceship battles around my bedroom. I’m sure much of this comes from older eyes and wearier brains, but I find sci-fi these days to be too bland, too unwilling to risk shapes and ideas. The resurgence of *Star Wars* has taken big steps back to the fantasy side of sci-fi, and *Guardians Of The Galaxy* got close with its amazing ship design and snappy script, but I often felt myself seeking more of the *fun*.

Well, not any more. We’ve known for a while that *Thor Ragnarok* would be colourful and funny – director Taika Waititi’s *What We Do In The Shadows* is one of my all-time favourite comedies – but what I was not prepared for was *Ragnarok* having *so* much more. Far from being all-out comedy, it’s a meaty, gorgeous slice of sci-fi bliss.

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