INSTANT REACTION: Superman must reconcile his alien Kryptonian heritage with his human upbringing as reporter Clark Kent. As the embodiment of truth, justice and the human way he soon finds himself in a world that views these as old-fashioned.

A group of survivors of the rage virus live on a small island. When one of the group leaves the island on a mission into the mainland, he discovers secrets, wonders, and horrors that have mutated not only the infected but other survivors.

INSTANT REACTION: Plagued by a recurring violent nightmare, a college student returns home to find the one person who can break the cycle and save her family from the horrific fate that inevitably awaits them.

INSTANT REACTION: A fading midwestern town in which Frendo the clown, a symbol of bygone success, reemerges as a terrifying scourge.

EP 196: 2008’s Box Office Countdown (5–1) – Jokers, Jones, and ABBA (ft. Phoenix Clouden)

Episode Description: Jason is joined by the ever unpredictable Phoenix Clouden (The Film Canon) to finish the epic climb through 2008’s biggest box office hits! This is the top 5 where caped crusaders, crystal skulls, pandas, demigods, and dancing queens battled for cinematic dominance.

It's a strange mix of gritty realism, nostalgic absurdity, and pop musical euphoria

Films Discussed:

• Mamma Mia! (5) – Meryl, ABBA, and summer dreams you can sorta almost sing along to.

• Hancock (4) – A drunken antihero gets a redemption arc, and the movie continues.

• Kung Fu Panda (3) – The animated surprise that kicks harder than anyone expects.

• Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2) – Aliens? Fridges? And the first real internet backlash blockbuster.

• The Dark Knight (1) – Ledger’s Joker, Nolan’s vision, and the box office juggernaut that changed the game. But is it...good?

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Phoenix defends Kung Fu Panda as top-tier animation with real heart and craft.

• Jason revisits Hancock and some tone deaf creative choices.

• Can Mamma Mia! actually work as a movie?

• Was Crystal Skull ever really that bad, or just a victim of overhype?

• And does The Dark Knight still hold up as the superhero movie to beat?

EPISODE 195: 2008’s Box Office Countdown (10–6) – Iron, Espionage, Penguins, and Robots (ft. Robert Yaniz Jr. & DW Lundberg)

Episode Description: The countdown continues! Jason is joined by returning guests Robert Yaniz Jr. and DW Lundberg to tackle the back half of 2008’s top-grossing movies—where talking animals, malfunctioning robots, and emotionally exhausted spies battled it out for box office supremacy.

This batch has it all: MCU beginnings, Pixar magic, Bond reboot blues, and a certain talking lion who just can't catch a break.

Films Discussed:

• Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa (6) – The animals are back and... still trying to get home.

• Quantum of Solace (7) – Bond is brooding, brutal, and possibly bored.

• Iron Man (8) – The movie that launched a universe (and Robert Downey Jr. into legend).

• WALL·E (9) – A near-silent ode to love, loneliness, and environmental collapse.

• The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian (10) – Slightly darker, slightly edgier, but did anyone notice?

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Was Quantum of Solace an artistic casualty of the 2008 writers' strike?

• How Iron Man became a bigger gamble than anyone remembers.

• Why WALL·E might be Pixar’s boldest and most bittersweet gamble.

• Robert, DW, and Jason try to answer the eternal question: "Who actually watched Prince Caspian?"

From Armored Avengers to existential robots, the back half of 2008’s top 10 is more influential than you might think.

EPISODE 195: An American Original! – No apologies, no half-measures, all fire. (ft. Joe Buttice)

Episode Description: This week, Jason is joined by Joe Buttice (Reel Spoilers) to lock and load a ranking of five films tied to the myth, the man, the cigar-smoking cinema warlord: John Milius. Whether writing frontier survival epics or directing operatic war fantasies, Milius brought a thunderous, unapologetic voice to American film.

Strap in for manifest destiny, surfboard theology, Cimmerian steel, and teenage guerrilla warfare.

Films Ranked:

• Jeremiah Johnson (1972, writer) – The loner as legend in a snow-covered survivalist western.\

• Dillinger (1973) – Milius’s directorial debut, mixing gangster cool with mythic Americana.

• Big Wednesday (1978) – A lyrical, wave-soaked ode to brotherhood and the end of an era.

• Conan the Barbarian (1982) – Barbarism, Nietzsche, and epic vengeance in the Hyborian Age.

• Red Dawn (1984) – Wolverines! Teenage insurgents defend America in a Cold War fever dream.

IN THIS EPISODE:

• Joe defends Red Dawn as both fantasy and prophecy

• Jason meditates on Big Wednesday as the most personal of war films

• The complicated politics, masculine myth-making, and the man behind the bombast