#326 â Annaka Harris: Free Will, Consciousness, and the Nature of Reality
Song Exploder
⢠Hrishikesh Hirway
King Princess - Let Us Die
King Princess is the project of Mikaela Straus, a singer, songwriter, and producer from Brooklyn. Sheâs a platinum-selling artist, and she put out her second album in July, 2022. The last track on the album is the song "Let Us Die." Rolling Stone called it "the banger of the year."
In this episode, Mikaela breaks down the song, along with two of her collaborators on it: co-producer and co-writer Ethan Gruska, and multi-Grammy winning producer Mark Ronson. Youâll hear the original voice memo that Mikaela recorded, and the demo she made with Ethan. And youâll hear the drums recorded by the late Taylor Hawkins, the legendary drummer of Foo Fighters and Alanis Morissette, who passed away earlier this year.
For more, visit songexploder.net/king-princess.
đŹ Army of Darkness

Oh dear. The fifth movie that day. I was actually looking forward tothis as I was keen to watch another Sam-Raimi-Bruce-Campbell movie. Thiscertainly has some good scenes! But overall I found the jokes, dialogueand effects overly silly. I felt like this was more about the specialeffects than anything else. And those felt incredibly dated. Nah, sorry,didnât like it much this time around.
đŹ Rambo: First Blood Part II

The fourth film we watched back-to-back. It was kinda hard taking thisseriously after having watched Hot Shots 2, which basically parodiesevery second scene of Rambo 2. This was still ok, I guess, but I wasnâtthat attentive any more and half-missed the ending.
đŹ Hot Shots! Part Deux

With six others in a hut in the mountains and itâs raining all Sunday:what do you do? We just kept watching silly movies. And this one isindeed meant to be, voluntarily! I remembered quite a few scenes, sothis was a little nostalgic. I think this still has nice ideas, wellexecuted. But yeah, itâs super silly.
đŹ Kickboxer

I was primed with that this is basically the same movie as Bloodsport.And I agree. But nothing could prepare me for that hilarious dancingscene!
đŹ Bloodsport

Usually not really my cup of tea, but I watched this with six friendswho know this in and out. And this made this special, as I not only gotto watch this fabulously cheesy movie, I also was enlightened by theirexpert commentary.
This had some fun characters, corny music, oh-my-god-the-clothes!!, anantagonist thatâs indeed super evil (in a total unironic good way); andyeah: splits!
Based on a true story!
I had a great time.
âPitch Perfectâ With Juliet Litman, Jodi Walker, and Kate Halliwell
Aca-scuse me? The Ringerâs Juliet Litman, Jodi Walker, and Kate Halliwell cause treble as they revisit the 2012 musical comedy âPitch Perfectâ starring Anna Kendrick, Skylar Astin, Brittany Snow, and Anna Camp. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
#325 â Michael Levin: Biology, Life, Aliens, Evolution, Embryogenesis & Xenobots
Radiolab
⢠WNYC Studios
Playing God
502: Going Retina Again
Song Exploder
⢠Hrishikesh Hirway
Book Exploder: Tayari Jones - An American Marriage
Tayari Jones is the author of four novels. She won the 2019 Women's Prize for Fiction, and received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Fine Arts from the Congressional Black Caucus. Her novel An American Marriage was an Oprah's Book Club Selection, and was longlisted for the National Book Award. She won the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work in Fiction.
An American Marriage tells the story of Celestial and Roy, a Black middle-class couple living in Atlanta. Their lives are torn apart after Roy is wrongfully convicted of a crime he did not commit, and the middle of the book takes the form of letters they send each other while heâs in prison. In her discussion with Susan, Tayari discusses the letter Celestial sends to Roy to tell him she is leaving him.
For more, visit bookexploder.com/episodes/tayari-jones.
#324 â Daniel Negreanu: Poker
âBoogie Nightsâ (Part 2) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
In Part 2, Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey run through the categories for Paul Thomas Andersonâs âBoogie Nightsâ. This is a high fidelity podcast, you know what that means? That means this is the highest quality fidelity. Hi-Fi. Those are two very important things to have in a podcast. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
âBoogie Nightsâ (Part 1) With Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey
The Ringerâs Bill Simmons, Chris Ryan, and Sean Fennessey are blessed with one special thing: Paul Thomas Andersonâs âBoogie Nightsâ, starring Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds, Julianne Moore, and John C Reilly. In Part 1, the guys break down why they love the film, dive deep into the characters, and discuss the history of how the film was made. Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
The text for movie posts is now hidden at first, if it potentially contains spoilers (I simply used the <details> element for this). This also applies to the Atom feeds (for movies and for everything). The text is also no longer written in the description and og:description meta tags. All of this should make it harder to accidentally get spoiled.
đŹ The Fog

This review may contain spoilers. Tap or click to view.
Death is polite in this one and often knocks on the door first before slaying you to pieces. I found The Fog itself to be a little silly maybe, but that mightâve just been the intention. Overall itâs great fun, if youâre into old-school horror. The jump scares are effective, the atmosphere menacing, and Carpenterâs pictures and music do the rest.
#323 â Will Sasso: Comedy, MADtv, AI, Friendship, Madness, and Pro Wrestling
đŹ Blood Simple

The one thing that I really noticed were the scene transitions. Theywere quite something! And given this must have been all done analoguejust impresses all the more. The whole misunderstandings and increasingfear and paranoia that overcomes the protagonists is really wellportrayed. Thereâs just a lot of great scenes in this one. And really Ionly noticed now as I write about this. I might have been not thatenthusiastic right after the film ended, but now I kind of wanna watchit again.