'Silent Running' with John Hodgman

In the middle of the 1970s, producer Dino De Laurentiis wanted to make a big movie, maybe the biggest movie. And what could be bigger than Kong? The original 1933 classic was arguably more popular than ever, having picked up new generations of monster movie fans over the decades. All De Laurentiis had to do was make a bigger and better version for 1970s audiences. Did he succeed? Short answer, well, no. Long answer: But that doesn't mean his attempt doesn't still have a lot going for it.Seeing the 1976 King Kong was a formative movie experience for me, despite seeing it later on television, so I'll always have a soft spot for it. But I'm not alone. Critic BJ Colangelo, who's similar fond of the film, joins me for a discussion of all things Kong (and all things '70s). You might have seen Colangelo's bylines in publications like Fangoria and Vulture. With her wife Harmony, BJ's also the host of the podcast This Ends at Prom, which I encourage to check out. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

At the end of the 1980s Godzilla needed to solidify his comeback. After a few years of silence, the big lizard had made a return with 1984's appropriately named The Return of Godzilla (re-edited and renamed Godzilla 1985 in the U.S.). a film that played it safe by taking Godzilla back to basics. It performed well, but that didn't necessarily mean that Godzilla could thrive in the changed, blockbuster-heavy environment in which he now found himself. The second film in what's come to be known as Godzilla's Heisei Era, Godzilla vs. Biollante both incorporated scenes nodding to '80s action movies and introduced a novel threat in the rapidly evolving plant-based antagonist Biollante.Film critic Katie Rife, whose work has appeared at RogerEbert.com, Indiewire, The A.V. Club, Letterboxd, Vulture and elsewhere joins The Laser Age to talk about his unusual turning point film in the penultimate installment of a season dedicated to giant animals (and, in this case, plants.) No stranger to the world of Godzilla, Katie helps put this strange, melancholy installment in its historical context. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What's more terrifying than giant rabbits? Well, just about everything. Nevertheless, this film still exists. Longtime pop culture writer Jordan Hoffman joins the show to discuss a film that regularly turns up on the list of all-time worst movies. Does it deserve to be there? We'll try to figure it out.Released in the summer of 1972, Night of the Lepus was an attempt to make a 1950s-style giant monster movie for the 1970s. Instead of radiation, it's an ecological error upsetting the balance of nature that causes rabbits to balloon in size and terrorize the American Southwest, represented here by a cast that includes Janet Leigh, Stuart Whitman, Rory Calhoun, and Star Trek's DeForest Kelly. It's Kelly's presence that inspired me to invite Hoffman, a longtime Star Trek expert who once ranked every episode of every Trek series, but that proved to be just a jumping off point for a digressive but ultimately rabbit-focused conversation. But before Hoffman hops on, I get into the film's background, including its unlikely origin as the satirical Australian novel The Year of the Angry Rabbit, published in 1964. All that and more awaits you in our latest episode, part of a five-episode run devoted to movies about giant animals. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Benjamín Schultz-Figueroa, a film studies professor at Seattle University and author of The Celluloid Specimen: Moving Image Research into Animal Life joins The Laser Age to discuss the 1949 film Mighty Joe Young, A kind of companion piece to King Kong made by most of the same team, the film features a far gentler giant ape hero, a depiction that reflects the different era in which it appeared, one in which many of the blank spots on the map had been filled. Schultz-Figueroa is an expert on the subject of animals on film. The Celluloid Specimen, which is available to read for free, explores the films made by mid-century scientists, specifically the animal research films of Robert Mearns Yerkes, Neal E. Miller and B.F. Skinner. Yerkes is particularly relevant as his primate studies were informed by and helped inform ideas about eugenics and the notion of nature consisting of a hierarchy of species, notions you can see in the film. It's not all grim talk about misguided 20th century science and racial politics: we also talk about what a nice fella Mr. Joe Young is and the craft of Ray Harryhausen. (This is the second in a five-episode season devoted to giant animals.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Laser Age is now up and running again with a slightly tweaked approach. Going forward, we’ll be doing five-episode seasons, if that’s the right word, built around a theme. First up: giant animals! Dan McCoy of The Flop House was kind enough to revisit one of the most influential giant animal movies: 1954’s Them! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

RoboCop: Who is he? What is he? Scholar, pop culture writer, and longtime Paul Verhoeven fan Donna Bowman joins The Laser Age to discuss RoboCop, Verhoeven's ultraviolent 1987 sci-fi satire about a police officer's second life as a cyborg law enforcer. Did it offer a vision of things to come? Is it a vessel for Verhoeven's particular notions of what an American Jesus might look like? Why not both?And this marks the end of the first run of Laser Age episodes. We're going to take a short break before releasing a new batch of episodes. You might even call it a new season. You might even say this season will have a theme. We'll return soon to kick off a five-episode run focusing on films about giant animals from apes to lizards to rabbits. (Yes, rabbits.) If you want to watch ahead, we'll be starting things off with Them!, the quintessential 1950s giant bug movie. Look for it soon. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Throughout the 1990s, film after film explored the possibilities of the then-new concept of virtual reality. The trend reached a seeming peak in 1999, with the release of the semi-forgotten The Thirteenth Floor, the anything-but-forgotten The Matrix, and, like a shadow cousin to those big-budget studio efforts, eXistenZ. With his first film taken based on a wholly original idea since Videodrome, David Cronenberg put his own spin on the notion, one informed by Philip K. Dick, existential philosophy, and his own abiding obsessions with sex and the slippery nature of reality. Film critic Scott Tobias, a name doubtlessly familiar to readers of The Reveal, joins this episode to discuss the film. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Released in 1984, Thom Eberhardt's sci-fi comedy takes a (mostly) lighthearted look at the end of the world via the story of two teens who survive a visit from a deadly comet. Jen Chaney, critic and author As If!: An Oral History of Clueless, joins the podcast to discuss a decidedly '80s teenage wasteland. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

There were few bigger movie stars than Jerry Lewis in 1960, the year he released three films: Cinderfella, his directorial debut The Bellboy, and this adaptation of a popular Gore Vidal play. Lewis plays Kreton, a traveler from the other end of the universe who drops down to Earth, talks to dogs and cats, jams with beatniks, and generally stirs up trouble. Longtime film and pop culture critic Noel Murray joins us to discuss a semi-forgotten entry in Lewis' filmography with a longer-lasting influence than you might expect. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SERIES PREMIERE: In 1972, special effects genius Douglas Trumbull made his directorial debut with a story of conservation, space travel, robots... and murder. In this premiere episode of The Laser Age we're joined by author, actor, and podcaster John Hodgman to explore a vision of the near-future rooted in the early 1970s. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.