Episode 97 - Star Trek: First Contact Film Review!

We continue our ongoing series of reviewing all the films in the Muppets and Star Trek franchises! (Steve and Jarman's favorite fandoms respectively) This time, it's Star Trek: First Contact! 

We also have nerdy news of the power of dingos and a new Batwoman TV show!

Then we have a special segment of 5-Minute Aficionado ---- on the Borg!

The fun continues with the return of a classic segment, Factoid Fumbles! Then some Radical Recommends and Trailer Reviews of Creed 2 and Summer of 84.

Intro music provided with permission by the awesome Jimmy Hinson of Big Giant Circles. Find him Bandcamp or iTunes!

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Episode 96 - Mission: Impossible and the Spies That Captivate Us

Join us this week for our first ever live recorded episode! In an effort to release more episodes and reduce editing time, we are recording everything live with sound effects, music and clips all played live. Get our uncensored, uncut episodes in record time from now on!

In this week's episode, we feature the Mission: Impossible franchise, in anticaption of the new film in the series, Mission: Impossible: Fallout coming to theaters July 27th. Steve will also give a breakdown of famous spy and espionage events throughout recent history and in pop culture.

We also get into some Nerdy News of real life Neanderthal robots and a surprise Star Wars casting! 

Also enjoy some Radical Recommends, ridiculous Would You Rather, and Trailer Reviews of Mortal Engines and The Spy Who Dumped Me.

Intro music provided with permission by the awesome Jimmy Hinson of Big Giant Circles. Find him Bandcamp or iTunes!

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Episode 95 - Defending Battlefield Earth

Today, we are doing something unprecedented. We're going to defend the film, Battlefield Earth! Well, Steve is going to defend it. All in a new segment called, To the Death! - Where we will take critically panned (and audience panned) movies and one of us must try to defend them, for whatever merits they may possess. In some cases, we may actually like the film, which in this case, Steve does! I know...crazy right?

Then we have some Nerdy News, where we'll discuss the troubling allegations against nerd icon, Chris Hardwick, and talk about some upcoming sequel films you probably didn't know were on their way. 

Then we'll have the return of the Preternatural Penetration segment. Sticking with the theme of aliens from our featured movie, Jarman tells the story of a possible UFO crash that happened in Iceland in the 1950s.

In an extended Radical Recommends segment, Steve discusses how much his daughter loves Moana, which led to him doing research into the real myths behind the character of Maui from that film (the Rock). Join us on a historical deep dive!

Finally, for Trailer Reviews, we cover the upcoming Bumbebee Transformers spinoff, and the "live action" remake of Dumbo that no one asked for. Bumbo!

Intro music provided with permission by the awesome Jimmy Hinson of Big Giant Circles. Find him Bandcamp or iTunes!

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Episode 94 - The Battle of the Hercules!

In a truly heroic return of A Play On Nerds, we bring you Copy Cat Cinema! This time with the 2014 screen gems, Hercules and The Legend of Hercules! Which musclebound fake Greek demi-god will defeat the other? Listen in to find out! Steve will give us a quick recap of the Greek pantheon of gods and their history before we delve into the main segment.

For Nerdy News we cover discoveries on Jupiter's moon, Europa, that could mean discovering alien life in the near future! Plus, how are bees making red honey? And how is pot involved?!

For the rest of the episode, we have a very late review of Avengers: Infinity War, some Radical Recommends, and Trailer Reviews of Kin and The Predator!

Intro music provided with permission by the awesome Jimmy Hinson of Big Giant Circles. Find him Bandcamp or iTunes!

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Episode 93 - The Postman and Problems in Post

Due to a terribly unfortunate glitch, we lost the main portion of this episode, where we discussed the movie The Postman, in a new segment To The Death! - where we review a film that one of us absolutely loves, but the other absolutely hates. Jarman is in love with The Postman even though it is pretty universally reviled. But, as mentioned, we lost that whole segment due to a strange computer glitch.

What did survive the terrible glitch was our related interview with Shawn Vanderloo, who is a real life "postman" in Canada. He tells us all about the ups and downs of his job as a letter carrier. It's a super fun romp! And you may already know Shawn as he a host on both The Rusted Robot Podcast and the Soul Forge Podcast. You should definitely check them out!

Sorry for the loss of what was a hilarious episode, but we'll be back with you in another full episode of A Play On Nerds in a couple weeks. We're moving into a brand new studio space, so it will take a bit of time to get set up. See you then!

Intro music provided with permission by the awesome Jimmy Hinson of Big Giant Circles. Find him Bandcamp or iTunes!

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