Author: theMFP

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:37:41 — 88.3MB)

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The 1980s may not have been quite as bleak as 1984 predicted, but the Reagan era did see plenty of doom and gloom in entertainment, from Mad Max and Blade Runner to The Terminator and RoboCop. In When We Were Young’s latest episodes, Reel Gents podcast host Travis Dukelow joins us to dissect a cornucopia of dystopias unleashed in the 80s.

In Part One, we cover Terry Gilliam’s legendary BRAZIL (1985), which takes several cues from Orwell’s 1984 and adds a healthy dollop of dryly absurd British humor. Jonathan Pryce stars as meek cog-in-the-machine Sam Lowry, whose heroic fantasies offer the only hope of escape from a dreary, duct-ravaged world — at least, until Robert De Niro shows up as the world’s most swashbuckling repairman. If your vision of the future involves Christmastime, lobotomies, plastic surgery gone awry, and terrorism, this is the dystopia for you!

If you prefer a more scathing satire of consumerism and media, however, look no further than John Carpenter’s camp classic THEY LIVE (1987), discussed in Part Two of this episode. It stars wrestler Roddy Piper as John Nada, a down-on-his-luck drifter who suddenly learns that roughly half of America’s population is being brainwashed by television — and the other half are aliens. This cult favorite features magic sunglasses, excessive ass-kicking, and absolutely no bubblegum — and yet feels strangely prescient about the state of the world in 2018.

Is it 1984 yet? Join us for this two-part dystopic extravaganza before the inevitable collapse of society renders podcasts obsolete!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and you can email us your episodes suggestions at wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:51:33 — 98.9MB)

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We need your clothes, your boots, your motorcycle and your full attention for our new episode! James Cameron’s THE TERMINATOR (1984) put the filmmaker on the map, becoming a classic almost instantly upon its release. By the time T2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991) came out seven years later, Cameron had become one of the most successful filmmakers of all time and Arnold Schwarzenegger was a bonafide movie star.

It’s clear that the first two films in the long-running (and seemingly never-ending) Terminator franchise are the most beloved by fans – but can they survive our scrutiny? Does Linda Hamilton hold up as a feminist hero? And was casting Arnold as the titular terminating cyborg actually the wrong call? It’s judgment day on When We Were Young.

We also sit down with Ben Foster, co-director of the new sci-fi adventure TIME TRAP, to discuss the hardships of indie filmmaking and why people are so drawn to the time travel genre. Come with us if you want to relive two of the most iconic sci-fi movies of all time!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and you can email us your episodes suggestions at wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 2:02:52 — 107.5MB)

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Masks on, listeners! This October, we’re celebrating Halloween by celebrating HALLOWEEN — the iconic horror film that unintentionally concocted the formula for an entire genre. John Carpenter’s 1978 chiller was made on a shoestring budget and went on to become the most profitable independent film ever made. It also launched horror’s most enduring villain, the tight-lipped but heavy-breathing Michael Myers, and the career of Jamie Lee Curtis, crowned the genre’s official Scream Queen.

Curtis returned to her blood-spattered roots in 1998’s HALLOWEEN H2O, co-starring Josh Hartnett, LL Cool J, and Michelle Williams, in the 90s slasher revival spawned by Scream. Now, in 2018, she once again portrays Laurie Strode, the “Final Girl” who made her famous, in David Gordon Green’s new spin on this cinematic classic.

The podcast welcomes wife-and-husband duo Chelsea and Dan to discuss all matters of splatter, then looks back at the original Halloween in observance of its 40th anniversary. After countless knock-offs and a string of subpar sequels, is Halloween still worth hallowing? Or does its violence against nubile babysitters come off as much less enlightened four decades later? And is Halloween H2O still the franchise’s only decent sequel? Come for the Carpenter, and stay for the Cool J, as we cower in the closet all over again!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and you can email us your episodes suggestions at wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:52:59 — 101.8MB)

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Calling all creeps! If you were a literate kid in the 90s, you almost certainly cracked open a GOOSEBUMPS book at some point. With 62 titles in its original run, R.L. Stine’s legendary YA horror anthology is one of the best-selling book series of all time. It also spawned games, toys, lunchboxes, apparel, two major motion pictures, and one very Canadian TV series — and the spin-offs just keep on coming.

When We Were Young invites Goosebumps fanatic Daniel Montgomery onto the show to reminisce about the halcyon days of the Scholastic Book Fair and our favorite preteen reads. Then we dare turn back the cuckoo clock of doom to revisit three classic titles from our childhoods, including The Haunted Mask and Night of the Living Dummy, to see if Stine’s writing still thrills and chills.

From outlandish twist endings to the many, many fakeout scares, there’s at least as much campy comedy to Goosebumps as there is genuine spine-tingling. Do these books still dish out the deep trouble, or was R.L. Stine just crying monster all along? We’ll spoil the “gotcha!” right now — yes, this episode does involve a teenage Ryan Gosling. Listener, beware!

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and you can email us your episodes suggestions at wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:13:22 — 63.1MB)

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How does 1988’s Best Picture Oscar winner hold up? We’re too busy answering a question from a half hour ago to weigh in right now, so you’ll have to listen to When We Were Young’s latest episode, just in time for the 30th anniversary of Barry Levinson’s RAIN MAN.

Dustin Hoffman’s Academy Award winning role set the stage for many actors playing mentally or physically disabled characters to go for the gold. Does this still come off as a credible way to depict autism, or have changing times made this a more problematic performance? And how do we feel about Tom Cruise as a full-on dramatic leading man in an action-free film?

Take a break from memorizing that phone book and make sure you’re wearing the proper underwear, because we’re about to make like Wapner and judge whether Rain Man soars like Qantas or sucks like Kmart.

When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and you can email us your episode suggestions at wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes!

Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung.