The Incomparable Mothership

We know there are a lot of superhero movies out there. Sometimes it seems like there are so many, it’s as if a random-number generator just assigned pieces of intellectual property to film directors. But where some might despair at this situation, we looked at it as an opportunity to harness the terrible power of the random-number generator and use our own creativity to assign the right directors to the right comic-book film projects. Now listen to our choices and try to tell us that any currently in-production films are any less ridiculous. <p>Jason Snell with Nathan Alderman, Monty Ashley, Lisa Schmeiser, Philip Michaels, Moisés Chiullán and David J. Loehr.</p>

Olo! It’s time to discuss an underappreciated superhero movie that’s only become more relevant after a decade full of superhero movies. It’s 2010’s “Megamind,” which transcends being an extrusion from the Dreamworks animation factory (well, except for its pop-music soundtrack) to become something greater. With an all-star cast led by Will Ferrell and Tina Fey, this is a great riff on the Superman mythos and the true meaning of destiny and heroism. Code: It’s great. <p>Jason Snell with Chip Sudderth, Annette Wierstra, David J. Loehr and Moisés Chiullán.</p>

Our Book Club returns with a new way to approach this year’s SF novel shortlist: we’re reading all the Hugo and Nebula novels in three batches. First up: “Black Sun,” “The City We Became,” and “Piranesi.” Plus: What are we reading? <p>Jason Snell with Erika Ensign, Scott McNulty and Aleen Simms.</p>

Don your winged jetpack and strap on your cybernetic arm, because it’s time to fight over a shield. Marvel’s second Disney+ series, “The Falcon and the Winter Soldier” picks up the story of two of Captain America’s pals as they confront serious societal issues, the representation of America in the modern age, and a gaggle of super-powered foes. It’s a show that takes some big swings, even if it does get a bit muddled, and we discuss its ambitions, what it gets right, and where it misses the mark. <p>Dan Moren with Kelly Guimont, Lisa Schmeiser, James Thomson and Nathan Alderman.</p>

Drop the camcorder and whatever you do, don’t run toward the bridge! 2008’s “Cloverfield” mixes giant monsters, post-9/11 reactions to urban destruction, rom-com tropes, “Jaws” style monster hiding, and found footage shaky-cam into an incredibly intense movie experience. Does it matter that the main characters are generic, or does it actually help? Is this a slasher film or more of a smasher film? Why did it kick off a nonsensical franchise of unrelated movies? And if it was made today, how would it be different? (Hint: Less shaky-cam!) Find a quiet place to hide somewhere and join us! <p>Jason Snell with Annette Wierstra, Moisés Chiullán, Jean MacDonald and James Thomson.</p>

We have reached the end (for now) of Miyazaki Club. So we gather back together to consider why we’re drawn to Hayao Miyazaki’s work, how we define the differences between films as different as “Ponyo” and “Spirited Away,” a list of the director’s favorite things, subs versus dubs, the music of Joe Hisaishi, and which of Miyazaki’s movies we all prefer. <p>Jason Snell with John Siracusa, Aleen Simms and Steve Lutz.</p>

After years of Monty telling us we should watch it, we’ve given in. It’s time to discuss 1981 South African karate movie “Kill and Kill Again,” a film featuring many middle-aged men kicking people, as well as a James Bond-style plot about a madman who wants to take over the world via an unusual application of potatoes. We cover strange ties to “CSI: Miami” and “The A-Team,” introduce you to the wonders of Hot Dog and his bag of tricks, weigh the movie’s knowing sexism against its unflinching racism, and contemplate Villanous Operations and how they are named. Also, Jason has a tight five about t-shirts.

In space, all warriors are cold warriors! An ecological disaster leads to the breakup of an enemy empire, but in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” it’s the Klingon moon Praxis subbing in for the Soviet power station Chernobyl. Kirk and company struggle with their animosity toward the Klingons, but we are more concerned with what graduate school Gorkon’s daughter went to, the Klingon guard who carries a box, the one Klingon who laughed at McCoy’s joke, the importance of gaseous anomalies to Federation politics, and the lack of respect given to the Enterprise court reporter. Discussing this movie must’ve been our lifelong ambition.

Six episodes ago, Jason made Phil mad by suggesting that “Chariots of Fire” and “Amadeus” might not be worthy of their Academy Awards for Best Picture. This episode is Phil’s revenge, as we watch two acclaimed early-80s films and see how well they hold up. They’re both period pieces, but one is set to the electronic sounds of Vangelis and the other to the classical masterpieces of Mozart. Running in slow motion has never looked better, and there’s never been more braying laughter in a film!

Shakespeare Club returns! “The Taming of the Shrew” is a Shakespeare play that’s crying out to be adapted for modern audiences, which is why it keeps being adapted—with varying degrees of success. We discuss the play, the unpleasant Franco Zeffirelli 1967 film starring Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor, the film and TV versions of Cole Porter’s “Kiss Me, Kate,” the teen rom-com “10 Things I Hate About You,” and even the 1980s TV adaptation on “Moonlighting,” which might be the best of the bunch? What we’re saying, Shakespeare, is that we’ve got some notes.

It’s a classic sitcom! It’s a Marvel movie! It’s both! It’s the first Disney+ MCU show, “WandaVision.” And it managed to be a walk through television history while simultaneously being an exploration of the stages of grief. Plus, an android in a turtleneck! We break it all down, from where Wanda and Vision go from here to what Monica Rambeau, Darcy Lewis, and Jimmy Woo should be doing next. Tune in, won’t you?

Is this the end of Miyazaki Club? Probably not, but we’ve reached the end of our survey of all the feature films he’s directed with “Porco Rosso,” the story of a pig man, the airplane he loves, the woman he doesn’t feel worthy to love, and the seaplane pirates who terrorize the Adriatic after World War I. There are lots of clouds and planes and boats, as you might expect.

The sixth season of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” features dark and unpleasant themes, a painful magic-as-heroin allegory, and creative decisions that manage to be cruel to both the show’s characters and its audience. But there’s also a musical!

We discuss the latest season of Amazon’s “The Expanse,” which separates its main characters for storylines all across the solar system. How well does that approach work? How do Amos and Peaches differ? Why should Alex never be a detective? And do we hate Marco Inaros the appropriate amount?

We’re using our powers over space and time to capriciously right wrongs throughout movie history. That’s right, it’s the Bad Best Picture Draft, in which our panelists will select a Best Picture Oscar winner, take its statuette away, and hand it to a more deserving winner.

Miyazaki Club gets weird with “Ponyo,” a story of a fish who gets the taste of human blood, lives in a bucket, can cure all diseases with a lick, and just wants to be human. Also there’s a plot for the sea to sweep away humanity, and the Moon comes perilously close to Earth. But cute!

After a long gap, our Book Club reconvenes, and if they can remember Micaiah Johnson’s “The Space Between Worlds,” they’ll recommend it to you. It’s a story about identity and society set across parallel worlds that are even more similar than they initially appear to be. Also, what else have we read lately? Curl up with a good book and keep an eye out for parallel-universe warlords!

From Canada comes “Letterkenny,” an unlikely comedy series about rural hicks, burnouts, and hockey players that’s hyper-verbal, charmingly prone to a donnybrook, and one of the funniest things we’ve watched recently.

Let’s fly! Our panel discusses the just-completed third season of “Star Trek: Discovery,” including new characters, future technologies, turbolifts that are bigger on the inside, and how Saru is very much like Poochie.

This week we’re discussing Pixar’s “Soul,” a film about the meaning of life, but also occasionally a wacky comedy about a talking cat or a dream pirate! But mostly the meaning of life. Watch out for the great Bug Zapper in the sky!

It’s time for our annual look back at the year gone by, and what a year it was! Still, we managed to watch, read, and listen to some great stuff this year. As is our custom, our panelists and listeners pick favorite Incomparable episodes and moments. This year, a panelist gets stuck inside a clip, and then Jason has to explain the Skeletor Clip Loop to a first-time Clip Show panelist who is not sure it really exists. It does—and 2021 is the year we fight back.

Is this the way? We break down the second season of “The Mandalorian,” which sees our title character struggling with his own identity as a Mandalorian as well as coming to grips with the important task of protecting the child that he’s been caring for. What’s the difference between good and bad fan service? How many different spin-off shows were being set up this season? And we workshop a Baby Yoda sitcom.

The Kilmas season reaches its peak with a fantasy film about a fellowship of people small and large who must journey far at the behest of a wizard, carrying something that may lead to the complete destruction of a kingdom. Except the thing isn’t a ring, it’s a baby. It’s 1988’s “Willow,” a charming movie with swords, sorcery, brownies (the bad kind), love potions, cartoonish snowballs, magic acorns, dangerous dragons, and even a magic trick or two. Merry Kilmas, one and all!

Kilmas rolls on with Val Kilmer’s first screen role, as the Elvis-like Nick Rivers—who is sent to East Germany and falls into a plot to destroy NATO submarines. But don’t sweat it, this is “Top Secret!”, from the same people who made “Airplane!” and “The Naked Gun,” so it’s really all about the jokes. So many jokes. We rave about some, and remain extremely perplexed about others. But you know who makes the whole thing work? Yep, Val Kilmer, that’s who.

Merry Kilmas! We begin our seasonal celebration of actor Val Kilmer with one of his most mysterious works, 1996’s “The Island of Dr. Moreau.” You’ll go in wanting to see Marlon Brando and David Thewlis, but you’ll exit talking about Goat Man and Dog Butler and why the last half hour of the film makes no sense at all. It’s a legendary disaster of a movie, and maybe that’s what Kilmas is all about!

Pick up a baseball bat and climb into the Woodie car that’s bigger on the inside, because it’s time to discuss HBO’s “Lovecraft Country.” This is a breathtakingly ambitious multi-genre anthology series with recurring characters. It’s about race and sex and society and love and hideous supernatural monsters. It’s set in the Jim Crow era, but also the past and the future and other planes of existence. And if you like the genres that we cover on The Incomparable, it’s worth your time.

Happy Life Day! To celebrate this important occasion, The Incomparable hereby presents a commentary track, to be viewed alongside The Star Wars Holiday Special. You’ll need to find the Holiday Special via the usual rebel channels. We watched the version with ads in it, so if you find a different version, pause the show during the ads.

It’s silly draft time! In this episode we’re drafting TV series that only lasted a single season. No, miniseries and unaired pilots and shows that got a second season don’t count! Also, everyone gets “Firefly.”

Game over, man, game over! We return to the world of xenomorphs and Weyland-Yutani Corp. as we discuss 1986’s “Aliens,” James Cameron’s fascinating follow-up to the Ridley Scott original. We discuss space marines, alien-friendly elevators, white milky blood, and subsequent Alien movies that are very much uncanonical.

It’s one of the best things on television right now. It’s “What We Do in the Shadows,” a show that honors vampire lore while placing them in ridiculous mundane situations. A mockumentary sitcom featuring vampires might seem like an entry from TV Mad Libs, but this show (based on an indie feature film also by Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi) uses its stellar cast and sharp writing to create a bizarre world of energy vampires, complaining familiars, new-age witches, and—the horror—local politics.

Football is life! But even if you don’t care about sports, you should still watch “Ted Lasso” on Apple TV+. It’s a very funny show that’s also full of empathy and respect for its characters, which never goes for the cheap joke, and takes the tropes of every sports movie you’ve seen and uses them in ways you’re not expecting. And we’ve left plenty of space before the Spoiler Horn for our cross-Atlantic panel to explain why you should watch it and why we love this fusion of American and English sensibilities. We believe in Ted Lasso, and you will too.

Duck into the prone position and aim your bow, because it’s time for us to talk about “The Last of Us Part II”, the sequel to a beloved apocalyptic video game. We follow the characters on their pursuit of cross-country revenge, filled with flashbacks and the infected. But on this journey, as we trade our adrenaline for tears, we learn that we were the last of us all along.

It’s time to play the music It’s time to light the lights It’s time to draft the Muppets On the Incomparable tonight

Once more unto the breach, dear friends! This episode kicks off a new recurring feature, Shakespeare Club. Our first subject is “Henry V.” We watch Kenneth Branagh’s 1989 film and discuss Shakespeare’s Expanded Henry Universe, tennis balls, d’elbow, and what a jerk young Harry actually is.

Our Old Movie Club takes on two Billy Wilder comedies from 1939 and 1959, to see if they still hold up 81 and 61 years later. Erika Ensign’s selection is “Midnight,” starring Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche, and Philip Michaels counters with “Some Like It Hot,” starring Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and Marilyn Monroe. Both films are about people pretending to be something they aren’t. And then the fun begins… hopefully!

Launch the Photon Torpedoes! In this episode we’re drafting mostly obscure characters from all of Star Trek lore, and creating our own TV series pitches with the results. If you think our drafts have gone off the rails before, you haven’t seen anything yet!

Grab a shotgun, climb on a stolen motorcycle, and get out your 90s slang phrasebook, because it’s time to watch one of the definitive summer blockbusters, “Terminator 2: Judgment Day.” We marvel at Arnold Schwarzenegger’s perfectly robotic demeanor, Robert Patrick’s steely stare and creepy walk, and Linda Hamilton’s—well, pretty much everything. Hasta la vista, baby.

Hop a flight piloted by a Dodo and leave behind the world you know! Animal Crossing: New Horizons is the perfect escape. Journey to a deserted island to do digital equivalents of chores you’re avoiding doing in the real world! One of the most subjective experiences in all of gaming turned out to be just what millions of us needed this summer. Guest host Moisés Chiullán and his six panelists are proof that “the friends you make along the way” really is the whole point after all. Well, that and draft-format podcasts.

Grab a wad of counterfeit cash and get ready to swim up a waterfall! Our Miyazaki Club goes back to the beginning, to the great animation director’s first feature, “The Castle of Cagliostro.” It’s a franchise work-for-hire being executed by a budding genius, which is a fascinating combination. The film mixes cartoony action and heist-movie tropes with clouds and landscapes and flying machines that come straight from Miyazaki’s brain.

Ten years ago today, The Incomparable began. To celebrate a decade of whatever this is, Jason gathered a dozen of the podcast’s top panelists for a round of toasts.

Inflate your pool floaties, prepare a wedding speech, and whatever you do, don’t go in the glowing red cave, because we’re discussing the delightful film “Palm Springs,” starring Andy Samberg, Cristin Milioti, and J.K. Simmons, and currently available (to Americans, anyway) on Hulu. It’s the kind of movie we’ve seen before, but with so many interesting twists on the concept that it always feels fresh. In addition to pointing out what makes the movie work, we’ve got a bunch of nerdy questions about its premise, the multiverse, where you can find C4 and a policeman’s uniform on short notice, and the ultimate disposition of one very strange goat.

Want to pick up a comic book or graphic novel and don’t know where to start? Our panel has a bunch of very different ideas for you to choose from! We’ve made a list of nearly two dozen for you to try—all available in collections, all ready to pick up without knowing anything about history or backstory or continuity or anything.

It’s our annual read of the annual science fiction and fantasy shortlist, the Hugo Awards nominees! Our panelists catch up on the three books that weren’t covered in our Nebula Awards episode, and then Jason and Erika spend a little time on the short fiction nominees. And the raging debate on whether a planet is space or not continues!

Alex Garland has followed up his film “Ex Machina” with another philosophical drama about technology, the miniseries “Devs.” It’s unique, beautiful, thought provoking, and doesn’t remotely stick the landing. We spend a lengthy pre-Spoiler Horn slot discussing why you might want to watch it (and why you might not), and then we break down the strengths and weaknesses of the show overall and the final episode in particular.

It’s time to take a trip back to Vietnam and discuss Spike Lee’s new film, “Da 5 Bloods”! We discuss Netflix’s decision to release the movie right now, the plot’s many twists and turns, and all of the ways Spike Lee incorporates references to other genres and directors. Plus, heaps and heaps of praise for the cast.

They should have sent a poet, but instead we sent ourselves to celebrate the 23rd (it’s a prime number, as any alien would know) anniversary of the Robert Zemeckis film “Contact”, starring Jodie Foster in an adaptation of the novel by Carl Sagan. How do we reconcile the film’s debate about science and religion? Is this really two movies in one? How showy are the film’s set pieces and special effects? We’re ok to go—otherwise this podcast would be an awful waste of space.

Our walkthrough of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” continues with season 5, in which Buffy inherits a sister with retcon powers, the gang loses someone close to them, and everyone realizes it’s time to grow up. Also, the Big Bad thinks she’s prettier than Buffy, but when you spend all that time around a bunch of gnomish lackeys, your aesthetic sense is bound to get a bit skewed.

It’s not 🧠🧬, it’s 🚀🔪. Emojipedia’s own Jeremy Burge joins our crew to watch the heck out of 2017’s “The Emoji Movie,” a very 💩 movie in which Patrick Stewart plays 💩 and we’re told that 🍆 belongs in the Loser Lounge.

Put on your Sunday clothes and get ready to patrol the trash heap that is Earth, because it’s time to discuss Pixar’s “Wall-E.” We cover the nearly dialogueless first act, whether the broader comedy on the B&L ship Axiom works, Fred Willard (RIP), and the greatness of Ben Burtt. Watch out for rogue robots!

We break down the third season of HBO’s “Westworld”, a show that we may appreciate more for the big swings that it takes rather than the number of times it actually connects. This just-finished season was messy, with one clear through-line and a bunch of other characters who are not served particularly well. We break down the character arcs for Dolores, Bernard, Dolores, Maeve, Dolores, Serac, and Dolores. There’s also praise for Marshawn Lynch (and his shirt), for the show’s continued excellent use of music, and we ponder who the emotional center of the show might actually be.