[Long Box Carpentry] The Adventures and Chronicles of Snake Plissken

In which the attempt to relaunch Snake as a multi-media franchise kept hitting wall after wall after wall. Here's our look at what few comics made it out, and here's what few glimpses we had at development of an anime and video game.

[Greystoked] The Son of Tarzan (1920)

In which, in just our second episode, we reach an epic conclusion to the Tarzan franchise, with torches being passed, a surprisingly captivating romance, and a lead who's actually capable of climbing trees. Check it out here.

[Greystoked] Tarzan of the Apes (1918)

In which Tarzan makes his cinematic debut in the existing half of a two-part silent movie. That's right, we're reviewing a quarter of a movie, in which a quarter of that quarter features one of the best child-stars of all time. Check it out here.

[Greystoked] Pilot

In which I join forces with Michael May for a podcast exploring the cinematic history of Tarzan. Yes, Tarzan. We get thing started with a pilot exploring our histories with the vine-swinging ape king. Check it out here.

[Masters of Carpentry] Escape from LA

In which we choose an unfortunate time to go political as Snake Plissken returns for an attempt to facelift his franchise with surfing, sharks, and Bruce Campbell! Check it out here.

[Masters of Carpentry] Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers

Paul Rudd makes his big screen debut in the much maligned mid-90s sequel, and we take a look at both controversial and highly debated cuts in a breakdown which may surprise you. Check it out here.

GUEST APPEARANCE Mystery Movie Night: D-War, Last Airbender, Diary of a Wimpy Kid

My friend Michael May invited me onto a show where one host picks three films, then the others have to guess what the hidden connection is between them. In D-War, and ancient battle with dragons reawakens in the modern day. In The Last Airbender, M Night Shyamalan controversially adapts the modern classic cartoon about a war in a world where people can control the elements. In the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series (we specifically covered part 3: Dog Days, but do discuss them all) a kid goes through the comedic struggles of life as an adolescent. Check it out here.

[Masters of Carpentry] Village of the Damned

Angie Tusa once again joins us for John's first straight-up remake, as he explores a quiet country town where every woman mysteriously gives birth to oddly uniform children with special powers. Check it out here.

[Long Box Carpentry] The Thing (From Another World), Part 2

JD and I continue our look at the second half of Mac's continuing adventures against Aunt Nyarlathotep's ever-flailing, multi-eyed Thing, including a side-quest on a boat before the cosmic monster comes to discover the joys of love and negligees, then veers to the past for a prequel which doesn't set up one damned thing. Check it out here.

[Masters of Carpentry] In the Mouth of Madness

In which Angie Tusa once again joins us for a look at John Carpenter's 90s swirl of HP Lovecraft and Stephen King, which became a defining work of his for an entire generation of fans despite being yet another hard flop for him at the box office. Our views might be controversial! Check it out here.

[Long Box Carpentry] The Thing (From Another World), Part 1

In which J.D. DeMotte joins me as co-host of a new spinoff project looking at all the various comic book tie-ins to John Carpenter's films, beginning with the first two mini-series for The Thing which were put out by Dark Horse Comics. As Mac and Childs continue their adventures against the monstrously infectious cosmic shape-shifter, trudging through more snows of the frozen antarctic, to an inexplicably unaffected Central American rain forest. Also, Navy SEALs! Check it out here.

[Masters of Carpentry] Body Bags

In which Lewis "Linkara" Lovhaug joins us for a look at the nifty and oddball anthology film which sprung out of John Carpenter's failed attempt to sell Showtime a tv series to compete with HBO's Tales from the Crypt. Featuring: Robert Carradine with a sledge hammer! Stacy Keach with a killer head of hair! And Mark Hamill with exposed testicles! Check it out here.

[Masters of Carpentry] Memoirs of an Invisible Man

In which my old fellow Remakes alum joins us as we look at the failure of Chevy Chase breaking into dramatic roles, but the success of John Carpenter returning to mainstream directorial work after a 6-year gap, and ILM breaking new ground with effects they'd spend the rest of the decade perfecting and evolving. Check it out here.

[Cinetropolis & Masters of Carpentry] Return of the Thing

Last summer, I recorded a Masters of Carpentry episode with my friend Benjamin J. Colon where we discussed Return of the Thing an unproduced Sci Fi Channel mini-series from the mid-2000s, which was going to be produced (and possibly directed?) by Frank Darabont as a sequel to John Carpenter's 1982 classic The Thing. I sat on the episode for a while because I still needed to write and record the opening chunk of production notes and a synopsis. When I finally got on that, it ended up expanding into something way too large to record for the episode, so Tim Pelan at Cinetropolis was kind enough to let me host the adjoining piece on his site as an article tying into the podcast. What resulted was the single longest article I've written to date, so I don't begrudge anyone who's not able to make it all the way through, but I had fun writing it as well as researching the entire run of Syfy's channel history. Seriously, I've got detailed timelines and everything. From now on, all my pieces on the unproduced works of John Carpenter will be articles for Cinetropolis, though there's a few I'm definitely planning to accompanying a podcast with.

The Article:

• Part One
• Part Two
• Part Three

The Podcast

[Masters of Carpentry] The Thing prequel

We've got an open month on the show (Blood River, why so obscure!), so I'm filling it with a few bonus episodes I've been sitting on for a while. First up, comic creator extraordinaire Julie is back as we look at the 2011 prequel movie to John Carpenter's The Thing, as well as some semi-related bonus thoughts on Harbinger Down and the first season of Helix. Check it out here.

[Made of Fail] The Shannara Chronicles, Season 1

As many of you know, after several years of creating content affiliated with Made of Fail, I ended up parting ways with them for various reasons to venture off on my own. But Made of Fail has ably carried on, retooling the central podcast, and over the last season, adding some wonderful new blogging projects to the site. Dayna herself began some wonderful coverage of The Shannara Chronicles, a television adaptation of a book series to which we both have deep ties from our younger days. I eagerly followed along with her writeups, and when she suddenly needed to step aside, I offered to fill in during her absence. It was weird popping into the old site again, but fun, as we not only saw the season through, but I had a blast collaborating with Dayna on the final post-mortem post. It was a really nice opportunity, one I'm glad I didn't pass up.

Dayna's initial posts:
Episodes 1-2 "Chosen"
Episode 3 "Fury"
Episode 4 "Changeling"
Episode 5 "Reaper"

Then I took over:
Episode 6 "Pykon"
Episode 7 "Breakline"
Episode 8 "Utopia"
Episode 9 "Safehold"
Episode 10 "Ellcrys"

Then our shared post-mortem.

[Deconstruction is Magic] My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, episodes 58-62

It only took us (yeesh!) four months, but we made it through another batch of season 3. Tall tales were told, alpha leaders were determined, families were chaosed, dragon codes were crayoned upon cards, and uber big bads were befriended. Enjoy!

58 "Sleepless in Ponyville"
59 "Wonderbolts Academy"
60 "Apple Family Reunion"
61 "Spike At Your Service"
62 "Keep Calm and Flutter On"

[Masters of Carpentry] El Diablo

Back in the 80s, John Carpenter took a couple stabs at making El Diablo, an original western, before it ultimately drifted to HBO where it was produced as a tv movie. It's weird, it's wild, it's messy, it's occasionally quite hilarious. Check out our episode here.

[Masters of Carpentry] Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers

In our latest installment of the Halloween franchise, things take a sad turn as the wrong characters are killed, the story stops making sense, a beloved character actor takes a turn for the worst, and Michael spends a surprising amount of time with his mask off and his face in clear view. Is a magnificent performance from little Danielle Harris enough to make it worthwhile? Check it out here.

[Masters of Carpentry] They Live

Melissa Kaercher again dons the shades with us as we take a loving look at Carpenter's rowdy 80s classic. We also take some time to recap the glorious peak that was Carpenter in the 80s as we ready ourselves for the final leg of this project. Check it out here.

Fun fact: If you notice that my audio sounds a little different and a bit more stilted than usual in the first 25-ish minutes, there's a reason for that. My audio didn't exist. Partway through recording the episode, we realized we'd encountered the glaring technical error of me not pressing record on my end, and Skype's recorder (good riddance, Powergramo) completely failed to give us a backup. Nonetheless, as we had everyone elses' audio, we pressed on, and I was able to fill in those missing portions by blowing up their tracks so I could faintly make out my own voice through their headphones, thus giving me a guide to re-record that portion of my end. It doesn't fix me being a stiff actor, nor that I'm suddenly talking quietly because it was the middle of the night and I didn't want to wake people up, but hey, we still managed to save the episode instead of just scrapping it and starting over again. Which is what happened next month. Stay tuned for that!

GUEST APPEARANCE: Starmageddon, episode 24

With co-host Dan Taylor off as he delights in the joys of being a new father, my friend Michael May asked me to fill in for an episode, and we had a blast discussing Alan Dean Foster novelizations, the legal struggles of fan creations, and a major myth of the Star Trek movies. Check it out here.