Planned Banter

While The Avengers continues to conquer the internet and, honestly most of the world in general, we return to the studio to take a look at how well the most popular movies of yesteryear have actually made it into the sights of some of us now! What older movies do I have briefly stated disparaging opinions of? What musical writing team do we think is terrible outside of their two most popular works? Does anyone besides me remember The Best Years of our Lives? Also, I reflect briefly on Dark Shadows and how it's like watching someone look over a menu for too long! Chris reflects on the golden age of Must See TV while me and Jaysun try not to make fun of him for watching E.R.! After all the deeply involving commentary there, you can hear about all sorts of non-Android doodads in What's 'Appening! I fret about The Amazing Spider-Man some more as well and I know you guys can't get enough of that. Come, stare deeply into the eyes of movie attendance with us!

Plus for about 40 seconds: Will commercial space travel exist in our lifetime?

I know all you guys are good guessers, so you've probably figured out what we're going to be discussing this episode; if not, I'll remove the tension and say there's no small amount of time spent on talking about The Avengers. So yeah, lots of spoilers. Also, we've got a new session of Trailer Trash about the new Amazing Spider-Man, Brave, and The Dark Knight Rises ads released alongside the Marvel mega-hit! Which one of them has a major spoiler for the movie? Is this new TDKR trailer better than the whole of The Avengers as internet people are saying? (No) Plus: What we watched where Jaysun gives you the dirty dish on Revenge!

For the first time in a month it's time for a regular numbered episode! What's that mean? Well, discounting the fact that we probably already technically crossed the 100-episode mark if you include specials, it lets us go absolutely crazy with all the pent-up discussion we weren't able to do in the themed episodes/clip shows! Thrill to the longest Over/Under yet as we try to explain comic stuff to Kinsel! Hear us yak about New X-men some more and how Jas basically calls me stupid for saying it's Morrison's most accessible work here and only here! Wonder about why The Five-Year Engagement kind of freaked me out when we do an all-inclusive session of What we watched! Warning: if you watch Community, be sure to catch last week's episode before listening! All that, plus I yell about how obnoxious Max Landis is! Who could resist such a complete package of half-formed thoughts and insults disguised as jokes? It's everything you wanted to have without ever thinking to ask! Like what we're giving to you! DO IT!

Are you ready to experience all the thrills we had at C2E2 vicariously through bits we recorded while attending the convention? I hope so, because that's what you're getting! Find out about the con firsthand with us talking about the panels we attended, the people we met, the costumes we saw, and the crap that we bought. Get the full skinny on what you only heard about vaguely in tweets as well as the full explanation about why those tweets kind of slowed down after a while (my phone died)! Hear all about the dining adventure we had with Newton Gimmick and Greymattersplat! Listen to me gush about how cool Dan Slott is! Listen to Jaysun gush about cool Scott Kolins is! All that and plenty of other stories from our time on the road, as well as a ton of jokes at Mike's expense, all right here!

Summer is almost upon us and you know what that means! We're back for the latest session of us talking about what movies we want to see this summer, what we think is ridiculous and hate, as well as what we think everything's going to make. Will The Avengers match the success of past Marvel efforts or is the combination of characters enough to draw in several disparate audience groups that watched the individual entries for a new Marvel movie record? Is there anything actually coming out not named Prometheus (the most anticipated movie of the summer)? Has the internet recovered from Snakes on a Plane enough to reflect genuine hype? Bear witness to me ranting about Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter! Why am I scared about the quality of Brave?Find out everything you need to know, going through the end of June anyway, here!

You know, I never figured that March/April would be our busy months but it shows what I know about how the lives of normal people work. Anyway, from my warped throne inside of Castle Weirdo atop Mount Untraditional we've got a brand new session of all the stuff I told Jaysun to cut out and delete that he probably kept explicitly to embarrass me later on! I'm passing these incredible "savings" onto you listeners so you can get an amazing look into the creative process of me trying to sound like a girl for Million Dollar Movie. There's probably other stuff too but I absolutely guarantee that's going to be on there because I know how this goes. Get ready for the-best-of-the-stuff-that-we-cut-out-the-show-to-keep-it-under-4-hours new April Edition!

We all (mostly) take a break (mostly) from Draw Something to bring you this thrilling new episode! We sit down to discuss the disappearing loyalty people have towards TV shows before heading into the strangeness of this baseball season's opening game. And you know what that means: somebody brings up Mr. Baseball! Also, there may be a little discussion about Ken Burns' Baseball. No big deal.

But it's not all big questions about the future of entertainment formats and stuff! For the first time ever we're bringing you Million Dollar Movie, the spiritual successor to the Wacky Kevin James Movie improv session from last year! What sort of things are in store? Do they involve Kevin James? Can I do a passable impression of not one but three females? All the answers are contained within, except that last one because you guys probably already know. Anyway, there's a brand new What's 'Appening as well all about Angry Birds Space!

Plus: Find out where Jas' search for a new "favorite current" band begins now that Thrice has broken up! Listen to everyone but Chris talk about their memories of Morrison's New X-men! Hear him ask us about what we think of Avengers vs. X-men! Discover what the last TV show I had to be home on time to watch was! So much to think on is here and not just because it's the first time we've talked about comics in like 20 episodes!

What's that? A few relatively big conventions happened? South by Southwest and Wondercon? Wait, they weren't actually that big of a deal but are, respectively, kind of coasting on the fact that Sundance is becoming less relevant every year and that the comic movies of last summer had big presentations there? Also Wondercon kind of had a big Game of Thrones presence last year? Well that's kind of cool; I'm really glad that the lower left quarter of the US gets all these great opportunities especially since they don't have anything like the Alamo Drafthouse or SDCC around to keep them busy or look forward to.

Not that it's a big deal or anything.

Anyway, Prometheus, the most important film in the history of human civilization, had a new trailer debut and we're going to analyze it in the most meaningful way possible in a new session of Trailer Trash. That roughly translates to... something.

Also, we look at how Tim Burton has somehow made Dark Shadows into a movie that I'd actually want to watch as opposed to a TV show I'd change the channel for once the Twilight Zone and Swamp Thing reruns were over on Sci-Fi in the 90's.

Plus, at Mike and Kinsel's insistence, we analyze our first ever video game trailers!

Assassin's Creed 3 had me interested when I heard it took place during the Revolutionary War; does the trailer help that? Can it get Jas to actually give a shit?

I remember Borderlands being kind of a big deal but not a huge crazy off-the-wall success; since almost every single videogame in existence is now a franchise, what's Borderlands 2 going to offer? We watch a trailer that tells us!

Also, we said we'd do it a few episodes ago so I hope you guys are ready for NOSTRADORKUS! However that turns out sounding, there you have it. We take a look at the brewing hate storm over the silly Michael Bay panel for his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles project! Star Wars gets mentioned at some point! Wrestlemania (sort of)! All that and Lantern Corpsner, where I wonder if there isn't a huge divide between people who listen to the show and people who read the site. Is anyone paying attention to these write-ups?

I hope you're all ready for an in-depth examination of our Netflix recommendations because listener 'Handsome' Rob Porter is here to join us! Join us as we investigate the mystery of why Netflix wants everyone to watch The Puffy Chair and I wildly spew venom about the blogosphere/film press trashing John Carter! Seriously, how does a film's budget factor into critiquing a film you haven't seen yet? Trust me, there's plenty of crappy films that cost less than 10 million dollars; seriously, anyone tell me that Paranormal Activity has any more of the depth that people are saying John Carter lacks and isn't just prized because it was so cheap...

Oh right, episode writeup. Anyway, Mass Effect 3 came out and there's some stuff about that both in and out of a new What's 'Appening! Also, get yourselves ready for the long-awaited return of Orccacasterpiece Theater! I guarantee I'll yell about stuff at some point in this episode too and I know you guys always love that.

He stared pensively into the void of space, no longer remembering clearly the circumstances that had brought him to this point. Would he ever know, truly? There'd be time enough to consider that later, but now he needed to head to the station's head as he knew a new transmission would be arriving soon. The promise of a beatdown over at least one sci-fi author was enough to bring him to this point but he knew there would be plenty more as the strange beings whose signal he picked up were famous among themselves for getting more detailed than they should. One of them had a new question as well and the promise of their ring distributing ceremony always held something interesting.

This episode: Over/Under on Sci-fi authors! Kinsel ponders the simple beauty of Camp Nowhere! I discover that someone else on Earth has read a John Christopher story though it was under one of his other assumed names! Get frustrated with Jas and Mike over people not reading Larry Niven! Get a brief little box office analysis as I get shocked over how much money The Lorax opened at! All this and plenty more on a slightly streamlined new episode of Planned Banter, the show that doesn't have to crib from other shows in the same area for the tone of their write-ups that they then adopt for every episode because they can't create anything original themselves! Thrills, thrills, THRILLS!

This year's Academy Awards are practically here! I hope you guys have been watching (because trust me, the rest of the guys haven't except maybe Moneyball) because we have an extended SPECULATE! about what's going to win and what, in my highly biased personal opinions based off of seeing half of most of the nominees, should win. Of course I make sure to throw my artistic credentials out the window by getting overly involved in Mike's new Bookbusters about the Star Wars Expanded Universe novels! Is Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter actually a good book? Find out here (yes)! What about those Old Republic novels I don't care about? Maybe even a dip into some of those Fate of the Jedi era books? Plenty of that and more as I completely ignore Jas and Chris making jokes in my efforts to remember books I speed read through a decade ago! Holding my attention better is the tale of the Van Halen concert one half of us attended! Every detail of all the outrageousness is here from the confetti to the most incredible lead in to the song "Ice Cream Man" EVER. All that and I get really depressed and overly verbal in Lantern Corpsner! How much of me and Chris talking during Jas and Mike's bathroom adventure ends up on the show? Will anyone care about us talking about dirty Academic Team tricks and Speech Team politics? Will I be able to focus long enough to complete a single thought? Find out! Find out and tell me because I don't have time to remember!

Toy Fair's here! It's one of the favorite times of the year for at least one half of the crew assembled for this episode so Kinsel's just going to have to blank out while the rest of yak about whatever Star Wars figure has caught our eye! Mattel had MOTUC reveals! They also got in people's faces! Hasbro showed some Marvel stuff! Plenty of toy talk before we start on a Trailer Trash on the Superbowl TV spots for John Carter, The Hunger Games, and The Avengers! Did we like any of them? Did we like all of them? What's the director of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist up to these days? Plus: I have probably the most serene 'Rage' in a Lantern Corpsner ever! A new What's 'Appening! Some yelling probably! Come see what all the fuss is about and join the debate on what order kids should watch the Star Wars films in! You'll never know what kind of app can unlock the mysteries of love if you don't listen!

"No! It can't be true! You wouldn't make me miss the Super Bowl so I could listen to Lionel Richie, would you!?" Chris exclaimed, bewildered at his fellow podcasters appreciation for the quality singles catalog of that icon of 80's music making. Richard popped his thumbs and said "It was your idea to do Over/Under on 80's music. You have done this to yourself. Now there's no other way."

Also: Attack the Block! Misfits! I saw the Devil! More Star Wars talk! Lantern Corpsner! Living up to stereotypes of nerds not caring about sports! Sound issues! Billy Joel! No David Bowie because we forgot and I know I'm sorry about it! Legos! Crabbing about Downton Abbey! Plus much, much more! You can't make your own jokes about us discussing Frankie Goes to Hollywood instead of watching the Super Bowl unless you listen!

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