On this episode of The World’s Best Podcast, I review the new movie BRIGHTBURN, described by the filmmakers as a new genre: “Superhero Horror”. Brightburn was produced by director James Gunn, the man behind Guardians of the Galaxy Vol.1 & Vol.2 . The concept of Brightburn has a very simple, but effective premise. Basically it’s a “What If?”-kind of story, about a character named Brandon Breyer who’s very similar to Superman. His rocket crash to Earth, growing up on a farm, even the same power set as The Man Of Steel. The difference in this story is how, around puberty, Brandon becomes a homicidal sociopath as a kid growing up in a town very much like Smallville. Plus, Paul goes off on some interesting and crazy tangents that are sure to entertain! Enjoy! Listen here or subscribe on Stitcher, Spotify, and iTunes: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/18097818
Game of Thrones, A Song of Ice & Fire, one of the greatest shows of all time… has come to an end. On this episode of “The World’s Best Podcast” we give you our first reactions to the historic series finale, “The Iron Throne”! A fitting title for the final installment of the series.
We recorded this episode almost immediately after watching “The Iron Throne”. I’m sure, after watching the episode again, we’ll pick up on things we may have missed on our first viewing. Over time, our opinions of the series finale, the final season, or even the series as a whole, may change and evolve. However, on this episode of The World’s Best Podcast, you’re getting our gut reactions, right after watching the end of one of our favorite television series of all time.
Was the show able to deliver a satisfying final episode? What the fate of all our favorite characters? Who LIVED?! Who DIED?! Get our take on this CAN’T MISS episode! Listen here or subscribe on Spotify, Stitcher, and iTunes:
Sunday night HBO aired the penultimate episode of their critically acclaimed, ground breaking, hit series Game of Thrones. The final episode of the epic television saga airs 5/19/2019 on HBO. On this week’s episode of The World’s Best Podcast, we first briefly recap last week’s Game of Thrones episode 4, “The Last of The Starks” and then we go on a SPOILER FILLED deep dive into episode 5, “The Bell”, with a special appearance by frequent podcast quest co-hits Paul Sr!
Without going into the spoiler territory, “The Bell” was… eventful to say the least. After watching the episode, you will definitely want to walk through all of the big moments with us. There’s just one. more. episode. left here, folks! It’s been nearly 10 years in the making, but HBO’s adaptation of A Song of Ice & Fire is coming to an end. Let’s hope things end on a high note. Listen here or subscribe on Stitcher, Spotify, and iTunes:
With Avengers: Endgame, a historic era in cinema has come to a close. Marvel’s Infinity Saga ended on an unprecedented high note. Avengers: Endgame opened to critical acclaim while shattering box office records. By the end of it’s theatrical run, it’s very likely Avengers: Endgame will be the biggest movie in film history. Perhaps most importantly, the film delivered an emotional and thrilling experience for MCU fans all over the world, who have come to love these characters. This movie delivered and then some. It lived up to the hype. It knocked it out of the park. Pick your euphemism.
Spidey’s Stealth Suit
While The Infinity Saga may be finished and though we’ve said goodbye to some of our most beloved characters, The MCU will live on. The first Post-Endgame film, Spider-Man: Far From Home, opens in just a few months. With this new trailer, not only does the film look like a fantastic follow up to Homecoming, it also showcases how the cataclysmic events of Infinity War and Endgame have effected the world.
Quentin Beck AKA Mysterio (Jake Gyllenhaal)
On this episode of The World’s Best Podcast, I’ll be breaking down the new trailer for Spider-Man: Far From Home. I’ll be talking about Easter Eggs, how the film looks to be taking inspiration from certain comic books, and speculate about where the story may go, as well as how this film may be interpreting some new characters in the franchise. I’ve posted the trailer below, if you haven’t had a chance to see it yet or you just want to watch it again:
I had a pretty cool experience recently that I talk about in this episode as well. Though I didn’t get a chance to interview him, I did have the privilege to meet one of Marvel Comics’ classic artists: Bob Layton. Bob is probably most well known for the seminal Iron Man story “Demon In A Bottle”. This was a story that was often brought up as a reason for Robert Downey Jr. being a great choice to play Iron Man. The story follows Tony Stark’s descent into alcoholism, which parallels Downey Jr.’s own struggles with substance abuse a few decades ago (I’ve always been of the opinion that’s a very reductive view of addiction and is a little insulting to excellent work Robert Downey Jr. has done with the character, but that’s neither here nor there). Bob was a really nice, down to earth guy. When I met him he had been doing signings for fans for at least 4 or 5 hours, most people would be worn out after all that, but from what I could see, he genuinely enjoys meeting his fans. So, it was nice to have a relatively private conversation with him even for just a few minuets. I talk about my conversation with him in more detail at the end of the episode. He signed this fantastic print of one his Iron Man covers for me, which is probably one of Marvel’s more iconic comic book covers. It’s from the aforementioned “Demon In A Bottle” storyline and I have picture of the signed piece below.
With Avengers: Endgame opening over the past weekend and Game of Thrones airing the long awaited and epic battle between our heroes and The Night King’s army, this has been one of the biggest weekends in pop culture history. The Infinity Saga and A Song of Ice and Fire are both reaching their epic conclusions. The already mega popular film franchise and hit television series are both coming to a close, so interest is at an all time high.
We hadn’t planned on recording a podcast for this episode of Game of Thrones. Even though it’s likely this is the biggest episode in terms of scale and battle sequences that we will ever see in the series. I can’t see them doing anything in the last three episodes that will top what we saw in episode 3 “The Long Night“. We covered the first two episodes last week and we had just posted our Avengers: Endgame review. However, as Paul Sr. and I began watching the episode, just for fun, we turned on the microphone and started recording a very, very rough and off the cuff audio commentary. It’s not nearly as smooth or polished as our other episodes because we really did this on a whim, so just consider this a bonus podcast from World’s Best Media this week.
So, if you want to listen to two idiots on the edge of their seats as they watch the biggest battle ever filmed (which is actually true and that includes feature films), give a listen to this sloppy, podcast commentary of the 3rd episode of Game of Thrones: The Final Season, “The Long Night”. I think you’ll find it pretty damn entertaining! Listen here or subscribe on Stitcher, Spotify and iTunes: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/17777002
Holy Fuck! Avengers: Endgame is finally here! I wanna say right up front that there will be absolutely NO SPOILERS in this article. However, we go into FULL SPOILERS in our deep dive review of Avengers: Endgame on this episode of The World’s Best Podcast! My Marvel Movie companion, Paul Sr. and I had a chance to see the movie a few days early, but we wanted to wait until at least some of our listeners had a chance to see the film, before we posted this SPOILER-RIFFIC review.
It so rare for movies to live up to the hype, but Endgame manages to surpass expectations. One of the many things fans love about comics, especially from DC and MARVEL, is the interconnected universes. You could be reading a Spider-Man comic and the X-Men or Iron Man or Daredevil would pop up. That was the ingredient that had been missing from superhero movies when the “Superhero Boom” began with movies like Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man and Singer’s X-Men.
It seems so obvious, but it was still brilliant. I remember seeing Iron Man for the first time and being blown away that SHIELD was in the movie. It seems so small now, in retrospect, but that little addition made it feel like the Marvel Universe (It was also the first appearance of fan favorite character, Agent Phil Coulson). Then of course there’s the immortal post credits scene from the first Iron Man film, when Tony meets Nick Fury which I’ve posted here below:
The beginning…
Building off the incredible success of IronMan and then creating 22 films that make this beautiful tapestry of a story, is mind blowing. The fact that out of the 22 films released so far, there have been so few missteps is astonishing. Even their weakest movies, and there’s only 3 or 4 like Thor: The Dark World, are pretty good or not bad at their worst. Everything else is more less gold.
The Russo Brothers, who’ve directed Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Infinity War, and now Avengers: Endgame, absolutely stuck the landing with this movie, it’s a must see. The films directed by The Russo Brothers, Joe and Anthony, aired the 4 best films in The MCU. Who would’ve thought that guys who worked on TV shows like Community would go on to tell some of the most epic stories of our generation? For the record, I loved Community.
The Infinity Stones…
I think the real hero in all of this is Kevin Feige, the head of Marvel Studios. He was not only a massive fan of the source material, but he’d seen what mistakes other Marvel superhero films had made in the past and learned from them. So when it was time for Marvel Studios to start producing their own films, he knew what he was doing and he got the right people involved to work with them. Another huge kudos goes out to Casting Director Sarah Finn, who’s worked on almost all of the films, if not all of them. With maybe one or two exceptions out of literally hundreds, each character was a flawlessly cast. We owe a lot to her work as the reason these films came out so well.
All right then, enough chitchat. You can check out our podcast on Avengers:Endgame right here or you can subscribe on Spotify, Stitcher or iTunes: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/17766535
It’s finally here! The epic ending to “A Song Of Ice And Fire”! On this week’s episode of The World’s Best Podcast, Paul Sr. and I do a SPOILER filled, deep dive, breakdown of Episodes 1 & 2, “Winterfell” and “A Knight Of The Seven Kingdoms”! From Game of Thrones: The Final Season! Listen here or subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and Stitcher: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/17715325
After decades of movies, books, TV shows, and comic books, we finally come to the beginning of the end. The first trailer for the final film in The Skywalker Saga is upon us. The film is officially called Star Wars Episode IX The Rise of Skywalker. Of course for an event this epic and monumental, I needed my resident Star Wars expert with me to get the job done, so I had the illustrious Mr. Ryan McDonald Esq. with me on this episode of The World’s Best Podcast.
C3PO (Anthony Daniels), Finn (John Boyega) and Poe Dameron (Oscar Isaac) in STAR WARS: EPISODE IX.
We sat down to break down the trailer for this new Star Wars film, the final film in this new trilogy. We offer up our theories, we speculate where the story is going, we offer up some inside and behind the scenes information, and discuss the changing landscape of franchise filmmaking that began all those years ago in 1977 with the first Star Wars film. We had a great time recording this episode, so we hope you enjoy listening to it! If you’d like to watch the trailer before listening to the podcast, we have it posted at the bottom of the page. Listen here or subscribe on Stitcher and iTunes: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/17636894
On this week’s episode of The World’s Best Podcast, I review the new DC superhero movie SHAZAM! starring Zachary Levi.Shazam may not be well known, but at one time his comic book series was outselling Superman. DC may not be knocking it out of the park with their movies like Marvel, but they’re on the right track. With missteps like Suicide Squad and Justice League out of the way, DC has built up a solid roster of stand alone movies with Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and now Shazam. SPOILERS are discussed in this episode, but I cover the characters history and some other interesting topics before breaking down the movie.
Listen to the episode here or subscribe on Stitcher and iTunes:
It took me awhile, but I finally got around to reviewing Jordan Peele’s new horror movie, “Us”. We I saw the creepy as fuck trailer for “Us” I knew it was going to be film to keep my eye on. It was easily one of my most anticipated movies of the year. As much as I love Star Wars and Marvel, it’s always exciting to see a new, original concept on the big screen. With the movie having been in theaters for a few weeks now, I wanted to make sure I posted my podcast review. This episode does have SPOILERS, but you can get my SPOILER FREE thoughts on the film at the beginning of the podcast. Without further ado, please enjoy the latest episode of “The World’s Best Podcast”! Listen here or subscribe on Stitcher and iTunes:
World’s Best Media 