Welcome back to Not A Bomb, the podcast where we resurrect cinema’s most infamous box office disasters and ask the burning question: is it a bomb? This week, Troy and Brad put on their finest trench coats, grab some unnecessarily large pistols, and discover exactly who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men as they dive into 1994’s superhero adventure, The Shadow.
And the answer is apparently Alec Baldwin.
Based on the legendary pulp character, The Shadow stars Baldwin as Lamont Cranston, a former criminal who has reinvented himself as a mysterious vigilante capable of clouding the minds of men. When the wonderfully named Shiwan Khan arrives in New York with plans for world domination, Cranston must use his psychic abilities, network of loyal agents, and incredible collection of scarves to stop him.
On paper, The Shadow sounds awesome.
And sometimes it absolutely is.
Troy and Brad dig into a movie that might be one of the most aggressively middling films ever made. The Shadow is never particularly terrible, but it rarely becomes as exciting as its premise suggests. It exists in that strange cinematic middle ground where almost everything is perfectly competent, occasionally something really cool happens, and then the movie immediately settles back into being...fine.
Troy and Brad are heading into the shadows to find out whether one of the most perfectly middling superhero movies of the 1990s has enough standout moments to save it from being a bomb.
Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!
Cinova - The future of Movie and TV
We're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at NotABombPod@gmail.com or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Welcome back to Not A Bomb, the podcast where we resurrect cinema’s most infamous box office disasters and ask the burning question: is it a bomb? This week, Troy and Brad grab their autograph books, practice their monologues, and desperately try to get booked on late-night television as they dive into Martin Scorsese’s painfully uncomfortable 1982 dark comedy, The King of Comedy. Joining the guys for the first time is Dylan, creator of the Cinova Movie and TV ranking app!
Troy, Brad, and Dylan dig into a film that might be even more uncomfortable today than it was when it was released. The King of Comedy takes celebrity obsession, fame, parasocial relationships, and the desperate desire to be noticed and turns them into a comedy where you're never quite sure if you should be laughing or slowly backing away from Rupert.
And that's what makes The King of Comedy so fascinating. This is a movie about fame made decades before social media gave everyone a camera, an audience, and the ability to chase attention 24 hours a day. Rupert Pupkin desperately wants people to know his name, and he doesn't particularly care how that happens.
So practice your monologue, ignore every restraining order placed in your path, and remember Rupert Pupkin's philosophy: better to be king for a night than schmuck for a lifetime.
Troy, Brad, and Dylan are stepping into the spotlight with The King of Comedy.
Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!
Check out the trailer for The 80s: A Motion Picture Special
Cinova - The future of Movie and TV
We're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at NotABombPod@gmail.com or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Guest: Dylan
Welcome back to Not A Bomb, the podcast where we resurrect cinema’s most infamous box office disasters and ask the burning question: is it a bomb? This week, Troy and Brad strap themselves into the Animus, sharpen their hidden blades, and attempt a leap of faith into one of Hollywood’s most ambitious attempts to turn a massive video game franchise into a movie. It’s time to talk about 2016’s Assassin’s Creed.
And if you have absolutely no idea what an Animus, Apple of Eden, Assassin, Templar, or Abstergo is, don't worry. The movie will explain all of it to you.
Repeatedly.
Troy and Brad dive into a movie that had almost everything going for it. Michael Fassbender leads an absurdly talented cast that includes Marion Cotillard, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson, Michael K. Williams, and Charlotte Rampling. The film has a huge budget, impressive production design, some genuinely exciting action sequences, and a director in Justin Kurzel who clearly isn't treating the material like disposable video game nonsense.
Unfortunately, Assassin's Creed suffers from one enormous problem. It is absolutely drowning in Assassin's Creed lore.
Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!
Check out the trailer for The 80s: A Motion Picture Special
Cinova - The future of Movie and TV
We're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at NotABombPod@gmail.com or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Welcome back to Not A Bomb, the podcast where we resurrect cinema’s most infamous box office disasters and ask the burning question: is it a bomb? This week, Troy and Brad leave the real world behind and venture into a prehistoric fantasy landscape where warriors have muscles the size of tree trunks, women have significantly less clothing than is probably practical for the Ice Age, and absolutely everything looks like a metal album cover. This week, the guys are diving into the 1983 animated fantasy adventure Fire and Ice.
Directed by Ralph Bakshi and heavily inspired by the artwork of legendary fantasy illustrator Frank Frazetta, Fire and Ice is a movie that feels less like a traditional animated feature and more like somebody plugged a heavy metal album directly into a television. Every mountain, warrior, monster, sword, and scantily clad barbarian looks like it could have been ripped straight off the cover of an album you would find in the back of a record store.
The guys explore how Fire and Ice combines sword-and-sorcery fantasy with Bakshi's distinctive animation style, creating something that feels completely different from the animated movies audiences were used to seeing in the early 1980s. This isn't Disney. There are no singing animals, no adorable sidekicks, and absolutely nobody is learning an important lesson about friendship.
Instead, we get warriors beating the hell out of each other.
It's glorious.
Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!
Check out the trailer for The 80s: A Motion Picture Special
Cinova - The future of Movie and TV
We're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at NotABombPod@gmail.com or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
To prep for October and spooky movies, Not A Bomb is heading into spooky territory, and this week Troy and Brad are traveling all the way to Japan for Sweet Home, the 1989 horror film that proves haunted houses are significantly more dangerous when nobody in the group has enough sense to simply leave.
Bodies melt, faces distort, and the Mamiya mansion becomes increasingly hostile to anyone unfortunate enough to still be wandering its hallways. The effects were overseen by legendary makeup artist Dick Smith, whose résumé includes The Exorcist, Scanners, and Amadeus, and the movie gives him plenty of opportunities to get disgusting.
But Sweet Home has another fascinating legacy.
The film was released alongside Capcom's Sweet Home RPG for the Famicom, which adapted the movie while introducing gameplay ideas involving exploration, inventory management, puzzles, limited resources, multiple characters, and permanent death. Years later, Capcom would begin developing another horror game influenced by some of those concepts.
That game eventually became Resident Evil.
The guys are joined by friend of the show and host of And Now For Something a Little Bit Different - John N, Mr. Korean Kool himself, to discuss the amazing weekend the guys had at the Baltimore Comic-Con. Money was spend, memories were made, and comics were purchased.
Want to help support the show? Head over to the Not A Bomb Tee Public store and check our merchandise. Special thanks to Ted Blair for the amazing designs!
Cinova - The future of Movie and TV
We're committed to hearing your feedback and suggestions. If there's a cinematic flop you'd like us to delve into, please reach out to us at NotABombPod@gmail.com or through our contact page. Your reviews and feedback are what drive us. If you enjoy our content, consider leaving a review on Apple Podcast or Spotify.
Cast: Brad, Troy
Guest: John N