Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b
The good news: The internet has made it easier than ever to watch, read, play, or listen to just about anything ever made. The bad news: Same. It's easy to get buried, even for two of the biggest pop culture geeks we know: Ourselves. Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b is what happens when we try to make each other -- and everyone who wants to listen along -- discover the good stuff. Join us! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
June 17, 2018 • 35 mins
And now for the REAL story of Watergate.
This movie offers a bit of a lighter take on the scandal, as well as a guess at the identity of Woodward and Bernstein's infamous source, Deep Throat. Kirsten Dunst and Michelle Williams pay a pair of teenagers who couldn't be less interested in politics or world events - until they stumble into the middle of the biggest story of the century, befriend Richard "Dick" Nixon, and learn that you...
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June 16, 2018 • 50 mins
Tomorrow will be the 46th anniversary of one of the most important political events of the 20th century: The break-in and attempted bugging of the Democratic national headquarters in Washington, D.C., at the Watergate office complex.
That break-in and its historic aftermath have been rendered many times on film, most recently as a cameo in 2017's "The Post." But today, we're watching the best-known cinematic rendition of Watergate,...
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May 13, 2018 • 54 mins
Hey, Upper East Siders (and, you know, all listeners). I've got the biggest episode EVER.
Ok, maybe not. But it is the second episode stemming from the Golden Globes bet we both lost. Today, it's time to torture Eric. And what better way than with the scandalous lives of Manhattan's elite?
For the uninitiated, Gossip Girl is an anonymous blogger who chronicles (and tortures) a bunch of extremely wealthy high school students. With t...
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May 12, 2018 • 41 mins
Way back in January, Emily and I made a bet: Whoever could predict the winners of the Golden Globes more accurately would subject the other to a Geek vs. n00b pick that they would definitely hate. And I'm just gonna say it up front: If watching a bunch of dudes play Grand Theft Auto V for two hours is not your idea of a good time, then this episode may not be for you.
Emily, however, had no choice.
We both lost the bet (because we...
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April 1, 2018 • 61 mins
Surprise again! Although if you listened to yesterday's bonus episode, then this will not be surprising:
On this show, we talked about the new movie adaptation of "A Wrinkle in Time," directed by Ava DuVernay and starring Storm Reid, Oprah Winfrey, Mindy Kaling and Reese Witherspoon. Technically this is not an episode with a "geek" and a "n00b" like usual, but we still had plenty to say about it.
At the time of this episode's publi...
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March 31, 2018 • 40 mins
Surprise! We're back with a bonus episode.
In honor of the movie coming out (more on that later), we're rereading A Wrinkle in Time. The book follows Meg Murry, her little brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin on a trip through time and space to save the Murrys' missing father.
Be sure to read it, as we're about to spoil everything that happens!
Tomorrow, we'll be back with a follow-up episode on the new movie. Keep an e...
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March 25, 2018 • 66 mins
We're closing out the season with a pick that's somewhat surprising for a show with this premise: The Sound of Music. Yes, there is (or was until recently) someone who'd never seen this movie before.
As you likely know, The Sound of Music is the Oscar-winning film adaptation of the Tony-winning Rodgers and Hammerstein musical, starring Julie Andrews as a wayward nun-in-training and Christopher Plummer as the father whose kids she's...
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March 24, 2018 • 32 mins
- OK, so It's a movie about vampires.
- Oh I love it! And they're terrorizing Los Angeles?
- No, they just hang out in Wellington, New Zealand.
- You've lost me.
- They argue about household chores and have to deal with how to get dressed for a night on the town when you can't see yourself in the mirror.
- ...
- They also befriend a boring, pudgy man who works at a tech company.
- ...
- ... Thanks for your time.
--
"What We Do in t...
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March 4, 2018 • 67 mins
Life in a sleepy small town is turned upside down when a teen girl - pretty, blonde, a good student, the prom queen - is found, brutally murdered. Before long, the secrets start tumbling out, and we learn she's not as innocent nor is the the town as quiet as it seemed.
It's the premise of, rough estimate here, seven million movies, books and TV series? Just a ballpark figure. And any of them made since the early 90s (and plenty of ...
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February 25, 2018 • 38 mins
"The Court Jester" has everything: Medieval palace drama! Implausible hypnotism! Acrobatic dwarves!
... Oh, I'm being told that "The Court Jester" is not New York's hottest nightclub, but rather a 1955 musical comedy starring Danny Kaye. It's also the subject of this week's Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b, featuring guest geek Yoichi Shiga.
Loyal listeners may remember Yoichi from our Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone episode, where h...
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February 11, 2018 • 47 mins
This week, we're traveling back to the 90s, when the internet was relatively new and very slow and weird, for a dated thriller that feels oddly relevant today: The Net.
In it, Sandra Bullock plays an isolated computer programmer and Jeremy Northam a leader of the evil hacking syndicate that's out to get her, via some particularly vicious and invasive identity theft. And since neither of us has seen it, we've brought in Emily Cureto...
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February 4, 2018 • 70 mins
With the exception of that one episode about the Tour de France, we haven't done a lot of sports here on Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b. But a TV show about a SportsCenter-like show, written by "West Wing" creator Aaron Sorkin? Sign us up!
But wait, there's more: Joining us for our introduction to "Sports Night" is Sorkin superfan Walt Mossberg — although he may be better known as the former Personal Technology columnist for the Wall Str...
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January 28, 2018 • 65 mins
And now, it's time for round two of Star Trek: a foray into The Next Generation.
Set long after the original show, this popular series returns to the Trek universe for another set of adventures aboard a later iteration of the Enterprise. Its crew of beloved characters include Patrick Stewart's Captain Jean-Luc Picard, LeVar Burton's Geordi Laforge, and Brent Spiner's android Data. But since we've never actually watched it, dedicate...
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January 21, 2018 • 47 mins
"Hurtling metal, meat and rubber through the concrete jungle at dangerous velocities." That's how, in 1998, Ken Li described New York's underground street racing scene.
His article for Vibe Magazine, "Racer X," inspired the incredibly successful "Fast and Furious" movie franchise. And today, we bring it all full circle. Li, now the executive editor at Newsweek, joined us on the latest episode of Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b to talk abo...
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January 14, 2018 • 70 mins
As we explained last week, this season we're shaking this up by bringing in guests to help fill in some gaps in our shared pop cultural knowledge.
This week's is a big gap: Star Trek.
Created by Gene Rodenberry and premiering in 1966, the seminal sci-fi series is famous for both its extensive cultural impact and its extremely dedicated fan base. We're lucky to have two of those fans with us to guide our voyage, Zach Powers and Josh...
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January 7, 2018 • 76 mins
You've been waiting patiently for it for months, and now it's finally here: Season 6 of Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b.
This season, we're shaking things up by bringing in friends and colleagues to school us on the pop culture that Emily and I have both missed. And first out of the gate are the Kill Bill movies, brought to the podcast by my former schoolmate David Ruiz.
Directed by Quentin Tarantino and starring Uma Thurman as "The Bride...
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December 31, 2017 • 43 mins
And now for the second part of our after-Christmas discussion of movies that are not exactly about Christmas. Much of this one, fittingly, takes place in the time between Christmas and New Year's Eve.
The movie is The Thin Man (1934), based on the Dashiell Hammett novel of the same name and starring William Powell and Myrna Loy in one of their many on-screen collaborations. It launched a whole series of Thin Man films, all focused ...
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December 30, 2017 • 45 mins
After a slightly longer-than-expected break (several months instead of several weeks), we're back!
Last year — when we watched The Nightmare Before Christmas and Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town — we pitted two Christmas movies against each other. This year, we're doing the same thing.
Well, sort of.
This weekend, we're watching two not-quite-Christmas movies, the first of which is "Gremlins" (1984), which was directed by Joe Dante, w...
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May 17, 2017 • 44 mins
It's no secret that we both love 30 Rock. A lot. Tina Fey's seven-season comedy for NBC is, in our opinion, one of the best ever, and we've both watched it countless times.
But that's no fun for this podcast! So we've brought in a guest n00b to the world of TGS, night cheese, and Dr. Spaceman: Georgia's own Sarah Weitman, who's only seen a handful of random episodes.
For our purposes, we're starting from the beginning and watching ...
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May 17, 2017 • 66 mins
We're nearly at the end of the fifth season of Giant Geek vs. Mega n00b, but there's still a lot we haven't done (just you wait). This week, we talked about the super-zeitgeisty new TV show "This Is Us," and — unlike most weeks, when the n00b enters with very little knowledge — that zeitgeistiness put Emily and myself at odds from minute one.
In case you've missed the polarizing cultural discussion, "This Is Us" is a dramedy about ...
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