Father Malone's Yearly Roundup - 2025

Welcome back to Father Malone's yearly round up. I'm Father Malone and the baby new year to my old man time. Sitting beside me is miss Ripley Jean. Did you have a good Christmas? Monkeyy ousa?

This is the yearly round up, But that might be misleading. I'm not counting down to a goddamn thing. I figure, if you've been listening, you know what I liked, and I kind of hate putting everything enjoyable into a thunderdome type tournament to battle for the top honor of what my fucking opinion. No, Instead, this is more of a trying to mention everything that I didn't fully cover over the past twelve months. So rather than a big old review of the latest blockbuster, this will be more of capsule reviews of stuff from all the media.

But I suppose I should apologize for not covering more current and contemporary fair of Late Never, cry Wolf and Batman returns, whoo, getting them clicks and getting them likes. When I got into podcasting, it was because there were so many fucking idiots doing it, just ill informed and poorly produced. That hasn't changed, but I was spurred on from the boredom of all these snark and ironic dissection going on. Look, I'm no stranger to a bitter evaluation of a movie's weaknesses, but it's not my goal. I know that means I lack a certain amount of journalistic integrity as far as criticism goes, because you're really supposed to watch everything that comes out.

But then no one's paying me to do this, so I'll watch whatever I god damn please. And while you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, I can say with absolute certainty that any review I gave of the latest Avatar movie is going to be negative. I sat through the two previous films and they did nothing for me. Actually that's not true. They are a fucking marvel of filmmaking and just further evidence of what a cinema animal James Cameron has always been.

He's the one filmmaker that I'm positive can do everyone's job on set. He's famous for his temper, but I think he's the only one who should get a pass. If he's telling you your boom mic skills suck, he's probably right. Nevertheless, those movies are the equivalent of a theme park ride. To me, imagine a total retrofit of It's a Small World, where all the figures are now totally photorealistic and they're leaping over your boat and they're splashing in the water beside you.

It'd be incredibly impressive and you'd still be on It's a Small World. Life is short and money is tight, so you'll forgive me for not running out and seeing that one. For y'all. I am more than willing to give something a shot based on a recommendation, though, So if there's something out there currently I'm missing out on, you can drop me on at father Malone seven to one at gmail dot com. The link is in the show notes.

There's gonna be a lot in the show notes today. If you do write in, you're probably gonna get an introduction by mailman Mike, like this pal from a row Well. First, Jason Jeffers writes in and says, just listen to your Dark Age of Disney and the Charles Martin Smith story was wonderful. I went to a small con last month and David Naughton was there and Midnight Madness was one of the posters he had for sale. I went with Hot Dog the movie.

He was very friendly and we talked to Seinfeld and as you'll appreciate his Twilight Zone eighty five episode, Oh Man, you went with Hot Dog the Movie over Midnight Madness. Good choice. I would have done the same. Hont Dog the Movie is wildly underrated. It's what I used to call a guilty pleasure until I gave up the concept of having guilty pleasures.

I hope you offered David Nottt and the Doctor Pepper. Actually, I hope he offered you one. And Shane Mackie wrote in to say, I'm sure the holidays may seem a little melancholy for you nowadays, but I just wanted to send my best for you and your pet family. Thanks for the work you do on the podcast made me decide to want Star Trek four with the Wife last night. Well that's an excellent choice, obviously a side of the fact that we still don't know the fate of Maltz.

I'm glad you had a good holiday. I hope everyone had a good holiday. You know. I mentioned one of my rules when it came to podcasting that I was trying to be positive, but one of the things I was trying to avoid was autobiography that kind of got me nuts when it came to other film criticism shows that I had heard popular shows that I had heard. I do not need all the intimate details of someone's childhood to understand their opinion of the latest Fast and the Furious film.

This show's existence the weekly roundup absolutely obliterates my own little rule there. This show is nearly one hundred percent subjective and totally frank with facts about myself. But I feel like I'm following the spirit of the law here because what got me so turned off about hearing it in most other shows is that it seems to become the Criticis you spend an hour hearing about a movie or show strictly through the lens of how it blew their young mind. I hope I'm using any autobiographical details as background before getting to actual thoughtful criticism, which is a long winded way of saying, I'm still a bit low to just talk about myself here, but since you asked to be totally honest, it was the worst Christmas ever.

Melancholy is the word you used, and that's perfect. It's not screaming pain, and it's not a void, just a persistent gnawing that clouds over everything. I'm no stranger to grief. I've lost family members, friends and dear, dear loved ones, and there's a pattern and a process that you go through each time. But this is different.

My wife and I were inseparable. We lived together, work together, travel together. She was my best friend, and our tastes were so similar that it was kind of scary. Thus, every movie and TV show and song and piece of art that I used to turn to for comfort are all now tainted. Even that song tainted love both versions, and I'm talking about soft selling Gloria Jones, fuck Marilyn Manson, that sex pest creep.

So while half of my brain is screaming to watch Emma Daughter's jug band Christmas and that's going to make everything all right, the other half rightly argued that there are better uses for my time than crying for forty five minutes straight. I do that way too much already. I'm just broken. Thank God for Ripley here, no joke. She is my fucking lighthouse.

And you guys, you listeners and doing this show, you know all of that is great now, if you'll excuse me for ranting a second about podcasting, But I'm baffled by the trend of podcasts on video Three dudes and a neon sign of their horrible AI generated logo. These are entirely different forms of media. I'm on the radio. You don't need to see me speaking into the mic. Why would you, It's weird.

If I was going to do a TV show, it would be a visual thing. HB and I actually attempted a video podcast years ago, and it was a fuckload of work and nobody watched. Maybe because we focused on Banetchack, a pretty obscure seventies detective show that nobody remembers and it is really hard to track down. Actually, no, we will write society is to blame. To that end.

I mentioned Grave Mood Rings a few episodes back. It's on YouTube and they've got their own website. That is a perfect example. That is a TV show that you should watch. It's written and produced and filmed and edited.

Or you know, you can watch Ed and Captain Goomba and El Guapo as they fall out of their chairs over their own hilarity. Oh boy, try to stay positive, Yes, positivity. I wanted to recommend some other podcasts I've been listening to this year. Obviously, go check out my co host HP shows Night Mister Walter is a taxi podcast, and his music show Noise Jockeys. Also check out co host Mike White's The Projection Booth and You're stupid if you're not listening to A Year and Horror with Paul Waller, not Weller.

Paul Waller, not Weller, Paul. If you're listening, you should know that exactly zero people in the States know who Paul Weller is. I think if you were to mention his name, people would think you're talking about the guy who played RoboCop. Okay, so here are some other shows you should be listening to immediately. Movie Ubliet not only a great show, but a fun title.

Say it with me. Movie Ubliette a term we all know thanks to Labyrinth. An ubliet is a dungeon prison, and that's where the films that you choose to forget have been consigned, and where hosts Dan in Australia and Conrad in the UK decide whether they should be set free or banished to the ubliet forever. The show is incredibly informative and thoughtful, and they are clearly good friends, which believe it or not. Can be a detriment on some shows, but here it doesn't bog anything down.

In fact, it enriches it and they cover everything you love. Trust me movie Ubliette. Oh, I'm gonna be positive again in a minute. What's with the trend of chitchat that goes on at the top of shows? Now that shit spread like a virus where they just kind of improv for two or three minutes, basically telling you everything you're about to hear, unless there's a topic that we're not privy to that you need to clarif so we'll better understand the following conversation.

Shut the fuck up, inane padding man. Every time I tune into a show to listen to an interview, now I check the time and I see how much is past an hour. So if it's like an hour and twenty minutes, I start at twenty minutes. Surprise, that's where the interview begins. Anyway, staying positive.

My criteria for listening to a podcast are generally one of two things. Knowledge or entertainment. Got to be one or the other. Rarely do those come together, but that is exactly what happens for Marvel fans. I know that's specific, but these guys cover all of Marvel, not just the MCU.

Check out Marvel versus Marvel, another UK import Rob and Will. These two motherfuckers know their shit. Every iteration of every character, every bizarre plot point you'd forgotten or chosen to forget, they know, and more importantly, they deliver it all in a fun and palatable way. And I should point out that they cover more than Marvel. They go where they want to.

It's never not a good show. Don't be hamstrung by the title track. People. Oh my gosh, HB and I are treking right now. So I've been submerged in the ocean of star trek podcasts out there, and there are a a lot of really good ones, and most of those fall into the knowledgeable category.

But the most knowledgeable and equally fun show I've found is hollow Deck and Diva's incredibly fun that features Steph a woman and Chris a gay man. Those are their descriptions as they look into all things track. Speaking of track, listen up, nerds. I need two things. If you're in contact with this person, hit me up.

All this is gonna be in the show notes. I need a star Trek cons player, I particularly committed one if possible. I want to get their perspective on an upcoming episode, and I need somebody who appreciates the television series Lower Decks. If that cons player is a Lower Necks fan, all the better, because I don't get that show. I'm trying mightily.

I finished the first season and I have laughed at zero times. I think there were more laughs than the original Star Trek of the animated series. For less specific sci fi, check out a show called Journey through sci Fi. I don't understand why all of the podcasts I'm listening are from the UK, but anyway, Journey through sci Fi takes a season to examine everything sent from a specific subgenre. So they've done time travel and space opera and dystopia, and they are currently working their way through mad science.

Those are the film criticism pods i'd steer you toward. But what about fiction? Well, I'm glad you asked. Tower four is about to start its fourth season. This is a fantastic audio drama about fire lookouts in a remote section of the US where nothing good is going on in those woods.

I'm gonna say something here, and I'm not damning it. It is a mystery box podcast, half Lost, half Jeremiah Johnson, and it's smartly written, and the production values are a cut above, and the voice cast is excellent. If you want to hear one of the funniest fucking shows ever, it's called I Regress. It is a BBC show god Man the English and it stars Matt Berry. You know Laslow from in What We Do in the Shadows New York City.

He plays a completely psychotic hypnotherapist who mesmerizes his patients and it attempted to spelling their phobias by putting them through the most insane exposure therapy nine. There are little fifteen minute morsels and I laughed out loud literally every single time. It's like Doctor Katz if Jonathan Katz was a sociopath. All right now, in the arena of television, and in the spirit of staying positive, I will say this about Stranger Things. It remains a remarkable evocation of the works of Stephen King.

This season in particular has picked up the Dark Tower vibe and is running with it, which is lovely. But let me say this, five seasons. If Stephen King were actually writing this, we'd be in the last five hundred pages or so of his yellow page sized book, and the majority of the characters would already be long dead. You know it. Who's your favorite character?

They died three seasons ago. I know there's been an announced body count, and by the time you're hearing this you may have already seen it. But you can kill everyone now it's the finale. The stakes are actually really low. Also, five minutes talking for five minutes in front of a doorway that leads you from the dark Crystal Town you're stuck in back to your friends and family.

You know you can walk and talk at the same time, right, Duffer Brothers. Let those ladies just you know, go through the door. And in other Stephen King television news, I watched all of it. Welcome to Derry. All the precocious kids from Night Gallery and Twilight Zone and Dark Side have found their new home.

So this show takes place in nineteen sixty two in Derry, which is somehow now the locus of all things King and not Castle Rock. That makes sense to anyone. I mean, they had a clown, but who gives a shit? Kujo is in Castle Rock. Johnny Smith solves a serial killer case in the Dead Zone in the town of Castle Rock.

Those stand by Me kids, they live in castle Rock. The Dark Half the Sun Dog, Needful Things You Know It takes place in Derry, DreamCatcher Insomnia. Who cares this show is just a remake of it, But because it's a full season of television In Stephen King pioneered the literary shared universe, they pull in other characters from other King novels. The big one here is Dick hallerin The Cook from the Shining. He's a psychic being used by the US military to track down whatever it is that brought Pennywise to Earth and or what's keeping it here.

In the same army situation is pilot Leroy Hanlon, who's Mike Hanlon's grandfather. Lots of connections to it, including Bill Scarsgard as Pennywise himself. There are some good ideas here in some of the early episodes deliver a great level of creep, but once we start getting answers, it all seems so fucking ridiculous. In the level of gore and mayhem at the hands of Pennywise feel kind of like a response to Terrifier, like it's trying to reclaim a Crown, and I think it hurts the show. We do get a kind of origin story for Pennywise, but I think that'll be fleshed out in future seasons.

For as much as I did not enjoy this season virtually at all, the show has hinted that the next few seasons will each be sent twenty seven years prior, as is this cycle of Pennywise's appearances, and it did float. No pun intended the intriguing premise that the events depicted at the end of the feature film it weren't the destruction of Pennywise at all, but in fact it's creation and we're seeing it now grow in power as it travels back through time. There, look, I ended on a positive and before I continue with television, I'm sure I mentioned I played the Jedi Outcast this year, which was fucking awesome. I'm still playing Mad Max because I love it so much that I just want to take my time, and given that it's an open sandbox of that wasteland, I find myself just driving around and fucking up war boys.

But the game. I am currently completely obsessed with Indiana Jones and of the Great Circle. Another fucking terrible title for Doctor Jones, but oh the game. Ultimately it's just a bunch of simple puzzle solving and a bunch of fetch quests and the cutscenes go on forever. But it's first person and the guy doing Harrison Ford is fucking spot on.

And when you punch Nazis, and yes you will punch a lot of fucking Nazis, it comes with those beautiful ben Bert sound effects layered in. Here's some punching, Here's a pistol. This is supposed to be a you know you love it? How about some whip. I had mentioned that I had traded my mad Men obsession for Boardwalk Empire, and I also threatened to take you along with me.

Well you're in luck because between weekly roundups, I absolutely binged the entire series so you won't have to hear a play by play. However, Shamalan twist, this episode is actually about Boardwalk Empire suckers. Here is why you actually need to watch it. It's not for Nuckie Thompson, played so fucking spectacularly by Steve Buscemi, or is it the history of Atlantic City, which is admittedly fascinating. Nor will I recommend it for Stephen Graham's spellbinding performance as a young Alphonse Capone, or Jack Houston's heartbreaking turn as World War One veteran Richard Harrow, who wears a paper mache mask over half of his literally war torn face.

Now I'm recommending the series for a b plot that runs throughout the entire show. Turns out, One Empire is a pretty goddamn factual account of the creation of the syndicate. I'm sure you've all heard of the Black Sox scandal, when a handful of Chicago White Sox players conspired to throw the nineteen nineteen World series. The man behind the fix was a New York at gambler and kingpin named Arnold Rothstein, and that whole scandal is worth a look In another great film, that's the one by John Sales Eight Men Out. In that Rothstein is played by Christopher Lloyd.

Here he's played by Michael Stoolbarg, who was the lead in the Coen Brothers retelling of The Book of Job. A serious man, and if that's too intellectual for you, he's the rival surgeon at the beginning of Doctor Strange, the one who ends up completely fucked up after the blip in Multiverse of madness. Rothstein had a protege. His name was Meyer Lansky, and Meyer Lansky is why you need to watch Boardwalk Empire. He's a minor character throughout all five seasons, but his place on the stage of organized crime cannot be overestimated.

He's played by Anatol Yusef, a royal Shakespearean fella who's been working since he was a kid. Appeared in Aliens, The Director's Cut and Batman eighty nine. As a kid, he didn't have any lines or anything. Anyway, He's magnificent as Meyer, showing a real icy reserve even when he's completely out of control. You'll see what I mean.

Meyer Lansky, when he was a kid, like eleven years old, ran the Bugs and Meyer Gang, a small cadre of street hoods committing minor scams and robberies. The Bugs of Bugs and Meyer is his best friend Benjamin Bugsy Siegel, a man who I owe a deep debt to considering I'm recording this in a town that shouldn't exist but does thanks to that crazy Fox vision of a gambling oasis in the desert. Lansky had a gambler's brain and could calculate odds like a motherfucker, making him an ideal choice to partner up with for a rising Sicilian named Charlie Luciano. You see where this is going. Luciano and Lanski absolutely thrived under Rothstein until his death in nineteen twenty eight.

I say death. He was shot and killed for a gambling debt of three hundred and twenty thousand dollars that he refused to pay because he claimed the game in which he lost it was rigged. Ps. He was right, it was a rigged game. But we are not here to morrow, ar.

We are here to celebrate the birth of the syndicate. Luciano and Lansky recognized that the national tribalism that ruled organized crime was a total funck and hindrance to actually making money. Italians are shooting up the Iris, who are shooting up the Jews to what end? Along come lucky in Lansky. Hey, how about we slice the bread before we sell it?

And suddenly there's free passage and codes of conduct established nationwide. During World War Two, Lansky and Luciano worked with the US military to keep New York Harbor free from sabotage, employing their soldiers as security. A favor of the US government would repay a few decades later by deporting Luciano. But it was the events before the war that made me fall in love with Lansky, particularly the day of April twentieth, nineteen thirty eight. Around that time, there had been a lot of parading and rallying by the German American Nazi Party on the streets of New York.

When asked by Judge Nathan Pearlman if Lansky knew of anyone who might be interested in punching some Nazis, Lansky was to have said, you understand, we can do better than punch, and that they did. Lansky and fourteen compatriots descended on a Yorkville Nazi rally and fucking decimated them, beating them with baseball bats and throwing them out of windows. Defenestration. There's your vocabulary word for the day. To defenestrate is to throw someone out of a window.

After that night, groups of anti Nazi Jewish Yangsters popped up all over the minute Men in New Jersey and in Chicago. Jake Greasy Thumbguzik recruited Jewish boxers to terrorize Nazi members, and they worked out of a boxing gym like a secret layer. Is it any surprise Superman was created by a couple of Jewish fellas. One of those Chicago boxers, by the way, was Jacob Rubinstein. He eventually moved to Dallas and changed his name to Jack Ruby.

Lansky has been portrayed by dozens of actors in dozens of productions over the years. James Woods's character in Once Upon a Time in America is a thinly veiled Lanski. As is Hymen Roth, the overall Baddie and Godfather Part two Trayo Lansky saw and was said to have commented, they could have made me more sympathetic. Ben Kingsley gave an excellent performance as the actual Meyer Lansky in Warren Bati's Bugsy Go jerkis Soda. That's one of my favorite kiss off lines of all time.

Patrick Dempsey played Meyer Lansky in That Young Gun's attempt at gangsterism Mobsters. Hey, if you want to see exactly what didn't happen with this outfit, check out that bullshit. Maybe we should cover that in more depth, just for its sheer fucking stupidity. HP. I'm lighting up the Bancheck symbol.

We might need to rally around mobsters. All of these performances. By the way, all of these portrayals, from excellent to excrement, pale beside the character and situations dramatized on Boardwalk Empire. Hell, if you don't want to invest the time in the whole series, just watch the Lansky episodes. Listen.

I realize it's weird to have a favorite gangster. Gang Land goons are mostly just that, fucking dummies and psychopaths. You wouldn't piss on if they were on fire. But respect must be paid for the levels of ingenuity and god damned American grit that went into some of those criminal enterprises over the years. And all of my respect goes to meyer Lansky.

He was the greatest gangster who ever lived. That's not hyperbole, and I say it with authority. Because meyer Lansky retired, he died in his home at age eighty. Nobody came for him, nobody tried to keep him tethered. He just said I'm done and that was that.

In other HBO period piece television, and this one definitely crosses over with Boardwalk Empire thanks to its cast, you could do worse than check out the four episode mini series Death by Lightning, a show that reminded me of just how woefully deficient my working knowledge of American history truly. Is. Michael Shannon, who starred as a disgraced Treasury agent on Boardwalk Empire, plays James Garfield, who unwittingly and really unexpectedly becomes the Republican candidate for president in eighteen eighty, drawing the eye of Roscoe Conkling, who ran the New York Custom House and therefore held the national purse strings played by Shay Wiggham, who surprise plays Sheriff Eli Thompson, younger brother of Nuki on Boardwalk Empire, Death by Lightning chronicles the whirlwind of politicking and backstabbing and mental disorder that played into the events of garfield assassination.

It also paints the portrait of a really decent man and a tragedy of what we were denied. I guess Stephen Sondheim was onto something with that musical. I'm gonna end everything on another positive recommendation. Wise, if you want to watch a Stephen King themed TV show, watch Castle Rock. It's Stephen King without the nostalgia, which is the fucking DNA of stranger things and welcome to Derry.

Hey, remember these fun memories, Remember how these situations made you feel, which is crazy because nostalgia exists to comfort and horror exists to fuck you up. Castle Rock got two seasons, and yes they're tainted with the jj Abrams imprint, but don't let that dissuade you. He had nothing to do with it. In season two gave us a young Annie Wilkes played by Lizzie Kaplan and its fucking breath taking, and season two has Paul Sparks from Boardwalk Empire. Is Ace Merrill, Remember Ace?

He for Sutherland played him in stand By Me, and Ace's dad is played by Andy Dufrayne himself Tim Robbins as Pop Merrill, not Andy Dufrayne. I just want to clarify that in fact, so you don't think I'm steering you wrong. Skip the first season. It's all about a figure of absolute evil that appears and has to be dealt with, and it's very, very multiverse. Season two, nearly entirely separate, is way more Stephen King, and it's one of the best King adjacent things I've ever seen, including nods toward facilitating the evil that draws Barlow and Straker to the nearby town of Salem's Lot.

Now go read Salem's Lot listen. It has been an incredible year here at midnight viewing and we want to thank you all from young miss Ripley Jean and myself Marry New Year, and