FunfilteredExplicit
by Funfiltered
A podcast. Film and TV reviews. Culture. Politics. Anecdotes. Anything Sam or Jordan deem worthy of disgust. Sometimes praise. Mostly disgust.
Podcast episodes
Funfiltered Episode #078 - "National Fruit & Veg Month"
Today, I have been GRIPPED by the urge to talk about cereal. Coincidentally, cereal is the focus of one of the films we review (it's not a coincidence). In an attempt to curb option paralysis, I am gustatorially unadventurous. But when I consider the myriad cereals on supermarket shelves, I can with confidence claim to have sampled the vast majority. Lit and watered by its nostalgic roots, cereal outgrows its edi-bedfellows. I han't and won't nibble upon such transatlantications as Count Chocula and the Froot Loop. Some of the products I soon mention will be American, but these FEEL American and a residual nationalism casts doubt upon their virtue. As red is the protagonist of the colours and the apple the principal of the fruits, the cereal Don to me will always be Coco Pops. It's been over a decade since our last acquaintance and I weep for all that is lost. It was touched by milk. So milk it too touched. Rice Krispies - the underboss, a worthy second whose wings are clipped by choclessness. Frosties - the third leg of that elementary triumvirate, Tony long since usurped by similar beasts (Crunchy Nut). METAPHOR SHIFT Corn Flakes - the granddaddy, the soggy stalwart and what a vile procession of words. Bran Flakes & Special K - the boring and fun parents, respectively, rightly concerned with the movement of one's bowels. Cheerios & Shreddies - good kids but nobody's favourites, are they? Shredded Wheat - the "different" cousin of whom we are nonetheless fond. METAPHOR SHIFT Weetabix - a wonderful teacher in the rewards of patience. Weetos - a lover whose time in one's life is certain to be short-lived. Because you love her so much. It can't be good for you. And good things like this don't last. Not for you... not for you. And Sugar Puffs - a relic of HOME, a place long gone but forever nestled behind our lives, that place we privately mourn, that pl-- I just found out that Sugar Puffs are now called Honey Monster Puffs. What the FUCKING FUCK?! They come for it all, don't they? METAPHOR COLLAPSE I'm hobbled by the character limit but believe me, I have more to say. On this ep, Jordan and I discuss ERIC, UNFROSTED and uvvers.
Funfiltered Episode #077 - "The Lord of Straw Men"
This is a true story. In the year 2000, my parents took me and my cousin on holiday to Magaluf. I was five. By that time, I was already a voracious reader, as far as voracity can apply to the habits of a nipper. Thus, in the breaks between swimming, mocktails and ice cream, I turned my attention to penning my first work of fiction. A haunted house yarn, it amounted to an austere roll call of horror archetypes - the vampire, the ghost, the mummy... it isn't humility alone when I say that the piece lacked accomplishment. Nevertheless, when I ponder the birth of the bug, this is the provenance at which the train of recall halts. The tracks may persist rearward, my Bic may have earlier met paper, but such things have been lost to the fog of infant amnesia. And so, be it history or mere story, accounting for the blur betwixt the two and the value of myth, I consider this my creo-genesis. But this emergence wasn't the only salient feature of the vacay. I also remember a pirate-themed stage-show, during which my adolescent cousin drunk himself into paralysis. I remember my continued insistence that we patronise the local Burger King in the hopes of completing a kids-meal toy collection. I remember the friendly server swapping out the trinkets already in my possession for fresh plastic trophies. I remember the elderly man pawing at a payphone so that he may scavenge coins. I remember, trailing behind my family as I was, stopping to study this strange spectacle. I remember the man's fixed gaze as his arm extended outward, grabbed my shirt and began to violently drag me into an alley. I remember my father running back to us, tackling the stranger to the ground and restraining him until the police arrived. I remember being told much later that the stranger, now known to me as Camilo Muñoz, had subsequently been jailed for his role in a string of attempted child abductions. That wasn't a true story. Well, some of it was. But enough about BABY REINDEER. Almost enough. Just enough more to say that Jordan and I talk about it. That, along with the first season of FALLOUT, the KNUCKLES miniseries, LATE NIGHT WITH THE DEVIL and a whole bunch more. Tuck in!
Funfiltered Episode #076 - "A Precedent for Colons"
There are advantages to being late to a party. People are likelier to take notice of you, if you're into that sort of thing. It is easier to avoid falling into a maelstrom of sloshed groupthink and social inducement, sidestepping behaviours you may bemoan or words you may bewail. If anthropology or sociology or psychology tickle your pickle, the scene of the good time is laid out squarely for your observation. As an arson investigator might survey a charred dwelling, so might you examine the somatic rubble of mortal desolation. Who likes parties anyway? DUNE: PART TWO may have disappeared from your feeds as the algorithm continues to adapt into the void (and us along with it). The eponymous GLADIATORS of the Saturday night smash hit may have migrated into other media spheres as a result of their popularity. I.S.S. may have slipped so comprehensively through the cracks of culture that you never even knew what it was, let alone that it had been released in cinemas. ROAD HOUSE may have already found sufficient success to be commissioned for a sequel. And YOU'LL NEVER FIND ME may not have even registered as a blip on your radar at all... However... To translate and address the whole "party" metaphor point by point (and in reverse order to suit my purposes)... with the benefit of time, Jordan and I are afforded a perspective on the critical community and its myriad responses... we have the privilege of distance to discern the shape of a piece's place in the cultural landscape... were we susceptible in the first place, we can more readily rebuff the seductions of consensus... but no, nobody listens still. That's where the thing falls apart really, and I'll leave whether that "thing" is simply the analogy or a larger sense of personal purpose to you. But yes, there are advantages to being late. Rather not be though tbh. Imbibe!
Funfiltered Episode #075 - "The Bear Promised Me Something"
Around two hours ago (at the time of typing), I sat down to rollick in the glorious Providence of Inspiration, invoking Its sacred hover with a can of zero-caffeine Coke Zero, a bit of a headache and the apparent disinclination to do anything about that. And that was two hours ago. Still I now sit, the water droplets from the Coke can having formed a gentle ring on the coaster. The headache has passed, though it's tricky to isolate whether that's from the curative properties of time and the body or a practiced desensitisation to pain, both physical and meta- (honestly, if I start to FEEL anything nearing REAL, some OBSIDIAN MECHANISM* kicks in to sabotage the engine and confine me to the desert remand of vague somethings). It seems that I have lost time. Possible though it is that I called the wrong devotional number and instead reached the God of Going Nowhere (frankly a commonality given ∅'s place in speed-dial), it's likelier something to do with my generation, mental health and the effect of the Internet, etc. So to fill the space hereforth, we're just gonna do some free-flowing, stream-of-consciousness associations. This is our 75th episode... 75th equals platinum... the chemical symbol for platinum is Pt... "PT" can refer to the Palestinian Territories aaand we'll stop there. This is our 75th episode... 1975 saw the Fall of Saigon... Tim Robbins played a Vietnam vet in Jacob's Ladder... the Biblical Jacob was later given the name "Israel" aaand we'll stop there. All roads, huh? Little parable there. On this... "landmark" feels conceited... map-spot episode, Jordan and I, in a subjective fashion, delineate the merits and demerits of AMERICAN FICTION, DAMSEL, DRIVE-AWAY DOLLS, IMAGINARY, THE IRON CLAW, MADAME WEB and THE ZONE OF INTEREST, at least. *Otherwise referred to by me as "The Callous Callus", but it feels tacky to start plugging my autobiography this early unless it's in a footnote.
Funfiltered Episode #074 - "Broadly in Deficit Virtue-Wise"
The looming axis of China, Russia and Iran threatens to destabilise the global order, such as it is. Populations across the world are continually immiserated under tyrannical regimes. The impending race for leadership of the free world orbits a pair of hoary ignorami whose antiquity and indeed place in history may best be described as "antediluvian". The abiding "we don't know" around artificial intelligence accommodates the calamitous continuum of widespread unemployment to total nuclear holocaust. Social media pollutes the mind, body and soul of what approaches an entire species. The cost of living condemns a generation+ to treadmillity. And nuance, conversation, art, tolerance and intellectual maturity are generally plunging into obsolescence. And so it's never been more acutely vital that you care about what Jordan and I think about the 2023 Doctor Who specials. Otherwise, "they" win. We used to agree on who "they" were, whoever they were. That is no longer the case. So just pick your side and whatever antagonises it... that's the "they". And they will win in the face of stark, unclicking indifference. And fear not, the content of the 'cast isn't as dour. It's pretty overcast as I'm writing this and were the Sun to peek out from behind a cloud for a couple of minutes, I'm sure I'd sing the praises of something I like in this world if I could summon the energy to ponder the matter for a good while. On this episode, Jordan and I discuss the fifth season of Fargo, The Holdovers, Poor Things and Doctor Who, and debut a new segment that isn't really too dissimilar from what we usually do. Enjoy!