PODCAST

Mission Creep

The distractables

A movies podcast that wanders

tv & film film interviews

All Episodes

01:17:34

S1E13: Die Hard (1988), with Emily Harrell

Mission Creep ·

2022/12/21

The holidays are upon us! Family members are heading to airports all across the country in order to reunite with their loved ones -- potentially even to rekindle marriages under strain. That means it's time for us to revisit everyone's favorite Christmas movie, 1988's Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis, Alan Rickman, Reginald VelJohnson and Bonnie Bedelia.We spend a lot of time talking about Ellis. Great character.

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01:14:42

S1E12: 12 Monkeys (1995), with Andy Karlson

Mission Creep ·

2022/12/15

This episode is kind of bananas. In a good way, of course. What would it be like if Sisyphus could take a smoke break once in a while? Historically speaking, what pedagogical purpose did repeated Christological imagery serve for the church? What did this movie get right and wrong in its (then) fully hypothetical imagining of pandemic life? And what was the name of that two-person fighter arcade game that they had for a couple of years in the lobby of University Square Four cinemas in Madison,

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00:55:52

S1E11: Groundhog Day (1993), with Jay Plasman

Mission Creep ·

2022/11/22

When Bill Murray's character wakes up in the same bed day after day, with the same song playing on the radio, what happens to the other townspeople with whom he's interacted? Does the day just reset for them, too? Or are there massively multiversal timelines spinning off in every direction? Groundhog Day doesn't have the guts to ask these questions, but we do! Also: What kind of allegory or parable is this, exactly, and how religious is it supposed to be? Does the romance in a romantic

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01:18:36

S1E10: My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), with Annie...

Mission Creep ·

2022/11/11

In which we try to make sense of so many things! This is a rom-com that is also an un-love story, featuring an anti-heroine. This is a film at least a little bit about how wealth is wasted on the wealthy. Is it good or an absolute aesthetic disaster that Julia Roberts's look in this movie is coming back? Is "cosmopolitan bliss" -- Dr. Schultz's wonderful phrase -- the happy ending that Julia Roberts's character ought to desire, or is it a consolation prize? Or both? Whatever else it is, the film

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01:15:38

S1E9: The Terminators, with Winston Thompson and Andy...

Mission Creep ·

2022/11/03

In which we talk about the original Terminator and T2 together. NO discussion of posthumanism or cyborg ethics or the late 20th century depiction of AI, but quite a lot about motherhood, the apocalyptic possibility of the death of a child, the ethos of friendship and care in opposition to authoritarian and genocidal forces. And above all, an answer to this question: To which particular piece of contemporary military hardware might we compare a literal angel descended to bestow an annunciation on

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01:06:07

S1E8: Can’t Hardly Wait (1998), with Susan Haarman

Mission Creep ·

2022/10/23

This film is classic of the late-90s teen rom-com resurgence, and anyone who enjoyed filmic and TV comedies at any point over the past 20 years will recognize the murderer's row of screen talent assembled here. Talking to friends after seeing it in theaters, I distinctly recall declaring it "Shakespearean." Does that hold up?It is hard to see the anxieties around burgeoning identities, threats to masculinity, and teenage relations of domination and bullying in the innocent way it may once have been

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01:12:26

S1E7: The Matrix (1999), with Winston Thompson & Andy...

Mission Creep ·

2022/10/13

Is it weird to think of The Matrix as agreeing with Leo Strauss's Plato on the moral worth of truth? Is the matrix itself -- and particularly the way that normies are subject to demonic possession by "agents" at any moment -- a metaphor for complicity in systems of oppression? How is keeping the faith in right relation with others involved in struggles for collective liberation? None of that was on our minds, perhaps, when we first saw the film, as you'll hear.

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01:04:01

S1E6: Lethal Weapon (1987), with Mike Toce

Mission Creep ·

2022/10/06

How much coke could $100,000 buy in the mid-80s? Is Turner and Hooch the second-best buddy cop movie of all time? Can we describe this film as a neo-noir, grappling (literally, in the climactic scene) with the dueling ways that foreign wars return home -- through nihilistic crime facilitated by the deadly arts learned in the military and the true-believer heroic violence in defense of a good and pure nation? Bet your sweet bippy we can.

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01:06:32

Grosse Pointe Blank (1997), with Jay Plasman

Mission Creep ·

2022/09/14

What does it mean when the protagonist of a 90s rom-com (or, as Jay calls it, a "romactionedy") is a Gen-X hitman whose efforts to woo the one who got away (or really, the one whom he foolishly got away from) are crucial to what he clearly understands as his own redemption? Are the movie's final 10 minutes -- in which John Cusack's character is simultaneously professing his love for Minnie Driver's character and asking for her hand in marriage while also engaged in a firefight -- intended as a

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00:58:58

S1E4: Face/Off (1997), with Jack Schneider

Mission Creep ·

2022/08/22

What does education policy have to do with a self-serious vengeance flick like Face/Off? Almost nothing, which makes it an ideal break from our day jobs! In this episode, Jack and I talk about what moviegoing used to be like, the way that writers and directors imagined high-flying criminal masterminds in a world before the antiheroes of prestige television, and the rock-solid science behind face transplants.

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00:59:54

S1E3: Swingers (1996), with Jay Plasman

Mission Creep ·

2022/08/05

This is the film that made Vince Vaughn a household name, that predestined major directorial futures for Doug Liman and Jon Favreau, that launched Ron Livingston into his cult-classic role in Office Space. Before everyone involved here was rich and famous, they were dumb guys muddling through dumb stuff in a dumb period of life. And they made a really well-crafted, really insightful film about it. Revisit the movie behind the movie behind the movie. Music credit: Mr Smith, "Hellafunk"

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01:08:02

S1E2: The Rock (1996), with Ethan Hutt

Mission Creep ·

2022/07/17

Celebrate Michael Bay's coming out party as Hollywood's preeminent pyrotechnical stylist as Ethan Hutt helps us remember the epic car chase that we had both forgotten, as well as all the great lines that we had not. More seriously, we wonder why the moral demand that Ed Harris's character makes on his national security bosses -- for recognition of the mortal sacrifices his covert operatives have made on the nation's behalf over the decades -- is both understood to be reasonable and legitimate, and

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00:55:45

S1E1 Intro: Movies Maketh Man, with Penny von Eschen...

Mission Creep ·

2022/07/01

Guests: Penny von Eschen and Elisabeth Anker What are we doing, exactly, rewatching the awesome movies of our childhoods, and why bother? This introductory episode lays out the point of a project like this, which is mostly nerdy and nostalgic fun, a chance to spend time with people and movies we like. But it's an oddly worthwhile thing to be thoughtful about in our politically tumultuous times, when the prevailing feeling across the spectrum seems to be that "this is not who we are, or who we

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