Boston Hassle film critic, animation enthusiast, and co-host of Hawke Cast Kyle Amato joins Stu, Nicole, and Cole to dissect the second highest grossing toy commercial of 2023, The Super Mario Bros. Movie. It's your stock standard low-effort kiddie fodder reskinned for Nintendo IP and jam packed with as many Easter eggs and Top 40 needledops as algorithmically possible. If animation actually wants to be cinema then Illumination should hire actual some real European perverts for a change.
Follow Kyle on the Projects Substack and read his reviews for Boston Hassle.
An extra special thanks to our $10 Executive Producers: JetChiclete, Isaac, ultimatetotoro, squishward, Walt Lewellyn of The Black Casebook, Tropical Doves, jprestonpoole, Lohik, bernventers, and Owen2.
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As of 2025, Warner Brothers officially lost the rights to make a live action feature film adaptation of Akira, ending over 20 years of a development hell for something nobody wanted or asked for. But god, did they try. Nicole takes Stu on a deep dive through each and every painfully misguided iteration of what thankfully will never be.
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On the eve of having to review The Super Mario Brothers Movie, the gang decides to find reprieve in what is possibly the greatest technical and craft achievement in the history of animation: Akira.Support us on Patreon to hear the full episode and much more!

A long, long time ago, in a remote, wild and mystical land called Minnesota, a bunch of nerds with polyhedral dice decided to play-act Lord of the Rings using the rules and miniatures from a medieval war game. That game became a product, that product became a brand, and that brand became popular with women, so they made a pretty decent movie out of it. We watched that movie, and had a nice chat about what sets it a step above its IP franchise film peers.
An extra special thanks to our $10 Executive Producers: JetChiclete, Isaac, squishward, Walt Lewellyn of The Black Casebook, Tropical Doves, jprestonpoole, Lohik, bernventers, and Owen2.
If you can, please lend some support to these organizations:
Gaza Funds
PCRF (Palestinian Children's Relief Fund)
MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians)
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Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota
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At the outset of a nearly 3 hour discussion about mythic cuckoldry and shit looking cool as hell in John Boorman's Excalibur, Cole teaches Nicole and Stu about an even stupider king of ethnonationalist beliefs.
 

We enter the home stretch of the pre-Gunn DCU with Shazam: Fury of the Gods, a confused and inert mess of glop, nonsense and awful dialogue anchored by the unbearable anti-charisma of future Jesuslop washup Zachary Levi. Helen Mirren and Lucy Liu are wasted. Rachel Zegler needs a new agent; Diedrich Bader gets killed and nobody seems to notice; and the barely-explored villain scheme is stolen, inexplicably, from The Simpsons Movie. Needless to say, none of the teasers for future 'Shazam' installments will be paying off. Ever.
An extra special thanks to our $10 Executive Producers: JetChiclete, Isaac, squishward, Walt Lewellyn of The Black Casebook, Tropical Doves, jprestonpoole, Lohik, bernventers, and Owen2.
If you can, please lend some support to these organizations:
Gaza Funds
PCRF (Palestinian Children's Relief Fund)
MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians)
National Networks of Abortion Funds
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota
If you enjoy the show please consider:
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BREAKING NEWS: Nicole Queens out!!!!!
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As the gang ventures into uncharted territory in industrial scale genre filmmaking, Nicole taps in her beau Evan to help talk about one of Blumhouse's biggest hits, M3GAN, the PG-13 killer AI doll movie/meme generator. It's a  manufactured, half-baked horror-comedy about the dangers of letting children have too much screentime, so transparently desperate to launch its titular character into the pantheon of queer horror icons that it had to start beef with notable queer horror elder Chucky and do a stupid TikTok dance to make hundreds of millions of dollars from undiscerning audiences. The only difference between Kevin Feige and Jason Bloom is that one is better at money management. 
"Film Review: 'M3GAN' — Child’s Slay" by Nicole
"The story behind M3GAN's iconic TikTok dance sequence" by James Grebey
"Get Out producer booed off stage at Israeli film festival for criticising Trump" by Sam Wolfson
An extra special thanks to our $10 Executive Producers: JetChiclete, Isaac, squishward, Walt Lewellyn of The Black Casebook, Tropical Doves, jprestonpoole, Lohik, bernventers, and Owen2.
If you can, please lend some support to these organizations:
Gaza Funds
PCRF (Palestinian Children's Relief Fund)
MAP (Medical Aid for Palestinians)
National Networks of Abortion Funds
Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota
If you enjoy the show please consider:
Subscribing to our Patreon, where you can enjoy exclusive subscriber only episodes.