Legends Podcasts

Legends Podcast #759; Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (1977)

In 1977, Jim Henson, having found success with The Muppet Show, began experimenting with new technology and storytelling styles in the hopes of developing a feature film. Adapting a children’s book by Russell Hoban and Lillian Hoban, itself an adaptation of the classic O. Henry short story “The Gift of Magi,” Henson and his production…

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Legends Podcast #758; How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000)

In the year 2000, the estate of children’s author Theodor Geisel, better known by his pen name Dr. Seuss, sold the live-action movie rights to one of the writer’s most beloved works. Decades earlier, an animated television special brought to life, via the voice of Boris Karloff and the talents of Chuck Jones, the cranky…

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Legends Podcast #757; Gremlins (1984)

In 1984, producer Steven Spielberg, writer Chris Columbus, and director Joe Dante brought a new breed of cuddly creatures to the big screen, hoping to draw in fans of other odd critters like Yoda and E.T. The star of this film is the adorable “mogwai” (Chinese for “devil”) named Gizmo, who propagates some very odd…

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Legends Podcast #756; It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)

In 1946, director Frank Capra brought to the big screen the tale of George Bailey of Bedford Falls, in an inversion of the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol. Instead of teaching a miserly villain the error of his ways by showing him his life’s low points, Capra revealed that a good man’s good deeds…

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Legends Podcast #755; Back to the Future (1985) – Chronovember

  Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we’re talking about time travel, paradoxes, and if my calculations are correct, when this baby hits 88 miles per hour… you’re gonna see some serious shit! Forty years ago, director Robert Zemeckis and writer Bob Gale, partnering with Steven Spielberg as producer, introduced one…

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Legends Podcast #754; Frequency (2000) – Chronovember

Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we’re talking about time travel, paradoxes, and Andre Braugher aging like a fine wine. In the year 2000, Primal Fear and Fallen director Gregory Hoblit and writer Toby Emmerich brought a new twist to the time travel genre: using ham radio to connect two generations…

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Legends Podcast #753; Primer (2004) – Chronovember

Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we’re talking about time travel, paradoxes, and deducing that the problem is recursive. In 2004, independent filmmaker Shane Carruth released his first feature, a time travel twister made on a budget of $7,000. Carruth wrote, produced, directed, edited, scored, and starred in this film that…

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Legends Podcast #752; Pleasantville (1998) – Chronovember

Fall back in time with Legends Podcast! All month long, we’re talking about time travel, paradoxes, and separating out the things that are pleasant from the things that are unpleasant. In 1998, Big and Dave screenwriter Gary Ross made his directorial debut with a quirky comedy starring Tobey Maguire and Reese Witherspoon. The young up-and-coming…

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Legends Podcast #751; The Substance (2024) – Legends of Halloween

It’s Lobster’s birthday, and what better way to acknowledge the toll aging takes on our bodies than to watch a movie about what goes wrong when we try to cheat the clock. From writer-director Coralie Fargeat comes the tale of Elizabeth Sparkle, a former sex symbol and acclaimed actress turned daytime tv aerobics instructor. When…

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Legends Podcast #750; Dolls (1987) – Legends of Halloween

In 1987, Re-Animator director Stuart Gordon tapped into a force more terrifying than any zombie, vampire, werewolf, mummy, alien or otherworldly threat: little girls’ playthings. This film takes us off the beaten path to a remote mansion on the longest

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