January 19, 2015

EP. 61 — The Year in Movies (2015)

In the last two weeks, the internet was blessed with new trailers for both ‘Ant-Man’ and ‘Avengers: Age of Ultron’. Frames were analyzed, Hulks were busted, and lids were flipped. For millions of people, no international tragedies or disasters could compare with the latest news from Marvel’s explosion-dense Verse. And we’re not even getting into the shrieking excitement that already surrounds the latest Star Wars movie.

As crazy as it seems, reports indicate that there are perhaps hundreds of movies coming out this year that don’t feature Stan Lee cameos or Jedi. Perhaps this year’s ‘Edge of Tomorrow’ is hiding somewhere and we can’t see it through the fog of discussion surrounding hilted lightsabers. The big blockbusters of the year have a way of drowning out everything else, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t filmmakers doing some seriously cool things in 2015.

This week, Cracked editor-in-chief Jack O’Brien is joined by Alisha Grauso from Moviepilot.com, Drew McWeeny from HitFix.com, and Scott Mendelson from Forbes.com to discuss some of the box office and filmmaking trends that we’re moving towards in 2015. They’ll cover the year’s most anticipated movies that AREN’T sequels or comic book movies, and that don’t involve so much as a single dinosaur. Crazy, we know.

Recent Episodes

January 26, 2020

Freedom sucks…and that is why we have to defend it. Because our democracy involves doing a lot of stuff that takes energy, takes time, and lacks that Michael Bay Quality that only a surprise missile launch can provide. So on this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt and special guest Jason Pargin (who writes for Cracked as David Wong) are exploring the ways being afraid of everything (an easy action) can stop us from being free. Discover the decades-long tradition of some Americans wanting to give up everything in exchange for not needing to think, the centuries-long tradition of people inciting fake panics, and the reasonable ways you can help change things for the better.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/why-fear-based-democracies-arenE28099t-free-with-jason-pargin/

January 19, 2020

How’s your local shopping mall doing? Have you checked on it lately? Swing by sometime, because its department store might’ve turned into a call center or a hospital or a go-kart track. On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by the one and only Kai Ryssdal (Marketplace, Make Me Smart) for a look at surprising, strange, and shocking stories from all over the U.S. economy. Discover an international pig flu, a 26-word statement that built the modern Internet, and more amazing ways cash is ruling everything around you. By the way, if you’re an American listener, you spent the past few years funding an astonishingly huge bailout. Surprise! Listen for details!

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/5-parts-u.s.-economy-that-are-stranger-than-you-think

January 12, 2020

Movies, TV, gaming: three things that are theoretically a waste of time. Oh sure, they deliver value in the art sense, and comfort in the goofing-off sense. But what if they’re more valuable than that? What if consuming shows and playing video games (accidentally) turns people into real-life heroes? On this episode of The Cracked Podcast, Alex Schmidt is joined by comedians/writers Caitlin Gill and Alex Watt for a look at the surprising number of times that exact thing happened. They’ll explore stories of regular people who saved a life thanks to skills gained randomly from cartoons, sitcoms, ‘World Of Warcraft’, and more silly entertainment.

Footnotes: https://www.cracked.com/podcast/9-times-pop-culture-accidentally-taught-people-to-save-lives/