Franchise Detours

The Muppet Movie took Kermit the Frog and company from The Muppet Show all the way to Hollywood. But beyond the "approximate" story of how the Muppets got together, what does everyone's favorite group of frogs, pigs, bears, and whatevers do with their "rich and famous contracts"? The Great Muppet Caper, that's what.

Ryan Luis Rodriguez of The Coolness Chronicles and Reels of Justice joins our Muppets mega-series as we break down Jim Henson's feature directorial debut. We'll discuss how it pays tribute to classic Hollywood musicals, why Kermit isn't actually the main character, and whether The Great Muppet Caper is superior to its predecessor.

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Batman was in a characteristically dark place in the early 2000s. After 1997's Batman & Robin, Warner Bros. struggled to figure out what its next move would be for Bruce Wayne's DC Comics alter-ego. Then an up-and-coming filmmaker named Christopher Nolan came in, and the resulting trilogy would leave an impact that still lingers within superhero movies.

Film critic Nguyen Le joins us to kick off our mega-series on Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy with an in-depth chat about 2005's Batman Begins. We'll discuss Christian Bale's indelible performance in what is the first live-action Bat-movie about Bruce Wayne, Nolan's grounded approach to Gotham City and the Batman mythos, and how Batman Begins paves the way for what would come next. Are you ready to begin?

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It's time to play the music. It's time to light the lights. It's time to meet the Muppets on a brand-new Franchise Detours mega-series. For the next eight episodes, we'll be covering every single theatrically released Muppet film, journeying through spanning 35 years of Muppets on the big screen. First up is the story of "approximately" how the Muppets came together.

On this episode, Stephen Fodor of Too Much Scrolling joins the show to talk in-depth about 1979's The Muppet Movie. We'll discuss how the movie works as an adaptation of The Muppet Show, break down Paul Williams' and Kenneth Ascher's Oscar-nominated music, and answer once and for all whether the film indeed has "socially redeeming value."

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Batman Begins singlehandedly revived the DC superhero's film career. And The Dark Knight, well, it ensured that Batman would never stray far from the silver screen again. In this 2008 sequel, director Christopher Nolan took Christian Bale's Batman down a deeper, more morally complex path by pitting him against his ideological opposite: Heath Ledger's indelible Joker.

Darin Lundberg of NostalgiaCast joins us to talk all about how Nolan and Bale expanded on their version of this iconic character. We'll discuss whether The Dark Knight lives up to its sterling reputation, which cast member gives a wildly underrated performance, and how the film's focus on theme and character set a new template for comic book movies.

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In the pantheon of superhero sequels, Spider-Man 2 is arguably among the best of its kind. Two years after Sam Raimi finally brought the webslinger to theaters, he aimed even higher with deeper themes, a more visually ambitious villain, and a tighter focus on character relationships.

On this episode, Josh Bell of Awesome Movie Year joins the show to discuss how Raimi tries to outdo himself with the sequel, the iconic performance of Alfred Molina as Doctor Octopus, and whether 2004's Spider-Man 2 is, in fact, the best Spider-Man movie. Next time, we go ALL IN on Spider-Man 3.

But for now, it's all about the myth, the legend Spider-Man 2. Go get it, tiger.

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