School of Movies

• Delicious in Dungeon

  [School of Everything Else 2025] This is a commissioned show for Chris Finik, The Jonin Monkey, Banzai Tree and Sixblazer. We recruited Willow as a guest, since they were immediately smitten with this 24-episode first season. We heartily recommend you cast aside your worries and just delve into this podcast episode, regardless of having seen the show or not. While you will find out things that are going to happen, we can't spoil the show for you, only make it richer with more texture to get your teeth into. The on-paper synopsis is a bunch of misfits searching an underground labyrinth for one of their number, lost to a dragon. The experience itself is a gourmet tour of eating the monsters that attack them. The longer term quest is a better balance of the delicate and deadly ecosystem that abounds in tabletop RPGs. So, grab your cooking knife and your shield reforged into a pot, light the magic circle and let's get to the nosh.

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• Secret of Mana

  [School of Everything Else 2025] One of the most beloved 90s RPGs, and one of the few on Super Nintendo that was released in the UK. So, while I envied Americans for getting Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy IV and VI, Earthbound and Breath of Fire, THIS ONE was my first actual big console RPG. And it has problems; real playability issues that make it hard to recommend for everyone in the 20s. You'll find Mana fans who say that these don't matter, but they absolutely do. A fine comparison I came upon while mulling this one over was Breath of the Wild. Absolutely gorgeous, engrossing you in a luscious world dominated by fertile nature, but Link's swords breaking after half a dozen battles are not going to make the game more fun and engaging for everyone. And yet, there IS that immersion, there is the overwhelming emotional response that Mana fans have to the music and art style, and there's the undeniably satisfying THWACK of the combat. So, come on a journey with us and the three intrepid adventuring kids, Primm, Popoi and Randi, and decide whether playing Secret of Mana is right for you.

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• The People's Joker

  [School of Movies 2025] After the harsh, oppressive atmosphere of I Saw the TV Glow we turn to an altogether funnier tale of trans discovery with Vera Drew's semiautobiographical, anarchic reshaping of DC's Clown Princess of Crime. From the painfully normalising cornfields of Smallville, Kansas comes a child who asks their alarmed mother "Was in born in the wrong body?". The only possible response to this is of course sessions at Arkham Asylum with Doctor Crane and a prescription of Smilex to chase that depression and anxiety away. We follow this confused young person to Gotham, where they find their calling in a thinly-veiled Saturday Night Live setup, doing stand-up comedy alongside The Penguin, Ra's al Ghul and a trans-masc chap named Mr J, riffing hard on both fallen Robin Jason Todd and Jared Leto's Joker. Our hero gives themselves the mantle of Joker the Harlequin... and comedy in Gotham will never be the same! This movie was pulled together during lockdown, and thrives on a garage-punk, scrapbook style that energetically propels you through the troubled life of someone just trying to be themselves in a loud, chaotic world. Guests Laura Kate Dale Alejandra Vargas Victoria Luna B. Grieve

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• I Saw the TV Glow

  [School of Movies 2025] As soon as we saw this thickly atmospheric, Lynchian lucid nightmare from 2024, Sharon and I knew we had to do a very particular show on it. Since the entire context is trans-anxiety which the majority of cisgender people may find impenetrably mystifying we needed an all-trans/enby/non-cis cast of guests to walk us through the significance. On the surface it is a story about a chap named Owen who is lonely and isolated child of the mid-1990s, meeting lonely, isolated Maddy and bonding over a mutual obsession with a cheesy sci-fi TV show for teenagers called "The Pink Opaque". Beneath that surface there is a whole world of uncertainty, denial, distraction and pain. Strap in, because this one is hard, long and has no relief at the end, culminating in a cautionary tale about running from yourself. Huge thanks to everyone involved with this quite astonishing endeavour. We buttoned our lips and let these good people talk for the majority of the three hour runtime of this thing. Guests Laura Kate Dale Alejandra Vargas Aquila Edwards Victoria Luna B. Grieve Plus we have a suite of audio submissions from... Austin Wilden Rosa Ysassi Serata Villarreal Holly Dotson and Hanna Peregrine

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• Do A Powerbomb

  [School of Everything Else 2025] This was an unexpected burst of sheer joy, and we urge you all to seek it out for yourselves. It's a graphic novel, comprising a 7-issue comic book miniseries about wrestling. We had never read a book written by Daniel Warren Johnson before, but now we're hooked and ready to guzzle down everything else this champ achieves. Lona Steelrose was just a little girl when she witnessed her mother tragically perish in the ring. Now, because of this very tragedy that motivates her to fight, no other wrestler will touch her. This is until a literal demon necromancer offers her a chance in an intergalactic wrestling tournament. The twist; her tag team partner is Cobrasun, the masked luchador who was her mother's final opponent. This thing is gloriously pulpy and plays out like the best Mortal Kombat you never knew you needed. It was a commissioned show for Tylor, and we are so glad to discover this treasure.

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