Kieron Gillen, The Death of Mid-Budget Movies, Emily Gardner (The Big Sick)

Love Hate Relationship

Love: Kieron Gillen

Andy comes into this episode talking up one of the great comic book writes of the day, Kieron Gillen. He talks through his relatively late entry into the medium, some of Gillen’s best works, including The Wicked and the Divine and his Star Wars books, and cool stuff like his curated playlists for all of his works. Alex, meanwhile, learns that there’s another cool-ass music journalist/creative writer out there, and everyone who hasn’t read it gets to conjecture who Doctor Aphra may be.

Hate: The Death of Mid-Budget Movies

With plenty of help from an article by Justin Bailey over at Flavorwire, Alex takes his Hate time to lament the largescale loss of mid-budget movies from the contemporary cinema marketplace. HE talks about what qualifies as mid-budget, gets into numbers, and even shares his Top Five movies of all time. Andy, meanwhile, recalls the existence of Event Horizon and gets undercut before he can talk up A24 again.

Relationship: Emily Gardner (The Big Sick)

This episode’s question comes from Relationships.txt, where a Caucasian asker wonders if she’s a little racist for struggling with her partner’s Indian culture. Alex answers with a clear and concise “Yes,” mainly due to tons of implicit bias in her actual question, while Andy encourages savoring an opportunity for cultural exchange, and we’re all reminded that Kumail Nanjiani used to be funny.