Read it and Weep

It's our 2nd ever International Live Show! Watch along as we talk about two movies about the intense side of Motherhood, Stepmom and the 4th Alien movie. Both have their moments but neither is what I'd call "fun." Still, we had some fun so watch along and enjoy! And thanks to everybody who participated.

Mom Month keeps on with a show that only moms like, NBC's The Voice!Each episode of this incredibly long show features some people singing followed by elaborate and expensive voting and then nobody gets eliminated. It takes a while. Oh and celebrities quarreling, that's pretty fun. And the chair is amazing.

Happy mom month, everybody. To celebrate, we're letting our favorite moms (our own) pick some of their favorite topics. This week, Alex's mom selected the thoroughly appropriate Mamma Mia! movie starring Meryl Streep and a bunch of hot guys who can't sing. Good news, Mamma Falcone, at least one of us liked it!The rest of us had a hard time with a jukebox musical, Abba, cheesy cheesiness, and Pierce Brosnan's singing. Mostly that last one. His voice is as ugly as his eyes are beautiful.

Do you remember being home sick in the 90s? If you do, then you remember a polite rich lady who solved murders up in Maine and wrote about them. Murder, you watched.Murder, She Wrote ran for over 12 years and is considered one of the most successful shows in the history of television. And for good reason, it's a fun romp whether you're old or just old at heart.

There are a lot of young adult books you can't feel good about your children reading, but Tamora Pierce's books have a lot to like. They're sex positive, the main character is a badass girl, and there's a talking cat that sits in on meetings of the war council.Alanna is a young boy who's secretly a girl. Like Harry Potter, she's the only one in the world who can stop evil. But while she slowly defeats a bully and a villain, she gets in fun adventures like fencing, magical healing, and trying not to swim. And where many books of this ilk don't hold up, The Song of the Lioness series actually does.

Did a satanist cult steal your granddaughter with plans to sacrifice her? Then buckle up, because to get out of hell you're going to need to... Drive Angry.It's hard to go wrong with a Nic Cage movie (except for Tanya, who thinks they frequently go wrong), and this one's about as bananas as any he's made. There's a sex gunfight, lots of CGI bullets, and eye-popping 3D! (No seriously, his eye gets shot out.)Thanks to Xua for stopping by. And make sure to check out the new record from his band Swahili.

In this the 7th installment (!) of the Fast & Furious franchise, Vin and fam have gotten it down to a science. Somebody wants to do something bad and the only way to stop them is a ridiculous action sequence involving cars. And it's a beautiful thing.In another Super Host Funzone, we talk about Chris's favorite guiltless pleasure. And it (mostly) lives up to our expectations. There's punching, driving, talking about family, and some insane things. And the main character looks like a talking ham.

Eccentric French artists and the 80s. Two great tastes that taste confusing but fun together.Diva was a sponsorship from somebody who wanted us to have a treat. And we did. It's weird, it's cool, it's romantic, it's exciting, it's nonsensical, it's pro-stalking, I mean there really are a million things going on. And that makes for a great podcast. Thanks, Sponsor Dave and newest Meat Buddy Chris. You're the Divas of Tanya's two hearts.

Moms and their teenage daughters will never understand each other; the gulf is just too great to cross. That is, unless you have a magic lady at a Chinese restaurant. With her fortune cookies you can jump right across that gulf, but along the way you'll have a pretty Freaky Friday.That's what happens in the 2003 version of the movie with an unreasonably talented rock band replacing the diving team of the 1970s version. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as the older half of the duo with a Kernels Of Crisis edition of Lindsay Lohan. It's super awkward but has some definite fun parts. Thanks to our fabulous Meat Buddies for picking it as our ending to Foreign Bodies Month.

Going Home is a novel about a prepper who is exactly right about everything. It is an argument ad absurdum to show just how wrong preppers are in real life.Not that there's anything wrong with gear hoarders per se, though the book also makes them out to be just as sexist, racist, violent, and paranoid as their critics would believe. Throughout Gone Home, our hero murders walks home to his family while reverently describing all his survival gear and occasionally murdering people. But don't worry, he immediately decides he was right to do so. And he describes all his dumps.Although it's a repugnant book, we do have a couple moments where we grow to understand preppers a bit better.

Mainstream viewers claim Ancient Aliens is a cynical ploy by the History Channel to capitalize on crazy conspiracy theorists. But could it actually be a documentary uncovering the greatest secrets in the history of the earth, namely that all ancient civilizations were visited by aliens who left only oblique clues about themselves? Ancient alien theorists say "yes".If they're right, the pyramids were built by telepathy, dinosaurs were murdered by space ships, and the arc of the covenant carried a nuclear reactor. And boy, do I want them to be right! What a fun world these people with crazy hair live in! No matter what, everything has a more complicated explanation.Thanks to our sponsors Jacob and Melina from Des Moines for this fun romp.

Despite its status as one of the seminal YA series of our generation, all three of us managed to miss Animorphs when we were young. Fortunately sponsor Anna was able to set us straight by forcing us to read book #1: The Invasion and book #26: The Attack. And now we're stuck as eagles for the rest of our lives.It's a fun/dark science fiction series where kids can turn into animals because the world is ending. They fight a never ending war and sometimes people day. Like I said, it's dark. And sometimes they're tigers so that's the fun part.

The time: 1983. The place: Manly, Australia. The way to get around: BMX bikes, no question.BMX Bandits is a glorified chase scene between two cartoony criminals and three rascally kids on bikes. There's some bookending on either end about robbing a payroll truck (I think) and getting a BMX track (pretty sure) but the chase scene is the main function of the movie. And it's a glorious one.Thanks to Paul for sponsoring this fun romp and making me want to ride my bike more!

It's finally happened. EL James' depressing, porny tragedy about a billionaire dickhead who besmirches the good name of BDSM has been made into a movie. And it's bad.Obviously 50 Shades of Grey was going to be bad. It had to be. But unless you were watching it in an ironic Brooklyn theater, you may have been surprised by just how awkward it is. It's awkward. Ugh. :(((((((((((If anybody wants us to watch the sequel it'll cost you $1,000.

If you grew up in Seattle as Tanya did (and Chris kinda did too), you learned a few things: the value of good coffee, which shoes withstand the rain, and that 10 Things I Hate About You is the best rom-com of all time (until you're old enough to watch Sleepless in Seattle, of course).10 Things is the 1999 retelling of Shakespeare's The Taming Of The Shrew featuring Julia Stiles, Heath Ledger, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Alex Mack (swoon). It's set in the Pacific Northwest during the dry season and features multiple discussions of William Shakespeare which is uncomfortably meta. Even though it has some troublingly anti-feminist messages, it's a bundle of fun and we were lucky to watch it for Love Month (thanks, Meat Buddies, for voting for it).