#68: Darth Maul and Airplane!

This episode is mostly about the movie Airplane! Airplane! is a funny movie. It’s filled with silly jokes, rich parody, and Lloyd Bridges, who is addicted to sniffing glue. We revisit this classic comedy and finds points of richness. Along the way, we discuss the difference between satire and parody, our current PC culture, and Darth Maul. Maul gets the most airtime, apart from the film de jour, and we hope that we can find ways to continue talking about Maul, because he’s significant, and we’re still not sure why. So if you have any insights on Maul, please come to our website, generalsnobbery.com, and let us know your thoughts. Maybe Maul is the hope we need. If not, there’s still Airplane! for some good old-fashioned laugharoos. 

#4: The Martian Part Two: Beyond the Damon

As Stanley Kubrick's science fiction classic 2001: A Space Odyssey ends with a segment entitled "Beyond the Infinite," so General Snobbery, in its conversation about The Martian (2015), travels "Beyond the Damon." After another fifteen minutes of Martian-related conversation--conversation spanning from David Bowie's horribly-placed "Starman", the film's use of Abba, Wall-E and Iron Man's strange influence on the climax, and the characters' roles not as characters but as deliverers-of-exposition--the conversation meanders into realms neither your hosts nor Matt Damon could have foreseen. What woe hath becommeth this flatlining Hollywood system? How does an illusory notion of "quality" continue to veil the populace's perception? Does commenting on a genre necessarily yield transcendence of that genre, a la Deadpool? How shall we respond in a filmic system that recycles material to repackage as propaganda-infused advertisements for a failing federal agency called NASA? Woe may be the way for many, but for others, the only logical response to the madness may be found through the lost art of snobbery. 

Our deepest gratitude to McMannus Pottery Co. for sponsoring today's episode. May our snobs be with you, always, eternally, dear listener.