Podcasts
Best “Friend” Body Horror in the Influential ‘Akira’ [Horror Queers Podcast]
Kanedaaaaaaaaaaaa! Tetsuooooooooooooo!
After kicking off September with a look at Troma’s original trashterpiece The Toxic Avenger (listen) and celebrating our 350th episode at the Titty Twister in From Dusk Till Dawn (listen), were making our second foray into the world of anime (following our discussion of Perfect Blue) in Katsuhiro Otomo‘s seminal and incredibly influential film Akira (1988), an adaptation of his manga of the same name.
In Akira, Japan is reeling from a nuclear blast that destroyed Tokyo in 1988, leading to World War III. In 2019, Neo-Tokyo is now a cesspool of government corruption, gang violence and terrorism. The film focuses on biker gang leader Kaneda (Mitsuo Iwata) and his lover best friend Tetsuo (Nozomu Sasaki).
When the latter acquires telekinetic abilities after nearly running over a childlike “esper,” he is abducted by the morally suspect Colonel Shikishima (Tarō Ishida). Kaneda teams up with resistance movement activist Kei (Mami Koyama) to find his lover friend before he loses control of his powers and starts another World War.
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Episode 351: Akira (1988)
Hop on your motorcycle, avoid that “child” in the road and slide to a stop because we’re discussing Katsuhiro Otomo‘s seminal anime Akira (1988)!
Join us as we offer a primer on all things Akira, as well as its influences on, uh, everything. We then work our way through its very, very dense plot, which somehow condenses hundreds of manga pages into a 2-hour runtime. This includes a queer read for Kaneda and Tetsuo, as well as debating whether or not the film has a “woman problem.”
Plus: raisin-faced “children,” singularities, and one horrifying sequence involving malevolent stuffed animals (and a lot of “milk”).
Cross out Akira!
Coming Up Next: We’re heading to Bodega Bay to check in with Alfred Hitchcock and some pesky avian antagonists in The Birds (1963).
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On the DL.
After spending June on explicitly queer texts like Emerald Fennell’s Saltburn (listen) and William Castle’s Homicidal (listen), it’s only appropriate that Horror Queers celebrate the American holiday with a blockbuster film with a not-so-secret gay connection.
In Independence Day, an unlikely group of people come together when the human race faces extinction from a threatening alien race. After spaceships destroy every major city, pilot Steven Hiller (Will Smith) must team up with secret tech genius David Levinson (Jeff Goldblum), as well as the US President (Bill Pullman), to execute a daring plan to save the planet from annihilation.
Along for the ride are the two saviors’ romantic partners – WH Communications Director Constance (Margaret Colin) and stripper Jasmine (Vivica A. Fox) – plus eccentric scientist Dr. Okun (Brent Spiner), who is at the center of the film’s most horrific set piece.
Be sure to subscribe to the podcast to get a new episode every Wednesday. You can subscribe on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, TuneIn, Amazon Music, and RSS.
Episode 393: Independence Day (1996)
Today, we celebrate our Independence Day…courtesy of gay German director Roland Emmerich.
As the summer blockbuster celebrates its 30th anniversary, we’re looking back on an alien disaster film that scared young Trace (thanks to that alien autopsy scene) and turned Will Smith into a star.
Plus: the death that upsets the most; bemoaning Vivica A. Fox’s career; pondering what could have been with the casting; why Smith’s bravado and the film’s patriotism doesn’t always work for Joe; and plenty of riffing on the atrocious sequel.
Cross out Independence Day!
Coming Up Next: We’re retreating to the country for some questionable therapy courtesy of Joe Dante’s 1981 classic, The Howling!
P.S. Subscribe to our Patreon for over 503 hours of Patreon content including this month’s new episodes on Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Forbidden Fruits, Saccharine, Evil Dead Burn, an audio commentary on the utterly ridiculous sequel Howling II: Your Sister Is A Werewolf (1985), and the conclusion of our Requel Tier coverage of AMC’s The Vampire Lestat.