Emerald City Video

This week’s episode is the first recorded on new hardware, the first recorded while part of the ACPN group (as opposed to recording an episode and then being invited while in production), and the first in a while to have the “classic” format of an old release and a new release. For anybody who might be new to Emerald City Video and is currently reading these notes (likely at ACPN), here’s what our deal is: Russ Burlingame (that’s me!) is a senior writer for ComicBook.com, but in another life, I managed Emerald City Video, a family-owned video store in Syracuse, NY. During that time, I worked with Visu.News's Zach Roberts briefly as well as a number of other people who have been featured on this show less regularly, including Logan Bretschneider, Dan Fecteau, Erica Ladd, Eva Furmanska, and Dave Nielsen. The idea of this show is to have the kind of conversations people used to have at the video store: a little more casual, a little more in-depth, and a lot more organic than you get from the crappy algorithms

Hey, gang. Russ here. This is a very special episode for…well, for a few reasons. The first reason, and the one least likely to impact our listeners, is that this will be the final episode recorded and edited on the trusty MacBook that has been with me since the start of the series. It is a work machine, and the corporate overlords at the day job have seen fit to outfit me with a new one that’s about 7 years newer than this. Farewell, old friend. Secondly, you might notice that I am flying solo on this adventure — and that the sound is kind of all over the place. Today’s episode features an interview between myself and the guys behind THE LAST BLOCKBUSTER — director Taylor Morden and producer Zeke Kamm. Originally, Zach Roberts and I recorded this — except that apparently, we didn’t, and the audio was lost to history. These good folks have a Kickstarter to promote — you can find that link here, and I encourage you to back it — and so rather than try to find a time where all four of us could be free and ri

It's Jason Statham Week! Join Russ and Zach as we break down The Meg and Death Race.

The Death of Superman -- based on a story that culminated in 1992's Superman #75 -- being episode #75 of the podcast is so perfect that we’re going to pretend waiting around for that movie to come out is why we haven’t done a new episode lately.

Russ Burlingame and Zach D Roberts break down Skyscraper, which was a ton of fun.

Russ Burlingame and Zach Roberts already took a long, hard look at The Jurassic Games in an earlier New Release Wall episode -- but this is a special episode and the first in what we hope to make a regular thing: The film's director, Ryan Bellgardt, joined Russ for a long-form interview/commentary track, sharing recollections, behind-the-scenes secrets, and observations about the film in real time as an audio companion to the movie's video. So cue up your copy of The Jurassic Games -- you can get it on Vudu, Amazon, iTunes, or other streaming services, or pick up a physical disc on Amazon or at Walmart -- and listen to a feature-length commentary track from the director and one of our intrepid hosts. You can hear our original The Jurassic Games review here. You can get a copy of the movie on Amazon here, and if you buy at that link it supports the podcast.

In the latest New Release Wall, Russ and Zach talk about Ant-Man and the Wasp. Be back by noon on the third day to hear their spoilery thoughts!

Russ and Zach give their non-spoiler impressions of The First Purge, Blumhouse's latest horror outing.

After the fun of The Jurassic Games, we decided to try out The Jurassic Dead. This was a poor idea. Russ's notes: I love he score in the opening sequence; it feels like Fletch or something, but with more baseline. What’s with the bright green serum? Is this Cartel 2045? The acting and camera work her are not at a professional level. like, this isn’t Cartel or Jurassic Games, where it’s at that level with some quirks. …He didn’t even inject the serum! Just dribbled it on the skin? What’s the point of putting it in a syringe? The T-rex in the first sequence looks convincingly like puppetry. Even if when it’s close to the car it is OBVIOUSLY NOT CLOSE TO THE CAR “Mrs. Dr. Borge” has so much packed into it. First of all, isn’t she too old and presumably too smart for that? Second, she doesn’t know his first name? SHE’S IN COLLEGE. I want to know the backstory of his bowtie “I am not here to debate, Im here to educate,” says the guy who has just been monologuing about the meaning of life since the class

Russ and Zach talk Sicario, ahead of Friday's release of the film's sequel.

Russ and Zach talk today's new release, The Jurassic Games. 

"How do we find this guy...?" Jack Reacher walks in the door.   Russ and Zach talk about one of Zach's trailer reel picks -- the kind of thing you could put on in the store to have fun background noise but only sort of pay attention to -- Jack Reacher.

Russ and Zach look at Blumhouse Tilt's latest offering, Upgrade. It's very good.

On the one hand, this week the intro (some of the audio of which is taken from Kevin Smith's 1994 indie hit Clerks) feels more appropriate than ever.   On the other hand, it could have been fun if I took the time to customize an opening that integrated the line from the Clerks animated series: "What follows is the fabled lost pilot to Clerks..."   On yet another hand? Apparently the audio cut out for the first syllable of the introduction that DID make it in, meaning that if I had done ANYTHING special it would have been an improvement over my "hello" being truncated to "'lo."   This is quite possibly the longest attempt ever made at making sense of the live-action Clerks pilot (which the fandom sometimes called Saved By the Clerks because of how much it owes to other shabby '90s sitcoms).  

Russ and Zach talk Solo: A Star Wars Story, and neither of them was crazy about it. You can contribute to keep the show going at paypal.me/emeraldcityvideo You can also check out our Redbubble store at redbubble.com/people/archiedigest Follow us on Twitter! Like us on Facebook!

Russ and Zach give a non-spoiler reaction to Deadpool 2. And guess what? We'll be talking more about this movie soon...!

"My favorite movie since BLACK PANTHER." - Russ Burlingame

SPOILERS ON for the second half of Russ and Zach's look at Avengers: Infinity War. Here's where things get a bit more critical, because however great the movie was, the ending left Russ really cold.

After ten years, it all comes to this: Avengers: Infinity War pits the various heroes of Marvel's shared cinematic universe against Thanos, the greatest threat they have ever faced, as he endeavors to bring "balance" to the universe by slaughtering half of everybody. This is our NON-SPOILER review. For a discussion of the ending and some other spoilery topics, come back on Monday.

In the latest installment of our New Release Wall, Zach and Russ take a look at the strange and wonderful Cartel 2045.