Latest episode: Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee!

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What's our name? We're the Amusement Park Podcast! On our latest episode, we’re talking about the new HBO Muhammad Ali documentary, What’s My Name, and Netflix's Ted Bundy movie, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile. Also, should you name your children after TV characters, like Daenerys or Khaleesi? And what chance does The Big Bang Theory have to provide closure in its series finale?

— Show notes for Ep. 35 are available here —

Please leave a rating and review on iTunes for us and a like on our Facebook page to help boost our signal. You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts, including:

You can also tell us what you think at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and find us on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear from you! Thanks for listening!

Episode 34: Spider-Man: Far From Home, Long Shot, Chernobyl and so much more!

There is more to watch than Avengers: Endgame and Game of Thrones, it turns out! We discuss Long Shot and if people will pay for romantic comedies anymore. Also, a breakdown of the new Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer. And we review HBO’s Chernobyl miniseries. 

— Show notes for Ep. 34 are available here —

Please leave a rating and review on iTunes for us and a like on our Facebook page to help boost our signal. You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts, including:

You can also tell us what you think at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and find us on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear from you! Thanks for listening!

5 takeaways from second Spider-Man: Far From Home trailer - After Endgame, who is Mysterio, and can't fool MJ

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe keeps on rolling. Though one stage of Marvel’s superhero epic reached a conclusion of sorts with Avengers: Endgame, the overarching story continues with Peter Parker in Spider-Man: Far From Home. (Technically, Phase 3 of the MCU ends with this film, according to Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige.)

If there was any question of where Far From Home fits in the MCU timeline, the movie’s new trailer makes that clear. (I speculated on the latest Amusement Park Podcast that it must take place between Spider-Man: Homecoming and Avengers: Infinity War, but was obviously wrong.) So clear, in fact, that Tom Holland issues a spoiler warning before the preview begins. If you haven’t seen Endgame, don’t watch this trailer because it gives away a major development from that film, one you won’t want spoiled.

So we’ll do our best to maintain that secrecy and make sure you go into Endgame fresh, able to enjoy its many surprises. It’s interesting that Marvel would go ahead with this when Endgame has only been in theaters for two weekends. But now we know why directors Joe and Anthony Russo declared that the spoiler ban would be over on Monday (May 6). There’s another movie to promote! And Marvel has about two months before Spider-Man: Far From Home hits theaters on July 2.

— Read the full post here —

Episode 33 - Avengers: Endgame review with Spoilers!

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What else are we going to talk about but Avengers: Endgame? The blockbuster spectacle is taking over the world and vacuuming up all our money!

We get into MAJOR SPOILERS, recapping what we loved (and maybe nitpicked) from the movie we’ve all been waiting for. So if you haven’t yet seen Endgame, you may want to hold off on listening until then. But please come back and listen to our review! Compare your reactions to ours!

Please leave a rating and review on iTunes for us and a like on our Facebook page to help boost our signal. You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts, including:

You can also give us feedback at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and find us on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear from you! Thanks for listening!

Episode 32: Game of Thrones, plus The Rise of Skywalker!

We have to talk about Game of Thrones, right? On the latest Amusement Park Podcast, we do just that, digging into the Season 8 premiere. Also on the table is reaction to the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker trailer. From there, we jump into the Disney+ announcements, including its launch date, pricing and impressive content offerings. And as usual, what we’re enjoying this week.

— Show notes for Ep. 32 are available here —

Please leave a rating and review on iTunes for us and a like on our Facebook page to help boost our signal. You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts, including:

You can also give us feedback at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and find us on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear from you! Thanks for listening!

Episode 31: We saw everything! Shazam, The Highwaymen, The Twilight Zone - Oh, my!

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Shazam! On the latest Amusement Park Podcast, we review DC's new superhero flick. Does it keep the fun train rolling? While waiting for Avengers: Endgame tickets (not really), we also talk about Netflix's The Highwaymen and the Twilight Zone reboot.

— Show notes for Ep. 31 are available here —

Please leave a rating and review on iTunes for us and a like on our Facebook page to help boost our signal. You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts, including:

You can also give us feedback at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and find us on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear from you! Thanks for listening!

Unfortunately, the new Hellboy is noise and gore signifying nothing

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There’s a scene about midway through Hellboy in which a giant sword goes through a monster’s head, virtually splitting it in half, unleashing a reservoir of blood, and showing some of the blood and brains underneath the skull. While taking in that moment, I thought to myself, “I think that’s what watching this movie feels like.”

I was rooting for the 2019 reboot of Hellboy. It was going to be too easy to dismiss this movie and say Guillermo Del Toro and Ron Perlman did it better — twice — without even seeing this new version. But the wave of early reviews seemed to confirm what so many feared when this project was announced. Was there really any point to reviving Hellboy if there wasn’t anything new to offer?

Part of the sales pitch for this new Hellboy, directed by Neil Marshall and starring David Harbour, is that the movie would be based more closely on the source comic books by Mike Mignola (although Del Toro’s 2004 film had elements from the comics as well) and that will always make fans’ horns point a bit higher. Mignola himself seemed to endorse that narrative, which implied that Del Toro took his movies in a slightly different direction from the comic books.

— Read the full review here —

Shazam! stands out by embracing what makes the superhero fun

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With one magic word, Shazam! keeps the fun train rolling for the DC cinematic universe. DC was already on the right track with the success of Wonder Woman and Aquaman, but taking a chance with a B-list (maybe even C-list) character who had a chance to reach a younger audience might have derailed that momentum.

Some fans and critics might feel like DC’s big-screen product won’t be fully established until the big names like Batman and Superman have been restored, and the cinematic universe is on a path to getting the band together in another Justice League film. But Marvel seized the superhero movie pedestal with lesser characters and by creating a slow build that stoked anticipation for a big payoff.

Another reason that Marvel has succeeded while so many other studios and franchises have failed in trying to build a cinematic universe is its realization that many different types of stories and genres could be featured within a superhero universe. Movies like Guardians of the Galaxy and Ant-Man resonated with audiences because they were comedies as much as blockbuster spectacles. Humor has always been the honeypot for these movies.

— Read the full review here —

Episode 30: Avengers: Endgame Madness! Plus, James Gunn is back and Triple Frontier

And we're back after a one-week break! On the latest Amusement Park Podcast, we look at the final Avengers: Endgame trailer for clues, react to Disney re-hiring James Gunn for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, review Netflix's Triple Frontier, and wonder if "streaming fatigue" is real.

— Show notes for Ep. 30 are available here —

Please leave a rating and review on iTunes for us and a like on our Facebook page to help boost our signal. You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts, including:

You can also give us feedback at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and find us on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear from you! Thanks for listening!

Captain Marvel Special Episode! Non-Spoilers and Spoilers Reaction

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Captain Marvel has arrived! Is the latest addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe possibly the greatest? We review the movie with non-spoiler thoughts and then hard spoiler discussion.

We'll warn you before diving into those spoilers, though! (It’s about halfway through the show, at the 21:40 mark.) Please come on back and listen after you’ve seen the movie.

Higher! Further! Faster!

— You can read Ian’s Captain Marvel review here —

Please leave a rating and review on iTunes for us and a like on our Facebook page to help boost our signal. You can subscribe to the Amusement Park Podcast everywhere you find podcasts, including:

You can also give us feedback at amusementparkpod@gmail.com and find us on Twitter and Instagram. We’d love to hear from you! Thanks for listening!