I confess to having a soft spot in my heart – and head – for Australians. Never been down unhah, and probably will never get there, but Ozies have been plaguing me for nigh on to fifty years now. I’ve been working with that crazy-ass musician and writer John G. Jone on books about The Amityville Horror literally since the 1970’s. I’ve had clients and friends from Australia ever since. And one of the reasons I’ve got that damn VPN was so I could watch a few Aussie shows that never made it all the way to the States – like Lucy Lawless’ charming light murder-mystery series, My Life is Murder, and Essie Davis’ really terrific period whodunnits, Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. They made a terrific zombie series in New Zealand that we’ll talk about one day soon, and more recently, the two – and sadly only two – seasons of the Austrialn version of The Traitors are just bonkers – and good. And if you haven’t seen Wyrmwood, or Little Monsters, or Tomorrow When the War Began, then you’ve missed a hell of a lot. The horror, action, and science fiction cultures of Australia and full of good stuff, and very little of it makes it across the ocean. And that very much includes this podcast – The Weekly Planet, an irreverent collection of popular culture movies, and comics news with one of the worst theme songs ever.
To call the two hosts, James Clement and Nick Mason, “irreverent” is not only too easy and too cliché.. it also undersells them. They both have the rare gift of projecting their personalities right through the tiny hole of a microphone and even when their show runs into unexpected territory far from, as they define it, “comic book movie news, showing our hour butthole,” you never stop listening… and you always wait for more.
Also, the boys had the very good taste to agree with me completely, right down the line, on Zak Snyder’s Rebel Moon and what a complete chunk of pretentious, derivative crap it was – check out my opinion in the January 18 episode, which I swear I wrote and produced before I heard their take on the same thing, in their episode from right around the same time. And they’ve turned me on to some unexpected comics and movies I would have missed or let slide, way more than once. They’ll do the same for you and keep you entertained every week. So look ‘em up: The Weekly Planet, right up in your ear from down under … which sounds way dirtier than I intended.
