The Desert of the Reel: A Movie Podcast

Tron: Legacy (2010) 28 years after the original movie, we see Flynn and his adult son, Sam, return to the grid. There, they must play Clu's games and try to escape.Is this basically the first Legacy sequel? We talk about the history of Disney from the 80s that led us to this movie. We also have a lot of things we liked about this movie! Especially the music.We also uncover a lot of philosophical ideas. From Buddhism and Hinduism to the Bhagavad Gita, we examine the film's obsession with the self, perfection, creation...

This week, Ryan and Jason go all the way back to Jason's childhood with 1982's Tron! This is one of the rare episodes where Jason reminisces about his childhood experiences with movies.While (a little) dated, they argue that there's actually a lot to love about this old Disney film. The duo discuss Tron's role in the advent of CGI in film, the philosophical ideas of a digital self, intelligence at many levels of existence, the dangers of allowing computers to think for us, what putting minimal effort into a project reveals about us, and whether or...

Surrogates (2009) is a forgotten-about science Fiction movie where people live their lives through better-looking robot versions of themselves. It is just as relevant today, if not more so. It predates many ideas of social media and smartphones, and before we saw them in real life. Feels frighteningly modern. We discuss AI, digital identities, pornography, addiction, disability, authenticity, and whether humanity is slowly choosing simulation over reality.Can we still truly know another person if everyone presents a perfected version of themselves?Along the way, Jason drops a surprising hot take about WALL-E, we...

This week, we endured Jurassic World: Rebirth (2025). There's not much great happening in the film, so we didn't spend a ton of time talking about what was great. We spent a little more time talking about what wasn't great, but most of this episode is about the ethics of medicine and scientific discoveries generally, as well as the film studies reason why this movie doesn't connect with us visually and interpersonally.At least, this is the last episode of the Jurassic series. Jason believes, pound for pound, this is the biggest waste of his time of all...

Jurassic World Dominion (2022) might actually be the worst movie we have watched for this podcast. We actually get a little depressed talking about the future of blockbuster movies.After six movies, the dinosaurs aren't the only things that escaped containment. In our discussion of Jurassic World Dominion, we spend surprisingly little time talking about any pros (because we struggle to think of any), but we DO talk a good deal about dinosaurs and cons.We discover bigger questions. At what point does a living creature become a product? When does a human being...

Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom (2018) made over $1 BILLION! !! In this episode, Ryan and Jason try to figure out how a film so ludicrous and disjointed became one of the 63 films in the history of the world to make over $1 BILLION!!!While there's not a ton in this episode about the film itself, we deep dive into Jean Baudrillard's concept of the hyperreal replacing reality, as well as Ryan's two wolves (the one that wants more of the thing that he loves and the one that doesn't want crappy movies to be made out of the thing that...

In this episode of Desert of the Reel, Ryan and Jason return to Isla Nublar to visit Jurassic World. Why would anyone open another dinosaur park after the disaster of Jurassic Park? Jason can't understand that, but Ryan would definitely visit!Is Jurassic World simply a bigger-budget remake of the original movie, and if so, why doesn't it receive the same criticism as other legacy sequels like The Force Awakens?We explore the film through a postmodern lens, nostalgia, and audience expectations. We debate whether the movie has anything meaningful to say about control or...

On its surface, Hundreds of Beavers (2022) is very much an outlier choice for a Jason's Choice film, but as we dig a little deeper, we uncover a film that is deeply about creativity, the creative process, and who we are as a species and individuals. We explore AI, both the dangers it presents to a critical creative humanity and the ways we could use AI to enable critical creative thinking far beyond our human capacities.Plus, Hundreds of Beavers (2022) is just a lot of fun. Please let us know how many minutes it took you...

Jurassic Park III (2001) has Alan Grant going back to the dinos. This week on The Desert of the Reel, Ryan and Jason revisit the often-overlooked third installment in the Jurassic Park franchise and ask a simple question: Is it actually better than The Lost World?This may be remembered as the "Spinosaurus movie," but beneath the dinosaur chases and early-2000s blockbuster spectacle lies a surprisingly interesting exploration of motivation, identity, and human character.We talk about our pros and cons, and then explore, among many topics: Jurassic Park III shifts...

In this episode of The Desert of the Reel: A Movie Podcast, hosts Ryan Hudson and Jason Dietz critically analyze Steven Spielberg’s 1997 film, The Lost World: Jurassic Park. The duo utilizes their academic training to explore the film's shift in themes from the original, noting how the sequel moves away from warnings about scientific arrogance to focus on 1990s anxieties regarding corporate greed and environmental exploitation. They also dive into Spielberg's directorial style, praising his signature camera movements and visual storytelling techniques, while examining the movie’s production history, including its ties to the old monster movies that insp...

Welcome to Jurassic Park!1993's Jurassic Park is a pivotal movie in regard to blockbusters, special effects, and dinosaurs. There is so much to love (unless you are like Jason, who has issues with the tree scene). Almost everyone has seen this film, and that is because there is still so much to talk about. We get into the ethics of whether Jurassic Park is a good idea, that it is secretly a horror film, and how Spielberg uses spectacle in his film to criticize Hollywood, while paradoxically being one of the best spectacles of...

This week, Jason chose Locke (2013) for our viewing pleasure, and what an excellent choice it was. If only Jason got to choose all the movies, then we wouldn't have to watch things like Spectre or Ironman.I digress. Our intrepid podcasters both agree that Locke is a five-star movie, a masterpiece of character. They discuss whether one choice defines a life, when is it okay to lie, the ways in which Ivan Locke is constructed, and how one crack in the wrong place can bring down an entire building... or an entire human.What are...

In our last episdo of Batman movies, we are showing Jason The Batman (2022). He probably would not have watched it without the podcast.He claims it is a good movie that would have been a lot better if it wasn't a Batman movie. Is it more than just a superhero film? Or would it have worked even better as a stripped-down noir detective story? We explore how the film reimagines Batman as a man driven by vengeance who must confront the limits of that identity.Along the way, we break down what defines...

We both agree that The Dark Knight Rises (2012) isn't as good as The Dark Knight (2008), but then again, there aren't many movies that are. But, that doesn't mean that this movie is terrible, by any means. The duo discuss the effectiveness of the casting; Bane's plot against Gotham and; the connected roles of fear, hope, and continual improvement. They bring in the ideas of past and present philosophers, like Henry David Thoreau, James Allen, and Will Smith. What are your thoughts about The Dark Knight Rises (2012)? E-mail us at...

The Dark Knight (2008) is the follow-up that still fights for the title of "best sequel of all time." We break a lot of our usual setup to just make room for going over all the things that make this movie so amazing.In this episode of The Desert of the Reel, we ask one unsettling question: are we responsible for evil if we allow it to happen? From the Joker’s calculated chaos to Batman’s ultimate sacrifice, we explore whether Gotham’s moral collapse is inevitable—or chosen. Along the way, we unpack t...

Batman Begins marks a return to superheroes for DOTR (or does it… is Batman actually a superhero?). We get into it and email us your thoughts at desertofthereelpod@gmail.comThis episode features a trip down memory lane for our intrepid duo, discussing the strengths and weaknesses of the various Batman series. Ryan and Jason both like this movie a lot, although they had issues with some of the casting (Cillian Murphy for Jason and Katie Holmes for Ryan).  Aside from the weakness of Scarecrow as a villain, they really didn’t have many cons. ...

This week on Desert of the Reel, we explore Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (2000) through a philosophical and film-theory lens, asking what it truly means to transcend oneself. Jason wanted an "in-between movie" from James Bond and The Dark Knight. So he chose one of his all-time favorite movies. He says it is the BEST action movie of all time. We examine how the film blends magical realism with grounded human emotion to elevate action into something almost spiritual. We talk about how the wire working isn't just really really cool, but also part of telling...

We're following up one of our shortest episodes in a long time with one of our longest. While we didn't agree on everything, there's certainly some fireworks about the most recent entry in the James Bond film series No Time to Die (2021).as logos and pathos battle to the death in the squared circle!Mixed in with those, there are some deep discussions about life, how to live it, and how to make the most of both the good times and the bad.This episode comes from a place deep in both of us. We...

Desert of the Reel is a movie podcast where we attempt to look at big blockbuster franchises and attempt to analyze them with philosophy and ethics. However, James Bond's Spectre from 2015 really put us in a stupor. Out of all the movies we have watched, this movie has been one of the hardest to attempt to pull something deep out of. We spend a good while enjoying talking about all the reasons we did NOT like this film, but we really struggle to pull anything worthwhile.We bring up franchise theory, surveillance theory, and even...

Skyfall (2012) is the second in the Daniel Craig James Bond film series that Jason actually likes! Is this the perfect Bond movie? In this episode, we discuss what makes Skyfall a truly good film: the nostalgia, Javier Bardem, the lack of idiotic crap happening, Roger Deakins, the rat story, and many other things. We get deeper into real-life philosophy in this episode, as we discuss improving your life by 1% each day; discarding things that are cluttering your life; if you're going through something very difficult, keep going; and being open to weighing evidence...