This is one of the zanier minis we’ve done — so much so, that we kind of don’t even want to spoil it for you. Just take a number, and dive right in!

We start the new year off with a BIG movie, especially according to its star, Mr. Dwayne Mr. “The Rock” E. Normous Johnson. It’s Black Adam, a superhero probably even fewer of you have heard of than Shazam (nee Captain Marvel), in whose pages B. Adam first appeared. He’s not your daddy’s superhero, in that he kills a bunch of people, but he probably is your daddy’s (or granddaddy’s) superhero in the sense that he’s from 1945. Anyway, they made a long, boring movie about him, so we talk about it.

Mr. Christmas himself, Alonso Duralde, of many other podcasts, returns to dissect the third, and most narratively sweaty, of the Santa Clause trilogy, “The Escape Clause.” Also, if you’re wondering who stole Cagemas, Dan says a few words about it. Let’s not say “goodbye” let’s just say “congratulations, Mr. Cage, on paying off your castles.”

What even is a Christmas movie anyway?

Stick an Academy Award-nominated director with three of the most acclaimed actors currently working and an absolutely berzerk cavalcade of supporting stars and the resulting movie’s gotta be fantastic, right? Right? We test that theory with a viewing of the wildly critically-mixed (at best) Amsterdam. One of us kinda liked it. The others ridicule it extensively. It’s all good fun.

You remember Flop House superstar, Parker Bennett, right? He co-wrote the legendarily strange Super Mario Bros, and we talked to him about his experiences with that movie in FH Mini 39. Well, he heard us mention A Gnome Named Gnorm in our recent mini with Griffin Newman and dropped us a line to reveal he and his partner did some punch-up on everyone’s favorite buddy comedy starring a horrific gnome and Anthony Michael Hall. So he’s back to share more tales of his fascinating career!

Wait didn’t we do this movie before? Don’t be ridiculous. That was Marmaduke (2010) this is Marmaduke (2022). How could you possibly have mixed that up? Anyway, this ain’t your daddy’s Marmaduke, provided you have a very young daddy (in the case of the previous film) or a very old daddy (who loves the comic). This is the animated one for Netflix, with Pete Davidson as the titular Duke of Marma. Does it make the previous one look like the Citizen Kane of Marmaduke films? Kinda!

Dan leads us on a tour of nut movies. It kind of makes sense when you listen to it.