When it was published in 2011, Ernest Cline's Ready Player One got a fairly warm reception as a diverting mashup of pop culture, gaming, and accessible quest narrative, wrapped up in a warm, comforting blanket of nostalgia for the ephemera of the 1970s and 80s. Over the past seven years, its reputation has proven much more divisive, in part because of Cline's subsequent work, but mostly because the kind of geek culture he celebrated has become much darker and more complicated. Matt and Ed talk about all that in regards to the film adaptation, directed by Steven Spielberg, as well as Amazon's big-budget TV gambles and the dystopian potential of Birmingham.
00:00:00 - 00:25:48 - Intro & News
00:25:49 - 01:09:15 - Matt & Ed discuss Ready Player One
01:09:16 - 01:17:06 - SRS Recommends & Outro
321. Gateway Filmmakers
320. Blind Spots
319. Emily's Birthday 2021
318. Best of 2020
317. Art That Helped Us Get Through 2020
316. HBOMax and the Future of Theatrical Releases
315. Autism in Film and TV
314. Autumnal Movies
313. Frequent Collaborations
312. Elections
311. Borat and the Limits of Satire
310. Qui-Bye
309. One Location Movies
308. This Hits Different
307. Dreams
306. The State of Streaming
305. News Roundup
304. Time
303. The Cultural Weight of the Criterion Collection
302. Late Night Television
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