Episode 26 – Pumping Iron (1977) with Dave Brouillette

“Blood is rushing into your muscles and that’s what we call The Pump. Your muscles get a really tight feeling, like your skin is going to explode any minute, and it’s really tight – it’s like somebody blowing air into it, into your muscle. It just blows up, and it feels really different. It feels fantastic.”

This month, we’re hitting the weights and getting a good pump with Dave Brouillette, as we bench press the 1977 bodybuilding docudrama that got Arnold noticed in Hollywood: Pumping Iron!

Cameras document – or is it dramatize? – the lives of the world’s leading bodybuilders as they prepare to compete for their sport’s top 1975 amateur and professional championships. One is junior high school teacher, Mike Katz, who aspires to the title of Mr. Universe. Another is shy underdog, Lou Ferrigno, who hopes to flex his way to the title of Mr. Olympia. But to do that, he must topple the reigning five-time returning champion, a certain popular and charismatic Austrian, just a couple years away from Hollywood superstardom.

Episode 25 – Junior (1994) with Kirby Green

Nothing is inconceivable.

This month, we’re enjoying some franks in a blanket with longtime friend of the show, Kirby Green, and re-examining the much-maligned and universally-panned Arnold Schwarzenegger pregnancy comedy: Junior!

After his miracle fertility drug, Expectane, is rejected by the FDA for human trials and the university has terminated his funding, research geneticist Dr. Alex Hesse is ready to return home to Austria to start over. But his project partner, obstetrician Dr. Larry Arbogast, has a radical idea to prove their drug works: an off-the-books experiment with a human subject – Alex himself. Now the world’s first pregnant man, Alex must cope with his changing body, a new romance, his fluctuating hormones, and a growing emotional bond with his baby.

Episode 17 – Total Recall (1990) with Sam Mulvey

They stole his mind, now he wants it back.

It’s time to get our asses to Mars and regain our buried identities with returning guest Sam Mulvey of the Ask an Atheist radio show. This month, we’re plunging into the hyper-violent science fiction mind-bender: Total Recall.

Douglas Quaid is haunted by dreams of Mars. Becoming obsessed with traveling to the red planet, Quaid buys a virtual holiday with implanted memories from Rekall, Inc. For a little extra, he opts for the vacation package where he can live the life of a heroic secret agent. But when the procedure goes haywire, Quaid learns that he truly is a secret agent with buried memories. Now hunted by deadly assassins, he escapes to Mars to learn the truth and save the world… Or maybe he’s just been lobotomized and trapped in a dream world.