Is Die Hard a Christmas movie? Who cares? The fresh question is about Terry Gilliam's gonzo dystopia, Brazil!, set in a bleak industrial wasteland and taking place over the Christmas holiday. You've got jackbooted goons singing carols, mall shopping with the Consumers for Christ, and Santa hats galore in this delicious piece of grotesque weirdness.

Also, Steve uses the episode to introduce the "Stevometer," which gives this classic work a 4/10, while challenging Professor Daniels to change his mind. Will the good doctor succeed? Does he even want to succeed? Find out in this spine tingler and ringadingler.

https://www.thefilmagazine.com/brazil-1985-a-cut-above-the-rest/

Steve traipsed around Morocco last summer, breaking from his 5-Star comfort zone into (gasp) a room without air conditioning, among other horrors. This hardship prompted a dive into the warped fiction of the great Paul Bowles--buddy of William S. Burroughs, acclaimed author and composer, famous ex-pat, lover of men back when that kind of thing could get you in trouble, and generally an interesting cat. The stories under consideration: "A Distant Episode" and "The Delicate Prey." Good thing the MUW boys never get tongue-tied, and let's hope it stays that way.

The Paris Review is one of the most iconic literary magazines in America. They've also got a podcast. It's good (the podcast, but also the magazine), self-consciously artsy, with all kinds of content from the mag's illustrious history. On this episode, Dude One and Dude Two discuss a couple of edgy PR stories: "A Dark and Winding Road" by Ottessa Moshfegh, and Sam Lipsyte's "The Worm in Philly" (read by Marc Maron).

https://www.theparisreview.org/podcast/6040/missed-connections

https://www.theparisreview.org/podcast/6044/the-listening-forest