This week, we wandered through a grab-bag of games, music, and reading before settling into a long-overdue cultural reckoning with This Is Spinal Tap. We talked Sonic games and cursed Sonic-sonas, gacha updates that somehow turn into cyberpunk motorbike fantasies, cheerful amnesia manga, extreme metal singles that absolutely rip, and a handful of games that ranged from surprisingly delightful to instantly forgettable. But the heart of the episode was finally sitting down with Spinal Tap itself—an enormously influential mockumentary that, forty years on, felt quieter, subtler, and stranger than its reputation. We landed somewhere between “mid” and “actually pretty good,” unpacking where it still works, where it shows its age, and why its legacy looms so much larger than the movie itself.

Episode Notes

What We’ve Been Into

• Games
  • Eden dives into Sonic Forces, embracing the chaos of creating a cursed Sonic-sona (a dog with a grapple gun).
  • A return to Wuthering Waves with the 3.0 update: underground cyberpunk cities, summonable motorcycles, and Sega crossover bike liveries.
  • Peter spends real time with the Playdate handheld and unexpectedly loves Dig Dig Dino—dogs, dinosaurs, and eldritch horror.
  • Mixed feelings on Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy: clunky combat, nonstop chatter, and controller prompts that can’t decide what console they’re on.
  • Dispatch lands as enjoyable but oddly forgettable—pure popcorn gaming that evaporates once it’s done.
• Reading
  • Cheerful Amnesia delivers wholesome, funny yuri romance built on anime-logic memory loss.
  • A shout-out to Adachi and Shimamura short stories, still reigning supreme.
  • Peter continues through The Dark Forest, the second book in Remembrance of Earth’s Past, digging into Wallfacers, Wallbreakers, and long-term cosmic dread.
• Music
  • New doom EP from The Eternal—short, tight, and surprisingly restrained.
  • Reliance by Soen: less adventurous, more consistent, and maybe better for it.
  • Absolute hype for Archspire’s new single “Limb of Leviticus”—blisteringly fast with just enough groove to breathe.

Main Topic:

This Is Spinal Tap

• Prompted by renewed discussion of Rob Reiner and his legacy, we finally sat down with his directorial debut.
• Initial reaction: not nearly as laugh-out-loud funny as its reputation suggests.
• Over time, appreciation grew for:
  • Its subtlety and deadpan delivery.
  • The improvised dialogue paired with surprisingly tight plotting and long-payoff jokes.
  • Iconic moments (“these go to eleven,” the cocoon stage prop, mysteriously exploding drummers).
• Nigel Tufnel emerges as the emotional and comedic core, hinting at the future of Christopher Guest’s mockumentary career.
• We talked about how much of Spinal Tap’s impact comes from being first—laying the groundwork for an entire genre that others would later perfect.
• Final verdict: historically essential, quietly funny, better on reflection than on first watch—and a reminder that movies used to trust audiences more.

Big Picture Takeaways

• Cultural influence doesn’t always match immediate enjoyment.
• Subtlety and restraint are skills we’ve mostly lost in modern filmmaking.
• Maybe we should make smaller, cheaper movies again—and let weird ideas breathe.