Neither of the lads had read Stokers classic gothic novel, published in 1897, and they suspect that many readers are in the same boat. Over 100 years of vampiric pop culture have made Stokers master

Chris and Jesse watched this movie together nearly 20 years ago, and it made an impression, due to John Malkovich's memorable, creepy, and charming take on Tom Ripley. Director Calvani seems to enjoy

The lads get all aughty with Roger Spotiswoodes charming and unthreatening Ripley, Underground, where Tom Ripley is a glib opportunist instead of the darker, unpredictable Ripleys. The result is an e

UCLA professor Peter Lunenfeld joins us to talk about Robert Altman's neo-noir based on Raymond Chandler's novel. Some reviewers call the film "satirical" but we argue, it's more a riff than a satire.

The American Friend is loosely based on Patricia Highsmiths third Tom Ripley novel Ripleys Game. But Wim Wenders plays fast and loose with the source material, borrowing elements of another novel Ri

Chris and Jesse charge into our next group of works, Ripley en Filmes, beginning with Ren Clement's visually stunning 1960 film Plein Soleil, an adaptation of Patricia Highsmith's The Talented Mr. Ri

Our favorite education researcher joins us to talk about Ted Chiangs collection Exhalation, which includes the story The Life Cycle of Software Objects which Chris read from in our earlier Robot Fr

The Lads finish out James S.A. Corey's 2011 novel Leviathan Wakes, a huge success that powered The Expanse, the SyFy and then Amazon Prime space opera. Bagg and Dukes talk about whether or not you can

Leviathan Wakes is cracking good solar system space opera, combined with very strong elements of noir. The lads think that at moments, the prose is reminiscent of Raymond Chandlers lyrical voice, but

The lads continue to admire China Miville's genius premise for this novel, but will the second half of the book escape the issues we've seen in the noir and noir-adjacent works the UMBers have read?