Writer and director Quentin Tarantino has long been a divisive and controversial filmmaker, primarily because of his seeming, unapologetic glorification of gore. But something deeper typically rests beneath his portrayal of human brutality. Thi

#282 | Our Parents

9 days ago 3h 4m

We're settling back in from Sacred Symbols 300 live in New York City, and the experience has us (The Brothers Moriarty) feeling nostalgic, which is a good thing for our retro-and-nostalgia-themed show. We're particularly sentimental about our p

#281 | 'Sega, Skateboarding and Shenanigans' The PJ WIlliams Episode

Mar 20th, 2024 3h 26m

Dagan's best friend and Colin's other older brother finally arrives on the KnockBack scene to discuss skateboarding, video games, and growing up on the sometimes shady streets of Long Island.Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoic

#280 | Starship Troopers (Book + Film)

Mar 6th, 2024 2h 23m

With all of the hullabaloo surrounding Arrowhead's hit PS5 and PC game Helldivers 2, we figured we'd delve into its most obvious inspiration: Starship Troopers. Most people know Starship Troopers as the 1997 Paul Verhoeven sci-fi flick, but it'

#279 | Trying (and Largely Failing) to Make a Top 10 NES Games List

Feb 28th, 2024 2h 14m

For this week's KnockBack, we thought we'd do something a little bit different. A major fuel source for the origins of our podcast back in 2018 was our shared love of the NES: The hardware, its games, and the community that's long surrounded it

#278 | Jaws

Feb 7th, 2024 1h 52m

1975's Jaws is a seminal work in the thriller genre, and it was somehow delivered by an overwhelmed, overworked, and over-his-head Steven Spielberg, directing only his second theatrically-released film. With a bloated budget more than twice as

#277 | Our Introduction to Drinking

Jan 24th, 2024 2h 11m

While we certainly neither condone nor encourage underage drinking, the reality is that both of us did plenty of it in our heyday. Indeed, drinking before you're 21 in the US is basically a rite of passage for generations of young people. (And

#276 | Mama Moriarty Joins the Chat

Dec 31st, 2023 2h 37m

For our 'holiday' episode of KnockBack this year, we thought we'd do something special. As such, please welcome our mom to the show, BettyAnn Moriarty. The reality is this: Our mother comes up on the show constantly. In fact, if you guys are on

#275 | Final Fantasy IV (Redux)

Dec 17th, 2023 3h 6m

For the Brothers Moriarty, Final Fantasy IV -- or Final Fantasy II, as we once knew it on SNES way back when -- is a uniquely nostalgic product. Upon its release in the west, we played the game together, often with me (Colin) sneaking into Daga

#274 | A Brotherly Inquisition

Dec 3rd, 2023 1h 51m

For this week's episode of KnockBack, we thought we'd do things a little differently. Indeed, there's no specific topic to discuss per se. Instead, we thought we'd ask each other a few random questions about our respective childhoods to see whe

#273 | Family Gatherings

Nov 19th, 2023 2h 17m

While KnockBack typically revolves around the video games, films, TV shows, and so on of the past, some of the most-popular and most-requested episodes of the show over the last six-ish years relate to Moriarty family stories. Today's release i

#272 | RoboCop

Nov 5th, 2023 1h 49m

Paul Verhoeven's 1987 dystopian sci-fi film RoboCop is considered more and more of a classic the further we get from its release year. Indeed, a lot of the ongoing revision pertaining to RoboCop has to do with its subject matter: Mega-corporati

#271 | Avatar

Oct 22nd, 2023 1h 41m

Only a couple of months from when this episode of KnockBack launches, an Avatar-themed AAA game will launch from Ubisoft-owned studio Massive. And -- as you may already know -- I (Colin) am a fan of Massive, as I love their Division series. So

#270 | MTV

Oct 8th, 2023 2h 14m

If you're an American gen-xer or millennial, there's a better-than-decent chance you were heavily influenced by MTV growing up. Launched in the early '80s, culturally crescendoing in the '90s, and still highly-relevant into the 2000s, MTV's bra

#269 | Halo 3

Sep 24th, 2023 2h 16m

If you're an older player of video games, you know that 2007 was an historically-insane year for the medium. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Super Mario Galaxy, BioShock, The Orange Box, God of War II, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, and Mass Effect

#268 | Card Collecting

Sep 10th, 2023 1h 34m

Welcome back to KnockBack! This week, instead of focusing-in on a specific game, movie, TV show, or whatever, we thought we'd do another one of our reminiscing episodes instead. Thus, today, our focus is card collecting. At different stages of

#267 | Halo 2

Aug 27th, 2023 1h 53m

In 2022, we -- the Brothers Moriarty -- sat down to discuss Xbox's seminal 2001 launch offering, Halo: Combat Evolved. We loved it, and we promised that we'd get to Halo 2 one day. Well, today is that day. Released late in 2004, at the back-end

#266 | Final Fantasy III

Aug 13th, 2023 1h 58m

As we continue our cruise through the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters here on KnockBack, we come to the enigma that is Final Fantasy III. Like Final Fantasy II, III never got a western release at the time it came to Famicom in 1990. But unlike II

#265 | Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Jul 30th, 2023 2h 4m

There couldn't be a more appropriate film for us to cover here on KnockBack than Steven Spielberg's 1977 sci-fi classic Close Encounters of the Third Kind, at least through a contemporary lens. After all, the United States government is seeming

#264 | Blood Meridian

Jul 16th, 2023 2h 27m

The great American author Cormac McCarthy recently passed away at the age of 89. In his decades as a writer, he penned a dozen novels, and we've actually covered a couple of them on this show in the past: The Road (Episode #78) and No Country F

#263 | The Mighty Ducks

Jul 2nd, 2023 1h 44m

Sports flicks are beloved the world over for their relatable characters, uplifting stories, and remarkable endings. Disney's 1992 live-action hockey movie The Mighty Ducks is certainly no exception, though -- more than 30 years later -- there a

#262 | Final Fantasy II

Jun 18th, 2023 1h 56m

Our meandering through the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters continues with Final Fantasy II, widely considered the 'black sheep' of the traditional series. But a lot of that hinges on perception, or lack thereof. See, Final Fantasy II took forever

#261 | Final Fantasy

Jun 5th, 2023 2h 8m

Few gaming franchises have had the staying power of Square's (and later Square Enix's) Final Fantasy. Launched in the waning weeks of 1987 in Japan, it took some two and a half years for the original title to migrate to western NES consoles, an

#260 | The 40 Year Old Virgin

May 8th, 2023 9m 22s

In the summer of 2005, a comedy hit theaters that surprised audiences: The 40 Year Old Virgin. The feature directorial debut of Judd Apatow -- previously best-known as a director, producer, and writer on TV projects like Freaks and Geeks and Th

#259 | Super Mario Bros. 3

Apr 24th, 2023 1h 56m

It's time for us to talk about a bona fide classic! Super Mario Bros. 3 -- launched in 1988 on Japanese Famicoms and in 1990 on the NES -- is widely considered one of the greatest games of all-time. And it's true: SMB3 is a masterclass in gamep