Gleaming The Tube

Dìdi is a 2024 coming-of-age film, written, directed, and produced by Sean Wang in his directorial debut. The film follows a 13-year-old Taiwanese-American boy as he navigates the challenges of adolescence, his relationship with his mother, and his love of skateboarding. In a departure for movies covered on this podcast, it's really good.Kevin and Mike discuss the film and then go on some weird semi-related tangents around deathbed summons and snack cakes, the Scottish pop band Belle & Sebastian (who are featured on the movie's soundtrack), and their own embarrassing adolescent memories. This episode is messy and all over the place, kind of like how being 13 years old feels like. So yeah, we meant to do that. It's conceptual.

1993's So I Married An Axe Murderer finds Mike Myers, hot off the success of the Wayne's World movie, playing a commitment-phobic beat poet who falls head over heels in love with a woman who may or may not have murdered her previous three husbands.There is a profoundly tiny amount of skateboarding in this movie, but that doesn't stop Michael and Kevin from discussing the movie, the career of Myers, the baffling use of an inferior cover version of "There She Goes", beat poetry as a career path and the skateboarding scene in San Francisco, CA (where the film is set.)So break out your most enormous cup of coffee, strike up the jazz band, and let's dig into So I Married An Axe Murderer! Piper down!

We're back!2005's DECK DOGZ is an Australian film about three skateboarding teens who are trying to escape the law, school, parents, their demons and a couple of criminals to realise their burning ambition; to meet world class skating champion, Tony Hawk and compete in his skating competition.We watched the heck out of this terrible movie and also discuss the larger implications of what having Tony Hawk in your skateboarding film meant circa 2005. Our conclusion - go watch BMX BANDITS. At least that movie has a young Nicole Kidman in it.

1995’s Hackers is a shockingly accurate portrayal of the rollerblading hacker subculture of the time and stars darn near everybody, most notably a skateboarding Fisher Stevens who plays an evil hacker called "The Plague." The film also stars Angelina Jolie in one of her first starring roles, Lorraine Bracco, and the dude who played Sick Boy in Trainspotting. Kevin and Michael discuss the film, the skateboarding, hackers they have known, that moment in early 90s Providence when people would declare "I'm not a raver! I'm a club kid!", and many, many other tangents that are both related and unrelated to this deeply silly movie. Hack the planet, y'all!

1989’s Honey, I Shrunk the Kids stars the great Rick Moranis as a nutty inventor and father who accidentally, well, shrinks his kids. And his neighbor kids. A whole lot shrinking happening and a tiny bit of skateboarding, which is why Kevin and Mike watched this movie.

1994’s PCU, directed by Hart Bochner, tells the story of college life at the fictional Port Chester University, and represents "an exaggerated view of contemporary college life in the 90s" - according to the filmmakers. There are slobs, there are snobs, there is the specter of POLIITICAL CORRECTNESS and there is a little bit of skateboarding. The film features Jeremy Piven in his first lead role, a young Jon Favreau, David Spade, and George Clinton and the P-Funk All Stars.Kevin and Mike talk about the weird Jeremy Piven performance at the center of this movie, whether or not they liked this movie, the things the movie gets wrong, the things the move got right (P-Funk being awesome, basically), and the dawn of inline skating - and there's a brief side discussion of Kevin's college radio show. So grab the t-shirt of the band you're going to go see and BE THAT GUY on the latest pulse-pounding episode of GLEAMING THE TUBE!

Minding the Gap is a 2018 documentary film directed by Bing Liu, which chronicles the lives and friendships of three young men growing up in Rockford, Illinois who are united by their love of skateboarding.Kevin and Mike watched this (pretty amazingly great) movie and discuss, in an atypically heavy episode of what is normally a deeply silly podcast, how the movie manages to weave together themes of cycles of violence, growing up in America, race, class, and more. We watch a lot of dumb movies for this podcast so it was a refreshing change of pace to be presented with something so well-made and meaningful. The movie also has a shit-ton of skateboarding in it, so we talk about that, too.This episode has a content warning for discussion of domestic violence.

2007’s HOT ROD tells the story of aspiring stuntman Rod Kimble, played by Andy Samberg, and his attempts to pull off his most impressive stunt yet to help raise money to save his stepfather, played by Ian MacShane. And there's some skateboarding.Kevin and Mike are joined by their pal Guy Benoit to discuss this deeply silly movie. So strap on your best false mustache and check out this exciting installment of Gleaming the Tube! Cool beans!