Ryan Hudson and Jason Dietz, English teachers at Blackfoot High School, are the first Blackfoot teachers to start their own podcast. The podcast is called “The Desert of the Reel: a Movie Podcast” in which the two teachers watch the same movie, and then talk about it for about an hour. What drives the podcast is the dynamic between the less serious, avid movie watcher Hudson, and the more analytical, philosophy fan, Dietz.
A core highlight of the podcast is listening to the duo express themselves and have fun. “The Desert of the Reel” isn’t just entertaining, but it’s also very informative, with the two talking about what makes a movie good, as well as discussing if the message of the movie is ethical or not.
The podcast was created when Hudson, who watches a lot of more popular movies, thought it would be funny if he forced Dietz to watch the biggest blockbusters, such as movies from the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), and see his thoughts. Dietz is a movie fan, but he usually skips out on the biggest blockbusters because he claims they are “garbage.” This would be torture for Dietz, but his saving grace is getting to pick his own movie to watch and talk about every four episodes.
Hudson said people should listen to the podcast because, “We look at the philosophy, ethics, film studies, and hopefully talking about what to appreciate in the movie.”
Dietz said, “And, the two of us are really fun together…hopefully.”
The two explained that the beginning episodes of The Desert of the Reel are pretty rough. Both agreed that their episode about “Spider-Man: Far From Home” was their best episode and if anyone was new to the podcast, that should be one of the first episodes that you should check out.
The first episode, a review of “Iron Man” (2008) was released on December 18, 2023 on several different music apps. Since the first episode they have been watching all of the MCU movies and have released forty-one episodes, over the school year and during the summer break. They don’t plan on stopping.
If you’re already a listener of “The Desert of the Reel”, you know that Dietz hates the actor for Iron Man, Robert Downey Jr, and constantly talks about his problems with both the character, and the acting range of the actor. Before he has simply claimed that “Robert Downey Jr. can not act.”
However, earlier this March at the most prestigious film awards show, The Oscars, Robert Downey Jr. (RDJ) won the award for best supporting actor in the movie, Oppenheimer.
Although he had never seen Oppenheimer (which Hudson had seen), Dietz refused to believe that RDJ is good enough at acting to win an Oscar. Dietz explained that all RDJ does as an actor “is put people down so he can feel better about himself, and if there is a woman in the vicinity, he is going to make her like a clod of dirt.”
He also expressed even more disdain for the actor after learning that he was going to return to the MCU in Avengers: Doomsday and claimed that he will not be watching.
Their most recent episode was about Eternals (2024) which is part of phase four of the MCU. It was in this phase when Marvel decided to not only release movies, but also television series that would relate to the main story, affecting movies like “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” and “The Marvels”.
When asked if there was any intention of watching any of the Marvel TV shows Dietz replied saying, “Heck no.”
Hudson then explained that they have six movies left in their MCU watchlist. Hudson plans to continue the podcast with other movies after finishing the MCU. Hudson said, “The current watchlist is Star Wars, Indiana Jones, Pirates of the Caribbean, also the Matrix.”
Dietz countered by saying, “My current watchlist is watching a series that is actually worth watching.”
THE DESERT OF THE REEL is available on Apple Podcast, Spotify, Amazon Music, and Google Podcasts.
