Hate Expectations
47 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months ago - ★★★★★ - 3 ratingsGood books are read
For adaptations that blew.
Come hear a discussion
By the H.E. crew.
Lizzy and Nate and the occasional guest dissect novels, novellas, short stories, plays, leaflets, cereal boxes -- anything that was later turned into a movie. They pillory plot differences, castigate casting choices, and revel in all that is right.
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Episodes
HE045 The Boys in the Boat
January 29, 2024 02:17 - 1 hour - 111 MBFor just the second time in history the Hate Expectations team has raced into their local theater to take on a subject that is still new enough to make waves: director George Clooney's The Boys in the Boat (2023), based on the 2013 novel by Daniel James Brown. Nothing gets their hearts pumping and their breath ragged like even a light amount of exercise, except maybe a well written adventure. The story of the 1936 University of Washington crew team swatting away Nazis and the depression with...
HE044 Jaws
July 30, 2023 16:19 - 1 hour - 116 MBThere's a fin in the water and fun in the air! From Jaws, Peter Benchley's incredibly popular 1974 novel, to Jaws, Steven Spielberg's even more popular 1975 film, Lizzy and Nate sink their teeth into the adaptation, rip into the differences, and digest the repercussions of both on the future of cinema and entertainment. Armed with the fleshed out story in the book, their discussion undulates between Ellen's pearl necklace to screenwriter Carl Gottlieb's tell-all book to Mayor Vaughn's re-ele...
HE043 Get Shorty
April 18, 2023 14:31 - 1 hour - 117 MBYou know, they say books are the reason we have such beautiful movies. They also say that adaptation are the reason we have such beautiful episodes of Hate Expectations. Listen to this episode to at least find out if Lizzy and Nate agree with that first truism, at least with regard to Get Shorty, the 1990 Elmore Leonard novel and the 1995 film directed by Barry Sonnenfeld. The latter "fact" is one you'll have to judge for yourself. We promise most of the commas are in the right spots, at lea...
HE042 A Christmas Story
January 07, 2023 18:40 - 1 hour - 74.1 MBMerry Christmas and Happy Holidays! We're a little late getting this episode on the movie A Christmas Story (1983, d. Bob Clark) out to you. That's perfect in keeping with the source material, however, since the book it was based on, In God We Trust...All Others Pay Cash (1966, w. Jean Shepherd), places most of its stories throughout the year. Protagonist Ralphie's encounter with bully Grover Dill took place on "on a hot, shimmering day", for instance. Shepherd would forgive us for being a f...
HE041 Cold Comfort Farm
November 21, 2022 03:13 - 1 hour - 87.1 MBThe golden orb has streaked its path across the sky many times since Hate Expectations last palavered on a digital recording medium. We've been most delinquent in getting our house in order. In Lizzy and Nate's case that means finally recording and releasing the long delayed episode on Stella Gibbons' classic novel, Cold Comfort Farm (1932), and the several adaptations of it. Happily, we were aided and abetted in this by Melissa Tyler, our hilarious friend who first introduced us to this wor...
HE040 Sherlock Holmes
April 01, 2022 11:00 - 1 hour - 59.8 MBIt's that special time of year again -- spring! We at Hate Expectations like to to put out an episode like this in early April to celebrate the joys of the season. This time we take on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famous consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes, along with some of the myriad adaptations the literary giant appears in. But how to make sense of it all? For a case this large and confusing we felt like we needed a little help. So we called on our friends Humphrey and Bogart for assistan...
HE039 Inherent Vice
March 01, 2022 12:00 - 1 hour - 71.6 MBWe're not high, we promise, though it may sound like it at times in this episode (maybe we should have been). That just the effect of Thomas Pynchon on a person's brain. And while Inherent Vice (2009) is possibly his most accessible novel, with the Paul Thomas Anderson movie (2014) being a streamlined version of that, there's still just a lot to absorb in both. A lot of, you know, stuff. Where was I? Anyway, a listener might best be advised to treat this episode like one of his novels and ju...
HE038 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
September 17, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 63.9 MBAt long last, we are delivering on our promise to rip into Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964) and the two film adaptations molded by it (1971, dir Mel Stuart & 2005, dir Tim Burton). But there's just too much confectionary conversation not to share it with friends, so we invited Megan Steen and returning guest Dug Steen* to join us! This episode represents our first repeated author, as well as our first two time Snuffy Walden winner! Listen in as we confer about cgi chocol...
HE037 The Little White Horse / The Secret of Moonacre
July 08, 2021 11:00 - 1 hour - 86.7 MBSweet swimmin' unicorns, what did Lizzy do? It was her birthday a few months ago, and for it she selected Elizabeth Goudge's book, The Little White Horse, for us to cover. Seemed like a good idea, doing a cute story of a plucky little girl who discovers she's a moon princess in the valley of her OH MY GOD! What is wrong with the movie?! Where is the eyebleach! Ahh! Ahhh! Ahhhhhhhhh...
HE036 Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat
April 01, 2021 10:00 - 28 minutes - 38.9 MBIt's April as I type this (rabbit, rabbit), and that can mean only one thing -- it's time for our Easter episode of Hate Expectations! Now we know there have been a few adaptations of the Bible over the years, so we had a lot of options. For this special episode we decided to concentrate on the stellar 1999 direct-to-video filmed staging of Andrew Lloyd Weber's Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. I assume we go into great depths about our feelings for both the book and the movie/mu...
HE025 Slaughterhouse-Five
March 07, 2021 18:52 - 1 hour - 71.3 MBWhile the pandemic has left a lot of us feeling a bit unstuck in time, the effects of that don't seem to be as strong for us as they are for Billy Pilgrim, the protagonist of Kurt Vonnegut Jr's novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, Or The Children's Crusade: A Duty Dance with Death (1969). Join us as we meander through our discussion, popping back and forth between the book and the movie adaptation (1972, dir George Roy Hill), relishing in the good moments and pointing out the those that never really ...
HE034 Fantastic Voyage
November 23, 2020 12:00 - 1 hour - 66 MBFinally! Hate Expectations, along with multiple time returning guest/friend Jane Hutchins, takes a journey deep into the human mind. Join us as we dig into all the minutiae of the 1966 movie, Fantastic Voyage (dir. Richard Fleischer) and the novelization of it by noted sci-fi author, Isaac Asimov. No plot hole is too large and no performance is too small to escape our microscope. This is an episode that is guaranteed to get under your skin!
HE033 Rosemary's Baby
October 17, 2020 17:39 - 1 hour - 83 MBHalloween is our favorite time of year, here at Spielenwald, Hate Expectations's headquarters. There's no better time to dim the lights and curl into the fetal position with a scary book or the movie it spawned. In this episode we breathe life into Rosemary's Baby, the 1967 novel by Ira Levin and the 1968 film directed by Roman Polanski. It's a classic, but does it still live up to its reputation? It's atmospheric, but is it horror? Will it scare the bejesus out of you? There's only one go...
HE032 The Hunter / Point Blank / Payback
September 17, 2020 11:00 - 1 hour - 92.8 MBWe're back! It's a special birthday / rebirth episode, as Lizzy* and Nate track down Richard Stark's 1962 novel, The Hunter. Join us as we not only beat this crime classic to a pulp, but we talk the two(!) movie adaptations to death: Point Blank (1967, dir John Boorman) and Payback (1999, dir Brian Helgeland). There's a whole lot of seething putrid evil to rip into, but somehow we get beyond just the pandemic to discuss the thrice told tale of a thief, a betrayal, and bloody vengeance. *Li...
HE031 The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
April 01, 2020 11:00 - 1 hour - 82.9 MBWe're back with a special quarantine episode! From the time we published The Princess Bride until today (11/19/19 to 04/01/20 -- over a third of a year!) we at Hate Expecations have had a good long Christmas vacation, planned and delivered the culmination of a four year Leap Day party, read some non-adapted books, and mostly enjoyed taking some time off. However, now that home isolating is a reality, we have had time to re-read something we expect a lot of people are also re-experiencing, th...
HE030 The Princess Bride
November 19, 2019 04:00 - 1 hour - 86.6 MBAt a break in the Sasquatch board gaming festival, Hate Expectations took advantage of their inconceivable friend, Dug Steen, being in town to record an episode on William Goldman's novel The Princess Bride (1973) and the highly quotable classic movie Rob Reiner made from it (1987). The three grab a vine and dive head first into the beloved story and its familiar characters, breathing new life into it like some inconceivable bellows shoved in its pie-hole. They even discuss Goldman's missing...
HE029 The Orchid Thief / Adaptation.
September 22, 2019 18:03 - 1 hour - 72.3 MBIn a very special episode of Hate Expectations, Lizzy learns the hard way that rock music is Satan's gateway to your heart, while Nate find's the school bully's unwanted attention is just a cry for help. No, wait. It isn't that kind of a special episode. It's a birthday episode! We finally get to the mic with our long awaited episode about Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief (1998) and its movie adaptation, the movie Adaptation. (2002, dir Spike Jonze). While the book is a delightful meandering ...
HE028 The Odyssey / O Brother, Where Art Thou
July 31, 2019 11:00 - 1 hour - 100 MBRich and Z return to the podcast, bringing a curious Homer pick with them. Joel and Ethan Coen's O Brother, Where Art Thou (2000) technically does give a "based on" credit to the ancient greek poem, The Odyssey, which qualifies it for discussion on the show. Not to spoil the journey, but it turns out you have to squint mighty hard most times to see the connections between the two stories. And squint we do! (Mostly from laughing.) We also discover that reading ancient literature actually is m...
HE027 Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH
June 27, 2019 11:00 - 1 hour - 94.4 MBAs avowed rat lovers, it was inevitable that Lizzy and Nate would eventually discuss the beloved Newbery Medal winner, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (Robert C. O'Brien, 1971), and its Don Bluth animated adaptation, The Secret of NIMH (1982). But in a surprise twist of fate, it turned out that frequent guest host, Siobhan Beeman, was the one to bring this classic out and turn the Hate Expectations eye on it. To keep things lively and difficult to edit, we also had two large and noisesome g...
HE026 The Shining
May 23, 2019 15:05 - 1 hour - 103 MBThree people, intentionally sequestered in the woods of the Pacific Northwest: Lizzy, Nate, and special returning guest Jane Hutchins. At first they thought they were imagining things; haunting visions of insanity, terror, and death. A distant voice sighed out a premonition: "REDRUM". The television flicked to life, showing the huddled trio even more spectral sights and grisly imagery. Except the new images were kind of different from the original ones in their heads. The three gave in to a ...
HE025 Dinotopia
April 18, 2019 14:57 - 1 hour - 87.1 MBLizzy invokes one of her birthday wishes this year to whisk the Hate Expectations team off to a hidden corner of the south pacific, where a magical island of humans and dinosaurs live and work together in near perfect harmony. Yes, we dust off James Gurney's coffee table classic, Dinotopia (1992), and then unearth a dvd copy of the Hallmark mini-series from a decade later. Despite the book containing only the barest bones of a story, the HE team finds plenty in it to examine. Then things rea...
HE024 Tommy
March 10, 2019 22:13 - 1 hour - 106 MBRepresenting a slight departure from reality, this episode of Hate Expectations finds Nate and Lizzy taking a long hard listen to The Who's rock opera, Tommy, looking deeply into the Ken Russell movie of the same name (1975), and speaking freely about the sensations it inspires in them. They are joined by their friend, Matt Anderson, on a quest to divine meaning where there is mostly only a series of loosely connected themes about a deaf, dumb, and blind pinball wizard. Lizzy wants to amen...
HE023 L.A. Confidential
December 24, 2018 14:00 - 1 hour - 89.7 MBIt's Christmas time in the City of Angeles. And while decent listeners sleep the sleep of the righteous, the Hate Expectations crew prowls for merry noir, not knowing that James Ellroy's L.A. Confidential is coming to punch them in the gut. Another Christmas episode*. Another not-overly sentimental property to discuss. Ellroy called his novel (1990) a book "for the whole family, if the name of your family is The Manson Family"**. The movie adaptation (1997, dir. Curtis Hanson) is friendlie...
HE022 The Warriors
October 05, 2018 11:00 - 1 hour - 90.7 MBLet's just say this up front -- the book, The Warriors (1965) by Sol Yurick, is a realistic take on New York city gangs and their activities. Consequently, in our discussion of it and the 1979 movie of the same name directed by Walter Hill, we cover a lot of potential trigger warnings, use a lot of adult language, and touch on some less than pleasant topics. However, we still manage to have a bit of fun. And by the time we get to the movie portion of the show the mood lightens considerably. ...
HE021 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? / Blade Runner
September 03, 2018 04:00 - 1 hour - 89.1 MBIn a very special episode of Hate Expectations, we reveal that one one of the two of us is actually an android. However, technology has come so far since the time of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968, Philip K. Dick) that it's impossible to distinguish us from real humans now. The only consequence for the show is that we can finally reveal the answer to the titular question. (Yes they do, but they don't remember it the next morning.) Neither our robot insight, our viewing of the mov...
HE020 Emil und die Detektive
June 20, 2018 04:51 - 1 hour - 64.9 MBWe're watching the detectives. Technically, we were reading Erich Kästner's Emil and the Detectives (Emil und die Detektive, 1929) and watching some of the five films they shot based on the extremely popular German book. Despite being on the case on and off for months, we at Hate Expectations somehow let a few facts slip past our absurdly large magnifying glasses, which may have caused a bit of confusion during the recording of this episode. Here are a few clues that may help you eager gumsh...
HE019 Ready Player One - Part 2
April 06, 2018 02:52 - 1 hour - 59.5 MBThe "Empire Strikes Back" of Hate Expectations's Ready Player One episodes, this half contains ever more of cultural reference popouts and just as many SPOILERS, as well as the truly outrageous Snuffy Walden awards. Join our heroes as they continue their bogus journey through Ernest Cline's novel and Steven Spielberg's movie, navigating the mazes and monsters contained in the OASIS. Enjoy the show, and remember not to get us wet or feed us after midnight. We already avoid direct sunlight on ...
HE018 Ready Player One - Part 1
April 06, 2018 02:12 - 53 minutes - 48.8 MBYou want pop culture references? We've got all the references you can handle right here, in this potentially timely episode of Hate Expectations. Nate, Lizzy, and special guest Chris Lemon immerse themselves in the world of Ready Player One. The 2011 novel, by Ernest Cline, was adapted for 2018's cinema by former Wunderkind Steven Spielberg, and we're here to report back from front of the theater. But hey, enough of my yakkin'. You've got two episodes full of auditory Easter egg-y goodness t...
HE017 The Story of Your Life / Arrival
February 25, 2018 19:48 - 1 hour - 57.6 MBIn an earlier episode (HE006), Hate Expectations discovered that time is an illusion, and lunchtime doubly so. That concept is taken to the outer limits in Ted Chiang's award winning sci-fi novella, The Story of Your Life (1998). Listen in to this recording of Lizzy and Nate as they get down verbally with their friend and returning guest host, Siobhan Beeman. The three intrepid explorers try to dissect the pretzel logic* of the alien contact story, and the popular 2016 movie adapted from it:...
HE016 Nothing Lasts Forever / Die Hard
December 23, 2017 05:53 - 1 hour - 87.5 MBDid you know that action classic Die Hard (1988, dir. John McTiernan) was based on a novel? We at Hate Expectations were overjoyed when we first learned about Nothing Lasts Forever (1979, Roderick Thorp), because it meant that we could cover the adaptation for our first Christmas episode. And that's exactly what we've done! We even ganged up with our friend and previous guest host, Rich Johnson, to come to the podcast and have a few laughs. Listen along as we discuss everything you always wa...
HE015 Vampire Hunter D
December 05, 2017 04:14 - 57 minutes - 52.8 MBIn honor of this most wonderful time of the year (it's still Halloween somewhere, right?), the Hate Expectations team sinks its teeth into the anime classic, Vampire Hunter D. We drank in the English translation (2005) of the Hideyuki Kikuchi novel (1983), were hypnotized into a restless trance by the animated movie adaptation (dir. Toyoo Ashida, 1985), and finally fought through the whole rambling mess to hunt for a living pulse somewhere in it. We weren't entirely successful. It turns out ...
HE014 Alan Turing: The Enigma
October 04, 2017 02:41 - 1 hour - 80.5 MBAlan Turing is one of the principle reasons you're able to read this sentence on a computer right now. He is also a major reason the sentence is in English instead of German or Japanese. He's a fascinating character with an fascinating life cut way too short. So when our friend and guest host, Siobhan Beeman, suggested we hash out the Turing biography (Alan Turing: The Enigma, Andrew Hodges, 1983) and its filmed adaptation (The Imitation Game, dir. Morten Tyldum, 2014), we agreed to the idea...
HE013 Scott Pilgrim
May 11, 2017 11:00 - 1 hour - 62.1 MBThe player characters at Hate Expectations both lesbian the movie Scott Pilgrim vs the World. So it was an easy choice to make the book/movie combo the next one up in their podcast. Game as Lizzy and Nate were to take on the boss challenge this presented, they must now console themselves with putting a few bits they missed during recording on this platform: Scott Pilgrim was inspired by the song of the same name by the band Plumtree; nearly all the band names mentioned in the series are clas...
HE012 Vision Quest
March 15, 2017 11:00 - 1 hour - 71.1 MBTeam Hate Expectations lives up to their name again, as Lizzy, Nate, and special guest, Jeff Emery, weigh in on Vision Quest, the Terry Davis novel (1979) and the Harold Becker film (1985) adapted from it. In this episode our lunatic crew chases the story all over the mat, trying to grapple with a book that eschews conflict for verisimilitude, and with a movie that scores no points in reversing that completely. Listen to this podcast to find out why Lizzy apologizes to the entire city of Spo...
HE011 The Man Who Fell to Earth
February 06, 2017 14:00 - 1 hour - 77.1 MBThe Hate Expectations regulars, Lizzy and Nate, along with out-of-this-world special guest Jonathan Franklin, dig into America's past's potential future by watching and reading The Man Who Fell to Earth, the Walter Tevis sci-fi novel (1963), and the Nicolas Roeg directed David Bowie vehicle (1976). Much is made of how the filmmakers attempt something strange and curious, but ultimately alienate the delicate and sensitive source material. Creepy sex scenes are glossed over, the Watergate scan...
HE010 A Pattern of Islands
November 28, 2016 05:30 - 57 minutes - 52.5 MBCome to Oceania, where palm trees sway in the tropical breeze and the sun gently carresses the sea. Our hero, a young British colonial officer, takes his new wife to the farflung post of the Gilbert and Ellice islands, where he documents the culture clash with both the native islanders and the more experienced British officers. His memoir, A Pattern of Islands (1952), is a loving tribute to the people and the islands where he spent decades of his life, going from cadet to commisioner. So bel...
Love Bites 002
September 11, 2016 16:36 - 30 minutes - 27.8 MBYour humble narrators, Lizzy and Nate, are back with another Love Bite mini-sode. Well, honestly, it's more of a macro-mini in this case. (There's a lot to get through, folks!) Listen in as we pontificate on a couple of subjects that really toyed with our imaginations and frankly just spoke to us. Join us, won't you?
HE009 The Dark is Rising
June 16, 2016 15:38 - 1 hour - 71.1 MBI looked under chairs I looked under tables I'm tryin to find the key To fifty million fables They call me the seeker I been searchin low and high -- The Seeker, Pete Townshend Back to young adult lit we go, to 1973's The Dark is Rising, book two of the Susan Cooper series of the same name. As both our birthrights and contractual obligations mandate, we also cover the 2007 David L. Cunningham film based on that book, curiously retitled The Seeker. In this episode, follow us as we fu...
Love Bites 001
May 17, 2016 02:23 - 16 minutes - 15.5 MBFulfilling our moral obligation as podcasters, Hate Expectations have finally entered the mini-episode game with a series we call Love Bites. In all such episodes we will discuss (hopefully) delightful little facts we have researched on the subject of...well, whatever particularly interests us. We hope it interests you, too!
HE008 The Egg and I
April 08, 2016 05:50 - 55 minutes - 50.8 MBBetty MacDonald had a farm, e-i-e-i-o. And on this farm she had some laughs, e-i-e-i-o. With a ha-ha here and a...well, you get the idea. Join Nate and Lizzy as they crack into the deliciously funny novel, The Egg and I (1945), and brood about the film adaptation (1947) made from it. In this episode there is yet another catty discussion about actress eyebrows, a special return appearance of the Correcto-matic 3000 machine, and nearly an hour of excessive nudity*. Hold on to your hats, it's t...
HE007 Moonraker
December 16, 2015 04:32 - 1 hour - 76.9 MBCould there be any other subject matter for our episode numbered HE007 than Ian Fleming's own James Bond? We'd give ourselves a license to squeal if that was anything more than a quantum of synchronicity. But truthfully, the topic came to us as a suggestion from our very first guest-hosts, Rich and Z Johnson! Specifically, the four of us spied with our little eyes only the third Bond book written by Fleming (1955) and its overly shaken and stirred movie adaptation (1979), based seemingly on ...
HE006 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
November 08, 2015 18:03 - 1 hour - 70.5 MBGet your towels ready and loosen up your Electronic Sub-Etha Signaling Devices, as you join Hate Expectations' Lizzy and Nate on a journey through the various forms of Douglas Adams's classic, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Their babblings on the radio series, the book, the tv series, and the movie must surely rank up there with the very finest Vogon poetry. One reviewer has even called it "splendid and worthwhile", though she has since been destroyed. Note: Our apologies to actor Pe...
HE005: Fantastic Mr Fox
August 30, 2015 17:11 - 49 minutes - 34.4 MB"This episode's pretty cussin' good!" - Myself Keeping to the trend of loving the source material and the adaptation made from it, we, the ever more inaccurately named Hate Expectations folks, take you back to childhood favorite Roald Dahl's second tier classic, Fantastic Mr. Fox, and the Wes Anderson film of the same name. There is a bit more off-key singing and even a misguided attempt at music making, but surely this has to be the last time for such nonsense. Future episodes will stic...
HE004: Moneyball
May 16, 2015 19:33 - 1 hour - 60.6 MB...Oh, say does that star spangled banner yet wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave play ball? In this episode Lizzy and Nate touch base with Moneyball, the 2003 book by Michael Lewis and the 2011 hit movie made from it. We take a swing at the non-fiction account of the Oakland A's baseball team, their manager, Billy Beane, and his use of sabermetrics to try to level the playing field with other, richer, teams. Be forewarned, we do some singing in this episode. The dis...
HE003: Something Wicked This Way Comes
March 31, 2015 05:00 - 1 hour - 64.9 MBBy the clicking of our tongues, some discussion this way comes. No, we're not tackling the bard just yet, and we probably wouldn't start with the Scottish play if we were. Rather, it's Ray Bradbury's 1962 novel Something Wicked This Way Comes and the 1983 film adaptation we're talking about. It's a zippity-doo-dead kind of horror the way Disney used to make. As always, we dissect the differences, ponder the potential, and spoil the snot out of the plot. That was your only warning. ...
HE002: Stardust - Part 2
February 19, 2015 04:30 - 1 hour - 50 MBA continuation of the Stardust episode, in which the Hate Expectation crew discusses more of the book and movie plots, eyebrow dye jobs, and the Snuffy Walden award. As before, there be SPOILERS aplenty, and hopefully a bit a good time as well.
HE001: Stardust - Part 1
February 19, 2015 04:25 - 1 hour - 47.8 MBIn this introductory episode of Hate Expectations, Lizzy and Nate gaze in wonder at the magnifcence of Neil Gaiman's 1999 novel Stardust and its 2007 film adaptation. The discussion is full of SPOILERS, as all aspects of both media's versions are covered. So much is discussed, in fact, that it was split in twain for your downloading and listening convenience.