With January already behind us, 2026 is officially in full swing. Therefore, it’s a good time to summarize all activities at the Uncut Gems Podcast and its Patreon bonus stream, especially since this was the first month in our brand new 2026 programming.
In 2026 we decided to devote the entire year to discussing movies from the glamorous 1980’s. In fact, there’s quite a bit more to it. We kept the familiar format of giving each month its own flavour and turning it into its own mini-retrospective, so each month in the year will be spent discussing different micro-trends, directors, or actors, all plucked out of the 1980’s. Moreover, the year will be divided into four seasons more or less focused on specific genres. So, we decided to open our 80’s journey with what we termed “Fantastic Winter,” an entire quarter of podcasting about 80’s fantasy and science-fiction and January was hence devoted to a solid selection of 90’s fantasy movies. We went through authorial visions like Excalibur and Legend, Jim Henson’s contributions to the genre, the much-rewatched The Beastmaster and the more camp fantasy hybrid Highlander. Naturally, our Bonus Tie-in series continued in this vein where we discussed one of the biggest successes in this space, the Ron Howard-directed Willow.
Episode 258 (Excalibur)
Episode 259 (The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth)
Episode 260 (The Beastmaster)
Episode 261 (Legend)
Episode 262 (Highlander)
Bonus Tie-in 56 (Willow) (full episode on Patreon)
We also kicked off a brand new podcast series on our Patreon where we decided to discuss some of the most iconic and important movies from the 1980’s that might or might not tie into our monthly themes. And we decided to start off with Rob Reiner’s The Princess Bride.
80s Icons 01 (The Princess Bride) (full episode on Patreon)
Finally, our Mike Nichols marathon resumed after the Christmas break with episode number 13 where we debated the merits and demerits of the 1994 Wolf.
Flasz On Film 
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