A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! episode twenty-four — SCANNERS
Chris Klimek
Democracy dies in dorkiness this week as the brilliant Washington Post columnist, essayist, playwright and retired (?) Emo Sith Lord Alexandra Petri joins us to solve the riddle of David Cronenberg's 1981 swollen-headed cult classic Scanners, featuring 24 minutes of a possibly first-billed, maybe third-billed, but unequivocally box-named-on-the poster Patty McG as a, um, North American mad scientist named... Dr. Ruth. Glen is determined to spark an international incident by dismissing Steven Lack, the picture's aptly named lead player, as "Canadian hot" while assessing future Lion in Winter star Michael Ironside as "Philadelphia hot."
It's a ripe program, this one. Ripe indeed.