As the 21st century was getting underway, Hollywood released a series of films that were daring,

entertaining, and absolutely unmissable. Films like 25th Hour, Bring It On, Zodiac, and No Country for Old Men.

They arrived during the George W. Bush era, a chaotic time in America. Think 9-11, Katrina, the mortgage crisis. After the Bush

years, the country would never be the same, and neither would Hollywood. I'm Brian Raftery, and in my new

limited series, Mission Accomplished, we're going to dive into some of the biggest movies of the

Bush years, and look at what they said about into some of the biggest movies of the bush years.

And look at what they said about the state of the nation.

We'll go behind the scenes with filmmakers and experts.

And relive some of your favorite movies from the early 2000s.

From Donnie Darko to Michael Clayton, from Anchorman to Iron Man.

So slip on your sketchers, dig out your old Nokia, and join me from Mission Accomplished, starting August 12th on the big picture feet. Hello and welcome into the Ringerverse, your nexus feed for all things fandom.

It's a me, Ben Lindberg, senior editor at the Ringer, button mash host, and person whose plumbing skills are limited to replacing a toilet flapper.

And that's on a good day.

Much like many a Mario game, this episode supports four players. And I will introduce the other three to you now.

In Super Mario 64, Mario's model consisted of 752 polygons. This podcast consists of three people

who used to work at Polygon. Chris Plant's co-founded the site and later served as its editor-in-chief.

He's now the host and founder of Post Games, the podcast, and Substack. He's also a co-host of one of my favorite long-running gaming pods, The Besties. Chris, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Of course, Maddie Myers is the former deputy editor of Polygon and Kataku before that. She's now a freelance writer and one of the hosts of another of my

favorite gaming pods, Triple Click, as well as the X-Men podcast, The Mutant Ages. Hello, Maddie.

Hello, thank you for having me. I'm excited to get into it. Get competing. Exactly. Get your

game face on. Get your draft. Oh, it's on. Skills ready.

Finally, Joshua Rivera was an entertainment writer for Polygon and Kotaku and every other website.

He is now freelancing for several of those websites, including The Ringer from time to time.

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