Large Nerdron ColliderThis week, you get two episodes for the price of one! Yes, we have an episode recorded two weeks ago as well as this week's episode, because things don't always work out the way we planned. For instance, Ariel planned on recording episodes without being stalked by spiders, and that sure didn't work out. Listen to learn more!
Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Large nerdron Collider podcast, the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in the world around us and how very excited we are about them. I'm Ariel cast In, and with me, as always, is the spooky Cookie Jonathan Strickland.
I'm also a spooky cookie. Yes, wait what, I'm a spooky cookie. I'm like a snicker doodle. That's terrifying.
You can say that again, short Bread.
Now I don't nice. I like that. You can say that again. Shortbread is pretty awesome. So, Ariel, before we really jump into this funny thing, I was actually listening to some old LLENC episodes during the iHeart era, and yeah, because I was, well, it doesn't matter why, but I did, and I forgot that I used to do something at the beginning of every episode that I haven't done in a really long time. Do you remember what I used to do at the beginning of episodes?
You just did it. You just asked me a question. John.
That's right, I'm gonna ask you a question. Just did so. Finally, it doesn't, but I didn't. I didn't preface it with saying I'm going I've got a question for you. Okay, So Ariel, my question for you, now, knowing that Halloween is not your favorite holiday, what is your favorite fall food or drink?
Oh my goodness, I thought you're gonna ask me my favorite scary movie, which I had to answer earlier today. And you know, the moment someone asks you what your favorite movie is, you forget all movies in that genre.
Yeah, right right, You'll be like, uh, my favorite scary movie is Harry and the Hinder sins like you were scared by that. Listen, I'm I got this. I'm working with what I got. I'm sorry.
Today it's Cloverfield Lane, which I do. I actually do. Stay. It's a very good movie.
It's a fantastic I actually really like that movie until you get I don't. I don't hate the third act, but I love the first two acts of that movie, and the third act is.
Okay, I get it. With anything that's kind of suspenseful thriller like that, I feel like the story always kind of the build up to the answer is always better than the answer.
Yeah, yeah, the build up's better than the payoff. Yeah. I think I still think the payoff's great. But without going into spoilers, John Goodman is my favorite part of that whole film. So draw some conclusions there about why I like the first two thirds.
And I think I think the first Cloverfield and I'm sure we've talked about this, so I'll keep it. The first Cloverfield is also very good and very scary and like viscerally scares me at one point, to the point where I was like, I've seen this twice, It's that's enough. But I just I feel like Cloverfield Lane ten. Cloverfield Lane does a really good job at balancing the humanity with the scary, with the suspense. It's not too gory, but it's still frightening. So I just think it's really good.
But more importantly, what's your favorite autumnal food?
I was just stalling because I don't I didn't prepare for this answer, so I don't.
Have Yeah, I didn't tell you.
I've now forgotten every food that ever exists. A peach cup. No, that's what I had for lunch.
Part of my lunch. Decided to get off the gushers and coffee for an episode.
Like normally I grab food after this, I won't have time today. I think, oh gosh, I really like Now is this just a Halloween style foods or does this go into like.
Yeah, you can do Thanksgiving too, Like I said, I know Halloween's not your favorite.
So I think you know what hot muld apple cider.
Wow, you stole my answer. Oh no, hot apple cider is my favorite. My favorite autumnal uh a dish. I guess it's not even dish drink.
Yeah, I mean I like it. I like actually I like all things apples. So one of my favorite autumnal activities is to go apple picking, and then I'll make various kinds of apple pies. I'll make like apple monkey bread, I'll make.
Do you go up to like the Mercier orchard area up toward Blue Ridge.
Or I do go apple picking and l a j not at Mercer Mercier Mercer Yeah, Mercario McCary. Uh No. I go to Hillcrest, And the reason I go there is just simply because, like I went as a kid on a bunch of field trips and just stuck with me. So it's it's cool sentimental value. Yeah. Plus they have an apple pear combo that is really good.
I've never done apple picking, but I do love I do love hot apple cider, Like, that's one of my favorites. And although like it's very easy to go overboard on the spice blends for that if you if the spice blends are too strong and I can't even taste the apple because the spices, that turns me off. But uh, something that's got a nice balance to it, Like, I also don't just want hot apple juice. There has to be a balance. Yeah, so I do like that. I once made homemade hot apple cider, starting with whole raw apples, and I will never do that again.
I mean, but it sounds amazing.
It was good. It was just a lot of work.
I am working on. So a couple of years ago, I started making apple spiced apple cider shortbread cookies m M. And then I mixed them with dolcea de leche to make like a caramel apple sandwich cookie. And I'm still working on perfecting that.
But well, now that we got the all important throwback to the classic iHeart era LLENC episodes, let's talk about the stuff that we have watched since our last recording, one of which is something that we've each watched. And it's funny because since our last recording, like half of the episodes have come out.
Yeah, which is Agatha All Along? What do you think about it?
Jonathan, Yeah, I'm enjoying it. I I was worried at first when I watched the very first episode that it was going to take a while to really build into something that I was enjoying. But the second episode got there right away. The third episode was good, and then I know, we chatted offline how you felt the fourth episode. You know, it wasn't bad, but it didn't quite live up to the same of the first three. My partner Becca, she agrees she felt the same way. I didn't feel that way. It's not that I loved the fourth episode, but I enjoyed it kind of on a different level from the other. First of all, to a case anyone hasn't been watching Agatha All Along, it's the gayest show in the MCU. Like, it's as gay as gay can be in the MCU. There's so much gay and I'm here for it.
Man.
It was awesome. There was a lot of sexual tension in episode four that I was like, I didn't know I needed this till it happened.
I mean, it was an episode two as.
Well, it was, but episode four, they were like, hold my beer. Also, there was a great, big musical number in episode four, and I'm a sucker for a musical number. So I've really enjoyed it. I'm curious about where it's going, as we'll get into in the thirty seconds or less. I narrowly avoided a spoiler, and I'm trying to do that because I'm enjoying the story they're telling. And while I am intrigued and I have questions, I'm okay with waiting to get the answers, kind of the same way I was with WandaVision. Like a lot of us get used to when a series will just dump all its episodes at once and you can just bend your way through it. I kind of like having a week to build up suspense, intention, and anticipation. So I've been enjoying that. What's been your take on the series.
I wasn't very excited about it, you know, in general, witchy things are not always my cup of tea. Uh, But I enjoyed it a lot more. I thought the second episode was incredibly strong and really grabbed my attention and and made me invested in what was happening next. And I thought the third story did a really good job at that as well. And also the third episode. Third episode had some really cool like tie ins to to regular life that I thought were really cool and kind of demystified some stuff almost and I thought that was really Neat the fourth episode it was fine. It gave I don't I don't know how to talk about it without spoiling I guess the musical number thing to me was kind of a one trick pony thing. It it gave me first episode of gallivant vibes.
Mmm, I think uh. I like the fact that so there's a collection of which is an Agatha all along. I don't think that really spoils anything. But there's a coven of witches and they are on essentially a quest, and part of that quest is there's a test that's kind of geared toward each of the individual witches, like each each test is specified to a different witch in the group. And so as I'm watching, I'm thinking, well, that means that the future episodes we're going to get are going to be more instances of these tests. So knowing that, I felt a little bit better because it just means that we're going to get variations on this in the next couple of episodes, probably unless they depart from the formula, which they might do. WandaVision did that, but I'm alright with that. But I feel like it didn't feel like it was treading water to meet, which is what a lot of series end up feeling like.
So the tests are fine. I love that the test are kind of keyed to different characters or situations or whatever. I'm totally fine with that. That is not the problem. I thought that the test that they gave this particular character in this episode, who I think is one of my more favorite characters in the series, was a little bit weak. I compared to the last test and the second episode, there wasn't. I didn't feel the same like emergency of direness at all, Like it didn't feel like they were seriously about to lose it every second to me.
Gotcha.
Also the way that they beat the test, Like, I like it. You've got all these accomplished vocalists, right, you're gonna use them. But that's the one trick pony for me, because I've already heard that.
Yeah, but this was the rock version of it. Yeah, but I had new verses, But.
I don't need like, and I realized that I'm in the minority, and for everybody who loves it, that's fantastic. I am so glad. It's like the first episode of Galivant. They kept singing the same song over and over and over, just with like different words, and it got so frustrating to me, and I'm like, Okay, I've heard this now. It is no longer impressive. Now it makes me feel like you were too lazy to write another piece of music. So and I say this as a band who does covers, like I don't want more than one cover of it.
Yeah, I understand that. Yeah, And it is definitely one of those shows where they work the motif of the song and do practically everything, like, I will not be surprised if before this is done, they come across a music box that plays a music box version of the Witch's Road, Like, that's gonna be yet another thing. If it doesn't happen, that will surprise me. But yeah, I understand what you're saying, Like, I agree that using the same piece of music, even with different arrangements, can get a little bit tiresome. So I totally get what you're saying.
Well what sorry, Sure, sure, I understand that it is an act I felt like Catherine and Hans over acting felt a little out of place at times, like her Bravado.
It's her performance in general is interesting because it is more heightened than any of the others, with the exception of possibly Aubrey Plaza. Yeah, Aubrey Plaza is also kind of like chewing the scenery, but she.
Feels Aubrey Plaza feels more grounded to me, like, I believe her choice is a little bit more And I think Catherine Han's a phenomenal actress. I just a couple of times this past episode it felt out of place.
Yeah, I will say the costume design for that episode was crazy, Like it's one of those things also where they were making direct references to real rock and roll musicians like Jennis Joplin and Share and that kind of thing. But it was kind of crazy just seeing those A lot of double side tape used in that episode.
Yes, yes, for sure, for sure.
So what else did you see besides Agatha all Along?
Not much? Oh well, I guess a little bit more than what I've got written down here. I finished Kevin all Along. I loved it. I thought it was a great journey. I like the way it wow.
Kevin all Along man Agatha, not.
Kevin all Along, Kevin Kinnef himself based half off of Kevin all Along. I want I finished Kevin Kineff himself. I loved it. I thought it was great. I thought the way it ended was really good. I've been watching Welcome to Wrexham, which neither myself nor my partner are soccer fans at all. We like hockey and football, but soccer just I think it's it's it's got a lot of action like hockey, but nobody ever scores, so it's it's I don't know, it's not quite our thing, but I'm loving Welcome to Rexham. I think it is such a great heartfelt piece on the people of a small town that is just beautiful. And I watched the first two episodes of season three of Oxmachina last night.
Oh cool, so the animated series.
Yes, yes, first three episodes dropped last night. I've only watched too because I watched them with a group and we do two episodes a night.
Cool. I watched quite a few things since that last recording. I watched episode two of The Penguin, which took a while for me to be able to watch. Because they premiered the first episode on a Thursday, they didn't have episode two until not the following Sunday, but the Sunday after that, and now their premiering individual episodes on Sundays, so it was like a ten day gap between episodes one and two. So we haven't had episode three yet as we're recording this. I thought episode two was good. I think that that I still don't really love this version of the Penguin. I think Colin Ferrell's performance is phenomenal. He disappears into the role, but the I'm still not crazy about the penguin just being kind of a thug who plays all sides and is playing so close to the edge that he's bound to get cut, right, Like that's the whole thing. I will say. Oh, I can't remember the actress's name, Kristen something or other. She plays Sophia Falcone. She is one so good and two it's fun to see her play a menacing psychopath when she also has a look that makes her look really vulnerable because that juxtaposition where it turns out she's not the vulnerable one in the room, right, she gives off the view that that looks like she's the one who's going to be the victim, but she's the victim miser, which I think is fascinating. So I am enjoying the Penguin, even though I don't care for this version of the character. I like the series. I watched a film called Onyx, The Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, and it's it's a done by a guy who's had had this character for years and years and years. He's this kind of very odd, adhd, geeky, satanist kind of character, and I mean he's appeared in videos for years and years on lots of different platforms. But they did a feature link film. It was like a crowd sourced, crowd funded fat link film. So I watched it, and parts of it are entertaining, but overall I did not care for it. I still watch the whole thing, though, I got through the whole thing. Congratulations, yeah, or I'm sorry. I watched a few episodes of The Mentalist, which I never watched when it was on, but was one of those things that's just kind of like a little compilation of moments popped up in my YouTube recommendations. And so then I went and started watching some episodes, and I want to like it more, but I don't, And I think the big reason for that is if you don't know what the Mentalist is, it's a crime procedural drama. The main character is a guy who used to pose as a psychic, but he's he's clearly not Psychics don't exist in this world. He's not a psychic. He was a fraud but now he uses the same powers of observation he used to great advantage as a fraudster to try and help solve crimes while he's on the hunt for a serial killer who dramatically changed his family dynamic. Let's put it that way. That's a family friendly way of putting it. But I find it frustrating because I find that I think I keep wanting him to do more with his skill set that he developed as a psychic and for him to kind of relate how he used that as a psychic, but they don't do that very much, so it just comes across as like a yet another variation off Sherlock Holmes, Like it just feels like another hyper observant person who is at least assumes he's the smartest person in the room and usually he's right, and he also comes across very smug, and so I'm like, I don't like this guy. I like all the other characters, but I don't like him, and I don't think I'm going to watch this anymore. It's funny too, because I watched several episodes in the first season and then I tried to watch several episodes in the second half of the sixth season because spoiler, he does eventually track down and eliminate the serial killer, but that happens in like the first third of season six. So I was curious. I was curious, how do they continue the story after he's achieved the goal he had at the beginning of the show. And the answer to that is not very well. So, yeah, I was not a fan. Probably I'm not going to watch any more of it. I gave it a good go, but I'm kind of disappointed with it. And the other thing that I'll mention is I saw here in Atlanta. I went and saw a performance of The Ghastly Dreadfuls, which is a Halloween puppet show for adults that the Center for Puppetry Arts puts on. They've put on a version of this almost every year for like the last twenty years, and I had seen all the individual pieces before, but in an exciting turn, almost the entire cast is new. Like, there are two people who have been in previous Ghastly Dreadfuls before, maybe some of the others have sat in as fill ins or whatever, but they weren't. It's typically an ensemble piece that uses the same actors year after year after year, so to see it where almost the entire cast is new was really kind of exciting. It's the same stories that I've seen before, but told in slightly different ways. And the puppetry is phenomenal. So if you're in Atlanta and you're looking for a live performance to go to that's going to get you in sort of the spooky silly side of Halloween. I highly recommend the Ghastly Dreadfuls.
Yeah. I haven't seen Ghastly Dreadfuls, but the puppetry for Center Art Puppetry Center for the Arts is really good. So I'm good at names.
Yeah, yeah, you said all the words that are in the name.
Center for Puppetry Arts. I got it. Ha ha.
Well, now that we've gone through that formality, let us turn once more to our beloved segment, the one that our fans cry out for every single time, thirty seconds or less, and I'll go first. So, the second season of Gremlins The Wild Batch launched this week and the series shifts from China to San Francisco, California, which sets up the story of how Gizmo found his way into an old curiosity shop at the beginning of the original Gremlins film. The original director of Gremlins, Joe Dante, has indicated he would be open to doing a third Grimlins film, but ultimately, quote, that's up to the audience. End quote. So let's just all promise to go and see Grimlins three. Same goes for season three of the Wild Batch, and they can keep making that too.
For sure. Paramount is making a live action hybrid Rugrats movie for those of you who watched drug Rats in the nineties us Theousins. I don't remember. I think it was both. Anyhow, It's being helmed by director Jason Moore, who worked on Pitch Perfect and also such things as Avenue Q and Shrek the Musical, and also it's been written by mikey Day. I don't know which characters they're gonna make live action and which they're gonna make CGI because all of the people characters look really weird. So maybe Raptar, the Godzilla like toy will be the only live action character.
Here. I was hoping that they would trust Tara Strong up as a baby and make her play the live action character. Not too long ago, we mentioned that Josh Brolin had turned down the role of Hal Jordan in the upcoming DC series on HBO called Lanterns. Now, we know who will be making sure that evil won't escape his sight, and that's Kyle Chandler, whom you might know from Friday Night Lights or Super Pumped. The series is still casting and it's going to be shooting here in Atlanta starting in early twenty twenty five. And I nominate Ariel to play good Nort.
Sure, I'll play that character. Which one's good Nort.
Good Nor it's the big furry green lantern.
Sure, I'm in. I'm totally in. Okay. Next, Lady Gauga's coming out with two albums I believe post Joker Foley I do. And one of them is called Harlequinn and the other one is called LG seven, which I'm guessing is Lady Gauga seven with like thirteen songs, one of them came out already on September twenty seventh. But yeah, that's interesting. I bet her music will be good. The movie is not getting greater piece.
Yeah, well, and here's the interesting bet that I referenced earlier in this episode. I often get really upset because a lot of media outlets will break a story about geeky stuff and include spoilers in the headlines in the process, But Forbes' is paulled. Tassi did not do that in his article that's titled Rio Vidal and Teen's True Names and Agatha all Along leak via Funko Pops. Now, I did not read this piece because I do not want to be spoiled, but I do want to give Tassi a shout out for doing the right thing and keeping the spoilers inside the article. For the record, he says he would have rather avoided spoilers as well.
Yeph spoiler. No, I don't have a spoiler. I have no segue for this last story of mine, which is that there is a new movie coming out called The Electric State by Joe and Anthony Russo from who or Who worked on Infinity War and Endgames. And it's about a girl who's looking for her brother in a society that's trying to rebuild after AI took over, and then the humans want and put aid in kind of like their own little section of the world. And it's just it's an interesting piece on what makes you human when you gain consciousness and who who are who's really human after all? Is it the people with flesh and blood and hearts or AI who have might not be horrible, I don't know.
See this whole time, I was hoping The Electric State was going to be a reboot of the State, the sketch comedy group.
Teeth in the Electric Mayhem.
No, well, I mean it could be.
It could be the characters of the State.
Because those guys, of course, they've gone on to do tons of other stuff, like Michael Showalter and Michael ian Black and Joe Yeah. Yeah, so many of them have gone on to do lots of other stuff. Well, we got that fun stuff out of the way before we get into all of our news items. One thing we did want to mention is that since the last time we recorded the Geeks fhere, we've actually had several losses. In the last couple of weeks, but one in particular we wanted to give a shout out to was Dame Maggie Smith, who passed away since the last time we recorded. Maggie Smith, of course, has been in tons of different plays, movies, TV shows for geeks. She might best be known as Professor McGonagall from the Harry Potter series, but Maggie Smith has been in tons of other stuff as well.
Yeah, it's sad. Another one I'll say is said that passed is John Amos, just because he passed a couple of days ago and also influential actor and partially in the geeksphere. Very sad.
Yep. We also lost Gavin Kreele, who was a Broadway actor, So for Broadway musical geeks, I mean, like I said, there were quite a few that passed away since the last time we recorded. So our hearts go out to all their friends and family, even the.
Ones we didn't mention. We're sorry if we didn't mention.
Yes, yeah, I mean it was We didn't want this to become an in memoriam episode. So we're going to move on and talk about a whole bunch of different teasers and trailers that came out over those last two weeks, one of those being a fairly lengthy teaser for Thunderbolts asterisk. So that's of course going to be the group of anti hero slash villain types who band together as a kind of Dark Avengers. In fact, I've heard a lot of folks speculate that the asterisk on Thunderbolts is to indicate that in the movie, they're going to end up becoming the Dark Avengers. That might be the case, we don't know.
Yeah, the trailer is good. I'm gonna be real honest. My husband shared the leak trailer from I guess Comic Con, so I had already seen most of it, but it's definitely better in actual release high definition. It looks good enough. There is a jumping spider in here. Get away from me. I don't like you.
That's an exciting little moment for all of our listeners back home.
My my, I don't know if you're gonna keep it in, but I'm gonna describe it like you are. My best friend. Slash sister has several jumping spiders as pets. I have a rachnophobia, so it's really wonderful that I.
That's what I got.
That I didn't kill it. I'm gonna scare it away. Hold on, go shoot bye, Eat the bugs, eat all the nats in my home. Don't come near me.
I haven't decided if I'm going to keep this or not yet.
You can cut it if you want, but you're welcome to keep it in. I'm fully it's gone. I can't see it, so it's fine, okay.
Yeah, so Thunderbolts. Ariel really liked the trailer, except for the part where the spider jumped on.
Too many spiders. Too many spiders.
Were there? Were there just the right number of spiders for the second trailer of Red One.
Yes, just the right amount of spiders for Red One, which is none that I can remember. We got the second trailer for it. Red One is Dwayne Johnson and Chris Evans, save Santa Claus. There were no spiders, but there were two rock'm Sockham robots, which delighted me and I I'm looking forward to this movie. I really enjoyed the nw Jumunji movies, and I'm looking forward to this not Jamunji installment of ridiculousness. Ridiculousness cool.
Yeah, this is one I think I'm gonna skip.
But it's unfortunate.
I'm glad that you are excited for it.
Yes, well, you didn't watch the two nu Jumunji movies either, did you. Nope, they were look Tony is a can be a grumpy personnickity person sometimes, and he enjoyed the nw Jumunji movies, both of them. He was not looking forward to them, but he quite enjoyed them. They're actually pretty good.
Well, next up, we got a trailer for the film Canary Black. This is a spy film. Kate Beckhamsale is the star of this movie. It's coming out on Amazon on October twenty fourth. And yeah, it's like a bang bang, shoot them up spy movie thing.
Yeah, I'm glad Kate Beckinsale is getting to do actiony stuff again. I guess she has been, but she didn't for a while. This honestly doesn't feel very new to me. But it looks fun.
Yeah, I mean it made me think of like it kind of falls into a lot of the the the action spy type films that we've seen over the last several years. Like clearly it's heavily inspired by stuff like James Bond or Mission Impossible and a lot of those other like second tier spy movies. I'm sure it'll be entertaining enough, you know. I'm hopeful that it will be something that is worth the expense of having made it. I think it looks expensive.
It does, I've got good talent in it. I will say I did confuse it with both Red Sparrow and Atomic Blonde.
At first, so fair enough. I mean, like especially Atomic Blonde, it definitely has that kind of energy going for it. Whereas the next movie we have, we talked about this film on a previous episode where we got a teaser for kind of a black comedy horror kind of film called Rumors. Now we have a longer trailer. I assume this was not something that was triggering your fear response, because I don't think it looks particularly scary.
No, it's not. However, one of the stories we dropped because we got full trailer for the platform too, totally triggered my ick. Nope, can't watch it fears, So I'm glad we dropped that. No, Rumors looks interesting, it's they the trailer. It's elf compares it to like I guess Night of the Living Dead meets Doctor Strangelove or is it evil dead Doctor Strangelove.
Either probably, I think, oh that's a good question. The zombies or the zombie like things seem to move more neither living dead to me than evil dead. But yeah, the Doctor Strangelove totally makes sense. This is the film where it's about a bunch of world leaders who are meeting at a summit to try and hash out their response to global crises. And then meanwhile, crazy weird stuff starts to happen and they're all kind of caught up in it. And so how do these how do these world leaders survive during this bizarre, almost supernatural kind of crisis while also still trying to solve the world's problems.
The answer is from the trailer, not that well. Yeah, yeah, there's like bog corpses that maybe reanimate in a giant brain and like people's minds get taken over. It gave me very like bubbajotep vibes.
Oh yeah, that's a good that's a good one, because yeah, that was definitely a horror comedy. And yeah, I think this looks like a better film for Kate Blanchett than say Borderlands.
For sure, for sure, still comedic and maybe action y, but you know, I think Borderlands had a better video quality than Rumors, But Rumors has a better video quality than the next trailer you want to talk about.
Well, that's because the next trailers for a series that is specifically trying to evoke that nineteen eighties slash nineties era VCR experience. And so we're talking about the trailer for VHS Beyond, the latest of the VHS series. There's quite a few of these at this point.
Uh.
It's funny because I know someone who is in one of these. Uh because Justin Justin, Justin Welburn was in one of the previous entries of VHS. And I'm also I'm a fan of a uh, a game creator and YouTuber who is in this one, VHS Beyond. So I'm looking forward to seeing this one and seeing how how how her performance comes out because she's not an actor, but uh, the she's in a piece that was written by Kate Siegel, who is the partner of Mike Flanagan, who did all like The Haunting of Hill House and that kind of stuff. So m hm, So yeah, I'm I'm curious about this one. It actually sounds to me like this one is a big step up compared to some earlier ones. But it's funny because, like I've I've known some of the people behind the scenes of this series, people who have directed one or two. Actually, now I think about I knew one of the actors from the first VHS as well. But yeah, I put it in here because I'm a fan of what they're trying to do. It's always an anthology series, so it's a series of different shorts that get grouped together in a film, and typically there's like some connective tissue between the shorts that access kind of bridging material. But uh, did you watch the trailer, Aeriel.
I did not watch much of the trailer.
No.
I put it on two point speed. I put it on two time speed and blop bloop, nope, nope, nope, nope, nope all the way through.
Good lord, I am gonna have to arrange a horror movie night and just have Aeriel over and we're gonna watch some horror movies that that that are entertaining and not like Squidgy or whatever, just just to kind of like dip your toe in.
I occasionally watch horror movies. I need to be well aware of what's going to happen in it. Beforehand. It can't have body horror, it can't be torture porn, and if it deals with creatures in the dark, I don't do well with that.
So that does that does eliminate a lot of horror?
Yes, yes, so, I mean but like, I've watched Cabin in the Woods. I watched it knit to both the originals and the new one. I watched The Stand, which I don't really think counts as horror. You know. I watched Jaws, an Attack of killer clowns from Outer Space, and Jurassic Park, and those are all scary. I watched the one where Will Smith was with his dog and there were vampire type creatures from us.
Is that legend?
Legend? Yeah, so I've watched, I've watched I watched scary movies. I watched all of season one of Last of Us except for one episode, which dealt with people monsters, not monster monsters. So I like some horror. And I also like the trailer for season two of Last of Us.
Yes, that's our next, our next item of discussion. It's fine, but yeah, we got the trailer for season two, and it gives a hint about some of the stuff we can expect. It does seem to be setting up some stuff that happens in the second game of Last of Us Last of Us Too. We've already heard that the story they're going to tell is going to span across two seasons, so I understand why if you've played Last of Us Too you will too. But yeah, it definitely looks like it's going to be really intense. It's weird because I actually don't know if I'm going to be able to watch this one because I know what happens in the game, and I don't know that I want to see it in the show.
I've not played either game. I know one of the things that happens, it's I it's if you're referring to the thing where Laura Bailey, who voices a certain character in Last of Us to the video game, got death threats because of something her character did, like real life death threats to her and her family based off of what her character did, then I know about that.
Yeah, that would definitely be it. No one deserves death threats for something that happens within a fictional universe. I think we both can come down firmly on that side.
Yeah. Yeah, So I hope that the actress who portrays that character in the show does not have similar problems. Hopefully whoever lost their mind and did that in the first place has since regained their faculties. Yeah, I it looks good. It definitely does look more intense. The first season, the trailers made it seem like it would be creepy and there would be tense moments, but it also had a lot of like heartfelt in it. This trailer also has some heartfelt, but I do feel like it leans more on the scary crap is going downside of it.
Yeah, which makes sense again from the context of the second game. Yeah, just like The Walking Dead, the Last of Us ultimately ends up exploring more about the things that humans do two and four each other more than any of the monster stuff. Right, like that, the monster stuff is a present and constant threat, but the real issue is how do you interact with humans when everybody is put into survival mode? And so that's going to be cranked up to eleven. I think for the Last of Us season two, I'm sure it's going to be phenomenal. I bet that they're going to have some episodes that will be significant departures from the game we got that in season one, and my favorite episode, maybe my favorite episode of television ever was a massive departure, and I thought it was an absolutely beautiful episode.
Was that the one with Nick Offerman? M hmmm, yeah, yeah, that was That was a heartbreaking, wonderful episode.
Long long time. That's a great, great episode.
Yeah. I definitely am going to try to watch season two of Last of Us I I so far have enjoyed it far more than I have enjoyed Walking Dead. I've said this before because I felt like there was hope. I don't know if that will maintain in season two, but I hope that they continue to find a good balance because that's what made season one really spectacular.
Agreed, Well, then, next up, we got a trailer for Ballerina, which is a spin off film from the John Wick series. We talked about this, I think like a year or two ago we were talking about how there was gonna be a Ballerina film, and now we got a trailer for it.
Uh.
The only thing I really have to say about is that if you've missed john Wick, this will this will probably scratch that itch.
Yeah, if you miss john Wick and Black Widow didn't come out recently, enough Black.
No, there was another, like I think two john Wick films since the last Black Widow movie have there.
I just Ballerina looks good, but it looks like this the Black Widow storyline.
Yes, it does look a lot like Black Widow. Also, John Wick does show up in the trailer, so he will be in the movie.
Yes, yeah, it could be. They could do an MCU crossover because john Wick is called the Bobba Yaga and there's one an ant Man just saying.
Is there a Bubba Yaga an ant Man.
It's a whole running gag with David dust Mulchian.
Oh man, I'm gonna have to go back and look it up again. Yeah, because it's like he never shows up. But I think he's like to Baba Yaga. He says it a lot.
I'm not.
I think I'll have to look that up because I've only seen the ant Man movies. I've seen each of the ant Man films one time because my partner has a phobia about insects in general, so she'll never go see any of those. I've never bothered to rewatch them. But I don't remember that at all. I do know that Bobba Yaga is kind of a mistake in John Wick. I'm pretty sure that they meant a different Russian term for boogieman that sounds kind of similar to Bobby Yaga, But Bobby Yaga is like a Hungarian witch who lives in a hut that walks around on chicken legs.
So yeah, also, I guess kind of speaking of funny mistakes, haha, there we go. Our next trailer is for a movie called get Away about a family who makes a possibly dire mistake, and it's presented in kind of a funny way.
Yeah. Nick Frost is sort of anchoring this film as the patriarch of the family that goes on vacation to a close knit community where you get the feeling like they probably engage in pagan practices, Like it's giving me wicker Man energy. But imagine, like imagine National Lampoons wicker Man where the Griswolds are on vacation in Europe and they stumble upon a village that does paganistic rituals.
Yeah. Yeah, apparently in the past there there was a bunch of mishaps and maybe cannibalism and a bunch of killing people in the storyline of this movie. On the island, and so this family is warned not even to go there. I suspect it's gonna be vaguely hot, fuzzigh in like there's it's definitely messed up, but in a different way then we're expecting.
That would be great. I would love for them to subvert expectations and for it to be a kind of rug pole thing and not just be, oh, yeah, the thing we're obviously setting up that's actually what happened. That would be a little kind of a disappointment, I think. So I hope you're right, because I think that would be a lot of fun. I mean, it looks like it looks like it's it's going to be entertaining, at least as far as the trailer. Like that looked entertaining to me. So this is one that I will probably check out.
Yeah, it looks funny. It does look pretty bloody as a warning.
But yeah, but if you like your horror comedy and you don't mind a little blood, check it out at least watch the trailer.
Yeah yeah, so Jonathan, Yeah, what did you think of the the next trailer?
So this is for a series that's going to be on Peacock called hysteria, and it's about a group of kids, like teenagers who or maybe young adults, but I think they're supposed to be teenagers. But they they form a band or they're in a band that they decide they're going to cater to create liketan satanic music in order to tap into the satanic panic that's going on, because they realize that if they do that, if they court controversy, it's going to get people to pay attention to them, whereas if they were to just be a band and play their music without the gimmick, maybe no one would pay attention. So it's kind of that idea of like, there's all this satanic panic going on, why don't we just exploit that for our own personal gain? Which I appreciate the premise. I'm not sold on watching the series yet.
Yeah, the series feel it's very much like, well, it's got Bruce Campbell for one.
So you know that is that's a big selling point honestly.
Yeah. Yeah, but it feels like kind of like Buffy meets Stranger Things, because they do accidentally You did blit out for a second, so I don't know if you said this, but they do accidentally summon things, and you know, I like the concept kind of it amused me to watch the trailer. I don't know if I will watch it. Yeah, but I also really like Bruce Campbell, so it's hard for me not to give something he's in a shot.
Same and also, like I lived through the Satanic panic, Like I was growing up when that was going on, where it was covering music and role playing games and TV and movies, more movies than TV. There wasn't much horror television on in the early eighties, but there was a lot of horror movies. There were a lot of heavy metal bands where there was the rumor of backmask game where supposedly you had all these backward secret messages that were satanic in nature or whatever. People were worried about dungeons and dragons and that would corrupt people's minds and they would think they were casting spells for real, and next thing you know, they're worshiping the devil. So like, all of this is based off stuff that was really going on, especially in the eighties, So that has me kind of interested just because watching something that's sort of set in that world that's kind of satirizing it that that hasn't appealed to me. But I again, this trailer, I don't know, it was like it had all the pieces that should absolutely hook me. I'm not convinced yet.
Yeah, it didn't quite hit the mark. I agree. Speaking of not hitting the mark, I will say the title of the next movie that we got a trailer for did not hit the mark for me so much so that when we first saw the title, or maybe I had this conversation with Tony not you, Jonathan, I was like, I bet this is a survivalist mountain climbing movie, and that's a movie called Elevation.
Yeah, it turns out it's it's not really it's not like Cliffhanger with Sylvester Stallone.
It's not that Rushmore mount Rushmore or whatever I.
Was gonna say. Rushmore is a movie about election in a high school.
Watched it.
There's no climbing, at least well social climbing, but otherwise Rushmore is a different thing. But yeah, so this this is a film with Anthony Mackie and Marina bakerund in it. So we've got some geek geek actors in there, or at least they're known for Greek properties. Anthony Mackie being Falcon slash Captain America in the MCU, Marina Backeran being in Deadpool as well as in Firefly. So we've got some folks who are known for their their appearances and other geek properties. And yeah, the the one line description of this is a single father and two women must venture from the safety of their home to face monstrous creatures in order to save the life of a child. So it does feel like it's in that realm of almost like post apocalypse kind of films where aliens or monsters have really started to force the survivors to be super careful and protect themselves, so things like a quiet place, that kind of stuff, where there was that movie, what was it? Was it halle Berry? Who's in a film where everyone has to be tethered something like that where they have to Yeah, I think you're right. I think it is Never Let Go where they're all tethered to their house. It feels like this is yet another entrigue into that subgenre of sci fi horror, and I'm like, how many versions of this are we going to get? There was a Nick Cage variation of this not long ago too, so.
Yeah, yeah, it is interesting. You mentioned A Quiet Place, which is also they bring that up during the trailer because I think some of the team who worked on A Quiet Place worked on this movie, and the aliens seem kind of similar to that, or the aliens from Diren.
Repeat, Live Di repeat, Live Di repeat. I love Every time this movie comes up, I think you choose three different words to be live, laugh, love, eat, prayed repeat.
Yesh live laugh, let them have it.
Yeah, I love it. Listen. I'm on board to work on a project that works with that title.
Cool, let's get let's get a Hollywood budget and get that going. Yeah. This actually, I mean it looks it looks good.
It does look good. I don't know if it's going to differentiate itself enough from those other examples of this subgenre to have it stand out. Like I think that's part of the problem I have is that it's kind of like after Blair Witch came out and there were a lot of movies that were trying to tap into that same kind of vibe, but you can't really recreate that success. And I'm feeling that this is it's in danger of falling into that trap. Now, maybe it's good enough to stand on its own and I'll be happy to admit as much once I if I do watch it. Once I watch it, but I worry that it does kind of feel like it's a copy of a copy almost, and I'm not sure that there's enough there to have it like elevate ironically, elevate above all the competing films in this subgenre.
Very clever, even though obviously slightly unintentional. Speaking of a copy of a copy. We finally got a full trailer for a second full trailer, first full trailer for Nosparatu.
I think it's the first full trailer for Nosparatu.
Teezers and trailers seem so similar nowadays.
Yeah. I like to think of teasers as being here's the aesthetic for our film, and maybe a couple of hero shots of actors that you know, and then the trailer is here's all the spoilers that we should have kept for the film. Yeah, so we got nos Faratu trailer now. Not the original Nosfaratu. The Silent film was very much a ripoff of Dracula. All the character names were changed, but it was Dracula, and the design of the vampire was done in a much more kind of rat like, animalistic appearance as opposed to suave vampire and like a tuxedo in cape or something. So this one is staying true to that silent film version, at least as far as designs go. It looks very dirty and dark and and scary and intense. So what did you think of this trailer?
I thought it looked a lot like bram Stoker's Dracula put under the filter of Penny Dreadful. So basically, just let's yes and to the gore.
Yeah, yeah, I can't. I can't argue with that.
Like I mean, I mean, like the was it Copola?
Who did Yeah, Francis Ford Coppola's Francis Ford Coppola's bram Stoker's Dracula, Yes.
On ice. Yes, you don't want to mix fake blood with ice, so he gets so, so you.
Don't want to mix Keanu Reeves with Dracula either, But we got it anyway.
I mean, I thought he did fine in bram Stoker's Dracula.
How how how recently have you seen that movie?
I watched portions of it on a plane in a couple of years ago.
Yeah, I think I'd be.
Cuvertions of it because I can't bring myself to watch anything with sexy bits on a plane. In case there's a kid.
Watching, I'd be curious to hear what your take is if you were to watch it now. I personally think Keanu Reeves gives one of the worst performances in his career as well as in the film. And he's not the only one there are like Gary Oldman's fantastic Anthony Hopkins feels like he's in the wrong movie. But I do love his performance.
Yeah, I think. I mean, I'm sure part of it is colored by the fact that, like I remember, like my first my introduction to horror that I liked was reading Frankenstein and reading Dracula in like a graphic novel version Frankenstein. I would it's hard to call that horror, but uh but yeah, so, like there's just there's probably a little bit of built in bias there. I do like the old classic Universal monsters. I don't I don't know if this one's gonna hit that vibe.
For me, though, Yeah, I think this one looks intense. Uh yeah, I'll be I'll probably watch it. I do like the basic story of Dracula, which is again pretty much what Nosferatu is. I I also am still tickled that Willem Dafoe isn't it because Willem Dafoe was in Shadow of the Vampire many years ago, where that was supposed to be kind of a behind the scenes look at what the making of Nosferatu was all about, and the joke being not really joke, it's not really a comedy, it's kind of attire, but the gag being that they've cast an actual vampire to be Nosferatu, and Willem Dafoe plays that character who was Max Shrek In the actual production of nos Faratu was an actor named Max Shrek who played the vampire Count Orlock. So in Shadow of the Vampire, Willem Dafoe was Max Shrek, so he was the Nosferatu vampire. He has a great line that was in all the trailers where the director is yelling at him for having bitten the lead actresses. Why didn't you just eat the script girl? And he says, ee lee, and it's just a ridiculous, ridiculous line. The rest of the movie is not as funny, by the way, but it is cool that Willem Dafoe is in nos Farrtu as well.
That is nice. It's also fun that Nicholas Holt is in nos Feratu as he was He's playing essentially, I think Keanu Reeves' character, but he was also in another vampire movie, Renfield.
Yes, yeah, he played Renfield in Renfield with Nick Cage playing that version of Dracula. So yeah, it is funny. Wat Renfield is okay. I wish it were better. I wish it were better. It's not bad, it just it's one of those where you were, at least for me, I walked out of it thinking that movie had a couple of really good ideas and a couple of them turned out okay, and that's that's how I felt. Now, other people might love Renfield, which is totally fine, totally legit, but yeah, for me, it was one of those kind of missed opportunity movies where I didn't I wasn't angry that I watched it, but it wasn't It didn't hit my favorites or anything like that.
Gotcha? Gotcha? Well, Uh, something that you've talked about kind of did hit you in the right way is the Yakuza video game series. Because we've talked about a TV show that's coming out, and now we've got a full trailer for it.
Yeah, it's for the Like a Dragon series. So Like a Dragon is the official name of that video game series. Here in America. It was called Yakuza for most of the games, and then just recently they've made the switch over to Like a Dragon, where Yakuza then becomes a subtitle as opposed to the main title. But yeah, Like a Dragon we're getting the live action series. We got a trailer for it. It is based on earlier entries in the video game series and looks like it's gonna be a really stylized crime procedural drama kind of thing. Now I guess not procedural crime drama.
Yeah, it looks it looks good. I really like that. There are in the cinematography. There are a bunch of tricks that they do that make it feel like a video game at points stylistically without making it feel too cgi or too cheesy, and I really like that.
Yeah, I totally agree. I think they've got a good balance of the style for this, which is tricky. I am curious how zany it will get. Those games have some pretty crazy stuff happen. It's not the main part of the storyline, but it happens in all of them. It's kind of like Grand Theft Auto in that way, where you get just little little side quests or side characters who are really weird. So like, are we going to have an episode where a bunch of grown men who are like in their fifties or dressed like babies? I don't know. Will there be entire episodes dedicated to karaoke? I sure hope.
So I hope we get those inny bits too. I didn't really see any of them in the trailer. Yeah, yeah, same, But you know, I guess we have the two seasons of the Brother's Son or the one season we have a Brother's Son for that true.
Next up, we got a trailer for a new series coming out from Apple TV Plus. It stars Billy Crystal, but he's not playing like the sardonic, sarcastic comedic character he usually would play. It's called Before, And it looks to me like there are a lot of elements where it's sort of the unreliable narrator thing of are the things you're watching? Are they sort of supernatural in nature? Or is it psychological in nature? And we're kind of getting a glimpse into mental illness, that kind of thing. Hard to say, but I will say I thought the trailer was pretty effective.
I did too. It gave me, like slightly A lot of the trailer focuses around Billy Crystal and this kid, and the kid gives me like good sun vibes the good Son because it's just kind of a kid who seems to either have to have some sort of premonition or not be completely okay.
Yeah, he seems troubled is the word I would use.
Yeah. Yeah, but it does look good. It looks scary. I'm interested to figure out what is real and what is not. Something else that I think is cool about this because you said it's got Billy Crystal playing like a serious character, which I'm all for. He looks phenomenal in the bits I've seen of it. It's also got Judith Light from Who's the Boss. And it's also got Rosie Perez in it, so I love that.
Yeah, I think the trailer shows that the people who are all in this are doing really good work. I'm curious enough where I will probably checked this out to see if it's something that I kind of vibe with or if it's going to be something that I'm just like, I appreciate what this is doing, but it's not for me. I just don't know yet, but I'm probably going to check out the first episode. Honestly, there are a lot of things that have been on Apple tv Plus that I ended up really liking. But I also recognize that it's a dangerous time to get emotionally attached to good content on Apple tv Plus because Apple just recently, like did kind of a massive budget cut for their content on that platform.
Yeah. Yeah, and Paramount just closed it in their TV division recently too, which we talked about. There are things, I will say there, at least in Atlanta, there are some things being made so we won't be completely without content, but it is scary. It's scary from a I'm looking forward to these things. They better not cut Murder Bond Diaries, is all I'm saying. Yeah, that would be a bad choice.
Well, moving from Apple tv Plus over to Netflix, we also got a trailer for an upcoming series it's going to debut in December of this year, called No Good Deed. It's a comedy series and has a lot of recognizable names in it, including Ray Romano, Lisa Kudro, Linda Cardellini, Luke Wilson is in it, Dennis Leary is in it, and more. And the basic plot is that it's three families eyeing to buy the same house, which they all think will solve their problems. And now that I say the premise out loud, I'm like, there's not really a big geek connection to this. But it does look like.
Linda Cardellini was in Avengers.
There we go.
That's looking.
That's all we needed. But yeah, I think it looks. It looks fun, It looks it looks like it could be a fun series. Also, Dennis Larry's in it. Dennis Larry was in one of the Spider Man movies. Don't ask me to tell you which one. I think it was one of the Andrew Garfield ones.
Yeah, yeah, no, yes, it was in one of the Andrew Garfield ones. He played Gwen Stacy's dad. I think this is done by the same team that did Dead to Me, which I heard was brilliant. It's actually on my short list of shows to watch when I run out of Wrexham. But but not the same story and not the same vibe at all. It actually gives me vibes of a different TV show from Netflix that also kind of didn't get a whole lot of play, which is the woman in the House across the street from the Girl in the Window, Oh.
Right, right, right, the spoof of those movies where Karen observes what appears to be a crime, and the movie the movie is largely about did what they see actually happened? Or did they misinterpret or imagine? And yah, was it? Was it? A what's her name? She was? Anna? And Frozen?
Kristin Bell?
Kristen Bell? Was she in that?
Yes? Okay, yeah, yeah, So it kind of gives me like, obviously the premise is not quite as zany at first glance, but I am very interested the cast alone, and it's a dark comedy, so I yeah, I can't finish a thought, but I do want to see it.
Well. And the last thing we have on our list is a highly anticipated entry in Netflix and it's season two of Squid Games. So we got a teaser. The teaser does not really I mean, it doesn't give you any insight into what's going to happen for season two. It's really following very briefly following the morning of one of the employees who goes out and tries to find potential contestants in the Squid Games. So there's no real insight into what's going to happen in season two at all. It's more like atmospheric.
Yeah, we just know that there's going to be a game. We did get a previous teaser for it. This is the second teaser, I would say for Squid Games two. The first one vaguely showing some people from the game, which I guess is a spoiler for me because I haven't finished season one. But that's okay.
Well, and season one's good. I mean, I do recommend watching all of it, but yeah, don't expect a lot of returning faces.
Now, I don't it. It is so dark. Oh yeah, it is so dark and just I won't even say to start disturbing because I know the premise. So it's not like the premise is super like catching me off guard, but it's upsetting and sad, like it's heartbreaking.
So yeah, well, I mean it's meant to be one of those that really shows like this huge gap between the haves and have nots. It's the same kind of basic underlying structure that you have in stuff like Hunger Games, right where the whole ideas, you've got these very influential, very wealthy people who see the less fortunate as just being fodder for their own amusement and nothing more. Like they don't see him as human beings. They see him as like, these are people whose lives don't matter, So it doesn't matter if we make them compete against each other to the death, because who's going to miss them? Like That's it's very very cynical, but that's the whole point.
Yeah, it is interesting because they have even though it's a similar premise, they have very different feels because in hunger games they pit the people against each other or against the elements and the bourgeoisie, I guess have kind of a hands off approach to the killing, whereas in squid games that is not the case.
Yeah, no, it's not typically the contestants turning on each other. It's them against whatever the game is, and the people who are behind the scenes and squid games are very much, at least indirectly responsible for each and every death. Like even if they say, oh, I didn't pull the trigger, I'm like no, but you're the one participating in this what you consider to be a spectator sport or a betting game. Yeah, it's it's dark stuff, and I'm sure season two will be equally as dark. It'll be interesting to see how they try to further the narrative, if they bother to or if they'll just make it more like it's a sense season one, just with new characters.
I have thoughts because we know that one of the survivors comes back.
Yeah, so we'll have to see how that plays out. I'm sure it'll be another big hit. I mean, Squid Games was kind of one of those phenomenon type shows when it came out, so I suspect season two well, I mean it may not reach the same heights. I don't know. Maybe people have moved on, but I think there'll be plenty who will be curious to at least check out the beginning of season two. Yeah.
I agree, and that's all we have to talk about. If it's a slightly weird episode, it's just we had some connectivity issues. Maybe Jonathan will keep them all in and you'll get to hear a wonky sort of an episode.
I'm actually dreading what it's going to be like when I download these files and whether or not mine is going to be one file or like twelve different files, because mine was the connect that kept dropping out.
So if you've gotten this episode and you've gotten this far, then Jonathan has survived the editing games.
Yeah.
But Jonathan, if people want to reach out to us to ask a question or to be like, whoa dude, you did it. Great job editing, which you guys should do all the time. Anyhow, how do they do that?
So you're gonna go to your front door, open it wide and step right. Then you're going to car, but just be careful so that you don't get hit. And then this is really important, make sure when the duck shows up, you feathers everywhere, so it's going to be a mess. But from there you're going to and you'll wonder where the candy came from. That's not really important. However, immediately you're going to turn to your left. That's when you're going to see a man in a tan jacket and you're going to say, I know you from Nightvie and that's why I like the weather. That's when I'll answer your question.
And if it took you far too long to catch up on the bit like it did me, you can reach out to us on social media on Facebook and threads and Instagram, or Large neur Drunk Collider on Twitter where LLNC Underscore podcast. We do have a discord channel. It is Large Neurdroun Collider. You can get that invitation on our website, which is woefully out of date. Once again, for shame on me. I will get it updated. And if you want to send us an email, we've had some recently. Thank you to the people who reached out and asked if we were okay from the hurricane. We are. We were very lucky. You can email us at Large neurdron Pod at gmail dot com. We love hearing from you and we love that you listen. Thank you for being a part of our geeky family. And until next time. I am Ariel watching through my fingers Casten and.
I am Jonathan. We're also okay from the cloud of chlorine gas Strickland.
Oh yeah, I forgot about that one.
Yeah, it's been a crazy couple of weeks.
Yeah, Hey, everybody, Welcome to The Larger and Drunk Collider, the podcast that's all about the geeky things happening in the world around us and how very excited we are about them. I'm Ariel Casten and with me as always is a delightful, gracious, wonderful patient. Jonathan struct I have I like that feels like it needs to be a Broadway song.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a reference to something that happened in pre show conversation. And I will not answering any questions.
Yeah, it's fine, it's fine. But if you're going, hey, why are you recording this week? You said once again you would not be recording, and you are. It's because Hurricane Milton. We were supposed to drive down to Florida on Wednesday, and we decided to hold off so that we wouldn't be driving down in the middle of a hurricane, which was the correct decision to make.
And when when Ariel says we, she doesn't mean me an Ariel. I was not going to Orlando. Ariel was going with some friends. This was actually the rescheduled trip to the Orlando area that now has to be rescheduled again.
I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it's small potatoes compared to you know what people have gone through. Sure in Florida, I will say like I had on like weather stormchasers on all day and that was I know, you didn't for your sanity's sake, but just watching it was insane.
I mean I would. I was occasionally checking the news and that was enough to see some of the footage which was really concerning. I also noticed that the hurricane, both Helene and Milton, have provided ample opportunity for people to make use of technology to create misinformation around the hurricanes, which is infuriating. Including I don't know if you saw this areal, but there was some apparently it originated out of Russia, but there was some AI generated photographs that were supposedly showing Magic Kingdom flooded like waste high water flooding the Magic Kingdom, and anyone who had been to the Magic Kingdom looking at those photos could say, that's not real, that's AI. There are too many details that are wrong. But it was one of those attempts to attempt to, you know, paint a picture that was not realistic. For one thing, anyone who's a real Magic Kingdom fan knows that if it flooded that badly, things have gone really wrong. Because the Magic Kingdom is not on the ground floor.
Yeah, for sure. And Disney is open today. They close for Wednesday and Thursday and they're open today Friday. That's just I hadn't seen that. I have heard about some of the misinformation that's been going around, just even politically about it, which we're not going to get into because that's not what this podcast is about.
Yeah, goodness knows, I do not need my blood pressure to go up.
Yeah, but it was interesting that FEMA's like, in the scope of natural disaster we need to do is now also misinformation.
Yeah. Yeah, Like it's not hard enough to respond to these things at the scale that they already are. Let's throw massive amounts of misinformation that can end up impeding help. Let's not do that, y'all. Let's all just let's all just agree to do our best to help where we can and stay out of the way where we aren't able to help. Like, I'm not shaming anyone who can't, you know, lend help one way or another. There are plenty of people out there who aren't in a position to do so. But like, don't make things more difficult for people. Not that any of our listeners do that, I'm sure they don't. Just just in general. When I say you, I mean whomever it is that's doing this stuff.
Yeah, for sure, and also check your sources.
Always a good idea.
Yeah, I myself mis relayed some information this week because I was searching it and I'm like, oh, here's the answer, and I didn't check deep enough and I was wrong.
It happens to me too, Ariel. You like I've I'm older and supposedly had at least the opportunity to be wiser, although I am certainly not, but I am definitely older than Ariel, and I still fall victim to this too. I mean, heck, I've fallen victim to it on the show, because, as we've discussed in previous episodes, people are using fan edits and ai and stuff to generate like fake movie trailers, and if I'm not paying attention, I'm like, oh, I didn't even hear that this movie was a thing, and here's a trailer for it, and then only for Ariel to say like, yeah, the reason you hadn't heard about it is that's not real.
I mean, we both do it, and we both hold each other accountable. It's why it's such a great friendship.
Yeah. Well, that's the thing is we known each other long enough where occasionally we can say, hey, I'm not saying you're stupid, but you're doing something that's kind of dumb.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, speaking of dumb. If I sound a little raspy today, it's because last night, and in a fit of trying to get some dopamine, my husband and I went to CC's to try their chicken and lawful pizza, which wasn't as ridiculou as it sounds, but I did splurge and have some Supreme pizza there as well, which had a red sauce. So now I'm a little bit Yeah.
Aerial has a has a sensitivity to a whole bunch of different foods, but among them are night shades like tomatoes and stuff.
So and you know green peppers that you get on a Supreme pizza, Well that delicious.
It does make me think that in March, assuming that they keep with the the Taco of the month that their Austin, Texas locations do in March, we need to go to Torches because they have a chicken and waffles taco. It's amazing. I get it without the bacon because I don't eat pork, but apart from that, I get it as is and I love it. It's called the Rosco nice.
I have had a chicken and waffles taco before. Velvet Taco sometimes has the.
Okay, that's also a Texas based chain that got here in Atlanta, so I mean no big surprise of Velvet Taco got as well. But yeah, it's Torchies. Does we just got a Torchies. I think I've probably talked about this in a previous episode, but we just got a Torchies fairly recently, and they do a Taco of the Month and at least the last couple of times I went to south By Southwest, which happens in March in Austin, Texas. The Roscoe was their their special taco and and I fell in love. It was it was love at first bite.
That that does sound No, it does sound really good. I will say one of the things my husband and I do is make food mistakes, and we don't always talk about it on the show because one, I don't know how many people are interested into I don't want torture Jonathan. But I have also had the chicken and waffles basket and Robin Flavor of the Month, and that was no bueno for me.
Yeah, I don't that doesn't sound like something I will say. I have had a couple of ice cream flavors that on when I first heard what they were, didn't appear to me, but upon tasting them, I was like, oh, no, this is okay, Like I think the one that it's really not that unusual. Though at the time I felt that it was like this ice cream came from Mars or something. It was rosemary and olive oil.
M that sounds good.
It actually was quite good and it had you know, it wasn't a savory ice cream, but it did have savory notes, but that that just made the sweetness stand out more.
I found a recipe for a concord grape rosemary and black pepper sorbet that I have been dying to make, but we haven't had concord grapes in our grocery stores. And our mutual friend Sasha has had many concord grapes this year, and I'm very jealous.
Oh that must be Are they still in Chicago Land area? Yes, okay, so it must just be that like Chicago scooping up all the concords. I mean, maybe you go try them with the cotton candy grapes. Sweet it gets.
Oh my god, Oh I do like cotton candy grapes. I like gum drop and the moon drops better, but I do like the cotton candy grapes. Yeah, we make food mistakes. I have some beetlejuice spiced apple Fanta downstairs. I have a pack of the Coca Cola Oreos as well as a few cans of the Oreo Coca Cola in my home. I still have cans of Peepsi.
We need to get you the Doctor pepper baked beans.
I've tried them, oh have you?
Yeah? No, I just learned that those things exist this week, so I didn't even know.
I I bet if you made them fresh, they'd be pretty good out of a can. They were not for me. They had this chemically taste to them that I.
Don't like big beans in general. Anyway, I don't know how this became a food podcast. I was gonna say, I'm making a chopped cheese sandwich tomorrow. That's my first time trying to do that.
I'm super envious. Yeah, I know. I used to want to put like some weird food thing in here every week, and they're just more weird food things that I can find every week, or that I thought would be interesting to people. But also, I don't want torture Jonathan Well.
And you know we'd be stepping on munch Squad, the podcast within a podcast for my brother, my brother and me where Justin McElroy brings various brand eating pr announcements into the story.
I was trying to do things that like tied into other geek stuff like Nicholas Cage related food sham again.
Right, yeah, yeah, you find out like I mean, like it's always fun whenever whenever a restaurant, especially like a very like fast food or fast casual restaurant does like a tie in with a movie release, you know, like I think about Denny's doing it all the time. That kind of stuff. Those are fun to talk about too, just because sometimes the connection is so tenuous that it's just laughable or the name is just terrible.
Yeah, Denny's does it, I hop does it. Heck, krispy Kreme has some Ghostbuster donuts right now, which are uh unimpressive.
I mean for Krispy Kreme, you just need to go when the light is on and get yourself a glazed That's it, That's what I mean.
But that's just eating cotton candy like it dissolves in your mouth so fast.
That's so good. I like them anymore so.
I like their chocolate glazed better because it gives it a little more substance while still retaining the crispy kreamness.
Actually I prefer their chocolate glaze too, It's just that whenever I got them hot, it was always just the plain glazed ones.
Yeah. Yeah, I have one down the road. I never seem to be there when I have the capacity to eat a hot, fresh doughnut and the sign is on, like a lot of times, I'll be going. It's in the same complex, like shopping complex is one of my favorite Mexican restaurants, So I'll get there and I'll be like, but I'm about to have Mexican and they have a trisleche cake of the day.
So and while I've tempted to just see how long we can go talking about food before we finally turn into geek stuff, I think I am going to segue us at least to talk about the things that we have seen or whatever.
That's fine. I'm still totally going to talk about food in this segment.
So it's fine, all right, awesome, awesome. Do you want me to go first, or do you want to go first.
I'll go first because there's not really much new that I'm watching. I watched the latest episode of Agatha, which I thought was better than the previous episode, but still not as good as the first couple few. I'm watching Vox Makta and that's good. They're sexy scenes. We're more sexy than I anticipated, which, if you know me, I can tend to be a little bit like, oh, I can't watch this, so but it was fine, but it just surprised me. But it's good. I'm enjoying season three. I don't want to give spoilers, but they are very good at There are really cool Easter eggs, and they're really good at setting up cinematically the different places that they go. It's very good. I'm still watching Wrexham and then tonight I'm gonna watch the first episode of Gastronauts on Dropout TV. So that's fun and exciting where they get chefs and they give them bad challenges.
Oh, I didn't. I don't think I've seen the promos for this, so I didn't even know this was a thing.
I So I love food shows like Cut Through a Kitchen or there's a new one called The Last Bite that Titus Burgess hosts. Yeah, where they for the last bite or I think it's called the last Bite. It's like he's a hotel bell hopping there on all in this hotel and every every chef brings like a chest of ingredients and then they get different food challenges like I want to beef Wellington, or I want Alfredo, or I want this or that, but they can only use the ingredients that they have in their chest. And I believe that those ingredients. I haven't watched much of it. Those ingredients dwindle down as the competition goes on because they're using them, but the challenges are still challenging. So in like the trailer, you see someone go like, I've just used my last egg.
So it's one of those things where they have to they have to kind of judge how how much they use per dish, and maybe they hold something back because they might need it later, but it might also impact the quality of the dish they're currently preparing.
Yes, but like if someone asks for fish and chips and nobody has potatoes, that's also now you have to come up with something else to make chips out of. So it's I love food stuff like that. Gastronauts is a dropout show where it's a host of comedians come up with challenges for the for the chefs that are competing, and all of the comedians love this show. According to the trailer, they think it's amazing some of the some of the challenges are like hornist. Like in the trailer, Grant O'Brien's like, I just want you to make the horniest food, nothing more than that. No, I want to see what they do with it.
Of course Grant O'Brien asked for that.
Yeah, so you know, I like food challenges where they try to make something good. I say that I also watch role for sandwich and ordinary sausage, which are horrendous and horrifying. But generally, when I watch like a food competition show, I like to see people overcome a challenge to make something amazing and beautiful and tasty. And I know that several of these dishes, while very tasty, will be very visually unappealing, and so I'm less excited for that, but I'm gonna watch it.
Yeah. I think the only cooking like competition show I ever really got into was Iron Chef, both the original version and the American version. Yeah, those I really enjoyed both of those because I thought it was always fascinating to see how chefs could improvise around the specific ingredient. I always found that really really neat. But that was the only one I ever watched. I think a lot of them. I don't like watching because I want unless someone's being a real jerk face, I want everyone to win. Yeah, and so it's hard to watch because I'm like, I don't want anyone to lose. I want them all to do great, and so inherently that's a problem with competition shows for me, and I get it. That's a me problem, not a show problem.
I mean, I totally get it. If it's something like nailed It, I don't feel too bad because everybody knows going in it's just for the fun. But yeah, like Great British break Bakeoff or things like that, I definitely am like I do root for people, and I feel sad when they leave because they're all pouring their heart and soul into the things that they make. The other thing, I don't know if this counts as watching. I guess it is because it's been on YouTube mainly. Is I've been reindulging in Epic the Musical, which is the musical based on the Odyssey that a bunch of TikTok creators made a couple of years ago, which is where I got to my misinformation, because I was like, is there a staged version of this? And Google search said, yes, there is, it comes out in December, But upon further looking, there aren't stage staged viewable versions. It's just the concept album that you can watch on various streaming as far as I can tell. But it's great. It's great music, and Suffering is living rent free in my head right now, so I'll.
Have to check that out. Like for some reason, I'm sure I did hear about this, but it's not ringing any bells. But y'all, my bell got rung so hard this year that there's stuff that I definitely knew about that is just not there anymore. But I need to check this out. I'm curious about like who wrote the music and the book and all that kind of stuff, So I'll have to check it out after the show is over.
Yeah, I'll make sure to share some links and some fun facts.
That's awesome. I also watched Agatha all along. I also enjoyed the most recent episode. The reveal at the end of that episode is interesting but leaves me with more questions than answers, which is that's kind of the way WandaVision went too, right, Like every time WandaVision would answer one question, it would raise like three more, and Agatha is kind of doing that now. I don't want to give any spoilers because that show, that episode did just come out this week and people may not have had a chance to watch it yet, but there's something that happens at the end that made me go, like, Okay, if they're going where I think they're going, they have a lot of explaining to do that. I'm not sure they're going to be able to manage in a way that I'm going to find satisfying, but I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt for now.
I'm curious to hear where you think they're going, but I guess we'll have to talk about that offline.
Well, if you don't want to hear spoilers, skip a head and when you hear me talking about either Salem's laut or the penguin, you know you're okay. But so at the end, of the most recent episode of Agatha All Along, we finally see Teen kind of come into Teen's powers and manifest a sort of headdress on his head which looks like the Wickan headdress. Now, the character of Wickan in the comics is one of Wanda Maximov's sons, kind of like the reincarnated son of Wanda Maximov, but it does there's no explanation for how that could possibly be in this universe because he doesn't exist in the MCU version of Earth. That's the whole point with Doctor Strage in the Multiverse of Madness. If he did exist, Wanda Wooden had done gone crazy and gone into the multiverse trying to find a version of her kids so that she could be their mom again. So that's a real issue, like where did this character come from? Or is it a totally different character who's essentially assuming the role of Wickan but doesn't share the same history as the character in the comic books. So that's that's one of the big questions. The other big question I have is where's Rio at the end of that episode, because she's gone missing, and that's Aubrey Plaza's character. She's just not there, and I'm like, what is she up to? Okay, done with the spoilers for Agatha all along? And you know, I could also it could be that my assumptions are completely incorrect, so it's not really a spoiler, it's more speculation.
Yeah.
I watched the new not really that new, but newly released of Salem's Lot that went straight to streaming. This movie was supposed to come out years ago but has sat on shelves for like two years. It's not good. It's not a good adaptation. I'm also listening to the audiobook of Salem's Lot. I have been for a while, like when I take my dog on walks, I listen to it. And the stuff they skipped over in order to hit kind of the action points they wanted to for the movie. It's all the it's all the character building and all the background, like they had to skip all of it just to get to more vampire stuff. And I'm like, wow, Yeah, it makes the whole movie feel rushed, Like it goes from one character in town being turned into a vampire to suddenly there are thirty vampires and then there's everyone is a vampire except for these five people. That's it, Like, that's how fast it happens, and that's like within a couple of scenes as the movie goes on, and I was just like, this is so unsatisfying because you're not given enough time to get to know any of these characters. Some characters who are really important in the book are only mentioned by name and you don't even get a good look at their face. Like, I get it, Stephen King makes a lot of characters in his books. Some might argue too many characters, kind of like George R. R. Martin, but like, it's so weird to have these characters who played an important part in the story in the novel get a name drop in the film, but you don't even really get to see them. It's kind of crazy. So I cannot recommend Salem's Lot. I did not like it. Maybe if you had never read the book and you just want a vampire story, it might be satisfying. I can't separate myself from the book, and I don't even I'm not even a huge fan of the book. Like I'm not like a diehard Stephen King fan. I like a couple of his books, but I'm not like a a crazed fan or anything. And Salem'slood is not my favorite of the books I have ready.
No I had like that could be possible. I didn't read Dark Tower. I was just familiar with it because of my friend group who loved it, and the movie was okay, it was passable, but it wasn't great and they all hated it. That could be the same case for Salem's Lot. But all of the reviews I have heard about it have also been negative beyond yours.
So it's yeah, it feels pretty clunky. I understand that there was quite a bit that was left cut out of the film. Whether that was the director or the studio, I don't know, but I imagine that that stuff had to have at least helped a little bit as far as like fleshing characters out and stuff. I don't know that it would have made the movie any better though. I also watched the third episode, well part of the third episode of The Penguin. I didn't finish it. I really need to go back and in a shit, but it was one of those where the tension was being turned up real high, and I was not in a good mental space to be able to watch that and handle it. It's kind of like Breaking Bad. Like there were times where I'd watch Breaking Bad and I would have to pause the episode, walk away and come back to it in order to be able to deal with it, because that's how delicate my psyche is. Now anyway, I'm still enjoying it, still enjoying the performances. Hate that version of the Penguin, but everything else, Like if I divorce it from being the Penguin, it's great. Like if I'm not thinking of it as Gotham and I'm not thinking of him as the Penguin, I'm really enjoying it.
I've been trying to talk Tony into watching that, but he didn't like me. Did not enjoy the Batman. He was like, there was no tension. There was If you want to play it like a noir, you need to build the tension and suspense, and they did not do that. It was so slow. I don't know, I'm unsatisfying.
I didn't feel I didn't feel like there were problems with tension so much. But then you know, I actually enjoy the Riddler component to the Batman. I just didn't like the fact that the Batman was a terrible detective.
He was he never he never won the entire movie. He didn't win.
No, even he doesn't like he doesn't even one of the riddles he doesn't solve Alfred solves it.
He doesn't solve a ding dang thing.
And also he figures out that everything's going to blow up about five seconds before it does, and like.
The moments that should have been really scary or tense or whatever went on so long that I'm like, Okay, just do it, just do it. Just be done with this scene already. And I like Noir, I don't mind a slow pace, but this was unbearable.
Oh no, I guess I just had a different reaction, Like your reaction is totally legitimate, obviously, but it was just a I don't think I disliked the Batman as much as you guys did. I'm not a fan of it, but I don't think I had as strong a negative response to it anyway. But that's what I've seen. I want to say there was something else, but it is escaping me now. If it comes back to me before the end of the episode, I'll bring it up, but I can't think of what it might be at this point, so I guess I'm done.
Awesome, Well, that leads us to I look forward to talking about what we watched after Halloween, because I'm currently trying to figure out what my Halloween night movie I'm going to watch while kids come trick retreat is. But until then, I.
Know I'm going to watch Long Legs tomorrow finally, so I'm looking forward to that.
Yeah, I look forward to your review. That's definitely what I could not watch. But but let's talk about I have no good segue. Let's talk about our thirty seconds or less. Now, I guess it's time for that.
Okay, I guess, so, I guess. I guess I'll go first, all right, for proof that the word of mouth is still a powerful thing. The negative reaction to Joker poly Adieux appears to have contributed to a Tepe box office of just under thirty eight million dollars. Domestically, reaction has been largely lack luster for the film, which I now actually kind of want to see because I've read spoilers about what happens and now I'm intrigued. I'm not sure that I'll walk away liking the movie if I see it, but I'm more interested now than I was just from the movie trailers.
Yeah, I also read spoilers but had the opposite reaction. But that's cool. I look forward to your review when you watch it. Something that I will never watch and I do not understand is apparently Michael Bay is making a skibbety toilet series, and I I don't understand. It's a Jenn Alpha thing. It's like a brain rot video that starts with a head coming out of a toilet singing a song. Apparently the creator had nightmares like that and it was his way of confronting it. But then it blew up, and so now there's this whole like battle between people with like video camera and television and monitor heads fighting these toilet head people. And I just don't I don't want to see Michael Bay is like King of explosions. I don't want to see that many toilets explode. But Adam Goodman, who's the former president of Paramount, said that it could be the next Transformers. What what that was more than thirty seconds? I'm sorry, Are we.
Sure that none of that is like misinformation or a fever dream, because it's hard to believe.
It could, but I found it on Forbes.
So yeah, that's usually a fairly reputable news source. All right, Well, moving on the body swapping film, It's What's Inside has a companion game that you can play with up to five of your friends. The game captures your likeness and voice, and then through a series of questions and prompts, the players try to figure out who has switched with whom. According to Collider, the game deletes all user data at the game's conclusions, so you don't have to worry about a digital copy of yourself floating around out there. But if you do want to play, you better do it fast because it ends on October fourteenth.
Interesting if you've been Jones and for more Black Panther Wakanda stuff, here in luck because Disney Plus is working on a new animated series. It's really going to focus on a lot of like the history and law of Wakanda itself. That's cool. I like what if an X Men ninety seven? So and I like Black Panther, So I am excited. Cool.
Hollywood Reporter notes that Rebel Ridges Aaron Pierre will be playing the part of John Stewart in the upcoming Lanterns series, so he'll be a younger member of the lantern core and Kyle Chandler's Hal Jordan character will be showing him the ropes as the two Space Cops investigative murder, so maybe we should call the series True Space Detective.
I am very much for Kyle Chandler playing how Jordan. I think that's a great casting choice. It's not who what I have picked for John Stewart, but they're going for a younger version, so who I would have picked doesn't matter. Henry cavill is apparently going to be in Amazon MGM Studios Voltron, which they want a bid to do back in twenty twenty two and I completely forgot about. But it's still happening. Don't know what he's going to be doing in it, but it's being directed by Ross and Marshall Thurber.
I think he's going to play the left leg, not the not the pilot. He will actually be dressed up as the left leg of Voltron.
Will he will he can toort his body into like an animal when it's not.
No, he'll just be wearing like a like a cardboard lion outfit and he'll he'll just be He'll just be the left leg. That's it.
I'm for it.
Okay, Well, casting has begun in a so far unnamed spin off of The Big Bang Theory. After Young Sheldon wrapped up. I'm guessing executives were scrambling to find a way to tap into the appeal of the show that a lot of people loved and I didn't anyway. Kevin Susman, who played comic book store owner Stuart, will be joined by Brian Posine and Lauren Lapptis, both of whom played recurring supporting roles on Big Bang Theory.
I love those I didn't like Big Bank Theory either. I like those actors.
Yeah.
Oh, I love Brian Pozane and I love Lauren Lapis. Uh uh. Broadway and Deadpool and X Men fans rejoice. Huge Jackman has set a twelve show monthly concert series at Radio City Music Hall, starting in January twenty twenty five, and playing also in April, May, June, July and August on select weekends. It's going to kind of span his career of Broadway and musical and stuff like that. He announced it on a video on social media with Ryan Reynolds. That is absolutely delightful. You should look at ut well.
I have some bad news for anyone who became a big fan of Netflix's series Chaos, in which Jeff goldblooms Zeus is going through a mid eternal life crisis in a modern world setting in which the Olympic Gods are very much a thing. Netflix has canceled the series after just one season. I did try to watch this show, and I thought the first episode was interesting, but then I have to admit I didn't stick with it, So I guess I'm part of the problem.
Were me too? Okay, Scrubs might be getting a vile Apparently they're just trying to negotiate a contract with Disney, who owns the brand now, and I guess that the director is or TV creator is with Warner Brothers, so they got to figure that out. If it comes to fruition, which it should be, it's Bill Lawrence is saying is very close. It will be kind of a reboot and also kind of a continuation. So it sounds like Saved by the Bell New Class, where you're gonna have all the new new hospital staff with the old staff popping in every now and.
Then, or if you prefer the new version of night.
Court maybe because that could be true.
Because John Learracat came back, but everybody else anyway that's true. To boost a car or to not boost a car. That is the question that's being asked by some documentarians who followed a couple of GTA players who are actors determined to mount up production of Shakespeare's ham within the world of Grand Theft Auto Online. This documentary is called Grand Theft Hamlet and it covers an ambitious attempt the two actors made to perform Hamlet with n GTA online during the COVID nineteen outbreak. And if you want to see it, you'll need to wait until twenty twenty five to get thee to a cinema.
I think that's pretty cool, and it'll be the first thing from Grand Theft Auto I've watched Netflix is It is said that Netflix is developing a Pride and Prejudice series. It is being written by Dolly Alderton, who wrote All Everything I Know about Love, and it's being done by the producer for Gentleman Jack. That sounds like a pretty good team to work on some Pride and Prejudice. I wonder if they'll stick true to the source material or they will give it a news twist.
Okay, so that's it for the thirty seconds or less. I did want to say so Lauren Lapkis. She was in a web video series that I really enjoyed, along with Oh, what's his name? He played Jean Ralpheo in Parks and rec Oh. Ben Schwartz.
Ben Schwartz, Yeah.
Okay, He and Lauren Lapkis were in a web video series called The Earliest Show where they played morning show hosts. And the gag is that in the very first episode, Ben Schwartz is planning on proposing to his girlfriend, but it doesn't go well and she breaks up with him. And then every episode after that or starting with that one, is the Stages of Grief, where each episode is embodying one of the stages of grief, and that's completely controlling how Ben Schwartz's character behaves. The show was largely improvised. It is ridiculous and makes me laugh so hard, and like the outtakes. The outtakes are just as long as the episodes they launched, so like, you can watch the whole series and then another series worth of outtakes and it's very entertaining.
I'll have to check that out. I really like Ben Schwartz's improv I also quite enjoyed Middle Ditch and Schwartz, which was there's Ben Schwartz's.
And yeah, I got to see them do that live.
Oh, very cool.
They came down to Dad's garage theater several years ago now, but they performed at Dad's garage and that was great.
That does sound amazing. I'm sad I missed it.
Yeah, it was if I hadn't known at the time. But back then I didn't even know who I had knew who Schwartz was because I had seen him on parks and rec but I didn't know Middle Ditch even though I had seen Middle Ditch in stuff. It just he was just that guy, right, Like, I didn't know who he was yet.
Man, I aspired to be that guy in that thing.
Yeah. No, it's a great thing to be. But like, yeah, because wasn't he Was he in Silicon Valley or Okay, I had not watched that series at that point when I saw them perform live on stage, so I was unaware of his talent, which is considerable and the two of them together are fantastic.
That is delightful.
Well, we've got some trailers and stuff to talk about, not as many this this week, but that doesn't mean we won't yammer on endlessly about them and possibly work food into them.
I haven't figured out how to do that yet, but now I've got to figure it out for every.
Okay, so the first one is we saw a trailer for a movie called Levels. I'll help you out here. Let's say that multi tiered cake boom. We've put it in there, that multi tiered cake has levels to it. We watched the trailer for a movie called Levels. Uh.
End of story.
I think I think I would. I think I would describe Levels as uh, the Matrix mixed with Free Guy, but with no humor.
Yeah, it's it's done by the people who did Continuum. But even even Collider dot com compares it to the Matrix.
It is.
It is very similar. It's about a guy who loses his wife I don't remember, uh, and then goes through reality is not what he thinks. It's computer generated. Yeah, it seems like.
Well it kind of falls into that that philosophical question of what if we lived in a computer simulation? And uh, like, if you go down that rabbit hole, it gets pretty freaky pretty fast, because it like the the general answer is, if it is possible that we're living in a computer simulation. We definitely are, although I.
Just immediately became interested in looking that up and then immediately disinterested.
So thank you, You're welcome. Yeah, well, yeah, I won't go into the whole thing. I've talked about it on other podcasts before, and honestly, I just I am a very pragmatic person, and at a level where you could say, does this actually matter if it's a simulation or not if it seems real to us, I'm like, no, it doesn't, it doesn't matter at all. So anyway, Levels looks like it's playing with that kind of idea, but very similar to The Matrix, where Neo is awakened to the fact that what he thinks of as reality is in fact a construct, a computer simulation, and that he is then awakened in order to Initially it sounds like save humanity, but then by the time you get to the Matrix too, it's just to keep one little bit of humanity safe. I hate the Matrix movies. I love the first one. I hate the rest of them, although I kind of like the fourth one. Anyway, that's neither here nor there. Levels looks okay, I don't know. There was nothing about this trailer that really got my interest.
Yeah, nothing really cut Well, that's a lie. I was interested when I thought it was a matrix entry that had nothing to do with Neo and Morpheus and Trinity. But then it's not.
So yeah, now your mileage may vary. I recommend you check out the trailer for levels to decide whether or not it appeals to you, because just because it didn't stir our cups of tea or coffee or whatever doesn't mean that it won't give yours a word. So check it out.
That is that is some bold imagery you have. You have laid down, Jonathan.
I have a cup of tea right here.
Next, we're going to talk about a video game. We don't often do that, but we're in it today because Secret Door, which is someone who came from Blizzard, has released a look at a new game called sunder Folk, which is like D and D or gloom Haven, but you can play with your friends on your phone, and that looks pretty cool to me.
Yeah, it looks like it's kind of like almost a turn based strategy game where each player is controlling a character, up to four playing at a time, going through and competing, you know, combating against enemies and using whatever spoils of war you get to upgrade your town back home, it looks pretty rudimentary for you know. They talk about how they were inspired by tabletop games and the camaraderie you get when you play cooperatively with other people at the same space, and I do find that really appealing, like that's why I like tabletop games. But at the same time, this maybe there's more to it, but it just looks to me like a pretty pretty straightforward combat strategy tactics game. And if you only have control over one character a tactic strategy game and you're paired with a bunch of dufices, that's going to be a very frustrating gameplaying experience where you're like, no, I need you to flank, flank, for the good sake, just flank.
I do understand that I know a bunch of my friends like gloom Haven, and I think to be able to play that in like on one screen and on phones instead of on different laptops via all a land Party, Land Party would be fun. I do think that the character design is really cute.
Yeah, you just want to be a giant polar bear that can wreck shop.
I do want to be a Barbarian born. I don't know if that is actually the class of the polar.
Bear, but.
Bigger the new I like the new too, and the back.
The character design does look cute. I think maybe I just need to wait for more information about this game before I make a judgment. I mean, I also don't have a lot of time to play games, so I'm the guy who plays, like who buys a title and plays it forever and then maybe eventually buys another game title sometime down the road. I just went back to playing Dave the Diver. I haven't touched that game in a year, and I started playing that again, started over from scratch, like not continuing my game because there's DLC, but it had been so long since I had played I'm like, I don't remember any of this. I'm going to start over. So I've done that. And meanwhile, all these incredible games keep coming out that I just haven't touched.
I still haven't even played a balder Skate. I need ad I.
Need to finish that. Oh my gosh, oh I should have finished it by now. It's a great it's a great game.
It's a game. So there's no shuta it's.
Just well, yeah, but like it's it. There is part of me that wants to know the conclusion of that story. Like I have actually managed to go without looking at any videos or reading any articles or anything about how that story evolves over time. And I'm in the middle of like Act two, So it took forever for me, Like I think. I think I was on my third attempt of playing the game where I finally got through Act one. Part of that was just that I kept picking classes that I thought would be interesting, and then I would hit a point where I'm like, Okay, the power level of my enemies is so high and my character is not optimized for a combat that I'm getting my butt handed to me. So that's when I decided I couldn't play a Bard anymore.
Yeah, yeah, I remember you talking about that. Well, I am sorry. I gave added another thing accidentally to your list of stuff to do.
Yeah, it's fine, I'll get to it after New Girl.
After New Girl, and maybe after Nautilus. Actually, I don't know. I don't know your opinion on this shiny new edition that was at Disney Plus and is now on coming to Amazon.
Yeah, it's inspired by the works of Jules Verne, and it is following your typical story about the Nautilus, as in the submarine that's in twenty thousand leagues under the sea and Captain Nemo, who is the leader in this case of some it looks like some people revolting from their kind of occupied territory. So it's a story about about acting out against authoritarian forces and kind of like asserting your freedom and kind of piracy on the high seas using a submersible. It looks kind of.
Neat, it does. It gives me very like Indiana Jones vibes, or like a high quality sci fi show.
Yeah, it makes me think of like what if Like I don't think it looks as Quippi, It doesn't look as quippy, but it makes me think of what if firefly but under the ocean.
Yeah, yeah, I think it looks good. It does look when I said it looks shiny. It's there's this quality that things like Stargate have, and certain sci fi shows or Amazon shows where it's set in a time period and all the people look too Hollywood pretty, or all of the effects look too Hollywood pretty, or they sound too like, they sound too modern, and it slightly there's a dissonance in my brain.
Yeah, it takes you out of it.
Yeah, and like all of these actors seem perfectly fine and to fit into the setting just fine. Aesthetically, it's beautiful, but it does have that slightly Hollywood vibe to me. But that could be because it was originally being developed for Disney, similar to the way, uh, Willow kind of had this modern but Willow purposely had a modern vibe to.
It, so I wouldn't know.
I never watched it, and now I can't. You didn't watch it, no, I.
Just assumed it was always going to be there.
Oh man, well maybe maybe maybe it will come back out at some point and you'll be about.
That'd be nice, like I find it. It's it's it's so infuriating to think we live at an age where we are simultaneously capable of accessing more media than we ever have in the history of mankind, and at the same time, we're producing more ephemeral series that just disappear after whatever platform decides to stop carrying them.
This is why I still have DVDs and Blu rays more Blu rays now, like I have a good mix because like, yeah, there are some things that I want to own, because there are days where I'm like, I really want to watch this and now I can't. Yeah, I don't know if I don't know if Nautilus will be one of those, but I hope so. You know, actually, more than like a shiny sci fi series, it kind of reminds me of like The Mummy or Brendan Fraser's Journey to the Center of the Earth or something like that.
Yeah, I can see that. It looks like it's sort of a like not quite big budget, somewhere in the mid budget range where it's definitely it doesn't look cheap, but it also, like you said, it has kind of an artificial quality to it that it could easily pull you out if you're not you know, if you if you pay him enough attention to it, if you're able to switch your brain off and watch it, I'm sure that it wouldn't be as big an issue other than to think, like, gosh, I wish I too lived in this time where everybody was hot.
I mean, we do live in a time where everybody's That's not true, No, everybody's hot to somebody.
I struggle. I have a lot of bad hair days.
I will be watching it when it comes out. It comes out October twenty fifth. I don't know if I will watch it that soon. This month is kind of crazy, but I am definitely going to give it a try.
Well, are you going to give the fifth, and I think final season of Lower Decks a try?
I have to go back and give the first four seasons a try again.
First, I did watch Lower Decks, though, didn't you.
I watched like half of the first season. It was a few years ago, and I mainly streamlined it while I was building a dress for a for a show at dragon Con that I was in, So admittedly I was a little distracted and the first episode didn't super drive with me. But I've been told that I should give it a second try, and so I will.
Yeah. This is this is the animated series uh and set in the Star Trek universe. But is is overtly a comedy.
Yeah? Yeah, And this trailer has a lot more of that, and it has some Voyager tie ins at the end of the trailer which are delightful. I don't want to spoil it if you haven't watched the trail.
They might have also had an enterprise reference. If I'm not mistaken. I believe so, because there was a bit where I think they referenced the Vulcan woman in enterprise because of the tendency that the showrunners had of making her strip down to her underwear to go through the the whatever process it was whenever they had to leave or come back to the ship.
Yeah. Yeah, so they're pulling out all of the referential stops. It looks I mean, it looks, it's cute, it looks lower DEXI. I can see objectively how how it could be a really impressive final season. I don't know firsthand, because I have to go back and watch the series.
Well, next up, we got a trailer for a series that's based off a story that's been told several times before the Day of the Jackal. Like I said, there are film versions of the Day of the Jackal, but the story is about an assassin who is known as the Jackal, and the series is going to kind of feature a law enforcement agent who has a particular desire to see the Jackal brought to justice and pursuing him. And yeah, so the trailer kind of sets all that up, where we get a little bit of Mission Impossible esque, like weird Mask stuff and sniper action. What did you think of the trailer?
I originally, well, I didn't know it was based off a book. I've never read the book. And it looked good. I mean it good, look good. It looks like a spy, like if James Bond weren't a good guy, kind of a good guy. But then I was like, how is this geeky? But then I figured out how because Eddie Redmain is in it, who has done many geeky things, and Lashawna Lynch isn't it and she was one of the superheroes in the Marvels.
Well, and just that again, like this is one of those where if you're a fan of cinema, you may have seen like the film adaptation of the Day of the Jackal, and it's one of those things that kind of jumped out at me as something potentially interested interesting to film geeks. Although that's a tricky right, because if you're a big fan of something, it's rare that you're jonesing for a remake.
Yeah. Well, and I think that's very valid, and that's very true. I just hadn't been aware that it was a remake of something. But it does look good. I like action I like mystery, I like intrigue. So it looks it looks very well done. It looks like it would be an enjoyable watch.
Yeah, I think it looks like I might give the first episode a try, just to see. I'm not the biggest fan of Redmain, but I mean, I mean, I'll be glad to at least give the episode a shot.
I understand, I understand. We also got a first look from Iwana too, and I'm gonna I'm gonna say here that watching the essentially a trailer, right.
Yeah, it wasn't like it was one continuous sequence.
Yeah, it looked a lot like the previous trailer or teaser that they had dropped. For the first half of it, I'm like, I've already seen this, and it wasn't until the second half that they started introducing some new elements.
Yeah. I felt the same way because I was like, oh, it's titled first Look, maybe this will be like a complete scene from the upcoming film, But no, it's not. It is like a compilation of different things, like a trailer. It made me think a couple things. The first was that all children in Disney films sound like they have the same voice, like Moana's little sister. When Mohana's little sister talks, I'm like, that sounds like one of the little kids from in Conto, right, Like, I'm just like, I get that, it's not it cannot be the same person. I understand that because these things must have been recorded ages apart.
But it sounds just like the adults. I mean, if you look at she's one of them. But also shoot, Laura Bailey, Laura, I mean Laura Bailey, e g. Daily, Nancy Cartwright. They're all adults who play kids professionally.
Yeah, but this time, Like every now and then, you'll hear one and you're thinking, Okay, well that's not an adult doing a kid's voice. That's a kid like you can sort of hear it in the voice, unless they're doing some like pitch altering in post, which is always a possibility. Anyway, that was the first thing I thought. I also think, like all the trailers so far seem to be fairly limited on how much Maui they're showing, which makes me wonder how much Maui shows up in the film. I would not actually be upset for Maui to not be in it all the way through. I think the character works best as kind of an exclamation point. But yeah, I'm I think it looks good. It's kind of like Frozen. I never really felt the need for there to be a sequel. I felt that the original story kind of is a perfect encapsulation of a tail. There's no need to extend the narrative. But it doesn't look bad.
Yeah, I agree on all of those points. I don't think it's necessary, but it looks fine. It looks like maybe one of the better sequels. It's maybe more interesting to me than Frozen two, which I also haven't seen, but Frozen didn't super appeal to me either.
Yeah, you don't need to see Frozen two, then, Like I have seen Frozen two, and I think I might like Frozen a little more than you do. It's still not like I don't feel the need to ever watch it again, but I did not like Frozen two.
Yeah, and after my long tirade about adults who play kids, it is absolute not an adult playing Moana's little sister. It's a young a young girl whose name is Khalisi Lambert Suda so Kalisi it's her first name.
Yeah, ah, okay, no comment, all right?
Adorable adorable little girl.
I'm sure the girl is absolutely adorable. Uh yeah, so Trayler looks fine. What did we need a sequel to mo Wana? Probably not? Did Disney need a sequel to mo Wana? Probably you're not.
You're well, yeah, maybe.
I mean Disney. Disney's had kind of a imperfect track record when it comes to straying from their established ips. In recent years, They've got some good ones, like Incanto was great. I still think Turning Red was fantastic.
I thought it was delightful, you.
Know, and I understand that. Yeah, there is that fear that if you if you invest in creating all news stories and you're not relying on existing IP, you're not guaranteed to find an audience, although I think the more recent examples of that being a big thing largely also fall in a failure to market the film properly.
Yeah. Well they did market like they came out with Wish, right, and that was marketed well and technically new, but it was just pulling a character from other stuff essentially.
Well and a lot Yeah, and that one had pretty mid word of mouth, right, Like, no one, I don't think anyone said, oh this is terrible, but a lot of people said it's nothing special, and that kind of killed the momentum. I still haven't. I still haven't seen it.
I had a few people who I know who thought it was a bit contrived, so you know, but then again, they even in that they didn't completely divest themselves from previous ip it was.
Yeah, it's true, it's it was. It was sort of like, hey, let's dip our toe and act like we're going to make a cartoon version of Once upon a Time? Yeah, once And they didn't, but they aren't.
Isn't Ilio? Isn't that a Disney movie? And that's out?
That sounds familiar? Is it? I'd have to I'd have to look it up. Are you looking it up now?
Ellio? Yeah? Elliot is a Disney film that is about the boy who uh like his mom is in the space program or something and you three Aliens or something.
We saw like a we saw like a teaser teaser thing about this like ages ago, right.
Yeah, yeah, and it's not coming out till June thirteenth, twenty twenty five.
Okay, Yeah, that's why I barely remember it. I remember. I do remember that we covered this and talked about it. Briefly, but I have no other recollection. I remember when I I want to say that my reaction of seeing it was that I would need to see more before I would really be sold on it.
Yeah, and for all we know that it doesn't look like it from the teaser, the trailer they came out with, but it could just be all of the aliens from Lelo and Stitch for all we know.
So well, we have one. We have one last story, which is dumb.
It is dumb. So you know how Nintendo was like, hey, look out for the cool new thing we're doing.
It's not the hardware, new hardware.
New hardware we're doing. Unless they are playing a terrible, horrible joke, it is not that cool. It is an alarm clock that I would break out a frustrate in less than one day.
It's supposed to be reminiscent of your classic wind up alarm clock, the little round one that you would wind up and have a little alarm bells on top and a clacker that would go back and forth when the alarm goes off. Except this one is Wi Fi enabled, so it's got a digital clock face. It's not actually an analog clock the way your classic alarm clock is and instead of ringing a bell at a really loud and obnoxious volume, it plays music and sound effects from various Nintendo games in an effort to get your butt out of bed.
And it's got like a calm mode and an aggressive mode. The aggressive mode gets louder and more intense as time goes on. But it does such things as like you're laying in bed and you roll over, and with your body movements it will make coin ding noises from like Mario Brothers games.
So every movement, congratulations, you've got bonus points by moving in bed.
Yeah, or platoon splats which sound very similar to gunshots and I don't want to wake me up at all.
Yeah. You can wave at the at the clock in order to snooze it. Getting out of bed turns the alarm off, and you can have an alarm clock, just an alarm clock. It doesn't do anything else but be an alarm clock and play some Nintendo noises for the low low price of one hundred dollars.
Cheez Louise.
Yeah, like Ariel, when was the last time you needed an alarm clock?
I actually got one a year or two ago for Christmas, but that's because sometimes I like to be woken up to the radio, and I don't like using my phone for that because I like having my phone on silent because I get so many freaking messages.
Yeah that see, Yeah, that's totally understandable. Yeah, you don't want to get notifications in the middle of the night, waking you up all at all hours. Like my phone, after a certain amount of time goes into sleep mode, like after like I think it's ten thirty or eleven, No, it's eleven thirty. At eleven thirty, my phone goes into sleep mode and it stays that way until seven am unless I specifically turn it on to wake it up. But I can set an alarm before seven am and it'll play the alarm. It'll just suppress everything else. So for me, I'm like, I don't. I can't think of a time where I would need a digital Now, granted, if I were a kid and I didn't have a phone, which, by the way, I strongly feel that kids shouldn't, but whatever, I don't have kids, so who am I to say. I just feel weird about kids having phones. But maybe it's because I was old and I didn't get my own phone. Until I was like twenty. Anyway, I had a.
Phone as a teenager, but it was a Nokia brick you know.
Yeah, I cell phones weren't really a thing until I was in college, and I couldn't afford one at that point, so it wasn't until I was out of college until I got one. But yeah, the I can see a kid needing to have a digital alarm clock, but I'm like, are you going to spend one hundred bucks for a now clock for your kid?
I did not spend one hundred bucks on my alarm clock at all. Well, I didn't spend anything. It was a Christmas gift. But mine also has a light because I because of my sleep paralysis that I sometimes get, I don't like falling asleep in the dark. If I hear a noise, I like having a little bit of light until like there's somebody else in the room with me. My jerk cats don't always stay in the room with me, and sometimes they're the one causing the noises and they freak me out.
I about to say, like, like, there are gonna be times where you definitely don't want someone in the room with you, because if you went in by yourself, and now there's someone in there that's a problem.
Yeah, but it has a light that I can adjust the color and the brightness. And that also keeps me from like turning on the TV for uh, because for a while I was turning on the TV like on a black screen on like Amazon with some wave noises. But you know, looking at a TV before bed is not the smartest. So now I turn on my alarm clock light that goes off after a certain amount of time, and a sound machine, and it's much better.
Did friend, did friend of the show Shaye Lee inflict upon you her nighttime ritual of playing YouTube videos on her laptop while you were because you roomed with her?
Yeah, oh well she was doing that. She was finishing up a show and also writing for the podcast. So yeah, eventually, like I left the light on for her for a while, and eventually I had to be like, Okay, I'm turning the light off. You can still watch whatever you want, but I'm turning the light off.
Yeah. Yeah, I love shaye Ley to death, but her sleep habits are a little wild to me.
Yeah, I'm so distracted because there's a creepy jumping spider somewhere in here.
With me.
I have also spent we have spent a lot of money in our household on a daylight alarm clock. But that's because it slowly gets brighter for like people with seasonal effective disorder, it slowly gets brighter to imitate sunlight. If you have to get up before the sun is fully up so that you have a better wake up experience. That's not for me, but we have one in my house. Sometimes they use it.
Okay, Well, apparently some people still have use for digital clocks. The rest of us have entered into the twenty first century and we have other technology that does have for us.
So tell you that simulate sunlight for you.
Actually, my phone does have that mot method too.
Nice. I don't know if mine does, but it probably this clock is pretty bad or my phone would not be able to produce the same kind of light.
Yeah. Well no, it wouldn't be bright enough for that. I wouldn't want that setting anyway. I wake up before anyone else does in my house, so including my dog. All right, Well, I think that's it. I think that's all the trailers, that is it.
Yeah, So if you have anything to talk about about any of these things that we talked about and you want to tell us about it, to talk about it to us. I'm good at words, now, Jonathan, how do people talk to tell us to do?
So, You're gonna set your alarm clock, not your phone, but your alarm clock for seven fifteen in the morning, and when the alarm goes off, you're gonna snooze it twice. And after the second time, you're gonna turn it off. You're gonna get up, you're gonna do your morning routine, and then you're going to go outside and you're going to just take a moment to enjoy the cool morning air. And then you're gonna take a little stroll down the road, just down the road a little bit until you're at a safe distance from your home and everybody else. And then, like your life depended on it, I want you to scrunch your eyes up tight and to clench your hands into fists, and really with all the force you can manage, I'm gonna need you to voop your hurting. And if you do that, I'll show up and I'll answer your question.
And if those noises are outside of your scope of capability, you can reach out to us on social media on Facebook and threads and Instagram were Large nurdra and Collider. I guess on Twitter where llnc underscore podcast, although I'm considering dropping that. We don't anyhow, That'll be an announcement for a future time if it happens. Can also reach out to us via email or on discord Our discord is large Nurgark Collider. You can find that invite on our web page www dot at large nurdrunk collider dot com, and you can reach out to us via email as I said before, at large nerdrum Pod at gmail dot com. Thank you all so much for listening. If you're in Quorta, we hope you're safe from the storms. If you're anywhere else, we also hope that you're safe in having a lovely fall. And until next time, I am Aria Aeriel purv cast.
In, and I am Jonathan. I'm a simulation Stricklin.
Are you really?
I don't even know anymore. The Large nerdron Collider was created by Aeriel Caston and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted, published again. Curse That by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin McLeod of in comptech dot com
