Welcome to 2025, y'all! Ariel and Jonathan talk about what they got up to during the holidays, the movies and shows they've been watching, how excited they are for the new Superman movie, and much more!
Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Large Nurdron 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. And Happy twenty twenty five. I'm Ariel Caston, and with me, as always is the super crazy, awesome Jonathan Strickland. Happy New Year, Happy New Year.
Yeah, I don't have a question for you, like I forgot to put one together for you this time. I've already. It's because it's been so long since we recorded, like all the holidays hit and we were on hiatus because we were all traveling and seeing family or hiding from family, whatever it may be. So I just totally I dropped the ball.
Oh that's a that's okay, it's thematic for the New Year. Dropping balls, that's true.
Oh yeah, balls like crazy Areel. I've been dropping balls left and right. But that's because I'm a juggler, you know. I don't want you all to think Also, I like tea bagging people and halo.
Oh no, that's horrible. That should be your New Yares's resolution to not do that.
I thought my New's resolution is clearly to get an explicit tag on this podcast, We're still I'm still dancing around it. I'm not nearly as explicit as even the most mildly explicit show. How were your holidays, Ariel, We haven't really like talked very much.
We haven't. They were pretty good. Traveled to visit family, and then we came home and we did our own personal Christmas on New Year's Day, so Christmas Eve was also New Year's Eve, so that was fun. Baked a lot of cookies. I found out that a short film that I'll be doing will be uh screening at the Cobb International Festival Indie Night this year, so it's cool. Yeah, so because I just thought it, like, I knew it was screening, but I didn't know it was a part of that series. So that's really cool. I probably will still not like watching myself in it, but that is no comment on the quality of this of the filmmaking, just on my meritical opinion of myself.
It's the same as if, like I mean, I'm sure our listeners out there have all had the experience of listening to themselves on a recording and thinking, oh I don't want to hear this. It's the same sort of thing, but magnified a billion times when it's on a giant screen and you're also in a room full of people you don't know watching it as well.
Yeah yeah, So other than that, you know good, I'm already like I'm I don't know if you do this or if any of our listeners do this, but I like, I have to be productive and I will overschedule myself, so I'm trying to find a way to get all the things done in a healthier manner without scheduling down to the minute every day and having too much to do.
Still yeah yeah, because then like you'll feel crappy because either you've exhausted yourself because you've worked every single second of the day, or more likely, you weren't able to get to everything because stuff sometimes takes longer than you think it will, and then you feel like you haven't accomplished anything because something on your list didn't get checked off. At least that's how it is for me. Like, I'm also, however, the type of person who, when I think we've talked about this before, when I make a checklist, the first thing I put on there is make a checklist, so I immediately have something I can check off.
That's pretty awesome. That is pretty awesome. How are your holidays?
They were all right. You know. We had some time with my family this year and that was nice. We got to meet sort of from a distance. My parents have a new doggie. But the doggie clearly came from a really abusive situation and was actually scheduled to be euthanized, and my parents adopted her like hours before she was to be euthanized. And she she's a pity mix, but she's so timid, and she doesn't want to come near anyone, and you know, you don't want to make eye contact because it'll intimidate her. So it's gonna take some time for her to come out of her shell. But she looks like a very sweet dog. It's just gonna take a lot of patience to get her to a point where she's comfortable. So I hope that she's able to reach that point without it taking too long, because she looks she looks like she really deserves like the good life.
So I would say she's got a couple of really wonderful people looking after her, so I'm sure it won't.
Take too that's true. Mom and Dad are the best and we ended up almost all the gifts we gave my parents were actually for the dogs. They gave him, like a huge fluffy dog bed for their new dog. Her name is Gracie. She's very cute.
So your parents, Sorry, I keep derailing you, but do your parents have that thing where they're like, we have enough stuff, we don't want more stuff.
Because I think everyone in my family has reached that point. I think everybody like and yet we every year we end up getting stuff, Like even the people who have are in the exact same situation continue to give us stuff. But part of that, my mom explained was that she turned to retail therapy to kind of deal with anxiety issues toward the end of the year for reasons I won't go into, but I'm sure you can imagine. So anyway, Yeah, so we ended up with lots of little things. Did you get anything particularly geeky as a president this year? I don't mean to put you on the spot. I should have asked you this beforehand.
It's totally fine. I got a Lego reef for my birthday, which is right before Christmas, so it counts. And I got an airbrush kit for baking. That's kay. It's art.
Yeah, yeah, no, that's really cool though, Like I have yet to have any of your baked goods. One of these days I've got to fix that.
Because do you like peanut butter cookies?
I love peanut butter. They're actually my favorite kind of cookie.
Because I made peanut butter cookies with like a peanut butter ganash and then a homemade strawberry jam in them. Ye rush, So it's like they they taste like a peeb and J Like when they were still warm, it just tasted like a gooey cookie sandwich. But uh yeah, everybody, I gave them too, And this is this is not It sounds like a brag, but it's really not because I was actually a little sad. They're like, you could you could have just not made the rest of your cookies, and I'm like, thanks, well, you know, lesson learned, I guess, but I will make you at some point and get them.
I would love that. Like, yeah, if you're ever like thinking, like what kind of cookies to Chaathan, Like I so basic sugar cookies. I still like. I like chocolate chip cookies. I love peanut butter cookies. Anything that's like key lime or whatever. I dig those two, but just don't don't ever present me an oatmeal cookie, because I will figure that's just your message of saying I don't want to be around you anymore.
Oh that's sad. I love like a soft oatmeal raisin, not so much as a dessert more as like a breakfast.
I just find I find oatmeal raisin deeply and personally offensive because it could have been a chocolate chip.
But my friend brought over yesterday like these spiced, crispy oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them, and they were delicious.
I will say that this was the first year I remember actually liking gingerbread cookies. Like, for the longest time, gingerbread was right up there with oatmeal cookies and that I couldn't be bothered with them. But I kind of developed taste for them this year, so that was fun. Part of it was that my parents had some really incredible gingerbread cookies that actually had some icing or frosting on the top of them, and those were really good. So yeah, and they were still kind of soft, like they weren't those super hard, brittle gingerbread cookies, which are also okay. But because they had a good chew to them. I really liked them a lot.
Nice. Nice. I found out I don't like molasses because yeah, I put it in my gingerbread and it tasted so bitter.
Yeah. Yeah, I imagine molasses is a tricky thing to work with without it getting too bitter because it's got such a like that burnt sugar taste to it, almost kind of like a like kind of like if you make a caramel, but you burn the caramel while you're making it and then it went.
Bad and it fell into some like kerosene.
I got involved with the wrong crowds, started smoking behind.
The schoolather jacket. Yeah, you know the kind, the kind Yeah.
Yeah, Well, I think for me, the geekiest thing I got was actually a gift given to me by Shaye Lee's partner. Friend of the show, Shay Lee, her partner, gave me a Bluetooth beanie. Oh cool. So it's a beanie like a stocking cap that you wear on your head, and it's got headphone speakers built into either side of it, so you can connect it to your phone and use it to listen to podcasts and stuff without having earbuds or headphones on and just have it on the Beanie, and considering that about every third day it's cold here. Yeah, the weather has been somewhat somewhat malleable over the last couple of weeks. We had like a day the other day was almost seventy degree, actually was over seventy and now it's like in the fifties right now, but it.
Was, yeah, and then it's going to get into the thirties for a few days.
Yeah. So having the Beanie as an option is good, and it means that I can still listen to two shows. So that's what I've been doing. But yeah, so let's let's talk about some of the stuff we've watched this last time we recorded, and I'm sure there's more than what I have on here, but I just put in the stuff I could remember. And so one of the things I watched was Nosfarato, which.
Came out and.
There's more than Yes nosfora too. I also nosfa I saw it on a couple of days after Christmas, but I saw it at home because I had a screener for it. Not a brag, but being part of the Writer's Guild of America means occasionally get screeners. Yeah, so I watched it at home. I made me wish I had gone to the theater to see it, because it is very much a theatrical experience. I can't say, I guess I was entertained by it. It's one of those where I'm like, I didn't find it that I found things about it really distracting. So a lot of the acting choices, like the physical acting in particular, were incredibly theatrical and in a way that in a way that didn't say cinematic to me, it said more theater. So it stood out and it distracted me. But then I thought, well, that could be an homage to the silent film original Nosferatu, Like they were kind of doing a throwback to what you would see in the old silent film era when you didn't have sound to enhance the film experience and everything was much more melodramatic. So maybe that was it. But it was combined with a lot of modern filmmaking techniques and effects, and so it just was hard for me to make those cohere in my brain. I know a lot of people loved it. I just found like I found like it was too flavors that never quite mixed for me.
Interesting, Like I heard mixed reviews. I heard that it's very cinematically beautiful, but that it was a little too long. I didn't hear about the very theatrical acting, but I did watch a short like social media interview with Nicholas Holt where he said that Chris Eggers is the director Robert Eggers. Robert Eggers told him not to move his eyebrows so much, which is a habit to do.
Don't be like Denarest Targerian. Yeah, I would recommend it if you're of the right age, because it's definitely an adult movie. I would recommend it for horror fans or fans like Actually, the film I would compare it to for more reasons than one is Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Francis Ford Coppola movie. Because Francis Ford Coppola, he incorporated so many class film effects, like in camera film effects in this movie. I found those really distracting. When I watched that the first time, I was like, I get that you like all these tricks, but you're putting them so close together, like they're happening in such such proximity that I couldn't concentrate on the actual content of the movie. I felt similar to that with Nosferatu, but that may just be my own and no one else in the world may feel the same way, and that's totally fine.
I also, wait, sorry, I have one more question.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Would it be too much for me?
I like Dracula, but there'll be parts where you would want to look away. There'll be parts I will say it's not Shae rated.
Shay.
Shay won't watch anything in which there's a child endangerment or death, and that definitely is a thing insta.
I know there's I know there's some animal grossness and I don't like.
That, but there's a little bit of animal grossness. Yeah, I mean there's one segment that's like just an obvious, Oh, his arms have gone down so they can swap out the live animal he was holding with a fake version of the animal so that he can do something terrible to it when he raises his arms back. But it's clearly fake. Like I was like, it's so like it's I wasn't even thinking about the movie at that point. I was thinking about the filmmaking at that point, so it was kind of crazy. I also finished What We Do in the Shadows. I watched the last season of that really enjoyed. It felt that the last episode was very fan servicing, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I actually really liked the ending, even though I recognized as being total fan service. And I've just started watching Squid Game two. I'm into episode four, and I got say, I think it's more tense than the first season.
I think they were going to give it a happier ending.
Oooh boy. Okay, So there's arguably little tiny bits of humor in maybe the first three episodes, but not much. It's pretty grim and dark, and then out of nowhere an episode four, there's kind of a zany, wacky moment that like complete with wacky music in the background, And as I was watching it unfold, I was thinking, this doesn't fit like you've been You've been hummeling me for three episodes with how dark this world is, and then like to have this little comedy bit, complete with comedy music in the background, just feels totally out of place. But I don't know, again, maybe that's just me.
I only watched like the first few episodes of the first season because, like you said, it's really bleak. But I did see that the main character comes back to the second season because of trailers. So my assumption is if it's not getting happier each season, that the main character is becoming dexter, because if you keep going back to this game where you know everybody else is gonna die, then you're basically becoming a serial killer.
Essentially, this isn't really a spoiler. Essentially, his decision is merited in he wants to actually find who is who is perpetuating these games and to stop that person and to try and hopefully stop people from getting killed, like to try and convince people, hey, you're being manipulated. This is all being done for their entertainment. This is not being done for your welfare, Like that's not a part of it at all. That your suffering is their entertainment and your participation in this enables them to do it, and that it makes way more sense to walk away than to play the games. But of course, when you have all these people who are in desperate situations and they're being promised a chance to pay off the debts that they owe, it's hard for them to just walk away. So I think it kind of becomes like it reminds me a little bit of the Matrix film, specifically the second Matrix film, where it becomes like it's a philosophical argument being had by by two different points of view. So you've got the winner of the first season where he's essentially saying this is wrong. People are better than what you give them credit for. They're not trash or animals. You can't just dismiss them, you know. The other side it's like, hey, they made a choice. They chose to be here. We didn't force them to be here. We just gave them a choice. And the guy's like, no, you're not really giving them a choice. You're promising them something that they that you know, more than ninety nine percent of them cannot achieve by the way the games are constructed. So it's kind of like that, and I think I think it's also going to be based on what I've seen, it will play out where one of the guys who's running the games is purposefully trying to break that character and to make him admit that you know, he's wrong, and that that the games are totally fine because they're just giving people a choice. And that's the impression I get. We'll see if that's how it plays out as it continues on. I will say like I've enjoyed it other than like it does highlight major differences in performance styles between like South Korea and the Western world. But the first season did that too.
Yeah. Yeah, especially if you, because we watched it not with subtitles but with vo dubbing dubbing, So especially then because even even in the voice acting that goes over it, it tends to have a bit more of a melodramatic tinge to it.
That's one about you.
I did not watched Good Games. I actually almost did. I watched the final season of what If, and it is my favorite season of what If. I loved it pretty much from beginning to end. I thought that all of the episodes were super strong. They just had it feels like they just had fun with it, which I love. And I want you to catch up on what If so you can watch season three because there is you know, it's an anthology series, but there is also a through line because it's following that main watcher guy. And I know you like what If, so I think you would really love the ending of it.
Yeah. I definitely need to catch it because it was one of those things where I was like, I enjoyed the first season, and I agree, Like even in the first season you started to see a tiny bit of a narrative through line. Yeah, but yeah, I I just gotta get I just got to get to it.
They're like like every episode you're gonna be like, oh I love this, because I was like, oh I love this, Jonathan would love this.
I promise I'll have this one scooch ahead of New Girl for a while.
Okay, that's fine. If you've you've given it a chance, and if you don't like it, you could drop it.
Yeah I haven't. I haven't watched very many episodes of a New Girl, maybe like seven or eight.
So yeah, it's not like Lost where you have to get to ten.
Starts getting good.
Yeah, like when the others show up. I've scarred a few friends that way. No, Like, the relationships definitely do develop and get better over time, and the characters become likable and there's inside jokes and it becomes very wonderful, but you know, there is that growing pain at the beginning.
Yeah.
I've watched half of Secret Level and another anthology series, This one's on Amazon Prime. We talked about it a little bit where it's original stories within the Cannon in the world of different video games.
Oh right, yeah, I remember now, well they have different different kind of in some cases reimaginings of certain video game characters.
Yeah, yeah, so all the stories take place within those video game worlds, but there are original stories. The first couple were great. So there was a Dungeons and Dragons the Queen's Cradle, which is not a game I've heard of, but it was a lovely story. There was Seafu after that, which was delightful. There was Lost Worlds, which I wasn't familiar with, and it was a great story, but it suffered a little bit from The main character was voiced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and while I don't really have a problem with the guy, he's not the best voice actor got like, so the voice in the face didn't always quite match up for me. And albeit I'm sure people like you and I might be a little bit more critical about stuff like that, Ben everyone. And then it was a whole bunch of fighting games. Unreal Tournament was actually brilliant. I've never played it, but it was a really good, like really good Robot Ai kind of as Mavian type story, but like crossfire, and there were a cup and the war hammer, and there was one other one that I'm like, these are just all fighty fighty armored Corps armored cores. Was okay, pac Man darkest of all the episodes so.
Far, well, I mean they're ghosts, has to be.
Yeah, it's it's a very like, very reimagining of pac Man. Uh spoiler? Do you want me to tell you, Jonathan.
No, I'm gonna watch this. I'm gonna I am okay, I am so intrigued by the dark pac Man.
It is the darkest gooriout episode of the entire first season. They've already had a second season planned. I saw it on IMDb, and shortly after that pac Man episode came out, they announced a new pac Man game. So if you don't want a spoiler, don't look at that new pac Man game. Okay, but overall fun, The episodes are really short. They're between like seven and seventeen minutes each, maybe a couple dum dip into the twenties, but it's really kind of a way for them to a proof of concept stories within these universes for bigger projects. I'm fine with that. It's a good way if we're like, ah, we've got like twenty minutes until we have to go. You want to watch something short because we don't want to start anything else. It's great for that. I watched all of the rest of the time quangles on dropout, which are where the Dimension twenty main cast on tour would roll a bingo cage and get a random character that they've played, and they'd insert it into a random setting that they've played in, and that would be the story. They get better as they go.
Along, so you would end up having like characters who never would interact with another under normal circumstances because they exist in different worlds and different campaigns. Now they're being kind of paired together by the players who have played those in those various campaigns.
Yeah, and sometimes even different slightly different because they adjust the rules systems for the different settings and games and things like that. So like Starstruck Odyssey had a very different rule setting than let's say, Fantasy High, which was you know, Roll twenty. So it's a lot of fun. They were able to make all of the rules work together seamlessly. The first episode. I could tell why it was the first episode because it wasn't that great but the rest were a lot of fun. And then we watched one of Tony's friends, longtime school friends we met up with while we were a visiting family, and they recommended Jury Duty to us, which is a show that came out last year and it's pitched as a documentary about jury duty, and everybody in it is an actor except for one guy who doesn't know that the trial is not real and everybody is an actor.
Yeah, and he's one of the jurors, right.
Yeah, he's one of the jurors. He's never done anything in in entertainment, quite literally. I looked into it and like, I really liked it because they did not make him the butt of the joke. All of the other characters are the butt of the joke. And they also really kept his This is like a tiny bit of a spoiler because they go into the how they did it in the final episode and then some bonus episodes they release released. But they really put his mental health and well being as a priority while making the show, so if they did something that seemed to really upset him, they had backup plans of like, well, this character did this kind of crappy thing and it looks like it actually really affected him, So now we'll do this to make it better to cheer him up, because they wanted to make sure that he wasn't the butt of the joke and that he wasn't.
Being traumatized for entertainment purposes.
Being traumatized for entertainment persons and purposes. And it turned out he was a really nice guy. Yeah, Like some of it might have been because there were documentary cameras, but there's a lot that he did that he didn't need to do that was just kind and upstanding and he was really smart and apparently a little bit ahead of the writers a couple of times.
Wow.
They talked about in the final episode how he was like a court was canceled today because of a COVID scare and it was because they had to rewrite some stuff because he got ahead of the ahead of the plot and they needed to rehearse it. Yeah.
I mean that's always That's always fascinated to me from a creative standpoint, Like on the other side of it, where whenever you're trying to make something that's a structure for people to play within, where it's not, you know, not everyone is scripted, right like in this case, he's not scripted. Everybody else might have some general rules they're following or whatever, like an outline and kind of guide rails, but he doesn't, and so you can only plan for so much. And it's kind of like if you are a game master of a role playing game and you know the people playing characters are invariably going to come up with something you did not anticipate, and sometimes that happens every single play session. Sometimes it only happens maybe once or twice, but it always it can have a significant impact to the game, at least if you're a really good game master and you roll with it and you don't force them to not do it right, like, no, you can't do that. I'm not gonna let you because it ruins my story.
So there, it was definitely that, and there was definitely a lot of improv However, a lot of it was scripted. There were a lot of like scripted moments of this needs to happen, and because a lot of it was happening between other characters, they could and then you know, obviously the James Mars didn't place himself and he plays kind of a heel. He plays like a Dwight character, and he is the excuse for them to all have to get sequestered for this really dumb trial because normally this kind of trial wouldn't get sequestered because.
But because they have a celebrity on the jury, they have to.
Yeah, but well, because he's done some crap because he's a celebrity and he doesn't want to serve on jury duty. He's really like the Michael Scott Dwight of the entire situation. Okay, but I would not like it's good they got someone who wasn't an actor because watching it, I'm like, oh, I know these actors. I know Kirk Fox and Ross Kimball and Lisa Gilroy and Aaron Barnhol Alan Barron Holds and like Susan Berger. A lot of these actors I've seen in other things. Yeah, so, uh so it was it was really interesting because I'm like, how does he not recognize more of these people? But I guess because they're that guy that was in that thing as opposed to big name celebrities. But it was really good. I really liked it. I found it by the end, I found some of it like, really, how how can he not guess by this? But it's such a weird situation.
Yeah, like why would you suspect it? I mean maybe with the fact that James Marsden is part of it, that might give you some pause into thinking that maybe this is somewhat artificial. But other than that, it would be really hard.
Yeah. But like but to the extreme that everybody was an actor. Yeah, you figure if they go somewhere, you'd be it would just be the people in that place, but no, they're all extras.
So yeah, which how wild, Like, and it's also wild that it turned out well, right, because there's no guarantee that what you're going to end up with is going to be entertaining or usable. So that's like lightning in a bottle right there.
It really was. And it's a short watch. The episodes are like thirty minutes a pop, maybe a little under, and it's a it's a short series. And I've had people compare it to like Joe Ordinary or Joshimo or whatever that reality show was. Yeah, but Joe Shmo, the the person who's not in on the joke, starts off as the butt of the joke and then they switch it on later in switch yeah up later in.
I think I think figuring out like, hey, maybe we don't make the one person who's not in on this to feel like they're the constant victim or target of humor is the right way to go, because like, how unfair is that? I mean, it's just you'd be like it would be like, oh, thank you, I'm glad I got Truman showed.
Yeah. And then he did get paid more than the twenty five dollars a day you get for jury duty.
Well that's that's good to hear, because otherwise, if he had been paid just as much as it paid for jury duty, that wol First of all, it would have been funny but also upsetting.
Yeah, but you want it to be a good experience. So obviously he was like, what the heck. But at the same time, they're like, look, we brought you in to do this, but what we didn't know was how kind you were and how you treated these other peoples. And they brought up examples and they're like, you're you're kind of like an everyday hero, and we award you as as a jury because you've been on trial too. Essentially all of this money, so that's nice. It's not like millions of dollars, but it's it's good, it's a good amount of money.
Well, that's awesome. I'll have to maybe I'll check it out like this sort that sort of thing. Uh, it's really it could go one of two ways for me. Either I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm vibing with this, or I'm just like, oh, I'm feeling so much secondhand anxiety for the person who is unknowingly in this situation. I'm feeling so much empathy toward them, even though I know it turns out well, and even though i know they're not going to make him low bad, it's just that that feeling. It's it's the same way I feel, honestly at this point, Ariel, it's hard for me to go see any live performances. It used to be like that was a joy. I would have like if something went wrong, people would roll with it, it would be fine. But now I just want everything to go great for everybody so they can feel really good about themselves. And the higher risk the show, the harder it is for me to sit through. So some more stuff like circ de solat or a magic show or stand up comedy, I'm like physically uncomfortable.
I've been there. I'm not fully there, but I definitely can relate. I'd say, give Jerry duty. You try definitely do what I first.
Okay, that's good to know to do what a first. I think after an hour, Yes, now we can move on to talking very shortly about stuff for thirty seconds or less. Yes, and I think I'm up first.
You are all right?
Here we go. One bit of news that broke while we were on hiatus was that Jared Leto, having recovered from killing a third tier Spider Man spinoff characters chances of having any more cinematic outings, has now been signed to play Skeletor in the live action Masters of the Universe film. I'm curious to see if he turns himself into a skeleton for this part. You know how method actors are. Also, I will not be seeing this.
I want to see it for everybody else though. Okay. Creature Commandos, which is the cartoon suicide squad of the DC universe, has been renewed for a second season. It's people who I know who watch it said they like it pretty well. It's nice because James Gunn says that working on Superman is big and it's stressful, but every time he gets to work on Creature Commandos. It's like Christmas. He wrote the episodes and he gets to go in and work on them. It's nice that it brings him so much joy.
I will point out, however, that Suicide Squad is also the Suicide Squad of DC comics.
All right, ah so fair.
After years of hoping, Jason Momoa is getting his wish. As if being a towering hunk of man meat isn't enough, He'll also be playing the intercalactic bounty hunter Lobo in the upcoming film Supergirl Woman of Tomorrow. Mamoa has long wanted to play this character, and apparently his previous stint as Aquaman didn't disqualify him from consideration in James Gunn's new DC Cinematic universe.
I feel like that's pretty greedy to take both big characters.
Take it up with Chris Evans, the Human Torch in Captain America.
Yeah Yeah, Tom Holland Crazy Neighborhood Spider Man is also apparently a actual neighborhood superhero of sorts, because while visiting the super Ma he broke up a fight. The people were really angry at each other, and when he was like, hey, calm down. They were kind of like, dude, Spider Man's telling us to calm down. We should do that, and it worked. He doesn't really go a lot of like big public places because it does cause a scene. But you know, if you're gonna if you're gonna use here, with great power comes great responsibility.
Yeah, hey, you know what what a gent for actually stepping in, Like he could have just he could have just tried to ignore it and walk away, but no, he stepped forward, and that's just kind of cool.
Also, he's excited about Spider Man four, so that's.
Cool, as are we all. Well, once upon a time there was a can't be horror film called Anaconda that starred folks like j Lo ice Cube, John Boyd and Owen Wilson. And it's bad, but in an entertaining way. Well, we can't let franchises lie dormant for two longs. Now, Anaconda is resurrected as a comedy with a reboot film with Paul Rudd Jack Black attached to star in it. Tom gormickan who held the unbearable weight of massive talent, co wrote the script and has directed it. It's out next Christmas. Twenty twenty five. By the way, Ariel told me that we talked about this as a rumor back in August, but to me, it's new all over again.
Yeah, but now there's like a little teaser video, so it's all it makes sense. Speaking of things getting resurrected, the Mummy is getting resurrected again, this time by Lee Cronin, who directed Evil Dead Rides. He said it's gonna be super scary and unlike any Mummy we've seen before. But I say, unless it's the classic or we get Brendan Frasier, I'm probably not interested because he's making it already sound too scary.
Do you think at the end of the movie he's gonna say that's a rap?
I hope.
So all right, it's the beginning of a new year, which brings the question what works have now entered the public domain? So that's when copyright expires and anyone can make use of things that were formerly copyrighted. So stuff created in nineteen twenty nine is now in the public domain. That includes the classic Silly Symphony's cartoon The Skeleton Dance out of Disney. That also includes William Faulkner's novel The Sound and the Fury and Ernest Hemingway's a Farewell to Arms, as well as the earliest versions of ten ten and Popeye the Sailor Man. Thus we're getting that awful looking Popeye horror movie.
I'm sorry you were talking, and the awful looking pop Eye movie is unfortunate. But the next story popped up an image of Dwayne Johnson's head on a worm body with tiny arms I'm guessing like a spice like the Chosen Worm from June three. But it was very upsetting and distracting, okay.
And also has nothing to do with the story you're about.
The cover, No, absolutely not. My stories about Christopher Nolan and that his next film is The Odyssey, which could be really cool. He's going to do it using Imax film technology. It's a very long story, so I expect much like Oppenheimer, which was Christopher Nolan's last really big hit, this will also be very long. I would love if he teamed up with the team that made Epic, which is the musical about the Odyssey, because I would love to see that put up on its feet.
There is another Odyssey related film that's either out already or is coming out soon, and I cannot remember the name of it, but I do remember. It's specifically about Odysseus's return home, and he comes back home to find that all these these losers are trying to marry his wife in order to get it on Odysseus's kingdom because Odsseus is presumed dead. I want to say that someone like Ray finds is in it, i'd have to. And it's called The Return There we go. So yeah, I know that I had seen a preview for that and thought it looked pretty like it looked more grounded. It's not. It's clearly not like a a mythical sort of take on Odysseus. It's more of a grounded take. So he doesn't, you know, as far as I can tell, there were no like Cyclops or.
Of course it's grounded because he's not on a boat anymore. He's at home.
Yeah, I mean that was kind of the whole point of the Odyssey, right, like good old Homer.
Well, I'm curious, I hope, I said, Ray, it's Ralph?
Is it are a? What's how's it spelled r A L P H. It's it's pronounced Ray. Actually, technically it's pronounced rafe so technically it's Rafe Finds. It's spelled its spelled Ralph but pronounced Rafe, and yes, it makes no sense.
Like, yeah, I didn't anything about it when you said it, because I'm like, yes, that's correct, And then I looked at it and I guess there's just a disconnect between every time I read it and every time I.
Hear it totally. Yeah. No, I mean like when when I first saw his name, I just assumed his name was pronounced Ralph Fines, but then after you know, seeing him speak in interviews and stuff, it's Ray Finds. And again it's because it's because the British are wacky. They like they complain about how we Americans say things, but look at how you spell stuff and then how you say it. Yeah English, I mean.
But also like American actors too, because like Shia Labuff I always thought was shy La Buff or Shilah Buff.
It never really comes across that shy to me.
No, No, he's kind of problematic.
But uh yeah, we'll we'll we'll leave Shia laff there behind it. Shi the Beef is gonna be in our rear view mirror. One thing we wanted to mention or at least I wanted to mention is that we're recording this on J. R. R. Tolkien's birthday, So happy birthday, mister Tolkien. I am assuming you're still dead.
That would be great.
Someone they were still dead agreed, there's a zombie Tolkien walking around. We're all in trouble.
I don't know why I said that. Look, I have been here but not all there this week, got it. One of our listeners shared a meme on our discord saying, if you could have any like if writers wrote fanfic for each other's books, who would you want to write which book? So like, you know Terry Pratchett writing game and stuff or whatever, And I said, I would like either J. R. R. Tolkien to write the Chronicles of Narnia series or vice versa. C. S.
Lewis to write I was thinking of the same thing because they did know each other. Tolkien and Lewis knew each other, but of course Lewis was far more like his works are far more rooted in Christianity, and Tolkien's works were more rooted in Old English and Germanic kind of epic saga structures. So seeing how they would each take the other's world would be interesting. I'm sure that that that the C. S. Lewis version of a Tolkien story would be much more Christian.
And then I think I said something like Dune written by Lemony Snickett or Sandman written by Lemony snick or something like that.
Just because I think for me it would be Dune written by Douglas Adams. No, Douglas Adams, not, There's no, there was never presently Douglas Adams. You had John Adams and John Quincy Adams, you had a statesman named Frederick Douglas. Douglas Adams was the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Yeah, that would be really good.
Yeah, wow, ariel Wow.
Okay, so I also slept in my contacts and they're hurting my eyes and I can't see.
Yeah, and you're wearing glasses now, so I assume you managed to get the contacts out. You're not like, you're not like trying to go from twenty twenty vision to forty forty. Yeah, that's a terrible hut.
Don't admit to it. And then I'm like, yeah, live up to your your thievery. Ever, I don't know, I don't know.
Yeah, well let's let's uh, let's get back on track, shall we talk about some of the stuff. So we have a lineup and we actually divided it into two parts because we had some stuff that's a little older, but we didn't get a chance to talk about it because we were on hiatus during the holidays and we still wanted to, you know, mention it. So one of them was. It was not long after we did our last episode we got the first teaser for the James Gunn Superman film and it's it's a fairly short teaser, but you do get to see a little bit of like Nicholas Holt as Lex Luthor, a very quick shot of Nathan Phillian as Guy Gardner, that kind of stuff, as well as obviously we get Superman, Crypto, the super Dog, and some other stuff too. So what did you think of the teaser?
I really liked it. I know a bunch of people thought Crypto was a little goofy, but I didn't get a goofy tone for the overall movie, and I'm it's the best cgi Dog I've seen today, so.
On for it. Yeah, I think I was one of the people who told you that I thought that Crypto looked kind of goofy as as the owner of a dog. I felt that Crypto looked a little too cartoony for my tastes.
But also our mutual friend Jeremiah, who loves Superman, is really upset by Nathan Fillian's bowl cut as Guy Gardner, which is cannon. Yeah, and I just think make Kim firms that nobody will like him.
Well, Guy Gardner's a jerk, like he's a Yeah, the character is a real jerk face. Is that word? The other words I would use are not they would get us that explicit tag.
You know. I was worried that there was gonna Yeah, I was worried that there's going to be too many characters in it. But if anybody can handle a lot of characters, it's James Gunn And he's proven, has a proven.
Track record, So yeah, Guards of the Galaxy Suicide Squad, he's got he's got the stuff down. Peacemaker. Yeah, so I'm I'm curious to see more. I also really liked the music that they have. They incorporate a little bit of the John Williams theme into the New Superman theme, And you know, while you could argue that you know, leaning on something that's rooted in the late nineteen seventies is kind of a crutch.
I like.
I like that there's that connective tissue for one thing. John Williams score for Superman and is still one of my favorite film scores of all time. I love the main theme for Superman, and I love the Oh. I can't remember what Lex Luthor's Little March is called, but I love the remember but it's cute. I don't expect to hear that that's too. It's far too cartoony to make its way into a modern superhero film, but it was nice to hear, so I was pleased that that got incorporated me too.
I here's the thing. I know a lot of people were burned by the Snyder Verse and the previous attempts at a DC connected universe. I once James Gunn started talking about his opinions of Superman and how and his plans for Superman and how Superman was going to be a beacon of hope and light in a cynical world, and how he took this project, the fact that it has been so stressful for him because he's he's taking taking it so seriously to make sure that he gives Superman the right treatment has made me hopeful from it for it from the get go. Yeah, Like I'm not gonna lie Like it's not that James Gunn like can do no wrong in my eyes, because I certainly don't like all his stuff, But but just that that the responsibility he's he I feel he has taken with this character has has made me feel like it will be a good movie, and I really hope it.
Holds up to that totally. Yeah, I feel the same way. I think, Like you know, I was a little worried because James Gunn I hadn't seen anything that I felt was what I would call truly optimistic from James Gunn And I feel like, ultimately a good Superman story, I mean, unless you're trying to just break the mold or whatever, but a good Superman story, in my mind, needs to be optimistic. But but and it made me worry a little bit about him being a little too quippy, you know, a little too smart assy. But I don't get the sense that that's going to be the case at all. So I am very eager to see one what the Fish film is and two how it's received.
Yeah, also, Hawk girl, and that's awesome, even though yet again another character I would love to play.
Next up, we have a trailer for a felm that again came out while we were on hiatus, Death of a Unicorn, which I thought was kind of a dark comedy horror version of Harry and the Henderson's Yeah It.
I saw this trailer on YouTube and I clicked on it solely because I was like, Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega in a car together, let me see what this is about. It is so weird.
Yeah, I thought at first when I was clicking on it that the title was just going to be, you know, allegorical or metaphorical or something, but no, it's literally about this this I guess father daughter. Is that Paul Rudd is Jenna Ortega's dad? I think so. Well. Anyway, they're in a car together and they hit a creature and discover that they they've hit a unicorn, and they're on their way to this giant family estate and the family feels like they could have stepped out of like knives out right. Like it's one of those very rich, disconnected, spoiled brat type families that are like part of a pharmaceutical company or have a pharmaceutical company under their name. And then they determined that the horn of the unicorn, this is just based on what I see in the trailer, has medicinal properties that are perhaps on the miraculous side. But then they find out that the unicorn's mate and possibly the presumed deceased unicorn itself are out for revenge.
So and they can like shape shift too, yeah, better gain that revenge. And then it's got like this all star cast, in my opinion, all star cast will Porter Poulter, Tayloni, Anthony Kerrigan who I will watch in anything. He's also in the New Superman and I'm super excited about it. Richard D. Grant, Steve Steve Park, Jessica Hines, just like this huge cast in this really goofy a. I guess a twenty.
Four movie maybe. Yeah. I love Richard Y Grant, Like I think Richard Y. Grant is great. He's one of those actors who everything I see him in he choose the scenery like it's not by his business like it's he gets away with stuff that no other actor could because again it's like bigger than what you would typically associate with cinematic acting, but somehow he manages to do it. Like I think of Richard Y Grant as the more unhinged like Dark Universe twin to Hugh Grant.
Yes, yes, which reminds me I need to watch the franchise because he's in that.
Yeah. So looking forward to Death of a Unicorn, I wasn't sure that I would And were you okay with this area because I know that the animal endangerment and stuff is one of your big ix but this is also a fictional critter.
I like, I don't know. I want to be okay with it because I think it's going to be a zany ride, but you know, people delighting in the death of an animal. Look, I'm not a vegetarian, but I I also have a hard time if I step on a bug and I don't kill it all the way on the first try. So I'm a conflict inflicted person and.
I don't know that's fair, that's fair? Maybe, maybe maybe you'll have a better idea when we get closer to when that movie comes out. Next up, we also got while we were on hiatus at trailer for Karate Kid Legends, where we get like Ralph Macchio and I'm sorry Rafe Mantrio and Jackie Chan. That was a joke and Jackie Chan and a movie together.
Got there eventually.
Yeah. But yeah, this this trailer looks good.
Yeah, it does. It is a little weird to me that, like, so, Jackie Chan was in the Last Karate Kid with Jaden Smith, which I also thought was just fine. But it's weird for me for him knowing. I think, because my brain stays met on this one, that Jackie Chan is is such a an accomplished, at least film martial artist that he is going to uh Daniel Russo for advice on martial arts, but maybe he's going to him for advice on handling kids. I think he looks good. I'm excited to see this kid do a lot of like Jackie Chan type stunts, which they show a little bit of in the trailer. It's the same kid who is in American born Chinese I think is the name of the Yeah, American born Chinese. I thought he was really good in that too.
Yeah, I thought the trailer looks good. I did think, at least, as I recall, I did not full disclosure, I did not rewatch this just before we went to record so I haven't seen it, but as I recall, I didn't pick up a lot of lighthearted or humorous moments in the trailer. Doesn't mean that they're not going to be in the movie, but to me, there has to be at least some of that for it to be a Karate Kid film, because the things that mark a Karate Kid film for me is that you've got a character who's kind of a fish out of water, who is bullied, who turns to martial arts, partly to protect himself, partly to find himself or herself. There was a karate kid with a young woman in it as well, so to find themselves and also make a connection with their since their teacher, and that that's like the emotional core of the film. But there also has to be little moments of humor, and like there are plenty of those in the in the first Karate Kid movie, for example.
Yeah, there are plenty of moments of humor in Cobra Kai as well, which I'm wondering if this there's probably answer is probably out there, but I don't remember at the moment. If this movie is coming directly as a sequel to.
Cobra Kai, right, is Cobra Kai considered canon in the world of Karate Kid Legends, or is it like will it be like Agent? Will it be like Agents of Shield? And never acknowledged.
My guess is that it's going to be canon, although where they have left Cobra Kai still waiting on the final episodes of the final season. But where they left it who It's divisive.
So we also got a trailer for the Electric State. We had talked about a teaser for it earlier, or maybe it was the first trailer, but we got a slightly longer trailer that gave us a bit more background about this world where ultimately robots, which were starting to demand rights and things normally granted to human beings, are corralled into a region in the United States and walled off and there and that's the Electric State, that's their domain, and that they are no longer allowed outside of that humans are not supposed to go into it. And then how that intersects with a young woman's quest to find her long lost brother who may or may not still be alive. This trailer, I thought the first trailer was really visually stunning, interesting, kind of weird because some of the robot designs are a little odd to me. They come across like almost like nineteen forties cartoon character design odd to me, But this one got me a little more interested in seeing the movie. What was your reaction?
I agree. I think focusing a little bit more on the characters' motivations and backstory made it more intriguing. I do wonder if the main character's long lost brother is inside the robot that she teams up with. That's my hot take from the trailer. Yeah, I will probably watch this.
Yeah, it looks it looks like it makes me think of like a Spielbergian kind of film, right, Yeah, it kind of has that sort of the thing that could be schmaltzy if it were handled poorly, But it doesn't. At least the trailers don't come across to me like it was handled poorly. We won't really know until we get to see the whole thing, but I'm encouraged by the trailers, and it's nice to see something that's not directly connected to tons of other franchises that are out there. Although I do think this was an adaptation of a graphic novel, so it's not like it's wholly original.
I didn't know it was an adaptation of a graphic novel, or if I did, I forgot, but it does look interesting. Yeah, and I.
Could be wrong about the adaptation part. At this point. Who knows my brain is a crazy wonderland filled with thorns and broken down carnival rides, so.
Sometimes like the Electric State.
So who is to say? I think Ariel's looking it up right now.
Yes, it is based loosely based on the twenty eighteen graphic novel of the same name. I just wasn't sure if like the Russo brothers wrote it.
Yeah, I don't know either. I just I seem to remember that. So I'm glad. I'm glad the old gray matter rattling round up in my nog and still gets things right on occasion.
Look, that's the more you work it.
So next up, we've got The Doctor Who twenty twenty five season trailer. And I watched this despite the fact that I don't follow Doctor Who, and I have to say that I still have no idea what the heck is going on in this trailer. Like, I watched it, but I'm like, I don't know who any of these people are. I don't know which ones are companions versus just people he's interacting with. I will say there was one shot of an enormous cartoon character climbing out of a movie screen, and I thought that was really compelling. But that's the only thing I can that's the only takeaway I have.
Do you know who the doctor is?
Yes? I know who the doctor is?
Okay, so the sure right, Yeah, she'd got one. The girl with the blonde bob with the older woman with the blonde bob was his former companion m and then the new companion was the one who's like, Doctor, You've got to get me home. Although I also watched The Doctor Who Christmas Special yesterday, not during Christmas, but yesterday, and he had a temporary companion in that one kind of not Nikola Coughlin, who also would have been a great companion, but a different person than the doctor spent a lot of time with that I would have adored to be his new companion.
It was.
They had such a great on screen friendly chemistry that I loved it. I also don't know what's gonna what's going on on this. I maybe recognized one of the villains they showed, but they didn't show much.
That's true, it's a it's a fairly short teaser. But yeah, but because I haven't, like I left off of the Doctor back when I was in the Matt Smith series, so I'm so far behind. I'm like a couple of doctors plus a war doctor behind. Yeah.
I know, I owe you a list of what Doctor Who episodes to watch and also which Supernatural episodes to watch, But it's so like it's so some are like definitively good, like The Doctor's Wife is definitively good, which I think is the one with the tartist that Neil game In directed, but I don't remember.
Well, I'll definitely look out for that, because, like I there have been episodes here and there of Doctor Who that I liked, but on the whole, I found it a series that, while I appreciated what it was doing, I didn't connect with it so much. Yeah, and which again is not a comment on the quality of the work. It's just that me and my stage of life or whatever, I just wasn't finding a hook there for me.
But some of the quality of the work is if he's.
I mean, especially in those earlier seasons like oh and if you go to the original like earlier seasons, then absolutely. That quality is ridiculous. Like even the quality of the sound, like it's just such that tiny, canny sound from where they're clearly just using like boom mics in the studio and you're not getting very good sound at all. Those are hard to watch, but yeah, I just I don't know. It's one of those things. It's just one of those properties I never really got into, but I can't appreciate the work that goes into them. And this trailer, like it's really well put together, even though it doesn't necessarily show its hand too much, it just shows that the show itself is fairly slick.
Yeah, I'm looking forward to it's maybe accited. I need to know who that giant cartoon character is. Yeah. Last of the things that we missed due to the holidays is the second trailer for the second season of The Last of Us.
Yeah, which is going to be I think it's essentially the Last of Us two, but it's split. That story is going to be split into two seasons, so part one, Yeah, yeah, this is yeah, this is the Last of Us season two, which is Last of Us two, Part one, carry the three, but yeah, it's it's a it'll be the first half of the second game of Last of Us, and based upon the trailer, I think I know what the cliffhanger for this season is going to be. And I don't want to spoil it for anyone who hasn't played the game or hasn't read how the second game plays out or whatever. I'm just prepare yourselves for being upset.
Yeah, yeah, for sure, I will say this, Like the first trailer for season two looked tense. Yes, second trailer makes it look way scarier.
Yeah. Yeah, There's some shots like there's one shot of I couldn't even tell if it was Ellie, it was someone hiding behind a tree while a bunch of people were looking for them that looked really tense. There was like shots of just armies of infected rushing toward like a a walled city, stuff like that. Yeah, it looks it looks like they've really upped the ante for season two, and I'm sure that they you know, they earned that with the accolades and the success that season one brought. Like season one was really good TV. I mean, including an episode that I still think is probably one of the best episodes of any television I've ever seen. So yeah, and yeah, and I know Ariel you really liked it too, with the exception of the What's Eating You episode where you had to kind of dip out for bits.
Of that, Yeah, for sure. But the episode that you said might be one of the best episodes of TV, it was so good. Yeah, I was sad for like a week, but it was so good.
I've I've rewatched it. Every time you watch it, it rex me, like, I know what's going to happen. It's still rex me.
I try. I tried to watch it disconnected because I knew, but it didn't work.
Yeah. Well, it's tribute to the showrunners as well as the actors, like everything came together in that storytelling to make it really impactful. I mean, and it's you know, we're dancing around it just in case people haven't seen it, because it's worth watching. But it's one of those things where you kind of marvel at the fact that the creators were able to introduce characters in an episode and have you care so much about them and they're only in that one episode, Like it's not like these are characters that you've been following the whole time. You're meeting them for the first time and you care about them and that's hard to do.
Yeah. Yeah, I hope more people figure out how to do it, because that's quality entertainment there.
Yeah, it's fantastic storytelling. So I'm sure Season two will also be an emotional gut punch, and you know, I look forward to I'm going to try to do I'm going to try and watch it, but this might be one that I I don't know if I'll be able to stick with it. Like I appreciate what Last of Us Too was doing from a story perspective, I understand what the whole point was, but I don't know. If I can watch.
It, we'll see I know a lot of the big spoilers and Last of Us Too, but I don't know what the whole point was because I haven't played it.
Yeah, and I'm not going to spoil it. So let's move on. Let's move on and talk about some new stuff that is fresh from this week, because everything we talked about so far was stuff that kind of came out over the previous weeks. First up, we got a brand new trailer for your friendly neighborhood Spider Man, which I originally had a typo in our lineup, and it was your friendly neighborhood cider man, and I could go for that.
Yeah. Yeah, If I had a neighborhood man who brought me like hot cider, I would be I would before that.
Yeah, yeah, me too. As long as as a lot of the neighborhoods sider Man didn't look like the you know, the hag from Snow White, I'd probably just take it for granted that he's trustworthy and I should just drink that stuff down once is cool enough, you don't want to burn your mouth.
We've both talked about how much we like applesider.
We love applesider. Yes, it's my favorite fall drink.
Actually, yes, this trailer looks delightful.
Yeah, it looks great. It's interesting because it it's a reimagining of Peter Parker's early years as Spider Man, when and in this version, he's got an association with He's essentially got Norman Osborne as his mentor instead of Tony Stark. So and Norman Osbourne is the guy turns into the Green Goblin eventually. So it's an interesting twist on Spider Man, where what if Spider Man's mentor was someone who didn't necessarily have his best interests at heart. What I was going to say was that another interesting little thing about it is that at one point, the intent was for this series to be essentially part of the MCU, that it was going to dovetail and be like the Tom Holland version of Spider Man, but before we see him in the first Spider Man film, or indeed before we see Tony Stark visit him. But they decided that that was too restrictive, that it would mean having to make too many concessions for it to fit within the MCU, which I totally understand because Agents of Shield is another great example of that, right. Agents of Shield is not really cannon in the MCU because it contradicts certain things that the MCU considers cannon. So it gives you a lot more freedom in your storytelling. So that's a good thing, I think, And I think it's a lot easier to get away with too, because it's an animated series.
The most recent Spider Man that I watched, where Happy was kind of like his handler but he was in high school, was delightful, and I look forward to this one too. I'm glad that it's not canon because, yeah, although with the multiverse who's to say what canon is it and is it.
That's a great point. Yeah, you could just argue this is a multiverse variant of Spider Man and that would be enough, right. Yeah, I mean we've already got that too, like we've had variant Spider Man's. So we also got a trailer for a interesting science fiction slash what is it to be Sentient? Can can artificial beings be? Like? Can they discover humanity? As in the quality of humanity? In a movie called Love Me?
Yeah, I saw this and was going to share it with you and then noticed you had put it onto the lineup, so beat me to it. It It feels like Wally but for adults.
It reminded me a little bit of Her, which is the film where a man falls in love with his operating system, which is voiced by wants their Face who played Scarlett Johansson Johnson. Yeah. So, but this is this is a movie where you have like a an artificially intelligent booie and an artificially intelligent satellite that end up connecting with one another and then they kind of create. First first it was like they create digital human forms so that they can interact together in like a virtual world and then somehow, whether it actually happens or this is just the film depicting what happens in a different way. They take atual human forms and they're trying to kind of discover things like love and you know, these deep, deep concepts and explore what that really means. And I think science fiction is really good for that kind of thing. And I'm curious about this. I don't know if I think it works or not yet.
Yeah, I don't know. So all of humanity has died off, yes, so they're just they're basing everything off of like videos and historical data, and so it already feels like sad to me. Yeah, because these are like the two last ais as far as we know anywhere, and there's no one to help them fix them, Like a booy can't fix itself.
Well, I don't mean to burst your bubble, Aeriel, but if you go in to a relationship thinking you can fix somebody, then maybe you're getting into it for.
The wrong reason itself.
I know I'm saying that. If you're hoping that the satellite's gonna fix the booy, like, that's just that's a toxic relationship.
No. What I'm saying, is the Mooe's going to break down and not be able to replace the panels that are laying in water that are going to eventually rust. I feel like to die.
That's a great analogy for me, honestly, Like I'm going to break down and ain't nobody going to fix my rusty panels? Yeah, I understand what you're saying from a practical point of view. I think also like it's it's interesting in that it's kind of exploring the concept of what could humanity's legacy be that even after humanity itself has passed, like maybe our time is over, Like you got to keep in your mind, we've only been on Earth for a very short amount of time in the grand scheme of things, like a blink of an eye, like you know, especially if you think of humans as people who are able to record history in a meaningful way, that's a very short amount of time. And it feels like it's forever because our live spans are pretty short and so many generations have come before us, but we are not eternal. So asking like, well, what do we leave behind that could potentially go outlive us? I think that's an interesting question. I mean It's one that just as individuals, we often ask ourselves, like, what sort of legacy am I leaving behind? Am I even creating a legacy? Is that important to me? If it is, how can I make sure it's the best one I can do? And I mean those are big questions.
Those are big and important questions. And this movie is going to give me extistential dread.
Yeah, ex extra existential dread.
Yeah. I do like that they have a long distance relationship, so one of them is a satellite, and I love that it's a relationship. So the other is a boo.
Nice Yeah, you're my boo.
We we you're my boo.
We also got a new trailer. This is like we've seen so many of these. I almost didn't put this on our list just because we have talked about Captain America Brave New World a few times. Because we've gotten a few trailers. This one seems to focus a little bit more on Thunderbolt Ross Slash Red Hulk, and uh, honestly, it's the least interesting part of Captain America for me, Like, I'm interested in all the other stuff more than the Red Hulk part.
Samesia's Yeah, this trailer didn't grab me other than to remind me that the movie comes out in February.
Valentine's Day.
Yeah, Oh, happy Valentine's Day. Watch a war movie.
Now, you go to Valentine's Day and you see a big Red Hulk and then you just hold up a cutout of a heart and hold it up against the Hulk, and there you got your Valentine.
And then his heart grows ten sizes.
That day you Hulk smashed my heart.
I mean, I like it, but Green Hulk not Red Hulk.
Yeah, I mean, I have hopes that it'll be really I'm hoping it's going to be similar to Captain America Winter Soldier, which is what a lot of people have been comparing it to in press junkets and stuff. I still think that's one of the best Marvel films that's been made. It may, you know, very well, be my favorite. Like I really have to think about to figure out what my favorite Marvel film is, but it's way up there. So if it does, in fact kind of match the tone and energy of that film, then I'll probably really like it. But if it does end up being more or about Red Hulk than anything else, then I'm I'm not as excited, partly because it's the issue I have with all the Marvel films where the third act turns into a giant video game battle extravaganza. If you have characters like Hulk involved that it it definitely feels more like a video game because you're hyper aware that what you're seeing is computer generated. Like even if they made it look really good, like with great skin textures and shadows and lighting and all that stuff, it's still clearly computer generated and it doesn't feel like there's a real thing there. I also worry about the Thing and Fantastic Four being like that.
But we'll see, we'll see, we'll see. I uh oh, so many things I want to tell you, but I can't until you watch What If? Okay, Anyhow, Natasha Leone is playing a surprise character in Fantastic Four.
Yeah, yeah, we talked about there. Yeah yeah, Ben, do you know who it is? Now? Is that something that was revealed and What If?
I don't think I do, because it would be really weird for her to. She does voice a character in What If? Yeah, and it would be really weird for that character.
Is that the original character that was added for What If?
Yes?
Okay, yeah, yeah, I remember hearing that there was an original character added for what if there was.
An original charactered character added last season? Who is the indigenous superhero? This is another one that's added for just the last two episodes kind of, and it's fun. It's a fun character. It's really interesting. I don't know if you're going to love or hate them, but it would be really weird for that character show up and fantastic for yeah.
Yeah, and like inventing new characters to insert into the Marvel universe. I mean, arguably, you could say Disney has a motivation to try and do that more because it would allow them to incorporate those characters directly into their parks, whereas when it comes to existing Marvel comic book characters, they don't have access to some of those because the Universal has a pre existing agreement at least, yeah, at least in the East Coast. Yeah. So anyway, that's that's getting so inside Baseball, let's move on. Yeah, and instead of talking about inside Baseball, let's talk about inside Wrastler.
I was gonna say inside the Ring. Yeah, there was a movie. There's a movie coming out called Queen of the Ring. Yeah, is it kind of focuses on the story.
Of Mildred Burke.
Mildred Burke, is she the first like famous female wrestler.
Well, I'll put to you this way. I am a fan of wrestling. I'm even a fan of wrestling history. But I was unfamiliar with Mildred Burke because most of my history knowledge only goes back as far as as really the nineteen seventies and a little bit into the sixties. So the folks who were active in the early early days of professional wrestling in like the twenties, thirties, forties, I don't know much about them at all. So I had not heard of Mildred Burke before you sent me this trailer.
Yeah, anyhow early like nineteen thirties female wrestler, female who wants to become a wrestler. It looks fun and good. It kind of talked about how wrestling was popular in like the carnival circuit. It looks uplifting.
Yeah. I liked the tone. I liked the message it seemed to be giving, and I liked the fact that it was exploring the carnival roots of professional wrestling. Like pro wrestling has its own vocabulary and much of that vocabulary is rooted in carne, Like the old Carnie speaks stuff, so things like a mark or you know, doing the job. That kind of stuff kind of dates all the way back to the carnival days and still is used today and for those who don't know, like pro wrestling kind of got started as grapplers who would do a thing where they would take on all comers at like carnivals, and they would actually wrestle locals. But if a local look like they could potentially beat the wrestler, which would be bad business for the carnival, then frequently what would happen is you would have a little discussion with this local and pay them off so that they would lose to the wrestler. And that eventually developed into well, let's stop bringing third parties in who we have no control over and instead match like minded rest against each other where we've pre arranged who's going to win and who's going to lose, and make it safer for everybody. And this seems to explore that evolution in the film.
Yeah, yeah, so a very far cry from Glow.
But honestly, it makes me think of the film The Wrestler, Like, yeah, that's a great movie. It's very sad, so I don't recommend it for people who are in a rough headspace, but it's a fantastic film.
It featured the main character, Mildred Burke, is played by Emily Bette Rickards, who was Felicity in like Arrow and the Flash and all of that, And I will say I did not recognize her at all at all, Like I had to, I had to look up who she was in Arrow and the Flash, despite the fact that she was one of my favorite characters in those series, because she looks so different with her care you know, being a bit older. Now. The other thing I really liked about this movie is like it didn't feel too much like it was for the male gaze.
Yeah, no, it doesn't feel like it's that kind of exploitative approach, which is Listen, I could talk for hours about pro wrestling and the role of women in pro wrestling, and like how in really the eighties, but really the nineties and into the early two thousand's, the role that women played was largely eye candy, and like it was kind of it was disgusting, honestly, Like there was a time at least in professional wrestling here in the United States, where if you were a woman in the wrestling business, chances are you were playing either a valet or a manager. You weren't wrestling, and you were wearing as little clothing as possible, And if you were in a wrestling match, it would be so demeaning, like a broad and panties match, where your you know, your goal is to rip the costume off your opponent so that they're stripped down to their underwear. Like those were the kind of things that were going on in the eighties and nineties. I'm happy to say that these days that's not really what you see anymore. Now you see women competing and sometimes, like legit, they end up holding the top spot on the card because the matches they put together are just as good, if not better, than the stuff the men are doing. And you know, it's women like Mildred who even made that a possibility.
Yeah, yeah, I had a friend's parent tell me once that if acting didn't work out, I should become a wrestler. I don't. I like stage combat. I don't fully disagree, you know, despite the fact that my back is out now. This movie also has quite a geeky cast in it. It's got Walton Goggins in it. Yep, you see in the trailers, and wall in it.
Oh wow. Yeah, she was in Daredevil.
Yeah yeah.
And she's also a D and D professional dungeon master.
Yeah. I didn't see her in the trailer, but I could have just overlooked her. It's also got Martin cove Martin Kovee in it, who was Crease in Karate Kid. Okay, so and and I guess also Cobra Kai and a bunch of other great actors. But those are the geekiest ones that are standing out to me. I am really looking forward to this movie. This This feels more slice of life than a lot of movies that do super well. But I hope it does super well.
Yeah. I want to see this one too. I I gotta say, I'm more interested in this than I was in The Claw, the Iron Claw movie where it was about the von Erics, because I already know I know about the von Eric family, I know how tragic that story is, and I wasn't ready to watch a family disintegrate, you know, member my by member in the most tragic way. So I'm glad to see something that looks to me to have a more positive kind of take. Also, the wrestling business, let's be honest, is a rough one. Like even if you're doing well in it, you're probably going to be dealing with a lot of long term pain and injury issues, I mean, if you're really active in it at any rate. So wrestling is one of those things that's a complicated thing for me to be a fan of because on the one hand, I'm a huge like I admire the athleticism and the skill needed to put on a good match, both from a physical level and just like a psychological approach where how do you play to the crowd so that the crowd excitement builds and then kind of pull it back and build it again like that that's an art form. But on the flip side, like knowing how many people suffer really bad injuries and then often that leads to things like reliance on pain medication, that sort of stuff that makes it really complicated too, because obviously you want people to have healthy, long productive lives, and for a lot of wrestlers that's just not a possibility. But this looks like a positive film in that genre for sure for sure.
And last I guess this is a slightly sad.
Note to end on, well, I mean it's a discussion. Note is really what it is. I mean, I found a story in Variety about the US box office take for twenty twenty four and how it declined slightly from twenty twenty three, and it's the first time since post pandemic that the numbers actually went down. They had been going up year over year. They still weren't as high as pre pandemic numbers, nowhere close, but they were building. Twenty twenty four we actually saw a dip. But the article also offers a hypothesis as to why that may have happened. In part, it is that we had the strikes last year and that that impacted films being finished and released, so there were some dead spots in the year. The other thing I found interesting was that there was the revelation this I do find sad, but the revelation that out of the top ten grossing films in the United States, nine of them were sequels.
Yeah, that is very sad to me. Also, though a lot of the top grossing films were family films, Yeah, which is super interesting.
That is interesting. Yeah, it does show that, like families are more often going to the movie theater than potentially other types of film fans. Right, Like you know, in the old days, it may be that an R rated movie was the one that was getting the most traction. That's not necessarily the case or PG thirteen often because movie studios would be scared if they made it all, then their target audience wouldn't even be allowed into the theater. But yeah, yeah, it was interesting to see that.
Sadly, I think we're going to hit something similar in twenty twenty five. I hope not. So every year since the pandemic, it's been next year will be good. We've gotten past this thing, and next year will be good. And it was a pandemic, and then it was the writer strike and then the actor strike, and then the voice actor strike and also several crew strike yeah yazi, yeah, yazi. And so there's been that mixed with the struggle that streaming has been having because at first, all of these streaming networks are putting all these all of this money into shows because they were like the new golden thing, and that's great, but a lot of streaming networks have been losing money because it's too expensive to have every streaming channel, and so the market gets saturated pretty quickly. Yeah, so, uh, things have also been down because of that, because there have been less streaming network shows being made partially because of the strike. Now that the strikes are over, it's still been a little quiet. The guess is that, you know, it's just people don't want to start things up before the holidays just to shut them down for the holidays. So I think everybody in the industry is really hoping that it'll pick up now that we're in the new year and people kind of know what they're in for, but uh, that is yet to be seen. Yeah, we have we have a we have a mutual acquaintance who likes to posit on there. He's he's in he's in the film industry, and he likes to posit on on on like he likes to make predictions for the year. And he thinks that horror movies are going to be very popular because they are less expensive to make, because you can make a really good horror movie on the lower budget. Though I would I would wager to say you can also make a really good sci fi fantasy movie with the right crew on a low budget. Look at District Nine, look at Godzilla Minus one, those were both made with fairly small budgets.
Yeah, as long as your budget is going to the right stuff in your movie.
Yeah, you know. So hopefully this actually opens up room for a lot more indie movies to take the stage, because big budget movies are fun, but you don't necessarily need a big budget movie to make a good movie. If you look at like, I guess, like Goodwill Hunting or Dead Poet Society. I don't think those were super high budget movies per se. I don't know, but I would assume that Slice of life movies cost a lot less to make.
Yeah, well I know that. I know the Goodwill Hunting didn't cost a huge amount to make because Ben Affleck and Matt Damon didn't have enough money to like, you know, they were like, yeah, we were having to squeeze every penny to get this thing made.
But it's considered a really great movie to this day. So it'll be it'll be interesting to see how stuff changes, how the market changes. You'll probably see a lot more family movies are Our friend who's making these predictions thinks it's because theme parks have gotten too expensive for families to go to, but a movie is not so that's like your family outing. I don't know if that's true. Yeah, I mean it's an interesting thought.
I know. Historically horror movies tend to do well because they're one of those movies that people still like to see in groups. And they also, like you say, horror movies, they tend to have lower budgets, like every now and then you get a big budget version of a horror movie. But the appeal for studios for horror movies is that it tends to be a smaller investment for potentially larger payoff that even if it even if it doesn't do incredibly well, if it didn't cost that much, then you're probably at least going to break even if not make a small profit. So I agree that horror movies are going to be like a go to genre for a lot of the industry. And also it's one of those movies that still convinces people to go to the theater, like there's lots of other movies that just can't, like you know, you'll release them, but people just don't go. Now saying that, you look at the list of the ones from twenty twenty four, like you said, the family movies, they did great. You know, like Inside Out Too did fantastic.
I didn't expect it to. I know it was predicted to, but I didn't expect it.
Yeah, it was weird, right. I think it showed that there was a need for family oriented entertainment and it filled that need because, like you, I saw the previews for it, and I thought, well, it doesn't look bad, but it doesn't strike me as a film, a Pixar film that I absolutely have to see. In fact, I still have not yet seen it.
So I wonder if part of the trend toward these big, flashy movies is that people that people's attention spans have gotten shorter, and therefore, if it's not big and flashy and ooh look at this, ooh look at that, it's going to it's going to lose half of its audience's interest.
It's possible. But I mean, there are some movies that have done pretty well over the last I mean, let's call it a decade, you know, the last decade or so, that have kind of embraced the slower pacing that you would have find in like movies from the seventies and early eighties. Some of those movies have done quite well, like not all of them, and some of them have done quite well from a critical perspective, but not necessarily box office perspective. But I think there's still a place for it. I'm trying not to paint with too broad a brush of saying today's audiences just don't have the attention span to sit through like a slow moving or deliberately paced film.
I mean I think they can. They sat through Wicked. That movie is long.
Yeah, it turns out like if you throw in some songs and dance numbers, then people might stick around.
Like that's the answer. Make everything a musical.
I thought it was pretty weird when Nosferatu started dancing. I gotta admit it was a weird moment.
So interesting. Have you listened to any I know we're getting along. Have you listened to any of the interviews with Bill Skarsgard on developing his character.
I didn't. I did learn what happened to his prosthetic thing of a jig. Oh, he has a prosthetic thing of a jig because there's a full front viewing of count Orlock and he gifted it to Nicholas Holt, who has it hang in a frame in his house.
That seems accurate. I like, I thank goodness because I do know that that scene he was surrounded by a bunch of creepy crawleys and I would prefer to be covered in prosta for that, but uh no to get because he doesn't have a very deep voice, so to get like the deep Warlock voice. He worked with an Italian singer. Oh wow, yeah, I wonder.
I wonder if he actually did damage to his vocal cords that way. Sometimes that can happen. He also he rolls his r's like every R is rolled that Orlock speaks, and like there are moments depending on what words he's saying that. I'm like, it's starting to sound like he's part of a motorcycle club because you're getting so many other ers like, but it's a rolled art. I can't roll my rs, so I'm not going to do it. But he would do these these very intense rolled rs. He was great. I thought he was great in the film. I thought everyone did pretty well.
He worked really, really hard. I know that looking so different from himself was a struggle to like get into the character and making sure that he could act through the prosthetics. I know he had a very intensive like warm up process to make sure that he wasn't tight so he could talk like that. So I think he took it very seriously. Yeah, listening to him for his process for this movie, Like when you talk about all the creepy stuff, he's even too, I'm like, oh, that's creepy. But when he talks about like how he did the craft of becoming this character, it is so interesting and it's it's so respectable.
I'll have to check that out because like, that does sound fascinating to me, and it sounds like the kind of work I can I can get behind, as opposed to your typical stories about like method actors. We've talked about this before. Yeah, you know about how method actors typically are looking for an excuse to be an abusive jerk because it's method acting, and so they get to be an abusive jerk to everybody who's working on the project. And you don't often hear about method actors like embracing a nice character and just being super nice to everybody. It only seems to go the other way. So it's great to hear stories of this is how I'm approaching the actual technical aspect of taking on this character, so that I can deliver what the director expects. Yeah, I like that a lot.
It's super interesting. I'll try to find some of the videos outside of the Tiki talks. I'm sure they are like on Instagram and YouTube and that as well.
Probably, Yeah, there's always these press tours. I'll also say Willem Dafoe's great great in Nosparatu. Loved Willem Dafoe's performance. Also, it's just a kick to say Willem Dafoe playing I mean, he's very much in some ways like Anthony Hopkins in Bram Stoker's Dracula, and they're both playing the van Helsing character. It's got a different name in Nosparato, but it's the same thing. It's the Van Helsing guy. And I just think it's hilarious because Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire played the part of Max Shrek, the actor who played Nosparatu in the silent film nineteen thirties version. And I was just like, how delicious that you know, years later he's back, but not playing the vampire, He's playing the vampire hunter.
Yeah. I also know one other tidbit that I will tell you off off Mike that you probably already know, but it's maybe a spoiler and also a little gross.
Okay, but that's all we have.
If you've stuck through all of are crazy of this long first episode of the year. Thank you, We appreciate you, Jonathan. If they want to reach out to us or me or you or whatever, If they want to reach out to us, how do they do that?
All? Right? So you're going to have to go on a road trip with Paul Rudd, which I know is already going to make things a little tricky for you. You're going to be driving with Paul Rudd through the highlands of Scotland, and sure enough, don't you know it, just as you're getting deep into conversation you're not really paying attention, you realize that you've just run over the Locknest Monster and you're going to get out of your car and you're going to go back and look and see that the Locknest Monster appears to be dead in the street. So, thinking you can't just leave it there, you both you and Paul Rudd have to drag the corpse of the Locknest Monster on top of your tiny little car and strap it down with whatever twine or rope you happen to have in there and then try and drive your way to the closest town, and about a mile and a half down the road, you're going to realize the lock Best Monster wasn't dead at all. It was just dazed and now it's just flopping around on the top of your car. So you're going to have to deal with that. That's going to be the rest of your day, Let's be honest, it's really going to take up the rest of your day. You're going to take care of that and get an Essie back into the water. Everyone thinks it's okay and everything. The trouble is that the next morning you're going to have to spend that on the phone with the car rental agency and they're just not going to accept the fact that a Locknest Monster collision is actually covered. Then the basic insurance plan that you opted into when you first rented the car earlier that week going to be the next half of your day. When you're done with that, you're gonna go to eat at the closest place you can find, which is kind of be a Nandos, And while you're there, you're gonna notice that I'm actually already ahead of you in line getting the extra spicy butterfly chicken breast and the macho ps. And that's when you can ask me your question.
And if you can't do spicy food like me, or your car is way too small for anessy, it would just crumble under it. You can reach out to us on social media on Facebook and Instagram and threads. We are a Larger Drunk Collider. That's also our handle on Discord. You can get an invite to Discord on our website that's www dot Largener Drunk Collider dot com. And if you want to reach us old school or send us a long message, you can reach out to us via email. It is largener drum podt gmail dot com. Thank you for starting the new year with us in all of its geekiness. And yeah, that's it until next time. I am Ariel here, but not all their casting.
And I am Jonathan. If you have prosthetics that you want to send me so I can hang them on my wall, talk to me after the show.
Strickland, a lot of people are going to be eating Nanto's.
I bet The Large nerdron Collider was created by Ariel Casting and produced, edited, published, deleted, Undeleted, Published again. Cursed At by Jonathan Strickland, Music by Kevin McLeod of incomptech dot Com