A LARP Rides Off Into the Sunset

Ariel fills us in on how the LARP she's been in for seven years wrapped up last weekend. Jonathan saw The Marvels and shares his thoughts. Plus, we've got more trailers than a convoy to talk about!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to the large ner Draun 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 Caston, and with me is always
is the incredibly generous and awesome Jonathan Strickland.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hey, y'all, so much for easing back into things.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
Yeah, we got we got us a lot of stories
to talk about.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yeah, and this and personal stuff too.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
And personal stuff. Yeah. So Jonathan took the brunch of
building this episode because I had what we like to
call our LARP post event drop larp drop. All of
a sudden, it's escaping my brain. But basically, there's like
this big emotional crash that you get after you larp,
especially if it's the last game in a campaign or

(00:59):
maybe the last game that you play. Ever, it's the
same kind of thing you guys like con crash. So
I've been dealing with that all week because it's important
to listen to your body when it's saying hey, rust up.
And Jonathan very kindly pulled most of the stories for us.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, not all of them, but most of them. And
to be clear, usually Ariel does the massive amount of
work for our episodes. So don't be fooled into thinking
like Jonathan's shouldering the burden here. Normally it's Ariel doing
all that.

Speaker 1 (01:32):
Listen, I'm a darn right slacker.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, before we get into we do have a long
awaited return of thirty seconds or less. But before we
jump into that, I thought we could we could spend
a little time talking about stuff, what we've been up to.
And I'll start off by saying that last weekend I
went and saw the Marvels, which is, you know, pretty

(01:58):
miraculous because I don't get out to the theater that
often anymore, but I made a point to go and
see the Marvels. And what you think it was okay.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Worth going out to the theater for?

Speaker 2 (02:11):
I think I think so. I mean, there were some
elements that have been plaguing Disney and Marvel for a
while now, you know, like the the bits where occasionally
some of the CGI gets a little wonky. There's one
bit where Captain Marvel it's a clearly CGI Captain Marvel
walking and you probably wouldn't have noticed except for the hair.

(02:33):
The hair just doesn't quite work properly. Like stuff like
that where you're watching it and you're like, oh, wow,
this is like a last generation cut scene from a
video now that kind of stuff, like like again, my
last generation, you're still talking Xbox one. It's not the worst,
but it's not like you sit there and think about

(02:54):
how far we've come technologically with CGI, and it's clear
that the problem here is that you've got you've got
artists who are just under unrealistic deadlines having to turn
this out. And like we've said before, the Marvels got
shifted around in its release schedule. It actually got moved
up and was originally supposed to be later in the year,

(03:16):
so or like maybe even next year, but anyway, it
got moved up, and so that's part of the problem,
I think. But anyway, I had said before I saw
the movie that I suspected you would really need to
see like Captain Marvel, Miss Marvel and Wanda Vision to
understand what was kind of happening. I stand by that,

(03:36):
and I think it's that that's the order of importance.
Like Captain Marvel, you almost certainly need to see. Miss
Marvel is really important if you want to know who
the heck Kamala Con is, because you don't get a
whole I mean, you get to know who she is
in the movie, but she just is thrown in there, right,
and then Monica Rambo, you wouldn't understand anything about what

(04:02):
she's saying about where she got her powers or anything
unless you had seen WandaVision. So that's the other big
problem that the movie has in the sense of like,
the more you go see Marvel, the more you feel like,
I need to watch everything they put out or I'm
going to be lost. And I don't necessarily have an
interest in watching everything they put out, right, Like, yeah,

(04:25):
the stuff I named, I've seen all of those, but
there's still some Marvel stuff out there that I haven't
watched Secret Wars yet. But I can tell you right
now you do not need to have seen Secret Invasion
Secret Invasion, thank you, because Secret Wars is later. I
have not watched Secret Invasion yet, but I can tell
you you don't need to have seen it because as
far as I can tell, there's nothing in Secret Invasion

(04:48):
that really has an impact on the Marvels. I think
it was entertaining. I think it was best when it
was focusing on the three leads. I think it was
weakest when it was focusing on the b story, But uh, yeah,
I enjoyed it. I also appreciate the fact that it
wasn't three hours long.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Yeah, it's only an hour and a half, I think.

Speaker 2 (05:11):
Yeah, somewhere around there. Although honestly, even that hour and
a half, there's a point because whenever they cut away
from the protagonists and they're doing anything else, it made
it drag a little. So even then I was like, Oh,
we must be wrapping up and keep on going, and
I'm like, oh, no, it's just because I wasn't enjoying
that scene.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Oh goodness. Do you think it hurt that we had
so many friends talk it up so much after seeing it?

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Probably? I mean, like, I don't know. I don't put
a whole lot of my own reaction in because some
of our friends are super fans beyond my own fandom, right,
and they love these things so much that I already
know their opinion is going to be different from mine,
and that's no shade on them. That's who they are

(06:01):
and that's what they love, and that's fine. But I
wasn't too influenced by that, and I think that helped.
I will say I did think it was very weird
that the bad guy's plot is essentially the plot of Spaceballs.

Speaker 1 (06:15):
Do I need to watch Spaceballs before I watch this?

Speaker 2 (06:18):
I would recommend you don't watch space Balls before you
watch this, because otherwise you'll be like me and lean
over to the person next to you and say, over
and over again, this is just like space Balls.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Fair enough, fair enough. Well, thank you for your honest review.

Speaker 2 (06:36):
Yeah, I think out of all the more recent Marvel films,
this is one of the stronger ones. Definitely. I definitely
liked it more than Doctor Strange. I liked it more
than ant Man. I liked it more than the Eternals,
definitely liked it more than that. So I think this
one was a decent one. I wouldn't put it in

(06:56):
the top Marvel films. Like, my favorite is still Captain America.
What was the second one? It wasn't Civil War. It
was the one between for the Winter Soldier Captain America,
Winter Soldier. That one I think is still my favorite
Marvel film. But this one is definitely in the upper half.

Speaker 1 (07:18):
Oh, that's good to hear. I'm glad to hear that.

Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yes, And Ariel Lowd you mentioned you kind of had
your crash from the end of a larp. But I
think it would be really nice if we could hear
a bit more about what this larp was and why
it meant so much to you. In past episodes, you've
described it as it was a larp with a sort
of a weird West setting, but maybe you could elaborate

(07:43):
a bit and kind of explain what Calamity was all about.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
Sure, so Calamity was a larp that was run by
Rule of three productions. They are a group of people
that I've larped with for oh gosh, twenty years now, often,
I mean not like always, always consistently, and I've done
other LARPs, but this is the group that I always
go back to. And they started seven years ago, this

(08:10):
weird West larp that some people were super into. If
you like Westerns and you like Cathuleian stuff, like this
was your jam and if not, then maybe you would
have Hesitation. And the setting was like late eighteen hundreds.
I think we started in the eighteen seventies, alternative history,
so Civil War was not about slavery and other stuff,

(08:36):
And they were kind of trying to make a game
because a lot of that player base is older, not
old but older. You know, there are lots of LARPs
where you've got like eighteen year olds, twenty year old,
seventeen year olds that come in and are new to
it and this player base, many of them having we
had new players, but many of us playing for so
many years together, were older, were more seasoned, and a

(08:57):
lot of them are like, I just don't want to
be in hell grinder field battles where we hit each
other with plumbing supplies all day. So part of I
think the idea, and I'm not the creator, but I
think part of the idea behind the Western was a
chance for us to shoot nerf guns at each other instead,
which is there was There was still physical like melee combat,
but that was fun. And the really interesting thing about

(09:20):
this game is that it had an explosion of players
at the beginning. It had like over one hundred pieces,
which is a lot, and it's a lot to plan for.
And everybody kind of was playing their own own game.
Like you'd find a group of people who had similar
interests or similar character job or similar skill sets, and
you'd all kind of like play your own games. So weird, West,

(09:44):
I'm sorry, there's just it's seven years we had a
two year break because of the pandemic, so really five
years of gameplay, but so much went on, and as
we all talk about it on Discord because we all
are in the Discord together or many of us a
we're like, man, there were so many stories I didn't
ever know where even happening, because you had like me,

(10:06):
I was a monster hunter, so it was a very
like supernatural kind of a gameplay, but set in the
Old West, so I was like a girl who was
raised in a saloon, so I was I was performer
and then I shot monsters. You had like your Omnions,
which was like the main religion in this game, that

(10:27):
were like it was based off of Egyptian mythology and
so that was interesting, and they would go fight demons
and stuff. You had they'reists who were like Cathulian worshippers
who would do all that kind of like dark magic
y stuff and aligned with unnamed ones. And you had

(10:50):
people who were like Crossroad demon poker magic people. You
had people who were like there was an entire plot
line kind of off of Big Trouble Little China, so
like all different sorts of people, characters, kinds of things.
You could play all into this world where a calamity happened,

(11:10):
a fog rolled over the land, monsters appeared dead, started raising,
and crazy things started happening, and we all come to
Carrying Creek to which was where the game was set
most of the time, to explore these supernatural and weird
things that are happening. After this unexplained fogged rolled in,
and then beyond that there were politics. It was all

(11:32):
kinds of storylines. So yeah, it was just it was
fighting monsters in the Old West and we choot each
other with guns and uh there. It was really cool
because there were skill sets for like I could sing
for five minutes and reset people's abilities or grit or
whatever it was. It was a really fun game. And

(11:54):
when I went into it, I was at a place
in my life and my career where I was a
little bit burnt out. I was still working at my
last job, and I was trying to get my acting
career up, and I was like, I don't know if
I will have time to devote to another game, And
so I made a character where I was like, I'm
gonna sing and I'm going to shoot things and I
don't need to know anything else, and like I thought,

(12:17):
I was not going to get involved. I wasn't going
in with a team of people. I was going in
by myself. I Ariel am socially awkward, so I don't
always make friends right away in group settings, not because
I'm not likable, because I'm shy. And Plot said, don't
worry about it. We got you. They helped. They added
pieces to like my character history that gave her like madness.

(12:40):
You could also for all the crazy things you saw,
like the Cthulian worshippers summoned like a great white worm
at one point that was like this giant construction built
out of hula hoops and tarp that many people piloted
and they had to fight it. Who was really really cool,
Like when you saw things that were upsetting like that,
you'd gain madness and you could get special skills from it,

(13:02):
or you could treat your madness and you'd you know,
not get disadvantages from it or advantages from it. It
was really how you played the game. I'm explaining everything
very poorly. So yeah, Plot helped. I went in. I
fell in love with this character. They listened to all
of my feedback. I got to do everything my character
wanted to do everything the team I found wanted to do.

(13:24):
The last game was amazing. And then I came home
and I had to write the end of my character's story,
and I just this. I'm when I started Calamity, I'm like,
this is going to be my last LARP. I don't
have time, I don't have the energy, I don't have
the brain power. I've known these people forever and I
like spending time with them, and I'm sure I will
spend time with them outside of the larp. I'm going

(13:46):
to make a point too, But now I'm like, can
I really give this up? But stepping out of the
game for the last time, it was very sad because
I knew it might be my final game. That being said,
if it was my final game of my final campaign,
it was the best possible way to go out. I
loved my story. I love the end, even though my
story made me cry that the end my epilogue is
not entirely happy because it's it's kind of Dean Winchesters.

(14:12):
If you watch Supernatural and so yeah, that's a whole
bunch of rambling information that you probably have no idea.
Anything better about the game than when I started, I.

Speaker 2 (14:23):
Don't think so, I think. I think, like what I
took away is that, you know, the Weird West is
the genre. The setting is this mysterious place, and it's
set in a time that there's an inflection point and
no one's really sure what that means, and that lots
of characters had their own individual stories. So while there

(14:45):
is like an ongoing arc that's happening, a big, big arc,
your your participation in that big arc might be on
a little side channel, and you may only be slightly
aware of what's going on because you know you're which
is just like the real world, right Like in the
real world, they're big things that are happening, but often

(15:06):
as individuals, we aren't playing a pivotal role in the
big things that are happening. We're still living out our
lives and we're still doing important stuff, especially important to
our own individual you know, livelihoods or whatever. So I
think you did a good job. And I'll say this, like,
I was really tempted to make a character back when this,
when this was still just in the conceptual phase and

(15:30):
I was aware of it. I really was tempted to
make a character, so much so that I even bought
a couple of costume pieces that I still have that
I was going to do like a snake oil salesman,
sort of huckster con man kind of character, you know,
maybe some overlap with Gambler, and I just thought it

(15:51):
would be kind of a fun little role playing experience,
and it turned out I just didn't have the time
to be able to do it, so I ultimately did
not play a part in this game. But I would
occasionally get to see things like photos from games and stuff.
The thing I loved was seeing how people would modify
NERF guns to make it look like they were these weird,

(16:12):
steampunky Old West kind of guns, and there were some
really creative folks who are working on that kind of stuff.
I just like how neat that was. It was just
really cool.

Speaker 1 (16:23):
Yeah, I part of the reason I like this group
is because of the level of commitment they put into costume,
they put into props, they put into set pieces, they
put into the immersion of it all. Because you know,
when you watch a documentary or LARPing or a movie
about it or whatever, you're not in there, you're not immersed,
you're not involved in creating the story. So it looks

(16:43):
kind of dorky, but when you're in there, it's really wonderful.
And yeah, they made a whole freaking mummy that people
could dissect at one point in time. It was brilliant.
People worked long and hard. A lot of people for
this game are actually making like shadow boxes of their
props and important little pieces and bits that they got
throughout the game, which is really nice. I got a
holy Weapon to fight with the Omniums because that's the

(17:08):
way my character life went, kind of like the Cult
from Supernatural, but it's a giant frickin' NERF rif modded
NERF rifle, so I can't really fit that into a
shadow box. Still trying to figure out what to.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Do overarching, you got to have a place that has
a fireplace and then you mounted above the.

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Like generally I'm not into guns, but I put a
lot of work into like my two little revolvers that
I started off with. I motded those myself and it
was fun and it was good and it was rewarding,
and I'm going to keep these things because a lot
of time and effort has been put into them and
they're fun and hey, I can shoot NERF darts at people.
The overarching story each year was like we would fight

(17:49):
a different basically Horseman of the Apocalypse, so wore pestilence, hunger, death,
so that was like kind of the over overarching bad guys. Yeah,
I think you would have really enjoyed it. It was
really wonderful. A lot of the people involved are people
who are writers, prop makers, set construction people, actors, dancers, like, yeah,

(18:16):
it's just this game went above and beyond. They built
an entire saloon that they put into the mess hall
of the group camp each in every game, with a
bar and a player piano and all sorts of stuff,
edison lights, just the works. A lot of effort was
put into this game and it showed, and it was

(18:38):
from everybody, and it was just a really wonderful experience
and I'm very glad I got to have and I'm
starting to like tear up again.

Speaker 2 (18:46):
Well, I'm really glad that it lived up to its
potential because so often you will get involved in a
big project like this and the realization of the idea
might short of what you had originally planned. And it's
not necessarily anyone's fault, it's just sometimes it's so hard
to achieve the vision that it just doesn't happen. It

(19:10):
sounds to me like this one really did a great
job of realizing the vision, and that is you know,
that is something to really celebrate because again, like I
can't tell you how many times I started off really
excited about a project and then by the time the
project came to life, I'm like, ye, this is not
what I was hoping. Like now I kind of regret

(19:32):
being involved because it didn't turn out the way I
wanted it to, which is a terrible perspective, but it
does happen to me quite a bit. But yeah, I
love hearing stories like this, Like it's so it's so
rewarding just knowing that this group of people were able
to tell this big, collective story that had a lot

(19:55):
of meaning to a lot of folks, and that it
came to a really satisfying conclusion.

Speaker 1 (20:00):
Yeah, yeah, it was just brilliant. I really look forward
to seeing what all of the people involved do in
the future, whether it's LARPing or something else, because so
many of them are creative people and they just are
constantly putting amazing works of art and creativity into the world.
We did have so some of our players and some

(20:22):
of our plot members when I started LARPing with them,
had children early in my Lark career, maybe not in theirs.
Those children started playing Calamity at an early age, which
Calamity was an adult game. It was made for adults.
You know, it's a wild West. You have saloon girls
and Kathulian gods and things like that. But because they

(20:44):
were raised by their parents, who were also working or
playing the game, they were able to watch their kids.
Those kids ended up by the end of the campaign
writing and running stories and just brilliant creative people themselves.
And that also, I mean, they're not kids anymore. They're
all off at college now, but they all came back
for the last couple of games. But that also has
been so cool to watch and so cool to be

(21:06):
a part of. So special props to them. I don't
think they listen to this show, but special props to
them because they're super super awesome. Yeah, And so like,
it's kind of the the crash I'm having is the
same sort of thing you have to have after convention.
You just need to like eat and tell yourself it's temporary,
and find similar people to talk to and rest and

(21:28):
get back to your normal habits and it's great. Tangentially,
one of the awesome people who I larp with Katie Downey.
A lot of the a lot of the awesome people
that I lark with have been mentioned on the show,
but Katie Downey is getting mentioned because one, she posted
the article on how to deal with post con larp

(21:50):
drop and it's super helpful. And two I found out
that she does the D four D and D live
stream each week on Sunday nights, which is really cool.
She's really good. Her character is becoming like Wizard of
the Coast Cannon. That's awesome, is getting released as Wizards

(22:10):
of the Coast Cannon. Yeah. I think it's super cool.
She's awesome. She does a ton of live streams. If
you like that sort of thing, you should check her out.
I'm not going to always show my friends, but when
they're doing really amazing things, I'm definitely going to call
them out because they're awesome.

Speaker 2 (22:25):
That's great. Wow, I'm so glad you were able to
share that. We weren't sure if Ariel was going to
be able to share that, because I mean, look like,
I really think when you conclude something like this, you
actually do go through a sort of grieving process. It's
not that dissimilar. Like the things I equate it to
are when you are part of like a really strong

(22:45):
cast for a play, right and you've gone through a
full production of the play, and then the show's over
and now that family you've created breaks apart, and or
I think about the Georgia Renaissance Festival. For some of
the really strong years of cast, it wasn't always true,
which is kind of unfortunate. But on the really good years,

(23:07):
like on that last day, you might sing a song
like here's a health to the company, which actually has
the line we may or might never all meet here again,
and that line has a really powerful hit to it
because it's true. The next season you're gonna they're not.
Everyone comes back, New people come on and it's a

(23:28):
new family, and sometimes that new family has its own
kind of special place in your heart. Sometimes it doesn't,
which is really sad, But it's one of those things.
You go through this, this this feeling, this series of feelings,
and it's really meaningful. Like I get that there are
a lot of jokes around LARPing that again, like you

(23:50):
were saying, Ariel from the outside, it might look silly
or dorky or whatever, but for the people who are
part of this, who are telling stories, I mean, storytelling
is a central part of the human experience. It's how
we contextualize everything in our lives. We do it by

(24:11):
organizing it into stories. And when you are part of
the creation of a story like that, it can have
a really huge impact. And yeah, so I'm glad that
you were able to come across resources that help you
with that in the aftermath, because you know, it's it's
it really can be a big hit. I know we

(24:34):
have mutual friends who at the end of a Garf
season would really struggle with depression afterward because they felt
like their family was gone. And I totally get that.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
Yeah, yeah, I mean and even if not the other
people like the characters, and I had this at Garf too.
I've I have not had as much trouble stepping out
of a characters I have with this particular one. But
you know, there is always some leve that because even
the character that you've built, you've spent so much time
developing who they are and walking in their shoes that

(25:07):
they're loved ones, and now you have to say goodbye,
and you may, like you said, you might never see
him again.

Speaker 2 (25:11):
So yeah, yeah, this is this is why I typically
create real dirt bags for garf characters, because it's a
lot easier to walk away from them. Yeah, garth are
almost always terrible, just so y'all know, except with the
exception of William Shakespeare. One season I played William Shakespeare,
but every other season I was playing a very self

(25:35):
obsessed narcissist, so it was pretty easy to walk away from.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
It might have been easy for you to walk away
from them, but they were still lovable despite your best efforts.

Speaker 2 (25:48):
At least the little girls that followed me around proved
you right on that it was so frustrating to play
a bad guy and have these little girls just absolutely
love the Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Yeah, speaking of hard to walk away, Oh no, we
can't even get into that. We have to do our
thirty seconds or less.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:07):
That such a good segue.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
You did, And we're almost half an hour in and
now it's time for our opening segment thirty seconds or less. Yeah,
So yeah, we're gonna go through this super fast, and
I'll start off, but we're gonna do the old back
and forth and I actually have not scripted this one out,
so we'll see how well I handle. I know this
first one will be fast, So here we go. Now,

(26:31):
So December sixth, if you are a fan of James
Cameron's The Abyss, it is getting re released for one
night only and it will be displayed in four K
resolution in theaters. So if you're a fan, or if
you've never seen The Abyss and you want to check
it out, you can do so in the theaters on
December sixth. Go and see if it's gonna be playing

(26:52):
in your local theater. I will tell you it's long
and the water is Aliens.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
Spoiler, I've never seen The Abyss. Okay, Next, Bob Iger
announced that Disney is developing Frozen four. Jonathan calls it
a hail Mary. I'm gonna be real honest, I only
skimmed this article. The interesting part is that Frozen three

(27:17):
hasn't even come out, that's only just in development, so
I think they're just trying to grasp onto whatever interest
people still have in that property. Is that a smart decision?
I wouldn't think so, but I guess we'll see.

Speaker 2 (27:31):
It's perfect take. Okay. Next up, so did comic book
creator Robert Kirkman spoil who Steven Yuen will play in Thunderbolts. Yes,
he did so. Kirkman created Invincible. That's a great comic
book series, great series. Stephen Yuen is going to be
playing the character of Sentry in Thunderbolts. Century is kind

(27:54):
of like a Superman with schizophrenia type character in Marvel.
I have the hiccups. This is not going to be
thirty seconds or less. I have hiccups. It's extenuating circumstances. Anyway, Steven,
when interesting pick for Century, you would not think of
him if you saw the character Centry in comic books.
I think it's perfectly fine to go outside of type.

(28:16):
I'm very curious to see how he plays him, because
the only thing I know about him is that in
Marvel Puzzle Quest he poses like a male model.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
I oh, it's thirty seconds or less. Okay, interesting, Yes, okay.
Shadow and Bone Netflix series that I was interested in
watching but never actually did so. I'm a part of
the problem is getting canceled after season two. Before season three,
they're saying that the amount of people that watched it
versus the cost it was to make it just there

(28:50):
was too much disparity there, and you know that's a
reasonable reason not to continue on with the show if
you aren't making your money back. Also, a pandemic and
delay the production of season three didn't help. But this
also means that if you were a fan of the
show Six of Crows, the spinoff series has also been canceled.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
Bummer. Finally, could the Internet's Zaddie Pedro Pascal be joining
the MCU. Well, the rumor is that he is considered
to be in the lead to play Reid Richards a
mister Fantastic. You might remember that mister Fantastic was last
played by Jim from the Office in Doctor Strange, and

(29:31):
now it's gonna be the Mandalorian. Maybe there's a lot
of questions about this because Pedro Pascal's dance card is
awfully full already, But that's the that's the rumor mail,
so we'll have to see.

Speaker 1 (29:43):
Okay, we're officially done with thirty seconds or less, so legit,
I would be an amazing ben Grim across from Pedro Pascal.

Speaker 2 (29:52):
Gonna have to stop, Aid Richards, You've gotta stop campaigning.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Why do I have to stop? They haven't announced any
of the rest of the cast yet.

Speaker 2 (30:04):
We all know the Ben get out there. We all
know Ben Grim's gonna be played by a PS three graphic.
That's that's gonna look terrible.

Speaker 1 (30:14):
I mean half of the time, but the other half
of the time it will be a really charming and
hilarious redhead who's a little bit rough around the edges
aka me.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
I mean, I'm not gonna object to you playing Ben Graham.
I feel like that might be as big a hail
Mary as Frozen four.

Speaker 1 (30:37):
You know what, both, Disney, So let's do it. Uh.
I'm pretty sure the casting directors are fantastic four. Don't
listen to this, but if you do, I'm happy to
send you my reel and anything else you want.

Speaker 2 (30:50):
Okay, yeah, hard to them And sometimes I read for
Ariel in some of those scenes. So if you hear
a voice in the background and you're like, oh, this
guy would be a really good henchman number seven, I'm available.

Speaker 1 (31:08):
All right, Speaking of hard to walk away from characters,
because I'm not going to give up that awesome same way,
even though it no longer fits HBO or Warner Brothers
Discovery or whatever it's called now. Max I don't know,

(31:28):
is not actually shelving Coyote Versus Acme, as previously stated,
they have changed their mind.

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Yeah, so we talked about this last week, how Warner
Brothers Discovery had made the extremely controversial decision to put
what was being called a completed film Coyote Versus Acme,
and had already been shown to test audiences and apparently
gotten a really good reaction. They were going to shelve

(31:57):
it permanently and make it a tax right off. And
then after the world appeared to be like come on,
you know, and started to really complain about this decision,
the company reversed its course. It is not going to
distribute Coyote Versus Acme, but it's also no longer going

(32:19):
to shelve it, which means that we will likely have
some distribution company release it in either theaters or on
streaming or maybe both, which is great news for all
the people who worked so long and so hard on
that film.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
Yeah. Yeah, I guess we'll see. I think the frontrunner
right now is Amazon, yeah, making it.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
And also, like you know, I know that we didn't
put this in our notes our lineup, but Ariel, you
had sent me an article when we were just kind
of chatting around earlier this week about David Zaslov essentially
saying the writers got what they deserved even though he
and Brother's Discovery fought really hard to not give them

(33:06):
that stuff.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
And by the writers got what they deserved, he means
in the contract.

Speaker 2 (33:13):
Yes, that they got looking for right, that the writers
were asking for things that were reasonable, like the pay
raises and all that. Like all their requests were reasonable,
is what he said, which doesn't take anything away from
the fact that he opposed it for so long and
so hard. So I just want to once again say,
I am glad I no longer work for David Zaslov.

Speaker 1 (33:36):
I It's interesting he didn't say that about the actors,
but I guess that's still too raw.

Speaker 2 (33:41):
No, those wounds are too fresh.

Speaker 1 (33:44):
Those wounds are too fresh. So next we're going to
talk about the trailer for the Garfield movie. Yes, there's
another one. Did you know about it? No? I didn't.
Apparently it looks like at the end of the trailer,
I'm going to skip to the end before we talk
about the trailer itself. They talk about joining the like
promotional campaign for it, which maybe was a tactic when

(34:06):
actors could not promote the movie.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
So yeah, maybe the whole idea of like, hey, do
you have a cute cat that does cute things? Shoot
video of your cute cat so that we can use
your cute cat to promote our movie.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Yep, which for a Garfield movie, actually looks pretty cute.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
Yeah, like it at least follows part of the movie
follows Garfield as a kitten. And they worked really really
hard to try and design Garfield to be like the
definition of cute, to a point where it was actually
a little disturbing to me.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
Yeah, it didn't feel like Garfield. I actually, Garfield is
this like snarky, cynical character that I you know, I
don't even know how well he fits into current society
and culture as a character, but he Yeah, they made
him very very sympathetic at first, and they don't make
him unsympathetic the rest of the time, but he does

(35:07):
gain some of his uh snarkiness trade trademark snarkiness. He
is voiced by Chris Pratt, And what I will say is,
whereas some people complained about Chris Pratt doing the voice
of Mario, when I heard him as Garfield, I'm like, yes,
he sounds like Garfield to me.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Oh, I thought he sounded like an Italian plumber.

Speaker 1 (35:27):
Oh geez I, Samuel L. Jackson did not sound like
Samuel L. Jackson to me. Surprisingly few MF bombs.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
Someone get that m F and lasagna? Yeah, I uh, table,
I exactly. I don't have any real strong feelings about this.
Like again, like you, Ariel, I'm like, because is Garfield first?
Was it ever relevant? It must have been. I mean,
Garfield had like a Saturday morning cartoon show for a

(36:00):
very long time.

Speaker 1 (36:01):
But Garfield and Friends.

Speaker 2 (36:03):
Is it somehow relevant now? I don't know. Yeah, it's uh,
it's cute enough. I don't know that I'll go see it.
It's not something that's calling out to me. But I
could definitely see my nieces really gravitating towards this movie
based on that trailer.

Speaker 1 (36:20):
Yeah, and you know what, there's there's something to be
said for taking the ip that I loved as a
kid and making it watchable today so that I can
share it with my kids if I had them, I
would prefer it with something like Phantom told Booth, But
you know, to each their own. Uh. The next trailer
we have.

Speaker 2 (36:41):
Is It's It's It's all trailers from here on out folks.

Speaker 1 (36:46):
So just so you know, yes, and also a good
a good case for me on why I should help
make this lineup at what when we get to the end.
Uh So, next we have trailer for Netflix original Rebel
Moon Colon Part one, Colan a Child of Fire, Colan
too many Colon's, as Jonathan put it, yes, which I

(37:06):
feel like also sums up my trailer watching experience.

Speaker 2 (37:10):
Yeah. Yeah. So it's funny because when I told Ariel
about this, she's like, didn't we already talk about this trailer?
And it's because there was a teaser that came out
and the teaser was three minutes long, which is that's
ridiculous for a teaser. Teasers are usually less than a
minute long. And now we got a trailer where we
get a little bit more of the story and it's

(37:32):
essentially I mean, it looks to me like it's another
adaptation of Seven Samurai, like maybe even closer to Seventh
Samurai than things like the Magnificent Seven happened to be.
As the trailer played out, I'm like, oh, here's another
seventh son of the Seventh Samurai for us to talk about.

Speaker 1 (37:53):
Yeah, I so part of it it looks pretty and
there are bits of it that seem interesting to me,
but it very much feels like it's going to suffer
from Zack Snyder's I have way too much I want
to put into a story, and I can't fit it
all in. So here's five hours of people singing slowly

(38:14):
at the ocean.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
I think it's usually more like speed ramp speed ramp
combat against each other and lots of saturated lighting so
that everything all the color bleeds out of the picture.

Speaker 1 (38:31):
Yeah, there's a lot that he is trying to stuff
into the world. You can tell from both the teaser
and the trailer. Hopefully he'll make it all work. You know,
Normally I would say he suffers from editing, and I
will still stand by that. However, having just talked about
a game where you had one hundred players, all playing
their own, entirely different games that may never intersect. They

(38:52):
did intersect, but you know what I mean, I can't
judge too hard, but I do think for a while
experience it may I hope I'm wrong, but it looks
like it might be too much.

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Yeah. To me, it just looks like what if Star
Wars met seven Samurai is Because I mean, you've got
like the the oppressive empire like organization that's that's attacking
like worlds that are much less well equipped. So you've

(39:24):
got the rebel Moon part there, right, You've got the
lead character who is determined to try and bring together
a team of warriors and experts to oppose this oppressive force.
And you've got the natives, the people who are who
live on this planet or this moon or whatever, who

(39:48):
are largely at the mercy of the oppressive group, and
they're dependent upon these heroes to save them. And I'm like,
I think I've already got this movie, Like just from
this trailer, I know how this movie plays out because
we have seen this story before. It's just the fact
that it's kind of in the trappings of a Star

(40:10):
Wars ish setting, and I don't know that there's more
to it that's going to pull me to what want
to watch the movie?

Speaker 1 (40:20):
Yeah? Yeah, quick aside, this has nothing to do with
anything other than the fact that I just remembered this
and I meant to put it in our show notes.
They are doing a Boop the musical written by David
Foster in Chicago about Betty Boop.

Speaker 2 (40:36):
Okay, I thought at first it.

Speaker 1 (40:38):
Has nothing to do with anything.

Speaker 2 (40:39):
I thought it was first of all, weird non sequitor.
Second of all, when you said boop the musical, I
was like, is this just going to be a show
where people just walk up to each other and then
touch each other on the nose?

Speaker 1 (40:53):
I would watch something else. I I think I would watch.
I think I would watch. Is the Netflix original fantasy
film Damsel starring All of a sudden, her name has
escaped me.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
I didn't write it down and I have not watched
this trailer since I put it on the lineup, so
I cannot help you. And Noah Holmes, Oh, oh that actress. Yeah,
I don't know the actress's name, and I should. Oh
Millie Bobby Brown? Is that it?

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (41:24):
Yes, she was also in Stranger Things right. Yes, she
looks like she's gonna do a great job. When I
saw this trailer, what I was reminded of was a
nineteen eighties film that was actually released under one of
Disney's not the proper Disney label, but one of Disney's

(41:44):
like subsidiaries. But there was a nineteen eighties fantasy film
called Dragon Slayer, and this movie, this trailer reminds me
of Dragon slayer. But the twist is, what if dragon Slayer,
but one of the intended sacrifice vices becomes the dragon slayer.

Speaker 1 (42:02):
Yeah, that sums up what this story is exactly. And
it actually has like a very eighties feel to it
to me.

Speaker 2 (42:10):
Oh, it's interesting, it's a little bit.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
And I think that's just I think I think that's
just because like a lot of the action has a
little bit of a harder edge to it. I wouldn't
say it's dark, but it feels edgy, and that I
equate to like rock and roll fantasy from.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
The eighties es well. And and and the premise is
is dark, right, because the whole premise is You've got
the society that in order to uh survive, they've chosen
to sacrifice young women to this monster, this this dragon,
and that presumably in return, the dragon agrees not to

(42:48):
wipe them out, and so they are are sacrificing women
on some sort of regular basis, So that that alone
is a very dark premise.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (42:59):
And and I do like the take of making one
of those intended sacrifices the actual hero of the story.
My biggest problem with Dragonslayer is that, I mean, there
is one character who is a potential sacrificial victim who
is part of the heroic group, but she's a supporting character,
and the main character is like the naive young magician's

(43:24):
apprentice who's trying to be a hero. I like the
fact that the actual intended victim ends up turning the
tables and becomes the hero. So that's what makes me
interested in watching this when it comes out.

Speaker 1 (43:36):
Yeah, I think that's really cool too. I'm also interested
to see how much of the movie is Billy Bobby Brown,
Bobby Brown in by herself with just CGI monsters in
environments to go.

Speaker 2 (43:52):
Through, like, yeah, it will be yeah, because.

Speaker 1 (43:54):
That's always that's a heavy load to lift.

Speaker 2 (43:56):
Yeah, super challenging. It's hard to make that engage. Like.
There are actors who have done great jobs with that,
but I think some of the best examples I've seen
were because the environment was partly real and partly CGI,
so stuff like Lord of the Rings, they went so

(44:17):
hard in making set pieces and stuff so that there
was like a grounding for the actors to work off
of that. I feel like that tends to work a
lot better than say the Star Wars prequels or the
Star Wars sequels where the over reliance on maybe not
over reliance, the reliance on CGI perhaps inhibited actors' performances,

(44:40):
which was complicated by the fact that, at least with
the prequels, they were being directed by someone who traditionally
hasn't shown the greatest interest in directing performances.

Speaker 1 (44:53):
Yeah, now that being said, the later Star Wars shows
on d Plus have kind of fixed that.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
So yes, yeah, because they're they're using that big, like
immersive set, that semi spherical set where the actors can
actually see the stuff that's behind them as opposed to
just a green screen.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
Yeah. Yeah, don't know what they're doing for the new
Percy Jackson in the Olympians show, but I will say
that's coming out on Deplus. It looks actually pretty cute. Yeah,
I mean the pretty sweet.

Speaker 2 (45:26):
I agree, it looks it looks fine. Like I have
not read the books so and I've never watched the
other the film as it came out, so I don't
have any like connection to the source material. But I
will say, like if I were if I were twelve
years old and I saw this trailer, I'd be like,
I can't wait to see this.

Speaker 1 (45:47):
Yeah, yeah, I know that one of my nephews is
going to be super into it. I I was a
little bit old for Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and
I think I've said it on this podcast, but for
a while I was getting it confused with Atlas Shrugged.

Speaker 2 (46:01):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (46:01):
Completely different story, Yes, yes, very different. But you know,
I'm I'm almost a little sad that I was too
old for Percy Jackson when it came out, because I
loved Greek mythology when I was a kid growing up,
and this looks this looks it looks fun, and it
looks adventurous, and it looks like there's a lot of

(46:23):
different emotions that they play on, which is great. It
feels kid friendly but not overly cheesy to me. And
also it has Timothy Audmunson in it playing Hephaestus, and like,
you can't beat that because he's amazingly fun to watch.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
He's great. Yeah. I thought this looked really kind of entertaining.
I thought the performances that we get to see, the
little bits that we get to see, hint that there's
some great chemistry among the cast, and I think the
CGI stuff it was hard to get a handle on
because none of the shots are lasting super long. But

(47:02):
I thought it was appropriate for like a fantasy themed film,
like a film that has a fantasy element to it.
And I love being able to like, I love the
fact that there was a shot with a cinaur in it.
And you know, again, you didn't really see the centaur move,
so it's not like you could say, wow, what great
special effects. But I just thought the design was good.

Speaker 1 (47:24):
Yeah, yeah, wow, what a great centaur.

Speaker 2 (47:28):
Hey you know what, I got a praise where I can.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Yeah, yeah, Do you think the design looks good for
the new Madam Web movie?

Speaker 2 (47:38):
I am conf well, I mean, Sony just continues to
confuse me. So this Madam Web is another entry into
their Spider Verse version offshoot of the MCU. So, like
Venom and Morvius and the upcoming Craven film, Madam Web
is another one of those kind of offshoots. From what

(48:01):
I understand, Madam Webb takes place in yet another offshoot universe. So,
like none of these characters appear natively in the same universe,
some of them cross over from one to another. I
think in Venom, we find out at the end of
Venom two that he Eddie Brock and venom cross into

(48:23):
a different universe that happens to be a shared one,
but most of them are in individual ones. So Madame
Webb first of all, totally new take on Madame Web
because in the comics originally she was a much older
woman psychic confined to a life support system that looks
like a big web, which is why she was called

(48:44):
Madame Webb. She's not otherwise at all related to Spider
Man this one. She's a much younger woman. She's a
paramedic who somehow gets powers, possibly by saving Adam Scott.
I don't know. And then you've got three other three
other variations of Spider Woman or Spider Girl who are

(49:07):
in the story as well. I had to look all
this up, by the way, Ariel, I did not know
it from watching the trailer, like you see them in
their Spider Hero costumes, but I had no idea who
they were.

Speaker 1 (49:19):
Yeah, yeah, I had to. My husband told me about it.
I don't know who the three different Spider people are.
I do know that Madam Webb in the comics is
a conduit to the Spider Verse, so that is comic accurate.

Speaker 2 (49:33):
Yeah, she sounds like who the Web of Lives or
something like that. I can't remember what it's called, but
something along those lines.

Speaker 1 (49:41):
Yeah, but I do know that when my niece saw
the trailer, she was super excited because a bunch of
female Spider Man's and I get that, but Morbius and
it's Morbien time and Craven them Chips both.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
Both.

Speaker 1 (50:00):
I don't know. They've they've diluted my interest. I liked
the first Venom movie. I thought it was fine. I
thought it was cute and entertaining, so maybe they can
get back to that. I just worry that it's going
to be kind of too dark and kind of too
I don't know, something.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
It's It's interesting because it's clearly set in an earlier
era than the Spider Man films, at least in this universe,
because like in the opening shot, she's walking toward a
diner that has a payphone out in front, so like
it's clearly set in an earlier time frame. There's one
point where there's a guy on a subway and he's

(50:38):
playing with a PSP, which was discontinued several years ago,
so that tells you that it's sometime in like between
I don't know, like two thousand and four and twenty seventeen,
So like, there's some interesting little hints there that this
is taking place in a slightly earlier era that I
think is kind of interesting. I thought the action looked
fine in the trade, and like, I didn't like the

(51:02):
lead actress's performance that much. I didn't find it really engaging.
But no, the trailer at least looked like it would
be something I would be more into than Craven or
definitely more into than Morebius because that just looked like
a train wreck from day one and even Venom because

(51:24):
I never felt the urge to watch Venom. This one,
I think looks at least from the supporting cast interesting.
The lead lead leaves me cold, though.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
Yeah, I have not seen enough of her work, partially
because I'm not interested in like the fifty Shades of
Grace series, but I yeah it hopefully it's better and
maybe they just picked the wrong clips. Yeah, I felt
the same way. I was, like some of these, some
of these supporting characters seem interesting. One of them is

(51:57):
from White Lotus, But yeah, the lead just kind of
didn't grab me. Yeah, well, like it would be a
very long movie to watch her in.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Yeah, it's funny, because again, it's like what we were
talking about last week was I had not been keeping
up with the production of Madam Webb, so I was
not aware that it would be in a place where
there could even be a trailer released. So when it
when I happened to notice it the other day, I
was like, huh wow. Something else that made me say
wow was something you sent to me that you had seen.

(52:29):
This is one of the ones that you saw that
we added to the lineup, which is the trailer for
the second season of the MCU animated series what If.

Speaker 1 (52:39):
Yeah, and it looks like what If.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
It does look like what If. It looks a lot
like what If. There's a bit where we see Captain
America fighting with sword and shield, and that looked really cool.

Speaker 1 (52:52):
Yeah, and I think maybe they're going into Echo's backstory
a little bit, or an alternate version of her story. Okay,
it could be cool. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
I mean like, I couldn't get a strong sense of
what the stories are, but the style is definitely similar
to what we saw with the first season.

Speaker 1 (53:13):
Yeah. Yeah, And I enjoyed the first season well enough,
so I will watch the second season of What If. Sally.
That's really all I gotta say on it. Yeah, the
stories didn't grab me enough to be like, oh, this
is what's happening here, and this is what's happening here.
But I've also been a little distracted this week. The
next trailer that we have is for Pokemon Concierge, which

(53:37):
is another Netflix series, and this just looks like a
happy show. I can't even tell if there is ever
any conflict in it. Yeah, it's adorable.

Speaker 2 (53:48):
It looked so freakin cute. Like, again, not necessarily something
I would watch. I have no connection to Pokemon. I
was never into it, So again I'm the wrong audience
for this. But as I watched this trailer, I'm like,
holy crap, they have they have dialed the cute meter
past bursting on this series.

Speaker 1 (54:09):
Yeah, it's it's about a woman who works at a
Pokemon hotel basically, and she's like, the Pokemon don't tell
you what they want, uh, And it's just her making
friends with all these Pokemon. And it looks kind of
like it must be seen. It looks almost like stop animation.

Speaker 2 (54:26):
Yeah, I didn't look into that. It does look a
lot like like if it's if it's computer generated, it's
computer generated. To look like stop motion animation, because that's
it has the elements of stop motion animation, which I
also dig like. I like the character models. I liked
the colors are really they pop so hard, these colors. Uh,

(54:48):
it just looks like a really delightful little series. And
you know, I think if you can create a delightful
series about animals that are forced to fight each other
for amusement having a chance to go on vacation, you
should do it.

Speaker 1 (55:04):
Yeah. I it honestly kind of gave me like a
wuzzles feel. I don't know why. That's probably after your time.

Speaker 2 (55:12):
I have heard the word before.

Speaker 1 (55:17):
Well, if you know what the wuzzles are and you
watch the Pokemon Concierge trailer, let me know if you
get the same vibes. The next thing I also didn't
know was happening I'm actually super excited for, which is
a new entry into the Mister Monk series.

Speaker 2 (55:34):
Yeah, so Adrian Monk. If you're not familiar, It was
the lead character of a television series several years ago,
and he is played by Tony Shaloub and the character
is a brilliant, brilliant detective, a lah like Sherlock Holmes.
He's one of those people just has incredible powers of

(55:57):
observation and deduction, but he's also riddled with various neuro
sees and mental health issues, everything from like a germaphobia
to agoraphobia, like he's afraid of everything essentially. Yeah. Yeah,

(56:17):
and he typically can only function when he has a
personal nurse working with him, who serves to be the
Watson to his homes. And so we're getting a movie
called Mister Monk's Last Case and it will be on
Peacock and it's yeah, it's a continuation or a conclusion,

(56:39):
which is interesting because like the big overarching story for
mister Monk on the series was that you find out
that one of the reasons he's as bad off as
he is, like he was always neurotic, but the reason
why he's as severe as he is is because prior
to the show beginning, his wife was killed and so

(57:00):
he is obsessed with solving her murder and that is
kind of an underlying plot point throughout the entire series,
and they kind of wrap that up at the end
of the TV series. So it's interesting to me, like
this is post all of that and another story. I

(57:21):
kind of wonder if they're trying to tie up any
other loose ends. It's been long enough since I've watched
the series that I couldn't tell you what those loosends
are at this point.

Speaker 1 (57:30):
Same, however, I absolutely loved this series when it was airing.
I've watched it a few times. Yeah, it also takes
place post COVID. They make a joke about it in
the trailer, not an observation. It's not even really a.

Speaker 2 (57:45):
Joke, yea other than to other than to hint that
it really did a number on Monk.

Speaker 1 (57:52):
Yeah. Yeah, but if you if you liked Monk and
you watched it, you'll also get your You'll get Natalie
Back who was his nurse, and Randy and Leland Stottlemeyer,
who were detectives. So I love that. I love that
we're getting a lot of the original crew back and Monk,
who went through a couple of nurses, but I think
she was the most prominent.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
Yeah. Yeah, his first one lasted for several seasons, and
then that actress left the show, and then Natalie became
I think ultimately was on more episodes if you were
to like look at them and add them all up.

Speaker 1 (58:26):
Yeah, And I like both of both of the actresses
who played the nurses something I don't know. The next
thing we're going to talk about is kind of like
my bane of animation, which is Mary Little Batman. It
looks like a cute story, but it is such ugly
animation that I don't think I'll be able to like it. Basically,

(58:50):
it's an animated cartoon. It's very like kid oriented where
Batman goes off and says he'll be back before Christmas
and he crashes, and so Damian Wayne, his son, ends
up putting on finding his own batsuit and fighting crime.
And it looks like a really cute, kind of funny story,

(59:14):
but it's just ugly. It's just an ugly, ugly cartoon.
I'm sorry to the animators. It's just visually unappealing to me.
And I am sad because I know I'm gonna have
to watch it over the holidays that I don't want.
Maybe maybe i'd love it in audio format.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
Is your partner going to demand you watch it and
that's why you're gonna have to see it?

Speaker 1 (59:40):
Yeah. So we have a good friend who every time
that he comes to visit, he brings like some of
the Disney animated movies to watch, and that's what he
and my husband do, and he's probably gonna visit after,
like between Christmas and the New Year a little bit maybe,
And I'm suspecting that one will be on the list,

(01:00:02):
because that is how I found out about it. It
was through this person. I mean, I could I could
sit upstairs and be a grinch and crochet and watch
actual plays instead of going downstairs and being social.

Speaker 2 (01:00:18):
But gotcha. Well, now we're moving into my favorite part
of every episode, which is where I flood the end
of the episode with trailers for horror movies and then
I make airy I'll watch this.

Speaker 1 (01:00:29):
And this is why I need to And this time
they're Christmas, so they're extra bat they're extra horrible trailers.
I need to start doing the lineup so you can't
do this to me anymore.

Speaker 2 (01:00:41):
I mean, I'm always going to throw them in and
put them at the end.

Speaker 1 (01:00:45):
Yeah, and then maybe I'll come in and I'll move them.
After you've arranged the episode.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
It's just going to be You're going to be you'll
be listening to us record the episode and here live
as we are shifting things around on the on the line.

Speaker 1 (01:01:00):
It'll be like the pink blue dress argument from Sleeping.

Speaker 2 (01:01:04):
Beauty exactly, make it creepy, make it wholesome, make it creepy.
So the first one, as you mentioned, is the Sacrifice Game.
If I had to give like the elevator pitch for
the Sacrifice Game, this is only makes sense if you
watch a lot of horror. But I would say, take
Funny Games and combine it with the Black Coat's Daughter,

(01:01:25):
and you've got the Sacrifice Game. But again, that doesn't
mean anything if you don't know those two reference points.

Speaker 1 (01:01:33):
To me, it looks like if you took Violent Night
and took any of the Santa or magical or a
little bit of kind heartedness there was in it out
of it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:42):
Well, the Sacrifice Game is about some students at a
like a boarding school who are staying behind longer than
their fellow students. And then there's an almost like a
school invasion kind of thing as some cultists come in,
and clearly the whole reference of the Sacrifice Game is
that they're gonna need to sacrifice someone to do whatever

(01:02:05):
dark magic they need to do, which is why I
think of it as like Funny Games is a home
invasion film. There's a lot of fourth wall breaking and
funny games. I don't think that's going to be the
case for The Sacrifice Game, but funny games, very intense
home invasion film. And then The black Coat's Daughter is
a movie in which two women, two young women students

(01:02:31):
at a boarding school, stay behind during holiday break and
one of them, it turns out to essentially surrender herself
to the devil.

Speaker 1 (01:02:43):
That sounds so holiday lovely.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
It's a fantastic movie. It's not a good horror holiday movie.
But The Black Coat's Daughter is an amazing very atmospheric
and slow paced. I mean, if you're not into slow
paced movies, it's not going to be for you, but
it's got an amazing atmosphere and great performance. Is highly
recommended if you if you haven't seen it, check out
The Black Coat's Daughter. I don't know if The Sacrifice

(01:03:09):
Game is going to be as good as either of
those two movies that I just mentioned, but it does
have like one hundred percent reception so far, only because
the movie not only because, but I think largely because
the movie has only really shown in like film festivals,
specifically ones that have kind of a horror slant to it,
So it's not like it's been screened to critics, you know,

(01:03:33):
across the whole spectrum.

Speaker 1 (01:03:35):
Yeah. The next trailer is for Terrifier three. I it's
the third of the Terrifier trilogies. I'm going to assume yes,
it's about a creepy, gross, bad makeup Santa that eats children.

Speaker 2 (01:03:54):
So it's art. The Clown is the name of the
antagonist in the Terrifier series. Art Clown actually appears in
some other stuff besides the Terrifier films. It's a character
who's been around for a little bit. The Terrifier series
is essentially in the slasher horror genre and goes really

(01:04:16):
hard on blood and gore, like super hard in all
the entries. I do not personally find the Terrifier movies
that entertaining. Sometimes there are people who do like a
darn good performance in them, but I'm not a big
fan of the films. There. There's not a whole lot
to them other than this supernaturally resilient, psychopathic clown monster

(01:04:43):
decides for whatever reason to terrorize and murder people. That's
about it. Like there's no other there's no other subtle
element to the film. And this is the third one.
As Ariel said, cool, good talk. The last trailer, which
is this one. Look, this one's sweet. It's about it's

(01:05:04):
about children and their imaginary.

Speaker 1 (01:05:05):
Friends that want them to harm themselves. It's called imaginary.

Speaker 2 (01:05:11):
Yeah. Yeah, this trailer. This trailer was disturbing. I think
where we've seen movies like this before too, right, where
it's a child who makes a connection with some sort
of supernatural element and only the child is able to
see and interact with this element, and of course the
adults around this child's life just assume that the child

(01:05:33):
being imaginative and that's it. And in this case, it
turns out that, uh, it's not that the child is
it's not just that the child is imaginative. They really
can see an entity that is malevolent, and in this case,
the malevolent entity has a grudge against the child's mother.

(01:05:54):
I'm guessing they never really seem to, uh to nailed
down the relationship between the main character and the child.
But the older woman in her in her own childhood
apparently abandoned this imaginary friend, and it's got a grudge.

Speaker 1 (01:06:12):
I mean, it also seems like it's got a grudge
against the girl's brother. It is done by this, It's
done by Bloomhouse. It's you know, creators of Megan and
five Nights at Freddy, So it's right in that niche
of creepy play things. That one looked the most interesting
to me. But I still think it's just not something

(01:06:33):
that I'm going to be interested in watching, So I'll
be I will be wrapped to hear your review of it, Jonathan.

Speaker 2 (01:06:40):
Yeah, I'll probably watch this one. I'll probably watch this one,
and I'll probably watch the Sacrifice game. My guess is
some some evening, I'm going to be bored and I'll
watch Terrifier three because I have watched the other two
movies in that series, even though again I wasn't a
big fan of either film. Like some of the actors

(01:07:02):
I thought were great in those movies, Like I thought
they did a really good job with what they had,
but neither movie. I wouldn't call myself a fan of
either of them. But I'm sure I'll end up watching
Terrifier three anyway, because you know, it's like like how
sometimes you know you really shouldn't. You know it's gonna
make you feel bad, but you just crave taco bell

(01:07:25):
so you just gotta go out and eat taco Bell.
You know there are better options. You know you'd feel
better if you just ate somewhere else, but you gotta
have Taco Bell. Terrifier is my Taco Bell.

Speaker 1 (01:07:36):
So I had Taco Bell on Monday, and I usually
feel fine afterwards.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Oh well, you're eating it differently than I do.

Speaker 1 (01:07:45):
I get like a basic, crunchy or soft taco and
it's like between one hundred and seventy and one hundred
and eighty calories for taco, which isn't too bad. And
I get a few of those in a sushi and
I'm good.

Speaker 2 (01:07:57):
See for me, it's the bean burrito because those nest
to be. It used to be like, oh, I'd scrounged
for change in my going back to my college days,
I've scrounged for change. I'm like, oh man, i've got
a dollar twenty nine. Guess I'll go buy five bean
burritos at Taco Bell.

Speaker 1 (01:08:14):
I mean, it's another reason Taco Bell is good. I
know they get a lot of flak, but I they're
one of my guilty pleasures. Yeah, so that is it.
I will work on getting these show notes up. Show
notes up everybody, so you can follow along with the

(01:08:34):
stories and the trailers we talked about. I'll also link
to my friend's live stream if you want to check
it out, because she's a really amazing role player and
I've gamed with her through more games than just Calamity,
but she's awesome. Jonathan. If they want to reach out
to us about anything that we've talked about, or just
to share stuff going on, how do they do that?

Speaker 2 (01:08:55):
Well, what you're first gonna do is you're gonna rummage
around in your couch. You're gonna keep on doing that
till you get approximately eighty nine cents. You're gonna then
take a trip to the closest taco bell. You're gonna
order yourself a bean and cheese burrito. You're gonna take
that bean and cheese burrito home, and when you get home,
you're gonna open up that bag and you're gonna see

(01:09:15):
that they gave you four packets of the Diablo hot sauce.
I'm gonna need you to empty all four of those
packets into the inside of your bean and cheese burrito.
Then you're going to have to lift that bean and
cheese burrito. You're gonna have to close your eyes count
to three. Then you're just gonna have to scarf that
sucker down as fast as you possibly can. As you

(01:09:39):
feel the effects of the Diablo sauce soaked burrito go
down your gullet. You're going to start having regrets. And
I don't just mean about Taco Bell. You're gonna have
an existential crisis where you're going to regret all the
various bad decisions that eventually led you to Taco Bell.

(01:09:59):
And as you get to the end of this chain
of bad decisions, as you go back in time and
you go through all the causal relationships that led to
you going to Taco Bell, you're going to turn around
and look back at where you came from, and you're
going to see a silhouette and that silhouetted figure is
going to step forward. It will be me. I will

(01:10:21):
have Diablo sauce all over my face, and you're going
to ask your question, and after I let out what
can only be described as a disturbingly wet belch, I
will answer you.

Speaker 1 (01:10:33):
Oh my goodness, that's almost more terrifying than the last
three trailers. Uh. If you can't eat hot sauce like me,
you can also reach out to us on the social
media's on Twitter, where LLNC Underscore podcast on Instagram, Threads, Facebook,
and Discord. We're a large neurdrun collider. We do have
a blue Sky account that's a different handle because I

(01:10:55):
couldn't get any of the ones we otherwise have and
I don't remember it at the moment. And if you
want to drop us an email, you can do so
at Large nerdrum Pod at gmail dot com. We really
do love hearing from you. And until next time.

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
What what what?

Speaker 1 (01:11:14):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:11:14):
Are?

Speaker 1 (01:11:15):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
What? What?

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
What?

Speaker 2 (01:11:16):
WHOA wait before you do that. One last thing. Next
week is Thanksgiving, so we will be taking a week off, yes,
because we will not be able to record. I'll be traveling.
Ariel will be very busy, So we will be off
next week due to Thanksgiving, but we'll be back very
soon after that.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
Yes, thank you, uh DJ Jonathan Strickland. What what? What? What? What?
Until next time? I have been Ariel Christmas. It's not
even Thanksgiving yet, casting and.

Speaker 2 (01:11:50):
I have been Jonathan Wabba Whoba gobble Gobbles Strickland. The
Large nerdron Collider was created by Ariel and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted,
published again. Cursed at by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin

(01:12:12):
McLeod of ingcomptech dot com,