April 22, 2021 • 47 mins
Because Ariel watched Fargo for the first time over the weekend, we decided to talk about the uniqueness that is Coen Brother movies. Plus we zoom through some fun news and into an Airbender Mad Max mash-up that's totally shiny and chrome.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Large New Drunk Collider Podcast is a production of
I Heart Radio. Hey everybody, welcome to the Large New
Drunk Collider podcast podcast. That's all about the geeky things
happening in the world and how very excited we are
(00:30):
about them. I'm Ariel casting and with me as always.
Is this super crazy awesome Jonathan Strickland. Hey, Ariel Cohen,
I ask you a question. You're going to pitch a
show about historical figure Allah Hamilton. What figure from history
(00:57):
do you pick just for comedy sake. I'm going to
say the Earl of Sandwich. And it's interactive. Each act
or each musical number, the audience gets another piece of
the sandwich that they will build during the show to
eat an intermission for their snack. I like it. So
it's so it's dinner theater. It's dinner theater. I mean,
I am sure there are I am certain there are
(01:20):
much more important historical figures to write a musical about.
But that just off the top of my head, that
amuses me. I think that's a good answer. I think
that's a good answer. Okay, Well, I would say Guttenberg
as in the creator of the printing press. But some
people from the Upright Citizens Brigade already did that and
they did an amazing job. So that's a comedy masterpiece
(01:42):
I can't touch. So my choice is Joshua Abraham Norton,
a k a. Emperor Norton, the first of the United
States of America. He's a guy who was born in England,
raised in South Africa, came over to San Francisco in
the mid eight hundred and after having a massive financial
(02:04):
uh setback, I got very fed up with the court
systems in the United States and self proclaimed as the
Emperor of the US, and people in San Francisco thought
he was amusing. And he even printed up currency of
his own device and people accepted it and they celebrated him.
(02:26):
That's that would be a lot of fun to watch
musical on that. It's absolutely true and it's totally bonkers.
It is very bonkers. You know. My other choice, because
you know I was going to come in with my
indecision at the end of it, would be Mr Rogers
musical about Mr Rogers. I think hardcore gangster wrap. Mr
(02:48):
Rogers show would be amazing. It would be amazing, you know,
I'm I'm sure he'd approve, But you know, I like
positive influential figures and celebrating them. And anytime there's a Mr.
Rogers movie, I watch it, or a documentary, I watch it.
So musical is the next logical step there? Maybe he
(03:09):
could have a heartfelt scut discussion with your emperor. That
would be that would be interesting. He could find out
why the emperor was so sad and it all has
to do with Rice. But that's a story for another time.
What we're going to do instead is transition into our
news items. And first up is we wanted to talk
a little bit about the the trailer that was released
(03:31):
for shang Xi, the next Marvel film that's about a
character who has a history with the Ten Rings, the
same organization that brought us the Mandarin and the Iron
Man movies. This trailer was so exciting to me in
(03:55):
a way that I expected, I don't know, something that
felt more Marvel, or more Martial Arts or more Iron Fist,
which was the least favorite of the Defender movies on Netflix.
But instead I got something that just delighted me and
excited me and surprised me in a myriad of ways.
All the way through the trailer was going, oh, that's
(04:15):
so cool. Oh, that's so cool. It's kind of it
feels like Marvel's answer to Mortal Kombat. To me, I
feel like it's almost like, I mean, we're gonna get
Marvel's answer to Batman later on, but it feels a
little like Marvel's answer to Batman in that the the
bits you see about shang Chi's the character's childhood, um
(04:39):
and what he has gone through in in regard to
training reminds me a lot of stuff you see Bruce
Wayne going through once he's determined that he wants to
become a vigilante. And uh, it's you know, the movie
doesn't give it too many details. It's a lot of style,
(05:01):
but it's really cool style. It gives little hints of
things like the history of the character, the fact that
the character has had sort of a ten year grace
period after training to kind of have experiences before being
told that now it's time for you to assume your
responsibility in your place. Um. And there's not like a
(05:22):
whole lot of of humor in the trailer until the
very very end of it, and it's it's a great stinger,
a fantastic way to end your trailer, but it does
just it looks really good and the fight choreography looks
really good and actually makes me think of um, like
the fight sequence in uh in in Winter Soldier where
(05:47):
Captain America is in the the elevator and has to
fight his way out. Uh, it makes me think of that,
Like it's that kind of really physical fight choreography and
you can follow the action and even just those short
bits of the trailer something I really appreciate because for
a while there the style of the day was someone's fighting.
(06:11):
Someone got hit. I don't know if it was the
good guy or the bad guy. Yeah. Yeah. And the
other thing is it puts the pedestrians is the wrong word.
It puts the civilians in the trailer into situations that
I've found like very like, oh, my goodness has happened,
and he just saved her from this thing. Uh. Not
to be vague, watched the trailer, you'll understand what I'm
(06:33):
talking about, but just the situations that the fights were in,
the way that the people were saved, the danger that
the people were in, and yeah, the moves, it was
it was clear and it was fresh. You should make
a great point because this is a trailer where we
see a hero being heroic, which everyone who's heard me
on this podcast knows. That's my biggest complaint about the
DC movies is that, with the exception of Wonder Woman, UM,
(06:56):
the d C characters are rarely shown to be heroic
towards ordinary people. They're they're more like superpowered action figures
fighting each other. Well and and Shane chi Is is
are you familiar with them not? This is one of
those like I would put this up there with Iron Fists,
(07:16):
Like there were certain types of characters from the comic
books that I just never really learned much about. So
this was one where I went into it blind, not
knowing what to expect, not really expecting to to have
it resonate with me. But the trailer hit all the
right buttons for me. Yeah, to me, like he's he's
definitely more street level, like a defender, um, because he
(07:40):
doesn't really have superpowers. He's just, like you said, like Batman,
really freaking good at what he does. UM. So that
also makes his heroicism to me a little bit more
important in moving It is interesting to think that he
has been incorporated into this because you know, the Marvel
(08:00):
is sort of escalated throughout the process of the m
c U movies coming out, and we're now at the
point where we're getting into cosmic level heroes and villains, right,
I mean we already are there. Thanos was one, but
Doctor Strange, Scarlet, Witch, Captain Marvel. You know, these are
characters who are immensely powerful in the Marvel universe, and
(08:26):
it is refreshing to see that Marvel hasn't turned away
from characters on the other side of the spectrum who
have great stories to tell, but they aren't like cosmic
level powerful. You know, they're not the Fantastic Four or
any of these other characters. No. I mean, we also
have the new Hawkeye movie coming out, and Hawkeye doesn't
(08:48):
have superpowers. He's just really good at what he does.
I would even wager that Falcon doesn't have superpowers. He
has a super suit, but you know not, he's not
even like Iron Man. He's fully protected in his student armor.
He's he's just got some some wings and pretty wings.
(09:09):
No spoilers not seen the most recent episode. Oh I have,
but maybe not all of our listeners. I'm sorry. I mean,
he does have wings, chicken wings. They're delicious. Anyhow, speaking
of things that has wings. Yes, I'm speaking. We's talking
about helicopters now, I guess we're just adopting a different
(09:32):
manner of speech. No, we want to talk about We
want to talk about Ingenuity, the little chopper that could
on Mars. So this was like a what NASA would
refer to as like a high risk experiment because there
was no guarantee that it was ever going to work.
Ingenuity is a little helicopter like drone that hits the
(09:55):
ride aboard the Perseverance rover and uh. It has rotors
that are very long and very lights mayle like carbon fiber.
It's it weighs about four pounds here on Earth. But
you gotta remember that Mars gravity is about of what
Earth's is, so it's different there. But Mars's atmosphere is
(10:15):
like one per cent the density of Earth's atmosphere, so
there's less air to generate lift from. So the scientists
really weren't sure if they were going to be able
to make this happen. In order for it to work,
the rotors have to turn around twenty four revolutions per minute. Now,
by comparison a terrestrial helicopter one here on Earth. Those
(10:40):
the main rotors turned at about four hundred to five
hundred revolutions per minute, so this is like six times
as fast almost, and that was just necessary for this
little thing to be able to fly. So earlier this
week NASA gave it a test run and yeah, it
(11:00):
done flu. It done flu. Which is so exciting because
it means that we can explore parts of Mars that
we haven't been able to explore before and get all
kinds of new data and pictures. And now, to be clear,
this one probably not going to do a whole lot
of that because it's very limited. It can it only
has planned to take as many as five total test flights.
(11:24):
That's if it can do that. It just has a
camera on it. It doesn't have any like, um uh,
scientific experiments on it. But this is a proof of
concept that worked, so, like you were saying, arial, it
means that in the future we could send up, you know,
other types of aircraft that could potentially do some really
(11:45):
cool science over on Mars. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm super
excited that I was alive and aware when that happened. Uh.
Somebody else who did some pretty kookie science was Dr
Frankenfurter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And this next
news article is just specifically for Jonathan and our other
(12:08):
friends Shay, because there is a theater in Portland that,
through this pandemic, has continued showing the Rocky Horror Picture
Show every single week, even if there's nobody in the theater. UM,
this is this is hilarious. So Nathan Williams, who who
hosts the screenings, kept it going even during the pandemic. Sometimes,
(12:33):
he said that was just for himself. Sometimes a friend
would come along. So just imagine that it's two people
otherwise alone in the theater watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show. UM.
According to the article that Ariel found, this particular theater
in Portland has been showing Rocky Horror for forty three years.
(12:55):
It has been having these weekly screenings. And of course,
if you're not familiar here with this ritual, Rocky Horror
is a cult film that for some people it is
a weekly experience to go to a screening. And uh,
you know, over the years, people have created various callback
(13:17):
responses to the stuff that happens in the movie. So
there's a whole script that the audience can follow to
UM respond to stuff that characters on screen are saying,
most of which we cannot quote because this is a
family friendly show. Yeah, and I will say, and I
know Jonathan will probably shun me for this. Without that
(13:39):
call in response, without that audience interaction, the movie gets
a little long, and it's not near I think. I
think part of the issue is that it is a
love letter to the B movies of like the nineteen fifties,
but with a really camp be twist. Um, and those
B movies of the nineteen fifties always would drag, they
(14:00):
always did, and this one is faithful to that tradition
and it drags too. And I didn't mean that in
the pun sense, but that also applies. Yes, yes it does.
But you know, I just think it's delightful that, Um,
they kept it going for the fifty four weeks that
they were under quarantine. But now now they have they're
(14:24):
about to open back up. Done a couple of screenings
with a limited number of tickets per screening. Yeah, so
they're hoping they can stick with that. I guess if
if people continue to stay safe, they will. But I
just you know, whether you like the movie or not,
I think it's just a delightful story. Well, and and
it's it's a movie that has a community around it,
(14:45):
and that community has community activities that are centered on
the movie. So in a way, I would say, like
Rocky Horror coming Back is kind of a one of
those indicators of people being able to reconnect. It is,
you know, the movie is not so much as important
as the people who come together to celebrate the film.
(15:07):
The movie is just the conduit that brings the people together,
and and that is something that is pretty exciting to see.
You know, I'm kind of surprised that Mad Max hasn't
had the same sort of community built around it, because
I would say that is that is certainly a special
series of movies as well, one that I like, although
(15:30):
to me the first one is doesn't really count. Yeah, No,
that one's a tough watch. Road Warrior is tons of fun.
Um uh. You know, Thunderdome is Czar like Thunderdome is.
The first half of Thunderdome is fantastic, in the second
half is a little challenging to get through. Fury Road
was just a giant chase movie, but it had some
(15:52):
Fury Road to me as flawless. That is like, that's
like a perfect Mad Max movie. I loved it, But
now we're getting another one. They're finally gearing up to
start filming the spinoff, Furious Yeah, and this one's not
a sequel, it's a prequel. It's it's telling the story
of Furiosa before the stuff we saw on Fury Road. Yes,
(16:14):
and Anya Taylor Joy will be playing her and Chris
Helmsworth will be in it. And they're saying that it
might be one of the largest movies made in Australia.
That's hard to believe. I mean, it's Australia, it's not
New Zealand. I mean, but you know you've got Marvel
movies that also film. Yeah, they're I mean, like I
(16:34):
imagine there's gonna be some pretty amazing stuff. I wonder
how many of the characters that we saw in Fury
Road might make an appearance, Like will we see the
baby nuts. Well, I'm thinking of the various warlords who
were in Fury Road, if any of them will show up.
Not necessarily, Furiosa might end up taking place in a
(16:56):
totally different part, a totally different region, and only hint
at how she came to be where she was by
the beginning of Fury Road. I think if I recall
correctly from Fury Road, and I could be wrong because
it's been a while since I watched it, even though
I own it um that she was stolen from her
(17:17):
tribe essentially a group of people by Immer tant Immer
Tam Joe's people, so you know, and this is I
think after that time, or she would have remembered it
based on a new Taylor Joy's page, So I would
imagine we'd see at least assuming that she's not, like
you know, on assignment far from home or something where
(17:39):
you can avoid having to have those characters come back. Um,
but yeah, I think it would be great to learn
a little more part of it. Part of me thinks
it's great. Part of me thinks that some of the
magic of Mad Max is that you get very little
explanation for a lot of the characters that you see,
which allows you to kind of imagine what their backstories
(17:59):
must be. Sometimes it gets fleshed out in additional material
like comic books or whatever, or video games. But um,
there's always the danger of a prequel or a sequel
that really for prequels to take a bit of the
magic out by trying to explain something that maybe didn't
need to be explained. That being said, I am very
(18:20):
excited to see this. I I I'm gonna have to
wait till June before I can do it. I bet
it will be worth the waight uh. Something that a
bunch of other people were excited to see was a
new series based on Avatar The Last Airbender, which got
recently announced. Now it's not an animated show like Cora,
(18:42):
like Legends of Cora, it is a fan discussion series
for YouTube panel discussions where they get groups of fans
together to debate different things within the Avatar universe. I
watched the trailer. Things get heated, people people have opinions, um,
and it funny, like it's not not not like funny
(19:02):
in a way where I'm ridiculing people. I mean, this
is part of what fandom is, right. Fandom is all
about people who are very passionate about the stuff they
love and having their own take on it, their own
perspective on it, and then coming together and talking that
out with other fans. And sometimes you find out you've
got points of commonality, and sometimes you find out that
(19:25):
your perspectives are absolutely in opposition to each other. And
that's what the series seems to be about Yeah, and
I think it's a great testament to the writers of
the Avatar Animated series universe that they created something that
so many people have different viewpoints on. UM. If you
want to watch it, you can. It starts on April
(19:45):
on the Avatar YouTube channel. UM and Jonathan and I
want to talk about one of our favorite, well one
of our favorite film director groups and our opinions about it,
and maybe things will get heated. I guess we'll have
to see. But first we're going to take a quick break.
(20:14):
So Ariel in your memory. Do you know we're gonna
be talking about the Cohen Brothers and their films and
what we think about them. Uh, neither of us have
seen all of them. Um, I've seen eleven of the
eighteen movies that the duo have officially worked on together.
(20:35):
There's a nineteenth that's in production now, but obviously I
haven't seen that one. Um. But do you remember what
the first Coen Brothers movie was that you saw? Yes?
It was Brother Where Wow? Okay, so so relatively late
comer to the Cohen Brothers And of course, oh Brother
(20:56):
were dell is you know it's it's set in in
the United States. Um, it's it's said in the early
nineteen hundreds when radio is just starting to become a
real thing and recording is becoming a real thing. And uh,
and it's a retelling of the auditor. Yeah. Yeah, it's
(21:17):
taking a mythological approach to the story. Uh. And like
like most Coen Brothers movies, it has one of the
most amazing soundtracks of all time. Um, fantastic movie, great visuals.
I think of Oh Brother as being one of the
more accessible Cohen Brothers movies, one of the ones that's
(21:40):
easier to for the audience to follow what's happening. I agree.
And you know, so I might have seen Hudsucker Proxy priorly,
but Oh Brother, that was the first one I remember watching.
I remember vividly watching and we're talking about gateways last week.
Because so accessible, it was the gateway into their other
(22:03):
movies and kind of eased me into appreciating their particular
style of storytelling. Yeah. And and that style is really unique,
which is I get it. I was being redundant, really unique.
It doesn't mean anything, it was, it is unique. Um.
Their their take is quirky, some might say unconventional. It's
(22:26):
not a good word. They are really good at using
metaphor an imagery to supplement their storytelling. So these are
the type of movies where if you just had the
script in front of you and you're just reading the script,
you would only get maybe sixt of what the movie
had to offer. The direction and the uh, the intent
(22:51):
of those movies is so deep. It's the sort of
thing that I began to appreciate more the more I
developed to my critical analysis of movies. Not not critical
in the sense of finding what's wrong, but rather understanding
why the movie is the way it is and the
choices that were made to make it that way. There's
(23:14):
something of like the fairy tale as well that kind
of winds its way through a lot of Coen Brothers movies.
You mentioned the Hudsucker Proxy, that's essentially a fairy tale. UM,
Hail Caesar is largely a fair raising Arizona another one. UM.
Some of them are dark fairy tales. Barton Fink is
incredibly dark. I think it's an amazing movie. I think
(23:38):
it's also a movie that a lot of younger viewers
would have real issues sitting through. It's a very deliberately
paced film, but it is a very stuff. So you
you post because you just recently watched Fargo, right, yes,
which is in another very deliberately paid film, and you
(24:01):
mentioned that they put a lot of fairy tale elements
into their stories, and they do. Um. I was reading
somebody's commentary on acting and on filmmaking and on storytelling,
and they're saying that what you watch in television and
film is not the in between moments. It's the exceptional
moments of somebody's life. But I really feel like, especially
after watching Fargo, that the Coen Brothers still like to
(24:28):
show a lot of like the everyday life for their characters.
So they put these characters in these fantastical situations, but
they aren't afraid to just like sit in the mundane
and and really let you feel that characters everyday life.
So it almost makes the fantastical moments moments more fantastical
and the characters more related. To a really interesting point,
(24:52):
I agree. I mean, like like their movies are often
films where I need to watch it a second time
to really appreciate them. There are a couple of exceptions.
Hudsucker Proxy is very light and fluffy and charming just
on the surface, so you can enjoy it from a
surface level. It's not one of their deeper films, Oh Brother,
(25:13):
where Art Thou is extremely engaging. There is a lot
of deeper stuff in it, but you don't have to
be focusing on that door to get entertainment on the movie.
Some of the other movies, though, like you need to
be really paying attention and thinking about those things in
order to get stuff out of it, and that doesn't
necessarily come out of the first viewing. Like I remember,
(25:35):
the first time I saw The Big Lebowski, I did
not like that movie. It has since become one of
those movies that I I can watch all the way
through from beginning to end and enjoy every second of it.
But that's not how it was the first time I
saw it. In fact, Fargo was also that way. I
didn't like Fargo the first time I saw it. Um,
whereas there are other movies that they've done, No Country
(25:56):
for Old Men became one of my top favorite movies
of all time as soon as I saw it after
the first time. It is a harrowing movie. Um. It
is heartbreaking at times, it is phenomenal. It is one
of those where I was just gripped by the film
(26:17):
the entire time I watched it, I I watched part
of No Country for Old Men. I having grown my
love of the Coen Brothers over the years, I think
that I need to watch it again and give it
and even growing my love for Westerns. I know we
talked in an earlier episode about fandoms that we had
(26:38):
to kind of ease into, and that's one of them
for me. Um, I really want to sit down and
give that another watch, because I know that it's it's
got quite the following and quite the acclaim, and I
feel like I'm missing out for not having seen it.
Speaking of Westerns, at least you need to see the
Ballad of Buster Scrugs. It is. It is a masterpiece.
(26:59):
The first sequence, so it's five different sequences, if I'm
remembering correctly, Um, each one independent of all the others.
The first one, uh, is a little violent, but it's
it's it's like the most fairy tale ish of all
of the five. And the fifth one is the most
kind of gothic fairy tale ish of the five. Not
(27:23):
not violent. The fifth one is not violent at all.
All the violence has already happened. But the fifth one
is my faith might be my favorite sequence that the
Coen Brothers have ever done, because that that it's it's
just five characters. They're in a stage coach, so it's
like a bottle episode type thing. They're all in one place.
(27:46):
They're all crammed together in a stage coach and there
conversing with one another and debating with one another, and
UH has a character who might very well be the
def And I think that it is a phenomenal piece
of filmmaking. I mean, I was super excited to watch
(28:09):
it when they first announced it and they released the
trailers and and then I heard that the first like
the first segment was fantastic, and then it all kind
of fizzled from there. I don't I don't think it fizzles.
But the second segment is, um, it's not it's not bad.
I enjoyed the second segment to the third and fourth
(28:30):
segments are hard on you. They are um, they are
they are tough. They're not bad, They're just they're harrowing.
Knowing that I'm the kind of person that has to
look up if a dog dies at the end before
(28:50):
I go into a movie. Knowing that, I think I
could go into it expecting it to be hard and
enjoy it. I could not let my angst do you
take over so much. I'm really excited to see what
they do with the tragedy of Yes, Yes, yes, and
I'm going to go and correct myself although people will
have already yelled it there have to be six segments
(29:10):
because I just thought of one that didn't fit in
with the five that I had already imagined for the
Bild to Buster scrugs. So, but that being said, yes,
I agree the tragedy of Macbeth. I'm very curious to
see that. And also I need to watch some of
the films that you know I still haven't checked out,
Like I don't think I've seen Miller's Crossing. I've definitely
(29:33):
seen Blood Simple, which was their first film, but I
don't remember seeing Miller's Crossing, which I hear is amazing.
I've never seen a serious man, and I feel like
I need to um some of their Some of their
middle films are often listed as being kind of lesser
than like The Lady Killers and Intolerable Cruelty. I haven't
(29:54):
seen either of those, um, but yeah, I need to
watch all of them, because even I think even in
their lesser films, if you want to call them that,
there's a lot to take away from them, Like there's
a lot of of directorial style, a lot of Like again,
it comes down to choices, editing choices, and directing choices
(30:15):
and acting choices, and you can walk away from something
and say, like, I have a deeper appreciation for this
part of filmmaking, even if the movie itself didn't really
speak to me exactly. I mean, I can go into
a Cohen Brothers movie and learn an encyclopedia worth of
(30:35):
uh things about acting. I'll go back and I'll like,
I can't. I have to go back and watch the
movie again without my husband because I just want to
rewind and watch people's reactions and watch the little nuances
they stick in. Um, it's just really fantastic. What is
your all time favorite Cohen Brothers. Well, it's No Country
for All Men is my all time favorite. But to
(30:56):
be fair, like like if or if you're talking about
movies that I found, like, I don't think I could
say No Country for Old Men is the most entertaining movie.
I think it's my favorite for for other reasons, like
I have to be in a mood to watch No
Country for old men, because it is it is not
a movie that you know, you just throw on and
(31:17):
grab some popcorn. Um. But if I were, if I
were to say, like just for entertainment purposes, oh my gosh,
that's hard, um, because Big Lebowski is way up there,
Hudsucker Proxy is way up there, and Raising Arizona is
way up there. Uh. Those they all three really compete
(31:42):
for that. What about you? I would say for me,
it's Hudsucker Proxy or Brother where art Thow? That's so good? Yeah,
I mean it's Here's the wonderful thing when you can
find a creator who makes stuff where it's a struggle
for you to identify which one is your favorite because
(32:03):
you love them all in different ways. That is phenomenal. Right.
There are only a few out there, right, like Quentin Tarantino.
While he's a very different kind of stylistic director, he
he also makes really amazing movies. And and you know,
I don't love all of them equally, but I find
(32:25):
all of them interesting for different reasons. Yeah. Same. I
guess we'll have to talk about more directors in the
future and and uh what we love and dislike about
their directorial and story making. Sure you heard it here first, folks,
Next week we're going to talk about Neil Breen Ariel.
I have such terrible things to show you. But next
(32:50):
after this next break, we're going to do a little
storytelling of our own, and maybe the Coen Brothers will
make it their next movie. We'll see. All Right, we're
(33:16):
back and we are going to mash up a couple
of the news stories we talked about Reilier in the episode,
specifically Avatar the Last Airbender and mad Max, one of
which Jonathan has not I have not seen Avatar the
Last I've seen like a couple of episodes, so full disclosure. So,
(33:36):
my my wife loves the Avatar the Last Airbender series.
I don't think she's seen Legend of Cora, but she
has watched the full Avatar story, the three books. She's
watched all of those, and she loves it. And and
I've only seen a couple of episodes and I didn't
really get into it. Um So I ended up deciding
(33:59):
that rather than uh, totally destroy everyone's love of a
of an amazing animated series and incorporate the characters of
either the Avatar original Avatar TV series or the Legend
of Chorus series, I would dive into ancient history. So
um can I go first? Sure? This is called Mad
(34:24):
Max the Last Chrome Bender. Uh and and and for
the reference, these events would happen a little less than
three hundred years before the events of the Avatar The
Last Airbender TV series. So this is this is before
the Hundred Years War and the Fire Nation trying to
take over the world. So here we go. Max has
(34:47):
a problem. He's navigating his way through the islands of
the Fire Nation. Each island is led by a different warlord.
While the Fire Nation is in name, at least a
united entity, in reality, it is a collection of competitive
regions that jealously guard resources, and Max happens to be
in one of those resources. He has borrowed air quotes
(35:09):
a souped up miniature Tundra tank, an experimental vehicle developed
by and for a vicious Firebender named Kulin, leader of
mat Inca Island. She is not known for being particularly forgiving.
Max's would be captors are in hot pursuit so to speak.
I mean they are Firebenders after all, and Max isn't
(35:33):
on his home turf. As such, he finds it difficult
to evade the pursuers, and while making a daring maneuver
to drift around a corner and a last ditch effort
to escape, he sees that around said corner are even
more of Coolin's soldiers. He's out of road and out
of luck. Captured, he has put into chains and forced
(35:54):
to march back up the street. A full detail of
fire Nation soldiers escorting him back to Coolan. He is
forced to his knees in front of her. She dismisses
her guard, who leave her alone with the prisoner. After
demonstrating some terrifying fire skills, she surprisingly removes Max's chains.
(36:15):
She explains she has a job for Max. He is
clearly talented, but more importantly, he is absolutely not affiliated
with Coolan. Max, Coulan explains, is to assassinate a different
firebender named Rangy. Coulan explains that Rongy was her rival
at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, and that years
(36:38):
ago Coulan was defeated and her clan disgraced because of
Rongy's actions. Max is to seek out Rongy, using his
survivalist abilities to get through impossible situations and take her down.
Max unable to really bargain here agrees reluctantly to the proposal,
as death is the least attractive option. Coolan gives Max
(37:01):
the use of the specialized Tundra tank, and Max is
off after some time, having left Coolan's territory, getting a
lift on a ship to a neighboring island. Max is
clearly looking for a way out. He tries to plan
out a circuitous route that would appear as if he
were tracking and closing in on Rangy, but with the
ultimate goal of ditching the whole thing and going on
(37:23):
the run out of the fire Nation entirely his destination
the Sinland Village, a farming community and part of the
Earth Kingdom. But between him and that are numerous islands
and Fire Nation warlords. Max finds himself on a desperate chase,
made all the more difficult as tanks are not particularly
good at crossing water between islands. Before long, he is
(37:46):
forced to abandon his vehicle to travel with the less
chance of being noticed, and even then he has to
use a hooded cloak to hide his features, which would
be instantly alien to the Fire Nation inhabitants. Quietly, practically
without speaking, I mean seriously, This movie has like very
little dialogue, and almost none of it goes to Max anyway.
(38:07):
The Wanderer finds himself hopping island to island, narrowly avoiding discovery.
Kolin has found her abandoned vehicle and her soldiers are
seeking out Max. In addition, each local island presents its
own dangers, and just as Max is plotting his escape
through his air quotes borrowing of a small boat, his
plan backfires. He had used rumors of Rangy's whereabouts supplies escape,
(38:30):
but turns out he was following just a bit too
closely because Rangy herself shows up. Turns out it's her
boat and she has her girlfriend with her, who just
happens to be Avatar Kyoshi from the Earth Kingdom. What
follows is a pretty rough butt whoopin for Max, who
fails to explain his goal properly at first, But just
as Rangy gets ready to roast Max, he blurts out
(38:52):
Kolan's plan. Rangy lowers Max and her eyes narrow. Kyoshi,
who towers over Max because she's rural tall, puts her
hand on Rangey's shoulder, staying her from barbecuing the Wanderer.
Rangy tells Max to take the boat and make his escape.
Years later, the Fire Nation tells legends of a man
(39:13):
who could control a vehicle as if it were an
extension of himself, the Chrome Binder he has called, and
we wait for the next sequel the end. It's a
little less a joke heavy than my normal mashups, but yes,
but it was really really good. So I did mash
(39:34):
up the beloved animated series. But specific presumably you've seen it.
I've seen a lot more of it. However, this is
not going to be true to avatar lore. Trigger warning,
I guess. So this is angiy Man Beyond the Thunder Nation.
(39:56):
It's five years after the war with the Fire Nation
has ended and all the Sans are at peace. Ang
along with his team and his trusty sky bison Appa,
are eating their way through the nations again out of boredom,
and that's when they come across it, past the reaches
of the Metal Clan, a new nation, but not heart
as Captain Planet might lead us to believe. This nation
(40:18):
was grim, lawless, a barren desert worse than anything they
had ever seen before. But facing a lack of purpose,
Ang decides it's now their quest to figure out the
strange nation, rebuild it to glory and connect it with
all of the other nations that are now at peace. However,
to do so, he must find who runs the sandpit.
(40:40):
Just as the friends settled into camp for the first night,
they're attacked by marauders who tried to steal Appa for
what Ang doesn't even want to imagine. Tough and Ang
team up and swipe the marauders away in a massive sandstorm. Thankfully,
the storm must have cleared out any other marauders, and
the group are able to spend the rest of the
night uneventfully. However, they all to side that if they're
(41:00):
going to venture on, they need to disguise Appa to
protect him. Seeing that the marauders came in on vehicles,
the group find an old truck, gut it, and hide
Appa inside. Um it's kind of a chincy disguise, but
it's what they had. They travel on and the first
town they come to is a settlement led by a
(41:21):
warlord called Humongous. The settlement is destitute and no one
seems to want to help Hang and his friends correct anything,
probably out of fear. And that's when they see it.
A small feral child, fire bending in the shadows. They
go and they talk to him, and he agrees to
reunite this land to the rest of the Nations with them.
(41:42):
As they go to take the feral child out of
the settlement, Humongous chases after them, entering his vehicle, and
the small feral child sets the oil take on fire,
exploding the vehicle and ridding the settlement of Humongous. The
child stays behind to help the settlement recover, and Hang
and his friends move on. Next, they come to a
place with a sign in the front that says Bartertown.
(42:03):
Welcome to the Thunderdome. Ang shouts out as Andrew Hey,
who runs Bartertown, and a leader named Auntie comes out
being a Barterer. She agrees to let their town rejoin
the Nations and civilization if if Ang could defeat her
champion in the Thunderdome. He agrees and comes face to
face with a tag team duo called Master and Blaster.
(42:25):
Air starts his airbending and knocks the helmet off. Blaster,
who finally free, turns against Master and deafens him with
a thunder Blast. Turns out Blaster was a pair of
powerful air Airbender and the helmet was keeping his powers
at Bay Blaster sides with Ang and his friends. Auntie
sees she's defeated and agrees to join the rest of
the nations. Hang and his team ask if there are
(42:46):
any other leaders they need to confront their task, and
Auntie says there's one other angey man and she points
them to the settled Dill run by a horrible guy
named Immertan Joe. The team Avatar travels on and they
get there and they see that Amortan Joe has enslaved
a bunch of water benders. Beyond that, Joe is unreceptive
(43:06):
to joining the nations. He thinks he's got a good
thing going on, with everybody enslaved and him having all
of the milk and the water and the goods. Uh
Qatar and Socca, insisting that the waterbenders can't stay with
this horrible gross man, sneak the water Benders inside of
oppas costume to get them out of the citadel. They escape,
and the water beenders tell the team about the fabled
(43:26):
Green Place, a place that can restore all of this
waste land to its once former glory, and the team
heads towards it. Joe finds out that his water Benders
have been taken, and he sends his one firebender, Furiosa,
after them, and also alerts the nearby Bullet Nation and
Gas Clan, some rogue Earthbenders who tried to make the
best of it when their land went to waste. Furiosa,
(43:49):
the Bullet town Ees, and the Gasses all chase after
Ang and his friends. At that moment, in an effort
to get away safely, Appa bursts out of his disguise
and flies above the Bullets in the fire and the Mayhem,
furious as seeing this, realizes that all is not lost.
There's still a green place in the world, and she
turns sides and joins forces with the Team Avatar. She
(44:12):
destroys the other pursuers, makes peace with Ang and his friends,
and leads them all to the Green Place, where together
they can bring back life to this desolate nation. They
do so and work together with the towns a freed,
bringing them all back to prosperity, and Ang returns to
the thunder Dome to Airbend with Blaster as a new
tag team duo. So you walk through Mad Max two, three,
(44:35):
and four, but just skill the first one because it
doesn't count. It's pretty just I just thought it was
funny because you could have pointed out that that Morton
Joe looked an awful lot like this other guy called
toe Cutter from like years ago, because it was the
same actor who played both characters. Toe Cutter was in
(44:58):
the first mont. I could have, but I just imagined
that Team Avatar was dealing with the fire names. Maybe
that was earlier years war thing when when that first
what happened. I liked it. I liked all the like
I thought at first it was just going to be
a Road Warrior Avatar mashup. But you you you really
(45:20):
doubled down on that one. I really doubled down. You know,
I have this habit of writing up my mashups in
a way where I just cannot say any of the
words correctly. No, I mean, listen that that's my style
of writing too, is that I'll write things that I read,
like when I'm just reading silently, it sounds great in
my head, and then a human mouth tries to say it,
(45:42):
and then it all kind of falls apart. You know,
I'm kind of surprised that a human mouth tried to
say any bit of this mashup, but I think it
turned out well, no, it was. I didn't know what
to expect when I agreed to do this one, so
I'm glad it turned out the way it did. If
you out there have I is for a mash up,
or maybe you have your own ideas of what a
(46:03):
man Max Avatar mashup would be, or maybe you just
think that we should never touch Avatar ever again. You
know Avatar, The Last Airbender, Avatar, Pandora, Avatar, fair Game, Pocahons,
anyway game. If you have any of these thoughts, you
should get in touch with us. Ariel. How do they
get in touch with us? Well, if they want to
(46:23):
send us something along form, they can email us at
Ellen C at iHeart media dot com. Or if you
want to send us just a quick suggestion or comment
or thought, you can do so on Twitter at llen
c Underscore Podcast, or on Facebook or Instagram at large
nor John Collider. Oh, you can also check out all
(46:44):
of our show notes on our website www dot large
nor John Glider dot com. Uh, we'll have them posted
shortly after this episode airs. Yeah, and until next time.
She has been arial casting and he has been Shawn
that's been raggedy Man Strickland bus deal, spind the Wheel,
(47:13):
m m m m m. The Large New Drunk Collider
is production of I Heart Radio and was created by
Ariel cast In. Jonathan Strickland is the executive producer. This
(47:35):
show is produced, edited, and published by Tory Harrison. For
more podcasts on my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
The Large New Drunk Collider Podcast is a production of
I Heart Radio. Hey everybody, welcome to the Large New
Drunk Collider podcast podcast. That's all about the geeky things
happening in the world and how very excited we are
(00:30):
about them. I'm Ariel casting and with me as always.
Is this super crazy awesome Jonathan Strickland. Hey, Ariel Cohen,
I ask you a question. You're going to pitch a
show about historical figure Allah Hamilton. What figure from history
(00:57):
do you pick just for comedy sake. I'm going to
say the Earl of Sandwich. And it's interactive. Each act
or each musical number, the audience gets another piece of
the sandwich that they will build during the show to
eat an intermission for their snack. I like it. So
it's so it's dinner theater. It's dinner theater. I mean,
I am sure there are I am certain there are
(01:20):
much more important historical figures to write a musical about.
But that just off the top of my head, that
amuses me. I think that's a good answer. I think
that's a good answer. Okay, Well, I would say Guttenberg
as in the creator of the printing press. But some
people from the Upright Citizens Brigade already did that and
they did an amazing job. So that's a comedy masterpiece
(01:42):
I can't touch. So my choice is Joshua Abraham Norton,
a k a. Emperor Norton, the first of the United
States of America. He's a guy who was born in England,
raised in South Africa, came over to San Francisco in
the mid eight hundred and after having a massive financial
(02:04):
uh setback, I got very fed up with the court
systems in the United States and self proclaimed as the
Emperor of the US, and people in San Francisco thought
he was amusing. And he even printed up currency of
his own device and people accepted it and they celebrated him.
(02:26):
That's that would be a lot of fun to watch
musical on that. It's absolutely true and it's totally bonkers.
It is very bonkers. You know. My other choice, because
you know I was going to come in with my
indecision at the end of it, would be Mr Rogers
musical about Mr Rogers. I think hardcore gangster wrap. Mr
(02:48):
Rogers show would be amazing. It would be amazing, you know,
I'm I'm sure he'd approve, But you know, I like
positive influential figures and celebrating them. And anytime there's a Mr.
Rogers movie, I watch it, or a documentary, I watch it.
So musical is the next logical step there? Maybe he
(03:09):
could have a heartfelt scut discussion with your emperor. That
would be that would be interesting. He could find out
why the emperor was so sad and it all has
to do with Rice. But that's a story for another time.
What we're going to do instead is transition into our
news items. And first up is we wanted to talk
a little bit about the the trailer that was released
(03:31):
for shang Xi, the next Marvel film that's about a
character who has a history with the Ten Rings, the
same organization that brought us the Mandarin and the Iron
Man movies. This trailer was so exciting to me in
(03:55):
a way that I expected, I don't know, something that
felt more Marvel, or more Martial Arts or more Iron Fist,
which was the least favorite of the Defender movies on Netflix.
But instead I got something that just delighted me and
excited me and surprised me in a myriad of ways.
All the way through the trailer was going, oh, that's
(04:15):
so cool. Oh, that's so cool. It's kind of it
feels like Marvel's answer to Mortal Kombat. To me, I
feel like it's almost like, I mean, we're gonna get
Marvel's answer to Batman later on, but it feels a
little like Marvel's answer to Batman in that the the
bits you see about shang Chi's the character's childhood, um
(04:39):
and what he has gone through in in regard to
training reminds me a lot of stuff you see Bruce
Wayne going through once he's determined that he wants to
become a vigilante. And uh, it's you know, the movie
doesn't give it too many details. It's a lot of style,
(05:01):
but it's really cool style. It gives little hints of
things like the history of the character, the fact that
the character has had sort of a ten year grace
period after training to kind of have experiences before being
told that now it's time for you to assume your
responsibility in your place. Um. And there's not like a
(05:22):
whole lot of of humor in the trailer until the
very very end of it, and it's it's a great stinger,
a fantastic way to end your trailer, but it does
just it looks really good and the fight choreography looks
really good and actually makes me think of um, like
the fight sequence in uh in in Winter Soldier where
(05:47):
Captain America is in the the elevator and has to
fight his way out. Uh, it makes me think of that,
Like it's that kind of really physical fight choreography and
you can follow the action and even just those short
bits of the trailer something I really appreciate because for
a while there the style of the day was someone's fighting.
(06:11):
Someone got hit. I don't know if it was the
good guy or the bad guy. Yeah. Yeah. And the
other thing is it puts the pedestrians is the wrong word.
It puts the civilians in the trailer into situations that
I've found like very like, oh, my goodness has happened,
and he just saved her from this thing. Uh. Not
to be vague, watched the trailer, you'll understand what I'm
(06:33):
talking about, but just the situations that the fights were in,
the way that the people were saved, the danger that
the people were in, and yeah, the moves, it was
it was clear and it was fresh. You should make
a great point because this is a trailer where we
see a hero being heroic, which everyone who's heard me
on this podcast knows. That's my biggest complaint about the
DC movies is that, with the exception of Wonder Woman, UM,
(06:56):
the d C characters are rarely shown to be heroic
towards ordinary people. They're they're more like superpowered action figures
fighting each other. Well and and Shane chi Is is
are you familiar with them not? This is one of
those like I would put this up there with Iron Fists,
(07:16):
Like there were certain types of characters from the comic
books that I just never really learned much about. So
this was one where I went into it blind, not
knowing what to expect, not really expecting to to have
it resonate with me. But the trailer hit all the
right buttons for me. Yeah, to me, like he's he's
definitely more street level, like a defender, um, because he
(07:40):
doesn't really have superpowers. He's just, like you said, like Batman,
really freaking good at what he does. UM. So that
also makes his heroicism to me a little bit more
important in moving It is interesting to think that he
has been incorporated into this because you know, the Marvel
(08:00):
is sort of escalated throughout the process of the m
c U movies coming out, and we're now at the
point where we're getting into cosmic level heroes and villains, right,
I mean we already are there. Thanos was one, but
Doctor Strange, Scarlet, Witch, Captain Marvel. You know, these are
characters who are immensely powerful in the Marvel universe, and
(08:26):
it is refreshing to see that Marvel hasn't turned away
from characters on the other side of the spectrum who
have great stories to tell, but they aren't like cosmic
level powerful. You know, they're not the Fantastic Four or
any of these other characters. No. I mean, we also
have the new Hawkeye movie coming out, and Hawkeye doesn't
(08:48):
have superpowers. He's just really good at what he does.
I would even wager that Falcon doesn't have superpowers. He
has a super suit, but you know not, he's not
even like Iron Man. He's fully protected in his student armor.
He's he's just got some some wings and pretty wings.
(09:09):
No spoilers not seen the most recent episode. Oh I have,
but maybe not all of our listeners. I'm sorry. I mean,
he does have wings, chicken wings. They're delicious. Anyhow, speaking
of things that has wings. Yes, I'm speaking. We's talking
about helicopters now, I guess we're just adopting a different
(09:32):
manner of speech. No, we want to talk about We
want to talk about Ingenuity, the little chopper that could
on Mars. So this was like a what NASA would
refer to as like a high risk experiment because there
was no guarantee that it was ever going to work.
Ingenuity is a little helicopter like drone that hits the
(09:55):
ride aboard the Perseverance rover and uh. It has rotors
that are very long and very lights mayle like carbon fiber.
It's it weighs about four pounds here on Earth. But
you gotta remember that Mars gravity is about of what
Earth's is, so it's different there. But Mars's atmosphere is
(10:15):
like one per cent the density of Earth's atmosphere, so
there's less air to generate lift from. So the scientists
really weren't sure if they were going to be able
to make this happen. In order for it to work,
the rotors have to turn around twenty four revolutions per minute. Now,
by comparison a terrestrial helicopter one here on Earth. Those
(10:40):
the main rotors turned at about four hundred to five
hundred revolutions per minute, so this is like six times
as fast almost, and that was just necessary for this
little thing to be able to fly. So earlier this
week NASA gave it a test run and yeah, it
(11:00):
done flu. It done flu. Which is so exciting because
it means that we can explore parts of Mars that
we haven't been able to explore before and get all
kinds of new data and pictures. And now, to be clear,
this one probably not going to do a whole lot
of that because it's very limited. It can it only
has planned to take as many as five total test flights.
(11:24):
That's if it can do that. It just has a
camera on it. It doesn't have any like, um uh,
scientific experiments on it. But this is a proof of
concept that worked, so, like you were saying, arial, it
means that in the future we could send up, you know,
other types of aircraft that could potentially do some really
(11:45):
cool science over on Mars. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm super
excited that I was alive and aware when that happened. Uh.
Somebody else who did some pretty kookie science was Dr
Frankenfurter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. And this next
news article is just specifically for Jonathan and our other
(12:08):
friends Shay, because there is a theater in Portland that,
through this pandemic, has continued showing the Rocky Horror Picture
Show every single week, even if there's nobody in the theater. UM,
this is this is hilarious. So Nathan Williams, who who
hosts the screenings, kept it going even during the pandemic. Sometimes,
(12:33):
he said that was just for himself. Sometimes a friend
would come along. So just imagine that it's two people
otherwise alone in the theater watching the Rocky Horror Picture Show. UM.
According to the article that Ariel found, this particular theater
in Portland has been showing Rocky Horror for forty three years.
(12:55):
It has been having these weekly screenings. And of course,
if you're not familiar here with this ritual, Rocky Horror
is a cult film that for some people it is
a weekly experience to go to a screening. And uh,
you know, over the years, people have created various callback
(13:17):
responses to the stuff that happens in the movie. So
there's a whole script that the audience can follow to
UM respond to stuff that characters on screen are saying,
most of which we cannot quote because this is a
family friendly show. Yeah, and I will say, and I
know Jonathan will probably shun me for this. Without that
(13:39):
call in response, without that audience interaction, the movie gets
a little long, and it's not near I think. I
think part of the issue is that it is a
love letter to the B movies of like the nineteen fifties,
but with a really camp be twist. Um, and those
B movies of the nineteen fifties always would drag, they
(14:00):
always did, and this one is faithful to that tradition
and it drags too. And I didn't mean that in
the pun sense, but that also applies. Yes, yes it does.
But you know, I just think it's delightful that, Um,
they kept it going for the fifty four weeks that
they were under quarantine. But now now they have they're
(14:24):
about to open back up. Done a couple of screenings
with a limited number of tickets per screening. Yeah, so
they're hoping they can stick with that. I guess if
if people continue to stay safe, they will. But I
just you know, whether you like the movie or not,
I think it's just a delightful story. Well, and and
it's it's a movie that has a community around it,
(14:45):
and that community has community activities that are centered on
the movie. So in a way, I would say, like
Rocky Horror coming Back is kind of a one of
those indicators of people being able to reconnect. It is,
you know, the movie is not so much as important
as the people who come together to celebrate the film.
(15:07):
The movie is just the conduit that brings the people together,
and and that is something that is pretty exciting to see.
You know, I'm kind of surprised that Mad Max hasn't
had the same sort of community built around it, because
I would say that is that is certainly a special
series of movies as well, one that I like, although
(15:30):
to me the first one is doesn't really count. Yeah, No,
that one's a tough watch. Road Warrior is tons of fun.
Um uh. You know, Thunderdome is Czar like Thunderdome is.
The first half of Thunderdome is fantastic, in the second
half is a little challenging to get through. Fury Road
was just a giant chase movie, but it had some
(15:52):
Fury Road to me as flawless. That is like, that's
like a perfect Mad Max movie. I loved it, But
now we're getting another one. They're finally gearing up to
start filming the spinoff, Furious Yeah, and this one's not
a sequel, it's a prequel. It's it's telling the story
of Furiosa before the stuff we saw on Fury Road. Yes,
(16:14):
and Anya Taylor Joy will be playing her and Chris
Helmsworth will be in it. And they're saying that it
might be one of the largest movies made in Australia.
That's hard to believe. I mean, it's Australia, it's not
New Zealand. I mean, but you know you've got Marvel
movies that also film. Yeah, they're I mean, like I
(16:34):
imagine there's gonna be some pretty amazing stuff. I wonder
how many of the characters that we saw in Fury
Road might make an appearance, Like will we see the
baby nuts. Well, I'm thinking of the various warlords who
were in Fury Road, if any of them will show up.
Not necessarily, Furiosa might end up taking place in a
(16:56):
totally different part, a totally different region, and only hint
at how she came to be where she was by
the beginning of Fury Road. I think if I recall
correctly from Fury Road, and I could be wrong because
it's been a while since I watched it, even though
I own it um that she was stolen from her
(17:17):
tribe essentially a group of people by Immer tant Immer
Tam Joe's people, so you know, and this is I
think after that time, or she would have remembered it
based on a new Taylor Joy's page, So I would
imagine we'd see at least assuming that she's not, like
you know, on assignment far from home or something where
(17:39):
you can avoid having to have those characters come back. Um,
but yeah, I think it would be great to learn
a little more part of it. Part of me thinks
it's great. Part of me thinks that some of the
magic of Mad Max is that you get very little
explanation for a lot of the characters that you see,
which allows you to kind of imagine what their backstories
(17:59):
must be. Sometimes it gets fleshed out in additional material
like comic books or whatever, or video games. But um,
there's always the danger of a prequel or a sequel
that really for prequels to take a bit of the
magic out by trying to explain something that maybe didn't
need to be explained. That being said, I am very
(18:20):
excited to see this. I I I'm gonna have to
wait till June before I can do it. I bet
it will be worth the waight uh. Something that a
bunch of other people were excited to see was a
new series based on Avatar The Last Airbender, which got
recently announced. Now it's not an animated show like Cora,
(18:42):
like Legends of Cora, it is a fan discussion series
for YouTube panel discussions where they get groups of fans
together to debate different things within the Avatar universe. I
watched the trailer. Things get heated, people people have opinions, um,
and it funny, like it's not not not like funny
(19:02):
in a way where I'm ridiculing people. I mean, this
is part of what fandom is, right. Fandom is all
about people who are very passionate about the stuff they
love and having their own take on it, their own
perspective on it, and then coming together and talking that
out with other fans. And sometimes you find out you've
got points of commonality, and sometimes you find out that
(19:25):
your perspectives are absolutely in opposition to each other. And
that's what the series seems to be about Yeah, and
I think it's a great testament to the writers of
the Avatar Animated series universe that they created something that
so many people have different viewpoints on. UM. If you
want to watch it, you can. It starts on April
(19:45):
on the Avatar YouTube channel. UM and Jonathan and I
want to talk about one of our favorite, well one
of our favorite film director groups and our opinions about it,
and maybe things will get heated. I guess we'll have
to see. But first we're going to take a quick break.
(20:14):
So Ariel in your memory. Do you know we're gonna
be talking about the Cohen Brothers and their films and
what we think about them. Uh, neither of us have
seen all of them. Um, I've seen eleven of the
eighteen movies that the duo have officially worked on together.
(20:35):
There's a nineteenth that's in production now, but obviously I
haven't seen that one. Um. But do you remember what
the first Coen Brothers movie was that you saw? Yes?
It was Brother Where Wow? Okay, so so relatively late
comer to the Cohen Brothers And of course, oh Brother
(20:56):
were dell is you know it's it's set in in
the United States. Um, it's it's said in the early
nineteen hundreds when radio is just starting to become a
real thing and recording is becoming a real thing. And uh,
and it's a retelling of the auditor. Yeah. Yeah, it's
(21:17):
taking a mythological approach to the story. Uh. And like
like most Coen Brothers movies, it has one of the
most amazing soundtracks of all time. Um, fantastic movie, great visuals.
I think of Oh Brother as being one of the
more accessible Cohen Brothers movies, one of the ones that's
(21:40):
easier to for the audience to follow what's happening. I agree.
And you know, so I might have seen Hudsucker Proxy priorly,
but Oh Brother, that was the first one I remember watching.
I remember vividly watching and we're talking about gateways last week.
Because so accessible, it was the gateway into their other
(22:03):
movies and kind of eased me into appreciating their particular
style of storytelling. Yeah. And and that style is really unique,
which is I get it. I was being redundant, really unique.
It doesn't mean anything, it was, it is unique. Um.
Their their take is quirky, some might say unconventional. It's
(22:26):
not a good word. They are really good at using
metaphor an imagery to supplement their storytelling. So these are
the type of movies where if you just had the
script in front of you and you're just reading the script,
you would only get maybe sixt of what the movie
had to offer. The direction and the uh, the intent
(22:51):
of those movies is so deep. It's the sort of
thing that I began to appreciate more the more I
developed to my critical analysis of movies. Not not critical
in the sense of finding what's wrong, but rather understanding
why the movie is the way it is and the
choices that were made to make it that way. There's
(23:14):
something of like the fairy tale as well that kind
of winds its way through a lot of Coen Brothers movies.
You mentioned the Hudsucker Proxy, that's essentially a fairy tale. UM,
Hail Caesar is largely a fair raising Arizona another one. UM.
Some of them are dark fairy tales. Barton Fink is
incredibly dark. I think it's an amazing movie. I think
(23:38):
it's also a movie that a lot of younger viewers
would have real issues sitting through. It's a very deliberately
paced film, but it is a very stuff. So you
you post because you just recently watched Fargo, right, yes,
which is in another very deliberately paid film, and you
(24:01):
mentioned that they put a lot of fairy tale elements
into their stories, and they do. Um. I was reading
somebody's commentary on acting and on filmmaking and on storytelling,
and they're saying that what you watch in television and
film is not the in between moments. It's the exceptional
moments of somebody's life. But I really feel like, especially
after watching Fargo, that the Coen Brothers still like to
(24:28):
show a lot of like the everyday life for their characters.
So they put these characters in these fantastical situations, but
they aren't afraid to just like sit in the mundane
and and really let you feel that characters everyday life.
So it almost makes the fantastical moments moments more fantastical
and the characters more related. To a really interesting point,
(24:52):
I agree. I mean, like like their movies are often
films where I need to watch it a second time
to really appreciate them. There are a couple of exceptions.
Hudsucker Proxy is very light and fluffy and charming just
on the surface, so you can enjoy it from a
surface level. It's not one of their deeper films, Oh Brother,
(25:13):
where Art Thou is extremely engaging. There is a lot
of deeper stuff in it, but you don't have to
be focusing on that door to get entertainment on the movie.
Some of the other movies, though, like you need to
be really paying attention and thinking about those things in
order to get stuff out of it, and that doesn't
necessarily come out of the first viewing. Like I remember,
(25:35):
the first time I saw The Big Lebowski, I did
not like that movie. It has since become one of
those movies that I I can watch all the way
through from beginning to end and enjoy every second of it.
But that's not how it was the first time I
saw it. In fact, Fargo was also that way. I
didn't like Fargo the first time I saw it. Um,
whereas there are other movies that they've done, No Country
(25:56):
for Old Men became one of my top favorite movies
of all time as soon as I saw it after
the first time. It is a harrowing movie. Um. It
is heartbreaking at times, it is phenomenal. It is one
of those where I was just gripped by the film
(26:17):
the entire time I watched it, I I watched part
of No Country for Old Men. I having grown my
love of the Coen Brothers over the years, I think
that I need to watch it again and give it
and even growing my love for Westerns. I know we
talked in an earlier episode about fandoms that we had
(26:38):
to kind of ease into, and that's one of them
for me. Um, I really want to sit down and
give that another watch, because I know that it's it's
got quite the following and quite the acclaim, and I
feel like I'm missing out for not having seen it.
Speaking of Westerns, at least you need to see the
Ballad of Buster Scrugs. It is. It is a masterpiece.
(26:59):
The first sequence, so it's five different sequences, if I'm
remembering correctly, Um, each one independent of all the others.
The first one, uh, is a little violent, but it's
it's it's like the most fairy tale ish of all
of the five. And the fifth one is the most
kind of gothic fairy tale ish of the five. Not
(27:23):
not violent. The fifth one is not violent at all.
All the violence has already happened. But the fifth one
is my faith might be my favorite sequence that the
Coen Brothers have ever done, because that that it's it's
just five characters. They're in a stage coach, so it's
like a bottle episode type thing. They're all in one place.
(27:46):
They're all crammed together in a stage coach and there
conversing with one another and debating with one another, and
UH has a character who might very well be the
def And I think that it is a phenomenal piece
of filmmaking. I mean, I was super excited to watch
(28:09):
it when they first announced it and they released the
trailers and and then I heard that the first like
the first segment was fantastic, and then it all kind
of fizzled from there. I don't I don't think it fizzles.
But the second segment is, um, it's not it's not bad.
I enjoyed the second segment to the third and fourth
(28:30):
segments are hard on you. They are um, they are
they are tough. They're not bad, They're just they're harrowing.
Knowing that I'm the kind of person that has to
look up if a dog dies at the end before
(28:50):
I go into a movie. Knowing that, I think I
could go into it expecting it to be hard and
enjoy it. I could not let my angst do you
take over so much. I'm really excited to see what
they do with the tragedy of Yes, Yes, yes, and
I'm going to go and correct myself although people will
have already yelled it there have to be six segments
(29:10):
because I just thought of one that didn't fit in
with the five that I had already imagined for the
Bild to Buster scrugs. So, but that being said, yes,
I agree the tragedy of Macbeth. I'm very curious to
see that. And also I need to watch some of
the films that you know I still haven't checked out,
Like I don't think I've seen Miller's Crossing. I've definitely
(29:33):
seen Blood Simple, which was their first film, but I
don't remember seeing Miller's Crossing, which I hear is amazing.
I've never seen a serious man, and I feel like
I need to um some of their Some of their
middle films are often listed as being kind of lesser
than like The Lady Killers and Intolerable Cruelty. I haven't
(29:54):
seen either of those, um, but yeah, I need to
watch all of them, because even I think even in
their lesser films, if you want to call them that,
there's a lot to take away from them, Like there's
a lot of of directorial style, a lot of Like again,
it comes down to choices, editing choices, and directing choices
(30:15):
and acting choices, and you can walk away from something
and say, like, I have a deeper appreciation for this
part of filmmaking, even if the movie itself didn't really
speak to me exactly. I mean, I can go into
a Cohen Brothers movie and learn an encyclopedia worth of
(30:35):
uh things about acting. I'll go back and I'll like,
I can't. I have to go back and watch the
movie again without my husband because I just want to
rewind and watch people's reactions and watch the little nuances
they stick in. Um, it's just really fantastic. What is
your all time favorite Cohen Brothers. Well, it's No Country
for All Men is my all time favorite. But to
(30:56):
be fair, like like if or if you're talking about
movies that I found, like, I don't think I could
say No Country for Old Men is the most entertaining movie.
I think it's my favorite for for other reasons, like
I have to be in a mood to watch No
Country for old men, because it is it is not
a movie that you know, you just throw on and
(31:17):
grab some popcorn. Um. But if I were, if I
were to say, like just for entertainment purposes, oh my gosh,
that's hard, um, because Big Lebowski is way up there,
Hudsucker Proxy is way up there, and Raising Arizona is
way up there. Uh. Those they all three really compete
(31:42):
for that. What about you? I would say for me,
it's Hudsucker Proxy or Brother where art Thow? That's so good? Yeah,
I mean it's Here's the wonderful thing when you can
find a creator who makes stuff where it's a struggle
for you to identify which one is your favorite because
(32:03):
you love them all in different ways. That is phenomenal. Right.
There are only a few out there, right, like Quentin Tarantino.
While he's a very different kind of stylistic director, he
he also makes really amazing movies. And and you know,
I don't love all of them equally, but I find
(32:25):
all of them interesting for different reasons. Yeah. Same. I
guess we'll have to talk about more directors in the
future and and uh what we love and dislike about
their directorial and story making. Sure you heard it here first, folks,
Next week we're going to talk about Neil Breen Ariel.
I have such terrible things to show you. But next
(32:50):
after this next break, we're going to do a little
storytelling of our own, and maybe the Coen Brothers will
make it their next movie. We'll see. All Right, we're
(33:16):
back and we are going to mash up a couple
of the news stories we talked about Reilier in the episode,
specifically Avatar the Last Airbender and mad Max, one of
which Jonathan has not I have not seen Avatar the
Last I've seen like a couple of episodes, so full disclosure. So,
(33:36):
my my wife loves the Avatar the Last Airbender series.
I don't think she's seen Legend of Cora, but she
has watched the full Avatar story, the three books. She's
watched all of those, and she loves it. And and
I've only seen a couple of episodes and I didn't
really get into it. Um So I ended up deciding
(33:59):
that rather than uh, totally destroy everyone's love of a
of an amazing animated series and incorporate the characters of
either the Avatar original Avatar TV series or the Legend
of Chorus series, I would dive into ancient history. So
um can I go first? Sure? This is called Mad
(34:24):
Max the Last Chrome Bender. Uh and and and for
the reference, these events would happen a little less than
three hundred years before the events of the Avatar The
Last Airbender TV series. So this is this is before
the Hundred Years War and the Fire Nation trying to
take over the world. So here we go. Max has
(34:47):
a problem. He's navigating his way through the islands of
the Fire Nation. Each island is led by a different warlord.
While the Fire Nation is in name, at least a
united entity, in reality, it is a collection of competitive
regions that jealously guard resources, and Max happens to be
in one of those resources. He has borrowed air quotes
(35:09):
a souped up miniature Tundra tank, an experimental vehicle developed
by and for a vicious Firebender named Kulin, leader of
mat Inca Island. She is not known for being particularly forgiving.
Max's would be captors are in hot pursuit so to speak.
I mean they are Firebenders after all, and Max isn't
(35:33):
on his home turf. As such, he finds it difficult
to evade the pursuers, and while making a daring maneuver
to drift around a corner and a last ditch effort
to escape, he sees that around said corner are even
more of Coolin's soldiers. He's out of road and out
of luck. Captured, he has put into chains and forced
(35:54):
to march back up the street. A full detail of
fire Nation soldiers escorting him back to Coolan. He is
forced to his knees in front of her. She dismisses
her guard, who leave her alone with the prisoner. After
demonstrating some terrifying fire skills, she surprisingly removes Max's chains.
(36:15):
She explains she has a job for Max. He is
clearly talented, but more importantly, he is absolutely not affiliated
with Coolan. Max, Coulan explains, is to assassinate a different
firebender named Rangy. Coulan explains that Rongy was her rival
at the Royal Fire Academy for Girls, and that years
(36:38):
ago Coulan was defeated and her clan disgraced because of
Rongy's actions. Max is to seek out Rongy, using his
survivalist abilities to get through impossible situations and take her down.
Max unable to really bargain here agrees reluctantly to the proposal,
as death is the least attractive option. Coolan gives Max
(37:01):
the use of the specialized Tundra tank, and Max is
off after some time, having left Coolan's territory, getting a
lift on a ship to a neighboring island. Max is
clearly looking for a way out. He tries to plan
out a circuitous route that would appear as if he
were tracking and closing in on Rangy, but with the
ultimate goal of ditching the whole thing and going on
(37:23):
the run out of the fire Nation entirely his destination
the Sinland Village, a farming community and part of the
Earth Kingdom. But between him and that are numerous islands
and Fire Nation warlords. Max finds himself on a desperate chase,
made all the more difficult as tanks are not particularly
good at crossing water between islands. Before long, he is
(37:46):
forced to abandon his vehicle to travel with the less
chance of being noticed, and even then he has to
use a hooded cloak to hide his features, which would
be instantly alien to the Fire Nation inhabitants. Quietly, practically
without speaking, I mean seriously, This movie has like very
little dialogue, and almost none of it goes to Max anyway.
(38:07):
The Wanderer finds himself hopping island to island, narrowly avoiding discovery.
Kolin has found her abandoned vehicle and her soldiers are
seeking out Max. In addition, each local island presents its
own dangers, and just as Max is plotting his escape
through his air quotes borrowing of a small boat, his
plan backfires. He had used rumors of Rangy's whereabouts supplies escape,
(38:30):
but turns out he was following just a bit too
closely because Rangy herself shows up. Turns out it's her
boat and she has her girlfriend with her, who just
happens to be Avatar Kyoshi from the Earth Kingdom. What
follows is a pretty rough butt whoopin for Max, who
fails to explain his goal properly at first, But just
as Rangy gets ready to roast Max, he blurts out
(38:52):
Kolan's plan. Rangy lowers Max and her eyes narrow. Kyoshi,
who towers over Max because she's rural tall, puts her
hand on Rangey's shoulder, staying her from barbecuing the Wanderer.
Rangy tells Max to take the boat and make his escape.
Years later, the Fire Nation tells legends of a man
(39:13):
who could control a vehicle as if it were an
extension of himself, the Chrome Binder he has called, and
we wait for the next sequel the end. It's a
little less a joke heavy than my normal mashups, but yes,
but it was really really good. So I did mash
(39:34):
up the beloved animated series. But specific presumably you've seen it.
I've seen a lot more of it. However, this is
not going to be true to avatar lore. Trigger warning,
I guess. So this is angiy Man Beyond the Thunder Nation.
(39:56):
It's five years after the war with the Fire Nation
has ended and all the Sans are at peace. Ang
along with his team and his trusty sky bison Appa,
are eating their way through the nations again out of boredom,
and that's when they come across it, past the reaches
of the Metal Clan, a new nation, but not heart
as Captain Planet might lead us to believe. This nation
(40:18):
was grim, lawless, a barren desert worse than anything they
had ever seen before. But facing a lack of purpose,
Ang decides it's now their quest to figure out the
strange nation, rebuild it to glory and connect it with
all of the other nations that are now at peace. However,
to do so, he must find who runs the sandpit.
(40:40):
Just as the friends settled into camp for the first night,
they're attacked by marauders who tried to steal Appa for
what Ang doesn't even want to imagine. Tough and Ang
team up and swipe the marauders away in a massive sandstorm. Thankfully,
the storm must have cleared out any other marauders, and
the group are able to spend the rest of the
night uneventfully. However, they all to side that if they're
(41:00):
going to venture on, they need to disguise Appa to
protect him. Seeing that the marauders came in on vehicles,
the group find an old truck, gut it, and hide
Appa inside. Um it's kind of a chincy disguise, but
it's what they had. They travel on and the first
town they come to is a settlement led by a
(41:21):
warlord called Humongous. The settlement is destitute and no one
seems to want to help Hang and his friends correct anything,
probably out of fear. And that's when they see it.
A small feral child, fire bending in the shadows. They
go and they talk to him, and he agrees to
reunite this land to the rest of the Nations with them.
(41:42):
As they go to take the feral child out of
the settlement, Humongous chases after them, entering his vehicle, and
the small feral child sets the oil take on fire,
exploding the vehicle and ridding the settlement of Humongous. The
child stays behind to help the settlement recover, and Hang
and his friends move on. Next, they come to a
place with a sign in the front that says Bartertown.
(42:03):
Welcome to the Thunderdome. Ang shouts out as Andrew Hey,
who runs Bartertown, and a leader named Auntie comes out
being a Barterer. She agrees to let their town rejoin
the Nations and civilization if if Ang could defeat her
champion in the Thunderdome. He agrees and comes face to
face with a tag team duo called Master and Blaster.
(42:25):
Air starts his airbending and knocks the helmet off. Blaster,
who finally free, turns against Master and deafens him with
a thunder Blast. Turns out Blaster was a pair of
powerful air Airbender and the helmet was keeping his powers
at Bay Blaster sides with Ang and his friends. Auntie
sees she's defeated and agrees to join the rest of
the nations. Hang and his team ask if there are
(42:46):
any other leaders they need to confront their task, and
Auntie says there's one other angey man and she points
them to the settled Dill run by a horrible guy
named Immertan Joe. The team Avatar travels on and they
get there and they see that Amortan Joe has enslaved
a bunch of water benders. Beyond that, Joe is unreceptive
(43:06):
to joining the nations. He thinks he's got a good
thing going on, with everybody enslaved and him having all
of the milk and the water and the goods. Uh
Qatar and Socca, insisting that the waterbenders can't stay with
this horrible gross man, sneak the water Benders inside of
oppas costume to get them out of the citadel. They escape,
and the water beenders tell the team about the fabled
(43:26):
Green Place, a place that can restore all of this
waste land to its once former glory, and the team
heads towards it. Joe finds out that his water Benders
have been taken, and he sends his one firebender, Furiosa,
after them, and also alerts the nearby Bullet Nation and
Gas Clan, some rogue Earthbenders who tried to make the
best of it when their land went to waste. Furiosa,
(43:49):
the Bullet town Ees, and the Gasses all chase after
Ang and his friends. At that moment, in an effort
to get away safely, Appa bursts out of his disguise
and flies above the Bullets in the fire and the Mayhem,
furious as seeing this, realizes that all is not lost.
There's still a green place in the world, and she
turns sides and joins forces with the Team Avatar. She
(44:12):
destroys the other pursuers, makes peace with Ang and his friends,
and leads them all to the Green Place, where together
they can bring back life to this desolate nation. They
do so and work together with the towns a freed,
bringing them all back to prosperity, and Ang returns to
the thunder Dome to Airbend with Blaster as a new
tag team duo. So you walk through Mad Max two, three,
(44:35):
and four, but just skill the first one because it
doesn't count. It's pretty just I just thought it was
funny because you could have pointed out that that Morton
Joe looked an awful lot like this other guy called
toe Cutter from like years ago, because it was the
same actor who played both characters. Toe Cutter was in
(44:58):
the first mont. I could have, but I just imagined
that Team Avatar was dealing with the fire names. Maybe
that was earlier years war thing when when that first
what happened. I liked it. I liked all the like
I thought at first it was just going to be
a Road Warrior Avatar mashup. But you you you really
(45:20):
doubled down on that one. I really doubled down. You know,
I have this habit of writing up my mashups in
a way where I just cannot say any of the
words correctly. No, I mean, listen that that's my style
of writing too, is that I'll write things that I read,
like when I'm just reading silently, it sounds great in
my head, and then a human mouth tries to say it,
(45:42):
and then it all kind of falls apart. You know,
I'm kind of surprised that a human mouth tried to
say any bit of this mashup, but I think it
turned out well, no, it was. I didn't know what
to expect when I agreed to do this one, so
I'm glad it turned out the way it did. If
you out there have I is for a mash up,
or maybe you have your own ideas of what a
(46:03):
man Max Avatar mashup would be, or maybe you just
think that we should never touch Avatar ever again. You
know Avatar, The Last Airbender, Avatar, Pandora, Avatar, fair Game, Pocahons,
anyway game. If you have any of these thoughts, you
should get in touch with us. Ariel. How do they
get in touch with us? Well, if they want to
(46:23):
send us something along form, they can email us at
Ellen C at iHeart media dot com. Or if you
want to send us just a quick suggestion or comment
or thought, you can do so on Twitter at llen
c Underscore Podcast, or on Facebook or Instagram at large
nor John Collider. Oh, you can also check out all
(46:44):
of our show notes on our website www dot large
nor John Glider dot com. Uh, we'll have them posted
shortly after this episode airs. Yeah, and until next time.
She has been arial casting and he has been Shawn
that's been raggedy Man Strickland bus deal, spind the Wheel,
(47:13):
m m m m m. The Large New Drunk Collider
is production of I Heart Radio and was created by
Ariel cast In. Jonathan Strickland is the executive producer. This
(47:35):
show is produced, edited, and published by Tory Harrison. For
more podcasts on my heart Radio, visit the i heart
Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your
favorite shows.
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