The Writers Strike Back

Jonathan and Ariel are back after an unplanned hiatus to talk about what's new in geek circles and how the WGA strike is already having a big impact on future projects. Plus talk about attitudes about spoilers, how anxiety plays a part, and a potential podcast movie date.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Large nor Drunk Collider Podcasts,
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 time traveler Ariel Caston, and with me
is the also coming back from absent time traveler Jonathan Strickland.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
I'm hooked on a feeling.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
You get cheka.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
Yeah, So, first of all, I guess we should get
our apologies out of the way. We missed two weeks,
and one of those.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Was because technically one te technically.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
One two weeks, and one of those was because of conflicts,
and the other was because we recorded but there was
an issue with the recording file and I tried to
fix it, but nothing I could do seem to make
it any better. So we technically now have a lost
episode of Large Nurdron Collider, which I would be glad

(01:06):
to publish if it weren't for the fact that the
files just totally corrupted, so you wouldn't hear anything anyway
if I tried to publish it. So we apologize. We
will be covering a little bit of the stuff what
was going to be covered in previous episodes, but yeah,
we're we're we're we're apologetic about all of that. Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:30):
Also, thank you to the people who reached out and
asked when our next episode would be. It is heartwork
warming and encouraging to know that you guys follow actively
and listen and we love you all because that happened.
I didn't tell you, Jonathan, but we had a couple
of people reach out saying, hey, when's your next episode
going to be? We miss you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:48):
So yeah, no, that's that's good, that's sweet. Like we
we you know, we wish that that it could have
been the last two weeks. It just didn't work out,
and that's sometimes how podcasting goes. But we're back and
we've got so much to talk about.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
Yeah, you said you're hooked on a feeling. Were you
were you referencing Guardians of the Galaxy by any chance?

Speaker 2 (02:19):
I mean maybe I was, But we aren't to the
point where we talk about the stuff what we've watched recently.
Oh ooh, because we've got the thirty seconds or less.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
First, you surprised me, I didn't. Okay, Well let's hurry
and get through this thirty seconds or less.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Then okay, I'm up first and here I go with
the police. One of the stories we missed due to
a semi unplanned hiatus was that Carrie Fisher received a
star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on May fourth,
also known as Star Wars Day. Fisher's daughter Billy Lord
was there to honor carry a wearing a Princess Leiah dress.

(02:56):
And this actor named Mark Hamill, who's best known for
Like Corvette and the Len Commander computer series, he was
there too. It was a very sweet way to honor
the late Carrie Fisher.

Speaker 1 (03:10):
Awesome in less I guess positive news, Andrew Lloyd Weber's
musical Bad Cinderella is closing on Broadway. You can, I
guess see it through the very beginning of June. This
ends his I think forty three year streak of having
a show on Broadway because Phantom of the Opera just

(03:31):
closed apparently, though he did work on some other things
that so mad. Cinderella also didn't get a Tony nomination.
We're going to talk about that in a little bit.
But Weber worked on a bunch of other stuff that
did that I guess is also closing on Broadway anyhow. Yeah,
that's interesting. It's weird. Agreed, we should have maybe not

(03:54):
put it in thirty seconds or less.

Speaker 2 (03:56):
Well, all I'm going to say is that it's also
interesting that it almost exactly a year after the West
End cast got noticed that their show was shutting down,
and it shut down in June last year. So it's
almost like history repeated itself. But yeah, we'll we'll move on.
So here's the next one, and I'm gonna go. So

(04:17):
Marvel's next Blade film has had a troubled production. There
have been multiple rewrites, there's been a change of directors.
Currently there's a shutdown due to the WGA strike, which
we will also talk about a lot later, and the director.
The new director is Nick Pitzolato, who created the True
Detective series for HBO. He's also the same age as me.

(04:39):
In fact, technically I'm a few months older than he is. Ugh.
He also co wrote the twenty sixteen remake of The
Magnificent Seven, among other things. So here's hoping that the
new Blade won't turn out to be dull.

Speaker 1 (04:52):
A clever. All Right, are you old enough to remember Cloverfield?
You know that found footage, very scary movie that traumatized
me for many years. Well, if you are or if
you're familiar with ten Cloverfield Lane or its other movie
that I can't remember at the moment, the Cloverfield Paradox.

(05:13):
Apparently the Slush Show website, which was kind of the
viral marketing website that they used for their original movies,
is active again. You can mix up some Slush Show characters.
I will tell you. I don't remember the original site,
but I went on there and they said something about
deep seed ingredients, and we knew that there was a
sequel coming along, and I scoured that website for any

(05:36):
Easter eggs I could find, and I was very.

Speaker 2 (05:37):
Bad at it. Yeah, from Yander. Remember the old Slush
Show website was similar, and that everyone poured over every
single detail hoping that they were able to decipher JJ
Abrams's secret messages. And I don't think there was anything
to decipher it, just we all assumed that there was
all right here we go, next one and go. We

(06:00):
got a teaser for the film adaptation of Twisted Metal.
It's a video game series that's part demolition derby art
third person shooter. So in the video game, players drive
cars outfitted with weapons and try to destroy everyone else.
But in the teaser Anthony Mackie grooves too if you
steal my sunshine by Len while driving his car, and
then we get a glimpse of Sweet Tooth, the psychotic

(06:21):
clown who drives an ice cream truck. So not a
whole lot there, but you know, you can definitely pick
up on the vibe.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Yeah, I don't know what to make of the vibe.
So we talked a little bit, like about the writer's strike.
We're going to talk more about the writer's strike. But
fun fact, as of last week, Lord of the Rings,
the whatever the TV show is House of Dragon to
thirty seconds, Ah, thank you. Rings the Power and House
of Dragon, we're both still in production in the UK.

(06:52):
That's because their scripts were already written. That's not to
say that there couldn't be picket lines drawn in front
of those productions and tapings that would still halt them.
They're trying to get them out for all of the fans.
However you feel about that?

Speaker 2 (07:06):
Yeah, Well, I've got another video game adaptation trailer to
talk about. This one's for Grand Turismo, which is a
racing game series, and the adaptation is actually based off
a true story in which top Grand Turismo video game
players got to compete for the chance to race for real,
and how one kid managed to go from an armchair

(07:26):
champion to competing for the real thing. Plus we get
to watch lots of scenes of David Harbor b all
grumpy and stuff, which I can't get enough of.

Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, okay, one thing to add. I'm so sorry. When
we first talked about this movie, I thought it was
it didn't interest me at all, But this trailer has
kind of changed my mind. It actually looks pretty fun.
So that just goes to show that you maybe shouldn't
make premature judgments on artistic words.

Speaker 2 (07:55):
Well, and to be fair. And to be fair, when
you hear that it's a movie adaptation of a racing game,
you don't think, you know, you think it's going to
be a direct adaptation of the game and then they
have to invent a story around it. But instead what
they're doing is is the story is inspired by a
competition that actually happened, and in fact, that competitor is

(08:15):
still a race car driver, like a professional race car
driver today.

Speaker 1 (08:20):
Yeah no, it's like race car driving doesn't interest me,
although stunt driving does. So I don't understand where the
separation is in my brain. But yeah, it's the way
that the trailer is at least put together makes it
look very engaging and very endearing, so I might actually
watch it. Something else I'm going to do is I'm

(08:42):
going to listen to Dolly Parton's new rock album when
it comes out. That's right. She's got nine originals and
twenty one cover songs coming out in a rock album.
I know Tibblet is excited about it too. He's barking
in the background and most of your song it Yeah,
I am too. It's got thirty tracks on it, and

(09:03):
she's got forty two guest artists, and it's just this
giant collab album. And of course she's singing rocking ball
with her goddaughter, Miley Cyrus. Now she can officially feel
like she belongs in the rock and roll Hall of
Fame because she's finally put out a rock and roll album.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
Yeah, you can pre order it now, I just got
I got an email about it earlier today. And you
can get on two CDs or four LPs, so four
vinyl albums, which that's the format I will get if
I actually pre order this nic all right, and last
one here we go. So the WGA strike has also

(09:43):
impacted season two of the Last of Us. So reportedly,
producers had planned to hold auditions and to try and
side stuff the tricky WGA strike stuff because you know,
they don't have any scripts for season two yet. They
thought maybe we can get around this by having actors
full scenes straight from the video game. But the co

(10:03):
creators of season one are both supporting the WGA strike.
They can't do any work on the show in the meantime,
and so ultimately it's been put on hold. What this
means in the long run, like whether or not the
soul pushback, the debut of more fungus among us or not,
we have to wait and find out.

Speaker 1 (10:23):
Maybe I'll catch up among my King of the Hill
and my community. Last thirty seconds or last I added
this one very last minute because it came out just
a little while ago. As of recording this episode, Spider
Man Across the Spider Versus dropped its third trailer. It's
honestly mostly the same, although there's a little bit of
new comedy added to the beginning and another spider creature

(10:46):
at the end. So like, watch the first like third
of it and then skip to like the last fifteen
seconds and everything else you've seen before.

Speaker 2 (10:54):
I've helped. Well, now we're ready to move on to
talk about stuff what we've watched recently. Ariel, you seem
to be particularly interested in doing that for some reason.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Because you you've made it seem awful likely that you
went and saw Guardians of the Galaxy three.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
What. No, I haven't seen that. No you haven't.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Uh uh oh okay, okay, because I was like, you're like,
that belongs in the what we've watched section, which we
aren't at.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
And so I was like, oh, it's because I watched
Guardians of the Galaxy volume one.

Speaker 1 (11:30):
Oh uh, but I do, I do have thoughts on that,
because you know, I I had said on a previous
episode that I was worried that I would have to
skip Guardians of the Galaxy three.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Yeah, you were. You were treading very close to some
spoilers right now.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
Uh no, No, what I'm saying is I I read,
I did read a bunch of spoiler websites. But no, no, no, no, no, Jonathan,
listen to me. When I saw The Martian. Okay, back
when I saw The Martian, I had anxiety about watching
The Martian because I didn't know if he would make

(12:08):
it out alive or dead. Knowing either one, I would
have been okay with the movie. It was that uncertainty
ah meed me. Knowing which characters live and which characters
die and how many means that I think I will
be able to watch this movie. Got it based on
reading the spoiler websites. I was not going to spoil anything.

(12:30):
I'm aware.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Well. I was just saying like if you were, if
you were going to say, like, now, I'm cool with
seeing it, then people might jump to a conclusion, which
then ultimately jump to spoiling the film. Don't.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Don't jump to a conclusion.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
I just I have.

Speaker 1 (12:47):
Reconciled myself with the things that I now know happen
in the movie in whichever way they happen.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
Yeah, it's it's weird that Adam Warlock kills everybody in
the first twelve minutes and then the rest of the
running time is just him listening to the mixed trip.

Speaker 1 (13:01):
I usually do this for things like I usually do
this for things like horror movies. I'll read like the
the the parental guidance websites pretty much because they'll be like,
here's it's got this kind of horror in it, and
it breaks it down, so I can know whether or
not I will be able to handle watching that. A
lot of times, I'm getting very like high pitched and

(13:22):
excited about this. A lot of times. The anxiety I
feel is not necessarily that someone lives or die. It dies.
It's the uncertainty. I think. It's why I don't always mind.
I sometimes mind spoilers, but not always.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
So Yeah, I can totally identify with the anxiety stuff,
because goodness knows. Like shows that are really good at
ramping up tension, I usually love that. I love a
work that's very good at doing that. Those are my
favorite types of horror movies are not the not the
slasher films or the gore fests. I like a movie

(13:57):
that creates a scary premise and then just very slowly
increases the tension. I find those really effective. But over
the last few years, my anxiety has gotten so bad
that's very hard for me to actually watch those now,
even though those are the movies I prefer. So. I
totally get that anxiety of the unknown, and that if

(14:21):
you just know how it's going to turn out, then
you can watch the story play out the way it's
meant to. And for some folks, like the joy of
discovery is the primary joy they get from watching a movie,
and there's nothing wrong with that that if that's your
case and you want to go in as blind as possible,
I respect that, and in fact, most of the time

(14:42):
that's how I am. But with my yeah and with
my anxiety, now, sometimes I just can't be yeah.

Speaker 1 (14:51):
Well, like specifically I did it. One of my friends
asked if I wanted to go see Evil Dead Rises. Now,
I've seen the original Evil Dead and I've watched some
of Ash Versus the Evil Dead, and I like Army
of Darkness, and I was like, well, the initial trailer
for Evil Dead Rises looked really suspenseful. It looked pretty good,
and I thought I could handle it, and then the
second trailer made it look like I absolutely could not

(15:11):
handle it.

Speaker 2 (15:12):
So I went and I read.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
Specifically what was in this movie, because like, if it
was Texas Chainsaw Massacre and everything was cannibalism, absolutely not,
I'm noping right out of that. That is not a
topic that I can handle very well. Zombies are kind
of okay, but cannibalism, absolutely not. That is a topic
that just upsets me to my very core.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
And deads Dead Nights are somewhere in the middle there.

Speaker 1 (15:37):
Yeah. Yeah, So like I wasn't sure I wanted to
go see a movie my friend was excited about, but
I did not because i'd I value my sleep and
well being more. Have you watched anything geeky other than
Guardians at the Galaxy One?

Speaker 2 (15:53):
I did. I did finish Schmicago. I watched the last
episode of that, and I have mixed feelings about the
final episode. I feel like the middle of the episode
everything was trying to rush toward a conclusion, Like I
feel that there needed to be a little more time

(16:15):
with Patrick Page's character to really create a suitable villain.
They did a lot of shortcuts to make him a
bad guy, like a lot of people talk about him,
but you don't actually see him doing much, and I've
thought that was unfortunate. That being said, the last scene

(16:36):
of or really the last sequence of the show, I
thought was very well done. It was very sweet. They
had a repriez of one of my favorite songs from
earlier in the series, so I thought it was it
ended on a very nice note. They could walk away
if they needed to. I don't actually know how they

(16:57):
would set up a season three, especially with the same characters,
but maybe they will. But yeah, it was a I
highly recommend it for any musical fan, Like any musical
theater geek out there should really watch Schmiga Dune, which
I think is good but not great, in Schmicago, which
I think is legitimately a great series.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Awesome, awesome. I think I just watched more Mandalorian and
King of the Hill. This weekend I might watch Creed
three or Guardians of the Galaxy three or maybe Renfield.
Renfield is now available for rental at home as well.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
So yeah, I saw that that was the case. I
haven't you know. Also, I saw that ant Man and
the Wasp should be available before too long, and I
haven't watched that yet either, so I feel like, well,
I can, I can watch that one at home. I
know that it's going to be a spectacle film, but
everything I've heard about it is kind of disappointing.

Speaker 1 (17:55):
I mean, I enjoyed it. I went in with very
low expectation. I've already talked about this as I'm just
being a broken record here, but I went in with
very low expectations and I enjoyed it was it a
great movie? No, but it was a fun movie. I'll
be really interested to hear your thoughts after you do
watch it.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
Yeah, I hope I won't be too biased because I
gave in and watched like a couple of video reviews
and stuff, and I sometimes when I do that, it
ends up adjusting my opinion before I've seen it, which
isn't fair. And I recognize that, and it still happens.
So hopefully that won't be the case.

Speaker 1 (18:29):
Hopefully not. Well, we also wanted to talk about some
of the things in the Lost episode that happened, like
Cinema Con.

Speaker 2 (18:41):
Yes, that's the conference where it's for theater companies, and
it's essentially Hollywood appearing in front of a conference in
which a bunch of like theater franchise owners all attend,
various managers of different theaters and stuff. They all go there,
and then Hollywood ends up saying, Hey, we want people

(19:02):
to come back to the theaters too, So here's some
movies that are coming out. So if you promote the
heck out of these movies, you're gonna get more butts
and seats. It becomes like kind of like a pep
rally for the movie theater and movie industries, in some
cases to the point where like the studios trot out

(19:22):
some of the actors to appear at the conference in
order to talk it up. It also meant that a
metric ton of trailers were shown off at the conference,
and since then some of those trailers have kind of
trickled out so that the rest of us plebeians can
watch them.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Yeah, yeah, I'm surprised more trailers haven't come out, but
I guess everybody's been preoccupied with the strike. One of
the trailers that came out was the Flash, Yes, the
second trailer, which I thought, again frustratingly, looked very good.

Speaker 2 (19:57):
Yeah. Frustrating. Frustrating for a couple of reasons, right, because
we all know of Ezra Miller's troublesome past, and that
that is something that's hard to It's very hard to
rally behind a film that is centered around a person
who did some very bad things. And then meanwhile, the

(20:18):
company that's behind that film totally canned and permanently shelved
a movie that had really good people working on it
that none of us are ever going to have a
chance to see.

Speaker 1 (20:30):
Yeah. Yeah, I read an article somewhere that you know
asm like this is his last hurrah in the DC universe.
But I don't remember where I found that article, and
I haven't found it since.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, the last time I saw something, it was still
very noncommittal, like maybe Azra Miller will be back, maybe
they won't, we don't know. Also, you know, this is
the second to last movie that's in that block of
the DC universe. The final one will be Aquaman, which

(21:04):
comes out at the end of this year.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Yeah. Yeah, and I apologize, I think I said he
and I meant today. The other thing we kind of
wanted to talk about, just because it's so bizarre, was
the whole Pinkerton Like we did talk about. It was
the whole Pinkertons coming to some dude's house because he
got an expansion to magic the Gathering early, probably by mistake.
It's the part of the Roaring Twenties that we didn't

(21:29):
want to bring back.

Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, So that story was about this guy who his
story is he went to like a comic book shop,
bought a booster pack or whatever, or a deck of
cards for magic the Gathering that he assumed was just
an existing expansion. In fact, what it was was an
expansion pack that had not yet been authorized for release,

(21:54):
and that he then came home and then did a
video of him on boxing them and throwing them off.
And then apparently Wizards of the Coast sent the Pinkertons,
which is like a private detective agency and yeah, thugs
in some cases dates all the way back to the
nineteenth century here in the United States. Anyway, they used

(22:18):
some pretty nasty intimidation techniques to lean on the guy
and suggest that perhaps he could be facing a very
long time behind bars for the incredible crime of showing
off some cards. And if his story is to be believed,
it's not even his fault, right, I mean, it's his

(22:40):
fault that he showed them off, but it's not his
fault that he got possession of them. And as you
might imagine, generally speaking, the reaction to Wizards of the
Coast and Hasbro has not been particularly positive.

Speaker 1 (22:56):
Yeah, it's really interesting that that happened right before the
writer strike because Pinkerton's were historically known for like breaking
up picket lines and yes, uh so, uh extra bad timing.
I guess, yeah, not good in the first place.

Speaker 2 (23:15):
But no, no, no, it was yeah, no matter what
like that going to those links is pretty like it's ludicrous, honestly,
But anyway, it does.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
I could, I could maybe maybe just a sliver of
understand it if they had already talked to the guy
and he said absolutely not, I'm going to talk about
this and share it with the world and I'm not
returning it and blah blah blah blah blah. But that
didn't happen.

Speaker 2 (23:42):
Yeah, if if you would typically assume something like a
cease and desist letter would be first, right and not yeah,
let's send let's send the muscle over to lean on them.
But uh but again, like we're getting one part of
the story we don't know and I haven't followed up
on this since we talked about in the Lost episode,
but it does sort of lead us into talking about

(24:04):
the WGA going on strike. This has obviously been going
on for a while now. We also talked about this
in the Lost episode. But it's interesting because, well, one,
it's going to impact all projects that are that are
in development right now because anyone who is part of
the union, they are not allowed to work on anything,

(24:29):
Like they can't have a meeting, they can't talk about
ideas anything, that's related to writing for film or television,
they are not allowed to.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Do, including rewrites. Now if I think I heard somewhere
that technically, if they're contracted to do something already, they
could work on it because it's already been contracted. But
also they probably wouldn't want to do that because that
would be crossing picket lines. Anything that's already written can

(24:59):
technically be can technically still be filmed, right if you
don't need rewrites if it's already scripted. So actors can
still go in, crew can still go in, But some
people are choosing not to in support of the writer's strike,
And I think we talked about this also in the
lost episode sag After, which is the acting union, and

(25:23):
also the DGA, which is the Director's Guild of America,
also have their contracts ending this year, So we might
be looking it back to back or overlapping strikes, depending
on how long the writers strike goes.

Speaker 2 (25:37):
Well and those contracts. Those contracts expire June, so like
we are, yeah, we are getting we're just a couple
of weeks away.

Speaker 1 (25:44):
Yeah, but you know, even if there are actors who
are willing to go in because you know, I don't
I don't know, like you can still do non union stuff.
If it's a non union project with non union writers,
it's ok I think it's very hard to navigate as
an actor, but I think it's okay to do because
it's not a part of the union anyhow. So like

(26:05):
if you're creating your own content or doing something for
a friend who's creating their own content and it's not
union work, it's a great time to create your own content.
So that's all you got pretty much that in some commercials,
I think, I don't know if commercials fall under it,
but and a lot of commercials are non union right
now anyhow, and have been since.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
Before the strike.

Speaker 1 (26:27):
But even if people are going into the studio to tape,
if there's a picket line in front of it, then
it no longer becomes a matter if we can do it.
If you're an actor and you go into a production
where there is a two person Jonathan, we have an
article that you put in here about this. If there's
two people picketing the writer's strike in front of your
production studio and you're an actor and you're not a writer,

(26:50):
even though technically you can film that, you would then
have to cross the picket line to do it, and
most actors don't want to do that. Maya Rudolph has
chosen not to do that, a couple others I don't
remember their names offhand.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
It's literally, you need a minimum of two people, two
union reps, two union members to hold signs, and that
makes a picket line. Just like if you have two
dots and you connect them, that's a line. Two people,
that's a line. And as you say, Ariel like that
line is more than just symbolic, but what it does

(27:26):
symbolize is this solidarity in the entertainment world where you
have the folks who are responsible for creating the entertainment
trying to put pressure on the studios that fund it.
And a lot of actors are sympathetic toward the writers.

(27:48):
I mean, after all, they're potentially facing the same thing
in just a couple of weeks if their negotiations hit
a similar snag. One of the things that the WGA
negotiations have snagged happens to be around AI. We're going
to talk about that with another union in a second.

(28:08):
But the reason why the writers are particularly worried about
AI is not that they think studios are just going
to use AI to write a script from top to bottom.
It's because if they use AI to do things like
to generate ideas or to create like a story treatment
or something like that, if you're hired on as a

(28:29):
writer to polish a script or punch it up or
rewrite it, you're paid a different rate, a lower rate
than if you were there to write it from the beginning.
So the fear is that studios could use AI to
just spit out ideas. Then it falls on a human
being to turn that idea and try and make it

(28:51):
into something people would actually want to go see. In
the meantime, they would be paid less for their work
because they wouldn't be considered the primary writer on the.

Speaker 1 (29:00):
Pants, and they'd also have shorter deadlines and yeah, different
like you said, different pay scale, different residuals, which residuals
is a huge part of this. It also deals with
streaming because there are so many loopholes in streaming residuals
and how they get paid out due to the fact
that when these contracts were first written, streaming was still

(29:21):
relatively new. But now we're like ten years plus in
and those those loopholes haven't been fixed and so people
aren't making money. There's a local Atlanta actress who tweeted
that she's been working for almost twenty years. She even
worked on Doom Patrol and this in the middle of
her career and still has never made overscale on a
full budget feature and she's been on some you know, so,

(29:44):
how are actress? How are writers supposed to make a
living if they're basically being pushed into a gig economy
even though they belong to a union and can't take
other gig economy.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Work, right, Yeah, And meanwhile, the studios are also in
as for practicing some pretty creative accounting to show that
films that make huge amounts of money actually ended up
being a loss. And uh, I'm not gonna say it's

(30:14):
outright of fabrication and a lie, but there's, like I said,
a lot of creative accounting. If you're wondering, how can
this movie that made you know, nine hundred million dollars
be put down as a loss, it involves, like I said,
a lot of creative accounting. Meanwhile, you've got studio executives
who have their own private planes and stuff. So yeah,
we're Yeah, I think I can pretty safely say I

(30:35):
am pro union and pro writers on this one.

Speaker 1 (30:39):
I definitely am pro union in pro writers on a
lot of things in the entertainment industry, you know, Like
I talked about this back during the IATs strike, which
thankfully got resolved pretty quickly, which is that like you're
working incredibly long hours and you're being put through you know,

(31:02):
long hours, rigorous things, whether it's just emotional, like if
you're an actor and you're doing something that's that's that
is a lot of work. People are going to say, no,
it's it's fun, and yes, acting, I think acting is
fun and it's rewarding, but it's a lot of work
to step into somebody's shoes and portray their life and
all of their ups and downs and emotions and hardships

(31:22):
and all of that. And if you're doing that for
over eight hours a day, that's a lot. If you're
working on set a lot of times, you know you
have to work even longer, and so you need to
I've already lost my train of thought.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
Yeah, well, just that it is. You know, the work
we're talking about is important work. It is hard work,
and that you know the purpose of unions is to
allow for the collective bargaining leverage in order to make
sure that people are compensated and treated properly and that

(31:56):
they're not being exploited.

Speaker 1 (31:58):
You know, the payment is a big part of it,
but I think I was getting to the treatment as.

Speaker 2 (32:02):
Well, because absolutely, I mean.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
Hollywood is notorious for treating people very unhealthily.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
Well, Ariel, you and I have both been part of
an organization that we enjoyed doing the work, but I
would say that we both experienced the unfortunate feeling of
not being valued all the time. By that particular. I'm
not going to go into any details, but it is

(32:30):
one of those things where like you can love what
you do, but if you feel that the organization or
company or industry doesn't value you, that really does matter
a huge amount too. So yeah, there are a lot
of considerations that need to be made. And you mentioned
IATZI that stands for International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees.

(32:52):
We also have a story about AATSI. They are actually
they've created a committee to look into how are the
intelligence will have other impacts on the entertainment industry. So
this is sort of trying to be proactive because we've
already talked about how it could potentially be used to

(33:12):
disrupt the writing process. That's just one part of it.
So IOTZI, which really focuses more on sort of the
behind the scenes folks, like the various crew that keep
everything running.

Speaker 1 (33:24):
To electricians, customers.

Speaker 2 (33:27):
Yeah, yeah, all the stuff that makes a film possible,
apart from say the directors or the actors or the writers. Well,
they are part of IATZI, and so I think it's
a great idea for them to look into this and
to start thinking ahead about the sorts of challenges they
might face, because there are going to be cases where

(33:47):
AI could be really useful. It could be a great
tool to do your job better, and there are going
to be other cases where you would worry that maybe
a production would lean on AI in order to not
have to pay people to do that same job, and
it may not be done at the right level of
expertise or quality.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting because the acting world is not
I mean, in my day job, we are also studying
how to work with AI and use it as a tool,
because it is a really interesting tool, but how to
work with it as opposed to against it. You know,
acting is just and theater and film is just one
of those things that is so largely human oriented that

(34:30):
I think it's really like, I love this story. I
think it's great that they're looking at how to use
it and how to work it. They're comparing it to
like when films went from silent to talking, or from
black and white to color, Like, it's not necessarily a
bad thing if you learn how to utilize it to
support the artists and the community and the workers. So

(34:51):
I'm super glad they're doing this. It was an article
that actually made me rather happy.

Speaker 2 (34:55):
So yeah, no, I like it when it becomes like
that proactive look as opposed to, oh, this has happened,
how do we deal with it? You know, when it's reactive,
you're already talking about something that's had consequences. So I
think it's it's good, like you can't always predict how
it's gonna unfold, but you can at least kind of
try to, you know, start thinking in that context and

(35:18):
hopefully head off problems before they happen. Next up, Yeah,
let's talk about the stage.

Speaker 1 (35:26):
Yes, and a bunch of musicals I have. I do
not remember what they're about.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
Well, Shucked is about corn.

Speaker 1 (35:34):
Oh, I know that I know what Shucked is about
It's not just about corn, It's also about expectations and
breaking down boundaries. Shucked got I think it tied for
the second most nominations for the Tony's, which is awesome
because my friend is in it. He was a local
Atlanta actor in community theater. Now he's up in Broadway

(35:56):
just kicking button, taking names, and so I'm exceptionally happy
that Shuck has been nominated for so many Tony's.

Speaker 2 (36:04):
Yeah, we mentioned that Andrew Lloyd Webber's Bad Cinderella is
closing next month. Part of that may be due to
the fact that it got completely snubbed at the Tonys,
like that, no nominations at all, none of the performers,
none of the set design, lighting, nothing, not a single nomination,

(36:25):
which is that's like a real slap across the face.
I don't know that that's necessarily warranted. Like I definitely
think from everything I haven't seen it, so full disclosure,
but everything I've read about it, everything I've watched about it,
I feel like I wouldn't have liked the story very much.
But I think that, you know, it's amazing to me

(36:47):
that none of the technical aspects of the show got
even a single nomination, right, because often that'll at least
be the case, Like New York got a Tony nomination
for I think Best Musical and that show got totally
raked over the calls by critics they did not like
New York New York. So it's interesting to me that

(37:09):
Bad Cinderella was completely snub but New York wasn't. And
I'm wondering if it's a little Andrew Lloyd Webber backlash.

Speaker 1 (37:19):
It might be. I mean, he was pushing for theaters
to reopen prematurely when Bad Cinerella was in the West End,
I believe, am I remembering correctly?

Speaker 2 (37:30):
You are remembering that correctly. Yes, he put up a
huge stink when the UK government was essentially not catering
to his demands.

Speaker 1 (37:42):
Yeah. And like I've listened to some of the music
from Bad Cinderella, I wouldn't say that it's like offensive
to my ears, but it's certainly not something that I
found catchy or found myself humming later. Again, the story,
to me, it feels kind of like Cinderella meets Repo
the Genetic Opera. It doesn't feel or new or edgy
or original like it's supposed to yeah, and I've heard

(38:03):
that the commentary it makes plenty of times already.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
Well, And we should also point out, because I am
guilty of doing this a lot, and I think a
lot of casual musical theater fans are also guilty of
doing this that Andreloyd Webber, his name is always associated
with these shows. He is a composer. He does not
necessarily write the book of the show or the lyrics
to a show. In fact, most of the time he

(38:29):
has nothing to do with that. He co wrote the
book for Phantom, I.

Speaker 1 (38:33):
Think, but he but he only did the music for
Bad Cinderella. I think somebody else wrote the script, right, Yes.

Speaker 2 (38:38):
Yes, someone else wrote the book. Someone else wrote the lyrics.
He did not write either of those. So while you know,
while Androloyd Webber has done a lot of stuff or
has behaved in certain ways over the years, that has
meant that people have perhaps a slightly negative opinion of
him and his behavior, we should also remember that he's

(38:59):
not exactly the one responsible for every aspect of the show. No,
not by far. So if it is Andrew laid Webber backlash,
that's unfortunate because it also obviously affects all the other
people who worked on it, who you know, poured their time,
energy and talent into making that show a thing, and

(39:20):
you know, I maybe maybe they didn't warrant a nomination.
It just is hard for me to believe that not
a single aspect of that show was Tony nomination worthy.

Speaker 1 (39:31):
Yeah, I agree, And earlier I said that he was
involved in other things that did get Tony Nams this year.
That's not true. Plenty of his works have. But I
was getting my wires crossed with the fact that that
Syndrella is closing on Broadway. But a lot of shows
are closing after short runs on Broadway. Yeah, and some
are very popular, so part of that is pandemic too.

(39:53):
It's just it's a numbers game.

Speaker 2 (39:55):
Well, It's also like every year after the Tonys we
typically see notices about shows closing. Often, if a show
does not garner a lot of Tony nominations, the producers
will decide to just go ahead and cut and run,
because the thought is that without that Tony's boost, a

(40:18):
show's just not going to get the houses it needs
to be profitable, and it just means it's going to
cost more and more money to keep the show going
and you're going to it's you're just going to keep
losing more money as time goes on. I remember when
I went to Broadway and I caught king Lear and
Pedro Pascal was in that one, and I didn't even

(40:38):
know who he was at the time, and I saw
the king Lear and I was like, that was really good. Well,
it didn't get any Tony nominations either, and shortly after
the nominations were announced, the notice went out that that
show was closing. So it's it doesn't just affect musicals.
The Tonys really can mean whether or not a show

(41:00):
will continue for a while or if it's just gonna
close down in the near future.

Speaker 1 (41:05):
Tony's aren't just musicals, though, they also are straight stage plays. Yeah,
but it is interesting because like k Pop closed down
and k Pop is actually nominated this year and yet
it's still closed. Strange Loop, I think was nominated last
year or the year before and it closed. Beetlejuice was nominated.
I don't remember Strange Loop or Beetle Juice won anything,

(41:25):
but they that's also closed. So it just listen Live
Theater is really struggling right now because it just hasn't
recovered from the pandemic, partily because the pandemic's not over
yet and partially because people are just hesitant to get
back to their full schedules as well.

Speaker 2 (41:45):
We are also Broadway is wicked expensive.

Speaker 1 (41:49):
Broadway is wicked expensive. But like local Atlanta theater is
struggling right now, live theater and local in Atlanta is struggling.
If you look at on stage or Dad's like, I
don't know the particulars about it, but I know that
their numbers are not back to where they were pre pandemic,
and that can hurt a bottom line. So if you
have theaters that you love and you're comfortable going out, yeah,

(42:11):
show them some love.

Speaker 2 (42:12):
Yes, you mentioned.

Speaker 1 (42:15):
If you're not comfortable going out, show them some love
until you are comfortable going out.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, you know, maybe maybe if it's a
nonprofit theater, you know, maybe consider donating.

Speaker 1 (42:24):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (42:25):
So you mentioned when we were talking about stuff what
we had watched King of the Hill, that you had
been watching some King of the Hill. And one of
the stories we were going to cover last week was
about the King of the Hill reboot and what people
should expect.

Speaker 1 (42:42):
Yes, so we are getting King of the Hill. It's
like it's been confirmed Hulu has picked it up, which
is where I'm watching King of the Hill right now.
It's taking a fifteen year time jump, which is really
interesting to me because the article on screen Rant talks
about it. It opens up a whole bunch of doors

(43:04):
for like Hank and Peggy Hill to be dealing with
new technology and stuff, which is funny and I see
how that works. Bobby Hill is going to be a
full blown adult, and part of the joy of the
original King of the Hill series and my watching of
it is the fact that he is naively a child
through it. So I don't know how that's going to play.

Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah, whether or not he will be just as naive
as an adult, or if they want to kind of
steer away from that, because it seems like that would
be a little, you know, a little limiting. I wonder
if if there's milk in the fridge that is about
to go bad and there it.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
Goes Oh, that would be great. That was I remember
that episode. I have watched that one, but it's.

Speaker 2 (43:47):
My favorite line ever in King of the Hill. It's
my favorite Bobby line in the entire show's run.

Speaker 1 (43:53):
It's when he was on his add medication. Yeah, the
creators who are also the creators of Beavis and Butt Heead,
which is honestly why I didn't watch King of the
Hill initially, because I'm like, I do not like Beavis
and butthead I'm not going to enjoy the show. I
don't even think it's a particularly pretty cartoon, so I
didn't watch it. But I'm really enjoying it now. They're

(44:13):
very busy, so there's actually no timeline, and of course
this is also like nothing's been written yet. They're still
figuring out how they want to do it so that
it'll be as wonderful as the original series. So delayed
by writer's strike as well, but no definitive deadline on
it yet. I also know that, like Britney Murphy played
Blue Anne and she's passed away a while ago now,

(44:35):
so like, how do you how do you handle that?
They had some people voicing characters who were not those
ethnicities as well, so they'll have to adjust that.

Speaker 2 (44:44):
Yeah, one other little thing that I didn't add into
the lineup, but I figured it's worth mentioning. Recently, Bob Iger,
CEO of Disney, announced that Disney Plus and Hulu are
merging together. That by the end of this year that
will be a single streaming service. We also know that
if you're paying for the ad free version of Disney Plus,

(45:09):
that amount is going to go up again by how much.
I don't know when it'll happen. I don't know if
it'll happen again. After Disney Plus and Hulu merges, I
don't know, but it will be more expensive.

Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah, maybe I'll just just do drop out. Oh, that's
something I watched this week. I watched the first episode
of Ravening War, which is a prequel to Crown of Candy,
which is a Dimension twenty series that Brendan Lee Mulligan wrote,
like he created the universe ward. It's based on the
food Pyramid. Matt Mercer is dming it. The first episode
dropped on Wednesday. It's really good. I liked Crown of Candy,

(45:45):
but it wasn't my favorite. But I liked the first
episode of Ravening War so much that I almost watched
it twice.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Yeah. I like Brendan Lee Mulligan. I like him as
a DM, but I think I really like him as
a player more. Not that not that he's a bad
not that he's a bad DM. He's not a bad DM,
he's a great DM. I just like to see him
messing with someone else who's DM.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Yeah, yeah, well this, I just the episode flowed so well.
It's it's a great table of players. Matt Mercer is
a great DM. He's really good at a building story,
and especially where you're in a setting that is largely political,
you need to have a lot of that that world
building an intrigue put in there, and brendan Ley Mulligan
was good at it. But I think I think the

(46:32):
two of them playing off each other is delightful. It's
just it's so good, it's so good.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
Well, one thing that we hope it will be so good,
so good when it does grace our movie screens, which
who knows where a writer strike. It's everything's kind of
up and up in the air. Is the sequel to
the classic film Bittleges.

Speaker 1 (46:55):
Yeah, it had been rumor and it had not been rumor,
and then it had been just vaguely confirmed. But now
it's actually confirmed. They're saying September sixth, twenty twenty four
for a rearlease date with Tim Burton and Michael Keaton
and why not own a ride all back and they
have confirmed that Jenna Ortego will be playing the role
of Lydia's daughter, so and that all the.

Speaker 2 (47:17):
Rumors are true and that that date, if it does
come out on that date, and if Blade also continues
without without slipping its date again, then it means they'll
be coming out the same day that Blade comes out.
I remained skeptical. I remained skeptical that either of those
movies will be ready by September of twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (47:39):
But we'll see me Maybe they'll both be pushed back
the same exact amount still be released on the same
day and we can do a double feature.

Speaker 2 (47:46):
I mean, yeah, it's pretty easy too, because you're still
pretty early in the alphabet, right because Blade and Beutal Juice. Also,
Monica Blucci is now said to be joining the the
filming or the film and she will be playing get
ready for this Beatle Juice's wife. Holy cats. Wow, So yeah, yeah,

(48:11):
that was a variety. Variety reported that Monica Blucci was
joining to play Beatle Juice's wife. Monica Bluechi if you
do not know who that is, a drop dead gorgeous
actress from Italy. I think of her as the incredibly sensual,
dangerous assassin slash secret agent character in the Brotherhood of

(48:36):
the Wolf movie, where she wore some of the most
amazing and not at all practical costumes.

Speaker 1 (48:46):
I never saw Brotherhood. Well that's not sure. I've seen
like bits and pieces of Brotherhood of the Wolf. Also,
Justin throws in it. We don't know who's he's playing
as well, but he's married to Jennifer Aniston. Yeah, not
the I'm not familiar.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
Not the Prime Minister of Canada. I misread it the
first time.

Speaker 1 (49:02):
I was like, what, Yeah, I mean that would be
pretty funny.

Speaker 2 (49:06):
Probably, I mean it would be a heck of a
get Yeah.

Speaker 1 (49:10):
Yeah, but they aren't. They aren't. Look, they aren't Dune.
They can't get the Prime Minister of Canada. Dune also
has not gotten the Prime Minister of Canada.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
I don't know. I said that. That was Ariehl's smooth
as silk segue for us to talk about the trailer
for Dune ripping red. Yeah, Dune too, keep on being Sandy.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
Oh no, but yeah, it is largely sandy the the trailer.
So I we talked about it when Dune one came out.
I feel like Dune one ended in a place that
made it really hard for anyone who wasn't intimately familiar
with the property already and already a fan of it

(49:52):
to care about the second movie coming out. Yeah, however,
the second trailer does look pretty cool, even though it
does reference some stuff that if you were not a
Dune fan when you went to see the first movie yet,
you probably wouldn't even remember from the first movie.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah, well, and it's Yeah. Also, it's got some crazy
visuals that are unique to what happens in the second
half of the story. So it's going to catch your
attention that way, and you're gonna probably watch that trailer
saying what the heck was that? And it is? It
is really weird. It is really weird that Timothy Challameay

(50:31):
in the middle of it sings hopelessly devoted to you.

Speaker 1 (50:34):
Yes, so bizarre, Larry Sandy, I don't I mean, And
then he pulls out, you know, some chocolate Barshmath's pocket,
which how they didn't melt in the desert.

Speaker 2 (50:44):
I don't know. We still haven't gotten that trailer yet, right,
like that was one of the ones they should really
want to come. Yeah, but no, getting back to Dune too,
So I watched this trailer. I watched the first Dune
movie h and I remember thinking it was fine. That
was actually a pretty good science fiction film. But as

(51:06):
I was watching this trailer, I was like, I think
I may have to rewatch Dune because I don't know who.
I don't know if half of these characters were already
introduced and I just don't remember them, or if they're new.

Speaker 1 (51:20):
I mean, some of them are new, Like Florence Pugh.
I just spit on myself. Florence pew is also. I
mean in the trailer her.

Speaker 2 (51:30):
Name became kind of like an automotopoa there.

Speaker 1 (51:33):
I finally watched her hot Ones last night, and I
think I'm getting like residual hot wing effects from her.

Speaker 2 (51:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:42):
No, so, like there are definitely new characters in the trailer.
I don't think it's a bad idea, especially if you're
not like super familiar with Dune. To watch the first
movie again, although it's really slow. It's a very slow
movie and it's long and it's long. But yeah, I
will watch Doom too, I have to. I will probably

(52:05):
enjoy it because I'm I am a fan of the
original story.

Speaker 2 (52:10):
So yeah, yeah, I'm sure I will see it. I
feel like it's one that I really need to make
the journey out to the theater to see, which probably
means I'll have to find someone to go watch it
with me, because I don't think my partner has any
interest in it whatsoever. But but it's the kind of
tones either. So well, maybe maybe we'll do a podcast

(52:33):
date and we'll go and we'll watch and we can
even record afterward and our reactions or whatever. But which
would be a cool thing for us to start to do.
We would be nice to hang out again. But the Yeah,
if you watch this trailer, you can see like these
are visuals that are really they really need that space

(52:54):
and that that sound system to give you the experience
that the filmmaker intended. You're as much as I love
the watch from home experience because of how convenient it
is and how lazy I am, I recognize that I
am not really having the experience that the filmmakers intended.
Most of the time.

Speaker 1 (53:14):
I did see Dune one in theaters, but everybody was
masked and it was a private like we all privately
rented the theater, so and it wasn't full, so it
was a small amount of people in a private room,
all very masked up. Still maybe a little bit of
a risk, but it definitely benefited from being in the theater.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Yeah. I've been boosted so many times now I feel
like I could walk through COVID and come out the
other side clean.

Speaker 1 (53:41):
So boost me up, but I cut. Yeah, Okay, the
next we have more trailers to talk about. The next
is the Outlaw Johnny Black. I don't remember if I
knew this was coming out or not, but it's it's
like a spiritual success or to Black Dynamite.

Speaker 2 (53:57):
Yeah, it's a it feels like it's a Rudy Ray
Moore blaxploitation kind of film, starring Michael Ji White as
a cowboy. So if this it all sounds familiar with
you to you rather, it may be because way back
in twenty eighteen, he Michael Jai White created a trailer

(54:20):
as a concept for this movie, Outlaw Johnny Black. In fact,
if you go back, you can actually find it on YouTube.
It's a twenty eighteen trailer that was just there to
kind of show off a concept, and if you watch
the latest trailer of the actual movie that is coming
to streaming later this year, you'll see like the narration
is beat for beat the same. The action shots you

(54:43):
see are very similar, but they relied on a lot
of insert shots for that essentially fake trailer back in
twenty eighteen. Now they've actually made the movie. One thing
I will note is that as I watched the trailer
for the second time, I caught something I didn't catch
the first time. And I usually am not the person
who catches this sort of stuff, but there's a bit

(55:05):
where they're showing a group at a church and they're
talking about praise dancing, and one of the women raises
her arms up in the air and I see on
her left arm as an Apple Watch, and I'm like, well,
that just distracted me. That just pulled me out, because
this is supposed to be a Western, Yeah, sat in

(55:28):
the Old West, and there's an Apple Watch on this
woman's arm.

Speaker 1 (55:32):
I was very confused at first, because when you look
up up the Outlaw Johnny Black on Google, the first
thing you get is twenty twenty one adventure comedy, and
then everything else is twenty twenty three trailer a week ago.
Did you did you watch Black Dynamite?

Speaker 2 (55:49):
I haven't seen it, but I've seen, like Rudy Ray
Moore movies, So I need to watch Black Dynamite. I
haven't seen that one.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
But yeah, I will say it was a lot of
fun for the genre. We actually own it, so I'm
and I love Michael Jay White. He's such a good actor,
so I'm very excited for this. It also kind of
feels like a little bit more aware version of Blazing Saddles.

Speaker 2 (56:17):
Yeah. Yeah, I think like movies like this that play
with those tropes and are poking fun at stereotypes. I
think are they can be. They can be great movies,
right if they're handled the proper way. And this one
looks like it's just like you will not be able
to take this film seriously. If you do, then you
are watching it wrong.

Speaker 1 (56:39):
Yeah. Yeah, a trailer I thought you wouldn't be able
to take seriously, but then I watched it and it
feels very genuine and heartfelt. Is the trailer for Flaming Hot,
the story of the Flaming Hot Cheetoh.

Speaker 2 (56:52):
Which when I saw this in our lineup aerial, I
was wondering if you'd done plumb went out of your.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
Mind and then you watch the trailer.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
Then I watched the trailer and yeah, kind of like
the grand Tarisma thing, right, Like, this is the story
behind how a person in a somewhat humble situation ended
up coming up with this idea and created, I mean,
a multi million dollar marketing idea, like a thing that

(57:25):
was truly a huge and continues to be a huge
success for this particular company.

Speaker 1 (57:32):
Yeah, and it even like, even though it's an underdog
success story, it feels very there's a lot of humor
in it, but it feels very grounded and real and
genuine and just like they aren't playing it for laughs,
but there's plenty of laughs. It appeals to me way
more than the trailer for the Air Jordan movie appealed

(57:54):
to me. Yeah, I just I'm I don't I can't
even eat flaming hatches, and I want to watch this movie.

Speaker 2 (58:03):
Yeah. I think it looks I think it looks like
it could be a fun like a fun sort of
a not quite a biopic because it's got a lot
more like cinematic entertainment stuff worked into it, but like
a lighthearted and as you say, heartwarming story about innovation.

(58:24):
And you know, it's telling a story that I never
heard before, So I thought that was kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (58:30):
Yeah, and we won't even have to wait that long
for it. It's not going to be delayed by the
writer's strike because it's coming out on June ninth on
Hulu Plus or on Hulu and Disney Plus.

Speaker 2 (58:38):
Yes, and then we've got the trailer for Meg too.
So Meg from Family Guy, she's the daughter who everyone
always picks on. She finally gets her revenge in this one.
I didn't watch the trailer.

Speaker 1 (58:55):
You didn't want I did.

Speaker 2 (58:57):
I did watch it.

Speaker 1 (58:58):
I'm being silly, Okay, I was about to say, because
I really need your opinion. So Meg one was only
slightly above Sharknado and its self aware referential humor.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Yeah, obviously about a megal about a megaladawn shark that
was trapped in the Marianna's trench and then goes up
through the barrier between the Marianna's trench and say, the
rest of the water and becomes and becomes a ginormous

(59:31):
killing machine. Meg two says, Hey, you remember how big
the Meg was in the Meg We made it more biggerer.

Speaker 1 (59:42):
Yes, and like the Meg knew, they knew what a
silly shark attack concept they were making, right, much better
production value than Sharknado. I would say probably a better
script than Sharknado Meg two. Like there's so much literal
jumping the shark in movie. Yeah, but it also it's

(01:00:07):
so I don't know, it's so brightly colored and goofy
that I'm almost like, I almost want to watch this.
I know, I don't enjoy shark attack movies. I've seen Jaws.
It still scares the Jesus out of me. I watched
Deep bluecy so it's not my favorite genre of movie.
I don't super like it because I like swimming in

(01:00:28):
the ocean too much. But this one looks so dorky
I may just have to watch it.

Speaker 2 (01:00:34):
Yeah, I mean, if Jason Statham gets in a kickboxing
fight with the shark, then maybe I'm in.

Speaker 1 (01:00:41):
He probably does, or a giant Kraken, because that looks
like the other monster.

Speaker 2 (01:00:45):
Yeah, it does look like it's gonna be like giant
shark versus or shark versus giant octopus or whatever the
heck that Asylum film is. It looks like it's that,
but with a much larger budget. And I don't know, Ariel,
this just that's just that's just it's a monster movie,
and it's it's like you say, it clearly has the

(01:01:07):
tone of something like a Lake Placid, right, like some
monster movie that's got its tongue, it firmly in its cheek.
Sometimes that works for me. There was one of the
Piranha movies where that worked for me. It was so dumb,
but it knew what it was and it was okay
about it that it worked for me. But there are
other ones where I watch it them just like especially
asylum movies. Those are the worst because that that those

(01:01:30):
are made by committee. But but I can't tell where
this one falls.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
Yeah, this is it's not an asylum movie.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
No, I know that. I'm just saying, yeah, Like like
they they make those kinds of movies, but those are
like like bottom of the barrel, lowest possible effort style movies,
and and they actually set out to make a bad movie,
and that almost never works for me. M M.

Speaker 1 (01:01:58):
I will say Jason Statham is one of those actors
that I much like John Cena. I did not appreciate
their comedic genius for a long time, but he's very funny.
Like I watched him in Spy and that was hilarious.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
So yeah, I like Jason Statham. However, I don't trust
him because he's been in so many terrible movies.

Speaker 3 (01:02:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's also been in some great ones,
Like don't get me wrong, he's been in some really
fantastic movies.

Speaker 2 (01:02:38):
But I'm just saying, like he I wouldn't say, I
wouldn't use the word discerning to describe him.

Speaker 1 (01:02:44):
No, would you consider Spy a good movie or one
of the really bad ones?

Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
I haven't seen it?

Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
Interesting, I might say you should watch that and then
tell me what you think about it, because normally I'm
not a big fan of like Melissa McCarthy underdogmies. But
this one was a lot of fun. I mean, and
not just because Jason Statham and Peter Sarah Finowitz were
in it being complete goofballs. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 2 (01:03:14):
Hey, Ariel, Yeah, you know, here's a smooth segue from
Meg two. And I'm pretending like we didn't just have
a full discussion about a different show and then we
had to cut it because your computer died. Okay, Hey,
Isaac Asimov wrote the foundation and then they turned it
into a show, and season one already played and now

(01:03:34):
season two is coming out, and their trailer came out
for it what'd you think of Foundation season two trailer?

Speaker 1 (01:03:40):
It makes me want to watch Polygon was right, it
makes me want to watch Foundation season one. So I
can't understand what's It started off looking boring and by
the end it looks super exciting. That's what I feel
about the Foundation two trailer. Also, I would have segued Meg,
Meg had a two, Foundation has a two? Your Seguy's better.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
Yeah. I like to do the meta commentary on why
things sound weird well, because then our listeners know, oh,
something happened. And if you're wondering what show we skipped,
just look up the trailer for Elsbeth and you'll catch up.
But anyway, yeah, Foundation obviously an incredibly important science fiction

(01:04:23):
series written by Isaac Asimov, and I didn't even I'm
sure we talked about it, but I had no memory
of them adapting that into a series. So when I
saw the trailer for season two, my reaction was, I
didn't even know there was a season one.

Speaker 1 (01:04:40):
Yeah, this is one of those ones that we had
talked about, but you don't remember. And I think part
of it's because it was on Apple TV, and then
part of it's because which you have now, So now
that you're done with the Chimicago, you can probably jump
into it. Season one didn't super follow the books, and
that bothered some people.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
Oh yeah, no, I mean because then you start asking
the question, why bother doing an adaptation if you're not
going to stick to the like you don't have to
be slavish to the source material. You can make interpretations
and change things around and stuff, but if you're not
actually following the source material, then it just feels like
you're appropriating the name for the purposes of exploiting the IP.
So I can totally get people being upset about that.

(01:05:21):
It's it's a dangerous thing to do a slow burn
with an adaptation. It can really pay off if you're
doing something original like Severance. You know, Severance did a
real slow burn, but man did it pay off well
for that first season. But it's different when it's an adaptation.
I think the tailor looked neat. I did not really

(01:05:43):
understand what was going on. But then also full disclosure,
I actually have not read the Foundation series.

Speaker 1 (01:05:49):
I haven't either, I think my mother has, but I do,
like as Isaac Asimov, I've obviously not everything that the
writer has written is it is something I enjoy, but
I've enjoyed a lot of Asimov's stories. I read a
lot growing up. I fall into the camp of I
actually liked the old I Robot movie with I think

(01:06:13):
it was Hailey Joel Osmond and Will Smith.

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
Was Hailly Joel Osmond in that he was an AI.
I know Will Smith. Will Smith was an Eye robot.

Speaker 1 (01:06:22):
Though, yes, yes, I get those two confused. I enjoyed both,
so I don't necessarily have to hold true to the
fullness of Asimov's writing. I can enjoy big conceptual spin offs,
so I definitely I'm definitely going to catch up on
Foundation season one so I can try season two. It'll

(01:06:42):
be a lot easier if Tony enjoys it, although he
didn't super enjoy the Expanse, which was also big space
drama political.

Speaker 2 (01:06:49):
So yeah, when that was one of the gut some
pretty decent reviews, as I recall, I have not seen it.

Speaker 1 (01:06:55):
Yeah, I enjoyed it well enough. I think it suffered
from there are so many characters and so many storylines
going on that it's a little.

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
Hard to follow, gotcha. Yeah. Game of Thrones itis.

Speaker 1 (01:07:06):
Yes, yes, so it just for my husband, It just
the characters didn't grab him in a way that made
him care about them right away, got it, which you
know happens. But yeah, I think the trailer for season
two looks good, especially if you liked season one. Check
it out. Another trailer for something I completely did not

(01:07:26):
know was coming out is a trailer for Poor Things,
which is like a Frankenstein esque type story written by
the person who did The Lobster, which was a really
weird movie I've heard.

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Yeah, so the Lobster was. Yeah, the Lobster was a
really interesting high concept film. Good oh, Yorgos, Yorgos lanthemos.
So the Lobster was about you know, people having to
try and find a mate by a certain amount of
time and if it doesn't work out, then they get

(01:08:02):
turned into their stuff like lobsters. So yeah, weird concept there.
In this case, it looks like the idea is a scientist.
Is it Willem Dafoe playing him? I can't remember who
it was. I remember I saw the trailer, but I
don't remember who who was playing the scientists at this point,
but scientists, Yeah, yeah, was that right? Is Willem Dafoe?

Speaker 1 (01:08:25):
Yes?

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
Okay, groovy look at that. I was like, as I
was saying, and I'm like, are you sure about that? Now?
I'm like, now, but he brings a woman back to life,
and this woman then ends up kind of getting involved
with a sort of rapscallion lawyer type played by Mark Ruffalo,

(01:08:51):
and then hijinks ensue. I will say I thought the
trailer was really interesting. The visuals are so arresting and
not at all realistic, like it's there are there are
environments that are so incredibly artificial, but that adds to
the the feel of the film.

Speaker 1 (01:09:16):
And it's It also kind of focuses on the fact
that because she she has died and come back, she
doesn't really care about societal standards anymore and finds like
a level of liberation and freedom in that at least
according to the synopsis.

Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Yeah, I will say that the font they used in
the trailer, I'm familiar with that font. It's like that
really thin, kind of creepy wavy font is impossible for
me to read people's names. When it's shown up on
I was like, I can't read who this Like, who
is I'm going to have to try and just recognize

(01:09:55):
this actor because I cannot read their name in this font.

Speaker 1 (01:09:59):
Well, and it it's hard because obviously Mark Ruffalo looks
like Mark Ruffalo, but Willem Dafoe has some makeup and
prosetic on him that makes him look a little different.
And Emma Stone has black hair which makes her look different,
so black long hair.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
So I think the trailer looks really cool like it's
I did too. It doesn't look like other movies, and
that's not a bad thing, and that, you know, it
kind of is actually giving me sort of vibes of
like Tim Burton, because a lot of Tim Burton movies
include sets and set pieces that don't look realistic at all.

(01:10:38):
They're very heightened, and it almost looks like that sort
of approach, not in the swirly creepy way of Tim Burton.
Like it's very colorful in some of those in some
of those locations, but it is exceedingly artificial.

Speaker 1 (01:10:54):
Yeah, it definitely is quirky. I'd say less sad boy
feeling than most Tim Burton stuff too.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Yes, yeah, it's not even though even though it's a
topic like it's interesting, it's almost like your gust Lanthemus
is taking on a subject matter that Tim Burton normally
would do.

Speaker 1 (01:11:10):
Yeah. Yeah, but like also like also visually intriguing. I'd
say along the lines of like less grandeur than Dracula
or The Cell. But also it's just it's all very interesting.
There have been lots of movie Wes Anderson has a
unique visual style. It's it's kind of like if you
took Wes Anderson and you took Tim Burton and you
mashed them up together.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
That you're, yeah, you nailed it. That is exactly what
this feels like. And uh and I'm on board, Like
I am, I am intrigued, me too.

Speaker 1 (01:11:41):
Also, the trailer does a really good job of setting
up the premise of the movie without giving away too much.
So I left watching the trailer genuinely curious about what happens.

Speaker 2 (01:11:51):
Yeah. Same, Well, our last story we have is our
traditional horror movie trailer. Some of this case on a movie.
It's a series.

Speaker 1 (01:12:01):
Yeah, this one didn't scare me.

Speaker 2 (01:12:03):
No, it's not. It's not very scary. We got a
trailer for The Walking Dead, Dead City. You had another
spin off of The Walking Dead, and in this one
is it I think it's Mark, Is it Margaret? I
can't remember her name, it's what's that?

Speaker 1 (01:12:20):
It's Maggigie Maggie.

Speaker 2 (01:12:22):
Okay, yeah, so I was on the right track. So
it's Maggie and Meagan who are off to Manhattan to
try and rescue Maggie's son who's been kidnapped by someone.
In our notes, I wrote, you could also call this
Zombies take Manhattan or escape from Zombie New York.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
Yes. I here's the thing. Meagan was so to me
at least, was such a horrible, unlikable.

Speaker 2 (01:12:50):
Person, especially to Maggie.

Speaker 1 (01:12:53):
Especially to Maggie and other people.

Speaker 2 (01:12:56):
Too, Like, yeah, but he's the one who killed her husband,
so yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:00):
Yeah, Like I stopped watching when they were like, oh what.
We talked about this in a very early episode of
our reboot of Large Nursery Collector, like when they started
being like tune in for when he bashes this person's
head in with a baseball that I'm like, that's that's
torture porn. That's that is something that I am not
on board with. I can't I can't revel or be

(01:13:24):
excited or look forward to that. And it happens in
the comic too, so it's not like the TV show
just made it up. But I was out at that point. Yeah,
and I love the actor. I love gosh, what is
his name?

Speaker 2 (01:13:36):
Oh, I don't remember. I remember he was in Supernatural
as the Daddy, right, Yeah, he was.

Speaker 1 (01:13:41):
In Supernatural as the Daddy. He was also the comedian
and Watchman Jeffrey Dean Morgan.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
Yes, Jeffrey. Because I always want to say, like Harry
Dean Stanton, I'm like, Nope, that's a different person.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
He's such a great actor, and he's really good at
making charismatic bad guys. Yeah, also sympathetic good guys too.

Speaker 2 (01:14:00):
But yeah, he's got great It's weird to use this
in the terms of TV and film, but he's got
great stage presence, right, Like, he's able to He's able
to command a scene and go from being you know,
charming but menacing to outright terrifying in a moment without
doing like a massive transformation. He's he can do it

(01:14:22):
in a very subtle way, and it's just really riveting
to watch. The problem I have is that this this show,
based upon the trailer, looks like it's I mean, when
I said Escape from Zombie New York, I feel like
that's being way too on the nose with it, because

(01:14:42):
there sections of the trailer that make it look like
things that happen in Escape from New York with Kurt
Russell way back in the John Carpenter film. Like it's
like there's a there's a scene at a basketball court
where I'm like, okay, this is taken from Escape From
and then they're the whole thing about like a a

(01:15:04):
some sort of almost like a warlord type character in
charge of Manhattan. I'm like, well, that's like the Duke
of New York in Escape from New York. I mean,
it was all it all felt like they were they said,
how about we do Walking Dead, but also we make
it Escape from New York or muppets take Manhattan, and

(01:15:25):
which are two very different things and yet both fit.
So I felt like this was really derivative.

Speaker 1 (01:15:32):
Yeah, I definitely get that also a little bit of
like the Stand, there's a whole well, I guess in
the Stand there are there there are not necessarily people
who are zombies, because if you get sick in the Stand,
you die.

Speaker 2 (01:15:49):
But but in the Stand you do have the story
of a essentially a cult leader type character who amasses
a huge following of people, and the I mean, the
whole thing of the Stand is it's the good guys
making a stand. Against the bad guys. So yeah, there
is some of that going on here.

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
Too, exception of it looks like it's bad guys making
stands against bad guys. That's the thing is, Like I
stopped wily. I didn't watch the season where all of
a sudden, I can't remember the character's name, Steven Ywenz. Yeah,
Glenn's had got dashin. I said, no, I'm out. I
noped out. I watched it up to that point, and
I enjoyed it well enough, though it was very bleak
and I couldn't, like I couldn't watch a lot of

(01:16:30):
it at once, far more bleak than Last of Us
in my mind. But so maybe they made Megan more
of a sympathetic character. Maybe he has that journey in
the comics as well. I don't know. I haven't finished
all of the comic though I do own it, But
I just I can't as much as I love Jeffrey

(01:16:53):
Dean Morgan and I love his acting style, like I
can't get on board with rooting for this character.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
Yeah. Now, I bounced off Walking Dead pretty early on,
and for the same reasons you mentioned, same reason why
I bounced off Game of Thrones, right like I was
tired of watching the few characters whom I felt were
redeemable either get tortured more and more and more and

(01:17:20):
punished for being not the worst person in the world,
or they just got outright killed, And so all that
are left are the terrible people. And the question is
which terrible person is going to outlast all the other
terrible people? And I'm like, listen, I live in the
real world. I don't need that as my escapist fantasy.

Speaker 1 (01:17:39):
Yeah. One, I noped out of a lot of the
middle of Game of Thrones. I watched like the first
couple of seasons, and then watched like the last two.

Speaker 2 (01:17:49):
For me, it was I read the books. I read
the books up to where they currently have left off.
Then I heard what happened in the show shortly after
the books kind of drop off. And when I heard
about a specific thing that happened, I said, there is
no way I will ever read any of the other
books or watch the show. And it's not a judgment

(01:18:11):
on the material so much as it's recognizing that I
will find absolutely no joy in it, and life is
too short for me to spend time making myself miserable.

Speaker 1 (01:18:22):
I agree. I've not watched Game of Thrones or I mean,
I've not read Grant Game of Thrones. I don't think
I will. Honestly, I haven't finished a book in a
very long time. That's a goal for me for twenty
twenty three, twenty twenty four. But I do so much
like geek media and like script reading. When I get
a script for an audition, I spend a lot of

(01:18:42):
time dissecting that sucker, even if it's just a couple
of lines. Like if I get a three line audition,
I'll spend like a half an hour an hour on
it at least, just building the world of the person.
And so by the end of the day, I'm like,
I don't want to necessarily read more, but I love reading.
So that's my goal for twenty twenty three twenty twenty four.

(01:19:02):
Please please everybody, don't hate me. I do want to
read more geek books. I want to read Murderbot Diaries
and Old Man's War and a bunch of stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:19:12):
Yeah, I need to. I mean, I haven't been reading
a lot either. In fact, most of the books I've
consumed recently have been on audible. It's been a long
time since I've actually held an honest to Goodness book
and read it, although I did do that with the
complete works of Shakespeare. But you know, you may have
heard of that that's been around for a while. But yeah,

(01:19:32):
that kind of wraps up the news we have, including
the stuff that was some of it anyway, that was
included in the lost episode.

Speaker 1 (01:19:41):
Yeah, we hope you enjoyed the journey as much as
we enjoyed taking it, Jonathan, if they want to talk
to us about, if they want to reach out about
any of the things that we talked about to share
their opinions, or if they're like, yes, please bring back
your mashups, here's an idea, or here's topics we want
you to talk about when news inevitably will get slow

(01:20:01):
during the rider strike. We do have your topic still,
if you've already given them to us, we have not forgotten.
We are working on them. But if they have new
topics or anything else they'd like to reach out about,
how do they do that?

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
Well, what you can do is you rise up early
before the dawn. You go outside, You lay down in
the dewy grass, and you focus on a single blade,
find a drop of dew on it. You keep your
focus on that drop of dew, and you whisper your
question into the drop of dew, and you must sit

(01:20:33):
there and watch until the sun rises and that drop
of dew slowly evaporates, and when the last visible trace
of that do is gone, the question will arrive to
me and I will give you your answer.

Speaker 1 (01:20:48):
And if your attention span isn't that big, although if
it isn't that big, you may not have made it
to the end of this episode. You can reach out
to us on social media. We are llenc Underscore Podcast
on Twitter, We're Larger Drunk Collider on Instagram and Facebook,
as well as on Discord, or you can email us
at Large Nerdron Pod at gmail dot com.

Speaker 2 (01:21:09):
And until next time, I am Jonathan Snake pluskin was
a zombie Strickland.

Speaker 1 (01:21:16):
And I am Aeriel Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice cast and.

Speaker 2 (01:21:25):
The Large Nerdron Collider was created by Aeriel Casting and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted,
published again. Curse a by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin
McLeod of incomptech dot com.