There's a New Girl in Middle Earth

Ariel and Jonathan talk about stuff shown at Gamescom, a new animated Lord of the Rings spinoff film that takes some liberties with Tolkien's work (Jonathan approves), a horror comedy about the Y2K bug, and much more!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Hey, everybody, Welcome to the Largener John Collider the podcast.
It's all about the geeky things happening in the world
around us and how very excited we are about them.
I'm arial Caston and with me as always is the
super cool and amazing comost and friend I have Jonathan Stricklands.

Speaker 2 (00:26):
I'm so excited and I just can't hide it.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Uh trying to place the reference.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
Do you droopy dog? Droopy dog doing the the the
character from Jesse Spato from Yeah, It's it's layers on
layers when you when you book me, it's like an
onion baby layers and I make it cry.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
Yeah, you can make me cry, ma'am. I've had some
some intense auditions lately. You can't really talk about them,
but I can't say that they're like you're distraught or
you're sobbing, or you're crying, and I cry at the
drop of the hat. But the moment that I put
the pressure on myself to get there, it is so hard.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yeah, uh yeah. And it all depends on the context
for crying for me, right, like if it's if it's
supposed to be like you're overwhelmed with emotion, like you're
experiencing just emotion that's so intense that that's what's making
you cry. All I have to do is think about
like those videos of people coming home to their dogs

(01:36):
after like three months or things like that, and then
I'm just I get all because I'm a soft touch,
and I'll get really weepy. But if it's like cry
because you're devastated, I'm like, oh, that's taking me to
a place that's going to be real hard for me
to get to.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
So fun fact, you can trigger yourself using the happy
video and then switch to the character you're playing and
avoid touching on your personal trauma. I wish those dog
videos worked for me. I have stuff that works for me,
but it's the pressure, the like the.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
Timing, see like for me, like if I watch the
bit the not not to get political, but to you know,
like when when Tim Waltz at the DNC was giving
his speech and his son stood up and yelled, that's
my dad. That got me, Like I was like, oh,
that's so sweet, and I thought it was the sweetest thing.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
So yeah, especially since his kid overcame a nonverbal learning
disorder apparently.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Yeah. Yeah, which, by the way, in case anyone's wondering
does not mean that he is nonverbal. What it means
is that he finds non verbal methods of communication difficult
to parse, So stuff like tone and body language, that
kind of thing. Yeah, that's that's where he finds challenges.
So the only reason I pointed out is because I've

(02:55):
seen a lot of different takes on this online, and
there's just of people making assumptions that are not usually
they're not one hundred percent wrong, but they're usually at
least wrong enough where you're like, let's all get on
the same page.

Speaker 1 (03:11):
Yeah, but you know, in general family, family bonding, happy,
good relationships, do you make me cry? Because that's something
that you don't see a lot of in you know,
general media and entertainment either, because everybody loves the drama
in the conflict.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, it's true that whenever Ariel sees me, she starts
welling up. I don't I think that might be the smell.

Speaker 1 (03:34):
That was your excuse for the computer right now, that's
to fake, Okay, the smell of vision through riverside. You're
an old school which we're going to do this episode
a little bit.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
Yeah, So one thing we're going to say before we
jump into this now. Famously, we can never say it's
going to be a short episode, because it never is.
But we will say we've got some trailers to talk about.
But we actually don't have as many news items as
we typically do. And I think part of that is
that August tends to be the month where lots of

(04:05):
people in various entertainment industries take that time off to
go on vacation. I know in the publishing industry it's
a big thing, like there are editors and publishers and
agents who just take all of August off, and I
think it might be true in other industries as well.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
I mean yes and no. So like on the acting side,
I know a few actors who have started seeing a
ramp up in auditions lately, but I do think that
I do think some of it is probably that, and
I also think some of it is just with the
constant stream of strikes we've had. You know, most recently

(04:41):
resolved was the Teamsters, and then now it's voice actors,
possibly voice actors and video games that puts delays on
a lot of media. So you know, we might also
be hitting one of the lulls where things picked up
and now it's back down again, because it's not It's like,

(05:02):
it's not an immediate change. When you have one of
those things happen, it takes some time for you to
notice the fact.

Speaker 2 (05:07):
Sure. Well, and I think there's also the element of,
you know, we're probably right around the corner from starting
to see all the holiday stuff get unrolled, right, I mean,
you know we've already talked about some horror movies. In fact,
I added one to our list just before we went

(05:28):
on to record. But it's okay because I also put
in the notes at Ariel, don't watch this now.

Speaker 1 (05:33):
I'm seeing that and look the whole fruit. Jonathan was amazing.
It was a crazy, crazy week for me. Some good,
some bad, but that's how you do it. Roller coasters
are fun, right, So Jonathan took the brunch of building
the lineup this week, and there are a few more
scarier movies in there that he's probably gonna tell me.

(05:54):
Are it's scary?

Speaker 2 (05:55):
But well yeah, I mean why two K doesn't look
scary at all?

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Look this pig looks incredibly scary.

Speaker 2 (06:02):
Yeah. Yeah. That computer animated film based off the work
of Berkeley Breathet, the guy who created bloom County it
looks terrifying. All right, well, let's before we jump into
all that. You know, that's spoilers for the rest of
the episode. Let's let's start the way we typically do
and talk about stuff what we have watched since our

(06:22):
last recording. For me, there's not a whole lot.

Speaker 1 (06:25):
For me, there's also not a whole lot. Like I said,
it's been it's been a very very busy week. I
did over the weekend watch Delicious and Dungeon. Like the
first few episodes of that, which is a D and
D party is poor and so they decide to get
their literal bread and butter from the dungeon that you

(06:46):
go to to fight the monsters. It is so weird.
I don't know who it's for or what it's supposed
to be doing. I was like, maybe this is a
story about sustainability practices.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
But when I heard when I heard the PREMI I thought,
this has got to be like a comedy, right, But
do you think it's just not classifiable.

Speaker 1 (07:07):
I mean, it is funny, it's it's very but it's
anime humor. So sometimes you're like, that was a joke
and I'm not laughing because delivery some anime humor I
laugh at very hard, So that's that's a hard thing
to classify. But there's just something about the delivery where
some of the jokes, I'm like, that is a joke,

(07:27):
and maybe if I were younger, I would be laughing,
like if I were a kid.

Speaker 2 (07:31):
Well, and some anime humor like it's it's literally cultural differences, right,
It's like what is considered humor in say, Japan versus
the United States. And it's not to say that one
is better or lesser than the other. They're just they
cater to different sensibilities, some of which have overlap, but

(07:52):
not all of them.

Speaker 1 (07:53):
Yeah. Also, you know, I've only seen like the first
three or four episodes, but it does feel like the
care grow but it's so very slow, So a lot
of the premise is the same. The one character doesn't
want to eat the monsters and keeps getting grossed out
and then being surprised that it tastes good. The other
one is always angry because nobody listens to him. So

(08:14):
like it's it's kind of cozy core. It's kind of
like Gormond and it's kind of like, hey, don't knock
it till you try it, which are all, you know,
not necessarily, they're not bad things, but it was just,
I don't know, it was interesting to have on in
the background. I don't know if it would if I

(08:35):
will watch the entire season and then other than that,
just more never stop blowing up in Scavenger's rain. Those
Scavenger's Rain made me angry last night.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
So did you see the episode of Make Some Noise
that had Pete Holmes in it?

Speaker 1 (08:48):
Oh? Yes, I did you know that? Like, okay, so sorry, gusher.

Speaker 2 (08:53):
Burp uh oh wow, that's a terrible thing to call that.

Speaker 1 (09:00):
I'm eating gushers and the.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
I know, but the gusher burp sounds like like I
don't like saying I don't like saying vomit, but that's
what happened.

Speaker 1 (09:09):
It sounds like the big zombies from Left four Dead.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Yeah, the yeah, the yeah, what are those called? I
can't remember now it's been too long, but yeah, I remember, but.

Speaker 1 (09:20):
They're ope attack like it's a gusher burp. Yeah, okay, anyhow,
I drop Out is my number one streaming service and
I don't like everything on there. You know, you're not
gonna find a streaming service that you do, honestly, And
they have a smaller selection of stuff, but some of

(09:40):
their stuff just doesn't hit for me. Some of it does,
most of it does, but it is the first thing
I check every night when I'm like, what do I
want to watch? Because usually there is something that I
want to watch. So all of the stuff that I
like watching on there I have caught up on and
I've watched every episode of so now it's like, crap,
there's nothing on Dropout for me to watch tonight.

Speaker 2 (10:03):
That's that's There's some YouTube channels that are like that
for me, where I'm like, I'm like subscribed to them
and I'm all caught up and like things like Red
Letter Media, which had you know, literally probably close to
one hundred videos that I had not seen when I
first discovered them. So for a long time it felt

(10:24):
like there was an endless supply of content. But eventually
I did watch all the episodes that have ever published
in all the various series they do, and now I'm
just waiting for new episodes of stuff to come out.
And it's fairly sporadic because they do a lot of
different things, and it can be maddening while waiting that

(10:48):
not to put pressure on creators because that's the worst.
You know, you create when it works. But boy, I
just I like their stuff. What's funny is that I
like I like their more recent stuff a lot more
than their earlier stuff because they have evolved as human
beings since they started.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
Yeah. But to answer your question, yes, I did watch
the episode with Pete Holmes. First of all, I thought
that entire panel of Make Some Noise worked incredibly well together.
They just they were able to improv with each other seamlessly.
I'm a huge fan of Pete Holmes anyhow, so it
was a delight. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:27):
I mostly knew him from Night Court because he played
the fiance in Judge Stones fiance in Nightcurt.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
So did you never watch his old like X Men
series or his old Batman series? No, which is why
he played those two characters and Make Some Noise.

Speaker 2 (11:44):
I well, see, here's the other thing. I haven't seen
the episode of Make Some Noise. What I saw was
a compilation video of all the times Pete Holmes roasted
Sam Reich.

Speaker 1 (11:53):
Yeah, and I don't know why he did that, but
I did hear that they are very old and good friends.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Yeah, and the roasted none of it was super mean spirited.
It was all very goofy, but I laughed so hard,
and I don't want to spoil a single joke because
he delivers them so well. So that's just a recommendation
from me to at the very least find the compilation
video of Pete Holmes roasting Sam Reich because it's hilarious. Uh,

(12:21):
and preferably you watch the whole episode. Uh. The the comedian,
the actress, I don't remember her name, but she was.
She was in Dead Boy Detectives, so she.

Speaker 1 (12:33):
Was, yeah, she was.

Speaker 2 (12:34):
She was on one of the little one of the
little rude Pixie things or whatever. Yeah, So so when
I saw her on there, and I've seen I've seen
one of her entries in that particular episode, which is
you know how a male sci fi writer writes a
female character scene And it made me laugh so hard,

(12:57):
and so I need to watch the whole episode.

Speaker 1 (12:59):
You. It is such a good there are I love
Makes Some Noise. I loved it when it started with
Brennan and Josh and Zach as the noise boys. But uh,
Caitlin Riley does a really good job of not always
hanging on what is her strength, which is doing impersonations.
She's a wonderful I would say, mostly female impressionist and

(13:23):
voice actor, so like she does an amazing Judy Garland
and stuff like that, you know, but she doesn't. There
are some voice actors who will come on a show
like that and they will only stick to the things
that they're really good at. And she's willing to go
off and play and she's very funny, and she listens
to her scene partners and it's just it's very good.

(13:43):
I loved the episode so much. I'm going to send
you links to Pete Holmes X Men's series and his
Batman sketches because they're very funny. He does fall into
some boy humor because he's were made I think in
like the early two thousands, US mid two thousands, but
they're very funny. I'm going to send them to you.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Ah well, I have to check that out. And yeah,
for me, I watched the opening night, sort of the
preview show for games Con, which is a big video
game conference that takes place in Cologne, Germany, which smells
real nice from what I understand, it's one of those
nice smelling colognes. But yeah, the the the pre show

(14:27):
was interesting. We'll talk a little bit about one of
the things shown off at that or a couple of
things that were shown off at that particular event, But
in general, it was just kind of interesting to see another,
you know, games conference. It covered a lot of stuff
that was not covered during the Summer Game Festival, so
that was kind of cool.

Speaker 1 (14:49):
And then there's any stuff there too, because like my
friend who's doing the video game that I've talked about
on the show before, he's there right now.

Speaker 2 (14:55):
Yeah, no, there's quite a bit like it's not just
in fact, I would argue that some of the the
stuff that was really shown off wasn't the stuff from
Triple A Studios. But it was funny because Peter Mullineux
came out and talked about his upcoming game, Albion. If
you don't know who he is, he's the guy who's
behind Fable. He's also behind other games. He has a

(15:18):
history of making almost outlandishly ambitious promises that almost never
succeed in delivering, Like the it gets like part of
the way there, you can see, you can see where
they were going, but often the ambition is so lofty

(15:39):
there's just no way to get there. And so he
has a bit of a reputation for making outlandish promises.

Speaker 1 (15:45):
I'm not gonna lie, I know, you said al Albion
I think, but I heard ambient and I'm like, is
this a video game to help you sleep? That would
be awesome?

Speaker 2 (15:55):
I mean, arguably some of his games could fall into
that category. I also I also watched another episode of
Umbrella Academy. I'm only up to episode four, so I'm
not really far into the series, but I'm growing to
like it more as I watch more of it, and

(16:16):
characters that I found really off putting at the beginning
I'm starting to come around on because I'm starting to
understand why they are the way they are and that
helps a lot, right Like, you run a risk, I
think with any story where you introduce characters who are
not initially very likable, and you're trusting the audience to

(16:37):
stick around long enough to understand why they are the
way they are and that maybe they come around to
liking that character. And for me, if you don't have
at least a couple of characters that I really kind
of like, it's tough for me to stick with it.
So I'm glad I did because there was no guarantee
I could have just watched that first episode and said, well,

(16:59):
apart from the day sequence, this is just isn't for me.
But I'm glad I'm stuck sticking with it. I did
ask ariel Off Mike Uh during the week, like, hey,
does this show ever start to actually make sense? Like
it does as far as far as like as far
as like the grand narrative, not the individual like individual

(17:21):
episodes I can follow, but the whole like apocalypse time
traveled narrative is really tough for me to understand right now.

Speaker 1 (17:31):
So like it is, it is bonkers, and it's it
is interesting because like, for instance, my my husband likes
the first two scenes seasons better than the third season
and then enjoyed the fourth season but thought it was
too rushed, which many people did. There was a lot
that was cut out, it was only six episodes. They

(17:52):
made some choices that some people didn't agree with, and
the characters didn't really get to naturally build to the
decisions they made. That being said, I still enjoyed the ride,
but but he likes the first two seasons because he
felt it was very real world with some crazy stuff
put in, and the third season was less that. And

(18:14):
I wonder if you're going to have a reverse feeling
because the third season will be more contained.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
I can see what I can see what he's saying.
But because I mean, like, i've seen clips from later
seasons right before I ever watched the show, I saw like,
because everyone's seen the Footloose clip, I'm sure, but I
the issue I was running into was really more like,

(18:41):
there's clearly some sort of organization that's similar to the
tv A in MCU, right, Like there's a some sort
of agency that's there to protect timelines. But I don't
understand when that exists, Like is it outside of time entirely?
If it's not, is it in time? If it is

(19:04):
in time, why, like how does it exist post apocalypse?
I don't understand. So that's what I got me choked up.

Speaker 1 (19:13):
I don't remember if they explain that. I feel like
they do because I was able to follow it kind of,
or maybe I just didn't question it. I don't know.
I have to go back and watch the first three
seasons again. I actually really want to, so.

Speaker 2 (19:28):
Well, I'm gonna stick with it because I am. I'm
really enjoying the performances. I did just meet somebody and
I already clocked him as being like, Okay, you're a
bad guy because you're coming across as a nice guy.
Leonard like you, you seem to be a nice guy,
but you're clearly a bad guy. I'm like, you're gonna
be the bad guy. That's what that's who this And
I will bet money right now. I haven't I don't

(19:51):
know what's gonna happen, but I will bet money that
he ends up being the bad guy for season one.

Speaker 1 (19:58):
I'm not gonna say a thing.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Yeah, you're not taking the bed, so I can tell
that I'm right, all right, so cool?

Speaker 1 (20:05):
No, I no, I don't remember. I didn't just look
it up.

Speaker 2 (20:11):
He's the he's the so so Victor formerly Vanya meets
Leonard and Leonyard comes across as uber nice guy who
is taking violin lessons from from Victor formally Vanya, and uh,
I was like, this guy's too nice. Like everyone in

(20:34):
in Victor slash Vagnya's Life dismisses them like that's their gig,
that's that's who they are. And this guy is like, no,
I'm going to actually pay attention and I'm being very
caring and supportive and I'm like, clearly this is the
bad guy because there's no way.

Speaker 1 (20:54):
Because you didn't well up at it.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
So obviously, I mean, I just I just have a
bad guy, not in real life, but in fiction. I've
got a bad guy detector that's incredibly well tuned.

Speaker 1 (21:07):
Boy howdy, I wish that that were flippable, not for you,
but for me, because yeah, it's a lot easier to
watch a show from the outside and be like, that's
a bad guy.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, okay, Well, how about we get into our thirty
seconds or least. We only have four stories, so we
each get two goes at it.

Speaker 1 (21:25):
Sure, I think I start, I think I start. Okay.
So this slate of shows that Disney announced for Star Wars,
there was one show that if you listen to the podcast,
you know I was clearly excited about the act, like
kind of following some Jedi stuff hundreds of years before, well,
I guess one hundred years before. The main plot line

(21:46):
is not getting a second season. It got decent review
from critics, but it did not get great reviews from
a lot of watchers. A Hollywood reporter says that it's
for certain things, like an LGBTQ storyline. I have some
friends who watched it who don't have issues with that
and just found it a little bit of a slog
to watch. I honestly didn't watch it because my friends

(22:08):
who watched it weren't super thrilled, and so it kind
of diminished my excitement about it. But it's not getting
a second season, although I know some people are trying to,
like petition it to come back.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Yeah, good luck with that. Disney has had plenty of
petitions for lots of other stuff and ain't none of
that changed yet. But I will say that like Star Wars,
has some of the best in fandom and some of
the most toxic people in fandom, and often the toxic
toxic ones can be the loudest at times, and I
have a feeling that Like I also haven't seen the Acolyte,

(22:42):
I have no dog in this fight, but I suspect
that the toxic fandom played a large part and shouting
it down.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
I mean, I don't think it was what caused Disney
to cancel it. I think that is just poor viewership.
But poor viewership might have been affected by.

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Yeah, yes, okay. Well. At games Come this year, two
K and Gearbox presented a teaser for Borderlands for Presumably
the original plan was that this trailer would coast on
the accolades of the Borderlands movie, but uh, that didn't
happen because no one liked the film. There are no
real details released about the game yet, and in fact,

(23:22):
the game's development has been kind of like the worst
kept secret in the caving industry. But yay, more Borderlands.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
The game looks pretty, but it doesn't feel like a
Borderlands game from the teaser trailer.

Speaker 2 (23:37):
Well, I don't know that the teaser is even reflective
of because, like the teaser doesn't go with the cell
shaded art style that the previous games did. I cannot
imagine them getting away from that. Maybe they did, but
that just I think the teaser was just just stylized
for the purposes of the announcement.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Gotcha. Okay, Now we come to the thirty seven through
less story. I added in so we'd have more than three. Sure,
I didn't even look up her name. There is an
actress who played Edwina On Bridgerton who is now cast
in One Piece. I don't want to mispronounce her name horribly,
so I'm not going to She is going to be

(24:17):
playing Miss Wednesday, who I think is a good guy. Uh,
I've only I'm only half an episode into the One
Piece live action. I've been told not to start the
cartoon because it's just so much to catch up on.
But if you are a fan of either One Piece
or Bridgeritt Tend or both, this is good news for you.

Speaker 2 (24:37):
Well, for a while there, we got a bunch of
oversized animal monster movies like Lake Placid. Well, one movie
the achieved could classic status for at least some people
was Anaconda, starring j Lo ice Cube, John Voight, and
Wow Owen Wilson. And now there are talks of a
new reimagined version of Ana Conda with Jack Black and

(24:59):
Paul run. It sounds like it's kind of a mix
between Anaconda and Tropic Thunder as a group of friends
go to the jungle to make a movie and then
hilarity in.

Speaker 1 (25:09):
Sues very clever. It kind of sounds a little bit
like Hangover to me.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
Yeah, like the description said, like, you know, it's these
four friends who have this favorite film of theirs, and
they're going through various midlife crises, so they all decide
that they're gonna pop on down to the local jungle
and recreate the movie. So I'm wondering if it's going
to be like meta where they're trying to remake the

(25:36):
actual Anaconda film.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
I sure hope. So look, I didn't watch the original,
but this has actually, like it's it has peaked my interest.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
I'll say this, the original Anaconda is gloriously entertaining, but
not never once in the way that it was intended
to be. Gotcha, at least in my opinion. Okay, well,
now let's just talk about like a whole bunch of
trailers and stuff. And first up, we got a trailer

(26:09):
for a weird looking kind of freaky comedy called Frankie
Freak Go, and it made me think of like if
you were to mix Goolies with like cool World.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
Yeah. Yeah, they're using like the very gooley style or
garbage pail kids style puppets. Yeah, which is such such
a weird throwback thing to go to.

Speaker 2 (26:41):
Yeah. Well, and I mean I think it follows in
line with all the other stuff we're seeing that's playing
on nostalgic elements, right, I mean, the fact that Ana
Kona's being remade falls into that too.

Speaker 1 (26:52):
I would never have thought of Anaconda as nostalgic well again,
like I always just think, Okay, the people who are
now in charge of green lighting movies are ones who
were coming of age in like the seventies, eighties, and nineties,
So that means that the stuff they feel nostalgic for
is material from those eras, and that's why.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
Stuff like that gets greenlit. Plus, there's just this belief
that anything with existing IP is going to have a
built in audience. In this case, we're talking I don't
think this is an existing IP. If it is, I'm
not aware of it. But the story is this, there's
this after hours like call in line and boy howdy,
that's a callback. I don't think I've heard of one

(27:35):
of those in a long time. Yeah, but yeah, it's
one of those for the sexy schmecksy times. And anyway,
in this case, like a guy calls it and then
essentially invites this sort of freakish supernatural creature into his life,
and then he gets sucked into their world, which is

(27:55):
why I said it's kind of like cool world because
it's you know, a human going into a non human environment.
I don't know how else to describe it. It was
a weird trailer.

Speaker 1 (28:06):
That's that's a perfect way to describe it. It's very weird.
I don't think it's gonna be.

Speaker 2 (28:10):
For me, Yeah, I don't. I don't think this one's
for me either. Like, it's not that I object to
juvenile humor necessarily, but it needs to feel like the
people behind it are at least being clever, and maybe
they are. But the bits I saw on this nothing Like.
I thought that the visuals were really interesting. I thought

(28:32):
the production value in the trailer was really interesting, and
I do love puppetry and stuff, but I.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Wouldn't even say this is good puppetry.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
No, No, it's I thought it was really imaginative, but
that's not enough. Like there's stuff that I have kind
of a soft spot for that I think of as
being really imaginative, but not necessarily the best story. This
didn't feel like that fell.

Speaker 1 (28:59):
Into that kin No, No, Although I did find the
main protagonist in the trailer to be decently likable, Yeah,
I don't know much about him, but Underdog.

Speaker 2 (29:11):
Well, our next trailer is one where we don't have
a lot to say about it. That's only because nobody does.
That trailer is Azrael. And the reason I say nobody
has anything to say about is because it's set in
the world where nobody talks.

Speaker 1 (29:26):
Is that like, actually true or just nobody talked in
the trailer?

Speaker 2 (29:29):
It's actually true. I looked it up because I was
wondering if it was literally a trailer that just avoided
all dialogue. But no, So it's set post rapture. So
these are people who have been to borrow a phrase
left behind and apparently in this version of the post
rapture world, people no longer have the ability to speak,

(29:53):
So there's no speaking in the film for what I
can tell, and a heroin named so Marrow Weaving. No,
I'm sorry, that's the actress ends up being being like
she's it looks like she's called upon to be sacrificed,
but she escapes and so then the rest of the
movie is her trying to evade capture. From what I

(30:14):
could tell m that is.

Speaker 1 (30:17):
So it's interesting because it did look like it's probably
too scary for me. But not talking is that's that's
a hard acting job.

Speaker 2 (30:29):
So yeah, yeah, how do you how do you convey
things in a way that are clear without it being
over the top, right, Like, how do you how do
you make sure that people understand besides the fact of
just oh no, they want to hurt me. I need
to get away, Like there's only so much you can

(30:49):
watch of that unless you're George Miller, in which case
you can make a two hour movie about it.

Speaker 1 (30:54):
I mean, or you know, Toy Story one, So that's
I need to get back. But I mean, actors in
general are hired for what they don't say, for the
thoughts between the lines and the reactions. Like lines are good,
but it's it's those other moments. It's the reactions that
really sell. So I mean from that standpoint, I guess

(31:16):
you know it's the job, but yeah, they're it must
be really challenging to come up with all of your
backstory and something like that.

Speaker 2 (31:25):
Yeah, I I'll be honest, like I love horror movies.
I love thriller movies. You do. Yeah, I don't know
if it comes across, but I really do love them.
But this one was not like maybe maybe it's just
the trailer. Maybe a new trailer would make me feel
differently about it. I think part of the problem is

(31:48):
that I feel like Kirk Cameron made the definitive post
rapture movie.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
So, I mean, HBO did the left I think you're
joking there, but I can't tell because he.

Speaker 2 (31:59):
Did maybe a little bit. It was so bad, Aeriel,
it was so bad.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
I didn't watch it. That's probably a surprise to you,
But I didn't watch it.

Speaker 2 (32:10):
I've surprised to you that I did that.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
It is.

Speaker 2 (32:15):
HBO.

Speaker 1 (32:16):
HBO also made The Leftovers, which is similar, but people
definitely talked at Matt.

Speaker 2 (32:21):
Yeah. So I mean, I guess we'll have to wait
and see if there are any other trailers to at
least get me interested. I don't think this is for you, Ariel,
even if, like in the next one, everyone's spouting off Shakespeare,
this does not look like it's an aerial style movie.

Speaker 1 (32:36):
Probably not one and more on the fence About is
a movie that I didn't know about until Jonathan posted
the link called the Radley's.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, it's that feel good family of vampires movie that
we've all been calling out for. No, no, this is
a this is like, this is like suburban family of vampires.

Speaker 1 (32:57):
Oh, Dark Shadows.

Speaker 2 (33:00):
That wasn't a family. That wasn't a suburban family of vampires.
That was one vampire who was wakened up and then
ends up. If you're talking about the movie version played
by Johnny Depp, who then goes on who then goes
on to have sexy schpeccy times that by wrecking an
entire room.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
I didn't actually watch the movie.

Speaker 2 (33:24):
It's not good.

Speaker 1 (33:25):
Yeah, so apparently it's a it's a family of vampires.
And I don't think the mom and dad necessarily tell
the kids because they've chosen sobriety, as they call it
in the trailer, to not drink blood. But you know,
if you don't know something's a problem, you can't address
it or watch out for it. So that's what happens.

Speaker 2 (33:45):
Yeah, that might be the moral of the story, is that,
you know, you need to Families need to talk about
these sorts of things so that they can they can
support one another and tackle the problems together, as opposed
to just trying to suppress it and pretend it'll go away.

Speaker 1 (34:02):
Yeah. Like the trailer didn't look bad. It didn't look
quite as that kind of log line feels like it
should be a comedy to me, and it didn't. It
didn't choose whether to It didn't choose even if it
wanted to be a drama dy in.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
The trailer, I agree, I agree, I think that the
tone is really confusing, Like I could not get a
read on is this a horror comedy? Is it a
horror with just some comedic elements, but it's not an
outright horror comedy? Yeah, because like I wish they had
gone more Sean of the Dead in that direction. For

(34:42):
if they're going to do a horror comedy, If you're
going to do a horror with just some comedic elements,
that's possible. I mean, some of my favorite horror movies
have little moments of comedy that are fantastic, that really
stand out. But this premise, by itself is screaming high
concept horror comedy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah, speaking of a high concept but with more of
a general feel of how it's going to go. We
also got a trailer for a movie called Omni.

Speaker 2 (35:09):
Loop Yeah, which it starts off feeling like a like
the trailer's just for like a mainstream drama.

Speaker 1 (35:18):
Yeah. Yeah, I know when I shared it with you, you thought, you're, like,
I was afraid this is going to be Groundhog's Day,
but it doesn't actually look like that.

Speaker 2 (35:25):
Well yeah, I mean it Well, when it first starts,
I didn't even know it was going to have like
the groundhog Day element to it, where you have a
character who is reliving the same time span over and
over again. In this case, it's a week like five days,
and the main character is a woman who has been

(35:46):
diagnosed with a black hole.

Speaker 1 (35:50):
Yeah yeah, growing inside of her body and.

Speaker 2 (35:55):
That it's going to kill her in five days, And
when she takes this pill at the into five days,
it makes her go back to the beginning of that
five day period and she relives it. So there are
elements like there are scenes in that trailer where you're like,
this scene feels like it's lifted directly from Groundhog Day,

(36:15):
where she's predicting the next thing that's going to happen
as proof that she has lived through this numerous times.
But it has a totally different tone. It feels much
more drama oriented, whereas obviously groundhog Day was a comedy.

Speaker 1 (36:33):
It actually feels like it's going to have a decent
amount of heart in there too, like fairly touching.

Speaker 2 (36:39):
Yeah. I think it's the fact that it's a science
fiction film. It I mean, I really wish it didn't
tread similar ground to groundhog Day, simply because we have
seen other variations on groundhog Day in the not too
distant past. I mean the Happy Death Day would be

(36:59):
the the examples I think of those two movies both
had that. It's so much so that the characters in
the movie comment on it. They hang a lampshade on
the fact that they are using the same general premise
as Groundhog Day. So I kind of wish it had
a different like thing to loop everything around. But at

(37:24):
the same time, it's not like I have a better idea.
It's just I worry that it's going to inevitably just
get compared endlessly to Groundhog.

Speaker 1 (37:33):
Day or die nse repeat or Day Sorry, that's Day
after Tomorrow. I don't know why I glommed onto the
new name for it or the the tom Cruise one. Right, yeah, yeah,
Because in this story, at least according to the synopsis
because I haven't watched yet, the woman with the black

(37:53):
Hole meets a student who tries helps tries to help
save her life and also figure out time travel, played
by ao at A Bari. Iowa I can say her
name usually I think I need more coffee. Io at
a Bari and Chris Watowski's also in it, and they're
both in the Bear, so that makes me happy. So

(38:16):
so yeah, from that standpoint, like half Groundhog daycares are
reliving half day after tomorrow because you've got a scientist
trying to help fix it.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Yeah, I mean it's this one looks interesting. I'll probably
wait for it to come to streaming. If I'm being honest,
I don't think this is a make the trip to
the movie theater film for me. Same same, but what
about Secret Level? Okay, that's not a movie.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
I'm definitely not going to the theater for that. I
don't think it's going to be there.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
So this was also shown off at Games Calm, but
Secret Level is an anthology series where the anthology is
stories that are inspired by our Bay based on video games,
specific video games.

Speaker 1 (39:04):
It looks interesting, it looks beautiful. I I am, it's
by the it's by the same team who did uh
do Robots dream of or Electric Sheep?

Speaker 2 (39:15):
Then it show uh the Love and Robots One?

Speaker 1 (39:21):
Sorry I was wrong. Yeah, Love and Robots one, which
is a Netflix show, isn't it?

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Yeah I believe so? Yes, Okay, yeah, uh.

Speaker 1 (39:29):
The.

Speaker 2 (39:32):
It's it's one of those. It's an animated series. But yeah, Love,
Death and Robots. I knew I was leaving something out.
It's like, it's like Live Prey Love, But I've watched.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
The trailer four times. I don't want to know why
my brain keeps transposing it into a different anthology series.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
Yeah, because you're going, you're going like Philip K. Dick.
But yeah, Love, Love, Death and Robots. But yeah, it's
it's an animated anthology series with different styles of animation
for each entry, and it's about different game properties. So
like there's one that's apparently going to be based on
or inspired by, Spilunky, one from pac Man, one from

(40:08):
Mega Man. Uh, there's some one for Lesser one for
Armored Corps. There's there's some lesser known titles in there.
It's not like it's all like Triple A or famous titles.
I'm deeply saddened that Stardu Valley isn't in there.

Speaker 1 (40:27):
That's for season two, Jonathan, you can't you can't do
it all in season one.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, so it's definitely looks interesting. I'll probably check this
out because I'm very curious as to what stories do
they tell, because we know there's the challenge of doing
like a video game adaptation to a different medium, because
when you're playing a video game, you get to be

(40:52):
the one to make all the decisions, which I think
is part of what makes video games so interesting, and
that it's less interesting when you're just watching detached as
an observer. H So I'm curious to see how they
pull it off.

Speaker 1 (41:08):
Me too. I also, you know it. I hope that
I have one worry about this, which is that the
stories they tell because I'm not going to be familiar
with all of the game properties in the anthology series.
I'm definitely gonna watch it. There's enough that I am
familiar with, but even those like I'm not deep into

(41:29):
most video unless it's Mass Effect, I'm not deep into
video game more. And uh, they it could be hard.
It could be a hard entry point for people if
either they assume that people know enough about whatever video
game the particular episode is dealing on, or if they
try to explain too much about the particular episode for

(41:52):
everybody who doesn't know. So I really hope they find
a good balance there.

Speaker 2 (41:56):
Yeah, me too. Next up, we've got our trailer for
Y two K, which I referenced earlier in this episode,
and my note on it was Maximum Overdrive but funny.
So if you don't know what maximum overdrive is. It's
a good chance a lot of you out there don't.
It was a horror movie with Emilio Estevez play the

(42:18):
main character, based off a screenplay by Stephen King and
or a story by Stephen King. And it's one where
there's like this big electrical storm and then all electronics
essentially become sentient and start to try and kill humans.
The famous machine in that movie was a semi truck

(42:39):
with an enormous green goblin face on the front of
the semi truck. So if you've ever seen that, that's
what that movie is. Anyway. Why two K. It's about
a bunch of kids who go to a party in
nineteen ninety nine as the year two thousand is coming
across and unlike the real world, when that happens, Y

(43:00):
two K is a real thing and all like little
electronics gain sentience and decide to try and kill people.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah. So if you aren't familiar with Y two K,
because some of you may not be. Yeah, people were
worried that when the year changed from nineteen ninety nine
to two thousand that all of our computer systems would
crash because they didn't they weren't built right to handle
that change.

Speaker 2 (43:22):
Yeah, so technically to explain true, to explain the dates,
the dates, and various pieces of software and code. When
people were first starting to create it, they were trying
to conserve space, and so they just wrote years as
two digit dates, So like seventy eight, seventy nine. That's

(43:45):
fine until you get to ninety nine. But if the
machines all are adding dates by just making the increment
go up by one, and they can't add a third
digit to the number, when it gets to ninety nine,
it then switches to zero zero. So the fear was
all these pieces of software we're going to suddenly assume

(44:06):
that the year was nineteen hundred and that things would
break down as a result. And so this film takes
that fear and turns it into one if everything gained
sentience and wanted to kill you, includings like somehow a
Tamagatchi gets attached to like a robot with a drill.

(44:28):
You've got Tamagotchi coming after.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
You, Like it's the bad kid from Toy Story right,
Like they're all at his house.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
Sid.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Yeah, sid Is is the main character named Sid. Now
I really need to know.

Speaker 2 (44:41):
I'm curious about this because it looks it looks so cheesy.
I it's such a ridiculous premise, But then so was
Maximum Overdrive. And this looks like it's a teen friendly
version of Maximum Overdrive. So I'm I'm I am intrigued
because it's so dumb, it's got my attention.

Speaker 1 (45:01):
Yeah, it also has a like Kyle Mooney helped make it,
and he's from SNL. He's also in it, and it
very much feels his style of humor to me.

Speaker 2 (45:12):
Yeah, so this definitely falls into that sci fi horror
comedy yeah kind of genre. Like the comedy is there
and there's all it's undeniable comedy is also there. For
our next one, the aforementioned Hit Pig that Ariel was
casting aspersions upon earlier.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Is there comedy in that Hit Pig?

Speaker 2 (45:35):
Yes, Hit Pig's the cartoon. Are you thinking about something else?

Speaker 1 (45:40):
No? I I just didn't find that. The trailer didn't
grab me.

Speaker 2 (45:47):
Okay, way, So so missing Elephant Pig bounty hunter has
to go and find the elephant, finds out the elephant
is actually from captivity.

Speaker 1 (46:02):
From from the Lord of the Dance.

Speaker 2 (46:05):
You saw no comedy in this? Did you think it
was a drama?

Speaker 1 (46:09):
Okay, remember how I talked about Delicious in Dungeon where
there was comedy, and I'm like, oh, that's a joke.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
So you recognize as comedy. You just didn't find it funny.

Speaker 1 (46:19):
It it's also a kid's movie. It is very obviously
a kid's movie with adult humor in there. It does.
It does look cute. There is a there is a
human character in there who is not the villain. And
at first when I saw them, I thought that this
was maybe a spin off from the Miraculous series with

(46:42):
Ladybug and all that, but it's I don't think it is.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
No, this is this is created I mentioned earlier by
Berkeley Breathd who created the comic strip bloom County many
many many years ago. And yeah, it looks cute to me.
It does look like you know, it's a kid's film.
But was it Jason Sedeikaz who voices the pig. The pig, Yeah,

(47:08):
and he's he's supposed to. He's hired to go after
a lost elephant. But it turns out that the the
guy who hired hit Pig had captured this elephant and
was holding it against its will. So the plot thickens
and then the pig has to question what's more important

(47:30):
to him the money, the payoff, or be doing what
is right?

Speaker 1 (47:38):
You know, you know what it might be. What might
have have made it not hit for me because I
like a lot of computer animated movies. Is its animal
engangement is the wrong word, but the story of an
elephant being kidnapped kind of breaks my heart a little bit.

Speaker 2 (47:59):
Sure, yeah, I understand that, Like I mean, you know,
you being able to compartmentalize and just look at this
movie as a movie on its own, that's one thing.
But when you sit there and think, hey, that's what
circuses did for decades, it does get real heavy.

Speaker 1 (48:19):
Yeah. Yeah. It is also interesting that it's by the
guy who did bloom County, because one, the art style
looks a little different to me. Bloom County County has
a very like has a rougher art style, sure, I
would say. And then also bloom County is, from what
I recall, not kid friendly.

Speaker 2 (48:39):
It wasn't terrible. I actually fell in love with bloom
County when I was a kid, But then I grew
up in the eighties and we had a different set
of expectations for what was comedy back then, and what
was appropriate for kids. I mean, like I grew up
before there was a PG thirteen rating, so I remember
PG movies when they had like nudity and swearing and

(49:02):
stuff in them.

Speaker 1 (49:04):
Yeah. Yeah, So, I mean the movie looks cute. I'm
sure it'll be fine. I just think that I'm taking
on Jonathan's roll of Cranky this week.

Speaker 2 (49:11):
That's fair, that's fair. Also, I don't think there's nearly
enough nudity or swearing in it. So moving on, we
got we got not not even really a teaser, but
a title reveal from Laika Studios. So. Laika is the
production company that did Coraline. They did Kubo in the

(49:31):
Two Strings, like they do all this stop motion animation. Beautiful,
amazing work like their films. I mean not just from
a technical level. Their films are great, but specifically from
a technical level, they are breath taking. And we got
a title reveal for their next project, which is going
to be called Wildwood.

Speaker 1 (49:53):
Yeah it's not it's not a direct like sequel to
Coraline or anything like that though.

Speaker 2 (49:58):
Correct, No, no, it's not. Well, yeah, all of their
projects have been like independent stories, right, they are not
connected to each other like Kubo and the Two Strings
is not set in the Coraline universe, and if you
haven't seen Kubo in the Two Strings, I highly recommend it.
I saw it in the theater, and I'm glad I
did because it was like it was one of those

(50:19):
movies that deserved to have a much wider screening than
it did. But it just you know, it was one
of those that, like the fans who went loved it,
but it didn't really it didn't really grow beyond that
initial group of viewers. It did, like Garner an Academy
Award nomination, but yeah, so anyway, like it does great work.

(50:42):
So I'm excited to see more about this movie as
we get closer to release.

Speaker 1 (50:47):
Yeah, it looks pretty good. It looks a little scary.
I haven't seen Kubo in in Kuba.

Speaker 2 (50:53):
And the Cubo Cubo and the Two Strings and the
Two Strings.

Speaker 1 (50:57):
I wanted to when it was in theaters and I
didn't get to, and I still want to watch it.
But it's one of those ones that keeps just falling
off the list and then getting added back to the bottom.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Totally. Yeah, I have so many properties that are on
my list. I cannot cast aspersions. I will say it
is worth your time. So if it ever gets on
that list again and you're like, no, today's day, I
think you're gonna enjoy it. You're not gonna regret it.

Speaker 1 (51:19):
I think so too. I also do think I'm going
to enjoy Lord of the Rings the War of the Rohrum.

Speaker 2 (51:25):
Yeah, another animated film. This is done in sort of
a Japanese animation or anime style and directed by a
Japanese director and produced by Peter Jackson. So it's an
animated film that is taking place before the events of

(51:46):
the Lord of the Rings, where we get to see
Helm hammer hand and how he got that name and
his daughter. So this is based off a story that
actually appears in Tolkien, but it involves a character who
previously in the Tolkien version is unnamed. Why because she

(52:07):
has the temerity to be a woman, and Tolkien was
Tolkien was not super detailed about women in his stories.
They didn't play a huge part in his tales. Even
the ones that do appear, with the possible exception of Gladriel,
they don't have much to do. So uh, and maybe.

Speaker 1 (52:30):
I would say had decent screen time at.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Least, sure but our but Rowin's screen time was completely
invented because that's not that's not how she appears in
the original novels. Arwin does not show up at Helms Deep.
She does. She is not the elf who rescues Frodo
when they're they're escaping the Ring Race. Like, they gave

(52:52):
Arwin a lot more to do. Not that I'm saying
that's a bad thing. I'm just saying that was a
difference from the Tolkien But yeah, That's one thing that
I think is going to be interesting about this is
because this version of the story gives first of all,
it gives helm Hammerhan's daughter a name, thank goodness, it's Harrah,
and gives her the the the burden of the She's

(53:14):
the protagonist of this story. I think, like you, Ariel,
I think it looks really good. I think it looks
like a it's gonna be a thrilling story. I maybe
it's too early for me to even think like this,
but I worry about the quote unquote true fans being
real butt faces, about the fact that that they gave

(53:38):
this this role to a character who was unnamed in
Tolkien's work.

Speaker 1 (53:43):
I think if they're being butt heads about it, then
they are not true, actual true fans, because you and
I we are.

Speaker 2 (53:50):
I mean, I have a tattoo, a Lord of the
Rings tattoo.

Speaker 1 (53:55):
And before anyone questions my motivation, my I don't think
I'm just gonna like it because I want to coseplay.
Every single thing that Harah is shown wearing in the
trailer has nothing to do with it. I think it's
gonna be a good series.

Speaker 2 (54:08):
Yeah, no, it looks I think it. I think it
looks really good too. I'm I like how you're just like, Okay,
whatever this thing is, I think it'll be a good
one of those.

Speaker 1 (54:19):
It looks like it's gonna be a good story and
a fun watch. How's that?

Speaker 2 (54:22):
There? You go? Yeah, I am looking forward to it,
which is funny because like I have had no desire
to watch Rings of Power. Not no aspersions on the
people who work on that show, nothing like that. It
just hasn't interested me, Like the stuff I've seen just
hasn't grabbed me. Maybe I'll get around to it, because

(54:45):
who knows, maybe I will love it.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
But much New Girl first, Finnish Umbrella Academy first.

Speaker 2 (54:51):
How many elves are a new Girl? I guess I
guess the one because she was an elf.

Speaker 1 (54:57):
Yeah, Zoey Deschanel has energy of like an entire workshop
of santaz El's.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
You're selling it for me.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
Look what, No, I like New Girl. Give it a
couple of episodes. Like anything else, you have to grow
to know the characters. But and it's a sycom. Sitcoms
rarely have like an amazing first episode because the setup
is heavy handed.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Usually okay, but if there's like a time travel authority
a New Girl, I am going to pull the plug.

Speaker 1 (55:29):
There is not. But but I have watched Rings of Power.
It's okay, it's okay, that's okay. That's all I can say. Like,
I wanted to be super drawn in. I wanted to
super like the characters. It's not that the characters are
unlikable or bad. It's just there are a couple characters
I actually very much like. But as an overall story,

(55:52):
it just felt a little slow and just didn't And
I watched the entire first season except for the last episode,
but I know what happened in it. It just didn't
grab me.

Speaker 2 (56:02):
Well. This definitely looks like it's more along the lines
of grabbing me. I actually wouldn't mind seeing more animated
projects built around the Middle Earth world, especially if they
were to explore stories that Tolkien has told in various forms.

(56:24):
I think it's an enchanting way of doing that, and
it helps get around some of the issues I've had
with some of the live action stuff. I'm mostly thinking
about how much I hated the forty eight frames per
second high frame rate stuff that Peter Jackson did with
the Hobbit. I really didn't like that.

Speaker 1 (56:44):
Yeah, same, same, I will say rings of power. Like
looking at the pre Hobbits, watching their stories is fun,
and then there's one of them sings a really nice
song that I very much like, So that's good.

Speaker 2 (56:57):
I like to call them probits the pre Hobbits as
I knock over things in my in my studio.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Yeah. But they also give you really good gut health.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
Yeah. Yeah, you have to take a lot of probits
in order to make sure you stay regular. Okay, So
uh here here was a story that I thought was
interesting because it was a story that unfolded itself to
me gradually. And that is First of all, we got
a trailer for the theatrical release of Megapolis Megalopolis. That's

(57:30):
the Francis Sport Coppola movie he he self funded like
one hundred and twenty million dollars to make with Adam
Driver in the Leagues Megal Megal, snuffle up Agus, snuffle
up Agus.

Speaker 1 (57:42):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (57:43):
I watch, yeah, especially if it was like in the
Francis sport Copola style Adam Driver plays the main character.
It's it's essentially an allegory where you've got like a
uh set in a in a sort of science fiction
y future, but it's got like an ancient Rome thing.
I was joking with Becca, I said, I think we

(58:04):
now like when that meme was going around about how
frequently does your guy think about the Roman Empire? Like
for Francis Ford Coppola, it's like all the freaking time. Yeah.
But anyway, Adam Driver is like, has this vision for
the city of the future, and meanwhile there are people
who are crying out and saying like, you can't focus

(58:26):
on the city of the future. We need to we
need to deal with the issues of today, Like there
are people who are in need today in the City
of the future doesn't do them any good. And I
was getting like an an Rand fountain Head kind of
feel for it, where in that story, there's an architect
who is called upon to compromise and he refuses to

(58:47):
do it, and that makes him a hero. I will
spare you my thoughts on that novel, but I was
getting that kind of.

Speaker 1 (58:56):
Vibet not great.

Speaker 2 (58:59):
Yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. Anyway, the thing that was interesting
to me about this trailer, well, one, it doesn't answer
the question of are they going to have a thing
where every single screening a actual person, human being is
going to come down and talk to the screen.

Speaker 1 (59:17):
I don't know if we know that answer yet.

Speaker 2 (59:19):
Yeah, but that's what happened at Can and Can when
they premiered it. They had a sequence where a live
actor appeared in front of the screen and interacted with
what was going on on screen. And at that time
Ariel and I were like, how are you going to
do this for a wide release or you're just going
to cut that scene out? And if so, why did

(59:40):
it exist to begin with? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (59:43):
It only it's only going to be at Disney World.
It's what's taking over the Muppet forty. It's just going
to be a person in a sweet of costume.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
I figure, you just put it, put it over next
to the Imagination Pavilion. At Epcot and it's Captain EO
used to be or Journey into Imagination or any of those. Well, anyway,
the thing that that I thought was interesting about this
trailer was that it starts off with quotes from film

(01:00:14):
critics about past Francis Ford Coppola movies like The Godfather
and Apocalypse Now and Dracula, and the through line is
that critics were panning these movies, which, with the exception
of Dracula, have subsequently turned into classics. Right, people are

(01:00:36):
like The Godfather is a film that that is on
like the top one hundred list for everybody. Apocalypse Now
is considered one of the greatest achievements, although it was
divisive when it first came out.

Speaker 1 (01:00:48):
Problem Copola's Dracula is a classic.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
To me.

Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
It's got Gary Oldman. That's all you need.

Speaker 2 (01:00:54):
Well, it's all you get because everything else is terrible
at it. Kenner was fine, Keana Reeves, they were you're very, very,
very generous with your praise, or how about this. I
I have a different perspective. I'm not saying you're wrong.
I have a different perspective.

Speaker 1 (01:01:14):
We celebrate different perspectives.

Speaker 2 (01:01:16):
Yes, So, so the thing that turned out to be crazy.
Is it turned out that all those quotes because like,
like what the point they were making was this idea
that film critics have always dissed Francis Ford Coppola, but
over time have been proven wrong, that Coppola's work has
become these classics. There's one small problem.

Speaker 1 (01:01:39):
The quote, the quotes was real, but it wasn't for
Francis Ford Coppola movie.

Speaker 2 (01:01:45):
It was for Batman.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Yeah, Batman returns right.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
I think it was just Batman, just Batman. It was
Roger Ebert or something like that there it was reference
to a beautiful Oh, it wasn't Roger Ebert because it
was the person who wrote the article who said, I
actually did write Beautifulness, but not for Dracula. I wrote
it for Batman, which I mean, you could argue Dracula
is a Batman, but well.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
He also said I wish I had said it about
Dracula because it seems almost too nice. Now looking back
at the film, the thing that surprises me is Lyons
Gategod did like immediately they say, they immediately pulled the
trailer and apologize, saying we shouldn't have let this go out.
We should have caught it and been like nope, but

(01:02:31):
you can still watch the trailer.

Speaker 2 (01:02:32):
So how did they Well, it's because the other other
outlets grabbed the trailer and uploaded it to their channels,
and so like the Mothership Channel, they pulled the trailer,
but by then it was already distributed to these other outlets,

(01:02:53):
like ign is the one that I pulled, But yeah,
you can still watch the trailer and see all the
face critic responses. So, in other words, them trying to
lay out this narrative of Francis Ford Coppola being unappreciated
by critics only for his works to become classics ends

(01:03:13):
up being unsupported because people are like, no, actually, people
really liked The Godfather when it came out. Apocalypse Now
was a little different, and of course Dracula was a,
if you're being very kind, a beautiful mess.

Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
It is also interesting because after that some people came
out saying that, like during one of the big party scenes,
Copola was going around kissing women and giving them hugs,
like kissing them on the cheek and giving them hugs.
It didn't look like there's some video on Variety, It
doesn't look like he tried to French anybody, which in
face file. You could be like, that's not horrible. It

(01:03:45):
could just be an old man being nice. But apparently
some of these women were scantily clad. Heard mixed reports
on whether anybody felt camplained or felt unsafe about it.
But it's also just a weird thing to do.

Speaker 2 (01:03:58):
Yeah. Yeah, you could argue that that's like a generational thing,
but that doesn't excuse it, right, Like yeah, Like Ariel
and I we will often talk about when we both
first started at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, the tone, both
on stage and off was a bit more body and flirty,

(01:04:21):
Like it made me think of how high school theater
could be with like kids who are being a little
they're pushing the envelope, you know, they're they're being a
little naughty without without going. It makes me think of
the Crucible cast party sketch from SNL. It's like that
being a little naughty. Uh, That's kind of how the

(01:04:41):
festival was. And then over time there was this realization of, oh,
that's not really acceptable and you could be making it
a really hostile environment for people who don't feel comfortable
but also don't feel comfortable speaking up about it, and
so so now for the better, I would argue it
there's that kind of environment's no longer tolerated, and it

(01:05:05):
has changed things and some things. You might say, Oh, well,
it's kind of a shame because the body stuff was fun.
I'm like, well, for maybe ninety percent, but even if
ten percent were uncomfortable, that's too many. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:05:16):
Yeah, But in this case, as far as from the
article on Variety, it doesn't sound like anybody other than
some of the people who were staff complained about it.
But I will say, like, if I were a woman
who was cleared to be scantily clad or partially nude
in a scene, like, there's a difference.

Speaker 2 (01:05:35):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:35):
If I'm in a scene, in a big party scene
and the director comes up, that's great, that's amazing. If
he's like, good job and gives you a hug, that's wonderful.
If I'm not wearing a shirt, I'm going to feel
differently about that.

Speaker 2 (01:05:47):
Trust me, I should know what I'm just I don't know.
I'm blacked out there for a second. No, for the record,
I've never been around areel with their shirt off.

Speaker 1 (01:06:02):
No. No, But it's it's so it's it could be generational,
but it brings to question like because he did fund
this entire movie. Were their correct HR practices is did
nobody complain because everybody was fine with it? Or did
nobody complain because they didn't know who to complain to?
You know, there's there's for big scenes like that where

(01:06:23):
there's a lot of nude people. The new industry standard
is to have a couple of intimacy coordinators on set
to make sure everybody's comfortable and safe. That is a
newer standard, full stop. You know a lot not everybody
still us like now now productions have to because it's
being written into SAG rules, But that is very new.
Not everybody understands the.

Speaker 2 (01:06:44):
Purpose right, so new in fact that that you know,
it's still a practice that's being codified. And and I've
heard some actors talk about how they've had actually scenes
made more difficult with the introduction of intimacy intimacy coordinators,

(01:07:05):
And I think that's largely because it is so new
that best practices are still things that are being made now,
Like we don't have those best practices yet, that's still
being figured out, and in the process, things are not
always going to go smoothly. Plus, I mean occasionally you
are going to have a case where there's just going

(01:07:26):
to be friction between whomever is the coordinator, not that
kind yeah, your raunchy lass, but but yeah, friction between
the coordinator and the actors. Like, that's going to happen too.
You're just gonna have like ties where personalities are going
to be like that. So I think overall the move

(01:07:47):
has been an incredibly positive one, But yeah, I think
in the meantime we're going to have those kind of
moments anyway, whether like when you're talking about like a
power dynamic situation, I think anytime, even if the person's
not scantily clad, you need to be real careful about

(01:08:08):
displays of affection because with that sort of power dynamic,
you're not talking just about the director. He's the guy
who funded it. He's essentially the executive producer for the
entire movie as well as the director. You, as an
actor probably feel somewhat intimidated if you're not feeling comfortable right,

(01:08:29):
like you can't feel like you can speak out.

Speaker 1 (01:08:31):
For sure, especially like if you're an extra, because there
is a big difference between having auditioned for something and
being cherry picked and doing a rehearsal and then doing
a thing. Then being an extra there's I haven't been
an extra on much and it was a delightful time

(01:08:51):
when I was, but it is definitely different than being
an actor on set and you're like told, hey, don't
interact with the actors, and let's they interact with you
a lot of time, and so go higher up, Like
the director doesn't want to talk to an extra, You
talk to your extras coordinator if there's one.

Speaker 2 (01:09:07):
You know, yeah, which I mean again, like if you're
an extra and then the director comes up to hug you,
that's weird, right, because like you're like, uh, Francis Ford Coppola,
why are you talking to me a day player who
hasn't even doesn't even have a line.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
Like one of the people who reported this did say
he grabbed a microphone later and said, if I come
up and hug you, uh, it's it's simply for my
pleasure or something like that, or my enjoyment or something
weird like that. So the person who did that doesn't go, well,
I said that, Yeah, that doesn't that doesn't feel good.

Speaker 2 (01:09:42):
So yeah, very strange, Like well, this whole, this whole story,
Like I have a feeling that sometime in the future,
We're going to get a documentary about this movie. Uh,
kind of like how The The Island of Doctor Moreau
has a documentary about the making of that total train
wreck of a film, would, which I also saw in
the theater. I feel like that needs to happen for

(01:10:05):
this as well, because it's such a strange swing and
in some ways I admire the audacity, like the desire
to create art. In other ways, I feel like this
is hubris so but having not seen it, I don't
really know. I just know that the critics who did

(01:10:28):
think that the screening at can was kind of an
enormous mess probably were justified in that estimation based upon
what I have read. But I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
Maybe i'd maybe.

Speaker 2 (01:10:42):
I'd watched it and say, oh, I don't I think
it was just brilliant.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
Yeah, you know, you never know. I think if I
want to spend ten hours in one day, I can
watch Borderlands in Megalopolis as a bad movie night with
a bunch of people to pan it.

Speaker 2 (01:10:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:00):
Yeah, you know, I can't say that.

Speaker 2 (01:11:02):
I haven't. I don't. I don't know. Oh, everything I've
heard about border Lands makes it sound to me like
it's not even the kind of movie where you can
do like a group hate watch and laugh about it,
like it just is like go ahead.

Speaker 1 (01:11:16):
One of my friends who saw it is not like
big into the Borderlands Lord and said it was fine enough.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
Every review I've heard I've like. I listened to a
review by three content creators that I follow, who who
They were all negative about the film, but they were different.
They were different levels of negative. There was one who
was like, that's not good. There's one who was like

(01:11:44):
that was bad, and there was one who was like,
this is the worst video game adaptation I have ever seen. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Yeah, we do have one more story that I can't
talk about, so it's gonna be on you. Also, I
just want to say, this episode is at an hour.
We're in about ten minutes once you cut all of
my mess ups out, So I don't know how it
went so long. I thought we were just breezing right through.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
But we were, and then Megalopolis happened. Okay, Yeah, So
the last trailer that I watched, it was one that
I saw pop up just before we started recording, is
for a horror film called Director's Cut. It looks like
it's a really low budget horror film. The trailer. At least,

(01:12:28):
I don't know that the movie's going to look this way,
but the trailer was doing that thing where you had
like the filter to give extra grain to the image,
like it was an old VHS tape or something. And
the plot is there's this group of very young people
who are in a band it kind of looks like

(01:12:48):
it's supposed to be like a punk band, and they
are contacted by a man who offers to direct them
in a music video for free. They just have to
travel out to see him, and then it's like sociopathic
hilarity ensues. It does not look like it's a comedy.

(01:13:10):
It looks like it's supposed to be a horror movie
about like either either a serial killer or maybe a
cult situation where the band is trapped and they're going
to be picked off. The reason why I brought it
up is because as I was watching the trailer, I

(01:13:30):
didn't think it looked like a particularly good movie, but
I was like, holy cal this is making me think
of so many of my friends who, at one point
or another, usually when they were younger, responded to something
on a social media platform that offered to get them
involved in a project. Without them really knowing anything about

(01:13:51):
the people responsible for that project and the bad things
that followed, Like I know people who got involved in
bad projects with bad people. And as I'm watching this,
I'm like, Wow, this preview is kind of hitting close
to home.

Speaker 1 (01:14:05):
It really is a thing, especially as like a starting entertainer,
because like you have to start with those little non
union homebrew jobs to try to get some experience.

Speaker 2 (01:14:18):
Right, especially in Georgia.

Speaker 1 (01:14:20):
Yeah, yeah, I am laughing because obviously I didn't watch
this trailer. I didn't even know about it until you
mentioned it. I was like, well, I'm not going to
watch this trailer, but I do want to like look
up some screenshots so I can just envision what you're
talking about. There are only a couple of screenshots when
I search director's cut movie twenty twenty four of this

(01:14:43):
particular movie, and then a whole bunch, whole bunch of
Rebel Moon director's cut screen shots.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
Yeah, there's also Wasn't was. I got to look it
up now because I might be getting the name wrong, right.
Oh yeah, So there was a director's cut film that
also came out in twenty sixteen, which I own on
Blu Ray and it's a film made by Penn Jillette

(01:15:15):
of Penn and Teller, and in that movie, Penn plays
this obsessive fan. He's totally obsessed with an actress who's
played by Missy Pyle, but she's playing an actress within
the context of this movie. And he's been a crowdfunding member,

(01:15:41):
like he contributed to the making of this particular like
it's supposed to be a police procedural thriller kind of film,
and his contribution is large enough that gives him access.
He's allowed to be on set, and so he decides
the movie they were making was not good. So what

(01:16:04):
he's going to do is he's going to take the
footage that was made and then he's going to kidnap
Missy Pile, Missy Pile's character and force her to shoot
the rest of the scenes to make the movie that
it should be. And it's all about him putting himself
in the role of like hero where Missy Pile's character

(01:16:25):
is supposed to fall all over him. And it's an
exploration of like obsessive fans, parasocial relationships as well as
like the meta aspect of filmmaking. I can't say it's brilliant,
but it definitely felt like it was a higher production

(01:16:46):
value than Director's cut.

Speaker 1 (01:16:48):
It feels it feels it feels like it would probably
be more my speed. And it also gives me just
Tommy wizovibes.

Speaker 2 (01:16:56):
It is creepy. It's a very creepy movie, but it
it does have a lot of comedy to it. So
it's but yeah, like Tommy Wisseau is not a bad shout,
it's a pretty that's a pretty good analysis.

Speaker 1 (01:17:11):
Yeah, well that is all we have to talk about
this week. You know, I do think the death Knell
is always saying it was a good episode, but the
death niels always saying it's going to be a short
episode because then we are like, well we have time
to talk.

Speaker 2 (01:17:28):
Yeah, we don't have to rush through like thirty seven
trailers and sixteen stories.

Speaker 1 (01:17:36):
Yeah, and even then we talk. But you know, anyhow,
it has been fun. If people want to reach out
to us and talk about the fun that we've been
having today, how do they do that?

Speaker 2 (01:17:47):
Jonathan? So what you're going to have to do is
you're going to have to go outside, touch grass, start walking.
You're going to keep walking till you hit the border
and when you're on the border. You know, you're on
the land where the border is. You're on the borderland.
You're going to be real careful because if you're not

(01:18:07):
real careful, to fall into a pit and you're gonna
hear applause. That's the clap trap. Don't want to fall
into the clap trap when you're on the borderland. So
you want to be really careful because there's crazy people
on that border land. I mean, you could call them psycho.
They're just surrounded by psychos on the borderland near the
clap trap. So you gotta be really careful about that.

(01:18:29):
And when you're there, you got to look. There's gonna
be a little girl. Her name's Tina. She is insufferable.
You will hate her, but she's going to know where
to bring you to come and see me. So you
need to go with tiny Tina past the clap trap
on the borderland and avoid all the psychos where point

(01:18:50):
you can get to me. I'm going to be inside
this big protective chamber. It's gonna have this huge, heavy
door on it. You'd call it a vault if you like.
It's a vault. So you need to hunt up the
vault on the border Land, past the clap trap, avoiding
the psychos following Tiny Tina in order to open the vault.
Then you're gonna find me and I'll answer your question.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
If and if you were too just thrown back by
Jonathan's totally Sigma move of telling people to touch grass
and to hear his wonderful Borderland's parody. You can reach
out to us on social media on Facebook and Instagram
and threads. We are Larger Drunk Collider on x we

(01:19:31):
are LC Underscore podcast on Discord, We're Larger New Drunk Collider.
Or you can email us at Larger drum Pot at
gmail dot com. We really do love hearing from you,
and until next time, I am Ariel, I'm still thrown
by Touch Grass Castin.

Speaker 2 (01:19:53):
And I am Jonathan. I'm dancing. I'm dancing. Strickland. The
Large Nerdron Collider was created by Ariel Caston and produced, edited, published, deleted, undeleted,
published again, cursed at by Jonathan Strickland. Music by Kevin

(01:20:15):
McLeod of incomptech dot com