2023 Year in Review

With 2023 firmly in their rearview, it's time for Izzy and Cam to look back and take stock of the year. That's right, folks, it's the PCFM 2023 Year In Review. What were the highs? What were the lows? What pieces of pop culture took them to new heights and which abysmal pieces of crap sent them spiraling in a hate fueled rant, wishing death upon their creators?

This episode is tied with a lovely bow of a game called "Two Truths and a Lie - TV Show Edition." Can Cam see the lies or will he be blinded by the absurdity of the truth?

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/pop-culture-field-manual--5956105/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
In time. In time, there'sa gut to follow to make it through
the well is he We made it. We made it to the end of
twenty twenty three. Yeah, man, looking back, what are you looking

(00:30):
back on this year? Man?Yeah? How was it for you?
It was it good? Was itbad? It was? I mean it
was good in that, you know, I successfully completed my first year of
marriage, you know. Yeah,and so this first year of the rest
of your life, right, theright life. Yeah, one year closer

(00:51):
to death. But in that wayit was. But you know, obviously
there's challenges too, obviously in thatin that relationship. So it's been a
it's been a year of like Ithink it's like almost like a resetting kind
of year because, uh, youknow, we ended our relationship with Gameology
and so far that was the beginningof this year. Yeah, it seems

(01:15):
like so long ago, man,Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So and then so for me onmy end re establishing or maybe you too,
you know, but like what arewe going to do now? You
know? Are what are we gonnado? Like literally for jobs and work
and and uh just trying to figurethat out. I've been extremely blessed with

(01:40):
my buddy Frinch Mike who reached outto me and wanted to do some stuff.
So we're working on that constantly.You know, it's I think getting
married man. I just there's alot of like introspection because when you when
you when you come into this suchclose proximity with somebody, you all of
a sudden, these things start comingup, and they that they didn't seem

(02:02):
to be issues before, or theydidn't you didn't think about it as much.
Now suddenly when you're living with somebody, you're like, why am I,
Why am I acting this way?Or why did I say that?
Or you know, it's like becausethere's this there's this magical thing that happens,
you know. But so for me, I've been and I've you know,
to be honest, I mean,you know, not to get too
dark, but like my father passedaway this year, and that was a

(02:24):
big deal obviously, but then alsowe've had some other with some other family
issues, you know, in mymom's section of the family, and so
it's just kind of this weird thingwhere all this tumultuous drama is happening and
but you're dealing with it as anadult. There's a weird thing that happens
when you start to see your parentsdifferently from when you were a kid.

(02:46):
Yeah. Yeah, So they're notso perfect. They're not superheroes, you
know. Yeah. Yeah, theymake mistakes, and sometimes they make really
bad mistakes, and then they don'ttake responsibility for them, and then it's
hard you know. Uh yeah,man, So it's it's just been a
very tumultuous year. Next year,I hope, my hope is that it

(03:07):
will be a growth year. Youknow, some years you're just kind of
maintaining or things, things change andyou're re establishing, you're just kind of
trying to get through the year orwhatever. And then some years you're like,
man, I'm hitting on all cylinders. I'm going for it, and
you're growing and you feel like thingsare you feel that momentum. So that's
what I'm hoping twenty twenty four isgoing to be. Man, what about
you? How was this year foryou? Oh? I mean it was

(03:28):
a lot. It was a busyyear, to say the less. I
mean I think you hit it onthe head with like, you know,
we started out the year separating fromyou know, from shift Fire and Gamology,
and that was like a big changebecause that was our existence. Man.
I remember we were like that wasour life for a year and a
half, two years after the pandemic, like all that's whatever else was going

(03:49):
on. It's like I got thisthing, we're going to failure, Like
we were safe, like that wasour safety net was and it was a
lot of fun to do it.Kind of leaving was hard. I think
that was if we want to talkabout like hard things to experience, Like
leaving was probably the hardest decision wehad to make. But I think it
was the right decision. But it'slike, okay, to me, it
was like, all right, we'rewe're tight rope walking, like life is

(04:11):
one type rope, tight rope walk, and all through COVID we had a
safety net. And then yeah,once once we walked away from shift fire
and game Ology, I was like, okay, let's let's walk one more
time, but let's take the netaway. Yeah. Yeah, So like
that was that's been life ever sincewe left, and uh, you know,
lucky for me, I've been ableto do a lot of traveling,

(04:32):
some for work, some for notwork. And you know, I'm very
excited to, you know, fornext year, because I think next year
is going to be you know,life changing for me. But because I've
been working on this project that Ican't really mention yet. And I mean,
if you're listening to this podcast,he probably have gotten some indication that
I've been doing something for a longtime. That's why you got to join

(04:55):
that patreon, man, Yeah,join the patreon. I've mentioned that we
have not that we have inappropriate.I'm just saying, you know, you
probably have more of an indication.Yeah, you have a little bit more.
I share a little bit more aboutwhere I've been and what I've been
doing. But uh, yeah,it's just you know, it's been a
long process and this year has kindof just been like the grinding year where
it's just like, okay, let'sget it done. I think next year
will be like the reap, therewards of the efforts year. But yeah,

(05:20):
it's been a it's been a veryemotional year, you know, trying
to balance you know, leaving andtrying to balance family and then trying to
balance you know, immediate family,so like making sure I'm okay at home
and you know all that. It'snobody's perfect, man, Like I think
this year, I think, youknow, recently, like I've decided to

(05:41):
give up my nicotine habits, soright now, yeah, yeah, I
mean for me, it's caused alot of for me me personally, Like
I've been doing it for so long. I've been doing it in the past
eight years, nine ten years ofmy life, and I always thought I
had control over it because like I'vebeen able to stop, but then I
always end up going back act likeafter like a month or two because I'm
just like bored or I'm in asituation where the benefits of using it outweigh

(06:06):
the negatives in my mind, becauselike, oh, when you're in the
military. Part of the reason it'singrained in the culture is because it makes
you focus, it keeps you awake, and also it's it's it's a great
tool to have. So that's whyI did it. I just couldn't stop.
So finally I've realized that, like, Okay, I have a problem.

(06:27):
I got a problem with it becauselike even though I tell myself I
can stop any time, I'm justnot. And then it's gone against everything
that I've stood for. So it'slike my my personal belief on fitness is
like, Okay, if you needto rely on something, is that beneficial
so like, for example, likewhen I walk into the gym and I

(06:48):
see dudes wearing like, you know, bicep curling with a lifting belt on,
like every time, you know,every time they have to squat,
they have to put shoes on,a belt on, knee wraps. It's
like, okay, well, thewhole reason I want to be physically fit
is to translate over to real life. Right. I don't want to I
don't want to look good. Iwant to be functional. Right, So

(07:09):
that's that's my philosophy on fitness.So it's just like, okay, well
let's apply it to that philosophy tolike just anything. So that's why I'm
like, I'm not really four inother than in a military setting for like
performance enhancing drugs or steroids or allthat. I'm like, Okay, well,
if you become reliant on it,like that doesn't make any sense,
like for your life, because ifif you strip everything away, like what

(07:30):
do you have, are you goingto succeed? Are you gonna crumble?
You're gonna crumble if you rely onthat stuff. So it's like, okay,
same thing with nicotine, Like Okay, well I use it so I
can remain focused. So I can, you know, remain awake so I
can remain alert. It's like,god, I'm a walking down, Yeah,
I'm walking contradiction. It's like,okay, maybe maybe I should apply
you know this to my every dayto where I'm like, okay, well

(07:53):
I'm working and I want to calmdown, I want to relax, you
want to focus on what I'm doingit, let me put a little z
in in, you know. So, yeah, I'm giving that up.
So that's probably gonna be my biggestchallenge this year. But yeah, I
got a good support system, soit's good. Yeah, support you,
thanks Izzy. So like, ifyou have a habit, you can probably
kick it too. Just I thinkit's cool. Because I was listening to

(08:15):
Andrew Huberman podcast Old Buddy Good,Old Good, Old, Yeah. I
feel like he's such a hit ormiss. So like some things he says
are like, oh, yeah,that's awesome, but other things you said,
you're like yeah, right, yeah. But anyways, I like him
a lot. He has good youknow, he's got good certifications and then
he has good perspective. But Iwas listening to his episode on nicotine and

(08:39):
he's like five percent of people thattry to quit cold Turkey are successful,
and like to a normal person thatwould like, I feel like that would
be a deterrent. They're like,only five percent of people do this,
so why even try? Yeah,or I gotta get some stuff in place,
I gotta do this. Yeah,I gotta join a group. Yeah.
But to me, I'm like onlyfive percent. That sounds like an

(09:03):
elite group of people. I'm goingto be part of that five percent.
It sounds like a challenge to me. That's the Ranger mentality coming through,
Like only only you know, outof one hundred people, only five made
it. Yeah, I'm gonna beI'm gonna be one of those five because
if I'm not, I'm a bitch, you know. So it's like I'm
just gonna use negative reinforcement to makeme one of those five people. Go

(09:24):
with what works? Yeah man.But yeah, this year, you know,
it's been awesome as far as bigwins this year, Exciting for things
to come out next year, butalso like a lot of realization and you
know a lot of chat trials andtribulations. Physically, I did we did
the Baton death March, Oh mygosh, And I think looking back on
that, that was absolutely that wasthat was really that was the I mean

(09:48):
physically, that's the hardest thing Idid last year. And you can blame
me and I because you planned thatroute. I full take full responsibility for
making you more of a man camera. Yeah, thanks buddy, Yeah,
I do. I do. WhenI tell it story though, I always
say, I always mentioned I'm likeand I'm going to fire Izzy because you
know, sometimes there's these things calledcontour lines on the map and they tell

(10:11):
you the elevation, and when yousee like a lot of them together,
it means and it's probably not smartto like put that in the middle.
Yeah, you know, of theroute you play it literally it was in
the middle. It was I mean, yeah, man, that was just
I think I've laid that on alack of attention to detail. Yeah,
you were just like looking at iton a two dimensional map and you're like,

(10:33):
yeah, that looks flat, youknow. No, you know what
I was thinking about. I wasthinking of two places that I know from
my childhood that I want to visit, and I just literally put I put
I put the route in between thosetwo places. You know. I mean,
hey, we did it, Wedid do it. Yeah, I
mean it was good, but likeright, mile fifteen. It took us

(10:54):
like two hours to go like onepoint four miles. Yeah, because it
was just so short but just sosteep. Yeah. Yeah, this was
like mile fifteen when I was feelingit, but yeah you already yeah,
yeah, every step was like owow ow ow. But no, that

(11:15):
was fun. Looking back on that, it was you know, that was
the farthest distance I've ever been to. But uh yeah, looking back on
that. Actually, next year Iplan on doing the LA Marathon. Really
yeah, it's like when is that. It's like maybe March or May.
I don't know. The longer awaythe better for me, I guess.
But yeah, but uh yeah.My buddies approached me and they're like,

(11:37):
hey, we're doing this as agroup and like this this company sponsoring us
because we want to they want to, like the raise awareness for betteran suicide
and we just have to run theLA Marathon. And I'm like that sounds
miserable, when is it? So? I want to keep I want to
keep doing hard stuff. Yeah,I know. I think that's the biggest

(11:58):
thing, because, like you know, if you keep doing, if you
intentionally do hard things when something challengingapproaches you. That was unintentional. You
go in with the mindset knowing thatI can do hard stings, so like
regardless of the circumstance, like Iwill come out on top. Yeah,
I think it's a it's a Iwant to do the same thing too,

(12:22):
man, I want to keep challengingmyself because I don't want to get comfortable.
I used to think that was kindof cliche and like sappy, like
raw rap David Goggin's motivation stuff.But I really need to carry the boats.
Yeah, I really do want to, UH want to really challenge myself
and stay in that. I wantto just keep keep achieving, keep stay
in that high kind of growth mindsetor whatever mentality of constant growth and uh

(12:46):
and constant challenge because, like yousay, hard times are coming for some
of us. Hard times you're alreadyhere. Maybe you're going through it right
now. But if you get it'slike training, If you train beforehand and
you get that good mindset, whenthings actually happen, you're gonna snap into
you always revert to your highest levelof training, you know, in a
crisis situation. So I want thattoo, man, I want that in

(13:07):
the new year. Yeah, No, it's gonna be good. But uh,
yeah, we have a lot ofthings that happened this year, not
only in our lives, but well, let's you want to talk about some
like some not just about movies andstuff, but did did anything else happen
this year that you were like thatwas super cool? Looking back on it,
You're like, yeah, this wasa good memory. Well, I

(13:28):
love I love New Year's resolutions,or I love looking back and reflecting on
the year prior, because like Isaid, like I want to grow,
I want to understand myself, andit's always good to kind of introspect self
reflect But uh, in terms ofyou know, I'm glad I started the
new YouTube channel. That was somethingthat just happened a little more the latter

(13:50):
half of the year, but earlier, like, uh, you know our
buddy Mike Levy who is knockout lightson on Instagram and TikTok as a firearms
guy. Two a guy his propertyjust got devastated by rains right here in
California. And if you don't know, if you know anything about southern California,
something, California is not a goodplace to have a lot of rain
because it doesn't go anywhere and itgets into people's properties and it goes all

(14:13):
the places that are basically where we'vebuilt our homes. And so his property
got devastated. He lost I meanmaybe millions of dollars definitely hundreds of thousands
of dollars worth of equipment and hisranges, his livelihood. This is how
he makes money, is putting onclasses and stuff. And so we did
a charity stream. I got aCabo Malay, who's a great dude,
former SF guy, and then ourbuddy Patrick from Savage Actual showed up and

(14:37):
we did like a charity stream man, and we gave away unbelievably awesome prizes
and we just tried to save upto give some money to him, you
know what I mean, just tryto help him out. That was my
first taste of coordinating something like that, and it was just like, here's
one thing, I'm definitely going toput a lot more thought process into what
prizes and who can get certain prizesor whatever, because man, the charity

(15:01):
stream was one day. The prizedistribution was like three months of my life
on my life, like cause Ijust couldn't it was coordinating it's back and
forth and emails and saw the kindof you know, and it just it
was, it was. It wasa mess. But because I remember,
I remember that stream I I hoppedon for a little bit, like,
came over and the amount, firstof all, the amount of prizes you

(15:24):
guys were giving out, I waslike, you would be idiotic not to
be here. Yeah, we're talkingguns, we're talking free tattoos, We're
talking like yeah, yeah, ohmy god. Yeah man, I don't
know how you guys came up withthat list to give it away, but
I'm sure, man, he's gotsome hoops, you know. Yeah.
I was just so shocked with theamount given away, and like, yeah,

(15:48):
I can only imagine how much likecoordination and you know, logistics went
into afterwards. Dude, that's yeah, but that was a good stream.
You guys raised a good amount,right you didn't you helped them out.
It was yeah, we got acouple thousand dollars together and just just gave
it to him, man, Andthat was good. I definitely want to
do more collaborations with Kawa and peoplelike that on online again. Me and

(16:10):
the wife were given a package ofa year membership to survival Schools coins survival
schools out here in California and wewent to their Civilian Seer School Civilian Survival
of Asian Resistance and Escape, andthat it was great. Man, it
was a great weekend. It was. It was another one of those things
where like it was hard, itwas difficult. There was some real struggle

(16:32):
in there, especially just getting coldand wet, like having the host splashed
on you up in the mountains kindof outside of town here in southern California.
And it was an experience and itwas just so amazing doing it with
my wife. My wife is tough. My wife is very resilient. That's
good. She's also not eating lunchin the kitchen right now and hearing everything.
I love a full resilient wife.No. She it was amazing because

(16:55):
I didn't know like how she washandled. I know, my wife's just
she definitely even keel like she can. She's not given to, you know,
outbursts of emotion or anything like that. So she's very Yeah, she's
very level headed. So she actuallythrived in that environment because she can just
put her head down and just dothe work, you know. And we

(17:15):
did some work that weekend. Butit was so did they do to you?
What did they do? I wasalways curious are you allowed to say,
yeah, yeah, oh yeah.It's basically they're trying to get you
ready for a situation where let's sayyou're in a foreign kidnapped country where you
get kidnapped. Yeah, and thatis a very real thing that happens,
and well it's super valuable. Theytake you through all sorts of survival stuff
and then also kind of getting outof handcuffs that kind of thing, defeating

(17:37):
those different methods for that, andthen they basically fake kidnap you. They
turn the lights off, they throwa couple of flash bangs into the room
where you're in, they yell atyou, they put bags on your heads,
and then they kind of put youin cabins and they're they're always they're
yelling at you, they're berating you, you know, just to stress you
out, kind of put you inthat situation and uh, and then you
do an interrogation kind of thing whereyou know, you're you're in a room

(18:00):
and they're like basically just spraying youwith a host And this is, like
I said, up in the mountains, it's like thirty degrees you know,
yeah, and you're it's cold,you're shivering, uncontrollably, and then they're
also asking you questions to kind ofkeep your mind focused, and they do
this fun thing. Well, they'lldo research, like if you have any
kind of Internet presence, they'll findit and they'll be like, so,
you know, you're a bit ofan Internet star, aren't you Israel?

(18:21):
You know? And uh and theyyeah, you're cold and wet, and
then there's a kind of a momentwhere they let you change clothes and then
you have to escape and you're justspending it's like nine o'clock, ten o'clock
at night and all the way intothe next day you got to evade.
You're out in the world, runningaround and they're looking at it like a
good time. Yeah it is,man. Me and Brittany decided that we

(18:41):
would try to stay together, andso we snuck around together and found hiding
spots and kind of curled up becauseyou know, my wife, uh,
my wife doesn't retain heat very well. So I was like her. I
was like her her tontan you know, stars she cut me open and call
inside if I died. But uh, it was fun, man, it
was very The coolest thing was thatwe did it together. That's sweet.

(19:03):
Man. That's I feel like,cause you know, the the relationships you
make in the military are all throughlike pain and suffering, and those are
like the best memories. So tobe able to do that with your partner,
I feel like, is like thebest bond builder other than doing like
hallucinogenics together, you know. Butyeah, that's I'm super happy you guys

(19:26):
got to do that. Like,yeah, I want to put my fiance
through some like kidnapping stuff, sothat sounds like a good time that she'd
be super into. But cool,man, I got to I got to
visit Pearl Harbor, no kidding,which was super impactful. I got to
go to Pearl Harbor, and Iremember when I was in one of my
squad laders was like during block leave, he went to Pearl Harbor and he

(19:48):
just was talking about how just likeamazing it was and amazing and not not
like the not in a good sense, but like you know, you get
there and they you're sitting on topof the rubble of like these you know,
these boats that went down and thousandsAmericans died right there, and when

(20:11):
you get there, they ask youlike everybody shut up. They're like nobody
talk, and you when you're standingthere, you're sitting on top of it,
you can see all the rubble andyou just have that pit in your
stomach and it's like, dude,it's a life changing. It's like if
you have the chance to go asan American, it was it was like,

(20:32):
dude, it was like my heartwas being wrenched on the entire time.
Like I was so proud to beAmerican at that time. But when
you go back, there's like thisentire ground because you have to take like
a boat out to the uh youknow, to the actual memorial, but
like there's a museum and you know, we didn't do everything right during that
time, like the amount of POW'swe took, like Hawaiian Japanese residence,

(20:53):
Yeah, internment camps and stuff likethat. Yeah, like we had internment
camps on like our side, andthe girl. The cool thing is like
they don't try to hide any ofthat, you know, it's like,
Okay, this is history. Yeah, you know, this is what we
did and it might have been wrong, it might have been right at the
time, but like, yeah,it impacted a lot of people. But
I think just that memorial in general, like the entire Pearl Harbor experience was

(21:14):
like one of the highlights of myyear. So like, if you ever
get the chance to go, Ihighly recommend it because it was. Yeah,
it was just an awesome experience.That's cool, man. Well,
anything else you want to mention aboutyour year before we get into kind of
the best and the worst of whatwe experienced in terms of pop culture.
Ah, I mean I started anew company. Cool buddies call us about

(21:38):
that. Yeah, no, it'sso like we started. I'm a VP
now on the side of a governmentprocurement company. So pretty much if you've
seen war Dogs, that was thevision. Oh okay, it's not a
joke. Like my buddy came upto me and he's like, have you
seen war war Dogs? And Iwas like yeah, He's like I'm doing

(21:59):
that. It's like but I justdon't know anybody, Like I don't know
who to talk to it. I'mlike, well, that's funny because I
know all those people. So likewe kind of partnered up and he's like,
watch war Dogs. It's not amovie anymore. It's no guideline.
Okay, but let's try to keepit like legit. You know, it's
try not to like you know,make Chinese amual, like try to advertise
Chinese ammunition as you know, USlavin or something. But yeah, yeah,

(22:21):
I started going down that and it'ssuper cool rabbit hole, like you
know, if you're not making money, you're learning. Yeah, I get
to learn all these pieces of equipmentand all this gear and this whole new
language that is the government's language.So that was super cool. So I
started doing that this year, andyou know, we've gotten our first contract,
like we sent a tennis court toUS embassy and ah in in Uganda,

(22:44):
so super random, Like the governmentbuys and does every there's contracts for
everything. So I thought that wassuper cool. So that was a highlight
of this year too, like newbusiness endeavors and whatnot. So oh,
that's amazing. Man. That's reallythe name of the game from the little
amount of freedom that I've experienced tryingto get this YouTube channel off the ground,
just the work rhythm and learning todo it. Man, I hope

(23:06):
it's successful because it's a lot offun. You know something working for yourself
is really a lot of fun.It's a lot of responsibility, but yeah,
it takes some specific individual If you'relazy, you're not going to succeed.
No, but yeah, you willreap the fruits of your labor.
I swear to you, and sowill I. You know. But but
with that, you got any lastminute ones? Are you ready to dive

(23:26):
in? Then? Man, thiswas an interesting year for pop culture.
Let's talk about it. It wasinteresting, to say the least. Before
this podcast started, we were like, this year it sucked. Yeah,
like this kind of a garbage yearfor movies. Movies specifically. I guess
there was some good TV and we'lltalk about some video games and stuff in
that department, but yeah, moviewise, I was kind of doing research.

(23:48):
Yeah, I'm looking at them likeI didn't see it, didn't care,
don't care, don't care. Thatsucked. That sucked. You know.
Yeah, this disclaimer, folks,This is all the stuff that I
and Cameron have personally viewed. Butyeah, yeah, but it's kind of
not a very good kind of Yeah. I felt the same thing as I
was looking through because I went throughIMDb, like you know, release dates,
and I'm just like scrolling and I'mlike, oh, yeah, I

(24:10):
saw that, but nothing was justlike oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
you know, yeah, lots ofthis, not too many of like this
yeah, yeah, one thumbs up, Yeah shaky shaky thumbs up, or
you're like, okay, yeah,like it was worth my money, I
guess. But I mean, let'slet's talk about some of the best,
okay, of twenty twenty three.Not necessarily the best of all time,

(24:32):
but I think there are some moviesthat came out this year that are worth
talking about absolutely. First up,Pussing Boots, The Last Wish. Yeah,
it was really good. I reallyIt's one of those movies that like
when you say you hear like,wait, really like it was. I
think it was like director video orno. It may have been in theaters
for a little bit, but likeyou hear somebody say, like this is

(24:52):
it's not just a good animated movie. It's a great film. It's like
the Paddington two idea, you know, where it it's it was like a
return to form of really good justclassic character work and character arc stuff,
you know, and every character init, Posting Boots included, has a
struggle and something that he is dealingwith. And it's not just uh you

(25:17):
know, it's not like a lightheartedthing. It's it's spoilers, folks.
It's like having to do with moreyour own mortality, like die death and
how do you face that? Andhow do you become instead of selfish?
How to become selfless? And uhand every character in that in that in
that movie has something to contribute tothe overall story. So uh, it

(25:41):
was kind of one of those sleepersfor me personally because I'm like putting boots.
I you know, I watched Shrekone and two. That was it.
I haven't seen anything in that franchiseever since. Shrek fan, yeah,
a big Shrick fan. Yeah,alright, this swamp yeah, all
right, Oh that's awesome. Man, good But I mean, and only
Mandaroz is great. He's a greatactor. And then uh, and so

(26:03):
but I haven't seen any of anyof those other ones. But man,
oh man, this is good.You know, it's just really good.
I'm really sorry, is he?Upon inspection of this movie December twenty one,
twenty twenty two. Oh it cameout twenty two. Oh man,
I let you get it out.But I don't think I am failure.

(26:27):
I have to. I can't doa podcast anymore. Okay, well how
about we make it up this Wehave one that we watched together and actually
it was super It was really goodthat I enjoyed ce Sue. Oh yeah,
definitely top not I think SU wasdefinitely one of the top movies of
the year. Yeah. It's reallyhard to do innovative action. Yeah,

(26:48):
action movies. There's just so many, man, and it's it's it's it's
tough, man, it's tough.That's to not be derivative. It's tough
to be fun and friend to makeit feel like it's fun and fresh.
And this is one of those moviesthat makes it feel that way. Yeah,
you know, yeah, no,yeah, no, dude. YEAHSU

(27:10):
was was great. I mean,essentially it was John Wick but you know,
finish, but just the grit ofthat character. M hm. It
was good. And you can't,you know, you cannot stop making movies
about just massacring Nazis. I thinkthe biggest thing about like action innovation is
ways to kill people. Yeah,so, like that movie had probably some
of the most creative deaths I've seen. Yeah, like literally going down in

(27:37):
the water and every time they wentto go get his body, he would
slice the throat open and one ofthe Nazis and just suck through the wound
all the air out of their lungs. To like keep himself underwater, like
that was man. Whoever wrote thathats off, Like that is a great
scene. Yeah, yeah, CeSue was awesome movie. I've won this
one's gonna be out of left field. But super Mario Bros. Dude,

(28:00):
Hey yeah yeah, great great movies. Solid yeah yeah, super solid,
great humor, great, just storyin general. And like I remember just
cracking up on the airplane when Iwas watching this, and I didn't expect
anything. I was like, oh, you know, I might as well
just watch this movie because it's likehere. Then there's nothing else of interest
that that I haven't seen, SoI watch it, and like I just

(28:22):
remember being glued to the backseat ofthe tariff front of me because like there's
such a good mix. There's likehumor for children, but then there's also
humor for like adults in there,right, And then they also include elements
from like the game. Like sometimeswhen the characters are running and they're doing
the scene, they'll like kind ofdo just like a nice uh side scan

(28:45):
or what's what's how do you sayit? Yes, side scrolling game,
or they're like like they're basically likedefeeding what you do in the game.
And then transitioning back to like threeD and it's like it's just so well
done. Yeah, it's an example. Yeah, it's a good example of
the video game to movie translation.He's like, I would put like I
would put Doom, the Doom moviewith the Rock in the category of not

(29:07):
a good way to translate a videometo a movie, because, like you
say, they take literal elements fromlike gameplay elements from the movie or from
the video game and put him inthe movie. But that has to be
wrapped up in a good story.You know. You can't get by on
the novelty like Doom does the firstperson shooter like sequence in it when you

(29:30):
basically take Carl Urban's point of viewand he's and it looks kind of like
it's a video game. But that'swhen it's I didn't think that was well
done at all, and it wasin the context of it just a really
stupid I just hate that. Ihate that movie. But Mario Brothers,
they had a good you know,Mario's got some challenges to overcome, he's
got some confidence issues. You know, the character development, there's good characters,

(29:55):
the actors that are screening him,you know, Jack black as Bowser.
Awesome. Yeah, yeah, great, great. So if we're spreading
hate about video games to to like, you know, live action, the
Halo series disappointment. Sure, I'vetried to block it from a memory.
Yeah, it was twenty twenty two, but I recently just watched it because

(30:19):
it just came. It wasn't onParamount anymore. It came to Amazon Prime.
So I was like, oh,now I can see what all the
hates about. And I was like, yeah, no, we wait to
make you know, master Chief alittle whitey baby and like, you know,
yeah, it's like, oh,he's got to talk to a therapist,
like Jesus Man. Yeah. Ionly I only saw the pilot.
I only saw the first episode.When they had him take off his helmet,

(30:42):
I knew this wasn't the show forme. Not like he can't take
off his helmet, but it wasa very clear message, especially and they
had a human in the Covenant too, which I don't know if they Yeah,
I didn't like that either, butit was I knew it was going
to be a different show. Itwas not going to be more closely in
line with the maybe the themes orthe storylines of the games, not that

(31:04):
again, let's just qualify that thatyou don't have to follow the games exactly.
But I the hardest part is takingthe best parts of what made the
games great and translating them into adifferent medium. And I was like,
this is not that's not the showfor it. Let me tell you.
Master Chief has his helmet off mostof the time. Yeah, yeah,

(31:26):
which is like goes against every singlegame, like you never see his face.
That's that's why Mandalorian did so good, you know, Yeah, I
mean I get Here's the thing ina video game. One of one of
the creators kind of said this,where in the video game, when you
have a character that has a maskor whatever, it's kind of makes it
easier for the player to step intothe toes, you know, or the

(31:48):
shoes rather step into those host someof the shoes of the of the character
itself. Right when you have him, when you see their face and they
have a voice, and it's adifferent kind of experience if you're gonna,
I mean, if you're gonna havehim take off his helmet. I think
that I don't think that was asmuch a problem for me as who he
was as a person, Like hewas not this kind of world weary or

(32:13):
war wherey kind of like I don'tknow, he just dedicated. I don't
know. Maybe I like, maybeI can't say anything because I didn't I
didn't bother to watch the rest ofthe series. But it just seemed like
a bad movie. It was.I didn't like it. I mean,
I feel really bad because I likePablo Schreider. Yeah yeah, he like
you know, played a ranger inthirteen Hours, Like yeah, it but
I mean he does a good job, like he fits the character. But

(32:36):
just how they wrote it and likehow he was it was just like man
like they made him in They mademaster Chief into like a whiney baby,
like it was not cool. That'sfar for the course for modern day entertainment.
I think in the in the culturalmoment that they're in, it's you
gotta you gotta knock that guy downa couple of pegs, you know,
you gotta be yeah, you gottahave some women in there to teach him

(32:57):
some good lessons, you know.Oh yeah, there's two. Like he's
on a team where like two femalespartans and like one one black dude,
and like they just run rampant.You know, it's like crazy but anyways,
Yeah, that wasn't even from thisyear. But let's talk. Let's
go back to this, back tothis year. Yeah, sorry, it
was so bad the effects followed usthrough the year. But uh, Mission

(33:17):
Impossible, Dead Reckoning, Okay,yeah, great that movies of the year,
I think. Yeah, absolutely oneof the movies. One of the
only movies I saw in theaters thisyear. Wow. Man, Yeah,
you don't go to the movie theatersa lot. No, I wait for
it to come home because I'm kindof I like, I like sitting in
my in my couch and enjoying stuff. Yeah. No, but I do

(33:37):
like the experience. Like if I'mgoing to the movie theater, it better
be a good reason, like Iwent. For example, I saw Mission
Impossible, Dead Reckoning in the theater. I saw John Wick four in the
theater this year, didn't Yeah,and then also I saw Top Gun Maverick
in the theater. I see moviesthat deserve to be seen in the theaters.

(33:58):
Yeah, totally. Yeah, yeah, even if you didn't go see
it, which, by the way, you should definitely go see it.
He even had like a special introductionto Yeah, at least he's like,
thank you for coming out. Puta lot of work into this and we
love it when you come out.It should be experienced on the big screen,
like because it was like that JohnWick and Top Gun. That's it's
such a big spectacle that you youshould do yourself justice and go see him

(34:22):
on the big screen. Yeah.Plus it's like a dying age. Man,
it's kind of sad, you know. Yeah, man, they got
a lot to compete with home theaters. Yeah, streaming services just convenience,
yep, yeah, in a convenientworld. Yeah, we do, we
do. I feel like it's goingto be more and more like it's going
to be kind of more of aexclusive experience, kind of like did you

(34:44):
ever go to the Ipic Theaters orone of those or Almo Draft House.
It's where it's a whole dinner inthere and you can order food and they
bring it to you. It's likeit's oh yeah, like a top tier
premium experience. Oh yeah, whenthey're like twenty five bucks a ticket.
Yeah yeah, yeah, oh yeah. We used to have one of those
by my house growing up. Yeah. You go in there, the reclines

(35:06):
all the way back, you're inlike a lazy boy. Yeah, you
get dinner right there out yeah.Yeah, that's an experience that's good.
Yeah, so mission Impossible. Foranother way, Oppenheimer came out later in
the year, that was a topnotch one. It's Oppenheimer's was one of
those ones for me this year thatreminds me of why I like film so

(35:28):
much, or or or all thata film can be, because Christopher Nolan
is a film maker. There's directors, and then there's filmmakers. There's people
like let's point the camera here,all right. They're kind of companymen or
whatever, and they kind of dothat, do the do the thing and
get it out there, kind ofpump it out. And then there's people
who think about it, people whounderstand all aspects of movie movie making and
and have a vision. Yeah.No, that's Christopher Nolan. I mean

(35:51):
when Openheimer came out and they weredoing like some of the marketing release of
like behind like the making of Oppenheimer, like just like used film, like
a specific film that they're just like, you know, back in the there's
like the wide screen and you havelike, you know, the full screen,
and there was like a mix betweenthe two, and he like explained
the reasoning behind it, and I'mlike Jesus. This guy like knows like

(36:15):
the experience, like he is anartist. He isn't a director, he's
an artist. Yeah yeah, yeah. Uh. Last one kind of in
the best category that I had downfor me was Avatar Wave of Water only
because of what we're talking about,or mostly because of what we're talking about
in terms of the spectacle in thetheaters. Yeah, I have to go.
You have to see it on asbig as screen as possible, on

(36:36):
as nice as screen as possible,with a nice sound system, because that's
that's what James Cameron wants you tohave. That with that experience, story
was okay, you know, butI feel like James Cameron knows enough.
He's a he's a writer, he'swritten stuff before. He knows enough to
have a good solid line storyline withpeople with you. They got stuff to

(37:00):
do, somewhere to go. There'sa conflict and uh but it's not it's
not the best told story. There'sa lot of holes in it. Some
things don't make sense. But itlooks amazing. It looks great. Yeah,
even I mean when the original Avatarcame out, that was like that
changed something, you know. Yeah, it was like that's when like three

(37:22):
D TVs were being released, remember, yeah, yeah, yeah, and
that was like the big pushing pointbecause they're like, watch Avatar in three
D at home. Yeah, andit was, but now and then it
also we've been waiting on this sequelfor seven yeah, six seven years or
something. It was. I thinkit was right out more than that,

(37:44):
man, because I think it wasright after I got out of the out
of the military. I think itwas right when I got No, no,
it was. This is like thirteenfourteen years ago. Avatar. Yeah,
Avatar, google it, folks,tell us in the comments. Actually,
he's gonna look at it right now. I'm looking right now. Avatar.

(38:04):
James Cameron, this movie, Ohmy god, you're right there.
Two thousand and nine. Two thousandand nine, Yeah, that was the
year I got out. I rememberseeing I was in Washington. I remember
seeing posters for it that it wasgonna come out, and then I think
I saw it because this movie stayedin theaters for a year long, like
a year. It was. Yeah, like it was in probably one of
the longest movies to ever stay intheaters. Yeah it guy had said it

(38:29):
said, all these records, whatwas it like two billion or whatever.
Something some astronomical number. Yeah.But yeah, so if it came out
in two thousand and nine, tenyears later, fourteen years. We waited
for this sequel for fourteen years andthere's still what three more that need to
come out? Yeah, I thinkhe has three more planned more planned.
Yeah, it's good. It's awhole thing. I know that. I

(38:51):
haven't played it. But later inthe late part of this year, they
had the Avatar video game. Yeah, it's like Fight for Bandora that came
out. So it's a whole franchiseand a whole multimedia vision that they have
planned. And James Cameron he's gonnatake his time, man, He's gonna
take his sweet time, and he'sgonna get all that man, because he's
no Spring Chicken either. You know. He's gonna be there, Yeah,

(39:12):
another ten years, and he's notgoing to have dementia. Yeah, I
mean he's a vegan, so whoknows how I was about how I was
going to deteriorate, you know.Yeah, well, yeah, I know
Avatar was good. It was justexciting. I think it was exciting to
like be here for it, youknow. Yeah, that was more like
that that experience, which was betterthan the actual movie itself that like,
oh my god, we've waited fourteenyears for a sequel and now it's coming

(39:32):
out, so that was cool.One thing for me, I liked Renfield
just because I'm a I'm a NicholasCage fan, and I think he did
a really good job National National Treasure, you know. And then it's hard
to do horror movies nowadays. Thisone actually came out really recent Cobweb.

(39:53):
I've not heard of this. Oh, I really liked it. It was
just like, to me, ithad all all like the reckonings of what
makes a good horror movie. Okay, Like I think Anthony Starr is in
it. Yeah, Anthony Starr playsthe father, and like it's just a
really creative story. There's like agood monster in it. It's like not

(40:14):
based in reality, like obviously,but I think just the way it was
filmed and like how you know there'sa monster, and like they don't show
it to you, okay, okayuntil the very end, and it's just
like the suspense the way they doit. The story is just really good.
That's cool. I like Lizzie Kaplantoo, and Anti often. I've
got two buddies. My buddies Danand Sean. Yeah, they are horror

(40:36):
efficionados. They see everything even ifit's gonna suck, and they know it's
gonna suck, they'll see it anywaybecause they want horror films, and so
I'll have to ask them. Theycan recommend it. Yeah, yeah,
I recommend it. I liked it. Let me ask you this. Don't
give it, try not to giveanything away, but let me ask you
this. Uh, how is theending? Was it a satisfying ending?
Was it kind of a darker ending? Was it a darker ending? Okay,

(40:59):
all right, I don't know.If I don't know, if I
want, I'll want to watch itthen because I am I'm as human being.
It's like it ends And you're like, oh okay, all right,
that's a pretty good description. Yeah, Like I mean like, yeah,
you just have to yeah, allright, you're like, oh okay,

(41:20):
I don't know how else to tellyou about. Well, let me ask
you this. Did you ever seeOculus? Oculus? No? Okay,
that's a Mike Flannagan one. Isthat the one about like the actual like
sphere? No thirteen? No,No, No, it's a Oculus is
a it's a horror movie. WithUh, she played What's Are by Mike

(41:42):
Flanagan, Mike Flann, Karen Gillan, Karen Gillian. Yeah, she was
in the Gardens of the Galaxies movies. Yeah, Nebula. This is some
French. It's pretty dark. It'spretty dark, and the ending is not
a happy ending. It it's veryvery like the bad guys win, the
Devil reigns Supreme kind of stuff like, yeah, because my flag, he

(42:04):
doesn't mess around. Man, Iwill watch that, all right, all
right, you have to watch it. So all right, folks, that's
the high lights. Now it's timefor the low lights in the area.
Uh. And with this should bea larger category. Uh. The reason
why it should be a larger categorybecause there was a lot of crap that
came out this year. But thelist is not overly long because I don't

(42:29):
have a lot of time on myhands, and if I'm not really excited
for something, I'm not gonna botherto watch it because I don't have that
much time. Yeah. I tryto skip all the crappy ones, you
know. And I mean, likethe list you made, I think it's
really appropriate. Okay, good,Yeah, I think it's very appropriate because
there's one that I one hundred percentagree with that I thought was just absolute
trash, you know, not good, pile of garbage, like terrible,

(42:52):
like it's so bad. Which oneis it? Let's start there, Okay,
the Flash. The Flash was Garbaggioto say that nice way possible.
It was so bad. Yeah,and it's I think, well, I
think a lot of these except formade one or two. They not only

(43:13):
were they bad movies, but theyare made even worse because of the anticipation
that I had. I'm like,oh, this is gonna please be good.
Please the trailer. The trailer wasso cool, you know, looking
at it, you're like, ohmy god, retro bratman. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, it just didn'tdeliver. But you know, I have
to be like, it's so hard. I was who was I talking to

(43:36):
you the other day? Actually,no, it was you know when we
had our good old buddy Chad MichaelCollins and he's no, nobody wants to
make a bad you know, soyou have to have a little bit of
empathy and a little bit kind individual. Yeah. Yeah, and over here
we're saying this scar page shit.Yeah, it's so mean, but I'm

(43:57):
sure they didn't want to make abad movie. Yeah, a lot of
mistakes. For me. Well,I think and and and you know,
based on what very little YouTube researchI've done, I think it was a
very fraught production. There was alot of problems it went through. I
think it passed through a couple ofhands. Uh, you know, in
terms of direction. The pandemic didn'thelp it. You know, the just

(44:20):
you know, the star you know, what's his name, creepy boy flash
boy, but he you know,he he didn't help. That was more
publicity kind of thing. But EzraMiller, Ezra, I am a creepyzoid
Miller, Yes, but you know, I guess you know, he's a

(44:44):
competent enough actor. But it didn'thelp it. They were very good.
Yeah, it didn't help you.There was two of him, Yeah,
two of him. It was liketoo many. Yeah, it's a kind
of it just just wasted, justwasted nostalgia, wasted character opportunities. Car
Zarel Supergirl. That's not a putdown, that's her name, but just

(45:07):
kind of Yeah, Michael Shannon,I think even Michael Shannon, he came
back is in other like he wasdisappointed. He said, essentially, they
didn't give me anything to do.I had no purpose in being there.
I was just kind of there tofacilitate somebody else's story and I didn't have
anything substantial to do or no,you know, no no real kind of

(45:27):
like I don't know, just likeno real purpose. But yeah, super
super disappointing. And uh, well, we'll channel with Chad Michael Collins a
little bit in this and say,I'm sure they didn't set out to make
a bad movie, but whether itwas through the writing or it passing through
hands or at them recutting, there'salways the recutting reshooting things. Whenever there's

(45:49):
things are going downhill and they testaudiences don't like it, they try to
go back and they try to fixit, and that's when things get really
they things can go really bad becausethe story has to be throughout, and
this one it seems like just amess man and bad CGI. I don't
know if I don't know if muchmore needs to be said about that,
but you really just pointless cameos,the whole pointless cameras with the multiverse balls

(46:13):
kind of floating around. Nicholas kgDigolas Cage said something where they brought him
on set and he was supposed todo this thing where he's walking around and
looking at like a destroyed earth orworld or something, and that's what he
did. And he was on setfor just a little bit and then he
goes to see the movie or whatever. He sees the movie finally, and
it's him fighting a giant spider,just like in you know, the Kevin

(46:35):
Smith story that he tells about theorigin of that what might have been the
Nicholas Cage Superman. Yeah. Yeah, it was just a big, big,
big dispartment. So I mean,that's all I have to say about
that. Yep, that's maybe that'sall it needs to be said. Yeah,
but uh, you have one here, which I'm I haven't seen this,

(46:57):
but I'm intrigued. Hurts my heart, man, it hurts my heart
to even talk about this. Iwas so excited for the creator and it
was so bad. It's one ofthose movies where sometimes you go into a
movie and it's just not as goodas you thought. It might have been,
like a missed opportunity. But yeah, this this is a legitimately bad
movie. You know, like thethe the main characters character arc didn't didn't

(47:22):
work, you know, kind ofhis like little redemption arc and how he
changed the logic of this whole superweapon thing that that floats above the earth
and is like kind of the mainyou know, weapon that they used.
That the logic of that thing didn'twork. It looked great. You could

(47:45):
tell that there were a lot ofhomages to paying homage to different movies like
Blade Runner and some sci fi epics. Oh, John David Washington, he's
I've never been a big fan ofhis acting. I didn't think would be
a problem. Uh, it wasa problem in this one. Yeah,
just yeah, logical leaps things,not making sense, not knowing why they're

(48:07):
doing what they're doing, or thereasons for what they're doing not working out.
They do this thing and I wonderif they've done they did, like
how to do research. But theydo this thing where they'll add in important
exposition, important information that the audienceneeds to know off screen or when a
when an actor's back is turned.But you know, they did it in

(48:27):
a adr because they might have cuta previous scene where that exposition was given,
that information was given, and theycut it for whatever reason. Now
they need it, so they haveto put it in somewhere else. And
so it's this really funny thing I'malways looking for it, because if a
movie's not grabbing me or not makingsense, I'm trying to listen for that
ADR stuff. Where so it's like, it's a good thing we grab that

(48:51):
secret device before we left the baseand that you know, he's off screen
or his back is turned you know. Yeah, and there was there's a
lot of that was a fair amountof that in this movie, and it
just it's one of it does justmissing marks, like where they're like,
oh my god, Okay, wegot a schedule a day or someone's gonna
have to like voice over this inkind of like is that what you mean

(49:12):
by ADR? Yeah, ADR isit has a specific name. It's not
additional dialogue recording. It's like ithas it's a technical name for it.
But it's when they add in.Yeah, they go in after after they've
shot the movie and they have tomaybe it was loud on set that day
or whatever, and they have toput in and they have to match the
mouth movements of what they did orin this case, they have to add

(49:32):
in very important dialogue that explains somethingabout something that the audience needs to know.
And uh yeah, just just themore you think about it, the
more I think about it, themore confusing things become, because what characters
say and do they don't necessarily makesense. The character choices that they make

(49:54):
don't make sense, like why wouldyou do that when you could just do
this over here? And characters goand do and say things because Gareth Edwards
needed them to go and say anddo things in order for him to facilitate
an action happening by the main characteror whatever. But they don't make sense
as those characters they you know,you know what I mean. It's like

(50:15):
sometimes when a character does something,they're doing it out of who they are,
you know, who you know themto be, what's been established,
Or they do stuff because the plotneeds to happen sure now, and you're
like, all right, I guessthey're doing that now. It doesn't make
sense, but you know, it'sjust great performance by the little kid though
in it, I was thinking thiswas her first, her first little movie,

(50:38):
but she's like the little android kidthat everybody's going after. She's like
the savior of the uh the world. Ralph Innoson always a great guy,
but yeah, oh, Madeline UnaVoile, she was the little android lady
and love Ken wants an Abby JimmyChan it had a great class, but
man, oh man, it justso I'm sorry about that, buddy.

(51:01):
I know you were talking about itfor a while so much. Yeah that
sucks. Can you tell my disappointmentby yeah you went in? Yeah,
Yeah, you were saying big words. I know whenever you explain something with
big words and like actual thought behindit, like a lot, you are
like actually upset. Yeah, you'recoming at them from a technical standpoint and

(51:23):
like that takes a lot of effort. Hey listen right now, anybody listening
or watching to this, prove mewrong. I want you to comment.
I want you to write in anemail because I loved I love people coming
at me with their different perspectives,because I think art and film is really
something that you can really hash upand so I feel very passionate about it.
You tell me why it's a goodmovie or why it wasn't as bad

(51:44):
as I think. That's my challengeto you. Okay, Well, I
mean I there was TV as well. Uh. The problem with me is
this year when it comes to television, is that I did not watch a
lot of new television. Yeah.The why for in a Great Rhythm where
she kind of has her her mainstays. So we're watching Mash. She loves

(52:05):
Mash and I've never seen it before, so we're going through Mash. But
then I love The X Files andshe's willing to watch that, so we're
going through the X Files. That'swhat we do evenings, most evenings,
is we and when we're done withour workdays, we get on the couch,
we grab some tea and we justwatch an episode or two before we
go to bed. It's great,and uh, so we I did watch.
I did watch One Piece, whichcame out of the show. I

(52:27):
was very happy about that. Sothat's definitely on my best list as well.
Uh. But then I also watchedSilo and Silo on Apple TV.
So Rebecca Ferguson, who a massageonce uh and Tim Tim Tim Robbins,
the other tall actor. But it'sgreat. It was good. Uh.
Based on some novels. It's postapocalypse. Everybody, everybody who's left basically

(52:50):
in the planet lives in this giantsilo type structure. It's under the ground.
It's hundreds of stories tall or deeprather and and there's a secret,
there's a conspiracy going on. Youknow, it's basically a top down government
that controls everything. Everyone just kindof accepts it because like they got to
survive, right, It's all forthe good of the silo, you know,

(53:12):
And whenever anybody does some sort ofreally egregious violation, they have to
go out. They have to.They kick them out, and they they
put them in a suit and theyspray them down and they send them out.
And one of the things they wantthem to do is for the good
of the silo. They have acamera that always points out into the world
and shows like it's just a devastated, blasted land. It just you know.

(53:35):
But like in the very first episode, they send somebody out and she
looks around and it's all like beautiful. It's like a green Field birds chirp,
and she's like, oh, no, I have to they have to
know. And so she goes andshe wipes the thing and it was like,
yeah, she supports the silo.She's still one of us. And
then everybody who goes out there,they get like maybe fifty feet and then
they just keel over debt. Italways happens, yeah, and you don't

(53:57):
know why. And so Rebecca Fergusonworks down in the lower parts in the
engine, the very bottom the engineroom, and like they're kind of the
grungy, kind of middle work hierarchy. Yeah, exactly. The higher up
you go literally and yet there's suchsuch an important thing because they keep the
engine, the power source running.But then she ends up getting caught up

(54:20):
in kind of the upper politics andtrying to find out what the conspiracy is.
So really well done, I thinkthe problem with it is it was
the storyline and the conspiracy was verythin. It was I think ten eight
or ten episodes and it could havebeen maybe six, So like some episodes
were just kind of filler episode.They were like character exploration episodes because the

(54:43):
actual ultimate secret is you know,it's like once you there's a couple of
pieces that you need to know inorder to put everything together, and that
could have done that in like sixepisodes, but they stretched out of it.
So that would be one of mymajor criticisms of the show. But
as well acted, you know,it's kind of a cool I love sci
fi, that kind of sci fiatmosphere post apocalypse, but that would be
my close seconds. The one pieceshow just blew me away. I was

(55:06):
so happy with that man. Thatwas such a good, joyful, joyful
experience. It was good. Yeah, because I mean I'm a big I
like one piece a lot. There'shonestly so many arcs and episodes like and
it you have to get there beforeyou really appreciate it, and they just
like scratched the surface. I doappreciate though, how they're like expdiding it,

(55:30):
right. They they kind of truncate, They kind of shortened things,
and they bring in people sooner,and they have story arcs happen sooner.
Necessary. I think it's very necessarybecause like in reality, like Garp is
like the main antagonist Lufy's grandpa inthe series. In reality, you don't
meet Garp until like episode three hundredsomething. Oh my gosh. Yeah,

(55:51):
So like I appreciate that because thereis so much talking. There are so
many flashbacks in the actual anime thatyou're like please, I found myself like
actually fast forwarding through episodes, likeI can gather what happened by like skipping
four episodes of them, just likeflashing back and like wasting time. So
I think they're doing it really well, and I'm excited for season two.

(56:14):
I heard that you know, obviouslythey're going to introduce more crew members,
like Chopper, which is all gonnabe c G. I, Uh,
he's a fish guy or something likethat. No, no, No,
Chopper is the medic. He isuh, he's the medic and he's the
doctor. But he's also a rainhe's a reindeer man reindeer. Like,

(56:37):
yeah, he's a reindeer. Sohe's a reindeer. But he's like,
you know, he is a doctor. He was he was trained under this
one physician and he's good at beinga doctor. And he's gonna be all
c G. I though, Ithink I think he's like a little dude,
yeah guy, yeah, yeah,yeah, but uh man, who
is Tony Tony for Chopper? ButI did hear see how they execute that?

(57:04):
Yeah, but I did hear that. You know, Jamielee Curtis might
be in it. Yeah, becauseJamie Lee, so I could see her
playing Choppers, Like keep her what'swhat's her name, Tony Tony Choppers,
old woman, what's her name?Uh? Korea, her name is Korea,

(57:25):
doctor Koreha. He's like, she'sthe one that trains Chopper in the
end, and like Copper like worksfor her what works for for her?
And she's just like old elderly ladybut still has like a rock and hot
bod and she still wears like bellyshirts and everything, and like, uh,
I think Jamie Lee Curtis. Isaw an article that she's gonna play

(57:47):
her, and I think it wouldbe a really good cast because, like
I heard, Jamie Lee Curtis isactually a fan of One Piece, So
that's cool. Man. She's agreat actress and she you know, I'm
maybe they'll give her a few monthsto kind of like work out and say,
she's still pretty active. She didthe Halloween movies and stuff, so
maybe, yeah, it could befun. Man. Yeah, I can't
wait for for One Piece season twoas well. Let's move on to our

(58:12):
last category. Cameron, I don'tknow how much gaming you did this last
year, but I did. It'squite a bit actually, Okay, Oh
you so go crazy? Okay,I think I got to get you some
video games for Christmas, you know, or you know, hopefully. Yeah,
I know when this episode is gonnacome out, but yeah, that's
the only one at the time we'rerecording. I still gotta get to yours.
But let me just run through thesereal quick. Most of the gaming

(58:36):
I do ninety nine point nine percentof the gaming I do. I did
this year was on stream, mylive stream on Twitch, my happy self
combined and say hi sometime. Mostof you already do. And so these
are all games that I have playedor are playing on stream. The first
one is the resnuebal For remake.Really big fan of that. The remakes,

(58:57):
most of the remakes I think thatare being done in the video game
world today, are actually really welldone. They take their time, they
pick it apart and put it backtogether, and they keep the best parts,
and they improve upon game elements andstory elements that were already there.
That one was a lot of fun. It's it's the best way to do
nostalgia. Nostalgia is a tool.You can't overuse it. You can't and

(59:22):
sometimes it's done well and sometimes it'sdone not so well. New Star Wars.
But I'll pair that with the otherone of my other favorites from this
year, which was the Dead Spaceremake. The Dead Space remake, in
my opinion, is better than theoriginal. You got to give the original
credit where credit is due for beingwhat it was and introducing just some great

(59:44):
gameplay elements, a great story thattook the best parts of horror and sci
fi together. But they really reallyit's not just that they put better graphics
to it. They improve the storytellingelements. They improved Isaac Clark's arc.
I love that they gave him avoice. I'm gonna fan of characters main
characters that actually have voices and opinions. They gave him a voice in this

(01:00:05):
one like they did in the secondone back in the day, and his
psychosis and the kind of crazy stuffhis hallucinations, they make a lot more
sense once they kind of pay offwhy he was having those hallucinations at the
end of the game, and everythingin the game just looks amazing. The
graphics being updated and all that.Yeah, really fun. I'll kind of

(01:00:27):
go through these kind of quick RoboCopRogue City talk about nostalgia done right.
They definitely did that one right.It's released by the same student I think
the Determinator Resistance, which I neverplayed, but they boy. Good for
them for getting their hands on theseproperties. RoboCop. If you love RoboCop
the movies, it takes place afterthe first two, so it takes place
in between two and three, whichis probably a good thing because I never

(01:00:51):
saw three. But I don't doRoboCop Chip pac Man, but they bring
everything everything that you love. Fromhis dialogue, Peter Weller actually did the
voice of RoboCop in this one.To the eighties nostalgia, the eighties architecture
and all the characters that you lovefrom the original ed to on Nin's in

(01:01:12):
there. RoboCop two makes an appearance, the one that Caine was in,
the big, big, kind ofhulking one that has some machine gun on
the shoulder. The old man isin it from ocp. OCP is a
part of it. And you cando crotch shots. As the day is
long. You can do all crotchshots, man, And that's probably the
funnest part of the entire game.He has some great quips, but you

(01:01:34):
can do like slow motion stuff.And I was just crotch shot in all
day. Every criminal got a crotchshot. And the disrespect is real.
Yeah, oh man, man,madam, you have suffered an emotional shock.
I will call a rape crisis hotline. But it's good. It's really
great. The last one on thislist before we wrap up the best of
video games for me would be baldersGate three. Now this is a game

(01:01:58):
that I'm actually playing currently, andI don't know why I delayed so long.
In this game, it's everything Ilove about video games. It's our
RPG. It's character based decisions.It's got all sorts of decisions that you
can make that put you on separatepaths. You can do your custom character
customization, which causes you to havea different backstory, you can interact with

(01:02:20):
people differently, people interact with youdifferently. It's a beautiful world. It's
Baulders gets D and D essentially,so it's a digital D and D game.
They even throw a little bit ofthe dice rolling for initiative in there
as you play. Like I said, I'm only a couple hours into it,
but man, oh man, it'sso good, such a good game,
And this will be the game thatI'll be playing probably well into twenty
twenty four. That's if I onlywant to play it once. If I

(01:02:45):
want to play it through again,then there'll probably be the only game that
I end up streaming for quite awhile. But those are my top video
game twenty twenty three that I've played, because there's a lot there's always a
lot of video games that come outevery year. But not all of them
amazing, like these four worst.Just there's just I don't play VIDAO.

(01:03:06):
I don't have a lot of timeto play video games, so I only
play video games that I really knowI'm gonna love or have been highly recommended
to me. So the only theonly one that got on the list for
the worst is Starfield, not becauseit's a bad game. It was just
kind of a disappointment. If youif you stream enough games and you play
through enough games, the mechanics andthe story elements start to become very clear.

(01:03:28):
You can tell kind of the habitsthat video game makers tend to have,
and after a while you kind ofget it, you know, after
twenty to thirty hours, you're like, I get it. I get it.
The game play mechanics, I getit, the storytelling elements, I
get it. The only thing Idon't know is kind of ultimately who the
Starborn are. There's like this racethat attacks you, called the Starborn,

(01:03:49):
Like I'll find out. You know. The cool thing about it is that
it's totally great for exploration if youjust want to jump from planet to planet.
It's not overworld, as in,it's not no man's sky, right,
you can't just fly from plant.It's there's you know, transition scenes,
and you have to jump from plantto plant. It's not totally open
world, but it's it's it's fun. It's fun to go and explore.

(01:04:10):
If you've ever played Fallout four,it's the same creators, and they took
so long to create it. Ithink maybe even the technology that we're using
today kind of passed it by becauseit looks a little dated even. But
man, a great, great,great near future kind of technology with the
space suits and the ships. Iplayed as you camera and we made you

(01:04:31):
on stream. We made space Cameron, so that's always fun. But he's
doing all right. Man, he'salways way to becoming the ultimate star being.
So okay, I've yet to finishit. I kind of got sidetracked
with RoboCop and Balder's Gate three towardsthe last half of this year. But
yeah, but yeah, that's itfor the video game stuff. A lot
of stuff I missed out on,but I'm very thankful for games like GTFO,

(01:04:55):
Lethal Company, Ground, Branch Readyor Not, Six Stays of Flujah.
I started doing online gaming with friendsand that's been a lot of fun.
We call it friendly fire Fridays.Every Friday, we get together with
a group and we play a littlebit, a few hours worth, and
it's been it's been cool. Butthat's it for the video game category.
Well you deep dived real well,my friends, that was well we had

(01:05:16):
before we closed it out. Wedon't have a game, but we do
have a fan question and we willrespect it because it is here, even
though we're running a little longer thanusual. I do have a game.
You do have a game. Ijust saw it. Sorry, that's fine.
Then we will knock this out.So this big question comes from David
via Instagram. David wants to know. Hey, guys, hope you are
doing well. Yes, we are. So I was wondering, what are

(01:05:39):
some skills the military taught you thatyou think every day people should know or
at least learn to better themselves.Easy answer from me, right off the
top of my head. Knots andnotts are cool as hell, man,
Learn knots doesn't matter. You knowyou tie your shoe with notts. You
do every use knots every single day. Learn good ones. It'll make you
feel like a man and you canpretty much do it and anything and secure

(01:06:00):
everything and not sorts are super cool. That's awesome, man, I mean
I would love it with more formore people to get firearms training. I
think that actually would make for asafer society. But if I was talking
about a general skill that I thinkeverybody should have, it's time management.
Yeah, that's good. Punction theright time, yeah, right place,
with the right uniform and the rightequipment. You know that you can not

(01:06:23):
go wrong. I'm telling you,man, it will only benefit your life.
Uh So you better get on thatand believe it. Believe me.
Fewer people have that, I thinkin society than we think. Yeah,
man, So we hope you answeredthat question. David in a nutshell learn
how to tie k nots. That'sright and time man has been be in
the right place at the right time, in the right uniform. And if

(01:06:44):
you joined the military or you're inthe military, you've heard that a lot,
so yep, but they're true.No truer words have been spoken.
That's right. But cool. Allright, folks. Now we have a
game. It's the end of theyear game. We hope that everyone out
of great Christmas. We hope youhave a happy New Year. We're gonna
wrap this game up or wrap thisyear up raut of with this game.
It's called two Truths and a LieTV Show edition. You know how it

(01:07:11):
works, And for anyone listening whodoesn't know how it works, grow up.
Yeah. Basically, I'm gonna tellyou. I'm gonna give you a
category or a show rather and I'mgonna tell you three things about it.
You're gonna tell me which one isa lie. That's That's basically the easiest
way to explain it. Okay,I will play. All right, here
we go. First one is gonnabe there's only three of them, so

(01:07:33):
we'll just jump right in. Firstone's gonna be Game of Thrones, Game,
Game of Thrones, Truth and alie? What's fly? Number one
fact is the Red Wedding was basedon real historical events. Number two fact
is both Rocky is a real language. Number three Amelia Clark had to eat
an actual Horsehart for a scene.Uh, where is the lie? Where's

(01:07:58):
the lie? I'm gonna say bothhe was a is a real language that
is actually true. That is true. It doesn't it doesn't tell me what
how it's true or where it's whatit's based off of it? But really,
yeah, the the live part isactually, Amelia Clark had to eat
an actual horsehart for her scene inthe first season. It was actually made
of gummy candy and pasta, thoughshe did have to eat it twenty eight

(01:08:21):
times. Dude, like, earnyour spot, you know bites, I
guess I'm spot. Yeah, earnyour spot. Eat that horse heart you
know what? You ot this roll? Yeah, yeah, you got to
earn it. Okay. Anyways,she really grew up on that channel.
The next one is Avatar The LastAirbender. Okay. First fact about it

(01:08:43):
is Tof was originally going to bea sentient dragon. Second fact is Zuko
was the last character added to theshow and almost wasn't in it at all.
And number three, the series wasoriginally going to be set thousands of
years in the future. Okay,I'm gonna go ahead and say Toaf was

(01:09:04):
supposed to be a dragon because that'slike Super Disney like Mulan status. So
I'm gonna go ahead and say thatthat is correct. That is a lie.
Initially, the writer's plan was tomake Tof a ginormous looking dude with
the physique of someone like Hulkogan orthe Rock. Oh okay, and that

(01:09:24):
would have been cool because he wastrying to be a warrior. He could
be the warrior. Yeah, thatwould work for me. But nice,
okay, good instinct on that one. Finally, last one is the A
Team. The A Team show MyBoys. Mister T's character b A bra
Racas never says the phrase I pitythe fool in the show. Number two

(01:09:45):
fact, there was only one onscreen death in the entire series. At
number three, the crime the ATeam didn't commit was kidnapping, because they
you know, in the opening ofthe show they say they were thrown into
a stockade for a crime they didn'tcommit. These men promptly escape. Yeah,
okay, I'm gonna say, Idon't think mister T says I've pitied

(01:10:06):
the fool. I don't why.That's the first fact. Mister T's character
Bi Ibrocus never says the phrase Ipitied the fool in the Oh okay,
okay, yeah, yeah, okay, that's the first fact. So that
is a fact. I'm gonna say, uh oh, only one on screen
death in eighteen I don't think thatI'm gonna say that's the lie. One

(01:10:29):
on screen death, But honestly,it sounds pretty true because that would be
a wild fact because it was SeeI'm talking in circles now, so you're
doubting your well, yes, Sam'sgonna go for that one. One on
screen death. I think there's more. Oh, that fact is true.
There is one on screen death inthe entire series of the eighteen The last
one was the lie Uh in nineteenseventy two. The A team was sent

(01:10:50):
on a covert mission to rob theBank of Hanoi of gold mullion with the
intent of helping end the Vietnam War. They succeeded, only to find that
their commanding officer had been murdered ina traitorous double cross and his headquarters burned
to the ground. Unable to provethat they were acting under orders, they
were sent to a maximum security stockade. I actually didn't even know that.

(01:11:11):
I didn't know that either wore thatearlier on or later in the series.
Interesting, Well, that's good toknow. Yeah, that'll come in handy
in your life later on. That'svaluable information. Thanks Chris. I want
to say thank you to everybody whohas listened to our podcast, anybody that
joined during the year, anybody thathas joined our Patreon. It's been a

(01:11:31):
great year of watching movies with y'alland giving you extra content and yeah,
life goes on. Man. I'mlooking forward to the twenty twenty four and
we'll see what happens. Absolutely,folks, thank you from the bottom of
our hearts for being part of thiscommunity. You are super appreciated and we're
looking forward to bringing you more ofthe Pop Culture Field Manual podcast in two

(01:11:54):
thousand and twenty four. So ifthat, folks, get after those New
Year's resolution and as always, cuemusic.