105 THE FAMILY THAT STAYS TOGETHER

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105 THE FAMILY THAT STAYS TOGETHER...

Batman: Soul of the Dragon, Hunted, and Bridgerton are among the films discussed upfront, and then the gang puts aside their differences and counts on each other to get past the evil of their respective picks this week!

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Episode Transcript

Unknown (00:03):
Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration?
Somewhere between science andsuperstition? To show you

(00:28):
Strange Aeons. Welcome StrangeAeons radio. That's Eric over
there. Hello. That's Vanessaover there. Good.
Good day. A cold, cold, wetrainy day.
I'm Kelly and it is a grossPacific Northwest.
Nothing says Pacific Northwestmore than this. Like a bit of

(00:49):
rain. That's not so much thatyou're like, Man, it's raining,
but not so little that it's likenot raining. You're just like,
I'm gonna get wet and it's gonnabe uncomfortable. All day. I
won't see the sun. And it'scold. And there's birds. Still
birds.
Wow, birds.
What's wrong with birds? Whatbirds do

(01:10):
Northwest birds. I mean, I thinkit's because we're
here. seagulls and crows are inmore places. The
Eagles have to be near the sea.
You know why the Utah State birdis?
Is it really?
Oh yeah.
I remember being shocked drivingacross the country and seeing
seagulls and I was like, Thismakes no sense. Now here Yeah,

(01:32):
exactly. What do you did youcome from the sea and settle
like what happened?
I can they're angry at you,Vanessa.
I know. That's fine. We're allangry today.
Yeah, well, it doesn't helpthat. If it's cold and dreary
outside, it's cold and drearyinside. Living in my place.
But that was true. You needlike, your walls lined with

(01:55):
insulation.
Yes. You guys last week, we wereall gushing about the Harley
Quinn animated series. And thatkind of made me go down the
rabbit hole of Batman animatedmovies because HBO Max has a
bunch of those on there too. SoI caught up with Gotham by
Gaslight, which is basicallyBatman after jack the Ripper.

(02:22):
Oh, wow. And it's great. Youknow, it's set in Victorian
times. And Bruce Wayne isn't amillionaire who dresses up in
his leather bat suit and fightscriminals. Oh, wow. It's great.
It's so much fun. But then theone that I really loved. Not
Available on HBO max brand new,is called Batman soul of the

(02:43):
dragon.
I need to remember this one. Youmentioned it before. And I
completely I mean,a lot of a lot of people
complaining about this becausethey don't feel it's really a
Batman movie. Batman shows up injust a couple of scenes, and
it's mostly Bruce Wayne. Butit's, uh, it feels like it's set
firmly in 1976. And the leadcharacters, I can't remember his

(03:07):
name is Johnny dragon orsomething like that. He's
basically Bruce Lee. And thenthere's, there's another
character in there who isbasically Jim Kelly into the
dragon. And they all they wereall taught by the same kung fu
master. And they have got to getthe band back together because
this evil group of ninjas is outfor this one thing that they

(03:30):
know about. And it is so 17 kungfu blaxploitation with Batman
dropped in the middle of it thatI was like, if you can't make a
fucking feature film like this,what's wrong with you guys? It's
so much fun. But then thereviews all these people going
not even a Batman movie dude,he's in it for like four
minutes.

(03:50):
I always enjoyed when they spenttime with like Bruce Wayne, or
the ultimate like mask of thePhantasm I remember loving
so much bears when in it. Thatwas a gigantic
hit when I when I came out atsuncoast. Man we sold the hell
out of that wasone of my favorite films. As a
kid like me and my brother usedto watch it over and over again.
I remember that was the onlytime I ever felt like I had a

(04:11):
little mini crush on Batman. Iwas like, Bruce Wayne. He's a
man.
Not like those turtles.
Hey, man, let's not bring let'snot bring dawn at Halloween to
this. Okay.
Well, I gotta say, I just reallyreally love this movie. And,
Eric, I know you will too.
Because you like those kind ofmovies. I also get that this is

(04:33):
not for everybody. So if you ifyou require Batman, in your
films, you're gonna be a littleupset. Think of this as just a
really cool movie that Batmanshows up in there you go. And
then you're like, well, what afucking cool bonus.
So I mean, there was like a slewof animated Batman films a

(04:57):
couple years ago that I rememberpeople saying Were pretty bad.
And I saw the Killing Joke. Iremember feeling like it was bit
off. But like, did you do youfeel like things have gotten
better? Or have they been goodthe whole time?
I think the Batman animatedmovies are hit or miss. But I
think that over all the Warneranimated movies, the one or DC

(05:21):
movies are much, much betterthan their live action.
Okay.
What was wrong with the animatedKilling Joke? Why do people have
a problem with that one?
Oh, I think it was bad girl.
Which one was the one whereBatgirl and Batman are like this
other The Killing Joke?
Yeah, that was a because it waslike, he's kind of her like,
surrogate uncle. It's weird thatthey're like banging.

(05:45):
It's a little racy. And I don'tthink that it would have flown
in 1986 when the Killing Jokecame out. And I felt like oh,
they're trying to be, you know,edgy, right?
I don't know. I don't think itneeded it. Like there was
another one where Nightwing andHarley Quinn bed together.
Whoa. Whoa,I can't remember what that one

(06:07):
was. She'salright. That's something. I
mean, way to go. Nightwing Iguess. Watch out for Joker's
vengeance. test? I don't know.
Hmm. Well, um, I've beenwatching a new series, but

(06:29):
speaking of racy, um, has comeout on Netflix called Bridger.
10 I have not heard that youhave not heard another one from
Oh shit. What's her name thatdoes Grey's Anatomy is a Shonda
Rhimes.
Could be I actually don't know.
But um, it's kind of a JaneAusten esque, but with actual,
like, mixed racial casting,which is really nice to see

(06:54):
because you never in Victorianera films get like black people
as like the queen. So that wasthat alone was very nice. It has
a very Pride and Prejudice feelto it.
Yeah. Shonda Rhimes.
Okay.
It's incredibly fun. It's soapy.
It's good. Do not watch thiswith your parents. I will say

(07:19):
that I watched it with my mom.
And there comes a point wherepeople start to engage
physically, in a way, man, andmen and women sometimes do it
anyway. And man, they go for itand they go hard for like, three
or four episodes in a row. It'stoo much. I was like, I spent

(07:42):
more time staring at my handsthat I haven't a long time
to do right now. Thisis very awkward. so bizarre
right now in movies versuscontent for from Netflix and
Amazon, all that where moviesare really becoming almost
sexless. there's so little, nota lot of sex scenes in films.

(08:03):
The general nudity is removed,but she's this man, this
guy making up for it. And thensome. Yeah, I mean, but it is
genuinely like, I don't know,like right now. Life sucks for a
lot of people in a lot of ways.
So having this positive, fun,silly content that we can just
lose ourselves and to thesepeople's dumb relationships is

(08:26):
really nice. I just really enjoyit.
Nice. So yeah, speaking ofbetter off is quite dumb. But
watch the first episode ofwarrior. Oh, it is so good.
Really.
Like and the guy they cast towhom I assume is who Bruce Lee

(08:49):
would have played in theoriginal. If they produce that
is amazing. He's one of thosewalk on screen. Instant,
charismatic kind of guys tocheck. Okay, I can watch this
guy. And the rest of the cast isalso pretty goddamn good.
It's really good. I'm terriblythere's only one episode and I
just finished it off seasonHarley Quinn thing Mantis. The

(09:09):
way they did the subtitles is sosmart because they're speaking
Chinese most of the time. But atone point, they do kind of that
Hunt for Red October thing wherethey rotate the camera around
and they start speaking English.
But then there's the Americancharacters. So as soon as one of

(09:32):
them shows up, they're speakingEnglish, but they turn around
and they're speaking Chinese.
Sometime. I mean, it's like itis so well done. Except Are you
having to sit very close to thescreen because the subtitles are
really small.
At least how funny you say that.
They are gigantic on my screen.
Oh weird.
Yeah. Somaybe you can adjust them in

(09:53):
some settings somewhere. Itcould be weird. The Spanish 130
coins 30 coins. giganticright I wonder if maybe I did
just somehow adjust it all forit that's pretty cool people
the old people box in the setupprocess
now the the letters just appearone at a time.

(10:19):
Mr. Robot Oh wow. But smart welldone well shot they dumped some
money into this one that reallyshows
so the The unfortunate thing isthat it's a Cinemax show. And at
the end of season two Cinemaxsaid we are no longer creating

(10:40):
original content. But apparentlyit has found a new life on HBO
max and the producers nowtalking to HBO Max and Hey, come
on. People are assuming lovethis. How about a third season?
You've got a shitload more moneyand Cinemax to raise
theoretically.
Right. I watched a movie.

(11:00):
Uh huh. Good. Good. All right.
Got anything?
Yeah. Oh, going on. So come on.
It was called Rambo. Last blood.
Oh, ifbadly enough. I have not seen
this one.
Yeah, I was shocked that Ihadn't seen it also, and it's on
HBO max. Okay, well, so itpopped up and I thought, Oh, I'm

(11:21):
gonna watch the fuck out. And Iwas so confused. Because I kinda
remember the last one.
That was actually pretty goodfor was that the one with a
religious people? Yeah. Andthere was like, core like core.
Yeah. And they were I can'tremember where they were that
somewhere in Peru or somethinglike that, right? Yes. I don't

(11:41):
know. Because he was acting as aguide for them. This opens up
with him on the farm in Arizona.
And I was thinking to myself,how did he end up back in the
States? Because he's got a younggirl there is nice that he's
been taking care of for the last10 years. And I'm thinking is,
what did I miss? 10 years.

(12:05):
between this one and the lastone. I had no idea where it was.
It's it's really bad. It's a badfilm.
I that's why I haven't watchedit. I heard horrible stuff about
it when it came out.
It's just, it's just stupid. Andthe storyline is so not a Rambo
storyline that I was thinking tomyself, this would have made

(12:27):
more sense if this was likeCobra two, or something like
that. Because he he's going offand he's taking care of sex
traffickers in Mexico, and he'sjust going to go and kill him
all right. But the way he getsdown there and everything and
I'm not talking about thephysical way just the the story

(12:48):
that propels him down there wasso fucking weird and made no
sense. I can't I can't recommendthis film.
The last Rambo when we're justtalking about was made in 2008.
So it's been 10 years.
It's been a while because I wasliving in England when I saw it.

(13:10):
So I guess it could have been 10years hanging out with family
when he never talked aboutfamily and any other show and
actually seem to imply that hereally had no family. But hey,
it's Sylvester Stallone stillwriting on these?
I'm you know, he's got a storycredit. Probably because yeah, I
was. I was actually looking nowthat I think about it. It's not

(13:33):
an HBO max. It's on prime. And Iwas looking for first blood.
Because I hadn't seen that. 20years. And that's that movie's
amazing.
Such a great film about PTSD.
Yeah,free man, especially before we
were ever talking about takingit seriously. And I just had
this hankering to to see thatagain, and instead you can rent

(13:54):
that for 399 or you can watchRambo last blood for free. Shit
a new movie how to do that. TheThe best part, and the worst
part somehow simultaneously. Thebest and worst parts of this are
the end credits. Where over overscenes from every movie, the

(14:18):
credits are popping up. Soyou're seeing him hitchhiking
into town and first blood andall the stuff that happens
there. Then you go into youknow, Rambo? First Blood part
two, got a rocket launcher oneach arm and it's just like,
Whoa, this got ridiculous reallyquick. Really? Really, really
quick. Yeah.

(14:43):
That was three, three, yeah,sorry, Afghanistan. And the
I still kind of enjoyed elementtwo, four. It's insanity but by
the time three rolls around likeboy, but then the one in 2008
was really solid.
It was Yeah, it was super gory,but it was a really solid movie

(15:03):
because it also kind of dealtwith things realistically.
Right?
You know, even though it'scalled last blood I, I cannot
imagine that is the end of thestoryline.
If you saw how old Stallonelooks in this movie, hey,
because they were showing thatis funny. They were showing
clips from that moviebeforehand. And I was looking at
the difference between him thereand now it looks like he's aged

(15:26):
40 years yeah, he'she's old but I will say I
remember when rocky whatevercame out with his like son and
he has like an argument with hiskids. Rocky five.
Talking about the five isterrible, but then there was the
Rocky Balboa yeah which isgood, right? No, no, before

(15:47):
Balboa rocky so yeah, and thatwas supposed to be the last one
and then Bell Boa came out nowis supposed to be last one. And
then a creed came out. startedit which is Yeah, I mean, like I
like Balboa I like credo they'regood movies, but and it keeps

(16:07):
being like, and now he's reallydead and no are not dead. But
you know, like, he's his heartisn't there and he can't he's
basically in a wheelchair. Butactually, he can totally get up
and like run 20 miles in themorning. So I just I think so
low and has a very hard timeputting something away.

(16:27):
Yeah,well, I guess the next one would
be something like Rambo. PS.
Um, yes. So I also did a littlebit of a, I actually got to my
rewatch, because I had for oneof our I can't remember which
week it was, but I had thought Iwas going to watch your next. So

(16:49):
I put it on my Netflix DVDorder. And of course it was
during the pandemic. So thatshowed up three months later. So
I got to rewatch your next and Iwas like, man, I haven't seen
this since this on liketheaters. I'm so excited. I
remember so much. I thought Iremembered about this phone. Man

(17:11):
is fucking gory. I did not likeI remembered the fun bits were
like she just like his takescontrol and is badass and
whatever. All the rest of it. Ihad somehow pleasantly
forgotten. And I was like, God,man, this film is rough. And of

(17:32):
course. So I'm staying with mymom and my mom. I sometimes
order DVDs for her. Andsometimes for me and I had
ordered underwater for herbecause I thought she'd enjoy
it. And you're next to me. Andshe mix them up. And she was I
wasn't there.

(17:52):
She texted me and she's like,what is this movie? Very gory. I
didn't enjoy this at all.
No, you're supposed to watchunderwater. Next Oh my god.
She's like I look I keptunderwater for you because I
think you wanted to see that.
And like I didn't know I reallyseen it. No. Anyway, so I have

(18:13):
to say it wasn't as good as Iremembered. I don't like it as
much as I remembered. But Istill like that character a lot
and good effects. I guess I justit was hard. It was hard to sit
through this I need happiness. Ineed happiness. And this film is
not that well done though. isit's extremely well done it is I

(18:35):
do this home alone withtrue consequences.
The nail through foot. Verygood.
I watched a new one. What huntedon shutter?
I think I have seen the trailer.
Yeah, definitely seen thetrailer and thought Hmm. Well,

(19:04):
that's a good reaction is beforewatching. It's kind of just
looking through some stuff and Iread things that made it sound
like it was going to be awerewolf movie away because
somebody compared it tobrotherhood of the wolf and some
other things. And she's wearingred and then she's got her and
the beginning of watching Oh,she's got the red riding hood on

(19:26):
you know that. It's not there'sno werewolf involved at all. It
is really well acted, whichhelps the movie a lot,
especially the lead guy is kindof bizarre and interesting to
watch. There are so many baddecisions made in this movie

(19:48):
that are so damn frustrating.
And I mean, what's a good one?
Well, she's out on the town getsin the car with a guy she
doesn't know After being at aclub drinking with him, think,
okay, that'll happen and dosomething stupid when you're
drunk. Okay, I'm gonna let thatone go. They go and of course,

(20:09):
turns out they're not nice guys,she gets away from them and you
know, high tension stuff kind ofhappens at the gas station she
ends up at, but it's nowherenear as well done is high
tension. And then she ends up inthe trunk of a car in the woods,
and they in a car wreck, shefalls out of the back of the

(20:32):
trunk. And instead of doing thelogical thing, if you fall out
of a back of a trunk you runwhen in the back where there's
no lights or anything like that.
She runs right forward rightinto the headlights and up the
hill. And so the guy Of course,both the guys in the front
survived, look at her go look atthat. She goes running off,
never takes off her bright red.

(20:53):
But he or she rolls around inthe dirt, just all the little
kind of things and she gets awayfor a good long time and goes to
a river. And we all know whatyou do and you come across the
river in the woods. You're lost,right? You go downstream.
Absolutely. Oh no, no, she goesupstream. just casually walking
along the side. The bank notpaying any attention. And the

(21:16):
two guys spotter jump in thewater. What? splash splash by
praying through the water getover to her she doesn't notice
them at all until say like rightbehind is like, scissor off man.
Is this game gonna? If you hadnever really watched too many of
these lost in the woods gettinghunted kind of movies. It's well
done enough. That it's it's funto watch it moves at a good

(21:38):
pace. It's just sort of likewhat was a movie? terrified or
terrified with a clown?
Tara fire?
Yeah, where they keep hittingthe clown and running away like
18 freaking times in that movie.
So like, you know, this moviewill be really good with that
being written out. This moviewould be really good and could
have pletely worked with hermaking smarter decisions. And

(22:00):
the bad guys just be smarterfinding her instead of happening
upon her at times. I've reallywanted to like this, and I
enjoyed it to a point, but everyonce in a while and then it
starts to get good near the endis like oh, ranking up Alright,
it's good. Okay, now I'm reallyfrustrated with something else
you just did. So I'd say it's,if you want to watch that kind

(22:24):
of a movie. This is a good one.
If you want to watch a reallygood version of this kind of
movie watch high tension.
I really want to watch her hightension now.
Have you not seen it? I havenot. What's good. pretty brutal.
really brutal.
Okay, well, I Yeah, I heardabout that film and decided I

(22:46):
wasn't gonna watch it. But I hadalso heard the same thing, which
was that it was a Red RidingHood analogy. So I
mean, I guess you could say thatthe guys chasing her were the
big bad wolves But okay, right.
She's wearing a red hood. Iguess if she was wearing a blue
would would people still saythis? Do they
have like, this is the thingthat annoys me about those kinds

(23:08):
of movies. Is there really agood reason for them to actually
want her like to go through theeffort they're gonna have to go
through to get herwell the guy makes seemingly is
like a serial killer make snufffilms.
Okay, gotcha. Okay, sohe wants her as a define
yourself if that's a goodreason.
Definitely has that are usuallybecause I find a lot of these

(23:29):
films unlike it's not worth it,man. Just let her go like,
whatever, you're fine. Justgot your life. We
have that problem.
Yeah. Well, at some point, whenyou've captured a woman and she
escaped from you, you now haveto deal with the fact that okay,
if I let this person go, theyare going to tell the
authorities and she's got a goodlook at my face and all of that.

(23:53):
Yeah, yeah. But if you're like amiddling middle guy, with like,
brown hair with me, using who Iwould assume use a fake name and
is in a town that's not yourhometown, you can disappear
pretty darn fast.
It's my use out of that.
It's just logical. Like why? Imean, you don't really have to

(24:14):
worry that like she's not gonnahave a pet unless she took a
photo of you. Like, what's thatpicture gonna be? She was drunk.
You put her in a trunk.
Oh, you made a rhyme.
I was an axe.
Got a lot of drunk in the truck.
Shall we take a little break?

(24:35):
We'll be coming back and we aretalking about couples or
relationships who band togetherto fight.
Classic family. Sometimes it'splaying a game a whole new way
like toss across. And sometimesit's creating something nobody

(24:57):
thought possible. mousetrap.
acrosses Tic Tac Toe played thethree dimensional way. three in
a row is all you need. Whilecatching a mouse a wild and
wacky adventure for your familycrossing mousetrap two classic
family games from ideal.

(25:24):
We have returned Eric, this wasyour topic choice. So why don't
you start us offdive in. Alrighty, I shall dive
in. What shall I dive in? With?
Oh, yeah, I already know.
Do not know. Come on, man.
You've had time you picked this2017 2017 vacancy

(25:50):
on the interstatetook a shortcut to where
do you know and garagenot this late. Meanwhile, I'm
wide open here. clothes.

(26:15):
My shoes are shutting off theinterstate library classics.
Turn it off.

(27:41):
Emergency never survived.
Got the why at the end of 2007instead of vacancy there. So

(28:03):
this was as I said, 2007.
The year is 2007 the timeRotten Tomatoes. I think this is
a fairly accurate score. 55 bycritics 42 by the audience,
pretty middle of the road budgetof 19 million US boss box office
19 million. So worldwide it made35 so it made no money.

(28:30):
Even Steven that.
You know, as long as you don'tcount a lot of things.
Marketing.
Yeah. I love the director'sname. I'm sure it's not
pronounced this way. But it'sspelled this way. Nimrod. Oh,
although he's got the little youknow the accent over the Oh, so
my name rude.
him wrote himrude until known for Metallica

(28:50):
through the never concert movie,and predators, the finesse, but
few other things I haven't heardof. Now, I'm going to start off
by saying I think the failure ofthis film is the director as I
list off the writers credits andthe stars of the film. The
writers Markel Smith who wroteThe Revenant the Oscar nominated

(29:15):
one Overlord, the whole and isworking on the Tarantino Star
Trek movie.
What is that a real thing?
Apparently in some format. Butif you seen the whole is a
pretty good one for kids. Yes.
Yeah. And overlord Of course.

(29:35):
Yeah, I liked overlord the wholedidn't Dante director. Yeah,
I think so. Yeah. Yep. And thelead stars are Kate Beckinsale.
You seen in God knows how manyunderworld movies now. There's
one of the lead voices of theElder Scrolls video games did
not know that. And coast, costarring with her her husband.

(29:58):
In the movie, Luke Wilson. Whoyou know from my favorite Wes
Anderson movie bottle rocket.
And from my money Wes Andersonwent downhill after that. good
movie. Wow. That's because WesAnderson became Wes Anderson
movies. Yeah. And if you look atthe last three or four, they all
look the same. They're all shotthe same, the same kind of sound
and color design.

(30:20):
I will say one thing because Iagree with you. I love the dogs
super good. A dog thatincredibly good. The rest agree.
I like mall Shut up you guys.
You do have a heart.
I think bottle rocketsfantastic. And what he did after
that actually, you know,Rushmore Rushmore, Mount

(30:42):
Rushmore was great about that aswell as his fun the is fine the
one with where it goes theJacques Cousteau style Life
Aquatic I mean, he's fun. Theproblem for me was Anderson is
he does Wes Anderson films likecome on do something different?
I get it. Anyways, Luke Austinis also in the movie of the year
idiocracy. One for my money, areally underrated film 310 to

(31:06):
Yuma. Really good Western. AndFrank Whaley, the guy who
unfortunately entire life willbe Oh, the what guy from Pulp
Fiction. Say What again? Thatguy he's in? He's in Luke Cage.
He's like 119 credits, but everytime you see his face on

(31:27):
screens, I gotone of those guys that never
ages.
Yeah. And Ethan Embry? No, thatwas candy and a whole ship
stuff. So the very story, thevery original storyline starts
off with a married couple thataren't getting along. No way.
They're on an isolated road,because the wife was asleep when

(31:49):
the husband took a detour. Stopme if you've heard this before.
This is all carried fine,because the two actors can
handle the stuff that's given tohim it's shot very strangely,
the shots in the car are almostlike, you know how normally you
shoot a scene of people in acar. If you do a close up of
them. The one of the passengersides on the left and the one in

(32:11):
the driver sides on the right ofthe screen, right. They're both
on the same side of the screenas it switches back and forth my
car like this and he does weirdshit with the mirrors to fill in
the sides. It's like okay, thisis a really interesting
experiment. experiment that Ithink you should have left on
the cutting room floor and justgone back and done that shot is

(32:32):
normal as well. In case thisweird doesn't work, the opening
credit for any kind of like youknow, the big giant wrote words
and Mr. Robot where they kind oftake up the screen. It's a very
heavy blocky graphic words. Itlooks really cool. The C took a
shortcut cars having trouble youever say one thing watching
these films that really aren'tthat long ago? The difference

(32:56):
between having a map and GPSbig deal. I remember printing
off MapQuest and feeling like Iwas in the future.
Yeah. Oh, yeah. So they'retrying to figure out where they
are. Oh, was this route I don'teven see this on the map, but
it's going on. And I go to a gasstation where a guy who's so
helpful, they go on from the gasstation, trying to find where

(33:17):
they are. And lo and behold, thecar breaks down. Yeah, but hey,
they're only about a mile downthe road from that gas station
that had a hotel or motel nextto it. Let's go back down there.
So they go back down and thehotel motel guys I can't we
don't have phone here but wehave a phone booth make up my
own maps phone booth. Jesus.

(33:39):
I didn't think it was this oldof a film. Wow.
And is it Wally? Is that how yousay his name Frank way Liza?
Yes, he's freaking great in thisweird creepy hotel manager motel
manager. And I gotta tell you,not a lot of people are going to
understand what I'm about to saybut the ones who do will fully
appreciate this. This motelmakes the band's field look like

(34:01):
a good 2.5 or three starmotor and
as this is not a nice place Whatis it with hotel rooms phones to
man that just like the worstringers in the damn world? The
well hey, it looks great. TheHoly shit this stuff where the

(34:22):
car stuff looked off the way heshot the just generally it is a
gorgeous looking film. Reallywell shot really, really good
design on this terrible lookingroom. The guy gets bored. Have a
look at these. There's randomvideotapes sitting on top of the
TV, but in the sci fi sci fi VCRand see what they are. Oh my.

(34:46):
These look like snuff films sortof stuff. There's no sex but
this is killing people oncamera. As he's watching him, he
realizes this is the room we'rein And that scene, although good
is about five minutes longerthan it probably needs to be.
Apparently though, on the DVD,if you're really interested, you

(35:08):
get the whole scene of all ofthis films that they shot that
they show a brief clip somegreat things.
So they try to find out what'sgoing on, try to escape and at
least look around a little bit,then suddenly, you realize it's
now a home invasion movie, withthe killers trying to get into
the room. The suspense here isactually really well done.

(35:30):
That's a nice use of noises andthings like that. Watch this
with Dina. Her first comment is,maybe you guys should destroy
the cameras in the room, whichthey never they find all of
them. Yeah, they just leave.
Because then there's no point inkilling them because it's not
being filmed.

(35:51):
Mm hmm. But Oh, well. One thingthat's interesting they do I
think, is a nice little bit asthey study the character, the
videos and figure out what'sgoing on. And realize, okay, in
every one of these somebody popsout of nowhere, they are getting
into this room some other waythan the doors or the windows.
So they find a tunnel in thebathroom. That goes down to what

(36:14):
has to be the largest groups oftunnels underneath the hood
motel anywhere, I mean,tributaries and things like
that. But main office is like 15feet away, wherever you guys go.
But there make a big deallooking for any weapon they
want. They anything they can useas a weapon. Meanwhile, Luke's

(36:37):
running around with one of thosegiant silver D cell battery
flash, exotic that would work.
Absolutely. When the guysfigured out where they are that
bad guys running, the way theymove through the tunnels is
creepy as hell, it looks socool. And also goes yeah,
they've done this a lot. Lukeattempts to escape at one point

(37:00):
and Well, that doesn't go realWell, then, you know, he gets
stabbed, will he live? Will hedie, you'll have to move you to
find out. But you know, as themovie goes along, the couple
that was fighting, they'recoming together. They're facing
the evil of these killer guys.
And with actually really kind ofneat masks. Not the motel guy.

(37:23):
But the other two killers havekind of neat math that they work
out. And it's other than thatit's by the book kind of hears
people trying to get out. Oh,here's this trouble. We're on
the two. Here's that troublethat we run into? Oh, that's
actually not helpful. It's, it'sa fine movie of its type. I
remembered liking it more than Iliked it on a second viewing.

(37:44):
But it's still pretty good. Andlike I said it's shot really
well. The acting is well doneconsidering Kate Beckinsale had
an incredibly hard time workingwith Luke because he often
showed up hungover andunprepared.
Oh, bummer.
unprepared whyyou guys looking at me when you
saidprepared is a proper part of

(38:05):
that word as well.
Can I get you some eggs? someorange cheese?
This is an intervention. What'sgoing on?
aspirin?
Bacon sausage, a heating pad?
What would go for a heating pad?
Okay.

(38:25):
Well, they advertise the filmusing the internet Of course,
which wasn't done as much thenas it is now. And they created a
toll free number you could calland if you called to do what
actually ring at that hotel.
There are other fictional hotelthey created. And you would hear
screaming in the background andthe one guy lent his voice to

(38:46):
the promo so the guy who'srunning the motel would answer
the phone. So it sounds prettyfun. Apparently, it was 188889
vacancy. Oh, but it doesn'tfunction anymore. I guess. Fun.
Get back, they shut the violentfilms first day of shooting. So
they got all the horriblescreaming and crying out of the

(39:09):
way first. The hotel motel theystay at was built from the
ground up for the film. Oh, andwhich? Well there you go.
So it's two entirely separatesets there is an interior and

(39:30):
exterior. The director was soimpressed by the work that they
did to make it look likeshanties like the place was
incredibly clean. But afterbeing in that room all day you
felt like you needed to showerfor a very long time, sir. I
gotta say I'm okay with thisrecasting. The original person

(39:51):
they're going to cast forbeckoned cells was Jessica
Barker.
Oh God Oh, Sarah just a hardtime staring at her. Not a fun
person to look at with youreyeballs. Say that right now.
I'll leave that to the lady andmoving on. Wilson refused to

(40:15):
stand off camera during scenesin which Beckinsale needed
somebody to read lines to makeit much harder. So they had some
standing guy read the lines anddo that. And eventually she got
so sick and tired of that shealso refused to do that. And
sent in a picture of herselfwith a note that said, read your
lines to this, it will be betterfor both of us.

(40:36):
Wow. I mean, that must have beeneasier for them to then play the
bits where they hated each car.
Yes,just let it all out. Maybe they
shot those later.
Maybe that's why they only gotthe bad angles. She was like,
Okay, I'm done. We're wrapped bymaking vacancy opened in number
four in its first week at thebox office, and then promptly,

(40:58):
promptly dropped off 46% for aweekend number two is not a
horrible job. But it ain't good.
As the director opted for moreof a suspense style instead of
any gore and grew, which isworks for the film, I think it
would have taken away from theway their film structured and

(41:18):
shot if they'd had a lot of goreand violence moments. I mean,
there's violence, but it's notreally gory. is really good.
Is it an RPG 13and it's still pretty brutal.
It's just not gory.
I'm totally cool with that now.
Yeah.
So let down a little bit for mymental remember, remember, it's

(41:40):
of the film, but it was finerewatch I think it was like a $2
rental on Amazon or something.
So plenty satisfied withwatching that one. And they did
grow together as the moviecontinued.
Very important. Very nice. Man.
This was a surprisinglychallenging, like week. I ended
up with like, a list, ashortlist. And I decided that

(42:06):
some of them just were some ofthe films like I think us would
be a really good one for thisweek. But it's just too much to
talk about and too much to thinkabout. It's a really big film
that you don't want to like,half assed for sure.
And then fast another one,I was going to I was going to

(42:26):
fast Tucker and Dale vs. Evil.
And then I got partway in andrealize they're not brothers.
Like clearly not brothers. Andthen I looked up the synopsis
while I'm watching the movie andhave paid for it because it's no
longer free on Netflix. Oh mygod, I'm so irritated. Um, I'd

(42:47):
already done like a bunch of thework, whatever. So I changed
gears last night.
Kind of a couple eight at1230 at night.
Wow. Oh, yeah, that's whenyou're getting up.
Just Yeah, I just was reallygetting the day. And I ended up
doing don't panic, Eric. Thepossession but not that one. The

(43:10):
2012 possession Okay, no pizza.
If you don't do thedishes. Look, I'm a Nike

(43:36):
guy get this.
made this didn't want anybody toopen it.

(43:56):
feel funny.
Have you noticed anything?
Why is the box so important? Ohno.
Justice.
No idea where we are.
scriptures. It says typically.

(44:18):
The Hebrew word for human spiritis to take care of children. The

(44:51):
most high trustswings you will be protected.
Covered is truth.

(45:20):
I saw something inI don't know if I know this one.
Okay, I vaguely remember this.
Yeah.
So it I mean, it could easilyhave skipped you by the posters
extremely generic. But the plotseems very generic. It's got
this kind of demonic presence,family being slowly taken over

(45:43):
kind of theme, right? We've seenthat a million times before.
This particular film on RottenTomatoes has a 39% critics 48%
audience. I think that'sactually a little harsh, but I
think it makes sense becauseduring that time, so many of
these films were coming out thatit definitely probably got lost

(46:06):
amongst a sea of these like, newkind of low budget with but with
recognizable people, like filmsthat were just coming out in
waves. budget was 14 millionbucks office at 2.90. too
shabby.
Not bad at all. I don't knowwhat the context for that is,

(46:28):
but obviously did very well. Youcan currently stream it on
Amazon for free. Although thecopy I will say is kind of
grainy. So. Yeah, I wassurprised about that. I was
like, why is this so grainy youguys and like the the darks are
very dark that might be onpurpose, but it felt like a like
a bad transfer situation.
Produced by Sam Raimi. So yeah,so we actually do have somebody

(46:53):
who kind of cares involved.
That's exciting. Directed by orborn, who I hadn't really heard
of before he wrote an 1864miniseries, he was behind
nightwatch. The substitute andnot sure which one and he's done

(47:14):
a shit ton of German or Danishstuff. It sounded very German
from the names but he's fromhe's Danish, so I can't say for
sure. That was about all I couldfind on him. The the writer,
it's very confusing. I thinkit's a writing team, Juliet
snowdown and styles White, whowe've kind of come across before

(47:37):
from the knowing Weegee,Untitled Bermuda Triangle
project that is coming out atsome points. They're all kind of
same films. So I think they'rethey must be working together
again, didn't find a lot of infoabout them. So this is clearly
like a kind of up and comingpeople or people with not a lot
of projects behind them.

(47:58):
Was this an oddly budgetedblumhouse film?
It feels like a plum hospitalpreborn house. Yeah, it's I
mean, I say that that castle orsomething is right. Yeah.
Some Yeah. I think somethingalong those lines. The actors.
The dad, the guy who plays thedad walked on screen. I was

(48:19):
like, hey, it's got JavierBardem in it. It does not
burden. Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Oh,yeah.
He's awesome.
I watch him andI I mean, I hadn't seen a lot
because I didn't seesupernatural. Or I haven't seen
much of it. I guess he startedoff in Grey's Anatomy. I have
seen some of him and walkingdead. But I already read the

(48:41):
comic, so I wasn't like wowed.
But yeah, I didn't realize he'salso the comedian and watchmen.
He's frickin amazing. I reallyenjoyed him in this film. You
also have cura said SedwickSedgwick, who plays Stephanie
his ex wife. Um, she was born onthe Fourth of July something to

(49:04):
talk about singles and a lot ofepisodes of closer.
She was the closeryou see the closer Oh, okay. I
mean, I have not. I guess she'sin some of Brooklyn nine, nine.
Um, yeah, she's been around fora while. I haven't personally
seen her a lot but enough to belike, You look familiar. She's
married to Kevin Bacon.
Yeah, is you're really they'vegot like the the cutest marriage

(49:27):
in Hollywood. So loving to eachother.
That's awesome. I'm so glad tohear that. Um, she played a
very, you know, exactly as you'dexpect her to play. She didn't
do a bad job, but I wasn't likeblown away by her performance
necessarily. Then we have twodaughters, played by Madison
Davenport, who plays the olderdaughter Hannah, who's very much

(49:48):
like the the, you know, kind ofyoung teen girl going through
young teen stuff of being alittle bit bitchy and won't
really want to be on the danceteam and all that kind of junk
and being annoyed with herParents all the time. You might
recognize her from an episode ofblack mirror. When she played a
character named jack. She was inthe sharp objects miniseries,

(50:11):
Kingdom Hearts guest she doesthe voice of nameless star.
She's in it. I didn't know theyhad a Dusk Till Dawn TV series.
She isn't 30 episodes of that.
Lots and lots of one offepisodes and I guess Noah, but
when you see her I was like,man, I know this girl from
something. And I still can't sayexactly what it is. But she's
incredibly recognizable now.

(50:32):
She's very young looking atthis. And then the younger
daughter is played by Natashacalis who plays the daughter m
she's the young sweet, veryloving daughter who's just
adorable at every way. Justreally cool kid you're just
really rooting for her. She's avegetarian and makes these

(50:54):
really fun. Big like, like stopthe killing signs but in a cute
way. She has been around for alittle bit as well. She's been
she did 24 things already,including something that I've
been subjected to for my nieceand nephew plenty Dinosaur
Train. She plays Leslie Luzauthorise also 1919 episodes of

(51:16):
the TV series, the firm andBarbie program the Molina
show again,I know what it is. I wonder if
it's any good. I don't thinkit's still going is my guess.
And then last but not least,this I actually didn't write him
down until I started researchingthe film. There's a guy who
plays a rabbi in this movie,named sadock. And it's played by

(51:37):
this guy named Mattie Shiamateesah. You um, this was his
film alone anymore?
He's, it's a yes. It's a veryJewish Jewish name that I am not
pronouncing correctly. He's likea big time musician. He's like
a, like, mixes pop rap. Likewith Are you saying Matisyahu?

(52:06):
Yeah, Matisyahu that is exactlywhat I'm saying. Do you know who
this is?
Yes. Okay, but I didn't buy yourpronunciation.
Well, he's done five albums. Andtwo remixes? Yeah, no. So this
is him acting in it. The firstscene you see him and he's sat
on a stairway listening to someheadphones, probably listening

(52:26):
to his own music. I didn't pickup on any of that because I had
no idea who he was based oncool, so the story goes,
divorced father, or at least inthe process is trying to rebuild
a relationship slash maintain arelationship with his two girls
during a pretty tumultuous time.
He's moved into a new house thethe wife has a boyfriend who's

(52:46):
not quite live in but he's therean awful lot. He's started to
buy like a little sign that'slike take off your shoes for the
house and really pisses off notJavier Bardem. So he, he's got a
brand new house he takes hisgirls to for the weekend. Of
course, does the dad stuff offeeding them pizza when they're

(53:07):
not supposed to have pizza anddoes all the things that he was
told explicitly not to do, buthe wants to be the cool, dad.
Sure. Next day, they're drivingaround and they spot a yard
sale, where one of the daughtersolder one insists he needs some
dishes. So he's like, Alright,fine. Get some frickin dishes,
or Hey, let's do this. So getout and they're the younger

(53:29):
daughter m becomes reallyenamored with this sort of
wooden box with with writing onthe side. It looks really big.
Kind of interesting. I was like,I don't know what's up. I if I
were to that age, I probablywouldn't be that into this box.
But that's cool. And she's like,Can I get those? He's like,
yeah, we're getting whatever youwant. Girls, just grab whatever
you want and get in the car.

(53:52):
Really good acting By the way,his dad acting is freakin spot
on.
Pretty good and supernatural asa dad.
I'll get to that showeventually. Now, once she gets
that wooden box, strange thingsstart to happen. It kind of
starts to whisper at her.
There's she manages to openpried open in the middle of the

(54:12):
night. And like, there's thislike dead stuff. And there's
like a tooth and like a moth andsome dead moth and some weird
weird stuff in this box, but shethinks it's very cool. And then
like the moss starts to comealive. And then there's lots and
lots and lots of moths. Sothat's kind of interesting.
Basically what happens is, shehas released an ancient Jewish

(54:35):
demon with severely maliciousintentions that slowly takes
over her by kind of talking toher and then eventually
possessing her. Now, in themeantime the family already is
having its own troubles isstarting to fall apart. The
mother is getting custody of thekids after Particularly strange

(54:58):
encounter with a youngerdaughter where she kind of slaps
herself and then says it's thedad who does it. Yeah, it's
crazy because this girl lovesher dad. And obviously it was so
in like, cared about her familywanted her parents not to
divorce and all of a sudden isjust receding into herself, like
eating crazy amounts of pancakesvery quickly. And he's like,

(55:21):
dude, you got to stop, you gottastop. And then she stops on the
fork. So it's like, Whoa, whatis happening? The encounters
with em become increasinglyviolent. She gets very violent
at school, she's changed hispersonality pretty
significantly, and she has thisring on her finger that she's
pulled out of the box, and herfinger just gets blacker and
blacker. It's gross. I'm like,why is it that's the one bad

(55:44):
parenting moment, I would likesomebody to take that ringer
off, finger off.
Sorry, ring that finger off,that I ring off of your finger,
because it looks infected. Likeit's bad. Eventually, they kind
of figure out the dad figuresout what's going on. And he has
to kind of bring the family backtogether to get an exorcism done
to bring this Jewish demon outof the little girl. So it does

(56:10):
eventually roll around to highrisk watching this, I was like,
Oh my God, if this film doesn'tqualify, I'm gonna lose my mind.
The family better come togetherat some point, because I'm gonna
do thank God. So it counted. Thefilm is actually there is a lot
to like in here. The demon isgenuinely extremely creepy. And

(56:34):
I have sensed through theprocess of being on this podcast
realized I have a real fear ofbeing in movies. At one point
like that little girl, theydefinitely do a lot of
throwbacks to exercise. So theytake the little girl to a doctor
where she gets an MRI. And whiledoing the MRI, the mom can see
the scan, like the live scan ofkind of what's happening inside
the daughter's body in thisface, a woman is just in there

(56:57):
moving around. And it's like,what the heck, there's the very
typical thing, you've seen a lotof blumhouse now where the
daughter starts to puke, and shelooks inside her mouth and see
some fingers come out. But theway it's done is really eerie.
And it is much more effectivethan any of the other things

(57:21):
I've seen. And I think part ofthat is due to the editing
style. I have never seen a filmedited like this. They're
constantly cutting at the momentof action. So at one point, they
go back into the house veryearly on into the dad's new home
and they enter the entryway andthey see all this stuff flying

(57:42):
out the kitchen. And he's like,Oh my god, you know, something's
broken in the house, he startsto run up into the kitchen, and
whatever it was skitters outthrough like a doggie door that
is just part of the house, likeyou don't have a dog. And he's
like, I guess we have raccoonsand then hard CUT TO HIM, like
hammering that thing shut.

(58:04):
There's a lot of just hard cutsin the middle of near the end of
a scene, but not at the end thatyou typically see of a scene.
And so the flow is reallyconsistent. If it wasn't
consistent, it would not work atall. But it feels like it moves
at a click and it keeps thattension pretty high this way,

(58:26):
but also allows for time toprogress. So I really liked the
way they did it. And like I saidnot Javier Bardem is incredibly
good. I am gonna seek out a lotmore of Jeffrey Dean Morgan. And
he just does a great job inthis. And the other thing is I
some somebody came on board bornborn Adele said that this script

(58:51):
was an allegory for divorcerather than a horror film. But I
think actually, this is a greatallegory for coming of age for
girls coming of age, because theyoung girl goes from being the
sweet, perfect, innocent childto complicated and mean and
destructive outside and inside.
And I just was like, Man, thisfeels so natural, but obviously

(59:13):
unnatural at the same time. Andthe parents are having a hard
time distinguishing that it islike a demonic presence, because
it's a young girl with parentswho are divorcing. So sometimes
people don't take balls of that.
Things I don't like. Yeah. Somepeople like it, I'm sure things

(59:37):
to dislike about this phone. Thewife at one point turns against
the dad very quickly and verysuddenly, in a way that made
almost no sense. Like shebasically put a restraining
order on him out of pretty muchnowhere. She went from being
like, oh, maybe I do still loveyou and maybe we shouldn't break

(59:57):
up and remember this one goodtime we had together Don't even
look at me Don't come anywherenear my children blah, blah,
blah blah blah like screaming athim in a courthouse. Whoa, you
guys, this is hard to like thischaracter when you do shit like
this. Also, they do notunderstand at this point how the
internet works. So he goes tolike look at online like

(01:00:22):
exorcisms. And nowadays we go toprobably YouTube or some fake
version of YouTube. He goes toVimeo.
I was like, okay, that's achoice. I mean, are these like
documentaries like a really likethought through? Did you get how
to get a password or thescreener copies, all right. And
then like, he also like, printsoff. These like strange art is

(01:00:47):
pretty funny. And he basicallygoogled how to do an exorcism
and then printed it off on paperto like, take to his daughter.
It's pretty, pretty cute. Andthe box when it starts to talk,
it has a very irritating voicethat I did not enjoy the trivia
I do kind of like the triviathere's not a lot on this movie.
But what there is, is verycommon, I feel like with films

(01:01:10):
talking about demons, and Godand all these things we've seen
him before, but I'm the owner ofthe book box, or a Dybbuk box to
the devic box. Thank you is aguy named Jason Haxton, and he
offered to send it to his SamRaimi, who was interested in it,

(01:01:31):
but also super reluctant. Raineytold me weekly. I don't want
anything to do with it. I'mscared of the thing. He was
raised in a conservativeconservative Jewish Home and he
said, You don't hear about devicis that right? When you go to
synagogue, I know the demoniclore of the exorcist. But what

(01:01:52):
does my faith believe aboutdemonic possession The story is
chilled me to the bone. JeffreyDean Morgan felt the same. In
research. I started to getcreeped out. My girlfriend was
like, let's just make sure wedon't actually go near the box,
quote unquote. We were all likehell no recalls screenwriter
Juliet Snowden. We don't want tosee it. Don't send us a picture
of it. They were like, Oh, weknow. And then the director old

(01:02:16):
borna doll said some reallyweird things happens. I never
I've never stood underneath aneon light before that wasn't
lit that all of a suddenexploded. Apparently there was a
couple of strange things thatthings that happen on set and he
said the worst thing was five,five days after we wrapped the
movie. All the props wereburned. The storage house in
Vancouver burned down to theground and the fire department

(01:02:39):
does not know the cause I'm notsuperstitious. But I would like
to say yeah, I would like to sayyeah, it's just a coincidence
but Diem Fun fact demonsspeaking polish. It's very
exciting. The tagline for thefilm is pray for her. premiered
at Fright Fest films partly inthe mental Institute's and um

(01:03:03):
yeah, that's pretty much all thefun things I have to talk about.
I remembered as you were talkingabout this, that I actually saw
this in the theater, and I likedit, but I didn't remember being
called the possession. So Iwonder if it had another title
it very well could have. It's aweird I mean, there are so many
films called the possession. Buteven looking up facts about this

(01:03:23):
film was like, a chore.
It makes me wonder if I saw itunder the name devic box or the
dividend and like that, but Iremember kind of liking this
movie not not being blown awayby it. But yeah, Jeffrey Dean
Morgan is easy on the eyes forsure. He's He's very
charismatic, and he's on screen.
You're just like, I can't stopwatching this guy.

(01:03:45):
I think the thing I loved abouthis performance and also his
character, which was really wellwritten was that he does all the
things you would do he likereacts exactly how you should
react like when his daughterstarts to act very strange. He's
like, Hey, honey, like talk tome about what's everything okay,
like he's not ignoring it he'snot being ignorant and he's not

(01:04:07):
being like I don't know like bigheaded about it in the way that
you get a lot of dads who justlike plow through the situation
like that are just stupid or Idon't know aggressive their way
through like he's very lovingand when she when she mentions
Oh, yeah, the box talks to me.
He doesn't like freak out. Hejust goes okay, what is it? What
is it telling you can can I talkto the box and it's just a

(01:04:31):
really like, everything feelsvery authentic. And I think that
that really works to this homescredit now I won't say this is
an amazing film. It feels verylike I've seen this film 8
million times. But I it didstand out. It did feel like it
had some really uniqueinteresting things to it. And I
didn't hate that. I watched it.

(01:04:51):
Yeah, I'd imagine especiallywith possession. Fair, very
famous film. Yes. With reams ofstuff written about it in film.
To dig in to find something.
I did have a moment where I waslike which one like I went
through like four differentones. It was recommended to me
last minute. Shockingly.

(01:05:12):
Well, cool. For my choice. Iwent back to a film that I
remember not loving, but Iwanted to see you again. And
this seemed like a goodopportunity for that. So from
2019 brightburnit's been difficult for you.

(01:06:17):
I got married we prayed for babyfor so long.

(01:07:59):
That's right, I forgot you weredoing.
This had a budget of $6 millionin a box office of 33 million
worldwide. Rotten Tomatoes.
Critics has it at 58% and theaudience has it at 67%. It was
directed by David Yourofsky, whodirected the hive and the
upcoming netbooks which lookskind of creepy. And it was

(01:08:21):
written by Brian and Mark Gunn,who are writing team that have
written journey to the number tothe mysterious island which is
the sequel to Journey to theCenter of the Earth or whatever
with the rock. They also wrotebring it on again. And are the
brothers of James Gunn whoproduced this film?

(01:08:43):
Oh, sure.
It stars Elizabeth Banks who youknow from the Hunger Games
slither and 90 other things.
David Denman, who played Roy inthe office, and skip in the
series Angel, and has 72 othercredits, including that shitty
Greenland movie we were talkingOh. I think he's the asshole
that steals the kid. Oh, yeah.

(01:09:11):
And then Jackson, a done who isthe little boy he was in
shameless. Gone are the days andAvengers end game where he plays
a young Scott Lang when they dothe time travel sequence, and he
shows up as a kid. So ElizabethBanks and David diamond play a
couple who want a kid but arehaving trouble conceiving. But

(01:09:34):
right there at the beginning ofthe movie, their wish seems to
come true when a spaceshipcrashes in the woods, and the
couple discovers a mysteriousbaby boy who they then decided
to raise him and Brandon. And wejump forward in time through the
use of credits and we seepictures of him growing up as a

(01:09:54):
very normal little boy andeverything a little weird
looking but you know what, kid?
Isn't And we then join the storyagain as he is coming into
puberty. He's like 12 years oldor something like that. He seems
to be the greatest kid ever.

(01:10:14):
Tori and Kyle who are ElizabethBanks and David den. They seem
very, very happy with theirlittle boy. However, puberty is
a bitch and he begins to changeand he starts sleepwalking, and
he starts sleepwalking to thebarn where his spaceship is
locked under the under the barnfloorboards. In a human mind, he

(01:10:37):
does not know that he arrived onEarth in a spaceship. So he's
sleepwalking here and he'sstanding above where the
spaceship is, but he is kind oflike mumbling and an alien
language and the spaceship iskind of glowing underneath the
floorboards. It's all very, verycreepy. He kind of starts
turning into a typical boyhitting puberty, which is a real

(01:11:03):
shit. Yeah, I mean, he's just anasshole little kid.
Unfortunately, he is also cominginto like superpowers,
basically. And that spells, youknow, disaster for this family.
In one scene, he's mowing thelawn, and the lawnmower is not
starting for him. And he'syanking on the cord. And at one

(01:11:23):
point, he hangs on the cord sohard that the lawnmower just
goes flying across the yard andhe wanders towards it. Now I
don't know what kind of shittynot up to code law more this is,
but it's laying on its side andthe blade is still spinning. And
he just gets this fascinationwith it and starts reaching for
it. It's really an uncomfortablescene. And, and then boom, the

(01:11:46):
blade hits his hand and breaks.
And he's starting to kind oflook around like the fuck is
going on with me. I love jerkingoff, and I have super strength.
We never seem jerked off, thankGod. He does have a bit of a
crush on this girl in his class,though, and he ends up sneaking

(01:12:07):
into a room in a very creepyscene, while while his family is
out camping, he suddenly is ableto appear in her room. And she
is, as you might imagine, highlydistressed. She's she thinks
he's a little creepy anyway, buthe's acting very creepy. And
he's in her room. And she callsher mom. And of course, he's

(01:12:31):
gone when the mom gets there.
And of course, he's got an alibibecause he's been out camping
with his family. So there's noway that he could have been
there. The next day at schoolthough. They're doing this weird
trust exercise and gym classwhere everybody's kind of like
falling into their friend's armsand stuff like that. And he

(01:12:52):
falls back and the girl issupposed to catch him, but she
doesn't. And she fact calls hima pervert in front of the class.
And he's feeling reallyuncomfortable. And the gym
teacher was also a bit of anasshole here makes her help him
up. And when she does that, hetakes her hand and he just
mangled it crushes it just bysqueezing it too tight. And so

(01:13:13):
he receives a two day suspensionfor this. But the girl's mother
makes a big huge scene and wantshim arrested. Then that night, I
mean, now the parents arestarting to freak out the
relationship between the the momand dad, the husband and wife is
is just perfect. Let me say Iwent into this movie, hating it.

(01:13:36):
And I came out of this movie,this time really enjoying it. I
thought it really worked. AndI'll talk a little bit about
that. But what what worked forme a lot in this was the
relationships. Mom and Dad feellike real people. Mom is
absolutely doting on her babyboy, and he can do no wrong dad
loves his child, but he's, he'sstarting to think there might be

(01:13:59):
something wrong with him. Andthey've found some, some stuff
like, in between his, uh, hismattress, you know, you might
pull out when we were kids, youmight pull out a Sears catalog.
This what they pull out is avery uncomfortable collection of
images of like, you might findat a doctor's office that is

(01:14:24):
showing the exposed organs ofyou know, a human and, and how
they look with no scan andthings like this. And, and dad
is looking at this and he'slike, What the fuck is this all
about? I mean, he's like, Iwould love to have found a
playboy in here. That would havemade me feel like everything's
going normal. And in fact, hedoes have a very uncomfortable

(01:14:49):
talk with his son and says, Hey,you know, it's okay. You get
urges, stuff like that. And thekid is kind of like, Okay, he's
like, you know, good masturbate.
That's fine and But the kidslike, all right, you know, so
even even the relationshipbetween dad and kid feels very

(01:15:09):
good too because the kid is ashitty little teenager that he's
coming into. But he doesn't seemlike a bad kid. He just seems
like he's going through pubertyand everybody goes crazy. That
night, though, after the thecrushing the hand incident, he
sleepwalks to the storage or tothe barn again. And he manages

(01:15:32):
to break the lock of the chainand mom comes wandering out to
try and find him, she finds himhovering in the air, above the
open doorway to his spaceship.
And he's like, completely out ofit. And speaking in this weird
word, and all of this stuff. Hekeeps repeating take, which is

(01:15:57):
kind of creepy, creepy. Andwe'll, we'll find out what that
means. shortly. Mom wakes himup. While he's hovering here,
and he falls onto the ship andshe kind of has to explain to
him Hey, this is what happened.
We found you in this ship 13years ago, and and we've raised
you like us, we love you. We youhave always been our son. So he

(01:16:19):
does not take this very well gothinks you know that everybody's
been lying to him and he lashesout and destroys all the family
photos and all that stuff andbasically says I hate you all.
which is typical bullshit forkid except that you know, he's
got super strength. So it's,it's a little scary. He then

(01:16:41):
goes to the diner where thegirl's mom works and she's
closing up and everything. Andhe he ends up terrorizing her
and killing her in a fairlygruesome manner with some, some
eye trauma that went on way toofucking long. That made me
Actually, I kept saying tomyself, Oh, okay, and I kept

(01:17:03):
kind of like looking down andshit like this seem to end.
But him killing her kind of setsoff this series of events, it's
kind of the point of no returnfor him, he's become a murderer.
And now he's trying to cover upthis murder. By murdering other

(01:17:25):
people who are starting tosuspect them. The movie starts
falling apart here because it'smoving too fast for how evil
he's becoming. And it's justlike, you know, shit, at some
point you want him to, to kindof look back on this and go,
what am I doing? And I think thewriters are kind of saying,
look, this isn't even completelyhim. He's kind of in a trance

(01:17:47):
when he's doing these things.
And it's like, his alienheritage is kind of taking over
because he he does seemgenuinely bothered when he
actually thinks about thisstuff. But in the moment, he's,
he's all lizard brain. So whenhe kills people, and you know,
the gore, and this is prettygraphic, he just kind of looks
at them, and, you know, studiesthem and seems kind of

(01:18:11):
fascinated by it ends up killinghis uncle in a, in a scene,
that's pretty creepy. It's gotsome humor in it too. But at the
end of it, he lifts the uncle'struck up into the air flies up
into the air and drops thetruck, you know, nose first into
the street, you know, from about20 feet up, which, as you can
imagine, does a lot of damage tothe human body. And they show it

(01:18:34):
in this. So now mom and dad aresuper concerned for Brandon. But
dad is also starting to suspectthat he's responsible for these
killings. Mom, of course, nothaving any of it. But their
relationship is a super strongrelationship. And so she's like,
you know, you're being silly.
It's none of this. This istearing us apart. It's a we have

(01:18:59):
to work to save our family unitand all this stuff. So she's
sticking up for him all thetime. And I think this is where
the film really succeeds andshowing how much a mom will go
to bat for her kid, which issometimes pretty dangerous. But
it's also super believable. Wesee it all the time and all of
these shitty things we'reseeing, you know, the incidents

(01:19:22):
of school kids and all thatshit. But But everybody, even
the kid still loves mom and dad.
He's just, you know, goingthrough all his shit. So, um,
Dad takes the kid on a campingtrip and a hunting trip and it
feels like it's, it's a genuineattempt to bond. But he suddenly

(01:19:44):
finds himself in with theopportunity to shoot his own
child. And the kid is looking ata track and the dad's got the
gun in his hand and you can justsee it all over. His face he
acting in the scene isheartbreaking. Because you can
see that he's like, I should, Ishould kill this kid, before he

(01:20:05):
becomes too powerful. And hedoes he takes a gun he cites on
his kid's head and he pulls thetrigger, and it doesn't kill
him. The bullet bounces off hishead, but the look on the kid's
face when he turns around, likehe just realized, did you just
try to kill me. And that'sheartbreaking too. I mean, that
scene was just like, hard on meto watch this time. And then he,

(01:20:25):
of course, kills his dad, andgoes after his mom. So the last
act is mom being hunted atfamily home by her son. And it's
it's a fairly believable set ofscenes. And it's really creepy
because he's so fuckingpowerful. He's he's basically,
super Boy, you know. And so Iguess, the way the reason the

(01:20:46):
movie worked for me this time,well, first I'll talk about when
I first saw in the theater, Iwas super disappointed. And I
thought that the idea of, ofSuperman showing up on earth and
what he might have turned out tobe if he hadn't been raised by
mom pop can't and get into thiscore set of values that made him

(01:21:07):
want to be a good person, youknow, you might end up with this
shitty kid. And that idea isamazing. And that's not what's
happening here. Because this kidis being raised by mom and pop
can't, they're really goodpeople who have loved him and
treated him, you know, so great,and all this stuff, and he
suddenly becomes this littleshit. Now, unfortunately, that

(01:21:29):
part is believable. Because, Imean, we've all had nieces and
nephews, and, you know, and someof the people listening I'm sure
have sons and daughters who, ata certain point in their life,
they were probably like, youknow what, I love you, but I do
not like you very much. So, thistime, it worked for me, because

(01:21:50):
instead of looking at looking atit as a, as a failed origin of a
superhero, I started looking atit as the origin of a
psychopath. And, you know, ifyou've got something broken in
your mind, you can get all thelove in the world. And, and you
still will, will be a little bitbroken. And that actually going

(01:22:15):
into with that mindset, Ithought the film worked really
well. Now, I thought the pacingwas a little off because he goes
from he goes from kind of ashitty little kid to a murderer
to a mass murderer very quickly.
And I would have liked this filmto have gone from a shitty
little kid to a murderer tosomeone who, as he moves on, at

(01:22:40):
the end of the movie, we can seehe might become a mass murderer.
I just felt like the the pacingwas way too rushed. But I did
really, really enjoy it thistime, which was, I was
surprised.
That is super. I mean, this is afilm that I've severely
disliked. But I definitely camefrom the viewpoint of it's a

(01:23:01):
good movie, but it's completelyunenjoyable. Oh, yeah. And
that's Yeah, I think when Ifirst watched it, unlike you, I
wasn't looking at it as a failedparenting film I knew it was
going to be like, and what ifit? What if he didn't come from
a planet where Superman wouldhave come from, but from like, a
bug colony or something? And soI felt like that made sense. But

(01:23:25):
it was such a dark natured, badnatured fill as far as just
like, totally like, it's not,there's not a lot of positivity
in it.
No, like you were talking abouthow you'd like to have a, a
moment of humor, or there's nohumor?

(01:23:46):
Yeah. And I would, I actuallyhad said, I'll never ever
rewatch this film, but maybe Iwill, at some point. Because
what you're saying, I mean, itjust, it definitely is more
interesting, I think on a secondtime through if you know what's
about to happen with all thehorrific gore and out, you know,
lashing out and all that. Somaybe I would get more out of

(01:24:07):
this time, but it was rough. Itwas so hard to get through.
But I think that that's kind ofa credit to the filmmakers in
that. You're really rooting forthe parent. Yeah. When If not,
if not in changing the directionof their homicidal child in at
least surviving. Yeah, exactly.
And that is not where this moviegoes. So but it's interesting.

(01:24:32):
You said like the planet that'sa bug colony because I'm in
class when he's describing thisone thing. He's like, fascinated
with wasps, and he startstalking about how they're more
aggressive than regular bees.
And they work in groups toattack and that one species
forces other insects to raiseits young. In my first viewing,

(01:24:53):
I just, you know, glossed overthis scene in class and now I
was like, Oh, this is what hisalien yes did. They said, you
know, hey, raise our kid becausehe's gonna take over your planet
shortly.
Absolutely. Yeah. And that wassomething that I remember
watching and really catching onto and really being like,
oh god, he'slike an evil bug alien guy. And
that's why all the humanity justgets sapped out of him and he

(01:25:14):
just becomes like, a conquer.
Being, I guess, I don't know.
Yeah, and it's clear. That'swhere this is going to go. I
don't think the film wasreceived well enough to warrant
a sequel. Oh, my God, pleasedon't make a sequel. But I sure
would like to see like thiscontinuing a series of books or

(01:25:35):
something like that.
DC?
No, no, it's just a it's astandalone thing. There's a lot
of superhero tropes in this thatyou're gonna see that they kind
of twist and everything. But oneof the most obvious is the kid's
name is Brandon Brier, whichfollows superhero conventions of
you know, collect, Peter Parker,that kind of shit. Bruce Banner.

(01:25:59):
One little bit of trivia that Ithought was kind of fun is at
the very end over the endcredits is Michael Rooker
playing a YouTube conspiracytheorist who's talking about all
this other shit that's going on.
And he's comparing the footageof the mysterious brightburn
character to other mysteriousfigures that he has. And he's
showing these pictures on grainyimages on the back of his

(01:26:22):
screen. So he's talking about asea creature that's turning over
a boat, which is clearly an aquaman thing, a witch strangling
people with ropes, which is aWonder Woman kind of thing. And
then what I did love was at thevery end was an image of the
krimson bolt, which was RainnWilson's character from James
Gunn's movie super. And I waslike, I love it, because he's

(01:26:45):
kind of like a very bad versionof Batman. And I thought, Well,
here we go. We've got a veryevil Justice League. You are an
injustice Lee against. Man,I don't want to be a part of
this alternative universe.
Sounds very bad.

(01:27:06):
Yeah, I did. Just walk away withcompletely new understanding of
the film and appreciation forit. That's awesome.
I was wondering DC, that we needto get darker and grimmer. All
right, well, they went for itwith this one.
This is dark and grim. For sure.
Well, all right. That's a that'sYeah, that's all of it. Who's
whose choice? Is it next?
Um, I believe it is my choice.

(01:27:28):
I believe it is. Youare correct. Yes. And so since
we're coming up on Valentine'sDay, I thought that we should
keep it within the Valentine'sDay theme. And let's go ahead
and go with gifts from thehearts nice or not. So nice
gifts, and presumably horrorfilms.

(01:27:51):
So does it have to be a physicalgift? Is this or is this also a
gesture of? Oh, man? That'sa great question. I mean, I
guess it could be a grandiosegesture, you know, um, but I
mean, they would be nice. Imean, I don't know what kind of
a gesture wouldn't involve someformat of gifting.
That's true. That's true. Butwe're also we're kind of keeping

(01:28:12):
this to like romantic. Yes. Soyeah. Should be like
romantically intentions, right?
Yes. So bright burn, killing themom of the girl he has a crush
on that's kind of a romanticgesture. And absolutely
that. Well, if he was doing itin a way that was meant to be a
romantic gesture.

(01:28:32):
With this kid, you just can'ttell.
Please don't do paper and pen.
Okay, I like that. And that'swhat we'll be talking about next
week. As usual, thank you to allthe people who are liking and
sharing the posts. Eric, haveyou gotten a five star review
lately?
Not that I've seen. But Ihaven't. I haven't checked in a

(01:28:54):
little bit. Be that the show hassucked a lot lately.
Yeah. That sounds about Yeah.
That's on us, I guess. But foreverybody else who's saying the
kind words and typing the thenice things a big big thank you.
Yes.
Thank you so much for listeningto us through this. these trying

(01:29:15):
times, and being a part of ourfamily. All right
now, everybody. Go home. Allright.
Fine, probably are thereanyways. All right.
Our show is recorded somewherehigh above Naval Station Everett
at the nexus of all realities,and is engineered and produced
by Eric Margaret. Our thememusic is Strange Aeons part one

(01:29:36):
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