SUBCULTURE: POP CULTURE NEWS Ep #002

Dave Griffiths and Harley Woods bring you a new episode of SUBCULTURE: Pop Culture News.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Subculture Pop Culture,
the show where we take a look at all of
the pop culture news that's floating around at the moment,
and also some of the things that our writers and
our on air personalities have been following over the last week.
I'm Dave g and joining me right now is Harley.
Welcome mate.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Thank you Dave, and hello everyone. Thanks for joining in
our next episode. And I think it might be time
to spread a bit of entertainment news about you, David.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
I hear there's something you want to announce.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
Yeah, I'm back in as Golden Globes voter for this year,
so I will keep everybody up to date on across
our platforms as I watch the different movies that are
up for the Golden Globes. Of course, I can't say
who I'm going to vote for or anything like that. Yeah,
it does mean that we'll be able to bring new

(01:03):
reviews of a lot of the Awards season films and
stuff like that a lot earlier than other outlets, because
we do get to see them a lot earlier then
when they hit cinemas.

Speaker 2 (01:18):
Then Joe bribes to Subculture Entertainment, they will be completely
ignored but appreciated.

Speaker 1 (01:25):
And talking of things like that as well. The Melbourne
International Film Festival is starting in just a couple of
weeks and myself, Harley and Kyle have all got media accreditation,
so we will be going along and seeing a bunch
of movies. And I guess it fits into the pop
culture realm because Harley, there's a movie that is getting

(01:48):
its Australian premiere at myth this year that we're all
excited about, isn't that.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Yeah, it's very excited about our remake of The Toxic Avenger.

Speaker 1 (01:58):
Yes, well now, and it's also showing in Imax as well,
which is going to be absolutely amazing. But for our
our listeners out there, Holly, tell him a little bit
about why you're so excited about this film.

Speaker 2 (02:11):
Well, it's it goes back to when I was a
kid and probably shouldn't have been watching this film. That's
my childhood in a barrel there. Yeah, it's one of
those what was the company called Trauma Trauma, Yeah, Trauma Films.

(02:32):
They had a whole bunch of kind of weird and
wonderful films of you know, poured down and out characters
where crazy stuff would happen to them, and this is
no exception.

Speaker 3 (02:43):
This poor guy would.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Get bullied by like his peers, and suddenly he falls
into a vat of toxic waste, becomes this mutated monster,
but it makes him stronger and more powerful, so he,
you KNOWX down all the bad guys and the bullies.
And it was quite extreme, so it'll be interesting to
see how this new version handles it. I don't know

(03:09):
if I'll go as extreme, but you know, it had
at least three movies in the series, and then it
became licensed as a cartoon series, The Toxic Crusaders, where
he had a whole bunch of other toxic deformed cohorts
to hang around with. It was a lot of fun.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Yeah, I remember I had a few of the toys
from the series as well, and as I was thinking
the other day, I'm pretty sure I had a couple
of other weirder kind of items from it as well,
like a lunch box and stuff as as well.

Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Speaker 1 (03:46):
Now some other news that's broken this week as well,
which is it's kind of sad news because I was
looking forward to this, but Metro Comic Con announced this
week that there will be no two thousand and five
version of metro Comic Con unfortunately.

Speaker 3 (04:01):
Well I'm not surprised. What's in the past.

Speaker 1 (04:04):
Yeah, well I'm here, yeah, the twenty twenty five this year.
But I'm quoting from what they've actually announced publicly here.
It says that the organizes a metro Comic Con is
sad to announce that unfortunate due to circumstances out of
their realm, that they can not go forward with this

(04:25):
year's two thousand and five metro Comic Con due to
the fact that other events being booked at the venue
would dampen the experience for those attending metro Comic Cons.
So it sounds like there might have been a little
bit of double booking or something going on. I'm not
going to allude to that because it could get me
in legal trouble, but yeah, it was supposed to be

(04:47):
at the Royal Melbourne Showground, so it sounds like another
event that is on at the same time they feel
was going to cause a disruption to the way that
Metro's experience was going to be. But they say look
forward to twenty twenty six and metro Comic Con will
be back then. So I was a bit sad about that.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
Yeah, yeah, I want to try and get to this one.

Speaker 1 (05:11):
But oh well, yeah, I'm pretty sad about it because
they've had the best guests over the last few years,
Like of all the conventions here in Australia, they have
had some absolutely amazing guests. I love conventions and I
love that so many of the conventions that we have
here in Australia have actors and actresses from the past,

(05:31):
but Metro always seemed to be able to grab the
current stars, like grabbing people from Stranger things from the
Walking Dead and things like that, so but then mixing
it up as well with people from the past. So
I'm a little bit sad that there is no Metro
Comic Con this year, especially with how many new franchises

(05:53):
and new television shows there are bubbling around at the
moment as well.

Speaker 2 (05:59):
Yeah no, it's quite heartbreaking. So oh well, hopes are
high for next year. It was the same. I have
been really wanting to go overseas and do the Power
con which is the he Man and Sheer convention that
they do, but this year and last year it hasn't

(06:20):
been on because of again other things getting booked in
the venue before them. So I don't know how they're
missing out two years in a row, but I'm going
to have to look up to see if they're going
to do it next year as well, because yeah, I
think this year they had a little bit of a

(06:43):
a look in as part of another convention, like they
had something set up, but they haven't had a proper
convention of their own. It's like, as soon as I
get interested to fly over and do something like this,
it gets canceled.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
Why we're talking of overseas, I guess we can announce
this now. Kyle is going over to Japan later this year,
so he's going to bring us some of the news
and stuff that's going from Japan, and then next year
I'm going over for some of the anime festivals that
are on over there as well, So we'll be getting

(07:15):
a lot of stuff from Japan over the next couple
of years. Now. We did mention during Metro Comic Con
Stranger Things. One of the big pop culture stories this
week was that the teaser trailer for season five of
Stranger Things was released this week, and I've got to
say it looks pretty good. It looks like it's really
holding on to its eighties feeling like when I was

(07:37):
watching the trailer, I was thinking of a lot of
the movies and stuff that I was watching in the
nineteen eighties. So it's really really captured that feeling. It's
kind of weird because it's been three years since the
last season. I don't know COVID was a major factor
in that. If you heard our regular show, this sounds weird.

(08:01):
If you heard our regular show a couple of years ago,
when we spoke to David Harbor, he said that COVID
really impacted the production of Stranger Things, and that's why
there was a major hold up with it. Now Netflix
have announced.

Speaker 2 (08:16):
That, but you know, the cast have grown so much
it's like might as well said it in nineteen ninety
at this point.

Speaker 1 (08:25):
Now, Netflix are releasing this in a very very weird way,
which seems to be their way of doing things at
the moment. So Volume one of season five will have
four episodes that will be released on November twenty six,
a month later on December twenty five, So if you
want to dodge your family on Christmas Day, which so
many of us like to do, you'll be able to

(08:47):
sit down and watch the next three episodes of Stranger
Things because that's when volume two lands, and then the
final episode, which is supposed to be a movie length episode,
is watching on December thirty first, So again, if you
want to dodge your family on New Year's Eve, you'll
be able to sit down and watch the movie length

(09:08):
finale of Stranger Things, which is the last episode ever
they have announced, so that will be wrapping up Stranger
Things with season five.

Speaker 3 (09:21):
To think.

Speaker 2 (09:22):
They're also just released on Netflix Sandman season two, which
is supposed to be the final season, which is unfortunate
because they started building up a bit of the universe
and then immediately decided no more. But that's being released
in two parts as well, so I think the second
part drops in a month or something like that.

Speaker 1 (09:45):
Now, talking of action heroes and things like that, I
did have the opportunity to sit down and go to
the premiere this week of The Fantastic Four. My review
will be up online later today. Are Holly. We'll try
not to go into spoilers, but I guess as a

(10:05):
fan of the of the franchise and have everything comic
book related, you've probably got questions and they're probably the
same questions as what our listeners have so do you
want to grill me a little bit about the Fantastic Four?

Speaker 2 (10:22):
Okay, so I heard a little bit about it that
you know, they're already established.

Speaker 3 (10:27):
They're probably from a different.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Kind of universe than all the other kind of Avengers
and things we've been watching. So for me, okay, the
biggest question for me is based on that last Fantastic
Four movie, which was just awful. Are we getting characters

(10:50):
that are like the comic books, the characters we know,
or are we getting weird reinterpretations like the last lot?

Speaker 1 (10:57):
No, they are very much similar to what we have
grown up reading in the comics. I've got to say
that this whole film feels like the comics. It was funny.
There's a I don't know if I can mention in
the villain or whether that's too much of a spoiler,
but there's one moment where you have our heroes standing
in front of the villain, and it reminded me of

(11:22):
Defenders of the Earth like that. It had had that
kind of nineteen eighties nineteen seventies cartoon vibe to it,
even though it was real actors all the way through it.
You are right, it is set in a parallel Earth.
It is definitely Earth, because that is mentioned a few times,
but it says at the start of the film year

(11:44):
eight to eight. But my feeling was that it is
a parallel Earth. There's also an event that happens in
this as well where I'm not one hundred percent convince
that something didn't happen that shifted the planet. There's in

(12:05):
a there's a time in this movie where they are
trying to move Earth so that Earth can be hidden,
and I'm not one hundred percent convinced that even though
it appears in the movie that it was ruined by
one of the villains, I'm not one hundred percent convinced
that it didn't happen partially at least, so that may

(12:30):
change things. Definitely the ending of it, and I will
definitely not going to spoil us here, but definitely the
character that appears at the end of this film is
a direct link into the next Avengers film.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
So yeah, I was kind of wondering because we we
had films like The Marvels where a post credit scene
puts one of the characters in another universe, any pretend
to link him.

Speaker 1 (13:02):
Yeah, I'm wondering about that as well, because also I've
noticed that the next Avengers film, one of the big
characters in it is supposed to be saying chee. So
I'm guessing that there may be some some swapping arounds
going along, like because all of the characters that seem
to be coming into this seemed to be the characters
that have the ability to just slide between dimensions and

(13:26):
things like that. So yeah, I guess that's the big
question for me that I still am having trouble kind
of coming to grips with, is how are the audience
is going to accept Robert Downey Jr. As Doctor Doom.
We're so used to seeing him as as Tony Stark

(13:49):
and Iron Man. And I know people say, well, other
characters have come back, Other actors have come back as
other characters, such as we've had the same actor Ryan
Reynolds play Gambit and then he's come back as Deadpool,
and in between he went off and played Green Lancen
in the DC universe. But I don't know if I'm

(14:12):
going to be able to fully accept the same actor
playing Doctor Doom after already playing one of the most
iconic characters in the Marvel universe. How do you think
you're going to go with that.

Speaker 2 (14:25):
Look, I'm kind of feeling about it the same way
I feel with Doctor Who.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
At the moment, it's like a bit of fan baiting.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
It's just like, Oh, we're gonna lose our main actor quick,
let's put someone else who comes from the show in
their place. Look, Oh, surprise, what's our plan. We don't
have one. Yay, We're just trying to get you excited
and hyped and we'll worry about the consequences later, because

(14:55):
we're all about nostalgia bating these days.

Speaker 1 (14:58):
I think the other thing that really annoys me about
it is well is that the reason that they wrote
Iron Man and Tony stark Out was supposedly that Robert
Downey Jr. Was tired of the genre, and now all
of a sudden, he's coming back into the genre as
a different character. Whereas on the flip side, you've got
Chris Evans, who pretty much regretted his decision to leave

(15:22):
the moment he did it, and has supposedly been pitching
projects to Marvel in a way to bring his Captain
America back, and they seem to be rejecting them. So
it's like you're bringing an actor back that said he
was tired of the genre, but ignoring an actor who
regrets making the decision to leave in the first place.

Speaker 2 (15:45):
Yeah, why couldn't he come back as Johnny Storm? A
fantastic form.

Speaker 1 (15:50):
I was actually thinking about that. It's kind of funny that,
like you've got Yeah, I guess, and I guess that's
one of the things that really did fit with his
film as well. Every single one of the actors really
fit their characters, and I guess I can talk a
little bit about the fact that this one really touched

(16:10):
on the family element of it. I am going to
deliver a little bit of a spoiler here because I
think I need to in order to talk a little
bit about that. So if you don't want to spoil it,
maybe just tune out for a second. But at the
very start of this film, Soue Storm becomes pregnant, and

(16:32):
so there's a very big storyline revolving around family and
that excitement of when a baby is going to be born.
You also have a character who is absolutely terrified of
the fact that he's going to become a father, even
though he doesn't want to admit it, and that's played
really really well by Pedro Pascal. So there's a lot

(16:56):
more heart in this film.

Speaker 2 (16:58):
I think that's kind of interesting because the baby that
would be born is Franklin Richards, who becomes quite a
powerful mutant. So that's leading into the X Men as well. So,
which is the thing I'm holding out for. I haven't
been terribly impressed with Marvel over the last few years.

Speaker 3 (17:19):
If they can pull X Men off, they might get
me back in.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Well, see, we had a teaser for that. I'm trying
to think which Marvel movie was one of the Marvel movies. Yeah,
it was the Marvel Yeah, I had Kelsey Grammer back,
so yeah, so I guess we'll see where that goes. Now,
talking of the comic book world, I do have some
comic news here as well. If you've been a fan

(17:46):
of Tom Taylor's night Wing series that he's been doing
at the moment, it's coming back or it's being re
released as an omnibus at the moment, so you won't
have to go and buy all the individual ones anymore.
It is coming being released as an omnibus. The other

(18:06):
comic that I'm really excited about at the moment as
well is Vamparolla Armageddon that has just dropped as well
from writer Tom Sinowski and artist Quibarbal And it looks
really really good. I'm looking at some of the artwork
from it right now and I've got to say I'm

(18:27):
really really excited about that. We did mention Godzilla the
Case Era Volume one is out now as well, So
go down to your local comic book shop.

Speaker 2 (18:39):
And there might be another Goddilla versus someone in Marvel.

Speaker 3 (18:45):
I don't know if it was like X Men or
Avengers or something like that.

Speaker 1 (18:49):
Yeah, definitely, there's so much that there's There are a
few Godzilla titles coming out at the moment. I can't
wait to get into a comic book shop to go
and pick those up as well. Talking of new things,
productions started this week on the new Harry Potter television series.
We've got some of the sneak peak looks at it

(19:14):
now as well.

Speaker 2 (19:16):
So yeah, I told the casting for Harry himself, and
it feels like they're really just trying to find a
clone of the original guy.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
What's his name, Daniel Radcliffe?

Speaker 2 (19:32):
Genuine yeah, because it was kind of like, Wow, they
really do not want to stray from that look, do they.

Speaker 1 (19:40):
Well, it's funny because Harry is really the only character
in the novels that gets a really severe description, Like
I remember when they first cast a black actress to
play Harmoni in The Curse Child the theater production. JK.
Rowling pointed out, there's never, at any stage in the

(20:00):
Harry Potter novels is it mentioned what race or nationality
Harmoni is. Yeah, it's kind of weird when you go
back and read it and you realize that, Yeah, Harry
is the only character that gets a really strong description
in the book. So I suppose if they want to
stay true to the books, and they're saying they want
to stay true to the books rather than the movies,

(20:23):
because of course there's a lot more in the novels
that never got explored in the movies, and I'm hoping
that they do do that because one of the other
big heroes of that franchise is never Longbottom, who was
kind of treated as the comedic sidekick in the original
movies and only really got to shine in the final

(20:43):
Battle of Hogwarts, Whereas in the book there's also a
very big question of whether or not Neville is actually
the prophesized child, because he matches the prophesized child as
much as what as what Harry does. He bears a
mark from from trying to think Voldemort his parents. We're

(21:08):
basically tortured by Voldemort, like he matches everything as well,
So I'm hoping that we might get to see some
more of that. And even like the character of Luna Lovegood,
she gets left out a lot in the films, but
she's mentioned a lot in the in the novels, to

(21:29):
the point where a lot of people at some stages
thought that she would have been the perfect partner for Harry.
But there's also if you have a look at Luna
and you have a look at how her dad looks,
then there's a very strong possibility that she is related
to the Malfroys. So I'm hoping all of that kind
of stuff is explored in the TV series because they've

(21:53):
said that they want to widen the universe and explore
some of the characters that are looked at in the
novels but not so much looked at in the original films.

Speaker 2 (22:04):
Yeah, and I guess on that the Percy Jackson stories.
They you know, we had a couple of the movies
which again didn't quite follow the books and you know,
aged them up. But we've had the TV series the
first season of that now, and you know, I've got

(22:26):
a friend who's really into the books and it was
so impressed with how well the first series followed the
books and how appropriately it's been cast, and watching it,
I thought it was pretty amazing.

Speaker 3 (22:39):
So there is some hope that.

Speaker 2 (22:41):
If they're going to stick to it quite honestly, stick
to the sauce the way Percy Jackson did, I think, yeah,
Harry Potter could work.

Speaker 1 (22:51):
I'm hoping as well that it's a lot darker. I
know when they first started talking about doing this series,
they were talking about it being like, as they put it,
hbo ok. And I think that might have tamed up
a little bit now because of the fact that they've
got child actors and stuff in there. But I was
kind of hoping to see that because of course, Voldemort

(23:12):
is a pretty evil character when you go back and
read the original novels, and he's basically a character that
has never known love. His parents didn't love each other,
and according to his description in the novels, that's why
he is so evil, because he's never known or experienced
love in his lifetime and therefore doesn't understand different things.

(23:37):
But The other thing I also hope they go back
and explore more is that love triangle between Harry Potter's
parents and Snape as well, like the Lily Potter severa
Snape love story, because again, there's been people who have
read the novels and have suspected that perhaps Harry is
actually Snape's child because of the fact that Lily and

(24:01):
Snape were having a relationship before Lily ultimately married Harry's dad.
So there's a lot of a lot of stuff in
there that I think they can explore and maybe answer
the questions that some people have had over the years
as well. So, but moving along from Harry Potter, our

(24:21):
last bit of news for the day is that author
Nicky Brook has just dropped her brand new book called
The Huxian Fox. So if you loved her first novel,
Plague Lands, then you will probably like the new one.
Although Nicki has told me herself that the brand new
book is very, very different from Plague Lands. There's a

(24:42):
little bit more comedy in The Huxiyan Fox. But yeah,
go out and grab it because it's out now, available
online and in all good bookshops.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
And we could definitely recommend her as a writer.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
So yeah, actually, but Halle, we should end the episode
there because that's it for all of the news that's
around at the moment. But to fulfill all of your
subculture pop culture needs, we recommend that you go to
Subculture Collectibles, which is located at one hundred and twenty

(25:18):
two Old Princess Highway in Beaconsfield, Victoria. It's part of
the Pickers retro Haven, but there is also an online
store for Subculture Collectibles that will be launching. It's got
a bit of a soft launch at the moment. It
is there if you look for it on the website,
but its official launch is going to be over the

(25:40):
next couple of weeks, So make sure you go and
check out everything at Subculture Collectibles, and also like the
Subculture Collectibles Facebook page because that's where we update what's
coming into the store and other news. Harley, If you
want ten percent off at Subculture Collectibles's online store, you

(26:00):
can get that by becoming a Subculture Entertainment Patreon member.
How can people do that?

Speaker 2 (26:07):
Of course, just go to patreon dot com and look
up Subculture Entertainment and yeah, look, you get a week's
free trial of our channel when you sign up to
become a patron, but yeah, once you're confirmed as an
ongoing paid member, you can get that discount code. And yeah,

(26:29):
hopefully you'll enjoy the content we're putting up or putting
up more and more, and then if you get those
cravings to go out and get some merch, well you
don't have to go far.

Speaker 1 (26:40):
And I understand that you and Kyle have been looking
at some movies recently on Patreon as well.

Speaker 2 (26:47):
Yes, we've gone to our little eighties happy place with
film MC and me recently, which should be up for
people to view now and soon to record a look
at the.

Speaker 3 (27:02):
RoboCop series of films.

Speaker 2 (27:05):
We're going to look at the originals and the remake,
and we might even get a look at the TV series.
And Kyle has been playing the video games, so yeah,
we're going to do a bit of a broad.

Speaker 3 (27:17):
Look in there. I hope you all can handle it.

Speaker 2 (27:21):
But there's lots of other classic stuff going up beyond
the the deep dive pop culture stuff that we all
get mad about, definitely, and.

Speaker 1 (27:33):
Talking a RoboCop, we actually have some of the original
trading cards at the moment at Subculture Collectibles as well.
The original RoboCop trading cards.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
So yeah, you can really get things going.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
But we better get out of here right now, So
make sure that you follow all of the subculture entertainment
socials and also go to subculture Entertainment dot com for
when you want all of your brand new pop culture
film and music into and reviews. But for now, I've

Speaker 2 (28:01):
Been Dave d and I've been Harley, and we'll catch
you next time.