Wanted (2008)

DJ Nik and Keith Bliss review "Wanted" !!! Enjoy ! If you would like to come on and discuss YOUR favourite movie send us a email with your movie of choice to : [e-mail] . Check out our great tiers on Patreon : patreon.com/happinessindarkness !!!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03):
This is the mind bombing black hole I call a job,
and this is me, Wesley Gibson, nobody like everybody else.
I just keep waiting for a lotto ticket out of
my boring existence and into a life that means something.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I knew your father.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
My father died the week out for him.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Your father died yesterday and the rooftop of the Metropolitan Building.
He was one of the greatest assassins who ever lived
than the other one. It's behind you.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I thought he'd be taller. Shoot the wings off the flies.
You're insane.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Insanity is coasting through a life and a miserable existence
when you have a keys lying unlocked inside.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
I really think you have me mixed up with somebody else.
Shoot the wings off the flies. It's a u shoot.
Only a few people in the world can do that.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
Your father could do it, and you can do it.

Speaker 4 (01:11):
We are a fraternity of assassins, the weapons of fate.

Speaker 5 (01:16):
The fraternity has craned assassins for thousands of years.

Speaker 3 (01:20):
You'll be giving everything you need. Curve the bullet to
kill your target. I think is really we don't.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Know how far the ripples of our decisions go. Kill one,
say a thousand. Now, that's what we believe in, and
that's why we do it.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
This is what's been missing from your life, whistling purpose.
All you have to do now is embrace it.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
I'm the man.

Speaker 5 (01:59):
That motherfucker.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Are we gonna bond from there?

Speaker 5 (02:03):
Would you like to?

Speaker 3 (02:06):
We're in this unstable world. Every life hangs by a thread.
We are at bread.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Take control of your own destiny.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Join us.

Speaker 3 (02:22):
Wanted show people.

Speaker 5 (02:26):
Welcome to our three hundred and seventh episode of Happiness
and Darkness, the Superhero Movie Podcast, where we discuss superhero
movies Marvel, DC, dark Horse, Image and beyond. Naturally, there
will be spoilers, folks, so you have been warned. I
am one of your co hosts. Did you neck? And
as always joined me is my superhero partnering here, I'm
mister Keith. But this Hey Keith, how are you today?

Speaker 2 (02:50):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (02:50):
You know me, I can't complain. I just wanted to
make sure that we have a good podcast because I
want to make sure everybody knows what movie we're talking about,
and I want to make sure that we don't go
over any spoilers. So I mean, otherwise I'm fantastic.

Speaker 5 (03:05):
Well, that's great stuff. So if you hadn't guessed yet, folks, today,
of course we are discussing Wanted from two thousand and eight.
This was directed by Team with mcmambitoff. The story was
by Michael Brandy and Derek Hass, who co wrote the
screenplay with Chris Morgan, while the score was by that
guy you might have heard of, Danny Elfman and Nestmate

(03:26):
put in today's money adjusted for inflation. This movie cost
one hundred and thirteen million dollars to make and made
five hundred and fifteen million at the box office. So Keith,
I know that obviously, unlike me, this was not your
first time watching this movie, So what did you make
of it on your rewatch?

Speaker 4 (03:45):
This is one of those movies that you either love
it or hate it, and it just depends on the
frame of mind when you're watching it. Like for our podcast,
when I rewatched it, I had to really pay attention
and pick apart all the the dumb stuff for lack
of a better term, that was going on that just
didn't make a lot of sense. But if you just
turn on and turn your brain off, it's good, clean.

Speaker 3 (04:07):
Stupid fun.

Speaker 4 (04:08):
It's just lots of explosions and a little bit of
acting sprinkled in just to keep everybody awake.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
Is it a good movie? That's debatable.

Speaker 4 (04:17):
I mean, it made almost a half a billion dollars,
so you would have thought they'd make two or three
more of these by now. But clearly nobody wanted to
make a sequel, and which is crazy because his character
does survive at the end and their potential for spinoffs,
but they just wanted to make one movie. And yes, kids,

(04:38):
I will beat that to death.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
That wanted joke. I don't care.

Speaker 5 (04:43):
That.

Speaker 4 (04:43):
Being said, the cast is decent, there's parts that just
don't make sense in the context of you see him
doing certain things and then all of a sudden, he
like wakes up on a couch and you're like, cool,
how did we get to like, we just saw you
punch some thing, and now you're waking up on a couch?
Like what happened in that spand of time they had,

(05:04):
They made a lot of interesting choices in terms of
editing and what to cut out and what to leave in.
And I'm not saying that we needed to see every
single time he went from point A to point B.
But when it's the middle of the afternoon and then
he wakes up the next morning. You're like, this dude
just blacked out for like fourteen hours. We're not concerned
about any of this at all.

Speaker 3 (05:27):
And the scene at.

Speaker 4 (05:28):
The end when he shoots out the window of the train,
he falls down this waterfall and then just wakes up
in the the tubs that they heal in like two
seconds later, and you're like, how long have you been here?

Speaker 3 (05:46):
How long have you been in like this? What like
what has.

Speaker 4 (05:48):
Happened in the span of time like hack? And I'm
not saying again, you didn't have to do it for
every single scene, but once in a while just to
kind of understand the process. And for our listeners at
home that have not watched this movie yet, anytime something transpires,
they get beaten up, they get shot wounded, they go

(06:09):
into these healing tubs and it facilitates quicker healing, which
they don't explain why or how.

Speaker 3 (06:17):
It's just literally magic.

Speaker 4 (06:19):
And every time he does some sort of training montage, he.

Speaker 3 (06:23):
Wakes up in one of these tubs. But again, we don't.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
Ever see the how he got your portion of the story,
except for that one time where Angeline and Julie's character
is walking around so it's just it's it's it's interesting
when we can go into a little bit more. It's
a fun watch. But I don't know what about you, Nick,
What did you think, mister first time watcher?

Speaker 5 (06:48):
Well, I will say this, I was not familiar with
the source material from Mark Mila, unlike I don't know
if you had ever read the original comics of this,
But I do know that Mark has a reputation for
edge loading. So if folks, I don't want to man
explain here, but for those who are not familiar with

(07:10):
the term edge loading, what that technically means is when
somebody does something just to seem risque or just to
seem over the top, and it's like, look how far
he's going. He really is pushing the envelope. And so
he does have this reputation of doing this in his work,
and I don't I mean, I've been told from our
mutual friend child Scags that this is not particularly faithful

(07:32):
to the source material. It carries the main beats, but
it is its own animal. Now I do see some
of the edge loading here as well when it comes
to story, because it is very edgy, it is very gritty,
and also by the end of the story, you think
to yourself, is this a happy ending? Is this a
sad ending? It's an ending I would I pretty much
would call it, and I tried to once again whenever

(07:54):
I analyze any movie, either for this podcast or other podcast,
is what is the message behind this podcast? What behind
this this movie? What are they trying to tell me
and Murder exactly? And the main message that I got
from this was when it comes to Wesley's interior dialogue,
it's almost obviously addressing the audience. It's very much about

(08:15):
what are you doing with your life? Are you going
to be the sad person in the little cubic or
being yelled at by his boss, or you're going to
try and maybe do something with your life and do
something maybe exciting, possibly that might not necessarily involve becoming
a trained assassin, But I think that's kind of the
message that he's trying to bring out and this movie
you might be trying to give you, because by the

(08:35):
time the end of this movie ends, we do get
that monologue from Wesley to the audience saying, you know
I did this, What are you doing with your life?
So it's almost it might be a call to action.
This movie might be a call to action itself of
embrace life, try and live in an exciting life, try
to live it to the fullest. It's to an extent, granted,

(08:55):
the two very different movies, but it almost makes me
think of the message that is you in Train Spotting.
When it comes to Renton's character there, he always talks
about choose life. So it almost seems to be that
kind of way rather than you know, kind of literally
pissing your days away, either in a in a in
a heroin frenzy. Do something with your life, try and

(09:20):
enjoy it, try and do something meaningful. And I think
that's what they're trying to do with this with this film.
Now does what Wesley do is what? What does what
Weslesty do necessarily meaningful? I don't know, but he clearly
has changed. Of course, we will talk more about this
when we do get to his character. Other that I
did enjoy the film. I thought it was well paced. Yes,

(09:41):
you do have to spend to spend your disbelief in
quite a few sections of this film when it comes
like like I like I don't know a train coming
down the tracks, or of course bending bullets. But they
try to give you a science for why people able
to shoot in a way that bullets tend to bend.
So I guess there are laws to this universe. And
I did enjoy the concept of out of the Fraternity

(10:05):
and have you in the little twist at the end
and such, so I thought that was cool. But yeah,
by the time the film ends, you ask yourself, where
is this guy going? What is the story? And I
think also the other concept that is trying to give
you is when it comes to like a group of
people say, and either go to going to extreme of
a cult, how do you and you find out that

(10:25):
your leader is corrupt, is embezzling money? What do you do?
Do you follow the code? Do you walk away? And
I think that is also kind of a lesson of
or even of religion for that matter, If you find
that your religion is flawed, are you going to still
follow it blindly? Or are you going to step away
and be your own person? So I think it does
try to tackle all these things at once in a

(10:47):
pretty decent way. And when it comes to cast, I
think we have a pretty stellar cast here as well.
Unlike Blass, which we talked about last time, I do
think the actors don't necessarily have to just push themselves.
To me the writing better, The story in itself works,
I think for the most part, if you are prepared
to like once again, as I said, suspend you this belief.

(11:08):
And I think also it's more of a linear and
more of a more coherent narrative compared to what we
got in Glass, which I think was more of a
wasted opportunity of some great actors here. I think by
and large they do use their actors the best way
they could, So I would say I'm pretty happy with
this one. So let's kick off our with our characters

(11:30):
on the board. Starting with our main character, we have
the man who would be an assassin, mister Jaden's maacka
boy once again as Wesley Alan Gibson. So, Keith, what
did you make of Wesley?

Speaker 4 (11:45):
He's almost annoying, and I get it. That's kind of
the point of his character is he's this sniveling, spineless
person at the beginning of the movie, based on his
open narration about his best friend and sleeping with his girlfriend,
his boss being a crazy whack job, and him just

(12:07):
generally hating life and it, you know, based on all
the things that we've learned up into this split second time. Yeah,
he's a miserable so and so. And to be fair,
who isn't a miserable so and so who's worked in
a cubicle? I myself worked in a cubicle for many,
many years. It was an office with no windows, so

(12:28):
I was a box and a box in a box,
and that drove me just this side of stir crazy.
So I understand him having those, you know, anxiety attacks
and panic and so on and so forth. The fact
that he needs some sort of medication to help with
this what he thinks are anxiety attack or panics attacks

(12:49):
is just like literally everybody else in the world today
that works in an office because of pressure and toxic
work environments and so on and so forth. So he's
very everyday man ish, if that makes any sense. He
could be you or I or any of our friends
that work in an office building. And that's what I
get there. They were going for. They wanted to make

(13:10):
him generic nobody guy, and then his the wheels fall
off the bus in the most spectacular way possible, and
from that point on is just go, go go. I
do appreciate his evolution in terms of from where he
started to where he finished, and when he first meets Fox,

(13:32):
she points out that he apologizes too often, which a
lot of people in the corporate world have a tendency
to do, and he turns that flaw almost into a
running joke throughout the movie, because he goes from I'm
sorry because he screwed something up to I'm sorry, I'm
about to kill you. And it's funny to see that
when he he shoots some guy, he's like all floor

(13:54):
and shoots the guy in the face and you're like,
all right, fair enough, touchet. So it's interesting. I feel
like certain points in the movie he just jumped to
a conclusion that just didn't make a lot of sense
based on the context of what was going on. He
just like full boares, like I believe everything they say.
They have to be telling me the truth. This is

(14:15):
all like if this were your eye, we'd go in with,
you know, a lot of skepticism, like, Okay, sure they're
telling us a lot of stuff, but I guarantee you
there's stuff they're not telling us. And he's just like, okay, donkey,
I'm gonna be a hit man and just blindly follows them.
No questioning, and when he does question them, they give
him some fluff answer, like Sloan telling him about the

(14:38):
the Tapestry of Murder, and he's like, okay, that makes sense,
and he just kind of goes with it and just
doesn't question this at all. The the whole brotherhood where
they get the names from all of this, he's just like, okay,
that makes perfect sense, Like why does that make perfect sense?
And some dude stares at some yarn and on pulls
the name out of what you know in air and

(15:00):
you're like, okay, I believe you, and it just goes
off and kills them and you're like, well that's a thing.
So like that, And that's where the suspension of disbelief
has to come in, because you have to really kind
of turn off your your logic section of the brain.
Even at the end, when he is hunting who he
thinks is the killer of his father, the killer has

(15:22):
him is holding him by his hand and trying to
save his life because the train is falling, and what
does he do shoots a dude in the chest like
what like this dude is literally trying to save your
life and that doesn't like set off any alarm bells like, hey,
something might be a little suspect because the dude who's

(15:42):
trying to kill me is also trying to save me.
And he's like, nope, I'm going to shoot this line
of a bitch and then like just murders him. And
then the split second after he kills him, Fox turns
on him and says like, okay, it's now your turn,
and he's like, son of a bitch, Like again, that's
the point where he's like, oh, maybe it's not all
what it's cracked up to be, or I really shouldn't

(16:02):
believe them one hundred percent. Like that's the line that
he had to draw, opposed to anything else going on,
like the murdering of the people, the bending of the bullets,
like that's all fine. When he accidentally kills the dude
that says he's his father, he's like, whoa, whoa, wait
a minute, I have to rethink my life choice is here.
And to be fair, his father just had to drop

(16:25):
him a letter at some point like hey, I'm alive.
Don't tell anybody. It would be like okay, cool, like
something any like literally anything, and it would have like
this whole chain of events would not have happened. Even
if they bumped into each other in the subway and
he just struck up a conversation like, oh, well, hey,

(16:45):
maybe your dad such and such and just planted that
little seed of questioning other things that people have said
about his father. Nope, none of that happens. He just
all of a sudden has a midlife crisis and then
has a I guess a conscious conscience like whatever, and

(17:08):
just change sides again. And just it's just the fact
that he flip flops so much and so quickly, it's
almost it'll give you whiplash.

Speaker 3 (17:17):
And the fact that he is able.

Speaker 4 (17:18):
To destroy this group in the span of like twelve
hours maybe is just impressive. The fact that it took
one goober with a truck full of rats to dismantle
this entire organization.

Speaker 3 (17:33):
All the other bad guys.

Speaker 4 (17:34):
In the world. Nope, it's ratman and garbage truck, that's
what did it.

Speaker 5 (17:42):
I know I had a feeling the rats would come
into play at some point when we keep getting you know,
keep getting shown the rats and being talked about the
fact that their potential of strapping an explosive to their backs,
and if you use multiple ones that could really cause
so much damage, which your course, however, Russian agent or
Russian member of the fraternity tells us while Wesley is

(18:03):
recuperating from his nth time with I believe, with his training.
So that's just one of the one of the various
things that happened. And I you know, the way you
were describing this. I think also another big question posed is,
or maybe for us the audiences.

Speaker 3 (18:21):
Who are you?

Speaker 5 (18:23):
As in who are you supposed to be? Which I
think is one of Wesley's big questions, not only I
mean because he obviously when he's being he's going through
his training, and Fox keeps yelling at him, why are
you here? And he keeps giving the wrong answer to
her as far as she's concerned, and he keeps getting
whammed on. But I think that might be also one

(18:43):
of the reasons why Wesley is the way he is,
because he's trying to find where he fits into the world,
as in is he supposed to be in a cubicle
with a horrible boss, and finding that nothing makes him happy.
I mean, he's so numb to the world at this point,
even the fact that he knows that his so called
best friend is sleeping periodically with his girlfriend even using

(19:08):
a table that he had bought Taikea for a great price.
It doesn't seem to really phase him. He knows it's happening,
but he's not acting. So I think it's also maybe
a question of he's very passive throughout his life. He's
never taken an active stance, as in addressed his girlfriend's
infidelity or talked back to his boss or other such things.

(19:29):
He's always been very, like you said, very much a doormat,
very meek and mild, and just going through life in
this very passive fashion where I think possibly trying to
figure out who he really is because he doesn't know
who his father was. We have no idea where his
mother is. Apparently she died or we don't know, but
there's never a mention of his mother, which I thought
was rather curious, And it's all about the dad. Granted,

(19:53):
this was written by a man, so it doesn't surprise me,
but that said, it's I what kind of I was
kind of scratching my head about was when he does change,
because it seemed to me that the big change in
his life, and of course it would change anybody's life,
is not because he necessarily wants to go and hunt,
apparently from what he's been told by the fraternity the

(20:13):
man who killed his father, but because he notices he
has over four million dollars in his bank account, which,
as I said, I'm sure it's a life changing moment
for anybody to go from like literally nothing in your
account of four million. But it seems that when he
sees that amount, he begins to get super cocky and
he's like, oh, you know, I can do whatever I want.
I have four million bucks in my account, and I

(20:35):
can talk back to my boss, and I can slam
my so called best friend in the face with a keyboard.
I can literally do whatever the hell I want. It
seems like he's more drunk on the concept that he
now has so much money he doesn't even know probably
what to do with that. He's like, oh, yeah, this
fraternity thing is kind of cool. I just got four
million bucks. Let's go and kill the guy who murdered

(20:55):
my father. At the same time, so I was like, Okay,
I get it. Money is changed you. Is that what
you're trying to say, Because then, as I said, he
just hops back into the fraternity factory and go, oh yeah, okay,
let's go kill some bad guys. I'm ready for this,
and like you said, he is, though I guess rather
naive because at first he does trying to somewhat question
what the hell these guys doing, what's going on and

(21:17):
so on, But then he literally drinks the kool aid
that he is being told by Sloane and Fox because
I guess he doesn't know any better. This is this.
He's very much an empty vessel. Nobody's given him him
an origin story, and he finally has somebody who's giving
him an origin story. So that's probably why he buys
it so much. Yes, it is rather naive. Yes he

(21:38):
should possibly question the facts a little bit more rather
than going down the rabbit hole of studying everything his
apparent father did when he was part of the fraternity,
all his moves and everything else, and wanting to live
up to his father's name because he has the same
gift that his dad has. But ultimately that then, like
you said, gets turned on his head when he finds

(21:58):
out that actually that dude killed your father. He's not,
or rather should say, you killed your father. I mean,
and so you've been the guy you've been hunting is
actually your biological dad and yes, I agree with you.
The fact that his father lived literally across the street
from him, could he could have possibly made contact unless
he was afraid because he is a wanted literally a

(22:20):
wanted man by the fraternity. So that's possibly why he
kept his distance. And also they say that he, you know,
his Wesley's father's assistant says, this is not the life
your father wanted for you. He did not want you
to be a part of the fraternity, and so that's
probably why he kept his distance. Or I mean, I
guess I suppose he could have contacted him in some way, saying, look,

(22:40):
if these weird people contact you, don't go with them.
I don't want that for you. They'll tell you all
sorts of things, but I'm the real deal. It's hard
to say. But the big question I had when it
came to the the end of Wesley's narrative, at least
when it comes to this movie we won't I don't
know if what we're like we won't have anymore, is
he's gone back to the office because he no longer

(23:03):
has this fortune, so he's basically going back to where
he came from. So is this the hero's journey where
he's basically gone back to his point of origin with
enrich in Richmond and enlightenment as the treasure that a
hero would bring home. Or is he just resigning himself

(23:23):
to the fact that this is what he's going to
do for the rest of his life, as in being
an office I don't know. I think it might just
be maybe office guy by day, killer by night, because
obviously he's no longer part of the fraternity, so he's
either going to be a free agent or he's going
to start I guess, his own fraternity. It's hard to say,

(23:44):
but I guess maybe once again here, maybe I'm reading
too deeply into it. Is it's ultimately the hero's journey
that he starts from, you know, the little village goes away,
fights some bad guys, comes back full of riches, and
his life is changed, but he's still back where he started.
So I guess that's that's.

Speaker 3 (24:00):
How I see it.

Speaker 5 (24:01):
How did you see the ending, the fact that now
he's broke pool and has to now work it an
office again.

Speaker 4 (24:08):
I mean, it's funny that you mentioned the hero's journey
because I was literally thinking of the exact same thing.
I'm like, oh, this is a lot like the hero's journey,
and then it's more like the hero's journey who got
mugged halfway down the road, because as you said, he
has whatever it is, three million, four million, whatever, doesn't matter,
the imaginary number in the beginning, and then to I

(24:29):
think it's like six weeks or seven weeks later, he's
back to the fourteen dollars and thirty eight cents in
his account. So it just was it worth the effort
based on this him coming full circle? No, it clearly
was not, because while he may be a little bit
more confident, he's still and you could argue that it

(24:50):
really wasn't him. He was his stunt or whatever you
want to call it, you know, like just a distraction.
That's what I was looking for. It was a distraction
to get Freeman's character to come find him, and he
could very well become an assassin and do murder stuff.
We'll never know because we didn't get a sequel, and

(25:11):
that could have potentially been explained in the sequel that
this organization or this branch of the fraternity is literally
just a branch, and there's another section of the organization
somewhere else in the world, and they're gonna hunt them
down because or they're going to congratulate him because they
find out that Morgan Freeman's character is gone rogue and

(25:36):
has come up with his own set of characters to kill.
Sloan even mentions that each one of these hit men
in the group, and there's about a dozen of them,
their names all came up in the Tapestry of Life,
and my immediate knee jerk response was like, Okay, did
they pop up because of a name you gave them?

Speaker 3 (25:58):
Or did it were they there prior to that I mean?

Speaker 4 (26:03):
Or what I mean by that is like Fox, for example,
after her first death, did she pop up that she
had to be taken care of or was it Sloan's
character gave her a person of interest that he wanted
removed from this mortal plane and then her name popped up.
Because ultimately a lot of these name, a lot of
their names being in the tapestry could have been his fault.

(26:25):
So you remove him from the very you know, the
table as it were, and none of this would be
an issue anymore. These characters, while technically still do need
to be removed as well, it's because of his actions,
and none of that is explored and that's a lot
of potential that it could have been, you know, in

(26:46):
the sequel again, the imaginary sequel we're never getting, so.

Speaker 3 (26:51):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (26:52):
It's almost like me personally, I'm like, well, this doesn't
seem like it's worth it because you're yeah, you're more confident,
but you're still broke, but you're potentially gone back to
the nine to five job, or you may not have.
So it's kind of we needed that sequel movie to
figure out where he actually landed, as it were, as
it ends right now. Yeah, it's basically a waste of

(27:14):
his life. He wasted six weeks of his life trying
to become a hit man just to go back to
where he started.

Speaker 5 (27:20):
See that's exactly the way I was thinking about it.
And you brought up another big, great point which we know,
of course. I'm sure we'll also tackle a little bit
when we get to our next two characters. Is the
whole concept of the Loom and how the names are generated,
because we don't really know whether it is a higher up,
you know, somebody above Sloan who's communicating what people to

(27:41):
take out, or is the lou Does the Loom have
somewhat some mystic powers of its own, that it generates
these names because it knows who the bad guys in
the world are need to be taken care of. I,
as I said, I don't. I have not read the
source material. So if any of your listeners out there have,
please shoot the san and let us know. Have you

(28:01):
read it?

Speaker 4 (28:01):
Heith, Yes, I just actually finished reading the inspiration.

Speaker 3 (28:06):
Of this movie moments ago.

Speaker 4 (28:08):
It is fresh in my wrinkled brain and I'm traumatized
for it. And this movie literally is nothing like the comics,
like not even in the same wheelhouse. It is just
by name and character alone, and some of the like
Fox and Sloan and some of these other but otherwise
you couldn't be any further from the source material if

(28:30):
you tried.

Speaker 5 (28:32):
So, the concept of the Loom is not part of
the source material.

Speaker 4 (28:36):
It's no, not even remotely the source material. It's they're
all super villains and they've taken over the world, sort
of like think The Watchmen, but all the bad guys
won instead of whatever you know transpired there. And shockingly,
who would have guessed it's nineteen eighty six again, because
I was a pivotal year in the world history. All

(28:57):
the super villains gang up on the heroes, murder all
of them, and then reset reality and then we're just
going to go from there. And that's why they're in
this rundown ish world because of what the bad guys
have done. And there's this super secret organization, the facility
or facility, the sorority, fraternity, whatever you want to call

(29:21):
these goofy groups, and they're running everything in the background,
and each group has a different continent, like there's one
group that maintains the United States, one person that does Europe, Asia,
and so on and so forth. And you I'm like, Okay,
this seems you're really comics, you know, like this could
be interesting. But at the same time, when this movie

(29:44):
came out, I understand why they didn't take that story
and put it to film because not everybody would have
appreciated this, and without the background to what happens and
something they wouldn't be able to fit into a single movie,
it wouldn't have done well. And they changed the story

(30:06):
enough to fit their little universe that they were trying
to create. I think this would be a better TV
series based on all the groundwork they have to lay
explaining the multi dimensional stuff, all the technology and everything
that happened, and the d day for all the heroes

(30:27):
and why they did what they did. You'd be hard
pressed to fit this in a two hour movie.

Speaker 3 (30:31):
So the fact that they just.

Speaker 4 (30:33):
Took the three and it's literally three characters, Fox Wesley
and one other character, and it's not even Sloane because
he has a super villain name in the comic books.
The fact that those are the main characters that they
held on to, and they even changed the race because
Fox in the comic books is African American and Sloan

(30:58):
is a blue guy because he's a super villain. So
like they just kind of picked and choose the random bit,
the stuff with the girlfriend and the best friends sleeping together,
that's from the Count books. Shitty job, that's from the
Count books. But like after that, they just they took
the first issue and just went, Okay, this is good

(31:19):
and we're going to change everything else.

Speaker 3 (31:22):
Wow.

Speaker 5 (31:22):
Okay, So I guess it was inspired by the Wanted
comic books rather than yeah, being in brither than being
an adaptation of said comics. Yeah, because that was the
big question on my mind, is who is behind the
loom in this adaptation of this version as in, like
I said before, does it have magical powers? Is this

(31:46):
loom almost something spiritual that will communicate who the sinners
are that need to be taken out and thus make
the world a better place. According to the mission statement
of our fraternity is we kill the bad dudes. You know,
we kill one person so that say a thousand can live.
So and you don't know, so my thought is logically thinking,
but ranted, this is a rather illogical movie. When you

(32:07):
think of the concept is there's probably somebody higher up
above Solo. There's like a you know, a headquarters communicating
the names throughout the world on the people that need
to be killed. And I definitely embrace your theory of
I think our assassin's names came out because of the
names that Sloane was inventing because he wanted certain people killed,

(32:31):
and so possibly to course correct, headquarters sent down the
messages of they killed the wrong person, they have to die.
So it might be something like that. It's almost like
you're not maintaining the balance. We're not going to take
out Sloane. You know, necessarily we'll put out we'll put
out a warrant for it. A whay wanted and his
name come up. But we're just going to communicate that way.

(32:54):
We're not going to send somebody down from the office
and say, hey, what's going on here? Why are the
wrong people getting killed? They're just going to try and
course correct by saying, you killed the wrong person, pair
to die. I guess that might that is possibly the concept.
It's hard to say to paraphrase, of course is fantastic
on the movie The Princess Bride, So I guess. Then,
rounding off our characters, let's get to our two more

(33:16):
prominent members of the fraternity. At least in this film,
we have the afore mentioned Morgan Freemans Sloan and Angeliae
Jolie as Fox. So Keith, what did you make of
these two characters and do you have a theory of
who or what is behind the Loom.

Speaker 4 (33:34):
I think it's one of those things with the Loom.
We'll start with the loom first and then we'll go
with the characters. This is one of those we have
a secret organization and we need to come up with
the reason why they're doing.

Speaker 3 (33:45):
The things they're doing.

Speaker 4 (33:47):
If you looked at anything long enough, you would see
some weird patterns, and that's almost what I think happened.
When you see the flashback, they are just staring at
this loom and some he noticed the pattern. You have to,
on a side note, you have to have the most
spectacular set of eyes to notice this pattern, because Sloan

(34:08):
is standing there with a magnifying glass and then another
magnifying glass on top of that to zoom into the
section of threading on the loom. And what gets me
is because they just arbitrarily picked this as the fate.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
Whatever you want to call it.

Speaker 4 (34:27):
They don't explain why he looks only at certain sections
of the cloth of the loom, and why this one
loom and none of the other ones, because technically this
probably happens on all of them, and why this, like
what makes this one so special? Is this just because
this is a loom they used a thousand years ago,
which if that's the case, they'd have to replace most

(34:48):
of the parts because they'd wear out, So technically it's
not even the same loom anymore. And you know, where
did the code come from? How do they figure he
does explain the code, like, oh, if it's above, it's this,
if it's below, it's that, But then where's the rest
of the alphabet come in, because you don't explain anything else,
just like this means this letter, this means this letter,
and here go. And the fact that Wesley's able to

(35:10):
figure it out in like ten minutes is impressive but
also lazy writing because the fact that Sloan has been
doing this for potentially decades, so he's mastered this. Wesley
knocks it out on the weekend like it just there's
not a lot of continuity to it. And I get it.
It probably in this universe is not very hard to

(35:32):
figure it out once you've learned what to look for.
And even Wesley says he's like, oh, it's binary code,
and he's like, YopE, something like that, and you're like,
except the thousand years ago, they would never have called
it binary, and they probably wouldn't have used ones and zeros,
they would have used literally anything else. So clearly the
code has evolved over time. Again, things are never going

(35:52):
to explain, and it's just a lot of frustration every
time they refer to this loom and I get it
that you can potentially say this is like the strings
of fate that you see with the Witches in your
favorite show Sandman, when they were talking about the fates
and everything like that. That might have been where they

(36:14):
potentially got that inspiration from. Again, we won't know. Is
there more than one loom?

Speaker 3 (36:20):
We don't know.

Speaker 4 (36:21):
So again, there's so many like and even when Wesley
asked him, he just kind of like skates the question.
He's like, oh, yeah, here, Kim, here, look at this.
Here's a little patch. He's like, but what about this
stupid like why this one? He's like, Oh no, don't
worry about that. Just it's frustrating because again, you're wanting
certain answers, and I get it. That would take too

(36:42):
much time and a lot of energy to explain all
of this. And going to the Sloan in Fox, Sloan
just seemed like a generic bad guy. And this is
Morgan Freeman. He's a great actor, and he just seemed
to walk through the park. He did what he had
to do, you know, said what he had to do.
He did his little exposition dumps every so often, like oh,

(37:04):
we're these assassins and oh we curve bullets, and you're
just like, all right, that makes sense. Angelin and Jolie's
character was interesting because she understood, she realized the gravity
of this that Sloan had gone off the reservation and
decided to start killing people.

Speaker 3 (37:26):
And then when.

Speaker 4 (37:29):
He showed her, or showed the group, the gun smith
and everybody their own parts of the tapestry, She's like, oh,
we done screwed up. Meanwhile, the Gunsmith's like, screw this
grap I just want to kill them. So you have
the legitimate serial killer kind of guy and then the

(37:50):
one who thought she was doing the higher calling kind
of situation. And that's like the whole moral ground situation. Sorry,
I said that three times in a row, guys. I
do like the fact that she does take it upon
herself to right the wrong that Sloan started and wipe
out this group of the organization, and she does it

(38:13):
with a single shot. I'm mad that they cut away
from her and shoot the flip over to Wesley and
you just see her kind of like crinkle over. But
meanwhile everybody else you see brain splatter everywhere else, and
she's just like funk fall over. I'm like, wait, wait, wait,
we see the Gunsmith's.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Brains all over everything.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
We see the repairman. He gets fed up at one point,
like everybody you see this horrific murder and then Angelinae
and Genally they're like, hey, look, Butterfly, and you're like, no,
go back.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
And then she's just down on the ground.

Speaker 5 (38:43):
I think they feel she was too beautiful to have
her brain splattered all over the walls. I guess.

Speaker 4 (38:48):
I guess, like you see the bullets start to enter,
and then it's like Wesley and then she just crumples
over and I get it. You know, there's been enough
murder in Mayhem in this movie, Wesley went like full
psychopath and murdered the entire League of Assassins. And yes,
I will call him the League of Assassins instead of
the fraternity or how it could be the sorority for

(39:09):
at this point, I don't really care. It's just he
just murders everybody, and it's comical how easily he does it,
because these are supposed to be, as Sloan says, highly
trained assassins. And it's not until he gets to that
last group Fox gunn Smith and so on and so
forth that he's really like, shit, I'm out of my element.

(39:30):
I've only been doing this for like an hour and
a half and I've killed ninety seven people, and like,
I get it. He's supposed to be, you know, murder royalty.
I guess it would be the best way to explain it,
because they put him on such a high pedestal that
everybody else didn't stand a chance except when they had
him out gunned, and they should have just murdered him.

(39:53):
That's what always kills me is, you know, they get
to this point in a movie where they're like, let's
talk for twenty minutes, while we could have just shut
the guy and moved on. Nope, Nope, we need exposition
dump and the guy to magically get away. And that's
what happens to Wesley magically gets away because Fox has
a crisis of conscience and takes care of the whole group.

(40:15):
If it wasn't for her, he'd be dead, or if
somebody was just slightly twitchy, he'd be dead. So it's
just it's almost irritating that the hero got away because
there's ample opportunity for him not to get away. Not
about saying Sloan should have gone away, but I'm just saying,
like they're all gonna have been dead at the end.
They've all been like, all right, now the whole league

(40:36):
is wiped out, and none of this will happen ever again,
but we didn't get that.

Speaker 5 (40:40):
You know that as you were describing this, I keep
going more and more towards the theory of since this
is barely close to the source material, it feels more
and more like a Matrix ripoff when it comes to
the concepts that we have here, because Wesley is very Neo,
Sloane is very Rymorpheous, and Fox's very Trinity, except they

(41:03):
decided to change things around a little bit. I mean,
I do believe if memory serves spoiler alert for folks
who have not seen all the Matrix movies, I mean,
it's been a while, but that Morpheus himself, even though
you know, of course we lose him early, is not
necessarily all he seems to be that, yes, he's trying
to train Neo. When it comes to opening his eyes

(41:24):
and showing him a different world and giving him a purpose,
it turns out that, yes, that is possibly the right side,
but there are also some complications. It's not so black
and white. And so the more I think about this,
I'm like, I wonder where they just watched the Matrix,
you know, because this was the Matrix came out nine
years prior to this, so I'm thinking maybe they're like, oh,

(41:44):
the Matrix was a big success, let's do something similar
to that, where we have those archetypal characters and in
the almost not necessarily post apocalyptic world, but almost a
dystopian world where the you know, the main character been
living such almost a dead end life and then is
shown and his eyes opened the red Bluepill concept and

(42:08):
then changes his life and goes on to become the
Chosen One, because that's very much the way they're painting Wesley,
as you mentioned, because he is considered assassin royalty because
his father was a big dog when it came to
the fraternity. So I wonder whether I'm not accusing them
of anything, but I just wonder. It just feels very
Matrix to me when it comes to the main beats

(42:29):
of the story, except it's wrapped up in a different package,
and they tried to make it slightly different to where
it came to how our characters behaved, where you know,
Morpheus is not necessarily a villain, he's more of a
mentor to Neo, but Sloane is also kind of a
mentor and then ends up going you know, sideways, and
Fox could have been a romantic interest for Wesley. Luckily

(42:51):
it wasn't the case. She simply, you know, obviously decided
to make out with him in front of her girlfriend
just to make her jealous more than anything else. Possibly,
had things not been revealed, maybe wesleyan Fox would have
hooked up. I don't know, but I'm definitely gonna push forward.
I think at this point this is kind of a
matrix do a matrix do over. But when it comes

(43:12):
to these characters, aside from that to aside from the
similarities of those characters from that film, I mean, Morgan
Freeman can do no wrong. I mean he's Morgan Freeman. He's,
like you said, an incredibly accomplished actor. He has that
he's literally the voice of God for crying out loud.
You can't really get any bigger than that. And he
just has that presence no matter whether a movie is good, bad,

(43:34):
or indifferent. He always brings a star performance to whatever
film he's in. And I think he does the same
thing with Sloan because at first, yes, he does feel
like that comforting mentor to our neophyte, but then we
ultimately turns out that he is a bad guy and
who and then this was probably the first time I
heard and Morgan Freeman character cuss on screen. I probably

(43:55):
never heard him say the F word on any other movie,
at least to my knowledge. But it was just it
was epic, I will say. But I did like the
duality and the duplicity of Sloan, where he's like, you know,
at a certain point it turned out that he wasn't
particularly happy or his name came up, He's like, Oh,
I'm not gonna have people kill me. I'm gonna invent
other names to have people killed so they don't pay

(44:17):
attention to me. So I did. I did like that twist.
I appreciated that twist. And then, because I'm more often
not used to seeing Morgan playing a hero or a
positive character rather than a villain, and I think he
plays master manipulator very well in this, I think Fox
could have had more to do. I mean, she is
there to kind of be also a mentor to Wesley

(44:39):
in this world and helping and trying to show belief
in him, and even though she's getting credibly frustrated because
he seems not to be learning anything, like is there
any pointing going on with this guy? And then I
guess when you know she keeps pushing and shoving him,
and ultimately he gets there and we get that big
moment of when he has to hit the target. She
literally places herself in front of the hanging pig and

(45:01):
she's like, hit the target. So she knows, I think,
how and what buttons to push when it comes to Wesley,
and they do I think, make a formidable duo. But then,
of course, when it turns out that Sloan tells Fox
you have to kill him, she follows those orders blindly.
So on one side, it shows you I think that yes,
she is happy that Wesley's gotten to where he's gotten to,

(45:25):
and possibly there might be someunting between them after that
kiss in the apartment. But I think also she is
so indoctrinated into the fraternity she will put her aside
possible feelings or even friendship for somebody to follow the code,
even if that means taking her own life, where we
get the ultimate moment where like you said, she's almost

(45:46):
trying to rebalance the scales by shooting that bullet, taking
out the entire core fraternity, including herself, Because I think
it shows you that that is her religion, that is
what she believes in, and she will not stray from that,
because I think possible. It all boils down to the
story that she tells Wesley about the mass murderer who
I believe or serial killer who I've killed her own

(46:08):
father and branded her rather cut his initials into her skin,
and so this has become her family, this has become
her religion. This is where she belongs. So it's like
if this structure, if this structure comes down, I'm going
down with it. I'm not going to go against it
because it was a structure for me for the longest
time where I had no structure. So I think that

(46:29):
once again plays into the concept of finding your place
in the world and giving yourself an identity through the
people that you are with. So that's possibly why she
behaves the way she doesn't why she ultimately takes her
own life. But other than that big gesture, which says
a lot about the character, I would have liked a
little bit more there when it came to the Fox,

(46:50):
But other that, I was quite large pleased with this
whole concept. So I guess, then, Keith, before we get
to ratings, is there anything else with like to mention
about this movie that we might not have missed or
any other interpretations you might have had, because today I've
definitely gone down the rabbit hole.

Speaker 4 (47:08):
Well, as you mentioned with Fox and the story that
she tells Wesley about the murder and being branded, she
never shows him the branding of the one Guy, so
I don't believe it was her. I think it was
a story she fabricated to kind of make him believe

(47:28):
in the overarching organization. Because if she were like, oh
here and like rolled up her sleeve and you saw
this giant scar and to be fair, boys and girls
and everybody in between. We see her practically naked at
some point in this movie, and you do not see
this horrific whatever the initials this character that supposedly did

(47:49):
this on her persons, unless they were covered by a tattoo,
which even then there would still be raised marks from
the branding. So I kind of call shenanigans on this,
unless somehow the magic Cure pool removed that scar, which
maybe it did and maybe it didn't, we'll never know.
But then it also removed her tattoos, So again, unless

(48:11):
her scars in some weird no no place that we
didn't see, I didn't see a scar for those letters
so I don't think that was her. I think it's
a story that somebody told her that she just uses
to make the new recruits feel better.

Speaker 5 (48:28):
And what did you think of her ultimate sacrifice? The
fact that she literally, you know, ended up killing the
core group of fraternity and herself.

Speaker 4 (48:36):
I can respect that because we had heard her say
in that that story she thought she was doing the
greater good. She thought all the names that were given
to her were by the loom of destiny or the
murder loom, or whatever we're gonna call it. And when

(48:59):
she finds out that her actions caused her to come
up on the loom, which again I think everybody's name
is probably in there somewhere. It's sort of like when
you look at those weird pictures on the wall and
you see animals jump out. It's just it's whatever you're
looking at at that time. So we don't know what
triggered her name or any of the other ones. And
the fact that she's realizing that this whole thing is

(49:23):
flawed and the only way to, as you said, reset
things is to take her life along with everybody else's,
and she does. She takes the moral high ground and
does what has to be done. And I think that
was also the thing that Wesley kind of was like,
all right, I'm done with this whole everything, because everything
we or anything we do doesn't really matter because in

(49:45):
the end you're just going to wind up on a list.
So I liked her chain. Yes, it is abrupt because
we don't see a lot of growth from her. She's
very two dimensional because all the time you see her,
she's either kicking his butt, making out with them, or
doing crazy stunt driving that defies the laws of physics,

(50:06):
which most movies do that as well, but this one
just ramped it up to eleven, especially with the car
with no tires driving for however many blocks. So I
think if we had a little bit more of just
her outside of kicking his butt driving him from point
A to point B, then it would be like, oh,
I see, you know, he's making impact on our life,

(50:27):
opposed to like, well, screw it, we got in the
movie somehow and just blow their ready brains out. So
I like the fact that she did again take the
high ground, but it just seemed very random and out
of the blue unless you really think about her the
core for character, believing in the process and the process says,
y'all got to die, and that's what she did.

Speaker 5 (50:49):
And you know, to go through the gossip side of things,
do you think that she genuinely might have had feelings
for Wesley? What do you think she was just making
out with him in front of her girlfriend just to
make her jealous.

Speaker 4 (51:02):
Hard to say. There was occasional flirting, but the fact
that she's an assassin, that's just it's sort of like
Black Widow and Avengers. She is talking to the guys
that have her tied up because she wants them to
explain shit to her, and she needs this certain things
to happen, So her flirting with him, she's using her

(51:26):
feminine charn to kind of get what she needs. Granted,
she did not realize that the what she was trying
to have happened should not have happened, but at the
time and place, she was just doing what she does best.
She's manipulating him, which you know, it is what it is,
And I don't know the fact that she kissed him

(51:51):
that was to shut the little parakeet of an ex
girlfriend up because she's like voices like nails on a
chalkboard and she just need to shut up. So that's
what she did to shut her up instead of like,
you know, wringing her neck.

Speaker 5 (52:06):
I guess that may much could have been the case.
So it's like, you know, see he traded you in
for a much more to model possibly, but there you go.
I mean, as far as you know, just kind of
mind that thing with with with his ex girlfriends. So
I guess. Then getting to ratings, what do you give
wanted out of ten?

Speaker 4 (52:26):
God, this is hard.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (52:28):
They always make me go first, I see how it is,
make me the bearer of bad news. I think we'd
have to give it a seven and a half. It's
not terrible, it's not I really want to give it
a little bit higher because the cast is amazing, even
the soundtrack is fun. But the story is very shaky,
and there's they deviated so far from the source material.

(52:52):
And yes, I know the source material some of it
is questionable, but they deviated so far that they might
as well have just called this like shit we did
on a Saturday, and it would have had the same
end result.

Speaker 5 (53:05):
Well, I mean, you know what, I think that's a
very fair point. I'm actually gonna give this a seven
out of ten. Yes, as I said, the more I
look at it, the more I feel is a bit
of a Matrix rip off. But other than that, I
think I did enjoy what I watched. And as I
said earlier, this movie does have its merits. It does
have a good pacing. I think the Danny Elfman's score
is very good. It is Danny Elfman, so I would

(53:26):
not expect anything less. And I think also the editing.
You know, you mentioned the fact of you know, we
see so many moments where West is either hit or
falls or whatever, and then suddenly wakes upden it cuts
to a complete different scenario. As much as I guess
it would have been nice to see how things happened,
I guess the quick editing does contribute to this movie

(53:47):
literally never slowing down. And if you think about this
movie is almost two hours long, so you do have
to keep it, keep the pace going, especially when you're
dealing with a longer run time compared to say a
ninety minute movie for example. So I think it was
well paced where you're not feeling like, ugh, what's going
on here? You know, why have we suddenly pulled on
the brakes? It is very action packed. I think it

(54:09):
works on those levels if you do pick of the
narrative a little bit. It can, like you said, for
a little bit flat on its face, but if you
once again step back and just look at it as
just a popcorn film, I think you will have a
pretty good time with it regardless. So it's a seven
out of ten for me. So getting thus to recommendations, Keith,

(54:30):
did you have anything you'd like to recommend for folks
who might have indeed enjoyed wanted.

Speaker 4 (54:35):
Well, you kind of stole my thunder with the Matrix,
so I'll give you that one. I'm so sorry.

Speaker 3 (54:41):
No, how dare you?

Speaker 4 (54:44):
I would definitely check out the original source material. If
you like the source material, then definitely go read The
Boys the Wire and Watchmen, the action graphic novel and
even watched the Watchmen TV series that came out on
HBO Max a couple of years ago. It's kind of
in that same grittiness. And then The Boys the TV series.

(55:04):
Because again, DJE nextole my thunder on the Matrix.

Speaker 5 (55:09):
Well, I'm so sorry, As I said, I did not
realize that was part of your recommendations there, Keith. I
was just like, I guess you inspired me when it
came to you know that this was as you were
talking about, like, oh, yeah, this is very much the matrix.
So yes, other than of course re recommending the Matrix,
there are a few Mark Mallar properties because I guess

(55:29):
I'm going to go more into comics here, like you
mentioned that obviously really stuck with me. It is very
very graphic, just like the Boys and just like wanted,
because that is Mark Mala. As I mentioned before, some
can consider him a bit of an edge lord when
it comes to what he does, and I think the
one that I'm abound to mention is can very much

(55:50):
fall into that category. But I thoroughly enjoyed the comics
as grizzly and gritty as they are, and yeah, the
movie adaptations as well, and that is kick ass. So
I would definitely recommend reading the comics. As I mentioned before,
I mentioned before, there are some huge deviations from I mean,
the movies are great, but they're huge deviations from the
movies through the comics because yeah, the comics, I guess,

(56:15):
and Mark Mila and his and everybody else could get
away with much more on the printed page compared to
what you could get away with on screen. I mean,
unless you give it a rate it X for example,
or you give it a really hard R rating. The
kick Ass movies themselves are already pretty violent and they're
pretty dark, but what happens in the in the comics

(56:36):
even more so. And it's kind of sad. I don't
want to go on too much of a tangent here,
but it's kind of sad that Jim Carrey, who played
a great part in kick Ass, to distance himself from
the film ultimately because he felt it was too dark
even for him. So that's that's an interesting point for he,
as much as I think he did a great, great
job when he came to kick Ass too. So that's

(56:58):
my recommendation. So, of course, dear listeners, if you want
to shoot us your feedback and let us know what
you make made of the of Wanted all other movies
we have discussed here, you can of course shooting email
to Happiness and Darkness How at gmail dot com once again,
Happiness and Darkness How at gmail dot com. You can
of course follow us on our social media on Facebook

(57:20):
where combidaness Happiness and Darkness, also on x Weaken Finances,
High Darkness Pod, and of course if you listen to
us on such platforms as Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Pandora. Be
sure to rate and review us, as that keeps the
algorithm stimulated and allows a little podcast to grow a
little bit every day. And a big thank of course
to those who have done so, and the future, thank

(57:42):
you to those who will so. Keith. When you're not
here discussing such a crazy bullet bending movies as wanted,
where can folks find you on the interwebs?

Speaker 4 (57:52):
Well? As I said last week, I'm currently working on
a script for some unknown movie I don't know about.
I've started a production company called four Shells, or as
I like to call it, metal Head and Friends. And
when I'm not doing that, I'm currently training I think
it was sixteen AI's fourteen, four new podcasts and two
to take over the World. And occasionally, when I'm not

(58:13):
doing any of that, I'm one other podcasts. You can
find me on Let's see Star Trek the Undiscovered podcast.
I did a couple episodes of that. I just did
a new episode of lamp Chop, which is a interesting podcast.
We talked about a movie Freaked. Then you have what
else gold Standard I did early this year. God, can

(58:36):
you guys believe it's already September. Sorry, that's a different rant.
And then what I'm not doing any of that. You
can find me on our Facebook, on Messenger, or you know,
just drop me a friend request. I'm always around to
talk about anything, cartoons, comic books, superheroes, lions, tigers and bears.
And then sometimes I sleep from time to time.

Speaker 5 (58:54):
And sometimes you do sleep.

Speaker 4 (58:56):
Indeed that you'd definitely more than Nick.

Speaker 5 (58:59):
Yeah, definitely more than me. I think we could have
a competition theres who sleeps less? But I think that's
a conversation for another time. But yes, folks, wherever Keith goes,
he spreads join, happiness and great knowledge on whatever podcast
he happens to guest on, and so of course be
try to check out his great guest appearances. When it
comes to me, you can find me hosting the radio
show Whiskey and Cigarettes, where we play the very best

(59:22):
of the country music from Alabama to Zach Brown. For
more information about that, you can is our website, which
is Whiskey and Cigarettes show dot com. Podcast Wise, as
Keith kindly mentioned, you can also find myself, Zan Sprouse
and Rachel Friend on gold Standard the Oscars podcast, where
we have reviewed all the Best Picture winning movies in
chronological order now as we wait for the ninety eighth

(59:43):
Best Picture to review itself, not that long togo about
six months or so, if that in March, we'll find out.
We are now reviewing movies that we have picked, and
we have returning in new guest co hosts like Keith
bring their favorite movies to the gold Standard theater. We
recently reviewed Rachel's pick, which was Get Out, our very
first Jordan Peel film, and we had quite the conversation

(01:00:05):
with that one. Coming up next, Maureen van Zandt will
be making her return to the podcast with her movie selection,
and that movie will be rock Star of course, starring
Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston, amongst others. And last, but
say not least, myself and Charles Skaggs can be found
on the Bandam's Own podcast, where Yes, indeed we have

(01:00:27):
reviewed the second and last season of The Sandman and
the current reviewing the second season of Peacemaker. So we're
a lot of fun to be had with that. Speaking
of Peacemaker and speaking of DC when it comes to
things on this show. Next time we will be going
back to one of the big two as we'll be
taking on the two thousand and six Michael Chang, Ben Jones,

(01:00:49):
and Matt Youngberg film Teen Titans Trouble in Tokyo. So a, Keith,
anything you would like to add on our next movie
or anything else before we say enough?

Speaker 4 (01:01:01):
Hi, I enjoyed this movie so much. I am of
the Teen Titans of this generation. I grew up with
these Teen Titans. They are probably the closest to what
you expect from a count book. So I can't wait
to review. And I'm sorry I might have showed my
hand a little bit, but I'm excited for this one.

Speaker 5 (01:01:19):
Well. As we know, Keith. Also, your arms, I believe,
are blessed with the ink of certain characters from the
Teen Titans, so I know that today are very near
and dear to your heart. I have once again not
seen this film. I have seen I saw the TV show,
but I've not seen the movie. So I guess we'll
see what I make of it. As I might show
my hand here saying I did enjoy that show at

(01:01:40):
the time, so I guess we'll still make of this.
So that fit said, folks, We'll see you next time
with the Teen Titans Trouble in Tokyo until then, Thank
you so much for the privilege of your time stay
Super Show mumble