115 BRAVE NEW WORLDS!
The gang tackles the real question of how Megatron could be a full-size robot, but transform to the size of a pistol that other robots can shoot! Happy Birthday, Micah! A spirited round of Godzilla vs Kong follows.
115 BRAVE NEW WORLDS!
The gang tackles the real question of how Megatron could be a full-size robot, but transform to the size of a pistol that other robots can shoot! Happy Birthday, Micah! A spirited round of Godzilla vs Kong follows.
Oh, sorry, did I break your concentration? Somewhere between science and superstition? To show you Strange Aeons. Strange Aeons radio is on the air. That's Eric over there. Hey, Lou. That's Vanessa over there. Hey, everybody. Hey. Do you have a fun radio voice? Good morning to you all. Top of the morning. Alright, let's start. How's your commute? Catch on I five. I just want to say you guys had a lovely response we have gotten for the value for value model that we have adopted lately. And it was it was really neat. I've gotten some really nice comments and stuff, some personal stuff that I've been talking to people. And Vanessa, your friend Micah gave us another lovely donation and I mentioned that on the air. So Danny Williford then contacted me, and he's like, how much should he donate? I just need to know what what's the going rate here? And I had to explain, and I'll explain this to everybody. Yeah, it's, it only has to be impactful to you that makes it impactful to us. It can be $1, it can be sharing and liking posts. So with that in mind, I told Danny that he donated $1,000, and that Danny needed to start stepping$1,000 may or may not be the about let's just put that little curve in there. Just so no one thinks Yeah. Speaking which Danny's value for value stuff is very, very close. I know that things have moved along and I will have something to share with everybody very soon. I can't wait. It's super cool. But along with Micah's lovely donation, he also mentioned something about maybe us watching a movie and talking about it. He did. Yeah, one of us but Kelly had a suggestion that we should all watch it. Maybe not a deep dive on it. But talk a little bit about this movie. And that movie is Transformers The Movie. From 1986 Yes, it is. I hadn't I don't think I've ever seen this movie sober before. I had never seen it before. But Eric I know you'd seen it in Jamie. If you're listening on your treadmill as you say you often do you were there with me at the teen years when we were the two guys going to see Transformers The Movie in the theater and one of the older people there that didn't have parents with them well, let's talk a little bit I never got fully into the transformer toys much but for like two years maybe I would do the old race home from school to watch transformers. Oh yeah, stuff so missed event in heaven with this. The Rotten Tomatoes critics is 63% but the audience has it at 88% Wow, that's a huge spike. It's also unwarranted I would say that huge spike should ended about what 2530 minutes in it's really really good until a certain giant event which of course we're going to talk about happens a man Wow, it really. I was pretty shocked. Well, okay, so budget of $6 million box office of almost $6 million. I really didn't see Wow, that's a bummer. Yeah, it was directed by Nelson Shin who is just a huge guy in the animation world is on The Simpsons, GI Joe dungeon and dragons Spider Man hole in the Fantastic Four, and was written by Ron Friedman, who's done a ton of cartoons and everything but also just every episode in the world up to 1986. So my favorite Martian gets smart Gilligan's Island bewitch partners family happy days Starsky and Hutch Fantasy Island. Whoa, yeah. And and then the voices I'm not gonna ratable It's crazy. Like I was watching going Wait, that sounds familiar. Oh, my God. It's like the the chauffeur from heart to heart. He's a great voice. The three names that really popped out to me, Orson Welles, Robert stack and Leonard Nimoy so good. So good. But Leonard Nimoy isn't I don't know. I guess I don't I know nothing of transformers. So I didn't play with him as a kid. I didn't watch it as a kid. So I was like, wait, that guy with that one voice is gone. And now he's the same guy, but he's a slightly different color. And now he's Leonard Nimoy. Okay, yeah. Megatron becomes Galvatron ever right? And maybe Tron is not Leonard Nimoy but Galvatron is, is very weird. Sure. I'll go with that. One more credit thing before we bounce off of that nerd film moment here. Very weird one. I'm watching this opening credits going Jesus it sounds like the music from like rocky three or four. Oh, yeah. So I popped it in and looked it up and the guy's only done like 20 movies or less. But Yep, it was the composer for mention. Rocky for Wow. opening credits sounds just like there are there moments but that opening is like, yeah, my training montage. Who were the guys who do the love shacks on the 5050 Yeah, near the end, there's a song that sounds super b 52. But bad, like real bad. Well, I think we make an argument that a lot of the music in this is real bad. I don't know. It's pretty rockin Rocco. This was, I should like Transformers I was just a little too old by the time they came out. Which is funny because now My house is just full of toys. But it started out as microman in Japan and microman. The early microman stuff became the microdots which is my favorite toy thing. And then as micromanage Japan continued to evolve, they became the different thing where it had figures that could transform into cars and stuff like that. And then Hasbro I believe it was bought that and brought it over here and turn them into transformers. So the toys that made us stocks on Netflix has a really good episode on transformers. What happened with them? I was working KB toys at the time, but by the time I was working there it was they were on the decline. transformer movies had come out three or four years earlier. He could probably put at least one zero behind that box office because when it dropped it dropped like a stone. As far as popularity goes. Yeah. This movie takes place in the distant future. You guys the year 2005 Oh my god. 2005 That's right. I was definitely in college, I guess. It opens with an amazing scene of Unicron the killer planet floating in and destroying this. This other planet? Transformers I guess they are. And I was like, What the fuck hell have I missed this gem? It was like right out of the movie. Heavy Metal or something is insane. Yeah. And it's like crunching and things are trying to escape. And they can't I was like, this is a kid's movie. Yeah. brutal. I was loving off really violent. Robots. And then it just turns into an 84 minute action scene after that. Yeah. It was it was hard to keep up what was great. I had to write a lot of notes to like, keep myself understanding what was happening in the plot at that point. I was just like, you the garb? Well, the the, you know, the elephant in the room. The music of them. Wonderful. You've got the touch. Yeah, by Stan bush was right. When I heard that. I was like, is this survivor? Please? Yeah, because it sounded so much like survivor and then then Stan bush. And they liked that song so much. They play it multiple times in the movie. Big Cat for the show. But that's got the dramatic moment of the movie though. All the things going bad and hope Here comes Optimus Prime to save the day in the big battle. And of course anybody who's seen this movie knows they did one ballsy thing in this film It's too bad it falls apart after that see, but killing off Optimus Prime was just like holy shit. Easily 25 minutes in Yeah, I thought like I knew they did it and I thought it was at the end and I was like we're not even halfway into the film and his like grain corpse laying there. I was like, What are you guys like did you really have to turn him like gray and like have his head like tilt to the side like a dead being daddy just died. Everyone's dad just died. There was very emotional in the theater. sniffling hurt around the theater. Because nobody didn't know nobody. What about the eight year olds like I get were inconsolable. I mean that and that does kind of lead to some of my issues with it like there was plenty of things I really liked about this movie but the fact that like he dies but then who are maximum overdrive or whoever like rottenness Brian, Hot Rod, no hot rod, the the Magnus, open magnet, whoever I wrote it down somewhere. The other guy who takes over his spot and like puts the gem in him. Oh, this is only a soldier guy or whatever. Yeah, yeah. And then like he dies, but then they bring him back. He like literally is in pieces and they're like, oh, we're just gonna Polish you with a little like wax and you're fine. I'm like, why is he? He sucks. Right Well, I mean, as You watch this and you realize okay Megatron gets turned into Galvatron and then Prime dies and we're you know, we're introduced to hot rod and then he becomes rottenness, Brian, leader of the Autobots at the end, and you realize he's pretty cool. Oh, I am watching a gigantic commercial for the next set of two Absolutely. totally new creatures like critters and characters. They brought out like the weird junk guy, junk a trans. Yeah, from, from what I was reading, it sounded like Hasbro didn't realize the emotional connection people had to these figures. And they were like, oh, we're just gonna start a new line. This will be fun. Let's just go ahead and get rid of the crappy toys and put in some new ones. And like, one of the cameras was the writer or who was involved who basically said, you shouldn't do that. It's gonna be real rough. And they're like, but do you need toys? Yeah, yeah. Well, one of the thing too, though, with the death of him. I'm wondering because mica kind of coupled this in the idea of it being hindered trauma. And I'm wondering if that was the moment because I couldn't think anything else in the movie. But other than it being at the beginning being pretty violent killing off all the Yeah, regular Autobots. Well, that I mean, yeah, sure. It's tough when you're watching your heroes die, especially I don't think that many people were aware of that going into this film. No, no, not at all. So and it's, you know, and it's after season two. So they've had two years of for kid time, that's a long time to like really connect to these characters. Plus those those shows at that time, were not 24 episodes a season they'd be could be gigantic seasons, like 40 episodes or something. I don't know what Transformers was. But I just know I've looked at some of those box sets of Saturday morning cartoons for the has gone. Oh, two seasons 408 episodes? What really pumped those guys out? Absolutely. One of the things that kind of disappointed me on this was that in that opening scene, that animation looks spectacular. And then the animation is really iffy going through the movie. Yeah, sometimes it looks really great. Sometimes it looks really bad. And that's just what happens when you've got different animation houses working on stuff and trying to get something put together. But man, it was noticeably bad. I didn't necessarily notice because I was only excited when it looked really good. But I think that might have been because I watched it twice in different ways that were very upsetting. Yeah, I wanted to not pay for it. So I tried to watch it on YouTube, which is it's split up into like 80 pieces, like one minute chunks. And so I was like, kind of trying to get through it. But then I realized it was missing huge pieces of plot. And I was like, Oh, I don't know why I don't know what's going on right now. But another character died and I didn't see that. So then I had to buy it for eight bucks on Amazon. But I got the 30th anniversary that Yeah, shout factory has his Bohannon. Okay, so um, yeah, so I got the 30th anniversary edition. So I don't know if that one's cleaned up, but it looked pretty good. I just rented mine on prime and it was $1.99. Did you get SD or HD? I'm sure I did not pay for HD. I don't think that that was even offered. So interesting. Yeah, I wonder if there's a difference or not? Probably not. There can be a big enough difference for the different one major difference between different versions of it is it was shot with the idea of knowing it's going to be seen in 4.3 aspect ratio a lot more than it will be in the theater, interesting theater. So it's been released in two aspect ratios. There's the theatrical aspect, which was probably just wanting five to one at but then there's also the TV one, and apparently the TV one has become the preferred version, the square because you get more because they didn't more invaded, zoom it in they actually cropped it. So there, you get more animation in the four by three. What you're saying is real cinephiles prefer the television version of Transformers real Transformers five fans I guess what you're saying is the Snyder cut is better. Things that I liked and since I don't know the Transformers at all, Eric, was this the first time we get introduced to the Dinobots? No, I think they'd been around. I like the day nobody is bumped into each other and step on each other as like this. This makes zero sense for a robot. Wouldn't you be like oh, okay, we're gonna have to put these guys down or just reprogram them or something. Something's off here now I did. I only watched him for a couple years and haven't watched him at all since so but I'm pretty sure they were around. At that goes from the High Times of working at KB toys when I was in high school. I think this movie is the introduction of the shark robots though. The little shark dude's did those actually make it to toys? Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. Oh, yes. Good day before a day or two before we watch this somebody posted in one of the actual figure forums I'm on or whatever when that picture of the the Orson Welles character that right and it's huge thing is DJI is the new one I think so okay so yeah really good my mica actually told me that he bought this newest version of this toy it's like almost as tall as him and he's six feet oh my god enormous like on it stand in fairness like on a stand but still it's it's like having another roommate and your whole thing is just enormous. And I guess it took him like six hours to transform it Well, there's also now the transform itself. Optimus Prime toy Yeah, that's I think like seven or $800 Yeah, it's cool to watch but um I'll just watch this video of it transfer we go cool. So I did love all of the voice acting and and not just the big names but the guys who are doing the regular stuff everybody such cool voices the guy who does the guy who does optimist one of these kinds of voices, you know, and then he got a scream clearly is the same guy who does the voice for Cobra Commander. So, the three of those characters together arguing that would be a bad one maybe would be like, ah, I need to get a Megatron and stick it to my head. Whoa. deep cut. Yeah, boy, he could have picked Megatron for the second amendment style. I'd have to be him. Megatron is bigger than the other Transformers but he transforms into a gun that is scaled to their hands. Yeah, it's either way but the other guy who like does the mixtapes is that scar Starscream No, no, come on. It's like our super tiny but then they become like huge deeds to that. I gotta say that is my favorite of these things, though, that he can shoot out can turn into jaguars and hawks and seven like fuck yeah, they worked hard and turning in one of the weirdest toys to sound wave. That sound great. Thank you one of the weirdest toys and that came. I was like a cassette player. But then in the movies like, Alright, you made him kind of cool. Yeah. I was pretty shocked that Bumblebee could talk. I was like, Oh, I only know Bumblebee from the live action movies. I didn't know he didn't speak. Well. That's exciting. Yeah, well, kind of to wrap this up. This was fun. But not my favorite. Yeah, no, this was one of those. And we always do. And I always go to the same example. The TV show greatest American hero, right, which we both loved as kids and both went back to watch as adults and went Wow, our parents really loved us to watch that. This sort of had that effect on me. It's like for that first 20 some odd minutes until optimise gets killed. As good as I remember then it's like, yeah, cuz I completely forgot the rest of this movie. I felt the same. I was like, This is pretty elevated storytelling for a kid's movie. And then and then you know, after Optimus Prime died, it just seemed like it was this. I found myself on my phone a lot. I was like, I'll take my notes now and everything. Yeah, I was like, this is just a big long action scene and it was almost too much. Probably great for an eight year old. I think I got a lot of enjoyment out of it. But I'm a huge fan of Unicron just as like a toy, because he's a giant like round circle with teeny tiny little arms and like little horns with like a mouth that goes. And like I just love the toy so much. And I was like, Oh, he's got like this deep, crazy voice. He's like drunken old on the deathbed, Orson Welles. And so and Micah is a huge, huge fan of transformers. So he I do know he has a room filled with transformers. But also the reason he probably gave us this challenge is he does a lot of toy box art. And one of his biggest clients is Hasbro so yeah, so he's done a lot of if you go through target that's like his gallery. Holy shit. Yeah. Nice. Mica you nerd your Transformers room. Have I shown you guys my, my classroom? There was a moment though. Yeah. And you'll remember this short film. Did you see when Optimus Prime use the querque? Yes. Oh my god. I did. I was like, Did he just double that like, Whoa, pow. Vanessa just made it even worse. The whole time. Like to hand the way William Shatner used to punch Yeah, there's a short film and miff that did a hilarious his take on that called querque. Oh my gosh, did a great job of how dumb that I am shocked I Kotick because there was so much going on, but I did make a note. I was like, oh my god is a Star Trek bunch of ins. I know you've picked out a ton of trivia, but I have a couple things here that really stood out to me. Yeah. One i thought was interesting ITW, who got the Transformers license for comics back in the early 2000s. They actually did an adaptation of this film in 2007. So like, Oh, that's interesting. I guess if you want to get the comic book version around the one where they did the like the whole trip they brought in Tim and T and Star Trek, I think that this giant crossover. That's amazing. No, it wasn't. I guess you get to look at some fun art. So yes, yeah. So when the credits rolled, I noticed that one of the bands was kick x, which was a band that I've always liked, actually. But in this bit of trivia, I found that the band kick acts when it was originally released, the producers thought that the name was too threatening. And so they credited that song to spectral General, but never told the band they were doing that. Oh, nice moment. bad name. Did you recognize the which song they had in the movie? No. Yeah, it was very well, everything was so generic. Yeah, kinda. Well, this is sort of like the sound of what's popular with the kids these days. Like, this is like the bad version of that, but all right. partially correct. And then finally, we've already touched on this. This was Orson Welles final film. But in one interview, he was asked to describe his character and transformers and his response was that he was a big toy that attacks a bunch of smaller toys. Yes, okay. Orson Welles man, that guy is such a dick. And it's funny, because when I was looking up random trivia probably from the same place you were, I thought it was really interesting that when he initially got the role in the script, he was really enthusiastic and then expressed admiration for animated films. So that guy just like fucking flipped on a dime he's probably like I got some money great. I love the animations. I'm a big fan. I think do I love more of the voice guy scout Orson you're not playing Starscream Oh, well. Another big huge movie came out this week. You guys Yeah, it's true. This one with more? I guess based on toys or not toys had toys. Third toys involved? You've been talking all in the next video, which is GVK Godzilla vs Kong Would anyone like to guess what I thought of it? I'm I know what you thought cuz you texted I'm not a fan. I'm I'm pretty sure because I'm there. This movie was stupid. Yeah. Yeah, I will throw in with one of the things I thought was really interesting, but it's just a technical thing. I like that they managed to give like when Khan punches Godzilla. Yeah, it's like you know, welcome packs. Were retiring earlier when Stallone punches Drago. You can feel the impact it It feels more real punching than a lot of animated ones happy for you know, that's just the only part of CGI the CGI was really good I I had such a good time watching I enjoyed it so much and I got really invested in Kong I was like team Kong all the way Oh my god I don't even know why like I didn't I didn't hate Godzilla in the previous two Godzilla films but I in this one I was like fucking con get him Jesus stand your ground Would you say that it was all the character arcs that really made you love this movie never gonna let that go back to Eric lunchy of Godzilla is one of the things that pissed me off. You get these Tomahawk missiles that these planes are firing for some reason right next to Godzilla you can fire one of these things from a mile away and it'll hit its target but these guys like to get in close and they get killed and those missiles do nothing but Kong's punch knocks Godzilla over sometimes you got to go old school I here's you're doing something that you just absolutely cannot do with this film. You're right. You're applying logic. Yeah, that's that's your first mistake. They also go through the center of the Earth at one point right and have sunshine. So I could I was actually okay with that because they went through some kind of bizarre gravitational thing and it was like, Oh, it's almost like they're in a different dimension. Or something right? Yeah. Or, except then Godzilla in Hong Kong, blasts a hole to the center of the earth where Khan can climb out of, and there's no gravitational thing now. Well, because he's in. That's true. But yeah, he's in Japan because they dug their hole so far, the theory of the earth that they got from wherever they started, which I don't remember to Japan, and then I think Hong Kong, Hong Kong, thank you. And that's where Godzilla went. Because the thing was, he got mad that there was another one of him. I thought that was like a signal or something. Now he was just pissed that he was threatened. And he's there Hong's existence. Yeah. Oh, no, not cons existence. The robots existence. He didn't care about con. He was there to kill the big robot version of there's all kinds of problems. I'll tell you this. I watched this movie twice. Because I hate Well, no, because I thought that I had missed a bunch of shit. And no, see you doing that? Yeah. You don't even know what's going on in the movie. And you liked it. I watched it twice. I still could not figure out what was going on in the movie. Yeah, because, okay, we're doing some spoiler talk here. These are real questions I have so are we to believe that it was like the spirit of Ghidorah. That was rolling mechagodzilla after it blew the question mind of the dude who was controlling or was it just his psychic ability that they somehow were able to like harness to use as basically wireless internet? So yeah, I watched it twice to figure that still couldn't figure it as mechagodzilla but it looks cool. Yeah. That is not how they destroyed him by like spilling water on the thing, boy, back with Chekhov's whiskey flask. Yeah. There you go. There's a lot of neon that was really exciting. Boy, I just thought it was so goddamn stupid. And and here's the thing. That little girl was probably the best actor in the movie. And her character was absolutely stupid and worthless. The Rebecca Hall character could have taught Kong, the sign language and done all of that stuff and had some kind of connection with him that we all could have been into a little bit more. But instead, were asked to believe that a little girl who's five or something has such a grasp of sign language, she can teach it to an ape. And that ape is smart enough to also grasp concepts like might and probably sure and all of this stuff, but it's just like, I buy this better. If it's an adult who's been with con all her life, instead of the one year this girl would have had. I mean, they do say that she was trying to teach him sign language, but he wasn't doing anything the adult but like he wouldn't like respond. So she was like, well, he must not be picking this up. But then he started talking to the mute girl, deaf girl, deaf, deaf, and mute and everything. I mean, again, don't apply logic to this movie. What are you doing? How about this? let's toss out the entire subplot of Millie Bobby Brown and the podcaster and I'm Holly You know, when you get a podcast or in a movie like this, then podcasting is now ubiquitous. Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Even my mom pronounces it right now. My I keep catching my mom listening to our show. Oh, mom in her room, and I'm like, ah, I don't want to hear my own voice. Please do this when I'm gone. This is very upsetting. But so you introduced this this conspiracy nut? Yeah. And we know he's not he's washing with bleach and all of this stuff. But he's right about this one thing and Millie Bobby Brown then is also kind of onboard with him. Which makes me like her less if she's a conspiracy not Yeah, she is she's like, you know, oh, no, no. tapwater in the in the in the right. atmosphere of our world right now. With all the deep strange conspiracy going on. To make the hero of your movie. Yeah. The connection. Oh, that's that's a no, that's a that's a stretch. Yeah, I did like her. I felt like she had more to do in this movie than the last one. I found her very irritating. The last one Millie Bobby Brown's character. So I was like, Oh, you get to kind of act. Even if it's a stupid like direction. I was like, Oh, she's expressing more emotions than she did last time. Yeah, but her dad could have been dead. I mean, what the hell is he did nothing. Oh, I know. I don't know. I was like, Did that actor put on some weight? And then we saw him like twice. And he's a damn good. Yeah. Like I keep thinking back and I'm like, I think that I think he's damn good. Because he was so good in that Friday Night Lights show. Well, yeah, that's what I made. The movie he's been good in. I can't think of too. many movies he's been in. He's like the dad and super eight. And he was also pretty bland and that he was in the last Godzilla and he was pretty bland and that was everybody. Yeah, I'm saddened to think that he just kind of fooled me. I'll disturb the horror pounds in here greatly with the trivia I'm about to drown here. He played the one character that Shonda Rhimes regret to killing off in Grey's Anatomy. He was in one episode, and he played a guy, a bomb disposal guy. And he's great in it. And she was she wish she'd written it to where he could have been a reoccurring character on the show. Because he was so good and so much fun to work with. But hey, they can bring him back from the dead, right? I mean, come on, it's Grey's Anatomy, and it's just been going on forever. Like, I watched the random 13 years, I watched a random episode with my mom and like one of them's in a coma and having dream states and like talking to other characters that have died. So you mean gray? Yes, the lead the terrify, she looks like she's had so much work done. Oh, yeah. She's the final thing about Godzilla vs. Kong was the sheer amount of life lost in the final battle. And it is just not even touched on the fact that they're throwing, they're throwing buildings at each other. And like, well, I don't think anyone had time to evacuate that building. I don't know that alarm went off. And they did go into the underground populated space where we saw like eight people go into that tunnel. So I'm so they're all fine. I mean, there had to be a loss of life at like 1 million right in Hong Kong in that best than that last battle. Oh, it was kind of funny, considering everybody losing their shit over the Superman movie, and the violin or whatnot. I think that I only noticed shit like that, because of everybody losing their shit over that Superman movie. And now I do kind of notice it. And this could have been solved with just one person Yo, yo, you mad at something. But they didn't they were all just, you know, wow, look at Kong and his axe, look CGI elements. But they had to move a little look at me turn this ship that I've been operating for about an hour to into a defibrillator. That was amazing. Come on. So they made such a big point about how amazing those ships were that they could go through that gravitational thing and still come out which had killed his brother, which I thought I had missed in the last movie. And then I started looking it up. And I was like, Oh, no, that's just a backstory for this movie. And that ship can handle all of that stuff. But at one point, the chick who goes rogue, she gets in as they're trying to get out that hole and con grabs it and just crushes it. Hmm. How strong is this guy? Yeah, I guess that's strong enough to knock Godzilla down, I guess. Well, when Tomahawk missiles can't. But he's he had the axe. Yeah. And he has the act of supercharged, made out of a piece of Godzilla that you plug in and can run out of power. Yeah, you have to you have to put it on the slot to charge it. Just like the phone. There was just yeah, there was. There were too many magics in this movie. And there was that whole Hollow Earth thing. And I was like, this should have been a movie on its own. Yeah, that was about 30 minutes upside down. Calm land was pretty neat. I liked that space. There was there are things to like in this phone for sure. And the battle once you get past the fact that they're killing dancers, popular police and killing people was really cool. Looks like wow, there's a lot of neon in Hong Kong. But and the fights were fun. The big animal was fun. There's a lot to like, as far as sheer entertainment popcorn value as far as a movie. Yeah, it's full of problems, man. Yeah, there is. The one thing that I had a hard time letting go is. Why do they need conch? I'm just curious because they seem to know how to get there just fine. And then as soon as they get they don't need to follow him. It just naturally takes them to the place. I think they thought they didn't need to follow him. They say they do. But they don't. Oh, he just like flings himself in and they fling themselves to they're not following anything. It just goes to one place. And then once they're there, they just go to the glowing thing. All you have to do is go to the giant glowing thing. Yeah, it's it's a pretty bad thing I guess the disappointed me the most was Adam winguard. I thought, you know, oh, this is a neat choice. And they do this. They bring in these indie directors to direct these blockbuster films and then they completely rein them in and don't allow any of their indie sensibilities to come in to play cuz it would have been neat to see some of his his horror sensibilities monster movie like this absolutely I yeah I was I was hoping a little bit more influenced but then I thought maybe he got maybe that's why it's wacky in places. Maybe the characters are like a little wacky because he was like yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna push it a little further. Not just bland, not just milk. We're gonna jam on this. Speaking of bland and Miltos. When did skarsgard become such a Putz? Oh my god, here's the word. I used to like him a lie. And after the stand and this, I'm just like, Oh, I know you can act are these directors telling you to act a certain way, like bad? Maybe he's just really like, not into these pieces. Like he's rolling in and pretending to care but not really giving it I can imagine when you're just acting against the green screen that's got a bed that you're just like, you know, Fuck, what am I doing? I certainly didn't get into acting to be acting against anyone to gate that I can't see anyone with a skarsgard in their name. You know, they're good. You know, they're good in there somewhere. Oh. Hang on a totally unrelated moment. Yeah, while we're sitting here recording. Jason weiss's sent us a virtual tip as well. What Jason you sweetheart. Thank you, man. That's great. Thank you interesting time and Well, time to Yeah, he did that on purpose. He knew record on Sundays. Let's give it a shot. Yeah, well done. Well done. He figured out a schedule. He's watching us he's actually outside right now has given us a thumbs up. Alright, I think we've beat this horse to death. Should we take a little break you guys I'd come back and talk about our sub genre which if I remember correctly is brave new worlds. Okay, I'll be right back. Evil Lord vortec is planning to take over all the LEGO Dimensions you'll need might Batman extra minute okay, I'm here you'll need to believe fuses new teams. Awesome cars. rebuilt awesome guys. rebuilt awesome cars. good cops, bad cops. By the ranks excavators Scooby snacks, attitude. And the greatest weapon of all imagination. You can use any vehicle in any world. Little dimension. You're gonna need a bigger imagination. We have returned. Vanessa, this was your sub genre? Yeah, absolutely. So I chose strange new worlds, which I left pretty open. It could be an alternative reality alternate timeline, just a new planet, you know, just a character exploring a completely new space. And for this, what I should have done is annihilation. Because that movie is exactly what this is right? Like on every level. But I decided I wanted to stretch my wings. So I went for the 2017 movie, kill switch. If you're joining us now we are less than a minute away to launch the final generation of energy solutions. Donnie comes down here. How does that thing work? That is pure energy that is going down into the tower that's going to power the whole city or maybe the whole country is it. The Disappearance is the latest in the line of recent reports of vehicles gone missing. Vehicles seemingly appearing out of thin air and not a science fiction. Yet many eyewitnesses have reported these phenomenon. What's going on, jump over take the books to the tower and jump back in time for dinner. That's it. The jump was successful. One palace. under arrest remain when you are authorized to use. We could change the world. Two Worlds, we have to sacrifice one. So the other may endure. I think I recognize the poster image but I don't think I've seen it. So the reason why you might recognize something about the poster or something about the film is it actually stars Dan Stevens. We all know from Downton Abbey. Oh, is that? An adult? The guest? Yeah, there we go. Yes. Legion show? Yes. Absolutely. No, he's he's freaking incredible. And he was one of several actors that left Downton Abbey to pursue his career. And the only one that actually managed to do it. Does he have like a thick Brit accent in real life? Then? I yeah. Oh, wow. He's like, he's very well. No, I know. He does a great American accent like a really, really good. I believe he's English. I don't want to speak at a turn. But I'm pretty darn sure he is. So just to give you guys an idea that like the poster looks incredible. The plot sounds amazing. I was really excited. And then I looked at the rotten tomatoes. Critics have it at 9% Oh, wow. The audience 20% more than double Yeah, double the rotten tomatoes, you guys. So pretty, pretty impressive. undulations all involved. So I was a little nervous going in, but the director Tim Smith, he's he's done a couple of things. And he's a VFX guy he's kind of well known for that. And that gave me some hope. Although I hadn't heard of the film's so Tiger house last passenger and lots and lots of short movies. The writer writers one of them only ever has done this the other one did passenger kill switch I don't know if he did Tiger house. So it's pretty much like a I don't know how they got the money for this. I have no idea how they put together the money for what kind of money are we talking about? Oh my god find the budget for it. I don't you know, I what was happening to me when I wrote these notes, because I'm extremely concerned about my own mental health at this stage. You still you know basking in the glow of Kong Vs. Godzilla. It was so good. It was so good. It's great trying to look this up as well on Wikipedia because kills the movie is so far down. It doesn't show it on this version. doesn't show up a lot. That's not unusual. No budget and box office numbers. Oh, yeah, not not that I have on hand. But it looks really good. I mean, it looks like many many millions of dollars. Okay. But it the acting and there are a lot of hints in it that leads you to believe that maybe a group of friends threw this together in a way that like monsters was put together like monsters. You know, it feels like a fatty indie. You know, exploring the jungle with a girl that I don't like but like but don't like with some really cool monster moments. And this has a very similar feel. The girl who plays Dan Stevens sister, and this is one of the worst actresses Wow, they just keep making her cry. And I don't mean like she actually cries. I mean, they throw like the fake tears, artificial tears that are occasionally and I'm like why are you crying right now What happened? What, why? All the way all the way home. So aside from Dan Stevens, we also have one other actor in this who's pretty well known, which is a Bernice Mara bar loan he she's been in only 23 things but two of those. She was in Skyfall a submarine. She's beautiful. On this movie, and then she was also in the 2017 Twin Peaks as French woman, but she's very, very well known French actress. Okay. The rest of the actors had a lot of credits behind them except for the sister. I didn't even bother looking her up. Obviously, she's never done anything before. She has like 150 she's an avid listener strange. Yeah. We just lost one guys, the other actors and her all German it looks like and they just had a ton of credits by I have no idea who they are. So it seems like there's a pretty some pretty well known cast members, but it's a joint American and Dutch production. So you're getting a lot of these really interesting European people in here. So the story of killswitch, this is going to be short. Alright, so I'm going to try to make this as interesting as humanly possible. In the near future. I'll drink a bunch of shit up. Now I'm just gonna really focus on the only plot points we've got to hold on to in the near future alter Plex, which is the big like tech company has come up with an energy solution. They're going to crap this huge tower, and it is going to tap into an unlimited energy supply, which is going to give it quantum energy you will Porter which is our lead played by Dan Stevens, a former NASA pilot and current current surrogate dad to his nephew and kind of keeping his sister around for some reason. That's like his his only character info is he's like, Ah, sorry, guys, I can't possibly come work for you. I'm busy. They're like, being a stand in dad for your nephew. Sometimes. Really? That's what you're busy with. And he's like, I guess you coach me? Hey, Dad, and dad has a full time job. I mean, it like he literally has nothing else going on. I guess even though he's young and smart and built and knows how to fly. Well spends all their time working out. Yeah. Oh my god, he just spent a lot of time probably working out. He's very, very buff in this. Um, anyways, autoplex hires him on a mission to literally take a black box and put it in a thing at a certain time. And they're like, it'll be easy. And he goes, Okay, and they don't really tell us why. And I don't think they tell him why they just are like, you're gonna, we're gonna send you somewhere and you're gonna put this black box in this thing. And the reason why does shift through the film. So I think initially, the idea is it stabilizes something. But later, it doesn't I don't know, anyway, doesn't matter. We then flash to him crash landing into this sort of slightly colored differently world where we're just instantly in this new place. He's got a HUD on his eyes, it's POV it's completely first person, we go Hardcore Henry, all the way. And he wakes up into basically a video game. And we are now in a video game for the rest of this movie, like a video game plot. Like it is half life. What the fuck? Yeah. It's bananas. So it has things like his health meter goes up and down. Like at one point, he's fighting a giant machine and the health meter of the machine goes down until it gets to zero and explodes. I'm like, this is some weird shit. Wow. Yeah, the world is like his world. But difference. This is what's called the echo. And in the Echo, it is supposed to be a mirror universe of our own, which is where they're getting the energy from, but it's supposed to not be inhabited by any life whatsoever. So he gets to this place to do this thing with this box. In the Echo, there is life. In fact, there's a replication of everyone from his world over here. And it's very strange, because he runs into somebody he knows pretty quick, and they're like, this is impossible. Why the fuck are you here? Who are you? And he's like, dude, I'm your like, friend, and the dude's like, no, you're dead. I watched you die. So some characters in this universe are dead or alive or have different trajectories than the other world. This world also has a sort of militia that's been fighting against alter alter Plex is that what I said this places and alter Plex has done some kind of evil and people have risen up and taken over it. In the meantime, the sky keeps opening up and dropping things like subway trains and ships and all kinds of just large vehicles transport via Like straight into the city, there are dead bodies everywhere. There's graffiti like anti multiplex stuff everywhere. So this place is fucking crazy. And again, it's a video game. There's a lot of missions and battles, little side quests, you get a couple of side characters going on other other players in the game with him, or is it all NPCs? Or let's let's go. Um, it's all NPCs. So there's a lot of moments where you're wondering if you're in Ender's Game, where you're like, Is this like them testing him to see if he can like actually be like the hero of this battle thing? But no, it's just that they implanted some brain thing in him. And so we're watching the movie through his perspective, it's just it's told exactly like you would have a video game story told. Meanwhile, we keep flipping back to the past, and how he got here. So, but unfortunately, that story isn't much of anything. How he got here is he got the job, he moved to Dutch Amsterdam, he moved to Amsterdam, with his sister and nephew, and then got into a thing, and now is here. So like, I don't know why we keep going and flashing back other than they're like, but he has a connection to his nephew and his nephew was playing with his little toy. And later, you're going to see Dan Stevens play with this toy and go I'm, I'm doing the thing I'm doing for him. So now I'm going to get into some spoiler territory here. Oh, please don't. Because there really isn't any. There's no real plot to talk about. He's running around, he runs into a friend of his and the chick who's supposed to be employing him. They run from battle to battle with drones shooting at them, with militia shooting at them. And with ultraflex people shooting at them, his HUD display tells him how to start cars, how to take over drones at one point, it tells him when he's under arrest and that he needs to surrender. It's the hut is really the entire story. And then he discovers that the box is a kill switch. Hence the title, hence the title. And the kill switch is going to kill one of the two realities so that the other can survive. So this is where it gets a little murky for me because they built this thing to get unlimited energy from the other place. But at the same time they had this box that they want him to insert in the like echo world but the echo when he does it, it kills the place they're getting the energy from and then the thing stops working. Click alright what else is on Amazon? It's real Yeah, I have questions but I want to wait till you get through all your stuff. Okay, maybe they will be answered Okay. Um, so anyways, he gets Yeah, he gets the place he puts the thing in the movie basically ends except for we see like a flash over to his nephew and his sister watching the thing turn off. And then that's the end of the movie. It feels like it Uber I mean, clearly heavily borrows from like half life into the point where the reason why this got a lot of attention in the first place is because a bunch of video game journals wrote about it when they saw the trailer thinking that it was a halflife movie trailer. Because it looks so much like it. The bad things about this movie. camera angles are a little rough especially at the start no shot options. We are in a medium and you better like it. There is no fun emotional moments. The sister is an intolerable, but at least with a little boy the nephew they know he's bad so they never let him talk and that's like his character. He's like been through some kind of trauma and so he doesn't say anything so they just like play with little spaceships together. So that works extremely well. This is you can tell that like I said the edges where it's low budget, the super hot chick who is the only other actor you know, and this she at one point goes from wearing like an outfit with a specific makeup in a scene where she's asking to hire Dan Stevens to do the mission. And then several weeks later, we see him later in a flashback and she's wearing the same thing and has the same makeup and I was like is this like a uniform for you? And it's not like subtle makeup. It's like fucking smoky all the way eye shadow like it is like she got blasted in the face with some like black like, dust. I do like that look. It looks hot as hell. I am right there with you. But I was like, she didn't mix it up. She'd do something different. And she's wearing the same thing. Okay, I guess like they don't pair enough for her to wear something different. The good the CGI is extremely good. Yeah, the CGI looks amazing because that's what the director does. Like that's his life. He's a CGI artist. The dude, the bad actor Dan Stevens does great. He does a great job. He really puts puts us all in and a lot of the other actors were like heavy hitting German actors, they do a really good job, too. For the most part, the actors that are good are good. eats really, if you're watching when you watch it, you're like man, Cloverfield and hardcore, Henry sure are really good movies. To me, and Half Life is a fun game. And I would love to play that again. I can't say I disliked it, because I do play video games. And I spent a lot of time analyzing the way in which they were using tropes from video games and inserting them in. But I think if you do not play video games, you are going to hate this film. I don't know, I, I don't know how you would enjoy anything about it necessarily. Because it doesn't have a lot to provide. Other than being like, wow, I like how they use the HUD here or there or man, that's shitty what they did with it there because it's annoying. And I feel like I'm gonna have a stroke. trivia, almost nothing. American Dutch production. The company alter Plex energy takes its name from Latin adjective meaning divided or double or two. Which makes sense because there's two places. It's based on Tim Smith, the director of short movie, what's in the box, which had 2.6 million views on YouTube. And this is where the gaming journalist got really excited because they thought that this was the halfway thing coming. done. I'm done. I have questions. Okay. And they weren't answered. So maybe you don't know. Okay. Is this a legitimate other dimension? Or is he put into something the way you said that he got something put in his brain? We were seeing it through his I thought he was maybe still in our world. But seeing things differently? No. So it's the idea from what I understand is that a second world is created when they make this energy thing, or at least that's what they tell him. They tell him a copy of our universe is made, so that they can take energy from it. But that copy is not supposed to have any life in it. So it doesn't matter. There's like no consequences. So they create an alternative dimension to take the energy from it. And is he trying to the kill switch that he needs to? Switch? Yeah, it? If that's let's say, that's the Eco world and we're in the real world where he starts out in Yeah, in the movie, is he trying to end this world or the echo world echo world, he doesn't know that. That's his mission. He just thinks he The box is supposed to stabilize something. But he discovers through the heart check that it actually will destroy the other world. So at one point, actually, the bad guys try to take the kill switch from him. And they want to do the opposite and come to his world to destroy it. And then, but he is there, they somehow transport him to his place. It's just they he has like implants and stuff. I realized that I just don't care anymore. So my other question I was done that you even everyone's like, Really? You want to know more? No, it's fun trying to figure out how to explain it. That's all. How about I go next? Yeah. Why don't you know, I don't know. It was fun to find something that was I had not come across before. And it was pretty exciting to check it out. It's better than a silent movie there. I use this sub genre to do something similar to see a movie that I hadn't seen before. And I wish that I still hadn't saw Oh, I chose from 2001 ghosts of Mars. He was supposed to be a routine prisoner transport. Williams was arrested on suspicion of murdering six rail workers. The bodies were hung and decapitated. A million miles from home. Anybody here? They're about to discover nothing is what it seems. Everybody in the hell is going on? We used to live here we will get up. It takes us talking about a kind of possession. Something's kicking out there. Us none of us could survive. Come on, Tom stay alive. From the master of terror. JOHN Carpenter's damn girl like you already? Oh no, I haven't seen coaches Oh Kelly budget of $28 million. If you can believe that box office of 14 million worldwide, I can't believe you did. This Rotten Tomatoes critic is 21% and the audience is right there with 24%. That's high. It was directed by john carpenter, who you might know from Memoirs of an Invisible Man and the ward. It was written by john carpenter and Larry sulcus and Larry sulcus has done a couple of short films and DVD extras. That That makes sense. Yeah. Those DVD extras were john Carpenter's films. It stars Natasha Henstridge who you would know from the species franchise and just a ton of TV. I was really surprised that she does so much acting I thought she was just kind of a model who kind of dabbled in in alien movies, but it also stars Ice Cube who you would know from fucking the police. And then the movies right along barbershop and 21 Jump Street and 22 Jump Street. Jason Statham you would know from in the name of the king a dungeon sink, dungeon siege tale, huh? When I saw this, I had no idea who that was. Um, you know, the Jason Statham thing had not occurred yet for me. Yeah, interesting. He's good. Not Jason Statham yet and it's really full head of hair. Oh, wow. He's got his accent but none of the gravel Do you know I mean, oh, yeah. So and then it also starts Pam Greer. gravel was in coffee and Foxy Brown, Mars, Tex, and other people that I will probably mention as I get going through here, if I get bored enough a year 2176 the brave new world is Mars, which we are told has been 84% terraform, allowing humans to walk on the surface without pressure suits, which seems like a fantastic way to avoid big budget affects me. And we need police lieutenant Melanie Ballard who is Natasha Henstridge who is sent to a remote mining outpost to transport prisoners snake plissken Oh, no, no, it's it's desolation. Williams. What is the name of this guy? Yes, played very, very badly by ice cube. Yeah. Arriving at the mining town Ballard and her police team. She's just part of the team. Pam Grier is the leader of the team. Her police team, which includes Statham Pam Greer and Claire Duvall, you remember clay devolved from like Carnival and a couple other things. And then a couple other red shirts that are there with them. And they find that the town is deserted. So they do they do a little more searching and find a few survivors barricaded in the town jail with desolation. Done dun dun dun person not the location, right? Yeah. What you didn't get that. We learned from the survivors that the miners had discovered an underground doorway created by an ancient Martian civilization. And when the door was opened, it released the disembodied spirits of the ghosts of MMA. Which then took possession of the miners. So far, so good. I'm kind of like, you know, I can do my my heart and my sci fi together. I'm a fan of that stuff. The movie looks like shit but Statham is still pretty cool. And, you know, I'm like, Okay, this is I'm writing on this, even though he has here. When possessed the miners can Met horrific acts of death and destruction along with weird self mutilation. They scraped the faces and apparently put on bad spirit Halloween store ghoul makeup and teeth. And then they attack our team. When Pam Grier is murdered by the by one of the ghosts of Mars, Ballard assumes command and the group fights his way through the miners. Unfortunately, when you kill a possessed human, the ghost just jumps into another human which I was like, Oh, this is pretty fucking great. I mean, this seems like an unbeatable the following Coronavirus. Yeah. But and in fact, Ballard, Natasha Henstridge, she kills somebody in the ghost jumps right into her and you're like, Oh, fuck, somehow she is able to get the ghost out of her. Well, you know, if you're if you're good enough, if you have a powerful enough disposition, if you eat a turkey sandwich that day, for no real reason, other than the story needs to be able to do this on a holiday and she gets she's able to break the possession. And it does allow her though, when the Spirit is in her to find out what is going on. And all that's going on is that the spirits aren't they don't realize that they're the ghosts of Mars. And they they see the humans as invaders, and that the humans will destroy all life on Mars invaders. They don't realize that all life on Mars had been dead already. And it is only occupied by the ghosts of Mars Islam. Yes, yes. Yeah, so I'm the I'm just saying what wrap this up, they they're able to break away from the ghost and get to a very bad looking miniature of a train. And looks like they will survive to fight another day. But no. Henstridge she convinces the team after they have escaped that they have to go back and blow up a nuclear reactor to vaporize all of the ghosts. What? Ghosts can't handle nuclear explosion. Will they triumph? Vanessa cares. Remember, it is not worth watching this piece of shit to find out. I am always stunned by carpenter who has played literally a couple of the best horror films I think, ever. Yeah, but man when he misses it is so far it's not like oh, this is all right. It's just like, Well, let me let me pull up a little thing I don't know about Carpenter here. Concerning this movie, or Carpenter has stated he was intentionally trying to make a campy film. Looking back on the film and its criticism. He stated he was frustrated that most people thought the film was meant to be a serious horror movie, and feels that he should have made the film more openly comedic and in on the joke say, it's called ghosts of Mars. For Christ's sake. Why would people take this movie series? Beautiful Oh, I love that so much. That's very smart. Movie opens reviews come shed, what do I say about this? JOHN Carpenter has revealed that he'd become burned out after he made this film and made the decision of leaving Hollywood for good. It would not be until nine years later when he made a full feature film, which was the equally shitty award. Return to filmmaking. The script was originally written as a sequel to escape from New York, really, with the character snake plissken as a prisoner, but Paramount wouldn't back it because of the financial and critical failure of escape from La plissken was therefore rewritten as desolation. Williams JC Statham was originally hired to play desolation Williams, but was replaced by Ice Cube for star power. Good, good job paramount. In a 2006 interview, icecube nominated this as the worst movie he had appeared in, which is really something a calling it unwatchable in many ways. Here's a quote from him. JOHN Carpenter really let us down with the special effects on that one. It looked like something out of a film from 1979. Well, no, it didn't actually, wouldn't. It would it look cool if it was, it was ice cube. Okay. I know. Oh, I can't believe you watch this movie, the film score music. Bruce Rob brought in famed heavy metal band anthrax to play to picture for director john carpenter, who had originally filmed the movie listening to Metallica. The film score is entirely original and was recorded by Rob at his Cherokee studios in Hollywood. The film's DVD offers a bonus feature with behind the scenes footage in the studio with the musicians carpenter and Rob one last note, Cherokee studios is where my brother's band recorded their very first album, and my brother's band is the band that plays the Strange Aeons song that that the Trove our podcasts. Oh my god, that's so cool. I wonder if she did that because it sounds so good. It is good. They're good. What's the name of your brother's fan? The the change names halfway through. So they were called q five back in the 80s. They released a couple of albums that got critically good results and so very few copies open for some good bands though. Oh, yeah, yeah. And then in the 90s, they reformed as night shade and put out three other albums. One of the albums has the our song Strange Aeons part one on it. And then they have reformed as Q five and put out another album. Wow, are recording another album sounds exactly like every bands. Yeah. Um, and they do have the classic. We're big in Europe. And they are. That was the big surprise as they found out. They were big in Europe, and they were asked to come over there and play as Q five and they were like, Oh, well, I mean, okay, and they did it. And my brother who was just like in tears, he called me from after the show. He's like, Oh, my God, I had 10,000 people singing my lyrics back. Oh, he's just like, I had no idea that we were big. Oh my god. That's so cool. Yes. Well, that's better than the movie. Yeah. So yeah, I ended it on a high note. Okay. Well, as you always like to toss out I guess I'm the winner on this one because I enjoyed the hell out of this film. Oh, good. Movie. So my pack was also one I had never seen 2013 coherence. Laurie Mears a total jackass. I got zero views. You know, they're talking about the comment. Yeah. Comment afterward, past people get lost. They would end up in the wrong home. Why they keep telling people that this can happen. The chicken tastes like that must be the whole neighborhood is out of power. Except for a house about two blocks. away from the door. See that? Oh my god. This is bad. This is really what's the box that was at the other house? Did you even belong? Everybody knew this except me. We have to just get through the night. Okay. You're not from this house? We are visitors. I don't want to be stuck here. This is a good girl. Not we have all seen this one. Yes. Now. Yes, it is 88 critics 81 from the crowd. So a grade budget of 50,000, which I think is probably stretching how much they spent on it from what I read afterwards, at a box office of 139,000. Unfortunately, directed by James ward. Burkett. His first feature is he's done a little bit more with video games where he did Rango. And he was storyboard artists for several of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, which is where he found some of the actors to be in this. He's also the writer along with Alex managin, who was he's a story by credit and writer for 13 Grey's Anatomy episodes. And also is in the movie as a character, which I'll get to a stars. Emily Bell, Donny. It's done lots of TV. I mean, lots of TV. Murray Sterling, who's also tons and tons of TV but has also done Andre the butcher smoking out. I Sue's and Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Yeah, I've never seen that. But oh, and many random very voices from Star Wars The Old Republic. Like if a soldier talks or janitors I'm Elizabeth Grayson 29 episodes of Highlander and 22 episodes of Highlander The Raven. No, I didn't realize there were that many episodes of The Raven, I did not either. And from Buffy and kitchen confidential, Nicolas Brandon plays and out of work actor who's having a hard time with alcohol. Moving on quickly. It starts off and what I thought was really encouraging, saying I'm kind of a big fan of Robert Altman, who we don't talk a lot on this show for obvious reasons yet. What I like about him is his handling of large group of people, his scenes with multiple actors and his ability to weave the way the stories are told with seven or people in the room at the same time and never turn it into a convoluted mess is what I really like about his work. And this movie does that incredibly well, right from the start. And the when I first started watching it, and I Wow, okay, the budgets definitely showing here. Because you could see they put a light in this corner, they put a light in this corner, and they just shot stuff, which is actually exactly what they did. But my first thought for the first scene was this, that's, you know, budget, they didn't want to do that. But that's how the whole movie shot. So it's the whole thing is it's a dinner party. And the energy and the smooth flow of dialogue is incredibly impressive. And they do stuff to generate the storyline where they're kind of talking about comments and strange things that happened with comments of past in the overworld in the past, and how we're phenomenon often follows it or precedes it, gee, no one has cell service. And their phone screens keep breaking. Then the power suddenly goes out, except for one house a few blocks away. And then they go outside, they look up to see the comment, which apparently was a practical effect that the director will not reveal how they did. Oh, and it looks pretty good. Yeah. I just figured they got stock footage of a comment. But turns out this house has a generator too. So they turn their generator on and have power. Couple of them go to Let's go see what's happening with this other house and they come up with a box full of photos, and the backs of them are numbered. At this point, I wrote Holy shit, this movie's good. Really, really enjoying the flow of the film, there's a I'm going to get very cryptic here and go into trivia pretty soon. Because this whole movie just needs to be watched and and experienced, there's a knock at the door that gives an amazingly good review, reveal about something strange is definitely happening. And that's the note the group of them, get back to the house and again, and have an amazing WTF moment, they get a book that talks about the theories of what might be going on and is fairly well explained. And they bring the Schrodinger cat idea into it. Which is also explained better than I've heard and a lot a lot of places just talk about the basic idea of shorter your cat, they talk a little deeper about it, which helps him to the movie, there's a moment or two in the film where it drags a little bit. Or it's kind of like, okay, we're trying to figure out what's going on. But we're not to a point where we want to push what's going on. too quick. My last note, I'm just gonna say, what's going on here. And I'll go into thoughts and trivia which made me even more impressed with this film after I read these, but I'll just say this movie is should feel deeply confusing, but I did. It doesn't. It's very much what is going on. But it's not the frustration. What is going on? Like you're not stringing this together? Well, this doesn't make any sense. It is strung together incredibly well. It's incredibly smartly. Well, I'll say outlined, because it wasn't really written. Oh, there's also some weird sound and that we're getting to which probably goes to the either the version I watched or the original budget when I was for reference in the way it looks. I would say like if you've watched the shield or Battlestar Galactica, it's very similar in style to that. It's not really it's not a found footage style, but it's not a lockdown camera style in any way. Apparently, they shot out side one time and wanted it to look completely desolate and dark. But just down the street, somebody was shooting a Snickers commercial. So they had to work around that and then had to work around the company coming down and knocking on their door every once in a while to let them know they're there. The movie was shot over five nights in a single location, which almost entirely improvised dialogue. Wow. which ironically won the filmmaker to Best Screenplay awards at Film Fest. Oh my god, that's so good. But yeah, that floored me when I read pretty insane. Really, really, especially for something. So it's such a complex concept. Yeah, for a movie for that to still stay on the rails. With improv. Yeah, it's insane. It was amazing. Well, to that point, the the other co writer was one of the actors because for that exact reason, he was sent in sort of as a mole for the the movie moving forward, they'd spent well over a year mapping out how the film would be constructed and how it put together so the actors were not given any script, but they were each given. Its at the beginning of the day there a paragraph or a page of where they were supposed to go. This is a stuff we're gonna introduce and you need to find this destination. And of course, actors being actors. They all want to talk a lot except for one Ever wonder was very uncomfortable with the improv. But she eventually got comfortable with it. But so that was one of his hardest parts of directing it was settling them down, making sure that he'd get them to this. You know, follow him aside, say this is the point you need to get to make sure you don't skew so far away. They had one point when the two people that went to the other house came back, apparently, there's a 45 minute segment of them arguing about letting them in, after they come back and be like, okay enough. Just let him in. He did a great job in the end of making sure that all the ideas were presented and all the people were character movement, there was stuff going on interaction between the characters and their history was present and relevant. It wasn't just, Oh, these people are uncomfortable for that. Let's just have that be a thing. It's like, no, there's a reason for these things happening. The entire crew was five people to sound guys, the DP, the director, and producer, who was then a bow saagar, who was based in London, but flew over to make sure the film got done. Wow. Oh, my God, that's so few people. They use two cameras for the whole thing. Except for the dinner scene when they were all at the table. And once they added a third camera for that night, the director wanted to use his own house. And of course, he had to get his wife's agreement on that. She was eight and a half months pregnant and one of the home birth. Ah, so she agreed that they could do it as long as it only took five days. Wow. Oh my god. There's a scene in there where one of the characters goes out, trying to figure out what's going on in the different houses. That the night that scene was shot was the same night that his wife gave birth. Oh, wow. Oh, my God. strange little trivia thing I came across that. director says again, so signifying something, but he is not going to tell what it is. But the movie cuts to black I want two seconds, three seconds, five seconds, seven 919 in like six or seven other times. And apparently it all adds up to mean something. Oh, because there's other scenes where it seems like it should have cut to black, but they don't. But you won't say what it is. Like, come on, man. And the entire film was shot chronologically. That makes sense. Yeah, I think you'd have to. Yep. Yeah, this one floored me. Man. I haven't enjoyed a film like this in a long time. Yeah, this is like the perfect movie for your tastes, especially knowing how much you like. I don't know, similar films. I don't want to I could say anything that's going to give anything away. But I mean, you could give hands I don't think you're going to give much away just because it it doesn't unfold To me it didn't feel like you know, you're watching some of these films where there's, let's just say time change or dimensional changes. And about halfway through, you're going okay, this is definitely what's going on this film, you could probably reach a conclusion, and you might be correct, but at the same time, it unfolds so smoothly and seamlessly that you wouldn't care like, Oh, I didn't figure it out. But still, I was awesome to watch. And it's too bad. Because you know, Brandon's incredibly good. And this. Everybody's good enough, everyone. Yeah, I was like, Is he a train wreck? Because like, he's so good in this movie. He really holds himself together and his talent is very present. Yeah, yeah. So and apparently they're all people. James knew well enough, he could just call them up and say, Hey, we want to do this. Give me five days. And they said, Okay. Yeah, cool movie. Cool choice. I yeah. Even though you're Vanessa and I had a bad time with this choice. I think this is a choice that would be fun to revisit again. Yeah, I agree. There's so many cool you know, films out there though. It would be great to explore with us. Okay, well, I guess that means that it's my pick next. Dun dun. Dun dun dun. I was just complaining about Godzilla versus King Kong for kind of mixing magics which is what I call it when you throw when you throw something weird into a film. That's fine. But when you throw another something weird in that doesn't quite match up. I have a problem with that. Now some movies can do that very well. For example, the Marvel movies you don't have too much of a problem knowing that one of those guys got bitten by a radioactive bug. One of those guys that got a super soldiers here, I'm one of them's a god from Asgard. You know, all of those things are magics that mix well because comic book movies can do that. But there's movies like Do you guys ever watch waxwork To now it's a it's a bizarre little movie about these creatures in the waxworks coming to life, but it also has time travel in it. And it's just like, watch what's going on here. Or Well, you know, personally, the Kong Vs Godzilla sequence going into that. I keep wanting to call it Middle Earth Hollow Earth. Could have been a Middle Earth, going into that felt like a magic that did not belong in this movie. Yes. Yeah, it was certainly an exploration Journey to the Center of the Earth kind of movie when what we were supposed to be watching was, you know, monkey fights, whatever the way. You mentioned, Marvel the way Marvel might have done that, because they're so ballsy in the way they do movies, you're going to do a con movie. Forget Skull Island, good Kong movie. And then they're going to do a movie about a journey to the center of the earth where everybody learns, oh, this is where all these creatures are coming from. And then the third movie would be King Kong and Godzilla going at it. Sure. And, you know, I think that comic books, get away with it, it just in general, because that's what the actual physical comic books do. So your movies Can you know, they they kind of say, look, these are the rules, and you know, the rules going in. But, so I would like to pick mixing magics for the next sub genre. And it can be either a movie that you think, does it well, or a movie that doesn't do it. Well. Sure. Hopefully, we'll find ones that you like this time. Well, we'll see. I'm going to toss out again, another thanks to Jason because he actually asked me a question during this about how we can help us out and I said, Yeah, you've got the right idea. And he sent the full amount of when he sent and I was like, Thanks, Jason. You're covering some expenses with us. And that's fantastic. You rock. All of you rock. Thanks so much for everybody jumping on board with this value for value model. I think that it's I think it's the way to go. And I'm really pleased with how everyone's responding to it. Yeah, absolutely. I think this has been a really fun episode. And I really enjoyed the challenge that we got from the mica value for value and I also just want to shout out a quick Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday mica. So okay, guys, that's it for this week, and we will be back in one more week we're talking mixing magics. Our show is recorded somewhere high above Naval Station Everett at the nexus of all realities, and is engineered and produced by Eric Margaret. Our theme music is Strange Aeons part one by the band name shade is usually permission. Find Strange Aeons radio on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, wherever find podcasts