BRIDE OF OCTOBER COUNTRY!

BRIDE OF OCTOBER COUNTRY!
Continuing our celebration of Ray Bradbury Theater! Eric was hornswoggled and Vanessa talks Fantastic Fest 2023!
Also discussed: Nightmare, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, Totally Killer.

Transcript

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Oh I'm sorry did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition such sites to show you strange aeons. Welcome to strange aeons radio. That's Eric over there. How are you? That's finesse over there. Hello, I'm Kelly. Eric, you and I have just gotten back from the Lovecraft Film Festival. So, so why don't you tell us all about fantastic film? Yeah, I'm sure that Lovecraft was awesome. And I can't wait to hear you guys really tell me all about it. But we got to make some room for what I've been up to lately. Man, well, Austin, Texas at Alamo Drafthouse, South Lamar, 103 degrees. A couple days, I was there. So hot, you feel sick. When you walk outside? That's fun. I will say, you know, I was expecting this, like really kind of hoity toity like, I don't know, upper, upper crust, but like, you know, like a hipster version of cryptic con. It is not. It's like, one step above crypto con. Like, a nice step. But like, it's very, like the theaters are great. So like, it's a nice space. Like it's really well organized. But it's the same people like it's the same fucking nerds with their, like dumb shirts that you're like, oh, I have that shirt. And that surely is crazy. You know, we're all sitting around talking about like the, you know, horror stuff they've seen this year and it's not all cool, classy. Whatever. People it's like cool. Just nerds just nerds fucking nerds everywhere. Do nerd stuff. This is your first time there. It was. Yeah, I wanted to. It's been on my bucket list for a long time. And so I finally went ahead and pulled the trigger. It was just had a birthday and thought, you know, this would be a great way to celebrate. So yeah, flew out to Austin. And then instead of seeing the city that is vibrant, and lively and awesome. I spent four days in a movie theater. And luckily, they do serve you food. It's it's pretty good. But four days of you know, however many meals you're eating there. Oh my god, you want to die. In the seats. You're like, I fucking hate the seats, even though they're nice seats. You're just like, I just I want out. I want to stand and I want to eat a salad. All I want in my life. They did have one salad. It was not super good. Let's see. Let's see attendance. Like for Fantastic Fest. It's pretty full. It's it's not like overwhelming. Like you don't feel like you're better. No, it doesn't feel like you're in a mob. But it is very full. But would you say is I mean, numbers wise? Is it 5000? Is it? Oh, really? I don't know. So it goes for eight days. And there's the first half, which is four days. And then the second half, which is the past I had, which is a lot of this the films that were played the first half play again. So a lot of people who are there for the first half aren't there for the second half, or they're really pivoting what kinds of movies they're watching for the second half more towards the the ones that haven't played yet. So yeah, it's um, I don't know. But it felt like there's, you know, 910 theaters, and each one of those holds, you know, a couple 100 people so felt pretty, pretty full. There's a lot of people standing around outside waiting for the next movie to start. Keep talking. I'm trying to find numbers. I'm curious, sir. Yeah, well, um, the way that it works also is you get this kind of weird lottery system. So 10am, the day before, the screening that you want, you can go and get your films for time slots, there's five time slots throughout the day. And there's between like, maybe three and five different films that are playing in each slot. And yeah, it was a really interesting way to just be like, I'm just gonna see these super random effing films. So is everything passed, but you don't like buy a ticket to see movie in this theater? Or is it just all season pass is mostly passes of different levels. So there's like the Colt Pass, which is like you spent the most amount of money and you get into everything and you get extra time ahead to book and you're, you know, you get a little bit more of that first come first serve and you get to be seated first. Then there's the level right below that, which is like the full pass and then you you get to go in and then like the half pass or the, and then they have like the standby line for each movie. So then it's every seat is typically filled. By the time you're done through all of that if it's not already sold out to begin with any of the seats that are empty, that weren't filled by people who were like, couldn't be bothered coming, they then fill with the standby people, so he's kind of cool. But definitely unique experience. I'm really glad I did it. I'm fucking exhausted. So tired, or so tired. But you know, got to see some really interesting stuff. And I know that we'll go around and talk about different movies we saw, but I do want to start off by talking about two things that will be mass released pretty soon, so I don't want to include them in my reviews like stuff I saw this week, but I got to see both the first few episodes of 30 coins, man jealous as well as the first two episodes of Fall of the House of Usher. Oh, cool. Yeah. Both good are different. Different things, potentially both of them each. Maybe the best stuff. I saw the whole first. Oh, wow. They are so good. 30 coins is in its stride. I think what the stinger last season was we saw that our pre sprint may or may not be in hell, right. Oh, they just fucking go for it. It's so good. Yeah, 30 coins super delivers for the House to usher. I'm actually really mad at Mike Flanagan. I'm angry because I was ready to hate on him. And I was like, Oh, you're doing Oculus? Aren't you clever? Oh, you're doing this, you know, extra Weegee movie. Oh, good way to go. Pow. And this stuff is so good. I want to die. I want to die with how good it is insanely talented in some respects. Yeah. And this, this, you will not be disappointed. I wonder because it seems you know, he was putting out stuff seemed like every three months there for a little while. I wonder if he could step back a little bit and spend a little more time on this one. I think he's doing a little better. He is allowed to do whatever Netflix is like Greenlining. Because last year, he did the Midnight Club as well as his oh my god, whatever that one was the net mass. This is the last thing he's doing for Netflix is Yeah, his contract with Netflix ran out. And he now he moves over to prime. That's probably for the best because I know he's been in an argument with them about physical media. He would love to release his stuff on physical and they will not do it. He's gone back and forth publicly like on social media about it with them. And you know, wishes he could help out his fans, but he can't. So I think there's there's sticking points. Yeah. But they definitely felt like they give him a fucking budget, and they will let him do what he wants. So I hope that he gets that same relationship with prime. I could find no attendance numbers on this. If anybody knows what the attendance numbers are. I'm curious what a eight day for theater 1010 Theatre Festival? How many people that brings it that's got to be many 1000s? Not? Five? Yeah, I feel like it was a fair number. But it's you know, it still feels like a little feels like a cinnabar movie theater. You know, like it's been a bar kind of thing. It's not like, it's not a huge place. No, no, like you can see to the end of the hall pretty easily. I mean, when you go into the theaters, they're all varying sizes, too. So memorably picks more spa. Imagine when there's not a strike going on that actors are there to promote some stuff. Yeah. Instead, we had a lot of producers. There were a few directors saw a cryptic con regular. I know that Gigi came out for VHS 85. So she was around. But yeah, a lot of those actors and promo people were in. We're not in attendance this time. Okay. Well, it sounds like a blast. Is this going to be a recurring festival for you? I would love for it to be we'll see. I still don't know if I could do all eight days, though. I think I die. I saw 17 movies in four days. And that's with three of those days me seeing four instead of five films I chose. I chose to see a little bit less because I couldn't handle it. Like, I don't know, man. I don't know. I'm like, I'd have to really limit what I end up seeing. Because otherwise I think I go insane. Wow, that sounds very exciting. Sounds good. You know, I should say anybody who hasn't and wonders about it, you should do it. You should if I can do it. It's it's not crazy expensive for what it is right. Little peek behind the curtain. We haven't been to the Lovecraft festival yet because we would normally record and we're going to be down there. So we were recording this episode just a little bit before that next week. Eric and I can tell everybody how that went. It'll be awesome. I'm sure it will doubt always my favorite. I saw. Well, you guys, you especially Vanessa. He got me on this Dan Carlin. So I, I listened to his, his 12 hour documentary on basically the rise and fall of the Persian Empire, which Oh, wow, which takes in the story of the 300, Spartans. And then, of course, the fall of Xerxes and the rise of Alexander. All that was really, really fascinating. So, I decided I wanted to go back and watch 300 again. And that movie really, really holds up and a lot of the dialogue is, is straight out of the stuff that Dan Carlin is talking about, you know, the, the arrows will blot out the sun, so we'll fight in the shade and all that that is literally translated from the original recordings of the now I can't remember who the who the narrator was back then there was writing all of this stuff down. But you know, that's like one hour of the 12 hour documentary. So I decided then I wanted to continue with the 300 Rise of an Empire, which is another big battle that he talks about in there and this time with, instead of qinglian itis, it's the mystic Lee's and Artemesia and all that stuff. But for whatever reason, they have taken that Frank Miller design of Xerxes as a giant, you know, and turn this into some kind of strangely supernatural. You know, he goes into, he goes into this mystical pool as a normal looking human and comes out with the gold earrings and bald and, you know, four feet taller, and I was like, Oh, this is an odd choice, piercing pagoda located in the pool. Very strange. And so I decided, well, okay, this can't be what Frank Miller's original sequel was. So I decided to buy that Eric, you saw it over there on the coffee table. It's called Xerxes. And it is really the entire thing that Dan Carlin talks about is the rise of the Persian Empire and then the rise of Alexander and all of this stuff. Really, really interesting stuff. I could see why they couldn't turn that into a, a sequel movie because it it takes you know, 400 years to tell that story. But just just fascinating stuff. I'm gonna have to start dumping money into Dan Carlin's pocket and get every episode, I guess. Yeah, I started doing that. Yeah, I've paid for his Valkyrie series. And there's other wine as well. That was Valkyrie, the the attempt to get Hitler out by some of his. I don't know. Okay. Just know that it was what I was told that I definitely have to check out. And without really reading much I was like, here's your couple bucks, Dan. Okay. Yeah. So you can buy them in lumps. And then you have to figure out how to get it on your podcast player. But it's I'm excited. I'm so glad that you were hauling down these rabbit holes. Another weird part for me is I listened to Dan years ago. Yeah. And kind of faded away off from him for no particular reason. So it's like, yeah, he is great. I need to listen. And hopefully, yeah, hopefully, whatever I listened to next won't make me like, want to scratch out parts of my brain for how depressing it I mean, it seems like a lot of it is war. So that's, that's not the most uplifting subject. Oh, I say this 300. still excellent. 300 Rise of an Empire. Still quite bad. Ah, fair, fair. Well, I'm mostly just going to talk about some stuff that I saw a Fantastic Fest, but I want to talk about some stuff that maybe is not as obvious. One of my favorite movies that I saw was something called falling stars, which was, it's super independent, basically following a couple of brothers who are out on this special night when the stars are falling in this world where what that means are witches come down out of the sky, and kind of disappear people can steal them away. So there's a lot of mythos around how people celebrate harvest time and Halloween and how you want to stay indoors and especially men. There's a really weird, it's one of those films that is told in an normal way, not making a big deal out of it. How strange the universes but the universe is a different one than ours. Is it? Is it like a period piece? It's not set in present day then its present day. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. So it's a couple of brothers who are kind of from this like hick mill the nowhere town who decide that they want to go see that they've got a friend who had supposedly killed a witch, a year or two before, and they're gonna drive out to the desert and you know, dig it up and see what it is see what it looks like, sir. What was this called? Again? It's called falling stars. Interesting. Yeah, I want to see this. I really liked it. It is low budget. And there are a few moments where I think this has got to be a first time filmmaker. So there's a few times where like, oh, pick up the pace or why are you still talking? But you know, such a cool idea. I cannot wait to see what they come up with next. I think this works really nicely. It's got it's got a couple of different films that that it's got a little bit of pie poor feel to it in places, it's got other moments that feel like I don't even know that there's good stuff in here though. There's a lot of good little things in here. Nice. Not my movie. Not the first one I'm going to talk about. It's a film called nefarious. Think I'd mentioned to you Yes, someplace but not on the show. So I was starting to watch him watching this. And it's the whole idea is that it's a guy interviewing a serial killer in jail. And the acting is really good. And writings interesting. At some point, it's rare to get what is going on with this. So I looked up the director, two of his films he's known for God's Not Dead. And God's Not Dead two. Oh, no, I don't know if you're familiar with those films. The whole idea is I think it's, um, man, Kevin Sorbo plays a professor who is trying to say that God's dead. And of course, you know, if you know anything about Kevin Sorbo, you know, that's not his take. The whole movie is him being cut out and put down by a student who's telling him God's Not Dead, and beats him into believing that God still exists and stuff. So it's one of those films that like all the churches, make sure you sell out to and everybody from the church goes and attends. And it's part of that genre. And so watching this nefarious and he suddenly starts talking about is a demon that possessed me and the way he sinned in his life to let this demon in, and as a movie got more and more and more preachy, as like, Oh, I've been hornswoggled. I got tricked into one of those ones, too. And it's an awful feeling. You're like, I thought I was in a different movie? No. So you know, if you're interested in that kind of film, you sure go check it out. Because if the production is great, the acting is solid. Without you take the preachy part out of the writing. It's pretty decent. So it's just it's just heavy handed with this message. It says this, is this fall into that same thing? You're talking about Vanessa then? Or they put this movie into theaters? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I've never even heard of it. Oh, there's an they've just done another one recently to like some guy who goes to a very successful production company. They put out a lot of movies. I mean, it's got a fantastic poster. It looks quite like a solid, creepy, weird interview that serial killer movie. But I'm not opposed to serial killer being no possessed by a demon. That sounds interesting to me. Yeah. And when it first started as like, Oh, this is a neat take. But then it very much changed because the interviewer is either atheist or agnostic. So now this serial killer has been possessed by a demon. So you need to believe in God. Do you understand how I'm talking to you? Right? But it's like, okay, cool. Yeah, well, nefarious. I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to talk about. I think I'm going to talk to Vanessa about Mutant Mayhem. Oh, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie Erica, so I thought this was gorgeous. Yeah, I thought it was well voice acted and everything. And ultimately, though, I was like, Oh, this is definitely a kid's movie. It is. Oh, yeah. Especially when the villain show up and all that stuff. It's gonna go there. It's like, okay, no, I had with it. I was like, what was that one? Eric about 12 years ago, it was a animated mutant ninja. And I said to you. I said, you're not going to believe this. But I just watched this latest cartoon and it It's fucking great. Do you remember that one? Wow. This This was might have been longer than 10 or 12 years ago it was theatrical. NSOs is ringing the bell just rolls me. Yeah. And it was, it was quite animated. Yeah. And it was really a solid version. And I was like, holy cow. This is great. And I wish that, that kind of storytelling. I mean, I get what they're doing this. This is definitely aimed at a younger audience. And that's, I think it's probably a great movie for that. But it did feel like I had been hornswoggled. I was like, Oh, this is like a little kids movie. It's like a middle schooler movie. For most of it, I yeah, I was fine with it. I've had mainly because the animation was so interesting or so unique that I really enjoyed watching it. And I also kind of felt because my knowledge of Ninja Turtles does not extend far past the original comics. Because it hit when I was old enough to where I might, actually now they've turned it into a Saturday morning cartoon, right? They've lost the entire vibe of the original comic. Oh, yeah. Although I thought the first movie was kind of sat in the middle area for the fun. Then the second movie came out with but I enjoyed it. I was a little annoyed that the day after I purchased the $20 rental it showed up on Paramount plus for free. But now I was I it was good. But I literally pause the TV on several times. Just because the shot was so gorgeous that I was like, I felt like every time I pause I was like this could be a gorgeous hanging art print. Yeah, it was so beautiful to watch. And that kept my attention through the whole thing. Yeah, the sequel seems like it might be potentially very strange sequel if they do a sequel where they're in. Oh, you know, I mean, there. Yeah. Yeah, that was strange moment. I know that. There is a TV series planned with this same look in the same creators, so I make greenlit, that's how that will go. I think you're right. I the thing that struck me for sure about this is it's creating a new base of fans for Ninja Turtles. Yeah. For made by people who found Ninja Turtles the same way I did, which was the Saturday morning cartoon show. Right? Like, definitely that is the vibe it does not maintain. I mean, it's so far removed from the original comic like so far. Aside from just having that incredible breadth of art that you mentioned. You know what's interesting about that is there's there's like the last Ronin comic book out right now while there's also this version of them for very little kids. And it reminds me of when you spoke about Toxic Avenger last week. At the same time, they were making those R rated trauma films there was a Toxic Avenger cartoon toy line. Yeah, so weird. It's like, I guess this is? I don't know. I guess I'm interested in it. The 80s was a special time. It was you get your Rambo and haven't take out the Toxic Avenger. There you go. There you go. Mutant Mayhem. Yes. available for free on Paramount plus. Man, it's so hard to pick what to choose. It's so hard to pick what to talk about next. But I think I'm gonna go with a movie. I believe it's a Korean film called Project silence. Which is a story about it's a disaster movie. With a bunch of people stuck on a bridge. And highly specialized military dogs are set loose. Well, we've all the bridges collapsing, there's a big toxic field on one side of the bridge so they can't escape. And they have to deal with these like murder machine dogs in the other side. And it is just a insane, fun disaster movie that reminded me a lot in some ways of it's got a little bit of the train to Busan vibes to it, but maybe nits shouldn't Godzilla. Oh, yeah. So it was it was fun. It was so so stupid. And so obvious, but I love that about disaster movies. So if you if you end up seeing this one pop up and you're not sure about it, I'd say check it out. It's it's worth it. It's watch silence. Violence. Is there any way to know of these movies that you watched? If anything already has a distribution deal or out of them? We're looking for distribution at the time of screening and I believe this one was as well. I'm not 100% Sure there's A few Korean ones that I would not be shocked if they turned up on something like Netflix. Another one called Concrete utopia, which is based on a manga. That was really good, too. But I yeah, I would say, I feel like it'll come across us somehow, some way. But I don't know when. What would you say was your favorite movie experience at Fantastic Fest? Out of all of it? Yeah. It would be. Oh, it's so hard because they're so different. I mean, probably follow the House of Usher. As far as just like the thing I liked the most, and I'm going to be the most obsessed about. But falling stars was the best of the independent things. And big budget fun films, I would go with totally killer, which should be coming out pretty soon. Totally killer. I think I saw a poster for those. Previous so you saw that, and I liked it. It was a closing night movie. That one is, you think it's gonna be made by the guy who did happy death day, because it's such a happy death day style premiere, time travel and not not made by them at all. But it is fun. It's, you know, girl goes back to the 80s during a time in which her mom and several of her friends had been tracked down by a serial killer who was wearing a funky mask. Crazy. And there's a lot of fun stuff going on in it. It does not get the 80s. Right. Very few movies do from that are made nowadays. Indeed. Indeed, it makes Stranger Things look like the like a really well researched data. Really, so far so far removed, like there were moments on like, I don't think people said that. I don't think people were that I don't think people did that. I don't think people were talking about Reaganomics at that time. But that's okay. It's cool. You know, a total sidebar. And Carlos and I were talking the other day about how something happened in the year 2000, or something, where, like, in the 70s, we had a TV series called Happy Days, which was based on the 50s. Because the 50s, in the 70s were so different from each other. Yeah, in the 90s, we had that 70 Show via the 70s in the 90s. Can you imagine doing a show about the year 2000? Everybody's still dressing the same for say, Well, what the heck is a little different, but you know, it's just phones really are. The big difference there are cars don't look that much different. They've done a couple period pieces that take place during 2000. But it's mostly like teen movies. And so it's, it's fine. I mean, it's I think that though the 80s is like the last one where they can kind of go back to and say there were there were extremes. And we're going to show off these extremes. Yeah, I think before it because once you hit the internet, it's too we're too similar. Yeah, at that time, like globalization, and then the changing the way that we like see the world think of the world have memes have jokes, you know, talk communicate with each other. That hasn't shifted much. Right. So interesting article that came out that I've watched a couple YouTube video people talking about the change in music. And that right now on the biggest streaming music is what's considered classical classic music, which is months at least 18 months old, or older music wow, is out streaming new music. Yeah. Because for whatever reason, that's what they're trying to figure it out. It's like, what are the? Is it just that anybody of a certain age only gives a shit about tick tock music now? Or is it because people are realizing there's a true generic, the same thing that's going on with Marvel movies and the generic nature of big budget films is happening in movie music, too, right? As far as the music that's got a lot of money involved with it. So I'm curious if that's why I'm curious to watch now that that's come out. And if some people are really looking into it to see what comes of that, because, you know, when we were growing up, somebody would be huge, huge giant star, then they fade away, and you wouldn't hear about much of them anymore. Even if they continued to make music. They might pop up with a hit every once in a while, like Prince or Madonna did or something. But nowadays, I mean, when is Beyonce not going to be the huge giant star? Probably never, because they just keep pumping money into what she's doing. And that's Taylor Swift. She doesn't have to succeed. She doesn't have to actually make any effort. She's just a giant cog of a machine. So it's very weird. She's been popular for like 30 years. It's like, no, that's not how music should work. That when was the last era of music, you know, there was rap and there's disco. There's hair metal and there's grunge and there was even BMP em DBS. And when the main a era of music of the 2000s Yeah, I mean 2030 years. It's just kind of like that emo or pop punk or like you had a couple of these little things that were out and about, but little things, but the difference. See, the difference is that like, when a hit, hit in the 80s, right, worldwide, everybody knew who Madonna was. Right? Everybody knew who pranks Bruce Springsteen was. And you've heard of the emo groups and there's probably huge people that grew up with them that think it's this giant thing, but it's not a word. They're not household names anymore. I don't sit there and know about whose huge things intersect been around for 2030 years. It's, it's like that. Yeah, like the death of the movie star. Like there's just no concept and I think that maybe the death of the musical artist is could be. I mean, the biggest movie stars now are people that were at 40 years ago. years ago, you can still open a movie with a 60 year old dude. Listen, all I know is in sync is getting back together and they're putting out new music. There you go. Yes, I saw a little video of them making them fun of themselves dancing on stage now ethic. Yeah, we can still do this. I got everybody holding their back. They weren't even on they were on hot ones. Of course, you know, because he got to do that interview nowadays. Anyways, I have Oh, no shit. Not it not a bad good. An actual good movie called nightmare. I think it's Dutch. introduced this one little weird where it introduces it's being a movie about sleep paralysis, which is not really okay. It is a movie about nightmares though. The this unique scenario you've never heard of in a movie before, where two young people get to move into a place that they really can't afford, but they're going to pick up and make work for them. They move in and the people next door to him get upset because they're making a loud party. And turns out the guy hasn't been able to sleep because of this new baby and he's losing his mind and his wife is not being helpful about it. And the baby ends up dying. And the woman ends up killing herself. And suddenly the young lady and the lead is pregnant. It is well done enough that the nightmare world and the real world mash together very well. So it's very I mean, there's a scene or two that sleep paralysis but most of it she's up and moving around, which is definitely not sleep paralysis. It was just really well done with solid acting and interesting. Get lost in what is this? She in a dream now? Is she out of a dream. They're talking a lot about lucid dreaming trying to get her to be a lucid dreamer. So which meshes the real world and the nightmare world even more. So I was it's on shutter. And I feel like oh man, because last couple things I've worked on Washington shutter have now been really good. Like okay shutter getting their shit back together. Trying hard again because this is what i This is the kind of film I love on shutter foreign film, something abstract and weird, but very well done. Nice. This is brand new. This is 2022 Okay, so I count that is brand new. They're very cool. Awesome. Well guys, how about we take a little break and then when we come back, we are going to continue with the October country I suppose if you were to describe this room and the things in it. It's a way of keeping yourself open all kinds of books and philosophy and religion, and humor, and art and all kinds of artifacts pieces of a balloon. Part of an old Valentine signs from the films I worked on here and Moby Dick was my first screenplay billboard from Fahrenheit 451 masks here that I've collected. Spanish conquistadores, various tin masks, I have put away on various shows 30 years of prints valiant that's the sort of enthusiasm I have for comic strip. I have all a Buck Rogers from the year 1929 up to 37. He was one of the initial prime movers in my life. I couldn't have existed without Buck Rogers All of Edgar Rice Burroughs Tarzan books put away some of my own paintings I mess around with. Not very good. This is supposed to be Mars. Not a very good one is one of the few that I like a picture of the Halloween tree. And we're back of course, this month we are talking. Every episode about episodes of the Ray Bradbury theater was an anthology series that ran for three seasons on first choice superchannel in Canada, and HBO in the United States from 85 to 86. And then on USA Network running for four additional seasons. So seven seasons total itself. All 65 episodes were written by Ray Bradbury based on short stories or novels he wrote, which is pretty amazing. Most of them have that silly opening segment that Vanessa does not like sitting in his his office, which is kind of awesome. I mean, all of the props in there are his actual things. It would be a fun office to explore. Absolutely. He would in real life I first set it looks clunky. It's just really messy. I wonder if they showed up in there like Hey, Ray, you want to clean this up a little bit? I did. Looks good, right? We're all camera boys. Eric, you want to start us off this time? Sure. I'm putting 10 minutes on the boys buzzer but I don't think that we need it probably won't. Yes. Can I say to you? hail and farewell. Oh, that was my episode people ask, where do you get your ideas? Right here. All this is mine. I'll never starve here. I'm Ray Bradbury. This is Nearline my first magic sets given to me when I was 10 years old. When I thought that by magic I could control the world around me. My parents gave me sweaters and socks for Christmas. I rebelled. I want her to stay young a kid with a magics that forever. I wish somehow I could smoke the proper cigars to stunt my growth out of those Christmases and my secret desire bit scrunched down and be 10 years old forever the story that follows was born. This one also came out in 1989. And again, depending on where you look, IMDb and Wikipedia. So this is season three. Episode 10 and peacock and Rotten Tomatoes have this is season four episode 10 Interesting. Maybe there's not really seven seasons. Depends on where you look. I guess. This is directed by Alan croaker. He's done eight episodes of forever night. If you remember that one going. Vampires gonna do 13 episodes of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. Yeah. 13 episodes of Star Trek Voyager. Yeah. 13 episodes of Star Trek Enterprise. Oh five and eight episodes of Chuck Jaco Yeah. Show. Oh, do you think writer writer you know get out okay. Is it Ray Bradbury? Yeah. Actor in it. Josh Savino who's in 114 episodes of The Wonder Years. He was the kind of nerdy friend Oh, okay. Law and Order SVU and camp Cucamonga. All right. Also Georgie Collins who was in Honey, I Shrunk the Kids the TV show. The movie Red. Yes. And the boy who talks to badgers Excellent. We're superpower ever. Frank and Frank C. Turner who's needful things Sonic the Hedgehog. Hot Rod. Air Bud semithin effects Snow Dogs, cats and dogs. Call of the Wild Air Bud world pup air by Golden Retriever everybody dog actor has 151 credits but apparently he did a lot of air but it was kind of his go to there for a while. out. So this also starts with a classic bully story. kid from one two years running down the street with a bunch of chalk losers chasing him and harassing the nerdy kids as he started talking about years last episode seems a theme, again, Mr. Bradbury. In the middle of the attack, he sees a girl that kind of catches his eye and somehow, for a moment, all the bullies disappear. And once he kind of shakes himself out of recognizing the little girl, they, they're back again, I'm not quite sure what happened there. But he realizes as he sees the little girl, she looks familiar, but then she sees the mom and she looks more familiar. She knows the mom and the mom knows him. And are entirely certain what for a while, but it is a little bit like oh, okay, this is uncomfortable. The boy then has shows that here's a series of pictures taken over decades, showing parents that he has been with over the years. Going back to the 1940s. And this is taking place when it was shot is takes place in 89. And he looks like he's 12 years old. Okay, interesting. And very unusual kid. And he, in the classic Ray Bradbury, there's no explanation of why we kids 12, which I think is great. And he sits there and he's telling his current family. Well, it's time for me to move on. People are starting to question why I haven't changed. And the parents had no idea who he was. If he presents the all these photos, and then they go into flashback to show the few years earlier, he showed up on their doorstep, okay. And he goes to various towns finds a listing of some family that recently lost an 11 or 12 year old kid, and shows up on their doorstep saying he's lost and needs help. And then weaseled his way into living with them for three or four years until he asked to move on. Certainly we won't call the authorities. In his quest to figure out what he's going to do with his life. He tried to turn tried to get into a circus, but the circus people are like, sorry, you don't look weird enough. He just looked like a 12 year old kid. But I'm 40 years old. But and eventually you kind of see that this woman he had known previously when she was the age of his her current daughter. So it's like it's it's a well told story. It's not as good as the first one. I really liked the first one right? This one was, was good. The first one you talked about? Yeah, the last week's episode. Ray Bradbury wrote this story because he had a childhood memory of him wanting to stay a kid forever. And you wanted to use magic and maybe if he found the right magic said or cigars. He could stay small. And it stunt his growth. In the story is written story. It reads like, what's the kind of a good idea this is kind of interesting and kind of fun. In the film version, it's very uncomfortable. And seems like he's kind of enjoys it, but kind of doesn't like it at all. So it's an interesting juxtaposition to read the story and watch the that's the time passing on Bradbury and how he felt about being a child. I would probably because he's explored it in a lot of his short a lot of his stories I'd imagine. Yeah. The story is more introspective and hopeful. While the TV episode feels very hopeless, like I'm trapped in this, I've learned to live with it. But this is, however long I ended up existing. This is all I got. That's it Jesus. Because you know, you figured that the year the age you chose, like if you're at least 16 you could like get your own jobs and do some stuff and but that age, you're kind of stuck. Oh, I don't know. That's about all I got. Would you be interested in being a kid forever? I mean, sounds like the plot of orphan. Got us not a lot of murders. Let's see what is an interesting thing that we have in a factoid. Well, Ray Harryhausen was best man at Ray Bradbury's wedding. Oh Raven ratio, during a BAFTA 2010 awards tribute honoring Harryhausen his 90th birthday. Bradbury spoke of first meeting him at Forest a ackermans house, my God, what a trio that would have been done. Alex when they're both 18 Their shared love of science fiction King Kong, and the King Kong. King Vidor directed from the fountainhead written by and ran was the beginning of a lifelong friendship is early influences inspired them to believe in themselves and affirm their career choices. After their first meeting, they kept in touch at least once a month, and a friendship that lasted over 70 years. Wow. That is two incredibly brilliant people knowing each other and one unbelievable person who understands what was going on in that world between those three guys, that is so cool. Yeah, that's I mean, we're not gonna see people like that getting together anymore. I don't I don't you know, he talked about the death of the movie. So we're talking about the death of the book, the author star and stuff like that, too. That's just all that says going away. Yeah, there's something about hey, let's get together and have a zoom call every week every couple of months. That doesn't sound quite as cool as communicating with Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen. Vanessa, you want to talk about yours? Absolutely. So I chose one called the long reign. I'm Ray Bradbury. This is. Hey, which is season six? Episode six, maybe? TBD? Who knows? I kind of chose this one because it had more of a sci fi premise that sounded really interesting to me. This is directed by Lee tahari who has 15 credits to his name 15 Doesn't sound like a lot but he did do Die Another Day Along came a spider the edge next and Triple X State of the Union. Among others big big budget film Yeah, big budget actually stuff and you can kind of tell from this I would say that this is more of an action story. This was written by Ray Bradbury. Weird, starring Mark singer as Trotsky he spent in 92 things including Beastmaster V the TV series, five episodes of Arrow and 22 episodes of young and the restless. Michael Hurst as Simmons 75 episodes including 79 ups of Hercules The legendary journal journeys, journal, journal journals, as loose, and four episodes of Xena as well as a lot of TV walk on. Brian Sergent as bots 35 episodes including Dettol are 35 credits, including Dead Alive, Eagle versus shark meat, the feeble slowest and recently, The Hobbit Desolation of Smaug as the voice of spider and Mark Rafferty as Cooper who has 17 credits including two Xena episodes, three episodes satisfaction, and 286 episodes of neighbors as Darcy Tyler. So the story is we find this like army spacecraft that has crashed landed on a world where it never stops raining. This is opposed to Earth where it has not rained in hardly any time at all. Only one of the four guys remembers it ever raining even once on Earth. They need to walk eight miles to the Sun dome to save themselves. Because this place is really harsh. Not only is it raining hard, but there are these sort of plants that are carnivorous. And if you stand still for too long, they will wrap you up and eat you. There's one dead guy that is used as sort of an example of that and who plays there. Each of them has their own personality. One dude is really over the top nutso Looney Tunes 90s Irritating or he's just doing a lot of screaming and yelling and Bobcat gold for being in the corner. There Guys are fine. One of them is in charge of them. So they start walking and they're using this sort of like GPSC thing. Future s That futuristic GPS guy that's telling them where they're going and they're following it and they go for eight miles. They're going through the water and the whatever and the whatever, and they make it and they're exhausted, and they're back to their spaceship. So the GPS has done them wrong. So the sergeant's like, well, we'll we'll just walk towards the light. Because we know that the light is coming from the sundown, and they start going and one guy is just too exhausted. And he basically puts his head back and he drowns because the rain is so intense. Yeah, the other guy course Looney Tunes, guy goes Looney Tunes. He's fucking nuts. He starts, you know, shooting up in the sky as being weird and irritating. And then the last guy, who's with just says, Hey, man, I'm done. I'm done. I'm gonna stop here. I'm over. I can't do this anymore. And he's like, no, no, keep going. He's like, Nope, this is my choice. I'm staying here. I don't want to go insane. It's too much. So he leaves them there goes around the bend. And of course, these the Sundome tries go back, but the guy's dead. So it goes to the Sundome. And it's warm. And he falls asleep. He has a nightmare that, like the plant that got stuck to his shoe took over the whole thing. And he couldn't leave on the spaceship rocket that's in there. Because it was taken over by plants. But it's okay. It's another it's a dream. Yeah. And well, what was the sun dome? The sun dome is like this place that people had built. It's like this big, like safe space that is always sunny inside. Yeah, sports dome in Florida. A little bit. It has like a hot lamp in there. I thought that the twist was going to be the I was like, oh, no, he gets in there. And then he can't get out. And it's too hot and it's sunny and he can't. It's too contrast. Because the way they shoot it, it looks like it's boiling and his skin is getting him off. But no, it's just orange. Everything's fine. The premise is neat. I think the story is probably way, way way better. Because they don't have the budget to pull it off. Like the plants. They're just plants in the rain. It's just rain. And so when everyone's like, Man, I can't do it anymore. Really? Sure. Seems like somebody's moving from Arizona to Seattle like it's I mean, I guess it's fine guys. You might get a little bit trench foot. I don't know. Um, yeah. Don't know. I will say didn't have the beginning. But the opening of the like, you've got Ray Bradbury, like in showing with his office is like two seconds long. By season six. It's like his office and we're out. And there was no intro with him at all. In fact, there wasn't even a voiceover with him. So I was like, alright, well, your trivia I don't have any. The only thing I have for you guys is uh, but is there was a feature to review from Hitchcock. No. Okay. on Amazon. My feet are damp exclamation mark. For men are survivors of a crash on another planet. Perhaps it's Venus. It rains all the time. They come from Earth as colonists apparently they have the opposite problem on earth, no rain at all. They have a kind of GPS that makes their way as the to the Sun dome. A city under a big bubble through the guys can't handle the incessant rain they crack up and become food for the plants a carnivorous part of the landscape. One of the guys stranger than the rest, but he's dealing with those who don't have his will. Oh, sorry, stronger. In these Bradbury stories, the astronauts are frequently all too human. Their training seems grossly inadequate for the forces they must face. But that's what's really interesting is that these guys don't even last one day. I'm not even sure what the author wanted us to take away from this. I have a little bit of trivia if you'd like to read that very bottom one I would love to. late in life, Bradbury retained his dedication and passion despite what he described as the devastation of illness and deaths of many good friends. Oh Ray. Among the losses that deeply grieved him was the deaths of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, an intimate friend for many years. They remain close for nearly 30 years after Roddenberry asked him to write for Star Trek which Bradbury never did, objecting that he quote, never had the ability to adapt other people's ideas into any sensible form. And quote, I didn't know that. That's crazy. I picked that one for you, nerd. I know. It's awesome. pricing you'd think he would, but he's a little dark there's a couple of episodes so what you know kind of worked well for I think that probably he was doing well enough in the 60s that he was like I don't really want to do something I don't have this failing TV show that nobody's gonna like your sci fi is different than my sci fi Okay, so this is my turn. Give myself 10 minutes I chose the emissary look around, find what I need. And begin. I'm Ray Bradbury. This is Well, right now what shall it be out of all this? What do I choose to make the story and never know where the next one will take me? The trip? Exactly one half exhilaration, exactly one half terror? season two episode three this is directed by Sturla Gunnarsson Academy Award nominated director 53 credits, including episodes of Alfred Hitchcock, Hitchcock Presents defying gravity shits Creek motive and Degrassi The Next Generation. Good show written of course by Ray Bradbury, starring Helen shaver, who has 90 credits. But I'm going to tell you what those are first but then, so she was in the Amityville Horror, she was in the believers the craft and 87 episodes of poltergeist the legacy Wow, she has 60 directing credits to she's and she's still working in that industry Daniel girl. It also stars Karam Maliki I'm sorry Kira Maliki Sanchez, who has 72 Acting credits, including cherry falls, the Punisher War Zone and Texas Chainsaw. Also stars chubby the dog which I think is kind of a mean name. For Chubs Yeah. The Emissary? We meet Martin who is a young boy with a generic illness that is keeping him bedridden. Is it cancer? Is it mono? But he does seem sad and want. Martin has a dog with the unimaginative name of dog and dog roams the small town they live in completely unfettered, much to the consternation of some of the townsfolk see dog rolls around and stuff. He leaves he rolls around and leaves and dirt and grass and garbage and he brings it all back on his fur to Martin jumping on his bed and letting the boy live vicariously through the various smells and debris. Oh, dog is also a digger. The neighbors hate him because he's always digging huge holes in their yards. But Martin is lonely so he creates a little tag for dogs collar, a name tag, fuck no. This kid has put his own name on the tag and a message that says he's bedridden and would love a friend. One day dog brings him a friend in the form of Miss hate. A woman who turns out she would have been Martin's teacher if he had been allowed to actually attend school. And so she shows up. She thinks that adorable this the way that Martin did this and everything. And she brings a book with her. And over the next several months she reads to Martin every day after school and they develop a really lovely relationship. But one day, Miss eight doesn't show up. And we find out that she was killed in a car accident. No, no. Yeah, Martin falls into a deep depression of course and after her funeral dog also goes missing. And now Martin is very depressed To Lord one night, his parents leave for a brief amount of time I think it's Halloween night actually. And Martin is alone in the house dog has been missing for two days. But all of a sudden Martin hears the dog comes through the downstairs door and start running up the stairs. Martin is overjoyed as the dog jumps on the bed but that quickly turns to kind of gross the dog is covered in dirt and it is a very smelly dirt and the boys like what have you been digging up? I realizes that dog has been digging maybe digging for two days and whatever he dug up does not smell very good. And then the bedroom door slowly creeps open and we hear Miss eighths voice so this is the end this is one of my absolute favorite stories by Bradbury I read this in a collection when I was about 10 And I thought it was the greatest story ever written and it just stuck with me forever the episode unfortunately pretty so so and so I was really disappointed with the adaptation. It's always going to be the case adapting Bradbury his stories there's so much going on in the mind of the character and it's always our it's almost always a single person. So he's got to kind of force a lot of this into dialogue and this kid actor not the best than me not horrible, but not the best. Still, I had a good time with it. I urge everyone to buy the October country and read this story is really interesting story behind the story. He originally wrote the emissary for his first book, Dark Carnival, which came out in 1947. And then he revised it in 1951 for publication in the short lived literary journal journal new story. He then rewrote it extensively for inclusion in the October country, which is where I read it. Along the way. However, the story appeared in unexpected form. It was plagiarized with flimsily disguise alterations the Sick Boy confined to a bed becomes a blind young woman in a wheelchair as what the dog dragged in. In the December 1951 issue of the EC comics publication vault of horror. Other unauthorized comic book appropriations followed, and when Bradbury learned that the April May 1952 issue of weird fantasy, another easy series contained a comic called Home To Stay which ripped off not one but two of his stories he took action. Bradbury wrote to EC comics. Just to note to remind you of an oversight you have not as yet sent on the check for $50 to cover the use of secondary rights on my two stories. I feel this was probably overlooked in the general confusion of office work and look forward to your payment in the near future. No, although William Gaines was he sees publisher initially denied that the firm had plagiarized the stories, he sent the author of the check for $50 and before the end of the year weird fantasy announced in his pages that the formerly unauthorized Home To Stay was just the first in a series of authorized comic book adaptations and Bradbury stories. Both parties had come to an agreement rather than a full length treatment of his books. EC would end up adapting some two dozen stories by Bradbury for publication in their various comic books, such as Tales from the Crypt shocked suspense stories and Weird Science. Wow. I kind of love the let's not immediately go to lawsuit. I'm just going to send this here by the way. You forgot my check. I have another little little general trivia on Bray bed Ray Bradbury himself berry red berry Bradbury short story i Sing the Body Electric, which is a very, very popular story of his was adapted for the 100th episode of The Twilight Zone. And then there was a 1982 television movie called The Electric grandmother which is also based on it i Sing the Body Electric I'm gonna be looking at both of those after this. Yeah, so we'll be a time we're tracking Yeah. All right, you know the fun of it. I thought felt different than when you watch a two and a half hour movie. Yeah. This story creeped me out so bad it when I read it and then in this version of it they've got the door opening and she says her the first thing she had said to him you know when she came in, but they use like the same line of dialogue and I think it would have been so much better if it had been a version so I don't know if I don't know if for this show. He was like I'm gonna leave it a little kind of uplifting like yes, I I dug up your teacher and she's exactly the same dog's pain worse but in the in this in the story. You definitely get the feeling that you don't want your Teach your back. A little bit of monkey's paw. Yeah, in there. Yeah, that's pretty cool. Really cool. Okay, well, I'm having a good time with this. I hope you guys are too. I hope the listeners are Yeah, we're gonna be doing two more weeks of it. So you're stuck with it. You're not, I guess what I recommend going to our back catalogue and visiting some of the things we've talked about before. They're all out there certainly. You want to watch alongside us. It's available in quite a few places Peacock, without commercials for TV and Pluto TV with commercials. The books are readily available and all sorts of forums. 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I always I realized while I was looking at his comments that he must be commenting live as he's listening because sometimes it's just a smiley face like I wonder what I said was one of you guys Alright guys, so we're gonna be coming back next month we're talking about more Ray Bradbury theater. See an exercise that I say we'll come back next month when we come back next week. Talking about theater See you next Thursday. Transportation other considerations for strange aeons radio produced by Pan Am airlines. When you think of traveling think of pan and you can't think the experience. Yes, the strange aeons radio stay at econo lodge ever. It's an easy stop on the road. Strange aeons radio is recorded live in front of a studio audience. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a positive review on your favorite podcast app. Sit, sit, fucking nerds everywhere. Do nerd stuff