292 OCTOHOBER ATTACKS!

292 OCTOHOBER ATTACKS!
The gang starts OcTOHOber out a little late, but they hit the ground running with a trio of real bangers! And Happy Publishing Day to Kelly's werewolf novella!
Also discussed: Megalopolis, 'Salem's Lot, Hellboy: The Crooked Man.

Transcript

Unknown: 0:03

Oh, I'm sorry, did I break your concentration somewhere between science and superstition. We have such sights to show you strange eons. Welcome to strange eons radio. That is Eric over there. Hello, that is Vanessa over there. Hello. I am Kelly. You guys. I'm so pleased to be sitting here in person with you. But even more pleased that yesterday, we hung out as friends. We're friends with no microphones in front of us, and we just talked about shit and nobody cared about anything. It's nice. It's like when you are, you know, talking to somebody online, and you've got a connection, you think it's real, and then you see them in real life, and you're like, oh God, is it Yeah? But it is, yeah. It is, I said actual good friendship, chemistry. I said all the racist, sexist things I wanted, and Eric didn't edit them out. So made me feel loved, unlike this show, speaking of not being loved, Joker 280, 2% drop in the second weekend. Oh my god, I you know, I was so ready to see it, and now I'm like, I don't think. I don't know. I'm the opposite. I was so meh with the original Joker. Okay, maybe I'll see the sequel at some point. But the vitriol is so strong, yeah, and so ridiculous. Like, I mean, I'm not gonna go to theater and see it, but when it wraps up on max or whatever streaming service eventually has it, oh, I might watch it. Yeah. It seems like Todd Phillips was very much like a Okay, well, fuck you, DC. But my question is, why? Why did you want to I mean, there is a fan base. The villain is arguably the most recognizable villain in the DC catalog. So why would you go out of your way to piss off that fan base? Yeah, is it just the fans? Because he got so much creative freedom in that first film. Like, why would you be mad about it? You got to do exactly what you wanted. I just don't. I wonder if he, I have no idea if his reaction, he didn't like the reaction. Sort of like, a lot of films aren't what people think they are, yeah, but that thinking of what they are becomes so prevalent that it sort of becomes what the movie's kind of about. I think a good example is Fight Club, which has been turned into this weird toxic masculinity thing with you actually watch the film, that's not what it is at all. Right? It's ripping apart the concept of exactly what people think it's about, but it's to the point now where it's been drilled in so much online. I think a lot of people just reflexively go, oh yeah, that's the movie Brad Pitt said toxic. Do we know what the criticism is? Is it that is boring? Is that it's like, weird, like, I think you two of the words I've heard. I'm interested enough. That's weird. I mean, it's a fucking musical, right? Yeah, so that's weird, right there, but we all knew it was gonna be musical. More important things happening right now. Kelly, I gotta take this now. I'm gonna make sure mine's on me. If you get a phone call, we're in real trouble. Eric, airplane mode, excellent. Yeah, I am like you, Eric. I had no intention of seeing this just because I just didn't care for the take on the first film. But now i i My curiosity is definitely peaked on this. I'm like, what I gotta know why it's so bad, right? We got Lady Gaga in it. She's amazing. Usually Great. Walking Phoenix is amazing. I don't know. Yeah, a lot of the people, the insiders, are saying it's because Bradley Cooper not involved. Seems weird. Involvement in the first when I, when I say that, right? He was a producer on the first one, and he and Todd Phillips have a production company that Cooper dissolved last year. So a lot of people are saying that he was the bigger fan, and maybe the the rudder of the first film. Interesting, yeah. I mean, I can see if you just straight up or, like, nevermind, don't worry about anything having you to do with the Joker's origin story or the DC Universe. I mean, kind of separated himself on the first one, but maybe it's even further away in the second, yeah. I mean, it's weird that Harley is not a therapist. And that she's a patient, and that she's really into setting fire. So I was like, That's new. That's a new take on her. I mean, I thought the lesbian thing was pretty exciting, but this is a whole new strain, I guess, right there with you the lesbian thing. It's great animated shows, pretty, pretty freaking awesome. Yes, it's very good. I came home from hanging out with you guys, and I'm not going to get into what I watched immediately, which was from but then I was just like, God. I was so invested in that show. And I was like, What am I possibly going to watch that's going to make me feel good tonight. Nothing can compare, right? So I put on a movie. Now, you guys, I'm gonna think I'm a little wacky, but I was like, I need something that I'm not going to compare to this. I put on Hellboy The Crooked Man. What is Hellboy The Crooked Man? Yes, I'm not familiar with this Hellboy, the Crooked Man, is the new feature Hellboy film. Oh, the wait, the one with Sheriff, whatever, from Stranger Things. No, the brand new feature film. There's a new, new I'm really behind on the Hellboy. The trailer for this. And it, it looked the trailer looked like a fan film, okay? It is very low budget. It is $20 million budget, wow, okay, compared to the $300 million budget of the David harbor one, yeah. So I was expecting it to look a little cheap. What I was not expecting was to fucking love it really, to to find it very scary in some scenes, it is a horror film that has Hellboy in it. And it is a it's full horror. It's witches. A lot of it is in the daytime. It is in the 1950s what it's got a 33% on Rotten Tomatoes. Everybody fucking hates this movie. I ended up almost loving it more than anything, but the first one. What was it on? What is it on? It's a rental, okay? And your mileage may vary. Everybody seems to hate this film. I watched it, and I was like, about 40 minutes in. I was like, Jesus Christ, this movie is really fucking creepy. I was not expecting it to get under my skin with some of the weird shit going on. And then when I I got on IMDb to check it out and found out it only had a $20 million budget. I was like, why would they even think they could make a Hellboy movie in his costume alone? This new actor, I don't know who he is, he plays him way different than Ron Perlman and David harbor. He plays him very quiet and almost a Clint Eastwood delivery of some of his lines. And in fact, the weakest parts of the movie are when it's getting into a scary scene that you know, if you had an actor in one of these 824, movies walk in and see this weird, burning, screaming woman, they'd start screaming or be a slow shot on their eyes getting whiter and everything. And instead, it goes to Hellboy, and he's like crap. I mean, I guess that's how he would react. But it did kind of drag me out of it. And I don't even quite understand what happened in the movie. It's very it's broken up into weird chapters. It felt overly long. And then when I finished it, I was like, that was an hour and 40 minutes long. So I'm not sure why I felt like it was going on forever, but I was never bored, and I had a really, really good time with it. So I'm gonna be the one person who liked Hellboy, the crooked man. Maybe that 33% is like from five people. And if you put in your review, it's going to go up to, like, 50. I read some of the reviews on IMDb, and they range from, you know, seven or eight out of 10 stars saying, I'm not sure why everybody hates this, but most of it was one star. And Eric, your favorite review, this is the worst movie I've ever seen go and see some more damn movies then exactly, watch go to a student graduation film school. You're like, you're gonna see some stuff. Hey, I mine was one of them. Okay. Wow, okay, well, speaking of from, yeah, somebody got me interested in this freaking series, Kelly, and since last we have spoken, I have now seen two seasons and four episodes shut. Yeah, yeah. I don't know there have been I have oscillated so wildly between being like, what the fuck Kelly and Damn you, and holy shit, and what the fuck holy shit i I've never felt the things I've been feeling watching this series, definitely since, probably until I was watching lost. I think was last time I felt this way. There's a lot of crossover. It's some of the same creators, but obviously, I think they took away some of the lessons. They seem to have a better concept of maybe what is going on in this universe, versus lost, where they had to rewrite themselves very quickly, right? So I don't know. I it's good and it's a horror as fuck. And there are many times where I'm like, the cat, better not jump on anything right now, because I am going to, like, pee myself. It was so freaking stressful watching this show, yeah? And everybody in it is so good, yeah. I sometimes I'll get taken out because there'll be like, a close shot of the sheriff or something, and he's doing this thing. And I'll be like, there is a camera 18 inches away from him, and he's giving this performance, I'm just like, fucking Hey, this guy is amazing. So, and I feel that way about everybody in the show, and everybody seems to know their character, yeah. So I have a feeling we all know that. So movies is a director's game and TV is a writer's game, right? So the director comes in and these actors pretty much know their characters now, so they just fucking say their lines and walk through their scenes, and I think they are all so comfortable with who they are that it just, I mean, Eric, why are you not watching this? You know exactly why I'm not 31 days. 100 days? Yeah, I will say Season Two. There was a couple of moments where I felt like they were getting in some weird writing territory where, like, people were just almost overacting at points, not, I don't know, I just felt like. I was like, Oh, I've seen you do this thing before a few times. And then some of the ladies got very hysterical. And I was like, there was one episode in particular where the wife is going through the caves, yes. And there was a lot of like, making lots of sounds when she wasn't supposed to make sounds, and she knows she's not supposed to make sounds, and she was making a lot of sounds. And I was like, We gotta not write this way. Guys like, this is fucking stupid. You're making me think that this lady is stupid. And in that same episode, many characters who were female, who are typically very chill, were very unchill. And it was like, I don't know what the fuck is happening in this one, but there's been a few moments here and there where I'm like, we got it. You got it. I'm losing it. But then they'll drag me back in again and have some episode that's just incredible. So yeah, between that and evil? Yeah, I'm just like, I don't know if I'm gonna find shows better than this ever again. I know it's tough. Are you all fully caught up? Yeah, fucking the last two episodes. Shit happening. Good time, good time, spent last weekend at the Lovecraft HP, Lovecraft festival down in Portland. Never heard it. Brian and Gwen and all those awesome people involved in making a Gretchen. And we've got that one guy that likes us, you know, the weirdo just let us in. Thank you. Thank you for being so cool down there, dude. Anyway, so I watched a couple movies there. I I really decided to go film festival watching. For this one, I went to like, eight films. And since there's no longer Bartels across the street to get energy drinks, I saw six, but one of them was strange harvest cult murder in the Inland Empire. Oh, which heard that was really good. It is very good. It was introduced by Brian, kind of like, who all thinks they're watching a real documentary, who all thinks they're not. And, you know, it becomes relatively quickly aware that this is a mockumentary, because the the inventiveness of the killings and the strangeness is the world we rotate in. We would know about this killer, but it is really, really well done. The people playing the police detectives are completely believable in their roles and do just a great job of being the way they should be in that life. And the story is interesting and weird enough that it's really worth watching. A couple people who saw it one time went back and watched it again during the festival, and the second time It screened. It's just very smartly done. I don't have any idea. When it's going to come out. That's the problem of talking about festival films, especially not a Telluride or a Sif even level festival where you know that movie is probably coming out in two months or something, right? But I'm sure someone will pick up strange harvest, Kurt Colton murder in the Inland Empire, which has nothing to do with David, does not anything to do with California. Yes. Okay, well, there we go. I don't know if it's a county or an area Inland Empire, yeah. Isn't it like a warehouse district or something? It takes up a bunch of different little counties that are kind of not as nice as an area caught in the middle of a bunch of high populated areas, sort of like where people go. Man, I feel so uncool, and so obviously not from California right now. It's interesting. You mentioned that about festivals, Eric, or films at show festivals, because you went to South by Southwest. Vanessa, I Yeah, years ago. Oh, well, then what did you go to? I went to Fantastic Fest last year. Fantastic Fest. And you saw a movie called falling stars. And I just saw that Willie Greer posted that he had seen it. And I was like, Oh, awesome. Then I went searching for it. It's nowhere to be found. I was like, damn it. He's got a contact. That's okay. I've got contacts, but I would have happily rented that. Yeah, okay, the other big one that I saw this week is Salem's Lot, HBO, Max. It did not suck, right? Cool. I know there's a lot of vitriol towards it, but I thought it was a lot of fun. Of course, I haven't read the book since it like shortly came out of paperback, whenever that was early 80s, I think, yeah, and late 70s, but I enjoyed the hell out of it? Yeah. I mean, there were things that kept pulling me out. But there's also that, that realization that, okay, this is a two and a half hour movie, maybe two hours 10 minutes. And even if you were to just have the book on audiobook, that's a nine hour book, so there's no way they're getting everything into this. And they streamlined it a lot, and maybe it would have worked better as a miniseries, but I thought that the vampire design was pretty cool. Definitely harkens back to Toby Hooper's vampire design in the book, Barlow is a very handsome man. He's not, yeah, he's a traditionally handsome vampire that seduces the women. So that Barlow, in fact, when they did the Rob Lowe miniseries, I can't remember who played him in there, but it was a good looking guy and so that, but that vampire is so iconic and scary looking, I was totally fine with it. He was killed a little too quickly, I thought at the end and the third act veers wildly into action adventure instead of the scary dread of the book. But I don't know there was, I thought there was a lot to like about it, and there were scenes that were directly from the book in it that I was like, I can tell this is an adaptation. Here's the one thing that pulls me out of these movies. So it's set in 1974 I think, like the book, we as a species have evolved in the last 50 years, and it's hard to tell and tell you to try making period films that you can push up against a film made from that period. So the lead in this is Bill Pullman's son. Took me forever to figure that out, because I kept going, why is this guy look so familiar it looks just like his dad, but he does not look like he belongs from 1974 even with sideburns and shaggy hair. He looks like a dude from the, you know, mid 2020s when we get people like Emma Stone or Anna Taylor joy, whose eyes have moved way over. Pretty soon we're all gonna have eyes on the sides. But you can't put those people into a period film, because nobody looked like that back then. It's, it's just, it just becomes very obvious. So this movie, the older people, the doctor, the guy who was playing striker, they all kind of looked fine because they were older. But these, these 30 year old kids, look very out of place with sideburns and gigantic calls. Dollars. But yeah, so that kind of throws me out every once in a while, yeah? So, I mean, the other thing is that they are probably the age they are supposed to be, yeah, but we all look younger than we used to in the 70s. So this, this guy who's playing David soul's character, looks like he should be David soul's son, but he's probably within five years of the same age. Yeah, that's that's been a strange like you, when you see the Golden Girls and you see the age they were like, What? No way, yeah. But that's how we've changed. Yeah, Eric, how old you 54 Yeah, I'm 55 you remember Barney Miller? Oh yeah. You remember fish abegoda, yeah, he was 54 holy shit. See, I've seen few people that you see him that age. He Okay, yeah, I can see that. But even now, no, at that age, and you should get that projection, no, he still looks like he's like, 90 freaking years old. Yeah, you look younger than Hal Linden, though, and Hal Linden was 38 in that show. So, yeah, things have changed. We have changed. We have evolved microplastic preservation. That's right quick back. I don't know what everyone's complained about, keeping you young. Don't forget, plastic surgery. You are Salem's Lot is on HBO Max. Yeah, incredible. Um, well, I went and saw megaopolis. Oh, you did. Thank you for your service. Yeah, you're welcome. You're welcome. Oh man, what a fucking film. I can't recommend it, but I will say for a film that is truly very awful. I wasn't bored. I did make it all the way through and go, Okay, I was entertained from start to end, so it was awful, but it wasn't like, unwatchable. It was definitely it felt like somebody's like, I'm 20 years old and I'm mad at the world, and I can see how the world should be better film. I think that works for his age as well. There's a lot of lot of people out there that are like, this is what the world should be. Yeah, it feels very like, hey, like, this is what perfection would be, damn it. But it's like, the most obvious shit. It feels like something that you know guys I knew in high school who read Shakespeare for the first time would have written. And I'm like, Oh, God, this sounds so cool. I definitely didn't just, like, take iambic pentameter from, you know, the recent Hamlet I read in class and, like, restructure it for this. Like, it felt very like, Okay, this is somebody who's recently been watching metropolis and, you know, read Hamlet, and got really into, you know, what's the Anne Rand book, it just feels very luxury. The story does not make a lot of sense, and there's a lot of moments where you're like, Man, this is so woke. Wait a minute. You hired a bunch of canceled ass dudes and put this in the film specifically, because he was like, I don't want people to think this is too woke. Wow, it's problematic. Said that a lot as fuck, it is problematic as fuck. And there was one point where, and it's like weird, because there's moments where it almost feels like anti Maga, but then there's also somebody yells, like, times up, but in like, a clearly scathing two times up way. And I was like, What side are you on, sir, I am so fucking confused. You're mad about something. I don't know what it is. It's the girls are all terribly written. Their characters are shit, but Audrey Plaza does a great job with a shit character. So good job for her. What's his name the lead? Kylo Ren, sorry, I'm forgetting his. I did not know he's in that factors. Kylo Ren, okay, please. Oh, he is, yeah, he's the lead in it. Man, I am out of it. Yeah, no, he's, he's great, but his character is very two to dimensional. It's, I don't know. Man, I don't know. It's a weird fucking movie. Fucking weird movie. How does it look? Um, pretty bad. Oh, so I think it would have been great if a lot more of it had been real, but it's clearly somebody who's using CGI to try to make stuff look real, and the CGI is very all over the map. There are times when there's moments where you're like, hey, that's C. Gi looks kind of good. And other moments were like, Oh God, it felt like very obvious in a sort of Sky Captain in the world of tomorrow, moments where you're like, stylistic, all right, you leaned into style to cover up lack of money. Probably, I don't know. I don't know what the fuck I don't know why it was made. I don't know why it's made now, I don't know. I don't know what he was trying to say with it, other than like, our world sucks and it should be better if we're just good to each other. Man, I am. I'm torn. I kind of want to see this now myself. I'm also really sad, because this is probably Coppola's last film, right? I mean, this is how he's gonna go out. Probably, maybe says, he still says he wants to do another one or two, yeah, but who will let him? Yeah? Well, he finances himself, right? For this movie. That makes wine. So much sense. That makes so much sense. I like his wine, but, he still had to find a distributor, though. So somebody bought the movie off of him. I don't know. I haven't read about that, but I mean, you can self distribute if you've got enough money, I guess. But I don't know, who did it? Have any Paramount or Warner Brothers, or anybody at the French I wasn't really paying enough attention. There's like 15 of those at the startup mode. Yeah, so Yeah, might have been megalopolis megapolis. Watch at your own risk. I will say it's probably worth if you're gonna see it, see it in theaters, because there is a lot of scope going on. So, but that's my you know, I always think you should see stuff in theaters. You're the most theater going person. I know I am not seeing this in theater. Well, I go at 10 o'clock at night and there's no one else there, so it's very nice. That helps. All right, another one from Lovecraft festival. This is actually my favorite one from the festival. Can't wholeheartedly recommend it to Kelly, though, because it's a footage. It's called Dream Eater, and the idea is there's a couple, and the guy is a sleepwalker, and he's getting progressively more violent, and they are trying to figure out why. Part of what makes this movie work, which is the downfall of so many modern horror films. Both lead characters are likable and somebody you hope the best for as you're watching this, even as stuff really falls apart and opinions rotate a little. But in the beginning, it's like, okay, this is a knee couple. They got a little bit of the argument crap that you always get in movies like this, but it's not obnoxious. It's not to the point where, yeah, you two should be separated. There's no reason you should like each other. I know why you're fighting so you can get back together. And that can be your character, arch, whatever. But theirs was a realistic level of fighting where there's some stressful shit going on, so you're snapping at each other a little bit. It worked really well. It was three they credited three directors, the director, and then the two leads were included as directors in the film. And they did a lot, I guess they did a lot of their own stuff. They were in the woods of, I think, Toronto, in winter. So we're like talking like feet of snow around that while isolated that way. And the sound was amazing, because you get that great sound you almost never get in movies with snow, where that the crust freezes over the top and you walk on it. They had that going. And I was like, pretty cool. And they, they did the decision, you know, they go back and forth, should we do music or not? You know, found footage. Like, screw it. It makes it a better movie. We're adding music. But again, found footage. So I'm sure a lot of people go, whatever, dude is not any good. But I thought it was really interesting and well worth watching. And I just liked watching a movie where I didn't think, Okay, can I kind of like this character? I mean, there's 75 people in this movie, and none of them are likable, so, but this was well done, and they they were there, so I chatted with them a little bit really, really fun group of people who were truly excited about the screening that they had because it was a Lovecraft so the theater was packed. Yeah, the reception was huge. It was really, really cool. That's very cool. Yeah, I saw you talking with them, and you look pretty pleased afterwards. Was something going on there. Well, I'm trying to see if maybe it's so far away I'd like to screen it at cryptocurrency, yeah, but usually, and this happens every year, I open about we just opened for submissions a couple days ago, and I'll get two or three features that are pretty good, and then I know this is going to be sold and out for a distribution by the time we hit in May. Sure. Yeah. So I would be, I would be really surprised if they are not distributed, because it's very competently made. Looks good. It sounds really good for a found footage film, yeah. So I mean, for any film, it sounds good. You're not the only person to say how great that film was there. So I might have to put aside my found footage hatred that was called Dream Eater. Yeah, hopefully at a festival near you. Why don't we take a little break, guys, and then when we come back, we're Do you want to thank people? Oh, we can certainly do that. Yeah, I know that we've we talked about the value for value model here, which is, if you get any value out of this, give a little value back. You get to decide how much value you get out of it that way. And with that in mind, I know that Ron paid in. Ron reached out to me when our two baseball teams were playing. Make you bet I win. I will forget his breakdown of runs and all this stuff. He came up with this great, complicated idea that was really cool. And the in an amazing thing, the mariners actually, like, I think, swept them here. So sorry there, but So yeah, that was fun. And then he came through on the bed. That's very nice. It also said, thanks for all you do every week to put out a highly entertaining podcast for your family, friends and legion of listeners. Keep it strange. Oh, thank you, Ron. You might have to look up the word Legion. I don't think you're using it correctly. Also, donating was Tom, who hates all of our Marvel Movie Talk, but still, this is the show, and liked it well enough to throw some value at it. Challenge you to a movie. Yeah, which looks very cool. I looked it up on Wikipedia, and I was like, How have I not seen this already? That's awesome. Sounds very good. I think that they have talked many times about this on the pure cinema podcast. So So thank you very much for that. Tom, we really appreciate that. And thanks everybody who does that, who you know, donates whatever amount you like. It might not seem like a lot compared to what other people are donating, but if it seems like a lot to you, that's all that matters Exactly. So thanks everybody who does that. Okay, now we're gonna take a break, and when we come back, we're starting off our month of Toho film. It's October, so easy to remember. All right, we'll be right back. You. Japan releases around 1200 films every year, and they're very popular at theaters. The screen has always captured imaginations and probably always will. It's one of those things that never changes. There's something else that doesn't change either. Where there are films, there must be a place to make them. Joho studios, the largest film studio in Japan, the nearly 80,000 square meters site, is busy day and night, producing around 60 movies and dramas a year, plus another 200 television commercials. It is a factory, a place where dreams and entertainment are made. The studio started back when silent movies were beginning to give way to talkies out in the fields of Musashino in suburban Tokyo. Two stages were built. They were known as the chalk palace, and they later became Toho studios. Toho itself was incorporated in 1943 to create an exclusive production and distribution system, photochemical laboratory, changed its name to Toho studios at that time, movies were now the king of entertainment. The company continued to build and enhance its studio since it mass produced films, the two stages were said to be the largest in East Asia, and they were joined by a dubbing to create more realistic sound for bigger and bigger theaters and a large pool for special effects. Hello, let's see who's called the strange eons. John's radio hotline. Hi guys, it's Micah. Thought I'd give you a call before I actually show up in person a little over a week. But yeah, so I was just entertained by that whole confluence of ideas of everyone confusing their monkey movies. So Kelly thinks the end of blue monkey is actually the end from another film called Primal Rage. Vanessa, in turn, is confusing Primal Rage with shakma, which she's she's talking about the beginning of shakma, but the end of it is, is primal range. So there you go. There is, is the Micah monkey movie update. Thank you. I will see you later. Bye, if you'd like to call the strange eons. Radio hotline, dial, 253-237-4266, 32374266, and we have returned. I guess this is kind of my topic choice, because I chose it for all of us. Yay. I had such a good time with our Toho films thing the last time that I was like, How can we do more Toho? And so for this month, what's left of it? We're doing October. So all films from Toho. With that in mind, I'm going to put five minutes on the strange eons, and doesn't make it less intimidating. And I'm talking about a movie from 2015 called I am a hero. Soon. To some Classic say, stop it. Directed By Shinsuke Sato, who has 28 credits, including Death Note light up the New World bleach, and He Created and directed all 16 episodes of Alice in borderland, which I know I liked. That was very good, yeah. Written by Kengo Hanazawa, who has six credits because he is the manga creator of this and five other mangas that have been turned into films and TV. It was also written by Akiko NoGi, who has 21 credits. He's the actual scriptwriter. He wrote library wars. We married as a job special and let's go karaoke. Exclamation point, excellent. Starring yo ouizumi, 94 credits, including Tokyo Ghoul, Full Metal Alchemist and phases of the moon. Kasumi aramurua, who has 71 credits, including Samurai, Angel wars, call me Chihiro and phases of the moon again. And also, Masami Nagasawa was 103 credits, including detective Chinatown three, Shin Ultraman and Shin common writer, Shin means rebirth, oh or new. Oh, I didn't know this all right. Trivia already dropping some fucking knowledge on you guys. Knowledge bombs. I am a hero. You guys ever even heard of this movie? No, the only reason I have is because I almost did it myself, and then I say, Oh, do something else. Okay. Looks really good. Spoiler. This movie is really fucking good. This is Based on a manga that did gangbusters business in. 2015, and spawned a number of, I guess, side quills you would call them. If I had known this was going to be a zombie movie, I probably would have skipped it, and that would have been my bad, because this movie is really, really good. It tells the story of Hideo, who is kind of a down on his luck schlub. He's working for a small comic book company, but his art isn't getting picked up, and he's living with his girlfriend, who's getting pretty tired of them being broke. The one thing he has going for him is that he is a crack shot with a shotgun, which is a sporting thing. Obviously, in Japan, you're not allowed to own a gun in the same fashion as you are in the US. Anyway, they don't get into how or why the zombie outbreak happens, but we see the signs coming, even if Hideo does not pretty soon his girlfriend is sick and she attacks him, and he gets away by accidentally killing her. And then we go into a full blown zombie outbreak scene that's pretty damn impressive, kind of along the lines of that opening scene for World War Z but on a much smaller budget. In the scene, we see Hideo pull his rifle and shoot it, except it turns out to be a fantasy, and we start realizing he's so scared of breaking the law that even in this moment of life or death, he's unable to pull out the gun in public. And this is kind of going to be his his character arc is that he's kind of a scared person, and he is not a hero, no matter what the title of this show is he ends up rescuing a young girl and then sees that she has been bitten. Maybe she has a weird mark on her neck, but she says that she was bitten by a baby a couple days earlier. It's a good scene that could have played out longer, but pretty quickly realized she was infected. But for some reason, maybe because the baby wasn't very sick at the time, or it's just a baby, the zombifying Her only goes about halfway. It makes one of her eyes go white and gives her some obvious brain damage. But she's not intent on killing anybody, and Hideo takes it upon himself to get them to safety. There is a very cool scene where they meet up with some other survivors and stuff like that, and he gets his rifle taken away from him because he can't bring himself to use it. And these other survivors understand that an excellent weapon this would be against the zombies. What struck me most, and you guys can tell me if you find this out in Japanese films in particular, this was really fast paced, and it followed the hero's journey and and three act structure, very, very closely, all, almost as if somebody had read Blake Snyder's save the cat book and then wrote the movie. And that could, that could be, not very many Asian films do that. So trivia, not a ton of trivia about the movie. So I'll talk a little about the manga. The manga. I am a hero, written and illustrated by kango Hanazawa. Was serialized in shoga. Shoga kukans Simon magazine, Simon Megan Simon manga magazine, weekly, big comic spirits from April 27 2009 to February 27 2017 i Oh, I'm out. There's a couple of things here in a list of 10 great zombie manga anime, News Network's Jason Thompson plays, I am a hero at number one, considering it probably the greatest zombie manga ever, whatever that means. I don't know how many zombie mangas there are? Probably a lot. There are three spin off manga set in the same universe, titled, I am a hero in Osaka. I am a hero in Ibaraki, and I am a hero in Nagasaki and in North America. Dark Horse Comics announced in May 2015 the license to the manga for English language release, with plans for a two in one omnibus format release starting in 2016 the first volume was published on April 13, and the 11th and final volume was published on October, 23 2019 so I'm going to be picking those up first nice the film is, I am a hero. It was a rental. I did not feel bad. I feel bad that I didn't just spend $3 more to own it. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, I wish they would let you adjust that after you've watched it and you're like, damn it, I actually would like to buy this thing, yeah, because I'd like to watch it again. It was, it was really very cool. Wow. Yeah, and you saw this on Amazon as a rental. Yeah, it must have been. I don't know how else I would likely, yeah, nice. Vanessa, you want to go next? Sure, yeah. All right, so I had talked about wanting to have done this last time around and not doing it because I felt like it was just kind of a cop out. But screw it. I'm doing Detective Pikachu from 2019 Well, welcome to rhyme city, a celebration of the harmony between humans and Pokemon. Tim, your dad was a legend in this precept, if you were any. Like you're done. I remember you wanted to be a Pokemon trainer anyway, yeah, yeah, that didn't really work out. Someone there, wherever you are, know how to use this. Ah, jeez, here we go. I know you can't understand me, but put down the stapler, or I will electrocute you. Did you just talk. Whoa, did you just understand me? Oh, my God, you can understand me. They've been so lonely. They try to talk to me all the time. All they hear is Pika Pika, you can hear him, right? Pika. Pika, yeah. Pika. Pika. Pika, he's adorable. You're adorable. They can't understand me. Kid, can no one else hear him? I don't need a Pokemon period. And what about a world class detective? Because if you want to find your pops, I'm your best bet. We're gonna do this, you and me, this magic that brought us together, and that magic is called Hope. Listen up. We got ways to make you talk, or mine, yeah. So tell us what we want to know. Pipe, yes. Okay, I can shoving, pushing. My problem is that I push people away and then hate them for leaving. He's saying you can shove it. What I can shove it. Okay, that's it. No, we're switching rolls. I'm bad cop. You're good cop. In my head, I saw that differently. You an incredible Toho picture that was distributed by Toho in Japan. I saw it for free, or you can see it for free on free V I also own it on Blu ray. This will be the third or fourth time I've watched this movie. Is a budget of 150 million, but a box office of 450 point 1 million. Wow. Yeah, it did very well, written and directed by Rob Letterman, who has 11 credits, including Shark Tale, monsters versus aliens and goosebumps. It's also like CO written with Dan Hernandez and Benji Smith, who worked on the TM and T movie and Adams Family two cartoon starring Ryan Reynolds. Justice Smith, who you probably saw in Dungeons and Dragons Honor among Thieves, or I saw the TV glow. Catherine Newton from freaky slash, Lisa Frankenstein slash Abigail slash Ant Man and Wasp versus or quantumania, Bill nyhi Ken wat Watanabe, Jesus. Watanabe, who was in Godzilla, Inception, creator Tokyo, vice and many more people that you'll be like they seem vaguely familiar. The story follows Tim, a slightly nervous, very awkward boy without a Pokemon in a world where it seems like everyone else has already teamed up and found their perfect Pokemon match. His dream as a kid was to become a Pokemon trainer, but when his mother died and he became very estranged from his father, Harry, refusing to move to the city with him and staying instead and being raised by his grandmother, he becomes angry and distant and very soured on the Pokemon dream. I think it's she got sick or died on the day of his big match. So he just doesn't care about them. He is told that his father was killed in a car accident, and when he goes to Harry his father's apartment, he discovers an amniotic, amniotic Pikachu, who speaks and Tim can actually understand him. If anyone's watched the show before, you'll know that the name of whatever the Pokemon is is the thing that they say. So Pikachu will just walk around going, Pikachu. Pikachu. Instead, he hears Ryan Reynolds being a sassy motherfucker through this cute, little fuzzy beast, Pikachu, believes that Harry survived the crash and that it was not an accident. He's actually Harry's Pokemon, and he was with him when it happened, but he has no idea what happened. So Harry, who was a detective, was following info on a substance called R that makes Pokemon Go crazy. The mystery seems to go all the way the top, including the founder of rhyme city, Howard Clifford, and a genetically engineered Pokemon called Mutu. So it's just kind of a a odd couple mystery solving situation with a. A kid who does not want to be solving this mystery, but is curious about what happened to his dad and a Pokemon who keeps pushing him along the way and is very cute and very, very feels rated R in this film, along with a plucky, irritating, sassy girl named Lucy who teams up with them, she wants to do a big article and make her make her name and as a reporter, along with Psyduck, who is her Pokemon, who is ready to explode at any moment. And I hate psyducks in any form, so it's a little frustrating to watch, but that's okay. This is a funny, sweet film that's good for people who love or do not like Pokemon, including me, I have no other Pokemon thing in my life. This is it. This is the only Pokemon thing I've watched or interacted with. So if I like it, odds are pretty good. Other people are gonna like it. Ryan Reynolds is surprisingly like I said, R rated in this is way more adult than you expect it to be. For example, there's a moment where they're like, cross examining this mime and does the Basic Instinct like lift justice. Justice Smith does a great job. He's very likable. It's just a really touching story about kind of fathers and sons learning to find each other, and the kind of weird situations that they sometimes find each other in, just I did. I watched this on your recommendation long ago, and it is quite entertaining. Yeah, it's fun, it's easy, it's just an easy, easy watch. Yeah, I have a couple small pieces of trivia. Pete dioni, a visual effects supervisor at MPC, stated that in designing the Pokemon for the film, one thing that the Pokemon Company was uncompromising on was that all Pokemon, no matter the circumstances, need to remain adorable. Also the day before the film's theatrical release, the entire movie was quote, unquote, leaked on YouTube. In reality, clicking the video will play a minute of the film before cutting to a loop of Pikachu dancing for an hour and 45 minutes of which, of course, Ryan Reynolds was one of the main posters of this. And Bill Nye, he had little knowledge of Pokemon when he started this, and by the end, got really into it, studied up and became quite a fan. So anyway, god damn it. I guess, I guess I have to watch this. I would say it's really worth watching, if for no other reason than Ryle Reynolds, thank you stuff. He does a great job. Yeah, I didn't realize it was kind of adult oriented, yes, yeah. He is. He is. It's, I mean, overall, it just feels like not something you would expect out of a Pokemon movie. It just, yeah, I watched it. I was like, What the fuck this is funny and interesting. Now, the Pokemon are Pocket Monsters, right? As I understand it. You you have them in a little ball, and then you release them to fight you can. But these Pokemon, they're kind of of the world, so they're always just walking around. They're not like, stored in the little shells. Oh, okay, yeah, there are battles throughout, but they're never like in the shell. And you toss them and they come out like they do in the cartoon. They're just kind of already hanging out, and then they show up, and then they can evolve or do their special moves within the battles. But, yeah, nope. It's just a universe where there's a shit ton of Pokemon just walking around wild. All right. Well, you've sold me. I'm gonna watch this. Please do on free view. It's free. Eric, how about you? Yes, okay, well, I have the longest title, Jojos, bizarre Adventures. Diamond is Unbreakable. Chapter one. Story, no standards. She story, no talk. Much standard sky. So. Rico, yet I can't believe you Watch this. Well, there's a main reason I did. Release Date of 2017, and available to rent a lot of places. I watched this on Amazon. Directed by takishi migue Oh, wow. And that's why I watched it holy My God, known for Lumberjack, the monster, Yakuza, Apocalypse and over your dead body. 117 directing credit, mm hmm, written by Hiroki Arika, who wrote and 69 episodes of Jojos Bizarre Adventure. Sure and iTero era, who wrote the Tiger's mask and sort of desperation starring kintu Yamasaki, who was in Death Note, 11 episodes of that. And Mayor, 136 episodes of whatever that is. Ryan Oski kamaki, who's Godzilla, minus one ghost book point, Barry in my brain. 132 credits now. And Nana kamatsu, whose family of strangers and manic hero or maniac hero. So the idea is, of course, it takes place in a high school, because that seems to be the prime age for anything. Manga based a teen's gift to a supernatural powers discovers that there might be a curse behind it, and you might be bizarre part of a bizarre bloodline he doesn't even know he's a part of. And in the grand tradition of Mikay and anime, this movie is batshit crazy in a lot of parts, I gotta tell you, though the hair design on point, crazy hair in this movie. And the lead first Joe. Joe's trigger for fighting is people make when somebody makes fun of his hair, or, yeah, he's also gets defensive somebody's in trouble. But the main story that is about people who have these avatars that only other people that have them can see. And the avatar is very wildly. Some of them are just, you know, fighting guys. Others are weird, little military units. It's very strange. There's a guy wandering around with a bow and arrow who is shooting people to discover if they are or are not part of the stand group, and killing a lot of people because most people are not. Uh, overall, this is a pretty damn entertaining film. The fights are awesome. Unfortunately, there's a large chunk in the middle where they try to go deep on stuff, I guess, and try to do some family kind of things, and death in a family. And it just, it feels off. It just isn't where the movie has its strength, you know. So it's a two hour run, so it's not ridiculously long, but it could have easily had some of that stuff trimmed down a little bit to make it a little tighter. But the the manga originally started in 1987 and has been running non stop. Well, not non stop, but up until now, it's still running, but they run it in chapters. It's like episodic. That's why you did this one, is that, because it was one of his favorites, I wanted to do this one. It's very popular, and we'll do this chapter so it's not like the beginning, just somewhere in the middle. 2016 Toho and Warner Brothers announced they were going to do this. Both studios planned for worldwide distribution with chapter one, hoping to create sequels. There is no sequel. There are no sequels. It didn't do particularly well. So I'm guessing, if you're a lover of the JoJo manga or TV series, maybe this isn't a good adaptation, but it's fun to watch. Mikay was so excited about getting the directing job for this one that he didn't sleep for three days planning and working on stuff. I'm assuming there was lots of talk of changing characters and story, doing a non Japanese name for and background for the. Character. But always it was all said, No, we're just sticking with it. Oh, that's right. I remember reading one of the reasons I wanted to do this. This one is it's one of the few that's wholly Japanese, encased a lot of the stories, I guess, go around the globe. Since I'm not up on my Anime News, I went to the review on Anime News from Kim Morrissey, called the film surprisingly decent manga adaptation that is accessible to new viewers, and praise the action scenes and pacing tightly script cohesive from start to finish. I don't know if I'd quite go from start to vision, but overall, it's it's a fun watch. It was surprisingly tame for you know, if you're familiar with Mika's work, but the action was really, and it's really well directed, because he knows what the hell he's doing. So it just, it's good. I don't know why it failed, but so you said this was Toho and Warner Brothers. Yeah. Did it have an American release then? I don't think so. I couldn't find one. It was shot in Spain and Japan, which seemed a little strange. But the release only mentioned the releases I found only mentioned Japanese, so I don't know if it did poorly enough in Japan that they just decided to shelve this. So is it a live action adaptation? Oh, that's probably why it failed. They usually do, yes, yeah, that makes sense, huh? I have no knowledge of it. I like it, yeah, yeah. Well, that's how I felt about I am a hero too. I was like, I'm going to pick up the Dark Horse Comics, and I'm like, am I going to like this? I'm not a huge manga fan. I've liked a couple mangas quite a bit. But, you know, like Uzumaki and a couple other ones, generally, they animated. A lot of stuff seemed to suffer from two things, for me, way too much story and way too short of time, or way too little story, and we too long this one kind of hit that sweet spot, except where it was like, it's alright, yeah, I'm with you there. That's how I feel about a lot of Japanese in particular films. I think they've got weird pacing things, but I think that's only I think that's a cultural thing. I'm just used to the pacing of three act structure American films, sort of like way back when John Woo hit real big. There's some really strange humor, yeah, to Americans in a movie that overall is very serious, yeah, but that was Hong Kong movie humor, right? Well, cool. Nice job. Sounds like we all liked our films for once. Good job. And you guys have given me a couple of films I'm gonna have to watch. I think I'm watching Detective Pikachu tonight. I would put that Yeah, do that one first, yeah. Just like she said, an easy, fun watch, right? So nobody has to choose next week, because we're still in October. I'm ridiculously proud of this way to see what happens in November. That means that this is the part where we say thanks again to everybody who has been participating in the value for value model, which I explained earlier, who's out there liking and sharing posts, who's on the strange eons radio talk page, which is still my favorite page on Facebook, and who's calling in, and the strange eons radio hotline, which is 253-237-4266, also known as the Michael the Bronzo hotline, because the Bronzo is the only One who's got the balls to call us. Apparently, we should just let him be the voice that answers. I'll pass it along to the guy. Okay, guys, I also have a book out. It just came out today. It is called a distant silver melody. It is a slim volume. It is called a novella because it is not quite novel length, but action packed enjoyment in that. And the reviews have been really nice. A lot of people calling it fast paced and vicious and all that. And it is all of that stuff. It's fast paced and gory, and, you know, I'm not trying to not sell copies. It is not like the secret language of spiders, which I thought was kind of a thoughtful, depressing horror. This is really gory and very fast paced werewolf horror. So it is available now. Go out and consume that's it, guys, I will see you in seven short days, and we're talking Toho. See you next Thursday, transportation and other considerations for strange eons, radio produced by Pan Am airlines, when you think of travel. Think of pan and you can't beat the experience. Guests of strange eons radio stay at econolodge. Everett, it's an easy stop on the road. Strange eons radio is recorded live in front of a studio audience. 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