The SomethingSomethingCast

What started 11 years ago in an apartment was two guys with two microphones wondering what to talk about.

Now, 11 years, hundreds of episodes, dozens of guests, and an unending number of laughs later.. we end with two guys with microphones.

Before we get into the good-byes, let me just say that the week to week Somethingcast is ending, but the website and all of the episodes will remain here for a long time to come and there is every chance that you may see the occasional post or update from the podcast feed. Between Livestream for the Cure, Christmas Parties, or just because Rob and I are really horrible at putting stuff down, this is goodbye, but we will definitely stop back in from time to time to see if we remember how to do it.

That said, let’s get to the farewells.

First, we thank Big Matt for letting us take our bow without him. The last few months he has been an amazing cohost and added a new spin on the fact that the two of us know each other so well. Thank you for that, and we look forward to working with you on whatever comes next.

From Hatton:
Geez, writing this was harder than recording that episode. Whether you have been a fan or friend of mine from the Rabble days or the IHL days or just because we met somewhere out on an adventure.. I want to thank you for your love and support and for just being a part of my journey and letting me be a part of yours. You know as well as I do that this isn’t the last time I’ll try and entertain you, but that doesn’t mean that ending this chapter of over a decade doesn’t sting. Anyway, so long and thanks for all the fish.

From PCR:
Not sure what to say here that I haven’t brought up in one way or another in the last few episodes, except to say that this has been an amazing journey and I wouldn’t change any of it for the world.  The places we’ve gone and people we’ve met thanks to this silly little show.. well.. none of it would have been possible without it.  To anyone we’ve met, interviewed, hooked us up, and/or listened…  my sincerest thanks.  As James said, this won’t be the last time I, he, or we try to entertain you.  To quote Winnie the Pooh “How lucky I am that have something that makes saying goodbye so hard”.

So, one last time… Okay here we go!

Full Episode

Hey Somethings, PCR here!

Well, the rotation lands on me for the final blog post of our 11 year run.

11 years…

I feel like I’m in the last 10 minutes of “Cheers”, where Sam is walking around the bar, and memories just hit me… some good, some bad…

…the sound of Hatton’s voice on the phone every time I told him about an interview we scored…

…the admittedly ugly tension that happened on a particular LOST episode recording…

…the first time we tried remote recording, catching him off guard with “The Hatton Episode”, our attempt at an MST3K style episode…

…our radio dramas, our Dramatic-Ish readings…

Hatton likes to say that we never would have made it 11 years if it wasn’t for the way I pushed us and tried to keep us on track.  While that may be true, we never would have gotten out of the starting gate if it wasn’t for James asking me in the first place.

We’ve hashed out and retold our origin story more times than Batman’s, so I won’t go in to it yet again, but that fateful night in a swanky little dive bar that doesn’t even exist anymore set these wheels in motion, and for those of you who’ve been a part of it… Thank You.

Watch this space.  There’s new things to come.

-PCR

Good evening Ratbrains!

For the last of the 1-Star Movie Reviews, the Somethings have chosen the creme de la crap, a veritable feast for the senses.. as long as the only thing your senses recognize is the color blue. We are talking about the Travolta & Xenu vehicle that is Battlefield Earth.

Was this movie deserving of its many many many awards? Was it worth the time of actors like Forrest Whitaker and Kim Coates? Are we, a species, doomed to forget everything we’ve known because of the scourge of SIKO and OLOGY or whatever the crap they talk about? Find out on this week’s 1-Star Movie Review: Battlefield Earth

Ok, here Xenu

Full Episode

Given this is my last blog of this era – instead of writing out a list of thank yous which I’m sure you guys are sick of hearing from us self-indulgently blather on about this month, I thought I’d take a minute to talk about my history with podcasting – what I’ve gotten out of it and what I may do with it in time to come.

For those who know, I started writing over at Inside Pulse/Comic Nexus a long time ago, doing comic reviews and then wrestling reviews.. then one of my Rabble crew, Erik had been listening to our local radio station and the talking heads were blathering on about how it isn’t easy to do what they do and Erik asked if I wanted to try it out… well, the Rabblecast was born (and is still running, although I believe they are now a general pop culture thing now  – but it is nice to see one of my babies lives on without me)

It took two years before the bug bit me again and I needed to find a microphone and a friend. The problem was, and to a big degree, still is – I love nothing enough to focus on one thing. When I focus on something too hard, I get bored of it real quick. I stopped doing comic reviews because I knew what the storylines were a year ahead of time, I stopped watching wrestling because there were no surprises (and the product sucked at the time), so walking into a new show, it couldn’t be about any one particular thing… and therein lies the rub.  I love gaming and horror movies and puzzles and a thousand things… but none of them enough to be very good at being a critic of them. When I meet a horror fan and they say something like ‘Oh, did you hear Roger Kablingkin is revitalizing Phantasm after he won the lawsuit against Bloody Moon Studios? Aren’t you excited? OH, and Tabitha McWhazzerface will be back as Carmine’s mom!’ or when a gamer sees one of my video game tattoos and starts talking to me about deep lore of games I truly love… and I have absolutely NO idea what the hell they’re talking about. Yes, I love Final Fantasy 9 – no I have no recollection of the second act of that game.

You can hear me audibly blinking in response to these things.  I LOVE the things I love, I obsess over absolutely nothing, so whatever the podcast was going to be, it couldn’t be about a THING. It had to kind of be about EVERYTHING.. or more specifically a lot of ..somethings..  The good of that is there is always more to talk about. The bad of that is people tend to listen to podcasts about those things they get nitty gritty about or have some weekly hook. It was never a concern for us, but the podbubble expanded so big in the last decade that our non-specific nature definitely made us easier to get lost in the sea.

So, now that this chapter ends – what’s next? We’ve made allusions to things being on the burners, and there are – but truthfully, I expect you’ll get more from Rob and I individually as well as in tandem after we’ve caught our breath – because, truly, we can’t not want people to notice us. It’s the curse of thinking you’re entertaining and built into your bones. You don’t turn off the microphones for the last time and go ‘Ah, time to stare the wall..’ all we did was free up some time and brainspace for something new to grow.

Whatever it ends up being, where ever it ends up being, we hope to see you there.

Sound off in all the places one last time.  – Hatton

We’re back in the Elevator and it wouldn’t be right to leave without visiting one of the greatest guests of Somethingcast history – the man whose guest appearances now achieves double digits. The comic guru, the writing wizard, the beef that is.. Tim ‘Ungajje’ Stevens.

Tim is here to judge what he thinks the best call is for the next phase of the MCU. Will it be those rascally mutants? Galactus? Shao Khan whining? It could be anything!

After you’re done with us here, make sure you go and check out all of Tim’s work and at his Linktree, or go and read his regular entertainment pieces over at TheSpool.net.

Thanks for being with us along the ride Tim, but now the hardest decision of your life, Elevator Pitch: The Next Phase of the MCU.

Okay here we go!

Full Episode

Big Matt here!

..we’re here.  When we talked about putting the chairs up and turning off the lights, we had a dozen or so episodes to go and now we are down the last month.  We hope you don’t mind if we get a little bit self-indulgent.

Over the last 11 years we have laughed a lot, talked to amazing guests, and had experiences that could only exist in the Somethingverse, so please join us as we go back and talk about some of our favorite episodes and moments. Also, you may learn some stories we’ve never told, but now, why the hell not.. we’re not going to get cancelled or anything.

So settle in with the Somethings as we look back at the Somethings and talk about which Somethings were Something to talk about.

Okay here we go!

Full Episode

Hey Somethings, PCR here!

So… I recently watched ‘Madam Web’ and… wow do I have thoughts…

For starters, I knew nothing about this character going in.  While she first appeared in 1980 in the comics, I didn’t start collecting until later, and when I was into the hobby the deepest, Spider-Man wasn’t much of my weekly pull…  so I won’t be talking about things like story arcs or how close they came to the comic portrayal.. this is strictly on the merits of the movie.

It is not good.

I don’t have anything against Dakota Johnson (though, looking through her filmography, I can’t say I’ve seen any of her movies.. but I’m aware of who she is and what she’s done), and.. I’m not sure her acting was really the issue here.  The story overall seemed…  Meh, the effects of Las Arañas doing their spider-walk stuff felt right out of the Batman TV show of the ’60s, I couldn’t get over the fact that the main villain looked like TEMU Matt Hardy from his “Delete! Delete!” era…  but the most annoying part of the movie to me was Julia, Mattie and Anya who’s characters seemed more based on showing off navels and seeing how many times in one scene can they flip personalities and motivations.

The action sequences were filled with frantic jump-cuts, which is usually a terrible sign that none of them were really smooth or cohesive so they had to splice them all together.  The way Cassandra’s power first starts getting revealed was jarring and giving me “Vantage Point” flashbacks (an action/thriller that consisted of roughly 39 minutes of footage), and was just…   eh?  I can see why in the comics she was more of a supporting role but.. what was the point of making a full-blown movie with her as the lead?  Sony just doesn’t seem to have a good grasp of what works and what doesn’t when it comes to comic movies and are just looking for properties that are tangential to the MCU to hype, which might not be the best call since the MCU’s glory days are behind them and they’re clearly trying to figure out how to transition into a ‘post Tony/Steve/likely Thor’ world.

Overall, if you want to watch it just to watch it and check it out, make sure you set your expectations to “Morbius” levels and you might be ok…

– PCR

The year was 1995 – the world of videogame nerds was overtaken by the cinema masterpiece that was Mortal Kombat.  ..ok, fine, it wasn’t a masterpiece, but it was kinda badass.

The year was 1997 – the world of videogame nerds realized something had gone horribly wrong and the movie studio was trying to cash-in on the IP and gave us Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

So now, what happens when the Somethings go back in time, choose their Kombatent and rise through the ranks to fight against the villanous Shao Khan.. who is apparently not the Emporer of the Outworld trying to take over the Overworld… he is, apparently, a whiny Italian man whose father really pulls the strings. Maybe. We don’t know.

Test your might – and your stomach this week on 1-Star Movie: Mortal Kombat: Annihilation.

Okay here we g–MORTAL KOMBAT, duhn duhn duhn du duhn!

Full Episode

Hey All, PCR here!

So, late to the party here, but just re-subbed to Netflix with the sole intent of watching ‘Godzilla Minus One’.. and I have some thoughts.

I watched it once, but will be watching it a second time with a different audio option.  On first watch through, I watched it dubbed… mostly because it was late, I wanted to watch it, but was lazy enough that I didn’t want to split focus between watching and reading.

First.. the cons…

– The main character of Shikishima is honestly, kind of a dick.  Yes, I get the PTSD aspect and that his inner war ‘isn’t over’, but until the very end, I didn’t feel he had a whole lot of depth and range.

–  One of the main things I found most jarring was that it felt very cliche to the Late 70s Godzilla movies, which, if that is what it was going for.. was spot on.  But combining the sort of ‘trope’ “Godzilla humans” in a movie that had such amazing effects.. it almost felt off putting to me at times.

–  Speaking of effects, the only thing I *didn’t* like was how he moved on land sometimes.  On Odo Island, he was a formidable beast.  Then, later, in Ginza, he was a thrashing, tail-bashing, city-destroyer.  Once we get to Tokyo, he was walking around the city like a guy at 3am up to take a piss with the lights off and trying not to step on his son’s LEGOs.  It felt very reminiscent of the rubber suit, which made me a bit sad based off how amazing the visuals were.

…and let’s talk about those visuals…

Pros…

–  The visual effects of Godzilla were absolutely amazing.  The scene where he’s chasing the boat… him powering up the heat-ray…  the effects of the warships exploding..  I mean.. there were more than a few times where I sat bolt upright, eyes wide going ‘holy shit…’.  Honestly, I can’t think of one flaw in the visuals of the movie at all, it was an amazingly stunning piece of cinema.

Not really a pro or a con, but the one thing I guess I personally didn’t need was the ‘flashback’ of Tachibana explaining the ejector seat to Shikishima.  When he showed him the ‘safety lever’ for the bombs, and to ‘pull it just before’, I knew exactly where it was headed, and felt like going back and explaining it wasn’t giving the audience enough credit for following along.

All and all though, certainly worth a watch if you haven’t seen it yet.

What are YOUR thoughts?  Sound off on our socials!

–  PCR