The SomethingSomethingCast

..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!

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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

If you listen to us semi-regularly, you know that we were once again a part of the amazing Livestream For The Cure event this past month. With friend of the show and the Jerry Lewis of podcasting charity events, Nick Haskins at the helm, we once again go into the elevator and ask a man with a giant check if we could use it… for what?

Well, this week we are taking a video game franchise and turning it into a movie, or vice versa.

That’s not all you get in this episode, as afterwards we hang out with the Livestream crew and talk movies, Furiosa, a bit about the show ending, and just generally merrymake with our ‘For the Cure’ family.  We want to thank everyone involved and everyone that stuck around and donated during our time.

That said, the event is over, but there is never a bad time to donate and help to live in a world without cancer.

With that said, enjoy the show!  Ok, here we go…

Full Episode

Hatton here – with Netflix’s drop of Godzilla Minus Zero, my wife and I have gone deep into the monster universe the last two weeks. Starting at 2014 American Godzilla, and working our way up to the newest of Godzilla x Kong: Round 2.  Along the way, we’ve also started watching the Apple TV ‘Monarch’ about the secret covert organization that lives beneath all of the movies and will take a Tokyo Drift over to the Toho Godzilla series that was relaunched with Shin Godzilla.

Now, I could go and simply make a list of our favorites, but I think I’d like just throw out some high and low points because, honestly, if you are a monster movie fan.. good or bad, you’re going to watch them much like I’d watch the animated series SAW: TRAPS ARE MAGIC and Rob would watch FAST & THE FURRY’OUS: TOKYO YIFF.

Firstly, our favorite has been Kong: Skull Island by a mile. The initial Godzilla feels fun, but dark, like they really didn’t trust the CGI to not look a bit silly.  With Kong, you are 15 minutes into the movie and you are seeing a giant f’n monkey swat at helicopters. That movie, a period piece in a post-Vietnam 70’s feels like a true to life adventure movie with big weird creatures, comedy beats, and a strong ending that leaves you knowing there could be more stories told there.  It’s just a lived in kind of movie and I recommend it above all the others.

The rest are fun. They are ‘check your brain at the door’ fun and it all feels like it leads up to the moment in Godzilla x Kong: One where they are fighting in the neon neo-Japan and Kong gets to do parkour of of giant skyscrapers. The plot? Oh, I called the plot before I even saw the movie because it is the archtype of every CHARACTER v CHARACTER story in comic books. We fight over misunderstanding, we have a common enemy, we lose separately, we win together. – jazzhands –

Here’s where I’m going to get hatemail…. I didn’t like Shin Godzilla.  I KNOW… I KNOW.. stop yelling, I know.  You don’t have to tell me how poignant it is talking about how the government failed to protect its people during natural disasters or how it is being utilized the same way Gojira was used to comment about WWII.  I get it. Of course I get it. How could you not get it, 80% of that movie is people in sterile rooms telling each other ‘we need to do something’ ‘we can’t do something’. Over. And. Over. AND I KNOWWW… there’s an aspect where there is homage to the old rubber suit monsters with all of the lengthy talking segments, but even when little Timmy was trying to tell us that Godzilla is his friend, there felt like there was plot movement.  We jumped 45 minutes forward of this 2 hour movie and felt like we didn’t miss a single damned thing.

Last point, I am deeply saddened that we only see Mothra briefly as she is the best monster and we’ve not seen Gamera at all. I know he’s a different franchise, but I don’t care. I need my cartwheeling turtlemeat, dammit.

So, what are you thinking of the new monsterverse? How bad is my take on Shin Godzilla… let me know in all the places.

We woke up this morning, had a blue moon in our eye.. like a big pizza pie, that’s amore’ — nevermind.

This week on In The Beginning, the Somethings are stomping on their homeland of NJ and looking at the first episode of a landmark show in television, The Sopranos. This show may have started the cable television revolution, but does it hold up? Does the awareness of mental health in a world of mobsters still ring with uniqueness? And what’s with the ducks, anyway?

Find out the answers to this question, and a whole lot more on this week The Beginning: The Sopranos

Ok, here we fugeddaboutit… that hurt to write.

Full Episode

Hey Somethings!  PCR here…

So.. I managed to get my hands on a key for ‘Killer Klowns from Outer Space : The Game’ and decided to give it a shot.

Now, admittedly, I’ve never seen the movie (I’ll wait…     ok, done screaming?  Continue), and I only ever played the ‘survivor’ side of things but.. after putting in over 1500 hours into Dead By Daylight, I feel even having only played a bit of KK, I have some insights.

For those unaware, Killer Klowns is an(other) asymmetrical killer/survivor, cat/mouse game.  It shakes things up a bit by there being 7 survivors vs 3 klowns in a match, and each match has multiple exit points, but each point will only allow so many survivors to leave, forcing the other survivors to find another way out.  When you get caught by a klown, they wrap you up in cotton candy and hang you on a hook.  Other survivors can attempt to free you, or if you have certain weapons you can free yourself.  Where KK differs from DBD (but is similar to other types) the survivors can acquire weapons to fight back.  That’s the gist of it.

Is it bright?  Sure.  Are the survivors all bland?  Yes.  Can you customize your survivor’s look?  Eventually.  “What about the gameplay?”  So glad you asked…   after all those hours of DBD, it’s hard NOT to compare every other asymmetrical game I’ve played to DBD.  Let me clarify.. DBD is NOT a perfect game… not by a long shot.. but in my opinion, KK misses on a bunch of the things that even DBD gets right.

The survivor movement feels way too slow and lethargic…not just in walking/running, but in ALL movements.  The aiming feels atrocious and the running didn’t feel much faster than walking (although it made more noise to alert the klowns).  Searching things felt like it took way too long, and then there would be an annoying cameras angle change for the game to swing around and focus on the inside of whatever you searched.. thereby taking away your ability to keep an eye on your surroundings.

Out of the 7 games I played (2 solo, 5 with other friends) I managed to escape once and that was by complete accident.

When you’re ‘out of the game’ (either dead or escaped), you can play was IGN calls “humorous carnival-based mini games” (not sure what game they were playing.. only 1 was barely ‘carnival based’ and none of them were humorous…) that allow you to choose a ‘fate card’ that can grant a player still in the game something to help them with their continued attempt.  None of the games felt like there was a ‘set score/win’ point at which you could choose a card, and was more ‘oh, you’ve been doing this for 20 seconds…cool!’ as even games I did absolutely terrible at, the game would let me choose a Fate Card.

All of this said, I would venture to guess that if I had watched the movie and been a fan of the franchise, I might be inclined to be more forgiving in my take on the game… but since I haven’t and aren’t.. I won’t.  I got the code for free and even factoring that in, it’s been uninstalled.

If you’re a fan, it might be worth checking out.. just keep in mind your gameplay time and Steam’s return policy if you’re going into with a 50/50 mindset.

Have you played?  What did you think?  Hit us on socials and let us know!

-PCR

Somethings! If you’ve been listening for a long enough time, you are well aware that we have issues. Tons of them. Long boxes full of them. And when we get together and start talking, sometimes the best thing to do is just leave your issues on the table and talk them out.

So join us as we each pick some of our favorite issues of comics. Some because they are shining moments of our favorite characters, others because of the art, and even othersbecause they are the embodiment of the stories we like. So grab a stack of funnybooks and play along by listening to Our Favorite Comic Issues.

Ok, here we go! (Prismatic Foil Edition)

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Hey folks, Big Matt here,

My take on the current state of AI…

So everyone is worried about AI right now, right? With good reason, I would say, but at the same time, will it benefit us? This blog isn’t about that. This blog is about how it will end us all. Will AI and automation put people out of jobs? Sure. Will that be a bad thing? I’m not sure. Do I like being able to ask extremely silly questions about nonsensical scenarios and get serious, calculated answers from ChatGPT? I really do.

Do I love asking ChatGPT what would happen if Gandalf was dropped righht in the middle of the battle for Hogwarts in book 8? Hell yes I do. Have I asked how the ending to Fiddler on the Roof would have been different if Tevye had a “Predator movie style hand carried mini gun?” You’re god damn right I have. Have I asked what kind of bits would come from a meeting of Abbot & Costello and Sam Kinison? Hehe, oh yes, and there was a lot of screaming involved, but not from who you think.

And that extremely worthless type of questioning is why I love AI right now. Will it always be this useful yet fun? Probably not, so we should probably enjoy it while we can, before it enslaves us all.

– Big Matt