Tag: 2023

Look, you can’t like everyone. It’s just impossible. I’m sure there’s at least one person out there in the universe that throws darts at a picture of me. Hell, some see it as a sign of a life lived well. Now, that said, when it comes to movies and television, some actors just aren’t our thing, either.

So join us as The Wheel goes out of its way to make Rob and I be assured we will never get those cushy Hollywood jobs we have been vying for all these years.

Find out which actors we just aren’t about on The Wheel’s Bottom 5: Actors

Ok here we ewww,

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Last month, I paid into Microsoft Game Pass because Starfield was coming out and I am a fan of Bethesda games. Similar to Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series, the Bethesda games are the same game with different coats of paint. It’s an entire genre of paint, but still guns for bows and arrows, space for wastelands.. I dig it.

Sadly, that game was made with top of the line hardware in mind and mine is not. It’s stupid, but it is what it is. Hell, it isn’t even what I want to talk about today.

Since Starfield was out, I stuck around with Game Pass to see what else they had, and saw that Lies of P was on its way. I downloaded it, played it for about 4 – 6 hours, and promptly uninstalled it because I can’t stand Souls Games. First, I need to clarify that this isn’t a situation of ‘getting good’ – I enjoy a lot of tough gaming genres… hell, I will play a Rogue-like until my eyes won’t dialate without seeing Dead Cells or Hades characters. Even ‘2-d Souls-Likes’ and I am a demon possessed. I am the kid who beat Mike Tyson on the Nintendo (I did, I swear).

But, put me in front of a Souls-like and I am a raging he-beast of gaming ineptitude which sucks because they almost all are in worlds I want to play in. Dark and grimy fantasy, please. The rooftops of feudal Japan, gods yes. A Steampunk dystopia filled with gearwork police, stick it in my veins. And yet, the idea of learning the location and timing of a dozen villains through try and die, learning the attack and block strats for a series of enemies, and doing the constant struggle to get to where you were before to figure out how you died to not die again and I have never ever come closer to taking my controller and hurling it through a window.

So, after those 5 hours, I uninstalled Lies of P, disappointed that there is yet another game that I won’t get to learn the secrets of because it is made with a type of gamer in mind that I, in fact, am not. It’s shocking how every part of those games seems to be painted with me in mind and yet, somehow, their unforgiving relentless need for near perfect leaves me going back to installing Opus Magnum and Human Resource Machine… you know, actually hard games. (I kid.. kinda)

Oh, and Lies of P was playing on Ultra, suck it Starfield.

Do you want to be a superhero, but your moral compass is all out of whack? Are you obliviously lost in a differente decade? Do you frequently get people telling you that they can’t see you?

If the answer is – you are John Cena and we’re glad you support the show. Please reach out for an interview, we won’t charge you much.

Anyway, this week we are discussing the Cena show that took the world by surprise. I mean, Cena has always had the comedy chops, but to hold up the lionshare on this ensemble piece is an impressive feat.  But what was that first episode? A good place to begin or over-hype?

Let’s answer the question on In the Beginning: Peacemaker

Ok here we AWABADOO… ba baa ba baa.

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Hey all, PCR here!

Now, Hatton’s dislike of short-form videos is fairly well known, but I myself have fallen down many a rabbit hole on Facebook or Instagram watching vid after vid.  Now, not all of them are gold of course.. for every “Kiss or Slap”, “Watch till the end”  and dying expensive sneakers in shaving cream video.. there are some real gems.  Here’s some of my favorite ones.

Hack Reacts – Hack Reacts is from The Bearded Bard who you can find on YouTube, TikTok and elsewhere.  It’s a split screen vid of him reacting to people showing off ‘hacks’ for various tools and hardware.  It’s great to me because invariably someone uses 13 odd steps to solve a 3 step problem and the exasperation in his voice is palpable.

ChefReactions – Specifically, his Amaury Guichon videos.  If you don’t know who Amaury Guichon is.. please go look him up.  The man has godlike skills when it comes to working with chocolate and pastries.  The ChefReacts video that nearly broke me was him watching Amaury make something and he goes “Oh.. starting off the video by working chocolate on a lathe so.. that makes me a piece of shit I guess”.

Casey Van Arsdale – He makes a lot of videos of various things.. creating.. cooking.. art.. but it’s his ‘spraypaint art planets’ that I will watch for hours.  His descriptions of what he’s doing.. from using his ‘sha sha bowls’ to ‘pooping out stars’ just makes watching his videos that much more awe inspiring.

Basketball Flash Mob – I really don’t know what else to call this.  The page is Tuvok12 on YouTube, but, it’s basically a bunch of guys with a backyard basketball set up on wheels who run into crowded public areas, lob a basketball at people passing by and the video rates their shot attempts.  Some people brush it off and ignore them.. some people give it their all.  It’s never belligerent or insulting to those who try, but when they sink one, it’s like a buzzer beater in game 7 of the championships.

What about you?  What short-form videos do YOU find yourself binging?  Hit us in the usual places and let us know!

-PCR

So you have spent the last few hundred years in the thrall of a monster who drinks the blood of the innocent.. what is a guy to do?

Well, let me add a little wrinkle to this hypothesis… that monster?  None other than the most legendary monster of all time – Nic Cage.

That’s the basic premise of Renfield. Along the way we learn about toxic relationships, we visit a gothic TGIF, a support group, and a mob boss. It sounds like a story joke, but it isn’t – it’s Something in Review – Renfield

Ok, here we blah!

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Hatton here – I unabashedly love the Rocky franchise. Ok, fine, I love any ‘bottom to top’ hero movie. Rudy, Karate Kid.. any movie where someone starts as literal garbage and ends with people chanting his name. Anyway, my favorite movie from a couple years ago was Creed. I think it’s smart, it follows the legacy that the Rocky movies created, and with Creed 2 – it builds on them in a very special way that even the MCU is having a hard time with when it comes to evolving their franchise.

This comes to where I told my wife I wanted her to see Creed, but we’ll watch Rocky, Rocky IV and we’ll get to Creed.  She, on the other hand, said she wanted the whole experience… and so as of last night we have gotten to what is the ‘main line’ of the RCU. We just finished Rocky V last night, so I thought I’d drop some quick reviews here as it has been a long time since I’d seen them and my tastes have evolved as I have become a jaded grown-up.

Rocky I – It is a slow movie. I mentioned in a recent episode that there is a reason that older movies are so hard to watch when modern films have learned how to BEAT BEAT BEAT EXPLOSION BEAT CLUE BEAT BOOM our ADHD addled brains into a state of visual stupor.  Rocky I, where a great story and deserving of its accolades, spends a lot of time making Philadelphia a living breathing city – as we have cameras watching city streets as much as we have Rocky.  Anyway, it’s still a classic although some of its emotional beats are a bit.. well, lets say they wouldn’t work in a modern film and thankfully Adrian really liked him.

Brit’s one line review – “So much yelling – but so much heart.”

Rocky II – Previously, I joked that R2 was just R1 with a happier ending, but there is something more to it. I don’t think Rocky is as good without Rocky 2 at this point. In the first movie Creed outright ignores this chump he’s picked out of the phonebook. You could argue Rocky goes the distance with him when Creed isn’t at his best.  In the second, they are both at their top and even though the ending is, in wrestling terms, a schmozz, it proves that Rocky can hang with the best.

Brit’s one line review – “Rocky finally gets what he deserves.”

Rocky III – If there is one consistent thing in, literally, every Rocky film.. it’s that Rocky is retiring. In his 60+ fights, I swear every 5 is him thinking about hanging it up to make Adrian happy and he gets bored and goes and punches out some more dudes. The fight, versus Mr. T, is one of the shorter of the series and in the perspective of the whole series, I like that. Rocky can hang. Clubber Lang is just bluster and nobody believes in Rock.. and yet again, proven wrong.

Brit’s one line review – “Rocky and Apollo is the best bromance in tv history, period.”

Rocky IV – I think, because of its quotable Dolph-isms (‘i must break you’) this movie is remembered well, but it is a really good 45 minute movie and a really bad 30 minute montage video. Let me clarify, Hearts On Fire, aka, the Russian Training Montage, is my favorite montage of all time… but… this movie montages shit we saw 20 minutes ago. It feels like they were really pushing that soundtrack and, because of it, the plot takes a hit. There was a ton of room here for a subplot about a Russian Trainer, about making Creed’s trainer ‘Duke’ a more full character, something. I have a longer rant about it I’ll discuss another time.

Brit’s one line review – “Snow training montage. That’s all you need.”

Rocky V – Fine. I’ve said I like this movie more than the rest of the world. That said, I am a man that can admit he was wrong. It’s not great, and even though I think there are really good beats they could have done without the ‘Rocky is right back where he started’ story… that whole bit about him reverting to the slow thinking, money shaky, ball bouncing, hat wearing, guy is so forced it hurts. Plus, the fight at the end is more than lacking when you know what you want in a Rocky film.

Brit’s one line review – “If you missed Rocky the Bum… he’s back… unfortunately.”

What do you think of Rocky? Sound off in all the places.

SAY E’LLO TO OUR LIT’LE PODCAST!

And unlike the picture perfect Pacino accent that previous sentence was written in, sometimes a movie can pull you right out when someone’s accent doesn’t exactly match their character. Are they an American with a Brit twang? Are they Southern and sound like they came straight from the Civil War? Are they a Spaniard and yet somehow sound precisely like they don’t give a damn about any of the movies in this franchise?

Well, we’re about to take them to task.

Did you read that with a perfect patois? You should, as you join us on Worst Accents in Movies

O’ah kay, here we go, an’ nobody gets our lucky charms!

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Once in a while.. and by a while, I mean two or three times a year, we are given the gift of a fifth week in the month. Now, the Somethings run the ship like a well oiled machine, so I’m sure it is obvious that our meticulous schedule is thrown all catty-wampus by this nere-do-well week.

To solve that, we don’t plan what to do .. we just turn on the mics.

So what have the Somethings been up to? What are we watching? What’s bugging us? We’ll tell you on this week’s 5th Week Free For All

Ok, here we go!

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Hey all, PCR here.

So.. there interwebs are starting to bustle with an interview director Taika Waititi gave regarding what he’d do for Thor 5.  Let’s be clear, Thor 5 isn’t green lit, and after Love and Thunder, likely (hopefully) *won’t* be green lit, and if it does, I hope to the MCU gods that Waititi isn’t attached.

For those that didn’t listen to our Love and Thunder episode (with guest Erik Hall, you can listen here), I.. was not a fan.  Ragnarok was fun and different from the first two Thor movies, but.. I dislike when movie makers are like “Yes.. but THIS one needs to go to ELEVEN…” Sometimes, you catch lightning in a bottle, and you need to go in a different direction.  Granted, that’s what Ragnarok did, but.. Love and Thunder was.. just a mess, and I personally would cringe at knowing the guy responsible for that mess was back at the helm yet again.

He certainly has a “style”, but so does Tim Burton and Zack Snyder.  Sometimes the movies work because of the style, sometimes they work in spite of… Waititi’s ‘style’ works for some movies, not for others, and it’s disappointing when Hollywood latches onto someone they make as their current “go-to person” based on some early successes and put them on projects that do not at all mesh with that style.  Case and point… Ragnarok was fun and different, and while Thor can certainly have some comedic moments, he’s not a comedy character, and.. in my lowly opinion at least.. shouldn’t be used as such.

For me, if a Thor 5 WAS to happen, I would want it to be more serious, more gravitas.  Sure, comedy can be a part of it, but only to offset the drama and seriousness I think needs to be part of the character.

That’s my take, what’s yours?  Hit us on the socials and let us know!

-PCR

We have returned with our newest attempt at relevancy, The Beginning!

On this episode we go to the comic book wagon again for the most recent in the constant struggle for the MCU to find its footing – this time with a series that has been in the works since Captain Marvel. He is our favorite Bad Motha-shut-yo-mouth, Sam Jackson returning as Nick Fury, in a world where anyone of us could be a Skrull.

So settle in as we talk about the first episode, how it sits, how the Marvel U looks, and more on The Beginning: Secret Invasion!

Ok, here Kree go!

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