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Just your standard early summer Lunch, ya’ll! If you want to see the Face Rig shenanigans we got up to in the original 07/31/2015 Lunch (which is a great early lunch, btw), click here to go straight to the right timestamp!
Jim and I went to see the latest X-Men flick, Dark Phoenix. It’s not as bad as it’s Rotten Tomatoes rating would imply, but it’s certainly not good. And it’s unfortunately because once again a classic X-Men plotline is burnt (refried, in this case) and all-time great Magneto and Professor X performances by Fassbender and MacElvoy are wasted on a script with muddled characters and paper thin villains. Long time fans of the X-Men will enjoy some great stand alone moments with their favorite characters, and the core chemistry of Xavier / Magneto / Mystique work to get the film’s emotional heart a brief jump. But ultimately the film folds underneath the weight of apathy and ugly FX work.
The final episode of HBO’s Chernobyl, “Vichnaya Pamyat” derives it’s title from the traditional prayer said at the end of an Eastern Orthadox funeral; “memory eternal”. Our hope is that everyone who has watched this and will watch this in the years to come takes to heart this encomium, that we need to remember the cost of lies, the cost of taking our eye off our institutions and systems we setup to keep us safe and prosperous, because if you fail to do so the cost only becomes more dear. Thanks for watching along with us, we’ve loved having you all along for the experience.
Jim and I have come to Deadwood at long last, to behold it in movie form. We’ve seen differing amounts, but we have a lot of esteem for David Milch’s western epic, and we thoroughly enjoyed the time we spent this week at the old camp. We talk about our experiences with the show, how Justified informs our thoughts on Deadwood and vice versa, Milch’s thoughts on mortality, and how amazingly the movie gave equal closure and tribute to it’s legion of incredible characters.
Jim, A.Ron and Cecily team up to take on the end of the world as envisioned by Amazon Prime’s Good Omens. Adapted from the novel of the same name by co-author Neil Gaiman himself, it offers a warm, funny, and human take on the Apocalypse, focusing on the unlikely friendship between a demon (David Tennant) and an angel (Michael Sheen) who have decided they like Earth like it is, thankyouverymuch, and team up to keep it that way. Then, Cecily and A.Ron talk about their thoughts on the conclusion of the sophomore season of HBO’s Barry (00:26:45).
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Jim and I are both long-time fans of Godzilla, and we’re here to report that this here is a really great Godzilla… trapped in a really, really dumb film. Godzilla: King of the Monsters has never looked better, has never been more bad@ss, has never been a meaner lizard, the problem is the homo sapiens that keep interrupting the truly amazing kaiju action we’re getting here. If you can find a dumber lot of heroes and villains in a major motion picture, we’d like to see them. Worse, there are zero stakes because apparently it’s not possible for these morons to die unless they’re faceless extras or it’s the dramatically appropriate time for them to die, but again this film doesn’t understand drama or tension, so that doesn’t really work, either. This would be a really fun film to rip on and root for the monsters on a lazy Saturday with your best friends, but it ain’t worth the time going out to see it. We’ll hope for better next week with the X-Men as we get a first look at Dark Phoenix!
Hello, comrades! It’s time once again to descend into the man-made hell of Chernobyl, now with 100% more puppy-murder! The deep irony of the episode’s title, “The Happiness of All Mankind”, underscores the misery of the people who were forced to evacuate, the soul and body destroying heroism of the soldiers and engineers doing the work that…
We come here to say goodbye to Game of Thrones. While we’re still going to get to play around in this universe courtesy HBO’s numerous prequels, sequels, and spin-offs planned, and of course George’s assurances that he’s still writing, we’re not going to get any more of this particular take on the story. How do we feel about this? Does The Last Watch documentary change those feelings? We discuss these and more before getting the final words from feedback. We’ll see you all for “Fire & Blood” and the prequels!
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Watch us record the podcast, including all the sound checks, flubs, and riveting research breaks that you’ve always wished you could see… Hey, at least you can hear the podcast before anyone else.