Bald Move Pulp - Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)

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!

HOTD: A House of the Dragon Podcast - Series Wrap Up

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!

Bald Move Pulp - Fleabag Wrap, Dead to Me, The Perfection

Me, Cecily and Jim have some recommendations and thoughts for your weekend viewing! We rave about the nearly flawless two seasons of Fleabag we just saw on Amazon Prime (00:00:00), Jim gives a bit of a preview for Netflix’s new dramedy Dead to Me (00:00:00), starring Christina Applegate and Linda Cardellini, and then… we get to our review of The Perfection (00:00:00). This is a movie that Jim walked out on. Twice. Yet people are loving this film. What gives? Cecily and me try to defend the film on it’s merits, but the truth is it’s a hot mess of a film that tries to get away with a lot it probably shouldn’t be trying, and you’re either up to seeing it or you’re not.

HOTD: A House of the Dragon Podcast - 806 – The Iron Throne – SpoiLore Edition

In our penultimate podcast for HBO’s Game of Thrones, we invite Gods of Thrones co-author Anthony Le Donne back to the studio to discuss how the book might resolve in ways that are consistent, but perhaps more satisfying, than some found the show’s resolution. Then we’re off to feedback, where we talk about Martin’s progress on Winds, our thoughts on Bran the Broken, where things line up with Dany’s prophecies in the final analysis, and much more on “The Iron Throne”. See you next week as we sign off and transform the podcast into a Thrones prequels feed!

Bald Move Pulp - Aladdin (2019)

If you’re wishing for a three-way review of Disney’s latest live-action adaptation, Aladdin, then listener you’re in luck. Wish granted. Cecily, Jim, and I went to see it tonight with appropriately low expectations, but were very pleasantly surprised at how much fun and energy the movie provided. Better, the script smartly adapted the original, improving it’s pacing while also adding depth to Jafar’s intrigue and Jasmine’s character, making it smarter and more relatable to modern audiences. The Tomatometer is kinda brutal for Al and friends right now (59% as of this writing), so take our review with a grain of salt. And we’re still skeptical of the long term viability of these live-action adaptations, but we feel like this movie is proof that they aren’t necessarily doomed to be pointless wastes of time.

Bald Move Pulp - Chernobyl – Episode 3 – Open Wide, O Earth

Jim and I have seen episode three of HBO’s Chernobyl series, “Open Wide, O Earth”, and are shaken by the graphic depiction of the Chernobyl first responders’ last days. We get to see the horror from multiple perspectives, the victims themselves, the and the friends and family who struggle to cope with this strange manner of death and the danger it poses to them. Meanwhile as the Soviets manage to contain and stop the fire, we gear up for the long war ahead; to fully contain the death and destruction of Chernobyl it will require 750k lives and three years of sacrifice. Will they be up for the challenge? And will they solve the mystery of the reactor’s destruction, so that it might never happen again? All this plus some light discussion on the relative merits of free market capitalism vs centrally planned economies in feedback. You know, kids stuff.