Mini Crush #96

Should we? Uh? Should we do? I don't know? Man, something special? We should do some special? T b D T b D. I did some special last night, chuck, Oh boy, what I watched Elf? Oh? Did you really? I sure did? What do you think? I watched it with my kid, who had also never seen it, and my girlfriend who was an ELF fan an ead an elf head? Uh? Did you like it? I loved it? Right? Isn't it funny? And he made me happy and warmed the cockles of my cold dead heart? Is great? Yeah,

gave me new life. I laughed like a geek a lot of it. I felt things. I teared up a little bit. Um. It was just great. Great man makes me so happy. I told Courtney about how you know the whole joke was, and the last time we recorded it was everyone who beloved film people writing in and I was just like, no, that means nothing to me. It goes right over my head. And a couple of days before that I watched Planes, Trains and Automobiles because you didn't see that one, right, I hadn't seen that one.

Loved it. Okay, it's hard to tell what a modern gent like yourself. No, it's funny, alright. I love all the John Hughes movies. He's got a thing that I that I like. It's wonderful. Um. I bet your daughter loved ELF. She loved ALF. Yeah, I'd tell you. The thing about Planes Trains that I thought was really interesting is it's basically a PG thirteen movie until he says I want a fucking car and I want it right fucking now. Oh yeah, it would have totally been maybe

even PG. That part has just played for shocks and it really works. It delivers man stands up. Yeah, well I love that movie. My finger has a heartbeat. You know what line Emily and I always say from Elf is when the great scene with Peter Dinklige in the office. You know, you know, say elf one more time that whole thing. He jumps upon the table and starts to charge him. Well, Ferrell throws his arms out and goes, look at you, Emily, and I do that a lot.

I loved it alright, fantastic. Yeah. So, by the way, everyone, I haven't been plugging this on the worst a plugging stuf uf. But I'm gonna be an SF Sketch Fest again this year for a Sunday night. Uh when is this thing? Anyway? Let me look here. That would be January nine for a Sunday night show. And I think what I'm gonna do this year is, instead of interviewing one person on stage about a movie, I'm gonna get

everyone involved. I'm gonna get a couple of people, I think, and the asks are out to Janet Varney on these people, and instead of interviewing about a movie, we're gonna do some just fun stuff. We're gonna get the crowd involved. We're gonna do some live hikups. See if I can get Uh. I wish I knew who it was, but I'm sure whoever it is are gonna be game. That sounds fun shock. It's gonna be wonderful. So please, because this is going to be a different kind of show.

I really need an audience because to do something like this with like twelve people, it's yeah, that is. I'm gonna be in l A with my kid. Actually I'm bringing her to the I Heart High Cast Awards plus one and then going to see Billie Eilish the next night fantastic And then then did you get hooked up

through my heart? Did take care of you? Yeah? But then the next next night, I just found out a buddy of mine in l A who I work with, who's got the hook up, is taking us to the Magic Castle for brunch and two shows for a very fun experience. I'm so excited. The Magic Castle is wonderful. I'm so excited about and it's a very uh, it's very special insider thing like he can't just go. You gotta get invited, Yeah, I remember, yeah exactly, or get

hooked up somehow. And this guy knows somebody from I think he had a magician at his son's bar mitzvah and hit it off and gave him a nice tip or something. Got the got the connects for for life. So it's pretty great and beyond pumped, and it is indeed a magical place. I'm not even magic guy. Here's my advice to knowl they're the the big shows quote unquote big, meaning like their big room. It's probably like are your fifty people? If I remember correctly, it's not huge.

But my advice too is to go into the little parlor rooms for these really intimate, close up sleight of hand shows. That's what I'm pumped about. That's where you're gonna get some really great card tricks, some good old school non illusion type magic, some disappearings of like coin. Sure you want to coin pull out of your ear? Yes? Or do I ever get the to a parlor room? Yeah? I'm really excited. So you got anything else you want

to plug? Since we're plugging, No, listen to Murder in Oregon if you want to check out a cool noir kind of like, you know, a non depressing true crime story that actually has like kind of a cool arc and is more about justice and uh doing the right thing and corruption than it is about just misery. Um, I recommend it. I have been working on it for a long time and we're about halfway through the season. Um, so check that out and leave us a nice review.

You know what also we need to plug is Finding Fred. That is from our colleagues here. Um who actually ended? Was Dylan on that? Not on that one? No, it's it's it's I think it's mainly the New York crew, but it's fatherly because as the partnership with who also did I believe m was it family Secrets? Does that happen? Yeah? I think so. Yeah. Um My main Gash, who is our kind of chief of content over there in the

New York offices. That was on his slate. Yeah, Finding Fred about Fred Rogers, it's a great companion piece to the films and the documentary and uh, if you're interested in Mr. Rogers, it's a great listen. Been neck and neck with them on the charts Murdering Oregon and Finding Fred. Yeah. Yeah, we've been flipping back and forth for a couple of weeks. Though sometimes I'll go to the TV and film ratings and check that out to see if movie crushes charting,

and uh, we're pretty consistently like top fifty. Absolutely. Yeah. I always forget, like I mean, you know, it's so easy to get caught up in like the the top top of all podcasts when you think about their seven hundred thousand podcasts. But it's nice to really look at the little individual categories because we're always in really good company. There's so much fighting. Fred I think is the number one TV and film podcast right now. Exactly. It's great.

I'm very very happy to be in the top fifty and all same, dude, Top fifty is great of anything. You're in the top fifty of anything, unless it's top fifty dickheads, worst human garbage fire people. All right, we're gonna go with some non Christmas stuff, um quite honestly, because I screwed up the calendar and thought that, uh, the episode that just published was gonna published on and so it turns out we have a hole right in the middle of the calendar. I'm like, man, I'm not

gonna We're not going to overload the Christmas content. We did two great Christmas episodes, so we're gonna veer off course here and do a bit of a movie crusher special. Uh. And it starts off ol. Have you seen the Irishman yet? Yes, Well, let's talk about it for a minute. I put a pole because it's turns out it's a very divisive the movie I could see. Why did you see the pole?

I didn't see the three and seventy nine votes, and it's hard to you know, as we all know, designed a binary pole for something like film criticism because it is nuance gray, not black and white. But overall, I said, how do you feel about the movie? Disappointed, missed the mark? Or satisfied? Right on target? That's the fairest way I could do it, and it is pretty evenly split. Were satisfied and felt it was right on target. Were disappointed and felt it missed the mark? Right on target for

what a Scorsesey pick. Chok, yeah, I mean just whatever your expectations, like, made a really good movie. Got um, I'm trying to like back away on the super superlatives for these poles and just make it like that's great. Were satisfied or not? So what do you what? What's your deal? Um? I thought it was a Scorsesean movie.

I thought it reminded me very much of Casino, Okay, you know, just in terms of the ensemble cast, in terms of the use of voice, so ship Man, it reminded me a lot of Good Fellas I mean, it's like, here's here's a beef that I have with Scorsese, and

it's just because he talks ship. He was saying how Marvel movies are not cinema, how Marvel movies are like some sort of lesser but like Homeboys been making the same gangster picture for like a long time, you know, especially see like I would argue that Taxi Driver Raging Bull,

those are different. But once he started getting into the good Fellas thing with the big seventies pastiche soundtrack and the voiceover and the stylized freeze frames and all that stuff, he started like really leaning into that, uh that vibe, and to me, that's the Guardians of the Galaxy would not exist if it weren't for the Scorsese you know, montage kind of vibe and the soundtrack. So I just

think I don't understand what he's complaining about. It seems like an okay boomer moment where he's like, oh, these movies are making all this money. No one's financing my movies anymore. I'm bitter. That's but that being said, well, yeah, but I think he would have preferred for it to have been a giant tent pole wide release. Instead, they released it for a couple of months in limited theaters

and then the Netflix thing. I think that was largely probably because he couldn't get the money he wanted from big students. Well probably so beef aside, it was great, oh you think so? Yeah, it was fun. It was It's a good movie, I mean like it performance while the c g I threw me for a damn shure. Uh it was uncanny Valley as hell, and I started to finally start to forget about it. But it really

took me out of it for a little while. All right, So here's my deal, um, and I finally figured it out last night because it was bothering me how much I did not really like it that or connect with it that much. Let me say it better that way. Did not connect with it. It did not draw me in. Um, it did not. There was something off about it that I couldn't pinpoint. And it was the c g I for me, and not just like no, it didn't look good like That was what the disconnect was for me.

It broke my brain because I know how old these guys are. Um, we have spent a lifetime watching these people age throughout film. History, and I think very much. For me, that was the disconnect. That's why I couldn't connect with these characters because it wasn't real. It was a trick because you know what, I liked the last hour and that's when it finally clicked. I was like, wait a minute, that was the difference. Um, they're these sort of plastic y looking faces pasted on clearly old men,

still moving around like old men. I just don't get how they couldn't make it look better. I mean, it looked okay, didn't look great though, Chuck. It looked like a cut scene in a video game. Some of it looked better than others, for sure. Some parts looked really bad. But to me, like it just uh, I wanted to accomplish. I wanted Scorsese to like it was a stunt to me, and like I want him to be better than that. Right. Scorsese, to me, isn't the guy that pulls a cinematic stunt.

You should have just cast younger actors like we've always done in films, to play the younger versions, and it would have been much much better to me, especially since what he's doing. I was talking to a filmmaker friend of mine who lived in l a rund around the same time you did. Um about how he found this to be. He found comfort in the fact that this is a style of filmmaking that is probably going to go away eventually, this kind of classic, you know whatever.

The pace of this movie was, the way he made it, the way he told the story, the ensemble cast, the bigness of it all, that's sort of not long for this world, that kind of filmmaking. It's a very like, maybe, well that's his position, and it's ironic for that to be his position, and it also to be really trying hard to like make use of all this modern stuff, and it just felt like play and it was a disconnect.

And then you hear him talking trash about Marvel movies and you're like, I don't think you know what you're talking about. You know, when you go in there and use a c G I stunt essentially. I mean, this is my take on it, and that's I think a lot of people felt to disconnect for that reason. But I'm speaking out of my ask there. I know. I know it did that for me. No I said, I said the same thing when I say I liked the movie. That was when I could shove that aside and just

judge it on, like, yeah, it's a fun movie. Um. It also also had some melancholy tones about aging and you know that's what being a remnant of a bygone era and no longer being relevant and that. But I don't know, man, I also thought it was just far too long. It was. I mean, you got to keep an audience in mind, and you don't need a three and a half hour movie to's all that story. Not to mention, I'm sorry I keep harping on the Scorsese old man stuff, but he was also complaining about like

you you're not meant to watch it. It's not a TV series. You gotta watch it in one sitting. It's like Scorsese, don't put it on Netflix. Then, you know, like people are gonna watch it the way they're gonna watch it. Don't complain about a spreadsheet, don't insult people for what for consuming stuff the way that is convenient makes sense for them, you know what I mean? Like that kind of purest mentality is sort of bullshit to me. This might have been better if it was an hour

longer and divide it into five parts. You know, just uh, yeah, there are all these memes of people that are like giving you time codes of like if you want to watch it like a series, watch part one is from here to here too, is here to Hear, et cetera. Just imagine if fade to black, that's right. And then Scorsese responded to that saying no, no, no, no no, that's not what I want. That's not how I want you to watch it. It's not up to you anymore, dude.

You know, like I know, man, I'm with you because it bothered me because I love Scorsese, and I was like, why didn't I love this movie? And uh, I really had to look within. I liked Ray Romano. He was fun as the lawyer. He was it's nice to see a little underdeveloped. I feel like that's true. Harvey Kitell, Like I would have loved more kitel Man. I had a lot of problems with It's hard though when there's

that many characters. But then that argument kind of gets flipped when you're like, you had fucking four hours to do it. You know, you could have given a little more attention to some of these second characters. I think Good Fellas and Casino did far more story wise in less time. All right, some of the acting was great. It looked great. You know, it's not like I hated it. I liked it. I stand by. Uh. If I had to give it thumbs, I would probably give it how

many thumbs? I would give it three and a half thumbs. I would give it two thumbs. Okay, yeah, alright, So now we're gonna jump over the crushers page and a gentleman named David Wilder posed a very good question that we're gonna talk about here. What video game would you like to see made into a movie? Very simple? You're a gamer? What's your what's your take? Fallout? Yeah? Right, the Fallout games would be great as a series of movies. So okay, in each town, sure whatever. They all have

really good stories. The writing is really good in those games. Four four was great in Boston. Yeah, Boston was cool. Um, even the little the little d lcs, a little extras or whatever. Great writing, great stories, really cool sci fi fun. There's there's funny characters I would love to see that you wouldn't even have to like so often the Shoehorn video games in the movies. This one, it's like it's there for you. It's right for the picking the Last of Us as well, which I'm pretty sure is already

a thing. I don't know the current status. I know that they were trying for sure to make it. You know that that's my jam, that's my game. It's a great game. Uh and it is. It's like playing a movie, and then all the new ones coming out soon, I believe in February. So here's my conundrum. NOL Last of Us two comes out February. PS five comes out in November. I hear it's backwards compatible because I asked on the page and people are like, just get it and you'll

be able to play it in your PS five. But then I'm like, do I even need a PS five? I usually wait. I usually wait until there's a title that I really really need that's exclusive to the new machine. That's what I did for four. I didn't get a four for years. It wasn't until literally Fallout four that I decided to finally get one. And I you wait until the next Christmas, and then there's like packages you know that are a lot cheaper and they come with games.

You know, when you get it on day one, it's expensive, and it's like why there's the launch titles are never that exciting. All right, good advice. So we're gonna go with James G. Woodbeck. He says, Half Life ever played it? I I know of it, and I agree there's a lot of fun mythology there. I would probably make a good one. Baldimar Rodriguez Jr. Says Space Invaders. He says, hold on a second, think about it. A nice eighties period piece with the right vision, in the right direction.

I think it could work. What what is there to Space Invaders other than little ships on a grid. Well, they've done more with less, that's fair, you know. Yeah. Did you see the Adam Sandler thing Pixel? Yeah? No, it was supposed to be terrible. It looked real dumb, but really good concept. It seems like they really screwed up what could have been a good idea. Well, it was kind of like wreck it. Ralph was it a little bit? I think it was about like I don't know,

maybe it's not. It just it just felt like it was like there was that crossover between like, oh, video game characters are actually real and they inhabit this other world and now they're invading our world, and I don't know, that's sort of how it struck me. All Right, I haven't heard of this game, but Ian lyons Uh, one of our old friends says, Bubble Bubble. That's a that's like an old Neo Geo game. A little Neo Geo

was like, you know, all this ship. I think Neo Gio was a home system, but I think of it as being an arcade. It's just like that. That was what you'd always have the Neo Geo. Um they call it cabinets, you know, the arcade Cabinets over and it would have Samurai Showdown, Bubble Bubble and then like two other titles. No, that was its own thing. Niogia was a Japanese kind of flash in the Pan system sort of, I believe. But Bubble Bubble is a cool game. Mary

Lux has missed. Yeah, it's really lost. Old pal Zack Poiner says, Zelda, why hasn't that happened? Interesting? It'd be such a good fantasy, uh fantasy movie. Yeah, I said, last of us on the page. And then there were some folks casting at our old pal Mike Burdett says Josh Brolin and Ellen Page, which I get Broland for sure, and I get Ellen Page because she looks like Ellie, but Ellie was fourteen. Yeah, like you gotta cast a kid. You can't cast someone in their mid thirties. She's aged

out of that one at this point. Uh. He also suggested Sarsha Ronan and same thing, just too old. Yep, you got to get a kid in there. It have to be like an unknown, like a new like I think so like an introducing yeah, because I can't think of any fourteen year old actors. No, and the ones we're thinking of, we're thinking of them ten years ago. Yeah,

like you know what I mean? Would have been great, yeah, like in like uh uh what is it um Juno era earlier than that even, Yeah, you know she could have played fourteen or fifteen probably uh Mike Burdette, same old pell says the correct answer is BioShock. Yeah, wonderful. It's cool. It's like a steampunk kind of dystopian future past kind of thing. It's based on like inspired by Atlas Shrugged, by rand Um, was there like circusy stuff that was in the Yes, yes, I might have played bio.

Actually there are people in creepy rabbit masks like wandering around like like what's your n and they're these big, kind of mech creatures, and they're these little creepy girls that look like the Shining Twins. They have like no eyes, and they have like all these powers and stuff. It's a wonderful, wonderful there's two of them, and they're both really smart, really great games that those would be fantastic movies. Well,

you know my deal. I've said it before. I usually we'll get a game and obsess about it for about four months and then I won't play again for two years. Same same. I don't have the time, you know, I just can't do it anymore. I never even finished Red Dead Redemption too, and it's fantastic. Yeah, that's the one on my list that I need to get. Daniel Jordan says Portal could be interesting if done properly. So you've played all these himes I have. Matt Blumenfield says Banjo

Kazoo KAZOOI Yeah, that's an older game. Yeah, he's like, uh, what is the uh Wallaby or something? I don't remember. I don't know. I don't know much about it. He's a So that's crash Bandicoot, didn't it that? Well, they're they're similar, No, Banjo Kazoo is a bear. Okay, that's it. Yeah, Crash Bandicoot, they're they're they're very similar and around the same time, easy to confuse for each other. All right, Uh, how do you pronounce this? D n Em Widner, interesting name,

says Kingdom Hearts. Never heard of it. Yeah, that's one of those like a Disney mash up game where it's got all the Disney characters, has a lot of like Final Fantasy like Sony characters, and it's like a big role playing RPRPG, kind of like sweeping epic fantasy game. Okay, Uh, Diana Ratliffe is BioShock had a theatrical field. Jessica Warley says, red Dead. Let me see here? What else? Duck Hunt from Christopher Steiner, Come on, that's the worst. Been Cleverer

mentioned something called God of War. Yeah, yeah, God of War is great. He says, you gotta get the right cast. Just don't use the Rock. Someone else a chance. Seriously. Yeah, I know a friend who just worked with the Rock. I know who'd be good. Who's that big burly guy that's in He's been a lot of stupid comedies lately, like Stupor and he was the the guy in Guardians the Galaxy with the Knives who has the funny comic relief lines. But he's oh yeah, the big, huge Dave Batista.

He'd be a good Crets. It's interesting he's in a new comedy and he looks weird as human. Yeah, I agree. His proportions are all when he has that little like g I Joe Scrubby hair, it's odd looking at me. Keith Edward says there's an old sig of Genesis game called Eternal Champions, one I've always thought would make an awesome movie the premise of the game because all these fighters from all of history are plucked right before their

death to fight against each other. I do remember that. Interesting. It's a fighting game. You get to be like, uh, you know, Zeus or like Cleopatra, And yeah, I do remember that game. John Richards says Unchartered, Uncharted, Uncharted, unchartered. Yeah, that's sort of an Indiana Jones type swash bunckling adventure. And Nathan Fillion ye would be the guy. He would be great. I think I remember seeing that he kind

of looks like Nathan he does he does. You gotta wonder sometimes, like do they model these after actors and don't and ask permission. And what's the I P situation there? Imagine you can't veer too close because you could probably bring a case against it. Um, but I imagine they dance around that line, you know. All right, So that's a great question. Thank you David Wilder for that. We're gonna move on to Julia Lurch from the Crushers page.

She posed a great one. What TV I'm sorry, what movies would you like to be c adapted into a TV series kind of like Fargo has done to great success among others. And Emily McGuire says, Harry Potter series, Oh sure, just do it. Yeah, there's I mean, I'm sure there's something that's I mean, you know it's money. I guess they're they're gonna do it. You think, well, yeah, I mean at some point I would think too much

money at stake? You're right, who owns Harry Potter? That's Warner, That's yeah, that's what's the big property, one of the big properties that Warner owns. I believe so because it's all in the No, it's universal, excuse me, it's not one at all. It's universal because it's that's in the it's an the Universal Studios. It's the big Harry Potter world and the rides and stuff, Sarah Hopkins's Indiana Jones. They could just revive young Indiana Jones. That was a

fun show. It was fun. Yeah, I remember that. I really enjoyed that. That was good. Yvonne Boudette says, clover Field or Unbreakable. Yeah's your clover Field show. I've enjoyed a lot of what they've done with that franchise. I always thought it was a really clever not all of it, but yeah, I mean, what what what? What did you don enjoy like parts of I think, uh, the first movie, I didn't like parts of it, but overall I liked it. What I did like was that other one, the one

Cloverfield Lane. Yeah, that was that was pretty good. John Goodman playing a baddie. Yeah. I thoroughly enjoyed that movie. But there's more there. I think they're going to do another movie, right because that one and no, no spoilt Man, slight Spook, I don't know, doesn't matter. Like that movie largely has nothing to do with what's going on in

the clover Field universe. It's more of just like a bottle movie about like worrying about what's going on out is it really happening, is it not really happening, etcetera. And then there ends up being a connection to the events of right the First clover Field. Yeah. I like how they tied that together. Old friend Minal Data says Interstellar a limited series where they go to a different planet each episode. Not fair enough? Why not? Tom Billions

says Clan of the Cave Bear not familiar. That is a movie from the I don't think it was nineties. I feel like it was eighties with Um Darryl Hannah starred and it was you know, I think prehistoric h wandering clans, Cave Bears, Cave Bears. Okay. Patrick Gorman says Midsomer Uh, they already made it into a twelve hour TV series. He just put it in a movie theater, zing, you know. John Hodgman says that was his favorite movie the year. I know we talked about respect his opinion.

I respect his opinion too. So a buddy of mine I was I went home for the holidays, and a buddy of Mike says, he was talking about my work stuff, and he was like Hodgemen really likes The Avengers. That's his favorite movie of all time. Like that's crazy. I'm like, he stands by it. It's not his favorite, but he just likes to talk about it. He really enjoys it though the whole. He speaks of it with such reverence.

You know. Yeah, yeah, he's not. I mean, I'd like to see him take to take Scorsese to task, That's what I'm saying, you know, I think he could absolutely defend his position very eloquently. You know, old friend Nick Kelly says, Rogue one would have been a really good TV series. I think now that we're seeing Mandalorian play out, we see the possibilities. Oh for sure. You know. Yeah, Tony Hernandez's World war Z. That's the that's one of

those zombie things, right yeah. Uh And from what I've seen of the book, it probably would have been a better series if they had stuck with the book, because they changed it a lot. They went they went off the off the the rails for the movie. Hu. I think, so did you not see it and see him? Not great? I think it's so interesting, just really quickly that, like Jon Favre's career has been so varied, like he went from doing like a kind of a schlucky indie film

like like Swingers U to do an Elf. By the way, I rented Elf on Amazon, and at the end it had all this behind the scenes stuff. I learned more about the um jobs of every department in the movie crew than I ever have anywhere else. It was so in depth that went into like every single position and then through production through post, through sounds, escaping and um folly ing and looping and all that stuff. It was

probably about an hour of like behind the scenes. It was so good because I bought it on iTunes, so I'm sure that it was so good. It showed that how they built all the sets and perspective, and they showed all that they did all those tricks, how they replaced them little kids from the shots. They had like a scale old version of the set that they called it the Buddy sized one and the Elf sized one, So they had doubles of every prop where it was like a big etch of sketch and then a little sketch.

It was so cool to see how much organization and like you know, uh, just innovation goes into doing all those in camera effects. It's crazy. Yeah, it's tough to make a new classic Christmas film, and I think they succeeded on all levels. Also, love the party gets me every time when that fucking cab hits him. Yeah, it's just great pratfalls. He's a great physical comedy. Oh man, I love it. I love that he turned down a sequel to Good for You Will Fair. It makes perfect sense.

Let it be its own thing. Yep, let me see. We'll finish up here with our old friend with a switched out name. Culver Matthew says, a Lord of the Rings adaptation that sticks to the books and dialogue would be great. They're doing that. I think pretty sure there's something like that in the works for some kind of Lord of the Rings uh series. I'm pretty sure. Okay, Well, John Richard comments time will tell, but the Amazon series purportedly fits your description, and then Culvert Matthew uh said

he just checked and he thinks it's a prequel. All right, we'll have to see what that's all about. All right. Now, we're gonna finish up with a little streaming of this. What have you been watching lately? Watchman, my boy? Well, that's what's on my list. I'm almost it's is it only eight eight total? All right? So I just finished episode seven last night, so I'm almost done. I think it's great. It is really good. Um, I'm amazed at

how they've it was. It was a smart plan to begin with, and I liked it early on, but once they started bringing in the cannon, it really got interesting. Were you a fan of the of the graphic novel? Yes, and I'm not a graphic novel guy, but I did read that that's the one everyone says. I'm not a graphic novel guy, but Watchman it was incredible. Uh. There is a really cool companion podcast that I recommend everyone

check out if you're into the show. It's just called the Official Watchman Podcast, and it's with Craig Mazin, who is the creator of Chernobyl, which also had a companion podcast that was hosted by Peter Segel interviewing Craig Mazin about Chernobyl, and this one it's Craig Mason interviewing Damon Lindeloff about Watchman. And it's only three episodes total. First episode handles episodes one through three, second three through six,

third six through nine episodes. I believe um. But he talks about how he was offered the project several times turned it down. He revered the source material so much he didn't want to suck it up. Um. It was right around the time of that Zack Snyder movie, which is divisive. I did not care for it. I mean, I thought it was okay. I didn't love it, but

I don't think they like destroyed it or anything. It was it was it was very respectful of the source material, but almost to me, it was almost like two respectful. It was kind of a little bit like why bother kind of you know, with this one. He was like, I'm only gonna do it if I can check these boxes for like making a new thing that still holds true to what I loved about the original Watchman, right, And that's what he's done, I think. So I think

that's really what he's done. Yeah. I mean, even before they started bringing in the old characters totally, it felt very Watchman. And if it would have just stuck with that, I would have been fine with all new storylines. But when they started bringing back some of these older characters, like when Jeane Smart shows up his Silk Specter, I was just like oh boy, this is where we're going. And I gotta say, man, I mean I love uh,

I told you have. We both have a bunch of frinds that have worked on it, and I got some more insider scoop um. Regina King is fantastic, apparently just a good person as a human, great to work with, Tim black Nelson great, Uh, Jeremy Irons fantastic, Like he had a really great experience with most of these acts. He said there was one that was a pill though, yeah, which you know, I think we already know who that is.

But um, what I I mean, I love all this stuff with Regina King and the calvary Um Cavalry Cavalia the seventh Um. But what has really been getting me going is the Azzi Mandius stuff. It's wonderful that the one episode I think it was where they finally launched him into space on its other and he's and all of the fucking I can't remember the names of the people he's cloned, Crookshanks and yeah whatever the other guy the guy's name, yeah, yeah, yeah, all of them. Should

we do a spoiler alert for this? Do you think I mean it's too late if we're talking about the Watchman. People are gonna, okay, now we're talking about watch right, You're right, all right, that's true. But all of them up there like dead and frozen. And then he cracks them up and then spells out what saved me? Save me? But then there's another letter that that you don't see. It's yes, and then they yanked him back, Like all of that ship is so like weird in the best way.

The thing that's so cool too is I could picture I could picture this in comic book form, Like it's such a bizarre, weird world where the rules don't apply. It's the kind of thing you could just see communicated in comic book form, but it's in a it's in TV show to start with. And you know, Alan Moore is notoriously cranky about any of his ship being adapted into movies. Is he like this? He has not said

anything about it. His daughter has said has just spoken out defending his position on being cranky because basically, because like I think I understand this to a degree, because like you know, Vertigo is the comic the sort of adult weird offshoot of I want to say, d C. I think that's right, and it's one of these things where in those days they're writers and artists were essentially indentured servants. They don't own any of their I P. They make all this ship and then it just goes

out and they don't it's gone. They have no control over it anymore. But that's also what you sign up for, so you kind of gotta know they're gonna So is that why he's cranky. I think he's cranky. He just feels like he his medium is comics. He doesn't feel like it should ever be adapted. But think that's really short sighted, because what is a comic if not a perfect story board for a goddamn movie. You should go bowling.

They really should. But I love Alan Moore, I love well to be fair, though they've done some pretty shitty adaptations of some of his stuff, like The League of Extraordinary Gentleman is garbage, and that that should have been amazing. It's like, what a cool story, It's so a cool story, but it was just really not good at all. It didn't capture any of the weirdness and coolness of the of the comic. So yeah, but I would I would argue, and if he pulled his head out of his own

ass a little bit. He could see the genius in this and recognize that it is being very respectful of his work. Yeah. Boy, I loved the looking Glass episode so good. Yeah. Well, that's when you first realize they're using the squid. Yeah, because that was the thing in the zack Steiner there was no squid. There was no squid, and that was the weird great like the way Watchman and the graphic novel ended was so bizarre with the

squid that like, how could you not take advantage? And now in this version we get to hear it, see the aftermath of the whole thing thirty years later and like, you know, get to hear Jeremy irons A is azamandius or justify what he did and the fact that he never got quote unquote credit for it. You know, so much cool. Uh. Well, the PTSD that the survivors are suffering, it's like nine eleven times a million, you know, it's exactly Yeah. Yeah, man, I'm just blown away. I think

it's amazing. I think it's fantastic. I'm sad that there's only eight episodes. It is a bummer, But it's also clearly a very expensive show. Yeah, they're they're it looks great. I wonder if they there is there, has it been announced, if they've picked it up for another season. I'm sure. I hope they haven't heard. But I mean, they're already shooting it. So it's very critically acclaimed, it seems. Yeah.

I wonder what theewing numbers are though, I wonder if it's like, I don't know, I know a lot of people are talking about it, then I know. So speaking of viewing numbers, The Irishman and this is sort of one of the beef with how To. I mean, I hate that Box Office is a rating system, but it sort of is for better or for worse. How's it doing well? I mean, it's kind of hard to tell. Uh. They listed out however, many millions of people streamed it over the first week, and it was a ton But

then they also said eighteen percent of people finished it. Wow, So like, I don't know, does that count? Someone watches two hours of The Irishman and it's like, I can't turn it off. Yeah, eight percent, But apparently eighteen percent is sort of right along the standard of when people bail on Netflix, which is surprising. That seems very low. It seems very low. Alright, No, you got anything else streaming now? But loving that one? Um, yeah, Mandalorian we

talked about. Um, I'm not up to date on that one, but I think it's still strong. I'm pretty close. I think I'm one behind good stuff. I just saw the one episode that some people were a little disappointed in,

was that the Village one. I don't liked it. I liked it too, but I heard some some A buddy of mine who's a huge fan of Star Wars in particular, was like it felt kind of forced, kind of like it felt like one of those it was too self contained, like like he feels like it's becoming this adventure of the week kind of show as opposed to Yeah, And I don't have a problem with that. I think it very much is and it kind of reminds me of TV shows in the eighties exactly, but with a new

like spin on it. Yeah, and it has a through line, you know, with the baby Yoda and the fact that he's being you know, hunted and all that stuff. But of course he's like jumping around the galaxy trying to find refuge. He's gonna have new adventures, right, do you know Why because bounty hunting dangerous profession. All right, everyone, thanks for sitting in with us, and sorry we're not doing Christmas content exclusively, but I hope you enjoyed this

nice break. For more podcasts for my Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.