Episode 141: A Nightmare Scuttle Monster

Gotta believe in Skype because it sometimes doesn't work and it fails and it collapses and it has the digital equivalent of a prolapse all over your lap. And sometimes it ruins an entire three-hour podcast and then you cry. Bonjour everybody, welcome to episode 141 of Stacey's Pop Culture Parlour. I am your titular host, the Stace, and before I introduce my guest host, I just want to put a little disclaimer out there.

I had a stomach bug a couple of days ago, and today's been the first day that I've eaten proper human foodstuffs. And the resulting situation, though, is that my stomach sounds like it's tumbling rocks in there. So the microphone may, in fact, pick that up. And sometimes it sounds like a sort of rolling stomach thunder. And other times it sounds like a sort of popping fart. But I promise you it's not a fart. It's just an internal sound.

If you do hear it, and I'm very sorry if you've got like misophonia or whatever that thing is where you're scared of some noises. Is that only related to eating? Anyway, shut up, Stace. Introduce your guest host joining me in the parlour this month. is returning champion, Tip Top Gent, and my Tip Top best friend, Michael Georgiou. Welcome back to the show. Oh, no. Sorry, I found a fart board and I just had to use it when you were talking about that. Just to add a bit of levity to the situation.

Yeah, my favourite is, where is it, the Super Mario one? Oh, I know exactly what you're about to play. I'm going to let it happen as well. Hang on. Hang on. I am 41. Okay, here we go. So, yeah. Just setting the tone for the show right from the off there. Hey, folks, you might remember Mike from the episode where he kept pressing the nut button or two of the three live shows. I haven't changed. We don't want you to, Michael. We love you as you are.

We absolutely love you as you are. But you also may know a social media mic from two of the live shows, one of which was disastrous, but we won't go there. I did nothing. I did not pull any plugs. I did not pull any levers. None of it was you. None of it was human error. It was all technology rising. It was a Skynet plot to thwart charity work. I don't know.

I like to think that it wasn't my fault because otherwise I might cry. I'm all right. It was all Barry. Yeah, it was definitely all Barry's fault, I reckon. And that's Stace and Barry never happening again. How are you doing, Mike? It's been a hot minute. Oh, I am doing – I'm actually really warm. I'm staying at my uncle's place at the moment, and the thing is –

I may have mentioned that I'm now in my 40s. That means that my uncle and other older relatives are significantly older than me. So they like their home to be really warm because they're cold all the time. And I don't like it. I am sweating up the storm. And yeah, I just I I have got a towel with me. All the time. Not like a head towel. It's like a proper body towel. Big old bath towel. I'm just wiping myself. I've got a bath towel. Like a proper big one.

Yeah, so I'm going to use that for the entire session. If I time this episode correctly, it might actually come out on Terrell Day, so that will be the different way I say Terrell compared to you. It's very funny. Welcome to the black country. I don't even live in the backcountry, but I stole the accent from my husband's family. Yeah, it might actually be towel day, so that would be very apropro. How is towel... I've never heard of towel day. What the fuck is a towel day?

Towel Day is in celebration of Douglas Adams because of the Hitchhiker's Guide and how a towel is the most useful tool that a hitchhiker can have. Oh, good, sure. Yeah. So I always carry a towel around with me on the 25th of May. which is when this episode ostensibly should come out, she says, optimistically saying she's going to edit it by then.

You won't need to read it. It's going to be perfect. It's going to be perfect. I'll just cut out the inevitable bits where my stomach goes. It's honestly, it's rolling up a storm. I can feel it like rumbling around in there. It's very distressing. If you need to, I'll send you a link to that fart board because it has a selection of all sorts of different farts and you can just interject them if you feel like. And then people will never know which ones are real. Exactly.

I am. I've got to say, I'm a little bit worried that this is going to turn into wind because like my initial thought was that this might end up. This isn't the conversation people want to hear. It's the one that's happening. It's very pop culture. It's the one that's happening. I was worried it might turn into a big old poop, but it could just be a load of toots rolling around in there and they might come out during the show. Who knows? What a little treat for everyone.

You are listening to Medical Hour with Stacey Mike. It's Stacey's gastroparlour something. I don't know. Gastroparlour. Gastro? No, I've got nothing. There's no jokes there. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, everyone. I tried. I was going to come up with something with gravy, but that just sounds grim. I like gravy. Once.

And we will start talking about pop culture in a minute. It was that, you know, you know, the Christmas perineum, that little bit between Christmas and New Year, where like, the Christmas gooch. I always piss myself when you say that on the podcast. And I always forget it. And then you say it. And then I just piss myself off. I love that. I love that when you forget a joke and then someone tells it again. It's so good.

Yeah, once during the Christmas perineum, I couldn't be bothered to make myself a sensible dinner. So I just cooked myself up an entire packet of stuffing and then drained it in gravy and ate that on a plate. Oh, that sounds amazing. Don't take that out of context. Hey, should we talk about some pop culture? Oh, this episode's going off the rails.

I've got to say, I'm quite enjoying this. I did a couple of episodes ago with my mate, Ruth, where we just answered, was it the New York Times' 36 questions to fall in love with somebody? And that was very exciting because I learned some new things about Ruth. I love that. It was so weird. But ostensibly, this is a show about pop culture, so we probably should.

It doesn't help really that we haven't spoken to each other. I was going to say face to face. We're not face to face right now, but I can see your face, which is more than has happened to me for an annoying number of years. I missed Mike's face. It's so pretty. Your beard's looking excellent, by the way. Oh, thank you. Yeah, the grey bits are quite grey, so I like it. But they look purposeful.

Whereas my greys are just like, there's a random one everywhere for a laugh. And I just want to have fully grey hair. I want to embrace my inner witch. And I just want to go fully grey and it won't happen. I've got like a streak here. You can sort of see in my fringe. But the rest of it is haphazard nonsense. Again, this isn't what anyone wanted to hear. Mike. Hello. Yes, I am happy. I have got.

three main subjects I've got on my phone that I'm happy to talk about. And I know that you've got a few things as well. Excellent. Hit me. Hit me with your pop culture stick. Let's not say we did. This episode is going to be a state. Have you seen? Bravo. Have you seen... Oh, brother. Oh, brother. Have you seen the Mario movie? It's me, Super Mario. Yes, I have last night.

I saw it last night, yeah. Just in case you couldn't tell from that terrible Italian accent I was doing. What's better than Chris Pratt? Oh, meow. The claws are out already. Got the catsuit power up, did you? Well, yes. I mean, I like, I think he's a good actor. He's a person who does shit things and is a bit thick. obviously does videos where he's obviously stoned and just says things. And yeah, but he is a good actor, but I thought he was passable in this film. And yeah.

I loved his chemistry with Luigi, with Charlie Cox. Charlie Day. Charlie Day. Who's Charlie Cox? Charlie Cox is old chinny, gorgeous chinman, daredevil. Ah! Gotcha. You know what? That's that is very good because I was about to compare this film to Daredevil in case you hadn't seen it, because I was going to say that it is very similar to not Daredevil, Deadpool.

Oh, God. What is happening? Are you too hot? Has your brain melted? You know, let's begin with D. I'll let you off. It doesn't help that Daredevil's got double Ds, so, you know, not... that's it um but um hi oh you've met me you know i'm not editing this out no okay

So I was going to compare it to Deadpool. Okay. In the sense that no one remembers the Deadpool films for their plot. They remember it for Deadpool. They remember it for Negasonic Teenage Warhead. They remember it for Colossus. They remember it for the characters, the plot. No one really cares about that. It's about the characters. And that's what I'd say about this Mario movie. The plot isn't really there.

No, it's not an important part of it. The important part of it is that the characters are accurate and that the energy of a Mario game is in the film. Because the Mario games are very go, go, go. You just got to go forwards, get the goal and ta-da. And I felt like it was, the action was perfect for it. The animation, oh my God, I love the animation in it. I love the art style of it. The new Donkey Kong is just so animated and so alive and just looks like I could just do some brushstrokes.

That would be quite fun to draw. I want to ask you, since I imagine she is quite a favourite of yours, what did you think of Princess Peach? So I feel like I need to preface this by saying that I didn't... particularly like the movie but I didn't hate it for me I feel like this film doesn't really know who it's for, in that there's a lot in it that is just going, do you remember Mario? Which is like, you know, tickles my 37-year-old nerd something, scrotum, I don't know, something.

I was drinking some water. The worst part is, is I could see that you were doing that because we've got the videos on and I still said, I love you. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to try and joke you to death. I swear neither of us have had any alcohol, honestly. No, no. I wished. Yeah, so a lot of it was that. And then there's a lot of like needle drops in this film that kids would just truly be like, what is even this song anyway?

But then the actual film itself is very sort of like kiddy. It's very bright. It's like you say, it's very frenetic. It's very like, there's no real plot because it's just all about keeping your attention with like, look at this thing. Look at this animal. Look at this.

enemy like watch this fight look at this platform bit but peach was one of the things that i genuinely really liked about the film because yeah because i mean to be honest i've always been a daisy gal i don't know if that's just me being contentious because I am a bit of a twat but any sort of like no you're not no yeah that was too long of a pause

So, like, the thing about Mario is that I know that the games have pretty much always been about rescuing Peach, except for the game that she got on her own, where weirdly she had to use an umbrella a lot to fight, which is a bit strange. So I was sort of not really expecting her to like do a lot. So it was kind of great that they actually had her being like a capable princess person, rocking several very nice outfits and generally being quite fantastic.

But what I will say is that I do think a lot of the voice acting across the board left a lot to be desired, including Peach. Like, it was really boring. There was no, like, exciting delivery of anything. It was like, yes, we've competently read a script. Yes. Although, interestingly, because I am on record, like, I was on record as shaking my fist at Chris Pratt for getting cast in this back when it got announced.

And interestingly, he was not my least favourite voice in the movie. Charlie Day was. Oh, dear. I know, a bit of a shame because I do agree that the relationship between him and Mario is genuinely one of the most adorable and possibly one of the sweetest brotherly relationships I've seen on screen outside of a Turtles movie. Ah, it was so fucking cute.

I love them being soft and adorable and also strong and brave. Like, ah, everything about that was wonderful. But yeah, it just felt too haphazard. The whole film did to me. Like, I don't feel like it knew exactly who it was for or what it was doing.

It just did a lot of Mario. The Donkey Kong segment was probably my favourite part, and I was genuinely surprised that Seth Rogen was really great. He just really made that character his own, which, yeah, is... kind of not difficult when you're seth rogan because as soon as donkey kong did the laugh i was just like okay okay he's just owning this character now it's just yeah yeah he's one of those interesting people who doesn't have

like a range really in terms of voice acting like he always sounds like himself like um h john benjamin is the same he almost always sounds like himself but sorry who's h john uh bob from bob's burgers archer He played a tin of fruit, I think, in Wet Hot American Summer 2. Bit weird. Okay. Yeah, strange, strange film. But he can get away with doing that because he's...

really expressive and like genuinely interesting in the way that he delivers lines, I think. And I felt, yeah, I felt that about Seth Rogen as well. Like I was very impressed with the... the energy and the delivery and like it sounded like he was having a really good time and there was a lot of sort of personality there um so i really i really enjoyed his performance that was probably my favorite little segment of the film and i was a bit sad when that ended

The film wasn't anywhere near as bad as I was expecting, because when I saw the trailers, I thought, Mario's one of those games where it doesn't really make sense as a film. Like, you can't...

You can't take the platform stages in Mario, really, and make a film that makes any sense, which is why any of those bits in this film didn't really make sense to me. Like, why would you have places in the Mushroom Kingdom that you... would die trying to reach like just build a proper build a proper bridge lads what are you doing um you know just have proper access way um

So, like, none of those bits really made sense to me. It's one of those rare, like, video game movies where I'm kind of like, actually, really what we need is the characters and not the game itself. And I feel like it's a shame that they didn't go sort of down that route. Kind of like Sonic. The story in the Sonic movie is nothing like any of the Sonic games, really. But it's so Sonic-y in its feel. I love Sonic. It's such a good film.

I noticed, I noticed, yeah. I'm very excited for Sonic 3, but I'm a big child, so, yeah. I mean, you say that I love the Mario movie and I'm a 41 year old Wyatt man. And I feel like I might be the demographic. So, yeah. I was just going to say, I think the thing for me is that maybe I was sort of anticipating it having a bit more of a plot than it did.

Because it did feel very like if you took the bits that were actual plot, it was probably actually a 30 minute short film that probably was very good. But there was just a lot of like sort of platform bits that didn't really make any difference or real. physical sense but I'm glad you liked it because I think it's I think it's gorgeous the whole film looks genuinely gorgeous the colours in it are just like

Really stunning. And the facial expressions were particularly gorgeous. Not a fan of people pulling on Luigi's moustache. Got to say that. Made me feel bad for him because I've had to pluck my eyebrows before and it ain't good. Sympathise. As a man who possesses quite a bushy nostril, I don't like the idea of... Plucking anything, no. No, it's not good. And you'll be glad to know that I didn't find Bowser too sexy.

Oh, good. We were worried about that, weren't we, that I'd be too attracted to him. We were a bit worried. Yeah, got to say, I can't put my finger on what it was, but there was something awry about Bowser's design in his face that just put me off. But I did love Jack Black. He was wonderful. I think with Bowser, we've only ever really seen him do one expression in the games, which is eyebrows down, angry.

But I quite loved that he was such a geek in this film. Just sort of such a... Well, I'd call him a bit of a fuckboy. Because he just... He just, he really wants Peach and no, you're a giant, you're a giant kaiju and she's wee, stop. Do you want to hear something really stupid? Please. I've never put it together in my head that he's a turtle until they said it in this movie. I don't know what I thought he was. I don't know what I thought he was.

Yeah, I mean, they say he's a Cooper, and I assumed for a while that he was, that was his species of Cooper, but then I thought maybe that's his surname? Bowser Cooper? I don't know. It's a bit piddly. Piddly's not the right word. It's a bit... air gas gaseous uh the plot of mario which is why i'm quite glad they didn't focus too much on the plot of mario it's one of those things that i find quite interesting about mario is that like i don't know how i would make a mario movie

I certainly wouldn't do what they did in the 90s because that was truly an experience. I think the mentality that they always go in with the video games is that they want to make an adventure. They want to make people feel like they're going on a journey, they're exploring different places and that they're experiencing, you know, like the gameplay itself is the narrative of the Mario games. And I feel like...

I think they succeeded in the sense that they created an adventure in this film. I mean, yeah. Plot, yeah. But the characters and the adventure, I think, what made it for me, personally. Yeah. I would quite like to see them make more because I'd be interested to see what they could do with a more plot-based, less of a core look at this, doesn't it look like a Mario level?

I really wish, though, and I said this on Space and Barry yesterday when I was recording with Bea, I really wish they had leaned more into orchestra versions of the Mario themes. Because they do that over the credits, and it's fucking brilliant. And I'm like, why weren't you doing this throughout the movie? Why were you giving me A-ha's take on me, which means nothing to the children of today, when you could have been doing like a rad?

fucking bomb ass orchestrated version of like some of the brilliant Mario music you've only got 30 years worth of games to fucking choose from lads like come on now but yeah I'm glad you liked it, though, because I always feel a bit bad when I dislike stuff, because you're not supposed to anymore. It's not right on the internet to dislike stuff. Mike, you've disappeared. Are you still there?

Michael, I've lost your face I wish it was back here with me Where'd you go, you beautiful man? Bring your beard back

We're back. What would you like to talk about, Stace? Have you heard of slash experienced We Lost Our Human? No. Okay. This is exciting. This is very exciting. So this... is a show on Netflix that is an animated choose-your-adventure story that is genuinely one of the most fun things I've experienced for a while, and I would wholeheartedly recommend. So the story follows a cat and a dog called Pud and Ham, which are just like, oh, God, that's fucking stupidly cute before you even.

start and they wake up one day and their human has gone missing and you have to follow you have to choose which character you're going to follow and then you have to try and find your human again I don't want to spoil it too much, but there's like interdimensional shenanigans. Let's put it that way. Yeah, it gets very exciting. There's all sorts of like future crisscrossy versions of yourselves and all sorts of banana stuff. I played it for two and a half hours on Tuesday.

I think it was. And then I just finished it tonight, did another half hour tonight and finally got my human back. Yay. Woo. But it's so good. The animation is gorgeous and super sleek. The style of it is very similar to the amazing world of Gumball in terms of the character design and stuff. So it's really big and bold and cute. The voice acting is great. So Pud is played by Ben Schwartz and Ham is Ayo Edabiri. And genuinely, it's so funny.

Like it really made me laugh out loud. Like I know it sounds really stupid, but I don't actually genuinely laugh out loud that much. Not at TV shows and things, but this genuinely made me laugh out loud like a lot. Like there's a lot of like really daft. dialogue that's very funny some of the choices are really daft as well but then other ones are genuinely like hey uh do you want to press this button or put's gonna die which which one do you want to do and you're like

I don't want to take put! Help! like yeah it's genuinely like quite distressing in parts but not like you could play it with like I don't know a 7 or 8 year old kid and it wouldn't stress them out too much the background's in it And then just the design of it is just absolutely gorgeous. And like I say, it's just so much fun and a lot less stressful than other Choose Your Adventures, because if you are like me and you do a bit of a suffer from the anxiety.

Choose Your Own Adventure stuff can be, actually, quite a stress. When I tried to do Bandersnatch, the Black Mirror Choose Your Own Adventure, I got... incredibly stressed about some of the choices because i was like these people are gonna die even though it's a tv show and they're not gonna die stace you're just being an idiot

But it stressed me out quite a lot because some of the choices in that were like really stressful. Like, do you want to throw away his anti-anxiety mix? I'm like, not really. Not really. But your options are either put them in the bin or put them in the toilet. And I'm like, well, I don't want to.

I don't want to do either of those things. They're both bad. Whereas this one has like a lot of fairly low stakes things at times where it's more like, do you want to eat the chilli or do you want to throw the chilli out the window? which yeah but it's adorable it's really fun it's really inventive like I didn't expect it to go where it was going at all which is why I'm a bit sort of reticent to get into the story of it

Because I think people should just go and have a muck around with it anyway. And it just looks, yeah, gorgeous. Wholehearted Stace recommend. It's got the Stace thumbs up seal of approval. I'm posing for the seal of approval. I can verify that Stacey put her thumb up and did a big old cheesy smile Big cheesy face Yay

Yeah, no, I'll give that a look. I think that was recommended to me one day. And I was just like, oh, I'll look into that later. And then it vanished off of my Netflix thing. So, yeah. I don't think it's been very well advertised because I... No. I only even heard about it because I follow Ben Schwartz on Twitter and he's been like, hello, yes, put this in your eyes. It's real good. And I'm like, oh yeah, he's not wrong.

But I didn't even see it pop up on Netflix at all. And you know what me and Rich are like. We live on our sofas in front of the telly when we're not working. That's how I end up with so much wonderful stuff to talk about. On this show, she says, trying to insinuate that she's not actually a lazy arsehole. She's doing it for research, podcast research. I will say, from the previous podcast, I did love Ben Schwartz in Renfield. Mate.

I love everything about that film, I think. I think it was wonderful. Rich thought it was shit. He hated it. One thing that I don't like about it, and it's such a small thing, is that the actors are a bit too self-aware. um right is it aquafina and yeah yeah i mean i think she's incredible actress and incredibly funny but

There were times where she was just a bit too self-aware. And I was just like, oh, no, you just keep it up. Keep it up. Come on. But that's the only gripe I had with it. I just I loved it. And Nick. Oh, my God. Love him. Who doesn't? Exactly. Richard, that's who. That's who. Oh, should I tell you about my second thing? Go on.

Which isn't Renfield, it is a video game called Legend of Zelda Tears of the Kingdom. Oh, go on, I've never heard of this. No, no, never heard of it either. Yeah, it's the sequel to Breath of the Wild, which I famously introduced you to by plummeting to my death instantly. And yeah, you've not made me forget about it.

Mike, it was very funny. And I think it was even funnier that the time, it made it even funnier that the time before that I'd seen you, we were playing Wind Waker and you did a victory forward roll straight off a cliff to your immediate doom there as well, which was... Now, I was drunk, so we were both a bit pissed. That's my excuse. But I genuinely thought I had a paraglider when I plummeted to my death. So, oops.

Has Rich played it? What, Tears of the Kingdom? Yeah, so he bought it the other day and he did start playing it. But I have the misfortune of not having had seen him play Breath of the Wild. So I don't have any context. And I was a bit surprised because most Zelda games don't tend to like actually follow on from things, do they? So this started and he was just like in a cavern and she was like, right, let's investigate this thing then. And I'm like, huh?

not a clue and he was like well that's your fault you should have played the game I'm like ooh you've got me there you've definitely got me there I don't know if you need to play the first game it's just you know I thought it was quite cute that it sort of starts off with them on an adventure and then things go awry and yeah and then it just I'm really sorry to all the listeners that love this game it gets really fucking slow

really really slow yeah the stamina meter is back you can run for about three seconds and then link gets shattered that's like me that is I want to play games where the character is fitter than I am. Yeah. Yeah. And they have a bit of a story as to how he lost all his health from Breath of the Wild, which, you know, yeah.

I just wish he kept the stamina. I just want him to have the stamina. I hate the stamina system so much in that game. And it just takes so long to walk to places. Well, I think...

Now, this is possibly sort of a mild spoiler, but everything that we talk about tends to get spoiled, so just spoiler warning generally. I... I think Rich fluffed up the first time that he put it on and he might have had to go back and redo things because he immediately found himself in a snowy area, topless, and couldn't stamina himself out of there without dying of cold. Yeah. Every now and again I just hear like, oh no, do I hear death music on the horizon? Oh, God. Blessing. Yeah.

I died a few times in the ice area as well. I couldn't figure it out. And then I had to look on YouTube and I was just like, how was I supposed to find that one bit that you can... Oh, I was so angry. So angry. The thing that saves the game is the new powers that you get in the game. You confuse any item with any other item. And I've seen people create their own cars, their own flying machines in the game.

And I'm not that far yet, but it is quite fun fusing a minecart to your shield because the first game you could do shield surfing and it was a bit shit. But when you fuse a minecart with your shield, you just use it like a skateboard. And it's so much fun. Yeah. That does sound good. I just want Richard to find a top because it feels a little bit inappropriate to watch him running around as topless Link, if I'm honest. Yeah.

When I finished with the ice area, I did find a chest that had warm trousers that would have saved a lot of time. And I was very angry. The game has just generally made me feel quite angry. See, I've always sort of worried about both Breath of the Wild and... tears of the kingdom because i'm somebody who needs a bit of guidance in games like i don't need it fully spoon-fed but i need somebody to tell me oh have you thought about looking near the clock tower or have you thought about

going to this area so i can be like right i need something over here whereas this game feels too much like just explore lads and if you miss one tiny thing suddenly you find yourself naked in an ice area just dying repeatedly And I'm not about the multiple deaths in the snow. Ain't nobody got time for that. I don't really want to feel punished for exploring in a game that encourages exploration.

And, you know, I feel very punished when you die in the snow, you've run out of stamina, you've got three hearts, and, yeah. Yeah. Rich. which died in a lake and I was like but how did you get that far into the lake if you can't get back out I don't even understand the physics of that but somehow you got out there and then just went oh I guess I'll die

Well, I worked really hard on building a bridge for that lake because that lake, I think, is in the tutorial part of the game. And I picked up the bridge and I tried to turn it over to the lake. caught on something and it fell off the edge of the world so that was like 40 minutes of my life gone I mean it was funny you would have laughed I definitely would have yeah absolutely wholeheartedly

I play these games like I play games. It's like, this is how Mike plays games. And it's a complete shambles. Yeah, I think. This game would be more frustrating. This is why I won't play it. I'll happily watch Rich play it, but I think if I tried to play, I would just get too hung up on certain little bits and never actually get anywhere.

Or I think I'd just spend all my time cooking because that looks quite satisfying and I like the little do-do-do-do song that it plays while you're doing the little cook. Yeah. And Link, I found out, he sings little tunes from previous Zelda games when he's cooking. Oh, that's really adorable. That's really sweet. I love when games put in little things, like little adorable things that don't really need to be there. Like one thing that I used to love about Ocarina of Time.

and maybe I only love this because it's a thing that I do and that my mum got overexcited when she was like, oh, look, Link does that weird thing that you do, is when you leave the game I do for too long, he starts tapping his toes against the ground like he's adjusting his shoes.

which I do all the time. I don't know why I do it. It's just a thing. If I've been standing still for too long, you'll get some toe tappery happening. But yeah, I think that's adorable because they could just have him standing there. Or sometimes he would look around like he's checking on his tunic. Is it tucked in? to my tights. No, it's fine. Which is really cute. It's really cute. I feel like there's going to be loads of people who listen to this who are like,

How are we listening to the only two people in the world who aren't big enough Tears of the Kingdom? But I haven't played it, so don't come at me. And I have played it and I found it really long. How many hours have you put into it so far?

Oh, God. Too many. Too many. Nothing's happening. Nothing's happening, Stace. It's just me walking to places because I don't have a paraglider and I don't have... and i remembered this time that i don't have a paraglider although there was this one time where uh input took me up a balloon and she was like okay you can go down with your paraglider now i was like i don't have a paraglider what do i do have i has she given me one

So what I did was I jumped off the balloon. Maybe there'll be a prompt that says, you know, press button for a paraglider. That didn't appear. So I just like very, very slowly fell to my death. I bet that was relaxing. It was. It was. I've had very many dreams like that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think I am the person to review video games either because I get too scared. Like, what are the other reasons I like playing? I do. I like watching other people.

I like puzzle games. Stick me in front of the Tetris. I'll be there all day. A couple of weeks ago, we went to NQ64 in Digbeth, which is an arcade slash bar. And I had a cocktail called a Kirby and it tasted of Turkish delights and it was boozy and wonderful. And I got the top score on Buster Move. Thank you very much. Yes.

Yes, I was very excited about that. Even though it's really hard, I was gesturing then in a way that you would find rude if you could see it. It's very hard to direct the little bubble. stick thing pointer thingy with a joystick off end but yeah it's okay it doesn't look rude it looks like an asexual person's idea of something rude but it's yeah i don't know how it works

Is this a biggie? I don't know. I'm so glad that nobody can see what I'm doing right now. It's fine. It looks like you're playing with a joystick. It's fine. Yeah, so I'm terrible at reviewing video games because I'm like, well, they all made me poo my pants. I don't know if it was good. I shat myself. That's why I watch Game Grumps.

They can play the games for me and I don't have to deal with the stakes. And it is a viable, I think it's become a viable thing now to watch games online because a lot of people can't afford them. super mega pricey some of these games and a lot of them have these like micro transactions and you know all these other little things that you have to spend money on and it's just like i'll just watch someone play it online yeah

Sometimes I think that's a good way to just see if you want to buy it in case it's not any good either. Because like you say, they're quite expensive. Why do you want to sink like 50 quid on a game? And then it's shit, she says, when you've just done exactly that. Weirdly, I do like it, but it's just very slow, and I kind of want to play other games.

when i'm playing i was gonna say that's where the problem is because i think i would see that as being my money getting my money's worth like if a game if i can complete a game in like a couple of hours i feel like i've wasted my money i'm like why did us but what What am I doing? So it feels like that would be worth the money to me. But then again, if a lot of your time is spent actively dying because you can't find a pair of pants, then maybe it's more frustrating than anything else.

I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah. Seven out of ten. There we go. Well, that's not bad. I thought you were going to give it like a four, but a seven's not bad. It's become a bit of a meme.

Giving Zelda games 7 out of 10 Because there's a reviewer called Stephanie Sterling Who gave Breath of the Wild 7 out of 10 And they got a Ton of grief for it And it's just like seven out of 10 is a good score it's like better than average you know and the amount of grief they got was astonishing and i just thought when i when you read the review it makes sense because they hated the stamina as much as i did

and the sort of tediousness of it as much as I do but 7 out of 10 is a good score it is I've always found well not always it's like The past few years, we do seem to have gotten to a point where you're not allowed to have a fairly middling opinion. Like you've either got to full on fucking hate something like it killed your dad or you've got to.

be rolled up its thumb hole because you love it so much do you know what I mean like there's no in between you can't just think it was alright you can't just think something's alright even though that's

I mean, a couple of months ago, I had a really hard time pulling my notes together for an episode because everything that I'd seen was just all right. And I didn't really know how to talk about that because I was like, well, I saw this all right. Well, that's fine. Yeah, I mean, the three things I picked. pick them because I like them and they are quite hot topics at the moment so yeah Zelda and Mario and yeah the other one but do you want to talk about a thing that you want to talk a thing

I want to talk a thing. One of my things might be your other thing. So I'm going to go with the one that I think is not the other thing that's your thing. I'm going to stop saying things. I'm going to talk a little bit about Evil Dead Rise. Oh, I did see that. What did you think? I, I, I'm, it was, don't get me wrong, it's camp trash. I love camp trash. Give me that gay shirt, I want it in my veins But I don't know What message it was trying to give About the family

It's like a sort of a single mother who's just trying to do her best and it's quite an alternative family. The daughter is quite boyish and the son is quite, you know, they're all sort of... gender blah and it's like I don't know what they is there a deeper I don't know maybe I was looking too deep into it maybe yeah but Maybe, yeah, if I look at it more stupidly, which is probably what I should do, it's a lot of fun. Massive fucking spoilers for this again as well.

What I really liked about this is how it started with the ending, because I wasn't anticipating that at all. And the ending is very clearly a setup for a sequel. that I'd almost forgotten about by the time I actually got to the end of the film. And I was like, oh, shit, yeah. So I'm quite looking forward to If That's Ever a Thing. I loved it. I genuinely loved it. I love most of the Evil Dead films anyway. And I loved Ash vs. Evil Dead.

wonderful stupid stuff that's just great um and uh and i know that like a lot of people have complained in the past about like oh you know you can't have evil dead without ash and blah blah blah And I think this film says that you absolutely can. And I think the other, the one that came out, I was genuinely going to say a couple of years ago, but I think it was probably like knocking on 10 nails.

like like it was definitely pre-covid so it's at least three or four um but that one didn't have ash really either and i think that one's actually genuinely good too but what i loved about this one is that it just went You know how, like, the Evil Dead is a bit gory and a bit gooey and a bit slimy and a bit vomity? Heaven and all of that, but even more so. Like, just disgusting. Just absolutely disgusting levels of everybody's covered in it.

You can't even tell what skin colour anybody is because they're all just covered in blues. Gross. Like, I loved that about it because it was just like it wasn't afraid to just be absolutely foul. And it was just so much fun. But also, I think genuinely scary in places, because I think people sort of forget that the original Evil Dead, even though a lot of it is quite silly and campy, there are some bits in it that are genuinely like, what in the blue fuck am I looking at?

So like I was quite happy that I feel like this gets the tone of those films, but sort of brings them into a more modern sort of setting. The only thing I did find a bit baffling is that it did seem like nobody else in that apartment, aside from the couple of neighbours, noticed that anything was happening at all. And there was a lift filled with blood at one point. It was very The Shining.

There's no policeman there the next day going, why is everything covered in blood? What's happened? Truly a baffling turn of events. That is something that I loved about it. If I may spoil the beginning a little bit where there's an earthquake and the kids are just like, oh, no, don't go near the broken floor. And the kid goes near the broken floor.

and he sees something down there and they say oh don't go down there it looks creepy and then he goes down there and then they say oh don't pick anything up from there and he picks things up from there and he just touches everything and i love that It's just so unashamedly stupid. And, you know, you kind of want to strangle this kid. But I also love this kid because he's doing all the wrong things.

Yeah, it's one of those things where like sometimes you want people to have the natural reaction of nope and just leave because that fits the scene better. But I did love this because it is very much sort of like a curious. kid who's just like no I'm sorry I've just found an underground nonsense I'm going to investigate this

Whereas if it were me, I'd have absolutely bolted the other way. Actually, no, that's a lie. I'd have been trying to piece together the dropped pizzas and crying over the melted trees. Oh, my God, yes. Where are the sensible people? Where are the sensible...

you know, eaters like us stays. Yeah. They're all too skinny. They don't care about pizza. What's wrong with them? I know. But it was genuinely funny to me. Like, I've said this before about the Necronomicon. If I saw a book... that even looked half that creepy and sweaty I would fully nope right on it there like my first reaction would be absolutely not off I go I'm gone

I'm never looking at this again. It's in my rear view. I've left the state. I've packed my bags. I've left the state. I'm nowhere near this book. So the idea that anybody would be like, I'm going to read this. Quite you. What are you smoking? You crazy person. But I quite liked that it was this kid who was just like, ah, it's a bit macabre, isn't it? I'll have a look at this way. And then the next thing is like, oh, I've unleashed hell on earth shit. Oh, I'll just touch these teeth.

on the book don't touch the teeth on the book I'm going to touch the teeth on the book oh blood has come out of me oh the blood has vanished oh that's fine that's fine absolutely fine What I loved about it as well was like and again this is a massive spoiler so if you want to avoid spoilers like yeah there's a bit sort of towards the end where like three characters come together in a sort of nightmare scuttle monster.

I loved that I loved that because I was like I hate it but everything about it is great it's like twitching and it's all at the wrong angles and it's Oh, that was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant. Sometimes I do wonder, what on earth were people thinking when they wrote this? Who sat down and went, what if we combined them all? into a sort of human spider. What about that? And you're like, absolutely not. Why? Have you seen that video game Inside? I think Game Grumps played it quite a while ago.

Oh, I don't recognise it from the title, but I might have seen their playthrough. Yeah, it was sort of like a side scroller where you play a kid in a red top and you're trying to sort of sneak through this building. And at the end, he becomes part of an amalgam sort of flesh monster. And, yeah, it reminded me of that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I do think as well, before we move on to your next thing,

that the title card where the evil dead rise actually sort of came up on the horizon whilst that girl was, like, levitating was, oh, chef's kiss, baby. That was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Well, it's very rare that I get surprised by a title card, but that. And have you ever seen the movie Fresh? No. I would wholeheartedly recommend Fresh.

It's got Sebastian Stan in it and he looks very handsome. And I'm not going to say anything more about it because that would be a spoiler. But it's brilliant. I can't remember what streaming service it's on, but it's on one of them because that's how I saw it.

But yeah, fabulous. What's your other theme, Mike? I think this is where we might sink, because I'm going to say Guardians of the Galaxy 3. It is where we're going to sink. Yay! What did you think? So, no, let's let you talk. I've talked a lot. Okay. it's one of those films that I really loved watching at the time. And then afterwards I was just like, um,

So, yeah, I don't know. I think I might be dead on the inside. I don't know. I actually wrote that on my notes about this film. Am I dead on the inside? But, yeah. I just, it's, the raccoon story was, it hit all the right emotions, but I felt like it was spoiled in the sense that I feel like I've seen that story a hundred times before. I don't know. And, yeah, I love Gamora in it. I love that she put Peter in his place and he actually thought about things.

And it just seemed like a very mature way of dealing with it much more than because Peter pretty much goes through emotionally the same thing that Wanda does in the multiverse of madness. which I loved, by the way. Come on, it's camp horror. Come on, Steve Lacey, get your... Wow, call out on the podcast. I just I just really hope he's drinking like a sip of tea there. It's just. But yeah, he dealt with that in a much more adult, mature way. And I think it sort of shows.

the importance of having mature people and mature friends in your life. And I felt like that was like a really important thing that the film delivered. Yeah. It also had a dog in a space suit, which, you know, I enjoy that too. I really liked... Guardians 3. I'm one of the rare people that prefers Volume 2 to Volume 1. I know a lot of people don't even like Volume 2, let alone... Yeah. But I...

I've said this before, I'm a sucker for a film that deals with daddy issues, right? I've got them, so I relate. Adventure Time, throwing in Martin, I'm going to have a cry. I'm going to. Like, it's flipping... Flipping Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, throwing at you a bad dad and a sort of dad you didn't even realise you had and there he's dead. Cool, blimey. what a double whammy of punching you in the daddy's shoes. Hi. So like, oh yeah, I fully was on the emotional train for that film.

So this one, and this is going to make me sound like I haven't got a heart either. This one didn't punch me in the heart family as much as Volume 2 did because I was just going to – I don't know how to phrase this without making it sound like I'm just not bothered about animals. But I'm just not that bothered about animals. I know what you mean. I love animals. I don't want harm to come to them. But these are CGI animals. They are real.

And it felt very much like it was going, oh, I'm trying to pull your heartstrings. Yeah. And so even though there were some genuinely sad bits, I was actually more sort of put off by the experiments. So I'm going to spoil the producer of this as well and just say that there was one of the characters that had been experimented on was like a bunny rabbit that was sort of dangling between giant mechanical legs.

with a weird sort of metal lock jaw keeping its mouth shut. And that thing was genuinely nightmare fuel to me. So I couldn't feel sorry if I tried, because every time it appeared, I shit myself. It was a fucking spider. It was a fucking mechanical spider bunny rabbit. It was a fucking body horror jump scare like I had. Yeah. I hated it so much. It's very hard for me to feel sorry for something that I want to be dead.

Yes. Like, I want you out of my film. I don't want you here. And I wasn't that keen on the walrus-y thing either. Like, that was a bit distressing to me. But he wasn't quite...

Yeah, he was just a bit... just made me feel a bit funny um so yeah it was a bit hard for it to press my empathy buttons as hard as i think it was expecting me to but what i will say is that i think the high evolutionary is like top tier marvel villain because i fully believed that not only did he think he was doing the right thing but also that he was full-blown crazy and that he was very upset that a raccoon was smarter than him

but without making it seem stupid that a human was upset that a raccoon was smarter than him. Yeah. Because that sort of story beat could very easily lean into stupid pantomime me. Like, this guy's threatened by a tiny, adorable fluffer. Like, why is he stressing so hard about this?

But like the performance and I've totally forgotten the actor's name now and I feel quite bad about that. But the performance that that guy gives is full blown. Like, I'm scared of you. Like, I wouldn't want to bump into this guy in a dark alley because he would be terrifying. And I think that's something I haven't felt from a Marvel villain for a while because they've all either been a little bit forgettable or Thanos, who's just like, you know.

you know the big deal isn't he so it's like it's hard to sort of stack people up against somebody who took

you know, the entire Avengers and a bunch of, well, loads of other people to like take him down. But yeah, I enjoyed the film overall and I thought it was a nice... way to end the trilogy and I do agree that I think the way that they treated the whole Peter and Gamora I think because I was dreading them getting back together I don't know why I thought if they get back together by the end of this film I'm going to be fucking livid and I genuinely

Can't tell you for why. I'm not against love. I love a lovely bit of love. I love a good romance. But I just, I don't know. I don't know that I've ever felt that Gamora cared as much about Peter as Peter cared about her. Well, I feel like it was a relationship where they loved each other and, you know, sometimes that love isn't equal.

And that's quite a realistic thing to portray. And also someone dies, you know, sometimes, you know, someone and they die and you're just like, this is like a huge missing thing in my life. And yeah, he just had to sort of face up to it and sort of seeing this alternative Gamora just kind of made him realize that they're not the same person. He's not going to get that person back again.

And it's it's really harsh if you know, for anyone who has lost someone like that, you know, someone who just meant so much to your life at that time. And then they just, you know, it's it's. It's a real shock to the system, especially when there's such a big part of your life. And I felt like the film dealt with that in an incredibly brilliant way. I felt like they did it.

Like I said before, I'm sorry, I'm repeating myself, but it was a very mature way they did it, even though it's a superhero film. But, you know, I think they did that quite excellently. Yeah. Yeah, no, I agree. In fact, when we, because we actually took a trip to the cinema for this one, which is a very rare stage of which occurrence because we are lazy. The cinema's all the way over there. I don't mind.

But when we came out of the cinema, we were both like, thank gosh they didn't get back together. Because it feels to me like Peter would never have processed that grief if they'd have got back together. Because he never processed the grief of his mother. Yes, exactly. And yeah, so I think the way that the film ended was actually just like a much more sensible way for the film to go than to just be delivering the sort of the happy ending, as it were, which was great. Because, yeah, I think if...

It would have soured it for me if they'd have got together at the end. Yeah, completely agree. But yeah, what I will say about it is that it's interesting that this movie looks so nice.

considering I'm not long saw Quantumania and that looks so fake. And like both of them are completely set in like nonsense places that don't exist, like completely like, you know, CGI blob planets and whatever. But weirdly, they look like a blood planet you can reach out and poke. Like, it looked genuine to me, whereas Quantumania looked like people placed upon a soundstage. Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, yeah, no, that's perfectly described. It's sort of abstract and also a bit like a theatre production. I really wasn't a fan of Quantum Mania because I really like the previous Ant-Man films. And this did not feel like an Ant-Man film to me. It didn't have the comedy. It didn't have the sort of stupidness of the previous films. Yeah. It didn't have the fun. It felt like a sort of a grandiose.

Marvel film when Ant-Man isn't that. I didn't really like the way they'd sort of leaned into him being sort of like, oh, I'm an Avenger now, honey. Like, you know, come buy my book, I'll sign it for you. You know what I mean? It was a bit of a weird direction to go in with a character who was quite fun and relatable and family-oriented and almost homely. Very odd.

Very odd decision. The thing about Quantumania that bothered me more than anything, and I said this to Rich, was that it felt like nothing. Like, it felt like... If that movie didn't happen, but I'd still watch Loki, I think I will fully understand what's happening with Kang going forward. It felt like an intermediate period between us actually doing something with Kang later.

Which will be interesting to see if they do do that, considering the guy who plays Canu's name I've temporarily forgotten. What is his name? Jonathan Majors. May or may not be a massive dickhead. Oh, no. Look, I'm not, yeah, there's things floating around. Yeah, so that'll be interesting.

It just feels a bit aimless, doesn't it, the MCU at the moment, which is why I think I quite like Guardians, because Guardians 3 didn't feel like it needed to do anything for the universe. What it needed was to finish the Guardians story, and it did. So that was...

fine like it felt like a nice little encased story although i did i did find it quite funny that i saw a review that was like you could easily just watch the three guardians films as a trilogy and none of the other marvel movies and know exactly what's going on and i was like you wouldn't have a fucking clue what happened with Gamora. If you hadn't seen Infinity War and Endgame, you would be like, why is her personality entirely different? And why is Peter crying all the time and drunk?

truly a baffling experience but you know oh well reviewers going to review it there is a certain I'm sorry I will finish my point but there is a certain trend lately to shit on the Marvel films

And I feel like the Marvel films have been the best they've been in a long time. I'm not necessarily saying that they're good. I'm just saying I... I was not a fan of the Iron Man films, and I think the reason the Iron Man films are loved on so much is because of Robert Downey Jr. He can carry anything, and I think they... the whole Marvel universe has a lot to owe to him, but I feel like those Iron Man films were not that great. I'm sorry. Please don't hate me.

My name online is Quiz Lacey. So go. Oh, no. What are you getting up on my wedding? He gets it. And you're my best woman. But yeah, I don't know. I just feel like it's difficult to come back from the whole Thanos story because that was so riveting. And it was so engrossing that it's hard to come back from that. And it's hard to see that the Marvel films that are coming out now are a lot better than the earlier Marvel films. So I...

I know a lot of people will disagree with me for that. And that's completely fine. We're allowed to have different opinions. But that's what I feel about the Marvel films lately. Yeah. I don't really know where I'm at with Marvel at the moment because every now and again, I'll be like, I see this, like I saw Love and Thunder and I was like, didn't really like it. Marvel feels a bit aimless. And then like,

I don't know, fucking the third Spider-Man movie comes out and blows my chitting socks right off. And I'm like, well, shut my mouth. What do I know about movies? And then like Quantumania just sort of poodles around on my screen and I'm like, oh.

Guardians comes out and I'm like aha so like maybe it's just swings and roundabouts for me at the moment but like I'm like I'm a dickhead when it comes to talking about like Marvel films because every time I say something like I don't know I'll be like oh I'm getting superhero fatigue and a movie will come out that will blow my tiny nerdy mind and I'm like shut my mouth

just shut my whole mouth what am I talking about even but then I'll be like Marvel films have never been better and then something will come out that'll be the absolute Sheets, like drizzling sheets That's the thing that you said earlier on It's okay for things to be not amazing And not absolutely awful It's okay to be in the middle ground Yeah Yeah, even the last podcast, which had Nick Papaconstantino, he said that ages ago and that was the first time anyone had told me that.

I say that as if he was saying it to me, he was saying it on a podcast. I just imagine when people talk to me on a podcast, they're talking directly to me. But he said that on a podcast many years ago, and I was just... I completely related to that and it just completely changed my perspective on how to look at these sort of films and it's okay if a film's okay.

it's alright there's somebody and I can't remember who it is for the life of me but Rich told me once there's somebody who's like relatively famous who when he logs films he or she I can't remember or they the gender when they log films on Letterboxd they will only give one or five stars because a movie to them is either good or bad and that seems truly insane to me

Like I am sitting there githering about like, oh, I wish I had quarter stars I could give. So I want to give 3.75. It's not quite a four, but it's better than a three and a half, like losing my mind. Yeah, like, I don't understand how you can truly think every movie is either shit or great. Yeah. Some movies just exist and it's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. I mean, the last film that actually sort of...

really really touched me was everything everywhere all at once um yeah and that came out on my birthday and that was when my husband was incredibly sick in the hospital and i'd spent like several several like days in a row like a few weeks in a row just every day going to the hospital to see him and I just said, I need to have a break. I had a breakdown in front of the doctor and I said, I don't know what to do. And she said, just take a break. Just take a day off.

I didn't take a day off. What I did was it was my birthday and I decided to go to the cinema in Ottawa. And the cinema is amazing. They bring you food to your seat. Oh, and the food is fucking lush. And I watched everything everywhere all at once, and it was like someone pressed a reset button in me. It was like I could take on the world after watching that film. It just was so...

I love it. That's just like the highest praise I could give it. And I don't want to give it a review. No, that is a phenomenal movie. I saw that the day before I realised I had COVID. Yeah, which was a fun time. But I enjoyed it at the time and I was glad I got to see it before I had COVID and would have missed it. Yeah, truly wonderful. I've realised how long we've been a-waffling. Was there anything else you wanted to bring up before we recommend a couple of songos to everybody?

Very, very quickly, I want to recommend a film called How to Blow Up a Pipeline. Have you heard of that? Okay, no. It is... so unlike all the other films it's not a blockbuster film at all it's just more of a character based thing where you just follow these people who are trying to blow up an oil pipeline to get people to take

environmental things seriously and um it's very slow paced uh the acting is incredible and the story is incredible the writing is incredible and i recommend people see it because i don't want to say any more than that Just being prepared for quite a slow paced film and just sort of sit back and relax and really get squashed into your sofa when you're watching it or in the cinema when you're seeing it, because it's just it's one of those that you can sort of is.

tense and it's something that i've got completely lost in and yeah that's excellent recommendation splendid i had two very quick things uh the one is that season three of the other two is out I don't know if you've ever seen the other two before. No. I absolutely love it. So it's Drew Tarver, who is like an amazing improv comedian, and Helen York play like a brother and a sister sort of trying to make it in LA. He's trying to become an actor. She's trying to become like...

basically something adjacent to acting, so like maybe a publicist or an agent or something. And it's about them sort of like trying to do that when their younger brother is sort of basically Justin Bieber.

He's like the next Justin Bieber. So they're like competing with that sort of thing. And it's a brilliant comedy. And season three so far has been absolutely amazing. Full Stace Bob recommend on that one. And then the other recommend... was going to be oh again it's one of the streaming services but I don't know which we've got we've got too many and I'm terrible at remembering to write them down

I'll Google it later, that's fine. Yeah. And then the other recommendation was a couple of episodes ago, Stuart from the And Why Not podcast recommended a sort of romantic comedy called Rye Lane. I don't know if you have seen that. It is, I believe that one's on. I've seen adverts for it and I wanted to see it. I've heard it's like the Notting Hill for Peckham or something like that.

Yeah, so I really enjoyed it. I watched it. It's just come out on a streaming service, and again, I can't remember which one. It literally just popped up, so Rich and I were like, okay, let's watch this. Disney Plus. the steward said it was good there you go um so we popped it on and uh i'm not usually a big romy-comy kind of gal but this one feels very sort of organic

It's quite, it's a little bit abstract in the way that it's filmed and the way that it's presented to you. It follows two very charismatic leads. And it is all set in bits of London that you wouldn't normally see in a rom-com because, you know, rom-coms are usually like the fancy bits of London that no one actually really lives in. So these are like you're going through like.

proper like markets and you know to like grotty little hole in the wall taco places and things like this um and it actually feels like a real tangible place that people exist and can fall in love in and it's just generally like a nice I know people don't like the word nice, but I think it's a really nice film. It made me feel happy and nice. So, yeah, I agree with Stuart. Everybody ought to give it a little look. Yeah, I've been meaning to look at that for a while.

Yeah, definitely. I mean, somebody who has lived in London, like yourself, would probably find a lot more places there that they recognise as well, which is nice, because I always find that fun when you're watching a film and you're like, oh, I've been there. Agreed. because I am very easily pleased you see a film will get at least half a star if there's a place that I've been at in it yeah yeah

I'm going to move on to our musical recommendations because my stomach's starting to make some real protests. I don't know if you can see me rubbing my tummy here, but because it probably looks suspicious because you can't actually see what my hands are doing, but you can see my arms. It does look like you're cradling a baby. Oh, well, no, I'm cradling my tumbo. It's having a little bad time. Michael, what song would you like to recommend to our delightful listeners today?

Do you remember Samantha Mumba? So vaguely. Okay, back in the day when Britney Spears was a thing, a huge, big thing, the UK got this... singer called Samantha Mumba who is an Irish singer and she was an actress as well and she was huge for a time and then she kind of vanished and then I think it was either last year or the year before.

She released this song called Cool, and my friend introduced me to it, and I just fell in love with it straight away. It is fucking sassy. It just makes me wanna... do a bop every time i hear it it is so good i love it and it's filthy it's absolute filth because i i used to sort of watch the music video which is just her

in drag, basically dressing up like a drag queen, not a drag king, but you know, she's got the wigs and she's got the glamour and she's sassy and as hell. And then you listen to the lyrics and it's like, Oh my God, she fucks. she just goes to town she wants it bad and i love it it's just oh filthy cow and um yeah i just i love listening to it and i feel like when i was trying to come up with a song i had a look at call on youtube and it only has like a few likes

And I was shocked because it's such a good song. So I wanted to recommend it because I'm a hipster wanker who is, who also remembers the nineties and Britney Spears and Samantha Mumba. time-travelling film that she was in, which was a bit shit with Guy Pearce. But, yeah. I never saw that, but I do remember it existing. Yeah. She played a tribal woman. So, yeah.

I concur that this is a very good song because I had a lovely little listen to it today while I was trying to work I'm really sorry if you heard that noise my stomach just made it was loud as fuck I heard nothing Okay, I had a lovely little bop to that while I was trying to design some NHS Big T social media assets. So thank you for that, Michael. My pick this month is I'm cheating and I'm picking a band off pick before.

Which is Planet Booty. I fully wholeheartedly adore Planet Booty. They are wonderful sort of electro pop funk jazz soul bops. lovely inclusive lads who love a bit of a dance and thinking about sex and how everybody's deserving of love and things and they just generally seem like wonderful folks So I picked a song called Sweaty Already from their last album, Yes. And the reason I picked that track is because it's got a little bit of a sort of Mario Kart level vibe to me. It feels a little bit...

Mario Karti, which pleases me. But it is an absolute summertime jambo, is what it is. I loved it. I absolutely loved it when I heard it, because I've listened to Planet Booty before on your record. Sorry, I sounded really cockney when I said booty. I listened to Planet Booty a lot before, and I was just like, what is this? This is so raunchy. Why is this? And then I listened to it today, and I was just like, okay, this is a bop.

Yeah. I listened to it three times, I think. And yeah, love it. Nice. Thank you. Excellent.

Well, everybody, that's been episode 141. Michael, where can people find you on the internet should you wish to be found? I mean, don't find me. If you do find me... Twitter and Instagram, Mike Draws. Have a look there, Mike Draws. I do actually draw, but I don't put it online. So I'm not really online that much.

So follow me if you want someone who's not there that much and doesn't do anything. Just sporadic ghostly updates. Yeah, which is ironic considering I'm social media, Mike, but, you know. Only during the live shows. You don't have to work every day. No, no. Oh, it's been an absolute pleasure having you back in the parlour, my dear. Oh, I absolutely love seeing you.

And I'm really sad because I was fully hoping that we'd be able to actually have like a little chat after we finish recording. But my stomach is fully like, get yourself to a toilet, you dumb bitch.

so I'm gonna have to scarper almost immediately as we finish but listeners hey have a lovely rest of this month and part of next month and don't forget to check out episode 62 on a side of And Why Not which I guested on talking about one of my favourite films ever The Running Man featuring Greasy Arnold Schwarzenegger so have a listen to that after you've listened to this and stay safe and uh adorable and i love you and bye uh just sorry one quick thing there we go okay i love you bye

It would have been great if I could have timed a fart then, but I am scared I will shit myself if I do. Yeah, don't do that. No, please, please. I'm not going to try. Thank you for listening to Stacey's Pop Culture Parlour. To get in touch with me, the titular Stace, you can follow me on Twitter at Staces Parlour, send an email to stacesparlour at gmail.com or come and join the Staces Pop Culture Parlour Facebook group.

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The music that you're hearing right now is by the amazing band Starbomb and you should really check them out on Spotify, iTunes or on their website. Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you next month.