Welcome back Guy / Weird News / Why it's Rubbish / 2016 Film & Video Games Look back

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to the Geeky Roomy Podcast. Joining us today, Mr. Lee Price. [00:00:03] Speaker B: Hello. [00:00:04] Speaker A: Mr. Sam Edwards. [00:00:05] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:05] Speaker A: Mr. Keith Bloomfield. [00:00:06] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:07] Speaker A: And the return of Mr. Guy Halford. [00:00:10] Speaker C: Hello. [00:00:11] Speaker A: Welcome back. [00:00:12] Speaker D: Thanks. [00:00:13] Speaker A: How we all been since we last recorded? Have we had Easter? Did everybody eat far too much Easter chocolate? [00:00:18] Speaker E: No, I didn't eat enough, to be honest. [00:00:21] Speaker A: There is supermarkets full of Easter chocolate still on discount. So it's perfect timing if you. [00:00:26] Speaker E: Once this recording's over, I just straight back. [00:00:29] Speaker D: But yes. [00:00:30] Speaker A: So since we've been off air, we've been around the moon as a humanity, as a species. [00:00:36] Speaker B: We've been around the moon. [00:00:37] Speaker A: We've been around the moon. [00:00:40] Speaker C: Humanity is a species, so we can claim some credit for that as well. [00:00:44] Speaker A: But yeah, been around the moon. Other things have happened. But coming up today we'll be catching up with Guy and seeing what he's been up to since he left the show. We'll be talking about why it's rubbish. An old classic feature. I have some weird news as well, bringing back a feature from the past. And we've got two of our 2016 look backs looking at some of the film and games that came out back when the podcast started in 2016. But we'll see you after this. So, Guy, welcome back. It's been a while. [00:01:46] Speaker D: Thanks. [00:01:48] Speaker A: What's been occurring? What you been up to since we last saw you? [00:01:52] Speaker D: Bugger all. [00:01:54] Speaker A: Well, you have been DJing. [00:01:55] Speaker D: Yeah, I do a bit of DJing occasionally. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. [00:02:00] Speaker A: You've had a child? [00:02:02] Speaker D: I am now married with. Married with a child, yeah. That's now my life. Yeah. A parent. Yeah. Very much preoccupied by that. [00:02:10] Speaker A: Yes. So with the DJing. So you've swapped away from vinyl, which used to be known as vinyl Guy H. Yeah. Back in the day. So how do you DJ nowadays? [00:02:19] Speaker D: MP3. I'm just one of those crap MP3 DJs. That you? Yeah, just. You see a wedding. No, I just. I don't really do it majorly anymore. Just do it for a bit of fun. But yeah, I stopped collecting vinyl because, Christ, it's expensive. Like you've been to HMV recently and see how much it is for a bloody Harry Styles record. 33 quid jug on. So I went back to collecting compact discs and reconverted my whole collection to combat discs because, well, A, they're smaller. Yes. They're easy to store and yeah, it's just you. I think you forget how easy it is to play those things. I don't know, it's just cheaper at the end of the day. Some little record collection. I'll give it to the sun at some point down the line. [00:03:05] Speaker A: So have you come across any disk rot yet nowadays? Because I know CDs are starting to fail. [00:03:11] Speaker D: I don't think that's a thing. I think that's just a. I think that's a panicky thing. I've got a couple where they look a bit odd, but they play alright plus as well, they're so cheap you just go and buy it again. [00:03:21] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:03:21] Speaker D: So no, I don't, I haven't encountered it, but I don't know. Is that a thing? Like, I don't know. [00:03:27] Speaker A: I think early DVDs and Blu Rays, people are starting to complain about quality. [00:03:31] Speaker D: Really? There's always people complaining about quality though. That's the sort of thing he would complain about. Like, I need the high definition. [00:03:39] Speaker B: I mean, like I have a collection of PS1 games and they're still intact. So DVDs failing is absurd from my perspective. Unless somehow DVDs were just made worse than PS1 discs, which I doubt. [00:03:52] Speaker A: Capitalism. So I don't know, man, they look [00:03:54] Speaker D: really cheap these days. I bought one battle after another on DVD and it's just like really cheap. Like looking like it's just shoved in the case and looks like the cover's been printed off. [00:04:03] Speaker B: It's like going back to the old [00:04:04] Speaker A: guy down the pub kind of quality. [00:04:06] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. I've got some pirate DVDs. Yeah. Honestly, you probably bought the worst person back. Because my life is not interesting whatsoever. Like I literally do nothing. I sit around, I watch tv, I feed my son and then I go to work. That is my life. I'm not, I'm not a glamorous jet setter. Like for Lelis now. I'm just literally like just a regular citizen of society. But yeah, that is, that is what I'm up to these days. [00:04:34] Speaker A: So talking of tv, any particular highlights over the last few years, what would you say would be your standout TV series? Christ Succession? [00:04:43] Speaker D: Well, yeah, it was an absolute masterpiece. Like. Yeah, I mean that's one of the best shows of all time. It's sad that it's gone, but it ended at the right time. I don't know. We're living in an era where like there's too much tv, like and a lot of it's like pretty crap these days. Like it's just like there's just too much to watch, isn't there? Like, it's just not really. You've got to watch this. You've got to watch that. And it's just like, well, is it worth it? Like, I don't know. I just like whatever's on hbo, really. HBO Mondays. That's the way I roll. But, yeah, succession, I think, is probably the best thing the most recent years. [00:05:19] Speaker C: It's just. [00:05:20] Speaker D: God, I'm so boring these days, aren't I? I'm just old, getting old. [00:05:24] Speaker A: I mean, you always send me new music, so. Any new musical artists that you think worth you? [00:05:30] Speaker D: Yeah, I mean, I went through a period, I think. Like, for me, like, music died when Bowie died. So, like, I stopped listening to new stuff when Bowie died and just completely retreated into older stuff. But I started listening to a lot more newer stuff as of late, in the past couple of years. And there are some really decent bands out there again now. Like, some actually bands who are really making their mark. And, like, the Last Dinner Party. They're good. Bit of a Roxy Music vibe to them. Wet Leg are brilliant. It took me a while to get into them, but I think when we went to go and see Paul, that was kind of the conversion moment for me. Wolf, Alice, Dry Cleaning. Very, very good. Yeah, there's just some mod bands breaking through now who are actually really decent. And then there's some bands just lagging around, like Kasavian, who are just. They just need to. Need to stop, really. Now. [00:06:21] Speaker A: That SNL UK performance was not a glittering highlight of Kasabian's career, to be fair. [00:06:26] Speaker D: It wasn't great. Like, yeah, they probably should stop now. Like, I get it. Bless them for trying to carry on in the face of, like, a bad situation, but you just end it. The music's not great, but, no, there's a lot of good stuff going around at the moment. Like, Geordie Greep's pretty decent. God, I'm looking at Old Time Alarm. You heard this band. They're pretty decent. I don't know. Enemy doesn't exist anymore. So that's where I used to get all my stuff from, was Enemy like, you know, all the highlights and things like that. Are you, Keith, anything you're liking? [00:07:04] Speaker E: Mostly stuff other people don't, I find. [00:07:08] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:07:08] Speaker E: I mean, there's. It's always good to be, you know, interested in new things because, like you said, otherwise you just become an old. And it's like. It's not good. So it's good to have, like. But I work with young people, so they're always interested, introducing me to new things and I can point them in the direction of other stuff that's maybe a Little bit older. They should also be interested. [00:07:29] Speaker D: So you're like, oh. They're like, oh, I really like, I don't know, Wet Leg. And you're like, oh, if you like that, go and listen to King Crimson. Yeah, cool. Fontaine's dc. There you go. They're a very, very good band in them live a couple of times. Very, very, very, very good. [00:07:46] Speaker A: So you become six music dad then, Probably. [00:07:49] Speaker D: Yeah, I'd say so. Like, also, I find myself, like, adjusting to, like, older. Like, you know when. Like when you're younger and then like, older bands come back and just. I'm not interested. But, like, I've just gone out and bought a Pixies and one of the newer Pixies albums. So it's like, for me now, like, listening to, like, an older band trying to do new stuff is kind of like. I'm like, oh, no, they're still pretty decent. Like, I don't think where before I'd be like, oh, God, they're still going or they're trying to do something. Like, I did the concept of a new Rolling Stones album yesterday. It's kind of like younger me would have been like, they're still making music, but now it's kind of like, oh, everyone sends a coming back. Sweet. Like, so I feel like. I don't know, I feel like I have changed. I think, like, Lord, my partner would agree that, like, it all goes downhill when you basically own all the Money Street Preachers albums. Like, you're kind of like dad rock at that point, really, aren't you? Like, you're like radio too, kind of. You ain't changing. You're comfortable in this sort of lifestyle now. So that's like, the edgiest you're going to get is Manic Street Preachers Records. [00:08:47] Speaker A: Are you introducing your son slowly to music? I know he's too small at the moment to actually have his own musical tech. [00:08:55] Speaker D: Yes, of course I am. Yeah. 100%. That is on the cards for him. [00:08:59] Speaker A: So have your band Coldplay in the house, for example. [00:09:02] Speaker D: First of all, Coldplay album's okay. Anything after that? No, we're not going that far. Not when they started doing a Glow Up, Light up, like, whatever crap at their gigs. But, yeah, there will be introductions to certain types of music. He's weird, though. He really likes Tom Waits. Like, he loves Tom Waits. Like, it's so odd. Like, Laura's watching the Wire during maternity leave and, like, the fiend tune of his Way down the Hole. And every time he hears that song, he stops crying. Stops having a stress, stops having a fit. So he's like, literally anytime he's having a fit. Put Tom Waits on Sorted, which I'm happy about. Cause I love Tom Waits. But it's so odd. So odd that like a baby would [00:09:38] Speaker A: like, I don't know, gravelly voice. [00:09:42] Speaker D: Voice like. Yeah, it's like, it's odd. It's cute. But yeah, it's odd, but must have his dad's good music taste. I say, well, this is like, been good for your 10 minute segment. Like my boring life these days. Yeah, I'm not that interesting these days. [00:09:59] Speaker A: Are you looking to get back into more DJing? Possibly or probably not. No. [00:10:04] Speaker D: I did someone's wedding and it was a bit of a disaster. But no, I'm not really gonna. No, I don't think that's for a lot of effort. A lot of effort. Like, I just, I just don't like doing much these days. Like my ideal day is just to get up and try to just sit around. [00:10:24] Speaker A: Bit of PlayStation maybe. [00:10:25] Speaker D: Yeah, a bit of PlayStation and then maybe a nap in the afternoon, like, and then just watch a film on TV later on, have a pizza, job done. That's, that's a, that's a kind of satisfied day for me these days. I don't need, I don't need to be rich and famous. I just, yeah, just need to have a bit of easiness. [00:10:43] Speaker A: So what's on the PlayStation of choice at the moment? [00:10:45] Speaker D: Assassin's Creed Syndicate. Because I literally haven't had a chance to play a game in months with newborn child. But yeah, it's all right. Never played one before. Kind of like it. Yeah, it's okay. [00:10:59] Speaker C: Yep. [00:11:00] Speaker A: So if anybody wants to find your musical recommendations on social media. Do you still post anywhere? [00:11:04] Speaker D: Not really, no. No, I don't use Twitter anymore because it's a cesspool. I don't go on Instagram anymore because it's rubbish and I can't be bothered with Facebook. So if you want my musical recommendations, go and find stuff. Go and listen to things like go to a cheap record shop and buy a bundle of CDs and just dig in and see what you like. Yeah, that's my reasonable recommendation. [00:11:31] Speaker A: Cool. I think there's always an opportunity to go and find something new, something you don't like that you've never tried before. [00:11:37] Speaker D: Exactly. You're gonna try and link all to my social medias now and they've just not been used in like absolute ages. I think I've got a picture from Cundy as my Twitter picture or something like that, and the picture of, like, a desk as my Facebook picture. So, yeah, yeah, don't follow me on social media. I'm of no interest to anybody. [00:11:53] Speaker A: Well, thanks for coming back. That's all right. As part of our ongoing series of looking back a decade into what films, tv, video games, comics came out in the glorious year of 2016, before the world went to its current state, Sam has picked a new batch of movies. I think sci fi fantasy is the rough theme on these ones, but yep. So you picked three films for us to digest and look back and see if they were actually good or not. [00:12:26] Speaker C: I have indeed. [00:12:27] Speaker D: So, Homer, meme of Nerd to come up then, when you said sci fi fantasies. [00:12:35] Speaker C: So first up, we've got Arrival. So when spaceships appear all over the Earth, linguist Louise Banks, played by Amy Adams, is enlisted to find a way to communicate with the aliens and find out what they want before anyone resorts to a more violent response. So this was directed by Denis Villeneuve. So he'd had some success previously with Sicario in particular, which came out the year before, But Arrival was what really kind of put him on the map as a sci fi director and someone who could handle not just kind of generic sci fi, but very mature, intelligent and original sci fi, which kind of paved the way for him being given the reins to Dune. [00:13:19] Speaker D: Would you say it was his arrival on the scene? [00:13:21] Speaker C: Yeah, why not? So obviously the Dune films have been incredibly successful. Third one is too out later this year. Arrival was nominated for eight Oscars, including Best Film and Best Director, and it won one of them for sound editing. So, yeah, what do we think of Arrival? [00:13:44] Speaker D: Probably not that good if it won for sound editing. [00:13:48] Speaker A: It was a very interesting concept at the time because I think everybody was slap bang in the middle of the big Marvel craze and everybody was used to just having aliens on screen and things like that. Whereas this was very much more reticent in showing the big alien to the end. It gave a lot more suspense. It was just. You saw the things appear on the screen and was the whole gravity weirdness and the effects there. And it was more of a humanistic story with a sci fi element rather than standard sci fi. [00:14:18] Speaker C: It did show the aliens relatively early on, but, yeah, it was very much focused on the characters rather than the. The action of it or anything. One of the reasons I quite like it is it's a bit like, I'd say like the Martian or hidden figures in that it sort of puts the science of it front and center and makes that the dramatic element. It actually sort of makes linguistics exciting and cinematic, which is quite a difficult thing to do. [00:14:54] Speaker D: I think I'll point out to viewers here that I've been friends with Sam for over 10 years now. Sam basically says, I really like it about most films. So just FYI a lot of films. So you have to trust his judgment. Sometimes when he tells you Zootopia 2 is really good, you gotta question whether it's Sam or whether it's actually good or not. [00:15:13] Speaker C: Sorry, Sam. I feel like this one is more justified than usual, though. [00:15:21] Speaker E: Do you want my opinions? Okay. At the time, I really liked it. I thought it was good. It's much better than Interstellar. So if you're going to pick one of those, pick Interstellar. But also now it's like, come on, Ryan Reynolds did it with three laptops duct taped together and that's it. So how did it take him so long to work out this alien language? [00:15:38] Speaker B: Ryan Reynolds? [00:15:39] Speaker E: No, Ryan Gosling. Sorry, Ryan. Don't take me off your Christmas card list, please. It was an honest mistake there for [00:15:46] Speaker B: ages, thinking, what Ryan Reynolds film are you talking about? And realize you're talking about Project Hail Mary, which is a different Ryan. [00:15:52] Speaker E: Oh, man. [00:15:52] Speaker A: Sorry, Ryan. It's interesting to compare it to Project Hail Mary as kind of a. As a more modern interpretation of that kind of same First Contact, Alien Racing. [00:16:03] Speaker C: Yeah, they're definitely of the same DNA, I think. [00:16:06] Speaker E: Yeah, I think it's nice to have something that's a little bit more kind of hard. Sci fi kind of. So it was very much in the. In the vein of kind of like late 60s, early 70s, Close Encounters kind of sci fi, rather than the kind of Star Wars. [00:16:20] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:16:21] Speaker E: And aliens trying to invade and everything blowing up and stuff. So it's quite nice that that was, you know, the theme of the story and the relationship part of it as well, and the kind of thing that was going on there. Which is why I kind of said there's a lot of similarities thematically with Interstellar, but I think Arrival does it much more impactfully. [00:16:42] Speaker D: Do you think that new Spielberg nonsense or be like, on par with it without, like, Blunt doing the clicking or whatever? [00:16:49] Speaker E: The Disclosure day. I don't know. I don't really know enough about it to kind of. [00:16:52] Speaker D: It looks a bit nonsense. [00:16:53] Speaker E: Think what? You know, I think the problem with that is everybody's banging on about how it's kind of like a spiritual sequel to Close Encounters or ET And I kind of think, well, I think that's good. Doing it a disservice because if it isn't, then you can't really compare the two. [00:17:08] Speaker B: Yeah. I think people are just saying it because it's Spielberg and sci fi. [00:17:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:17:13] Speaker D: Seeming it'll be more big budget than Arrival, which looks a bit kind of artify, which to be fair, I like that guy's film. Yeah. But it probably looks a bit artifact. [00:17:22] Speaker E: I think Spielberg's will be more playful. But again, I think Villeneuve needs to up his game a little bit because I've kind of found the dudes to [00:17:31] Speaker A: be a little bit for you. [00:17:33] Speaker E: Well, they've become a little bit kind of like, yeah, we know what we're getting and it's not really, well, that exciting. And the trailer for the latest one [00:17:41] Speaker A: is kind of like, I'm interested for Dune Messiah because it is the start of Frank Herbert's dalliance with losing touch with reality a little bit. So the book does swerve into some interesting territory rather than the Dune original book being a bit more your standard kind of sci fi novel. So I think Dune Messiah is going to be a bit of a litmus point, I think. [00:18:03] Speaker E: Yeah. I think the other thing with Arrival is as well, that is because I. There's Contact from probably what, 20 years before with Jodie Foster, which again is thematically similar. And I think that's. Can't remember the director of that I think is somebody. It's a Chris Columbus or somebody like that. But again, I kind of. I'd watch Contact more than I'd watch Arrival. I can watch Arrival again, but kind of like there's not enough in it to kind of warrant multiple RE watches. I'm not like a super fan of it. [00:18:36] Speaker A: It's fine. [00:18:38] Speaker E: I think that's the problem. [00:18:40] Speaker A: It's just fine. [00:18:41] Speaker D: Wasn't there one with John Travolta in as well Phenomenon or something like that? [00:18:45] Speaker A: That was the Tyran jumping. [00:18:46] Speaker E: That's Battlefield Earth guy. [00:18:50] Speaker B: Forest Whitaker was in both of these [00:18:51] Speaker A: films, to be fair. So there is crossover there. Yeah. Lee, do you have any strong opinion? [00:18:59] Speaker B: I've never seen it. So it's one of those films where I hear a lot about it and I'm just like, I should probably watch that at some point and just never get around to it. [00:19:06] Speaker E: So I think you should watch it over Interstellar if you give it the opportunity. [00:19:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I don't really know a lot about interstellar and so therefore it's not really on my radar. But Arrival is one I keep hearing about and I'm like, oh, yeah, I Should probably watch that. [00:19:18] Speaker D: Did you arrive at that decision whilst you were listening to Sapnor? Cool. [00:19:24] Speaker A: Shall we move on to the next film? [00:19:26] Speaker C: So next up, we've got Fantastic Beasts and where to Find Them. So this was based on a novelty wizarding textbook that was released for Comic Relief. [00:19:37] Speaker D: Is it all brilliant? [00:19:40] Speaker C: So it's the first in a series of spin offs from the Harry Potter films, set around 70 years before the main series. So the plot follows Newt Scamander, played by Eddie Redmayne, a British wizard who arrives in New York and accidentally releases several magical creatures that he'd been keeping in a pocket dimension in his suitcase. Yeah, it's pain. With help from Katherine Waterston's Tina Goldstein, Dan Fogler's Jacob Kowalski, and Alison Sudol's Queenie, he spends the film recapturing his fantastic beasts. And meanwhile, in the background, the dark wizard Grindelwald is on the loose and destructive magical entity is attacking the city. City. So this was nominated for two Oscars, believe it or not, and won one of them for costume design. [00:20:23] Speaker D: Again, what's the point of that award? [00:20:26] Speaker C: It also spawned two sequels, so the Crimes of Grindelwald and the Secrets of Dumbledore. There were plans for a fourth and a fifth film, but they seem to have been shelved for now with the focus shifting towards the TV show. [00:20:39] Speaker B: Well, Jason Ryan's very busy online these days. [00:20:42] Speaker C: Yeah, there is that as well. [00:20:43] Speaker B: Yes, she's got other things to do, like, you know, ruin trans people's lives. Yeah. And there you have my entire opinion on Fantastic Beasts. No one should give J.K. rowling money. That is the end of my opinion. [00:20:56] Speaker C: It did have the Johnny Depp controversy as well. [00:21:01] Speaker A: And Ezra Miller is also. Didn't really swerve those balls very well, did it? [00:21:07] Speaker C: It had some pretty bad luck in [00:21:10] Speaker A: that respect, but as a series, I don't think it needed to exist. No, there is no. There is no source material apart from, as you said, a pamphlet which was written for Comic Relief. [00:21:20] Speaker C: Yeah, they kind of. With the Grindelwald storyline, they kind of merged it into some of the backstory that was kind of referenced in the Harry Potter films. But it was very much kind of take even more so than things like the Rings of Power series for Lord of the Rings did, is so taking little bits of references from the book and trying to convert those into more of a plot. But yeah, I think the first one was. Was fun. It did the job it needed to. [00:21:51] Speaker A: What was the job? Apart from give Warner Brothers more money for Harry Potter? That was the entire Concept of these three films. [00:21:57] Speaker D: I'm glad Warner Brothers have finally kicked themselves up the butt and realized, actually, let's put out some decent films like last year, like Weapons, Sinners. Not put out this trash every year. I'm glad they've kind of. Which had a change because, yeah, it's [00:22:12] Speaker A: the franchising thing of everything. You can't just have a film now. It's got to have so much spin off media attached to it if it's any kind of notable franchise. And this was kind of. I feel like, though, this was one of those turning points where everything had to have extra content. [00:22:27] Speaker D: Look, do you know what I mean? If they weren't like, oh, we're just gonna make one film based on a pamphlet or whatever. Yeah, fine, whatever. Hands down, we'll say that second film is the worst film I've seen in my entire life. I felt so miserable in the cinema watching that film. Like, literally. I hated myself for going to see it. I hate everybody who made it. I hate myself again to see it. I hate the people at the cinema who gave me the ticket to go see it. I hate the people who are sat near me. I hate anybody who had involvement with my unpleasant viewing of that film. Because honestly, I've never seen such a piece of trash. Unnecessary. Two hours and half of my life. I'll never get back. I'll never get that time back. And I could have done so much good stuff in that time. Like, I could have changed someone's life. You know, I could have helped a homeless person on the street get their life back on track. I could have gone and fed soup at the kitchen. No, I went to go and see the Crimes of Grindelwald. I'm ashamed of myself. I'm sorry, public, for the fact I did that. [00:23:21] Speaker A: Well, it just gives you with the box office Receipt. So the three films, 575 million, £1.8 billion in return. But most of that was made on the first film. On the last film made double its budget back. I think it was like 200 and got 400 million back. [00:23:38] Speaker D: So is the last film like, what [00:23:40] Speaker A: is there the secrets? Was it the Secret of Dumbledore? [00:23:43] Speaker C: Yeah, Secrets of Dumbledore. [00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, nobody needs to know about Dumbledore's secrets to be fair. [00:23:49] Speaker D: Right. [00:23:52] Speaker C: I did think the third one was better than the second one. But yeah, there was definitely a marked drop in quality. [00:23:58] Speaker D: Again, if he says he really likes it, don't always trust it. [00:24:02] Speaker C: I'm not saying I really liked it. I'm saying it was better than the worst film you've ever seen. [00:24:10] Speaker D: What's your opinion of this new HBO Pound Shop remake that's come in? [00:24:14] Speaker C: Like, I will keep an open mind until I've seen it. [00:24:18] Speaker B: Give J.K. rowling any money. [00:24:20] Speaker C: Well, that as well, but I think I. I think there's bits from the book that obviously they didn't. They weren't able to get into the film that they will be able to do with the longer screen time with the TV show. [00:24:35] Speaker D: We need them. Do we need those bits? [00:24:37] Speaker C: But do we need any films? [00:24:39] Speaker D: That's true. Are they going to add to any value of those original films that, like, I get, you know, I'm not. I don't watch them now, but they still stand up. When you see one on itv, they still look pretty, like, decent, you know, as a series of films, do we need more information about, like, Ron messing around in a dormitory, you know, and then like his twins just. Just being general, like idiots and just annoying the staff? Like, is there any point? I don't care, like, yeah, I think [00:25:06] Speaker A: the films were, as. The last time watch them is a long while ago, but from what I remember, they are solid films. The plot was coherently struck together. They took out the bits that they needed to. It doesn't feel like anything's missing from it. It's a nice cohere story across what, seven films? Why bother remaking it? Unless it's more money. [00:25:26] Speaker B: J.K. rowling wants more money to hurt more trans people. That's what it is. [00:25:29] Speaker D: And there's like a load of backlash about all the cast and stuff. Like, it's not even that. It just looks cheap. It just looks. It just looks. It just looks shoddy. [00:25:36] Speaker A: They could have done something interesting with it and they're just not. It's just pretty much retelling the same story. [00:25:43] Speaker C: It's an adaptation of a book. They can't like. If they'd been too interesting with it, then fans of the books will have kicked off. [00:25:52] Speaker A: But they could have done something interesting with the costuming. They could have done something interesting with the design, the style. They didn't have to. Just the films look quite nice. Let's just copy exactly what's in the film. [00:26:01] Speaker C: But again, it's all very clearly described in the books. They look the same because they're adapting the same material Anyway, Sam, that film [00:26:11] Speaker D: was not a good film in 2016. It was a bad film. [00:26:15] Speaker A: Keith, you've not interjected yet on Fantastic. [00:26:17] Speaker E: No, I've kept my powder dry while we've been Talking about this, I mean, at the time in 2016, there was clearly a hunger for more kind of stuff set in the world of Harry Potter. My kids were still quite young. We went, we enjoyed it. It was. It was a cute movie. They liked the creatures. You know, all of that kind of stuff appealed to the audience they were looking to appeal to. They tried to kind of age it up. Although Jude Law in the following ones, that's a look. So we're going to allow that to go through. And again, it serviced what the fans were clamoring for at the time. You know, they weren't getting. But they didn't know that until they went and saw it. I mean, they made three, so it must have done well enough to do it. And then the thing with the HBO show is that it doesn't matter because that money's already gone to jk. You're already subscribed to watch the Pit or Succession or whatever it is. So what are you gonna do? You know? So it'll be there. You watch it. You don't watch. Yeah, it's a bit of a. It's a bit of a kind of thing that is like saying, like, if I don't watch it, I'm. I'm not giving J.K. rowling money. Well, she's already had it anyway, so. [00:27:26] Speaker B: Well, yeah, but also, like, by watching it, you are kind of encouraging more Harry Potter stuff. [00:27:32] Speaker E: But people. People slow down as they go past car crashes. So regardless of what people's vitriolic stuff is online, I know people are gonna. They are gonna watch because they want [00:27:44] Speaker A: to go, and then they're gonna go [00:27:45] Speaker E: and hate watch it, and they're gonna go and moan about it, and they're gonna go and say loads of things. [00:27:49] Speaker B: You do have the Harry Potter adults who refuse to read any of the books or watch any other films, but it did what. [00:27:57] Speaker E: It did what he did at the time, and I think in hindsight is a. A beautiful thing. And I think at the time people went, they enjoyed it and they watched it. It was a big hit. [00:28:06] Speaker B: It was that glorious time before people realized that her brain was slowly being eaten by black mold. [00:28:12] Speaker E: So, you know, in 2016, it was perfectly serviceable film that people thought, this is cool. It's a period Harry Potter. [00:28:20] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:28:20] Speaker E: Yeah. So it did what. It did what it needed to do at the time. [00:28:24] Speaker C: You mentioned vitriol online there, which I think is quite a nice segue into the final film. [00:28:28] Speaker A: That's why I'm here. [00:28:29] Speaker C: We've got some. So the final Pick is the 2016 Ghostbusters film. So in this remake of the 1984 classic, Erin Gilbert, played by Kristen Wiig, Abby Yates, played by Melissa McCarthy, Gillian Holtzman, played by Kate McKinnon, and Patti Tolan, played by Leslie Jones, form a new band of Ghostbusters just as an army of spirits is invading Manhattan. So this was directed by Paul Faig and also as starred Chris Hemsworth as a sort of airheaded receptionist. But it's remembered less for the film itself and probably more for the polarizing reception it got from. From the public. So as soon as this was announced, so I had written notes in, written fans in my notes, and I think the public is probably a more appropriate word. So as soon as it was announced, there was an online campaign to review, bomb it into oblivion. It was probably down to more of a mixture of people who were part of the devoted fan base of the original films just appalled at the idea of remaking what is a true comedy classic. But there seems to have also been a very misogynistic reaction to the all female cast. It wasn't like, obviously everyone was saying it was because of the remake of the classic, but the other half of the Internet, though, all assumed that any criticism of the film was because of the sexism and basically attacked anyone criticizing it, which all seemed to happen before the film had even come out. Everyone had formed an opinion that it was either the worst thing ever to hit the cinema or some sort of savior of women's rights in film. So by the time it came out, it was already the center of a culture war. But given that 2016 was also the year of Brexit and the year that Donald Trump was first elected, arguably no other film encapsulates the year that it was released better than Hurricane Ghostbusters. [00:30:47] Speaker A: So, yeah. [00:30:47] Speaker C: What do we think of Ghostbusters? [00:30:49] Speaker D: I really like it. I'm a huge Ghostbusters fan and I genuinely love that film. I actually watch it still to this day when I'm rewatching the Ghostbusters films. They got it right, in my opinion. Like, they didn't have to do a new Ghostbusters film. They've tackled the right things. It's got the right themes of Ghostbusters, has the right sense of humor. They put Saturday Night Live people in it, which is what the original has. It's like spun off from Saturday Night Live people being in it. I think they got it right. And I think this, the fact it was, oh, it's women. So what? It's funny. Women. They're good. They're good actors. The film was funny. The film was enjoyable. [00:31:25] Speaker B: That was kind of the thing that baffled me about, like, the response to it because, like, all of the actors in it were known as being very funny actors. You know, coming off the back of [00:31:36] Speaker A: Bridesmaids, which was Paul Faig and 90% of the cast were in. Yeah, Bridesmaid. [00:31:40] Speaker B: And that's what sort of confused me about it, because I was just like. But I know that these three, these four are all funny. And then you've got, like, Chris Hemsworth doing a great job as just the airhead. [00:31:51] Speaker D: He was great. [00:31:52] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. [00:31:54] Speaker D: It's a shame that a lot of not people didn't give it the chance it deserved because I feel like they probably should have got a sequel. And, you know, it didn't need to be connected to the old Ghostbusters films. It just was. [00:32:04] Speaker A: I think that was the problem, though, because they pandered to try and capture the old audience back. And that was the issue with. With where it stood up. Because trying to attach it back to the original franchise just then makes it not stand on its own. [00:32:17] Speaker D: But it had the style of the original Ghostbusters films. It had, like, the vibe of it. And it's kind of. Well, they got that. That means they got it right. Like, I went into watching it thinking, yeah, this feels like a Ghostbusters film. It just hasn't got, like, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd in it. But it's like, okay, fine. [00:32:31] Speaker B: Well, it does. [00:32:34] Speaker A: And I think that's what the problem is with it, because they're trying to tangently re attach it back to the old film where it could just be alternate universe. It's fine. [00:32:43] Speaker C: The counter argument to that, though, is Ghostbusters afterlife put way more effort to connect it to the original ones and didn't have anywhere near as much backlash as the 2016 film. [00:32:52] Speaker A: No, because you've got your original generation of Ghostbusters fans who, as people get older, they tend to lean towards the right, unfortunately. And they are sacrosanct. And we've seen it with Star Trek, we've seen it with Star wars, and, oh, it's not my series. It's not my Doctor who, it's not my Star Trek, it's not my Star Wars. Like, they still exist. Exist. Go and watch that. Nobody is stopping you from watching that. [00:33:11] Speaker C: But I mean, if. If the reason for the backlash against the 2016 film was their attempts to connect it to the original films, then that backlash should have been just as. Or if not more applied to Afterlife, but the fact that it wasn't suggests there probably was more to it than that. [00:33:32] Speaker B: It's a misogyny. I think it does come to. The main thing I'm thinking of is like an old vine that existed around the time it was making fun of this. It was basically a guy going, four female Ghostbusters. They're gonna ruin everything. And then it just, like you hear him sing I'm an adult virgin to the tune of Ghostbusters. And then that's the entire vibe. [00:33:52] Speaker A: I mean, I don't particularly like the movie that much. It's fine. It's not. The humor misses quite a lot for me. I think it was trying to be too much of a comedy movie. Whereas the first film has comedic elements, but it is a sci fi film with comedy elements overlaid, whereas this is a comedy film with sci fi elements overlaid. And I think that's my problem with it because it doesn't fit that way around. It's more. We've written this for the sketches and for the jokes rather than for the actual plot of the film. So that's my particular problem with it. But I don't think it deserved the vitriol, the backlash, the cancellation of the sequel and nothing like that. It was just. It wasn't for me. And that's fine. [00:34:29] Speaker D: I'm gonna be controversial. I really like Afterlife. I think it's great. [00:34:32] Speaker A: Afterlife's good. [00:34:33] Speaker C: Oh, yeah. [00:34:34] Speaker D: I think this is better. Frozen Empire was a real disappointment for me because it felt like they just tried to shoehorn all the old stuff into it and like, yeah, none of this stuff was working. Some of the new characters didn't work for me and stuff like that. Yeah, And I think, like, this Ghostbusters, the 2016 one, it did work. It's just. It's just a modernized version of it. It's like May. You know, okay, maybe they could just connected it by maybe one of them just being like Dan Akroyd's niece or something like that. He's passed the business down to them. Maybe they could have done it like that. Maybe people would have liked it more. But, yeah, look, it's just. It was a fun. It was a fun comedy. It lasted two hours and it was enjoyable. And it's a shame they didn't do more. [00:35:08] Speaker A: Yeah, I think Paul Faig was quite aggressive in interviews in the run up to it, and that probably didn't help the situation either. If I remember at the time, he was very much like, this isn't a film for you guys, if you don't want to watch it, if you're a Ghostbusters fan and you expect in the original Ghostbusters film, bother coming. Yeah. [00:35:26] Speaker D: I kind of get it, though. If you're making something and you're getting insulted before you've even put it out there, you probably do get annoyed and you're just like, I can't be bothered. I can't be bothered to promote this because everybody's just gonna hate it anyway. [00:35:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Especially considering the kinds of hate it was getting. I can see him just saying, like, well, don't go see it is a perfectly valid response because they almost certainly didn't see it. Most of the loudest vocal critics, because again, I see them pop up in video game circles all the time. [00:35:52] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:35:52] Speaker B: And what becomes increasingly obvious the more you listen to them is they don't actually play anything that they. They complain about. So they almost certainly didn't watch this film either. [00:36:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:01] Speaker B: So. [00:36:02] Speaker A: But there was a Ghostbusters video game which came out at the same time. Roughly. Which had the original voice. Well, most of the original cast back. [00:36:09] Speaker B: It came out 2009, so it was a good few years before. [00:36:12] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:36:13] Speaker B: But that was a pretty good game. It was basically Ghostbusters 3. [00:36:16] Speaker A: 3. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that didn't help the situation as well. There's already been a kind of Ghostbusters 3 as a video. [00:36:22] Speaker B: The thing is, they were able to make the Ghostbusters look young and have it set in the 80s in a video game where they couldn't do that in a movie. [00:36:32] Speaker D: I still remember as well Ghostbusters 2. Isn't that great? It's okay. Like, Ghostbusters 1 is brilliant. Ghostbusters 2 is. You watch it because you're in a Ghostbusters mood because you watch the. The first one, but then you want to come out the end of it. You're kind of like, yeah, it's all right. [00:36:47] Speaker A: You're slandering Vgo the Carpathian. [00:36:50] Speaker D: It's just not as good. I say 2016's Ghostbusters is better than Ghostbusters 2. Personally, like, I love Ghostbusters, but Ghostbusters 2 just feels like, was that needed at the time? Did we need that? [00:37:02] Speaker A: That felt very much like this is production studio forcing them to go back and do another film. [00:37:09] Speaker D: Exactly. So, like, you know, you could just left the first one as a classic, but now there's a sequel which is just kind of subpar. Keith, do you agree, [00:37:18] Speaker E: in general, I like this 2016 Ghostbusters. I think it's fun. Kirsten Wiig is Fox. Kate McKinnon is crazy. Melissa McCarthy is phenomenal. I think as a core group of actors, I think they're better than Ackroyd and the rest of them in terms of the performance. The comedic performance that came out. I like what they do with the proton streams going beyond the screen and everything. So there's a lot of cool stuff, I think in general creation of new weapons, the different program packs. There was a lot of interesting stuff going on. It didn't follow the same story beats as the original film. There are elements of it. You know, the haunted house meeting goes for the first time, nobody believing you, all that kind of stuff. [00:38:01] Speaker A: That's fair. [00:38:02] Speaker E: But I mean, I think we all kid ourselves that the first Ghostbusters is a. [00:38:06] Speaker C: Is elevated. [00:38:09] Speaker E: It's a. It's a fun movie. A cool concept we're riding on the, on the Dan Aykroyd's and the Bill Murray's in that film. They're driving. That movie Gremlins, which came out at the same time in the uk is far superior in my opinion in terms of what was the better of the. Of those movies at the time. Ghostbusters 2, that's okay. It's got Bobby Brown on the soundtrack, which is no Ray Parker Jr. [00:38:32] Speaker D: But. [00:38:32] Speaker E: And I think Afterlife panders much more to kind of the. The history of it and perfectly serviceable. You know, I don't think either of those two are classics in any way, shape or form. They're fun movies. I like the Ghostbusters concept. You know, it's a cool kind of thing. But I did, I really enjoyed this 2016. I think there's a. There was a lot of energy. It had a lot of verve and a lot of kind of, you know, it carries you through the movie. The, you know, the performances are great. You know, there's a lot of energy going into it. And I think it's in some ways superior to the original Ghostbusters. But there's this. It carries too much weight and too much expectation of that. People have heard about it and kind of do all the rest of it. And then they kind of tried to change the name so they had it as Ghostbusters, Answer the Call and all of that kind of stuff. And then they had a Fallout Boy music video and all the rest of it. But I enjoy it. I'll watch it again, you know, when it's on TV. I've got. I own the DVDs, Blu Rays of it. There's a lot of cool stuff in it and I really enjoy it. [00:39:38] Speaker A: I just. If my only criticism is it, you shouldn't have tried to reboot the original film. You should have tried to do something different, having like Stay Puft Marshmallow man back in it and things like that. We've already had these beats in the movie. You don't need to add those. Could have been something completely different and I think it would have been a better film for it, rather than tried to pander back to the original movie as much as it was. [00:39:58] Speaker D: I guess that was just a reference, though. He's only a balloon in it. [00:40:02] Speaker E: But it's like, you know, everybody's short of ideas in all things at the moment. You know, everything's. Everything's a remake or a reboot or whatever it is. I mean, they're bringing back Highlander. Oh my. What are you even thinking? And it's just because Henry Cavill wants to do it. [00:40:17] Speaker A: If we're talking about terrible sequels. Highlander 2. [00:40:19] Speaker E: Yeah, let's not go there. I have opinions, so we'll save that for another episode. But you know, we've had 10 flipping fast and Furious movies. [00:40:29] Speaker A: Well, they're in space now, Keith. [00:40:31] Speaker E: That's just driving cars around. How interesting is that? [00:40:33] Speaker A: The next one is going to be Fast and furious, Artemis 2 and then just going to go around the moon. Yeah. [00:40:38] Speaker E: We have more Sharknado movies than we've had Ghostbusters films. So come on, you know, come up [00:40:43] Speaker A: with something original, please. Yeah, Longer term listeners to this show and watch the show might remember a feature we used to have quite some time back, which was weird news where I would take some of the more interesting news stories that you don't get reported about in the. In the wider press and yeah, try and work out why these are a thing. So picked up a bunch of articles from the last year or so. [00:41:14] Speaker D: Can I obtain what my favourite was from the old. My very all time favourite was the one where you told us about the man that got buried sadly passed away under a mountain of archived porn. [00:41:26] Speaker A: There was that one. [00:41:27] Speaker D: That was. That was amazing. Like, that was unbelievable. [00:41:31] Speaker A: Yep. But yes. So I picked five new stories from the last 12 months and can pick a couple to discuss about. So I'll give you the headlines and then we can choose which ones we want to talk about. So the first headline from Yorkshire Life, lollipop Man banned from giving children high fives because it upsets. Upsets the drivers. We have from needtoknow.co.uk, britain's most tattooed man claims he is now unable to verify himself to watch adult material as the New age check system mistakes his ink for a mask. Kid Coody said P. Diddy broke into his home and unwrapped his family's Christmas presents. [00:42:13] Speaker D: Okay. [00:42:15] Speaker A: And man in China fired for taking frequent long toilet breaks with one lasting four hours. And the last one I have is AWS server crash causes $2,000 smart beds to overheat and get stuff upright. So there's any, any particular ones that we want to pick from that list? [00:42:34] Speaker E: P did his Christmas present raid. I think it's got to be in there. [00:42:38] Speaker D: Yes, I quite like the idea of the tattooed man not being able to access adult material. That's pretty good. [00:42:46] Speaker A: Cool. And one more. [00:42:48] Speaker C: Sam, Smart beds. I'm just intrigued by the concept of smart beds to begin with. [00:42:54] Speaker A: Okay, so which one do we want? Should we start off with the Kid Coody one first? [00:42:58] Speaker E: No, I save that one till last. [00:42:59] Speaker A: Okay. [00:43:00] Speaker E: Yeah, do the smart beds first. [00:43:02] Speaker A: Smart beds first. So here we go. I thought we'd all go for the Chinaman on the toilet. [00:43:08] Speaker E: Guys here we know that we work [00:43:11] Speaker D: with someone who spends like far too [00:43:12] Speaker A: long the toilet four hours though. Right? So AWS crash causes $2,000 smart beds to overheat and get stuck upright. This by Callum Patterson writing in Dexerto.com [00:43:23] Speaker B: so published back in Nice, nice reliable source. [00:43:25] Speaker A: Yes, back in October 21, a major Amazon Web Service outage on the October 20 has the unexpected side effect of causing chaos in bedrooms across the U.S. as owners of Eight Sleeps $2,000 pod mattresses found their smart beds had no offline mode and were stuck at high temperatures and in odd positions in the night. The outage began around 3:00am Eastern Time when AWS reported increased error rates and latencies in the U.S. east 1 server by mid morning down detector had logged more than 8 million reports of disruptions. Eight Sleep's beds rely on cloud connectivity to control temperature and track biometric data. When the Amazon web services went down, users lost access to the app that manages its water cooled coils, leaving them stuck with whenever a setting was last accessed. Some beds overheated so they stopped cooling altogether and several users said their devices become completely unresponsive. One viral post from tech enthusiast Alex Brown summed up the surgery as this pod locked himself at nine degrees above room temperature. Back end outage means I'm sleeping in a sauna, he wrote. Eight sleep confirmed. There's no offline mode yet, but they're working on it. Another user complained their bed was Stuck in an inclined position. Some people described the beds being bricked and demanded a fail back option that works without an Internet connection. The company has previously faced criticism over security flaws, including a 2024 report that found that exposed keys because of allowed remote access to people's beds. AWS said normal operations restored three hours later with most affected services back online. CEO of Eight Sleep Matteo Franchetti said, We will work the whole night plus 247 to enable build an outage mode into the beds so the problem will be fixed extremely quickly. [00:45:08] Speaker D: I've got a couple of observations already with this. Firstly, this sounds like the plot for the second upcoming second season of the Chair company by Tim Robinson, if I'm honest like that. If he hasn't read that article, someone needs to send it to him because like, it's very much in line with season one. Secondly, why do you need an app? It's a bed, just go and lie on it. Why do you need an app? Controlled bed, like what's the point? Just the bed, just lie down. [00:45:33] Speaker A: But it's not just a bed. These eight sleep mattresses are water cooled mattresses. So it's like a bit like a water cooled PC where you have a pump and it circulates water to keep you cool in bed. [00:45:43] Speaker D: Just get a fan. Just get a fan or open a window. [00:45:46] Speaker C: Lighter mattress. Lighter bed sheet. [00:45:49] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. [00:45:50] Speaker E: And if it's just too hot, turn it off. It's like it's got no power. [00:45:54] Speaker A: That's the problem is you can't. [00:45:56] Speaker B: You could unplug it, but you've got [00:45:58] Speaker E: to be able to unplug it. Otherwise how does it work? [00:46:00] Speaker B: I would say the problem here is that like you don't need Internet connectivity to do all that. You really don't. You could just have a control panel on the bed that controls the heat in and the incline. It works for hospital beds. They can do the incline without an [00:46:16] Speaker A: Internet connection, but it's not a smart bed. [00:46:19] Speaker E: Is this just predominantly in America? [00:46:20] Speaker A: This was predominantly in America. [00:46:21] Speaker E: That explains a lot because it is a country full of idiots. [00:46:24] Speaker D: So, you know, were the beds predominantly found in brothels? Because that's the only time I could think of something like use for this. [00:46:30] Speaker A: I think the phrase tech enthusiast sums up their target all the way. Yeah, it's people who need an app for everything in their life. [00:46:37] Speaker C: Okay. I'm slightly disappointed after hearing the headline that it was sort of them being stuck in whatever position they were in previously as opposed to just in the middle of the night. The bed just Slowly tipping them up. [00:46:53] Speaker E: I think it should have been more like the Wallace and Grommet bed and that. That would have been a proper bed. And it throws you out of the bed completely. I mean, that would complain about that. Yeah, I think that's fair. But if it's just kind of like, oh, it's slightly raised. [00:47:07] Speaker A: But the thing that gets me about this is it's not even the bed. It's just the mattress is $2,000 as well. [00:47:12] Speaker D: That's a waste of money. [00:47:13] Speaker B: But this, this has reminded me of like, I think it was like a prototype CGI thing for like a, a bed for people in areas where they have earthquakes. And it's like, it's sort of a bed that's sort of sitting on top of like a little shelter effectively. And if it detects it, if it detects an earthquake, it basically opens up and you drop into the giant metal coffin, essentially that's got like emergency supplies inside it. And like all anyone's reaction to it is just like, this will kill someone if it ever becomes real. [00:47:47] Speaker E: See, that sounds like the kind of thing that if you know somebody who's got one, you're going to take a load of friends round and get them to jump up and down in the [00:47:53] Speaker B: room, truck past there. [00:47:56] Speaker D: Plus as well, like if you use your phone the middle night, you know when you look, I can't sleep. And then you pick your phone up and you're all like, like you're bleary eyed, like, and you end up like clicking the wrong things and ordering something on ebay that you didn't want. So you're gonna end up clicking the wrong options anyway. If you're using an app on a bed in the middle of the night. So silliness. [00:48:12] Speaker A: My favorite thing is the solution to this is not fixing the root cause. I will put an offline phone in offline mode in town. No, no, don't buy the mattress in the first place. Water cooled. Who needs a water cooled mattress? The entire point of a mattress is where you sleep. [00:48:31] Speaker D: Sweaty people. [00:48:33] Speaker A: How sweaty do you need to be to have water cooling in your bed? [00:48:36] Speaker E: But it wasn't the fact that it was water cooled. It was getting too hot as well. This is the kind of thing I don't understand. People who seats in cars. It's like, what are you thinking? You do not need a hot bum in a car. [00:48:48] Speaker D: Just get leather seats. Don't warm you up instantly. [00:48:52] Speaker E: We're furry pants. Furry pants. Well, you know, when the needs must. [00:49:03] Speaker D: Why? Yeah, there's a Lot of questions with that. But did they get any kind of compensation for it? [00:49:08] Speaker A: I'm assuming not. There is no follow up to this whole thing, unfortunately, that I could find. I'm assuming they might have an offline mode by now. Possibly. Okay, so you can sleep in comfort knowing that your bed is not going to be affected by a server outage. [00:49:22] Speaker B: Well, I can do that anywhere. [00:49:25] Speaker A: Most people can. [00:49:26] Speaker D: Wow. [00:49:27] Speaker A: Right, so do you want to do the. The. The most tattooed man in Britain? [00:49:32] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:49:32] Speaker C: Yeah. [00:49:33] Speaker A: So this is by Amy Walters. August 21, 2025. Britain's most tattooed man has claimed he's unable to pass the newly rolled out age checks for adult sites as his facial ink is mistaken for a mask. This is his official name. He has changed it by DePaul King of England. King Body Art at the extreme in kite, this is full name has written to his local MP to air his grievances. [00:49:58] Speaker D: Fantastic. [00:49:59] Speaker A: The 45 year old man from Birmingham, [00:50:01] Speaker D: did he use ink to write to him? [00:50:04] Speaker B: I assume so. Who is his local mp, do we know that? [00:50:08] Speaker A: Well, he's from Birmingham, so that's a [00:50:10] Speaker B: short list because if it's my mp, then he'll send back a generic response about the Online Safety Act. That doesn't answer any of his concerns. [00:50:19] Speaker D: He's from Birmingham. [00:50:20] Speaker A: He's from Birmingham's 45 year old man. [00:50:21] Speaker D: Right. [00:50:22] Speaker A: He has spent over 1600 hours under the needle but his luck is now causing access with it causing an issue with accessing sexy content. [00:50:30] Speaker D: Well, that wasn't worth it then, was it? I hope he doesn't watch the show. [00:50:34] Speaker A: Since Friday 25 July, adult sites in the UK must conduct strict age checks to ensure the user is over the age of 18. [00:50:41] Speaker D: Worst day of Sam's life. [00:50:46] Speaker A: Captain Strays. [00:50:48] Speaker C: I'm not sure what the. The point that's being made there is. Are you saying that I'm under 18? [00:50:56] Speaker A: This includes supplying a credit card or photo ID that matches the selfie for King of England. Which is his first name or is [00:51:04] Speaker B: it all one word? [00:51:04] Speaker A: No, it's all separate words. So he's got four words and his [00:51:07] Speaker B: first name is King. [00:51:08] Speaker A: No, no, his first name is King of England. His surname is King Body Art. The extreme inclined. [00:51:14] Speaker B: I don't care what he says. If it's a space, that's his first name. [00:51:18] Speaker A: The King of England. This particularly tricky as the system believes he is wearing a mask but is actually his tattooed covered face. It keeps asking me to remove my face. The entrepreneur told need to know Entrepreneur. [00:51:31] Speaker E: It's just all stacking up in IT for this guy. [00:51:33] Speaker A: I can't just do a Nicolas Cage or John Travolta like in Face off [00:51:38] Speaker D: because that's a believable, you know, accurate, scientific way that, you know, people can remove a face. [00:51:45] Speaker B: Yes. [00:51:46] Speaker A: All this proves that technology and AI are discriminatory and not set up for people with facial butter. [00:51:51] Speaker B: He does know about VPNs, right? [00:51:53] Speaker E: Yeah, I was just going to say, Lee, if you are King of England and you're watching or you know them, we'll put some links to some free VPNs in the show. Notes sorted. [00:52:01] Speaker A: The King of England who is now considering using a vpn. [00:52:06] Speaker E: Why is he considering it? Why is he just using it? I'm going to not use the thing that gets me past this. Like every 15 year old in the country has already figured out like two seconds. [00:52:16] Speaker B: If I could use a VPN to actually access BlueSky DMs, then I think he can figure out was attempt to [00:52:23] Speaker A: access a live webcam site when the issue arose. At the moment he feels stuck with no clear solution apart from getting a vpn. [00:52:30] Speaker B: Yeah, the VPN is the obvious solution. [00:52:31] Speaker A: Right. [00:52:32] Speaker D: So I got one solution for him, is that in the time it took him to write the letter to the local mp, he could have popped down the local newsagents and bought himself a fun mag to have a go with. They still sell those? Is that still a thing? [00:52:44] Speaker E: I think they must still sell them. [00:52:45] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:52:45] Speaker E: You don't find them in bushes anymore. [00:52:48] Speaker D: That's the thing that kids will never know. Joy of being on a paper round, you're dumping your papers and then there's a porno left. [00:52:56] Speaker E: And I'm sure people like Ben Dover still sell DVDs and stuff, so. I mean, there's ways and means. It's like, you know when you're walking [00:53:03] Speaker D: home from school and with all your friends, oh my God, there's a porno on the floor. [00:53:06] Speaker E: The trash bag full of. Trash bag full of like Razzles and Fiestas. [00:53:10] Speaker D: Remember that? When I moved into the that address and then me and you were trying to have to fish a bag of someone's used porn videos out of barbecue. Do you know what? When I left that house, they were like, the garden was not as you left it. And I sent them the video and I was all like, no, actually it's in better condition because I removed the porn from the garden. [00:53:26] Speaker C: Thank you. [00:53:28] Speaker D: And I sent the video of you running away from it. [00:53:31] Speaker A: I didn't want to touch that, waving it at me. [00:53:34] Speaker E: I Like the way you described it as used. [00:53:36] Speaker A: It's like it was in a black carrier bag. [00:53:39] Speaker D: Yeah, in a barbecue. [00:53:40] Speaker A: In a barbecue. He said, I feel like I'm being punished for being me. No matter how different or alternative you look, there is no place for discrimination, especially from technology. [00:53:50] Speaker D: Well, there's definitely some punishment going on. [00:53:52] Speaker E: You see this fella made the news with his story about this. Why didn't you guys make the news with your trash bag of porn in a barbecue in. [00:53:59] Speaker A: Can I just finish this? As he says he can't access the content he wants to right now. King of England has turned to a few friends in the industry to get his sex to. [00:54:10] Speaker E: He has friends in the industry. [00:54:12] Speaker A: I'm used to having my ID declined sometimes because of my legal name and my tattoos, but constant being asked to remove my mask is frustrating. This is who I am. Why is it trying to change me? End of the article. [00:54:26] Speaker D: So basically he's seeking adult services. Yeah, fair play. [00:54:32] Speaker A: But he already has friends in the industry so I'm sure he can get some content supplied to him in whatever. [00:54:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm sure, I'm sure there's some sort of like, I don't know how it would work for the porn industry but like I'm sure there's some sort of press release thing that it could do. Yeah, maybe release is probably not the best word to use in this context. [00:54:51] Speaker D: Maybe if he changes his search criteria and changed it to prawn instead, then [00:54:55] Speaker C: maybe might find some stuff, anime boobies or something. [00:54:59] Speaker D: Yeah, exactly. [00:55:00] Speaker A: Go for the full 12 year old search. [00:55:02] Speaker D: I feel like he's not putting a lot of effort into to look at the ways and means he can get around this. I think he just wants an easy fix. And do you know why? I think his MPs not going to come back with a solid solution to this. [00:55:11] Speaker A: Just get a vpn. There's your solution. [00:55:13] Speaker D: No, do you know what he's getting? You know he's seeing those things online where people buying those like, like really weirdly realistic masks to do stuff and then they keep like wearing like, I don't know, like Paul McCartney mask or something like that and they're like like pretending to be a person. Why doesn't he just do that? [00:55:28] Speaker E: Well, there is makeup that you can use that will cover tattoos so you could just use makeup and cover it all up. But I'm looking forward to the six episode Netflix version of this story. [00:55:39] Speaker C: I do like the irony that one of the suggestions for getting past a system to prevent people from trying to use a mask to access it is to get a mask. [00:55:49] Speaker D: When did it come into effect? [00:55:51] Speaker A: July last year. [00:55:52] Speaker D: Jesus. He must have blue balls. [00:55:55] Speaker A: Are we ready for our final news story? [00:55:58] Speaker D: Yeah. [00:55:59] Speaker A: So this is from Joe Ie, another well trusted news source. Joe Ie. That's not his name. That's the actual name of the website. [00:56:06] Speaker E: So this is an Irish website? [00:56:08] Speaker A: Yes. [00:56:09] Speaker E: Okay. [00:56:11] Speaker A: Kid Coudie says Diddy broke into his home and wrapped his family's Christmas presents. Published 23rd of May last year by Ava Keedy. The American rapper testified in the Sean Diddy Coombs sex trafficking trial. Esteemed Kid Coudie said that Diddy broke into his home and unwrapped his family Christmas presents. And this was during the second week of testimony. He claimed the break in occurred after Goons was found he was dating his ex, Cassie Ventura. No, I have no idea who any of these people are. [00:56:41] Speaker D: I know who Cassie Ventura. She had a couple of R B hits in the maybe early 90s. Didn't really amount to much. [00:56:49] Speaker B: And I believe she was like a major witness in the trial. [00:56:52] Speaker A: So Kid Cudi, whose real name is Scott Mascudi, reportedly planned to give his family the Christmas present gifts from Chanel which were unwrapped and opened during the alleged 2011 breakin. Additionally, his dog was shut in the bathroom during the incident. Mesc said he learned of the breakin in real time. He spent the night with Ventura at Sunset. Marquee Hotel jurors were told the rapper that Coom's trusted assistant, Crap Capricorn Clark, called to say that she was outside Muscudi's house whilst Coombs was inside. She was alleged to be alleged to have told him that Coombs had forced her physically to drive him there. Mosquito then called, recalled telling Coombs over the phone, mother, why are you in my house? As he rushed to his Hollywood Hills home. Mescurus claims Short Coombs wanted to talk to him. He said, I'm on my way over right now. And he said, I'm over here waiting for you. The jury was told that Coombs sounded calm. Mascudi said, I wanted to confront him. I wanted to fight him. But he feared that Coombs might have not been alone. By the time he returned, Coombs was gone. Gifts that I'd bought from my family had been opened and then my dog was in the bathroom. He had. His dog was very jittery. The judge barred prosecutors from asking Rescue about the long term changes in his dog's behavior, including that it persisted in urinating on the floor. There are some dog lovers potentially on the juror on the jury complained, defense lawyer Brian Steele. When he complained to the judge, U.S. district Judge Aaron Severin agreed it is a serious issue. I will stop any answers that are about the long term consequences to the jog to the dog. [00:58:26] Speaker B: End of story. I think we all agree that's the worst thing that P did. [00:58:30] Speaker A: He did, yeah, definitely. [00:58:33] Speaker D: So he just went and unwrapped his Christmas present. [00:58:35] Speaker A: So he broke into his house, unwrapped his Christmas presents and locked his dog in the bathroom. [00:58:39] Speaker D: So did this happen on Christmas Eve? [00:58:41] Speaker A: I'm assuming it must be around Christmas Eve, yeah. [00:58:44] Speaker D: So he's the Grinch. We've established that. But do you know what, though? Like those ones, if they're like gifts from, was it Chanel, that they already come like gift wrapped anyway. Like you buy them and they're looking like a wrapped box anyway, so. Plus that's why you're still getting a gift, aren't you, at the end of the day? [00:59:01] Speaker A: Why would you just start opening presents while you're waiting to talk to somebody else? [00:59:06] Speaker D: Maybe he was annoyed that. That somebody didn't buy him a gift. [00:59:11] Speaker A: Maybe it's a bit like jingle all the way and he's looking for a Turbo Mandol. [00:59:17] Speaker D: Yeah, it's a bit odd that he opened all his gifts. Really. All of them? [00:59:20] Speaker A: Every gift just says opened his gifts. [00:59:22] Speaker D: Did he tidy the weather up and paper afterwards? You know when you have to put [00:59:25] Speaker A: in the black bag? [00:59:28] Speaker D: Yeah, he just left it outside afterwards waiting for the binman to pick up. Two weeks talk. [00:59:31] Speaker B: So as someone who's kind of like heard quite a lot of the details of this trial, like, I believe like the genuine serious answer is it's supposed to be some sort of power move by P. Diddy. Just like, well, I broke into your house and opened all your Christmas presents. What are you going to do about it? And I'm just like, are you like 13 years old? [00:59:52] Speaker A: It is something like. It's like the most minor form of possible bullying apart from the break in, just opening somebody's presence forward. [00:59:59] Speaker D: How did he break in? [01:00:00] Speaker A: It doesn't say, doesn't specify, unfortunately. [01:00:03] Speaker D: Did he come down the chimney? [01:00:06] Speaker B: Yeah. Benny broke in. [01:00:09] Speaker D: Yes. That is, that is odd. Very odd. [01:00:13] Speaker B: But. [01:00:13] Speaker A: Yep. So that is our selection of weird news stories. [01:00:16] Speaker D: What's the vibe of the lollipop man 1 just out of interest, why did it upset the drivers? [01:00:19] Speaker A: This is From Yorkshire Life, 20th of June 2025, written by Wayne Anchors And Charlie Fenton. [01:00:24] Speaker C: Wayne Anchors. [01:00:25] Speaker A: Wayne anchors. [01:00:28] Speaker D: What would his name be? [01:00:29] Speaker B: W Anchors. [01:00:33] Speaker A: I didn't. It's his given name, unfortunately. A beloved lollipop man has been told he can no longer give high fives to children as they cross the road. Neil Cotton, 57, who assists primary and secondary pupils in Howden near Hall, claims he's been instructed to stop the friendly gesture as it upsets drivers having to wait another 10 seconds. [01:00:51] Speaker B: Oh, no. [01:00:52] Speaker D: Oh, no. 10 seconds. [01:00:53] Speaker A: Neil, who operates at the bustling junction known locally as Cross Keys Corners, expressed his disappointment, saying, I do the job for the kids. I love bringing them a little bit of joy and brightening up their day. He added, I get a lot of support from the locals, their kids all over. High five. [01:01:08] Speaker D: I've got a lot of time for lollipop people. Like, you know, that's a. It's not, you know, it's. I wouldn't do a job myself, although I might need to one day. But I reckon it's really satisfying. Like, people love the lollipop person. Do you know what I mean? They're like a staple. [01:01:23] Speaker B: The whole point of it is to keep kids safe. Yes, that is a bit weird. [01:01:29] Speaker A: Neil emphasizes the importance of the role, stating, it is important that a lollipop person is here. As the road can be chaotic with vehicles, it is necessary for their safety. Decision has sparked outrage among school parents, many of whom took to social media to voice their support for Neil, labeling the decision as over the top and absurd. One parent commented, I think it's wrong. Why shouldn't he? What's wrong with it? It puts a smile on the kids faces. My son does it all the time, but now he gets upset because you're not allowed to do it. [01:01:55] Speaker C: What kind of petty person would make complaints and say, I've had to wait an extra. Most car drivers surviving, all these kids, [01:02:05] Speaker D: someone in a Range Rover. [01:02:07] Speaker E: Yeah, it'll be a BMW or an Audi or a Range Rover. Basically, most car drivers now it's a school traffic crossing. I mean, I can't wait to become a lollipop man, because if they think this is a problem, they ain't got nothing compared to when I'm taking charge [01:02:22] Speaker C: of the road five minutes after the kids have landed on the other side of the road, you just sat there with maintaining eye contact. [01:02:29] Speaker E: I'm just gonna be like, come on then. [01:02:31] Speaker A: But the child is still walking across the road and he has to walk past the life up man. So how does a high five slow the kids down that much? [01:02:39] Speaker D: If anything, I'd say the problems with the kids because they're walking too slowly. [01:02:43] Speaker E: What I would do is I'd like make all the kids wait on one side and go, how long is it gonna take us to get across, kids? Ten minutes. All right. Gather together in a crowd of about 200, and then we'll all go at one time, and then we'll see what the car drivers do then. And I guarantee you they would just drive through. [01:02:59] Speaker D: Love annoying a driver. I'm anxious to go. The other day I was walking across the road, and this guy was clearly anxious to get out of the car, but so I just. Just strolled across the road really slowly, looking at my phone, making him wait. Like, you know, why not like, you know, where are you in a rush to get to? You know, because you're going to get there before. Wherever you're going to put. I get there. So you can wait. You can wait on my time. [01:03:18] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:03:18] Speaker D: Don't be hostile like people, man. [01:03:20] Speaker E: What you want to do is stop in the middle as well and go, [01:03:22] Speaker D: all right, how you doing? [01:03:25] Speaker E: Nice weather. [01:03:25] Speaker D: That's. That's harsh, man. Like, is it that same guy that's been on, like, the news recently, like, being a lollipop man? Like, literally, I saw him like six times across two days. It's like, yeah, okay. [01:03:34] Speaker E: He was a big story. It was quite recent. [01:03:36] Speaker D: Was he a big story? [01:03:37] Speaker E: Yeah, it was quite big story. [01:03:40] Speaker A: My mom used to be a lollipop person back in the day. She loved that job until they decided to just put a crossing in and replace it with it. [01:03:47] Speaker D: I imagine it's very satisfying job. [01:03:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:03:50] Speaker D: And also, you're outside, you're getting fresh air and stuff. [01:03:52] Speaker A: Yeah. It's not so great in the winter, [01:03:54] Speaker D: but no, you get to wear a hyper's jacket. [01:03:56] Speaker A: Yep. And you get to hold a big staff. Yeah. Maybe I should start sharpening the end of the staff and just puncturing tires with it. [01:04:08] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:04:08] Speaker B: Yeah. Good luck getting to work. [01:04:10] Speaker E: Now, see, I thought that indeed ended up being a better story than the P. Didi one, which is really disappointing. [01:04:14] Speaker B: Really. [01:04:15] Speaker E: You know, I think Amber Heard did some power moves much more impressively than allegedly. Allegedly. [01:04:23] Speaker C: Yes. [01:04:24] Speaker B: Notice that. I'm not saying allegedly for the P. Diddies. [01:04:28] Speaker A: It's proven in the court of law. Not really allegedly, but yeah, that was the return of weird news. So in our continuing series of looking back a decade into stuff that still probably is around by now with Lee, you picked three games, which I believe are still continuing to this day. [01:04:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So that is kind of the theme with this is like all three of these are kind of still getting updates and still kind of being very active. Two of them because they are basically sort of persistent live services, and the third one because it is a project by a single developer who just will not stop. He won't stop. And he says himself it's a problem. But anyway, the first one I decided to pick is because it's recently had its 10th anniversary hitman, or as it's kind of become come to be known, World of Assassination. So this is the sort of rebooted Hitman game that came out in 2016. Obviously the series has been around since 2000, but this was sort of like, I think after a sort of couple of kind of not great entries, like the developers IO Interactive just kind of went back to it and like, how can we sort of do this differently? And they. I think they first game released as it released in episodes. So each different. Each of the different maps from the first Hitman originally released as its own separate thing, and then it also came together as a single episode. So of course it's again, you know, you're playing as Agent 47, professional hitman, and you. Your job is to go and find a target and kill them, preferably without being seen, preferably without anyone else being killed in the process and just. And without anything being detected and getting out and. Yeah, and the amount of like, ridiculous things you can do to achieve that is fantastic. I've played the first one. I haven't played like the second and third, which are now kind of all kind of combined into one mess that's still getting updates. I think recently, like, you can assist Bruce Lee in taking down a target you can kill. Eminem is another one that recently got added. I think Milo Jovovich has also been added as a target as well. It's gotten quite ridiculous of like how many different targets they've added. But yeah, and naturally Sean Bean was a lucid target at one point because, you know, he can't. He has to be in everything that. Just so he can be killed off in some capacity. But yeah, like, I played the first one of these and it was. It was really good. Just again, the sort of. You've just got like a big open map full of people, and your target's somewhere in that map. And you just have to figure out, how do I get close to them, how do I kill them and how do I leave without being seen? Because if you get seen, it just turns into chaos and you probably just get shot at a million times and Die instantly. But yeah, it's honestly just been a huge hit and it's kind of. Although originally it was published by Square Enix, it seems that they, in their infinite wisdom, decided it wasn't much of a hit. So they just sold the rights back to IO Interactive, who've gone off and done it themselves and have made it such a success that they've now got the James Bond license. [01:08:10] Speaker A: Is this the one with the auto targeting briefcase? [01:08:13] Speaker D: Yes, it does. [01:08:13] Speaker A: That had lots of meme videos around at the time. [01:08:16] Speaker B: So that was the great thing about the auto targeting briefcase is it was a mistake, it was a glitch. It wasn't supposed to happen. It was basically, you know, you can target someone, throw a briefcase. The idea was it was supposed to just be normal. Like it would head in their direction if they moved. It was supposed to miss. For some reason, it kept following them. So you'd have the briefcase spinning through the air and turning around corners as they determined to catch up at them. And IO just decided, yeah, do you know what? That's funny. We'll keep it as it is. [01:08:48] Speaker A: So I think it was supposed to be more of a darker tone than the original Hitman games. Originally it was supposed to be a bit more slightly realistic. [01:08:55] Speaker B: Yeah. But I doubt that entirely because the amount of goofy stuff that's in the 2016 game alone is. It's high. Like the amount of, like, jobs that you can have Agent 47 pretend to be. Like, there's one sequence in one of the levels where you can. You've got to assassinate someone in a band and you can just pretend to be his Drummer and Agent 47 will go in and he'll just play this really perfect drum set and you're just like, how do you know how to do this voiceover? And even just like in the first one, I think one of the. One of the sort of suggested ways of killing your target in the Paris level, which is like a fashion show, is to drop like the lighting rig onto them in the middle of the fashion show and then just walk out in the middle of it. So, you know, they're clearly not being that serious. [01:09:48] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I know they're great sandboxes. So there is usually about 20, 30 different ways that you can kill your target, depending on which method you do. And it's got endless replayability. But, yeah, I think I've dabbled in the franchise and it's one of those where I get bored pretty quickly. To be fair. I can understand the fascination with it and why people like it so much, but I'm more of a go in, shoot somebody in the head and then run away. [01:10:16] Speaker B: I'm. I'm kind of a. I kind of see it as like just a nice big puzzle box. Your goal is you've got to take this target out without being seen. And how do I do that? How do I sort of moving around, piecing together the different elements of it and thinking, oh, well, if they go here, I can get behind them in this way and then sneak out. But how do I do that without this person seeing? How do I get. And sometimes it's just chaos as well, which also is a nice benefit of it. So. [01:10:49] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:10:50] Speaker A: Has anybody else played any hitman? [01:10:53] Speaker D: No, it never really appeals to me. Which just looks a bit like. Just the character just puts me off for some reason. [01:11:00] Speaker A: Like a bald man in a suit. [01:11:02] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [01:11:03] Speaker D: I don't know. He just looks like. He looks like. It wouldn't. I don't know. [01:11:06] Speaker B: I think one of the things about 47 is. Yeah. Like, his design is kind of generic, but I think it ends up with a lot of. Sometimes unintentional. But sometimes I feel like they are leaning into the comedy of it. [01:11:16] Speaker A: Yeah, he's this, like, in a clown outfit. [01:11:19] Speaker B: Yeah, he's very. He's very straight laced. He's very like, hi, I'm. You know, he'll give like a fake name or whatever and he'll say that name, hi, I'm John Smith. And he'll always talk in that tone, no matter the situation. And sometimes that can be hilarious. Considering what's going on and just the fact that he's so, like nondescript, it can work quite well. And again, there's things like the clown outfit. There's also like an outfit where because he's. He's bald, you can kind of make him look like Pitbull. [01:11:57] Speaker A: I mean, fair play to IA Interactive for taking that franchise and running with it. Yeah, yeah. It seems to be settled. It seems to be in its own little niche as well. I don't think there's many other games that I would probably put in the same kind of genre. [01:12:10] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. It's kind of standing on its own. I think that's why it's done so well, because it's just doing its own thing and it's doing it really well. And again, it's done it so well. [01:12:18] Speaker A: That Bond license. [01:12:20] Speaker B: Bond license has come in and that's coming in later this year is that young Bond game. [01:12:25] Speaker D: I'm not sure what I think about that feel like. I feel like it could be a bit rubbish. [01:12:29] Speaker B: I think basically from the looks of. Of things, it's going to be what if Hitman had car chases? [01:12:35] Speaker D: Okay. [01:12:36] Speaker B: Which I think is like the main appeal for most people. Honestly, like, as someone who doesn't. Who hasn't really seen much Bond stuff, I'm actually interested in that game just on that bit. On the fact that it's IO, but the fact that they have shown. Oh yeah, we're doing car chases and big action sequences as well. [01:12:53] Speaker A: They've released some quite extended looks at the video game, like full playthrough level, etc. Yeah. [01:13:02] Speaker B: So my second game I actually didn't know came out in 2016 until sort of researching for this. And it's another sort of another game about. It's another live service game. It's another one about like sneaking around trying to kill people, but in a very slightly different way. It's Dead by Daylight, which is somehow still going. So this is the asymmetric multiplayer horror game where one person plays a serial killer and you've got four other players who are playing as the survivors who are trying to get away from basically not being killed by the end of the night and trying to escape the area. And there's been sort of a lot of these types of games, but I think most of them have done kind of poorly compared to Dead by Daylight, because Dead by Daylight has the thing of like, it's got a lot of original stuff, but it's also brought in a lot of famous horror franchises into the fray. Whereas a lot of the other ones in the. In the genre tend to focus on just one horror franchise. So there isn't really much space for them to go. You can't. If you do a Friday the 13th one, you've just got characters from Friday the 13th. You can't really go anywhere with it. Whereas Dead by Daylight can kind of just do whatever it wants. Like if it can't get a license, they just make up a character and that is still going. And the amount of crossovers it's had is kind of ridiculous. [01:14:37] Speaker A: 47, which is quite an appropriate number piece of DLC since release. [01:14:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So some of them, like I said, are original characters, but then you've got characters. So I'm just looking through this survivors list because I know that there's some franchises they only really added a survivor and not really a killer. So there's Halloween Left four Dead. What else? We are Evil Dead, Stranger Things, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Alan Wake and are in there so just there's so much stuff that's been added. And they've even added, like, Dungeons and Dragons as well, because they added, like, survivors were like, some Bard characters. And then they added Vecna, who's like, very famous lich within D and D lore, which obviously showed up in Stranger Things as well. But it was like a version of it designed more closely to the D and D version. [01:15:36] Speaker A: Can I say my favorite piece of dlc, which is Nicolas Cage? [01:15:40] Speaker B: Nic Cage. Yeah. [01:15:42] Speaker A: Just. Just Nicolas Cage. Not attached to any franchise or anything else. [01:15:45] Speaker B: It's just Nicolas Cage. [01:15:47] Speaker A: Just Nicolas Cage. We just added him into the game. You can play as Nicolas Cage. [01:15:51] Speaker B: Yeah. The lore is the actor Nicolas Cage has been transported to this dimension by this entity and now has to survive the night with all these other people. And it's just ridiculous. Like, when I. When they announced it and he came out on stage at whatever showcase it was, I thought, like, which Nicolas Cage franchise is this? And then was like, oh, no, it's just him. Okay. [01:16:14] Speaker D: Do you think you could survive the night, Nicolas Cage? Do you think you could actually, like, spend the night in his company without not getting a little bit annoyed with him? Like, I feel like. I feel like you agree on me after about half an hour. Like, it's be funny to begin with. And then, like, all right, mate. Yeah, we get it. Like, the karate kicks. [01:16:29] Speaker A: They made a movie on this specific concept. [01:16:31] Speaker D: That is true. Like, he just. I feel like he's just great. And also, I feel like he wouldn't be good with ideas. Like, I feel like he'd suggest stuff which, like, that's not gonna work. Like, why have you suggested that? [01:16:41] Speaker B: But also, I think, like, he's one of two of the survivors that talk a lot. [01:16:48] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:16:48] Speaker B: Like, most of them are quite quiet. Cause they're trying to stay away from the killer. But him and Alan Wake never show up. [01:16:55] Speaker A: Which is kind of the opposite of what you want to be doing when you're trying to stealthily go around. [01:16:59] Speaker B: But Nic Cage just feels the need to just express every emotion he has. And Alan Wake has to narrate everything he's doing. [01:17:08] Speaker A: I mean, it is a bit fair play. They've managed to pretty much nail every single horror franchise that's been released. I'm waiting for the weapons DLC to come out at some point. They'll probably be the next one on the line. But, yeah, they have pretty much covered every single element of the horror franchise spectrum. [01:17:24] Speaker D: Who did I get from Scream? [01:17:26] Speaker A: From Scream, they got Ghost Face. [01:17:28] Speaker D: Not Sydney. [01:17:29] Speaker B: No, yeah, it was just Ghostface for stream Open Scream, I believe. [01:17:33] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:17:34] Speaker B: The funny thing with that is they licensed the mask, but not that from the toy company that make the mask. [01:17:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:17:41] Speaker B: But then like not actually license the rest of Scream from. [01:17:45] Speaker A: It's just Ghost Verteer. But yeah. So Halloween's covered as well. Leatherface. [01:17:51] Speaker B: Yep. [01:17:52] Speaker A: Nightmare on Elm Street, Ash vs Evil Dead, as you mentioned. Stranger Things, Silent Hill, Resident Evil, Hellraiser, Nicolas Cage, Alien, Chucky Alan Wake, Dungeon Dragons. I mentioned Tomb Raider, Castlevania, Tokyo Ghoul, Five Nights at Freddy the Walking Dead. I think they've also had some Junji Ito stuff as well in there in the past. [01:18:15] Speaker B: There's some franchises that they've added that have been just like cosmetic things for certain characters or whatever rather than full fledged characters. They do a pretty good job of like sort of representing the Killers as well. Like, they tend to draw a lot of like what they can do from the films or games or whatever. Like, I know that like the Xenomorph is a killer that you can play as and one of the the unique abilities it has is the ability to like climb through vents, things like that, which is like the only killer can do that. [01:18:46] Speaker A: So special shout out as well to my favorite ever spin off, which is Hooked on youn. Dead by Daylight Dating sim. Yes. Where you can date one of the Killers. [01:18:55] Speaker C: Yes. [01:18:56] Speaker A: Kind of Japanese dating sim, romance book style. [01:19:01] Speaker B: Yep. [01:19:03] Speaker A: I mean, it's lasted surprisingly well considering. [01:19:06] Speaker B: And considering that like, I think one of the last times I've heard about it, like most of the people who play this regularly hate this game. [01:19:16] Speaker A: Imagine you have to. It's one of those where you have to play forever to work out what kind of works with which character which is the best strategy. [01:19:24] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's one of those things where I think if you're playing it solo as a survivor because you're having to work in a team of other random people, there's a lot of sort of like, what the hell are you doing? Stop doing that. Stop working on a generator when that guy's chasing you. [01:19:41] Speaker A: Stop screaming into the void or wandering around as Nicholas Cage. [01:19:46] Speaker B: But yeah, it's honestly kind of impressive. It's still going. But yeah, I did not realize it was that old. I thought it was a lot more recent. But again, like I said, looking into what games came out in 2016, it's like, oh, Dead by Daylight. And that fits nicely with Hitman. What doesn't quite fit as well with those two franchises is a very different game. But like I said, this one is also still receiving updates, but for a very different reason. This is Stardew Valley, which still immensely popular. It was originally like a developer who I think just wanted there to be another harvest moon and decided, well, I'm gonna make my own. And so he made Stardew Valley and has not stopped making Stardew Valley ever since. [01:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It's that weird kind of early 90s pixel art, Final Fantasy 3, 4, 5 style, isn't it? So simple graphics, but I believe it is an incredibly complex underpinning to it. Yeah. [01:20:52] Speaker B: So it's basically. It is a farming sim. You are sort of running this little farm and interacting with the local townspeople who, as typical with the genre, you can like choose to romance people within there. I think there's also like occasional little dungeon sections as well where you can sort of go into like the caves and the mines and stuff to start, like to find resources and things like that. But yeah, it has been hugely popular and I think it sort of like kind of kicked off a lot of what we see now in like the cozy games sort of space where like everyone's made. There's like a million different farm sims now. And I think it's off the back of this being so successful. Everyone else is like, well, I can make a successful farm game too. Or what are the job simulator type things that we're going to do that are made with cutesy pixel graphics. But like I said, it's the developer who goes by the name of ConcernedApe. He by his own admission, is basically a perfectionist and just keeps thinking of things that he wants to add to it. And he just adds more to it constantly to the point where like, he is supposed to be working on another game and it keeps getting halted because he's like, but what if I added this thing to Stardew Valley? What if I added. It's like, what about Haunted Chocolatier? Could you continue with that game? [01:22:21] Speaker D: That wasn't that announced ages ago. I swear I saw a trailer for [01:22:24] Speaker B: it at some point, but that's why it's taken so long because it's one guy and he keeps going back to Stardew Valley. [01:22:33] Speaker D: I did try playing it for about three days. I couldn't really get into it. I think I spent most of the time trying to marry Haley, the blonde one. Like, I just, yeah, I couldn't get into it. Like, I tried it again, but I've not got the time for something like that. Like, I feel like if you're gonna play that game, that's the only game you're gonna play. [01:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a full topic. I think it is like the kind of thing where it becomes an obsession for some people who are super into it. So. [01:22:59] Speaker A: But yeah, 50 million copies as of February this year, which is not bad [01:23:03] Speaker B: for a game made by one Guy. [01:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah, so. So if you had a couple of quid per coffees, he's gonna be a very happy man. Yeah, but yeah, it's not one for me. It's not my genre. As I said, I don't have enough time to dedicate to something like that. But glad something like that has managed to persist and still getting updates reminds me a little bit of no Man's sky, which is probably the other game from around. [01:23:28] Speaker B: I think it might be. Yeah. [01:23:29] Speaker A: But again that keeps getting labor of Love updates because, well, that's just the apology tour that they've been doing for a decade. Sorry the game was broken on release. Yeah. [01:23:38] Speaker B: But yeah, those are sort of three more games that I think are worth highlighting from 2016. [01:23:44] Speaker A: Thank you. So another returning feature we've not done for a considerable while, but we thought would be fun to bring back is why It's Rubbish. Where we take something in the modern world and talk about why it annoys us, frustrates us, or is just in general a rubbish aspect of modern life. So Guy, as you are our guest and this is one of your features from back in the day. It was why is something rubbish to you and what is it? [01:24:16] Speaker D: So, yeah, I mean, I've probably got 10 years worth of pent up anger to unleash here. So I had to think about what could be rubbish. It's gonna be controversial, especially as I'm so into this thing, Grand Theft Auto 6. I'm just fed up. I'm literally just fed up. Rockstar, like, stop fannying around like this isn't enough's enough now. Like get it out there. This constant delays. Like you've either got it right or it's broken and just, just don't release it if it's broken, just go make Bully two if it's broken on the Chief. Like it just the amount of disappointment from this I've had like, so I have a newborn child was originally meant to be going on maternity leave when the second delay hit. So there's me rubbing my hands together like, oh, six weeks of paternity leave of just playing GTA 6. I can't wait. Literally I was buzzing, put it in at work and my boss is like, oh, you're going to have a good time off from Sang. [01:25:22] Speaker A: Yep. [01:25:22] Speaker D: Yes, I am going to enjoy playing the game and then they're going to delay it. They're going to delay it. So what have I got to do on my potato leave now I'm actually going to have to look after my son. Like, what are you playing at Rockstar? Like now I have to actually be a dad. Thank you, but no. It's enough. Enough with this. Like, how much more can you delay this game? Because it's going to happen again. Just sitting and waiting on that and it's just annoying because like it's affected the whole gaming industry so there's like nothing else to play really. Because everybody's just sitting around waiting for this game to either come out or get delayed again. So we're just sitting like knowing that some other games are due to be released, but this one game is holding it all up. And don't get me wrong, I'm sure be a masterpiece. And I can't wait. But I've been waiting for this for like I've been in a bit. I've gotten married. I've had a child in the multiple jobs since the game got announced. This isn't enough's enough. Like, I'm old now. Like I'm in my 40s when, you know, when the game. When the game was announced I was in my 20s. This is a joke. Like I've got an order. I'm gray now. I have gray hair and Rockland GTA 6 doesn't come out. It's joke. [01:26:36] Speaker E: Like they're gonna rename it Gray Theft Auto. [01:26:40] Speaker D: They will. Like, I just don't. [01:26:41] Speaker A: Grandparent Theft Auto. [01:26:43] Speaker D: Thank you very much. And I'm worried that like it's gonna be like so hyped and it's just not gonna live up to it now. Like, I feel like it's always gonna be broken or it's gonna be a cyberpunk situation. I just. I don't know. It's enough's enough. I'm just fed up. Yeah, it's been too long. [01:27:02] Speaker B: So I came into this feature without really having much of a why it's rubbish. May I present a counterpoint as my why it's rubbish, which is I hate GTA 6 because I'm sick of hearing about it. So I played the GTA games on the PS2, enjoyed them. I played GTA 4 and Nico's cousin kept asking to go bowling and it annoyed me so much that I've never touched a Rockstar game ever since. And so as such, I'm one of the few people who has never played GTA 5 and I have no intention to and certainly have no intention of playing GTA vi. And I think the thing that annoys me more than anything else about it is like you sort of touched on is the fact that so much of the rest of the games industry is so scared of GTA vi. There are discussions going on. So one of the things that has kind of been baffling to me is so as a famously, I'm a Tomb Raider fan and at some point this year we're supposed to be getting a remake of the first game. [01:28:12] Speaker A: And [01:28:14] Speaker B: there are people online who are fans of this series who under rumors that the game might be coming out in October. There are people going, that's too close to GTA 6. I'm like, it's a whole month before. Calm down. And then there's like some rumors which are likely not true that the game might have been delayed to February. And there are people who are still saying, that's too close to GTA 6, it's gonna fail. I'm like, it's six months later. What are you talking about? [01:28:42] Speaker D: It has to be separated as its own entity. Other games will be successful. I play GTA for the single player campaign. I'm not interested in the online nonsense. So for me, this will like, I give. I'll have a child now, so it'll probably take me a lot longer to complete it. But I would be expecting to be playing GTA 6 probably for about a month, month and a half, maybe two. It's not going to affect my enjoyment of playing other games that are coming out of that time period. Okay. It might be that I might have to wait two weeks. 1. Playing two games simultaneously. I don't. Yeah, I don't get the culture of it's coming out too close to it. So yeah, I'm going to buy. You're going to get more money anyway because I'm going to buy a Tomb Raider remake. I'm going to buy Grand Theft Auto. [01:29:17] Speaker B: And also as, like I said, as someone who has no interest in GTA 6, if no one else releases anything, then I'm not going to be getting anything. [01:29:27] Speaker E: Waste of content is Christmas when you [01:29:30] Speaker D: don't release a game, it's like a little starving, like waiting for games. No, I completely get it. And it's all these articles as well of like, oh, things that could be featured in gts. It's like you have no other information that any of us have because it's so secretive. You just making an article about nothingness and getting people hyped every day about something, which is probably just going to get delayed again. [01:29:51] Speaker B: Plus, I think one thing that does need to be brought up is the fact that the obsession with GTA 6 is especially bad when Rockstar is actively union busting. So I think we need to bring that up. And no one should be supporting a company that is actively like firing people because they tried to form a union, which I'm pretty sure is illegal in this country. And when you've got MPs who are actively talking about in Parliament, that's how bad this situation is. [01:30:19] Speaker A: Also 13 years since the last game. 13 in the same time frame that it's been between GTA 5 and GTA 6. All the 3D GTA games were made, so that's 3, Vice City, San Andreas 4 and 5 were all released within 13 years and they're still working on 6. [01:30:39] Speaker D: I've been in a relationship with him for as long as it's taken to make this gap. It's like it's a joke. [01:30:46] Speaker C: I'm not particularly into the Grand Theft Auto games, but I feel your pain if you replace the next Grand Theft Auto game with the next Game of Thrones book. [01:30:55] Speaker D: And I yeah, again it's like, what's he playing around? At [01:31:01] Speaker B: least we had to write some lore for Elden Ring. [01:31:04] Speaker A: Or if you're an Elder Scrolls fan and have been waiting since Skyrim, which was 11th of November 2011 and they still not finished on Elder Scrolls 6. Whatever they're doing, they made Starfield which feels like a student project. [01:31:19] Speaker B: See the problem with that is they should never have announced Elder Scrolls 6 because it's not been in active development at any point. Basically the way that. That's because obviously it's this specific Bethesda studio. They work on one game at a time and they kind of alternate between Skyrim and Fallout. But then they made Starfield. So they did Fallout 4 and then Fallout 76 and then Starfield. At no point should Elder Scrolls have been announced because they haven't been working on it. I think they're starting on it now that Starfield is out. But it's like now you announce. [01:31:55] Speaker D: That's the point. [01:31:56] Speaker A: Starfield was such a dumb squib as well on launch. [01:31:59] Speaker D: The things get announced way too early. Like Fable that got announced like when the Xbox got announced and it's still not out as well. [01:32:04] Speaker A: Yeah, but that's just Peter Molyneux. He announces when he has Breakfast? [01:32:07] Speaker B: No, Peter Molyneux doesn't work there anymore. [01:32:09] Speaker A: Not touching fable this time. [01:32:10] Speaker B: Fable is playground. [01:32:12] Speaker D: It's just this culture. [01:32:13] Speaker B: And the problem is with. With the new fable is they're also working on Forza Horizon 6 at the same time. [01:32:18] Speaker D: So, I mean, like, look, I think history says itself. When we all remember Chinese Democracy by Guns N Roses, it wasn't great, was it? So I feel like this is going to be that sort of situation. Kind of people are going like, yeah, Yeah, I played G6. It was all right. Yeah. Like. Like, I think people might be underwhelmed by it by the time. [01:32:36] Speaker B: I do actually agree with that. Yeah. [01:32:38] Speaker D: And I. Yeah, yeah. So that's my whites. Rubbish. I could have been really controversial because a lot of stuff. But you know what? That one's controversial to me because it hurts. [01:32:47] Speaker B: And as a. In a weird twist of fate, it ended up being minus [01:32:52] Speaker A: Sam. How about yourself? [01:32:54] Speaker C: I'm gonna go with adverts on Amazon. Prime is driving me nuts. I've been really enjoying the latest series of Invincible, and it's just every time an advert comes on, it always seems to be at the most inappropriate time and the most offensively different tone. I try and say this without particular spoilers, but this epic battle towards the end of an episode last week where real stakes, like, you can see the pain in the character's eyes. They're really like one of them said, you will never breathe again and was trying to choke another character to death while he was battering him around different rocks. And then there was a bright white floor and some Bolognese on it. And the dog starts singing Queen [01:33:54] Speaker A: and [01:33:55] Speaker C: Hugh Dennis is telling me to buy cleaning products. And, yeah, it just completely drives me nuts. And there was one like, Invincible has quite often has, like, a scene in the credits as well. And there was an advert break that was literally so far at the end of the program that it. The program came back on. It did the credit scene, and then that was it. I was like, why? What's the point? This is not adding anything. I mentally decide I will boycott products because they are being advertised at me on Prime. [01:34:33] Speaker B: So when you said that, like, when you were talking about someone being strangled, and then I was imagining it would be so funny if it cut to an air freshener ad off anything that's sort of vaguely. [01:34:45] Speaker A: Nothing beats a Jet2 holiday. [01:34:48] Speaker D: You know what, Sam? I've got a solution for you. Pay for a higher subscription for your cheapskate. [01:34:52] Speaker C: There is that, but. But the whole point of a subscription service is that you are paying the money because you are funding the subscription. Like, they shouldn't need to do the adverts on top of a subscription. [01:35:04] Speaker D: I get what you're saying, like, because I have Netflix with adverts and it's not like when you used to watch like, like, I don't know, Buffy on Sky and they'd have like the appropriate song, sort of fade to black moment where, like, that would be the logical place to put the advert in. They don't. Like, they don't really have a logical place. Like, the shows have the logical place for the advert, but the, the adverts don't come at the logical place. It just comes like mid sentence or something like that. So I get, I get what you're saying. It's like they need to be more like, if it was like a TV show when I was watching it and it was just like, okay, the adverts come up because this act is concluding, I'd be like, that's fine, I'm paying for a cheaper subscription fee. I get this advertisement. But yeah, but it's. Then you've got to jump back into the same scene again. It's like, this is really jarring. [01:35:42] Speaker B: Like, it's the YouTube ad break problem. [01:35:44] Speaker D: Yeah. Especially since it's the same. Same adverts all the time as well. So you see the same. Like Paramount plus is the worst. The amount of times I saw like Charlotte Crosby having a baby. [01:35:56] Speaker A: The worst thing that's ever on YouTube. [01:35:57] Speaker D: Worst thing that's ever happened to us. Happened to us. Bloody being robbed, house being robbed or something. Like every time we watch in south park and we sort of like three times every time watching south park, it's like, I don't like the woman anyway. I don't want to see her three times in an episode of south park. To be honest with you. [01:36:12] Speaker A: I had for two weeks straight, every single YouTube advert was the trailer for Ready or Not to with the worst music humanly possible to put in a trailer. Every advert, it wasn't just like, why are you showing me one particular advert? You've got hundreds of adverts to show. Why just this one film to the state? I will never, ever watch that movie because I have stress from hearing that theme over and over and over again. [01:36:42] Speaker C: That's the thing. It makes you not want to get the thing that they're advertising, which is literally the opposite of the point of the adverts. [01:36:50] Speaker A: It's this whole thing of now of where you can pay Money and see adverts because they'll pay us money to show you the adverts or you can pay us more money and then we will use that money to not have to pay the advertisers to show you adverts. How does this work? It's basically just gambling up and up and up and it's just incremental cost. [01:37:09] Speaker C: So a tangent that, that just reminded me of. But the adverts that annoy me most are on Duolingo where it's advertising its own paid subscription to not do adverts. It's like it's basically blackmail [01:37:31] Speaker B: if you [01:37:31] Speaker A: don't pay for the subscription. [01:37:33] Speaker C: Give me money. Give me and I'll stop. [01:37:37] Speaker A: You shouldn't use Duolingo anyway because they sacked all their real life interpreters and swapped to AI. So they were terrible. [01:37:43] Speaker C: I wasn't aware of that, but fair enough. [01:37:45] Speaker A: There are great alternative translation apps out there. But yes. [01:37:50] Speaker D: Do you like adverts? [01:37:52] Speaker E: I like adverts that are good like they were decades ago now. Or advertisements are trash and nobody takes any care in making advertisements because then they're just going to get dumped in the middle of a show and nobody cares and nobody watches them. It's the same with podcasts. The number of podcasts I listen to where half in the middle of a [01:38:14] Speaker A: sentence stamps.com in the middle of a sentence. [01:38:17] Speaker E: They just drop it in. It's just. [01:38:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:38:20] Speaker E: And like Sam says, it's like, do [01:38:21] Speaker B: you know how you stop. Do you know how you stop that? Keith, you get a subscription with NordVPN. We're not actually sponsored. I do have to specify. [01:38:30] Speaker D: Do you know what I like? [01:38:30] Speaker A: If they were play Ray Shadow legends. [01:38:33] Speaker D: If they were like good adverts. So like, you know, it's like a good actor that actually you enjoy. Like, you know that one like on TV recently where like the kid was like, like fared his way out of an exam or something like that. Like and like, I don't know, like it was just a fart comedy fart sound. Like if that came up every like two or three minutes on my stream, I'd probably laugh at that because it's a fart. So I'm gonna be amused by that. [01:38:53] Speaker E: So let's just rewind to the whole idea of this ad which I've never seen. What's it advertising? [01:38:59] Speaker D: What was it advertising? [01:39:00] Speaker A: I don't know. I am not googling. [01:39:04] Speaker D: You would know that advert with the kid farting. [01:39:07] Speaker A: Like I'm not corrupting my own internal. [01:39:09] Speaker D: Just Google kid Farting advert. Like it was like he was in an exam and then he stands up and he farts and then like the fart blows him out of the exam and then like out into the corridor and then all the kids like laugh. That's it, that's it. [01:39:22] Speaker A: An Andrex advert. [01:39:23] Speaker D: Andrex. There you go. He farts his way out of the exam because he needs a turd. If that came up as the adverts frequently for me on whatever streaming service I use, I would love that. Every two or three minutes, seeing a kid farting. Love that. [01:39:40] Speaker B: See, I pay for YouTube Premium to get rid of the ads, but that's because they pay me as well and that covers the subscription, so. So I give Google money for them to give that money back. [01:39:52] Speaker A: Yeah, it's one of those things of YouTube Premium is probably the one that's worth it most because it's all short form content and you're going to have 600 adverts shoved down your throat otherwise. [01:40:01] Speaker C: I do pay for YouTube Premium as well. I've just resent the idea of. I just resent the idea of having to pay extra on every subscription service. [01:40:10] Speaker D: I've never met anybody who's paid for YouTube Premium. [01:40:13] Speaker C: It was only because I. I got a free sample of it for six months or something. I got so used to it that the idea of going back to see the adverts at the beginning of it. [01:40:23] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:40:24] Speaker D: God, how the other half lives. [01:40:25] Speaker B: It's what, 15 quid a month and then they pay me 60 quid every two months. So I'm like, yeah, okay, I think that's justified. [01:40:34] Speaker A: It's more. You don't then have to say, we're having a baby on Disney plus. Made in Chelsea, spin off. Why even is that as a concept of tv? These are two people who are on reality tv. So we're going to do a separate reality TV program on a streaming service without them having a child. Like, it's the most unique experience of all time. [01:40:56] Speaker D: Content. [01:40:58] Speaker A: Yes. [01:40:58] Speaker D: I can't believe you pay for YouTube Premium, you snob. [01:41:02] Speaker A: Yes. Keith, how about yourself? What's rubbish to you? [01:41:06] Speaker E: Right, slightly controversially, buses. No, not buses, because that's just an ongoing thing. [01:41:14] Speaker B: I thought you were going to turn around and say, like, oh, because I love them now. [01:41:17] Speaker E: No, I still hate them. They're cesspit of all kind of things. But what I'm going to say is, us, or more specifically fans, we've already touched on this a little bit previously in the episode, but I'm really Bored of the whole idea of people shit, talking about stuff constantly. Whether it's a show, we've had it with, like, Star Trek Academy, people trashing it even if they don't watch it. And it's kind of like, okay, there's shows that I do not like. I gave up on them. Pluribus being one, which everybody raves around as if it's like the greatest thing ever made on television, which it's clearly not. But the fact that it seems to be predominantly fans prefer to talk about things they don't like than the things they do like. And that's kind of getting really tiresome. I like the idea of us all being individuals. We all. And we've. We've said this in previous episodes. Everybody likes different things. And it's good. And it's nice occasionally to find people who like the same thing. And you can get that. And I kind of miss the days where we had things like lex and Babylon 5, sliders, whatever, loads of different crazy things. And they all had their own little fandoms and people liked them. And if you didn't like it, you didn't watch it. But now it just seems to be constantly people hate watching things and putting controversial things online. You know, that kind of clickbait type stuff where people are kind of saying controversial things in order to get likes and hits and more and kind of stir up a conversation. And I don't think it's healthy for us. I don't think it's healthy for the industry because if this kind of happened in the late 80s, we'd have never got seven seasons of star Trek the Next Generation. Star the Next Generation would have got canned in the first season, especially after [01:43:01] Speaker A: that first season, I was gonna say, [01:43:02] Speaker E: because it wasn't great. And regardless of what people are saying about Star Trek Academy or Discovery or whatever it is, the actual seasons themselves are reasonably solid. [01:43:11] Speaker A: But. [01:43:11] Speaker E: And I believe a lot of shows do need to find their feet, and they're doing it in 13 episodes rather than kind of syndicated TV where you had 20, 26 episodes a season to kind of do that kind of thing. And again with films, a lot of that is kind of like a lot of people are putting down films before they've even been released. You know, this will be bad because of this casting. This will be bad because of this ridiculous rumor that somebody's written about in a magazine or online who has no information whatsoever but just making stuff up because it gets clicks. [01:43:44] Speaker A: This film has a Hans Zimmer soundtrack. So therefore. [01:43:47] Speaker E: Yeah, but I mean, we all know, at least even Christian Christopher Nolan's admitted that, like, Hans is past his best sell by date now because he's all on the Ludwig Guransen train. And it's like, oh, I'm just gonna get him to do everything now because, like, Hans is old news and he's just playing his bagpipes in the Dune soundtrack again. [01:44:03] Speaker B: But it's funny, like, you saying about, like, you know, people saying that about films. It's the same with games. [01:44:08] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:44:09] Speaker B: The amount of stuff I see, like, the fact that we now have, like, a lot of live service stuff coming out that's like, admittedly isn't great. But the problem I have with a lot of those is the online just hate watching of the Steam numbers of like, oh, yeah, I can't wait for High Guard to die off. Let's watch the Steam numbers obsessively. And every time the number goes down, we'll post. We'll post something about like, oh, yeah, it's great, it's going down. People are doing it with Marathon now because, like, it's. Its numbers have gone down. But from what I can tell, those numbers have gone down in the way that most games would do anyway, regardless of how successful. Because every game will have, like, the big launch hype. You know, millions of people jump in on day one and then people fall off, people go off, people try it out, think it's all right, you know, and dip in and out and then all that. But, you know, what you usually get is a nice tapering off that sort of consistent fan base. And that seems to be where Marathon's going, but people are still going, like, look how low it is compared to where it started. And I'm like, well, yeah, that's gonna happen. [01:45:13] Speaker D: I think there's a real good example of that at the moment with SNL uk. Look, it's not great at the moment. It's still patchy. They're still finding their feet. They're four episode fours tonight. I think it's not, you know, I haven't found it particularly funny. There's been some odd moments, but I don't think they need to count it out yet because, like, they're trying to replicate a brand which is so popular, American, tried and tested. And people are writing it off after episode one. And to be honest with you, I turn around to Lauren and so just like, wasn't that great? But I've still tuned in because I want to give them the chance to make this potentially better. [01:45:48] Speaker B: And I finish, like, I Think something with that as well. Like, I don't. I've not watched it myself, but I imagine that at the moment there's still a lot of. We're trying to tie it more to the original format from America. And I think something like this kind of needs that time to become its own thing that's sort of more catered to a UK audience, rather than just copying the American format. And it probably is, once given a chance, divert off into that sort of thing and it's probably going to get really good at that point, which. Yeah, but obviously people just write it off is not going to cause that to happen. [01:46:24] Speaker E: Yeah, and I think SNL's an interesting point because it's always been patchy. For 50 years, there's been bits that have been really good, there's been bits that don't work. That's the nature of like an anthology sketch show that's created. In a week, there's going to be things that hit because people find it funny and there's going to be things [01:46:40] Speaker B: that people go, yeah, basically every week you've got a team of writers sitting around being like, how do we be funny? And some weeks there's going to be a striker genius and it's going to come out with some gold. And then other weeks it's going to be. People are just going to be sitting there the whole week being like, I can't come up with a single joke. [01:46:55] Speaker A: Just three to four days to compile a show, an hour, over an hour of live tv, compile a show, get it recorded, get it rehearsed, get it filmed, get it out. [01:47:05] Speaker E: Yeah. I mean, look at the news. I watched that most days and there's a few stories in that, you know, some stories that I go, oh, that's really nice and interesting. And there's others that I go, well, that's not good. [01:47:14] Speaker D: I don't like watching the news for entertainment. [01:47:17] Speaker E: It's all made up now, isn't it? But, yeah, I mean, so, you know, the general point is, is that there's so many things that if you don't like it, I know there's a cost, a cost associated with a lot of these things, but you. You pay your money, you take your choice. [01:47:32] Speaker B: But yeah, I think. I think your general point is, isn't so much necessarily fans as such, but more just the fans who've kind of made this. Their identity. [01:47:41] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:47:43] Speaker B: I mean, to come back to, like the. Obviously, I brought the Tomb Raider example of people coming up with all these things about like, oh, if it Comes too close to GTA or whatever. A lot of this has come from the fact that the remakes trailer came out in December. And right now on the Tomb Raider subreddit, everyone is like going, we haven't heard anything since. Has it been cancelled? Has it been delayed? I'm like, it's been four months. Calm down. We'll probably hear more at Jeff shows in June and August. It's fine. [01:48:09] Speaker A: The new Buffy the Vampire Slayer show cancelled already, before it even got a chance to get out of the gate. [01:48:16] Speaker E: We interviewed Mark Sheppard at a convention a good few years back and he did kind of say that. Kind of like, you know, the word fan derives from the word fanatic. [01:48:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:48:26] Speaker E: And it's. It's all there. And it's kind of like, you know, and I think we should kind of embrace more the things that we do enjoy. And if you're the only person that does, that's cool. And your show might get cancelled if nobody else does, but you had it. At least you had it. [01:48:40] Speaker C: Yeah. [01:48:41] Speaker E: And you can enjoy it. You know, people still talk about Firefly today and that had one season and got canned. [01:48:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [01:48:46] Speaker A: I think, again, all the people who are complaining about that coming back as an animated series, it's been over 20 years since Firefly came home. They're not going to be up to the same standard and same physical physicality to come back and remake that show and just do another season straight away. [01:49:01] Speaker D: Yeah. Just be thankful you're getting a cartoon of it. [01:49:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Be happy you're getting content. [01:49:09] Speaker B: I think the only, like, fanatical, like, fandoms that I will accept are the K Pop Stans, because they have mobilized themselves into a political force that cannot be stopped and usually for good as well. So I'm like, they're okay, but what [01:49:25] Speaker A: you'll have now with BTS is reformed is, oh, they're not as good as they were when they were like, pre army bts. So it's my turn now and I am going to steal one of Keith's particular areas of expertise and I'm going to complain about buses, mainly the Transport for West Midlands app range that they have. They have multiple apps. None of them work. I do a mixed mode journey into work. If I use public transport, I can either get the train, I could get a bus, and then I can get a Metro. How in 2026 is Birmingham unable to get one app that covers all three modes of that transport? [01:50:08] Speaker D: How after 10 years, is this still an issue? [01:50:13] Speaker E: And it's not me? [01:50:16] Speaker B: Let's just I will give you the [01:50:18] Speaker A: list of current apps available from Transport for West Midlands. So we have the Transport for West Midlands app, which replaced the Working Network for West Midlands app, which you can use to plan a journey. Find your closest mode of transport, see live departure information, find tickets, sign into your Swift account, Collect credits and tickets to your SwiftCards. None of those functions work. None of them work in a repeatable, usable format. You're better off just paying contactless on the mode of transport that you wish to do. There's also the Swift Collect ref, which is you can use this to collect credits and tickets for your SwiftCard. But to use this, you have to have an NFC phone, be connected to the Internet, hold the SwiftCard in the right place, hold it on the phone for 10 seconds, do not have a case that blocks the phone and it doesn't work. Yeah, it just doesn't work. And then it just says, if it doesn't work, just use your pass or contact us or I can't contact you because your other app's broken, because Condo does it. And then there's a separate app for the Metro, which also doesn't work. So we have three apps. None of them cover trains. All of them are broken. [01:51:27] Speaker B: I was going to say you haven't brought up the West Midlands railway. [01:51:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I was going to say West Midlands Railway is now back in UK franchise, so I think it's been brought back to the British government. But there's also an on demand bus app as well, but that only covers Coventry. [01:51:43] Speaker E: No one's got Coventry and basically that's just a park and ride thing for old people. [01:51:49] Speaker A: But yes, it's got to have everything now has to have an app and none of the apps work and it's just terrible. Poor sloppy coding and sloppy. [01:51:58] Speaker E: But at least this app isn't making your bed go red hot and throwing [01:52:01] Speaker B: you out of it. [01:52:02] Speaker A: We don't know. I mean, the transport doesn't do any of the jobs it's supposed to, so maybe it is controlling rumors or something like that. [01:52:08] Speaker D: None of the actual services work. So, like, we'd expect the apps to work, but none of the services work. [01:52:13] Speaker E: Let's just go back to the fact that I was telling you all of this 10 years ago, like, on a regular basis. [01:52:19] Speaker B: But, like, I find it appropriate that you're complaining about public transport, considering that, like, we have a new train line. [01:52:25] Speaker A: Yes. [01:52:27] Speaker B: This week. And it's appropriate for me considering that my nearest station is the last stop on it and I discovered that it was open like, literally yesterday. [01:52:41] Speaker A: Did you hear about day two of service? [01:52:43] Speaker B: That's what I was going to get to, yeah. Basically, we've learned that we've opened this brand new train line and then when you try and order tickets through the app to go on that train line, you get errors. You go to New street to buy a ticket directly. It's not on the system. [01:53:00] Speaker A: But the best part was day two of operation. Day two, they managed to run one train and then the successive three trains during rush hour were all cancelled because they couldn't get the doors to open. [01:53:10] Speaker D: That standard West Midlands train service, like, oh, hang on a minute, we have one person not working today, so we couldn't possibly find a replacement. [01:53:18] Speaker B: But it's especially funny with King's Norton being the end of it, because they were supposed to do the middle platform and use that for the new service. And when I heard that the line was open, I was like, well, it clearly doesn't come here because they haven't even started work on that middle platform. And I noticed yesterday, as of recording, they've cleared half of the weeds and that's it. [01:53:45] Speaker A: Because it could go to Longbridge, because they have dual platforms all the way down to Northfield and Longridge. But, yeah, they've decided not to bother. Yeah, Just like they've just half assed the job completely. The new stations do look nice, to be fair, but the service, I'm just. Westmoreland's public transport in general is so terrible and the roads being like Mad Max as they are at the moment, that I've seen cars stuck in potholes, the cars filling up. [01:54:10] Speaker B: My journey here today was. Was literally just. [01:54:13] Speaker A: You're playing Frogger. [01:54:15] Speaker B: I am dodging everything as I'm driving. [01:54:18] Speaker E: Here's a quick question. Your train station, what's it called? [01:54:22] Speaker B: Kings Norton. [01:54:22] Speaker E: Kings Norton. Where do you live? You live in Sturchley. [01:54:25] Speaker A: So I live on the edge of Sturchley. So we have Pineapple Road, which is in Sturchley, or we have Bournville, which is in Sturchley. [01:54:33] Speaker E: So why call it Pineapple Road? [01:54:36] Speaker A: Because there was a naming competition and Pineapple Road won. [01:54:40] Speaker E: Yeah. [01:54:41] Speaker B: Which just did you wonder where Pineapple Road was? [01:54:44] Speaker A: So the choices were Sturchley, Hazelwell, which was the original name of it, which is an area that doesn't really exist anymore. It kind of exists, but it's not on maps. And then Pineapple Road were the three choices. [01:54:57] Speaker D: Pineapple Road needs something nice. [01:54:58] Speaker A: There really doesn't sounds much nicer than it is. [01:55:01] Speaker E: It's like, that's ridiculous. You Just you have like a thing that goes like Bournville, Selly Oak, Pineapple Road. [01:55:07] Speaker B: That's a separate line, Kings Norton. [01:55:09] Speaker E: But the idea, most of the lines are like they're named after the place. [01:55:13] Speaker B: You have Mosley, Kings Heath, Pineapple Road. [01:55:15] Speaker A: So it says Pineapple Road for Sturchley and tiny little brackets. [01:55:19] Speaker B: Oh, it doesn't say that on the app. [01:55:22] Speaker C: If it was based on a naming competition, then at least it wasn't train stationemic. [01:55:27] Speaker A: Train Station face or something was one of the users. But yes, I think it's just the apps infuriate me so I don't bother using them and it just seems to be. London seems to be just able to do this so much better. So I don't understand why it's so hard to just replicate something similar. [01:55:47] Speaker D: I got charged. They tried to charge me a booking fee for trying to buy a return for the train the other morning. I was like jogger not paying a booking fee for a return. I'm going to go buy the ticket at the actual booth, then at the station I'm paying an extra 50p. Jog on. That's a price of a photo these days. So to recap, Grand Theft Auto 6 [01:56:08] Speaker B: and Grand Theft Auto 6 adverts on phone fans. [01:56:12] Speaker A: Humans. Yeah. And yeah, terrible public infrastructure. [01:56:17] Speaker D: Well, it's nice to know one thing haven't changed. [01:56:25] Speaker A: So it's time for our regular feature of what is going on in our geeky lives. Outsider thing. What we've been up to since the last issue. It could be film, TV series, comic, video game, etc. Just one geeky thing in our lives. So let's start off with Guy. What's one thing that's been quite geeky to you recently that you think you should recommend to others? [01:56:47] Speaker D: I wasn't prepared for this. I quite like DTF St Louis on Sky Atlantic on a Monday. I'm not going to say what that full title that show is, but it's the most unsexy erotic thriller I think I've ever seen. It's got Jason Bateman, David Harbour, Linda Cardellini in it. It's very, very good. Brilliant show. But yeah, just it's very seedy, Very, very unsexy. Meant to be sexy thriller. It's a good. It's a good watch and enjoy. Yeah, sorry, I hadn't thought of anything else. [01:57:30] Speaker A: That's fine. Can you explain the concept of the show then? [01:57:35] Speaker D: Two middle aged men, unhappy in their marriages, join a dating app called DTF St. Louis. One of them ends up dead it's basically tracking backwards and forwards in time to obviously unveil who is the murderer and just the various kind of kind of skeezy sexual situations that they find themselves in. It's just good dark humour. Similar vein of Six Feet Under, White Lotus. So if you like that sort of thing and that sort of kind of bully comedy, it's worth a watch. [01:58:13] Speaker A: Awesome. Thank you. [01:58:14] Speaker D: Yeah, probably didn't come at a good time for David Harbour, really. [01:58:18] Speaker A: His recent stuff say a bit close to. Yeah, maybe. [01:58:23] Speaker D: But yeah, promotion kind of bit of promotion for at the moment. [01:58:28] Speaker A: Lee, how about yourself? [01:58:29] Speaker B: So I'm going to talk about a relatively new game, actually is new. It came out this week. It feels like it's been out longer because I played it as a review game. But it's people of note. It's a musical rpg, so it's like a turn based RPG and it is set in a world based around music. So there's different cities that are all themed around different music genres. And so you play as like a pop singer from the city of Cordia who's looking for a new sound and decides to head out into the world and recruit people from the different places to combine all the genres to create a new sound. And along the way there's like a big world ending threat because it's an RPG and therefore you need a bigger big world ending threat. And it is such a ridiculous game because it plays up its sort of musical side of things. So much like everywhere you go there are music puns. Everything is like a reference to something in some way. Like, so you go to like the first place you go after leaving the pop city is the city of rock and it's all in a canyon because obviously it's rocks and it's got different districts that it's all split into because like all of the rock, all of the rock people will siphon themselves off into their own little sub genre. And I'm just like, oh, I've seen enough online music discussions to get this. And so you got like the metal district and the punk district and the grunge district. The grunge district. I noticed the smells like teen spirit reference in the music that they thought that they could just get away with. There's like one of the sort of main, sort of rival characters that you get throughout the game is like a boy band sort of rivals of the pop singer. And at one point they get a musical number that is just a Backstreet Boy song. It's like, it's like they took the Backstreet Boy style, but made it so that the boy band is deliberately bad. At one point, like they're doing like sort of a harmony leading up into like at the end of the bridge leading into the final key change in the big chorus and one of them just completely like gets the notes wrong. Like he's completely off key. And it's so funny when it kicks and like, you know you get like equipment that you put on that's like the Linkin Parker or the Tom Petticoat and all this sort of stuff. And yeah, it's basically like. So battles are turn based, so if you played any sort of JRPG sort of thing, it's that sort of thing. And when you do your attacks, you have like a little rhythm minigame that comes in. So you have to like press buttons in time with the music to sort of strengthen your attack. Your party members will also get strengthened by the genre of the music that's playing at that moment. Because each turn the music will shift genres to one of your party members. So you'll. Even though there's like a sort of bass track that runs underneath based on the area you're in. Like sometimes it'll bring in pop elements or it'll bring in rock elements or bring in, you know, EDM elements and things like that. And, and when that happens, that specific character who's of that genre, all their attacks are boosted and that sort of thing. So there's a lot of stuff going on with that. And the song Stones, which the director has shamelessly admitted is just. I wanted to make the Material System from Final Fantasy 7 but better. And yeah, it's just I played through the whole thing. It's not that long. It's maybe bets of 20 hours or so. So by sort of RPG standards it's a bit of a short one, but it's a really good game. Like it's been made, you could tell it's been made with a lot of love. It's full of hilarious stuff going on. And yeah, I've played it recently as a review and it was just fantastic. I highly recommend it. [02:02:41] Speaker C: Awesome. [02:02:41] Speaker A: Thank you, Sam. How about yourself? [02:02:44] Speaker C: So I'm going to go with something that probably would have been a better one geek thing if I'd been here at the last recording. But so as you know, I always try and watch as many Oscar nominated films as possible. [02:03:00] Speaker D: He always gets the predictions wrong. [02:03:02] Speaker C: I do not. I wasn't going to bring it up, but you did mention at the end of the last show that you thought I'd got like 60% or something. I did better than that. But one of the bits I enjoy most about that is trying to track down some of the short films that get nominated because it's a fun excuse to see these sorts of films that don't get a big cinema release, but are often more kind of original and creative and interesting. So I'll do a quick run through of a few of the ones that I was able to see. So these are all in the live action short category. So first up, this was available on YouTube is Jane Austen's period drama, which is a very silly film where there's a kind of classic Jane Austen heroine explaining menstruation to a kind of classic Jane Austen hero. Her name is. [02:04:02] Speaker D: You learn a lot. [02:04:05] Speaker C: I didn't, but he did. So her name is Estragenia. His name is Mr. Dickley. And she has sisters called Labinia and Vagiana, which I think gives you an idea of the tone of the film. It's an entire thing built around one joke in the title. And you can kind of see where it's going, the point it's making as soon as you realize what that coke is. But it's very well done and it's just good kind of silly daftness. So, yeah, that's good fun. And then the other two that I managed to see actually shared the win for the Oscar. So first up is the Singers, which is available on Netflix. And in this one, it's these barflies in a really gloomy dive bar in America who have an impromptu singing contest. And it sort of gradually reveals that all these sort of grizzled old men who are leaning over their pints all have hidden talents or they're sort of baring their souls in a way that they wouldn't have done otherwise. It's very human, very emotional and genuinely very sweet. Like, really simple idea. It's literally just a bunch of guys singing in a bar. But again, it's a really sort of beautifully told story. And then the final one, which was my favorite of the ones I saw, is called Two People Exchanging Saliva. And again, this is available on YouTube in full. It's a surreal black and white French [02:05:52] Speaker A: film [02:05:54] Speaker C: and it's set in a world where kissing people, particularly in public, is punishable by immediate execution. So everyone is not brushing their teeth, they're chewing garlic flavored gum and that sort of thing to just make the idea of being kissed by anyone as unappealing as possible, possible. And then for some reason, you also pay for things by Being slapped in the face. So that is the currency. The more expensive something is, the more slaps you have to receive at the point that you turn up at the cash register. And the plot basically follows a young woman who's working in a big department store who falls for one of her customers and has to try and deal with that in this world where she's employed to slap this person and isn't allowed to kiss them. It's a really weird, weird premise, but it does a great job of taking a sort of show, don't tell approach to setting this world up. So you get used to all the weirdness very quickly. And once you are used to it, it's actually a really lovely story. Well, lovely might not be the right word, but it is beautifully told, it's beautifully shot, there's great performances in it. And yeah, it's just completely unlike anything else that I've sort of seen in the run up to the Oscars. So, yeah, that one I thought was the most interesting of those. And then with a tile like that, [02:07:41] Speaker D: that guy with the tats on his face probably struggling to get access. [02:07:45] Speaker C: Yes. And I will just give a very quick shout out to one of the animated ones which was available on YouTube called Butterfly or Papillon because it's a French film which the hand painted animation about real life. Algerian born Jewish swimmer who competed for France in the Olympics in Berlin. And so the 1936 Berlin Olympics when it was obviously Nazi rule. And it's absolutely stunning film. It didn't win the award. It's like weirdly kind of simplistic animation. Like some of the frames almost look like a child painted them. But the way it sort of uses that to kind of blend some of the scenes together and kind of wring a lot of emotion out of quite a simple kind of piece of art is really perfectly done. So, yeah, I recommend that as well. [02:08:55] Speaker A: You forgot the one part of the one geek thing there. Keith, how about yourself? [02:09:02] Speaker E: Right, I'm gonna keep this short and sweet because it's a second timer for me. I've already talked about this thing in a previous episode and I'm saying it. I'm gonna bring it up again because I think more people should watch it. [02:09:14] Speaker D: He's talked about it before. [02:09:15] Speaker E: Yeah. But the second season of Deadlock has dropped on Amazon. It dropped. Whatever that means. I think all episodes are available, but it's the sweariest show on television. It's an Australian detective noir show where two mismatched detectives have now traveled to one of their hometowns which is basically croc heaven. And it's all about competing crocodile keepers and like people who take boats out to go and look at the biggest crocs in the. In the the Amazon outback or whatever it is. It's sweary. It's hilarious but it also features really interesting kind of like cop dynamics and kind of you know a proper mystery. So if you kind of like aboard of like the really serious po faced crime stuff particularly the terrible British stuff they always try and ram down your throats which is awful. Any of that stuff. I don't watch it. Silent Witness, all the rest of it. Go and watch the sweariest TV show in existence where literally every other word is an effing and jeffin and the C word and all the rest of it. [02:10:23] Speaker B: And it's hilarious Australian show. It's. [02:10:26] Speaker E: Yeah, it's so quintessentially Australian. It's brilliant. And if you don't laugh all the time. I mean I laugh all the time because I find swearing to be hilariously funny. But it's probably one of the best shows on Amazon Prime. You know it makes things like the boys and in an invincible who think they're all like mature and like what's it. This is just two hilariously funny female detectives swearing as like sailors and it's brilliant. So it's funny, it's whimsical, it's. It's a million miles away from any other films that Sam's just described the art films of the Oscars. But yeah, so you should watch Deadlock on Amazon. It's awesome and if you don't like it you can cob off to Australia. [02:11:14] Speaker A: Thank you. So for me I'm going to go with Arco which was another Oscar nominated movie Animated best animated film lost out to K pop Demon Hunters but didn't we all in 2024 I think that won every single award ever. Yeah with that music. But yes. So it's French animated sci fi fantasy film Hugo Beyond Vou got premiered at Cannes but it's basically a plot. Is a child in the 30th century, his family's time travellers. He's not 12 yet and you only get access to that when you become 12 on your 12th birthday. But he goes too early, gets lost in time and it's his journey to try and get home. Stuck in around 2075. I think it is beautifully animated. Beautifully touching one. We watch the English dub at the Mac which booked and sorted out for us but it's got a fantastic cast. Mark Ruffalo Natalie Portman, Will Ferrell, Andy Samberg, Flea. [02:12:12] Speaker D: No, Sam will be all over that Chili Peppers fan. [02:12:15] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:12:15] Speaker A: But absolutely fantastic. Really touching story. It's a really beautiful, beautiful animation style. There's some really fun moments as well. And it kind of goes between fun and drama and it's kind of a little bit of a love story across time and across the ages. Really, really would recommend it. If you've not seen it, go and seek it out. [02:12:37] Speaker C: Yeah, didn't manage to watch it, but I not sure if it's still out, but it did look stunning. [02:12:45] Speaker E: It was a film that annoyed me in a way because it got trailered before a lot of other stuff. And then when they released it, they put it like one screening at 10 [02:12:53] Speaker D: o' clock in the morning, like in [02:12:54] Speaker E: the middle of the week. And it was like, how are we supposed to see this? You trailed this as if it was going to be a kind of Zootopia. Big release, multiple screenings and they kind of stuffed it. Really. [02:13:03] Speaker C: Yeah. [02:13:03] Speaker B: But Keith, have you considered when it comes to animated movies that they need to make space for the Mario Galaxy movie? [02:13:09] Speaker E: Well, this, this was out quite a few weeks before. And also on Ryan's point of K pop, Demon Hunters, let's remember what BAFTA thought was the best animated film of the year. [02:13:15] Speaker D: I think they listened to Sam on this show and they were like, oh well, he recommends Zootopia 2. Then we need to make sure every screen is Zootopia 2. So we couldn't possibly fit anything else in than Zootopia 2. [02:13:26] Speaker E: But Zootopia 2 was like last like ages ago, wasn't it? But then saying that I kind of thought Zootopia one was like about two years ago and you said it was nine. It's like that's just nonsense. But I think this deserved much more of a wider screen. [02:13:42] Speaker D: This films at the time it's taking GTA 60 [02:13:46] Speaker E: TV show. [02:13:47] Speaker A: Yeah. I'm assuming it will come to home release on a streaming service of choice. I'm assuming it's gonna be Netflix because they pumped some money into was a little bit like that family going scene when you had 400 production companies just keep coming up before the film started. [02:14:01] Speaker E: I thought this deserved at least the same kind of responses Flo did. [02:14:07] Speaker C: Yes. [02:14:08] Speaker A: But yeah, it's absolutely beautiful. It's a really good heartwarming tale. Recommend you take the time. It's only 90 minutes. So it's not like it's a overblown, overlong film like we get nowadays. How many production companies came up so we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 production companies listed on Wikipedia. And there were more on the screening because it was funded by. In association with. [02:14:33] Speaker B: You got to put all the arts funds up. [02:14:34] Speaker D: Does it beat the 10 that were on Late Night with the Devil? [02:14:37] Speaker A: I think it's almost the same. [02:14:39] Speaker D: Really. That was ridiculous. That was like nearly three minutes of the film to begin with. [02:14:45] Speaker A: It basically it was a great film, but yeah, too many productions, like you [02:14:48] Speaker B: watch it, the first production company comes [02:14:49] Speaker A: up and then you're like, okay, ready for the film start. And then another one appears and then another one appears and it's just like, just when's the actual film? Can you just not like have a big screen of all nine of these playing a little card at the same time? But yeah, regardless of that, the film is very much worth watching. [02:15:08] Speaker D: So to recap, Guy, DTF St. Louis. [02:15:13] Speaker C: People of note, Oscar nominated shorts, Keith, [02:15:18] Speaker E: the sweariest show on tv, Deadlock and Arco. [02:15:22] Speaker A: So hopefully some of those recommendations will give you some interest. Thanks for joining us on the geeky Rummy podcast this issue. Very much. Thanks to the panel and guy for coming back with this one. Guy, you don't have social medias anymore. If you do have them, they're probably gonna be out of date. [02:15:43] Speaker D: Yeah, leave me alone. Don't contact me. I don't want to be contacted. [02:15:46] Speaker A: Yes, Lee, where can we find you online? [02:15:49] Speaker B: You can find me on YouTube at Bob ThePETFarrett and on BlueSky under the same name. And also you can find my freelance writing around the Internet silicone era. And I've got a review upon Rock, Paper Shotgun from December. So you can find me in all those sort of places. And obviously on the geeky brewery website every Friday doing the games roundup. [02:16:13] Speaker A: Sam, how about yourself? [02:16:14] Speaker C: You can find me on OnlyFans, [02:16:19] Speaker D: bluesky, [02:16:20] Speaker C: Instagram and threads D. Edwards, 89. And also on the geekybramme website every Thursday doing the film roundup. [02:16:30] Speaker D: What's Fred's? [02:16:31] Speaker A: It's Instagram's version of Twitter. [02:16:34] Speaker C: Yeah, I say I'm on there. I very. I do very little on there, but I am on there. [02:16:39] Speaker D: You're on Tinder as well and all the regular dating sites. Ladies. [02:16:44] Speaker A: Keith, how about yourself? [02:16:47] Speaker E: On the social medias on Hard Luck Hotel. Infrequently posting there. Mostly just retweeting my own stuff that I do on the geeky memory website and Twitters and not Twitters. Who does Twitter anymore? That's just nonsense. I'm so back in the past. But Wednesdays is my Wednesday. Comics roundup with a lot of kind of like comics that I like. You know, you may not, but I do. So you should check them out Wednesdays on all the socials and the Geeky Brummy website. [02:17:11] Speaker A: Yes. And if you're not following the geekybrummer socials, you can find us at Geeky Brummy on Instagram, Facebook threads BlueSky [email protected] and on YouTube at geekyfrommery. If you're watching this, we're probably you're probably watching it on either YouTube or Spotify. If not hearing us, you'll find us on your podcast streaming service of choice. But thank you very much for listening watching and we'll see you again next time. [02:17:37] Speaker D: He's probably watching on YouTube. [02:17:38] Speaker A: Premium snob no adverts for Sam the [02:17:45] Speaker E: Geeky Premium podcast is presented by Ryan Parish featuring Sam Edwards, Lee Price and Keith Bloomfield with special guest Guy Halford. The podcast is produced by Viv Parish and is recorded at Millennium Point in [02:17:57] Speaker C: the heart of Birmingham. [02:17:58] Speaker E: You can follow us on all of the social medias eekybrummy and you can support the show by visiting ko-fi.com Geeky Brummy this was a Geeky Brummy production and until next time, tararabit. [02:18:22] Speaker D: Can you edit that bit out.