Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - News & Nonsense vol 2

Thank you. Welcome back, midnight viewers, to Father Malone's Weekly Roundup. Shut up, HP. Sorry, one more time. No, I think we're going with that one.

All right. Okay, yes, welcome back to the Roundup, everybody. So, look, this isn't going to be a themed episode. Ordinarily, we would be reviewing a movie, or I'd be reviewing a movie, or I would be reviewing a movie, and that movie should be The Stunt Driver, not The Stuntman, which we covered the documentary that it's based on last week, but that's going to have to wait another week because, folks, I'm tired. I'm very tired.

It's hard to be a creature, especially during Halloween season. But to help me with the load, Mr. HP. How are you, brother? I'm doing great.

How are you doing, my friend? I'm tired. I just told you. For fuck's sake. Look, I'm in my customary chair.

I got my feet up. I got the newspaper flipping. Through it idly. What's going on? What's happening in the world, Father Malone?

What's happening in the world? It's the world of trailers. That's what's happening first. We're going to start with the one that everyone's talking about, everyone saw. It's a minute 30.

The Misadventures of Cliff Booth. I'm going to play that right here. You heard the story about Bruce Lee getting his ass kicked by a stuntman, yeah? Oh, yeah. This is the guy.

Evening, fellas. I thought I know you from somewhere. Name's Cliff. I lost count of how many jokers I killed on TV. But you, you actually killed people.

That's just saying what it's like to kill someone with a knife. Charlie finally tells you what he wants from you and all of a sudden he needs a briefcase full of cash? Whatever it is you're thinking, it's not. What you think. You worked with Rick Dalton for a number of years.

What brought an end to your engagement? Oh, Rick got too fat for me to double him anymore. What are your thoughts? I honestly could not be more excited. This was the news of the week.

Spoiler alert. This is, for me, the news of the week. Are we doing spoilers for just our appreciation of a news item? Spoilers. This is HB's favorite.

No, for real though, we've talked in various other podcasts about how much we love, I love, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. It's easily, at least for right now, it's my favorite Tarantino movie. I could rewatch that thing ad nauseum. So when I heard that they were making this Misadventures of Cliff Booth thing, I got excited. And then when I heard that David Fincher was directing, I got even more excited.

And then when I finally saw the trailer and saw the vision of what's happening with this movie, I'm just, I'm so excited for this movie. It looks great. I am excited as well. I'm a little more tempered with my excitement, though. Why?

I was expecting to be fucking knocked out by a 90-second trailer from David Fincher. And instead, I saw what looked like a passable 1970s thriller. And maybe he's going for passable 1970s thriller. That's fine. It's just that I wanted a shot of a cab from above as it made a corner in San Francisco while hunting the Zodiac Killer.

You know what I mean? I wanted to watch a refrigerator explode in slow motion in this trailer. Sure. I think David Fincher's Obviously, he doesn't need me to defend him, but he's fantastic. He does, actually.

He called earlier and said, could you make sure HB defends me against all comers? He's such a protean director. He sort of shapeshifts. No two movies are exactly the same. And I love the look of this, and I love the actors that he has.

Look, Peter Weller. Is in it. We've talked about him unreasonably much over the last few months. I don't know why. He keeps coming up, man.

Oh, you know what? Because of Star Trek. That's why. Because of Star Trek, right. And I think we might have talked a little bit about Robocop.

Obliquely, I don't remember. But he is in it. I'm excited about that. Scott Kahn continues to morph into his dad. It's a little freaky.

He looks middle-aged James Kahn now. Yeah. It was for resemblance before, but now they've become the same person. They've done something with his nose in this. I think he's got a little makeup because he doesn't quite look like Scott Kahn from Hawaii Five-0.

I just figured he'd gotten all drunk and roomy. Roomy-eyed. Roomy. R-H-E-U. I love that word.

The look of it, like I said, it looks dark and sinister and fun. Oh, yeah. Brad Pitt is doing his Cliff Booth. thing. I couldn't be more excited. We got some stock.

Car racing in there. I love a good stock car race. I don't know why I didn't know this. I didn't realize that it's going to play in IMAX. I didn't either, and I wondered why.

Not that I didn't know, but why would you bother to put it in IMAX? I don't know, but I'm sorely tempted. I mean, I'm sure it's going to be just for a week. Take it to the gimmick. The gimmick!

This is the latest 3D thing, right? Sure, but. Look, I'm tempted to see it, even though I'm sure it's going to be a ridiculously narrow window. Are you saying, because it said only, so does that mean if I don't go to an IMAX theater, I don't get to see this movie? Probably in its initial path, because it's premiering on, I think, November 25th.

That's Thanksgiving weekend. My guess is it'll play the holiday weekend, and maybe after that, it'll be on Netflix, and we can all enjoy it. But, you know, what if I wanted to see this in a theater in a format that would have been available to me in the 1970s, which is the era they're trying to... Speaking of Quentin Tarantino, have you noticed on social media recently they rediscovered all of his clips from when Django Unchained came out? And whenever he was on a black radio station or a black television station, you know, Tarantino suddenly was black.

So I was like, I don't even know what a computer is, man. I haven't seen that. specifically but one of my favorite podcasts they it's a countdown podcast and one week they did a countdown they didn't say who it was but it was quentin tarantino doing that that sort of accent and it wasn't until maybe number four or three that i finally the perspective shifted and i went oh my god that's been tarantino the whole time because if you don't see him doing it It's easy to mistake him for just someone talking in quote-unquote jive. I speak jive. Immortal Barbara Billingsley. That's where Tarantino picked up his accent.

From Airplay. Makes sense now. Tarantino is very problematic. Nevertheless, I'm looking forward to this movie. I'm sure the next trailer is going to deliver all of the flash that I'm looking for this one.

But as a... brief hors d'oeuvre of theme, perhaps. I think this is just establishing, hey, this is not Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Down to the fact that they call out Leonardo DiCaprio's character as having gotten too fat for Cliff to double him anymore. Ultimately, we weren't going to learn anything interesting in this trailer. Like you said, I think this is a bunch of scene setting.

And the next one will give us more insight into what the going's on, what are these misadventures that Cliff Booth is experiencing. There it is, moving on. Second trailer of the week. This is many years in the making animated film from director Brad Bird. Here's the trailer for Ray Gunn, or Ray Gunn.

You know, photos are like this business. It's all about the light and the dark and Oh, the lovely shades of gray in between. What are you looking for, Ray? I don't know. Truth?

How sad is that? Take me down. Welcome to the future. Six hundred crowns. Most flameouts, they leave the city, but not you.

Mr. Gunn, I presume? So, uh, what can I do for you? Venus Nova is a big star. She's emotional, volatile.

She does things. What kind of things do you mean? How about murder? I didn't do it. Keep her out of trouble and you'll be a very rich man.

Get out. You're dead. To me, understand? We should ask for more money. I keep thinking there are no nice surprises anymore.

And then you show up. Be careful, Ray. We know how the world works. Nobody's pure. We all get played.

Ah! Tell me who hired you, or I throw you out the window. Classic. This is business. It's hard being the only honest players in.

A crooked game. Ray, jump! Will you go and do the right thing again? Mr. Gunn, will you be making a statement?

Stay tuned. I like you, Gunn. You're a real throwback. It's Ray Gunn. HP, what did you think of this one?

Well, I was a little disappointed at first because I thought this was a movie about the famous Australian breakdancing Olympian. Wasn't she called Ray Gunn? Was she Ray Gunn? Every time I see Ray Gunn, I always think of Ronnie Ray Gunn. Like this sort of every political parody of the 1980s.

Oh, yeah. Ronnie Reagan in the White House, man. That's what Gil Scott Heron used to call him. Ronnie Reagan. Oh, yeah.

That was his thing. His nemesis was Reagan for a long time. Ronnie Reagan. But all bad jokes aside, I slept on this a little bit. I wasn't aware that this was a long gestating project for Brad Bird.

But I'll tell you, the trailer looked fantastic. Yeah. It made me think in the opening moments, you know, why can't we have other detective stories set in the future? Like, why is it just owned by Blade Runner? I mean, I love Blade Runner, that whatever, we all do, right?

But can't we have some other gumshoes, like, hoofing it around while hover cars are flying overhead? Why not? It's such an evergreen theme. I mean, who doesn't love a good detective noir picture, right? I love it.

Maybe I'm in a class of my own, but I love a good detective picture. And that was the first thing I thought of when I started watching the trailer is, oh, this is a little bit like a lighthearted Blade Runner kind of thing. And then I started thinking, this looks a lot like the fifth element in terms of the art direction and the cars flying and everything like that. But I'm pretty confident Brad Bird will bring something unique to this picture. I thought the art direction looked like the fifth element, but if it took place on Coruscant.

That's a good point. Every time they're like plummeting or flying in the sort of above the surface traffic, it just seemed like that entire scene on Coruscant from Revenge of the Sith. Was it Revenge of the Sith? Yeah, the second one. No, it was the beginning of Attack of the Clones.

Attack of the Clones. Revenge of the Sith was the third one, right? Let me tell a quick autobiographical bullshit story about Attack of the Clones. Because I was working at a movie theater here in Las Vegas at the time. We hadn't yet switched over to digital.

We, in fact, got a digital projector specifically to show Star Wars episode whatever, the Attack of the Clones, right? And so about two months before the movie came out, I got a call saying, hey, you need to be at the theater at 8 a.m. to meet a technician. He's got to work on the digital projector. And it was a guy from Lucasfilm. And he was there to quality check the theater.

And he did so by playing the entirety of Attack of the Clones, which he was like, it's cool if you want to sit and watch it. So for two months, I had seen Attack of the Clones and could say nothing to nobody. What are you going to say? No? No, I don't want to.

Are you kidding me? It's only the biggest picture of the summer. No. Yeah, exactly. I was like, I get to watch this?

He's like, I'm like, really? He's like, yeah, just go sit down. I'm like, okay, cool. What I found disconcerting about the Ray Gunn trailer is that Ray Gunn himself looks disconcertingly like Luke Perry. He looks disconcertingly like Luke Perry.

Huh. Go back and watch it again. You'll see what I mean. Well, I'm afraid to now because that's all that I'll see once now that now having that knowledge, it's ruined for me. An unlined Luke Perry in a first season of 90210, let's say.

Rest in peace. Rest in peace is. I think those are the only trailers. All right, we got to jump in. The rest is all fucking comic book news, unfortunately, because no other genre is pulling it together at the moment.

So let's talk. Oh, you know what? All right. First of all, There's a bunch of set photos from the Hunt for Gollum movie, finally, that has been... I don't know, they've been making it a while.

What's his name's making it? Fucking Andy Serkis is directing it. Andy Serkis, yeah. And this is a story that takes place in between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Who cares?

What is happening? Thank you for saying that. I could not be less excited for this. I loved... Like a million other people, I loved Lord of the Rings.

I loved all those movies. I was bitterly disappointed in The Hobbit. I just thought, why are you doing this? It just seemed beneath Peter Jackson at that point, and I just said, never again. When they announced The Hobbit, I thought, that's great.

Do a small-scale version now. Do the fun little mini version of Lord of the Rings with those characters. That'll be fun. No, let's make it three fucking movies... And each movie pushing two hours.

What the hell? Just felt so craven and so crass to do that. If it had been a single movie, I probably would have been delighted by it and said, wow, I'm so happy to be in this world again. But now I saw those set photos. It's all stuff in the Shire.

Yeah. That's all that I saw. I think that's what you're talking about. So it's just a bunch of farmers and their children. And I'm like, okay, great.

Yeah. Look, I'm happy. For all those actors who are going to come back and be part of this, because this was a life-changing experience for them, but as a filmgoer, like I said, I could not be less excited for this. I greeted the news with less than a shrug. Yeah, like, I'll see it when I can, but I'm not seeking it out.

Maybe my tune will change. Who knows? Maybe. Look, you know, I always reserve the right to revise my opinion. I'm not perfect, but I feel pretty safe in this.

HB, are you familiar with artist Grant Morrison, writer Grant Morrison? I am. I can't say I'm a fan of any specific book that he's made, but I'm certainly, by reputation, I'm certainly familiar with him. He did a run of Green Lantern that was really good and a run of Batman, as a matter of fact. Well, he finally saw Supergirl.

Boy, did he. I'm going to read you the quote, everybody. Quote, Jason Momoa, who I was actually looking forward to, was very disappointing as Lobo. It was, in fact, one of the worst performances I've ever seen in a film, and quite baffling. As I know, Momoa's not usually that bad.

And Lobo seems like a character made for him to play. Go figure. Not that bad. That's faint praise if I ever heard it. Yeah, I think, does he follow it up?

Hold on. Let's see if he. Well, he had some nice things to say about Supergirl. Yeah, he said she did a credible job. Yeah, I just think he's being very reserved. just as a rule there.

But, look, I didn't see Supergirl, I confess. Yeah. It just didn't wow me, and then I started hearing about how mediocre it was, and I just said, I'm not going to, I'll see this when it comes to streaming or what have you. I still say that, see that movie, man. I think it's a good movie.

Morrison brings up the fact that the villain is just a low-level Romanian gangster, and that's the big problem with the movie. Lobo as a sweetener is just okay, but if you're looking for Lobo as a full-on character from the comic books, you're going to have to wait for whatever R-rated movie they will or will not make in the future. I think he might have said something about this, or maybe the article I read said it, that it smacked of reaction to audience previews. They felt like they had to add a little spicy something, so they added Lobo. I think you might have even said that in your review, Father Malone, that it clashed with the rest of the movie.

Yeah, because he comes in and it's suddenly a Lobo movie for, you know, 10 minutes. And that's not what we're telling here. So I don't know if he was in the original comic or not, or they just shoehorned him in because they wanted to kickstart this universe. But I don't know. I didn't think he was terrible as Lobo.

I think he has a lot of promise as Lobo. I just don't think we've seen that character to its full potential just yet. Lobo. But do you think he's the one to fulfill that potential? Yeah, absolutely.

I think if you give him the right script, then he would be fantastic in it. Or not. Who knows? I've never liked Lobo as a character myself. I always thought it was part of that 90s extreme movement that was going on in comics where even belt buckles had to be inflated and swollen.

Swollen belt buckles. 90s comics. Swollen belt buckles. That'll be the name of the documentary we do. I've never.

That was a period of comics that I bypassed. After. Once I got into college and I stopped reading books regularly, I missed that whole wave like Lobo. So I don't know. I mean, if you give him his own movie, I think that excites me more than shoehorning him into something maybe that he doesn't belong in.

But I don't know. It's harsh. And I do. I mean, he doesn't need me to defend him, Jason Momoa. But at the same time, I could not name for you any role that he's had that I went, wow, that is amazing.

What a great performance. Right, right. I've only seen lesser and greater degrees of, is that Jason Momoa? I mean, the guy, he looks the part in everything he does. He's a big dude.

I don't know. I mean, he was okay as Aquaman. H.P.? In other comic book news, Destin Daniel Cretton just signed a five-picture deal with Sony Pictures. They've locked him in forever.

Well, that happens when your last movie makes a billion dollars. In one weekend. Yeah. I mean, look, good for him. We spoke his praises when we reviewed Spider-Man.

It's fantastic. I think wisely, it's a production deal. He didn't lock himself in at all. He's got the right to develop five movies for Sony Pictures. Yeah, I think his next movie isn't even a Sony movie.

He's doing Naruto, I think, is his next movie. Whoa, I can only imagine. It's not a Sony picture. I believe it's not a Sony picture. No, and he's already said that he can come back to Marvel for Shang-Chi when they do the sequel to that.

Yeah, they'd be crazy not to hire him in a second to do the next Shang-Chi. With everything he's learned and all the success, it's going to be great. Come on, where's that sequel already, you sons of bitches? Well, I mean, I'm fairly certain that Shang-Chi is not going to die in Doomsday or Secret Wars. So let's get on.

It, Marvel. Speaking of Marvel, they've greenlit a new television series, a spy thriller. It's called Zodiac. We were just talking about Zodiac, but I don't think this is that. No, but Zodiac did feature, what's his name?

The Hulk, Mark Ruffalo. That's true. Oh, my God. The connections are endless. Okay.

So Zodiac. There are two instances of Zodiac in the Marvel Universe, right? There is... I have it written here. So it was a team that went up against the Avengers in the 70s.

Right, so it was a band of supervillains at first. Right, and then they became life model decoys. Right, which is... I keep hearing that they're going to do something similar on Vision Quest, the television series, with the life model decoys, so... I don't know if they're setting this series up with that, but that would stand to reason with the way Marvel operates.

Or Secret Warriors has a great wheel of the Zodiac, which is this bureau that oversees all of the secret bureaus in the Marvel Universe. They oversee S.H.I.E.L.D., but they also oversee HYDRA and The Hand and Damage Control and Saber. If they do that, I don't even know what. Has the snake eaten its own tail? When you get into the Overseer of the Overseers.

Who watches The Watchmen? Yeah, man. I don't know. I'm curious what this is. I think it's probably going to be what you said, which is a band of supervillains.

Yeah, and I'm so down, and I've been so down on the original Disney Plus programming for a long time. So this was another bit of news that I greeted with a bit of a, huh. I'm at the point now where it's like, Okay, wow me. You need to win me back because it's been mediocrity for so long with a few exceptions. That Daredevil show was good.

Daredevil born again, seasons one and two. Well, they just announced season three will be the last. Yeah, hopefully that means they're going to get them into features now. Let's get the kingpin into a Spider-Man movie where he belongs, you idiots. The thing that I keep returning to about that, and I was thinking about this because I was just reading an interview with Mahershala Ali about it.

Blade, yet again, another Blade, like what went wrong? And I'm thinking about this in terms of Doomsday 2. It's that these actors, look, these actors, they age. Comic book characters don't age. They never do, but actors do.

So there's a relatively narrow window that you can get these people into these movies and make as many as you can. Tom Holland is not going to be credible as Spider-Man forever. Well, no, now he's a Spider-Man. The immortal Captain America can. he'll be elderly he'll be you know elderly spider-man before you know it but i guess my point is you know these things move at a seemingly glacial pace but at some point the actor just can't do it or won't do it or just won't be able to physically so where does that leave. Them spider middle-aged man are you looking at my gut.

That's another unsung SNL sketch. Middle-aged man. And his sidekick, drinking buddy. And there's nothing... I don't know why that isn't more popular, because it wasn't problematic like some of those other old sketches.

It's just the middle-aged guy with the gut who knows stuff. Because it's middle-of-the-road shit, ultimately. Yep, we all deal with middle-aged men, and this is how they are. Yeah, but it was still worth a chuckle or two. It was no...

HP, the HP-inator. Hey. Okay, Zack Snyder, he's feeling the comic book fatigue, HP. He knows that comic book movies are on their way out. Why?

Because he doesn't make them anymore, obviously. But when asked if he would ever return to make another comic book movie, he answered the most predictable Zack Snyder answer ever. Yes, I want to make The Dark Knight Returns. Here's the quote. The reason why it's The Dark Knight Returns, if anyone would ever let me do it outside of the DC Universe, since it's a novel that just happens to have superheroes in it, is if I could do Watchmen and The Dark Knight Returns.

Those two books next to each other, to me, represent the complete cycle of the superhero comic book medium. And I'd like to add to that, Zach, that those are the two comic books you've read, The only fucking two comic books you've ever read in your life, you fucking poser. You don't even know how to make a good movie. You know how to copy pretty pictures out of a fucking comic book, you fucking fraud. I have thoughts like you on this, Father Malone.

Number one, I don't disagree. The Man of Steel, Superman, Batman, Justice League, all crap. A complete waste of what could have been a wonderful Superman. Let me add Dawn of the Dead, that fucking Vegas zombie movie he did, those two or three. I didn't even bother watching the second or third parts of his stupid Seven Samurai in Space bullshit.

Right. No, I'm just talking about comic book movies. I'm not even talking about the wider 300 and all that kind of stuff. Also a comic book movie. I think we've talked about this.

I will say that I enjoy Watchmen. I think it's a very credible adaptation of Watchmen. And this is coming from two of the biggest super fans of Watchmen anyone could ever meet. Right. In fact, I'm just now rereading Watchmen.

So that's, so there. Let me say this though, because I do love the movie. I put it on. I will watch beginning to end. I've watched the director's cut.

I've watched the gigantic fucking everything's in there for no good reason. Cut of the movie. Okay. I think he did do a very credible job. I think he did the best you were going to get. of a feature film released in theaters.

Watchmen has always screamed out to be a miniseries and given the proper depth of what the book was trying to get at. That's the only way to actually translate the book. So I think he did a really good job. But is there any passion in it? Do you think he's saying anything with that movie?

You know what I mean? Other than, I'm making this book into a movie. Look, I did that. You know, Terry Gilliam kept threatening to make The Watchmen forever. Do you have any doubt that movie, as flawed as it would be as far as an adaptation, like a direct adaptation of the book, it would have had the passion and the spirit and the fucking hope and despair that you get when you're reading The Watchman as a comic book?

I 100% agree. And my final word on that is what he did give us is probably the greatest portrayal of Rorschach that I could have ever imagined. Jackie Earl Haley is the best thing. about that movie. A close second is, what's his name, is Doc Manhattan. I thought he was really good too.

But having said all that, I'm not, I'm the ball washing around Watchmen. That's as far as I will go. But when I read this about Dark Knight Returns, now first point is they've already made it. It was a two-part animated picture with Peter Weller actually as doing the voice of Bruce Wayne slash Batman. Now putting that aside.

He cherry picked all of his favorite bits and stuck them in his fucking Batman movies. Yeah. He doesn't get to have his cake and eat it too. I don't know who the perfect filmmaker to make. I would love, put it this way.

I would love to see someone actually tackle the Dark Knight Returns. I don't know. I can't think off the top of my head who I'd want to direct it. But let me ask you this, Father Malone. This was an interesting thing.

I thought of this and I can't wait to ask you this question. If you were going to cast today, the Dark Knight Returns, Give me your best Batman and Superman. Best Batman is Michael Keaton. You can have anybody. Michael Keaton is who I would put in right now.

If you shot it today, Michael Keaton as Bruce Wayne in that version. I would believe that his Bruce Wayne ended up in that story more than that fucking Misbegotten Flash movie. That actually beats me. That hadn't even occurred to me. I was going to say George Clooney, not even thinking about the fact that he was Batman already also.

But I like your Michael Keaton idea better. That's perfect. The mania of Bruce Wayne in Dark Knight Returns was always in Michael Keaton in existence. in none of the other Bruce Wayans. And he's aged to perfection now. Yeah.

That over the hill, you know, can't really move, but he's going to do it through muscle memory and gut it out. Yeah, I could see that. Now, as for Superman? Yeah. Well, I'd probably just bring back Henry Cavill.

Right? Superman doesn't age. He doesn't. My brilliant stunt casting would have been Tom Cruise as Superman. Ooh.

Yeah, he's old, but he looks young. He's got that Boy Scout shit. He's also got an edge to him. He knows what he's doing is wrong by just working as an operative for the U.S. government. He doesn't look...

He looks old, but he doesn't look bad. He doesn't look aged. He just looks like someone who's kept good shape all these years. We did. But you can tell he's got the mileage.

Well, yeah. No, he probably had a lot of surgeons on the payroll, too. But to think, yeah, imagine Michael Keaton and Tom Cruise going toe-to-toe in that alleyway. Oof. Yeah, you know, they unfortunately...

I have to... We've talked about this before, HB, but to me, that was icing on the cake because we as Batman fans were sick of Superman being so popular. and not having any angst in his life. So it felt good to watch Batman kick the shit out of him. But now we've seen that happen. So it's robbed of its power.

And by the way, that hadn't really happened in comics in 1985 when the fucking book was coming out, you know? And let me read Zack Snyder's other quote, because he just can't stop. Quote, You can do no more than those two books. Watchmen came at the beginning of the superhero phase, so it would be super fitting to have the Dark Knight Returns come now, at what I would say is possibly, I don't want to call it the Twilight, but we're down the road of the superhero movie genre. And I think audiences understand the why of it.

Wait, he had something else to say. He continues. Let's not forget, The Dark Knight Returns was written for a comic book audience that was very exhausted by comic books in the same way that Watchmen was. So having that movie written for now, people, And so having that movie written now for people who are exhausted by comic book movies would be a good time. Duh.

One thing equals another. A plus B equals C. He is such a dunderhead. By the way, as somebody who's actually read comics and was actually reading comics at the time, we weren't exhausted by anything. We were excited by new and innovative books that had potential, that looked beyond the fucking... limitations that had been put on them for the previous 50 years.

There was no exhaustion at all, dude. You're the one who's exhausted because you've never fucking understood the genre to begin with. I agree. I wasn't a jaded comic reader back then. I was thrilled by these new directions that comics were taking us.

Maybe if I had been in my mid to late 30s and had been reading comics for forever, but we were kids, Father Malone, and we just happened in the right place, right time. You know, that one-two punch of Dark Knight Returns and Watchmen will never happen again. It was a seismic shift in how comics could be perceived and how the stories they could tell. I agree, but it's as if you and I read those books then and we hadn't read anything previous and then we just said, and that's the end of comic books. Because that seems to be this fucking dickhead's attitude.

I bet he did read those when they came out and was just blown away, man. What's funny is what those books were aiming for was for blowing the minds of idiots who wouldn't pick up a comic book because they were for kids, and it actually worked on him. So he still doesn't like comics because he still thinks they're for kids, but those two books blew his mind. I think there's a little bit of face-saving going on with Zack Snyder because I know that his latest picture, the last photograph, I think that's the name of it. Yeah.

It's gotten terrible reviews. I mean, universally reviled. I don't even use that word lightly. So I think it seems to me like there's, like I said, he's trying to save face a little bit by putting out these outrageous quotes and maybe trying to manifest something that's going to come out of that because he burned bridges. Look, I don't care how many people wanted the Snyder cut of this or that or the other thing.

Those movies were not very good. They just weren't. I've given him his props for Watchmen, but that's really where it ends. Yeah, it begins and ends there for me as well. I think 300 was a pretty movie when it came out.

Well, I give that movie its credit for being unique and visionary for the time. No one had seen anything like that. He took a little bit of what I think Sin City was probably the closest analog with this sort of stylized look of it. Yeah, but I think Sin City came after 300. Sin City was before 2005.

Oh. Only a year, but it was before it. Huh. Which is not to suggest there was any real influence. What does not make sense?

It doesn't make sense to me, actually. I'll tell you, that's what IMDb has. Oh, it was Grindhouse. It was Grindhouse. Never mind.

Grindhouse came out in 2006. What the fuck were we just talking about? We were talking about, he has had some decent movies, some great movies in his past. What I just want to say about 300 is like as pretty as that movie is, it has that baked in xenophobia that runs through all the Frank Miller's work, you know, like the Persians are not just foreigners. They're fucking twisted creatures from beyond the, you know, the, the cosmos, you know, they're all mutated and sexualized and gross, you know?

Oh my God. Calm down, Frank. Yeah. But it was like a, you know, I don't, holy jihad batman it's. Not one of my favorite movies but i would be lying if i said it didn't pique my interest at the time and i thought it was an interesting movie but i'm not going to revisit it but i guess my point is he's had a couple of decent pictures in his uber but not more nothing more than that you know those those superman justice league movies were terrible.

Gotta save martha All right, before we move on to what I believe is our final story for the evening, I just want to send a musical shout out. Everyone go listen to Black Mekon's new album that's coming out on the 29th. They have a song out now. You can listen to it. It's called Kill Them!

This is a duo, a garage band duo from the UK who have been making mainly nearly unlistenable garage rock for the past 20 years. If you can picture... one guy on drums and one guy on a guitar and both those instruments are broken and they're recording on a play school tape recorder a fisher price tape recorder this that's the sounds they were going the new album sounds really fucking slick and as somebody who plays a monster all the time this kill them song is a fucking anthem and it's really great so i'll even put a fucking link in the show notes everybody right on you want to recommend some music hp you find anything new lately Yeah. Actually, you know, come to think of it, I have. It's not necessarily some hidden gem like you described, but Beck just put out another album called Ride Lonesome, which for me.

Is it all country flavored perchance? Well, here's the thing. I don't know. This would have been probably what the... Somewhere in the 2000s, he put out an album called Sea Change.

I remember that. Which was, it's pretty much the ultimate breakup album. It's something I didn't even know that Beck was capable of. The depth of the songwriting, the emotion. I love it.

I still cherish it now. Later, he put out another album called Morning Phase, which was considered part two of that. This, you would think, is part three. This is probably the conclusion of the breakup trilogy, if you will. Who keeps breaking up with Beck?

Well, I think he was divorced. I don't know about recently. He was married to Marissa Ribisi, remember? He was, but I think he remarried and I think he's even divorced from his second wife, I believe. I could be wrong about that.

Hey, man, if these are the results, ladies, keep breaking his heart. No one does it. I shouldn't say no one, because there's always going to be a Joni Mitchell or somebody who really wrote the book on it. Few people do it as well as Beck does, and he's employing a lot of the same musicians, same producer, Nigel Goodrich. It's a fabulous album.

I've been listening to it, and really a nice album to welcome the fall with. It's got that feel, that melancholy feel that I think is appropriate for this time of year. There we go. Two recommendations. Check out the show notes, everybody.

All right. Final story. Avengers Endgame is being released in theaters or has been released in theaters. Yeah. Okay.

Sorry. Speaking of a naked cash grab, they've also now tacked on three new post-credit scenes. Now, I saved this to the end because if you don't want these post-credit scenes of Avengers Endgame spoiled for you, this movie from 10 years ago, that are probably just going to end up on YouTube tomorrow anyway. In fact, this show will be out for the regular feed on Friday. By then, I'm sure you can see them all in their glory.

So we're going to describe them here because we want to talk about them here. Now, the first is Bruce Banner. This takes place after the events of Spider-Man Brand New Day, but the post-credit scene in Avengers Endgame features it. Okay. All right.

So anyway, he's in a subterranean military base because he can't trust himself and he's working on new gamma fucking whatever. Some sort of therapy to cure him. Yeah. Some gamma suppression, let's call them, techniques, right? Yeah.

And there's a green glow. Sorry, can I interrupt just for a minute? Did you actually see these scenes or have you only read the descriptions? No, I've seen them. I was getting all these notifications early in the morning.

I missed the boat, but to be honest, I really didn't care that much to see them. If you read the description, you saw the fucking scenes. Fair enough. Yeah. So this green glow appears and Banner's like, who are you?

And he says, I'm here to collect you. And it's Victor Von Doom. And they leave. And he leaves a sigil. Right?

Then the next one takes place in the Time Variance Authority. It's Mobius, Owen Wilson's character from the Loki series. And everything's cool and everyone's being mellow as they are in the TVA. And then an alarm goes off and they see that two timelines are going to collide with one another. And then the two timelines are firing missiles at each other.

And then a million sort of other timelines start branching out. And they're like, oh no, the multiverse is collapsing like that. And then the fucking final one is a post-credit scene that technically ties back to the first Iron Man movie. Because if you watch that movie to the very end, The last thing you hear over the final credit is clanging, like you heard when he was in the cave making the Iron Man costume for the first time. So you hear that sound again, clang, clang, clang.

Now, this is positing that sound you were hearing was Victor Von Doom making his mask ahead of Doom. Yeah, we heard that at the end of the original Endgame, that clang. Yeah, and that's what was happening. Yeah. I have.

Well, first of all, let me ask you, maybe you know this. It wasn't clear to me from reading about it, but are these... Is this a clue situation where depending on where you see the movie, you're going to see one of three different post-credit sequences? No, they're all baked into that final print of that now overly long movie that you're going to have to endure again. Not endure, it's a good movie, but you know.

This to me feels like, what if you took the original back to the future? Only during the enchantment under the sea dance of the first movie, you all of a sudden start seeing... Marty McFly from the alternate timeline. And now there's two doc Browns in the middle of the street. And now all of that.

You're describing back to the future too. You realize that what. I'm saying is what if you put all that, what if you re edited that all into the first movie? So now what you're doing is you are retconning all of that stuff, which came years later into this original semi-perfect movie. That's not, I'm not suggesting that end game is a perfect movie, but it's, Why couldn't you?

There's no good reason why you can't put all of those scenes as a pre-credit sequence in Doomsday. This is a complete cash grab in every way, shape, or form. Release them as one-shots on YouTube and on varying platforms. They used to do that in between movies. Make it worth our while as fans.

Make it interesting for us. These post-credit scenes are effectively trailers. How about release them as trailers? I can't say I don't get it. That's my natural reaction.

I do get it because they're looking to make money off of a head of Doomsday. It really kind of turns my stomach, Father Malone. I was so disappointed in this news and everything around it. Yeah, man. Puts a real damper on Von Doomfest.

We had a good head of steam, but Marvel's been so mercenary lately. It is so, that's the perfect word for it. They're so mercenary. Because if there's a dollar to be squeezed out of this whole enterprise, they're going to find a way to squeeze it. And, you know, they've been advertising this as, remember this moment, live it again.

No one's living that moment again. That moment passed a decade ago. We did it. We done it. We know it's good.

It passed. Again, I've said this over and over again. This all would have gone very differently had Jonathan Majors not gotten himself cancelled. That rotten son of a bitch. Ironically, it's like we're living in a totally different timeline.

Thanks to his mistake. Thanks to him not keeping his fucking hands to himself. Dummy. For real. If this were ten years ago, or five years ago, and then this was all going down, I might be interested.

Oh, what kind of interesting little news? Again, I read the news, and I just sort of slumped and said this is just the new low i really i don't know it's not a good trend. No i don't know if it's a trend there's always been cash grabs witness not to bring it back to tarantino kill bill volume one and volume two i remember when it was kill bill i still have a 35 millimeter trailer and advertising the release of kill bill. Sure i guess it's not officially a trend but it feels like the seal's been broken on this so this just gives them you know they can just go back and fuck with whatever came before it in the interest of making more money. This is Lucas's fault.

He opened the door by rejiggering around with his original Star Wars movies. But he's been vocal lately too, man. Been talking about his original movies that he wanted to make. Yeah, but at least in that case, and I'll take Lucas at his word that he was never complete in his own estimation. He was never completely satisfied with how those movies came out and some of the effects work.

Maybe it was a little rough. So, And at the time that he owned it, that was his thing. So if he wanted to go ahead and rewrite history in that way, I can see where it would rub people the wrong way. But what are you going to do? It's not as if...

He didn't go back into Star Wars. Actually, no, I can't even say that. Strike that. Because he could have very easily done that. He didn't do it to Indiana Jones, at least.

Even though he went back and retitled all of the films, Indiana Jones and the. He didn't add Short Round into... raiders in some way shape or form or add him in later to the last i don't. Know they have a scene where indy's on the phone and marcus says who are you speaking to he's like a small boy in china that's right he's a friend of mine. So i it i guess there's maybe there's not a world of difference between lucas and kevin feige in this case but it just feels so much more craven in this case and so much more out you know just laying it all out there i. Just released if you think the movie's going to make the money it's going to make that just release the movie don't tack on this shit at the end to make nerds fucking flock to the theater because that's what's happening this is like putting the trailer for star wars phantom menace in front of meet joe black i went to see meet joe black against every impulse in my body to see a fucking star wars trailer i.

Went we went to see fantasia Just to see the Tron trailer. Which at least, in that case, it's a worthwhile movie. Wow. But not for a nine-year-old kid who just wants action, you know? Did you really?

Wow. I did. 100%. I went and saw the re-release of Star Wars because they promised a Return of the Jedi trailer at the beginning. Well, we talked about this.

I tapped out after Star Wars because I just realized I was bored to tears. I'm saying, in 1981... Oh, when you were a kid, okay. They've re-released Star Wars. See it back on the big screen.

Now with a trailer for the latest adventure, Return of the Jedi. I guess it's been happening for a long time. Well, they used to re-release movies all the time because there was no other way to see them. I mean, at least in a proper format. But no, that's different because in that case, it's a separate trailer.

They're not inserting things into the movie that you already know. And here's another question I have. It's less of a concern because... I don't know that they're, do they even sell movies on physical media anymore? But let's assume that they do.

They do. Does that mean that they're now going to release an Endgame, a new version of Endgame with all of this nonsense tacked on to the end of it? I don't see why not. Endgame Ultimate Edition. Endgame Doom Edition.

I don't know. What can I say? You know what? Why not just put him in the movie? You know what I mean?

Just take him as a character. Have a few scenes with him and the characters interacting with him. So they lay some groundwork like they were trying to do with 10 years of Jonathan Majors as Kang. I just– I don't know why they didn't just put these– all of these scenes in all in a row at the beginning of Doomsday to prime the pump as you're watching it. Because you're being reminded of all these incredible moments. in some cases, from that movie, and it gets you really, it whets your appetite for the movie to come.

Yeah, but could it be that these are just scenes from Doomsday, and they just pulled them out, and they're like, this is the trailer? Remember they did that with... Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. We were used to a post-credit scene that had nothing to do with the movie you just watched or the one you're going to get, but was a unique interaction.

Tony Stark in a bar with General Ross. So your theory, one of your. Theories is that maybe this is all part of doomsday and this is just a little extra you know appetizer before the main okay you know but that that seems even more craven and the mercenary yeah. Because they didn't even do anything they just took a bunch of footage they already had there was like there was no craft to it at all it's just slap this on that and then they'll pay. The way hitchcock used to do his own trailers for his movies and.

We can't look in there it's too horrible Right. It was it was that to me, it was almost like a little gift to the moviegoers because you're getting something that you're not going to get in any way, shape or form. This is something unique to the trailer experience. I don't know. It just seems all so, just a cash grab.

It's really sad. It's a cash grab multiverse. But I'm going to, I mean, look, they've already got our money. We're going to see the movie regardless. It's a cash grab multiverse.

And I think that's going to do it for the roundup this week. We're going to end on a downer with the Marvel so fucking nakedly chasing the great. And almighty dollar. Next week, probably a review of The Stunt Driver. I haven't watched Practical Magic 2 yet either, so I can't really comment on that.

But I guess one of the review of that is on the way. HB, where can people find you? I co-host the Night Mr. Walters Taxi Podcast alongside Father Malone here. News to me.

I also host the Noise Junkies music podcast with an Art of Noise episode that I'm trying to manifest before I talk about it. And finally, I have a band camp site, hpmusicplays.bandcamp.com. As for me, you know where you are. You're here on the Roundup. Every Friday, it's the Roundup.

Every Monday, it's a fest or a button or a switch or a console or it's a tale of the unexpected. It's a rotating group of shows. And over on the Patreon channel, we've got a brand new episode of Vault 702, the Fallout podcast. HP and I are going to be doing something over there, too. What are we doing?

I don't know. We're going to do something. What else do we do? A lot of irons in the fire. Yeah, we also have, oh man, what is it called?

What? Airlocks. Airlocks sensors and ray guns. Speaking of ray guns, that is the sister series to button switches and consoles. That is a Patreon-only channel where Laura Grillo and I are looking at old tech from old movies that take place in the future.

Sci-fi. Ah, yes. Until next time, everybody, try to enjoy the daylight. in Sicily.