Category: Blog Posts

I have spent many an hour over the last few months watching Columbo. Peter Falk as the ‘judging book by its cover’, appearing to be, but never actually are bumbling, has been listed so many times as one of televisions greatest charactrs that I thought I would give it a try.

Won’t lie, it’s fun. It’s really fun. There is a set of steps that every episode has that makes it easily digestable and, in some regards, if you’ve watched one, you’ve watched them all. At the beginning we see the murder, understand the motive, and we’re off to the races where Columbo figures out everything we’ve just seen.

If there’s a flaw, it’s that he always is asking the right question (or the wrong question for the right reasons). His catchphrase of finishing only to ‘oh.. wait.. one more thing’ always leads to the suspect being stopped cold that maybe this shabby buffoon knows too much!

But, as a template that was on television for 30 years, it worked. Here’s a quick list of some of my favorite episodes.

ETUDE IN BLACK – I think this one is the general world’s favorite. Maybe it’s because the special guest is John Cassavetes playing an intense and monsterous conductor who kills his other woman. Sometimes the best Columbos are the ones where it just looks like Falk is having a good time in a strange place… this one fits perfectly

A STITCH IN CRIME – The reason this episode is amongst the best is not because of Falk at all, but because of a post-Trek Leonard Nimoy who plays an arrogant doctor who clearly loves being the best at everything. Come for the snide Spockless Nimoy, stay for the amazingly horrible 70s sweaters.

COLUMBO GOES TO COLLEGE – This episode is admittedly a bit silly, as the method of death is more MacGuyver than Columbo, but watching Falk run around a college campus and pretending he’s dumber than these two smug college kids after they killed their professor is worth the price of admission.

THE SKY HIGH IQ MURDER CASE – For my favorite episode, it has to be the one where a bunch of brilliant nerds all gather in their nerdy clubhouse and nerd together. It’s Columbo goes to Mensa, and it is one of the few times where you see Falk drop the facade of ‘bad detective doing good’ and really lets the killer see that he has been matched.

And hey… almost forgot… one more thing, have you ever watch Columbo? What’s your favorite episode – sound off in all the usual places.

My Dad took me to my first concert, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings.  Being a man who was in to Willie, Waylon, Hank Jr, Glen Campbell… my Dad’s music tastes shaped my early music tastes.

Recently, on a drive home from work, I suddenly had an urge to hear “Pancho and Lefty” by the aforementioned Willie and Waylon.  That got me to thinking about the Country music I used to listen to growing up, so grab your Stetson, pull up your boots and check out these old-school Country tunes…

Whiskey River – A cover of an earlier song, Willie first released this on his album “Shotgun Willie” in 1973.  Bouncing back and forth between Southern Rock and a Texas Two-Step vibe, it’s a catchy song that has become Willie’s signature song.

Dixieland Delight – Released by ‘Alabama’ on their 1983 album “The Closer You Get”.  In 2019, Rolling Stone put it as #7 in the Top 25 “Songs about the South”, and it has been an on-and-off ‘pre 4th Quarter’ song tradition of the Crimson Tide.

Devil Went Down to Georgia – This song by Charlie Daniels Band has more than just a passing history with me.  If you know, you know.  If you don’t, then you weren’t there and wouldn’t understand.

She Got the Goldmine (I Got the Shaft) – The stereotypical “country song” about a guy who’s wife leaves him and takes everything, it’s cleverly done by Jerry Reed and his storytelling style.

Convoy – This song by C.W. McCall is more of a silly guilty pleasure (as is the movie).  It’s made even ‘better’ by the fact that there’s like 3 different versions of it.

What say you Somethings?  Hit us up on our socials and let us know!

-PCR

Last week we featured a list of our Bottom 5 Actors – and I promptly got a message from my sister, long time listener first time complainer, who said, ‘What about…’ and mentioned an actress that, for years, I had kvetched about. I had entire rants built around this one performer and she was surprised she didn’t make the top of my list.

Who? We’ll get there in a moment.

This, to me, is a perfect showing of precisely why I am certain my brain has an over-active repression gene. I would be concerned if it hadn’t been that way my whole life. I’d talk to someone about a video game I loved and they would say, ‘Oh, remember when Hero B plants their sword and screams because they finally had the revenge over their murdered mother.. wasn’t that awesome’ and I would stare dumbfounded, ‘Wait.. is that before or after you beat Bowser?’ — like, I just have a brain that things, even things I once held tightly to my bosom, fall out of.

Anyways, the actress is Helena Bonham Carter.

I guarantee, if you go back and listen to old episodes, I’ve done at least one rant about HBC’s inability to play anything but Marla from Fight Club wearing different outfits. (With the exception of Big Fish, which is the exception of HBC’s acting and Tim Burton’s everything else).  I’m sure she’s a delightful person, gives to charities, kisses puppies – the fact is that there was a hot minute in the early 00’s where I kept wanting to see movies and instead saw Madame AloofGoth draping herself across scenery and had complained about it enough that my sister was shocked she was unmentioned.

What this does mean, though, is if we decided to rerecord some of our topics from years gone by, not only would I possibly not remember that we did it.. I also might have entirely different answers.

(Also, my wife is still angry at me about Justin Long)

Hey all, PCR here.

For a while now, people have been talking about, or discussing Superhero Movie Burnout.  This likely more pertains to the MCU as they have the bulk of Superhero Movies out and.. I think there’s something to it and there’s blame to lay.. but.. just like the Y in Madisynn.. it’s not where you think.

When the MCU first started, there was nothing else like it.  It was new… fresh…  one couldn’t really compare it to anything because.. well, there was nothing like it to compare to.  10 years later, with the culmination of the Infinity Saga in Endgame.. MCU 1.0 came to an end in my opinion.  The issue now is a lack of evolution.  Folks loved RDJ as Iron Man, Hemsworth as Thor, Boseman as Black Panther, Johansson as Black Widow, Evans as Cap.. etc, etc.  Now however, the next ‘phase’ of the MCU will need to lean on new people.  Doctor Strange is solid and in good hands with Bibblebop Thundergun, but Marvel seems intent on forging forward in a similar fashion as the first 10 years and.. the question is… will audiences be into Ironheart replacing Iron Man?  Shuri as Black Panther?  Sam as Cap?  It’s a huge ask and, while it’s done in comics on a semi regular basis… comics don’t pull in *nearly* the money for a brand that movies do.  Might it be time to change the MCU formula?

I don’t know what the right answer is, but what I DO know, as someone who saw 95% of the run up to Endgame in theaters…  I just have no urge to see a Cap movie with Sam (you can listen to our “Bottom 5 : Actors” episode if you haven’t to hear why), nor do I care to watch a movie with Kate as Hawkeye, or Ironheart and on and on.  It was the original actors who created the interest, and the casting was impeccable.  These actors?  While I might power through a 4-6 episode series on a streaming service from the comfort of my own home.. they sure don’t have the pull to put my ass in a movie theater seat.

So I think Marvel in general has some considering to do, and I honestly think they’ll come to realize that when the next Captain America movie comes out.

What are your thoughts?  Hit us on the socials and let us know!

-PCR

Audio Blog

Last month, I paid into Microsoft Game Pass because Starfield was coming out and I am a fan of Bethesda games. Similar to Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed series, the Bethesda games are the same game with different coats of paint. It’s an entire genre of paint, but still guns for bows and arrows, space for wastelands.. I dig it.

Sadly, that game was made with top of the line hardware in mind and mine is not. It’s stupid, but it is what it is. Hell, it isn’t even what I want to talk about today.

Since Starfield was out, I stuck around with Game Pass to see what else they had, and saw that Lies of P was on its way. I downloaded it, played it for about 4 – 6 hours, and promptly uninstalled it because I can’t stand Souls Games. First, I need to clarify that this isn’t a situation of ‘getting good’ – I enjoy a lot of tough gaming genres… hell, I will play a Rogue-like until my eyes won’t dialate without seeing Dead Cells or Hades characters. Even ‘2-d Souls-Likes’ and I am a demon possessed. I am the kid who beat Mike Tyson on the Nintendo (I did, I swear).

But, put me in front of a Souls-like and I am a raging he-beast of gaming ineptitude which sucks because they almost all are in worlds I want to play in. Dark and grimy fantasy, please. The rooftops of feudal Japan, gods yes. A Steampunk dystopia filled with gearwork police, stick it in my veins. And yet, the idea of learning the location and timing of a dozen villains through try and die, learning the attack and block strats for a series of enemies, and doing the constant struggle to get to where you were before to figure out how you died to not die again and I have never ever come closer to taking my controller and hurling it through a window.

So, after those 5 hours, I uninstalled Lies of P, disappointed that there is yet another game that I won’t get to learn the secrets of because it is made with a type of gamer in mind that I, in fact, am not. It’s shocking how every part of those games seems to be painted with me in mind and yet, somehow, their unforgiving relentless need for near perfect leaves me going back to installing Opus Magnum and Human Resource Machine… you know, actually hard games. (I kid.. kinda)

Oh, and Lies of P was playing on Ultra, suck it Starfield.

Hey all, PCR here!

Now, Hatton’s dislike of short-form videos is fairly well known, but I myself have fallen down many a rabbit hole on Facebook or Instagram watching vid after vid.  Now, not all of them are gold of course.. for every “Kiss or Slap”, “Watch till the end”  and dying expensive sneakers in shaving cream video.. there are some real gems.  Here’s some of my favorite ones.

Hack Reacts – Hack Reacts is from The Bearded Bard who you can find on YouTube, TikTok and elsewhere.  It’s a split screen vid of him reacting to people showing off ‘hacks’ for various tools and hardware.  It’s great to me because invariably someone uses 13 odd steps to solve a 3 step problem and the exasperation in his voice is palpable.

ChefReactions – Specifically, his Amaury Guichon videos.  If you don’t know who Amaury Guichon is.. please go look him up.  The man has godlike skills when it comes to working with chocolate and pastries.  The ChefReacts video that nearly broke me was him watching Amaury make something and he goes “Oh.. starting off the video by working chocolate on a lathe so.. that makes me a piece of shit I guess”.

Casey Van Arsdale – He makes a lot of videos of various things.. creating.. cooking.. art.. but it’s his ‘spraypaint art planets’ that I will watch for hours.  His descriptions of what he’s doing.. from using his ‘sha sha bowls’ to ‘pooping out stars’ just makes watching his videos that much more awe inspiring.

Basketball Flash Mob – I really don’t know what else to call this.  The page is Tuvok12 on YouTube, but, it’s basically a bunch of guys with a backyard basketball set up on wheels who run into crowded public areas, lob a basketball at people passing by and the video rates their shot attempts.  Some people brush it off and ignore them.. some people give it their all.  It’s never belligerent or insulting to those who try, but when they sink one, it’s like a buzzer beater in game 7 of the championships.

What about you?  What short-form videos do YOU find yourself binging?  Hit us in the usual places and let us know!

-PCR

Audio Blog

Hatton here – I unabashedly love the Rocky franchise. Ok, fine, I love any ‘bottom to top’ hero movie. Rudy, Karate Kid.. any movie where someone starts as literal garbage and ends with people chanting his name. Anyway, my favorite movie from a couple years ago was Creed. I think it’s smart, it follows the legacy that the Rocky movies created, and with Creed 2 – it builds on them in a very special way that even the MCU is having a hard time with when it comes to evolving their franchise.

This comes to where I told my wife I wanted her to see Creed, but we’ll watch Rocky, Rocky IV and we’ll get to Creed.  She, on the other hand, said she wanted the whole experience… and so as of last night we have gotten to what is the ‘main line’ of the RCU. We just finished Rocky V last night, so I thought I’d drop some quick reviews here as it has been a long time since I’d seen them and my tastes have evolved as I have become a jaded grown-up.

Rocky I – It is a slow movie. I mentioned in a recent episode that there is a reason that older movies are so hard to watch when modern films have learned how to BEAT BEAT BEAT EXPLOSION BEAT CLUE BEAT BOOM our ADHD addled brains into a state of visual stupor.  Rocky I, where a great story and deserving of its accolades, spends a lot of time making Philadelphia a living breathing city – as we have cameras watching city streets as much as we have Rocky.  Anyway, it’s still a classic although some of its emotional beats are a bit.. well, lets say they wouldn’t work in a modern film and thankfully Adrian really liked him.

Brit’s one line review – “So much yelling – but so much heart.”

Rocky II – Previously, I joked that R2 was just R1 with a happier ending, but there is something more to it. I don’t think Rocky is as good without Rocky 2 at this point. In the first movie Creed outright ignores this chump he’s picked out of the phonebook. You could argue Rocky goes the distance with him when Creed isn’t at his best.  In the second, they are both at their top and even though the ending is, in wrestling terms, a schmozz, it proves that Rocky can hang with the best.

Brit’s one line review – “Rocky finally gets what he deserves.”

Rocky III – If there is one consistent thing in, literally, every Rocky film.. it’s that Rocky is retiring. In his 60+ fights, I swear every 5 is him thinking about hanging it up to make Adrian happy and he gets bored and goes and punches out some more dudes. The fight, versus Mr. T, is one of the shorter of the series and in the perspective of the whole series, I like that. Rocky can hang. Clubber Lang is just bluster and nobody believes in Rock.. and yet again, proven wrong.

Brit’s one line review – “Rocky and Apollo is the best bromance in tv history, period.”

Rocky IV – I think, because of its quotable Dolph-isms (‘i must break you’) this movie is remembered well, but it is a really good 45 minute movie and a really bad 30 minute montage video. Let me clarify, Hearts On Fire, aka, the Russian Training Montage, is my favorite montage of all time… but… this movie montages shit we saw 20 minutes ago. It feels like they were really pushing that soundtrack and, because of it, the plot takes a hit. There was a ton of room here for a subplot about a Russian Trainer, about making Creed’s trainer ‘Duke’ a more full character, something. I have a longer rant about it I’ll discuss another time.

Brit’s one line review – “Snow training montage. That’s all you need.”

Rocky V – Fine. I’ve said I like this movie more than the rest of the world. That said, I am a man that can admit he was wrong. It’s not great, and even though I think there are really good beats they could have done without the ‘Rocky is right back where he started’ story… that whole bit about him reverting to the slow thinking, money shaky, ball bouncing, hat wearing, guy is so forced it hurts. Plus, the fight at the end is more than lacking when you know what you want in a Rocky film.

Brit’s one line review – “If you missed Rocky the Bum… he’s back… unfortunately.”

What do you think of Rocky? Sound off in all the places.

Audio Blog

Hey all, PCR here.

So.. there interwebs are starting to bustle with an interview director Taika Waititi gave regarding what he’d do for Thor 5.  Let’s be clear, Thor 5 isn’t green lit, and after Love and Thunder, likely (hopefully) *won’t* be green lit, and if it does, I hope to the MCU gods that Waititi isn’t attached.

For those that didn’t listen to our Love and Thunder episode (with guest Erik Hall, you can listen here), I.. was not a fan.  Ragnarok was fun and different from the first two Thor movies, but.. I dislike when movie makers are like “Yes.. but THIS one needs to go to ELEVEN…” Sometimes, you catch lightning in a bottle, and you need to go in a different direction.  Granted, that’s what Ragnarok did, but.. Love and Thunder was.. just a mess, and I personally would cringe at knowing the guy responsible for that mess was back at the helm yet again.

He certainly has a “style”, but so does Tim Burton and Zack Snyder.  Sometimes the movies work because of the style, sometimes they work in spite of… Waititi’s ‘style’ works for some movies, not for others, and it’s disappointing when Hollywood latches onto someone they make as their current “go-to person” based on some early successes and put them on projects that do not at all mesh with that style.  Case and point… Ragnarok was fun and different, and while Thor can certainly have some comedic moments, he’s not a comedy character, and.. in my lowly opinion at least.. shouldn’t be used as such.

For me, if a Thor 5 WAS to happen, I would want it to be more serious, more gravitas.  Sure, comedy can be a part of it, but only to offset the drama and seriousness I think needs to be part of the character.

That’s my take, what’s yours?  Hit us on the socials and let us know!

-PCR

Audio Blog

Has anyone else felt that feeling like this is never going to end?

Look, I support the writers and the actors. So, when the industry A-Listers listen to this, please don’t think I am not sympathetic to your struggles. That said, has anyone else flipped through their streaming services, amongst the hundreds of thousands of movies that you’ve never seen, the decades of television programming that is available at your beck and call, the Oscar winners, the Disney Classics, the comfort food horror franchises, and the Nick at Nite throwbacks and thought to yourself… ugh, there’s nothing on…

Sadly, it’s not going to get better.

Aside from the fact the parties have only just started meeting up again, it feels like the pains the Best Boys and Key Grips are much worse than that of CEO’s Peter Aramount and Nick Etflix. So what does that mean? Well, it means settle in and find something with a lot of episodes.  Here’s a few suggestions of older shows I’ve found now that I’ve caught up with Strange New Worlds…

Alfred Hitchcock Presents – Peacock – I am certain I’ve mentioned this before somewhere, but Peacock has all of the Alfred Hitchcock Presents and Hour shows.  But let me tell you that if you are looking for something to binge, there is absolutely nothing better.  First, there are 350 or so episodes. Yes, some of them are duds, but there are so many that aren’t or feature enough actors before they were famous that there is always something interesting. Moreover, the great episodes… are truly masterpieces of suspense and twist story telling.

Columbo – Peacock – Ok ok I’m done… but just one more thing…. I’ve always been told I would enjoy Columbo, and now that I’ve started diving into the archive, those folks were right. Collectively, there are only 50 or so episodes of the original series, but each one is an hour and a half. Full movies about a sloppy brilliant man call people out on their stupid murders. Again, not all of them are gold, but none (of the ones I’ve seen so far) are not worth the watch.

Gilmore Girls – Netflix – Why worry about the impending heat death of the universe when you can go to a cozy little Connecticut town where everyone is pleasant and the scripts are triple the size? Gilmore is a guilty pleasure, but it is not without its laugh out loud scripts and cozy ‘everything will be ok’ attitude. I’m not defending my choices, you’re wrong… just ask Kurt.

Riverdale – Netflix – First, don’t watch Riverdale because it is a true to life telling of the Archie mythos. You will be disappointed. Watch it because it is a completely absurd, almost to the point of being artistic, teen drama show that just doesn’t care how batshit it gets. You want a cult? An asylum? A brutal music scene? Murder and gang warfare? Riverdale has you covered.. it’s Twin Peaks chewing bubble gum and it is amazing.

What are you watching? Sound off in the places.

Audio Blog

Hellooooooo Somethings!

So.. look.  When you’ve been doing a “thing” for 10 years, and you’re as fidgety creative as your co-host is.. every now and then you want to take what you’re making, throw it in a box, shake the shit out of it, dump it out, and see how if lays out now.

To that end, starting in October, we’re going to have a new lineup of shows!

Our first episode of the month is always going to be our ‘podcast’ episode, so that won’t change.

Week 2 will be “In The Beginning”, moved up from the end of the month closer to… well.. you get the idea.  We’ll be talking pilot episodes and it gives us the opportunity to discuss shows that are still ongoing.

In week 3, Elevator Pitch is getting it’s own show.  This is going to allow us to have a guest on once a month, and also allow Hatton and I to flex our creative muscles into more ideas.

Week 4 brings us another new show, One Star Movies.  We find the idea of doing movie reviews of terrible movies hilarious, so we’re looking forward to digging into some real bad ones here.

Now, you may be asking “What about ‘Something In Review’?  What happened to ‘The Wheel’?”  Well, fear not Somethings.  In the past those months that had 5 Tuesdays had a ‘Free For All’ episode at the end, well, we’re renaming that show “The 5th Wheel”, and we’ll be using our Swedish-Made-Totally-Something-That-Exists Wheel for those episodes.

Hatton and I are looking forward to testing the new lineup, and we hope you enjoy it too!  Hit us up on the socials and let us know your thoughts!

-PCR