The SomethingSomethingCast

We’ve been with Wanda and the Vision for their whole journey, so it should be no surprise that we want to check up on them for the End. 

Was this strange jump into a bubble worth the journey? Does the ending hold up? There’s only one way to know – and that’s by checking out The End – Wandavision

This episode was filmed before a live studio audience over on twitch.tv/somethingcast.  Join us for our next party on May 4th, 8pm EST.

Ohhhhhkay, here we A-go-tha! …wow, that one was a reach…

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Before the post, let me please direct you to our [The Wheel] Vs: Robots episode, where you can help choose the fate of one team of robots as they try and crush the other. There is a poll, there is another segment in a future episode coming about it – it’s a good time and you should get in on it.

Now, to other things.

One of my go to ‘Hey, what am I putting on’ shows when I have no effort built within me to find something new to binge on or I’m not seeing anything screams out for me, is Mythbusters. I love Mythbusters. I did when it was on television and now, with it gone, I still keep track of what Adam Savage is doing on Youtube. They have molded me in ways I can’t even fathom, at the very least, in recognizing that engineering nerds (a subset I definitely put the Mythbusters in) are my kinds of people. So, while I was watching some random thing blow up – I decided to list a couple of my favorite Mythbusters episodes so you can see – if you missed this show somehow, you can jump to the good stuff to see if its your cup of explosion.

In no particular order:

ALCATRAZ ESCAPE
I’m putting this one here because it tends to be everyone else’s favorite. I mean, it’s a great episode and it is one of the best they put together. Season 2, Episode 8 – challenging the question of how the Anglin brothers got away from (sean connery voice)Thehhh Rrock!(/sean) using raincoats shaped into a boat. Did they survive? The Anglin Brothers I mean… not the Mythbusters… the Mythbusters obviously survived.

GOLFBALL CAR
Does a golfball fly because it has those weird pockmarks? It’s so weird, it turns out to be really enjoyable and ranks as one of my favorite stories that has an ending I didn’t expect. Taking the golfball, they attempt that same method on a car and the results are not only interesting, but hysterical looking.

THE DUCT TAPE EPISODES
A bit of a cheat here, but there are like 5 duct tape episodes, and each of them is better than the last. It seemed like every season after the first duct tape show, they thought ‘wait, can we go bigger’ — and they do. From surviving on an island to crossing a damn canyon, the old nerd adage that duct tape holds the world together is shockingly accurate.

LEAD BALLOON
Another episode that usually hits the ‘best of’ lists’ – Lead balloon is a great one for a lot of reasons.  The biggest being that the deeper they get into the science of what’s going on, the harder they try.  You can see the palpable excitement in the team as they solve this puzzle in front of your eyes. Is it possible to fly an actual lead balloon?  How big does it need to be? How the hell do you make a lead balloon anyway? Some episodes are great because of the big bang, some because of the weird results – this one, and my final one, are classics because the methodology is so on display and shows how experimentation gets you to unexpectedly fantastic results.

THE SEE-SAW SAGA
By far, my favorite episode of the Mythbusters, and given it is one of the later season episodes, I wish they had gone back to this style of episode more. Both teams (Jamie & Adam / Tory & Kari & Grant) get together and do two parts of one huge myth, culminating in what can only be described as a Rube-Goldberg-esque puzzle of scale and impossibility. Did you enjoy the Mythbusters? What’s your go to comfort food for your brain? Sound off in all of the usual places and let us know!

Every week, the Somethings will be giving you a little something extra, so please check back every week for reviews, lists, cool finds, and more!

WHEEL! OF! TOPICS!

That’s right Somethings, it’s time for everyone’s favorite piece of radio flair,  The Wheel – filled with a whole bevy of options for the guys to answer over… this one – well, this one needs your help. 

At the end of this episode you will have the chance to make a decision as to who won… and we will reveal the results on our next Wheel episode. 

But first, you have to hear about two forces of robotic supremacy… the lines in the sand have been drawn and only one team will stand tall at the end.  From films across the genre spectrum, what would YOUR robot team be?

After listening, not before – click here to make your vote!

Ok, here we bidibidibidibidigo!

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Hey all, PCR here.

It’s no secret that I’m a fan of the MCU.  Going all the way back to our Year 1 celebration we’ve talked about it, hypothesized about it, fawned over it and reviewed aspects of it.  Today, I’m going to dive a bit deeper into the “why” I enjoy it so much, and some things they do that I’m not fond of.

First, the Infinity Gauntlet comic crossover is, by far, my favorite comic crossover.  End of story.  Was it perfect?  No… most huge comic crossover events tend to start amazingly, then seem to have a hard time finding a way to finish, but it still struck a chord with me and has stuck with me since my comic-collecting days… so when Marvel teased at the end of Avengers that we were getting Thanos, I was in.  I felt “there’s no WAY they would do Thanos and NOT do Infinity Gauntlet!” and I was pleased to be correct on that count.

One of the most amazing things in my opinion that the MCU gets right is casting.  I have not found one instance of casting.. hero or villain.. that I’ve been against.  Now, have I thought some were ‘meh’?  Sure, but in those instances it’s more of a “I don’t hate it” and much less of a “They missed the boat..So and so would have been MUCH better!” (looking at Corey Stoll as Yellowjacket here and to a larger extent Anthony Mackie as Falcon).  Those examples aside (I’ll get into the Mackie thing later), from hero to villain to supporting role, the casting in MCU movies and shows has been amazingly spot on.

Another thing I absolutely love about the MCU as a whole, is how they set precedent for future endeavors.  “Ok, we got you to understand The Convergence and The Nine Realms?  Good, here’s The Quantum realm and Dr. Strange”  “You good with multiple suits of Iron Man armor flying around on their own?  Awesome, here’s Ultron and his army” just to use two examples.  It’s brilliant storytelling in my opinion, and makes it easier for those who *aren’t* huge comic fans to digest what they’ve been seeing on the screen.

Yarr yo ho ho and a bottle of Something not so brutally alcoholic (see: The Booze Episode)

Wellllcome back everyone – and it is time for the Somethings to set sail on the seven seas as we go on a voyage to review Netflix’s The Lost Pirate Kingdom.  Do the boys hoist the jolly roger and go pillaging across the Atlantic? Or are they scurvy lilly-livered scalliwags who don’t know their port from their starboard?  Well, get yourself on board and join us as we take a look at this docuseries.

Was it good? Was it accurate? How much syphilis can one documentary feature? Find out here and now on Something In Review: Lost Pirate Kingdom

Ok, here we Yo Ho Ho!!

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Heya Somethings!

If you haven’t followed along the last few months, we’ve talked a lot about the MCU’s TV outing WandaVision – and for good reason.. whether you dug it or not, it was a fresh take on a story that really felt beyond the scope of what DizMarv would try and pull off.  The concept of the show isn’t precisely a straight from comics series, but it does take some points from the comic and the on-again off-again low bubble story of the Scarlet Witch’s tragedies. The on-again / off-again aspect is very much because comic writers sometimes pick up a character where they want them to be and another character sees where they should be differently, so you end up with disparate versions of the same character… but since it’s comics, it’s usually begrudgingly accepted.

That said – Wanda is, quite literally, my least favorite Avenger… and it is mostly because her power set is so vaguely ‘chaos magic/hex powers/mutant ability/reality warping/etc’ that she has become the go-to on how to get into a bad situation or out of one.  So why don’t we take a look at the reason the Scarlet Witch has the power to disassemble how much great stuff the MCU has done…

First – let’s take a look at Wanda in the early years of Avengers…

Using her mutant ‘Hex Power’ she basically had telekinesis that only worked half the time. If the villain was too strong, too not-human enough, too aware, too magic, or too advanced.. there was a lot of this sort of ‘OH IF ONLY…’  But from this issue above (Avengers #99, 1972) to this panel from (West Coast Avengers, #56, 1989) she has fallen in love with Vision, he’s been taken apart by the government and replaced with an emotional white husk of his former self (sound familiar) and has been corrupted by an evil something er another…

And just like that – Wanda’s powerset has grown exponentially and is never reined in again. It just continues to morph and grow and get bigger and dumber and more unwieldly.  All the while she ends up being the go-to damsel in countless stories.  Wanda’s been brainwiped. Wanda’s in a coma. Wanda’s been kidnapped. Brainwiped again. She gets over the Vision. She’s not over the Vision. She has moved on to become a better person. She can’t handle the Avengers. Just non-stop using her as a foil and a victim and a catalyst when honestly, all she really needs is some good head meds and a shrink.

Then….. in the 2000’s – literal hundreds of comics later.. she becomes enraged about her kids and takes down the Avengers.  She’s locked up and the Marvel heroes are legitimately contemplating killing her.  Yes, there’s a lot of handwringing and ‘we can’t do that’ talk, but the fact is – the idea pops up and is considered… so when Xavier and her comic dad, Magneto, show up at her cell.  She does this:

She creates an entire reality where mutants never existed and her dad is the king and everyone is happy. (House of M) — When we break out of that alternate world, no more mutants are being born… like she literally altered the DNA of the world. All the while she continues to disappear for a while, come back and be forgiven, or atone, or have her powers changed yet again — the cycle continues on. When there is an unstoppable unbeatable villain?  Who do writers call on… whatever version of Wanda is useful for them.  No reason to explain it – just call it ‘Untapped Remarkable Powers’ and it’ll do just fine.  When Wanda can’t do it.. just have someone photocopy Wanda’s powers so DOUBLE WANDA can do it. (Avengers v. X-Men #12, below)

I’m thrilled that Wandavision was so good. I just hope that the movie writers don’t fall into the same pit that the comic writers have for years – that by not defining the Scarlet Witch, you leave her available as a crutch to lean on whenever you didn’t have a better ending in mind.

The Somethings are adults, at least legally speaking, and on occasion – being adults – we have enjoyed ourselves the occasional adult beverage… occasionally..

So, with that – what are some of the Somethings favorite drinks to be had?  That was the intention of the episode, but what follows is going tit for tat with some of the drunken exploits of Hatton and Rob. 

So why not get yourself a delicious scorpion bowl with only one straw and imbibe this week’s 120 proof episode of the SomethingSomethingcast

Ok, here we brew!

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Hey Somethings!

This week, I want to dive into a part of one of my all-time favorite film franchises… James Bond.

Bond films have set a high bar for fight scenes, chase scenes, cinematic excellence, and, what I’ll touch on this week… stunts.  So join me as I run through my top 3 favorite stunts in James Bond Movies!

3 – Corkscrew Car

In “The Man With The Golden Gun”, we get a comical sequence where Bond ‘reunites’ with a character from a former movie, J. W. Pepper.  As the duo chases Scaramanga, they come across a broken bridge over a river.  Flooring it, Bond drives his red AMC Hornet X Hatchback at the broken bridge, which corkscrews the car through midair, landing safely on the other side.  It was stuntman Loren “Bumps” Willert’s first time doing the stunt, and he pulled it off in one take. (Check it out here)

2 – Boat Jump

“Live and Let Die” was Roger Moore’s first Bond film, and the first time he encounters Sheriff J. W. Pepper.  In this scene, Bond is being chased by Kananga’s men through the bayous of Louisiana.  Running out of water, Bond races his boat at an embankment alongside a highway where Pepper and his men are waiting for him.  Hitting the embankment, Bond’s boat sails over 100 feet in the air before landing in the water on the other side of the highway. (Check it out here)

1 – Dam Jump

“Goldeneye” marks Bond’s first return to the screen after a 6 year hiatus, and the first time Pierce Brosnan takes up the title role.  In the pre-title scene, we see Bond running along the top of the Verzasca Dam in Switzerland.  In a wide, panoramic shot, after securing a cable, Bond dives off the top of the dam in a makeshift bungee escape.  The leap set a world record for stuntman Wayne Michaels, which was done in one take.  The scenery, the epicness of the cinematography, and the fact the jump was done in silence just emphasizes the immensity of it all, and puts this stunt at the top of my list. (Check it out here)

Normally months only have 4 Tuesdays – that’s sort of what we base our schedule on. You get a regular episode, a Wheel episode, a Review episode, and then an End episode… so what are we supposed to do when there is 5 in a month?!

Well if you have been listening to us for the long haul, you know the answer is ‘whatever the hell we want’

It’s time for a Something Free-For-All — which of course means PCR and Hatton pop on and just talk about what’s up. No big answers revealed, no mysteries solved, simply the guys you listen to talk every week – talking about what they’re up to. Does it sound exciting — oh, it should.

Ok, here we go!

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Let’s discuss some nostalgia porn, as it isn’t all created equal.  First, let me mention Meddling Kids which is a novel I read last year that blew me away. A group of twenty-somethings that bear a remarkable similarity to a group of teenage detective sleuths and their snack-hungry dog have all grown up and are dealing with the PTSD of the things they saw as kids.  From being faced with murder to the supernatural, they have grown-up like the kids from It have – repressing everything.

The nostalgia in Meddling Kids is biting and funny and a new take on tropes as the not-Scooby Gang bump into Lovecraftian Lore, it analyzes not simply what the characters would be like if they actually had to deal with fantastical Hanna-Barbara cartoon mysteries, but talks about the relationships of these people. Why is the book smart nerd friends with the stoner and the ‘nice guy’. It takes its premise through brutality and emotional turmoil and makes these fictional kids feel like they could fit in a real-ish world.  It stunned me, and I highly recommend it.

Now, let’s discuss the other side of nostalgia porn, and the reason I picked this topic to talk about.  I enjoyed Ready Player One, the book. I caught it early on the hype train and it tickles quite a few of my weird sub-sub-genre’s of stories. It hits on ‘movies as game’ like It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World, Midnight Madness, and Jumanji. It features one of my particular eras of nerddom that doesn’t get a lot of notice, 1980s computer culture – and mixes it with science fiction, comics, Brat Pack pop culture, and a thousand other things that were the bread and butter of my pre-teen youth. There was one thing that stuck in my craw about it though, and that was we are watching a ‘day after the day after tomorrow’ type world and the creators of said world seem obsessed with this era of culture. Now don’t get me wrong, I do understand that this is a love letter to that era, but in a book about video games with the grand master video game makers of all time.. you would think they also liked things a bit more ambitious than NETHACK.  All of that said – I enjoyed RP1. I thought it was cute and fun and itched the popcorny itches it was designed to itch, even though it is not without its flaws…. unlike its sequel….

You see, Ready Player Two is now out and it has given up on everything that even remotely made RP1 enjoyable and doubled down on the thing that made it annoying. Yes, there’s another fetch quest. Yes, the band gets back together. Yes, the stakes are raised… and it is because of those things that everything else falls off a cliff. Without delving too deeply into spoiler territory, RP2 puts lives at stake.  It isn’t about an evil corporation and a young plucky hero… it’s about millions of lives in peril and our, now infinitely rich and yet somehow still remarkably naive, hero – with his encyclopedic knowledge of everything his idols have ever done, spends literal chapters spilling about movies and music. He goes into explicit detail about the life of John Hughes and into deep Tolkien ephemera. He whines about his lack of romance and realizes all of the mistakes he’s made and the missteps he’s taken (none of which that we get to see, mind you) — all while telling us about the trees on Chewbacca’s home planet.  There are millions of lives depending on his journey and he can’t help but idly giggle like a schoolgirl because he sees a computer generated Juliette Lewis — a Juliette Lewis that he literally could have delivered to his virtual bedroom and programmed to ride his Natural Born Killer from Dusk Til Dawn.

Nostalgia porn has its place to make a story taste the way it’s supposed to taste, like one of my all time favorite movies, Super 8 or something as charming as La La Land… but when your narrative only serves to plate nostalgia instead of tell a good story dressed in it — all I want to do is go find a new story that doesn’t need to tell me all of the stories that it relies on.

Every week, the Somethings will be giving you a little something extra, so please check back every week for reviews, lists, cool finds, and more!