Podcasts about Christmas carol

My fellow pro-growth/progress/abundance Up Wingers,Once-science-fiction advancements like AI, gene editing, and advanced biotechnology have finally arrived, and they're here to stay. These technologies have seemingly set us on a course towards a brand new future for humanity, one we can hardly even picture today. But progress doesn't happen overnight, and it isn't the result of any one breakthrough.As Jamie Metzl explains in his new book, Superconvergence: How the Genetics, Biotech, and AI Revolutions will Transform our Lives, Work, and World, tech innovations work alongside and because of one another, bringing about the future right under our noses.Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I chat with Metzl about how humans have been radically reshaping the world around them since their very beginning, and what the latest and most disruptive technologies mean for the not-too-distant future.Metzl is a senior fellow of the Atlantic Council and a faculty member of NextMed Health. He has previously held a series of positions in the US government, and was appointed to the World Health Organization's advisory committee on human genome editing in 2019. He is the author of several books, including two sci-fi thrillers and his international bestseller, Hacking Darwin.In This Episode* Unstoppable and unpredictable (1:54)* Normalizing the extraordinary (9:46)* Engineering intelligence (13:53)* Distrust of disruption (19:44)* Risk tolerance (24:08)* What is a “newnimal”? (13:11)* Inspired by curiosity (33:42)Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. Unstoppable and unpredictable (1:54)The name of the game for all of this . . . is to ask “What are the things that we can do to increase the odds of a more positive story and decrease the odds of a more negative story?”Pethokoukis: Are you telling a story of unstoppable technological momentum or are you telling a story kind of like A Christmas Carol, of a future that could be if we do X, Y, and Z, but no guarantees?Metzl: The future of technological progress is like the past: It is unstoppable, but that doesn't mean it's predetermined. The path that we have gone over the last 12,000 years, from the domestication of crops to building our civilizations, languages, industrialization — it's a bad metaphor now, but — this train is accelerating. It's moving faster and faster, so that's not up for grabs. It is not up for grabs whether we are going to have the capacities to engineer novel intelligence and re-engineer life — we are doing both of those things now in the early days.What is up for grabs is how these revolutions will play out, and there are better and worse scenarios that we can imagine. The name of the game for all of this, the reason why I do the work that I do, why I write the books that I write, is to ask “What are the things that we can do to increase the odds of a more positive story and decrease the odds of a more negative story?”Progress has been sort of unstoppable for all that time, though, of course, fits and starts and periods of stagnation —— But when you look back at those fits and starts — the size of the Black Plague or World War II, or wiping out Berlin, and Dresden, and Tokyo, and Hiroshima, and Nagasaki — in spite of all of those things, it's one-directional. Our technologies have gotten more powerful. We've developed more capacities, greater ability to manipulate the world around us, so there will be fits and starts but, as I said, this train is moving. That's why these conversations are so important, because there's so much that we can, and I believe must, do now.There's a widely held opinion that progress over the past 50 years has been slower than people might have expected in the late 1960s, but we seem to have some technologies now for which the momentum seems pretty unstoppable.Of course, a lot of people thought, after ChatGPT came out, that superintelligence would happen within six months. That didn't happen. After CRISPR arrived, I'm sure there were lots of people who expected miracle cures right away.What makes you think that these technologies will look a lot different, and our world will look a lot different than they do right now by decade's end?They certainly will look a lot different, but there's also a lot of hype around these technologies. You use the word “superintelligence,” which is probably a good word. I don't like the words “artificial intelligence,” and I have a six-letter framing for what I believe about AGI — artificial general intelligence — and that is: AGI is BS. We have no idea what human intelligence is, if we define our own intelligence so narrowly that it's just this very narrow form of thinking and then we say, “Wow, we have these machines that are mining the entirety of digitized human cultural history, and wow, they're so brilliant, they can write poems — poems in languages that our ancestors have invented based on the work of humans.” So we humans need to be very careful not to belittle ourselves.But we're already seeing, across the board, if you say, “Is CRISPR on its own going to fundamentally transform all of life?” The answer to that is absolutely no. My last book was about genetic engineering. If genetic engineering is a pie, genome editing is a slice and CRISPR is just a tiny little sliver of that slice. But the reason why my new book is called Superconvergence, the entire thesis is that all of these technologies inspire, and influence, and are embedded in each other. We had the agricultural revolution 12,000 years ago, as I mentioned. That's what led to these other innovations like civilization, like writing, and then the ancient writing codes are the foundation of computer codes which underpin our machine learning and AI systems that are allowing us to unlock secrets of the natural world.People are imagining that AI equals ChatGPT, but that's really not the case (AI equals ChatGPT like electricity equals the power station). The story of AI is empowering us to do all of these other things. As a general-purpose technology, already AI is developing the capacity to help us just do basic things faster. Computer coding is the archetypal example of that. Over the last couple of years, the speed of coding has improved by about 50 percent for the most advanced human coders, and as we code, our coding algorithms are learning about the process of coding. We're just laying a foundation for all of these other things.That's what I call “boring AI.” People are imagining exciting AI, like there's a magic AI button and you just press it and AI cures cancer. That's not how it's going to work. Boring AI is going to be embedded in human resource management. It's going to be embedded just giving us a lot of capabilities to do things better, faster than we've done them before. It doesn't mean that AIs are going to replace us. There are a lot of things that humans do that machines can just do better than we are. That's why most of us aren't doing hunting, or gathering, or farming, because we developed machines and other technologies to feed us with much less human labor input, and we have used that reallocation of our time and energy to write books and invent other things. That's going to happen here.The name of the game for us humans, there's two things: One is figuring out what does it mean to be a great human and over-index on that, and two, lay the foundation so that these multiple overlapping revolutions, as they play out in multiple fields, can be governed wisely. That is the name of the game. So when people say, “Is it going to change our lives?” I think people are thinking of it in the wrong way. This shirt that I'm wearing, this same shirt five years from now, you'll say, “Well, is there AI in your shirt?” — because it doesn't look like AI — and what I'm going to say is “Yes, in the manufacturing of this thread, in the management of the supply chain, in figuring out who gets to go on vacation, when, in the company that's making these buttons.” It's all these little things. People will just call it progress. People are imagining magic AI, all of these interwoven technologies will just feel like accelerating progress, and that will just feel like life.Normalizing the extraordinary (9:46)20, 30 years ago we didn't have the internet. I think things get so normalized that this just feels like life.What you're describing is a technology that economists would call a general-purpose technology. It's a technology embedded in everything, it's everywhere in the economy, much as electricity.What you call “boring AI,” the way I think about it is: I was just reading a Wall Street Journal story about Applebee's talking about using AI for more efficient customer loyalty programs, and they would use machine vision to look at their tables to see if they were cleaned well enough between customers. That, to people, probably doesn't seem particularly science-fictional. It doesn't seem world-changing. Of course, faster growth and a more productive economy is built on those little things, but I guess I would still call those “boring AI.”What to me definitely is not boring AI is the sort of combinatorial aspect that you're talking about where you're talking about AI helping the scientific discovery process and then interweaving with other technologies in kind of the classic Paul Romer combinatorial way.I think a lot of people, if they look back at their lives 20 or 30 years ago, they would say, “Okay, more screen time, but probably pretty much the same.”I don't think they would say that. 20, 30 years ago we didn't have the internet. I think things get so normalized that this just feels like life. If you had told ourselves 30 years ago, “You're going to have access to all the world's knowledge in your pocket.” You and I are — based on appearances, although you look so youthful — roughly the same age, so you probably remember, “Hurry, it's long distance! Run down the stairs!”We live in this radical science-fiction world that has been normalized, and even the things that you are mentioning, if you see open up your newsfeed and you see that there's this been incredible innovation in cancer care, and whether it's gene therapy, or autoimmune stuff, or whatever, you're not thinking, “Oh, that was AI that did that,” because you read the thing and it's like “These researchers at University of X,” but it is AI, it is electricity, it is agriculture. It's because our ancestors learned how to plant seeds and grow plants where you're stationed and not have to do hunting and gathering that you have had this innovation that is keeping your grandmother alive for another 10 years.What you're describing is what I call “magical AI,” and that's not how it works. Some of the stuff is magical: the Jetsons stuff, and self-driving cars, these things that are just autopilot airplanes, we live in a world of magical science fiction and then whenever something shows up, we think, “Oh yeah, no big deal.” We had ChatGPT, now ChatGPT, no big deal?If you had taken your grandparents, your parents, and just said, “Hey, I'm going to put you behind a screen. You're going to have a conversation with something, with a voice, and you're going to do it for five hours,” and let's say they'd never heard of computers and it was all this pleasant voice. In the end they said, “You just had a five-hour conversation with a non-human, and it told you about everything and all of human history, and it wrote poems, and it gave you a recipe for kale mush or whatever you're eating,” you'd say, “Wow!” I think that we are living in that sci-fi world. It's going to get faster, but every innovation, we're not going to say, “Oh, AI did that.” We're just going to say, “Oh, that happened.”Engineering intelligence (13:53)I don't like the word “artificial intelligence” because artificial intelligence means “artificial human intelligence.” This is machine intelligence, which is inspired by the products of human intelligence, but it's a different form of intelligence . . .I sometimes feel in my own writing, and as I peruse the media, like I read a lot more about AI, the digital economy, information technology, and I feel like I certainly write much less about genetic engineering, biotechnology, which obviously is a key theme in your book. What am I missing right now that's happening that may seem normal five years from now, 10 years, but if I were to read about it now or understand it now, I'd think, “Well, that is kind of amazing.”My answer to that is kind of everything. As I said before, we are at the very beginning of this new era of life on earth where one species, among the billions that have ever lived, suddenly has the increasing ability to engineer novel intelligence and re-engineer life.We have evolved by the Darwinian processes of random mutation and natural selection, and we are beginning a new phase of life, a new Cambrian Revolution, where we are creating, certainly with this novel intelligence that we are birthing — I don't like the word “artificial intelligence” because artificial intelligence means “artificial human intelligence.” This is machine intelligence, which is inspired by the products of human intelligence, but it's a different form of intelligence, just like dolphin intelligence is a different form of intelligence than human intelligence, although we are related because of our common mammalian route. That's what's happening here, and our brain function is roughly the same as it's been, certainly at least for tens of thousands of years, but the AI machine intelligence is getting smarter, and we're just experiencing it.It's become so normalized that you can even ask that question. We live in a world where we have these AI systems that are just doing more and cooler stuff every day: driving cars, you talked about discoveries, we have self-driving laboratories that are increasingly autonomous. We have machines that are increasingly writing their own code. We live in a world where machine intelligence has been boxed in these kinds of places like computers, but very soon it's coming out into the world. The AI revolution, and machine-learning revolution, and the robotics revolution are going to be intersecting relatively soon in meaningful ways.AI has advanced more quickly than robotics because it hasn't had to navigate the real world like we have. That's why I'm always so mindful of not denigrating who we are and what we stand for. Four billion years of evolution is a long time. We've learned a lot along the way, so it's going to be hard to put the AI and have it out functioning in the world, interacting in this world that we have largely, but not exclusively, created.But that's all what's coming. Some specific things: 30 years from now, my guess is many people who are listening to this podcast will be fornicating regularly with robots, and it'll be totally normal and comfortable.. . . I think some people are going to be put off by that.Yeah, some people will be put off and some people will be turned on. All I'm saying is it's going to be a mix of different —Jamie, what I would like to do is be 90 years old and be able to still take long walks, be sharp, not have my knee screaming at me. That's what I would like. Can I expect that?I think this can help, but you have to decide how to behave with your personalized robot.That's what I want. I'm looking for the achievement of human suffering. Will there be a world of less human suffering?We live in that world of less human suffering! If you just look at any metric of anything, this is the best time to be alive, and it's getting better and better. . . We're living longer, we're living healthier, we're better educated, we're more informed, we have access to more and better food. This is by far the best time to be alive, and if we don't massively screw it up, and frankly, even if we do, to a certain extent, it'll continue to get better.I write about this in Superconvergence, we're moving in healthcare from our world of generalized healthcare based on population averages to precision healthcare, to predictive and preventive. In education, some of us, like myself, you have had access to great education, but not everybody has that. We're going to have access to fantastic education, personalized education everywhere for students based on their own styles of learning, and capacities, and native languages. This is a wonderful, exciting time.We're going to get all of those things that we can hope for and we're going to get a lot of things that we can't even imagine. And there are going to be very real potential dangers, and if we want to have the good story, as I keep saying, and not have the bad story, now is the time where we need to start making the real investments.Distrust of disruption (19:44)Your job is the disruption of this thing that's come before. . . stopping the advance of progress is just not one of our options.I think some people would, when they hear about all these changes, they'd think what you're telling them is “the bad story.”I just talked about fornicating with robots, it's the bad story?Yeah, some people might find that bad story. But listen, we live at an age where people have recoiled against the disruption of trade, for instance. People are very allergic to the idea of economic disruption. I think about all the debate we had over stem cell therapy back in the early 2000s, 2002. There certainly is going to be a certain contingent that, what they're going to hear what you're saying is: you're going to change what it means to be a human. You're going to change what it means to have a job. I don't know if I want all this. I'm not asking for all this.And we've seen where that pushback has greatly changed, for instance, how we trade with other nations. Are you concerned that that pushback could create regulatory or legislative obstacles to the kind of future you're talking about?All of those things, and some of that pushback, frankly, is healthy. These are fundamental changes, but those people who are pushing back are benchmarking their own lives to the world that they were born into and, in most cases, without recognizing how radical those lives already are, if the people you're talking about are hunter-gatherers in some remote place who've not gone through domestication of agriculture, and industrialization, and all of these kinds of things, that's like, wow, you're going from being this little hunter-gatherer tribe in the middle of Atlantis and all of a sudden you're going to be in a world of gene therapy and shifting trading patterns.But the people who are saying, “Well, my job as a computer programmer, as a whatever, is going to get disrupted,” your job is the disruption. Your job is the disruption of this thing that's come before. As I said at the start of our conversation, stopping the advance of progress is just not one of our options.We could do it, and societies have done it before, and they've lost their economies, they've lost their vitality. Just go to Europe, Europe is having this crisis now because for decades they saw their economy and their society, frankly, as a museum to the past where they didn't want to change, they didn't want to think about the implications of new technologies and new trends. It's why I am just back from Italy. It's wonderful, I love visiting these little farms where they're milking the goats like they've done for centuries and making cheese they've made for centuries, but their economies are shrinking with incredible rapidity where ours and the Chinese are growing.Everybody wants to hold onto the thing that they know. It's a very natural thing, and I'm not saying we should disregard those views, but the societies that have clung too tightly to the way things were tend to lose their vitality and, ultimately, their freedom. That's what you see in the war with Russia and Ukraine. Let's just say there are people in Ukraine who said, “Let's not embrace new disruptive technologies.” Their country would disappear.We live in a competitive world where you can opt out like Europe opted out solely because they lived under the US security umbrella. And now that President Trump is threatening the withdrawal of that security umbrella, Europe is being forced to race not into the future, but to race into the present.Risk tolerance (24:08). . . experts, scientists, even governments don't have any more authority to make these decisions about the future of our species than everybody else.I certainly understand that sort of analogy, and compared to Europe, we look like a far more risk-embracing kind of society. Yet I wonder how resilient that attitude — because obviously I would've said the same thing maybe in 1968 about the United States, and yet a decade later we stopped building nuclear reactors — I wonder how resilient we are to anything going wrong, like something going on with an AI system where somebody dies. Or something that looks like a cure that kills someone. Or even, there seems to be this nuclear power revival, how resilient would that be to any kind of accident? How resilient do you think are we right now to the inevitable bumps along the way?It depends on who you mean by “we.” Let's just say “we” means America because a lot of these dawns aren't the first ones. You talked about gene therapy. This is the second dawn of gene therapy. The first dawn came crashing into a halt in 1999 when a young man at the University of Pennsylvania died as a result of an error carried out by the treating physicians using what had seemed like a revolutionary gene therapy. It's the second dawn of AI after there was a lot of disappointment. There will be accidents . . .Let's just say, hypothetically, there's an accident . . . some kind of self-driving car is going to kill somebody or whatever. And let's say there's a political movement, the Luddites that is successful, and let's just say that every self-driving car in America is attacked and destroyed by mobs and that all of the companies that are making these cars are no longer able to produce or deploy those cars. That's going to be bad for self-driving cars in America — it's not going to be bad for self-driving cars. . . They're going to be developed in some other place. There are lots of societies that have lost their vitality. That's the story of every empire that we read about in history books: there was political corruption, sclerosis. That's very much an option.I'm a patriotic American and I hope America leads these revolutions as long as we can maintain our values for many, many centuries to come, but for that to happen, we need to invest in that. Part of that is investing now so that people don't feel that they are powerless victims of these trends they have no influence over.That's why all of my work is about engaging people in the conversation about how do we deploy these technologies? Because experts, scientists, even governments don't have any more authority to make these decisions about the future of our species than everybody else. What we need to do is have broad, inclusive conversations, engage people in all kinds of processes, including governance and political processes. That's why I write the books that I do. That's why I do podcast interviews like this. My Joe Rogan interviews have reached many tens of millions of people — I know you told me before that you're much bigger than Joe Rogan, so I imagine this interview will reach more than that.I'm quite aspirational.Yeah, but that's the name of the game. With my last book tour, in the same week I spoke to the top scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and the seventh and eighth graders at the Solomon Schechter Hebrew Academy of New Jersey, and they asked essentially the exact same questions about the future of human genetic engineering. These are basic human questions that everybody can understand and everybody can and should play a role and have a voice in determining the big decisions and the future of our species.To what extent is the future you're talking about dependent on continued AI advances? If this is as good as it gets, does that change the outlook at all?One, there's no conceivable way that this is as good as it gets because even if the LLMs, large language models — it's not the last word on algorithms, there will be many other philosophies of algorithms, but let's just say that LLMs are the end of the road, that we've just figured out this one thing, and that's all we ever have. Just using the technologies that we have in more creative ways is going to unleash incredible progress. But it's certain that we will continue to have innovations across the field of computer science, in energy production, in algorithm development, in the ways that we have to generate and analyze massive data pools. So we don't need any more to have the revolution that's already started, but we will have more.Politics always, ultimately, can trump everything if we get it wrong. But even then, even if . . . let's just say that the United States becomes an authoritarian, totalitarian hellhole. One, there will be technological innovation like we're seeing now even in China, and two, these are decentralized technologies, so free people elsewhere — maybe it'll be Europe, maybe it'll be Africa or whatever — will deploy these technologies and use them. These are agnostic technologies. They don't have, as I said at the start, an inevitable outcome, and that's why the name of the game for us is to weave our best values into this journey.What is a “newnimal”? (30:11). . . we don't live in a state of nature, we live in a world that has been massively bio-engineered by our ancestors, and that's just the thing that we call life.When I was preparing for this interview and my research assistant was preparing, I said, “We have to have a question about bio-engineered new animals.” One, because I couldn't pronounce your name for these . . . newminals? So pronounce that name and tell me why we want these.It's a made up word, so you can pronounce it however you want. “Newnimals” is as good as anything.We already live in a world of bio-engineered animals. Go back 50,000 years, find me a dog, find me a corn that is recognizable, find me rice, find me wheat, find me a cow that looks remotely like the cow in your local dairy. We already live in that world, it's just people assume that our bioengineered world is some kind of state of nature. We already live in a world where the size of a broiler chicken has tripled over the last 70 years. What we have would have been unrecognizable to our grandparents.We are already genetically modifying animals through breeding, and now we're at the beginning of wanting to have whatever those same modifications are, whether it's producing more milk, producing more meat, living in hotter environments and not dying, or whatever it is that we're aiming for in these animals that we have for a very long time seen not as ends in themselves, but means to the alternate end of our consumption.We're now in the early stages xenotransplantation, modifying the hearts, and livers, and kidneys of pigs so they can be used for human transplantation. I met one of the women who has received — and seems to so far to be thriving — a genetically modified pig kidney. We have 110,000 people in the United States on the waiting list for transplant organs. I really want these people not just to survive, but to survive and thrive. That's another area we can grow.Right now . . . in the world, we slaughter about 93 billion land animals per year. We consume 200 million metric tons of fish. That's a lot of murder, that's a lot of risk of disease. It's a lot of deforestation and destruction of the oceans. We can already do this, but if and when we can grow bioidentical animal products at scale without having all of these negative externalities of whether it's climate change, environmental change, cruelty, deforestation, increased pandemic risk, what a wonderful thing to do!So we have these technologies and you mentioned that people are worried about them, but the reason people are worried about them is they're imagining that right now we live in some kind of unfettered state of nature and we're going to ruin it. But that's why I say we don't live in a state of nature, we live in a world that has been massively bio-engineered by our ancestors, and that's just the thing that we call life.Inspired by curiosity (33:42). . . the people who I love and most admire are the people who are just insatiably curious . . .What sort of forward thinkers, or futurists, or strategic thinkers of the past do you model yourself on, do you think are still worth reading, inspired you?Oh my God, so many, and the people who I love and most admire are the people who are just insatiably curious, who are saying, “I'm going to just look at the world, I'm going to collect data, and I know that everybody says X, but it may be true, it may not be true.” That is the entire history of science. That's Galileo, that's Charles Darwin, who just went around and said, “Hey, with an open mind, how am I going to look at the world and come up with theses?” And then he thought, “Oh s**t, this story that I'm coming up with for how life advances is fundamentally different from what everybody in my society believes and organizes their lives around.” Meaning, in my mind, that's the model, and there are so many people, and that's the great thing about being human.That's what's so exciting about this moment is that everybody has access to these super-empowered tools. We have eight billion humans, but about two billion of those people are just kind of locked out because of crappy education, and poor water sanitation, electricity. We're on the verge of having everybody who has a smartphone has the possibility of getting a world-class personalized education in their own language. How many new innovations will we have when little kids who were in slums in India, or in Pakistan, or in Nairobi, or wherever who have promise can educate themselves, and grow up and cure cancers, or invent new machines, or new algorithms. This is pretty exciting.The summary of the people from the past, they're kind of like the people in the present that I admire the most, are the people who are just insatiably curious and just learning, and now we have a real opportunity so that everybody can be their own Darwin.On sale everywhere The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi World We Were PromisedMicro Reads▶ Economics* AI Hype Is Proving to Be a Solow's Paradox - Bberg Opinion* Trump Considers Naming Next Fed Chair Early in Bid to Undermine Powell - WSJ* Who Needs the G7? - PS* Advances in AI will boost productivity, living standards over time - Dallas Fed* Industrial Policy via Venture Capital - SSRN* Economic Sentiment and the Role of the Labor Market - St. Louis Fed▶ Business* AI valuations are verging on the unhinged - Economist* Nvidia shares hit record high on renewed AI optimism - FT* OpenAI, Microsoft Rift Hinges on How Smart AI Can Get - WSJ* Takeaways From Hard Fork's Interview With OpenAI's Sam Altman - NYT* Thatcher's legacy endures in Labour's industrial strategy - FT* Reddit vows to stay human to emerge a winner from artificial intelligence - FT▶ Policy/Politics* Anthropic destroyed millions of print books to build its AI models - Ars* Don't Let Silicon Valley Move Fast and Break Children's Minds - NYT Opinion* Is DOGE doomed to fail? Some experts are ready to call it. - Ars* The US is failing its green tech ‘Sputnik moment' - FT▶ AI/Digital* Future of Work with AI Agents: Auditing Automation and Augmentation Potential across the U.S. Workforce - Arxiv* Is the Fed Ready for an AI Economy? - WSJ Opinion* How Much Energy Does Your AI Prompt Use? I Went to a Data Center to Find Out. - WSJ* Meta Poaches Three OpenAI Researchers - WSJ* AI Agents Are Getting Better at Writing Code—and Hacking It as Well - Wired* Exploring the Capabilities of the Frontier Large Language Models for Nuclear Energy Research - Arxiv▶ Biotech/Health* Google's new AI will help researchers understand how our genes work - MIT* Does using ChatGPT change your brain activity? Study sparks debate - Nature* We cure cancer with genetic engineering but ban it on the farm. - ImmunoLogic* ChatGPT and OCD are a dangerous combo - Vox▶ Clean Energy/Climate* Is It Too Soon for Ocean-Based Carbon Credits? - Heatmap* The AI Boom Can Give Rooftop Solar a New Pitch - Bberg Opinion▶ Robotics/Drones/AVs* Tesla's Robotaxi Launch Shows Google's Waymo Is Worth More Than $45 Billion - WSJ* OpenExo: An open-source modular exoskeleton to augment human function - Science Robotics▶ Space/Transportation* Bezos and Blue Origin Try to Capitalize on Trump-Musk Split - WSJ* Giant asteroid could crash into moon in 2032, firing debris towards Earth - The Guardian▶ Up Wing/Down Wing* New Yorkers Vote to Make Their Housing Shortage Worse - WSJ* We Need More Millionaires and Billionaires in Latin America - Bberg Opinion▶ Substacks/Newsletters* Student visas are a critical pipeline for high-skilled, highly-paid talent - AgglomerationsState Power Without State Capacity - Breakthrough JournalFaster, Please! is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

With Steve out this week, Sean summoned three of our oldest friends. Bruce Christopher (aka Portia Davis), Brandon Coulter (aka Ghus), and Cameron Gawne (resident zookeeper and horror nerd) for a boozy séance and horror hangout.They kick things off with some horror news, covering the upcoming Alien: Earth series, Robert Eggers' now confirmed to take on A Christmas Carol, and A24's terrifying Backrooms adaptation.Then things get paranormal (and kind of unhinged) as they summon the souls of the dead via a spirit board game (a horror movie themed 20 Questions where each of them channels the ghost of a slain horror movie victim, and the others try to guess who died horribly. Spoiler..they get progressively drunker and worse at it.)So come for the news, stay for the chaos. Light a candle, pour a drink, and join the séance!!!Follow Us on Social Media:Instagram & Threads: @mostlyhorrorpodTikTok & Twitter/X: @mostlyhorrorBruce Christopher: @brucechristopher, Portia Davis on Music PlatformsBrandon Coulter: @bscoulter_, @Ghus_Music, Ghus on Music PlatformsCameron Gawne: @CollectivecammySean: @hypocrite.ink on IG/TikTok, @hypocriteink on Twitter/XEnjoy this episode? Don't forget to subscribe, rate and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform! For early Access and ad-free episodes, subscribe on Wondery+.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello you beautiful people!We start the show with Christmas All Over The World and we take a look at the Yorkshire tradition of The Old Hoss. A bunch of people go round the pubs and one of them is dressed as a horse and they sing a poem...  and I'm not making it up.Next up Bob Baker has a look at what us Brits call 'taps' and those Yanks call 'faucets' in Do You Hear What I Hear.After the joke it's this episodes version of A Christmas Carol.  It's called Ebbie and it's a modern day (90s) take with a female Scrooge. It's actually alright. You can watch it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTRm5gX6CXsThen Bob is back with Where Are You Christmas? and he looks at some places here in the UK that (to my shame) I wasn't aware of.Check out Bob's podcast here:  https://4fpodcast.buzzsprout.com/Then it's The Quiz. I scored 8, make sure to email me with your score.This episode's recommendation is It's A Fair Cop with Alfie Moore. It's my latest favourite thing.Here's a link: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/b060fj66Get in touch:Email: totalchristmas@gmail.comWeb: totalchristmaspodcast.comMerry Christmas!

Austin and Stephen are discussing tons of New Trailers Movie Announcements and more! Don't forget to follow us on socials; you can find us everywhere via our link - https://lnk.bio/rXxW - Also, www.movigapodcast.comTime codes:1:00 - Top 322:00 - Main Discussion 1:05:00 - Community Discussion/Wrap-Up

GET YOUR MULTIVERSE NEWS MERCH HERE:https://multiverse-news-shop.fourthwall.com/In a peek behind the curtain, James Gunn shared with Rolling Stone this week that the Milly Alcock-lead film Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow will now just be called Supergirl. This is similar to July's Superman, which started out with the title Superman: Legacy. Gunn shared that he and his team do what he calls “premortems,” where they attempt to suss out issues with projects prior to release rather than reacting on the back end. The shortening of titles has come out of those discussions. In the same article, Gunn got candid about the state of Batman in the DCU and the complexities of navigating the character with Matt Reeves' adaptation in consideration or making it his own. Lastly, Gunn announced today that actor Tom Rhys Harries will play Basil Karlo/Clayface in the film set to be released in September 2026.Live action remakes continue to rule at the box office, with this weekend's How to Train Your Dragon capturing the top spot opening to a global $197 million. A24's romantic comedy Materialists starring Dakota Johnson, Chris Evans, and Pedro Pascal, opened to a modest $11 million domestically, but goes down in studio history as A24's third highest debut at the box office. Next weekend Sony gives us 28 Years Later and Pixar releases Elio.Nosferatu director Robert Eggers is tackling the classic Charles Dickens story, A Christmas Carol. Eggers is on record as never wanting to make a film set in a modern age, and the ghost story that is A Christmas Carol seems right up his alley. Though unconfirmed, Willem Dafoe is likely set to play the main character of Ebenezer Scrooge as Dafoe has been in three of Eggers films.Tommy Wirkola will return to direct Violent Night 2, the sequel to the Christmas-themed action movie released in 2022, sources tell The Hollywood Reporter. David Harbour, who starred in the first film, will also return. The sequel is currently dated for December 4, 2026.Bill Pullman and Rick Moranis are set to reprise their respective roles as Lone Starr and Dark Helmet in the new Spaceballs movie from Amazon MGM Studios, with Keke Palmer and Lewis Pullman also joining the cast. The original film's director and star, Mel Brooks - who will turn 99 this month - will also feature in the cast once again, reprising his role as Yogurt. The film is currently set to release in 2027.On the animation side of DC Studios, Warner Bros. announced a new series called Mister Miracle, based on the comic series written by renowned writer Tom King who will also be the showrunner. Mister Miracle is an escape artist character who is a celebrity in the comic book world he lives in.Paramount+ has renewed Star Trek: Strange New Worlds the series for a fifth and final six-episode season. Production on the upcoming season will begin later this year.Pixar Animation Studios offered an exclusive first look at its upcoming features — including Hoppers and Toy Story 5 — and announced a brand-new original production, Gatto, during a studio presentation on Friday at the Annecy international animation film festival as part of a broader showcase that also included extensive footage from Pixar's 2025 release Elio.Gatto will be directed by Luca filmmaker Enrico Casarosa, follows Nero, a water-hating black cat living in the picturesque city of Venice, Italy, who befriends Maya, a lonely street musician.Glenn Close and Billy Porter have joined the cast of Hunger Games: Sunrise on the Reaping. Close will play Drusilla Sickle, the cruel escort to the District 12 Tributes, while Porter snagged the role of Magno Stift, her estranged husband and the Tributes' uninspired designer. Today, Jhaleil Swaby was also added to the cast as Panache, a career tribute from District 1.

Check out our review of A24's Materialists,' Celine Song's follow-up to ‘Past Lives'. Beforehand, we'll discuss the week's top entertainment news, including our reactions to trailers for ‘The Naked Gun' reboot and Ari Aster's ‘Eddington'; 'Spaceballs' is getting a sequel; Robert Eggers is tackling ‘A Christmas Carol' with Willem Dafoe; and more! Enjoy!TIMECODES… Intro (0:00)The Toms: Entertainment News (1:20)‘Materialists' Review (31:20)*SPOILERS* for ‘Materialists' (41:13)What Are Ya Doin'? (1:03:21)SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS...Email: tomppodcast@gmail.comYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU2jjOm3gwTu2TVDzH_CJlwFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/That-One-Movie-Podcast-535231563653560/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TOMPPodcastPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/tomppodcastINTRO MUSIC... "Constellation" by Brian Hanegan

June 18th, 2025 | It's a thicc two parter! @nojathanparker and @zachrotello are back in action to talk the biggest news of the last couple weeks as well as discuss the upcoming Summer movie slate. Superman rewatch, Lilo and Stitch remake, Robert Eggers' A Christmas Carol, Spaceballs 2, and more! | radiovania.com | @radiovania | radiovaniashow@gmail.com

On this episode of THE HOT MIC, Jeff Sneider and John Rocha discuss the big entertainment news of the week including Superman and Eddington trailers, James Gunn's updates on Wonder Woman, Batman 2 script and Superman changes, Robert Eggers directing a Christmas Carol movie with Willem Dafoe, Celine Song's next project, Brad Bird not directing Incredibles 3, what Ballerina's weak box office means for John Wick franchise, Ben Stiller directing a Twilight Zone movie, Snoop Dogg biopic updates, Harris Yulin tribute, Rachel Brosnahan for Presumed Innocent 2, Spaceballs 2 update and more!#MARVEL #StarWars #DC #superman #Disney #TheHotMic #JeffSneider #JohnRocha ____________________________________________________________________________________Chapters:0:00 Intro and Rundown2:21 Spaceballs 2 is Happening with Mel Brooks and Josh Gad9:47 Who Is Playing Dorothy in Wicked For Good?15:15 James Gunn Offers Wonder Woman, The Batman and Superman Updates21:56 New Superman Trailer Talk25:38 EDDDINGTON Trailer Discussion28:03 Ballerina, Thunderbolts Underperform - What Does This Mean for Marvel and John Wick?40:28 BALLARD Trailer Discussion42:30 Mia Goth in STAR WARS: STARFIGHTER45:30 Robert Eggers Doing A Christmas Carol Remake with Willem Dafoe47:52 Peter Sohn Tapped to Direct Pixar's The Incredibles 350:12 Jonathan Daviss Cast as Snoop Dogg in Craig Brewer's Biopic of Snoop55:21 Ben Stiller Developing a The Twilight Zone Movie to Direct59:40 Tributes for Harris Yulin and Brian Wilson1:03:11 Rachel Brosnahan to Lead Presumed Innocent S21:06:15 Celine Song Working on an E Sports Series for A24 and HBO MAX1:09:22 Streamlabs and Superchat Questions1:45:02 Jared Leto Accusations, Harvey Weinstein and Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively Updates1:49:52 Final Streamlabs and Superchat QuestionsFollow John Rocha: @therochasays Follow Jeff Sneider: @TheInSneider  PATREON: https://patreon.com/JohnRocha Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-hot-mic-with-jeff-sneider-and-john-rocha--5632767/support.

This Week for your Daily Ratings Movie News: Mel Brooks announces Spaceballs 2, along with the original cast coming back. Robert Eggers is making A Christmas Carol with Willem Dafoe as Scrooge. Darren Aronofsky teams up with Dwayne Johnson. Mathew McConaughey reunites with True Detective creator. James Gun is rebooting Wonder Woman, and Celine Song is making an online gamer tv show with HBO.   Don't forget to check out thedailyratings.com for our New Shop! Where you can find all kinds of Daily Ratings shirts, hoodies, hats, and mugs. Also check out the massive amount films that Vince has rated and remember to send a donation in to become a Producer!!

Spaceballs 2, Mister Miracle show, Wonder Woman movie, Strange New Worlds ends after season 5, The Last of Us season 3 news, Heist Safari animated show, Fast & Furious ride at Universal, Doctor Who cartoon, Robert Eggers doing A Christmas Carol, Disney/Universal AI Lawsuit, and MORE!

Spaceballs the sequel brings back a familiar cast while Robbert Eggers sets his sights on a dark Christmas.

Jennifer's Body is a cult classic. And like most cult classics, there are lots of rumors around it. We think it is okay, but there are fans out there who absolutely love the 2009 film. Every few years, talk of a sequel heats up before going away. This time, there seems to be more truth to the rumors. We have mixed opinions about Robert Eggers working on A Christmas Carol. On one hand we enjoy both. Eggers is a master at his craft and the Charles Dickens work is the seminal Christmas ghost story. But we are tired of seeing remakes. There are plenty of A Christmas Carol adaptations. And while most of them are awesome, do we really need another?You do not have to watch too many vampire movies before you come across one that deals with addiction. It is up there with “vampire who does not want to kill” and “vampire hunter who is part vampire” when it comes to topics. Bleeding may not tread new ground, but it still manages to be captivating.It can be a difficult watch, but what movie about addiction isn't? Strong performances overcome the flawed writing and the idea of what is happening is an interesting one. It would have been nice if the lore was examined more, however. And what's the deal with introducing the villain an hour into the film?We have covered Tribeca the past few years and have been lucky enough to see some great horror movies. This year, we are doing something different. Gonzo Girl is the film adaptation of a book about an assistant who spends a summer with the father of Gonzo journalism.It instead becomes a story about an aspiring writer pulled into the orbit of a bigger than life figure. In the process the story about the young assistant is mishandled. But maybe that is the point? Gonzo Girl is a fun movie, but it could have been so much more. Adventures in Movies! is a part of the Morbidly Beautiful Podcast Network. Morbidly Beautiful is your one stop shop for all your horror needs. From the latest news and reviews to interviews and old favorites, it can be found at Morbidly Beautiful.Adventures in Movies! is hosted by Nathaniel and Blake. You can find Nathaniel on Instagram at nathaninpoortaste. Blake can be found on Twitter @foureyedhorror and on Instagram at foureyedhorror. You can reach us personally or on Twitter @AdventuresinMo1.Music in the background from https://www.FesliyanStudios.com

On this episode of THE HOT MIC, Jeff Sneider and John Rocha discuss the big entertainment news of the week including Superman and Eddington trailers, James Gunn's updates on Wonder Woman, Batman 2 script and Superman changes, Robert Eggers directing a Christmas Carol movie with Willem Dafoe, Celine Song's next project, Once Upon a Time 2 updates, Brad Bird not directing Incredibles 3, what Ballerina's weak box office means for John Wick franchise, Ben Stiller directing a Twilight Zone movie, Snoop Dogg biopic updates, Harris Yulin tribute, Rachel Brosnahan for Presumed Innocent 2, Spaceballs 2 update and more!PLUS, John and Jeff answer all your questions. To send in a question or comment for Jeff and John, go to: streamlabs.com/johnrochasays/tipMARVEL #StarWars #DC #superman #Disney #TheHotMic #JeffSneider #JohnRocha ____________________________________________________________________________________Chapters:0:00 Intro and Rundown2:21 Spaceballs 2 is Happening with Mel Brooks and Josh Gad9:47 Who Is Playing Dorothy in Wicked For Good?15:15 James Gunn Offers WOnder Woman, The Batman and Superman Updates21:56 New Superman Trailer Talk25:38 EDDDINGTON Trailer Discussion28:03 Ballerina, Thunderbolts Underperform - What Does This Mean for Marvel and John Wick?40:28 BALLARD Trailer Discussion42:30 Mia Goth in STAR WARS: STARFIGHTER45:30 Robert Eggers Doing A Christmas Carol Remake with Willem Dafoe47:52 Peter Sohn Tapped to Direct Pixar's The Incredibles 350:12 Jonathan Daviss Cast as Snoop Dogg in Craig Brewer's Biopic of Snoop55:21 Ben Stiller Developing a The Twilight Zone Movie to Direct59:40 Tributes for Harris Yulin and Brian Wilson1:03:11 Rachel Brosnahan to Lead Presumed Innocent S21:06:15 Celine Song Working on an E Sports Series for A24 and HBO MAX1:09:22 Streamlabs and Superchat Questions1:45:02 Jared Leto Accusations, Harvey Weinstein and Justin Baldoni and Blake Lively Updates1:49:52 Final Streamlabs and Superchat QuestionsFollow John Rocha: @therochasays Follow Jeff Sneider: @TheInSneider  Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-hot-mic-with-jeff-sneider-and-john-rocha--5632767/support.

MUSICRIP: Brian Wilson, founder and creative genius of The Beach Boys and a longtime solo artist, has died at age 82. One of two "irreplaceable" instruments stolen before Heart's May 30th show at Atlantic City's Hard Rock Hotel and Casino has been recovered. Nirvana's video for "Smells Like Teen Spirit" has surpassed two billion views on YouTube. Uploaded to the video platform in June 2009, it hit a billion views in 2019. TVRIP: Ananda Lewis, the iconic MTV VJ died on Wednesday after a lengthy breast cancer battle at the age of 52.Netflix has an animated "Stranger Things" spin-off in the works, and they dropped some details yesterday. MOVING ON INTO MOVIE NEWS:Robert Eggers will direct a new version of "A Christmas Carol". DC Studios co-chief James Gunn has confirmed that he's working on a new 'Wonder Woman' movie. Miley Cyrus has revealed that she lost a lot during her "wild" years when she was trying to make a clean break from her "Hannah Montana" era. NOne of the things she lost was the lead role in the animated kids' movie "Hotel Transylvania". And what caused her to lose it was the PENIS CAKE she got for her then-boyfriend Liam Hemsworth.AND FINALLYIf you're afraid to press your luck this upcoming Friday the 13th, the film experts at 'Bloody Disgusting' recommend staying home and streaming these horror filmsFollow us @RizzShow @MoonValjeanHere @KingScottRules @LernVsRadio @IamRafeWilliams - Check out King Scott's Linktr.ee/kingscottrules + band @FreeThe2SG and Check out Moon's bands GREEK FIRE @GreekFire GOLDFINGER @GoldfingerMusic THE TEENAGE DIRTBAGS @TheTeenageDbags and Lern's band @LaneNarrows ⁠http://www.1057thepoint.com/RizzSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The gang is all here as we talk about Barry's Steamer: Squirrel with a Gun, Alice isn't Dead, Welcome to Night Vale, Penn and Teller, The Empire Strips Back, Zombicide, Skyjoe, Dogma, Outlander, Miss Austen, Finders Keepers, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, The Strangers series, Popcorn Buckets, Neverwinter Nights, Baldur's Gate 3, Vampire the Masquerade, Nintendo Power Pad, Wonder Woman in Development, Giant Skull's DnD, a new Twilight Zone movie, Evil Dead in Concert, Switch 2 breaks records, and Eggers' Christmas Carol. Embrace the chaos, it's time for a GeekShock!

Enjoy Ad-Free, Early, & Exclusive Episodes! https://www.patreon.com/GeekVerseSupport Our Patreon To Help Us Grow The Podcast and Create New Content Guest On Shows, Pick Films For Us To Review, Send Topics & More!GeekVerse.ca is where you can find all the info on the show and where you can find it!Come Chat With The Hosts, Join Our Discord! https://discord.gg/GMBM3yucBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/geekverse-podcast--4201268/support.

This episode we are joined by 5 time Tony nominated lighting designer Ben Stanton!  Ben was recently nominated for a Tony for his work on the newly minted best musical Maybe Happy Ending! Some of his other Broadway credits include Seminar, Fun Home, A Christmas Carol, Goodnight Oscar, Days of Wine and Roses, Spring Awakening, Junk and Mary Jane. Ben also designs lighting for concerts, dance, installations, and events. And he is an Obie, Lortel, IRNE, and Ovation Award winner!We talk with Ben about his work on Maybe Happy Ending, the importance of mentors, how doing lighting design is being a "responsive artist" and much more!

The artist behind a new illustrated version of "A Christmas Carol," titled Scrooge is on the show the week to talk about the project, funding now on Zoop! We also discuss returning to old ideas, working with Todd McFarlane on Spawn, drawing for role playing games, and a lot more!We make our show on Zencastr, and you can too! Follow this link to sign up now!

Hello and welcome to the show.We begin with this episode's version of A Christmas Carol and it's A Chipmunk Christmas carol.You can watch it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvugRKHpP4s&t=1325sMike Westfall covered this version on an episode of The Advent Calendar House Podcast, and you can have a listen here:https://adventcalendar.house/episodes/alvin-and-the-chipmunks-merry-christmas-mr-carrollThen it's Where Are You Christmas? and Bob Baker is looking at the North Pole in Alaska.I scored 10 in this episode's Christmas Quiz, make sure to email me and let me know how you got on.Then Bob returns and this time it's Do You Hear What I Hear? and he's looking at the term 'fair to middling'.Check out Bob's podcast here:  https://4fpodcast.buzzsprout.com/Next up we look at 2 different versions of Silent Night by two once popular artists.First up it's the British band Bros:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NPUCpj_da0EThen it's Sinead O'Connor:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uHNygqhBCs&list=RD1uHNygqhBCs&start_radio=1This episode's recommendation is A Short History Of... it's really worth a listen.Here's a link:  https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0g76gfvGet in touch:Email: totalchristmas@gmail.comWeb: totalchristmaspodcast.comMerry Christmas!

A Christmas Carol' is een Victoriaanse allegorie over een oude en verbitterde vrek, Ebenezer Scrooge, die in de nacht voor Kerstmis een aantal dromen heeft… This is the Dutch translation of the book: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

For this episode I interview Judy Maddren - Judy is a University of Guelph and CFRU alumni who went on to work in professional radio with the CBC. In more recent years she's run a project called “Soundportraits” where she records interviews to help people tell their life stories. The parallels between the type of work Judy and I have done made this a highly intriguing interview for me, and I'm very glad Alumni Affairs connected us! Thank you Judy for taking the time and traveling to me at the station for this interview.More about Judy:“For many years, Judy started the day with millions of Canadians across Canada, sharing the latest news of the world and our country as host of CBC Radio's World Report. Her day began at 4:15 at her computer and continued with seven live broadcasts. She says “I loved making pictures with words, using the right verb to conjure up an image and to tell the story. The older I get, the more I believe that stories are the basis of all our learning.”She was also the CBC's Broadcast Advisor, providing language and pronunciation recommendations to CBC broadcasters and writers on radio, television and CBC dot caIn 1990, Judy produced the first public reading of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol with CBC readers, and then expanded the readings across Canada. They are still held in several communities across the country each year, raising money to benefit local charities of all kinds. The Governor-General awarded Judy the Meritorious Service Medal in November, 2016 for her efforts with the Christmas Carol readings.And last year she was invited to be a Volunteer Presiding Officer at Canadian Citizenship Ceremonies – a real honour.Her broadcasting experience has meant that she is often invited to speak or host public events, which she really enjoys.Judy's broadcasting career and producing the Christmas Carol readings have convinced her of the power of stories: it is reflection on our personal narratives that influence how we move forward through life. Since 2001 she and her partner Alannah Campbell have savoured their work in Soundportraits, helping people young and old to record their audio memoirs. The library of biographies that has been preserved, confirms her belief that every life is remarkable.She and her husband Tim Elliott are the parents of four, with four grandchildren. They moved to Stratford from Toronto ten years ago, and they are delighted with the community and life there.”This interview was originally recorded on May 26th, 2025 This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit bridgingthesocialdistance.substack.com

In this week's episode, I take a look at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Winter and Spring 2025. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook versions of my anthologies at my Payhip store: JUNE25 The coupon code is valid through June 17, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 252 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is May 23rd, 2025, and today we are looking at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Winter and Spring 2025. We missed doing an episode last week for the simple reason that the day before I wanted to record, we had a bad thunderstorm that knocked down large portions of my fence, so my recording time was instead spent on emergency fence repair. However, the situation is under control, so hopefully we'll be back to weekly episodes for the immediate future. And now before we get to our main topics, let's have Coupon of the Week and then a progress update on my current writing projects.   So first up, Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebook version of all my short story anthologies at my Payhip store and that is JUNE25. As always, the coupon code and links will be available in the show notes. This coupon code is valid through June the 17th, 2025, so if you need a new ebook for this summer, we have got you covered.   And now an update on my current writing projects. Ghost in the Corruption is finished. It is publishing right now. In fact, I paused the publishing process to record this and so by the time this episode goes live, hopefully Ghost in the Corruption should be available at all ebook stores. My next main project now that Ghost in the Corruption is done will be Shield of Power and as of this recording I am 15,000 words into it. My secondary projects will be Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest and I'm 97,000 words into that, so hopefully that will come out very shortly after Shield of Power and I'll also be starting Ghost in the Siege, the final book in the Ghost Armor series as another secondary project and I'm currently zero words into that. So that is where I'm at with my current writing projects.   In audiobook news, Ghost in the Assembly (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is now out and should be available at all the usual audiobook stores so you can listen to that if you are traveling for the summer. Recording of Shield of Battle (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills) is underway soon. I believe he's starting it this week, so hopefully we will have another audiobook in the Shield War series for you before too much longer. So that's where I'm at with my current writing projects.   00:02:17 Main Topic: Winter/Spring 2025 Movie Roundup   And now let's move on, without any further ado, to our main topic. Summer is almost upon us, which means it's time for my Winter/Spring 2025 Movie Roundup. As usual, the movies and streaming shows are listed in order for my least favorite to my most favorite. The grades are based upon my own thoughts and opinions and are therefore wholly subjective. With all of that said, let's get to the movies and our first entry is MacGruber, which came out in 2010 and in all honesty, this might be objectively the worst movie I have ever seen. The Saturday Night Live MacGruber sketches are a parody of the old MacGyver action show from the ‘80s. And so the movie is essentially the sketch stretched out to make a parody of an ‘80s action movie. It is aggressively dumb and crude. Its only redeeming feature is that the movie knows it's quite stupid and so leans into the stupidity hard. I'll say this in its favor, MacGruber has no pretensions that is a good movie and does not take itself seriously and then runs away hard with that fact. For that he gets a plus, but nothing else. Overall grade: F+   Next up is Down Periscope, which came out in 1996. Now the fundamental question of any movie is the one Russell Crowe shouted at the audience in Gladiator: “Are you not entertained?” Sadly, I was not entertained with Down Periscope. This wanted to be a parody of Cold War era submarine thrillers like The Hunt for Red October, I say wanted because it didn't really succeed. Kelsey Grammer plays Lieutenant Commander Thomas Dodge, an unorthodox US Navy officer who wants command of his own nuclear sub, but he's alienated a few admirals, which is not traditionally a path to career advancement in the military. Dodge gets his chance in a Navy wargame where he has to command a diesel sub against nuclear subs. Sometimes parodies are so good that they become an example of the thing they are parodying (Hot Fuzz and Star Trek: Lower Decks are excellent examples of this phenomenon). The trouble is that the movie takes itself too seriously and just isn't all that funny. A few funny bits, true, but not enough of them. In the end, this was dumb funny but didn't resonate with me the way other dumb funny movies like Dodgeball and Tropic Thunder did. Overall grade: D   Next up is Deadpool and Wolverine, which came out in 2024. Unlike Down Periscope, I was entertained with this movie, though both movies reside on the dumb funny spectrum. Deadpool and Wolverine is basically one long meta in-joke/love letter for the last 30 years of superhero movies. If you've seen enough of those movies, you'll find those movies funny, if occasionally rather tasteless. If you haven't seen enough of those movies, Deadpool and Wolverine will just be incomprehensible. The plot is that Wade Wilson AKA Deadpool gets pulled into some Marvel style multiverse nonsense. To save his universe from destruction, he needs to recruit a Wolverine since in his universe, Wolverine died heroically.   In the process, Deadpool stumbles across the worst Wolverine in the multiverse. Together they have to overcome their mutual dislike and attempt to save Deadpool's universe from destruction at the hands of a rogue branch of the Time Variance Authority. This means the movie can bring in a lot of cameos from past Marvel films. Hugh Jackman's performance really carries the movie on its back. Like I said, this movie is essentially one very long Marvel in-joke. I thought it was funny. I definitely think it can't stand on its own without having seen a sufficient number of the other Marvel movies. Overall grade: C   Our next movie is the Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which came out in 2024. This is very loosely (with an emphasis on “very”) based on Operation Postmaster during World War II, when British Special Forces seized some Italian ships that had been supplying parts for German U-boats. It was entertaining to watch but it couldn't quite make up its mind tonally if it was a war thriller or a heist movie about Western desperados recruited into a crew. It kind of tried to do both at the same time, which killed the momentum. Like, the first parts of the movie where the protagonists take out a Nazi patrol boat and then free a prisoner from a base were good thriller stuff, but then the plot fused with the heist stuff and really slowed down through the middle forty percent or so. It was also oddly stylized with a lot of spaghetti western-style music that seemed out of place and some stuff just didn't make sense, like at the end after pulling off the mission, the protagonists were all arrested. That just seems bizarre since if anything, Winston Churchill and a lot of the British wartime leadership were enthusiastic about special operations and probably had too much confidence in the effectiveness of covert operations. So I did enjoy watching this, but I can see why it didn't make a lot of money at the box office. Overall Grade: C   Next up is The Gorge, which came out in 2025. This was a peculiar mix of science fiction, romance, and horror. For the romance part, perhaps shooting zombies together is a good idea for a first date. Before I dig into the movie, a brief rant. In one scene, a character is using a chainsaw with no protective gear whatsoever and she's not fighting zombies or anything in a situation where she has to pick up a chainsaw without preparing first. She's trimming branches to pass time. If you're using a chainsaw, at a minimum you want protective eyewear and headphones. Ideally you'd want chainsaw pants as well to reduce the chance of serious injury if you slip and swing the saw into your leg. Since I became a homeowner, I've used a chainsaw a number of times and believe me, you definitely want good eye and ear protection. This has been your public safety announcement for this movie review.   Anyway, loner former sniper Levi is approached by a high ranking intelligence officer giving him a mysterious job. He needs to guard a tower overlooking a mysterious mist-filled gorge for one year. On the other side of the gorge is another tower, guarded by an elite Lithuanian sniper named Drasa. Like Levi, Drasa has a fair bit of emotional damage and they're officially forbidden to communicate. However, they're both lonely and they soon start communicating over the gorge using telescopes and whiteboard messages. Eventually Levi gets emotionally close enough to Drasa to rig a zipline to cross the gorge and speak with her in person.   Unfortunately, it turns out the gorge is full of twisted creatures that storm out and attack and the job of the two snipers is to keep them contained. If Levi and Drasa want to save their lives, they'll need to unravel the dark secret within the gorge. This movie was interesting and I enjoyed watching it, but it falls apart if you think about it too much (or at all). Like the chainsaw thing I ranted about above. The entire movie runs on that sort of logic. That said, I appreciate how the filmmakers were trying something new instead of something like Deadpool and Wolverine. Additionally, this was an Apple+ movie and it's interesting how Apple's approach to streaming is to just make a whole bunch of random stuff that's totally distinct, from Ted Lasso to Mythic Quest to Severance to The Gorge. It's like, “we have more money than most countries, so we're going to make Ted Lasso because we feel like it.” Then again, Apple+ is apparently losing a billion dollars every year, so maybe they'll eventually change their minds about that approach. Overall Grade: B-   Next up is Click, which came out in 2006. Cross It's a Wonderful Life with A Christmas Carol and the comedic style of Adam Sandler and you end up with Click. Basically Sandler plays Michael Newman, a workaholic architect with a demanding boss and increasingly strained relationship with his wife and children due to his workload. In a fit of exasperation with his situation, he goes to Bed Bath and Beyond, where he encounters an eccentric employee named Morty (played entertainingly by Christopher Walken). Morty gives him a remote control that lets him fast forward through time, which Michael then uses to skip the boring and tedious parts of his life, but he overuses the remote and goes too far into the future and sees the disastrous results of his current life choices. Definitely a story used in A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life but effectively told and I was entertained (rather on the crude side, though). Overall Grade: B- Next up is Mr. Deeds, which came out in 2002. This was actually one of Adam Sandler's better movies, in my opinion. It was a remake of the ‘30s movie Mr. Deeds Goes To Town. In this new version, Sandler plays Longfellow Deeds, a popular pizzeria owner in a small New Hampshire town. Unbeknownst to Deeds, his uncle is the owner of a major media mega corporation and when he dies, Deeds is his legal heir. When the company's CEO and chief lawyer arrive at the pizzeria to inform him of this fact, Deeds goes to New York and soon finds himself involved in the CEO's sinister machinations. Yet he happens to rescue an attractive woman from a mugger, but there is more to her than meets the eye. The movie was funny and not as crude, well, not quite as crude as some of Sandler's other stuff. It had good story structure and several great lines, my favorite of which was “he was weak and cowardly and wore far too much cologne.”   Sandler's movies, in a strange way, are often very medieval. Like various medieval fables had a savvy peasant outwitting pompous lords, greedy merchants, and corrupt clergymen. The best Adam Sandler protagonist tends to be a good natured everyman who defeats the modern equivalent of medieval authority figures- evil CEOs, arrogant star athletes, sinister bureaucrats and so forth. Overall Grade: B     Next up is House of David, which came out in 2025 and this is basically the story of King David from the Bible told in the format of an epic fantasy TV series. Like if someone wanted to do an epic fantasy series about Conan the Barbarian, it could follow the same stylistic format as this show. And of course Conan and David followed a similar path from adventurer to king. Anyway, if one were to pick a part of the Bible from which to make a movie or TV series, the story of David would be an excellent choice because David's life was so dramatic that it would hardly require any embellishments in the adaptation. The story is in the Books of First and Second Samuel. King Saul is ruling over the Israelites around 1000 BC or so, but has grown arrogant. Consequently, God instructs the prophet Samuel to inform Saul that the kingdom will be taken away from him and given to another. God then dispatches Samuel to anoint David as the new king of Israel. David is a humble shepherd but then enters Saul's service and undertakes feats of daring, starting with defeating the giant Goliath and leading Saul's troops to victory and battle against Israel's numerous enemies. (The Iron Age Middle East was even less peaceful than it is now.) Eventually, Saul's paranoia and madness gets the best of him and he turns on David, who flees into exile. After Saul and his sons are killed in battle with the Philistines. David returns and becomes the acknowledged king after a short civil war with Saul's surviving sons and followers.   If Saul's fatal flaw was his arrogance of pride, David's seems to have been women. While the story of David and Bathsheba is well known, David nonetheless had eight wives (most of them at the same time) and an unknown but undoubtedly large number of concubines. Naturally David's children from his various wives and concubines did not get along and David was almost deposed due to the conflicts between his children. Unlike Saul and later David's son Solomon, David was willing to repent when a prophet of God informed him of wrongdoing and to be fair to David, monogamy was generally not practiced among Early Iron Age Middle Eastern monarchies and dynastic struggles between brothers from different mothers to seize their father's kingdoms were quite common, but enough historical digression.   Back to the show, which covered David's life up to the death of Goliath. I thought it was quite well done. Good performances, good cinematography, excellent battles, good set design and costuming, and a strong soundtrack. All the actors were good, but I really think the standout performances were Stephen Lang as Samuel, Ali Sulaman is King Saul, Ayelet Zurer as Saul's wife Queen Ahinoam, and Davood Ghadami as David's jerkish (but exasperated and well-intentioned) eldest brother Eliab. Martyn Ford just looks extremely formidable as Goliath. You definitely believe no one in their right mind want to fight this guy.   Making fiction of any kind based on sacred religious texts is often tricky because no matter what you do, someone's going to get mad at you. The show has an extensive disclaimer at the beginning of each episode saying that it is fiction inspired by the Bible. That said, House of David doesn't really alter or deviate from the Biblical account, though it expands upon some things for the sake of storytelling. Queen Ahinoam is only mentioned once in the Bible as the wife of Saul, but she has an expanded role in the show and is shown as the one who essentially introduces Saul to the Witch of Endor. Goliath also gets backstory as one of the “Anakim,” a race of giants that lived in Canaan in ancient times, which is something that is only mentioned in passing in the Old Testament. Overall, I enjoyed the show and I hope it gets a second season.   What's interesting, from a larger perspective, is to see how the wheel of history keeps turning. In the 1950s and the 1960s, Biblical epics were a major film genre. The 10 Commandments and Ben Hur with Charlton Heston are probably the ones best remembered today. Eventually, the genre just sort of ran out of gas, much the way superhero movies were in vogue for about 20 years and began running out of steam around 2023 or so. Like, I enjoyed Thunderbolts (which we're going to talk about in a little bit), but it's not going to make a billion dollars the way Marvel stuff often did in the 2010s. The wheel just keeps turning and perhaps has come back around to the popularity of Biblical epics once more. Overall Grade: A   Next up is Chef, which came out in 2014. I actually saw this back in 2021, but I watched it again recently to refresh my memory and here are my thoughts. I quite liked it. It's about a chef named Carl Casper, who's increasingly unhappy with his work after he gets fired over a Twitter war with a writer who criticized his cooking. Carl is out of options and so he starts a food truck and has to both rediscover his love of cooking and reconnect with his ex-wife and 10-year-old son. In Storytelling: How to Write a Novel (my book about writing), I talked about different kinds of conflict. Carl's conflict is an excellent example of an entirely internal conflict. The critic is an external enemy, but he's basically the inciting incident.   Carl's real enemy is his own internal conflict about art versus commerce and a strained relationship with his son. I recommend the movie. It was rated R for bad language, but there's no nudity or explicit sexual content and honestly, if you've ever worked in a restaurant kitchen or a warehouse, you've heard much worse in terms of language. The movie also has an extremely valuable lesson: stay off social media when you're angry. Overall Grade: A     Next up is Thunderbolts, which came out in 2025 and I thought this was pretty good, both very dark and yet with quite a lot of humor to balance the darkness. Former assassin Yelena Belova has been working as a mercenary for the sinister director of the CIA, Valentina de Fontaine (now there's a villain name if there ever was one). Yelena has grown disillusioned with her life and career and is suffering from increasing depression since she never really dealt with the death of her sister. Valentina promises her one last job, only for Yelena to realize that Valentina decided to dispose of all her freelance contractors at once, which includes US Agent and Ghost (previously seen in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier and Antman and the Wasp). In the process of escaping Valentina's trap, Yelena stumbles across a mysterious man who identifies himself as Bob, who has no memory of how he got there, but shows increasingly unusual abilities. Yelena wants to deal with Valentina's betrayal, but it turns out one of Valentina's science projects has gotten out of control and is threatening the world. The movie was well constructed enough that it didn't rely too heavily on previous Marvel continuity. It was there, but you probably wouldn't be lost without it. It almost feels like Marvel looked at the stuff they did the last couple of years and said, okay, a lot of this didn't work, but makes great raw material for new things. It helped that the central conflict was in the end, very human and about the characters, not stopping a generic villain from getting a generic doomsday device. Overall Grade: A   Next up is The Hound of the Baskervilles, which came out in 1988. This is a movie length episode of The Return of Sherlock Holmes television series, which had Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes and Edward Hardwicke as Dr. Watson. The plot deals with Sir Henry Baskerville, the American heir to an English manor set in the Windswept moors of Dartmoor. Apparently there's an ancestral curse laid over the Baskerville estate that manifests in the form of a spectral hound. Local rumors hold that the previous holder of the manor, Sir Charles Baskerville, was killed by the ghostly hound and many of the local people fear it. The local physician, Dr. Mortimer, is so worried about the hound that he comes to Sherlock Holmes for help. Holmes, of course, is skeptical of any supernatural explanation and soon becomes worried that an extremely subtle and sinister murderer is stalking Sir Henry.   Jeremy Brett's version of Holmes is, in my opinion, the best portrayal of the character and Edward Hardwicke's version of Watson is a calm, reliable man of action who sensibly takes a very large revolver with him when going into danger. Definitely worth watching, Overall grade: A   Next up is Sonic the Hedgehog 3, which came out in 2024. The 2020s have been a downer of a decade in many ways, but on the plus side, between Super Mario Brothers and Sonic the Hedgehog, people have finally figured out how to make good video game movies, so we've got that going for us. Sonic 3 was an excellent kids movie, as were the first two in the trilogy. In this one Sonic is living with Knuckles and Tails under the care of their human friends Tom and Maddy, but then a dark secret emerges. The government has been keeping a Superpowered hedgehog named Shadow in stasis and Shadow has broken out. It's up to Sonic, Knuckles, and Tails to save the day.   Meanwhile, Dr. Robotnik is in a funk after his defeat at Sonic's hands in the last movie, but then his long lost grandfather, Gerald Robotnik returns seeking the younger Dr. Robotnik's help in his own sinister plans. Keanu Reeves was great as Shadow (think John Wick if he was a superpowered space hedgehog in a kid's movie). Jim Carrey famously said he would retire from acting unless a golden script came along and apparently that golden script was playing Dr. Ivo Robotnik and his evil grandfather Gerald. To be fair, both the Robotniks were hilarious.   It is amusing that Sonic only exists because in the 1990s, Sega wanted a flagship video game character that won't get them sued by either Nintendo or Disney. It is also amusing that the overall message of the Sonic movies seems to be not to trust the government. Overall Grade: A   Next up is Paddington in Peru, which came out in 2024. This is also an excellent kids' movie. In this installment, Paddington has settled into London with the Brown family and officially become a UK citizen. However, he receives a letter from Peru that his Aunt Lucy has mysteriously disappeared into the jungle. Distraught, Paddington and the Browns set off for Peru at once. Adventures ensue involving mysterious lost treasure, a crazy boat captain, and an order of singing nuns who might not quite be what they appear. Anyway, it's a good kids' movie. I think Paddington 2 was only slightly better because Hugh Grant as the chief villain, crazy actor Phoenix Buchanan, was one of those lightning in the bottle things like Heath Ledger as the Joker in the Dark Knight. Overall Grade: A   Now for the two best things I saw in Winter/Spring 2025. The first of them is Andor Season Two, which came out in 2025. Star Wars kind of has an age range the way Marvel stuff does now. What do I mean by that? In the Marvel comics and some of the TV series like Jessica Jones, they get into some really dark and heavy stuff, very mature themes. The MCU movies can have some darkness to them, but not as much because they're aiming at sort of escapist adventures for the general audience. Then there are kid shows like Spidey and Friends that a relative of mine just loved when he was three. You wouldn't at all feel comfortable showing a 3-year-old Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, but Spidey and Friends is just fine.   Star Wars now kind of has that age range to its stuff and there's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes you want to see a dark meditation upon human nature. Sometimes you need something kid friendly to occupy the kids you're babysitting and sometimes you just want to relax and watch Mando and Baby Yoda mow down some space pirates or something. All that said, Andor Season Two is some of the darkest and the best stuff that Star Wars has ever done. It successfully shifts genres from Escapist Pulp Space Fantasy to a gritty Political/Espionage Thriller. We in the audience know that the emperor is a Sith Lord who can use Evil Space Magic and wants to make himself immortal, but that fact is totally irrelevant to the characters. Even though some of the characters are high ranking in their respective organizations, this is essentially a “ground's eye” view of the Rebellion and life under the Empire.   In some ways, this is like Star Wars' version of Wolf Hall (which we're going to talk about shortly), in that we know how it ends already, but the dramatic tension comes from the harrowing emotional journey the characters undertake on the way to their inevitable destinations. Cassian Andor is now working for the nascent Rebellion under the direction of ruthless spymaster Luthen Rael. Mon Mothma is in the Imperial Senate, covertly funneling money to the Rebellion and realizing just how much the Rebellion will require of her before the end. Syril Karn, the ineffective corporate cop from Season One, has fallen in love with the ruthless secret police supervisor Dedra Meero, but he's unaware that Director Krennic has ordered Meero to manufacture a false flag incident on the planet Gorman so the planet can be strip-mined for resources to build the Death Star and Dedra has decided to use Syril to help accomplish it. All the actors do amazing jobs with their roles. Seriously, this series as actors really should get at least one Emmy. Speaking of Director Krennic, Ben Mendelson returns as Orson Krennic, who is one of my favorite least favorite characters, if you get my drift. Krennic is the oily, treacherous middle manager we've all had to deal with or work for at some point in our lives, and Mendelson plays him excellently. He's a great villain, the sort who is ruthless to his underlings and thinks he can manipulate his superiors right up until Darth Vader starts telekinetically choking him. By contrast, the villain Major Partagaz (played by Anton Lesser) is the middle manager we wish we all had - stern but entirely fair, reasonable, and prizes efficiency and good work while despising office drama. Unfortunately, he works for the Empire's secret police, so all those good qualities are in the service of evil and therefore come to naught. Finally, Episode Eight is one of the most astonishing episodes of TV I've ever seen. It successfully captures the horror of an episode of mass violence and simultaneously has several character arcs reach their tumultuous climax and manages to be shockingly graphic without showing in a lot of actual blood. Andor was originally supposed to be five seasons, but then Peak Streaming collapsed, and so the remaining four seasons were compressed down to one. I think that was actually to the show's benefit because it generates some amazing tension and there's not a wasted moment. Overall Grade: A+   Now for the second of my two favorite things I saw, and that would be Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light, which came out in 2024, but I actually saw it in 2025. This is a dramatization of Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall novels about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell, who is King Henry VIII's chief lieutenant during the key years of the English Reformation. The first series came out in 2015, but the nine year gap between this and between the second series and the first series actually works quite well since Thomas Cromwell looks like he ages nine years in a single year (which may be what actually happened given how stressful working for someone like Henry VIII must have been). Anyway, in The Mirror and the Light, Cromwell has successfully arranged the downfall and execution of Anne Boleyn, Henry's previous queen. Though Cromwell is haunted by his actions, Henry still needs a queen to give him a male heir, so he marries Jane Seymour. Cromwell must navigate the deadly politics of the Tudor Court while trying to push his Protestant views of religion, serve his capricious master Henry, fend off rivals for the King's favor, and keep his own head attached to his shoulders in the process. Since Cromwell's mental state is deteriorating due to guilt over Anne's death and the downfall of his former master Cardinal Wolsey and Henry's a fickle and dangerous master at the best of times, this is an enterprise that is doomed to fail. Of course, if you're at all familiar with the history of Henry's reign and the English reformation, you know that Cromwell's story does not have a happy ending. Rather, Wolf Hall is a tragedy about a talented man who didn't walk away from his power until it was too late and he was trapped. Anyway, in my opinion, Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light was just excellent. All the performances were superb. Mark Rylance is great as Cromwell and has some excellent “WTF/I'm SO screwed” expressions as Cromwell's situation grows worse and worse. Bernard Hill played the Duke of Norfolk in the first series, but sadly died before Series Two, so Timothy Spall steps in and he does an excellent job of channeling Hill's portrayal of the Duke as an ambitious, crude-humored thug.   Damien Lewis is amazing as Henry VIII and his performance captures Henry's mixture of charisma, extreme vindictiveness, and astonishing self-absorption. The real Henry was known for being extremely charming even to the end of his life, but the charm was mixed with a volcanic temper that worsened as Henry aged and may have been exacerbated by a severe head injury. Lewis's performance can shift from that charm to the deadly fury in a heartbeat. The show rather cleverly portrays Henry's growing obesity and deteriorating health by having Lewis wear a lot of big puffy coats and limp with an impressively regal walking stick.   Overall, I would say this and Andor were the best thing I saw in Winter/Spring 2025. I wouldn't say that Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light is an accurate historical reputation. In real life, Cromwell was rather more thuggish and grasping (though far more competent than his rivals and his master) and of necessity the plot simplifies historical events, but it's just a superb historical drama. Overall Grade: A+ As a final note, I should say that of all the 2024 and 2025 movies mentioned here, the only one that actually saw in the theater was Thunderbolts, and I hadn't actually planned to see it in theaters, but a family member unexpectedly bought tickets for it, so I went along. Which I suppose is the movie industry's biggest problem right now. The home viewing experience is often vastly superior to going to the theater. The theater has the big screen and snacks, but at home you can have a pretty nice setup and you can pause whatever you want, go to the bathroom, and you can get snacks for much more cheaply. That's just much more comfortable than the movie theater.   Additionally, going to the theater has the same serious problem as booking a flight in that you're an enclosed space with complete strangers for several hours, which means you're potentially in a trust fall with idiots. All it takes is one person behaving badly or trying to bring their fake service dog to ruin or even cancel a flight, and the theater experience has much of the same problem, especially since the standards for acceptable public behavior have dropped so much from a combination of widespread smartphone adoption and COVID. The difference between the movie industry and the airline industry is that if you absolutely have to get from New York to Los Angeles in a single day, you have no choice but to book a flight and hope for the best. But if you want to see a movie and are willing to exercise some patience, you just have to wait a few months for it to turn up on streaming. I'm not sure how the movie industry can battle that, but sadly, it is much easier to identify problems than to solve them.   So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe, stay healthy, and see you all next week.

On this episode, we're going to explore the very colorful history of Scandinavia's favorite Christmas animal, the Yule Goat. We'll also count down the top 5 corporate Christmas marketing fails, give you an EGGcelent deep fried recipe sure to be a hit at a Christmas party or any party, and listener Chris will give us his micro reviews of multiple film adaptations of A Christmas Carol. Download here! 00:00 – 01:45 Intro 01:45 – 03:04 We Need A Little Christmas Now 03:04 – 09:53 5 Golden Things – Corporate Christmas Marketing Fails 09:53 – 12:49 Chris' Mass of Christmas Carols…

Merry Christmas you beautiful people!We start the show with an old time radio version of A Christmas Carol. It's an episode of western show The Six Shooter and it stars Jimmy Stewart.  I enjoyed it, you can listen to it here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2y917m6lGIY&t=141sBob Baker looks at Candy and Sweets in Do You Hear What I Hear?Then it's The Christmas Quiz. It's a tricky one, but I scored 8. Make sure to let me know how you got on.Next up Bob is back with Where Are You Christmas? and he looks at snow globes in Vienna.Check out Bob's podcast here:  https://4fpodcast.buzzsprout.com/Then it's Christmas All Over The World, and we look at Plygian and Noson Gylfraith two traditions from Wales.This episode's recommendation is the audiobook Tune In: The Beatles: All These Years by Mark Lewisohn. It's about 48 hours long and I'm loving it. If you're a Beatles fan you should check it out.Get in touch:Email: totalchristmas@gmail.comWeb: totalchristmaspodcast.comMerry Christmas!

The late Charles Dickens begins his novel “Christmas Carol” with these opening words: Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. … Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. … There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can…

The life, career (and delightful quirks) of multi-talented WILL RYAN (Smurfs, The Little Mermaid, Adventures in Odyssey, Mickey's Christmas Carol) is shared by four of his countless friends. 

Tell us what you though of the episodeStep behind the scenes of Ridley Scott's American Gangster in this captivating episode featuring renowned Art Director Sonja Klaus. Klaus shares her unique approach to visual storytelling and the behind-the-scenes challenges of filming across Thailand and New York. From navigating union hurdles and recreating Bangkok markets in Chiang Mai to using unexpected props like mules, her stories are as vivid as the film itself. With tales of lavish butler service and unpredictable on-set moments, this episode is a must-listen for anyone who loves cinema, design, and the art of filmmaking.Sonja Klaus is a renowned British production designer known for her work on major films like Gladiator, American Gangster, Prometheus, and Taboo. She began in theatre before transitioning to film, collaborating extensively with Ridley Scott. Klaus has also designed acclaimed series like Taboo, A Christmas Carol, and Great Expectations, earning multiple awards and nominations. She is a BAFTA and AMPAS member and former Chair of the British Film Designers Guild.#movies #masterfuldirection #bestmovies #complexcharacter #denzelwashington #ridleyscott #russellcrowe  http://twitter.com/dreamingkingdomhttp://instagram.com/kingdomofdreamspodcasthttp://facebook.com/kingdomofdreamspodcast Watch the feature films that I have directedCitizen of Moria - https://rb.gy/azpsuIn Search of My Sister - https://rb.gy/1ke21Official Website - www.jawadmir.com

Buckle up children because this week we're diving into the god awful 2009 Disney adaptation of A Christmas Carol starring Jim Carrey. Shockingly, this may be one of least positive episodes so far, and we have so far to go! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Year C – Third Sunday in Easter – May 4, 2025 Pastor Megan Floyd                 John 21:1-19; Acts 9:1-20 Grace and peace to you in the name of our risen savior, Jesus Christ, who knows we are not perfect, and yet still calls us daily to follow. Amen. *** I love a good redemption story. A classic tale of an evil villain… or even… a more relatable character who has unfortunately made terrible choices… They recognize the error of their ways, and their life is transformed. My top guy is probably Ebenezer Scrooge… and yes, I'm talking about A Christmas Carol …during the Easter season… A few years ago, a movie called Spirited came out… a story with Ebenezer Scrooge working away in the afterlife to bring such a transformation to others who have gone astray. He was paying it forward, if you will Delightfully funny movie… and it raised a good question… when someone has seen the error of their ways, and changed their behavior… do they change permanently? … does that transformed life… stick around? Everything is set right… the book ends or the credits roll… but would Ebenezer still have his generous Christmas spirit when Easter came around? …what happens six months later when life throws some challenges… what happens when that moment of realization and commitment to change is a faded memory… and we fall back into old habits? These stories of redemption tend to hook our imagination… because they are so relatable… so human. All of us have made mistakes… every single one of us has done things we later wish we had done differently… …the things we could have said in a kinder way… the times we wish we had stopped to help instead of tucking our head and walking by. We need to believe that there is hope for us… if Ebenezer can turn his life around… so can we. If Jesus still calls Peter to follow him… still calls Peter into discipleship after how badly he messed up… then perhaps Jesus is still calling us. Peter followed Jesus for three years… he pledged his life to Jesus… He tried to give his life defending Jesus in the garden when he drew his sword and cut off the ear of the high priest's slave. And yet… only a short while later… around that charcoal fire outside the courtyard of the high priest… when it seemed they had lost… Peter denied ever having known Jesus… Three times he said… I do not know the man. And then the cock crowed… and Peter realized what just happened… and that Jesus knew he would fail him… I can only imagine how deeply that must have gutted Peter. And I bet seeing Jesus appear to them in the locked room only made it worse… it would have only highlighted Peter's lack of faith… He was wrong… they had not lost… and so his shame at his three-fold denial… would have been bone-deep. Can anyone really blame him for going fishing? But then… just as Jesus found him three years ago… Jesus finds him again. Seated at a charcoal fire… Jesus is there, cooking them breakfast. This scene… I love it. This is the Jesus I know… not a distant, unattached God in the sky watching over us… but… my Lord and my God, meeting me in the ordinary days of my life. Jesus… meeting me in the moments when I feel like the world has turned upside down. Jesus… saying to me… come and sit… let's share a meal. Things have gone a bit sideways for you… I know… but come… and let me remind you of my love. And how do they know that it's Jesus? …because of the abundance! …the great haul of fish… the grace upon grace. Around that charcoal fire on the beach, Jesus offers Peter another chance… Peter, do you love me… Yes, Lord… Then feed my lambs. Peter, do you love me… Yes, Lord… Then tend my sheep. Peter, do you love me… Yes, Lord, I love you… you know everything, and you know that I love you… Then feed my sheep… and follow me. The crucified and risen Jesus Christ tells Peter… and tells us… I've already taken into account your shortcomings… and still, I am calling you… come, and follow me. Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it abundantly… so don't think for a minute that Jesus can't work with what you've got. Just consider what Jesus has already done… In the great reversal of death's power, Jesus has transformed the dreadful cross and tomb into a sign of forgiveness and love… a sign of redemption… Jesus transforms Peter, a three-fold deserter… into a shepherd of Christ's people. And shortly after, Jesus transforms Saul, a murderous persecutor… into a champion for the Way of Christ. Jesus knows our failings… and still loves us… forgives us… and calls us to follow… to put that love into action, and to feed and tend his sheep… the people of the world whom God so loves. Jesus calls us into a transformed and joyous life… life with our Lord and our God by our side And yet… even after encountering Jesus in our lives… we sometimes drift away… we might pull away from Jesus and drift back into our old ways. …or perhaps… we may even admit that we are a little afraid of what the power of a new life with the risen Christ might mean… and so we deny we ever knew him. It's that question that the movie Spirited asked… what happens down the road… is the transformation lasting and permanent? Is Ebenezer still as generous at Easter as he was on Christmas Day? If it were only up to us and our own willpower, then I'd say no… we cannot secure our own redemption… the kind that leads to true transformation. But fortunately… our redemption is not from within us… it comes from the crucified and risen Jesus. Jesus, who knows our faults and our failings, and calls us anyway to follow him daily… Jesus calls us to receive grace upon grace…. and allow the redemptive power of a living Christ transform our lives with love… to transform us anew, each and every day. Our redemption is permanent… a once-and-done experience… we are forgiven and redeemed by the grace of the risen Jesus Christ… But our life with Jesus… our encounters with Christ… that is not one-and-done. Our experience of meeting Jesus in our ordinary… our good days and our bad… of sharing a meal… that is an ongoing experience. An ongoing relationship, rooted in love and grace… a relationship that deepens and matures over time… It's a relationship that calls to you every single day, even after we may have drifted away… even after we have made mistakes. So come and have some breakfast with Jesus… and receive Christ's transformational love for you… It is… the best redemption story there is. Amen.

Merry Christmas you beautiful people.We dedicate this episode to the delightful Chris Coon.We commence the show with The Quiz. I scored 9, can you do any better?Then it's Do You Hear What I Hear, and Bob Baker looks at the word Constable to describe an officer of the law here in the UK.We have the return of The Muppet Christmas Show and this time we look at the The Bear in the Big Blue House - A Berry Bear Christmas Parts 1 and 2.You can watch them here:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WBQ2zqrQvcThen Bob returns with Where Are You Christmas, and this time he's found it in South Korea.Check out Bob's podcast here:  https://4fpodcast.buzzsprout.com/In What The Dickens we take a look at a passage that describes Christmas Eve in London town and a few words and phrases you might not be familiar with. My particular favourite is the 'Flaring Links',This episode's recommendation is Desert Island Discs, I may have recommended it before, but who cares. There are over a thousand episodes to listen featuring all sorts of famous celebs so if you're after a new listen check it out.Get in touch:Email: totalchristmas@gmail.comWeb: totalchristmaspodcast.comMerry Christmas!

E455 Louisa Kendrick Burton is a former Radio City Rockette, writer, producer, and actor. You've seen her on Dirty Sexy Money, As the World Turns, Medium, Seven Pounds, Bridge Across Forever and on stage in Beauty and the Beast, A Christmas Carol, Jesus Christ Superstar, and more!   For more information and links, please visit: […]

EPISODE 174 - Merry Christmas everyone??? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello you beautiful people!We start the show with The Quiz and I have a new book. Let me know how you get on.Then Bob Baker, our self-appointed podcast barman, talks about the word Blimey, a classic British term that isn't that popular overseas.Next up we have some ideas for listener Rob Taylor on how he can raise some money for charity at Christmas. One suggestion is to try to break a world record and we take a look at some Christmas records that could be achievable.Then Bob is back with Where Are You Christmas? and it turns out Christmas is in Bracebridge, Ontario in Canada. A delightful place that has been used as a filming location for a couple of Christmas films.Check out Bob's podcast here:  https://4fpodcast.buzzsprout.com/This episode's version of A Christmas Carol is Scrooge: A Christmas Carol Podcast, from Hope Media. It stars Sean Astin and a bunch of other famous voices. There are a few changes from the source material, but it's certainly worth a listen.  You can check it out here: https://scroogepodcast.com/Get in touch.Email: totalchristmas@gmail.comWebsite: totalchristmaspodcast.comMerry Christmas!

We're back to the thrillers this time, one which neither of us had seen before, and were intrigued to find what was the connection to A Christmas Carol.

Author and researcher, Stephen Sakellarios, believes that his former reincarnational lifetime as writer Matthew Whittier actually co-authored the original version of A Christmas Carol, long attributed to Engish author Charles Dickens. Stephen has researched documents that to him prove that the original manuscript was passed to Dickens instead of him managing to write and publish it within six weeks as originally portrayed. To discuss this and other aspects of reincarnation on The Paranormal Peep Show is Ben Emlyn-Jones and Neil Ward.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/paranormal-uk-radio-network--4541473/support.

Hello you beautiful people!We start the show with Do You Hear What I Hear, and our resident barman Bob Baker takes a look at Trainers (or Sneakers).This episode's version of A Christmas Carol is Ms Scrooge, starring Cecily Tyson as a female Scrooge set in modern day. Have a watch here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=32PQC6Ovu90Then we have a request from listener Rob Taylor. He's keen to raise money for Prostate Cancer UK this Christmas and he's hoping you might have some ideas for how to do it. Check out Rob's Just Giving page here:www.justgiving.com/page/robert-taylor-8Last episode I used up all the questions in my quiz book, so before I start on my new book it's the return of Santa Banter. My good friend Scott Newman has a go, and with a bit of help from me, he managed 9. Check out Scott's Podcasts.Tinsel Tunes:https://creators.spotify.com/pod/show/tinseltunesChristmas Morninng:https://christmasmorningpodcast.com/Then Bob is back with Where Are You Christmas and he has not one but two great places in Cleveland, Ohio where you can celebrate Christmas all year round. Check out Bob's pod, Festive Foreign Film Fans, it's great:https://4fpodcast.buzzsprout.com/Last episode I recommended Father Ted, well one of the stars, Frank Kelly, had a Christmas song he released in 1982. It's a twisted take on The 12 Days of Christmas and is a bit of fun. Have a listen here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8OPuwa783gThis episode's recommendation is Tinsel Tunes, they took a short break, but they're back and better than ever so have a listen.Get in touch:Email: totalchristmas@gmail.comWebsite: totalchristmaspodcast.comMerry Christmas!

A Christmas special for Easter! In this final "Benisode" before Ben takes a short break from the podcast, we discuss 2010's A Christmas Carol, as well as Stephen's many phobias — and Ben's singing rivals Katherine Jenkins' acting!DWFO A Christmas Carol suite:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVECUTwY9fwAbout Time: www.linktree.com/abouttimecast

Marti Gobel is a nationally recognized actor, director and teaching artist. Upon graduating from UW-Whitewater in 2008 with a degree in Performance Theatre and Philosophy (with an emphasis in Religious Studies), Ms. Gobel began a rich career in both theatre and television and film. Her need to add to the tapestry of the mid-west professional theatre scene led to the founding of the now defunct UPROOTED theatre. As Producing Artistic Director (from 2009-2015)  worked tirelessly to diversify the arts through her efforts. Ms. Gobel is a current member of both Actors Equity Association and SAG-AFTRA.Selected Stage Credits include: Milwaukee Shakespeare (Henry IV, part 2), Milwaukee Chamber Theatre (Well, Around The World In 80 Days, Broken and Entered, Fires In the Mirror) Renaissance Theaterworks' (NEAT: Milwaukee, Sheboygan and South Africa, The Persians, Crumbs From the Table of Joy, The Violet Hour, Still, Sex With Strangers, The Roommate, Witch and a reading of Tanya Saracho's El Nogular and Gwendolyn Rice's The Griots), First Stage Children's Theatre (The Neverendingstory and readings of Jackie and Me, The Promised Land), The Milwaukee Repertory Theater (Clybourne Park, A Christmas Carol:2012-2014, Yankee Tavern, Trouble In Mind), Forward Theater (In The Next Room, Mr. Burns, Skeleton Crew, Mom, How Did You Meet The Beatles) and UPROOTED theatre (Beauty's Daughter: Milwaukee, Chicago and Memphis, A Streetcar Named Desire, Yellowman, Crumbs From the Table of Joy, *Pink Champagne, Jack and Jill, Hoo Doo Love, Oleanna, I Have Before Me A Remarkable Document Given To Me By A Young Lady From Rwanda, The Philadelphia Story, *Man From Madisonville, The Sunset Limited, Suddenly Last Summer), Next Act Theatre (Perfect Mendacity, No Child, Twilight: Los Angles, The Taming, The Christians), and Theatre Lila (No Child). Marti plays an ongoing role as the Civil Rights suffragist, Ida B. Wells for the Kenosha Civil War Museum in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and is often featured in local and regional commercials and voice-overs. She appeared in the short film, Spare Change, as well as the web-series Gettin' Grown; both directed by the award-winning film director Aaron Greer and Faith Flix's Come Follow Me, Mary, Mother of Jesus and the feature film Game Day produced by Chicago Studio City. National television credits include NBC's Chicago PD in addition to several regional commercials.University Productions include: Airness (Hendrix College), Wine In the Wilderness, Crumbs From the Table of Joy, The Light (Marquette University), Trojan Women (UW-Milwaukee).Marti has served as a lead teacher at First Stage Theatre Academy in Milwaukee as well as a lead teacher and program designer for UPROOTED theatre's education department. Past adjunct professor assignments at Marquette University, UW-Milwaukee and Carthage College. She is a JF Kennedy Center trained Teaching Artist who worked closely with Master Educator, Randy Barron for 6 months developing her residency which is now offered through The Young Auditorium and The Overture Center. She currently serves as Artistc Consultant for Black Arts MKE. Ms. Gobel will serve for a third term as a KCACTF adjudicator for Region III.Ms. Gobel is a Jeff Nominated Director for her work on Is God Is with A Red Orchid Theatre and the recipient of 2024 Black Excellence Award for Outstanding Director.She currently serves as Producing Artistic Director and Education Coordinator for OnWord Theatre in San Diego, CA. *Indicates World Premiere'sWebsite: OnWord TheatreInstagram: Instagram (@OnWordTheatre)Facebook: OnWord Theatre | San Diego CABox Office Email: info@OnWordTheatre.comWant a video experience? Check out our YouTube channel! We're now uploading video episodes!This episode:https://youtu.be/XJnZnBJVkKwGeneral channel:http://www.youtube.com/@intheartscene

This month, Duane and Scott explore the history of “Good King Wenceslas”.Versions played in the episode:Blackmore's NightThe Irish RoversChris HendricksTori AmosReggae All-StarsStan Kenton Jazz OrchestraMatthew Green's Orchestral RainbowMannheim SteamrollerOdynHere's the link to the poll to vote for your favorite song from this episode:https://pollforall.com/p346dormHere's the clip from “Love Actually”:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4-35TN6AmwThis is the 13th century spring carol “Tempus dest Floridum” that gave us the melody for Good King Wenceslas:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zv8PgukSLX0From listener Bob in Utah, here's the link to the Majestica album “A Christmas Carol”:https://youtu.be/nq5No8qsowA?si=Y37SJX4F5g4w5cE4From listener Steve Banks, here's a the reggae playlist “Reggae Christmas Parade”:https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2ZH6rGilSmg9p4VxF2ubkU?si=IMf_S2cuSGyMYHqwDxPp7Q&pi=AO2eqAlHT0SeM&nd=1&dlsi=5cc261712ab14247

Welcome to our Saint Patrick's Day Lit for Christmas party of Season Five!In this episode, Marty and Beth get bombed on Bailey's Mint Mudslides and discuss "Christmas Morning" by Irish writer Frank O'Connor.   BONUS POINTS:  Take a shot every time Beth makes a seuxal innuendo. CAUTION: You WILL get very drunk.SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS PRESENTBailey's Mint Mudslide:Ingredients:Two shots original Bailey's Irish CreamOne shot Creme de Menthe SyrupOne shot Vanilla CreamerHershey's Chocolate Syrup1 cup of ice1 Hershey's kissDirections:In a blender, put ice, Bailey's Irish Cream, Creme de Menthe, and Vanilla Creamer. Blend well.Drizzle sides of glass with Hershey's Chocolate Syrup.Pour blended mixture into drizzled glass.Add Hershey's kiss, if desired.Non-Alcoholic Directions:Substitute two scoops of mint chocolate chip ice cream for the Bailey's Irish Cream and Creme de Menthe. Eliminate the ice. Double the Vanilla Creamer (2 shots) to thin the mixture. Lit for Christmas Party Hosts:Marty has an Master's in fiction writing, MFA in poetry writing, and teaches in the English Department at Northern Michigan University in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.  He served two terms at Poet Laureate of the Upper Peninsula, and has published two poetry collections, The Mysteries ofthe Rosary from Mayapple Press and A Bigfoot Bestiary and Other Wonders from Modern History Press .  For more of Marty's thoughts and writing visit his blog Saint Marty (saintmarty-marty.blogspot.com).  Marty is a writer, blogger, wine sipper, easy drunk, and poetry obsessor who puts his Christmas tree up in mid-October and refuses to take it down until the snow starts melting.Beth has a BS in English Secondary Education.  She hasworked as a substitute teacher, medical transcriptionist, medical office receptionist, deli counter attendant, and Office Max cashier.  Currently, she works in a call center and enjoys discussing/arguing about literature with her loving husband.Music for this episode:"Jingle Bells Jazzy Style" by Julius H, used courtesy of Pixabay."A Christmas Treat" by Magic-828, used courtesy of Pixabay.Other music in the episode:The Dubliners. "Whiskey in the Jar." More of the Hard Stuff. Major Minor, 1968.A Christmas Carol sound clips from:The Campbell Theater 1939 radio production of A Christmas Carol, narrated by Orson Welles and starring Lionel Barrymore.This month's Christmas lit:O'Connor, Frank.  "Christmas Morning." Collected Short Stories. New York, Knopf, 1981.

Hello you beautiful people!We start the show with a version of A Christmas Carol. This was produced by the BBC in 1977 and starts Michael Hordern as Scrooge. It stays very close to the book.You can watch it here:  https://odysee.com/@GaryPSmith:6/AChristmasCarol1977:aThen we have Jack Ask, and it's our second question from listener Travis. Is a maths question acceptable as a reindeer game?In Do You Hear What I Hear, Bob Baker looks at the British use of the word Pratt.Then it's The Christmas Quiz. This is the last one from the book I've been using, but never fear, I have another book that I'll be starting next week.Next up Bob is back with Where Are You Christmas. This time he's looking at Gremado in Brazil where it's Christmas all year long.Check out Bob's podcast here:  https://4fpodcast.buzzsprout.com/Then in we take a look at some Guinness World Records about Christmas trees. There are some very interesting records and even one you could have a go at beating.This episodes recommendation is the sit com Father Ted. It was made in the late 90s and is very funny, and has a classic Christmas episode. If you can find it, give it a watch.Get in touch:Email: totalchristmas@gmail.comWebsite: totalchristmaspodcast.comMerry Christmas!

Secret Artists is a comedy art podcast hosted by comedian and artist, Annie McGrath.Each week her guest selects a subject which inspires them to create an artwork... It could be an object, a place, a person, an animal...Whilst drawing and painting, Annie and her guest enjoy a nice chat. Often silly. Sometimes serious. Mainly relaxing.This week, Annie is joined by the wonderful improv-centred comic David Elms.Together they draw and paint whilst chatting all things art, comedy and life!DAVID LINKS!INSTAGRAMONLINEALL LINKSDAVID ELMS DESCRIBES A ROOM • Soho Theatre 03-31 – 04-04Colin & Fergus (ref'd in ep!)SECRET ARTISTS LINKS!INSTAGRAM(for close ups of the "works of art" and more behind the scenes goodies)SUPPORT THE PODCAST HERE!X.COMHASHTAGANNIE LINKS!HOMEPAGEX.COMANNIE'S ART IGANNIE MAIN IGSupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/secretartists. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello you beautiful people!We start the show with the return of Jack Ask and my Canadian listener, Travis, wants to know what's the best dessert to have after your Christmas dinner.Then our podcast barman, Bob Baker, takes a look at the word Queue in Do You Hear What I Hear.This episode's version of A Christmas Carol is the Cbeebies Panto. It's not too bad and you can watch it here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBY_om7PNqUThen it's The Christmas Quiz. I scored 9, cause I'm clever. Email me with your score.Next up Bob is back with Where Are You Christmas and this time it's a village in North China that celebrates all year long.This episode's Christmas Not So Classic is Christmas Time by Bryan Adams. It gets airplay around the world, but never really made it here in the UK.  Have a listen here:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amk7AiEI43IGet in touch:Email: totalchristmas@gmail.comWebsite: totalchristmaspodcast.comMerry Christmas!

In this episode of Think Thursday, host Molly Watts explores an unconventional yet profoundly impactful idea: how thinking about death can actually help us live happier, more meaningful lives. Drawing from personal experiences, research, and books like Being Mortal by Atul Gawande and Briefly, Perfectly Human by Alua Arthur, Molly discusses how acknowledging our mortality enhances gratitude, presence, and purpose.Key TakeawaysDeath Isn't the Opposite of Life—It Gives It MeaningMany of us resist thinking about death because it feels uncomfortable, but embracing it can deepen our appreciation for life.As death doula Allu Arthur states, "Death isn't the enemy of life. It's what gives it depth."Scientific Research on Mortality Awareness & HappinessStudies in terror management theory suggest that when people are reminded of their mortality, they become more present, grateful, and focused on what truly matters.The "Scrooge Effect" describes how facing the reality of death can inspire positive life changes—just like Ebenezer Scrooge's transformation in A Christmas Carol.Three Powerful Mindset Shifts to Apply This PerspectiveAsk yourself, "How many more times?"Instead of taking moments for granted, reflect on how many more times you'll experience meaningful events (e.g., holidays with loved ones, sunsets, road trips, coffee dates).This shift fosters gratitude and helps us prioritize what truly matters.Use the "Will this matter?" test.If something won't matter in five years, don't spend more than five minutes worrying about it.Let go of small frustrations and focus on what really enriches your life.Create a Reverse Bucket List.Instead of listing what you want to do, list what you're grateful to have already done.Celebrating past experiences helps shift focus from scarcity to appreciation.Challenge for ListenersTake five minutes to reflect: 

There is no greater classic in Kate's mind than The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. So when our audiences liked our holiday revisit of the Christmas Carol, we knew Gatsby had to be next. Join us as we sit down with two of the country's greatest Gatsby and Fitzgerald scholars. Find out why the book is still so studied, so beloved, and still so relevant to our lives. Find books mentioned on The Book Case: https://www.goodmorningamerica.com/shop/story/book-case-podcast-reading-list-118433302 Books mentioned in this week's episode: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Love of the Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald Tender is the Night by F. Scott Fitzgerald This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by F. Scott Fitzgerald Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ghost of Christmas Present shows Scrooge how Christmas should be celebrated – with joy and giving, even when you are poor, like Scrooge's own kindly clerk Bob Cratchit.

Ebenezer Scrooge hates Christmas with a passion. To him, it's all a waste of time and money. But when he's visited by the ghost of his dead business partner, the equally greedy Jacob Marley, Scrooge begins to understand the error of his ways.

The Ghost of Christmas Past visits Scrooge and takes him back to his own childhood. He's reminded that he was shown kindness as a young man, and had even been in love, before his greed took over.

Ebenezer Scrooge awakens in his home on Christmas morning to find he has a second chance. He joyfully makes amends with all those around him and even becomes a father figure to Tiny Tim.