Podcast appearances and mentions of michael pena

There are a few thing certainties you can count on in movies. If it's an Adam Sandler movie, there'll be at least one fart joke. If it's a Jason Statham movie, there'll be at least one dude getting a limb broken and plenty of punching. This week's movie “A Working Man” that bill. Statham plays Levon Cade, who used to be an elite military operator, but now tries to make an honest living as a working man in construction. He works for land developer Joe Garcia, played by Michael Pena, who knows what he used to do. When Joe's daughter is kidnapped, he pleads to Levon to find and return her. Levon has a young daughter himself, so he can feel this father's pain and agrees. That decision lights the fuse on a bloody mission to find the girl. The human traffickers responsible for taking her, have no idea who is on their trail. Levon makes them very aware of who's hunting them, one by one. Levon has to intimidate, go undercover and just plain go on all-out frontal assaults as part of his quest. Is it worth going to the theater to find out how it all ends? Watch this episode to find out. “A Working Man” also stars Jason Flemyng, Merab Ninidze, Maximilian Osinski, Cokey Falkow, David Harbour, Noemi Gonzalez, Arianna Rivas, Isla Gie, Emmett J Scanlan and Eve Mauro.Support the showFeel free to reach out to me via:@MoviesMerica on Twitter @moviesmerica on InstagramMovies Merica on Facebook

A WORKING MAN REVIEW Say what you will about this new found collaboration between David Ayer and Jason Statham, but they really know how to turn b-movie action plots into ridiculous and eccentric flicks. Jason Statham stars as Levon Cade who works as a foreman on a construction site run by mild mannered Michael Pena. […]

A WORKING MAN REVIEW Say what you will about this new found collaboration between David Ayer and Jason Statham, but they really know how to turn b-movie action plots into ridiculous and eccentric flicks. Jason Statham stars as Levon Cade who works as a foreman on a construction site run by mild mannered Michael Pena. […]

Brandon and Tyler are joined by actor Michael Pena at the LPGA Tournament of Champions at the Lake Nona Country Club. The challenges of the career, being in the MCU, and more!

The Martian (2015): Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Kristen Wiig, Jeff Daniels, Michael Pena, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Sebastian Stan, Aksel Hennie, Mackenzie Davis, Benedict Wong, Donald Glover, Chen Shu, Eddy Ko, Chiwetel Ejiofor Music: February (mumblemix) this track is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commerical 3.0 Unported License.   https://blocsonic.com/releases/track/bscomp0007-disc-1-6-calendar-girl-february-mumblemix http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/   Podcast cover art by Rodney Holmes with Vecteezy. Michael Combs: Website   Heroes of Science Fiction and Fantasy covers heroes of movies, television, comics, and books, interviews, and commentary. Sci-Fi Talk. doc@heroesofsciencefictionandfantasy.com. Text 510-610-8944. www.heroesofsciencefictionandfantasy.com  

Travis Hopson of Punch Drunk Critics and Cinema Royale reviews UNSTOPPABLE, the underdog sports drama starring Jharrel Jerome as real-life NCAA wrestling champ Anthony Robles. Also stars Jennifer Lopez, Bobby Cannavale, Don Cheadle, and Michael Pena.UNSTOPPABLE opens in theaters, Prime Video on January 16th.All of this and more can be found at www.punchdrunkcritics.com!Subscribe to Punch Drunk Critics on YouTube:    / @punchdrunkcritics1  Follow Punch Drunk Critics on Twitter:   / pdcmovies  Follow Punch Drunk Critics on Facebook:   / pdcmovies  You can also subscribe to our podcast Cinema Royale anywhere you get your podcasts!#JharrelJerome #JenniferLopez #Unstoppable

From 70's and 80's TV screens, to the streaming platforms of today, to our podcast (by way of a recommendation from our friend Kate) comes Fantasy Island, the 2020 reboot film starring Michael Pena, Maggie Q and others. Wade and Amanda discuss their delight at seeing Ryan Hansen and Jimmy O. Yang paired together, the benefits of a sneaky twist, and CGI'd bikinis.  Enjoy! Credits: https://www.instagram.com/dontworrybmovies/ Logo – John Capezzuto https://www.creativecap.net/ Intro and Outro Music – Andrew Wolfe of Darling Overdrive https://www.instagram.com/darlingoverdrive/?hl=en Additional Music: Note: Some songs may have been adapted from their original form to fit the length of our segments "I Love Myself More Than Anyone Else" , "City Lights" , and "Deus Ex Machina" by HoliznaCC0 (Public Domain) (Head to www.freemusicarchive.org to check out his discography)

David Ayers (Suicide Squad, The Beekeeper) directs this brutal war drama which takes place during the last days of World War II along the German front.  We follow a crew riding within tank titled the titular "Fury" which is lead by Brad Pitt's grizzled veteran nick-named "Wardaddy."  Pitt leads a stellar cast including Michael Pena, Shia LeBouf, Jon Bernthal and Logan Lerman, the latter of which plays Norman who becomes the audience avatar as he has just joined this crew and has never experienced combat before.  What results is a grisly adventure featuring several intense combat sequences ALL depicted from the vantage point of this Sherman tank.  Host & Editor: Geoff GershonProducer: Marlene GershonSend us a texthttps://livingforthecinema.com/Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/Living-for-the-Cinema-Podcast-101167838847578Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/livingforthecinema/Letterboxd:https://letterboxd.com/Living4Cinema/

Diane and Sean discuss one of the most scientifically accurate space movies ever, Ridley Scott's, The Martian. Episode music is, "Starman", by David Bowie as featured in the movie.-  Our theme song is by Brushy One String-  Artwork by Marlaine LePage-  Why Do We Own This DVD?  Merch available at Teepublic-  Follow the show on social media:-  IG: @whydoweownthisdvd- Tumblr: WhyDoWeOwnThisDVD-  Follow Sean's Plants on IG: @lookitmahplants- Watch Sean be bad at video games on TwitchSupport the show

Some of Hollywood's beloved actors: Miles Teller, Don Cheadle, Michael Pena, & Rob McElhenney said hello from Edgewood Lake Tahoe while participating in the 35th annual American Century Celebrity Championship!They spoke on their upcoming projects, love of golf & some of their other passions away from the screen. For video footage of these interviews:Michael Pena - https://youtu.be/5hKUSEQBFck?si=Gndb0onMgTxKrGH8Miles Teller - https://youtu.be/UuwNZ-PmNE8?si=UEAjNq-dUDa5wvAkDon Cheadle - https://youtu.be/0d0SSVONyPY?si=aGol-WdTVXJWwZTCRob McElhenney - https://youtu.be/prs-NWSBRMs?si=x-cXO8r7yrDhkgKxMake sure to visit www.SaltOptics.com to pick up a hand made pair of premium eyewear crafted in Japan. They have many different styles that are light weight, durable & look amazing!Also take a look at www.UNRL.com to pick up some of the shirts I am wearing in my interviews at the American Century Championship! UNRL has clothing that looks & feels great for golf, exercise & many other settings.For more exclusive content, follow the Jim on Base Show on social media (Twitter/Instagram/TikTok): @JimonBaseShow

We go rough and tumble this week on Movies Merica with a retro review of the gritty cop drama End Of Watch. Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Pena star as LAPD cops, Brian and Mike,  who patrol one of the worst, if not the worst, crime-ridden parts of L.A. This film shows the seedy world they have to protect and serve the citizens of, all while not getting killed by any number of criminal scum. Gyllenhaal's character, Brian, takes up filming his, and Mike's, exploits in this world with his personal camera so we get a unique take on the cop drama. Also with this distinctive perspective, it shows the brotherly bond between Brian and Mike as they bust each others chops when they're not busting perpetrators. Alongside the rough edges and brutal violence of their job, End Of Watch also presents Brian and Mike's personal lives and who they're trying to protect and stay alive for. End Of Watch doesn't hold back on the darkness of the job while at the same time infusing the movie with humor to help you make it through. Is this movie worth your time? Check out Movies Merica to find out! End Of Watch also stars Natalie Martinez, Anna Kendrick, America Ferrera, Frank Grillo, David Harbour, Cle Sloan, Jaime FitzSimons, Cody Horn, Shondrella Avery, Everton Lawrence, Richard Cabral and Diamonique. Support the Show.Feel free to reach out to me via:@MoviesMerica on Twitter @moviesmerica on InstagramMovies Merica on Facebook

Let's visit the red planet as the hosts get left behind and find out if there's really life on Mars, while they review the science fiction adventure, The Martian, starring Matt Damon and directed by legendary director Ridley Scott. The film features a star studded cast and has been hailed of one of most accurate science-fiction pictures ever made. The hosts paired the film with the Red Planet Cocktail. So let's get ready for take off as the hosts find their way back home in this thrilling scientific movie ride.Come listen and follow us on Instagram @the.gentlemenpodcast and our website thegentlemenpodcast.comGimme Three - A Series For CinephilesGimme Three is a love letter cinema. 3 films. 1 Theme. A hell of a lot of fun!Listen on: Apple Podcasts Spotify

Civil War is a hot button topic today.  A24 has an extremely well made film on its hands but also a very divisive one.     0:07:45 - Box Office and upcoming releases. 0:15:45 *** What's Streaming  *** AMAZON EVERYTHING MUST GO, Dir. Dan Rush – Will Ferrell, Rebecca Hall, Michael Pena, 2010. TOTAL RECALL, Dir. Paul Verhoeven – Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sharon Stone, Michael Ironside, Rachel Ticotin, Ronny Cox, 1990. SAFE HOUSE, Dir. Daniel Espinosa – Denzel Washington, Ryan Reynolds, Vera Farmiga, Brendan Gleeson, Robert Patrick, Sam Shepard, Liam Cunningham, Joel Kinnaman, 2012. 0:24:15 - Trailers:  YOUNG WOMAN AND THE SEA- Daisy Ridley, Tilda Cobham-Hervey, Stephen Graham, Feature. YOU CAN'T FUN FOREVER – J.K. Simmons, Fernanda Urrejola, Allen Leech, Feature. DOWNTOWN OWL – Vanessa Hudgens, Ed Harris, Henry Golding, Lily Rabe, Finn Wittrock, Jack Dylan Grazer, Feature.   0:34:45 - CIVIL WAR, Dir. Alex Garland  ( Grayson 8.5 / Roger 7.5 / Chris 8 )   Hosted, produced and mixed by Grayson Maxwell and Roger Stillion.  Guest appearance by Christopher Boughan.  Music by Chad Wall. Quality Assurance by Anthony Emmett. Visit the new Youtube channel, "For the Love of Cinema" to follow and support our short video discussions.  Please give a like and subscribe if you enjoy it.   Follow the show on Twitter @lovecinemapod and check out the Facebook page for updates.  Rate, subscribe and leave a comment or two.  Every Little bit helps.  Send us an email to fortheloveofcinemapodcast@gmail.com

You're stuck on Mars and all that's left behind is this pod, congrats! September 30, 2015 Mark Watney is left behind on Mars when the mission goes bad. Now he needs to science the shit out of everything to survive until he can be saved. A tense and funny story with some amazing acting, but when the credits role, will it hold up? Starring: Matt Damon, Michael Pena, Sean Bean, Jeff Daniels, Kristen Wiig, Donald Glover, Benedict Wong, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and many more... Directed by Ridley Scott. Rated PG-13. Thanks for listening. Please support us other places by clicking the links below. TikTok and Facebook are where we are currently monetized so supporting us there is extremely helpful.  Follow Emily on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/ladyemily11/ Follow Adam on Letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/adamant625/ Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/doesitholdu... Follow us on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@does_it_hold_up Follow us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/doesitholdup13/ Subscribe to our YouTube for new movie revies and a weekly box office show: https://www.youtube.com/@DIHUpodcast

Ashton Zeth interviews former NASA astronaut Jose M. Hernandez alongside his son, Dr. Julio Hernandez, a researcher at Purdue University and former Mars analog astronaut.Jose worked at NASA Johnson Space Center from 2001 to 2011, where he served as an astronaut, legislative analyst, branch chief, and materials research engineer. He was on the STS-128 shuttle mission, during which he oversaw the transfer of thousands of pounds of equipment between the shuttle and the International Space Station and helped with robotics operations.More recently, Jose serves as President and CEO of Tierra Luna Engineering, LLC, a California-based engineering consulting firm that focuses on aerospace engineering, non-destructive evaluation, failure analysis, and general engineering services.Last year, Amazon released “A Million Miles Away”, a biopic film about Jose and his inspiring path as a migrant worker from Mexico to an American astronaut. Starring actor Michael Pena, the movie received high acclaim as a “great family movie with messages of determination and perseverance.”Julio is a Characterization and Research Engineer at the Hypersonics Advanced Manufacturing Technology Center within the Purdue Applied Research Institute. He obtained his Ph.D. in Aeronautical and Astronautical Engineering in July 2023, focusing on self-sensing composite materials and additive manufacturing. In addition, he previously served as a botanist for Crew 245 during his two-week tenure as a Mars Desert Research Station (MDRS) analog astronaut in 2021. 

In this episode we reimagine the erotic classic Fury (2014). We push an already steamy cast of Brad Pitt, Jon Bernthal, Shia LeBouf and Michael Pena to new sexual heights. Fear not! We also have some classic fantasies about forbidden lust.

In this episode I speak about season 6 of Black Mirror on Netflix, the final season of Jack Ryan on Amazon, the movie American Fiction and another addition to our GOATs doing GOAT $hit segment!   The Spun Today Podcast is a Podcast that is anchored in Writing, but unlimited in scope.  Give it a whirl.    Twitter: https://twitter.com/spuntoday Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spuntoday/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@spuntoday   Website: http://www.spuntoday.com/home Newsletter: http://www.spuntoday.com/subscribe   Links referenced in this episode:  Black Mirror season 6: https://www.netflix.com/title/70264888   Jack Ryan series finale: https://www.amazon.com/Jack-Ryan-Season-4/dp/B0BYT9NB1G   Tom Clancy writers: https://rare.us/rare-life/tom-clancy-books/ https://tomclancy.com/author/grant-blackwood https://tomclancy.com/categories/jack-ryan-novels https://tomclancy.com/categories/jack-ryan-jr-novels   American Fiction: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt23561236/?ref_=ttfc_fc_tt   Joe Rogan's new Spotify deal: https://www.wsj.com/business/media/joe-rogan-podcast-spotify-deal-28eb5f74 https://apnews.com/article/joe-rogan-spotify-deal-76fa0e2c9d4b137f510428528ea6226b   Get your Podcast Started Today! https://signup.libsyn.com/?promo_code=SPUN (Use Promo code SPUN and get up to 2-months of free service!)   Check out all the Spun Today Merch, and other ways to help support this show! https://www.spuntoday.com/support   Check out my Books Make Way for You – Tips for getting out of your own way FRACTAL – A Time Travel Tale Melted Cold – A Collection of Short Stories http://www.spuntoday.com/books/ (e-Book, Paperback & Hardcover are now available).   Fill out my Spun Today Questionnaire if you're passionate about your craft.  I'll share your insight and motivation on the Podcast: http://www.spuntoday.com/questionnaire/    Shop on Amazon using this link, to support the Podcast: http://www.amazon.com//ref=as_sl_pc_tf_lc?&tag=sputod0c-20&camp=216797&creative=446321&linkCode=ur1&adid=104DDN7SG8A2HXW52TFB&&ref-refURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.spuntoday.com%2Fcontact%2F   Shop on iTunes using this link, to support the Podcast: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewTop?genreId=38&id=27820&popId=42&uo=10   Shop at the Spun Today store for Mugs, T-Shirts and more: https://viralstyle.com/store/spuntoday/tonyortiz   Background Music: Autumn 2011 - Loxbeats & Melody - Roa   Outro Background Music: https://www.bensound.com   Spun Today Logo by: https://www.naveendhanalak.com/   Sound effects are credited to: http://www.freesfx.co.uk   Listen on: iTunes | Spotify | Stitcher | Pocket Casts | Google Podcasts | YouTube | Website   Download Episode Transcript [00:00:00] What's up, folks? What's going on? Welcome to the Spun Today podcast, the only podcast that is anchored in writing, but unlimited in scope. I'm your host, Tony Ortiz, and I appreciate you listening. This is episode 254 of the podcast. And in this episode, I speak about. Season six of Black Mirror on Netflix, the final season of Jack Ryan on Amazon, the movie American Fiction, and another addition to our goats doing goat shit segment. Stick around for all that good stuff. But before we get into the episode, I wanted to tell you guys about a quick way you can help support this show if you so choose. Then we'll jump right into the episode. Black Mirror season six was released in 2023. For those of you who don't know, don't follow the show. It is an amazing watch. One of my favorite shows for sure. And it has six seasons available [00:01:00] on Netflix. And if you haven't seen any episode, don't worry. It's not like one of those types of shows where you have to follow specific characters or like watch it from, you know, episode one through to the latest episode. Each season, each season is like a, it's an anthology. So it's like these individual stories, individual short stories, if you will. And each one is kind of like its own movie. Think of it that way. So you can literally go in, check out the descriptions, see which ones you might, might be interested in and like, and it just started that way. That's what I did initially years ago. When I, when I first got put onto the show. And since have watched every single episode. I think every single episode, actually. I was Well, reading up and refreshing my memory on a few of these episodes, I went back and noticed like one or two episodes that I either don't remember or [00:02:00] maybe never even saw. But yeah, and it's not a lot of episodes per season. Some seasons only have three episodes, for example. Some have six, some have five, some have four. This latest season, season six, has five episodes. All of which are really cool. I would say two to three are awesome. Two are awesome. One is really good. And a couple of them I could were my favorites. But they were worth the watch either way. Because it really is a good show. Very well done. And here's the official synopsis of the show. Black Mirror is featuring stand alone dramas, sharp, suspenseful, satirical tales that explore techno paranoia. Black Mirror is a contemporary reworking of The Twilight Zone, with stories that tap into the collective unease about the modern world. In the synopsis for this specific season is twisted tales that span eras and terrors. Deliver a [00:03:00] myriad of surprises in this game changing anthology series. Most unpredictable season yet. And as we like to do here on the Spun Study Podcast, wanted to shout out the folks that make it all possible. The writers. Black Mirror was created and is mainly written by Charlie Brooker. And there was one episode here in season six that was written by Bisha K. Ali, shout out to the writers of this amazing series and awesome season.[00:04:00] So the very first episode of the season is called Joan is awful. And the summary is that an average woman discovers a global streaming service has adapted her daily life and her secrets into a drama starring A list actress Salma Hayek. The name of the streaming service is Streamberry. It's similar to think of like Netflix for example. And this lady is essentially, you know, going through her life. Goes to work. Has certain conversations at work. She has a husband or, or at least a fiancé or live in boyfriend or something like that. That they depict their relationship kind of as like very routine, very going through the motions. And she Gets a text from like an [00:05:00] ex boyfriend or an old flame and says that he's in town and just wants to meet to say hi for a drink or something like that and she hesitantly goes Winds up going. I think they wind up kissing or something like that. And then they she leaves and goes home then they are about to Have dinner her and her boyfriend and They put on the TV and they say, Oh, Oh, look, there's a new show called Joan is awful the hell. And her name is Joan and they start playing it and watching it. And it's going through pretty much everything that happened to her that day. So it shows her like in the show, it shows some high, which plays her character going through the motions with a boyfriend, goes to work, shows a very similar conversation that she has. Her assistant is very similar and quirky and shows like what she said behind the back of someone that she fired and almost [00:06:00] identical to like what happened to her in real life. So she's watching it like, wait, what? What the fuck? Is this a joke? Like, what are you doing? What is going on? And then the boyfriend, he's just like, well, what are you talking about? You know, just like a show. But then he even starts catching on like, wait, this is very similar to, this seems like us. And then he sees in the show that she gets a text from an old boyfriend and then she's like, wait, that didn't happen. That's not true. And then, you know, she wants to stop watching for obvious reasons. He wants to keep watching for obvious reasons and so on and so forth. In long story short, the world of this main character like falls apart. And in almost real time, it's showing this on the show, like in the next episode of Jonah's Awful, and just highlighting how she's like a bad person and she's like flipping out and going to, she goes to a lawyer, she tries to sue Streamberry, [00:07:00] she loses her job, and all of this is being depicted on the show as well, right? Like, like a beat behind what's actually happening in real life, and she's like, how the fuck is this happening? And then the lawyer winds up letting her know that in signing the terms and conditions, you know, like the, those like pages and pages worth of terms and conditions that we all just like click the checkbox on and click accept, which I believe South Park did an episode of like years ago, but the lawyer explains how in the terms and conditions, one of the things you signed off on was giving your likeness, right? Signing over your likeness to StreamBerry and it's completely legal and they could do what they're doing. And from a company perspective in StreamBerry, they're using some sort of like AI and like high level tech to enrich their algorithm such that it gives the user, like the [00:08:00] watcher, the most targeted experience possible, which I can totally see a corporation doing. Like something like that through like algorithmic optimization and just like focusing on the bottom line, you know what I mean? Like an evil corporation that just wants to increase profit quarter after quarter after quarter and losing sight of the damage that it's doing otherwise. And then there's another layer to the episode where it gets into this like quantum computing baseline reality versus fictive reality. Type of thing as like the, the Joan is awful, the main character that we see that we think is the real Joan. She starts investigating the company and, and you know, taking matters into her own hands, tries to break into the company and figure out where they have this super computer that's facilitating all this. And she finds out that there's layers and layers and layers to this Joan is awful character. Where she's seeing Salma Hayek, this famous actress, playing her life. [00:09:00] There's, she is the. Actress that somebody else in a different layer or a different level of reality is watching her in a similar way on her streaming service, watching the Joan that we think is the real Joan, they're watching her on TV and so on and so forth. So she's like, wait, she's like contemplating mine, like, not even real. Am I like CGI? Am I like AI or something like that? And then it gets into the question of what's real. What's what are people quote unquote. What if we do create like AI or like sentient AI? Do they really have feelings and thoughts and are they real? Should they have rights, et cetera? It's really, really interesting. It's like a mind bending, when you think you know what the episode is about, it winds up opening up like all these other layers and inevitable questions. And that was definitely either my favorite or tied for favorite [00:10:00] episode of this season, Joan is awful. The second episode of Lock Henry is the one that I would say is like my tied to tied as my favorite episode of the season. And the summary for it is that while filming a nature documentary in a sleepy Scottish town, a young couple catches wind of a juicy local story with ties to shocking past events. Now in this episode, what stood out to me was first of all, like the way it was shot. It's very scenic. It's very beautiful looking the acting is great Everyone in it from like the main character his girlfriend his mother his best friend like stole a show. He was like the comedic relief and It follows this couple that goes Back home to, to the guy, the guy's hometown and the mother's meeting his, his girlfriend for the first time. And this town is really beautiful, but it's like [00:11:00] dead, like almost nobody's around. It's kind of eerie and creepy in that sense, but it's so beautiful and the girlfriend's even even notices that and she's like, what's going on here? Like, you would think that, you know, especially with this weather and this time of year that. This would be like a pop in place, you know what I mean? like a vacation spot for folks and She even asked this to The guy's friend Which is running a family Restaurant slash pub and the friend tells him wait, you didn't tell her about Ian Adar And remember, they're, they're like these film school kids that are, like, home from college to do this like, nature documentary. And that's what they're into. Or to do a documentary period, and they chose to do it about nature, a nature documentary. And, the kid is like no, no, no I didn't wanna, like, speak about that or whatever. And she's like, wait, who's Ian Adar? And [00:12:00] The friend or he and the friend but mainly he, the main character, he starts telling his girlfriend the story of Ian Adar. And this is probably like the scene that, that made the episode for me was his telling of the story of Ian Adar was like perfect spot on storytelling. Like it was just enough. Detail for like listeners and like watchers of the show to like add their own color and the visuals that they showed during his telling of Who Ian the Dar was definitely helped as well But it's absolutely like what roped me into to the episode But essentially this Ian the Dar character was a local guy who's kind of like a loner creepy guy that used to like go into the the pub and drink and and get drunk and Lived in a house down the road with a farm and [00:13:00] the, the main characters father in present time had passed away, but he used to be a police officer and they tell this very suspenseful story of how there was like a one day he got really drunk to see in the dark character after a couple that was on vacation because it used to be a really popular spot, this place. Which ties to the, the girl's expectation of, you know, why isn't this like a more popular place? It used to be. And then this couple went missing. And they couldn't find them. And then one day Enidar is in the pub and got really drunk. And then winds up going home and there's a disturbance in his house. And somebody calls the cops. The father of this kid goes and winds up getting shot by Enidar. As the telling of the story not killed, but then we find out that later on from his like wounds and like stuff like that, he got sick [00:14:00] and it was never the same and then wound up dying. So the mother and, and like the family blame Inidar for the father's death, but ultimately they found like this hidden dungeon in the house and like the remains of these people that were missing. And this Inadar character was some sort of like serial killer guy. And since then, the town became like a ghost town. Hence the state that it's currently in. Now the girl, she's like, We're not doing a fucking nature documentary anymore. We have to do a documentary about this. This is the story. We have to tell the story. And you know, they're film buffs and he's reluctant to do it. Doesn't want to open up like old wounds of you know, the family and the father dying and The story and stuff like that. The friend wants to, wants them to tell the story as well to see if it brings like more popularity back to the town and more tourists and stuff like that. And the girl's [00:15:00] really pushing for it. And even the mother says that she, it's important to tell the story. So then the kid gets on board and they start, you know, investigating and going into the house that was boarded up and going into that dungeon and taking videos and pictures and all this stuff. And the mother's this very like proper, you know, buttoned up lady. And the, like the kids are walking on eggshells around her. Don't want to make so much noise. And you know, she's nice, but very like buttoned up and proper. And long story shorter as they're investigating and the girlfriend is in the house by herself for some reason, like the, The guy went to visit with his friend or something like that. I forgot where he went, but she's just like rewatching some of the footage that they shot that day. And they were recording on top of an old VHS tape of some sitcom show that the mom used to watch and the father. And she finishes watching the footage and, but [00:16:00] the leaves the tape playing while she's like writing something down or something like that. And then the, this other footage comes up. All of that same dungeon area in the house, but it's like old footage. And she pretty much sees the couple that went missing and the mother of the guy and the father, and they're into this like eyes wide shut style, sex torture thing. And the girlfriend is watching this like, what the fuck? And then realizes that the mother and the father, the cop were the ones that killed that missing couple. And they were, you know, they did it again in this like Eyes Wide Shut style, like sex play, torture, craziness. And she like stops it and then right there there's like a knock at the door or the mother opens the door and she's like, Oh, dinner's ready. And she, and she, you know, she's trying not to freak out. And she's like, Okay, I'll be right there. And then winds [00:17:00] up going upstairs and saying that she's going to get some air or something like that. And it's night time, but ultimately she goes, she winds up getting out the house. The mother realizes, you know, goes back to the room, realizes what she saw, and then tries to find the girl. She drives and catches up to her. Then the girl, like, runs into into, like, a wooded area, like, down by a river and tries to hide. Winds up, like, slipping and banging her head, and pretty much she drowns in the river and dies. Then the mother just had another added twist to everything. The mother winds up going back to the, to the apartment, taking out all the VHS tapes and footage and stuff and set and write a letter to her son, which still isn't home by the way, and explaining to him everything and what she was involved in. And what his father was involved in and that with the footage that's on that tape, he'll make [00:18:00] like an amazing documentary and then she winds up hanging herself, which is sick and unexpected. And then the story goes on to, to show the kid, you know, being the film buff that he is, but also reluctant to like the whole thing. He winds up putting out this documentary, the town blows up with like tourism and stuff like that. It like fast forwards, like a year or two later and he winds up winning like all these like awards and, you know, like Emmys, Grammys, whatever it is that you went for this, but it's like that type of event and he's like pretty much miserable. Like, he has obviously what he wanted with this, like documentary filmmaking fame, he brought back life to his hometown, but obviously lost his girlfriend and his mother and is completely mind fucked with what happened. So. Dope, dope episode. Lock Henry. Now the next three, I'll go a little quicker. We have beyond the sea, which was a really good episode. It starts my [00:19:00] guy Jesse from breaking bad. And he and he plays this astronaut, he and another character and it says in an alternative in 1969, two astronauts on a perilous high tech space mission. Grapple with the fallout of an unfathomable tragedy back on earth. And essentially they're these astronauts that are in like in deep space. But they have these only two were made state of the art, like physical bodies back on earth. And they're able through some sort of technology laid down in a pod for like in their like spaceship or wherever they are in space. And It puts them to sleep, but like beams their consciousness into this body that's back on earth and they could do it for, I don't know, five hours, eight hours a day or something like that, or every so often, you know, and while one does it, the [00:20:00] other one has to, you know, be in the spaceship, you know, man, the spaceship and, and everything and the other, you know, does that to spend time with their family, both of them are like married, they have a kid or two. So And They take turns doing this every day and then the rest of the day, you know, they're working out in space and doing the research and work that it is that they do. Then one day, one of them goes back and I forget exactly how it happened, but it was, Oh, I do remember how it happened. The somebody breaks into their house and, it's like this think of like the Sharon Tate style murders. But it's like a religious cult thing that this is like you know ungodly You know, you're like an abomination here on earth. You're not really human It's like that type of mentality that drove these folks to like break into the house. They wound up tying tying up the guy [00:21:00] and He you know his body it that's not his real body But he's you know, he he's beamed in and then they top his wife his kid And they wind up killing his wife and, and child in front of him while he's watching, and he can't do anything about it. And then they, you know, they can't kill him because it's not really his body, but they fuck up the, that machine, robot, AI, whatever, body so he can't ever, like, beam down again. Then he beams back, obviously he's in, in real life, you know, he's in outer space. Not in real life, but, you know. And he's completely distraught. It's a, you know, story blows up. It's pretty much going crazy. And then his other astronaut buddy friend is, finds out about it. And then he, you know, they, they speak back to like space command or whatever it's called. And they try to give the, the friend you know, pointers and things to speak to him about. And, you know, they try to [00:22:00] like keep tabs on him. To see what's going on, you know, don't fuck up like the mission and then, you know, he has to deal with him coming back to his family and his life, but knowing that he left this unstable person up there that just lost his entire family and they think of like he and his wife think of, you know, like once he's like a little bit more settled, you know, They offer him to use his body. So Jesse's character offers him to use his body to go down, you know, to beam down. Just so he could feel the air again and be around people. And he winds up doing this. They wind up doing it every so often. It's apparently, it's helping him. But then he and the wife kind of hit it off a little bit. And he's into painting and they get a little flirty.[00:23:00] The wife you know, pushes back on the whole thing eventually. But then Jesse's character finds out about it, gets upset, tells him that he's not going to let them, you know, beam down anymore. You know, they're not supposed to be doing that anyway. Cause it like breaks protocol. And then the guy convinces him to do it. One more time. Just so he could apologize to the wife and he reluctantly agrees. Then he comes back and then the next time Jesse beams down, he beams down and he sees blood everywhere. He's like, what the fuck? And then he realizes the guy beamed down that last time and wound up killing his wife and kid. And he has no other option but to like beam back up. You know, he beams back up and the story ends with them. Him just like flipping out, but then him telling him to like, take a seat. He's like completely calm and fucking psycho, but tells him, you know, take a seat. Now, now we're even basically, I lost my family. You lost yours. You can't tell anybody about it. Cause you know, there's [00:24:00] nothing anybody can do. We weren't even supposed to be beaming in each other's bodies or whatever the hell. That was a really good episode. Now, the last two that I'll mention Maisie day. The main character is played by Zazie Beetz from Atlanta. Great actress. It wasn't my favorite episode. It's a troubled Hollywood starlet who goes to great lengths to escape packs of invasive paparazzi as she deals with the aftermath of a hit and run. And yeah, it didn't really, it wasn't a favorite episode of mine. She plays a paparazzi that's like in the paparazzi game and wants out, wants a different life. But they're tracking this like super popular actress who's trying to like hide out in rehab because she has like a drug problem. And then there's like this, I don't know, felt like lazy twist unexpected. I don't know, not maybe not lazy, but. Because it got me like I was interested in the episode just because [00:25:00] of like the acting and the writing in general and the characters in it. And it was. Somewhat suspenseful, but like the what happened at the end. I was like, ah, come on which was pretty much the The starlet that they were tracking down Was in this like rehab place and like tied down and they they wound up trying to save her Because they pretty she pretty much went into this rehab place and they like tied her down To, you know, like fight off the, the drugs and, you know, she was going to get sick and throw up and stuff like that. And they didn't want her like breaking out and getting drugs or anything. So it would be like an easier time for her if she was just tied down. So the paparazzi, Zazie Beats, and a couple other folks, they track her down. They try to get a picture of her because it's worth a lot of money in the rehab place. But then they realize that she's tied down. And when they go, they go to free her and she winds up turning into a werewolf. So, and she winds up killing a couple of the [00:26:00] paparazzis as he beats, gets away. And then at the end, I think winds up killing her as well. But yeah, that was a little, just like a little far fetched in my opinion, but that thing was great. And the last one is called Demon 79. This is Northern England, 1979. A meek sales assistant discovers she must commit terrible acts to prevent an imminent disaster. This was another one that was good. It keeps you roped in because you want to know if it's true or not, what she's going through. And it's this Indian girl in 1979. She's a she sells shoes. She works at like a malls department store selling shoes. And the people she works with and, you know, her boss and coworker and stuff like that, they all treat her different and they say, oh, you have stinky food and, and, you know, she's treated, she's very othered, you know, her neighbors or the people treat her [00:27:00] like very differently. And then this like demon appears and that only she can see in here and tells her that she has to essentially kill three people or the entire world would end. So they're showing this and you as the, as the viewer are like, is this real or not? Is she like a schizophrenic imagining demons and shit? Or is this like really happening within this world? And she's going through those same emotions. She's like, she thinks she's going crazy, but then ultimately is convinced of this and winds up going through the motions and doing things with the, with the demon. And the demon tries to like aggro on and, and. And, you know, motivate her to, to kill people and forget what it was. If it had to be only good people, it couldn't be bad people because bad people would be too easy. It has to be like three innocent people or something like that. Or if it was the other way around, if it had to be bad people and couldn't be innocent people and she wound up killing [00:28:00] like an innocent person, I think that's what it was. It's one of the killing an innocent person. That person didn't count. So she wound up killing like an extra person. And then at the end, she winds up getting caught like in the act and is, you know, there's like a cutoff time. It's like midnight at, you know, you know, three days later or something like that. The world was going to end and she's like in the interrogation room with the cops and they're writing her off as fucking crazy. The clock strike struck 12, nothing happened. And then she's like coming to the realization, holy shit, I killed these people. I am crazy. It's 12 o'clock and nothing happened. And then like three or four minutes later, you hear sirens going off and like the towns, like fog horns and everyone in the precinct is like going to the windows and you just see like bombs and fire and plague and just like everything going to shit. And then she comes to the realization of, Oh, I'm not crazy. [00:29:00] So she's happy about that, but then at the same time, oh, but the world is ending so There is that But yeah, Black Mirror Dope series, like I said in the beginning of this little recap and review Go back to see all the seasons all the episodes Some of them are fucking amazing. A lot of them are great most of them are either great or really good and there's like a I could count on one hand, less than one hand, probably just two or three that even, even the ones that, like I mentioned in, in this season six, the last two episodes weren't my favorite, but they were, you know, it wasn't like, Oh, why'd I watch that? You know what I mean? And that is my little recap and review of black mirror season six available on Netflix testing, testing one, two, one, two. Tom Clancy's, Jack Ryan, created by Carlton Qs and Graham Roland. Based on the characters by novelist, Tom [00:30:00] Clancy had its series finale last year in 2023. Very quick aside, because I don't wanna forget Tom Clancy, I, I looked them up like when I, when I'm into like a show or a movie or, or like a book, and I may not know the author or the writer or the creators. I look them up usually like to follow them on, on Twitter or Instagram and just to see like what they're up to, what they're working on currently. And I did that with Tom Clancy being that this is a character that he developed, that he created and has like a bunch of, of novels about him. And I found out that he died in 2013. And since, since he died, he's put out more content, whether it be films, Shows like this one and books and at first I'm kind of like, yeah, that's I guess it kind of sort of makes sense if you, you know, you create certain characters and you have like a, [00:31:00] a large backlog, you know, your state or something can like license out the content and one of your older books could be adapted into a movie or TV show, et cetera. I thought it was like that type of deal. But then I found out that's not the case and that he's since he's. Past again in 2013. He's put out over a dozen new books. We're not he is like physically impossible but He built out such a well known IP in like his name tom clancy and all the characters that he's created and Like Jack Ryan, for example, but also different, like, series of, like, movies and shows, like, The Hunt for Red October, starring Sean Connery and Alec Baldwin Patriot Games, starring Harrison Ford, etc., that his name alone is the Tom Clancy name, like, it became an entity, essentially. And The publishing house [00:32:00] has other writers that since his death have written under the Tom Clancy banner, if you will, but under the Tom Clancy name. So it'll be a new book by Tom Clancy, but it's really written by Grant Blackwood, Mark Cameron, Dick Couch, Mark Greeney. And Mike Madden probably amongst others by now. I thought that was so fascinating and interesting and just a testament to something that I like to highlight and underscore the importance of owning your content, owning your IP. At whatever level you're on from zero listenership and readership to millions and millions and millions of listeners and or readership, because ultimately, if something does pop off in the direction of being financially viable, why not have your situation set up in a way where you didn't give away the rights, you didn't sell off the [00:33:00] rights for a one time fee or, you know, the short term bag, but you've created something valuable. That can and will go on for decades after you're gone and your kids and maybe even your kids kids Could benefit from it Like why not set it up that way, you know what I mean, but to each their own. Anyway, Jack Ryan is a dope series and The official synopsis is of the show is up and coming CIA analyst Jack Ryan is thrust into dangerous field assignments and it stars John Krasinski From the office, which when I first saw the show, I was like that, like, I know him as like Jim from the office and it's a comedy. And this is like a serious, you know, CIA analyst guy, but it totally works. And it just shows like his range as an actor, in my opinion. Also starting Wendell Pierce, shout out to Wendell Pierce, shout out to the wire [00:34:00] and Michael Kelly. It was a great, like character actor. I think that's what you call a character actor. Shout out to a house of cards where he played Doug. And as we'd like to do here on the sponsored a podcast, because if we don't do it here, then who will let's shout out the writers. First and foremost, Tom Clancy, of course, based on the characters that he created Carlton Kuse, Graham Roland, Joe Griscoviak, Jeff Kempler, Jada Nation, Aaron Rabin, you name it. Vaughn Wilmot, Stephen Cain and Robert David Port. Shout out to each and every one of the writers that, and creators of the series that put together this final fourth series finale.[00:35:00] So like the synopsis says, if you're not familiar with the show, it all revolves around this genius. CIA analyst. He's kind of like a desk analyst research guy that winds up going into the field and then you start finding out that, Oh, he can, he can do the field as well. He has like a background being like a Navy seal, I think, or just like one of those like superhero type characters in, in shows, you know, they could do it all smartest guy in the room, toughest guy in the room. And I love shows like that. Cause I could finally relate to someone, you know what I mean? Let me stop. But definitely, I definitely do enjoy those shows. You kind of like vicariously live through characters like that. And this season, this final season, [00:36:00] had to do with a drug cartel teaming up with a terrorist organization. And how that type of matchup would combine unlimited resources with Like unbridled terror and hate, which is obviously a dangerous combination, especially when, and if it's aimed towards the U S for example, Michael Pena is a big part of this final season as well. Another great actor. If you don't know him by name, he's, he's the, the Spanish guy that is like in everything. When you see him, you'd be like, Oh yeah, I know that guy. And in the very first episode, actually, Ends with a really dope scene where he is in Jack Ryan's apartment. When Jack Ryan gets home with his girlfriend and they get home [00:37:00] from some event that they were at and she's going to go take a shower or something. He's going to the fridge and Michael Peña just points a gun to his head and tells him to turn Pluto back on. So at this point. The story. Basically, Jack Ryan has ascended and he's like assistant to the head of the CIA like sec second line. And they're getting a lot of pressure from, from the Senate to be more transparent and highlight programs within the CIA, like covert operations and stuff like that because there had just been a coup slash murder of a president in a country in Africa and. You know, conspiracy theorists and folks were blaming the CIA as them having something to do with it. So a way that Jack Ryan and Director Wright chose to deal with that was to turn off the funding for all these [00:38:00] programs that you couldn't trace or like where the money was going to and stuff like that. And one of these programs was Pluto, codenamed Pluto. And Michael Peña just shows up, puts a gun to Jack Ryan's head. Remember, Jack Ryan's like the badass, you know, handles everything, knows everything that's going on at all times. And here's this guy, apparently within the CIA as well, in his apartment with a gun to his head, telling him to turn the shit back on, turn the money back on for that operation. And we see Michael Pena's character in Mexico. Like they show a few scenes of him there and like being a bit like a bad ass there. And as the viewer, we're kind of like, wait, is he CIA? Is he part of this cartel? Is he like a double agent? Like what's up with him? And ultimately we find out that he is in the CIA, but he's being used by the folks that are running the Pluto program that are working with This either the drug cartel and or [00:39:00] the terrorist organization side to try to facilitate what they have going on and they're pretty much being paid off. That's essentially what this season is all about. It has great fighting scenes, very suspenseful, like scenes with a helicopter. Oh, I'm sorry, with a plane that they're finally getting away. Jack Ryan's character is and. Mike November's, which is Michael Kelly's character and Kathy Mueller, which is John Krasinski's Jack Ryan's girlfriend played by Abby Cornish and Michael Pena's character. They're all like getting away from a situation that they're in that they're flying out of to take a chow fa the head of this drug organization or not the head. He was like the higher up about to become the head, but he, he was turning against the organization. And like speaking to the CIA to be able to get his family, his wife and daughter out. So they're in this situation where [00:40:00] they are about to get out of the country on this private plane. They load everybody up, but then Jack Ryan and Michael Pena themselves have to stay behind so the plane can go, can fly off. With Jack Ryan's girlfriend, Chao Pha's wife and daughter. Cause you have like a ton of just like jeeps and jeeps and with heavy machinery machine guns and a bunch of soldiers just like coming at them. So the plane can take off. They stayed down to like, you know, give them a cover pretty much and like shooting back at them. And then Michael Kelly's character, Mike November just comes with a fucking helicopter and like mows down all the. Like at the last second when you're like, how the fuck are they gonna get out of this? They're like in this open field completely surrounded or fucked and Mike November shows up in this helicopter and with enough like weaponry to like hold them off [00:41:00] and allow Jack Ryan and Mike and Michael Peña's character to get in the helicopter and get the fuck out of there. It's like dope scenes like that. Acting director writes characters from Queens. Shout out to Queens. There's some dope scenes towards the end of the series where Jack Ryan actually gets captured and he's being tortured, you know He's like tied up. He's being electrocuted fucking whipped and just like fucked up like a sick torture scene and to John Krasinski's Credit did a phenomenal job. It was like so believable and it's like a sick scene and Michael Pena is In this like bunker place where they have Jack Ryan, he like broke into it to save Jack Ryan and there's a part where he, all he has is a spear gun because that's what he couldn't buy in terms of weaponry from like a villager that lived [00:42:00] close by and he gets into this facility and there's a, you know, there's this guy guarding a door and he's walking, you know, he hears something, he's walking around with a gun And Mike Pena fucking spear guns him in the dark, it was such a sick scene. And just wound up like fucking everybody up one by one like John Wick style to ultimately free Jack Ryan. And I like this show in particular because it's not like the bad guys in the show. They make you not relate to them, but they're written in such a way where I don't want to see you empathize with them. But they humanize them a bit, you know, they're not like over the top just like evil for evil's sake type bad guys I think the the best villains in stories there's like something about them that you could relate to or at least that you can sympathize with their Rationale whether you agree with it or not for like doing certain things and there's a few of those characters Within this season within the show in general, but within this season, especially like the ex CIA guy [00:43:00] that felt wronged and he was like a, a hitman for hire basically for, for the bad guys. Chau Fa's character, which was the head of this drug organization and was doing it to get his wife and daughter out. And he killed his brother in law who was like on to him. So on and so forth. But yeah, really good show. It's definitely a fun watch. There's four seasons available on Amazon if you're interested. It's one of those that are just like action and entertaining and well written, in my opinion. And that is Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan. Available on Amazon. American Fiction. So a few weeks back, prior to the health related issues that I mentioned that My family's going through right now. My wife and I wanted to do one of our favorite things, which is go to the movies. It's one of the things we really enjoy doing together. And We saw American Fiction. Which was [00:44:00] so, so good to me. On a few different levels. It's about a novelist who This is the official summary. It's about a novelist who's fed up with the establishment, profiting from black entertainment. And he uses a pen name to write a book that propels him into the heart of the hypocrisy and madness he claims to disdain. Before we get into my little recap, let's shout out the writers, as we do here on the Sponsored A Podcast. Because if we don't, who will? American Fiction was written by Cord Jefferson and Percival Everett. Shout out to them for putting this together. It was also directed by Cord Jefferson. Now it has a great, great all star cast starting with the main protagonist, Thelonious Monk Ellison played by Jeffrey Wright, Lisa Ellison, his sister played [00:45:00] by Tracy Ellis Ross, Arthur, who is the publisher of Thelonious character played by John Ortiz. Coraline, who plays a love interest of Thelonious, played by Erika Alexander. Issa Rae is in it, she also plays a writer. Cintara Golden, Keith David, plays Willy the Wonker. It's like a funny little like parody scene within the movie itself. I really like the Myra. Lucretia Taylor plays Lorraine. She's like that housekeeper slash caretaker for, for the mother. Agnes Ellison, played by Leslie Uggams. It's such a good film. So it follows Thelonious Monk Ellison, who's a writer, and he plays like this jaded writer that is a little snobby about his writing. You know, he's respected by his peers, but he definitely doesn't make money, or at least not a lot of it.[00:46:00] And he's snobby towards the genre of writer that seems to just be writing to the market. Issa Rae's character, Sentara Golden, is one of these writers, which makes a beautiful case for it. And like there's a scene where they have a dialogue with each other. And back and forth and makes a strong understandable case for writing to the market because there are writers like that, right? There are writers and creators like that, that literally only write to and for a specific market. There are podcasters like that as well that, you know, they'll do Google trending searches, for example, and say, Oh, X, Y, and Z is trending. Let me do a podcast episode about that. Or writers that write to, Oh, what's popular now, vampires. Made of glitter that also own a knitting factory. Okay, let me write a story about that and they'll literally write a novel, a book, a short story or whatever about that. That's called like writing to the [00:47:00] market. And then you have other folks that write for the art of it, that write what they want to write, whether it's popular or not. I think I would fall more into that camp and they speak about what they want to speak about. So on and so forth. And it's not passing judgment on either. You know, both are, you know, The creator's prerogative, but Monk's character is one that has disdain for the folks like Issa Rae's character, Centaur Golden, who is literally just writing for the market and her case was essentially, you know, if there is a market, if there are people that want to read this type of stuff that you call, you know, trash or like fast food, for example, in fast food type of writing, and I'm able to create that for them to fill that demand. And make a living while doing it. Why is that, you know, like, why are you shitting on that? What's wrong with that? And the answer to that is essentially, [00:48:00] there is nothing wrong with that. That's, you know, the choice of that creator, that writer, and also the choice of that consumer. To consume whatever the fuck they want to consume, right? But what I love for it from a this like writing, you know, This, like, shining the light on this, like, area of like writing and creating Is that the type of, like, story she's writing are Like thought to be like racist and like over the top and highlighting like stereotypes of African Americans And like she's doing a reading for example, and she's you know, speaking normally and then You know being interviewed and then she's reading an excerpt from her story and then she's like, oh, yeah. Sure I would love to read an excerpt. Let me share this passage here. And then she starts reading quote Hey, yo, Sharonda use pregnancy again and not at 19 years old What is that, your eighth baby mama? You know, like, shit like that. She's like, writing in the book. And then Thelonious Monk's character is like, has like such disdain and grossed out and [00:49:00] like, what the fuck, how is this selling? So he as like a kind of to like shit on his certain publishers that don't want to like publish him anymore. And Arthur, by the way, is not his publisher, it's his agent. The character played by John Ortiz. He decides to write this like over the top hood, like spoof almost, and submit that to the publishers that don't want to publish his, his other work. Cause again, it's not selling and the publishers are in the market of, or in the business of making money. So they're like the embodiment of creating for the market, minus the creating part, you know, they're just like peddling, but I digress. He submits it as kind of like a fuck you to them. And then, and they wind up loving it. And they wanna, and he, he submits it like under a pen name. And Arthur, his agent calls him, he's like, yo, they wanna publish it. And he's like, really? They wanna publish my book? He thinks it's his, like, other book that, that he wrote. The more, you know, like, [00:50:00] snooty writing and, you know, the shit that he's into. His literary fiction, if you will. And John Ortiz's character, Arthur, he's like, no, no, the The other book that you sent me over under the pen name and they want to give you a 250, 000 advance or something like, I forget the exact number. That might be it. But he's like, what? He's like, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not going to do that shit. What are you fucking crazy? That was supposed to be a joke. But monks characters in a situation where this is a, another layer of the story where it really resonated with me. His mother, Agnes is elderly. Her memory is starting to slip. They take her to. And they confirmed that it's like early stages of dementia. My father, as I mentioned here in the pod has dementia. So that definitely resonated and as well as him and Tracy Ellis Ross, which is his sister. And they have a third brother Clifford Ellison [00:51:00] played by Sterling K. Brown. But they're like between siblings, they're dealing with the fact of balancing the responsibilities of taking on the fact that their parents are getting older, that their parents are getting sick. And what, how are they going to balance that? And what's that going to mean moving forward? And who's taking on which responsibilities? How are they going to tackle all of the issues that need to be tackled and taken care of? And that's something that definitely hit home. And something that we all inevitably deal with to one degree or another. So he's in this situation where he, they need the money to confront you know, like the changing and added responsibilities in, in, in their lives with their mom being sick. And he's out to a lunch with his sister and, you know, they're speaking about these things, trying to iron out certain details and, you know, speaking about how money's tight.[00:52:00] All around and then his sister right then and there literally has a heart attack while they're having lunch out of the blue Tracy Ellis Ross's character which sucked that she she like died like spoiler alert so early in the story Which just threw a another curveball and an added need for him to get money because the other brother He's like going through a divorce with his family kind of like a midlife crisis coming out the closet like type of thing he's like selfish and doing drugs and more of a burden than a help, you know what I mean? So it all kind of falls on Jeffrey Wright's character. But then he, you know, he has this dilemma where he definitely really needs the money, which Arthur, his agent, is highlighting to him to take care of his mom. But also, his creative beliefs and what he feels about like his integrity, his creative integrity, is being thrust into this situation as well, right? He doesn't want to publish that. But ultimately he does. [00:53:00] Begrudgingly and at the same time, I felt that that situation does a great job of, of being like social commentary for what's wrong with the virtue signaling. And you have these two agents from the publishing company who are white and just like thrilled to speak to the writer, which again was under pen name. And he just kept playing it up and making it more absurd. He was like, yeah, I'm an ex, I'm an ex con. I don't do interviews cause I'm still running from the law. I'm running from the man and this and that or whatever. And they were just like eating it up and they're like, Oh my God, this is so authentic. This is so real. And it was like cool to see like that highlighting of that type of like hypocrisy of what happens when, you know, writing to a market or just like doing something ultimately for financial gain alone. Like when that runs amok, like. [00:54:00] Just highlighting all that is wrong with that type of mentality. And not to be mistaken with that, that is all wrong. But what could be wrong with only thinking that way. Lorraine's character, she was so sweet. Played by Myra Taylor. She is the like, home health aid caretaker of the mom. And has obviously like been with the family for like years. So to the point that she's like family. She was like such, such a sweetheart. And I felt like the ultimate, like, full circle moment for him, for Monk's character was a couple of things. Like, on a personal level, you know, being more open, being, you know, letting your guards down a bit, letting people into your life, letting them love you. He was very guarded, very cagey. Pushed people away. Which is not an uncommon trait for a writer or some types of creatives You know, you're kind of sort of always in your own head and you wind up doing[00:55:00] Things like that even without noticing at times. I know I definitely have and then from a professional level the full circle for for his character was That ultimately he always wanted he wanted And needed money, but also wanted the validation that comes with the recognition of all your peers and being thought of as this amazing writer and he kind of sort of came to the realization that these are two different worlds and it's okay you know i mean it's not like an either or type of situation it's the ideal circumstance that you can do like your artsy fartsy type of writing and everybody and their mother would love it and it would be mainstream and niche at the same time and You'd be a literary hero and a millionaire simultaneously at the same time like sure but very unlikely that Would ever be the type of situation [00:56:00] that you would be in as a creative But there is a happy medium with come again coming to terms with the fact that maybe not always but often it would be a separate different type of approach to to creating and that part of the charm if you will of being on a creative journey is a Finding that medium of the happy medium where you are able to create without compromising your artistic integrity, if you will, and also make some money while doing so, which will help facilitate you being able to do more of what it is that you love to do, which is the writing and creating. And if sometimes you wind up sliding to the left of that spectrum a little bit, and going more towards the making money side, and then sliding back to the right a little bit, and going more towards the doing what you [00:57:00] love side, then so be it. As long as you ultimately stay within that happy medium, which should be the place where you're most happy, I think is the ultimate creative. goal. At least I feel like that's what it is for me. Anyway, tons and tons and tons of that I related to in this movie. I highly recommend it. American fiction. Check it out. Goats doing goat shit. This is the spun today segment where I like to highlight extraordinary individuals that do extraordinary things. Even when, and especially when They don't have to this episode's installment of a go to doing goat shit is none other than Joe Rogan who has made the list before this is probably his third if not fourth time and the reason why as originally reported by Spotify's blog and picked up by the Wall Street [00:58:00] Journal Associated Press and others which I will link to in the episode notes is because in February of 2024 this month Joe Rogan inked yet another Multi year licensing deal with Spotify for those of you who don't know one of the other reasons actually when Rogan initially made the go to doing goat shit list was because he inked a 100 million licensing deal to take his podcast, the Joe Rogan experience exclusive with Spotify for three years. I want to highlight again, it was a licensing deal, which I love harping on and highlighting here on. The podcast, because there's a huge difference between selling something and licensing something. When you license something that you create, you can license it for X amount of dollars, sometimes, and usually less than what you would make if you just sold it outright. But what's great about a licensing deal [00:59:00] is that once that license is up, you still own everything and you can license it out all over again. So Joe Rogan did a licensing deal for 100 million, three years ago that recently expired. And because it was such a lucrative deal for Spotify and its shareholders, which saw many, many, many times that hundred million dollars in stock profits as soon as the news broke. But Rogan since again, maintained ownership of his show was now able to license it yet again. And this time the deal has a few interesting caveats. First and foremost, it's another multi year licensing deal. The number of years I'm not clear on. I'm assuming it's around 3 to 5. But I haven't found actual reporting on the number of years. But it's a 250, 000, 000 licensing deal. Shout out to the [01:00:00] podcast, The Goat. So not only did he make 100, 000, 000 over 3 years with the original deal, Now he's making another 250 million, which includes, by the way, upfront guarantee as well as revenue sharing on his ad sales. But the sickest part, in my opinion, is that it's no longer exclusive with Spotify. This deal was so lucrative with Spotify that they didn't, they didn't even hold on to that part of it. That part of the deal. It said Rogan and team negotiated that. The podcast will once again, go wide, it'll be available everywhere. So if you want to listen to it on Apple, you can, it's already actually on Apple. And there will be a video version available on YouTube as well. Which is interesting because back in the day, before the Spotify deal, Rogan's Pod was wide, you know, it was available on every podcatcher. And the video versions were [01:01:00] exclusively on YouTube just because YouTube had the that's where videos would be seen, you know what I mean? It wasn't by virtue of any deal with YouTube, but that's just where video podcasts were viewed. Part of when Rogan went to Spotify, part of the deal that was negotiated was that Spotify had to develop the capability. Of streaming video as well as audio, and they developed this entire video capability through their app because of Rogan which other podcasters and, and content creators obviously have benefited from as well. But now that the deal is going wide again, or the show rather is going wide again, we will once again be able to watch the podcast episodes on YouTube, not just the video versions on Spotify. But it does seem, for example, that Spotify is keeping, aside from YouTube, seems to be keeping, at least as of the recording of this episode, [01:02:00] the video rights with Spotify, because you can still watch the videos obviously on Spotify, but on Apple, for example, where the podcast is already on YouTube. Available it's audio only so Spotify does seem to be retaining that I would imagine that the video versions of the podcast will be available on YouTube as they stated but probably on some sort of like delayed release like maybe a week later the video will be on on YouTube or something like that but that's just my personal speculation on that shout out once again to Rogan the undisputed heavyweight champ of podcasting goats you For not only having one of the dopest and most important essential outlets on the planet Where folks from any and all walks of life? Can come and share their art and discuss their thoughts and share their [01:03:00] expertise with the world but also for doing it right always doing a show with integrity and honor and giving other podcasts everywhere including myself A template for how to do it right and not just in caring about what you do, loving what you do, pursuing your passions, striving to be a better person, wanting to help others, but in realizing that there's different ideas and thoughts out there, and that it's okay that they coexist. It's okay that they're differing opinions are shared and explored. It's essential, but also in just the integrity that comes with the whole financial aspect of things. And in doing things right and correctly where he was very much the architect of not just selling ads on his podcast back way before the Spotify deal, way before the whole thing blew up when he only had one sponsor, shout out to Fleshlight, where He, again, was very much of the architect of not just [01:04:00] selling shit to sell it, but only selling things that you believed in or that at least you tried and you liked and not, you know, just doing McDonald's ads just because they came with the bigger bag. Having that level of integrity and foresight clearly snowballed all these years later into the 250 million more than doubled up from the previous 100 million deal. So shout out again to Joe Rogan and to Spotify for inking this deal and for making yet another appearance on the Spun Today goats doing goat shit segment. And that folks was episode 254 of the Spun Today podcast. Thank you very, very much for taking the time to [01:05:00] listen. It really does mean a lot and I hope that you all are taking away gems from the episode. And, or it's just helping you pass the time and whether you're at work or at the gym or whatever it is that you do while you're listening to this driving. I hope it can help you pass the time. I hope it finds you and yours in a good, healthy place. Maybe even motivates you and inspires you to do something creative on your end, which I'm definitely a proponent for. If you have another minute or two, please stick around to listen to a few ways you can help support this show if you so choose. And I'll catch you guys next time. Peace.

0:18:45 - Box Office and upcoming releases. 0:23:00 *** What's Streaming  *** NETFLIX FURY, Dir. David Ayer – Shia LaBeouf, Logan Lerman, Brad Pitt, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal, Jason Isaacs, 2014. ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT, Dir. Edward Berger – Felix Kammerer, Albrecht Schuch, Aaron Hilmer, Daniel Bruhl, 2022. BRAWL IN CELL BLOCK 99, Dir. S. Craig Zahler – Vince Vaughn, Jennifer Carpenter, Don Johnson, Feature. 0:32:00 - Trailers:  MONKEY MAN – Dev Patel, Sharlto Copley, Feature. THE MINISTRY OF UNGENTLEMANLY WARFARE – Alan Ritchson, Henry Cavill, Eiza Gonzalez, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, Cary Elwes, Alex Pettyfer, Henry Golding, Feature. GHOSTBUSTERS: FROZEN EMPIRE – Carrie Coon, Mckenna Grace, Annie Potts, Paul Rudd, Finn Wolfhard, Bill Murray, Kumail Nanjiani, Patton Oswalt, Celest O'Connor, Dan Aykroyd, Ernie Hudson, Feature.   0:44:00 - THE HOLDOVERS, Dir. Alexander Payne ( Grayson 10 / Roger 10 / Chris 9.5 )   Hosted, produced and mixed by Grayson Maxwell and Roger Stillion.  Guess appearance by Christopher Boughan.  Music by Chad Wall. Quality Assurance by Anthony Emmett. Visit the new Youtube channel, "For the Love of Cinema" to follow and support our short video discussions.  Roger wears aviators!  Please give a like and subscribe if you enjoy it.   Follow the show on Twitter @lovecinemapod and check out the Facebook page for updates.  Rate, subscribe and leave a comment or two.  Every Little bit helps.  Send us an email to fortheloveofcinemapodcast@gmail.com

This week, The Reel Drunks bring you an amazing, yet underrated picture! Fury! Starring Brad Pitt, Shai LaBeouf, Jon Bernthall, Logan Lerman, Michael Pena, Jason Isaacs and more! Prepare yourself for 3 hours of Jake, Matt & Danial breaking down the tremendous acting, behind the scenes etc. I Oh and drink up as they provide a fare share of WWII knowledge. This is Fury Part 1! Part 2 is available 1/20! What would you Do0o0o for a chocolate bar??!?

Steve & Izzy are opening the Patreon vault to share their Nic-August Cage Exclusive where they discuss 2006's "World Trade Center" starring Nicolas Cage, Michael Pena, Maria Bello, Maggie Gyllenhaal, friend of the podcast John C. McGinley & more!!! Where were you? What is the one inaccuracy of this movie? How well do we know WWE history? Can you tell Izzy was distracted by her phone half the episode? Should you trust the water from flaming Jesus?!? Let's find out!!! So kick back, grab a few brews, act your wage, and enjoy!!! This episode is proudly sponsored by Untidy Venus, your one-stop shop for incredible art & gift ideas at UntidyVenus.Etsy.com and be sure to follow her on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram & Patreon at @UntidyVenus for all of her awesomeness!!! Try it today!!! Twitter - www.twitter.com/eilfmovies Facebook - www.facebook.com/eilfmovies Etsy - www.untidyvenus.etsy.com TeePublic - www.teepublic.com/user/untidyvenus Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Join us for our review of the 2016 drama Collateral Beauty. This movie boasts an all-star cast of Kate Winslet, Will Smith, Helen Mirren, Edward Norton, Keira Knightly, and Michael Pena. However, this movie proves a stellar cast can only take a script so far... Tune in to find out why this movie fell a little short for us and how it ranks vs. every other Kate Winslet movie!  Added bonus: you know we couldn't review a Will Smith movie without talking about The Slap ® and Jada Pinkett Smith.WebsiteInstagramMerch Support the show

QUICKLY, there isn't much time! The GBGBs watched Gone in 60 Seconds (2000) this week where Nicholas Cage has to steal 50 cars in 3 days. So far our car season has had movies with a few cars, but this movie has FIFTY of 'em. There's other famous folks in there too, like Angelina Jolie, Robert Duvall, Timothy Olyphant and Michael Pena, what a cast! Oh geez we already wasted too much time. Okay okay this movie is wild, its got heists, car jumps, an evil british guy who loves woodworking, and a chase scene down the LA river. The GBGBs also discuss how we can improve cars and introduce BattleCars as a sanctioned sport. Okay we made it!! Thanks for stopping by!

Amazon has a winner on their hands and we're very glad.  Michael Pena and cast are great! A MILLION MILES AWAY, Dir. Alejandra Marquez Abella ( Grayson 6 / Roger 8 / Chris 8) Hosted, produced and mixed by Grayson Maxwell and Roger Stillion.  Guest appearance by Christopher Boughan.  Music by Chad Wall. Quality Assurance by Anthony Emmett. Visit the new Youtube channel, "For the Love of Cinema" to follow and support our short video discussions.  Roger wears aviators!  Please give a like and subscribe if you enjoy it.   Follow the show on Twitter @lovecinemapod and check out the Facebook page for updates.  Rate, subscribe and leave a comment or two.  Every Little bit helps.  Send us an email to fortheloveofcinemapodcast@gmail.com Thank you for Listening!

We review A Million Miles Away starring Michael Pena! 

Episode 65 - Ant-Man and the Wasp Movie Review This week we get to take a break from the disaster that is Thanos, and spend a bit of time with the Pyms and Langs in 2018's Ant-Man and the Wasp.  This Week In Comics 10 Marvel Comics That Influenced the MCU https://comicbook.com/movies/news/10-marvel-comics-that-influenced-the-mcu/ New on Marvel Unlimited this Week https://www.marvel.com/comics/calendar/week/2023-10-01 Recommendation: Starter Villain by John Scalzi. https://www.audible.com/pd/Starter-Villain-Audiobook/B0C6FPMDGV Film Facts Tagline: Real Heroes. Not actual size.  Released: July 4, 2018 (staggered release date)  Runtime: 118 minutes  Box Office: worldwide: $622,674,139 / domestic: $216,648,740  Budget: $162,000,000 (estimated)  IMDB Rating: 7.0/10  Stars: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Walter Goggins, Tip (T.I.) Harris, David Dastmalchian, Hannah John-Kamen, Abby Ryder Forson, Laurence Fishburne, Michelle Pfeiffer and Michael Douglas  Directed: Peyton Reed  Screenplay: Chris McKenna, Erik Sommers, Paul Rudd, Andrew Barrer and Gabriel Ferrari  2ish Minute Recap and Discussion Topics This isn't Ant-Man 2, this is Ant-Man and the Wasp  On the Clock “Photo-Realism" This is not a “great” film, but it is a light and fun movie Plot only makes very basic sense Too many villains?  Or just too few good ones? Shrinking and Growing Luis and Jimmy steal the show Tidbits  From the comics  Face Off! Which Did it better? The Comics or the Movie Correspondence Stephanie asks about Duane's use of the word "Stan" What's Next: Captain Marvel Comics Marvel Super-Heroes #13  Ms. Marvel #1  Uncanny X-Men #164  Avengers #200  Captain Marvel (2012) #1-6  Signoff Questions or comments We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime. ------------------ Music Intro and Outro created by Lesfm.

As Hispanic Heritage month begins, work is beginning on a new film honoring one of NASA's Latino astronauts. The film will share Jose's story of the power of perseverance to achieve your dreams.

Sept20-music from the week before-More TYT right wing pivots-Larry David confronting Elon Musk-More Russell Brand discourse-Ray Epps in the news cycle and other political social media discourse-Howard Stern called out by the right wing-Sept22nd- Debates over the Mox injury from Grand Slam and bad faith concern-WWE Releases-Vince TKO Meeting discourse-More TYT right wing pivots-Michael Pena discourse-Rupert Murdoch stepped down-Trump's border solution-Remy Ma Papoose Nicki Minaj's husband and other celeb social media discourse and also other wrestling discourse-Ill do mass recap edition

This week Andrew and Ted watched the Prime Video original "A Million Miles Away", starring Michael Pena. In this episode and Andrew & Ted sidebar on space exploration, Mark Cuban's millions, and what it's like to be an athlete. Don't worry most of it ties into their review of the movie ... most of it. So tune into this "SPOILER FREE" episode where the words "Academy Award" were spoken.

In Episode 73, Pete and Paul review "A Haunting in Venice", the third movie in the Agatha Christie/Hercule Poirot murder mystery series. The film is Directed by Kenneth Branagh, who also stars in it, along with Michelle Yeoh, Tina Fey, and Jamie Dornan.Also reviewed is latest movie in the "Conjuring" movie series, "Nun 2", starring Taissa Farmiga, Jonas Bouquet, and Storm Reid.Also, Paul reviews the sneak preview of "Dumb Money", the movie about Wall Street Bets and the Game Stop stock. This movie is directed by Craig Gillespie and stars Paul Dano, Seth Rogan, Pete Davidson, Vincent D'Onofrio, Nick Offerman, Anthony Ramos, and America Ferrara.And Lastly, Pete & Paul review Amazon's "A Million Miles Away", starring Michael Pena and Rosa Salazar.To listen on Apple Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/aaaction-podcast/id1634666134To listen on Spotify:https://open.spotify.com/show/1L78fn3C6RlKKdUihtiLyR?si=f31450db95724290Please make sure to like and subscribe to the Aaaction Podcast:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzJFoiUHvdbaHaiIfN37BaQ#aaactionpodcast #podcast #film #movie #moviereview #moviepodcast #newmovie #ahauntinginvenice #herculepoirot #agathachristie #kennethbranagh #murderontheorientexpress #nun #nun2 #horror #theconjuringuniverse #theconjuring #exorcist #exorcism #dumbmoney #wallstreetbets #gamestop #gamestopstock #robinhood #basedontruestory #amillionmilesaway #truestory #astronaut #migrantfarmer #amazon #amazonprime #amc #amctheatres #alist #amcpass 

Erik Childress and Steve Prokopy return to the review beat with eight new movies this week. They include a horror anthology (Satanic Hispanics), another coming-of-age werewolf love story (My Animal) and the film that reveals the truth about Augusto Pinochet being a vampire (El Conde). Michael Pena stars in the true story of a Mexican immigrant who dreamed of becoming an astronaut (A Million Miles Away) and Michael Jai White and the makers of Black Dynamite take on the western (Outlaw Johnny Black). The great Haley Lu Richardson finds love at the airport (Love At First Sight), a bunch of amateur stock traders game the system in a recent true story (Dumb Money) and Kenneth Branagh brings the latest in his Hercule Poirot Cinematic Universe (A Haunting In Venice). 0:00 - Intro 2:23 - Satanic Hispanics 8:29 - My Animal 19:53 - El Conde 26:07 - A Million Miles Away 40:56 - Outlaw Johnny Black 50:56 - Love At First Sight 1:06:19 - Dumb Money 1:21:51 – A Haunting In Venice 1:38:32 - Outro

We headed back out to Lake Tahoe at the American Century Golf Classic where our very own Steven St. John was with some special guests. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

E ainda, Idris Elba fala de "Hijack - Sequestro no Ar" e Pedro Andrade discute o futuro de "Jack Ryan" com Michael Pena.

Our friend is here.  That's right, folks, when friends are in town, they're in our hearts.  And when they're in our hearts, they're in our homes.  And when they're in our homes, we're making a podcast- friendship is nothing if not business first and foremost.  Our friend Evan Rollins comes to New York for the first time and sees, you guessed it, someone from New Jersey.  Something you should know about our friend group- celebrities don't impress us.  Vroom vroom beep beep- we're driving under the influence.  Max and Evan recall a time best remembered as "should have been forgotten." Utter confusion and panic as we try and come to terms with strange taste."Was it Michael Pena?"Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intheminivanFollow us on instagram: @intheminivanpodFollow us on twitter: @intheminivanFollow us on TikTok: @intheminivanpodcastWe're on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxCtwpkBssIljyG6tdJbWQGet in the Discord: https://discord.gg/YWgaD6xFN3Episode Playlist: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0A6cYBYrogcfHzlDCSHf1L?si=633cebdb995140f5THE MASTER PLAYLIST: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2saxemA3MOXcjIWdwHGwCZ?si=ee3444c085714c46Support the show

Episode 35 - Ant-Man Movie Review This week we are heading back to the world of Ant-Man, this time for a look at the 2015 movie that started it all for the Langs and Pyms of the MCU!  This Week In Comics Agatha Harkness Reunites With Scarlet Witch in Marvel's Contest of Chaos Event https://comicbook.com/comics/news/agatha-harkness-scarlet-witch-marvel-contest-of-chaos/ Unstoppable Doom Patrol Creative Team Previews New Leader, Team, and Purpose https://comicbook.com/comics/news/unstoppable-doom-patrol-creative-team-previews-new-leader-team-purpose/ The Ant-Man movies have been a big (and often bad) influence on the MCU https://www.polygon.com/23617440/ant-man-marvel-cinematic-universe-mcu Recommendation: Elfquest Humble Bundle https://www.humblebundle.com/books/elfquest-complete-dark-horse-collection-books Film Facts Tagline: Heroes don't get any bigger. Released: July 17, 2015 Runtime: 117 minutes Box Office: worldwide: $519,311,965  / domestic: $180,202,163 Budget: $130,000,000 IMDB Rating: 7.3/10  Stars: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Corey Stoll, Michael Pena, David Dastmalchian, Tip “T.I.” Harris and Michael Douglas Directed: Peyton Reed Screenplay: Edgar Wright, Joe Cornish, Adam McKay and Paul Rudd 2ish Minute Recap Discussion Topics Scott Lang's Ant-Man. The Same, but different Paul Rudd plays himself (or every other character he ever plays)  Hank Pym and Hope Van Dyne A Matter of Scale And Exhausting Final Act? Darren Cross The Quantum Realm Tidbits  From the comics  Face Off! Which Did it better? The Comics or the Movie What's Next Shazam #1 (1973) Shazam! Power of Hope (2000) Shazam! The Monster Society Of Evil (2007) Signoff Questions or comments We'd love to hear from you!  Email us at questions@comicsovertime.com or find us on Twitter @comicsoftime. ------------------ Music Intro and Outro created by Lesfm.

Welcome to Neo-Reality Collective | Pop-Culture News and Reviews Talk, Hosted by Eric Brown! In the Sixty-Second Episode, Microsoft and Xbox continue to face an upheaval battle for control of Activision-Blizzard. Many industry regulators cite their concerns regarding a potential monopoly and the fate of the hugely successful Call of Duty Franchise being a potential exclusive to the Xbox Platform. Details emerge regarding Ant-Man and The Wasp: Quantumania in regards to VFX and Michael Pena's Luis noticeable absence from the film, House of The Dragon gets their fans riled up with the potential release of 2024, skipping out of the 2023 season entirely…despite the fact this was known since the middle of the first season, so I don't know what the big problem is besides the dreaded pain of waiting. Amazon's New World is switching to a seasonal model, and free/premium battle passes as the MMORPG tries to find an audience. David Harbour, one of the main casts of Stranger Things, is ready for the series to end after the fifth season, while Jon Favreau reveals he has already completed the scripts for Season 4 before Season 3 premieres March 1st! Elon Musk continues butchering Twitter by restricting the 2-Factor Authentication system behind the Twitter blue paywall…what the hell?! The Marvels, following the continuing adventures of Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel, and Monica, releases a new poster and reveals a release date delay to November 2023, while Loki Season 2 and Secret Invasion are planned to be the only MCU Disney+ Content released this, now if only Star Wars D+ Shows did that, we wouldn't have to have Qui-Gon Jinn actor, Liam Neeson, make understandable points regarding the Star Wars influx of content in rapid succession. I Am Legend 2 will take place some decades after the events of the first film, more specifically, the original alternate ending where Will Smith's character lives, along with interesting perspectives regarding the events of the film. And finally, on the comic book side of things, Marvel announces THREE comic book events for the Summer of 2023, a Star Wars Comic Crossover event with a teased ‘First, it comes for the metal' tagline, while an official next summer blockbuster comic event set in the main Marvel Universe titled Contest of Chaos is made official with another surprising crossover 4-Issue Miniseries crossing over Marvel Earth-616, and the returning Earth-1610, famously known as The Ultimate Marvel Universe, with superstar writer and artist, Jonathan Hickman and Bryan Hitch in a crossover called Ultimate Invasion! And Lastly, DC Comics announces the worst-kept secret event comic for their Dawn of DC relaunch, Knight Terrors, written by Dark Crisis event writer Joshua Williamson and a slew of artists such as Howard Porter, Guillem March, and more. All this and more on Neo-Reality Collective! Brought to you by TheEveryDayFan, check out their links below! The EDF Links https://theeverydayfan.com https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCnEZoZqtklXhw95WkF2BY4g/ https://open.spotify.com/show/0EwipBBMm4jcL2GRyBwauu

This episode as the not so long awaited return of Marvel, kicks off Phase five with the little guy and sometimes massive guy. Ant-man and the Wasp: Quantumania is finally here, with our first proper look at Kang the Conquerer. So of course we are talking about a subject of films that connects quite nicely from an Ant-man film. Paul Ru.... no wait that not right. Ant films. Yes we are doing Ant films. Consider the barrel scraped.Warning we will be talking SPOILERSMartin's pick for this week is the first Marvel film about the little guy. On this one we talk about some of the reasons why Edgar Wright did not end up directing this film. We talk about the comedy genius that is Paul Rudds acting that frankly holds this film together. Plus we talk about the scene stealer, Michael Pena. IMDB page   FVF Social linkstwitterinstagramTikTokAs ever please enjoy.Support the show

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania directed by Peyton Reed and written by Jeff Loveness is finally here! Does the newest MCU movie live up to the hype? But first, Anthony tells us about his guest appearance on the podcast Matt Spectro Thru the Multiverse where he talked Kang and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes. Are we VIP podcast guests? Is this the worst Ant-Man movie? Does Cody care about Scott Lang's family? Does this movie feel like one long episode of Rick and Morty? Is Disney outsourcing their SFX artists? Did anyone actually like Cassie? Was the Quantum world and its inhabitants forgettable? Does Quantumania suffer from losing Scott's crew, especially Michael Pena? Does Disney practice what it preaches? Was Bill Murray's acting wasted in this movie? Why is Michael Douglas so cool? How does this movie compare to Avatar: The Way of Water? Did we like M.O.D.O.K. in this movie? Would we go down on Michelle Pfeiffer? What is the worst Marvel trilogy? Would the movie be better if it was more comic accurate? Why didn't Evangeline Lily have a lot of screentime? What was our favorite scene in the movie? Were Kang and Janet the best characters in this movie? Are we hype for James Gunn has in store for Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3? Did the guy sitting behind Anthony ruin his movie experience? Or was he just our subconscious nerd come to life? Has the MCU been declining? Are we excited for anymore Marvel movies? Does the future of the MCU look bright with Jonathan Majors and his Kang variants in the spotlight? Does Kang live up to the same hype as Thanos? Is this movie just setup for Kang? Plus what did we think of The Flash trailer? Does Anthony have any nostalgia for Michael Keaton Batman? Is Reverse Flash the villain of the movie? And who the hell is Jake's newest creation N.E.P.O.B.A.B.Y. ?! Check out our website: https://www.comicsandchronic.com/ New episodes every THURSDAY Follow us on social media! Instagram // Twitter // TikTok : @comicsnchronic YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UC45vP6pBHZk9rZi_2X3VkzQ E-mail: comicsnchronicpodcast@gmail.com Cody Twitter: @Cody_Cannon Instagram: @walaka_cannon TikTok: @codywalakacannon Jake Instagram: @jakefhaha Anthony Instagram // Twitter // TikTok : @mrtonynacho YouTube: youtube.com/nachocomedy

Mark and Mo Lightning (@molightning on Twitter) discuss the 2023 Marvel Cinematic Universe film Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Directed by Peyton Reed, and starring Paul Rudd, Jonathan Majors, Evangeline Lilly, Kathryn Newton and some ants, the movie kicks off the fifth phase of the MCU and also features Ant-Man throwing a nice front kick. In this episode, they also talk about Michael Pena, terrible ideas, and the excellence of Jonathan Majors.

Buzz Buzz True Believers! That buzz must mean it's time for Podcast 616 to whizz on through Ant-Man & The Wasp as we hurtle towards the release of QUANTUMANIA!!!   Join your host, Damon Royster, and his guest Ryan Asher and Jeff Murdoch (the Ant-Man & Wasp of the L.A. comedy scene respectively). Together they bravely ponder topics such as: - Is de-aging CGI helpful or creepy? - How much did you care about the villain Ghost? A little or not at all? - And a complete evisceration of Michael Douglas and Hank Gym   All that plus we teach Jeff that Michael Pena is an actor in the film Ant-Man & The Wasp and Eddie Pena is an improv teacher last seen in Chicago, IL. Shrink on over and fire up your Quantum Hallway this episode is FUN!   Listen. Subscribe. Pez!   Produced by: Michael Seijas

103. Ant-Man Retrospective: Part IIPodcast-616 looks back at Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018) as well as Scott Lang's appearance in Avengers: Endgame (2019) with special guest Kelechi Ehenulo, film critic and podcaster.HostsHugh McStay & Ashley ThomasGuestKelechi EhenuloEditorAshley ThomasExecutive ProducerTony BlackAshley Wijangco's coverage of Look Out For the Little Guy on Fangirlish.com. https://fangirlish.com/2023/02/07/heres-why-were-excited-for-scott-langs-memoir/ – Follow HUGH MCSTAY on Twitter @angryscotsman81– Follow ASHLEY THOMAS on Twitter @TheNerdyBlogger– Follow KELECHI EHENULO on Twitter @kehenulo, on Instagram @specialkwritesJoin our Facebook group, Community-616:https://www.facebook.com/groups/community616Follow or Twitter:https://www.twitter.com/podcast616We Made This on socials:Website: https://www.wemadethisnetwork.comTwitter: https://www.twitter.com/we_madethisFacebook: We Made ThisTitle music: A New Era Unfolding (c) Sinfonietta Cinematica via epidemicsound.com

Welcome back film fans to the best movie podcast about big movie bombs! As 2022 comes to an end, so does our lookback on some of the biggest bombs of this year. For our final episode, the podcast travels to stupid city for the science fiction disaster film - Moonfall. If we are destroying the Earth in some silly manner, it's gotta be a Roland Emmerich film! How silly is this latest entry from the master of disaster? The Moon, which is a mega-structure built by aliens, is crashing into the Earth because another set of aliens doesn't like us. Yep, the moon is not made out of cheese but is in fact an alien summer home or something. The guys need some assistance with this one, so they welcome Cam from the Jacked Up Review Show. Does Moonfall earn a seat in the “B-Movie Hall of Fame” or is it too stupid for its own good? And how much science was actually used behind the scenes, if any? Listen and found it!Timestamps: Intro - (1:07), 5 Burning Questions - (4:28), Box Office Results and Critical Response - (11:10), Behind the Camera - (19:23), In Front of the Camera - (27:22), Science! - (37:10), Commerical Break - (52:11), Moonfall Discussion - (54:40), Is it a Bomb? - (98:32), Outro - (111:58)Moonfall is directed by Roland Emmerick and stars Halle Berry, Patrick Wilson, John Bradley, Michael Pena, Charlie Plummer, Kelly Yu and Donald Sutherland.If you want to leave feedback or suggest a movie bomb, please drop us a line at NotABombPod@gmail.com. Also, if you like what you hear, leave a review on Apple Podcast.Make sure to check out the Jacked Up Review Show and be sure to leave them a review!Cast: Brad, Troy, Cam

The No-Name Cinema Society is proud to celebrate Veterans Day 2022 with their second ever full-length feature commentary. Max, Zach and JB go through the whole film that made TWO of the lists of our top ten films of the decade, including JB's #1. Fury - from director David Ayer - was released in 2014. The film stars Brad Pitt, Shia LeBeouf, Michael Pena, Jon Bernthal and Logan Lerman. Make sure to sync up our commentary with the film itself. There is a timecode along with the commentary to keep you in sync.

In our review of Secret Headquarters on Paramount+, find out whether Katie's superhero fatigue extends beyond the MCU to Owen Wilson's new family flick. We lament the underuse of Michael Pena and finally reintroduce John Cho into our imaginary reboot casting. In Screen Time in the News, we address the disappearance of animated titles from HBOMax. RIP Esme and Roy.

This week the crew breakdown the 2017 classic, CHIPS, starring Dax Sheppard, Michael Pena, Vincent D'Onofrio, and Rosa Salazar. Junior expresses his love for this movie and how it is an Action Comedy. Andi points out how many times she laughed at this movie. Plus Jesse gets into why he hates the character Ponch.    Where to find the crew: @MAKEITACOMBO on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok Jesse @LordLenix on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok Junior @a.jr.combo on Instagram and @ajrcombo on Twitter Andi @am.i.a.slut_podcast on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok   All Our Podcasts on Make it a Combo Productions: Am I a Slut @am.i.a.slut_podcast on Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok The Minorities Report @minoritiesreportpodcast on Instagram and @minoritiesreport on TikTok    

Welcome to You Haven't Blanked That! This week we watched Million Dollar Baby. We talk about Old Man Yelling at Cloud, Who's the Main Character?, Cormac McCarthy, No Country For Old Men, Breakfast at Tiffany's westernized, The Best Damn Cut Man there ever was, Mostly accurate boxing talk, Dillard, Foxy Boxing, Anthony Mackey and Michael Pena, Crash, the Mule, The Devil's Threeway, the Devil's Inch, Cry Macho, Porn Parodies, Batman 66 porn parody, Hillary Swank, Shitty Family, Euthanasia or Murder, Who would Corey Feldman play?,  Sneaking a knife in to Universal Studios. What Are You Blanking? I Love Lucy, Eleanor Oliphant, She-Hulk, Age of Cage, Audible Words and Music,  Opening theme by the Assassins Closing theme by Lucas Perea  Email: Yhblankthat@gmail.com  Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/youhaventblankedthat/ Instagram: (@yhblankthat)   https://www.amazon.com/You-Havent-Blanked-That/dp/B08JJS7RSK  https://anchor.fm/blanked-that --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/blanked-that/message

An Apatow-ish knockoff of the movie "Her," "Jexi" isn't a bad movie. It's got some genuine laugh out loud highlights. But it is still very much a standard formulaic comedy. Still, I don't know if that outweighs the hilarity that Michael Pena adds to this Adam Devine comedy co-starring Alexandra Shipp.

www.patreon.com/accidentaldads for bonus content and to support the show AND The Save The Music Foundation!   Top police stings   A sting operation is a deceitful operation used by law enforcement to apprehend criminals in the act of trying to commit a crime. In order to obtain proof of a suspect's misconduct, a typical sting involves an undercover law enforcement officer, investigator, or cooperative member of the public acting as a criminal partner or prospective victim and cooperating with a suspect's activities. Journalists for the mass media occasionally use sting operations to film and disseminate footage of illegal conduct.   Sting procedures are prevalent in many nations, including the United States, but are prohibited in others, like Sweden and France. Certain sting operations are prohibited, such as those carried out in the Philippines where it is against the law for police enforcement to act as drug traffickers in order to catch purchasers of illegal substances.   Examples   Offering free sports or airline tickets to lure fugitives out of hiding. Deploying a bait car (also called a honey trap) to catch a car thief Setting up a seemingly vulnerable honeypot computer to lure and gain information about hackers Arranging for someone under the legal drinking age to ask an adult to buy an alcoholic beverage or tobacco products for them Passing off weapons or explosives (whether fake or real), to a would-be terrorist Posing as: someone who is seeking illegal drugs, contraband, or child pornography, to catch a supplier (or as a supplier to catch a customer) a child in a chat room to identify a potential online child predator a potential customer of illegal prostitution, or as a prostitute to catch a would-be customer a hitman to catch customers and solicitors of murder-for-hire; or as a customer to catch a hitman a spectator of an illegal dogfighting ring a documentary film crew to lure a pirate to the country where a crime was committed.   Whether sting operations constitute entrapment raises ethical questions. Law enforcement might have to be careful not to incite someone who wouldn't have otherwise committed a crime to do so. Additionally, while conducting such operations, the police frequently commit the same crimes, like purchasing or selling narcotics, enticing prostitutes, etc. The defendant may raise the entrapment defense in common law jurisdictions.   Contrary to common belief, however, laws against entrapment do not forbid undercover police personnel from pretending to be criminals or deny that they are police officers. Entrapment is normally only a defense when suspects are coerced into confessing to a crime they probably would not have otherwise committed. However, the legal meaning of this coercion differs widely from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Entrapment might be used as a defense, for instance, if undercover agents forced a possible suspect to manufacture illicit narcotics in order to sell them. Entrapment has often not taken place if a suspect is already producing narcotics and authorities pretend as purchasers to apprehend them.   Operation Entebbe The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) commandos successfully carried out Operation Entebbe or Operation Thunderbolt, a counterterrorism hostage-rescue mission, at Entebbe Airport in Uganda on July 4, 1976. A week earlier, on June 27, two members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - External Operations (PFLP-EO) (who had previously split from the PFLP of George Habash) and two members of the German Revolutionary Cells hijacked an Air France Airbus A300 jet airliner carrying 248 passengers. The declared goal of the hijackers was to trade the hostages for the release of 13 detainees in four other countries and the release of 40 Palestinian terrorists and related prisoners who were detained in Israel. The flight, which had left Tel Aviv for Paris, was rerouted after a stopover in Athens through Benghazi to Entebbe, the country of Uganda's principal airport. The ruler Idi Amin, who had been made aware of the hijacking from the start[10], encouraged the hijackers and personally greeted them. The hijackers confined all Israelis and a few non-Israeli Jews into a separate room after transferring all captives from the plane to a deserted airport facility.  148 captives who were not Israelis were freed and taken to Paris over the course of the next two days. Ninety-four passengers—mostly Israelis—and the 12-person Air France crew were held captive and threatened with execution.  Based on information from the Israeli intelligence service Mossad, the IDF took action. If the demands for the release of the prisoners were not granted, the hijackers threatened to murder the hostages. The preparation of the rescue effort was prompted by this threat. These strategies included getting ready for armed opposition from the Uganda Army. It was a nighttime operation. For the rescue mission, Israeli transport planes flew 100 commandos to Uganda over a distance of 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles). The operation took 90 minutes to complete after a week of planning. Out of the 106 captives still held, 102 were freed, and three were murdered. In a hospital, the second captive was later slain. Lt. Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, the unit leader, was one of the five injured Israeli commandos. Netanyahu was Benjamin Netanyahu's elder sibling and the future Israeli prime minister. Eleven Soviet-built MiG-17s and MiG-21s of the Ugandan air force were destroyed, and all five hijackers and forty-five Ugandan troops were killed. Idi Amin gave the command to attack and kill Kenyans living in Uganda after the operation because Kenyan sources supported Israel. 245 Kenyans in Uganda were killed as a consequence, and 3,000 left the nation. In honor of Yonatan Netanyahu, the commander of the force, Operation Entebbe, which had the military codename Operation Thunderbolt, is occasionally referred to retroactively as Operation Jonathan.   Operation Valkyrie Senior Nazi military officers and Adolf Hitler convened in the Wolf's Lair in Rastenburg, Eastern Prussia, on July 20, 1944. Hitler's body was discovered scattered across the table as the Nazi military chiefs sat down to plan troop deployments on the Eastern Front when an explosion burst through the steamy meeting room. With the Führer's death, the Nazi threat to Europe could have been lifted. or so it seems at first.   Claus von Stauffenberg and his accomplices believed they had turned the course of World War II and maybe saved thousands of extra lives for a brief period of time in history. The July Plot, also known as Operation Valkyrie, was the most famous attempt to have Hitler killed, although it was ultimately unsuccessful for a variety of reasons, some of which are still unknown to this day. The July Plot Is Hatched Many Germans, including some of the country's top military figures, had begun to lose faith in Germany's ability to win the war by the summer of 1944. Hitler was widely held responsible for ruining Germany. The Wolfsschanze was one of Hitler's military headquarters. A number of prominent politicians and senior military figures devised a plan to murder the Führer by detonating a bomb at a conference there in order to spark political unification and a coup. Operation Valkyrie was the name of the strategy. The plan was that after Hitler's death, the military would assert that the murder was the result of a Nazi Party coup attempt, and the Reserve Army would take significant buildings in Berlin and detain senior Nazi figures. Carl Friedrich Goerdeler would become Germany's new chancellor, and Ludwig Beck would become its first president. The new administration wanted to negotiate a peaceful conclusion to the war, ideally with benefits for Germany. The main conspirators' motives varied, according to Philipp Freiherr Von Boeselager, one of the last remaining participants in the July Plot. Many of them only saw it as a means of avoiding military defeat, while others hoped to at least partially restore some of the nation's morals. They chose Claus von Stauffenberg, a young colonel in the German army, to carry out the assassination. Despite not being a member of the Nazi party in the traditional sense, Stauffenberg was a devoted German patriot. In the end, he came to think that if Germany was to be saved, it was his patriotic duty to expel Adolf Hitler. Hitler, though, had experienced assassination attempts before. Assassination attempts against Hitler had been more frequent since his spectacular ascent to the top of Germany's political scene in the late 1930s. Hitler, who was becoming more and more paranoid, frequently altered his plans without warning and at the last minute. What Went Wrong Stauffenberg entered the bunker at Wolfsschanze on July 20, 1944. The conference was planned to take place in a concrete, windowless subterranean bunker that was closed off by a large steel door. By making sure it happened within one of these facilities, the detonation would be confined and anyone nearby the explosive device would die quickly from the shrapnel. The conference was moved to an above-ground wooden bunker with better air circulation on July 20 due to the oppressively hot weather, according to Pierre Galante's Operation Valkyrie: The German Generals' Plot Against Hitler. Numerous windows, a wooden table, and other beautiful furniture were all present in the area, which meant that the potential explosion would be much diminished since the energy of the blast would be absorbed and diffused. Stauffenberg was aware that this was the case, but he nonetheless proceeded, assuming that two explosives would be sufficient to destroy the room and kill everyone within. Stauffenberg excused himself when he arrived, saying that he needed to change his clothing, and went to a private room. The two explosives needed to be armed and primed. However, he only had time to arm one of the two devices due to an unexpected phone call and a quick knock at his door. Thus, the possibility of a greater blast was cut in half. Stauffenberg realized that in order to cause any kind of harm, the explosive device needed to be placed as near to Hitler as possible. He was able to get a seat as near to Hitler as possible with only one other person between them by claiming that his hearing was impaired due to his wounds. Placing the bag as near to Hitler as possible, Stauffenberg then left the room pretending to take a personal call. The briefcase was accidentally shifted to the opposite side of a large wooden leg that was supporting the meeting room table as another official was taking a seat. The Aftermath Panic broke out after the device exploded at precisely 12:42 pm. Twenty individuals were hurt, including three cops who subsequently died from their injuries, and a stenographer was instantaneously murdered. Stauffenberg and his assistant Werner von Haeften leapt into a staff car and bluffed their way past three different military checkpoints to flee the mayhem at the Wolfsschanze complex because they believed that Hitler was indeed dead. Hitler, however, along with everyone else who was protected by the large wooden table leg, only suffered a few minor cuts and an eardrum perforation. He had fully torn-up pants, and the Nazi leadership would subsequently utilize pictures of them in a propaganda effort. Ian Kershaw, a historian, claims that during the explosion, contradictory news concerning Hitler's fate came. In spite of the disarray, the Reserve Army started detaining senior Nazi officials in Berlin. The entire scheme, however, was eventually thwarted by delays, unclear communication, and the announcement that Hitler was still alive. The conspirators were all given the death penalty in a hastily called court martial the same evening by General Friedrich Fromm. In the courtyard of the Bendlerblock, a makeshift firing squad murdered Stauffenberg, von Haeften, Olbricht, and another officer, Albrecht Mertz von Quirnheim, while Ludwig Beck committed himself. At Berlin's Plötzensee jail, Berthold Stauffenberg was gently strangled while the incident was being recorded for Hitler to see. Hitler's life was ultimately saved that day by a number of interrelated reasons, but the conspirators were right that Germany was headed for disaster. Less than a year later, the Nazi leader and his closest advisers committed suicide. Operation Iceman Ever wonder what its like working undercover with an alleged murderer? Well, let's just say it's not hard to get a stuffy nose around this case… In fact, serial killer Richard Kuklinski's preferred method of murder involved using a nasal spray bottle to spritz cyanide into the faces of his victims. As a result, undercover agent Dominick Polifrone was never more on guard than during the 18 months he spent building a case against the so-called Iceman. “No matter where I went with him, I wore this leather jacket with a pocket sewn inside containing a small-caliber weapon,” recalls Polifrone, who gained his target's confidence and taped dozens of their conversations. “I knew that I was somewhere on his hit list. If he'd pulled out that nasal spray, I'd have to protect myself.” The streetwise New Jersey officer acquired enough proof before Kuklinski had suspicions, preventing that situation from occurring. Finally, the enormous 6-foot-4 gangland killer was apprehended thanks to his evidence. “I've met hundreds of bad guys, but Kuklinski was a totally different type of individual,” he tells The Post. “He was coldhearted — ice-cold like the devil. He had no remorse about anything.”  Kuklinski was captured by Polifrone in a combined operation between the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the office of the New Jersey attorney general. The criminal, who was a leading suspect in the murder of a mobster whose body was found two years after his disappearance, was posing as a respectable businessman residing in suburban Dumont, New Jersey. The reason the medical examiners discovered ice in the muscle tissue was because Kuklinski, who earned his notoriety for frequently freezing the bodies of his victims and then defrosting them, erred that time. Police made an indirect connection between the deceased man and Kuklinski, who was charged with a number of previous homicides.  “We had to get something nobody knew,” recalls Polifrone. The sting only appears briefly on screen in the film. In order to gain Kuklinski's trust, Polifrone, a resident of Hackensack, New Jersey, pretended to be a "bad person" for a whole year and a half. They met in parks and rest areas along highways and discussed the horrific killings Kuklinski had carried out, including a Mafia hit in Detroit for which he was paid $65,000. Additionally, there were "statement killings." To put a dead canary in the mouth of a victim as a warning to other victims, one mafia leader paid him extra. Another occasion, Kuklinski made light of the fact that he saw a gang member consume an entire cheeseburger laced with cyanide before passing away while joking with Polifrone. Recalls the cop: “He told me that cyanide normally works real quick and easy, but that ‘this guy has the constitution of a God damn ox, and is just eating and eating.  “He said he almost ate the whole burger and then, bam, he's down!” Polifrone knew exactly how to play his role. “I laughed, of course,” he shrugs. “That's what bad guys do.”  Paradoxically, Kuklinski was a committed family man. He led a Jekyll-and-Hyde existence.  “He never socialized, gambled or messed around with other women,” adds Polifrone. “He lived for his wife and kids.” One minute he'd be repairing his daughters' toys, the next, dismembering a body with a chain saw and stuffing it into an oil drum. “He would come home and completely shut off this murderous component and seek security and love from his family,” says “Iceman” director Vromen. “He fulfilled the need to provide for them by killing.” Polifrone finally nailed Kuklinski after tricking him into buying what he thought was pure cyanide. A team of feds and ATF officers arrested him in December 1986. Twenty-eight years later, he reflects on the man who died, apparently of natural causes, in Trenton Prison in 2006 at age 70. Eyebrows were raised because he was due to appear as a witness at the trial of a Gambino family underboss. “I hope he died a slow death because of what he did to families and individuals,” concludes Polifrone. “He had no mercy. And if it was foul play, that's OK with me.” So let's talk about some controversial sting operations you may or may not have heard of.   ACORN Sting   Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now is known as ACORN. ACORN was a group of neighborhood-based organizations in the US that supported low- and middle-income families. They also offered details on affordable housing and voter registration. James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, two young conservative activists, published recordings that had been edited with care in 2009. The two pretended to be a pimp and a prostitute before using a hidden camera to get unflattering answers from ACORN workers that seemed to give them advice on how to hide their prostitution business and avoid paying taxes.The plea for assistance in obtaining funding for a brothel didn't appear to deter the ACORN employees either. This sparked a national debate and led to a reduction in financing from public and private sources. ACORN declared on March 22, 2010, that it was disbanding and shutting all of its connected state chapters as a result of declining funding. Interesting fact: On January 25, 2010, James O'Keefe and three other people were detained on felony charges for allegedly tampering with the phones at Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu's office in New Orleans. O'Keefe stated that he was looking into claims that Landrieu's staff had dismissed constituent phone calls over the health care issue. O'Keefe recorded the action as they pretended to be telephone repairmen.In the end, they were accused with breaking into a government building under false pretenses, a misdemeanor. Following his admission of guilt, O'Keefe received a three-year probationary period, 100 hours of community service, and a $1,500 fine.   Operation West End The largest undercover news story in Indian journalism has been described like this. In order to expose the alleged culture of bribery inside the Indian Ministry of Defense, a well-known newspaper from India by the name of Tehelka—which translates as "sensation" in Hindi—started its first significant undercover operation, "Operation West End" in 2001. Two reporters from the publication pretended to be London-based armaments dealers from a fake firm. In the undercover film, numerous politicians and defense officials are shown discussing and accepting bribes in exchange for assisting them in obtaining government contracts, including Bangaru Laxman, secretary of the ruling BJP party. Laxman and Military Minister George Fernandes (shown above) resigned following the release of the tapes, and a number of other defense ministry employees were placed on administrative leave.   Interesting Fact: Instead of initially acting on the evidence from the sting operation, the Indian government accused the newspaper of fabricating the allegations. The main financial backers of Tehelka were made targets of investigations, and the newspaper company was almost ruined. In 2003, Tehelka was re-launched as a weekly newspaper, and was funded by faithful subscribers and other well-wishers. In 2007, Tehelka shifted to a regular magazine format.   Senator Larry Craig On June 11, 2007, an undercover police officer conducting a sting operation targeting males cruising for sex at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport detained Idaho Senator Larry Craig. Sgt. Dave Karsnia, the arresting officer, claimed that just after noon, the suspect entered a restroom and shut the door. Craig then moved into the stall next to him and propped his suitcase up against the stall door's front. By obscuring the front view, this is frequently done in an effort to hide sexual activity. Several minutes later, the officer claimed to have noticed Craig looking into his stall through a gap, tapping his right foot repeatedly, then moving it till it brushed Karsnia's. Craig then passed his hand under the stall divider into Karsnia's stall with his palm up and guided it along the divider toward the front of the stall three times. Karsnia then waved his badge back, to which the senator responded, “No!” The senator pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct and paid a fine, but changed his mind after word of his arrest later became public. Craig claimed he just had a “wide stance”, and he only pleaded guilty to avoid a spectacle.An appeals court rejected his request to change his mind about entering a guilty plea. Craig completed his time in the Senate but was unable to have his case dismissed by the Senate Ethics Committee. Craig departed office on January 3, 2009, having not to run for reelection in 2008. Fascinating Fact: Soon after Craig was arrested, the men's room started to resemble a tourist destination, with people coming to seek directions and take photographs. Even restroom tissue may be purchased on eBay. Listen to the conversation between Senator Craig and Sgt. Karsnia immediately following the arrest here.   7 Sarah Ferguson was victimized by Mazher Mahmood, a reporter for the tabloid daily "News of the World," in May 2010. In order to set up a meeting with Ferguson, Mahmood pretended to be a wealthy international businessman. The Duchess, who was discreetly recorded throughout the encounter, offered to connect the "tycoon" with Prince Andrew's influential inner circle. "500,000 pounds when you can, to me, open doors," Sarah Ferguson is heard saying on the video. She may also be seen removing a briefcase that is holding $40,000 in cash. After the event was reported, Ferguson's spokesman claimed she was both "devastated" and "regretful." She said that she had been drinking before asking for the money and was "in the gutter at that point" in an interview with Oprah Winfrey. Mazher Mahmood, the guy who pretended to be the tycoon, is referred to as the "Fake Sheikh" and has conned several famous people. No one is certain if that is his true name or what his real history is since he likes to make things as mysterious as possible. The journalist denies ever allowing his face to appear in any of his pieces and claims to have received several death threats. He also avoids public appearances.   Bait Cars The Minneapolis Police Department employed the first bait cars in the 1990s. The largest bait car fleet in North America is now situated in Surrey, British Columbia, which is widely regarded as the continent's "auto theft capital." The cars are carefully modified, equipped with GPS tracking equipment, audio/video surveillance, and an engine-disabling remote control. It has helped to lower car theft by 47% when it was introduced in Surrey, British Columbia, in 2004. In one of the more contentious bait vehicle stings, a lady was murdered nearly instantaneously after a robber driving a bait car drove into her in Dallas, Texas, in 2008. To resolve the litigation, $245,000 was given to the victim's family. Fact: The key to determining whether police are utilizing a bait car improperly and would result in entrapment is if they left it in a way that would tempt someone who would not ordinarily commit a crime. Here, you can view one of the more eye-catching (to put it mildly) bait vehicle stings. Many others will undoubtedly have the same thoughts as I had. “Where the heck was the kill switch?”   Marion Barry A well-known politician and former mayor of Washington, D.C., Marion Barry. Police were going to conduct an undercover narcotics transaction with former Virgin Islands official Charles Lewis on December 22, 1988, but they were turned back when they discovered Mayor Marion Barry was in Lewis's hotel room. This prompted a grand jury inquiry into potential mayor meddling in the narcotics probe. Barry testified for three hours in front of the grand jury before telling reporters he had done nothing wrong. Then, on January 18, 1990, Barry was arrested in a Washington, D.C. hotel after using crack cocaine in a room with his former girlfriend, who had turned informant for the FBI. This was the result of a sting operation put up by the FBI and D.C. Police. Barry said the now-famous phrase, "Bitch set me up," which has come to be linked with him. Following his arrest and subsequent trial, Barry made the decision not to run for mayor again. He was charged with 14 charges by a grand jury, including suspected grand jury perjury. The mayor could have spent 26 years in prison if found guilty on all 14 counts. Barry was only given a six-month prison term after the jury found him guilty of using cocaine. Barry campaigned for municipal council after being let out of prison. He garnered 70% of the vote due to his widespread popularity and the perception held by many that Marion Barry was the target of a political witch hunt by the government. Then, in 1995, Barry won a fourth term as mayor of Washington, D.C. Barry is currently back in his position on the D.C. city council. Regardless of your opinion on Marion Barry, you have to respect his perseverance and drive to help the people of Washington, D.C. The aforementioned occurrence is only a small portion of his remarkable life. A documentary titled "The Nine Lives of Marion Barry" was produced by HBO.    Joran Van der Sloot Dutch national Joran Van der Sloot is a key suspect in the case of Natalee Holloway, who vanished on May 30, 2005, while traveling to Aruba to celebrate her high school graduation. On March 29, 2010, Van der Sloot got in touch with Beth Twitty Holloway's mother's attorney John Q. Kelly, reviving the case. Van der Sloot promised to provide details about Holloway's demise and the whereabouts of her remains in exchange for a total of $250,000 with a $25,000 down payment. After Kelly and Twitty made contact with Alabama law enforcement, the FBI launched a sting operation. On May 10, Van der Sloot accepted a wire transfer of $15,000 to his Dutch bank account along with an additional cash payment of $10,000. He drove Kelly to the location of Holloway's remains in exchange for the cash. He indicated a home, saying that his father had assisted in burying the body in the foundation. The home had not yet been constructed when Holloway vanished, therefore this turned out to be untrue. Later, Van der Sloot informed Kelly through email that the entire incident was a fraud. At this point, police might have detained Van der Sloot for wire fraud and extortion, but they chose to wait while they worked to establish a case of murder against him. Van der Sloot was not only let free, he was also given permission to depart Aruba and travel to Bogotá, Colombia, and then Lima, Peru, with the money he had made from the operation. He met Stephany Flores Ramirez, a 21-year-old University of Lima business student, in a casino hotel in the city. Ramirez and Van der Sloot are seen entering a hotel room together on security footage, but only Van der Sloot is seen exiting. On June 2, Ramirez was discovered dead in the hotel room that Van der Sloot had booked, her neck broken and she had been battered to death. On May 30, 2010, precisely five years after Natalee Holloway vanished, Ramirez passed away. A person arrested Van der Sloot He admitted to the murder on June 3 and June 7. Fascinating fact: Van der Sloot is presently detained at Peru's Miguel Castro jail, where murder charges have been brought. He apparently now claims that if he is permitted to move to a jail in Aruba, he would tell the whereabouts of Natalee Holloway's remains.   Perverted Justice Stings Perverted-Justice is a group that uses volunteers to masquerade as juveniles online, often between the ages of 10-15, and wait for an adult to message or email the decoy back. If the topic becomes sexual, they won't actively reject it or support it. Then, in order to set up a meeting, they will attempt to identify the males by acquiring their phone numbers and other information. The group then provides law enforcement with the information. Additionally, Perverted-Justice has worked with the American reality show "To Catch a Predator." In Murphy, Texas, one of the more contentious instances took place in 2006. Louis Conradt (seen above), a district attorney in Texas, pretended to be a 19-year-old college student and had sexually explicit internet conversations with a person he thought was a 13-year-old kid. They hired an actress to portray the youngster on the phone when Conradt demanded images of the boy's genitalia. Conradt stopped returning phone calls and instant messages, so police and the reality program decided to conduct a search warrant operation at his residence. A gunshot was heard as the police entered the scene to make an arrest. Conradt was inside with a self-inflicted wound when they arrived, and he eventually passed away at a hospital. 23 people were taken into custody for online solicitation of minors as a consequence of the sting operation in Murphy, Texas. Due to inadequate evidence, none of the 23 instances were prosecuted as of June 2007. Conradt's family launched a $105 million lawsuit against Dateline's To Catch a Predator series. The dispute was ultimately resolved outside of court. All next episodes' development was halted by the network in 2008. Rachel Hoffman On February 22, 2007, a traffic stop in Tallahassee, Florida, resulted in Rachel Hoffman being found in possession of 25 grams of marijuana. Then, on April 17, 2008, police searched her flat and found 4 ecstasy tablets and 151.7 grams of marijuana. Police allegedly threatened to put her in jail unless she worked as an undercover informant for them, according to her account. She was then dispatched untrained to an undercover gathering to purchase a weapon and a significant quantity of narcotics from two alleged drug traffickers. The suspects relocated the drug purchase while she was there. When she departed the buy place in the car with the two suspects, the police officers who were keeping an eye on the sting lost sight of her. The identical gun she was intended to purchase was used to kill her by the two suspects while they were in motion. Two days later, her corpse was discovered close to Perry, Florida. One of the murder suspects was convicted of first-degree murder and given a life sentence without the possibility of parole on December 17, 2009, which would have been Rachel Hoffman's 25th birthday. Trial for the second murder suspect is set for October 2010. Interesting Fact: On May 7, 2009, a law called “Rachel's Law” was passed by the Florida State Senate. Rachel's Law requires law enforcement agencies to (a) provide special training for officers who recruit confidential informants, (b) instruct informants that reduced sentences may not be provided in exchange for their work, and (c) permit informants to request a lawyer if they want one.    Mr. Big The Royal Canadian Mounted Police created Mr. Big, sometimes known as "the Canadian method," in the early 1990s in response to unsolved killings. It is employed in Canada and Australia, but many other nations, like the United States and England, view it as entrapment. The technique works something like this: An undercover police unit poses as members of a fictitious gang, into which the suspect is inducted. The suspect is invited to participate in a series of criminal activities (all faked by the police). In addition, the “gang members” build a personal relationship with the suspect, by drinking together and other social activities. After some time, the gang boss, Mr. Big, is presented to him. The police have a fresh interest in the first crime, and the suspect is instructed to provide the gang with further information. They clarify that Mr. Big might be able to affect the course of the police investigation, but only if he confesses to the full extent of the crime. He is also warned that if he conceals any other previous offenses, the gang could decide against working with him in the future since he would be a burden. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police are shown in the picture above carrying the hats of the four officers who were killed in Edmonton, Canada, in 2005 at a memorial service. Two of the men serving prison sentences for the murders made confessions to Mr. Big operatives.Interesting Fact: In British Columbia, the technique has been used over 180 times, and, in 80% of the cases, it resulted in either a confession or the elimination of the suspect from suspicion. However, cases of false confessions and wrongful convictions have recently come to the public's attention, and many are starting to question the controversial technique. In 2007, a documentary was made, called Mr. Big, that was very critical of the procedure.   You can't talk about undercover operations without talking about the mob. Here are five badasses who infiltrated the mob.   In law enforcement, working as an undercover officer carries the high risk of discovery by criminal suspects, leading to violence, torture and death. But the rewards can be huge, with wire recordings and eyewitness testimony that can result in arrests and convictions. A trained officer knows how to strategize, win the confidence of their targets and get them to reveal what's needed to build a case to take to trial. It requires an unusual kind of person, able to work under stress, stay focused, pull off the character he or she is playing and be prepared to tell many lies. What follows here is a list of five remarkable individuals whose undercover operations, despite real dangers, resulted in the convictions of leaders and associates of organized crime, over almost a century. This list leaves out many other famous undercover officers, whom we would like to recognize in the future. Perhaps because of the gravity of the investigations, and the financial resources required, all of these undercover officers worked for agencies of the U.S. government. MICHAEL MALONE Mike Malone worked undercover for the Treasury Department's Intelligence Unit. In the late 1920s, he infiltrated Al Capone's Chicago Outfit and helped convict the crime boss of tax evasion. Michael Malone had all the makings of an undercover agent who would successfully infiltrate Al Capone's Chicago gang for nearly two years. Malone, whose parents came over from Ireland, grew up in New Jersey and meshed well with its European immigrants, eventually learning to speak Gaelic, Italian, Yiddish and Greek. With his “black Irish” dark hair and skin, he resembled someone from southern Europe. After finessing his way into Capone's inner circle in 1929, Malone proved invaluable to his superiors in the Treasury Department pursuing a tax evasion case against the Chicago crime boss. Despite the danger, Malone kept an iron will. Blowing his cover would have proved fatal. But given his skills, it didn't happen. While Malone kept up the charade, he delivered information that proved incriminating not only for Capone, but for his top enforcer, Frank Nitti (aka Nitto). Malone remained disguised within Capone's bootlegging band even for a time after the feds filed tax charges against Capone, Nitti and Capone's brother, Ralph, in 1931. When Capone's jury trial commenced, and the Treasury Department removed Malone from his undercover job, the agent gained a bit of respect from the embarrassed gang chief himself. In the Chicago courthouse, Malone happened to enter an elevator where Capone stood with his defense lawyers. “The only thing that fooled me was your looks,” Capone is said as to have remarked to Malone. “You look like a Wop. You took your chances, and I took mine. I lost.” From 1929 to 1931, Malone fed intelligence about Capone that would culminate in the historic conviction of the nation's most notorious Mob boss. His fascinating story began after his service in World War I. With law enforcement his career goal, Malone joined the Treasury Department's Intelligence Unit later known as the “T-Men.” Early on, in the 1920s, Malone appreciated how donning disguises brought him closer to the suspects. He posed in everyman roles such as garbage man and shoe shiner. Elmer Irey, chief of the Intelligence Unit, had worked with undercover agent Malone on Prohibition cases. Once, Irey enlisted Malone to smash a West Coast version of “Rum Row,” rumrunners selling contraband Canadian liquor from ships off the coast of San Francisco. Malone posed as gangster from Chicago in hiding, with money to invest in illegal booze. He devised a nighttime sting operation. Agents posing as bootleggers drove speedboats out to the booze-laden mother ship and, after money changed hands, Malone fired off a flare, signaling the U.S. Coast Guard, which boarded the mother ship and arrested the astonished bootleggers. President Herbert Hoover entered office in March 1929, a few weeks following the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in Chicago, where seven men associated with Capone's bitter rival in bootlegging, George “Bugs” Moran, died in gunfire. Hoover conferred with Irey and urged him to compile a team of special agents to “get Capone” on tax charges. Meanwhile, another team of Prohibition Unit agents in Chicago, headed by Eliot Ness, would attack Capone on violations of federal liquor laws under the Volstead Act. Irey appointed Special Agent Frank Wilson, Malone and several others to the get Capone team. Meanwhile, a group of wealthy business executives in Chicago, called the Secret Six, donated large sums of money for expenses to assist the feds in getting Capone. Malone used their largess to purchase some expensive clothing to look the part of a well-heeled hoodlum that Capone would envy. Malone set about infiltrating Capone's underworld at its core – the Lexington Hotel, where the boss and his men lived. Wearing a fancy suit, purple shirt and white hat, Malone sat in the lobby, reading newspapers for days on end. He spoke in an Italian accent, introduced himself as “Mike Lepito,” met Capone men playing craps and played the part of a mobster. He mailed letters to friends in Philadelphia, who wrote back. Capone's guys broke into his room, noted his pricey checkered suits and silk underwear. They opened his mail from Philadelphia, read the letters written, impressively, in underworld lingo they understood. They informed Capone. Finally, Capone sent a cohort down to the lobby to ask “Lepito” about his business in town. “Keeping quiet,” Malone replied in his Italian inflection. In the coming days, over drinks, Malone told the guy he was on the lam for burglary in Philadelphia. That got Malone invitations to play poker and trade gossip with the gang, then dinner at their hangout, the New Florence, and then to attend the birthday party Capone planned for Frank Nitti at the Lexington. Malone met Capone at Nitti's party. The secret agent's new acquaintances included big-shot hoods Nitti, “Machine Gun” Jack McGurn, Jake “Greasy Thumb” Guzik, Paul “The Waiter” Ricca, Murray “The Camel” Humphreys and Sam “Golf Bag” Hunt. Malone was in. He discreetly phoned Wilson about what he'd overheard within the gang. Wilson and his aides traced signatures on bank checks while pursuing tax evasion cases against Nitti and Guzik. A federal court in Chicago convicted Guzik, who got a five-year sentence. But Nitti skipped town. Malone, assigned to find him, followed Nitti's wife to an apartment building in Berwyn, Illinois. There, the cops nabbed Nitti, later sentenced to 18 months in prison for tax evasion. Then the police pinched Al himself following his 1931 indictment on tax charges. “Mike Lepito” was there at the Lexington when Al Capone arrived back, triumphant about his release on $50,000 bail. Malone listened and reported to Wilson about Capone's scheme to bribe and fix the jury in his favor. The feds moved quickly and a judge created a new list of jurors. Malone then reported Capone's plot to hire five gunman from New York to kill four federal officials in Chicago – including Wilson. With safety measures in place, Capone ordered the gunmen to leave town. Capone's trial, after a judge refused to plea bargain with the Mob boss, started in October 1931. Four days afterward, Malone finally gave up the act. The news spread fast to Capone and his men. Malone had heard that Phil D'Andrea, Capone's bodyguard, planned to bring a concealed gun into the courthouse. Malone and another agent frisked and disarmed D'Andrea, and had him arrested. A jury Capone could not fix found the boss guilty on 22 criminal counts. The judge gave him 11 years in the federal pen and a $50,000 fine, plus court costs. Months later, in early 1932, the Intelligence Unit had Malone, Irey, Wilson and Special Agent A. P. Madden probe the kidnapping of aviator Charles Lindbergh's son. The team's persistence paid off within two years, with the capture (and conviction) of suspect Bruno Hauptman, who still had some of the marked currency the agents convinced Lindbergh to use as ransom money. Malone had other notable cases. In 1933, Irey assigned him to find fugitive New York gangster Waxey Gordon, wanted for tax evasion. Malone located Gordon in a remote cottage in the Catskill Mountains. Special Prosecutor Thomas Dewey took the case, and the court put Waxey away for 10 years. A year later, Malone infiltrated Louisiana Governor Huey “Kingfish” Long's crooked crew. After Long's assassination, the IRS won a tax fraud conviction against Malone's target, Long's close aide, Seymour Weiss. In his last undercover operation before his death, the Intelligence Unit gave Malone a large amount of cash and a Cadillac to use in Miami Beach, disguised as a rich syndicate man. He found and reported what the agency wanted – details of a coast-to-coast illegal abortion ring. After Malone's death in 1960, Wilson described him to a news reporter as “the best undercover agent we ever had.” JOSEPH PISTONE Joe Pistone is one of the FBI's most celebrated undercover agents. Using the name Donnie Brasco, he infiltrated the New York Mafia and helped produce 200 indictments. Courtesy of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In New York City during the mid-1970s, the FBI investigated a rash of truck hijackings happening each day. The agency assigned agent Joseph “Joe” Pistone to go undercover for six months to find out where the Mob-connected thieves took the stolen cargo. His adopted name was “Donnie Brasco.” He was so effective as a wiseguy that the FBI let him keep it up. No one knew how far the investigation would lead, or what it would mean for Pistone, who started as an agent in 1969. His experience would eventually prompt the mobsters in New York to put out a $500,000 contract for his murder, but it never happened. In the end, the evidence and trial testimony he provided in the 1980s produced 200 indictments of Mob associates and more than 100 convictions. His work decimated the Bonannos, one of New York's five major crime families. Pistone's journey while undercover, impersonating a mobbed-up jewel thief, would last an incredible five years, from 1976 to 1981, during which he penetrated the upper levels of the Bonnano organization. No FBI agent had made it inside the Mob like that. The agency beforehand had to rely on informants. Pistone took a class to learn about jewelry to make his affectation believable. In Brooklyn and Manhattan, he roamed bars and restaurants frequented by Mob types. He communicated using the street smarts he absorbed growing up as a working-class Italian-American kid in Paterson, New Jersey, where he went to Italian social clubs and encountered local hoods. Years in, he had the Bonanno circle so convinced that it moved to have him a “made” man shortly before the FBI ended his assignment. At first he befriended low-level mobsters. He wore a wire to record conversations, and committed to memory names and license plates since taking notes would obviously raise red flags. By 1976, he'd won the trust of important Bonnano members, notably family soldier Benjamin “Lefty Guns” Ruggiero, said to have killed 26 people, and capo Dominick “Sonny Black” Napolitano. Ruggerio recommended him so that he could join the clan. Pistone's Mob activities centered in New York and Florida, taking him away from his wife and young daughters for extended times. Pistone even had to vacation with his demanding cohorts. He moved his family members out of state for their protection. As “Donnie Brasco,” Pistone helped Ruggerio transfer stolen goods and sell guns. He engaged in loansharking, extortion and illegal gambling. Once, while pretending to be an expert in burglar alarms, angry Mob associates intent on committing burglaries demanded he reveal the name of a mobster who would vouch for him. The FBI used an informant to quell their suspicions. In the 1997 film Donnie Brasco, undercover agent Joe Pistone is played by Johnny Depp, left. Al Pacino, right, plays Benjamin “Lefty” Ruggiero. In 1981, the situation intensified again when the crime family commanded him to kill an adversary. The FBI pulled him out of the sting. It was time to start making cases, and for him to testify in open court as himself. Starting in 1982, Pistone's testimony over the next several years in racketeering cases sent more than 100 mobsters to long prison terms. Prosecutors considered him crucial to convicting 21 defendants in the “Pizza Connection” case of pizzerias used to traffic in heroin and launder money for the Sicilian Mafia. Pistone went into hiding and later retired from the FBI, unscathed, in 1986. In the 1990s, Salvatore “Sammy the Bull” Gravano, former underboss for the Gambino family who turned FBI informant, said the embarrassment from the “Brasco” case drove bosses in New York's crime families to suspend the Bonanno group from its board of directors. But Pistone couldn't stay retired. In 1992, at age 53, he requested reinstatement with the FBI, which agreed only if he would enter the agency's strict training class, lasting 16 weeks at its base in Quantico, Virginia. Pistone endured the rigorous course alongside recruits in their 20s. He passed and the FBI rehired him, at least until the mandatory retirement age of 57. Pistone's 1988 book on his undercover experiences, Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, was a bestseller. Based on the book, actor Johnny Depp portrayed Pistone in the 1997 feature film Donnie Brasco, with Al Pacino as Ruggerio. JACK GARCIA Jack Garcia was an FBI undercover agent of Cuban descent who convinced members of the Italian-American Mafia that he was Italian. He took part in more than 100 undercover investigations over a 26-year career. Before he succeeded in infiltrating New York's Gambino crime family, FBI agent Joaquin “Jack” Garcia had to go school. That is, the FBI's “mob school,” where he received an education in how to hit the ground running with veteran mobsters. His teacher was special agent Nat Parisi. First off, Parisi said, do not carry a wallet – wiseguys carry wads of currency, often bound by the kind of rubber band grocery stores use to keep broccoli together. Also, correctly pronouncing Italian food matters – as Tony Soprano might say, those long pasta shells are not “manicotti,” but “manicote.” Another valuable lesson he learned is that his Mob brethren loved compliments – his favorite one: “Where did you get those nice threads? You look like a million dollars.” In his 26-year career as an FBI agent, Garcia took part in more than 100 undercover investigations, from Miami to New York, Atlantic City and Los Angeles, targeting mobsters, drug traffickers and corrupt politicians and cops. He participated in the highest number of undercover cases in FBI history. In many of his capers, he impersonated a mobster, using the name “Jack Falcone” (in honor of the Italian judge Giovanni Falcone, killed by the Sicilian Mafia in the 1990s). As a backstory, he told his Mob marks about having a Sicilian pedigree (actually he's a native of Havana and grew up in the Bronx) with an expertise in stealing and fencing stolen goods, with jewelry as his specialty. Sometimes, he had to run several undercover roles at once. He took advantage of his fluency in Spanish and Italian, being careful not to mix things up when the phone rang. In the early 2000s, the FBI chose Garcia for what would be the most fruitful infiltration of an organized crime family since Joe Pistone's in the 1970s. While undercover as “Jack Falcone” with the Gambino's family's chapter in Westchester County, New York, for two years, he flashed cash, Rolex watches, diamond rings, flat-screen TVs and other supposed stolen property (items seized in other FBI cases). Much of the cash he held went to pay for expensive dinners – mobsters, he said, are notoriously cheap when the check comes. He gained 80 pounds over the two years. One mobster in particular who liked his money and goods, and would become his almost daily companion, was Gambino capo Gregory DePalma. An “old school” hood who in 2003 finished serving 70 months for racketeering, DePalma right away threatened violence and extorted owners of Westchester-area construction firms, strip joints, restaurants and other businesses. Garcia said he witnessed DePalma commit a crime almost every day. The FBI had Garcia pose as a wiseguy seeking to invest in a topless bar in the Bronx. Garcia's inquiries led him to meet DePalma in 2003. By providing stolen property for DePalma to sell for cash, Garcia convinced him that “Jack Falcone” was an experienced jewelry thief and fencer from Miami. When Garcia hung out with DePalma over the two-year period, he wore a body wire, and the FBI planted bugging devices at DePalma's hangouts. Garcia gave DePalma a cell phone that the talkative mob capo used prodigiously, not knowing the FBI had bugged it. The operation yielded 5,000 hours of recorded conversations used to implicate DePalma and other Gambino men in racketeering. In 2005, DePalma planned to honor “Falcone” by rendering him “made” within the Gambino family. In a recorded conversation, Garcia as “Falcone” replied to DePalma, “I'm honored for that,” he said, in the tape later used in court. “I will never let you down either.” But it wasn't to be. After Garcia witnessed a Gambino soldier beat another member with a crystal candlestick, the FBI shut down the undercover operation. (Garcia and Pistone are the only law enforcement officers ever nominated to be “made.”) Garcia's efforts inside the Gambino crew paid off big time. The evidence he delivered for the FBI resulted in the arrest of 32 Gambino members and associates, including DePalma, Gambino boss Arnold “Zeke” Squitieri and underboss Anthony “The Genius” Megale. DePalma went to trial in 2006. Garcia, who retired from the FBI two months before the trial started, agreed to testify in federal court in Manhattan. The jury found DePalma guilty on 27 counts, and the judge gave the 74-year-old a 12-year prison term. Like Pistone, Garcia's undercover career is chronicled in a memoir, Making Jack Falcone: An Undercover FBI Agent Takes Down a Mafia Family. KIKI CAMARENA Kiki Camarena was an undercover agent for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Mexico. After contributing information that led to major drug busts, he was tortured and murdered by drug cartel bosses in 1985. Enrique “Kiki” Camarena, the late Drug Enforcement Administration agent assigned to investigate drug trafficking in Guadalajara, Mexico, in the 1980s, is famous as one of the most heroic DEA agents ever. But he is more well-known in death than in life. His torture-murder in Mexico in 1985 took place at the hands of drug cartel bosses with the complicity of high-level Mexican government officials, law enforcement and, allegedly, the CIA. At the time, the Reagan administration was secretly training and supplying Central American guerilla fighters, known as the “Contras,” against the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua. The U.S. government allegedly granted the cartel bosses free rein to traffic drugs – to the point of using CIA-recruited American pilots to fly cocaine into the United States to sell for cash so the cartel could make donations to buy more weaponry for the Contras. Camarena, born in Mexicali, Mexico, in 1947, moved with his impoverished family to Calexico, California. He served as a firefighter in Calexico, and with a strong desire for police work, joined the Imperial County Sheriff's Department, moving up to its narcotics task force. The experience led to his career in the DEA starting in 1975. Assigned to the DEA office in the “narco paradise” of Guadalajara in 1980, Camarena was a convincing undercover officer with his appearance and ability to speak Spanish and barrio “street” language to fit in with the drug underworld. His target was the powerful Guadalajara drug cartel (which later evolved into the Sinaloa cartel). In the early 1980s, in what he called “Operation Padrino,” Camarena arranged for U.S. agents to seize international bank accounts held by wealthy cartel drug lords. He developed evidence of major marijuana plantations in the Mexican state of Zacatecas, based on informants and overflights in a plane flown by his DEA pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar. In November 1984, from his background work, Mexican federal police and the DEA raided enormous pot-growing operations on a ranch in Zacatecas that employed thousands of field hands. The task force confiscated 20 tons of marijuana, burned the crop and made 177 arrests. The bust cost cartel figure Rafael Caro Quintero about $50 million. Caro Quintero believed his operation had the protection of the Mexican army, and the CIA, since he owned a farm used to train the U.S.-backed Contras. He vowed revenge against Camarena. Meanwhile, a DEA force organized by Camarena seized a large cache of cocaine shipped by cartel boss Miguel Felix Gallardo's operation to New Mexico and Texas. Gallardo also believed he had CIA and Mexican official protection. During the fall of 1984, Quintero held meetings with top cartel traffickers Gallardo, Ernesto “Don Neto” Fonseco Carrillo and Ruben Zuno Arce. Also present, thanks to rampant corruption bought by the Guadalajara cartel, were Mexico's minister of domestic affairs and DFA chief Manuel Bartlett Diaz, plus Mexico's defense minister, the head of Mexico's Interpol office and the governor of the state of Jalisco. The agenda was to kidnap Camarena and get him to reveal his informants and other information. Zuno Arce gave the order. Fonseca only intended to scare and release him, but Quintero wanted to kill the DEA man. On February 7, 1985, Quintero and Gallardo directed their henchmen to kidnap Camarena off a street in Guadalajara. As the agent walked from the U.S. consulate to meet his wife for lunch, they forced him at gunpoint into a car and drove him to a residence used for cartel rendezvous. They bound and blindfolded him, turned on a tape recorder and questioned him, during which he was severely beaten and tortured. The lead interrogator was the crooked head of the secret police in Guadalajara, Sergio Espino Verdin. The cartel men wanted to know what Camarena knew about them, their dealings with Mexican officials and the CIA's involvement in drug trafficking. The gangsters also brought in and beat up Zavala, Camarena's pilot. Both men died about two days later, angering Fonseco, who told Quintero not to kill Camarena. Camarena's wife reported him missing and Washington launched what would be the largest manhunt in the history of the DEA. The cartel had the two men's bodies buried, then dug up and relocated to a farm in another state, where Mexican police found them in early March. During his funeral a week later, Camarena's family interred his ashes in Calexico. His slaying triggered an international incident. U.S. officials ordered all cars from Mexico at the border searched, effectively closing it. The investigation revealed the CIA connection, leading to bitter clashes between CIA and DEA agents. A federal court in Los Angeles charged 22 defendants in the murders of Camarena and Zavala. Under pressure, Mexican authorities acted, arresting 13 men. Mexican courts convicted Fonseco, Quintero and Espino, and sentenced each to 40 years, although Quintero won early release on a technicality in 2013. U.S. officials are still seeking Quintero to face federal charges. Mexican police arrested Gallardo in 1989, and he received 40 years. A court in Los Angeles found Zuno Arce guilty in the murders in 1990, sentenced him to two life terms in prison, where he died in 2012. In Camarena's honor, in 1985 the National Family Partnership started the National Red Ribbon Campaign, a volunteer anti-drug use and education effort that urges youths to recite a pledge to refrain from drugs, and celebrates “Red Ribbon Week” on drug awareness each October. Camarena's is featured as a character, played by actor Michael Pena, in a chapter of the Netflix series Narcos: Mexico, about on his actions with the DEA. JAY DOBYNS Jay Dobyns went undercover with the Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle gang for 20 months in Arizona on behalf of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. His work led to 16 arrests. For Jay Dobyns, fitting in with the infamous biker gang the Hells Angels for almost two years meant adhering to his undercover alter ego, Jay “Bird” Davis, to the point of obsession. To maintain his cover, he had to divert his mind away from his wife and kids. And it all would be worth it – at least that's what he thought at the time. Dobyns had hit on his best clandestine ruse yet while in Arizona in 2001, after 15 years of service as an undercover special agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. While working undercover cases in the late 1980s for the ATF, he'd been injured twice – from a gunshot wound to the back from a suspect in Tucson and when gunrunners hit him with a car during an attempted getaway in Chicago. He took part in investigations of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Other undercover roles of his ended in the arrests of a Mexican drug boss and members of the Aryan Brotherhood gang. Altogether, he served in more than 500 undercover operations disguised as a hitman and Mob debt collector. He infiltrated organized crime groups and gangs engaged in drug and arms smuggling. In 2001, to gather intelligence as “Davis” for the ATF in northern Arizona, Dobyns worked in the Bullhead City area, posing as a gun seller and an enforcer for a nonexistent collections agency. But his operation was interrupted in 2002 with the now-famous riot and shootout among members of the Angels and a competing biker gang, the Mongols, at the Harrah's casino in nearby Laughlin, Nevada, during the annual River Run motorcycle rally. Two Angels and one Mongol died and dozens of people were injured. The ATF brass soon redirected him to penetrate the dangerous Hells Angels club. Dobyns certainly had the physical part down with his beard and six-foot, one-inch frame he used as an all-conference football player for the University of Arizona. Later, an Angels member would apply tattoos covering his upper arms. Dobyns teamed with another ATF agent, two other undercover officers and a pair of paid informants. The idea was to create a fake biker gang with the aid of one of the informants who once served in a motorcycle gang based in Tijuana, Mexico. The gangster informant and Dobyns would run the gang, called the Solo Angeles, promote it as a pro-Hells Angels crew and request to join the Angels as a “nomad” chapter. The ATF named the setup “Operation Black Biscuit.” As a convincer, Dobyns and his fellow agent feigned an execution of a Mongol member, tying up an agent, placing cow's brains and bloody Mongol clothing on him and taking a photo. Based on the picture, the Angels took the bait and let them hang out and ride with them. They trusted him so much they offered to make him a member of the Angels' Skull Valley Chapter. He was the first law enforcement officer to infiltrate the Angels. His undercover penetration of the Angels lasted more than 20 months, one of the longest ever for the ATF. His work ended with 16 arrests from the Angels gang. But the criminal case, amid problems between the ATF and Justice Department lawyers, fell through in federal court. Federal prosecutors blamed the ATF, saying the agency did not reveal evidence from informants. In 2006, the feds dropped racketeering enterprise charges – the most serious — against all but four of 42 Angels charged in the Laughlin riot. Dobyns' battle with his own employer, the ATF, soon began. He filed suit in federal court against the agency alleging it did not protect him while he was on duty. He won a $373,000 settlement in 2007. The next year, Dobyns's wife and two kids barely escaped after someone firebombed the family home in Tucson. The ATF investigated Dobyns himself as a suspect in the arson. Investigators cleared him. In 2014, the year he retired after 27 years with the ATF, he filed another suit, for $17.2 million, saying the ATF failed to safeguard his family amid death threats. A judge awarded him $173,000. During an appeal, the judge voided the monetary judgment, but recommended discipline for ATF personnel and barred seven Justice Department attorneys from the case. He ordered a special master to investigate government actions in the case, and possible misconduct by the feds in the arson investigation. But the judge died of cancer. The special master in a report said that the first case was fair enough and required no further probe into the federal government. A new judge accepted the recommendation. Dobyns has authored two books, one on his undercover experiences, another on his travails with the ATF. These days, he delivers lectures on his life to audiences at universities and law enforcement associations nationwide. And now some of our infamous quick hitters:   Donald Duck decoy   Police in Fort Lee, New Jersey used a Donald Duck costume as a decoy to catch drivers who failed to yield to pedestrians. Drivers who didn't stop for the cartoon duck were ticketed. One woman, Karen Haigh, fought her $230 ticket.   "They told me that I was getting a ticket for not stopping for a duck," she told Eyewitness News. "But it scared me. I'm a woman. This huge duck scared me."  Coco the Clown   These old clips from the show COPS show a strange undercover police sting, and proves the adage that clowns are usually scary or just creepy. One cop dressed up as Coco the Clown, an outfit that kind of resembles John Wayne Gacy, to catch women working as sex workers. Spoiler: he pretty much sprays all of them with silly string and the whole thing is sad to watch. Amish woman   At least one cop from the Pulaski Township Police Department in Pennsylvania dressed up as an Amish woman in an attempt to catch a sexual predator. Sgt. Chad Adams of the Pulaski Township Police Department wandered the streets for two months in 2014 after police were tipped off that a predator was masturbating in front of children, according to the Associated Press. He posted on the department's Facebook page, “Hey friends, sometimes being a police officer means going undercover and doing what you have to do to catch the bad guy. Now that our investigation is complete I'll share with you this photo! Back in January we had an individual preying on Amish children walking home from school. The male individual was pulling up to the children and getting out of his car and masturbating in front of them. Although we did not apprehend the individual we believe he was caught in another county. I wanted to share with you that we will use all means available to try and protect our children. That includes dressing up as an Amish woman to attempt to apprehend a pervert! Thanks goes out to the Neshannock police and New Wilmington police in assistance with the investigation! Sincerely, Sergeant Chad Adams.”   Sadly, the sting didn't work, but police believe it is because the culprit moved into another county.   DVD Prize sting   Police in Phoenix, Arizona set up a sting to catch people with outstanding warrants, mostly DUIs, in 2002. The people were told they won a DVD player. People thought they were showing up to pick up their prize. Instead, they walked right into their own arrest. Watch as these suspects went from excited to shocked to sad. Panhandling trick   In 2015, undercover cops in California posed as panhandlers to ticket distracted drivers. They stood on the side of the road, posed as panhandlers and holding signs that identified them as police officers. The pieces of cardboard they were holding also stated that they were looking for seatbelt and cellphone violations. For those drivers who weren't paying attention

Part 6 of PARENTAL GUIDANCE SUGGESTED?! Does this Sherry-adjacent wine pair well with DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD's confident, self-aware, homeschool energy hero? Can this unfortified palomino bottling stand up  to PADDINGTON 2's clumsy, hard-staring, intrinsically good natured leading bear? Grab your sherry butt and a marmalade sandwich before hitting Play on this final episode of our miniseries for the parents! DORA AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD is a 2019 film directed by James Bobin and starring Isabela Merced, Eugenio Derbez, Michael Pena, and Eva Longoria. As of this episode's release, you can stream it on Paramount+ or rent it anywhere you get your VODs. PADDINGTON 2 is a 2017 sequel written and directed by Paul King and starring Hugh Bonneville, Sally Hawkins, Brendan Gleason, Hugh Grant, and the voice of Ben Wishaw. As of this episode's release, you can watch it on that HBO Max or anywhere you rent VOD movies. The 2020 Cota 45 Miraflores is available at Despaña Vinos y Mas for $31 plus tax and shipping.  Follow the show on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook @BiggerBottlePod. Email us at biggerbottlepod@gmail.com. Our art is thanks to Ross Connard! Music is selected from Camille Saint-Saëns' ‘The Carnival of the Animals - XII. Fossils' as performed by the Seattle Youth Symphony, licensed under Creative Commons (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode)

Amazon Prime's hit series Jack Ryan is scheduled to end with a fourth season. However, there are talks going on about a possible spin-off with Michael Pena starring in the planned show.  Shout Out to Ken The Content Coach for helping me cast my phone to OBS! Check him out today on IG @ https://www.instagram.com/ken_thecontentcoach/ Check out our new merch store: https://cinema-gold.myspreadshop.com/ Sponsors: Pod Decks: www.poddecks.com - Use Promo Code larry21 for Ten Percent off your order Audible: Free Audio Book - www.audibletrial.com/larry21 Follow Us on Social Media: Twitter: www.twitter.com/cinemagoldshow IG: https://www.instagram.com/thecinemagoldshow/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cinemagoldshow Join Our Reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CinemaGoldShow/ If you enjoy the show, consider becoming a financial supporter. You can: Buy Us A Coffee:https://www.buymeacoffee.com/cinemagold Become a Patron: https://patreon.com/cinemagold GoFundMe: https://gofund.me/dadb7f77

Zach & Zo went to the movies to see Moonfall, and Zo will give you his impressions of the movie. Is it worth seeing now or should you wait? Check out our impressions here.www.backlookcinema.comEmail: fanmail@backlookcinema.comTwitter: @backlookcinemaFacebook: The Back Look Cinema Podcast Instagram: backlookcinemapodcastBack Look Cinema Merch at Teespring.comBack Look Cinema Merch at Teepublic.com