Podcasts about movie roundup

In this week's episode, I rate the movies and streaming shows I saw in Autumn 2025. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store: GHOSTS2025 The coupon code is valid through December 1, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 278 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is November 21st, 2025, and today I am sharing my reviews of the movies and streaming shows I saw in Fall 2025. We also have a Coupon of the Week and an update my current writing, audiobook, and publishing projects. So let's start off with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off all the ebooks in The Ghosts series at my Payhip store, and that is GHOSTS2025. And as always, we'll have the link to my Payhip store and the coupon code in the show notes for this episode. This coupon code is valid through December 1, 2025, so if you need a new ebook for this fall, we have got you covered. Now for my current writing and publishing projects: I'm very pleased to report that Blade of Shadows, the second book in my Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series, is now out. You can get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords, and my Payhip store. By the time this episode goes live, all those stores should be available and you can get the book at any one of them and I hope you will read and enjoy it. I'm also 15,000 words into what will be my next main project Wizard-Assassin, the fifth book in the Half-Elven Thief series, and if all goes well, I want that to be out before Christmas. I'm also working on the outline for what will be the third book in the Blades of Ruin series, Blade of Storms, and that will hopefully, if all goes well, be the first book I publish in 2026. In audiobook news, as I mentioned last week, the audiobook of Blade of Flames is done and I believe as of this recording, you can get at my Payhip store, Google Play, Kobo, and I think Spotify. It's not up on Audible or Apple yet, but that should be soon, if all goes well. That is excellently narrated by Brad Wills. Hollis McCarthy is still working on Cloak of Embers. I believe main recording is done for that and it just has to be edited and proofed, so hopefully we'll get both audiobooks to you before the end of the year. So that is where I'm at with my current writing, publishing, and audiobook projects. 00:02:08 Main Topic of the Week: Autumn 2025 Movie Review Roundup Now on to this week's main project, the Autumn 2025 Movie Review Roundup. I watched a lot of classic horror movies this time around. The old Universal black and white monster movies from the '30s and '40s turned up on Prime for Halloween and I hadn't seen them since I was a kid, so I watched a bunch of them in October and November, which seemed an appropriate thing to do for Halloween. They mostly held up as well as I remembered from when I was a kid, which was a nice surprise. As ever, the grades I give these movies are totally subjective and based on nothing more than my own opinions and thoughts. With that, let's take a look at the movies from least favorite to most favorite. First up is The Other Guys, which came out in 2010 and this is a parody of the buddy cop/ cowboy cop movie along with a heavy critique of the reckless and corrupt culture of late 2000s Wall Street. "Dumb funny" movies I've noticed tend to fall on either side of the "dumb but actually funny" or "dumb and not funny" line. And this one definitely landed on "dumb but actually funny". Danson and Highsmith, played by The Rock and Samuel L. Jackson, are two maverick popular detectives who never do paperwork. Their paperwork is always done by Allen Gamble, who's played by Will Ferrell and Terry Hoitz, played by Mark Wahlberg. Gamble is a mild-mannered forensic accountant, while Hoitz desperately wants to be as cool as either Danson or Highsmith, but since he accidentally shot Yankees player Derek Jeter (in a recurring gag), he's a pariah within the New York Police Department. However, Danon and Highsmith's plot armor suddenly run out and they accidentally kill themselves in a darkly hilarious scene that made me laugh so much I hurt a little. Hoitz wants to step into their shoes, but Gamble has stumbled onto potentially dangerous case and soon Hoitz and Gamble have to overcome their difficulties and unravel a complicated financial crime. This was pretty funny and I enjoyed it. Amusingly in real life, someone like Gamble would be massively respected in whatever law enforcement agency he works for, since someone who prepares ironclad paperwork and correct documentation that stands up in court is an invaluable asset in law enforcement work. Overall Grade: B Next up is Fantastic Four: First Steps, which came out in 2025. I like this though, to be honest, I liked Thunderbolts and Superman 2025 better. I think my difficulty is I never really understood The Fantastic Four as a concept and why they're appealing. Maybe the Fantastic Four are one of those things you just have to imprint on when you're a kid to really enjoy or maybe at my age, the sort of retro futurism of the Four, the idea that science, technology, and rational thought will solve all our problems does seem a bit naive after the last 65 years of history or so. Additionally, the idea of a naked silver space alien riding a surfboard does seem kind of ridiculous. Anyway, the movie glides over the origin story of Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm and gets right into it. To their surprise, Reed and Sue find out that Sue is pregnant, which seemed unlikely due to their superpower induced genetic mutations. Shortly after that, the Silver Surfer arrives and announces that Earth will be devoured by Galactus. The Four travel in their spaceship to confront Galactus and realize that he's a foe far beyond their power, but Galactus offers them a bargain. If Reed and Sue give him their son, he will leave Earth in peace. They refuse and so it's up to the Four to figure out a way to save Earth and Reed and Sue's son. Pretty solid superhero movie all told, but it is amusing how in every version of the character, Reed Richards is allegedly the smartest man on Earth but still can't keep his mouth shut to save his life. Overall Grade: B The next movie is Superman, which came out in 1978. After seeing the 2025 version of Superman, I decided to watch the old one from the '70s. It's kind of a classic because it was one of the progenitors of the modern superhero film. Interestingly, it was one of the most expensive films ever made at that time, costing about $55 million in '70s-era dollars, which are much less inflated than today. A rough back of the envelope calculation would put 55 million in the '70s worth at about $272 million today, give or take. Anyway, this was a big gamble, but it paid off for the producers since they got $300 million back, which would be like around $1.4 billion in 2025 money. Anyway, the movie tells the origin story of Superman, how his father Jor-El knows that Krypton is doomed, so he sends Kal-El to Earth. Kal-El is raised as Clark Kent by his adoptive Kansas parents and uses his powers to become Superman- defender of truth, justice, and the American way. Superman must balance his growing feelings for ace reporter Lois Lane with his need for a secret identity and the necessity of stopping Lex Luthor's dangerous schemes. Christopher Reeve was an excellent Superman and the special effects were impressive by the standards of 1978, but I think the weakest part of the movie were the villains. Lex Luthor just seemed comedic and not at all that threatening. Unexpected fun fact: Mario Puzio, author of The Godfather, wrote the screenplay. Overall Grade: B Next up is Superman II, which came out in 1980. This is a direct sequel to the previous movie. When Superman stops terrorists from detonating a nuclear bomb by throwing it into space, the blast releases the evil Kryptonian General Zod and his minions from their prison and they decide to conquer Earth. Meanwhile, Superman is falling deeper in love with the Lois Lane and unknowing of the threat from Zod, decides to renounce his powers to live with Lois as an ordinary man. I think this had the same strengths and weaknesses as the first movie. Christopher Reeve was an excellent Superman. The special effects were impressive by the standards of the 1980s, but the villains remained kind of comedic goofballs. Additionally, and while this will sound harsh, this version of Lois Lane was kind of dumb and her main function in the plot was to generate problems for Superman via her questionable decisions. Like at the end, Superman has to wipe her memory because she can't keep his secret identity to herself. If this version of Lois Lane lived today, she'd be oversharing everything she ever thought or heard on TikTok. The 2025 movie version of Lois, by contrast, bullies Mr. Terrific into lending her his flying saucer so she can rescue Superman when he's in trouble and is instrumental in destroying Lex Luthor's public image and triggering his downfall. 1970s Louis would've just had a meltdown and made things worse until Superman could get around to rescuing her. Overall, I would say the 1978 movie was too goofy, the Zac Snyder Superman movies were too grimdark, but the 2025 Superman hit the right balance between goofy and serious. Overall Grade: B Next up is Dracula, which came out in 1931, and this was one of the earliest horror movies ever made and also one of the earliest movies ever produced with sound. It is a very compressed adaptation of the stage version of Dracula. Imagine the theatrical stage version of Dracula, but then imagine that the movie was only 70 minutes long, so you have to cut a lot to fit the story into those 70 minutes. So if you haven't read the book, Dracula the movie from 1931 will not make a lot of sense. It's almost like the "Cliff's Notes Fast Run" version of Dracula. That said, Bela Lugosi's famous performance as Dracula really carries the movie. Like Boris Karloff in Frankenstein and The Mummy (which we'll talk about shortly), Bela Lugosi really captures the uncanny valley aspect of Dracula because the count isn't human anymore and has all these little tics of a creature that isn't human but only pretending to be one. Edward Van Sloan's performance as Dr. Van Helsing is likewise good and helped define the character in the public eye. So worth watching as a historical artifact, but I think some of the other Universal monster movies (which we'll discuss shortly) are much stronger. Overall Grade: B Next up is The Horror of Dracula, which came out in 1958. This is one of the first of the Hammer Horror movies from the '50s, starring Peter Cushing as Dr. Van Helsing and Christopher Lee as Count Dracula. It's also apparently the first vampire movie ever made in color. Like the 1931 version of Dracula, it's a condensed version of the story, though frankly, I think it hangs together a little better. Van Helsing is a bit more of an action hero in this one, since in the end he engages Dracula in fisticuffs. The movie is essentially carried by the charisma of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee and worth watching as a good example of a classic '50s horror movie. Overall Grade: B Next up is The Wolf Man, which came out in 1941. This is another one of the classic Universal horror movies. This one features Lon Cheney Jr. as Larry Talbot, the younger son of Sir John Talbot. Larry's older brother died in a hunting accident, so Larry comes home to reconcile with his father and take up his duties as the family heir. Larry is kind of an amiable Average Joe and is immediately smitten with the prettiest girl in the village, but when he takes her out for a walk, they're attacked by a werewolf, who bites Larry. Larry and everyone else in the village do not believe in werewolves, but they're about to have their minds changed the hard way. The transformation sequences where Larry turns into the Wolfman were cutting edge of the time, though poor Lon Chaney Jr had to stay motionless for hours as they gradually glued yak hair to him. I think Claude Rains had the best performance in the movie as Sir John and he's almost the co-protagonist. Overall Grade: B Next up is Jurassic World: Rebirth, which came out in 2025, which I thought was a perfectly straightforward but nonetheless enjoyable adventure film. After all the many disasters caused by various genetic engineering experiments in the previous movies, dinosaurs mostly live in relatively compatible ecosystems and tropical zones near the equator. No one's looking to create a theme park with dinosaurs or create bioengineered dinosaurs as military assets any longer. However, the dinosaurs are still valuable for research and a pharmaceutical company is developing a revolutionary drug for treating cardiac disease. They just need some dinosaur blood from three of the largest species to finish it, and so the company hires a team of mercenaries to retrieve the blood. We have the usual Jurassic Park style story tropes: the savvy mercenary leader, the scientist protesting the ethics of it all, the sinister corporate executive, the troubled family getting sucked into the chaos. And of course, it all goes wrong and there are lots and lots of dinosaurs running around. It's all been done before of course, but this was done well and was entertaining. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is The Thursday Murder Club, which came out in 2025, and this is a cozy mystery set in a very high-end retirement home. Retired nurse Joyce moves into Coopers Chase, the aforementioned high end retirement home. Looking to make new friends, she falls in with a former MI6 agent named Liz, a retired trade unionist named Ron, and psychiatrist Ibrahim, who have what they call The Thursday Murder Club, where they look into cold cases and attempt to solve them. However, things are not all sunshine and light at Coopers Chase as the two owners of the building have fallen out. When one of them is murdered, The Thursday Murder Club has to solve a real murder before Coopers Chase is bulldozed to make high-end apartments. A good cozy mystery with high caliber acting talent. Both Pierce Brosnan and Jonathan Price are in the movie and regrettably do not share a scene together, because that would've been hilarious since they were both in the James Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies in the '90s with Brosnan as Bond and Price as the Bond villain for the movie. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is The Creature From the Black Lagoon, which came out in 1954 and is one of the last of the black and white classic horror movies since in the '50s, color film was just around the corner. When a scientist finds the unusual half fish, half human fossil on a riverbank in Brazil, he decides to organize an expedition upriver to see if he can find the rest of the fossil. The trail leads his expedition to the mysterious Black Lagoon, which all the locals avoid because of its bad reputation, but a living member of the species that produce the fossils lurking the lagoon while it normally doesn't welcome visitors, it does like the one female member of the expedition and decides to claim her for its own. The creature was good monster and the underwater water sequences were impressive by the standards of the 1950s. Overall Grade: A- Next up is The Invisible Man, which came out in 1933, and this is another of the classic Universal black and white horror movies. Jack Griffin is a scientist who discovered a chemical formula for invisibility. Unfortunately, one of the drugs in his formula causes homicidal insanity, so he becomes a megalomaniac who wants to use his invisibility to rule the world. This causes Griffin to overlook the numerous weaknesses of his invisibility, which allow the police to hunt him down. The Invisible Man's special effects were state of the art at the time and definitely hold up nearly a hundred years later. It's worth watching as another classic of the genre. Claude Rains plays Griffin, and as with The Wolf Man, his performance as Griffin descends into homicidal insanity is one of the strengths of the movie. Overall Grade: A- Next up is The Mummy, which came out in 1932, and this is another of the original Universal black and white horror movies. Boris Karloff plays the Mummy, who is the ancient Egyptian priest Imhotep, who was mummified alive for the crime of desiring the Pharaoh's daughter Ankh-es-en-Amon. After 3,000 years, Imhotep is accidentally brought back to life when an archeologist reads a magical spell and Imhotep sets out immediately to find the reincarnation of his beloved and transform her into a mummy as well so they can live together forever as undead. Edward Van Sloan plays Dr. Mueller, who is basically Edward Van Sloan's Van Helsing from Dracula if Van Helsing specialized in mummy hunting rather than vampire hunting. This version of the Mummy acts more like a Dungeons and Dragons lich instead of the now classic image of a shambling mummy in dragging bandages. That said, Boris Karloff is an excellent physical actor. As he does with Frankenstein, he brings Imhotep to life. His performance captures the essence of a creature that hasn't been human for a very long time, is trying to pretend to be human, and isn't quite getting there. Of course, the plot was reused for the 1999 version of The Mummy with Brendan Fraser. That was excellent and this is as well. Overall Grade: A- Next up is The Wedding Singer, which came out in 1998, and this is basically the Adam Sandler version of a Hallmark movie. Adam Sandler plays Robbie, a formerly famous musician whose career has lapsed and has become a wedding singer and a venue singer. He befriends the new waitress Julia at the venue, played by Drew Barrymore. The day after that, Robbie's abandoned at the altar by his fiancée, which is understandably devastating. Meanwhile, Julia's fiancé Glenn proposes to her and Robbie agrees to help her with the wedding planning since he's an expert in the area and knows all the local vendors. However, in the process, Robbie and Julia fall in love, but are in denial about the fact, a situation made more tense when Robbie realizes Glenn is cheating on Julia and intends to continue to do so after the wedding. So it's basically a Hallmark movie filtered through the comedic sensibilities of Adam Sandler. It was very funny and Steve Buscemi always does great side characters in Adam Sandler movies. Overall Grade: A Next up is Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale, which came out in 2025. This movie was sort of a self-indulgent victory lap, but it was earned. The writers of the sitcom Community used to joke that they wanted "six seasons and a movie" and Downton Abbey got "six seasons and three movies". Anyway, this movie is about handing off things to the next generation. Lord Grantham is reluctant to fully retire as his daughter goes through a scandal related to her divorce. The next generation of servants take over as the previous ones ease into retirement. What's interesting is both the nobles and the servants are fully aware that they're sort of LARPing a historical relic by this point because by 1930, grand country houses like Downton were increasingly rare in the UK since World War I wiped out most of them and crippling post-war taxes and economic disruption finished off many more. Anyway, if you like Downton Abbey, you like this movie. Overall Grade: A Next up is Argo, which came out in 2012, a very tense thriller about the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. During that particular crisis, six Americans escaped the embassy and hid out at the Canadian Ambassador's house in Tehran. For obvious reasons, the Canadian ambassador wanted them out as quickly as possible, so the CIA and the State Department needed to cook up a plan to get the six out while the rest of the government tried to figure out what to do about the larger group of hostages. Finally, the government comes with "Argo." A CIA operative will create a fake film crew, a fake film company, and smuggle the six out of Tehran as part of the production. The movie was very tense and very well constructed, even if you know the outcome in advance if you know a little bit of history. Ben Affleck directed and starred, and this was in my opinion one of his best performances. It did take some liberties with historical accuracy, but nonetheless, a very tense political thriller/heist movie with some moments of very dark comedy. Overall Grade: A Next up is The Naked Gun, which came out in 2025, and this is a pitch perfect parody of the gritty cop movie with a lot of absurdist humor, which works well because Liam Neeson brings his grim action persona to the movie and it works really well with the comedy. Neeson plays Lieutenant Frank Drebin Jr., the son of the original Frank Drebin from The Naked Gun movies back in the '80s. After stopping a bank robbery, Drebin finds himself investigating the suicide of an engineer for the sinister tech mogul Richard Cane. Naturally, the suicide isn't what it appears and when the engineer's mysterious but seductive sister asks for Drebin's help, he pushes deeper into the case. Richard Cane was a hilarious villain because the writers couldn't decide which tech billionaire to parody with him, so they kind of parodied all the tech billionaires at once, and I kid you not, the original Frank Drebin makes an appearance as a magical owl. It was hilarious. Overall Grade: A Now for my two favorite things I saw in Autumn 2025. The first is the combination of Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein, which came out in 1931 and 1935. These are two separate movies, but Frankenstein leads directly to Bride of Frankenstein, so I'm going to treat them as one movie. Honestly, I think they're two halves of the same story the way that Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame would be two halves of the same story 90 years later, so I'll review them as one. Frankenstein by itself on its own will get a B. Colin Clive's performance is Dr. Henry Frankenstein was great, and Boris Karloff gives the Creature a suitable air of menace and uncanny valley. You really feel like he's something that's been brought to life but isn't quite right and still extremely dangerous. The movie does have a very pat ending that implies everyone will live happily ever after, with Dr. Frankenstein's father giving a toast to his son. But Bride of Frankenstein takes everything from the first movie and improves on it. It's one of those sequels that actually makes the preceding movie better. In Bride, Henry is recovering from his ordeal and swears off his experiments of trying to create artificial humans, but the Creature survived the fire at the windmill at the end of the last movie and is seeking for a new purpose. Meanwhile, Henry receives a visit from his previous mentor, the sinister Dr. Pretorius. Like Henry, Pretorius succeeded in creating artificial life and now he wants to work with Henry to perfect their work, but Henry refuses, horrified by the consequences of his previous experiments. Pretorius, undaunted, makes an alliance with the Creature, who then kidnaps Henry's wife. This will let Pretorius force Henry to work on their ultimate work together-a bride for the Creature. Bride of Frankenstein is a lot tighter than Frankenstein. It was surprising to see how rapidly filmmaking techniques evolved over just four years. Pretorius is an excellent villain, more evil wizard than mad scientist, and the scene where he calmly and effortlessly persuades the Creature to his side was excellent. One amusing note, Bride was framed as Mary Shelley telling the second half of the story to her friends, and then the actress playing Mary Shelley, Elsa Lancaster, also played the Bride. So that was a funny bit of meta humor. Frankenstein and Bride of Frankenstein combined is one of my two favorite movies of Fall 2025. Overall Grade: A+ And now for my second favorite movie of Autumn 2025, which as it turns out is also Frankenstein, but Guillermo del Toro's version that came out in 2025. And honestly, I think Guillermo del Toro's version of Frankenstein is the best version put to screen so far and even does the rarest of all feats, it improves a little on the original novel. Oscar Isaac plays Victor Frankenstein as a brilliant, driven scientist with something of a sociopathic edge. In other words, he's a man who's utterly inadequate to the task when his experiment succeeds and he actually creates an artificial human that have assembled dead body parts. Jacob Elordi does a good job as the Creature, playing him is essentially a good hearted man who's driven to violence and despair by the cruelty and rejection of the world. The recurring question of the Frankenstein mythos is whether or not Victor Frankenstein is the real monster. In this version, he definitely is, though he gets a chance to repent of his evil by the end. Honestly, everything about this was good. The performances, the cinematography, everything. How good was it? It was so good that I will waive my usual one grade penalty for unnecessary nudity since there were a few brief scenes of it. Overall Grade: A+ So that was the Autumn 2025 Movie Roundup. A lot of good movies this time around. While some movies of course were better than others, I didn't see anything I actively disliked, which is always nice. So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

It's preview time! Christina is once again joined by critic Ryan McQuade (AwardsWatch.com) to preview the most exciting movie titles coming to theaters and streaming for the rest of the year! From awards hopefuls like Hamnet and Marty Supreme, to blockbuster titles like Wicked: For Good and Avatar: Fire and Ash, to Train Dreams, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery, and much more! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Happy Halloween from your two favorite movie podcasts! The RCR boys are joined by their comPODres, Kody and Korbin (Kody and Korbin Have a Podcast), to look back on their personal spooky season movie challenge they lovingly dubbed 'Carpentober'. The boys discuss their personal new watches: their favorites, least favorites, and everything in between!

Brendan talks about the movies he watched in July and August of 2025. Join us, won't you?JULY 2025Trainwreck: Poop Cruise (2025)Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles – Episodes 1 & 2 (2022)Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles – Episodes 3 & 4 (2025)This Is Spinal Tap (1984)This Game Goes to Eleven (2018)Rock Hard: 1977 (2024)AUGUST 2025Most Dangerous Game (2020)Specter Ops (2015)Beast (2023)The Wicker Man (1973)“The Festival” by H.P. LovecraftArkham Horror: The Card Game – The Feast of Hemlock Vale: Campaign Expansion (2024)Deep Cover (2025)FiascoKPop Demon Hunters (2025)Free Radicals (2022)Dante's Peak (1997)The Downfall of Pompeii (2004)Have you seen these films? What do you think of them? What did you watch in July and August? Share your thoughts over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

Brendan talks about the movies he watched in July and August of 2025. Join us, won't you?JULY 2025Trainwreck: Poop Cruise (2025)Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles – Episodes 1 & 2 (2022)Perseverance: Castaway Chronicles – Episodes 3 & 4 (2025)This Is Spinal Tap (1984)This Game Goes to Eleven (2018)Rock Hard: 1977 (2024)AUGUST 2025Most Dangerous Game (2020)Specter Ops (2015)Beast (2023)The Wicker Man (1973)“The Festival” by H.P. LovecraftArkham Horror: The Card Game – The Feast of Hemlock Vale: Campaign Expansion (2024)Deep Cover (2025)FiascoKPop Demon Hunters (2025)Free Radicals (2022)Dante's Peak (1997)The Downfall of Pompeii (2004)Have you seen these films? What do you think of them? What did you watch in July and August? Share your thoughts over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

Because history demands an inventory! Featuring Shrishma Naik, Carolyn Naoroz, and Justin Zeppa. We appreciate your support, so please subscribe, rate, review, and follow the show: YouTube: youtube.com/@oldmovietimemachineInstagram: @timemachinepodcasts Facebook: facebook.com/oldmovietimemachine  Buy our luxurious merchandise: www.teepublic.com/user/old-movie-time-machine ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

TurdOrTreasure is ThisWeekInGeek's dedicated review show covering everything from games to movies to tv to electronics and everything between!Show Links:https://www.musicboxfilms.com/film/just-the-two-of-us/https://www.musicboxfilms.com/film/the-trouble-with-jessica/https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/1923-Season-Two-Blu-ray/386149/https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Life-of-Chuck-Blu-ray/393133/https://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/NCIS-Naval-Criminal-Investigative-Service-The-Twenty-Second-Season-DVD/317288/https://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/Watson-Season-One-DVD/317506/https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Misericordia-Blu-ray/362847/https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-French-Dispatch-of-the-Liberty-Kansas-Evening-Sun-4K-Blu-ray/389100/https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Bride-Hard-Blu-ray/392830/https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/The-Cat-Blu-ray/389483/https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Bring-Her-Back-Blu-ray/391537/https://www.blu-ray.com/movies/Materialists-Blu-ray/392978/https://www.turtlebeach.com/products/atlas-200-headset?Platform=PlayStation&Color=Whitehttps://www.turtlebeach.com/products/victrix-pro-bfg-reloaded-wireless-controller?Platform=PlayStation&Color=Blackhttps://www.playstation.com/en-ca/games/lost-soul-aside/https://nisamerica.com/cladun-x3/https://www.hasbropulse.com/product/transformers-age-of-the-primes-deluxe-class-combaticon-vortex/G10285X00?cgid=shop-all-transformershttps://www.ninjakitchen.com/products/ninja-extended-life-ceramic-select-10-piece-cookware-set-zidCK89010BFhttps://www.blu-ray.com/dvd/The-White-Lotus-The-Complete-Third-Season-DVD/315339/Your Geekmaster:Alex "The Producer" - https://bsky.app/profile/dethphasetwig.bsky.socialFeedback for the show?:Email: feedback@thisweekingeek.netTwitter: https://twitter.com/thisweekingeekBluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/thisweekingeek.bsky.socialYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc1BfUrFWqEYha8IYiluMyAiTunes: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/this-week-in-geek/id215643675Spotify: spotify:show:0BHP4gkzubuCsJBhU3oNWXCastbox: https://castbox.fm/channel/id2162049Website: https://www.thisweekingeek.netSept 19, 2025

We are back recapping all the big summer movies and TV shows! We share with you what we've been watching which includes films such as Superman, The Materialists, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, F1, Jurassic World: Rebirth, & more! On the TV side we talk about Dept. Q, Ginny & Georgia, Quarterback, Real Housewives of Atlanta and so much more! We also share some book recommendations and what fall releases we are most excited for, it's a packed episode! Follow the show on social media!⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow our YouTube Channel:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/@PodcastSilver⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Follow us on Letterboxd⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Jared⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Katie⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Be sure to rate and review the show wherever you listen!

In this week's episode, I take a look back at the movies and streaming shows I watched in Summer 2025. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Serpent, Book #1 in the Ghost Armor series, (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store: FALLSERPENT50 The coupon code is valid through September 15, 2025 (please note the shorter expiration date). So if you need a new audiobook this fall, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 267 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September 5, 2025 and today I'm doing a review roundup of the movies and streaming shows I saw in Summer 2025. Before we do that, we will have Coupon of the Week and a progress update on my current writing and audiobook projects. First up, this week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Ghost in the Serpent, Book One in the Ghost Armor series (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) at my Payhip store. That is FALLSERPENT50. This coupon code will be valid through September 15th, 2025 (exactly one week). So if you need a new audiobook to listen to as we head into fall, we have got you covered. Now for an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. I am pleased to report that the rough draft of Blade of Flames, which will be the first book in my new Blades of Ruin epic fantasy series is finished. The rough draft came at about 90,000 words long, which was what I was aiming for. Next up, I will be writing a short story set as sort of a bonus in that plot line called Thunder Hammer and that will be the backstory of one of the characters in Blade of Flames. And when Blade of Flames comes out (which will hopefully be later this September), newsletter subscribers will get a free ebook copy of Thunder Hammer. So this is an excellent time to subscribe to my newsletter. I am also 8,000 words into Cloak of Worlds. At long last, I am coming back to the Cloak Mage series after nearly a year's absence. Longtime listeners will know the reason was that I had five unfinished series and I wanted to spend the summer of 2025 finishing the unfinished ones and focusing up so I will only have three ongoing series at any given time. I'm hoping Blade of Flames will come out before the end of September and Cloak of Worlds before the end of October, and after that I will be able to return to the Rivah series at long last. In audiobook news, recording is finished on Shield of Power. That will be excellently narrated by Brad Wills and hopefully once it gets through processing and quality assurance and everything, it should be showing up on the various audiobook stores before too much longer. Hollis McCarthy is about halfway through the recording of Ghost in the Siege, which was, as you know, the last book in the Ghost Armor series that just came out. And if all goes well, the audiobook should be coming out probably in October once everything is done with recording and quality assurance and all that. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and audiobook projects. 00:02:34 Main Topic: Summer 2025 Movie/TV Roundup So without further ado, let's head into our main topic. The end of summer is nigh, which means this time for my summer movie review roundup. As is usual for the summer, I saw a lot of movies, so this will be one of the longer episodes. For some reason I ended up watching a bunch of westerns. As always, the movies are ranked from least favorite to most favorite. The grades of course are totally subjective and based on nothing more than my own opinions, impressions, and interpretations. Now on to the movies. First up is the Austin Powers trilogy, the three movies of which came out in 1997, 1999, and 2002. The Austin Powers movies came out just as the Internet really got going in terms of mass adoption, which is likewise why so many Austin Powers and Dr. Evil memes are embedded in online culture. Despite that, I had never really seen any of them all the way through. They've been on in the background on TBS or whatever quite a bit when I visited people, but I've never seen them all. But I happened upon a DVD of the trilogy for $0.25 (USD), so I decided for 25 cents I would give it a go. I would say the movies were funny, albeit not particularly good. Obviously the Austin Powers movies are a parody of the James Bond movies. The movies kind of watch like an extended series of Saturday Night Live skits, only loosely connected, like the skit is what if Dr. Evil had a son named Scott who wasn't impressed with him or another skit was what if a British agent from the ‘60s arrives in the ‘90s and experiences culture clash? What if Dr. Evil didn't understand the concept of inflation and demanded only a million dollars from the United Nations? What if Dr. Evil was actually Austin's brother and they went to school together at Spy Academy? Michael Caine was pretty great as Austin's father. Overall, funny but fairly incoherent. Overall grade: C- Next up is Horrible Bosses, a very dark and very raunchy comedy from about 14 years ago. It came out in 2011. Interestingly, this movie reflects what I think is one of the major crises of the contemporary era, frequent failures of leadership at all levels of society. In the movie Nick, Dale, and Kurt are lifelong friends living in LA and all three of them have truly horrible bosses in their place of employment, ranging from a sociopathic finance director, the company founder's cokehead son, and a boorish dentist with a tendency to sexual harassment. At the bar, they fantasize about killing their horrible bosses and then mutually decide to do something about it. Obviously, they'd all be prime suspects in the murder of their own bosses, but if they killed each other's bosses, that would allow them to establish airtight alibis. However, since Nick, Dale and Kurt are not as bright as they think they are, it all goes hilariously wrong very quickly. Bob Hope has a hilarious cameo. If the best “crude comedies” I've seen are Anchorman, Zoolander, Tropic Thunder, and Dodgeball, and the worst one was MacGruber, I'd say Horrible Bosses lands about in the middle. Overall grade: C Next up is Cowboys and Aliens, which came out in 2011. Now I almost saw this in 2011 when it came out, but I was too busy to go to the theater in July of 2011, so I finally saw it here in 2025 and I would say this was almost a great movie, like the performances were great, the concept was great, the scenery was great, the special effects were great, and the story was packed full of really interesting ideas, but somehow they just didn't coalesce. I'm not entirely sure why. I think upon reflection, it was that the movie is just too overcrowded with too many characters and too many subplots. Anyway, Daniel Craig portrays a man who wakes up with no memory in the Old West, with a mysterious bracelet locked around his wrist. He makes his way to the town of Atonement, and promptly gets arrested because he is apparently a notorious outlaw (which he doesn't remember). While he is locked in jail, space aliens attack the town. The aliens, for unknown reasons, abduct many of the townspeople, and Daniel Craig's character, who is named Jake even if he doesn't remember it, must lead the town's effort to recover their abducted citizens. Harrison's Ford has an excellent performance as this awful cattle baron who nonetheless has virtues of courage and fortitude that you can't help but admire. An excellent performance. That said, the movie was just too packed, and I thought it would work better as a novel. After I watched the movie, it turned out that it was indeed based off a graphic novel. Novels and graphic novels allow for a far more complex story than a movie, and I don't think this movie quite managed to handle the transition from a graphic novel to a film. Overall grade: C Next up is Heads of State, which came out in 2025. This was kind of a stupid movie. However, the fundamental question of any movie, shouted to the audience by Russell Crow in Gladiator is, “are you not entertained?!?” I was thoroughly entertained watching this, so entertained I actually watched it twice. Not everything has to be Shakespeare or a profound meditation on the unresolvable conflicts inherent within human nature. Anyway, John Cena plays Will Derringer, newly elected President of the United States. Idris Elba plays Sam Clark, who has now been the UK Prime Minister for the last six years. Derringer was an action star who parleyed his celebrity into elected office (in the same way Arnold Schwarzenegger did), while Clarke is an army veteran who worked his way up through the UK's political system. Needless to say, the cheerful Derringer and the grim Clarke take an immediate dislike to each other. However, they'll have to team up when Air Force One is shot down, stranding them in eastern Europe. They'll have to make their way home while evading their enemies to unravel the conspiracy that threatens world peace. So half action thriller, half buddy road trip comedy. The premise really doesn't work if you think about it too much for more than thirty seconds, but the movie was funny and I enjoyed it. Jack Quaid really stole his scenes as a crazy but hyper-competent CIA officer. Overall grade: C+ Next up, Captain America: Brave New World, which came out in 2025 and I think this movie ended up on the good side of middling. You can definitely tell it went through a lot of reshoots and retooling, and I suspect the various film industry strikes hit it like a freight train. But we ended up with a reasonably solid superhero thriller. Sam Wilson is now Captain America. He's not superhuman the way Steve Rogers was and doesn't have magic powers or anything, so he kind of fights like the Mandalorian – a very capable fighter who relies on excellent armor. Meanwhile, in the grand American political tradition of failing upward, Thaddeus “Thunderbolt” Ross, who spent years persecuting The Hulk and whose meddling caused the Avengers to disband right before Thanos attacked, has now been elected President. To Wilson's surprise, Ross reaches out and wants him to restart the Avengers. But Ross (as we know) did a lot of shady black ops stuff for years, and one of his projects is coming back to haunt him. Wilson finds himself in the middle of a shadowy conspiracy, and it's up to him to figure out what's going on before it's too late. I was amused that lifelong government apparatchik Ross wanted to restart the Avengers, because when the Avengers had their biggest victory in Avengers: Endgame, they were essentially unsanctioned vigilantes bankrolled by a rogue tech billionaire. Overall grade: B- Next up is Ironheart, which came out in 2025. I'd say Ironheart was about 40% very weird and 60% quite good. It's sort of like the modern version of Dr. Faustus. The show got some flak on the Internet from the crossfire between the usual culture war people, but the key to understanding it is to realize that Riri Williams AKA Ironheart is in fact an antihero who's tottering on the edge of becoming a full-blown supervillain. Like Tony Stark, she's a once-in-a-generation scientific talent, but while she doesn't have Stark's alcohol problems, she's emotionally unstable, immature, ruthless, indifferent to collateral damage and consequences, and suffering from severe PTSD after her best friend and stepfather were killed in a drive-by shooting. This volatile mix gets her thrown out of MIT after her experiments cause too much destruction, and she has to go home to Chicago. To get the funds to keep working on her Iron Man armor, she turns to crime, and falls in with a gang of high-end thieves led by a mysterious figure named Hood. It turns out that Hood has actual magic powers, which both disturbs and fascinates Riri. However, Hood got his magic in a pact with a mysterious dark force. When a job goes bad, Riri gains the enmity of Hood and has to go on the run. It also turns out Hood's dark master has become very interested in Riri, which might be a lot more dangerous for everyone in the long run. Overall, I'd say this is about in the same vein as Agatha All Along, an interesting show constructed around a very morally questionable protagonist. Overall grade: B Next up is A Minecraft movie, which came out in 2024. I have to admit, I've never actually played Minecraft, so I know very little about the game and its ecosystem, only what I've generally absorbed by glancing at the news. That said, I think the movie held together quite well, and wasn't deserving of the general disdain it got in the press. (No doubt the $950 million box office compensated for any hurt feelings.) One of the many downsides of rapid technological change in the last fifty years is that the Boomers and Gen X and the Millennials and Gen Z and Gen Alpha have had such radically different formative experiences in childhood that it's harder to relate to each other. Growing up in the 1980s was a wildly different experience than growing up in the 2010s, and growing up in the 2010s was an even more wildly different experience than growing up in the 1960s. Smartphones and social media were dominant in 2020, barely starting in 2010, and implausible science fiction in 2000 and earlier, and so it was like the different generations grew up on different planets, because in some sense they actually did. (A five-year-old relative of mine just started school, and the descriptions of his school compared to what I remember of school really do sound like different planets entirely.) The Minecraft game and A Minecraft Movie might be one of those generation-locked experiences. Anyway, this has gotten very deep digression for what was essentially a portal-based LitRPG movie. A group of people experiencing various life difficulties in a rural Idaho town get sucked into the Minecraft world through a magic portal. There they must combine forces and learn to work together to master the Minecraft world to save it from an evil sorceress. As always, the fundamental question of any movie is the one that Russell Crowe's character shouted to the audience in Gladiator back in 2000. “Are you not entertained?” I admit I was entertained when watching A Minecraft Movie since it was funny and I recognized a lot of the video game mechanics, even though I've never actually played Minecraft. Like, Castlevania II had a night/day cycle the way Minecraft does, and Castlevania II was forty years ago. But that was another digression! I did enjoy A Minecraft Movie. It was kind of crazy, but it committed to the craziness and maintained a consistent creative vision, and I was entertained. Though I did think it was impressive how Jack Black's agent managed to insist that he sing several different times. Overall grade: B Next up is Back to School, which came out in 1986 and this is one of the better ‘80s comedies I've seen. Rodney Dangerfield plays Thornton Melon, who never went to college and is the wealthy owner of a chain of plus-sized clothing stores. His son Jason is attending Great Lakes University, and after Thornton's unfaithful gold-digging wife leaves him (Thornton is mostly relieved by this development), he decides to go visit his son. He quickly discovers that Jason is flailing at college, and decides to enroll to help out his son. Wacky adventures ensue! I quite enjoyed this. The fictional “Great Lakes University” was largely shot at UW-Madison in Wisconsin, which I found amusing because I spent a lot of time at UW-Madison several decades ago as a temporary IT employee. I liked seeing the characters walk past a place where I'd eat lunch outside when the day was nice, that kind of thing. Also, I'm very familiar with how the sausage gets made in higher ed. There's a scene where the dean is asking why Thornton is qualified to enter college, and then it cuts to the dean cheerfully overseeing the groundbreaking of the new Thornton Melon Hall which Thornton just donated, and I laughed so hard I almost hurt myself, because that is exactly how higher ed works. The movie had some pointless nudity, but it was only a few seconds and no doubt gets cut in network broadcasts. Overall grade: B Next up is Whiskey Galore, which came out in 1949 and this is a comedy set in Scotland during World War II. The villagers living on an isolated island have no whiskey due to wartime rationing. However, when a government ship carrying 50,000 cases of whiskey runs aground near the island, wacky hijinks ensue. I have to admit the first half of the movie was very slow and deliberate, gradually setting up all the pieces for later. Then, once the shipwreck happens, things pick up and the movie gets much funnier. Definitely worth watching both as a good comedy movie and an artifact of its time. A modicum of historical knowledge is required – if you don't know what the Home Guard is, you might have to do some Googling to understand the context of some of the scenes. Regrettably, the version I watched did not have captioning, so I had to pay really close attention to understand what the characters were saying, because some of the accents were very strong. Overall grade: B Next up is Happy Gilmore 2, which came out in 2025. This was dumb and overstuffed with celebrity cameos but thoroughly hilarious and I say this even though it uses one of my least favorite story tropes, namely “hero of previous movie is now a middle age loser.” However, the movie leads into it for comedy. When Happy Gilmore accidentally kills his wife with a line drive, he spirals into alcoholism and despair. But his five children still love him, and when his talented daughter needs tuition for school, Happy attempts to shake off his despair and go back to golf to win the money. But Happy soon stumbles onto a sinister conspiracy led by an evil CEO to transform the game of golf into his own personal profit center. Happy must team up with his old nemesis Shooter McGavin to save golf itself from the evil CEO. Amusingly, as I've said before, the best Adam Sandler movies are almost medieval. In medieval fables, it was common for a clever peasant to outwit pompous lords, corrupt priests, and greedy merchants. The best Adam Sandler protagonist remains an everyman who outwits the modern equivalent of pompous lords and corrupt priests, in this case an evil CEO. Overall grade: B+ Next up is Superman, which came out in 2025 and I thought this was pretty good and very funny at times. I think it caught the essential nature of Superman. Like, Superman should be a Lawful Good character. If he was a Dungeons and Dragons character, he would be a paladin. People on the Internet tend to take the characterization of superheroes seriously to perhaps an unhealthy degree, but it seems the best characterization of Superman is as an earnest, slightly dorky Boy Scout who goes around doing good deeds. The contrast of that good-hearted earnestness with his godlike abilities that would allow him to easily conquer and rule the world is what makes for an interesting character. I also appreciated how the movie dispensed with the overused trope of the Origin Story and just got down to business. In this movie, Lex Luthor is obsessed with destroying Superman and is willing to use both super-advanced technology and engineered geopolitical conflict to do it. Superman, because he's essentially a decent person, doesn't comprehend just how depraved Luthor is, and how far Luthor is willing to go out of petty spite. (Ironically, a billionaire willing to destroy the world out of petty spite is alas, quite realistic). Guy Gardener (“Jerkish Green Lantern”) and the extremely competent and the extremely exasperated Mr. Terrific definitely stole all their scenes. The director of the movie, James Gunn, was quite famously fired from Disney in 2018 for offensive jokes he had made on Twitter back when he was an edgy young filmmaker with an alcohol problem. I suppose Mr. Gunn can rest content knowing that Superman made more money than any Marvel movie released this year. Overall grade: A-   Next up is Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, which came out in 1988. This was a very strange movie, but nonetheless, one with an ambitious premise, strong performances, and a strong artistic vision. It's set in post WWII Los Angeles, and “toons” (basically cartoon characters) live and work alongside humans. Private eye Eddie Valiant hates toons since one of them killed his brother five years ago. However, he's hired by the head of a studio who's having trouble with one of his toon actors, Roger Rabbit. Roger's worried his wife Jessica is having an affair, and Valiant obtains pictures of Jessica playing patty cake (not a euphemism, they actually were playing patty cake) with another man. Roger has an emotional breakdown, and soon the other man winds up dead, and Roger insists he's innocent. Valiant and Roger find themselves sucked into a dangerous conspiracy overseen by a ruthless mastermind. This movie was such an interesting cultural artifact. It perfectly follows the structure of a ‘40s film noir movie, but with cartoons, and the dissonance between film noir and the cheerfulness of the toons was embraced and used as a frequently source of comedy. In fact, when the grim and dour Valiant uses the toons' comedy techniques as a tactical improvisation in a moment of mortal peril, it's both hilarious and awesome. Christopher Lloyd's performance as the villainous Judge Doom was amazing. (I don't think it's a spoiler to say that he's villainous, because his character is named Judge Doom and he's literally wearing a black hat.) Like, his performance perfectly captures something monstrous that is trying very hard to pretend to be human and not quite getting it right. And the amount of work it must have taken to make this movie staggers the mind. Nowadays, having live actors interact with cartoon characters is expensive, but not unduly so. It's a frequent technique. You see it all the time in commercials when a housewife is smiling at an animated roll of paper towels or something, and Marvel's essentially been doing it for years. But this was 1988! Computer animation was still a ways off. They had to shoot the movie on analog film, and then hand-draw all the animation and successfully match it to the live film. It wouldn't have worked without the performance of Bob Hoskins as Eddie Valiant, who plays everything perfectly straight in the same way Michael Caine did in A Muppet Christmas Carol. So kind of a strange movie, but definitely worth watching. And it has both Disney and Warner Brothers animated characters in the same movie, which is something we will never, ever see again. Overall grade: A Next up is K-Pop Demon Hunters, which came out in 2025. Like Who framed Roger Rabbit?, this is a very strange movie, but nonetheless with a clear and focused artistic vision. It is a cultural artifact that provides a fascinating look into a world of which I have no knowledge or interest, namely K-pop bands and their dueling fandoms. Anyway, the plot is that for millennia, female Korean musicians have used the magic of their voices to keep the demons locked away in a demon world. The current incarnation is a three-woman K-Pop group called Huntrix, and they are on the verge of sealing away the demons forever. Naturally, the Demon King doesn't like this, so one of his cleverer minions comes up with a plan. They'll start a Demon K-Pop Boy Band! Disguised as humans, the demon K-Pop group will win away Huntrix's fans, allowing them to breach the barrier and devour the world. However, one of the Huntrix musicians is half-demon, and she starts falling for the lead demon in the boy band, who is handsome and of course has a dark and troubled past. Essentially a musical K-drama follows. I have to admit I know practically nothing about K-Pop groups and their dueling fandoms, other than the fact that they exist. However, this was an interesting movie to watch. The animation was excellent, it did have a focused vision, and there were some funny bits. Overall grade: A Next up is Clarkson's Farm Season Four, which came out in 2025. A long time ago in the ‘90s, I watched the episode of Frasier where Frasier and Niles attempt to open a restaurant and it all goes horribly (yet hilariously) wrong. At the time, I had no money, but I promised myself that I would never invest in a restaurant. Nothing I have seen or learned in the subsequent thirty years has ever changed that decision. Season 4 of Clarkson's Farm is basically Jeremy Clarkson, like Frasier and Niles, attempting to open a restaurant, specifically a British pub. On paper it's a good idea, since Clarkson can provide the pub with food produced from his own farm and other local farmers. However, it's an enormous logistical nightmare, and Clarkson must deal with miles of red tape, contractors, and a ballooning budget, all while trying to keep his farm from going under. An excellent and entertaining documentary into the difficulties of both the farming life and food service. I still don't want to own a restaurant! Overall grade: A Next up is Tombstone, which came out in 1993. The Western genre of fiction is interesting because it's limited to such a very specific period of time and geographical region. Like the “Wild West” period that characterizes the Western genre really only lasted as a historical period from about 1865 to roughly 1890. The Western genre was at its most popular in movies from the 1940s and the 1960s, and I wonder if it declined because cultural and demographic changes made it unpopular to romanticize the Old West the way someone like Walt Disney did at Disneyland with “Frontierland.” Of course, the genre lives on in different forms in grittier Western movies, neo-Westerns like Yellowstone and Longmire, and a lot of the genre's conventions apply really well to science fiction. Everyone talks about Firefly being the first Space Western, but The Mandalorian was much more successful and was basically a Western in space (albeit with occasional visits from Space Wizards). Anyway! After that long-winded introduction, let's talk about Tombstone. When Val Kilmer died earlier this year, the news articles mentioned Tombstone as among his best work, so I decided to give it a watch. The plot centers around Wyatt Earp, played by Kurt Russell, who has decided to give up his career in law enforcement and move to Tombstone, Arizona, a silver mining boomtown, in hopes of making his fortune. However, Tombstone is mostly controlled by the Cowboys outlaw gang, and Earp is inevitably drawn into conflict with them. With the help of his brothers and Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer's character), Earp sets out to bring some law and order to Tombstone, whether the Cowboys like it or not. Holliday is in the process of dying from tuberculosis, which makes him a formidable fighter since he knows getting shot will be a less painful and protracted death than the one his illness will bring him. Kilmer plays him as a dissolute, scheming warrior-poet who nonetheless is a very loyal friend. Definitely a classic of the Western genre, and so worth watching. Overall grade: A Next up is Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, the eighth Mission Impossible movie. Of the eight movies, I think the sixth one was the best one, but this one comes in at a close second. It continues on from Dead Reckoning. Ethan Hunt now possesses the key that will unlock the source code of the Entity, the malicious AI (think ChatGPT, but even more obviously evil) that is actively maneuvering the world's nuclear powers into destroying each other so the Entity can rule the remnants of humanity. Unfortunately, the Entity's source code is sitting in a wrecked Russian nuclear sub at the bottom of the Bering Sea. Even more unfortunately, the Entity knows that Hunt has the key and is trying to stop him, even as the Entity's former minion and Hunt's bitter enemy Gabriel seeks to seize control of the Entity for himself. A sense of apocalyptic doom hangs over the movie, which works well to build tension. Once again, the world is doomed, unless Ethan Hunt and his allies can save the day. The tension works extremely well during the movie's underwater sequence, and the final airborne duel between Hunt and Gabriel. I don't know if they're going to make any more Mission Impossible movies after this (they are insanely expensive), but if this is the end, it is a satisfying conclusion for the character of Ethan Hunt and the Impossible Mission Force. Overall grade: A Next up is Deep Cover, which came out in 2025. This is described as a comedy thriller, and I didn't know what to expect when I watched it, but I really enjoyed it. Bryce Dallas Howard plays Kat, a struggling comedy improv teacher living in London. Her best students are Marlon (played by Orlando Bloom), a dedicated character actor who wants to portray gritty realism but keeps getting cast in tacky commercials, and Hugh (played by Nick Mohammed), an awkward IT worker with no social skills whatsoever. One day, the three of them are recruited by Detective Sergeant Billings (played by Sean Bean) of the Metropolitan Police. The Met wants to use improv comedians to do undercover work for minor busts with drug dealers. Since it plays 200 pounds a pop, the trio agrees. Of course, things rapidly spiral out of control, because Kat, Marlon, and Hugh are actually a lot better at improv than they think, and soon they find themselves negotiating with the chief criminals of the London underworld. What follows is a movie that is both very tense and very funny. Kat, Marlon, and Hugh are in way over their heads, and will have to do the best improv of their lives to escape a very grisly fate. Whether Sean Bean dies or not (as is tradition), you will just have to watch the movie and find out. Overall grade: A Next up is Puss in Boots: The Final Wish, which came out in 2022. I don't personally know much about the history of Disney as a corporation, and I don't much care, but I do have several relatives who are very interested in the history of the Disney corporation, and therefore I have picked up some by osmosis. Apparently Disney CEO Michael Eisner forcing out Jeffrey Katzenberg in the 1990s was a very serious mistake, because Katzenberg went on to co-found DreamWorks, which has been Disney's consistent rival for animation for the last thirty years. That's like “CIA Regime Change Blowback” levels of creating your own enemy. Anyway, historical ironies aside, Puss in Boots: The Final Wish was a funny and surprisingly thoughtful animated movie. Puss in Boots is a legendary outlaw and folk hero, but he has used up eight of his nine lives. An ominous bounty hunter who looks like a humanoid wolf begins pursuing him, and the Wolf is able to shrug off the best of Puss In Boots' attacks. Panicked, Puss hides in a retirement home for elderly cats, but then hears rumors of the magical Last Wish. Hoping to use it to get his lives back, Puss In Boots sets off on the quest. It was amusing how Little Jack Horner and Goldilocks and the Three Bears were rival criminal gangs seeking the Last Wish. Overall grade: A Next up is Chicken People, which came out in 2016. A good documentary film gives you a glimpse into an alien world that you would otherwise never visit. In this example, I have absolutely no interest in competitive chicken breeding and will only raise chickens in my backyard if society ever collapses to the level that it becomes necessary for survival. That said, this was a very interesting look into the work of competitive chicken breeding. Apparently, there is an official “American Standard of Perfection” for individual chicken breeds, and the winner of the yearly chicken competition gets the title “Super Grand Champion.” Not Grand Champion, Super Grand Champion! That looks impressive on a resume. It is interesting how chicken breeding is in some sense an elaborate Skinner Box – like you can deliberately set out to breed chickens with the desirable traits on the American Standard of Perfection, but until the chickens are hatched and grow up, you don't know how they're going to turn out, so you need to try again and again and again… Overall grade: A Next up is The Mask of Zoro, which came out in 1998. I saw this in the theatre when it came out 27 years ago, but that was 27 years ago, and I don't have much of a memory of it, save that I liked it. So when I had the chance to watch it again, I did! Anthony Hopkins plays Diego de la Vega, who has the secret identity of Zorro in the final days before Mexico breaks away from the Spanish Empire. With Mexico on the verge of getting its independence, Diego decides to hang up his sword and mask and focus on his beloved wife and daughter. Unfortunately, the military governor Don Montero realizes Diego is Zorro, so has him arrested, kills his wife, and steals his baby daughter to raise as his own. Twenty years later, a bandit named Alejandro loses his brother and best friends to a brutal cavalry commander. It turns out that Montero is returning to California from Spain, and plans to seize control of California as an independent republic (which, of course, will be ruled by him). In the chaos, Diego escapes from prison and encounters a drunken Alejandro, and stops him from a futile attack upon the cavalry commander. He then proposes a pact – Diego will train Alejandro as the next Zorro, and together they can take vengeance upon the men who wronged them. This was a good movie. It was good to see that my taste in movies 27 years ago wasn't terrible. It manages to cram an entire epic plot into only 2 hours and 20 minutes. In some ways it was like a throwback to a ‘40s movie but with modern (for the ‘90s) production values, and some very good swordfights. Overall grade: A Next up is Wick is Pain, which came out in 2025. I've seen all four John Wick movies and enjoyed them thoroughly, though I've never gotten around to any of the spinoffs. Wick is Pain is a documentary about how John Wick went from a doomed indie movie with a $6.5 million hole in its budget to one of the most popular action series of the last few decades. Apparently Keanu Reeves made an offhand joke about how “Wick is pain” and that became the mantra of the cast and crew, because making an action movie that intense really was a painful experience. Definitely worth watching if you enjoyed the John Wick movies or moviemaking in general. Overall grade: A The last movie I saw this summer was Game Night, which came out in 2016. It was a hilarious, if occasionally dark comedy action thriller. Jason Bateman and Rachel McAdams play Max and Annie Davis, a married couple who are very competitive and enjoy playing games of all kinds. Jason has an unresolved conflict with his brother Brooks, and one night Brooks invites them over for game night, which Max resents. Halfway through the evening, Brooks is kidnapped, with Max and Annie assume is part of the game. However, Brooks really is involved in something shady. Hilarity ensues, and it's up to Max and Annie to rescue Brooks and stay alive in the process. This was really funny, though a bit dark in places. That said, Max and Annie have a loving and supportive marriage, so it was nice to see something like that portrayed on the screen. Though this also leads to some hilarity, like when Annie accidentally shoots Max in the arm. No spoilers, but the punchline to that particular sequence was one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Overall grade: A So no A+ movie this time around, but I still saw a bunch of solid movies I enjoyed. One final note, I have to admit, I've really come to respect Adam Sandler as an entertainer, even if his movies and comedy are not always to my taste. He makes what he wants, makes a lot of money, ensures that his friends get paid, and then occasionally takes on a serious role in someone else's movie when he wants to flex some acting muscles. I am not surprised that nearly everyone who's in the original Happy Gilmore who was still alive wanted to come back for Happy Gilmore 2. So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show enjoyable and perhaps a guide to some good movies to watch. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.  

In this episode Ruben gives his thoughts on a bunch of movies including: War of The Worlds, Weapons, Nobody 2, The Naked Gun, Freakier Friday, Smurfs

WE ARE THE HERALDS OF GOOD AND BAD MOVIES, HERE TO ENOUNCE THE DOMINION OF… The post Cinepunx Episode 208: NEW MOVIE ROUND UP 2025 appeared first on Cinepunx.

Brendan shares his thoughts about seven movies he watched in June of 2025. Join us, won't you?Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster (2025)Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster (2025)Raise the Titanic (1987)Deep Sea Adventure (2014)Einstein and the Bomb (2024)The Manhattan Project (2012)Dunkirk (2017)D-Day: The Tide Turns (noiser podcast)Dunkirk: France 1940 (2018)Best in Show (2000)Best in Show Dashing Dogs (2025)The Mask of Zorro (1998)The Monuments Men (2014)What films did you watch in June? Share your viewings over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

Brendan shares his thoughts about seven movies he watched in June of 2025. Join us, won't you?Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster (2025)Titan: The OceanGate Submersible Disaster (2025)Raise the Titanic (1987)Deep Sea Adventure (2014)Einstein and the Bomb (2024)The Manhattan Project (2012)Dunkirk (2017)D-Day: The Tide Turns (noiser podcast)Dunkirk: France 1940 (2018)Best in Show (2000)Best in Show Dashing Dogs (2025)The Mask of Zorro (1998)The Monuments Men (2014)What films did you watch in June? Share your viewings over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

Your Favorite Fat Boys are here with your 2025 Summer Movie Roundup. We've spent the Summer watching the big blockbuster movies so you don't have to. We bring you reviews for Jurassic World, The Karate Kid, Ballerina, 28 years later, Superman. Fantastic Four, Ironheart, and The Naked Gun. We also talk what's upcoming with the MCU and take a crack at who we want on a new onscreen X-Men team.

In dieser Folge von Nerdizismus nehmen wir uns die großen Franchises vor! Wir starten mit den Fantastic Four und fragen uns, warum der Film nach einem vielversprechenden Anfang im Finale enttäuscht. Außerdem stürzen wir uns auf Gladiator 2 und Napoleon und diskutieren die kontroverse Rückkehr von Maximus' Sohnemann. Von den Schwächen des neuen Jurassic World bis zum Überraschungshit Blood and Sinners und dem animierten Highlight K-Pop Demon Hunters – wir decken alles ab! Schaltet ein und diskutiert mit uns! ACHTUNG: SERIEN-TALKS MIT CHRIS & MICHAEL AB SOFORT BEI FERNSEHSERIEN.DE/SERIENCHECKER JEDEN DONNERSTAG EINE NEUE FOLGE! Wir freuen uns auf eure Meinungen und Kommentare! Schickt uns eure Gedanken zu The Last of Us oder stellt uns eure Fragen – wir gehen gerne in einer der nächsten Episoden darauf ein. Schickt uns eurer Feedback zum Film per E-Mail an info@nerdizismus.de, Whatsapp bzw. SMS an +49 152 596 477 09 oder kommt auf unseren Discord

We react to the films of the second quarter of the year 2025. In this episode, we also discuss some of our favorite movies of the year so far and some upcoming films we are looking forward to.Learn More about Cinema Convos: ⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/cinemaconvos⁠⁠⁠ Theme music produced by Danya Vodovoz - Royalty Free Musichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_LoWLztX5M

Philip is joined by Samara and Elliott to talk about the summer movie season. Titles include '28 Years Later,' 'Jurassic World,' 'Superman,' 'Eddington,' and more. Follow The ThawedCast: Conversations About Animation: twitter.com/thawedcast and instagram.com/thawedcast. instagram.com/samara_ehlke9, instagram.com/ellimundo, instagram.com/philipehlke. Visit thawedcast.com

Brendan shares his thoughts about the movies he watched in May of 2025, and the games that would be good to play alongside those movies.Micmacs (2009)Stuffed Fables (2018)Mice and Mystics (2012)Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years (2025)Joking Hazard (2016)Charty Party (2019)The Mandalorian: Adventures (2024)The In-Laws (1979)[redacted] (2014)The Andromeda Strain (1971)Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (2015)The Fall Guy (2024)Paddington in Peru (2024)Mice and Mystics (2012)The Lost Expedition (2017)Sinners (2025)Speakeasy Blues (2018)Speakeasy (2025)Panic Station (2011)On Tour (2019)Rock Hard: 1977 (2024)Draft & Write Records (2024)One Night Ultimate Vampire (2016)Till Dawn (2014)The Hunger (2021)What do you think of these films? Share your experience over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

Brendan shares his thoughts about the movies he watched in May of 2025, and the games that would be good to play alongside those movies.Micmacs (2009)Stuffed Fables (2018)Mice and Mystics (2012)Bill Burr: Drop Dead Years (2025)Joking Hazard (2016)Charty Party (2019)The Mandalorian: Adventures (2024)The In-Laws (1979)[redacted] (2014)The Andromeda Strain (1971)Pandemic Legacy: Season 1 (2015)The Fall Guy (2024)Paddington in Peru (2024)Mice and Mystics (2012)The Lost Expedition (2017)Sinners (2025)Speakeasy Blues (2018)Speakeasy (2025)Panic Station (2011)On Tour (2019)Rock Hard: 1977 (2024)Draft & Write Records (2024)One Night Ultimate Vampire (2016)Till Dawn (2014)The Hunger (2021)What do you think of these films? Share your experience over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

In this week's episode, I take a look at the frozen pizzas that I enjoyed in 2025, and give my recommendations for the best frozen pizzas. This coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragontiarna series at my Payhip store: WARDEN25 The coupon code is valid through July 14, 2025. So if you need a new ebook this summer, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 256 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is June 20th, 2025 and today we are looking at my favorite frozen pizzas from Winter and Spring 2025. Before we get to our main topic, we'll have Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing progress, and then we will do Question of the Week this week.   First up, let's do Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 25% off the ebooks in the Dragontiarna series at my Payhip store, and that coupon is WARDEN25. This coupon code is valid through July 14th, 2025. So if you need a new series of really long ebooks to read for this summer, we have got you covered and as always, the links to the store and the coupon code will be included in the show notes.   Now for an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. As I mentioned before, I want Summer 2025 to be my Super Summer of Finishing Things because I want to finish The Shield War, Stealth and Spells, and Ghost Armor series this summer before I start on new things. I'm pleased to report that I have reached a milestone of that. The rough draft of Shield of Power is done at 101,000 words. This will be the sixth and final book in the Shield War series. I am currently writing A Consort of Darkness, which will be a short story that newsletter subscribers will get a free copy of in ebook form when Shield of Power comes out. I am also 109,000 words into Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest and hopefully that will come out very quickly after Shield The Power is out. I'm also 10,000 words into Ghost in the Siege, which will likewise be the sixth and final book in the Ghost Armor series.   In audiobook news, recording is still underway for Ghost in the Corruption, which will be narrated by Hollis McCarthy and Shield of Battle, which will be narrated by Brad Wills. Hopefully we will have some more updates on that soon and I don't think it'll be too much longer before both audiobooks are out and available.   00:02:02 Question of the Week   Now let's go to Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question: when was the last time you went to an actual movie theater to see a movie? No wrong answers, including “I don't go to movie theaters.”  As you can guess, we had a range of responses on this one.   Justin says: Last month we saw Monty Python and the Holy Grail (fifty year release) in the theater. Yes, we have the DVD.   David says: I guess Dune Two is the last time I went to a theater. For the price of going to the theater, I can wait and stream it later. If I don't like the price, I can even wait a few years. I'm not so quick to give them my money. Haven't gone to the theater yet in 2025. Nothing called out to me.   William says: Except for 2020-2021, I've been going to the movies frequently every year since the Hobbit movies first came out. It's not that my habits has changed, just that they started making the kind of movies I wanted to watch like Star Wars, Jurassic World, the Disney remakes, and so on. Before 2012, the last time I went was in 2006 for the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. It probably helps that it's only two tickets each time and not four or five for a whole family.   Randy says: Top Gun: Maverick. It was a throwback to the days when movies were fun to watch. Everything doesn't have to have a deeper meaning and make us think. Just have an unlikely crew of misfits take out the bad guys. Bonnie says: Last one was Mary Poppins Returns with granddaughter in Spring 2019. I can't see spending the price for a one time deal.   Cheryl says: The last time I went to the cinema…when did American Beauty come out? That's how long ago it was and the movie was disappointing.   Jenny says: Thunderbolts! I wish movies weren't so pricey.   Elizabeth says: Last time I went to the movie theater was to see Jumanji 2 with my now husband as our first date because both of us are terrible at first date ideas.   I don't know- if Elizabeth's first date with her now husband was Jumanji 2, it seems like that was a very successful first date.   John says: War of the Rohirrim, December of last year.   A different John says: Dune Two and A Complete Unknown are the only two I've seen in the theater in the last two years. In both cases it was because A: the movie deserved to be experienced completely, and B: there was someone I wanted to share it with. Otherwise, modern tech in the home works just fine.   Michael says: Last movie I saw in an actual cinema was Avengers Infinity War, so that's going back a bit. I think the COVID lockdown just killed any desire to do so and haven't been back since.   Michael [A different Michael than the one listed above] says: It has been years.   For myself, the answer is quite simple. I went on May 31st to see Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning. The inspiration for this question was technological change. I only went to the theater twice in 2024, for Dune Part Two and The Fall Guy. In 2025, I've been to the theater twice so far, for Thunderbolts and Mission Impossible: Final Reckoning, but a long time ago when I was much younger and had far fewer demands in my time, I would usually go to the movies on Saturday afternoons if I saw something that looked at all interesting. I'd always go in the afternoons because afternoon matinees were cheaper and I usually preferred to spend Saturday night playing computer games anyway. Nowadays, like I said above, I only went twice in 2024 and twice in 2025 so far. I am not sure what changed. The obvious one is that I'm old enough to have enough to do week to week that giving up three hours on a Saturday afternoon can often be a problem. The other obvious answer is technological change in the form of streaming, which makes it a lot easier to see things at home and perhaps one's taste change as one gets older. For example, there is no way I would go to the theater to see the Minecraft movie, though I would probably watch it on streaming when it rolls around (and I did in fact watch it in streaming last week and thought it was pretty good. It'll be in my next Movie Roundup.) So that is it for Question of the Week.   00:05:52 Main Topic: Winter/Spring/Summer 2025 Frozen Pizza Roundup   Now onto our main topic this week, my Spring/Summer 2025 Frozen Pizza Roundup (though I suppose I've been working on this long enough that it should be the Winter/ Spring/Summer 2025 Frozen Pizza Roundup). I suppose it is a bit odd to talk about frozen pizza on a podcast ostensibly dedicated to indie publishing and indie writing, but I like frozen pizza and it's my podcast, so if I want to talk about frozen pizza, I'm going to talk about frozen pizza. Besides my previous pizza review roundup episode was pretty popular, so that's why I decided to do another one. Unlike a movie roundup, the pizza reviews will be in chronological order based on when I ate them. The grades are, as always, totally subjective and based on my own opinions. I'll also be rating the pizza by eating it hot and eating it cold, since cold pizza is a different experience than hot pizza. Cold pizza for lunch the next day is something to look forward to, especially during a busy day. I should also mention that I purchased each pizza myself with my own money. No one sent me any free stuff, so while my opinion may be subjective, it is nonetheless unbiased. Additionally, I exactly follow the preparation directions for each pizza since I wanted to avoid the phenomenon you sometimes see on recipe blogs where a commenter complains that a recipe didn't work and then admits that they took out the butter, cut the sugar in half, replaced the flour with corn starch, and substituted canola oil for frosting. So with those disclaimers, disclosures, and caveats out of the way, on to the pizzas.   The first one is Orv's Ultimate Rizer Three Meat Pizza, which I had on February 28th, 2025. Orv's is a pizza brand owned by Minnesota based pizza maker Bernatello's. In the last pizza roundup, I mistakenly said Bernatello's was based in Wisconsin (though they do in fact have numerous Wisconsin facilities) and Bernatello's also owns many different pizza brands I have mentioned the last roundup. I had never tried Orv's before, so I thought I would give it a try.   Eaten hot, the sausage, Canadian bacon, and pepperoni are quite good, as are the cheese and sauce. However, the crust really is quite bready and kind of overwhelmed the other tastes. This is a thick crust pizza and to be honest, I really prefer thin crust because it's generally less caloric and the crust has a greater chance to work in harmony with the other flavors and not overpower them.   Eaten cold, it's pretty much the same experience. This is definitely a pizza that would benefit from a bit of added oregano, garlic salt, or perhaps other spices. Overall, I do think I strongly prefer Bernatello's Brew Pub Lotzza Motzza pizza instead of Orv's, though I should mention that Orv's is in fact quite a bit cheaper. Overall Grade: C+   The next pizza is the Red Baron Four Meat Classic Crust Pizza, which I ate on March 7th, 2025. Red Baron is a frozen pizza brand that started in 1976 by the Schwan's Frozen Food Company of Minnesota. Currently, Schwan's is owned by a large Korean conglomerate. Whatever one might think of large corporate consolidation, the fact that the stylized World War I fighter pilot mascot of a Minnesota company is now owned by a Korean conglomerate is kind of hilarious in an absurdist sort of way. Anyway, the pizza!   Eaten hot, I liked the crust. It was a bit thicker than usual for thin crust pizza, but it was crisp and didn't get bready. The sauce was a bit sweeter than usual, but I still liked it. The various meats and the cheese were good as well. Eaten cold, it's still pretty good. The cheese and sauce set well and remained flavorful. Overall Grade: B+   Our next pizza is Good and Gather Pepperoni Pizza, which I had on March 14th, 2025. Store brand foods can be hit or miss, like if you go to a big box grocery store and they have their own store brand of essentials like coffee and cereal and bread and so forth. And as I said, those can be really hit or miss since it depends on the company that is actually supplying the food to the store. That said, I've had good results with Good and Gather, which is the store brand of Target, which is a major big box retailer in the United States. So I thought I'd give the Good and Gather Pepperoni Pizza a try. Eaten hot, I was pleasantly surprised. The crust was crisp, the cheese and sauce were good (if not outstanding), and the pepperoni was flavorful. A good workman like frozen pizza. Eaten cold, it still tastes quite good. An important detail is that this is a good deal cheaper than many of the more premium pizza brands I have mentioned in these pizza roundups. So I would say this is a good solid option for the budget minded consumer. Overall Grade: B     Next up we have Bellatoria's Ultra Thin Crust Meat Trio Pizza, which I ate on March the 21st, 2025. Bellatoria's is yet another brand of the Bernatello's Frozen Pizza Company, a frequent entry in these pizza roundups and it is a seems to be more of a premium brand compared to Orv's. It also has a less heavy load topping compared to Lotzza Motzza, which is another Bernatello's brand. Despite that, I quite like this one. Eaten hot, the crust was crisp and just a bit flaky in a good way and the cheese, sauce, and meat toppings were all good. Sometimes on a pizza you can't taste the crust. Other times you taste it too much, like with thick crust pizza, but I think this was a good crust that complemented the toppings, which were all flavorful. Eaten cold, it fares well. The thin crust doesn't get soggy and the meat and cheese remain flavorful. A very good pizza. I prefer a thin crust to a thick crust, but this was an excellent thin crust. Overall Grade: A   Our next pizza is the Totino's Party Pizza Triple Meat, which I ate March 26th, 2025. Totino's was famously one of the first companies to make frozen pizza and it was later acquired by General Mills. These days, Totino's is mostly known for its pizza rolls, but they still put out small individual pizzas and for the sake of historical continuity, I decided to give it a try. It was okay. It definitely tasted like pizza, but it didn't compare to the stronger ones I've tried like Heggie's or Pothole Pizza. You do need to cook it for a long time for the crust to be adequately crispy and not soggy. I didn't bother to try it cold since I didn't think it would be improved, and this is definitely a pizza where you might want to add some oregano or garlic salt. Its biggest advantage is that it's quite inexpensive, a cheap meal, but don't expect too much. Overall Grade: C+     Next up is Authentic Motor City Pizza Company Three Meat Pizza, which I had on March 28th, 2025. Authentic Motor Pizza Company is owned by the Ilitch billionaire family of Michigan who are the original founders of Little Caesar's Pizza. This pizza is a Detroit style pizza, which is essentially a square pizza cooked in a square pan with a thick crust and lots of cheese. The square shape comes from the fact that Detroit style pizza was originally cooked in a car oil drip pan since the commercially available pans at the time weren't suitable for the pizza. There is some dispute about what actually happened, but it seems Detroit style pizza started at a restaurant called Buddy's Rendezvous in the 1940s, which later became the local Michigan pizza chain Buddy's Pizza. I have to admit, I was originally only vaguely aware of Detroit style pizza, but in 2019 I went to the Detroit area for a funeral and had dinner at Buddy's Pizza, which was amazing. (There was also a guy getting arrested in the parking lot at the time, but thankfully that did not affect the dining experience.) If your travels ever take you to the Detroit area, you should definitely try Buddy's Pizza. Anyway, so after all this, when I happened across a Detroit style frozen pizza, I decided I needed to give it a try. Eaten hot, it is quite good. As I've said before, I'm generally not a fan of thick crust pizza, which this is, but it's a good thick crust, crispy on the edges and bottom without being bready or chewy. The toppings are all excellent, which is helped by the fact that the sauce is good and has a good garlic flavor to it. I was curious how it would hold up when eaten cold and I actually liked it a bit better than when it was hot. The cheese sets well and then everything holds together and so it's a very substantial, very tasty cold pizza. This is good pizza, though that said, I still prefer a thinner crust because the Detroit style of pizza is delicious, but dang, is it a heavy meal. Overall grade: A   Next up is Pothole Kitchen Sink Pizza, which I ate on April 4, 2025, and this is another pizza from the Midwestern convenience store chain Kwik Trip and features pepperoni, sausage, mushrooms, onions, and red and green peppers. I really like this one, like the other Pothole varieties I've tried. It's quite good: good crust, good cheese, good sauce, and very flavorful toppings. This has a slight advantage over my other favorite version, the Pothole Meat Sweats Pizza, since the lesser amount of meat means it isn't as greasy. Eaten cold, it is likewise quite good. I think this ties with the Meat Sweats Pothole Pizza. They both represent excellent versions of two different pizza experiences. If you don't want mushrooms and vegetables on your pizza, get the Meat Sweats, but if you do want vegetables, go for the Kitchen Sink. Overall grade: A+     Next up is Heggie's Six Pack Pizza, which I tried on April 11th, 2025. This is another pizza from Minnesota company Heggie's, which had one of my favorite pizzas of the last roundup. Heggie's Six Pack Pizza comes with sausage, pepperoni, Canadian bacon, regular bacon, mozzarella cheese, and cheddar cheese. Let's just say if you're eating this, you probably don't have a six pack.   Anyway. Eaten hot, it was quite good. I like the thin crust and all the meat was good. I would say the biggest weakness is that you can mostly taste the cheese and the Canadian bacon since they kind of drown out all the other flavors. Eaten cold, I would say it tastes better. You can taste all the individual toppings. The cheese, sauce, and crust are pleasant when cold as well. This was a good pizza, but I do like the pepperoni only version better since I think the taste is superior. Overall grade: A-   Next up is the Tombstone Tavern Style Meat Crumble Pizza, which I had on May 2nd, 2025, and this is a more upgraded version of the basic model Tombstone pizza with thinner crust, slightly different cheese, and a mixture of pepperoni and crumbled pork sausage. Honestly, it tasted about the same as the standard model Tombstone. The crust and meat were slightly better, but I thought the sauce was rather watery. Eaten cold, it was better since the watery flavor of the sauce wasn't as strong. That said, I do think the standard model Tombstone pizza is a better pizza. Overall grade: B-     Then we had a bit of a gap here because I had basically tried most of the pizza brands that I actually wanted to try for this review. There are some more lower cost brands out there, but I figured they'd be mostly similar to the cheaper ones I already tried.   Then I came across the final pizza for this review roundup, Screamin' Sicilian Mountain of Meat, which I had on June 6th, 2025. This is another pizza from the Screamin' Sicilian line, which is part of the Palermo Pizza Company of Wisconsin. I tried an all pepperoni version for the last pizza roundup and thought it was pretty good. It got an A-. I decided to try the Mountain of Meat, which has pepperoni, sausage, ham, and bacon, and has a stone fired crust. I liked it better than the all pepperoni version. The different meats blend together well, and I think this version of the crust is quite a bit better. It's a little bit thicker, but still quite crispy. Eaten cold, it likewise holds up quite well. The spiciness of the meat remains flavorful even when cold and the cheese holds it all together. Overall grade: A   So to sum up after two pizza review posts, here are my favorites.   Overall favorites: Pothole Meat Sweats and Pothole Kitchen Sink. Excellent strong runners-up: Heggie's Pepperoni Pizza, Lotzza Motzza, Bellatoria, and the Screamin' Sicilian Mountain of Meat. The downside of all these choices is that they tend to be expensive, usually $10 US or above. So with that in mind, here are best my choices for the best budget options, which would be Tombstone Pepperoni & Sausage and Target's Good & Gather Pepperoni.   Also, one advantage of frozen pizza is that you can add spices to flavor the taste. I found that frozen pizza in general frequently benefits from the addition of oregano or perhaps a dusting of garlic powder. So if you are looking for some frozen pizza, hopefully this will help you find one.   So that is it for this week. Next week I promise we will go back to writing and publishing topics instead of pizza. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Brendan shares his thoughts about the films he watched in March and April of 2025. Join us, won't you?The Devil Wears PradaPrêt-à-Porter (2010)Fit to Print (2023)DoomDOOM: The Board Game (2016)PhilomenaSherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases (1981)The PostFit to Print (2023)Watergate (2019)ThelmaHolding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr (2018)Apollo 13High Frontier (2010)Apollo: A Game Inspired by NASA Moon Missions (2020)Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon (2024)TrumboHollywood 1947 (2023)The Man from EarthCosmosSETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (2024)Judgment at NurembergHeart EyesWhat films did you watch in March and April of 2025? Share your viewing over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

Brendan shares his thoughts about the films he watched in March and April of 2025. Join us, won't you?The Devil Wears PradaPrêt-à-Porter (2010)Fit to Print (2023)DoomDOOM: The Board Game (2016)PhilomenaSherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murders & Other Cases (1981)The PostFit to Print (2023)Watergate (2019)ThelmaHolding On: The Troubled Life of Billy Kerr (2018)Apollo 13High Frontier (2010)Apollo: A Game Inspired by NASA Moon Missions (2020)Shackleton Base: A Journey to the Moon (2024)TrumboHollywood 1947 (2023)The Man from EarthCosmosSETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (2024)Judgment at NurembergHeart EyesWhat films did you watch in March and April of 2025? Share your viewing over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

When it rains, it pours.... Yes, that's right another episode! Eric and Zeff are here to clear the, ahem, backlog, as they total up the scores from last year's Summer Movie competition. Think of this as sort a half-time show between Parts 1 and 2 of this year's Summer Movie Preview. What's that? You mean, you haven't listened to Part 1 yet? Shame on you. And there the guys were, feeling bad about not putting out new episodes for the past year......

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

Brendan shares his thoughts on several films he watched in February. Join us, won't you? Saturday Night (2024)Roll Camera!: The Filmmaking Board Game (2021)Paddington 2 (2017)...and then, we held hands. (2015)Watchmen (2009)Heroes Wanted (2014)Love Hurts (2025)Vengeance (2018)The Menu (2022)Dread (2006)The Imitation Game (2014)Turing Machine (2022) What movies did you see in February 2025? Share your thoughts over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

In this week's episode, we take a look at marketing for writers, and discuss how it can both benefit and hinder writers. This coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Fury of the Barbarians, Book #5 in the Dragonskull series (as excellently narrated by Brad Wills), at my Payhip store: BARBARIAN50 The coupon code is valid through May 2, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered! TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 247 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is April 11th, 2025, and today we are looking at marketing challenges for writers.   First, let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Dragonskull: Fury of the Barbarians, Book Five in the Dragonskull series (as excellent narrated by Brad Wills) at my Payhip store. That code is BARBARIAN50. We will have the coupon code in the show notes along with links to the store. This coupon code is valid through May 2, 2025, so if you need a new audiobook for spring, we've got you covered.   Now let's have an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. I am done with the rough draft of Shield of Battle and its accompanying short story, Raven's Hunt. I am currently editing them and making good progress on that. The book should come out either right before or right after Easter, with right after being the more likely option the way it looks right now. I'm also 14,000 words into Ghost in the Corruption, which will be my main project once Shield of Battle comes out. Audio recording is still underway for Shield of Deception and Ghost in the Assembly. So more updates on that to come. So that's where I'm at with my current writing projects.   00:01:17 Question of the Week   And now let's take a look at Question of the Week. Question of the Week is intended to inspire enjoyable discussions of interesting topics. This week's question, what is the best TV show you started watching in 2025 (if any)? No wrong answers, obviously.   Justin says: Television shows? The TV in my house is used for video games and movies. It has been 18 years since I watched any TV shows. Surabhi says: Nowadays the only non-Marvel series I watch are animes like Doraemon and Shinchan XD.   Perry says: I never watched a lot of TV but I do catch the odd European football or hockey game. That said, I'm enjoying The Wheel of Time.   Sam says: Clarkson's Farm. He might be a love him/hate him chap, but he certainly does make for entertaining shows. It also shows just how fickle the farming industry can be and shines a much needed light on the issues they face.   I would like to second Sam's recommendation of Clarkson's Farm. It's definitely well worth watching if you have access to Amazon Prime. Bonnie says:  I'm totally out of the loop. Haven't really watched any TV since I binged Avengers and Star War when home with Covid in 2021. I read during downtime.   Andrew says: Tracker is okay. Matlock is good, well-written. I want to like Watson, but have given up. Dark Winds is excellent. 1923 got so dark, I quit. Landman started great, got worse when wife character entered the picture. Re-watching Lonesome Dove. Love it.   David says: The Blacklist.   Michael says: No particular series as I don't really watch much on TV, but a shout out to the Japanese NHK World Channel, which is essentially their international service in English available to watch live on their website, at least in my country or via their app. There's so much good content on there, really interesting documentaries, news features, Japanese shows, and of course the highlights of the Sumo tournaments.   Larry says: Starting The Outpost.   John says: My brother has recommended Wolf Hall. My most anticipated series is Andor. I think of what I watched this year thus far my guilty pleasure was Reacher, most emotional was 1923, most cerebral has been Severance, and funniest has been The Residence. No favorite standout yet.   Juana says: Tracker.   William says: Poker Face was enjoyable.   For myself, I think it would be Wolf Hall: The Mirror and the Light about the downfall of Thomas Cromwell in the court of Henry VIII. I'll have more to say about that later in my Winter/Spring 2025 Movie Roundup post in a few weeks.   00:03:29 Main Topic: Marketing   Now let's move on to our main topic, writing adjacent activities: marketing. This is part of my podcast series about what I call writing adjacent activities. What do I mean by this? I'm talking about the tasks that seem like they're part of the writing process but really belong in a different category. These tasks are important, don't get me wrong, but they can also be a pitfall if you spend too much time on them or don't use that time correctly. In this series, we are focusing on a few of these tasks and how they can benefit or hinder your writing process, even though they seem like good uses of time and may in fact be beneficial. In this episode, we will talk about marketing. For the self-published author, it is an absolutely essential thing to do. Even traditionally published authors are becoming involved in their marketing or hiring marketing firms apart from their publishers to help with that work. Even important tasks can still take time away from the most important one, writing.   First, how does marketing work for writers in the first place? Even as traditional advertising and print media like newspapers and periodicals has all disappeared by 2025, there are still many, many ways to advertise a book. Here are some examples:   Social media and I don't mean ads, I mean posting content about your book or engaging readers on social media about your book. It's become increasingly common in this age of a video-based social media like TikTok, YouTube Shorts, and Instagram Reels for authors to post short clips about them interacting with their book or doing things with their book and so forth. And that is, I think, a distinct category from ads.   Ads of course are another type of marketing such as Amazon Ads, Facebook, BookBub, etc.   An email newsletter where you send out an email to your newsletter subscribers when a book comes out   Having an author website   Group promotions where you work together with a group of authors to promote   Doing interviews with podcasts, local media, etc. (though these days podcasts have essentially superseded local media)   Sending out advanced reader copies   Permafree/discounts   I should note that of everything on this list, I've done them all except for advanced reader copies, which I never really bothered to do because I write so fast that it seems to be kind of pointless at that point. Now I got to admit that list seems overwhelming, but you're not going to do them all simultaneously. Most authors pick a few from the list and then focus on them, and then some of them take some work upfront like setting up your author website and then it's less work to maintain it and update it as you go along than it is to set it up to begin with.   For example, making many of my series starters permafree has been an extremely successful strategy for me. For an author who only has two books, that strategy would not be as effective, but if you have a series of nine books then that is a good idea.   So why is it beneficial to market your books? A couple years ago (and I've told this story before, but it bears repeating), I was at a Subway waiting in line to order lunch. The person in front of me was staring at the menu in great confusion. “Does this shop sell submarine sandwiches?”, she finally asked the sandwich artist. Even with 40,000 locations worldwide and millions of dollars in advertising each year, this person was completely unaware of Subway's offerings.   This moment made me realize that marketing must be constant even for big legacy brands like Subway or Coca-Cola because there is always someone out there who isn't familiar with what you have to offer them. If multi-billion dollar corporations like Coca-Cola and Subway have people who haven't heard of them, how much more [work is there for] indie authors like us? There is in my opinion, an erroneous sentiment that getting too involved in marketing as an author somehow cheapens your work, devalues your art, or means that you're not as committed to your art. That sentiment is frankly, in my opinion, self-destructive and keeping a lot of people from reaching new readers or keeping existing ones as new books come out.   Marketing is necessary and needs to be ongoing to work. It's important to remember that readers love new books and want to know more about them. Your goal is to just let them know what's available and how to find your work. You're not being annoying by creating an ad or sending out a newsletter when a new book drops. Even if you have loyal readers, it's likely only a very tiny percentage of them are obsessively checking ebook stores daily for your latest publications. Social media and newsletters in particular are effective ways to let people know when the latest content is ready or can help them get excited for an upcoming release. Just as importantly, good marketing can help you find people who are interested in your genre or read authors similar to you.   So marketing is a good thing and it is in fact necessary if you want to have a career as an indie author or sell books in any quantities. However, it can become a pitfall that takes time away from actually writing new books. So when can it be a pitfall? There are about five different ways it can become a hindrance to writing.   #1: The most obvious pitfall is that time spent working on marketing is time not spent on writing. Although marketing is an essential part of how writers make income, it's only going to go so far compared to creating new books. This is in fact a decision I've had to make many times where if there's only so many hours in the day, and if I have an hour and I have to choose an hour spent fiddling with ads to try and optimize them to sell old books or to focus on writing new books, very often I have decided to focus on writing new books. Or if I have ads that are underperforming, I just shut them off and don't think about them until I have a free moment when the current book is done because writing the latest book is where my attention and priority should be. #2: The second pitfall is that spending too much time on social media or various forums like Reddit can also skew your perspective and give you an unreal view of the preferences of your readership. You'll likely only engage with a small percentage of your readers online. Just because they're reaching out to you or sharing their opinions online doesn't mean that their opinion matches the rest of your readership. An example of this is when Warner Brothers thought there was a massive demand for the Snyder Cut of the Justice League movie based on an online fan campaign and spent a very large amount of money for the recut of the movie, only for it to have a fairly modest audience that didn't recoup the cost. Later it came out that much of the Twitter campaign for the recut were bot accounts, people with multiple social media accounts, or people that ultimately pirated the movie instead of getting an HBO subscription to watch it when it finally became available on streaming. The Internet is a very useful tool, but it's best to take it with a grain of salt and remember that that just because one person is saying something on the Internet doesn't mean there are ten or even a hundred silent people who share their views. As with the example with the Justice League movie, large businesses have run into that trouble where they assume just because a particular audience segment is very loud on social media, therefore it must be a large segment when in fact it turns out to be just a very loud minority that ultimately isn't going to have much buying power. So that is something to keep in mind when you examine [social media], that opinions expressed online may not necessarily reflect reality.   #3: There is also the temptation to get so lost in thinking of how a book will be marketed, that when you write it, you don't try to write a book that is authentic to you or your readers. Trying to piece together a book based on the latest tropes or sales trends will likely mean that by the time the book is ready, social media will have moved onto another one. Writing to market is a form of marketing that sometimes works, but often results in something that feels formulaic or doesn't match your writing style. You can't always tell if the author hated the book when they were writing it, but sometimes you can. And it's sometimes very obvious to tell if an author wrote a book not because he or she enjoyed writing it but because they thought it would sell. And I think deep down, you really have to enjoy the genre you're writing in, which is why many frustrated mystery, fantasy, and science fiction authors saw how well romance doing and so decided to try writing romance only to deep down they didn't enjoy reading romance and so they didn't write a romance book that anyone would enjoy reading. So that is the potential risk of that temptation.   #4: Another pitfall is the urge to market your way out of a book that isn't connecting with readers. If a book doesn't meet reader expectations, no amount of marketing is going to significantly change that. Sometimes it's best to cut your losses with a book or series if it's not performing the way that you expect instead of throwing even more money marketing at it. I'm afraid I have a very recent example for my own life in the form of these Stealth and Spells Online series.   I think the problem with that series is I fundamentally misread what the LitRPG audience wants. Stealth and Spells Online is about a virtual reality game, but what the LitRPG audience really seems to want these days is either Portal Isekai or System Apocalypse Fantasy, which Stealth and Spells Online most definitely isn't. I told the narrator that I intended to write a LitRPG, but what I ended up with was a science fiction espionage thriller with LitRPG elements. So that, as you might expect, has been very hard to market and very hard to turn a profit while marketing it. So what I decided to do was I originally planned for seven or eight books in the series, but I'm going to cut it down to three and wrap up the story in hopefully a satisfying way with book number three this summer. That is a lived experience example of a changing course when some marketing doesn't work.   #5: There can be a feeling that you're missing out if you're not trying a marketing strategy that worked for someone else, so you'll end up stretching yourself thin by trying everything, stretching your marketing time across social media, newsletters, video content, posting the spaces like Goodreads, assembling a launch team, sending out advanced reader copies, going on podcasts, doing interviews with local media, and doing guest blog posts simply is not sustainable. There is a potential value in doing a short-term marketing sprint like that where you do all the things for a few days, but doing that all the time is not a good idea. As we mentioned earlier, it can take away time that should be spent writing. So really the best marketing course is to pick a few tactics that you enjoy and are comfortable using and then do those most of the time and save everything else for special occasions or if an opportunity comes up. For myself, I mostly focus on setting first in series permafree and doing various ad campaigns on Facebook, Amazon, and BookBub. I tend to stay away from TikTok and video marketing and some of the more time intensive things. I prefer things like permafree or various CPC ads where I can set it up and let it run and then check on it every few days to make sure it's working or not spending too much. So how can you balance time spent on marketing with making progress with your writing? The best way to market your old books is to publish a new one. Algorithms on online stores like Amazon and all the others reward fresh books and readers have short memories, so taking years between series risks them forgetting you.   Finishing a series in a timely fashion is crucial now many readers, especially in Epic Fantasy (for a variety of reasons), will only start series that are already completed, having been burned by series that were left unfinished. Having a polished product should also precede your marketing efforts. If your cover looks bad, your money would be better spent on getting a professional looking cover instead of more Facebook ads. Taking the time to make a good cover and good ad copy for your ads is also important before you spend money on marketing. For marketing, it will save you time and money to map out your goals for it each year just like you map out a set of goals for what you'll publish each year. Having a clear set of goals will keep you from trying every new thing that you hear about just because it worked for someone else. It's also wise to be honest with yourself about your strengths when considering how you spend your marketing time. If you hate TikTok, forcing yourself to make videos there isn't going to lead to compelling content that would make people want to buy your book. The authors who have had success with TikTok had that because they were able to genuinely connect with an audience there, not just because they threw a book trailer on the platform and hoped for the best. As with many writing adjacent activities, it is best to have a set block of time to work on marketing and to plan even the time spent checking ads and responding to social media comments so it doesn't take over your writing time. Just like having a plan for each year with some larger goals is a good idea, having a daily or weekly set of goals for marketing can help keep you focused.   In conclusion, the true pitfall of any writing adjacent activity is they need to be kept adjacent to the actual production of new writing. All the tasks we covered in the series are important, but writing should always be the priority if you are a writer.   So that's it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

We react to the films of the first quarter of the year 2025. In this episode, we also discuss some of the trends we have noticed in the year thus far.Learn More about Cinema Convos: ⁠⁠⁠https://linktr.ee/cinemaconvos⁠⁠⁠ Theme music produced by Danya Vodovoz - Royalty Free Musichttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_LoWLztX5M

Brendan shares his movie views from January 2025 and some games that go with them. Join us, won't you?Nosferatu (2024)Fury of Dracula (Third/Fourth Edition) (2015)Arkham Horror: The Card Game (2016)The Crucible (1996)Witch of Salem (2008)Septima (2023)Roman J. Israel, Esq. (2017)Oldboy (2003)Vengeance (2018)Twisters (2024)Storm Chasers (2021)Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl (2024)Burgle Bros. (2015)Boy Kills World (2023)The Duke (2020)What games did you watch in January? Share your views over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

Mike & his good friend Alex Hart talk about Alex's move to Canada, what he likes there and the importance of his current job! In more detail, Alex talks about why he loves the nature of Canada, before explaining his decade-long journey from England to Wales to Canada, with several trips to Asia & America in-between and why he's staying in Canada for the time being. Alex open up about his directionless in his youth, how he found ways to work in nature and how that's culminated into his current role as Camp Director at Easter Seals' Camp Tidnish in Nova Scotia; “the only fully accessible camp in the province” – this is the perfect conversation for any travellers, lovers of nature or people who may need help in finding a new path in life. Alex's IG: @underthepiness (www.instagram.com/underthepiness) Easter Seals' Camp Tidnish Site: https://easterseals.ns.ca/camp-tidnish Alex's previous GCC appearances: 226 (Top 2023/4 Movies), 77 (2019 Movie Roundup), 37 (Nature), 10 (2017 Movies) 3 (Underrated Movies). If you want to support the show, get bonus content every week and get early access to episodes, support on Patreon: www.patreon.com/GenuineChitChat   The last episode of GCC was part of the Clone Wars Legacy Project and prior to that, Mike spoke with Tony Holt about Invisible Man and it's relevancy to Black America today, including code-switching and they also make Black Panther comparisons! The week before, Douglas Vincent was on, speaking about his Star Wars journey from 1977 to the Disney era and prior to that was the return of Gough of Beernuts Productions! Mike appeared on Spider-Dan & The Secret Bores for their top 5 small cast movies, listen here: https://pod.fo/e/289237   Mike also appeared on Spider-Dan's pod with Megan, talking Princess Diana in Spencer: https://pod.fo/e/2916c6   Find all of Mike's social media & other links at https://linktr.ee/GenuineChitChat Please review/rate, subscribe and share – it helps the show out an incredible amount!

Brendan shares his thoughts on several films he watched in November and December of 2024. Join us, won't you?Penguin Pool Murder 1932Awkward Guests: The Walton Case (2016)Hot Frosty 2024Santa's Workshop (2017)Haul Out the Holly: Lit Up 2023Holly Jolly (2021)In a Violent Nature 2024Last Friday (2016)The Bourne Supremacy 2004Mind MGMT: The Psychic Espionage “Game.” (2021)The Bourne Ultimatum 2007Specter Ops (2015)National Treasure 2004Fortune and Glory: The Cliffhanger Game (2011)Watched but not discussed:That Thing You Do! 1996Smile 2022Elf 2003Mixed Nuts 1994What films did you watch in November and December of 2024? Share your films over on Boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

In this week's episode, I take a look at the movies and streaming shows I watched in winter 2024/2025, and share my opinions on them. I also take a look at my ebook advertising results from January 2025. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Half-Orc Paladin, Book #3 in the Half-Elven Thief series, (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store: PALADIN50 The coupon code is valid through February 28, 2025. So if you need a new audiobook for the bad February weather, we've got you covered! 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates   Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 238 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is February 7, 2025 and today we are discussing the movies and streaming shows I watched in Winter 2024 and 2025. Before that, we will do Coupon of the Week, an update on my current writing projects, Question of the Week, and my ad results from January 2025.   First, let's start with Coupon of the Week. This week's coupon code will get you 50% off the audiobook of Half-Orc Paladin, Book Three in the Half-Elven Thief Series (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward) at my Payhip store. That coupon code is PALADIN50. This coupon code will be valid through February the 28th, 2025, so if you need a new audiobook to get you through the bad February weather, we have got you covered.   Now for an update on my current writing and audiobook projects. As I mentioned last week, Shield of Deception is now out and you can get it at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, Google Play, Apple Books, Smashwords and my Payhip store. It is doing quite well. Thank you all for that. I hope you enjoy the book and I've been hearing good things about it from people who read it.   Now that Shield of Deception is done, my main project is now Ghost in the Assembly and I am 36,000 words into it as of this recording, which puts me almost on Chapter 8 of 21. So I'm about one third of the way through the rough draft, give or take. If all goes well. I'm hoping that book will be out in March. My secondary project is Shield of Battle, which is the sequel to Shield of Deception and I am about 2,000 words into that. I'm also 50,000 words into what will be the third and final Stealth and Spells book, Stealth and Spells Online: Final Quest. It was originally named Reactant, but I decided to change the name to Final Quest because that sounds better and if all goes well, that will probably be out in the middle of the year, give or take.   In audiobook news, Cloak of Masks (as excellently narrated by Hollis McCarthy) is now out at all audio stores, including Audible, so you can listen to that there. Work is almost done on Cloak of Dragonfire. It's being proof-listened to as I record this and hopefully that should be out before too much longer. So that is where I'm at with my current writing and audiobook projects.   00:02:19 Question of the Week   Next up is Question of the Week, which is intended to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's topic, which ties into our main topic: what was the favorite movie you saw in 2024? No wrong answers, obviously (including “I hate everything I saw in 2024”). We have a few responses for this.   JD says: It was either Transformers One or Deadpool and Wolverine.   Mary says: I didn't see any movies in 2024.   Doug says: Dune was one of the books I read in the ‘70s. Like your books, I never got enough back then. I was buying Hardcovers. I still have six of them. I have seen the two versions of the books. Can't wait to see this version of the books. I have seen the first movies. Hope to see more.   David says: Godzilla versus Kong was pretty much the only one from last year I saw. I just bought Gladiator 2 but haven't watched it yet.   Davette says: I enjoyed both Dune 2 and The Fall Guy and Inside Out 2 and Deadpool and Wolverine. My favorite was Wicked, mainly because I've been waiting on that movie for years.   Bonnie says: I haven't seen any movies or watched TV in years.   For myself, I think it would be a tie for my favorite movie of 2024 for between Dune 2 and The Fall Guy. The two Dune movies, for all the stuff they changed from the book, are probably the most faithful adaptation it was possible to make with that very dense and very weird book. I thought The Fall Guy was just hilarious and I had no idea it was based on TV series from the ‘80s until I read up about it on the Internet after I saw the movie. It was interesting that we didn't have very many responses to this question the week and of those responses, one third of them was “I didn't see any movies in 2024.” So if the movie industry is wondering why it's in so much trouble, I think we might have just found the answer here in that nobody wants to go to see movies in the theater anymore.   00:04:09 Ad Results for January 2025 Now onto our next topic, how my ads performed in January 2025. Now as usual for my books in January, I used Facebook ads, Amazon ads, and BookBub ads, so let's break them down by category- first, by Facebook ads. As usual, I advertised The Ghosts and Cloak Games/Cloak Mage.   GHOSTS: $4.08 for every dollar, with 22% of the profit coming from the audiobooks.   CLOAK GAMES/MAGE: $3.38 for every dollar, with 6% of the profit coming from the audiobooks. So that went pretty well. I'm hoping that percentage will go up once Cloak of Dragonfire is done and we can put together Cloak Mage Omnibus Three.   I also did some Amazon ads – specifically for HALF-ELVEN THIEF, STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: CREATION, and THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNERS GUIDE.   Remember, for an Amazon ad to be effective, it usually needs to be generating at least one sale for every eight clicks on the ads.   HALF-ELVEN THIEF: $4.65 for every dollar spent, 1.85 sales for every click. It's just an amazing ratio-thank you for that.   STEALTH & SPELLS ONLINE: CREATION: Lost $0.15 for every dollar spent, 1 sale for every 4.76 clicks.   THE LINUX COMMAND LINE BEGINNER'S GUIDE: $3.16 for every dollar spent, 33% of the profit from audio, 1.34 sales for every click.   The standout was HALF-ELVEN THIEF, which actually had more sales than clicks on the ads. That hardly ever happens!   You can see there's a reason I'm going to conclude STEALTH & SPELLS with the third book, because it just doesn't sell well. All of the advertising experiments I have tried to make it sell well have not responded to date. That said, we did improve from December, where I only got a sale for every 14 clicks.   Additionally, Amazon ads work really well with nonfiction books, since they respond a lot better to keyword ads.   Finally, I used Bookbub ads for THE GHOSTS on Apple. That went pretty well.   THE GHOSTS: $4 for every $1 spent.   So, all in all, a pretty good month for ads, though STEALTH & SPELLS remains the weak point. As always everyone, thank you for buying the books and listening to the audiobooks.   00:06:50 Main Topic: Movie/TV Show Reviews of Winter 2024/Early Winter 2025 Now onto our main topic, the movies and streaming shows I watched in Winter 2024 and early winter 2025. As always, my ratings are totally subjective and based on nothing more concrete than my own opinions.   Our first one is Red One, which came out in 2024. This was a strange mashup of genres, a holiday movie, urban fantasy, a thriller, and just a little bit of existential horror. Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson plays Callum Drift, who is the head of Santa Claus's security. Meanwhile, Chris Evans plays an unscrupulous hacker and thief named Jack O'Malley. Jack unwittingly helps unknown malefactors kidnap Santa Claus and so Callum and Jack have to team up to rescue Santa from his kidnappers. This sounds like a lighthearted holiday movie, but it really isn't. The movie is rather dour and takes itself very seriously. Callum acts like he's in a Jason Bourne movie and deals with various supernatural creatures like a special forces operator assessing targets. Additionally, there are some urban fantasy elements with the vast government agency dedicated to hiding the supernatural world from normal people. I don't think the dissonance really worked at all. It had pieces of a light holiday movie and pieces of a thriller and they really didn't mesh. It's not hard to see why this one didn't do well in the theaters, on top of its enormous budget. Overall Grade: D (In the spirit of Christmas generosity)   Next up is Argylle, which came out in 2024. This was a dumb movie, but I enjoyed it, kind of like Murder Mystery with Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston on Netflix. I mean that wasn't exactly Shakespeare or Milton, but I would be lying if I said I didn't enjoy myself while watching it. Same thing applies to Argylle. The plot is that the protagonist Ellie Conway is a bestselling spy novelist. Ellie is a bit of an eccentric personality and travels everywhere with her cat in a backpack that has a window in it so the cat can see what's going on. However, it turns out that Ellie's novels are accurately predicting events in real life espionage, so several sinister spy agencies are hunting her down to learn her secret. A spy named Aidan saves Ellie, claiming that he's the only one she can trust. Of course, this is the kind of movie that has a shocking betrayal and plot twist every eight minutes or so, and the revelation of the central twist made me face palm a bit. There is a fight scene at the end involving colored smoke that's absolutely bonkers. It was on Apple Plus or Apple TV or whatever it's called, but that means all the characters did all their computing on shiny new Apple devices, which is always amusing. Overall Grade: D+ (but barely)   Next up is Venom: The Last Dance, which came out in 2024. It wasn't as good as the first two since so many of the characters did not return, but it brought the Venom Trilogy to a mostly satisfying conclusion. Eddie Brock and Venom are on the run after the events of Venom: Let There Be Carnage. Unbeknownst to either of them, the US government has a secret facility holding captured symbiant aliens and the agency that runs the facility is hunting for them. Unbeknownst to the US government, the creator of the symbiotes, an evil entity named Knull is preparing to escape his prison and to do that, he needs Eddie/Venom delivered to him alive, so he dispatches his creatures to Earth hunt down Eddie and Venom, with disastrous results. The best part of the movie was the comedic duo of Eddie and Venom since the movie takes the absurdity of their situation and leans into it. Overall Grade: B- Next up is the Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim, which came out in 2024. I read an interview with Brandon Sanderson where he said that a big part of the problem with movie adaptations of books is that the filmmakers often want to tell their own story, not the books'. So they basically used the book as a framework for telling their own story, which inevitably annoys the readers of the book. I suspect that was what happened with The War of the Rohirrim. This movie was a mixture of strong points and weaknesses. Apparently it only exists because New Line needed to put out something or they'd lose film rights to Tolkien's stuff, and so The War of the Rohirrim was fast-tracked.   The strong points: the animation looked pretty, the battle scenes were fun to watch, the voice performances were good, and the music was also good.   The weak points: it felt too long and slow-paced. I think a good half-hour could have been cut of the characters looking pensive and thoughtful (and saved the animators a lot of work in the process). Additionally, I don't think the changes to the plot quite worked. It's based out of the Appendices of The Lord of the Rings, specifically the history of Rohan. In the book, the plot is touched off when the corrupt Lord Freca demands that King Helm's daughter Hera marry Freca's son Wulf. Helm takes exception to this and ends up killing Freca. His son Wulf swears vengeance, gathers an army from Rohan's enemies, and sets out to seize the crown for himself. In the book, Helm's sons are killed, and Helm himself dies in the defense of the Hornburg (which later becomes known as Helm's Deep), but his nephew Frealof gathers an army, kills Wulf, and becomes the new king of Rohan.   That would have been perfectly good for the plot, but as we mentioned above, I think the screenwriters decided they wanted to write about a Strong Female Character, so they massively expanded Hera's part and made her the protagonist. The problem with this as an adaptation is that Hera is only mentioned once in the book, so the script has to make up a lot of extra stuff to justify Hera's presence, which always weakens an adaptation of a book. This version of Hera would have been in danger of becoming a stereotypical #girlboss character, but she acts more like a Japanese anime protagonist, which does work better in this sort of movie than an Americanized Strong Female Character.   So, in the end, not a bad movie, but I think it would have worked better if they had stuck closer to the original plot in the book. Overall Grade: B-   Next up is Golden Era, which came out in 2022. This is a documentary about the making of the classic Nintendo 64 game Goldeneye and the company behind it. Until I watched this, I never knew that Rare, the company that made Goldeneye, was based in the UK.   I admit I really didn't play Goldeneye back in the ‘90s and early ‘00s. I did a few times at various social events, but I never really got into it since I didn't own a game console from 1998 to 2019. Nonetheless, Goldeneye was a very influential game that left its mark on all first-person shooter games since. The documentary interviews most of the people who were involved in the making of Goldeneye, and it was fascinating to see how they more or less accidentally created a genre-defining game.   If you enjoyed Goldeneye or are interested in video game history at all, the documentary is worth watching. After many years of official unavailability, Goldeneye is now available on Nintendo Switch and Xbox, so I may have to give it a try. Overall grade: B     Next up is Wonka, which came out in 2023. I didn't really intend to watch this, but it was on in the background while I was playing Starfield…and Starfield has a lot of loading screens. This movie wasn't made for me, not even remotely, but I thought it was a competently executed example of a movie musical.   Anyway, the plot revolves around a young Willy Wonka coming to a city that seems like a weird hybrid between Paris and New York. Wonka sets out to start selling his innovative chocolates, but soon runs into stiff opposition from the corrupt local candy industry, the corrupt local police chief, and his equally corrupt landlady, who has somehow transitioned from hospitality to luring people into debt slavery. Wonka makes allies from his fellow indentured workers, and soon he is conducting local chocolate manufacturing like a heist.   Like I said, this really wasn't made for me, and I'm sure people who actually like musicals would have many more detailed opinions. But this had some genuinely funny bits. Hugh Grant as an Oompa Loompa was hilarious, and so was Rowan Atkinson as a corrupt bishop. The best line: “Judgment has come…in a most unexpected form!” Overall grade: B     Next up is Man on the Inside, which came out in 2024, and this is a Netflix comedy series from Mike Schur, who created Parks and Recreation, The Good Place and Brooklyn 99. To describe this show, think of a meditation about accepting the inevitability of aging and death through Schur's comedic style, and you'll be there.   Anyway, Ted Danson stars as a recently widowed retired professor of engineering named Charles. His daughter is worried that he's not handling things well and becoming too isolated, so suggests that he find a hobby. Charles answers a classified ad for an “older man who can use technology” and finds himself recruited by a private investigator named Julie. Julie's company has been hired to find a thief within a retirement home, and Julie is about 35 years too young to convincingly infiltrate a retirement home. Hence, Charles pretends to be a new resident, and finds himself befriending the residents he is supposed to investigate. All the while, he tries to deal with the remaining grief from his wife's death, which he never got around to processing in the moment.   In my opinion, The Good Place and Brooklyn 99 both kind of fell apart in their final seasons, but Man on the Inside avoids that in its final episodes, providing good resolution to both the conflict and the emotional stakes. I thought it was both bittersweet and quite funny, and I approve that there's going to be a 2nd season. Overall grade: B   Next up is Minted, which came out in 2023, and this was an interesting documentary about the rise in the fall of the NFT, which in the early 2020s we were assured was going to be the next big thing, but it just turned out to be yet another scam.   The documentary follows an interesting course, first explaining what an NFT is, and then interviewing artists who made life-changing money from minting their early NFTS. But then the speculators arrived, and followed swiftly by the scammers. As of 2025, of course, NFTs are quite worthless, like so many much-vaunted Web 3.0 style technologies.   I think the documentary's biggest weakness was assuming that NFT technology was around to stay and would find a use that would help artists. I agree that it's around to stay, but I don't think it adds value to anything at all. Nevertheless, an interesting look into the NFT fad and the impact it had on artists. Overall grade: B     Next up is Gladiator 2, which came out in 2024. This is basically the same movie as the original Gladiator, just reshuffled a bit and with twenty years of improved technology. The main character Hanno is a soldier in an African city that rebels against Rome. After the rebellion is inevitably crushed, he is taken as a slave and ends up as a gladiator in Rome, determined to take his vengeance on the Roman general who ordered the death of his wife. However, the general was only carrying out the orders of the insane twin emperors Geta and Caracalla. For that matter, Hanno's owner, the charming and affable Macrinus, has his own agenda. As Hanno seeks revenge, he finds himself drawn into the deadly game of imperial politics and must confront the secrets of his own past.   The movie is only very vaguely accurate in terms of history, but it does a good job of capturing the corruption and decadence of the Roman Empire at that time. The empire was in very bad shape, and in fact was only a few years from what historians call the Crisis of the Third Century, a fifty year period of continual civil war, assassination, usurpation, and economic meltdown that resulted in the empire breaking into three separate states for about fifteen years. Everyone knows that the Roman Empire fell in 476 AD, but it very nearly didn't make it even to 300 AD. So the ending of Gladiator 2 is a total fantasy, like one of those alt-history books where the Roman Empire ends up conquering the Americas or expanding into outer space.   That said, I enjoyed the movie. Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, and Connie Nielsen in particular gave very good performances, with Denzel Washington's Macrinus as the standout. Overall grade: B Next up is High Sierra, which came out in 1941, and this is 1940s true crime grimdark. A common misconception is that black and white films are generally more sanitized and saccharine than modern fare. This definitely isn't true – there wasn't any gratuitous violence and nudity in ‘40s movies, but some of them were very cynical and dark. High Sierra definitely falls into that category. Humphrey Bogart plays Roy Earle, a bank robber currently in Indiana state prison. His former boss Big Mac arranges a pardon for him, and brings him out to California for one last big job.   Unfortunately, the other people on Earle's crew are idiots, and he has a growing sense of impending disaster. Additionally, Earle gets emotionally entangled with two women – Velma, a sick woman from his hometown, and Marie, a woman inured to the lifestyle of criminals. As Earle prepares for the job and attempts to deal with the two women, things get more and more complicated. Definitely on the darker side as I mentioned, but well worth watching, both as a historical artifact and a crime story in its own right. Overall grade: B+   Next is Star Trek: Lower Decks Season 5, which came out in 2024. Lower Decks is an example of a parody of a thing that is so good that it sort of loops around the horseshoe and becomes a good example of the thing it is parodying. Season 5 is the undeserved end to the very funny Lower Decks series. Paramount really, really wants to get purchased by Skydance, and that's probably going to happen in 2025, so there's a lot of clearing the decks at Paramount, and I expect Lower Decks was one of the casualties.   Then again, our protagonists are no longer lower deckers but junior officers, so perhaps it was a natural place to end the show. So Lower Decks went out pretty strong with a collection of funny and good episodes. All the characters experienced plot arcs and development. The lower deckers matured from the callow ensigns they were in Season 1, and the senior officers likewise experienced character growth and development. (I liked Commander Ransom's triumphant battle cry of “high intensity interval training!”)   I'd say the only weakness is that the show ended with multiverse stuff, and I don't like multiverse stuff in general. Still, the show made a compelling argument for the multiverse as a concept, and the multiverse plot did give an excuse to bring back various Trek actors for speaking parts. And, to be fair, Star Trek has been doing multiverse stuff long, long before the Marvel movies ran the concept into the ground – Captain Kirk was dealing with alternate universe stuff back in the 1960s.   The last episode was a satisfactory conclusion to the series. Lower Decks might be over, but once the Skydance acquisition settles down, maybe the character will return in a new show called Junior Officers? One can hope! Overall grade: B+   Next up is the Frasier reboot Season 2, which also came out in 2024. I liked this about as much as I liked Season 1, which is to say I enjoyed it and found it funny. Frasier's and his son Frederick's relationship seems to have reached equilibrium, so the season spent more time on more 1940s style screwball comedy, which is not a bad thing. Some of the best comedy remains the conflicts between Frasier and Frederick, which is of course an echo of Frasier's own conflicts with his father back in the original show in the 1990s.   I think the best episode was the return of Frasier's scheming, Machiavellian agent Bebe and her daughter Phoebe, who did not exactly fall far from the maternal apple tree. The 10-episode format for the season does seem rather cramped compared to the 20-ish episodes per season of the original show, but that was a different era.   Frasier remains, as one of the characters said in the previous season, the same well-meaning buffoon who goes “that extra, ill-advised mile.” I hope we get a Season 3, but with the shakeups we mentioned at Paramount, that seems unlikely. Overall grade: A-     Finally, let's close with the three best things I saw in Winter 2024/2025.   The first of my favorite three is Saturday Night, which came out in 2024. This is a biopic about the chaotic first night of Saturday Night Live back in the 1970s. Quite hilarious in a vicious sort of way, and (from what I understand) it accurately captures the sheer chaos of live TV. Of course, the chaos surrounding SNL is probably a bit higher than usual for standard live television.   After I watched it, I looked it up, and it seems the movie compresses about three months' worth of events into the hour and a half before the launch of the very first episode. What's amusing is that the more outlandish an event in the movie was, the more likely it was to have actually happened in the leadup to the show's launch. It was the mundane stuff that was made up, not the crazy stuff.   JK Simmons was hilarious as Milton Berle. Nowadays, SNL is an Institution, so it was amusing to see it back when everyone thought it was a bad idea that would fail catastrophically. The movie convincingly captured the “look” of the 1970s – all the characters looked like they were made of nicotine, cholesterol, and cocaine, and in some instances, a lot of cocaine. That stuff is bad for you, as several SNL stars later found out to their sorrow.   It really shows the randomness of history – watching the creation of SNL, you wouldn't expect it to have lasting cultural impact, but it did. Overall grade: A The second of my three favorite things I saw was The Thin Man, which came out in 1934. This is based on a novel by Dashiel Hammett (most famous for writing The Maltese Falcon), and was made pre-Hays Code, so the female lead tended to wear outfits that show off a bit more skin than you would otherwise expect in a 1930s movie. Interestingly, The Thin Man is a fusion of a noir detective movie and a screwball comedy, not two genres that are usually connected, and somehow it all works.   Anyway, the movie centers around detective Nick and his wife Nora, who have returned to New York after a four-year sojourn to California. Nick used to be a private detective, but then he married the wealthy Nora, and wanted to retire to a life of ease and parties with a lot of alcohol. Except everyone in New York assumes that Nick isn't retired and is back on the case, and so he gets dragged into the disappearance of an eccentric factory owner and a string of murders that pop up around it. Of course, Nick isn't as reluctant to come out of retirement as he pretends.   As is often the case in many movies made in the 1930s, many of the rich characters are shown as malicious buffoons, especially the factory owner's ex-wife. Nick and Nora, as the protagonists, are of course exempt from this.   This is considered a classic, and deservedly so – the characters are sharply drawn, the dialogue is good, the performances are excellent, the movie manages to portray a fairly complex plot in 90 minutes. You'll want to watch it with the captions on, of course, because while human nature may not have changed in the ninety years since this movie came out, audio technology has sure improved.   Fun fact: Nick and Nora's dog is named Asta, which is apparently a frequent answer in crossword puzzles due to the double vowels. Overall grade: A   Now, for the third of my three favorite things I saw in Winter 2024/2025, that would be Star Wars: Skeleton Crew, which came out in 2024. This is Star Wars meets The Goonies meets Pirates of the Caribbean, and despite that very odd combination of influences, the show was really quite good. The show opens on the idyllic planet of At Attin, which looks like an idealized version of 1980s suburbia filtered through Star Wars. Everyone on the planet has the same job – contributing to the Great Work (whatever that is). Since our four protagonists are kids, they don't pay much attention to that or the concerns of the adults. When one of the children discovers a derelict spaceship in the woods, they accidentally activate it and fly off-planet.   This is a problem because At Attin is protected by a Barrier that doesn't allow travel, and the galaxy is a dangerous place with a lot of pirate gangs roaming around looking for prey. However, the children fall in with Jod, who claims to be a Jedi who will help the kids get back to their home. Everyone they meet warns them that Jod is a con artist and not to be trusted, but he demonstrates Force powers again and again (which would seem to support his claim that he's a Jedi). And the kids' home of At Attin has a mysterious secret, one that Jod desperately wants to claim for himself.   This is very entertaining all the way through. Star Wars really works best as a kids' adventure show (in my opinion), though I'm still looking forward to the second season of Andor, which is Star Wars crossed with a John le Carre spy thriller. Overall grade: A     So that is it for this week. Thank you for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes on https://thepulpwritershow.com. If you enjoyed the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Danielle & Brett are back with another pre-season grab-bag of pop-culture topics. Danielle raves about the Sebastian Stan awards dramedyA Different Man& Brett discusses his first watch of the Cher-Nicolas Cage rom-comMoonstruck.Also, they talk at length about the new HBO MAX streaming dramaThe Pitt, starringER's Noah Wylie and how medical dramas are BACK BABY.Later, Brett shares some Survivor 48 cast thoughts, Danielle answers a listener question aboutTraitors and we touch on a few other random movies from 15 years ago.Follow Hey Julie on Bluesky and submit your questions ⁠⁠@HeyJulieBB⁠⁠.bsky.social, our ⁠⁠Discord server⁠⁠, or email us ⁠heyjuliebigbrother@gmail.com⁠!Watch Hey Julie on ⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠Follow Brett ⁠⁠@BrettRader⁠⁠.bsky.socialFollow Danielle ⁠⁠@DingDongDani.bsky.social

Recorded - 12/29/2024 On Episode 302 of the Almost Sideways Movie Podcast, the team sends 2024 off in style. We recap 6 different new releases we have seen over the last 2 weeks (and there were disagreements on almost every one of them). Then, our power rankings puts us in the director and editor chair by asking what scene that was skipped in a movie we wished we could have seen. Our trivia segment focuses on the Metacritic score of Best Picture nominees. Here are the highlights: What We've Been Watching (11:30) Todd Indie Screener Review: "September 5" (15:15) Zach Review: "The Old Oak" (20:00) Terry Oscar Anniversary Review: "Maria Full of Grace" (24:15) Terry Oscar Anniversary Review: "Kinsey" 2024 HOLIDAY MOVIE ROUND-UP (28:30) "Nosferatu" Review - Todd, Terry, Zach (43:50) "A Complete Unknown" Review - Zach, Todd (54:15) "Nightbitch" Review - Terry, Todd (1:04:20) "The Fire Inside" Review - Todd (1:10:00) "Babygirl" Review - Zach, Terry (1:20:55) "Lee" Review - Terry, Todd (1:29:45) Power Rankings: Skipped Scenes in Movies/TV We Want to See (2:08:50) Honorable Mentions & Guessing Adam's List TRIVIA (2:22:45) Todd Trivia Review: "You're Sleeping, Nicole" (2:27:00) Trivia: Metacritic Score of Best Picture Nominees (2:35:50) Quote of the Day Find AlmostSideways everywhere! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠almostsideways.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Facebook⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.facebook.com/AlmostSidewayscom-130953353614569/⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠AlmostSideways Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: @almostsideways ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Terry's Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: @almostsideterry ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Zach's Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: @pro_zach36 Todd: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Too Cool for Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Adam's Twitter⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: @adamsideways ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Apple Podcasts⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/almostsideways-podcast/id1270959022⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://open.spotify.com/show/7oVcx7Y9U2Bj2dhTECzZ4m⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Stitcher⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/almost-sideways-movie-podcast⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfEoLqGyjn9M5Mr8umWiktA/featured?view_as=subscriber⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

2024 was a banner year for horror movies and Bryan and Dave are going to run you down the list of the best, worst, and most-okayest horror movies of the year. Where do your favorite titles drop? What did we think of Maxxxine? How about Terrifier 3? Longlegs? It's all in here and then some, a giant-sized episode to address 25+ titles. Our opinions are sure to make you mad. Support Bring Me The Axe on Patreon! ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/c/bringmetheaxepod⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Buy Bring Me The Axe merch here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.bonfire.com/store/bring-me-the-axe-podcast/⁠

Brendan talks about the movies he watched in September and November of 2024, Join us, won't you?Back to the FutureBack to the Future 2Back to the Future 3Back to the Future: Back in Time (2020)Back to the Future: An Adventure Through Time (2016)Jimmy Savile: A British Horror StorySherlock, “The Lying Detective”K2: The Killer SummitK2 (2010)Summit: The Board Game (2017)That Thing You Do!On Tour (2019)Rock Hard: 1977 (2024)What movies did you watch in September and November?

We love to see Hugh Grant being a little bastard! Listen along to Casey & Eddie's thoughts on three of the most recent big screen releases. Thanks for listening! Original Theme by Eddie Trizzino

It's October, that special time of the movie year where quality awards-bait shares space with horror flicks and other genre fare. We have space to write about it all on BFG, but barely have enough time to talk about it. So this week chief film critic Stephen Garrett joins Neal Pollack for a kind of speed-round to catch each other and all of you up on what's in theaters and also on the way out of theaters.First up is 'Conclave,' a pulpy not-quite-murder mystery set in the Vatican. Apparently there's more intrigue surrounding the election of a new Pope than there is surrounding the selection of the new head of a Mafia crime family. Maybe they're actually the same thing, Conclave posits. Stephen calls Conclave director Edward Berger the king of "empty prestige" pictures. Neal sort of agrees with him but still enjoyed Ralph Fiennes's campy lead performance as a Cardinal-detective who's undergoing a crisis of faith.On a less serious note, we have 'Venom: The Last Dance,' which Stephen points out has the same creator as the previous two Venom movies, both of which he also reviewed for us. While he absolutely hated the first Venom, Stephen has warmed to each subsequent installment, and he's almost a fan. At this point, we have to wonder if a Venom symbiote isn't inhabiting his body, or at least his reviews.Parker Finn, the creator of Smile 2, is almost like a horror auteur at this point. The sequel is flashier than the first installment, and it's also a huge hit. Stephen found it a bit too long and maybe a bit too full of itself, but it's also genuinely creepy and also has some deliciously nasty ideas about how deep-seated psychological trauma can haunt people, and even kill them. But even if it doesn't, the franchise is a hit and it's here to stay.With the election approaching, The Apprentice should be required viewing. Neal calls the Donald Trump origin story, set in the 1970s and 80s, "one of the best movies I've seen all year." Stephen won't go that far, but he has nothing but praise for Jeremy Strong as Roy Cohn and Sebastian Stand as Donald Trump. This movie is more popular overseas than in the U.S. Neal thinks it's not pro-Trump enough for MAGA types and not anti-Trump for people who are anti-Trump. But for people who love good movies, it's perfect.We can't say the same about 'We Live In Time,' a completely dopey romantic drama about cancer and chefs and who knows what else. Stephen calls this Florence Pugh/Andrew Garfield movie "so dumb," and Neal and Stephen both marvel at the millennial uber-beta-male who is Garfield's character. Then there's the non-linear narrative, a curse on the world that hopefully this movie will end. But we wouldn't count on thatEnjoy the show!

Paul and Amy are back and discuss all the big horror movies of 2024! They're talking The Substance, Smile 2, Longlegs, Speak No Evil and What's Inside. Plus Alison Foreman tries to sell Paul and Amy on Art the clown of the Terrifier franchise!  You can join the Unspooled conversation on Paul's Discord at https://discord.gg/ZwtygZGTa6Follow Paul and Amy on Letterboxd for more of their movie hot takes! https://letterboxd.com/paulscheer/  https://letterboxd.com/theamynicholson/Paul's book Joyful Recollections of Trauma is out now! Find it at https://www.harpercollins.com/products/joyful-recollections-of-trauma-paul-scheerCheck out more of Paul's writing on his Substack https://substack.com/@paulscheerEpisodic Art by Kim Troxall: https://www.unspooledart.com/ Learn more about the show at Unspooledpod.com, follow us on Twitter @unspooled and on Instagram @unspooledpod, and don't forget to rate, review & subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or where you listen to podcasts. Get access to all the podcasts you love, music channels and radio shows with the SiriusXM App! Get 3 months free using this show link: https://siriusxm.com/unspooled.

it's a spooky and fright-tastic bonus episode for you on Scary Wednesday ooooh!Ben went to some film festivals with CHERUB and it was spooooky ahhhh! and he talks about how scary it is to be a famous Hollywood celebrity OooOooOOOOoooo!and then Ben and Alex talk (from beyond the grave) about some of the absolutely bone-chilling horror films they've been watching this October oh ah oh no I'm afraid I will die and no one will remember me fondly oh noooo! I'm afraid I wasted my life watching mooooovies ohhhh noooo!enjoy or die + rot in piss!

Brendan chats about the films he watched in July and August of 2024. Join us, won't you?SplitGlassHeroes Wanted (2014)Sentinels of the Multiverse (2011)Wicked Little LettersMarrying Mr. Darcy (2014)Death on the TyneMurder on the Blackpool ExpressMystery! Motive for Murder (2015)Riverside (2021)SlingshotPanic Station (2011)Win, Lose, or Banana (2009)What movies did you watch in July and August? Share your viewing list over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

We've been busy over here at The Spook House so today we're squeezing 3 movies into one gross episode! First up we review the 36 years in the making sequel to Beetlejuice! Did Tim Burton snap his losing streak with this one? Tune in to hear what we thought! We also discuss our first ever theater viewing together for The Front Room, the unintentional comedy of the year. Finally, after having our minds blown by The Substance, we review this disgusting body horror masterpiece in all it's bloody glory. Let's pump it up!

In this special episode the HFCS members Greg, Barry and Aron discuss how summer movie season 2024 panned out and how fall movies are shaping up.

In this week's episode, I review the movies and streaming shows I saw in the second half of summer 2024. The episode concludes with a preview of the audiobook of HALF-ORC PALADIN, as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward. TRANSCRIPT 00:00:00 Introduction and Writing Updates Hello, everyone. Welcome to Episode 218 of The Pulp Writer Show. My name is Jonathan Moeller. Today is September the 13th, 2024 and today we are discussing my Summer Movie Review Roundup, Part 2. Just to note to say that you may hear some odd background noises in this episode. My neighbor across the street is getting his roof replaced. I can't begrudge them that because no one likes a leaky roof, but it is slightly inconvenient because this is the only time today I have to record the podcast. So if you hear the occasional pop in the background, that is the sound of a nail gun driving shingles into a roof. Before we get to our main topics, let's have an update on my current writing projects and then we will do Question of the Week. First up, Shield of Conquest is very nearly done. I am about 2/3 of the way through the final round of editing and if all goes well, it should come out shortly after this episode is available, so be sure to check your favorite ebook retailer and see if it is out. Once that is done, I will be going full speed ahead on Ghost in the Tombs and I'm currently 48,000 words into that, so about halfway through the rough draft, give or take, depends on how long the rest of the book takes and how certain scenes in the final half of the book out. In audiobook news, Half-Orc Paladin is done, and it's now available on all the major audio stores: Audible, Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Chirp, Kobo, Payhip, Spotify, and a couple others, and you can get it there. We will close out this episode with a preview of Half-Orc Paladin (as excellently narrated by Leanne Woodward). 00:01:30 Question of the Week Now let's have a Question of the Week. Question of the Week is designed to inspire interesting discussions of enjoyable topics. This week's question: what is your favorite superhero movie? No wrong answers, of course (including “I don't like superhero movies”, but it turns out no one said that, so I guess superhero movies are quite popular). The inspiration for this question was that I was thinking about how superhero movies are such a major part of pop culture. Nowadays when people think of superhero movies, they usually think of Marvel and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but there were major superhero movies before the whole Marvel Cinematic approach really got going in the 2000s/2010s and they've been obviously part of pop culture for a very long time, and as you could expect, we had a wide range of responses from this. Our first response was from JD, who says: If I had to pick just one, it would probably be Guardians of the Galaxy. The first film had a near perfect mix of action, drama, and comedy. For me, the best Batman film was the 1966 one starring Adam West. Joaquim says: In the last millennium, when I was a child, we had DC Comics and Marvel Comics. I did like Batman in DC, Spider-man and The Avengers in Marvel. In the movies, I did not particularly like Batman, but I like the early Marvel movies, Avengers 1 and Captain America 2 the most. Mary says: X-Men. Todd says: 1978 Superman. Visually at 15, I believed a man could fly. Juana says: My superhero is actually a couple - The Vision and Scarlet Witch (before they turned Vision into an emotionless thing a while back). What's interesting is that the guy who was in charge of Picard Season 3, which I quite liked, is apparently going to be running a Vision show for Marvel sometime in 2026 (assuming Disney doesn't run out of money first), so it should be interesting to see how it turns out. Stephen says: I know this is random- Shang Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings. I know it was not completely an original storyline, but I liked it a lot. I agree with Stephen. I thought Shang Chi and the Legend of the 10 Rings was one of the stronger Marvel movies and it's too bad it hasn't had a sequel. Becca says: The Dark Knight trilogy. Those are the real Batman films for me. Ledger was certainly the best Joker. I do love the happier Batmans, too. I grew up on West's version of Batman. For me, V for Vendetta is my favorite superhero movie and one of my favorite movies ever. I usually watch it at least once a year. Michael says: Captain America: The First Avenger. Juliana says: Second Captain America. The spy aspect really married well with the superhero genre in this one. I agree with Juliana. I think Captain America: Winter Soldier is one of the better Marvel movies. Roger says: only because we're entering the season, The Christmas Chronicles with Kurt Russell. Andrew says: Deadpool and Wolverine, followed by The Dark Knight trilogy. James says: I know Fox's X-Men get a bad rap generally, but Days of Future Past was amazing. I'd have to go with that, with The Dark Knight, Thor: Ragnarok, and Wonder Woman as runner-ups. Cheryl says: don't really have favorites, but for eye candy, Thor. Catriona says: The original Christopher Reeve Superman. Jenny says: Mystery Men. Jeanne says: Megamind. Randy says: Christian Bale and Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight movies are definitely in the top three but Iron Man has always been my favorite. Good story, good pacing, and Robert Downey Junior just nailed playing Tony Stark, in my opinion. Not to mention it kicked off the longest, largest, story movie arc to this day. BV says: Superman 1978. Terry says: Fifth Element. Gary says: Hancock. For myself, I think my favorite superhero movies would be the Christopher Nolan/Christian Bale Dark Knight trilogy. Strong performances, great action, and they managed to do something very difficult, namely bring a satisfying end to a superhero story arc. It almost feels like The Dark Knight movies are the “real” events of Batman and all the other comics and cartoons and movies are legends and exaggerations after the fact, like how the whole glittering mythos of King Arthur and the Round Table developed around an obscure Roman British warlord in the 500s AD. Also, Heath Ledger's version of the Joker was amazing. That said, for Marvel movies, which have been kind of the dominant form of superhero movies for the last decade, I think the best one of those would be Captain America: Winter Soldier (in my opinion). 00:05:45 Main Topic: Summer 2024 Movie/TV Roundup, Part 2 And now on to our main topic of this episode, my Summer 2024 Movie Roundup, Part 2. And if this movie roundup has a theme, it's miscellaneous. The reason for that is I did not actually watch all that many movies in the second half of the summer. There was no nefarious reason for that. I was just busy with travel and busy with multiple instances of home repair and busy finishing Half-Orc Paladin and Shield of Conquest. So I mostly watched some older stuff that I found on streaming, especially on Tubi, which has the delightful attribute of being free with ads. As usual, the movies are listed from my least favorite to my most favorite and the grades are totally subjective and based upon my own thoughts and opinions and nothing more substantial than that. So with that in mind, let's start out. First up is The Burbs, which came out in 1989. It's a dark comedy/horror movie satire starring Tom Hanks as Ray, a suburban homeowner with a wife and a son. On vacation for the week, Ray becomes obsessed with the Klopeks, a new family that has moved on to his street. The Klopeks have no interest in maintaining their property and show signs of other odd activities: going out only at night, constant digging in the backyard, and strange noises and lights coming from their basement. Soon, Ray and his two neighbors become determined to find out just what the Klopeks are up to. It was darkly funny, though you could tell that the ending had been rewritten a few times. The movie couldn't decide if it wanted to be a satire of clannish homeowners or to totally validate their concerns, or both. I think it tried for both and couldn't quite get there. Though it does kind of show how much the United States has changed or possibly declined in the last 35 years. Ray and his friends are shown as kind of losers, but they live in enormous, well-maintained houses. It's like how Homer Simpson in the first couple seasons of The Simpsons was shown as a bumbling loser, but yet he could afford to live in a four bedroom house, his wife didn't work most of the time, they had two cars and three children, and all without Homer having a college degree. By the standards of 2024, Homer Simpson lived like a king. Amusing anecdote-one scene in The Burbs was clearly inspired by A Fistful of Dollars, which I talk about more below. Overall grade: C Next up is The Batman vs. Dracula, an animated movie which came out in 2005. In this movie, Batman goes up against Count Dracula. This was probably as dark and gory as something can be while still technically remaining targeted at children. When a robbery goes bad, the Penguin accidentally releases Count Dracula from his tomb and becomes the Vampire Lord's new chief servant. Dracula is fascinated by the modern world, but he's especially fascinated by Batman since for obvious reasons he admires Batman's bat-themed motif. Dracula offers Batman the chance to become his chief lieutenant, which Batman refuses and Dracula takes that personally. He'll get his revenge by turning Gotham City into a city of the undead and taking Bruce Wayne's girlfriend, Vicki Vale, as his new vampire bride. Unless, of course, Batman stops him. It was interesting how neatly Dracula slots into becoming a good enemy for Batman. After all, in the original Dracula novel, Dracula's nemesis Van Helsing was definitely a man of science who brought logic, reason, and scientific method to his fight against Dracula. Batman is also a man of science in the sense that he's a detective, so he does some detective work to unravel Dracula's weaknesses and to build weapons to use against him. Overall Grade: B Next up is Set It Up, which came out in 2018. This is a romantic comedy that reminded me a bit of the more cynical 1940s-era romcoms like The Shop Around the Corner. The female lead Harper works as a personal assistant for a workaholic female sports writer who terrorizes her employees. The male lead Charlie works for workaholic male venture capitalist who also terrorizes his employees. Both their bosses are miserable, demanding people who make everyone around them unhappy. One day, both Charlie and Harper are dispatched to get dinner for their bosses and end up fighting over the last available delivery man. However, in the wake of the encounter, Harper hatches a plan. Both she and Charlie know everything about their respective bosses, so why not manipulate their calendars and schedules so they fall in love? They might be more cheerful, or at the very least they'll be in the office less frequently. Charlie has his misgivings about this plan, but after one more unfortunate encounter with his boss, decides to embark upon Harper's plan. Of course, Charlie has a high maintenance girlfriend who wants him to make a lot more money, and Harper is trying to find a boyfriend, but as per the rules of romcoms, perhaps Charlie and Harper will have more in common than they might think. This had a bit more crude humor than I might prefer but was still enjoyable. It did remind me quite a bit of the more cynical ‘30s and ‘40s movies like My Man Godfrey or the Shop around the Corner. Overall Grade: B Next up is The Bank of Dave, which came out in 2023. This is basically the cynical British version of a Hallmark movie, but with better production values. It is very, very loosely based on the activities of Dave Fishwick, a successful van dealer in the north of England who decides to start a local bank for local people, feeling that the Big London banks have lost sight of that. To do that, he recruits a London lawyer named Hugh to help him navigate a labyrinth of regulation around financial institutions. Of course the big banks dislike this idea and come after Dave hard. Dave is definitely the local Big Man, and it's interesting that humanity's default mode of government seems to be Local Big Man. However, if one must have a Big Man, one could only hope he is as benevolent as Dave. The movie was pretty funny, though a lot of the humor comes from the UK's class and regional divides, which are rather more pronounced than in the United States. Here in the United States, you can drive for 300 miles and be in the same state the entire time, and the local culture won't change all that much. The cliche is that the US East Coast and the US West Coast look down upon flyover country, but you can drive something like 1,000 miles from New York before you even get to Flyover Country. If you drive 300 miles in the UK, you've probably gone through six or seven regional accents and local traditions. The Bank of Dave does kind of turn into a Hallmark movie since Hugh falls for David's doctor niece. So basically a romance with the backdrop of British class/regional struggle as comedy. Overall grade: B Next up is Cool Runnings, which came out in 1993. A sports comedy film very (and I mean very loosely) based on the debut of the Jamaican Olympic bobsled team in the 1988 Winter Olympics. When sprinter Derice Bannock is unable to qualify for the Jamaican Olympic team due to an accident, he decides to instead to start a bobsled team to represent Jamaica in the Games. To do this, he recruits washed up former bobsledder Blitzer (played by John Candy) to act as the team's coach. What follows is a pretty good example of a sports movie. The team must come together and perform while overcoming their own personal challenges and inner conflicts, especially Coach Blitzer, who has to dig deep and overcome his past to effectively coach the team. It's interesting that sports movies tend to follow one of two trajectories. Either the team rallies and wins the championship, or they don't win the championship and nonetheless achieve moral victory by overcoming their internal difficulties in learning to work together. I won't spoil which path Cool Runnings follows. Overall Grade: B Next up is Uncle Buck, which came out in 1989. This is a coming-of-age comedy film about a 40 year old man, oddly enough. I did think this was pretty funny. Bob and Cindy are a married couple with three children living in the suburbs of Chicago, and when Cindy's father has a heart attack, they need to rush to his side. Due to the unexpected nature of the news, they have to find someone to watch the kids while they're gone. In desperation, they turned to Bob's brother Buck, who alternates between working for his girlfriend at her tire company and making money on rigged horse races. While Buck is kind of a loser, he's basically a decent guy, just averse to responsibility and settling down. He quickly steps up to take care of the children, though he conflicts with the oldest daughter Tia, who is in the grips of a full-blown adolescent rebellion. Buck soon realizes that he's come to a crossroads in his life, which is reinforced when Tia runs away to a party for the weekend. Slightly dark in places, but definitely more family friendly than many ‘80s comedies. Overall Grade: B+ Next up is the Adjustment Bureau, which came out in 2011. It is a science fiction romantic thriller based on the Philip K. Dick story, which is a very odd sentence to say, but it's true. Matt Damon plays David Norris, a congressman from New York who just lost the Senate race. Preparing for his concession speech. He meets Elise (played by Emily Blunt) and is immediately smitten with her. A month later, he runs into her by accident on a bus and receives her phone number. However, soon mysterious suited men with unusual powers arrive and burn the paper with the phone number. The men explain to David that they are The Adjustment Bureau, charged with making sure history unfolds according to the mysterious Plan. The Plan says that David can never see Elise again. David of course is not the sort of guy to take that lying down, so he soon finds himself trying to outwit the Time Cops and find Elise. It was interesting that The Adjustment Bureau was very similar to the Time Variance Authority from the Marvel Loki show, so I wonder if they drew on some of the same sources of inspiration. An interesting movie and worth watching. It actually wrestled with the oldest philosophical question in Western civilization: are all things predestined or do we have free will? Or is it somehow both? I have to admit that the scene where Elise dunked David's BlackBerry in coffee was very satisfying to me personally, since I had a lot of support headaches with Blackberries back in the 2000s. Overall Grade: B+ Now, finally the favorite thing I saw in the second half of the summer 2024: A Fistful of Dollars, which came out in 1964. This was the first Spaghetti Western I've seen, which means it's Italian director Sergio Leone's sort of stylized version of what the Old West was like. Of course, the movie actually ripped off the Akira Kurosawa samurai movie Yojimbo. In fact, it was so heavily ripped off Yojimbo that Kurosawa sued, settled out of court, and received 15% of A Fistful of Dollars' revenue. Apparently Kurosawa made more from the settlement than he did from Yojimbo. Legal troubles aside, it was quite good and I could see how it heavily influenced many subsequent movies. For example, the Star Wars character of Boba Fett was inspired by A Fistful of Dollars and Boba Fett in turn inspired the Mandalorian. Stephen King's rather disappointing Dark Tower series was inspired by Dollars as well. And there are many other examples, such as the scene in The Burbs I had mentioned above earlier. Anyway, Clint Eastwood plays The Stranger, a mercenary gunslinger who seems to be drifting from town to town without a purpose. He arrives at San Miguel, a US-Mexican border town that is dominated by two crime families at each other's throats, the Rojos and the Baxters. Both clans seek to hire The Stranger for their organizations and the gunslinger begins playing them off each other for personal profit. As mercenary and as ruthless as he is, The Stranger seems to have a core of honor to him. A couple of times he goes out of his way to help people because he can, which sometimes gets him into trouble. Definitely worth watching as a classic film. Overall Grade: A So that's it for this week. Thanks for listening to The Pulp Writer Show. I hope you found the show useful. A reminder that you can listen to all the back episodes at https://thepulpwritershow.com, often with transcripts (note: transcripts are available from Episodes 140 onward). If you enjoy the podcast, please leave your review on your podcasting platform of choice. Stay safe and stay healthy and see you all next week.

Send us a textIn this energetic episode of Love on the Pod, Sherri, Danielle and Jessica dive into the world of made-for-TV sports movies! Each host brings two of their picks to the table, offering a diverse lineup of films that celebrate the triumphs, challenges and heartwarming moments in the world of sports.From underdog stories to tales of perseverance and teamwork, our hosts cover a wide range of sports genres and themes. Listen in as they share their thoughts on the characters, plotlines and the emotional highs and lows that make these movies so compelling.Expect plenty of lively discussions, fun anecdotes, and perhaps a few surprising opinions as Sherri, Danielle and Jessica analyze what makes each movie a touchdown, home run or a slam dunk in the realm of TV sports films.Whether you're a sports enthusiast or just love a good story, this episode is packed with excitement and heartfelt moments. Don't miss the ultimate sports movie roundup on Love on the Pod! Thank you for listening to this episode of Love on the Pod! Subscribe, Rate, and Review: Don't miss an episode—subscribe to Love on the Pod on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or your favorite podcast platform. If you enjoyed the episode, please rate and review us! Connect with Us: Email: loveonthepod@gmail.com Instagram: @LoveOnThePod Visit Our Website: For show notes, episodes and more, visit https://www.loveonthepod.com. Stay tuned for our next episode, where we'll discuss another holiday favorite. See you next time!

Brendan talks about the films he watched in June and what games would go well when paired with those films. Join us, won't you?Boys in the BoatAll the President's MenWatergate (2019)1960: The Making of the President (2007)Hit ManFiascoThe KillerMarloweP.I. (2012)Detective: City of Angels (2019)Dune (Part Two)Dune: Imperium – Uprising (2023)What films have you seen lately? Share with us over on Boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

This week Paul & Amy are kicking off the summer movie season by rounding up all the releases you're dying to hear about. We're talking about the good, the bad, and the indie. Paul proclaims Bad Boys: Ride or Die should have been called something else while wondering if Challengers was sexy enough, and Amy is not on board with this year's Garfield movie. Then, the two dive into a few indie movies like The People's Joker, Late Night with the Devil, and Hundreds of Beavers. Plus, we announce this is now a Glen Powell Stan podcast.  You can join the Unspooled conversation on Paul's Discord at https://discord.gg/ZwtygZGTa6Follow Paul and Amy on Letterboxd for more of their movie hot takes! https://letterboxd.com/paulscheer/  https://letterboxd.com/theamynicholson/Paul's book Joyful Recollections of Trauma is out now! Find it at https://www.harpercollins.com/products/joyful-recollections-of-trauma-paul-scheerCheck out more of Paul's writing on his Substack https://substack.com/@paulscheerEpisodic Art by Kim Troxall: https://www.unspooledart.com/Learn more about the show at Unspooledpod.com, follow us on Twitter @unspooled and on Instagram @unspooledpod, and don't forget to rate, review & subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or where you listen to podcasts.

Brendan shares what movies he watched in April and May of 2024, what he thought of them, and what games would go well with a viewing. Join us, won't you?DamselThe PrincessLegacy of DragonholtDead Poets SocietyMiskatonic School for GirlsPoetry for NeanderthalsWrath of ManEscape PlanGhostwatchLate Night with the DevilMysteriumHako OnnaThe BlackeningLast FridayFinal GirlI.S.S.StationfallWhat films have you seen lately? Share over on boardgamegeek in guild #3269.

Anney lays down her feminist thoughts of some recent horror movies: Late Night with the Devil, You'll Never Find Me and The Royal Hotel.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This ain't no April Fool's joke. MARK HAS RETURNED TO THE POD. The boys are back in classic, two-hour OG episode form with this New Movie Round-Up special! On the docket: all the new movies making the rounds right now, on streaming and in theaters. We cover the product placement of Madame Web, the snooty Letterboxd reactions to Road House 2024, the PG-ness of the violence in Dune Part Two, the WTF silliness of Argylle, the quality of Kung Fu Panda 4, and more. Of course, along the way, we also somehow manage to talk about chatty moviegoers abroad, the AI-created Coke flavor, German beer, and Renny Harlin's oddly sexy Instagram. Tune in. Kick back. LIVE MAS. Support our show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheMattandMarkMovieShow . You can get access to fun podcast extras for as little as $1 a month. Wanna be on the show? Call us and leave a voicemail at (707) 948-6707. Visit our Linktree for more ways you can connect with us and connect with our show! Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/themattandmarkmovieshow/ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@themattandmarkmovieshow Merch: https://www.teepublic.com/stores/the-matt-and-mark-movie-show-merch?ref_id=26325 Support our show through Blubrry: https://blubrry.com/services/professional-podcast-hosting/?code=GetRecd Buy Us A Coffee: http://buymeacoffee.com/Mattandmark YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzDsxUs9JzL70A1Sh5GbRdw