Hola, Sneakers! Welcome to episode 478 of the podcast that is never late!
WARNING: Wonder Woman 1984 spoilers ahead! Starting at 1:07:40 and ending at 1:50:44. (Sorry! With no Fansplainers, we just had to get it off our chest!)
This week: pandemic brain; in the closet; Pee-nuts; in the dog house; French root beer; no to TV dinners; cat damage; the ultimate stupid sacrifice; call me Sparky; ice rink money; no time for comedy; studio system; Hitchcockian; on set indulgences; robot actors; we destroy the things we love; me and my Shadow; Ian recommends In & of Itself; the older Ron Howard; beautiful exposition; the new horrible people; respectable gambling; buy low, sell sugar high; not so Wonder Woman; off-screen hilarity; the stolen body; non-secret; the devil isn’t in the details; woman power; get to the point, movie; no agency; practice makes too perfect; well, the plane is disguised; Question of the Week – Sneakers respond; the give-away eye patch; Sea of Love love; the only fan; useless plastic fangs; football or football; controversial Danger Man opinions; pickleball for all; Press Gang rec; embarrassing praise; Bananaman clarification; find that show for Ian; Dark Shadows update; and, finally, forward into their past.
Thanks for listening.
Question of the Week: What was your favourite board/card game growing up?
Sub-question: Your chance to Fansplain! What movie would you like to fix and how?
Want to check out Ian and Pia’s new comic with art by the talented Moritat and colours by Casey Silver? Follow this here link here!
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Clue was my favourite board game, and Cribbage was my favourite card game. Our family played Hearts as well.
Sometimes good acting can save a weak script so even though this is well-trodden ground, I’d semi-fix the Star Wars prequel trilogy by re-casting the boy Anakin role with Haley Joel Osment. He would have been about nine when Phantom Menace was shot. As a child actor, he was strong in dark films like Sixth Sense and A.I. He’d have brought some weight to the role of that pod-racing slave boy. I don’t know that Heath Ledger ever tested for the role, but I’m casting him as the young adult Anakin anyway. I liked him ever since I first saw him in 10 Things I Hate About You — a teen update of the Taming of the Shrew. He did a good job playing a tough and idealistic young soldier in The Patriot which came out the same year Attack of the Clones was filming. I think he could have been convincing as a Jedi with a dark side. And he had better hair.
After re-watching Groundhog Day this weekend, I’m also considering fixing the scene where Phil gives a long hug to Ned Ryerson and asks if he can “call in sick” to fend off his life insurance pitch. Maybe back then it was consider a step forward just to acknowledge that people were gay, but surely comedy has evolved beyond making homophobic jokes by now. Wait, John Krasinski kissed Pete Davidson for a laugh on SNL last week? Never mind.
Hello Ian and David, and Sneaker peeps! I hope everyone is doing well!
Board games have been always a big part of my family’s life! I, like Louise, loved Clue as a kid. It really felt mysterious every time we played. Other kid faves were Sorry (like you, Ian) and the Barbie game in which throughout the game one picks a prom dress, a boyfriend, a high school club of which to be president, and a sport… with those four things one heads to the Prom. First one there’s a winner!
We played a lot of different card games. Family favorites have always been Euchre and Pounce (a sort of crazy fast moving multi-player “solitaire” which I never win because I’m way too slow, but I keep playing ’cause I’m a good sport!) I liked Dominoes with my grandparents, too. No speed needed for that one!
Now, my 13 year old grandson and I play a lot of the board game Sequence and sometimes Qwirkle. Has anyone heard of either of these? In this computer room closet there are a lot of old board games still, including the game of Life, Monopoly, Payday, Upwords. These are rarely played now, but I can’t bear to get rid of them. I have two tiny granddaughters coming up. I’ll save these for them!
I am not thinking of any Fansplaining to do yet! I’ll leave that up to you, David and Ian, and the other “Sneaky Dragon-heads”. You ALL are extremely good at that, and so entertaining, too!
Ciao for now!
It’s me again. I’ve also been trying to wrap my head around the GameStop story. So I tried coming up with a simple explanation for shorting a stock. Here it goes:
I want to make some money. I’m too lazy to write anything myself, but I heard about this book that Ian and Nina got published called Sparks! I don’t have a copy of it but my sister does. So I pay her a fee to borrow it from her. I sign a contract to temporarily sell the book to a collector – let’s call him Dave – for $10. I promise to buy it back from him on a certain day for whatever the going price is then. I think the book will get bad reviews and drop in popularity and collectors will be sorry they bought it and start selling off their copies. I gamble that at that future date, there will be so many used copies for sale, the going price will be LESS than $10. Why would Dave take my bet? Well, he thinks the coloring is so fantastic that people will be snapping up copies, they’ll get scarce, and collectors will be willing to pay MORE than $10 to get a copy.
On the day I promised to buy it back, if the going price has gone down from $10 to $1, I’d only have to pay Dave $1 to buy the book back. I’d make a profit of $9! Wah-ha-ha! (Evil twin laugh.) Then I’d give the book back to my sister who wouldn’t care if I made money, she already got her fee for lending me her book.
How to “GameStop” Me:
But say I’ve been going around saying how much Sparks! sucks and bragging about much I’ll make off that rube Dave when the price goes down. Pia and Vicky and Lezah say screw her, we love Sparks! (and Dave.) We’re telling a bunch of our friends to pool their loonies and start buying up Sparks for 50, 60, 70 dollars a copy! Other collectors say, gee, I never knew Sparks was so popular. I better get me some! On the day I promised to buy back the copy from Dave, the going price is now $100. WTF! Not only do I have to give Dave back the original $10, I now have to pay $90 extra! The price will probably go down to what a second-hand graphic novel is worth again, but I’m locked into buying the book back from Dave on that specific date cuz…uh…them’s the rules of the futures commodity market.
Dad was a huge card player and taught us all the card games from a beaten up, old Hoyle Card Game book which he probably still has. Hearts, Blackjack, Spades, Crazy Eights, we played them all. At school, if it was raining during recess, the teachers would open this huge locker in the hall with every sort of game inside. We didn’t have a gym at my school, so we’d just gather in corners of the classroom or pull desks together and play Clue, Uno or whatever we could get our hands on from the game locker. Certain families were known for the games they played too. My friend’s family I grew up two houses down, played Yahtzee all the time or the Game of Life. If it was just my friend and I we played Risk, Stratego or one of those boxed war games from World War II. I remember he and I were hooked on a game in 1981 called “Dark Tower” which was semi-electronic but a fantasy board game. I read it’s making a comeback, you may remember it:
https://www.reddit.com/r/nostalgia/comments/4lvt32/dark_tower_electronic_board_game_1981_this_game/
We spent many late nights playing this game but it never lead to D&D like you think it might have. The Mom of another close friend of mine would always set up the Othello game and challenge us to beat her, but nobody could, she was the Othello Champion. My kids are huge board game nuts, they still get them out on occasion and play. They were raised on Monopoly, Uno and Battleship among many others. I didn’t realize how immersed I’ve been in board games until I wrote all this, it’s making me want to play some again…if I can just find someone to play one with me!
I’ve never considered myself the kind of person who would propose re-writing anything, much less a movie. My mind really doesn’t think things out that way so I just accept the films that I see and either like them or not. I have a huge amount of admiration for those who do write screenplays and scripts, it’s something I could never do and for me seems impossible.
I’ve always had a joke that if any of the classic films needed fixing they should go back and colorize the first 15 minutes of MGM’s “Wizard of Oz.” Can you imagine the outcry if anyone ever did that? A while back, I thought Ted Turner actually might do it.
Racking my brain a bit and taking a long evening walk, I dedicated my thoughts to any film I may have wanted a different outcome from. The result, “Avengers: Endgame.” Knowing what the Russo Brothers put into this film, all the twists and turns it made during the time heist, there was one outcome I would have liked to see done differently. Knowing that the task of Cap returning the Infinity Stones to where they came from is in and of itself it’s own story, most likely one we’ll never see. When Cap did eventually make it to Vormir to return the Soul Stone to the Red Skull, (THAT would be worth seeing!) I would have liked to have seen Cap receive Natasha in return. Not being able to see that happen during Cap’s exploits, we’d see Natasha materialize on the time platform instead of Cap at the end. Since the Soul Stone is given as a sacrifice for someone you love, it makes sense that Cap could get Natasha back because of his love for her. I thought it would have been a fitting end to their story which I enjoyed over the span of the Infinity Saga…and I’m a really big fan of Johansson’s Black Widow in the MCU, I thought it was quite a journey.
Speaking of the MCU, what do you guys think of “WandaVision”? I’m enthralled by it and I realize the story is centered around the pain and remorse of Wanda which gives great depth to Olson’s role. I’ve read over the years how many Marvel fans have had some personal hangups with women in leading MCU roles, one of my friends in particular can’t seem to get around it. Personally, I’ve rather enjoyed the women in the MCU and what they’re bringing to these films. I look forward to where “WandaVision” is taking us and to the elusive “Black Widow” film, hopefully later this year. Let’s hear it for the ladies!!
In the 80’s in Australia, ‘TEST MATCH’ was the must-have board game for cricket-loving kids. It was a scale version of a cricket field with tiny figures and a ball-bearing sized cricket ball. The bowler and batter figures had articulated arms that could roll a ball and swing a bat respectively. Like most board games though, the effort of setting it up and packing it away outweighed the actual enjoyment of the game.
It was always great visiting a friend’s house when they had a board game that you coveted. That’s how I discovered Mouse Trap and Game of Life. Though not strictly a board game, I still love to play UNO with my kids.
Quick poll: do you pronounce it ‘Yoo-no’ or ‘Oo-No?’ We always said ‘Yoo-no’ though it seems that we are in the minority.
Movie quick fixes.
I love Terry Gilliam’s BRAZIL, but Jonathan Price is totally miscast in the main role. He is a fantastic actor, but the film could have been so much more with a different lead.
And though I love FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF, I never really believed that Cameron was going to be okay when he explained to his dad how they’d destroyed the Ferrari. It leaves a bad taste that Ferris leaves Cameron to deal with the aftermath of their day.
Also, all Judd Apatow films should be 30 minutes shorter.
That is all.
Mick
IMHO ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ would be much improved by remaking it to acknowledge the chaos the little narcissistic psychopath leaves in his wake – as seen from the heroic Mr. Rooney’s point of view.
I was essentially an only child (I did get some half-siblings in my teens but they didn’t live with me), so I didn’t play board games very often. But just now while writing this reply I remembered a game I haven’t thought about in years – Jacks! My grandmother who raised me used to play it as a kid, and she taught me. She was actually really good! I don’t know how many people are familiar with it and apparently it goes by lots of other names, but you have a little bouncy ball and ten little spiky objects called jacks. You throw the jacks out onto the ground, then you toss the ball up, grab a jack, then catch the ball before it bounces more than once, all with the same hand. You keep doing this until you’ve picked up all the jacks, and that’s a full round. Next round you move up to two jacks per toss, then three, and so on. Then you can go with your non-dominant hand, or make a gesture around the ball before you catch it, all sorts of embellishments and extra challenges. We used to play it on the kitchen floor. I even taught it to some of my babysitters. Now I want to play it again, but I might have to use a table. I don’t think my neck can handle playing on the floor!
When I visited my other grandmother for summer and winter vacations, my cousins and I played a lot of Uno and Sorry. I feel like I might already have told the story of my grandmother cheating at Uno so I won’t tell it again, but we had a lot of fun.
I can’t think of any movies I’d fix, which is annoying because I know there are some. I’m sure I’ll think of them eventually. But I did want to second the recommendation for In & Of Itself, which was wonderful, and I also wanted to chime in on Ice Dancing! I became a big fan of Torville and Dean for a while. They skate like one person – just incredible. I even acquired a PAL VCR at one point to watch one of their shows (and some Penn & Teller specials from the UK).
The Chumbawamba playlist is still coming, I promise! I’ve just had a busy and exhausting week (several weeks, in fact). I do have some good news, though – today I got my first dose of the Covid vaccine! I work at a big chain pharmacy/drug store and they offered it to employees a few days ago, so I jumped on the chance. I’m now one giant step closer to playing live music with my friends and family again!
There was a Jacks revival when I was in elementary school. The floor of the girls’ recess room would be impassable due to all the small circles of players huddled together. We’d throw away the crappy rubber ball that came with a Jacks set and use one of those super bouncy balls so you’d have more time to execute your Jacks-grabbing.
Monopoly…gosh does that classic board game ever end well? Without close friends or family members screaming at each other and calling it a night? As a kid in the late ’90s, I upgraded to Monopoly for game boy. Huge improvement!
While board games really weren’t a big thing for us growing up, old Bond movies definitely were. I remember Dave in a past episode remarking that he had a nostalgic fondness for the campy, desert dust-ridden Bond classic, “Diamonds are Forever.” I can’t help but agree and admit to also having an undying love for this truly flawed stinker, based purely on nostalgic images of it being on in the background at some point in my childhood.
Fond recollections aside, it is a truly bonkers film from an era defined by motion pictures made under the influence of heavy mind-altering substances. Was this the chance to really turn the franchise around? Perhaps a gritty, early 1970’s revenge film with Bond avenging Blofeld for the death of Tracy only one film earlier? A simple, neo-noir chase film a la the French Connection or Le Circle Rouge? Apparently it wasn’t! We are left with a bloated Connery running around Vegas, a truly confusing plot, and some pretty un-stellar acting/cinematography.
Would I be interested in somebody re-cutting the old footage and making this film work? Perhaps adding a darker mood/score? Sure! Would I actually want to “fix” it? Absolutely not! Like those beat-up canvas pants that fit just right, “Diamonds are Forever” is a charming time-capsule, and is perfect just the way it is. Sure it’s bonkers, but that’s why you love it, and it is actually quite interesting to see Las Vegas barely developed in the early 70’s.
Whenever I drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas for a roadtrip – which unfortunately has not been for quite some time due to Covid – I always put on the Diamonds Are Forever James Bonding podcast episodes as a semi-tradition. The film still brings me back to the shy 7th grader I once was when I found it, although I now understand Connery’s clunky line of “as long as the collars and cuffs match” [cue eye roll]….