PHP #9: X-Men 97 and The Iron Claw Review

Ryan (00:31)

Welcome to the Portable Hole Podcast. I’m Ryan George and I’m here with my good friends, Justin and Cynic. How are you guys doing?

[email protected] (00:39)

good, pretty good. My foot’s feeling a lot better. It was actually some of the worst pain I’ve had in my life. It was so brutal. Ryan, remember when I sent you those pictures of my legs and it looked like I had been in a brutal Muay Thai fight? When I crashed from them, went slamming. Yeah, that was bad, but I functioned. I went out and I played. But for whatever reason, this that happened to my foot.

Ryan (00:55)

Oh, from the, uh, from the crash, right. Or the accident.

[email protected] (01:07)

like it just popped out of nowhere was so much worse. Like it gave me a bit of a, I don’t know if it carried with it a fever or just the pain was so intense. Like I was literally moaning, I couldn’t help it. The doctor says that it might’ve been a gout inflammation. And I know that can be pretty painful. It seems weird based on my diet. I don’t eat that much beef or pork. I don’t really eat any pork. And I don’t drink beer. Those are the two biggest

Ryan (01:25)

Mm.

Yeah.

[email protected] (01:37)

influencers of gout, but I guess it’s still possible. There were some other things, but man, I couldn’t walk on it. It was so painful. At one point, it was just brutal. Then she gave me, I went to a doctor here, they gave me a steroid shot and it’s gotten better so I can function. I have a pretty high pain tolerance. I could take a lot without really complaining, but that was just

Ryan (01:39)

Yeah.

That sucks. Ugh, yeah.

[email protected] (02:03)

That was like something else. I don’t know. I hope you guys never experienced anything like that. Brutal. Oh, I had Yeah, it’s, it’s depressing to

Ryan (02:05)

Yeah. I mean, also it’s like, you can’t not be on your feet. It’s like, you can’t, you, that, that sucks. Yep.

cinik (02:14)

Did your shoes come off in the accident?

[email protected] (02:18)

Um, when I was in on the accident, uh, no, it didn’t come off. No. I thought initially it was, and the doctor was like, now, because that would have, if it was a physical injury, like a broken bone, by the way, which I went to the, uh, the, uh, the emergency room and they did, or infection, infection tests, which they couldn’t find an infection. They did an X-ray, they saw no broken bone. So they, they thought initially maybe it was, uh,

cinik (02:21)

Yeah.

Ryan (02:22)

Was this related to the accident or was do they think it was?

[email protected] (02:45)

you know, a ligament tear or something like that. And the doctor was like, no, because if that’s what it was, it would be localized in one spot. Instead the pain was spreading out and went to my ankle. There was like, no, it’s not a structural issue or very probably won’t be a structural, isn’t a structural issue. So she says it’s probably like gout or something like that, which is weird, but it’s possible. My dad had it, so there is some genetic aspects to it. So it’s possible that’s what it is.

Ryan (03:14)

My mom and my brother have had it and each in each case, it’s very painful. So hope that you’re past it. Not something

[email protected] (03:20)

Yeah, not fun. Yeah, me too.

cinik (03:23)

Well, he’s not the first person we’ve podcast with Ryan that suffers from chronic gout. We thought we were a gout free show going forward, but it can always creep in. We’re getting older. Those joints are getting older, Ryan.

Ryan (03:27)

Yeah, that’s right. I guess not. Yeah. Like that would just like ruin like life for me if I had to be the ability to do it. It’s like, it’s a shoulder and arm like you can at least get around but yeah, if it’s your foot like, I mean, you’re screwed, you can’t do it.

[email protected] (03:33)

Yeah.

cinik (03:49)

Well, I’m kind of, you know, not.

[email protected] (03:49)

Yeah, but you got a corporate job. Just have them pay, you know, just sit home and watch movies and have them pay you.

Ryan (03:55)

Yeah, go on. Yeah. To an extent. I don’t think it…

cinik (03:56)

Not that I want to turn this into the portable medical hour, but same thing. About a year ago in DC, decided to walk the monuments at night. I’m watching a lady struggle to get up on the little rise by the George Washington monument. It’s like, oh, that sucks. That’s so small, you know, that she’s having such a hard time. So we scale it real quick. Go up there, walk around. I go to hop down. Well, I don’t see that there’s about a three inch block underneath where I hop down.

[email protected] (04:02)

Yeah, yeah.

cinik (04:26)

catch my ankle on it on the ground, ankle swells up. So I ended up walking on it for two days. Year later, still not right.

[email protected] (04:28)

Ugh.

And yeah, that damn body.

cinik (04:36)

That’s it.

Ryan (04:36)

Yeah. It’s like it does not and it does not get any better. And it’s like the injuries are worse. And the recovery takes longer. So that’s what we have to look forward to the next 3040 years, hopefully. Right. Well, they’re replacing everything. So who knows? I guess, nice little segue into a good segue into our first the first story, which is where

cinik (04:47)

Hopefully.

[email protected] (04:49)

Yeah. Well, until they replace our bodies.

Good segue.

Ryan (05:03)

Justin, you’re going to be replaced. Um, so I, I have either you guys played with the Suno AI, um, app at all. The, this is the AI music app.

cinik (05:14)

I am not.

Ryan (05:14)

No, it. Yeah, well, so, so I, it, you know, got, there’s a lot of buzz around it. And I played with it a little bit yesterday. Um, and it’s like, I mean, it’s just like any of the other AI, you know, prompt based, um, you know, programs, like you, you prompt it. So like you prompted on, like, you can say, give me, write me a song about whatever in a genre. So I asked it to write me a country song, um, about a guy falling into a portable hole, and it wrote a song that if it like,

[email protected] (05:15)

No, I, yeah.

Ryan (05:44)

just like it does with a lot of the other stuff, it’s generic. And technically it’s not brilliant. But if you just played that song for me, I would have just thought, okay, that’s, that’s a random, you know, poppy country song. Like, and, um, you know, I did try though, I was like, okay, let me give me, I did the same thing, but in the style of Rage Against the Machine and it was like an emo rock thing. So it’s like, you know, it’s obviously it’s going to be based on what it’s, um, data sets are and, and probably what’s more popular is going to get.

[email protected] (05:57)

Yeah.

Yeah, I got it.

Ryan (06:13)

you’re more accurate with more popular things and less the more specific you get or the more obscure or esoteric you get but uh, It was um, it’s still it’s crazy that they can come up with that out of whole cloth. Um, and it’s scary You know cuz again, it may not be great now, but you know, what’s gonna be in five years?

[email protected] (06:30)

Oh, it will. No, it is great now. That’s great. Like, just imagine what it is.

cinik (06:34)

Now it’s pretty good because I’ve been seeing a lot of advertisements for things like replica and Kendroid and I downloaded Kendroid and tried the free portion of it and I, all right, well let’s make Ryan. What do I know about Ryan? I throw it in there and the response time is instant and it does pick up some of the characteristics and you could have a full conversation like you’re texting with someone. So it’s not just, we can’t just say, oh, well it’s an infant stage, it’s evolved.

Ryan (06:40)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, the thing is, even if it is, it’s in the infant stage, the two parts are, one is the speed at which these things are getting better and developing is insane. And if this is the infant stage, I don’t wanna know what the, I mean, we’ve talked about this, we did a whole episode on AI and we’ve talked about it several times in the brief time that we’ve been doing this podcast. And it’s just like.

[email protected] (07:12)

Yeah.

Ryan (07:27)

I don’t think it’s not hype like this stuff, you know, it really needs like the governments. It’s gonna have to step in. Otherwise, like, they’re gonna be major changes to our society, it’s gonna upend society down the road because I mean, just yeah, like, you know, anything that’s not and we, you know, anything that’s not manual labor to me, it’s like you’re screwed. You know,

[email protected] (07:49)

It’s true.

cinik (07:50)

Well, there is a chilling video with Joe Rogan interviewing Elon Musk, and Elon’s being ultramagic, and he’s like, I told them for a long time that it needed to slow down AI. It needed to be regulated. And Joe Rogan’s like, and they’re not doing it, are they? He’s like, no. And…

Ryan (08:08)

I mean, well, I don’t know that I don’t agree with Elon a lot of stuff, but I kind of do agree with that. Like I think we, yeah, just because like, it’s like that, you know, if it goes unchecked now, you know, what happens when this stuff is that powerful that, you know, I mean, it already is like, you know, at the end of the day, okay, right at this moment, I, you know, if I’m creative, if I’m a, if I’m any kind of company or whatever, I don’t need to hire people to write music for me anymore.

cinik (08:14)

Yeah, in this instance he might be right on.

Ryan (08:35)

I don’t need to hire graphic designers anymore. I could, using some certain apps, I can pretty much, I don’t even need to learn Photoshop or any of that stuff anymore. I don’t need to hire copywriters. Or all I need is somebody to go and edit whatever I put into chat GPT. It is like, you’re getting to a point where like all these jobs, these creative jobs are gonna be killed. And it’s the, I read something or I was listening to something, I forget where it was, it’s kind of like that. It’s the opposite of the way it should have been. Like AI should be doing menial jobs.

[email protected] (09:03)

Yeah, yeah, that’s what I was saying.

Ryan (09:05)

Right. But not the creative, like the create, like it should be doing the menial jobs so we can be, and it’s the exact opposite. It is killing all the creative jobs. Um, and yeah, it’s like, it’s not as good, you know, as something that you can write, but I don’t need that. And yeah, and yet, you know, and what happens when it gets to that point where it can create, um, you know, unique, interesting. So, I mean, it’s, it’s really, I don’t know. It’s like, if somebody uses it, it’s a little scary.

[email protected] (09:12)

Yep, yeah I know.

yet.

So, well, it’s, so it’s, it’s here’s the thing. It’s not going to replace all jobs of that nature, but it’s going to replace all but one. So basically you’re not going to need, um, like for, if you need to score a film, you don’t need, um, a bunch of people doing the music. You need one who can just say, you know, who, who has the good ear and the taste to do it.

Ryan (09:55)

Yeah. Exactly.

[email protected] (10:00)

Right. And, um, you don’t need a million people to code, you know, you don’t like, um, for, you know, complex apps and stuff. You have a lot of people coding, a lot of people programming. You need one or two to make sure it’s going the right direction. You know, specifically for music, um, you have to realize the different jobs that it’s going to replace. Right. So can it replace a, it can replace songwriters for the most part. Right.

Ryan (10:05)

Yeah.

yet

Mm.

[email protected] (10:29)

It can replace mixing engineers. Something, things like that are going to be some of the first to go, right? Um, someone who, who was very technically based, you can have a mixing program. That’s like mix my song and it can go from a bunch of different styles. And then you can prompt it to do it a little differently and say, bring this out more, bring that out more done. All mixing engineers are now obsolete. Um, then you can have it, uh, the, the first easiest.

Ryan (10:41)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

[email protected] (10:56)

musician to replace as a drummer and they already have AI drummer apps which I use and now they’re going to get better, right? Something like a guitar is a harder instrument to emulate but not that hard once it gets really good at it So then you’re gonna replace all the studio musicians, right? And you make it good then you’re gonna use you’re gonna replace everything and it’s very easy and for that reason

Ryan (11:00)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

[email protected] (11:24)

professionally, I’m getting out of music now. I heard that thing, I’m like, well, it’s time to go. So I’ll still do it as part of a creative overall content-based. So look, the idea is, so who are the people in music or creative that can make money off of it? Well, you’re gonna have artists, content providers, people, humans that…

Ryan (11:29)

Yeah.

Yeah.

[email protected] (11:52)

people that fans want to watch, right, in a live element. Live music can’t, or some sort of live element, can’t be completely replaced. So that’s gonna, that’s, that’ll be something.

Ryan (11:54)

Well, yeah, live music makes sense. Yeah.

No.

cinik (12:05)

You know, we say that though, but then we look at these raves where there is no live music being played and people are losing their mind and they’re drawing hundreds of thousands of people.

Ryan (12:10)

Yeah.

[email protected] (12:13)

For that sort of thing, yeah, for like certain dance music, electronic music, yeah, I think there will always be a connection where people will want to see people live. So that is sort of safe, but I mean…

Ryan (12:14)

Yeah.

Yeah. Well, it’s kind of, it’s like, I kind of like, well, I kind of find like, it’s kind of with, um, I found with personal training, even though I don’t like, you know, I’m more in a management like position now where I do, I still do some training, but I don’t, but I like, I don’t like, I know people will say, oh, well AI is going to get rid of trainers because people could just use an app. And I think that’s partially true, but not quite because, you know, at the end of the day, with, when it comes to like training for a lot, most people, it’s not about.

the knowledge that the trainer has, it’s that the trainer’s there. It’s the accountability, it’s the motivation, you know, being a babysitter therapist, you know, like your trainer, a lot of times you’re not like you’re the, you know, on the list of things that you are to that person, like the, the guy that designs their workout is like lower on that list, as far as the things that they need. So, so, you know, as far as like, if you want to work out, like it’s for the last 30 years, you can pretty much find a way that in a book or online or an app or whatever. And obviously the apps get more, um,

[email protected] (12:54)

Yeah, of course.

Mm-hmm.

Sure.

Ryan (13:19)

advanced and they give you more personalized things. But I think something like that you still want a person. So same kind of thing. Like if I go to New Orleans, right, like I’m going to want to see live music, right? So you’re going to still have that space. But the space of being like a studio musician or so, you know, a lot of artists now, like they’re not going to need studio musicians because they can just have AI play this stuff and play it, you know, perfectly good. Right. Yeah. So, so yeah, I mean, that’s the issue, right? You know, and then

[email protected] (13:26)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm. It was hard enough as one as it is, but yeah.

people to compose, people to do anything. Like it’s, you know, it’s tough. Yeah, it’s gonna be hard.

cinik (13:49)

It makes you wonder though, will live music age out? Because if you look at these festivals, there are people, the generation or so behind us, and the music is getting more and more popular. Most of rap doesn’t contain actual instruments. Will live music go away at some point?

Ryan (13:55)

Yeah. That is true. Yeah.

[email protected] (14:14)

That’s exactly what it’s going to become.

Ryan (14:27)

Yeah, I

[email protected] (14:33)

you know, I don’t, it may be where it’s headed. I don’t know, based on, like I’m in Nashville and people very much so enjoy going out and seeing live music, seeing people work together. I don’t think that aspect is because it’s in it. Here’s the thing, because it’s in experience, right? It’s something you do as, you know, as people enjoy as an experience. And that’s what it is. It’s like live content now.

Ryan (14:41)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, that’s fair.

[email protected] (15:00)

right, you know, it’s all about content. Well, now this becomes live content. So yeah, look, humans will evolve. We’ll find a way to, to make do. But yeah, that’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s sort of a rough reality. And as I’ve been saying for a long time, judgment day is coming. I have much bigger concerns than being replaced as a musician. My concern is being slaughtered by Terminators.

Ryan (15:16)

Yeah.

I have much bigger lips.

Yeah.

[email protected] (15:30)

So which if you don’t think it’s a real idea.

cinik (15:38)

We’ve had a good run, but I gotta ask Justin, now that you’re closing the door on your music career, is the next stop OnlyFans? Cause I’ll be there. I’ll be subscribing.

Ryan (15:39)

Yeah.

[email protected] (15:46)

Yes. Well, so, no, because that’ll phase out too, because what’s gonna happen is, there will be some very, very good AI porn where basically you’ll be able to input either a favorite actress or actor or whoever it is you’re into and say, and then put on like a virtual VR helmet and type in what you want.

Ryan (15:48)

I’m scratching.

You

[email protected] (16:14)

and you’ll be able to do some really, whatever you want type of VR porn, and it’s gonna look just like, it’ll basically be just like watching a movie and who knows, right? It’s gonna be, really how far away do you think that is? I don’t think it’s that far away.

Ryan (16:28)

I mean, that’s a little ways away. Yeah. I mean.

cinik (16:31)

Well yeah, I mean…

Well, all right. Let’s look at Apple just released their own headset, right? And it was supposed to be like Brian’s glasses, and it was still a VR headset. Like they, it’s still a ways away.

Ryan (16:40)

Yeah. Exactly. Like it’s getting there. Like the Apple, from what I understand, I’m a no guy who has it. It’s great. It’s probably the best of the VR headsets. And I have like the Oculus or the Meta Quest and it’s, it’s an awesome experience, but it’s still not replacing like, you know, our everyday life yet. No, maybe, maybe it’s a few years away, but what? But yeah, I don’t think, but I don’t, I think, um,

[email protected] (17:02)

You have, you remember a few years away, yeah.

Ryan (17:09)

You’re right though, we’re probably not too far from being able to type in, here’s what I want for my porn and then it gives you that and it looks like you’re real people. Maybe start your OnlyFans career now so that you can milk a solid two years out of it. Poor choice of words. So next story.

cinik (17:28)

I’ll be milking a solid two years out of it too, Ryan.

Ryan (17:39)

This is a very New York centric episode, so I apologize to people who are not in New York. Okay. Well, so I guess the first of our two New York centric stories. One is it was a devastating news as Nick fans today as our second best player, all star and all NBA player, Julius Randall is out for the year. And what sucks and why it’s newsworthy for us.

[email protected] (17:45)

Oh, that reminds me, I’ll have to talk about something later. So thanks for reminding me.

Ryan (18:08)

is like, we’ve been Nick fans. I don’t know, Sinek, how big of a basketball fan you are, but you know, we’ve been Nick fans since we were kids. They, you know, in 93, they, you know, went to the finals. They had a finals run in 99, but since then, like the Knicks have just sucked. They’ve been terribly managed. They’ve just gone from one bad move after another for the last 20 years, 25 years almost. And over the last couple of years, like there’s been a change and they actually have been able to field a decent team. And if, you know, by the end of January this year,

you know, they made a couple important trades. This looked like a team that like could make a run. You know, I think everybody was excited. And then our second and third best players injured. And now we find out that Randall’s out for the year, which pretty much is a devastating loss for the Knicks because again, they were a team that we had high hopes for and looked great when the entire team was healthy and on the floor. So it’s like just like the curse of being like a Knicks fan.

[email protected] (19:06)

Yeah, it’s, I can’t remember an injury that has been so devastating, especially in basketball, because it’s a game of your stars, right? Your stars are most important, your role players are important too, but it’s not like a baseball team where you have a lot of players and if you’re

Ryan (19:22)

Yeah

[email protected] (19:31)

player star player goes down, you can still win or you know, I guess in football, if your quarterback goes down, you’re screwed. But even so we’ve seen it in football where great teams are their star quarterback goes down and they still win. You can’t do that in basketball. If you lose your star player, you’re done. That’s it. Like for the most part, you know,

Ryan (19:48)

Well, actually the funny, funny that the one counter example is the last time the Knicks made the finals, right? Patrick Ewing was injured and they made a run. Granted he was older, you know, and, uh, you know, the, and, and they had enough, but, um, yeah, that’s what I, you know, I think the one thing I will say is I actually think, um, it’s better, you know, not better, but they wouldn’t, they’re

[email protected] (19:55)

Yeah, yeah, in a very, very weak, very, very weak East.

It’s just rough.

Ryan (20:15)

If you were to say, okay, we’re going to lose either. And we don’t know what if OGN and OBI will be back, but if you lose him or Randall, I would actually say we’re better off with OGN and OBI in the lineup because of his defense and just how he changes the game, but yeah, no, it’s true.

[email protected] (20:25)

Yeah, it’s, well, you just need that second score, second option. Like it’s just, it’s just, it’s, it’s just mess. It’s just sad because look, are they, are they good enough to be at the Celtics? Maybe, maybe not, probably not, but we’re robbed of a, of a potentially great series. It’s like, and I want to watch, look, did I think they were going to win? Probably not. But there was the hope that they could have and hope is what you, you know, what you need and it was going to be very entertaining. It was going to be a very entertaining series, either them against the, the

Ryan (20:36)

Probably not, no.

of a season. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

[email protected] (20:55)

the Bucks or the Celtics and we’re robbed of it. Like, look, will they probably get past the first round? Yeah. Will they have a competitive series against whoever they play? Probably, but it’s just, it’s a very empty, empty feeling. So we’re all just, it’s just, it just stinks. It’s not fun.

Ryan (21:10)

Yeah.

cinik (21:14)

Well, the counter to that is as a Mets fan, you should know that Edwin Diaz destroyed the Mets season last year by getting hurt during the World Baseball Classic, and I think that was more of a devastating loss only because they had a championship team. They floored a championship team. You have a bunch of middle guys and you’re playing well. Brunson’s playing well. Randall was playing well, but the Knicks haven’t won a championship since 1973. That’s longer than I’ve been alive.

[email protected] (21:23)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ryan (21:34)

Yeah.

Yeah

[email protected] (21:40)

Yeah.

cinik (21:42)

There was a group of three superstars that could have came to the Knicks. They could have cleared the, just a few years ago. And now mind you, it didn’t work out where they went, but they headed across town to Brooklyn. As a Knicks fan, a friend of mine that says all the time, the Knicks are now irrelevant. And they’ve been irrelevant for a long time, and they’re probably gonna stay irrelevant until they get new ownership.

[email protected] (21:50)

Yeah.

Ryan (22:02)

Well, no, I would say it’s the little, I would push back on it a little bit. I think, yes, do they need new ownership? Yes, but the Knicks, I think in the last year, two years have become relevant. They, because they’ve been managed well. And well, yeah, but they’ve been managed well. And so I think the one hopeful thing is they have a deep team, they have a strong core, and a team now that people want to come to. So.

[email protected] (22:12)

they’ve become relevant.

cinik (22:16)

They’ve become a third place team is what they’ve become.

Ryan (22:28)

Whereas a few years ago superstars did not want to come here. The Knicks are in a position now where they are one disgruntled superstar away from being a championship contender. And so I do think that that’s the difference is, yeah, I think that people, they can bring in those free agents that maybe they couldn’t. And who knows, who knows what decisions they’ll make. They’ve got a stockpile of draft picks. They’ve got a young core. They’ve got all star players.

[email protected] (22:28)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

and they have the money, they got cap space.

Ryan (22:57)

and they’ve money. So I think there’s some hope. It’s disappointing because I think we all got excited that this year is gonna be an exciting year. But this is a three, four, yeah. But this is a three, four year project. Yeah.

[email protected] (23:05)

We just wanted to enjoy it.

cinik (23:10)

Yeah, they made a couple big moves in its respect, but the East still isn’t the West in basketball. Not that I’m a super knowledgeable basketball guy, but the East still isn’t the West, and they’re still looking up at the Celtics and the Bucs and the Cavs. I mean, so they still have a ways to go.

Ryan (23:19)

Yeah.

I don’t think the cab, not the cabs, but definitely.

[email protected] (23:26)

Yeah. Oh, I think they’re better than the Bucs if they were on full strength. They’re definitely better. They’re second place if they had been fully healthy for most of the season. It’s like, think about the Celtics take away three of their four best players. What are they? Like, it’s the same thing, any team.

Ryan (23:28)

Yeah, I mean, fully healthy, yes, but you know, yeah.

Yeah.

cinik (23:45)

Not to get too deep down the rabbit hole, but they’re number ones and number twos don’t compare. Brunson and Randall don’t compare to Yannis and Lillard.

[email protected] (23:48)

Yeah.

I disagree. I think Brunson is playing MVP.

Ryan (23:59)

I think as a, as a pair, no, but yeah, Brunton’s playing like one of the best players, like, like he’s superstar level playing right now and carrying it. And yeah, like he’s, he’s basically carried a team on his back that has, is missing three, has been missing three of their four starters or three of their five starters. So I would say, yeah, is he.

cinik (24:15)

Well, we can say that like all New York teams, all we ever have to say is better luck next year. We win nothing anymore, nothing.

[email protected] (24:15)

I think he’s up there with them.

Ryan (24:23)

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. So our second New York based. Yeah. Yeah, so. So the second of New York based stories is, have you heard about the spate of women getting punched randomly in New York? So there have been there’s been a recent spate over the last few weeks of, you know, that’s part is

[email protected] (24:23)

Yeah, that’s it.

Yeah, yeah. Well, the Rangers are pretty good, right?

cinik (24:30)

Yeah, they’re decent. They gotta be goon beating everybody up, so that makes me happy.

[email protected] (24:32)

Hahaha

Yeah, I did hear about that.

cinik (24:42)

No.

Ryan (24:48)

some people reporting it like on social media. So we can’t, you know, don’t know how true a lot of it is, but there’ve been several legitimate incidents of women just randomly getting punched in the streets of New York. Generally they’re on their cell phones and like looking down or texting, whatever, and just random people just punching them. And there’ve been at least two arrests, two or three arrests, a couple of being caught like on, you know, security camera footage, but like.

it’s a legitimate thing that’s been happening recently. It’s crazy, because it’s frustrating things like this because it just feeds into that narrative that New York’s is crime ridden hell hole, which it’s not. But that becomes the big story.

cinik (25:30)

Mm.

When you get people being pushed in front of subways and shit, it does give you pause.

Ryan (25:37)

Well, the problem is like the macro versus the micro. So you can, the thing is like, if you look at the data, like crime is down, it’s down compared to last year, it’s trending downwards, it’s been trending down for two decades, but you still have those incidents. So it’s kind of more where your focus is. And it’s not to diminish the things that do happen, but it’s also like, it’s not this crime-ridden hellhole, but it’s a big city.

And so those things are going to happen in any big city. It’s just what gets amplified and what doesn’t get amplified.

[email protected] (26:13)

The fact of the matter is there’s still an incredible amount of misogyny in the world. There’s been a rise of red pill, black pill stuff all over the internet. This sort of…

there’s this notion that’s been spreading out that women are taking over, they’re replacing men. Right now, women have options, they have too many options. They can date men or men are the victims, men are the victims. And this is a pervasive thought. And I do believe that it’s given rise to this thing, you know, this violence against women, not grand. There’s always been violence against women, but usually it’s…

under, you know, for either, either like a random attack for like a sexual assault, but mostly domestic violence, which is traditionally been the most, the most common kind, but something like this, it feels like it’s coming from this, you know, misogynistic, you know, bitterness towards women

feel like they’ve been slighted. It just, it feels that way. That’s, that would be my sense and right now, and I know I’ve looked at a couple, some of the people that have been arrested, some of them don’t look too right in the head, but as we know, people that are often not right in the head read things and they get, you know, very influenced by it. And then of course, once one does it, you start to see copy, copycat stuff going on and yeah, it’s, it’s sickening.

And I’ve been saying it for a while. There’s only a matter of time before, and we’ve already started seeing a little bit of it, where you’re gonna get some vigilantism, right? The like carry permits for firearms have increased like 20,000% or something in New York. And of course they’re dragging their feet. But when you start something like this, you’re gonna see…

response. It’s just going to happen. So I don’t know, it’s, it’s pretty sad.

cinik (28:31)

Yep. But how many of these instances have actually happened that we know for sure? Because I mean, we’ve gone through this before. Remember the years and years ago, it was the knockout game and random hooligans were knocking people out for and during and post covid or during covid, it was assaults on Asians are up and it’s just the media glorifying, which was a number probably close to the norm anyway. So, yeah, so now.

Ryan (28:37)

That’s the problem.

[email protected] (28:39)

There is that too.

Ryan (28:41)

Yeah, and it wasn’t.

[email protected] (28:42)

Yeah, yeah. And it wasn’t.

Ryan (28:47)

Yeah.

[email protected] (28:48)

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan (28:51)

Yeah.

[email protected] (28:52)

Yeah.

Ryan (28:57)

Yeah.

[email protected] (28:58)

Yeah.

cinik (28:59)

you know, as women are in the spotlight because of the things that are taking place, anything against them is going to be magnified a thousand times over. Not that I’m preferencing by saying that I don’t agree with assaulting anybody, let alone females, because I don’t want anybody to get the wrong idea. I’m just saying that it’s probably being blown out of proportion, even though one is too many.

Ryan (29:06)

Yeah.

[email protected] (29:06)

There is an element of that.

Ryan (29:12)

Yeah, but…

Yeah, no, that you’re absolutely like, what is it? What is it? Where is it compared to the, you know, is it just background? Is it just background noise that’s being amplified? Or is it a real legitimate thing that that’s happening? And I think that’s a that’s a fair point. Like, we don’t know. But that’s what happens is the media will take hold of something. And like I said, like, you know, like with the crime thing in New York, it’s like, you know, if

if the media takes hold of it. So a lot of times that’s what’s going to get it, get views. And then it’s funny how wherever I travel, you know, people, you know, it’s like, Oh wow. How’s, how’s New York? I hear it’s not safe. It’s like, no, it’s, it’s perfectly fine. You know, it’s like, yeah, it’s a big city stuff happens, but like, yeah, I guess, but, you know, but it’s like, I grew up in New York in the eighties. So we’re good. Perfectly happy with the city right now. So yeah.

cinik (29:54)

Well, we have a badass reputation and it precedes us.

[email protected] (30:03)

Yeah.

Ryan (30:06)

All right, so speaking of things that will trigger, I guess, weak-minded men. So they announced Fantastic Four movie, it’s been a big deal because Marvel has it. Fox tried twice, took two swings at it.

Um, and failed, you know, pretty much both times. Uh, and they just announced that, um, there’s silver surfer in this will be played by Julia Garner, uh, who’s going to be playing the shot bell version of silver surfer. I’m not sure if I’m, if I pronounced that wrong, I’m not very familiar with that version of silver surfer, but we’re getting a female silver surfer. I’m sure people are not going to be upset with that. Right? Sync.

cinik (30:47)

I mean, they’re gonna spin it that it’s from source material and it’s been in comic books, which probably 80% of people that go to Marvel movies don’t read comics, they just love Marvel movies, but they’ll make that excuse that it came from somewhere and it’s just another, it’ll be another reason for people to be upset about the movie. They’ve already pulled the John Krasinski card, which aggravated the shit out of me to begin with. You know, oh, we can’t use them, we’re going younger. And then they turn around and they cast Pedro Pascal.

Ryan (30:51)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

cinik (31:17)

So it’s like, you know, which I thought you were going younger with it. But yeah, I just, I think it’s, I don’t give a shit about the, I didn’t even know the silver server really had a gender. I mean, the dude’s silver, you’re not seeing anything on him, but I just think it’s just, it’ll be another reason that people try to just pull another block out of Marvel’s tower.

Ryan (31:20)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that’s a, I think the thing for me is my first thought was, Oh shit, people are going to be upset. You know, and like, and that’s frustrating. Cause like, yeah, it’s like if you make, make good movies, I don’t care who you cast, um, you know, and, uh, you know, maybe there’s a good story, whatever the case is, but it’s annoying even for me that my first reaction is, oh great. You know, my reaction is, wow, crap. What are people’s reactions going to be? Um, and again, at the end of the day, I think if the problem is like, if the movie does well.

[email protected] (31:47)

Yeah.

Ryan (32:06)

then no one’s gonna care. Everyone’s gonna go see a 2004, if it’s a good, I’m sorry, if it’s a good movie, everyone’s gonna go out to see it, no one’s gonna say anything. If it’s a bad movie, then they’re gonna say, oh, see, this is why Walt Disney, and they’re screwing everything up, and that becomes the issue. And I don’t know how you get around that, because you’re kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t. But that’s kind of the world we live in right now, is that you get people reacting to things like that, and who knows?

[email protected] (32:35)

So what are the chances that Disney is like, oh, well, if we cast the female silver server, that’ll get people talking and no publicity is bad publicity and controversy is good. So like the more people that talk about it, like, do you think that ever factors in? Do you think they say, let’s play these cards up just to trigger people, because it makes more of a buzz.

Ryan (32:58)

I think, you know, obviously Disney’s had its own issues. There was like kind of a shareholder, almost takeover recently. They had their issues with DeSantis and they’ve gotten a lot of blowback for trying to, you know, really focus on diversity and inclusion in a lot of the movies. And to me a lot, sometimes I think it’s superficial and it’s just done so that they can say they did it. And other times I think they do a decent job with it. But I don’t know from their perspective if that’s the idea. Because I think they’re-

And the problem right now is the Marvel movies and shows are not doing as well as they used to. And so I don’t know that they’re in a position to just say, Oh, well, no publicity is bad publicity. I think they want to keep people in. I do appreciate that they’re not backing down to the, the kind of loud.

the loud people who are screaming, oh, woke, it’s too woke. And why do you have the diversity or whatever? I’m glad that they’re not bowing to that. So that’s a good thing to me. And so now it’s just like, all right, make good movies. Cause my issues with any of it has always been like, is it a good or a bad film? Like the Marvels, I wanted to like that movie. I would love a movie with a diverse cast that’s focused on female heroes. That’s fine, we have so many male driven heroes. It doesn’t matter, that’s fine.

[email protected] (33:47)

Go Woko Brokia.

Ryan (34:11)

But it sucked. It was a bad movie. And then that feeds into the, the narrative of the people that are like, Oh, see, you know, you like, look, see, this is why Disney’s going, you know, it’s terrible because they’re, they’re focused on diversity. It’s like, no, it’s not that it’s just, it was a bad movie. And so, you know, that’s the thing. It’s like, just, just put out good stuff. And I’m glad that they are kind of not bowing or, you know, cowering to, to people. You’re gonna say something, Tim?

cinik (34:32)

Yeah, I was going to say that if this was Eternals 2 that they did it in, Justin, I would agree with you that maybe they’re doing it for the publicity, but there’s so much interest and there’s so much lore behind the Fantastic Four, they don’t need it. I feel like it probably costs them more than they gain with the situation. You lose those fringe types that have finally had enough and throw their hands up and march off and protest for because a character has boobs. I don’t know. I don’t quite understand it myself. It’s never bothered me.

[email protected] (34:44)

Yeah.

Ryan (34:51)

Yeah.

cinik (35:01)

I just think that with the Fantastic Four, you don’t need to do that because they’re big enough. This group, as far as comics go, is right up there with the Avengers, as far as popularity, as far as people know and who they are, despite the failed attempts at other movies.

Ryan (35:16)

Yeah. So I will say like, I was a fan of Silver Surfer as a kid in the comic. So like I was hoping to see the Silver Surfer show. Yeah. You know what? I think we all just thought he looked really reality is like he just looked cool. Right. Like you just look just like look badass with you know, the so.

cinik (35:23)

I didn’t get it.

I can say that in the Marvel and the Fantastic Four movies, he’s the one thing that did kind of work, like visually. Like he did look cool in the movies. Like it was a good transference from comic book to movie, but as far as the character, I never got it.

Ryan (35:38)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, that’s fair.

All right, and then our final last news story we’ll talk about today is the UFC. It kinda came out really under the radar, but UFC had a settlement, or the parent company TKO reached a $335 million settlement regarding antitrust lawsuits brought in by a number of fighters. So on the surface, the settlement sounds good, right? It’s a lot of money, but then you find out it’s tax-deductible.

And when you spread it out, like among fighters, it’s not really going to be that much, you know, yeah, exactly legal fees and spreading it out. It’s not all that much. And like at the end of the day, like for a company worth billions of dollars, like I, you know, yeah, again, $335 million tax deductible. Like I don’t know. Like, I don’t know that this is going to put a dent in like the business practices that are not great on the side of the UFC.

[email protected] (36:20)

and after the lawyers and everything. Yeah.

Yeah, the, sorry, go.

cinik (36:43)

Yeah.

No, go ahead, just.

[email protected] (36:47)

I mean, the fact is that until fighters can unionize, this will continue. That’s it. There’s no protection for them and no owner, no company wants their employees to unionize. It just doesn’t. It never benefits the people at the top and it’ll almost always benefits.

the people that are working. And it’s funny that the people that are working are also the product. So that’s just how I feel. And yeah, good luck. There will be many battles until they’re allowed to do that. And it’s just gonna be almost impossible. So until…

Ryan (37:33)

Yeah, I mean, unfortunately, I don’t see UFC fighters as they are fighting for a union as much as they need it. But you’re going to say Senate?

cinik (37:43)

But this is the problem, right? It’s no longer 5,000 people in a bingo hall. It’s 45,000, 50,000 people in an arena. And you still got guys fighting for five and five. And Dana White now is taking the stance where, well, go start your own Fighters League and pay them what you want. And that’s not the point. The point is, is they’re bringing in millions of dollars every single event, sometimes tens of millions just on the gate alone, not even counting pay-per-view that we don’t have access to. This could be spread out a little bit more for…

most fighters who can only fight two to three times a year and You know the maximum they’re gonna make is $30,000 doing it and then that’s after all the time the training in the injury risk And the CTE that goes along with it. It’s ridiculous but this was the best and probably last chance to get that union stuff done and you know About 1500 fighters walked away with probably fifty thousand dollars a piece if they’re lucky. It’s not life-changing money

Ryan (38:37)

Yeah, exactly. And they’ll just kind of go back to business as usual. Yeah.

[email protected] (38:39)

and the.

cinik (38:42)

It’s a speeding ticket.

[email protected] (38:42)

And it’s like the thing is you can’t, um, you’re just not going to get the fighters to, to strike. Like they’re just not, you’re right. Most of them are struggling and they need to, you know, there, a lot of them are supporting families and this is their, this is their dream. And it’s just, you’re not going to, and it’s international too. So you just, it is just no way you’re going to get all the fighters to say, well, bring in replacements, you know, get the, get the second tier guys.

Ryan (39:02)

Yeah. The-

The only hope, the one hope is if the government were to really go after, you know, the UFC and the WWE, which are in the same umbrella, um, as far as the independent contractor status of the fighters. Cause at the end of the day, I think that’s the real issue where both companies, you know, are, are doing wrong by their fighters, right. Or, or, or wrestlers or fighters, whatever, right? Like they’re all classified as independent contractors, but like, they’re not.

You know, for all intents and purposes, they’re not independent contractors. They only work for those companies. They control how they interact with the media, how they use their social media, where they go, how they work, their time, their schedule, all that stuff is controlled. So the reality is that even though they try to skirt by just calling them independent contractors, they’re not. And so I think that at some point, someone will go after them for that. And that’s the only point where we will really, really see like legitimate change. Because I think that’s the issue.

[email protected] (39:41)

where they work. Yeah.

cinik (40:00)

Well, have you guys had the pleasure of seeing Nate the Train yet? Nate the Train is an up and coming fighter with huge knockout power and he’s like Rocky, he usually starts losing the fight and then figures out a way to win. But he’s like a South Park parody of a fighter. Like, let’s go is after every other sentence when he screams his interviews. And as long as we have Nate the Train out there, you’re never gonna be able to get a union together because he’ll fight for free, you know? That’s just the way it’s gonna happen.

Ryan (40:04)

What?

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. That’s it. Yeah, no, absolutely. And it’s sad because you have these guys that are like, you know, that.

their professional athletes, like their, you know, and I do, you know, do I think professional athletes need to make billions of dollars, you know, or half a billion or quarter billion? Probably not, but like these guys are giving, throwing their body, you know, giving up a lot of their, sacrificing their bodies for this sport. And so then to, you know, after you, you know, you finished, have to just go back into the regular world without some kind of nest egg is insane. Or, you know, a lot of these guys, you know, it’s like after they, you know, if you’re making 10 and 10, by the time you’re done paying your gym fees, like you come up with nothing, like that’s,

that you can spend a, no, not at all, absolutely not. Especially not worth when you can, so if you look at like the UFC’s revenues compared to what they pay their athletes, it’s like pennies compared to like what all the other major sports do. But again, it’s on the fighters to rally together and say, no, we’re gonna take a stand. And in that, a couple guys have tried and they just, there’s not the will, I think, for them to do that and it’s on them, I guess.

[email protected] (41:05)

they’re not earning what they’re worth.

cinik (41:32)

Well, the problem is as they try after they’re done with their careers when they’re no longer relevant and they don’t have the platform to speak on it anymore. So, but it’s the same. I mean, even if you have a union to protect you, there was two Oakland A’s that one of them, which was the best player in the team hitting 400, they sent him down because he was wearing, you know, anti-ownership geared to the stadium. So you’re not even protected with a union.

Ryan (41:35)

Yeah, exactly.

Really? Yeah, that’s crazy. Alright, so let’s get to, so I guess we’ll do quickly, are you guys, Cynic, you watching anything this last week? Anything interesting that you’d recommend?

cinik (42:09)

Um, this last week, no, really, honestly, because of baseball. I’ve been tuned into baseball nonstop and, uh, you know, the games have been fantastic, uh, the season’s going well. You know, uh, Cho-hei finally hit a home run last night, which I was super happy about, uh, so baseball’s kind of been my primary focus.

Ryan (42:13)

Yeah.

How are you, Justin?

[email protected] (42:31)

So how many, so basically how many millions of dollars is he getting paid for a home run, per home run?

cinik (42:39)

Um, that’s a good question. I don’t know if I’ve seen it broken down like that, but it has to be, it has to be at least a half a million dollars a game. I would think.

Ryan (42:42)

Yeah.

[email protected] (42:42)

We have to break out the math.

Ryan (42:47)

Yeah, yeah, that’s something insane.

[email protected] (42:48)

Yeah, it’s I started watching the show that cynic recommended New York New York homicide to going back to that idea. I thought I thought it’s pretty good. My issue with the show is that it’s a half an hour show stretched out to, you know, 48 minutes. Like there’s a lot of drag out and a lot, you know, obviously, so they can sneak in more ads.

Ryan (42:56)

Okay. Yeah.

[email protected] (43:15)

They throw a lot of red herrings. It’s clearly done in a way that makes the episodes longer than they really need to be. So it gets a little tiresome where they just repeat stuff and things go nowhere. They love to try to throw in whenever there’s a red herring. They love to throw that in. But besides that, the show is good. There’s some interesting episodes. Yeah, I’ve been enjoying watching it.

Ryan (43:41)

So, yeah.

cinik (43:42)

Well, I mean, show me a documentary that doesn’t do that and I’ll promote it till the end of time. Making the Murder was like one of the best documentaries ever, but they drugged the shit out of that.

[email protected] (43:46)

Ha ha ha.

Yeah, it’s true.

Ryan (43:50)

So, yeah.

I’ll share one thing I’ve been watching. It’s actually relevant to our interests. It’s called The Power of Film. It’s like a documentary series on Max. And it’s really interesting. It’s a guy named, I think, Howard Subur, who just goes through a lot of different movies, popular movies, and just different aspects of moviemaking and storytelling and what makes it interesting and what makes us identify with characters, what makes stories compelling. It’s a really good series just on film and how film works

why film works and why certain things work, why things don’t. You know, it covers a lot of, you know, the biggest movies, you know, in the most, the highest, you know, the movies that we hold in the highest regards. And he does just a really good job of kind of explaining it to us. It’s like almost like you’re taking like a film course. So, you know, worth watching. It’s kind of an easy watch. And again, goes over a lot of things that are well within like our wheelhouse and goes pretty in depth. So, definitely worth watching if you’re like a film fan.

as we all are.

So anyway, let’s get to our first review. So we got two reviews. X-Men 97, we’ll talk about, so we’ve all, I think, Sinek and I are two episodes in, Justin, you’re one episode, or three episodes in. We’ll do kind of a mini review of that and talk about whether or not we recommend moving forward. And then we’ll get into talking about the Iron Claw, which I’m really interested in discussing with you guys. So first, we’ll start off with X-Men. So X-Men 97 is a kind of reboot slash extension

X-Men series from the 90s. So were you, were both you guys fans of the 90s X-Men series? Yep, Justin needs you right, yeah. So I guess my first question is just watching, you know, this first episode, which, so I will stay away from major spoilers. The very beginning is Professor X is dead, right? Like that’s, you know that from the beginning, so it’s not a spoiler, but he’s dead. Yeah, exactly. And basically you have the X-Men dealing with the aftermath, and there are some really interesting twists that we won’t, you know, won’t spoil, but

cinik (45:29)

I was, yeah.

[email protected] (45:31)

Oh yeah.

Even the trailer shows it, yeah.

Ryan (45:52)

Um, did you feel like, uh, for you was, did this feel like a genuine, like an extension of the old show? Did it feel like a reboot? Like, what were your thoughts just on how this compared to the original, like 90 series? Sinead.

cinik (46:07)

I mean, I think it holds up there. Some of the animation’s different. And I know people had a problem with, they reduced the size of Rogue’s butt and the definition, which, you know, I guess ruined some lives because I saw more of that on the internet than rather than the content of the actual show. But I mean, as far as the story, as far as them bringing back the voice actors, as far as the theme being the same, I mean, it all checks out. We’re going, it seems like, a different direction in the story, which-

Ryan (46:14)

Hahaha!

Seriously. Yeah.

cinik (46:34)

was good because I didn’t want to reboot. You know, you can always just fire back up the original X-Men if you want that. So yeah, I mean, I thought it was all good. I mean, the first episode felt like it dragged a little bit, but the second episode was good.

Ryan (46:36)

Yeah.

Yeah. What do you think, Justin? Did you feel like, do you like the direction it was taking, you know, after, you know, basically you’ve been an extension of the old series?

[email protected] (46:51)

Yeah.

Absolutely. I loved it. I think that it’s a worthy continuation. It’s cleaner, right? It’s really well produced. The animation is great. The writing is great. It stays somewhat true to the original cartoon, but then you have veers off with new ideas, new stories, and stuff like that. So I like it. They modernize it a little bit.

Ryan (47:28)

Yeah. I think they did a good job with that. Like, oh, yeah. Well, the…

[email protected] (47:29)

obviously, like they bring in, but not overboard. Like it’s cool, like the way they show like Gambit’s character when he’s not in costume and stuff like that. So they develop certain aspects of it. I like it. I think that it’s very worthy and I think it’s really well done put together.

Ryan (47:38)

Yeah.

So question A, did you mark out when you heard the theme song, you know, for the first time again, and B, would that be on your list of favorite 90s theme songs?

[email protected] (48:02)

Uh, no, it’s, it’s decent. It’s not great. Um, I like the way they did it. It, it, it works for the show. It works for the show. I think that it, um, it’s good. I think by itself is not a great theme, but yeah, it, I think it works in context, but I will say the overall music for the show is really good. I forgot there was the two brothers that, that do it. It’s really good, well-composed music. It fits perfectly. And also the animation is, is really excellent.

Ryan (48:02)

No.

[email protected] (48:30)

Right? And they go in, if you watch further down, they go into like the fantasy aspects of it because, and it’s really good. Like a lot of, you know, how comic books go into these sort of fantasy segments within the comic where it goes, you know, to different places. They do it really well where it doesn’t go so far out that you’re like, well, what’s going on here? And it’s very tasteful and the animation is really, really good. So I’m very pleased with it.

Ryan (48:59)

Yeah. So, Sinek, this is a little… So, the original series was made for kids or teenagers. And does this feel… This one feel more like it’s made for the adults that were teenagers? A, yeah.

cinik (49:12)

Well, I mean, we’re starting the series off with Jean Grey knocked up. I don’t think they would have allowed that back in the day. So it’s gotten a little more adult. And Wolverine’s need to be around Jean is a little less full, more so than I felt like in the old cartoon. So yeah, a little bit. I mean, I think they adulted it up a little bit. I showed it to my wife. Yeah.

Ryan (49:18)

Yeah, exactly. That is a fair point. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

[email protected] (49:34)

definitely did. It’s violent.

cinik (49:38)

Yeah, that too. Sheddington, my wife, she just wasn’t getting it, but she didn’t watch the original either. So to pull somebody straight into it didn’t work out for me, but might work out for others. But yeah, I felt like overall there was some adult tones to the show.

Ryan (49:42)

Okay, yeah.

Yeah. And do you feel like, did you like the fact that I think the show kind of is working on like, almost redeeming Cyclops as a character? I feel like he’s been beaten down so much in the movies that it seems like.

cinik (50:04)

Yeah, I mean, it just seems like Cyclops is the Aquaman of Marvel. You know what I mean? Like no respect whatsoever. Almost cuckold in his own relationship. Not respected even though he’s supposed to be the team leader. So yeah, I think they are really trying hard. I think he’s a pretty excellent character. I just, if you stand next to Wolverine, you’re always going to look bad.

Ryan (50:11)

Yeah.

Yeah.

[email protected] (50:30)

Wolverine is a very minor character. That was one thing that surprised me so far, yes, but he’s the most popular X-Men and one of the most popular Marvel characters, period. And they’ve just, he’s not played a big role so far. I’m curious as to why they’re doing that. Yeah, they want to, let’s shift away.

Ryan (50:33)

So far, yeah. Yeah.

But that, I think that makes sense because like, A, he always, he has presence, right? So as a character, like when he’s there, he makes us, you know, you know he’s there. But we’ve also gotten so much Wolverine that like, do we need that much more? Now, I guess the question for you, so obviously we won’t go into spoilers, but like there is a major twist that we get at the end of episode one that I’m sure is going to be, you know, what a lot of this season is focused on.

[email protected] (50:59)

Yeah, it’s true.

Ryan (51:11)

And what were your thoughts on that? Like did that, you know, that would, did that shock you? Did it take you out of it? Like, how did you feel about that twist? Justin.

[email protected] (51:19)

Um, interesting. I had no problem with it. And then when you see where it goes in episode three, it makes sense. And the way they use it and the way they spin it, episode three gets pretty good. So no problem with any way that they’re telling the stories and stuff like that. So it’s all working.

Ryan (51:32)

Yeah.

Yeah. How about you send it?

cinik (51:41)

Well, you know, mute the show for about the next 15 seconds, but they kind of did the first thing, that in first classes too, which I just recently watched again in the, towards the end of the movie, you know, it was almost kind of like the same thing where people were given a choice to make. And so it was nothing new, but I think it brings an interesting spin to the show.

[email protected] (51:50)

Yeah.

Ryan (51:54)

Yeah. Okay, yeah.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely like it. I think it gives us, it gives the story some momentum and really connects all the characters, right? Like there’s a, you know, definitely they do a good job, I think, of kind of bringing everyone into the fold and making it.

of interesting. So now Justin, you kept in our like little text chain mentioning how you were going to call it woke men. So why don’t you talk about this? How do you, and how do you feel about the contra- obviously like, of course there’s some controversy about the show being too woke, you know, as we get that all the time.

[email protected] (52:26)

Yeah, I mean, it’s it.

So, okay, here’s the thing. They were making a big deal about Morph being non-binary. It’s like, okay, he’s a morphing character. Like to me that is the least of it. But what Morso is quote unquote woke about it is the content, is like literally the way that they throw it and like there’s one scene where Jubilee is talking to the, you know, a new mutant.

Ryan (52:40)

Yeah.

Yeah.

[email protected] (53:02)

And she’s in like literally she’s there saying, oh, your parents don’t know yet. And stuff like that. And it’s, look, the X-Men comes from, is like the first woke, you know, comic book, really, because it came out, it came out of the civil rights and Stan Lee movement and Stan Lee said that it paralleled the civil rights movements that African Americans were dealing with at the time. And now it seems

Ryan (53:15)

Comic, right?

[email protected] (53:30)

Oh, the hint is more that it’s taking on sort of the LGBTQ community. Oh, it’s it feels like that more as well. And on top of that, if when you look at the villains, like, like what was it like Friends of Humanity? The way that they’re portraying the bad humans kind of seems like a.

Ryan (53:35)

Wait, no, I thought… Okay.

[email protected] (53:56)

you know, like, who’s the like moms for liberty, you know, like, think like those types of groups that sound like they’re in, you know, for the people, but really, they’re hate groups. And the hate groups are the, you know, are the human hate groups are in there. And they hit very heavily at the sort of right wing Trumpist

you know, core and they’re pretty careful like to not make it race racial because they make sure that they’re like all the bad guys are mixed diversity racially. But the hint is like if you if you look at it, they are they look and are sort of representative of like, you know, like sort of insurrect like insurrectionist types, they look like it and there’s even the third episode, like is where they they, you know, spoiler sort of spoiler alert, right? There’s a UN.

meeting a UN trial and the people after the mutants breach the UN border and the security and they get past it and they’re all marching in there and stuff like that. And I’m like, this sounds like something very familiar. And just the way that they’re talking, so much parallels. And I’m online a lot reading lots of social media posts and the way that

they’re talking about the mutants in the X-Men reminds me so much of what I hear people talking about transgender people. Oh, they’re freaks, they’re this, they’re not, we need to stand up, they’re taking over, the liberals and the woke mob are taking us over. And those exact sentiments are being said in the show, oh, they’re taking over, they’re gonna ruin humanity for us, they’re gonna oust us, we’re gonna lose our place in society. So the very, very similar.

things that you read on social media about certain people, like you’re hearing that.

Ryan (55:53)

So, so I, what, I’m still confused with what side you’re on this. Ha ha ha.

[email protected] (56:00)

Oh no no, obviously look, I’m obviously I’m being facetious when I call it woke men, but uh

Ryan (56:04)

Okay. I’m like, I know. For a second, they’re like, wait a second. You sound like you’re having a hard time with this. You’re going to jump in, cynic?

cinik (56:10)

Were you starting to wonder where he was on January 6th for a second there?

[email protected] (56:12)

Hehehehe

cinik (56:23)

They included Sunspot, which I thought was a great character. To throw a little nudge someplace else, I think it was Screen Crush did a video of 75 episodes of the old show in 35 minutes. And it just amazed me about the amount of content that cartoon actually went through in, you know, a half hour’s time. As a comic book fan, they touched on just about every major X-Men storyline that there was. Or at least a bunch of the

the other groups and characters that you wouldn’t really know about, and focused a lot on the juggernaut. So, you know, I’m kind of sad that we’re only getting a short run and we’re only getting a couple episodes at a time. I really do hope that they continue on with this project because I’d like to see where it goes.

Ryan (57:05)

Yeah. Well, I guess, you know, so then I guess we’ll jump into our final thoughts, which I think you started that up. So, Sinek, why don’t you give us like a I’m guessing you’re going to keep watching it. So, yeah.

cinik (57:14)

Oh yeah, absolutely. I’m all in on it. I only realized that there was two more episodes today. That’s why I was asking how many we were gonna cover because if not, I was gonna watch the other two before we get on. But yeah, I’m down. I wanna see what happens. And I was just seeing that Ross Marquardt from The Walking Dead actually got a role in it. So I’m excited to hear what he does with it. Oh, and to go back to real quickly, to go back to what I was watching, I forgot to tell you that

Ryan (57:19)

Yeah.

cinik (57:43)

We finished off the Rick and Michelle, the ones who live, and it was fucking fantastic. So yeah, we got to talk about it at some point.

Ryan (57:44)

Okay.

Really, okay. Okay, yeah, definitely. Justin, so you’re gonna keep watching? Yeah, yeah.

[email protected] (57:53)

Absolutely, I loved it. Ryan, you didn’t tell me whether you agree with me. Do you not see all the sort of modern political social undertones?

Ryan (58:02)

Yeah, I mean, I know I definitely do. It doesn’t bother me. Um, and that’s the, yeah, exactly. No, it’s like, you know, I do. And that’s what the X-Men’s always been. Like, you know, whether you, you know, you, you know, yes, it started as civil rights allegory, but, um, there are definitely parallels to any struggle and whether, you know, and, and very much parallels to the LGBTQ, you know, Q struggles. So like, I could definitely see the parallels. I could definitely see that they’re, they’re emphasizing that.

[email protected] (58:06)

No, no, it’s not about bother, yeah.

Yeah.

Ryan (58:26)

And I’m glad again, you know, that, you know, some executive at Disney didn’t see more of Morse character and say, you know, uh, people are kind of upset with this stuff. Let’s, let’s pull it back. Like, I’m glad they did it because we need that. And like, that’s the character and nobody complained when it was, uh, what’s your name? What’s, what’s a blue character? The Jennifer Lawrence play Mystique. I don’t want to come in on Mystique. So, you know, we’re good.

cinik (58:45)

Mystique.

Yeah, but the cool part about Morph is he’s actually morphing into mutants that aren’t on the show. So that’s kind of cool to get the it’s almost like a little cameos. Yeah.

Ryan (58:54)

Yeah. No, that’s great.

[email protected] (58:55)

It is a nice little Easter egg. Yeah. There was one funny moment where like, where it was so predictable. And look, it’s a little bit of a spoiler, but it’s not really if you know the X-Men, like there was one point where they, where I think it was like Beast was talking and something happened. He’s like, there’s only one person, one person so maniacal, so evil. So do you think what word is he going to use to describe next along that line to describe a villain? Come on, you had to see it coming.

Well, you’ll see it coming. I won’t, I won’t say it. It’s just so obvious, you know, who he’s going to say. And of course he does. It was like, you could read the line, but you’ll, you’ll see, you haven’t gotten there yet, but you’ll, you’ll see it. So as little foreshadowing.

Ryan (59:24)

Whoa. Okay.

Okay. All right. All right, cool. So now we’ll. Yeah. Okay.

And then my thing, yeah, I think it’s great so far. I love the animation. You know, I think the story is really good. It’s mature, so it’s like it’s made for us, right? Like it was made for us as teenagers and now it’s made for us as far beyond teenagers at this point. But yeah, I’m enjoying it. So I’m definitely gonna keep watching it and highly recommend it. Whether, you know, as long as you’re a fan of the X-Men, if you’re a fan of the animated series initially, it’s a good show. Totally worth watching.

[email protected] (59:44)

It is.

Ryan (1:00:02)

All right, so let’s get to our second review, which is the Iron Claw. So the Iron Claw tells basically the mostly true story of the Von Erich family, which for us growing up as pro wrestling fans, I know we’re pretty sure we were all aware of the Von Erichs and just one of the most tragic family. It was like they were cursed. And what’s crazy is if you watch this movie, like I watched it with my wife.

and she didn’t know anything about the story. And like, it’s crazy that this story has to pull back on some of the insanity and horrible stuff that happens to them. Like there’s even worse stuff that happens that they just don’t include, which is crazy. But I guess my first question, and I’ll start with you, Cynic, is did you come into this with a lot of knowledge of the Von Erics and just what the family had been through?

[email protected] (1:00:31)

Yeah.

cinik (1:00:49)

I knew that stuff had happened to them. I didn’t know it was to that extent in kind of succession. And I knew that there was a curse around them, that was the talk of the, you know, we as wrestling fans, most of it was WWE, but I did actually see some of their like, AWA stuff and stuff from down there on ESPN, like, you know, but I wasn’t able to follow it because we never kept other organizations on TV in the Northeast.

Ryan (1:00:58)

Yeah.

Yeah

Exactly.

cinik (1:01:17)

But yeah, I did see some of their matches. So I remembered who they were. I knew that there was some buzz around, you know, bad things happening to them, but I didn’t know to that depth.

Ryan (1:01:26)

Yeah, and you knew Justin, right?

[email protected] (1:01:29)

Yeah, I knew all the tragedy that had been before the family.

Ryan (1:01:32)

Yeah. All right. So let’s get to, we’ll get to our review. So we’re going to start with the story. I’m going to say before, just before we start, let’s save your thoughts on casting for performances. So don’t mention, you know, let’s not mention cause there’s a lot to talk about with some of this, with some of the castings, let’s save that from when we get to the performances, but let’s start off kind of talking about the story. So kind of like any true story, this takes liberties. You know, to me, you know, I feel like

[email protected] (1:01:58)

Sure.

Ryan (1:02:01)

It wasn’t too bad, but like, uh, Justin, do you feel like they did a good enough job kind of dramatizing the story without taking too many liberties or making it seem too, you know, too fantastical or unrealistic?

[email protected] (1:02:13)

Yeah, I think I’m totally fine with the yeah, totally fine with the stories. I think it told what it had to tell for the, you know, the there’s the breadth of what’s went on. I think it hit it. It hit it fine. I know that it went very quick with certain things, right? Because it’s a movie. It’s like one tragedy, the next to the next. And like it just happened.

Ryan (1:02:35)

Yeah.

[email protected] (1:02:40)

Which, you know, in real life, it wasn’t exactly like that, but it almost was in a, in a weird way. Like things did happen in for real life. They weren’t, they were happening very quick. Um, one thing I would have liked, and I think that would have been a nice for the backdrop is it just doesn’t touch on at all the, the influence of like Vince McMahon and the WWF at the time, WWE basically buying everything out.

Ryan (1:02:40)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

[email protected] (1:03:06)

taking it out. It would have been nice to have just like, it’s like, if they touch on it at one point in the sort of in the very end, but I think that for non wrestling fans, just to know the radical shift in the wrestling industry, because they’re wrestling is a big part of the movie would have just been nice to just let you know, when you know, there was that big part, you know, later in the movie was like, do I sell do I not, you know, and you know, there was a beef, you know, between

Ryan (1:03:07)

Yeah, but the…

Yeah.

[email protected] (1:03:35)

Kevin and his father and saying, oh, you ruined it. This is like, not including there was, I thought was important information for viewers that were not knowledgeable about wrestling. But that’s pretty much it. Like as far as what I would have liked to have seen in the story a little bit more, I think it would have helped a little bit.

Ryan (1:03:38)

Yeah.

Yeah.

I would, yeah. I would disagree a little bit there just because I think the, I feel like there was a lot of story to cover, which is part of my next question. There was a lot to cover. And yes, the Vince McMahon takeover is an interesting story in and of itself, but that’s the thing, is that’s a story in and of itself to tell. That I don’t, I think it would’ve just made this story more convoluted if we had to go over that whole thing. But Cynic, Justin touched on it.

[email protected] (1:04:03)

Yeah.

Ryan (1:04:22)

Like this family goes through a lot, a lot of tragedy and there’s a lot, you know, each tragedy in and of itself. You could write a whole movie on just that. Do you feel like, um, the movie kind of falls under that weight of like trying to get to each point? So did you feel like it kind of, it doesn’t spend enough time on each thing because it’s like, Oh, we’ve got to get to this tragedy. We got to get to the next tragedy. Do you feel like it just kind of the pacing was off?

cinik (1:04:43)

Well, we’re looking at almost two and a half generations of Von Erics in this movie. From the father all the way to the very end with the sons. So we’re looking at, that’s a lot of time to cover in a two or three hour movie. So yeah, I mean, the pacing did make it feel like a Von Erics stuff film. It really like, it hits you in the feels that it’s not just, hey, all these characters that we introduced to you and that are all great brothers to each other.

Ryan (1:04:55)

Yeah.

Yeah.

cinik (1:05:10)

Don’t get attached to any of them because they’re all on their way out. It was worse than a Game of Thrones episode in there. Like it was a red wedding with Von Erichs. It was super fucking bad. But I’m just touching on what you guys were talking about before. If you think about it, what Vince McMahon was, what he did was genius. I come in and I pilfer all your stars. And then I wait till you’re not making any money. And then I come in and I’ll make a little offer on your territory. Cause you know, you’re probably in the red now. That’s…

Ryan (1:05:13)

Yeah. Yeah, seriously. Yeah. Well.

Yeah. Evil, but genius. But that’s where like there there’s the, you know, and I don’t know how this is going to work now with, with Vince McMahon, you know, being, you know, just like persona non grata at this point. But like, that’s the, you know, I, that’s a whole story in itself is the, the Vince McMahon takeover of the territory system and how, you know, you know, we got to the world we are today, you know, with, with it’s the WWE and like, and everybody else. Um, so I think that would.

cinik (1:05:40)

insanely genius. Yes.

Well, yeah, there’s nobody that you know, the next competing organization is three levels below the WWE. And now that they’ve teamed with the UFC, like they’re doing an event at the Apex now, like I think it might be the first live smackdown or something. They’re doing it at the Apex. So, you know, they’re a world power at this point.

Ryan (1:06:12)

Exactly.

Oh, wow. Crazy.

Yeah, exactly. It’s funny you mentioned it’s like Kavanagh, Smelfeld. My issue again with the story was more just, it almost felt like a Wikipedia entry to me. Like I kept thinking about it like that because it was like, okay, we got to hit this point, we got to hit that point. And so it felt like the pacing for me was a little off. Like I feel like there was, there’s a world where you focus the movie around one of the tragedies and it means a little bit more. Like if you make us aware of how bad things are, but we’re focused in one point in time.

[email protected] (1:06:34)

Yeah.

Ryan (1:06:53)

I think that might’ve been a little bit better of a movie because the pacing here was off because you’re traveling, yeah, like two and a half generations, you’re going over, you know, 20, 30, 40 odd years of this family and the tragedy. And it’s like, there’s so many things that happen to them that it’s hard to give everything equal weight. And I’m gonna ask this a little bit more when we get into the fields, cause that’s another issue is how it handles some of these tragedies is weird.

[email protected] (1:06:58)

Yeah.

Ryan (1:07:15)

Um, but, uh, let’s get into some performances. Um, which may be like the, the largest issue I had with this. So I’ll just ask you first, uh, Justin, what were your thoughts on the casting?

[email protected] (1:07:28)

I really liked it and a lot more than you did. And where are you gonna, like, and I know where you would comment for like, where are you gonna find a bunch of six, three, muscle-bound guys that can all act really, really well? It’s like, I don’t mind like, yeah. You know, if you’re gonna find Cary Brown, Eric, is a hulking human being, right? Like, look at him.

Ryan (1:07:30)

Hmm.

[email protected] (1:07:52)

Um, where are you going to find that that’s outside of a Marvel movie that can really act? It didn’t bot look, I could suspend. Like, look, yeah, there’s a few of them, but it’s, it’s tough. Like I didn’t mind the, I didn’t mind the casting as much as you do. And I knew watching it that it would bother you, but for me, it’s like, I get it. It doesn’t, it, that wasn’t the, that wasn’t the emphasis of, of the, of the movie to me. So

Ryan (1:07:59)

actually have a response but yeah.

Duh.

[email protected] (1:08:20)

I thought that the characters did a good job acting, right? Even if you felt that they, you know, maybe they, look, it could have been better to have these more hulking figures that were more representative of what Von Erichs really looked like and felt like. But for me, it didn’t bother me. And I thought that everyone did a good acting job. I thought the acting was really good.

Ryan (1:08:43)

What were your thoughts?

cinik (1:08:45)

They’re a unique looking family. I just don’t know where you were gonna find people. Acting over likeness is what I’ll say. Like give me better acting compared to likeness. I mean, yes, they did do Jeremy Allen a terrible disservice giving him a role that was probably a foot shorter than he was. But was he great in the role? Yeah, he was great in the role, so I’ll buy it. But it was like mini me in a lot of ways because the Texas tornado was huge.

Ryan (1:09:03)

I mean, yeah.

Yeah. He was monster, yeah.

cinik (1:09:12)

So in him standing next to the other taller guys didn’t help things. They need to put some lifts in his boots or something or boot for that matter, I guess.

Ryan (1:09:15)

did not help her yet.

Yeah. So, okay, my issue actually is, okay, I think there’s a couple things that they could have done to fix it or to solve it and all within the movie. So I think that my first, the first issue is they look, if you looked at the three brothers, right, when they’re doing their promo photos, they look, they kind of fit the Von Erich look. The issue is they probably should have cast

[email protected] (1:09:42)

Yeah.

Ryan (1:09:46)

other wrestlers that were smaller. So like when they’re around, so the thing is like when they were around, so you have these guys that are larger than life, right? Like in real life, you know, they’re larger than life. And so knowing that like, yeah, I can suspend disbelief, but I feel like they should have done the Tom, they should have gotten the Tom Cruise treatment. Like put people around them that are a little bit smaller to at least not make them look tiny. Cause there were moments where they just like, look like average size. So I think that was the first part. The second thing is I actually, my.

bigger issue is I don’t think you needed to recast them. I think that the roles should have been swapped. So at the end of the day, like Zac Efron, he did fine. But as the lead, I don’t think he worked because this movie sort of follow focuses on his character. Was it Keith or David Von Erich? But he’s the lead character. And I don’t think he had the range to pull it off because every time he was supposed to like emote, he just kind of had this look on his, it was just a look like he didn’t.

[email protected] (1:10:26)

Yeah.

I thought it was Kevin. Yeah, Kevin.

Yeah, he was I thought he was the week

Ryan (1:10:45)

He didn’t draw the emotion. So, right, so like, so to me, right, he was built like the Texas tornado. Like he was jacked. Yes, he’s not the tallest guy in the world, but he was in incredible shape. He should have, best thing, right? So like make him the Texas tornado. Like he should have been, cause Jeremy Allen, Jeremy Allen White is a fantastic actor. I mean, you know, a fantastic actor. Give, he should have been the lead cause he is a guy who does have range.

cinik (1:10:51)

Yes.

[email protected] (1:10:52)

Yeah.

cinik (1:10:55)

Well, you stand him next to Jeremy Allen White and he’ll be the tallest guy in the world.

[email protected] (1:10:56)

Yeah.

Yeah, I agree with that.

He’s a better actor. Yeah.

Ryan (1:11:14)

who can emote and who can play that. We’ve seen him in roles as Lip in Shameless in The Bear. He’s a guy who can pull emotion out of you. He’s great at that, right? Like we’ve seen that. So he should have been the lead in this movie. And then Zac Efron should have been the Texas ornato because A, he didn’t need to have that range and B, he looked like him. And so that to me was like, that’s the easy fix, right? It’s just, if you swap those two characters, you’ve got no complaints from me on the casting and on the…

[email protected] (1:11:18)

Yeah.

Ryan (1:11:43)

how it looked. And so I think that was the bigger issue. Yeah.

cinik (1:11:45)

Well, I think it’s a matter of star power. If this movie would have happened two years ago, or two years from now, Jeremy Allen White would definitely be the lead because he’s the bigger actor. But when this project started, Zech Afran had the bigger name. So I think that you probably wouldn’t have been able to sell the movie without Zech Afran in the lead.

Ryan (1:11:48)

Yeah, you’re right. Absolutely. Exactly. Yeah.

Exactly. So I think, you know, and it wasn’t bad. Like I’m not, you know, I’m not going to say, Oh, B is that guy from was terrible. He’s not bad in the movie by any means. I just think that, um, again, for a movie that was all about that character and how, you know, he’s reacting to, to just everything that happens to him. I don’t think he was quite right for that role. And I think that, again, you have an actor in Jeremy Wright, you know, Jeremy Allen, right, right there, who can do that. And also you have the look. So I think.

[email protected] (1:12:07)

Yeah, it was good.

Yeah.

Ryan (1:12:29)

Yeah, again, like my whole issue with the size and their look, I think is fixed by that. But you’re right, like it’s not, you know, not something you could really do with it, you know, at that time.

cinik (1:12:39)

Just a quick point before we move on. Going back to what we were just talking about, now they cast a guy to play Ric Flair. He looks like Ric Flair, but he doesn’t sound or can’t act. It doesn’t sound anything like Ric. So given that, yeah, I mean, to slightly look like a… Yeah, it was not good. But besides impending doom…

Ryan (1:12:51)

Oh, yeah.

[email protected] (1:12:53)

That was a strange casting. Like he had a couple of the mannerisms.

Ryan (1:12:55)

So.

cinik (1:13:03)

The Von Ericsson biggest foil was Ric Flair. So they needed to land that and.

Ryan (1:13:05)

Yeah. That, that was weird. Cause you know, the actor said, and I don’t know how much is true or not, that he, you know, there’s enough footage, or I don’t know if I’m paraphrasing a lot, but you know, there’s enough footage of Rick Flair that he wasn’t going to do it, and he didn’t want to do it impressions. He wanted to capture like his essence. But yeah, you’re playing Rick Flair, one of the most like, and at the end of the day, like he’s one of the most iconic people, like they should not, he was not right for that role. Or at least he did not perform that role properly. Like he should have, you know, cause yeah, it just felt weird.

cinik (1:13:20)

You’re playing Ric Flair.

they could have went and got Jay lethal and he would have done a better job.

Ryan (1:13:35)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

[email protected] (1:13:38)

Well, where’s the director’s role in this of saying, this is not right, like we’re not, you know, they were okay with it. I’ll tell you who I thought did the best acting job was Holt McCallany, who played Fritz. I think he did an excellent job acting. He really hit the road. Now, based on

Ryan (1:13:44)

I mean, I guess it’s a choice and they were okay with it, but I think it was just a poor choice.

He’s good.

[email protected] (1:14:04)

You know, reality, he wasn’t that harsh of a man. He was actually the big antagonist, I think. He was, that’s not what Kevin Von Erich said. He said that his dad was kinder than he appeared and that it had to be hammed up. There had to be this, you know, sure, they butted heads at point. And he was hard on them, probably very physically, but I think they made him cruel, like crueler and less feeling.

Ryan (1:14:09)

I’ve actually heard he’s like he was worse, but

Okay, well.

[email protected] (1:14:34)

than he was in real life is what I heard. Like, look, I don’t know, but regardless, I thought he did a great job acting in the role. I think he was the strongest actor out of the cast. And I think his part was written really well.

Ryan (1:14:36)

Okay. Yeah.

Okay.

cinik (1:14:47)

You know, he was fantastic in Mine Hunter. It’s a shame that we’re not gonna get another season of that. But who would think, you know, his dream was to win the world title and they wouldn’t put the world title on a Nazi. What a bad character choice if he wanted to progress in the business.

Ryan (1:14:49)

Yeah

Yeah, exactly. But well, so actually that gets to my next thing. So okay, so now we’re gonna get to like the feels, right? Like the you know, did we feel something? I think on some levels we did, but I think that the movie missed the mark a little bit on that. So part of I was part of the issue for me with the movie also was that some of the biggest moments, right? Some of the most tragic deaths happen off screen.

You have a, they establish early on that Fritz Von Erich wants the world title. And then when he can’t get it, he wants one of his kids to get it. And they make a big deal about which kid is going to be the one that will be like the next one to win the title. And so this is built up early on in the movie. And then when it actually happens, we don’t really see it. So we don’t really see him win the world title and we don’t see Fritz’s reaction.

So I was like, what a weird choice. So, so like, there was a lot. So like, I feel like the, obviously just from a standpoint of like, this all really happened in real life, you feel something, because it’s, it’s just, it’s curt. But I feel like the movie doesn’t do a great job of making you feel that, because whenever a lot of times these things happen off screen.

[email protected] (1:15:55)

Yeah, I know. It was weird.

Ryan (1:16:12)

And it doesn’t cover, like I said, like this moment, like that we should have seen this moment of elation, bring him up to then just pull him back down when another kid dies. So I thought that was weird, but like, yeah, what are your thoughts on that? Like, do you feel like the movie, did you, you know, did you feel like there were some missed opportunities to really make you feel something in this?

[email protected] (1:16:21)

Yeah.

cinik (1:16:29)

Yeah, I really did. I mean, if you didn’t know the story, then you wouldn’t, it would have took you 10 minutes to figure out that Cary Von Erich was in some sort of motorcycle accident and lost his leg. Like they really drew that out. Like they, it was like, we just skipped over that part and you get to figure that out later. Like we didn’t put the instructions in the box. Good luck. You know, yeah, I did feel that it took away a lot of the weight. Things not being shown, but being told to us, you know.

Ryan (1:16:41)

Yes.

[email protected] (1:16:42)

Yeah.

Ryan (1:16:45)

Yeah.

Hehehe

cinik (1:16:57)

changes the mood and the direction of the movie.

Ryan (1:17:00)

Yeah. Yeah, Justin.

[email protected] (1:17:03)

Yeah, the same. I feel like they, like the parts where they could have been very emotional weren’t and were replaced by sort of fabricated emotion, like that part at the end where like the brothers meet in heaven. Like that, I mean, look, I don’t mind the part because that was, it was where, you know, Zac Efron’s character was

Kevin Von Erich was like, there was two ways to look at it. Either they were actually doing it or he was imagining that they were doing it and it made him happy. But it’s sort of faux emotion. This like these brothers coming together and you know, this reunion, it struck me as odd. I didn’t mind the scene too much, but I didn’t love it. And it felt like faux sort of, you know, sort of faux emotion and then.

Ryan (1:17:49)

I’m not gonna do that.

[email protected] (1:17:59)

Finally, when he blows up at his dad at the very end, it felt like there was a lot of great moments that could have brought the feels. And they sort of whiffed on that and sort of threw in these ways to like, to make you feel it sort of artificially. I don’t know, that’s my thought on that.

Ryan (1:18:22)

Yeah.

cinik (1:18:24)

the gallows humor that goes on at my house. I was making the joke like, oh, we gotta take care of this little fucking kid now. Then we gotta baby this kid forever. Like, could you have grown up into an adult in heaven? Like, I’m gonna have to feed this kid and change, you know, make sure he doesn’t pee his pants. Like, this is the afterlife for me, you know? I’m…

[email protected] (1:18:29)

Yeah.

Ryan (1:18:30)

Ha ha

Yeah.

[email protected] (1:18:41)

Well, there’s also one more thing about that they totally missed the mark on is that Kevin Von Erich and of course, Cary Von Erich had a kid and they went on to be successful wrestlers and they don’t even mention that could have been a nice way to solve it up like where they come full circle and they have these kids with a nice successful career like, and they just, it didn’t need a lot, but it could have just had a little, it’s like, oh, that sort of pulls it together.

Ryan (1:18:53)

yeah

Yeah.

Yeah.

cinik (1:19:09)

Yeah, but can we talk about the selfishness of that decision where 75% of the family business ends up in mortality that we’re just gonna push our kids in that same fucking direction? Do you not realize that you’re cursed?

[email protected] (1:19:10)

I think another whiff.

I know that’s funny too. Yeah, I know it’s funny.

Ryan (1:19:22)

Yeah, yeah, that’s funny. That is funny. Yeah, no, so now I’m going to skip logic inconsistencies because it’s based on a true story. It’s mostly true. There’s nothing. Yeah, like it’s pretty solid. Like there’s nothing to talk about there, really. But the last topic, so we’re going to talk audiovisual. So I think it was shot well, what did you guys think about how did the how’s the choreography how did the pro wrestling look like real pro wrestling? What are your thoughts on that? It’s in it.

cinik (1:19:32)

Good, cause there was none.

I mean, it worked, but it also worked on Glow, which is a show that didn’t get nearly enough credit for the work that the actors put in, which by the way, Chavo Guerrero choreographed that as well. And he was in this movie as the Sheik. So I’m sure he was probably behind the scenes working it. Excellent stunt person, actor, coordinator, he’s doing it all, which I’m glad to see that because his wrestling career was middle at best. So.

Ryan (1:19:54)

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it was in this. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

cinik (1:20:16)

You know, yeah, I mean, the wrestling, what wrestling we did see it work.

Ryan (1:20:20)

Yeah, there. Yeah, no, look, I think it looked, they did a good job with it. I think it’s always tricky watching pro wrestling in movies because you do have, it’s this weird thing where it’s like, it’s fake. We know it or, you know, it’s, it’s choreographed and then they’re shooting it. So it’s always tricky because sometimes you’ll see movies that shoot it almost like it’s a real fight. Some that don’t. But I think they did a good job of capturing kind of the essence of wrestling without, you know, without any issues. Justin, any, any thoughts on the soundtrack and the music choices?

[email protected] (1:20:40)

Yeah.

A great sort of soundtrack had nice, like old rock and roll, which sort of referenced the time worked for me. The choreography, the shooting was nice. It had, one thing I liked about it, it had a sort of a golden veneer to the whole movie, the way that it was shot. It felt like everything was sort of shot in the late afternoon, sort of with these nice visual scapes.

So, and the wrestling was nice. So no problem with the technical way that it was shot. So I thought that was pretty solid.

Ryan (1:21:26)

Alright, so let’s go so cynic your final thoughts and your rating for the movie.

cinik (1:21:32)

Yeah, the casting was faulty. The story was good, but I thought it was rushed. You know, overall, I mean, as much enjoyment as you could take from watching this family be slaughtered, I guess I enjoyed the movie. You know, I would love to see more wrestling biopics. And we were looking at one about Hulk Hogan with Chris Helmsworth, but it doesn’t seem like that’s gonna happen now, which would have been the perfect choice for that character. You know, overall, I…

Ryan (1:21:44)

Yeah.

Yeah.

cinik (1:22:00)

I think it was good. I mean, I suggested it to you guys after I watched it and I would suggest it to most people if they held some sort of interest in wrestling at all.

Ryan (1:22:07)

Yeah. Yeah, how about you, Justin?

[email protected] (1:22:11)

Yeah, it’s fine. I mean, I didn’t love it. I’m glad I saw it. I would give it somewhere between a six and a seven out of 10. So sort of a word if you like wrestling, if you’re interested in the story, worth watching. It’s not a great movie, but it’s decent enough. I didn’t mind the cast as much. I didn’t love the pacing of the story. That was my biggest problem with it.

Ryan (1:22:36)

Yeah, I would say I’m solid like right there with you. I think I’m a six and a half. I think it’s a movie that if you’re a professional wrestling fan or you grew up a professional wrestling fan or had some interest in it.

I would say I recommend it to you. And it’s worth watching because it’s just such an interesting and fascinating story. And it does give you some insight. And like, you know, one of the things like when I was a kid, like the Texas tornado was like my favorite wrestler when I was like, you know, in elementary school. And, and I didn’t know that he, he was, you know, he, he had a shot at the Olympics and, and lost out because of, you know, because of the boycott, like, so you learned some stuff that I didn’t know. And again, it is a very interesting story. And yeah, it’s like hard to call it entertaining, but.

[email protected] (1:23:01)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Ryan (1:23:17)

But it is just so crazy that can happen to one family. And again, that it’s not, like when you finish watching a movie, definitely look up the real story because it’s even crazier and even worse. So definitely if you’re a pro wrestling fan, it’s worth watching. And one of the better pro wrestling movies, not that there have been that many that have been that good. But if you’re not, there are issues. I think it wants to be a kind of awards type of movie.

But I think there’s some issues with the pacing. Again, I had my issue with the casting, which again, it’s weird if you’re not a pro wrestling fan, I don’t know you’ll have that big of an issue, except that I just don’t think that the performance was quite where it needed to be for the lead, but again, it wasn’t bad. So yeah, six and a half, solid six and a half, if you’re a fan of wrestling, definitely watch it if you’re not, you know.

cinik (1:24:06)

Speaking of fan wrestling, are you guys gonna watch WrestleMania this weekend?

Ryan (1:24:11)

I’m going to try, but so I’ll definitely watch Saturday night. Um, we’re going upstate to see the eclipse, uh, to try to catch the full eclipse. So I’ll be, I’ll try to watch it Sunday night, although it might be on my phone, but like, I kinda, you know, it’s like, it’s like, it’s, I’m weirdly invested in this story, even though I haven’t watched, you know, any wrestling except like the Royal rumble and like summer slam last year, and I think WrestleMania last year, but I’m invested in the Cody road story. So, so I definitely will find a way to, to catch it. And like the whole thing, the rock’s been awesome with it.

cinik (1:24:38)

How about you?

Ryan (1:24:41)

Like somehow, remember our first episode, we talked about the rock hijacking WrestleMania, somehow they’ve turned this like they’ve turned this into like an amazing story. The rocket heel rock has been amazing. Like I will, I watch, like I don’t watch the shows, but I’ll go on YouTube and watch the, you know, watch the promos and the promos have been outstanding. Um, so I’m, I’m in, I’m gonna, you know, I’ll definitely check it out. There was a, there was an amazing, and not even with the rock and Cody Rose, there was an amazing CM punk. Um,

Drew McIntyre promo. Did you see that? The one with it, CM Punk, Seth Rollins, Drew McIntyre had this amazing pro. Even like Drew, Drew McIntyre, like, again, I don’t follow it anywhere, but I’m like, I’ll watch these promos and he’s hilarious. He did this. There’s one he did, um, where he’s like in a funeral home. He’s hilarious. So like, so I, I mean, I’ll, I mean, I’ll definitely find time to watch rest, you know, watch, uh, WrestleMania and I’ll, you know, I’ll try to catch.

cinik (1:25:13)

Oh yeah, where he was talking about the shoe polish in his beard and the lifts in his boots.

isn’t a large part of you to like not to get too into the story, but that hopes that they do all get along that like they’re lifting each other up and it’s not just, you know, trying to one up each other.

Ryan (1:25:40)

Yeah.

It seems like they are. Like it’s hard, you know, who knows? But it definitely seems like it’s not, from everything you hear in interviews, like there was this, again, a great, Ariel Hawani interviewed CM Punk. It was like a two hour interview, highly, like, highly recommended if you’ve been following any of that stuff. But like, it seems like it’s a different locker room.

Like they get along more, it’s not as cutthroat as it was like, you know, when we watched it, you know, in the 90s and early 2000s. So it does seem like they get along better and that they’re all kind of in, you know, in it for each other and more, like I said, less cutthroat than it was, you know, way back when.

cinik (1:26:21)

How about you, Justin? Are you gonna watch?

[email protected] (1:26:24)

Watch what? Oh. No.

cinik (1:26:25)

WrestleMania.

Ryan (1:26:27)

I’m sorry.

cinik (1:26:29)

No, no, not going to check it out. I’ll if there’s not a good game on, I’ll check it out, but only because it’s free on the Peacock app for now. I don’t know if that changes when they go to Netflix and they start trying to do pay reviews again. I think it would be a mistake. You know, during the pandemic, my job stopped charging for a service and then everybody expected it for free. Going forward. If the WWE suddenly decides that they’re going to start charging for pay reviews again, I think they’re in for a hell of a wake up call.

Ryan (1:26:36)

That’s it, yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think they can. I mean, I think at this point…

[email protected] (1:26:56)

Yeah.

Ryan (1:26:58)

It’s bigger than it’s been maybe ever, right? You know, it is somehow, you know, in the last couple of years, become a juggernaut again. And I think a large part of that is the access and not having to pay 60 bucks, you know, a month for pay-per-views and that, like a casual like me, right? Like, I’m not even casual. I listen to Jim Cornett’s podcast, basically. Like that’s what I follow. And then like I’ll look at a promo on YouTube if I hear that it was good. But even for me, like I will watch the Royal Rumble.

WrestleMania because it’s on Peacock and I get it for free. I’m not gonna, I will not spend money on it. So I think like, you know, and it’s become big enough that you do have a lot of people who are kind of casual fans who will kind of tune in here and there. So I think it would be a huge mistake for them to go back to the pay per view model because I think they’ve got something good going. And again, it’s like, it’s as big as it, you know, it’s been in a very long time. So yeah, it would be a mistake I think to do that.

All right. Well, yeah. The thing is, though, it’s like, I feel like you have to kind of be invested in the story and everything at this point to get any enjoyment out of it. But, um, yeah, too bad. Cause I kind of, too bad I’m not going to be around cause it’d be fun to do like a watch party or something, but, but yeah, it’s pretty fun. We’ll talk about it next week. Yeah. All right. Well.

[email protected] (1:27:56)

I’ll find maybe I’ll watch it.

cinik (1:28:14)

have fun watching the eclipse Galileo tool

Ryan (1:28:23)

All of our stuff is at, you can find all of our stuff at, all the social media stuff, all the social medias at portable underscore whole, and our website is portable hole, portable hole publishing.com. So Justin, until next time.

[email protected] (1:28:38)

Watch out for the hole.