Episode 74: Antman and the Wasp

Episode 74: Antman and the Wasp
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by: Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw
Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell and Frank Shaw
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw


John and I go through Antman and the Wasp on this episode. It has gotten some criticism for how small the story is, and how little it did to further the meta-plot of the MCU. But we love it! Is it perfect? Absolutely not! But it is fun, and it's refreshing after so many large scale stories.

Now we didn't delve into fan theories a whole lot, but apparently with recent set photos, and an interview with the Huffingtonpost given by Peyton Reed, a popular theory is that time travel will play a role in the next Avenger's movie. The interview is worth a read. Reed is rather cheeky with some of his answers (the question of what Janet van Dyne ate for instance). 

Episode 73: What's Interesting

Episode 73: What's Interesting:
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by: Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw
Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell and Frank Shaw
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw

So this is it, the first show after a month long break. I talk about my vacation in which me and my lady traveled to many abandoned town sites through Utah just to check them out. Highlights include: Soldier Summit, Mill Fork Cemetery, Thistle, and Wahsatch here in Utah. And Chesterfield Idaho, which is being restored by the descendants of those that originally settled and lived there, and there are tours available through out the summer. It was a fun trip, and we hope to do a similar one in the near future. 

On the geek front: I talk about The Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica. I'm excited for this. It's been a long time since I've broken out the Magic the Gathering cards, but Ravnica is one of the most fascinating worlds created for that game, and the fact it is getting a Dungeons & Dragons guidebook makes me incredibly happy.

John is wrapping up the show he's in: Turn to Page 93, tomorrow afternoon for the Great Salt Lake City Fringe Festival. It's gotten some good reviews, and you have one more day to catch some theater in the Salt Lake City area. If I had been more on the ball, as it were, I would have posted this at the beginning of the week. The Fringe Festival is popular though, and getting more so each year. So it's worth checking out.

John's also been watching a lot of YouTube lately (normally that's my shtick) and he has three channels he talks about specifically: ReignBot, Nightmare Expo, and his personal favorite: Night Mind. You'll have to listen to the episode to here specifically why John enjoy's the channels so much. But know that each explores the dark, the weird and the mysterious. They're all a little bit fun and if you like the dark and weird or creepy-pasta in general, you should check out each of the channels.

And finally James Gunn: Some more has happened since the episode released, though not a lot more: The cast of GotG signed a letter asking Disney to rehire Gunn, and to show their support for him. And David Bautista has stated that he will leave the franchise if Gunn's script is not used for the film. At this point there's little chance Disney will hire Gunn back. I do hope they use his script, as I don't want to see Bautista leave Marvel as Drax, but him actually directing is not likely to happen. What Gunn did was in poor taste, but honestly, I'm not sure he should have been fired. Given who dredged up the old tweets, it's obvious that this was an attack against Gunn to get him fired and nothing more.  
I have a lot I think I want to say about this, but I haven't fully put thought into form yet. This article from Vox certainly is a place to start however. And here's the article that John mentions in the episode that somes up the damning nature of the internet, and social media. I'm disappointed that Gunn was fired. I hope the director they get to replace uses his script, and is at least able to channel some of the direction Gunn was taking the film. 

That's all for now. 

Moving hosts and more.

I'm still slowly catching up on show-notes here on the blog, and there will be some for Episode 73 later today. But I thought I'd give the few that read the blog an update on some things: 

1. We are moving hosts! Well, effectively we already have. We going to be hosting the how on Podbean, moving from Soundcloud. Soundcloud is great for music, not for podcasts. It was adequate, and it did get an alright job for us for sometime, but the site is not catered to podcasts like Podbean, or Lybsin, or Bluberry or several other hosting sites are. I decided to go with Podbean because it seems fairly stable, gives us advertising options (sorry, it's eventually going to happen to cover the cost of upgrades, and hosting), and has the potential for opening up other platforms for us down the road. We will continue to upload new files to Soundcloud, but no longer will the back log be found there after September. Podbean seems like a great choice for us, and a lot of fantastic podcasts host on Podbean. Like I said we'll continue to put up new episodes on Soundcloud after September, but they'll only remain there for a few weeks, so if you do subscribe to us on Soundcloud, please consider subscribing to us on Podbean (iTunes, and other platforms should not be affected). But you can find us on Podbean here: https://relevant2rinterests.podbean.com/
2. YouTube! So we have the YouTube channel, but haven't posted anything in about 3 almost 4 months. My lady was doing the video editing for us, and she was having some major computer problems, she still is. Her lap top hasn't completely given up, but she's become frustrated with the process, and so we are holding off. I may do some rudimentary videos of our most recent back log, but those will consist of the title thumbnail only, and not involve any fun images. John has a computer that he is going to give us that was built not long ago, so we will have that upgrade coming, but it won't happen until John and I are actually able to see each other, which should be in about a month. 
3. This blog! We are going to continue to keep this going. I will be going through and slowly replacing the Soundcloud embedded players with Podbean. I'd also like to start doing written reviews again. I've done a few, but time is a very difficult beast to nail down. I'll not set goals yet, but you can at least expect to see continued posts on each episode here, as well as the occasional random post on certain topics. 

That's it for now. John and I will be looking at a few animated series over the next couple of months before we switch gears to horror movies at the end of September through October. So stay tuned for that, it's going to be a lot of fun.

Episode 72: Interview with gough The Sequel

Episode 72: Interview with gough The Sequel
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Special Guesst: gough from www.beernutsproductions.com
Scripting by Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw
Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell and Frank Shaw
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw

GOUGH IS BACK!

This episode we chat with gough from www.beernutsproductions.com again. We start off serious and discuss the issue the handicapped in Australia and the lack of government support for programs and charities. This is all in light of gough's speech to the Australian Parliament in March of this year which you can watch here:


We also talk about a few of charities that work with the blind and vision impaired in Australia specifically including: Guide Dogs Australia, Vision Australia, Blind Citizen's Australia. All three do great work, and all three rely on public funding in order to help the folks in need. 

We then dive into Beer Nuts Productions latest film; A Day in the Life of a Personal Trainer which you can find here: https://beernutsproductions.com/product/day-life-personal-trainer/. It's a fun short film that pokes fun at, and has fun with personal trainers. It has a talented cast featuring the talented Katie Sharpe, whose name I get wrong through the first bit of this section (it's apparently what I do now). We talk about the filming process, both pre- and post-production. As well as how easy it is to find locations to film. 

And at last we finish up with ridiculous questions: what sort of weather would each of is be? The answers may surprise you. And finally gough asks John what Beer Nuts Productions next feature should be about.

This was a lot of fun, and we love having gough on, and can't wait for him to come back again. 

Episode 71: Trollhunters Season 3

Episode 71: Trollhunters Season 3
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by: Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw
Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell and Frank Shaw
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw

Trollhunters is finished. And this episode gives our thoughts on the final series, and what we hope to see (sometimes with tongue firmly in cheek) in 3 Below and Wizards. 

John loves this show. I do to, but it's slight compared to John's love of this series. We have nothing but praise for it, and it's pretty apparent through all 3 episodes of the podcast that we discuss it on that we'd be hard pressed to find (or admit) to any flaws the series might have. This series is fantastic: it forces the characters to make sacrifices, and unlike many shows for children (live action and animated) they have to live with those choices and sacrifices. There's a strong focuses on family, friendship, bullying, bettering yourself and owning your mistakes. It's also a lot of fun, and if you love fantasy -particularly urban fantasy- then you need this series in your life. We of course spoil the hell of the final season in this episode of the podcast, so watch it first before you listen. 

Here's a couple of articles from Collider that have an interview with Marc Guggenheim on the series: The first is non-spoilery, the second is full of spoilers. One thing he does mention in the first part of the interview was the decision to go with Emile Hirsch for the voice of Jim Lake. As many of you may know already, Anton Yelchin, who played Chekov in the Star Trek reboot, died in a freak accident near the end of 2016. He voiced Jim Lake, the protagonist of this series, and it is in this season where his voice work comes to an end. The primary thought was the Mr. Hirsch, who was apparently close friends with Anton Yelchin, brought the passion for the character, and the desire to see his friends hard work come to a conclusion. Mr. Hirsch does have some controversy regarding past behavior however,  but like Jeffrey Tambor, we're not going to dive into it, as that's not the focus of the show, or the podcast in general. 

Now, just because Trollhunters is finished (and it is) doesn't mean that we don't have anything to look forward to: This article from Polygon discusses 3 Below in a bit more detail. As John and I  hoped, the Creep Slayers (Eli and Steve) from Trollhunters will have a larger role in this next series, and it's supposed to be a bit crazier in scope than Trollhunters. 

That's all for now. Give us your thoughts on Trollhunters if you've finished the series. And if you want to listen to all the episodes of the podcast we've done on Trollhunters: 
It's episode 33 and episode 56. 

And share your thoughts, either comment below: or shoot as a message through email or on Twitter. 

Episode 70: Deadpool 2

Episode 70: Deadpool 2
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by: Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw
Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell and Frank Shaw
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw

What can I say about Deadpool 2 that I haven't already? Well. I liked it. I liked the first one more, but I did enjoy it. I don't love it though. I don't love the character Deadpool. I think it's just too meta for my tastes and because of that the character falls flat. Which in some ways is sad as I love some of the humor of both the on screen and on page character. But something about the constant breaking of the fourth wall, and the awareness the character has for his own fiction doesn't click with me. 

That being said: there's a lot I do enjoy. Cable is great. Domino might be one of my favorite on screen comic characters (she certainly makes the top 5), and Firefist? I hope that young actor goes on to have a successful career, because he's fantastic!

One thing that John and I do bring up is the blatant trolling of theorists during the lead up to the release of the film. John and I like to throw out theories on the podcast because it's fun. Especially when we come up with crazy shit that is completely off the rails (it's better when we get from a different site, but hey it fun to make up your own.) We never take it seriously. We watch the stuff we watch for it's entertainment value first, then reflect on it after the fact. So for Deadpool, and Fox to troll the folks that take their fan theories a little too seriously was refreshing, and hilarious.

Episode 69 Star vs. Season 3

Episode 69: Star vs. Season 3
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by: Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw
Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell and Frank Shaw
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw

Star vs. The Forces of Evil season 3 really shifts focus from the first two seasons, taking and putting the action into the realm of the Mewmans and their allies, wrapping up the plot threads from the first couple of seasons with the first 5 episodes or so, and introducing ideas that appear and revealing secrets that were introduced with the second season as well. The plot reaches its darkest peak by the end of the season, concluding what I would assume is the penultimate season of this series (but maybe not) and setting up for an epic concluding season (but maybe not, this is just speculation). 

If it seems like I said a whole lot of nothing. It's because I did. Sure we spoil the season in the podcast, but go watch it first and come back to hear our take on it. John loves this series, and as it progresses I find myself becoming more and more fond of it as well. There's a certain amount of depth that is surprising for a children's cartoon. 

The two major themes that John brings up this episode are the costs of lies (from the second season) and the cost of honesty (from this season). Sometimes being honest has consequences too, and they aren't always good. This season really portrays that well, and it's definitely worth paying attention to as you watch. 

There are a number of fun "insane fan theories on this episode about Star vs. My personal favorite is that Ludo will be the ultimate hero. We'll see if it bears out, but it's still fun to think about.