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I am vengeance.

I am the night.

I am Batman.

Hey everyone, this is Kevin Conroy, the definitive voice of Batman.

And you're listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast.

you Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host, Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 226 of the Oblivion Bar podcast.

I am Chris Hacker, one of your co-hosts here.

And joining me is of course my BFF, Knowles.

Everybody this week on the show, as you know, you clicked on it already.

We are doing our yearly last call awards.

This is essentially the Oblivion Bar's Oscars.

Aaron and I, you can't see it currently because this is an audio medium, but we are wearing our tuxes.

We had them pressed and cleaned and all the things.

are coming on.

And Aaron, you look quite dashing if I must say here today.

Where did you wax at?

I am just hairless.

um I am your Olympic swimmer.

Yeah, it's to be very aerodynamic for this episode.

It's funny because you didn't shave your face, but you like shaved everywhere else.

I've got a specially designed swim swim cap that goes over my whole face.

It's it's S and M latex.

just goes over.

have like a little hole for your mouth and your eyes.

That's it.

have a little collar.

That's right.

Where are we going?

Where are we going right now?

Last.

Yeah.

Uh, Aaron, this is a fun episode.

This is an episode that every year it sort of is a companion piece to our most anticipated films of the next year.

You know, that one of course is looking to the future.

We're looking at movies that we are going to be talking about throughout that year.

Uh, stuff we're excited about.

Usually it's.

IP slash superhero slash Star Wars slash what have you related.

uh This is our opportunity like most folks in our space because I know everyone listening, you just need another end of year awards episode and but you're getting it.

Here it is from the.

That's right.

Yeah, exactly.

Except for no AIs have been involved in the making of this.

So no worries there.

Like we said, this is going to be basically and if you've listened to this episode before, it is essentially exactly what you've heard.

The only difference is that we, and I, have added two new awards and took away one.

Is that correct, Aaron?

Okay.

All right.

And the way we kind of do this, actually I'll pass it off to Aaron here in a minute to sort of highlight what this award is, sort of our fake rules for this and all the things.

But essentially, like I said, this is just our way of not only giving recognition to certain things that we really love throughout 2025.

And again, like most awards, these mean nothing.

And ultimately it's like the nomination.

That really means a lot, right?

It's like us showcasing what we enjoyed throughout the year.

But like I said, we'll get, we'll let Aaron explain that here in a minute.

Speaking of Aaron explaining things, Aaron, will you let the folks know at home how they can support the Oblivion Bar podcast.

Absolutely.

So you can support the Bolivian Bar podcast, uh just by considering checking out our Patreon for your support.

You get access to bonus episodes each week called The Grid, behind the scenes looks, how we prepare each episode, transcripts, polls, and honestly just a crap ton of goodies like freebies.

if we meet you in person, we got goodies for you.

If you're a Patreon who lives in Germany or let's say Down Under, a Kiwi maybe.

we give out free stuff and we send it to you we just like, just love treating.

Cause I mean, again, Patreon is where money comes in and we put it right back into the show and then includes the little gifts.

And even if you don't, you're not sure about it.

You want to just dip your toe into the pool.

You can give it a shot with a free seven day trial.

Just go to patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod, or check out the shink, check out the link in the show notes, the shink in the low notes.

That's what I was going to say.

Yeah, that's good.

Yeah.

And also if you want sort of a taster of that, Aaron, this week, we released episode 190 of The That's right.

Which is it's on the normal feed.

So whatever feed you're listening to this episode on, you can go check out The Grid.

You get that every Friday, as Aaron said, as for being a supporter for the show.

So without further ado, no need to prolong this any longer, Aaron, because I feel like this episode is going to take quite a bit of time.

Let's go ahead and get into our last call awards.

It's time for our 2025 Last Call Awards.

Now this should go without saying, but these nominations are completely subjective and based on our own stupid slash dumbass opinions.

Okay.

Just think of these awards as more of an endorsement of the things that we love.

this year rather than the definitive list of the best or the worst.

So also these awards are also all made up and objective and judging quote unquote art goes against the fundamental core of creativity, which pretty much goes against what we believe here at the Oblivion Bar podcast.

So let's just have fun with it.

Previous Last Call Awards will be linked in the show notes.

So please go check those out as well.

If you're curious about the last few years of us doing this.

Also during the Last Call Awards, Chris and I will both have access to a quote unquote limit break uh for this show, which basically means that when one of us wants to solely decide the winner of a specific award, they can use their limit break to go pick the winner themselves.

So yeah, like you said, this is essentially, you know, and I sort of teased this in the beginning, but yeah, it's absolutely just us giving out our favorites of the year.

All awards are stupid.

They're meaningless, including the big ones like the Oscars and the Golden Globes and all that.

So like if your favorite movie doesn't win and as someone who like takes those awards too seriously, Aaron, I have to remind myself of that constantly.

You know, like I think it was last year, Challengers.

Yeah, Trent Reznor and co did not win best soundtrack for Challengers and I was like on an adult.

inappropriate level angry about it.

But at the end of the day, as we just said, these mean nothing.

and Aaron, you, mentioned a moment ago, these were like Aaron and I, are fans of all this stuff and we like talking about this stuff, but truthfully, some of these are very half baked.

And I'm thinking Aaron specifically of like our animated film of the year when we get to it.

Not a great year for animated film.

So we kind of had to just pick a winner, right?

Um, but you know, it's still fun either way.

Absolutely.

And the thing again to consider is that this is our list.

This is not some academies.

This is not popular, a popularity contest.

This is just Aaron and Chris sitting here going, Hmm, which do we like more?

Yeah.

Yeah.

And we had to come to consensus.

I think this is important to say as well.

You and I, we went through all these nominations together.

We chose the winners together and we sort of, we have to like, we've talked about this while we were doing this the other day.

We should like just release our conversation about deciding these right together as like an extra episode or what have you.

And that alone could be its own episode.

But it's funny when we were trying to which one is the winner, you know, we give each other sort of that runway to decide themselves, right?

Like as we get to them, we'll talk about them, but neither one of us are deciding either one of these unless we use our limit break, as you said.

Absolutely.

And also not just the like coming to a consensus of which ones to choose as the winner, but also just even a consensus to what has earned its place on the list.

Like that we both think deserve to be on the list.

So we don't, we don't just like come up with this stuff and just randomly like throw it up there.

Yeah.

We, we, is a discussion.

It is a collaboration completely, which is not easy.

I think we do a really good job.

I think it's smart that when we do our, our battle Royale, We kind of frame that slightly the same.

Like we have to discuss it as a calm discussion.

We can't be like, fuck you, man.

Pats are better than the bills or something.

There's a rare Aaron sports reference way to go.

I like it.

Yeah.

So, know, have, know, jets.

You just named off three AFC East teams.

Can you name the fourth one?

You said the jet is, um, is it the bills and there's one other one.

Why are we talking about this?

there is, but it's not the giants.

No.

uh For the listener's purpose.

You got it.

Do you have it?

I'm going to go with the, ah is it the Oilers?

That's no longer a team.

That's Titans in Tennessee.

So it's not the Titans.

No, I'm just gonna tell you, it's the Miami Dolphins.

That's Susan, that division.

So you're fine.

I know it's way out of nowhere.

wouldn't, I was gonna say it was sort of a silly question to even ask because I just know that.

I about that.

I thought about that little southern area down there.

All right, well, like to tell you, let's go ahead and get into our first award here.

Aaron, our very first award this year for our last call awards is our whip smack.

HOOP!

surprise hit of the year.

And the nominees are Black Bag directed by Steven Soderbergh, Companion directed by Drew Hancock, K-Pop Demon Hunters directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Applehans, Roof Man directed by Derek Cyfrance, and Weapons directed by Zach Kregger.

And the winner is...

weapons.

This is a true story that happened in my town.

So this one Wednesday is like a normal day for the whole school.

But today was different.

Every other class had all their kids.

But Mrs.

Gandy's room was totally empty.

And do know why?

Because the night before, at 2.17 in the morning, every kid woke up, got out of bed, walked downstairs, and into the dark.

And they never came.

Shout out to Eric Afet, good friend of the show.

We actually talked about weapons here on the podcast earlier in 2025.

It was uh very surprising how great it was.

And I want to say, Aaron, if I remember correctly, going back to our most anticipated films of 2025 episode from 2024 weapons was on that list, but it was sort of a fly by.

Yeah, that sounds cool.

And then we kept going, right.

I think it was the air of mystery that was around it that was just so intriguing and like the trailer, the teaser, everything was just like, what the hell is gonna happen in this?

So I'm glad we were interested in this since the beginning.

Yeah.

And it's not really one that we often will cover on the podcast.

I know as we often say, like we're usually centered around IP and know, comic book stuff and on all that.

And every once in a we'll dabble in some horror.

Cause I think Aaron at least has some interest in it.

And I love the genre of horror and just I'm often intrigued by it.

I think it, especially in today's world, it's the best way to sort of, it's the most flexible genre.

think, you know, you can be funny, you can be ultra serious.

can, you know, have a thinker, you can be over, you know, be evil dead sort of over the top with it.

yeah.

And weapons, Aaron, I said this on the grid and I'd love to get your thoughts on this.

We've talked about how it's about a lot of things.

It's about gun control.

It's about what it's like to grow up, you know, as a educator or not grow up as that, but to be an educator in America today.

And it's about a lot of things.

I've heard Zach Kroeger talk about this and I find it so fascinating that, you know, that scene of all these kids just running out of the house in the middle of the night for no reason.

was a nightmare of his.

And he just sort of sort of put that image into a movie and then sort of built a movie around it.

I find that really fascinating.

And I just, I'm just curious, like when you saw that trailer for the first time, was that a movie, was this a movie that you were like, we have to talk about this on the show?

No, honestly, I didn't think it was something we'd have to talk about.

I'm so glad that we decided to do it though.

But absolutely, I think that the discussion about his dream inspiring this film is even more important because it just shows the sheer creativity that somebody can take like a singular scene and create like an entire world around an entire story plot.

And I think it's an incredible testament to his skill.

I feel like I'm wrong saying this, but that might've been like one of my first experiences with his, with his, know, with his directing.

No, actually we covered another one of his first movie actually in 2024 called Barbarian.

We talked about here on the show.

And we'll talk about one of his movies this year with Resident Evil going into October.

So a lot of Zach Craig speaking of which he actually was the one of the producers of Companion, which was another one of our candidates this year.

I just want to give a quick shout out to Black Bag as well.

One of my favorite movies of the year by Steven Soderbergh.

and then I want you, I want to give you the opportunity.

Do you, there anything you want to say about K-pop demon hunters and roof man?

know we'll talk about K-pop later on in the award ceremony spoilers, I guess for that nomination, but roof man, don't think shows up.

I'm going to pass it off to you.

Is there anything you want to say about either one?

Roof Man, I'll talk about Roof Man real quick, which is a vehicle for Channing Tatum.

Kirsten Dunst is in it.

Lakeith Stanfield, but this is directed by Derek Cyanfrance, think is how you, you written and directed by him.

So it's about this guy who is a criminal who ends up hiding in a, in a Toys R Us.

And this is like a, based on a true story.

So he hides in a Toys R Us, ends up like dating a woman.

He basically adopts, adopts a whole new identity.

He starts dating a woman.

and it's just like, it's so interesting.

He like finds Jesus.

Like there's, don't know if he actually found it like for real, but it's, it is an incredible movie and Channing Tatum kills it in this role.

So highly recommend that one.

It definitely belonged and earned its place on this list.

Totally.

I've been wanting to see that for a while and I just haven't gotten to it yet, but yeah, definitely.

That's, that's definitely one I'm going to check out eventually, but let's go and move on to our next category here.

We have our movie trailer of the year and our nominees are a night of the seven kingdoms teaser trailer, the super girl teaser, the thunderbolts absolute cinema trailer, Tron Aries official trailer, Speaking of weapons, Aaron, we have the weapons official trailer.

And Aaron, the winner is for our movie trailer of the year.

I gotta pull the envelope out of my pants.

It is Thunderbolts absolute cinema trailer.

Avengers are not coming.

Who will keep people safe?

That's right.

Aaron, it's funny.

This is one of our more interesting winners, mostly because, you know, I'm going to pass it off to you because I think I've been on record saying I actually really liked Thunderbolts.

think it's the best MCU movie of 2025, but you didn't have such a time with it.

So talk about why for a movie that you didn't love, we came to the consensus that this was the best trailer of the year.

Okay, so just right off the bat, it's not that I hated this movie.

don't, and nobody take that as like, I truly disliked this movie.

I was disappointed in this movie because, and you'll hear about that in a second, I was disappointed.

think I went in, Chris and I talked about this a lot.

I was one of those people that was really excited for Disney and Marvel to have kind of learned their lesson and improved the process, the idea, the timing behind this movie or in front of this movie.

I was just excited for a great, Like these are such great characters.

And I was expecting such an insane like, and all the way down to the post credit scenes.

This was just kind of a ho hum hum drum to a degree story.

Which is surprising to me because I think this sort of storyline speaks to a subject that you are very passionate about, which is mental health and how we should take care of each other and all those things.

it's good.

love that, but not for a Marvel, like a feature, one of the few Marvel movies that we got this year.

I want layers.

I want my Marvel movies to be like ogres and parfaits and onions.

want them to have layers, I don't like a parfait.

uh Tomorrow I'll make them waffles.

But I don't want...

one of the few feature film, Marvel superhero moves, I don't want it to be bogged down by something that I have to deal with and face with like such a realistic thing.

So on the nose and so in your face, like I get it.

Like if they would have just had Sentry being the one who was maybe dealing with depression and things like that, maybe it would have been, it wouldn't have been such a heavy theme and tone of the movie.

However, they were all dealing with it and they were all having a problem with it.

And I'm just like, I felt You know what I think I realize now, I think I can finally vocalize what it felt like I was being weighed down by like too much relation, like relating to the characters in those moments, know, cause again, a lot of this year I was going through kind of some harder things and some lows in my mood.

So I think I go to the movie to escape and not feel like I'm being suffocated by what's going on in the real world.

Sure.

I mean, I guess that makes sense.

And I think part of the reason why I loved it so much is that it tried something different.

I mean, instead of the big blue light in the sky, we got sort of an internal jog through everyone's trauma.

And while I don't think it was like incredible, like I said, I liked this movie, but I didn't love it.

But, you know, I think it was done pretty well.

And we're talking about the movie here, everybody.

We covered Thunderbolts in a previous episode.

You want to us talk about that more, go to that episode.

But the point is, that like, It was an interesting movie.

thought in the trailer, think absolute cinema trailer was one that like every time it played before a movie, you know, we talk about how like there are too many trailers before movies nowadays.

Every time the absolute cinema trailer for, for they call absolute cinema because it's supposed to be like a 20, fourified Marvel MCU trailer.

Every time it played, it got me pumping because of that Galvestine.

It's called Galvestine's OPR is the name of the song from that trailer.

just, it's insane.

It pumps you up.

And that's right there why it deserves to win because out of all these movies that we saw, to me, the Thunderbolts was the most disappointing, but the trailer was so good that even now, I just watched the trailer the other day, even now watching that trailer makes me want to watch this movie again.

And again, I'm just going to say it was not a bad movie.

It was just not a good Marvel movie for me.

This is one that could have been a mini-series.

Sure.

So yeah.

Well, let me, let me ask you this of the trailer movie trailers.

What would you say was, is it like a close second to you?

Cause there is one for me.

It was like, there was one that I was very much debating when we were discussing who the winner should be for the movie trailer of the year.

There was one that I was like, my gosh, this is like the instant winner.

Then we talked about it more and we watched the absolute cinema trailer again.

was like, no, it's definitely Thunderbolts.

I think for me, probably would have been, it would have been the Tron Aries trailer.

And I say that because again, Tron Aries, as much as I really enjoyed it, it was not as great as I had hoped it was going to be, which is silly of me to expect anything from Jerry.

The third time, okay, the third Tron movie.

never as good as they seem.

Exactly.

But however, the trailer is amazing and it makes you, it hypes you up.

The music is there.

And it makes you, and again, that's why Tron is second place because the movie was better and the trailer wasn't as great.

So it didn't have as much work to do.

I kind of wish they wouldn't have shown Jeff Bridges and the first Tron or the first grid in that trailer.

That's my, that's my biggest hang up.

Cause I agree the Trent Reznor, uh you know, uh nine inch nails soundtrack with, and again, something that I will never shut up about is that this movie somehow made me think that Jerry Leto is cool.

Who is like notoriously not cool.

The only, I'm just gonna say this, the only trailer that I would have needed to see this movie is, and I'm gonna, because we already knew that Jared Leto was starring in it.

Give me a six to eight second clip of Jared Leto walking onto the original grid and then an original light cycle popping up and him just, like, he makes that, I think he says like, cool or something.

You if would have just said like a one line, like something concise, I would have been like, Fuck yeah, I'm in with that nine inch nail soundtrack, right?

I would have been like, fuck yeah, that's it.

That would have been the best trailer of all time.

Yes.

Yeah.

Uh, for me, the close second was super girl.

thought super girl, the super girl chees that we just got last month was phenomenal.

And it makes me even more excited for a movie that I was already highly anticipated for.

So, all right, Aaron, let's move on to our next award here.

Yeah.

So the next award is the animated film of the year and our nominations are Demon Slayer, Infinity Castle directed by Haruo Sotozaki, sorry.

K-Pop Demon Hunters directed by Maggie Kang and Chris Applehouse.

Nezha 2 directed by Jiaozi.

Predator Killer of Killers directed by Dan Trachtenberg.

Zootopia 2 directed by Jared Bush and Byron Howard.

And Chris Yavlou.

And the winner is K-Pop Demon Hunters.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Okay.

We're gonna be gonna be cold.

Aaron, here's the thing.

uh We talked about it sort of in the intro to this episode.

One of the weakest, one of the most abnormally weakest years for animation that I've seen in a long time.

I'm going to admit it here live on the show here.

Did not see K-pop Demon Hunters.

Haven't seen it yet.

Okay.

Haven't seen Zootopia 2.

So I can't really, maybe those two will change my mind on the year of 2025 when it comes to animated films.

But uh to me, I just felt like even finding nominations for this animation category was kind of hard.

outside of the obvious that we have here.

So I'm to hand it off to you, Aaron.

Why did you, I guess we decided, but like I left it up to you really.

Why did you decide K-pop Demon Hunters for this?

You know, I think it's hilarious is that we didn't even put avatar on here.

It's interesting.

So there's like a couple of movies that were like half animated, but also had some live action because avatar, there are real people in that movie.

So if there was ever a real person, we'll call it the who frame Roger rabbit rule.

If there's ever a real person in the movie, it's not.

Okay, I like that the who frame Roger Rabbit.

Anyways, back to K-pop demon hunters, the star of this, uh what uh do call category.

I insisted not limit break insisted, but I insisted that K-pop demon hunters to me really came out of nowhere.

I mean, obviously most streamed uh animated film on Netflix, which is massive.

It made it back to theaters.

It basically, I feel like it stole.

what so many people were excited about Wicked for was like the sing-alongs and the music, like K-pop demon hunters came in and was like, fuck that.

uh it started, know, it's gonna be golden all over the, you know, the faces of theater goers everywhere.

And yeah, I mean, even I enjoyed it.

Again, the movie was catchy.

The animation was fun.

The characters were fun.

I think that, and I watched, you know, majority of these, uh Zootopia 2, I don't know why it made like a billion dollars or however much it made, but it did.

It's Shakira singing as a gazelle, think that's probably why.

m But uh Shakira from the first one was better.

I'm just saying that song.

It's all, it's all those weirdos that find the bunny rabbit hot.

It's those guys going and seeing it three, four times.

a guy on social media who had seen it five times in theaters.

It's him.

He's the reason it's, him and his other million other people that are weirdos.

we don't kick any, we're not King shame and anybody, whatever you're into, but that's weird.

But just don't go to the theater with a bunch of kids and watch this movie five times in a row.

Like watch it multiple times when you get it on film at home.

That's right.

Before we move on though, I have to ask you as someone who has not seen K-pop Demon Hunters, and maybe I'm being like a mouthpiece for people who are listening and haven't watched it yet.

How would you describe K-pop Demon Hunters in less than 30 words?

How would I describe K-Pop Demon Hunters in less than 30 words?

I would say it's just a fun adventure with likable characters that I think kids can identify with.

What happens in the movie is my, guess my.

yeah, so it's a it's it's a group of three girls who are hunters who have to fight demons because the the king of the demons is trying to destroy this magical force field that their group is is It's their job to maintain it.

But according to their their destiny is to make it is to seal it forever Okay.

Someone at home is going have to let me know if that was more than 30 words, but I like that.

That's interesting.

I had no idea what, what it was about, but I just understood that like it's the music, it's the animation and all those things.

And obviously like K-pop it's like maybe the most popular genre in music right now, possibly.

So yeah, it made sense that it made it so much money, especially for a movie that was already on Netflix.

know, that makes it even more impressive.

So let's move on to our next category here.

The next category is Aaron's Nintendo tattoo video game of the year award.

And our nominations are Pokemon unbound on the Gameboy advanced spirit fair, which is on all platforms.

Doom, the dark ages, basically all platforms, destiny rising, which is a mobile game and dispatch, which is on PlayStation five windows, Nintendo switch one and two and Chris, the envelope.

The winner is...

Pokemon Unbound!

Ooh, do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do-do- Okay.

So everyone that's listening, there's probably like three questions that's going through your head right now.

You're saying Chris Aaron, a what is Pokemon inbound B if you do know that Pokemon inbound is you're like, Hey guys, why did you pick a ROM hack as your game of the year?

And then C you're like, Chris is the only one that has played this game.

If you've been listening to like the grid and let's talk about it here on the show, Chris is the only one that's played this game and he's the one that loves it.

So why is he winning?

Aaron's Nintendo tattoo video game of the year.

So Aaron, I'm going to pass it off to you.

Why is Pokemon unbound our winner this year?

Okay.

Let me go real quick by covering the other nominations first.

So dispatch dispatch is on the list, basically just behind the scenes inside baseball.

Chris and I came up with this together, but most of them are on there because of me.

So dispatch, I want to play it.

I've been wanting to play it since I first saw the trailer.

I think Chris, you might've sent me the first trailer for it.

I'm not really sure, but it's looked amazing.

And that's why it's on the list is because honestly, I didn't play a whole lot of games from 2025.

And this game is honestly so strong as a running as a runner in contention for game of the year, just because I, it has insanely good reviews and people I personally know who have played it absolutely love it.

Okay.

destiny rising, which is a mobile game.

I played that one for a couple months, played it free to play, didn't pay for anything.

Very fun.

I just got really tired of another gotcha game that just got kind of, but it was really, really good.

It's just my own personal feelings are that I got tired of it.

Doom the Dark Ages.

You guys all know I love Doom the Dark Ages.

If you don't, hey guys, guess what?

I love Doom.

uh The Dark Ages is a phenomenal, phenomenal game.

It's changed in so many ways from previous Doom titles, but, it is an insanely great game, but it honestly wasn't.

the game that I played the most.

didn't feel the need.

I went back and played Doom Eternal more than I actually went back and played Doom the Dark Ages.

So ah that kind of explains a lot.

uh Spirit Fair.

Spirit Fair is the game that I spent the most time trying to get myself emotionally prepared for to play.

And Chris will know this because I sent him a couple of links to some stories about people legitimately posting on the internet about how they had to take emotional breaks because this game will hurt your heart.

It will hurt.

to get a little dusty in here when you're playing it.

So these four are all incredible games.

But I had to say that like Chris being again part of the show, part of a, you know, a pretty big part of the show, not ah his love of Pokemon, the game, which we both love, but Pokemon roms.

He is the one who has played almost every rom I've even ever heard of.

I haven't played roms.

I am a dirty basic bitch.

I am a, what is it called?

A traditionalist, I guess.

So I like my red, blue.

yellow.

I like those.

Okay.

I'll play.

doesn't like to run.

He doesn't like running shoes.

So he'll just play Pokemon Red and Blue.

As slowly as possible.

Yeah, but Chris has played Pokemon Unbound.

He loves it.

has a new game that he carries around.

this required a lot more dedication and love, especially again, him having played so many of them and this being his favorite of all time, which he has said on the show.

was like, I can't, none of my feelings can necessarily beat what he has just been, what he has been saying.

And so that's why, you know, it was, it came to the conclusion that Pokemon Unbound was the clear winner for the first ever Aaron's Nintendo Tattoo Video Game of the Year award.

That's right.

And just, I guess for the layman, everybody, a ROM hack is basically when a bunch of very talented people who just love a Pokemon game or there's ROM hacks for all types of games, but my knowledge basically just comes from the Pokemon world is they'll take an older game, the skeleton of like fire red or really any, any game, but you know, Pokemon about is fire, the fire red patch, right?

So they take the game and they basically just rework it to make their own game or they'll like update.

in like they'll update that fire red game for like new Pokemon, new sprites.

They'll like, you know, it's basically just think like, what if a Pokemon fan was able to make their own Pokemon game?

That's essentially what a ROM hack is.

And Pokemon unbound is essentially here's like, here's like the pitch for it.

So Boris is this new sort of landscape.

It's the, it's the new territory in Pokemon, a region with rich history.

Centuries ago, the Berenian people were enveloped in a great war with a foreign land.

When all seemed lost, a Borinian king summoned a powerful force to help him with the tide of battle.

Unfortunately, the war ended in defeat when the king of a foreign land unleashed a devastating weapon.

Disgruntled, the Borinian army returned home.

So that's how the game opens.

You're basically this Hoopa, anybody who knows Pokemon knows Hoopa is the ring Pokemon.

It's a psychic type that has two versions.

One's evil, one's sort of nice and cute.

He is unleashed and it just messes up time and space.

Basically what happens is your character, your main character who you get dropped off with, you are a descendant of that king of Hoopa.

Excuse me.

That's like the story.

That's all I'll tell you about the story.

Here's why it's great.

And then as Aaron said, I don't think I can say this lightly.

This is my favorite Pokemon game of all time, undeniably.

You know, as someone who's been playing Pokemon since it first came out, I'm wearing a Pokemon hat.

uh I'm wearing a Lolan Marowak hat as we speak everybody.

This game blew me away from the beginning and it's because of how much work and dedication this ROM hack went into.

It has a brand new engine, like battle engine.

So the AI is extremely smart.

You can pick from different difficulty levels.

You can do hard, passive, they call it vanilla, vanilla or hard.

There is a new, new HM system.

So you don't have to teach your Pokemon the move to use it.

uh It has all eight generations up to that point.

So it's in fire red, but there are sprites for like newer Pokemon, right?

Yeah.

So Chris should say this early on to really get everybody to understand all that stuff that you ever wanted.

If you're an adult right now and you played red, yellow, know, blue, whatever, all that stuff that you wanted in that game is now in there.

that's all, this is a fan made developed game.

Okay.

Now don't go out and do illegal things.

Yeah, I don't know.

I don't think this is illegal.

Hopefully not, because I've just been bragging about how much I love this illegal thing.

If so, but I'm pretty sure it's fine as long as they don't sell it like physically sell it.

I think they can do whatever they want.

And as long as I don't think Pokemon's like beaten down the door to sell sue these people.

But it's like a team of like 12 people who worked on this game since 2016.

And the reason why it's in this year is because they just put the final patch out this year, the two point two one patch earlier this year.

So it's officially done.

Like the game is finished and you can play it in its in its entirety now.

So anyway, we don't have to keep talking about that.

just, I'm glad Aaron, I really do appreciate you sort of handing off the reigns to Pokemon Unbound for this, because this is your award.

ah But I do feel very strongly that like, this is an incredible game that anybody who loves Pokemon should find a ROM emulator and play this game as quickly as possible.

somebody, one part of the show has to be willing to give up.

that's right.

Yeah.

All right.

Let's get into our next category here.

Yes.

So our next category is television series of the year.

Our nominations are alien earth of FX Dexter resurrection showtime, pluribus, apple TV plus the studio apple TV plus task HBO max and our winner.

Chris here is the envelope.

winner is, for Television Series of the Year, Pluribus, over on Apple TV+.

If I asked right now, would you give me a hand grenade?

Yes.

What about a bazooka?

Mm-hmm.

What about a tank?

sure.

Aaron, want you to tell everybody at home why Pluribus was our television series of the year.

It's simple.

Pluribus stood well above and ahead of all these other ones.

I mean, we had some great TV this year.

We had some amazing shows.

We both, we covered Alien Earth on this show.

So go back and listen to that episode if you're curious about Alien Earth.

It was good, not great.

Dexter Resurrection, Chris loved that.

He absolutely loved He went gaga over it.

uh Lady gaga.

uh And then the studio, Chris would not shut up about the studio.

So maybe he'll want to say more about that.

You know what's interesting because I'm to use this really quickly.

Oh, I'm going to use my limit break.

I'm going use my limit break because I want the studio to be our television series of the year.

I'm going to before I go on to the studio and why I love it so much, please continue to talk about Pluribus because I agree it is a great show.

Yeah, so Pluribus is a show that I could not help do anything but just binge it.

know, the old unhealthy binge, you know, where you just start in the morning and you just keep going until it's over.

It's only eight episodes, maybe, think eight episodes, maybe nine, I believe eight.

However, it is an incredible journey.

It is about a viral outbreak that basically creates a high of mine on earth.

And there are only a few people who are immune to it.

And so it's just about the leading up to it.

the coping with it, the stories that go behind those people.

And it is just an incredible and honestly like the entity, whatever it is, which we don't know the entity, all it wants to do is keep the people that like everybody happy.

They want everybody absolutely happy to its own, you know.

Lessening it wants everybody to be happy.

So it's it's just an incredible story of stress and trauma and things like like growing up like what our what our backgrounds of it's I don't know can't speak highly enough of Pluribus I haps I absolutely highly recommend that if you have time Find it watch it.

I'm so excited for season two if it happens It should happen.

I mean, it's considered by many to be the best show of the year.

And to speak of what you're saying there, mean, Raya Seahorn is probably going to win many awards for her role in this first season as Carol.

And I agree with you.

It's great.

I haven't seen all the way through.

only, think four or five episodes in, so I need to finish it.

I still have a lot left to get through, but I agree with you.

It is an incredible show.

What I found really interesting about it initially was that it is a question about freedom, right?

I mean, I think that's kind of like I could be wrong.

Vince Gilligan, if you're listening and I know you are, please email in and let us know if we're wrong here.

But it's basically like, what would you be, would you be willing to give up freedom for a better world?

Some would.

I think the question is being asked here.

I don't think there's a, I don't think it gives a definitive answer, especially since I haven't seen it, but like it's a question that's like, if you knew the world was going to be better, would you give up like, say like an alien dictator came down from the, from the stars and was like, I can cure cancer.

can cure poverty.

can cure.

food hunger, everything, everything will be gone tomorrow if you just give me control.

And actually it's funny, Aaron, there's a 1980s event, a Marvel event called Emperor Doom, where this exact thing happens.

All the world leaders give power to Dr.

Doom and the next day it is infinitely better.

Like everything is so much better.

Correct.

But you're under the thumb of Victor Von Doom.

And you know, while he is like pretty normal in that story up to the very end, the Avengers from the beginning are like, this is wrong.

This is not freedom, you know?

like, think Plotterbis is trying to have a similar conversation as that, that series.

I mean, it really, it really is an absolute like interesting question.

Maybe we even want to talk about the show at some point, but I don't want to go into it too deep.

But yeah, when you start questioning, uh, am I willing to give up my own autonomy, my own uniqueness, my, my m being as, a whole in order to improve the world, why am I not immediately wanting to do that?

You know, what is stopping me?

And then, yeah, it goes into so many themes.

I love that show.

So Yeah.

Isn't, I mean like failure and heartbreak and disease and death and sadness, all these things that we sort of, and fear, like all these things that we sort of see as negative parts of human humankind.

Like if we didn't have any of that, would the human condition even be worth it?

Like with living even be worth it if we didn't like have those ebbs and flows of our everyday life.

yeah, totally.

Also the sad thing is like the complete opposite side is like why do we need an alien virus to come down or like a virus or why do we need alien overlords or whatever to come down, take over our planet and say, you know what, you're all one now.

Why is it an external force that makes us have to just bend the knee ah and say that, you know, we're all equal.

We're all the same.

We all deserve the same amount of love and respect and freedom.

Why does it take that?

why, like, and we were looking at the world right fucking now.

I'm looking at you world right fucking now.

What is the problem with peace, love and understanding?

Yeah.

Well, there's always going to be opportunistic folks out there who want to take advantage of a good thing.

So anyway, I obviously use my limit break here for the studio, Aaron.

This is my favorite show of the year and potentially, and not to sound too hyperbolic because there's only been one season thus far.

And it's funny that we're basically switching laterally from one Apple TV plus show to another.

We don't even have Severance on here, which came out.

don't know if you remember, it came out.

Well, no, I was never going to have Stranger Things in this category, but anyway.

say that.

People love it.

Don't say that.

I'm sorry.

uh So the studio, if everyone, if you don't have Apple TV plus, or for some reason in the studio missed you, it is basically Seth Rogan created this show with Evan Goldberg, his often creator collaborator.

And it's basically about Matt Remick, who is this newly appointed head of a film production studio uh called Continental Studios.

Think of like Universal Studios or what have you.

And it's basically just, it is one of the funniest, most intelligent, well acted with so many different cameos.

type of show that every episode was something, it was covering a different sort of category of like entertainment in a very interesting and funny way.

For me, I know like water cooler television has sort of gone to yesteryear, but this was a show that like, as soon as it came out, was like watching it that night.

I was like scheduling my week around the new episode of the studio.

And the last episode, I think it's the ninth episode of the season, or sorry, excuse me, the 10th.

presentation, actually cinema con and the presentation, is episode nine and 10 is a, it's basically like a two parter is one of the funniest episodes in like of the year specifically.

So Aaron, did you ever get a chance to get around to the studio at all?

We don't have time.

No, it's fine.

It's fine.

Honestly, like I get it.

Some people didn't get to see it, but this is me telling everyone as someone who like, you know, I thought player, this was pretty good.

Dexter's resurrection is really, really good.

I was very surprised by how they brought back Dexter in the way they did.

Task is great over on HBO.

Aaron really liked Alien Earth.

I didn't really like it as much, I love being- That's Apple TV Plus as well.

Yeah.

There's like Apple TV's got it going on right now.

Fallout came back.

Yep.

I honestly can't say enough about the studio and I'm very, very excited for it to be back because it will be.

So let's move on to our next category here.

We have our comic book writer of the year and our nominees are Anders Nielsen, Brian K von Dennis camp, Jonathan Hickman and Scott Snyder, Aaron The winner is for comic book writer of the year, Scott Snyder!

Yeah.

All right.

Absolute Batman, DCKO.

You won't feel a thing.

I mean, of all the nominees that we have here, Brian K.

Vaughn, Anders Nielsen, Dennis Camp, who was like a very close second for me, Aaron, Jonathan Hickman, of course, Aliens.

Yep.

I mean, and I agree with you.

Ultimate Spider-Man, Wolverine Revenge.

know, it's Scott Snyder, everybody.

I'm sorry.

I just like, you know, whatever your thoughts are on Absolute Batman, you're correct.

Okay.

Doesn't matter.

Don't try to fight us on it.

We both liked it.

I would say Aaron, honestly, would, I would dare to say we both loved it being that absolute Batman DC KO not so much.

I'm sorry about that.

Scott, if you're listening, not great, but point is, is that absolute Batman fucking rocks and it had to be Scott Snyder.

Like it had to be.

The thing that I have to say about Absolute Batman, even DCKO, but like, if you have thoughts on it, that's the point.

Like the fact that so many people are thinking about it, the fact that so many people are, I mean, you have a first issue that went back in the same year for a 10th printing.

It is everywhere and that's what comics need all the time.

They need titles like this.

And I'm not saying that just maybe he got lucky and like, you know, hit that hit that viral moment of the right time to get Absolute Batman out there.

What he's done, what Nick, mean, what's he, what the team over there at Absolute Batman has done.

Uh, thank you to Scott Snyder for writing it has probably has, has boosted, I'd say for at least two or three years, all sales of comics.

Yeah, I think Absolute Batman alone has saved a decent percentage of comic stores for another year.

That alone, right?

Like what you're saying here is exactly that.

Not very often does a book come out of the gates and just absolutely kill like Absolute Batman.

So I totally agree.

And I was fine giving it to Scott Snyder.

I think that was the one that we were both on board for.

Again, as I said a moment ago, I had a hard time not giving it to Dennis Camp.

I think Dennis Camp is uh one of our best young writers.

think he is like on this trajectory of just absolutely, he's going to be on top of the comic world for the next four to six years.

Everything that he's done from Absolute Martian Manhunter to Assorted Crisis Events, The Ultimates, he even had like an Ultimate Spider-Man Incursion book there for a bit.

It's all great.

Everything that Dennis Kemp has done this year and even in 2024 has just put him on this path again, as I said, to win multiple Eisners and be one of the best comic writers in the world.

Maybe I'm biased, but I think Spectators was one of the best books of the year and Saga continues to be Saga.

So therefore, course, Brian K.

Vaughn had to be in here.

And then I think I want to give a very specific shout out to Anders Nielsen for Tongues.

And Aaron, I told you about Tongues through Pantheon Books earlier in the year.

And then we talked about a little bit yesterday, but this tome everybody that I bought off the shelf, like I went to my local comic book shop over at Comic Carnival and I was just bruising around the shelves looking at the new books that week and I saw Tongues on the shelf and A Sight Unseen without knowing anything about it, without ever hearing of Anders Nielsen or Tongues, volume one, I picked it up because of the way the presentation of the book and which funny enough, had Chip Kidd on the show who is one of the head folks over at Pantheon Books.

He even like, without me prompting him, gave a big shout out to Tongues.

So I can't praise Tongues enough.

Please go check it out if you haven't.

And then Aaron, as you said, Jonathan Hickman, of course, one of our best writers in comics, Alien versus Avengers, which had absolutely no right being as good as it was, was...

Very good.

I loved Doom.

And I think you did as well with him and Stanford Green.

Ultimate Spider-Man, probably one of, if not the best ultimate book from over at Marvel.

And then Wolverine Revenge with Greg Capullo.

yeah, think, uh but again, as we said, Scott Snyder just had to win.

I mean, he had to win.

Aaron, unless you have anything to say, you want to move on to our next category?

Nope.

Next category.

All right, let's get into our next category here.

our comic book artist of the year.

Your nominees are Dana Warren Johnson, Jesse Lonergan, Nick Dragata, Patrick Horvath, Tyler Crook.

And the winner is...

here.

Nick Grigata.

So we got a absolute sweep here for best comic writer.

Absolutely killing it.

Yeah.

Absolute.

uh The absolute comic writer and the artist are both of our winners this year.

And this was take everything I just said a moment ago about the writers, Aaron, and then like double it for the artists because this year was tough.

And I know what some of you are thinking right now.

You're thinking Chris, Aaron, Daniel Warren Johnson did way more writing.

gosh.

All right, Aaron, so you picked your limit break.

Why did you decide to switch?

If I remember correctly, you were the one who wanted Nick Dragata.

changed my mind, All right.

Tell me, tell me who is the new winner of our comic book artist of the year.

The winner is my, my favorite, Daniel Warren Johnson.

Oh, I like it.

All right.

So talk a little bit about Daniel Warren Johnson, what he's done this year and why you ultimately think that he deserves this award over Nick Trogada.

Well, this year was incredible, not just for Nick Drogata, but for many of these artists that we went through, they all had incredible things.

For me, Daniel Warren Johnson, he uh was part of Absolute Batman Annual Number One that came out.

uh Transformers was another massive win.

The Moon is Following Us is still a really great book that continues to go hard.

And Wolverine Number Eight, just know, like this is bam, hit, bam, hit, bam, hit.

And we love...

I mean, he even came out with a pretty badass art book this year.

He kicks a Kickstarter art book.

So I just feel like Daniel Warren Johnson deserves more credit, especially for, and I'm just going to say this, I'm going tell you exactly why he went over the top for me.

His story in Absolute Batman Annual Number One and what's going on in In a way, absolute Batman won anyway.

Exactly.

Exactly.

So it's still, it's still absolute bad, but also Transformers is just like, again, they continue to be amazing.

And so like, I wanted to give that like, again, Nick Tragata won, but also so did Daniel Warren Johnson as the actual winner.

Totally.

I'm totally fine giving this to Daniel Oran Johnson.

think Nick Dragata was our median pick, right?

Like we both like Nick Dragata.

We both sort of sent that vote in.

uh If it was up to me, everybody, and this is no damnation to Nick, I agree with you.

He's awesome.

But I would have picked Jesse Lonergan for his work on Drome.

That's I think probably the best book of the year.

And Tyler Crook also did incredible work with uh Epitaphs of the Abyss.

He did a couple of writing things.

Epitaphs of the Abyss number 12 and Hello Darkness number 17.

He wrote those two stories.

I mean, the reason why I want to give him best artists of the year is for his work with Christopher Cantwell over at ONI Press.

Shout out to ONI Press, good friends of the show, without of Alcatraz, which is also, I think, one of the best books of the year.

And uh we can't go without also giving some flowers to our good friend Patrick Horvath for his sequel to Beneath the Trees Where Nobody Sees, Right to Spring.

And of course, the book that he came on the show and talked to us about earlier in the year in 2025, Free for All over again at ONI Press.

Again, that's another one that the art is just incredible.

my it's it that his art from free for all it lives in my brain.

Yeah.

Again, speaking on sort of the class, you know, warfare that we're currently in today and where we could eventually head to, know, like totally give us, given us like a 2000 AD look at what could happen down the road with like gladiatorial reality television.

So, um, but yeah, like you said, and I love this, I love this limit breaker and Daniel Warren Johnson very much deserves to be our co definitely, he could have easily won common book writer of the year.

But as you said, like we need to.

separate these folks into the category and Daniel Orr Johnson definitely deserves this.

So let's move on to the next category here.

have funny book of the year and the nominees are absolute Batman, DC comics written by Scott Snyder and illustrated by Nick Trogata assorted crisis events, image comics written by Dennis Camp, illustrated by Eric Zawalski event horizon, dark descent IDW publishing written by Christian Ward, illustrated by Tristan Jones out of Alcatraz, only press.

written by Christopher Cantwell, illustrated by Tyler Crook, and Spectators Image Comics written by Brian K.

Vaughn, illustrated by Nico Henderson.

And Aaron, the winner is for our funny book of the year.

Event Horizon Dark Descent by IDW Publishing.

Speaking of a extremely difficult, I mean, honestly, all three of these comic book awards were really tough to give out.

I think this is actually, I said the comic book artist was the toughest.

This was, Aaron, if you remember, we were talking about it.

This was the toughest.

Totally.

What a great year for comics.

think like we should just say that at the beginning.

know every comic book podcast is going to say, wow, what a great year of comics.

Yeah.

But like all of these books, Absolute Batman, A Sword of Crisis Events, Event Horizon, Dark Descent, Out of Alcatraz, Spectators, all undeniably in my heart deserve this award for funny book of the year.

was tough to not give it to Absolute Batman as we talked about with, know, Scott Snyder and Nick Trogada.

Everybody, you say whatever you want.

Again, have your opinions.

all correct.

Absolute Batman destroyed 2025.

So like it deserves it.

A Sword of Crisis events, maybe the best image book of the year, possibly?

Out of Alcatraz, talked about it, Onypress.

That's one of the best books.

And then Spectators.

This was one that I think when we were discussing it, said, I want either out of Alcatraz spectators or event horizon for sure.

And then you said event horizon as well.

So that's why we went down to this.

So I'm going to pass it off to you, Aaron.

Why did we pick event horizon dark descent?

It's, I mean, it's simple.

mean, like, again, this is one of the hardest that you're right.

This is one of the hardest decisions because we have to go between everything that is like, like you said, absolute Batman, which is incredible.

Like it did so much for comics event horizon, dark descent.

could not wait for the issues to come out for this.

I could not.

I was like literally waiting for the weeks to pass by so I could read the next issue and, and shout out to our show and like not to, to, to boast too much, but we had Christian war on the show.

We watched.

We did a live commentary of Event Horizon and that was incredible.

It built up the excitement.

It built up everything for this.

The art is beautiful, everything.

To me, it just...

Don't forget we also had Tristan Jones on the show the artist.

and we've just recently had Tristan Jones on the show.

So it's like, there's so much and again, as the newer reader on the show of comics.

You to fit in one of those at least.

Can we retire it now?

Can we officially retire it now?

No, I'm not going to retire it until one of the categories is the new comic, newest comic book reader.

That was the new comic reader comic book of the year.

Yeah.

um, yeah, it's just, it's felt like the last few years have been amazing for comics and we've had so much good stuff to read.

But really this, this category, like for us for this year has just been incredible.

It's been an incredible selection of books to read.

I don't know.

This one just stood to me, it stood above and beyond.

Can I, want to build off of the event horizon talk really quickly because I think we talked about it during that audio commentary with Christian Ward where he was never going to say this.

I will say it, Aaron, you can say it as well.

If you want, have a lot more of an attachment to event horizon and the Paul WS Anderson film from back in the day, I think it's 97.

And I always kind of thought it was bad, right?

Like growing up, I always just sort of thought that it was bad and then rewatching it with Christian.

And this is, mean, Christian obviously has, has had an affinity for the property.

It's why he took on the project with IDW.

when they sort rebooted it with this prequel, he obviously had some ideas for it.

I think rewatching it, I found the magic.

I found why it was so great, but also why this book is so incredible and why we have as our favorite of the year is that it took a property.

took a movie that, you know, for multiple reasons, didn't work at the time.

Had a lot of great ideas and what Christian and Tristan and Pip and everybody that they do it, everybody at IDW, what they did with this property just built on top of that.

gave us a continuation, although it is a prequel, gave us a continuation that long time fans and newer fans like myself can love.

So that's why we chose Event Horizon Dark Descent.

Can't wait for Christian to continue on with his Event Horizon stuff.

And then obviously Tristan Jones, when he eventually moves on to what he's working on IDW, will also be.

Great.

I could never have said it better myself, Chris.

That's a great explanation of why it's exciting.

at kind of like that sort of demonology and just like trying to find something that was much older, you know, and it's that clash of science fiction set in the future, like a bit of a horror that we're dealing with is much, much older, which I think is always a really interesting clash.

And I think that's why this film, it just stands above like aliens or anything, because the horror that's alluded to in this just feels ancient.

Let's move on to our next category here, Aaron.

And I think, and you may have something different to say here, but maybe one of our easiest decisions of this award.

Uh, so let's move on to our next category here.

The next category is the Tony Stark Memorial Superhero Film of the Year.

The nominations are Captain America Brave New World, K-Pop Demon Hunters, Superman, The Fantastic Four First Steps, Thunderbolts.

And the winner is...

Konya West.

The winner is Superman, everybody.

uh Yeah, no surprises here.

This was not a great year for superhero content as you know, we've been pretty vocal about here on the show.

We've covered all these movies except for K-pop Demon Hunters.

We don't need to spend a ton of time on this.

I think it's been pretty apparent that Superman was the movie.

It was the movie of this next generation of DC movies.

James Gunn and what he and Peter Saffron are building over there is incredible.

So far at least David Corn sweat is Superman to me after one interpretation, one movie.

I'm like, that is Superman.

It did everything that I wanted to do.

Being, being nice is the new punk rock.

Okay.

Being corny is the new punk rock.

Yeah.

It's just, it worked for me.

I'm very much down for this out with the old and with the new.

So Aaron, anything you want to say about any of these, you know, before we move on, anything you want to say about Superman for one?

No, I think everything we've discussed again, we've covered again, most majority of these on the show, just like you said, Superman clear winner, beautiful story characters.

We gave a shit about in less than, you know, two hours.

Like it was just an incredible ride.

It was an emotional, incredible ride.

And it didn't take a somber depressing Zack Snyder fucking cut of four hours to get any kind of world building involved.

It was just.

I love how Zack Snyder is still like sharing pictures of Henry Cavill in his uh Superman suit.

Like just recently he posted a picture of Henry Cavill in the original Christopher Reeve suit.

And I'm just like, dude, get over it.

You lost.

over it.

Just give it up.

It's fine.

Go work on your rebel moon shit.

ah You're not doing this anymore.

And you know, no offense to Zack Snyder.

I don't really, here's the thing.

I think like on the surface, he seems like a pretty nice guy, but he also has the power of the purse with his fan base and that rabid, crazy incel group of people.

He has never once told them to settle down.

So like I sort of put the, I put a little bit of blame on him for why the Snyder bros are so Snyderrific.

So.

Anyway, let's move on Superman rocks.

If you haven't seen it, go watch it.

If you've seen it, go watch it again.

It's awesome.

Let's move on to a new category here this year.

have our physical media seriously matters guys award.

This is a brand new award.

Everybody is all about.

This is the physical media matter seriously guys.

oh right.

And our nominations are angels egg 4k collectors edition from umbrella.

We have more weight, a Salem story written and illustrated by Ben wiki from top shelf productions.

We have the Florida Project Limited Edition 4K Collectors Edition and the Nice Guys Limited Edition 4K Collectors Edition from Second Sight Films.

We have Shogun Assassin OST Vinyl Record from Light in the Attic.

We have the Greatest Beer Run Ever written by John Chick Donahue and JT Malai, HarperCollins Publishers.

And the, this is my favorite book of the year.

The algorithmic frontier, exploring the power of AI and social media and content creation, art cover written by me, Aaron Knowles and self published on Amazon.

That's right.

And the winner is this is, and we each have winners here.

My winner is more weight, a Salem story written and illustrated by Ben Wiki of top shelf product productions.

Before we move on to that, Aaron, you have a winner here.

Your winner for physical media, seriously matters guys award.

oh ah It's the greatest beer run ever written by John Chick Donahue and JT Malloy, HarperCollins publishers.

Now, Aaron, actually don't know what that is.

So tell me what the greatest beer run ever is.

Okay, so the greatest beer run ever is uh a story set during Vietnam, Chick, as all of his friends call him.

He's kind of the big dog in the neighborhood where he's from.

And so what he does is he decides to talk shit and say something exciting that he's gonna do.

He's gonna go take beer, because he's basically not, nobody expects anything of him.

He's kind of a shit show.

So he's like, I'm gonna take beer to our boys over in Vietnam.

And people are like, no, you're crazy.

Because he used to be a merchant Marine.

a true story or based on a true story.

So he literally loads a bag full of like PBR.

He's a merchant Marine.

So he catches a ship that takes him to, to fucking Vietnam.

And then he literally starts traversing the country.

ah And like, nobody knows he's like, he's just lying his ass off, but not technically not.

He's not telling the truth.

And so he's traversing Vietnam during a fucking war to take his buddies beer.

A real bro, as we call it.

It is an incredible, an incredible story about thinking for yourself, about, you know, caring about people despite, you know, whether they enlisted for a specific mission, you know, not just blindly being patriotic, you know, not just being dumb and saying, you know what, we're doing it.

We're being heroes.

We're spreading democracy.

No, like actually giving a shit about what's going on in the world.

Like this is an incredibly relevant pertinent story right now.

And the book is amazing.

The movie, which I was saying Zac Efron plays a chick in the movie, it's an incredible book.

It is an incredible book and it's an incredible movie.

Whichever way you decide to take this in, check it out, please.

This was also a really tough category to sort of nail down, which is actually why Aaron and I decided to both pick a winner here.

uh A couple of ones that missed the spot here was like, had like the Sorcerer Criterion 4K that came out this year.

I also had Tongues from Anders Nielsen, as we talked about earlier, was in this category for a moment, but I had to give some love to the Florida Project and the Nice Guys 4K Collectors Edition from Second Sight Films.

If you like either one of those films, and you are a collector of physical media, you have to have those in your collection.

Same with angels egg over at umbrella.

This is a recently remastered 4k physical media release.

Actually the one of the very first physical media releases of this movie for a long time.

The only way to watch it was like a bootleg VHS recording, right?

Like that was the only way to watch angels egg for a long time.

So yeah, like I said, this is something that you would really like Aaron, cause this is actually directed by a modern Nuru Oshuri.

And I hope I'm saying that correctly.

It's one of the creatives behind a ghost in a shell.

And then it's also written by, uh, Hayao, gosh, I forget his name now, but, uh, it's the gentleman that did all the artwork behind final fantasy.

So it's basically just think of those two worlds smashed together and in a, in a very sad, dark, dreary, uh, anime from the mid eighties.

And that's what you have here with angels egg.

So again, it's hard to give us a quick shout out, but again, as I said, it's hard to really put into words to everyone listening and Aaron as well, the work that went into more weight by Ben Wiki.

Of course, as I said, from Top Shelf Productions, this book is a tome of, I guess, the history of the Salem witch trials and why the city and the people that live in Salem still continue to profit off of, you know, the execution of innocent people who were accused of being witches.

That's putting it very simply because if you, Aaron, you can see it I'm holding it up to the camera.

It is a thick baby.

You know, this is, this book is, it is a masterwork at storytelling in terms of long form storytelling in the comic medium.

And then like the last 30 pages are all of these it's notes.

It's all of his notes that been used in order to tell the story.

It's really, really tough.

And also it has a, it has a pull quote from Alan Moore on the cover.

So need I say more like it is just an absolute tome that truthfully I haven't even gotten all the way through, but what I've read thus far, makes it worth it.

Not only to own and have it on your shelf, but to celebrate and prop up and give to other people.

once again, More Weight, a Salem story written and illustrated by Ben Wicke.

Yeah.

And for my, for my picks, Shogun Assassin, OST vinyl record, this was a, this was a dream, a grail of a vinyl to find.

And I'm so happy that I got it because it is the blood.

It's like the bloody, uh, pressing.

it's like just red, red and white splatter pressing, but it's just, it's again, the music behind that, that original, I want to say like it is to the movie Shogun Assassin, but obviously if you, if you know anything about Lone Wolf and Cub, know, that is, it's many things.

It is a multi-part show that's basically a bunch of movies tied together.

That's like, you the baby card of death.

like, there's like so many, there's so many, like, there's like, I want to say at least six of the movies total.

However, they were compressed into one to make the original film that was aired uh in the United States and everywhere else.

So.

And then the other thing also, I talked about the greatest beer run ever.

And then obviously had to throw my own book out there just simply because I'm proud that I got a book published this year or last year.

you know, I'm just really happy with myself and I feel like I should be okay to celebrate myself because it is at my pleasure that I celebrate myself.

And if anybody knows anything, I am definitely going to pleasure myself.

That's what daddy did.

That's what America does.

and it's worked out pretty well so far.

All right, Aaron, let's move on to next category here.

have a very special, actually these next three are very special, but this one is very, very special to us.

It is our oblivion bar episode of the year.

Well, there's a lot of nominations, so we'll just go through them real quick.

Midnight Rewind Akira 1988 from March.

Sinners in Warfare movie review with Brad Gillickson, April.

Interview with Robert Kirkman, Ryan Otley in May.

Interview with Christopher Priest in June.

Interview with Paul Pope in July.

Episode 200 Celebration July.

The movie review of Weapons with guest star Erica Fett, August.

The interview with Trad Moore from August.

New York City Comic-Con 25 interview with on Jason Fabbach in October and 2025 Halloween special Night of the Demons 2 1994, which aired in November of 2025.

And the winner is for Oblivion Bar episode of the year.

It is our interview with Trad Moore.

Good communication in a relationship.

You know what I mean?

Where you're going to have these these big feelings and you want to fully express yourself.

But I think to be intentional with your words, to be intentional with your lines, to be intentional with your boundaries for yourself of what you will or will not accept.

I think that that all is like uh part of maturity.

Sometimes people have wisdom beyond their years and they have that early on.

I struggled with it at times, you know?

So I think, and I struggled with it artistically at times where, it's, that's part of the fun of being 18.

That's part of the fun of being 22, as you say, fuck it.

And you set things on fire and you break windows and you scream and it's awesome.

ah And I loved that.

but it looks different coming from a 34 year old or a 40 year old.

And I think that things lose their novelty.

Aaron, we talked about this as we were discussing the winner of this.

As you said, there's a ton of nominees for this category.

It was tough, but just like last year with our episode with Brian K.

Vaughan, my conversation with Trad Moore is a benchmark in the history of the Oblivion Bar.

is a moment in the show's history that will...

outlive the show and us maybe like I never thought in a million years that I would ever have a chance to talk.

And here's the thing.

We've sort of gotten over the sort of hero worship part of interviewing people.

course we get excited.

Well, I mean, we get excited.

Of course we get excited to talk to people, but the like crazy nervousness and like the true imposter syndrome that goes along with having someone like trad more or even someone that's not on this list, like, you know, Tom McFarlane.

or Ryan Otley and uh Robert Kirkman, Paul Pope even, Christopher Priest, like all these people that we've revered for so long, I don't know about you, but I don't really get, I want that weight.

People come to us to talk to folks like that and I find that really, not only really important, but I uh hold that dearly.

I wanna do a good job because of that.

And when it comes to Trad Moore, someone who again is not only one of my all time favorite artists, but someone who I think is legitimately one of the all time greats.

I think he should be in the category.

of your Alex Toth's, your Stan Lee's, your Jack Kirby's, your Alan Moore.

Alan Moore, course.

Yeah.

Like Grant Morrison, anybody.

Like I think Trad Moore already is in that category and he is my age.

So like, hopefully we have many, many years left to Trad Moore and to talk to him and to not only it be such an insightful, fun conversation for it to go as well as it did.

ah I am just forever grateful.

And also shout out to David Harper of off panel for making it happen.

yeah, anything else you want to say?

I just want to say, mean, there are so many, obviously, you know, going back to the beginning of what we said, there are so many episodes that we wanted to nominate, that we wanted to nominate, not just these.

I mean, we love every single episode that we put out.

I mean, we do.

For me, you know, my most exciting one that I definitely wanted to have on this list was with Christopher Priest.

You know, I got to talk to him about my experiences reading Superman Lost.

That was a moment.

that I will remember forever.

And I think that he's probably gonna remember it also, because I think that he really appreciated that point of view coming from that story.

And then it sounds odd, but just even listening to that conversation between you and Trad was incredible.

that's, again, one of the reasons that I also picked it as the best episode of the year is because that episode, it spotlights what this show is and where it's going to go.

And for me, that was such an important moment, not just because I've gotten to talk to some incredible people that I absolutely adore.

And, know, I know you're happy for me when that happens.

And I'm absolutely happy for you when you get to talk to the people that you've, like you said, you've revered because again, you've been in this, you've been around us, you've been a lover of it for many, many years.

And it's just an incredible thing to witness and to listen to and to hear where we can go in an interview.

Again, I just say that that that interview epitomizes what this show is.

To get an artist who is as big and popular and talented as Treadmoore and put him at ease and where you're having like emotional in-depth conversations is a testament to what this show is and how much we love doing what we do.

And also someone who doesn't come out of his shell very often, right?

Like he doesn't do, I mean, I challenge everyone right now, just go to your, whatever app you're listening to this on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcasts, type in trad more interview and see how many come up.

I'm going to guess there's going to be about six and we will be one of them because he just doesn't often come out of his shell.

And I'm very grateful that he was able to do that for us.

And you know, again, our conversation with Paul Pope, I think was equally as good.

mean, it was like a couple of weeks before this or before that trad more conversation.

So.

That was great.

And then of course our Halloween special this year with nine of the demons too, which is my favorite schlocky horror of all time.

uh Our interview with on, which was the most stressful time of the entire year.

It was our New York Comic-Con interview with on where we put out an episode every single day of New York Comic-Con, but we did it.

And every, every single episode, every single interview we did for those five days with Kenny Myers, Jason Fubach, Tom McFarlane, Tiffany Smith, Jesse Lonergan, all of those conversations were awesome.

Cause we figured it out somehow.

So anyway.

Uh, and then also like our longest episode of all time with our review of centers and warfare with Brad Gullickson.

mean, equally as good.

And then also our most listened to episode of the year with Robert Kirkman and Ryan Olly.

like a lot of highs in this list.

And I'm, I'm just very, very grateful that, you know, of all these great episodes, as you said, we're, we're proud of every single episode we put out.

But I, I feel strongly that like that tried more episode will be, you know, years from now, whether we're doing the podcasts or not 10, 15, 20 years from now, this conversation with try more would be one that I can hand people and go, this is why.

the Oblivion Bar was so special.

Like this is one of the examples, I think.

So anyway, let's get off our soapbox.

Let's stop sniffing own farts here.

Well, actually we're going to keep sniffing some farts here because we have one of our favorite categories of this award ceremony.

Chris, drop the deuce.

All right, everybody, time for our stinker of the year.

And the nominations are Ballerina, Captain America, Brave New World.

Five Nights at Freddy's 2, Happy Gilmore 2, Honeydome, The Electric State, Jurassic World Rebirth, and Snow White.

Aaron, the winner is for our stinker of the year.

Ball Arena.

All right, I'm going to pass it off to you, Aaron.

Why is why is ballerina the stinker of a a cadre of a cornucopia of just very bad film?

Why was ballerina our pick?

Chris, I just want to say that it takes a lot like a Jurassic Park, not rebirth, but the original Jurassic Park pile of shit.

That is one big pile of shit.

to destroy the entire legacy of a movie franchise.

Do you think John Wick is dead because of ballerina?

Yes.

interesting.

You don't think another John Wick can come in and just be like, we're, we're doming more people.

Come watch.

No.

think it's done.

I think it is absolutely done.

anything else, besides Ballerina being absolute shit, they had the Continental TV show, which went, I think that was dog shit also, but like this was the white speck on top of the pile of chicken shit.

The one part that's beginning moldy in the sun type.

Okay.

So it is just say it is an absolutely horrendous movie.

I said nothing about the movie, but it is an absolutely horrendous movie that makes zero fucking sense.

It has zero effort as far as storytelling.

The storytelling makes no sense.

The weapons make no sense.

The fight scenes are dumb.

Like it is just an egregiously bad, high budget action film.

It is absolutely dog shit.

And Keanu's uh Yeah, for like 10 minutes, five minutes.

Okay.

All right.

That's what I was thinking.

Uh, yeah, I haven't seen it.

So I don't know, but I, everything I heard from it was bad.

And that's part of the reason why I didn't watch it.

And also, as I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of the John wick franchise as crazy as that might be to hear.

I like the first one.

The other two are okay.

I would rather watch the electric state again.

Well, it's funny you say that because like the electric state would have been my pick here.

it would have been between Captain America, brave new world and the electric state as my least favorite of the year, but I'm totally fine.

Give it to ballerina because you were very adamant about how much of a big piece of shit it is.

So, uh, one more of these ballerina because it sucked.

Um, so let's get off our stinky soap box of bad movies and get into our final category and arguably our most important category, Aaron.

And it is our David A.

Weiner.

movie of the year.

Our nominations for the David Weiner Movie of the Year are Caught stealing.

Eddington.

Frankenstein.

Marty Supreme.

One battle after another.

Sinners.

The Smashing Machine.

Superman.

Warfare.

Weapons.

All right, and our winner for the David A.

Weiner movie of the year, Sinners from Ryan Coogler.

He dancing with the devil to follow you home.

yes, this, the Kug did it again.

Everybody.

This movie was an absolute treat.

it is a movie that rewards upon rewatch.

is a movie that rewards upon seeing it in the largest theater possible for which I did.

I saw it in 70 millimeter twice here in Indiana, the Indian, uh, IMAX museum.

And, um, it's incredible.

it is a very close second favorite for me of the year, right behind one battle after another.

And Aaron didn't really love one battle after another.

So I was very.

happy to go to my next pick with centers.

I don't even, I cannot understand why.

I, so Chris, I texted Chris and I told Chris, I've been watching one battle after another for an hour.

And he asked me, are you actually watching it?

Are you doing something else and watching it?

And I said, I have been seriously watching this.

have been paying attention to the characters, the details, the designs, the, the everything down to the, uh, fucking what do call it?

Uh, costuming the outfits, like everything.

I know it matters.

Like it just, what a I don't under why why is that movie?

You don't have the answer right now chris i'd love to have you know What I just want to let's do a grid on it.

Let's do a grid on why one battle after another is good.

I just want have a good wholesome Fucking discussion about it.

But anyways, uh No, before we move on, just need to tell everyone.

I need, I'm not, I'm not going to say any more, but I don't, I don't need to.

That's the whole point of all this is that I don't need to say anything about one battle after another.

I just want everyone listening.

If you could just, who do you think is right here?

Do you think that Aaron and his very odd off putting opinion about one battle off another being bad is correct?

Or do you think that my opinion of it being, I mean, yeah, let's just say like, do you think it's the best movie of the year?

I'm fine.

I'm fine.

Putting out those parameters of like, Is Aaron correct in saying that's bad or am I correct in saying that's the best movie of year?

I'm sorry that I don't want to watch Tiana Taylor tongue fuck Sean Penn in the ass.

Well, I do.

You know, I thought it was great.

yeah.

Anyway, moving on to our best movie, which is centers, Aaron, we covered it here on the show.

As we said, with our good friend, Gullickson, with another film that was a nominee here for our David A.

Weiner movie of year, which was warfare.

Uh, you actually gave centers and warfare both a five out of five.

So for everyone that doesn't know, that's your only two five out of fives in show history.

Yep.

So, which I think mine were like Top Gun Maverick and X-Men 97, if I'm not mistaken.

I feel like you have more than that, but I mean, I could be wrong.

No, I'm pretty sure in the show's history, those are only two I've given that we've covered here.

Obviously I gave one bet off another a five out of five, but we didn't cover it here on the show.

I guess, well, I'll tell you what, let's just go down the line before we get to centers.

We'll do centers last.

Caught Stealing was great.

Austin Butler is a bartender in New York and his girlfriend, Zoe Kravitz gets him, he and his girlfriend getting some crazy shit.

It was actually really surprising.

I really wanted to put this in our Wipsmak surprise to the year, but just no space.

So I think it's one of the best movies of the year.

Eddington, Aaron, I've already told you.

And the listeners probably already know this, but Ari Aster directed this.

This is his fourth film.

It's an A24 movie about what it was like to live through COVID and basically looking at people who were on the left and the right and everyone in between and going, without like sidestepping at all, looks all of us in the face and goes, look how stupid you were during that timeframe.

This movie is so unabashed and just making fun of everyone and saying, just like highlighting how wrong we all got it in different ways.

It's not an easy watch, none of Ari Aster's films are.

So if you like that kind of movie.

I have not gotten to see that one, but I have wanted to watch that one.

Like it's just one that I have not gotten to yet.

It's not one that I don't, I'm avoiding in any way, shape or form because it looks that good.

And I know you obviously like loved it.

So it's just, I think it's, it's looked incredible since the beginning.

Um, just like Frankenstein.

mean, we both enjoyed Frankenstein.

I, I want to say that Frankenstein was much like caught stealing for you that it was for me.

Like I normally don't really like a whole lot of gore.

I normally don't like, you know, just so much like, like just anatomy, guess in my films for the most part.

But Frankenstein was probably one of the most beautiful, beautiful films with like some body horror.

Frankenstein is definitely Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is one of those movies just like Dracula, just like the mummy that just gets done over and over and over and over again.

And Frankenstein this time was just like so much more of a, of a, approachable, beautiful artistic experience.

And I love Well, there's a reason for Aaron.

It's three words, I guess two words with a parentheses maybe.

Guillermo del Toro.

I mean, when he puts his mitts on anything, it is, I think a superior version of whatever it was before.

Totally.

And I mean, I think I agree with you 100%.

You know, actually Olivia and I watched this in a, we watched this in the Nevada airport during a lay, during a layover.

It was actually during the government shutdowns where all the controllers were gone.

So we're just sitting there watching Frankenstein and it was, mean, even watching it on like a iPad mini was still an incredible experience, right?

Moving on to Marty Supreme, again, another A24 movie, Timothy Charlemagne, one of the Safdie, think it's Josh Safdie, one of the best movies of the year.

I just watched this last week, maybe it's recency bias, but I had an incredible time with it.

One battle after another, as I said, Aaron didn't like it and I loved it.

It's one of my top three favorite Paul Thomas Anderson films.

It's my favorite movie of year.

It's one of the, it's the only movie this year that I gave it a five out of five with centers being a very close second.

Uh, I loved everything about it.

Yeah.

Again, we'll talk about it more on the grid, guess.

Um, let's talk about the smashing machine, Aaron.

I'm to pass it off to you.

I did see it.

I saw actually in a pretty empty theater and I liked it, but I didn't love it.

Whereas you loved it.

So I'm just curious, like why, and this is also why it's in this category.

We have a ton of a 24 in this category.

have warfare, smashing machine, Marty Supreme, Addington.

Yeah.

Yeah.

uh Fucking The Smashing Machine directed and written by Benny Safdie produced by uh Benny Safdie produced it along with, know, Dwayne DeWalk Johnson, just a bunch of people starring Dwayne Johnson, Emily Blunt, Ryan Bader, Bass Rudden, Alexander Usick.

This movie honestly could have been in the in the surprise hits for me.

It's the whips Mac category because I did not anticipate loving this movie as much as I did.

Dwayne Johnson just It continues to be an incredible, again, you think about like John fucking Cena and Dwayne Johnson and all these fucking wrestlers who are fucking killing it.

Like, how are they that good?

You know, and it's, and Batista, yeah, like so good.

And this is one of those ones I was like, holy shit, Dwayne Johnson is like killing this and he's like playing this like, like white MMA fighter, you know?

And it's like, he's emotional and he just like, he's not this joke.

I don't know.

It was just an incredible, an incredible role.

he, it's the best performance of his career as an actor.

Right.

uh like he should, he's already, he and Emily Blunt both got noms in the golden gloves.

It's crazy.

Everyone listen to me when I say this, and it's not for sure yet, cause we're recording this on January 3rd.

He's going to get nominated for best actor.

Dwayne Johnson is going to get nominated for best actor because of this role.

And that's crazy to me.

He's not going to win, but he is going to be nominated.

that's, that's, as we've said, like winning, losing doesn't matter.

It's all about the nomination.

That's incredible.

So I agree.

Like I said, I had a good time with it.

I just didn't love it as much as you did.

Superman.

I mean, we already talked about it.

It's the best superhero movie of the year.

It's the, gosh.

Aaron, it the best Superman movie of all time?

Is it better than Superman 78?

Yeah.

I think it is too, honestly.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

I'm not gonna lie Superman the first 178 is kind of fucking boring Here goes Aaron again with one of his classic takes.

uh I don't know if I'd go that far.

don't know if I'd go that far.

uh Who's holding you?

Who's holding me?

Or whatever she says.

Anyway, I think it's of its time.

It's a 70s, late 70s superhero movie.

mean, Christopher Reeves is Superman in the same way that I feel like, I mean, I don't know which of those two is my favorite, but it is, I think it is between Christopher Reeves and David Cornswede is my two favorite super supermans.

So that's saying a lot for a movie that just came out a couple months ago.

I'm a Nicholas Cage fan.

Yeah, we do get to see him in the flash.

yeah, anyway, warfare.

Aaron, I'd love for you to take a quick moment.

Just talk about this movie because again, while we both served in the military, I did not see theater the same way you did.

And this movie from Alex Garland and Raymond Doza.

Again, I'll hand it off to you.

It is, it's very powerful.

say.

Yes.

It is an incredibly, this movie will rock you.

it, regardless of you served or you didn't, like there's so, there's so many interesting messages.

There's so many different lessons from this movie and it's, it's an experience.

It is really take it from somebody who was, I was there.

Like I was in Ramadi.

This, this, this movie takes place in Ramadi in 2006, I want to say 2006.

Yeah, I think so.

it's 2005, 2006, but regardless, um, in Ramadi and I was actually in that city in a different part, like during this complex attack, they hit multiple parts of the city and I, took me to watch this movie to remember that, like that was around one of the times where I had one of my brain injuries and like to remember that way, like it, and to be like, Holy shit, I was there.

It's like, it's incredibly, I can't even put that, that feeling into words, but it is the, to have a movie.

And again, Alex Garland, said it like this is a movie to kind of start a conversation or they said it's movie started conversation between hopefully like veterans and their families because we don't talk about what goes on enough.

And to be able to have, you know, like my wife in the theater with me to like see what happened and like the, the, the, the pure realism of this film is incredible.

So it's this movie obviously deserved a five, 5.0 for me.

it could have been, could have been the winner, could have been the winner.

And then weapons.

We've talked about it already.

It was a surprise hit of the year.

It was very much in the contention for best movie the year.

Yeah, I mean, it was an intense watch.

was one of the more interesting approaches to a horror film I've ever seen in terms of telling all of these different perspectives from different characters and then bringing them all together at the end and sort of why this town, what's happening to this town and all those things.

So yeah.

I mean, I think everyone's great in it.

think specifically of, uh, you know, Julia Gardner's character, Justine in the movie.

think as we said earlier, it's sort of telling many different things, but I think what I found most compelling or one of the more compelling things about it was what it's like to be an educator in modern day and how like when put into a crisis, when parents are put when their backs up against the wall, many don't look inward.

They look outward to the people who they are forcing raise their kids anyway.

And that usually is educators and they're like, why is my kid an idiot?

Why is my kid such a dick?

Why is he shooting up a school?

Is it your fault teacher?

ah No, the correct answer to that quiz is no, it is not your teacher's fault.

It's the parents' fault, it's the society's fault, it's all of these things.

my son failing this class because he spends every moment at home on this fucking uh phone or on the game system or on the computer or fucking doing whatever.

Right.

Josh Brolin and his character and like him not understanding what it was like, what it meant to be a father until his kid was gone.

That is so relatable to everyone who's had kids and Aaron, that is not us by the way.

We don't have kids, but like if you talked to any parent and actually I can even tell you from experience as someone who like has left home, my mom and I were never closer until after I left.

The moment I left the house, her and I became like best friends and she's the most important person in my life as she was at that time, but it didn't really dawn on me.

until I left and that's totally Josh Brolin's character and his the sort of his journey in this film, you know?

So anyway, weapons is incredible, but honestly, as we said, we've talked more about the people that didn't win than the ones that did.

Uh, centers again, centers.

Right.

Yeah.

Enough said about centers.

Um, no centers is incredible.

mean, you know, this movie, it actually, I don't if you saw, but it got, uh, seven nominations for the golden globe.

like we haven't gotten the Oscar nominations yet, but it'll get maybe.

just as many, if not more.

uh This movie was a box office darling.

cost $90 million to make and it made 400 million.

So, and best thing of it all is that Ryan Coogler made this sweetheart deal with Warner Brothers to where he retains the rights in 15 years.

mean, Michael B.

Jordan, what else can we say?

He is also going to get a best actor nom as he should.

You know what's funny?

They should give Michael B.

Jordan best actor and best supporting actor.

That would be funny.

That would be hilarious.

we've already said enough about it.

Please go listen to our conversation with Brett Gullixson about this movie.

But I want to give another quick shout out to Miles Canton, first time acting as preacher boy, incredible voice, but also incredible job in this movie as, as preacher boy.

So Aaron, anything you want to say about centers or any of the other films before we get out of here?

You nailed it.

You absolutely nailed it.

This movie was, and again, only warfare and sinners have ever gotten fives for me.

It's perfect films.

And this was the first one.

This was number one.

And so, and I had to because visually, an amazing movie, the soundtrack, the ambiance in every scene, the detail, the looks, the dirt, the characters, the dancing, the costumes, that...

barn scene where he burns the bar to the ground.

Insane.

so, just again, that movie, seeing it in, in, this, on the screen that we did, it was an experience.

can't say anything else besides like, that's what going to the movies used to be.

And that's what it should continue to be.

Not some bullshit, you know, this is, this is a movie.

you, if it, when it goes, when it goes back to theaters, you need to watch it in theaters because that is just, it's like reliving, uh, one the best concert you've ever seen in person over again.

Yeah, it's like a religious experience.

I felt like that multiple times.

When I look through our David A.

Weiner movie of the year nominations, I felt that with Marty Supreme, One Battle After Another, Sinners, Superman, Warfare, and Weapons.

All of those moments in theaters and cost stealing, think to a lesser extent, not as much as the other ones, but even in that movie, was like, this is what it should be like going to the movies.

The way I feel right now, this is why the movie theater is my church.

This is why I covet this space so much and it's why I want it to continue.

And as we talked about during our most anticipated films of 2026, we'll see, we'll see if that continues.

I don't know, especially with Warner Brothers and Netflix and all that crap.

But the point is, that like these movies represent the best of what we have to offer for movies in our current landscape, but that will do it, Aaron, for our last call awards.

And that'll do it for all of our episodes, you know, quote unquote in 2025.

So.

Any last thoughts, anything you want to sort of end the year on before we get out of here?

uh It's been an incredible incredible year.

I think that thank you again for to David Weiner for being so supporting and letting us use his name as our you know Its royalties of what's nothing of nothing And thank you to the listeners.

Thank you to the patreon family the the group the community Thank you so much for sticking with us uh man, I know this isn't the last show of the year because technically the first show of the 2026, but like last year was just incredible.

And again, we continue to grow this because of everybody who's participated in all this, all of our guests feel free.

If you're listening to this or if you see us on social media, tag your favorite guests, tag, tag people you want to see on the show.

You want to hear about tag, you know, let us know all this stuff.

Cause again, this is, we're not stopping.

We're going to, we're going to do what we can when we have with the time that we have on this planet.

And Talk about things we love.

Yep.

Talk about things we love with people we love and Chris, I fucking love you, uh You're my boy blue.

But yeah, to echo all of that and also say, yeah, thank you to everybody listening.

For anybody who listens to the Abilene bar, that is truly enough.

means more to Aaron and I than we can put into words.

This silly show that we started as a vehicle for us to talk about things we love has slowly grown over the last five, going into six years now.

And it's a thing that I still care deeply about and covet to a point where like it still takes up a lot of my mental.

space and, um, for better or worse, you know, it's something that I still have a lot of pride in.

It's something that I still love doing with you, Aaron.

I don't see us stopping anytime soon.

And, uh, I just want to take this time again, as you said, Aaron, sort of again to, to ditto all of that.

Thank you to all of our guests specifically, you know, everybody who came on the show, who a either reached out or B came on when we asked them to a special shout out again to all of our programs and David for continuing to support us over on Patreon and, Yeah, here's to you.

We're missing some of the most important people.

Our partners.

Aaron, I'll let you, I'll let you thank them here in just a moment because, it's part of our, part of our, our finale, but yeah, I guess, here's to another great year of oblivion bar podcasting and we'll keep being inappropriate at the right times and we'll keep bringing our very, I don't know how to describe.

I always have a hard time describing what we do, Aaron, cause we, we take more stock into our conversations than two dudes who just get in front of a mic and talk.

but we're not so serious to ever consider ourselves quote unquote journalists in my opinion.

So whatever we do, we're going to keep doing it and you're going to either a listen to it or be not.

So cool.

There's my bad way of ending that.

Aaron, take us out of here.

Thank you everybody.

We appreciate it.

Take us out of the show, Aaron.

I am a journalist.

went to school for it.

Subscribe to our podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Audible, iHeartRadio.

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You're not going to edit this, you?

uh Big thank you to Oni Press and Endless Comics Games and Cards for sparring through the show.

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He's at KXD Graphics on Instagram.

Thank you Dream Kit for all of our musical themes.

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And last but not least, do not forget to tip your bartenders 20 % or more, probably more, especially if it's a holiday, because I doubt you did them justice, but I'm going to you the benefit of the doubt, people.

If anyone's listening at this point, will you have the benefit of doubt?

ah Once again, one last time.

Thank you all so much.

We genuinely appreciate it.

from Aaron and I another successful year of oblivion bar podcasting and here's to 2026.

So thank you all so much.

We appreciate it.

We will see you all in 2026.