We're Tomy Lorenzo and this is the Pop Style Opinion Fest.

Hell look it and welcome back to another edition of the Pso.

I am the Tea and you're te Lo Tom Fitzgerald, and I'm here with the Low and your t Lo lorenzous, my love husband.

I'm wonderful.

My mom is here, very excited about it.

Then I'm about to pick up my brother at the airport.

So things are moving.

Things are moving.

The house is clean, the katy's are baked.

And you know, my mother couldn't believe how clean and everything and how wonderful the house looks.

And she was like, oh my god, this is so wonderful.

Yeah, we're very excited.

Very excited.

The place looks great.

We're going to have a lovely, lovely holiday, and I hope you are as well, all of you out there in podcast land.

It's our final podcast of the year, and as is typical for the last few years, I'm not sure how long we've been doing this, but we have been doing a year end best of list.

We each pick our three favorite TV shows and our three favorite movies of the year.

These, more than in recent years, I really feel like I have to quantify my choice my picture, not justify them.

But I'll be perfectly blunt.

As we have outlined in previous podcasts, I've spent most of the last year and a half working on two different book proposals, and I am very behind on things like my movie watching.

So when it came time to depict to pick, you know, I was like, damn, I have not seen We have a ton of screeners, but right from publishing that feature article in the Philadelphia Inquir into planning for Christmas, and I never got a chance to sit and watch these screens right, So my list is first off, extremely nerd heavy.

I wouldn't normally have so many nerdy choices, but I really am very I'm going to get caught up on all the prestige films over the holiday, but I'm gonna have to pick some make some very nerdy choices.

But do you want to quantify your list in any way before we start.

Well, I just want to say that these are my choices.

Yeah, these are not the best.

These are I have to say.

I was going through all the movies I watch and want to watch because we have a ton of screen as, like Tom mentioned, and we haven't had the time yet.

But there are a ton of great movies out there, yes, so, but these are my choices.

And I actually liked so many movies, but these specifically are the ones who spoke to me in a way you know that others didn't.

Just yeah, it's just made me think.

When when I watch a movie or a TV show that makes me think about it for like days, you know, I can't stop thinking about it, those are the ones that I want to mention because they really made me think about something else, larger than just entertainment, right, bigger than entertainment.

I will say that my my TV choices are I am up on my TV viewing and they do represent right, my well, both lists represent my best, but I do feel like the movie list is I don't know, I could have made more inspired choices, But when I looked at it, I was like, these are the three movies that I enjoyed the most.

That when I think of movies this year that I enjoyed the most, these are the three that that pop.

Up that you too.

We're not going to start with movies.

We're going to start with TV shows, all right, So I'll go first.

I'll do one, then you do one, and back and forth and back and forth.

Okay, so top three TV shows of the year for me, I'm going to start with Severance, of course, well not of course, because I do think the show is in danger of going up its own I will say that a lot of the shows that I'm talking well, two of the shows that I'm talking about, they're not flawless shows.

And you you did hear me critique these shows earlier in the years, so and that's also true of one of the movies that I chose.

They're not necessarily flawless.

But in this case, severance to me is important.

It is.

I think when we look back on this period of you know, encroaching AI and corporate overreach and and our loss of social identity, I feel like Severance is is going to be at the top of, you know, the shows that we talk about when we talk about this period.

I think it speaks to a lot of people about what they're about, the dehumanzation of being an employee in America at the moment.

And I think it's visually one of the most interesting shows on TV in the last ten or fifteen years.

I don't think anything quite looks like Severns.

When you think of Severns, you think of a very specific look.

I totally agree with you.

I have to say, didn't love the second season, but the first season blew me away.

It was it was new on TV, something completing, new on TV right absolutely incredible, and I agree it.

I had some issues with where it went or how it's it's it's unpacking certain things, but the story is, to my pleasant surprise, a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be going into it, and it is about things much larger than simply being a cog in a corporate environment.

It's got some some of the best performances on television right now.

It's got a really great cast, it has it has had a string of in the second season, very very very strong director director lineup, And yeah, I would definitely recommend that if you haven't caught up on Severance.

It's definitely one of my recommended ones for the last several years.

It's not a perfect show.

It can be frustrating in a lot of ways.

Sometimes it gets it goes a little bit up its own ass another time, and other times it seems a little bit too in love with being weird and not really unpacking why it's being the I'd like the thing with the goats and everything in that room.

It was just like, all right, you lost me here.

I didn't like the thing with the marching band either, but that was a huge meme.

Everybody went nuts for it.

The show is very good at pushing buttons and producing images that people can't stop talking about.

So Severance, that's my number one, not my number one, but my first choice.

Yeah.

There's no particular order here, and uh, it's it's just stuff that I that I remember.

So my first choice is, uh, Death by Lightning on Netflix, which is it was created by Mike mccoffs mconfis, I believe his name.

I saw the screeners first and again sometimes I watch screeners, and the great thing about watching screen is is that you watch it ahead of a lot of people, so you have a reaction and then you can't wait to see how people are going to react to it.

And the reaction was great.

Yeah, so I was pleased.

I absolutely love the show.

Uh, I think first of all, it' that's my likening is about the twentieth President of the United States, James Garfield, and his assassination by Charles guttu.

So that's pretty much the story there, uh, the you know, the basic plot line.

But there's a lot more than that.

First of all, it's all about uh, the uh political climate of the time.

And I, you know, we're going through so many things right now that I don't want to talk about.

But it reminds me so much about how choices are made in terms of you know, political decisions, and how things are are established and and and and decided, you know, and that you know, we just watch it being done.

Uh and we have I mean, except for the fact that we vote, we have absolutely no control over it.

Uh.

So that made me think a lot about that and the yes and and and also I always love to watch American History on TV because, uh, it's it's it's an interesting It makes me go to you know, to the computer immediately and and research more about it and uh, get more facts, get the facts.

And see like a lot of America.

Yes, I don't didn't know a lot about Garfield exactly, so a lot.

Of people didn't even know who he was or I didn't know much about him.

And uh, of course, of course his wife is played by Betty Gilpin, who is my god.

I absolutely love that woman.

I think she is phenomenal and she does such It's a very small role.

I mean, she doesn't say much, but when she does, it's just brilliant.

There's a scene when she talks with Charles Gutou and it's just mind blowing what she says about how things or you know, how people forget things, how they'll forget about her husband the president, and how Yeah, we just pick and choose what we forget, what we remember, and how history just disappears sometimes, you know.

It was another that was another show that was full of some lovely, finely tuned performances, and not least which is Matthew Mcca Charles Guto.

I think he's probably going to get a nomination out of that.

Michael Schenna is always phenomenal and he's so good.

But I had a yest.

I feel McFadden is great.

It's he's insane.

He is so literally he is so great.

Uh and that's another issue, uh, you know about mental illness and all that.

It's just so beautiful.

The movie is gorgeous, absolutely gorgeous.

The scene at the National Convention.

I can't stop thinking about it.

It is so beautiful.

All I can think is like, how did you put that together?

Well in a computer?

Yes, but even soeous it's just gorgeous.

The movies, uh, the series, the TV show is based on the book Destiny of the Republic, and the costumes are absolutely gorgeous.

There by thereby Michael Wilkinson, who also designed the costumes for Dune and and Or Actually yeah, just beautiful, beautiful, absolutely stunning costume.

The whole thing is gorgeous.

A little, not a little, very depressing.

Show sometimes makes you it's gonna make you sad, but at the same time, it's going to make you think, make you think a lot about It's going to make you think about a lot of things, especially American history and American politics right now.

So I highly recommend it it.

It's definitely one of my favorite TV shows this year.

Same although it didn't make my list, I'm going to jump to my next one.

I said, this wasn't a countdown, and these aren't going in any order, but this is my number one TV show of the year, which is and or Nothing, which didn't.

Get a lot of the love to deserve, right, I guess.

It not as much as it should have.

It really was one of the most intelligent, gripping TV shows of the year, with just across the board fantastic performances.

I think, of course, because it is part of the Star Wars franchise, you know it's not going to necessarily receive this same sort of prestige regard that a lot of TV shows in its at its level would so.

But it's it's I mean, it is breathtaking as a television show, emotional epic.

It has an ability to be small in its storytelling and then go very, very large and its storytelling.

It managed to completely alter the Star Wars universe, not in a in a you know, everything that existed prior to and Or still exists.

You don't have to look at it in a different light.

But I always I believe I made this point when I reviewed the second season, which is that it and Or did for the Star Wars universe what the Lord of the Rings trilogy did for middle Earth.

Because you know, prior to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Middle Earth was the setting of a children's book, The High and it had a somewhat naive, whimsical approach to it.

And then Lord of the Rings came along, and it was about is set in the same world, but it was much deeper, much darker, and in many ways more adult than The Hobbit, and and Or is very much in that same vein.

It doesn't it doesn't shy away from the universe that it's in.

It's very much Star Wars with the Pew pew and the spaceships and all that stuff.

But it's a real examination of fascism, of imperialism, of what it's like to be oppressed, of what it takes for oppressed people to fight back.

And I don't mean, and I don't mean this in a disparaging way, but I don't mean like fight back by marching in the street and protesting.

I mean fight back by literally tearing down structures, killing people, actual revolutionary acts.

I think mon Mathma, played by Jennyy is literally one of the most fascinating characters in last year of television because you were essentially had to watch Hillary Clinton go from being a senator to being an absolute revolutionary tearing down a republic.

And that is what her character was.

That what that's what the arc was.

You were watching someone in a seat of power saying no, we have to tear all of this down.

The only way.

The only way we can win is if we tear it all down.

That's beautiful, yes, and it's a very timely message at the moment.

Not that I'm calling for revolution or anything like that, but the show definitely struck a nerve.

I think it was notable that so many people thought it was a show about, for instance, Gaza, or that it was somehow referencing Trump.

But while I'm sure that is true in certain cases, it was a show about fascism.

It was a show about oppression.

So the fact that but you could see examples in the real world at the same time doesn't mean it was pulling from those examples.

It means it was illustrating those concepts very very well, so that if you're looking at and Or and you're immediately thinking of Palestine, well then it did its job.

It did its job as a piece of art.

Honestly, just the most one of the most intelligent shows of the last three or four years at least, and there have been a lot of really smart shows and by far, by far, the best thing in the Star Wars universe.

Ever, no argument, I mean, I'm not even gonna hear any arguments on this.

Nothing ever came as close as this did to excellence in the Star Wars universe.

So and or number one pick of the year, Why don't we take a quick break, right and will do your next pick.

We're back and we're talking about our favorite TV shows of two tenty and twenty five.

And Uh, I'm gonna talk about my second choice, which is of course House of Guinness again Netflix.

What can I do?

It's I guess it has a lot again my favorite choice.

Uh.

I guess it has a lot to do with us traveling to Ireland.

Uh.

And I we went to the brewery, the uh, you know, the Guinness Brewery, and we saw that I don't know, I was just fascinated by the whole history of it.

And then surprise, surprise, Netflix had a show about it.

And it's called House of Guinness and it's about the It's pretty much it's about the the when the founder of the the of the brewery died.

Uh, Sir Benjamin Guinness dies and uh and it's all about his will and you know the impact that his will had on his children and their faith.

You know now that they have to take care of the whole business and the whole you know, family thing.

So that was alone was very interesting to me because I didn't know a lot about the family.

I didn't know a lot about the brewery, although we went to the to the brewery, the museum and all that, but you know, I didn't get a lot of information.

So I'm and the fact that was a queer, you know, family member, all that fascinated me.

I went online and I did a lot of research and found out more about it.

But I thought the show was interesting, the whole thing with the family, the whole dynamic, the you know, talking about island back back in eighteen sixty eight, and because it said in the nineteenth century Dublin, and I was fascinated by the fact that the I didn't know this, and it blew my mind that the family was actually Protestant.

And it's very interesting to see how they went from you know, being lawyers to the crown, you know, supporting the crown too, becoming pretty much the I don't know, the image of island.

So to me, that was incredible that that's the journey here of the whole brand, the whole family.

So I think they did a very good job.

The creators are the same people who did Peaky Blinders, so Stephen Knight the creator.

So if you if you watch Peaky Blind, it get it has that vibe kind of like it's an you know, it's a it's a It has a lot of music, interesting music.

That's the other thing I loved about it because there's a lot of Irish music, contemporary Irish music, so that was awesome to see and hear.

And the costumes, my god, the costumes are absolutely insane.

Costumes are insane.

Designed by Edward K.

Gibbon.

Just beautiful.

I'm I'm a costume design guy.

I just love it.

I look at everything, the buttons, everything had it just looked incredible.

The show looks incredible.

It was interesting.

It's as I as we mentioned and I mentioned before here on the podcast, it's it's a little soap operation.

But if you can go with that, it's an interesting story, beautiful setup, interesting piece of history.

So I loved it.

You watch it too, yeahrrect, I loved it too.

It didn't make my list, but I did love it.

It's yeah, that's a history.

That's my second choice of TV shows.

Excellent choice.

My third choice is one that I've been singing the praises of which is Ploribus also on Apple TV Plus.

Two of my choices are Apple TV Plus, which is very strange anyway, Well, I mean, no one ever talks about Apple TV Plus, but it actually does protest some of the best shows on television, so Plorabus.

It's been interesting watching Plorabus unfold because I came out of the gate singing the praises of this show.

Really loved it for its intelligent, grown up take on a type of story that we've seen a lot of in the last fifteen years, which is humanity changes drastically, and it's it's not quite opposed apocalyptic.

It's not a zombie tale or anything like that, but it it has a lot of the markers of that.

But it's not a show about violence or about death.

It's a show about emotions.

So it's taking the apocalypse.

It's taken all the tropes of an apocalyptic event and applying them to an emotional arc.

And one of the things I truly loved about this and still do love about it, but it has turned out to be one of the more controversial aspects of the show is that the lead character is a bitter, middle aged lesbian, and I like that well, first off I've said this before, back when we were doing well, when we reviewed the first season of The Last of Us and they had that episode with Nick Offerman and and his name went right out of my head, but he won the Emmy for it.

Murray Bartlett as a gay couple in The Apocalypse, and I loved that episode because it, you know, The Walking Dead had had gay characters in the Apocalypse, but it never really unpacked what it was like to be gay in the Apocalypse, and The Last of Us did that, and parts parts, not all of but parts of Ploribus deal with the fact that she is middle aged, she doesn't have children, and her partner died, so she is alone in the world in more ways than one.

And I think it would have been harder to do that with a character who was, say, a heterosexual wife and mom.

You know, I mean, you can have a lesbian wife and mom.

But I like the fact that she's not that.

I like the fact that she is alone, and she is bitter, and she is really really difficult to deal with.

On the other hand, I think the show expects you to unpack your own reactions to Carol, because I've seen a lot of complaints or criticism the show, like, oh my god, I like this show, but I don't know if I can watch this woman because she's so sour, she's so mean, she's so hard, she's an entitled white woman, whatever, whatever, whatever, But it's asking you to to sort of grapple with your reaction to that.

Famously, the show is the creator of it's created by Vince Gilligan, who created Breaking Bad, and I feel like some of this is built into the creation of this show.

Famously, the fandom of Breaking Bad turned on the wife of Walter White, the character, the lead character, and constantly, you know, made her out to be this bitch, and it you know, it turned out that she wasn't the bad guy in the story.

He was the bad guy in the story.

And it took the viewership of that show a little bit too long to realize that.

And even today there were fans of Breaking Bed who go on and on and on about what a bitch she was.

Yeah, So I think that was that that experience informed how this show was created and why Carol is the way she is.

I think Vince Gilligan is deliberately throwing a very difficult woman at you and asking you to come to terms with your reaction to her, because this is what I keep trying to get back to.

Carol may be hard to take, but if you look at where what has happened to Carol and where she is in the world, of course she's of course she's difficult.

Of Course she's kind of a bitch.

Her her wife died, her wife was killed by this event.

She's alone in the world.

She and I mean, she's really alone in the world.

And I think ray Sehorn is just doing a phenomenal, phenomenal job of unpacking what it would be like to be a middle aged gay person in the world as it's ending and you're all on your own.

Just love that about it.

Now the show is like, well I would I was gonna say, like all the shows on my list, but actually and Or is flawless.

But plor of Us has some flaws, and the least one of them is it's pacing.

Now, it's hard for me to call that a flaw because it's so clearly deliberate, which you know, flaws can be deliberate, they can be you know, a mistaken creative impulse.

And I'm waiting to see how this plays out.

But the show has a tremendous pacing issue, and again I feel it feels almost wrong to call it an issue.

It has a style of pacing that is very deliberate and very slow and takes its time, and that can be very frustrating and you want the story to move.

And there are several episodes, you know, halfway through the season where I was like, I don't know, it's just really going to work for me, But then something will happen, be some emotional scene or some slight turn in the story.

There's no major twists and turns, but there are quiet ones.

There are quiet little surprises that happen here and there that make you realize this story is going somewhere, and this story is much much bigger than whatever's happening in this first season.

The season one finale drops later this week, and you know, it may change my opinion on the show how they handle this season finale, because I really feel like, as much as I am okay with the fact that it's pacing is very slow and deliberate, I really need something to happen at the finale.

I don't mean an explosion.

I just mean something that makes me say, holy shit, what's going to happen next, and the show is it's not spinning its wheels.

Like I said, every single thing it does is very very deliberate, and I feel like this the pacing way.

I mean, like it'll show someone making a jar lemonade, like literally, just show her making a jar of lemonade.

The scene will come to a stop while you watch.

And the show is full of stuff like that.

But I also think Vince Gilligan loves to portray processes on camera, and I also think there's a point being made about these processes.

The world, the world in Plorabis is nothing but processes anymore.

There's no emotions, there's no creativity.

It's people going through, you know, completing tasks and slowly but surely the show is demonstrating how that is going to kill the whole world if if it, you know, if there isn't some form of course correction, everybody dies in ten years.

So yeah, fascinating show, unusual, unusual setup and premise behind the show.

But like I said, that plays with all of these tropes of various types of TV shows that you have seen before.

So Ploribus is my number three, not in that order, but my third pick on this list.

What choice, So my last choice is The Lessons again Netflix.

I thought I didn't know what to expect.

It's actually not even my kind of show.

But I absolutely love the show.

I mean, you know, aside all the praise and you know it's high praise one hundred percent and rotten tomatoes.

I mean, everybody was in love with the show.

I loved the story.

I thought it was extremely realistic portrayal of a you know, so called normal family dealing with a very serious situation, uh, dealing with it with you know, with adolescents and young children or young people you know, on online the whole online life, social media and all that, which I think is a very serious issue.

And if you're a parent, I'm sure that's a nightmare for you to deal with.

So I thought it was an extremely intelligent show.

It's about a thirteen year old who murdered you know, a schoolmate, and the charges again the kid and the family dealing with that, the parents dealing with the nightmare of having a kid, you know, charged with murder.

I thought it was well done because honestly, you don't know, you can't really tell if he did it or not, and there's the whole process of him talking about it or not talking about it, and the parents dealing with it, and you know, the police and everybody involved.

It's very tense, very stressful the whole time you're watching it.

But I really appreciate the little guy, the actor who plays the thirteen year old O when Cooper.

He was phenomenal for I mean, a young kid who did eight fantastic job, and so I highly recommend it.

It's like I said, it's stressful.

Uh, it's it's something that you know, I'm not a parent, I don't have kids, but it's something that I always you know, see and wittings every now and then, parents having to deal with their kids in very difficult situations.

And that's a terrible thing to deal with as a parent.

And I think the show.

My point is that I think the show did a very good job keeping it contemporary and modern, you know, the language, the the how to deal with the situation, and and the whole online thing, which I believe is a very serious issue for parents to deal with.

So anyway, that's my third choice.

I really like the show, and I'm excellent choice.

I mean critically acclaimed everybody.

That's the thing I mean, I I like it because I liked it, but but again, I was pleased to see that a lot of people love the show and then they praise the kid.

There's a scene where he a famous scene that everybody's talking about it that he has has a session with a psychologist and it's the most amazing scene you can watch.

I actually ask people, is this did they do a good job?

And everybody I talked to said, yes, Uh, that is a phenomenal They did a phenomenal job.

It's it's a beautiful scene.

Anyway.

That's that.

That's my third choice Adolescent on Netflix fantastic.

Moving on to movies, Uh, we're gonna pick our We're each going to pick our three favorite movies of the year.

Like I said, I'm I'm not going to pick exactly.

I'm not going to pick Prestige because I really didn't see enough Prestige films this year.

Although my first pick on the list is a critically acclaimed film.

Uh, it's Ryan Coogler Sinners, starring Michael B.

Jordan and Hanley Steinfeld and one Me Massako and del Roy Linda, And it's just a freaking phenomenal cast on It's you know, it's As I said, a lot of my choices are a little on the nerdy side this year.

I wouldn't necessarily call this a nerdy movie, but it is a genre film.

Like I'm picking all these science fiction films or science fiction TV shows, and now my first movie is a vampire movie.

But I feel like it's a misnomer to call Centers a vampire movie.

I do feel like if there's any criticism to make of that film is that in the second the first half of the movie is just this astonishing portrayal of Black American life in the South in the first part of the twentieth century, especially black rural American life.

And it's also a meditation on not just not just African American music, but on music generally, with a specific you know, focus on African American music, and strangely enough, on Irish music.

So it's this wonderful, contemplative, beautiful examination of life for these people.

And then halfway through the film it turns into a vampire movie.

And in many respects, the second half of the film is fairly standard as a vampire movie.

It's not going to produce anything new or interesting to that genre or to that mythos, but it's such an intelligent, intelligent film.

It's such a humanistic film, it's such a musical film, and it is so so beautiful to look at.

The performances across the bord are amazing, absolutely amazing.

Michael B Jordan, Wum Massako and Hailee Seinfeld are just top of the line.

And I think part of the reason this film is on my list is because I cannot stop thinking of the ending, which I'm not going to give away, but I thought it had a surprisingly I don't want to say downbeat.

It wasn't depressing, but just melancholy sort of ending.

Just it made me sad, and it was designed to do that, and as such, it was an examination not just on music, but on aging and on death.

And you know, every story that examines death is ultimately a story about life, So there's a lot in that mix.

And I really really loved it and it stuck with me for months after I saw it.

So that is my number one pick so far, which is Centers by Ryan Coogler.

Sorry, pardon me, I am fighting a cold so bad right now, right now, I apologize anyway.

My first choice of movies, uh is Trained Dreams of course I have to have Train Dreams on my list of favorite movies.

That movie made me weep.

I absolutely adore the movie.

Uh.

It's it's a movie about a logger and a railroad worker and his family, and you know kind of it's it's in all about America in the early twentieth century.

So it's it's a phenomena movie, very slow paced, very quiet movie about a very simple guy, ordinary guy in his family.

And that's what I love about the movie because I love these characters that you know, I have.

I tend to think that we we praise achievements so much.

It's I think, I think, you know, we're always looking for achieving things in life, getting things in life, and doing things in life, and we tend to, you know, look people having just an ordinary life going to work, coming home, you know, being with a family as something that they should be looked down upon, you know, like I, And so I absolutely appreciate the character Uh played by Joe Edgerton.

He is phenomenal.

He's so so, so good.

UH.

And his wife Felicity Jones, also very good.

And then he meets someone, uh, you know, don't want to give too much away, played by Carry Cohn, who also gives an amazing performance.

The movie is based on a book by Dannis Johnson uh and it's just phenomenal story of a guy who has an ordinary job, ordinary life, and he, you know, he experienced a lot of pain and loss.

Again, I don't want to give anything away, but it's how he deals with with with losing something and and just having an observing life.

I mean, he he is a simple guy observing what's going on in the country, you know, observing, observing what life is about.

He gets to see a lot.

The show is very subtle, but talks about racism, talks about changes and how you deal with changes as a simple person.

I mean, there's a scene when he's watching something that happened in the twentieth century on TV, and his reaction to me was just beautiful.

It's the reaction of someone who, you know, according to a lot of people, is not doing much for the world, for the country, you know, or to change anything, and yet he's there watching something happen.

So I love the movie.

I highly recommend it, recommend it, and I just I don't know, it touched me a lot, just because I don't know.

I tend to admire people having a simple life.

Sometimes I look at people having a simple life and I'm like, you know, you can live that way.

You know, you do not have have to win everything, and you know, which is great if that's what you want.

But you know, it's also admired to admirable to see someone having just you know, a simple, decent life, and that's what the movie's about.

Agreed.

Let's take another break and we'll be back with our final picks of the year for our favorite movies.

We're back and my second uncomplicated pick a favorite movie of the year, Surprise Rise.

Superman Again, very nerdy picks this year, and I get I would not.

I don't think Superman the movie, the Superman the twenty twenty five movie is something that should be in awards consideration or anything like that.

It's not that kind of film.

Well, the reason I put it on this list is for the same reason I have centers on this list, and the same reason my third choice is on this list, which is that I just enjoyed it.

It was an enjoyable piece of filmmaking.

It knew what it wanted to be, it knew what it wanted to respond to, and the film was, in so many ways a response to the rather disastrous string of d C comics movies that have come out since Man of Steel starring Henry Cavill.

The DCEU, as it was called, its version of of Superman was, you know, a sort of a darkly morose character.

I won't suggest that it was wrong, because there are versions of the character and the comics that are like that, but I do think it was a poor choice for the for a cinematic version of the character.

You want your Superman to be smiling.

You want your Superman to fly through sunny skies.

You want him rescuing cats from trees.

You you don't want him wrestling with murder, you know, or debating whether or not he he should even help people.

Superman helps people.

That's he's uncomplicated.

And I think the problem with the Snyder movies, the Zack Snyder movies like Man of Steel, was that they tried to complicate a character that he's just not complicated.

And in fact, in twenty twenty five, what people really wanted from their Superman and from their superhero movie was an uncomplicated hero, and that's exactly what the film delivered.

It was.

You know, it was like picking up a DC comic in the middle of a storyline, which I loved because I don't think anyone's ever done a superhero movie like that where you're you're essentially in the middle of things.

It starts off and things have happened already and you have to get caught up, and that's exactly like picking up a comic book.

It does not It's not caught up in his origin or anything like that there.

It's not caught up in any past trauma of his It's simply about who Superman is and what it takes for him to be as good as he is.

It's also the best version of the Lois and Clark relationship ever depicted on screen.

Rachel Brosihan is I still have a saft spot from Margot Kidder, but Rachel Brosihan really brings an intelligence and a modernity to a character that was created in nineteen thirty eight, and she was a retrograde character when she was created.

I like that there are questions about journalistic ethics that were brought up in this story because there have always been questions of journalistic ethics in the Superman story.

And it was nice to see them verbalized.

And Nicholas Holt best best Lex Luthor.

I mean, I love Gene Hackman too, May he rest, but Luthor is supposed to be someone who hates that guy, hates him, hates him, hates him with every fiber of his being.

And if you get him started, he will go off as to why everyone should hate that guy.

And a really good portrayal of Luthor will have you almost thinking, well, maybe he has a point, maybe Superman is bad for us.

Uh.

And that's what that was.

That's what Nicholas Holt brought to it.

He brought an intensity, he brought a insanity to the role, but he also brought, much like Rachel Brosnahan did, a real intelligence to the role.

And finally, David corn Sweat.

I mean, I just think he's the best.

You couldn't a best for a better Superman in the modern era.

He's cute, he's funny, funny, he's charming.

Right, he reminds me a lot of Christopher like that.

That.

Yeah, but I don't think he's doing anything like him.

I don't think he's That's why I say modern, he's I think so many portrayals of Superman have had to wrestle with Christopher reeves portrayal of the character and whether or not you continue that portrayal or respond to that portrayal or defy that portrayal, and in in Superman that this version, I didn't feel that.

I didn't feel like Christopher Reeve's ghost was hanging over this storyline at all, and I felt that Corn Sweat and director James Gunn wisely took this character away from any sort of homage to previous portrayals of the characters.

So to me, it was fresh, which is not something you can say about a lot of superhero movies in twenty twenty five.

And it was fun, again, not something you can say.

I mean, superhero movies in the past ten years have just become homework.

They've become these dreary continuity slogs, and it was just really nice to say, you know what, we don't need to worry about the backstory.

Let's just have them, let's just go full on into a Superman adventure.

And that's what the film was.

So that's my number two pick.

Fantastic, So my number one, number two pick.

People are going to probably be surprised you were spiked to it like, really, it's night always comes.

I didn't like it all.

Love the movie.

It's also on Netflix.

What can I see?

It's a it's the story of a woman facing eviction and she desperately has to come up with money to save her life, her family, you know, and losing in the house.

So that's pretty much the story.

What I love movies that they usually happen on one day or one night, And I just love movies like that because it's it's a you know, it's a short period of time when a lot happens.

It's a very raw, uh storytelling.

I think the whole thing, the whole movie is about her trying to get that twenty five thousand dollars that she needs to save her home, her life, and she gets no help.

Her mother played by Jennifer Jason Lee, doesn't give a shit about her or the or the house or anything, and she has to do it on her own.

She is a very troubled woman, has a horrible pass you know, been through a lot of stuff trying to to do the right thing, and she has to and she has no help.

So she needs to come up with the money and she does things, you know, make choices that are not right, but she feels like she has to make those you know, choices and decisions because she again needs the money.

I'm not gonna give anything away, but I was actually surprised by the way the movie ended.

I was not expecting that at all, which is, you know, I appreciate it.

But Vanessa Kirby is really really good.

I think she does a phenomenal job.

Again, is the kind of movie that I absolutely love about, you know, fucked up people, simple people.

I love those movies.

I just I don't know, I kind of relate to them in a way somehow, like the whole thing about having to make decisions, you know, not having money to pay rent, all that kind of stuff.

I mean, you know that ordinary people have to go through and they have absolutely no help and they have to come up with a solution.

So I liked it.

Her performance is amazing.

I thought it was very good.

The way she you know, you can see the wills spinning in her head and deciding whether she's going to do something or not.

Anyway, I absolutely loved the movie.

Made me think about it for a long time, and that's my second choice.

Night always comes.

Well, don't get too relaxed, because my next choice I'm not fairly even going to speak about, and then I'm tossing to you.

And the only reason I'm saying that is because we just talked about this film, which is Wake Up, Dead Man, Nim's Out mystery, and I'm not going to unpack everything that we did.

And what was it last week's I think it was last week's podcast, So surprise you.

Picked that, Ashley.

I again, I could not stop thinking about it.

It kept coming back to me in days afterwards, and I know I had some slightly pickay you and critical things to say about it last week, But ultimately it comes down to those two scenes with Josh O'Connor, the one with Bridget Everett on the phone and the one with Glenn Close at the very end of the film.

I won't spoil anything, you know, in case you skipped that conversation that podcast last week.

I won't spoil the film or anything, but those two scenes are where the film found its voice.

As I said in the review of this movie, it's not a very good mystery.

But then again, I don't think these movies are meant to be seen as mysteries.

They are they have the trappings of an Agatha Christie style mystery to them, but they really they're mostly about social commentary, and in this case it was an examination of faith and religion among other things, which was unexpected.

I really did not expect to see Ryan Johnson the director, doing that, and if you had asked me ahead of time, I would not have predicted that someone like Josh O'Connor would give the best portrayal of a Catholic priest I've seen in years.

It's an engrossing story, it's a slightly ridiculous story.

The actual resolution of the murder, the explanation of the murder is just it really defies belief.

But again, these are not meant to be, you know, tight little Agatha Christie style mysteries.

They're meant to look like them, they're meant to sound like them.

But ultimately I don't think Ryan Johnson is is really all that interested in constructing the perfect locked room, you know, murder or whatever.

And that's it.

You should go and listen to last week's podcast for all my thoughts on the film.

But it's it is extremely well directed, it's very smartly written, and there isn't a bad performance in that tire thing I mean, that's the joy of a Ryan Johnson film or these Knives Out films is that he it's just a really smart director and who pulls together these amazing casts and then you sit there for two and you watch them all be very, very good at their jobs.

I read an interview with Glenn Slows about the scene with Joshua Hunnor and how, oh my god, what she I'm not going to give anything away, but her talking about the scene and how wonderful it was to work with Joshua con I mean, I just love that.

Yeah, yeah, that you have someone like her, you know, a wonderful actor.

You could see that that they were two actors really giving each other something in that scene and playing off each other.

So he's wonderful.

It's why when I think about the movie, all I can think of is his performance, and it's just beautiful.

I agree, totally agree.

And now your final choice, So my.

Final choice is Hamnet.

Yes, I just want to say this asshole, this asshole stayed up really late last night and watched a Hamnet screener.

I was like, fucker, I mean I could have done that if we were going to do that.

That's why I have all these like Superman on my list anyway, asshole Lorenzo has Yeah, Lorenzo stayed up till one in the morning and watch Hamnet just so he could have something on his list.

Shut out anyway, he's anyway.

Hamnet to me the most wonderful movie of the I have to shut up it, listen.

I'm not particularly a William Shakespeare fan.

I'm not I understand how wonderful he is.

But throughout my entire life I appreciated his work, but I wasn't crazy in love with it.

But so I didn't know much about him.

Uh.

The movie is about his story meeting his wife, you know, getting married to Agnes and having children, and the beginning of his career, beginning of his writings and all that.

So that was interesting because I, honestly I didn't know much about it.

So so William Shakespa's played by Paul Mascal, who is I have to say, the man keeps getting better and better.

Man.

He's just a very good actor.

Yeah, and he has the most beautiful blue eyes.

My god, you can't stop looking at him.

So he does a phenomenal job.

He does a very good job playing William Shakespeare.

But I have to say, Jesse Buckley, my god, she plays Agnes the wife.

She deserves and needs a nomination right now for everything.

She is so so so intense, so so so good playing the wife.

And so the story is about one of their kids.

I'm not giving anything away, but the story is pretty much the death of one of his kids, the young boy who inspired William Shakespeare to write Hamlet.

So that's the whole story.

The cinematography is absolutely incredible.

I mean the sets you look like you're watching a play, and I think that's the purpose here.

I think that was the idea.

Just beautiful, beautiful lighting, beautiful everything.

And I have to say the costume by Malgosa Torizanska are oh my god, They're insane.

She made the costumes for The Green Knight, she made the costumes for Train Dreams and so many other things.

She is I think she's my favorite costumes designer right now.

Her work is so beautiful and angelical and just gorgeous.

There's and she talks about one specific costume that she designed for for Agnes to character Agnes played by Jesse Buckley, which is this red dress, absolutely gorgeous dress.

And she talks about the importance of the dress.

I don't want to give anything away, but anyway, it's just one of those movies that, my god, you just enjoy you every second of it.

It's a phenomena movie.

I can't talk enough about Jesse Buckley's performance.

She is just incredible, incredible, incredible, incredible.

So I highly recommend it.

It's a phenomenon movie.

It's probably my favorite movie of the year.

Hadn't it Oh nice for you?

And that's why I wanted to watch it, because I knew I was gonna love it, so I stayed to watch it so I could talk about it.

I could have stayed up on my screeners too, ass whole anyway, anyway, Mary freaking Christmas.

That is it for us this year.

I don't you know.

I have to count because this was our ten year anniversary or podcasting, but we weren't anywhere near five hundred because we don't do fifty to a year.

I think we're a little bit closer, but I think we're probably still three or four months away from our five hundred.

But I have to say something that I always do, and I and I mean it, Thank you so much for listening to this podcast.

We get we get so many messages any mao saying you know, oh my god, you guys have a new podcast.

I can't wait to listen to it, and you know, I think about it and I was like, really, I was like, this is so amazing and great, so thank you, thank you so much.

I've mentioned this before that we do this podcast and I'm always nervous to do it because I feel like I'm freezing in that I don't know what I'm saying.

I sound stupid anyway, but I do it anyway because I enjoy talking about things that we do.

So thank you so much for the wonderful feedback, and thank you so much for listening to our podcast.

So really, I mean.

It so not that I agree.

Thank you very much.

Kittens.

Whatever sort of year end observances or celebrations you're having, I hope they're lovely for you.

I hope twenty twenty six brings everything you want for yourself.

Yes, yes, yes, So we'll be back, probably not next week.

We'll be back in about two weeks with whatever crosses I guess there's nothing going on at this time of the year.

We'll be back in two weeks with that ever crosses our eyes acrosses our desk.

Until then, take care of yourselves.

Love you mean it.

Bye bye bye a bresent us to addressing creek and a grinding creek in a fan tang k in a graper, d to sexts