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Gimmicks & Layers (Ruins - The Mummy 1999) · Dice Camera Action!

• speaker-0: Any plans for this evening? Perhaps a game night? Game over, man. It's game over. Shut up. speaker-1: Game, play it from your heart. 26 years ago, we started playing a little game. Now we're all gonna sit down, we're gonna finish it. I've made the oddest beef ever in your mind. Here we go. Welcome to another episode of Dice Camera Action, a mashup podcast about board games and movies where a cardboard meets a silver screen. Each episode we review a movie, and if you're a Cinephile, you could stick around for a discussion about a movie with a similar theme. ⁓ today I'm very excited. I have a special ⁓ first time guest host, hopefully not the last time. ⁓ we have Josh Bowman joining me. ⁓ he is the host of ⁓ a podcast called Tabletop Submarine. ⁓ he is the owner of Indie Game Studio Cake Pie Games, which we'll hear about more in in a few moments. And he's an also an avid barbecuer. I wanted to ask you about that. So, first of all, welcome, Josh. Thanks for joining me. We've been going back and forth for literal months and months. ⁓ finally got together to do this. ⁓ Yeah, tell us a little bit about yourself, about ⁓ cake pie games. ⁓ I want I know there's a specific game that's currently ⁓ yeah, like ⁓ you had a successful ⁓ I think it was GameFound campaign. speaker-0: Yeah. So ⁓ speaker-1: Right, right, right. ⁓ so yeah, tell us tell us about all that stuff and ⁓ don't leave out the barbecuing stuff. speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah, so our name is Josh. I am the host of the Tabletop Submarine Podcast. Andrew Stiles, who I know is a alum of Dice Camera Action, is my co-host. ⁓ we that that show started almost two two or three years ago. This is when me and Andrew both starting in the industry as young, bright eyed, hopeful people who just want to get involved more involved in the hobby that we love. And now we're both kind of grown in our in this field. Like I know a lot of people now in the industry. Andrew is a very successful designer, an upcoming designer. in the world he's done wine cellar, digging for dinos, a whole bunch of other stuff. speaker-1: He's got an avatar game coming up. I know he's got I know that guy. speaker-0: Yeah, I everyone thought that I was privy to this. Like Andrew doesn't tell me anything. Like we're like we most most of the stuff I get with Andrew, I love him to death and we were we're really good friends. But most of the time we're we're talking only over like every once in a while over the podcast. 'Cause you know, we we we made the podcast to help get ourselves in the industry. And now that we're both very busy in it, you know, we're switching things up how the podcast works. But I'll announce that over on my other on tabletop summary, a little plug there. ⁓ huh. ⁓ but yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, do I speaker-0: Cake Pie Games is one of those things that started out of of Tabletop Summary. I got I met a lot of great people that got a lot of great advice on how to do board gaming and how to survive in the industry. And so me and my friend Brennan Smith, we decided to start a board game company just to kind of because we wanted to see if we liked it. That's pretty much how it's an expensive experiment. Yeah to be sure. You know, we do like it. Our life has changed a lot over the last couple of years. We had a successful game. speaker-1: I what? speaker-0: On Kickstarter called Beach Day and funded. Right now it's in production. Hopefully it's mass-producing starting this week in China. That's what we're hoping for. We have the final production cycle. Things slowed down a lot for the campaign. So we're a little bit behind. But my family had a medical problem with my son, and Brennan had other life issues that has his stuff to talk about that I won't bring up. And you know, we don't know what the future of Cake Pie Games is. It might just be like, hey, if we find or design a game that we think is worthy of being published. We'll do it and then we'll just have some we'll visit cons that have games like that. You know, there's room for that. The wonderful thing about the board game industry, there's there's room for that kind of publisher. Like, hey, we make games every once in a while and we try to make them really good. So that's but that's what cake by games is. We make games that are a piece of cake to set up an easiest pie to teach beach day, is really close to being done. And hopefully it'll be shipping from China soon. You'll start seeing me at some other cons and hopefully it'll be distributed around some places. But avid barbecue is my day job. I am a like what I do for a living is that I run a barbecue smokehouse with me and my dad. It's a family restaurant. Very good. And so yeah, no, I'm a I'm a chef. I don't I didn't go to any culinary school except for the school of hard knocks, you know, learning how to cook and stuff like that, just backyard cooking and ⁓ Yeah. Yeah, we born for s we do going for six years at this point. You know, my dad retired and wanted to start a restaurant and I said, Okay, I'll come help you. speaker-1: No we speaker-0: And for six years now we've been open. We started right when the pandemic hit in twenty twenty and everything closed down. speaker-1: When yeah, when's the better time to start? speaker-0: Better time to start than the day after the governor shuts restaurants down. No better time in the world to freaking start. And no, we're still here to this day and we're growing ⁓ so we're really, really blessed, really grateful that everything has been working out. But yeah, no, I love doing brisket, ribs, pork. That's kind of my thing, is like I love barbecuing. You know, that's kind of that that's kind of I think what I'm really good at because that's what my career is. So that's why I say I'm gonna have a barbecue. speaker-1: What area of the world are you in? If people ⁓ listening are nearby, they can come check it out. Not that I have like the hugest audience that like definitely there's people. speaker-0: It's okay and it's I I I'll tell I'll tell anyone anyone who wants to stop by because I run my board game group down here that actually meets at the restaurant to play games. So the ⁓ but the game restaurant's called Smoky Tony's Barbecue. It's in Holly Ridge, North Carolina. So I live in NC. It's the eastern part of North Carolina, so I live around ten minutes from the beach. The restaurant's around ten minutes from the beach. And so, you know, it's a wonderful little island community that gets, you know, ⁓ fifty thousand or so tourists a week starting Memorial Day weekend. Through September. So that that's kind of our bread and butter. But you know, we have great locals who support us and things like that. So but if you're ever in eastern North Carolina, so say say for instance you're from the northeast and your son joins the Marines and you have to get them get him to Paris Island, South Carolina, swing by, say hi, say I love board games and we can talk. speaker-1: Very cool. Awesome. And then if ⁓ if folks hadn't heard about ⁓ Cake Pie Games and Beach Day, where can they ⁓ check out what you're doing? I'm assuming there's a website and is there a possibility of late backing or purchasing the game if they haven't backed? speaker-0: Yeah, so late backing no because I'm an idiot. And I said no to late pledges on accident when the Kickstarter campaign launched. Big old oopsie that I did not I didn't understand. Folks, if you want to start a Kickstarter campaign, you know, I was pretty confident going into it, knowing what I was doing. But make sure you dot your I's and cross your T's because I forgot to say, Yes, you can open late pledges. And apparently if you don't do that before the campaign starts, you can't turn on afterwards. So but ⁓ once I get mass production confirmed and I have freight confirmed, I'm going to open pre-orders. Me and Brennan are being very careful with people's money about how we spend it. Because you know, one of the worst things about the industry is the people who make these extravagant promises and don't deliver. And people waste money. And we and even though it's only a twenty dollar game, we're still very conscious with how and that comes from my my my background in restaurants. If people are going to g spend ten dollars on a sandwich, I want to make sure that sandwich is really good. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: And the same kind of goes with this. If you're gonna spend twenty dollars on my game, I'm gonna make sure it gets to you. Yeah. And make sure that it happens first. So once I confirm mass reduction and I book freight, I'm going to open pre orders because at that point I'll pr I'm pretty confident that the games are going to get to us. ⁓ as far as following us, you can follow us on Facebook is probably the best way. I try to update it. I haven't I've been really bad with social media because part of my job at the restaurant is social media. But, you know, I am hopefully making an effort here soon with Brennan to really kickstart that. We just have been not as diligent as we should have been, even though behind the scenes we're doing a lot every week to make sure the game happens. But yeah, Facebook is definitely the best way to follow us. And you can sign up for email list on our w what our website our restaurant. Our website is playcakepy games dot com. And you can sign up for email list there and we will we try to update the email list monthly. Been really bad at that too, I'll be honest, but like, you know, it's one of those things where we me and It's it's it's been an ongoing battle learning how to do this, but it's still working out, still happening, and hopefully once we get things settled it'll be more it'll be more better. So yeah. speaker-1: More better, yeah. Very cool. Yeah, that sounds awesome. So congratulations on the success of and the ongoing success of Beach Day and Cake Pie Games. I'm you know, if ⁓ I you know, one thing that resonated with me, what she said, is I think there is place ⁓ in the industry for somebody who just puts out a game every once in a while. ⁓ you don't have to be super prolific and ⁓ yeah, you can be very methodical about making sure that You know, once Beach Day gets out and is available and is, you know, in warehouses and ready to go, then, you know, potentially that's a time to start working on the next thing or whatever. So yeah, it's it is flexible in that way, this industry. it's ⁓ very cool. So ⁓ yeah, I'll be looking forward to ⁓ to that and ⁓ we'll we'll keep those ⁓ those links in the show notes as well for people to check out. ⁓ so today on the episode, we're gonna be ⁓ doing some shout outs. As usual, we're gonna be discussing ⁓ the all play ⁓ small box game Ruins, ⁓ which is a kind of a ladder climbing shedding game ⁓ from John D. Clare with a very unique twist that I'm excited to talk about. ⁓ and the movie we decided to pair it with was nineteen ninety nine's The Mummy, starring Brendan Fraser. So really excited about that conversation as well. ⁓ so before we get into all that, we're gonna take a moment to ⁓ pay some bills and hear from Board Game Bliss. I want to take a quick moment to shout out our sponsor, BoardGameBliss.com, which is honestly where I've been buying games for years. This isn't some random ad reag. They're literally the only people I reached out to because I already love what they do, and I was relieved when they said yes so I could be fully genuine when endorsing. They've got a huge inventory of games and are always super competitive price-wise, which is important to me. At Board Game Bliss, we believe in the magic of play. Board games spark joy, forge connections, and create unbelievable moments. We source exceptional titles from around the globe, so your table always has something exciting to offer. Whether you're just starting out or you're a seasoned pro, there's always a new favorite waiting to be found. Go to boardgamebliss.com and find out why they're my personal favorite place to buy board games. Before we get into all our regular stuff, I have a bit of a game I want to play, Josh, if you'll ⁓ indulge me here. Have you heard of you? Speaking of All Play games, ⁓ I'll play ⁓ first of all, like ⁓ kind of a ⁓ what do you call that? not a preface, but ⁓ I wanna let everybody know that ⁓ AllPlay has sent what's that? speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: Disclaimer, thank you. That's the word I looking for. I there's a disclaimer here. ⁓ AllPlay sent me ⁓ ruins, the cop a copy of Ruins ⁓ review. So thank you, Allplay, Ascadelia is the one that says that's attached. Yeah, also like maybe one of like maybe probably the best name I've ever heard in my life. Her name is Ascadelia Hattress. speaker-0: Thanks, Joe. Yeah, Okay. Yeah. ⁓ speaker-1: Like it sounds like something out of Alice in Wonderland and I'm super jealous of the speaker-0: It's it's it's like a Hunger Games name, like bringing it to movies like speaker-1: Yeah. And it totally matches her personality too. She's just like this great ⁓ you know, high energy, very happy, bubbly ⁓ a woman. So she's she's been great to deal with, and she sent me a copy of of Ruins. and ⁓ you know, t so take take the review with a game of salt if you like, but I would still gonna give a hundred percent honest ⁓ opinion as we get into that review. But ⁓ ⁓ part of that package when I was when I was like asking for specific games from All Play to review on the podcast, I noticed that they have a game called Movie Night. So I thought, well, I'd have to ask for movie night. This is a board game movie podcast. If there's a board game about movies, ⁓ like I want to talk about it. I want to have it on the podcast if possible. So ⁓ she sent me a copy of Movie Night and I thought we could play it on the air. ⁓ on the podcast really quickly. I thought it would be fun. ⁓ it is a little bit of a kind of a movie guessing ⁓ party game. I'll explain how it works in a moment. It's designed by Peter C. Hayward. ⁓ Peter. Yeah, interesting note. ⁓ I just discovered Peter's podcast Fun Problems. So if you're a game designer, especially if you're a newer game designer ⁓ like myself, go check out the podcast Fun Problems. ⁓ it is incredibly entertaining, but also super informative and really helpful if you're interested in designing games. ⁓ so movie night, ⁓ put out by All Play, designed by Peter C. Hayward and art by Sai Bepu, which is always a a ⁓ happy ⁓ surprise to see on a game. So the way that this game works is there's two columns. I don't know if you want to grab a pen and paper, Josh, so you can kind of follow along with the sort of categories. ⁓ but the way that g this game works is there's two columns. One column has a card that says movie has. Okay. So the movie has X, Y, and Z. And I'll tell you what those things are in a moment. And then there's a second column that says movie doesn't have. Okay. So now I've got two columns laid out here in front of me. and ⁓ this will totally work as an audio format too. So don't don't worry about keeping keeping track at home. ⁓ but basically I'm going to flip over some cards. And the idea is in five minutes, and I'm not going to set a timer, but we're going to try to do it as quickly as we can. But in the in the in the actual game, if you're playing at home, you're going to set a timer for five minutes. And then you're going to make a stack of five cards. So you're going to pull five, you're going to shuffle the deck and pull five cards. And then I'm going to take some of the cards that we're not going to use for this game, just to give you some examples of what might come up. So You know, ⁓ I'm gonna you know pull the top one and then it says student. So that would go in the movie has. So now we have to think of a movie, and we're not doing this right now. I'm just explaining how it works. We're gonna think of a movie that has a student in it. So let's go with old school, for example. ⁓ then I'm gonna pull up ⁓ a next the next card, and it says a boat or ship. So now the way we do it is we go, Does the movie also have a boat or ship? And I'm trying to think if Old school as a boat or ship, and I'm gonna say that it doesn't. So what we have to do is put it in the column so that the previous movie that we chose doesn't work. So I'm gonna put it in the movie has. So now we have to think of a movie that has a student and a boat or ship in it. Okay. And then so let's we think of a movie, whatever it is. ⁓ then I flip over another one and it says dog. So does the movie we thought of ⁓ let's assume it was still old school. Does old school have a dog? I believe it probably does. ⁓ so then we would put the dog in the s in the doesn't have column. So that basically forcing us to come up with a different movie every time a card comes up. So now we would have to think of a movie that has a student, has a boat or ship in it, and does not have a dog. ⁓ and then the idea is that you have to do five cards. And you have to do five cards in five minutes. And if you want to try hard mode, you got to do seven cards in seven minutes. All right. So we're gonna ⁓ we're gonna get started. And this is a team game. We're like we're supposed to work together, and as a team, everybody at the table is is working on shouting out movies and trying to get there. You So you're ready with your pen and paper, ready to I got my pen and paper. The first category is flying. So the movie has flying, ⁓ whether it's a plane or specifically we see a bird or a superhero or whatever. speaker-0: Ready to go. speaker-1: So I'll let you start us off. What's a movie with flying? Pick one. speaker-0: Sky Captain in the world tomorrow. speaker-1: ⁓ my, okay, you went a little a little obscure there, but okay. ⁓ I said obscure, I'm sorry. Well, not not super obscure, but not also not super mainstream. ⁓ I I'm familiar with it. ⁓ okay, ⁓ a character age twelve or younger. so I'm not familiar enough with Sky Captain. I don't think that it has a captain. Yeah. Okay, so now we need to we put that in the movie has so that Sky Captain doesn't work. speaker-0: There's I didn't want to know. speaker-1: So now we have to think of a movie that has flying and a character age twelve or younger in it. I'm gonna go with Home Alone. Good one. speaker-0: Home alone two then? ⁓ yeah, home alone one or two, I guess it doesn't matter. So speaker-1: I think they've I think pr probably all the Home Alones probably work. Yeah, probably first two for sure. Okay, so the next category is released before the year two thousand. So Home Alone was released before the year two thousand. So now I have to put this in that doesn't have. ⁓ so now we need a movie that has flying that has a character twelve or younger, and was released after the year two thousand. speaker-0: ⁓ what about conta ⁓ wait. speaker-1: I was gonna say interstellar. speaker-0: Interstellar works great, yeah. speaker-1: Okay, we'll do Interstellar then. ⁓ okay, so now we flip over the next one and character goes underwater. So in Interstellar, I'm gonna say the characters do go underwater with that water planet. ⁓ yeah. ⁓ so now we have to think of a movie that where characters do not go underwater. So has flying, character under twelve, released after the year two thousand, and where a character goes underwater. Character does does underwater, does not go underwater. speaker-0: I do. I guess ⁓ flight plan would work with Jody Jody Foster. speaker-1: Flight plan ⁓ Tony Foster Is there is there a child in that? Yeah. speaker-0: Is it? Child it's all about her trying to find a child on a plane. Okay. And ⁓ yeah, okay. It was released post two thousand for sure, yeah. speaker-1: Okay. Okay, and the final one, and I wanna say we're probably doing okay for time here too. It ha so has a named mother. So Jody Foster plays a mother in that. Yes, I think. And she's obviously named, she's the main character. So now we have to go with a movie that does not have a named mother, ⁓ which is which is might be a little tougher. Okay, so recap Flying, character under twelve, released after the year two thousand, where character does not go underwater. And does not have a named mother. So we want to think of like a male centric movie, which it's probably isn't too hard. speaker-0: We need a someone a twelve young twelve younger the main character, is that? Or just a character? speaker-1: Character. Character t twelve or younger with Yeah, that's a tough combination there actually. speaker-0: No named mother. That is ridiculous. I mean, I would I almost said hook, but that doesn't work. ⁓ my god. speaker-1: Yeah, what about ⁓ what about old school? I don't think any of brothers speaker-0: But it has to be two thousand though. It has to be two thousand. speaker-1: Old sorry, I was thinking of School of Rock was the word I was. School of Rock. ⁓ speaker-0: But there's no airplane on that one. speaker-1: There's no is there any flying? No, I don't think so. I don't think they fly anywhere. ⁓ Ooh, yeah. Does the what do you call that? The crowd surfing. Does that count as flying? Okay, so the the tough, the really tough combo here is the fact that we need a character who's twelve or younger with no named mother. ⁓ what about what about what about Mad Max Fury Road? No, there's no flying in that. speaker-0: Age dive count as flying. This ⁓ witness man? speaker-1: I mean bodies go flying, but I don't think there's ⁓ I don't think that counts. Do we know Riley's mother's name in Inside Out? Does she have a name? Yeah. I'm trying to think of movies about kids that only have kids where we don't see the parents. That's gotta be there's gotta be something where it's just like all kids. speaker-0: She does have a name, yes. up. Up. Up. We don't know what what we don't know what Yeah. We don't know what Rusty's father mother's name is. speaker-1: Is there there's like they they're in the jungle and stuff? Do they ever go underwater? speaker-0: I don't They never go underwater 'cause of the house speaker-1: Good one. Good one. Okay, so up it is. I think up I don't know if we hit that timer, but we did a lot of chatting and like and recapping the stuff for the people too. So I'm gonna give us a I'm gonna give us a win on that one. Do you wanna do one more? speaker-0: We'll do one more, heck yeah. This is good. All right. Of course making this is this is this feels I I don't know if you know Peter at all, but speaker-1: Well, I've chatted with him a little bit online, but not not not really, no. Yeah. speaker-0: This feels really strong like a Peter game, not playing lots of s I really like Peter as a designer, so speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. I've checked out a bunch of his games. ⁓ and yeah, I I'm actually like now that I'm like listening to his podcast like a lot, ⁓ 'cause I'm just like listening to the whole thing and have just discovered it. So now I'm like seeking out his games and I'm like, you know, trying to to get an idea of his catalog and stuff. So speaker-0: I'm gonna pull up a timer so we can actually test ourselves. speaker-1: Maybe I'll try to do less recapping here unless unless you need it. You're writing it down here as we go? speaker-0: I'm writing it down as we go, so let me know when you wanna sweat the timer. speaker-1: Okay, I'm ready when you are. Okay, movie has a dog. speaker-0: Ready. I mean, okay. Let's just stick with up, yeah. Let's just stick with up. speaker-1: Okay, sounds good. ⁓ a boat or ship. Up's gotta have a boat or ship. So let's go with ⁓ a movie doesn't have a boat or ship and has a dog. speaker-0: Yeah, as many ships. Okay, let's say homeward bound the incredible journey. speaker-1: Okay, sounds good to me. ⁓ s a student. So homeward bound speaker-0: Yeah, I as kids who as kids are students, so yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, they would co count as students. So so we're gonna go with movie does not have a student. So basically doesn't have like kids more or less. speaker-0: Yeah, what's that horror movie that just came out with the dog? Is it called Good Boy? speaker-1: Or Good Boy, yeah. Yeah. Good boy. Probably doesn't have a board or ship. I haven't seen it. Has a dog and does it have any kids? speaker-0: I don't believe so. I think it's a haunted house movie with just one owner. So I believe it doesn't. speaker-1: Okay, let's go with that. is a sequel. So that movie ⁓ is not an original so we're gonna go is a sequel. So movie with a dog that is a sequel ⁓ where ⁓ there's no students and no boats or ships. ⁓ A sequel with a dog. Is there like a ⁓ Marvel movie that has a dog? Does ⁓ what's his what's the dog name in Cosmo? He's in some. speaker-0: Cosmo is in Guardians of the Galaxy, but that has kids in it in the movie that they're in. speaker-1: A sequel that has a dog in it. speaker-0: With no kids. ⁓ this is hard. speaker-1: I was gonna say the thing, but it's not a sequel. speaker-0: Whoa whoa no wait wait wait wait the thing ⁓ tw the the thing the the the really bad one that ha that's like that was it does become the husky at the end. Yeah it does become the husky at the end It's his sequel yeah the thing twenty something yeah speaker-1: What about That is a sequel. But ⁓ my god, a character wearing a tie. So we have to get a movie that does not have a character No, that does have a character wearing a tie. Because I'm sure there's no ties in the thing. speaker-0: So ⁓ a movie that has a dog with a sequel that is also a sequel that has a person wearing a tie. I think the thing there is people who are wearing a tie. Yeah? Yeah, in that movie. There is someone like passing wearing a tie. speaker-1: Like cor ⁓ at the beginning there's corporate y stuff where they're recruiting ⁓ Elizabeth Winstead and all that stuff. Okay, so then we need a movie where a character does not have a tie. speaker-0: Yeah. ⁓ Less than two minutes left. How many do we have? One more? speaker-1: Yeah, this is it. This is all the fucking so ⁓ has a dog and is a sequel, no boats, no students, and no ties, no character wearing ties. Yeah. speaker-0: Okay. ⁓ my god, forty eight seconds left. ⁓ my god. speaker-1: No, don't say don't tell the either it's putting the pressure on. ⁓ ⁓ god. A dog in No, that doesn't work. Hmm. What about a movie that's all animals? Like ⁓ What's the one Secret Life of Pets? Animal Farm? Is there a sequel? Secret Life of Pets 2? speaker-0: Animal farm. That that has kids though, I think, and ⁓ it's I I'm assuming it has kids. It's a kids movie. Animal for I think there's no single to animal for. speaker-1: Does it have kids? So We failed that one. We failed that one. That's a hard one. That was fun. ⁓ wow. There we go. So that's a cool ⁓ and then the rules say you do that on a movie night ⁓ with with your friends, and then you immediately watch that. The movie says the books the rule book literally says, then you must go watch that movie, I think. So we're gonna we're gonna pause the podcast and we're gonna go and watch ⁓ what was it up? speaker-0: I don't know, the last one we did was the thing I think. The th the the thing speaker-1: If you manage to flip all five descriptions and name the movie that fits ⁓ every one, congratulations, you found your perfect movie. Now go watch it. Right now. That's what it's like. speaker-0: No, watch up. speaker-1: All right. Well, thanks for playing that with me. So that was from All Play, designed by Peter C. Hayward. and ⁓ you can go and find all these All Play games at ⁓ all play dot com, I think is the website. and ⁓ I was just checking it out before before recording, and they have flat rate shipping across the contiguous U US four dollars, I think it is. speaker-0: Yeah, they're one of the best they're one of the best, most affordable games. speaker-1: Fair shipping rates, yeah. And like even in Canada, like ⁓ up here, I often don't like I I basically just get games from like the big retailers like ⁓ Border Bliss. because shipping's really tough in Canada. I g not sure why, but anyways, is nine nine bucks flat rate shipping in Canada, even ⁓ for the All Play website, which is amazing. So really rare to see that. So thanks All play for sending me that. We're probably going to play that game ⁓ every once in a while on the podcast because it's just a fun little icebreaker that works out works really well. All right. Let's ⁓ let's let's move on. Let's get into our shout-outs and into the the meat of our episodes here. ⁓ so ⁓ Josh, why don't you start us off ⁓ with ⁓ either a game or a movie or TV show, anything you want to kind of share with the audience, something you've been checking out. speaker-0: So as far as the game goes, what I want to shout out today is I wanna shout out a game called The Stuff of Legend, which this is a game that I can't believe came and went. But this is a based off of a comic book called The Stuff of Legend, which is like if Toy Story meets Alice in Wonderland, where this kid, World War One, World War Two era, I for I forgot recently which one it was, but gets kidnapped into his own closet into ⁓ this magic not magical, it's kind of a war-torn world. And his toys come to life and go into the closet and save them. But you like a teddy bear and a toy soldier. When they go into this closet, he's actually a giant grizzly bear, an actual like marine type person, and they're going to try to save this kid from the boogeyman. And so what this game does is that it's kind of like a Battlestar Galactica in 90 minutes. So it's a social deduction game where you are trying to make your way through this map. Trying to overcome all these challenges while making sure you find the exit. There's one of like six exits that you are trying to determine that which one we're supposed to take. One of them is the right answer based on like a whole system I don't need to get into. But it's possible that one of your people could be working for the Booger Man and is a trader and trying to slow you down. One thing I like about social deduction games is the kind of the over-the-table mechanisms that are happening. But a lot of times I feel social deduction games speaker-1: It's speaker-0: Drag out too long, especially the VD ones. So like I I am a avid hater of Blood on the Clock Tower. I speaker-1: Really hate that game. speaker-0: that it makes them board gaming. ⁓ but and things like that, and then Battlestar Galactica itself takes like three or four hours to play. This is like tight ninety minutes and you still get those really intense feelings. So it's from it's from Third World Studios three W S highly recommended. I have my deluxe edition back there. I I love it. I bring it to most of the cons. I go to speaker-1: Pretty cool looking, yeah. I was surprised. Like when you when you were describing it at first, I brought it up and before you kind of mentioned the darker stuff, I'm like, Whoa, is this even the right game? But yeah, it's definitely darker in theme and and there's minis in it? Is that does that do the minis come in the base game as well, or do you need the deluxe I speaker-0: I do not know actually. I was always given the d I was always given the deluxe copy. I got speaker-1: I'm seeing some standees. I'm seeing some standees on some of the pictures. So it's probably standees and then minis if you go deluxe or whatever. But the standees look really cool too. The art on them is is neat and cool. No, that looks cool. How much of the game is above the table, like versus on the table? speaker-0: Almost all of it, I think. Yeah. Okay. ⁓ like there is w what's nice, there is strategy on the table of how you approach things and how you attack enemies, but there is a whole bunch of why would this person do the game provides you enough mechanisms to really question the decisions of other players of why would they do something and leaves enough information out to also keep you guessing. speaker-1: And is it encouraged to at that point say like why would you do that? and then discuss and then go over. Yeah, okay. Okay, fair enough. ⁓ right on. Cool. That seems pretty neat. ⁓ I've got a a little card game I want to talk about called Up or Down. Have you heard of Up or Down, Josh? speaker-0: I have heard of Up or Down. Lots of my friends have been playing it. speaker-1: It's from Kramer and Keisling, which surprised me. ⁓ but ⁓ yeah, because I ⁓ I I got it at ⁓ Canada Plays, an event that I went to not too long ago that ⁓ fans of the show probably heard about by now. ⁓ but ⁓ yeah, it was part of my goodie bag that I went home with and ⁓ I was kind of like pleasantly surprised by this game. ⁓ it was just a little a little little small box card game that I pulled out and I thought, ⁓ I'll try to play with my kids, and they loved it. And ⁓ I played it with my family too and and my my parents and they enjoyed it too. ⁓ but basically what it is is there ⁓ it's basically just a deck of cards and I think there's two pieces of information on each card, and that's it. ⁓ the cards are numbered from one to I think one hundred. and then all the cards have different suits. so the cards either red or yellow or whatever, just a different color. ⁓ and the way it works is that you are allowed to have three columns, I guess, in your play area. And so you're kind of drafting or grabbing cards from the middle, which I'll explain how it works in a moment. And then when you grab those cards, you're gonna put it in one of your three columns. Which are s like the the theme is is elevators, ⁓ basically. Like every card, the art is an a door of an elevator. Yeah. And yeah, very exciting theme. and ⁓ yeah, so you'll put you'll put the card down in front of you. And if it's your first card, you put it in one of your columns. And then when you get your second card, you can either start a new column or you'll you'll add to that first card, that first column. And if the number is higher, that means that you've chosen to go up on that elevator. And so every subsequent card that you play has to also go higher. So you're trying to start with either high or low cards and then work your way up or down from there. and then at the end of the game, you're gonna look at your three columns, you're gonna count how many cards in your column, and you're gonna multiply that number by the largest set of a single color. In that column. So if you have a lot of red in the column, let's say you have six red cards in the column and you have ⁓ six cards in that column, you're gonna score 36 points for that one. And then you do that across your three columns, and that's your score for the game. So you're trying to make tight groups so that you always have room for more cards, but that's not always possible. And you're trying to group as many car as many cards of the same color in a column or in each of your three columns, if that makes sense. Now, the neat thing about this game is sort of the way that you get these cards. So you're gonna take, excuse me, you're going to at the beginning of the game shuffle the deck and deal six cards to the center of the table. And you're gonna put those six cards in a circle and ⁓ set it up ⁓ so that it is not chronological because that has to do with time, but you're gonna put it ⁓ fr in in sequence. so ⁓ so that the the highest card is next to the lowest card and then it loops or loops around, if that makes sense. Then when it's your turn, you'll have a hand of three cards, I think is what you start with. ⁓ and then you're gonna take one of your three cards and you're going to place it between two of the cards that are in that circle on the table. And that gives you the ability to draft and take one of the two cards adjacent to the new card that you placed. So when you place that card out, you have to place it where it belongs, ⁓ in that circle. So whether it's if there's a twenty-seven and a thirty-two, well, then you can in and you have a twenty-eight, a twenty-nine, a thirty, or thirty-one, you could put it in between those two cards and then take one of those two cards, put it in your tableau. So you're it's really weird ⁓ at first because you're constantly looking at your hand going, ⁓ I'd like to play that, but you can't play that. What you have to do is put it on the table. speaker-0: Yet. speaker-1: Make it available out there for everybody, take one of the adjacent cards, and if it comes back around to you and your card's still there, then you could potentially try and draft that card. So there's definitely an interesting puzzle there of like trying to ⁓ get the right cards from the center, and then you have to use the cards from your hand to ⁓ to to get to to go out and draft those cards. ⁓ so there's an interesting puzzle there and and making the right decision and then also taking the card and putting it in the right column ⁓ and that sort of thing. So ⁓ it's it's a very light, easy game to play. It's fairly easy to teach, ⁓ but it is one of those games where you have to it takes it takes a few moments, especially if you're playing with like non-board gamers. it takes a few moments for you to kind of wrap your brain around. using your cards properly to go out and get the cards on the table. ⁓ and then to refill your hand, you're either taking a card from the top of a discard pile ⁓ or you're taking a card from like a blind blind draw off the off the deck kind of thing. ⁓ so yeah, it's interesting. ⁓ again, you you haven't played it, right? But you've you'd seen it played or heard of it. speaker-0: Yeah, my friends are really into this game right now. I get unnecessarily and unfairly mad every time I see this game because it it it has extremely beautiful Quan Chai Moria art. And you there's other there's other two arts, I'll shut them out. What the heck is that all about? Like it it why? Like I I mean I made small card game beach day. Like again, that I think is very beautiful as Amber Anderson art. This game how does how the frick does Quan Chi Moria make elevators beautiful? Like and then they decided to spend probably was like five to ten thousand dollars worth of art, if not more, on this little card game. It's like You could've you you could have done like what Sashi and Shachi does in silhouettes and it still would it wouldn't have maybe have sold as much. I don't I don't know. Like it's like I I get un I'm not mad at it because it's it's it's a bad game. I'm mad at it because they stuck Quan Chai Moria art that you can barely see on a tiny box across this entire thing on a game that's like twenty, twenty five bucks. It's yeah, I don't know. That's I'm it's unfair for me to be speaker-1: Capstone games in a position to be able to to make that that risk or whatever and sell it. speaker-0: ⁓ yeah, if we have this little card game, since we can do whatever we want. Let's get the Quan Chai Moria on this. Yeah, it's okay. Okay. speaker-1: Right on. Okay, so that's up or down. ⁓ Josh, do you have a a movie or a T V show or another game you want to talk about? speaker-0: Yeah, I want to do a movie that it's an oldie but a goodie. And this really shows my age because I recently read an article about this movie that it says men of a certain age are starting to find this movie and really enjoy it and talk all about it. And I was like, How dare you, Variety, call me out like this as the demographic? I had no idea this was happening, but I am part of this demographic of men in early thirties who are loving this movie and rediscovering it. And that's ⁓ Master and Commander Far Side of the World. And have you seen this one? speaker-1: That this is a major blind spot for me. And ⁓ it's honestly it's been at the it's been on my watch list like 'cause I have I have a lot of movies that I know I just want to watch that are kind of in my brain. and eventually I know I'll watch them, right? But then I also have a specific watch list on Letterboxd. ⁓ that I have those are movies that are like I wanna watch soon. Like they're like they're sitting there taunting me, right? And Master and Commander has been specifically on my I need to watch this now list ⁓ for probably like years at this point. Still have not watched it. So convince me I need to watch this. speaker-0: It's it is Okay, I'm gonna convince you right now. For one thing, this is prime Russell Crowe. This is like right after Gladiator and Beautiful Mind. He's still in his prime. Right. And then you have the supporting actor to sub to end all supporting actors and a guy coming together again to work with it. And I ough I forgot his name. He this is gonna kill me. He plays Vision and he's in a night's tale. ⁓ what's his name? Shoot, John Paul Bettney. Paul Bentney. Yeah, thank you so much. speaker-1: B Paul Bettany. Who is also in A Beautiful Mind. speaker-0: Yeah, he was. So one of the best supporting actors of all time, Paul Bentney, in my opinion. And those two have impeccable chemistry in this movie as the two main characters. But also, this has the same this has the same wonderful recipe that we're actually I'll actually bring up in the mummy too of like these early two thousands movies where CGI still wasn't quite great and so they relied a lot on practical. This is entirely practical, but It is ship naval warfare. You know, the the story is Russell Crowe is a sea captain for the British Army and he's trying to hunt down this this is a cat and mouse game where a English ship is trying to hunt down a French ship, but there's actually two ships. The maritime combat is real, it's up close, it's dirty, it's personal. It is what makes this movie great in my opinion. I didn't read the article 'cause I got mad at the first line of it. But what makes this movie great is that you I do get mad a lot. speaker-1: Yeah, Josh. speaker-0: And it's I I I think my wife calls it grumpy. I'm I'm an extremely happy person until you don't make me happy. But and it's mostly meta of things that I know won't take it personally. So like but yeah, cause I 'cause a ru ⁓ an article won't take anything personally. But what makes me happy in this movie is that you really feel the you feel you feel the the the the struggle that these sailors are on against the sea. You feel what they go through, the the hardships. If someone goes overboard, you feel their dread and sorrow. And because it's all practical and you're not on like a CG green screen, it's just it just pulls you in to this world that was so harsh, this life that people just had no choice to live in. And the story they tell is absolutely compelling. The characters are three d are three dimensional, which usually that doesn't matter to me too often. I could care less if a character is three dimensional, as long as the movie's good. This has great characters, awesome action, and an excellent story. Like it is two and a half to three hours, I think. And what makes this so tragic is that there are more books in this series. Like they wanted to make more in this series, but the box office was not like the critical reception was great. The box office was not good enough. Wasn't bad, but it wasn't good enough. Where we just have this one great movie with a dangling thread saying there's there could be more and we don't get more and we'll never get more because now all those actors are too old and ⁓ man it this is just it's like it's like it's a braveheart, Patriot, all those great movies on the sea. It's it's so good. But yeah, watch it. speaker-1: Very cool. The practical effects thing is just like there it adds a weight, a tangible weight to a movie, right? And not just that it that everything feels real, but like you said, when something happens to a character, because everything feels so real and you're pulled in further into the film, ⁓ you feel those moments even more, right? Like ⁓ where ⁓ the episode that's coming out right before this one, which hasn't been published yet. Josh in real time right now is ⁓ is a is a Mad Max ⁓ special ⁓ episode where we rank the Mad Max movies. And the practical effects in that movie are just like mind-blowingly good, right? And ⁓ and that's just another example of like practical effects just being the best, right? Like when I watch a Marvel movie or whatever, like if if somebody if some side character or whatever dies, it often just doesn't carry the weight that it should. ⁓ it all feels so artificial, right? But yeah. ⁓ if it yeah, ⁓ a movie made in in that ⁓ you know, what was it, ⁓ two thousand three, so right around the same time as the mummy, just a few years later, is gonna be mostly practical effects and ⁓ that makes me more interested in in watching it for sure. ⁓ cool. I got two quick things that I want to mention. One I won't go super deep into because I I love this movie so much that I I'm I'm gonna like shoehorn it into an episode at some point in the next in the next month or so. ⁓ but it's obsession. it's ⁓ it's a horror movie that ⁓ was made by Curry Barker, who spent the last decade or so ⁓ making TikTok shorts and YouTube videos and short films. He's funny too, yeah. Sketch comedy. Yeah, mostly sketch comedy. ⁓ but started to dip into the horror side of things with ⁓ with some short films. and ⁓ yeah, his his first feature length ⁓ film was Obsession, which is in theaters right now. speaker-0: Holy cow. speaker-1: Man, I the buzz was so huge with this that I sort of like I wanted to like it. I wanted it to be as good as they say. And often when you have those high expectations you get disappointed. This was not the case. Okay. ⁓ this movie was so freaking good. I ⁓ I came out of the movie just like vibrating and ⁓ just wanted to go back in and see it again. ⁓ The the performances were unreal. The the main actress in it ⁓ now her name escapes me even though I've been thinking about something like that. Yeah. ⁓ I'm gonna look it up right now because ⁓ Indy Navarrett is her name. ⁓ I N D E Navarrett. and ⁓ this is her, I think, first role. And she like there's some talk about her maybe getting a ⁓ an Oscar nomination ⁓ from a ⁓ a horror movie from an indie ⁓ creator who's his first movie from YouTube from a movie that costs seven hundred and fifty K to make. ⁓ and there's legitimate Oscar buzz about her performance and ⁓ I buy it. Like I'm I'm rooting for her, I'm rooting for this movie to get some some awards recognition and it's already made like tons of money at the box office. and ⁓ so I'm really, really excited for for Curry Barker and what he's gonna do next. ⁓ so yeah, he's already finished ⁓ shooting his next movie, which is called Anything But Ghosts. and it's about like con artists who are ⁓ paranormal, quote unquote paranormal investigators, ⁓ and they just con people. ⁓ And then they get into a situation where maybe they you know, there maybe is ghosts or there maybe that's that's that's that's that's as much as I know about it. But it star it stars ⁓ Paul ⁓ Aaron Paul. Okay. and ⁓ who who is it again? I always get ⁓ her confused with there's always ⁓ what's her name? ⁓ Bryce Dallas Howard. So like and K Curry Barker, I think, is Curry Barker is the is the lead with Aaron Paul. I think they're the the pair of paranormal ⁓ investigator con artists. ⁓ so I think they're the main characters. But anyways, it's it just seems really cool. And apparently I think there's there's ⁓ talks about him and maybe he's already signed about doing the next Chase Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. speaker-0: ⁓ yeah, I love my style. speaker-1: ⁓ as sort of a reboot or an a a new Texas chainsaw do we speaker-0: Another Texas Chainsaw Massacre. speaker-1: Yeah. Do we really need more of that? I don't know, but speaker-0: Leatherface is the most uninteresting person of the main horror hot take. That's a hot take. I just think like I I mean I I barely watch slashers. I just like reading like the lore of them. I just find Leatherface to be the least interesting. Like speaker-1: Yeah, it's he's very scary. You know, it's a scary look. It's a scary look. ⁓ it's a scary idea that, you know, you're you're stranded on the side of the in the middle of nowhere, there's nowhere to go and and all that. So the setting is cool. I I I'm not a huge Texas chainsaw mascot fan. I watched it, I thought it was I thought it was very good, but you know, ⁓ And and it's probably one of those things where I just miss the boat, right? Like this came out years before I was born. So just watching it as an adult now, it it was I found it to be very good and ⁓ not exceptional. ⁓ but the setting I think is ⁓ ripe for a terrifying movie, if done right. So that's speaker-0: That's the one thing about like horror too, like like if you don't mind me like when was the last time we had a horror icon like enter the zeitgeist? Like I'm trying to think of something. Like I there's Jason, Fred speaker-1: There's a there's an argument there's an argument to be made for for Pearl. ⁓ for the hardcore film fans, but it she like that those movies didn't necessarily penetrate into the like into like ⁓ the mainstream, right? It was more of a he the she like she is a horror movie icon. speaker-0: ⁓ yeah, for sure. She is. Yeah, but like Scream Queen. speaker-1: Like Yeah. there's also potentially an argument to be made for, and it's probably too soon. But if you fast forward ten years, we could potentially see Amy Madigan, and Gladys in from Weapons, ⁓ as potentially being a horror movie icon as well. But it's too soon. Like this is just This is just a year ago. Well, there's apparently a sequel, a re ⁓ prequel in the works ⁓ about Ant Gladys an origin an origin story or something like that of Ant Gladys, which you know, like I'm open to if it's Zach Krager. ⁓ you know, he's two for two with me so far, and both have been fantastic. So ⁓ I'll give the benefit of the doubt you know, on that one, but we'll see. ⁓ speaker-0: Fan on speaker-1: But you're right, like not nothing to the level of, you know, these like I guess the the the the the most recent one is probably from the nineties, which is Ghostface, I think. speaker-0: Yeah, that's like the most recent one. And he's kinda he's kinda dying out because Scream is kind of speaker-1: Yeah. Sure, but like it's still a still an icon. Still, I undoubtedly right. speaker-0: I think of like I did a I do a horror movie trivia every year at my restaurant. You know, I'm trying to find these horror people and it's like, you know, you got you know, I got the big ones, Michael Myers, who I think is the best one still. Michael Myers, Jason, Freddie, Chucky, ⁓ Pinhead, ⁓ what's the guy's face from the hills have eyes, but like all those leather face, all those guys scream and you know, I d I nothing really past the two thousands. is like I don't know these people will know this. Like there's tons that there's tons of great horror movies coming out. Yeah. Nothing really like speaker-1: Boom. With an iconic ⁓ villain or whatever. Yeah. Fair enough. cool. the last thing I wanted to shout out before we moved on is ⁓ Company Retreat. ⁓ the Jury Duty show. You're giving a thumbs up that you've watched it. It's unbelievable. Yeah. ⁓ we finished it last night, so it's very, very fresh. for those who don't know, Jury Duty ⁓ came out speaker-0: I've watched it, it's great. But yeah, you go ahead. speaker-1: four, three, four, five years ago, something like that. and the setup was that ⁓ they they were gonna be shooting a documentary about a court case. Anyways, I I don't know the logistics of it, but long story short, they had this Joe Blow, this average guy, ⁓ come in and ⁓ for jury duty and ⁓ you know, passed the interviews and became part of the jury and whatnot. ⁓ And then the he he was told that there was going to be cameras around and that they were shooting a documentary about this court case about how the proceedings happen in a California court. and so that's the kind of excuse for cameras being around. And ⁓ essentially what happens is that he is literally the only person that is real in this entire thing. ⁓ every other person, the the judge. The rest of the jury, the accused, the lawyers, the people that work at the courthouse, every other soul that's around for this entire show is an actor. And they're all in character and putting on this show. ⁓ and this one guy is doesn't realize doesn't know he's in a show and all and he's being, you know, surrounded by these wacky characters and these strange things that happen and these ⁓ extravagant scenarios and Because he's in a very serious setting of a court, he has to keep it together and try to just do his job as a jury member. And and we're basically very focused on him and his reactions and stuff. And it's fascinating and it's amazing. And what's so great about it is that ⁓ it's not mean. And I and I mentioned this before on a previous podcast. It's not mean, it's not set up to like put him in scenarios that's gonna embarrass him. Or make him feel bad. ⁓ he's just basically put in strange scenarios that are funny and interesting and and and and strange. And he's being basically asked, like, what would you do in this scenario? And then obviously has to deal with it and whatnot. And what's so fantastic about this show, and and I guess ⁓ it's the next part that I was gonna say is the same thing for Company Retreat. So basically, this was season two. It's called Company Retreat. And this young guy, Anthony, is hired as a temp worker ⁓ for a two-week period where he's gonna basically be an assistant to the HR person for this small ⁓ hot sauce company called Rockin' Grandmas. Rockin' Grandmas. Yeah, that's right. And ⁓ so they go to this like this like ⁓ campground with like cabins and common areas. And whatever. And over the course of a week they play games and they have all sorts of like like people come in to do talks, and all sorts of things. And again, this one temp worker named Anthony is the only person who's not an actor, who's not part of the production, and everybody else involved is just in character, ⁓ playing the part, and he's put in all sorts of different You know, ⁓ he's put in all sorts of different precarious situations where he has to like try to do the right thing and whatever. And the thing that I think makes this show so magical is that they they clearly went after a very specific type of person. ⁓ that for the lack of a better way ⁓ lack of a better term, a good dude. A good guy. A really good guy. Like incredibly Like, yeah, like restoring my faith in humanity type of people. And the same goes for then his name escapes me from ⁓ the from jury duty. But basically, they're both put in positions where where like they have to make a choice of of like putting themselves first or doing what's right. And time after time after time, both these dudes do the right thing. And especially just because it's fresh in my mind, this like ⁓ ⁓ company retreat. There's lots of people that are in crises, like, you know, relationship crisis or somebody screwed up at work during this company retreat and they're embarrassed or whatever. And this Anthony guy is constantly there, ⁓ being a cheerleader and giving them speeches and being like, it's okay, man. Like you'll bounce back, you'll be fine. Let me help you with this. Let me help you with that. And just by the end of it, you are in love with this dude. He's just like the nicest man on the planet and you just like aspire to be like that. It's just like literally inspiring. And ⁓ the last episode of both the first ⁓ jury duty and company retreat is basically ⁓ there starts with the reveal to the person like hey ⁓ and and that last episode I think is another thing that just makes the show so magical ⁓ they say hey like this was all fake and they like reveal themselves to this person and explain to them and then the crew The crews come out and like introduce themselves, and all the characters are like, Hey, my name's not really so and so. I'm actually an actor and whatever. and they basically celebrate the person for how incredible they did and how good they were to all of the people that were basically making their lives hard, right? For this two week period in this case of this company retreat. I think it's essential viewing. I hate reality TV. hate it. and these these shows, ⁓ Jury Duty and Company Retreat are some of my all time favorite shows, Barnun. ⁓ maybe you can give you a couple of your thoughts, Josh, and then we'll move on. speaker-0: I mean, I think that's the real like pardon my pun, the reality of it is that it makes you have faith in humanity. I mean, thousands of people apply for this job. They don't know they they probably go through a good interview process, but the producers don't negative they don't know if it's going to work out. They're just kind of trying to push them along the way. But if you watch this like with Anthony's, if you watch like the cooldown, like he was just doing stuff that we they were hoping he would do. If not, they would have ways for them to kind of push Like the actors have to push, but he wasn't pushing. You this this guy Anthony was just so I haven't seen the first one, Jury Duty, but this guy Anthony speaker-1: ⁓ man, you need to watch it. Just as good. speaker-0: I'll need to watch it for sure after watching Company Retreat. But yeah, I mean it's I think that's why it is a s I would agree, it's essential viewing because you know, it just goes to show that there are good people. Because we get so wrapped up if you're on the i the internet and the movie news, like ⁓ there's so many people with opinions that are bad. I mean, the internet's a small fraction of humanity. Most of the people I bel I believe personally. speaker-1: Yes. speaker-0: Most people are really good and will do the right thing and this show just proves that. Like, yeah, Anthony's one guy, but there are thousands of people who applied and it could have not turned out and it did work out because, you know, people are generally good. And that's what I think this show proves and that's wonderful. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. as I said, I think it's absolutely essential viewing for everybody. And I think it's on Amazon Prime. I think it's like readily available both seasons to watch. So yeah. Even if you even if you don't like reality TV, like I despise reality TV, everything it represents. I everything about it, I cannot like I think it's I think it's the s the scum of the earth. ⁓ I think it's terrible for humanity and it's a net negative for the entertainment industry. For like I hate it. Yes, and they've they've basically like subverted that and flipped it on its head with a reality show. and it's fantastic. So yeah, jury duty company retreat, check it out. speaker-0: People are presents and trying to portray speaker-1: Right, let's ⁓ let's move on to our our main review of the episode. We're gonna talk about ruins. ⁓ so ruins is published in 2025 by AllPlay, as we ⁓ mentioned. It's designed by John Declare, art by Jake Morrison. It plays two to five players ⁓ in about 30 to 40 minutes. The BGG weight is 2.0 and currently has a BGG rating of 7.2. now why do do you feel comfortable giving a bit of an overview of how this game plays, Josh? Or do you want me to it's been a little while, I guess. speaker-0: It's been a little while for so how about you go? speaker-1: Go ahead. Yeah, yeah, I'll I'll I'll I'll take the lead here. So this is a ladder climbing shedding game. So think like ⁓ Scout ⁓ or Haggis or DNU, which we've talked ⁓ down up or DNU, I don't know how to pronounce that one. you know, so it's a game where somebody will play a set on the table and then ⁓ and then the next person has to play a set that's that's ⁓ that's higher. And the first person to get rid of all of their cards in their hand wins ⁓ the round. ⁓ so the way that this one works and what makes it super unique and really interesting and what attracted me to it, it's designed by John Declair, as I mentioned. And ⁓ this isn't the first time that he's used this, but there's card crafting in this game. ⁓ and I know for sure that he did it in what was that pirate game? speaker-0: Mystic Veil. ⁓ well there's Mystic Veil was the first one that he did it in. Pirate Game was speaker-1: ⁓ dead reckoning. Dead reckoning. Right. So this game also has card crafting. ⁓ and the way it works is that the cards are like oversized cards and they come in sleeves. So that you actually get sleeves in the game. And the reason for that is because you're going to slot ⁓ transparent cards on top of the card that's already in the sleeve ⁓ in order to add stuff to the card. speaker-0: Yes. speaker-1: Craft that card into more than what it already is. and there's multiple layers to this, pun intended, because you're actually literally layering these cards. ⁓ but when you you'll get dealt a hand of cards and they're all on the quote unquote day side. ⁓ and so those are very simple from one to ten cards. And then when you first get dealt your hand, you can look at your day cards. ⁓ and in the bottom left corner, there's a little icon that'll tell you if you flip this card to the other side. So take it out of the sleeve, turn it around. this is what's on the other side. So I'm looking at a card here in my hand, and it is a five ⁓ on the day side. In the bottom left corner, ⁓ it tells me what's on the night side. So I flip it over, and then what's on the night side is it's now a four. So instead of being a five, it's a four, which sounds worse, but. ⁓ there's also a bunch of little icons in the game that will adjust or change what that card can do. So in this case, there's a little ⁓ icon that ⁓ is a card with a little plus in it. What that means is that this card is a four, but it could also be two fours. This one card can be two fours, if that makes sense. ⁓ so that's one of the icons. ⁓ I guess I'm jumping ahead a little bit here. We're We're basically playing sets of cards onto the table. There's no runs in this game. So the a lot of the card play has to be simplified because the complexity ⁓ you know, ⁓ in this game comes with all these icons and stacking these cards and keeping track of all that. So they kept it fairly simple in the actual card play. But what it is is if I play a single card as leading ⁓ the the I think they call it a trick. ⁓ if I play a single card, it means that everybody at the table has to also play a single card. So I play a four, you play a five, Johnny plays a six, Cindy plays a seven. We can keep going, and we keep going until all but one player pass sequentially. And then that makes that player the winner of the trick. You get rid of all the cards on the table, and then that player gets to lead the next trick. ⁓ essentially choosing how many cards they're gonna play. So now you could they could play a set of two cards. ⁓ and because of the card that I just crafted, I could play this single four. But it counts as two fours. So now I've played a pair of fours. Now it's your turn. You could play a pair higher, ⁓ equal or higher than a four. So that's how the gameplay works. ⁓ but as I was saying, anytime you play cards or a card into the trick, there's also a market of transparent cards that you can slide in to modify the cards that you play. And there's a ⁓ a system ⁓ resource system that we won't get into. ⁓ but you can only s buy so many of these cards based on how many resources you have each round. But let's say you play a pair of fives, Josh, and I look at my hand and I have a single five. ⁓ but I don't have ⁓ or I have a single card that's higher than five, but I don't have another card to pair with it. ⁓ I can't I can't beat what you have. But now I can look at the tr the market of transparent cards on the table, and one of them has an icon on it that's a question mark. That means that you can make a card a wild. So I can pay the the required resources, grab that transparent card, slide it into one of my other cards, play this, play the single card that I have along with one of these question marks. Let's say an eight, along with a one with this question mark ⁓ transparent card slide slit into it. Now I can say that that one is also an eight because it's wild. So now I have a pair of eights on the table and I've beaten your pair of fives. And so that's the sort of things that you can do. ⁓ so you're constantly looking at your cards, not only for what they are, but what for for what they could be based on what ⁓ transparent cards I can purchase from the market and slide into my sleeves. Is that all making sense so far the way I'm explaining this, Josh? speaker-0: No you're doing good. The the thing is about this game is it's a little bit difficult. It's not a hard game, but it's a little bit difficult to explain. speaker-1: That sense. It's yeah, it's much easier when you're seeing all of this on the table. So hopefully if you're listening to this, if even if you just go look at images on BGG as I'm going through this, it's gonna make a lot more sense. But ⁓ the bottom line is that you have a bunch of cards in your hand and there's a bunch of transparent cards that you can slot into your cards to adjust them. And ⁓ a lot of them are simply modifiers, like they'll just modify the rank of your card. So if somebody plays a single ten, that's the highest card in the game. But if I play my eight and I go and purchase a card that says plus six, now I just played a fourteen. Because I've slit it into my eight and now it's an eight plus six. So it's actually fourteen. And now that card stays modified for the remainder of the game. So that part's important. because it's gonna get shuffled and dealt out on the next hand. and so you may get that card or you may not get that card. Another really neat thing about this game is that every player gets two, ⁓ I forget what they're called, claim cards they're called. Let's say I'm the red player, just has a red border. And what that means is that anytime I'm playing a card, and you're probably gonna want to do this somewhat early in the game, anytime I'm playing a card, I can slide my red. my red border into one of them, and that makes that card mine for the rest of the game. So next hand, when the cards get dealt out, if anybody else ends up with the with that red border, they have to give it to me. ⁓ so now if I'm modifying a card to be really good, let's say I flipped my card from day to night, and it's now got you know that four that I was talking about is now a pair of fours. And then I can take a ⁓ a plus six and add it in there. Now it's a pair of tens. ⁓ that single card is a pair of tens just on its own. So you're constantly modifying these cards and you can claim two of them permanently for the rest of the game, which is super fun. ⁓ because at the beginning of each round, you get it back in your hand, and now by the end of the game, and this is what makes the game so much fun. By the end of the game, you are playing some wacky cards. Yeah, you know, like I ⁓ I put together a card here just for fun. I pulled out some some modifiers. So this one four card that can be two fours, right? Because it I flipped over to the night side and has that icon that makes it a pair of fours. Now it's got a plus five. So this four is actually a nine and it's actually a pair of nines. And it actually has in the in one of the transparent cards I slid in there, actually has a second one of those plus symbols. So now this can actually be three nines. This one card is three nines. So if I pair that with another nine that I just got dealt to me, now I have four nines. Beat that. You know what I mean? and ⁓ this card in theory that I've crafted here just for fun, ⁓ also has ⁓ some resources on it. So when I play it, I get to actually take more resources so that I could buy more cards on my next turn. And it's it counts as three nines. So by the end of the game, sometimes you're playing a single card that counts as twenty five or a pair of twenty fives. ⁓ and lets you take resources and all these crazy things. ⁓ so that's sort of what's the the main thing that's super fun and unique about this game. ⁓ Josh, I'll let you talk a little bit about ⁓ all the stuff that I've just mentioned. speaker-0: You know, it really is the as far as like what my general thoughts on a are, I believe that this was an attempt to try to get the trick taking crowd or and or like I I call it the classic card game crowd. People who like things like spade, scout and things like that. And maybe give the gamers who don't enjoy those games as much to play together. It almost felt like it was an attempt to do that. Like, hey, you know, you do you like Euchre? Well, this is kinda like Euchre Where you can or I guess a better one would be like ⁓ a hearts one those classic shedding games. But now that you know, we you gamify it with, you know, John declares kind of signature, you know, custom card sleeve stuff like that. And it succeeds in some areas and in other places it doesn't. I appreciate the attempt more than anything as someone who likes those classic card games in a lot of ways. Same. I think I think though What my favorite thing about it though is what you said before like it's just sets. There's no runs or anything complicated. It understands what it it is that this is there's gonna be lot of, you know, paralysis for some players who are just starting to play this about what cards to pie and how to combination things. That doesn't overbear the players with, ⁓ I gotta think about runs now, which some people like, why is that complicated? In this game it it could really with all the things you can do and all the custom stuff. speaker-1: Just speaker-0: It would really bog you down with too many choices. It narrows it a lot so that way the gameplay can still be smooth, even though there is some clunkiness because of the whole sliding and making sure things go like that. speaker-1: Yeah, speaking of like we talked about Peter C. Hayward, ⁓ who designed Movie Night that we played ⁓ just a few moments ago. ⁓ recently I was listening to one of his ⁓ fun problems podcast and he was talking about if a game it's basically about mental load, right? Like how much how much can a person take ⁓ in their brain, right? And when you make a game where the cards can get super complicated, you're gonna want to make the gameplay fairly simple. Otherwise, if you can make also sets and you can do all kinds of these other things, and there's a whole bunch of other rules to remember, now you're trying to keep track of all that, but also keep track of your crazy ass hand that you just put together. That like when you look at it, there's like all kinds of modifiers and th other things that your hand is doing. And you're layering that on top of all sorts of heavy rules and and car and exceptions and things that you can and can't do. ⁓ so I think that I think that John Declair did a really good job at simplifying the gameplay so much that he could put all the complexity and all the mental load that you would need to play this game simply in just the card combinations and just the modifying of the cards, ⁓ which I think was a really, a really good choice. And I think you're right that That like it's this this might be a little bit hyperbolic. I don't think that it's all the way this, but it's a little bit gimmicky, right? this card Yeah, but but I think it's it's because of everything that I just said, it serves the purpose really well and it's not just the gimmick, right? Like the game plays well and there's enough interesting choices and stuff to do there that it's not just speaker-0: Absolutely gimmicky. speaker-1: a gimmick, right? Like it's it I don't think it it's the only thing that sells the game or makes the game interesting. ⁓ it's or or it makes the game interesting enough that it's still worthy. It's still worth playing and and potentially purchasing. more thoughts on that in a bit, but yeah, I'll let you react to that. speaker-0: Well, I'm an advocate for gimmicks, to be honest. Like gimmicks sell. They sell. Why is Trouble reprinted year after year? It's because it has the little poppy thing. That's a gimmick. Yeah. Pe people designers can get so up in their butts sometimes. But like, I need to make sure my game is they're obsessed with me becoming like these elegant games that are just pure, beautifully designed. It's like, okay, good for you, but do you want to make money like as a designer? speaker-1: Right. Not even not even so much do you want to make money, although that's that's obviously a big part of it, but d do you want your game to be fun? Right? I mean that's the bottom line. If your gimmick is fun, who cares? Yeah. Like, you know, that's what people play games for. It's games. speaker-0: Right. As much as I love my elegant designs, I like I love Dune. I love Twilight Imperium, these elegant designs that don't have a lot of gimmicks. But like, you know, I still like playing trouble 'cause I get to do that pop stuff. Like I it's just speaker-1: Satisfying. That little poppy thing is very satisfying. speaker-0: Yeah, it breaks after you do it, but I just I I just get a little every time I do it 'cause it's so dumb, but I love it. And it's not a good game, but you know, it's it's still fun just to smack it really hard and things like that. But I mean I I think, you know, as as far as that's it's a gimmick, it works great. John Declare's been doing for a long time. It's really streamlined in this system. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And and it is it is a little bit gimmicky, but it works. ⁓ and it is like and I think that's what makes this game a hundred percent worth purchasing if you like traditional card games or if you just like card games or you're a board gamer, ⁓ you'll you'll recognize the the there's always a moment in a game that makes that game worth it. And for this game, it's when you craft that card and you claim it. And then in round three, you play triple twenty-fives with your one card. Yeah. That is like I'm I think I'm exact. I don't know if you can quite get to triple twenty-fives on a single card, but those are the types of things that you can do that are like so wacky and crazy. And when you when you go and buy that card from the market and you slide it in and you go bam, this is you know double nineteens. And you didn't think that I'd be able to beat your double eighteens, like here it is. Those moments are so satisfying. And I think it's those moments that totally make this game worth playing. speaker-0: Yeah, for sure. I mean this is I mean, I I think people who really like thinky card games will like this 'cause it's not too overbearing, but it has mu it has it scratches that itch of I wanna be able to have a little bit of meat grind after work, but not be overwhelmed with, you know, something that's gonna take forever to play. I it it comes it it takes what, maybe thirty, forty minutes to play. Yeah. Not for two players whatsoever. I first played this game at two players and it left a really sour taste in my mouth because it just wasn't fun. And at two, like me and me and my fan Patrick played it too. I did not find it enjoyable. Three or four though, five's a little much. Three or four is a nice sweet spot, which I think for most card shedding and trick takers, that's about the sweet spot. And so I mean, I would agree if you like a little more strategy in your card games, but maybe something that is familiar, it's like You know, it's like you're as someone el like maybe your mom makes a delicious banana cream pie and you love banana cream pie and you go but you're going to a different restaurant, they do a little differently, but it still has that flavor. Maybe there's a little more maybe they do a little more to it than your mom's homemade pie. It's still that nice comforting feeling, but something different you might want to try every once in a while. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah, I'm not gonna say this is the best ladder climbing shedding game. ⁓ it's not it's not and it's you know it's not my favorite, but I'm super happy I have it my collection now, and ⁓ every once in a while I'm gonna pull this out and we're gonna have a blast with it. It's not something that's gonna return to my table a ton. But every once in a while when we have the right crowd and we need to kill 40 minutes while we're waiting for or at the end of the night when we're done playing our our main course and we feel like playing a s a silly little satisfying game. this is one that I that I'll definitely will pull out every once in a while. I will have the itch to do it because of those moments of like crafting that card at the perfect moment. Like it's just so satisfying. There's a specific moment in a recent game where I did exactly that. somebody played like triple fifteens or something. And you know, everybody at the table basically went, ooh, like, okay, I guess you're gonna win this. And then I like I take a few moments, I look at my hand, I look at the board, I look at my resources, and I'm like, I think I can make this work. And I go and I spend all three of my torches and I grab two of the transparent cards. I slide it in two of my different cards. And I go, bam, there's the and I forget what the numbers were or what the situation was, but I was able to beat it. And it was like, ⁓ that's so satisfying. It's so much fun. and those moments a hundred percent make this game ⁓ worth playing. The scoring system ⁓ is really neat. Do you recall how that works? speaker-0: I'm if if speaker-1: So that's cool. So the way it works is that if you so I'm just reading off the I'll just I'll just do the four player one. ⁓ but if you finish first, if you shed out first as a four player game, you're gonna get five points, second place gets three points, third place gets two points, last place will get minus one point. And there's this track that you move your ⁓ your your your pawn, basically your marker down ⁓ as you get more points. And the way the the way the game works is that at the nine and ten point positions, it says win position. So basically what it says is that if you're in a win position, either you have nine or ten points at the start of a round, okay, you start a round with either nine or ten points, and you shed out first, you instantly win. Okay. If you win the first two rounds, you would have ten points, you're in a win position. And the third round, if you shut out first, you win. ⁓ So that would probably take like twenty minutes, ⁓ twenty five minutes if that scenario occurred. ⁓ but the really neat thing is that ⁓ after four rounds, we play four rounds and nobody's won yet, okay, ⁓ we go into the fifth round. And this is a sudden death round. The game will never go more than five rounds. I thought it was pretty ⁓ Is whoever ⁓ is ⁓ who all the players who have the most qualify to play that last round. Okay. ⁓ And ⁓ there's a track, okay, and the most amount of points you can is ten. ⁓ so there will probably be ⁓ two or three or whatever amount of tied players who have the most points. They all qualify to play in that last round and whoever shed out first in the fourth round in the previous round. So essentially You can go zero zero zero ⁓ the fourth round shed out first ⁓ and qualify to play in that in that final round. ⁓ and then whoever sheds out first in that fifth round wins no matter what. ⁓ so basically it's a scenario where you're never out of it, which is something I really appreciate. If you jump out ahead of everybody, your odds of winning are still much, much better because if you shed out first in a win position, you win the game. ⁓ so you're putting yourself in a way better position to win. So it's not, it's not a thing where like, ⁓ well, there's no point in winning and doing really well early, there is, because you're putting yourself in higher odds of winning later. ⁓ so anyways, I just thought that scoring system was really, really clever. It's a really clever way to make people that excelled early in a a much better position to win later, or even win early if they do well that way. But it also means that you're never out of it. There's always a chance that if you shut out first in that fourth round, you qualify for sudden death. ⁓ there's nothing worse than playing couple of rounds in a game ⁓ and realizing mid game that you don't have a chance of winning. Right. And then you to sit there for another ⁓ whatever amount of minutes, half hour, forty five minutes, sometimes longer in some of these big games, ⁓ and you're like, At this point I'm just trying to play for third place whatever it right? Yep. speaker-0: Agree. ⁓ so we have a rating score one through ten, correct? And so we give speaker-1: Okay. Sort of doing the doing the BGG rating system here. I just want to kind of wrap this up in a bow in terms of like my opinion, and I want kind of your final thoughts too. ⁓ I'll say that this is a really good ladder climbing shedding game with some really interesting decisions and the potential have some really satisfying moments. The negatives I'll say are that there's definitely some confusion that can happen when you Draw your hand because I'm gonna draw my hand, and I'm we're so used to looking at that top part of the hand to see what the values are, and then you sort your hand. But like by the third, fourth, fifth round, most of your cards, like probably half of your cards, or maybe a little bit more than half of your cards, will be modified. So at that point you're like, okay, this card is ⁓ it's actually not a five, it's a ten, because it's got a plus five down here. Okay, so I gotta sort that with my tens. This card could be wild, so I'm actually gonna put that over here in my hand as a reminder that this could be wild. Okay, this one actually counts as double, so I gotta make sure I keep that in mind. And now you're looking at a hand of cards that is very complex. ⁓ ⁓ So ⁓ that part of the game, I think it's double sword. Like, how can you have super satisfying card building, ⁓ card crafting moments that we talked about ⁓ without ⁓ ⁓ potential confusion and overwhelming amount of happening your ⁓ It's a thing that you just have to live with. ⁓ so if you're person that really struggles with a lot of information in your hand, maybe this is not for you. So I think that's important to say if you're considering buying this game. If you're somebody who struggles a ton with analysis paralysis, maybe this isn't quite for you as well, because there's just so many options of what you can do within this simple card play system. ⁓ so there's just a few things that I wanted to highlight for people if you're considering buying this game. But if those two things don't scare you and you're okay with like Tons of information in your hand and and parsing that and and and keeping that organized in your head. Super cool game, very, very interesting gimmick, a lot of fun to be had. that's kind of my general overall thoughts of it. Anything to add there, Josh, before we give our scores? speaker-0: Yeah, I think the biggest thing to know is that this game is in a genre where system mastery is a very big thing. People play bridge, spades, hearts, and even games like Scout because there is a system mastery to it. There is a rhythm and flow. It's almost like a dance in the hand of how you should play your cards and what things you should be doing. Now some people don't like that. A lot of gamers actually in the hobby don't necessarily like that. But People who play games like Splotter on that w on the heavier side, this is kind of the opposite side where no, you have a card in your hand, you know exactly how you should play it out. And that's there's a satisfaction to that. You know, there's there there's a really good feeling that you know I get when I play scout, like, okay, I know exactly how I need to play this hand right now. I may not win this round, but doesn't mean I'm not gonna win the game. And it's that kind of, you know, knowledge that really sends lots of these games into the stratosphere and longevity. I don't think this has that because of what you said of all speaker-1: I think this purposely disrupts that. Right. Like change so much and so quickly that you cannot master the system because like no matter how good of a thing that I can do and how well I play my hand, the next person can alter their hand at a moment's notice and and and kind of change things altogether. So yeah, you're you're absolutely right. This is it it it it's sort of like when I when I reviewed origin story. ⁓ Have you played Origin Story? So it kind of falls similarly into that. It's like origin story is a trick taking game, right? So like you sit down at the table and you're like, okay, I love trick taking game, but let's do this. So you're thinking like following suit and card counting and playing my handout just right so that I win exactly the the tricks that I want to win or whatever. And then origin story, the way that game plays, it's the wild west, man. Like people have abilities and card abilities and things change so fast. this isn't quite to that level. ⁓ but yeah, if you go into origin story thinking I'm playing a traditional trick taking game and I can bring all my trick taking skills to the table to win, you've got another thing coming. And I think that's totally mistaken. Yeah. And I think that ruins sort of disrupts that that shedding system in a way that if you can embrace it and have fun with it, is a blast. Don't get me wrong, I love Origin Story, but not because it's a trick taking game. Yeah. Or not only because it's a trick taking game, if that makes sense. ⁓ Josh, let's let's hear your score. speaker-0: So my score is a six out of ten. Okay. Now, a lot of people for some reason think when they see a six, it's a bad game. I don't know where this came from. I I mean six is a f is a is a fine game. Yeah, it's a positive score. I like ruins, but as if objectively, and you know, it's a good game. It deserves to be above five, deserves to be passing higher than average game. Just speaker-1: Positive score, yeah. speaker-0: Subjectively for me, I like the system mastery and small trick taking and card shedding games. I like being able to go back and like really dig into like, hey, how is the rhythm and flow supposed to work? And Ruins doesn't do that, but I respect that it understands it's not there to do that. So I could I could even say six point five. Do you do you did do you take decimals? Yeah. Okay, I'll say I'll say a six point five higher than night. It's a six point five. speaker-1: Sure. speaker-0: It's it's something like I wouldn't I know who who wants to play it. It's the people who like you know, who wanna have who maybe don't like the system mastery type games, but maybe like having games where there's lots of combinations to go off. It's great. It's great for that person. It's just subjectively and ⁓ objectively to me it's a six point five, which is a perfectly good score. If you see a game with six point five on Board Game Geek, I'm still gonna try it 'cause I know that it's it's it knows what the game it knows what it's supposed to be, so that's good. speaker-1: Yeah, if I'm if I'm like on the fence about a game and not sure mechanisms and all this other stuff, like a six point five is sort of the floor of like, okay, like there's enough people that like this that if I like the mechanisms and I like the designer and I like the theme and et cetera, et cetera, I'll probably dig it, you know what I mean? And I'm looking at the BGG kind of star rating system and I and I usually look at the little descriptions to to make sure because I try to be f honest to that more than anything. so there are descriptions right in BGG for how many stars. So if it's one star, it says awful, defies gameplay, defies game description. And if it's a ten, it's outstanding, will always enjoy playing. ⁓ and a six is okay, I will play if in the mood. you know, and then you know, a seven is good, usually willing to play. I have this as an eight. Very good, enjoy playing and would suggest it. ⁓ So this is after five or six plays, maybe. and ⁓ and still very recent. So there might be a recency bias in that. If you check with me in a year from now, it might go down a touch. ⁓ but as of right now, I think it's very good for the reasons that I outlined. Enjoy playing it and would suggest it. ⁓ but you know, ⁓ there's there's a lot of ⁓ it's not gonna be a staple for me in like My traditional card game type games like my Scouts, ⁓ even D and Up, which I've been playing a ton of lately, I think is gonna be a staple. you know, and ⁓ and a bunch of the trick taking games that I've that I've talked about extensively on this podcast. But yeah, I have this as an eight. ⁓ I think it's I think it's very good. I think the gimmick is fun enough and creates moments that I seek in board gaming, and so I will seek those moments ⁓ in ruins going forward. All right, so let's get to the final stretch of the episode here and talk about 1999's The Mummy. The Mummy follows follows adventurer Rick O'Connell and librarian Evelyn Carnahan as they uncover the lost city of Haminoptra and accidentally unleash an ancient c an ancient cursed mummy with a serious grudge. What follows is a perfect mix of action, horror, comedy. And Brendan Fraser running running from increasingly upsetting bugs while someone slowly realizes they may have doomed humanity. ⁓ I guess while everyone slowly realizes, ⁓ I'm I I wrote this myself, but apparently I can't read it. released in nineteen ninety nine. Yeah, it is late. ⁓ released in ninety nine nineteen ninety nine, one of the the most ⁓ infamous years of movies. I don't know if you know this, but ⁓ Like nineteen ninety nine is a crazy year of like a combination of like incredibly great movies, but also a whole bunch of really iconic and important movies. ⁓ even if maybe they weren't great. but ⁓ yeah, there's a book that I read called Nineteen Ninety Nine, the best movie year ever. Really interesting. Lots of speaker-0: What were the other movies? speaker-1: ⁓ man, the list is endless. But like off the literally off the top of my head, The Matrix Blair Witch Project, ⁓ Star Wars Episode One. Yes. Election. ⁓ Stanley Kubrick's last movie, Eyes Wide Shut. ⁓ let me just for fun here, see if there's I'm trying to see if I can find speaker-0: ⁓ deep blue sea, heck yes. We got. I'm looking all over right now. Like speaker-1: Yeah, there's a list of okay, yeah. So Fight Club, The Mummy, Star Wars Episode One, The Matrix, The Green Mile, Eyes Wide Shut, The Sixth Sense, Ten Things I Hate About You, American Beauty, American Pie, Magnolia, Cruel Intentions, Office Space, Notting Hill, Toy Story Two, Blair Witch Project, Galaxy Quest, Girl Interrupted, Dogma, The Talented Mr. Ripley, The Iron Giant, She's All That, The Virgin Suicides, The Insider, Double Jeopardy, Sleepy Hollow, Being John Malkovich, Go, Boondock Saints, Big Daddy, Drop Dead Gorgeous, Deep Blue Sea, Audition, The Ninth Gate, Bicentennial Man, Arlington Road. It's like a speaker-0: They were so afraid of Y two K that they just released all these gangers. speaker-1: These movies are not all necessarily all bangers, right? Like Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me, ⁓ Lake Placid. there's like these movies are not bangers. They're all they're mostly bangers, for sure. But whether you agree or not, they're bangers, they're all iconic, they're all important, they're all they all fit a niche. Like there are people who love at all of these movies, right? ⁓ anyways, ⁓ 1999, best movie year ever, is a really interesting book that I read. And ⁓ ever since then, every anytime a ninety nine movie comes up, I'm like, ⁓ yes, yes, that makes sense. Okay, released in ninety nine, directed by Steven Summers, ⁓ stars Brendan Fraser, Rachel Weiss. I never know how to pronounce her name. and John Hanna. Rotten Tomatoes score of sixty-two, a little bit low. On Rotten Tomatoes. ⁓ the audience score is a little bit higher, seventy five percent. Letterboxd is a lot more forgiving. It's a three point four out of five, ⁓ which ⁓ makes a lot more sense than I think the Rotten Tomatoes score. and then the IMDB score is seven point one. you know, one thing to note about the differences with Rotten Tomatoes and Letterboxd is like letterbox is meant to be a qu overall quality score from from people. ⁓ whereas the Rotten Tomatoes critics score and even the audience score is straight up a thumbs up or a thumbs down. So if you know sixty-two percent of critics give it a thumbs up, right? so those critics might rate it an eight or a nine out of ten or whatever, but sixty-two percent of critics gave it a thumbs up or gave it a positive review, if that makes sense. So it's barely fresh. But just something important to to kind of note when we're talking about these rotten tomato scores. yeah, so that is ⁓ kind of a synopsis and a little bit of information on the mummy. I took most of the lead on ruin, so I'll let you start with your general thoughts ⁓ and anywhere you want to start the conversation on the mummy. speaker-0: So this movie has a great history with me. And here's the history is that for almost I'll say for almost twenty nine years. It's not nearly as long, but like I think almost twenty five years, I refused to watch this movie. And I here's why I was terrified as a kid. I I I was born in ninety six. So this came out with when I was three or four, I wanted to watch big kid movies with my brother and my cousin. They love this movie. My brother and my cousin who I'm really close with, we grew up around each other. They adore this movie. And my dad adores this movie too. And this movie scared the ever living heck out of me. And so I would I had nightmares about this, Matt. About this movie. Like the one part in the movie where, like, you know, the you know, the the scarabs are still freaking me out a little bit, like the scarabs and how they move and stuff. I use that in my RPGs when I'm describing like small rats, like have you seen the mummy? Yeah. It's like the scarabs. Everyone who knows that immediately literally there was one time I was playing Call of Cthulhu with a bunch of guys and I was all these these cats were coming at them that were like evil cats. And I said, You know how the scarabs move in the nineteen ninety movie? Everyone's like, ⁓ yeah, they moved like that. Everyone immediately had a mu reaction, like, ⁓ no. Literally all all these guys who are my age are like, No, no, like free a visceral reaction 'cause we had that shared connection. And so I didn't watch this and I and beats a and I've watched this movie in bits and pieces throughout the years and you know, today, the day before we did this was the first day I actually watched the full thing all the way through. I've known what I've known what the plot is. I could tell you what the plot is. But I realized like yeah, let's watch the mummy where speaker-1: ⁓ that's Are you still a are you still a scaredy cat in general with horror movies as an adult? speaker-0: Yes and no. yes and no. Like there are some things like I I just like I don't like a lot of gore for one thing. I'm not a gore guy. ⁓ so slashers aren't a thing for me. ⁓ over like things that are overly gratuitous, it's just not for me. But ⁓ there's so much I appreciate about horror and the cinematography behind it because lots of movies can get away with being subpar. Like horror can't. speaker-1: That's fair. speaker-0: Like it has to invoke emotion in order to be have longevity it needs. Like you were talking about with obsession, you know, I I am confident, I haven't seen it, but I'm confident like there are things about the way it's shot, written, and paced that if it's not if if it wasn't perfect, and obviously it's not perfect, but if it wasn't done correctly, it wouldn't have the the the success it's having now. For sure. And you know, with what what I really like about this mov it it still creeps me out in some ways. But I'm not like scared of anymore because I I I appreciate more I'm a grown man now, so I'm not scared. But like it's I I what I really I'm just I feel so sad that I haven't watched this movie as more often than I have now, being as old as I am. Because, you know, it's such it in my opinion, it is such a great blend of, like you said, ⁓ horror. It has enough horror in it to like keep you like, okay. What's gonna happen. Lots of great action that again it's practical. You see Brendan Fraser or at least his stuntable doing the stuff, and it's edited well enough to where you like you believe it is Brendan Fraser or even Rachel Weiss doing all this stuff. And it blends comedy in it seamlessly. And that that I think that really comes from the the really ⁓ what makes this movie work, in my opinion, is speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: The leads. Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weiss have chemistry or eons, and they are both incredibly charming in their own rights. Top it off with a great supporting cast. speaker-1: Yeah or They are they maybe the best looking possi like their gorgeous. I like yes, like I'm in love with Rachel Weiss, especially, but the scene where Brandon Fraser goes from being that prisoner and being like long haired and all disheveled, and then the next scene he comes up and he's clean shaven and he has like his floppy hair and he's all dappered and stuff. I was like, ⁓ my god, I forgot I forgot that that that's like speaker-0: ⁓ my goodness gracious, yes. speaker-1: Brandon Frasier from nineteen ninety nine. I forgot that he was like that good looking and that charming. ⁓ speaker-0: I mean he was he was a he was a Han Solo. Like I mean there there yeah in Holly in Hollywood, this probably I don't know if this is a real thing, but there's it's really hard to cast a scoundrel and do it col like d do it comp speaker-1: A likable a likable scoundrel, yeah. speaker-0: Yeah, so like Harrison Ford can do that really easily with Indiana Jones and Haunt Solo. Brandon Fraser was very good at it in Rick O'Connell. And recently, like the most recent one I can think of was probably Chris Pratt for a while. ⁓ and they kind of he and he was, you know, Jurassic P Jurassic World and you know Guardians of the Galaxy. And I honestly think that Brandon Fraser is my favorite just because I think he does it super well in this movie. And again, with Rachel Weiss, because the scoundrel needs the per the the the the partner to play off of, Rachel Weiss is just go goes toe to toe with him so well. Yeah. That, you know, it's it just cr and and and that's another thing. Like that scene in the movie, I think was what makes the chemistry and the relationship work is that, you know, sometimes it's ⁓ the guy has googly eyes for the girl. And in this scene, you know, like Rachel Weiss is like, ⁓ yeah. speaker-1: Wow. speaker-0: Yeah, it's it's obvious they're both attracted to each other. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. speaker-0: Yeah, I they're both I Geor have you seen George of the Jungle ⁓ off scene with Brandon? speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: Is jacked, man. So like he's a fit dude. But and like, you know, the the this relationship they have that feels natural, it builds, they play off each other. And you know, mixed with like John Hanna is great in this movie, and the supporting cast, the characters all do their jobs and they come to work. And you know, they have Benny. I forgot what the actor whose name is Benny was, but you just have the biggest D-bag in all of the film. One of them at least. Like the dude, this dude Like Emotep is a great villain because he is sympathetic. Like he's doing this because he loves this woman. And you know, so that's what makes him a good villain in that way. It's like, okay, you understand why he's doing this, but he still can't end the world. Dude, calm down. But Benny is just so unredeemably just douchey. Like he just for himself is all by himself. And n the the that where he when he like gets his in the end, it is satisfying. Like, okay. speaker-1: It's funny how meta they get with it too. Like Rachel Vice literally, like four minutes earlier, says something along the lines of, you know, sc like scumbags, like you always get what they deserve. And then she looks at him with this like look to be like, I'm f I'm serious, like it's coming for ya. And he's like he literally has this like look of like being scared. And then like of course, moments later, here it comes. Yeah. speaker-0: Yeah. But yeah, I th I I just think like what I think what makes this movie great, for one thing, it knows it it balances really well when does this need to have action? When does there need to be a sprinkle of comedy? When does this need to be horror? When do we balance that horror out with you know it it balance it it's everything is seamless in my opinion. You know, like one of my favorite scenes that I I laugh aloud every time is when Brendan Fraser and Benny is working for emotep. And Benny's like this guy who used to knew Rick Rick and he betrayed him and now he's working for emotep and he's trying to find this book and Rick walks in and's like you're doing some spring cleaning, but anyway, like ⁓ he tries to wrap room. Rick just picks up a chair and hugs it at him, just one arm over the box, and he just goes and falls over. I left because it's just so seamless. He just wheel arms that chair throws it at him. speaker-1: So hard speaker-0: And it's moments like that. speaker-1: Clops trick like ⁓ physical humor in here for sure. speaker-0: Yeah, but at the same time, what's happening outside is that one of the ⁓ four people who opened up Ilmo's Tepsoon is getting sucked dry. Like this is happening in tandem at the same time. It's not like going back and forth, but they are happening. And so the next the very next thing you see is this dude sucked dry and emotep standing there like half together and things like that. And so, you know, it just it just does a really good job keeping the audience engaged and it You know, it's I I I feel like it's really hard to do a good archaeology movie. Like w which is the this kind of is. And, you know, you think of Indiana Jones and the Mummy and things like that, but you know, there's it's really hard to find other ones that do it good and make it enjoyable and bring in a large audience and stuff like that. And did do you have any thoughts on speaker-1: What let me start with my general thoughts. I agree with all of that. I think it's like a prototypical nineties action adventure thriller. it's like just silly enough and just wacky enough and just funny enough. And ⁓ at some point in the mid 2000s they decided that like if like everything had to be serious and more serious. So now all the movies are John Wicks and Jason, I think maybe Jason Bourne was one of the like main catalysts of that. Like the success that that that that trilogy had kind of like shot us into like a more serious, more grounded hand to hand combat, gun fu, like ⁓ you know, again, very serious kind of action movie where You know, in the nineties we were much more likely to have Arnold movies with really silly ⁓ you know, one-liners and movies like like this one or the fifth element. ⁓ there's just like Phantom. ⁓ yeah, like at some point action movies got really serious. And though I loved a lot of those action movies, this was really fun to revisit and kind of like speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: live back in that time where movies could be a great action movie and have a bunch of thrills and have a bunch of horror, but also be silly and wacky and and have fun. And it does it does feel a little bit dated in that way sometimes, like the gig the sorry, the gag where the guy loses his glasses. Yeah. And like as a person who wears glasses now, I find it even funnier. But like he loses his glasses and literally cannot see anything. He's acting like he's 100% blind. Like literally hands in front of his like walking around with his hands in front of him as if he can't see two feet in front of himself, right? and then like his glasses get stepped on and then all like all of a sudden he's completely a hundred percent blind. To the point where in the next scene where he had had his eyes stolen, literally stolen from him, I'm like, what difference does it make? He couldn't see in the first place. But like those kinds of little gags ⁓ you got away with a little bit in the nineties, that stood out to me as being like a little bit too silly this time around. But now it's cause I've been conditioned to to watch John Wick and Jason Bourne. ⁓ you know, as opposed to watching Brendan Fraser. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: run around and and uppercut ⁓ a mummy. Yeah. ⁓ so anyways, like ⁓ you know, s some super small gripes like that in in some of the gags that are just a little bit dated. But other than a few, you know, pretty minimal moments like that, I thought it stood it's stood up to time pretty well. ⁓ especially the ⁓ the visual effects. I thought ⁓ mostly you know, aged fairly well for a movie from nineteen ninety nine for sure. a few times I'm like, okay, that's that's not great. there's a few moments, but for the most part, and and they really lean leaned into practical practical effects as much as they possibly could, ⁓ which obviously I I very much appreciated. ⁓ but yeah, it was interesting. Like the thing that stood out to me, I think, more than anything, and I and you mentioned it too, was the leads. ⁓ I probably like honestly not sure I've seen a Brendan Fraser movie with him as the lead since maybe the nineties or the early two thousands. you know, I w I haven't seen this movie in probably fif a good t twenty years, probably fifteen, twenty years. it has been a long time since I've seen this movie, and I legit forgot. How freaking charming and how charismatic ⁓ he could be, ⁓ Brendan Fraser. like he's just like so good. And ⁓ I, you know, when I when I think back of Brendan Fraser prior to watching this, you know, I'm thinking Monkey Bone, and I'm thinking ⁓ George of the Jungle, and I'm thinking Encino Man. And though some of those movies are really solid, they're not like great charming performances. They're silly, wacky, crazy performances, right? They're not ⁓ they're they're not what he did here in The Mummy, which was like very charming, pulled off that likable scoundrel. and ⁓ yeah, I think him and Rachel Vice like really like dragged this movie by the ears to to what it is. Which is a ton of fun and and just the charm and you know, charismatic ⁓ you know personas I think is is what the main thing I got from this movie. speaker-0: Yeah, it's it it really is does a good job. I mean I think my favorite moment of the movie is when ⁓ you first meet the mummy, like he'd just taken the guy's eye, as we were talking about. Yeah, that was the trope I didn't like. It's I was like, ⁓ I mean I get why they had to do that, but like as it it didn't take me out of it, but I like, Okay, they could have done that differently looking back at it. But it was after this moment where he's taking the eye and the guy's tongue and they all run in try to save ⁓ Evie. And they see the mummy for the first time, this creature, and it goes and screams at him really screams screams at Rick really loud. And normally you in the movies, everyone goes, ⁓ but no, Rick looks at him and just screams right back. You're just like, yes. It's so great. Like it that that's to me, it just makes my heart happy that that that describes the tone of the movie. Like there's this horrible thing that's happening, but this guy who's the lead is crazy enough and speaker-1: great. Yeah. speaker-0: confident of that he's just gonna scream right back at it and figure a way out. So I mean yeah, I think everything you're saying is true. It holds up because the things that are when they don't have to use CGI, they don't use CGI. And so I think for me personally, I can be more forgiving of movies that have to use CGI for the big set pieces and may not look as great nowadays. It's like okay, I can forgive it because everything else is really believable. But yeah, I mean I think this is an A product of its time that still is really a fun watch. That is it's a popcorn flick. It's properly traumatized me. I think every kid needs to be properly traumatized by some movies as they grow up. It traumatized me along with like Secret of Nym, Once Upon a Forest, Infern Gulliates and that kind of zeitgeist. ⁓ but yeah, it was a formative movie for me that I haven't watched until recently again. And, you know, I just I'm really happy that I got to see it all the way through for the first time again. And now I'm just gonna keep watching it in the background of my restaurant, just on the TV we have in there. I can look back and like, haha, this is a good part and stuff like that. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, it's it's way better than I was expecting it to be. you know, I again haven't hadn't watched it since you know, maybe within a couple years of it coming out, I probably watched it in the early two thousands and not since. So it's probably been twenty years. speaker-0: Yeah, this is the movie that we comp this is the movie that when when a mummy movie comes out, this is what everyone compares it to. This like all the discourse online with Tom Cruise's the mummy, this Lee Cronin's the mummy, the Scorpion King movies, anything that e has to do anything with that kind of like mummy, everyone invariably, in my opinion, compares it to the nineteen nine movie. Like, is it gonna be as good as this? So far it hasn't been speaker-1: Anywhere close anywhere. speaker-0: Like Tom Cruise's mummy was we I I I haven't it's the biggest upsetting thing for me because they were so confident they're gonna have this dark universe that they put it in the movie and it's never gonna happen now, which makes me sad. But this this this it for lots of these kind of you know, they use these classic I I call them universal monster type movies. This this is a staple for a lot of people of how you should take a classic monster Reinvent it and execute it. speaker-1: Yeah, it's sort of funny if we think about the like classic Universal Monsters. Like is this the only one with a like clearly formative, obvious, iconic movie? Like there's the original Frankenstein, but that's like a black and white hundred year old speaker-0: Beyond the classic ones, beyond the classic ones, the only one I could think of is the Invisible Man with Elizabeth ⁓ what's her name? She was a Handmaid's Tale person. Elizabeth Moss? speaker-1: ⁓ right. ⁓ yeah. Okay. Really good, but is it iconic? Like do you what is that what does that even look like? And like he's invisible, I know, but like there's no like like is there an image that comes to speaker-0: Right, there's not. There's not. 'Cause like in in the in this movie it's the giant Sands fan. Yeah. speaker-1: Really, really good. But there's not even a like can you even think of an image to be like that movie is is iconic in any way, you know what I mean? speaker-0: I mean for me, I personally think of the chair that it's like indented but no one's in it. So but I I get ⁓ what you mean like if you put that compared to the giant sand face that is in the mummy, nowhere close. Everyone's gonna know what the sand face is. speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. And like is there a Dracula movie? ⁓ like Nosferatu might be the closest thing to like even the original or whatever. speaker-0: I mean as far as Dracula goes. speaker-1: I guess there's the ⁓ Bram Stoker's Dracula, the Francis Ford Coppola one, but that thing was really wacky and for some people speaker-0: There's there's Van Helsing too, but that wasn't that's really niche. It's Van Helsing and Yeah. Dracula untold was another attempt at that, that was just okay. speaker-1: Yeah, you know. Yeah. Yeah, which is unfortunate because there's the characters are super iconic. Everybody knows them, but not from not from a movie, not from like a formative, you know, like iconic film. The mummy is the closest thing. but anyways. Which is sad. Interesting. Yeah. ⁓ yeah, I I I really dug it. I I think like we when we reviewed Project Hail Mary on a recent episode, great movie. you know That movie felt like in eighties or nineties adventure blockbuster summer blockbuster adventurous romp, you know, that that the mummy is like, you know, it's it that's one of the the you know prototypes of that kind of genre. And ⁓ so it was fun to to to review Project Hail Mary because it's the first one in a long time that felt like from that era, right? ⁓ but it was just modernized a little bit or whatever, yeah. speaker-0: I think movies are starting to go back to that. I think Hollywood, the machine, is starting to realize that we have lots of Marvel fatigue after here after Endgame. Because, you know, that would for a long time it was Marvel, you know, because we had a story that everyone was invested in. Endgame ended, Marvel fumbled, even though I still like some of the projects afterwards. COVID happened. And it's just well, what's there's there's not these things that we're excited to go to anymore. All these major IPs like Star Wars and that we love still are just not attracting us because we're just gonna wait to see what happens. But, you know, I think with things like Project Hail Mary, Obsession is another one. That's recent memory. weapons, barbarian, horror lots of horror movies to be honest. Yeah. Are just are just really bringing people back to the theater because I think they I mean you maybe you can I think people like speaker-1: Indeed. speaker-0: New stuff for one. People taking a risk. And I I don't know how to explain. They're just they're just correct. speaker-1: I think there's a few factors for sure. I think you're you're kind of on the right track, ⁓ with ⁓ especially with horror. Like people want there's the Marvel fatigue, right? So people definitely I think want unique original stories. And like ⁓ Mandalorian and Grogu just came out in theaters, and on opening night of Mandalorian and Grogu, I went to see Obsession. Like if you told if you told me that. If you said that like Matt, you're in ten years from now, you're on opening night, there's gonna be a Star Wars movie about a Mandalorian and and ⁓ you know, ⁓ a Yoda esque character, and you're not gonna go see it. You're gonna go see a ⁓ an indie horror movie. Like I would laugh. I would laugh. But you know, I just like I want to see the unique original horror movie more than I wanna see. Another like mid Star Wars thing. ⁓ and you know what? I'll watch Mandalorian and Grogu at some point. I might even go see in theaters and I'll probably like it, but I'm not excited. I'm not like this is gonna be the best ever. Like, I don't know if there's a franchise at all right now that like on opening night I'm gonna go. I'm like excited for it. You know, Dune, maybe the new Dune movie is the closest thing. ⁓ but otherwise, like There's not a big franchise where I'm like, I've got to go opening night at all. speaker-0: But that's the thing though. I think like I think we're so used to being formulaic that we're we're sick of the Marvel formula, the Star Wars formula. We know what's gonna happen. We we we gotta have a f there might be a few like sprinkles of like, ⁓ okay. But but generally speaking, we know the feelings we're gonna feel. Whereas something like Project Hail Mary, Obsession, and even the Dune movies, which, you know I with this part three for those who haven't read the books is gonna be a wild ride for them if they haven't. speaker-1: What they're going into it, and I'm excited for it. speaker-0: So Yeah, so you're prepare if they stay a little bit like they've stayed pretty close to the books. If they stay close to the books and what's happened, you're in for a ride. 'Cause I have read the books and it gets crazy. But yeah, I think I think we're just we're sick of the formula, we want something different. speaker-1: Yeah. And I think the other factor of why like horror movies and more independent smaller movies are doing really well, is is just like s straight up a financial one for the studios where they're seeing numbers drop for box office, theaters are not doing nearly as well as they did pre COVID, ⁓ plus all of this like you know, franchise fatigue that we're seeing. So studios are making safer bets and giving Curry Barker a hundred ⁓ a million bucks to go make, you know, a little horror movie is a tiny risk with a massive upside, right? Yeah. ⁓ same thing with getting Zach Krager to do his and whatever. So if they market these things well and they get them out there ⁓ and there's some buzz, like the the Jason Blum kind of like ⁓ formula of like make something exciting, thrilling and cheap, ⁓ and then market the hell out of it can work. And I'm here for it because that's maybe like if I had to pick a favorite genre, you know, sci fi and horror like are right up there in in, you know, between speaker-0: the most I think going off your point, the most important movie. I think the most important movie of the year for me is going to be the backrooms. Because it's going off of because no one knew what Curry no one knew really about Obsession until it happened. And it was like, ⁓ shoot, this is great. If K if if ⁓ K pain Kane Pixels and A twenty four can pull off the backrooms, which not not as big as a budget as has a bigger budget than Obsession did. But If it can hit this, I think studios are going to realize as they're starting to realize, okay, this is where we need to go is find these young, hungry creators who yeah wanna make make proof of themselves. Give them constraints, a small budget to like 'cause you know, c you know, constraints breed creativity. You know, if you that's now that's why all these classic corbies like the thing they had small budgets to say they get creative how they do stuff. It's going to breed greatness. And if they can pull it off with the and so if the backrooms hits it and does well even just financially, it does I don't think that they don't g they're gonna care about the critics. As long as it does well financially, I think we're gonna see a lot more movies people heading in that direction of taking these these indie filmmakers that have their own followings, giving them a small platform, and then if it does well, letting them run with it. speaker-1: Yeah, I'm I'm here for it. And like I said, horror the horror thriller genre is like right there with sci fi as my favorite. So ⁓ you know, I'm a genre guy. Look around me. If you're looking at the room, if you're looking at the video here, you can tell I'm a genre guy. yeah, so I I wanna take two minutes to talk a little bit about the the CGI in this movie. Some of it was really good, none of it was as bad as the Scorpion King. Are you familiar with that? speaker-0: I I've watched Mommy 2. I've watched the Mommy 2 more the Mie Well. Mommy 2 is not nearly as terrifying, so I watched it. That shot is the most iconic. I wanna if I had a way to like if I had like a really fancy studio, I'd I would have that framed. Like I I'm super I'm a super ironic guy in lots of ways. I would have that shot framed. speaker-1: I wish ⁓ it's so hilariously bad. But anyways, yeah, there's a shot of the rock as the Scorpion King like running towards the camera and it is like so god-awful. ⁓ the CGI is so bad. ⁓ it's it's laughable and it's hard to believe that they s they looked at that and went, Okay, yeah, it's good. It's good. Put it print it. Print it. speaker-0: Almo it almost ruined an actually 'cause the the number two is actually really fun. It's not nearly as good as the first. It's still a really fun movie though. But that thing, it like it takes you out of it. Like 'cause the mummy the first mummy movie doesn't take you out of it. You're locked in the whole time for the most part. You're locked in enough for this one that you're just you see, you're like, ⁓ okay. What is it? speaker-1: Yeah, the the moments in the moments that were kind of iffy in the mummy ⁓ were overshadowed a million times by how good a lot ⁓ the other effects were and everything else that were happen that was happening in that movie. So yeah. And and speaking about visual effects, I was just looking at the IMDB page and I found a piece of information here I thought was really ⁓ fun and interesting. So I'll read it out here. So industrial light and magic ⁓ which is the ⁓ ILM, the the company started by George Lucas. they they are basically like w the the maybe the biggest effects house in all of Hollywood for the last four years, fifty years. Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and a lot of these guys are maybe even owners and involved in in anyways. So Industrial Light and Magic jokingly jokingly created the Steven Summers scale. So Steven Summers is the director of the mummy to measure the extent of digital effects used in any given movie scene. So there are four parts of the scale from lowest to highest are what the shot needs, what the computers can handle, ⁓ my God, the computers are about to crash. And then the level, the fourth level is what Steven wants. So apparently that there's a Stephen Summers scale of ⁓ of how much visual effects are in a in a shot ⁓ or in a movie. So ⁓ yeah and if you look at Summers ⁓ his other movies Van Helsing which you previously mentioned ⁓ G.I. Joe Rise of Cobra and then he obviously did the I think three or four maybe even four of those of the mummy movies. speaker-0: He did three of them. He did all three. speaker-1: Great. Okay. Was there a fourth? I feel like there was a speaker-0: There was a there was like f there is f there's not four. There's only three mum movies of the proper trilogy. There's ⁓ like there's like six Scorpion King movies. speaker-1: ⁓ then there were some Scorpion King movies, yeah, you're right. speaker-0: But and then he did the G. I. Joe ones, which were okay. I don't he was a producer on a lot of the Scorpion King movies, but he wasn't the director. speaker-1: Okay, gotcha. Cool. ⁓ any final thoughts on ⁓ on the mummy? speaker-0: I could I could talk for a long time on this, but I I just think this this brings you back to a great time in movie movie stuff. Like this is if if you like action adventure and haven't seen this one, this is a I think a quintessential action adventure movie. You know, it's great for families of like who have like the eight above type stuff where like there's not there there's nothing that's gonna be too crazy for them or gory. There's some stuff that's disturbing, which I think is okay for people to see. kids to be traumatized a little bit, be scared a little bit. ⁓ I I I really am happy that this movie holds up as well as it does. That yeah it has strong has a strong female lead, has a strong male lead, is it's there's so many great things about it that I would if you if you haven't watched it, I would encourage you a listeners to give it a chance. speaker-1: I will also say I think they were ⁓ ahead of the curve a little bit with the language stuff. ⁓ what I mean by that is that like a lot of movies are so scared, which I guess it affects the box office as a pretty big thing, but they're so scared of subtitles and so scared of like having other languages in a movie that like movies set in like foreign lands or whatever, but everybody just magically speaks English or whatever. That always like takes me out of a film a little bit. ⁓ you know, I one of the main one of the main things I appreciate about Quentin Tarantino, like if you look at Inglorious Bastards, every like there's a bunch of scenes that are completely in German or completely in French. ⁓ and ⁓ and everything in between, right? And ⁓ even a little a little bit of Italian. ⁓ but there's everything in between and you just get subtitles and it just feels so authentic. And in this movie you had a bunch of people speaking Arabic. ⁓ And they either did it in such a way where ⁓ the you know, Rachel Vice spoke it so she would translate the important stuff, ⁓ or they just like you got the gist of what they were saying and it didn't really matter what the exact words were. And ⁓ I just appreciate that they that they did that instead of just having everybody speak English the entire time. yeah. And then in terms of like negatives, like there's a little bit of CGI stuff. if you think too hard about the plot and maybe doesn't fully all hold together, specifically travel stuff, like they get around to places like Egypt. Egypt is massive. and and like to go from Alexandria to Cairo, that's like it's a three hour flight or something like that, or a a one or two hour flight or something like that. You to fly, you know. so you know, things like that. Are sometimes a little convenient. ⁓ but like that's that's just like you gotta sacrifice some of that stuff to just keep things flowing and keep things entertaining and whatever. But ⁓ yeah, I don't I don't have a lot of a ton of negative things to say. There's a little bit of like the ga certain gags that didn't age well, and a little bit of maybe CGI stuff, but again, it was just all overshadowed by by Brendan Fraser and Rachel Vise, their performances. And just the the great action and the the pa like the positive ⁓ visual effects as well, right? Like the there's some there's a couple of little things where it's like, okay, they didn't gauge great, but the rest of the visual effects are fantastic. you know, especially all of the practical stuff. So yeah, those are more or less my overall my overall thoughts. Did you have anything else to mention before we go to our our kind of scores here? speaker-0: No, I do not. I think it's a good place to cool. speaker-1: So yeah, we ⁓ on dice camera action here, we like to use the letterboxed scale of one to five stars. You're welcome to use fractions if you like, ⁓ or rate it however you really want to, but that's that's sort of what we do. ⁓ so go ahead. ⁓ but actually before we get to our scores, I forgot. are you familiar with the Wilhelm screen? Yeah. Okay. speaker-0: Very familiar. speaker-1: So we don't need to go over it again. maybe I will very briefly for any first time listeners, but the Wilhelm Scream is a famous scream that was originally in a movie in like the 40s or 50s, and then it ended up being sort of a an inside joke amongst filmmakers and especially amongst ⁓ sound editors, where they would like in insert the Wilhelm Scream, which you'll hear here. They basically inserted this in like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of movies over the years. And so it's in probably most action movies that you have seen. So ⁓ right here, right now, I haven't even looked it up yet. Do you think there was a Wilhelm scream in the mummy? There is Scream in the Mummy. speaker-0: Guarantee you. speaker-1: Nineteen ninety nine. Searching. Yes, the iconic Wilhelm scream was present in the mummy. You can hear it during the chaotic scene towards the end of the film when Imotep's undead mummified priests are battling O'Connell, Evelyn, and the Magi in the subterranean ruins of Haminoptra. So there it is. It was in there. I thought I heard it once, but it wasn't then. I thought it was earlier when the horses, when a lot of people were falling off horses. In ⁓ one of the first scenes of the movie. I thought I heard it, but maybe it was maybe it was something a little similar. Anyways, let's do our ratings. What do you got ⁓ out of five stars, ⁓ Josh? speaker-0: So I give this a ⁓ four point two five ⁓ out of five stars. So I'm a s it's not quite four and a half for me. It's not quite quite a nine, but I I think up towards eight. This is fun. ⁓ I'm not calling it I'm I it is I'm not calling it the perfect movie by any means. Like there are flaws, but I love it. I think it's great. I think that the the the the small little things you can nitpick about it are far overshadowed by all the things we talked about. Yeah. I will watch it again. I will It'll be on rotation for me and I highly recommend anyone to watch it anytime. speaker-1: I great, yeah, I agree with all that. I'm excited to like I'm just realizing as we're talking about it now that I can probably show my oldest son this movie. ⁓ he's he's nine years old, he's gonna be ten later ⁓ later this year. Now like and he likes like not horror movies, because he's not old enough to have really watched any horror movies, but he likes, you know, creepy stuff. You know, and a huge part of that is just because I like that stuff too. And so when we have a chance, like I showed him Beetlejuice, you know, for example. And ⁓ we watched we actually watched Tremors ⁓ together not too long ago. ⁓ that's a great yeah. So I think ⁓ the mummy lands firmly in that zone of like, Yeah, there's some scary stuff and there's some violence, but nothing that should freak out a nine year old too much. But ⁓ yeah, I'm j I'm actually excited to show him this movie now. ⁓ all right, so my score, like I right like if I wrote it down here and I usually round up by at least a half. So I round it up to four because I don't think it's quite a four, but it's definitely not a three point five. so in my in my estimation, as far as like ⁓ what I what I feel about the movie. So I'm giving it a four, ⁓ you know, a solid four. And I yeah, I think I think the What really kind of drew me in was the the beauty and charm of Rachel Weiss and Brendan Fraser. Like they're just two gorgeous people charming the heck out of each other and being charismatic as heck. And you just can't help but but cheer for these two. And ⁓ they're just fun to watch on screen. And that's on top of all the great visual effects stuff and the fun storytelling and everything else. ⁓ the other thing I didn't mention is that since the last time I've watched the mummy, I've been to Egypt. I've been to the pyramids. ⁓ went to Alexandria, I saw the ruins, ⁓ I saw mummies, like literal actual mummies. ⁓ you know, I got to take in a ton of that stuff since the last time. Now, this was, granted, I went to Egypt ⁓ thirteen fourteen. Yeah, somewhere in the early teens anyways, like twelve, thirteen, fourteen years ago. ⁓ so it's far enough in my memory, but it's it is really cool to have watched this movie now and seeing the pyramids and seeing some stuff and seeing the general like set dressing and being like, ⁓ yeah, I remember that vibe. even the stuff at the hotels and stuff like that. ⁓ I'm looking at it going like, Yeah, that feels familiar. It feels like I've been in that sort of setting. So ⁓ it was really cool to revisit a movie that is so Egyptian. ⁓ after have having been to Cairo and Alexandra and and seeing all those ruins and pyramids and stuff. So cool. Yeah. So I give it a four. Josh, you have it as a little bit higher than that. I'm ⁓ I'm glad you enjoyed it. This was a perfect choice. We we kinda went back and forth and we even thought about doing the new Lee Cronin's the mummy, but ⁓ yeah, I think this was the right choice. Yeah. speaker-0: Yes, definitely. speaker-1: It definitely wasn't going to be the Tom Cruise mummy, that's for damn sure. Some movies are are are bad, but they're bad fun and like ⁓ you just accept it and it's part of the fun. that movie is bad bad. It's not good bad. Yeah. speaker-0: Another time. It's it's it's sad bad. Sad bad. speaker-1: Yeah, perfect. Sounds like a perfect way to end the podcast. Thanks, Josh. This was super fun. ⁓ if you enjoyed yourself, maybe you'll accept to do it again another time. Absolutely. Let's start planning it immediately and then in about eight months from now we'll record. It's perfect. Yes. All right, folks. If you're enjoying the podcast, please take a few minutes, rate, review, subscribe, whatever platform you're listening on. Follow me at Dice Camera Action Pod. on Instagram and email me at dice camera action pod at gmail dot com with any feedback or suggestions. ⁓ thanks again, Josh. This was super fun and ⁓ we'll try to do it again soon.