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Sept/Nov ’24 Movie Roundup · Pick Up and Deliver

0:04
Speaker 1: Welcome to pick up and deliver it the podcast where
0:06
Speaker 1: I pick up my audio recorder as I step off
0:08
Speaker 1: the train and deliver an episode to you while I
0:10
Speaker 1: walk home. I'm Brendan Riley. Well, good afternoon, listeners. It's
0:23
Speaker 1: cool and chilly, but pleasant afternoon in suburban Chicago in December.
0:29
Speaker 1: I have stepped off the train and I'm walking home.
0:32
Speaker 1: It's pretty cold. I would say probably in the tens,
0:35
Speaker 1: maybe into the teens, but it's pretty chilly. I wouldn't
0:38
Speaker 1: be surprised if it's in the tens. I'm fully bundled,
0:41
Speaker 1: but I'm here to talk to you about some games.
0:44
Speaker 1: I've been looking at the list of things I've done
0:47
Speaker 1: episodes about, and it's been a little bit of what
0:49
Speaker 1: It's been a little while since I've done an episode
0:51
Speaker 1: about movies. If you're a regular listener, you know that
0:54
Speaker 1: I like to do movie round up episodes occasionally, where
0:57
Speaker 1: I talk about movies I've watched recently and a perhaps
1:00
Speaker 1: a game that would pair well with them. I have
1:03
Speaker 1: sort of two movie episodes to do, and I imagine
1:05
Speaker 1: I'll do one and then I'll do a board game Espresso,
1:08
Speaker 1: and then I'll do the other. The other one might
1:10
Speaker 1: actually be a two parter because I watch a lot
1:13
Speaker 1: of horror movies in October and so figure out how
1:15
Speaker 1: what's the best way to talk about those or the
1:18
Speaker 1: September two October horror movies. I have a bunch of them.
1:22
Speaker 1: But I thought I would talk about a few movies
1:25
Speaker 1: I watched in September that are not horror movies, and
1:28
Speaker 1: then I'll talk about one movie I watched in November
1:30
Speaker 1: that's not a horror movie, and then we'll go from there.
1:35
Speaker 1: So that's my plan. It's movie review. It's movie roundup
1:39
Speaker 1: August or September and November, all right, So we'll start
1:44
Speaker 1: with right at the end of August and into September.
1:46
Speaker 1: I watched the all three Back to the Future movies.
1:50
Speaker 1: This is, of course the series I've seen many times
1:52
Speaker 1: and it's much beloved to me. But it's always fun
1:55
Speaker 1: to return to a series you've seen a lot and
1:57
Speaker 1: see what you get this time. One of the things
2:00
Speaker 1: I like most about Back to the Future is the
2:03
Speaker 1: ways in which they crafted the third movie to really
2:06
Speaker 1: draw on the first two in terms of references and conversations.
2:12
Speaker 1: I love the way that the movie layers upon itself
2:15
Speaker 1: all the jokes that they put into the third movie
2:17
Speaker 1: that reference the first two. The first movie really holds
2:21
Speaker 1: up as an as an original time comedic time travel movie.
2:26
Speaker 1: The end is pretty dumb, and this is the part
2:28
Speaker 1: they don't I mean, yeah, the end is pretty dumb
2:31
Speaker 1: because Doc shows up and he's like, we have to
2:33
Speaker 1: go right now to save your family. What's the hurry.
2:36
Speaker 1: It's a time machine. They could leave tomorrow and it
2:38
Speaker 1: would work the same way, like you have to get
2:40
Speaker 1: in my car and right now and we gotta go.
2:42
Speaker 1: That part's pretty dumb. Most of the most of Back
2:45
Speaker 1: to the Future doesn't make that mistake. They come up
2:50
Speaker 1: with some narrative reason that they have to go right now,
2:52
Speaker 1: or some narrative reason that pushes things one way or another.
2:55
Speaker 1: But that one moment the end of Back to the
2:57
Speaker 1: Future one, we got to go right now to back
3:00
Speaker 1: the future too, That part's pretty dumb. It's also kind
3:03
Speaker 1: of unclear how Biff from if you haven't seen Back
3:06
Speaker 1: in the Future too, there's a whole thing where Biff
3:08
Speaker 1: goes back in time and changes time. It's unclear how
3:11
Speaker 1: Biff goes back in time and then is able to
3:13
Speaker 1: fly forward to his correct time, But Marty is not
3:17
Speaker 1: able to do that. How come when Marty goes back,
3:20
Speaker 1: it's the wrong time, So that part is a little weird.
3:26
Speaker 1: That stuff aside, though generally, I think Back to the
3:29
Speaker 1: Future works pretty well as a series of films, and
3:32
Speaker 1: I enjoy it quite a bit, don't I know. There's
3:36
Speaker 1: a lot of people who think the third one is
3:37
Speaker 1: in a great movie. I love it. I think it's
3:39
Speaker 1: really good, and the second one is great too. I
3:42
Speaker 1: like all three. So Back to the Future parts one, two,
3:45
Speaker 1: and three. This does beg the question, as I've answered before,
3:48
Speaker 1: of what is the best time travel movie? Now, I
3:51
Speaker 1: do actually have two different Back to the Future games.
3:54
Speaker 1: There's one that feels much more like actual Back to
3:57
Speaker 1: the Future, and this is the fun co Back to
3:59
Speaker 1: the Fire game, where it's a cooperative game where you
4:02
Speaker 1: play a number of the group a number of the people.
4:07
Speaker 1: You play Doc Marty, I think George and Einstein maybe
4:14
Speaker 1: or Doc Marty and Einstein, and you're trying to manipulate Biff,
4:19
Speaker 1: George and maybe Biff and Georgia, the two that aren't
4:23
Speaker 1: real player characters. I remember exactly how it works. It's
4:27
Speaker 1: been a little while since I played it, but in
4:29
Speaker 1: that one you're trying to get basically resolve the plot
4:32
Speaker 1: of the first movie without letting Biff cause too much trouble.
4:35
Speaker 1: It works pretty well and it's fun, but it's very simple.
4:39
Speaker 1: The other Back to the Future game that I have
4:41
Speaker 1: is called Like Back to the Future Adventure in Time,
4:44
Speaker 1: and it is a card game. I think it's designed
4:48
Speaker 1: by Dunston, Matt Dunston and Brett Gilbert, although I'm not
4:51
Speaker 1: one hundred percent. Oh no, it's Ben Pinchback and Matt Riddle.
4:55
Speaker 1: I knew it was a pair of designers. And it
4:58
Speaker 1: is a multi use card game that's really interesting, but
5:01
Speaker 1: the theme doesn't really work like it doesn't really feel
5:04
Speaker 1: like Back to the Future. But it's a really interesting
5:06
Speaker 1: card game that involves going from place to place and
5:09
Speaker 1: setting up combos of cards and trying to manage multi
5:13
Speaker 1: use resources. I really like it as a game. As
5:18
Speaker 1: a Back to the Future themed thing, it's not as good,
5:21
Speaker 1: but I still have a lotto both of those because
5:23
Speaker 1: I like Back to the Future a lot and it's
5:24
Speaker 1: fun to have those games. At some point, if I
5:27
Speaker 1: find it, I'll get the Back to the Future dice
5:28
Speaker 1: game as well. Then we'll have all three Back to
5:30
Speaker 1: the Future games, maybe to go with the three Back
5:33
Speaker 1: to the Future movies. I can't say I really recommend
5:35
Speaker 1: any of them, but if I was going to play one,
5:37
Speaker 1: I would play Back to the Future and Adventure in Time.
5:40
Speaker 1: Next up, I have a documentary I watched called Jimmy Saville,
5:44
Speaker 1: a British horror story. And this is really this is
5:47
Speaker 1: really dark, so you may want to skip ahead a
5:50
Speaker 1: couple of minutes if you don't want to hear about
5:54
Speaker 1: assault on children. I mean, I'm not going to talk
5:57
Speaker 1: about it a lot, but that's what it's about. So
6:00
Speaker 1: Jimmy Saville, it was a popular British TV entertainer who
6:04
Speaker 1: was on for a very long time on TV, and
6:08
Speaker 1: he was the sort of classic old school British lad.
6:12
Speaker 1: He had a kind of salty sense of humor and
6:17
Speaker 1: he was very popular. He had a show called jim
6:19
Speaker 1: Will Fix It where people could write in with problems
6:21
Speaker 1: and he would try to solve those problems. And he
6:24
Speaker 1: gave a lot of money to children's charities, and he
6:26
Speaker 1: was generally seen as a really upstanding guy with a
6:29
Speaker 1: lot of charity and stuff, but he also tended to
6:32
Speaker 1: make lots of lascivious comments about women on his show,
6:35
Speaker 1: and he would sort of make this joke of being
6:38
Speaker 1: a creepy purve, and it turned out it wasn't a joke.
6:41
Speaker 1: After he passed away, actually, as he was in his
6:44
Speaker 1: older age, people started bringing forward charges saying that he
6:47
Speaker 1: was an abuser and a pretty rampant one as well.
6:50
Speaker 1: And after he passed away there was a significant level
6:53
Speaker 1: of review of people's stories and his life, and he's
6:57
Speaker 1: pretty much removed from public come just as now, like
7:00
Speaker 1: they removed his name from hospital wings and all sorts
7:03
Speaker 1: of stuff. But really grim story and not great to
7:09
Speaker 1: pair with a board game. I don't know. I don't
7:12
Speaker 1: know what board game you would do, Like maybe an
7:14
Speaker 1: investigative journalism board game, but I don't even know. I
7:17
Speaker 1: can't even think of any of those. The closest I
7:19
Speaker 1: can think of there's a mystery game called Deadline, but
7:22
Speaker 1: that's not at all sort of this kind of thing.
7:25
Speaker 1: I guess maybe a role playing game Gumshoe or something,
7:28
Speaker 1: but this would be a really dark subject for a
7:30
Speaker 1: role playing game. I don't know that I have a
7:32
Speaker 1: good game pairing to go with. Jimmy Savill a British
7:36
Speaker 1: horror story, but it's a good documentary, and what's most
7:41
Speaker 1: interesting about it to me is the nature of fame
7:45
Speaker 1: and the role that a public person can have in
7:48
Speaker 1: the context of all sorts of people. The idea that
7:52
Speaker 1: a public persona can have this role and people get
7:56
Speaker 1: lots of access to people and lots of access to
7:58
Speaker 1: power because of his public persona, and then that public
8:02
Speaker 1: persona turns out to be horrible, or that private persona
8:05
Speaker 1: turns out to be horrible, and that his public access
8:08
Speaker 1: gave him private malevolence. I feel like there's a Doctor
8:12
Speaker 1: Who episode in which Toby Jones plays a character much
8:17
Speaker 1: like what Jimmy Saville ended up being, but I'm not
8:20
Speaker 1: sure if it's Doctor Who or if it's another sci
8:22
Speaker 1: fi show, maybe Torch would or something similar. I'm reminded
8:26
Speaker 1: of that, and I don't know if that was an
8:27
Speaker 1: intention I think that was an intentional parody or mirroring,
8:31
Speaker 1: but at the time I didn't know who Jimmy Saville was,
8:33
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't have caught it. More future Brendan. Here,
8:39
Speaker 1: upon googling Toby Jones Jimmy Saville, I discovered this was
8:42
Speaker 1: actually an episode of Sherlock that I was thinking of
8:45
Speaker 1: not Doctor Who, but that is Jimmy Saville. A British
8:51
Speaker 1: horror story. No game recommendation to go with it. Another
8:56
Speaker 1: dark story, even though I'm not doing horror, these a
8:58
Speaker 1: lot of dark, dark things. Another dark story is K
9:00
Speaker 1: two The Killer Summit. This is another British documentary. As
9:04
Speaker 1: I mentioned a couple times, mountain climbing is one of
9:07
Speaker 1: the things I'm eternally fascinated with, even if I don't
9:10
Speaker 1: want to do it, And of course disasters make for
9:12
Speaker 1: really interesting storytelling, stories of human drama, tragedy, striving to
9:17
Speaker 1: do the best one can in terrible circumstances. And K
9:23
Speaker 1: two The Killer Summit is a terrifying story of a
9:27
Speaker 1: doomed outing on K two that was partially caused i
9:32
Speaker 1: would say, by Hubris, like the disastrous nineteen ninety six
9:36
Speaker 1: Everest to climb. These are people who really shouldn't have
9:39
Speaker 1: been climbing K two, maybe climbing when they shouldn't have
9:43
Speaker 1: been doing so. There are a couple of people who
9:45
Speaker 1: started up the mountain on this particular day and they
9:49
Speaker 1: in fact turned around because they're like, oh this is
9:52
Speaker 1: this is not good conditions to climb the mountain, and
9:54
Speaker 1: so there are people who or there are people who
9:57
Speaker 1: made it to the summit that day and then went
9:59
Speaker 1: back down because they left early enough and they sort
10:01
Speaker 1: of followed the rules or the good best practices to
10:05
Speaker 1: make it to the summit and make it back. And
10:06
Speaker 1: then there were a bunch of people who did not
10:09
Speaker 1: like they left too late, they didn't have the right
10:10
Speaker 1: planning in place, and so they end up getting stuck
10:14
Speaker 1: up on the mountain. And then of course weather conspired
10:17
Speaker 1: against them. There was a collapse and all of the
10:20
Speaker 1: ropes that they needed to traverse this one very deadly
10:24
Speaker 1: horizontal section were washed away by an avalanche, and so
10:28
Speaker 1: there were these groups of people stuff stuck on the
10:30
Speaker 1: mountain and it turned out very tragically. It's a really
10:34
Speaker 1: interesting story, harrowing and scary, fascinating of course, and it's
10:38
Speaker 1: told very skillfully in the BBC documentary K two The
10:42
Speaker 1: Killer Summit. Now, there are a couple mountain climbing games
10:45
Speaker 1: that you could play. The two that I'll recommend, one
10:48
Speaker 1: that's a bit more straightforward and serious is K two.
10:51
Speaker 1: That seems like the best one to play in the
10:53
Speaker 1: context of K two The Killer Summit. In this game,
10:56
Speaker 1: you play teams, you have two teams of climbers, two
11:00
Speaker 1: climbers that you're trying to get to the summit and
11:02
Speaker 1: back down to safety. The points are scored. You get
11:06
Speaker 1: points for getting up to the top and getting back down.
11:08
Speaker 1: The higher you get, the more points you get. But
11:10
Speaker 1: you have to survive, so you have to get back down.
11:12
Speaker 1: You have to manage the weather well enough that you
11:14
Speaker 1: can survive. The game puts into place the idea of
11:18
Speaker 1: the death zone. You know, a level on the mountain
11:21
Speaker 1: in which if you're too high, your health is deteriorating,
11:24
Speaker 1: regardless of how well you're doing, because there's just a
11:27
Speaker 1: level at which human beings can't survive without life support,
11:32
Speaker 1: and even with life support, you're still kind of dying
11:35
Speaker 1: at that level. That's why they call it the death zone.
11:38
Speaker 1: And the game K two kind of stimulates all this
11:40
Speaker 1: and a pretty compelling game. It's a relatively simple mechanism
11:44
Speaker 1: for choosing what you're doing, but it's elaborate enough to
11:48
Speaker 1: really engage with the crucial question of what's it like
11:52
Speaker 1: to climb a mountain? And I think it's a pretty
11:55
Speaker 1: harrowing and interesting experience. So that's K two the board game.
12:00
Speaker 1: Other option you have if you wanted to do a
12:01
Speaker 1: mountain climbing game, would be Summit. Summit is a very competitive,
12:07
Speaker 1: sort of silly mountain climbing game in which you're climbing,
12:10
Speaker 1: but you're also trying to sabotage other players and really
12:13
Speaker 1: kind of going wild on the mountain. It's apparently very cutthroat.
12:17
Speaker 1: I haven't played it. It doesn't really sound like my
12:19
Speaker 1: kind of thing, so I haven't tried it. But it's
12:21
Speaker 1: supposed to be very good. That's Summit as another option
12:25
Speaker 1: instead of K two. Either one would be a fine
12:28
Speaker 1: accompaniment to K two, The Killer Summit all right after
12:32
Speaker 1: K After I watched K two on September eighteenth. After that,
12:36
Speaker 1: I pretty much only watched horror movies for quite a while.
12:39
Speaker 1: So I want to talk about three movies that I
12:41
Speaker 1: watched in November. Maybe I'll talk about one movie I
12:43
Speaker 1: watched in November, and then I'll do a December holiday
12:46
Speaker 1: movie extravaganza later. So I watched one movie in December.
12:50
Speaker 1: This was a rewatch. It's a movie i'd seen a
12:52
Speaker 1: long time. I'd seen when it came out in the
12:54
Speaker 1: theater and a number of times since then. The nineteen
12:57
Speaker 1: ninety six Tom Hanks Joint. That Thing You Do. That
13:00
Speaker 1: Thing You Do is a rise and fall tale of
13:03
Speaker 1: a band that rises up in the late nineteen sixties,
13:08
Speaker 1: has a one hit wonder. They tour the country a
13:11
Speaker 1: little bit, opening for other acts, they get to la
13:14
Speaker 1: and as often happens with bands, things start to go awry.
13:18
Speaker 1: If you haven't seen it, it's a very nice movie.
13:21
Speaker 1: It's fun to watch because it's wholesome and a cool story.
13:25
Speaker 1: There's a little bit of sort of cynicism or worldliness
13:28
Speaker 1: in it, but for the most part, it's kind of
13:30
Speaker 1: a coming of age story for these four gents who
13:33
Speaker 1: are in this game, in this band, and or three gents.
13:37
Speaker 1: I think there's three of them in the band, and
13:41
Speaker 1: it's a nice Like I said, it's a nice story.
13:43
Speaker 1: One of the things that's most compelling about it is
13:45
Speaker 1: this idea that if you're going to make a movie
13:48
Speaker 1: about a band that has a one hit wonder, the
13:51
Speaker 1: song that the band has has to be really good
13:54
Speaker 1: because you have to play that song over and over
13:56
Speaker 1: again in the movie. So if the song isn't good,
13:59
Speaker 1: the good and I gotta say, I think they nailed it.
14:02
Speaker 1: It's a very nineteen sixties kind of song. But it's
14:06
Speaker 1: really good. It's definitely enjoyable to watch. During the movie,
14:09
Speaker 1: you don't get tired of hearing it. And all the
14:12
Speaker 1: actors edit are great. I don't really like the guy
14:14
Speaker 1: who plays the band leader, but you're not supposed to.
14:16
Speaker 1: He's kind of an asshole. But the other actors are
14:20
Speaker 1: all very good, and they're people who come back later.
14:23
Speaker 1: There's a number of sort of cameos or appearances by
14:26
Speaker 1: people who would be big actors later you recognize them.
14:30
Speaker 1: And of course Tom Hanks has a kind of minor role,
14:32
Speaker 1: but he is the director as well, so well, he
14:35
Speaker 1: was the screenwriter and he's in it and produced it.
14:38
Speaker 1: I don't know if he directed it. I think he did,
14:40
Speaker 1: but I don't know for sure. But anyway, if you've
14:42
Speaker 1: never seen That Thing You Do, it's a very nice movie.
14:46
Speaker 1: Definitely worth watching if you know when the family's coming
14:49
Speaker 1: up and you want something to watch everybody can kind
14:51
Speaker 1: of enjoy. Nobody's going to get too excited about. That
14:54
Speaker 1: Thing You Do is a great option. So it feels
14:56
Speaker 1: like there's two games that you could play to a
14:58
Speaker 1: company that Thing You Do. One of them is on tour.
15:02
Speaker 1: At one point, the band goes on tour for a while,
15:05
Speaker 1: so on Tour would be a good one. This is
15:06
Speaker 1: about taking a band on tour, going around the country,
15:09
Speaker 1: trying to make the most efficient route you can, building
15:12
Speaker 1: up audiences and that sort of thing. It is a
15:14
Speaker 1: roll and ride game. I played it online a couple times,
15:16
Speaker 1: I've never actually played it on paper. I thought it
15:19
Speaker 1: was good, not great. The other option is the game
15:21
Speaker 1: I have not had a chance to play yet. It's
15:22
Speaker 1: called rock Hard. It is a game about being a
15:26
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies rock star. The cover of the game box
15:31
Speaker 1: looks sort of like the iconic Bruce Springsteen cover. It's
15:35
Speaker 1: like a rock and roller in tight jenes. It looks
15:40
Speaker 1: to be pretty amusing. I haven't, Like I said, I
15:42
Speaker 1: haven't tried it yet, and the reviews are decent. They're
15:46
Speaker 1: not amazing, but they're not bad either, So definitely a
15:49
Speaker 1: game worth trying out if you get chances from de
15:51
Speaker 1: vere And they have a pretty good track record at
15:53
Speaker 1: least in review, of producing games that are well worth
15:57
Speaker 1: playing and pretty entertaining. So I don't think. I've only
16:00
Speaker 1: played one du Vier game and I thought was fine.
16:02
Speaker 1: That was sand So definitely worth checking out if you
16:05
Speaker 1: get a chance that is rock hard. Nice combination for
16:08
Speaker 1: that thing you do well. That brings me to the
16:10
Speaker 1: end of the movies I want to talk about today
16:12
Speaker 1: in my movie roundup from September and November. I hope
16:16
Speaker 1: that you've enjoyed this. If you would like to know
16:19
Speaker 1: more about any of these movies, you can find links
16:22
Speaker 1: to my reviews on letterboxed posted from the show page
16:26
Speaker 1: for this episode, and I'd love to hear what you've
16:29
Speaker 1: been playing. You can share that information over on board
16:32
Speaker 1: game Geek and Guild three two six nine, where other
16:34
Speaker 1: members of the pick Up and Deliver squad might also
16:37
Speaker 1: share that information, or you could send me a message
16:39
Speaker 1: directly Wombat nine two nine on Board game Geek. It
16:42
Speaker 1: would work just fine. Well that's about it for me.
16:44
Speaker 1: Thanks for joining me on my walk today. I hope
16:46
Speaker 1: your next walk is as pleasant as mine want. Hellbye.
17:09
Speaker 1: Brought to you by rattle Box