The Magic Racoon

Star Trek, Ghibli, and Rocky

Austin Lugo: All right, we're back.

Have you watched any movies since we last talked, or are you still on that Star Trek kick?

Andrew Harp: Well, you know, I'm still watching a lot of Star Trek. Um, I'm on season five and, uh, wait, am I on season five?

Austin Lugo: I'm either, no,

Andrew Harp: I'm on. I might be on, I'm either on five or six. I don't know why I'm forgetting. I think I, I think I'm done with five.

I just finished five not too long ago now. I'm on six. Okay. And six is, um, it's like heating up a little bit. There was just a recent, um, part. The ending of season five, I believe, into season six. Something crazy happens, like it basically kind of like shifts the show around a little bit. Okay. And I just basically finished with that arc of the, of the show, which was very interesting, very entertaining to watch.

So, DS nine does that, and I love when it does that, where it stops for a second, what it's doing, and it shifts it for even just a couple episodes where mm-hmm. Some kind of crazy conflict or situation happens. Um, the show has been kind of like dark intense lately because they're essentially at war basically.

Mm-hmm. Uh, I'm not gonna explain the specifics, but Sure. Um, but it has been, it's still really good. It's still really, really high quality stuff. It's kind of amazing how good it is. But, but I also, I did watch some movies. Okay.

Austin Lugo: I decided like,

Andrew Harp: um, with, um, watching Grave, the fireflies, I decided to go ahead and watch all the director's other work.

Who's Esau? Takahata, one of the co-founders of Studio Chile. Right. And he only directed five, wrote and directed I think five features for Glee. Miyazaki is probably directed like what a. Yeah. Um, he directed five of them over the years and, um, he died until he died in 2018. And, uh, so including Grave, the fireflies, it's five total.

Um, and I watched them all and I would say that grave of the fireflies is definitely his best film. Okay. His other movies are decent, they're very kind of mid-tier. Um, for, for me personally, um, and I know some of these people really love 'em, but I, I was just okay on them. I would say like if I had to rank them, it would be grave and then right below, right below that is Pom Poco, which was a lot of fun.

It was very vibrant, it was very colorful. It's a movie about ancient ra, not ancient, but magical raccoons who are fighting against the humans because the humans are, um, destroying their forest to create a housing develop.

Austin Lugo: Okay.

Andrew Harp: That's fun. And the RACs are fun. They like wear clothes. They can change their shape at will.

Cool. So it's a really funny, kind of fun, engaging kind of quick movie. There is something, it, it's a really good movie. I really liked it, but it is, there is something a little missing from it. Mm-hmm. Um, maybe a little bit of heart. Mm-hmm. I didn't find it to be a very like, moving film except maybe the very end, but it's good.

I liked it. It it, it was fun. It was cute. It was neat. It had good moments. All these are dubbed by the way, unfortunately. Yeah. And then right below that I would put my neighbors the yamas. Mm-hmm. That has a really cool, kind of low key, um, watercolor animation style that looked really nice and it kind of does.

Comic strip style thing where the yamas are like a funny little family, kinda like The Simpsons, you know? Okay. And they do funny little things. Sure. But the things that, but they'll do like comic strip style thing. So it'll just be like one thing that happens and then it'll just like keep cutting. Almost like these little skits.

But they're not even like calling them a skit makes 'em seem longer than they are. They're really short. It's like 10 seconds of a little joke or a little. Thing that happens. Mm-hmm. They also have like much longer ones that are minutes long. Sure. Yeah. And it, you know, it just like keeps cutting to all these different things that happened to the Amadas and it was a fun, it was fun.

It was cute. It was nice. It's a very inconsequential film. Yeah. I'm not like, cuz it's just like a little cute little comedy movie. It's good. I do recommend it. Mm-hmm. But once again, I don't find myself very, uh, moved by. Right below that is, uh, I would say only yesterday as well, which this is another piece of like Japanese countryside fetishism, where it's about like an adult woman who decides to go visit the Japanese countryside.

And while it's kind of, it's kinda like grave of the fireflies, but much less dark, she goes to the Japanese countryside, um, as an adult. And while she's visiting, she's having flashback memories of when she was in fifth grade and kind of, you know, Discovering yourself, you know, arguing with her parents, arguing with her si uh, siblings.

Mm-hmm. Um, arguing with her friends, uh, finding out about like what a period was, stuff like that is in the movie. Yeah, it's really cute. It's nice, it's chill. And I see the appeal of it because it's a very chill movie. There's nothing really, nothing like crazy or insane or, or terrible happens. Nothing really bad happens.

No one dies. There are no fire bombings. So it does have that appeal of just kind of like a nice chill, Japanese countryside movie of kids hanging out at school and they're in the, you know, they're having fun and that's cool and all, and I like that. You know, it's just, once again, another kind of inconsequential movie.

Yeah. I don't feel a lot of urgency. And the last one I would say that I didn't, I'm kind of split on it, is The Tale of the Princess Cookie. Yeah. Mm. Which is the last movie he made. This also kind of has like a similar style as the Yamas movie where it's kind of watercolor, but it just doesn't look as good to me.

I, I, I, I think it's good, but it feels a little cheap to me. In what way? I would just, if I'm watching a Studio Gibby movie mm-hmm. I would just rather watch something that's super colorful, super detailed, and like super articulated. I see. You know, like, In this movie. It, it, it does like a very, and it makes sense because the movie is based off an ancient Japanese fable.

And so I understand them going for kind of like a scroll, like Japanese scroll, kind of like style of almost watercolory artwork. But I just, I don't, I don't care much for it. I really don't care. I would rather like that super detailed, colorful kinda stuff. Yeah. This feels a little bit. I don't know. It just doesn't feel as exciting to me.

And the story is, o is okay. The dub on this one is really bad. It's really, really terrible. The, I, I did not like the dub on this movie. It's just not a good, not not good at all. And, and, you know, the story is just, it's good. Like it has a good ending. I would say. It's too long. It's over two hours long. I think that's way too long.

Yeah. I just was not very excited or very interested. Um, but it's good. Like it's, it's technically a good movie. It really, it, it is good. Like, and I, I see why people love it. It has a really high like letter box average. It has a high 4.2, which is pretty high. Wow. Yeah, it's pretty, anything above a four is pretty high, but I don't think it's that good.

I just think it's okay. Yeah. And those are all the movies that I watched. Um, yeah, I don't watch any other movies. I just decided to watch all of the Taha. Movies, which we're good for the most part. My, my, I I just feel like when comparing his work, which is very small compared to Miyazaki's, it's like, I think most of the time I'm definitely gonna watch a Miyazaki movie for sure.

Because they're exciting, they're crazy. They have like science fiction and fantasy elements. Mm-hmm. Uh, they have amazing animation. I, I just don't think, uh, the Teah Hotta stuff is a, is a little bit more different. He's less interested in fantasy, I think, although with the exception of Grave of the Fireflies, which is a very high tier movie.

Austin Lugo: Yeah. I've, as you and I talked about a little bit, I've been reading the biography of George Lucas recently. I'm halfway through the book. I think it's just called George Lucas, A Life. It's very, Strongly recommend it. I've been recently reading a lot of biographies of individuals. For whatever reason, I read a Jimmy Hendrix one, which is probably one of my favorite biographies I've ever read.

Really incredible. I mean, you know, it's easy when you're writing about Jimmy Hendrix cuz he's just a insanely wild person and had a insane life. But just a, a very beautiful biography. And then I read a biography of Kobe Bryant, which was fine. I think it was a little too heavy on basketball. Which, I mean, I get that he's like an N B A player and that was like his life and everything, but a little too focused on basketball for me.

And then now I'm reading the George Lucas one, which I'm halfway through the book and it's just now getting into the first Star Wars film that he made. And I didn't know much about George Lucas going into this, other than of course, the Star Wars stuff as everyone knows. But he's an independent

Andrew Harp: filmmaker, very in.

Austin Lugo: Right away. Yeah. Very independent filmmaker. And it's kind of wild because like you listen to stories of people talk about his career at U S C as a filmmaker and he was, and like he very early on becomes friends with like, people like Francis Ford Coppola. Right. And of course Brian Dema. Yeah. Um, you know, like these very famous kind of a, a tours and every.

And when they saw his early work, you know, T HX and American Graffiti and his short films, like everyone thought he was gonna be like a Francis Ford Koal. A type. Yeah. Like they thought he was gonna be like an a tour type of filmmaker. Even his wife, his first wife, who of course famously edited things like Taxi Driver and a lot of George Lucas's work, like American Graffiti and stuff like that.

It's sort of wild to see the direction that he ended up going to with Star War. Yeah, because like as well, they're great because like, they're fine. I mean, I'm not, I'm not as big as a Star Wars fan as other people, but, and I have a lot of respect for them. But they're very, and this is actually what a lot of, cuz this is like, the part I'm getting into, um, right now is he's almost done with filming or he's done filming Star Wars, but he is like almost done, actually completing Star Wars and he's showing it to all of his friends who of course are like these very, you know, big.

Directors and big time directors. Not in the sense that like they're famous directors, but in the sense that they make, you know, kind of our tour stop style stuff. Like Francis for Coppola and Brian d Palma and Martin Scorsese, and, uh, Brian d Palma, by the way. Hated Star Wars he saw in the early cut of it, and he just tore, he tore in to George Lucas.

He not like Star Wars. He fucking hate, remember like, where's all the blood and the guts, all this love stuff.

Andrew Harp: He, he, he, he loves, he loves blood and uh, and nudity. Yeah, I, I love Brian De Palm. I'm one of my favorites.

Austin Lugo: It's wild. And you look at all the people involved in the original Star Wars and you're talking like top-notch filmmakers involved in some area of the process, whether that.

Some really top-notch editors, including his wife. People who built the set designs are same people who built set designs for like 2001 Space Odyssey, a Clockwork Orange, you know, like really wildly successful filmmakers in a whole different range. Of course sound design, John Williams, of course, Steven Spielberg, very close friends of George Lucas.

Yeah, and actually offered to. To do second unit, to be a, the second unit director on Star Wars. But George Lucas was like, no, he didn't trust him. He didn't trust the Steven Spielberg guy. Yeah, it's insane. I mean, clearly George Lucas put a lot of fucking effort into Star Wars, and it took years and years to make a

Andrew Harp: and, and I think like while filming it, it was like a, a night.

Right.

Austin Lugo: It was a nightmare to film. I,

Andrew Harp: I've watched, I've watched a documentary, a Good Doc, star Wars documentary called Empire Dreams, which I liked and yeah, like mm-hmm. A big part portion of it is just talking about how the first Star Wars movie was made and how just

Austin Lugo: fucked up. It was fucked up to like the nth degree.

I mean, part of it is because it took 'em a really long time to get the funding, so a lot of the funding for the film did come from what he made on American Graffiti, so he funded it a lot of the film himself, which is very impressive. He of course, uh, because Fox would not pay because he ended up, he was originally gonna do Universal, but Universal said no.

So he moved to Fox.

Andrew Harp: Big Wonder right there. Big Wonder. Huge. Drop the bag so hard. No, no Move. Studio has dropped the bag harder than that.

Austin Lugo: They've lost, they've like calculated, they've lost like billions of dollars because of Yeah. Not taking that Star Wars picture. Oh yeah. And. But even Fox was like, we're not gonna pay for your special effects.

Like you gotta pay for him yourself. So that's why he built his own special effects studio, which was called, I don't remember what it's called. Uh oh.

Andrew Harp: Um, um, I know what you're saying. I know what it is. Like light and magic or something like that. Yeah. Light and magic. Yeah. Yep. So we still does stuff today.

I think it's still done and it's still like, and I think they're still like very innovative.

Austin Lugo: Mm-hmm. And who we brought on to like start the company are from like extremely successful. And considered at the time some of the best in the industry. But the problem was was for the first year, they spent a million dollars and got one shot.

Like they were just not organized at all. I mean, they just kind of, they fucked around a lot. Like they described it as kind of like a frat party because like George Lucas was off actually going to film it. Took them fucking forever.

Andrew Harp: Yeah. Those light magic guys that worked on the Star Wars movies, those guys are legendary when they interview them for Empire, for Empire of Dreams.

Like they're amazing. It's so much fun hearing them, how they, hearing them talk about how they like did a certain thing or whatever. It's like, so it's

Austin Lugo: very inspiring. Yeah, it's, it's absolutely wild. And George Lucas spent years writing the script trying to. He finally sells it to Fox and they give him like a 10 million budget, which is like it.

It's not fucking enough.

Andrew Harp: I think they also, but don't they also give him rice to all the merchandise?

Austin Lugo: So that was his thing because like when they first signed with him, it was a genius. Oh yeah. When they first signed with him, American Graffiti hadn't come out yet. So he had basically no, because T H X, like it was a box office bomb, other than in France, no one really liked the movie that much.

Like. Didn't really like it that much, but American Graffiti comes out big box off of success. All of the critics love it. Everyone loves this movie. I've heard it's, I've

Andrew Harp: heard from multiple sources that it's boring. Never. I've never like

Austin Lugo: people that I know, I've never seen. I really want to see it, but I don't wanna pay for it.

And right now there's only a couple places you can find it. I'll

Andrew Harp: watch it someday. But yeah, it's just, I, I've heard it's, uh, not as, it's not very, But yeah.

Austin Lugo: Yeah, who knows? But cool thing about American graffiti, super low budget. I think it was, well, not super low, it was shot for like under a million dollars.

The cast, of course, all become very famous actors afterwards, or were already famous actors like Ron Howard, and it was all shot in 28 days. So really impressive film work, whether it's any good or not. Uh, still impressive in that regard, but, Star Wars. There's a lot of like wild people that auditioned for it that I think would've been like, yeah, wild.

Like Christopher Walken was like almost Luke Skywalker, like very close to becoming Luke Skywalk. Like can you imagine? It's hard. It's hard

Andrew Harp: to imagine anyone else doing that cast. That cast is perfect. You know, I know that Harrison Ford. Because of his work on American Graffiti, he helped George Lucas do the interviews Right.

And so, but he wasn't cast in it. I think he helped him like, conduct interviews with people who conduct auditions with people who are auditioning. And I think they were just like, whatever, Harrison Ford can do the role.

Austin Lugo: Yeah. So, so this is another wild story. So Harrison Ford, like, you know, the famous story is like, oh, he was a contractor and they just like picked him up outta nowhere and he became, you know, the, the famous Star Wars person.

What's actually the case was before Harrison Ford was on American Graffiti. He was like the contractor for the stars. Like he had done like work for like some of the most famous movie stars and celebrities. Yeah. Like he wasn't just like your average contractor. Like this was a guy who made a lot of money being a contractor and was very successful at it.

And he's brought on for American Graffiti. But George Lucas's thing is like, I don't want anyone from American Graffiti in my film. Like basically the whole crew, the whole cast, he's like, I'm not making that movie. Like, I already did that. Yeah. I, I don't want any of the cast, any the crew. So he basically took no one over.

And he was very adamant about not having any of the cast in Star Wars, but one of the producers is like, Harrison Ford would be really good as Han Solo. But George was like, no, no, no. And George Lucas Yeah. Took casting very serious. Like he ca he. Very long time casting for this film,

Andrew Harp: which is kind of funny.

I, I, I, I believe that. It's kind of funny though, because Lucas, I don't think he's a very good actor director. I don't think he works. He's a

Austin Lugo: terrible actor. Actors, he does not work well with actors at all. Like there's a lot of actors who have talked about George Lucas. You're like, I like George Lucas, but he's kind of a dick.

And he does not, but he

Andrew Harp: just, he, I, I think he just has a hard time understanding like how acting works. I don't know. Yeah. Like he's a great rider and a great architect, but not really with acting.

Austin Lugo: He, no, he is not. He, uh, the way the actors describe his directing is there's basically only two things he'll say.

He'll either say, perfect, cut it, or Yes, cut. Do it again. But more like, that's it. Those are the only

directions

Andrew Harp: that is so awesome. I love that shit, dude. That's so funny. People hate George Lucas. I don't hate him. I think he's, he's awesome.

Austin Lugo: He's something else. He's, I mean, he is, he's very interesting. And the thing about George Lucas is he doesn't see himself as a director.

Like, he doesn't like directing, he often talks about like he, no, he's directed very few moves. Yeah. Yeah. And you can see that like later in his work. Like he, he stops being Right, right. He stops like being on set and stuff cuz he, he fucking hates, which is like the, The only filmmaker I know that that hates being on set.

I mean, there's a couple that are like, oh, I like prefer editing, but Lucas fucking had hates being on set. So anyways, as far as the Harrison Ford thing goes, the producer's like, I really want Harrison Ford to be on solo. So he hires Harrison Ford to build a door to the place where they're doing auditions, and they're like, well, Harrison Ford's here.

Why don't you just do the reading of Han Solo to like play with the other actors? So Harrison Ford spends like months doing the same reading over and over again. And so by the end of it, George Lucas, like, you know, this Harrison Ford guy isn't half bad. Maybe we will bring him on. It is just the wild like shenanigans that is the creation of Star Wars.

But uh, going back to your point, George Lucas set took a lot less money for the film. Like I think his director's cut was a lot smaller than typically would've been offered for a film of this size. He said, I want all the rights to the sequels and I want all the rights to merchandising. Which at the time, like no one merchandise shit a great deal.

Fucking merchandising

Andrew Harp: wasn't. Yeah, merchandising was not really a thing. Right. It wasn't a thing. Not a thing. And, and he invented it essentially.

Austin Lugo: He, he invented modern merchandising and he merchandised huge big business. Move fucking crap. Huge. Big bunny move.

Andrew Harp: Huge. Big money

Austin Lugo: move. Wow. Brilliant. I mean that's where he made almost all of his money is in merchandising.

Like, cuz not only the merchandising but also like all of the rights for novelization, graphic novels, like all that video games. Fucking shit games, yeah, video games. Like he, he owned all that shit cuz this dude. Why would we want any of that? Yeah. Fucking wild. Another just stupid move.

Andrew Harp: Another, another big loss, another huge, huge loss.

I don't know who owns the rights now. Maybe George Lucas does. I don't know. Maybe. Maybe it's all, maybe everything. I think Disney bought it. Disney, okay. Yeah, Disney. I don't know if that's what I'm assuming. I'm assuming Disney has everything

Austin Lugo: now. I wonder if they bought the, um, the special effects studio too.

I dunno. Like magic or not, maybe. Yeah. I don't know. But they definitely, they definitely bought the merchandising rights to all that. Which fucking insane. So, you know, good on George Lucas, if nothing else. He is an incredible businessman. Like that's, he's so rich, he's

Andrew Harp: so fucking rich and he's just never gonna make another movie again.

Cuz why would he, like, why would he, he, he made Star Wars. It's like,

Austin Lugo: that's good enough. That's good. Yeah. That's actually one of the reasons him and his wife got divorced was because like, she, she wanted like a, cause when she first met him, he was like a Francis Ford Coppola type character. Even like George Lucas actually worked on Apocalypse Now.

Before they started shooting on it, like he was Francis for Coppola, like asked George Lucas to direct that film, which would've been wild. I can't imagine what that Apocalypse now would've been, but Yeah. But of course he didn't end up, uh, going to it. It, it's just so strange how Star Wars and like when you read the Georgia Lucas biography, as I said, I'm not done with it yet.

So much of the book is just the creation of the first Star Wars movie. Like that's a good chunk. I mean, I would say Chunk as a kid and there's a little bit on T H X and American Graffiti, but a lot of it is Star Wars cuz it, it fundamentally changed him as a filmmaker before this film. He was, In aur.

Right. He was the, the Martin Scorsese, the French for Coppola. The Brian Palm. Yeah. He was comma Yeah. As an independent guy. Yeah. And then

Andrew Harp: he Star Wars and wooed them all away. That guy makes that guy, he definitely makes more money than any of his cont Oh yeah, for sure.

Austin Lugo: Yeah. He's. Made more money as a filmmaker than any other 20th century filmmaker.

Like he,

Andrew Harp: I need, I need to re, I need to rewatch the Star Wars movie again. I think I rewatched him maybe like a year or two ago, but mm-hmm. I don't know, man. Sometimes like, when I'm thinking about it and like, maybe I see something online or I'm talking about it with someone, I'm just like, man, I wanna watch 'em again.

And they're just so, I, I just e even even the prequel is like, they're bad movies objectively, but they're so interesting. They're so, they are so interesting. And the newer movies are fine. You know, just throw 'em on,

Austin Lugo: whatever. So I've seen the, the OG quite a few times, the Star Wars, but the, the two sequels of the original trilogy I haven't seen since I was very young, so, well, because like, I, I don't know, I love 'em both.

I was just never like really intrigued by the original. I never really up pulled in. Of course I saw all the prequels in theaters, so I remember those pretty vividly. And I think there are some interest, like yes, they are objectively bann movies, but there's some really everything's wrong. Interesting cons.

Nothing. Yeah, like, yeah, it doesn't fit. But there is some interesting concepts in there. I mean, I think something that he tried to do in the original series, which he does in the prequels, which is like he tries to make them political thrillers. Which I think would've been an interesting way to go about it.

He just wasn't very good at it. Yeah. But I do like the idea of like, you know, these senators like taking over and all of this shit, and like, it, it's a very intriguing idea. He just, yeah. He didn't do it. Well,

Andrew Harp: you know, the second prequel, uh, one of the first movies ever to be shot digitally.

Austin Lugo: Wow. I mean, that's, that's very George Lucas, but,

Andrew Harp: And now everything is shot digitally.

Like now. Everything. Yeah, everything. I dunno why you chewed

Austin Lugo: on. Yeah, yeah, exactly. But it's a, it's a wild read. Strongly suggest, uh, everyone take a look at George Lucas Life, also that Jimmy Hendricks biography, which I remember the name of. I'll put it in the, the notes below, but, I've reading that and then I wanted to watch Creed three in theaters because I didn't know there's not like a whole lot in theaters right now.

It's a little slow right now. Yeah. Starts, which, it's disappointing. I don't know why, like, usually by now the good stuff starts coming out and it looks like, you know, BOE is, BOE is beautiful. Is that what it's called? I think that comes out pretty soon. I dunno,

Andrew Harp: what the fuck? Oh, are you talking about um, the New era?

Ari Astor. Alright. Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll see the Ari Astor movie. Yeah, I don't know. That comes out probably, I don't know,

Austin Lugo: soon. I think it comes out soon. Anyways, there hasn't been anything good in theaters lately, so I'm like, I'm gonna go see Stream six. I haven't seen any of the screen movies, so I can't see Scream six.

Well, it probably isn't very good, so yeah, I mean, I

Andrew Harp: might go see it, but I don. I might go see Creed three as well. If I do, it'll be, it's gonna be a while from now, but I might go see it. I saw Creed two. I haven't seen Creed two either.

Austin Lugo: Let me talk about Creed for a minute. So the original Creed I saw a couple years ago, I enjoyed it.

It's a good movie. It's fun, you know, it's basically just rocky, but just, you know, with uh, creed instead of Rocky. It's got Celest. Stallone. That's great. Everyone's great. It's a fun movie. Great fighting. Creed two is really boring. It's a slog to get through. The feist scenes are okay. There's some good boxing stuff.

I like it probably is one of the best villains of the Creed movies, the Russians, right? The Russian. The

Andrew Harp: Russian. The Russian guy from Rocky. You probably haven't, you haven't seen Rocky four, right? No,

Austin Lugo: but I, I know, I know the, I know the kind, like I know what's going on. Like I know the movies. Yeah, but you

Andrew Harp: haven't seen it.

Like you gotta experience the

Austin Lugo: moment where he dies. Right. So, so I get it right? I get the, like the emotional thing. It's all right. I will say like the most boring part is the thing between Adonis and his wife Tessa Thompson. Like, they have a kid. That stuff is so fucking boring. It's just so goddamn boring.

It's like, and there's no reason to care about it. They have kids.

Andrew Harp: Rocky Five is the worst movie. And that one, that movie focuses on the kids a lot.

Austin Lugo: I'm not a fan of it. It's okay. Uh, of course with each Creed movie they have a different director. Creed two is definitely, I would say the weakest of the trilogy.

Some cool montages though. They go out to the desert. That's a great montage. Yeah, that's right. But not nearly enough montages in this movie. And then I saw Creed three in theaters. Wow. I mean, fucking amazing. It. I'd had low expectations going. Because of course this is the first, this Directoral debut by Michael B.

Jordan and you know, actor Turn Director is very hit and miss. And Cree two was just very Okay. So it's like, ah, they're another Creed movie. Like, I don't know, but it's part of

Andrew Harp: like, uh, the tradition as well. I know. So that's just telling director pretty much.

Austin Lugo: A lot of them. Yeah. Right. So it's incredible. I mean, so this one is shot on, A lot of it's shot on film.

A lot of it takes place LA at night. There is a lot of scenes at with Adonis Creed and his friend as kids. Very beautiful. Some incredible winners. I mean, some really thoughtful winners. Really great El looking LA at night. The fight scenes are some of the best boxing scenes I've ever seen. Other than like Raging Bull.

I mean fucking amazing fight. Some really incredible winners. Oh my God, Michael B. Jordan is incredible. The villain slash Best friend. Such a powerful performance, and this is one of the most complex boxing movies I've seen in the sense that Creed really isn't the good guy in this, but he's not the bad guy either.

It's, it's very hard to feel like who you should be rooting. And it's very complicated. I strongly, strongly suggest people will go see this movie in theaters. I came into it with low expectations, but oh my God, I had such a blast with this film. I mean, it just really hits all of the montages, all of the fights, just really emotionally impactful film.

Very powerful. The stuff with the kid pretty good. A lot better than the last movie. I know they're making a Creed four. I don't know what they're gonna make it about. I hope it's not another, cuz Creed three is like, It's a rocky comes out retirement thing, right? It's greed's like retired. He doesn't, Rocky three is kind of the

Andrew Harp: same sort of, right?

Yeah. I imagine that the two movies are the same. Maybe in Creed four it'll be like Rocky four where he has to fight some, uh, foreign Nation he has to fight. Um, like the Heavyweight Champion of Mexico or something like that. You know, just

Austin Lugo: there's some shit like that. I don't know. I mean, I really don't want.

Because like the way Mo, the way Creed three starts is like, it starts with a fight, which is always great, and he is like, I'm retired, like I'm not doing the fighting anymore. So he becomes like a, like a promoter basically. Like he promotes other fighters and he spins most of the movie just promoting other fires.

It's not until like the end of the movie that he is like, okay, I'm coming back outta retirement for this one last fight, but I don't wanna see that again. Like, I don't wanna see him to come outta retirement. I don't know what Creed Four's gonna be like. Maybe it'll be even better. I don't know. I mean, creed three was a blast, so we'll see.

We'll see. Okay. Strongly recommend it. I also watched The Suspect, which is a 1944 movie. I had no idea what this movie about. I was just kinda looking for a film noir. It's pretty fun. It's a lot darker than I expected. Uh, some great visuals, very late German expressionistic kind of. Not a whole lot to say about it, but if you're in the movies for an classic film noir, strongly suggest.

And then the last thing I watched at least film wise, was yesterday. I watched The Departed kind of been feeling Martin Scorsese lately. Mm-hmm. For whatever reason, it is good. It has a lot of people in it, like a lot of very big name actors, which I guess like it's been a while since I've seen me. It's good.

It's a little slow going at first. I mean, the pace is fucking hectic. But like toward the end, if

Andrew Harp: I

Austin Lugo: remember correctly too. Yeah. But it kind of slogs a bit at the beginning. I mean, even though like the pace HEC is like, not really much is going on. I mean, you're introducing us to like a, there's a lot of characters that have like a lot of parts in this and there's just a lot of like complicated things going on in the movie.

So it kind of takes some time to really get into things and figure out what things are going on. But in a classic score says you move by the end of the movie, you. Fucking amazed. Wow. He did it. He did it again. Everyone dies. Yep. Not a, not a happy ending for anyone. Yeah. It's just, you know, classic Scorsese, right?

Everyone just fucking brutal ending. But Scorsese, he does it again. I mean, I'm, I'm gonna be the first to say this, but the smart Scorsese guy, I, he's something, he's got the juice. There's something there.

Andrew Harp: Yeah, definitely. Yeah. I don't think anyone is saying this,

Austin Lugo: this opinion is not common. Throwing it out there.

Yeah. It's a crazy opinion. But yeah, man, that those are the movies I've been watching. I don't think I'm ever gonna be able to finish the Wire. I'm on the last season. But the thing is, what? Well, here's the thing. So I, I bought like a treadmill desk because I can't sit for long periods of time and work.

Like, I just, I can't do it. So I've been outside. Working out there and I have a TV out there, but it's not connected to H B O and I don't know the fucking password or username or shit. Oh, okay. Gotcha. So like I can't, I can't watch it, so, well, I guess that's over. I guess you're, it's over i'll ever. I'm on the last season, I'm like so close.

I'm like on the fourth episode of season five,

Andrew Harp: I only have like five more, no more hb, no more HBO O shows either, I guess No more HBO shows ever

Austin Lugo: again, no more HBO shows, so. So

Andrew Harp: we'll have Paramount Plus you could start watching Star.

Austin Lugo: Before I get into Star Trek, I am watching Seinfeld because I've never actually, I forgot about that.

We discussed this. Yeah. Yeah. One of the, I haven't seen the show since I was a little. It's a great sh it's probably, it's so fucking funny peak show to have on in the background. Like it is the perfect show to have on in the background. Yes. Yeah.

Andrew Harp: I, I, I think so

Austin Lugo: because like visually there's not a whole lot going on and you can pretty much get whatever's going on visually just from like listening to it.

And if you just like look at the screen every now and then as I do, like, yeah, you're good to go. Yeah, it's fine. It's, it's a, it's a sitcom. It's not really all about it. Yeah, right.

Andrew Harp: Well, they, they have some moments of creativity. They have their moments of creativity with like the, like the directing and look of the show sometimes.

Mm-hmm. They'll like recreate scenes from movies sometimes from movies

Austin Lugo: from the directors. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is really cool. But I'm early on into it. I think I'm in like season two or season three. Season one's only five episodes, which is very common for us. It comes there. Yeah. It's just whatever.

Yeah. Which, like season ones of these kind of shows is never very good because like you don't, the characters aren't really well established or any of that. Yeah, it's good. I mean, it's still a little rough getting past the laugh track, but I mean, it's fine and the stuff is like good. Like it's, I mean, it it's very funny.

It's so funny. Everyone in it is of course. Great. So, It's a great show to have on the background and the stakes are so low, which is kind of what I needed for a show, you know? Cause after watching like The Wire where like everything is so fucking, yeah, right? Where like the stakes are so fucking high.

Like it's nice to have something where it's like you just turn on an episode and it's like, it doesn't really matter what happened last week or next week. Like it's just like this little thing and that's it. So yeah, I'm enjoying it. After this, I will officially get into Star Trek when I do get into Star Trek.

How should. How should I go about the show? Because I know like you went a, a specific way, like didn't just start with the original show.

Andrew Harp: I mean, yeah, I didn't, I I tried to watch the original show. I guess if you can muscle through it, then I would start with that, but I, I couldn't get into it, so I just decided to watch the Next Generation.

Um, but I found a guide online which skips you a bunch in season one and season two because season one and season two of t and G are known to be not very good. Okay, but maybe I'll go back and watch 'em again. I don't know. Yeah. And then from basically season three onwards, it's amazing. So that's where I started.

I started with T n G, but you know, if you watch the original series, you can watch all the movies and then T n G and all their movies, and it's a lot to watch. I would say either start with t and g or the original series. That's good.

Austin Lugo: Yeah. I think I'll get into it next. I mean, Sein. I'm mowing through it. I mean, it's going fast because they're, they're so short episodes.

Yeah, it's, it's good and it's good and it's easy to just have, it's so funny. It's so easy to have on the background and it's so funny. Classic show. Classic

Andrew Harp: show. I

Austin Lugo: love it. It's a blast, man. It's a good time. I'm glad to just have something kind of little stakes for a little while. Like it's nice to just have something that's just like, it's just fucking whatever.

So is there anything else? I watched the first couple episodes of, okay, Mr. Robot. Okay, so I had read the, the pilot script for Mr. Robot for one of my classes back in my college days, and the script read really well. It was a really well written script, so I watched the first couple episodes. I'm enjoying it.

It's good. It's a little, it's a little heavy handed, and by a little, I mean it's, it's very heavy handed. It's like a, we live in a society, you know? It's one of those kind of things. It's a society. Yeah. Which is like, it's a little silly, so if you can take that a little tongue in cheek, it's pretty good.

It's fun. I think Romy Malick's good in it. It's got Christian Slater in it who's always fun to see. Again, I've only watched a couple episodes and I can only kind of get it he into it here and there because it's not the kinda show I really wanna have on in the background. Like I kinda wanna see it and Emily refuses to watch it.

So maybe I sneak in an episode like once a week, but that'll probably be a show that'll never finish. Or if I do, it's gonna take like fucking years to finish. So. Cool. That's it, man. That's all of the, the things. Yeah. Same here.

Andrew Harp: Cool.

Austin Lugo: All right, y'all. Thank you for listening and until next time, yeah, thanks again.