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Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver the Podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I step

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off the train and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.

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I'm Brendan Riley.

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Well, good afternoon listener.

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It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.

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It is cicada season so I'm having to step around

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a lot of cicadas -- dead cicadas -- on the sidewalk and if you listen you can hear

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them buzzing in the trees.

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We'll see if they pick up on the microphone or not.

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Well I was looking and it's been a while since I've done a movie roundup.

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In fact the last time I did one it was the February movie roundup and it's now May so

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it seems like it's time to do a new movie roundup.

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That's right:

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we're going to do the March 2024 movie roundup.

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So those of you new to a movie roundup episode or podcast in this episode I talk about

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the movies that I watched in the previous month or sometimes two months if I didn't watch

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a ton of movies and I sometimes I talk about them in the context of what would be a good

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game to pair with them.

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Sometimes I just talk about the movies.

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This is less a board game episode than other ones so if you want to skip it I guess

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you can.

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I hope you won't, but there it is.

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So March 2024 movies.

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The first movie I watched in March 2024 was Saw X, the 10th movie in the franchise

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about the puzzle based serial killer.

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Oh what's his name?

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I can't remember his name.

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Saw man.

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Jigsaw.

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Like some of the previous ones this one takes place...

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It's the narratives of these movies... if you lay them on a chronological time path.

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they overlap in weird ways and Saw X overlaps with some of the others in pretty interesting

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ways but it takes place back when Jigsaw was alive.

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Like it's not a follow on movie like some of the other ones, and in this one he is trying

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to find a cure for cancer.

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So here's the wild part about this one.

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In Saw X Jigsaw is kind of the good guy.

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I mean not really he's still like murdering people but the people he's murdering are so

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odious in this movie that you don't really mind that he's murdering them.

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I mean part of what made the previous movies interesting or compelling maybe other than

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the wild traps is that Jigsaw was murdering people who didn't necessarily deserve to be

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murdered, right?

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He thought that they were not making the most of their lives but often the way that they

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were not making their most of the lives didn't necessarily reasonably translate into a capital

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crime.

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In this one there might be some argument that it should.

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I don't know.

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I don't want to give away too much but it's a weird move to have the villain of the series

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be the most likeable character in the movie and somebody you're kind of cheering for which

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is kind of what happens.

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Yeah what a weird one.

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The traps were moderately interesting as usual.

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One of the things I don't like--this is true in a number of the traps, usually the sort of

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second or third trap we see in the movie, one that we just know the character is not going

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to survive--

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often they require the character to do something horrific to their own body (that's usually

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the trick in the Saw movie they have to do something horrible to themselves in order to

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survive)

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but often there is a delay between them doing the thing and like the trap stopping that seems

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a little unfair. The second one and this one which involves a lady song off her

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own leg seemed particularly nasty to me in terms of its how much delay there was between

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her accomplishing the horrific self-mutilation and the trap triggering her survival.

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So anyway if you like, if you've liked, the last couple of Saw movies if you like Spiral

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A tale from the Saw Universe, you... wow! listen to those cicadas... you will probably like

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Saw 10. If not this is not the one to start with, I don't think. There's a lot of assumptions

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that you know what's going on in the movies before you watch them.

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So that's Saw 10.

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I don't remember what I recommended last time we watched a movie like this maybe an

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escape room. Unlock I think is probably what I recommended before and that goes again with

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it.

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Next we've got The Wedding Singer. This is a movie I just really enjoy my wife and I were

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having very tired, what's something we could watch is just fun to watch? Adam Sandler's The Wedding

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Singer is peak peak Adam Sandler for me in that he's most likeable. it's a cute movie Drew

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Barrymore is very likeable in this one. top marks all around I love that movie.

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I don't know what I guess you could play Fog of Love which is the romantic comedy movie game

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but I don't I don't actually found that move that game kind of stressful rather than funny

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maybe something like Marrying Mr. Darcy would fit that one, something cute and light about

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romantic comedies.

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Next up I watched Dune again sort of thinking toward the new Dune movie but I never got

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around to going to see Dune in the theater Dune 2: the Dunening. but I rewatched the first

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one it's good is always very enjoyable I don't know that I have a lot more to say about

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that I think in a previous episode I talked about it so I'll let you go listen to that if

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you want obviously the game to play with that one is Dune or perhaps Dune Imperium depending

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which of those flavors of game you like.

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The next movie I really enjoyed was The Cheap Detective. The Cheap Detective is a Neil

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Simon I believe it's a Neil Simon comedy and the main character is basically Humphrey

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Bogart playing a mix of his characters. it's basically Peter Falk playing as Humphrey

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Bogart's characters in Casablanca and the Maltese Falcon.

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It's a mashup of those two movies with a comedy twist there are elements of it that are

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very funny if you like those genres if you've seen those movies if you like Peter Falk

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it is a winner, it's very funny I really enjoyed it we had a lot of fun watching it and

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it's called The Cheap Detective because he never

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tips and that's pretty funny. Overall it's a great movie lots of good dialogue and tons of

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people in it when you're watching it you're like oh that person oh that person if you know

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movies from like the 70s there's no shortage of people to watch in that film.

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That said, it is also a movie made in the 70s and it has some real problems. As with a lot of comedy

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in the 70s there's stuff that doesn't age well in particular for The Cheap Detective. The

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movie has a lot of casual misogyny-- I mean a lot-- there's not much for female characters to

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do except be sexy and then the movie has at least it's sort of making fun of the main

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character for his promiscuity even if it's also making fun of the women for their promiscuity

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it's at least satirizing it a little bit. But the movie also seems to have a lot of fun making

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fun of names with Asian origins. It doesn't seem to be ironic, it seems to be saying 'isn't it

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funny that some Asian names sound like English words that are funny?' That's the joke and that's

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not cool. yeah the sort of casual sexism and racism of the 1970s is part of that movie and

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be aware of it if you are gonna watch it I would still say it's the it's my second, it's my

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third favorite comedy detective movie from the last half of the 70s or the first half of

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the 80s. surprisingly I have five movies to compare it to oh actually six there's Clue which

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is my favorite Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid which would be my second favorite.The Cheap Detective

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is my third favorite then I'll also put into that category murder by death and

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there's a Clint Eastwood one red heat maybe is doing something like that which is also comedy.

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I feel like there was one more comedy from that era detective hardboiled this type of comedy

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movie anyhow it's worth watching if that seems like your thing. I would say the the game to

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connect to it would probably be Awkward Guests -- that game has a lot of humor built into the way

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the characters look, even though it is pretty serious as a murder game that that would be a nice

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pairing with the cheap detective. The next one is the Mystery of the 13th Guest. This is a movie

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that I watched just because I was looking for something to watch and this was available. It is a classic

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noir thriller with a weird outcome--I really can't recall what grabbed us to watch it except it said

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it was available to watch and we thought oh that'll be amusing I think maybe I watched it

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late at night while I was waiting for my daughter to get home from an activity out it's from 1943

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it was it was amusing it might be more of a Mysterium type deal if you're looking for a game that would go well with it

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it is a movie that had a bit of a haunted feel to it --the cicadas are very loud around here right now

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so if you're gonna pick them up you would right now and it's that buzzing sound in the background

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that kind of goes in and out. Next up we watch The Holdovers. this is the more recent film from Alexander

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Payne I believe is the director and Paul Giamatti is your is the main actor from it. we last saw them

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when they made the movie about wine, sideways, which was very good as well. In The Holdovers Paul Giamatti

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plays a very cranky English teacher at a very reserved boys literature or boys school in the 60s he

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seems to revel in punishing the boys for not studying hard and he assigns a lot of work in his very,

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cantincarous is the right word, they're unnerdly well sort of scofflaw boy gets gets end up being left

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at the school over christmas break as does one housekeeper slash cook who is alone at christmas because

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her son died in Vietnam so it must be early 70s then now that I think about it. it's a really compelling

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movie--the main characters are interesting. it isn't it wasn't for me as good as all of the reviews

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seem to make it sound like it was going to be but the longer I sit with the movie the longer I wait

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the more I enjoyed it which is always a crucial thing like as I think about the movie I recall it

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fondly and interestingly versus sometimes over time my interest in the movie drops rather than

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grows so there's a lot going on there and it was really well made, an interesting character study,

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particularly if you like Paul Giamatti. I've no idea what kind of game would fit there perhaps you

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could play Miskatonic School for Girls, which is at least about a private school, or there's also

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Argent the Consortium which is sort of like a hogwarts type deal but still about a private school

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uh Miskatonic School for Girls. the advantage doing that is they have the expansion called winter break

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which has ads christmas themed stuff to the game and the winter break expansion would fit nicely

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if you're playing the holdovers. the finally final movie I want to talk about is Dumb Money

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dumb money is a sort of uh docu drama about the vlogger Keith Gill who was sort of the head of

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the conversation in wall street bets around the game stop short squeeze if you don't know what that is

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go look up game stop short squeeze I'm not going to try to explain it here on the podcast.

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uh but it is an amusing depiction of the weird stuff that happens with regard to money

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and an enjoyable way to spend an evening watching a movie about that it was well made and funny

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and definitely worth checking out if you get a chance. Now the short squeeze was not a scam

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necessarily but I think it is useful to think about how it might have been portrayed that way

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 so maybe as a game to go along with watching dumb money you should play Ponzi Scheme which is

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about Charles Ponzi and his famous eponymous scheme. if you do let me know how it is. I have that on

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my shelf but I haven't played it yet. well thanks for joining me on my walk today, I hope your next

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walk is as pleasant as mine was. bye bye

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[music]

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[outtake beep] and that goes again with it -- AUGH! -- excuse me

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a cicada just landed on my hand good okay um [outtake beep]