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Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as

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I stop out the door and deliver an episode to you while I walk the dog.

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I'm Brendan Riley.

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[music]

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Welcome, morning listeners.

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It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.

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The sun is out and it's Father's Day.

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My birthday was recently and I'm now 47 years old so if I sound crusty and old and

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wizened it's because I've now passed from 46 into 47.

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So take that for what it's worth.

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We had a nice birthday.

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We went, looked at some birds, played a lot, a nice fun game of Ark Nova with my wife

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and son, had a good nap.

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It was a lovely birthday.

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I also got the Honey Buzz expansion which I backed on Kickstarter a very long time ago and

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was happy to see that show up so that's fun.

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I didn't know it was coming either so what a delight.

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Okay, well if I might have my count wrong because I may have, I may be one episode behind

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but I think that I've caught up to my backlog and that means this episode is going out soon

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and I believe it's episode 629.

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It turns out about once a month I'm doing one of these episodes or not whatever.

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So for this episode I'm going to be talking about movies I saw recently.

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That's right, it's time for our next movie roundup.

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If you're not interested in any of my movie commentary content, this would be an episode

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to skip but I hope you stick around.

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What I like to do in the movie roundup episodes is that I will talk about movies I've seen

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recently.

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Talk a little bit about what I thought of them and then generally try to connect a game

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with the movie so that if you're feeling like doing a movie and game experience you

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can do so.

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So that's kind of the approach that I like to take and what we'll be doing here.

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So this is my April and May roundup and I haven't marked which movies were April and which

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movies are are May on my little sheet that I'm using while I'm walking here but I have,

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I will have marked that on the show notes page by the time this episode goes live.

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So if you're curious about when I watch each episode you can go over to the show notes

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page which by the way if you haven't visited our page at rattleboxgames.com you will find

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that we have a delightful archive of pages for every episode of this podcast and on those

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pages I have links to the games, the game pages on board game geek that I've talked about.

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So if I ever say the name of a game and you miss it you can always go to the show page

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and look it up.

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On episodes like this or the reading roundup I will also put links to my reviews

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of those things on either letterboxed for movies or good reads for books.

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I don't write long reviews in most of those places but generally that's the approach that

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I take.

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So if you want to look up anything related to the episode remember you can always head over

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to board game geek or two.

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You know I head over to rattleboxgames and look up the page of the show notes.

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So for April and May was those were two very busy months in my life and so I did not have

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a ton of time to watch movies.

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In fact I got only to watch, I only recorded six movies that I watched.

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I guess it's possible that I watched a seventh or even an eighth movie

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and forgot to record them but I'm generally pretty, pretty, pretty dutiful about recording

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these movies.

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So I think six is probably correct for how many movies I watched in April and May.

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So I'll just go through them and we'll talk a little bit about each one and what I thought

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of them.

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So the first movie I watched is called Damsel in this movie.

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We have a fantasy land in which a kingdom that is without many resources and going through

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a drought is sends an envoy to a wealthy country where they propose to have a marriage between

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their daughter and the prince and that marriage will result in a huge dowry for the kingdom

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which will save the kingdom but she will end up living with these people.

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And something goes terribly wrong.

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I don't really want to reveal too much of the plot because the plot is, the movie is

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good but the plot is a key part.

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Something goes terribly wrong.

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It turns out there is a sinister motive for the group that's marrying a thing and then

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it becomes an adventure in which the princess has to save herself from various and destructive

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encounters.

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The film has a number of really interesting choices.

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It turns out this is not something that she's the first one that's this happened to and

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so the kind of record of other people who have gone through this is really interesting.

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It makes for good storytelling and gives us something to look at while the character is basically

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by herself.

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We also have a number of other choices that the other characters make that I think are

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interesting and effective.

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There are big parts of the movie that are just really dumb.

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I like the overall idea of the story but there's a lot of things in it that don't make sense

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or they didn't work for me or just kind of the way things happen don't really make sense

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or take a big leap of faith or blind itologic.

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So from the sort of narrative construction piece I did not find this movie as satisfying

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as I would hope but it was an interesting story and I enjoyed having watched it.

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I have fond thoughts of it now rather than unpleasant thoughts of it but I would say

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if this is a genre that you're interested in and you haven't checked out the Joey King

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movie I can't remember what that one's called.

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It might just be The Princess.

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There's a Joey King movie where she plays a princess whose castle gets taken over and

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she basically goes around like it's an action movie and she kicks butt.

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The action scenes in that movie I thought are much better created and the overall effect

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I think works better in that one.

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So if you're going to look for a movie like this and I would recommend the Joey King movie

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rather than this one.

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Although Damsel was an enjoyable time and I don't think you would suffer for having watched

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it.

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That was my take on Damsel.

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Now if you're going to watch a movie with that or you're going to play a game with that

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and you want to think about what would you play I don't know.

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Legacy of Dragonholt perhaps.

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Legacy of Dragonholt is a tabletop sort of RPG light game that you play with a group

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of people and it's got a narrative campaign and you resolve things.

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There's not really much dice rolling you choose to use stats that you have available and

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if you run out of those stats and then good things good and bad happen it's kind of a

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choose your own adventure style narrative in that there's a book full of different choices

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and as things happen in the story you're going to read different entries and you keep track

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of things on paper.

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It's a really good game and very well made and has a feminist and queer friendly ethos

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that I think fits the ethos of this movie Damsel.

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All right.

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Next we showed my daughter dead poet society which is a movie I haven't watched for a long

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time.

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Boy this movie doesn't even come close to passing the Bechtel test and there's some stuff

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in it that is really bad by today's standards.

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There's a young Josh Charles plays a guy who's fallen head over heels for this cheerleader

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at the local public school.

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There's about a bunch of kids at a private school who are sort of learning to explore their

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passions in a buttoned down serious world.

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There are some elements in it that still ring really good but the overall environment

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of the story I think is feels so dated now.

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It already did when it came out but feels so dated now that it loses some of its punch

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in being just set in such an archaic time.

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The overall narrative arc is good but I always think also of my film teacher who really

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didn't like the movie because she thought that the main character had done a moral disservice

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to one of the there's a central drama in the movie where the teacher gives some advice

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to the student in a way that is not that does not succeed.

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And results in some pretty disastrous outcomes and my mentor in college blamed him.

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She thought he really made a mistake in how he talked to this kid about what was going

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on and that it was a significantly his fault what happens.

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And I don't entirely disagree.

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That said it's got some inspiring stuff in it.

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It reminds us that poetry can be lovely and some of the elements in the film really work

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well.

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I mean if you've never seen Dead Poets Society I think it's worth checking out. It's got some

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sort of lyrical and poetic fun ideas but it probably feels pretty dated by today's standards.

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On the other hand you've got Robin Williams playing a very delightful serious role which

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sometimes he doesn't play those as well as I would like.

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So that is Dead Poets Society.

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Hard to say what game I would play if I were going to watch Dead Poets Society.

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I mean if you wanted to play a game about private school perhaps Miskatonic School for Girls

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you can solve the problem of the school for boys thing by having the school for girls or

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I do have the game I still haven't played yet which is Miskatonic School for Boys.

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In both those cases you have a private school as the center story.

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It doesn't overlap much in terms of the love of poetry.

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I guess you could do poetry for Neanderthals as well if you wanted a game focus more on the

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poetics part of it.

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That's Dead Poets Society.

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Next up I watched the movie Wrath of Man.

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Wrath of Man is a sort of Jason Statham vehicle directed by Guy Ritchie.

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This came in when I never heard of it until I came across it on whatever streaming service

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I watched it on.

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I was sort of in the mood for a dumb Jason Statham movie and I mean it's not entirely dumb

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but it was a reasonably good Jason Statham movie about a security guard for an armored truck

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company and some people who were causing heists of different groups including the armored truck

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company.

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So the film has a lot of sort of twisty turning storytelling elements and it backs up

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and moves forward and I don't want to say a lot about those elements.

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I will say I thought Jason Statham did a pretty good job.

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I like Guy Ritchie's directing style and this sort of feels like a good mid-tier example

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of the kinds of stories he likes to tell.

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Lots of colorful criminal characters and the world where criminals just kind of run around

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and do whatever they want and law enforcement is either entirely absent or is sort of incompetent

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is part of the nature of this kind of story.

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But if you like you know there's some good gun fights and a little bit of fisticuffs and

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entertaining criminals saying entertaining things.

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So that's I don't have a lot more to say about Wrath of Man except that I enjoyed it.

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And if you were going to make a movie sort of inspired by this I might say to or if you're

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going to play a game sort of inspired by this I might suggest playing getaway plan.

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Just the Vital Lacerda medium heavy Euro game in which you play a group of people who have

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committed a heist and are now laying low before you get out of town.

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And you want to take as much money as you can with you but you don't want to be the last

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one out of town because last one out of town is stock.

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Although I think everybody is possible for everyone to make it out of town and then it's

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based on how much money you get but you also could might not make it out of town and then

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you're definitely not going to win.

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I liked Getaway Plan when we played it but I don't remember it in super detail.

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You can check it out on an earlier episode of Pick Up and Deliver if you want to hear

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what I had to say about that.

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That was Wrath of Man.

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Next up is Ghost Watch.

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So I came across Ghost Watch.

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I was not familiar with this film but I was talking with a buddy of mine about the movie

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Midnight with the Devil which I think looks really interesting and I'm keen to see.

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It faced a bit of an online backlash because they apparently used AI generated art in

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a couple shots in the movie and some people boycotted the movie because of that.

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I feel like we've got some complicated space that we're moving into.

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I'm not sure I'm willing to boycott the movie because of that but I haven't seen it yet

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either so we'll see what happens.

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Then the last that movie is sort of about a TV studio where they have some sort of say

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on or something and it goes terribly wrong and bad stuff happens but it's a found footage

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film so it's shot in situ and as though it's real.

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And I was telling this to a friend he's like well so I sort of like Ghost Watch.

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I'm like I don't know what that is.

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He goes you haven't seen Ghost Watch.

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You got to see Ghost Watch.

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So he loaned me Ghost Watch.

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This is a British made for TV made for BBC British movie.

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It was sort of like an evening feature.

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Like ABC did the Tuesday night movie or whatever.

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Sort of in that vein.

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And the idea is that there is a house where there's a young girl who's sort of possessed and

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the BBC is sending a film crew to the house to see what's happening at the house.

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The idea is they're going to spend all night and see what happens in this haunted house

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and explore the, explore what happens and you know they'll cut back to the studio where

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they'll talk to people about ghost sightings and that sort of thing and then they'll be

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conversations with the family and if anything happens they have cameras all over the house

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and so on.

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And it sort of, if you can kind of imagine what would happen in a story like that that

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is based as a simulated found footage story that's what happens.

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Now apparently what made this show particularly compelling is that it's formatted very much

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like a real BBC special would be and the people in it are real BBC news presenters.

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So like the guy, the main actor in the show is a guy who's an actual, was an actual BBC

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news presenter.

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So it would have been like if Anderson Cooper was in a fictional movie that appeared to

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be a show on CNN.

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Now it was presented I guess as part of a clearly fictional like night of TV but if you turn

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down part way through it looked pretty real and it had, so it sort of had a war of the

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world's kind of effect in terms of people calling and thinking this was real and wild stuff

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was happening.

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So and from that perspective it's, it's pretty cool.

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It's very well made.

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It's a little scary.

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I mean I wouldn't call it super scary but BBC TV production values in the 80s were such

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that you have to, whatever it is what it is.

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But I really did enjoy the movie and I'm glad to have checked it out.

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This does beg your question though, what game would you play to go with this kind of story?

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And there are two depending on if you're in the mood for something creepy or something pleasant.

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If you're in the mood for something pleasant I would say Mysterium.

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Mysterium is a game about psychics trying to solve a murder by communicating with a ghost

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and that ghost is sending messages to the psychics.

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It fits very well with the theme of Ghost Watch especially if you're not looking for a game

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that has sort of scaryness or tension.

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If you're looking for something scaryness or tension there is a game called I think

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Hana Oko.

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I'll put a link in the show notes.

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I don't remember if that's actually the name but I'll look at it and find it.

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And it is a game about a sort of ring style haunting or the grudge style haunting.

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Sort of Japanese creepy ghost living in a house and haunting the people who live there

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kind of game.

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And it's supposed to be pretty dang creepy.

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I haven't played it.

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I've only seen it once or twice but it is always a game that I've sort of been on lookout

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for as a used game.

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I don't know if I'd want to pay new prices for it but I certainly would enjoy trying it

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at some point.

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And it looks delightfully creepy.

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So that's Hana Oko or Oko Hana.

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I don't know.

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Look on the show page for the details and check out Ghost Watch if you think that's

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interesting.

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I guess I was on a horror kick because the next movie I watched was The Blackening.

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Now The Blackening is an interesting film.

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It is a movie about a group of friends, African-American friends who go, they rent a house

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in the country and they go there and they find a sort of slasher style serial killer ready

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to murder them.

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But it's also a sort of play a game for to survive your life kind of murder situation.

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And the game is all about sort of Black history but framed through really horrific racist

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stereotypes.

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So but the movie is also very funny but funny from the perspective of the Black characters

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is made by writers and directors from that community.

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So it I guess it has its bona fides.

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It doesn't feel to this middle-aged white man that it is being offensive or that it is

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treading ground it shouldn't -- it feels like a story told for a community by that community

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and in that context it's very funny.

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That said, I don't know how much I get to say about this movie, right?

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It's not for me in the same way that I'm not going to watch a romance movie that's aimed

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at people who like romance movies.

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It's about a lot of time talking about what I do or don't like about it because it really

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isn't for me.

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I hope to the filmmakers don't mind me watching it and enjoying it.

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I did.

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And I think it's great and you should watch it if you get a chance.

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It's really pretty good but it doesn't fit the stereotype or it doesn't it doesn't aim

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for me as a but it doesn't aim for me as an audience and so I don't think I don't really

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feel comfortable commenting on it beyond saying I think it's pretty good and should be

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worth checking out if you get a chance.

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Now if you're in the mood for a serial killer game, I think Last Friday is probably that's

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the only one I've played where there is a marauding serial killer going around killing the characters

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and I think that one would fit very well.

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I guess you could also play Final Girl if you're in for a solo game.

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I did not really, I was not super into Final Girl but I only played it one time at a con

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so I don't know if I didn't give it enough of a chance or whatever because I do like

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Hostage Negotiator so you would think I would like Final Girl but there it is.

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I haven't had a chance to give that a go again.

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Nonetheless I think The Blackening is great if you get a chance to watch it

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definitely do so.

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Finally the last movie I want to talk about is ISS.

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I got this from the library off the Lucky Day shelf.

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ISS is a science thriller in which you have United States and Soviet astronauts on the

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International Space Station and they're there to conduct scientific research and a nuclear

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war breaks out down on earth and the two groups suddenly find themselves at odds or at odds based

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on earth based politics.

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It's a tense thriller with pretty good acting, not entirely unpredictable plot beats but

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reasonably well done.

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Some of the special effects are not great but they're probably as good as you can expect

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for what they are.

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And man there was one huge plot hole that I just found so infuriating and in terms of one

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of the characters who is out doing a spacewalk out on the outside of the station and the

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way that he acts in terms of his own safety is so infuriating that I almost couldn't finish

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the movie I was so mad.

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Other than that I thought it was pretty great and pretty good, not great.

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It was good.

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Intertaining if you like a sort of techno thriller particularly if you want one where you don't

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have to use a ton of brain cells on it and you can kind of do something else while you're

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watching.

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ISS is right up there for you.

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It's enjoyable and tense at parts and while the plot beats are relatively predictable they're

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not entirely so and so you can enjoy the narrative surprises at the heart of the movie.

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And I think you should.

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In terms of what to watch or what to play while playing ISS.

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I suppose one game you could play would be actually it seems like the game you should

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play would be oh no it's the game I bought I haven't played it yet but it's about a station

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fall which is about a space station falling back to earth.

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So like in ISS and Stationfall different players have different motivations and different

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goals in terms of resolving, escaping the station or saving it or whatever and I think it

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would probably be a good matchup.

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Well thanks for joining me on my walk today.

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I hope your next walk is as pleasant as mine one.

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Bye bye.

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[Music]

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Brought to you by Rattlebox Games

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[MUSIC]