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

out for a walk and deliver an episode to you while I stroll around.

I'm Brendan Riley.

Greetings listeners, it's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.

The sun is out.

It is lightly cloudy.

It's breezy and chilly, but warm enough that I'm just wearing... I didn't wear a jacket,

I just wore a hoodie and I've got a winter cap on to keep myself just a little bit warmer

than the wind would like to make me.

I decided to go out for a stroll today.

It's the last Friday of the work week before spring break.

I did some work taking a break now.

Maybe do a little bit more work before I call it a day, but a stroll seemed like a

good idea and a good chance to connect with you all.

So I was looking back over my notes and it's been more than a month since I did a movie

roundup and last January I watched a bunch of movies, so I thought I ought to talk to you

about them before I forget them all.

That's right, it's time for the January 2024 [sic] movie roundup.

Well, I'm just going to go in chronological order because I should have time to cover

all the movies this time around.

To start with, right as the post-new year's winter break began, I went and saw the movie

"Nosferatu", which was the David Eggers, or no Robert Eggers remake of the classic movie,

which I watched in the fall.

I watched the Werner Herzog version or Vim Vendors.

No, it was Werner Herzog.

And then I had previously seen the version, the 1923 black and white film, the original

that got sued by the estate of Bram Stoker and so on.

This was a very close adaptation of that film, not of the story of Dracula.

"Nosferatu" changes a few things that really do shift how we understand what's going

on in the Dracula story.

Count Orlock is a Dracula-type figure and the person who goes to visit him, Mr. Harker,

is kind of like Jonathan Harker from the Dracula novel, but there are some differences.

The main thing is he's got this very pretty wife, he leaves at home, who sort of ends up

psychically connected to Dracula or at "Nosferatu" there.

But the thing that makes this movie stand out is the mood.

Robert Eggers dumped a ton of energy into building a really dramatic and fascinating mood

for the movie.

It's got incredible imagery, incredible darkness.

It's got very striking moments of cinematic artistry.

It's very slow.

I thought it was pretty enrapturing, but I could see how people might find it boring and

I wonder if I watched it in a different context or in a different mood or maybe not in

a theater if I would find it boring also.

I could see that.

Bill Skarsgard is really coming to stand out as a phenomenal actor, a phenomenal actor

of strange characters.

His portrayal of Count Orlock is pretty stunning.

He develops this very deep sort of raspy voice for it and the costuming makes him look

like he's sort of rotting and he has this sort of very big old West style mustache that is

genuinely creepy in a way that I wouldn't have anticipated.

All the things together make for a really striking movie.

If you're a fan of horror movies that operate more on mood than on, I don't know, thrills,

I think it's definitely a must see.

Very compelling, really good.

For a game that goes with it, I mean, it does probably tire, so I always recommend Fury

of Dracula for horror movies and that clearly is the one here.

The big thing that might push against that a little bit is that Dracula is too weak in

Fury of Dracula.

And Nosferatu, he's incredibly powerful.

He puts a plague on the city when he visits it and there's a level of dread and disturbing

elements that just doesn't match.

In some ways, it seems like Arkham Horror might even be a better fit than Fury of Dracula.

But I don't think there's an Arkham Horror story with a kind of malevolent plague-ridden

force.

Though there should be.

I don't know why there hasn't been yet.

There might be.

I wonder if Lovecraft wrote any stories about a malevolent being coming and bringing with

them all kinds of plagues.

It sounds like the kind of thing he would write about.

Although one in charge wouldn't really be his style.

He would be a mob of them because he's xenophobic.

Anyway, that's Nosferatu.

I watched the 1990s adaptation of the Crucible, starring Winona Ryder as the teen, I can't

remember her name, and Daniel Day Lewis as the main male lead.

From really compelling acting in that one as well, Jeffrey Jones is in it and he's become

a terrible person or was discovered to be a terrible person.

But a number of other really strong actors in that film.

It is a story, of course, of people giving in to madness and hysteria and other people standing

up for what's right.

And in the face of the diarist of circumstances feels pretty relevant these days and scary.

But the Arthur Miller play, it represents an important idea in American democracy.

It was good to watch again.

Or a good to watch.

I had never seen it actually.

I think Winona Ryder does a fantastic job as the sort of paranoiac teen who is leading

a group of sort of similar teens in their panicked discussion of witchcraft and which bewitchment.

Yeah, so if you haven't seen this one, it's definitely worth checking out.

I mean, Daniel Day Lewis does a great job.

Winona Ryder does a great job.

The actors who play the different judges are all suitably gross in their piety and hypocrisy.

It's definitely worth checking out if you get a chance.

That's the crucible adaptation of the Arthur Miller play.

If you haven't seen the Witch of Salem, excellent film to check out.

Or excellent game to check out in the context of the Salem Witch trials, which is what the

crucible is about.

Or you could perhaps check out Septima, which takes place in a card of nondescript European

village but has a similar idea behind it.

That one has a little bit more interesting stuff going on with the jury and narratively

the witches are banished from town rather than murdered.

So that one's less dramatic perhaps than the actual events where or the crucible is.

The next movie I want to talk about is Roman J. Israel Esquire.

This was a Denzel Washington movie.

It's a character study about a man who had desire and history as an activist.

He had a very strong sense of justice but very little patience or ability to deal with

the justice system and the way that things were rigged against his clients.

Washington plays this character in a really compelling way in a really empathetic way.

He's a flawed individual.

It's implied perhaps that he has some neurodivergent qualities but it's unclear.

The film doesn't ever suggest that directly but rather more through performance and perhaps

our cultural moment.

Perhaps 20 years ago he would have just been called idiosyncratic.

Now people might be tempted to label his idiosyncrasies as neurodivergent.

But I think the idea of the film is really just to kind of put pressure on this idea that

we are who we are by choice and that making choices to explore ourselves in different

ways has effects on our ethics and our morality and our experiences and I don't know it's

a good movie.

It's a nice character study and worth looking at I think.

That's Roman J. Israel Esquire.

I don't really know very much in the way of legal games to play doing trials isn't really

a game.

Theme that's very common often they're tied around a specific trial and this game is more

just about being a lawyer.

So I'm not sure exactly this is one of the first ones in a while I'd have trouble really

being able to point to and say like here's a game that I think you would it would make

sense to try to pair up with this other game.

I don't know what that would be.

Next up is Old Boy.

I had never seen this movie I'd heard about a lot about it particularly I remember it

coming up when Daredevil the TV show came out and there was the sequence where Daredevil

gets in this long exhausting fight in a hallway and people sort of talked about it as being

an homage to Old Boy.

So the movie if you haven't seen it is about a guy who gets kidnapped one day and ends

up in like basically an apartment where he's got a TV but nothing else really and every

day he's given food like he's in prison but he was never convicted of any crime and no

one will talk to him and he has no communication with the outside world and then one day I

can't remember if he escapes or they let him out but then his life he stuff happens it's

a very dramatic very violent story there's an incredible scene where he's attacking somebody

with a hammer in a hallway that is really dramatic.

It's a weird twisted story really dark but an interesting vengeance tale probably worth

seeing if you if those things I said sounded intriguing if you're like oh I could I could

enjoy as a film an intriguing dark violent revenge tale Old Boy is probably for you then

really interesting.

I watched the original version I did not watch the remake they didn't English language remake

I don't know anything about that but it's a pretty compelling movie as for a game that

would go with it I think there's a game that came out called vengeance which is meant

to be a revenge film as a board game I don't know much about it I know that one of the guys

at my board game club has it I've seen it played a couple times but never had the opportunity

myself it was very well very positively reviewed on So Very Wrong About Board Games the podcast

they really like that they also like the vengeance role and right that was made afterward

although they like the original game better as a dice chucking people on the map sort of

fighting game next up is Twisters this is the sequel to the original Twister movie there is

a sort of homage a little bit to the original movie a suggestion of it but they don't ever

make any explicit connections which is I think annoying there were a couple opportunities

where you could definitely have had characters from the original be in the new one so it was

annoying that they didn't do that but it's a pretty dumb movie but really fun the idea

is you know there are these storm chasers in there running around trying to find out a storm

and one of them has some science ideas about how we can understand tornadoes better and

with those ideas we will then be able to better protect people from tornadoes there are

corporate villains who seem to be in it for other reasons other than the science I don't

know if you remember the first movie but there was a sort of hilarious villainization of

the corporate weather stewge's because they're in it for the money not the science and there's

a lovable cast of sidekicks they're not quite as enjoyable as the original group but I mean

nobody could really be as enjoyable as Philip Seymour Hoffman so that was a little little

I really didn't miss him because I think even though he's a huge actor now I totally think

he would have come back and played Dusty again they say I like to think he would have so it's

amusing if you like the original Twister there's no reason you wouldn't like Twisters I think

it's probably suffers from my nostalgia for the first movie in terms of my understanding

of the second one but overall pretty enjoyable pretty fun let's Twisters all right next

up we have Wallace and Gromit Vengeance Most Fowl.

Wallace and Gromit is my favorite animation series I've seen all of the Wallace and Gromit

shorts and films I like them all the most recent one's called Vengeance Most Fowl. Feathers

McGraw, the penguin, escapes from the zoo and causes trouble he actually frames Wallace for

some heists and starts causing all kinds of trouble and Wallace and Gromit have to solve

it in their amusing way. They do feel like British cousins of the Muppets in terms of their

spirit and their delight and their animations and I love them so much if you are a Wallace

and Gromit fan don't sleep on Vengeance Most Fowl it's pretty great. well worth a look. I don't

have any Wallace and Gromit movies but it feels like a Burgle Bros has an amusing

similar tone

that would fit playing alongside Wallace and Gromit so I'll say Burgle Bros is what you

should watch [sic] if you are going to watch something. All right I'm just about out of time but I

have two quick quick movies I want to talk about more. I won't talk about games in connection

with these or maybe I will we'll see. One of them is Boy Kills World -- this is another revenge

tale. The qualities about it it's a really fun action movie with really great fight sequences

it stars Bill SKarsgard and the part that makes it amazing is the Bill SKarsgard plays it

as a mute who has had his tongue cut out and instead he has an internal monologue voiced

by H. Jon Benjamin who is the voice of Archer and it is perfect casting it is so funny

and so enjoyable it's one of the best action movies I've seen in a while. really amusing. I mean

it's really dumb but very fun, great action sequences, good elaborate imagery. it's sort of the

world of the movie sort of reminds me of Repo A Genetic Opera, the sort of like crazy royalty

and almost Japanese video game style characters wrapped up in a really amusing story. so worth

checking out if you get chance that's boy kills world. and finally I watched the Duke which falls

into the category of lighthearted British tale about an amusing eccentric person who does

something great. I've seen a number of these movies I've reviewed them on the podcast here

and this is another one that I love. Jim Broadbent plays a guy who is tired of England revenue

and he wants to make a difference in the world and he doesn't like the TV license rule he

doesn't like that you should have to pay for a license for your TV and he's trying to make

a name for himself so he steals a painting from the British Museum of the Archduke Ferdinand

or Duke Charles or some famous painting of a Duke that was worth a lot of money in the day.

He steals it and keeps it for several months and then finally he goes and turns it back in

when somebody is about to blackmail him for having stolen it. He turns it in and faces the

music--it's an amusing movie if you like the other ones like this that I've talked about the

Bank of Paul or whatever they that is this one is also going to fit that category it's

a delight. so if you have a chance to watch the Duke. well that's about it for movies I watched in January

I'd love to know what you watched head over to board game geek guild 3269 and share your

viewing habits there I'd love to hear them. thanks for joining me on the walk today I

hope your next walk is as pleasant as mine was.

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