Episode 196: Elysium!

[Gilberto]

Sean and Andrew talk about Ben Affleck as Batman and they give this year's Dark Knight Rises Award to Matt Damon's new scifi action movie, Elysium.

Episode 196

[malus]

LOL! @ BAffleck, Nerd damage control, and not being first responders!

My favorite part of the’ cast is the comment on the unfortunate new Halloween Costume brought about by Sucker Punch!!! LOL!!! Yes indeed.

The fluff up over BAffleck does seem a bit over the top.

**GROSS GENERALIZATION INCOMING ALERT***
---Do you guys think that nerds have the same problem women do? They can’t stand to see one another succeed? Does success or a pretty face delegitimize your nerditude? OR, the fan base just never really saw him as one of the fold at all?

I WOULD LOVE TO SEE AN INTELLIGENT BATMAN, a detective, a real crusader, not “BATMAN SMASH HARDER!!!” But that would require WRITERS doing WRITING and Joss Whedon can’t be everywhere!!!

Why do they leak this stuff early to the fan base anyway? Is the fan base EVER happy? CERTAINLY someone, somewhere, must have known that the vocal minority would go ballistic over this? No one, nowhere said, “you know, we MIGHT want to keep this BAffleck thing under wraps for a bit longer….”?

Affleck makes great commercial sense too. The fans will be out regardless. The dudes will be out for the summer blockbuster. Affleck and Cavill? Hellllllo ladies!

I love y’alls take on the movie. Lex Luthor, and Bruce Wayne as gov’t contractors. Bruce Wayne checking out this city destroying alien as a sort of threat assessment. Ending up a mentor rather than an adversary vs. Luthor who ends up the adversary. The sequel could take up right at the end of the first Superman. That would be totally awesome! It would make too much sense!

By the way, the comment about Affleck being “older” shocked me. God, I can’t believe people born in the mid 80’s ARE 30!!! I double checked Cavill’s age. Wow. Just wow. Put me in grandma panties! ;D

District 9, was AWESOME! Listening to you talk about it makes me want to watch it again! I agree that it had that cool, old school, sci-fi vibe where they threw weird stuff at you without trying to explain everything. Like in old sci-fi books where they are using strange, futuristic vernacular and you just kinda have to figure out what the hell is going on as you get into the story.

But, Elysium? Haven’t seen it yet. So disappointed in your review. How did it get decent reviews on Rotten Tomato and IMDB? 70% on Rotten Tomato and 7/10 on IMDB? The weird jumps in characterization and plot that you guys talk about seem like they’d be pretty glaring and make for a craptastic movie. Your review kills it for me. I know I’ll watch it anyway, but what do you think happened? Do you think the studio stepped in part way and took over? Were there any weird production rumors? Ok. I have to DL it now. See for myself.

Anyway, thanks for a funny podcast! I was really laughing out loud many times!

Edited for words.

[lynn]

I take issue with you saying women don't want other women to be prettier. I'm drop dead gorgeous and every lady loves me. Other women tell me I'm so beautiful they want to dance in the radiance of my sunshine.
I think Ben Afflect just isn't who they saw in the role, so they shit their little nerd shorts. OMG! The filmmakers aren't making it how I would?!?! How could it possibly be good! It's a little out of left field, so it was a bit of a surprise, but hey, why can't he be good? What ever happened to nerd optimism? Did it die with Science Fiction optimism? Was there a day the hope died? Is it George Lucas' fault? It is, isn't it? Did he kill optimism cos we all had so much positive expectation for the prequels, and got slapped in the face? It is Lucas' fault, isn't it.
Also, you find Afflec attractive? Weird. So going with that, we still love Joss, now that he's successful we love him more. Is it because he's not pretty? Ditto Del Toro and Jackson? Is it just the beard? Would women love other successful women if they grew beards? Maybe Afflec should just grow a nerd beard? He doesn't need to, cos he has a chiselled jaw- OMG I might just be onto something! Do nerds hate him because he doesn't need to have a nerd non-chisel-cover-beard? Grow a beard Afflec! Grow one now! It's like the opposite of the rom-com crowd, who hate the guy they've slated to play Christian Grey (I only know that guy's name cos I watch the entertainment news, I swear I haven't read the books so don't revoke my nerd cred) because he's totally chiselled but still sports the shaggy facial hair.

I liked Daredevil as well, did some really fun things, like when he's about to leave the hot chick to go rescue someone then thinks, nah, might go bang a hot chick instead, like we all know we would even if we were a mutant blind person (note, I'm not saying being blind is a mutation, he's blind, and a mutant due to the radioactivity. Just to head it off there). I also loved Electra getting killed, it was pretty confronting for the girlfriend to get killed like that in one of these films. They did it before Dark Knight. I think. My timeline on these things is fuzzy. It seemed good at the time. The Electra spin off was legitimately terrible, but nobody blames her for that, so we shouldn't blame Affleck if we didn't like Daredevil. We can blame him for Gigli, cos... Gigli.

[malus]

"Other women tell me I'm so beautiful they want to dance in the radiance of my sunshine."

We must have been separated at birth! I thought I was the only girl that farted glitter and pixie dust!

"I think Ben Afflect just isn't who they saw in the role, so they shit their little nerd shorts. OMG! The filmmakers aren't making it how I would?!?! How could it possibly be good! It's a little out of left field, so it was a bit of a surprise, but hey, why can't he be good?"

Was Christian Bale even that good? Didn't you sort of always think he was about to kill a hooker with a chain saw? Don't get me wrong, I'd still chance it! <333

"What ever happened to nerd optimism? Did it die with Science Fiction optimism? Was there a day the hope died? Is it George Lucas' fault? It is, isn't it? Did he kill optimism cos we all had so much positive expectation for the prequels, and got slapped in the face? It is Lucas' fault, isn't it."

I still can't really even talk about the prequels. I liked the sound effects. There were light sabers.

"Also, you find Afflec attractive? Weird. So going with that, we still love Joss, now that he's successful we love him more. Is it because he's not pretty? Ditto Del Toro and Jackson? Is it just the beard? Would women love other successful women if they grew beards? Maybe Afflec should just grow a nerd beard?"



No? really? not at all? not even a little tickle? I'm just saying if he gained 20 or so pounds he'd be just about right. <3 There's the beard for you too. He's had the nerd uniform, the goatee, too. He loves it. He has all the classic symptoms. I don't know why he isn't the official spokes person for the club personally.

"He doesn't need to, cos he has a chiselled jaw- OMG I might just be onto something! Do nerds hate him because he doesn't need to have a nerd non-chisel-cover-beard? Grow a beard Afflec! Grow one now!"

Maybe we should decide to keep Affleck, and shitcan BATMAN. I propose a more apropos substitution:



"It's like the opposite of the rom-com crowd, who hate the guy they've slated to play Christian Grey (I only know that guy's name cos I watch the entertainment news, I swear I haven't read the books so don't revoke my nerd cred) because he's totally chiselled but still sports the shaggy facial hair."

I have "50 Shades of Gray" hidden on my iPhone with a fan list telling me what pages to skip to. Unfortunately, it was STILL BORING! Reminded me of that old dog eared book, "Forever" by Judy Blume, I found in my middle school library.

Daredevil? It was Ok. I gave up emotionally on Matt Murdock after he was killed by Typhoid Mary in the 80s. I was really upset by that story. Hmmm... how old was I when that happened? You know, I was really too old to be acting that way, so maybe I shouldn't be typing this!

"We can blame him for Gigli, cos... Gigli. "

TOTALLY AGREED. Gigli. Gigli. Gigli.

[Gilberto]

I think that nerd culture has a hard time allowing for different factions of nerds, like the whole cosplay thing. It used to be Star Wars vs. Star Trek, then it was Star Trek vs. Babylon 5... it's always Star Trek vs. something. Nerds tend to thrive on hyper-focus, so accepting a variety of viewpoints isn't always their forte'. I do think there's a bubble that the hardcore nerds live in, and they don't want anyone else in there. That also makes them a little reluctant to love new things. Some of that might be Lucas' fault, but it's possible the extremists would have hated the prequels no matter how good they were. We'll never know.

There is also a steady encroachment on nerd culture by the mainstream. I think it's a good thing, but people who've spent enough time on the other side of the velvet rope survive by fantasizing that it goes both ways. We might not be able to go in there, but you can't come out here either. Now all of that is changing.

I read an article about Ben Affleck one time that said his indie cred was tied to his facial hair. It's funny because if you look at his movies from the 90's to now, it's kind of true. Even in Argo he's got that beard, but he was always better liked with the goatee.

I encourage anybody to watch Elysium and form their own opinion, but I don't think this was studio interference. I think it's a sophomore slump. Not everybody's full of great ideas. Look at Shyamalan. He did 3 great movies before he lost the spark. So you never know who's going to make something good. There was a time that I thought Joel Schumacher was the perfect director to make a Batman movie.

[lynn]

OMG!!! With that beard he's totally hot! I take back everything, he is way too nice-looking to be batman! He should never take that thing off! Can we have Batman with a beard? Would that work? Would if kinda blow his cover if he has a beard under the mask? Can he have a beard while he's Bruce and not while he's batman? That would be kinda awesome.
I kinda liked the Bale edge of crazy interpretation, because I sorta believed that about this interpretation of batman, sort of on the edge of insane. But thinking about it now makes my brain create a little scene where batman and joker and skipping around cheerily murdering prostitutes while music plays... it's like one of those merry melodies cartoons in my head sometimes.

[Scary Gary]

The word now is that Batman will be "tired, weary, and seasoned".

[Gilberto]

I think that's the way to play it. Jump into a whole new Batman. No retelling the origin, no trying to follow the Nolan films, just a used universe Batman ready to go right out of the box, just in time for Justice League.

[lynn]

I'm so sick of origin stories. I just want to kick in this new age of following a story, developing character, looking at consequences. Good times.