Rod, Karen, Aaron, and Shanna discuss listener feedback, entertainment, Nintendo Switch 2 updates, Titan Fall 3 cancels, Xbox raising prices, Polygon and Giant Bomb dismantled, Solo Leveling Season 3, Gears of War Reloaded coming to PlayStation, EA won’t be raising price of games, GTA new trailer, Apple settlement for phone’s spying on users, PlayStation considering price hike, Max changing name to HBO Max, A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms, Riders Republic movie, Super Mario Bros sequel, half-off Wednesdays at AMC, Tekken/Waffle House collab not likely, MS cuts jobs, AbleGamers full of shit, MK1 fans upset with dev for abandoning the game, EA full return to office, Netflix AI generated ad breaks, Fort Nite Darth Vader, Epic vs Apple continues, Avatar movie delayed to 2026, Pokemon museum exhibit and man arrested with over 300K of Pokemon cards during raid.
The Nerd Off: (Protected Content)
Hey Rod, Karen & guests.
Saw both Ballerina and The Phoenician Scheme last night and liked both, give or take. I’ll start with Ballerina. It’s a John Wick movie that probably didn’t need to have reshoots just to shoehorn in The GOAT Baba Yaga, but Ana De Armas pretty much rips from the beginning of her appearance. Good stuntwork, good fights & even if I find this to be just below the first John Wick, this series continues to impress me with how merciless the killing is. Of course, no spoilers, but the shit Eve Maccario (Ana De Armas) pulls off is some G-shit.
Phoenician Scheme – Looks, I don’t pay attention to whatever the discourse is because I don’t have Twitter anymore. Maybe people are talking shit about how he’s fallen off since The Grand Budapest Hotel but This Wes Anderson be cookin’!
This quirky, white as white rice ass nigga shit be good. Funny, quite topical & the cast eats it up from the first second. It was a lot of fun. Michael Cera stole this joint from Benicio Del Toro.
Gaming-wise, not much has changed. I finally did get on the Gran Tursimo 7 train & let’s just say, I missed the fuck out of it. The license tests are enjoyable, which is a far cry from how they were since the very first game. Been loving it. Shit, having both Forza Motorsport 8 & Gran Tursimo 7, at the same time, is wild. And now I’m trying to get Spider-Man 2 Deluxe Edition before the State of Play deals are done.
Speaking of MARVEL, that new TOKON fighter from Arc System & Sony is so my shit. Wow, what an impressive trailer.
Take care.
Howdy Awesometastic Nerds,
This was a nice birthday episode for me. (Yes, just for me) I’m glad that you enjoyed Scavengers Reign, I watched it last year and it felt like I was alone in watching it back then. Solid stuff! Jack Reacher S3 fights had me dying in laughter, I love that show. When my man walked into the Chinese couples laundromat and they offered him coffee while he’s in a towel, I said I would too if I was built like that.
A new season of Love,Death, and Robots is here yessss. Oh btw did you catch the article where Scarjo was talking about she would have liked to return to the MCU but felt her characters story was complete? It was in Variety.
Shout-out to recognizing Lucky Number Slevin. I loved Josh Hartnet in that movie too!
To answer Rod’s question about mozaiku (mosaic aka pixelation) of genitalia in Japan. That is a personal choice. When I was on the streets before getting married it would be something that you would agree on in the consent process, but it had been getting less common. However, from conversations between students that I wish I hadn’t overheard, there has been a trend towards the pro-mozaiku camp among males.
That being said, racism in Japan comes in different flavours, but the most pronounced open racism you generally see is towards Chinese and Koreans. That being said, there are still landlords who refuse to rent to non-Japanese and it is never prosecuted.