Emerald City Video Podcast

We finally get to the Hal-cicle episode that honestly creates more questions than it answers on what happened to Hal. Episode 6 is “Bad Optics” and we meet Guy Gardner for the first time in the series and he’s just as much of a dick as he was in Superman… maybe even a bit more self-centered.

“Bad Optics” is yet another episode of “the most interesting things happen off screen”

* Sinestro gets broken out of jail

* Hal gets killed (maybe)

* Guy steals the ring and suit from Oa

* Johns dad shoots out a nursing home window. As a side note, why the f**k does he have a gun? Is he still shooting apples off of children’s heads?

Zach’s a little frustrated, as you might tell that this Superhero show is taking up all the most irritating aspects of a low-budget police procedural as opposed to a HBO prestige cop show.

What will happen to John now that he’s grave-robbed a ring? Is Hal really dead? Will John ever actually tell the Sheriff that it was him that punched Hal in the nose? Will Bernadette ever stop being a f*****g a*****e of a character?

Hopefully we’ll get some of these questions answered in episode 7.

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It’s been 25 years since Mike Barbosa, Sean McGorty, and their friend Luke Leblanc recorded Emily, the self-titled album for their band of the same name.

It’s been about a week since James Michael Farley, a sketch comedian and TV writer, discovered a box of Emily CDs at a New Hampshire thrift store and inadvertently kicked off a viral sensation.

Emily, with a ‘90s indie rock feel (because that’s what they, fundamentally, were), recorded the self-titled album the weekend after the 9/11 terror attacks at a studio near Boston, and operated as an act for between five and seven years starting in the ‘90s. While Emily never got their big break, both McGorty and Barbosa are still playing music regularly (although for Barbosa, it isn’t his day job).

The CD’s thrift-store origin and the revelation that the CD was nothing like Farley expected call back to one of the great lost-and-found albums in internet history, Panchiko’s Death Metal. The big difference is that it took Farley only a matter of hours to get the band back together -- figuratively, at least for now -- rather than months of a frenzied internet search.

So, let’s catch up with Emily, and see what they’ve been doing for the last 25 years…!

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You can follow Sean McGorty on Instagram and TikTok, and check out his solo music here.

You can follow Mike Barbosa on Instagram.

You can follow James Michael Farley on Instagram, or check out his website for more information about his upcoming projects.

You can also download a copy of the Emily album on the Internet Archive.

Since I’ve been very bad about doing this in the past, here’s a batch of links to my existing books, which presumably make great gifts if you are lucky enough to know somebody in one of these niche fandoms:

Best Movie Ever: An Oral History of Deborah Kaplan & Harry Elfont’s Josie and the Pussycats

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/best-movie-ever-russ-burlingame/1140177148?ean=9798988311720

https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Best-Movie-Ever/Russ-Burlingame/9798988311720?id=9340900023696

https://bookshop.org/book/9798988311720

The Gold Exchange: The Unofficial Booster Gold Companion

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-gold-exchange-russ-burlingame/1143464630?ean=9798988311737

https://bookshop.org/book/9798988311737

https://www.booksamillion.com/p/Gold-Exchange/Russ-Burlingame/9798988311737?id=9340900023696

A Legend In His Own Time: A Fast-Forward Guide to the Greatest Hero You’ve Never Heard Of (with Kevin Allen)

https://a.co/d/29phYM0

Getting the Fin Right: The Collected Savage Dragon Interviews vol. 1 (with Gavin Higginbotham)

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/getting-the-fin-right-russ-burlingame/1146574344?ean=9798988311744

This week’s episode of Lanterns brought the 2016 storyline to a climax, surprisingly homaging a moment from John Stewart’s earliest comics stories. The episode was more or less a nonstop action scene, depleting the ring at high speed and setting in motion…whatever comes after Antaan and the Manhunter.

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Russ and I caught Adam Wingard’s (Godzilla Vs. Kong) latest film, ONSLAUGHT in the theaters last week and both loved it. The lead, Adria Arjona (Andor) is incredible, in this heavily John Carpenter influenced action thriller. Arjona shows that she can be an action star fighting and hacking her way through

It’s an A24 film so you know it’s going to be a little weird… and oh boy, this one is a lot weird. Just gander at how Dan Stevens (Zero Day) looks as a “third generation Operation Paperclip” scientist.

The film takes place in a New Mexico trailer park near a secret government lab. The trailer park is managed by Celeste (Arjona) and has a cast of interesting characters, a vet, a drunk cop and other loveable losers. She’s holding the place together and dealing with PTSD from the war. Celeste also has a small arsenal, and her kid for the weekend. That’s when the science experiments break out of containment and start a murder spree.

The film reminded Russ more of a Jason-esque horror/slasher than a traditional “bad ass chick kills bad guys and defends kid” kind of movie like Jennifer Lopez’s THE MOTHER.

It’s in theaters now, if it interests you, go see it ASAP.

Russ 4 out of 5

Zach 4.5 out of 5

Side note, somehow throughout the movie, our discussion on it neither of us made the connection that the old vet in the film is Reginald VelJohnson aka DIE HARD’s Sgt. Al Powell. Gahdamn. He was great.

[apologies for the audio on this one as we recorded while I was driving as we do with New Release walls and I think it was mic’d through my car.]

Check out the trailer:

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On this episode of Lanterns, the guys try to break into the ranch to find the Manhunter and we learn what a weenie is. Shenanigans ensue and we get more mail nudity.

Make sure you subscribe to the ECV Newsletter as we have some big announcements coming up on projects and a new website.

Emerald City Video is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Follow:Russ Burlingame on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/russburlingame.comZach D Roberts on BlueSky: https://bsky.app/profile/zdroberts.bsky.social

Watch on youtube here:

We’ve decided to keep these podcasts free without a paid subscription but they do take a lot of time and effort (mostly on Russ’ side) to put together. So, if you can please subscribe at $5/month. We’re going to be expanding podcasts like this to new shows and even developing more research intensive series on movie history.

Russ’ notes from episode three:

-In the beginning of the episode, John’s trip through the dead mall features a poster in the background for Janus Cosmetics. On the one hand, that’s a tie into Clayface, the next DC Studios movie, which is a body horror story based on one of Batman’s villains. On the other hand, my mind immediately went to The Janus Directive, a storyline that ran through Checkmate!, Suicide Squad, Manhunter, Firestorm, and Captain Atom in 1989. That Manhunter is not the same as the Manhunters featured in Lanterns, but there are aesthetic similarities, because DC is bound and determined to make the whole Manhunter thing as confusing as humanly possible.

-In subtitles, the episode revealed that Laura Linney is playing Lianna. It’s impossible to know exactly how much of her backstory they will keep for the show, but in the comics, she was a Guardian only very briefly before becoming a bad guy for a minute and then eventually a member of the Omega Men, a team Tom King wrote juuuuuust before he exploded into the mainstream.

.

-The Guardians of the Universe (in the comics) are born out of the Maltusians, but at some point the women of Maltus left to form a new Amazon-like race called the Zamarons. Carol Ferris, Hal Jordan’s on-again/off-again girlfriend, is a Star Sappire – the “violet lanterns” who work for the Zamarons.

-Lianna, despite being born a Guardian, doesn’t physically resemble Guardians or Zamarons. She looks more like a distaff Lobo (not the first, or last, of those at DC). During her time with the Zamarons, she was recruited into a cult and grown from childhood to adulthood by something called the Heartstone, a cosmic gem that was present at the dawn of time. That’s interesting, considering she was wandering around handing out gems in this episode.

Emerald City Video is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

-So - John Stewart’s origin here is batshit relative to the comics. Here’s how the DC Wiki describes his youth: “Born in Detroit, Michigan, most of John’s life was marked by poverty and clashes with police. His mother was a community organizer, who tried to make things better, and inspired John to try and make the world a better place.[3] He also had a little sister named Eleanor, who died when they were children.[4] Once he finished high school, John felt it was time to leave home and joined the U.S. Marine Corps. His mother didn’t like it, fearing John would be contributing to the American military industrial complex, but John felt it was the only way to pay his way to college and that protest without action is not enough.”

-In his original appearances, John had a more “Black power, fight the system” kind of personality, but in the modern era he has been essentially rewritten as one of those Black conservatives who rebels against his hippie parents.

-I still really don’t like the whole Lantern Eugenics storyline, but I’ll admit that the left-field prediction that John’s dad was a potential Lantern panned out! Good job, Dave!

-The racial politics of this episode feel very confused to me, and her “Hal never had a hard time because white privilege” line feels even weirder coming AFTER we know that Hal watched his dad die and basically is dead inside. The resentment they have for Jordan very much does feel like a nod to the Shazam! story we talked about before.

The difference between being programmed and being raised boils down to free will. Which actually leads me to an interesting point: Lanterns has no apparent interest in willpower, which is actually the engine that drives the Green Lantern rings. Being “fearless” is primarily important because it places a Lantern in opposition to the yellow Lanterns – Sinestro’s Corps – which fuels itself on the fear it instills in others. It’s also interesting that the word “will” finally comes up in this episode – only when Lianna asks whether John harbors any ill will toward Hal.

-There’s graffiti in the background for the Midway City Panthers when John is abandoned by his parents in the “bad part of town.” Midway City is a fictional city in DC Comics. It’s in Michigan, which hints that maybe John is from Midway rather than Detroit in this version. In the comics, Hawkman, Hawkwoman, and the Doom Patrol live in Midway. In movies and TV, it’s often used as a “generic DC location,” most notably in David Ayer’s Suicide Squad movie. It was referenced a number of times in the Arrowverse as “a place people have gone,” but never featured.

-The Gray Wolf is indeed a DC Comics character, although I think this is more an Iron Man 3/Arrow season 1 situation where they’re taking a name used by a character in the comics and dropping it on a random “bad dude.”

In the comics, Gray Wolf is the name used by two different characters (or different versions of the same character? It’s hard to tell with a multiverse) who debuted in 1971. He was originally an enemy of the Western hero Tomahawk, who married a girl Gray Wolf was interested in. A later version (whose costume looks very similar, but modernized for the 2010s) was part of the Batman family of characters starting in 2022. He was originally installed to oversee a prison and drug prisoners by Lex Luthor, but eventually rebelled and cured people.

-The alcoholic version of Hal strikes again! And, yes, use of the ring to interfere in politics is strictly forbidden, as Guy noted in Superman. That may be why he’s on ice in 2026 and John has the ring in Man of Tomorrow.

-Who is the bearded Guardian? I have some thoughts but it’s hard to have any kind of confidence at this point. One candidate might be Krona, and if that’s who he is, we are all in for a bad time.

Thanks for reading Emerald City Video! This post is public so feel free to share it.

ECV’s resident expert on Green Lantern, Russ has already published an extensive piece on episode two at ECV. You can read that below.

We’ve decided to keep these podcasts free without a paid subscription but they do take a lot of time and effort (mostly on Russ’ side) to put together. So, if you can please subscribe at $5/month. We’re going to be expanding podcasts like this to new shows and even developing more research intensive series on movie history.

Emerald City Video is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Lanterns 102 Reading List

Cosmic Odyssey

Rage of the Red Lanterns

Booster Gold vol. 2 #2, contained in Booster Gold: 52 Pick-Up

Batwoman: Elegy

Emerald City Video is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

To mark the 35th anniversary of the Spin Doctor’s multi-platinum album “Pocket Full of Kryptonite,” ECV Analog is releasing Brain Surgery With a Monkeywrench: 35 Years of Spin Doctors and Pocket Full of Kryptonite. You can pre-order it now on Ko-Fi, and it will be available on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other major retailers in the coming weeks.

The project features essays from contributing writers, a pair of short comics inspired by the song “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues,” and interviews with each member of the band, as well as former bass player Mark White and longtime friend and New York scene photographer “Crazy” Steve Eichner.

Emerald City Video is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

After watching the pilot to HBO’s massively successful DC adaptation Lanterns, Emerald City Video and Around the Lens teamed up for a reaction/analysis podcast, with longtime ComicBook and Comic Related writer Russ Burlingame hosting as the resident Green Lantern nerd.

Russ already reviewed the pilot episode (TLDR: 3.5/5 stars), but there’s a lot more analysis here, and it’s great to catch up with Dave to lend some of his expertise on the military aspects of the series.

Oh, and there’s a…

LANTERNS Week 1 Reading List: Green Lantern: Secret Origin by Geoff Johns, Ivan Reis.

https://amzn.to/4zz0phN

Most people will tell you to start with the beginning of Johns’s run, because he re-established the lore pretty well and explained the whole Parallax thing that we’ll probably talk about a lot coming up -- but I reject that, because many of those first 12 or so issues were drawn by an unreprentant fascist. F**k that guy, and don’t buy his books.

The Final Night by Karl Kesel, Stuart Immonen.

https://amzn.to/4gLNQs3

Mister Miracle by Tom King & Mitch Gerads

https://amzn.to/4xf9fQe

Green Lantern: Beware My Power (movie)

https://amzn.to/4x8Ib5c

Emerald City Video is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

To mark the 35th anniversary of the Spin Doctor’s multi-platinum album “Pocket Full of Kryptonite,” ECV Analog is releasing Brain Surgery With a Monkeywrench: 35 Years of Spin Doctors and Pocket Full of Kryptonite. You can pre-order it now on Ko-Fi, and it will be available on Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other major retailers in the coming weeks.

The project features essays from contributing writers, a pair of short comics inspired by the song “Jimmy Olsen’s Blues,” and interviews with each member of the band, as well as former bass player Mark White and longtime friend and New York scene photographer “Crazy” Steve Eichner.

Ahead of the release of Brain Surgery With a Monkeywrench, ECV caught up with Spin Doctors founding members Chris Barron, Aaron Comess, and Eric Schenkman after a recent concert in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Russ Burlingame: Pocket Full of Kryptonite is 35 now, which…none of us are that old.

Eric Schenkman: I’m only 26. That’s impossible.

Burlingame: Obviously it’s a big commercial success, and you guys still play a lot of the shows in concert, but what has that record meant to you guys as an act? It really feels like those songs continue to be not just popular with your audience, but like vital. “Two Princes” was on a TV show like a week ago.

Chris Barron: I think for us as a band — if I may speak for us as a band — I think that record is a creative triumph in that it was coming out of a very commercial musical moment.

We had a major label that was breathing down our neck to make certain kinds of decisions about editing songs, and making them shorter, and trying to make the whole record this sort of pop record. And we stuck to our guns. We stuck together as a band and supported each other.

For example, Aaron wanted to use that like piccolo snare on “Two Princes,” which was just not a thing back then. The snare sounds were much deeper and boomier. Aaron had this idea that he wanted to do it, and that that took like hours for us to go, and keep trying these big, loud, nasty, f*****g booming snares that Aaron didn’t want to use, and then Aaron being like, “No, this is what I wanna do.”

And we all had his back, and we all had each others’ backs. I think the record set kind a template for us to be the creative unit that we have been all along, because if we had capitulated back then on that, I don’t think we’d be the band that we are now.

Burlingame: One of the things that I think is really interesting about this record is…“Refrigerator Car” and “40 or 50,” and some of the songs that aren’t conventional single material are incredibly popular with Spin Doctors fans. Chris, you and I talk all the time on Threads with that guy whose name is Refrigerator Car.

“Pocket” feels to me a lot like Jagged Little Pill in the sense that there’s not a single song on that record that isn’t somebody’s favorite. How satisfying is it to look back at a completed work and know you made the right cuts and the right choices?

Aaron Comess: Yeah — we were such a prolific band, particularly early on. We were playing clubs around New York. By the time we went in to make Kryptonite, we had 50 original songs. We put a lot of thought into picking the 11 that went on the record, and I think we made great choices.

Our goal was to make a record that really highlighted all the different aspects of the band, highlighted us as a band and also as individuals, and we wanted to showcase all the different kind of material we had. so you’ve got these songs, we used to call them the whitebread hits — “Two Princes” and “Little Miss,” “Jimmy Olsen.” — but then we had these songs like “40 or 50” and “Shinbone Alley” and “Off My Line” and “Refrigerator Car,” and it’s cool because I remember I had some friends saying “your record, it’s all over the place,” but that’s what we wanted to be.

But somehow it all really fits, and I’m really proud of it. Here we are talking about 35 years later, and we’re gonna do a couple shows coming up where we’re gonna play the whole record, which we’ve done a couple times. And I can honestly say it’s a blast to play that record because there’s all these different styles thrown in the pot in those songs.

And like you said, it’s great that at least the diehard fans really dig that. The hits have kept us going — having “Little Miss” and “Two Princes” is the reason I think we’re still here playing big shows like this. But having that diversity in our sound is keeps us really interesting, for sure.

Schenkman: Also, we were lucky because we’re from New York, and we had the opportunity to be big, because we were popular in New York, so those songs really had extra ballast.

I was just gonna add that what Aaron’s saying is correct, but after 40 years, or 110, or however long we’ve been around, it’s like we couldn’t help making that record. We’ve made a bunch of other records since, and to me, it’s like we keep making the same record.

They’re different songs, but there’s always a few that could be hits. Like, “Margarita” could’ve been “Little Miss Can’t Be Wrong.” It’s just as poppy of a song. And on every record, there’s this wide splay of songs that’s all over the place. It’s just us.

Comess: We, the three of us, have been the primary writers, and we’re all three very different musicians and people. I think that really explains the diversity in our songs. Yeah. And you’re, like, you’re exactly right because yeah — if you look at all of our records, they’re all like that.

Schenkman: They all have that, right? I was just thinking, even the most recent one, it’s like it’s got this really wide scope to it. And and it’s cool because when we go out and play live, there’s a lot of choices there.

Barron: Early on, Aaron said — I think this is such a great way of putting this — Aaron was like, “We should play songs with different tempos, different rhythms, and different tonal landscapes, so that it’s not boring.”

Basically, so it’s not boring, but that covers such a multitude. And then I took that on as the lyricist, to expand that to also include different emotional and thematic landscapes as well. It was definitely a conscious choice to play stuff that was different.

It came out of, we’re gonna be playing at a club from f*****g 9:30 until 4:00. So we just needed to change it up so that the crowd wouldn’t go home. But it also, it’s very satisfying to have a repertoire like that.

To go back to your initial question, people come up to me and their favorite song is “40 or 50” or these deep cuts, and I’m like, “Wow, that’s that’s a deep cut.” And I think we’ve done a good job of not having filler on any of the records. We pay very close attention to the writing, and to the performances, and to the production of every single song that we put out, and we don’t we don’t stop working it until it gives you an involuntary reaction. Then you know you’ve really got something.

Comess: Just to add to that, I think we’ve always been real organic, so the songs that make it usually just make it ‘cause they sound good organically and they work. Sometimes songs won’t work as well. Those usually just fall by the wayside, because we had so many songs, and they’re all cool. We work hard at it, but it’s also like — things either come together with us or they don’t.

On Kryptonite, it was a really good time. The record we just made, Face Full of Cake, was very similar. It just was really organic. The songwriting process was really easy and fun.

And then when we’re in the studio, we’d never really played those songs before we went and recorded them, but it just was easy. There’s definitely been records and times in the band where it wasn’t like that, and that creates another sort of friction and sound. But I think Kryptonite and Face Full of Cake both were just kinda easy to make.

Kryptonite was…every band, it’s like you have your whole life to write your first record, and we played those songs like 500 times. We literally played that many gigs before we went in the studio, in a short time. So we had a sound.

Barron: And we were like filled with glee that we were making a record, too. It was our first record. There was a lot of enthusiasm.

Burlingame: It’s interesting that the first commercial release was a live record. That’s super uncommon, but with you guys having a reputation as a jam band, it kinda made sense.

Barron: It was easy, and the price was right. Like, all we had to do was bring the recording equipment to The Wetlands. We knew we were gonna walk out of there with a record, so it was a no-brainer for us.

Comess: And I don’t know if you know this, but the, the original plan was to put out a studio EP. So, our first recording session was at The Power Station. We recorded “Two Princes” there. We recorded “Shinbone” and “Hard to Exist” there. We also recorded another, a different version of “How Could You Want Him” and then a few other songs.

Barron: “Hungry Hamed’s.”

Comess: “Hamed’s,” yeah. And then we decided, “Let’s save this. We’re a live band, let’s do this live EP.” So then we ended up going back and using some of that stuff for the record. But the original plan was actually gonna be a studio EP, so I’m glad we didn’t do that.

Burlingame: One thing I wanted to point out to you guys. So when I’m talking to Eric one-on-one, he’s incredibly prolific, articulate storyteller. That interview was super fascinating, and also, I hardly got in a word edgewise. But these guys are in the room, and you’re just like, “I’m gonna wait.”

Schenkman: I probably just smoked five joints before I talked. I’m just kidding! Actually, I didn’t.

Burlingame: No. It was first thing in the morning!

But how is that dynamic? I think most fans who don’t know you personally would think that you are the quiet guy. But in the room, I kinda doubt that’s always the case.

Comess: Eric’s definitely not the quiet guy.

Schenkman: I’m not. No. We have like a, we have a very... it’s organic. we have a pecking order and a a relationship, and everybody’s pretty happy. Everybody takes their turn in this band, and nobody’s particularly…

We’vealready had all our fights. I have this saying now — when you’ve been doing this for this long, you, sooner or later you realize that everything is everybody’s fault. So it’s all of our fault already, so it doesn’t really matter. If I, if I have something to say, I usually talk, but a lot of times Chris or Aaron they’ll say something and they speak for me quite effectively

Comess: We all pretty much say the same s**t at this point anyway.

Barron: Yeah…

Schenkman: Exactly. Pretty much, yeah. And we’ve said it all before, a number of times.

Burlingame: Is Harrisburg gonna be the first time that you guys have done the record end to end with Jack?

Schenkman: No. We did it in Colorado. Remember that?

Schenkman: Utah.

Comess: Yeah, we did it a couple times.

Schenkman: Olympia. Freezing!

Burlingame: What’s that like? Obviously it’s a slightly different energy with Jack than with Mark White. Jack is such a great player and he’s such a great guy, but your rhythm section in particular has a very specific fingerprint and it’s never gonna be exactly the same thing.

Schenkman: No. But if I may, it would be a f*****g drag…

Barron: Oh, now you start f*****g talking!

Schenkman: They asked Aaron a question, so now I have to answer it! But it would be a real f*****g drag if we were looking for a guy who could be Mark White. First of all, we’d never find him in a million f*****g years, and second of all, Jack’s…he’s like the other side of that card. He’s So he’s very capable. These guys play great together.

Comess: Listen man, not many bands who stay together this long can keep everybody. We had a lot of good years with the original four, and Jack’s an incredible addition. It’s great.

Going back and playing that record with Jack, he brings something else to it, and he totally respects all the important stuff that Mark did. The basslines that are part of the songs that need to be there, while he’s made it his own.

We told him from the beginning do it your own. He’s enough of a professional musician to know when something needs to be there, and there’s been a few times where we’re like, “Take a listen to that. There’s this one thing Mark did that’s really cool,” and he’ll f*****g listen to it and he’ll do it. You know what I mean?

Schenkman: Yeah.

Comess: We’re lucky. It’s really hard to replace a member of a band, we’ve tried it a few times. It never really worked. And Jack’s really worked out really well. It’s a tough gig to follow somebody with all that history, and then Mark White is an incredible bass player and just very unique. He really deserves a lot of credit to the sound of the band. We’re never gonna take that away from him. We don’t want anybody to come in and try to be Mark, so I think Jack does an amazing job.

Barron: I agree. I [thought], “If one of the original four gets abducted by aliens I’m out.” And then, Mark was out.

I was talking to Aaron, and I was like, “Okay, let’s, we should just break up the band.” But Jack was lined up to do the gigs that we had for the rest of that summer, and Aaron was like — because I’m always kinda flying off the handle, and Aaron always kinda talks me down — he was like, “Look, man, just let’s finish out the gigs we have this summer. Jack is great. You’re gonna love him.”

And I had serious doubts about whether we could maintain the kind of chemistry. Of course, it’s not gonna be the same as with Mark, but to maintain a level of chemistry. ‘Cause, a quartet, one of the guys is gone? Then you’re limping along. And Jack showed up to f*****g soundcheck. Halfway through soundcheck, I was like, “Oh, this is f*****g great. This is totally gonna work out.”

It’s like he said, it’s not imitating Mark, but he’s hitting all of the marks. He’s hitting all the spots that need to be hit, and he’s bringing his own thing to it. And these guys have done a million records together. They’ve played together a ton.

I’ve known Jack, and we used to live in the same building, so I’ve known him a really long time. Definitely a mutual admiration society. And just we’re just really lucky, honest to God. I didn’t think anybody was gonna be able to come in and make it work, and Jack is just — we’re really lucky to have him. We’re lucky that he came along. And it’s just f*****g really cool to still be doing, it and have it feel really great with another guy. And hats off to Mark. We, we would not be the band that we are without him.

Burlingame: Kind of on that note — This is a band that for a lot of folks, it’s like they know two songs and they’re like, “Oh, they’re the guys who do those kinda quasi-novelty things.” But you are all A-list musicians in your own right. What is it like putting together a fun, poppy show with guys who have completely disparate interests and completely different disparate influences, but who are all really great at going in that one direction?

Schenkman: It just makes it makes this band super good ‘cause everybody’s really good at their part and at what they do. We’re all great musicians and we are really serious about what we do. When we get together, there’s four of us, so we surprise each other. I think that’s the key. There’s always a surprise.

Comess: I think the the best musicians serve the song first, and also realize that you’re putting on a performance and there’s a crowd out there that you need to entertain. We’re all capable of doing all kinds of stuff. We could go out there and show off all our b******t or, or just focus on the jam s**t all night, but you have to know your audience.

For instance, this tour, we’re doing 45 minutes. We’re playing with two other bands. You gotta look around and figure out what’s gonna really work, all while maintaining our integrity, which we, we always do.

And then at the end of the week we’re playing Vermont on our own. Full 90-minute set. It’ll be a whole different thing. I think we’ve learned, we definitely had times where we didn’t know that.

We kinda had to learn the hard way. We started off playing three, four sets a night, and our fans would go anywhere we wanted to with us. We were playing little clubs. And once we started to play really big venues, I don’t think we totally got it at first. We’ve been doing this a long time now, so I think we really understand how to play a show. And again, it really has nothing to do with how good of a accomplished musician you are. If anything, that should be all the more reason to do it right,

Barron: are really f*****g lucky because these guys are great players. You can put four of the best players in the world together and they won’t play with a chemistry and a volatility. And for some reason, the four of us starting, with Mark, played f*****g great together. And we got Jack and we kept that volatility and that chemistry going.

We’re different players with very different interests coming from different places, but we have a lot of common touchstones. When I met Eric, Eric was 25 and I was 20. So Eric we hung out a lot and Eric played me these Ike and Tina Turner records and pointed out very inside aspects of how those songs worked, and what they were doing.

And it’s art, and it doesn’t always make sense why something works. Salvador Dali — if you tried to tell that to somebody “Listen, I got this thing. It’s melting watches.” And you’re like, “What the f**k? Melting watches?”

“No, trust me, it’s gonna be f*****g great. It’s gonna be on a fork stick with a kind of a camel with really long legs.”

Then you’re like, “What the f**k are you talking about?” But you put that f*****g s**t in front of somebody, and the fork stick and the f*****g dripping watch and the camel with long legs, it’s the greatest f*****g thing I’ve ever seen. And that’s kinda that’s kind of us. We’re like — remember Dr. Dolittle, the “Push Me Pull You,” the llama with a head at both ends? It’s like — for some reason it just works.

Schenkman: there you have it. To the llama’s ass.

It was weird, it’s hard to explain without giving out spoilers, but it’s not the sort of action film you would expect from the star of Amazon prime reacher. As a huge fan of Reacher, everyone should watch this film in theaters.

Motor City is not just a brutal action film, it’s definitely trying to be something more. I think it’s succeeds at that. I say I think because I am probably going to go see this film again, as long as it sticks in theaters another week.

The film is in so many ways a standard revenge action flick. Man gets screwed over by other man because girl is interested in man. The story is pretty standard at this point, especially for a film that is deeply in the 70s gritty action film genre. But, this film is not your standard retro 70s action film.

The film is nearly dialogue free. As I said in the video, I wish that it had a little bit more dialogue, it would help the film be a bit more mainstream friendly. But, I love the reach, the attempt at trying something a bit wild.

Shailene Woodley, Ben Foster and Alan Ritchson are not small stars in 2026. The fact that all of them went all in for this film is a credit to their commitment to indy movies. Ben Foster especially as he is barely recognizable in his 70s beard and haircut. But he puts on a fantastic, over the top performance that I wish could be awarded in someway. Foster is I believe one of our best working actors today and is criminally underappreciated in his roles… but here he really shows what one can do without dialogue. Shailene Woodley plays the abused girlfriend, a standard action film role for a woman, but even though she has little dialogue as with everyone else in the film, her passion shines through.

The director Potsy Ponciroli doesn’t have a long list of credits but he has made a name for himself on this one. Motor City likely won’t make the top 5 on the box office for the month but it just might get him a job on the next big action film.