Emerald City Video Podcast

Russ and Zach mock MAX/HBONOW/HBOMAX or whatever it’s calling itself nowadays for changes that likely cost the fledgling company millions of dollars in costs. Truly David Zaslav is a corporate genius. He also added that “no consumer today is saying they want more content, but better content." Yes, David, we’ve been telling you that ever since you spammed the HBO app with 40,000 home-remodeling and 4th tier reality shows.

From THR:

Added chairman and CEO of HBO and Max Content Casey Bloys: “With the course we are on and strong momentum we are enjoying, we believe HBO Max far better represents our current consumer proposition. And it clearly states our implicit promise to deliver content that is recognized as unique and, to steal a line we always said at HBO, worth paying for.”

Thirty minutes into Wednesday’s Warner Bros. Discovery upfront, Bloys revealed the name change to media buyers. The news was met with laughter, light applause and exactly one whistle. Bloys did follow with a solid joke: “I know you’re all shocked, but the good news is I have a drawer full of stationery from the last time around.”

James Gunn had a great bit in this video he made discussing Superman.

SINNERS is a huge success becoming the largest grossing original film since Pixar’s COCO. While I don’t think that COCO counts as a wholly original piece of film in the way that SINNERS is as it’s a Pixar film first… but that’s just me. If you can see SINNERS at the biggest screen possible, if it’s on an IMAX screen in your area - THAT is the way to see it - Zach saw it that way and it was a life changing experience.

From Slashfilm:

In its fourth weekend in theaters, "Sinners" added another $22 million domestically, marking just a 34% drop. That was good enough for the number two spot, with "Thunderbolts*" winning its second weekend with $33 million. More importantly, Warner Bros. and Coogler's blockbuster collaboration has now made $215.3 million domestically to go with $68.9 million internationally for a running global total of $284.2 million. That domestic number is of grave importance, as this is the first original movie that has managed to cross the $200 million mark since 2017.

One of the top “controversies” I’ve seen wandering around the internet in the last month was the “censorship” of ROBIN HOOD (2010) on Amazon Prime. People on reddit and some Amazon forums were claiming that Amazon was censoring the opening text screens of the Ridley Scott film that talk about tyranny. Amazon last time ECV checked hadn’t addressed it to our confusion. This has been an issue in the past with movies like EMPIRE OF THE STATE. Some people claim it’s due to Chinese censorship but frankly Zach and Russ are guessing it’s some Ai slopification getting rid of the on screentext to add to the captions. Who knows? Someone at Amazon does, but they ain’t talking. Guess it’s just one more reason to just get the movie on Blu-ray.

10 days ago when I filmed the video below, the text had already returned.

Our final story is a heart-warming one that I happened in April but Zach only caught this month. It’s an great story of David Letterman traveling to Maine to be on the last show local Bangor, Maine late night show… just watch this local news report.

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Russ and Zach discuss the latest Superman trailer from director James Gunn. Both of us love the latest release from Gunn, and delve into the nuances of the latest trailer… meanwhile reddit digs into the specifics of why Snyder would of done it different and better. But, frankly, who gives a s**t about Snyders cult?

Tune into the latest from the ECV Podcast.

Zach’s favorite scene from the trailer, when Krypto beats the s**t out of Lex Luthors goons.

We both were lusting after Lois’ audio recorder.

Russ had many thoughts on the character sitting down in the Superman cube scenes/

From the trailer: DC Studios heads Peter Safran and Gunn are producing the film, which Gunn directs from his own screenplay, based on characters from DC, Superman created by Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. The film stars David Corenswet (“Twisters,” “Hollywood”) in the dual role of Superman/Clark Kent, Rachel Brosnahan (“The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”) as Lois Lane and Nicholas Hoult (the “X-Men” movies, “Juror #2”) as Lex Luthor. The film also stars Edi Gathegi (“For All Mankind”), Anthony Carrigan (“Barry,” “Gotham”), Nathan Fillion (the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, “The Suicide Squad”), Isabela Merced (“Alien Romulus”), Skyler Gisondo (“Licorice Pizza,” “Booksmart”), Sara Sampaio (“At Midnight”), María Gabriela de Faría (“The Moodys”), Wendell Pierce (“Selma,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan”), Alan Tudyk (“Andor”), Pruitt Taylor Vince (“Bird Box”) and Neva Howell (“Greedy People”). “Superman” is executive produced by Nikolas Korda, Chantal Nong Vo and Lars Winther. Behind the camera, Gunn is joined by frequent collaborators, including director of photography Henry Braham, production designer Beth Mickle, costume designer Judianna Makovsky and composer John Murphy, along with composer David Fleming (“The Last of Us”) and editors William Hoy (“The Batman”) and Craig Alpert (“Deadpool 2,” “Blue Beetle”). DC Studios Presents a Troll Court Entertainment/The Safran Company Production, A James Gunn Film, “Superman,” which will be in theaters and IMAX® nationwide on July 11, 2025, and internationally beginning 9 July 2025, distributed by Warner Bros. Pictures.

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I feel like we say this every time we publish a podcast but, damn, it’s been a while. We promise we’re going to try and post more regularly.

Russ discussed his complicated watch of A Complete Unknown because sometimes knowing too much about a thing can kind of ruin it. In that same vein I talked about how Amazon Prime’s G20 bothered him as so much of the easy technical stuff about Secret Service wasn’t right.

This lead into our main discussion which jumped off of the Wall Street Journal article titled, “Hollywood Is Cranking Out Original Movies. Audiences Aren’t Showing Up.”

Finally we chatted about how theaters could embrace the insanity of more “interactive” movie screenings like what is happening with Minecraft. They did it with sing-a-long screenings of Wicked, why not with Jack Black’s nightmare? [Note from Zach, I’m an old man and I hate everything about Minecraft but f’n hell if it gets people to go to movie theaters… let’s figure out a way to let the kids get their kicks. I should also note that we had this discussion before Sinners opened. We’ll be revisiting that next week.] Part of the discussion was the Variety story that covered Alamo Drafthouse’s decision to not do the “Second Screen Experience” for the M3GAN rerelease. Both Russ and and I both dream of having an Alamo Drafthouse near us… but Syracuse and Norfolk likely aren’t on their list.

Next week we should have some new content for you as we’ll be doing another one of our ‘Drive Home’ reviews from the theater… likely for Sinners (which I’ve already seen and am ready to see it another 17 times).

Well, 2024 is now officially in the rear-view mirror, and with a very exciting 2025 planned, we here at ECV can’t wait to get our hands dirty. That said, it felt like it was worth taking a little time out to look back on the year that was, and break down some of our favorites, some of our best…and just some of the movies that never really got talked about during episodes of the Emerald City Video Podcast in 2024.

Neither Russ nor Zach saw as many movies, or especially as many great movies, as they would have liked this year — but the upside is, that gives us a really weird, eclectic list of favorites that kicked off enough conversation and tangents that there’s a whole second part to this…which is actually the first part. Forty or so minutes of the two of us just…immediately launching into a series of tangents from which there was no recovery at the start of the episode.

So, yeah, this one here is actually the second draft. That first conversation will go up a little later as an exclusive for subscribers.

In the meantime…2024 according to ECV:

Since I’ve been very bad about doing this before now, here’s a batch of links to my existing books, which presumably make great holiday 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

Longtime listeners to the Emerald City Video Podcast will know that I’m a big proponent of physical media.

It isn’t just nostalgia. I’m particularly a fan of DVD and Blu-ray, which are formats where there’s enough storage space on the media to provide fan with a ton of bonus content. For years, consumers could not only rent or own their favorite movies on disc, but also see trailers, bloopers, deleted scenes, analysis, and listen to audio commentary tracks.

What’s a commentary track? For those who aren’t big time movie nerds, it’s very possible the concept is alien to you. The idea is, the filmmaker (or whoever) sits down to watch a movie and, while watching it, talks over the whole thing, providing stories, insights, and commentary on the project, its production, whatever. For many cinephiles, commentary tracks were the coolest bonus features available. I know when I was in college, VHS tapes were still cheaper than DVD, so it was often the commentary track that led me to decide when to splurge on a disc.

All of this is to say that, in the coming year, I plan on recording a number of commentary tracks for films and TV shows, recruiting some of my work friends to talk about their art, and maybe even making some new friends along the way. First up, because it’s the holidays, is Kevin Shinick.

Kevin is a brilliant writer, actor, and all-around nice guy. He’s written comics and worked on TV projects as diverse as MAD, Robot Chicken, and Where in Time is Carmen Sandiego?. His hosting gig with Carmen serves as a jumping-off point for his upcoming project Host Mortem!, which you can and should follow on Kickstarter now.

Described as “LA Confidential meets The In-Laws,” Host Mortem! centers on fictionalized versions of two real life game show hosts from the 1990s (Shinick and his collaborator Greg Lee) travel through time and attempt to solve a series of murders in the 1940s.

Kevin is also the writer of Beebo Saves Christmas, an animated special from The CW that took the beloved “mascot” from DC’s Legends of Tomorrow and created an animated special for him. In the world of Legends, Beebo is a beloved toy with a multimedia history of appearing on TV and in video games. In real life, of course, he was just a parody of Tickle-Me Elmo, and didn’t really have any existing media to fall back on…at least until producers approached Shinick about making some!

Shinick joined me for a commentary track on Beebo Saves Christmas, which you can listen to above. Hopefully this makes for a very happy Beebo Day…err…Odin Day…I mean Christmas!

______

Since I’ve been very bad about doing this before now, 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

A brief review from Russ Burlingame:

Werewolves is a ton of fun. It’s full of great performances, impressive creature effects, and great editing that really sells the sense of unease and dread that permeates the movie.

Frank Grillo is one of those actors who is just…never bad. He looks a certain way, and that can sometimes lead to jokes — like the ones we made about him being a molecular biologist in this — but he’s also able to disappear into a role in a way that makes it convincing to anyone not already laughing at the premise.

The rest of the cast is solid, with an especially human performance from Ilfenesh Hadera (which gives me incentive to finally check out Godfather of Harlem). Katrina Law, who tends to elevate everything she shows up in, also has a role in this one, and she’s great (if a little under-utilized, because she shares basically every scene with Grillo and he owns the screen).

I was particularly impressed by director Steven C. Miller’s editing and some of the shot choices. We get into that in more depth in the episode, so I’ll leave it at that, but my 4-star review is about as high as I’m likely to give a werewolf movie.

A brief review from Zach D Roberts:

When I first saw this trailer a couple months ago on twitter, I was, to put it simply - PUMPED. The trailer was incredible and gahdamn, the film did not disappoint.

One of my all time favorite horror films is Dog Soldiers, which if you haven’t seen it’s time to rectify that (PlutoTV and Peacock). Werewolves is 100% playing at that level. It’s indy film that doesn’t take itself totally serious but at the same time can be taken seriously.

As Russ and I discuss in the podcast, the film has some incredible editing and camera work, especially during one of the opening attack scenes that has multiple werewolf changes and several brutal killings. At the same time cutting back to peoples homes who are being affected by werewolf attacks.

Werewolves has a teasing use of the jumpscare. Regularly the camera and editing imply that the creature will be “right behind him” but it will in fact just crash through a wall or something just as ridiculous. As I keep coming back to, this film is a f**k load of fun. It doesn’t hurt that Director Steven C. Miller (Silent Night and Escape Plan 2) has serious action chops, working with Bruce Willis, Sly Stallone and many others… and it shows here.

The star of the film, Frank Grillo, who also executive produces, looks like he’s having a ball in this film playing a scientist trying to solve the problem of the yearly werewolf and then shifting right over to mowing werewolves down with a Gatling gun mounted on the back of a pickup truck.

For me this is a 5 out of 5. I wasn’t expecting art from a werewolf film but got some great cinematography, editing but most of all I had the most fun in a movie theatre I’ve had all year.

Werewolves (2024) released December 6th, 2024

Starring: Frank Grillo, Katrina Law, Ilfenesh Hadera, James Michael Cummings, and Lou Diamond Phillips.

Directed by Steven C. Miller

Written by Matthew Kennedy

Produced by Myles Nestel, Craig Chapman, Steven C. Miller, James Michael Cummings

Imdb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt15041836/reference/

letterboxd: https://letterboxd.com/film/werewolves-2024/

It’s been a while since we did an Emerald City Video Podcast, so get ready for a very casual and somewhat loopy conversation between Russ Burlingame and Zach Roberts.

Riffing on my recent, popular post about the “Bluesky Echo Chamber,” we talked about that, our recent career changes, and a bunch more. It’s pretty casual, possibly a little tipsy, but gave us a chance to talk out some of the themes of the Bluesky post without being too serious.

This episode of the Emerald City Video Podcast Russ and I catch up on some physical media news (which I think since I’ve been busy and haven’t edited might be a little old).

Redbox, one of the few places people can rent films in America is going under.

https://www.theverge.com/2024/6/21/24183454/redbox-universal-missed-payment-17-million

Which is an even bigger issue as Indie Filmmakers aren’t getting paid back in dec 2023 by Redbox’s owner, Chicken Soup for the Soul.

https://variety.com/2023/film/news/chicken-soup-for-the-soul-1091-pictures-lawsuits-payments-1235838558/

Even the Producer of It Follows talked about it

https://x.com/rebfive/status/1807086179692556393

Also, while not “physical” news, Paramount god rid of Daily Show archive from the website.

https://latenighter.com/news/paramount-axes-comedy-central-website-show-clips-library/

Five Men Convicted of Operating Massive, Illegal Streaming Service That Allegedly Had More Content Than Netflix, Hulu, Vudu and Prime Video Combined

https://variety.com/2024/digital/news/five-men-convicted-jetflicks-illegal-streaming-service-1236044194/

Sony won’t phase out bluray movies and games… just consumer burnables. 

https://www.tweaktown.com/news/99072/sony-wont-phase-out-blu-ray-movie-and-game-discs-only-ceasing-production-on-consumer-bd/index.html

Not sure why you’d want to, but you can watch movies through an Atari. 

https://www.xda-developers.com/watch-movies-atari-2600/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3C7jz1UZ7YE7VVcFZlZWKuFv2XyQJTBnK0aDV7_arTml9iREQxzQw3Wa8_aem_KYYZtD1hUz9KnYEswGvwmA

And finally, just a fun article about collecting movies, “From Criterion to Arrow: the cult of movie collecting.”

https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/from-criterion-to-arrow-the-cult-of-movie-collecting/

It's really more of a spiritual sequel...

Are the kids getting into tapes because of Taylor Swift?

What is “second screen” content?

Will Killers of the Flower Moon ever get a physical release?

Is there a need for movie takedown posts? Not critical reviews but social media that just s***s on other peoples work.

What did you call your video tape player back in the day? VHS player? VCR? Tape Machine?

Russ and Zach delve into these questions and of course, much much more in this special extended episode of the Emerald City Video Podcast.

In this episode Russ Burlingame and Zach Roberts chat about the drawbacks of streaming media, the fact that directors are getting angry about how their films look on streaming apps, award-winning director of The Godfather not being able to find a home for his new film and so much more.

Part two of this episode will be dropping this week, so listen up kids!

Just some of the stories we’re chatting about, some of these we’ll get to in part 2:

Killers flower moon no physical media release date

https://www.joblo.com/is-killers-of-the-flower-moon-not-coming-to-blu-ray-after-all/

Rewinder Cars!

https://thenewswheel.com/videocassette-vehicles-remember-vhs-tape-rewinder-cars/

Roku adding ads through HDMI

https://www.lowpass.cc/p/roku-hdmi-ad-insertion-patent

Did You See (and Hear) That? Why Home Viewing Can Be Dark and Inaudible

https://filmmakermagazine.com/125430-home-viewing-problems-audio-video-streaming/

Filmmaker of Immaculate disappointed in color and lighting of different streaming outlets.

https://x.com/michaelmohan/status/1795305441674875374?s=46&t=oCX7LFzPAI6SZTIz1OcNpw

Coppola can’t find distributor

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/megalopolis-francis-ford-coppola-challenges-distribution-1235867556/

Can’t do this with digital media.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/wamjkjchtq11edw6/?mibextid=xCPwDs

Seinfeld thinks movies aren’t culturally relevant anymore

https://www.pajiba.com/film_reviews/jerry-seinfeld-says-the-movie-business-is-over-plugs-his-new-movie.php

Young listeners are pressing play on cassette tapes

https://thehustle.co/news/young-listeners-are-pressing-play-on-cassette-tapes

The Criterion Collection is sold to new owner, along with Janus Films

https://variety.com/2024/film/news/criterion-janus-films-sell-indian-paintbrush-steven-rales-1236011122/