The Review Show

Episode 139. This week we read the 1989 DC Elseworlds comic Gotham by Gaslight from Brian Augustyn and Mike Mignola, and we watched the 2018 animated movie adaptation. This is an alternate universe take on Batman where he patrols the streets of Victorian era Gotham City, protecting it from Jack the Ripper. The comic sees more of a focus on Batman as the "world's greatest detective," while the movie adds a burlesque dancer Selena Kyle concerned about the threat to herself and other women as Batman's partner in crime-stopping action. We compare and contrast both versions of this exciting standalone story!

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Episode 138. We're kicking off 2021 with a bang watching all of Daniel Craig's James Bond movies to date -- Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, and Spectre -- in anticipation of finally seeing No Time To Die this year. Bond has recently received his 007 status and his license to kill when he enters a high-stakes poker tournament to defeat a terrorist banker and falls for the treacherous treasurer Vesper Lynd. As he goes on to face a water baron, a vengeful agent from MI6's past, and a secret criminal organization pulling all these strings, he's haunted by that failed romance and other personal tragedies, and is tempted to leave the spy game behind to start a new life with Dr. Madeline Swann.

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Happy 5 year anniversary to us here at The Whatnauts. Kyle, Melissa, Ignacio, Gino, and Alan gather for an end-of-the-year party! We eat pizza, play trivia, discuss video games and movies of the year, give out Review Show awards, and tour through the history of The Whatnauts and talk about our podcasting goals for 2021. Thanks for being here and learning and growing with us, we're excited for the future!

Check out Melissa's 2020 Review Show playlist here.

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Episode 137. For our holiday special and final episode of 2020, we go out on a musical note with the new Netflix movie Jingle Jangle: A Christmas Journey. Jeronicus Jangle was once the best toymaker around until his apprentice stole his greatest invention and his book of blueprints. Jeronicus loses his spark for building toys and closes up shop, and becomes estranged from his family. Years later, the granddaughter he's never met comes to visit to try to lift his spirits and find someone like herself with a true passion for inventing. Young Journey is determined to bring her family back together, restore her grandfather's legacy, and prove her own creative skills.

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Episode 136. This week we welcomed the holiday season by watching 1988's Scrooged, a contemporary retelling of A Christmas Carol. Frank Cross is a TV executive planning a massive live broadcast production of A Christmas Carol for Christmas Eve, but big business is the only thing he has going for him. He's estranged from loved ones, and his colleagues regard him as heartless. All day on the 24th, he's struggling to keep the show running as he's being haunted by spirits revealing to him the error of his ways and how he needs to change his life to find true happiness and bring it to the people around him.

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Episode 135. We watched season one of the Netflix original anime series Great Pretender. Makoto Edamura considers himself the best scam artist in Japan until he's outsmarted by Laurant Thierry, a man who he thought was just a clueless tourist. Fascinated to learn his ways and eager to get his money back, Edamura follows Laurant to Los Angeles and finds himself deep in a false drug-dealing scheme that has more levels of lying that he ever could have guessed. He becomes a reluctant part of Laurant's globe-trotting criminal team, trying to survive through rigged air races in Singapore and fraudulent art auctions in London.

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Episode 134. We finished reading all ten volumes of Irredeemable and wow what an ending! Tony is back on Earth, still set on destruction, and the world's few remaining leaders turn to their last hope, a secret weapon that could stop him but doom millions of citizens in exchange. Tony discovers the origin of his powers, finally getting an answer to the question that has plagued him his whole life, "why am I?" As the Paradigm struggles to preserve society, Qubit devises a plan to both save the Earth and give Tony a chance at starting over.

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Episode 133. We watched M. Night Shyamalan's trilogy of unconventional superhero thrillers, Unbreakable (2000), Split (2017), and Glass (2019). Security guard David Dunn is the sole survivor of a massively fatal train crash who realizes he isn't just lucky, he's invulnerable, and he's always felt a duty to protect the people of Philadelphia. Art curator Elijah Price was born with terribly fragile bones, unsure of why he exists in this world, but sure that comic books have a core of truth to them and that superheroes and villains must be real. Kevin Wendell Crumb is a man with multiple identities taking over his life, fighting for control, and convinced that he contains a secret identity with beast-like strength and ferocity. What does the converging of these men mean for truth, justice, and humanity itself?

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Episode 132. We watched Rian Johnson's 2019 murder mystery Knives Out. A best-selling author kills himself the night of his 85th birthday party, leaving behind a family more concerned about their inheritance than they are about grieving, a nervous private nurse who may not be telling the whole truth, and a detective with a sense that this isn't just an open-and-shut suicide case. As the nurse tries to avoid the suspicion of the desperate family members, she learns that she was the one the author trusted above everyone else, and only she can be responsible for setting everything right.

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Episode 131. We read the first four volumes of manga The Drops of God by Tadashi Agi and Shu Okimoto. Shizuku Kanzaki is the son of a famous wine critic who's never drank wine himself. When his father dies, Shizuku finds that he legally adopted his wine critic protege and wants his two sons to compete for their inheritance. In his massive wine collection, he has named "Twelve Apostles," wines that exemplify the art form, and "The Drops of God," the greatest wine he's ever tasted. Whomever can identify these wines takes the whole inheritance! Shizuku teams up with aspiring sommelier Miyabi to learn everything he can about tasting and appreciating wine, and how wine can help you bring people together and better understand your world.

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