The Grey NATO – 291 – Film Club Vol. 11¶
Published on Thu, 04 Jul 2024 06:00:00 -0400
Synopsis¶
In episode 291 of The Grey NATO podcast, hosts James Stacey and Jason Heaton return with their eleventh Film Club installment, recommending ten movies total. Jason recently returned from a successful dive watch event at Topper Jewelers in California, which included recording a podcast episode with their team and diving at Macabee Beach in Monterey. The hosts announce upcoming merchandise launches and discuss their sold-out breakfast meetup at the Chicago Windup Watch Fair.
For Film Club Volume 11, the hosts take turns recommending five films each. Jason's picks span from 1984 to 2021, including "Against All Odds," "The Natural," "The Russia House," "The Hurt Locker," and "Drive My Car." James selects films from 1997 to 2023: "Gattaca," "Phone Booth," "I Don't Feel At Home in This World Anymore," "The Creator," and "The Killer." The episode concludes with practical final notes about Aloha Collection's water-resistant pouches and Yochi Mango glow-in-the-dark zipper pulls, perfect summer accessories for outdoor adventures and dive trips.
Links¶
Transcript¶
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| James Stacey | Hello and welcome to another episode of the Great NATO, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, driving gear, and most certainly watches this episode 29 nin1ety- andone, and it's proudly brought to you by the always growing TGN supporter crew. We thank you all so much for your continued support. And if you are listening and would like to support the show, please visit the Great Nato.com for more details. My name is James Stacy, and I'm joined as ever by my pal and co-host, Jason Heaton. Jason, you're just back from the West Coast. How are you feeling? Good. Yeah, it |
| Jason Heaton | was a great it was a really fun trip. Um I'm I'm I'm feeling a little fatigued about air travel. It seems like I'm on a two-week flying cycle and, then in another two weeks it's off to uh Chicago. But then I'm looking forward to being home kind of for most of the month of August. I think that would be that would be nice. But uh no, I mean, all things considered, it was a it was a great trip, and I the the folks at Topper were great. It was uh it was a wonderful dive night uh dive watch night event. Nice. It looked great. Really, really well attended. I think they said there were about a hundred and twenty people that came and some old friends showed up. Uh Jeff, the expedition leader from my Oceana expedition was there, and Kev, my old Alcatraz swim coach, who I ended up going diving with on Sunday, was there, and Asha and a lot of orange caps. I mean, it was it was really quite funny to kind of look around the room and spot a lot of orange TGN caps, a few people had T-shirts on and um straps, of course, and it was just really fun to say hi to everybody. And uh, you know, I think my talk was well received. It was it was a lot of fun. We did a little Q |
| James Stacey | well. Yeah that's great. I uh I I had mine at the cottage this weekend. Uh weather didn't work out as well as we'd hoped for the cottage. Oh no. It was pretty rainy and cool for almost the entire weekend and then yesterday, uh July 1st, which is Canada Day, uh it was actually quite sunny and warm and we we did a a bunch of snorkeling. I was in the water for some time, but the viz wasn't such that a camera would have captured anything. Uh so I didn't bother uh you know going through the whole process of setting up the phone and and getting it all set and ready to go. But I definitely will sometime this summer. I had a great snorkel, tons of fish. Uh came across a pretty good size muskie. Oh wow. Uh which is a first for me in the lake, maybe maybe not quite two feet. Oh, good. Uh he was just kind of prowling. Um one of the neighbors uh at the cottage uh must have had a failure with one of their boats uh and it sunk. Oh no. And then they they used another boat to drag it back to their dock so now there's like a road cut into the bottom of the lake, uh like through all the weeds, and the fish seemed to really like the road. Yeah. I went back and forth along this path, you know, it's maybe a foot wide and goes for several hundred yards. Yeah. Where I assume the back, you know, the the heaviest the motor from the small John boat or whatever was dragged for a few hundred yards. Yeah. Um and the fish seemed to really like it. Uh so that's where I found the the muskie. He was just kind of patrolling. He didn't he wouldn't turn towards me, which I think is kinda common. Yeah. Um, he kind of stayed just at the edge of my vision and then would move if I moved towards him. But it was pretty cool to see one. They have those very distinctive kind of circular fin. Yeah. Yeah. A cool fish. I'd love to see someday see a big one because some huge ones have been pulled out of that lake in the past, but my guess is they don't get big swimming up to people. So yeah, freshwater barracuda, right? They're they're just uh so menacing looking. Yeah. Yeah, they they definitely look mean. I don't think they are, but they definitely look it for sure. Yeah. But yeah, I didn't I didn't get up to a ton this weekend. Like I said, I went up to the cottage, I hung out with my family. It was a pretty good time. I I kept a pretty low profile, you know, being with it being Canada Day, and then now I'm back and and you know we've got another holiday in a couple days. This will come out on July fourth actually. So happy independence day to uh to all the Yanks in the audience and certainly to you Jason. Yeah, thank you. Yeah. Yeah, kept a low profile and now I'm kind of making up for it on a you know how it is when it's a sh a short week, let alone a week with technically two holidays for me. Yeah. It can stack up for sure |
| Jason Heaton | . Yeah, yeah, right, right. Well, we got a fun episode today. Why don't we uh jump into risk check before we can get into the film club? Oh, we have one a bit of news though. We have well we have a couple bits of news. All right, I'm I'm premature and leaping ahead here. Um for those who've been asking, um we we aren't uh dragging our feet. It's just that we've we've both been busy. Um we do have uh merchandise coming. So I know that people have been asking for um t-shirts and caps and that sort of stuff. Well, we're we're about to kind of kick off uh kind of our summer launch, uh albeit a little bit late into the summer, but uh stay tuned for the next week or two. Um we'll be announcing some some fun stuff that should be uh easy to order and and easy to fulfill and and get out to folks uh before summer's over. So yeah, stay tun |
| James Stacey | ed for that. Yeah, we think we found a solution that's gonna work for us. Uh one that one where we're not taking care of the fulfillment, but we've seen the product and we're pretty happy with it. We've made a few changes and we're just waiting for the the kind of finals on that. So I'd say, you know, yeah, episode two ninety two, two ninety three, somewhere in there. Um, if if what you're really waiting for is a hat, that's going to be uh early fall sort of scenario. Um, I've got my eyes on at least one, probably two more hat designs. I'm not sure which one will come first or specifically when. I don't want to necessarily bog down the rest of Jason's summer shipping five hundred hats. So we we might delay that to the start of the school season when uh you know when we we get back into a certain gear. So yeah. Uh that should be good. I am I am pretty pumped to uh see that finally come together. And then uh |
| Jason Heaton | as I mentioned uh earlier, uh off to Chicago on um gosh, next weekend. So not this coming weekend, but the following uh for Windows and you know we we have been talking a lot about our um kind of collaborative breakfast meetup with citizen on the Sunday morning of the show and and we put out the RSVP last week and uh it filled up pretty fast. And and you know our, apologies to those who missed out. It's significantly faster than I expected. Faster than we expected. More people than I kind of thought would would leap on board uh so quickly. Um, which is a a good thing, but also |
| James Stacey | Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer though. It's a like a mixed bag, yeah. Yeah. Um so I I would say apologies to anyone who couldn't make it. Like we genuinely we tried to pick a room in a scenario at the space that reflected the same number of people we, you know, kinda had uh in in the circle last year, or at least close to and uh I think this year's just a little bit more busy or maybe being a Sunday morning there's less going on so there's more interest in an activity. It just filled up faster than we thought. We are working with um the folks from wind up to establish like a a proper wait list. Uh so if that should become available or when it's available, please just check the show notes for this or if you're in the Slack, it'll be pretty easy to find. There's a channel for WindUp Watchfair. And we'll go from there. And uh obviously if we don't get to see you uh for the breakfast, I'm still gonna be there all day Saturday. Uh we'll be there Sunday afternoon after the breakfast. Uh so those still be chances to uh to get together. And certainly if, you're on the Slack, there's a couple other littles hangout being organized, not officially through a brand or Jason or I, but just in general. So I I think we'll still have a chance to touch base and and connect and say hi. But I I I genuinely these things can be we're a little out of our depth planning events. Like we d it we never really know how many people are gonna come. We we tried to add a a good enough buffer this year and it it it doesn't look like it was a enough for everybody. So we're we're trying to work on some solutions, obviously, we only have 10 or 12 days. But if you can't make the breakfast, please at least say hi. We'd be more than happy to uh to hang out at the show uh uh on uh uh for me on Saturday and certainly for Jason on Sunday. So uh looking forward to catching up with a lot of you there |
| Jason Heaton | . Yeah, and I'm gonna I I probably will be there some hours on Saturday because uh the diving is until the afternoon. So um I'll I'll try to get over there in the morning. So you'll you'll see us around. Okay, perfect. Wearing some sort of a TGN logo, whether on our heads or on our shirts or whatever else, uh yeah, look look for us and uh |
| James Stacey | please do say hi. Should be a fun time. All right. With the uh kind of news out of the way and some chit chat up top, why don't we jump into a quick risk check? It can be very fast for me because I'm in fully in the broken record phase of my summer. Still wearing the uh Pelagos 39 on an Erica strap. I wore it all weekend. I just I didn't know that I could necessarily love this watch more, but the more I wear it, the more I just really don't want to take it off or swap it for anything else. I'm super happy with it. |
| Jason Heaton | That's kind of the definition of a summer watch too. I mean it's just the one you you put on and 'cause you're you're busy, you're doing stuff and you're in and out and doing kind of rough and tumble stuff, swimming, mowing grass, that sort of thing, and to just have that one go to watch is uh is kind of kind of the mode in summer, I think. Having said that, I've I've I've been switching around a bit lately, the past few weeks. Um and today I'm wearing the watch I had on when I was out in California and I took diving and that's my my Blancpan Bathuscaf Hodinky Limited Edition from uh a few years ago. Um uh the 38mm no date version um just a fantastic piece and uh enjoyed kind of showing it off to to people at at the event on Saturday night and then it was really fun to take it diving on Sunday because I hadn't uh you know Gashani w wears this watch a lot more than I do and she's had it diving quite a few times, but I I had only taken it deep once, I think. Um several like the first year I had it. Um so it was fun to kind of get it wet in Monterey Bay. And since I got back home, I've I've put it on, I'm I'm kind of addicted to these Garmin Ultrafit Velcros and I got a 20 millimeter now. So I've got 20, 22, and then the big gosh, I think it must be 26 or something for that, the descent. But yeah, the 20, the 20 works really well on this and and given how small the watch is and how slim it is with this very soft Velcro strap, it's just uh super comfortable. So |
| James Stacey | enjoying that today. Good picks for the summer, good dive watches, but that is not the main topic of today's show, dive watches. We will I'm sure we'll get to dive watches in in the the next couple shows more extensively as we normally do. But today is actually volume eleven of the film club. So we haven't done a film club since episode two hundred and fifty, which was last August. We definitely started to kind of slow our pace on these as at a certain point. How many more films? Uh, as it turns out, we both picked five films quite easily for this outing. I'm pretty excited about it. Um, if if you' brreand new to the show or like you haven't been listening since 250, uh film club's super easy. It's just Jason and I each pick five movies that we would recommend people to check out. Usually it maybe it ties to a theme or just this time of year, like these are good summer movies or something like that. Or sometimes there's no theme at all and it's just movies that we like. We have a fairly extensive list and these episodes always lead to some it's a very specific flavor of anxiety where I'm worried that I'm talking about a movie we've already picked. Yeah. Yeah. And I just constantly have our I have like a Google sheet with everyone we've ever picked. I'm just control Fing every time I pick a uh a new film. So I believe that that w I have double checked both of our lists. I believe we're not doubling up on anything here. Uh but this is all these are always really fun episodes. They're they're a complete break from the normal pace. So without further ado, film club volume eleven and Jason's gonna kick it off with his first film. All right. I' |
| Jason Heaton | m going back to nineteen eighty four. So this is I to me, this is this is kind of a I've got two very uh kind of quintessential summer films and I don't know why this one reminds me of Smerum, but uh it does, and that is uh Against All Odds from 1984, um starring uh Jeff Bridges and Rachel Ward and James Woods. And the I'll read the uh the quick kind of tagline from uh IMDB. Uh she was a beautiful fugitive fleeing from corruption, from power. He was a professional athlete past his prime. Hired to find her, he grew to love her. Love turned to obsession. Obsession turned to murder, and now the price of freedom might be nothing less than their lives. That's good. So it's good. And this is this is you know kind of peak 80s stuff. Um there's some great cars and great watches and kind of great 80s cast, I guess. The director was Taylor Hackford. You know, Jeff Bridges was kind of arguably in his prime in the 80s. You know, he'd done King Kong, of course, in the 70s and and his father being Lloyd Bridges. Like he he just I don't know, he embodies this sort of old school movie star. Um and and in this movie he's he's kind of in in good form and and James Woods plays a great villain. And I I think what I what was kind of captivating about this film, uh, and I haven't seen it in a while, but I've been thinking about it a lot lately, um, is a good part of it takes place in in Cozumel in Mexico and Oh, okay, cool. Um but it's Cozumel in the early eighties. And and I think, you know, Cozumel had wasn't like undiscovered then. I think, you know, Cousteau had been there and played it up as a dive location. But when you watch this movie, um much of it takes place in Cozumel and it's very different from the Cozumel that that any of us are probably used to um you know from from holidays or cruises or however you've been there. Um, it just has this kind of rustic, you know, kind of windswept beach, um, kind of end of the world sort of vibe to it that that is just unfamiliar if you've been to Cozumel since. And then um there's this intrigue and and kind of this this deepening plot uh with with kind of murder and then uh of course a love story. There's a great uh chase scene that happens in Los Angeles um with I believe James Woods and Jeff Bridges. They're both in quintessential sort of mid-80s sports cars, a 911 and a and a Ferrari. I believe it's a I believe it's a 348 or 308. I can't remember, but it's just a great chase scene. So I don't know, there's something about this movie that just feels like a summer kind of blockbuster-y uh sort of film from the eighties. So yeah, and and good soundtrack too. I think the Phil Collins theme song from the from the title song is uh is pretty good too. So |
| James Stacey | yeah, check it out. Yeah, this is uh this movie is brand new to me. I've never heard of it. Oh okay. I don't think I've ever come across any any mention of it in the past. So that's exciting. Uh one a fresh one to uh to add to the list. A big James Woods fan, Taylor Hackford. Yeah, this this looks like an absolute winner. And super summary, even just from the cover. Yeah. Yeah. A couple couple smooching on the beach. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So all right. We've got the first film of uh volume eleven of Film Club. Uh, I'm going to kick it off with this is tough. I'm gonna go to two thousand and two to a movie I haven't thought about in a very long time, but I think about quite finally, and I probably saw maybe three or four years ago for you know whatever the most multiple time is. It's called phone booth. And the summary is uh publicist Stuart Shepherd finds himself trapped in a phone booth, pinned down by an extortionist sniper's rifle, unable to leave or receive any outside help, Stewart's negotiation with the caller leads to a jaw dropping climax. This is a Joel Schumacher film. It's written by Larry Cohen. It stars uh Colin Farrell as the fellow who's is stuck in a phone booth. And he's largely the only like character in the film. There's others, but it's very much sort of a bottle scenario. The sniper is voiced, you don't see him, but the the sniper is voiced by Kiefer Sutherland. Oh, great. And then Forrest Whitaker's also in the film. This is a really interesting film. It it came out at a time where movies were pretty fast and loose with their premise. And this feels almost like something that could have come out of the Tony Scott world. Oh, sure. It would have been done in a different way than Schumacher, but it has that sort of um we're trying things feel to it. Yeah. I really like this. I'm a huge Colin Farrell fan. Uh obviously, this is when he was more in like a heartthrob era than the more serious actor era that we've seen in in the last several years, like probably since In Bruges. Yeah. Another fantastic film. Well, well, we're just dropping dropping names here. It in my mind, this movie kind of feels like if Joel Schumacher made his version of a Hitchcock. It's just this interplay of tension and wild moments and things where you're constantly going, like, what would I do in this scenario? Yeah. Right? Guy answers a ringing phone booth and it might cost him his life. It's a it's it really is j I'm not saying I'm not sitting here saying it's a great film or an incredible piece of filmmaking, but it is a great movie, if you understand the distinction. Sure. It's really good. Great summer blockbuster feel to it. It's in New York. I I'm a big fan of this one. Co |
| Jason Heaton | ol. I I've never heard of this. In fact, looking at your list, uh, which I won't give away, um, I've only seen one of these and I think I'd only heard of two of your five. So yeah. It's always fun to be introduced to everyone. |
| James Stacey | That one sounds good. We'll check that out. Yeah, I mean look, we're we're a little over a hundred movies at this point. I think this is a hundred and two we've done. Yeah. At this and now with uh with phone booth. So they're not all gonna be classics. And I did try and break a little bit of like a couple things I saw from the last year even that I really liked. Yeah. And then just some stuff that I I always kind of think should make it to the list, but maybe not in the first hundred. Yeah. Yeah. And and |
| Jason Heaton | as an aside, speaking of Hitchcock, I I did watch North by Northwest for the first time in decades uh on a flight, flight back from I guess it was probably from London a couple of weeks ago, and I'd forgotten what a great movie that is. So anyway, that might have been volume one of Film Club if, I'm not mistaken. It might have been a very early one of your recommendations. So it's so high on my list, it would not surprise me if it was volume one or two for sure. What have you got for pick number two? Pick number two, I'm gonna stay in nineteen eighty four and another great summer film. This is uh this is the natural. Um you know like classic okay so uh written in part by Bernard uh Malamud uh directed by Barry Levinson, starring Robert Redford, Robert Duvall is in this, Glenn Close, Kim Basinger, Barbara Hershey, Wilford Brimsley, Joe Don Baker. I mean I'm just looking at the list here, and I'll read the uh the storyline. An unknown middle aged batter named Roy Hobbs with a mysterious past appears out of nowhere to take a losing nineteen thirties baseball team to the top of the league in this magical sports fantasy. Struck tree, Hobbes lives the fame he should have had earlier when as a rising pitcher he is inexplicably shot by a young woman. Um, you know, I'm I'm about as far from a baseball fan as you can get, but and and this is a baseball movie, but I it's absolutely pique Robert Redford. I'm such a massive Robert Redford fan, and and of course Duval as well. And there's just something about this story that when I watch it, I still get goosebumps. I mean that it's it's one of those kind of goosebum movies where it's like the there's something about the swell of the soundtrack, and um kind of Redford just plays this enigmatic hero who's sort of um almost like a superman character. He has this sort of fatal flaw, but he's he's he's just so good and so calm in in the all of these situations and confident. And uh I don't know. There's just this movie gives me a really warm feeling and and you know, it's it's you know, here we are at the fourth of July, it's uh you know, right in the middle of baseball season and I just think uh I just think this one's worth watching. It's almost like could be like an annual viewing uh in summer just to kind of get in that mode. So um just uh just a really great film. I'm I'm guessing you've seen this one. |
| James Stacey | I have, I but it would have been twenty years ago. Yeah. So I I definitely need I don't like you're y even just in the bit that you read about the you know, like the summary, I was like, Oh, I'm remembering more I should get back to it. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. So the natural, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. And certainly from uh like a a m like a beloved sort of piece of Americana from from Levinson with that one. Yeah. Definitely a cool cool piece. Yeah. One of one of Robert Redford's like in his prime moments. The guy's had a lot of primes. Totally. He's got a lot of peaks. Oh yeah. Yeah. He's uh great in this for sure. I mean you can do a |
| Jason Heaton | whole film club with Redford. I mean the guy is just Easily. People talk about McQueen and I think Redford yeah, I think I think Redford's like my my top kind of icon him and Newman, but I think, you know, m people talk about McQueen, I think Redford is the the guy for me. It's Redford for me for sure. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Cool cooler films. I just want to I don't want to be unfair to McQueen. Yeah. What's a good example? Like Bullet is fun. Yeah. If you've never seen it. It's got a great car chase, but it's also about forty five hours long. And and it's a it's a lot of two different guys and turtlenecks talking to each other. Which is like which is fine. Yeah. I I like it, but like I don't find that movie to be especially like rewatchable to borrow the term. Yeah. Whereas I you know, something like Three Days of the Condor, like that's go. Yeah. Yeah. Spy game, let's go. Like he's got just it's it's endless. Like with Redford you could go for Oh yeah. All the presidents, man. Like I could I could go downhill racer. You could easily do uh yeah yeah yeah. You could easily do um sneakers. So many good ones, man. So many good ones. That's a good one. The natural 1984. I love it. All right. I am going to jump to I'm going to jump backwards to nineteen ninety seven, the the one that I assume i is the one that you've seen, which is a movie that I checked several times. Yeah. If it was on our list because I love this movie. And on a on a recent episode of film club, I did the talented Mr. Ripley. And in some ways I think of this as the talented Mr. Ripley, but in the future. Oh yeah. Yeah. And so this is Andrew Nichols Gattaca. And it's a very it's a one sentence description of a very complicated film which is a genetically inferior man, assumes the identity of a superior one in order to pursue his lifelong dream of space travel. This is a jaw-droppingly beautiful film. Uh Andrew Nichol just does an incredible job with it. It's Ethan Hawk in uh in the lead, Uma Thurman is the love interest, and Jude Law plays the genetically superior guy who's now confined to a wheelchair. So this is um if if you know Nichols movies, this is in the future, but it's very much set in a mid-century aesthetic. So it might be an electric car, but it looks like an E-type. Yeah. There's space travel, but everybody dresses like it's 1955 to a certain extent. Yeah. And the scenario here is genetically you're kind of classed at birth or even before birth. Some people are naturally born, others have modifications that bring them into higher levels of society. And Ethan Hawk cannot be a an astronaut, but that's all he wants. So he makes a deal with a a guy who who is genetically perfect but physically not able. hair and other DNA sources so he can fake being this guy. Yeah. And and you know, with the dreams of becoming an astronaut. I just this movie's great. If you haven't seen Gattaca, it is uh it's a really special thing. It's a great movie. S same guy that did the the Truman show and then i in a similar format to Gattaca, Nichols did a movie I also really liked uh several years later called In Time with uh Justin Timberlake, where all currency is how much time you have left to live. Whoa. Wow. And so everybody has a little like clock on their arm, and when it gets to zero, you die. So if you're poor, you die much younger. If you're rich, you can live forever. Oh my gosh. It's a f fascinating. And again, it's the same thing where it's a lot of mid-century aesthetic and brutalist architecture. And it's it's yeah, I'm a big fan of this guy's these guys' uh this guy's movies for sure. Huh. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, that's that's great. I I probably haven't seen that movie since the year it came out, um, which ages me, of course, but but uh definitely worth a rewatch. I watched the trailer after you posted it in our notes and uh kind of vaguely looked familiar and I was like, Yeah, I gotta watch that one again. 'Cause Ethan Hawk is is underrated. I mean he hasn't been in a ton but he's awesome. Like in in recent years that that most people are aware of, but um yeah, he's he's really good. And and he was really big um kind of back when that film was made. So yeah, he was good in |
| James Stacey | that role. Yeah, I mean the the three of them in one movie in nineteen ninety seven is great. Yeah. Uma thurman, Ethan Hawk, and Jude Law. Oh yeah. And I'm just such a huge Jude Law fan. Ethan Hawk as well. Just big, big fan. Um and I I love uh the the premise of the film is great and then the subtlety with which they kind of interweave trauma and the way that, you know, these elements of nature versus nurture and and and all into a a kind of wider storyline uh all with the pinning of, you know, space travel in the future and that sort of thing is it's it's a very Very cool. Good pick. All right. What do you got for number three? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I'm just going chronologically, just uh I guess out of laziness, but um I'm gonna move forward with uh with a very different one from my previous two picks. Uh and it's uh it's another kind of blockbuster movie, um, The Russia House from 1990. Uh a British a British publisher is sent a manuscript detailing Soviet Union nuclear missile capabilities. British intelligence intercept it and recruit him to investigate the author's editor, a beautiful Russian woman he claims never to have met. This is great because it's it's starring Sean Connery, um, you know, obviously best known for his role as James Bond, but it's in a movie um based on a book by John LaCare. So it's it's like Lacare meets Bond. I mean, and and then uh the co-writer on this was Tom Stoppard, this tremendous uh writer of stage and and screen screenplays. Michelle Pfeiffer plays the beautiful Russian woman, Roy Scheiders in it. It's got uh Michael Kitchen, James Fox, um, yeah, just um just a a great film. And uh I I think you know, I watched this not too long ago and uh I don't know why I'd put it off for a while. I remember seeing it years ago and I thought, uh, you know, a lot of Connery's movies, like the the guy had such uh uh I mean to his credit, he like reinvented himself after doing Bond. And I think that's been tough for some other Bond actors. Um you know, he went on to do stuff like you know, the rock and the name of the rose and you know just kind of all over the place. And and this one is like such not a bond kind of role. Like this is just not him playing to to type. And he plays this kind of boozing, scruffy older publisher who, you know, plays he plays like in a jazz band and and he's he's he seems kind of bumbling, but he's he's quite smart under the surface. And um a lot of it, I believe, was actually shot in Moscow. I was reading that that they had done quite a bit of shooting over there and then that presented some difficulties. This was kind of during the Cold War, of course. And um yeah, just uh it's just a great movie. I mean, you know, when you also when you think about Connery aside, when you think about Lacare and you look at his breadth of work, you know, we always always think of like Tinker Taylor, Soldier Spy, or The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, but then you've got, you know the night manager and you know our kind of traitor and um the little drummer girl and and something like this, uh um the constant gardener. I mean, these were all his his stories. The guy was just tremendous. And and I love that he got involved with several of the TV series and movies that were made from his stuff. You kind of feel like he's putting his stamp of approval on this. And I think it really shows it's a really strong plot, nicely shot and uh and Connery's just spot on in this role. So yeah, the Russia House. Really good |
| James Stacey | one. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. I would say this one's also I know that I only know the name of it. Like I knew that there was a movie called Yeah. The Russia House. I didn't know who was in it. I didn't know what it was about. So this is another one. Yeah. Uh I can add to my list for this week. Maybe get to it this weekend. I think you'll love it. Uh yeah, this looks great. Yeah. I do I do love a post Bond Connery. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's in he's got to be in at least two other film clubs with yeah. You know, the first one that jumps to mind would be Hunt for Red October, but I'm sure that's not the only one uh that we've got in there and uh just great stuff. And and anything from La Cray is gonna be rad. Yeah. Yeah. Good pick. Good pick for the third round. Mine for the third round. I'm going to just move on chronologically, as Jason has established, and I'm going to pick one as a movie I really enjoyed. I've watched a few times since it came out in twenty seventeen. It's from uh film club alum Macon Blair in a movie uh the he directed and wrote this and it stars Melanie Linsky and uh Elijah Wood, and it is called I Don't Feel At Home in This World Anymore. And the summary is when a depressed woman is burgled, she finds a new sense of purpose by tracking down the thieves along with her obnoxious neighbor, but they soon find themselves dangerously out of their depth against a pack of degenerate criminals. Um so you'll remember in previous outings of the film club, I've talked about Blue Ruin and the Green Room. Mm-hmm. Those are both movies by Jeremy Salier that star his buddy Macon Blair. Macon Blair made his I believe I this may not be his first film. It's the first one I'm aware of. But Macon Blair put this together and I would say that where the Soligner stuff is a little bit more intense, a little bit more traditionally violent in the thriller sense of the concept, this is a little bit more like we took a Solonier film and mixed it with a Cohen Brothers film where it still has a lot of shocking violent moments. Yeah. But a lot of it is just very, very funny. Elijah Wood is incredible. Melanie Linsky, I mean, to be clear, find me one bad Melanie Linsky performance. I don't think it exists. The woman's a treasure. Yeah. And she's so funny in this. The two of them together on screen are it's entirely magnetic. It's just so much charisma in this film. Uh I highly recommend it. It's a little goofy. It's definitely a little violent. It's not like a kids' film or anything. So it won the grand jury prize at Sundance in 2017. So it's also no slouch of a film. Yeah. It's just really fun and there's a bunch of moments in it that feel like re referential, like I said, to um to Cohen Brothers and to Tarantino, but it's all packaged up in this way that feels a little bit younger, a little bit um sharper, it might be the word, a little bit less lost in the concept of what it needs to be, if that makes sense. Yeah. Um the film kind of runs runs on its own pace and uh I just really enjoy it. It's funny and kind of shocking, and I think it also might have been just a couple years ahead of its time. So it might make more sense if you watch it now based on other media that's become popular in the last five years. Mm-hmm where where I think some of this starts to line up and you start to see where some of these people just the the kind of wealth of talent A |
| Jason Heaton | aron Powell I had never heard of this movie and when I looked at the IMDB page and watched the trailer, I was like, okay, this is right up my alley. It's it has that sort of I don't know if world weary is the is the the term, but sort of that frustration with kind of the way people are, you know, almost like what was that Michael Douglas film where he's like in a traffic jam and he kinda flips out. You know, I Oh, I mean how how do we |
| James Stacey | blank on that one? That's such uh not grounded. I love I love people have trouble when you recommend that film, but I do like that movie quite a bit. Where this guy this guy just loses his mind and goes on a rampage. That is called Oh here. Falling down. Falling down. There it is. Alright. I might even leave that in live. Yeah. Us searching IMDB. Uh falling down. Yeah, that is Yeah. Yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | All right. What have you got for the fourth round? All right. Moving forward, um, a movie I watched uh recently and did not disappoint the second time around. Uh 2008's The Hurt Locker. Uh no secret. You know, I'm guessing most people have seen this movie directed by Catherine Bigelow, starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackey. It was written by Mark Boll, who also did, I believe, Zero Dark 30 and um what else did he do? Um Blackhawk Down, I believe. I mean, the you know, this is there was this kind of era, I feel like, and maybe it was around 2008, you know, every every kind of war or world conflict kind of seems to spawn movies that come shortly after that kind of feed off of you know things like you know, whether it was the Vietnam War, World War II, etc. And I feel like there were a number of movies, the the ones I even just mentioned that were kind of came out of the the war on terror and kind of the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War. And um and this is one of them. And and let me read the uh synopsis. Sorry I, skipped over that. During the Iraq War, a sergeant recently assigned to an army bomb squad is put at odds with his squad mates due to his maverick way of handling his work. I I I'm a big fan of Jeremy Renner anyway. I don't know there's just an intensity to the guy. Um, and he is so good in this movie. He just absolutely embodies uh this this role that he plays in this movie. There's such an intensity to it, and it's not I wouldn't say it's an easy movie to watch. I think, you know, there there's it it's it's it's a war movie. Um and and his sort of I don't want to say self-destructive character that might be even too close to home. Um is is like his addiction to adrenaline and the intensity of his job is is just so palpable in this movie um that you almost are wincing and cringing at the at the decisions he makes and the stuff he does. Um and it's so good. D guy Pierce has a small role um at the beginning of the movie, and I'm not gonna give away what you know what Ralph's character David Hall. Right, this is an incredible cast. Anthony Mackey. Yeah.ah Yeah. Ye. Um it's a good it was a real good movie. It's a really, really, really good movie. If if if you're in this kind of mood, if you're if you know if you've watched uh you know you're into like the Zero Dark 30 mode or Blackhawk down or something and you just kind of want that kind of really gritty um kind of early knots sort of uh movie. This is uh this is the way to go. Just just so so good. I can I can't say enough about this movie. It was uh it was such a a good rewatch and it makes me want to watch um some of these others that I just mentioned just to kind of um get that out of my system I guess. So ye |
| James Stacey | ah. Yeah I I remember I remember falling in love with Hurt Locker simply because at the time the only movie that anyone wanted to talk about and I c I don't think I'm mixing up the timelines, two thousand eight, two thousand nine was Avatar. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I just I did not have twenty five seconds for Avatar. I still don't. Mm-hmm. I think it's a deeply stupid thing that I just I don't identify with at all. It's like watching a three hour demonstration of a video card. Oh yeah, yeah. Uh like I get it. It it looks it looks kind of cool. Okay. Um and then to see Katherine Bigelow get the Oscar, of course her ex is James Cameron, it was kind of a a whole a whole little moment for that that world. But this uh this is an incredible film and definitely in there with the Zero Dark, like some of the other stuff that you listed that uh Mark Bull's been, you know, connected with. He also produced Triple Frontier, which is a a past actually I bet you his name's on a ton of movies that we've talked about in the last ten uh um ones 'cause yeah Tri,ple Frontier and uh and several others. I mean there's just kind of a a guy with a pretty prolific body of work and producing and writing for that stuff. But if you haven't if somehow you missed Hurtlocker back in 08 or you're on the younger side of our audience, this is an intense movie. Yeah it is. A really intense film. Like it it's they really do capture both some of the mental anguish of like PTSD, but also just their ability to take you to that scenario, defusing a bomb. Yeah. It's crazy. Yeah. So tense. Yeah. Yeah. This is this uh defin definitely one worth a watch if you haven't seen it. Alright, and for my fifth round, I'm going I'm we're moving on to movies that were made last year, uh of which there were several that I enjoyed, but one that I don't see people talking a ton about is called The Creator. Came out in twenty twenty three, it's by Gareth Edwards. Uh you would know Gareth Edwards from his work on Rogue One is probably his biggest film before the creator, probably bigger than the creator in general. But he directed and wrote along with Chris White's uh the creator, and the creator is uh John David Washington and a cast of so many people that you would enjoy that you'd recognize their face, but they're all modified in certain ways because of the premise of the film. So the summary goes against the backdrop of a war between humans and robots with artificial intelligence, a former soldier finds a secret weapon, a robot in the form of a young child. So it has a little bit of like the the prophecy sort of style film, like a like a a Matrix or a uh I mean it's most movies at a certain point. Uh you know, like where somebody's a Star Wars, like somebody's destined to fill this role and you have to find them and that kind of thing. Yeah. John David Washington, he's awesome, he's always awesome. I have to give credit because I'm pretty sure this came up in the Slack shortly after this movie came out. I th I believe I had mentioned I had watched it or somebody else started a thread and I tagged into it and somebody said this movie hit me as a cross between blade roll Wow. Okay. That that hooks me. It doesn't it doesn't have the storyline of either of those, but it is this if you cross those two settings, yeah, those two worlds, this is a world in which that movie this movie would take place. Wow. I I really enjoyed it. There's a there's a few special effects things I've never seen before. Uh these running robots you have to check out in the third act when you get to it. But there's a ton of really, really interesting visuals going on in this film, and the whole time it's this pretty fun, um fast-moving story of a guy kind of against the world to try and figure something out, and all the parties that know parts of the story are trying to stop him, but they don't realize what the stakes are. It's it's it's very enjoyable. It's very much, you know, kind of anchored in its presentation of the world and the the Android element and some of the metaphysical sides of all of it. But I I enjoyed so much of this movie. I had never heard |
| Jason Heaton | of this movie and and yeah, when I watched the trailer, I was like, yep, uh it's got me because of the, as you mentioned, kind of this the But instead of a big city, they're in jungles. Yeah. Yeah |
| James Stacey | . It's cool. And I I just I adore John David Washington. I anything he's in, I'm gonna give it a chance. Yeah. Um I would say this is the sort of movie that is it perfect? No, I don't think so. It's it's got some flaws. Would I watch it every year for a while? Probably. Yeah. It's pretty fun. I liked it. I can even include there is an episode of the Corridor Crew that goes into how this movie was shot because it's kind of revolutionary. It was shot on essentially off-the-shelf camera bits. Uh and very everything was shot very quickly. Yeah. And it it it lends itself in certain ways to the film. So I'll find that and I can include it in the show notes if you want to go even deeper. But if you haven't seen the creator and and you enjoy sort of um what I would call blended sci-fi so you're not way out in space oh yeah yeah you know talking to the Galactic Republic or whatever it's a little bit more grounded than that. But it's still this is I would I would qualify this as fairly hard sci-fi. Yeah |
| Jason Heaton | . I I like that term blended sci-fi. I do I I don't care for the deep space, kind of everything's on some spaceship or floating space. Yeah, I like the bl |
| James Stacey | ade runner format. Yeah. For sure. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. It's so much fun. I mean, look, if you're gonna do but if you're gonna do deep space, just give me Alien. It's already been perfected. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. That was also a pro we're we're listing a lot of movies we've talked about before. Yeah. Yeah. And Alien. But yeah, that's uh that's my pick for the creator from Gareth Edwards. Cool. All |
| Jason Heaton | right. I've got one more pick for the final pick. Yeah, my final pick is uh fast forward to twenty twenty one, uh drive my car. Um synopsis reads uh a renowned stage actor and director learns to cope with a big personal loss when he receives an offer to direct a production of Uncle Vanya in Hiroshima. Japanese film, uh, I didn't recognize any of the uh the cast. Um, but the one thing that hooked me, and this is seems very shallow, but um it's such a uh central part of the film, is the car in question. Oh yeah, which is a gorgeous red uh Sob 900 from probably the the late 80s. Um, a car that I adore, car that I used to own. And, you know, look, the car aside, it obviously plays a big role in the movie. This story was just it's it's beautiful, it's heartbreaking. There's a depth to this movie. It's one of those kind of quiet, introspective films. It won an Oscar. And it was just, I don't know. It was beautifully shot and it was just it's got everything in it. I mean, it's it's like it it's it's got you know deep sadness, it has kind of that that warmth you get um when you know the a relationship develops between characters that is not romantic um but it has a a a real warmth to it and a compassion to it. I don't know. It's just it it's a it's a feel good movie, but also one that kinda leaves leaves you feeling a little melancholy at the same time. And then you have this beautiful car that plays a very central role in the movie. Um very hard to describe what's going on in this, but it's it's just a tremendous film. Just a a really, really good movie. Very different from any of the other ones I mentioned today. Um probably as mentioned. Very different from a |
| James Stacey | lot a lot that are on the list. Yeah, exactly. The uh it I I have not finished this, yeah, this is one I started several months ago and just found that I wasn't in the right headspace for its story. And it has remained just sitting in my rentals or whatever for several months. So I should finish it at some point. But the first third that I watched, uh, I think on an airplane, uh I liked quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I see that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Good good good movie. Absolutely fantastic car. Look at those three spokes. Yes. It's so good. Yeah. So those that's your five, and I will round out mine with 2023's The Killer. And if you haven't seen this, I've this is a very new one, but this movie it felt like a flop like I talk I talked to people and a lot of people didn't like it. Yeah. And then I had a a a sort of a small group of guys online who know my taste in movies and are we're buddies and we talk about they all wrote me saying, uh the, killers you're in, right? I was like, I'm definitely in. Uh so this is a David Fenture. Uh obviously, we're talking about a guy who's made some of literally just simply some of the best movies of the last 20 years. For those of you who don't recognize the name, we're talking about Gone Girl, we're talking about Zodiac, we're talking about Seven, we're talking about Social Network. It's kind of endless, the things that he's been involved with, and they're always done to a really high level. And the way that I would describe this film is uh well, I'll start with the summary as I've I'm rambling already. I love this movie. Uh after a fateful near-miss, an assassin battles his employers and himself on an international manhunt, he insists isn't personal. So Michael Fassbender plays a methodical sociopath of an assassin that every every little thing is is worked out. He makes a mistake, it doesn't go well, and the movie basically unravels from there. And this movie really plays with your expectations of what a David Fenture movie about an assassin would be like. Yeah. And the weird thing is it's very slow and method it the movie is the killer. Mm-hmm. It's very slow. It's very methodical. It takes its time. It tends to get things just right, just at the right moment. I really, really love this movie. I've probably watched it four or five times since it came out. Yeah. And I I it it's it's lived on my iPad for a while, and that I'll put it on on airplanes and watch a couple acts or whatever. It's shot all over the world. It's it's a fincher, so it's gorgeous. Uh Fastbender is terrifying, but also really subtle. I don't typically attribute him to big performances. Yeah. Uh he he it has a certain subtlety just to the way that he does what he does, but this is extra quiet, extra low profile, extra gray man, extra just in the background. Yeah. And it's a really, really fun movie that kind of feels like something that could have been made in the seventies. Um that that Fincher found a way to make it feel sharp and modern and tied to the technology we have now and some of the gaps in the way people experience things. And then there's a little you get you get just a taste of like that trade craft. Yeah. Like like you would in a great Michael Mann film where you're watching somebody who does something terrible, but you're watching them be really good |
| Jason Heaton | at it. Yeah, I loved this film, actually. Um, I'm with you. And it strikes me that there there are several movies like this where the the protagonist is very much an anti-hero, you know, someone who's not not not someone to be admired, um, someone you shouldn't like, but then you find yourself pulling for them. I mean it's it's that kind of movie, and I think his character, like you said, it's a very quiet role, but it's a very engaging like it's a like oh yeah it shows such skill to be able to to to act so minimally and yet convey so much and and fastbender totally does that. Yeah, this is good. It it in a way it's like um did you ever see the movie The American with George Clooney where he plays he also plays an assassin? Like I don't want to say it's a similar movie to that, but there there is some element to that sort of meticulous preparations element of it that that I found sim |
| James Stacey | ilar. Yeah, and I you know I I think the other thing that that's remarkable is just how how the how much the movie works because of the voiceover. Yeah. So you get a ton of commentary throughout the film from Fastbender, but sometimes it's hard to tell if he's talking to you, the audience, yeah, or if he's just talking to himself, and because he's crazy, he's just a little bit unhinged and has this internal monologue that's going all the time. Yeah. And you attach into that dialogue with some frequency. Like the first I would say the first the opening element of the film, mm-hmm, which is tons of tension and it's beautifully shot and takes you really inside the mind of somebody that has to do what he's gonna do. A lot of it is anchored by him kind of talking you through what he's thinking about or or what he's good at or how he's gonna do this or that and and that sort of thing. And uh yeah, I I look I get it if this movie's not gonna be for everybody it's exceptionally violent yeah it's a very dark uh presentation it's it's largely humorless but I mean it's got uh fast bender and tilde swinton and it's pretty good. I I really li I'm a huge Fincher nerd to begin with and I can't say that this is my favorite Fincher, but it's definitely up there and it might be the most me Fincher, like the one that he that that good old David made for James, you know? I like this movie a lot. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, it's good. And even the tagline, execution is everything. That' |
| Jason Heaton | s perfect. Yeah, right. Oh, that's that is perfect. Ye.ah Yeah, I feel like this time around I kind of pulled some some blockbusters that most people are probably aware of. I think you had some real deep cuts here. I think |
| James Stacey | uh I I tried. I wanted to try and capture a couple things that that like I bring up to people and they go, like, Yeah, I've never even heard about that or like I don't know what the creator is. Right. And like my brother told me and I had never heard of it. Yeah. And he's like, Oh, it's a Gareth Edwards like sci fi thing in in uh in you know, in somewhere in the in the future with John David Washington. I'm like, uh, those those are all things that this movie should have found me faster for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So your list started off with Against All Odds in nineteen eighty four and then also nineteen eighty four's The Natural, both uh fantastic. Definitely you should check out the natural. Then we moved on to the Russia house and then the Hurt Locker and then finally Drive My Car for a very disparate five, but a solid five |
| Jason Heaton | additions to the list, I think. Yeah, and uh you started out with nineteen ninety-seven's Gattaca, then we moved into uh Phone Booth from 2002. Uh I don't feel at home in this world anymore, which is one that's uh definitely on my soon-to-be-watched list. Uh then 2023's The Creator, another must-watch for me. And then uh The Killer from also from 2023. Here we go. Really good uh good 10 films. Here we go. I you know what I'm feeling is that like, okay, we the last episode we did uh 250 was in the summer, uh late summer at that. Uh here we are at the very beginning of July doing this one. I I feel like this is like becoming a summer thing. Yeah, maybe summer tradition. Film club. Yeah. Yeah. |
| James Stacey | Yeah. Cool. Well we we held the peg between our our shared uh celebration of our country's I guess independence, right? Between J July one and July four. But uh I think it's time for some final notes. We've got kind of an interesting one. They're both uh two kind of inexpensive products. So why don't you go first for that |
| Jason Heaton | ? Yeah, sure. So um on Sunday when I was uh finished diving in Monterey, um my friend Kev um handed me something. He said, Oh, I brought this for you. It's uh from Hawaii, it's a Hawaiian brand called Aloha. And they make these well, they make a breadth of products. But what he gave me was uh it's just called a pouch. And they they make these kind of wet, dry uh pouches that have a zipper and they're made from I think like repurposed Tyvek, you know, that stuff that they put uh you know, when building a house um or or truck tarps or whatever else, but um he gave me the medium sized one, the or the mid sized one. They've got a small, they've got an extra small or like a mini, then a big sized one. Anyway, these are just very simple. It's very lightweight, um, kind of crinkly, waterproof pouch with a nice zipper on it. And that's about it. And they come in different patterns. Kind of, he gave me one with like an octopus on dark blue. That's really quite nice. And the way he sold it to me was look, I got this in Hawaii, my wife calls it my man purse. Um I carry it. I put my stuff that I want, like if you're going on a boat and you want some small items like your phone and you know, whatever else. Of course. Uh to stay dry, you can put it in there and then when you're done and you've got some wet stuff, you can throw that in there and zip it shut and it keeps everything else dry. So even though it's not submersible, it's not a dry bag because the seams and the zipper aren't waterproof, it it does a great job of just kind of keeping wet stuff wet and dry stuff dry or vice versa. And um yeah, it's really cool. And and, you know, as I mentioned, he gave me, I guess, the mid sized one and I was looking at the particular pattern that he gave me with this like blue and the octopus legs and it's like on sale for 20 bucks. So I'm just gonna like keep this in my dive bag for those times when you're on a dive boat and stuff's getting splashed around and you wanna stow your phone somewhere or or whatever else you've got, your sunglasses or whatever. And uh yeah, really cool. Nice little, if not for you, a nice gift for somebody and and per certainly great for summer going to the beach or on a dive boat or whatever. So check it out |
| James Stacey | . Aloha. Yeah, these look really good. And I I like the idea of obviously it's become quite popular to have like some cross carry, like a a a fanny pack of some sort. Yeah. Uh for these items. But like you said, sometimes you're on a boat, sometimes it's the few things you want to bring on a plane and you want it to be able to still slide it into the pocket on the back of the seat in front of you. Yeah. And that sort of thing. And and I think these little zippered pouches are are great. You see them from all sorts of different brands, but one that has a little bit of water resistance is super handy. You know, when we dive, I typically have like a you know like, an outdoor research, like a proper dry bag. Yeah. Um, you know, with the roll top and the clip closure. And by the time you put your phones and everything in there, then you want to quickly go back and grab your sunscreen, you're kind of like unrolling the whole bag, digging around in this long tube of a of of a material and and the rest of it. And the the other nice thing is that twenty bucks if it's Tyvek, yeah. Um assuming things like the zippers are sewn on, well, Tyvek lasts forever. Yeah. Yeah. It's a great material, weighs nothing, can pack up and fold and the rest of it. So yeah, that's really cool. Yeah. I I love these sorts of things. And twenty bucks, like that's great a perfect gift, like you said, if it's not something you feel uh you would need, but I could definitely see dropping a few items in there and then carrying that in your hand as sort of a catch-all for you know the things you need for a day that are you know smaller than say like a camera |
| Jason Heaton | . Yeah, right. And I should just make a quick correction. Actually he gave me the small size, which is on sale for 20 bucks in that particular um pattern. That was regularly 34. So whatever. 30, 20, you know, still still affordable. Yeah |
| James Stacey | . So cool. Cool. Good pick. How about you? I have spent the last little while getting fairly deep into YouTube's like EDC channels. Yeah. And there's a handful of these guys I really like. I'm even considering reaching considering reaching out to one of them to see if they'd like to be on the show because I'm but I'm still trying to figure out the lay of the land and what creators I prefer and that sort of thing. But in the process, I came across uh, you know, various concepts of like just people talking about glow-in-the-dark things that you can add to a backpack or to a knife or to a flashlight or whatever. And I ended up buying a ton of stuff. So yes, I now have like a bag of little glow-in-the-ark skulls that you're supposed to put on lanyards, and I've got uh uh glow-in-the-paracord, which is very, very cool. That is cool. But the the best product of the ones I bought recently, the paracord's fine, and I'll I can include that in the show notes as well. But the one that I would actually go out and recommend to you is called the Yochi Mango Glow in the Dark Zipper Pull. And I really like these. They're eight dollars for I think ten or twelve. Yeah. And they're simply these chunky, they kind of look like they're milled out of C3 Luminova. But they're much harder than they're not powdery like Luminova would be. But they're these big chunky sort of zipper poles that you you know, like I I put one on my camera bag. I just cut off the little paracord pole they had, you know, kind of um heat shrinked on there and loop this through and now it just glows. And the recommendation from these EDC channels, I think it was Josh Fenn's channel where he said like you can put these on something that you might drop, like a flashlight. Yeah. And that way if you were to drop it or if it's at the bottom of a bag, at least it's sitting there glowing. Right. Right. And I yeah, for eight dollars, I I think these are great. I think they'd be f perfectly fine on a jacket. Mm-hmm. I think that they'd be fantastic on a backpack, especially just to be able to mark something. Um but I think especially I I put one on on a flashlight and uh and I I'd probably you know hang one off of a of a camera strap or something like that if you needed to and it just gives you this nice very it's qu uh uh the the actual emission is quite bright. You so you could charge it up with a flashlight or in the sun and you come in and it they're like legitimately bright enough that I had to cover them up in my bedroom 'cause they were there's too much light um in the middle of the night. So I I for eight bucks I I can't recommend these enough. These are just make me feel like a five year old. It's great. |
| Jason Heaton | That's awesome. I mean I uh you know, when you told me about this earlier, I was like, that that's awesome. I love the idea of glow in the dark anything because, you know, w whether it's like your tent zippers, like you know, you're camping in the middle of the night, you have to get up in the middle of the night. That's a great idea. Um and you know, you just want to see without like turning on your phone or something. I mean a sleeping bag zipper too. Sleeping bag zippers. Yeah |
| James Stacey | . Yeah. You're always hunting around for that thing. You can never find the end. I mean you don't want too many, or it'll keep you awake. Let's just be like fireflies everywhere. Yeah, they are they are kind |
| Jason Heaton | of bright. So you'd want to tuck them under something. Um but it makes me think too, like can you imagine like for a um like night dive? Um like just dive gear would be kind of cool or um I even think like okay I'm now I'm getting a little farther afield, but I bet you've seen like glow-in-the-ark strips like tape of some sort that you could like just uh or adhesive stickers that you could put on. Well, we did that, of course, like with our TGN stickers last last year for windup. But I'm just thinking, like, I yeah, there's no end to the to how you can use glow-in-the-ark stuff and it's all so handy because even if you're on a plane in the dark, a long flight and you drop something um under your seat or something it's nice to be able to fish around and find it witho |
| James Stacey | ut turning on a light. So yeah. These are great. Yeah. Kind of kind of a simple uh a silly like some of you will be laughing like why would you would not everything has to glow in the dark. I like it when stuff glows in the dark. Um and and especially you spend enough time at it in a hundred plus year old cabin in in in the in the summer. Yeah. And it's very dark at night up there. Uh it's just you and the stars, and these things can be like pretty handy. So yeah, not bad for a uh set of final notes, some fun little uh little trinkets and and a and and a nice little zippered case and then solid ten movies to watch uh before we get to this. Maybe maybe we do volume twelve, yeah, next June or July. |
| Jason Heaton | All right. Well that was fun. Um a proper summer episode. And as always, thanks so much for listening. If you want to subscribe to the show notes, get into the comments for each episode or consider supporting the show directly, and maybe even grab a new TGN signed NATO, please visit thegrainado..com Music Throughout is Sies by Jazzar via the Free Mus |
| James Stacey | ic Archive. And we leave you with this quote from Victor Frankel who said, When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves |