Speaker 1: Weird.
Speaker 2: We welcome back Midnight viewers to find the blog's weekly is
Speaker 2: it round up. I'm Father Malone and with me as
Speaker 2: always following her own personal code, which in this case
Speaker 2: is to snore loudly at all times, is miss ripley Gen.
Speaker 2: We'll get there. First order of business, I have lost
Speaker 2: my Father Malone Instagram account. I'm trying to get it back,
Speaker 2: but I lost my phone and then I got locked
Speaker 2: out of it. I'm still in charge of this show's account, however,
Speaker 2: that's Midnight Underscore Viewing. That's our Instagram handle, and we're
Speaker 2: on Threads and blue Sky and all the non Reich
Speaker 2: based platforms. But if you've been attempting to contact me
Speaker 2: on the Father Malone Instagram, I'm sorry, but I do
Speaker 2: not have access. Frustratingly, it's still linked to my Midnight
Speaker 2: Viewing account, so I can see that there are interactions occurring.
Speaker 2: I just have zero access, So if you're expecting a
Speaker 2: reply there, I apologize. Please go to Midnight Underscore Viewing
Speaker 2: and follow us there, and if you need to get
Speaker 2: in touch Father Malone, seven to one at gmail dot
Speaker 2: com is the way to do that, or Thepatreon dot
Speaker 2: com slash fatherm alone. If you want to pay to
Speaker 2: talk to me, I am not above that. So once again,
Speaker 2: apologies for the confusion. If there's been any here is
Speaker 2: nothing to be confused about. Paramount and CBS can go
Speaker 2: fuck themselves going forward. You can cancel a show because
Speaker 2: you don't like your host, or you can cancel a
Speaker 2: show because there's something promising in the pipeline to take
Speaker 2: its place. Anything but a politically motivated cancelation. I was
Speaker 2: very much looking forward to the Naked Gun remake with
Speaker 2: Akifa Shaffer at the Helm, but now that can wait
Speaker 2: for some uncertain future. They're not getting a dime of
Speaker 2: my money and I'm not talking about any of their
Speaker 2: new shit until some kind of regime change occurs or
Speaker 2: Disney buys them. WHOA, that's a sneak attack from a
Speaker 2: lovely co host. All right, baby, you get your choice,
Speaker 2: and thank you HB for that theme. I'd like to
Speaker 2: remind you and the listeners that the number three pet
Speaker 2: peeve of serial killers is that there's rarely a serial
Speaker 2: killer day at a ballpark. I like that it's rarely
Speaker 2: but not unheard of. Before we get to what Rip's watching,
Speaker 2: I just want to mention what I've been watching. It
Speaker 2: ties in trust me, that fucking nautiless show. I love
Speaker 2: Jules Verne, I love the steampunk aesthetic. I love Chazade.
Speaker 2: Latif too man and he deserves a great show, and
Speaker 2: he makes total sense to play Captain Nemo. But this
Speaker 2: ain't the show for that guy. This is Hallmark Entertainment
Speaker 2: circa nineteen ninety seven. Shit. But it is not Latif's fault.
Speaker 2: Remember him as Doctor Jacko and Penny Dreadful excellent. Ah,
Speaker 2: Penny Dreadful. Anyone want to come review that show with me?
Speaker 2: Episode by episode, Penny Dreadful is the best, except for
Speaker 2: that horrible City of Angels follow up. I disavow that
Speaker 2: show completely. We need a grizzled old cop breaking in
Speaker 2: this city's token Latino detective on the streets of Los
Speaker 2: Angeles in the volatle years leading up to World War Two.
Speaker 2: Get me Nathan Lane. Anyway, the show Penny Dreadful, like
Speaker 2: the book that ultimately inspired it, The long shadow of
Speaker 2: Count Dracula cast over the entire series, and in the
Speaker 2: final season he showed up played by an actor named
Speaker 2: Christian Carmargo. He was my favorite part of that season
Speaker 2: and as a testament to what a great thespian he is,
Speaker 2: or how completely inobservant I am. I did not recognize
Speaker 2: him from his turn on Dexter, where he played Dexter's
Speaker 2: brother Brian Moser, the ice truck killer, which leads us
Speaker 2: to Rip's pick. We're talking Dexter resurrection.
Speaker 3: Somebody once told me you have to go through hell
Speaker 3: to achieve resurrection. Hallelujah Dexter.
Speaker 4: As I seeing the ghost, Chief Bishop told me that
Speaker 4: you were alive.
Speaker 1: She said that you were the Bay Harbor butcher.
Speaker 3: So much for the happy reading that what better place
Speaker 3: to hide?
Speaker 2: He is the greatest the world.
Speaker 3: But nobody knows who you really are. Tell me where
Speaker 3: about your friends?
Speaker 4: Crator likes to own things. Time to meet the man
Speaker 4: of the.
Speaker 3: Man or welcome.
Speaker 4: I cannot express how excited I am to meet you.
Speaker 3: You really like Cereal fellas. I pride myself in finding
Speaker 3: the best of the best in every field.
Speaker 4: Let's show and tell day so there are others on
Speaker 4: their way, only in New York.
Speaker 3: Tonight's the night.
Speaker 2: Invitation delivered.
Speaker 4: It's just a dark path you're going up. I urge
Speaker 4: you to be careful, son, I'm tired to be careful.
Speaker 4: What do you think.
Speaker 2: We got two episodes out now three by the time
Speaker 2: you're hearing this, and it's very promising. I hated most
Speaker 2: of the back end of the original Dexter, and I
Speaker 2: was pretty nonplussed with the sequel. I don't know what
Speaker 2: the fuck the prequel show is. It's like watching a
Speaker 2: TV version of a movie, except it's a TV version
Speaker 2: of a TV show. It reminds me of the scene
Speaker 2: in The Fly when Jeff Goldbum teleports the steak and
Speaker 2: then Geenet Davis eats it and she's like, ah no,
Speaker 2: this is wrong. The Texter the feeling it's artificial. That's
Speaker 2: Dexter Original sin, but this is Dexter Colon Resurrection. Side note,
Speaker 2: pardon my digression, but I learned that when studios do that,
Speaker 2: when they continue a series but they retitle it not
Speaker 2: by much. They don't want to alienate the original viewers,
Speaker 2: so it's Dexter new Blood or Fuller House. That way,
Speaker 2: they can avoid all the original contracts. Technically, it's season
Speaker 2: five you're doing, and all the promised bonuses and increased
Speaker 2: pay should kick in. Iu're doing a whole new show.
Speaker 2: The Almighty dollar, y'all. It's gonna kill every last one
Speaker 2: of us quicker and more efficiently than Dexter Dexter. I
Speaker 2: read his book when it came out, mainly because of
Speaker 2: as typnonic title Darkly Dreaming Dexter. I know unplanned alliteration
Speaker 2: is a hallmark of sloppy writing, but when it's intentional
Speaker 2: it gets me in my out of step grammatical heart. Anyway,
Speaker 2: I read that book. I enjoyed the show. My late
Speaker 2: wife loved the show. Loved the show, owned all the
Speaker 2: seasons on DVD. It was frequently on in my home.
Speaker 2: That first season, which is a straight adaptation of that
Speaker 2: first book, is easily the best in the series. Surprise Motherfucker.
Speaker 2: Speaking of Doakes, I promise we'll stop sub referencing and
Speaker 2: get back on target. My favorite moment in my favorite
Speaker 2: season is during that Surprise Motherfucker's scene when they start
Speaker 2: fighting and Doakes realizes I was right, followed immediately by
Speaker 2: the thought, oh shit, I was right, and you see
Speaker 2: him recognizing instantly what a credible and dangerous customer Dexter
Speaker 2: Morgan actually is. So I'm familiar with the program enough
Speaker 2: to say that had the season six plot been used
Speaker 2: for season five, they could have ended the series very neatly. Instead,
Speaker 2: they kept limping along with lame executions of sometimes decent
Speaker 2: premises and sometimes what if there was somebody who taught
Speaker 2: Harry the code? I don't care if it was Charlotte Rampling.
Speaker 2: That was fucking the lame. I'm surprised they didn't have
Speaker 2: deb selling hair tonic that turns your hair accidentally orange
Speaker 2: by the end. Damn it, I said, I would stop
Speaker 2: sub referencing. Okay, original series ended good. They had by
Speaker 2: then completely mishandled the golden opportunity that was ivonn Strohowsky
Speaker 2: as fellow serial murderer slash love interest. But anyway, the ending,
Speaker 2: it's not quite the kick and the teeth that the
Speaker 2: Sopranos ending was. What are your thoughts on these Sopranos ending?
Speaker 2: I know this is old news, but if David Chase
Speaker 2: did one thing I won't say right. If David Chase
Speaker 2: did one thing effectively, it was keep the show in
Speaker 2: conversation nearly two decades later because of that ending. It's
Speaker 2: a great show and we'd be talking about it anyway,
Speaker 2: But it's sauce for the goose. Here's my opinion. If
Speaker 2: it's David Chase saying there is no more television after this.
Speaker 2: I'm down. My show is so good. It ended the
Speaker 2: broadcast medium just turned it off. But then I would
Speaker 2: accept that ending from any series and call it great.
Speaker 2: And while the Sopranos lived on television, it never was
Speaker 2: a meditation on the medium. So the end of TV argument,
Speaker 2: while tantalizing that ain't it Kid? That ain't n it Kid?
Speaker 2: Dance ten looks three, you know that's the name of
Speaker 2: that song, not tits an ass. I hope somebody is
Speaker 2: getting these references. My pop culture brain is overstuffed. I
Speaker 2: need to get a chorus line out, be gone, Marvin Hamlish.
Speaker 2: Now if it's David Chase saying this feeling, you have
Speaker 2: this escalation where every day mundane actions seem to be
Speaker 2: adding up to something horrible occurring, and you never quite
Speaker 2: get that payoff. If he's telling us that's Tony's life
Speaker 2: from now on and his famili's for that matter, not
Speaker 2: that at any moment they're in danger, but every moment,
Speaker 2: and that first will never be slaked. Then I'm down,
Speaker 2: though I'm not sure it warranted ten seconds of dead air,
Speaker 2: and we know David Chase did have a definitive end
Speaker 2: of that series. Tony Soprano goes into New York to
Speaker 2: meet the families, and in the tunnel on the way
Speaker 2: back to Jersey, he is murdered. That was it, That
Speaker 2: was how the series was going to end. But before
Speaker 2: they got there, he started analyzing what people were expecting
Speaker 2: from an ending and feeling a bit queasy about letting
Speaker 2: the nation who've been idolizing this guy for a decade
Speaker 2: off the hook by killing him at the last second
Speaker 2: or letting him live, thus lionizing all of his terrible behavior.
Speaker 2: What do you do? I know nothing, and I'll convince
Speaker 2: everyone that it's secretly genius, and it might be. Dexter
Speaker 2: should have ended many years earlier. But the ending we
Speaker 2: got with Dexter finally realizing that he destroys everything around
Speaker 2: him and should have zero interactions with humans and isolating
Speaker 2: himself under an assumed name in the wilds of Oregon.
Speaker 2: I thought appropriate. It wasn't satisfying at all, but it
Speaker 2: was appropriate. So when they decided to bring him back
Speaker 2: with a grown son, I thought, oh, this is going
Speaker 2: to be awful, and it was. Even the mighty Clancy
Speaker 2: Brown could not make that wintry nonsense. Interesting. Also, you
Speaker 2: bring back Harrison and not Ivan Strohofsky, shame on you.
Speaker 2: Then there was the prequel, and now Dexter's back himself
Speaker 2: despite dying at the end of the New Blood series. Okay, whatever.
Speaker 2: I'd like to tell you to skip the first episode
Speaker 2: of Dexter Rezarexter because it's so fucking clunky and scattershot,
Speaker 2: and for some damned reason we're still including Harrison in
Speaker 2: the mix, and yet no Ivan Strohofsky. Can you tell
Speaker 2: I've got a thing for uh Ivan Strohofski. Also, I
Speaker 2: really enjoy saying Evan Strohofski, she's Australian and a dreamy.
Speaker 2: We get Batista back Fweebo. I need to find Fuebo.
Speaker 2: It's great to see him, honestly, and we get a
Speaker 2: ghostly fucking cavalcade of cameos from the original series, The
Speaker 2: Family Man Senator Bale Organa Doakes, But no Eddie James
Speaker 2: almost I call him Eddie because we're pals in my
Speaker 2: fan fiction. But is his absence because Dexter never actually
Speaker 2: met the Professor, who is almost continuing his streak as
Speaker 2: the greatest grump of all time? Remember him in zoot
Speaker 2: suit did you even see Zootsuit? I'm gonna need you
Speaker 2: all to get caught up with me right now. I'll wait,
Speaker 2: go watch everything I've ever seen. Pause the show. I'll
Speaker 2: be here. Okay, now you've seen everything. We're in agreement,
Speaker 2: right cool. New Dexter is promising. What can I tell you?
Speaker 2: The second episode gave me early Dexter vibes, and it's
Speaker 2: got Uma Thurman, and it hints at a plot of
Speaker 2: a secret society of serial killers whose members include David
Speaker 2: Dosmalchian and Eric stone Street and Kristin Ritter and Peter Dinklage.
Speaker 2: I am cautiously optimistic. I say give it a watch, enjoy,
Speaker 2: and weirdly, a society of serial killers and emberin behavior
Speaker 2: stands right next door to our main topic of the evening.
Speaker 2: I wasn't gonna go too far in depth about The Sandman,
Speaker 2: but I do want to delve into a bit of
Speaker 2: its progenitors, because everything that happened before the Sandman comic
Speaker 2: and its influences in earlier creators are far more palatable
Speaker 2: than everything that happens after the Sandman comic. Not everything. Fortunately,
Speaker 2: the books remain great up until a point, and the
Speaker 2: series is fucking amazing up until a point its creator.
Speaker 2: On the other hand, we'll get there, and I suppose
Speaker 2: if abuse is not your cup of tea, then skip
Speaker 2: the latter portion of this program. I'll give you a
Speaker 2: heads up. Here's how I came to Sandman. Like most
Speaker 2: things in life, they involve swamp Thing. Maybe that's just
Speaker 2: my life. I've been a swamp Thing van since I
Speaker 2: could read, which is basically the beginning of swamp Thing.
Speaker 2: You don't need to know much about doctor Alec Holland
Speaker 2: and the creature he becomes, but I need to mention
Speaker 2: a guy in the comic named Matthew Cable. Cable was
Speaker 2: a government operative assigned to protect Alec Holland. He failed
Speaker 2: and has been doing penance for swamp Thing ever since.
Speaker 2: In the early nineteen eighties, Matthew Cable crashes his car
Speaker 2: in a drunken stupor and ends up in a coma,
Speaker 2: and that's pretty much where the series left him until
Speaker 2: about nineteen eighty nine, where there was this one off
Speaker 2: or two off actually, where Cable wakes up and we
Speaker 2: learn that he has spent the past five years in
Speaker 2: a place called the Dreaming, and then he kills himself
Speaker 2: and is resurrected in The Dreaming as a Raven. Turned
Speaker 2: out that The Dreaming was from another title at DC,
Speaker 2: and now one of the main characters was swamp Thing
Speaker 2: had just fucked off over there and he's now a raven.
Speaker 2: I had to see this new title, and I did,
Speaker 2: and my fucking head cracked open with what I found,
Speaker 2: because in Sandman we were given an entirely new landscape
Speaker 2: in comics, not just the world of dream and its
Speaker 2: exhaustive possibilities, not just a mixing and mingling of some
Speaker 2: of the darker characters of the DC universe. Not only
Speaker 2: the weaving in and out of every fable and myth
Speaker 2: from every corner of the globe, but overall, a deeply
Speaker 2: felt love of storytelling itself. It's an important book. Like
Speaker 2: it or not, and maybe it's not for you. Once
Speaker 2: we get to the end of this program. Sandman does
Speaker 2: something I love about the comic industry. It builds and
Speaker 2: reshapes the past to fit the present, in this case
Speaker 2: a title from the literal old Age. He didn't make
Speaker 2: much of a splash, but the Sandman made his debut
Speaker 2: in Adventure comics in nineteen thirty nine. He had the
Speaker 2: sickest outfit ever fedora business suit, gas mask, gas gun
Speaker 2: that he would use to knock out criminals. He got
Speaker 2: resurrected in the seventies by Jack Kirby and Joe Simon,
Speaker 2: who gave him the worst outfit in comics history. Yellow tights,
Speaker 2: red boxer's red cape, this weirdo magneto helmet also read
Speaker 2: it was dumb. But their Sandman became a supernatural character
Speaker 2: guarding the sleeping from nightmares, in particular a kid named
Speaker 2: Jed Walker remember that name. So even though he had
Speaker 2: had a seventies revival, and an early eighties revival and
Speaker 2: a late eighties revival, there was a book on the
Speaker 2: shelves called Sandman. When DC gave up. Until then yeoman
Speaker 2: comic writer Neil Gaiman the go ahead to give us
Speaker 2: a brand new Sandman. He did give us something new
Speaker 2: but deeply rooted in the old, The Sandman. Here is Morpheus,
Speaker 2: the lord of dreaming and a member of the Endless
Speaker 2: Seven Siblings, who embody all of the finest life has
Speaker 2: to offer. Dream death, delirium, destiny, despair, desire, and destruction. Morpheus, Yes,
Speaker 2: this is my Morpheus. Thank you very much. You human
Speaker 2: battery pill swallowers. Marfius controls both dreams and nightmares, and
Speaker 2: as I said, he's deeply tied to not only the
Speaker 2: earlier Sandman titles, but an entire host of other titles.
Speaker 2: Take Lucien Lucian is the librarian of the Dreaming Tending
Speaker 2: Dreams massive library inside his castle. That library contains every
Speaker 2: dream that ever was and every dream yet to be created.
Speaker 2: But I remember Lucian and his library a little differently.
Speaker 2: In the early nineteen eighties, I had tons and tons
Speaker 2: of horror comics from the nineteen seventies. When I say
Speaker 2: people did not value comics, here's what I mean. I
Speaker 2: could go to the five and dime Jesus, I sound old,
Speaker 2: but it literally was a Woolworth's and pick up a
Speaker 2: plastic bag that was stuffed with a couple of dozen
Speaker 2: old comics for a quarter. This was not the method
Speaker 2: of a collector, nor is it ideal if you appreciate continuity.
Speaker 2: But I got lucky because whoever was filling those bags
Speaker 2: had a pension for keeping genres together. So that's how
Speaker 2: I got three issues, the only three, as it turned out,
Speaker 2: of Tales of Ghost Castle. I just thought it was
Speaker 2: called Ghost Castle that's all the logo said. It was
Speaker 2: a horror anthology with Lucian as the host in a
Speaker 2: World War two eeric castle. So Gaman plucks my man
Speaker 2: Lucian from obscurity and plops him into the dreaming. Not
Speaker 2: just Lucian. As it turns out that castle in Transylvania
Speaker 2: abandoned by both Allied and Axis forces as being two
Speaker 2: supernaturally inhospitable, it's now Dreams Castle. Now, that kind of
Speaker 2: retrofitting is catnip, well not catnip, more like a sativa.
Speaker 2: It pumps you up and keeps you creatively crackling. Retrofitting
Speaker 2: like that is a sweet sativa for comic book nerds.
Speaker 2: I don't think it detracted one iota from anyone's enjoyment
Speaker 2: of Sandman that they didn't know where Lucian first came from,
Speaker 2: But it was another piece to keep me locked into
Speaker 2: this beguiling there's no other word for it, new title.
Speaker 2: Let me give you another example of that cross pollination.
Speaker 2: After my flirtation with Marvel and ghost Rider, I was
Speaker 2: pretty much all horror all the time, with no allegiance
Speaker 2: to any comic book company. But I did spend an
Speaker 2: inordinate amount of time with DC. Given d c's general
Speaker 2: dower nature, you tended to have way more horror characters,
Speaker 2: like the afore I mentioned swamp Thing. In fact, in
Speaker 2: the early eighties, Alan Moore retold swamp Thing's origin through
Speaker 2: his new elemental lens. Swamp Thing had appeared originally in
Speaker 2: House of Mystery, so Moore brought the two hosts of
Speaker 2: that title, Cain and Abel. Yeah, those ones and the house.
Speaker 2: The House of Mystery was founded in the fifties and
Speaker 2: it was a straight horror anthology to start, but by
Speaker 2: the seventies was deeply entwined with darker stories of all
Speaker 2: the DC's heroes. It wasn't uncommon for Martian Manhunter to
Speaker 2: be found stalking the halls. Cana Enable not only housed
Speaker 2: House of Mystery, but they had a comedy comic in
Speaker 2: the seventies called PLoP exclamation Point. So it was cool
Speaker 2: to see one of those earlier stories reinterpreted with these characters.
Speaker 2: And I guess it was double cool that ultimately Dreams
Speaker 2: servants inside the Castle are the very same canaanable. But wait,
Speaker 2: there's more. How about the three Mother Maiden and Crone,
Speaker 2: or as they were known as hosts of another anthology
Speaker 2: comic of the Witching Hour, Mildred, Mordred and Cynthia. They
Speaker 2: are all over Sandman and by the end, everybody fucking
Speaker 2: shows up. I'm talking Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. Can't
Speaker 2: get much bigger than them in DC. The first eight
Speaker 2: issues of Sandman are all place setting and are all
Speaker 2: more or less horror related, with Dream having been imprisoned
Speaker 2: for the twentieth century, re emerging and dealing with past business,
Speaker 2: a lot of the stuff we've been talking about, and
Speaker 2: finally settling back into his role as the head of
Speaker 2: the Dreaming. This collection is called Preludes and Nocturns, naturally,
Speaker 2: but it's the Dollhouse, the next nine issue arc that
Speaker 2: really cemented not only who the character and the world
Speaker 2: it inhabits is, but made the title a classic. Gaiman
Speaker 2: continues drawing from the original Sandman series, pulling in seventy
Speaker 2: Sandman Frequent Award Jed Walker and making his sister Row
Speaker 2: the center of the Dreaming and the overall arc of
Speaker 2: the story. Not only that they make Jed the mental
Speaker 2: prisoner of Glob and Brute the original Sandman's two sidekicks,
Speaker 2: but it's the original characters that made a much more
Speaker 2: indelible impression. Three fugitives from The Dreaming in our world,
Speaker 2: one of whom I'm not exaggerating I've thought of at
Speaker 2: least once a week for the past thirty five years.
Speaker 2: The Corinthian, a particularly virulent nightmare with snapping mouths for eyes.
Speaker 2: He's the inspiration for every serial killer who's ever lived,
Speaker 2: and is a fictional nightmare that gave me actual nightmares.
Speaker 2: The series was also wildly inclusive. A Gayman seemed a
Speaker 2: way ahead of the game, with characters of every race
Speaker 2: and gender and sexuality, not to mention of every time
Speaker 2: and every place on Earth. The stories wended their way
Speaker 2: through every culture, every mythology. All were welcome, and all
Speaker 2: were worthy. In The Dreaming, they'd be a total of
Speaker 2: ten collections from eighty nine to ninety seven Tony Love
Speaker 2: When There's a Definite ending in comics so fucking rare,
Speaker 2: during which we'd come to know Morpheus's lost love Nada
Speaker 2: and her internment in Hell. We'd follow dreams Younger completely
Speaker 2: oblivious sister Delirium in her questifining their lost brother destruction,
Speaker 2: and we'd be treated to a dozen or two standalone
Speaker 2: tales chronicling dream in every agent culture. It's an astounding
Speaker 2: and groundbreaking series. Ten collections could have been five. I realized.
Speaker 2: I say that about most things because I'm a big
Speaker 2: fan of economy and storytelling, which is something I think
Speaker 2: they figured out over at Netflix, at least in the
Speaker 2: case of showrunner Allan Heinberg. We'll get to game and
Speaker 2: I think his influences everywhere on the show, and I
Speaker 2: think he's important, but not as important as Heinberg shepherding
Speaker 2: the show and breaking it into its appropriate components. Because
Speaker 2: the series is a fucking long time coming, considering they've
Speaker 2: been talking about it since basically day one. In nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one, two years after the series' debut ted, Elliott
Speaker 2: and Terry Rossio, those Pirates of the Caribbean guys, were
Speaker 2: hired to write a script. Everyone will tell you it's terrible.
Speaker 2: It's not. It's just written so early in the Sandman's
Speaker 2: gestation that it's lacking the important continuity and context that
Speaker 2: would come. My favorite story about this time period is
Speaker 2: Roger Avery, who directed Rules of Attraction in Killing, So
Speaker 2: he convinced Warners to keep that script in play and
Speaker 2: let him direct it. Total insanity and then for his pitch,
Speaker 2: he showed them Jan Sponckmeyer's film Alice and told him
Speaker 2: that's what the Dream Sequences will look like. And then
Speaker 2: it was put in Turnaround and there was no movement
Speaker 2: for years and years, which is for the best, because
Speaker 2: John Peters, I've been in five hundred fights was attached
Speaker 2: to produce, and apparently the guy who didn't want to
Speaker 2: see Superman flying kept pushing Sandman to appear at a
Speaker 2: rave and duking it out with villains. In the early odds,
Speaker 2: there was a pretty good script by Jack Thorn which
Speaker 2: was going to be directed by Joseph Gordon Levitt, and
Speaker 2: he was going to star in the film, although he
Speaker 2: was never going to play Morpheus, although he'd be pretty good.
Speaker 2: He does have an imperious side no, being a very
Speaker 2: smart actor. He was going to play the Corinthian and
Speaker 2: I could see him doing very well in that role.
Speaker 2: That film fell apart because who cares. Finally, three years ago,
Speaker 2: three oh my god, twenty twenty two, that's when we
Speaker 2: got the first season of Sandman.
Speaker 3: I'm the King of Dreams.
Speaker 1: Ulder of the Nightmare.
Speaker 2: M What are you doing here, Ettie? He's coming in here?
Speaker 4: Yeah, lpheus dere near Emoza, you know the Sandway.
Speaker 3: He's a very story ette.
Speaker 4: He's no fairy story He's back good tonight.
Speaker 2: What the name of times I really have?
Speaker 1: Now? Forgive me?
Speaker 4: Sighed the palace them they are not as you left them,
Speaker 4: but you gone. The realm began to decay, and.
Speaker 3: The dreams of no longer seemed to recognize the monster
Speaker 3: world of mind.
Speaker 1: Tim he's free, he's Adam's cage.
Speaker 2: The font is correct. Little things matter, nerds, you know it.
Speaker 2: Tom Sturage, who made a terrific Lord Byron in a
Speaker 2: film called Mary Shelley from twenty seventeen, that only I've
Speaker 2: seen stars as Morpheus, Lord of dream the Sandman.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: In the mid nineties, I was pals with an actress
Speaker 2: who invited me to the set of The water Boy,
Speaker 2: where I watched her get arrested on screen for a
Speaker 2: couple of days, and everyone there called Adam Sandler's Sandman
Speaker 2: at some point or another. And I wonder now, as
Speaker 2: I wondered, then am I the only one who thinks
Speaker 2: about the dreaming and the Corinthian Every time they hear that,
Speaker 2: did Sandler at the very least did they think about
Speaker 2: Michael Myers and Halloween. These are Sandman references, y'all. Tom
Speaker 2: Sturage is excellent. The only way to top it would
Speaker 2: be to cast Peter Murphy straight out of the opening
Speaker 2: of The Hunger. Bella Lagosi is dead straight to camera.
Speaker 2: We've all come to that scene. You know, you have
Speaker 2: Tom Sturage, that imperiousness that I mentioned president in Joseph
Speaker 2: Gordon Levitt. It absolutely lives in Sturage's angular frame. Maybe
Speaker 2: it's an English thing, it certainly comes off the page.
Speaker 2: So it's nice to have it represented here. And I
Speaker 2: think that's what's most impressive about the series as a whole.
Speaker 2: It's all the little touches getting their due. As I said,
Speaker 2: the charm of the book, at least to an astute
Speaker 2: comic fan, was the cobbling together of comic lore, just
Speaker 2: as the comic itself was cobbling worldwide myth and legend.
Speaker 2: It felt comforting that the host of the House of
Speaker 2: Mystery comic was given the same heft as Hades or Lucifer.
Speaker 2: There was a bunch of the usual bitching about gender
Speaker 2: and or race when it came to casting this series.
Speaker 2: They cast a non binary trends human as desire. No,
Speaker 2: not the most androgynous character since Ziggy starred us. Don't
Speaker 2: give us that. It's too in line with the spirit
Speaker 2: of the original books.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: Even better, Kirby Hawl Baptiste was cast as the fucking
Speaker 2: pivotal role of Death. She is Dream's closest sibling, the
Speaker 2: only one who actually understands him. But that's because she
Speaker 2: understands everyone. If Gamon did one thing right, it's give
Speaker 2: us the personification of Death that we deserve, a gentle,
Speaker 2: understanding friend to greet you at the end of your life.
Speaker 2: It was a fascinating take on the character, free from
Speaker 2: all the trappings of the crypt and spared the usual
Speaker 2: serrements of the grave as clothing. Look, it didn't hurt
Speaker 2: that she's Susie Sue. I know that she's actually based
Speaker 2: on a model named Cinnamon. Would come on no matter
Speaker 2: the inspiration. You've all seen Death from the comics. She
Speaker 2: was fucking unavoidable. In the nineties with her unc and
Speaker 2: her eyeliner. Every comic book shop had the High Cost
Speaker 2: of Living poster up. So yeah, for me, that's visually
Speaker 2: how I want the Grim Reaper looking. But it was
Speaker 2: the character friendly. That's what I was really responding to.
Speaker 2: And if you don't see that in Kirby HALLI Baptiste
Speaker 2: and guess what, you're a fucking racist because she is
Speaker 2: that character, a character that makes me weep openly, and
Speaker 2: I'm also attracted to, which is weird. Overall, the cast
Speaker 2: is superb. The ones that really grab me are Gwendolen
Speaker 2: Christi as Lucifer morning Star, fucking perfect. I mentioned Park
Speaker 2: as desire sexy, scary, love it, Freddie Fox as Loki.
Speaker 2: This is actual asgard Loki, not Marvel trickster Loki. He's
Speaker 2: excellent with Billie Idle Vibes, Vivian A Champong as Lucienne.
Speaker 2: I hope I pronounced that right now. Okay, there's one
Speaker 2: lucy Anne that's a gender swamp and a race swamp.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you something. If you're bitching about the
Speaker 2: changes to that character and you met Lucian in the
Speaker 2: pages of Sandman, your opinion is invalidated by mine because
Speaker 2: I met Lucian when he was the host of Tales
Speaker 2: of Ghost Castle. And I'm cool with every swamp in
Speaker 2: Switcheroo here because Lucienne is that fucking character. Can we
Speaker 2: just take the Internet away from the fucking racist or
Speaker 2: is that more fascist thinking. The best casting though, is
Speaker 2: the Corinthian Boyd Holbrook. You know him, but you don't.
Speaker 2: You should, though. I first saw him in an independent
Speaker 2: flick from twenty fourteen called The Skeleton Twins that stars
Speaker 2: Bill Hayter and Kristin Wig. Oh. That must be hilarious.
Speaker 2: It's not. Do not watch it for comedy. It is
Speaker 2: not a comedy. It's a great fucking movie and I
Speaker 2: think about it a lot, honestly, and if you haven't
Speaker 2: seen it, you really should. Anyone surprised at how thoughtful
Speaker 2: an actor Bill Hater turned out to be in Barry
Speaker 2: wouldn't have been had you seen this movie. Incidentally, they
Speaker 2: did a read through of that Corman biopic that Jotante
Speaker 2: has been trying to get off the ground, and Bill
Speaker 2: Hayter read for Corman, and I just really want that
Speaker 2: movie to happen with Bill Hayter and not Quentin Tarantino,
Speaker 2: who's been clamoring for that part. Do not hire that
Speaker 2: man as an actor ever again. Hire Bill Hayter, star
Speaker 2: of Skeleton Twins, or Boyd Holbrook minor co star of
Speaker 2: Skeleton Twins Bond full on star of the Predator a movie,
Speaker 2: HP and I will be covering and our upcoming you
Speaker 2: guessed it, Predator Fest. If you can think of a
Speaker 2: better title than that, please let me know. Hit me up,
Speaker 2: FATHERM Malone seven one at gmail dot com. Anyway, Boyd
Speaker 2: Holbrook was mad Mickelson's right hand and the latest Indiana
Speaker 2: Jones flick. He was the villain in the logan You
Speaker 2: nerds love that one. I've never seen Narcos, but I
Speaker 2: guess he was in that too. He's great and he's
Speaker 2: perfect as the Corinthian that I mentioned that. He delivers
Speaker 2: such a swab and sexy scary performance, absolutely worthy of
Speaker 2: the character from the book. And they've expanded his role,
Speaker 2: making him the overall villain of the first season, which
Speaker 2: is wise, the more Corinthian, the better. I don't think
Speaker 2: they featured his freaky mouth eyes quite enough. I was
Speaker 2: hoping to be totally weirded out. Instead, for that feeling,
Speaker 2: you're gonna have to wait for season two. Enter Azazl.
Speaker 2: He's a demon lord, the demon lord, honestly, and he
Speaker 2: can transform into what can best be described as a
Speaker 2: sometimes boiling dark cloud, sometimes fleshy, awful thing with no
Speaker 2: eyes but floating multiple mouths, and by mouths, I just
Speaker 2: mean the teeth of many mouths that speak singly and
Speaker 2: sometimes together. It is cosmic terrestrial simultaneously, and it is
Speaker 2: altogether horrifying. It's everything in the moving image that the
Speaker 2: Corinthian was on the page. Speaking of second and final seasons,
Speaker 2: the first half of it dropped a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 2: and the entire series concludes this Thursday. That's July twenty fourth,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five. If you're listening in the future and
Speaker 2: love dates, we'll call you Julian. This review of the
Speaker 2: show in its entirety is being made without any knowledge
Speaker 2: of the five final episodes of the series, nor have
Speaker 2: I seen the adaptation of that sidebook Death The High
Speaker 2: Cost of Living that'll be out the week following the finale.
Speaker 2: So you might be listening in the future and already know,
Speaker 2: but I'm assuming those final few will be satisfying. The
Speaker 2: series overall has been weaving in standalone episodes in organic ways,
Speaker 2: dispensing with the useless, and giving us two fucking full
Speaker 2: seasons of essentially the entire run of the Sandman comic.
Speaker 2: It really feels like a kill your darlings. Let's boil
Speaker 2: the fucker down to its essentials and put out the
Speaker 2: best possible work situation, which doesn't mean they couldn't revisit it.
Speaker 2: My god, it's the dreaming, and there are other stories
Speaker 2: featuring these characters that would be fun to explore cinematically.
Speaker 2: But if I'm being honest, the story is told, and
Speaker 2: other than a total ground floor page one reboot with
Speaker 2: entirely new players, I think this is the only version
Speaker 2: we'll be getting for some time, and I'm good with that.
Speaker 2: The fixation on IP but what's left of the studios
Speaker 2: has kind of convinced us all that we should prepare
Speaker 2: ourselves for multiple iterations of properties as soon as interest
Speaker 2: in the last has faded. Whereas we used to be
Speaker 2: able to marinate in a story or a character or whatever,
Speaker 2: nowadays it's so fucking relentless that I'm glad there'll be
Speaker 2: some air between this iteration and the next. It's the
Speaker 2: reason that we won't be getting one for some time
Speaker 2: that's so fucking troubling, the very same reason that's been
Speaker 2: putting my separate the art from the artist muscle into
Speaker 2: convulsions for the past year or so. You, motherfucker. You
Speaker 2: were supposed to be the best of us. You were
Speaker 2: supposed to be a gentle voice of reason. I'm talking
Speaker 2: to Neil gaimandirectly. You were supposed to live on a
Speaker 2: higher plane of consciousness and inspire us up there with you.
Speaker 2: If you're triggered by abuse, this is the time to go.
Speaker 2: Enjoy the rest of your week. I'll talk to you
Speaker 2: on Friday. During the golden age of Sandman, when he
Speaker 2: was at every comic con I attended and holding late
Speaker 2: night readings for his superfans, he never mentioned he was
Speaker 2: a scientologist. He's disavowed membership since about two thousand and
Speaker 2: three in a court case, but he was working with
Speaker 2: them up until nineteen ninety nine. On one hand, I
Speaker 2: guess it's cool to grow up in a religion based
Speaker 2: on the writings of a terrible author and then you
Speaker 2: go on to be a pretty great author. I dig that.
Speaker 2: Who wouldn't. But Gaman recruited people to send authors brand new,
Speaker 2: totally above board religion. Gaiman was a high ranking auditor
Speaker 2: for years right after college. That's because his dad was
Speaker 2: basically Scientology Royalty in the UK. His dad, who went
Speaker 2: on a bunch of public hunger strikes for scientologist rights
Speaker 2: in the early seventies and was then labeled a suppressive
Speaker 2: person in nineteen eighty three, Incent Packing. That was when
Speaker 2: Neil was auditing. They kicked out his dad, and then
Speaker 2: Neil Gaiman married a fellow scientologist and kept affiliation with
Speaker 2: them for two decades and now kind of pretends that
Speaker 2: that didn't happen. Now, the scientology thing, I'd like to
Speaker 2: firmly state has no bearing on his behavior moving forward,
Speaker 2: the same behavior that means we're getting no more Sandman
Speaker 2: and probably no more good Omens or American gods for
Speaker 2: the foreseeable future. Those actions are Gamans alone, and his
Speaker 2: motivations are the same. And what sucks about the whole
Speaker 2: thing is it's too easy, because of the public's inexperience
Speaker 2: with the chosen lifestyle, for Gaman to hide what a
Speaker 2: cocksucker he really is. By the way, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to go into the full details here, this is not
Speaker 2: the show for that. For more information, go listen to
Speaker 2: what I listen to, a podcast called Master the allegations
Speaker 2: against Neil Gaiman The man is a wash in accusations
Speaker 2: of unwonted touching and groping and the usual dirty old
Speaker 2: man creepiness, But the bulk of the podcast deals with
Speaker 2: a very recent case with his child's nanny and their
Speaker 2: completely fucked up relationship. That one is made particularly murky
Speaker 2: by the constant exchanges by the two involved, all documented
Speaker 2: to the letter by the show. As Murphy are his
Speaker 2: dealings with a tenant on his property he straight up
Speaker 2: demanded sexuals favors from for their continued tendency. What a
Speaker 2: fucking shit show of a human and how utterly disappointing,
Speaker 2: given how fucking pedestrian it all is. Groping fans on
Speaker 2: book tours. I guess Tori Amos won't be mentioning you
Speaker 2: and liner notes anytime soon. And I say hiding behind
Speaker 2: a community because he seems fixated on one repeated act
Speaker 2: over and over. It involves punishment, and it uses some
Speaker 2: dom sub language, but it seems so fucking pathological that
Speaker 2: it's really a disservice to call it part of the
Speaker 2: BDSM scene. Fuck him. I'm fully separating art from artists here.
Speaker 2: I learned from the Sandman, and I cherish those lessons
Speaker 2: and I think those books are still valuable. And this
Speaker 2: series is two I hope it inspires, and in time,
Speaker 2: like all those American gods, like all those fallen heroes,
Speaker 2: we'll just forget about Neil and all that will be
Speaker 2: left is the Corinthian where that was a long one.
Speaker 2: I'm going to bed. I apologize for the frequency of
Speaker 2: the show recently. All it's a lot. I know I
Speaker 2: probably protest too much and I should probably just go
Speaker 2: back to once a week, but I remain committed to
Speaker 2: two shows. I like it, just maybe not the round
Speaker 2: up every week. To that end, we are currently doing
Speaker 2: Fusco Fest and Predator Fest is on the horizon, but
Speaker 2: future fests are on the table. I think horror is
Speaker 2: the direction we should be heading in, So send me
Speaker 2: your ideas. Just don't send me an idea like do
Speaker 2: the Friday the thirteenth movies. Do not condemn me that way.
Speaker 2: Think of a cool topic and we'll fucking go with it,
Speaker 2: and we'll probably have you on to talk. Yes, I
Speaker 2: am that tired Ripley Jean. She says goodbye. I'm saying goodbye.
Speaker 2: Check us out on Friday. We've got HP returning to talk.
Speaker 2: Fantastic four. That's Roger Corman's fantastic for you think people
Speaker 2: are sending us screeners. Oh no, no, no, no, no no,
Speaker 2: But seriously, somebody should hook a fake priest up. I'll
Speaker 2: do thirty minutes on your new movie. I'll even lie
Speaker 2: and say it's good.
Speaker 1: Nah.
Speaker 2: If it sucks, i'll be fair, but i'll be honest.
Speaker 1: Ah.
Speaker 2: Okay, we gotta go. Let me leave you with some
Speaker 2: thing that's not from that son of a bitch, You
Speaker 2: fucking betrayer, you fucking medium human with your fucking boring
Speaker 2: sexual fixations. Lamo, this is from Dexter Surprise.
Speaker 5: Motherfucker.
Speaker 4: Are you following me now?
Speaker 5: Better have a hell of a reason for being here.
Speaker 5: I'm looking for my sister in a cargo box.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm kind of working on a theory.
Speaker 5: Forget you work for the fucking cops. We love theories.
Speaker 5: Come on, spend me a story, asshole.
Speaker 4: What I do on my time is my business.
Speaker 5: Sergeant, Yeah, me too, and I'm on my time now.
Speaker 5: There's no lieutenant here to save your ass, so don't
Speaker 5: fuck with me. Morgan.
Speaker 2: All right, you got me.
Speaker 3: I ordered some furniture from Thailand. I was waiting for.
Speaker 4: It to beat delivery. I have to keep my assay.
Speaker 2: The hell's going on over here, so here. I need
Speaker 2: to get somebody down here right now.
Speaker 5: Mind me, Metro PD gabble. Is this guy under arrest?
Speaker 3: That's a good question.
Speaker 5: You're connected to this. I don't know how, but I'm
Speaker 5: gonna find out, and some of what I find is
Speaker 5: gonna stick to your ass.