The Grey NATO – 291 – Film Club Vol. 11

Published on Thu, 04 Jul 2024 06:00:00 -0400

Synopsis

This podcast episode covers a wide range of topics, including upcoming merchandise and events, film recommendations, and discussion on various products. The hosts, James and Jason, start by announcing that they will be launching merchandise soon and mentioning an upcoming breakfast meetup at a watch fair in Chicago. They then move on to their "Film Club" segment, where each host recommends five films they consider good summer movies or films worth watching. Jason's picks include "Against All Odds," "The Natural," "The Russia House," "The Hurt Locker," and "Drive My Car." James recommends "Phone Booth," "Gattaca," "I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore," "The Creator," and "The Killer." In the final notes section, they discuss a waterproof zipper pouch product and glow-in-the-dark zipper pulls.

Transcript

Speaker
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 291. 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're listening and would like to support the show, please visit thegreatnado.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?
Jason Heaton Good. Yeah, it was a really fun trip. 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 Chicago. But then I'm looking forward to being home kind of for most of the month of August. I think that would be nice. But no, I mean, all things considered, it was a great trip. The folks at Topper were great. It was a wonderful dive watch night event. Nice. It looked great. Really, really well attended. I think they said there were about 120 people that came and some old friends showed up. Jeff, the expedition leader from my Oceania 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 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. 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 and a and some trivia afterwards and nice. And then before that I sat down with Russ, Rob and Zach and recorded an episode of the, uh, Berlin game and park podcast. That's the topper jewelers in the house. podcast that they run. And that episode, I believe goes up this Friday. So the day after this episode, so we can, we can throw a link in the show notes to kind of their main page. Um, and it was a fun discussion. Those guys are just, they're just a blast there. They love their watches. They love their dive watches. They had some good stories to tell. And, uh, yeah, it was a, it was a great time and then went, went diving on Sunday. So it was, it was like a whirlwind weekend. I got there Saturday at about midday and got home last night.
James Stacey So nice. Okay. That's great.
Jason Heaton Yeah. How was the diving? Diving was perfect. Um, I got up really early on Sunday, left my hotel at around 6 AM. And, uh, Kevin, uh, my friend, he, he lives in Oakland and he drove down and we met in Monterey, right, like right in the heart of downtown. And, and, you know, the cool thing about diving there is it's, you know, like literally it's street parking next to like a Mexican restaurant and the beach was right there. We dove a place called McAbee beach and you know, I pull up, Kev's Jeep is, is parked there and I pull up behind him and feed the meter for four hours. And we suited up right there on a, on a bench with the Mexican restaurant, you know, music blaring in the background and walked right down kind of in this between a couple of buildings, right onto the beach and out into the ocean. And it was, it was great, really accessible, easy entry. And we surfaced, swam out to a kelp bed and went down and had a good long good long dive. It was about, you know, 45 feet max. And so we got, uh, close to an hour, uh, underwater and it was, uh, it was a little chilly by the end, but it was, uh, it was great. Visibility was, was tremendous for, for Monterey and must've had 25, 30 feet of viz. And, um, you know, just a lot of, a lot of color, a lot of, I love swimming in kelp. And then we had a, uh, towards the end, we had this fat Harbor seal that was kind of following us around and nipping at fins and that sort of stuff. So that was, That was good. Yeah, it was great. That's great, man. Yeah. And I took, I took a bunch of a bunch of photos and I, you know, for a trip like this, it was, it was kind of easier to take that oceanic housing along. And I know you've got one too and mean to get to using that at the cottage and whatever. And it's kind of perfect for like where you don't want to lug a big camera around or you're not really concerned about getting specific shots. It's just sort of a way to, you know, record a dive or some, some noodling around underwater. And it worked really well. I really am enjoying using that for kind of the easier sort of dive excursions. So that was another positive as well.
James Stacey Yeah, that's great. I had mine at the cottage this weekend. 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, July 1st, which is Canada Day, it was actually quite sunny and warm. We did 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. So I didn't bother going through the whole process of setting up the phone and getting it all set and ready to go. But I definitely will sometime this summer. I had a great snorkel, tons of fish, came across a pretty good size muskie, which is a first for me in the lake, maybe not quite two feet. He was just prowling One of the neighbors at the cottage must have had a failure with one of their boats and it sunk. Oh no. And then 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, 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 where I assumed the back, you know, 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. So that's where I found the muskie. He was just kind of patrolling. He didn't, he wouldn't turn towards me, which I think is kind of 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. Cause 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.
Jason Heaton Freshwater Barracuda, right. They're, they're just, uh, So menacing looking.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. 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 kept a pretty low profile, you know, with it being Canada Day and then now I'm back and, you know, we've got another holiday in a couple of days. This will come out on July 4th, actually. So happy Independence Day 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 short week, let alone a week with technically two holidays for me. Yeah. Yeah. It can stack up for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. Well, we got a fun episode today. Why don't we jump into wrist 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 of 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 dragging our feet. It's just that we've both been busy. Um, we do have merchandise coming. So I know that people have been asking for, T-shirts and caps and that sort of stuff. Well, we're about to kind of kick off kind of our summer launch, albeit a little bit late into the summer, but stay tuned for the next week or two. We'll be announcing some fun stuff that should be easy to order and easy to fulfill and get out to folks before summer's over. So yeah, stay tuned for that.
James Stacey Yeah, we think we found a solution that's going to work for us. 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 kind of finals on that. So I'd say, you know, yeah, episode 292, 293, somewhere in there. If what you're really waiting for is a hat, that's going to be a early fall sort of scenario. 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 500 hats. So we might delay that to the start of the school season when we get back into a certain gear. So that should be good. I am pretty pumped to see that finally come together.
Jason Heaton And then, as I mentioned earlier, off to Chicago on, gosh, next weekend. So not this coming weekend, but the following for window. And we have been talking a lot about our kind of collaborative breakfast meetup with Citizen on the Sunday morning of the show, and we put out the RSVP last week, and it filled up pretty fast. 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 leap on board so quickly, which is a good thing, but also... Yeah, it's a bit of a bummer, though.
James Stacey It's like a mixed bag. Yeah. Um, so 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, kind of had, uh, in, in the circle last year, or at least close to. And, uh, I think this year is just a little bit more busy or maybe being a Sunday morning, there's less going on. So there was 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 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 wind up watch fair. Uh, and we'll go from there. And obviously if we don't get to see you for the breakfast, I'm still going to be there all day. Saturday. Uh, we'll be there Sunday afternoon after the breakfast. Uh, so those will be chances to, uh, to get together. And certainly if you're on the slack, there's a couple other little hangouts being organized, not officially through. a brand or Jason or I, but just in general. So I think we'll still have a chance to touch base and, and connect and say hi, but I, I genuinely, these things can be, we're a little out of our depth planning events. Like we, we never really know how many people are going to come. We, we tried to add a good enough buffer this year and it, it doesn't look like it was 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, to hang out at the show. Uh, on, 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 going to, I probably will be there some hours on Saturday cause, 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 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, please do say hi. Should be a fun time.
James Stacey Alright, with the 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 fully in the broken record phase of my summer, still wearing the 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 put on it 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 a, 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 in 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 Blancpain Bathyscaphe Hodinkee limited edition from a few years ago. The 38 millimeter no date version, just a fantastic piece and enjoyed kind of showing it off to people at the event on Saturday night. And then it was really fun to take a diving on Sunday. Cause I hadn't, you know, Ghoshani wears this watch a lot more than I do and she's had a diving quite a few times, but I had only taken it deep once, I think. 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 kind of addicted to these Garmin ultra fit Velcros and I got a 20 millimeter now. So I've got 2022 and then the big, gosh, I think it must be 26 or something for that. The descent, but yeah, the 20, 20 works really well on this. And given how small the watches and how slim it is with this very soft Velcro strap, it's just a super comfortable. So
James Stacey Enjoying that today. Good pics 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 the next couple of shows more extensively as we normally do. But today is actually volume 11 of the film club. So we haven't done a film club since episode 250, 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 you're brand new to the show or like you haven't been listening since two 50, uh, film club, super easy. It's just Jason. I each pick five movies that we would recommend people to check out. Usually 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. Uh, 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.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Yeah. and i just constantly have our i have like a google sheet with everyone we've ever picked i'm just control effing every time i pick a a new film so i believe that that i have double checked both of our lists i believe we're not doubling up on anything here uh but this is these are always really fun episodes they're a complete break from the normal pace so without further ado film club volume 11 and jason's gonna kick it off with his first film
Jason Heaton All right. I'm going back to 1984. So this is, I, to me, this is, this is kind of a, I've got two very kind of quintessential summer films and I don't know why this one reminds me of summer, 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 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, and this is, this is, you know, kind of peak eighties stuff. Um, there are some great cars and great watches and, and kind of great eighties cast, I guess. Um, the director is Taylor Hackford. you know, Jeff Bridges was kind of arguably in his prime in the eighties. Uh, you know, he, he'd done King Kong of course in the seventies 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 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, it 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 of course, a love story. There's a great chase scene that happens in Los Angeles, um, with, I believe James Woods and Jeff Bridges, they're both in quintessential sort of mid eighties sports cars, a nine 11 and a, and a Ferrari. 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 sort of film from the 80s. So yeah, and good soundtrack too. I think the Phil Collins theme song from the title song is pretty good too. So yeah, check it out.
James Stacey Oh, nice. Okay. Yeah, 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 mention of it in the past, so that's exciting. a fresh one to add to the list, a big James Woods fan, Taylor Hackford. Yeah, this looks like an absolute winner and super summary, even just from the cover. Yeah, yeah. A couple of smooching on the beat. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So all right, we've got the first film of volume 11 of Film Club. I'm going to kick it off with, this is tough, I'm going to go to 2002. to a movie I haven't thought about in a very long time, but I think about quite fondly, and I probably saw maybe three or four years ago for whatever the most multiple time is, it's called Phone Booth. And the summary is, publicist Stuart Shepard finds himself trapped in a phone booth pinned down by an extortionist sniper's rifle. Unable to leave or receive any outside help, Stuart'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 Colin Farrell as the fellow who's 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 sniper is voiced by Kiefer Sutherland. Oh, great. And then Forrest Whitaker is also in the film. This is a really interesting film. 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. It would have been done in a different way than Schumacher, but it has that sort of we're trying things feel to it. I really like this. I'm a huge Colin Farrell fan. Obviously, this is when he was more in like a heartthrob era than the more serious actor era that we've seen in the last several years, like probably since In Bruges. another fantastic film. Well, we're just dropping dropping names here. 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. 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'm a big fan of this one.
Jason Heaton Cool. 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. Sounds good. We'll check that out.
James Stacey Yeah. I mean, look, we're, we're a little over a hundred movies at this point. I think this is 102 we've done at this now with a, with phone booth. So they're not all going to be classics. And I did try and break a little bit of like a couple of things I saw from the last year, even that I really liked. And then just some stuff that I always kind of think should make it to the list, but maybe not in the first hundred.
Unknown Yeah.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And, and as an aside, speaking of Hitchcock, I, I did watch North by Northwest for the first time in, decades on a flight flight back from, I guess it was probably from, from London a couple of weeks ago. And I'd forgotten what a great movie that is. So anyway, that might've been volume one of film club, if I'm not mistaken, it might've been a very early one of your recommendations.
James Stacey So it's so high on my list. It would not surprise me if it was volume one or two for sure.
Jason Heaton What have you got for pick number two, number two, I'm going to stay in 1984 and another great summer film. This is a, this is the natural, um, uh, 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 and unknown middle aged batter named Roy Hobbs with a mysterious past appears out of nowhere to take a losing 1930s baseball team to the top of the league in this magical sports fantasy. With the aid of a bat cut from a lightning 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 this is a baseball movie, but it's absolutely peak Robert Redford. I'm such a massive Robert Redford fan 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, it's, it's one of those kind of goosebump movies where it's like, 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 and in all of these situations and confident. And, uh, I don't know, there's just, this movie gives me a really warm feeling and, you know, it's, it's, you know, here we are at the 4th 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 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, but it would have been 20 years ago. Yeah. So I definitely need, I don't like you 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 for sure. Yeah. So the natural, that's a good one. Yeah. Yeah. And certainly from a, like a, like a beloved sort of piece of Americana from, from Levinson and 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.
Jason Heaton Oh, he's so good for sure. I mean, you can do a whole film club with Redford. I mean, the guy's just easily people talk about McQueen and I think Redford Yeah, I think Redford's like my top kind of icon. Him and Newman, but I think, you know, people talk about McQueen. I think Redford is the guy for me. It's Redford for me, for sure.
James Stacey 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 45 hours long and it's a lot of two different guys in turtlenecks talking to each other. just like just fine. Yeah, I like it, but like I don't find that movie to be especially like re watchable or the term. Yeah. Whereas I, you know, something like three days of the condor. Let's go. Yeah. Yeah. Spy game. Let's go. Like he's got just it's endless. Like with Redford, you could go for. Oh yeah. All the president's men. Like I could go downhill racer easily do. Yeah, you could easily do sneakers. So many good ones, man. So many good ones. That's a good one. The natural 1984. I love it. Alright, I am going to jump to... I'm gonna jump backwards to 1997, the one that I assume is the one that you've seen, which is a movie that I checked several times if it was on our list, because I love this movie. And 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, I could see that. And so this is Andrew Nichols' Gattaca, And 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. Andrew Nichol just does an incredible job with it. It's Ethan Hawke 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 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 Hawke cannot be a an astronaut, but that's all he wants. So he makes a deal with a guy who is genetically perfect but physically not able, where he trades him for his hair and other DNA sources so he can fake being this guy and with the dreams of becoming an astronaut. I just... This movie's great. If you haven't seen Gattaca, it's a really special thing. It's a great movie. Same guy that did The Truman Show, and then in a similar format to Gattaca, Nichols did a movie I also really liked several years later called In Time with Justin Timberlake, where all currency is how much time you have left to live. Whoa. Wow. And so everybody has a little 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 fascinating. And again, it's the same thing where it's a lot of mid-century aesthetic and brutalist architecture. I'm a big fan of this guy's movies for sure.
Jason Heaton Yeah. That's, that's great. 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 got to watch that one again. Cause Ethan Hawke 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 that role.
James Stacey Yeah, I mean, the three of them in one movie in 1997 is great. Uma Thurman, Ethan Hawke and Jude Law. Oh, yeah. And I'm just such a huge Jude Law fan, Ethan Hawke as well, just big, big fan. And I love the premise of the film is great. And then the subtlety with which they kind of interweave trauma and the way that these elements of nature versus nurture and all into a kind of wider storyline, all with the pinning of space travel in the future and that sort of thing. It's a very interesting film. Very cool. Good pick. All right. What do you got for number three?
Jason Heaton Yeah, I'm just going chronologically, just I guess out of laziness, but I'm going to move forward with a very different one from my previous two picks. And it's another kind of blockbuster movie. The Russia House from 1990. 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 Le Carré. So it's, it's like Le Carré meets Bond. I mean, and, and then the co-writer on this was Tom Stoppard, this tremendous, uh, writer of stage and screen screenplays. Michelle Pfeiffer plays the beautiful Russian woman, Roy Scheiders in it. Um, it's got, uh, Michael kitchen, James Fox. Um, yeah, just, um, just a great film. And I think, you know, I watched this not too long ago and I don't know why I'd put it off for a while. I remember seeing it years ago and I thought, ah, you know, a lot of Connery's movies, like the guy had such a, 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, plays like in a jazz band. 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'd done quite a bit of shooting over there and 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 Le Carré 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 trader and, Um, the little drummer girl and, and something like this, 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 one. That's great.
James Stacey 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 the Russia house. I didn't know who was in it. I didn't know what it was about. So this is another one I can add to my list for this week. Maybe get to it this weekend. I think you'll love it. Yeah. This looks great. Yeah. Yeah. I do. I do love a post bond Connery. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he's in, he's gotta be in at least two other film clubs with, you know, the first one that jumps to mind would be hunt for red October, but that's not the only one. Yeah. that we've got in there and just great stuff. And anything from Lecrae is going to 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. It's a movie I really enjoyed. I've watched a few times since it came out in 2017. It's from film club alum Macon Blair in a movie. He directed and wrote this, and it stars Melanie Linsky and 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. So you'll remember in previous outings of the Film Club, I've talked about Blue Ruin and The Green Room. Those are both movies by Jeremy Saulnier that star his buddy, Macon Blair. Macon Blair made his, I believe, 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 Saulnier 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 Saulnier film and mixed it with a Coen Brothers film where it It still has a lot of shocking, violent moments, 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 and she's so funny in this. The two of them together on screen, it's entirely magnetic. It's just so much charisma in this film. I highly recommend it. It's a little goofy. It's definitely a little violent. It's not like a kid's 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 referential, like I said to, to Coen brothers into Tarantino, but it's all packaged up in this way that feels a little bit younger, a little bit 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. Yeah, the film kind of runs runs on its own pace. And 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, where I think some of this starts to line up and you start to see where some of these people just the kind of wealth of talent that's that's on display in a relatively straightforward film like this, but it's funny and really entertaining.
Jason Heaton 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 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 kind of flips out.
James Stacey I mean, how do we blank on that one? That's such a 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 just loses his mind and goes on a rampage. That is called... Oh, here, hold. Falling Down. Falling Down. There it is. All right. I might even leave that in live. Yeah. Us searching IMDb. Falling Down. Yeah, that is a cool movie. Yeah. Yeah. All right.
Jason Heaton What have you got for the fourth round? All right. Moving forward, a movie I watched 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, uh, directed by Catherine Bigelow, starring Jeremy Renner, Anthony Mackie. Uh, it was written by Mark Boll who also did, I believe Zero Dark Thirty. And, um, what else did he do? Um, Blackhawk Down, I believe. I mean, 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 two, et cetera. And I feel like there were a number of movies, the ones I even just mentioned that were kind of came out of the war on terror and kind of the first Gulf war, second Gulf war. And, um, and this is one of them. And, and let me read the 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'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's, it's, 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 just so palpable in this movie, um, that you almost, you almost are wincing and cringing at the, at the decisions he makes and the stuff he does. Um, and it's so good. Guy Pearce has a small role, um, at the beginning of the movie and I'm not going to give away what, you know, what Ralph signs.
James Stacey David Morse is an incredible cast. Anthony Mackie. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's a real good movie.
Jason Heaton 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 a, you know, you're into like the zero dark 30 mode or Black Hawk Down or something, and you just kind of want that kind of really gritty kind of early knots sort of a movie. This is a, this is the way to go. Just, just so, so good. I can't say enough about this movie. It was, It was such a good rewatch. And it makes me want to watch some of these others that I just mentioned, just to kind of get that out of my system, I guess.
James Stacey So, yeah. Yeah. 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 don't think I'm mixing up the timelines, 2008, 2009 was Avatar. Oh yeah. Yeah. And I just, I did not have 25 seconds for Avatar. I still don't. 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. Like I get it. It looks, it looks kind of cool. Okay. Um, and then to see Catherine Bigelow get the Oscar, of course, her ex was James Cameron. It was kind of 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 Bowles been, you know, connected with, he also produced triple frontier, which is a past Actually, I bet you his name's on a ton of movies that we've talked about in the last ten ones, because he had Triple Frontier and several others. There's just kind of a guy with a pretty prolific body of work in producing and writing for that stuff. But if somehow you missed Hurt Locker back in 08, or you're on the younger side of our audience, this is an intense movie. Yeah, it is. It really is. A really intense film. 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. It's crazy. Yeah. So tense. Yeah. Yeah. This is definitely one worth a watch if you haven't seen it. All right. And for my fifth round, I'm going, we're moving on to movies that were made last year, 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 2023. It's by Gareth Edwards. Uh, you would know Gareth Edwards from his work on rogue one is probably his biggest film before the crew, probably bigger than the creator in general, but he directed and wrote along with Chris Weitz, uh, the creator and the creator is a John David Washington and a cast of so many people that you would enjoy that you 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 matrix or a I mean, it's most movies at a certain point, you know, like where somebody said a Star Wars, like somebody's destined to fill this role and you 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 believe I had mentioned I'd 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 Runner and Apocalypse Now, and that's pretty, pretty dang good. Wow. Okay. That hooks me. It doesn't have the storyline of either of those, but it is this, if you cross those two settings, those two worlds, this is a world in which that movie, this movie would take place. Wow. I really enjoyed it. There's a few special effects things I've never seen before. 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, 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 very enjoyable. It's very much kind of anchored in its presentation of the world and the Android element and some of the metaphysical sides of all of it. But I enjoyed so much of this movie.
Jason Heaton I had never heard of this movie. And yeah, when I watched the trailer, I was like, yep, it's got me because of the, as you mentioned, kind of the similarity, that post-apocalyptic Blade Runner-esque sort of thing. And then, you know, AI seems to have got everybody's mind.
James Stacey But instead of a big city, they're in jungles. Yeah. It's cool. And I just adore John David Washington. Anything he's in, I'm gonna give it a chance. Yeah. I would say this is the sort of movie that... Is it perfect? No, I don't think so. It's got some flaws. Would I watch it every year for a while? Probably. Yeah. It's pretty fun. I liked it. And it did show me a world that I hadn't seen before. Um, 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 and very, everything was shot very quickly and 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 you enjoy sort of what I would call blended sci-fi. So you're not way out in space, 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 like that term blended sci-fi. I do. I don't care for the deep space, kind of everything's on some spaceship or floating space.
James Stacey Yeah, I like the Blade Runner format. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. It's so much fun. I mean, look, if you're going to do, but if you're going to do deep space, just give me alien. It's already been perfect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was also we're listing a lot of movies we've talked about. Yeah, yeah, yeah. An alien. But yeah, that's that's my pick for the creator from Gareth Edwards. Cool. All right.
Jason Heaton I've got one more for the final pick. Yeah. My final pick is fast forward to 2021. 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 central part of the film is the car in question, which is a, gorgeous red Saab 900 from probably the late eighties. 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. Um, it's one of those kind of quiet introspective films. Um, it won an Oscar. Um, 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's, it's got, you know, deep sadness. It has kind of that, that warmth you get, um, when you know, a relationship develops between characters that is not romantic. Um, but it has a, a real warmth to it and a compassion to it. I don't know. It's just, It's a, it's a feel good movie, but also one that kind of 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 really, really good movie. Very different from any of the other ones I mentioned today.
James Stacey Um, or probably very different from a lot, a lot that are on the list. Yeah, exactly. The, uh, I have not finished this. This is when 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, I think on an airplane, I liked quite a bit. Yeah. Yeah. Just for whatever reason, sometimes like a sad or a heavier film. I just I can't I don't want to do it. 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.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey So good. Yeah. So those that's your five. And I will round out mine with 2023 is the killer. And if you haven't seen this, this is a very new one, but this movie, it felt like a flop. Like I talked to people and a lot of people didn't like it. And then I had a sort of a small group of guys online who know my taste in movies and we're buddies and we talk about, they all wrote me saying, oh, the killers you're in, right? I was like, I'm definitely in. So this is a David Fincher. 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... Well, I'll start with the summary as I'm rambling already. I love this movie. 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 little thing 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 Fincher movie about an assassin would be like. Yeah. The weird thing is it's very slow and the movie is the killer. 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 and it's lived on my iPad for a while and I'll put it on an airplanes and watch a couple acts or whatever. It's shot all over the world. It's a Fincher, so it's gorgeous. Fast Bender is terrifying, but also really subtle. I don't typically attribute him to big performances. He 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. And it's a really, really fun movie that kind of feels like something that could have been made in the 70s. 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 just a taste of that tradecraft, 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 at it.
Jason Heaton Yeah. I love this film, actually. I'm with you. And it strikes me that there are several movies like this where the protagonist is very much an anti-hero, you know, someone who's 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 like, Oh yeah. It shows such skill to be able to, to, to act so minimally and yet convey so much. And then Fassbender totally does that. Yeah. This is good. In a way, it's like, um, did you ever see the movie, the American with George Clooney where he also plays an assassin? Like, I don't want to say it's a similar movie to that, but there, there's some element to that sort of meticulous preparations, um, element of it that, that I found similar.
James Stacey Yeah. And I, you know, I think the other thing that that's remarkable is just how, how, how much the movie works because of the voiceover. So you get a ton of commentary throughout the film from Fassbender. but sometimes it's hard to tell if he's talking to you, the audience, 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 and you attach into that dialogue with some frequency, like the first, I would say the first, the opening element of the film, 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 what he's good at or how he's gonna do this or that and that sort of thing. And yeah, I... Look, I get it if this movie's not gonna be for everybody. It's exceptionally violent. Yeah. It's a very dark presentation. It's largely humorless, but it's got Fassbender and Tilda Swinton and it's pretty good. I really... 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.
Unknown Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's good.
James Stacey And even the tagline execution is everything. That's perfect. Yeah. Right.
Jason Heaton That is perfect. 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, uh,
James Stacey I tried, I wanted to try and capture a couple of things that 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. And like my brother told me, and I had never heard of it. And he's like, oh, it's a Gareth Edwards sci-fi thing in somewhere in the future with John David Washington. I'm like, oh, those are all things that this movie should have found me faster, for sure.
Unknown Yeah, yeah.
James Stacey So your list started off with Against All Odds in 1984, and then also 1984's The Natural, both 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 additions to the list, I think.
Jason Heaton Yeah. And you started out with 1997's Gattaca. Then we moved into Phone Booth from 2002. I Don't Feel at Home in This World Anymore, which is one that's definitely on my soon-to-be-watched list. Then 2023's The Creator, another must watch for me. And then, uh, the killer from also from 2023. There we go. Really good. A good 10 films. Here we go. I, you know what I'm feeling is that like, okay, we, the last episode we did, uh, two 50 was in the summer, uh, late summer at that. Uh, here we are at the very beginning of July doing this one. I feel like this is like becoming a summer thing, you know, summer movie tradition film club.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey Well, we held the peg between our shared celebration of our country's, I guess, independence, right? Between July 1 and July 4. But I think it's time for some final notes. We've got kind of an interesting one. They're both two kind of inexpensive products. So why don't you go first for that?
Jason Heaton Yeah, sure. So on Sunday, when I was finished diving in Monterey, my friend Kev handed me something. He said, I brought this for you. It's from Hawaii. It's a Hawaiian brand called Aloha. And they make these, um, 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, building a house, um, or, or truck tarps or whatever else. But, Um, he gave me the medium sized one or the mid sized one. They've got a small, they've got an extra small or like a mini than 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. Um, and that's about it. And they come in different patterns. Kind of, he gave me one with like an octopus, uh, on, 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, 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 cause 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, you know, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, he's a, 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 going to 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 want to stow your phone somewhere 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 certainly great for summer, going to the beach or on a dive boat or whatever. So check it out. Aloha.
James Stacey Yeah. These look really good. And I like the idea of obviously it's become quite popular to have like some cross carry, like a fanny pack of some sort 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 and that sort of thing. And I think these little zippered pouches 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, 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 a material and, and the rest of it. And the other nice thing is that 20 bucks, if it's Tyvek, assuming things like the zippers are sewn on, well Tyvek lasts forever. Yeah.
Unknown Yeah.
James Stacey 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 love these sorts of things. And 20 bucks, like that's great. A perfect gift. Like you said, if it's not something you feel you would need, but I could definitely see dropping a few items in there and then carrying that in your hand is 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 pattern. That was regularly 34. So whatever, 30, 20, you know, still not that affordable. Yeah. So cool.
Unknown Cool. Good pick. How about you?
James Stacey 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. Cause 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 various concepts of 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 a bag of little glow-in-the-dark skulls that you're supposed to put on lanyards, and I've got a glow-in-the-dark paracord, which is very, very cool. That is cool. the best product of the ones I bought recently, the paracord's fine and 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 $8 for, I think, 10 or 12, and they're simply these chunky, they kinda look like they're milled out of C3 Luminova. but they're much harder, they're not powdery like Luminova would be, but they're these big chunky sort of zipper pulls that you... I put one on my camera bag, I just cut off the little paracord pull, they had kind of 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 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? Because you can't look for a flashlight. If you've dropped your flashlight, you can't use a flashlight to find it, right? And yeah, for eight dollars, I think these are great. I think they'd be perfectly fine on a jacket. I think that they'd be fantastic on a backpack, especially just to be able to mark something. But I think especially I put one on a flashlight and I'd probably, you know, hang one off of a camera strap or something like that if you needed to, and it just gives you this nice, very... The actual emission is quite bright, so you could charge it up with a flashlight or in the sun and you come in and they're legitimately bright enough that I had to cover them up in my bedroom because there was too much light in the middle of the night. So for eight bucks, I can't recommend these enough. These just make me feel like a five-year-old. It's great.
Jason Heaton That's awesome. I mean, you know, when you told me about this earlier, I was like, that's awesome. I love the idea of glow in the dark, anything, because you know, 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 sleeping bag zipper to sleeping bag zippers.
James Stacey Yeah. Yeah. You're always hunting around for that thing. You can never find the end. I mean, you don't want too many. You're able to keep you awake.
Jason Heaton Let's just be like fireflies everywhere.
James Stacey Yeah, they are. They are kind of bright. So you'd want to tuck them under something.
Jason Heaton 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 dark 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, yeah, there's no end to the, how you can use glow in the dark stuff. And it's also 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 without turning on a light.
James Stacey So yeah, these are great. Yeah. Kind of, kind of a simple, uh, silly, like some of you will be laughing. Like, why would you not? Everything has to go in the dark. I like it when stuff goes in the dark. Um, and, and especially you spend enough time 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 set of final notes, some fun little trinkets and a nice little zippered case, and then a solid 10 movies to watch before we get to this. Maybe we do volume 12 next June or July.
Jason Heaton All right. Well, that was fun. 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 agrenato.com. Music Throughout is Siesta by JazzArr via the Free Music Archive.
James Stacey And we leave you with this quote from Viktor Frankl who said, When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.