Saturday, March 31, 2018

Episode 61: Black Panther

Episode 61: Black Panther
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by: Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw

Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell and Frank Shaw
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw


Black Panther! This movie is fantastic, and we spill that opinion right off the bat going in. I manage to mangle the characters as I do, which, let's be honest was stupid of me, but that doesn't change our opinion of this film. 

John and I both feel, like many other critics and commentators (I'm not sure if we fit into either one of those categories) that this is important. Being written, directed, and having an almost entirely black cast and reaching the height of popularity that this film has is an important milestone in cinema. But...

John and I aren't qualified to speak about black identity politics, are the black experience. Neither of us are people of color, just two white guys from Utah, so we can't speak from a position of experience, but despite the topic of our podcast we do watch the news, we can see what's happening. Black Panther is not going to solve any of the problems that the black community faces in the United States. I could and perhaps should go into a tirade about mass incarceration, police brutality and income inequality of POC, but I'll save that for my personal blog and instead end with John's thought about Killmonger: "He's not wrong." No, he's not, his solution might not be the right way to solve the issue, but Killmonger isn't wrong. 

I'll leave it at that. I may personally write more on this on my personal blog, but until then please be in touch. Let us know you're thoughts we'd love to hear from you!

-Frank

Thursday, March 29, 2018

IT'S THROWBACK THURSDAY!






We're going back to our review of Luke Cage on Episode 29. We're joined by our friend D'Artagnon Wells where the conversations meanders from Pandemic Cthulhu, the Arrowverse, nihilistic children, and to video games before getting to the meat of the episode on Luke Cage. If you missed back then, listen now! It was a fun conversation and we want to have D'Artagnon back on the show again soon.


Episode 29: Luke Cage
Hosts: Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Special Guest: D'Artagnon Wells
Produced by Hobos in the Back Row
Scripting by Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw
Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell
Intro Music: Piano Sonata mvnt 1 by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Piano Sonata mvnt 3 by F.G. Shaw

Friday, March 23, 2018

Episode 60: Castlevania the Animated Series

Episode 60: Castlevania the Animated Series
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by: John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw

Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell and Frank Shaw
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw


John and I have a lot to say about this four episode series (so far). I liked it. John had some major issues, and he's complaints are not unfounded. The series, written by Warren Ellis has a tone of anti-religion to it, and that's not surprising given Warren Ellis' personal philosophy (which is heavily Humanist). I think the biggest sticking point for John is the mistreatment of the source material. The series is heavily based off Castlevania 3, and the series ignores some of the established lore of that game. 

One way to make the series more approachable, and make more logical sense for the narrative is to treat the first episode like a flashback episode and postpone it till last, or between episode 3 and 4. This helps the narrative flow, and puts less emphasis on Dracula, who is the focal point of that first episode. It's a recommendation, and one of the reasons I liked the series so much can likely be attributed to watching it in this manner.

That said, how do you feel about the series? Did you like series? Or did you feel like it was too ignorant of the source material. Let us know, we'd love your thoughts.

Thursday, March 22, 2018

Throw-back Thursday! Ep. 15 Jessica Jones on Youtube.

It's one of our more serious discussions (we used to have those now and then) on Jessica Jones season 1. We'll be talking about the second season very soon here, but until then, for throwback Thursday here's the new YouTube vid for it, as well as our original notes:



Episode 15: Jessica Jones
Hosts: Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Special guest: Matthew Ivan Bennett
Produced by Hobos in the Back Row
Scripting by Frank Shaw and John Belliston and Matthew Ivan Bennett
Edited by: Frank Shaw 
Intro Music: Piano Sonata mvnt 1 by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw

John and I are joined by playwright Matthew Ivan Bennett on this episode of the podcast to discuss Jessica Jones: What are our thoughts on the Netflix series? How does it portray female superheros? How well does it portray the survivor of domestic abuse? What are our thoughts about what's to come for Marvel Netflix series? We try to answer all those questions and more in the podcast.


There is one question we discuss above that have better sources than what we three are able to give and that's the matter of the survivor of domestic abuse. To start with here are several links where women give their response to Jessica Jones and how it portrays the victim/survivor role of Jessica in the series.



I have little commentary about the following links because the content is not to be sugarcoated, and nothing I say can do the job of the articles original authors. Each and every one of the following articles is worth a read, especially if you've watched Jessica Jones.



Here is the first link.
Here's the second link.
Here is a link to a Cracked article right in line with the previous two. 
And finally, here's a link with information about being "gas lighted" or psychology abused and manipulated.



None of the above links are particularly light reads. As well they shouldn't be. It's a pretty nasty topic but is something that needs to be addressed, and confronted. As you'll read in the articles, Jessica Jones does a great  job of doing just that.

Wednesday, March 21, 2018

Video for Episode 59: What's Interesting: Oscars, games and stuff.

Hey, it's the video for Episode 59: What's Interesting. Give it a watch, there's a lot of fun stuff in this episode, and if you haven't listened to it yet then it's worth a watch.




If you want to submit questions for John's Bad Advice, then you can email us at: relevant2rinterests@gmail.com
Tweet @r2interests, @lojakz or @jrbelliston on Twitter or leave a comment down below. We'd love to read your questions on the show. 

Friday, March 16, 2018

Episode 59: What's Interesting: Oscars, Games and Stuff


Episode 59: What's Interesting: Oscars, Games and Stuff
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by: John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw
Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell 
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw

So the Oscars have come and gone, and John actually likes the movie that won this year. Neither of us are big on the Oscars, which is odd for us being a podcast primarily about movies and television, but for those that haven't figured it out: John's primarily interested in cartoons -both mature and children's, animated feature film, and genre TV shows. I am interested in all that too, but I'm also into movies. I like the serious films, but I love the quirky independent movies right along side the bizzare b-grade sci-fi. So when we talk about a movie, unless I'm doing a solo episode (as I've done in the past) then we're talking about stuff that appeals to both of us, or that John really hates or has some level criticism for. The Shape of Water is one of those rare Oscar-bait movies that appeals to John. I haven't seen it (yet), but the fact that it won best picture makes our idiosyncratic corner of the internet a little bit happier. 

Now for Breath of the Wild and Golf Story. If you're a Zelda fan and you haven't played this game yet, go find a copy of it and play it! It's amazing! Despite it's flaws it'll astound you. 

Golf Story was a quirky surprise. I went off on the developers about it on my @lojakz Twitter account because of how much I hated the disc golf segments. I really, really hated them. But the rest of the game is great, especially if you like retro arcade style golf games and RPG's. I don't know what it is about the mixing of both of those genres, but it really worked here. So if you have a Switch, and some spare change, pick this up on the E-shop

Michael B. Jordan is an awesome guy! That is all there is to say about that. 

The Grimlock MtG card I didn't know much about. It was released (along with the cards Nerf War and the Sword of Dungeons and Dragons) for HASCON (Hasbro Con) 2017. It's not a cheap card by any means as there's not a lot in print. John's brother is amazing, that's all that can be said about that. I look forward to playing against John on his next visit and seeing his new commander deck in action.

The thoughts on modern cartoons? Well this has been a theme throughout this podcast. We've discussed Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Duck Tales, Gravity Falls, and Stephen's Universe at length. There's a lot more discussion coming up. John feels strongly about animation, and I love it because it's a nice escape after the grinding news day (or the grinding day at work). We'll be dived into are thoughts on modern cartoons and we'll dig deeper as we talk about later seasons of those series, plus jump into shows like: Samurai Jack, Avatar the Last Airbender, Legend of Kora, Wakfu, Adventure Time and a whole lot more. 

So that brings us to synesthesia: John's brief explanation, and our discussion doesn't even come close to scratching the surface. Wikipedia is the place to start. I know little about the topic other than what I learned in music history classes years ago, and some conversations with musicians that have it. John's experience may be unique, and the conversation I think gives a little insight to you, the listener, on John and perhaps some of the quirks of the podcast as well. The conversation going forward is fascinating and I know John will be doing more research. If any listeners happen to have synesthesia please reach out to us, we'd love to talk to you about it and get your perspective. 

Finally: John's Bad Advice. 
Don't ever take his advice, even when I say that it sounds like sound advice. It's terrible, it really is. That being said, you should totally submit questions to John's Bad Advice. We will feature you on the show, and if you give us permission we'll use your whole name. 

Thursday, March 15, 2018

Throwback Thursday! Episode 1: Daredevil Season 1 now on YouTube!

Hey folks!

It's come to our attention here at Relevant to Our Interests (Relevant 2 R Interests) that we've got a large backlog of episodes. So we thought it might be a brilliant idea to start doing Throwback Thursdays. Especially as we are slowly creating videos and uploading our back catalogue to YouTube, it's time to share some of the old content here in the new form.

So without further ado:




And for those that want to listen to the original episode, check it out on Soundcloud here!





Saturday, March 10, 2018

Episode 58: A Series of Unfortunate Events



Episode 58: A Series of Unfortunate Events
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw

Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell and Frank Shaw
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw



Man! What I can I say about this series that we didn't already talk about in the podcast? Not a lot honestly. I'm very excited for season 2. In fact here's the trailer for season 2 and it looks amazing 


Until season 2 releases we really don't have much more to talk about. Neither John or myself have read the books, but we both love the series. Listen to the episode to hear all our thoughts, but know that if you haven't seen season 1 yet, we have no compunction about spoiling the plot.

*We want to acknowledge that we did get the sequence of events wrong in our summary for episode 6 of the series. The kids do go to the restaurant with Mr. Poe and Count Olaf before they discover the code and go to rescue Aunt Josephine. 

Saturday, March 3, 2018

Episode 57 What's Interesting: Valentines Day, What's John Watching?

Episode 57: What's Interesting: VD, John's Watching
Produced by Relevant to Our Interests
Hosts: John R. Belliston and Frank Shaw
Scripting by Frank Shaw and John Belliston
Edited by: Frank Shaw
Graphic Design by: Nathan Newell 
Intro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw
Outro Music: Morning Activities by F.G. Shaw

So, to start with I chat about my Valentines day. I talk a bit about what me and my Lady did. 
Here's a pic of the mug and some of the Maker's Mark, and the whiskey stones in their bag. 


The bourbon is almost gone, the stones are fun, but honestly? I love that mug. I drink out of it nearly all the time now. And not just alcohol. I do want to put up a correction: During the podcast I said I got my lady a lily, that was incorrect: it was actually an orchid, which is a cooler flower in my opinion. 

The other thing I want to plug is the YouTube channel! We have one now, and we're slowly getting content uploaded. As of writing this there are four videos uploaded. We're currently getting about 2 up every week and a half, but that pace will quicken. They consist of still images over the audio, but my Lady is doing some fun stuff with them. Check it out and subscribe. Watch some of the episodes that you're curious about. Hell if you wonder what John and I look like, it's worth watching about 5 minutes just to see us... or not. 
Here's the video for this episode:



John's been playing a lot of Destiny 2, and while he does he has Netflix or Hulu on to help break up the monotony of the grind. He talks about three separate series he's been watching. 

First up: Comedy Bang Bang! This bizarre talk show on IFC has some very surreal funny moments. I personally have only watched the first season, but if you like bizarre comedy this is worth checking out. You can watch full episodes at the IFC page for the series here. Scott Aukerman also does a podcast for the show here.

John's also been watching Part's Unknown with Anthony Bourdain. Bourdain is the real deal. And lover him or hate him, you can't deny that he's not being himself. I have yet had the chance to watch Part's Unknown, but it's on my list. Here's the website for the series. It's worth checking out. 

Finally! John's started watching the Joel McHale Show. It's a weekly talk show releasing on Netflix starring that one guy... Joel McHale. I honestly had to see a picture of him to remember who he was. I guess I need to sit down and watch Community. If you're a Netflix subscriber, then just search for it and it'll be the first option that appears. 

Also... John's Bad Advice!