The Wait For It Podcast
Hosted by MrEricAlmighty and PhilTheFilipino, the guys discuss all things in Pop Culture from movies, gaming, anime and anything in between. New episodes every Wednesday, all you have to do is...WAIT FOR IT!
The Wait For It Podcast
2024 End of Year Awards!
What happens when you blend the year's most captivating films, thrilling games, and unforgettable music into one epic podcast episode? Join us on The Wait For It Podcast as we take you through our highly anticipated 2024 Year-End Awards Recap. We're not just revisiting the year; we're celebrating it with insights and opinions that spotlight the best and the brightest in entertainment. Expect captivating clips and contributions from many of our friends and fellow content creators along the way!
As we journey through this vibrant year of entertainment, don't miss out on our humorous and heartfelt takes on what made 2024 truly special.
This year's categories are:
- Best Picture
- Best Animated Picture
- Best TV Show
- Game of the Year
- Anime of the Year
- Song of the Year
- Artist of the Year
Thank you to this year's contributors:
Kory T from The World is My Burrito Podcast
IvanPatch
Urban Weirdo
Andrew from FN'Gamers
Retro AV Rewind
Badr from The Short Box: A Comic Book Talk Show
Jay and Eli from Super Bracket Bros
Soupninjaha
& Philline!
🔻You can find all important links for the podcast over at https://linktr.ee/waitforitpodcast🔺
🔻BACKGROUND MUSIC PROVIDED BY:
LAKEY INSPIRED - Distant - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6KmHnXyKIQ
🔺
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Speaker 2:Wait for it Gaming. Wait for it Anime.
Speaker 1:PLUS ULTRA.
Speaker 2:Mr Eric Almighty and Phil the Filipino. Yeah, they've got you covered, and all you gotta do is wait for it.
Speaker 3:This is the Wait For it Podcast.
Speaker 4:Hey everyone, Welcome back to the Wait For it Podcast. I am your co-host, Phil Barrera, aka Phil the Filipino.
Speaker 5:And I'm your other co-host, mr Eric Almighty, and we finally made it to the end of 2024, to the most anticipated award show of the season. The entire year it's led to this Welcome to the Wait for it podcast. 2024 end of year awards.
Speaker 4:Yes, hello, to all of the news outlets that are tuning into this episode to see where we and some of our friends of the show have landed in terms of the best of 2024. As we always say, this is the most acclaimed award show in all of pop culture and, you know, I think the numbers will will reflect that, as we'll be quitting all of this very soon and you'll see us on the red carpet any day now. So, eric, very excited to go over 2024 with not only yourself, but also some of our friends it's gonna be a good time.
Speaker 5:this is gonna be one of our longer episodes, really recapping the year, both a celebration and just a look back at the highs and the lows that the year had to offer in film, gaming, anime and beyond. So really, really excited just to break all of that down here. If this is your first episode, wow, you're in for a doozy. Thanks for joining us. But I really think we're going to have a great time looking back into the year and there's so much that we're going to be looking forward to in some of our future episodes here, going into 2025. So be on the lookout for that. But for now, phil, I am excited to kind of look back at 2024 and see what happened.
Speaker 4:Yes. So if this is your first time listening or if you need a reminder where to find all the rest of our content, stick around to the end of this episode. We'll let you know where you can find everything to keep up with the Wait For it podcast as we turn the page into what is going to be a really, really fun and crazy 2025 for us. I know we say that every year but, like as this show continues to grow and you guys grow with us, we just have more and more fun things to share with you very, very soon. So, to go over the layout of this episode, I should say we streamline things a little bit this year as opposed to previous years. So we would usually go best and worst of you know movie, worst song of the year, worst video game, all that kind of stuff. We're streamlining it this year because one we have more clips than we've ever had kind of stuff. We're streamlining it this year because one we have more clips than we've ever had, which I tried to minimize but that wasn't the case, thanks to a buddy of ours We'll talk about here in just a moment.
Speaker 4:But no, we're having a good time with him. We're going to tease him this entire episode, but we also we will point out some of our, some of, like, the downs of 2024. Those will just come up, naturally, but we wanted to focus on the things that we really enjoyed in 2024. So it is streamlined to best picture, best animated picture, best TV show, best anime, game of the year, artist of the year and song of the year. The order will be going in. We'll we'll talk about here in just a moment. But, yeah, eric, anything else that maybe we want to cover before we jump into it and get started because, like you said, this is going to be a long one. So, uh, get settled in. Maybe you're sitting down there with your family, nice cup of hot cocoa, or you put it on while you're playing a video game. This is a good episode to listen to because you can get comfortable and we'll talk about all the best that 2024 had to offer.
Speaker 5:Now I think we are ready to go, by the time this episode to drop. Christmas will have just passed, so we're all drowning in presents, overwhelmed at what we're going to be regifting or throwing out and just really got your wait for it.
Speaker 4:Patreon subscription as a gift Welcome, welcome. What an amazing gift that one Don't throw out and then you're like what the fuck is the way for?
Speaker 5:a podcast You're about to find out, so strap in, ladies and gentlemen, we are ready to go.
Speaker 4:All right, folks. Well, let's go ahead and get started. We're going to start off with a banger. We're going to get into best TV show, and I said that we're going to tease somebody here throughout this entire episode because, as I said, we enlisted the help of some of our fellow content creators and friends here on this episode and in order to try and streamline things, we said, hey, here are the categories this year. If you guys could pick two categories, max it out at two just to streamline the episode. Well, friend of the show and host of the World's my Burrito podcast, corey did one for every single category. So you will hear Corey for every category this year. And I figure, eric, you know what. What better way to start than with Corey's choice for best TV show of 2024. So let's see what he had to say for best tv show of 2024.
Speaker 1:So let's see what he had to say. Oh, what up, it's your boy, cory t, coming at you from the world is my burrito. I'm here for this. Uh, this 2024 rank and review thing we got going on. The best of just ranking no reviews. There's some reviews. Best tv show uh, this is another one of those points where I realized I don't watch a lot of regular tv. I miss out on a lot of stuff. So ultraman arc uh, ultraman arc takes. It has been very enjoyable. Um, following basically like national park workers through you know the beginning of the show. It's kind of oriented on them being like national park workers who are kind of helping with Kaiju studies. It's charming, it's a lot of fun. Even the current episodes we're finally getting into that like nearing the end, so the ante has been upped. It's still good, but Ultraman arc definitely takes best TV show.
Speaker 4:So there we have it from Corey. It would not be a Corey submission without the mention of Ultraman. So shout out to him and my apologies for still not embarking on my Ultraman journey, as when you, when he sent me a dissertation about where to start, I got overwhelmed and I just have not done it yet. But, eric, we have obviously covered Ultraman in a previous episode, in 2024 of Late to the Part no, it was Interactual Feature that we did. Ultraman Rising. It was Yep, yeah. So obviously we have been interested in the character in some way, shape or form. So the Ultraman arc show is only something I'm familiar with because of Corey. So I don't know if this is something that ever came across your mind, if you have also thought about going into an Ultraman deep dive, but this is a show that, again, I was familiar with mainly because of our buddy Corey.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, I hadn't heard of it. Definitely want to still get into some Ultraman stuff. Corey is going to continue to push us to that. It is funny. I almost sent you a message, phil, saying what did he send? Like an Ultraman documentary. We're pretty close, pretty close. So really, really funny to see that submission, but totally in line with who we know and love and Corey, so great, great submission. Will I check it out? Great question there are a lot of shows that I missed out on.
Speaker 4:that we're going to talk about, I'm sure, here before we get to our picks, but that is also one that I have not gotten to there's going to be a difference here, with shows we'd be interested in checking out and shows that we're actually going to watch, because, you know, this year I focused a lot on film and then over the last month or so I've been trying to catch up on television shows, which ultimately led to you know my pick here this evening. That we'll talk about in a moment. But, eric, let's get to our next submission here, another pick for TV show of the year.
Speaker 7:Hi guys, it's Feline, and this is my pick for the best TV show of 2024. My opinion it is from season three. I just started this show this year and fell in love with it. It has become one of my favorite TV shows and it hasn't even ended yet. It just got greenlit for season four and I cannot wait to see where this story is going. We got some major answers in season finale of season three and I truly cannot wait to see this cast get together again and bring us just some good horror TV. I have truly been looking for just a good horror TV show and this really brings in all the elements that I love Perfect gore, perfect characters, perfect story.
Speaker 4:I really, really am excited for this show's future and hope to see people really jump on this train and watch this show, and I cannot recommend it enough so there you go, shout out to my sister, philin, who has joined us on quite a few episodes of what did I miss here in 2024 and eric, I'm sure, and you know, in our, in our, uh, you know group chats or uh what? Or the voice chat whenever we hop in and play video games. You've heard Jordan and Phyllind talk about From, from the same creators. I believe that made Lost, which I know people were like a little apprehensive about. But yeah, from is a show that I've not only heard those two talk about, but quite a few other people as well.
Speaker 5:Yeah, one that's again, it's a genre of, really it's a genre in general in media that I don't go into enough, but for television specifically it's not one that I dive into very often, but it is one that you just hear about through the grapevine and I'm not surprised full in out of everybody to pick one in that space. So, yeah, no great choice.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you know me that I'm not the biggest fan of obviously like body horror stuff, so she has informed me this is not something that I'd be able to get through very easily. But, uh, very, very glad to hear that it's been getting a lot of good response. It's got a 96 percent on rotten tomatoes, so that is worth something. The thing obviously with lost, looking back at it, is obviously the ending, which, as I've come around and gotten a little bit older and watched a lot of YouTube documentaries, gone down a lot of rabbit holes, it's something that I've come to come to terms with and actually understood a lot more. So hopefully it's something they figured out in terms of finishing a story. Harold Perrineau is fantastic and lost, so I only assume that he is fantastic and from as well. But, eric, before we reveal our selections, let's go ahead and get to our last submission for TV show of the year and why don't we head on over to the JPU?
Speaker 8:Yo, phil and Eric what up and a big hearty Merry Christmas, happy holidays and all that good stuff. To the Wait For it podcast listeners. It's your boy, botter Milligan, from the Short Box podcast, the comic book talk show that brings you the best conversations about comic books with the people that put their blood, sweat and tears into making them calling in to take part in this end-of-year award show episode. Maybe I should phrase this as my favorite movie and favorite TV show of the year that are both going to be comic book-centric. My favorite TV show of the year that are both going to be comic book centric. My favorite TV show of the year. I'm going to go and give that to the Penguin, which in hindsight is like, well, yeah, duh, that's an easy pick right there.
Speaker 8:That show was incredible but going into it, I don't think any of us at least myself considering really thought it was going to be such a impactful show like it has been. I mean it nailed everything from the character building the world, building the action, the emotion, the drama, the gravitas. I mean the acting. I mean let's give it up. I mean Colin Farrell was in a transformational role. I mean literally and figuratively. Then you've got great supporting roles and cast like Kristen Milioto playing Sophia. Then you've got great supporting roles and cast like kristen miliotto playing sofia. Um yeah, mark strong in the show, theo rossi, clancy brown and and, of course, last but not least at all, is deirdre o'connell who plays francis.
Speaker 8:I mean, everyone brought their a game to this show. But this is how you do a b-list, c-list villain and take them to the stratosphere. This is how you do a B-list, c-list villain and take them to the stratosphere. This is how you do a spinoff show that ties into a larger movie. I mean, from episode one to the very end, it was gripping, it was moving. It was, I mean, just some of the. I'm still thinking about some of these scenes and what they were at the pull off on TV. But the Penguin has set the bar very high for other comic book TV shows. So us comic book heads and comic book fans we're eating good this year and I'm hoping that 2025 only brings bigger and better things.
Speaker 4:So there you go. Great breakdown from Botter from the Shortbox podcast. Shout out to him the JPU Blythe everybody over there. But yeah, eric the Penguin, I believe you've also started this recently. I have also started I believe I am on episode six, and it has deserved all of the praise that it has been heaped on it throughout the entire year. Colin Farrell has been, oddly enough, in like between the Penguin and then two other projects, like three of our most highly rated projects that we've done here on the podcast, and he has just been fantastic between, obviously, banshees of Inishiren and then in Bruges and now the Penguin. So, and then Kristen Milioti, who is fantastic. I loved her in Palm Springs, but what I've known her from and a lot of others is she is spoiler alert she is the mother in how I Met your Mother showing up in the final season, and she is. I fell in love with her back then. So to see her in this role and being such a powerhouse, she is fantastic.
Speaker 5:So, eric the penguin, and not surprised that that had come up here at this point no, not surprised at all, and I'm not going to be able to include shows that I've started and haven't finished. But I wouldn't be surprised, based off of what I know and what I've seen so far, if that the penguin would probably win this award. There's a real possibility here for me Some other shows that, just like I just missed as far as this window of trying to get them in before the end of the year baby reindeer I've been wanting to watch all year. I heard great things about that Shrinking. I wanted to catch up to season two After now finally watching the first season of Severance. I do plan on shrinking being another Apple TV experience that I embark on. Batman Caped Crusader was another one that just continued to get floated around and I was a sucker for those classic Batman animated series. So those are just a couple out there for context before we get to ours. But again, any one of those, had I watched them, could have impacted this award.
Speaker 4:Yeah, as far as honorable mentions for me, you know, definitely the penguin for sure is up there. Mr and Mrs Smith, I enjoyed the hell out of the Fallout TV show was great. We talked about it a little bit before Arcane Season 2. While it did not reach the heights of Season 1, it is still outstanding. And, Eric, you might be surprised an honorable mention here for me Shogun also deserves a ton of praise and all the awards that it got, but it was not my TV show of the year, so let's go ahead and see where you landed for best TV show of 2024.
Speaker 5:Yeah, because I have no clue what you're picking now. That's crazy. Another show I'll mention Fallout was an honorable mention as well for me. The shows that I had watched X-Men 97, also a show that came out this year and we were late to the party on, but we did catch up by the end of the year. Time for this awards very, really, very, very good products on television that have been put out there across the board. For me and it does kind of feel like a default award because again, I haven't gotten to all the shows I've wanted to. I probably could have watched maybe five less movies and two less anime to fit in a couple of those shows. It just didn't work out that way.
Speaker 5:My best TV show of 2024 is going to go to Arcane, season two, and that again may feel a little bit like a default for someone who may not watch a lot of television, but truly it was an amazing season of television. There really are opportunities. It is not perfect, but I don't think the first season was perfect either and that's in my opinion. Going into season two, I was looking to see what they really continued to grow on and while they didn't ever really fully accomplish what I think they wanted to in just two seasons. What they did in two seasons, and season two specifically, was remarkable. It was all we were talking about for the several weeks that they were dropping episodes on Netflix and for that reason maybe, recency bias. That is my television show for the year of 2024.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I have no problem with that selection at all. Animation-wise, you can kind of get an idea of why it took us so long to get Season 2. Love these characters. Love that At least portions of the League of Legends community are pretty happy that people are getting to know these characters in a different medium. Are we going to play the game? Never, that's never going to happen. But we'll gladly jump back into this world of League of Legends and excited to see what they do next. Hopefully it doesn't take four years, so we'll see. But, eric, my TV show of the year is one you had already mentioned and it is Shrinking, shrinking.
Speaker 4:Season two reached all of the heights that I was expecting in terms of a follow-up to season one. It's emotional, it's got incredible character depth, it's got incredible writing and it is one of the funniest shows on television, if not the funniest right now. There is an episode this is not a spoiler. There is an episode where Harrison Ford, his current girlfriend in the show, and his ex-wife are both talking to each other and his son-in-law is like, oh, it's great to see them getting along, huh. And Harrison Ford says the words I hope they're talking about how I fuck, and if that's not a sales point, a selling point for shrinking, I don't know what else it could be. Jason Segel, obviously fantastic. Bill Lawrence continues to be just an incredible mind in terms of comedy and drama, and shrinking is my TV show of the year. So yeah, eric, I think you'll very much enjoy that one. It's incredibly high quality and just continues to be one of those Apple TV shows that flies under the radar because, again, no one is subscribed to Apple TV.
Speaker 5:Yeah, again one that I hear just people raving about, that. Have watched it and very much in the same light of your Severance ted lasso, I feel like shrinking is that third big show that I've just always heard on that platform, so one that I definitely want to get into. And man old man, harrison ford always a good time.
Speaker 4:So that alone I'm sold god, he is just so good in that. And uh, yeah, jessica williams the cast is is outstanding. So, yep, shout out to shrinking and arcane um, again, both really, really solid shows. But, eric, let's transition to the world of music here, and uh, we'll go with song of the year. First, we had a couple of submissions. Obviously, one of them is cory, so let's go ahead and see what c had to say for Song of the Year.
Speaker 1:Song of the Year. This one was a little bit more difficult to pick but I'm going to go with the Devil in Me by Derren Gray. These guys have been playing since 97. Japanese rock band. They're really good. They have such a massive library that they can sample their own selves, like pull from their own different eras of music. Um and the, the new song, it's just on a single of the same name. Um, very good song. And man I I love during gray. This is another one of those like seminal bands that you know I'll talk about all the time.
Speaker 4:And one of the cool things about this episode is like people will bring up things that we just weren't familiar with. I'm not familiar with this song. I didn't get a chance to listen to it. I was cropping up all of these clips before we got started here this evening. But again, one of the great things about this is people bringing in you know their, their specific tastes and recommendations from all over. So is this a song that you had heard of, or I'm not sure if this is? I'm so sorry, corey. I don't know if this is a. I believe it's a band, he said, but not someone that I'm familiar with.
Speaker 5:No same here, but this is really awesome because I do plan. Music is the most subjective thing I think that we're going to run into when it comes to these lists, and I am always looking for a new song to put on and have in the background and really or really jam to and listen to on repeat. So where that falls into it, I don't know. But, corey, I can tell you now I definitely will be checking that out and all the submissions, because music is just something we can't get enough of easy plug. We got a playlist on Spotify, update that every Monday, so check that out definitely so.
Speaker 4:Thanks, corey, for that submission there and a new recommendation. But, eric, there is going to be no secret as to what my song of the year is, and you know there is somebody who wanted to let our audience know as well as us that they probably feel the exact same way hey, phil and eric.
Speaker 3:This is eli from super bracket bros here to give you my picks for the wait for it end of the year awards. My first pick is going to be probably a popular answer this year, but I'm going with song of the Year, going to Kendrick Lamar's Not Like Us, a certified haters anthem that transcended pop culture. It was so fun hearing Kendrick at the top of his craft just dragging Drake along the way. I won't deliberate because I'm sure you have many people going to talk about it, including you, phil. So again, kendrick Lamar is great. Not Like Us is great.
Speaker 4:Short and to the point, because there's not really much else to say.
Speaker 4:So I will go first here, eric, with song of the year, because I can't go anywhere else. But with Not Like Us I think I was in like the top 0.05% of players this year on Spotify in terms of that song. And it was just a crazy year for Kendrick Lamar in general I'm sure we'll talk about him here in just a moment to give you a little spoiler, at least on my end but Not Like Us was for that song, just to live in that moment of euphoria and Not Like Us and Meet the Grams and just realizing like it was, like there was some sort of attack and someone was hitting a panic button and they're like Kendrick released again. Kendrick released again and when Not Like Us came out, you know after the criticism that he couldn't put out like a catchy song, a song that they would play in the club, and then to that being played in clubs all over the country, the world that evening was absolutely insane and, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if this was a lot of people's pick.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, that's an easy pick to make. It's got to be the most memorable song of 2024. And that was in a year where we've had banger after banger in all genres. So, yeah, not surprised that that's yours. And had the album for kendrick lamar came out sooner, it could have very easily been squabble up tv tv off any of those other ones. Uh luther getting a lot of traction as well. So my pick. I'm gonna go over some honorable mentions just because I feel like, again, music is such a big genre in general and I figured once we get to music artists of the year, we can also talk about the other side of music, because there were definitely some disappointments or really regressive music which we'll get into.
Speaker 4:I also have honorable mentions too, so before, so when you're done, I forgot to do that.
Speaker 5:Yeah.
Speaker 4:You go into yours before I go into mine, because I'm gonna lead to my to my song of the year. So, yeah, what are yours? Other honorable mentions for me? I think you have to bring up shibuzi and what he did in 2024 uh, with the bar song, tipsy um, his performance with jay kwan at the country music awards incredible. You cannot go through 2024 without mentioning espresso by sabrina carpenter fantastic euphoria. Also, I just mentioned it a moment ago. Um, in the chapel roan. How can you not bring up hot to go or any of her other songs that made it big in 2024? But I, uh, yeah, thanks for reminding me because I did have those as honorable mentions for sure can't bring up 2024 without shibuzi, sabrina carpenter, chapel rowan, charlie xcx that they had fantastic years yeah, all fantastic years um.
Speaker 5:My number one song of the year was actually Try by Fly by Midnight, which Phil was very surprised about.
Speaker 4:I was like I did not know you liked Fly by Midnight.
Speaker 5:this much they were also in my top five artists as well, but Try specifically was just such a smooth song that you could just it was one of those songs you can kind of play on repeat in the background and just really vibe to, and I think those repeat listens really added up by the end of the year. Another top song was called Wildflower by Black Sands. Absolutely love the vibe and sticking with vibes from the Bear season three, save it For Later by Eddie Vedder was just again really really good. The riff of everything from the intro of that song all the way to its ending Really really great song. There were also a couple other songs that I wanted to shout out Flame by Justin Timberlake I really listened to way more Justin Timberlake than I guess, anyone else this year. Villain by Venice Quinn this is probably the song out of all these that you are like who you really need to check out. That song, just Like Paradise by the Strike Strike, is really really good. They put out a really great album as well this year. And finally, bloom from the In Pieces musical was a high contender here. In fact I'm surprised it didn't end up in my top five songs of the year.
Speaker 5:For my top song, though, I went with the one that I absolutely cherish the most, and that is a song off of Charlie XCX's album Brat. Sympathy is a Knife. I absolutely love this song. When I first heard it, it's absolutely infectious, from the bass to the synths in the background. If you play this max volume in the car, you are in for a really, really, really good time, and that's actually how I first listened to it, and it's something I had in the background constantly to end up as my number two song of the year. Had it came out sooner, probably would have been my number one over try by fly my by midnight. So, yeah, that is my song of the year and honestly not close. But uh, try and then also bloom high, high contenders. Any song off of epic, the musical as well, which I'm just precursing to artist of the year now, uh, that also is in contention yeah, bloom was in my top five for my spotify wrapped um, along with, like that, you know, the future and kendrick song.
Speaker 4:That kicked off the entire thing. And then State Champs was also up there as far as their new album. But, yeah, really really great choices for a song of the year. And you know what I knew I was gonna. I'm gonna backtrack a little bit because I knew I was gonna forget to do this. I even typed out a note on my Google Keep Don't forget to read the IG submissions and I totally forgot.
Speaker 4:So here are some people's submissions for TV show of the year. Shout out to Ivan Patch, who you'll hear from here in a little bit. He went with Shogun, along with our friend Erica, and then Justin, friend of the show we see at every con, went with X-Men 97. So really, really great choices for a TV show of the year. So, my apologies, I will try to do better. Going forward. Let's move into voting to stick with music and we're going to go with artist of the year. And there is one of our creator friends, eric, who never misses the opportunity to say who his favorite artist of whatever year that may be in 2024 is no different. So let's hear from him.
Speaker 2:And 2024 is no different, so let's hear from him. The second category that I wanted to submit a award for would be Artist of the Year Musical Artist of the Year. This year, teenage Andrew was very happy we got new music from Breaking Benjamin, three Days Grace got their original lead singer back and Linkin Park put out new music. Even though the overall album that they released didn't fully click with me, it was still a ton of nostalgia. But I want to give Artist of the Year to the Devil Wears Prada, because they're a band that continue to evolve their sound as time goes on, while still maintaining the same high bar of quality and the same vibes and energy that I've always loved in their music. This year they released two new singles and an acoustic EP. Hopefully we're getting a full album next year. They are one of, if not the only, metalcore band that I listened to as a teen that still releases consistently good music that I want to listen to now as an adult, and that's pretty impressive, considering most of the other bands that I liked from that era are either just terrible now or their albums are extremely up and down, so that's why I wanted to shout these guys out.
Speaker 2:The Devil Wears Prada. Artist of the Year for me, phil and Eric, thanks again for having me, thanks again for inviting me to do this. Happy New Year and looking forward to a great 2025. Oh, and stay friendly gamers.
Speaker 4:Shout out to Andrew from Friendly Neighborhood Gamers yeah, he is always giving us a submission for Artist of the Year, so thank you so much for that, andrew. Yeah, devil Wears Prada not a band that I listened to all the time but obviously very familiar with wasn't aware that they actually had released new music in 2024 and, yeah, it was a good year, for I was actually talking about this with cory, who, of course, we will hear from in a moment. Uh, we were talking to cory about this and it was a good year if you had not heard music from, like an artist you hadn't heard from in quite a while. Um, there was a lot of returns, you know. You just mentioned um a couple of bands there tori kelly's album that it's kind of like a 2023 and 2024 thing with her um. As far as um putting out new music, she had kind of like gone away for a little bit and now she's putting out new music. Jojo put out some new music here this year in terms of the pop side of things.
Speaker 4:But, yeah, Eric, do you have? Devil Wears Prada in your rotation?
Speaker 5:I feel like I've definitely heard them before because that name I looked it up immediately as Andrew was talking and I'm pretty sure I have, but not consistently enough to know them by name or even by a certain song. So another band I'm going to be checking out and I really do trust Andrew's opinion when it comes to like that rock side of music because he's very into it. Every time I put a rock song on the playlist I see those likes. I see those likes on our story, andrew it's funny he mentions Linkin Park. Totally forgot to bring them up. The Emptiness Machine and Heavy is the crown two-face as well. Great, great songs, all songs, maybe not song of the year, but all that deserve respect. But I also respect his opinion about the album. I think it didn't meet up to the promise that it those singles were giving off uh, and I definitely agree with that take. But uh, yeah, no, definitely going to be looking into them because anytime andrew brings up something uh in rock space I'm all in. I could always go for more.
Speaker 4:Yeah, absolutely. I had not listened to the Linkin Park album, but mostly because I didn't necessarily vibe with those singles as much as other people did. But I do need to give myself a give it a chance and go through it. I want to pivot here, eric, to an instagram submission once again from our friend erica, who brought up doji, and I'm glad that she did, because she has been popping up everywhere recently in terms of like my algorithm and music, and I haven't listened to a lot of her music, but I do know when she pops up I pay attention. So I know, um, you know, you and I are also big fans of hip hop as well, and I don't know if you've seen Dolce come up anywhere in your algorithm, but she is definitely someone to watch and I would. I would even go as far to say that she might be next up.
Speaker 5:A hundred percent. You took the words out of my mouth. It's literally been. If she shows up on a clip or something, I'm like zoned in, I'm like, oh, this, this sounds good. Honestly, why I haven't checked it out? I don't have a good answer for you. There's really no, no excuse.
Speaker 4:Yeah, between Doche and LaRussell are two artists I found in 2024 in terms of hip hop, very, very excited to see what comes next for them. So let's get to our next submission here Eric for artist of the year. It's interesting that we've already had a little bit of a discussion about Linkin Park as we bring back Corey.
Speaker 1:All right, really glad that we have a division between Music Artist of the Year and Song of the Year and this is still kind of difficult. But Artist of the Year, linkin Park Come on, man Like Linkin Park is one of the most impactful bands of my childhood, and I mean leading throughout the rest of my life. I still, well before the announcement of the new album, I always talk about Linkin Park. It is pretty common If we're going to talk about older stuff, I'm going to talk about Linkin Park and I am just loving the new vocalist. I think my buddy Vigo said it best that the new album feels like a greatest hits, like the. Each song feels like it's from a different era, so the whole album is a banger. If you like anything of Linkin Park park, you will find something to love on this album. It's so good yeah.
Speaker 4:So, um, again, I need to give that album a shot. Eric, you already talked about it here a little bit in terms of how much you have enjoyed it and you know it's been obviously a an interesting time for lincoln park to return one. I'm glad to see the band back and and getting back to what they love and love what they're doing. Obviously there was some of that. You know that controversy we're not going to get into.
Speaker 4:But for them to come back into the spotlight and, you know, obviously in a very, very tricky situation, I think it needs to be commended because ultimately, could they have renamed the band and done something else? Sure, but I feel like, you know, it just seems like they're still. They're still Linkin Park. Yes, the band's changed vocalists all the time. Obviously this is under much different and tragic circumstances, but for them to make a comeback this year, I think I mean it's only a good thing. Even if I'm not vibing with their music, I still think it's a good thing. The music isn't worse off for having Linkin Park back around, I guess is the way I'll put it.
Speaker 5:No, I agree. And again, while in the album I've listened to at least twice, I do think I need to put a little bit more time in before I say they don't necessarily meet expectations, but I think they're. They're leaning a lot it's hard not to to understand or agree that they're leaning a lot into like that whole hybrid theory, old school Lincoln park feel like. I mean, literally some of the songs have very similar beats and you just can't get past that. And ultimately I think Lincoln park right now is at its strongest with original music.
Speaker 5:I have heard a little bit of the new lead singer's renditions of the old songs. I would probably stop that. I think they're good enough on their own now to continue to make music and make a new name for themselves with a new lead singer. I'm fine with the decision. Personally, I like the vibe, I like the direction and, honestly, if that's your pick for artist of the year, totally can't blame you Because again, you either really like this new Linkin Park or apparently you don't. It doesn't really feel like there's too many people in the middle. I am leaning towards like more than anything.
Speaker 4:Yeah for sure. Well, as far as some honorable mentions for my pick for artist of the year, I have to go with what is my Spotify artist of the year, which was Childish Gambino Eric. We had the just amazing opportunity and chance to see him live in concert in South Florida right before he had to shut it down for health reasons. So hopefully for those of you that did not get to see him in 2024, he is planning on hopefully returning in 2025 and rescheduling those dates, so hopefully he gets to do that. It was an incredible show, the album is fantastic and now we're waiting on the movie. That's that's. It's supposed to be accompanied by Tori Kelly, obviously someone I probably bring up each and every single year. She had another incredible year. 2024 was great for her. I saw her in concert when I went out to Dallas earlier this year and, honestly, how far she has come as a performer just makes me really, really happy. She's much more comfortable than she has ever been, she's really enjoying the music that she's putting out and I think it's, more importantly, the sound that she has always wanted to put out. So she had a great year. Once again, I feel like you cannot get through 2024 without bringing up Sabrina Carpenter. I don't even necessarily know that many of her songs showed up on my top songs list, but she just had such a great year that she deserves all of that.
Speaker 4:Notoriety and more. State Champs pretty much puts out an album every other year notoriety and more State Champs pretty much puts out an album every other year. Saw them in concert again, as we typically do in Orlando. Once again put on a great show. But as a precursor, eric, I got to give Artist of the Year to Kendrick Lamar Again. If GNX had dropped a little bit earlier in the year, he probably would have been my top artist of 2024, as I've had that in pretty heavy rotation throughout the last month or so. But just again, the year that he had, and with there being rumors of more coming before the Super Bowl, is insane. So between everything that happened with Drake and then him continue and then putting out the album and the Super Bowl announcement all of that I don't know that many people had a better year than one Kendrick Lamar.
Speaker 5:Hard to disagree with you there, and not a bad choice. I would say the real picks for this. If you're not in the niche that I'm in, which is going to be my pick for artist of the year is going to be Chaperone, kendrick Lamar or Sabrina Carpenter. Like pick any of those three. Those are the logical conclusions you can make. I would never put justin timberlake here, but again I, I really I digged his album. Um sure, is it probably five years too late, probably, but for what it was, I enjoyed it, charlie no in sync, no in sync, uh um tour.
Speaker 5:It's crazy because paradise, featuring n sync, is one of the best songs on the album. Hopefully it'll be a realization for him.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean for the year. We were just talking about all these like comebacks that are happening. If he could just embrace that and let it happen before it's too late, that would be great. Charlie XCX deserves a real shot here. I'd say, if you were to put a fourth artist there out of the ones I mentioned earlier, she's definitely up there. Fly by Midnight Linkin artists there out of the ones I mentioned earlier, she's definitely up there. Uh, fly by midnight lincoln park. Those are all great choices for me.
Speaker 5:Uh, jorge rivera herons is the creator of epic the musical. He also is the lead for epic the musical and if you're not following that, this has been something that's being developed for years and it started out last year very, very slowly. This year it's been getting jam-packed with so many different songs and sagas and they are officially finishing this on Christmas Day with the Ithaca Saga, closing up this concept album and finally putting it in a spot where it can take lift off. The numbers that this has been doing on platforms like Spotify absolutely crazy. The reception, absolutely crazy. I'm going to shout it from the rooftops Any song from Epic the Musical could have been my song of the year too.
Speaker 5:There are several contenders, but I really saved all of the praise for artist of the year. He was my number one artist because it was the artist that I listened to the most, but the entire cast of Epic the Musical just an absolutely fantastic job. I'm going to shout this until my voice is hoarse. I'm going to shout it from the rooftops Check it out, give it a shot. I really really enjoy it.
Speaker 5:And again, now that we've moved past the concept album phase, I'm really excited what the future holds, whether it is a Broadway stage play, whether it is an animated series or something like that. I mean, phil, you just posted in our Discord today, at the time of recording, that Christopher Nolan film that he's working on is a freaking Odyssey movie. Are you kidding me? I love Greek mythology as well, so I'm a sucker for it. Sign me up. I'm really excited to see what the future holds and I'm really passionate about this particular musical. So, yeah, that is my artist of the year. And if none of that made sense, I just recommend checking it out, cause I totally get it. This is a me thing.
Speaker 4:No, absolutely no surprises here. I'm, having obviously known and followed Eric's love for this year over the past couple of years I mean, it wasn't my bag, but honestly, seeing it evolve over over time, really really cool. And, like you said, there are so many different avenues that they can explore in terms of stage play or animation, whatever it may be, or just merge into the Nolanverse, I don't know. Whatever it is that they they want to do next, zendaya has got some singing pipes there, so we can make that work. Zendaya has got some singing pipes there, so we can make that work. But great choice for you and definitely pops up on the aforementioned playlist all the time, so it will not be hard to find if you look for it over on our social media pages.
Speaker 4:But, eric, let's move into the next category. I think, other than Best Picture, this is the one we have the most submissions for. So let's go ahead and jump into Game of the Year, and there are a couple of people we haven't heard from yet, so let's go ahead and see what they had to say. You know what? Let's bring in one of our faves from whenever we get to go to. You know whether it be Brick City Anime Festival or Bold Matsuri. We always love seeing her face, because she is just just lights up every room she enters.
Speaker 6:Hi everyone, my name is Sophie a Sub Ninjaha cosplay and my game of the year is Princess Peach Showtime. I have been a longtime fan of Princess Peach as a character. I always picked her in the sports games Mario Kart. I used to be a big fan of her original DS game and I was so overjoyed when they announced Princess Peach Showtime and it honestly over-delivered, completely surpassed my expectations for the game. It was so much fun and so girly and fun and I think that they finally gave Peach her real shining star moment. No pun intended, very much enjoyed it. I think it's a great game for anyone who wants to play it and certainly for any Princess Peach fans.
Speaker 4:Hey, thanks so much, Sophie a and jaha. Obviously we've had her on creator spotlight. What did I miss? We'll definitely be seeing, and we'll see her in a couple weeks here at brick city anime festival.
Speaker 4:But, eric princess, it's funny because with with some of these games, with us being in this fantasy critic league now, we're going to be looking at them in terms of numbers. Like to bring it to like a sports analogy, one of the worst types of sports fans someone that just looks at the stats and they're like, oh, that person had a bad game. And that's how you can look at Princess Peach and you say, oh, it only had like a 75 on Metacritic or whatever it is. But that doesn't mean, you know, when it comes down to the people that are playing these games all the time, big time Nintendo fans like Sophie, like other people, they're having a good time when it comes to games like this. So, while we talked about this in the upcoming episode, the 2025 Foresight, nintendo isn't necessarily our bag, but it seems like they're still doing all the right things in terms of their core audience.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I mean, listen, if you are a Nintendo fan, I don't want to say the bar is lowered for you. I really I really don't want to make it sound like that. But you, you do have a certain expectation and as long as they meet that we're good, right. And if they throw in a couple of new elements, like you like what you like, and that is kind of Nintendo for me. I've just never really been into nintendo. For that reason I'm kind of interested in games that are pushing, pushing the bar forward in gaming and in storytelling and other elements like that. But I mean again, if you're a nintendo stan, you're not gonna get any complaints from me. If that was your game of the year, if you enjoyed mario and luigi brothership uh, party Jamboree, super Mario, party Jamboree, all fine, all got respectable scores, decent scores. So I just think if you're a Nintendo fan, a game like that probably enhanced a little bit and that's by no means a bad thing at all.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I think that with like their flagship franchises, like your Zeldas, your Marios, they're still putting out, like you said, as far they're hitting that bar that people are expecting they're still fun, as opposed to when you look at like Pokemon, they're severely underperforming. So, you're seeing, now people are starting to want Pokemon to get better and hopefully that will happen with the new Pokemon game coming out in supposedly 2025. But, yeah, that's a really good point. As far as their other core franchises, they seem to be doing pretty well and people are genuinely pretty happy. So, thanks so much. So we'll hear from her in a little bit. Let's go to our next submission here Eric, another one of our favorite bracketologists.
Speaker 9:Hey there, phil and Eric. This is Jay Davis coming to you from Super Bracket Bros here to talk about my game of the year, and this is one that a lot of people were surprised to see amongst the nominees from the Video Game Awards for Game of the Year. But this has been my number one game since it came out at the very beginning of this year, and that's Boletro, the poker roguelike game where, from run to run, you are starting with a standard deck of 52 cards but then you are fixing your deck through power ups, bonuses, jokers, to create the absolutely most busted deck you can think of. And, my God, this game is just serotonin boost after serotonin boost of watching numbers go ping, ping, ping, up, up, up, and it's just so delightful. It's such a wonderful puzzle to put together, to figure out the power-ups, to figure out how they move together. It's just, it's an awesome game.
Speaker 9:I had so much fun with it this year and I will continue to have fun with it. I know there's a big update coming in 2025. I'm excited about. Thank you, guys, for having me to submit my game of the year, and it's Boletro Absolutely the best one.
Speaker 4:Thanks so much, jay. You'll be able to hear him very shortly in the 2025 foresight episode, where he just had the absolute best time, had nothing negative to say about us whatsoever, but, eric, he mentioned this the other night when we were recording balatro. He'd be very much a big fan of that. It's not something that I am interested in diving into, but again it's showing up on the game of the. You know, the game of the year nominees and the nominations was obviously a lot of people were surprised, but it's what was there for a reason.
Speaker 5:Yeah, if we could just extend that same energy to Astro Bot, that'd be, that'd be fucking cool. What's that? See, it's, that's what I'm talking about. And the J? J? This is a game, game of the year. A lot of people are telling you the same thing, like how could it be voted? I will tell you, my brother, stefan, showed me this literally earlier today and I was like I just don't understand it and and I want to play it. Yeah, to understand it. That's ultimately where I'm at with that game. It's gotta be addicting. Uh. He mentioned the serotonin of it all. I can see that, based off of the gameplay that I've seen so far, it's very much in your face gratification, and I think that's an addicting element. Uh, whether or not that makes it a good game. Uh, to be determined, to be determined. But a game I do want to explore. It's not like it's a 60 investment to play the game, uh, so I trust me, it's on my steam wish list and it will probably become a game I own sooner than later yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 4:Um, you said serotonin boost that's.
Speaker 4:I mean I put 80 hours into tcg card shop simulator this year because I like opening up design for you and putting together yeah, putting together like opening cards and having a card like running a store like a simulator. Come on, it was. It was exactly what I needed, but glad to see that at least somebody that we know, uh, has come across that game and had a lot of love for it. Um, I do want to bring up some of the uh instagram uh submissions for video game of the year from. Actually, I'll bring them up uh here. No, they had, they had a submission. Why did they also answer on instagram? I'm not going to read those right right now. Uh, ivan put metaphor fantazio quote. Haven't played it yet, so I feel like metaphor re-fantazio yeah, he hasn't
Speaker 3:played it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, that's what he put, that what Ivan answered. You're just trolling us. Now. What's going on? What's happening here?
Speaker 4:What's happening. I just had to read that part because I was like you can't select a game you haven't played as game of the year. But yeah, thanks for responding there, Ivan, but I kind of just teased them there here just a moment ago. Eric, let's get to our next submission for a game of the year.
Speaker 12:Hey guys, it's Retro AV Rewind. I'm Bridget Rules and I'm Vintage Macaroni my pick for best game this year. It's kind of a tie between Little Kitty Big City and Thank Goodness You're here. Little Kitty Big City is really cute. You got to find crows and give them bottle caps for cute hats, but thank goodness you're here. Like you can finish the game in three hours. I haven't heard anyone talking about this game, but I feel like more people should be playing it. Matt Berry does some of the voices in it and it's hilarious. At the end there's like a song. It's beautiful. What about you? Vintage mine?
Speaker 10:is metaphor refantasio. Previously to this, I was a huge persona fan and I love jrpgs, and metaphor just takes everything that the persona games did well in my opinion and amplified it. It has some of that formula, but it takes it to a fantasy setting and what is cool about it the art design is that they incorporate some inspiration from real paintings to create the monsters in the game, and it's rich in storytelling. The animation sequences are just gorgeous. I like how the character arcs are in the game, like you have to form bonds with the characters and just going through it, you just fall in love with the people that you are going on this epic quest with.
Speaker 10:I definitely feel like it's a callback to 90s jrGs that I love, but it took the formula and really amplified it. The fighting sequences are really good. The dungeon crawls are challenging at times, but overall, metaphor it's just a fantastic game. Especially if you like JRPGs and even if you don't, I think there's something for everyone in this game. I can see why it was nominated for game of the year and it it's definitely on my list yeah, um, that's why I was so confused, because they also answered on instagram.
Speaker 4:I was like wait a minute, I'm about to play their clip. Let me not read those out loud, but uh, metaphor, um, a game obviously I was familiar with because of the fantasy draft, but not something that I'm necessarily looking into in terms of playing. Never dove into that series here on on my end as far as persona, but obviously in terms again looking at stats performed very, very well yeah, leading up to the game awards.
Speaker 5:Uh, that was a absolute. It was probably one and two, neck and neck between Astro, bot and then Metaphor. So not surprised to see that come up in one of the clips and also, even though Ivan had never played it, not surprised that he mentioned it, because it's one of those games you hear about Not my bag as far as gaming either about not my bag as far as gaming either. But from what I have seen, if that's a franchise that you're associated with and you're passionate about, I can see that happening. Honestly, had it been a bigger franchise, maybe it would have won game of the year this year at the awards. I just think it's a still a little bit too niche is not the word but I still think it's not large enough to really have garnered enough support for that type of award, although it may have been much deserved yeah, certainly.
Speaker 4:Uh, let's get to our next two submissions here. Uh, you know what? Let's go ahead and jump to cory. What did cory have for favorite game of the year?
Speaker 1:game of the year. Uh, I've only played one new game this year, but it is really good.
Speaker 1:It's called shim s-c-h-i-m. It's a little indie game. Waiting for it for a while, saw a video advertising it like the beginning of the year came out, bought it same weekend and it is so much fun. It's charming. There's so many games out there like I I'll never forget. You know, when the second dlc of witcher 3 ended I felt like I lost a friend and there is an impact to that. But that was many, many, many hours of gameplay. But then you have shim, which is just this fun little game that you can pick up. It is as complex as you want it to be. You can just breeze on through or you can increase the complexity to try to get some of the harder to access stuff.
Speaker 4:But yeah, check out shim this is definitely one I had to google whenever I was editing up the clips. Um, it's got 153 mostly positive reviews on steam. Definitely looks like a pretty, I don't know. I just I just laid back game. I'm not really sure. I mean, artistically it looks pretty cool, but I had no idea what this was when I cory, what the hell is this?
Speaker 4:I'm watching it right now I think it looks like me it's a game about. Here's the steam description shim is a game about jumping from shadow to shadow in a relaxing and lively environment. This 3d platformer takes elements of light, shadow and animation and adds them directly to the gameplay, delivering an experience that you will only find in shim I mean I'm looking at it.
Speaker 5:The more I'm looking at it, the more intrigued I am yeah, yeah, but I just had no idea what this was.
Speaker 4:I was, I had to like I think I also spelled it wrong when I first googled it and I was like, what is?
Speaker 5:oh, I definitely spelled it wrong when I was looking for it, because I was like did this game even come out this year?
Speaker 4:yeah, july 2024.
Speaker 5:So listen, you know what? You know what, cory, I'll do this for you. Yeah, 14.99. I don't know about that. I'll tell you this. I'm going to Eric was.
Speaker 4:Eric was so ready to buy it. Then he saw wait $15.
Speaker 5:Hold on a second. Well, it did just come out this year. I'm going to put it in my wishlist and I'm going to keep an eye on this. Corey, I'm doing it literally right now what the deal is. So if you see it as a future game room where it happens episode, you know you did a good thing.
Speaker 4:I don't know about all that, but again, just like with music, it's a nice to get a whole bunch of different suggestions and submissions from all over the gaming world and shim, I think we'll definitely go down as one of those here with the end of the year.
Speaker 5:He really said. He really said I've end of the year awards.
Speaker 4:He really said. He really said I've only played one game this year at least, he's played it ivan. Yeah, oh, poor ivan. Well, we got one more submission for game of the year and erica, as he returns, we we had to make sure that our friendly neighborhood, one half of our friendly neighborhood gamers, was involved what is up?
Speaker 2:listeners of the Wait For it podcast, this is Andrew from your Friendly Neighborhood Gamers, and I was invited by our wonderful hosts to submit a couple of awards for their end of the year episode. So, me being the host of a video game podcast, I have to talk about my game of the year. This year was a little bit different for me as I played a lot of stuff in my backlog, but also it was different in the way that Shadow of the Earth Tree came out and there was a lot of debate about whether or not an expansion should be eligible for game of the year. For my own personal list on my show, I excluded it and just gave it a major shout out, but I did want to mention it here because it was super high quality and one of the best things that I played this year. My overall game of the year is a game called Lords of the Fallen, which actually came out last year, and it's another Souls-like game with a really interesting mechanic where there are two worlds persisting at the same time and you can kind of travel back between them. One of them is more ethereal and dark and one of them is like the actual real world where most of the actual game takes place. Outside of that, it's just got a really cool aesthetic, a really fun magic system. That's probably one of the best looking magic systems in a souls like that I've ever seen. It's got a lot of really cool build variety and it's got interesting lore everything that you want from a game like this. Not only did I play it for the first time this year, but it also got some major updates this year where they actually changed the name of the game to like lords of the fallen 1.5 and then Lords of the Fallen 1.6. So you could kind of cheat and say that those big updates make it relevant again for this year.
Speaker 2:But then we're back to the Shadow of the Erd Tree argument. So if I had to pick a game that came out this year that was my favorite, I would probably go with Stellar Blade. And no, not just for the reasons you think. Stellar Blade is a really solid action game with a super tight, super fun combat system, really grotesque and unique, interesting monster designs and a dreary, post-apocalyptic, atmospheric world to explore. There's a ton of inspiration from Nier Automata in this game, so if you like that, this is definitely one to check out. I had a blast with it. I think it's a really good game. That unfortunately, its conversation this year was overshadowed by the design of the main character Probably arguably so, but if you can get past that or if that's part of the reason why you want to check it out, there's actually a really solid, deep, fun video game underneath. So there you have it, my long, meandering answer for my game of the year for 2024. Thanks again for having me.
Speaker 4:Guys appreciate it hey, thanks again, andrew, for your submission again this year. Yeah, he brings up a very good point because, in terms of, like his first selection, it kind of reminds me of like last year where I considered making Cyberpunk 2077 my game of the year, even though obviously it didn't release in 2023. But with the expansion and all the updates that had been made, you know, I think it could be up for a debate or up for, you know, at least discussion. But Stellar Blade not only obviously Andrew's played quite a bit of it. Our buddy Jay, my co-host over at Touchdown Jaguars, plays the hell out of this game, loves the combat and a very big fan of that game as well.
Speaker 4:I played the demo, got absolutely annihilated, knew that it was not going to be something for me similar to like a game, like a Black Myth Wukong, where I was like very much intrigued but I knew I just wouldn't be any good at that game and get more frustrated than I would have a good time. So we talked about this in the very beginning of the year in terms of, you know, the Fantasy Critic draft, where there just weren't a whole lot of games we were familiar with and and obviously gem showed up along the way that we'll talk about here in a moment. But there just weren't many of these mainstream games, especially the games that were nominated for game of the year, that really were appealing to me.
Speaker 5:Uh, hence why, you know, my selection was pretty easy, because I also didn't play a lot of newer games in 2024 yeah, I'm so curious what your game of the year award is because, like any of the big games that we've talked about so far, you're like nope, not for me, I don't think so. Stellar Blade just a game. I was probably more leaning towards potentially playing Black Mith Wukong, but it's just not something I'm going to immediately dive into, so it just didn't end up happening. But I've heard a lot of good things about the combat and I would assume that's the biggest strength to the most casual gamers how much you're getting story wise out of a game like that. You know that might be into the conversation from a casual gamer standpoint if you're looking at buying the game. But again, I've heard combat is really what makes that game tick. So yeah, surprised, but also not surprised.
Speaker 4:Well, those are all of our submissions for clips for a game of the year. So, eric, I'll go ahead and go first. I won't leave you in suspense for very long because, once again, like I said, there weren't really a whole lot of newer games that I played. I think 2025 will definitely be a lot different in terms of like the major titles that are going to be releasing Honorable mention, I will say Marvel Rivals. We've been playing the hell out of it. If you want to know a little bit more about our experience with Marvel Rivals, check our Game Room episode for December. Very, very much enjoying it, but hasn't been out long enough and it's still up in the air. If that's going to be a long-term thing for us, as frustrating as it has been.
Speaker 4:There is no game that I played more in 2024 that I am still playing in 2024 than College Football 25, and it is as we hope out in our episode.
Speaker 4:It is riddled with issues and there are so many things they can do to make the game better, but the general gameplay loop has me hooked. I've got over like 200, 300 hours in that game because I can just go in, rebuild another team, start over, and I am not sick of it. I am sick of some of the gameplay stuff, but in terms of the game at its core and how it's designed, and obviously not having a college football game for so long plays into this as well. And I didn't get Madden this year or 2K, so both of those games fell short Madden, as it usually does. So this has been my primary sports game, where I sit back here either in my game room or here in my office and I'll put on a movie or a podcast and I'll put on college football 25. So really it was a pretty simple selection for me because I really didn't play much else outside of those two games. And then, you know, we throw a fortnight and rock league in there every once in a while as well.
Speaker 5:Yeah, not surprised that that's your pick. Surprise that that is somebody's game of the year. Uh, it is a game I also put a lot of hours in, though, so like I totally understand it from that perspective. I just think that a lot of games came out this year whether played them or not, that you know, kind of come to mind first, and one of those games I'm going to mention as an honorable mention only because I have not beat it and I still have a lot of hours to sink into it, and that is astrobot. It is clear, clear Game of the year for me, and I think it falls under the same, the same routine of a lot of these games where it's like I don't know how that game could be game of the year. Well, you just haven't played it. You just haven't. And you played astro's playroom for a couple minutes when it was on your ps5 ps5 for free and you didn't really experience it. That's just what it is. It just is what it is, because astrobot is the most fun I've had playing with the PlayStation 5 controller. Astro's Playroom is the most fun I've had playing with that controller, and I think the aesthetic of the game, all of that stuff I know platforming is not your thing, but it's something for all ages that people can enjoy and it's clear cut just based off of what I've played, what I've seen and the fact that it did win Game of the Year at the awards. That would be the real winner, but I'm not gonna pick it and and just kind of uh pick it just because I haven't beat it.
Speaker 5:My game of the year, like last year, is going to be based off of the game I have played the most, or one of the games I played the most and had the most fun with, and that was clear cut hell divers 2. I enjoyed the hell out of hell divers 2. It was so much fun. Almost 100 hours sunk into that game. And that talk about gameplay loops that gameplay loop was a ton of fun getting to play with other people, whether it was a group of people or like we've talked about several times on the show. I was just jumping into lobbies, which I do not do, just so I could play that game. Unfortunately, you can only do that so much.
Speaker 5:A lot of things well known happen with Helldiver, specifically because of Sony, and after that the game just kind of lost its allure. I also think that a move to Xbox is something that is really needed to revitalize the game a little bit, but it still has a healthy player count. It's introduced a new group that you fight against in the Illuminate. That is definitely made me want to jump back in, but ultimately I need more people to play with. So not only is Helldivers 2 my game of the year for those reasons, this is also a call to action.
Speaker 5:If you play Helldivers 2, I of the year. For those reasons, this is also a call to action. If you play Helldivers 2, I need some people to play with me, because Phil will never reinstall that game, nor the other people I originally played with, and that's a big part of playing it. You really want to play it with people that you have fun with, and when that was happening, I had the most fun this year yeah, I think I think if that had stayed in rotation that would have been a pretty easy pick.
Speaker 4:But yeah, I just got a little sick of the, the gameplay loop. It was hard to get, you know, three people on or a third person on, I guess, is what I will say. And, unlike you, I had, no, no desire to jump into a lobby with a, uh, a random person here at, uh, my age. I just did not want to do it. But, yeah, you know, a few missteps along the. I have seen the clips of the new stuff.
Speaker 4:Obviously, the vehicles, the new locations, those all look fun, but things that I'll enjoy from afar because, yeah, I'm not going to. I don't really have any interest to jump back into it, especially with the games we have in rotation now. But, like we said about Marvel Rivals, I'm still playing Fortnite. They continue to innovate and I know we joke, people like to shit on fortnite and joke about it. But like they continue to innovate that game, add new modes and it's essentially, I mean, what roblox is doing. So, between those two games, uh, they got a lot of things covered and they continue to evolve and grow. So shout out to them for sure. But, eric, let's also. I just downloaded dinosaur fossil hunter and I'm not gonna have have time to play Helldivers 2.
Speaker 5:I'm pretty sure you don't like that game. No, no, no, that's.
Speaker 4:Prehistoric Planet You're thinking of.
Speaker 5:Prehistoric.
Speaker 4:Planet Dinosaur Fossil Hunter is when I actually go and dig up dinosaur bones. So once I open up my museum I will do a full tour on Twitch.
Speaker 5:Just thank God we had a lot of clips for this category, because it would just be me.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, anyway, let's move on to our next category here as we get into our final three, probably our biggest three that we cover every year, and we're going to jump into best animated picture. Eric, we actually only had one submission for this, so luckily it's a good thing that Corey did do every single category, because this is the only one we got for Best Animated Picture. So let's see where Corey went. Based off of his earlier submission, we probably know where he went for Best Animated Picture.
Speaker 1:Best Animated Picture. Yeah, this one wins by default because I looked at all of the 2024 releases and realized the only animated film that I have seen is Ultraman Rising. But it is a good movie. I'm a very big fan of getting different cultures. Like, how do you get someone into Ultraman? It's been running since the 60s. There are like hundreds of Ultraman. They do like a new series every year at least one, if not two and they've been doing that for over a decade. And Ultraman Rising is really good for the American market. It's a great way to kind of induct people into this amazing world. That is daunting when you look at it. It's a lot to get into, but Ultraman Rising really, really solid movie.
Speaker 4:Yeah, second time Ultraman Rising has come up here in this episode and if you guys want an idea of where that landed in terms of where we ranked our films overall in 2024, make sure, again, you check out our social media pages. You'll be able to find that here in the coming weeks. But yeah, ultraman Rising not a surprising pick at all from Corey.
Speaker 5:If it wasn't for the winner of this category, ultraman Rising, would have taken it on my list. I love this movie. I've watched it multiple times and I've had an absolute blast with it, so I second that. As a newcomer to the franchise, I vibed with this movie all the way. A couple honorable mentions I'll throw out there.
Speaker 5:Inside Out 2, I mean Return Back to Form. Did they need to make a second one? No, was it worth it? Yeah, yeah, I would say with the anxiety character and the storyline that they did, an argument can be made for sure for that. There was also Look Back, which is based off of the manga by Tetsuki Fujimoto, the creator of Chainsaw man, and that was an hour of just pure joy adrenaline, sadness, laughter, tears, happiness. It's a whole bunch of stuff that you're feeling within 60 minutes. So I highly recommend checking that out. And then, last but not least, flow is a film that I will shout out. Just, it's a very unique style that was really presented with a bunch of animals. It's a no dialogue movie, so visually it has to be appealing, and I got to gotta say it is. So those are my honorable mentions, phil, uh, do you want to go over yours before we go over our winners. I feel like I'm just drawing out the inevitable, because it's got to be the same yeah, I have not yet seen flow.
Speaker 4:I will see it by the time we do our letterboxd review. Um, I also plan on seeing the film you just why am I blanking on the one you just mentioned from? Uh, the creator of chainsaw man? I'll look back, I'll look back. Uh, yeah, I'll also be watching that here very shortly. Um, didn't watch kung fu panda 4, can't imagine it would have ended up in this conversation, as people have just forgotten that that movie came out. I will say I do want to see the new wallace Gromit movie. They just continue to put out really solid films and people really really enjoy them and have a good time. But yeah, eric, I'm fairly certain we landed in the same place in terms of best animated picture.
Speaker 5:So if you would like to do the honors, yeah, and then maybe, before we go forward, we'll kind of go to the worst. I know we haven't done too much of that in the last couple of categories.
Speaker 5:There's a couple here I definitely want to bitch and moan about, so we'll make this one quick, because this may not be the first time. This may not be the last time we talk about this film. The Wild Robot is my animated picture. I know it's yours. It is a, for me, damn near perfect film. I cannot wait to watch it a second time, but upon first watch, this is one of my favorite animated films I've watched in the last 10 years. That isn't called Puss in Boots, the Last Wish, and I'm going to be honest with you, that's extremely high.
Speaker 4:There has to be some sort of wait for a podcast bingo where we bring up some sort of drinking game, where we bring up Puss in Boots, the Last Wish.
Speaker 5:Listen, it is not a joke. Puss in Bo is a hundred percent just puss in boots. The last wish for any new listener listen, it's not only top 10 animated films, I'm gonna. It's in my top 10 movies all time. I'm just gonna tell you right now I know, mine is mine too I love that movie, um, the wild robot.
Speaker 5:I think, upon multiple rewatches, could it get to a five out of five. I don't give those out lightly. It's very, very possible. So I say that with the caveat that I could still love it more. I don't see me loving this movie less. It's just so beautiful. It's very much on the surface it looks like DreamWorks attempt at making an iron giant clone, just trying to make some money out of that. That's not what this is. It's a very, very good story, a strong story with strong characters, strong animation, very, very good film. And, phil, I'll let you kind of chime in here because again I think we fell in the same place and there's just so much to praise about this film.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'll say it. I mentioned this actually in the 2025 Foresight episode. Dreamworks is lapping Disney right now in terms of the animation game Between Puss in Boots, the Last Wish and now this you mentioned, the Bad Guys, which is a movie I have not seen, but also really, really solid, is Mitchell's and the Machine's, dreamworks.
Speaker 5:No, that is Sony.
Speaker 4:That's Sony. Okay, the point is, there are much better animation studios out there I mean sony spider, verse mitchell versus machines, the mona you know we talked about that.
Speaker 4:I talked about that movie last year, one of my favorites. But yeah, the wild robot is absolutely fantastic. It is the only movie, eric, this year that I have given a five. I gave it a five out of five. Um, I, I cannot wait, like you said, to watch it again.
Speaker 4:The cast is incredible, incredible Lupita Nyong'o, pedro Pascal, stephanie Hsu, ving Rhames, mark Hamill just a rogues gallery of incredible talent. And it is a beautiful film and if you have not watched it yet, you have done yourself a disservice. So if they, you know, definitely watch it at home. But if they re-release this thing in theaters, please do yourself a favor and watch this on the biggest screen possible, because it is outstanding. I got the waterworks going and I love it, so we'll see if it comes up again here at the end of this episode, eric. But yeah, really, really good. I was not surprised that that we landed here for best animated picture. But, yeah, let's talk about some stinkers. Do we want to just talk about best animated picture? Do we want to go over them just kind of in general before?
Speaker 4:we get to our two primary categories.
Speaker 5:Yeah, yeah, we could quickly rattle them off. I think some of them are going to be the same for us. The other animated films that I watched here I'm going to just go down the list from what's highest on my list to lowest. I didn't hate this movie. Didn't hate this movie, but Transformers 1 I thought was very bland. I don't know what you guys are talking about. When you recommended this movie, you're a big Transformers fan. We got it Because I don't think this movie is somewhat lifeless when it comes to the animation and when it comes to the voice acting and the story.
Speaker 5:I also think those are fairly subpar overall. There are shining bright spots, but yeah, no, nothing special with transformers 1. Moana 2 solid, solid. It's a disney film. Phil's gonna disagree and I and I do want him to say his part in it because he does have a point, but I thought it was all. I was in a good mood when I walked into the theater, so I still still haven't let that go. Uh, orion in the dark animation wise was pretty decent, but story wise is really where it falters. Uh, my hero, academia, you're next. Not much to say there. If you love my hero, that's your thing, but it all is going to lead to my second to last film on my actual letterbox list. Out of the 41 films I've saw, I've seen despicable me 4. Sucked despicable me. If you watch despicable me 4, I did. My son wanted to watch it one day and I put it on that I was like what could this possibly be? This movie is ass.
Speaker 4:I can't believe that series is still trucking, we gotta.
Speaker 5:Stop, we gotta. We got to stop, Let the minions do their thing. This movie no longer has any heart and, to be completely honest with you, it doesn't look any better than any of the other films. So by default it's like the worst animated film I saw, really mainly for plot. It's not a badly looking animated film, but it's just. I'm not entertained anymore. I'm just not watching them.
Speaker 4:So yeah, I hated that movie, but boy just one more sad, one more sad boy for the road. Yeah, that's the other side of this in terms of other studios, like they find something that works really well and then they drive it into the ground. Why is there a Minions movie? Why is that? Why did we need Groot's origin story? You know what I mean, and it's funny that you brought this up because just the other, actually earlier today, a clip of Jason Segel talking about his character in the first Despicable Me, the villain. What was his name? Vector Vector, who was, who's, still, the best oh, yeah, oh yeah, curse you, tiny toilet.
Speaker 4:And talking about his experience with Despicable Me 1 and just going back to how we felt about those characters back then and where we are now is a real, real bummer. But no, my lowest rated animated film of the year is Moana 2. I went into that thing with very low expectations and it somehow were. It was somehow was even worse. I didn't enjoy any of the songs. The animation was definitely not as good. None of the new characters I didn't care any of the songs. The animation was definitely not as good. None of the new characters I didn't care about any of them.
Speaker 4:And it was in terms of plot. You could tell that it was supposed to be some TV show that no one was ever going to watch because it was just terrible. They needed to recoup their money and I guess that's what they're doing, because it's making bank, unfortunately. So they're going to do this again. They're not going to learn their lesson, because you know what the kids love it and ultimately that's what matters the most. But I just choose to say that this one exists in some VHS tape somewhere. It isn't actually canon, such as Aladdin three, jafar may need glasses, so something like that.
Speaker 5:That's where we want to. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. That's where Moana, 2 is. No, no, no no, no. No, sir, aladdin 3 is a fucking big King of Thieves. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 4:Oh, that was a family guy joke. I have no idea. I had no idea that there was an Aladdin 3.
Speaker 5:No Aladdin King of Thieves, future Late to the Party episode. Just to rectify this.
Speaker 4:I'm not watching Aladdin 3.
Speaker 5:crazy watch aladdin 3. Uh, not gonna watch it straight to vhs. All right movie, well, you heard it here.
Speaker 4:Moana 2 worst movie, but still making money can I get a chihoo, I will kill myself right here in the middle of the episode.
Speaker 5:No, okay, here in the episode, all right. Well, anyway, I will end it right now.
Speaker 4:Maybe we should move on. I will take maui's hook, hang it from the ceiling and dangle from it. Stop, stop, stop, stop. Let's move on it's okay, awful Does If count as an animated movie, because that sucked too.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I don't think so. I had no desire to watch it. I had as much of a desire to watch that as Harold and the Purple Crayon with Zachary Levi.
Speaker 4:Yeah, no. Well, no one wants to see Zachary Levi at all in 2024. Um, there was also a movie, an animated film, that I like had circle, but I probably was never going to watch. It was something about a unicorn.
Speaker 5:Um, it was also another netflix movie oh yeah, no, I know what you're talking about. I'm not going to spend the time to look it up yeah, I mean, oh, here you're a film of the unicorn.
Speaker 4:You didn't have to do that probably. Well, it was just right here. So, um, but yeah, that was obviously, uh, one of the worst. I don't really have anything in terms of like video games. Again, we didn't really play. We didn't play like the really bad ones. I did play like a very early alpha version of what's that shitty pirates game that came out in 2024.
Speaker 5:Oh, skull and Bones, skull and.
Speaker 4:Bones. That was like an early alpha build that I played and it was terrible then. It's terrible now. I guess the game we had the least fun playing was CFD is probably that's not a 2024 game. Yeah, did not have a good time, but yeah, we obviously didn't play suicide squad, kill the justice league Um, star Wars outlaws. I'm sure would have fallen very flat if we had played that, but yeah, Were there any IG?
Speaker 5:uh, were there any IG submissions for this one For worse? No, just animated.
Speaker 4:Oh, no, no, no, no, because I made the mistake and only asked for best picture, so I didn't do an animated category specifically, so that is my bad. And then, yeah, best TV show. I mean worst TV show. That's tough because we're not going to spend time watching a bad television show. It's not like a movie where I can be like I'll throw on something for an hour and a half. I know it's going to be bad, but I can also do something else at the same time, not going to watch multiple episodes of a bad TV show we didn't do, since we're going backwards.
Speaker 5:Before getting to our next category. We didn't really talk about worst music artists or or songs, but I think that easily went to katie perry and jojo siwa, so I feel like those are pretty. I think it's like karma's a bitch.
Speaker 4:Yeah, uh, fucking 2011 don't be a dick, but you know you could probably hear jojo siwa.
Speaker 5:This is jojo siwa or we give it to elon for like the fifth year in a row.
Speaker 4:You can't keep doing this. You can't keep getting away with it. You'll be having a good day and then you see a Saba truck.
Speaker 5:Alright. Well, we've gotten off the rails and I think that's what happens after almost an hour and a half. But we got two more categories, probably our biggest two, phil. I'm curious if we're going to align on this next one, since you've only watched like two anime this year you're so annoying, you're so it was just lobbed up there for me, sorry it wasn't well.
Speaker 4:we also have quite a few submissions here, so shout out to our friends uh for giving us their picks for anime of the year, and let's you know, why don't we throw it to Corey first to see what he had to say?
Speaker 1:Now best anime. This is another rough choice. There's so much, but I really have to go with my heart on this one. It's the Ranma 1.5 remake. I love Ruriko Takahashi's work. Inuyasha is surprisingly for being a show that I kind of shat on as a kid, that holds up. And I mean Ranma 1.5, look, it's already done, it's over, we know where it's going. The animation is phenomenal. It's going. The animation is phenomenal. They they keep that pure, that wholesome 80s style that I love so much in animation, and they flip it on its head with like that little bit of modernity. Um, but you know, obviously the lines are crisp, the colors are even more vibrant than ever before, and then when people get into a hardcore fight, it goes into like jojo mode. Yeah, ranma, one half has gotta take it. Don dadan is so close of a second though, and yeah, dragon ball diamond is there. It's got to do something, we got to go somewhere.
Speaker 4:Toriyama, come on, man so, yeah, ranma, one half remake, not something. Something that I was familiar with in terms of the art style looks very familiar, something that looks very familiar to like classic anime, which remake implies that that's what it was. So, eric, is this something that came across your watch list at any point?
Speaker 5:It did. This is very much in Ivan's bag. That's probably why it seems familiar. You've definitely seen, I believe, some art in regards to this from him, and great art. By the way, check out Ivan Patch watchlist that I didn't get to because I was. I put my focus towards film towards the end of the year, really, cause Phil was trying to watch 50 films and I felt like I needed to catch up. But I won't watch bad movies, so I felt extra pressure and I have a couple here that I'll mention before my my pick, but that was one of them for sure. Uh, lower on my list list, but still there as far as what's in my queue definitely.
Speaker 4:Well, let's get to our next clip here and, uh, let's bring back a duo hey guys, it's us retro av rewind.
Speaker 10:I'm bridget rules and I'm vintage macaron.
Speaker 12:And our picks for best anime of 2024, mine, personally, is Dawn to Dawn. It's very fun. It's teenage romance, occult aliens, yokai. There's action and magic. It's super fun and literally everyone I've spoken to is like have you seen this yet? So I feel like it's definitely one of the best of this year. What about you? Vintage?
Speaker 10:For my best pick of 2024, I have to go with Delicious in Dungeon. To me, it's one of the most delightful animes of 2024. It has a lot of heart to it. It has quirky storytelling and characters you can really identify with. There's some breathtaking visuals to it as well, and it's really funny. The slice of life aspect of it really makes it feel cozy, and I love how they can take monster slang and make it look delicious where I want to recreate some of these recipes. It's just cozy, it feels good and that's my pick for 2024.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Delicious in Dungeon is on every single best anime of 2024 list. Eric, did you watch this? I never heard you really talk about it, but I also could have not been paying attention.
Speaker 5:Again, yes, I did watch this. Yeah, my son loves this show. He ended up continuing it more, so I watched it casually with him, but I was very disengaged. I would say I like it conceptually and I think if you're into like D&D, food, all those things that the show has to offer, I can understand why you like it. It just didn't vibe with me as far as a episode to episode watch. I also had a lot of other things I wanted to try to watch and I ended up prioritizing them over the show. So maybe if I give it a real fair shot, you know, maybe I'd feel differently.
Speaker 5:I'm going to mention another show in my honorable mentions. I'm going to give another shot after watching only the first episode, but Delicious in the Dungeon. I watched like a solid six to seven episodes and I was like this is fun, we're having a good time. I don't know that this is the anime for me right now. So if I'm ever wanting to just kind of stroll along on this journey with these characters in this dungeon, I can do that. But I think at the time I watched it it just wasn't the right time for me. But I understand it's a great show for many people based off of the story, what it's about the vibes, all of that jazz, the animation. It looks good. So, yeah, I could understand why that's on your top list if you have it there yeah, this has been in my queue.
Speaker 4:Um the reason that I looked into it, you know, obviously, like some of the slice of life and food stuff in terms of anime I'm not as familiar with, but it reminded me in terms of aesthetically it looks like legend of vox machina not the animation style, but like what's going on. You mentioned dnd eric. Does this like you said? You said you know, obviously you're not saying it's bad, just didn't vibe with it. Is this kind of like remind you of like how bocce the rock was at the top of like a lot of best anime? Like what? 2022 or whatever that was?
Speaker 5:oh yeah, yeah, I mean people were hyping up bocce the rock and it was like it was fun it was a hell of a lot of bocce the rock, but yeah, it was a fun story. Best, best anime, really good it is one that I think you would enjoy, phil um, and you would be able to appreciate all over the convention.
Speaker 5:Yeah, but again, if you're going to try to invest episode by episode and really again I'm like honing in on shows that I watch, maybe there just wasn't enough. To give a food analogy there wasn't enough meat on the bone for me to chew on.
Speaker 4:Yeah, understandable, I would do one to pivot to one of our instagram answers, once again from justin. Thank you so much, justin, who gave the answer of the uh of uh bleach, the thousand year blood war which, I believe, returned in 2024, if I remember correctly. So er bleach, listen, you started your one piece journey.
Speaker 5:Eh no, that's another reason. It's another reason why I didn't get to several of my honorable mentions here the apothecary diaries, the elusive samurai, wistoria, wand and sword. I heard a lot of good stuff about. Uh, that was something that was on my radar and that the show I watched an episode of that I'm going to go back to, cause this is probably anime of the year for most of you was free rent beyond journey's end. I only watched the first episode a little bit of a drag, I hear it takes some time to get into the show, but once you're in it, you're in it and I do want to give it a real shot because I hear it's amazing and I really enjoyed shows like uh Mishoku Tensei. I enjoyed a lot of those type of like fantastical shows and I like getting into them. Uh, the ancient mages bride another one. They're kind of in the same vein, so I want to check that out, definitely want to. Those are more shows that I would like to check out from this year alone than I would ever want to do.
Speaker 4:Going back to Bleach, yeah, I mentioned this before no-transcript watching. You know how like youtube would upload them in segments. So that's how I was watching bleach. I was like, well, let me make this like my you know, classic big three, big four anime and then I just fell off and it's probably not something that I'm going to revisit. I have bleach, light in blue, exorcist, and that's close enough for me, yeah.
Speaker 5:and then also, like I know it's been getting a lot of shit, but blue lock, season two, I haven't. I haven't even started yet. So there are shows that, like I really want to watch. And again I'm I'm about I'm getting close to 200 episodes in one piece and I'd like to very much speed up the pace in which we're watching it. So, yeah, I'm having to put some things on the back burner for that, but hey, one piece update having a hell of a time.
Speaker 4:Oh my God, I'm enjoying it Wherever you. You say, pal, uh, let's move into our next submission here. Uh, because you mentioned one of the uh this anime actually just a moment ago.
Speaker 11:So let's get to our next submission hey guys, this is ivan uh, ivan patch. Uh, have my anime of the year. Well, sort of I know what I want to choose, but there's a couple I don't remember mentions okay, we had delicious in dungeon this year, and then, of course, there, what I want to choose. But there's a couple honorable mentions okay, we had delicious in dungeon this year, and then of course there's donded on and I'm a big fan of ronma. So I like struggle between these three.
Speaker 11:But then I realized there's one that really clicked with me that I love. I love the art, I love like the style. Um, the storytelling is great, even with, like it's a historical accuracy which could have been like super dramatic and like cry worthy and super drama all the time. They kept it kind of light at the same time. It's, um, the elusive samurai. I love that show. It's it's only been 12 episodes and I feel like no one's talked about it, but it's definitely like anime of the year for me. I kept going back and forth I think it's done by cloverworks, if I remember, remember correctly, who does like Spy, family and Windbreaker. But yeah, definitely Anime of the Year for me and I'm sorry for those who are going to be like why didn't you say Delicious in Dungeon? Are you crazy? Or Dandanon? Well, I fought between all of those, okay. So yeah, that's my Anime of the Year.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I very much have enjoyed enjoying elusive samurai. I've only watched about six episodes, but when ivan told me it was from the creator, I believe, of assassination classroom, I was like, oh well, I'm gonna check that out. You probably should have started there. It's also very funny. Um, when that guy and I think the second or third episode his uncle, is beating the shit out of those children, I was like what the hell is this show? I was like, okay, I mean I mean well.
Speaker 5:So really, the only reason I haven't watched it is because I didn't know if grayson can watch it. So that's the real question. If my son.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's, I mean you. You exposed him to a lot of violence.
Speaker 5:He watched. He watched little children die in arcane.
Speaker 4:I think we're good yeah, I think he'll be fine. Yeah, I think we're good.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, also by Cloverworks, who has a ton of great history in animation, so one that I mentioned was on my watch list. I'm sure Ivan's going to be mad. I still haven't checked it out, but, yeah, glad to hear you have, because I definitely wanted to get another opinion on it. Maybe that'll put it higher on my priority list.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I've enjoyed it. He mentioned he's mentioned windbreaker um, which I very much enjoyed in the beginning, and then the last few episodes of the season kind of fell off. I was in terms of the story beats weren't as interesting to me. I'm still gonna pick it up when season two comes in 2025, but it did fall off a little bit there towards the end. But uh, eric, we have one more submission for uh anime of the year.
Speaker 13:Let's get to that, this one all right, this is jay and this is my take on best anime. 2024 hands down, no questions asked. Solo leveling um starts out with the weakest hunter in the entire world. You know, he's like a uh power of 10 and the lowest you're supposed to get is 70. You, you know what I mean. But you know he gets put in a situation where it's literally life and death. People are dying next to him. And it's not that he has some super awesome power right out the gate, that he has some hidden talent. He just doesn't give up and he finds, you know, finds a way to make it through, ends up sacrificing himself to save everyone else. From there, he just literally grinds every single day. You know, um, watching him progress, watching him watching his character development, um, I don't know that shit just spoke to me. You know, uh, and the season ender like oh god, that arise, like come on, man, you can't beat that. You can't beat that.
Speaker 4:Um, yeah, that's my, that's my take on best anime shout out to our local urban weirdo, jay, who I'm very excited to, I'm sure, work with more in 2025 and and see him. And you know what, eric, we just we are just overdue for a knock on the night out with jay, so maybe we should do that before school uh, starts back up again for our kids because we need to catch up with our buddy there. But, yeah, solo leveling. So let's jump into our selections here.
Speaker 4:Eric, you had mentioned some, some honorable mentions, also some shows that you, you want to pick up solo love.
Speaker 4:This was a really tough decision for me because, even though you know, obviously, watch in terms of volume, I watch a lot less anime and a lot more films for you, so it's like flip-flop for us. So when I watch the anime that I want to watch, I'm very particular about that and solo leveling I have not watched since it had come out and I have a feeling that maybe, if that had happened, that probably would have influenced my decision a little bit more. I will put it as honorable mention right now and then, even though I'm wearing the shirt, dandenon is an honorable mention, despite it being outstanding. It's already been brought up here a couple of times, but that has obviously been the show that is, you know, between that and the opener has just taken the world by storm and has been. It is fantastic. I've enjoyed every single moment of it. Very awkwardly read the manga in the middle of a Panera Bread on like a Tuesday, and I was like well I need to not do this in public.
Speaker 5:Not the full spread you were expecting at Panera.
Speaker 4:No, not at all, but enjoying the hell out of it. Cannot wait to see what comes next and continue reading it, because I, I have, I did jump into that Shonen jump pool here in 2024,. But those are my two honorable mentions. What, what do you have on your list?
Speaker 5:Yeah, my honorable mentions are solo leveling as well. Jay, great choice, it was very, very close for both of us. The english dub, especially for the main actor I think it was alex lee fantastic job. It's also great in sub, of course, but anytime you could shout out a good dub performance, I love to do that. Kaiju number eight also a honorable mention. If it wasn't for my best anime, it'd probably be kaiju number eight and then solo leveling after that. Uh, it was interesting where they chose to end season one of kaiju number eight. That was kind of maybe my biggest criticism of it. But come on now that AI opening that terrible looking AI opening but a good song and then ending it with nobody from one Republic, like jamming out at the end of each episode. And there was a couple surprises and twists that I know people enjoyed. Animation wise. I enjoyed it. So very, very hard decisions being made here.
Speaker 4:But those are my two honorable mentions I also wanted to mention before I forget. In the elusive samurai, one of the main characters is voiced by rico fajardo, so give you another reason to check that out. Big fan, our guy, our guy. But uh, yeah, you set it up there.
Speaker 4:Kaiju number eight is my anime of the year. It's fucking kaiju man, like it was. Like you said, it was made for me and the characters are funny. The story has been really solid. I also, too, was a little thrown off by where it had ended. Um, this is something that I also have been reading, although I am now ahead in the anime than where I was in the manga. But yeah, it's Kaiju number eight for me. I have also watched that more recently than solo leveling. So, like I said, if I were to watch those two back to back, who knows what my decision would have been, but it was very close and, honestly, with those ones that we mentioned, there's not necessarily a wrong choice either with any of those. But yeah, kaiju number eight for me yeah, makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 5:I think my exact words to you were it's kaiju phil. You have to like it. They made this anime for you. It's about this middle-aged man who is just, he's got one last shot. You talk.
Speaker 5:If this didn't speak to you, nothing was but, uh, speaking of one of your honorable mentions, uh, yeah, it's donded on for me. Uh, not only has the best opening by creepy nuts, uh, which is the second great opening they've done here recently. Uh, talking about mashall, another show that I got into in season two. It didn't finish, but I love that opening as well. Dandenon is just so much fun and Jay's talked about in solo leveling. Something spoke to him. What spoke to me the most about Dandenon was it's essentially a mix of what I love about a show like Kaguya-sama. Love is war and mob psycho 100, two shows that are in my top five anime of all time. So this already had the recipe in motion and between what I've watched from the anime and now what I'm reading ahead in in the manga, I just love everything about this.
Speaker 5:Yes, I understand that first episode's hard to get through if you don't really know what it's about. There are some moments where you're like what the fuck? Why did we need that? But I'm going to be honest with you. This is just really well done from a romance element. I think it's tasteful in a lot of ways where some of those scenes aren't. Overall I think it is, and I really, really just would recommend that you give it some time to really grow on you, because this is one of my favorite genres too, of my favorite genres when it comes to anime so far, if they do it right the supernatural and romance rom-com. I absolutely love that shit. I eat that up when it comes to anime, and, yeah, it's my anime of the year, maybe not close at all, but that also may be recency bias, so I'm going to give respect to the other two and say those were my clear top three, dandedon taking the win here, though.
Speaker 4:Yeah, Everything you said. When I had found out that it was going to have the you know, the paranormal stuff and the aliens and all that kind of shit, I was like, oh, we might be onto something Kaiju and ghosts and all that stuff came out this year and so leveling which you know as far as, like some of the monster designs, reminds me a lot of like Yu-Gi-Oh back in the day, you know. So, like all that stuff just kind of came together in 2024. It was a very, very good year and if you would like to hear what Eric has to say in terms of 2025 anime, again, make sure you check out the Foresight episode coming out here in the next couple of weeks. But, Eric, the time has come. As always, Once again, media has been waiting for this moment. We are going to make them wait a little bit longer because we'd like to talk about some of the worst films we've seen in 2024.
Speaker 5:We definitely got to make this longer.
Speaker 6:We have to talk about some of the worst movies.
Speaker 4:Obviously, again, we're going to go through our entire list and there's probably going to be movies added on to this between now and when we do our Letterboxd review. I can't imagine I'm about to watch the worst movie of 2024 here in the next few days. No, because I have already seen it I mean, what are we talking?
Speaker 5:like our probably like what our least five favorite? Yeah, let's do bottom five.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we'll do bottom five. We'll give you a little taste. Yeah, a little taste, we'll go over the full list.
Speaker 5:It's gonna. That's gonna be a long episode too. We did. We did that last year.
Speaker 4:They're crazy through all which was nuts god how long was that episode?
Speaker 5:I can't even remember so long oh so let's go to bottom five.
Speaker 4:Eric, I've seen more movies, so why don't you go ahead and and go first? Yeah, so I've seen the five worst movies.
Speaker 5:No, your, your list is gonna be way crazier than mine. Yeah, last year's episode two and a half hours, I mean we're, we're creeping up on that five, so yeah and we did worst. We did worst. Uh, best and worst. For a lot of these we did wholesome award don't be a dick yeah.
Speaker 5:I don't know how we did it, but yeah, I'm pretty sure Corey's 20 clips didn't help, so we'll jump into it. We love you, corey. This is so great. Ivan was Corey last year. Then he also tried to get in on IG with a game he never even played. So my bottom five is somewhat clear up until the last spot.
Speaker 5:So I'll go with my worst movie of the year, which is easily trapped m night shamalan's trap. Such a bad movie, um, again, in comparison to phil's list. I understand why it's not at the bottom of yours, because you watch garbage ass movies. So this is at the bottom of my list by default, but I gave it a two out of five. I really hated this movie for a variety of reasons.
Speaker 5:We'll get into on the letter box recap episode Ghostbusters, frozen Empire, a movie I also hated, along with Despicable Me 4 and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice all sequel movies of big franchises that have nothing special to offer. If you love these franchises and you rated it higher than a two and a half out of five, which is what I gave it, okay, that's fine, but these are not four or five star movies, so the arguing's really not worth it. Those are my bottom five. However, I wanna make a quick little exception that two other movies that I didn't enjoy that could have been rated lower. I gave a little bit of a boost because I do appreciate the movies and understand I'm not the target audience. Those two movies were monkey man and I saw the TV glow.
Speaker 5:For much different reasons that I'll get into again on that future episode, did not enjoy those movies and had I not been able to just respect that uh, I wasn't the audience for this I probably could have ranked them a lot harsher and they probably would have gone further down on my list. But the again pre-affirmentioned movies that I put on here I again just did not enjoy. A Quiet Place Day One also in the mix there. Not a movie I enjoyed either. So a lot of two and a halves, but Trap with a two out of five at the bottom of my list, which is, I believe, phil, where we're going to start with yours, because again there's got to be a lot of ones in here, I'm assuming uh, yeah, there's some ones I have, I've definitely got some ones and lower.
Speaker 4:Uh, actually, before we do that, I totally missed a submission earlier in terms of best tv show of the year. Um, which is from kate from game of groans. She answered on instagram. I want to make sure I go back. Agatha all along was her choice. Agatha all along was outstanding. Wouldn't put it in terms of, like, best tv shows of the, put it in terms of best TV shows of the year, but in terms of just the show in general, but one of the shows I most enjoyed in 2024, if that makes sense.
Speaker 4:So a lot of really, really great performances. It's one of those MCU shows that people were like do we really need this? And you can make the argument yes or no, but Ari Plaza was fantastic. The whole cast was very, very good, so I just wanted to make sure I went back to that. So sorry about that, kate. But yeah, let's go to my bottom five. I'll talk about some movies that hovered around there. Obviously, moana 2, as I mentioned, the Beekeeper was terrible. It was like one of the movies that came out earlier in the year If the Imaginary Friend movie, really, really bad Upgraded, which is a rom-com that released on Amazon Prime. These are all movies that are hovering around my bottom five.
Speaker 5:Just outside. You're not even there yet, and I want to vomit.
Speaker 4:No, just outside of the bottom five is Joker Folia, do whatever the fuck you want to call it, it's right outside of the top five or the bottom five. For me it's an absolutely horrible experience. We actually talked about it me and Ivan last night and he said he wanted to like walk out of the theater. It is a terrible film. Thank God I was able to watch it on Max. I'm so glad we didn't go see this in theaters Right now.
Speaker 4:I've seen 48 films. Number 44 is Argyle at a one and a half Terrible, terrible film. I had so much faith in Matthew Vaughn and you know he kicked me in the dick. That was pretty, pretty bad. There are portions of this that are pretty solid. Uh, john cena pretty good. Uh, not enough to a lipa. So that was. That was a choice, but the twist was stupid and it seems like they're trying to make a franchise out of this and I'm just begging them please not to the next one here.
Speaker 4:All these are ones are below the number 45 film I have is lift, which is a, a Netflix movie starring Kevin Hart, and for some reason Kevin Hart is in his I want to be an action hero stage and I don't know what the hell he's thinking or who is in his head telling him that he is an action star. You're not, kev. If you don't want to necessarily do comedy all the time, that is totally fine, but action is not your genre. 46 will go with another Netflix movie, atlas, which is the Jennifer Lopez, Simu Liu, sterling K Brown film. The best thing that came out of this was the press tour where you can see that Sterling K Brown absolutely detests Jennifer Lopez, and that is honestly more entertaining than anything that happened in the film.
Speaker 4:Number 47 is Madam Web, adam One Star. It was madam webb. I don't really have too much that he can say about it. That was positive outside of celeste o'connor. Sydney sweeney and isabella merced had some pretty cute chemistry, but outside of that, you guys know what happened with madam webb and, up until recently, eric I.
Speaker 4:These were switched, but upon thinking about it, borderlands is the worst movie of 2024. It is a lifeless, soulless, just embarrassing cash grab starring people that could not give two shits about the source material and they somehow made jack black not funny as claptrap. Kate blanchett again. Kevin hart showing up here again. Jamie lee curtis, arianna Greenblatt, who I think has the best agent in Hollywood because she's everywhere and just a terrible, terrible experience, the most damning review that I can give this film. I've told this to all my friends. My brother-in-law, peter, laughs at everything and he fell asleep in the climax of this movie and only laughed out loud one time, in Borderlands, and that is the most damning, negative review that I can give it. So that's my bottom five. Again, I don't picture anything falling into that range here over the next seven or eight days of 2024. But that's, that is where it was, that's where it's. I've landed for me.
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, and a lot of these movies uh, probably not going to go over in that letterboxd uh episode. So, uh, this was your chance to really digest all of that. But no, yeah, no, Phil, those are, those are awful movies Again. Why you would put yourself through that, no clue. Like I know, when I say I don't have time, like I understand that, like I could probably find like time here and there, but like you truly could have saved I saw three of these in theaters I mean I saw Art Kyle, Matt and Webb in.
Speaker 5:Portland. Just going over your list, there's a solid 24 hours of movies. You could have maybe avoided and literally done anything else, so you really just don't have the excuse. You should have done so much better Well we're going for 50 again in 2025.
Speaker 4:I'm not going to up it to 60. 50 is a nice number, I think every single year. If we're talking about just movies as a whole. In 2024, I watched 73. So there's even more films that just aren't. What's the worst film? Hold on on that list, it's still Borges.
Speaker 5:On your 2024 watch list, just all movies. In general, your bottom five is the exact same.
Speaker 4:It is. Yeah, I just checked, it's the same.
Speaker 5:And then to give you guys episodes we did this year Lego Ninjago, porco, porco rosso. So sorry, briar, not the cabin. Yeah, uh, bell, pretty low here. Yeah so hero, uh so a couple movies we did for the podcast in your, in your body. Oh, hero, I totally forgot about that in your bottom third what do you mean?
Speaker 4:they got movies overall.
Speaker 5:That you watched this year. What do you mean?
Speaker 4:they got them, yeah, uh borderlands is the lowest review that you can give on Letterboxd. I gave it a half a star. There's nothing redeeming about that movie whatsoever. Yeah.
Speaker 5:All right. Well, I don't know. Again, we're doing a whole Letterboxd episode, so we probably won't go top five for the actual award winner.
Speaker 4:So, Phil, it sounds like we still have a lot of clips we do I have quite a few clips and we have some instagram submissions. Let's do that first. As far as instagram submissions, let's bring up kate first, if I'm once again game of groans. Uh, love lies bleeding was her selection for best picture. Uh, batsy, who we met through the not only the jpu but also the Jacksonville creators Shout out to her. She has a couple of submissions here Anora, late Night with the Devil, alien, romulus and Wicked. We have my daughter, liz. She said the Wild Robot, so shout out to Liz. And then Justin, once again with Deadpool and Wolverine as his selection. So there are Instagram submissions. Thank you, guys, so much for that. But, eric, let's jump into our clips, because we've got quite a few of them, so I'm just going to go in order of how I have them placed here on Riverside.
Speaker 1:All right, best picture. This is a dog shit of a year to do this. It's also a great year. Um, it is a very, very hard decision to say this, but I really gotta give it to alien romulus and it's. It's because of how much I like godzilla x-kong. I love where legendary is going. It feels like they're kind of filing, finally finding their place in older american film, doing modern movies with this older, specifically American feel to it, and because of that, I think that's why Alien Romulus takes this. We're getting a modern old Alien movie and it's one of my favorite franchises and one of my favorite creaturesises. And one of my favorite creatures of all time is the Xenomorph alien Romulus man. Such a good movie, but GXK is definitely right on its tail.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for inviting me onto this. It's very short, phil. Eric, you boys are great. I love what you do. Just keep doing it, man. I loved seeing your stats breakdown of the year. It's really cool to see you know, not just friends but also, like Jacksonville, kind of getting out there on the map and doing some great things. Thanks for repping, duvall. You are one of the teams that we can count on, just one of the very few teams that we can count on coming out of, coming out of Jack's. Thanks a lot, guys. Merry Christmas.
Speaker 5:Why did you let? Why did you, why did you leave that in?
Speaker 8:We've been shitting on him the whole episode.
Speaker 5:Why? Why did you do this? I've been set up. I was. That was the nicest thing anyone said to us in the past 30 days and, cory, thank you so much for your support and for your clips.
Speaker 4:I'm so appreciative oh god, oh cory, what a guy. But uh, eric alien romulus, this is a film that you did see in 2024. I did not, for obvious reasons, uh, but yeah, shout out to him for also bringing up godzilla x kong. Are we going to talk about that here in just a moment? We will see. But no, alien romulus, really talk about that, because you again, you did see that film here this year yeah, it's in my top third of the the 41 films that I saw.
Speaker 5:It's in the top third of this list, right there on the edge, and it's a good film. I really really enjoyed it. For someone who's not big into the franchise, I did give it a three and a half out of five and I thought it was. It was good. I could understand it's a. It's basically your modern day version of alien. Haven't watched alien freshly prior to alien Romulus. I could see the parallels very clearly.
Speaker 5:I didn't like the use of bringing back a dead character in the way they did it. I felt it was a little distasteful, also not necessary. There are also just a little bit too many callbacks and I understand I'm a Force Awakens lover for Star Wars and that's all they did in that movie. But these were like kind of cringy. Kind of cringy. It didn't really work and the movie kind of goes for it all in the third act and I just think that third act got a little overhyped for what did end up happening. So there were a couple of little things here and there. But man, this movie was absolutely a vibe and I was. I was vibing with it. Am I going to watch future alien projects or other alien projects. I missed out on, maybe, but this movie prior to this movie I wasn't interested at all. So that says something.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I remember what you're talking about in terms of some characters and returning that are no longer with us, of course, but yeah, again, as far as Aliens fans heard a lot of positives around Romulus, so again, corey, thank you for all of your clips here for the end of the year awards. God, eric was so mean to you. After all those nice things, it's so weird.
Speaker 5:Literally my heart was breaking the whole time.
Speaker 4:Let's get into our next clip here.
Speaker 3:Uh, let's see who uh what their selection is for best picture hey, phil and eric, this is eli from super braggart bros here to give you my picks for the wait for it end of the year awards. I want to talk about my second pick, and that's movie of the year, and that is an independent movie called hundreds of beavers. It can best be described as the revenant meets looney tunes, like it is just insane. A nearly two hour long black and white slapstick movie that was made right here in my home state of wisconsin. It is the probably the funniest movie I've seen in the last 10 years. I was crying, laughing for again, the nearly two hour long duration. It is a phenomenal artistic achievement done by some truly talented and funny artists. If you love comedy, if you love just supporting independent art, please go check out Hundreds of Beavers. I cannot recommend it enough. But thank you guys so much for the wonderful year. I cannot wait to see what 2025 has for us. I'll see you guys then.
Speaker 4:Bye bye so this is the most eli selection I think that we've ever seen. For those of you that don't know, whenever I looked at this movie I was like what is happening here? I don't even know if this is a movie that came out in 2024.
Speaker 5:No, so I think it premiered at Wikipedia Fact of the Day. It premiered at Fantastic Fest on September 29, 2002. It was self-distributed 2022. No, but it received a VOD on April of 2024.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 5:So I do think this technically does count as a 2024 movie.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 5:Although it is tagged as 2022 when you search for it, that being said search for hundreds of beavers. Look at this, look at this image. That is our friend Eli that is Eli Him as a person.
Speaker 4:That is Eli. Well, remember, eli and I also bond over the lighthouse, so this is also right up his alley.
Speaker 5:So let me mention I have not seen nosferatu as of the time of this recording. I have very high hopes for it and I will likely be going on a robert egger's little trip of his filmography, so I will likely be watching the lighthouse within the next 12 months. God, so good so good.
Speaker 4:But yeah, eli, thank you so much for this. Uh submission again, another submission where we had never heard of this particular film, and again 97 on rotten tomatoes. That is certainly not an accident. Um, eric, if you want to pull up the letterboxd score, um, I do not actually. No, hold on, I can do it here. Let's see hundreds of beavers. Let's see what we got.
Speaker 4:What are we rocking on letterboxd a 4.2 elizabeth late to the party all right, we might have to our buddy caleb also from uh the uh level playing field days also has given this a four in the in the 19th century, a drunken applejack salesman must go from zero to hero and become north america's greatest fur trapper by defeating hundreds of beavers okay, no, no, I gotta watch this. Yeah, we gotta watch this.
Speaker 5:Where's the streaming? We gotta do, no, it's derailed, the whole episode.
Speaker 4:It really has. It's free on Tubi, which I'm never gonna doubt. Oh, prime Video, here we go. All right, I found it on Prime. All right, we're good. All right, eli, we let's get to our next submission for Best Picture.
Speaker 6:Hi everyone, my name is Sophie and again I'm here to talk about my Best Picture of the Year, which was a new one, sonic 3 or Sonic the Hedgehog 3. My goodness Another one Long time fan of the Sonic franchise as a whole, big fan of the first two movies, but this one is, in my opinion, by far the best one. They do a great job portraying Shadow and his entire backstory and actually bringing more of the actual Sonic lore back into the film. And, of course, jim Carrey is stellar. As always. It's a very, very fun movie. It's a love letter to the fans and I really enjoyed it. There was a lot of great movies this year, but Sonic 3 totally surpassed my expectations and was a super great time.
Speaker 4:All right, once again, shout out to Sophie aka Soupninjaha, one of our fantastic cosplayer friends. But yeah, you have already seen this. I am seeing it on Christmas Day here in the next couple of days, so we haven't necessarily talked about it. I don't know what your score has been, but I, as I was recording with Sophie a little bit earlier today in preparation of this, she had nothing but great things to say about Sonic three.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I would agree that it's the best one to date and it's in the top half of my films that I've seen this year. So it's in the upper half of films that I've seen. I actually need to record my review for this for social media, but it was a three and a half out of five. I think it's a good time. If you like the first two Sonic movies or you love this character, you're going to enjoy this film. It's just that simple. I would like to see them do some different things to make this movie more than what it is, but I think you could tell by Sophie's nominations for the award category. She's done a clip, for If you're very passionate about a franchise that just bleeds through and you could see that bleeding through the screen with this particular movie you know fans are going to love it and, honestly, if you're a fan of Sonic, I could see this being a much higher rated film, and for Sophie it was. So, yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, she mentioned there is a ton of fan service in the film, so it sounds like a lot of Sonic fans are enjoying it, which is again great. When it comes to that franchise, in the future, Maybe some other characters they can pair up with, which, again as a teaser, we talked about over on Foresight.
Speaker 5:Give us as a teaser we talked about over on uh, give us. Give us what we want.
Speaker 4:Foresight episode it's triple h standing in the ring waiting for him to say his next line. All right, let's get to our next clip here.
Speaker 13:For best picture, we got a few more all right, this is jay and this is my movie of the year. Um, and I'm gonna go ahead and throw out there it's borderlands. It was the greatest let me stop lying borderlands, fucking sucked. Um for me. Uh, my movie is. It's what's inside. I really hope I'm saying the right, exact name.
Speaker 13:It was that netflix movie, but it's where they get an old friend that comes back, or they all get together, you know, coming back for a wedding, and that one friend that everybody lost friend that comes back, or they all get together. You know, coming back for a wedding, and that one friend that everybody lost contact with comes back, weird as shit and just has a machine that allows them to switch minds into each other's bodies. And you know it kind of gives that. What would you do in somebody else's shoes if no one knew you were in their shoes? So you can do whatever the fuck you want, but they don't know exactly who's doing it. So it really brings out, you know people's uh like just the worst of them because they feel they have no consequences. They can do whatever they want, get away with it.
Speaker 13:And you know just the way it all ended oh man, chef's kiss. You know it was just it. It caught me off off guard. It was a good twist and I'm pretty good about picking up on twists in movies, but just how you know, she played them. I don't want to give the whole thing away, but played them all the way through. I didn't see it coming, but yeah, that's hands down my movie. Good job, netflix got another banger all right.
Speaker 4:Once again shout out to our urban weirdo friend, jay yeah, it's. What's Inside is a film that came out of nowhere for quite a few of us. It was very heavily lauded by one of my favorite social media or one of my favorite content creators, which is Amanda the Jedi. I talk about her a lot over on YouTube and yeah, eric, this was a fantastic film. We'll see if we talk about this a little bit more here in just a moment, but yeah, great, great movie and it is a shame that it came out on only Netflix.
Speaker 5:That means a lot of people haven't watched it, and they probably should, because this was a top 10 film for both of us this year. And, phil, you don't normally go out of your way to rave about something, but this was one of those movies that you definitely did. I caught that and I checked it out very, very quickly after you doing so, and I was pleasantly surprised. So, yeah, no, I definitely check out. It's what's Inside Absolutely a contender here for Best Picture, and it should be. For those that have seen it, no surprise here 100%.
Speaker 4:Let's get to our. We have three more. Let's bring back Botter.
Speaker 8:So I'll start off with my favorite movie of the year, and that goes to Deadpool and Wolverine, which I think it's safe to say has been the best comic book movie of the year. I mean, you've got great on-screen chemistry between Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman. I mean I don't think anyone was surprised to see them get along so well and play off each other so well in their respective roles. We got over the top action. We had a great villain, a great story, some amazing cameos and, to quote our boy, Remy Lebeau, aka Gambit, I think this movie made a name for itself, which isn't surprising, right?
Speaker 8:I mean, the Deadpool movies have all been fantastic, but I really felt like they swung big for Deadpool and Wolverine and it was such a great, you know, ending to the Fox Marvel Universe and so many years of good and mediocre a lot more mediocre than good, if we're being honest but it was a great swan song to the Fox movies and it was a great injection of much needed fun and comedy and bloody gore and violence and action into our superhero ecosystem, especially into the MCU. So Deadpool and Wolverine favorite movie of the year easy pick right there. Anyways, thanks so much for letting me hop on Wait for it podcast. You guys are the best. Phil and Eric love you guys. And once again, this is Botter from the Short Box podcast, saying happy new year to everybody, Peace.
Speaker 4:Yeah, well, of course, our resident go-to when it comes to anything comic book. And here's the thing with Deadpool and Wolverine, Eric, because we did not dislike this movie. It is just the ultimate fan service film and for so many people that worked. And I think when we were talking about these two characters and you're bringing back Hugh Jackman and you're talking about like bringing him back, obviously after Logan ended so perfectly, I speaking for myself, the expectations were extremely high and they just did not reach those expectations. In terms of an emotional and story level, in terms of just rating and how much I had fun and I laughed and I enjoyed the cameos and all that stuff. It's excellent. But in terms of what I wanted out of these two characters finally getting together specifically you know, just the actors themselves it fell a little short and I know that upset quite a few people when we told them that.
Speaker 5:Again, if you love this movie, that that's great. That is great. Botter saying, especially, you know, with uh, he runs a comic book adjacent podcast, like that's something that he's obviously well into, he appreciates, and that's a genre that he really loves and a lot of you have mentioned. I think phil, that was one of our ig responses, if I'm correct, by justin, I believe I saw he put he put that there in response to the best film. Yeah, I could see that absolutely.
Speaker 5:I just think this movie, while fun, just had a lot of flaws I couldn't overlook and honestly I think it's just an mcu thing, like it's the best thing the mcu has done recently and I still didn't love it. That's ultimately what I felt walking out of it and I really wanted to, guys, really, really wanted to. I'll tell you, the more I've walked away from that movie, the less I have liked it. So maybe a rewatch is in order. My family has not seen it again, so I will be re-watching it here soon, maybe before the Letterboxd review episode. So check that out because where we placed it might change based off of a rewatch, at least for me.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and to kind of give you guys an idea, like me, eric, as well as our next clip submitter. We all gave this a three, so it's not like we hated the movie, but, like I just talked about, it was fine. So but again, if it was one of your favorite films of the year, I 100 understand why that would be.
Speaker 7:But yeah, let's bring in our second to last clip here for best picture hi guys, it's felene and I am submitting in my choice for best picture of the year. Obviously, everyone knows that I truly, truly loved Wicked and it is my favorite movie of the year. It is the movie that plays rent-free. In my mind, it is the movie that I watched four times in theaters, so that is definitely my most loved movie of this year. So that is definitely my most loved movie of this year.
Speaker 7:But if I were to make a more elevated choice of the best picture, in my opinion it would be the Substance. That movie is so tragic and really truly takes a different look at what women have to go through in order to feel seen, in order to feel beautiful and, as a woman with my own body issues just seeing it on a bigger screen and taking a horror aspect of it which, as everyone knows, I am the horror girly it was truly, truly fascinating and the ending was crazy. It was campy. It just met all the horror elements that I wanted and the two leading stars were amazing and I really, really, really loved this film and recommend it to everybody so, yeah, the substance is on many, many best of 2024 lists as, as well as Wicked for different reasons, like Phyllyn just mentioned there.
Speaker 4:So, as far as her selecting this film as her best picture, that did not surprise me, knowing what we know about Phyllyn, but I know that the Substance is not a movie that I'm going to be able to sit through. But, eric, is it in your queue to watch before the end of the year or did you already check it out?
Speaker 5:No, it is in my actually mentions of movies that I have not seen that are potential contenders, that I've heard in the substance. Me and Flynn have actually talked about this as a movie that I'm also interested in checking out. I've heard performance wise really, really great stuff, and it's a genre I've been watching a little bit more of this year, so adding another one to my list is definitely part of the goal. I'm hoping I will have watched it by the time we do the letterbox recap, but no, that is something that has eluded me so far.
Speaker 4:And yes, you did hear her correctly. She has seen Wicked four times and with the sing along coming up here very shortly, I'm sure that number will only get higher before the end of the year. But, eric, we have one more submission before we talk about some of our honorable mentions, as well as our selections for a best picture.
Speaker 11:So let's go ahead and bring back our buddy ivan for the last clip of the episode about Planet of the Apes. Oh, it's just ape CG nonsense. But you know what I loved it, it was great. And then we had movies like Strange Darling, the kind of like underground thriller movie, like, ah, so good. So honestly, it goes between Dune Part 2 and Strange Darling. I don't know how to compare the two. If I'm saying it out loud right now, I'm going to gonna say dune part two, but you should still check out these other ones and definitely check out strange darling.
Speaker 4:I'm doing an advertisement and I wasn't hired for it, but uh, yeah, dune part two you're funny if I was like I was hired for uh, for strange darling uh, but still, please go see it. So, uh, yeah, ivan, we once we saw dune part two, we talked to him very much in depth with him at uh, at the conventions, because he has read the books as well and yeah, I honestly thought that was. I'm not surprised, I mean that that was his pick. But strange darling I. I also don't know if that's a movie that I'm going to be able to sit through, but to have heard quite a lot of positive things about yeah, no, I mean definitely one that's a movie that I'm going to be able to sit through, but to have heard quite a lot of positive things about yeah no, I mean definitely one that's been on my radar not necessarily my cue or my watch list, but I have heard a lot of good things.
Speaker 5:And, of course, Doom Part Two, the biggest movie of the year at one point early on it was supposed to be from last year going into this one That'll definitely be coming up in the conversation here for sure.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, much different movies there, but great movies nonetheless yeah, he brought up movies like civil war and kingdom of the planet of the apes. I think you liked kingdom of the planet of the apes a lot more than I did, and I like civil war more than you did as well. It's funny how, like these movies, you know, they kind of come and go. Like civil war was one of the first movies we saw in 2024 and I definitely enjoyed it.
Speaker 4:I liked it more than than kingdom, but um yeah, thanks for uh shout out to ivan for shouting those out as well, but thank you to everybody that participated in uh submitting clips. We know it takes time out of your day and even those of you that also responded on social media it means so much. But, eric, let's get into our selections here, as we are at the two hour and 15 minute mark about, and I'll bring up my honorable mentions here for a best picture First, his Three Daughters is a film that once again, is unfortunately kind of floundering. I won't say floundering because I'm sure a lot of people really enjoy it, but just no one's really heard of it. It's on Netflix. It stars Elizabeth Olsen, carrie Coon, natasha Lyonne, and it is basically a. It's essentially a stage play because it takes place all basically in one apartment and then like one bench outside of that apartment complex in New York City, and these performances were outstanding. It also hit a little close to home in terms of some stuff that I've gone through with my family, so that is very good. I hope people go check that out over on Netflix.
Speaker 4:Didi, a movie that I watched very recently shout out to Cinema Joe. Didi is a story about a coming of age story about a Taiwanese immigrant and it kind of hit home in terms of like of the period of time that it took place and just being an awkward teenage kid an awkward Asian teenage kid as well Really really good and would certainly recommend it to quite a few people. Conclave Eric is the one that put me on Conclave. It's not a film that I was necessarily familiar with or was on my radar until he had seen it. I went and paid to rent this film and check it out. It's outstanding. The performances are great and just seeing John Lithgow be another punchable character was a real treat. But obviously Ralph Fiennes and anytime you get to see Stanley Tucci, that is a win in my book for sure. But Conclave excellent, eric, you'll be happy to know.
Speaker 4:Godzilla X-Kong New Empire is an honorable mention for me in terms of where it sits in the MonsterVerse. It's not my favorite MonsterVerse movie by any means necessary, but it's a film that I very much enjoyed. I mean, when that big monkey took the little monkey and hit that little monkey, hit the other big monkeys with the little monkey, that's cinema. So I don't know what more you could possibly want out of a film. And my very last well, last, two Twisters Glenn Powell, baby, if you feel it. What more can you say about Twisters? And then Eric, very close and making of making this my best picture choice is the wild robot, so you probably know where I'm going for best picture based off of that. But yeah, those are my honorable mentions. I left dune 2 for you yeah, no, uh.
Speaker 5:Phil. Phil gave you a little bit of a taste of what we're going to go over in more depth in our Letterboxd review. No movie came close, and by came close I mean got five stars this year and, for reference, this, if it would have came out last year, would have been the only five star movie that I issued in 2023. So it would have topped that list as well. Dune Part 2 is that film there is. Honestly, it's got to be a smear campaign at this point with when it came out to now. It feels like people have just like disrespected this film because it's so good, it is so damn good. I feel like, over time, a lot of great films have come out this year and I don't think that people are really I don't want to say not remembering Dune Part 2, because it's not a forgettable movie, but I think that distance from when they last watched it to having to make these decisions now have left Dune out of the conversations of best picture or best film of the year.
Speaker 5:And for me, guys, I didn't enjoy Dune Part 1. When I first saw it, I didn't think I liked it, and I saw Dune Part 2 so skeptical that I would even enjoy the film. I walked out giving it a four and a half. We did a Dune Part 1 and then a Dune Part 2 watch party very soon after and I said on my second viewing yeah, no, I got to give this a five. I just love this movie and it's my bag. Sci-fi Phil has always been into, like your Jurassic world. I was into Star Wars yeah, man, sign me up. Doom Part Two, my movie of the year, and man, is it close in score?
Speaker 4:But realistically there was no other choice for me yeah, no surprises at all that you went with doom part two, and I have not seen the movie since march. So I've seen it at one time when we went to see it in theaters. I remember very much enjoying it. My whole thing with this is in 2023. You had you took issue with and I'm starting to come around on this with where you mentioned that you know spider verse was not a complete film back in 2023, and that's kind of how I feel about Doom Part 2.
Speaker 4:Am I going to be seeded for the next film? Absolutely. I mean, I even like thought about like diving into the books as well, or at least maybe the audiobook, just because I was so interested in this world and seeing what was going to come next for these characters. But for me, as I've gotten away from it, I think I have just forgotten about it, which you know it was a long time ago. We're talking about nine months and we've seen, as I mentioned, a lot of really good films since then, so I do need to go back and watch it again. When that will happen, I'm not 100% sure, but, as I teased a moment ago, eric, and I am right there, in line with our buddy Jay from Urban Weirdo, it's what's Inside takes the top spot for me the way that that movie made me feel.
Speaker 4:I've talked about this with some of our friends and other people that have not seen the movie. I have not felt that way in terms of just being absolutely blindsided by an ending or how things played out since inception and in terms of just being absolutely blindsided by an ending or how things played out since inception and in terms of storytelling, they're very different in cinematography, obviously they're very different, but I loved this movie and, as I said, I just am so bummed that so many people have not seen this movie because it only released on Netflix. I wish that there was some way to get this released in 2025 in theaters, because I think it would get even more praise than it already has now. But I went with it's what's Inside as a as my 2024 film of the year, but the Wild Robot once again almost took this spot as well.
Speaker 5:Yeah, and the Wild Robot in contention for me, conclave as well. It's what's Inside, very high up there, not quite yet for best picture, but a couple of films that are on my radar that between now and the Letterboxd Awards I may be able to watch and may affect the top five or top 10. Sing, sing. If they ever let us watch that damn movie, please, I mean Please, that'd be great. I hear it's amazing. Uh, again, I mentioned osferatu. You mentioned didi, which has been on my radar. I heard love lies bleeding earlier in this episode.
Speaker 5:Uh, there's also this french adaptation of the count of monte cristo that just released that I've heard a lot of good things about. It's like a three-hour film but it's nowhere near us. So there are a couple different movies that have been on my radar and that's just a little snippet of them. But again, I feel pretty confident at the top, I'd say the top four, maybe the top three in my list I feel pretty confident aren't moving anytime soon. So again, definitely definitely happy with that. And in comparison to last year, film across the spider verse was my number one movie. Godzilla minus one was number two. I might flip flop those looking back. So again, time definitely affects these ratings, and I always say it A lot of these movies I've only seen once, but Dune is one of those movies I've seen multiple times and I just can't get enough of it. So that makes sense why it's up there. And I just recommend, before you really lock in an opinion or a score, just watch a movie more than once. That's probably the best thing to do, yeah.
Speaker 4:So there you have it, folks the 2024 Wait For it Awards. Oh man, this was a whole lot of fun. Once again, thank you to everybody that participated and we. We greatly appreciate everybody's kind words and, once again, taking the time to do that for us. But, eric man, we did it For those you won't see it because of the magic of editing, but my voice is giving out here as we are about two and a half hours in almost three hours for Eric and I, because there is that Patreon pre show, which we'll tell you a little bit more about here in just a moment. But, eric, anything else you want to mention for the this iteration of the Waitford Awards? I'm sure 2025 is going to bring us just as many surprises, but anything else you want to tell our audience before we get out of here?
Speaker 5:Yeah, no, I mean, this would be just a great opportunity. If you're listening to the end of this episode, you're obviously a fan of the show. We got a ton of stuff circling around this episode that you're going to really enjoy prior to this or maybe after it's really up to our friend Jay in the Super Bracket Bros Cinematic Universe the holiday special. We do it every year. It's an audio only episode we release on all platforms for audio and it is also on the other feeds of the podcasters that join us. So your friends game of groans, super bracket bros, your friendly neighborhood gamers, check that out.
Speaker 5:We do what did I miss? A bonus episode every month that will continue here in the month of december foresight and predictions we've referenced a couple times and then again we're going to be doing a letterboxd recap for 2024, an additional bonus episode, likely possibly going to be a live stream, likely going to be a live stream dates to come and also the release date of that to come. So check us out, make sure to follow us for all of that information. But yeah, phil, after the holiday here when you're listening to this episode, if you are a fan of the Wait For it podcast, we got quite a bit coming your way before the start of the new year.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and you can keep up with that and every single content creator that you heard here today you'll find in the show notes of this episode. Make sure you click our Linktree link and you'll find all of our social media pages, most important ones to keep up with being instagram, tiktok for now, depending on where you're when you're listening to this episode our discord channel, twitch, as well as youtube. If you want to support the show or any of the amazing content creators you have heard here today, you can do quite a few things. Following us on social media is incredibly helpful for the podcasters. You can head to apple podcast and spotify, leave five star reviews.
Speaker 4:For those of us that have YouTube channels like share, subscribe all of that stuff and tagging us on social media and letting other people know that you're listening, letting us know that you are listening, because we love hearing from you and we love hearing from people and letting us know that they enjoy our content. But there is even more way for a podcast to be had if you are interested in it. So if you want to know a way that you can support the podcast a little bit extra and get some behind the scenes stuff, eric will let you know all about that before wrapping it up.
Speaker 5:Yeah, so this episode is actually dropping on Christmas for our patrons, who we truly appreciate In addition to all the extra content, and that includes things like early access behind the scenes and much, much more. If you'd like to contribute to our patron and become a part of the community alongside members like Stefan Corey, t3, kato and vintage macaroni, you could definitely make sure to do so on that platform. I definitely just forgot Briar's name, who's our first patron, so maybe this isn't the best opportunity, but you know what? This is a long episode, okay, and I'm really trying here, so we really appreciate any support, though Likes, comments, shares, listens, any of that, the reviews, all of that jazz, and just the fact that you're listening to this long of an episode really means a lot.
Speaker 5:You heard a lot of kind words from the clips that were shared here. Those things go a long way in us driving forward into another long year of content in 2025. So, with that being said, my name is mr eric almighty. That is my co-host, phil, the filipino, and, please don't forget, we release new content for the podcast every Wednesday, in addition to other platforms like your Twitch and your TikTok, and all you got to do is wait for it.
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