The Quality Control Show

Episode 42: Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc

We aren't here to mince words. Tatsuki Fujimoto is a genius and this movie is peak, so we are going to talk about it. Somewhow the animators at Mappa turned what was otherwise an underwheling arc in the Manga into a cinematic masterpiece that outshines its source material. This movie is a tour de force of what what the genre is ready to bring to a western audience and has taken the cinema by storm. Chainsaw Man – The Movie: Reze Arc brings a rich exploration of the source material without shying away from the excravagance and absurdity that thinly veils an otherwise deeply introspective and dark story about an animal named Denji who learns what it means to be human.

Episode 41: Nosferatu

This podcast may have been dead, but in the world of Nosferatu, that doesn't mean much. In this episode the boys drag the quality control show out of its coffin to dust off the cobwebs and discuss a modern classic in the making. Nosferatu shows us that not only is Robert Eggers an incredibly talented director and film maker, but it also a freak.

Episode 40: The Last of Us

Video games have always been a medium that Hollywood struggled to effectively adapt into a successful show or movie. With fans still reeling from the Halo TV series that was all but a crash landing, hope for a faithfully realized franchise brought to a broader audience was waning. What HBO did may have seemed like a stroke of brilliance, perhaps elegant in its simplicity, but was merely common sense. They did exactly what I had been arguing since middle school when I  first played the masterpiece of storytelling that is The Last of Us video game. I said, "If they ever make a 1:1 adaptation of this game people will lose their minds over how good it is without even realizing the source material is a video game".  9 years later, HBO would change the playing field by doing exactly this. It is hard to say if this show stands up to the tour de force of narrative pacing and character work that makes the game such a potent piece of fiction, but regardless it is a landmark triumph for an audience that has been starved of good video game adaptations for year, after year, after year. It is the prototype, the blueprint, the schema for what is to come. Those souless fucks in Hollywood finally know that high quality, faithful game adaptations can line their pockets, and I daresay as a result we will look back on this show as the paradigm shift for an industry-wide adoption of games as a genuine avenue of producing success on the big screen.

Episode 39: The Menu, Blade Runner, and The Glass Onion(JK)

I forgot to upload this episode and have no memory of what we talked about. I think maybe Ryan Gosling and the bastardization of the culinary arts by the 1%. I do remember that we didn't talk about The Glass Onion, so our intro is sort of a lie. That episode is coming soon though, please don't leave.

Episode 38: Avatar: The Way of Water

Avatar: The Way of Water, very much like the popular mean girl in high school, has very little to offer when it comes down to qualities not pertaining to looks. One might even make the argument that Avatar has become the embodiment of this stereotype in the Hollywood ecosystem. Unfortunately,  James Cameron's latest film, while breathtakingly beautiful, suffers from incoherent (and self plagiarised) story telling, a weak cast of characters, and a recycled villain that wasn't all that notable 10 years ago during their debut. Join us as we peel back the veneer of this CGI masterpiece to expose the shoddy craftsmanship that lies beneath.