Good Morning Folks! This morning I am keeping it going with my year in review series as this time I talk about some of the movies that I watched. Normally speaking I would say that these are movies that both impressed me or disappointed me enough to have something to talk about. In this case… I mostly just enjoyed all of them for various reasons. With everything that was going on this year, I leaned way more heavily into YouTube, Books, and Serialized content than I did on movies. However I did buy a fancy new television and a nice soundbar setup, which caused a significant uptick for awhile in movie viewing. There are tons of things that I did not watch last year and will probably watch in the coming year. Normally speaking I would say these are things that I watched in a given calendar year, but I also think in this case everything in the list actually came out last year.
This morning I am also going to try something a little different. I did this the other day for a friend who was dyslexic, and I recorded an alternate track of narration for my blog post. I don’t think this is going to be something that I can reasonably do for EVERY post, but I thought it might be interesting to experiment with it. So essentially I am going to write this post in full, and then come back by and talk about things again, not necessarily following the written script…. so you will end up with two slightly different experiences. Hopefully it works and drop me a line if you participated in this experiment and enjoyed it.
Happy Gilmore 2
This is probably the biggest shock for me of the year is that one… a Happy Gilmore sequel was released, and two… that it was really freaking good. There is a lot of heart in this movie and it is well worth the watch even if you have not liked anything Adam Sandler has released in years. For me he peaked at The Wedding Singer, but this movie is charming as fuck especially for those of us who grew up during his heyday. The real take away of this movie though is how amazing Bad Bunny is in a comedic role. This man is delightful and has been charming in pretty much any situation I have seen him in, but he stole every single scene he was in as the busboy turned caddy. Seriously, you need to watch this for no reason other than just how funny he is as Oscar. I hope we see him in more comedic roles going forward.
Tron: Ares
If I had a disappointment of the year, it would probably be Tron: Ares. Everything about this movie seemed like it was primed to blow me the away. You have a Nine Inch Nails soundtrack, you have these really cool red and black suits… and I obsessively loved Tron: Legacy and was pretty hungry for a sequel. This movie is not that. This movie is its own thing and clearly sort of exists as a side adventure in the world of Tron lore. It doesn’t really dabble much in the tale of Flynn and Tron, but instead sort of goes off into its own territory telling the tale of Sark. If treated with the appropriate perspective… I enjoyed the film a lot and look forward to what is supposedly the proper sequel to Tron: Legacy that is coming next. The film has some really fucking cool visuals though, and I think that was sort of its entire point. I am always deeply suspicious of Jared Leto, his literal cult leader status, and what it brings to the movies he is in… but for the most part it did not seem to adversely impact the end product.
Adulthood
Now we move on to very very dark comedy in the form of Adulthood. This is a tale of siblings, family, death, and inherited secrets. Josh Gad does an amazing job of playing the deadbeat manchild that never quite grew up, and is chasing a goal that he will never seem to reach. Kaya Scodelario does an excellent job at playing the sibling that was forced to be the adult for everyone in the household, and continues to be as things start to fall apart. There are a number of genuinely hilarious moments and Billie Lourd does an excellent job playing the effective villain of this tale… where everyone is already a wholly bad person. It is not necessarily an amazing movie, but it is a fun watch.
Takeout
This film is a bit rough around the edges, and is of all things a Tubi exclusive… which means it is on a free movie service. However what you end up getting is this really gritty horror/slasher/drama set around the folks who are working at a very low rent fast food restaurant in the middle of nowhere late at night. The character actors are pretty uneven in their delivery. For example N’kone Mametja does an excellent job in the lead role as Nova, and Daniel Janks puts up a great performance as a professor character. Even Darron Meyer does a pretty solid job and is an actor that I have liked in other things before. The characters of Harper and Susan the owner of the restaurant however are thoroughly unlikable in mostly annoying ways. I enjoyed it and it is worth a watch… and has a relatively decent plot twist… but other than that it largely is just a pretty stylized take on the slasher-in-one-location genre.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps
I am not sure we will ever return to the heyday of Marvel, where we are getting multiple banger must see movie experiences every year. However I still think last year was a pretty decent year for Superhero films. I’ve always low key enjoyed the Fantastic Four, but never really felt like anyone managed to capture what I enjoyed about it. As a kid it was always about the Nasapunk futurism and interesting technologies… more than the actual superpowers that they had. This film gives us that feeling in spades as it takes us to an alternative version of history that is deeply compatible with the whole Walt Disney world of tomorrow vibe. It has been so long since we have seen anything close to optimistic futurism, and this movie delivered on that. Sure things went off the rails and that civilization was essentially taken to the brink of destruction, but it was delightful seeing it on screen and rendered beautifully.
Superman
Last year also delivered the best Superman film that we have seen since the 80s heyday of Christopher Reeves. If this is at all what we can expect from the James Gunn DC Universe, then I am all on board. We got the first rendition of Kryto the Superdog I believe in a live action film ever, and it was delightful. We also got a cameo for the Milly Alcock played Supergirl character coming to the screen this year. I am on board with all of this. Essentially the DCU had to start somewhere and I think this was a good place. The blue boyscout has always been one of the major pillars of DC comics, and now they just need to nail a good Batman film set in this shared universe… and they will own my soul. Gotham is my favorite setting and always will be, and the best version is the old Batman Animated Series. I have hope and quite honestly I think James Gunn gets where things need to go.
Bring Her Back
There are sometimes experiences that are so weird that you have to experience them for yourself. This movie is a fucking mess and do not watch if you are not prepared for gore and body horror. Sometimes resurrection goes wrong, and takes way more effort than it is worth. This is one of those situations. Holy shit is this movie fucked up, but in the best possible of ways. I can’t say it was phenomenal but it was really interesting. That is all I am really going to say here. Watch it if you like twisted things and have a reasonably strong stomach.
Weapons
If you want phenomenal genre defining masterpiece though… look no further than weapons. I’ve loved Zach Cregger since his days in White Kids you Know. The Gallon of PCP sketch is still one of the funniest things I have ever seen, and Zach plays the titular character with his Gallon jug of PCP. I had thoroughly missed his transition into horror auteur, but apparently there is something about making people laugh that works beautifully for also scaring the shit out of them. I also highly suggest going back and watching Barbarian, which is fucked up in so many ways but is an amazing viewing experience. Everything about Weapons was just perfect… and it is a film effectively told out of order through the point of view of a bunch of different characters… all looping through the same time. Once you have seen multiple perspectives you start to learn more details about what is happening before it all comes crashing down in the final act. Pure magic. I hope this sweeps all of the award shows.
K-Pop Demon Hunters
It is hard to deny that this was the year of the K-Pop Demon Hunters. They dominated everything and even the little Korean donut shop that I go to on Sundays… has specialty Rumi, Mira, and Zoey themed donuts. If you somehow made it through 2025 without watching this… stop what you are doing… go watch it… you will thank me later. It is overwhelmingly charming. I do not care at all about K-Pop or Boy/Girl Bands in general, but this show is infectuous and has so many great characters. I would die for Derpy the Tiger and Sussie the Crow. This movie is especially important for you to watch if you have kids, and more importantly if those children are little girls. They need to see this film. I would be shocked however if they are not already indoctrinated into this madness. While I hope Weapons does well, this is probably the film that took the hearts of the world by storm… especially because no one was really expecting much from it.
28 Years Later
I’ve been a fan of this series since the first film, and I still think it is one of the better zombie films that we have ever gotten. 28 Years Later is something that I was really looking forward to… and I can’t necessarily say I am disappointed in it… but it was not the film I was expecting. This is more a tale centered around a family than anything else, but it does happen to exist within the settings of a truly bizarre and interesting world that has grown up around a rage virus based zombie apocalypse. Nature is healing… in weird and interesting ways, and it is at least cool to see what a potential future for this world looks like. I thought Ralph Fiennes character of Doctor Ian Kelson pretty much stole the movie though, and I am very interesting to see where the next film which is a side-story centered around the Bone Temple takes us.
The Monkey
Another really great horror film and dark comedy this year is The Monkey. It is centered around a cursed object that ultimately leads to major catastrophe befalling the owners. Essentially each time the monkey drums… someone dies in a truly disturbing way. The narrative largely focuses on twin brothers… played by the same actor… who deliver WILDLY different performances… and the role they have been forced into as the caretaker of this malicious object. There are a lot of genuinely hilarious moments that center around death, so I have to admit this was a great film for me to watch while I was grieving… because sometimes it is important to be capable of laughing at loss. I am wired to love horror films… but not everyone is. Some of the deaths are pretty bloody and gruesome, so if you have a weak stomach this might not be your film. I enjoyed it thoroughly though, but also I am pretty freaking twisted at times.
Freaky Tales
Now we finally arrive at the film that is truly my movie of the year. Freaky Tales is an anthology of interlocking tales that center around Oakland California in the late 80s. The wildest part about this narrative is that some of it is based on real world events and people, and KQED has a good article/podcast episode talking about this. You have Rainbow Punks, Fascist Cops, a Hitman with a Heart of Gold, and an Astral Projecting Samurai Basketball player. What more could you want? Rap legend Too Short serves as the narrator for all of these tales, and while the totality is a bit rough around the edges at times, it is a really good experience to watch. I think more than anything the reason why this is my movie of the year is because it kind of came from out of nowhere, and has so much heart that I can’t help but love it.
Were there movies this year that you loved that I missed? Do you disagree on my takes on any of the films I did talk about? drop me a line below.
The post 2025 Year in Review: The Movies appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Folks. I did not blog yesterday because I had an exceptionally busy day… and just never quite got around to it. Last night my friend Ace and I made a date to group up and do some of the more difficult content in Destiny Rising. I find this way more enjoyable than rolling completely random, because we can at least coordinate slightly over Discord while playing. There was a moment last night… that is probably only hilarious to the two of us… but I will relate it anyways. We had just cleared a room… and Ace and the Random player had rushed off… and I did not realize it and over voice coms I hear “Okay, Have Fun!” in a very bright voice. At first I thought Ace was talking to me, but no… their spouse was leaving to go off to a Gunpla event and we have just gotten used to leaving Discord with mics open. I thought they were telling me that I needed to stop wasting time and catch up… and then we spent the rest of the night laughing about this moment and repeating the phrase over and over.
We are deep into the endgame and essentially get a very limited amount of serious mode runs each week. Everything in the challenge difficulty range requires a challenge key, and we get three of these a week… with the ability to spend actual money or the pull currency to get a few additional keys. So essentially last night we ran two Grandmaster mode strikes to reap the rewards for the week. If anything I think this is WHY the player activity is dropping off in the game, because you quickly get pigeon holed into a state where you only really get to play once per week. I think a lot of this needs to be reworked massively, because NetEase really needs to decide if they want this to be a successful game or not. It is good enough to completely replace Destiny for most of the player base, but the pinnacle rewards and limited chances at the hardest content in the game… really pump the brakes on the fun factor.
That is not to say that there are not still fun activities to do. Yesterday I learned that I could bank up the rewards from Singularity Chaos mode and then claim them after the run faster. This is especially good for those situations where you are farming it, but you just want to claim the basic rewards for the limited chance of being able to get an exotic artifact. I wish there was something like this that we could do with a chance of dropping exotic weapon mods. They are way more fiddly than artifacts, but are also way harder to actually get. I am guessing this Reward Retrieval screen exists for pretty much any activity, so that you don’t accidentally forget to loot the chest and then get locked out of that loot forever. It is wild that I am as many hours deep in this game as I am and I am still finding weird quality of life tweaks. For example… did you know that you can shoot heavy ammo bricks with your weapon to pick them up? This is a thing, and it saves you the effort of running over into danger to pick one up.
We continue to progress our pack really quickly, and honestly… I am shocked that we are moving as fast as we are. The highlight of yesterday is that one of the people that I was in the random pack with actually joined after I invited them. They seemed pretty cool, and maybe I have actually made a friend in this random assed grouping system. I’ve had a few conversations with players and they have mostly been good. Someone poked fun at me last night for running laps around Haven, because it is a thing I have done since Dalaran when I am hanging out on voice chat and idling. They admitted that they do it too, and now we have added each other as friends. Maybe my days of meeting random players is not as over as I thought it was, considering that I have also recently made some random friends in Guild Wars 2.
We also managed to get the materials to upgrade our Hangar to the next level. Essentially everything but the very back of the hanger now looks pretty nice. The second floor is still a bunch of random panels, and I am guessing that the next major upgrade will fill in this area. I have to be honest… I never really roamed around the Hangar before so I am not sure what one looks like when it is fully progressed. I am not even sure if the Wanderer packs had the ability to upgrade anything. I am really hoping at some point we unlock the Pack emblem so that we can customize that somewhat. We continue to search for strongholds, but are having zero luck in finding any. I wonder if this is gated by guild level or something, because we have unlocked MOST of the ??? clusters and they never end up being a stronghold.
I finally got enough currency to make my first level 85 weapon, and I went with Trinity Ghoul. I also upgraded it by consuming a duplicate copy of the weapon, and now need to acquire 100 of the exotic currency so I can claim the final catalyst level. This is another one of those really long grinds, because you ONLY get the currency from Grandmaster activities and there are very limited sources of the exotic leveling currency. So all of this becomes the really long tailed grind of the game. I think maybe they need to be a bit more open with this stuff, and maybe make all of the vendors reset weekly rather than once per month or once per season. There needs to be a way to get this stuff rather than spending your limited currency each day on gathering up a handful at a time.
Another thing that I did while hanging out on voice, was several of the heroic legendary missions for various characters so that I could do the requirement of completing one in under 7 minutes. I did this on Gwynn, Wolf, and Ning Fei, and the only things keeping me from finishing silver on both of them… is the ability power levels… which require me to get more of the currency that can ONLY be gained when Calamity Ops resets. Again… there are just too many things that take too long to reset. If this reset every week, we would at least have a shot at hell in getting enough currency to upgrade a character, but the problem is you need 6 of them for the final upgrade tier and you only get 4 from Calamity Ops. The cadence of things is just a bit off and they really need to tweak this. Many of these things are standard Gacha trappings, but if they care about the North American player base… then they maybe need to tweak them a bit.
I do worry that maybe Destiny Rising has lost their chance, because generally speaking you only get one shot at the opinion of players. There are a lot of folks who tried and bounced once they realized that the Pinnacle rewards system was going to be a thing. The only real option to win them back is to release a massive patch down the line that tweaks everything, giving the game a bit of a comeback story. Destiny streamers have given the game a ton of good press, especially around the raid race. So I am hoping we get more content dropping soon, so that it will coax a bunch of players back to the game. It is worrying however because they are merging the servers so that all of them will be available for queuing for activities together. Hopefully this improves the fact that there are just some activities that are hell to get a match for right now.
The biggest challenge facing the game right now is that you are rapidly pushed into a scenario where only certain activities will get you any progression. Since most rewards take 20 Pinnacle currency, and you get 120 per day…. that leaves you with six things that you can do. Those six attempts are going to get spent on Master/Grandmaster activities, Legendary Campaign, or Gauntlet until you have gotten your 3 bonus rewards per week… and then probably not that anymore. So that means that everything else… Shifting Gates, Morgrans, etc are not going to be easy to get a group for. Hell we have even reached a point where Iron Bar takes 15 minutes to form a group on the weekends… which is wild because it is one of those activities that is ONLY available at a limited time. If you put a rare chance of getting the resources that we actually need from these activities that are effectively dead… and put it on the basic reward pool… you will have players queuing for them constantly.
I know there is a major patch coming in 2026, so hopefully some of this will be addressed then. I am still having a lot of fun, but once Path of Exile 3.27 drops on the 31st I am likely going to be logging in and doing my dailies to keep progressing the guild and then meeting up with Ace once per week to do the limited content.
The post Okay, Have Fun! appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Good Morning Folks. This is going to be a weird post and I apologize ahead of time for the madness that I am about to unleash upon you. However it was so fucking weird to live through it, that I have to write it down before it fades. Friends… I had one of those nights where I woke up, and then fell back asleep to a dream within a dream about the previous dream. So much so that I literally have no clue what is reality and what is dream at this point. In the first of this series of dreams I was traveling to visit family in Ohio. Lets not get caught up on the detail that I have no family in Ohio… because that is not important to this tale. I also have no clue what town in Ohio we were going to visit them at… because again that isn’t really important.
I keep my car stereo pretty much permanently tuned to the local NPR station, and for some reason I turned on the radio wanting some music. Instead of NPR I was treated to a radio station filled with propaganda. The person on the radio was speaking in a conspiratorial manner like Andrew Ryan from the Bioshock games… talking about the virtues of Beef. He would go on about the wonders of the modern Roast Beef Industry and how good it was for both humans and nature. If you have never played Bioshock… then I urge you to listen to this remastered version of the intro speech so that you can fully understand the gravitas of this voice that was speaking to me over the radio about roast beef and the absolute absurdity of it.
So we get to my family and they work… at an Arbys. They say that they have no clue who runs the station but that it has just been a thing their entire lives. That nobody much thinks about it, and anyone who actually listens to it is considered a bit of a kook. There is a bit of a break here, because it flips around as dreams do… and next thing I know I am driving my family to work at Arbys early in the morning, and we are there before sunrise. I am helping them get the place ready and am taking stuff out to the dumpster out back. For some reason I have this little blue and white transistor radio that I had as a kid and I am listening to the damned broadcast of what I have not learned are referred to as “Beefists” and their ideology.
Around the time the restaurant is about to open up in the morning… because for some reason in this dream Arby’s opens early, Bernie Sanders pulls up with some lady with him and he goes into the restaurant. The radio starts blaring in a tirade about how Senator Sanders has come to town to harm the Roast Beef Industry and that he opposes their Beefist ways. The speaker says something about getting up early to paint his house so he would be ready to do battle with Sanders. I think it is around this time that I woke up to go to the bathroom as one does when you are almost 50… and can’t sleep wall the way through the night anymore.
When I get settled back in I start dreaming about coming back from the trip to Ohio and trying to research anything about this radio station and its enigmatic Beefist orator. The thing is I find absolutely nothing about it. I can’t find any signs of anyone even knowing about it. I even get on Mastodon and make a post because I think surely that someone will have heard of this or might live in Ohio and be familiar with it. I get nothing at all apart from Arbys ads popping up everywhere. In truth I am not even sure where this dream could have come from. It’s been months since I last ate at Arbys, and even more so I am not usually a big fan of beef in general. I always prefer to have chicken or pork and have for most of my life. I think I was reading an article the other day about the Beef industry struggling… but honestly after some googling this morning I am not even sure that was a real thing… and not just more scaffolding from this bizarre dreamscape.
Now that I have excised this from my brain… you too can revel in the madness of Beefist propaganda. The way in which I had to get up and write this down makes me question if it were an SCP style Cognitohazard. Regardless… I have done its bidding now and can be free of it. I am sorry.
The post Empire of Beef appeared first on Tales of the Aggronaut.
Featuring: Ashgar, Belghast, Grace, Kodra, Tamrielo, and Thalen
Hey Folks. We start off with a pretty frank discussion as to why we did not record last week and the death of Belghast’s wife of almost thirty years. From there, we talk about what if Stardew Valley were a Pirates game with Seablip. Bel shares his thoughts about the overwhelming success of KPOP Demon Hunters. Kodra has reached the endgame of Minecraft Dungeons and talks about Apocalypse. The crew has been playing some Sunderfolk and talking about that experience, and Tam shares his initial thoughts about Sky: Children of Light. Grace makes us want to buy the second game of the podcast as they share thoughts about Cauldron. Tam has been brute-forcing his way through Guild Wars 1 Prophecies, and Bel has attempted to get into Borderlands 3 and still does not think that is a great game. Finally, Bel shares his first thoughts about the Superman movie and how you should ignore some of the bad press and go see it.
