Some Like It Hot this week.  Star Wars(!) next week.  As always, follow along on our iCheckMovies list, and be sure to let us know how you’d rank the movies in the comments below.

Some Like It Hot – March 29, 1959

Director: Billy Wilder
Producer: Billy Wilder
Writers: Billy Wilder, I. A. L. Diamond
Actors: Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, George Raft, Joe E. Brown, Pat O’Brien
Distributor: United Artists

The course of the conversation:

We continue to be unable to stick to the movies we announce.

The puppy test is in full effect.

Jack Lemmon.  Respect.

Jonathan finally gets a clear idea of what the word “grounded” means.

Bert may be wacky, but you laugh at Ernie.

Tony Curtis seems to be either overshadowed or carrying the entire scene.

Some of the slower bits, while necessary, may keep this from being a regular viewer.

Marilyn Monroe is exactly what the movie needed, and not just in the film itself.

We diverge into talking about actors and actresses who only have looks to sustain them.

Jonathan tells a story about angering his mother.

Chris Farley and Marilyn Monroe are compared.

Here’s why the movie was filmed in black and white.

Kansas couldn’t handle it.

Jonathan apologizes to Kansas on behalf of Colorado.

Nathaniel apologizes to Kansas on behalf of Kansas.

Lots of symbolism in bed-wear.

But wait, there’s more!

Is this a screwball comedy?  Do we yet know what a screwball comedy is?

Nathaniel makes a sure and “simple” decision.

Jonathan risks the wrath of Brando and De Niro to gain the favor of Stanwyck and Lemmon.

Michael shuffles his list like a deck of cards and gives more credit to John Wayne.

Jonathan flip flops on his vote for Michael’s movie, bumping Twelve Angry Men in favor of Blazing Saddles.

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In this episode, Jonathan’s finally finished Bioshock Infinite and he has stuff to say.

Before that, though, Sam tells us about his new internet service, and Alex tells us about previews of XCOM: The Bureau.

Sam is actually still playing Uncharted 2, rather than having finished it like I might’ve written in the show notes last week.  He has, though, completed Candy Box, and has also played his first Zynga game, What’s the Phrase?

Alex is in the beta for Card Hunter, and it’s exactly what he thought it was going to be and that’s great news.  He’s also been playing Monaco, and so long as you don’t mind throwing stealth out the window, you’ll have a great time playing it with friends.

All Jonathan talks about this week is Bioshock Infinite, and he doesn’t have particularly good things to say about it.  This isn’t because the game is particularly bad, but more because the media surrounding the game made it out to be something far greater than it really is.

The Holmberg’s official rating for Bioshock Infinite: Rent it.

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The Searchers this week.  Some Like It Hot next week.  As always, follow along on our iCheckMovies list, and be sure to let us know how you’d rank the movies in the comments below.

The Searchers – March 13, 1956

Director: John Ford
Producer: Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney
Writers: Frank S. Nugent
Actors: John Wayne, Jeffrey Hunter, Vera Miles, Ward Bond, Natalie Wood
Distributor: Warner Bros.

The course of the conversation:

I’ll fill this in soon.

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Man With a Movie Camera this week (that’s what Netflix calls it, where it’s available for streaming).  Next week is The Searchers.  As always, follow along on our iCheckMovies list, and be sure to let us know how you’d rank the movies in the comments below.

Man With a Movie Camera – January 8, 1929

Director: Dziga Vertov
Writers: Dziga Vertov
Cinematography: Mikhail Kaufman

The course of the conversation:

We actually watched a silent movie we said we’d watch.

Nathaniel makes a reference from The Ring.  Jonathan doesn’t get it.

Michael quotes Nietzsche and stares into the abyss.

Jonathan is still processing.

Let’s define our terms.

Scare quotes!

A movie doesn’t need to protest to be political.

The movie has an agenda, but it feels subtle.

So much of the movie feels modern, but at the time, Vertov put out a month-long disclaimer to warn the audience that things were going to get weird.

The host’s lack of knowledge becomes an issue with understanding this film.

Quentin Tarantino would love this movie.

Appreciation for this film may be lost as we lose the physical process of moviemaking.

Live birth, side-boob, front-boob, dancing crawfish.

These are just people, living their lives, and how would that have appeared to people afraid of the Commies?

Is this movie sugar-coating Stalinist Russia, or successfully giving a taste of a day-in-the-life despite what bad things might’ve been going on?

From a social point of view, we’re glad this movie exists.

Nathaniel made his decision easily.  Michael had trouble, but didn’t rank it high.  Jonathan feels there’s a lot of technique to deconstruct and learn from.

Your hosts announce their next movie, The Searchers, with confidence, because they’re pulling a double-feature week.

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Better show notes will be forthcoming.  For now, know that we talked about A Valley Without Wind, Fish Out of Water, Disgaea 4, Eador: Masters of the Broken World, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, and what we think about cloning video games.

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On the Waterfront this week.  Next week is The Lady Eve.  As always, follow along on our iCheckMovies list, and be sure to let us know how you’d rank the movies in the comments below.

On the Waterfront – July 28, 1954

Director: Elia Kazan
Producer: Sam Spiegel
Writers: Budd Schulberg
Actors: Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, Karl Malden, Lee J. Cobb
Distributor: Columbia Pictures

The course of the conversation:

Jonathan’s biggest exposure to Brando.

We’re going to be adults about the boobs.

Nathaniel dislikes modern Oscar fodder.

Ripped from the headlines!

Parallels can be drawn to Elia Kazan’s testimony in front of HUAC, but probably not enough to spend too much time on it.

Jonathan has a terrible memory.

The difficulty of making the movie.

Nathaniel doesn’t know if he would have made that decision.

Mark Wahlberg would be Terry Malloy in a modern-day remake.

We go into the priest.

The priest is the only one who could play the moral compass in this story.

Edie is the one who forces Terry to act.

The redemption of America.

Lee J. Cobb plays reprehensible so damn well.

Nathaniel is terrified of Gene Hackman.

It’s the little ones you’ve gotta worry about.

Eva Marie Saint gives a good performance, up until the script lets her down.

In our theoretical, modern-day remake, Edie would hopefully get a fuller character.

John Turturro is not John Leguizamo.

We’re glad that On the Waterfront came so quickly after Raging Bull.

The juxtaposition of the “Charlie” scene in On the Waterfront and the “Charlie” scene in Raging Bull is genius.

Context is everything.

Leonard Bernstein’s score was so overwhelming.  And not in a good way.

The drama button and Skrillex.  Either might be better.

Dear Internet: Please give us a version of this movie without the weird sound decisions.

Score-writing guy.

Jonathan and Nathaniel place the movie high on their lists, but it’s Michael who has a surprising casualty.

Jonathan manages to screw up the closing of this show, too.  It’s like a disease or something.

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Business:  We won’t be attempting an IndieGoGo campaign.  While we appreciate everyone who offered their support, fundraising would require treating WotG like a business, and that’s not in the cards right now.  The PC games will come, they just will take a little while longer.

News:  Microsoft’s new Xbox is going to feature DVR capabilities; 100% of WotG’s hosts have no use for it.  When focus testing The Last of Us, Naughty Dog had to specifically request female gamers be included in the testing.  And Skyrim has effectively un-capped character levels, because we all needed an excuse to lose more time in that game.

Games:  Jonathan tricks Alex into thinking he got early access to Injustice: Gods Among Us, but what he really played was the free iOS version of the new fighting game.  Alex and Sam explore JRPG goodness in the form of Hyperdimension Neptunia and Ni No Kuni.  And both Jonathan and Sam have put time now into Bioshock Infinite, and while they’re both stunned by the visuals and the world, they find the gameplay to be a bit dated.

Topic:  And while we’re on the subject of Bioshock Infinite‘s gameplay, is it fair to ask the question “Is it even necessary?”  Walt Williams and Jeffrey Yohalem, writers for Spec Ops: The Line and Far Cry 3 respectively, talked recently at GDC about the use of violence in games and making it more than just filler.  Moreover, how do you make a death meaningful in a game where the player kills dozens, if not hundreds, of people?  The guys take up these questions and see where they lead.

Metagame:  Defiance finally earned an aggregate score of 67, leaving the host’s average scores completely untouched.

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Sam is unable to record because [REDACTED DUE TO MORALITY CLAUSE].  Alex and Jonathan go old school and record a two-man ‘cast.

We start the show by discussing the demise of LucasArts.  Is it really something worth mourning or is the geekosphere reacting out of nostalgia?  We hope everyone who lost their job finds new and wonderful employment elsewhere, but we haven’t actually spent much money on a LucasArts game in a long time.

We also discuss how Sega Europe was forced to acknowledge that footage used in trailers for Aliens: Colonial Marines was misleading.  Alex doesn’t really care, because even the footage in the trailers failed to sell him on the game.  Jonathan gets it, but does a poor job explaining why.

Alex has completed Bioshock Infinite.  It’s made him forget just how much he loved Bioshock.  Relic gets discussed as Alex’s non-video-game game, basically an updated take on the board game Talisman set in the 40K universe.  Alex also met a younger version of himself while he was out of town last week.

Jonathan wants to know who wants to play Terraria with him.  It’s on 360 and PS3 now, and he’s down to get the game if anyone else is playing.  He also gets in his own non-video-game game by talking about the tabletop RPG Microscope; it’s very much a story game, but it’s a really interesting story game.  Jonathan’s also played some games provided free via Playstation Plus: The Cave, which may suffer from Jonathan’s favorite recent complaint, tonal inconsistencies; and Closure, a clever puzzle game that plays with light and shadow.

Finally, we wrap up the show with the MetaGame.  Defiance does not yet have a Metacritic score, and so we skip to our alternate game, Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge.  Jonathan does really well this week, only two points off the aggregate score of 71.  Alex and Sam picked numbers close, though, and so not much has changed on the leaderboard.  For the next round, we pick Injustice: Gods Among Us: Jonathan guesses 89, Alex 84, and Sam 80.

As Defiance still doesn’t have a Metacritic score as of release, let’s ask this question: do you like the Metagame?  Let us know in the comments below.

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We found Nemo this week.  Next week is Singin’ in the Rain.  As always, follow along on our iCheckMovies list, and be sure to let us know how you’d rank the movies in the comments below.

Finding Nemo – May 30, 2003

Director: Andrew Stanton
Producer: Graham Walters
Writers: Andrew Stanton, Bob Peterson, David Reynolds
Voice Actors: Albert Brooks, Ellen DeGeneres, Alexander Gould
Studio: Pixar
Distributor: Walt Disney

The course of the conversation:

Take two!

Jonathan’s not actually a professional.

There are no unimportant conversations about Space Jam.

Oh yeah, Finding Nemo really is that good.

Classy bodily humor.

Yup.  The animation is incredible.

Nathaniel hates Ellen.  (No, not really.)

Nathaniel hits on the Internet.

Stop covering your face, Jonathan.

Is this the first time Pixar decided to rip our hearts out?

Kids can handle “adult” topics.

Pixar has an amazing ability to create horrible children.

The Pixar Effect

Would you replace Finding Nemo with any other Pixar film?

It might be the funniest of the Pixar pantheon.

We spoil the surprise plot of Brave by talking about how Pixar successfully avoided spoiling the surprise plot of Brave.

Nathaniel and Jonathan make the same pick.  Again.

All singing.  All dancing.  Talk about genre whiplash.

Back Seat Producers Mentions: 1

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They may not be piñatas, but we still have a plethora of games to talk about this week.  So much so, that we actually save a bunch for next time.  Let’s jump into it.

DmC: Devil May Cry – Jonathan gave this one a try.  It has some clever touches, but overall fails to hold his interest as both the gameplay and the story feel like nothing new.

FTL: Faster Than Light – Jonathan’s also still not sure about the mothership in FTL.  He took Luke’s advice, and still comes away from it feeling like the gameplay shift may not exactly work.  He fully admits that this may be a result of his inexperience with Rogue-likes, and also admits he’ll continue playing.

Assassin’s Creed 3: Wolfpack – Alex has a different take from Sam on AC3′s Wolfpack mode.  He feels it doesn’t support the gameplay claims it makes, and he wishes it were more like the competitive multiplayer.

Forza: Horizon – Sam learns the shocking truth that the ability to go around corners may be just as important as the ability to go fast in a straight line.  Also, he learns he needs to control his thumbs better.

Android: Netrunner – Sam also brings to the table an analog game, Fantasy Flight’s popular living card game.

Bioshock Infinite: No Subtitle – Jonathan has played the first hour, and Alex has played quite a bit more than that.  Jonathan was pretty hooked right up to the point where the shooting began, while Alex is learning to love the game he was given, rather than trying to play the game he wants.

In the MetaGame, we run into a bit of a conundrum as Army of Two: Devil’s Cartel was not only the first multi-platform game we’ve used, but it’s also the first game that didn’t have a MetaCritic score on the day of release.  We pull it together, though, and Sam, disappointingly, shows he’s got a gift for gauging game reviewers.

Sam scores a point this round, Jonathan scores two, and Alex takes the title of “Most Wrong” with a score of 16.  Luke’s guest guess placed him just ahead of Alex with 15 points.

The Averages: Sam at 4, Jonathan at 7, and Alex drops to third with 10.

Next round: Ninja Gaiden 3: Razor’s Edge, a game that’s already out for the WiiU, and is actually coming out for 360 and PS3 next week, but was chosen because there’s literally nothing scheduled to drop the week of April 7th.  All the hosts are within a point of each other in their picks.  It’ll be a quick round.

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