Episode 63 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 63: Smells Like Pod Spirit.  We start off the show talking about meeting "Weird Al" Yankovic. Anthony also saw She & Him in concert, while Brent went to Summerfest to see The Mowgli's and Imagine Dragons.

Episode 62 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 62: Vanilla Creme Balls.  We start off the show talking about a birthday of one of our heroes.

Box Office Estimates June 14-June 16, 2013

Man of Steel had a super opening this weekend, destroying the June opening weekend box office numbers like it was Metropolis after making $116 million opening weekend in addition to the $12 million it made Thursday night.  The previous record was $110 million set by Toy Story 3 in 2010.  This is the End had a pretty disappionting opening weekend only making $20 million and $33 million for the week.  I don't understand why more people didn't go to This is the End, it's easily the funniest movie of the summer so far, and it made about half of what The Hangover Part III made opening weekend, which is a travesty.  Also, I'm pretty shocked that Now You See Me stood tall at 3rd place again this week, nice to see a clever and fun movie like this doing well.

Next weekend is shaping up to be a big one as well with Pixar's Monsters University bringing in the family crowd and Brad Pitt's World War Z bringing in the zombie/geek crowd.

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	N	Man of Steel	WB	$116,619,362	-	4,207	-	$27,720	$128,681,486	$225	1
2	N	This is the End	Sony	$20,719,162	-	3,055	-	$6,782	$33,027,297	$32	1
3	3	Now You See Me	LG/S	$11,016,473	-42.1%	3,082	+62	$3,574	$80,705,956	$75	3
4	2	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$9,583,330	-51.2%	3,375	-396	$2,840	$219,723,955	$160	4
5	1	The Purge	Uni.	$8,317,995	-75.6%	2,591	+55	$3,210	$51,962,845	$3	2
6	4	The Internship	Fox	$7,148,551	-58.7%	3,399	+33	$2,103	$31,099,912	$58	2
7	5	Epic	Fox	$6,284,905	-47.1%	3,151	-443	$1,995	$95,713,528	$100	4
8	6	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$6,256,254	-45.2%	2,331	-821	$2,684	$211,086,948	$190	5
9	7	After Earth	Sony	$4,052,042	-62.2%	2,432	-969	$1,666	$54,516,057	$130	3
10	9	Iron Man 3	BV	$2,956,855	-48.6%	1,649	-702	$1,793	$399,659,094	$200	7

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers.

Episode 61 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 61: Pre-Wripped For Your Pleasure.  We start off the show talking about Wicked and some people that have today as a birthday.

Movie Review: SNITCH

Do you smell what the Snitch is cooking?  Snitch was the first of The Rock's 6,000 movies to be released in the calendar year of 2013. Along with these movies, The Rock won the WWE Championship at Royal Rumble in January, lost it to John Cena at Wrestlemania in April (in a match where he suffered a hernia), and yet still had time to film another 45,000 movies to be released in 2014.  I'm not quite sure how the most electrifying man in all of Hollywood has time for it, but I'm truly glad he does.  There's just something about Dwayne Johnson, that even if the movie doesn't look good, I'm still excited to see it.  Which led me to check out Snitch when it was released on video.



I'm not normally one to talk about DVD/Blu-Ray cover art, but this one is terrible.  First off, Dwayne Johnson's head looks like it's hella-crooked.  Then they put like the smallest picture they could find of a semi running into and flipping over a car on a bland gray canvas.  Granted the actual movie poster is the same sort of idea, but Dwayne's head isn't nearly as jacked as it is on the DVD and the color compliments things better. 

You ever feel like you're entering a vortex when watching a movie?  Where there's no possible way that you've seen the movie before but at the same time, it's felt like you've watched 100 different versions of it.  That's Snitch.  So basically The Rock is playing John Matthews (which is an absolutely terrible name), who's son's is in high school and just getting ready to enter college.  The son's friend wants to have some drugs mailed to his house and he'll come and get them, since he's worried about his place being raided.  The drugs show up but they've been tracked and the DEA raids the house and arrests the son. In order to prevent his son from getting the minimum of a 10 year sentence, thus ruining pretty much his life, John Matthews goes undercover for the DEA and tries to lay the smack down on all the drug cartels candy asses.

I was a little underwhelmed to be honest.  I kept waiting for this to become exciting and action packed and it never got there. As much as that has become stereotypical Dwayne Johnson, it should have been a more straightforward action/revenge film instead. By going the thriller route and having a focus much more on the DEA trying to shut down the drug trade instead, it just felt bogged down. If you like Dwayne Johnson, it's worth checking out as he gives a good performance, just wish it was a little bit more fun along the way.

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Box Office June 7-June 9, 2013

This was really the first weekend of the summer without a projected blockbuster style movie and surprisingly The Purge took home the box office crown this week bringing in over $36 million. While the new Vince Vaughn/Owen Wilson movie The Internship could only muster 4th place in it's opening weekend, in what you have to believe is a very disappointing start for the comedy that had a $58 million budget.  In independent box office news, Much Ado About Nothing easily had the best per screen average bringing in $183,000 while only playing at 5 venues, very positive sign for Joss Whedon's pet project.

Things are going to heat up at the box office this weekend with Man of Steel opening up and early projections are hopeful it will cross the $100 million mark opening weekend.  Also the very hilarious This is the End hitting the big screens on Wednesday.

1	N	The Purge	Uni.	$36,379,000	-	2,536	-	$14,345	$36,379,000	$3	1
2	1	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$19,760,000	-43.8%	3,771	+85	$5,240	$202,946,000	$160	3
3	2	Now You See Me	LG/S	$19,500,000	-33.6%	3,020	+95	$6,457	$61,374,000	$75	2
4	N	The Internship	Fox	$18,100,000	-	3,366	-	$5,377	$18,100,000	$58	1
5	5	Epic	Fox	$12,100,000	-27.2%	3,594	-300	$3,367	$84,155,000	$100	3
6	4	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$11,700,000	-30.3%	3,152	-433	$3,712	$200,140,000	$190	4
7	3	After Earth	Sony	$11,200,000	-59.3%	3,401	-	$3,293	$46,592,000	$130	2
8	6	The Hangover Part III	WB	$7,380,000	-55.0%	3,242	-323	$2,276	$102,374,000	$103	3
9	7	Iron Man 3	BV	$5,787,000	-31.5%	2,351	-544	$2,462	$394,316,000	$200	6
10	8	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$4,230,000	-35.1%	2,160	-475	$1,958	$136,175,000	$105	5

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers.

Episode 60 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 60: Podcast in a Cup.  We start off the show talking about Darren Criss, who Anthony saw in concert this week.

It's Not Fair...

"It's not fair..." were the immortal words uttered by my wife last night after receiving some normally very happy but under the circumstances depressing news last night when finding out another couple we knew were pregnant.  I'll try my best to disguise who this couple is considering I don't think it's "facebook official" yet, but needless to say it was quite the dickpunch to find out that this couple who weren't openly trying to have a child, were.

I really haven't written or talked much about this situation but, it's time to open up a little bit.  We have been trying to conceive for almost 2 years now. However, about a year ago Julie was diagnosed with polycystic ovarian syndrome.  The Mayo Clinic describes this as "a common hormonal disorder among women of reproductive age. Infrequent or prolonged menstrual periods can occur in women with polycystic ovary syndrome. In women past adolescence, difficulty becoming pregnant or unexplained weight gain may be the first sign."

Needless to say, PCOS (polycystic ovarian syndrom) has been a PIOA (pain in our ass).  With a condition like this, it's not easy to get treatment in Kewaskum, or sadly anywhere else in the nearby area and we have instead had to the Good Hope Aurora Clinic in Milwaukee, which is a decent 45 minute haul.  Not only that, but because of the time sensitive nature of these appointments, most occur on weekdays, where Julie would have to try to cram them between her split shift at work and because she doesn't drive, I've used some vacation days as well as taking extended lunch breaks to take her to these appointments (as well as the graciousness of her parents to make the much longer trip from Beloit to take her when I can't).  After adding in all of the prescriptions, co-pays, blood draw fees, and various other tests we are well into four figures already and we haven't even gotten to the expensive part yet.

So while we were on our way home from seeing a pre-screening of The Kings of Summer, Julie noticed a missed call.  She called this person back and I could immediately tell that something was wrong, as she began speaking very monosyllabically. After hanging up the phone, that was when the waterworks started and she told me the news.  I was stunned.  I knew becoming pregnant means so much to her and this only gets more frustrating every time she finds out that another friend of hers got knocked up.  It started with one high school friend who accidentally got pregnant for the second time, followed by a close college friend who had an oopsies moment of her own.

Since we became engaged, she became online friends with other people having August 2010 weddings on The Knot website, where she would discuss different wedding ideas, etc.  After the weddings were done they formed a group on Facebook talking about their married life, which lead to a lot of the discussing and trying to become pregnant as well.  As more people said that they were going to attempt to get pregnant after Julie had previously announced it and "struggled" for 2 or 3 months before getting the good news, Julie became more and more frustrated as she began getting lapped.

The one good thing that developed out of this community was a good friendship with a Canadian girl named Jodie.  Jodie has also been trying for several years to become pregnant but has also faced a lot of issues.  As bad as Julie and I have had it, my heart really goes out to Jodie and her husband, as our small drive to Milwaukee is nothing compared to their flights to Toronto.  She's also had to undergo much harsher and more expensive treatment including invetro fertilization two months ago. Just when everything seemed to finally work, she flew in for a check-up and got the worst news you could imagine, she lost the baby.  My heart absolutely goes out to Jodie and her husband for all the hardships that they have encountered and hope that things get better for them soon.

Sometimes we live in a cruel world.  On the most recent season of Mike & Molly, they spent the entire season having a frustrating time attempting to have their first child, but (SPOILER ALERT), of course at the end of the season, Molly announced that she was going to be having her baby.  Unfortunately, we do not live in a sitcom world where things have a happy ending.  Most of our time is spent mid-season during these frustrating periods of our lives.   Julie is currently trying a new medication and has a follow-up appointment tomorrow, hopefully we will get some good news and have our sitcom ending soon enough.

Box Office Estimates May 31-June 2, 2013

This weekend was expected to be the calmest since Iron Man 3 came out and it certainly was.  While After Earth wasn't projected to make a lot of money, the box office of $27 million opening weekend was certainly a surprise as it was the lowest Will Smith summer movie opening of all time.  Fast and Furious 6 led the box office for the second week in a row with another $34 million for $170 million domestic gross so far. Probably the biggest surprise was that Fast and Furious dropped 64.5% and all of the other carryover movies in the top 8 all dropped over 50% this weekend.  Also, making the top 10 despite only opening in 161 theaters is the new Bollywood movie Yei Jawaani Hai Deewani.

Next weekend, The Internship and The Purge open up.  The Internship has a good chance of opening strong, but it's been a while since Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson have been big summer draws.  The Purge being an R-rated horror movie will probably do fine, since it's been a while since the last horror film (Evil Dead in early April).

TW	LW	Title (click to view)	Studio	Weekend Gross	% Change	Theater Count / Change		Average	Total Gross	Budget*	Week #
1	1	Fast & Furious 6	Uni.	$34,538,000	-64.5%	3,686	+28	$9,370	$170,377,000	$160	2
2	N	Now You See Me	LG/S	$28,050,000	-	2,925	-	$9,590	$28,050,000	$75	1
3	N	After Earth	Sony	$27,000,000	-	3,401	-	$7,939	$27,000,000	$130	1
5	3	Star Trek Into Darkness	Par.	$16,400,000	-56.0%	3,585	-322	$4,575	$181,156,000	$190	3
4	4	Epic	Fox	$16,400,000	-51.1%	3,894	+12	$4,212	$65,161,000	$100	2
6	2	The Hangover Part III	WB	$15,930,000	-61.8%	3,565	+10	$4,468	$88,086,000	$103	2
7	5	Iron Man 3	BV	$8,006,000	-58.6%	2,895	-529	$2,765	$384,751,000	$200	5
8	6	The Great Gatsby (2013)	WB	$6,265,000	-53.7%	2,635	-455	$2,378	$128,256,000	$105	4
9	N	Yei Jawaani Hai Deewani	Eros	$1,651,000	-	161	-	$10,255	$1,651,000	-	1
10	7	Mud	RAtt.	$1,226,000	-36.8%	581	-131	$2,110	$16,866,000	-	6

Credit goes to BoxOfficeMojo.com for the table and numbers.

Episode 59 Notes

Here are the official show notes for Episode 59: The Fresh Pod of Bel-Air.  We start off the show talking about Wicked, which Anthony saw this week.