Weird Mind News Room Episode 13: May 22nd - 28th 2023

 *lets roll that news music again*

(This episode of Weird Mind news room was written and recorded in front of a fictional studio audience)

Well a very warm welcome to you all to another new episode of Weird Mind News Room. As you will read (and watch if you think my video version does not seem very annoying and while I work on improving them overtime every week and other videos unrelated to this) through this new weekly one where we will talk on some of the new releases, trailers and the news of this week that peaked my interest of all areas of media entertainment. Now without a do, let get right to the news

Releases of interest of all different aspects

Movies

The Little Mermaid

According to some logic of fact apparently everything is better down where it's wetter, under the sea with the newest Live action adaptation courtesy of Disney with the Little Mermaid. If you know the story of the original you know it is about a young mermaid named Ariel who wants to walk amongst those above the surface and falls in love with a prince, makes a deal with a sea witch to have legs with her getting her voice and will all come down to finding true love in the end of it all. Now of course there was some complaints, one being the usual of everyone being tired of all these Live action remakes but the other one I want to talk on is the unnecessary level of racism that popped up against the main actress of Halle Bailey (who from the reviews is the best thing of this film) caused she was not a white girl with red hair or a Person of Colour could not be a mermaid (when that was proven wrong in literature and even in the Little Mermaid Animated series from the 90/2000s) and I think that personally she fits the bill very well. Besides that the film has received some decent reception from critics overall with some saying it is one of the better Live Action films. But I will give it a look when I get the chance and go with my Girlfriend to see it and do a opinion piece on it afterwards.

Sisu

Now to a few of you, you are probably wondering what this film is in particular. Well this is a film that was made in Finland and has been described as a John Wick style film set during the 2nd World War. The plot is set near the end of the war, where a solitary Prospector ends up crossing paths with Nazi's on a scorched earth retreat in Finland. But when they decide to mess with and steal his gold, they have realized that they are dealing with no ordinary Miner. Now the film has garnered unanimous praise from critics and on the same level of the recent John Wick film that also released this year and I will give this bloody kill fest a watch when I can too. 

TV Shows

Poker Face

We have a new show of interest this week that finally released over here finally and that is the new series created by Ryan Johnson, the director of The Last Jedi and the Critically acclaimed Knives Out Films with a new murder mystery series that follows Charlie Cale (Natasha Lyonne) who has an extraordinary ability to detect when someone is lying and soon she drives across the country in her Plymouth Barracuda and with every stop encounters a new cast of colourful characters and strange she can't help but solve. With a huge all star cast and a really strong high praise from Critics, if you are looking for something of a mystery fix then this will satisfy that desire.

Video Games

Lord of the Rings Gollum

Now for the last new release that I knew about, that a lot may not have remembered we have a new game set in Middle Earth with it focused solely on the creature of Gollum. The basis of this game is set between the events of the Hobbit and the Fellowship of the Ring where you play as Smeagol, a humble man who got corrupted by the One ring and will go on a journey to obtain his precious back from the hobbit Bilbo Baggins. Now as I have seen from the reception for this game, it is not looking too good and has already been labelled as one of the worst if not the worst reviewed game of this year so far and things are not looking good or that excited for a new game in Tolkien's created world. I may give a look into it when I can but maybe down the line to see if it is as bad as they are saying it is.

A mini movie for new movies and other things

The Flash

Now for the first trailer for this week and out of nowhere with a final tease for the Flash movie. Now the basis of the film seems to be inspired by the story of Flashpoint where Barry goes back in time to save his mom from being killed by an unseen force and in the process to a world where there is no superheroes (particularly Kryptonians and Amazonians) and with the help of the another version of himself and a certain Dark Knight he will run as fast as he can to save the future. Now they say that this film will make you forget all the crimes the main lead has been involved in the last year (words according to the production designer) but if the high praise has been any indication (which sometimes they have it always be positive at the early screenings and test screenings but can change with the actual release) it may be best to take it with your own level of expectations for it.

Ruby Gillman, Teenage Kracken

Now June is a really big month for animation with a new film from Sony Animation, Pixar, Netflix and for this one from Dreamworks. This new film will follow Ruby Gillman, a teenage girl who wants to have a normal life but soon discovers that she is actually royalty of a family of sea creatures known as a Kraken and she must protect her people and herself from their mortal enemy the Mermaids and try to also balance a normal life in between. Now the footage has been decent, the colours and animation look nice, but to me there is that feeling that it feels a little like one of the recent Pixar films, Luca (which is a great film) but it could end up being good and I will keep an eye on the reviews and opinions when it premieres in Annecy film festival in Mid June before this releases at the end of June.

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater

Now for the last few weeks there had been some discussion that we were going to get a new game in the Metal Gear Solid series or even more a remake of one of the previous popular games and now out of nowhere during the PlayStation Showcase this week, we got the announcement that we are getting a remake of the popular 3rd MGS game of Snake Eater. Now there is a little concern, just to me with that the game is only being made by Konami and that Kojima does not seem to have any form of involvement when he was the head of these games cause the last 2 attempts at a new Metal Gear without Kojima ended with a really disliked zombie survival game or made into a pachinko machine. But I am sure they know how popular Snake Eater is as a game and will make it so that it comes out great for next gen and PC sometime soon. While that is being worked on there is a new collection of the original Metal gear games and Metal Gear Solid Trilogy all coming to the PS5 in the Fall of this year so there will be that too on the way soon while we wait for the remake.

Spider-Man 2

after being quiet for nearly 2 years (despite a confirmed release for 2023), we have finally gotten some new footage for the upcoming sequel to Insomniac's 2018 and 2020's Spider-Man game with over 10 minutes of new footage showing some new combat skills, powers and new villains including Kraven the Hunter and the Lizard making an appearance too. We know a confirmation for a Fall release this year (going off the rumours of the September release by one of the voice actors) this is looking to shape up to be another really great game from this studio and adding to the ever growing list of games to get this year.

Alan Wake 2

Another new game announced at the showcase and with a release date alongside it we have the long awaited sequel to 2010 sleeper hit Alan Wake. This new story will give us a follow up to where Wake has been for the last 13 years as he has been trapped in an alternate dimension by creating and writing a story of a FBI agent named Saga Anderson to investigate a series of murders that have popped up in Bright Falls, Washington, and using it to escape the captivity Wake has found himself in. The first game saw a resurgence in popularity with the remaster 2 years and I enjoyed the game and I know a good friend of mine will be excited for this game too when it drops this year in early October.

Five Nights at Freddy's Help Wanted 2

As if we just got a trailer for the FNAF movie and Security Breach last week, we make it 3 for 3 with the announcement that we are getting a sequel to the last FNAF VR title Help Wanted. The trailer emphasizes we will be seeing a bit of focus to the latter half of the series with mainly Sister Location and presumably Pizzeria Simulator and any other parts in there too, but I am sure that we will get some more info before the release by the end of this year.

Assassins creed Mirage

Now Assassins Creed has been quiet for nearly 3 years now as they have been making a lot of extra new content for the last mainline game of Valhalla but now we are returning to the Animus with the newest entry with Mirage and will see us take on the role of the assassin of Basim Ibn Ishaq during the 9th century Baghdad and the Islamic Golden age. Now one critique that they are fixing is the way it is being presented as the last few games have been a major complaint as it was becoming way too much like an RPG and is now returning back to the style of the games seen in Assassins creed 2, Brother Hood, 3 and Black Flag. We will know more of this game before its release in Mid October of this year.

Barbie

Who's ready for Barbie B****es, as we have gotten ourselves a new trailer for the highly anticipated film based on the worldwide popular doll of Barbie. This film will follow our Barbie (Margot Robbie) who gets expelled from Barbie land for being not so perfect and will soon end up going to the real world with Ken (Ryan Gosling) tagging along to possibly find true happiness along the way. Now I was wondering the case of what will this film be about and now with a clear focus on plot this looks pretty good and I am sure I will be seeing this as well with the Girlfriend when it releases in July

Alone in the Dark

We sure have a fair few spooky games being shown off this week and this one harkens back to a gaming classic from the old days in an upscale remake of Alone in the Dark. The story of the game will follow Emily Hartwood (Jodie Comer) and Private Investigator Edward Carnby (David Harbour) as they travel to Decerto Manor, a home for the mentally fatigued, to investigate the sudden disappearance of Jeremy Hartwood, Emily's uncle. Visually its looks great and seems like a good time to play and I will be playing this for sure when it also comes out in October.

More of the news of other media interest

Turtle Power

First story this week we have the confirmation of a new release date change for the upcoming release of the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles film Mutant Mayhem. It was announced on world Turtle day of all things that the film will release 2 days earlier in the US on August 2nd and I saw it will release 4 days earlier here on July 31st of this year. We also got confirmation that a new trailer for the film will release next Wednesday so we will talk more on the film with the trailer next week.

Are you excited for the new Ninja Turtles film, I love to hear what you think down below

The Passing of Icons

This week is not all good news as we have also received some sad news this week as we have saw the untimely passing of 2 big names in the industry. The first is music queen Tina Turner, known for her incredible track such as simply the best, what's love got to do with it and Proud Mary had passed away peacefully at the age of 83 (and she looked great for 83) from natural causes in her home in Switzerland. As for the other passing we have Irish actor Ray Stevenson, who appeared in films like Thor, Punisher War Zone and Oscar winning film RRR and was set to appear in the upcoming Star Wars series of Ashoka. He passed away at the age of 59 after he was hospitalized during the middle of filming an upcoming project in Italy. Our prayers are with the families of these icons and may they Rest in Peace.

This Mission may be done in quite a lengthy amount of time.

Now after the release of the new trailer last week we have gotten some new information on the confirmation of the film's runtime. According to IGN, we have confirmation that the newest Mission Impossible film will be the longest in the series, clocking in at around 2 hours and 36 mins (excluding credits), which is longer then the previous film which clocked in about 10 minutes shorter. It then begs the question of how long will Dead Reckoning Part 2 will be and my guess it may be about 3 hours.

What do you think, do you feel this film will be too long or not long enough and how long do you think the last one will be? And are you excited this new film? Let me know down below.

The Q stand for..... Questions

Now there was rumours for the last month or so of there being a new handheld console from Sony and Playstation which they have not made since the poor sales of the PSVita about 10 years ago. Well near the end of the PlayStation showcase, they unveiled a new form of a handheld for the PS5 known as Q as well as a pair of their own form of earbuds. Now this isn't a new take on the go handheld and would be seen more as similar in style to the Wii U gamepad  where it needs to be connected and close to the PS5 at all times and also needs to be on a constant Wi-Fi and looks like they tried copying off the style of the popular Nintendo Switch console and ended up with this. Now I would need to see it in action and until then I have a lot of questions of concern.

What are your thoughts on this new contraption they have presented? Let me know in the comments below and lets start a discussion

Spinning a perfect web

Now the last few stories for this week will be on some early reactions for upcoming films and the first is the highly anticipated follow up of Across the Spider-verse which had its world premiere a few days ago and the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive with many praising the story, characters, all the forms of animation  and so much more, with some even labelling it as a step above a masterpiece, a work of art and some even saying this should be nominated for Best picture at next years awards ceremony (but the academy will not see that and choose something that is not seen by many next year and this gets just a single nomination but I hope they consider it). I was hoping this would be great and now I am even more hyped and will be keeping a chance to go to this at the first possible showing when it drops on Thursday next week.

Are you excited for the new Spider-verse film? Leave your thoughts down below

Robot Mayhem

Our 2nd of our 3 reactions this week, we are jumping back to the 90s with the setting and basis of the upcoming release of the newest film in the long running Transformers film series with Rise of the Beasts. On the same night that the first screening of Across the Spider-verse, they had the first full screening of the film as well and the reactions dropped the following morning and the reactions have been positive with great praise to action, setting and vibe and music of the 90s. The only negatives I have seen is that it starts strong, the ending is strong but the middle of the film is quite mixed among a fair few people but it is only from a few reactions. As with all of these films reactions before the proper reviews can change all the time and I am sure that we will see how it turns out when the reviews drop at the beginning of the week of release on the 6th.

Are you excited for the newest Transformers movie or has some of the recent films turned you off of them? I would like to hear why or why not in the comments below.

Making a splash or will it burn?

Closing out Cannes festival and one that has it share of excitement and some skepticism (to me I am excited for any film this animation studio makes) is the newest film from Pixar Elemental. Now the film will be closing up the show on the Saturday and the reactions and reviews have been coming in and a good amount have been positive with a few mixed in it with many praise for the visuals of the film and a good bit towards the romance presented in the film, with some calling it a form back to some of Pixar at its best and a bit with the themes and discussions of subtle tones on immigration, which also has seen a bit of the mixed reactions to it. Now it is only a few reviews have dropped and a good bit more will probably be presented overtime but I feel this film will have a decent audience when it comes out in 3 weeks time.

Will you be checking out Elemental when it comes out next month, or do you feel Pixar is not as good as it used to be? Let me know in the comments below, I love to hear what you think.

And with that we come to the end of another episode of weird mind news room and I hope you have enjoyed reading to me ramble of all things media (if you do read them). I hope that you will tune in next time for the follow up episode (or if you rather watch this version you can check out the video version which I will update to include in this when it is made) and if you liked it drop a comment, lets start a discussion on some of these topics and even share around to others that may like it as well. But as Always I hope you stay being wonderful people and until next time, good night and powering down.

Signing off

Sam H

Video Version:

If you have come across this blog but want to see it as a video form well good news cause my first ever video uploaded to Youtube is a video version of this blog (with some bits not in the video version). If you want you can check it out below and I will see you in the next one: