Weird Mind News Room Episode 91: November 18th-24th

 *musical for a music based episode to defy against gravity*

Hello to all of you wonderful people once again to the 91st edition of Weird Mind News Room where this week we will of course be talking about all of the focus of new releases for the week, a handful of trailers and some of the news stories for the week, so without waiting anymore of introductions then lets get to talking on all things media for this week.

New releases to defy gravity

Movies

Wicked Part 1

Let us of course start with the film that has been on the minds of many of a really long time due to long development, the drama behinds the scenes involving divorces, affairs, drama, and diva behaviour as well as overdoing it on the Behind the scenes photos that its gotten way too overdone and feel I have seen both movies at this point, we have the release of a film that will see that anyone deserves a chance to fly as after a long delay we finally have the first part of the film adaptation of Wicked. The film will tell the story of the Witches of the land of OZ, with the main focus on Elphaba, a young woman who was outcasted due to her green skin, when she attends shiz university to be there for her sister Nessarose and will soon form an unlikely but profound friendship with Glinda, a student with an unflinching desire for popularity. Soon following an encounter with the Wizard of OZ, their relationship soon reaches a crossroads as their lives begin to take very different paths. Reception to this film has garnered very strong positive reception with praise to the performances (particularly of the main leads of Cynthia Erivio and Ariana Grande) the production design, musical numbers and respect to the stage production, though some have criticized the length of the film and felt they could've made the entire film as just one film instead (it clocks in at the same length as the Broadway musical of 2hrs 40mins) but I guess it happens with some adaptations and if you want to take flight then you can catch part One out now in cinemas with part two releasing in a years time.

Tv Shows

Dune Prophecy

Now onto the only tv series for this week as we are heading back to centuries past, to the dawn of conflict, power control and foreseeing the future of a possible prophet that will unite or destroy the people as we are heading back to the world of Arrakis and other planets in the system as we have the start of the new series of Dune Prophecy. The series will take place 10,000 years before the birth of Paul Atreides, the series will follow two Harkonnen sisters as they combat forces that threaten the future of humankind and establish the fabled sect known as the Bene Gesserit. Reception to this series from the first coupe of episodes have been moderetly recieved with praise to the performances and building of more lore, a lot of critics are pointing to the feeling the series feels cheap compared to the 2 films its connected to (and for HBO standard) and it is a lot less action heavy or missing elements of the books that would've benefitted from the adaptation but if you want to see it for yourself then you can catch this series now every Sunday night on HBO and MAX in the US and late Sunday/ Monday morning on Sky Atlantic here in the UK and Ireland.

Video Games

S.T.A.L.K.E.R 2 Heart of Chernobyl

On the first of the games for the week is one that had a few delays from an early concept from a decade ago, that was thought to have been cancelled, then revived and now finally it is time to put on the protective gear and check the radiation levels as we head to a deadly nuclear no go zone as we have the release of the long awaited sequel to Stalker with Heart of Chernobyl. The plot of the game will see you play a lone survivor, you explore a unique post-apocalyptic world and will decide who will get a bullet and who is worth of you helping hand and while making decisions to make sure that many choices and actions will have their own, sometimes far from the obvious, consequences. Reception to the game has been hit with a little mixed reception with praise to the world and gameplay and story elements, the game has seen a lot of issues in the form of bugs and glitches that will be fixed in due time but if you are up for exploring the dangerous world then you can play it now on Xbox Series X/S and PC.

Trailers that will help you be popular

How to train your dragon Live action

Starting the trailers for this week is with a film that you would expect to see from the likes of the massive company like Disney doing something like this but this time it has rubbed off on another company with their initial focus on simply animated films but decided to take flight with this live action remake as we have recieved a trailer for the live action version of How to Train your Dragon. For those that may not know about the book series or original trilogy of films, the story follows hiccup, a young son of the Viking chief Stoick the Vast and the hometown of Berk who constantly have a grudge and vendetta against an armada of dragons who will defy centuries of tradition when he captures and befriends Toothless, a feared dragon known as a night fury where their unlikely bond will reveal the true nature of the dragons and challenge the very foundation of the Viking Society. So its a case that I really do like the original films and the other 2 entries I have my mixed thoughts on it where I say that the 2nd was underwhelming and the 3rd was a valid send off for the series and the idea of a live action of this film seems weird but given its the same director as the trilogy doing this may make it feel close to the original film (bar most of the only drama is the issue of the casting for Astrid) but I feel it looks visually great but need to see more to make a decision and I am sure we will see more as the film releases into cinemas from June 13th next year.

A Minecraft Movie

For the 2nd trailer for this week is an all new look at a film that has seen a lot of issues and drama from the initial trailer back a few weeks ago that has new built itself an all new look with a better focus look on the project itself as they have built an all new look and trailer for A Minecraft Movie. The film follows four misfits of Garett "Garbage Man" Garrison, Henry, Natalie and Dawn, 4 different people struggling with ordinary problems, all get suddenly sucked through a mysterious portal to The Overworld: a bizarre cubic wonderland that thrives on imagination. In order to get back home they will have to master this world (and save it from evil) while embarking on a magical quest with an unexpected, expert crafter named Steve. On the likes on the original trailer was one that was a little mixed on where I felt the world and method of bringing the cubic world to live in a realistic form with the likes of the human characters and some of the animal designs looking a little weird but with this new trailer they dropped their is a bit more of an appeal and I think that the film may not be the most disastrously affected film and actually may have some entertainment to the whole project and give a better idea of the film's plot and outcome and in all sense I actually am looking forward to it now and will be worth a check out when the film releases on April 4th.

Dream Productions: An Inside Out series

The next trailer is with the first of 2 trailers from one of my all time favourite studios of Pixar, is taking us back into the world of the mind of a young child to see what is really going on inside their head, but instead of the focus to the emotional aspect, we are delving more in the area of what we see when we close our eyes at night as we have recieved a trailer for a new limited series based on the world of Inside out with Dream Productions. The series will take us to the dream production studio deep in the mind of Riley over in long term as we follow the likes of a documentary style film crew as they follow around the creatives at the production studio and show how they create the dreams for the young Riley and how much chaos and focus to make everything runs properly and not fall apart with a unique take on how dreams are made when we sleep. So it is a case that I do love to see more of this series getting a focus cause it is a case that Inside Out 2 was such a wonderful film and is one of my favourite movies of this year and I like this aspect of getting an insight into more aspects of how the mind works and I for one am excited to see what will come of this series and its not too far along to see this new series as it will be releasing onto Disney+ in 3 weeks time from December 11th.

Wallace and Gromit: Vengeance most fowl

Now it is time to break out the cheese and crackers and get to making some cracking inventions as we have returned to the iconic names of the studio molded by clay for more then 30 years as everyone's favourite cheese loving inventor and faithful canine companion are back again as we have a new trailer for the all new film of Wallace and Gromit Vengeance most fowl. The film will see Gromit become concerned about Wallace's dependency of his inventions when it comes to light from his latest creation of a Smart Gnome system. However it soon becomes a concern when an old enemy returns and takes control of the new invention to do his bidding in an act of revenge for a past situation and it is up to Gromit to save his owner or else Wallace may never invent again. The case of the likes of this company and their films is something I love to see make a return after all these years given the first film is almost 20 years old and I have heard a lot of high praise for this upcoming sequel and bringing back an iconic silent villain like Feather McGraw is a top choice and I am looking forward to check this out when it releases here on Christmas Day on the BBC and then internationally on Netflix from January 3rd.

The Bad Guys 2

On the 2nd last trailers for the week is seeing a return of a mixed array of characters and figures that is proving the case that being bad has never felt so good as Mr Wolf and his friends are back once again as we have recieved the first trailer for the upcoming sequel to The Bad Guys. The film will follow on a few years after the events of the first film and see the group finding it difficult to try and adjust and be accepted into society after becoming good guys, but soon they are given their chance to prove their worth with "one last job" when they are hired by a group of all female criminals or the bad girls so to say. In the case of the original film, I actually do like it, it has a nice stylized look and aesthetic to it with a bit of a comic book type style but also a little in a bit of the hosepipe animation of the past and it sounds like a decent adaptation and extension of the original book series and in all sense I think this looks like it will be a good watch and worth checking out which is a bit of a time away as the film releases into cinemas on August 1st next year. 

Elio

And the final trailer for the week is bringing us to the far reaches of the cosmos where we wonder if what if the thing that we have been searching for, was the one that finds us first and bring a whole mess of problems as after a delay and initially getting a trailer well over a year ago, we have recieved an all new take and teaser trailer for the upcoming Pixar title of Elio. The film will follow the titular Elio, an 11 year old with an obsession with aliens and a very active imagination. So, when he is beamed up to the Communiverse, an interplanetary organization with representatives from galaxies far and wide, Elio's all in for an epic undertaking where he is mistaken as the leader and ambassador of Earth, form new bonds with eccentric Alien Lifeforms and also navigate a crisis of intergalactic proportions. Now it is always a case with the likes of Pixar that they have some unique ideas and takes of trying something original with their concepts and outcomes and I think with this one is something interesting and has a lot of potential to come from it and hopefully the extra bit of time to work on it will benefit it in the long for and I am sure I will check this one out myself when it makes contact into cinemas from June 13th next year.

The News and I

The new award show for the gamers and many have some thoughts

So we do not have much on the likes of news stories for this week which seems to be a bit of a continous trend lately (but given it is near the end of the year that stories are just slowing down a little is my guess but I may be wrong, but we do have one story that will be a little round up of some smaller announcements and we have this story for a discussion that I was wondering when we were getting the news for this and it was just at the beginning of this week where we have now officially gotten the content of the first story of the week and that is with the 10th anniversary edition of the Game Awards which also give us the nominees and with it a fair bit of opinionated discussion from its outcome of choices but I will give a rundown of the big nominees, the big award and then delve a little in the discourse. So on the basis of the events we have a bit of a select few games getting some decent nominee numbers with the top 2 games with the most nominations going to Astro Bot and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth with 7 nominations each. And rounding up the top 5 nominated games with the 3rd most nominated with the anime title of Metaphor: Refantazio with 6 nominations and tied with 5 nominations see the card game of Balatro and the recently released remake of Silent Hill 2. Now there is a lot of other games on the list and I will say that many did well with their output and presentation and that is also seen with the 6 games that find themselves as the Game of the Year nominees as while FF7, Astro Bot, Refantasio and Balatro have gotten the spot on that list, it also comes with 2 more games of a similar nature and that is with the massive expansion of Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree and the other being Black Myth Wukong and those choices and list have its appeal but where a lot of the complaints start to appear. So you see after the release of the nominations there was a lot of discourse over the choices for some of the game of the year nominations and mainly in particular with Balatro and Shadow of the Erdtree as the likes of them both were seen as not to counting with the likes particulary with Erdtree being an expansion or DLC for the original game that did win game of the year 2 years ago (the year of that dumb kid thanking his reformed rabbi Bill Clinton.) and the likes of Balatro being the INdie pick when people feel there is other indie titles with a better choice (one big one being Animal Well) and its a case that some had said the likes of a few were snubbed from that nominations spot for games like Stellar Blade, Silent Hill 2, some say Drago Age and a few others from over the year in amongst games with potential but fell just short. Now personally I can understand the frustration of these choices and snubs but I can also respect the case that this was possibly done with a council and public opinion as well as going off reception to said games to get an idea of what the top choice is and I can think that some deserve it and some I feel they could've added maybe another 2 slot for game of the year to give something else a chance with it but I guess I can't control the process. One thing I can do is provide my own nominations down the line and have them out before this show goes live in about 3 weeks and we will see all the awards, surprises, announcements and everything at the event and maybe let the winners talk for a bit instead of cutting them off so suddenly compared to all the time for the game announcements come December 12th.

But what are your thoughts on these nominations, do you think they are good choices, what games do you feel got snubbed (good or bad games) and what are your choices of the picks for the nominees? Let me know your choices down below and lets discuss them there.

A little small gathering of updates

This last story is one that is just made up of a few mix and match stories from the quiet week of content and I felt instead of separating them into their own stories, I thought I would just place them together into one piece here so lets delve into the few short stories from the week.

Its another week and its another new addition to the casting list for Christopher Nolan's next movie that already has a strong selection of names like Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Zendaya, Anne Hathaway and Lupita Nyong'o as part of the cast and now we have another edition and a returning face from a precious Nolan film and that is The Batman himself of Robert Pattinson who is now part of the roster of growing stars for the film. Now of course Pattinson has already appeared in a previous Nolan film in the one film seen as the most confusing or weakest of his filmography of Tenet (though his performance was praised) and I think with every new casting it becomes more and more interesting of how this will come about in the long form and which rumoured plot concept this will be. Will we see another new casting for next week to make this a near weekly series? Who knows but I guess we shall stay tuned for that.

Seems like a little dejavu of stories similar to last week going off the next one as we have another story that will be focused on Denzel Washington as while last week it was the discussion of him joining a new entry of a popular series of superhero films, we are instead talking on a series of films that broke the mold that he was a part of his approach that he doesn't make sequels to his films and that is with the series of the Equalizer. SO far it has spawned a trilogy that with all of them receiving some decent and well regarded reception with each entry and it looks like it doesn't seem to be stopping as it may be a case that we have another 2 entries coming along for the series with Equalizer 4 and 5 on the way with the leading man in the role again. So it sounds like a decent concept and as long as the plots are good and I would even say maybe it could cross over with the tv series that stars Queen Latifah in the lead role so who knows what they have in mind but we shall see how it comes about overtime. 

And lastly onto a story that will bring a sense of closure for one person's career, we have some news coming to us from the realm of animation and a change up of a voice from a long running series and that is coming from The Simpsons. There is quite the array of cast members over the years that have come and gone from the likes of passing on, discontinuing character roles (that was very on the nose and a bit of an uncomfortable 4th wall break) and moving on after a long career and it is with the latter for the one today as it was announced that the voice of Milhouse of Pamela Hayden has now retired as the voice of the nerdy blue haired boy himself after playing the character for over 35 years. It is a shame and a sad day to see this happen in the likes of retiring after voicing an iconic character for over 30 years but I feel after a while it was due time to call it a day. Now it is confirmed that the character will not be retired and will still appear in most case with a new voice actor or actress (unless they do the dumb move of using AI and making it song worse) but hopefully it will be a respectful change for the character and not make him feel even more weird then this character already is.

But what are your own thoughts on these news and announcements and is there any other stories I may have missed from this week? Let me know down below and I could follow up in the next episode if needs be and discuss them there.

Special Segment: Dapper Frogs

To make up a bit of a quiet week of a media roundup I thought I would share the likes of a special segment to help promote a concept plush for a friend of mine and see if there is some interest in getting an interest and support a fellow creative mind. So about a day or 2 ago, a friend of mine named Ash unveiled a very dapper and fancy frog in a scarf and looking like a very polite and distinguished fellow was unveiled to us and it was quite a wholesome looking creation and I always love when friends and people I care about create some new crocheted, knitted, cross stitched and all other ones as I have a few on hand from my friend Sunny with some colourful animals and the Light Blue Among Us Crewman and of course my favourite one is the one made for me by Starlight of the most distinguished gentleman right here of Glep from Smiling Friends so it is a case I will be for sure at a point in time getting this distinguished fellow to the collection. At the moment it is early stages and there is a sense of negotiation with pricing and other stuff but I offered as well to see if there would be an interest to people of my audience here who may like to have their own dapper frog themselves and if so you can let me know down below and also the case that you can follow the creator on socials and down the line to create your own fancy frog for yourself (will update in the future to get the go ahead of where to follow for it) and all in a case of supporting someone with a strong talent and creation and that is always a positive and would recommend to support them in their endeavors (and of course give them plenty of time to create them for you too).

And with all of that this brings us to the end of the 91st edition of Weird Mind News Room and I do hope that you enjoyed the round up of all the media content for this week. Let me know your thoughts on everything down below and as always I hope you all stay being wonderful people and have a great day everyday and I will see you all in the next episode :)

Take care, keep being you, signing off

Sam H :)