New Podcast Episode: notmovingpictures Episode 16

Well, It's been quite some time since there has been a new episode of notmovingpictures. As a matter of fact it's been over three months. Thankfully it appears that the dry spell is over. I expect to have quite a bit of content coming forth in the next month or so. So long as everything turns out the way I think it will there should be a plethora of it. I also have a solo episode that I recorded about two months ago and once I get a chance to listen to it I can decide if it's worthy or not of being posted. I mean, who wants to hear me whining and complaining for over half an hour right? Basically I have to make sure that it's listenable before releasing it.

Enough rambling, let's talk about this episode. Tommy and I first discuss the status of his band Alloy and the updates that was made to the band's website (www.alloyrocks.com). Then we speak of things like creativity difficulties and I mention how important I feel that Steven Pressfield's books are to recognizing and then combating resistance.

After this I posed a question to Tommy. What if the Hot Tub Time Machine taken from the John Cusack movie were a real thing and knowing what you do now you could go back in time and see not a single concert but a music festival? Which would he choose? We discussed the Texxas Jam (one of which Tommy did attend) and the US Music Festival from 1982 and 1983. After that the conversation devolved into a general talk about 80s music and it's relevance to today's youth before coming to a sudden end as we realized we were out of time. All in all I feel it was a worthwhile slice of what goes on in two faltering, feeble, nearly old guys minds.



Written and Published by Don Leach. May not be used without permission from the author.

Hot Tub Time Machine

Since today is a national holiday I had a day off but my wife unfortunately had to work. So naturally I did the proper thing and took my son to the babysitter's house so that I could enjoy a little alone time. On these rare occasions where this happens I usually go to see a movie and today was no exception. I've been wanting to see Hot Tub Time Machine ever since I first heard about it many months ago mainly because John Cusack is one of my favorite actors and this is a movie where he goes back in time to the 80s and I love 80s movies. I only expected some seriously stupid fun and I was not let down at all.



The basic premise is that 3 friends from high school (Cusack, Rob Corddry and Craig Robinson) who don't see each other much anymore are all pretty much disapointed in how their lives have ended up. One of them may or may not have had a failed suicide attempt so the other 2 (and Cusack's nephew played by Clark Duke) decide to watch over him by getting back to the ski resort that they used to go to when they were young. Unfortunately the resort, town and ski valley have all fallen on hard times. During a night of heavy drinking they pile into the hot tub, spill some russian energy drink on the controls and somehow end up traveling through time to 1986. They agree to do everything the same so that nothing in the future will change but it doesn't take them long to realize that it isn't such a good idea as they all feel that their lives suck.

I thought that there were a couple of scenes that could have used a little bit of fleshing out, nothing much mind you, just a little bit more of explanation which would have only added an extra minute or two to the film but I'm not complaining at all. The film was very enjoyable and overall I'd give it a B plus bringing it in just under Cop Out which I saw a few weeks back. There was a lot of good memories brought back thanks to the soundtrack and even though I've never been to a ski lodge in my life much less been skiing I did see everal skiing movies in the 80s. I recommend anyone who wants to have some good stupid fun to see Hot Tub Time Machine. You won't be disapointed.

Hot Tub Time Machine trailer

It's great to see John Cusack getting back to his 80s roots. For a long time he didn't want to even talk about his 80s teen movie roles even though they are clearly remembered and revered by fans across the globe. From the previews that I've seen it seems like this movie will be stupidly funny and I mean that in a good way. Not every movie needs to have a message about humanity. Some can just be stupid, silly fun that helps to relieve the stress of a hard day. I'm hoping that is what this film will be for me. As a straight man I can say that I love John Cusack, I mean John Cusack films. In his 80s teen movies he always seemed like a guy would could hang out with the geeks or the cool kids, kind of like being able to move between enemy camps sort of an all around nice guy. It's interesting to know that he was the only other actor to be seriously looked at for the title character of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Makes me wonder how THAT film would have turned out.