Podcast - Episode 81: The Lego Batman Movie

We got slammed by a giant, unending blizzard this week and it stranded us in our respective homes. So this episode was recorded over the phone, which means I sound FANTASTIC and Dave sounds like he's over the phone. But we are both bringing our A-game, don't worry.

Not gonna lie, it takes us awhile to get around to talking about The Lego Batman Movie, but we do discuss it.

First we talk about Marvel's upcoming Secret Empire event (aka - The HydraCap event). I am VERY into this cover for issue #0:

HydraCap can GET. IT.

We talk about the third episode of Riverdale for a bit. You can see my old blog post that breaks down the Archie comic where Dilton offers to write songs for The Archies, is rejected, and instead starts his own cool band, here.

Alright. Enjoy! My arms are tired and sore from shoveling.

Podcast - Episode 72: Superhero Romance!

This week we are talking about SUPERHERO ROMANCE!!!! Would it have made more sense to wait until February for this topic? Probably! Do I pretty much want to talk about superhero romances all the time? Yes.

Oh, superhero romance. 

Before we get to that, here is that tweet of mine that went viral for whatever reason:

I feel like there's a disconnect between Chris Evans and his fans. pic.twitter.com/IjLKpb6xcv

— Rachelle Goguen (@rachellegoguen) December 2, 2016

Again, I want to clarify: the original tweet by @Glamourizes is poetry. I love it.

Oh! And you can follow Living Between Wednesdays on Twitter now!

Here is the Omaze contest where you and three friends can be trapped in an escape room in Boston with Chris Evans.

If I win he is never getting out of that room.

Alright! On to the romance!

Here is the final page in the the sad and epic love story of Black Widow and Winter Soldier. The evil Red Room assassin, Leo Novokov, made sure Natasha would never remember her romance with poor ol' Bucky:

Bucky's life is extremely good.

The depressing icing on the sadness cake is that Bucky refuses to even let SHIELD try to help restore that part of her memories because "She's better off without me." UGH! Bucky!!!!

Here's my girl Catwoman getting some late night action from Batman. I love how she handles him. And I super love that whip around the neck as she leads him down the stairs:

Flame emoji.

And here's my favourite Captain America love interest...BERNIE!!!

That's my girl!

Damn! Right off the bat she's laying it on thick! I love this woman.

"One what?"   "A crush on Josh!"

Bernie!!!!

This is seriously the most comfortable I've seen him with a woman. But it might be because they are talking about classic Hollywood movies:

I picture Steve doing a bang-on Bacall impression here.

And here are a couple of panels from Captain America #289, when Bernie fantasizes about being BERNIE AMERICA!!!

Side note: it is very difficult to Google "Bernie America" these days if you want this result.

I see no difference here between regular Steve Rogers and this version of him.

And let's end it on this recent screengrab from my Avengers Academy game, which is extremely relevant:

Podcast - Episode 44: CIVIL WAR!!!!!! (with J.Bone)

OHMYGODIT'SFINALLYHERE!!!!

We are joined once again by our pal J.Bone to discuss the movie that we've all been, um, looking forward to, Captain America: Civil War (or, as I like to call it BUCKY! BUCKY! BUCKY! BUCKY!).

Look, I'm not even going to write that much this week. Because this episode is LONG. We joke at the beginning about going two hours, but guess what? We completely did. Longer, even!

I cut as much as I can, and the rest, I am sure you'll agree, is solid gold.

Here's the thing though, guys. I got so caught up talking about the actual plot of this movie that I forgot to mention how scorching hot Winter Soldier is in it. And so did J! Like, what was this episode even for?!

So here are some things I forgot to mention in this episode:

1. Bucky is crazy hot;
2. Like, so hot;
3. Like, I could not CUSTOM BUILD a hotter man;
4. He's so beefy and scruffy and those eyes are so sad but also so smouldering;
5. I wish he had been shirtless;
6. What a god damn waste of a jacked Sebastian Stan. I mean, come ON!;
7. Not for, like, the whole movie, but maybe just an extended shower scene?;
8. The tank top was nice;
9. He looked good in white;
10. I love him and I am in love with him.

So yeah. That's important.

Hey, here's a supercut of that Late Late Show episode clip where Sebastian Stan flirts hard with Sharon Stone until she flirts back with him. Then he turns into a giggling mess. It's VERY CUTE!

I wish that video wasn't edited so heavily. You can probably find that whole episode online somewhere. I would recommend. Zach Woods is very funny. At the end of the episode Sebastian turns to him and says "we should be friends!"

Anyway, enjoy the episode. We had fun recording it. I shouldn't speak for everyone. I had fun recording it, even though it went way past my bedtime.

Now let's start the countdown to the next Avengers movie! 2018! YEAH!!!!

Podcast - Episode 35: Age of Beefcake

Watching the Oscars got me thinking about a lot of things this past week. Things like: is Henry Cavill a person, or just a robot who sometimes dresses well but usually doesn't; is Sam Smith really that dumb? and, people in Hollywood seem really cool and in-touch with reality. But most of all I was thinking about the size of actors. Like, the size of their actual bodies. Male actors are beefy as hell these days, guys! Are superhero movies to thank/blame? Almost certainly. Is it a problem? Well...

Before we get to the beeefcake, let's get through some other stuff that requires some visual aids and links.

First of all, if you happen to be reading this the day it was posted, and you live in the Halifax area, come on down to Strange Adventures for Ladies Night! I'll be there!

If you wildest dreams include riding in the Batmobile (?!) with Ben Affleck or riding in a helicopter with Henry Cavill, you can enter the Omaze contest here for five more days. Guess what one of the incentive prizes is:

Yeahhhhh! How much can I spend to be on the other side of the planet when Jesse Eisenberg and some douche with twenty thousand extra dollars sit down to dinner somewhere?

Oh, and here's a fun update: those Batman vs Superman $100 super tickets that allow you to see the dumb movie as many times as you want? They are all SOLD OUT.

SOLD OUT, YOU GUYS!!!!

We also mention the joyless Batman vs Superman sticker set that Facebook recently launched. Here it is:

Just super fun. Here are some of the ones I made very quickly:

Oh, the fun I have at the expense of this dumb movie.

And speaking of which, here is the amazing art that J.Bone did in loving tribute to this terrible film:

Ouch! I love that art so much. So much.

Ok, so real quick, here are some important Oscar things. Chris Evans and Chadwick Boseman presented together and both men looked excellent:

Sebastian Stan was watching from home (or maybe a hotel room where Evans would be meeting him later) with a big pizza:

I cannot believe he didn't invite me.

Here's a screengrab of Chris Evans flirting with Henry Cavill while Cavill stuffs his beautiful mouth with Girl Guide cookies:

But perhaps even more importantly, here is a screengrab of Christian Bale stuffing his face with Girl Guide cookies:

You're welcome.

OK, so moving on to Winter Soldier, this is the panel from Avengers Standoff Alpha that made me lose my damn mind:

Seriously! What the HELL, comic?!

Here's a version with no text, and I encourage you to provide your own:

You know, something like this:

And, yes, I know that's a shitty font, but I'm tired and I still have a lot of blog post to write.

HOLD THE PHONE

I say on the podcast that I wish Bucky's apron said 'Kiss the Cook' and I am zooming in now and I THINK IT DOES!

I need to lie down.

Oh, and here is that framed photo of shirtless Sebastian Stan that was gifted to me and now sits on my desk at work, making me look completely sane:

I just tell people it's my astronaut boyfriend who is in space and so you can't meet him.

Wizard World Philadelphia has a bonkers line-up of MCU talent, including Chris Evans and Sebastian Stan. And, like, everyone. You can see the details of the VIP packages here. I see that Georges St-Pierre just got added to the Winter Soldier line-up. I've already decided that I'm not going, but when I look at the photo ops from the 2014 Wizard World I almost want to reconsider.

Holy lord. Let's get to our goddamn topic. I was really excited to post a lot of photos of shirtless hunks as evidence to support my argument but I am exhausted!

But still I persevere! 

So here is a side-by-side of Hugh Jackman in the first X-Men movie (2000) and (I think) Days of Future Past (2014) or maybe it's from Wolverine:

In the first photo he looks like a very fit, yet still very human male actor. In the second photo he looks like he is barely containing the nuclear energy that is trapped inside him threatening to destroy the world. And those veins are so gross.

And here we have a couple of actors who did not need to be in the kind of shape they got into for their Marvel roles at all. I'm not sorry about it, per se, but it does seem unnecessary. I give you Chris Pratt in Guardians of the Galaxy:

And Paul Rudd in Ant-Man:

Paul Rudd isn't, like, enormous here. But he does look insanely ripped for Paul Rudd. Now, the thing about Chris Pratt is that his new body actually has led to more big roles, like Jurassic World, and even talks of him being the new Indiana Jones. With Paul Rudd, though, I can't really see him becoming an action star at the tender age of 50 (or 19 or however old he is it's really hard to tell).

Mark Ruffalo, on the other hand, got to eat a normal breakfast and not wax a hair on his body and gets completely naked in the first Avengers movie. And we are all richer for it:

So super heroes CAN have body hair. Noted.

Well, I guess we knew that from Henry Cavill's hirsute portrayal of Superman:

There is nothing wrong with chest hair, people! In fact there is everything right with it! Just, you know, keep it in check.

We mention that John frigging Krasinksi is ripped now. That's weird. But awesome? It's a shock to my system for sure:

That beard is working for me. Come get me, Daddy Jim!

And here you have your gold standard for insane super hero bodies, Chris Hemsworth as Thor:

The thing is that both Thor and Captain America should look this crazy. That makes sense. But Ant-Man sure doesn't need to be. Nor does Winter Soldier, but, again, not complaining:

And here we have 52-year-old Frank Grillo, aka Crossbones, being more fit than anyone ever:

You really should follow him on Instagram. it's full of insane pictures related to his fitness. Also, his kids are very cute. Plus he posts a lot, unlike some Sebastian Stans I could mention.

So, yes, actors are basically athletes now, and to prove my point, here is a promo shot of Chris Evans modeling Fila, because he is the face of their brand. Which is a brand that probably an athlete would normally the face of:

Again, NOT COMPLAINING. AT ALL. 

If you are interested in looking like Chris Evans, you can follow his simple workout routine, which is detailed here. Acting! 

Or if you want to look like Henry Cavill you can follow his super easy and normal workout plan here. It comes with helpful videos and images of Cavill working out. I have watched them...a few times. 

You can also follow his boring ass on Instagram, which is worth it because sometimes he posts photos like this one:

Ok. I think that's enough. Take us home, Chris Evans!

Podcast - Episode 15: Age of Ultron!

Everything has come full circle! This podcast was born from Dave and my write-ups of the Marvel movies leading up to the theatrical release of Avengers: Age of Ultron and now we are talking about that VERY SAME MOVIE the week of its Blu-Ray release! And we are joined by our very good friend, Tiina Johns!

We are keen to get talking about the movie, which we watched together right before recording this episode, so we blow through the news and stuff as fast as possible. In the Renner Report Tiina mentions that Jeremy Renner was on an episode of Angel. Here are a couple of images from that episode:

He looks better as a vampire, right?

We do take some time to talk about Captain America: White no. 2, because of course we do. Here is that ridiculous Namor page that we can't get enough of:

It was nice to revisit Age of Ultron. Dave and I wrote our thoughts out on it in a blog post way back in May. Now we've had months to digest the movie (and a lot of fan hate and backlash on the internet) but we still love it and don't really understand why anyone wouldn't. But we do address the various problems people seem to have with the movie. I honestly can't make a call on how I feel about the Black Widow/Hulk romance. I'm mostly against it, but I don't hate it so much that it ruins the movie. I guess that's it.

I was thinking more about the Steve Rogers 'home' theme throughout the movie and I realized how many places we either see him in, or are mentioned, throughout the movie where he's not comfortable or not at home. Avengers Tower isn't home, Brooklyn isn't home anymore, he's weirded out when he's back in the 1940s in his vision when Peggy talks about going home, the farmhouse is very uncomfortable for him, he gets really upset when Tony talks about going home when the Avengers are no longer needed...and then he's at the new Avengers HQ at the end and he seems very much at peace. He's finally home. I love it. Now go find Bucky!

Here's that looks of pure respect and platonic love that Steve gives Natasha after she bravely suggests they go down with the flying city:

All I want is for Captain America to look at me like that.

Well, this is a short blog post. But it was great having Tiina on! We'll do it again sometime. Hope you enjoy listening to it.

Watch Dave's Tumblr for horror movie drawings and write-ups! Coming soon!

Hey I did it! No Sebastian Stan pics!

Important Information I Have Gathered From Reading Avengers Fan Fiction

I have been reading a lot of Avengers (movieverse) fan fiction lately (shut up, I don't care).

Here is what is important to the Avengers, according to the thousands of fan fiction stories out there:

• Coffee;
• Movie night;
• Disney movies;
• Take out food in general, Thai food specifically;
• Pranks;
• Pancakes;
• Having sex with each other.

Here is what is important to Tony Stark specifically:

• Everybody else's love lives;
• Pepper Potts;
• Bruce Banner;
• Spicy food;
• Classic rock;
• Making and consuming green smoothies;
• Gifting team members with Avengers merchandise to annoy them;
• Bothering Steve Rogers;
• Helping Steve Rogers;
• Sometimes having sex with Steve Rogers;
• Improving Bucky's bionic arm;
• Friends.

Here is what is important to Bruce Banner specifically:

• Yoga;
• Meditation;
• Tea;
• Healthy eating (usually vegetarian);
• Tony Stark;
• Listening to people talk in a therapist kind of way;
• Protecting everyone from himself;
• Not pranking people.

Here is what is important to Natasha Romanoff specifically:

• Clint Barton;
• Nothing;
• Guns;
• The Little Mermaid;
• Vodka;
• Steve's love life;
• Trying different hair styles.

Here is what is important to Clint Barton specifically:

• Being annoying;
• Hiding in high places;
• Sleeping in high places;
• Natasha Romanoff;
• Sometimes having sex with Agent Coulson;
• Video games;
• Obnoxious movies.

Here is what is important to Thor specifically:

• Jane Foster;
• Having a great time;
• Not really being around all that often;
• Loki;
• Sometimes having sex with Loki;
• Being generally agreeable about everything;
• Introducing everyone to Asgardian things like hardcore alcohol and hardcore aphrodisiacs.

Here is what is important to Steve Rogers specifically:

• Bucky Barnes;
• Pretty much just Bucky Barnes;
• Sometimes Tony Stark;
• Sometimes Natasha Romanoff;
• Brooklyn;
• Losing his virginity;
• Drawing;
• Jazz;
• Hot dogs;
• Jogging.

Also note that:

• Sam Wilson is everyone's free therapist, and is generally the nicest guy;
• Darcy is a Mary-Sue for authors and sleeps with everyone;
• Everyone lives together in Avengers Tower and it is like a college dorm;
• Pepper Potts takes care of all problems;
• Bucky is sarcastic and sexy, or he is broken and sad;
• Bucky likes orange juice;
• The Avengers and/or S.H.I.E.L.D. have a lot of missions that require agents to pose as a couple;
• All of the Avengers listen to more Fall-Out Boy and One Direction than I would have guessed.

This is the important information I have gathered so far. I love fan fiction guys. Hit me up with/for recs! I'll see you on the beach with my iPad out!