Show Vs. Business
Show Vs. Business
SvB E212 Blame Everything Wrong On Joe Rogan
Join us as we dive deep into the wild week that was—from NCAA Final Four drama and NIL payouts to the cultural wave sparked by Netflix’s Adolescence.
We debate Joe Rogan’s real influence, the evolution of Hollywood, SNL’s viral moment, and whether micro-dramas and short-form content are the new frontier.
Plus: trailer reactions, Comic Corner, and spicy opinions on today’s media landscape.
00:00 Introduction and Weekly Catch-Up
00:17 Morning Routine Adjustments
01:57 Basketball Madness: NCAA Final Four
05:03 The Business of College Sports
15:25 Netflix's Viral Show 'Adolescence'
19:57 SNL's Viral Moment
23:32 Comic Corner: Viewer Comments
32:02 Economic Concerns and Tariffs
37:19 Joe Rogan's Political Influence
38:31 The Evolution of Entertainment
39:08 The Rise of Micro Dramas
46:28 Hollywood's Struggles and Changing Dynamics
49:14 The State of Modern Movies
01:00:19 Upcoming Movie Trailers
01:12:24 Podcast Outro and Engagement
YouTube link to this Podcast Episode:
https://youtu.be/7TqfE1OWDJo
#ShowVsBusiness #NCAA2025 #NetflixAdolescence #JoeRogan #HollywoodAintIt #MicroDramas #SNLViral
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Introduction and Weekly Catch-Up
Theo Harvey: This is show versus business where pop culture meets pop money with your host, the Real Theo Harvey and Mr. Benja. Mr. Benja, how was your week? Week was good,
Mr.Benja: man. At least my part of the week. It's been weird and apocalyptic and crazy out there, but my part of the week was pretty good, man.
Morning Routine Adjustments
Mr.Benja: I I started I, I adjusted my morning routine a little bit and condensed some things down to each other. So I didn't have any Saratoga water, but yeah, adjusted my morning routine. So I get up spring in my step, do some things. It's interesting how your morning routine and your night routine can help and hurt things.
Just tweaking that a little bit got me a little extra energy and I made a realization which is a weird realization that I feel like Mark Zuckerberg in the social network. Like when my mind was just going, I woke up, started doing this, doing that, and took out my little composition notebook and started writing down some stuff.
And I had the voice of Mark Zuckerberg, the from the social network in my head, like when he was narrating and we had to do this and that, and we got the pictures from, when he did the whole Facebook thing. Yeah, that, that was really weird. But I'm embracing my inner robot,
Theo Harvey: is that a good thing? Yeah.
Mr.Benja: It felt that, I said it was good for me, man. The people around me, they were like, oh, the hell's wrong with you. I like, I'm all my shit.
Theo Harvey: B bop beep bop. I love it. Get be bop beepboop. Get it done, son. Yeah. Good man. Yeah, ho, hope you're moving forward. This is Q2 officially.
Yes, 2025. I hope you're hitting the ground running this week and making it happen, Mr. Benja yourself. So kudos to you. My week was awesome, man. Same like you, man, Q2. So revamping some things, got rid of some folks changing things around. Cleaning shop, get ready for Q2, bringing some new folks in.
With the business side of things. So that's I'm excited about trying to. Revamp and accelerate business as always.
Basketball Madness: NCAA Final Four
Theo Harvey: But man, this has been the week of basket ball, man. Mr. Ben. I know I'm the sports guy
Mr.Benja: yes, you are.
Theo Harvey: I'm gonna give you the, from my corner of the world what's happening.
Ncaa a tournament is in full effect Final four weekend for those who know, they know. I had the chance to just hang with the kids, man. They actually had the Women's Final Four here in Tampa, Florida. It was Yukon, South Carolina, Texas, and I can't recall the other team as this point, but it doesn't matter.
They didn't make it to the final two. And as we're recording this, Yukon and South Carolina played here in Tampa and Yukon won. So it was just exciting. They had a whole kind of,
Basketball, entertainment? Yeah. I had my family laugh and we all went with the kids. I said, how many games can you make up that involved a basketball and a hoop?
They had them all there. How far can you throw it? How fast can you throw? How many baskets can you get in one shot? How many can you get? Two baskets in one shot? Just, yeah. It was every kind of imaginable way. And they had all the corporate, we know from marketing, they're called activations.
They had all these different corporate sponsors there, and so basically you go in these lines to sign up for these contests. Yeah. And again, all your emails, so they're going to. Text me to death. For signing up for these contests. But it is what it is. The kids have fun. We played a lot of basketball and and then the kids stayed up with me.
We watched a Duke lose to Houston in a thrilling final. Duke was up by six points with 30 seconds to go. They end up losing the game. So they made a couple Ill, ill ill-advised shots. Yeah. And the la the best player in the country, Cooper flag, he missed the game-winning shot. And so Houston beat Duke and now it's gonna be the national championship.
And the kids were excited. 'cause at one time Duke was up by 12 points. And I said, Hey guys, let's just watch. So I'm the dad. Hey, that's what's, why you play sports, you play to the end. You never give up. And I was like, wow. I was proving right? And so the kids learned a lesson. So yeah, man, it was good times.
Good times.
Mr.Benja: That's good. You know what's funny? I I always. As a kid, I was as quite literal on certain things. When people talked and I always thought whenever I heard Yukon on the news or the radio, I thought for some reason we had a Canadian team coming from like the Yukon to play basketball with us and I was just like, oh, okay, cool.
Canadians, let's go. But I love it. Yeah. University of Connecticut,
Theo Harvey: top
Mr.Benja: right?
Theo Harvey: Yeah.
Mr.Benja: They're
Theo Harvey: top. Yep. Yep, you got it. They're the top, like Duke is one of the top basketball college basketball programs and UConn is the top women's basketball program. They've been around forever and always been out there.
You probably remember Dana Tara Rossi. Does that name sound familiar at all to you? No. Okay. She's one of the most decorated women's basketball players. She came outta Yukon, but I digress.
The Business of College Sports
Theo Harvey: But man, college basketball, it is a business. Mr. Benja, it is not like you may remember, you know your top high school player and you go to.
Go to one of the top schools, it has gotten to a point where these guys are getting paid millions of dollars due to name, image, and likeness. Yeah. Also known as Neil. I talked about this before. So number one, they're getting paid, millions of dollars is to play basketball. So gone is that whole farce that they're student athletes, right?
They're basically paid to play basketball at college at this point.
Mr.Benja: But yeah, no, it was I'm not sure, I don't know how many of our viewers really are into sports like that, but that was a big changeover, at least, in terms of the rules and how things are officiated in terms of you have a student, but he's not really paid.
You can't do that. It becomes a whole thing. And now it's you know what? We're using the name, image, and likeness of this player and all these licensed properties, games, commercials, whatever else. We have to give him a little kick of something. And now that's. Growing and they're continuing a, as I understand, they're they're using new ways to use that name, image, and likeness, right?
Theo Harvey: Yeah. This came out of a video game controversy, right? Ed o Bannon, who was a basketball player for the UCLA Bruins was upset that his image and likeness was using the game NCAA basketball. So it went all the way up to the Supreme Court and they ruled in his favor that it wasn't fair that they used his image for a video game, and he never got any compensation for that.
And so that was the beginning of the end for this whole farce of a student athlete. So now these are professional people, albeit. More amateur than a full fledged professional. But they're getting paid, like Cooper Flagg, who's the number one basketball player right now, he's getting paid $6 million in meal money.
So he'll show up in commercials, local stuff there in North Carolina, things like that. And he's averaging about $6 million just to play 20 basketball games. It's crazy. And then that's crazy. Add to this Yeah. Add to the fact that any nb any so they all ha all college players have four years of eligibility.
That means they have four years they can play.
Any one of them can, say, you know what? I don't wanna play here at this school anymore. I'm out. And they can enter what's called transfer protocol. And any other, and this happened because of the pandemic, right? A lot of basketball players couldn't get their full eligibility 'cause of the, shortened seasons and all that.
So they got to a point where now every year. Every team could be totally different because all the players this happens a lot of, lots of times every player can just be like, I don't wanna play for this coach anymore and leave. And so now coach has to school, it's yeah. Yes.
I don't wanna screw the school. Exactly. This is crazy. This someone said unlike professional sports, you have like free agency every three years or four years where they say, Hey, I don't wanna play for, Tampa Bay Bucks, or Atlanta Hawks anymore. Now you can say, I don't wanna play for this team every year.
So you have some college basketball players that have been played for four different college teams and because they get eligibility, they can sit out a year and come back. So some of these guys are like 24, 25 years old playing college basketball. It's crazy. They got wife and kids man playing college basketball.
Getting $6 million a year. This is, that's, it's a new sport, man. So I know that's, I went into the weeds on that, but it's just
Mr.Benja: No,
Theo Harvey: it's just showing you how this has changed.
Mr.Benja: Yeah, no, this is great. I while we talk, I always, wanna make sure I'm not talking too out of the pocket.
And I'm just up here looking at some of these numbers and, this coach is complaining, I'm trying to, he says this coach, the male, he says, I'm trying to spend seven figures on a guy and I can't right now. What kind of quote is that? That's just funny.
Theo Harvey: Your co your old alma mater Michigan State, my Izzo, Tom Izzo, one of the top basketball coaches all time, Draymond Greed play there and all that from golden State Warriors.
He complained so heavily on this because this became a big issue. 'cause they're in this tournament now, the NCAA tournament, everybody gets excited about it every year. The chancellor protocol's going on now. So you actually have guys who are playing with the coach in a tournament and as soon as they lose, I'm out coach.
So it's just so now they know that they thought that player's coming back. So now Tom izo just, I mean I, we'll put it in show notes maybe, but he went off on this. He is man, what is this? I'm supposed to figure out what these players are coming and who's coming next and I gotta recruit and try to win basketball games.
I'm like, yeah, that's just what it's, you're getting paid. Yeah. Mostly college basketball players and college football player coaches and college basketball coaches. They're the, they're typically the top. If it's a state school, they're the top played employee getting tens of millions of dollars in money.
So yeah. This is your job now.
Mr.Benja: Yeah.
Theo Harvey: You gotta keep good players
Mr.Benja: and, and it's not just and this could this is spreading all over. It's not just basketball and football. I'm looking at, the College of Charleston, Kiran von Wick signed a deal with Under Armour to represent their golf roster.
Theo Harvey: Yep.
Mr.Benja: So all these other sports, golf row whatever else you can come up with.
Theo Harvey: Oh man. Gymnastics, Livy Dunn, the, or Olivia Dunn. She's the top gymnast at LSUL Louisiana State University. She's one of the highest paid nil. Folks out there and she's a big time influencer, millions of followers.
So yeah, it can affect, it's affecting all the sports right now, man. It's becoming crazy. Yeah, man, it's, yeah, it's a matter of fact, it is even changing the calculus, how I'm thinking of it because, I have kids, I'm like, oh yeah, we're doing some basketball. That it's almost to the point where why not take the risk, put a little extra money now invest in them to get the training.
If they like it, they get good at it. 'cause they could be teenagers and get six figure NIL money and then that could really change their lives. Where it's yeah, you can go to college and all that, but. Let's get some money now for a skill that you built now and then, if you wanna change and do college, that's fine, but you may really enjoy it and get even better over time with it.
And it's it's totally changing the calculation as a parent who, you know. Now some kids obviously that's just not them sports and ale athletics. But if your kid is halfway into it and is pretty decent, why not take that, put a little extra money now for training and stuff.
Let's say you got, and these training programs aren't cheap, Mr. Benjamin, but let's say you put, $2,000 for a camp here, 200 a month for some training here. So let's say you all in, you're spending, see, this is the business person in me. Yeah. All in, you're spending about 20,000, $25,000 to train your kid.
If he gets an NIL deal when he's 16 for six fingers a year, man, you like, I think that was a good investment.
Mr.Benja: I'm I'm thinking about this in terms of what else could you pay college students for? And I know that there's like this weird relationship with corporations, at least in tech corporations and programmers slash developers, where, you'll start developing something.
And I remember I went speaking when I was at Michigan State, I met a Microsoft student evangelist, I forgot what they're technically called, everybody's doing their college thing. I was about to incriminate myself, everyone doing all kinds of stupid college stuff in a college dorm.
And I'm just walking around yo, what's going on with da? Hey, you met such and such. No, we're talking. I walk up into this dude's room and he's lemme show you something cool. And he opens up his closet and I didn't know what I was gonna expect, right? Like clothes or, just somebody passed out.
I didn't know what to expect. Dude opens up his closet and. There's nothing but from the full to the Celia of the closet, it's stacked with Microsoft software.
And. Yeah, sure. He was, giving out Microsoft software like he should have been, but he was also this like Microsoft dealer. So he was just like, Hey man, hey,
Theo Harvey: you want that new
Mr.Benja: office suite?
I got it. Hey listen, duh, I got some blah, blah, blah. We get your, you need to set up some networks. I got the, I was like, man, what is all this? Yeah. It was just wild. But
Theo Harvey: it's crazy how the game has changed, man. Like the, you heard of Travis Hunter, he's one of the top football players.
He just, one of the Heisman plays defense and offense in football. He has his own podcast. And so he is getting money for that. You're talking about e eSports. So IMG Academy, which is the top af athletic academy in the nation, I just put a link in our in our little chat window.
They actually have a eSports camp now. So they're not only helping folks. With basketball, football, tennis, ca you know, athletics. But hey, if you wanna do eSports, there's money there too. So we gotta camp for you there. So it's getting to a point where it's you really looking at your kids as almost the breadwinner and how you can help them achieve a sizable sense of revenue even before they're 18.
And so I, is that a good thing? I don't know. So it's kinda weird. It's changing the equation a little bit. So I always tell my kids, I tell my wife, I say, look. We got, I love 'em, if they like it, that's fine. But if they're not good, if they don't want to do this, then we have to be okay with that.
Not look at it as, hey, this is a better path to a future that, 'cause I'll be honest with you, Mr. Benja, I don't think the traditional path of corporate America that we travel down or just, other paths is not the same. Or going to college is not the same like it used to be. Yeah. Yeah. And so I think thinking outside the box is gonna be really important.
Mr.Benja: I had to think outside the box when I was there to get into the game industry. Exactly. I'm not gonna speak of the Mark Zuckerberg hacking while we're bringing back some memories. Not that I did any hacking, hacking. I just did what was, necessary to do my stuff,
Theo Harvey: did what was necessary under the covers.
Yeah.
Mr.Benja: But no. Speaking of like one of, one of our topics this week we're just going over all this stuff was, how things are. Before we get into all that I was about to jump the gun a little bit. But yeah, no, you're totally right. Did you wanna say anything else about like, how these things are changing or,
Theo Harvey: no, those are the big things.
Netflix's Viral Show 'Adolescence'
Theo Harvey: One thing I did, I did wanna bring up too, from this week have you heard this new Netflix show called Adolescence?
Mr.Benja: They were pretty I try not to hear about shows on Netflix, but go ahead. I tried to avoid them. You
Theo Harvey: still have access to it though, right? You still have access to Netflix.
That's how you watch all your. Monkey d Lu's, right?
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Oh, he knows the full name. Yes, of course. Come on now.
Theo Harvey: One piece, man. Live action. One piece I'm good with.
Mr.Benja: Did you foolishness? Did you get hy off the video I sent you or no?
Theo Harvey: I will confess I didn't watch it yet.
Mr.Benja: Oh, okay. So I'll watch it.
Yeah. Okay. No, this is, I watch it. I'll let you know. It's just two little videos that got me hyped. Short clips, but yeah. No. What's, so what's this adolescence about?
Theo Harvey: Yeah, I'll be brief on this one. It was, it went pretty viral. It's a it's an interesting concept about a young 13-year-old kid who's accused of murdering his classmate and it's toed in what they call a winner or basically it's all supposed to be a linear, you ever see what's they called?
One shots, right? Where they about spoilers the camera checks. I'm just telling you the high level theme. Okay. There's not a spoiler to kinda get you interested in it. And it's four episodes long, not that long, hour long shows, but they're all set in this world. They, each is a different day and what's happened to this community, to this family, to this child and this tragic incident.
Right? The reason I bring it up is because it went pretty viral, especially for parents who kind of deal with young kids and dealing with social media. But one of the things that came up on this was the manosphere. We've talking about this, the Andrew Tates and all that. Have you heard of this theme?
Obviously Red Pilled, you heard of this thing called the 80 20 rule. Have you heard of that
Mr.Benja: Pareto principle? Talk to me.
Theo Harvey: It's really in relation to men and women is basically 20 80% women are only attracted to 20% of men.
Laugh: And,
Theo Harvey: This whole concept of there's the high worth men and, all that kind of stuff.
And so you think about that. We were talking about this, before the pod about workout videos and stuff like that. And you just wonder, he's man, is this how this generation is perceiving relationships now? Where it's if I'm not in that 20% access, high net worth individual, the way I look, the how I work out, my wealth, will I not have a partner if I'm heterosexual?
And so I'm wondering if those are some of the things that are driving. I. The manosphere, but more importantly, a lot of hate and negativity in the internet right now.
Mr.Benja: I can attest to that yes, that's happening. And also what's happening, we're all, we all, we often talk about the men on this and continue talking about it.
'cause it's a weird thing. But what this does also is it puts this weird competition on the young ladies where it's hey, if there's only, room of a hundred, dudes and we're only talk checking out 20 of them, then all of a sudden there's this weird competition, amongst the women.
Hey, I talked to him first. How dare you do this and that. And this kind of came up in conversation when I was talking to Andy Chinese Pirate. I was talking to him and we were talking about how. We would randomly find somebody in our feed that's just doing whatever in this case it was talking about Star Wars.
So they'll be talking some young lady's talking about Star Wars and you're like she's cute. Wait a minute, go to her bio, check the profile. She got a link tree or a beacons there, and you're like, okay, step one complete. Lemme click on that link and see boom, spicy link. And it's it's so per, I don't wanna say pervasive, but it's so pushed to the front that I started asking around and I'm like, Hey, what's up with all the spicy?
And it's Hey, gotta get attention somehow. Let's go. Ain't nothing wrong with it. I'm like, okay. Interesting. So there's this whole, there's these two weird dynamics going on that are both damaging. I think I don't know if the adolescent picks up on that end of it or not, but it's.
Theo Harvey: It's of a piece.
Yeah, it's of a piece. And reason why I just bring it up is because, we had talked about the spiciness that shows up on our feed sometime and how that's trying to driving things. And it's funny a show on a streaming channel net or a streaming entertainment, Netflix really tied into this what's happening in in the social media. And so I thought that was interesting and that kind of leads to my final point of the week.
SNL's Viral Moment
Theo Harvey: So obviously we record this, I we don't get a chance to break some news, but I don't know if you saw this trending, but SNL went viral last night. No. I don't know if you saw that at all.
So I know I, who's checking for Saturday Night Live? And I don't know, I've been for the last 20 years, I don't know why. I've been watching Saturday Night Live religiously, if nothing else just to catch up. It's the only show is I don't know what they're gonna say, what they're gonna do, what skit they're gonna do, there's nothing prepare you, there's no trailer for it.
You just know. There's gonna be some comedy, it might be funny, it might not. And so I always check in to see what's going on. So it was funny, they had Eagle Waldo, who's one of the cast members of Saturday Night Live. She did this standup comedian skit where she was gonna say, Hey, invite me to the White House correspondence dinner, and I'm not gonna roast politics.
I'm gonna roast a dinner. And so she just went off. It was lame at first. She said, okay, she's going out there doing something interesting. Okay. But she did this skit where she had audience participation. So she did the whole, black woman thing. Guys, not da. They ain't.
Then she left it blank for the audience to say it and they said loud shit. So on live tv. And so it just went and everybody busted out cracking up. She said, oh, y'all gonna get us in trouble. Y'all gonna get us fined. So that went viral. So I say that to say two things. Number one it is a business, let's be honest.
So these guys know what they're doing. I have to believe that she baited them to say that, to get some push. 'cause at that level, they gotta know they gonna have audience participation. And she did it before, and another kind of set up, and they said something like she wanted them to say, she said you, a woman gets tired, right?
So she got them ready to go to say something. Yeah. So I think the way she set it up was to bait them and to make it interesting and get people talking about Saturday Night Live, I gotta believe, because there gotta be such a, I. Such a machine at this point. Yeah. And then also, I wanna say that it's interesting, that's one of the few shows that you can have a one of the actors on that show, right?
They're not ready for primetime players. They could easily change how they're perceived with one skit. She was like, the safe black woman, shows up in sketches, does a few things that funny, everything. But now, because she does this one thing now, can she pivot her career in a different direction?
Yeah. In the show. And it's like one of the few opportunities people get to change how they're perceived in real time, almost.
Mr.Benja: You know what that reminded me of? The Wayne Brady Chappelle Show Skid.
Theo Harvey: Yeah, good point. There it is.
Mr.Benja: Like you think, Hey, he's this one person and it's without doing anything out of the box or just.
Madcap and stupid. That's obviously an attention getter. This was comedic genius to have Wayne Brady on the Chappelle Show totally changing of his vibe and his public image. And you're like, oh, okay, that Wayne Brady, he's so funny. I still like him. And people who didn't like him were like, get that way Brady.
I like him now. It was weird.
Theo Harvey: I love how they do that. It's just changing how you proceed. And they do it all the time in different type of scenarios, but
Mr.Benja: They try do it
Theo Harvey: on live. Yeah, they try to, to your point. But to do it on live television like that, I thought that was interesting. All
Laugh: right.
Theo Harvey: So yeah man, a lot of interesting things happening right now, but it all a masses to something that's not fun right now, unfortunately. So it, we'll talk more about this man. We are definitely in the darkest timeline. But speaking of which, you want to briefly go into Comic Corner.
Comic Corner: Viewer Comments
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Comment corner.
Let's do it. Yeah. We always like to thank everybody for sending in their comments flaming us whenever we say anything right or wrong or whatever. I like the banter back and forth, whether it's on Threads or you, our YouTube comments or whatever. But we got one here from our trailers.
People like commenting on our trailers. So thank you for that. We'll keep doing the trailers. We, we had two trailers. One was one battle after another new movie coming out with what's his name?
Theo Harvey: Leonard DiCaprio. Leonard DiCaprio,
Mr.Benja: yeah. And Urban Decay Lover is responding to something I said in the video.
I was saying that it doesn't really tell too much of the story. Like I'm looking for a log line I. Abandoned kid finds a sword and becomes the powerful sword master. Now he's gonna climb to the mountain and cut the head off the goat or whatever. There's like classic stories would have this log line that you really followed in the trailer as well.
But this trailer just seemed more madcap and fun. So she responded to that and said, or he responded to that anyway. I wouldn't say the movie told you nothing what it was about the beginning gave the tagline, Leo's in a revolution. Him and Tiana have a child together. Mom doesn't think highly of him.
Ultimately, Leo lost his daughter and needs to find her and then comes back with Yeah. A lot of random stuff going on in the trailer. But it did give enough information to ask what it was about. Yeah. I'm not going away from that trailer thinking anything about a story of somebody looking for their, looking for his lost daughter.
It just, it may have been there. Sure. It was. But it just didn't hit me like that. That wasn't the important part. Unlike Taken where you're thinking, oh, okay. Taken. It's even in the title, somebody got taken, I'm about to go get 'em. So that's all I was saying, but very good point though.
It was in there. I,
Theo Harvey: yeah, there was some thoughts. I my thoughts on there were I did get a sense that they had a daughter. I didn't know the daughter was lost. I didn't get that sense. I just felt like he was kinda like the outsider to this family and he was trying to fit in and it was a goofball antics from, ensue from that Yeah. Point. But I didn't get a sense that he had an objective to go find his daughter. It was just more he was trying to be a part of his family more but yeah. Good good observations. Trailers you look, they're just, they're to entice us, man, I think, and it's not really to tell us, like I.
Which I liked. I don't think it told us exactly what it's about. Which I do find intriguing.
Mr.Benja: Yeah, it can be, but then it could also be just whatever. So there's a fine line they're working with here. I do like that I do like trailers now for how dense and specific they can be because they know people are gonna go through and pick it apart and really try to piece things together.
So I do appreciate that they have enough information in there that if you really went through and picked it out, you're like no, they showed this and this and then that and this and that. That means the story is you're like, oh, for the people that are looking for it. Bravo. Alright. Another one we watched was, oh we watched Snow White.
We didn't, we weren't really talking too much about the trailer of Snow White, but we got a comment from Freak Master about some comments we made about Snow White. Wait, you made the. Freak master face
Theo Harvey: if I
Mr.Benja: like, sounds
Theo Harvey: like there's gonna be a bounce song going with that man. Freak master. Freak master.
Get underneath,
Laugh: drop that freak master.
Mr.Benja: Yes. You could tell we went to school in Florida. All right. Yeah Theo mentioned that he wasn't, the movie wasn't bad. You said that the movie wasn't that bad or bad as people were making it out to be So Freak Master responded to that and said just saw the movie as well.
Definitely doesn't deserve the 1.5 IMDB rating. Overall, it was fine. The core elements were there. He who was amazing in some places and songs were fun as well. He, who is he who?
Theo Harvey: Just say
Mr.Benja: hi,
Theo Harvey: ho. That's what
Mr.Benja: I meant to say. Oh yeah. Amazing song. Hi, ho. Hi. Who I'm? I'm, you got me back. Hooty hoo.
Theo Harvey: He who? Hey, it's all the
Mr.Benja: same.
I'm thinking Florida got me thinking about he haw and all that he used to play on tv.
Theo Harvey: Heidi Ho. Heidi. Heidi Ho. Yeah man. It's all the same.
Mr.Benja: Alright, he says yeah, he says, I like how they explain the name Snow White. Historically in royalty, historically royalty in Europe were white and pure because they sat and sat around, did nothing.
Also the term royals with blue blood, blah, blah, blah. Also where the term royals with blue blood came from because it had to do with their whiteness and you saw their veins did not know that snow white being a maid has to work. Which would make her go outside and would not allow her to be pearly white 'cause of her having a tan.
Interesting. So snow white not being pearly white because she went outside, did that work? Got a tan. Okay. I don't, I didn't see the movie. Did they present it as a tan or a lower class of individual who wasn't like proper royalty? I don't, I didn't see the movie. So how did they present that deal?
Theo Harvey: I missed that whole part that, she, that's why she wasn't as, white as she should be. I think so. The whole thing is just the casting of Snow White was very controversial with Rachel Zeer being introduced as no White, who is somebody who is from Columbia.
She's Colombian heritage, so she's a little and Italian a little bit. And so she's a little darker skin. So that was very controversial. So I think in the story they tried to make. That makes sense. Her name Snow White and she doesn't look exactly white or, pure white, whatever that means.
But it looks like this, in freak mask that, thank you for your comment. I think you along the lines, I think the unfairly Rachel Zeer, she did a great job or not great. She did a decent job of playing for Snow White. It was possible the movie didn't fail because of hers.
So I think that's what I was getting at. And I think Freak Mass is saying the same thing. It wasn't just because of Rachel Zeer and her casting that the re and it was unfair to the me that the movie got such a low rating. I think they just don't, like our politics allow folks to just review bombing this movie and, trying to bring it down.
Yeah. Because of her,
Mr.Benja: yeah. Politics. Were another thing. But that is a heavy waiting. I'm looking at the IMDB ratings right now. Oh my, I got you. Hear me?
Theo Harvey: Yeah, I can hear you now.
Mr.Benja: Okay. Yeah, it got a little choppy. Yeah. The IMDB ratings were pretty sad. It's 1.6 that's low. Yeah.
The kind of thing that makes people not wanna go see it.
Theo Harvey: Again, there's an agenda here and we all, we talked about that last podcast. Go check it out. Where we talked about her comments during promoting the, of this movie. We have some shorts on that as well. But yes, it was very controversial. And so I think it was one of the reasons why this movie got a lot of bad reviews and it's just been this ongoing sentiment.
From certain manosphere, certain folk segments of the population that's just going after Disney wholeheartedly. And yeah, stuff like that. So
Mr.Benja: here's an interesting thing. The critics gave it a 40% and the fans gave it a 73% usually. Interesting. It was a bomb like that. I'm looking at Rotten Tomatoes here.
Usually when when the fans are, I guess it, it's switched the other way around, but interesting. Yeah. Yeah. But the general consensus as from both camps, it doesn't deserve the hate it got.
It's not that bad as people are making it out to be.
Theo Harvey: No, I don't think it is. So I think it's definitely something that a lot of folks enjoyed and can, have fun with.
So thank you Freak Ma staff for that comment. Appreciate it.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. But oh, and to your point, I do remember adolescence. I remember seeing that from the one take, the cinematography and the camera. That was pointed out. So when you said, had I heard about it, that was the only thing I heard.
Absolutely.
Theo Harvey: What's next, Mr. Benja?
Mr.Benja: Oh, man. That's Snow White. That's that's touchy, man, that's a little bit of what we have to deal with right now. Everything's a little touchy and tough, and we were dealing with tariffs and protests and I didn't even, I heard there were protests, didn't even look at 'em until this morning.
Economic Concerns and Tariffs
Mr.Benja: But we got anti-Trump protests going on. I think it's everything's just going wrong. For some reason, everything feels bad. Is that it's not, is that just me? It can't just be me.
Theo Harvey: No, I think there is a sentiment that, we're in the darkest timeline. Look, this is not unlike everything.
This is what Trump talked about, right? Obviously there's massive layoffs in the government, removing folks that had certain privileges that protect us, like FAA, traffic controllers, nuclear codes, things like that. And having to rehire people 'cause they cut too much. So that was another thing.
All these folks getting kicked outta country for various reasons and not doing truly due process, like clearly verifying if they have any right to be in America. Those are the things that are happening. And then now we just had economic concerns around, individuals who, the tariffs, right?
Where there he's gonna rise prices. So what he's doing is tariffs, we don't have to get into too many details on this, but maybe we can if you want to. He's rising prices on anything that's coming into the us. So if you get avocados or something from Canada or Canadian bacon, he's raising.
Prices on those imports so that when people have a choice between getting Canadian bacon or American BA Canadian bacon, they would choose American bacon. 'cause it's less, it's cheaper. And that's the theory. And then, but what the problem with raising tariffs on imports is be 'cause we also export things to can Canada, if they see we have terrorists.
Coming in, they're gonna raise the, their tariffs as well. So we're not gonna be able to export as much like we used to. So it could create what they call a trade war where everybody's raising tariffs and nobody's importing exporting as much. And you can slow down and shrink economies because. You're not trading stuff, you're not moving things fast.
Money likes to be a river. It doesn't like to be a pond.
Laugh: Yeah.
Theo Harvey: That's bars. I like that. Money likes to be a river. It doesn't wanna be a pond. So that means it needs to flow. And because you are now keeping everything in house, it's gonna be harder and harder to sell more stuff. 'cause there's only a certain amount of people that can buy here in the United States.
And so anyway, make a long story short. Yeah. The economic economists are saying that this could be right. Raise inflation, deep drivers into depression and more recession, excuse me, not depression, but who knows. And then more importantly, we lost $6 trillion in the stock market the last two days.
Yeah. So everyone's stock portfolio is in the red right now, so yeah, it does feel like a bad time. Mr. Pena, if you want to sum it up.
Mr.Benja: Okay. Yeah. There's there's a lot going on. I didn't just mean tariffs causing the bad times, a lot of bad times, and we're kicking it off with tariffs just because we're seeing these protests and the recent effects in the stock market.
It's really it's really bizarre because we were looking at this from a, a far away thing, and we're trying to figure out, what's been hit and what have we been talking about. We were talking about politics with the tariffs, the protests, the unease, the political gamesmanship going on.
From the politics side and from the tech side. We're seeing ai, getting rid of jobs being overused, being blamed for environmental concerns and everything's going wild over there. And in entertainment, it's Hollywood is flipping on its head. All these other things are happening.
It's so much is, these are big three, three big fields, markets, out industries, tech industry, political industry, and entertainment industry, all kind of triangulating together all at once in not necessarily the best way. And I'm honestly struggling. I don't know how exactly to jump into all of this, but we can blame Joe Rogan.
That's fundamentally what I wanted to say. We can all blame Joe Rogan for all of this because he has definitely affected tech, politics, and entertainment. We were joking about that before the podcast, but it's a funny take. Just because of his relationships with Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and I.
The shifting American landscape. So while we joke about that, it's just an interesting fact that somebody can just start talking and he has more power than all of what we thought was powerful before, like in terms of mainstream media or whatever. But,
Theo Harvey: And the funny thing is, he's come out and been against these tariffs, right?
And yeah. Who, and he has single handedly not single. Yeah. Probably between him and Musk, Elon Musk, by having to Donald Trump show up on his podcast for three hours and present as a regular man that people feel confident enough to vote in, oh, he's not crazy. He should be okay.
He was able to I guess with the center, him, and I think that's the term they use now, say, Hey, this is a, he's not on the extreme. He's a he's a guy you can talk to, right? Yeah.
Mr.Benja: Trust that guy.
Theo Harvey: I can trust that guy. I have a beer with that guy. And now because he centered him and platformed him right.
And all that and gave him a voice into the, to the internet.
Joe Rogan's Political Influence
Theo Harvey: Now he's doing, Donald Trump is doing all these crazy things now Joe Rogan is like I don't want all that. And let's be honest, Joe Rogan was for Bernie, right when Bernie ran in 2016. Yeah, it totally was. So it's kinda this is very interesting where we are now.
And so is he having remorse for platforming Trump or, I don't know. I don't think he will ever say that. He is powerful enough on his own, but I do feel like there is. A turning point happening in after this, what not even 82 days or so into the presidency of Trump. That's changing things.
Yeah. And I think a lot of folks who platformed him on their and we may talk about Ben Shapiro too later on, these folks are starting to figure out that this we, we lay, we made the deal with the devil and now we gotta lay in it. So anyway, Joe Rogan, is he to blame? I would say he takes some blame.
He takes some blame.
Mr.Benja: Did
Theo Harvey: they learn
Mr.Benja: nothing from Omar Omarosa?
Theo Harvey: Wow. You'll watch First Season, the Apprentice, everyone. You'll know what we're talking about.
Mr.Benja: Yeah, man.
The Evolution of Entertainment
Mr.Benja: We were talking we talk a lot about entertainment and whatnot. And one of the big stories that came up is how Hollywood ain't it? And it's just so many stories after story, the old Hollywood way of doing things isn't working.
So all of entertainment is changing. And I used to think entertainment was just this thing that's oh, people go to the movies or buy games or whatever. But it's definitely a key into how people work and how they understand life and how, we enjoy ourselves reflects a lot and it plays a lot into how the world runs.
The Rise of Micro Dramas
Mr.Benja: We started looking into it and one of the things I found out was about real short drama box and drama wave. Have you heard about any of those?
Theo Harvey: I have not.
Mr.Benja: All right. So real short drama box and drama wave are blowing up. On someone's phone that may not be yours. You may not have heard of this, but basically they're short form TV show platforms where you can go and watch movies go and watch a series, but they're all in these short form vertical formats.
So imagine a 32nd episode where some person burst in the door and he's you stole my wallet. And the other person stands up and he's wait a minute, what are you doing here? Da. And it, this crazy stuff happens within 30 seconds, 60 seconds or whatever. And it's like on the next episode, you're like, wait, what?
Yeah, but, oh, these are blowing up. And they're called micro dramas. And in China, they've been blowing up slowly for a while, but they fizzled out in America after Quibi bombed. Quibi was a whole platform for that kind of stuff, but in China they're blowing up. And a lot of people I talk to.
Are actually into this, if they weren't, if they didn't know about it already. So this is fascinating to me. I don't know the theo micro dramas you into this.
Theo Harvey: No. But I think I've seen a few on the shorts, YouTube shorts that pop up and you click on it and it's it seems like it's a continuation of a story and I'm like, ah, I ain't got time for this.
Or it's Hey, this guy meets a young woman, or something like that. And you're like, okay. And then it's okay, yeah, come back to my apartment later today. And it just ends. So I'm like,
This is very interesting. I don't care enough about the story to continue it, but I think yeah, this is where we're at, man.
Short Form Content vs. Long Form Content
Theo Harvey: What are your thoughts on this as someone who doesn't watch as much, long form stuff as I do, I watch a lot of long form stuff. Even I find myself bored with some of this stuff if it doesn't keep my attention long enough. And that's. You know why adolescents got my attention? 'cause it, these long takes, they demand that you pay attention because things will never end.
So it's they're like these long form storytellers are trying to find ways to keep your attention. Like another show watch is called The Pit. It's very similar where they always like just when things start getting boring, here comes a new emergency, someone lost a leg, or then they start talking, oh, someone lost a arm.
Oh, someone's got, a heart disease, a heart attack. Yeah. So it's just every two seconds, just when you think it's gonna get bored, there's like another emergency and the doctors are rushing to save their lives. So it's like long form storytelling is realizing people's view of the stories changing or content is changing or their relationship with content is changing.
So you have to spice it up if you wanna keep their interest in long form. I don't know. What are your thoughts? Are you a lover of short form content?
Mr.Benja: I like the idea of it. And I say that because I spent a fair amount of time reading Instagram comics where somebody would basically have, a couple panels of a comic and you just say, oh, here it is.
It continues the story. Okay. Dog man jumps over the fence, breaks into the back door. And not Dog man, I just used him. That's an actual kid's character.
Theo Harvey: Oh yeah, I know. I know Mr. Benja. I know. And I went to go see that movie was not good.
Mr.Benja: Oh, man. Yeah I'll send the link. I was about to, the character's not in NSFW, so I won't say out here.
But anyway yeah, this these little dramas, or not comics, you got 10 panels or 12 panels or whatever, and you just sweep, swipe through them really quick and you're like, huh, that was cool. Then you wait a little while and it shows up in your feed again. It's boom.
There it is. Swipe swipe. It's just really fast and you can just take it and be done with it. But every time it shows up in your feed, it's like you wanna get that hit again. So it works for comic strips. So I guess if you think of we had used to have the newspaper and it'd have the, three panels of Spider-Man, and you're like, how do you tell a story of that?
But if you've been reading the newspaper long enough, after six months, you're invested in Spider-Man's story, which is really weird that it would, three panels a day just seems stupid, but over time it's yeah, I'm involved in this story. So micro dramas are doing big as I said, it was in China.
Now it's starting to spread. And most of these stories, in case you haven't heard of them, are coming from, I would say the the. Spicy lifetime drama crowd, maybe. If that's what you wanna call it. Breaking the Ice is one title. My secret husband is another one.
Laugh: Thank God.
Mr.Benja: Sit down, be humble with your subtitled hidden identity.
Here's another one. A new release, baby. You had it coming. Damn spice.
Theo Harvey: Oh, man. Yeah, there's, if you ever watch Lifetime. Yeah. I, for those who don't know, lifetime Channels, the channel where women go to watch a woman get beat up, lied to, heated on by a man. Basically, they have every version of that. They had one, mouth by my daughter lost at a game.
He never loved me. These are the titles of Lifetime. Movies. So there you go. Lifetime now has a three page comic coming to you on the interwebs. Love it.
Mr.Benja: Yeah.
Theo Harvey: That, you, I guess women are into this. Is that what you're pretty much the premise of this? This is
Mr.Benja: no, that was the what I was saying is just that that's the audience.
It's not like I'm over here watching anime. I'm over here, you're watching sports. I may watch some science fiction or travel show or whatever. It's not hitting any of those markets. It's, sit down, be humble.
Tearing up the spots. And yeah. As I said, I even asked a lot of women just in Instagram.
I was just like, lemme just plow through all of these shows. Hey, would you be interested in this? Hey, would you be interested in this? Hey, would you be interested in this? And they were all like, hell yes. And I was like, like short form, really quick. I don't have to make much of a commitment. It's right there in my phone.
In fact, as the, as I got responses, I was actually thinking, oh, that's what those little romance novels do anyway, where it's like you sit down and you bought your coffee, you sit down, flip through a couple pages, okay, you gotta get back to work and you put the book away. I'm like that.
There it goes.
Theo Harvey: Oh, there you go. I didn't know there was a billion dollar industry in China during the pandemic, so it's definitely, there's money there. But you know what, Mr. Benja, the niche quote unquote, niche markets are everywhere. Look at Tyler Perry. He's worth a billion dollars and he has a, some.
Movie every month on either Prime Netflix or PT Plus. Matter of fact, I think I talked about my uncle is on one of those shows that's very trashy. Very interesting. I just, my wife, she always says I don't wanna watch it. It's terrible. But she ends up watching every one of those movies that come out when they come out and he said they're a good concept, but the dialogue is repetitive just, but he's worth a billion and for a reason.
So he knows his audience enough to keep him engaged, even though the storyline may not be the best.
Hollywood's Struggles and Changing Dynamics
Theo Harvey: So I think, Hollywood Ain't, it is so true. If I may pivot a little bit, if, when we talk about this I think Hollywood, ain't it? 'cause movies suck right now.
The Decline of Movie Quality
Theo Harvey: We talked, yeah. I'm the one that kind of sees the movies every so often.
Had the wonderful opportunity to go see Minecraft movie that came out this weekend. It's doing well in the box office relatively well. 140 million global in the box office. But the movie sucked. Mr. Benja. I went with the kids. We saw the trailer, we commented, go check it out. Our comments on the trailer.
I think I was not too excited about it. And it showed, Jason Mao was terrible in it. I don't even know why he was in there. You had Daniel Brooks, who's pretty good in what's the one was John Cena the dang, what's the movie? The TV show, but she was in Orange and a new black what you call it?
Mr.Benja: Peacemaker.
Theo Harvey: Peacemaker. She was getting that. Oh, okay. That one. Yeah. Daniel Brooks. She's, and she's in Broadway. Good. I don't know why she was in that. And then they had Jack Black, who, yeah, he can be funny at times, but it was like he was doing so much exposition. Luckily I had my 9-year-old next to me, Mr.
Benja. I never felt so dumb watching a movie in my life. I'm like, what? What's that? So not only was it the movie explained to me, but my son had to explain to me what the character just explained to me. That's how terrible it was. And I was trying to explain to him, I said, movies shouldn't be that much exposition on what Lava Chicken was or what this was, or who this character was and this and that.
And I'm trying to think, was Mario Kart that bad? I don't think Mario Kart was that bad with all that exposition, but it was way too much exposition because inherently, I don't think Minecraft has a sense of a villain or any character arcs or anything. It's just you do stuff right and you do whatever you want and there's no, movies have to be bounded, right? Whereas, as video games are unbounded if they set 'em up, right? And so when you have no bound this, you have to bound a movie. And I don't think they did that well. And you have Jack Black over here doing exposition and a loud voice every two seconds.
And it was just, I'm like, why am I watching this movie?
Mr.Benja: So I'm wondering if part of it was just the fact that it went viral because of all these silly audience reactions. Like I, I'm, I'm looking at my phone right now. Because it was it was talking about all the audience reactions, like when they got in the wrestling ring and, you just here comes, here, comes and everybody like, starts cheering at certain parts.
I'm like, how do you make a rocky horror picture type of audience reaction opening weekend? It's interesting to me.
Theo Harvey: But then that's our premise is are they making the movies just to create content for social media now?
Mr.Benja: Oh yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. Interesting.
Theo Harvey: It is not like it's for, maybe that's helping to promote, to go see the movie and it's an event that you can be part of a social media env event.
Yeah. Like we talked about Megan, that kind of got people hyped and watching the movie, but it's not like you watching the movie just to watch a movie. It's to be a part of a social media experience. And so just like Barb Heimer
Mr.Benja: all that wicked singing too.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. The Wicked Sing. Yep. You see what's happening.
They're just Creamies events. So Mo Hollywood ain't it man? And it's getting to a point where it's it is. What does it do even mean to be a movie star anymore, right? Yes. They still have publicists. They still have agents, so they can still move the needle somewhat. I just don't think they move the needle as much as people think, unless you get a viral moment like you said, out of that.
And that just goes to me, so recently they just had the Cinema Con Convention in Las Vegas where they have all the trailers and get you excited about all the movies coming out. A couple movies that we talk about here. I felt like when they announced it, I'm like, I don't know.
These gonna be good. So this is in that vein of Hollywood, ain't it? Spider-Man was the new Spider-Man four movie was announced. It's called Brand New Day. Mr. Benja, do you know anything about the comic book of brand new day for Spider-Man and what it was about the storyline? No. Basically Spider-Man made di the Devil.
I. To save his aunt May. And the deal with the devil was that he would no longer be married to Mary Jane and he would start from scratch.
Mr.Benja: Oh, that storyline. Okay. I never a horrible storyline.
Theo Harvey: It was a horrible storyline. No one liked it. It was up there with the Clone saga. Remember that crappy storyline with Spider clones?
Mr.Benja: Yeah.
Theo Harvey: Spider clones. Yes. It was up there with that. And so immediately got Retro Kahn and went back to status quo with him being back with Mary Jane. Why on Earth was MCU take a terrible comic book idea and try to make into a movie? I get why they're doing it because in essence, after no way home, that's where Spider-Man is.
No one knows he is, and he's starting off from scratch. But to even use that same connotation from a comic book that was not properly received just res of stupidity from Hollywood, again,
Mr.Benja: why? Yeah, man I get it, man. Hollywood has been doing some sucky things and I don't know.
I didn't know about that that, but that seems like a bad storyline to go off of. And I think somebody mentioned meo Yes. As being the quote the devil Yeah. Of as the quote unquote devil. And if that's some sad attempt to get people who were mad at Wanda visions for the mephisto links in the graphics, they had mephisto.
Kind of hinted some in Vission. Everybody thought Mephisto was gonna show up. So now it's Hey, let's give him Afio. And it's like that's not that storyline. Just don't,
Theo Harvey: not like this. Not like this. Not like this. Not like this.
Mr.Benja: James, if we ever do that, not like this.
We're talking about the Matrix meme, by the way. I hope you get that.
Theo Harvey: Not like this. Anyway yeah, man.
Superman Trailer Breakdown
Theo Harvey: And then Superman trailer was an stone at Cinema Con. Now we've already talked about Superman trailer before and the teaser, but this was a five minute Superman trailer at Cinema Con Mr. Bid.
Have you seen this on the interweb yet?
Mr.Benja: I saw it but wasn't interested enough to watch it. It's five minutes and it's like one of those things when. When you're supposed to be into it already and someone's Hey, I can show you five minutes. And you're like, why are you trying to show me five minutes?
Shouldn't I be interested anyway? And so I was like, I'll get around to it. And two days passed and it was out and I saw the link and I just haven't clicked it yet. 'cause I don't wanna sit down and watch it for five minutes. Not because I don't wanna get spoiled, but because why are you giving me a five minutes?
I don't trust it.
Theo Harvey: Yeah, just weeks of desperate desperation, man. I had the opportunity to see it. I can talk about it briefly and go check it out if you want to, but it does wreak a desperation. Give you the vibe of what they're going for. So basically everything we saw in the trailer with crypto taking Superman, but it's just more longer.
He's basically seeing crypto dragging across the sand into the fortress of solitude. Which takes two minutes to do. So that's half the running time crypto dragging superman to the snow. Sure. Then you see these robots coming in and helping him into his little, this little specialty seat. And then you see this little, these little magnifying glasses, like amplified arrays.
The sun's. Because basically the way Superman gets healed is he gets more sun. Basically. That's, he doesn't go to the hospital guys, he just gets more sun. And that's how you heal Superman. And you just sees Superman, filling up the rings of the sun. Yeah. And then the rest of it is pretty much.
Everything we saw on the teaser. So that's pretty much it. Mr. Benja, you're not missing anything, but it's just like why is this getting you hype? I don't know.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Did they need a test? Did they need a test out? Okay, let's see what the reaction is. I'm wondering if they're just like, Hey, let's test more of this stuff out before we just go balls to the wall with it.
Theo Harvey: It's James Gun, it's gonna be weird. We already see the Green Lander's gonna be in there. Guy Gardner Green Lander, who with
Mr.Benja: that haircut, which I,
Theo Harvey: with the bold haircut. Yes.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. I, so that's interesting, Mr. I like that. But I'm interested
Theo Harvey: Mr. Terrific. Who's obscure kind of character, which, he's a cool looking character, but very obscure.
I don't, they're make cool
Mr.Benja: at all here. I'm mad at that already. Yeah. Yeah. That's sad.
Theo Harvey: And that actor, he never gets a cool role. He played remember he played in X-Men first class. He said, I can't die. I just evolved and got killed in the first minute. But anyway, kudos to that actor. I know. Hey, it's a job.
But anyway Hawk Girl gonna be in it. They show that. A lot of weirdness, probably some brainiac stuff is going on. Lick Luke just a lot, man. And yeah, I don't know. That's just the test of the weirdness that we're going to see. Let's, Zack Snyder has some weirdness too, right? The whole crypto.
And bath that Lux Luther got in. That was weird. I don't know, man this, yeah. Which is fine, but I, I, James Gunn look I, he's weird out there, but he does have a sense of what makes interesting stories and stuff and, did you ever see Bright Burn at all?
Yeah, I did. What'd you think of that? And he didn't direct it, but he produced it. James Gunn?
Mr.Benja: No, I thought it was I thought it was a good, I thought it was a good and decent watch. It wasn't like good, I don't go recommending Bright Burn to anybody, but, if that's a category you need to see, say, Hey, check out Bright Burn.
It's pretty good.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. A evil Superman story and basically, leads up to Evil Justice League story, which, hey man, that's a good concept, man. But anyway so yeah, I, I think Hollywood ain't it. And look, Joe Rogan of it all, Joe Rogan wasn't Hollywood, right? He was in tv, he did Fear Factor.
He left Hollywood and moved onto podcast. So maybe he knew. Where everything was going.
Mr.Benja: He very, he's very clearly said that Hollywood has serious issues and he didn't like it out there. And he was just like, yeah, lemme pack up and got here and just done. Yeah.
Theo Harvey: So Joe Rogan once again is to blame everyone for all our problems.
Yes. Don't forget.
All right, Mr. Benja, anything else before getting to these trailers?
Mr.Benja: Nothing else, man. No we've spoken about AI enough on other podcasts, so we can leave that. Yeah, we another time. But yeah. If you have any ideas on Hollywood, we may do a more of a deep dive on like the Hollywood numbers.
We wanted to talk about how YouTube is getting be bigger than Disney. It's the biggest media company out there right now, and Yeah. Between Netflix these micro things, micro dramas coming out, YouTube doing what it's doing. Yeah. Old Hollywood is dead and something's happening changing in the water.
And you know what? It might be the thing that really help I don't wanna say helps people, but helps people, this is where our entertainment goes, and it's you know what? If I can find some new types of entertainment that's not I don't know Minecraft movie ish than this overly produced meme of a movie, I don't know, maybe something good can come outta that.
Theo Harvey: I like how you ending this on a hopeful note. We talked about the terrace and all the politics and all that. There is John Hope Bryant out there putting out a blueprint for America. He calls his dream forward plan. He was on the breakfast Club talking about that, how a diverse economic plan for diverse economy can really help flourish.
And that's really important. So you put a blueprint for a blueprint for that out there. And so I think that's something that can give me hope from the economic politics standpoint. And then to your point on the creative side, Hollywood side, it's always been times like this when things you didn't think there was creative, there was no creative energy, seemed like everything was the same old, but people have always said that about Hollywood. When they were. Creating books. People say, oh, they just ripping off books we already read. That's just retread, right? Or all the sequels that people do. Oh, it's just sequels, people tired, watching sequels or all this, all the superhero movies.
Oh, look, all these superhero movies, it's gonna kill Hollywood. So we're just in a fallow period, and maybe there's something to your point that's gonna merge, that will be innovative art form that we will enjoy.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Yeah. And I was serious with that, with meaning, how we, how it connects with this when we you used to go home and, you get the family together for a Friday night movie.
Saturday Night Live used to be a big thing. When you're at home, it's Hey, end of the week I'm gonna watch some Saturday Night Live and laugh on a Saturday night Friday night videos. It's. It was just the seasonal thing where movies come out or, you had comic books that started their big thing.
It's Hey, you know what? I'm going to get up in the morning. Why? Because I'm gonna go to the comic bookshop, buy five comics and just chill with my friends, and we're all gonna read comics and talk all day. I'm gonna come home and I'm gonna watch the rest of this Netflix series, and then I'm gonna talk about it in my Facebook group.
You know what? I'm gonna go pick up this new manga that I got and discuss it with my manga group, whatever. There's always just some entertainment that, that gets you up in the morning or you talk. I still get up and play some silly game just to get my myself started in the morning.
I'm gonna. Click a few things here and there in Farmville and be like, you know what? I planted strawberries today. I'm feeling good. All right. I can turn this off now.
Upcoming Movie Trailers
Mr.Benja: Whatever, but, all right, we got trailers.
Theo Harvey: Which one first? Mr. Benja.
Mr.Benja: All right as we do our trailers here. We have two here that we're gonna run through Tron s or is it Aries? God of War Aries, I suppose Tron s official trailer? Haven't seen it, didn't really know It was this close to coming out. Don't know the release date on it.
Don't have that available because I prepared nothing for this podcast. I'm so sorry.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. Tran Aries official trailer only in theaters. October 10th, 2025. You ready Mr. Benja?
Mr.Benja: Yeah. I am ready. Let's get this started. Tran s official trailer coming out from Disney. In 3, 2, 1, play.
Laugh: Oh,
Theo Harvey: done it.
Mr.Benja: Yay.
Laugh: Huh?
No,
Mr.Benja: of course.
Oh, no. Music by nine-ish nails. I'll be getting the soundtrack.
Theo Harvey: It looked cool to Jared. Let, who showed up.
He's okay actor. But it's just sure. It looks good, man. It does look a little hokey though, to see these images in the real world though, when that, I don't know what that thing's called, but the big structure she's running from the structure. I'm like now the cycles cool as hell.
Yeah. Always has been.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. They made the unfortunately I did think of the movie pixels when I saw the Yes. The big yes. Tron ships coming through the, I'm like, terrible. Did I see a make out of a frowny face on that ship, was not good.
Theo Harvey: So Yes. Yeah. If you don't see pixels, was it Adam Sandler terrible movie.
Yeah. But anyway, yeah I would give it a four. If I'm going to see it, I probably will, 'cause that's what I do. But I don't know. It doesn't seem. It seems like a sleepy movie. 'cause the last one I saw, the remake they did, with the the age version of jeff is it Jeff Daniels?
No, it's the other Jeff. But anyway they'll come to me later. Wasn't didn't gel with me, so we'll see. Yeah. Ip, this is the part of IP we talked about this IP index. Yeah, this is Tron IP is on the lower end of like ip they're trying to revive. Yes. So I'll be curious to see if, I don't know if this movie's gonna do it.
Mr.Benja: It's been falling off, man. But that is some strong ip. I think if the, once again, it's one of those things where you said if they really did it right, it would work, but yeah. When you're big evil overlord monster has a frowny face painted on it, it's oh, you have me with the cycles.
But that, that I'm not so sure about. I do right off the bat. I do the concept. Them bleeding into the real world. Somehow, or the simulation extending however you, they play it. I'm not sure what they're gonna do, but interesting stuff. You ready for the next one? Let
Theo Harvey: go.
Mr.Benja: All right.
Naked Gun Trailer Reaction
Mr.Benja: This is the naked gun reaction. We've got a official teaser coming out with Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson. Haven't heard from Pamela Anderson in a while. Have you seen this one, theo? This trailer?
Theo Harvey: August 1st is when it's coming out, so I'm curious to see, is Liam Neeson's, is he funny?
Mr.Benja: We will find out in 3, 2, 1, go.
NPAA.
Oh.
Laugh: Peter.
Aw.
Theo Harvey: Oh yeah. Mr. Bitch, what you think?
Mr.Benja: Oh, okay.
Theo Harvey: You quiet, man.
Mr.Benja: What are they? I don't get it. I don't get it.
Theo Harvey: I like
Mr.Benja: it.
Theo Harvey: I
Mr.Benja: like it. And this is from, a person who really likes some dumb stuff. I just don't, did you watch
Theo Harvey: the Naked Gum movies at all? Do you remember those?
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Yeah.
Theo Harvey: Police squad. All Full Body
Mr.Benja: condoms. I remember that.
Theo Harvey: What don't you like about it? What is the vibe you were looking for?
Mr.Benja: Okay, so the style of the humor. It is, it's hard to put into words, but that style of humor just seemed very, oh, I got you. Oh, this is callback. I don't know. It just seemed very, aha. Funny. And it's I don't know. It wasn't that funny. I don't, it didn't even look like it was not funny. Like I needed to laugh at it, but I'm just like, why would you think that's a good joke? I don't know.
Maybe I'm in a mood.
Theo Harvey: I liked it. The girl, the little girl scout coming in and the whole, mission Impossible face reveal and he still got the outfit on. Okay. The tummy out. I thought that was hilarious.
Mr.Benja: Would've been funny is if the little girl walked in and she said, Hey, look that way.
And everyone turns around, she whips, takes off her mask, and then it's like a bad cut. You know what I mean? Not like a good cut, not like they, somebody you know with VFX decided to make Liam Neeson grow. 'cause that was like, what is that? You do a bad Oh, I see what you're saying. You do a bad cut and they're like, it's Liam Neeson, or it's Frank Re, Jr.
It. It's like you're supposed to be like, Hey, wait a minute. Wasn't that just a little girl? How did a little girl take a mask off and become that? But no, they had to do some CGI weirdness.
Theo Harvey: I get it. Wasn't that bad. No,
Mr.Benja: It was terrible. That was the worst trailers I've ever seen in my entire life.
I'm out right now. That was
Theo Harvey: bad. I liked it. What about the whole ojs joke at the end?
Mr.Benja: Stupid. Just,
Theo Harvey: they said it All right, everybody, he was saying, I love you, dad. They had like actors, and unfortunately every actor they showed and had passed on from the original series and and then obviously with the young black cop with oj Yeah.
Didn't age. Doesn't age well.
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Which is another thing, like why are we throwing, first of all, throwing dead people under the bus? Not really my thing, whatever. Sure. It's just, that was just dumb to me. Oh my God. Oh man,
Theo Harvey: This is oj. It is oj were you keeping for OJ out here? Oh. James put that in the pod.
Mr.Benja: Mr. Bitches caping for oj. James Don, listen to him.
Laugh: But
Mr.Benja: yeah. Okay. I guess so. That that's gonna be, I don't know. It's just dog. I'm struggling here. I was like, why is this so bad to me? And how long does it take to get to a joke, Hey, little girl, don't go in there. And stabbing somebody with a sharp end of a lollipop stick.
It's that's not the joke.
Theo Harvey: He's Liam Neeson. We gotta see some taking action. That's what I wanted to see. Just that mix. But Seth McFarland family guy all the, stupid stuff he does. He's, I think he's directing or writing it, so I'm sure there's some Seth Mc McFarland.
Do you think Seth McFarland is funny?
Mr.Benja: I don't think he should be doing this. Okay.
Theo Harvey: And now that it makes sense now, why Liam, go ahead.
Mr.Benja: His humor applied to this is, yeah, that I'm not digging that. Something about, and this is me holding on, I guess to the type of humor from the original Naked Gun movies.
I think this is too much of a departure. It doesn't feel like naked gun to me. It feels like the characters. But in some other kind of humorous movie.
Theo Harvey: So you want stupid things like, he said nah I want to drink it. Don't call me Shirley or something like that. Or I have a drinking problem throwing the walk in your face.
Did you see
Mr.Benja: Oh, your airplane references there? Yeah. Yeah. It is just, God, this was bad. I can't explain it.
Theo Harvey: Alright, we'll leave it there. But it is funny. I liked it so Mr. Benja did not. So we'll see. How does in a box office, I think it would do pretty well in the box office. But what do I know?
Just something about it. Comedies haven't been working in box office, but. We're in a different world now where comedy can be a little bit more edgy. So if this goes edgy there with some stuff you remember the original this wasn't Nick and gum, but it was in that vein. 'cause I think the Zucker, was it the Zucker brothers or whatever they did airplane.
And they the whole remember that whole thing where the black folks were talking jive and and they just jive. And then they had this white girl, white lady said, I talk Jive. Let me help you. So she was translating for everybody else. So it's just, that's very racist, but funny to say, but it was funny to me.
But anyway so we'll see how edgy they want to be now that we are in this post-Trump world, how edgy they gonna be on comedy. 'cause comedy hasn't worked as well in movies in the theaters lately.
Mr.Benja: And the use of Ks one sound of the police sacrosanct. Never should have gotten near this movie.
Damn.
Theo Harvey: Okay. Shop's fired.
Mr.Benja: I feel like almost running up the the original naked gun trailer, but we'll leave that for another time.
Theo Harvey: Yeah. All right guys.
Closing Remarks and Call to Action
Theo Harvey: Mr. Benja, I think we're gonna end it here. So everyone please subscribe, comment, and show us' business on X thread wherever you listen to podcasts. Listen to us at Spotify, iTunes, all the great podcasts and other areas that you can understand more about what we do and what's going on.
Also, go visit us at our website at show versus business. All right, Mr. Benja. Have a good one. Peace. Alright, we are going to get into it. Lemme look at,
alright.
Mr. Benja, you about ready to get started? The intro?
Mr.Benja: Yeah. Yeah, let's go. All right.
Theo Harvey: In 3, 2, 1. Hey everyone, welcome once again to show versus business. This is Theo Harvey and Mr. Benja, back at it again. Look, we wanna blame everything on Joe Rogan. This is the podcast for that one. We're gonna talk about everything from what's going on in politics, entertainment, and how's messing up our timeline.
We even go in some details around some interesting things around basketball and what's happening out there with micro dramas. Yes. Mr. Benches, what else do we talk about or anything interesting?
Mr.Benja: Oh, man. We always talk about whatever we wanna talk about, but we got some good things going on here.
As you said actually, you said everything. I got nothing else. I. Wow,
Theo Harvey: shots fired. Guys, look, if you like what you're hearing, please smash that light button share. Do some comments. We will probably talk about one of your comments every so often in our whole section called Comment Corner. So go ahead, give us some shout outs and we'll reach a comment on the video or maybe put it out there and go like it later, and share with your friends and say, Hey, I got featured in a podcast.
So that's what we do here, guys. So definitely we're about to get into it. Mr. Benja. Let's go.
Mr.Benja: Let's do
it.