​When we started this little podcasting adventure, it was just Linzi and Chris…talking about their mutual love of podcasts and how much they would like to make one of their own.  What bloomed from there was the beginning of GeekEnd Cast.  Our flagship podcast, Ctrl+C started out as five friends who wanted to watch movies and talk about them together.  We've even expanded our team to include the Gaming Dad 101 podcast in which Chris, Brian, and Ricky discuss gaming and parenting.


Sure, there are hundreds of podcasts just like this, but Ctrl+C was our little friendship baby birthed from a love of each other and a love of movies.  In case you aren't already aware, since there were five of us coordinating schedules got a little iffy.  We only met once a month and did a marathon recording session.  Towards the beginning of everything, we met Billy.  A friend of Ray's whose personality fit well with ours and provided a much needed additional perspective to our sessions.


We went along, as friends do, recording as often as we could.  Along the way life happened.  Birthdays came and went and we celebrated together.  About midway through last year, Teresa made the decision to step away from the podcast to spend more time with her family.  We never really addressed it on the show because we thought she would be coming back.


Life is funny sometimes and things don't always work out the way that we think that they will.  That being said, Teresa made the decision not to return to the show in a more permanent fashion.  While we are saddened by her decision, we understand and support it and wish her the best of luck in her future endeavors.


Ctrl+C is still going strong and we look forward to entertaining you for a long time to come.

There have been plenty of classic eighties comedies that I have not been able to enjoy.  Over the years I've heard how amazing some of the classics are and I'm sure they are great, for you.  So many of our childhood movies are wrapped in nostalgia that it's sometimes difficult to separate the things we loved about them from the actual quality of the movie.  Of course all movies are subjective but there are some that are just bad.




I'm incredibly glad that Adventures in Babysitting was not one of them.  It was Teresa's pick this week but it turned out to be one of Ray's favorite movies as well.  He even still had the VHS of the movie on hand at home.  I personally really enjoyed this movie and despite the fashion an vehicles, overall it still holds up from three decades ago.  The jokes were sometimes subtle but definitely on point.  It had that sarcastic flair that comedies of the time were just starting to explore.


If you're unfamiliar with the movie, it stars Elizabeth Shue as a babysitter whose night goes terribly wrong when she has to go into the city to pick up a friend.  She takes the kids she's babysitting with her and they end up in multiple dangerous and hilarious situations.


We had a good time discussing this movie and we hope you enjoy listening to the episode.  If you've not seen the movie, I would definitely recommend it

This week for the podcast, my pick was Rescue Dawn.  It was a major departure from my usual picks.  I tend to head more towards the light or introspective.  I try and pick things that aren't always in the mainstream mindset or movies that have been there for me throughout the years as touchstones of comfort.

Rescue Dawn is not that movie.  It's not even a war movie even though it involves prisoners of war.  It is, however, seared into my brain.  I remember very specifically watching it at my father's house on DVD.  It was late, everyone had fallen asleep around me and the lights were out.  This is the first movie of three movies that I remember that had me at the edge of my seat with my heart racing.  Maybe it was the circumstances at the time, but at the end of the movie it was so intense and I was so engrossed that I connected to it emotionally in a way I hadn't before.

There's quite a bit written about the movie, its subject matter, stars, and the production of.  Even though it was based on a true story, certain liberties were taken for dramatic effect.  Not that much extra effort was needed in that area.

The team was surprised that I picked it and I was too.  I wanted something a little different from our usual fare that would make us feel something different than what we're used to.  Sometimes we get so entrenched in our favorite genres that we miss out on some really thought provoking movies.

Have a listen and let us know what you thought.  

This week we watched Why Him?  The movie stars James Franco, Bryan Cranston, Megan Mullally, and many others.  The story centers around Cranston's character learning to deal with his daughter's new boyfriend played by Franco.


The family travels to California to spend the holidays with their daughter and is surprised to learn that they will be staying at the boyfriend's expansive home instead of the hotel.  From there, hilarity ensues.  I enjoyed the movie overall and I laughed a lot.


Franco plays the role the way he plays everything.  It's a slightly off-kilter version of himself that he portrays in every movie he's in.  This is fine with me, I enjoy his work.  I'll tell you now though, that if you don't like Franco, you'll probably be annoyed with this movie.


After all this time, there's still one thing that's bugging me about the daughter.  She changed her parent's travel plans on a whim and failed to tell them.  She lied about having a boyfriend, about how serious they were, decided to make all sorts of major life decisions…and then just expected that everyone kowtow to her and just be OK and accepting of it.  She knows these things will upset her family and she simply doesn't care.  She bats her eyelashes at her Dad and then gets upset when he needs time to process everything.


Thank goodness the movie was more about Franco and Cranston than it was about the daughter, otherwise I wouldn't have made it through.  Despite that annoyance, I think it's worth a watch.  It's a rainy day movie.


Take a listen the episode and let us know what you think

Evil Dead.  Man oh man, I am glad to be done with these movies.  We are wrapping up our summer series this week in which we’ve reviewed the Evil Dead series including Evil Dead 2, Army of Darkness, and this week’s episode, the remake from 2013.  This was my third time seeing the recent version of this movie and I was already disillusioned with it.  There’s only so many times that I can see the same blood and gore.


I don’t typically enjoy horror movies as a genre.  I’ve never understood the appeal of it.  There have been plenty of incredibly campy ones that I’ve been able to laugh at (Tucker and Dale vs. Evil) and even the original Evil Dead movies.  This remake was different.  I could find no camp.  Just creepiness and a whole lot of blood.  A metric ton of blood.  Cabin in the Woods blood coated walls level madness.  The chainsaw is back, the familiar tropes are back, the cabin in the woods is back.  The differences in this one make it unique.  The main premise is that these people have all gathered in this cabin to help a girl so through her withdrawals.  There’s a sad backstory that gets glossed over and a lot of “no don’t do that” happening.  The acting is relatively decent here, there are a few TV actors you may recognize.


Overall it’s creepy and gory and an incredibly good remake of the original.  That likely had a lot to do with the original producers coming back for this round.  I’ll be alright if I never see another one of these movies though.


The podcast covers all this and much much more.  The entire team sat down to discuss our thoughts on the subject.  Take a listen and let us know what you think.

For years various friends have been telling me that I HAVE to watch the Evil Dead.  I just HAVE to.  It's the most amazing movie ever created!
The caveat to these proclamations is that you have to enjoy B-movie horror flicks and that you kind of have to be in the right mood to watch it.  If you're not a fan of the over the top cheesy old school horror flicks?  You're going to hate this movie.  I'll tell you that right off. 
​
Billy was the one who came up with the concept of doing a film series for the podcast.  Pick a group of movies all related to each other and release them.  Picking one was ridiculously hard.  Think about it.  What do we choose?

Lord of the Rings?
Star Wars?
Evil Dead?
The Marvel movies?

We even tried to think outside the box.  Andrew Lloyd Weber movies?  Robert Rodriguez's Mexico Trilogy?  The possibilities were limitless.  We ended up drawing the name of the series out of a hat.  OK, we did the 21st century version of this.  Chris downloaded a randomizer app on his phone and entered all the names on the list and we picked it that way.

This was one of the few movies that we all watched together.  Other than Wonder Woman, because of our busy schedules, most of us watch the movies on our own and in our own time.  This time, Billy, T, and I settled in on a Saturday and ran through this and a couple of the others.
The movie itself was about what I expected it to be.  A no frills- ahead of its time-horror flick.  Because I'm not familiar with horror films in general, I don't know if this was spawned by others or if others were spawned by this one.  I know that these are familiar tropes that we see constantly now.  A group of friends go into the woods looking to relax and have a good time.  Something evil is released (NEVER READ THE LATIN) and everybody dies.  I tell you this because I can't spoil something that you've likely already seen even if you haven't seen this particular movie.  In fact, to give you more details would spoil this particular version of the trope.

I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would and the rest of the team did too.  Have a listen to our latest episode and let me know what you think.  Do you like this type of movie?  Did you like this movie?

​ I can't tell you when I saw this movie for the first time.  I honestly don't remember.  What I do remember was being completely and utterly blown away by how ridiculous it was.  In all the best ways.  The cast was unreasonably talented and there are some actors in here that are now major household names. 


It wasn't just the cast for me though.  I used to attend a summer camp sort of like this one.  It lasted only a week, but it was the same concept.  Sleep away camp with older teenage counselors and outdoor activities.  Once I reached an age in which I didn't want to attend that camp anymore, I ended up going to our family's new (old) place in Connecticut.  That will be a separate post.  Across the river from our place was an old resort which is now a nature preserve.  This resort was a little more Dirty Dancing-esque than Wet Hot American Summer, but it had the same kind of vibe.


I love ridiculous comedies when they are done well, which I feel as though this one is.  Part of the point of this movie is to be as ridiculous as possible while drawing on some of the experiences of camp in general as well as the writer/director's personal experiences at camp. 


The movie itself was shot with all the actors basically living at the camp while shooting and things got a little crazy.  I highly recommend that you not only watch the original movie, but that you watch the making of documentary called Hurricane of Fun.  There's also a Netflix series (thank you Netflix) about the first day of camp in which all the original actors come back and make things even more ridiculous by refusing to acknowledge that they are all in their 40s playing teenage roles.


As you listen to the podcast, you'll hear that some of the team felt that maybe they'd find the movie funnier if they had seen the series first.  I hope that's not the case for you.  I hope that you will love the movie just as much as I did without the backstory or supplemental stuff that I've gone without all these years.  That's probably just me being elitest about it though.  I really just want everyone to enjoy it in general. 


What do you think?  Have you seen any of these?  

We finally managed to get to the theater and see Wonder Woman this weekend.  We ended up having to wait because T was on vacation for opening weekend.  Saturday we ended up breaking from our usual schedule and recorded an episode first.  Then we went to the theater and recorded the Wonder Woman episode.  We've never done it like that before and it definitely took a ton of time out of the day.
We had done the reserved seating in the local theater so that we wouldn't have to worry about finding six seats in the same area.  We have a tendency to run everything down to the last minute as a group and I definitely did not want to have to be scrambling for space.  When we got into the theater, the previews were playing but there was no picture.  The movie ended up delayed because of technical difficulties.  Once the movie got started though, I knew I was in trouble.
I maintained a low level of teariness throughout most of the movie.  From the moment the score began in the opening credits until the ending credits began.  I never outright cried, but I came close. 

Confession?  I never was the biggest Wonder Woman fan.  I always felt like I was supposed to be, but it didn't resonate with me like it did for Teresa or countless other folks like her.  I was always drawn more towards Batman and Superman and truth be told, I didn't really even know very much about her.  Over the last ten years or so, that has gradually changed but growing up I had no frame of reference for her. I also had not seen Gal Gadot perform as Wonder Woman because I've yet to see Batman v Superman.

I have read up on the character extensively.  One of my favorite characters from her cannon is Donna Troy and I really hope they bring her around at some point. 

I'll tell you now that the movie was amazing.  For more, of course, you'll have to take a listen to our podcast which I've left a copy of above.  But overall it wasn't just a great Wonder Woman movie, it was a great movie.  It completely transported me to her world and I wanted to live in it with her.

Highly recommend you see the movie if you haven't already.  If you have, take a listen to the podcast for our thoughts.  Did you feel the same way we did?  Did we forget something?  Let us know in the comments.

This week we are forgoing the usual dog and pony show.  It's not that we don't have a movie to review, it's that we have certain episodes we want to release on certain days to correspond with certain things.  Plus, the social media stuff for one block of movies is proving difficult to write.  Whose bright idea was it?  Billy's that's who.  Maybe I should make him write it all?  Part of it also has to do with the fact that it is incredibly difficult to work around the schedules of six people.  Especially when holidays and vacations and birthdays come into play.


So this time around you're not getting a movie review, you're getting our bloopers.  You're getting more of our tangents.  You're getting a whole lot of silly nonsense.  I've not heard what Chris put together.  It could be utter shit.  It is a bunch of one off ridiculousness from our previous episodes so it could be fun if you've been following along this whole time.


We'll see how it goes.  Tune in next week because we will be back to the movies with a big one.  It's going to be wonderful.  Get it?  WONDER-ful?  Yup, that's the hilarity you can expect from our bloopers episode.  Actually, we just talk about taint too much.  Tune in.

​ Silence of the Lambs is an iconic movie.  I think you’d probably be hard pressed to find anyone who has never heard of it.  The other movies/books associated with it are likely a little lesser known but I imagine that most everyone knows about Hannibal Lecter and the phrase “I ate his liver with some fava beans and a nice chianti.”


If you’re one of the rare folks that has no idea what the heck I’m talking about then I would recommend watching the movie when you have the time.  I personally didn’t find it as compelling as everyone else did.  I suppose it’s probably because I waited so long to watch it.  Having never seen it but listening to everyone rave about it for years, I had an idea of what I thought I would encounter.  I always end up a little disappointed when I do this.  It’s a pattern with me.  I just need to stop watching old movies I guess.


Take a listen to our latest podcast episode.  We go into a lot more detail about the movie and Teresa’s reasons why she picked it.