Welcome to the first ever episode of the Adam Rantz Movies podcast. It's kind of a, I mean, it's a podcast, I guess. I'm going to try to make them around 30 minutes plus in length. There will be video accompanying them on YouTube. In fact, it's where I'm going to be posting them first to see how this goes. But the goal is to do one of these a week, not really jump into any like personal stuff or side, you know, stories, really just focus on the films. That's the problem I have with a lot of podcasts in general is I want to get to the meat of it. You know, I want to hear someone talk about movies and experience it through their eyes. And you know what, we might find out we have a lot in common. So as of now, it's just me solo. I might have some friends come on from time to time. But now, you know, we're just going to, it's going to be very chill and laid back going through a movie. I think in the future, I want to do the Harry Potter series, but today we're doing Mortal Kombat 2021, the pros and the cons. We're going to break this down in a spoiler fashion. I'm still going to be putting out my regular movie reviews, my regular rants, which will run around eight minutes in length. And then you'll get the spoiler version here, which, you know, as I stated, I'll try to try to do within a half hour. That's it. That's the full spiel. Let's dive right into it. First off, I want to point out that the movie started with around two minutes of HBO Max buffering. So that was fun. That's how I like to start my movie experience on pause. I don't, I don't know what it is about HBO Max, but every single time I try to watch a movie, it happens. Netflix doesn't have this problem. Hulu doesn't. Then we finally get into the film after a nice restart or two and we find out that this was directed by a guy who's done pretty much nothing prior and it was written by the guy who did Wonder Woman 1984 strap in is basically what this film is telling you. Now the first seven minutes were released early on YouTube and other streaming platforms for free. And I can see why it's easily the best part of the film. It gives the illusion that there is some sort of a story structure with with arcs and payoffs and interesting characters and none of that's the case. No, but what we do have is a very solid opening seven minute section. We we open on Japan back in the day. I forgot the year, so I'm not even going to guess. Hanzo, I wrote down notes here. Hanzo hasashi family is kind of living their best life out on their little farm. You know, he's he's tending to the crops. The the Mrs is kind of wandering around. He makes eye contact with her says he loves her so much. She's kind of a little bit like stand stand office about it all. I don't know. There was a weird kind of look from her. Clearly there's a little bit of history that we don't ever really find out about with this family. But things get bad within like a good minute. You know, it doesn't say peaceful long beyond shows up beyond. I think I'm saying the names right. I just watched this today again to take notes and I'm bad at I'm bad at names. I butch him a lot. Anyway, he shows up and slaughters the whole family using ice powers. This this this has Hanzo kind of freaking out. He drops his bucket of water, which I believe is a callback to the 1995 film where Liu Kang takes out sub zero with the same style of bucket and water inside. I think it was a tip of the hat. There's a few of those in that in this film. I should say. So he there's a really cool action scene to start things out where Hanzo takes out these minions that are working with who's not known as sub zero yet, but soon enough will be will be called that he slaughters them. It's the best action scene in the film. Rivaled, you know, by the final scene, which also features him in sub zero will get there eventually very cool visceral action.  It's very R rated. It's telling you this isn't your grandma's mortal combat. This isn't 1995. We've come a long way. We have CG blood. We have choreography. That's better than just like grappling with each other and pushing each other backwards. We have trained martial artists. It's going to be a wild ride. Okay, eventually he goes one on one against his rival. We know they have history together. It's alluded to via just a few sentences. One of them's I believe beyond Chinese and scorpion is Japanese because they can't understand each other. I don't think I don't know. It's I'm an uncultured swine, but I think that there was a there's something about different tribes with these guys and and scorpion did him dirty. So he's getting revenge, but this film once again has no time to waste on this topic. Behan eventually wins the day kills. Kills our boy Hanzo who kind of erupts into flames for some reason again, not explained. He just disappears with with magic and he leaves his orphaned child in a crib inside. I mean, it's it's a wooden I mean, it's a bass. It's a wooden box. Basically it doesn't end there though. The God of Thunder, the Lord of Lord of Electricity, Raiden comes down. We don't know him yet. The ordinary normal audience goers aren't going to know who any of these people are, but gamers who I assume most are are most of the ones watching this. They know who these characters are. They don't even need to be explained or have their names uttered for us to know, but I'm taking this from, you know, like the way a movie is supposed to construct itself and it's doing a really piss poor job so far. Okay, so Raiden gets the kid title comes up. I'm all in.  I've seen plenty of films where the movie starts out with, you know, a paragraph or two explaining the plot of the film. I always find it to be incredibly lazy storytelling. It just screams to me that they ran out of budget and test audiences had no idea what was going on. So they put this in. Star Wars is one of the few exceptions, but even then I don't like, I don't get jazzed about the scrolling title credits or the, you know, the title crawl doesn't do anything for me. I just wanted to be over and I imagine most kids at least watching Star Wars feel the same like, oh goody six paragraphs of floating yellow text. Oh, and it's also done in a weird font treatment and set it a, set it a weird scaling. So I have to read it really quickly. And yeah, anyway, not, not good. Not good when a story does this. We then jump to our, I guess, real lead of the film. It's debatable. The best way to describe Cole would be to say he's like the custom creator default skin. I make this joke in my real rivalry coming up Friday on screen rant. I'm, I'm feuding Mortal Kombat 1995 versus this 2021. And so some of these jokes might be recycled. I apologize, but you know what? I wrote them down and I was proud of them. So I'm going to use them as I see fit. So yeah, Cole has no personality.  I like the actor. I like all the actors in this. I haven't heard of almost any of them, but they're doing, they're doing their best with the material they're given, which unfortunately for Cole's case is none. Okay. He, he's fighting. He's an MMA fighter.   They're very supportive. We see Jax. He's, he's got both of his arms. They're not metal yet. He's kind of wandering in the background, checking things out, a little mysterious. We then have a very abrupt and very jarring cut to Shang Tsung. He's at his kind of rocky throne area. I think it's in Outworld. I believe is what it's called. I get, I have a hard time with Mortal Kombat lore. I played all the original games, you know, like the first three or four before they went 3d and then I, they lost me until the more recent ones like MK, I think I jumped background. Mortal Kombat nine is when I thought they started getting really cool again. So nine, 10 and 11, but I have no idea what the plots are.  And I can't imagine even the most diehard of Mortal Kombat fans could tell you what's going on in that franchise. There's so many betrayals and, you know, twists and red herrings and all sorts of stereotypical storytelling tropes that can throw you off. And I just, I can't keep up with it. I can't possibly keep up with it. Okay. So Shang Tsung, he's talking to his boy, Bihang on this rock bridge and Bihang now makes it abundantly clear that he goes by the name of Sub-Zero that, okay, listen, this movie really likes to drop names.  How do I, how do I even explain this? Um, the people that know who you are, know who you are when they see you in the costume. You dropping your name is not new information. Those that don't know who you are by looking at you, saying who you are means absolutely nothing to them. Saying your Kung Lao, for instance, to a stranger watching this movie for the first time is going to say, okay, is that an important character? Like, know your audience and know how to make these reveals more impactful. Now, if Sub-Zero, like he's wearing the blue with the mask and it zooms in, he's like, I'm scorpion. Then every video game nerd on the planet is going to be like, what? Whoa, what? That's a huge bombshell. That makes sense because it's unexpected. And it doesn't make sense. But I think you get what I'm saying. Okay, Shang Tsung reveals that he wants to cheat in this final Mortal Kombat. This is the 10th time that they could win and that allows them to enter the other realms and enslave, you know, all the different races of people. I believe is the, it's funny. The games all have the same centralized plot point.  I never understood. It was such a bizarre concept that they had to win 10 of these in a row and that would allow them access to enslave mankind. I like the logistics makes no sense and I just really don't get the purpose. They're just bad guys. They're just evil dudes that want to take over. All right, fair enough, whatever. It's nonsense. I'm still on board with this film. It hasn't lost me yet. Okay, so he admits that they've cheated every time so might as well go out with a bang, cheat again, even though he's taken a look at the character lineup and he is not impressed. Yeah, I feel like for the 10th time, they could just maybe win legitimately since he thinks that these guys are a bunch of clowns, but no, he just wants to keep cheating. So he sends sub zero and and a few others eventually to go kill these these new characters before they even have a chance to compete in the tournament. It's pretty low blow. Okay. We're now back to colonists family again. They're celebrating his loss by having some ice cream treats. Then it starts to snow, which is very uncommon. I don't remember what city or I don't even know where they're at California. Maybe I don't know. It doesn't matter, but it's snowing and that's uncommon. So and I've seen this twice and I still I still don't know where they're at. Jax is watching. He's on looking. He sees trouble. Winter is coming. That's right. Sub zero shows up.  The family gets in with Jax who they don't know, but Jax is, you know, he makes it very clear that this guy is out to kill him at any cost on the drive away. He also reveals he has the same birthmark as Cole and that it's not a birthmark at all. What wait what that dragon shaped emblem on my skin isn't a birthmark. Cole thinks to himself. No, it's actually an invitation to Mortal Kombat. He has to compete or die trying to get there. After a cool chase with some, you know, Elsa action going on with snow falling. Jax decides, you know what? I can't outrun this dude. You guys need a bounce. I'm going to take a shotgun and go at this guy one V one, which is a huge mistake. Sub zero is the the boss of this film. Not even Shang Tsung really does much of anything. He does later, but I mean sub zero is clearly the big bad of the picture. And I'm cool with that.  He's one of the best. He's OG. So Jackson sub zero fight. All the fights are really good. It's really well done. He loses. He loses badly. He loses both of his arms in a the CG for the most parts really. I think well done in this. It's pretty grounded until later. The you know, the effects of his arms icing over before shattering is kind of disgusting.  It would kill any mortal man, but maybe the maybe the emblems give you a little bit more more power. I don't know.  He's served in in six. Six something or another. He says he's he's served in six missions or whatever it's called. I don't I don't know army speak and I forgot what he said, but he's been Afghanistan a few times. So I guess that's supposed to be impressive. Anyway, he's out of the picture seemingly until he's not later, but we'll get there as well. What do we move to? I'm looking through my notes. Bear with me. Why is Lord Raiden? Okay, I put down why is Lord Raiden not intervening with any of this nonsense? And that's a good point. I asked myself in these notes Lord Raiden. We find out later his whole his whole job as a as a God, I guess, is to look over Earthrealm and the fighters. It's his only job as far as I'm concerned.  How is he letting Sub-Zero and these characters get to his fighters? Why isn't he intervening? I mean, we saw him save the baby long, long, long time ago and we're going to find out later he has all sorts of magical tricks.  Why not warp your fighters right away? As soon as the tournament's announced or when we get closer to fight time, you know, get get these guys out of their houses, get them in a safe, secure location. I'm overthinking this. I know that, but I have to have some sort of, you know, it's got to make some sense, you know. I'm already, I'm already I'm already switching the brain off when dudes are making fire dragons and shooting ice out of their hands with no explanation. You know, I'm already a believer in the magical stuff, but you have to ground some of it in some plausibility or you lose me altogether. Anyway, keep in mind, I'm still invested in this film. I still think it's still solid. It's still good. I'm liking the fights. The story stuff isn't the worst I've ever seen, so let's just push through. All right, we then get a really quick sequence introducing Malina talking to Shang Tsung. I have to say this right now. I don't know who the actress actress is who plays Malina. I'm floored by her. I'm quite smitten with this actress. Maybe it's just the outfit.  Maybe it's the tight pants on the thick THICC frame, but I'm I'm all in on Malina. Would have liked to see more of her if it's unfortunate that we don't. But you know, that's that's my own journey to that's my own journey to overcome. Okay, anyway, short scene.  It's brief, but it's the introduction to Sonia who is really her main arc is that she's super jelly that everyone is invited to this tournament but her like everybody she knows and talks to is going and is invited except for her and she just can't get over it. She's been studying this thing for a long time. She's military. She's living in a camper that doubles as a chamber for all of her research. So she's got printouts. She's got magazine clippings.  I'm sorry Nightwolf fan out there. You get to see you get to see Nightwolf in a little newspaper clipping. That's fun. Okay, we then get the reveal of the best character in the movie by country mile and that's Kano.  That's been established since the first game of the series all the way back in 1992. I believe is when it came out. Who I'm a young I'm a young guy. You know I'm a spring chicken as they say that's for sure. Anyway, they they kind of chatted up for a while exchange blows verbally and then reptile shows up. He's a big character change as far as I know. I always knew reptile as a human.  He had arms and legs like a human body is what I'm getting at. He just had an uglier face. This version. He's more akin to I'd say lizard man from Soul Calibur.  I am I am young. I'm a young man. I'm a young man. Moving on. Anyway, he looks cool though. I don't have any like hang up.  I think it's unhealthy to be too invested into anything because you're always going to be disappointed at different versions at different interpretations. Just don't go all in. Except for Molina. I guess I am a I am a Stan when it comes to Molina. Okay, they fight Reptile. This leads to an awesome first fatality. I guess. Yeah, it'd be a first fatality. Jackson died so we can't count the arm break. But Kano absolutely make sure that Reptile doesn't get up as he pulls his heart out still beating from his lifeless corpse. This is a tip. I had to Mortal Kombat one Kano's Kano's finishing move looks awesome. Reptile looks awesome. The one thing that I will they'll note that Disney seems to be doing a lot wrong with is CG.  And it's a mistake because it looks aged right away. And Mortal Kombat, you know, the director, the credit here is that he knows this stuff is going to look bad. If you just put it under a or if you just put it in front of some high beam lights. Instead, he lights him using, you know, some red lights in the room. There's fire on the side. So you're getting that those different exposures. It's bouncing off the skin. It gives it texture. You can cheat a little bit to make it look more detailed that way. And it looks great. And Reptile's only on screen for just a few seconds. Most of the time he's invisible. So props props to the CG department there. Props to the animators. Okay. Oh, I have to point out. I noted that Sonya does a really dumb screwball attack where she twists the knife into him. It's Sonya does this a couple times in the movie. They're really into the screwball attack. And I don't remember her ever doing that move in the fighting games where she spins where she spins horizontally through the air. I don't remember her having that move. She was all about the leg stuff for a long time, which I ate up love love the leg stuff in the 95 version. Fantastic. Moving down our list of notes. Kano gets conned into showing them to Raiden's temple. That's true. I put it and it's true. Sonya with her vast knowledge of, you know, thinking like a criminal mastermind such as Kano.  But she tricks him into thinking she's a multimillionaire who's able to pay him $2 million to take them to Raiden's temple, which he kind of knows the location of for reasons. He's a very worldly traveler. He knows a lot. He agrees to this with no money down and really not even a second thought after hocking a loogie on a garden gnome in one of the grossest scenes in the film. This is a movie that has people getting cut in half.  Probably because it was real. Looking, you know, it's it's an actual element of the earth that I can see oozing down the side of the statue.  Okay, anyhow, he knows some imbred cousin or friend or something that takes him on this massive plane that they have presumably stolen, and they they jump out they parachute out. Kano pushes Cole, who up into this point has said maybe three sentences total. And then they traverse the deserts, hoping to find something that will reveal the temple. And they do, they find Liu Kang after after Kano and Sonya scramble for a little bit to have a little bit of a tussle in the in the dirt. Kano sits on a comically small rock for a while to take a rest and Sonya is not having it. She can't finish the job though.  She can't seem to finish him off even though at this point they they kind of know where they're going.  Okay, so then Liu Kang shows up, throws a fireball at the dude, and I noted this and I have to kind of just look down my list. This is great though. Let me find it. Hang on. I'm looking. Okay, Kano and Sonya fight. The actor, Josh Lawson, he made me care about the character Kano. A video game character.  Dominated the film, overshadows everyone else and he delivers the greatest line when Liu Kang puts his hand on his shoulder in a consoling fashion.  It was just perfect. It was effortlessly delivered. Great comedic timing. Tons of props to Josh for that. Very much steals the movie. It's a shame that he's gone.  Okay, at this point, I'm still into the film. It's still pretty damn good. Honestly, I'm liking it. I'm digging it. I am assuming I'm assuming there's going to be backstory to Scorpion and that whole intro and we're not going to have to wait to the final minutes and get none of that. Who knows? Maybe this will just maybe this will be great all the way through, right? Even though I've already said that it won't be. Okay, they enter the Temple of Raiden and look at some high res murals. Sonya says, I knew it. It's all real. Hmm. What I, this is where the writers really have, have let me down. I knew it. It was all real, she says as she looks at some murals of dudes fighting. She says that after she watches a guy literally shoot fire out of his hands. She says that after she helps to defeat a walking lizard man creature.  I mean, are you kidding me? That was the tipping point. These 4k digital readouts of some of the past events. That's what tipped you off that this was all real. Sonya, come on writers, do better. Oh my God. Okay. Liu Kang explains that they have an inner power to unlock. Except for Sonya, except for Sonya might add who hasn't even been marked at this point. This begs the question that I often find myself reveling in for the rest of the film. Why are you there Sonya? Who invited you to this? How are you even allowed inside of this temple? As an unmarked, unpeer fighter of the tournament. Is this thing open to the public? Could I could I just do a tour of this place? Check out the fighting pit. Check out Raiden's throne. I mean, what is happening that she's allowed access to this place? Okay, rant aside. This is a big deviation from the games as far as I know. Maybe I'm wrong. Correct me if you want, if you must. I don't believe the markings that these characters get unlock a special superpower in any of the gaming lore, but in the film that that's what Liu Kang explains happens. You find your inner there is a term for it. I wrote it down later, but I don't see it yet, but you find your inner power that you can release onto the world during your matches. Okay. Let's move through this. We then get our first treated view of Jax who's very much still alive and being worked on by some monks. He has baby t-rex arms.  I don't know how anybody didn't say anything on the on the team, but my God, it's it's really really comically bad. Raiden shows up. He sucks so bad in this is what I put down. He delivers all of his lines with zero emotional energy, which is a pun because he's made out of it. He explains for the 30th time that outworld will enslave the human race if they lose mortal combat. They just keep drilling the same one or two points home without going in any further detail about anything else.  Shang Tsung and my dream girl show up along with sub zero. They attempt to kill Raiden's champions, but he puts an electrical barrier around the place, which which saves them. Now this leads to one of my other many questions. This is the 10th time. This is the 10th fight in a row that if they lose, they will lose everything. Why don't you have better security Raiden? How about you have that electrical force filled up day one? And we'll even find out later that there's more stuff he could have done to protect his fighters, but this guy sucks hard in this film. Really, really bad. Okay, Kung Lao shows up. He, you know, he's revealed to be Liu Kang's cousin. I don't know where he was at. His brother says, welcome back. He I guess he was on a he was on a holiday or something a siesta vacation. He has to also do the name reveal in like this cheesy cringe, turn to the camera, look, touch the hat, wink at the audience that his name is Kung Lao. Nobody cares.  Then they start training. This is where the fun begins. They start training and Liu Kang announces that Sonya can't because she doesn't have the mark, which is referred to as Akana again. Why is she still there? Okay, there's a fun sweep the leg joke that gamers will appreciate. It's one of the most annoying moves in Mortal Kombat where you can keep sweeping the person while they get up.  It's annoying, but it happens. Liu Kang gives some vague backstory about his childhood with Kung Lao working under Raiden's tutelage says something about being an orphan which resonates with Cole. Okay, that's I put those notes down. I don't remember much of that. Now we're treated to baby arms jacks boxing, looking like a complete jackass. Sonya is encouraging him talking about their time together in war times and how jacks never gave up when he ran long distances and he shouldn't give up even though he has embarrassing arms. Personally, I think he should give up. Okay, we then jump to Kung Lao and Kano exchanging insults at dinner. This is unfortunately one of the last times we'll really get to be treated to Kano doing fun stuff. And it also unlocks Kano's interability because he gets mad, which is shooting a laser out of his eye.   Oh, I you know what? I'm out of order. I'm out of order here. Cole doesn't leave yet. This is where Cole leaves.  That okay. I'm sorry. I'm out of order. Okay, we're now back to the shitty rock throne. We see a few new characters. Cabal is in this and unfortunately he talks. Worst voice acting choice ever. He looks like this kind of cool militaristic dude robotic. It's kind of he's very fast, but then he's like, hey guys, he's just it's not like that, but it's bad. Then we have Natara, Batgirl I call her General Raikou or Raiku. I don't know he hammer guy, hammer brother. These are like E string Mortal Kombat characters, I guess that they just wanted in the film because they could kill him off and give another tip of the hat to old fans, new fans. And then there's my girl thick Malina song really wants to cheat. That's that's kind of the point of this. Even though he knows Raiden's champions are trash. He really wants to speed this process up and start taking over and enslaving people. Okay, Cabal convinces Kano to switch sides. Kano never brings up the two million he's supposed to get. I guess he forgot. I mean, of course he did. Who would remember something so small as a $2 million check? Okay, he does. He's he's trash. He destroys the Raiden shield generator, even though Raiden made the shield with his staff. I guess it needed to maintain power somehow and Raiden's a God so he can't can't do it himself. I guess. I don't know. Whatever. Goru comes out of a barn to fight Cole. Who's back home with his family.  Props to them for keeping their cool. The wife even at one point attacks him. A mistake, but one that she'll live to to regret. Not the greatest fighting location. Also, not the greatest person to match up against go go. How come I can't say his name right now?  Goru Goru Forearmed Goru.  Now. Now this is something I have to just push through. Okay. They fight for a while. There's other characters fighting. Things are going on in tandem. Everybody's losing. Did I miss the part? We're No, I didn't. I get my notes are okay. Okay. Molina leaves Sonya. Okay. So Molina's got Sonya pinned down. She's licking those size, making me think all sorts of just beautiful things about her. But then she realizes Sonya's garbage. She's she's not pure. She doesn't have the marking and she bounces. She doesn't even bother killing her. It's a waste of a kill. I respect that. I respect that. Molina's got some pedigree to her name. You know, she wants to keep it. She wants to keep that respect. So she leaves so Sonya kind of pathetic on the ground. We have Kung Lao bestine the bat girl. He's one of the only ones that wins the fight, but he's going to lose the war in the long run. He gets the best fatality in the film, throws the hat down. Does the hat buzz buzzsaw? Bat girl flies through it, gets torn in half. A nice tip of the hat, pun intended there, to one of the later video games. It's his fatality. Okay. Oh, and then he ruins it by lamely saying flawless victory. God damn. Mmm. Would have worked if Shang Tsung said it, but Shang Tsung's trash in this anyway. So who cares? Cole finally unlocks his ability, which is a Black Panther esque outfit. Except for it doesn't look cool. It's made out of basket weaving material. It's not black. It's gold. It's Black Panther esque because I think it gives him the ability to absorb punches and then he can dish it out even more more powerfully, which he doesn't uppercut with, which is another nod to the games.  It reminded me of Stryker, the one of the lamest characters ever from MK3. Goro is killed by Cole. He's killed by terrible DLC. Huh. And why is Cole's interability close? This whole movie's it's just the wheels are fully off at this point though. Jackson locks his ability, which is robotic arms that are large. He has cyborg abilities. What if he didn't lose his arms to begin with? Would he never unlock his power? Would his arms get ripped off and robot ones would grow? Would he get a different power? What is happening now? The best part is he fights hammer brother on the pit.  They give us the location and they don't use the stage fatality. How do you not use it? It's right there. God, what? Okay, Kung Lao then dies at the hands of of Seng Shung. Seng Shung. I wrote down T S H A T S my spelling here is atrocious. My notes are are going off the off the rails.  No consequences for that. Just outright kills a dude before the tournament starts.  I guess about anything. Nobody cares. Why not break all the rules all together? Who's running this tournament? Why doesn't Seng Seng just do this to everyone? Nothing makes sense. Okay, Raiden then pulls the remaining champs into what he calls the void. A white background where they're free from everyone. Why didn't you pull them there to begin with?  Pull him into the void right away. Raiden's the worst in this. Wheels are fully gone. Roller coaster is broken. I don't know if it's a car or a roller coaster. Everything's off the rails and the tracks and the road. God. Okay, he then gives them a pep talk, sends them all back conveniently where they need to be and they fight again this time. They're wiser, I guess, and just more willing to win. Nothing's changed in the last few minutes. Outside of the fact that now I know Raiden can teleport people anywhere at any time. Whenever he wants, he knows the locations of everyone. He knows what they're doing at any time.  Okay. I also have to point out that the music is not great in this. There's some decent songs, but nothing's ever getting you pumped up. It all kind of just blends together. So the emotions are zero to be found. All right. Jack's fights about I already did this. I'm sorry. I got ahead of myself. We're now at the pit part where Jack's fights and beats that guy. We'll gloss over that. Okay. Sonia and Kano fight in a poor kill bill to rendition inside of a trailer park. He dies by the lawn mow. He dies by the lawn gnome teased earlier. So that's fun. Gets it in the eye. Okay. What else happens here? Oh, yeah. Okay. Because Sonia defeats Kano finally, she gets the emblem. She gets invited to Mortal Kombat, which they're already they're already doing basically, but the look on her face. Man, if I could satisfy a woman to the point that Sonia was right there in that moment. I'd be a God, I guess amongst men because that face she gives looks like she just had the best sex of her life. She's a troubled woman. If this is what's getting her off, being able to fight to the death in Mortal Kombat. Liu Kang does my favorite move in the game, which is the bicycle kick. I always love that move. Always a big fan since Mortal Kombat 2 when it was introduced. Followed by a hybrid of his animality where he he makes a fire dragon instead of a regular dragon or turn into a dragon. I guess is what he does in the games and in that beautiful Mortal Kombat annihilation, which is just one of the worst movies ever created that I love to watch and make fun of. Okay. This kills Kabal who kind of sucked in this film. Molina gets blasted by Sonia's purple death power beam that she unlocked instantaneously. She just knew how to she knew how to do that thing right away. Doesn't make any sense with anything, but what does? You know, Jack's had metal arms who has metal ability. Kano had kind of a a pink eye. He kind of had some scratches by his eyes. So we got laser vision. Why did why did why did she get purple shooting powers? I don't know. Who cares? Molina is dead. I'm sad. My girl, my girl went out dirty. Guess she should have, you know, the moral of the story is that you should have killed these people when you had the chance. Molina could have killed Sonia earlier, didn't. Sonia could have killed Kano earlier, didn't. And look what happened. Bad consequences. Anyway, Sub-Zero kidnaps Cole's family and leads him to the final showdown, which just so happens to be at his old MMA stomping grounds, a frozen cage match. Okay, I put a lot of notes here, so I'm just going to kind of read them off. I said, this is the best fight in the film. Oh, I guess I'm kind of kind of going against my own thoughts earlier, where I said the opening number is, but we'll go with it.   Remember Scorpion? I brought him up a couple of times and now I've already forgotten. It's just in time to save Cole his long, his long, long ago, ancestor or whatever. Doesn't matter. There's almost no explanation for why Hanzo went to hell to begin with. Guess he was a really bad guy. Also not explained how he was able to return when he did. How he even got out of hell outside of a throwaway line where he says he learns to harness the power which gives him the ability to blow fire. I don't did did sub zero get cast a Sunder to Antarctica where he learned how to harness ice.  This thing is a disaster now. You can't just have him come back and expect me to be excited about this. I know nothing about this guy. I know nothing about his journey. I know nothing about his trials getting here. It sounds like it was pretty epic though. Whatever was going down in the hell or what what events led him to get there. Okay. Anyway, he does the get over here which is cool. I like to I like how it sounded. God damn. Okay. Again, it's a great fight. Not thrilled.  They don't even know each other. They have no rapport. Oh yes. He calls himself Scorpion now. He makes a note of that. He takes off his mask which he does like six times. Takes it off. Puts it on takes it off. Puts it on. Just keep it off.   It appears.  Your guess is as good as mine. Unless you're a hardcore fan of the game. Then you maybe know. He says I'm Scorpion now. I think that's exactly verbatim. I'm Scorpion now. Okay. That means nothing. All right. So bad. Okay. He then says remember this face which is the last thing he said to him before he died. He's like remember this face. Yeah.  They then they done fight some more. While they're fighting Cole runs over to chip away at his family who has been encased in ice and is still somehow alive. I don't know how but they are.  But it's funny because he's chipping at him while Sub-Zero is very much alive and fighting right behind him. So he's like punches him twice runs over and then goes back to him again.   Okay. Um they defeat Sub-Zero save Cole's family and there is a hilarious part. I I mentioned that already. All right. Sorry. My notes. My notes mentioned the ice picking. Okay. The rest of the crew warps to Cole. Shang-Sung is pissy that his fighters are dead. He says there is always another portal and collects his dead players. Yeah. I don't I that line. I was lost on me so you can bring all these guys back. Whatever we're moving on. I don't care. I honestly was so checked out at this point that nothing mattered at all. Raiden tells his champions to go collect other fighters for the next tournament. I guess they they won this one because they killed all Shang-Sung's men before they could officially begin. I don't know when the next tournament takes place. I don't know if this was just this one didn't count if it was a forfeit. I don't know the rules because there's no one enforcing them. There's no one to speak to them outside of the black screen with the the white text. Maybe that's the guy doing it all. The TV screen. Okay. No idea what they're supposed to do. Are they champions for the next one.  This is such a disaster.  That's it. That's mortal combat 2021. Half of it's good. But then the second half ruins everything the first half go had going for it all the good will is gone. Had the film stuck to a narrative maybe going with backstory scene.  That's an interesting storyline. That's a storyline I can get behind. And that and that's taken into account this is the way they went they chose to have sub zero as the villain here with the scorpion kind of revenge arc. So if you're going to go that route you need to go all in instead of kind of doing the half-ass 1995 version again with a lot of the same characters to be focused on. And then adding in Cole for some reason who is supposed to be I guess kind of the fish out of water character that we could all kind of see through the eyes of but he barely talks. It's just it just was bad I'm sorry it's a bad movie if you liked it that's great there's definitely plenty to like it moves very fast. The action is very good it's way better than what we've seen previously that's for sure. And the actors are all likeable especially that he was gone. Later. So yeah I I totally understand enjoying the film it really reminded me of the recent Kong versus Godzilla really really stupid but you have fan service action and a lot of times it's all people want to escape the real world nonsense and in that regard props to you props to the film but now I look for a movie that has a story to tell and can do it in a unique way that draws in both that want to get invested in this I want I want characters that are compelling I want a story that works on multiple levels I want the cool action but I I just I want it all I'm selfish okay I want it all alright that was my rambly talk about Mortal Kombat 2021 not a lot of cuts here I don't think that I have to edit out so that that makes me happy thank you for joining me if you're a patreon at patreon.com slash you to you I'm doing these long-form videos because I've they've been requested for a long time now it gives me a chance to really express my full thoughts on a film without trying to do this tight 8 10 minute production that's more polished and I hope to do this weekly like I said starting next week we are going to be going through the Harry Potter films we're taking them one at a time so if you're a fan of Harry Potter or not and you just want to hear me talk to a fan spoiler you have that to look forward to and then I'm also going to rank them as far as where I think they fit within the 8 film run fantastic beast movies can go to hell they're garbage I don't even want to talk about them the fact that I did them now kind of makes me also die a little bit inside all right that's mortal combat if I'd rank this in the lineage of the three films not counting the animated one I haven't seen I'd say mortal combat one is still the best even though the fighting sucks and it's super cheesy and and kind of cringy the actors are all fun engaging it's creative it it just has a charm to it some of that's maybe branded by nostalgia I don't know like I was whatever you're going to you're going to label how you label and then this one and then annihilation is the worst although I annihilation is probably the most fun you can have watching a bad film all right thanks for watching like the video if you liked it I'll talk to you soon bye


We have so many of the challenges we all know and read every day in the newspaper. I think we fail sometimes to understand the interconnectedness of those challenges and so nothing is simple anymore, right? We are living in the age of complexity and it means we need complex solutions to complex problems. So yeah, I think that just will demand a different way of working. It will demand radical collaboration, radical cooperation in ways that will be counterintuitive to many people and many of the systems that surround us, whether that's government, whether that's finance, whether that's our economic systems. I think we have to be prepared to just completely leave things behind and start innovating together.


And today I'm going to be taking you guys on a day in my life in Rome, Italy as a study abroad student. My legs are shaking right now, but it's so weird isn't it? I'm in my second class of the day. She's everywhere you go.  That did not look like Delotta. We are at the Chubby Mountain. Hey guys, happy Thursday. It is May 31st. And today I'm going to be taking you guys on a day in my life in Rome, Italy as a study abroad student with the EF International Language Campuses. A huge shout out goes to them because they actually sent me to Rome, Italy for two weeks. And for these two weeks, I'm going to be learning as much Italian and culture as I can. Well, of course, seeing Rome from like a locals perspective. I'm actually staying in a host family, not the EF residence, which is like the dorms. And it's definitely kind of outside of my comfort zone because I am alone staying here. And that means I have to get to school alone, which was definitely scary at first. But now by like the fourth day I'm getting the hang of it. Later I can show you an app that I use to help me with like the transportation aspect of Rome. So with every EF school, every day is different. So you might start at 9am and you might have like three classes that day. And then the next day, like today, I'm starting at 12pm. And you might have three classes. And I know I think that like the first day I had four classes. Well actually orientation and then three. So I don't know, it just really depends. And you get out of school at different times every day. So that's kind of cool because every day they offer like about two activities. And I was actually going to go on an activity this morning, but we decided to go to the Vatican. It's cool because you can decide to go with the EF tour on whatever activity they're doing. I think they're doing a river walk, which sounded really cool. But one of my friends is leaving this weekend and today was like the perfect day to go to the Vatican because we're going to go super early and hopefully we won't wait in line. But at 12 I start class. So hopefully I can show you guys around in the EF building itself. It's actually kind of modern. Like it's in this like traditional Italian building and then you go inside and it's like so nice.   So then I'm going to hop on the train and meet my friend Taylor at the EF school. And then from there we're going to take a bus hopefully to the Vatican or like close to there and then we'll walk. So I'm really excited to show you guys my day at EF. And please comment any questions you guys have in the comments down below about the program or like about my experience, just anything. I'd love to answer you guys. So let's get started with my day. So I'm about to go to the tram station, which is like three minutes from my host family, which is really convenient. But every morning I wake up at like 6am and kind of have like a little bit of time to like, you know, play on my phone or whatever, but then start getting ready at 6.30 and have to be out the door. By 8.10 is like when I usually go on the tram, but since I have to meet my friend at 8.10 at the school, I'm leaving at like 7.40, 7.30. So yeah, I'm just like leave a little bit earlier just because you really never know how long it could take. Guess I have to wait for the next tram. There goes that one. We just walked all the way there, but then he said the entrance was all the way over here. You're back with me. So walk in there now. Can't wait to see it. It's going to be awesome. The entrance of this place is already blowing me away. This is going to sound really dumb, but I literally thought this church was called the Vatican, so it's actually the same parish church. And this whole place is the Vatican City, right? The Vatican City is inside of Rome. So we're not in Italy. It's crazy. If you come here and you must cover your shoulders, I think people are wearing shorts, so I thought you had to wear pads, but mine are ripped too, so I thought I was going to get like turned away for ripped jeans, but I made it. Instead of walking. I guess there's just a few steps for us to walk, but it's totally worth it to take the elevator, because you're sweating. As you can see right now, but the line for the St. Peter's Church right there is so long, so definitely recommend coming early. We are now at the supermarket and we might pick up some lunch here. Oh, cool. They have like pasta and everything. They also have a sandwich bar upstairs. Oh, okay. I think they made sandwiches. It's a class at 12. It's 11-11 make-a-wish. Usually like for lunch, we'll go to like a small cafe and the prices here are pretty good. This is like five euros, so I don't really know what that converts to to US dollars, but it's pretty cheap for like lunch. If you're going to like an actual lunch, like it's like 10 euros or something like that, so it's really not that bad. I thought it would be spending way more money here. 10 euros is 11.58. Just like converted it for me. Yeah, so it's really not like too crazy because even in like Georgia or like the States, I pay like 15 for like per meal or like maybe 20 maximum if it's like dinner, you know? So this is your fourth language, right? Yeah. What else do you speak? Swedish, English and Spanish. And so why did you want to learn Italian? Because it's very similar to Spanish. Yeah, that's why I think so. Yeah, I thought it would be easiest. Like I could learn a lot in a month. Yeah. Yeah, that's fine. And I like it a little bit, of course. I think it's so cool to learn another language. I learned Spanish in middle school. And was it middle school? Yeah, I think it was middle school and high school and college. So I can like understand some things, but like not fluent by any means. But I think it's really important to like learn a second language. So many people can get their dream jobs just because they're bilingual. Hi, Taylor. A lot of the people that come do this program come for their jobs, because I guess in other countries, like it's not really common to go to university. That's what I have gotten for Sweden is because of Swedish. Oh, okay. But like I think one other guy was like, it's not very common to go to university. What their job is is to like call people from like other countries and stuff like that and like translate, I guess, I don't know. I mean, I think it's really important to like just dabble at least in a second language or another language. Great for a resume. Yeah, great for a resume. So this is right in front of the school. And this right here is the building of EF. So we're in the first class. We call it communication. So basically I guess you have to like write it all in Italian. We're on break right now. We have like a 40 minute break. So we came to Piazza and the four guys on the fountain. That's what I think of it as. So we're in here. And I think this is like the oldest of the most popular square. I forgot what my host family told me, but something like that. It could seem to be the most popular. Yeah, most popular maybe. I know Kampo de Fiore is really popular too. It has like a market. We should go maybe. Yeah. Yeah, it has like a market. And you can buy like souvenir type things. Yeah, like constant stuff like that. Having ourselves a little photo shoot in between class. You know how we do. And you guys are probably thinking like, obviously you're not going to like learn Italian in two weeks. Definitely not going to speak it fluently. But it's just like the basics of the cab. But if you stay for longer, then you can, you know, become more fluent in it. So it just depends on what you want to do. This is my friend Taylor. And I just want to let you know a few things about EF. It's not just in Rome. You can do it anywhere around the world. A lot of places in the United States, in Europe. And we did nine months in France and then came to finisher last two months in Italy. You have the option to do a homestay where you stay with the local family. And that way you get a lot of the culture and you get to try their foods. That is probably just like any other college that you go to. And so it depends if you want to stay with other people from the school or if you're taking a tram to like my sugary drinks. But this one's actually really sugary. Normally it's like never sugary. And I'm so used to like my virgin drinks. So most aesthetically pleasing and yummier. Five days in and I feel like when I get used to it it's going to be the end of my trip. So my jet lag recommendations are to go to sleep when you're supposed to and not take any naps. I know it's so hard but just do it and then it'll be better in the long run. I feel like I get sleepy after every meal. So I don't know. Just stay away from those naps. About to get in trouble for taking pictures with the... What are these called? Vespas. Vespas. I don't know if she's ever here already going to leave. I do samples. So I tried some samples of that gelato and honestly it wasn't really that good. So I was just like okay bye thank you. Maybe I just need like the sweet taste in my mouth because now I don't really want gelato after I've had all those samples. That's good enough for me. So we're parting ways. We're taking our separate trams. Oh my god I can never say that word. Bye! To take a shower I don't think I've sweat this much in so long like just walking around everywhere but I just quickly wanted to talk to you guys about some things about the EF program. So it's funny because I was actually planning a trip to Italy with my dad but then like something work came up for him and so we couldn't go and then this opportunity came my way. And I was like what are the odds that like this would happen and obviously it was an opportunity that I couldn't pass up but the one fear that was holding me back was being alone in a whole new country. Like I couldn't even wrap my mind around that. I honestly hate being alone more than anything.  I don't like going to the grocery store alone. Like I cannot believe I flew to Rome Italy all by myself. I need to start telling myself that I can do anything alone if I like put my mind to it like I did for this trip. I just got out of my comfort zone and kind of faked it till I made it if that makes sense. When I'm alone I tend to like put on this confident facade but it kind of overtakes you sometimes and sometimes you do eventually feel confident and all I meant the first day I was so overwhelmed with you know the learning and just like all the transportation info but I just pushed through and kind of did some more research. Got a couple of apps that kind of saved my life like Move It. For example I have one called Move It and it helps with the bus and tram transportation and it like has all the like schedules on your phone so it's really easy to use. As the week goes on it gets easier and I feel more comfortable here. I definitely am still a little bit homesick like the first day I was like oh my god like freaking out like I really miss home kind of thing but now I'm actually taking it all in absorbing it and enjoying the moment. It's also really cool because as the week goes on obviously I'm learning more Italian and I can actually kind of communicate with my husband's family more which is cool that I've already seen like a growth in just like four days. I was honestly hoping that coming here would kind of give me like my epiphany that I needed about being like independent. I think like going to an out-of-state college definitely made me so much more independent than I ever was but even at my college I have my friends and I still feel like a baby when I'm there but coming to a whole other country alone like oh my god like that's crazy that's definitely something I never thought I would do. If you guys love traveling or or like me that like kind of want to push yourself to get out of your comfort zone and travel to another country alone and meet new friends here from literally all over the world and definitely check out the program that I'm on. The link will be in the description below and you can just find out more about the program and I do have a discount code for any program that you choose. It's 10% off if you use the code Sonali in Rome or mention my name Sonali and again that's on any program so definitely check that out and maybe if you want to book a quick summer trip then totally do it. If you want to see more of my experience here in Rome and with the EF program then definitely check out my previous vlog and I will definitely be posting more since I have one more week. I can't believe it's already going to be Friday tomorrow but I will see you guys in the morning. Hey guys I haven't started off the vlog today but I wanted to give you guys a quick tour of the EF school of Rome. So let's get started. So this is just a little area with a vending machine and water, really cold water. I really appreciate that. Right here is the activities board so I think I should put this on my other vlog but basically you will go with Flavia and you'll do all these activities. I thought that I couldn't do one of these activities if I had class, is that true? Or? Actually the fact that we have two activities is just to give everyone the possibility to do one activity in the day because if you have class in the morning you can do the activity in the afternoon and but if there is a special activity like an Italian girl tour for example of the Vatican or of Colosseum that's an exception. Okay okay. Just for this. Make sense, okay cool. This is the hangout part of the place and we have a TV where you can watch music videos and this couch is super comfortable. I just took a nap here. Right here is the information board so it just has like activities maybe. The teachers. I'm Cristina. I'm the school director in Rome from ES. We are in the city center in the heart of Rome through Piazza Navona and the town. And we have plenty of students from all over the world waiting for you to study the Italian culture and this wonderful language. Ciao. And then back here is all of the classroom I hope you guys enjoyed seeing the place and now we're gonna go on an EF tour with Flavia. Let's go.  I was like oh my god that's literally right outside the school. Flavia is gonna tell us where we're going on this tour. Esattamente. We are going in Via dei Coronari which together with most of the Italian streets has an historic reason. The name is Coronari like the corona which means the necklace that you bring with you to the to the mess to the service. A rosemary. Esattamente. Like a rosary. Because rosary, rosary. Because this street was linked to the Vatican city because it's nearby the Vatican and all the pilgrims who went to the Vatican says buy this street to buy a new rosary. Esattamente. So because of this the name of the street changed in Via dei Coronari. Like corona is the name of the necklace in Italian. Okay okay. Orosario is the same. Oh okay. This store is so tiny. So we just found out that Volcker is a fashion photographer, a makeup artist and a hairstylist and I'm asking him where has he been this whole time with our photo shoots. And he's like posing her perfectly. So Flavia's turn. Perfection. Perfection. Honestly I think you're hustling us, Flavia.  We stopped inside this cute bead shop and I actually picked up a few beads. So these are the ones that I picked up over here. I got one black one, one white one and one of these they're like sparkly and kind of like purple but it kind of looks brown at the same time. I just wanted some neutral beads. We're currently looking for a restaurant to eat dinner at and we brought some new friends to eat dinner with. I'm trying my first spritz. I just learned about it today. It's like just reminds me of like that like Sangria. Awful. Oh. You don't like it? No yeah. It just reminds me of a day that I got like really really really drunk. Like disgusting for me. List spaghetti and tomato. I can't eat so much. I'm sorry. Oh. Like nothing? He has to go to my house. At 20 o'clock we're eating together and that's a reason. Oh yeah okay. And Tito. You would bear on the hunt for the best gelato that we can find. Let's see if it is here. That did not look like gelato. No that looks like Italian ice or something. With like sticky sticky sugar on top. Like I don't even know. That was a place. Thank you. It's amazing. We're on our way to the Trivie fountain and look what we just came up with.


We got to talk about planning as an artist, manager, producer, anybody within the industry who is coming up from ground zero and close to ground zero. We're talking about creating strategies that work. Just to make it clear, the inspiration for this video is from talking to so many types of people, just a variety of people, and hearing these five year plans or three year plans. And that's all well and fine, but this is what I encourage a lot of people to stick to. Three month plan, six month plan, nine month plan, 12 month plan. What's that? That's a quarterly plan, four times a year, and create your goals by that. Why? If you are a young artist, especially by the time you get some of your resources together, the market is going to change so much. There's so many variables that happen. You just need to have really short things that you focus on. Break everything down. It could still be in a direction you think you want to go five years, three years from now. I'm not saying your vision will never happen. I know, thank you to it existence, all that great stuff. But you need to break it down into smaller deliverables. Not only is that effective way to just get stuff done in general, but even better than that and more important than that is so much is going to change. And when you try to spread out things into this huge plan without a lot of resources to put behind the plan, oftentimes you're going to find yourself getting a few little results right here, a few little results right here, a few little results right here. But it's going to be so disjointed and disconnected that it never really works to build the buzz that most artists are trying to build. But if you say in three months, I want to get all these things done, you're forcing yourself in that three month period to get all these things done. Of course, the three months can be broken down into weeks, but you also have your next strategy in the next three months. And what that does for you is make sure you hyper focus on executing. Execution is the greatest problem that I see when it comes to a lot of people coming up. Entrepreneurship as a whole is not even just the music industry, but you have to execute. If you do not execute, the strategy does not get fulfilled. The strategy is just a way for you to get to your vision. So hyper focus on getting a lot done every single three months, as opposed to saying I have this year and it's going to make you be a lot more realistic once you do it once or twice. Instead of saying I'm going to have 500,000 followers by the end of the year or two years from now. Well, what does that look like? What does that mean you have to have by the end of the week and by the end of the next week? Or what actions need to be set for that foundation? We can get in specifics, maybe do a Q&A or something like that at some time on what some of those steps might look like. Cause they're different for different people, but just think about it and really consider breaking things down into quarterly plans.  I have, you want to talk about it, but just get it done. You have to be able to rally your team around something, but you want to rally them around something in a short span because three months is enough time for you guys to stop, meet, look back and say, do we achieve what we said we were going to do in three months? And then all right, we didn't get this done. We did get this done. Well, we need to learn and figure out how we do what we were supposed to do for the next three months and keep improving for there. What are your thoughts? And other than that, as always, if you liked this video, go ahead and hit that like button. If you like it, might as well share it. If you're not subscribed, you know what to do. Hit that subscribe.


How's it going guys? Welcome to a J.H.R. Makrow review. Now this is a series that I mentioned a while ago and a lot of people wanted me to do. So today we're going to be looking at a ruler. And these are pretty much used very widely in schools, at the house, and everything, but they're always used to measure things that are small to big. So let's take a really close look at this, really close up, and see the details in the lettering. So if we pinch and zoom real quick, we can start to focus down on these letters right here. If you notice, you can actually see the pitting in the lettering right there on the C. There's like a little tiny thing right there. I don't know if you can see it. You can see my finger move in there. Oh no, I can't even point to it. So it's that small. You can see that right there. If we drag this up, this is actually the edge of the ruler. Kind of can see that. See how far we can go in. Now it might not be the clearest in the world, but you can also see the edge of that. Oh man, you can see there's like a hair right there. That's crazy. I can even see that, like with my eyes. You can even notice it there. If we move down a little bit. Look, there's a little cut in that, probably from the grain. Looks like right here this is a number one. Everything looks so shiny close up. It does not look like that at all when it's farther away. But you can see the reflectivity in everything. You can really see. Let's try to focus in. Look at that. That's so cool. Let's go ahead and zoom out a little bit. There we go. So we saw the number two really up close. I know that looks scary. If we had to zoom in on that. Let's see if we can zoom in on that. Yeah, there we go. Cool. You know what it kind of reminds me of? It kind of reminds me of like an ocean drop off. Like you're focused in on this and like underneath. It's like just an abyss. Let's see if we can go down to the inches. I really like the edge of this. That's so cool. Oh, you know what? If we zoom down a little bit, push that forward. Look at that. That is the middle piece that's inserted into the wood. That makes it to where when you move your pencil along or your pen stays steady. Look at that. The reflection of the light against my fingertip is enough to highlight it. That is so cool. Look at that.  Moving that with my skin. I can't feel that at all. There is no feeling of me moving this because it's so small. For an idea of how small this is, let's go ahead and zoom out. Look at that. That is insane. Let's go ahead and focus back in here. There's an inch, I believe. And then there's a centimeter over here. Almost to the end of it, I think. Actually, it goes up to 28. I want to straighten that out a little bit. We're almost there. I know it goes up to 30. There we are at the very end. You can see all of the flakiness of the wood on the edges. It's kind of rounded off right there like it bumped into something. It says inch. Oh, what's that? Looks like something sticky got on here like food. Who knows how long that's been on there. Which is strange because I didn't even see that at all. Let's zoom out. I didn't even notice that. It looks like gross sticky candy or something. I'll zoom in on it. Look at that. Kind of weird stuff as that. That's pretty gross. I also have the groove that's in the center that moves along the entirety. Let's go ahead and flip it over. So this is the more cleaner portion of the ruler. It's flat. There's nothing on this side except the little tiny holes. You get a really good view of that middle piece on this side. Look at that. Quite a bit of imperfections on this. I think there's even a little pit right there if we zoom in. Yeah, look at that. It goes downward and then up. I wonder if this got damaged or that's just how it is and I never noticed. It goes down and then it goes back up into another thing as well. That's so weird. It's crazy. Even with how small this is, you can still see the reflection in it. When I think of mirrors, I usually think of them being big enough to capture like the human face or reflection. But when it's something this small, I don't usually think, oh, there's still a reflection there. But it still is reflecting the other side or the same side of the wood of the ruler. That's crazy. If we look right here, we can see that there is still some flaking from when this was drilled out or pushed out to make the little hole right here. I'm not sure what these holes are used for. What do you guys think they're used for? I think maybe they're used to hold this maybe in a binder or something. But yeah, very interesting product and usually not when you're just looking at it from a normal perspective. But when you can zoom in on it and see all these little intricacies, it makes it a lot more interesting. Let me know what you guys think about this video. I want to do a lot more in the future and yeah, huge shout out to my Patreons. Thank you guys so much for your support. You guys are awesome. If you enjoyed this video, don't forget to comment, rate, and subscribe. And as always, I'll see you in the next video.


Nick Jamerson and the Morning Jays were in town Friday evening to play as the first official headlining act for Pikeville's newest music venue, The Great Hall. We caught up with Jamerson during soundcheck just before the concert to ask what the moment meant to him. It's pretty surreal, honestly. I got my start playing out in Pikeville probably 16 years ago, 16, 17 years ago, the old champs building, which is the first broken room location, so it's just, like I said, it's really surreal. This feels like a really full circle moment of a lot of hours spent traveling and to have a place like this now within reasonable driving distance of my house, it feels really good. When asked what he feels is the difference between the local music scene and those in larger cities, Jamerson shared his thoughts as well as the names of some talented local acts. There's people getting out and I think shopping local and putting your money back into your community, getting out and supporting each other and these artists that have, there's so many great singer-songwriters around here. I'm part of, I feel like a super group, you know, it's Nicholas Jamerson in the morning Jays, but my bass player, Jordan Allen, he's the lead singer of his own band, Jordan Allen and the Bell Weathers, we'll still be here next week playing, my keys player and fiddle player, their brothers, Brother Smith, that's a good band, Grayson Jenkins, Abbey Hamilton. There's a group called Mirrod Image that, you familiar with those guys, Jake Ratlis and Jake plays with a lot of different bands, LaPak Country Picker, Luna and the Mountain Jets, Wayne Graham, it's one of my favorite bands, they're from over in White'sburg. I could really go on and on, it's really amazing the people that are putting music out and the habit for a long time. I feel like that's why these stages have been built because people like that have gone ahead and made the music and been working on the craft and now I feel like it's time for us to embrace them as a community and give them a stage to play on. Here at Pikeville Medical Center's Heart and Vascular Institute, we have assembled a comprehensive team of cardiac specialists bringing expertise from all regions of the nation and the world. We have coupled that with cutting edge technology, providing them the best equipment and operating rooms available. The result is comprehensive cardiac care for the people of our region that is second to none. The Heart and Vascular Institute at Pikeville Medical Center. I don't think it's about being famous or anything like that, it's just giving people an opportunity to be themselves and express themselves and get that legitimate sort of experience. Like there's nothing like a stage, it's a lot different than being in a corner and kind of having to fight over people but when you're on a stage or under those lots and I think that's another thing too is people around here, not just artists or fans but industry, just recognizing the music industry as a legitimate way of life. I've been able to do this for 10 years, going on 11, 12 years as a full time musician and it can be done. I think it's exciting times being here so just have to keep going, keep doing the work. For Mountain Top News, I'm Joshua Slum.