Ready Player One Review

Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Ernest Cline’s novel Ready Player One is in theaters now and in a word, this movie is FUN. Join us as we discuss the movie, the book, and all those awesome pop-culture references!

5:42 What are we watching? 

• Santa Clarita Diet: Shannon loves Drew Barrymore and all the actors in this series. It’s a goofy, comedic twist to the zombie theme.
• American Crime Story: The Assassination of Gianni Versace: Stars Darren Cris – Shannon LOVES him in this show. It’s riveting.
• Sherlock and Peaky Blinders: Shannon is working her way through these British shows, which we’ll talk more about next episode!
• Fadra’s British shows include Happy Valley, Fleabag, and Catastrophe – stay tuned next episode.
• Fadra is keeping up with The Joel McHale Show and she’s watching The Orville.
• Fadra’s challenge to Shannon: Watch Enlightened on HBO or Amazon Prime. It makes you uncomfortable, but you can’t look away.

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17:57 Last movie seen?

• American Beauty: Shannon & Fadra talk about the beauty of this movie.
• Justice League: Don’t waste your time. But maybe the Flash or Aquaman movies could be good.
• And Ready Player One – discussion coming up!

24:00 What’s coming up?

• 3% – Season 2 on Netflix 4/27. Brazilian dystopian series. We both enjoyed Season 1, so we’re excited about the next season.
• Lost in Space is being rebooted by Netflix and drops on 4/13.
• Rampage comes to theaters 4/13 and stars Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Shannon’s BFFs). We agree it’ll be packed with pretty much every action movie cliche and lots of destruction, but we’ll see it anyway.
• A remake of Overboard is coming to theaters 4/13. Fadra is boycotting it.
• Won’t You Be My Neighbor: Biopic of Fred Rogers. It has a special place in Fadra’s heart. Shannon is not too interested.

Stinger Topic of the Week: Ready Player One

30:20 Ready Player One is in theaters now! (Spoilers ahead.)

Ready Player One is the story of Wade Watts, a teenager living in 2045 in a bleak world where people are escaping reality by entering the Oasis – a virtual reality game. The creator of the Oasis has died and left a quest: the first player to find the three keys and the Easter egg gets control of the game and a lot of money and fame.

Points we discuss:

• Many pop-culture references that are not in the movie are not there due to licensing.
• The cool story behind the Atari game “Adventure” and the first ever virtual Easter egg.
• Fadra read the book and gives us some insight about the differences between the book and movie. She highly recommends the book and calls it a “pretty much perfect novel.”
• What makes this movie so fantastic are all the references to pop-culture. Keep your eyes open and you’ll see so many nods to movies, video games, and music. Check out Shannon’s post on her favorite references!
• Perhaps one of the coolest pop-culture references in Ready Player One is this, found on the web: The scene where IOI attacks Wade and Samantha just after they meet in real life is based on the music video for “Take On Me” by a-Ha. They run through a maze-like hallway and then she pushes him through a hole in the wall, but stays behind to be captured. Check out the similarities to the a-Ha video here.
• How far off do you think this gaming technology is?

Hey – we want you to join us in the virtual Oasis that is Facebook (LOL)! We are having lots of interesting conversations over there and we also post our 60-second movie review videos – every time we see a movie. Join us at our Movie & TV Show Discussion group on Facebook!

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