Author: Tony

Plot summary – In the near future, the world is falling apart, the recession has all but crumbled the nations of the world and OASIS, a virtual reality universe of both games and everyday life (and escape from life). Ray Halliday, the creator of OASIS, dies, and leaves a cryptic will stating that his entire fortune, and OASIS, to the first player to uncover a series of clues and pass through secret gates. Wade is a 17 year-old high school student who finds solace from his impoverished home life in the many worlds of OASIS and is the first to find and complete one of Halliday’s clues. Life takes a drastic and fantastic turn as he is not only thrust into the spotlight but also targeted by a big bad conglomerate that also has its eyes on winning Halliday’s prize.

Quick thoughts –

The bastard offspring of Snow Crash and Scott Pilgrim with 80’s references for the sake of 80s references and a happy ending.
It’s like a big MMO, where you can watch everyone else’s winnings and failings.
The character of Wade is likable because he’s a pitiful, relatable “loser,” who tried to rise about his surroundings.
Cline’s conversational style of writing was easy to follow and necessary because the main character is only 17, with comparisons made to Harry Potter and The Hunger Games as other books that have that same conversational style.
The camaraderie between the game-playing characters started as very remote and wary and turned into close friendships, even before the characters met in person was also relevant in today’s society and seemed to be drawn from how many people live and meet today.
The characters are all flawed, and remain so through the story, which speaks of the more realistic tone of the story.
Which 80s references felt necessary to the plot and which one seemed more like name-dropping for the sake of adding as many 80s references as possible? They Might Be Giants: “No one in the world ever gets what they want and that is beautiful”
Was the depiction of Shoto and Daito a representation of the Japanese nerd stereotype or did it cross the line into a racist stereotype?
Wade infiltrating IOI is one of the best parts, but it’s also filled with flaws.
If Ready Player One is made into a movie, how do you translate the game play into a film format for the big screen? And, would this movie work as a video game?
Can the characters be called socially autistic or socially awkward because of their environment?
A fun story, a quick read, enjoyable but not too deep.
The hosts couldn’t come to a concession to who this book is for…teens/young adults, gamers, adults who remember the 80s references, anyone who’s looking for a light, fun read.
Did the hosts pick up any 80s things while reading… a bit of Rush, The Last Starfighter, Tron, Duran Duran, Oingo Boingo, Back to the Future theme.
Is Ladyhawke awesome-awesome or 80s cheesy awesome?
Frankie Says Relax!
SilverHawks!
What do you call Dolly Parton doing the backstroke?
All this is lost, like tears in the rain.
Leg warmers, blue with little white hearts.
Massive social statements in Family Ties.

I created the OASIS because I never felt at home in the real world. I didn’t know how to connect with the people there. I was afraid, for all my life. Right up until I knew it was ending. That was when I realized, as terrifying and painful as reality can be, it’s also the only place where you can find true happiness. Because reality is -real-. — Halliday

Your Hosts for this episode were:

Lena
Scott
Paul
Becca
Sam

This episode was recorded: 8/31/2012

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Back Seat Box Office BSBO Results Shows

Back Seat Box Office #106 Results and Voice Mail

Post author By Tony
Post date October 3, 2012
1 Comment on Back Seat Box Office #106 Results and Voice Mail

Congrats on all the 25s this week – Andrew, Jeff, Tony, Cougron, Tad and Father Beast. Well Done!

Thanks to Tad and Art (welcome back, Art!) for their voicemails.

We’re getting closer to Sausage Fest 3, less than two weeks to go! Please give what you can and donate to a great cause. We’re hoping to beat last year’s donations of $1,501 and we still have a ways to go. In addition to doing something good, there are also perks at different donation levels. Visit our site for more information – sausagefeststl.com.

William also added his thoughts on donating to Sausage Fest and breast cancer research. If you haven’t donated yet, we hope this will help you decide because what he said is fantastic. Thank you, William.

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Back Seat Producers Season 07 Shows

BSP Episode 243: Battle Royale

Post author By Tony
Post date October 1, 2012
3 Comments on BSP Episode 243: Battle Royale

Sausagefest is less than two weeks away! Go to our website, sausagefeststl.com, and donate to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation. There are lots of perk levels so you can also get nifty stuff for your donations!

Release date: 12/16/2000

Toei Company

Directed by

Kinji Fukasaku

Produced by

Masao Sato
Masumi Okada
Teruo Kamaya
Tetsu Kayama

Screenplay by

Kenta Fukasaku

Based on

Battle Royale, by Koushun Takami

Cast

Takeshi Kitano

Kitano-sensei

Tatsuya Fujiwara

Shuya Nanahara

Aki Maeda

Noriko Nakagawa

The hosts review:

Darrell liked the movie, with all its gore, and thought it held up quite well. David agreed, thought it was okay and a bit rough. The hosts brought up comparisons to The Hunger Games and Lord of the Flies. Going all the way back to Lord of the Flies, these were children that were unintentionally put in their position. The Hunger Games and Battle Royale came at the story line from a slightly different place and from a similar background, with children being placed/forced into survival. Another difference in The Hunger Games and Battle Royale are the different roles that the “audience” played. In The Hunger Games, the games were a form of entertainment to the wealthy, but in Battle Royale, the media was only seen once in the beginning of the movie.

The hosts discussed the girl shown in the beginning of the film who appears to be a winner of Battle Royale, but there was no one winner *SPOILER* in this specific battle. Darrell thought it was the girl who survived (one boy and one girl survived) but David didn’t think that made sense in the story. Lena (chat room) at first thought the girl was a stand-in used to fool the public into thinking the battle was successful, but later found out that the girl was a winner of a previous battle… who shows up in the second Battle Royale movie.

Another Hunger/Battle comparison was the depiction of females. The Hunger Games had a strong “girl power” theme but that was definitely not the case in Battle Royale. The Japanese girls were, for the most part, portrayed as hysterical and without any leadership. This, naturally, brings up the question of, “What would you do if you were in that position?” Would you kill your best friend, would you hide out as long as you could, would you commit suicide or purposely put yourself in line to be killed so that you wouldn’t have to participate at all?

The discussion took at odd turn at this point, in the direction of Sausagefest 4 = Battle Royale… with kielbasa.

Darrell discussed how Battle Royale had difficulties finding an American distributor due to its high level of violence. The Japanese DVD release was even postponed because of a slashing incident (an 11 year old girl slashed and killed a female 12 year old schoolmate) in which the child had read Battle Royale.

One thing that Tony liked about Battle Royale, in comparing it to The Hunger Games, is how much more visceral the violence was. He didn’t find that it glorified violence but rather showed it respectfully and showed what a horrific thing has happened.

Trivial bits ‘n pieces:

The painting of all the students was created by Takeshi Kitano.

Battle Royale is one of the top-10 highest-grossing films in Japan.

Director Kinji Fukasaku has said that he based this movie on his experiences in World War II Japan, where he worked in a factory that was regularly bombed by Allied aircraft and many of his fellow workers were killed on their first or second day on the job and he never got to know any of them.

Awards:

Battle Royale was nominated for nine Japanese Academy Awards in 2001 and won three (Outstanding Achievement in Film Editing, Popularity Award and Newcomer of the Year for Tatsuya Fujiwara and Aki Maeda)

Your Producers for this episode were:

Tony
Darrell
David

This episode was recorded: 9/26/2012

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Back Seat Box Office BSBO Results Shows

Back Seat Box Office #105 Results and Voice Mail

Post author By Tony
Post date September 26, 2012
1 Comment on Back Seat Box Office #105 Results and Voice Mail

Congrats to Andrew for his high score of 22!

Thanks to Tad for his voice mail!

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Back Seat Quickies Shows

Back Seat Quickies #64: Finding Nemo (3D)

Post author By Tony
Post date September 25, 2012
No Comments on Back Seat Quickies #64: Finding Nemo (3D)

In the seat:

Sam
Scott

Recorded: 09/24/12

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Back Seat Book Club Shows

Back Seat Book Club – Prologue

Post author By Tony
Post date September 22, 2012
3 Comments on Back Seat Book Club – Prologue

*NOTE* Books #3 and #4 have been switched.

Welcome to the introduction episode of Back Seat Book Club!

Back Seat Producers is e-x-p-a-n-d-i-n-g and we’re happily starting a monthly Book Club podcast.

The regular hosts will be

Scott
Lena
Becca
There will also be various additional hosts for each recording, depending on schedules and books

The first six books on our schedule are:

1. Ready Player One – Ernest Cline

2. Fight Club – Chuck Palahniuk

3. Hogfather (Discworld #20) – Terry Pratchett

4. Phoenix Rising (Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences #1) – Philippa Ballatine & Tee Morris

5. Battle Royale – Koushun Takami

6. The Magicians (The Magicians #1) – Lev Grossman

Here is our Goodreads Back Seat Book Club group link.

We’re tentatively scheduling each episode/review for the first Saturday of each month. We encourage comments on the backseatproducers.com website. You can also leave us a voicemail at 618-207-4794 or use our free Google “Call Me” feature in the upper left of this website. We also have a Goodreads.com Back Seat Book Club group that is open the public. We hope you’ll join us and let us know what you think. We plan on having feedback episodes for each book and, hopefully, author interviews whenever we can get them.

Also, Back Seat Quickies is going to start including book reviews, so if any one wishes to send us a quickie, please do!