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2025 Review & Adaptation People's Choice Awards!
18 Plays3 months ago
In this episode of 'Lightning Round,' Nate and Chris recap their year of reading and watching, sharing their favorites that weren't discussed on the podcast, and discussing just how they're able to fit so much of their favorite hobby into their lives.
Additionally, they share the nominations for the first-ever Adaptation People's Choice Awards! Voiting will take place on Instagram (linked below) on Jan. 1, 2026. Please stop by the page to share your opinion by voting on the polls in our Instagram story!
UP NEXT: 'Vineland'/'One Battle After Another'
Follow us on social media:
Nate's Letterboxd (@professor_n8)
Chris's Letterboxd (@cjanderson878)
Hosts: Nate Day, Chris Anderson
Producer: Nate Day
"Adaptation Theme"
- Written by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow
- Performed by: Chris Anderson, Jem Zornow, Nate Day
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Transcript
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Reflecting on 2025: Books & Insights
00:01:38
Speaker
Welcome to Lightning Round, an adaptation mini podcast.
00:01:41
Speaker
I'm Nate.
00:01:41
Speaker
I'm Nate.
00:01:43
Speaker
And I'm Chris.
00:01:44
Speaker
And today we have a very special episode for you.
00:01:46
Speaker
Happy New Year.
00:01:48
Speaker
I was going to say Nate, you're a couple days ago.
00:01:50
Speaker
No, the recording.
00:01:51
Speaker
Yep, I get it.
00:01:53
Speaker
But Chris and I wanted to do a kind of a fun year in review for 2025.
00:02:00
Speaker
I'm thrown off because we were recording this in 2025, so I don't know what to do.
00:02:05
Speaker
The year I'm talking about or when or any of that stuff.
00:02:08
Speaker
Time doesn't matter.
00:02:09
Speaker
Doesn't matter.
00:02:10
Speaker
But yet it comes for us all.
00:02:15
Speaker
Well, it does.
00:02:17
Speaker
Yeah, I guess.
00:02:21
Speaker
That's my attitude at the end of 2025.
00:02:24
Speaker
Give me a few days and I'll be ready to tackle the new year.
00:02:28
Speaker
I believe you.
00:02:29
Speaker
I believe you.
00:02:29
Speaker
I'm going to hold you to that.
00:02:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:02:32
Speaker
So we wanted to share some fun stats about how much we read, how much we watched, talk a little bit about the titles that we maybe don't get to talk about so much on the podcast because they're not adaptations, share some fun year in review factoids with you so you can get to know your hosts a little bit.
00:02:50
Speaker
Chris, why don't you kick us off and tell me what kind of information you were able to gather about your 2025 reading journey?
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:03:00
Speaker
If your Instagram looks anything like mine, and Nate, I'm sure yours has the TV and film equivalent, I've gotten 75 year-end reviews from assorted magazines.
00:03:13
Speaker
Yep.
00:03:14
Speaker
online, print sources, news networks, individual, everybody, everybody.
00:03:20
Speaker
And I thought it would be fun because also since we started the podcast, actually, this is something you and I used to talk about more often.
00:03:29
Speaker
And now our conversations are always focused around kind of what we're doing for specific episodes.
00:03:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:36
Speaker
So this is specifically sort of a recap of maybe what we didn't get to highlight.
00:03:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:45
Speaker
Okay.
00:03:45
Speaker
Super, super broadly read a lot of fun books this year, obviously out of, I did, I did some numbers.
00:03:52
Speaker
I wasn't sure what numbers would be interesting to people.
00:03:55
Speaker
I finished 63 books this year.
00:03:58
Speaker
There are two more left in the year.
00:04:00
Speaker
Only 11 were nonfiction.
00:04:04
Speaker
Okay.
00:04:06
Speaker
And only either, I think it was 54 or 55 were new.
00:04:11
Speaker
So that means eight or nine were rereads.
00:04:14
Speaker
Wow.
00:04:15
Speaker
New to you, right?
00:04:16
Speaker
But not necessarily 2025 publications.
00:04:20
Speaker
Yes, yes, yes.
00:04:21
Speaker
I see what you mean.
00:04:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:04:23
Speaker
55 books that I had not read previously.
00:04:26
Speaker
Got it.
00:04:26
Speaker
And then I think it's eight rereads, which is far more than I normally reread.
00:04:31
Speaker
So that was cool to see.
00:04:33
Speaker
Cool.
00:04:34
Speaker
I have my, I went through and pulled out just the top seven, the only seven books that I gave five stars this year.
00:04:41
Speaker
Okay, let's hear it.
00:04:43
Speaker
The very first book that I read of the year, January 5th, so 358 days ago, called The Myth Makers.
00:04:54
Speaker
It's all about super cool graphic novel that my buddy Tucker sent me as a gift about the relationship of C.S.
00:05:03
Speaker
Lewis and Tolkien.
00:05:05
Speaker
Oh.
00:05:06
Speaker
I think some factoids from it came up during the Hobbit episode.
00:05:10
Speaker
Yeah, that sounds...
00:05:11
Speaker
I remember at least you telling me about it off mic, if not on.
00:05:15
Speaker
Yeah, I'm sure I showed it to you.
00:05:17
Speaker
Super cool book, incredible book.
00:05:18
Speaker
If you're a fan of either of them or graphic novels or anything, even if you're not, you should go read it and you'll become a fan of one of them.
00:05:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:25
Speaker
So cool.
00:05:26
Speaker
Such a cool book.
00:05:26
Speaker
And I love the style.
00:05:28
Speaker
I love when authors choose graphic novel just as this will be a fun media.
00:05:33
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:33
Speaker
Does it make sense?
00:05:34
Speaker
It's a different exercise.
00:05:36
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:36
Speaker
Right, right.
00:05:37
Speaker
This absolutely could have just been like the book you gave me, the comparison of Prince to Dickens.
00:05:44
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:46
Speaker
Absolutely could have been like that kind of long form essay, cover to cover, you know, and it would have still been fabulous.
00:05:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:05:53
Speaker
Okay, I won't dive that deep into all of them.
00:05:55
Speaker
Stone Sky is the third book in the Broken Earth series by N.K.
00:06:00
Speaker
Jemisin.
00:06:00
Speaker
Incredible.
00:06:01
Speaker
Check out the whole series.
00:06:03
Speaker
The Hobbit, obviously.
00:06:04
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:06:06
Speaker
Remains of the day, obviously.
00:06:08
Speaker
This one, while you and I talked a little bit off mic, I am surprised at myself that I gave Clockwork Orange five stars.
00:06:17
Speaker
I just remember from recording, you were hotter on that one than I thought you would be.
00:06:22
Speaker
I remember watching the movie and being like, oh God, Chris is going to hate this.
00:06:27
Speaker
I mean, it's a hefty book which we discussed.
00:06:30
Speaker
I think you reminded me of the linguistics angle.
00:06:36
Speaker
Yeah, right.
00:06:37
Speaker
I don't know.
00:06:37
Speaker
But it was a cool book.
00:06:39
Speaker
I looked at it, I almost bumped it down to four stars, and then I thought, I probably will read this again.
00:06:46
Speaker
That's right, that is sort of your barrier for something being a five star book.
00:06:51
Speaker
A lot of fabulous books in here that I gave four stars because I know I will not read them again.
00:06:56
Speaker
Sure.
00:06:57
Speaker
I just talked, I think a couple episodes I was telling you about this, Kafka on the Shore is one I finished recently.
00:07:04
Speaker
fantastic book that one there's just so much to it i know i will return to it to kind of gather up more goodies cool uh and then fellowship of the ring those are all of my all seven from this year that i know i will read maybe not next year but certainly reread in the future and three of them are directly related to lord of the rings and tolkien
00:07:28
Speaker
I have a type.
00:07:29
Speaker
Yes, you do.
00:07:31
Speaker
I did read one Tolkien this year that I did not give five stars.
00:07:34
Speaker
Whoa, holy shit.
00:07:36
Speaker
What was it?
00:07:37
Speaker
Just finished it recently.
00:07:39
Speaker
Farmer Giles of Ham.
00:07:44
Speaker
Only got four stars.
00:07:46
Speaker
That was the one I bought from Tolkien's favorite bookstore next to the Bodleian Library in Oxford while we were over there.
00:07:57
Speaker
Cool.
00:07:57
Speaker
I got this instead of a $100, like 1977 calendar of portraits of Tolkien.
00:08:07
Speaker
And I regret it a little.
00:08:08
Speaker
What?
00:08:09
Speaker
I should have gotten the calendar.
Nonfiction Selections & Recommendations
00:08:11
Speaker
Maybe.
00:08:12
Speaker
Calendar, five stars.
00:08:14
Speaker
Okay, honorable mentions that I truly enjoyed and honestly might return to some of these.
00:08:18
Speaker
It's just not a for sure.
00:08:19
Speaker
Piranasi, I talked about it at the time.
00:08:22
Speaker
Very cool, very out there.
00:08:24
Speaker
Such a cool book.
00:08:25
Speaker
I think if you want to just not quite know where you're going and be ready to strap in for a fairly tame, fairly innocuous, but still riveting adventure, that's a good one.
00:08:37
Speaker
The Devils is a new one from Joe Abercrombie.
00:08:40
Speaker
Fairly big right now amongst those circles.
00:08:44
Speaker
Just a crazy motley crew going on an adventure.
00:08:48
Speaker
I think it's like if Tolkien had been willing to talk about sex in his books, like that's where we're going here.
00:08:55
Speaker
I think I've seen that one a few times on Goodreads.
00:08:58
Speaker
Didn't some of your buddies maybe read that one too?
00:09:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:09:01
Speaker
My book club did it.
00:09:02
Speaker
So every, all of my buddies that you've met, I mean, Brett Shand like proselytizes about that book.
00:09:08
Speaker
And it was it was a fabulous book.
00:09:09
Speaker
Very good story.
00:09:10
Speaker
The only reason it's not higher for me is it is not one of those.
00:09:13
Speaker
It's a it's a fun ride and a great adventure.
00:09:16
Speaker
It's not one that you need to return to, in my opinion.
00:09:20
Speaker
Sure.
00:09:21
Speaker
Fragile Thrones of Power, I think I talked about when I finished it.
00:09:24
Speaker
That's another one in one of the V.E.
00:09:26
Speaker
Schwab universes.
00:09:27
Speaker
And she's just knocking it out of the park right now.
00:09:30
Speaker
Sweet.
00:09:31
Speaker
And then I had forgotten about this one.
00:09:33
Speaker
Return of the Native is a book by Thomas Hardy.
00:09:39
Speaker
It's like if sense and sensibility met importance of being earnest.
00:09:44
Speaker
Okay.
00:09:45
Speaker
They're pretty related already in a lot of ways.
00:09:48
Speaker
Yes, very much so.
00:09:49
Speaker
Very much so.
00:09:50
Speaker
This was a little more in-depth, a little more to chew on than, well, I mean, Importance of Being Earnest was originally a play, so I don't fault Oscar Wilde by any means.
00:09:58
Speaker
But if you like kind of the learning and uniqueness of the frankly baffling Victorian-era social expectations,
00:10:09
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:10
Speaker
Of much of our dear friend Jane Austen, but you want it to move at a little faster clip.
00:10:15
Speaker
This this is for you.
00:10:17
Speaker
Oh, cool.
00:10:18
Speaker
OK.
00:10:18
Speaker
So that's why that was an honorable mention in there.
00:10:20
Speaker
Yeah, cool.
00:10:21
Speaker
And a couple nonfiction honorable mentions just because I think I think if all you read is fiction and this is why I do it, too, I think you need to deliberately force yourself to go enjoy this hobby you love.
00:10:34
Speaker
But
00:10:35
Speaker
of a more factual nature sometimes.
00:10:37
Speaker
Expand your horizons, yeah.
00:10:38
Speaker
So I have all the Shah's Men and Silences.
00:10:42
Speaker
And this has become kind of my favorite approach to nonfiction of late, choosing an area of the world or a particular historic time and movement that I have heard about tangentially but know nothing about specifically.
00:11:01
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:02
Speaker
and just say, okay, what is accepted as a fantastic or one of the top histories on this material?
00:11:09
Speaker
Go find it.
00:11:10
Speaker
Learn a whole bunch about something I know nothing about.
00:11:12
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:13
Speaker
Hyperfixation type thing.
00:11:15
Speaker
Yes, exactly.
00:11:16
Speaker
But for one book.
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:19
Speaker
I feel fairly confident telling you I will never read another book about the Finnish Civil War.
00:11:25
Speaker
You say that, but you come back, you come with some weird shit to this.
00:11:28
Speaker
That's a fair point.
00:11:29
Speaker
That's a fair point.
00:11:31
Speaker
Okay.
00:11:32
Speaker
Yes.
00:11:32
Speaker
Um, all the shots.
00:11:33
Speaker
My favorite is when you go, have you heard of the finished civil war?
00:11:38
Speaker
No, Chris, I have not heard of the finished civil war.
00:11:42
Speaker
Um, to your credit, I had not until I found this book.
00:11:46
Speaker
Oh, okay.
00:11:48
Speaker
I think most people haven't.
00:11:49
Speaker
I think that'll be a surprising intro title synopsis of a book for most folks.
00:11:55
Speaker
Yeah.
00:11:56
Speaker
Had never heard of it, would never even considered looking into it as a historical event.
00:12:02
Speaker
But yeah, it's just so that was my way of saying I don't, I mean, if you want that one, I still have a copy.
00:12:08
Speaker
I'll loan it to anyone who wants it.
00:12:09
Speaker
I don't recommend that one necessarily.
00:12:11
Speaker
I recommend The Approach.
00:12:13
Speaker
Does that make sense?
00:12:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:15
Speaker
Go find something you know nothing about and just read one book about it.
00:12:19
Speaker
You don't need to become an expert.
00:12:20
Speaker
You don't need to go audit a course at your local community college.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:12:26
Speaker
But it was interesting for me.
00:12:28
Speaker
And the other one, All the Shah's Men, I do recommend everybody read.
00:12:31
Speaker
It is absolutely insane to hear exactly what Iran in particular was like not five decades ago until the U.S.
Cinematic Journey of 2025
00:12:42
Speaker
decided we should go be the world's watchdog and quote unquote defend democracy and fuck up everyone else's lives.
00:12:52
Speaker
So...
00:12:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's my year in books.
00:12:57
Speaker
Can't believe I decided to end on that one.
00:12:59
Speaker
I'm very bad at this.
00:13:02
Speaker
That's all right.
00:13:03
Speaker
I'll pick it up.
00:13:03
Speaker
I'll pick up the mood here a little bit.
00:13:07
Speaker
I was able to pull most of these stats from Letterboxd, which does sort of track, just like Goodreads and other...
00:13:16
Speaker
There's several other movie and book apps that you can use to sort of log your viewing and reading and stuff.
00:13:22
Speaker
But one of the reasons I really love letterbox is because it, it tracks this throughout the year.
00:13:26
Speaker
So you can check into these stats at any given time.
00:13:29
Speaker
So this first factoid, it's going to blow your mind and I'm going to have to explain myself here.
00:13:36
Speaker
Total number of movies watched this year was 381.
00:13:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:13:38
Speaker
What?
00:13:45
Speaker
Well, I will say lots of those, my TV is in a separate room from the rest of my house.
00:13:52
Speaker
So a lot of those are like, I've thrown a movie on so that I can just have some noise while I'm like cooking or something.
00:13:58
Speaker
A lot of them are not like sit in front of the television and watch the full movie.
00:14:03
Speaker
like a lot of those are like that sometimes you know i'll see like i saw frankenstein in theaters right but i still wanted to support it once it hit netflix as well so i woke up one morning and turned it on and then like got in the shower and and got dressed like so okay yep i still log them because i do still sort of consume them but no that that actually explains a lot i'm certainly not watching nearly 400 movies
00:14:27
Speaker
in a year.
00:14:27
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:14:29
Speaker
That's well over one a day.
00:14:31
Speaker
Right, right, right.
00:14:32
Speaker
That's exactly what I was trying to do the math on.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:36
Speaker
Two dozen days that you sit and do a double header.
00:14:40
Speaker
No way.
00:14:40
Speaker
No way.
00:14:41
Speaker
That's every other weekend.
00:14:42
Speaker
Yeah, probably not.
00:14:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:44
Speaker
Still a crazy number of those.
00:14:46
Speaker
This is a crazy number to 79 of those were 2025 releases between streaming movies and trips to the theater.
00:14:54
Speaker
That was 79.
00:14:55
Speaker
Oh my gosh.
00:14:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:14:58
Speaker
New movies this year.
00:14:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:02
Speaker
My top five of the year were One Battle After Another, which is an adaptation that we'll talk about actually in a couple weeks here.
00:15:10
Speaker
We just wanted to save that for a little closer to Oscar season because that movie is probably going to steamroll right through the Oscars.
00:15:20
Speaker
Fantastic movie.
00:15:20
Speaker
Best one of the year.
00:15:22
Speaker
Love it.
00:15:23
Speaker
Don't have a single qualm with it.
00:15:25
Speaker
Number two by just a hair, like they're almost tied.
00:15:28
Speaker
But number two is Marty Supreme, which is the Timothee Chalamet ping pong movie.
00:15:33
Speaker
Yes.
00:15:33
Speaker
Okay.
00:15:36
Speaker
You cannot pitch it like it's about like the 86 ping pong games at the Olympics in Tokyo or something.
00:15:43
Speaker
It kind of is a little bit.
00:15:44
Speaker
It kind of is.
00:15:45
Speaker
One of the many reasons I love this movie is because it is like a true blue sports movie.
00:15:50
Speaker
It's also an insane safety movie, you know, directed by Josh safety.
00:15:54
Speaker
So it has that very frenetic, chaotic, stressful, claustrophobic vibe throughout most of the movie.
00:16:01
Speaker
It's a character study.
00:16:03
Speaker
It's a romantic.
00:16:05
Speaker
not really a romantic comedy, I guess a romantic drama.
00:16:08
Speaker
It's all kinds of things bundled up into one and I can't believe that it works as well as it does.
00:16:14
Speaker
And I'm the first person to be critical of a Timothee Chalamet anything, but I just love this movie and I love him in it.
00:16:22
Speaker
And I just, I'm a little bit of a convert now.
00:16:27
Speaker
Wow.
00:16:28
Speaker
Wow.
00:16:29
Speaker
Wow.
00:16:29
Speaker
I know.
00:16:30
Speaker
It's so good.
00:16:30
Speaker
I don't know that you would love it because it's meant to make you anxious and uncomfortable and you are not supposed to like the main character.
00:16:39
Speaker
Cool.
00:16:40
Speaker
As much as I would love to like share it with you, I think you, I don't know, maybe after a couple of beers at home under a blanket,
00:16:49
Speaker
you and blair can watch it or something like that uh-huh i have i've heard nothing but good things from everyone who has seen it so far it's i mean i was really this one and one battle after another i was just gobsmacked and and both times i like the next day tried to watch a movie at home or something and i was like i just can't i'm not even enjoying this because i'm still on the high of these two other movies that i just watched it was pretty pretty remarkable how much i love those two movies wow yeah
00:17:17
Speaker
Again, I won't go into so much detail with the rest of these, but the others of the top five, Wake Up Dead Man, which we've talked about, is the latest Knives Out movie.
00:17:24
Speaker
Fantastic representation for all the complications of religion and organized, well, Christianity, really.
00:17:34
Speaker
Sinners.
00:17:35
Speaker
I love Sinners.
00:17:36
Speaker
Have loved it since I saw it.
00:17:38
Speaker
I forgot that was this year.
00:17:40
Speaker
Oh, my goodness.
00:17:41
Speaker
That's been a long year.
00:17:43
Speaker
And then the last one that I wanted to shout out was Jay Kelly, which I mentioned a couple of weeks ago.
00:17:47
Speaker
Just this really gorgeous movie.
00:17:49
Speaker
Yes, I've been thinking about watching it on Netflix.
00:17:52
Speaker
I didn't realize it was top five of the year for you.
00:17:55
Speaker
I was sort of surprised too.
00:17:57
Speaker
I sort of do keep track of the movies that I love from any given year get sort of thrown in a list on Letterboxd and I sort of softly rank them.
00:18:06
Speaker
So I was sort of surprised prepping for this episode that that cracked the top five.
00:18:10
Speaker
But, you know, I was looking at everything else and I think it does.
00:18:15
Speaker
I loved a lot of other movies, The Smashing Machine and Sentimental Value and Begonia, all kinds of stuff.
00:18:20
Speaker
But I do think that Jay Kelly sort of rises above those.
00:18:24
Speaker
wow yeah some fun other stats that letterbox pulls for you my most watched movie of the year was sinners i've seen it four times i think three theater trips i know dude this is how you get to 380 something movies yeah four four viewings of sinners a lot of that was like i saw it on my own and then you were like hey let's go see sinners right and then i had some other friends that wanted to see it and
00:18:49
Speaker
Then I went to a party where they were playing it.
00:18:51
Speaker
I like that kind of thing.
00:18:52
Speaker
So again, it's not necessarily like four times that I was glued to a TV.
00:18:59
Speaker
Was that award season wise?
00:19:01
Speaker
Was that long ago enough?
00:19:03
Speaker
It would not be pertinent or will that be up for awards?
00:19:07
Speaker
It's well within the window of this year.
00:19:09
Speaker
Awards, the awards window is January 1st to December 31st.
00:19:13
Speaker
Oh, OK.
00:19:14
Speaker
A lot of movies that release earlier in the year get forgotten by the time award season comes around.
00:19:19
Speaker
But sinners has been doing very well with precursors and it was just so widely celebrated and is still known as one of the best movies of the year to such an extent that it's going to be a pretty major player for awards as well.
00:19:31
Speaker
Awesome.
00:19:32
Speaker
Letterboxd will tell you who your most watched actors are as well.
00:19:37
Speaker
Really fun except my top three, I watched eight movies with each of these three gentlemen in them.
00:19:43
Speaker
And it's sort of funny because they're three guys that are sort of known for being in everything.
00:19:48
Speaker
So it wasn't really a concerted effort or anything.
00:19:51
Speaker
Jeff Goldblum, Sam Jackson, and Harrison Ford, I managed to consume, which I'm sure most humans did, consume eight.
00:19:58
Speaker
movies.
00:19:59
Speaker
You know, we did Wicked with Jeff Goldblum, Jurassic Park with Sam Jackson.
00:20:03
Speaker
When we did that, I watched all of the Jurassic Park movies.
00:20:07
Speaker
And Jeff Goldblum.
00:20:08
Speaker
Yes, that's right.
00:20:09
Speaker
He is in Jurassic Park too.
00:20:10
Speaker
That's exactly how I got to eight Jeff Goldblum movies.
00:20:14
Speaker
And then the funny flip side of that coin is my most watched director was Steven Spielberg, who did
00:20:20
Speaker
Jurassic Park as well.
00:20:21
Speaker
And the Indiana Jones movies, which I rewatched for the first time this year in like decades.
00:20:26
Speaker
So that's where the Harrison Ford bit comes from.
00:20:29
Speaker
But I just thought it was very funny how how linked all three or, you know, four of those names were.
00:20:35
Speaker
I would not have guessed any of those three if you had asked me.
00:20:39
Speaker
I know I wouldn't have either.
00:20:41
Speaker
So it's a little bit funny that statistic.
00:20:44
Speaker
I'm like, I didn't really watch eight Jeff Goldblum movies this year, but I guess I kind of did, you know?
00:20:49
Speaker
That's incredible.
00:20:51
Speaker
Yeah.
Language Diversity in Film Watching
00:20:52
Speaker
So a lot of a lot of movies, a lot that spit out all the languages that I watched movies in as well.
00:20:59
Speaker
English, French, German, Japanese, Norwegian, Swedish, Korean, Hungarian, Mayan and silent, a bunch of silent films.
00:21:07
Speaker
What you watched, you watched a movie entirely in every one of those languages are included at least entirely.
00:21:14
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:15
Speaker
The primary language gracious.
00:21:17
Speaker
But yeah, that's sort of my year in review recap.
00:21:22
Speaker
That's crazy.
00:21:23
Speaker
That's so many movies.
00:21:25
Speaker
I know.
00:21:26
Speaker
I was like, what's a believable number that I could like lie and Chris wouldn't catch it?
00:21:30
Speaker
But then I was like, no, come on.
00:21:32
Speaker
Just tell him you watch 380 movies.
00:21:33
Speaker
One more.
00:21:37
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's it's something, you know, I also was without my record player for a solid chunk of this year.
00:21:44
Speaker
So if I needed something in my space to make noise, I would just go throw on a movie.
00:21:48
Speaker
And yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:21:50
Speaker
So I'm sure other years are not nearly that high.
00:21:53
Speaker
It's so, okay, when you said eight Harrison Ford movies, I was like, hell yeah, Star Wars.
00:21:58
Speaker
Mostly Indiana Jones.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yep.
00:22:00
Speaker
I forgot Indiana Jones existed.
00:22:02
Speaker
And then I guess he was in a Marvel movie earlier this year.
00:22:05
Speaker
I looked at what eight it was and it was... Didn't know that.
00:22:09
Speaker
Some other random ones.
00:22:10
Speaker
I watched Blade Runner earlier this year.
00:22:13
Speaker
I don't know.
00:22:13
Speaker
That's like five or six right there.
00:22:15
Speaker
Maybe a Star Wars one was in there.
00:22:17
Speaker
Yeah, he's a fun one.
00:22:18
Speaker
Just three guys that are in everything.
00:22:20
Speaker
I just thought that was just so funny.
00:22:21
Speaker
And the guy that directs everything.
00:22:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:24
Speaker
I mean, that one doesn't feel like a surprise at all.
00:22:26
Speaker
No, he's I think he's if I like gun to my head, I'd probably say Spielberg was my favorite director.
00:22:32
Speaker
Yep.
00:22:33
Speaker
Well, we also had a very exciting something that we wanted to share with everybody to celebrate the end of our inaugural year.
00:22:42
Speaker
Is that the proper use of that word?
2025 Adaptation People's Choice Awards
00:22:45
Speaker
yeah we would like to invite everybody listening and those that just follow us on social media i guess to vote in the 2025 adaptation people's choice awards and chris and i are here to read the categories and nominees so these will be why was there a question mark at the end of the word read
00:23:06
Speaker
Read?
00:23:07
Speaker
I can't do that.
00:23:09
Speaker
So yeah, please be sure to follow us at adaptation underscore pod on Instagram.
00:23:15
Speaker
I'm going to link it down below in the episode notes as well as usual.
00:23:19
Speaker
And on January 1st and or potentially the 2nd, depending on how quickly I can get everything up, we will be streaming not only this episode, but the voting will be open for 24 hours for these awards as well.
00:23:35
Speaker
We'd like to hear
00:23:36
Speaker
your opinions and we look forward to sharing them on a later episode.
00:23:40
Speaker
So, just give a brief explanation of how voting works.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:45
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:46
Speaker
There's no electoral college here.
00:23:49
Speaker
There's no fiddling.
00:23:50
Speaker
We'll post the results.
00:23:51
Speaker
So there's no questionable results or anything because we believe in democracy.
00:23:57
Speaker
Unless we disagree, then we'll change it.
00:23:58
Speaker
Okay.
00:23:59
Speaker
Yeah, exactly.
00:23:59
Speaker
Why don't you read, do you have the document up?
00:24:02
Speaker
Yes, I do.
00:24:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:04
Speaker
Why don't you read our first category?
00:24:07
Speaker
Okay.
00:24:08
Speaker
First category, best adaptation.
00:24:10
Speaker
And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, Nate, most of these, including this category, we're talking just movies that came out this year.
00:24:19
Speaker
For the most part, there is one category where we had a little bit more fun with it, but most of these are movies that are adaptations that came out in 2025.
00:24:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah.
00:24:29
Speaker
Okay, so our nominees, because we can only give four options, I believe, on Instagram polls.
00:24:35
Speaker
Yes.
00:24:35
Speaker
So Best Adaptation, One Battle After Another, adapted from Thomas Pinchon's Vineland.
00:24:42
Speaker
Wicked, for good, volume two, whatever you want to call it.
00:24:45
Speaker
Frankenstein and The Housemaid.
00:24:48
Speaker
Hell yeah.
00:24:49
Speaker
Our second category is best Stephen King adaptation.
00:24:52
Speaker
Of course, it's the four main ones that we talked about in our Stephen King episode.
00:24:56
Speaker
We have The Running Man, The Monkey, The Life of Chuck, and The Long Walk.
00:25:02
Speaker
Wonderful.
00:25:03
Speaker
All you Stephen King fans.
00:25:04
Speaker
And I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, I think that was, did we establish it wasn't even all of his that came out this year?
00:25:11
Speaker
That's just the four we talked about.
00:25:13
Speaker
Yeah, correct.
00:25:14
Speaker
Crazy, crazy.
00:25:15
Speaker
So if you have a write-in and a compelling argument, let us know.
00:25:18
Speaker
if he had a different adaptation this year okay best lead performance we had a couple you know we're not serious people but more serious um so if you fancy yourself a connoisseur an expert of of nate's level and you want to get in your predictions for the real
00:25:39
Speaker
Oscars?
00:25:40
Speaker
Correct.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:25:41
Speaker
Yep.
00:25:41
Speaker
The real Oscars.
00:25:43
Speaker
We have best lead performance, Leonardo DiCaprio from One Battle After Another, Cynthia Erivo from Wicked, obviously, Jesse Buckley from Hamnet, whoever that is, and Oscar Isaac from Frankenstein as Dr. Victor Frankenstein.
00:26:00
Speaker
Great, yeah, Jesse Buckley.
00:26:02
Speaker
We'll talk about Hamlet and One Battle After Another later as we get a little closer to the Oscars.
00:26:07
Speaker
Yes, yes.
00:26:07
Speaker
We also have Best Supporting Performance.
00:26:10
Speaker
And the nominees include Ariana Grande from Wicked for Good, Tiana Taylor from One Battle After Another, Jacob Elordi from Frankenstein, and Amanda Seyfried from The Housemaid.
00:26:22
Speaker
And then we get into the fun categories.
00:26:25
Speaker
It feels contentious to me to suggest which one of those gentlemen was the lead and which was supporting for Frankenstein.
00:26:33
Speaker
Oh, those are the categories that they're campaigning in for other awards.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's what I figured.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yeah.
00:26:38
Speaker
Yep.
00:26:39
Speaker
Yep.
00:26:40
Speaker
Okay.
00:26:40
Speaker
Weirdest performance.
00:26:42
Speaker
Fantastic.
00:26:43
Speaker
Again, right in certainly welcome.
00:26:46
Speaker
So up first, we did not cover this one yet.
00:26:50
Speaker
I suppose in the future we may.
00:26:52
Speaker
Gal Gadot from Snow White.
00:26:55
Speaker
Sydney Sweeney from The Housemaid.
00:26:58
Speaker
Michelle Yeoh from Wicked for Good.
00:27:01
Speaker
Phenomenal memes about that one.
00:27:05
Speaker
And Theo James from The Monkey.
00:27:07
Speaker
Those are our four options for weirdest performance.
00:27:10
Speaker
Next, we have Best Dance Number, and it is the flash mob sequence in The Life of Chuck, the homecoming sequence also in The Life of Chuck, Where You Are from Kiss of the Spider Woman, and Wonderful from Wicked for Good.
00:27:26
Speaker
Biggest Loser.
00:27:27
Speaker
This category was Blair's contribution.
00:27:30
Speaker
Who do you think sucked?
00:27:33
Speaker
Uh, the wizard from wicked, Hank Thompson from caught stealing Dr. Victor Frankenstein from Frankenstein and Andrew Winchester from the house made.
00:27:45
Speaker
Next we have silliest accent or voice.
00:27:48
Speaker
We have Carrie Condon from train dreams, Mark Hamill from the long walk, Oscar Isaac from Frankenstein.
00:27:55
Speaker
And once again, Mark Hamill, but this time from the life of Chuck.
00:27:59
Speaker
Absolutely phenomenal that he's in there twice.
00:28:02
Speaker
When did this become a Mark Hamill trolling podcast?
00:28:05
Speaker
Right?
00:28:06
Speaker
When we got to... Oh, no, that's when.
00:28:10
Speaker
Yeah, when we got to Stephen King.
00:28:11
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:28:12
Speaker
This was the... I forgot.
00:28:14
Speaker
Blair suggested two of these.
00:28:16
Speaker
Phenomenal category.
00:28:17
Speaker
So we're going to give you a little background here.
00:28:20
Speaker
You are to picture the exact cast, not as themselves, but as their characters from that movie picked up and placed in a particular reality TV show.
00:28:35
Speaker
Yep.
00:28:36
Speaker
So best potential reality show, we have the entire family from Ian McEwan's Atonement as Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
Fictional Realities: Fun & Creative
00:28:46
Speaker
Phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal.
00:28:48
Speaker
We have the entire ensemble from The Importance Of Being Earnest dropped into Love Is Blind.
00:28:56
Speaker
A very clever choice there, Nate.
00:28:58
Speaker
I like that.
00:29:02
Speaker
We have Frankenstein as Big Brother.
00:29:08
Speaker
It's just so good.
00:29:10
Speaker
As long as you ignore what the show Big Brother.
00:29:12
Speaker
That was like the original reality show, wasn't it?
00:29:15
Speaker
Pretty much, yeah.
00:29:16
Speaker
I guess that and Survivor.
00:29:17
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:29:19
Speaker
And then my personal favorite, the entire ensemble from The Hobbit, including 13 Dwarfs, dropped into Love Island, UK.
00:29:28
Speaker
Specifically UK too, because they all have accents that I can't understand.
00:29:32
Speaker
Obviously.
00:29:35
Speaker
Our final category is most anticipated adaptation of 2026.
00:29:39
Speaker
And we have Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey, based on Homer's epic.
00:29:44
Speaker
The Magician's Nephew, directed by Greta Gerwig, of course, originally written by C.S.
00:29:48
Speaker
Lewis.
00:29:50
Speaker
Dune Messiah to be directed by Denis Villeneuve, written by Frank Herbert.
00:29:56
Speaker
Yeah, attaboy.
00:29:58
Speaker
And our final nominee is Project Hail Mary, directed by Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, based on a novel written by Andy Weir.
00:30:05
Speaker
And we're very excited for really all four of those.
00:30:08
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:30:09
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:30:10
Speaker
So like I said, please go from here to our Instagram again,