Movie Mike dives into the millennial optimism era which is being described on TikTok as a strangely comforting, slightly delusional time in the late 2000s and early 2010s. Mike shares what movies best represent this era from 500 Days of Summer to Easy A as he remembers a world of hipster aesthetics, early Instagram, and a belief that life would only improve, often contrasting with current, more cynical times. Mike gives his mini review of Disney-Pixar’s Hoppers. In the Movie Review, Mike shares his thoughts on THE BRIDE! starring Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale. It takes place in 1930s Chicago where a groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious brings a murdered young woman back to life to be a companion for Frankenstein's monster. Mike shares his thoughts on Jessie Buckley and Christian Bale’s amazing performances but ultimately why it felt like Maggie Gyllenhaal was holding back on the story she wanted to tell. In the Trailer Park, Mike breaks down Scary Movie 6 and the long awaited return of the Wayans brothers. Can a raunch parody movie of this magnitude work in today’s climate? It marks the return of Anna Faris and Regina Hall 26 years after the original film first hit screens.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today I want to talk
about what I believe to be are the best millennial
optimism movies. I am millennial to my core. We used
to be cool. Now we're seeing this cringe and now
people are hating on the era that we grew up
in and looking back on things that we thought were
(00:21):
so cool at the time. But now we are seen
as being delusional. So we'll look back on that era
and the movies that represented that optimism the best. In
the movie review, I'll be talking about The Brides starring
Jesse Buckley Christian Bale, directed by Maggie Jillen Hall. Didn't
live up to the expectations I set merely based on
(00:41):
the trailer and the making of that movie. And in
the trailer park we got our first look at Scary
Movie six. Can a parody movie like this that was
so cutting edge back in the early two thousands had
a great run? But can a franchise like this still
have life in twenty twenty six. We'll get into that.
Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed.
(01:03):
Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew and now
let's talk movies, movie mics, movie podcast, millennial optimism. What
is it? I didn't realize in the time that I
was living in, which I consider to be the greatest
era to be a young person, the twenty ten. I
(01:25):
think about things like MacBooks and photo albums, where we
would just take a bunch of pictures and dump them
on Facebook. We don't do that anymore. Could you imagine
that the people now who have their feeds so perfectly
curated being disgusted when you would just tag them in
the most unflattering photo. You couldn't get away with that.
But that's what I think about during that time where
(01:46):
we lived a little bit more in the moment, but
we still had that technology that wasn't quite there yet.
I think of the hipster era, which I wonder now
where did all the hipsters go? But I think about
bands like the Lumineers band. By your weekend, you think
about skinny jeans, Tumblr, Pinterest, leggings, under dresses, beanies, the
(02:08):
dudes with really deep v neckx and really cool tattoos,
probably like a pocket watch or a scene from Nature,
an infinity symbol, or maybe a Harry Potter tattoo. This
era was so great to grow up in, and it
is now being seen as cringe by gen Z, which
(02:28):
this happens to every generation. For a while. You're cool
when you're a teenager, when you're in your twenties, and
then you just become old and lame and everybody makes
fun of the things that were once cool to you.
It's gonna happen to gen Z. It's gonna happen to
every generation. It just happens right now that millennials are
seen as being cringe, and recently millennial optimism has really
(02:53):
been called out on TikTok and in the so called
millennial optimism era, I find comfort in everybody else says
we were delusional, because the term is used to describe
a perceived care free mindset that US millennials had in
our young adult years. It was rooted in the fact
that if you worked hard, you would achieve success, which
(03:15):
now I think things have become a little bit more grim.
But I was still in that era where you could
go to college, study something, and be promised a job
within that career once you graduated, depending on what major
you ended up picking. But still that dream was alive
and well. And now a lot of gen z who
(03:36):
went to college, maybe graduated in the COVID era, had
that future ripped away from them a lot of the times.
And now people graduating you maybe have spent all this
time studying computer science and then bam AI comes out
of nowhere and people are telling you you're going to
be replaced by a computer. So I think the reason
(03:57):
we are criticized now for having this millennial optim is
because there is no optimism right now to go around.
But we lived in this era where it felt like
we had this delusional hope. It was slightly ironic. We
had a lower cost of living, technology wasn't advanced as
it was now now. We did grow up with Instagram,
(04:18):
but I also remember a life before having the Internet.
I remember life before having an iPhone. The first smartphone
I got was a BlackBerry, and I thought it was awesome.
But I grew with that technology into my twenties and
very much so into my late twenties and now thirties,
and I go back in that twenty tens era and
(04:38):
that is what I long for, not the nineties, not
the two thousands, And I think I'm the most nostalgic
for the twenty tens. It's because I was an adult.
I had the most freedom, but also had the ability
to have fun and still felt like the entire world
was in front of me and I could conquer it
if I just buckled down, worked as hard as I could,
(04:58):
went and had some fun. Because a lot of that
twenty tens era was about having fun and partying and
how one night could change your entire life. The millennial
optimism era also comes into play when you talk about
love and relationships. And I think growing up in those
late two thousands and early twenty tens, especially for me
(05:21):
as a nerding Mexican dude with a bad complexion four eyes,
had a bit of a weight problem, was an overweight dude.
I was really shy and quiet, and I didn't have
a whole lot of friends. And I promise you we're
going to get to talking about movies here in a second,
but I'm setting the stage here for the millennial era.
If I didn't have a lot of friends, there was
no way I had any girlfriends. And I thought, man,
(05:45):
if I could just get one girl to notice me,
this girl I liked in whatever class in high school,
if she would just notice me and talk to me,
I would be the best boyfriend ever, And getting into
college classes with all these new girls, and thinking, man
if I could just get them to see the real me,
(06:06):
and thinking just one night at a party, one conversation
would change everything, and I would instantly have the love
I was looking for my entire life. But I can
go back and look at that time now and think
how delusional I was. I had nothing to offer, I
had no personable skills. I was a mess, thinking that
(06:29):
all the girls who didn't talk to me were the villain,
but really I was my own villain. So now let's
go back in time to that era, back to a
time where you took those grainy house party pictures. Maybe
you pulled out your Mac, that big, chunky white Mac
that was my first and most favorite computer I ever had.
(06:51):
You took some Apple photo booths selfies. We're talking about
a time where for some reason, there were mustaches on
everything's girls painting them on their fingers, putting it up
to their upper lip, and then taking a photo, coming
up with some witty caption and putting that on their
MySpace or their Facebook. An era that was really unfiltered, unpolished.
(07:12):
But what I found to be really personal and maybe
to kids now and young people, it is one of
those eras where you just had to be there. But
everybody is ridiculous and cringe worthy in their own ways.
All it takes is time to be cringe because back
then we were just posting random pictures to our Instagram,
(07:33):
like a picture of your food on a random Tuesday,
and that would go main feed. You would never do
that today. So let's go back to that time. Now
that you know the aesthetic, you know my depressing past,
and I want to talk about first what I believe
to be the quintessential millennial optimism movie that kicked off
the era, because there are some early two thousands movies
(07:56):
that are still what I believe to be or millennial movies,
but they don't really represent what I think defined this era.
I really think the granddaddy, the first one that really
shaped what it means to have millennial optimism was Juno
in two thousand and seven. I say it's the catalyst
(08:18):
that really spark this era because it is such a
millennial movie to its core, whether it's the soundtrack, the
cast alone, the look and the feel of that movie.
I don't think the plotline directly represents what all these
other millennial optimism movies will because it is about a
girl who gets pregnant on accident decides to give up
(08:40):
that kid to another couple who has been struggling to
have their own kid. But I still think those values
are there, and if you look at what all the
movies we will be talking about on this list, I
feel like this one was highly influential on that era.
But if that is the catalyst, the movie I really
feel is the best representation of the millennial optimism era
(09:04):
that I just rewatched for this episode specifically came out
in two thousand and nine and it is five hundred
Days of Summer. The movie is the story of a
failed relationship from just one perspective through the eyes of Tom,
played by Joseph Gordon Levitt. It is a fantastically shot movie,
(09:25):
and I think when I first watched it back in
two thousand and nine, I was eighteen years old. I
saw this movie and thought, I want that. Even though
it doesn't turn out so great for Joseph Gordon Levitt,
this is the type of relationship I was probably chasing
my entire adult life, and I was looking in all
the wrong places. This movie made me delusional about love.
(09:48):
And I think it's because I did watch it when
I was eighteen that I didn't understand the message of
this movie until I rewatched it as a happily married
man who's gonna be almost to be thirty five this year. Wow. Yeah,
as a thirty four year old, happily married man. When
I first saw this movie back in two thousand and nine,
(10:09):
I saw Zoe Deschanel's character as the villain because the
story is all about how this relationship and why this
relationship didn't work, But it's all from Joseph Gordon Levitt's perspective.
You only get the guy's perspective, and I think that
is unfair because it goes from being amazing to him
being in love, so in love that he walks down
(10:29):
the street, really dances down the street with halland Notes
playing everybody being excited for him. I didn't really know
what that fantasy element of this movie was representing at
the time, but now looking back on it, that is
a perfect representation of how it feels once you find
(10:50):
a relationship that makes you excited to be with that person,
where it feels like everything is clicking, the birds are singing,
the people are dancing, there's music playing in your head,
you instantly just have a smile on your face. And
I love how the movie goes back and forth between
the timeline of when they are together to when they
(11:11):
end up breaking up. You see it go from good,
you see it go from bad. You see the things
that once made zoe Deschanell's character smile to those same
things making her uncomfortable, or making her sad, or not
impressing her anymore. And I think that is a great
depiction of a failed relationship. And I think, to me,
(11:34):
at that time, Zoey Deschanell was the perfect millennial dream girl.
I think every guy like me who was into music
that maybe not all the girls were into at that time,
I was like Tom, in this movie, you also like
the Smiths. Just because we like the same music, we
are destined to be together. Was a thought I had
(11:56):
probably from age thirteen to maybe age twenty four, where
I was so into indie and punk that I thought,
if I ever found a girl who was into this
exact same music, she would be my soulmate. And I
didn't understand at the time how wrong I was about
this movie. Like I said, I thought Zoe Deschanel's character
(12:16):
was the villain, but in that final scene, really in
that third act wherever they've already broken up and Zoe
Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt meet again on the train
after breaking up, even though she told him I don't
really want a relationship. We don't have to put labels
on anything, and he knew that going into the relationship,
(12:37):
but still fell for her so hard and wanted her
to define the relationship, that what we're doing is not
just friends. I have to know what this is. And
when things ended up not working out, they break up
and they run into each other again on that train.
They have this really great time together where he thinks
they're getting back together. He has these expectations when going
(13:00):
to that party that she invites him to, and when
reality sets in and he realizes that, oh, she is
engaged now, and he feels like he just had his
heart ripped out of his chest. I felt that in
that moment. I thought, how could she do that to
Joseph Gordon Levitt? What a villain? And it wasn't until
(13:21):
rewatching it now where she sees him on that park bench. Oh,
it's such a great scene, and I don't know why,
I kind of get emotional watching it now that this
movie really set in with me. I think it's because
I'm happily married now I have found my person, and
I realize now what true love is, and I realize
what it means to find somebody that you know is
(13:43):
the person for you. And it was listening to Zoe
Dechanel's character and now being on her side, realizing she
wasn't the bad person for leaving him, for making him sad,
for making him be a miserable human. He was the
bad guy. Well, I don't know in love in this situation,
are or either of them really the bad guy, because
really he wasn't wrong in wanting more from the relationship,
(14:06):
and she wasn't wrong by telling him I don't really
want this to be anything, but what she said to him,
of I knew I was ready to get married. She
went from not wanting to be in a relationship to
now being somebody's wife. Is because all of the doubts
that she had with him were gone with this new guy.
That hit so hard. You never wanted to be anybody's girlfriend,
(14:27):
and I ad somebody's wife surprised me too. I don't
think I'll ever understand that. I mean, it doesn't make sense.
It just happened, right, But that's what I don't understand
what just happened. I just woke up one day and
I knew, knew what what I was never sure of
with you, where I realized all this millennial optimism that
(14:47):
I had in my young adult life of thinking, if
these girls just gave me your chance, that I would
be the perfect guy for them. Untrue. That is not
true whatsoever. And I now saw it from an entirely
different perspective that I want a recut or a sequel
to this movie that is five hundred Days of Tom
(15:09):
where you see it from Zoe Deschanel's perspective, and you
see the things that he started to see towards the
end of it, where he was only remembering the good
times but forgetting to remember some of those bad times
where she pulls her hand away, where she's not fully
there for him. I would like to see the story
from her perspective of all the things that he did
wrong and mess things up in their relationship, where she
(15:30):
realized that I have these doubts about this guy, that
he is not for me, but If you watch this movie,
it is millennial optimism to its core. I think has
the most millennial needle drop moment out of any movie
I've seen Sweet Disposition by the Temper Trap whenever that
song hits and they're in that train, just that guitar.
(15:53):
That sound alone is such a millennial coded song that
I wish I could play for you on the podcast.
But it's one of those songs, at least to me,
that I didn't know the name of it or even
the band, but I hear it and immediately recognize it
if you're a fan of WWE. It is also the
song that they use for John Cena's Farewell montage. There's
(16:16):
something about the way this song sounds that just makes
you overly emotional. But it's that main character energy syndrome,
the belief that a perfectly curated playlist could change everything
and that destiny would just show up on your doorstep.
That is why I believe this to be the granddaddy
of a mall that represents movies of the millennial optimism era.
(16:40):
Next up on my list, I have the perks of
being a wallflower. What this movie is about. It is
based on a book. It's about a shy high school
student who has this trauma that you learned about. Towards
the end of the movie, he is trying to navigate
that trauma, friendship and his first love with a group
of seniors who make him finally feel seen. Now, this
(17:02):
one is interesting because it's not a happy movie, but
there is a lot of hope in It has a
great cast, a very millennial cast. The main character, Charlie
is played by Logan Luherman, Sam is played by Emma Watson,
and Patrick is played by Ezra Miller. And why I
think this movie represents millennial optimism is because during that
time where you were in your teenage years, your early twenties,
(17:27):
we saw deep feelings as being an aesthetic. And I
remember this time in my life where I thought, man,
I think in a way that nobody else does. I
write poetry, I write short stories. My brain operates on
this philosophical level, and I like characters that represented that.
This movie also represents the belief that friendship could heal everything,
(17:50):
heal that trauma, and I think as a millennial, I
longed for friends like this. Again, I didn't mean for
this to be such a sad episode of me, not
having love or me not having friends. But I think
I watch these movies and a lot of movies to
get things that I was not receiving in life. So
to have a friend like Emma Watson, I was like, man,
(18:11):
I could just that is all I really need. But
that theme was rampant throughout this era of how your
group of friends was going to be the people who
change your life. Your friends are the family that you choose.
And there is one scene specifically I believe represents that,
whenever they're riding in the back of the truck and
(18:34):
the song Heroes plays. I believe the quote is we
are infinite and thinking that feeling would last forever is
a great representation of your young life, where you're doing
things that seem trivial to others but seem so important
to you. Riding in the back of a truck, listening
(18:55):
to music, going through a tunnel, letting go of all
your feel of life and all your worries, and just
living in that moment That is millennial optimism. I had
been chasing that scene from this movie, and that is
why it made me delusional. But the truth is, unfortunately
(19:16):
your trauma can't really be healed through friendships, not even mixtapes,
and not even a pickup ride. That is why I
consider this to be one of the best millennial optimism
movies of all time. Up next, I am going to
go a little bit into the early two thousands, and
I have a great reason why, but it is Garden
(19:37):
State from two thousand and four, which This movie stars
Zach Braff as a medicated, emotionally numb actor who returns
home and forms a connection with Natalie Portman's character, who
is very free spirited, and I think now her character
in this movie gets a lot of criticism of being
the quirky girl. She also has a medical issue that
(20:00):
maybe they made a little bit light of in this movie.
But that one scene where they meet for the first
time in that waiting room, Natalie Portman's character plays the
shins for the first time. New slang I believe is
the song with the headphones that is such a millennial
coded scene. I think the soundtrack all throughout this movie
(20:23):
was a really big deal back when soundtracks could really
make an impact, and I think this movie in particular
influenced a lot of hipsters. I'll put myself in that
category of people who were seeking out indie movies and
indie music. This was a highly influential soundtrack on those
type of people's tastes. But I think it's this manic
(20:45):
Pixie era where your personality could really be driven by
the music that you listen to, and that is why
I associate with this millennial era. So that is why
I decided to include this movie on this list. I
also think, much like with five Hundred Days of Summer,
this movie gave me a skewed sense of what love was.
(21:06):
I look back on this movie and find Zach Brass's
character to be a little bit insufferable, just the way
that he acts in being so emotionally numb and then
forming this relationship with Natalie Portman and then the group
of friends that go to that junkyard to scream while
wearing trash bags. When I first watched this movie, I thought, man,
(21:28):
that's deep. That's such deep scene. I want to take
that picture and put it on my MySpace page and
quote this movie to girls, which might also be their
favorite movie and like me more because I like it too.
So the delusion level is pretty high on this movie.
One quirky girl with a pair of headphones is not
going to change your life and resurrect you and bring
(21:49):
you out of this deep depression that you have. And
one really great indie soundtrack can't influence your entire personality.
So I could see why gen Z would look back
on this movie and think, man, you guys were lame.
Because I think another element of this era was I
(22:10):
feel like everybody who grew up around me had this
dream that we were all going to move to New
York City and start a band, or work at a magazine,
or go be in like sports journalism, or go be
a music video filmmaker. That was a real life dream
that I think we learned from watching movies and being
(22:31):
told that that was the thing that cool people did. Yeah,
I'm going to New York. I got my small little
apartment ready to go. And I think that dream went
away when this era kind of died. I don't know,
does gen Z still have dreams of movie to New
York City and starting your life by burning it down
to the ground and building it all back up again.
I sure hope. So I also wanted to include a
(22:54):
movie that I feel represents how much we like to
party in the twenty tens, and I saw that this
movie is now celebrating its fourteen year anniversary. In twenty twelve,
the movie Project X came out and it brought what
felt like a real life house party to the big screen.
Put together by a group of friends, the movie follows
(23:16):
three teens who just want to throw their friend a
small birthday party, but it turns into total chaos as
more and more people get invited. It gets completely out
of hand. People are wasted, you have the police come,
and you have choppers. It turns into an all out nightmare.
But this movie became a hit at the box office
(23:38):
back in the day and had a really big impact
on party culture because during that time, in the twenty tens,
if you turn on the radio and you listen to
any song on Top forty, it was all talking about
partying and everything had to be for tonight. We're only
going to be young tonight. We gotta live it up.
(23:58):
We got a drink, we got to party. That was
every single song. This movie represented exactly how much and
how seriously we took partying, which during that time, I
did a lot of partying and not partying in the
sense that I would go to a house party like
the ones in Project X. A lot of what I
(24:18):
called partying was just hanging out with my brother and
some of his friends in our apartment, just drinking beer
until we got as drunk as we could get, until
we would not remember things in blackout. That's what we
like to do. We like to party kids. I don't
incurse that. And I think now with gen Z drinking
less and just people drinking less more and more as
(24:39):
of the years go by, where I think about getting
drunk now and think, how did I do that every
single weekend? And I think that is a big reason
why I stopped drinking personally. Wasn't that I had a problem.
And I know that a lot of people who actually
have problems say I don't have a problem, but with
me when it comes to drinking, I cannot have just one.
(25:01):
And I think as I did get a little bit
older and realized that some people could just have a
six pack of beer in their fridge and not have
to immediately drink all of them, I couldn't comprehend that concept.
What do you mean you went to the store and
first of all, you only bought a six pack. Why
would you get a six pack? You can't get drunk
off a six pack? But you're only going to drink
(25:23):
one or two of those and leave the rest in
your fridge to just drink throughout the week. That made
no sense to me. I was of the mindset Friday
night rolled around, we're getting a case minimum A minimum
amount that we would get would be a case, and
we would not stop until that case was gone. And
if that case was gone. At the time, we lived
(25:44):
in an apartment within walking distance of a gas station,
we would walk to the gas station whoever it was
the most sober and just get more beer. Would never
drink and drive. Don't do that, kids, But if you
live close to a gas station, you can just walk in, Bam,
your ref fuel. You're ready to go. But at that time,
it was just a little bit more acceptable just to
(26:05):
go all out and party. And I see that happening
less and less where the new generation is just becoming
a little bit more responsible with alcohol. But if I
go back and look at movies like Project X or
even Neighbors, which is another really great one with Zach
Efron and Dave Franco, that entire era, I will even
(26:28):
throw one of my favorite Christmas movies off is Christmas Party.
All in this era that were centered around big, fun,
stupid parties, and that is millennial optimism, where you can
just go and party your brains out and make light
of heavy drinking, which is something we don't do anymore.
We realize that's a serious problem. But if you watch
(26:50):
these movies from this era, I'll even throw the hangover
in there. It was seen as cool to get that drunk.
But I think if gen Z goes back and watches
some of these movies and think, man, you guys really
had a problem. But again, it's one of those situations
where you just kind of had to be there to
experience that and to be that ridiculous and to be
(27:12):
that care free, and to be that optimistic about the
future where you're not really worrying about your health, which
now I'm like, man, I got to make sure I
get all my vitamins taken on this day, I got
a drinking of water. Throwing an alcohol just throws off
the balance of everything. But back when I had that
millennium optimism just running through my veins without a care
(27:35):
in the world, I didn't care about what I put
in my body. But I think these movies that I've
decided to highlight on this episode are the best ones
that represent that era. I will go through some more
that I wanted to include on the list that I
think you could make a case for easy A from
twenty ten with Emma Stone. She was a high school
(27:57):
student who used a rumor that was being spread about
her to boost her social status and also at times
to profit from it. I think this movie was really
charming and witty and really encompasses what the millennial type
of humor was during that time, which now when I
do look back on some of those ah, which is
(28:19):
hard for me to admit because to me, growing up
in an era with vine, I found those things to
be the funniest six second videos of all time that
I still reference them all the time, and now seeing
people of my generation getting roasted for still referencing vines
that came out back in twenty sixteen, and I see
(28:41):
some of that humor, I'm like, oh man, we did
look a bit ridiculous, But at the time it was hilarious.
It was new and it was current. But I think
me trying to get away from that humor because now
it kind of feels like dad humor a little bit,
even though I don't have kids, I'm like, oh, man,
I feel like every generation goes through this where all
the things you found funny are now lame. So that's
(29:04):
a great movie. Easy a Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist
from two thousand and eight. Again, this movie also has
that main character energy, that love of indie bands wandering
around New York City, a lot of messy feelings, and
that belief that your perfect love is waiting for you
at the next show. Any movie driven by an indie soundtrack,
(29:28):
you could throw it on this list. You also have
movies like The Spectacular Now in twenty thirteen, which I
believe was one of the first Shalen Woodley and Miles
Teller movies that I remember watching watching on a Blu
ray I got from red Box, And this is one
of those movies that I thought, Man, that movie is
so deep. Out of all the movies, it's probably the
(29:48):
most dramatic and most grounded movie on this list. But
I think why I would make a case for it
is I believe it has that millennial sincerity, that feeling
you have when you're young and in love and it
feels like everything you do in that relationship is life altering,
kind of similar to that. I would also include The
Fault in Our Stars from twenty fourteen. I mean, what
(30:09):
gets more millennial than two teenagers who speak in really
profound Tumblr style quotes. I would also include because it
has the music Pitch Perfect from twenty twelve, again rooted
in how friends are your found family. It has the
great singing montages and how music can be your destiny.
I would also include Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, And
(30:33):
finally I would include at Adventureland, which is probably my
favorite Kristen Stewart. Oh, I don't know if it's my
favorite Jesse Eisenberg movie, because I really did like a
Real Pain from a couple of years ago, but up
until that movie. Oh, Social Network is also really good too.
But this movie was all about how a summer job
serves as his emotional wakening. And I think my favorite
(30:56):
part about this movie that I feel is so millennial
optimism coded was that feeling that a parking lot conversation
could change your life. If you've ever had a great
parking lot conversation, go back and watch this movie, because
it's all those feelings you get while having that talk
with your friends. And I go back to this because
(31:16):
when I first moved to Austin, I was in a
band and we would go in practice, and in between
a couple of practices, we would take a break out
in our parking lot, and it felt like those conversations
we had in that parking lot were the best conversations
we ever had, where you just get into it talking
about life, talking about your dreams, thinking of things you
(31:38):
wanted to do, in forming plans. We should we should
make a movie, we should do that. You write this,
you have a great idea, we should do all the
art for it, and you're really great at this. We're
gonna do a lot of big things. We're gonna start
a website. I'll go home tonight and get started. And
sometimes it would lead to things, but sometimes it was
just that thought and that feeling of forming a future
(32:01):
with your friends in that parking lot conversation. It didn't
always have to lead to anything. It was just that
feeling of optimism. It's kind of like when you buy
a lottery ticket and the jackpot is at a billion dollars.
You're probably never going to win that because the odds
are crazy stacked against you, But what is still fun
(32:23):
to do is talk about what you would do if
you won the lottery. Oh, man, I'd buy a new house,
I'd get my parents set up, I'd go on a trip.
I'd be gone for a year. And that is more
fun than it would ever be to actually win that money.
You could argue that, but I think that is what
makes that enjoyable. That is what makes that a form
of entertainment along those same lines a great parking lot conversation.
(32:48):
If you have the delusional glasses of a millennial, it
feels like it could change your life. One summer could
do it. And that is why I feel that Adventureland
does deserve a spot in this. So that is the list.
If you can think of any other movies from this
era that you would want to include the best millennial
optimism movies, let me know. Send me an email Moviemike
(33:12):
d at gmail dot com, or hit me up on
socials at Mike dstro on Everything or YouTube dot com
slash Mike Distro. And I am about to get into
my spoiler free review of The Bride. I actually recorded
it before I went to go see Hoppers. I wish
I would have waited because I now believe Hoppers is
the best Pixar movie of the decade, and I don't
(33:32):
even think that's too crazy of a statement. When you
look at all the Pixar movies that have come out
since twenty twenty, you have Onward Soul, Luca Turning, Red
light Year, Elemental Inside Out, to l Eo, and now Hoppers.
The animation was the best from Pixar since probably Toy
(33:53):
Story four, where they really needed a facelift when it
comes to giving characters that have a whole new, unique profile.
Don't really feel like that twenty tens Pixar style. That's
kind of become a little bit stale. But the animation
was so good. The director is the same person who
created We Bear Bears, so I feel like he has
(34:14):
a really great grasp on how to make a great
animal story. The voice acting is the best, maybe even
going back to the twenty tens, because I felt such
an emotional connection to all of the characters. I can
only say good things about this movie. It is one
of those ones where I felt so emotionally connected to
(34:34):
it from the very beginning. A story about a girl
who loves animals wants to preserve the environment, also dealing
with some grief and loss and trauma and all these things.
I felt so instantly connected to her character within the
first ten minutes, and I knew it was gonna be
a good time from there throughout. I was laughing at
(34:55):
various moments throughout the movie. I think it's a story
that not only kids will learn a lesson from, but
also adults like me who sometimes need to know that man,
not everybody in the world is awful, and sometimes you
just have to believe the good in people. I learned
something from it. In a theater full of mostly kids,
there was also one other couple who didn't have kids
(35:16):
aside from me and Kelsey. So if you went to
see it over the weekend, hope you loved it too.
If you haven't yet and we're on the fence about it,
definitely check out Hoppers. That's a mini review there. I
will come back and get my full spoiler free review
of The Bride. Let's get into it now. A spoiler
(35:38):
free movie review of The Bride, starring Jesse Buckley as
The Bride, Christian Bale as Frankenstein's Monster, directed by Maggie
Jillen Hall. She also has a brother in this Jake
Jillen Hall. I was excited going into it because I
couldn't believe that a movie this strange and bizarre can
exist from a mainstream studio in twenty twenty six. And
(36:01):
by the looks of the trailer, I was like, this
movie is gonna go there. It's gonna be rated art,
there's gonna be a lot of blood and violence. The
Bride of Frankenstein's story told in a way we haven't
seen before. Female focused, big energy going into it, a
lot of strange visuals, incredible makeup and costume design. What
the story is about takes place in the nineteen thirties.
(36:22):
You have a very lonely Frankenstein who has been living
for over one hundred years, just trying to find someone
to hook up with. Basically, he is very just like
I need somebody, So he goes to a mad scientist.
It's this woman who does a lot of experiments in
her basement, and he goes to her and tells her,
give me some money to hook up with I need
(36:43):
a bride. And you have this other story going alongside
of it, where Jesse Buckley's character is probably hanging out
with some shady people. She ends up dying, gets buried,
and at that same time, Frankenstein's monster and this mad
scientist dig her up and bring her back to life,
and bam, you have your bride. Frankenstein, you can finally
(37:05):
do what you've been trying to do your entire life.
And the entire movie is this Bonnie and Clyde styles
story where she goes from being at a place where
she's like, why am I here? What is my purpose?
What was my life like before this? Because she doesn't
really remember, and then you have a lot of murder,
(37:26):
you have possession, you have a radical movement that is
created from her character. Jesse Buckley very much takes control
of this story, and I think that was the most
exciting thing about it. Her performance was top notch, which
I think she is a fantastic actor. I hope she
goes on to win an Academy Award, if not this year,
somewhere throughout her career, she is going to win it
(37:47):
because she is so dynamic on screen. The character of
the Bride itself is really over the top because she
speaks in different dialects and you see almost two characters
living inside of her. That's exactly what you see, and
I now see why Maggie jillen Hall fought so hard
to get Jesse Buckley in this role because they have
(38:08):
worked together in a movie before this. This is only
the second movie that Maggie jillen Hall has directed, and
I can see why she wanted her because it's a
very demanding role. If you are not at the top
of your game, it really would not have worked. Now overall,
I just felt like this movie was holding back. And
(38:31):
while I loved all the visuals, I thought the world
building was really great. These characters, even though they've been
done so many times in film and in TV, it
felt like something different. But I just felt that the
story never really got going. It wasn't until probably forty
minutes in that there was some real action, And I
(38:52):
know it's not supposed to be a full on action movie,
and it was supposed to tell a story about female empowerment,
which I think the message was there, but I really
felt like this movie had its legs cut off, where
it was not committed to being as weird as I
know it should have been. And I know Maggie Jillenhall
said she did have some pushback from Warner Brothers, and
(39:15):
I think she did not make the movie she really
intended to make because of that, and that showed to
me because I just felt time and time again where
this story wanted to move the violence a little bit
harsher tell this story in a way that was a
little bit more brash and jarring to the viewer. It
just felt like it didn't really want to go there,
(39:35):
And me as the viewer, I felt like there was
this corporate energy just behind Maggie Jillenhall, and she's looking
down the camera like, are you sure you want to
put that in the movie? That's a little bit too
hardcore for audiences? How about just scale it back a little,
watered it down just a little because there was never
any tension I felt that the story created. There were
(39:55):
moments where there's some really intense action, some shootouts, bloodshed,
and it just felt like it never really wanted to
go there. And were they telling her that because she
is still a rather untested director, or they telling her
that because she's a female director. I just felt like
I wanted to see the director's cut immediately after watching
(40:16):
The Bride, where I wanted this to be a much
harder r story because I think the subject matter and
the message it was trying to get across needed to
go there, and I didn't think at any point it
went there. So therefore the movie just had this lackluster
feeling where, Okay, you have these cool elements, but it
(40:37):
kind of just felt like a Lady Gaga music video
with a little bit of violence sprinkled in there. I
think if that violence would have been intensified a little
bit more, some of the harsh realities of what the
bride goes through and what the story and the message
here is, and I just felt like it never truly
became its own movie. It just felt like there was
(40:57):
a lot of wasted potential, even though you have these
two incredible performances from Jesse Buckley and Christian Bale, who
together are magic on the screen. I love their dynamic
and their relationship and how messy it is, and how
once they truly feel like monsters, they really settle into
their own. But there was never that moment where I
felt like their characters clicked together. I just felt like
(41:19):
there was way too much dancing. It started to remind
me a bit of Joker one and Joker two, especially
in Joker two, where you have Joker and Harley Quinn
coming together them starting this movement. I felt like it
was a better joker too, but still it didn't really
know who it wanted to be, and that was a
problem for me. It didn't mean to rhyme there, but
(41:42):
it just kind of came out that way where you
have this really dynamic character and you see the movement
that she is creating, but it just feels like it
doesn't really land. But I have to imagine, this was
such a fun movie to make with everybody involved. I mean,
Penelope Cruise in this movie, and I love that nineteen
(42:03):
thirties New York setting where everybody is walking around in
like those old school fancy suits and hats and be like, man,
she I got my Tommy gun. I think all those
elements were really great. And again you have this much
singing and dancing in old school black and white films.
I love the scenes where they go to the movies together.
It just kind of hurts me a little bit that
I didn't end up loving the movie more because I
(42:26):
loved all the ingredients. It kind of felt like if
you go to a vintage store and I find a
jacket that is amazing, It's a good price, and I
want to buy it, but it's like two, maybe three
sizes too big, and you try to make it work,
You're like, Okay, maybe I could layer it up a
little bit. I love this jacket so much. I really
want to buy it. It's such a good deal, but
it just doesn't fit right. And as much as I
(42:48):
like it, as much as I like the material, as
much as I like maybe the logo or the design
and how comfortable it is, it just doesn't feel right.
It doesn't look right. And I can't imagine me putting
that in my closet and feeling like, oh, I made
a good decision here. As much as I want to
make that jacket work because I love it, it just
doesn't work. It doesn't fit right. There's just something off
(43:11):
about it. So for the bride, I'm gonna give it
two point five out of five stitches on the face.
It's time to head down to movie. Mike Traylor Park
Scary Movie six is coming out in theaters this year
on June twelfth, almost twenty six years after the first
(43:32):
movie came out in theaters back on July seven, two thousand.
This movie was mind blowing to me when it first
came out back in the early two thousands, because to me,
this was my introduction to parody movies. I was after
the generation of Airplane and watching this movie totally blew
(43:53):
my mind as a kid, which, by the way, at
nine years old, I should not have been watching any
of the scary movies. And I think it's because they
were so forbidden to me. My parents would have murdered me,
not in a literal sense if they knew I was
watching these movies because they are raunchy, and not just
a little raunchy. I would say arguably the raunchiest, most
(44:16):
famous franchise that there is. All the jokes they even
at that time in the early two thousands, were risky
where you could get away with some of these things.
But even at that time, it pushed the envelope into
my young, dumb mind. I thought, this is the greatest
thing ever. And what made those movies great were the
Wayns brothers because they were only a part of the
(44:38):
first two movies. Sean and Marlon Wayans starred in them.
Their brother, Keenan Ivory Wayams was behind the camera directing
those first two movies, and after that they pieced out,
so between three, four and five they were not involved
in those and now coming back for Scary Movie six.
Even though Keenan Ivory Wayans isn't directing this one, he
(44:59):
is a part of the writing team. And that is
the only real reason why I am excited about Scary
Movie six, because you have that original team back who
really understood the project. Because three, I still found enjoyable.
I had it on DVD, so maybe out of all
the movies, is probably the one I watched the most.
(45:20):
It had Charlie Sheen in it, it was heavily rooted
in a parody of Signs. I take that one for
what it is, but the first two are goaded in
my opinion. But now you have everybody back, Anna Faris,
Regina Hall. I will get into the long list of
all the movies that they are going to parody, but
my big question is is it going to hit the
(45:41):
same because I think the problem now in twenty twenty six,
the way the world is much different is there are
so many avenues of what you can watch. Will this
movie hit the same way because we're not all watching
the same things. So we'll get into talking about that,
but before I do, here is just a little bit
of the Scream six trailer coming out this summer on
(46:04):
June twelfth. My god, he's stand her, not her my pronouns?
Are they them? He's them? We bag there's a serial
killer on the loop two days. Should we hurt? I
really want to, But I'm a Republican now, so I'm
(46:24):
supposed to be racist. Oh girl, I think all white
people are racists. Anyway, can here? Okay? Oh hey there,
we heard tell of the Halloween party. We're here to trains,
play bad music, do some half gay? Why just half gay?
Thing I'm thinking about while watching this trailer is I
am somebody who obviously watches a lot of movies. I
(46:46):
got all the references I have seen, all the movies
that they are doing a parody of. Even the small
little details in there, I'm like, oh, that is from
that movie. They are all movies that I would say
came out in the last three years or so, twenty
twenty two to twenty twenty five. I would say that
is the wheelhouse of movies that they are doing parodies of. Now,
(47:08):
back in the two thousands, when a movie came out,
everybody knew about it. We were all watching the same things.
And the first movie was a big parody of Scream
and The Blair Witch Project and a lot of other
movies that came out in the late nineties. But everybody
knew those references because those movies were massive. And I
(47:29):
think that is why, especially those first two scary movies
work so well, is because we were all in on
the joke, because we all knew what they were making
fun of. But if you start to look at the
long list of movies that they are talking about, even
though a lot of these have had a real big
impact on pop culture, otherwise they wouldn't be doing a
parody of them. I don't know if the average movie
(47:53):
fan who maybe saw the scary movies back in the
day and thought, oh, I want to go see the
new one maybe has kept up from three, four or five.
If they go watch this movie, are they going to
get all the jokes? And does that even matter? Is
it still funny if you don't know what they are
poking fun up? I still think if the writing is
(48:13):
done right, it will still be enjoyable even if you
don't get all the references. Just by the looks of
this trailer, it looks like it's going to be ridiculous
enough that it almost doesn't even matter what they're doing
a parody of. But I'll go through the list now,
because what you heard there in that clip, you heard
some people coming up to the door trying to crash
a party. That is a parody of sinners. Throughout the trailer,
(48:36):
you also see a parody of weapons. You see some
kids running down the street holding their arms out. They
even put the clock at two seventeen. In this trailer,
you see them parody the Substance. You see Ghost Space
pulling out that serum that they use in that movie.
I don't know how many people actually watch The Substance
Terrifier three. I feel like even if you haven't watched
(48:58):
the Terrifier franchise, you know Art the Clown. Maybe you
went to a Party City or Spirit, which I think
Party City is dead by the way. Now, maybe you
went to Spirit for your Halloween costume. You've probably seen
Art the Clown. So again, I don't think you need
to watch all those movies to understand that. But there
is a parody of that in this movie. That is
probably the most disgusting of everything in the trailer. That
(49:20):
is really pushing the boundaries because you have Art the
Clown with this bag of body parts handing them out
to kids. One thing that he hands the kids, I
was like, man, they really went for it. That is
probably the boldest joke I've seen, not only in a
movie in this decade, in the twenty twenties, but to
put that in a trailer. They hand the kids some testicles,
(49:42):
some seber testicles. That is going for it, and I
commend this movie for taking a risk in a world
where I fear nobody wants to make waves, especially when
it comes to comedy, where you can get canceled really
quickly and you don't want to walk that line. But
I think if you go so over the top like
(50:04):
you do in a scary movie, somehow it works because
I think these movies don't really punch down in a
way when making fun of these things. I think they
do it in such a ridiculous fashion that no one
is going to get their feelings hurt. No one should
really be upset, especially the filmmakers of these movies. I
think I would take it more as a badge of
(50:27):
honor if somebody was making fun of the movie I made.
They will also be doing a parody of Nicholas Cage's
Serial Killer from Long legs. Chris Elliott will be playing him,
which Chris Elliott was the guy in Scary Movie two
who had the hand that nobody wanted to touch. They're
doing a parody of Smile Wan and Smile Too. Megan
is the one I knew they were gonna do because
(50:48):
that character kind of already makes fun of itself because
it really leans into the goofiness of that character, especially
with Megan two point zero, so I almost feel like
putting Megan in a Scary Movie six. But again, like Art,
the clown is probably the second, if not the most
memorable new horror character in the last five years. They
(51:09):
did back into the twenty tens and do a get
Out parody Marlon Wayn's character being sunk into an armchair,
just like they did in that movie. You see Anna
Faris's character much like Jamie Lee Curtis and Halloween twenty
eighteen version where she is basically living inside a fortress
hiding herself from Michael Myers, and that is where her
(51:29):
and Regina Hall's character meet back up again. It also
is kind of giving me final destination bloodlines vibes. They
also snuck into parody to a Quiet Place Wednesday When
referencing a character, they call her Tuesday, and it just
looks like Jenna Ortega in a really bad wig. I
think they're also going to do a parody of everything everywhere,
all at once, Friday the thirteenth and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
(51:53):
Obviously everybody knows those movies. And I know I've mentioned
this a lot recently that it is really hard for
me to get excited about a movie that is just
supposed to be fun. And that is exactly what this
movie is. And I don't try to go into every
movie thinking, man, how am I gonna review this? How
am I gonna make all of these notes about it.
I think this is one that I probably won't make
(52:15):
any notes about. I'll just go in enjoy it like
nine year old me. That is the mentality I am
taking into this movie, because nine year old me would
have been like, shut up, dude, this is scary movie. Six.
You need to be excited about this movie. You need
to go be so happy that there is a new
scary movie and just go enjoy it and shut up.
(52:37):
So again, that will be my mentality. They've already moved
up the release date, so hopefully it's a good sign
or maybe they're just trying to get out in a
week that is a little bit less competitive but scary.
Movie six is coming out in theaters on June twelfth,
and that was this week's edition of Movie My Trailer.
Pars D is gonna do it for another episode here
(53:02):
of the podcast, but before I go, I gotta give
my listeners shout out of the week. This week, I'm
shouting out Andrew on X Andrew. I'm gonna try really
hard to say your last name Andrew Motskus. Andrew Motskus,
I think that is how you pronounce it, Andrew. If
I am wrong, please correct me. But I wanted to
(53:23):
shout out your comment on an episode I did a
couple of weeks ago on AI and how it is
going to change Hollywood because after somebody made a movie
that they claim to be a two hundred million dollar
movie in less than a day, and Andrew, you wrote,
not a fan of making an AI movie, but somewhere
I see it being super beneficial. Is for international dubbing.
(53:46):
I always hate English dubs. I feel like it would
be amazing to have the original actor and having it
in any person's own language. Love the show. I think
That is a great idea, Andrew, which I'm not against
using AI as a two I think the same way
we use special effects in green screens. It can be
a tool, but I still think you have to put
(54:07):
the power in the creative, in the humans. They still
need to control it. I will never sign up for
watching a movie that was entirely generated with AI. But
like you said right here, Andrew, that is a great
idea because you could use the original actor's voice and
put it in another language. That would be great because
for me, I always want to see it in that
(54:29):
original actor's voice, in their own language. But that is
the only way we can do it right now. And
there have been instances like Adrian Brody in The Brutalist
where they did use some AI to fix some of
the dialect and fix some of the words that he
maybe mispronounced just a little bit. And they've used AI
to fix that, and there was some controversy over that
because that movie was nominated for Best Picture of How
(54:53):
can you use a guide? Is that all have to
come into the actor. I still believe it can be
a tool as long as there's still a human element
behind it. So thank you Andrew for that comment, Thank
you wherever you are now for listening, Thanks for telling
a friend, for being subscribed here to the podcast, for
watching clips on YouTube, which some videos have popped off
in the last week. A lot of people were upset
(55:13):
with my Screen seven review. That is a very passionate
franchise I have learned in the last week. If you
want to check me out over there, it is YouTube
dot com slash Mike Distro. And until next time, go
out and watch good movies and I will talk to
you here
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today I want to talk
about what I believe to be are the best millennial
optimism movies. I am millennial to my core. We used
to be cool. Now we're seeing this cringe and now
people are hating on the era that we grew up
in and looking back on things that we thought were
(00:21):
so cool at the time. But now we are seen
as being delusional. So we'll look back on that era
and the movies that represented that optimism the best. In
the movie review, I'll be talking about The Brides starring
Jesse Buckley Christian Bale, directed by Maggie Jillen Hall. Didn't
live up to the expectations I set merely based on
(00:41):
the trailer and the making of that movie. And in
the trailer park we got our first look at Scary
Movie six. Can a parody movie like this that was
so cutting edge back in the early two thousands had
a great run? But can a franchise like this still
have life in twenty twenty six. We'll get into that.
Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed.
(01:03):
Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew and now
let's talk movies, movie mics, movie podcast, millennial optimism. What
is it? I didn't realize in the time that I
was living in, which I consider to be the greatest
era to be a young person, the twenty ten. I
(01:25):
think about things like MacBooks and photo albums, where we
would just take a bunch of pictures and dump them
on Facebook. We don't do that anymore. Could you imagine
that the people now who have their feeds so perfectly
curated being disgusted when you would just tag them in
the most unflattering photo. You couldn't get away with that.
But that's what I think about during that time where
(01:46):
we lived a little bit more in the moment, but
we still had that technology that wasn't quite there yet.
I think of the hipster era, which I wonder now
where did all the hipsters go? But I think about
bands like the Lumineers band. By your weekend, you think
about skinny jeans, Tumblr, Pinterest, leggings, under dresses, beanies, the
(02:08):
dudes with really deep v neckx and really cool tattoos,
probably like a pocket watch or a scene from Nature,
an infinity symbol, or maybe a Harry Potter tattoo. This
era was so great to grow up in, and it
is now being seen as cringe by gen Z, which
(02:28):
this happens to every generation. For a while. You're cool
when you're a teenager, when you're in your twenties, and
then you just become old and lame and everybody makes
fun of the things that were once cool to you.
It's gonna happen to gen Z. It's gonna happen to
every generation. It just happens right now that millennials are
seen as being cringe, and recently millennial optimism has really
(02:53):
been called out on TikTok and in the so called
millennial optimism era, I find comfort in everybody else says
we were delusional, because the term is used to describe
a perceived care free mindset that US millennials had in
our young adult years. It was rooted in the fact
that if you worked hard, you would achieve success, which
(03:15):
now I think things have become a little bit more grim.
But I was still in that era where you could
go to college, study something, and be promised a job
within that career once you graduated, depending on what major
you ended up picking. But still that dream was alive
and well. And now a lot of gen z who
(03:36):
went to college, maybe graduated in the COVID era, had
that future ripped away from them a lot of the times.
And now people graduating you maybe have spent all this
time studying computer science and then bam AI comes out
of nowhere and people are telling you you're going to
be replaced by a computer. So I think the reason
(03:57):
we are criticized now for having this millennial optim is
because there is no optimism right now to go around.
But we lived in this era where it felt like
we had this delusional hope. It was slightly ironic. We
had a lower cost of living, technology wasn't advanced as
it was now now. We did grow up with Instagram,
(04:18):
but I also remember a life before having the Internet.
I remember life before having an iPhone. The first smartphone
I got was a BlackBerry, and I thought it was awesome.
But I grew with that technology into my twenties and
very much so into my late twenties and now thirties,
and I go back in that twenty tens era and
(04:38):
that is what I long for, not the nineties, not
the two thousands, And I think I'm the most nostalgic
for the twenty tens. It's because I was an adult.
I had the most freedom, but also had the ability
to have fun and still felt like the entire world
was in front of me and I could conquer it
if I just buckled down, worked as hard as I could,
(04:58):
went and had some fun. Because a lot of that
twenty tens era was about having fun and partying and
how one night could change your entire life. The millennial
optimism era also comes into play when you talk about
love and relationships. And I think growing up in those
late two thousands and early twenty tens, especially for me
(05:21):
as a nerding Mexican dude with a bad complexion four eyes,
had a bit of a weight problem, was an overweight dude.
I was really shy and quiet, and I didn't have
a whole lot of friends. And I promise you we're
going to get to talking about movies here in a second,
but I'm setting the stage here for the millennial era.
If I didn't have a lot of friends, there was
no way I had any girlfriends. And I thought, man,
(05:45):
if I could just get one girl to notice me,
this girl I liked in whatever class in high school,
if she would just notice me and talk to me,
I would be the best boyfriend ever, And getting into
college classes with all these new girls, and thinking, man
if I could just get them to see the real me,
(06:06):
and thinking just one night at a party, one conversation
would change everything, and I would instantly have the love
I was looking for my entire life. But I can
go back and look at that time now and think
how delusional I was. I had nothing to offer, I
had no personable skills. I was a mess, thinking that
(06:29):
all the girls who didn't talk to me were the villain,
but really I was my own villain. So now let's
go back in time to that era, back to a
time where you took those grainy house party pictures. Maybe
you pulled out your Mac, that big, chunky white Mac
that was my first and most favorite computer I ever had.
(06:51):
You took some Apple photo booths selfies. We're talking about
a time where for some reason, there were mustaches on
everything's girls painting them on their fingers, putting it up
to their upper lip, and then taking a photo, coming
up with some witty caption and putting that on their
MySpace or their Facebook. An era that was really unfiltered, unpolished.
(07:12):
But what I found to be really personal and maybe
to kids now and young people, it is one of
those eras where you just had to be there. But
everybody is ridiculous and cringe worthy in their own ways.
All it takes is time to be cringe because back
then we were just posting random pictures to our Instagram,
(07:33):
like a picture of your food on a random Tuesday,
and that would go main feed. You would never do
that today. So let's go back to that time. Now
that you know the aesthetic, you know my depressing past,
and I want to talk about first what I believe
to be the quintessential millennial optimism movie that kicked off
the era, because there are some early two thousands movies
(07:56):
that are still what I believe to be or millennial movies,
but they don't really represent what I think defined this era.
I really think the granddaddy, the first one that really
shaped what it means to have millennial optimism was Juno
in two thousand and seven. I say it's the catalyst
(08:18):
that really spark this era because it is such a
millennial movie to its core, whether it's the soundtrack, the
cast alone, the look and the feel of that movie.
I don't think the plotline directly represents what all these
other millennial optimism movies will because it is about a
girl who gets pregnant on accident decides to give up
(08:40):
that kid to another couple who has been struggling to
have their own kid. But I still think those values
are there, and if you look at what all the
movies we will be talking about on this list, I
feel like this one was highly influential on that era.
But if that is the catalyst, the movie I really
feel is the best representation of the millennial optimism era
(09:04):
that I just rewatched for this episode specifically came out
in two thousand and nine and it is five hundred
Days of Summer. The movie is the story of a
failed relationship from just one perspective through the eyes of Tom,
played by Joseph Gordon Levitt. It is a fantastically shot movie,
(09:25):
and I think when I first watched it back in
two thousand and nine, I was eighteen years old. I
saw this movie and thought, I want that. Even though
it doesn't turn out so great for Joseph Gordon Levitt,
this is the type of relationship I was probably chasing
my entire adult life, and I was looking in all
the wrong places. This movie made me delusional about love.
(09:48):
And I think it's because I did watch it when
I was eighteen that I didn't understand the message of
this movie until I rewatched it as a happily married
man who's gonna be almost to be thirty five this year. Wow. Yeah,
as a thirty four year old, happily married man. When
I first saw this movie back in two thousand and nine,
(10:09):
I saw Zoe Deschanel's character as the villain because the
story is all about how this relationship and why this
relationship didn't work, But it's all from Joseph Gordon Levitt's perspective.
You only get the guy's perspective, and I think that
is unfair because it goes from being amazing to him
being in love, so in love that he walks down
(10:29):
the street, really dances down the street with halland Notes
playing everybody being excited for him. I didn't really know
what that fantasy element of this movie was representing at
the time, but now looking back on it, that is
a perfect representation of how it feels once you find
(10:50):
a relationship that makes you excited to be with that person,
where it feels like everything is clicking, the birds are singing,
the people are dancing, there's music playing in your head,
you instantly just have a smile on your face. And
I love how the movie goes back and forth between
the timeline of when they are together to when they
(11:11):
end up breaking up. You see it go from good,
you see it go from bad. You see the things
that once made zoe Deschanell's character smile to those same
things making her uncomfortable, or making her sad, or not
impressing her anymore. And I think that is a great
depiction of a failed relationship. And I think, to me,
(11:34):
at that time, Zoey Deschanell was the perfect millennial dream girl.
I think every guy like me who was into music
that maybe not all the girls were into at that time,
I was like Tom, in this movie, you also like
the Smiths. Just because we like the same music, we
are destined to be together. Was a thought I had
(11:56):
probably from age thirteen to maybe age twenty four, where
I was so into indie and punk that I thought,
if I ever found a girl who was into this
exact same music, she would be my soulmate. And I
didn't understand at the time how wrong I was about
this movie. Like I said, I thought Zoe Deschanel's character
(12:16):
was the villain, but in that final scene, really in
that third act wherever they've already broken up and Zoe
Deschanel and Joseph Gordon Levitt meet again on the train
after breaking up, even though she told him I don't
really want a relationship. We don't have to put labels
on anything, and he knew that going into the relationship,
(12:37):
but still fell for her so hard and wanted her
to define the relationship, that what we're doing is not
just friends. I have to know what this is. And
when things ended up not working out, they break up
and they run into each other again on that train.
They have this really great time together where he thinks
they're getting back together. He has these expectations when going
(13:00):
to that party that she invites him to, and when
reality sets in and he realizes that, oh, she is
engaged now, and he feels like he just had his
heart ripped out of his chest. I felt that in
that moment. I thought, how could she do that to
Joseph Gordon Levitt? What a villain? And it wasn't until
(13:21):
rewatching it now where she sees him on that park bench. Oh,
it's such a great scene, and I don't know why,
I kind of get emotional watching it now that this
movie really set in with me. I think it's because
I'm happily married now I have found my person, and
I realize now what true love is, and I realize
what it means to find somebody that you know is
(13:43):
the person for you. And it was listening to Zoe
Dechanel's character and now being on her side, realizing she
wasn't the bad person for leaving him, for making him sad,
for making him be a miserable human. He was the
bad guy. Well, I don't know in love in this situation,
are or either of them really the bad guy, because
really he wasn't wrong in wanting more from the relationship,
(14:06):
and she wasn't wrong by telling him I don't really
want this to be anything, but what she said to him,
of I knew I was ready to get married. She
went from not wanting to be in a relationship to
now being somebody's wife. Is because all of the doubts
that she had with him were gone with this new guy.
That hit so hard. You never wanted to be anybody's girlfriend,
(14:27):
and I ad somebody's wife surprised me too. I don't
think I'll ever understand that. I mean, it doesn't make sense.
It just happened, right, But that's what I don't understand
what just happened. I just woke up one day and
I knew, knew what what I was never sure of
with you, where I realized all this millennial optimism that
(14:47):
I had in my young adult life of thinking, if
these girls just gave me your chance, that I would
be the perfect guy for them. Untrue. That is not
true whatsoever. And I now saw it from an entirely
different perspective that I want a recut or a sequel
to this movie that is five hundred Days of Tom
(15:09):
where you see it from Zoe Deschanel's perspective, and you
see the things that he started to see towards the
end of it, where he was only remembering the good
times but forgetting to remember some of those bad times
where she pulls her hand away, where she's not fully
there for him. I would like to see the story
from her perspective of all the things that he did
wrong and mess things up in their relationship, where she
(15:30):
realized that I have these doubts about this guy, that
he is not for me, but If you watch this movie,
it is millennial optimism to its core. I think has
the most millennial needle drop moment out of any movie
I've seen Sweet Disposition by the Temper Trap whenever that
song hits and they're in that train, just that guitar.
(15:53):
That sound alone is such a millennial coded song that
I wish I could play for you on the podcast.
But it's one of those songs, at least to me,
that I didn't know the name of it or even
the band, but I hear it and immediately recognize it
if you're a fan of WWE. It is also the
song that they use for John Cena's Farewell montage. There's
(16:16):
something about the way this song sounds that just makes
you overly emotional. But it's that main character energy syndrome,
the belief that a perfectly curated playlist could change everything
and that destiny would just show up on your doorstep.
That is why I believe this to be the granddaddy
of a mall that represents movies of the millennial optimism era.
(16:40):
Next up on my list, I have the perks of
being a wallflower. What this movie is about. It is
based on a book. It's about a shy high school
student who has this trauma that you learned about. Towards
the end of the movie, he is trying to navigate
that trauma, friendship and his first love with a group
of seniors who make him finally feel seen. Now, this
(17:02):
one is interesting because it's not a happy movie, but
there is a lot of hope in It has a
great cast, a very millennial cast. The main character, Charlie
is played by Logan Luherman, Sam is played by Emma Watson,
and Patrick is played by Ezra Miller. And why I
think this movie represents millennial optimism is because during that
time where you were in your teenage years, your early twenties,
(17:27):
we saw deep feelings as being an aesthetic. And I
remember this time in my life where I thought, man,
I think in a way that nobody else does. I
write poetry, I write short stories. My brain operates on
this philosophical level, and I like characters that represented that.
This movie also represents the belief that friendship could heal everything,
(17:50):
heal that trauma, and I think as a millennial, I
longed for friends like this. Again, I didn't mean for
this to be such a sad episode of me, not
having love or me not having friends. But I think
I watch these movies and a lot of movies to
get things that I was not receiving in life. So
to have a friend like Emma Watson, I was like, man,
(18:11):
I could just that is all I really need. But
that theme was rampant throughout this era of how your
group of friends was going to be the people who
change your life. Your friends are the family that you choose.
And there is one scene specifically I believe represents that,
whenever they're riding in the back of the truck and
(18:34):
the song Heroes plays. I believe the quote is we
are infinite and thinking that feeling would last forever is
a great representation of your young life, where you're doing
things that seem trivial to others but seem so important
to you. Riding in the back of a truck, listening
(18:55):
to music, going through a tunnel, letting go of all
your feel of life and all your worries, and just
living in that moment That is millennial optimism. I had
been chasing that scene from this movie, and that is
why it made me delusional. But the truth is, unfortunately
(19:16):
your trauma can't really be healed through friendships, not even mixtapes,
and not even a pickup ride. That is why I
consider this to be one of the best millennial optimism
movies of all time. Up next, I am going to
go a little bit into the early two thousands, and
I have a great reason why, but it is Garden
(19:37):
State from two thousand and four, which This movie stars
Zach Braff as a medicated, emotionally numb actor who returns
home and forms a connection with Natalie Portman's character, who
is very free spirited, and I think now her character
in this movie gets a lot of criticism of being
the quirky girl. She also has a medical issue that
(20:00):
maybe they made a little bit light of in this movie.
But that one scene where they meet for the first
time in that waiting room, Natalie Portman's character plays the
shins for the first time. New slang I believe is
the song with the headphones that is such a millennial
coded scene. I think the soundtrack all throughout this movie
(20:23):
was a really big deal back when soundtracks could really
make an impact, and I think this movie in particular
influenced a lot of hipsters. I'll put myself in that
category of people who were seeking out indie movies and
indie music. This was a highly influential soundtrack on those
type of people's tastes. But I think it's this manic
(20:45):
Pixie era where your personality could really be driven by
the music that you listen to, and that is why
I associate with this millennial era. So that is why
I decided to include this movie on this list. I
also think, much like with five Hundred Days of Summer,
this movie gave me a skewed sense of what love was.
(21:06):
I look back on this movie and find Zach Brass's
character to be a little bit insufferable, just the way
that he acts in being so emotionally numb and then
forming this relationship with Natalie Portman and then the group
of friends that go to that junkyard to scream while
wearing trash bags. When I first watched this movie, I thought, man,
(21:28):
that's deep. That's such deep scene. I want to take
that picture and put it on my MySpace page and
quote this movie to girls, which might also be their
favorite movie and like me more because I like it too.
So the delusion level is pretty high on this movie.
One quirky girl with a pair of headphones is not
going to change your life and resurrect you and bring
(21:49):
you out of this deep depression that you have. And
one really great indie soundtrack can't influence your entire personality.
So I could see why gen Z would look back
on this movie and think, man, you guys were lame.
Because I think another element of this era was I
(22:10):
feel like everybody who grew up around me had this
dream that we were all going to move to New
York City and start a band, or work at a magazine,
or go be in like sports journalism, or go be
a music video filmmaker. That was a real life dream
that I think we learned from watching movies and being
(22:31):
told that that was the thing that cool people did. Yeah,
I'm going to New York. I got my small little
apartment ready to go. And I think that dream went
away when this era kind of died. I don't know,
does gen Z still have dreams of movie to New
York City and starting your life by burning it down
to the ground and building it all back up again.
I sure hope. So I also wanted to include a
(22:54):
movie that I feel represents how much we like to
party in the twenty tens, and I saw that this
movie is now celebrating its fourteen year anniversary. In twenty twelve,
the movie Project X came out and it brought what
felt like a real life house party to the big screen.
Put together by a group of friends, the movie follows
(23:16):
three teens who just want to throw their friend a
small birthday party, but it turns into total chaos as
more and more people get invited. It gets completely out
of hand. People are wasted, you have the police come,
and you have choppers. It turns into an all out nightmare.
But this movie became a hit at the box office
(23:38):
back in the day and had a really big impact
on party culture because during that time, in the twenty tens,
if you turn on the radio and you listen to
any song on Top forty, it was all talking about
partying and everything had to be for tonight. We're only
going to be young tonight. We gotta live it up.
(23:58):
We got a drink, we got to party. That was
every single song. This movie represented exactly how much and
how seriously we took partying, which during that time, I
did a lot of partying and not partying in the
sense that I would go to a house party like
the ones in Project X. A lot of what I
(24:18):
called partying was just hanging out with my brother and
some of his friends in our apartment, just drinking beer
until we got as drunk as we could get, until
we would not remember things in blackout. That's what we
like to do. We like to party kids. I don't
incurse that. And I think now with gen Z drinking
less and just people drinking less more and more as
(24:39):
of the years go by, where I think about getting
drunk now and think, how did I do that every
single weekend? And I think that is a big reason
why I stopped drinking personally. Wasn't that I had a problem.
And I know that a lot of people who actually
have problems say I don't have a problem, but with
me when it comes to drinking, I cannot have just one.
(25:01):
And I think as I did get a little bit
older and realized that some people could just have a
six pack of beer in their fridge and not have
to immediately drink all of them, I couldn't comprehend that concept.
What do you mean you went to the store and
first of all, you only bought a six pack. Why
would you get a six pack? You can't get drunk
off a six pack? But you're only going to drink
(25:23):
one or two of those and leave the rest in
your fridge to just drink throughout the week. That made
no sense to me. I was of the mindset Friday
night rolled around, we're getting a case minimum A minimum
amount that we would get would be a case, and
we would not stop until that case was gone. And
if that case was gone. At the time, we lived
(25:44):
in an apartment within walking distance of a gas station,
we would walk to the gas station whoever it was
the most sober and just get more beer. Would never
drink and drive. Don't do that, kids, But if you
live close to a gas station, you can just walk in, Bam,
your ref fuel. You're ready to go. But at that time,
it was just a little bit more acceptable just to
(26:05):
go all out and party. And I see that happening
less and less where the new generation is just becoming
a little bit more responsible with alcohol. But if I
go back and look at movies like Project X or
even Neighbors, which is another really great one with Zach
Efron and Dave Franco, that entire era, I will even
(26:28):
throw one of my favorite Christmas movies off is Christmas Party.
All in this era that were centered around big, fun,
stupid parties, and that is millennial optimism, where you can
just go and party your brains out and make light
of heavy drinking, which is something we don't do anymore.
We realize that's a serious problem. But if you watch
(26:50):
these movies from this era, I'll even throw the hangover
in there. It was seen as cool to get that drunk.
But I think if gen Z goes back and watches
some of these movies and think, man, you guys really
had a problem. But again, it's one of those situations
where you just kind of had to be there to
experience that and to be that ridiculous and to be
(27:12):
that care free, and to be that optimistic about the
future where you're not really worrying about your health, which
now I'm like, man, I got to make sure I
get all my vitamins taken on this day, I got
a drinking of water. Throwing an alcohol just throws off
the balance of everything. But back when I had that
millennium optimism just running through my veins without a care
(27:35):
in the world, I didn't care about what I put
in my body. But I think these movies that I've
decided to highlight on this episode are the best ones
that represent that era. I will go through some more
that I wanted to include on the list that I
think you could make a case for easy A from
twenty ten with Emma Stone. She was a high school
(27:57):
student who used a rumor that was being spread about
her to boost her social status and also at times
to profit from it. I think this movie was really
charming and witty and really encompasses what the millennial type
of humor was during that time, which now when I
do look back on some of those ah, which is
(28:19):
hard for me to admit because to me, growing up
in an era with vine, I found those things to
be the funniest six second videos of all time that
I still reference them all the time, and now seeing
people of my generation getting roasted for still referencing vines
that came out back in twenty sixteen, and I see
(28:41):
some of that humor, I'm like, oh man, we did
look a bit ridiculous, But at the time it was hilarious.
It was new and it was current. But I think
me trying to get away from that humor because now
it kind of feels like dad humor a little bit,
even though I don't have kids, I'm like, oh, man,
I feel like every generation goes through this where all
the things you found funny are now lame. So that's
(29:04):
a great movie. Easy a Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist
from two thousand and eight. Again, this movie also has
that main character energy, that love of indie bands wandering
around New York City, a lot of messy feelings, and
that belief that your perfect love is waiting for you
at the next show. Any movie driven by an indie soundtrack,
(29:28):
you could throw it on this list. You also have
movies like The Spectacular Now in twenty thirteen, which I
believe was one of the first Shalen Woodley and Miles
Teller movies that I remember watching watching on a Blu
ray I got from red Box, And this is one
of those movies that I thought, Man, that movie is
so deep. Out of all the movies, it's probably the
(29:48):
most dramatic and most grounded movie on this list. But
I think why I would make a case for it
is I believe it has that millennial sincerity, that feeling
you have when you're young and in love and it
feels like everything you do in that relationship is life altering,
kind of similar to that. I would also include The
Fault in Our Stars from twenty fourteen. I mean, what
(30:09):
gets more millennial than two teenagers who speak in really
profound Tumblr style quotes. I would also include because it
has the music Pitch Perfect from twenty twelve, again rooted
in how friends are your found family. It has the
great singing montages and how music can be your destiny.
I would also include Scott Pilgrim Versus the World, And
(30:33):
finally I would include at Adventureland, which is probably my
favorite Kristen Stewart. Oh, I don't know if it's my
favorite Jesse Eisenberg movie, because I really did like a
Real Pain from a couple of years ago, but up
until that movie. Oh, Social Network is also really good too.
But this movie was all about how a summer job
serves as his emotional wakening. And I think my favorite
(30:56):
part about this movie that I feel is so millennial
optimism coded was that feeling that a parking lot conversation
could change your life. If you've ever had a great
parking lot conversation, go back and watch this movie, because
it's all those feelings you get while having that talk
with your friends. And I go back to this because
(31:16):
when I first moved to Austin, I was in a
band and we would go in practice, and in between
a couple of practices, we would take a break out
in our parking lot, and it felt like those conversations
we had in that parking lot were the best conversations
we ever had, where you just get into it talking
about life, talking about your dreams, thinking of things you
(31:38):
wanted to do, in forming plans. We should we should
make a movie, we should do that. You write this,
you have a great idea, we should do all the
art for it, and you're really great at this. We're
gonna do a lot of big things. We're gonna start
a website. I'll go home tonight and get started. And
sometimes it would lead to things, but sometimes it was
just that thought and that feeling of forming a future
(32:01):
with your friends in that parking lot conversation. It didn't
always have to lead to anything. It was just that
feeling of optimism. It's kind of like when you buy
a lottery ticket and the jackpot is at a billion dollars.
You're probably never going to win that because the odds
are crazy stacked against you, But what is still fun
(32:23):
to do is talk about what you would do if
you won the lottery. Oh, man, I'd buy a new house,
I'd get my parents set up, I'd go on a trip.
I'd be gone for a year. And that is more
fun than it would ever be to actually win that money.
You could argue that, but I think that is what
makes that enjoyable. That is what makes that a form
of entertainment along those same lines a great parking lot conversation.
(32:48):
If you have the delusional glasses of a millennial, it
feels like it could change your life. One summer could
do it. And that is why I feel that Adventureland
does deserve a spot in this. So that is the list.
If you can think of any other movies from this
era that you would want to include the best millennial
optimism movies, let me know. Send me an email Moviemike
(33:12):
d at gmail dot com, or hit me up on
socials at Mike dstro on Everything or YouTube dot com
slash Mike Distro. And I am about to get into
my spoiler free review of The Bride. I actually recorded
it before I went to go see Hoppers. I wish
I would have waited because I now believe Hoppers is
the best Pixar movie of the decade, and I don't
(33:32):
even think that's too crazy of a statement. When you
look at all the Pixar movies that have come out
since twenty twenty, you have Onward Soul, Luca Turning, Red
light Year, Elemental Inside Out, to l Eo, and now Hoppers.
The animation was the best from Pixar since probably Toy
(33:53):
Story four, where they really needed a facelift when it
comes to giving characters that have a whole new, unique profile.
Don't really feel like that twenty tens Pixar style. That's
kind of become a little bit stale. But the animation
was so good. The director is the same person who
created We Bear Bears, so I feel like he has
(34:14):
a really great grasp on how to make a great
animal story. The voice acting is the best, maybe even
going back to the twenty tens, because I felt such
an emotional connection to all of the characters. I can
only say good things about this movie. It is one
of those ones where I felt so emotionally connected to
(34:34):
it from the very beginning. A story about a girl
who loves animals wants to preserve the environment, also dealing
with some grief and loss and trauma and all these things.
I felt so instantly connected to her character within the
first ten minutes, and I knew it was gonna be
a good time from there throughout. I was laughing at
(34:55):
various moments throughout the movie. I think it's a story
that not only kids will learn a lesson from, but
also adults like me who sometimes need to know that man,
not everybody in the world is awful, and sometimes you
just have to believe the good in people. I learned
something from it. In a theater full of mostly kids,
there was also one other couple who didn't have kids
(35:16):
aside from me and Kelsey. So if you went to
see it over the weekend, hope you loved it too.
If you haven't yet and we're on the fence about it,
definitely check out Hoppers. That's a mini review there. I
will come back and get my full spoiler free review
of The Bride. Let's get into it now. A spoiler
(35:38):
free movie review of The Bride, starring Jesse Buckley as
The Bride, Christian Bale as Frankenstein's Monster, directed by Maggie
Jillen Hall. She also has a brother in this Jake
Jillen Hall. I was excited going into it because I
couldn't believe that a movie this strange and bizarre can
exist from a mainstream studio in twenty twenty six. And
(36:01):
by the looks of the trailer, I was like, this
movie is gonna go there. It's gonna be rated art,
there's gonna be a lot of blood and violence. The
Bride of Frankenstein's story told in a way we haven't
seen before. Female focused, big energy going into it, a
lot of strange visuals, incredible makeup and costume design. What
the story is about takes place in the nineteen thirties.
(36:22):
You have a very lonely Frankenstein who has been living
for over one hundred years, just trying to find someone
to hook up with. Basically, he is very just like
I need somebody, So he goes to a mad scientist.
It's this woman who does a lot of experiments in
her basement, and he goes to her and tells her,
give me some money to hook up with I need
(36:43):
a bride. And you have this other story going alongside
of it, where Jesse Buckley's character is probably hanging out
with some shady people. She ends up dying, gets buried,
and at that same time, Frankenstein's monster and this mad
scientist dig her up and bring her back to life,
and bam, you have your bride. Frankenstein, you can finally
(37:05):
do what you've been trying to do your entire life.
And the entire movie is this Bonnie and Clyde styles
story where she goes from being at a place where
she's like, why am I here? What is my purpose?
What was my life like before this? Because she doesn't
really remember, and then you have a lot of murder,
(37:26):
you have possession, you have a radical movement that is
created from her character. Jesse Buckley very much takes control
of this story, and I think that was the most
exciting thing about it. Her performance was top notch, which
I think she is a fantastic actor. I hope she
goes on to win an Academy Award, if not this year,
somewhere throughout her career, she is going to win it
(37:47):
because she is so dynamic on screen. The character of
the Bride itself is really over the top because she
speaks in different dialects and you see almost two characters
living inside of her. That's exactly what you see, and
I now see why Maggie jillen Hall fought so hard
to get Jesse Buckley in this role because they have
(38:08):
worked together in a movie before this. This is only
the second movie that Maggie jillen Hall has directed, and
I can see why she wanted her because it's a
very demanding role. If you are not at the top
of your game, it really would not have worked. Now overall,
I just felt like this movie was holding back. And
(38:31):
while I loved all the visuals, I thought the world
building was really great. These characters, even though they've been
done so many times in film and in TV, it
felt like something different. But I just felt that the
story never really got going. It wasn't until probably forty
minutes in that there was some real action, And I
(38:52):
know it's not supposed to be a full on action movie,
and it was supposed to tell a story about female empowerment,
which I think the message was there, but I really
felt like this movie had its legs cut off, where
it was not committed to being as weird as I
know it should have been. And I know Maggie Jillenhall
said she did have some pushback from Warner Brothers, and
(39:15):
I think she did not make the movie she really
intended to make because of that, and that showed to
me because I just felt time and time again where
this story wanted to move the violence a little bit
harsher tell this story in a way that was a
little bit more brash and jarring to the viewer. It
just felt like it didn't really want to go there,
(39:35):
And me as the viewer, I felt like there was
this corporate energy just behind Maggie Jillenhall, and she's looking
down the camera like, are you sure you want to
put that in the movie? That's a little bit too
hardcore for audiences? How about just scale it back a little,
watered it down just a little because there was never
any tension I felt that the story created. There were
(39:55):
moments where there's some really intense action, some shootouts, bloodshed,
and it just felt like it never really wanted to
go there. And were they telling her that because she
is still a rather untested director, or they telling her
that because she's a female director. I just felt like
I wanted to see the director's cut immediately after watching
(40:16):
The Bride, where I wanted this to be a much
harder r story because I think the subject matter and
the message it was trying to get across needed to
go there, and I didn't think at any point it
went there. So therefore the movie just had this lackluster
feeling where, Okay, you have these cool elements, but it
(40:37):
kind of just felt like a Lady Gaga music video
with a little bit of violence sprinkled in there. I
think if that violence would have been intensified a little
bit more, some of the harsh realities of what the
bride goes through and what the story and the message
here is, and I just felt like it never truly
became its own movie. It just felt like there was
(40:57):
a lot of wasted potential, even though you have these
two incredible performances from Jesse Buckley and Christian Bale, who
together are magic on the screen. I love their dynamic
and their relationship and how messy it is, and how
once they truly feel like monsters, they really settle into
their own. But there was never that moment where I
felt like their characters clicked together. I just felt like
(41:19):
there was way too much dancing. It started to remind
me a bit of Joker one and Joker two, especially
in Joker two, where you have Joker and Harley Quinn
coming together them starting this movement. I felt like it
was a better joker too, but still it didn't really
know who it wanted to be, and that was a
problem for me. It didn't mean to rhyme there, but
(41:42):
it just kind of came out that way where you
have this really dynamic character and you see the movement
that she is creating, but it just feels like it
doesn't really land. But I have to imagine, this was
such a fun movie to make with everybody involved. I mean,
Penelope Cruise in this movie, and I love that nineteen
(42:03):
thirties New York setting where everybody is walking around in
like those old school fancy suits and hats and be like, man,
she I got my Tommy gun. I think all those
elements were really great. And again you have this much
singing and dancing in old school black and white films.
I love the scenes where they go to the movies together.
It just kind of hurts me a little bit that
I didn't end up loving the movie more because I
(42:26):
loved all the ingredients. It kind of felt like if
you go to a vintage store and I find a
jacket that is amazing, It's a good price, and I
want to buy it, but it's like two, maybe three
sizes too big, and you try to make it work,
You're like, Okay, maybe I could layer it up a
little bit. I love this jacket so much. I really
want to buy it. It's such a good deal, but
it just doesn't fit right. And as much as I
(42:48):
like it, as much as I like the material, as
much as I like maybe the logo or the design
and how comfortable it is, it just doesn't feel right.
It doesn't look right. And I can't imagine me putting
that in my closet and feeling like, oh, I made
a good decision here. As much as I want to
make that jacket work because I love it, it just
doesn't work. It doesn't fit right. There's just something off
(43:11):
about it. So for the bride, I'm gonna give it
two point five out of five stitches on the face.
It's time to head down to movie. Mike Traylor Park
Scary Movie six is coming out in theaters this year
on June twelfth, almost twenty six years after the first
(43:32):
movie came out in theaters back on July seven, two thousand.
This movie was mind blowing to me when it first
came out back in the early two thousands, because to me,
this was my introduction to parody movies. I was after
the generation of Airplane and watching this movie totally blew
(43:53):
my mind as a kid, which, by the way, at
nine years old, I should not have been watching any
of the scary movies. And I think it's because they
were so forbidden to me. My parents would have murdered me,
not in a literal sense if they knew I was
watching these movies because they are raunchy, and not just
a little raunchy. I would say arguably the raunchiest, most
(44:16):
famous franchise that there is. All the jokes they even
at that time in the early two thousands, were risky
where you could get away with some of these things.
But even at that time, it pushed the envelope into
my young, dumb mind. I thought, this is the greatest
thing ever. And what made those movies great were the
Wayns brothers because they were only a part of the
(44:38):
first two movies. Sean and Marlon Wayans starred in them.
Their brother, Keenan Ivory Wayams was behind the camera directing
those first two movies, and after that they pieced out,
so between three, four and five they were not involved
in those and now coming back for Scary Movie six.
Even though Keenan Ivory Wayans isn't directing this one, he
(44:59):
is a part of the writing team. And that is
the only real reason why I am excited about Scary
Movie six, because you have that original team back who
really understood the project. Because three, I still found enjoyable.
I had it on DVD, so maybe out of all
the movies, is probably the one I watched the most.
(45:20):
It had Charlie Sheen in it, it was heavily rooted
in a parody of Signs. I take that one for
what it is, but the first two are goaded in
my opinion. But now you have everybody back, Anna Faris,
Regina Hall. I will get into the long list of
all the movies that they are going to parody, but
my big question is is it going to hit the
(45:41):
same because I think the problem now in twenty twenty six,
the way the world is much different is there are
so many avenues of what you can watch. Will this
movie hit the same way because we're not all watching
the same things. So we'll get into talking about that,
but before I do, here is just a little bit
of the Scream six trailer coming out this summer on
(46:04):
June twelfth. My god, he's stand her, not her my pronouns?
Are they them? He's them? We bag there's a serial
killer on the loop two days. Should we hurt? I
really want to, But I'm a Republican now, so I'm
(46:24):
supposed to be racist. Oh girl, I think all white
people are racists. Anyway, can here? Okay? Oh hey there,
we heard tell of the Halloween party. We're here to trains,
play bad music, do some half gay? Why just half gay?
Thing I'm thinking about while watching this trailer is I
am somebody who obviously watches a lot of movies. I
(46:46):
got all the references I have seen, all the movies
that they are doing a parody of. Even the small
little details in there, I'm like, oh, that is from
that movie. They are all movies that I would say
came out in the last three years or so, twenty
twenty two to twenty twenty five. I would say that
is the wheelhouse of movies that they are doing parodies of. Now,
(47:08):
back in the two thousands, when a movie came out,
everybody knew about it. We were all watching the same things.
And the first movie was a big parody of Scream
and The Blair Witch Project and a lot of other
movies that came out in the late nineties. But everybody
knew those references because those movies were massive. And I
(47:29):
think that is why, especially those first two scary movies
work so well, is because we were all in on
the joke, because we all knew what they were making
fun of. But if you start to look at the
long list of movies that they are talking about, even
though a lot of these have had a real big
impact on pop culture, otherwise they wouldn't be doing a
parody of them. I don't know if the average movie
(47:53):
fan who maybe saw the scary movies back in the
day and thought, oh, I want to go see the
new one maybe has kept up from three, four or five.
If they go watch this movie, are they going to
get all the jokes? And does that even matter? Is
it still funny if you don't know what they are
poking fun up? I still think if the writing is
(48:13):
done right, it will still be enjoyable even if you
don't get all the references. Just by the looks of
this trailer, it looks like it's going to be ridiculous
enough that it almost doesn't even matter what they're doing
a parody of. But I'll go through the list now,
because what you heard there in that clip, you heard
some people coming up to the door trying to crash
a party. That is a parody of sinners. Throughout the trailer,
(48:36):
you also see a parody of weapons. You see some
kids running down the street holding their arms out. They
even put the clock at two seventeen. In this trailer,
you see them parody the Substance. You see Ghost Space
pulling out that serum that they use in that movie.
I don't know how many people actually watch The Substance
Terrifier three. I feel like even if you haven't watched
(48:58):
the Terrifier franchise, you know Art the Clown. Maybe you
went to a Party City or Spirit, which I think
Party City is dead by the way. Now, maybe you
went to Spirit for your Halloween costume. You've probably seen
Art the Clown. So again, I don't think you need
to watch all those movies to understand that. But there
is a parody of that in this movie. That is
probably the most disgusting of everything in the trailer. That
(49:20):
is really pushing the boundaries because you have Art the
Clown with this bag of body parts handing them out
to kids. One thing that he hands the kids, I
was like, man, they really went for it. That is
probably the boldest joke I've seen, not only in a
movie in this decade, in the twenty twenties, but to
put that in a trailer. They hand the kids some testicles,
(49:42):
some seber testicles. That is going for it, and I
commend this movie for taking a risk in a world
where I fear nobody wants to make waves, especially when
it comes to comedy, where you can get canceled really
quickly and you don't want to walk that line. But
I think if you go so over the top like
(50:04):
you do in a scary movie, somehow it works because
I think these movies don't really punch down in a
way when making fun of these things. I think they
do it in such a ridiculous fashion that no one
is going to get their feelings hurt. No one should
really be upset, especially the filmmakers of these movies. I
think I would take it more as a badge of
(50:27):
honor if somebody was making fun of the movie I made.
They will also be doing a parody of Nicholas Cage's
Serial Killer from Long legs. Chris Elliott will be playing him,
which Chris Elliott was the guy in Scary Movie two
who had the hand that nobody wanted to touch. They're
doing a parody of Smile Wan and Smile Too. Megan
is the one I knew they were gonna do because
(50:48):
that character kind of already makes fun of itself because
it really leans into the goofiness of that character, especially
with Megan two point zero, so I almost feel like
putting Megan in a Scary Movie six. But again, like Art,
the clown is probably the second, if not the most
memorable new horror character in the last five years. They
(51:09):
did back into the twenty tens and do a get
Out parody Marlon Wayn's character being sunk into an armchair,
just like they did in that movie. You see Anna
Faris's character much like Jamie Lee Curtis and Halloween twenty
eighteen version where she is basically living inside a fortress
hiding herself from Michael Myers, and that is where her
(51:29):
and Regina Hall's character meet back up again. It also
is kind of giving me final destination bloodlines vibes. They
also snuck into parody to a Quiet Place Wednesday When
referencing a character, they call her Tuesday, and it just
looks like Jenna Ortega in a really bad wig. I
think they're also going to do a parody of everything everywhere,
all at once, Friday the thirteenth and Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
(51:53):
Obviously everybody knows those movies. And I know I've mentioned
this a lot recently that it is really hard for
me to get excited about a movie that is just
supposed to be fun. And that is exactly what this
movie is. And I don't try to go into every
movie thinking, man, how am I gonna review this? How
am I gonna make all of these notes about it.
I think this is one that I probably won't make
(52:15):
any notes about. I'll just go in enjoy it like
nine year old me. That is the mentality I am
taking into this movie, because nine year old me would
have been like, shut up, dude, this is scary movie. Six.
You need to be excited about this movie. You need
to go be so happy that there is a new
scary movie and just go enjoy it and shut up.
(52:37):
So again, that will be my mentality. They've already moved
up the release date, so hopefully it's a good sign
or maybe they're just trying to get out in a
week that is a little bit less competitive but scary.
Movie six is coming out in theaters on June twelfth,
and that was this week's edition of Movie My Trailer.
Pars D is gonna do it for another episode here
(53:02):
of the podcast, but before I go, I gotta give
my listeners shout out of the week. This week, I'm
shouting out Andrew on X Andrew. I'm gonna try really
hard to say your last name Andrew Motskus. Andrew Motskus,
I think that is how you pronounce it, Andrew. If
I am wrong, please correct me. But I wanted to
(53:23):
shout out your comment on an episode I did a
couple of weeks ago on AI and how it is
going to change Hollywood because after somebody made a movie
that they claim to be a two hundred million dollar
movie in less than a day, and Andrew, you wrote,
not a fan of making an AI movie, but somewhere
I see it being super beneficial. Is for international dubbing.
(53:46):
I always hate English dubs. I feel like it would
be amazing to have the original actor and having it
in any person's own language. Love the show. I think
That is a great idea, Andrew, which I'm not against
using AI as a two I think the same way
we use special effects in green screens. It can be
a tool, but I still think you have to put
(54:07):
the power in the creative, in the humans. They still
need to control it. I will never sign up for
watching a movie that was entirely generated with AI. But
like you said right here, Andrew, that is a great
idea because you could use the original actor's voice and
put it in another language. That would be great because
for me, I always want to see it in that
(54:29):
original actor's voice, in their own language. But that is
the only way we can do it right now. And
there have been instances like Adrian Brody in The Brutalist
where they did use some AI to fix some of
the dialect and fix some of the words that he
maybe mispronounced just a little bit. And they've used AI
to fix that, and there was some controversy over that
because that movie was nominated for Best Picture of How
(54:53):
can you use a guide? Is that all have to
come into the actor. I still believe it can be
a tool as long as there's still a human element
behind it. So thank you Andrew for that comment, Thank
you wherever you are now for listening, Thanks for telling
a friend, for being subscribed here to the podcast, for
watching clips on YouTube, which some videos have popped off
in the last week. A lot of people were upset
(55:13):
with my Screen seven review. That is a very passionate
franchise I have learned in the last week. If you
want to check me out over there, it is YouTube
dot com slash Mike Distro. And until next time, go
out and watch good movies and I will talk to
you here
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