The Breakdown of Dune Part Two, Spaceman, Rebel Moon, Orion and the Dark, and Remembering Carl Weathers and Norman Jewison

Both Scott and Christopher return this week with reviews for four movies. They look at the reader-requested space opera directed by Zack Snyder in 'Rebel Moon Part One: A Child of Fire'. The space epics continue with the Denis Villeneuve helmed 'Dune Part Two'. Adam Sandler is in space as well in 'Spaceman'. Then we end with another movie that looks towards the stars but this time on earth but still with just as much fantasy in the animated feature, 'Orion and the Dark'. We also pay tribute to the careers of Carl Weathers and Norman Jewison.

Episode Transcript

(00:12):
They're coming to get you, Barbara. They're coming for you, Barbara.
Look that comes one of them.Now, welcome to the latest episode of

(00:32):
the movie Breakdown and the first episodeof twenty twenty four where you're not just
hearing me talk for like a halfhour. No, there's two of us.
I'm not tricking and I'm not gonnajust make up the Scott voice.
I'm Scott to No, like,you're gonna hear the real Scott this week.
That's what's happening. You're also gonnahear the real Christopher Spicer. That's

(00:53):
me and together we're gonna review fourmovies. Get that four movies. One
of them, though, is nota twenty twenty four movie, instead of
a movie that has been hotly requestedby some of our listeners, and they're
gonna get get our thoughts on thatone. And also we're gonna be talking
about the big blockbuster that is DunePart two. We did a whole episode

(01:17):
of the original. This time it'sjust gonna be a segment. And as
well, we're gonna pay tribute finallyto two big stars that passed away several
weeks ago. But that is adirector, Norman Jewison a good Canadian boy,
and of course Carl Weathers. Sowe're gonna be doing all that and
so much more. And I amChristopher Spicer. I just thought I would

(01:42):
throw that pregnant pause in there becauseto see if I was lied to the
listeners. That's right, did heactually show up? Oh, it's called
building suspense before you walk out ontothe apron, folks, that's what you
do. Bring out the pyro techniques. We're here, we're back. It's
twenty Yeah. I was going forthe hot take, and they're wondering if

(02:05):
you're going to jump off the apronand walk away from me. It's this
crazy stuff, folk. But I'veshown up, and we've got some great
films to talk. Well, wegot some films to talk about this week.
We'll let you decide whether it actuallyNo, that's not the point the
podcast. We decide, that's right. The podcast is not. We talk

(02:29):
about movies and then look for youropinions to give you our opinions to the
movie at more apt to what wedo. I know it's been a wall
scop, but it wasn't. Wejust discussed some movie and then we leave
a poll for we would tell usif it was good or not. That's
a different show. Okay, Sorry, how about we give a shout out

(02:53):
to spreaker Prime, who hosts thisprodcast and the podcast is brought to you
by spreaker Prime. You can alsolisten to us. Listen to us through
the spreaker app to support us andas well to find people at spreaker,
So big shout out to them.Before we get into our first film,
and yeah, this year is startingout, I mean, Chris, before

(03:20):
we get into the first film,would you say, we're starting to feel
like we're like post post pandemic,like the wheels are starting to roll more
like normal. Now, that's areally good question, because if you asked
me that sort of a few monthsago, I would say for sure.
But I think because of that crazystrike, there's a little bit almost of

(03:46):
feeling a pandemic again because there's notas many big movies because of all those
delays that would have happened for sixmonths last year. So I say,
yeah, we're sort of feeling Hollywoodget back in its groove. But that
strike kind of like gave me abit of dja vu. Yeah, that's
that's sort of what I'm feeling.It's like we're back, Society's back,

(04:09):
But at the same time, themovie theater isn't as as flush as it
normally is. So it'll be areally really interesting year. But one of
the things I like, because thisis actually something we talked about on the
podcast, was it last year ortwo years ago, one of the positives

(04:29):
of that strike and the fact thatyou've got a bunch of movies that got
pushed to twenty twenty five and maybenot as many big movies this year is
I think it's going to cause likemovie theaters to be a bit more innovative
and lean a bit more in somemovies that they wouldn't normally do. And
so I feel like we'll probably getmore international releases and some pictures that maybe

(04:50):
were originally going to be streaming willgo in theater to kind of fill those
holes. So you have the potentialof some movies in the theater like a
bit more of a diverse slate potentially, because you don't just have that blockbuster
to lead on. Like I've noticed, like at Branford, at least some
more Bollywood pictures have come out inthe last several months, and anime seems

(05:15):
to be coming out a bit moreand then you have something what was it
any anything? But you I thinkit's what it was called, which was
like a romantic comedy actually going outinto theaters and it actually did well.
Yeah, that's the interesting thing isit didn't. It didn't hurt that movie

(05:35):
that it seems to catch on thisrising wave of Sydney Sweeney and it's like
this right place, at the righttime, there was a chance taken on
it, and it did really well, helped her out, help the performance
of Madam webb out, because everyone'slike, what else is this Sydney Sweeney

(05:56):
kid in? But like six sixtythree million dollars is what anyone but you
did? And I never never wouldhave guessed it would do that well,
no meet either and stuff like thatgives me optimism. And I'm sure we'll
talk about that type of stuff muchmore in the future future episodes, indeed,

(06:17):
but for now it's off to verydivisive person when it comes to star
ratings. I mean, our opinionon this person is always pretty much the
same and hasn't changed since we've startedrecording. But we either seem to throw
out a high star rating for thisperson's films or a low star rating,

(06:40):
and there's very, very very littlethat lands in the middle. And I'm
talking about Adam Sandler, and thisis the Netflix film Spaceman, and my
thoughts on Adam Sandler have and are. He is a phenomenal actor who for
some reason does primarily very lazy work. And I even said a few years

(07:06):
ago on the podcast that he islike legitimately one of the best actors in
Hollywood. And I think a lotof people would turn their nose at that,
but when you see him in somethinglike The Meriwitz Stories or Uncut Gems
or Hustle, it's impossible to denythat he is, i'd say, more

(07:32):
at home doing dramatic or dramatic comediesthan he is doing his type of film.
What are your thoughts on that,Chris, Yeah, I agree with
you, and I think I've saidon the show before that he is a
terrific actor that I feel his talentshave not always been acknowledged because of the

(07:56):
pictures that he did for like thirtyyears, that type of movies that he
forever a reason. He seems tothink that his audience wants a certain type
of movie. But it seems likein the last few years, he's doing
that less. So maybe he's realizedhis audience has grown up and they're wanting

(08:16):
something different now because basically his maindemographic would be our age now and so
maybe he's recognizing those type of moviesdon't work. There was a period where
when I saw Happy Madison, Iwould cringe because I'd be like, ah,
that's a Sandler movie, and I'donly be interested if it's like The
Sad Feast or someone else. Butthen last year that all got thrown in

(08:39):
the air because it's Happy Madison producedHustle, which I felt was sort of
that more independent Sandler. Yeah,that was the the movie. Hustle didn't
surprise me. The surprise absolutely camefrom the fact that it was a Happy

(09:00):
Madison production and that's that's what theyhad chose to do, and I loved
it because to me, that youknow, that has me questioning, is
are they going to do different typesof films going forward? Is this some
sort of philosophy change for what theywant to spend their time and money on.
And with Space Man, it's nota Happy Madison production. But to

(09:24):
me, this completely is just anhour and forty seven minute argument of why
I do like Adam Sandler so muchas a talent. I mean, it
is a movie about him in aspaceship. I mean there's a spider in
there. There's a there's a weespider. But otherwise it's him alone in

(09:46):
a spaceship. Paul Dane's the spider, dear listener, Paul Dano is the
spider. More on that in asecond, But it's him in a spaceship.
And movies like this can be very, very tough because it's essentially on
setting one person carrying it. Thereis a spider that wasn't me joking around.

(10:07):
It's a space spider that's voiced byPaul Dano. And before you like
check out and think this is justabsolutely stupid, it plays well in the
context of the film. It allworks. But when you've got something like
that, when you've got something thatis starting to question the viewer of like
is this movie getting a bit tootrippy for me? It comes to the

(10:30):
actor that we can see. Itcomes down to Adam Sandler's performance. Can
he ground this? Can he sellus on this concept? And the answer
here for me is yes, wehave Adam Sandler, who is this astronaut
there is a space phenomenon that hasappeared in our solar system and he has

(10:50):
been sent out to investigate it.And as he goes, we see he's
not in a great emotional state,and we start learning about what his life
is like and what his relationship withhis wife back home, Lenka played by
Kerry Mulligan. We learned that bikeas well, and as the film plays

(11:13):
out, we and it's through hisinteractions with this space fighter that shows up
that was investigating him. It soundsso weird, but it works, people.
It works. It's through this thisthat our main character, Jakob Procosa
Prekoska, has his character arc andit to me, this is a very

(11:37):
successful film because it relies on whatAdam Sandler can do really well. And
in the past, I would have, like with movies like the Merriwitz Stories,
I would have said that a gooddramatic Sandler is someone who can play
off of others. And I wouldhave felt that with Hustle to like in

(12:00):
Hustle and Uncut Gems he does have. He carries a lot of weight himself,
but there's still a lot of emotionthat's coming from secondary characters. With
Spaceman, I think I learned thathe can be the emotional punch of a
movie, like he doesn't actually needto play off people. He delivers everything

(12:22):
really well. This is a Thismovie is sort of a gut check to
some people in bigger Hollywood studios becauseit very much feels like an art house
film. You can tell that it'son a budget, but how everything looks.
Everything looks really good in here.Everything looks phenomenal. And you do

(12:48):
have this spider come aboard the spaceshipthat our main character is on, and
it looks good. It looks likeit's quality. It doesn't feel very very
out of place. The director,Johann Rennick, seems to know, don't

(13:16):
you know you can oh wait,sort the budget was more than I thought
it was. I thought it wasa much smaller budget. It's forty million
dollars. So oh okay, oh, let's disregard a lot of what I
just said, because it doesn't feellike a forty million dollar movie. But
it's that's not a that's not aslight on the film. This is the

(13:37):
sort of film that feels very muchlike an independent art house film. It
it but regardless of the budget,it goes to what I'm saying is it
never looks bad, and even atforty million dollars, there are some very
ambitious outer space sequences near the veryend of the film. The Spider looks
great, and I stand by JohannRennick being a director who's able to look

(14:01):
at it and say, if wecan't do it and pull it off,
well we're not going to do it. Because everything is pulled off well too
many times. This happens all thetime that people don't seem to care.
And I've complained about CGI before andcgu is not the problem. The problem
is when you know you can't pullsomething off properly, but you decide to

(14:26):
do it anyway and it ends uplooking like garbage. Then you have other
movies that are pulling, you know, doing things so much nicer, like
San Andreas. We bring that outone up a lot because they know what
they can accomplish within their budget,within their means, within their capabilities,
and they do it and it enhancesthe story because you feel immersed. You

(14:48):
never feel like you're disconnected at amoment because oh, yeah, I can
tell this is this is a film. This one's done very very competently.
Love the story of it. Theaesthetic is very neat this The story basically
is the Czech Republic? Is itthe Czech Republic or is it checklist of

(15:09):
Slovakia? Chris, I can't recall, but I believe in the movie,
I'm almost sure I heard Czech Republic. Okay, yeah, And but the
the aesthetic of the film is very, very interesting because when you when you
see what the people at the thethe headquarters, the Scientific Astronaut Headquarters,

(15:37):
that's not a word, essentially thecheck equivalent of NASA. Everything, all
the dutton buttons and dials are somethingyou would have seen probably or would feel
reminiscent of, like the moon landingera. A lot of the technology and
here feels that kind of way.But then there's other stuf that is definitely

(16:00):
one modern. So it's this interestingfeel of at times like it's calling upon
something from the past, but atother times definitely forward thinking in the future.
That's what I found during my experiencewatching it. I love the fact

(16:22):
that this wasn't a North American centricor British centric film. I love the
fact that it's centered around the checksand them being the first ones to get
a spacecraft out into this space Anonymaly. I think it's a real good character

(16:42):
story. I think the visuals arereally good. And you know the problem
with this movie, and I'll saythere is a problem with it. The
problem with this film is once itwas done and I started thinking about it,
I started thinking a bit less ofit. However, I'm gonna go
with my three and a half starrating because when I was watching it,

(17:04):
I was sucked in by Adam Sandlerand the bitch we saw of Carrie mulligain
and Paul Dano's voice work. Iwas just absolutely sucked in by that,
and I didn't notice any of myissues until after the film was done.
So I'm going with the three anda half. I really really enjoyed it,

(17:27):
and just more proof of how talentedAdam Sandler is. Yeah, it's
interesting. Adam Sandler is definitely anactor who so keeps on surprising me as
as time goes on. As sortof I pegged him as a certain type

(17:49):
and someone who I felt like,oh, he definitely has a charism in
a charm, but his movies aren'tquite my thing. And then you absolutely
have like Uncut Jam and even waybefore that, Punch Drunk Glove, and
I started being like, oh,no, he actually has some talent.
And then in the last few yearsI really started getting on board with the
idea of that he's probably one ofthe sort of the one of the best

(18:11):
actors who just kind of he hasa reputation that goes against his actual skill.
And then, like I said lastyear, then my views of him
as like a producer even changed andI was like, happy Madson, it
provided a hustle. And then thistime I'm shocked once again because like you
mentioned before, I sort of waslike, Sam, we're a strong depending

(18:36):
who he's with, depending the starthat he's played against. He plays against
a spider in this movie, aspider that I think sometimes was a practical
effect and then other times I thinkwas cgi. I'm sure he played against
an object, but he sure wasn'tplaying off of person. And no,
I mean it's very likely Paul Dano'svoice was done in studio, not recorded

(19:02):
at the moment, like I'm notsure if someone maybe reads something back to
him at the time. But thesimple fact is, like you said,
sailors would do a lot of heavylifting here, and even a year ago,
when I was praising him for ahustle. I wouldn't have said,
well, he's a guy who coulddo sort of a solo effort. He's
a guy who could do a TomHanks castaway type thing, or Robert Redford

(19:26):
and that in that picture where he'shis boat's cos yeah, all is lost,
thank you. So I can rememberthe name of that. But I
would have not said that Sailor isone of those people. I'd say he's
talented, but he's not at thatlevel. And so it is awesome to

(19:47):
constantly be shocked by Ann Saidlor.And here he does have to do a
lot of the heavy lifting. Probablyeighty percent of the movie the movie is
him either by himself or with aspider. There is a few moments where
they go back down on Earth,like he said, with like Kerry Mulligan

(20:10):
and with sort of the space organizationand sort of the things that they need
to solve. But for the mostpart is this man up there who is
battling loneliness. And this picture atits core isn't even really about space travel.
It's basically a love story. It'sa guy sort of wondering with his

(20:33):
career and his ambitions. Did itget in the way of what really matters
to him, who is you know, his pregnant wife back home, Like
is that really did he lose sightof things? And he has that time
up there for reflection, and thereis a bit of this idea of him
trying to reconnect, trying to getback with her, to return with her

(20:57):
again, And so I felt thatpart was really fascinating. I think it
was pretty profound in sort of thatframe of sort of what are the things
that matter in our life? Whatare the things that we really care about?

(21:18):
And they use sort of space andthey use sort of this Essentially he's
going after this interesting kind of purplecloud near Jupiter, and it's this big
scientific discovery, this big idea ofsort of are we going to understand the
questions of the universe? And that'sa thing of how they frame this at

(21:40):
the begin of the movie. Buthim beats isolate up there, him with
his spider friend. He starts questioning, like what does really matter in life?
And I think that's kind of theinteresting thing of how they use that.
And you mentioned the budget, andyeah, forty million seems like a
lot for an independent movie, butwe've talked about on here before about being

(22:03):
less than impressed with movies with onehundred and twenty million dollar budgets, and
so I think still this movie,even with the forty million, it's used
fairly well. It doesn't necessary looklike a big epic, but I think
it uses the effects it needs here. I think sort of that purpleish cloud
does a good job of establishing kindof like a dreamlike feel to the movie,

(22:27):
because you do have a lot ofthe picture you're wondering, is this
spider reel? Is he going crazyup there? Is this a dream?
And so I think sort of theway that they use those visuals of what's
up there by Jupiter were effective becauseit establishes kind of that dream like feel.
I love the cinematography here that isdone by Jacob Hair because I think

(22:53):
it does feel a little bit retro. There's sometimes a bit of a grainy
feel, and I think that workswith some of the set designs. I
beca sometimes I wondered, like itis this in the seventies? The is
this the eighties? Like is thissomething before? But I think that is
a purposeful feel because it is abit of a timelessness. But this is
also a picture sort of you know, he's trapped in space, he's trapped

(23:15):
in time, and so I likedthe use of kind of those more muted
colors to amplify kind of more retrolooking feeling there is sometimes the colors they
use down on Earth are very shadedand there's and I think it's a bit

(23:37):
of a melancholy feel, which againI think fits with sort of the relationship
right now that the Sailor character theMulligan character have at this point of their
life. And so I think allI think they use s of those visual
styles really well. I do wantto make one comment sort of about CGI,
and I think we've talked about thisshow before, is there is definitely

(24:02):
movies that have bad CGI. ButI think both me it's got We want
to get clear that we're rarely criticizingthe CGI artists, especially with things that
have come out in like the fewyears, where a lot of times the
bad CGI has a lot more todo with the studio and then not giving

(24:25):
the CGI people enough time to dotheir best work, and they're being rushed
and they're given these type budgets,and so this is a studio problem.
It is a problem of them.A lot of times I hear too,
where it's sort of they'll shoot something, they're like, oh, we'll fix
it up with CGI, and theyjust throw it to the CGI people and

(24:47):
they're forced to just do so muchheavy lifting to make us scene work or
or there or the ideas keep onchanging, and so I definitely want to
say that when we do criticize that, it definitely has more to do with
sort of the studios and modern conditions, because it is kind of crazy.
I have seen more and more kindof shoddy Seagai in the last few years

(25:11):
in some movies, and then inother movies like what we might mention today,
you see special effects that just blowyour mind, where it's just this
incredible immersion of practical and computer andit's it's amazing. So the technology is
there, it's just the studios thatappreciate the art form more and appreciate the

(25:33):
art form and also have an understandingof what can be accomplished, and you
know, if you know something can'tbe accomplished. My problem is that too
many times it's like, let's let'sdo this establishing shot. Well, it's
going to look like crap because wecan't. It doesn't matter like it just
it honestly feels like there's an itdoesn't matter attitude in some of these films,

(25:56):
like you get, it's very,very frustrating because then you see a
film like this, or just anyof the numerous movies we've seen before,
that know exactly what can be pulledoff, and they stay within that and
they never overstep that. And itfor me, it's that moment of I

(26:22):
can, like, I can seriouslybe sitting there and forget I'm watching a
movie, and then you see somethingso abruptly different from everything else you've seen
visually, and it takes you outof that moment and you remember that you're
just you're sitting on the couch orwherever you are, And so I feel

(26:47):
like I really just want to tipmy hat whenever someone like Johann ren here
know what's be used, knows what'sgoing to work, And I feel like
this very easily could have gone offthe rails and been cartoony, but but

(27:07):
it plays so so well. Ialso need to say that this is adapted
from a book, and I didn'trealize this until this morning, but Channing
Tatum was a producer on it.Well, chan Tatum is definitely one of
those guys that we've praised before asan actor, but he also definitely seems
to have a creative mind and onethat has I think in the last few

(27:30):
years the more going the producer route, and this is definitely a great movie
to kind of attach to her nameto as as a producer. Yeah,
I think the spider here looks great. That could have been very questionable.
It could have been questionable from anarrative approach, like you said, it
could have made this movie seem ridiculousand too silly. But I think the

(27:52):
fact that it parallels is he goingmad? Or is this some type of
trusting discovery? Is this real?Is this fake? I think the movie
blends out really well and so itcompletely works with the story that it wants
to tell. But even special effectwise, I think it sometimes like clearly

(28:12):
there was stuff there that had tobe done through CGI and computer effects,
But there's other times are it kindof seemed practical, like the spiders seemed
to be there. I think alot of the issues sometimes that we have
with creatures is they look like they'vebeen transposed, or they look flat.

(28:33):
This looks like a full bodied beingthat's on this ship. It really does,
and it really especially with the excellentvoice work from Paul Dano in this
it creates a character that it tookme a long time to sort of let
my guard down with the Spider,like a long time, and that I

(28:59):
never would have had that problem ifI didn't believe the Spider at all.
Yeah, And I think that's abig thing to this movie, sort of
with its pacing, and I definitelylove the musical choices done here by Max
Richter. I think the movie doesa good job of, like you're saying
at times because of some of themusical choices, of making it feel eerie

(29:22):
and make you feel like, what'sthe Spider's motives? What's going on here?
There is times where like it's it'sa more of a dramatic picture.
For sure, it is a characterstudy. Like we say, it's about
isolation, it's about loss, it'sabout wonder about your choices, and like
I said, a love story.But I think there is times with the

(29:44):
music and the pacing, it doesfeel almost like could this be a horror
story? Is this a horror movie? Because there is that unsettling feeling,
and I think that works perfectly againwith this idea of feeling trapped and feeling
lost and feeling lonely, and soI think they did a really good job
of effectively kind of using that spiderand how they allowed the story to unfold,

(30:10):
and the use of the kind ofeerie music at times and then the
other times you have the music souplifting and hopeful, and so I think
it's a really nice blend that createsa lot of different emotions in the movie.
Yeah, it's got It's a reallygreat experience. I think from all

(30:30):
aspects of cinematic storytelling, I highlyrecommend it. Chris, what was your
star writing? My star rating isthree stars, And for me, I
think that the biggest strengths is outof Sailor and improving what he can do,

(30:52):
and just the idea that we're sittingwith him so much and you see
this broken man, and I thinkthat is sort of the captivating part.
When you sort of talked about someof your other kind of nippicks that come
after, that's probably sort of whatput me kind of at the three star
level. So maybe how it worksas a kind of a full story,

(31:15):
and maybe sort of how it incorporatessome of the the other characters, and
there just seems to be some subplotsthat kind of seemed to be floating about.
But I do think this is avery worthwhile movie just to be proven
the talents of Adam Saylor alone.If I do have one little tit pick

(31:37):
of his performance, I did feellike his accent disappeared once in a while.
Oh, I think we can saythat. I think we can.
I think we can. We cansay that. Yes, we almost have
a theme this week. It's almosta Space week. It it is his

(31:57):
Space weekend. Well something else.It's space and something else. There's one
movie that's something else. It is, but it's all in the realm of
sort of out of this world.It is. It very much is,
and it fits with the other one. So let's call it Space week on

(32:20):
the movie breakdown. So continue withSpace Week. We're now going to go
to what is definitely the biggest spacemovie, the biggest out of this world
is a hotly anticipated sequel to theDune from a few years ago. We
finally have Dune Part two, amovie that I know several people who went

(32:45):
into the first Dune who were unawarethat it was half of a story.
I know the people that actually evenran read the books, out read the
books so they could be all kindof updated, and went in and we're
kind of disappointed. The first onewas was highly praised and it made Scott
in Mine's Best of the Year list, and I absolutely loved it. But

(33:08):
I would also say in some ways, despite all that praise, there was
a bit of divisiveness because of thefact that it was half a story.
I mean, it ends, andthere was kind of fear even from us
saying I hope this movie makes money, because I'm not gonna like, I'm
gonna like the movie less if wedon't get a second part. Well,
we got our second part. Wegot our Doom Part two. It's now

(33:29):
a full story. And one ofthe things that I think, like,
I would definitely say that to gointo Doom Part two, you should see
the first one, like you probablyshould, But I think Denny Villaneut does
a pretty decent job of crafting anepic picture that if for some reason you

(33:51):
don't want to see the first one, you'll come in here and do fairly
well, at least better than youknow watching that you would watching Doctor Strange
without Wanda Vision like that, Likeyou don't have to watch a whole TV
series at least to understand this one. I think the movie gets enhanced greatly
if you see both. Obviously,I think I recommend you to see the

(34:14):
first one before you see this,or is something you won't quite get,
but I think there is some Ithink some praises be given to denny Ville
Nu and the team here for craftinga picture that largely can get you in
without too much pain. The screenplayhere is by John Spelt, It's and

(34:35):
Denny Ville New. Denny Ville Nowof course is directing it. And Dude
has always been one of those novelsthat's been held up as kind of unfilmable,
and when David Lynch's picture was abig disappointment, it reaffirmed people's thoughts,
and Dennyville New then said hold mybeer and has now proved that no
Dude is filmable. It just hasto be two movies, and each one

(34:57):
of the almost three hours long,but you could tell this story, and
watching Dune now it reminds you howmuch how much that story that was originally
done by Frank Herbert, how influentialit was on the science fiction genre,
and how much it has influenced almostevery great science fiction movie that came after

(35:22):
it, or every science fiction storyafter it. Also, what's really interesting
is we're talking about a novel thatwas written before I was born, and
I'm forty six. Now we're talkingabout something that was way back in the
sixties. And Delli Fild, whodoes a good job of making this picture
feel still relevant today, that's talkingabout today's issues, and I think that

(35:46):
is really fascinating. This is apicture. While I'm watching this, I'm
just thinking, Wow, they don'tmake a lot of blockbusters like this,
Like this is a movie that hasa lot of ideas and that shouldn't be
a shock by anyone that has followeda Villa Neus filmography. This is a

(36:07):
guy who he likes doing big epics, he loves doing great visual movies.
But he always has something to say, and he definitely has something to say
about sort of how does the pastsort of haunt us? How do we
deal with our previous choices, andhow do we deal with these responsibilities that

(36:29):
come into your life. Because rightnow we have Timmy's Selamian. If you
saw the first one, you knowthat the house of a tradees has fallen,
that they were taken, they weretaken down, and so he has
now had to retreat to Aracus alongwith his mother played by Rebecca Ferguson,

(36:51):
Lady Jessica. They have been takendown by the Harkonen and the Aaron as
essentially the Emperor kind of he kindof betrayed them and tricked them. And
so we start this picture now withPaul in this spot where he's lost his

(37:13):
family and he's now been taking onby the freemen. And this is sort
of the interesting part of this picturebecause this is a movie that definitely is
spiritual and looks at sort of someideas of religions. Because the Freeman,
some of the freemen, the morefundamentalist ones, they believe in a chosen

(37:34):
one. They believe in a Messiahwho will come from the outside and lead
them and finally let the Freeman riseup. And so this is a picture
that definitely looks at that idea ofsort of how religion can define people,
how religion can be used as waysto control people. How sometimes when if

(37:57):
you already believe in something, you'remore accepting to the signs, you're more
accepted to the miracles, and howthat could be a way to sort of
manipulate people. Also, what happenswhen you're thrown into a place of being
sort of a leader, especially whenit comes to those religious contexts, what
responsibilities do you have? Obviously thispicture the spice has always been kind of

(38:20):
like that allegory for oil, andso this is also very heavily and the
first one was as well of exploringcolonialism, which is still a thing today,
still obviously a very issue of usingother countries. They're exploring them for
the resources, and that is ofcourse a huge part of this picture of
what they explore on That's why thereis this battle on this planet of Iracus.

(38:44):
The emperor wants to be able touse the spice, so hard Coding
wants to use the spice, andso there's all that political manipulation. And
so I just love the amount ofideas that are packed in this picture.
And maybe there's so many ideas andmaybe they are all executed perfectly, but
just knowing that a big giant adventure, a big giant epic blockbuster is willing

(39:10):
to tackle these ideas, I thinkhe's thrilling and exciting. This is a
director Dennie Villa, who who istotally sort of like with Greta Gerwig last
year with Barbie, which made Barbieso exciting? Was this this big budget
picture that has clearly felt like it'sthe vision of the director rather than the

(39:30):
studio. That's what Dune is.Dune is now the sci fi version of
that. This is Dennie Villa whois telling his story. He is doing
it his way. It just feelsso expertly guided by him and with those
messages he wants to tell. AndI've always been I like that idea,
sort of like is the chosen onealways good? Is the chosen one?

(39:52):
Should they be in this spot?Because here Lady Jessica by Jessica played by
Rebecca Fergus, She's a complicated character. She's not necessarily a full on hero.
She's trying to manipulate things to gether son seen as the leader and
as the messiah, and I thinkthat's really fascinating. And then you have

(40:16):
y Vier Bartum who plays still Gar. He's one of the freemen, and
he he's an interesting character because hesees Paul as the chosen one, and
he sees all the signs happening,but he wants to believe it so hard,
and so he's an interesting character.And I like Paul's arc because there's

(40:37):
someone who at the beginning is questioning, am I this person? Should I
do this? Is this right?Is it right for an outsider to take
over for the Freeman people? Andso I think that Timothy Sauline really does
a great job of being this torturedand conflicting figure. But also he wants

(40:59):
to support his mom, and hewants revenge. There's no doubt about it.
He wants to kill all the hardcodedfor what happened to his dad and
what happened to his house, andso he wants revenge. And so I
like all those aspects and it's fascinatingto see his character grow. But like
I said, he's a complicated character. He's not just a pure hero here,

(41:22):
and I enjoyed the relationship between himis Adeya, who plays Chenny,
And this is where it is differentfrom the book, where Chenny in the
book is very much kind of devotedto Paul. Here, Chenny at first,
she's sort of adverse to him becausehe's an outsider and she's not as
much of a fundamentalist, and soshe's not as connected to him. But

(41:46):
then over time you see sort ofthis authentic relationship build towards them, and
she begins to really fall in lovewith Paul, and I think there is
a good chemistry there. It's abelievable connection between the two. But at

(42:07):
the same time, she's still someonewho does not feel that an outsider should
be the leader. And so thatis a spot where the movie with in
a different direction where you do seethe natural relationship build, and I think
there is a great chemistry there andyou see that love, but she doesn't
necessarily believe in the Messiah part,and so she has this conflicting relationship with

(42:30):
him where she doesn't want to bethe leader role, but she wants to
support and love him, and soI think that is really interesting. Another
thing I want to say about Bartumis he's obviously a character who sort of
helps us enter into the world andunderstand the Freemans. But they do a
good job of him having a littlebit of comic relief and some wit there,
and so that helps kind of makethe movie not just feel all super

(42:53):
serious. But I do think atthe core this picture is sort of about
the conflicted Shandy and Paul relationship,and I think that is really fascinated and
adds sort of a different take onthings, and then of course you've got
the full on villains here. DaveBautista is back as Glassyl Rabin, and

(43:14):
he's interesting this time because last timehe was sort of this cutthroat monster and
he still is, but this timearound you get to see a little bit
of nuance because he starts getting scaredthey start failing to take down the freeman,
and so you see a desperation tohis character. You see a bit
of a panic because he felt likehe was going to be given to this

(43:36):
land and now the baron turns ontohis other nephew. In playing here by
Austin Butler, who was originally thisis feed Ratha, who was played by
Sting, And I will say AustinButler does a stronger performances feed Ratha,
and he is just playing this thingover the top, but I feel this

(44:00):
is a character that needs to beover the top. He is this psychopath.
He is those sort of slick andcharismatic and very intelligent and calculated,
but he plays a guy who isjust heartless, and he plays just a
perfect villain. And so these arethe two chosen ones. He very much

(44:22):
embraces the role of being the futurekind of leader, and Paul, like
I said, he's conflicted, andso there's a good balance between us.
They build to their eventual showdown.Florence Pugh plays the princess here, and
she is from her perspective a bit. The movie starts as heart doing a
bit of narration and such, andshe doesn't do a lot here, but

(44:44):
I mean, it's Florence Pugh,and you do again have so who's a
little bit torn that she wants tosupport her father, but she also is
wondering are these are the things thatwe should do. Christopher Walkett is the
Emperor, and again a character whohe doesn't just play it as kind of
this pure evil character. There isa character who sort of regrets some of

(45:06):
the things he did here, Andso I think you've got some really interesting,
nuanced characters here. Stell and Starsguard his back as the Baron,
and he's just as despicable and slimyand gross as he was in the original.
You've got really great characters here,and like I said, that really
deep story and loss of great symbolismhere that I think makes it relevant today.

(45:30):
We talked a bit about special effectsand sort of sometimes about how this
idea that nowadays there gonna be somespecial effects that really jar you of the
experience. This is the counter tothat special effects sometimes could completely immerse you
into the experience. It can makea movie just you have a decent story

(45:51):
and decent performances, but you haveincredible visuals, incredible world building, and
that's just enough sometimes to draw youin. And this is a masterpiece in
blending CGI with I guessing practical effectsand incredible sets. Everything here feels real,

(46:12):
Everything here feels like it has weight. I have no idea what was
practical and what was CGI, becauseeverything here looks like it exists. The
worms are incredible watching Paul ride theworms, and it is a thrilling moment.
The desert has this beauty to it. I also have to praise the

(46:35):
cinematography here by Greg Fraser, becausewhen you're in when you're sort of in
a racus and you're with the Freeman, the sort of this reds and these
kind and these browns, and theydo a great job of kind of putting
this gritty world. It's got alittle bit of a brightness too. But
then when you go over to thehouse of the Harcodon. It's all these

(47:00):
black and whites, and it's justso sterile, and it just it feels
heartless. Like he uses the cinematographyto really set your feeling of each place,
and the use of the colors herereally caused these different emotions, followed
by some incredible music work by HansZimmer. Wow, I'm praising Hans Zimmer.

(47:23):
What a shock. But you've gottimes where he uses subtle music to
sort of set those tones. Butthere's a just shaking in your face loud
moments, and I think it fitswith sort of the different scenes and stuff.
This is an epic, just acomplete sweeping epic, and it was

(47:45):
just one of the most immersive experiencesI'm watching this. I'm just like,
this is why I go to themovies. This is why I see something
on the big screen. It's gotideas, it's got incredible action. Sequence
is just so meticulously put together andchoreographed, and these big moments. There's

(48:07):
not just mindless explosions. Everything herehas a story. Everything here is motivated
by the characters. Every event leadsto something. And I'm not saying this
is a flawless picture. Like Isaid, not all the ideas hit off
perfectly. But if I want topick a modern template of what I want
out of my blockbusters, it's DunePart two, four stars. And I'm

(48:30):
already saying way back here in March, one of my favorite movies of the
year, and there's there's rumor there'sgonna be a third a third Dune.
Well, well, I should saythere is no stingers here. But this
picture ends it's satisfying, like itfeels like a full movie, but it

(48:51):
ends with like, Okay, thingsare being set up, like like they
are definitely setting the table for thethird chapter here type thing for sure,
but not in a way that youthink like everything gets wrapped up, but
just it's more sort of where charactersare at and there are emotions and how
some certain decisions made. You canexplore that further. I'm all in,

(49:15):
like I'm give you the Dude trilogy, give you more Dendy Villaneu. This
guy's made my favorite movie of theyear, I think twice doing I think
was like the number two slot andI just think he is one of the
most exciting directors going right now.And Timothy's chovle A to Be proves that
he's got sort of depth and hecan really bring a lot to a characters.

(49:37):
And Dya, I thought she wasreally impressive here. I don't like
saying this when I've just seen amovie, because really you should use this
term when it's been given some years. But this is a masterpiece for a
blockbuster. Here's something that's very veryinteresting about it. You know, we

(49:58):
can talk about things like tomato scores, or budget or not budget, a
box office or anything that to tryto put metrics to the quality of a
film, but ultimately, what doesit come down to. And this metric
that I'm gonna throw out to isis like all of them. It's just
allows for discussion. But if youlook at IMDb and the top two hundred

(50:24):
and fifty movies of all time asrated by viewers, you have Shawshank Redemption
at number one, Godfather number two, The Dark Knight number three, Godfather
Part two at number four, Twelve, Angry Man at five, Shindler's List
at six, Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings, Return of
the King at seven, Pulp Fictionat eight, Lord of the I'm going

(50:46):
somewhere with this Lord of the Rings, Fellowship of the Ring at number nine.
At number ten, The Good,Bad, The Ugly at number eleven
of the top user rated movies ofall time, Top of all time,
Doone Part two a number eleven,ahead of movies like Forrest Gump, ahead
of movies like Fight Club Inception.And this isn't to say that that this

(51:09):
is an argument that that Dune Parttwo is better than the movies it's above
on this list, but it's anindicator of how people are viewing it and
appreciating it well. I really feelthat, however you feel about like leaving,

(51:30):
do watch it. You'll least thinkthere's not much like this. I
haven't seen much like this on thebig screen in a really long time.
This is a movie that just feelsso distinct, so confident, so assured.
I feel Dendi Bildo really got hisvision here, and I think that

(51:51):
is what people are responding to.It's the same thing with sort of Barbie
last year. You walk away feelingthis is something that was truly a person's
creative of vision and that's exciting towatch. And the thing is villaneuv.
Dude knows how to make an environmentthat feels like you're walking through it.

(52:12):
One of my favorite parts in BladeRunner from a few years back, was
Ryan Goslin's character exploring because I wasexploring too. He was walking around this
environment and I felt like I wasas well, and Villaneuv can really do
that. The problem now is thisis the downside of Denny Villaneuve. The

(52:37):
problem is that this is twenty twentyfour. So the last movie he did
was twenty twenty one. That's threeyears ago. Before that, the last
movie did was twenty seventeen, sothat's a four year break back. In
the mid twenty tens, he didone every year. Two thousand and fifteen,

(52:58):
Sacario sixteen Arrival, twenty seventeen,Blade Runner Guy was giving us one
a year. Now, what growup? Denny? And I think part
of this probably had to do withsort of strikes and different restrictions that delayed
a bit. But I also thinkthat you want a movie of this quality

(53:24):
and of this visual style, ofthis scope, you need time. And
I'm impressed that the studios didn't rushhim. And maybe that's my concern for
the third one is to me,it's like Dendy ville New needs to have
some time to really make this movieat that epic scale. But how patient

(53:45):
are the studios? How much timewill they allow him? Well, that's
that's the thing, is how strikewhen the iron's hot? Right? And
I guess they answered this question.Maybe who released it? What's the most
patient studio out there? Not theone that released this, that's right.

(54:07):
Oh look it's Warner Brothers. Ohman. We will probably be talking lots
about Warner Brothers this year. Iwould like to say some positives, but
I don't know, other than theyreleased this movie. Do you want to
know something they tax right off thismovie? They didn't, but I bet

(54:31):
you is the zazz thought of it? He probably did. I am curious
of how much faith he had inthis picture because it wasn't done by DC,
because that's done so well for them. Well, even in the video
game front, they just had thisthis this game that they spent a studio

(54:53):
spent nine years working on. Itwas a suicide squad video game and it
was but yeah, and this thing, this thing flopped because it was the
style of game that no one askedfor. And why they do it?
I don't know. Intellectual property?Who knows? But what the game is?

(55:17):
It? It's like a looter shooter. Oh and it was made by
a studio that did like a singleplayer Batman video games that were very,
very highly rated, and so that'swhat people wanted. They wanted a single
player it's by this studio. Theywant that sort of experience and they get

(55:40):
something that is completely different. Andbut it's the the mall is the direction
that Saz wants it to go.So I mean it can't be wrong,
right, Yeah, I may disagreewith some of his approaches to things.
You disagree with this, as Iknow, controversial. How dare I do

(56:06):
such a thing, because I mean, everything is working out so well for
them, it is this is onething before I'll say as well, before
I move on, and we'll talkabout Warner Brothers another time. They actually
okay, So you know this ageof digital libraries, right, we've gotten
comfortable to the idea because there wasthe fear first, like what if I

(56:27):
buy something and then it's no longeravailable. That's not a problem I have
with my hard copies. So I'lljust buy hard copies. And we had
to be one over to this ideaof digital libraries. Yes, well,
at least on on Sony PlayStation.If you had bought and bought certain Warner
Brothers titles and had them in yourlibrary and a few these all I think

(56:51):
like mid mid two thousands Discovery TVshows, But if you had purchased them,
not only were they no longer availablefor purchase, but they got deleted
from your library. Uh. Thisis another word I hate throwing around,

(57:12):
but I don't find that ethical.It's not like it's one thing to no
longer sell it because we got towe we don't want to pay for this
anymore, but to just reach intosomebody's home and take it from them,
like, I know you paid forit, but it's ours back, Like
what is ownership? And if you'redoing that, like it's it's weird that

(57:38):
if I ever make a movie purchaseagain, I'm gonna be looking at the
distributor and saying, is this WarnerBrothers? Because if it is number one,
I don't want to reward their behavior, and number two, I don't
trust that I'm still gonna own thatmovie in six months. Yeah, And
I think it's definitely, like Isaid, it'll be something we talk about

(58:00):
in the future, because I thinkthere is a lot of things in the
last year that you're talking about,sort of the digital downloads, but you
also talked about the tax write offsand so many different things that have happened
the last year that I do thinkthere is a mistrust that's going to happen
between creative folks and from production companies, along with how they kind of view

(58:25):
Water Brothers because of some of thedecisions they're going to trust. Is our
things going to come out? Isit going to come out the way that
I want? And so there issort of a part of me wondering even
how was Deddie build news relationship?Will Will legendary? And will Doom stay
in Warner Brothers? Who knows?That's the question. I mean, the

(58:47):
better the movie performs, the betterspot he is in to negotiate how things
go forward. But still, whenyou've got Saslov running the ship, you
have no idea how things are goingto go. Yeah, And I think
that's one of the big wins fora Dune is the idea that we're looking

(59:09):
at a picture that is doing reallywell in the box office. It definitely
connected with audiences, and my hopeis that what studios get out of it.
But I should stop thinking that studiosget the right message. But the
idea that you look at Dune andyou look at the success of Barbie that
maybe it's time to start allowing somemore director to driven blockbusters. No,

(59:32):
I heard superhero films are the waveof the future, or or superhero adjacent
films are the wave of the future. Right, yeah, what do I
know? And you off to thenext film we're going to talk about today.
Continuing the space theme, This alsocontinues the theme of Netflix picking up

(59:53):
and distributing and airing something that gotrejected by other avenues as in the past.
They look at this blockbuster. Itgot rejected by theaters, but we're
showing it. Look at it gotrejected, so it was made for the
theaters, right right, Oh,hey, look at this space movie.

(01:00:14):
It got rejected by Star Wars.This was this was a movie pitch uh
by Zack Snyder as a Star Warsfilm that got rejected. But that Netflix
stepped in, like we think thatthis is basically they they they got it
because hey we can we can marketthis and market yeah, market it they

(01:00:38):
did in so many ways that Netflixdoes. Uh, let's get Zack Snyder
to do his movie, but let'salter things a bit. Let's get him
to do it a bit differently thanhe wanted to. For No, apparent
reason, just so that in anumber of months you can have a Zack

(01:01:00):
Snyder cut of this movie come out. So like, this isn't a movie
theater situation where having an R ratedmovie means you miss out on viewers.
This is Netflix. Anyone can pressplay on your device. You don't have

(01:01:20):
to do a PG thirteen version.This is why we've talked about how a
lot of teen movies are great forNetflix because the directors can have the stuff
that affects teens and they deal withon a daily in their daily lives,
and they can do so without havingto dodge security at a movie theater.
And by did exactly. There's noreason, there is absolutely zero reason that

(01:01:49):
Netflix told Zack Snyder make this aPG thirteen film other than so that they
could have something else to market.They get stay even longer. And I
mean, if you want to talkabout what feels unauthentic, is everything about

(01:02:13):
how they did this. Nothing aboutwhat Netflix did here felt authentic. It
feels like corporate maneuvering and out ofit. Though Zack Steiner gets to tell
a tale of his and if Iif I didn't know who directed this movie,

(01:02:37):
if I did not know there Icould have bet you every single possession
that I own, because right offthe bat, something happens, like some
sort of space wormhole happens that isoddly shaped and just distractingly sexual, And

(01:03:02):
I think, who's the only personthat they would think of? Visual like
this would be a cool way tostart a movie, but I wouldn't know
for sure that it was Zack Snyder. Right. However, when someone starts
farming and the seeds are dropping tothe ground in slow motion, I can
tell you at that point there isonly one person who would do this kind

(01:03:28):
of bs and that is Zack Snyder. I could have told you so quickly.
Rebel Moon looks alright, like thisis a decent looking film when it's
playing at full speed, and Iguess it looks all right when it's playing
it in slow mo as well.But the problem is, like I'm I

(01:03:52):
don't dislike Zack Snyder. I've enjoyedsome of his films. The problem is
he leans into something way too much, and it's like, what can we
have that looks cool? Oh,it's spaceship entering through a space portal vagina
looks cool? What's the story toit? Doesn't matter what's the story,

(01:04:15):
Why is this? Why are theseseats falling in slow motion? Doesn't matter?
Like you want to talk about badassagriculture. That's what I'm dealing with
you right now. That's what's beenput down on the table. You're gonna
deal with it. And you knowwhat's awesome is, Zack Snyder, we
do be more badass agriculture. Wedo, and we need it in high
budget movies. And what else dowe need in there? We need slow

(01:04:42):
mo and then we need super slowmot's like, let's really emphasize how epic
this scene is by slowing things downeven further. Awesome. My problem with
Zack Snyder is a lot of timeshe is focused too much on what he
views as looking epic, looking cool. I'm using the word epic because I

(01:05:06):
can see him nodding his head onset and being like, epic. That
take was epic, So that's whyI'm using that word. I think there's
certain films like Donna the Dead Ireally liked. I expected to dislike The

(01:05:27):
Watchman and I liked it. Iliked Watchmen. He can tell interesting stories,
but he can also get way toocaught up in trying to just jump
from one scene to the next whatlooks cool without even focusing a bit on
characters, which is a huge partof this film, because this is about

(01:05:49):
a rag tag crew of people whowe can probably tell you their first name.
But that's it. Because as thiscrew is getting assembled, we learn
nothing at all about them, andZack Snyder is never interested in any point

(01:06:10):
in this movie of telling you aboutthese characters. Our main character, Corri
played by Sophia Bottella, what welearned from her, Everything we learned from
her is from asposition dump. Literally, That's that's it. That's how we
learn stuff about her. Is justall exposition dumps. Unless Chris, am

(01:06:32):
I wrong? What did we learnabout her that is not from a giant
dump of words? She farms,you're you're right, and she farms in
slow motions. So that's epic.That's that's the epic, dude, the

(01:06:53):
movie. Zack Snyder shows no interestin, Oh we did learn one other
thing too, What's that? Shecould kill like a tarre army of people
herself, but she can't do ituntil already someone has been harmed and killed.
Oh yeah, yeah, like youlearned that, Oh she could kill

(01:07:18):
that, she could kill this wholearmy herself. Why didn't she do that
the first time? Well, Imean that would it and we'd have questions?
Right, yeah, I guess,so the movie can happen, I
guess so yeah, yeah, soif that movie looks good. Anyways,

(01:07:45):
our story is about Korra. Sheworks on a farm. She's helping some
locals. Uh, space Nazis showup through a space vagina and literal space
Nazis through a literal space vagina.Like, none of this is hyperbole.
This this happened, and they arebad because they're bad, and they attack

(01:08:13):
a village. They want their grain. If you don't give us grain,
we're gonna attack you again. Well, when they say they attack a village,
they beat an old guy up witha stick. We're gonna attack you
if you don't give us grain.How dare they? Korra then decides I'm
gonna go off and recruit people andlike that that's the pitch. She goes
off, like, hey, doyou want to fight the empire now?

(01:08:35):
Not really, They're treating a villagebadly and they want their grain. Count
me in like, who cares?As I'm watching this, who cares?
Why do any of these people actuallycare. I guess they do. But

(01:08:58):
and and once they get recruited tosee them in action with either they're flying,
they're flying, uh, you know, mythical creatures to get out of
slavery. Also not hyperblieve, thatis what happens. Or they're dual wielding
lightsabers to key kills. She lovethe Spider once again, not hyperbole.

(01:09:19):
That's what happens. They they dotheir little thing. You do your fetch
quest to hire this rogue, andthen they're part of your team and we
learn nothing of them, and wehave no idea who these people are.
And if anyone says I'm sick andtired of movies that have that seven minute

(01:09:42):
music montage where the crew is assembled, I'll point my finger and I'll say
this is for you. And youcan tell me if that an entire movie
of that montage is actually worth it, or if it's best just to get
that crew assembled and get on withthe story. I think it's better to
just get on with this story.But I mean, there would have to

(01:10:03):
be a story there in the firstplace. This is a two parter.
This this movie is a two parter. Where is it going? I don't
know. Do I care? No, I don't. I seriously, like
seriously, when the movie was done, it's like, I do not care.
What is the motivation to make me? What's the number one? What's

(01:10:26):
the motivation to make me want towatch the sequel? Well, podcast,
that's the only motivation. What's thelist? You're welcome, that's right,
And what's the motivation to then wantto watch the three hour version of this
movie? Age just zero. I'mnot doing it. I Am absolutely not

(01:10:46):
doing it. I'm not gonna watchthe Snyder cut of this. There is
no real story here. If you'relike, oh, I really want to
see the story that Zack Snyder presentedto Disney a Star Wars movie that they
rejected, well, guess what,there's a good reason it got rejected because
there's not actually a compelling story here. If you want compelling, hey,

(01:11:13):
throw a farm boy on a planet. His relatives get murdered, and he's
got no choice but to do somethingthat he's kind of dreamed of. But
he's got to face the realities ofthe sacrifice involved. And guess what.
All that stuff happened in a movieand it wasn't expository. We got to
see every element of it. Wegot to know that little character and we

(01:11:36):
got to fall in love with him, and we got to meet the princess
that he was saving, and wegot to fall in love with her.
And all this stuff happened on screenin a story that was interesting and gripping
and didn't have a single damn slowmotion scene in it from start to finish.

(01:11:56):
Even the death star blew up inregular time, regular time folk.
Anyways, the movie looked good.It wasn't. I didn't find it horribly
bad. I just didn't find itat all interesting in any way. Zack
Snyder has offended me before with howcrappy things can be. This isn't the

(01:12:18):
case. This is just wasting mytime. Zack Snyder wasted my time this
time. I give the movie twostars because it is competently shot when it's
in real time, when it's notslow like someone's just gotta say, Zachary,
Zachary, When you do the samething every single time, it loses

(01:12:41):
its effect. But apparently no one'sdone that yet. I'm fascinated and like
what he actually did pitch to Lucasfilms, Like was this the actual movie or
did it get changed once he hadNetflix. I am fascinated to think,

(01:13:02):
like, what was he actually tryingto pitch, because yeah, I'm not
really sure what the story here otherthan it's basically a different, less interesting
take on sort of the original StarWars story matched with the Magnificent Seven.

(01:13:24):
And I mean the one different thingthat Zack Snyder did here, which is
what you alluded to, was avery innovative idea of taking the opening sequence
of a picture and turning it intothe entire film. Yeah, which like,
there's no, this is not amovie. This is the opening act

(01:13:47):
and it's you're thinking all the openingact. Okay, so it's like a
ninety minute movie. No, it'swell over two hours, and we are
seeing Put the Team Together. That'sliterally the movie. It should be called
Put the Teams Together Moon. Yeah. It it is that montage that we
get sick and tired of in heistmovies. But I will take every heist

(01:14:10):
movie having that montage over having tosit there and spend this much time seeing
them. And if we even knewwho the team was, Chris, what
can you tell me about any memberof the team, about their personality?
See, that's that's awesome. Thebig issue because someone could counter. Okay,
you're complaining that it's the whole Bludeswill put the team together. But

(01:14:32):
at least then you get to knowthe characters really well, No, you
don't. You do. Somehow youhave this two and a two and a
half hour movie where she's grabbing peopleand I still don't know anything about anybody.
I know a guy was a slavefor reasons, and I guess he's
supposed to be kind of like theintergalactic equivalent, a sort of a stereotype

(01:14:58):
of like a First Nations person becausehe could speak to animals. Uh,
there's a rebel guy who says like, we can't join you, you'll like
ruin our rebellion. Okay, I'lljoin you for reasons. Uh, you've
got a person who like kills aspider lady, which I didn't really understand
what the heck was going on there. There was no set that up.

(01:15:23):
There was there was literally we didn'teven get the exposition of you know,
hey, look this is why theyfound her here, this is why she's
doing this. That's my other question. How did they How do they find
all these people like who like?Because originally she wanted to find the rebellion,
which they get to at the likelater the movie, but then they

(01:15:45):
pick up all these other people alongthe way. Who are these people?
I know, I know, Iknow. Yeah. No, there's no
blot development any of them, andnone of the sequences are even interesting.
And in this movie it keeps stoptalking about how like you must have love

(01:16:10):
and kindness you have to in orderto conquer like that. He's trying to
put it in this different messages tohis normal like do bro message, but
he's saying love. But it's stillthe same movie where they just kill everybody.
Yeah, yeah, it it doesn'tNone of that actually makes a difference

(01:16:30):
to the story. Like there's nopoint in which the hero has to like
hesitate, I'm doing the right thing. I it's I mean the thing.
One of the things that made TheDark Knight such a great film is the
ending, Like, after everything theJoker's done and everything we've learned about Batman

(01:16:50):
and what he's gone through, doI let this guy fall? Do I
let this guy die? Yeah,that's how you weave in a message.
You make it important to the story, you make it important to the hero.
He's actually got confted. He's gotto confront that message. There is

(01:17:10):
never character conflict here, mean,like at an emotional level, there is
conflict here is I have to killa bunch of guys. That's literally all
the conflict is is there's a guywho's against me and I have to kill
him in slow motion. That's yourentire story here. Like at the beginning,
I guess, like when she doesn'tsave the one person that's hert being
conflicted, like do I want togo on this journey? But then the

(01:17:33):
very next scene she saved someone elseand proves that she could have saved him,
and you're like whaw, Like thereis never any part where any character
is conflicted. There's stuff that alsojust doesn't really make sense of how these
guys got here and why they gothere, like at the end where they
basically I guess, like these peoplewho are harboring the rebels and looking after

(01:18:00):
them and protected them, like theyreally screwed them over. Oh god gosh,
did he even keep someone back toprotect them or breathe them along?
If you want to talk about stormtroopershaving bad aim. At the very end
of the movie, when everyone's capturedand someone gets out and one person then

(01:18:24):
goes and like I'll fight you andthen I'm gonna go release you so you
can now fight. Now there's twoof us, and it's like how how
how like Star Wars they had theForce. And also, I mean even
when Luke had the Force and he'she's ruining a desert barbecue with the Force

(01:18:45):
and a lightsaber, there's still,you know, not everyone is shooting at
them all at once. But inthis, like Cora got out, everybody
will shoot at her. But Idon't know, it's it's it looked cool,
And that's my problem. That's that'sthe whole problem I have with some

(01:19:05):
stuff that Zack Snyder does. It'sonly about what looks cool, and everything
will work around that. My problemis slow because he has done this so
often and all he does is theslow motion action sequences and does this visual

(01:19:29):
style. It's not even cool anymore. It's tired. It's it's tedious.
I've seen this a thousand times.There was one scene in this movie where
they were at full speed action.I was like, oh, okay,
that's fresh, that's cool. Okay, we're actually gonna see this in full
action, and then nope, thereit was. Then it went super slow
mo, and it's just like didevery action sequence have to be slow mo,

(01:19:53):
even the one where I thought Igot teased to think it was getting
full action, and I think Ito me, the visual style just seems
very tired. It seems very sortof Zack Snyder is shit his color palette
and his steely colors, and itloses the vibrants and maybe the mistake cares.

(01:20:15):
I've seen Dune, and so Icompare this movie up against Dune,
and it just does not have thatsense of a real world. This seemed
like a movie, and none ofthe character like the aliens look creative.
They look like stuff that I sawfrom like Battlestar Galactica, like a stee
like a sci fi movie. Likethere's no artistry to the character design.

(01:20:41):
They all looked like something I've seenbefore. There was no and I thought
the world building here didn't I didn'treally get it. Like we go to
this little rural farming planet and they'reusing sort of these archaic farming tools like
we're living in space, and Iwas like, okay, but then they
have like sliding doors, like sometimesthey have technology but other times they don't.

(01:21:02):
And so I just I felt likethere was no one who understood world
building here. No one who understood, like I just couldn't be put out
of this movie, and so likeI'm going two and a half. No,
sorry, I'm going one and ahalf here. I'm going one and
a half because one, I'm justtired of all the action here was tedious.

(01:21:23):
It just felt like going through thenumbers of a typical Zack Snyder picture,
and it lacked the world building,like there was no imagination in this
movie, because everything that's in thismovie was taken from something like you mentioned
like you've got the spider from Lordof the Rings and you've got a you've
got a hippogriff from Harry Potter thatthey got a tame and like you've got

(01:21:46):
all these things that were in otherpictures and it's it's magnificent seven. But
just the beginning of the movie,and nobody was saying I want that part.
More of that part, Chris,you can't say any of that.
Because there was a scene I waslike, holy crap, this is actually
kind of brilliant because this is worldbuilding where they walk into a space canteen

(01:22:09):
a full of aliens and I'm like, this is original. This is world
building because we get to see allthese creatures. See, you can't say
that every scene was stolen from something, and you can't say there's no world
building because there's that space canteena scene. My counter to that is I've been

(01:22:30):
finally showing the original Star Wars moviesto Danica, and she likes them,
but those that also be those moviesare fresh in my mind. Yeah.
I mean seriously, how there's homageand then there's just like, oh my
goodness, the three Yeah, andwhen they walk into that space cantina,

(01:22:53):
just I shaking my head like somethingso iconic, and you're just flat out
doing it. This is where Ihate the podcast. Like we're podcasting again.
We're planning doing this weekly and reconnectedand delivering great stuff for our listeners.

(01:23:13):
But I know the listener who requestedthis got the part one. They're
gonna make us do part two,which means I have to return to this
world. Yeah. And the problemis if we want to offer great stuff
to our listeners, we have towatch great stuff, not this, not
this. This is like if yeah, was that Charlie Hundham's actual accent?

(01:23:40):
No? Okay, because because Iwas like if it was? He has
to learn a new one, andif it wasn't, why did he pick
one where he just keeps on alwaysmaking at a question? I know that
really drove me nuts. I didn'tlike his accent. Yeah, uh it
the accent was a choice. Iguess it was a choice by by Snider

(01:24:09):
or or Hunum, I don't know, but it it didn't work. It
was an inconsistent accent. It wasvery inconsistent like his character. Well,
I mean, at least his characterwe understood right right, Well he he,
Well, he has traits that werein other movies and that they got

(01:24:32):
transplanted here. I don't even likeit's kind of part one and I'm not
going to spoil even a movie Igave a start and a half to.
But I don't even really understand whatthe part two is. I I don't
either like and like where you're like, like, oh, well that needs

(01:24:58):
to be answered? Well nothing,not only does nothing need to be answered,
but what changed in the universe fromthe start of this movie to the
end of the movie, Like whatdo you if? Why doesn't part two
just exist? And this doesn't atall? Because what gets accomplished here?
Those are the questions I was askingwhen this movie ended because I I don't

(01:25:24):
have the slightest clue, and Ido like the fact that, like Star
Wars has always made sort of theGalactic Empire kind of allude to being like
nazisque, like sort of eluding itto be something from World War Two,
and Snyder was like, well,I'm gonna do you want better, I'm

(01:25:44):
making literal Nazis Yeah, but likeif you only if you pay close attention,
you'll get it. Wink wink,nudge nudge, Like you're gonna get
it if you if you pay closeattention. This is some over the head,
like really beat you over the headsort of stuff. Yeah, that's

(01:26:06):
basically what this movie is. It'sbeating over the head. It's very much
sort of in your face kind ofvisual style, very Snyder esque, and
the action sequences are very much oneway. This was a huge well,
I can't say disappointment, because disappointmentbees I had to go in with excitement,

(01:26:27):
but I walked away not liking it. No, I didn't either.
It was just a waste of time. Like I said, I felt that
I've been offended by Snyder movies before, like they've offended my intelligence. This
was just a waste of time.This movie was it was just a waste
of time. Yeah, that's thebest way to see it. And I

(01:26:54):
don't even know how you do aSnyder cup for this because I felt like
he didn't leave anything out. Yeah, like, what else do we have
to explore here? I don't know. And yeah, that's all. I'm
done. I'm done talking about thisfilm, and so now I'm going to

(01:27:14):
go to something that's enjoyable and fromsomeone who I really like. Because who
thought in the world that you wouldsee a family movie, an animated family
movie written by Charlie Coffin. Isure didn't, but this is the world
we live in now. Charlie Coffinhas now followed Eli Roth and being sort

(01:27:36):
of one of those type of creatorsthat you don't think would make a children's
movie and then did it made areally good one. This is also directed
by Sean Schrmetz. And we havesaid a few times that one of the
areas where Netflix is strong is doinganimated movies. And I think part of

(01:27:57):
it is because of the amount ofwork that animated movies take, the amount
of time you have to put intothat. I think it's less of maybe
one of those things we'll just greenright and make it content. It's something
where they actually have to have ideasand you have to do some planning and
there has to be some actual qualitycontrol. And so as all of this

(01:28:18):
not called Marmaduke, you usually geta pretty good animated movie, and this
is one. When it ended,I was totally like, this would have
worked great on like the big screen. This would have been a great anime
movie that I would have been veryhappy to bring sort of my daughter to
see. But it stead me andDanka saw it at home and she absolutely

(01:28:40):
was delighted by this movie. Andlike a good animated movie, it's one
that has a great visual style andsense of adventure that is going to appeal
to kids. But it's not afraidto talk about some deeper stuff and to
not speak down to the kid andactually deal with issues. Because what we

(01:29:00):
have here with O'Brien, who's voicedby Jacob Tremblay as a child, this
is a kid that's got a lotof neuroses and is afraid of a lot
of stuff and has a lot ofsocial fears. And so this is I
think really great for kids, especiallycoming out of like a pandemic and sort

(01:29:24):
of this idea where you haven't nestitelyhad as many social interactions. This is
a great story of sort of lookingat how you can have these fears that
completely paralyze you and control you,and that need to be able to sort
of step up and get out ofyour comfort zone and make those steps,

(01:29:45):
and the importance of having like afriend or somebody to help guide you,
someone that you can open up to. And I feel that is sort of
what this movie's exploring, is thatidea of fears and the importance of community
and the importance of people using theirdifferent talents and coming together and making something

(01:30:05):
great. I feel that is what'shappening here because O'Ryan is scared lots of
things, and including a field trip, and including the fear of sitting beside
the girl and he's got a crushon but he also has a fear of
the dark. He is absolutely terrifiedof the dark. That's why he's scared
of the most to the point whereit irritates the dark. He's tired of

(01:30:29):
here to' ry and whine and cryabout him, and he wants to prove
he's not so scary, and sothe literal dark voice by the great Paul
Walter Hauser, who's always fun anddoes some great voice work. Here is
the dark shows up and takes somesort of four A night out and showing
him why the dark is important,why you need the dark with the light,
And it kind of reminds you abit of sort of that inside Out,

(01:30:53):
where the idea where you need thejoy and the sadness, you need
the good and the bad, youneed the things that sort of scare you,
but also you need the things thatuplift you. And I thought Inside
Out was very deep with that ideaof sort of the connection of joy and
sadness working together, and this isone where light and dark are working together.

(01:31:16):
And I think that it's a greatmessage. And I thought when he
took him on that first little trip, it was just some incredible colorful animation
and some great detail and some greatvividness, and there was such sort of
a joy like even though it wasdark, it felt bright and vibrant and
showing this different world that a riotis on. And I thought the voice

(01:31:39):
worked between the two of them asthey grow as friends, I thought was
absolutely fantastic. And then you'll learnabout some of the other characters that exist
at night. You've got Sweet Dreams, whose voice by Angela Bassett, and
you have a sleep by Natassia Demitrio, and you have also unexplained Noises,

(01:32:01):
which is a really fun character sortof because you got to have unexplained noises
at night. And there's also anap Vaccin's doing insomnia that Scott knows that's
the thing that you have at nightas well. And so I enjoyed the
different characters, and this picture sortof uses those characters and you get to
see how they work together and howthey make nighttime work and how they all

(01:32:26):
connect. And I enjoyed that.But it also talks about sort of what
happens when you yearn for something elseyou see the other side, like is
there's something better out there? Andso there is, like any story,
there has to be a conflict,and this conflict here is the idea that
some of the people maybe don't wantto be part of the dark anymore,
maybe the light is better and theydon't necessarily want to be a part of

(01:32:48):
this. And so that is thebig issue that a Ryow needs to stand
up because he realizes, no,you need day, need night and we
need all these people that sort ofcome back together, and that's kind of
the big journey here. And Ithought the animation, every single kind of
thing, be it sleep, beit sweet dreams, was wonderful, embodied

(01:33:09):
sort of what you would picture thatthing. I enjoyed a lot of the
dream sequences. I thought they werereally creative. And I just thought this
was a really heartfelt story with charactersyou relate to and dealing with issues,
and I think a young kid couldconnect to, but also an adult can
connect to. There was a messagethat was good for my daughter, but

(01:33:30):
just as good for me. Thatidea of like gaining a way of your
fears and those things that you areafraid of, well sometimes they can provide
good too, and the importance ofcommunity, the points of friends, and
so I thought all that was reallywell done. I thought the dialogue here
was great. You could see withCharlie Coffin. I thought there was just
a lot of wit and energy,not a lot. It wasn't, you

(01:33:54):
know, like our previous picture justExposition City. It actually felt like it
was character lead stories. It's thingsthat the characters would say while building this
world. And I thought all thatwas a lot of fun. I like
the story elements where sort of there'ssome twists here where it's kind of it's
a fantasy film, but it's alsokind of a story within a story within

(01:34:16):
a story. But how they dothat, it's so Charlie Kaufman like sort
of how Scott's over there. Originallythe other one, he was like,
Oh, well, yep, that'sa Zach Snyder movie. I feel with
this ends, you're like, ohyeah, yep, Charlie Kaffman would have
wrote this. That's something to dowith his imagination, his idea. I
liked all that creativity. I thoughtthis was just a really fun animated picture.

(01:34:40):
I gave it three and a halfstars. So it's so along with
sort of Dune, and then sortof the movies are reviewed a few weeks
ago the Society of Snow those rightnow are sort of what I think are
the must see movies. And soNetflix has a movie that is worth tracking
down. I think it's a greatfamily movie. This one is really good.

(01:35:00):
They've done a great job, likeyou said, with the animated films,
they seem to have a better trackrecord overall. You forgot to mention
The Glorious Duck Duck go Duck,duck goose whatever that movie was called.
That sucked, that was bad,but I goose. Yeah, a movie

(01:35:24):
is so good that I think twoyear old ever halfway through, told me
he's done watching it. Yeah,it was a good film. It is
a good, good movie. ButI mean, other than a few films,
they've been really really good, andones that I didn't expect to enjoy.
I didn't. Why would I expectto enjoy a White Fang movie already.

(01:35:49):
I've already seen White Fang just becauseit's animated. Why do I need
to see it. I really enjoyedit. They've done a great job and
credit needs to be given where creditis due, and it's definitely in the
animated realm. I really really likedA Ryan in the Dark. You mentioned

(01:36:10):
Society of the Snow. A Ryanin the Dark is. I wish it
was as uplifting a Society of theSnow, but it's but it's not.
There's less cannibalism in this one.Yeah, yeah, it's not as joyous
ass that this listen jokes aside.This was a great film. I love
the fact that we get some Charliekaufmanish aspects to this. I kind of

(01:36:36):
feel like I could have gone tofour stars if I felt maybe that every
idea Kaufman was throwing out there workedfully with the story. I think that
some of the stuff that happened atthe end, it's like, no,
I get it, it's not atwist, it's not a you know,
I screwed your brain? Like,I get it. I expected it,

(01:36:59):
But did it did need to happen? Did it work to tell the story?
And I don't know if all thoseline up quite as a as a
big guess, But I just saidmy one nitpick of the movie, which
is minor and kept it from beingfour stars. And we just talked about
a movie where really you had tosearch for things to say that we're positive.

(01:37:24):
So if you think, oh,he's really criticizing this, he's not.
He's not. He's not criticized.He loved it, he loved Was
it sweet dreams that wanted to cluba kid over the head? I think
so? Yeah, I mean there'ssome stuff in here we're just like,
what did I just see? Yeah, there's a fun seats here that you

(01:37:48):
don't see a lot of family movies. That's the thing is this movie is
original and it definitely is another picturewhere it's definitely someone's vision, and so
that is the strength of this picture. I do agree that I think what
made me put a three and ahalf of the four is I do think
at the end, as much asI sort of liked the ideas and it's

(01:38:10):
sort of the importance of storytelling andsuch, I do think the pacing bogs
down a little bit at the end. A picture that was going so smoothly,
it does get a little bit clunkyat the end and you start feeling
that ninety minute run time. Yeah, But otherwise, I mean, this
is a great, great film.I was really curious to find out how

(01:38:31):
it was watching it with a kid, because as an adult just watching it
by myself, I really enjoyed it. I love the color and it really
did remind me of inside Out,and not in a bad way, not
in a way that made me think, oh, this is just thieving it.
It just made me happily remember amovie. And when you're doing something,

(01:38:53):
you know in the realm of whatanother movie did, if you can
make people happily connect those two filmstogether, you've done it right. The
difference between watching the movie with justadults and then watching it with kids is
I think there's a lot more cheering, but you're with kids. Yess he
did it. Oh well the babyis about the same. It does lead.

(01:39:15):
So I watched this with Deak,who really really liked this. And
as I mentioned in our last reviewthat I've been watching Star Wars with Derek.
We've done the first two movies sofar, and she's she's really really
liked them. But I think oneof the great things about sort of watching
these movies you love is how engagedthe kids get and how much they put

(01:39:35):
their emotions. Well they're watching something. Because what I liked in the first
Star Wars watching her is at theend where Hans Solo returns after he Alway
said he was leaving and she andROI asked, like, is he leaveing
for real? He's like, he'snot going to help them. When Han
Solo return it is yeahhoo had shotaway Vader, Danica let out the he

(01:40:00):
gets sheer, looked at me saidI knew he wouldn't leave them, and
just went, yeah, whether theyblow up the Death Star and she was
jumping up and down. It justloves. I just love seeing how much
connected she was and how much itmattered, and how much Han Solo was
a person to her and his returnmattered. And then at least that pace
strikes back spoiler when Vader does hisbig reveal at the end that he's the

(01:40:21):
father. She did turn to meand say, is he telling the truth?
Which I can't believe. I wasable to keep it away from her
because we have so much Star Warsstuff that I thought it got spoiled by
told look ever, like, don'ttell her. I want her to get
shocked with it, And somehow wepulled it off. That's that's awesome to

(01:40:43):
have those experiences and be able toto have that memory, just something else
to attach to the film. Now, when you can show her Rebel Moon,
you'll be able to relive all thosemoments and harness that energy once again
again. And Jill look at meand say, this is parent abuse,

(01:41:04):
child abuse, child child abuse,parent abuse, it's an abuse. Listeners,
we love you, we love youvery much, but stop requestion just
to watch awful movies. Yeah,yeah, but so we we've will at

(01:41:27):
least at least there's a number offilms this week that we did like.
However, yeah, yeah, somethingthat is sad is. We did have
some deaths over the last little while. One of them someone on screen,
one of them someone off screen.And first to talk about the the on
screen personality is Carl Weathers has passedaway. And if if you're like me,

(01:41:54):
this one really really sucked. CarlWeathers, I mean the first I
ever saw him was in Predator.I hadn't seen Rocky before I had seen
Predator. I didn't know who ApolloCreed was. I just knew that he
was dayn. In Predator, hegot his arm shot off. He gave
a handshake to Arnold Schwarzenegger. Thatis like the most bro dude handshake in

(01:42:17):
the history of cinema. And onceagain like that, that's right, like
other times in this podcast, nohyperbole. It is the ultimate dude bro
you know handshake of all cinema alltime. Shul have done in slow motion,
though, yeah, that would havebeen That would have made it better.

(01:42:42):
So he I mean, he wasa very athletic guy. He was
a football player, and you know, was cut out to do roles like
Apollo Creed in Rocky and to bein Predator. However, he also had
a sense of humor and that couldbe seen in movies like Happy Gilmore where
he played Chubbs and you could tellthat Carl Weathers had a real good sense

(01:43:03):
humor about himself. But no,there was no better indicator of what Carl
Weathers was willing to do with CarlWeathers than his time on Arrested Development when
he played Carl Weathers, and everythingwas about getting a deal and giving life
lessons, like how he didn't oncetouch his per diem on a movie set

(01:43:27):
so he could save that money,and how he bought all his cars at
police auctions like that was that wasthe Carl Weathers he was willing to show
the world with this fictional version ofhimself. The guy had such chrismas chrisma
was better than his muscles. Andit is unfortunate that he didn't get in
as many big, big movies ashe was because he had the personality for

(01:43:53):
it. I mean, like hehe really did have the personality and the
chrisma for it. But what hewas in, I mean, he was
just shining star at And So forCarl Weathers passing away, rest in peace,
and thank you so much Carl Weathersfor all the terrific, terrific memories.

(01:44:15):
I feel the Carl Weathers with thepictures I saw, had the attributes
to be a leading man, tobe an action star. He obviously had
the look, and he had thecharisma, and he had the sense of
humor sort of like same thing that'sCus Warzenegger has. And he did take
himself too seriously, and I wonderif he came at a different time,

(01:44:39):
if he would have been able toget more lead roles. He did have
one big lead role, sort ofa star vehicle in Action Jackson, and
I know Action Jackson flopped and itwasn't well quickly received, but part of
me wonders, and I hate tokind of bring this in the podcast,

(01:45:00):
but I wonder in the eighties,if he ended up, if Carl Weathers
was white, if he would havegot more shots in that lead role after
that one flop, because I thinkit's I think the flopping of Action Jackson
is what stopped them giving him more. But the reality is, like most
of the action stars in the eightiesended up being white, and so he

(01:45:21):
was more paid into sort of asupporting role, and with great supporting roles.
Like we mentioned before, it's likePredator, and with Predator like these
are not well developed characters and Predator, But Predator is an amazing movie and
you care about the characters because oftheir charisma and the energy they bring to

(01:45:41):
this. Carl Weather's character is alot of fun. Dylan is a lot
of fun and Predator not because he'snuanced, but because it's Carl Weathers.
He's played this over the top andhe's played a character who sort of has
a lot of energy, and hedoes break nuance to this character. There
is a character that he does havea little bit of where he feels some

(01:46:02):
guilt that he's responsible for the beinghere and not being stuck with this Predator,
and so I think he brings alot to that character. And Apollo
Creed is one of the most charismaticand kind of nuanced villains and kind of
movie history. He's kind of thevillain, but kind of not in the
first Rocky and I think it's CarlReathers that brings that nuance where he's this

(01:46:25):
charismatic, egotistical world champion, butthere is this tender side to him that
gets sort of revealed as Rocky twocomes out. He has to prove himself
and then obviously then they bond asFriends. I think Carl Rethers brings a
lot of depth to the Paulo Creekcharacter, so that he had a really
interesting arc to the point where theydecided to do the Creed movies. And

(01:46:48):
I think that comes from the factthat people have so much affection for the
Paulo Creed character. And I thinkCarl Reathers deserves a lot of respect and
praise for what he brought to ApolloCreed while he brought to obviously Dylan and
like you, it would have beennice if maybe he got some more lead

(01:47:11):
roles, but he nailed it inthe spots he did. I mean,
Happy Gilmore, he Chobbs is areally fun character. He's one of the
most memorable characters from Rested Development.And this is a guy who could bring
a lot and I think he isa lot more. He has a lot
more talent, and he brought alot more to the film industry than maybe

(01:47:33):
his filmography would lead you to believe. He's done more than Shadow Warriors too
Hunt for the Death Merchant. Ican tell you that because everyone just thinks
of that nineteen ninety nine made forTV movie when they think of Carl Weathers,
but He's actually done some really reallygreat roles. Was Hulk Hogan in

(01:47:53):
that? Sounds like something Hulk Hoganshould have been in. Was he Hulk
Hogan? Was it? Yeah?He was? He played Okay, that's
amazing. I was just feeling likeHull Cogan should be in it. I
didn't know that he was because thatsounded like a Hull Cogan movie. Oh
yeah, it really really does,doesn't it. No, No, No,

(01:48:16):
that that's legit. You nailed itas sad as that is that that
was a Hull Hogan movie. Yep, one that we will not review for
the podcast, just so people know. So thank you Carl Weathers. Just
what a what a terrific performer,great chrisma. And I completely agree if

(01:48:39):
if his career came a few decadeslater, I think you would have had
a better shot. Yeah. No, I really do believe. And like
I said, I don't necessarily wantto break all that into it, but
I think it's just the reality.And he was super talented, speaking super
talented. We now have ourselves aCanadian born filmmaker and Norman Jewison, and

(01:49:01):
this is a director who definitely wassort of well those big name directors from
the seventies and the nineties. Sorry, the seventies and the sixties was sort
of his height as a big director, but he definitely continued on after that.
But he is he created some well, even the eighties, I would

(01:49:23):
say he was a big name.He created some pretty massive iconic pictures,
some major pictures when it comes tosort of the realm of drama and musicals
and pictures that really were major tothe zeitgeist. And one of the biggest
ones so was he was Canadian andsort of some of the things I read

(01:49:44):
the idea maybe the naive Canadian whothen went down into the States, into
Tennessee, and I guess some ofthe things he observed, some of the
things that he saw of what washappening down there was part of the inspiration
of doing directing. In the heatof the night and sort of sort of

(01:50:05):
seeing the treatment of some black people, talking to some black people, he
decided to direct Hear of the Night, started City Portre and then of course
an Academy Award winning picture and wasa huge zeitgeist changing movie. Sort of
put his Inny Porter in the uhthe role of sort of the detective but

(01:50:29):
down the Deep South, Andy tryingto solve a murder and him having to
work with a police officer who's aracist, and it's a pretty powerful picture
that I think injures in a lotof ways. And Norman Jewison definitely was
trying to say something with that moviewhile also making sort of a thriller along
with being a picture that sort ofhad something to say, and then he

(01:50:53):
continues to sort of do that.He's one of his most well known musicals,
Filler on the Roof is another onethat definitely is talking about community and
expectations. And then he also hasanother, i would say probably controversial musical
and Jesus Christ Superstar, which wasanother big hit and definitely something that has

(01:51:18):
a few things to say. Andhe also, though did his first share
kind of thrillers, The Thomas CrownAffair, the original one that then did
get remade, kind of shows thathe could also do things in the thriller
realm. He is going to beconsidered also one of those kind of directors
who are an actor's director. Heis famous for bringing great performances out of

(01:51:41):
people, and I think the bestexample of that is Moonstruck, because Moonstruck
made people look wow. Share canact and SHARE's really talented and she got
several rules after sort of Moonstruck.Moodstruck was sort of a big moment in
Share be recognized. And I thinkyou got to give some of that credit
to Norman Jewison that sometimes one ofthose actors, one of those were the

(01:52:04):
ones to start out in acting.You really want to find that director that's
going to help you hone your craft, and he did that with Moonstruck,
which also has Nicholas Cage and startedthis quirky drama and a pretty memorable movie
from the nineteen eighties, definitely onethat's worth chasing down. And so Norman
Jewison to me, like, you'vegot a guy. He's done musicals,

(01:52:26):
he's done thrillers, he's done dramas. Obviously, that idea of sort of
the sort of the outsider in equityis something that he continued to care about.
He did The Hurricane in nineteen ninetynine, a movie I remember seeing
the theater that I really enjoyed about, that famous trial the boxer who was

(01:52:46):
wrongfully arrested. And so he's gota massive slate of pictures. He's also
delved into sort of the realm ofwar with a Soldier Story, which is
another acclaimed picture, and also inJustice for All which is a picture that

(01:53:06):
sort of deals with kind of societyagain and expectations. And we actually reviewed
that movie way way back in ourfirst year starring al Pacino, which we
really enjoyed it. I think weboth gave it three and a half if
I remember way back at twenty thirteen. But Normath Judson has quite a filmography

(01:53:26):
and had a lot to say,and like I said, brought out some
great performances and people did a lotfor Chair's career, and he's Canadian,
so we had to talk about himon this show. What a heck of
her career that he had numerous nominations, I think five nominations for Best Director.

(01:53:50):
It's really remarkable because you know,just when he as a Canadian.
I don't think we take enough pridesometimes in in who we export into Hollywood,
because for the longest while I didnot know that he was Canadian.

(01:54:15):
I didn't know that the director ofFiddler on the Roof was Canadian, and
the heat in the heat of thenight, I had no clue. Turns
out he was. And you know, that's that's too bad. I think
we need more more pride he was. He was somebody that definitely want a
champion Canadian artists. Was it wasthe Canadian Film Institute. What did he

(01:54:42):
set up, Chris, Uh,Yeah, he was that what's called Yes,
he's set up something like that.Yes, yeah, sorry to you
listening, I I got the namewrong. He did set up something vote

(01:55:03):
in Canada for Canadian talent. Hewas somebody who had a very lengthy career
and talk about diverse types of filmsas well, really really impressive stuff.
And yeah, I think his Canadianswe need to be more proud of our

(01:55:25):
homegrown talent. Also on that topic, Eugene Levy just got a star on
the Walk of Fame, so Imay as well add that. Yes,
and definitely well deserved for Utube Levyand yeah, Norwich Judson is definitely someone
who was always aware of, butnot necessarily as Canadian, just because he's
one of those directors who he kindof made it big, really big,

(01:55:48):
like really quickly. He made itbig very quickly, and so he ended
up basically directing for big studios formost of his career, like big American
studios, and so it's not sortof like a David Cronin where he sort
of did stop for the big studios, but that he did Canadian movies,
so you're a bit more aware helargely did American studio pictures. Yeah.

(01:56:10):
Yeah, and I mean very importantones too, So yeah, I definitely
tip that to the career of NormanJewis in there, and thank you for
everything you gave us. Now I'mgoing to take this moment to run down
all the space movies we talked aboutthis week, as well as a Sleepy

(01:56:30):
Time nighttime movie as well with UnexplainedNoises. First of all was Adam Sandler
and Spaceman, and we both reallyenjoyed it. Thought that this showed another
element of Adam Sandler's acting abilities,being able to be the lone star essentially
in a film. I gave itthree and a half. Chris gave it

(01:56:51):
three. Then It's Doune Part two. Chris saw this. I did not,
but I really want to because Iloved the first two. I've heard
enough thing but good things about doingpart two. Chris gives it a whopping
four stars, the first time Chrisis actually given four stars to a science
fiction film. Believe it or not, science fiction is not his thing,

(01:57:13):
so that shows how good this filmis, then moving on at least one
list that says what but huh myvoice. I intend my voice to drip
in sarcasm sometimes, and I don'tthink that it was dripping enough. Yes,
that Chris recommending a science fiction filmis not anything new. It's like

(01:57:34):
me recommending a coming of age film, not anything out of the ordinary.
You just recommended me to play thenachos that No. Actually, I'm pretty
I'm pretty stingy on where I'll recommendnachos because too many places take it easy
and go lazy with the nachos theymake. Event So my character is I

(01:57:59):
can't be critical on not so goodsci fi. You can't. Well,
this is the thing is if someonepitches you a sci fi movie like I
don't know, Rebel Moon Part one, you can be pretty critical because you
know the standard to which sci fican get to. Neither of us liked
the fact that Zack Snyder leaned waytoo much into his bag of trick,
with the slow mo being overused,but we also didn't like the fact that

(01:58:25):
there really wasn't any story here.And I know some people probably think,
well, you know, does everythingneed to be blah? Blah blah,
blah blah. Think of think ofeven the simplest movies that are entertaining.
They probably had a core story thatwas at least engaging and got you in.

(01:58:46):
Nothing changed from the start of thisfilm really till the end, other
than I guess something I gave itto I gave it two stars. Chris
gave it one and a half.Then it was off to Charlie Coffman's written
Ryan in the Dark. We bothgave this one three and a half stars.
Netflix keeping up their streak of reallygood animated films and honestly, one

(01:59:11):
year my favorite movie of the yearwas the Netflix anim in the Mitchells Versus
Machines. They have a really goodhistory with those. Sure there's a few
that they haven't done so well,but they've done so many more surprisingly good
ones then they have surprisingly bad ones. So yeah, both Chris and I
gave that three and a half stars. Some really good films this week and

(01:59:35):
if we did it Creater last yearwhere we just sort of fell off the
moon the Rebel Moon you Will anddidn't even do a best of show.
If we did do a best ofshow, we did review all the movies.
We should have. There's like aChancenemona would have been on your list.
Absolutely, yeah, yeah, itwould have. So take that netflick,

(02:00:01):
take that to your bank, Takethat to your bank, and while
you're getting to that bank, answerthis question. Why don't you? It
is our question of the week,and it is what actor. I think
I've asked this before, but I'masking it again because no one answered last
time. What actor makes you wantto see every one of their movies,

(02:00:23):
no matter the story or genre.I feel like we've done it before because
my answer is Nicholas Cage. Ifeel like I've said before my answer is
Nicholas Cage. But I'll ask youagain because I'm prais or not. Everyone's
answer is Nicholas Cage. Oh minemine as well. We've talked about before,
and then that's like we will weThe reason why we both answer that

(02:00:45):
is Nicholas Cage is because we willunironically click on a movie if it pops
up if it's Nicholas Cage in it. Ever heard of it before? Willie's
Wondering or whatever that film was called. I watched it just because I saw
Nicholas Cage in the thumbnail. Forthat film. That's the reason I watched

(02:01:10):
it. There's many unheard movie.If you want me to see a movie
that's low budget and has no promotion, put Nicholas Cage on it. Yeah,
I will watch it. I absolutelywill because here's the thing. He
is gonna be even if the movieitself is not entertaining, he will be
entertaining and he will make it worthmy time. So that's my answer,

(02:01:33):
that's Chris's answer, but we wouldabsolutely love to hear your answer. Yeah,
so please tell us who's your NicholasCage And you could tell us that
by email The Movie Breakdown at gmaildot com. You can do it over
on I still call it Twitter atMovie Breakdown one, and I still call

(02:01:56):
it Facebook at Facebook at the MovieBreakdown. Both those play want to change
their names. One went more intoit, the other a bit more subtle,
but either way, you can alsofollow us on those two platforms to
keep updating on what's going on withthe Movie Breakdown, and you can subscribe
and rate to our podcast. Youcan do that on Spreaker, Spotify,

(02:02:20):
cast Box, Apple Podcasts, andAmazon Music and maybe Animal Music when that
comes, and you can do that, and you can also do it wherever
you listen to your podcast or onmost of the platforms, so please do
that there and actually really helps youto engage with the algorithms. It allows

(02:02:40):
us to be seen, it helpsus get up on the list the more
that people rate and subscribe, sothat would be fantastic. And another way
you can help us is download theSpreaker app and you can listen to us
on the app and that will helpus out as well. That's the best
way. That's how we'd love youto do it, but you can do
it however you want. I'm notforcing you. I'm not gonna know.

(02:03:00):
And then yeah, share us onsocial media, get the word out there.
That will really help us. Andanother way you can help is check
out the old website beyond the Balconydot com. It hasn't necessarily been the
most wonderful year on the site sofar. It's been a slow start.
I was for a bit sort ofdoing posting something every day, but really

(02:03:24):
small and as I started mentioned onthe solo podcasts, it's been a rough
year trying to find out work lifebalance, trying to I'm pursuing some medical
help with certain things and have alot of challenges try and get my career
back on track, and so thepodcast and the site have definitely suffered,
but I'm trying to commit to thosethings again get them rolling. So I

(02:03:47):
would love the support with a podcast. It's going to come back to weekly
now with both of us, Andplease check out the site. There is
some things on there though from thisyear. You've got a little tribute to
my daughter. She had her birthdayrecently, and as well, I do

(02:04:10):
have a review night swim way backin January, and we'll start putting reviews
back up on here and some differentthoughts. We talked a bit about musical
theater and sharing my experience of whatmusical theater has done for my mental health
and my family. You can seethat posted up on the site, and
some other kind of looks on theimportance of arts reviews, movie thoughts.

(02:04:34):
It's all up there and beyond theBelcady, so please check it out.
I would really appreciate it. Dodo. And wow, that doesn't sound
good. Do do check us out. I don't know why I had to
repeat that, but yes, dodo, And next week we are back.

(02:04:56):
You just come by sight crap,did you? Yeah? I did.
I haven't written on there in awhile, so it hasn't blossomed into
the do doo. It could be. Next week. We are talking Millie
Bobby Brown. That's right, StrangerThings, but she's proven with her and
Nola Holmes film that she can leada film and now she's in Damsel as

(02:05:23):
well as we're looking at the LindsayLowhand romantic comedy Irish Wish. So lots
of fun to talk about next week, and we're very excited about that,
we really are. It's gonna beanother great show. We'll be coming at
you with more movie talk. AndI'm Christopher Spicer and I'm Scott Martin.

(02:05:43):
Take care, everyone, have agreat week at the movies.