November 13, 2023 • 44 mins
In this episode, Movie Mike takes you on a journey back to the 90s, uncovering hidden gems that deserve a spot in your watchlist. Mike passionately explores some cinematic treasures that might have slipped under your radar during the iconic decade. In the Movie Review, Mike shares his thoughts on the latest Marvel blockbuster, "The Marvels." How it stacks up to the original, where it stands inside of Marvel’s Phase 5 and how we feel with the MCU moving forward into 2024. In the Trailer Park, Mike talks about the sequel no one seemingly asked for "Mean Girls (2024)." Mike gives his thoughts on the new movie which is a musical version of the original story, similar to the Broadway version of the 2004 hit movie but not quite. It's actually dubbed "a hybrid."
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host. Movie Mike have a fun episode for
you today talking about one of my favorite categories, underrated
movies of the nineties. I asked everybody online so many
great answers. I will tell you that some memories were
unlocked while I was going through all the movies I
could include in this segment, so can't wait to share
(00:21):
these with you. In the movie review, we're gonna be
talking about the MCU's shortest movie ever, The Marvels and
in the Trailer Park. They're not remaking Mean Girls, but
they're making a movie based on the musical, which is
oddly similar to the original just twenty years later. Have
a lot of thoughts about this movie, so thank you
for being here. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew.
And now let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like
never before in a movie podcast. A man with so
much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTB with glasses.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
From the Nashville Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast.
I am on a quest for nostalgia right now. Maybe
it's because I just started therapy and I'm reverting back
to my childhood where I had no problems. Yes, that
is what I'm doing right now. But it came across
the movies recently that I hadn't watched in a really
long time, and there are movies from the nineties I
(01:21):
feel are underrated and underappreciated because they didn't make the
most money at the box office. Some of these are
actually box office bombs, but they have a special place
in my heart, and some of these have developed the
cult classic following. But overall, I feel like these are
underrated movies and sometimes forgotten movies of the nineties, and
I want to share them with you. I also put
(01:41):
the question out on Facebook xaka Twitter and Instagram to
get your responses, so I'll include some of those in
the honorable mentions. But I have nine of these to
go with the nineties theme, So at number nine, I
have almost heroes from nineteen ninety eight. This movie really
kicked off my inspiration for this episode because with the
recent passing of Matthew Perry and everybody talking about his
(02:04):
character on Friends, which was a cultural icon. My mind
actually first went to his movie career, which I feel
like out of the Friends stars who went on to
star in movies, he had my favorite movies out of
every single cast member, and almost Heroes was the movie
he did with Chris Farley where they played two explorers
trying to beat Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Ocean.
(02:27):
So it's like a modern at the time modern anyway
Western Frontier movie set in the early eighteen hundreds, and
I don't really love period pieces, but when you put
two great comedic actors like Matthew Perry and Chris Farley together.
I remember watching this movie and loving it as a kid,
and now it's sad to say that both of these
(02:48):
actors have now passed on, and even weird when you
look at the history of this movie. It was also
the last leading role for Chris Farley, who died just
five months after this movie was released. However, it wasn't
a last movie appearance, because he had a cameo in
a movie that you're gonna hear later on on this list.
So just kind of weird to think as I was
putting together this list, that we had all these connections
(03:09):
going on. But when you look at the numbers of
this movie. It had a budget of thirty million dollars,
which is a pretty decent budget for a comedy, especially
back in the nineties, but a box office opening of
only two point eight million dollars. In overall, this movie
only made six point one million dollars in its theatrical run.
So not only do I feel it's a forgotten movie,
(03:31):
but it's also a movie that didn't do so great
at the box office. But when you look at this
movie on paper, and if you watch it without a
critical lie, it's a lot of fun. And there are
so many scenes from this movie that still are engraved
in my head. But this is my favorite one that
captures the humor of this movie. It's whenever Chris Farley
and Matthew Perry are on their boat. They have this
(03:51):
crew which is basically just the crew of idiots, and
this one guy keeps playing the bagpipe, but he only
knows one song, and then this happens.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
He can When I said your music would be a
welcome companion, I didn't mean don't.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
You know any other damn tune?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Ha, No, sir, of course you do that. Play him
that haunting air. You played me this morning, and.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Then he just plays the same song again. What I
love about that clip in that moment is it shows
you the other thing that Chris Farley I feel is
the best quality of him. Now. He was known a
lot for his physical comedy and him putting his body
on the line for the sake of a laugh, but
the inflection he would always have on his voice and
(04:46):
delivering his lines was always the thing that drew me
to Chris Farley. My favorite SNL sketch ever with Chris
Farley is the Colombian Coffee crystals. When they give him
this cup of coffee, they tell him to drink it,
and then they reveal to him that it's actually Colombian
coffee crystals that they gave him, and he feels so
betrayed and goes into this fit of rage, and just
the inflection on his voice as he's yelling out things
(05:08):
when they're beating him on the head is hilarious. Or
even his late night talk show appearances, I remember him
doing impressions of his dad that I still do to
this day, talking about how his dad would go from
zero to one hundred and no time whatsoever, he would
get mad at them for not shoveling the snow and
be like I thought, I told you to shovel the walk,
(05:29):
get out there. I love Chris Farley, I love Matthew Perry,
and this movie may not have had success at the
box office, but it had success in my heart. I
feel like it's underrated and hilarious. So at number nine,
I have almost Heroes. At number eight from nineteen ninety five,
I have a Goofy movie. You knew it was gonna
(05:50):
be on this list, and maybe if this list was
made one or two years ago, it would have been
higher up on the list. But I kind of feel
that Goofy movie is starting to get its People are
starting to recognize it. It has this cult classic, probably
due to TikTok and people getting on there being like
me and saying, everybody, remember this movie, how great it is.
So I feel now that the movie is getting more recognized.
(06:14):
Without a doubt, when you look at all the big
Disney movies from the nineties, this one always gets left
off the list when it is such a great movie,
such a great coming of age story. Even when you
look at the runtime, it's only one hour in sixteen minutes.
This movie has no fat on it whatsoever. It is
non stop laughs and thrills and animation gold. The movie
cost eighteen million dollars to make and only opened to
(06:37):
six million dollars on its opening weekend. Did end up
making some money, making thirty five million dollars in its
theatrical run. But it's a top five Disney movie for me.
And when you tell that to somebody else, they call
you crazy. I mean it has the animation style I
love that two D Disney animation in the nineties is beautiful.
But also the soundtrack on this movie, to Eye is
(07:00):
one of the best original Disney songs of all time.
This movie had swagger in the nineties. Disney movies haven't
had swagger since the nineties because of a goofy movie.
The movie is underrated. That is my movie at number eight.
At number seven from nineteen ninety six, have a little
movie called House Arrest. This movie embodies everything that I
(07:22):
love about nineties movies. And I am incredibly biased here
because group in the nineties. I was born in ninety one.
I am a full on nineties kid, which really just
means I'm in my thirties now. So again, I'm coming
from a place of bias here, but I feel like
family and kid friendly movies in the nineties were the
best and the most creative. There was always some waggy
(07:43):
twist that would hook me in and make me want
to watch the movie. And as a kid, you don't
care about all of the tech specs and all of
the plot points in a movie. You just want something
really fun. So On Paper is a movie about a
kid trying to stop his parents from getting divorced by
locking them in his basement. You know, the most logical plot, no,
but it's an incredibly fun movie. So that's what our
(08:05):
hero does. In this movie, you have this teenager played
by Kyle Howard, locks his parents in his basement, and
then all his friends and other kids in the neighborhood
think it's a great idea, so they all bring their
parents over and lock them in the basement and they
try to have like this therapy session to get everybody
to kiss and make up. A great concept for a
nineties movie. Again, not a whole lot of thought has
to be put into it, but it works incredibly well
(08:27):
for me, and this movie was highly influential on my
taste of the movies growing up in the nineties. But
was it a commercial success, Not at all. It's one
that I feel people forget and don't even talk about.
The movie had a five million dollar budget, which is
pretty low, but when you look at this movie on paper,
it's essentially one big bottle episode of a TV show,
which bottle episodes were episodes that shows would make to
(08:49):
save money. By containing it primarily in one location, you
save a lot of money on sets, so that's probably
where this movie saved a lot of money. But with
that five million dollar budget, it only opened to two
million dollars and had a box office run of seven
million dollars. But for seven million dollars, they have a
movie that has stayed with me for now almost thirty years.
(09:10):
Another thing I loved about movies like this in the
nineties were the trailers. Those would hook you in. When
you'd pop into VHS, the first thing that would play
were the trailers. So this is for all the kids listening,
maybe born in the twenty tens or in the late
two thousands. Used to get a VHS tape, which was
this big brick you'd put into a VHS player, which
was another big brick. You'd hit play, and before you
(09:31):
got to the movie, you'd have these trailers. So just
like when you go see a movie, there were trailers,
they were already baked into the movie. And I just
love the sound and feel of that because through those trailers,
I ended up finding other movies that I wanted to watch.
So here's a little bit of that House Arrest trailer.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Janet and ned Bendorf appeared to have the perfect marriage
the anniversary.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
But they decided to celebrate their anniversary Daddy and I
have something we need to talk to you by getting
a divorce. Are you having no? So their kids decided
to have a celebration of their own.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
How by locking them in the basement.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Listen to that. We don't get trailers like that anymore.
With that classic voiceover that sounds so sweet and innocent. Disney,
take it back to the basics. Give me a trailer
like that. But that is why I have House Arrests
as an underrated movie from the nineties at number seven.
At number six is a movie from nineteen ninety eight
(10:28):
called SLC Punk. This movie takes place in the early
eighties where punk rock was in its heyday. If I
could go back to one time period in America, I
would go back to the eighties to experience that punk
hardcore scene that has been very influential in my life.
So you have these two characters in this movie, Steve
and Harrow and Bob, who were really just big nerds
(10:49):
until they decided, we don't want to be nerds anymore.
We want to be punk rockers, and we want to
live the punk rock life and the very conservative Salt
Lake City. Which I just visited Salt Lake City for
the first time ever, and that place is beautiful, and
the whole time I was there, I was quoting SLC
punk because that's really the only relationship I've had with
Salt Lake City. But this movie was made on a
(11:10):
six hundred thousand dollars budget, which sounds like nothing, even
though that's an incredible amount of money to make a
movie for six hundred thousand dollars and one that is
so influential on my taste in music and film is
pretty incredible. But the movie only grows two hundred and
ninety nine thousand, so obviously some things went wrong. But
it's an independent movie. It wasn't supposed to make a
(11:31):
lot of money. But I feel like this movie really
had a second life with that VHS and I just
have this VHS just pictured in my mind of being
this bright green and bright orange and seeing that cover
of Matthew Lillard and colored hair and heroin bile with
a big mohawk. It is one of the best looking
vhs is you will one of the best looking vhs
(11:53):
is you will ever set eyes on. But aside from
the plot points of this movie of kind of going
against the grain, not conf forming to society, having these
punk rock values, but then questioning those punk rock values,
the movie was also highly influential in my music taste.
On this soundtrack, you have The Dead, Kennedy's Fear, the Specials,
Generation X, and Blondie, the Ramones, all these really great
(12:16):
punk bands that were thriving in the early eighties and
late seventies. It was all over this movie, and I
was all about it. I wanted to look and dress
just like Matthew Lillard in this movie, but obviously my
parents vetoed me getting a real mohawk. But I have
watched this movie so many times and I quote it NonStop.
One of my favorite quotes is whenever one of the characters, Mark,
(12:37):
who is one of the most unhinged characters in any
movie I've ever seen. He plays like this really straight
laced guy who is friends with the two punk rockers.
They go out one night, steal a car, and then
decide to get rid of the evidence by throwing the
car into the Great Salt Lake sink you for Hey,
why won't she sink? Well, it's because it's the Great
Salt Lake. And yeah, dude, there's salt in it. It's
(13:02):
like saltiest lake in the world. It makes things poyant.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
You know, you.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Vat So that is the quote I kept saying while
I was in Salt Lake City recently Centerfool, but that
character was played by Till Schweiger, who went on to
play Hugo Stiglitz in Inglorious Bastards. So at number six,
an underrated movie from the nineties is SLC Punk. At
number five from nineteen ninety eight is a little movie
called Basketball. This movie is from the creators of South Park,
(13:31):
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who are two comedic geniuses,
probably my favorite creators in comedy. I've learned so much
from them over the years. What Basketball is about. It's
these two guys who their life really doesn't go the
way they'd plan. As kids, they had dreams of playing
in Major League Baseball, but then as adults just turned
out to kind of be losers. But they end up
(13:53):
inventing this game that combines baseball and basketball, and they
end up developing this whole league that goes from just
they would play in their backyard into a real professional league.
You could probably make a movie like this now about pickball.
But the movie was made on a budget of twenty
five million dollars, which is pretty substantial. It only opened
a three million dollars and this one hurts. As funny
(14:16):
as this movie is, the movie only made seven million
dollars at the box office, which is sad because I
found this movie so funny as a kid. I rewatched
it as an adult and it still holds up. It's
exactly what you would expect from the creators of South Park.
It's dirty, it's graphic, the jokes are viol at times,
but man, is it funny. Here's probably the only joke
(14:39):
I can play from basketball, and it's a great moment.
This movie has a great opening scene. It starts out
with them as kids at a baseball game, being inspired
and then leading to their adult life of well, we're
not gonna have those dreams we sought out to have. No, Reamer, Someday,
I'm gonna be a big sports start, you know, Reamer.
(14:59):
Some I'm going to own a big sports bar. So
at number five, my underrated movie from the ninety is Basketball.
At number four, we'll get into a drama. It also
has a little bit of comedy. We call him Dramatis.
From nineteen ninety six is Jack starring Robin Williams. This
movie hits me in the fields. What it's about. Robin
(15:19):
Williams plays the main character in this movie named Jack,
who has an unusual disorder who has aged him four
times faster than any other human. So he's really a boy,
but he looks like a forty year old man. His
mom had an unusually short pregnancy. They found out this
after he was born, so his entire life he is
homeschooled until he starts the fifth grade and decides he
(15:43):
wants to go to real school. It's his first time
being around other kids and trying to make friends. So
it's him getting through those challenges of being a kid
inside his head, but outward looking like a forty year
old man. There's obviously some fun they have of getting
him to do things that only adults could do. But
the struggle he has is in order to connect with
(16:05):
somebody who looks like him. He falls in love with
his teacher played by Jennifer Lopez, and there is a
scene that still guts me. He decides he wants to
make a move because he can't control his feelings. He
feels like he is falling in love with her, and
he wants to invite her to a dance and this, Oh,
I'm gonna play a little bit of it, but this
one gets me emotional. Even as I was loading this clip,
I thought of this rejection scene and it still hits me.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Good.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I'm sorry, honey, it just wouldn't be right.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Do you understand, Oh, Jackie, don't okay, jack jack come back,
let's talk. Jackie has nothing to do with you. I
feel that because then he collapses on the stairs, grabs
his heart, ends up in the hospital, and then gets
(16:54):
into this depression where you see him with a beard.
This movie hits you. It also reminds you how great
of an act Robin Williams is. And I know we
all love him for his comedies, but when he gets
into the dramatic stuff. I think that's where he really shines.
Oh man, this is a great movie, and I'm surprised
it did not do as well as I expected. A
movie with Jennifer Lopez and Robin Williams with a budget
(17:16):
of forty five million dollars, which, again, like all these movies,
is pretty substantial the most we've seen so far. It
only opened to eleven million dollars, but in its run
it ended up making fifty eight million, which is a
decent amount of money. At least they didn't go into
the hole so much. So for this one, it's not
so much the financial ramifications of it being a flap,
(17:38):
but I just feel like this movie gets understated and
underrecognized as being one of the best movies of the nineties.
So I had to put this one in at number four.
At number three from nineteen ninety four, is the best
baseball movie of all time, hands down. I don't care
what you say. It's not the Standlot, it's not any
other baseball movie in the nineties, eighties, whatever. This is
(17:59):
the best baseball movie ever made, and it does not
get the recognition it deserves. The movie I am talking
about is Angels in the Outfield. It's about a kid
played by Joseph Gordon Levitt who just wants the chance
of having a family again. And I just rewatched this
movie recently because my favorite team, the Texas Rangers, had
a chance to win the World Series, and I thought
I need to go back and revisit this because I
(18:20):
was reminded of the deal he made with his dad
was once the Angels win the Pennant, in this movie,
we can be a family again. And Texas Rangers, if
you're not familiar, they just won the World Series, but
and the entire history of the team never want it.
So I feel like this movie could have played out now.
So deadbeat dad telling his kid, Hey, if the Rangers
win the Pennant, we can be a family again. And
(18:42):
that was my inspiration to go back and watch this movie.
When the Rangers were playing the Astros, I thought, Man,
if they could just pull this off and make it
to the World Series, I've watched this movie for good luck.
Rangers went on to not only win the Pennant, but
win the entire World Series, So now every time they're
in the playoffs, I'm gonna have to go back and
watch this movie. But the movie was made for thirty
one million dollars. It had an opening of eight point
(19:05):
nine million dollars. It went on to make fifty million
dollars in its theatrical run. But if you look at
the cast in this movie, Yeah, Matthew McConaughey, Danny Glover,
Joseph Gordon Levitt, this cast is stacked. And surprisingly, this
movie was a lot more emotional than I remembered because
of the fact that he is just trying to get
(19:26):
his dad back, who doesn't want him. Yeah, when't we.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Going to be a family again?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
From where I'm sitting, I'd say, when the Angels win
the pennant, you stay out of trouble sign.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I almost cried again at the scene wherever he sees
his dad in court and realizes what is happening. So
this movie has it all. It has the emotion, it
has the baseball, it has comedy, it has all those
things working together with the charm of the nineties, and
not enough people talk about this movie so much so
that it's even hard to watch this movie. I just
(20:00):
happened to find out that TBS is carrying it, and
since we have Hulu Plus with TV Live, whatever that
is I was able to watch it for the first
time in years. So if you have Hulu Live Plus
with TBS or whatever, you can watch it too. But
it's a Disney movie, it needs to be on Disney Plus.
Justice for Angels in the Outfield, That's why I have
it at number three at number two is a comedy
(20:23):
from nineteen ninety eight. It stars the late and great
Norm McDonald. It also has already lang Chris Farley, which
I mentioned that Almost Heroes was his last starring role,
but this ended up being his final film credit. You
also have a surprise cameo from Adam Sandler in this movie.
But what this movie is about is Norm McDonald plays
(20:46):
this character who is a loser. I guess we have
a theme here, and he finds success in a revenge
for higher business. People come to him to do his
dirty work, whether it be to deal with a noisy neighbor,
a jerk of a or the big evil guy in
town who wants to destroy a retirement home. I could
quote this movie all day long from start to finish.
(21:08):
I know every single line in this movie, and again
it's a movie that's not entirely appropriate. And I know
there's a kids who listen to this podcast. So this
is the cleanest joke I can play from a movie
called Dirty Work.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Hey, Mitch, you're really starting to like this Kathy, aren't you. No, Mitch,
I know you.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Man. When you say no like that, you really mean yes,
we are talking about watch. I'll show you, Mitch. Did
you ever rob a bank?
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Did you ever climb Mount Everest?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
No?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Did you ever say that you can see why women
find Sean Connery sexy?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
No?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Okay, So I like Kathy a little bit, and I
still do that to this day.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
No.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It also has the late great Don Rickles, who is
famous for just rattling off insults the people, and I
think this is his best showcase of doing this. When
he just keeps going off on AARTI lane look like
a fucking alert on a bad day. Got a call
yesterday from Baskin Robbins. They said that they're down to
only five flavors. You're swelling up as I talk to you. Hello,
(22:13):
I scream having a good time running around? What you
laughing at because I called your friend the fat pig?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
You think that's funny? Oh No, I was just laughing
earlier when you were talking to his ballet, so that
is number two. Dirty Work is an underrated movie from
the nineties. Before we get to number one. I do
have a lot of honorable mentions, a lot that you
guys sent in on social media. Canaan Cox said The Pagemaster,
which was an incredibly sophisticated animated movie from the nineties.
(22:41):
Adam can Two said Street Fighter, which I feel like
in the nineties we had this fascination with video game
adaptations that didn't really live up to expectations. I'm more
of a Mortal Kombat guy myself, but I can respect
it no quarter on X. I keep calling it X,
but it's Twitter said Cool Runnings, which was also the
last role of John Candy, a great Disney live action movie,
(23:04):
one of their better sports films. Joey Gibson also said Heavyweights,
which I kind of put in that category of a
goofy movie that I don't think it's as underrated as
it was five years ago, but I do love that movie.
Another one that a lot of people commented with was
The Iron Giant from nineteen ninety nine, which is an
animated movie and I never really fully understood the fascination
(23:26):
with that movie, so maybe that's my goofy movie. It
was good. I enjoyed it, but I think that one's
properly rated. But finally, at number one from nineteen ninety eight,
the most underrated movie from the nineties is Small Soldiers.
What this movie is about. You have these two guys
who work at a toy company and they need the
(23:47):
next big thing, something that's so cool and innovative and
hardcore that every kid is gonna want to buy it.
And what they end up doing is putting missile technology
in these toy action figures, and they think it's cool.
It makes them smart, and they fight with each other,
and one of them is programmed to kill, and one
of them is programmed to hide and be the peaceful one.
(24:07):
So you have the villains and you have the heroes.
But what they don't count on happening is the chips
end up malfunctioning and they start not only attacking the
other toys, but start attacking humans. The movie had a
budget of forty million dollars and it opened a fourteen
million dollars, which isn't the worst opening. It did end
up grossing fifty four million dollars at the box office,
(24:29):
so it had a little bit of a profit. But
when you look at the highest grossing movies of the
nineties and compare it to even the top one hundred
grossing movies of the nineties made at least one hundred
and ten million dollars as minimum, Lion King made almost
a billion dollars at nine hundred and seventy million, or
another iconic movie like Toy Story. It made forty million
(24:50):
dollars at the box office, so a mere fifty four
million dollars back then, they didn't really seem like a
whole lot when you have all these other movies crushing it.
And like all the other movies on this list, there
are lines that have just stuck with me for my
entire life. One specifically is in the final scene wherever
they're trying to take out the Commando elites, and you
(25:10):
have them revolting against the family and revolting against humans
and attacking them with all these weapons they have created
with things they found in the garage, which this movie
gets a lot more violent than you would expect forty
kids movie. People get hurt, people probably could have died.
But it's this one small little scene and this line
that this Toy says to the human that has stayed
(25:31):
with me forever, what are you packing? Tiny? Packing?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Packing you?
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I continue to say that packing back in you. But
you also have Tommy Lee Jones as the voice of
the main commando Elite, who he just has a very
commanding and intimidating voice. So I feel like that goes underappreciated.
But not only that, when you look at the special
effects used to make these toys come to life, it
was pretty advanced for the nineties. And maybe you've seen
(26:00):
the meme online with people comparing VFX from the nineties
and early two thousands to vfx now we have somehow
regressed because if you go back and watch Small Soldiers,
it is a triumph because I didn't even question it
as a kid, and if I go back and watch
it now, it still holds up and looks pretty good.
Is some of it a little bit cheesy, Yeah, but
they did a really good job overall with a pretty
(26:23):
modest budget of forty million dollars, and Marvel Movies now
with two hundred, two hundred and fifty million dollar budgets
can't even replicate something like Small Soldiers from the nineties,
And again, gonna get a little bit morbid here, and
I didn't really set out to have this theme, but
Small Soldiers also has the final on screen appearance for
the late Phil Harmon, who I knew him from being
(26:46):
in this movie, but mainly with his voice work in
The Simpsons of characters like Troy McClure. So just through
this list, unintentionally, I shared with you a lot of
last on screen appearances from actors who have passed away,
which I feel like I should dedicate an entire episode
to that, but as I was going through my notes,
I just had to share that with you. But the
reason I included this one as my number one picks
(27:07):
underrated movie from the nineties. If you grew up in
this decade and you didn't watch and love this movie,
you're not a nineties kid. I'm sorry. You have to
appreciate the charm of this movie, the comedy in this movie,
the action in this movie, the lesson you learn, which
is don't put military technology in toys. We should all
know that, right. Okay, that is the list. If your
(27:29):
favorite underrated movie from the nineties didn't make it, let
me know what it is. Email me Moviemike d at
gmail dot com or links to all my socials or
in the episode notes. We'll come back, I'll give you
my spoiler free review of The Marvels and then we'll
talk about the new Mean Girls trailer. Let's get into
it now. A spoiler free movie review of The Marvels.
(27:50):
And I'm probably in the minority here, but I was
excited to see the sequel to Captain Marvel. I think
the character herself is a really great character, arguably the
strongest Avenger. I don't care what to say. I do think, however,
that movie was rush because they're really trying to establish
that character as we went into Endgame. So I feel
like the timeline when that movie came out, we didn't
(28:12):
have enough attention to it, and then we went into
Endgame and we haven't seen the character since. So what
this movie is about. You have Captain Marvel now teaming
up with Miss Marvel and Monica Rambo, and all their
powers become entangled, so whenever one tries to fully use
their powers, they switch with another member of the crew.
So you have them teaming up learning how to work
together and make it to where they can all change
(28:33):
powers and it be seamless and they can go against
the big villain. You also have Nick Fury in here
kind of ill placed in this entire movie. And I'm
gonna go with three things I liked and three things
I didn't like about this movie, starting with the positive. First,
Miss Marvel. I didn't love the Disney Plus show, but
her character in this movie was probably the best part.
And it's also the only part of this movie that
(28:55):
really had heart. Phase five is just lacking emotion and
lacking heart. The Marvel identity is kind of getting watered
down because what made those initial movies great were the
emotional connection we had with the characters, and I'm not
really feeling that anymore. The only time I ever felt
a sliver of that was with Miss Marvel's family. Second
thing I liked about this movie was the costume design.
(29:18):
A good superhero costume goes a long way. Miss Marvel's
suit was very bright and colorful, and Captain Marvel had
like the worn down sub dude colors kind of reminded
me of the old Captain America suit that I love
so Aesthetically, the suits look great in this movie, which
I feel like in Phase five there hasn't been much
attention to that, so they didn't really need a whole
lot of special effects going on with those suits to
(29:40):
make them look great. Second thing I liked about the movie.
Third thing I liked about the movie The visual effects
were actually a lot better than I was expecting, which
they've been struggling with. But I was kind of looking
for those moments that took me out of the movie,
whether it be something with a weird facial expression. I
didn't see blatant bad visual effects. I do think though
they're using way too much as far as all the
(30:02):
backgrounds not really feeling like there's any life to them. Again,
that's kind of the theme with Phase five right now,
is we're out of the MCU that exists in the
real world that we know. They're not in New York
City or New Jersey like Miss Marvel would be. They're
really just going out into space. It feels very Star
Wars ish right now, but not in a good way.
Probably all the bad parts that everybody hates about Star
(30:24):
Wars right now is kind of what the MCU is doing,
So I really think they need to get away from that,
and that would also solve their issues with spending so
much money on these movies. And then losing a bunch
of cash. Because if they stop focusing so much on
everything that needs to come and post and get us
in some real, just sets where you can actually interact
(30:45):
with things, you see some backgrounds, I think that would
help the actors get better performances, because throughout this entire film,
Ree Larson had about one acting note. I guess I'm
getting into the negative thing. So the first thing I
didn't like about this movie was the act And I'm
looking to Breed Larson, our star here, who I was
the most excited to see. She had about one note
(31:06):
throughout this entire movie, this one blank expression on her
face that was her confused face, her happy face or
what is going on face? And I feel like it
really changed the tone of Captain Marvel, who was so
heroic in the first film and so heroic an Endgame.
I feel like that identity kind of was washed away
in this movie to where she didn't really feel as
(31:28):
powerful and as in control. And that's what I wanted
my superhero. I want them to come in and dominate,
especially her, who has these incredible powers of harnessing all
this light energy, being able to fly, being able to
destroy cities. I didn't really feel that it was kind
of like she didn't know how to play the character anymore.
But again, I think it goes back to there's so
(31:50):
many things going on in the background that they don't
get to interact with. They don't really have anything to
play off when they're filming these movies. That is something
I'm realizing more and more really affects how we grasp
onto these movies. So I don't think it's entirely her fault.
Maybe a little bit on the director, maybe just a
little bit on the way that the MCU cranks South
(32:11):
East movies. So again, scaling back the budget, getting back
to some basics I think would help the MCU right
now because it's just lacking some identity. Second thing I
didn't like about the movie was the lack of action.
The fight scenes and the MCU used to be top
tier and now they're a lot more comical, probably a
lot more kid friendly, but there's no grit in the
(32:32):
action anymore like there was in Civil War, like there
wasn't Captain America or the early Ironman films. It just
feels very lighthearted and like there's really nothing on the line.
When a fight scene is happening right now. So this
movie was lacking a lot of action and a lot
of direction of where our heroes were trying to go.
It wasn't until really forty minutes into the movie that
we had a clear action, a clear mission, which usually
(32:55):
is something you should establish early on. Who's there, villain?
What do we need to do to defeat them? What's
the plan? Which is weird for a movie that's only
an hour and a half. I know the runtime is
listed is one hour and forty five minutes, but we
were out of there in ninety minutes, with the post
credit scene maybe coming at the one thirty five marks.
So for something to feel so rushed at the end,
I feel like this movie was treacherous in the editing
(33:18):
process of figuring out what to do. Maybe it's because
of all the reshoots that they decided, maybe we don't
have a full story here to flesh out a two
hour mar of a movie. Let's at least make it
quicker and get people out of there and don't give
people enough time to hate it, which is how I
kind of ended up feeling about this movie. There was
nothing I loved about it, but by the time it
(33:40):
was over there really wasn't anything I hated about it,
but I found myself just getting a little bit bored
at the story. I love the characters, I just didn't
love the story. I didn't love the villain, so I
wasn't ready to go on this journey with them. So
it was almost like I would have clicked next mission
on this movie and picked something else, because I actually
think that this plot point is really great of them
(34:01):
having these entangled powers. They should have had a lot
more fun with that, so I kind of lumped it
in there. But the third thing I did not like
about this movie was the villain. There was no point
where I felt that anything was really on the line,
like they were really fighting for something. The objective really
wasn't that clear of why they were trying to take
down this villain. So in order for me to really
(34:24):
be invested and get that Hurrah moment that we all
look for in an MCU movie, you're supposed to have
that heroic feeling, like you just watch your heroes take
on somebody that looked at one point to be unstoppable.
I didn't get that here. Again, it felt very rushed
in those last fifteen to twenty minutes, so there was
no real a we're not going to get our heroes
(34:44):
to where we need them to be. It was just okay,
here we are, here's the situation, and now it's over.
What exactly did we just experience here? So, by no
means is this movie just blatantly bad. It's just very
bland and generic and safe. I wanted them to go
a little bit harder, especially when you have an all
female lead cast, which I love. Again, the characters are great.
(35:05):
The story in this movie just doesn't really make sense
and didn't really need to happen, and therefore just kind
of feels like a weak stepping stone as we are
navigating through phase five, really just trying to scrape through
it and keep people interested in Marvel as they go
into phase six. I also feel like this is a
movie because it is female led, that people are just
gonna hate without even watching the movie. Because really, when
(35:27):
it was all said and done, this movie felt to
me like it was made for Disney. Plus just the
film quality itself, the cinematography. Nothing screamed to me that
this needed to be on the big screen. I think
if you took this same story and chopped it up
into four or five maybe six episodes. It would have
been a smash hit, but again, it's pretty expensive, so
(35:48):
they couldn't do that. It just feels like something that
didn't have a whole lot of hype going into it.
They didn't take any risks, and therefore it's not really
going to motivate people to want to go see this
in theaters when it's going to come out on Disney
Plus in a couple or few months. And I don't
think that puts the MCU in a great place when
they are in the business of making money. So this
movie was all trouble and no base. And I think
(36:11):
it's very lazy to call a movie mid. I hate
it when reviewers say mid because it feels so disrespectful.
But it feels so uncreative to me of just to
call something mid, because you know that it gets a
rise out of people, Especially when somebody loves something and
you call it mid. It's like a big dig right
into your face, right into your fandom. But that's really
the only way I can describe this movie. And I
(36:33):
hate to say it, I hate to use it, but
it was so mid. I said the same thing about
ant Man, though, because even though I love parts of it.
The overall story just keeps me thinking did we really
need this? Therefore, this movie was really mid and especially
going into it where I wanted the Captain Marvel character
to have so much time to flourish, didn't really do
(36:53):
it for me for Captain Marvel. I give it two
point five out of five cats.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
It's time to head down to movie Mike trailer Paul.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Is Hollywood out of ideas? That's always the big question
I see online. The main criticism I see when it
comes to movies right now is that everything is a remake,
everything is a sequel, and there are no original ideas left.
And I will have to say the trailer for Me
and Girls twenty twenty four does not help that argument.
(37:28):
Even though the movie is based on the musical, so
it's not a direct remake of the movie from two
thousand and four, it is a movie based on the musical,
which the movie is based on them. You know, it's
this entire loop thing and after watching the trailer, there's
nothing that screams musical to me. What this trailer looks
like is they really want to cash in on the
(37:50):
fact that the entire plot feels familiar, and that's what
they are going after. There are direct references line for
line from the original movie in this trailer. The wardrobe
is the same, the characters are the same. It just
feels like the gen Z remake of that original movie
because there's no singing in the trailer. So to the
casual person just stumbling upon this trailer, you're really not
(38:12):
gonna know that even though that's the case here with
remakes and sequels, is they want to cash in on
the familiarity and what has already been proven to work.
Because everybody knows and loves the original movie, they kind
of just bring out all those elements, feature them again
and think, oh, in turn, people want to go watch
this again. But I have never not wanted to see
(38:32):
a movie so much after watching a trailer. I'll get
into more of my thoughts, but before I do, here's
just a little bit of the Mean Girls twenty twenty
four trailer, which is also weird to say because it's
just called mean Girls, not called mean girls too, not
called me mean girls. They have to add in the
year to differentiate the two. So here's a little bit
of the trailer. Get in, Lisa, Welcome Skiti. You're never
(38:54):
gonna believe what I found this morning your burn book, Mom.
It makes naps for sure, sure, Regina, Yeah, do you
like them?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Oh no, I don't have any. I was just you're
a max. We will help you. Gatty, Why are you
so scary? It's Halloween. If you don't dress slutty, that
is slutch shaming us. That's just unprofessional. So what you
heard in that trailer are some of the same gags
and jokes from the original movie, just change just a
(39:25):
little bit. So what you have in this movie is
Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprising their roles from their
old characters in the first movie. John hamm is taking
over the role of Coach Carter, and you have a
lot of new actors playing all of the young people
from the original movie. So what you didn't hear in
that clip or the rest of the trailer was any
of the singing. And I'm not too familiar with the musical,
(39:48):
but it's supposed to be adapted from the movie. So
what we are seeing here is just all the acting parts.
I wanted to see a little bit of the singing.
I wanted to see a little bit what is going
to make this movie different? Because it's not a remake.
They're calling it a hybrid, which we've seen done recently
with Matilda, and we have the color purple. So it's
(40:09):
not a completely new idea to make a musical adaptation
of a movie we've already seen. I just haven't seen
a version where they've done a musical remake and not
included any of that in the trailer. When the Matilda
trailer came out, the one that came out on Netflix,
it was very apparent that it was going to be
a musical and therefore completely different, and that one in
(40:32):
no way felt like that original movie from the nineties. Here,
it just feels like they are remaking the movie. And
Mean Girls, to me, is one of those perfect movies,
a movie that really shouldn't have been touched. I would
have been more excited to see a direct sequel a
Mean Girls, too, not based on the musical, but instead
what they've been doing recently with all these Mean Girls
(40:54):
advertisements that they've been doing with the original actors of
them twenty years later. Now in that moment, I think
that would have been a much more interesting movie of
how the Mean Girls grow up, become moms and their
daughters are the new focus instead of having just new
people come in and remake what happened in that original movie.
I think that would be a much more interesting story
and more creative. I worry that making what seems like
(41:18):
an exact copy of the original movie with some songs
that are going in there isn't going to really do
that well, and you're gonna anger those people who hate remakes,
especially with the movie that has such a dedicated fan
base as Mean Girls, one of the best movies of
the two thousands, one of the most quotable movies of
all time, And although twenty years is a significant amount
(41:38):
of time that has passed between that one and now,
it's crazy. I think it's been twenty years since that
movie came out, really making us feel old here. I
just think you have to make it different instead of
just updating everything to make all these gen Z references
that are going to feel cringey in ten years.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I don't think this movie is going to stand the
test of time like the original one did, which has.
If you go back and watch that original movie, it
is still a great movie. But this one is just
adding in things like TikTok, changing some of the jokes,
to make them a little bit more riskue, a little
bit more sexual. I don't feel like that's gonna be
enough to really carry this movie. Another thing that worries me,
it's coming out on January twelfth, historically not the best
(42:18):
month to release a movie. Maybe they're just trying to
counter program and put it out after the holidays when
there's not much going on, So that worries me a
little bit. And going back to the trailer where they're
just playing off the familiarity of the movie, making a
trailer that's very shareable so you can tell all your friends, look,
they're remaking the movie. I feel like that was the
(42:40):
intention of this trailer. The next trailer they put out,
I feel it's gonna have that musical element and really
make it look like something different. So I don't want
to say this one is dead in the water yet.
For me, I just need to see that next trailer. Now,
if that trailer comes out still doesn't speak to me,
I'm gonna say this was a bad, bad decision and
just the cash grab, which I hate, a cash grab
(43:01):
that tugs at the nostalgias streams inside of our heart.
I would just go watch Mean Girls again. If I
wanted the exact same plot points. So again, that's coming
out in theaters on January twelfth. The jury is still
out on this one, waiting for that second trailer head
That for was this week's edition of Movie by Tram
or Bar and that's gonna do it for this week's episode.
(43:21):
But before I go, I got to give my listeners
shout out of the week. How do you get a
listener's shout out of the week? Where you can comment
on my Instagram TikTok at Mike d Shrow. I have
a Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash Mike dstro and
the YouTube channel where if you've missed any individual movie
review or you just want to see it and hear
it at the same time, I put all those up
on my channel YouTube dot com slash Mike Dstrow, which
(43:45):
some of the reviews have been starting to pop off
over there, but I find now that YouTube can be
kind of a dark place, and some people have not
been so nice in the comments. I'd say eighty percent
are pretty positive. Fifteen percent may not like my point
of view, but we can challenge each other. I'm always
fine with that movie interpretations are always up for debate,
(44:05):
but it doesn't feel like they are attacking me. And
another five percent of just people commenting on my physical appearance,
which is not cool. So YouTube can be kind of
a dark place, but I'm still posting there every single week.
But this week's listener shout out of the Week comes
to us from Instagram Jelyissa Davis, who commented and said,
listen to twenty six episodes this weekend on mine drives
(44:26):
from Florida to South Carolina and back. You got me
through the entire drive back and forth. Keep up the
great work. Your podcast is fire. That is a lot
of episodes, a lot of me, too much of me,
a lot of movie content. So just a round of
applause for listening to that many episodes. I don't think
I could listen to myself for that amount of time,
So you lista for that commitment. You probably deserve more
(44:46):
than just listener of the week. That is a lot
of episodes, But thank you so much for listening. Thank
you to everyone in the movie crew. And until next time,
go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later.
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host. Movie Mike have a fun episode for
you today talking about one of my favorite categories, underrated
movies of the nineties. I asked everybody online so many
great answers. I will tell you that some memories were
unlocked while I was going through all the movies I
could include in this segment, so can't wait to share
(00:21):
these with you. In the movie review, we're gonna be
talking about the MCU's shortest movie ever, The Marvels and
in the Trailer Park. They're not remaking Mean Girls, but
they're making a movie based on the musical, which is
oddly similar to the original just twenty years later. Have
a lot of thoughts about this movie, so thank you
for being here. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew.
And now let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast,
one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like
never before in a movie podcast. A man with so
much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTB with glasses.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
From the Nashville Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast.
I am on a quest for nostalgia right now. Maybe
it's because I just started therapy and I'm reverting back
to my childhood where I had no problems. Yes, that
is what I'm doing right now. But it came across
the movies recently that I hadn't watched in a really
long time, and there are movies from the nineties I
(01:21):
feel are underrated and underappreciated because they didn't make the
most money at the box office. Some of these are
actually box office bombs, but they have a special place
in my heart, and some of these have developed the
cult classic following. But overall, I feel like these are
underrated movies and sometimes forgotten movies of the nineties, and
I want to share them with you. I also put
(01:41):
the question out on Facebook xaka Twitter and Instagram to
get your responses, so I'll include some of those in
the honorable mentions. But I have nine of these to
go with the nineties theme, So at number nine, I
have almost heroes from nineteen ninety eight. This movie really
kicked off my inspiration for this episode because with the
recent passing of Matthew Perry and everybody talking about his
(02:04):
character on Friends, which was a cultural icon. My mind
actually first went to his movie career, which I feel
like out of the Friends stars who went on to
star in movies, he had my favorite movies out of
every single cast member, and almost Heroes was the movie
he did with Chris Farley where they played two explorers
trying to beat Lewis and Clark to the Pacific Ocean.
(02:27):
So it's like a modern at the time modern anyway
Western Frontier movie set in the early eighteen hundreds, and
I don't really love period pieces, but when you put
two great comedic actors like Matthew Perry and Chris Farley together.
I remember watching this movie and loving it as a kid,
and now it's sad to say that both of these
(02:48):
actors have now passed on, and even weird when you
look at the history of this movie. It was also
the last leading role for Chris Farley, who died just
five months after this movie was released. However, it wasn't
a last movie appearance, because he had a cameo in
a movie that you're gonna hear later on on this list.
So just kind of weird to think as I was
putting together this list, that we had all these connections
(03:09):
going on. But when you look at the numbers of
this movie. It had a budget of thirty million dollars,
which is a pretty decent budget for a comedy, especially
back in the nineties, but a box office opening of
only two point eight million dollars. In overall, this movie
only made six point one million dollars in its theatrical run.
So not only do I feel it's a forgotten movie,
(03:31):
but it's also a movie that didn't do so great
at the box office. But when you look at this
movie on paper, and if you watch it without a
critical lie, it's a lot of fun. And there are
so many scenes from this movie that still are engraved
in my head. But this is my favorite one that
captures the humor of this movie. It's whenever Chris Farley
and Matthew Perry are on their boat. They have this
(03:51):
crew which is basically just the crew of idiots, and
this one guy keeps playing the bagpipe, but he only
knows one song, and then this happens.
Speaker 3 (04:03):
He can When I said your music would be a
welcome companion, I didn't mean don't.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
You know any other damn tune?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
Ha, No, sir, of course you do that. Play him
that haunting air. You played me this morning, and.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Then he just plays the same song again. What I
love about that clip in that moment is it shows
you the other thing that Chris Farley I feel is
the best quality of him. Now. He was known a
lot for his physical comedy and him putting his body
on the line for the sake of a laugh, but
the inflection he would always have on his voice and
(04:46):
delivering his lines was always the thing that drew me
to Chris Farley. My favorite SNL sketch ever with Chris
Farley is the Colombian Coffee crystals. When they give him
this cup of coffee, they tell him to drink it,
and then they reveal to him that it's actually Colombian
coffee crystals that they gave him, and he feels so
betrayed and goes into this fit of rage, and just
the inflection on his voice as he's yelling out things
(05:08):
when they're beating him on the head is hilarious. Or
even his late night talk show appearances, I remember him
doing impressions of his dad that I still do to
this day, talking about how his dad would go from
zero to one hundred and no time whatsoever, he would
get mad at them for not shoveling the snow and
be like I thought, I told you to shovel the walk,
(05:29):
get out there. I love Chris Farley, I love Matthew Perry,
and this movie may not have had success at the
box office, but it had success in my heart. I
feel like it's underrated and hilarious. So at number nine,
I have almost Heroes. At number eight from nineteen ninety five,
I have a Goofy movie. You knew it was gonna
(05:50):
be on this list, and maybe if this list was
made one or two years ago, it would have been
higher up on the list. But I kind of feel
that Goofy movie is starting to get its People are
starting to recognize it. It has this cult classic, probably
due to TikTok and people getting on there being like
me and saying, everybody, remember this movie, how great it is.
So I feel now that the movie is getting more recognized.
(06:14):
Without a doubt, when you look at all the big
Disney movies from the nineties, this one always gets left
off the list when it is such a great movie,
such a great coming of age story. Even when you
look at the runtime, it's only one hour in sixteen minutes.
This movie has no fat on it whatsoever. It is
non stop laughs and thrills and animation gold. The movie
cost eighteen million dollars to make and only opened to
(06:37):
six million dollars on its opening weekend. Did end up
making some money, making thirty five million dollars in its
theatrical run. But it's a top five Disney movie for me.
And when you tell that to somebody else, they call
you crazy. I mean it has the animation style I
love that two D Disney animation in the nineties is beautiful.
But also the soundtrack on this movie, to Eye is
(07:00):
one of the best original Disney songs of all time.
This movie had swagger in the nineties. Disney movies haven't
had swagger since the nineties because of a goofy movie.
The movie is underrated. That is my movie at number eight.
At number seven from nineteen ninety six, have a little
movie called House Arrest. This movie embodies everything that I
(07:22):
love about nineties movies. And I am incredibly biased here
because group in the nineties. I was born in ninety one.
I am a full on nineties kid, which really just
means I'm in my thirties now. So again, I'm coming
from a place of bias here, but I feel like
family and kid friendly movies in the nineties were the
best and the most creative. There was always some waggy
(07:43):
twist that would hook me in and make me want
to watch the movie. And as a kid, you don't
care about all of the tech specs and all of
the plot points in a movie. You just want something
really fun. So On Paper is a movie about a
kid trying to stop his parents from getting divorced by
locking them in his basement. You know, the most logical plot, no,
but it's an incredibly fun movie. So that's what our
(08:05):
hero does. In this movie, you have this teenager played
by Kyle Howard, locks his parents in his basement, and
then all his friends and other kids in the neighborhood
think it's a great idea, so they all bring their
parents over and lock them in the basement and they
try to have like this therapy session to get everybody
to kiss and make up. A great concept for a
nineties movie. Again, not a whole lot of thought has
to be put into it, but it works incredibly well
(08:27):
for me, and this movie was highly influential on my
taste of the movies growing up in the nineties. But
was it a commercial success, Not at all. It's one
that I feel people forget and don't even talk about.
The movie had a five million dollar budget, which is
pretty low, but when you look at this movie on paper,
it's essentially one big bottle episode of a TV show,
which bottle episodes were episodes that shows would make to
(08:49):
save money. By containing it primarily in one location, you
save a lot of money on sets, so that's probably
where this movie saved a lot of money. But with
that five million dollar budget, it only opened to two
million dollars and had a box office run of seven
million dollars. But for seven million dollars, they have a
movie that has stayed with me for now almost thirty years.
(09:10):
Another thing I loved about movies like this in the
nineties were the trailers. Those would hook you in. When
you'd pop into VHS, the first thing that would play
were the trailers. So this is for all the kids listening,
maybe born in the twenty tens or in the late
two thousands. Used to get a VHS tape, which was
this big brick you'd put into a VHS player, which
was another big brick. You'd hit play, and before you
(09:31):
got to the movie, you'd have these trailers. So just
like when you go see a movie, there were trailers,
they were already baked into the movie. And I just
love the sound and feel of that because through those trailers,
I ended up finding other movies that I wanted to watch.
So here's a little bit of that House Arrest trailer.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Janet and ned Bendorf appeared to have the perfect marriage
the anniversary.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
But they decided to celebrate their anniversary Daddy and I
have something we need to talk to you by getting
a divorce. Are you having no? So their kids decided
to have a celebration of their own.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
How by locking them in the basement.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Listen to that. We don't get trailers like that anymore.
With that classic voiceover that sounds so sweet and innocent. Disney,
take it back to the basics. Give me a trailer
like that. But that is why I have House Arrests
as an underrated movie from the nineties at number seven.
At number six is a movie from nineteen ninety eight
(10:28):
called SLC Punk. This movie takes place in the early
eighties where punk rock was in its heyday. If I
could go back to one time period in America, I
would go back to the eighties to experience that punk
hardcore scene that has been very influential in my life.
So you have these two characters in this movie, Steve
and Harrow and Bob, who were really just big nerds
(10:49):
until they decided, we don't want to be nerds anymore.
We want to be punk rockers, and we want to
live the punk rock life and the very conservative Salt
Lake City. Which I just visited Salt Lake City for
the first time ever, and that place is beautiful, and
the whole time I was there, I was quoting SLC
punk because that's really the only relationship I've had with
Salt Lake City. But this movie was made on a
(11:10):
six hundred thousand dollars budget, which sounds like nothing, even
though that's an incredible amount of money to make a
movie for six hundred thousand dollars and one that is
so influential on my taste in music and film is
pretty incredible. But the movie only grows two hundred and
ninety nine thousand, so obviously some things went wrong. But
it's an independent movie. It wasn't supposed to make a
(11:31):
lot of money. But I feel like this movie really
had a second life with that VHS and I just
have this VHS just pictured in my mind of being
this bright green and bright orange and seeing that cover
of Matthew Lillard and colored hair and heroin bile with
a big mohawk. It is one of the best looking
vhs is you will one of the best looking vhs
(11:53):
is you will ever set eyes on. But aside from
the plot points of this movie of kind of going
against the grain, not conf forming to society, having these
punk rock values, but then questioning those punk rock values,
the movie was also highly influential in my music taste.
On this soundtrack, you have The Dead, Kennedy's Fear, the Specials,
Generation X, and Blondie, the Ramones, all these really great
(12:16):
punk bands that were thriving in the early eighties and
late seventies. It was all over this movie, and I
was all about it. I wanted to look and dress
just like Matthew Lillard in this movie, but obviously my
parents vetoed me getting a real mohawk. But I have
watched this movie so many times and I quote it NonStop.
One of my favorite quotes is whenever one of the characters, Mark,
(12:37):
who is one of the most unhinged characters in any
movie I've ever seen. He plays like this really straight
laced guy who is friends with the two punk rockers.
They go out one night, steal a car, and then
decide to get rid of the evidence by throwing the
car into the Great Salt Lake sink you for Hey,
why won't she sink? Well, it's because it's the Great
Salt Lake. And yeah, dude, there's salt in it. It's
(13:02):
like saltiest lake in the world. It makes things poyant.
Speaker 3 (13:05):
You know, you.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
Vat So that is the quote I kept saying while
I was in Salt Lake City recently Centerfool, but that
character was played by Till Schweiger, who went on to
play Hugo Stiglitz in Inglorious Bastards. So at number six,
an underrated movie from the nineties is SLC Punk. At
number five from nineteen ninety eight is a little movie
called Basketball. This movie is from the creators of South Park,
(13:31):
Trey Parker and Matt Stone, who are two comedic geniuses,
probably my favorite creators in comedy. I've learned so much
from them over the years. What Basketball is about. It's
these two guys who their life really doesn't go the
way they'd plan. As kids, they had dreams of playing
in Major League Baseball, but then as adults just turned
out to kind of be losers. But they end up
(13:53):
inventing this game that combines baseball and basketball, and they
end up developing this whole league that goes from just
they would play in their backyard into a real professional league.
You could probably make a movie like this now about pickball.
But the movie was made on a budget of twenty
five million dollars, which is pretty substantial. It only opened
a three million dollars and this one hurts. As funny
(14:16):
as this movie is, the movie only made seven million
dollars at the box office, which is sad because I
found this movie so funny as a kid. I rewatched
it as an adult and it still holds up. It's
exactly what you would expect from the creators of South Park.
It's dirty, it's graphic, the jokes are viol at times,
but man, is it funny. Here's probably the only joke
(14:39):
I can play from basketball, and it's a great moment.
This movie has a great opening scene. It starts out
with them as kids at a baseball game, being inspired
and then leading to their adult life of well, we're
not gonna have those dreams we sought out to have. No, Reamer, Someday,
I'm gonna be a big sports start, you know, Reamer.
(14:59):
Some I'm going to own a big sports bar. So
at number five, my underrated movie from the ninety is Basketball.
At number four, we'll get into a drama. It also
has a little bit of comedy. We call him Dramatis.
From nineteen ninety six is Jack starring Robin Williams. This
movie hits me in the fields. What it's about. Robin
(15:19):
Williams plays the main character in this movie named Jack,
who has an unusual disorder who has aged him four
times faster than any other human. So he's really a boy,
but he looks like a forty year old man. His
mom had an unusually short pregnancy. They found out this
after he was born, so his entire life he is
homeschooled until he starts the fifth grade and decides he
(15:43):
wants to go to real school. It's his first time
being around other kids and trying to make friends. So
it's him getting through those challenges of being a kid
inside his head, but outward looking like a forty year
old man. There's obviously some fun they have of getting
him to do things that only adults could do. But
the struggle he has is in order to connect with
(16:05):
somebody who looks like him. He falls in love with
his teacher played by Jennifer Lopez, and there is a
scene that still guts me. He decides he wants to
make a move because he can't control his feelings. He
feels like he is falling in love with her, and
he wants to invite her to a dance and this, Oh,
I'm gonna play a little bit of it, but this
one gets me emotional. Even as I was loading this clip,
I thought of this rejection scene and it still hits me.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Good.
Speaker 3 (16:29):
I'm sorry, honey, it just wouldn't be right.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Do you understand, Oh, Jackie, don't okay, jack jack come back,
let's talk. Jackie has nothing to do with you. I
feel that because then he collapses on the stairs, grabs
his heart, ends up in the hospital, and then gets
(16:54):
into this depression where you see him with a beard.
This movie hits you. It also reminds you how great
of an act Robin Williams is. And I know we
all love him for his comedies, but when he gets
into the dramatic stuff. I think that's where he really shines.
Oh man, this is a great movie, and I'm surprised
it did not do as well as I expected. A
movie with Jennifer Lopez and Robin Williams with a budget
(17:16):
of forty five million dollars, which, again, like all these movies,
is pretty substantial the most we've seen so far. It
only opened to eleven million dollars, but in its run
it ended up making fifty eight million, which is a
decent amount of money. At least they didn't go into
the hole so much. So for this one, it's not
so much the financial ramifications of it being a flap,
(17:38):
but I just feel like this movie gets understated and
underrecognized as being one of the best movies of the nineties.
So I had to put this one in at number four.
At number three from nineteen ninety four, is the best
baseball movie of all time, hands down. I don't care
what you say. It's not the Standlot, it's not any
other baseball movie in the nineties, eighties, whatever. This is
(17:59):
the best baseball movie ever made, and it does not
get the recognition it deserves. The movie I am talking
about is Angels in the Outfield. It's about a kid
played by Joseph Gordon Levitt who just wants the chance
of having a family again. And I just rewatched this
movie recently because my favorite team, the Texas Rangers, had
a chance to win the World Series, and I thought
I need to go back and revisit this because I
(18:20):
was reminded of the deal he made with his dad
was once the Angels win the Pennant, in this movie,
we can be a family again. And Texas Rangers, if
you're not familiar, they just won the World Series, but
and the entire history of the team never want it.
So I feel like this movie could have played out now.
So deadbeat dad telling his kid, Hey, if the Rangers
win the Pennant, we can be a family again. And
(18:42):
that was my inspiration to go back and watch this movie.
When the Rangers were playing the Astros, I thought, Man,
if they could just pull this off and make it
to the World Series, I've watched this movie for good luck.
Rangers went on to not only win the Pennant, but
win the entire World Series, So now every time they're
in the playoffs, I'm gonna have to go back and
watch this movie. But the movie was made for thirty
one million dollars. It had an opening of eight point
(19:05):
nine million dollars. It went on to make fifty million
dollars in its theatrical run. But if you look at
the cast in this movie, Yeah, Matthew McConaughey, Danny Glover,
Joseph Gordon Levitt, this cast is stacked. And surprisingly, this
movie was a lot more emotional than I remembered because
of the fact that he is just trying to get
(19:26):
his dad back, who doesn't want him. Yeah, when't we.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
Going to be a family again?
Speaker 2 (19:31):
From where I'm sitting, I'd say, when the Angels win
the pennant, you stay out of trouble sign.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
I almost cried again at the scene wherever he sees
his dad in court and realizes what is happening. So
this movie has it all. It has the emotion, it
has the baseball, it has comedy, it has all those
things working together with the charm of the nineties, and
not enough people talk about this movie so much so
that it's even hard to watch this movie. I just
(20:00):
happened to find out that TBS is carrying it, and
since we have Hulu Plus with TV Live, whatever that
is I was able to watch it for the first
time in years. So if you have Hulu Live Plus
with TBS or whatever, you can watch it too. But
it's a Disney movie, it needs to be on Disney Plus.
Justice for Angels in the Outfield, That's why I have
it at number three at number two is a comedy
(20:23):
from nineteen ninety eight. It stars the late and great
Norm McDonald. It also has already lang Chris Farley, which
I mentioned that Almost Heroes was his last starring role,
but this ended up being his final film credit. You
also have a surprise cameo from Adam Sandler in this movie.
But what this movie is about is Norm McDonald plays
(20:46):
this character who is a loser. I guess we have
a theme here, and he finds success in a revenge
for higher business. People come to him to do his
dirty work, whether it be to deal with a noisy neighbor,
a jerk of a or the big evil guy in
town who wants to destroy a retirement home. I could
quote this movie all day long from start to finish.
(21:08):
I know every single line in this movie, and again
it's a movie that's not entirely appropriate. And I know
there's a kids who listen to this podcast. So this
is the cleanest joke I can play from a movie
called Dirty Work.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
Hey, Mitch, you're really starting to like this Kathy, aren't you. No, Mitch,
I know you.
Speaker 1 (21:27):
Man. When you say no like that, you really mean yes,
we are talking about watch. I'll show you, Mitch. Did
you ever rob a bank?
Speaker 3 (21:35):
Now?
Speaker 1 (21:35):
Did you ever climb Mount Everest?
Speaker 3 (21:37):
No?
Speaker 1 (21:39):
Did you ever say that you can see why women
find Sean Connery sexy?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
No?
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Okay, So I like Kathy a little bit, and I
still do that to this day.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
No.
Speaker 1 (21:50):
It also has the late great Don Rickles, who is
famous for just rattling off insults the people, and I
think this is his best showcase of doing this. When
he just keeps going off on AARTI lane look like
a fucking alert on a bad day. Got a call
yesterday from Baskin Robbins. They said that they're down to
only five flavors. You're swelling up as I talk to you. Hello,
(22:13):
I scream having a good time running around? What you
laughing at because I called your friend the fat pig?
Speaker 2 (22:19):
Hey?
Speaker 1 (22:19):
You think that's funny? Oh No, I was just laughing
earlier when you were talking to his ballet, so that
is number two. Dirty Work is an underrated movie from
the nineties. Before we get to number one. I do
have a lot of honorable mentions, a lot that you
guys sent in on social media. Canaan Cox said The Pagemaster,
which was an incredibly sophisticated animated movie from the nineties.
(22:41):
Adam can Two said Street Fighter, which I feel like
in the nineties we had this fascination with video game
adaptations that didn't really live up to expectations. I'm more
of a Mortal Kombat guy myself, but I can respect
it no quarter on X. I keep calling it X,
but it's Twitter said Cool Runnings, which was also the
last role of John Candy, a great Disney live action movie,
(23:04):
one of their better sports films. Joey Gibson also said Heavyweights,
which I kind of put in that category of a
goofy movie that I don't think it's as underrated as
it was five years ago, but I do love that movie.
Another one that a lot of people commented with was
The Iron Giant from nineteen ninety nine, which is an
animated movie and I never really fully understood the fascination
(23:26):
with that movie, so maybe that's my goofy movie. It
was good. I enjoyed it, but I think that one's
properly rated. But finally, at number one from nineteen ninety eight,
the most underrated movie from the nineties is Small Soldiers.
What this movie is about. You have these two guys
who work at a toy company and they need the
(23:47):
next big thing, something that's so cool and innovative and
hardcore that every kid is gonna want to buy it.
And what they end up doing is putting missile technology
in these toy action figures, and they think it's cool.
It makes them smart, and they fight with each other,
and one of them is programmed to kill, and one
of them is programmed to hide and be the peaceful one.
(24:07):
So you have the villains and you have the heroes.
But what they don't count on happening is the chips
end up malfunctioning and they start not only attacking the
other toys, but start attacking humans. The movie had a
budget of forty million dollars and it opened a fourteen
million dollars, which isn't the worst opening. It did end
up grossing fifty four million dollars at the box office,
(24:29):
so it had a little bit of a profit. But
when you look at the highest grossing movies of the
nineties and compare it to even the top one hundred
grossing movies of the nineties made at least one hundred
and ten million dollars as minimum, Lion King made almost
a billion dollars at nine hundred and seventy million, or
another iconic movie like Toy Story. It made forty million
(24:50):
dollars at the box office, so a mere fifty four
million dollars back then, they didn't really seem like a
whole lot when you have all these other movies crushing it.
And like all the other movies on this list, there
are lines that have just stuck with me for my
entire life. One specifically is in the final scene wherever
they're trying to take out the Commando elites, and you
(25:10):
have them revolting against the family and revolting against humans
and attacking them with all these weapons they have created
with things they found in the garage, which this movie
gets a lot more violent than you would expect forty
kids movie. People get hurt, people probably could have died.
But it's this one small little scene and this line
that this Toy says to the human that has stayed
(25:31):
with me forever, what are you packing? Tiny? Packing?
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Packing you?
Speaker 1 (25:37):
I continue to say that packing back in you. But
you also have Tommy Lee Jones as the voice of
the main commando Elite, who he just has a very
commanding and intimidating voice. So I feel like that goes underappreciated.
But not only that, when you look at the special
effects used to make these toys come to life, it
was pretty advanced for the nineties. And maybe you've seen
(26:00):
the meme online with people comparing VFX from the nineties
and early two thousands to vfx now we have somehow
regressed because if you go back and watch Small Soldiers,
it is a triumph because I didn't even question it
as a kid, and if I go back and watch
it now, it still holds up and looks pretty good.
Is some of it a little bit cheesy, Yeah, but
they did a really good job overall with a pretty
(26:23):
modest budget of forty million dollars, and Marvel Movies now
with two hundred, two hundred and fifty million dollar budgets
can't even replicate something like Small Soldiers from the nineties,
And again, gonna get a little bit morbid here, and
I didn't really set out to have this theme, but
Small Soldiers also has the final on screen appearance for
the late Phil Harmon, who I knew him from being
(26:46):
in this movie, but mainly with his voice work in
The Simpsons of characters like Troy McClure. So just through
this list, unintentionally, I shared with you a lot of
last on screen appearances from actors who have passed away,
which I feel like I should dedicate an entire episode
to that, but as I was going through my notes,
I just had to share that with you. But the
reason I included this one as my number one picks
(27:07):
underrated movie from the nineties. If you grew up in
this decade and you didn't watch and love this movie,
you're not a nineties kid. I'm sorry. You have to
appreciate the charm of this movie, the comedy in this movie,
the action in this movie, the lesson you learn, which
is don't put military technology in toys. We should all
know that, right. Okay, that is the list. If your
(27:29):
favorite underrated movie from the nineties didn't make it, let
me know what it is. Email me Moviemike d at
gmail dot com or links to all my socials or
in the episode notes. We'll come back, I'll give you
my spoiler free review of The Marvels and then we'll
talk about the new Mean Girls trailer. Let's get into
it now. A spoiler free movie review of The Marvels.
(27:50):
And I'm probably in the minority here, but I was
excited to see the sequel to Captain Marvel. I think
the character herself is a really great character, arguably the
strongest Avenger. I don't care what to say. I do think, however,
that movie was rush because they're really trying to establish
that character as we went into Endgame. So I feel
like the timeline when that movie came out, we didn't
(28:12):
have enough attention to it, and then we went into
Endgame and we haven't seen the character since. So what
this movie is about. You have Captain Marvel now teaming
up with Miss Marvel and Monica Rambo, and all their
powers become entangled, so whenever one tries to fully use
their powers, they switch with another member of the crew.
So you have them teaming up learning how to work
together and make it to where they can all change
(28:33):
powers and it be seamless and they can go against
the big villain. You also have Nick Fury in here
kind of ill placed in this entire movie. And I'm
gonna go with three things I liked and three things
I didn't like about this movie, starting with the positive. First,
Miss Marvel. I didn't love the Disney Plus show, but
her character in this movie was probably the best part.
And it's also the only part of this movie that
(28:55):
really had heart. Phase five is just lacking emotion and
lacking heart. The Marvel identity is kind of getting watered
down because what made those initial movies great were the
emotional connection we had with the characters, and I'm not
really feeling that anymore. The only time I ever felt
a sliver of that was with Miss Marvel's family. Second
thing I liked about this movie was the costume design.
(29:18):
A good superhero costume goes a long way. Miss Marvel's
suit was very bright and colorful, and Captain Marvel had
like the worn down sub dude colors kind of reminded
me of the old Captain America suit that I love
so Aesthetically, the suits look great in this movie, which
I feel like in Phase five there hasn't been much
attention to that, so they didn't really need a whole
lot of special effects going on with those suits to
(29:40):
make them look great. Second thing I liked about the movie.
Third thing I liked about the movie The visual effects
were actually a lot better than I was expecting, which
they've been struggling with. But I was kind of looking
for those moments that took me out of the movie,
whether it be something with a weird facial expression. I
didn't see blatant bad visual effects. I do think though
they're using way too much as far as all the
(30:02):
backgrounds not really feeling like there's any life to them. Again,
that's kind of the theme with Phase five right now,
is we're out of the MCU that exists in the
real world that we know. They're not in New York
City or New Jersey like Miss Marvel would be. They're
really just going out into space. It feels very Star
Wars ish right now, but not in a good way.
Probably all the bad parts that everybody hates about Star
(30:24):
Wars right now is kind of what the MCU is doing,
So I really think they need to get away from that,
and that would also solve their issues with spending so
much money on these movies. And then losing a bunch
of cash. Because if they stop focusing so much on
everything that needs to come and post and get us
in some real, just sets where you can actually interact
(30:45):
with things, you see some backgrounds, I think that would
help the actors get better performances, because throughout this entire film,
Ree Larson had about one acting note. I guess I'm
getting into the negative thing. So the first thing I
didn't like about this movie was the act And I'm
looking to Breed Larson, our star here, who I was
the most excited to see. She had about one note
(31:06):
throughout this entire movie, this one blank expression on her
face that was her confused face, her happy face or
what is going on face? And I feel like it
really changed the tone of Captain Marvel, who was so
heroic in the first film and so heroic an Endgame.
I feel like that identity kind of was washed away
in this movie to where she didn't really feel as
(31:28):
powerful and as in control. And that's what I wanted
my superhero. I want them to come in and dominate,
especially her, who has these incredible powers of harnessing all
this light energy, being able to fly, being able to
destroy cities. I didn't really feel that it was kind
of like she didn't know how to play the character anymore.
But again, I think it goes back to there's so
(31:50):
many things going on in the background that they don't
get to interact with. They don't really have anything to
play off when they're filming these movies. That is something
I'm realizing more and more really affects how we grasp
onto these movies. So I don't think it's entirely her fault.
Maybe a little bit on the director, maybe just a
little bit on the way that the MCU cranks South
(32:11):
East movies. So again, scaling back the budget, getting back
to some basics I think would help the MCU right
now because it's just lacking some identity. Second thing I
didn't like about the movie was the lack of action.
The fight scenes and the MCU used to be top
tier and now they're a lot more comical, probably a
lot more kid friendly, but there's no grit in the
(32:32):
action anymore like there was in Civil War, like there
wasn't Captain America or the early Ironman films. It just
feels very lighthearted and like there's really nothing on the line.
When a fight scene is happening right now. So this
movie was lacking a lot of action and a lot
of direction of where our heroes were trying to go.
It wasn't until really forty minutes into the movie that
we had a clear action, a clear mission, which usually
(32:55):
is something you should establish early on. Who's there, villain?
What do we need to do to defeat them? What's
the plan? Which is weird for a movie that's only
an hour and a half. I know the runtime is
listed is one hour and forty five minutes, but we
were out of there in ninety minutes, with the post
credit scene maybe coming at the one thirty five marks.
So for something to feel so rushed at the end,
I feel like this movie was treacherous in the editing
(33:18):
process of figuring out what to do. Maybe it's because
of all the reshoots that they decided, maybe we don't
have a full story here to flesh out a two
hour mar of a movie. Let's at least make it
quicker and get people out of there and don't give
people enough time to hate it, which is how I
kind of ended up feeling about this movie. There was
nothing I loved about it, but by the time it
(33:40):
was over there really wasn't anything I hated about it,
but I found myself just getting a little bit bored
at the story. I love the characters, I just didn't
love the story. I didn't love the villain, so I
wasn't ready to go on this journey with them. So
it was almost like I would have clicked next mission
on this movie and picked something else, because I actually
think that this plot point is really great of them
(34:01):
having these entangled powers. They should have had a lot
more fun with that, so I kind of lumped it
in there. But the third thing I did not like
about this movie was the villain. There was no point
where I felt that anything was really on the line,
like they were really fighting for something. The objective really
wasn't that clear of why they were trying to take
down this villain. So in order for me to really
(34:24):
be invested and get that Hurrah moment that we all
look for in an MCU movie, you're supposed to have
that heroic feeling, like you just watch your heroes take
on somebody that looked at one point to be unstoppable.
I didn't get that here. Again, it felt very rushed
in those last fifteen to twenty minutes, so there was
no real a we're not going to get our heroes
(34:44):
to where we need them to be. It was just okay,
here we are, here's the situation, and now it's over.
What exactly did we just experience here? So, by no
means is this movie just blatantly bad. It's just very
bland and generic and safe. I wanted them to go
a little bit harder, especially when you have an all
female lead cast, which I love. Again, the characters are great.
(35:05):
The story in this movie just doesn't really make sense
and didn't really need to happen, and therefore just kind
of feels like a weak stepping stone as we are
navigating through phase five, really just trying to scrape through
it and keep people interested in Marvel as they go
into phase six. I also feel like this is a
movie because it is female led, that people are just
gonna hate without even watching the movie. Because really, when
(35:27):
it was all said and done, this movie felt to
me like it was made for Disney. Plus just the
film quality itself, the cinematography. Nothing screamed to me that
this needed to be on the big screen. I think
if you took this same story and chopped it up
into four or five maybe six episodes. It would have
been a smash hit, but again, it's pretty expensive, so
(35:48):
they couldn't do that. It just feels like something that
didn't have a whole lot of hype going into it.
They didn't take any risks, and therefore it's not really
going to motivate people to want to go see this
in theaters when it's going to come out on Disney
Plus in a couple or few months. And I don't
think that puts the MCU in a great place when
they are in the business of making money. So this
movie was all trouble and no base. And I think
(36:11):
it's very lazy to call a movie mid. I hate
it when reviewers say mid because it feels so disrespectful.
But it feels so uncreative to me of just to
call something mid, because you know that it gets a
rise out of people, Especially when somebody loves something and
you call it mid. It's like a big dig right
into your face, right into your fandom. But that's really
the only way I can describe this movie. And I
(36:33):
hate to say it, I hate to use it, but
it was so mid. I said the same thing about
ant Man, though, because even though I love parts of it.
The overall story just keeps me thinking did we really
need this? Therefore, this movie was really mid and especially
going into it where I wanted the Captain Marvel character
to have so much time to flourish, didn't really do
(36:53):
it for me for Captain Marvel. I give it two
point five out of five cats.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
It's time to head down to movie Mike trailer Paul.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Is Hollywood out of ideas? That's always the big question
I see online. The main criticism I see when it
comes to movies right now is that everything is a remake,
everything is a sequel, and there are no original ideas left.
And I will have to say the trailer for Me
and Girls twenty twenty four does not help that argument.
(37:28):
Even though the movie is based on the musical, so
it's not a direct remake of the movie from two
thousand and four, it is a movie based on the musical,
which the movie is based on them. You know, it's
this entire loop thing and after watching the trailer, there's
nothing that screams musical to me. What this trailer looks
like is they really want to cash in on the
(37:50):
fact that the entire plot feels familiar, and that's what
they are going after. There are direct references line for
line from the original movie in this trailer. The wardrobe
is the same, the characters are the same. It just
feels like the gen Z remake of that original movie
because there's no singing in the trailer. So to the
casual person just stumbling upon this trailer, you're really not
(38:12):
gonna know that even though that's the case here with
remakes and sequels, is they want to cash in on
the familiarity and what has already been proven to work.
Because everybody knows and loves the original movie, they kind
of just bring out all those elements, feature them again
and think, oh, in turn, people want to go watch
this again. But I have never not wanted to see
(38:32):
a movie so much after watching a trailer. I'll get
into more of my thoughts, but before I do, here's
just a little bit of the Mean Girls twenty twenty
four trailer, which is also weird to say because it's
just called mean Girls, not called mean girls too, not
called me mean girls. They have to add in the
year to differentiate the two. So here's a little bit
of the trailer. Get in, Lisa, Welcome Skiti. You're never
(38:54):
gonna believe what I found this morning your burn book, Mom.
It makes naps for sure, sure, Regina, Yeah, do you
like them?
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (39:04):
Oh no, I don't have any. I was just you're
a max. We will help you. Gatty, Why are you
so scary? It's Halloween. If you don't dress slutty, that
is slutch shaming us. That's just unprofessional. So what you
heard in that trailer are some of the same gags
and jokes from the original movie, just change just a
(39:25):
little bit. So what you have in this movie is
Tina Fey and Tim Meadows reprising their roles from their
old characters in the first movie. John hamm is taking
over the role of Coach Carter, and you have a
lot of new actors playing all of the young people
from the original movie. So what you didn't hear in
that clip or the rest of the trailer was any
of the singing. And I'm not too familiar with the musical,
(39:48):
but it's supposed to be adapted from the movie. So
what we are seeing here is just all the acting parts.
I wanted to see a little bit of the singing.
I wanted to see a little bit what is going
to make this movie different? Because it's not a remake.
They're calling it a hybrid, which we've seen done recently
with Matilda, and we have the color purple. So it's
(40:09):
not a completely new idea to make a musical adaptation
of a movie we've already seen. I just haven't seen
a version where they've done a musical remake and not
included any of that in the trailer. When the Matilda
trailer came out, the one that came out on Netflix,
it was very apparent that it was going to be
a musical and therefore completely different, and that one in
(40:32):
no way felt like that original movie from the nineties. Here,
it just feels like they are remaking the movie. And
Mean Girls, to me, is one of those perfect movies,
a movie that really shouldn't have been touched. I would
have been more excited to see a direct sequel a
Mean Girls, too, not based on the musical, but instead
what they've been doing recently with all these Mean Girls
(40:54):
advertisements that they've been doing with the original actors of
them twenty years later. Now in that moment, I think
that would have been a much more interesting movie of
how the Mean Girls grow up, become moms and their
daughters are the new focus instead of having just new
people come in and remake what happened in that original movie.
I think that would be a much more interesting story
and more creative. I worry that making what seems like
(41:18):
an exact copy of the original movie with some songs
that are going in there isn't going to really do
that well, and you're gonna anger those people who hate remakes,
especially with the movie that has such a dedicated fan
base as Mean Girls, one of the best movies of
the two thousands, one of the most quotable movies of
all time, And although twenty years is a significant amount
(41:38):
of time that has passed between that one and now,
it's crazy. I think it's been twenty years since that
movie came out, really making us feel old here. I
just think you have to make it different instead of
just updating everything to make all these gen Z references
that are going to feel cringey in ten years.
Speaker 3 (41:54):
Oh.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
I don't think this movie is going to stand the
test of time like the original one did, which has.
If you go back and watch that original movie, it
is still a great movie. But this one is just
adding in things like TikTok, changing some of the jokes,
to make them a little bit more riskue, a little
bit more sexual. I don't feel like that's gonna be
enough to really carry this movie. Another thing that worries me,
it's coming out on January twelfth, historically not the best
(42:18):
month to release a movie. Maybe they're just trying to
counter program and put it out after the holidays when
there's not much going on, So that worries me a
little bit. And going back to the trailer where they're
just playing off the familiarity of the movie, making a
trailer that's very shareable so you can tell all your friends, look,
they're remaking the movie. I feel like that was the
(42:40):
intention of this trailer. The next trailer they put out,
I feel it's gonna have that musical element and really
make it look like something different. So I don't want
to say this one is dead in the water yet.
For me, I just need to see that next trailer. Now,
if that trailer comes out still doesn't speak to me,
I'm gonna say this was a bad, bad decision and
just the cash grab, which I hate, a cash grab
(43:01):
that tugs at the nostalgias streams inside of our heart.
I would just go watch Mean Girls again. If I
wanted the exact same plot points. So again, that's coming
out in theaters on January twelfth. The jury is still
out on this one, waiting for that second trailer head
That for was this week's edition of Movie by Tram
or Bar and that's gonna do it for this week's episode.
(43:21):
But before I go, I got to give my listeners
shout out of the week. How do you get a
listener's shout out of the week? Where you can comment
on my Instagram TikTok at Mike d Shrow. I have
a Facebook page, Facebook dot com slash Mike dstro and
the YouTube channel where if you've missed any individual movie
review or you just want to see it and hear
it at the same time, I put all those up
on my channel YouTube dot com slash Mike Dstrow, which
(43:45):
some of the reviews have been starting to pop off
over there, but I find now that YouTube can be
kind of a dark place, and some people have not
been so nice in the comments. I'd say eighty percent
are pretty positive. Fifteen percent may not like my point
of view, but we can challenge each other. I'm always
fine with that movie interpretations are always up for debate,
(44:05):
but it doesn't feel like they are attacking me. And
another five percent of just people commenting on my physical appearance,
which is not cool. So YouTube can be kind of
a dark place, but I'm still posting there every single week.
But this week's listener shout out of the Week comes
to us from Instagram Jelyissa Davis, who commented and said,
listen to twenty six episodes this weekend on mine drives
(44:26):
from Florida to South Carolina and back. You got me
through the entire drive back and forth. Keep up the
great work. Your podcast is fire. That is a lot
of episodes, a lot of me, too much of me,
a lot of movie content. So just a round of
applause for listening to that many episodes. I don't think
I could listen to myself for that amount of time,
So you lista for that commitment. You probably deserve more
(44:46):
than just listener of the week. That is a lot
of episodes, But thank you so much for listening. Thank
you to everyone in the movie crew. And until next time,
go out and watch good movies and I will talk
to you later.
Host
Mike D
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