Mike talks to Frédéric Yonnet who is a French musician and Harmonicist whose sound caught the attention of legendary director, Martin Scorsese. Frédéric talks about how he is featured on the score for "Killers of the Flower Moon '' and how recording music for a movie works. He also talks about his friendship with comedian Dave Chappelle. In the Movie Review, Mike gives his thoughts on the ‘horror’ movie Five Nights at Freddy’s. It stars Josh Hutcherson as a troubled security guard who begins working at Freddy Fazbear's Pizzeria. Mike gets into all the things that troubled him about the movie and why it’s embarrassing to call it a horror movie. In the Trailer Park, Mike gives his thoughts on Netflix’s Maestro coming out in December. Bradley Cooper stars as the late music great Leonard Bernstein. Mike talks about how it feels like Oscar bait, Bradley Cooper as a director and the controversy that surrounds the film.
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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. Today I'm talking to Frederick Ya,
who is a harmonica player that got the attention of
legendary director Martin Scorsese and his sound right now is
being featured in Killers of the Flower Moon. I call
it the Death Harmonica, and I'll explain exactly what that
is in the movie review. I'll be talking about five
Nights at Freddy's and in the trailer Park we'll be
(00:21):
looking at Bradley Cooper's second movie that he's directing. It's
Netflix is Maestro and the issue I think Netflix is
having right now when it comes to their original movies.
So I'll get into all that. Shout out to the
Monday Morning Movie crew, and now let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
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 (00:53):
From the Nashville Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike's Movie Podcast,
about to get into my car conversation with Frederick One
and that name you might not be completely familiar with.
But if you have seen or are planning to see
Killers of the Flower Moon, you are going to know
the sound of his harmonica. He is a French musician
and has such a distinct sound that Martin Scorsese knew
(01:14):
he had to have it in his movie to portray
the sound of death, which I don't always think harmonica
and death, but somehow they go perfectly together. And you're
probably wondering, what does that even sound like? Well, here's
a little clip of his work on the score of
Killers of the Flower Moon. Listen to that harmonica, So
(01:40):
that's a little bit of Frederick's work. He is also
friends with Dave Chappelle, which we'll get into later in
the interview, and here's what Dave Chappelle had to say
about him.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Fred is a musical anomaly. He plays an instrument that
I didn't even really know I liked till I heard
him when one other person play with two other people
play it. But I'm gonna say he's amongst the best
I've ever heard play it, fred if you would just
give them a little sample.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Sure of how he became friends.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Frederick has toured with legends like Stevie Wonder and Prince
and he's actually doing a couple of shows in DC
coming up on December first and December second. You can
get tickets at carlisleroom dot com slash shows or check
the episode notes of this podcast if you want to
go see them live. But now let's get into it
talking about his work on Killers of the Flower Moon
and how he met director Martin Scorsese. Frederick, how are
(02:33):
you doing?
Speaker 4 (02:34):
I'm the one to fool my cars and everything with you.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I'm doing really well now. When I was in sixth grade,
I was in band and the instrument I got forced
upon me was the clarinet, which wasn't the sexiest of instruments,
but it was the only one that I could try
out for, So it was just kind of forced on
to me. When I think of you and you playing
harmonica again to a kid, probably not the sexiest instrument
to say, hey, here's a harmonica. How was that given
(02:58):
to you when you first started playing?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Well, you had the it's out of the stick. I
was actually introduced to music. I grew up in France, right,
so I was introduced to music through the recorder.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
So I went from the first trading experience of trying
to make the recordings sound good, to the amazing opportunity
to have something that fits in your pocket, that's very inexpensive,
and that creates a lot of.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Curiosity in the audience. The beauty of this instrument is
you know, it fits in your hands and when you
play it, you don't really know where the sound is
really coming from. It's almost like a magic trick. It's
also the only wind instrument that can generate music by
excelling through it or inhaling through it. So as you
(03:54):
play the harmonica, when you start inhaling through it, you
become a part of the instrument yourself, because the sound
is going to resonate through your torso, your throat, and
your head. Every basically your body becomes an amplification of
the frequencies generated by the instrument. So those are all
(04:16):
the reasons why I fell in love with the instrument,
but also the fact that I grew up with asthma
and as you know, as a kid. Instead of carrying
and in heller in my pocket every day, because you know,
I never knew when I as my attack was going
to show up, I started carrying this instead and one
day I realized that, oh, I was taking my harmonica
(04:36):
ever where I was going, but myn in heller was
still on my table at home. So the more I
played the instrument, the better my health was getting, the
more friends I was making. It's an easy choice.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Now. You have such a distinct sound, almost to the
point that if I hear your music, I just know
it's you immediately. How do you start developing that? Like,
where do you get this just tone that ends up
being yourself?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
You know? I remember a long time ago I heard
an interview of Wynton Marcellis who said something in the
vein of there's going to be a lot of people
trying to do the same thing that you're trying to do.
In order to be better and to sound like yourself,
you just have to put more hours than anybody else
(05:20):
into the game. And that's really what I did. I
studied the I studied the harmonica from the perspective of
a music fan and not from a harmonica player's perspective.
I learned the instrument through and on to replicate the
sound of the blues, the sound of country music, the
(05:40):
sound of gospel, the sound every basically genre with the
musical genre with the harmonica was prominently being you know, featured,
and by studying all those styles, I started to create
my own. And I realized also that the harmonica was
not necessarily present in the music I really enjoyed listening
(06:03):
to the most which at the time was fusion and
jazz and reggae, R and B and pop music. So
created a lot of opportunities for me because you know,
not on whole lot of harmonica players saw it from
that perspective. And here I am today, you know, after
I have been performed with Prince TV at sharing and
now Martin Scorsese.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Oh yeah, which I want to talk about, which I
saw the movie and I was completely floored by the film.
In movies, I always feel that the score gets overlooked
because there is so much impactfulness that just the sounds
in a movie make you feel, whether you realize it
or not, that sentiment from an instrument or from just
a song playing during a very specific point in the
(06:43):
movie changed the entire thing for me. So I think
it's something that we don't realize because we're just taking
it with our eyes, but we're also feeling something. And
with your sound of that harmonica, I just associated it
in the movie with greed and death and all these
dark things. So how does that feel to know that
your sound is associated with such just dark imagery.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Well, I mean, there's it's a mix feeling. The first
thing is I'm really honored to be to be featured
in the and to be a part of something so meaningful,
so impactful, so deeply disturbing. That is a true story,
a true American story. I'm honored to have been chosen
to be the harmonica on the struct because obviously Scorcely
(07:28):
wanted a harmonica to express, to impersonate exactly what you described,
the spirit of greed, the dark thoughts of a whole
group of people who were seeking profit and put profit
ahead of their morals. Construct You know, I feel honored
to be a part of this, But I also find
it very interesting that the harmonica could be perceived as
(07:50):
a tool to actually channel that kind of emotion and energy.
I had never thought of it that with myself, because
when I play, I tried to connect my experience is
my experienced emotions, and tried to convey it into more
of them into a sound that hopefully my audience will
(08:12):
connect to. That's actually a very interesting point because when
I met Martin Scorcese at the premiere in ken earlier
in Mad this year, it was our first time meeting
and he, you know, introduced myself at the Harmonica for
the Irish Man and Kills of the Flower. Morning said, oh,
my gosh, Harmonica, ma. How you know he grew up
(08:35):
with the Harmonica as the soundtrack of his childhood and
his grandfather was a harmonica fan and he used to
listen to it a lot as it was growing up. So,
you know, we talked about this for a while and
after after we got comfortable, I actually sapped him and
I asked him, so, what is it about my plane
that makes you want to kill people? We had a
good left without.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So how did our relationship start? If you first met
him this year but you worked on Irish Man, how
does he even discover you?
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Everything started with Robbie Robertson. Robbie and Martin SCORSESEI have
had they had bless he saw he passed away in August.
They had a long term friendship and uh and and
they released a lot of movie They produced a lot
of movies together. Robbie was a part of the band.
(09:22):
He was in The Last Worlds. Backing up about Dylan,
he did Games of New York, of Wall Street. I mean,
a lot of a lot of major Scorsese pieces were
scored by Robbie Robertson, And when he and Martin Scorsese
he talked about the spirit of death in the in
(09:42):
The Irish Man and the spirit of greed and Killers
of the Flower Moon corses. He really wanted the harmonica
to be that particular lead instrument too, to impersonate those
spirits on the score.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
So when you're working with Robbie, who's the composer, is
the composer Irishman and Kells of the Flower Moon? What
is your direction when you're recording this music? Do you
know what's seeing it going to? Do you have an
idea of the sentiment that you're trying to portray and
you know, convey through your music?
Speaker 4 (10:12):
So from what what you explained to me that the
movie was being filmed at the same time as music
was being produced, and he they had some conversations and
the guideline he gave me for The Irishman, he says,
stay cool, stay sexy, and be sneaky. Those were the
(10:33):
three directions which are very interesting because those are the
ideas of those are pretty much the you you can
see that there's gonna be characters of a hit man
as well. Yeah, so bye bye. By really focusing on
those three words, I started impersonating you know this this uh,
(10:54):
this ambiance, the atmosphere, this vibe, and that's what came
out on the on the theme for the Irish Man.
They had some melodies already written, they had some ideas
of how the music was to be interpretated, but at
the end of the day they decided to keep the
tracks that had more of my interpretation of his melodies,
(11:16):
more of my emotions, more of the way I was
mophing the instrument versus instrument was mophing me. I think
what they really wanted was harmonica that didn't really sound
like a harmonica that so sounded more like a human
voice or a violin or sometimes a saxophone or guitar
or you know, sometimes a drum as well. So I
(11:38):
guess my ability to learn all those styles, all those
colors of the harmonica was actually implemented in this production.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, I think I fit so well. I think ultimately
a personified death in the film for me. So you
mentioned the premiere earlier when you go watch it at
the premiere. What is that feeling like of being able
to hear your work in a room full of all
these legendary people.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Okay, so I was born in France about twenty five
years ago. I met this amazing American woman who am
married to today, and I met her in Can during
the film festival, and she was there for her birthday.
And this year was really an amazing experience for all
those reasons. This is my fiftieth year on this planet,
(12:30):
and we had an opportunity to actually go to the
premiere in can where she and I met twenty five
years ago, and the movie was premiering in the most
prestigious movie theater of my country with thirty five hundred
more people. So that was kind of surreal, to be
completely honest, filed that's amazing. And every time the harmonica
(12:53):
kept popping up on the screen, I'm not going to
lie to you, I had a huge smile phone and
I was probably the only one in the movie theater
who was smiling every time some the Speed of Greed
was the screen.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You're the one rooting for all the bad things in
the film, and it's like that's me.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
So much so that so that we had to go
back to the premiere in New York where I finally
got to really experience the movie for what it really
was meant to be designed.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
That's amazing. That's an awesome full circle moment. I was also,
you have one of my favorite tiny desk sessions of
all time, and just the first time I hear you
play harmonica and I was like, oh my gosh, like
this is amazing. The thing that stuck out to me
about that was the fact that Dave Chappelle introduced you.
How do you become friends with Dave Chappelle?
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Oh my gosh, very It was very organic. I mean,
Dave's there is a comedian. But one thing you need
to know about comedians is they love music. The most
comedians know believe they are musicians, and most musicians we
know believe their community. I learned to step away from that,
(14:09):
from from that that that that genre. Just leave it
to Dave. But I met Dave in I think two
thousand and five, right after he came back from South Africa,
and we we we have this friendship. We actually have
a show together. We call it Dave Chappelle' Juke joint
and it features my band, which is he likes to
(14:33):
call it the band with no Name because all those
musicians are musicians I have met on the road when
I was touring with Prince and c TV. And on
the other side of the venue we have a DJ
called DJ de Nice, who you've probably heard of. And
it's the best party you've never heard of because everybody's
phone is locked in those yonder bands. Yeah, there yonder bags,
(14:57):
and you know, people just can't get who knowing that
there's no surveillance on site, and get really comfortable and
the party goes on for hours. So Dave is a
huge music fan, as you know, and that that ties
our relationship and friendship.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, I love that. Throughout all of his work, he's
always made it a point to feature some kind of musician,
even on Japel Show or doing like a blog party.
There's always been a strong music tie with him. So
I think it's awesome that you guys do things together.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Absolutely, it's an honor to watch him do his things
as well. I mean, he's such a such an important
voice in in in today today's environment.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So what are you working on right now that you're
excited about?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
My goodness, some producing music on a regular basis. I'm
on the tree preparing for a couple of shows. I'm
doing it the in in d C, in a in
a in a couple of weeks. I'm at the car,
out of room. If you're in d C, you're more
than welcome to Carl. I'd love to invite you come over.
I don't know if you remember this story, but during
the pandemic, we I had just purchased a house in Washington,
(16:02):
d C. And right before the pandemic, I got in
the place, and when the pandemic occurred, of course everybody's
calendar got completely pulled down to zero, including all my
musicians and myself. So I was looking at contempling that
empty house completely got it with no dates on the schedule.
So I decided to create a virtual jazz club. And
(16:25):
it was at first just for the neighbors, so we could,
you know, share the neighborhood a little bit. So we
opened the windows and played on Sundays at six o'clock.
Who would play for the neighbors And then of course
it grew into something because CNN picked up on the story,
BBC picked up the story. The French TV Networks did
as well, so we started broadcasting it on social media
(16:45):
as well, and DJ denized let me use his Instagram,
so it became something that really grew and tied the neighbor.
The neighbors were a little closer. It canceled the idea
of social distancing, created you know, a community. Now the
project is done, so we're about to have one more
(17:07):
concept for the neighbors, but this time with a finished house.
So that's what I've been working on. Bailey.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Well, that's awesome. I encourage everybody listening now to go
check out your music and if they can make it
to a show in DC, go do that. And I
hope you get to see you live at some point.
And also everybody go watch Killers of the Flower Moon
and know whenever that death and Despair comes on screen,
that's Frederick right there, the sound of Greed. It's been
great getting to talk to you. I really appreciate.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
It, Mike, thank you so much for your time. All
the best to you, and hope to meet you in
person very soon.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
All right, have a good one. Thank you, two care
of let's get into it a spoiler free movie review.
I want to talk about Five Nights at Freddy's, a
movie I picked could be my Halloween movie of the weekend.
I was so excited to sit down in the theater.
Kelsey didn't go with me because she doesn't do horror movies.
(18:00):
I got my middle seat would row up. It was
all cozy ready, just to have some fun, have some thrills,
have some scares, and this movie let me down. Ruined
my Halloween weekend. And I won't say that I had high,
even medium expectations going into this movie. After watching the trailer,
(18:21):
I saw some things that were some red flags, showing
a lot of the plot, showing a lot of what
would be the most scariest parts of the entire movie.
So I knew it probably wasn't going to be the
best thing ever. But I can respect a video game adaptation,
which this is what this is. It's based on a
video game. I'm not that familiar with the game, aside
(18:41):
from what I remember from people in high school talking
about how scary this game was. I thought maybe some
of that would translate into the movie. It's also coming
to us from Blumhouse, who does really solid horror movies.
Just earlier this year, they created a horror icon with Megan.
And then you have Josh Hutchinson, who we all remember
as Peter Malark from The Hunger Games, the guy who
(19:03):
was supposed to be it for a minute, who's acting
career has taken a bit of a tumble. He never
went on to be that guy. I think that was
due to a lot of movies he was cast in
just weren't the right roles for him. And then you
have Matthew Lillard in this movie. You have Elizabeth Lao
who plays a cop who helps out Josh Hutchinson's character
(19:24):
in this movie. So why did I not like it?
First of all, the movie is about Josh Hutchinson's character
who is down on his luck after an incident went down.
He was working as mall security. He punched a guy
who he thought was abducting another kid, and it turns
out it was just the boy's father, so he not
only punched him, he pummeled the guy and after that
(19:45):
has been bouncing around from job to job. He lost
his parents, he lost his brother, and is now taking
care of his sister. So in order to prevent his
aunt from taking custody of his sister, he has to
just have a stable job. Now, when telling his story.
In this movie, there were so many cliches that they
used to portray a person who is down on their
(20:07):
luck hit rock bottom, and that was one of them.
At the very beginning, trying to get a job, he's
listing out all the things he's had wrong with him.
What's your deal guy? That type of thing. It just
felt very generic and very forced, and I was like, Okay,
maybe I can get past that. We'll get into the horror,
we'll get into the fun. But even the way this
movie opened up was so generic. In that first kill.
(20:29):
In a horror movie, it's supposed to hook it in.
It's supposed to showcase what is going to make this villain,
what is going to make all these monsters great? And
it was so lame. It set nothing up tone wise.
It was just kind of there. And that is kind
of how this entire movie felt. It was a bunch
of random scenes cut and pasted together. So how this
(20:49):
character goes on, he's trying to find that job. He
gets offered this one job by Matthew Lillard's character, and
it's a security job working at this pizzeria that has
been abandoned the eighties. And they tell you this very
loose story of what happened there, but it's all about
him going there and figuring it out on his own,
so I won't get into all those details, but essentially, yes,
(21:10):
he's working this graveyard shift at this pizzeria and you
have these animatronic figures that are very creepy looking, which,
aside from the girl in this movie who plays Abby,
his young sister, those were my other favorite part of it.
Just the way that they looked, not the way that
they acted, not the way that they interacted, or not
even the way that they killed people, just the way
(21:30):
that they looked, because I thought that was going to
be pretty novel. So then he takes the job, goes
and starts working at this graveyard shift, and then that's
where all the creepy things happened. Where this movie lost
me really is that you have a character here working
in a creepy situation, a late night graveyard shift. You
should have showed exactly how creepy it is to be
(21:51):
in a place that late at night, at dark, with
all these weird things happening, with these weird animatronic figures
shifting around, and you have this security cams. Somehow you
made that not scary. Not only did you make it
not scary, they made it boring. And this is coming
from somebody who worked an overnight shift like this. I
used to work at a radio station from twelve am
(22:14):
to six am, and let me tell you, from the
hours from about twelve am to three am, you get
pretty freaked out because you're just getting used to it.
You're there very late, you're fighting your body's natural reaction
to want to go to sleep at that time. You're
doing things to keep you awake. I'm drinking coffee, and
every single noise you hear you question because you're just
there alone. The radio station, Ivergain was this really big, old,
(22:36):
creepy building. Sometimes it would sound like there was somebody
pushing a mop bucket down the hallway. I would go
look out and there would be nothing there. Probably not haunted,
Probably just a lot of things running in my brain.
But that's how creepy it is, and that's how much
your mind messages with you when you are working at
a place overnight and supposed to be the one looking
over everything. They didn't show that in this movie. It
(23:00):
should have been creepy enough just to be there on
your own without the animatronics there and they completely fumbled that.
Not only that, the acting throughout this entire movie was terrible.
Did Josh Hutcherson even show up? Like was he there?
He was on the screen, but was he there? I
don't think he was. And for somebody who needs a
movie to put him back in the spotlight, put him
(23:21):
back on the map, this was terribly miscast. And I
feel like maybe they got him because he has some
name recognition. Maybe they were trying to find somebody else
to fill this role and they landed on him and thought, Okay,
maybe we can make this work. It did not work.
His performance was so flat. He had no great interactions
(23:42):
with anybody on the screen. And it was really important
to his relationship with his sister to have some kind
of big brother role, and another relationship in the movie
is a little bit complicated. It's supposed to be that
she's not speaking to anyone and she's having trouble connecting
with people, and you have this whole plot line of
her like drawing pictures and not really saying a whole lot.
(24:02):
So I get it on that front, but still it
felt like he wasn't acting with them, he was acting
at them. And not only that, the way they wrote
his character there was a whole lot of telling you
and not showing you. There's literally one scene in this
movie where he tells the female cop who is essentially
kind of the love interest, kind of the one helping
(24:23):
him navigate his new security shift. He sits down and
tells her his entire life story. How lame is that?
That is so lame. You're supposed to tell me through
his actions, through what he's trying to accomplish in this movie,
and build his character, not just sit down and say
these are all the reasons I am the way Like, No,
(24:44):
that is so lame and so boring and such a
cop out. I hated that, and also the fact that
this movie even tries to play itself off as a
scary movie. This movie was in no way scary whatsoever,
and that's ultimately why it lost me. The trailer was
creepy in its own way. It didn't look like it
(25:06):
was going to be terrifying, But there was no part
of this movie that had any horror element whatsoever. Very
minimal blood, no use of jump scares, which I find
cheap to begin with. But if you have a boring
movie like this, on your hands at least hit me
with a cheap jump scare. There wasn't even that, And
there wasn't even any playfulness, because that's really what this
(25:29):
movie was missing. It's a scary movie that takes place
in an abandoned pizzeria where there are fun child games
all around. It's essentially an old school chucky cheese but
with kind of a weird vibe to it, and you
make that boring. There's so many fun, creative things that
were going off in my mind of things they could
have done, so it led me to believe that they
(25:52):
didn't have enough money to make the movie they wanted,
that they were relying on the ip being five nights
at Freddy's and being that on a video game, and
thinking that so many people are going to be interested
in this movie because of that, that they didn't really
have to try hard. So maybe they spent so much
money making the actual animatronic characters, making those lifelike, which
(26:14):
those were at least interesting to look at, but they
didn't really do a whole lot that gave me anything
to root for or even root against. So this movie
ruined my Halloween weekend and I want it back, even
though I had the Regal Unlimited, so I'm only out
fifty five cents only out the tax I'm good with that.
And the movie is rated PG thirteen. But rate this
(26:35):
movie PG I guess because of the blood and because
of the killing, But I don't see it anything worse
than you would be exposed to on your new speed
on Instagram. So it really wasn't that bad on a
horror level. Maybe there was some language in there that
I missed just because I'm so used to hearing bad
language in movies, but it felt really like a cautionary
(26:55):
tale to kids. I feel like parents should show this
movie to their kids if they want them to. I'm
begging them to take them to Chuck E Cheese. Here.
Watch this movie, You'll never want to go see and
visit Chuck E Cheese ever. Again, that is what this
movie should be. So maybe that's the reason it classifies
itself as a scary movie. So there were so many
things that I did not like about this movie. It
(27:17):
just really lacked imagination. The only thing that redeemed it
was I feel like Matthew Lillard is a gem that
we don't appreciate. He was really committed to his role
he really shined in a movie where there weren't really
that many things to be excited about. There were some
cool shots, so a couple maybe a half point for
the cinematography in this movie, but really, the entire tone
(27:40):
was off on this movie. The acting was terrible, the
horror elements were subpar at best. I'm just thinking about
how much this movie annoyed me, and I'm getting angry
again as you hear. So if I had to rate
this movie, first of all, don't go see it in theaters.
Don't waste your time. I don't even think it's worth
(28:01):
a stream because the only thing that really kept me
watching it was the fact that I was in the theater.
If I would have been at home watching this movie,
I probably would have stopped it in those first thirty
minutes because it was just so bad and boring to
even get going, and there were only little breadcrumbs that
kind of strayed me along. It was kind of like
a trail of Eminem's leading me to something that I'm like, Okay,
(28:24):
maybe this is going somewhere, and about halfway through, I'm like,
I just have to know how this ends. I just
want to know what the conclusion is here so I
can get on with my life. And even as I
was leaving, the guy who was about to clean there
at the Regals said, hey, you want to stick around
for the post credit scene. I was like, no, I'm good.
I didn't like the pre credit scene the entire movie.
I'm not going to stick around for the post credit scene.
(28:47):
So for that reason, five nights at Freddy's. Am I
giving it five?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
No?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I am given it one point five out of five Animatronics.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
It's time a movie, Mike Trey Lar Paul.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I want to keep the music theme alive and take
a look at Netflix's Maestro, starring and directed by Bradley Cooper.
This is the second movie he is directed, the first
one being A Star is Born, so he is continuing
the music theme, which I feel at his core. Maybe
it's because of his performance and A Star is Born,
(29:23):
but I always feel that Bradley Cooper has wanted to
be a rock star his entire life, and he has
had quite the trajectory in his acting career. I mean,
the same guy that was in The Hangover is now
directing and starring in a movie of this quality. So
to see that kind of change over his life he
was almost just the rom com guy for a while
(29:43):
even there in the two thousands. He's playing a composer
named Leonard Bernstein. He is starring alongside Carrie Mulligan, and
this movie will be a deep dive into their complicated
love interest. A lot of things strike me as visually
appealing in this movie. I'm also interested to get to
know a lot about this composer that I really don't
know a whole lot about. And I find myself enjoying
(30:03):
biopics more when I don't know so much about the
person and I'm learning about the aspects of their life.
I also like when it's people who aren't the most
famous people, because I feel like these are the stories
they need to be told. And I'll get into more
of that here just a little bit. But this movie
is coming out on Netflix on December twentieth. Before I
get into my full thoughts of Maestro, here's just a
little bit of the trailer.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
I love people so.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Much that it's all for me to be lone. I
have music. It keeps me glued to life.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
I don't people know how much you need do.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
So, Like I said earlier, this is Bradley Cooper's second
attempt at directing, not to say that his first attempt
was a flop, because The Star Is Born did really well.
So I feel like he's found his lane of doing
music movies and in this one he plays a different
type of rock star. And breaking down the visual aspects
of this trailer, first, I love the way it looks
(31:01):
when it shows his early life. It is black and
white four to three ratio, which is like that square,
old school TV look. If you want to get me
interested in a movie, give me some four to three shots,
especially in black and white, because it feels so artsy
and cinematic. I love the look of all those shots.
That being said, when it translates from the four to
three shots to the regular wide screen in color, just
(31:24):
that dynamic gives me that this movie is wanting to
be Oscar bait. And Netflix is really good at putting
out movies in November and December that just appeal to
Oscar voters, and this very much feels like that. So
I do go into this a little bit with the
little trepidation because, to be honest, I feel like Netflix
(31:45):
has a problem when it comes to their films and
their longevity because nothing that has come out on Netflix
in the last two to three years has been substantial
to the point that I remember them they are very forgettable.
I feel like Netflix has the quantity over quality approach,
and sometimes I feel that they put out films that
(32:07):
feel more like content than art, and I feel the
reason I love movies is because they are works of
art that have been worked through. But with Netflix just
a couple years ago putting out that big campaign of
We're releasing one new movie every single week, which I
was excited about when that first happened because it felt
very hype to me to know that I would have
a brand new movie I could watch it in my
(32:27):
home every single week. But nothing from that year of
movies stuck out to me, and it just felt like
they were trying just to churn out a bunch of
content in order to generate subscribers, because at the end
of the day, Netflix is a business trying to make
money and stay afloat and keep your money there with
giving you new things all the time. But I feel
like that has resulted in them just putting out really
(32:49):
lackluster movies that we watch one time and never think
about again. Now they have been nominated for a lot
of Oscars. I think it's somewhere in the fifties now.
They've been nominated for Picture before, but Netflix has not
won a Best Picture Oscar to date, so I do
think they have a problem when it comes to their films,
and Maestro again, I think, is going to be their
(33:10):
one that they're going to push to try to be
nominated and win Best Picture. And if any of their
movies had a shot, I feel like it would be
this one just by the look of it, judging that
Bradley Cooper has had some history there at the Oscars
with a Star is Born. But in this movie, what
I feel like is different than other music biopicks is
that I feel it's going to focus on one aspect
(33:32):
of this composer's life, which I feel is really really
important when making a biopick that I think some directors
forget that you have to make a good movie. At
the end of the day. You can't just throw in
all these cool things and accomplishments that these people have done,
throw them all into a movie and think, ah, there's
my movie. Here are all these cool things. You still
have to have a storyline and find that one thing
(33:55):
about them that would create a memorable movie that even
if you're watching it and this person did not exist,
it was an entirely fictional story, it would still be
entertaining and engaging to watch. I think this one is
going to focus heavily on his complicated relationship with his
wife in this film, played by Carrie Mulligan, who was
a great actress. I've loved her ever since I saw
her in Drive, and I love the way they look
(34:16):
together in this movie, where the complicated relationship I think
comes in by the looks of the hints we are
given in this trailer is Leonard may have had some
relationships with men, and she starts to become suspicious of this.
I don't know if she's going to catch him cheating
or what exactly is going to go down, but I
feel like it's going to be him just wanting to
be always around people and sometimes maybe romantically, because in
(34:41):
the trailer you also hear him say that he loves
people so much that whenever he's not around them, he
feels really lonely. So I think there's some aspect of
that of him wanting to be around people, but also
his love of music and his love of composing being
the thing that keeps him together and ties him to everything. Well,
I think this is going to be a pretty interesting
(35:02):
character study, and Bradley Cooper is the guy to do
it and also direct himself in doing it, because I
really feel like he takes on roles and becomes that person.
We saw that with him and a Star is Born.
I don't think he's doing the full method acting approach
to these roles, but he is really good at learning
about his characters, learning what makes them tick, and learning
(35:25):
how to live inside their skin. Which leads me to
the next controversy around this film is because he decided
to wear a prosthetic nose, and even though he had
the approval of the family, a lot of people have
a lot of issues with that because he is representing
a Jewish character. I don't love it, and I've told
you before on this podcast whenever the biggest argument about
(35:48):
somebody playing somebody in a biopic is that they don't
look like the person. I argue against that because I
don't think you have to look entirely like the person.
I think through some this general makeup and wardrobe, as
long as we know who we're looking at here, what
is more important is how they portray them and how
they show them through their actions and the way that
(36:08):
they just feel on screen is more important to me
than how they actually look. We had this controversy with
Austin Butler of people saying he didn't look like Elvis whatsoever,
But I said that he really encompassed the spirit of
Elvis on stage and off stage and gave us a
great representation of what he was like. I think that
is more important than actually looking like the character. So
(36:30):
I don't love the choice of using the prosthetic nose,
even though you're really trying to look like him, you
have the approval of the family. I just think when
it comes to real life people, I always think if
you're going to be comfortable with that in five to
ten years and look back on it, because there have
been some choices made. You know, back in the seventies
and eighties that seemed fine at the time, but now
(36:51):
in the twenty twenties you look back and think, why
did they even do that? So here I would say,
you don't even need it, And I don't want to
make less of his presence or his fame, but he
wasn't the most well known as far as it would
take me out of it by not seeing his face
portrayed exactly how it was in real life. I think
what this film is trying to do is teach us
(37:12):
about somebody we need to know more about and was
an important figure in music. We don't need that aspect
of seeing somebody who looks exactly like them. So maybe
Bradley Cooper did it because he wanted to fully live
inside the skin of Leonard Bernstein and that was taking
it a step forward. Maybe he wanted to look in
the mirror and see Leonard and not see himself. I
(37:33):
think that's probably the logic that went into making this decision.
But still I don't think you do it here. So
where would I put this on my excitement level? Let's see,
I would put this one at about a three point
five out of five. It's coming out on December twentieth,
(37:54):
which is the time that I'm fully into watching all
of these Oscar Worthy movies, so I feel like this
is one and I'll take a deep dive into and
really spend some time with. And the fact that I
can watch it at home. I like that aspect of it.
I'm also interested in the career of Bradley Cooper as
a director now, probably more so than his acting, and
I'm curious to see how this film affects the trajectory
(38:17):
of his directing career. Is he going to keep doing
just music biopicks? Is he going to maybe do a
thriller down the line or something completely different which I
feel like a star is Born really made his name
known as a director, so this could be that one
that elevates him even more into being an Oscar Worthy
level director. And again, I also love Kerrie mulligan and
(38:38):
Maya Hawk and Sarah Silverman are also in the film,
so I think this movie has a lot of potential
if you want to see it in theaters, though it
is coming out on November twentieth in select theaters because
any movie that wants to be considered to be nominated
at the Oscars has to have a theatrical run, so
for those who want to check it out there, But
for me, this is one I'll just wait to watch
on Netflix. And that is my stro head. That for
(39:01):
this week's edition of Movie by Framer Bar. Oh yeah,
and that's gonna do it for another episode here of
the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my
listeners shout Out of the Week, which last week we
had an interview with the director of Blue Beatle, so
I asked you to comment on my Instagram reel and
TikTok with a clip from that interview with a Beatle emoji.
(39:21):
And this week's listener shout Out of the Week goes
to Jacob Gutieredis who commented and said, I love the
interview this week. Hit me with that Beatle emoji. There
were so many great comments over there, a lot of
people really enjoying last week's interview. So I came back
this week and hit you guys with another interview. So
we gotta do it again, So comment on this week's
(39:41):
Reel and TikTok post with Frederick Yanna hit me with
the music note emoji on that video. Pick somebody who
leaves the music note and give you next week's listener
shout Out of the Week. And thank you all for
the comments about enjoying the interviews and saying my interview
skills have grown over the years, and just how much
this entire podcast has grown over the years. Thank you
for being a part of it. I hope you have
(40:02):
a great rest of your week, and until next time,
go out and watch good movies. Have a great Halloween,
and I will talk to you later
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie Podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today I'm talking to Frederick Ya,
who is a harmonica player that got the attention of
legendary director Martin Scorsese and his sound right now is
being featured in Killers of the Flower Moon. I call
it the Death Harmonica, and I'll explain exactly what that
is in the movie review. I'll be talking about five
Nights at Freddy's and in the trailer Park we'll be
(00:21):
looking at Bradley Cooper's second movie that he's directing. It's
Netflix is Maestro and the issue I think Netflix is
having right now when it comes to their original movies.
So I'll get into all that. Shout out to the
Monday Morning Movie crew, and now let's talk movies.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
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 (00:53):
From the Nashville Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike's Movie Podcast,
about to get into my car conversation with Frederick One
and that name you might not be completely familiar with.
But if you have seen or are planning to see
Killers of the Flower Moon, you are going to know
the sound of his harmonica. He is a French musician
and has such a distinct sound that Martin Scorsese knew
(01:14):
he had to have it in his movie to portray
the sound of death, which I don't always think harmonica
and death, but somehow they go perfectly together. And you're
probably wondering, what does that even sound like? Well, here's
a little clip of his work on the score of
Killers of the Flower Moon. Listen to that harmonica, So
(01:40):
that's a little bit of Frederick's work. He is also
friends with Dave Chappelle, which we'll get into later in
the interview, and here's what Dave Chappelle had to say
about him.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
Fred is a musical anomaly. He plays an instrument that
I didn't even really know I liked till I heard
him when one other person play with two other people
play it. But I'm gonna say he's amongst the best
I've ever heard play it, fred if you would just
give them a little sample.
Speaker 4 (02:00):
Sure of how he became friends.
Speaker 1 (02:12):
Frederick has toured with legends like Stevie Wonder and Prince
and he's actually doing a couple of shows in DC
coming up on December first and December second. You can
get tickets at carlisleroom dot com slash shows or check
the episode notes of this podcast if you want to
go see them live. But now let's get into it
talking about his work on Killers of the Flower Moon
and how he met director Martin Scorsese. Frederick, how are
(02:33):
you doing?
Speaker 4 (02:34):
I'm the one to fool my cars and everything with you.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
I'm doing really well now. When I was in sixth grade,
I was in band and the instrument I got forced
upon me was the clarinet, which wasn't the sexiest of instruments,
but it was the only one that I could try
out for, So it was just kind of forced on
to me. When I think of you and you playing
harmonica again to a kid, probably not the sexiest instrument
to say, hey, here's a harmonica. How was that given
(02:58):
to you when you first started playing?
Speaker 4 (03:00):
Well, you had the it's out of the stick. I
was actually introduced to music. I grew up in France, right,
so I was introduced to music through the recorder.
Speaker 1 (03:14):
Oh yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 5 (03:16):
So I went from the first trading experience of trying
to make the recordings sound good, to the amazing opportunity
to have something that fits in your pocket, that's very inexpensive,
and that creates a lot of.
Speaker 4 (03:32):
Curiosity in the audience. The beauty of this instrument is
you know, it fits in your hands and when you
play it, you don't really know where the sound is
really coming from. It's almost like a magic trick. It's
also the only wind instrument that can generate music by
excelling through it or inhaling through it. So as you
(03:54):
play the harmonica, when you start inhaling through it, you
become a part of the instrument yourself, because the sound
is going to resonate through your torso, your throat, and
your head. Every basically your body becomes an amplification of
the frequencies generated by the instrument. So those are all
(04:16):
the reasons why I fell in love with the instrument,
but also the fact that I grew up with asthma
and as you know, as a kid. Instead of carrying
and in heller in my pocket every day, because you know,
I never knew when I as my attack was going
to show up, I started carrying this instead and one
day I realized that, oh, I was taking my harmonica
(04:36):
ever where I was going, but myn in heller was
still on my table at home. So the more I
played the instrument, the better my health was getting, the
more friends I was making. It's an easy choice.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Now. You have such a distinct sound, almost to the
point that if I hear your music, I just know
it's you immediately. How do you start developing that? Like,
where do you get this just tone that ends up
being yourself?
Speaker 4 (05:00):
You know? I remember a long time ago I heard
an interview of Wynton Marcellis who said something in the
vein of there's going to be a lot of people
trying to do the same thing that you're trying to do.
In order to be better and to sound like yourself,
you just have to put more hours than anybody else
(05:20):
into the game. And that's really what I did. I
studied the I studied the harmonica from the perspective of
a music fan and not from a harmonica player's perspective.
I learned the instrument through and on to replicate the
sound of the blues, the sound of country music, the
(05:40):
sound of gospel, the sound every basically genre with the
musical genre with the harmonica was prominently being you know, featured,
and by studying all those styles, I started to create
my own. And I realized also that the harmonica was
not necessarily present in the music I really enjoyed listening
(06:03):
to the most which at the time was fusion and
jazz and reggae, R and B and pop music. So
created a lot of opportunities for me because you know,
not on whole lot of harmonica players saw it from
that perspective. And here I am today, you know, after
I have been performed with Prince TV at sharing and
now Martin Scorsese.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Oh yeah, which I want to talk about, which I
saw the movie and I was completely floored by the film.
In movies, I always feel that the score gets overlooked
because there is so much impactfulness that just the sounds
in a movie make you feel, whether you realize it
or not, that sentiment from an instrument or from just
a song playing during a very specific point in the
(06:43):
movie changed the entire thing for me. So I think
it's something that we don't realize because we're just taking
it with our eyes, but we're also feeling something. And
with your sound of that harmonica, I just associated it
in the movie with greed and death and all these
dark things. So how does that feel to know that
your sound is associated with such just dark imagery.
Speaker 4 (07:05):
Well, I mean, there's it's a mix feeling. The first
thing is I'm really honored to be to be featured
in the and to be a part of something so meaningful,
so impactful, so deeply disturbing. That is a true story,
a true American story. I'm honored to have been chosen
to be the harmonica on the struct because obviously Scorcely
(07:28):
wanted a harmonica to express, to impersonate exactly what you described,
the spirit of greed, the dark thoughts of a whole
group of people who were seeking profit and put profit
ahead of their morals. Construct You know, I feel honored
to be a part of this, But I also find
it very interesting that the harmonica could be perceived as
(07:50):
a tool to actually channel that kind of emotion and energy.
I had never thought of it that with myself, because
when I play, I tried to connect my experience is
my experienced emotions, and tried to convey it into more
of them into a sound that hopefully my audience will
(08:12):
connect to. That's actually a very interesting point because when
I met Martin Scorcese at the premiere in ken earlier
in Mad this year, it was our first time meeting
and he, you know, introduced myself at the Harmonica for
the Irish Man and Kills of the Flower. Morning said, oh,
my gosh, Harmonica, ma. How you know he grew up
(08:35):
with the Harmonica as the soundtrack of his childhood and
his grandfather was a harmonica fan and he used to
listen to it a lot as it was growing up. So,
you know, we talked about this for a while and
after after we got comfortable, I actually sapped him and
I asked him, so, what is it about my plane
that makes you want to kill people? We had a
good left without.
Speaker 1 (08:56):
So how did our relationship start? If you first met
him this year but you worked on Irish Man, how
does he even discover you?
Speaker 4 (09:02):
Everything started with Robbie Robertson. Robbie and Martin SCORSESEI have
had they had bless he saw he passed away in August.
They had a long term friendship and uh and and
they released a lot of movie They produced a lot
of movies together. Robbie was a part of the band.
(09:22):
He was in The Last Worlds. Backing up about Dylan,
he did Games of New York, of Wall Street. I mean,
a lot of a lot of major Scorsese pieces were
scored by Robbie Robertson, And when he and Martin Scorsese
he talked about the spirit of death in the in
(09:42):
The Irish Man and the spirit of greed and Killers
of the Flower Moon corses. He really wanted the harmonica
to be that particular lead instrument too, to impersonate those
spirits on the score.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
So when you're working with Robbie, who's the composer, is
the composer Irishman and Kells of the Flower Moon? What
is your direction when you're recording this music? Do you
know what's seeing it going to? Do you have an
idea of the sentiment that you're trying to portray and
you know, convey through your music?
Speaker 4 (10:12):
So from what what you explained to me that the
movie was being filmed at the same time as music
was being produced, and he they had some conversations and
the guideline he gave me for The Irishman, he says,
stay cool, stay sexy, and be sneaky. Those were the
(10:33):
three directions which are very interesting because those are the
ideas of those are pretty much the you you can
see that there's gonna be characters of a hit man
as well. Yeah, so bye bye. By really focusing on
those three words, I started impersonating you know this this uh,
(10:54):
this ambiance, the atmosphere, this vibe, and that's what came
out on the on the theme for the Irish Man.
They had some melodies already written, they had some ideas
of how the music was to be interpretated, but at
the end of the day they decided to keep the
tracks that had more of my interpretation of his melodies,
(11:16):
more of my emotions, more of the way I was
mophing the instrument versus instrument was mophing me. I think
what they really wanted was harmonica that didn't really sound
like a harmonica that so sounded more like a human
voice or a violin or sometimes a saxophone or guitar
or you know, sometimes a drum as well. So I
(11:38):
guess my ability to learn all those styles, all those
colors of the harmonica was actually implemented in this production.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
Well, I think I fit so well. I think ultimately
a personified death in the film for me. So you
mentioned the premiere earlier when you go watch it at
the premiere. What is that feeling like of being able
to hear your work in a room full of all
these legendary people.
Speaker 4 (12:08):
Okay, so I was born in France about twenty five
years ago. I met this amazing American woman who am
married to today, and I met her in Can during
the film festival, and she was there for her birthday.
And this year was really an amazing experience for all
those reasons. This is my fiftieth year on this planet,
(12:30):
and we had an opportunity to actually go to the
premiere in can where she and I met twenty five
years ago, and the movie was premiering in the most
prestigious movie theater of my country with thirty five hundred
more people. So that was kind of surreal, to be
completely honest, filed that's amazing. And every time the harmonica
(12:53):
kept popping up on the screen, I'm not going to
lie to you, I had a huge smile phone and
I was probably the only one in the movie theater
who was smiling every time some the Speed of Greed
was the screen.
Speaker 1 (13:09):
You're the one rooting for all the bad things in
the film, and it's like that's me.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
So much so that so that we had to go
back to the premiere in New York where I finally
got to really experience the movie for what it really
was meant to be designed.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
That's amazing. That's an awesome full circle moment. I was also,
you have one of my favorite tiny desk sessions of
all time, and just the first time I hear you
play harmonica and I was like, oh my gosh, like
this is amazing. The thing that stuck out to me
about that was the fact that Dave Chappelle introduced you.
How do you become friends with Dave Chappelle?
Speaker 4 (13:48):
Oh my gosh, very It was very organic. I mean,
Dave's there is a comedian. But one thing you need
to know about comedians is they love music. The most
comedians know believe they are musicians, and most musicians we
know believe their community. I learned to step away from that,
(14:09):
from from that that that that genre. Just leave it
to Dave. But I met Dave in I think two
thousand and five, right after he came back from South Africa,
and we we we have this friendship. We actually have
a show together. We call it Dave Chappelle' Juke joint
and it features my band, which is he likes to
(14:33):
call it the band with no Name because all those
musicians are musicians I have met on the road when
I was touring with Prince and c TV. And on
the other side of the venue we have a DJ
called DJ de Nice, who you've probably heard of. And
it's the best party you've never heard of because everybody's
phone is locked in those yonder bands. Yeah, there yonder bags,
(14:57):
and you know, people just can't get who knowing that
there's no surveillance on site, and get really comfortable and
the party goes on for hours. So Dave is a
huge music fan, as you know, and that that ties
our relationship and friendship.
Speaker 1 (15:13):
Yeah, I love that. Throughout all of his work, he's
always made it a point to feature some kind of musician,
even on Japel Show or doing like a blog party.
There's always been a strong music tie with him. So
I think it's awesome that you guys do things together.
Speaker 4 (15:26):
Absolutely, it's an honor to watch him do his things
as well. I mean, he's such a such an important
voice in in in today today's environment.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
So what are you working on right now that you're
excited about?
Speaker 4 (15:38):
My goodness, some producing music on a regular basis. I'm
on the tree preparing for a couple of shows. I'm
doing it the in in d C, in a in
a in a couple of weeks. I'm at the car,
out of room. If you're in d C, you're more
than welcome to Carl. I'd love to invite you come over.
I don't know if you remember this story, but during
the pandemic, we I had just purchased a house in Washington,
(16:02):
d C. And right before the pandemic, I got in
the place, and when the pandemic occurred, of course everybody's
calendar got completely pulled down to zero, including all my
musicians and myself. So I was looking at contempling that
empty house completely got it with no dates on the schedule.
So I decided to create a virtual jazz club. And
(16:25):
it was at first just for the neighbors, so we could,
you know, share the neighborhood a little bit. So we
opened the windows and played on Sundays at six o'clock.
Who would play for the neighbors And then of course
it grew into something because CNN picked up on the story,
BBC picked up the story. The French TV Networks did
as well, so we started broadcasting it on social media
(16:45):
as well, and DJ denized let me use his Instagram,
so it became something that really grew and tied the neighbor.
The neighbors were a little closer. It canceled the idea
of social distancing, created you know, a community. Now the
project is done, so we're about to have one more
(17:07):
concept for the neighbors, but this time with a finished house.
So that's what I've been working on. Bailey.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Well, that's awesome. I encourage everybody listening now to go
check out your music and if they can make it
to a show in DC, go do that. And I
hope you get to see you live at some point.
And also everybody go watch Killers of the Flower Moon
and know whenever that death and Despair comes on screen,
that's Frederick right there, the sound of Greed. It's been
great getting to talk to you. I really appreciate.
Speaker 4 (17:34):
It, Mike, thank you so much for your time. All
the best to you, and hope to meet you in
person very soon.
Speaker 1 (17:39):
All right, have a good one. Thank you, two care
of let's get into it a spoiler free movie review.
I want to talk about Five Nights at Freddy's, a
movie I picked could be my Halloween movie of the weekend.
I was so excited to sit down in the theater.
Kelsey didn't go with me because she doesn't do horror movies.
(18:00):
I got my middle seat would row up. It was
all cozy ready, just to have some fun, have some thrills,
have some scares, and this movie let me down. Ruined
my Halloween weekend. And I won't say that I had high,
even medium expectations going into this movie. After watching the trailer,
(18:21):
I saw some things that were some red flags, showing
a lot of the plot, showing a lot of what
would be the most scariest parts of the entire movie.
So I knew it probably wasn't going to be the
best thing ever. But I can respect a video game adaptation,
which this is what this is. It's based on a
video game. I'm not that familiar with the game, aside
(18:41):
from what I remember from people in high school talking
about how scary this game was. I thought maybe some
of that would translate into the movie. It's also coming
to us from Blumhouse, who does really solid horror movies.
Just earlier this year, they created a horror icon with Megan.
And then you have Josh Hutchinson, who we all remember
as Peter Malark from The Hunger Games, the guy who
(19:03):
was supposed to be it for a minute, who's acting
career has taken a bit of a tumble. He never
went on to be that guy. I think that was
due to a lot of movies he was cast in
just weren't the right roles for him. And then you
have Matthew Lillard in this movie. You have Elizabeth Lao
who plays a cop who helps out Josh Hutchinson's character
(19:24):
in this movie. So why did I not like it?
First of all, the movie is about Josh Hutchinson's character
who is down on his luck after an incident went down.
He was working as mall security. He punched a guy
who he thought was abducting another kid, and it turns
out it was just the boy's father, so he not
only punched him, he pummeled the guy and after that
(19:45):
has been bouncing around from job to job. He lost
his parents, he lost his brother, and is now taking
care of his sister. So in order to prevent his
aunt from taking custody of his sister, he has to
just have a stable job. Now, when telling his story.
In this movie, there were so many cliches that they
used to portray a person who is down on their
(20:07):
luck hit rock bottom, and that was one of them.
At the very beginning, trying to get a job, he's
listing out all the things he's had wrong with him.
What's your deal guy? That type of thing. It just
felt very generic and very forced, and I was like, Okay,
maybe I can get past that. We'll get into the horror,
we'll get into the fun. But even the way this
movie opened up was so generic. In that first kill.
(20:29):
In a horror movie, it's supposed to hook it in.
It's supposed to showcase what is going to make this villain,
what is going to make all these monsters great? And
it was so lame. It set nothing up tone wise.
It was just kind of there. And that is kind
of how this entire movie felt. It was a bunch
of random scenes cut and pasted together. So how this
(20:49):
character goes on, he's trying to find that job. He
gets offered this one job by Matthew Lillard's character, and
it's a security job working at this pizzeria that has
been abandoned the eighties. And they tell you this very
loose story of what happened there, but it's all about
him going there and figuring it out on his own,
so I won't get into all those details, but essentially, yes,
(21:10):
he's working this graveyard shift at this pizzeria and you
have these animatronic figures that are very creepy looking, which,
aside from the girl in this movie who plays Abby,
his young sister, those were my other favorite part of it.
Just the way that they looked, not the way that
they acted, not the way that they interacted, or not
even the way that they killed people, just the way
(21:30):
that they looked, because I thought that was going to
be pretty novel. So then he takes the job, goes
and starts working at this graveyard shift, and then that's
where all the creepy things happened. Where this movie lost
me really is that you have a character here working
in a creepy situation, a late night graveyard shift. You
should have showed exactly how creepy it is to be
(21:51):
in a place that late at night, at dark, with
all these weird things happening, with these weird animatronic figures
shifting around, and you have this security cams. Somehow you
made that not scary. Not only did you make it
not scary, they made it boring. And this is coming
from somebody who worked an overnight shift like this. I
used to work at a radio station from twelve am
(22:14):
to six am, and let me tell you, from the
hours from about twelve am to three am, you get
pretty freaked out because you're just getting used to it.
You're there very late, you're fighting your body's natural reaction
to want to go to sleep at that time. You're
doing things to keep you awake. I'm drinking coffee, and
every single noise you hear you question because you're just
there alone. The radio station, Ivergain was this really big, old,
(22:36):
creepy building. Sometimes it would sound like there was somebody
pushing a mop bucket down the hallway. I would go
look out and there would be nothing there. Probably not haunted,
Probably just a lot of things running in my brain.
But that's how creepy it is, and that's how much
your mind messages with you when you are working at
a place overnight and supposed to be the one looking
over everything. They didn't show that in this movie. It
(23:00):
should have been creepy enough just to be there on
your own without the animatronics there and they completely fumbled that.
Not only that, the acting throughout this entire movie was terrible.
Did Josh Hutcherson even show up? Like was he there?
He was on the screen, but was he there? I
don't think he was. And for somebody who needs a
movie to put him back in the spotlight, put him
(23:21):
back on the map, this was terribly miscast. And I
feel like maybe they got him because he has some
name recognition. Maybe they were trying to find somebody else
to fill this role and they landed on him and thought, Okay,
maybe we can make this work. It did not work.
His performance was so flat. He had no great interactions
(23:42):
with anybody on the screen. And it was really important
to his relationship with his sister to have some kind
of big brother role, and another relationship in the movie
is a little bit complicated. It's supposed to be that
she's not speaking to anyone and she's having trouble connecting
with people, and you have this whole plot line of
her like drawing pictures and not really saying a whole lot.
(24:02):
So I get it on that front, but still it
felt like he wasn't acting with them, he was acting
at them. And not only that, the way they wrote
his character there was a whole lot of telling you
and not showing you. There's literally one scene in this
movie where he tells the female cop who is essentially
kind of the love interest, kind of the one helping
(24:23):
him navigate his new security shift. He sits down and
tells her his entire life story. How lame is that?
That is so lame. You're supposed to tell me through
his actions, through what he's trying to accomplish in this movie,
and build his character, not just sit down and say
these are all the reasons I am the way Like, No,
(24:44):
that is so lame and so boring and such a
cop out. I hated that, and also the fact that
this movie even tries to play itself off as a
scary movie. This movie was in no way scary whatsoever,
and that's ultimately why it lost me. The trailer was
creepy in its own way. It didn't look like it
(25:06):
was going to be terrifying, But there was no part
of this movie that had any horror element whatsoever. Very
minimal blood, no use of jump scares, which I find
cheap to begin with. But if you have a boring
movie like this, on your hands at least hit me
with a cheap jump scare. There wasn't even that, And
there wasn't even any playfulness, because that's really what this
(25:29):
movie was missing. It's a scary movie that takes place
in an abandoned pizzeria where there are fun child games
all around. It's essentially an old school chucky cheese but
with kind of a weird vibe to it, and you
make that boring. There's so many fun, creative things that
were going off in my mind of things they could
have done, so it led me to believe that they
(25:52):
didn't have enough money to make the movie they wanted,
that they were relying on the ip being five nights
at Freddy's and being that on a video game, and
thinking that so many people are going to be interested
in this movie because of that, that they didn't really
have to try hard. So maybe they spent so much
money making the actual animatronic characters, making those lifelike, which
(26:14):
those were at least interesting to look at, but they
didn't really do a whole lot that gave me anything
to root for or even root against. So this movie
ruined my Halloween weekend and I want it back, even
though I had the Regal Unlimited, so I'm only out
fifty five cents only out the tax I'm good with that.
And the movie is rated PG thirteen. But rate this
(26:35):
movie PG I guess because of the blood and because
of the killing, But I don't see it anything worse
than you would be exposed to on your new speed
on Instagram. So it really wasn't that bad on a
horror level. Maybe there was some language in there that
I missed just because I'm so used to hearing bad
language in movies, but it felt really like a cautionary
(26:55):
tale to kids. I feel like parents should show this
movie to their kids if they want them to. I'm
begging them to take them to Chuck E Cheese. Here.
Watch this movie, You'll never want to go see and
visit Chuck E Cheese ever. Again, that is what this
movie should be. So maybe that's the reason it classifies
itself as a scary movie. So there were so many
things that I did not like about this movie. It
(27:17):
just really lacked imagination. The only thing that redeemed it
was I feel like Matthew Lillard is a gem that
we don't appreciate. He was really committed to his role
he really shined in a movie where there weren't really
that many things to be excited about. There were some
cool shots, so a couple maybe a half point for
the cinematography in this movie, but really, the entire tone
(27:40):
was off on this movie. The acting was terrible, the
horror elements were subpar at best. I'm just thinking about
how much this movie annoyed me, and I'm getting angry
again as you hear. So if I had to rate
this movie, first of all, don't go see it in theaters.
Don't waste your time. I don't even think it's worth
(28:01):
a stream because the only thing that really kept me
watching it was the fact that I was in the theater.
If I would have been at home watching this movie,
I probably would have stopped it in those first thirty
minutes because it was just so bad and boring to
even get going, and there were only little breadcrumbs that
kind of strayed me along. It was kind of like
a trail of Eminem's leading me to something that I'm like, Okay,
(28:24):
maybe this is going somewhere, and about halfway through, I'm like,
I just have to know how this ends. I just
want to know what the conclusion is here so I
can get on with my life. And even as I
was leaving, the guy who was about to clean there
at the Regals said, hey, you want to stick around
for the post credit scene. I was like, no, I'm good.
I didn't like the pre credit scene the entire movie.
I'm not going to stick around for the post credit scene.
(28:47):
So for that reason, five nights at Freddy's. Am I
giving it five?
Speaker 2 (28:50):
No?
Speaker 1 (28:51):
I am given it one point five out of five Animatronics.
Speaker 2 (28:58):
It's time a movie, Mike Trey Lar Paul.
Speaker 1 (29:03):
I want to keep the music theme alive and take
a look at Netflix's Maestro, starring and directed by Bradley Cooper.
This is the second movie he is directed, the first
one being A Star is Born, so he is continuing
the music theme, which I feel at his core. Maybe
it's because of his performance and A Star is Born,
(29:23):
but I always feel that Bradley Cooper has wanted to
be a rock star his entire life, and he has
had quite the trajectory in his acting career. I mean,
the same guy that was in The Hangover is now
directing and starring in a movie of this quality. So
to see that kind of change over his life he
was almost just the rom com guy for a while
(29:43):
even there in the two thousands. He's playing a composer
named Leonard Bernstein. He is starring alongside Carrie Mulligan, and
this movie will be a deep dive into their complicated
love interest. A lot of things strike me as visually
appealing in this movie. I'm also interested to get to
know a lot about this composer that I really don't
know a whole lot about. And I find myself enjoying
(30:03):
biopics more when I don't know so much about the
person and I'm learning about the aspects of their life.
I also like when it's people who aren't the most
famous people, because I feel like these are the stories
they need to be told. And I'll get into more
of that here just a little bit. But this movie
is coming out on Netflix on December twentieth. Before I
get into my full thoughts of Maestro, here's just a
little bit of the trailer.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
I love people so.
Speaker 1 (30:25):
Much that it's all for me to be lone. I
have music. It keeps me glued to life.
Speaker 4 (30:35):
I don't people know how much you need do.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
So, Like I said earlier, this is Bradley Cooper's second
attempt at directing, not to say that his first attempt
was a flop, because The Star Is Born did really well.
So I feel like he's found his lane of doing
music movies and in this one he plays a different
type of rock star. And breaking down the visual aspects
of this trailer, first, I love the way it looks
(31:01):
when it shows his early life. It is black and
white four to three ratio, which is like that square,
old school TV look. If you want to get me
interested in a movie, give me some four to three shots,
especially in black and white, because it feels so artsy
and cinematic. I love the look of all those shots.
That being said, when it translates from the four to
three shots to the regular wide screen in color, just
(31:24):
that dynamic gives me that this movie is wanting to
be Oscar bait. And Netflix is really good at putting
out movies in November and December that just appeal to
Oscar voters, and this very much feels like that. So
I do go into this a little bit with the
little trepidation because, to be honest, I feel like Netflix
(31:45):
has a problem when it comes to their films and
their longevity because nothing that has come out on Netflix
in the last two to three years has been substantial
to the point that I remember them they are very forgettable.
I feel like Netflix has the quantity over quality approach,
and sometimes I feel that they put out films that
(32:07):
feel more like content than art, and I feel the
reason I love movies is because they are works of
art that have been worked through. But with Netflix just
a couple years ago putting out that big campaign of
We're releasing one new movie every single week, which I
was excited about when that first happened because it felt
very hype to me to know that I would have
a brand new movie I could watch it in my
(32:27):
home every single week. But nothing from that year of
movies stuck out to me, and it just felt like
they were trying just to churn out a bunch of
content in order to generate subscribers, because at the end
of the day, Netflix is a business trying to make
money and stay afloat and keep your money there with
giving you new things all the time. But I feel
like that has resulted in them just putting out really
(32:49):
lackluster movies that we watch one time and never think
about again. Now they have been nominated for a lot
of Oscars. I think it's somewhere in the fifties now.
They've been nominated for Picture before, but Netflix has not
won a Best Picture Oscar to date, so I do
think they have a problem when it comes to their films,
and Maestro again, I think, is going to be their
(33:10):
one that they're going to push to try to be
nominated and win Best Picture. And if any of their
movies had a shot, I feel like it would be
this one just by the look of it, judging that
Bradley Cooper has had some history there at the Oscars
with a Star is Born. But in this movie, what
I feel like is different than other music biopicks is
that I feel it's going to focus on one aspect
(33:32):
of this composer's life, which I feel is really really
important when making a biopick that I think some directors
forget that you have to make a good movie. At
the end of the day. You can't just throw in
all these cool things and accomplishments that these people have done,
throw them all into a movie and think, ah, there's
my movie. Here are all these cool things. You still
have to have a storyline and find that one thing
(33:55):
about them that would create a memorable movie that even
if you're watching it and this person did not exist,
it was an entirely fictional story, it would still be
entertaining and engaging to watch. I think this one is
going to focus heavily on his complicated relationship with his
wife in this film, played by Carrie Mulligan, who was
a great actress. I've loved her ever since I saw
her in Drive, and I love the way they look
(34:16):
together in this movie, where the complicated relationship I think
comes in by the looks of the hints we are
given in this trailer is Leonard may have had some
relationships with men, and she starts to become suspicious of this.
I don't know if she's going to catch him cheating
or what exactly is going to go down, but I
feel like it's going to be him just wanting to
be always around people and sometimes maybe romantically, because in
(34:41):
the trailer you also hear him say that he loves
people so much that whenever he's not around them, he
feels really lonely. So I think there's some aspect of
that of him wanting to be around people, but also
his love of music and his love of composing being
the thing that keeps him together and ties him to everything. Well,
I think this is going to be a pretty interesting
(35:02):
character study, and Bradley Cooper is the guy to do
it and also direct himself in doing it, because I
really feel like he takes on roles and becomes that person.
We saw that with him and a Star is Born.
I don't think he's doing the full method acting approach
to these roles, but he is really good at learning
about his characters, learning what makes them tick, and learning
(35:25):
how to live inside their skin. Which leads me to
the next controversy around this film is because he decided
to wear a prosthetic nose, and even though he had
the approval of the family, a lot of people have
a lot of issues with that because he is representing
a Jewish character. I don't love it, and I've told
you before on this podcast whenever the biggest argument about
(35:48):
somebody playing somebody in a biopic is that they don't
look like the person. I argue against that because I
don't think you have to look entirely like the person.
I think through some this general makeup and wardrobe, as
long as we know who we're looking at here, what
is more important is how they portray them and how
they show them through their actions and the way that
(36:08):
they just feel on screen is more important to me
than how they actually look. We had this controversy with
Austin Butler of people saying he didn't look like Elvis whatsoever,
But I said that he really encompassed the spirit of
Elvis on stage and off stage and gave us a
great representation of what he was like. I think that
is more important than actually looking like the character. So
(36:30):
I don't love the choice of using the prosthetic nose,
even though you're really trying to look like him, you
have the approval of the family. I just think when
it comes to real life people, I always think if
you're going to be comfortable with that in five to
ten years and look back on it, because there have
been some choices made. You know, back in the seventies
and eighties that seemed fine at the time, but now
(36:51):
in the twenty twenties you look back and think, why
did they even do that? So here I would say,
you don't even need it, And I don't want to
make less of his presence or his fame, but he
wasn't the most well known as far as it would
take me out of it by not seeing his face
portrayed exactly how it was in real life. I think
what this film is trying to do is teach us
(37:12):
about somebody we need to know more about and was
an important figure in music. We don't need that aspect
of seeing somebody who looks exactly like them. So maybe
Bradley Cooper did it because he wanted to fully live
inside the skin of Leonard Bernstein and that was taking
it a step forward. Maybe he wanted to look in
the mirror and see Leonard and not see himself. I
(37:33):
think that's probably the logic that went into making this decision.
But still I don't think you do it here. So
where would I put this on my excitement level? Let's see,
I would put this one at about a three point
five out of five. It's coming out on December twentieth,
(37:54):
which is the time that I'm fully into watching all
of these Oscar Worthy movies, so I feel like this
is one and I'll take a deep dive into and
really spend some time with. And the fact that I
can watch it at home. I like that aspect of it.
I'm also interested in the career of Bradley Cooper as
a director now, probably more so than his acting, and
I'm curious to see how this film affects the trajectory
(38:17):
of his directing career. Is he going to keep doing
just music biopicks? Is he going to maybe do a
thriller down the line or something completely different which I
feel like a star is Born really made his name
known as a director, so this could be that one
that elevates him even more into being an Oscar Worthy
level director. And again, I also love Kerrie mulligan and
(38:38):
Maya Hawk and Sarah Silverman are also in the film,
so I think this movie has a lot of potential
if you want to see it in theaters, though it
is coming out on November twentieth in select theaters because
any movie that wants to be considered to be nominated
at the Oscars has to have a theatrical run, so
for those who want to check it out there, But
for me, this is one I'll just wait to watch
on Netflix. And that is my stro head. That for
(39:01):
this week's edition of Movie by Framer Bar. Oh yeah,
and that's gonna do it for another episode here of
the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my
listeners shout Out of the Week, which last week we
had an interview with the director of Blue Beatle, so
I asked you to comment on my Instagram reel and
TikTok with a clip from that interview with a Beatle emoji.
(39:21):
And this week's listener shout Out of the Week goes
to Jacob Gutieredis who commented and said, I love the
interview this week. Hit me with that Beatle emoji. There
were so many great comments over there, a lot of
people really enjoying last week's interview. So I came back
this week and hit you guys with another interview. So
we gotta do it again, So comment on this week's
(39:41):
Reel and TikTok post with Frederick Yanna hit me with
the music note emoji on that video. Pick somebody who
leaves the music note and give you next week's listener
shout Out of the Week. And thank you all for
the comments about enjoying the interviews and saying my interview
skills have grown over the years, and just how much
this entire podcast has grown over the years. Thank you
for being a part of it. I hope you have
(40:02):
a great rest of your week, and until next time,
go out and watch good movies. Have a great Halloween,
and I will talk to you later
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