Mike loves animation but not always when studios decide that the movies we love need a live-action remake. He shares what he thinks are the Top 5 Best, Worst and ones that actually need a live-action adaptation that haven’t been made. In the Movie Review, Mike talks about Materialists starring Dakota Johnson, Pedro Pascal and Chris Evans. It’s about a young New York City matchmaker's lucrative business that gets complicated as she finds herself torn between the perfect match and her imperfect ex. Mike talks about 3 classic things it brought back, has Dakota Johnson recovered from Madame Web and how it included one of his newest movie pet peeves. In the Trailer Park, Mike breaks down Eddington directed by Ari Aster. The western is set during the tense summer of 2020 and stars Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal in a heated small-town mayoral race. It follows the political and social turmoil in the fictional city of Eddington, New Mexico, caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Mike does a dive into why Pedro Pascal is so popular right now.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today, I want to talk
about what the best and worst live action remakes of
animated movies are. In the movie review, we talked about Materialists.
Some people felt doup by this movie because they really
leaned into the marketing of rom comms. Are back. I
want to talk about how the genre of rom comms
has evolved. And in the trailer park we'll be talking
(00:21):
about Eddington, which start Jaquin, Phoenix, and Pedro Pascal. I
want to do a whole deep dive on Pedro Pascal
because he is in so many movies right now, and
I want to talk about when somebody gets so busy,
are they able to dedicate enough time to each role
to really have a presence on the screen that resonates
with audiences. Or can you be so in demand that
(00:43):
your overall products starts to diminish a little bit. We'll
talk about that. Thank you for being here, Thank you
for being subscribed. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew.
He Now, let's talk movies from the Nashville Podcast Network.
This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast. I thought I was
going to have an easier time coming up with my
(01:03):
best live action remakes of animated movies. And I know
I've been critical of them really heavily in the last
couple of years, but I thought they'd been doing them
for so long that surely there are enough good ones
to make a top five. Surely you can't be serious.
I am serious, and don't call me surely, but I
really had to fight for my top five. I tried
(01:26):
to include other studios that were not Disney, but when
doing my research, primarily all the live action remakes of
animated movies come to us from Disney, so that is
just their business model. It appears that only one non
Disney movie made it into my top five. So before
we get into the best and then the worst, and
then I also have five that I think should have
(01:48):
live action remakes done. I want to talk about. The
first ever Disney live action remake came out back in
nineteen ninety four. Can you guess which one it was?
Because before for this, they had done live action animation
hybrid movies that were kind of remakes, but not really
what we consider to be a remake right now. This
(02:09):
was the first movie to adapt a classic Disney animated
feature and turn it into a full live action film,
which all we're gonna get into some discussion later about
how some of these don't even feel live action to me.
But can you guess the movie that came out in
nineteen ninety four. It's based on the original animated Disney
film that came out back in nineteen sixty seven. It
(02:30):
was the last animated feature film to be personally overseen
by Walt Disney before his death. Can you guess the movie?
The answer is The Jungle Book in nineteen ninety four.
I remember when this movie came out because my cousin
had it on VHS and I became obsessed with the
character of Mowgli, primarily because I was also a brown
(02:51):
skinned kid who liked running around without his T shirt on.
So anytime i'd be outside, I always gravitated towards climbing trees.
I always said I wanted to be like Mowgli, but
this was the first to do it, and I thought
they did it well. Does this movie hold up? I
don't know. I haven't seen this movie since the nineties,
but The Jungle Book was the first live action remake,
(03:11):
and then they remade it again in twenty sixteen, The
Jungle Book came out directed by Jon Favreau, So that
movie does not quite make my list, but I wanted
to give you a bit of a history lesson before
we dive into my top five. Let's get into it now.
At number five, I have The Little Mermaid, which I
gave a three point five out of five. It came
out in twenty twenty three. I thought Hailey Bailey did
(03:33):
a fantastic job as Ariel Harvey a Bardem I thought
was also a good king, but hands down, I think
the person who really solidified this as being a good
movie to me was Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. And this
was a Disney movie that actually had benefit from turning
it into a live action movie, because you have a
world that I was actually interested in exploring under the seat.
(03:56):
They actually made that look pretty good, and I thought overall,
the story fall up pretty close to the original animated version,
which I think what Disney usually tries to do, especially
with these old classics, is go back and fix plot
holes or update things that maybe seem a little bit outdated.
I like the Disney movies that really stick to the
original story as much as possible. But The Little Mermaid
(04:19):
was one that I actually went to see in theaters
and was entertained throughout the entire film. The major problem
I had with it was Flounder, who looked just grotesque.
He is one of the worst looking on screen characters
of all time. With the use of CGI, he looked
like he was in pain. His eyes were bugging out,
(04:40):
and overall that was the hardest part of me getting
into this film, and overall that is going to be
the theme here. It is really hard for me to
become invested in realistic looking animals because there's a different
level of magic when you're watching an animated movie and
you're not trying to associate them with the real thing.
You could go out back in upond and fine, or
(05:00):
go out to the ocean. It's so much harder to do.
But The Little Mermaid comes in at number five. At
number four, I have Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson,
and maybe the reason I love this one so much
I remember going to see it in theaters alone back
in twenty seventeen. I saw a lot of movies alone.
In twenty seventeen, I was in my second year of
(05:22):
living in Nashville by myself. I don't even think I
was really actively dating at that point. Now by twenty seventeen,
I probably was. I think the entire time I was here,
I was sort of dating, but I was really bad
at it, and I spent a lot of time going
to movies alone. And quite frankly, the memory I associate
with Beauty and the Beast is going to watch it
(05:45):
alone and then doing a review for it in my
car afterwards on Snapchat. But I think it's because I
am such a huge fan of Emma Watson, and unfairly
she is an actor who I just associate with Hermione Granger,
unfair of me and all of the Harry Potter cast.
I think I've come out of feeling that way about
Daniel Radcliffe because he's done a lot of great movies
(06:07):
like Swiss Army Man, and Emma Watson has been an
actor who has been really selective about her work post
Harry Potter, so much so that she hasn't really retired
from acting, but she's kind of taken a hiatus where
she's much more concerned about other things going on in
the world and what film she is going to do next.
(06:27):
But I thought. Overall, this movie actually made me care
more about Beauty and the Beast, which I know how
groundbreaking that movie was when it came out back in
nineteen ninety one. It became the first animated movie to
be nominated for Best Picture in nineteen ninety two at
the Oscars, and it was because of how groundbreaking the
animation was, the level of artistry, which was a theme
(06:49):
of the nineties Disney Renaissance era, the level of storytelling,
the technical achievements, and this was pretty revolutionary at the time.
Because I'm still in twenty twenty five fighting for animation
at the Oscars. We're just talking about this last week
as well. But a major milestone for this movie to
be nominated for Best Picture way back in nineteen ninety two,
(07:10):
because it had critical acclaim, it had commercial success, and
overall just left a lasting impression on animation. And because
I was a baby when it came out, I wasn't
really alive to know about its impact, and later as
a young kid, it wasn't really a movie I gravitated towards.
It had some really fantastic songs in it, but I
(07:33):
always just saw the movie as being an old classic
movie that I remember one of my aunts having in
those classic big Disney VHS cartridges, and we borrowed it
from her and watched it, and I thought, Okay, that's
a pretty good movie. But it wasn't until I watched
it in twenty seventeen in a live action format that
I thought, Oh, I actually get the story more. I
(07:54):
feel a little bit more connected to Belle, even though
I feel the story is more vibrant and animation, which
again that's gonna be a theme throughout this list is
I'm always gonna prefer the animated version or the live
action version, because even little things like the color of
Bell's dress and the way it looks in the live
action version isn't as iconic as it is in animation.
But those things aside, it stays pretty close to the
(08:17):
original story. Maybe adds another storyline in there that some
people feels a little bit unnecessary, but I enjoyed how
they kind of change Gaston's character a little bit in
the live action version. Maybe the connection between the beauty
and the Beast wasn't as strong in the live action version,
because I feel like there's much more romance whenever it's
(08:39):
an animated beast and an animated lead female character. It
starts to become a little bit harder for them to
have chemistry in a quote unquote live action movie, even
though they didn't get a real beast. But it's still
one I would revisit today, so it has some rewatchability.
But at number four, I have Beauty in the Beast
at number three. Most recent addition to this list, I
(09:01):
just watched it How to Train Your Dragon, which I
give a three point five out of five. I love
the animated version, and this was one where pretty much
they stayed really close to the original story. I would
say beat for beat if you watch the animated version
and then go watch the live action one, it is
(09:22):
pretty much a reflection of that original story because you
have the same director. Oh Dean, who also worked on
Leelo Wins Stitch is now one of the first people
ever to not only be a part of the animated
version of a movie, but also the live action version
of a movie. And I think that really showed as well,
so much so that he brought back Gerard Butler, who
(09:43):
is the voice of the Dad and the animated version
and is now playing him in real live action. Now,
could you get some of the other actors to do that, no,
because they're all much older now. I mean, you couldn't
get Jonah Hill, although that would be funny. You couldn't
get Christopher mince Blas who is Aka mclovin and super
Bad Jay Barrokale, who voices Hiccup in the original animated version.
(10:04):
I think he brings a lot more life to that character.
And that's no disrespect to Mason Thames, who played Hiccup
in the live action version. I thought he did a
really good job. I just think overall the qualities that
I love about Hiccup in the animated version aren't quite
there in the live action version. His quirkiness, aside from
the way that his hair looks, I think his overall
(10:25):
mannerisms and what make Hiccup Hiccup you see more in
the original version. But with all of that being said,
the action is there, the dragons look good, the fire
is there, the village is just how you see it
in the animated version, and what DreamWorks did with this
blows a lot of what Disney did out of the water.
(10:46):
And the only reason that two and number one rank
higher is an a visual thing. I think visually this
one takes the cake out of any other Disney live
action remake, and it comes down to wardrobe and set
design and just overall how this feels like a movie
that doesn't feel like a family movie, even its runtime
(11:06):
is almost two hours, and I think, aside from the
fact that there's not blood and guts in it, at times,
maybe not exactly like it, but it's almost like taking
the story from How to Train Your Dragon and making
it look like a Game of Thrones episode. Again, not
as hardcore and dark as you would get in a
Game of Thrones episode, but I think if they really
(11:28):
wanted to push it a little bit further, which How
To Train Your Dragon movies do get a little bit
darker going from one to two, where things start to
get a little bit more serious. As you can see,
I'm now going back and rewatching all of these movies,
but I think if they wanted to go there, if
they wanted to age it up just a little bit,
they definitely could. And that is something that Disney is
not doing. And I think it's a great time for
this movie to come out fifteen years after the original,
(11:51):
and I overall was really quite excited of how well
this can be done. And again if it wasn't for
the classic storytelling and number two and number one on
this list, I think this one could have easily had
a chance to rank higher. I was also exposed to
this movie when I was a little bit older. Came
out in twenty ten, so I was already nineteen years old.
But now to people who were kids when this movie
(12:13):
first came out, I think you probably resonate with it
a lot more seeing it in live action. And I
think now by seeing how much more I was inspired
by this movie and how it really compares to everything else,
I'm bumping it up on my rating scale. I now
give How to Train Your Dragon four out of five flames,
and at number two you probably think this one would
have been number one for me because this room I'm
(12:34):
sitting in right now is littered with this character. I
have Leelo in Stitch, which I gave a four point
five out of five. I've seen this movie twice now
in theaters. I loved it more the second time because
I got to see things that I kind of missed
the first time around. I can't wait for it to
come out on Disney Plus, which is probably gonna be
a while so I could rewatch it for a third time.
(12:55):
This movie inspired me to go back and rewatch all
the animated Leelo and Stitch movies that are on Disney.
Plus Stitch has a glitch, which I wonder now if
and when they make a sequel to the live actionle
Load and Stitch, if they're going to follow that story,
which I think could be a good story for them
to follow, because that's all about Stitch trying to battle
his inner badness and him trying to do good things,
(13:18):
but then he has a force making him be bad
when he doesn't want to be bad anymore. I think
that story will probably take a little bit of tweaking
to make work for another full feature film. And the
only reason this one didn't come in at number one
is because after watching it for a second time, after
reading more about it, I feel that Disney did not
invest enough in this movie. They didn't believe enough in
(13:39):
it that it was going to be a success, And
now that it's one of the biggest movies of the year,
they're like, oh, yeah, we have a big property on
our hands that people love and are passionate for. And
it's that and the fact that it wasn't even at
first going to be a feature film. It was originally
going to be put on Disney Plus maybe as a series,
and I started to see that the second time around
(14:00):
because I thought, oh man, they did kind of cut
some corners here, and I think that is primarily for
me visible with Pleikly and Jumba, who weren't even their
full cells throughout the entire movie, I feel like they
cut corners and making them revert to their human form,
and for the most part, you see Zach Galifanakis instead
of Jumba throughout the movie. So that led me to
(14:22):
believe and solidify that. I think they didn't believe in
it enough from the start, but hopefully now seeing all
of the support for Leelo and Stitch, seeing all the
fandom and again, they'll probably do this now because they're like, Okay,
we can capitalize a whole lot more on this, We
can sell a whole lot more of Stitch merch by
investing more into the sequel to this. I hope they
(14:45):
get better visual effects. I hope they bring back some
characters that they didn't include in the first one. So
I have higher expectations now for Lilo and Stitch too,
whenever that happens. But That is why I have Lilo
and Stitch on my list at numbers two and at
number one I have twenty nineteen's The Lion King. And
(15:05):
I feel like this being at number one is kind
of cheating because it's not really a live action movie.
They did not go out to Africa and film a
bunch of wild animals. It is computer generated graphics. Now,
is it really sophisticated and thought out and cinematic computer
generated graphics? Yes? Was it technology that was I don't
(15:28):
even think it was the groundbreaking at the time because
they did it with the twenty sixteen Jungle Buck version
that was kind of the precursor to this one, which
was also directed by Jon Favreau. So what I loved
about it is it stuck completely to the story. It
is essentially the nineteen ninety four movie brought to life
with different animation. So it's almost like when you have
(15:50):
a formula that is so good, you have this recipe
that all you need to do is follow it. Your
mom leaves you behind a recipe to a world famous
chocolate chip cookie. All you have to do is follow
that recipe, take them out when the timers up, and
don't burn the cookies. That's all you have to do.
You have the recipe, which is astounding to me that
(16:10):
they don't just do that for every other movie and
stop this whole discussion of people being outraged every time
a film comes out and they change some things. If
they just step to the original plots of all these
movies that everybody loves, I think there would be less outraged.
Or maybe they want the outrage. They need people to
be discussing them, be ranting about them, because maybe that
(16:31):
drives more people to see them, because outrage sparks curiosity.
But still at number one, I have The Lion King,
which is still a four point five out of five
to me, because the original is a five out of five,
and that is the highest rated live action remake. There's
no way you can achieve anything better than the original.
So I'll never rank one of these movies a five.
(16:51):
I don't think I could ever rank any remake of
five because you just can't be better than the original.
Some honorable mentions here. I thought Aladdin would It was
pretty good, but I think if you didn't have Will
Smith as Genie, I probably would have loved it more.
He really just kind of killed that character. For me.
The other movie I wanted to put on this list,
(17:12):
but I don't think it counts as Kruella because I
loved Emma Stone as Kruella Deville. But it's not really
a remake. It is a prequel to one oh one Dalmatians,
which also had a live action version in nineteen ninety
six with Glenn Close that I believe is a pretty
bad version. But as a kid, I enjoyed it. But
I think that is probably on the lower end of
(17:33):
live action adaptations, and I only like it for nostalgia purposes.
And like I mentioned earlier, nineteen ninety four is the
Jungle Book was the first to do it. It would
have made it if I was making a top ten.
And there is a weird connection because Jason Scott Lee
was the actor in that movie who played Mowgli. He
also went on to be the voice of David in
(17:54):
the animated version of Leelo and Stitch, and then he
happened to be in Mulan twenty twenty, and then they
brought him back again since he was the voice of
David in the original Lelo and Stitch, they brought him
back as the person who owns the restaurant that non
he works at. So dude has been in The Jungle Book,
Leelo and Stitch, both animated and live action, and was
(18:17):
in the live action remake of Mulan. We did the best,
now let's do the worst. Speaking to Mulan, I have
it at number five. I just think that movie did
not feel like Mulan. Was it a bad movie? No,
But when you're remaking a classic Disney movie that has
a lot of comedy in it and you take away
all the comedy, you don't have the dragon voiced by
(18:39):
Eddie Murphy anymore, you don't have the dragon character at all.
It just took all the life and Disney magic out
of that movie and just made it feel like a
really cold war movie. Overall, the action and everything was fine,
but it was so forgettable. And also the fact that
it came out in twenty twenty, and what they were
doing at the time was make you pay full price
(19:01):
to watch movies on Disney Plus. I remember paying twenty
dollars to see Mulan and feeling so robbed by that.
So at number five, I have Mulan. At number four.
I have Alice in Wonderland from twenty ten. I decided
to include not one, but two Tim Burton films because
I think it just ruined some classics by making them
overtly tim Burton and taking away everything that made the
(19:25):
animated versions great. And this was what I felt was
a string of just bad Tim Burton films. I'm not
sure he's entirely recovered from this, because at number three,
I have twenty nineteen's Dumbo that just felt like a
complete mess and took all the charm out of Dumbo.
At number two, I have snow White, which came out
earlier this year, and that was primarily just because again,
(19:46):
whenever you make something live action, you take away the
comical joy out of it. There was no joy in
the Seven Doors that were really creepy looking to me.
All the drama that went into that I also feel
like took away from any hopes of that movie being good.
I don't think gal Gado deserves as much hate as
(20:07):
she gets for her acting, but there are some isolated
moments that you could pull from her performance in that
that just feels so flat, and I honestly think she
is doing what directors want her to do. She is
placed in these roles that they maybe at times set
her up to fail, and I think that's primarily on
the director because was her performance really flat in this
(20:30):
movie at times? Yes, but also what she was saying
that she has no control over that was on the
page was also bad. The only real redeeming quality of
Snow White was the fact that the costumes look pretty good.
But overall, the set, design, the production, the special effects
were atrocious. The songs were pretty forgettable, and maybe earlier
(20:52):
I gave the award to Flounder as being the worst
looking animated to live action character as far as design
and over were all how it looks compared to all
the other characters in the movie. But hands down, I
think I have to take that award away and give
it to Dopey because I still have nightmares of how
bad they made him look. Do get them away from me.
(21:13):
But at number one from twenty twenty two is Pinocchio.
This movie was so bad. Robert zamechis who Tom Hanks
worked with on classics like Forrest Gump. They did hear together.
Maybe they should stop working together. Actually, I thought, when
you have somebody like Tom Hanks and Roberts and Mechas
coming together to work on arguably one of the top
(21:33):
five Disney classics of all time. This movie was regurgitated garbage,
meaning that it was something that I ate expelled from
my body and then took that in my body and
did it again, because that's what they did. They took
something that was good and just made it a heap
of trash. I was personally offended by Pinocchio. I rage
watched this movie to the end because about fifteen twenty
(21:56):
minutes into it, I was like, this is bad. Pinocchio looks,
the story doesn't work. All the characters that are supporting
Pinocchio are terrible. There are no redeeming qualities of this movie.
I rage watched it till the very end because if
I don't fully watch a movie, I can't review it.
I'm like, I'm gonna watch this movie just for the
(22:17):
fact that I could rip it for ten to fifteen years.
The worst, not only the worst animated to live action movie,
one of the worst Disney movies of all time. I
gave it the lowest rating you can possibly give a
movie in my book, a point five. That is bad.
And we'll wrap it up talking about five animated movies
that I think would benefit from live action remakes, even
(22:39):
though I feel like no animated movie needs to be
I just know it's a business. Wherever there is a
level of fandom and ip, eventually there's gonna be a
live action remake of it. I would say we're probably
another ten years away from a Despicable Me. It's just
gonna happen, guys, it is inevitable. Well, the one on
(23:01):
my list I think would actually really work and not
feel like a cash grab is The Iron Giant, because
I feel that is a movie that is underappreciated. We
all watch it as kids maybe and didn't understand it
at the time, but if you go back and rewatch
that movie as an adult, it is really emotional and
if you think about the story in that, if you
(23:21):
think about the visuals, if they remade it now, it
would kind of feel like Transformers for kids. And we
have the technology now, we've had it since two thousand
and seven to make realistic looking metal characters. I just
think that would look fantastic if you could create that
energy that you get from an MCU movie or a
(23:41):
Transformers movie and take away it having to be cool
and appealed to like a PG thirteen audience, and just
make it for PG audiences. I think there's something there.
I think there is a level of film right now
that is underserving that level of fandom. Because the movie
is all about friendship and sacrifice, and you could still
(24:02):
get Ben Diesel to voice the Iron Giant, it would
be fantastic a Goofy movie. As much as I would
want an animated sequel, and as much as I don't
even know how a live action remake of the movie
would be, it could look atrocious, it could look like
a horror movie, but I just want that level of
Here is this movie that has this deep rooted cult
(24:25):
following from the nineties to have a moment now, much
like Lilo and Stitches. Having that just feels validating because
in the same way that I don't feel like people
fully appreciated Lilo and Stitch when it came out in
the two thousands, that that character has really grown a
just passionate rabbit fan base over time. I think that
is what has happened with a Goofy movie. So I
(24:47):
would like for that film to finally get its flowers,
and if it takes a live action remake to get that,
I'll take it. One of my favorite animated movies as
a kid. Pokemon the first movie which I rewatched, probably
one the year. They did make a CGI remake of
it back in twenty twenty, which was Pokemon Mutwo Strikes
Back Evolution, which basically follows the plot of the first
(25:11):
movie pretty much entirely and just recreates it with CGI.
That is the movie I've been waiting on my entire life.
I've just wanted to see exactly what I loved and
experienced as a kid. Just make it live action. I've
been wanting that. I remember having dreams of that when
I was ten years old. I don't want Detective Pikachu.
I don't want to spin off. I just want a
(25:33):
live action version of the first movie. Next up on
my list, I have dragon Ball Super Superhero, which is
a full length animated film based on the series. And
this is the movie that really got me back into
dragon Ball, even though I drew up with it. My
memories of watching it in Mexico with all my cousins
(25:54):
in Spanish was how I was first exposed to dragon
Ball Z and then as an adult, I went back.
I saw this movie first, and that inspired me to
go and watch all of dragon Ball Super which I
watched all one hundred and thirty one or thirty three
episodes of that show, and now I've gone back and
restarted dragon Ball Z from the very beginning. But dragon
Ball Super Superhero, I think would translate perfect into a
(26:18):
live action movie, even though they have failed doing this
and failed so badly. Was the movie that came out
back in two thousand and nine, dragon Ball Evolution. That
movie was a disaster. You have such high expectations for
how you think these characters are going to look. Piccolo
looked atrocious, Goku look datrocious. There were no redeeming qualities
(26:39):
about that movie. And if we're getting an R rated
Ninja Turtles movie, they're working on the Last Ronin, which
is a live action adaptation of the graphic novel. I
think if we gave that similar treatment to a dragon
Ball Super that would finally make it hit. And finally,
because there have been rumblings of this of who would
(27:00):
play Miles Morales, I would want to see a live
action remake of Spider Man into the Spider Verse. I
think this all comes down to casting. Can you find
the right person to play Miles Morales? Can you find
the right director and how does it fit into everything
else that the MCU is doing. Is it going to
be a part of the MCU. I think you have
to keep it completely separate, much like you do with
(27:21):
all the Spider Verse movies. And I think there are
a lot of fans who want to see Miles Morales
in Secret Wars or in Doomsday. I don't think that
is going to happen, but can you imagine the pops
across the country that that would get, much like we
had back with no way home? Could you imagine how
(27:42):
crazy people would go if that's how they decide to
debut Miles Morales as Spider Man and either do it
probably wouldn't be Doomsday. It would probably be Secret Wars.
They debut them in Secret Wars and then announce that
there's gonna be a live action Miles Morales movie. That
would be appen. That's why I want to see it,
although that could go downhill really fast. Just keep it
(28:04):
out of Sony's hands. Well, come back and I'll give
my spoiler free review of Materialists. Hi, I'm not my day,
ray Ol girl. Let's get into it now. A spoiler
free movie review Materialist, starring three superheroes in a non
superhero movie. You have Dakota Johnson aka Madam Webb, Pedro
Pascal who was going to be Read Richards in the
(28:26):
New Fantastic Four movie, and you have the one and
only Chris Evans aka Captain America. Can Dakota Johnson recover
her public image or her image with me? Not that
she cares about how I feel about her movies after
Madam Webb. And I was actually a big Dakota Johnson
fan prior to Madam web and even I thought, man,
(28:47):
if an actor does one movie, is it really going
to change my perception of them? And it wasn't just
that the movie was bad, it was also how she
handled it that made me think a little bit differently
about her. But I loved her in Peanut Butter, Falcon,
choch Real Smooth, And I think most people still associate
her with the Fifty Shades of Grave movies and I
never even got into those movies. But what this movie
is about. She plays a young New York City matchmaker.
(29:10):
She works at this business where it's kind of like
a bumble, except instead of doing it on the app,
you work with a person who helps you find people
to date, So kind of like a travel agent would
find you places to go and set up your trips.
You go to this person. It's very high end concierge, like, Okay,
(29:32):
here's what I want, here's what I'm looking for. And
her job is to set people up and she's really
good at her job. At the start of the movie,
she has been responsible so far for nine marriages and
she loves doing it. Problem is it starts to affect
how she sees people. She sees bank account, she sees
height and weight, she looks at people just as stats.
(29:54):
And she has an ex boyfriend played by Chris Evans,
and then she meets a new guy who is a
super rich, successful guy, charming, good looking, played by Pedro Pascal.
So what we have is a classic love triangle between
does she want to go back to her ex who
has a lot of imperfections and you find out more
and more detailed how long they were together, why they
(30:17):
broke up, or does she want to go all in
on this new guy who is coming in sweeping her
off her feet and able to give her a life
that she only imagined having because dude has a lot
of money. And there are three things this movie did
and brought back. That has me excited for rom coms,
which the rom com genre has evolved a lot since
the nineties and early two thousands, where we might associate
(30:39):
a lot of Adam Sandler movies, where the overall tone
of them is a lot more comical, probably leans more
into the comm and I think there are still those
type of rom coms coming out. Look at anyone but you,
with Sidney Sweeney and Glenn Powell, you still have a
genre that leans more into those classic things that just
make you feel good, just make you not really have
(30:59):
to use your brain a whole lot, and they're very predictable.
And the material List also still falls into that rom
com genre, but the comedy is much different. It's much
more subtle. So the three things I feel it is
bringing back. One was the classic trailer. A version that
they released of the trailer for the material List had
a two thousands esque voiceover, which I thought was perfect.
(31:22):
We have not seen that in a very long time
in the world of matchmaking. This weekend, your client is
getting sweet. No one plays the game better than Lucy
six to doctor Lawyer Banker and I get along much
better with girls in their twenties, but love isn't part
of her equation. I don't want to fight about money
(31:44):
with my boyfriend. You know how hard it is to
make you happy. Lucy and the Eternal Bachelora. I'm a guy.
I love forget a rich husband. Because that style of
trailer is so outdated. You don't really put out trailers
where you have the big voiceover guy anymore because it
doesn't really fit in today's world. Doesn't really make people
(32:04):
want to see movies anymore. I think trailers have a
really hard time fitting so much into two and a
half minutes. But I really enjoyed the version they put
out with that voiceover because it kind of gave me
a different perspective going into this, thinking, Okay, they're going
to try to bring back that two thousand style rom
com but make it feel very modern. Number two, they
(32:25):
brought back smoking, which is not good whatsoever. I don't
promote it, don't encourage it, but just to see smoking
in a movie again, I thought was a really interesting
play because that's just something you don't see anymore. Back
in the eighties and nineties, you'd see it all the
time and not even think about it. I think just
the idea of putting smoking in a movie in twenty
(32:47):
twenty five is a really bold statement. So to me,
that was saying, let's bring back some of these classic
Hollywood things. Is it weird to say things from the
nineties and early two thousands are classic Hollywood things now?
But it is because much around the two thousands where
we started to see really how bad smoking was and
stop trying to promote it to young people, which I
(33:08):
still believe, like you should not be promoting smoking or
vaping or anything like that that just has a crazy
effect on your body. But I think there's something, Oh
I hate to say it, there's something cool the way
it looks on screen knowing that they're not smoking real cigarettes,
because I don't really see Dakota Johnson's character and think
she's gonna be one to smoke, and when she does,
(33:29):
it makes me feel a different way about her. And
number three, it brought back really witty dialogue, which I
think that's a thing that doesn't really get emphasized enough
in modern rom coms is having great quotes, having great monologues,
having moments that are so impactful that you could pull
them from this movie and start to place them onto
(33:52):
these other iconic moments in rom comms that we all
remember because if people are still saying the monologue from
when Harry Met said is one of the best rom
com monologues of all time. I'm gonna throw something through
the window next to me here because I'm tired of
the same old things getting referenced all the time. We
need new moments like this. And why haven't we had
(34:13):
new moments like this is because nobody is writing them.
And now in this movie there are those moments where
it hits you in the fields, not only on an
emotional level, but even on a comedic level. Where are
all the movies with great movie quotes that we used
to have back in the twenty twenty tens. It was
one of the only movies I've seen this year that
(34:33):
I thought everything on the page was as important as
everything being shown on screen, not just the big stars,
not just the director. They thought, we need to make
a great script and turn it into a great movie,
not just Okay, let's take a decent script and then
kind of figure it out as we go. Maybe in editing,
through marketing, we can make this movie profitable. There was
(34:53):
also a lot of great chemistry between Dakota Johnson and
Chris Evans between Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pass which really
emphasized the love triangle. And as the viewer, you are
rooting for different people to end up with other people,
and that was the fun part about it. And I
know people, I guess hate the love triangle trope at
(35:15):
this point. I know even some actors will say, I
don't want to be cast in a movie where there's
a love triangle, and people will be like, Okay, we
won't put you in a love triangle. They get there
and they're like, read the script, Oh I'm in a
love triangle. So I feel like that formula is probably
a little bit cliche, but in this case it works
so well because at times I was like, oh, I
want to end up with this guy. No, no, no, no,
(35:37):
I want to end up with this guy. No, she
should definitely end up with this guy. I think the
love triangle, as cliche as that might be, it works,
especially in this movie because the two guys are so different.
One of them is down on their luck, but he's
the old boyfriend and there's always those feelings you have
towards your ex. In this situation with Dakota Johnson, and
(35:58):
then you have the new guy who is last she
get knew and has all these things he can flaunt
and money that he can just throw around. This movie
comes to us from director Celine Strong, who I mentioned
in last week's episode had her debut with Past Lives,
and I think is really starting to create a style
for herself, which I love the use of intimate cinematography
in this. I also love that even though we've seen
(36:21):
New York City a thousand times in movies, it really
felt like a character within itself because you had these
really big, up close and personal shots between all of
the lead actors, but then also peel back a little
bit and showed you New York City in a fresh way.
And I thought that was really like the backdrop of
it that fit perfectly, paired with a really great score
(36:43):
throughout the movie that was subtle and the way it
set itself apart from other rom coms. And maybe even
this was just a budgeting thing that they didn't have
money to spend on a lot of songs that were
well known, because that's what you've seen in a lot
of rom comms. It's just like, all right, let's throw
in some songs that are popular right now, that'll hit
with the demographic we want to go see this movie.
But instead of that, they used a really great score
(37:05):
that at times was like really kind of charging and
pushing the tension along. I thought that fit perfectly with
the backdrop of New York City and all these really great,
well dressed people. Dakota Johnson's fashion was at a ten.
Pedro Pascal was also like very sophisticated and rich looking,
and then you have Chris Evans, who just looks good
in anything. But Selene Strong has this blend of modern
(37:28):
and classic romance, and I think that's what really made
this movie set itself apart from anything else out there
right now, and what really is giving her films right
now a very unique profile. So the cast was stacked
three really great actors who are very highly in demand
right now, so much so that I wonder how many
dates they actually had with Pedro Pascal to film this movie,
(37:49):
because he is in so many things right now, I mean,
Last of Us, Fantastic Four. Dude just pops up everywhere,
and I think at times that just kind of showed
a little bit, because how can you be so in
demand and in so many things, And also dedicate enough
time to really have your character have enough presence throughout
the movie. I'm starting to feel the same way about
(38:10):
Sidney Sweeney too, where she's in so many things right
now and use in the marketing for all these movies
and posters and trailers, and then you actually watch the
movies and you think, man, I bet she was just
filming this in between filming something else. But the social
commentary was also top notched. There were some lines that
were really impactful from these characters that you really felt
(38:30):
it when they said them, and the balance of humor
was also perfect. One of my biggest complaints though in
movies right now, that just triggers me, and we got
to stop doing this. Stop putting the iPhone alarm sound
in movies. Use a different tone, use something else, because
whenever I hear that tone that I start freaking out,
(38:51):
I feel like I'm waking up out of a dream,
I'm about to be late for work. Let's stop putting
the iPhone alarm sound in movies. Even the phone ringing
is kind of annoying. If you're going to bring stuff back,
just bring back them having for some reason a classic
alarm clock. So this movie really lived up to my expectations.
It is rare for me to find a perfect movie,
but this one, I think is really close. Ah. It's
(39:13):
hard to compare it to Past Lives too, because they
are two very different films as far as the story.
Past Lives is much more emotional and this one has
more humor and overall I think just more romance. But
they're both fantastic and close to perfect for the materialists.
I give it four point five out of five dating services.
(39:36):
It's time to head down to movie mikes. Traylar Paul.
If an actor is in everything, are they really in anything?
That is my deep question for the trailer Park. And
what I mean is if an actor who is so hot,
so in demand, does so many projects, that says, oh,
everybody wants to work with them. They're making so much money.
(39:58):
For most actors, there's a or your limited amount of
time where you are this hot, where all the projects
are firing, everybody is calling because you're putting money in
other people's pockets. And I can't hate on an actor
for taking as many roles as possible, because in a
creative field you often don't know when your next role
is gonna come. But if somebody like Pedro Pascal, which
(40:22):
we've been talking about in this episode when talking about materialists,
how I started to notice that I don't know if
he's on set this entire time. I decided to talk
about the new trailer for Eddington, because here we are again,
Pedro Pascal in another movie coming out this year. If
he's in so many movies, is he really in anything?
I want to do an investigation on how many movies
(40:45):
an A list actor like Pedro Pascal actually has time
for in a year. I want to talk about how
that affects how we start to feel about these people,
is their oversaturation. But the movie is coming to us
from director Ari Astor, who has done horror movies like Heredit,
Harry at Midsummar, which Midsommar I think you'd probably say
at Midsummer, but I like to say it fancy like
(41:05):
Midsomar is a horror movie that I recommended to a
lot of people early on in this podcast because it
is one of my favorite horror movies of the twenty tens,
just because it's so dark and twisted and unconventional, and
I feel like when Hereditary came out, everybody loved that
movie I'm just a bigger fan of Midsummer, and when
(41:26):
I recommended that, I didn't realize how kind of messed
up and twisted that movie is, and now a lot
of people like it. That is the one I probably
got the most pushback for recommending. So now I don't
really ever recommend Midsummer anymore, because I think that's just
a style of horror movie that I just personally like.
I'm a fan of Ari's directing, and I think he
is a pretty interesting director overall, even though his last
(41:49):
movie didn't do as well, but he's still a relatively
new director, and now he is taking on a very
polarizing topic in his new movie. Because Eddington follows the
story of police and social turmoil in a fictional city
of Eddington, New Mexico, caused by the COVID nineteen pandemic.
It is taking place in a fictional town. Joaquin Phoenix
(42:10):
and Pedro Pascal are in this heated small town race
for mayor, and the movie is going to dive into
how chaotic it was at that time. It's going to
cover social distancing protests, conspiracy theories. Eddington is coming out
in theaters on July eighteenth, before we talk more about
this and about Pedro Pascal. Here's just a little bit
(42:31):
of the Eddington trailer. These are your strengths. So they're
your strengths. You know how death works of people are
going to be looking here. Now, keep your own office going,
but you're gonna run mine. So vote Joe Cost take
(42:53):
back our community. Oh yeah, save our soul. This movie
looks very stylistic. Trayler closes out in a very dramatic way.
It stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler,
and Luke Grimes. Joaquin Phoenix appears to be the main character.
(43:16):
He is the small town sheriff in this fictional New
Mexico town where he challenges the mayor played by Pedro
Pascal in a pandemic set situation. The movie is being
described as a Western thriller and black comedy film. So
Pedro Pascal is playing a guy named Ted Garcia who
is the mayor of this town running for reelection. Joaquin
Phoenix plays the town sheriff named Joe Cross. His wife
(43:39):
is played by Emma Stone playing Louise Cross. Austin Butler
plays a guy named Vernon Jefferson Peak and Luke Grimes
plays Guy, which I always thought that was an interesting name.
I always thought it was a fake name because I
only ever heard it in movies. I remember from Never
Been Kissed, the guy in that was named Guy. I've
never met a guy in real life name Guy. But
in this movie, Luke Grimes plays a guy named Guy,
(44:01):
and he's also a officer at the Sheriff's office. And
director Ari Astor originally thought this was gonna be the
first movie he was gonna make. It was actually written
five years before he even started Hereditary, but then decided
to make Hereditary Midsomar first. And it wasn't until he
started promoting his third film, Boa Is Afraid, which also
stars wa Quing Phoenix, that he said, my next movie
(44:22):
is gonna be one about the COVID nineteen pandemic, which
is also weird to refer to it as the COVID
nineteen pandemic, but that's how it's being described. So let's
talk about Pedro Pascal because it seems right now that
he is everywhere, and I think every actor aspires to
have this level of heat on them, where everybody wants
(44:43):
a piece of them. Their schedule is full and I
think to reach that level of fame at some point,
people have to be sick of you and Pedro Pascal,
it seems to a lot of people is maybe just
an overnight success, but he's been doing this a long time.
His breakout role it first came to us in twenty
fourteen when he was in an episode of Game of Thrones,
(45:03):
and even that came later in his career. He was
thirty nine years old when he was on Game of
Thrones and he's now fifty. So why is he so
popular now? I decided to do some investigating because I
think the thing that really started to put him in
the minds of everybody was him landing the role on
The Mandalorian, which started back in twenty nineteen. And I
(45:23):
think the thing that has really cemented him as of
late was being cast as Joel in the Last of
Us in twenty twenty three, where I think people started
to look at him differently, And that show was so
good and so groundbreaking when it came out. It started
to show people his emotional range, his dramatic power. People
started to kind of put the pieces together of other
(45:46):
movies and TV shows they've seen him in, like, oh,
he was the guy at Narcos, but now it's like, oh,
he's the star of this show. But for Pedro Pascal,
I think his next big role and the thing that's
really going to cement Um in this a list tier
is going to be his role coming up as Read
Richards in Fantastic Four. That is just gonna submentim there,
(46:07):
and that is kind of the pinnacle of anybody's career.
Can you be in a big Hollywood production and put
butts in seats? So if that movie proves to be
as successful as I'm hoping, I think that is good
to Cementum in. Okay, So it's not really that he's
an overnight success. It's that his long haul career is
starting to pay off, and to us it just feels like,
(46:28):
oh my gosh, we see him and everything now, But
really he's been grinding for so long. Very rarely in
Hollywood does somebody become an overnight success. You just have
to put in your dues, doing small roles and eventually
landing that one that really just starts to land with people,
and then you become this in demand because if you
look at the movies he's been in just the last
(46:51):
five years, I mean He was in Wonder Woman nineteen
eighty four in twenty twenty, which I think I'm the
only person who enjoyed that movie. But that also came
to us at a time where we weren't getting any movies.
It was in twenty twenty, which ties back into this
movie now, Eddington, because I was just so happy at
that point to have a good movie, superhero movie that
I was able to watch at home. That movie and
(47:12):
a lot of other movies that came out that year
that were new, have a special place in my heart.
Have I gone back and rewatched that movie since no,
So I'm just happy what that movie did for me
when it did come out. He was also in The
Unbearable Way of Massive Talent with Nick Cage, which I
thought was an underrated comedy. He was in Driveaway Dolls
(47:33):
last year, which was a really quick role pretty much
just in it at the beginning. And this is where
you start to see how limited he has been in
some of these movies. He was in Gladiator to last year,
He was a voice actor in the Wild Robot last year,
he was also in The Uninvited Freaky Tales, and then
this year has been in Materialists. Eddington will be in
(47:54):
Fantastic Four, and then it looks like he is also
going to be unless they change the release again, but
in Avengers Doomsday, because that's kind of what we're all
building up to. And on the TV side, of course,
he has been in the Last of Us and if
he start to look at all these projects, I have
to imagine a majority of his time had to go
to dedicating time to film Fantastic Four. Because on average,
(48:19):
top tier A list actors usually only do one to
two movies a year. It breaks down to first of all,
actors are picky at this level because they often wait
for the best projects, the best directors, the biggest paydays
and roles that are going to maintain their brand, because
that is what they have to think about. Now. It's
(48:40):
not just about Okay, I need to be able to
earn enough money this year. It starts to be about
I have to think of myself as an entity and
what is going to make sense in my filmography right now.
So Petro Pascal is an interesting person because he can
do anything. He has a very wide range where he
can do the smaller budget A twenty four movies like
(49:02):
we're already seeing them in this year, but then also
can do big movies like Fantastic Four and then go
back to HBO Max and do Last of Us. So
he has that on his side where he doesn't have
to account for a big action movie every single year
because you're gonna run out of good scripts if you
do that, he can actually hop around to different genres,
different mediums and just search for the best scripts. Another
(49:24):
reason they usually only do one to two movies per
year is because fans like us start to have expectations
on them and they always want to continue that hot streak.
So sometimes they might do three or more films in
a year, but if one of those dips just a
little bit, as we've seen and we're talking about earlier
with Dakota Johnson, that can start to change the way
(49:45):
you feel about your favorite actors. But if you have
your action guys like the Rock Jason Statham, they can
probably get away with doing two to four movies a
year because they're kind of always living in that same genre.
Their range of characters isn't as vast, so they're kind
of doing the same thing over and over again and
just trying to find a movie at least one that
really hits and they also will take on smaller cameos
(50:08):
in smaller roles, but oftentimes, through a little manipulation in
the promotion, you can put them right there on the
poster and say, we got Pedro Pascal in this movie.
His face is right here. But then when you go
watch that movie in theaters or click it at home,
you might think to yourself, man, he really wasn't in
that as much as they promoted him. He was all
(50:28):
over the trailer, but when I actually watched the movie,
he wasn't there as much. So they do that trickery
as well. So that is somebody who is still on
the up and up might not be as established as
other A list actors, because if you look at people
like Leonardo DiCaprio, he typically only does one movie every
two to three years. It is very unusual for him
(50:51):
to do one movie a year, which I think he's
at least leaning more into at least doing one every
two years right now, Like One Battle after Another is
coming out later this year with him and Benisio del
Toro on September twenty sixth. Somebody like a Ryan Reynolds
or Kevin Hart might put out two to three movies
per year, but maybe two of those are live action
(51:13):
and one of them is an animated movie that takes
less of their time to sit down in a booth
and do all the lines. But if you think back
to the height of the MCU, Scarlett Johansson at times
was doing two movies a year, two of those big projects.
So pretty much an average A lister will do one
to two major films per year if they are a
(51:34):
list and really busy and usually on the rise and
kind of a hot shreak. So your Pedro Pascal's, your
Sydney Sweeney's, your Austin Butler's, your Timothy Shalomee, your Zendayas.
They could do up to three, maybe four movies a
year to mix in. Genres have bigger and smaller roles,
and they also don't want to have a bunch of
(51:54):
movies coming out close to each other because then it
kind of becomes a mess to promote, which is what
kind of Pedro Pascal is running into right now. Because
Materialists just came out, Eddington is coming out on July eighteenth,
and right after that, on July twenty fifth, we have
Fantastic Four. So here's what I'm talking about. It's all
just jumbled up, so hopefully that is a great one, two,
(52:16):
three movie streak for him. I think even if Eddington
doesn't live up to expectations, it's not really good at
Dingham because I think the hype of Fantastic four is
gonna be too great. So good for him. A great
time to be his publicist and probably a great time
to be his money person. Heed. That was this week's
edition of Movie b Tramer Bar, and that is going
(52:37):
to do it for another episode here of the podcast.
Before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out
of the week this week. I'm going over to my
YouTube channel, which is YouTube dot com slash Mike Distro.
I think I just hit six hundred followers. I'm trying
to get to one thousand. So if you're listening and
you love YouTube and you want to watch individual movie
reviews over there and interviews as well, go subscribe. I've
(53:00):
hit the bell. You get brand new videos every single Monday,
the same day that this podcast gets released. But this
week's listener shout out of the Week goes to Fallow,
who commented on last week's review, where I talked about
is Wes and Henderson still cool after watching The Phoenicians Scheme,
and Fallow said, I find Wes Anderson movies to be
a bit hit or miss. When his films land, they're amazing,
(53:23):
but when they don't, I tend to find myself stuck
in some abstract, purgatory good vid though. Appreciate that, Fallow,
which I kind of forget that I'm a really big
Wes Anderson fan overall and that they're not for everybody.
So appreciate you guys indulging me in talking about one
of my favorite directors last week. But at times I
(53:44):
do feel that way about his work too, where I
wasn't the biggest fan of The French Dispatch, and even
if I love one of his movies visually and can't
get into it emotionally or story wise, it does get
tough for me too, So I can see that. So
maybe sometimes it feels to people who aren't a fan
of his work a little bit like having to watch
a movie for homework, and that's not fun. But I
(54:06):
honestly think The Phoenician Scheme was one of his more
emotional movies that actually had a good storyline to follow
along with all the kookiness and symmetrical visuals, so appreciate
that fallow. Thank you now for listening wherever you might be,
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. Today, I want to talk
about what the best and worst live action remakes of
animated movies are. In the movie review, we talked about Materialists.
Some people felt doup by this movie because they really
leaned into the marketing of rom comms. Are back. I
want to talk about how the genre of rom comms
has evolved. And in the trailer park we'll be talking
(00:21):
about Eddington, which start Jaquin, Phoenix, and Pedro Pascal. I
want to do a whole deep dive on Pedro Pascal
because he is in so many movies right now, and
I want to talk about when somebody gets so busy,
are they able to dedicate enough time to each role
to really have a presence on the screen that resonates
with audiences. Or can you be so in demand that
(00:43):
your overall products starts to diminish a little bit. We'll
talk about that. Thank you for being here, Thank you
for being subscribed. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew.
He Now, let's talk movies from the Nashville Podcast Network.
This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast. I thought I was
going to have an easier time coming up with my
(01:03):
best live action remakes of animated movies. And I know
I've been critical of them really heavily in the last
couple of years, but I thought they'd been doing them
for so long that surely there are enough good ones
to make a top five. Surely you can't be serious.
I am serious, and don't call me surely, but I
really had to fight for my top five. I tried
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to include other studios that were not Disney, but when
doing my research, primarily all the live action remakes of
animated movies come to us from Disney, so that is
just their business model. It appears that only one non
Disney movie made it into my top five. So before
we get into the best and then the worst, and
then I also have five that I think should have
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live action remakes done. I want to talk about. The
first ever Disney live action remake came out back in
nineteen ninety four. Can you guess which one it was?
Because before for this, they had done live action animation
hybrid movies that were kind of remakes, but not really
what we consider to be a remake right now. This
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was the first movie to adapt a classic Disney animated
feature and turn it into a full live action film,
which all we're gonna get into some discussion later about
how some of these don't even feel live action to me.
But can you guess the movie that came out in
nineteen ninety four. It's based on the original animated Disney
film that came out back in nineteen sixty seven. It
(02:30):
was the last animated feature film to be personally overseen
by Walt Disney before his death. Can you guess the movie?
The answer is The Jungle Book in nineteen ninety four.
I remember when this movie came out because my cousin
had it on VHS and I became obsessed with the
character of Mowgli, primarily because I was also a brown
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skinned kid who liked running around without his T shirt on.
So anytime i'd be outside, I always gravitated towards climbing trees.
I always said I wanted to be like Mowgli, but
this was the first to do it, and I thought
they did it well. Does this movie hold up? I
don't know. I haven't seen this movie since the nineties,
but The Jungle Book was the first live action remake,
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and then they remade it again in twenty sixteen, The
Jungle Book came out directed by Jon Favreau, So that
movie does not quite make my list, but I wanted
to give you a bit of a history lesson before
we dive into my top five. Let's get into it now.
At number five, I have The Little Mermaid, which I
gave a three point five out of five. It came
out in twenty twenty three. I thought Hailey Bailey did
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a fantastic job as Ariel Harvey a Bardem I thought
was also a good king, but hands down, I think
the person who really solidified this as being a good
movie to me was Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. And this
was a Disney movie that actually had benefit from turning
it into a live action movie, because you have a
world that I was actually interested in exploring under the seat.
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They actually made that look pretty good, and I thought overall,
the story fall up pretty close to the original animated version,
which I think what Disney usually tries to do, especially
with these old classics, is go back and fix plot
holes or update things that maybe seem a little bit outdated.
I like the Disney movies that really stick to the
original story as much as possible. But The Little Mermaid
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was one that I actually went to see in theaters
and was entertained throughout the entire film. The major problem
I had with it was Flounder, who looked just grotesque.
He is one of the worst looking on screen characters
of all time. With the use of CGI, he looked
like he was in pain. His eyes were bugging out,
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and overall that was the hardest part of me getting
into this film, and overall that is going to be
the theme here. It is really hard for me to
become invested in realistic looking animals because there's a different
level of magic when you're watching an animated movie and
you're not trying to associate them with the real thing.
You could go out back in upond and fine, or
(05:00):
go out to the ocean. It's so much harder to do.
But The Little Mermaid comes in at number five. At
number four, I have Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson,
and maybe the reason I love this one so much
I remember going to see it in theaters alone back
in twenty seventeen. I saw a lot of movies alone.
In twenty seventeen, I was in my second year of
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living in Nashville by myself. I don't even think I
was really actively dating at that point. Now by twenty seventeen,
I probably was. I think the entire time I was here,
I was sort of dating, but I was really bad
at it, and I spent a lot of time going
to movies alone. And quite frankly, the memory I associate
with Beauty and the Beast is going to watch it
(05:45):
alone and then doing a review for it in my
car afterwards on Snapchat. But I think it's because I
am such a huge fan of Emma Watson, and unfairly
she is an actor who I just associate with Hermione Granger,
unfair of me and all of the Harry Potter cast.
I think I've come out of feeling that way about
Daniel Radcliffe because he's done a lot of great movies
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like Swiss Army Man, and Emma Watson has been an
actor who has been really selective about her work post
Harry Potter, so much so that she hasn't really retired
from acting, but she's kind of taken a hiatus where
she's much more concerned about other things going on in
the world and what film she is going to do next.
(06:27):
But I thought. Overall, this movie actually made me care
more about Beauty and the Beast, which I know how
groundbreaking that movie was when it came out back in
nineteen ninety one. It became the first animated movie to
be nominated for Best Picture in nineteen ninety two at
the Oscars, and it was because of how groundbreaking the
animation was, the level of artistry, which was a theme
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of the nineties Disney Renaissance era, the level of storytelling,
the technical achievements, and this was pretty revolutionary at the time.
Because I'm still in twenty twenty five fighting for animation
at the Oscars. We're just talking about this last week
as well. But a major milestone for this movie to
be nominated for Best Picture way back in nineteen ninety two,
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because it had critical acclaim, it had commercial success, and
overall just left a lasting impression on animation. And because
I was a baby when it came out, I wasn't
really alive to know about its impact, and later as
a young kid, it wasn't really a movie I gravitated towards.
It had some really fantastic songs in it, but I
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always just saw the movie as being an old classic
movie that I remember one of my aunts having in
those classic big Disney VHS cartridges, and we borrowed it
from her and watched it, and I thought, Okay, that's
a pretty good movie. But it wasn't until I watched
it in twenty seventeen in a live action format that
I thought, Oh, I actually get the story more. I
(07:54):
feel a little bit more connected to Belle, even though
I feel the story is more vibrant and animation, which
again that's gonna be a theme throughout this list is
I'm always gonna prefer the animated version or the live
action version, because even little things like the color of
Bell's dress and the way it looks in the live
action version isn't as iconic as it is in animation.
But those things aside, it stays pretty close to the
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original story. Maybe adds another storyline in there that some
people feels a little bit unnecessary, but I enjoyed how
they kind of change Gaston's character a little bit in
the live action version. Maybe the connection between the beauty
and the Beast wasn't as strong in the live action version,
because I feel like there's much more romance whenever it's
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an animated beast and an animated lead female character. It
starts to become a little bit harder for them to
have chemistry in a quote unquote live action movie, even
though they didn't get a real beast. But it's still
one I would revisit today, so it has some rewatchability.
But at number four, I have Beauty in the Beast
at number three. Most recent addition to this list, I
(09:01):
just watched it How to Train Your Dragon, which I
give a three point five out of five. I love
the animated version, and this was one where pretty much
they stayed really close to the original story. I would
say beat for beat if you watch the animated version
and then go watch the live action one, it is
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pretty much a reflection of that original story because you
have the same director. Oh Dean, who also worked on
Leelo Wins Stitch is now one of the first people
ever to not only be a part of the animated
version of a movie, but also the live action version
of a movie. And I think that really showed as well,
so much so that he brought back Gerard Butler, who
(09:43):
is the voice of the Dad and the animated version
and is now playing him in real live action. Now,
could you get some of the other actors to do that, no,
because they're all much older now. I mean, you couldn't
get Jonah Hill, although that would be funny. You couldn't
get Christopher mince Blas who is Aka mclovin and super
Bad Jay Barrokale, who voices Hiccup in the original animated version.
(10:04):
I think he brings a lot more life to that character.
And that's no disrespect to Mason Thames, who played Hiccup
in the live action version. I thought he did a
really good job. I just think overall the qualities that
I love about Hiccup in the animated version aren't quite
there in the live action version. His quirkiness, aside from
the way that his hair looks, I think his overall
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mannerisms and what make Hiccup Hiccup you see more in
the original version. But with all of that being said,
the action is there, the dragons look good, the fire
is there, the village is just how you see it
in the animated version, and what DreamWorks did with this
blows a lot of what Disney did out of the water.
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And the only reason that two and number one rank
higher is an a visual thing. I think visually this
one takes the cake out of any other Disney live
action remake, and it comes down to wardrobe and set
design and just overall how this feels like a movie
that doesn't feel like a family movie, even its runtime
(11:06):
is almost two hours, and I think, aside from the
fact that there's not blood and guts in it, at times,
maybe not exactly like it, but it's almost like taking
the story from How to Train Your Dragon and making
it look like a Game of Thrones episode. Again, not
as hardcore and dark as you would get in a
Game of Thrones episode, but I think if they really
(11:28):
wanted to push it a little bit further, which How
To Train Your Dragon movies do get a little bit
darker going from one to two, where things start to
get a little bit more serious. As you can see,
I'm now going back and rewatching all of these movies,
but I think if they wanted to go there, if
they wanted to age it up just a little bit,
they definitely could. And that is something that Disney is
not doing. And I think it's a great time for
this movie to come out fifteen years after the original,
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and I overall was really quite excited of how well
this can be done. And again if it wasn't for
the classic storytelling and number two and number one on
this list, I think this one could have easily had
a chance to rank higher. I was also exposed to
this movie when I was a little bit older. Came
out in twenty ten, so I was already nineteen years old.
But now to people who were kids when this movie
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first came out, I think you probably resonate with it
a lot more seeing it in live action. And I
think now by seeing how much more I was inspired
by this movie and how it really compares to everything else,
I'm bumping it up on my rating scale. I now
give How to Train Your Dragon four out of five flames,
and at number two you probably think this one would
have been number one for me because this room I'm
(12:34):
sitting in right now is littered with this character. I
have Leelo in Stitch, which I gave a four point
five out of five. I've seen this movie twice now
in theaters. I loved it more the second time because
I got to see things that I kind of missed
the first time around. I can't wait for it to
come out on Disney Plus, which is probably gonna be
a while so I could rewatch it for a third time.
(12:55):
This movie inspired me to go back and rewatch all
the animated Leelo and Stitch movies that are on Disney.
Plus Stitch has a glitch, which I wonder now if
and when they make a sequel to the live actionle
Load and Stitch, if they're going to follow that story,
which I think could be a good story for them
to follow, because that's all about Stitch trying to battle
his inner badness and him trying to do good things,
(13:18):
but then he has a force making him be bad
when he doesn't want to be bad anymore. I think
that story will probably take a little bit of tweaking
to make work for another full feature film. And the
only reason this one didn't come in at number one
is because after watching it for a second time, after
reading more about it, I feel that Disney did not
invest enough in this movie. They didn't believe enough in
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it that it was going to be a success, And
now that it's one of the biggest movies of the year,
they're like, oh, yeah, we have a big property on
our hands that people love and are passionate for. And
it's that and the fact that it wasn't even at
first going to be a feature film. It was originally
going to be put on Disney Plus maybe as a series,
and I started to see that the second time around
(14:00):
because I thought, oh man, they did kind of cut
some corners here, and I think that is primarily for
me visible with Pleikly and Jumba, who weren't even their
full cells throughout the entire movie, I feel like they
cut corners and making them revert to their human form,
and for the most part, you see Zach Galifanakis instead
of Jumba throughout the movie. So that led me to
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believe and solidify that. I think they didn't believe in
it enough from the start, but hopefully now seeing all
of the support for Leelo and Stitch, seeing all the
fandom and again, they'll probably do this now because they're like, Okay,
we can capitalize a whole lot more on this, We
can sell a whole lot more of Stitch merch by
investing more into the sequel to this. I hope they
(14:45):
get better visual effects. I hope they bring back some
characters that they didn't include in the first one. So
I have higher expectations now for Lilo and Stitch too,
whenever that happens. But That is why I have Lilo
and Stitch on my list at numbers two and at
number one I have twenty nineteen's The Lion King. And
(15:05):
I feel like this being at number one is kind
of cheating because it's not really a live action movie.
They did not go out to Africa and film a
bunch of wild animals. It is computer generated graphics. Now,
is it really sophisticated and thought out and cinematic computer
generated graphics? Yes? Was it technology that was I don't
(15:28):
even think it was the groundbreaking at the time because
they did it with the twenty sixteen Jungle Buck version
that was kind of the precursor to this one, which
was also directed by Jon Favreau. So what I loved
about it is it stuck completely to the story. It
is essentially the nineteen ninety four movie brought to life
with different animation. So it's almost like when you have
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a formula that is so good, you have this recipe
that all you need to do is follow it. Your
mom leaves you behind a recipe to a world famous
chocolate chip cookie. All you have to do is follow
that recipe, take them out when the timers up, and
don't burn the cookies. That's all you have to do.
You have the recipe, which is astounding to me that
(16:10):
they don't just do that for every other movie and
stop this whole discussion of people being outraged every time
a film comes out and they change some things. If
they just step to the original plots of all these
movies that everybody loves, I think there would be less outraged.
Or maybe they want the outrage. They need people to
be discussing them, be ranting about them, because maybe that
(16:31):
drives more people to see them, because outrage sparks curiosity.
But still at number one, I have The Lion King,
which is still a four point five out of five
to me, because the original is a five out of five,
and that is the highest rated live action remake. There's
no way you can achieve anything better than the original.
So I'll never rank one of these movies a five.
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I don't think I could ever rank any remake of
five because you just can't be better than the original.
Some honorable mentions here. I thought Aladdin would It was
pretty good, but I think if you didn't have Will
Smith as Genie, I probably would have loved it more.
He really just kind of killed that character. For me.
The other movie I wanted to put on this list,
(17:12):
but I don't think it counts as Kruella because I
loved Emma Stone as Kruella Deville. But it's not really
a remake. It is a prequel to one oh one Dalmatians,
which also had a live action version in nineteen ninety
six with Glenn Close that I believe is a pretty
bad version. But as a kid, I enjoyed it. But
I think that is probably on the lower end of
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live action adaptations, and I only like it for nostalgia purposes.
And like I mentioned earlier, nineteen ninety four is the
Jungle Book was the first to do it. It would
have made it if I was making a top ten.
And there is a weird connection because Jason Scott Lee
was the actor in that movie who played Mowgli. He
also went on to be the voice of David in
(17:54):
the animated version of Leelo and Stitch, and then he
happened to be in Mulan twenty twenty, and then they
brought him back again since he was the voice of
David in the original Lelo and Stitch, they brought him
back as the person who owns the restaurant that non
he works at. So dude has been in The Jungle Book,
Leelo and Stitch, both animated and live action, and was
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in the live action remake of Mulan. We did the best,
now let's do the worst. Speaking to Mulan, I have
it at number five. I just think that movie did
not feel like Mulan. Was it a bad movie? No,
But when you're remaking a classic Disney movie that has
a lot of comedy in it and you take away
all the comedy, you don't have the dragon voiced by
(18:39):
Eddie Murphy anymore, you don't have the dragon character at all.
It just took all the life and Disney magic out
of that movie and just made it feel like a
really cold war movie. Overall, the action and everything was fine,
but it was so forgettable. And also the fact that
it came out in twenty twenty, and what they were
doing at the time was make you pay full price
(19:01):
to watch movies on Disney Plus. I remember paying twenty
dollars to see Mulan and feeling so robbed by that.
So at number five, I have Mulan. At number four.
I have Alice in Wonderland from twenty ten. I decided
to include not one, but two Tim Burton films because
I think it just ruined some classics by making them
overtly tim Burton and taking away everything that made the
(19:25):
animated versions great. And this was what I felt was
a string of just bad Tim Burton films. I'm not
sure he's entirely recovered from this, because at number three,
I have twenty nineteen's Dumbo that just felt like a
complete mess and took all the charm out of Dumbo.
At number two, I have snow White, which came out
earlier this year, and that was primarily just because again,
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whenever you make something live action, you take away the
comical joy out of it. There was no joy in
the Seven Doors that were really creepy looking to me.
All the drama that went into that I also feel
like took away from any hopes of that movie being good.
I don't think gal Gado deserves as much hate as
(20:07):
she gets for her acting, but there are some isolated
moments that you could pull from her performance in that
that just feels so flat, and I honestly think she
is doing what directors want her to do. She is
placed in these roles that they maybe at times set
her up to fail, and I think that's primarily on
the director because was her performance really flat in this
(20:30):
movie at times? Yes, but also what she was saying
that she has no control over that was on the
page was also bad. The only real redeeming quality of
Snow White was the fact that the costumes look pretty good.
But overall, the set, design, the production, the special effects
were atrocious. The songs were pretty forgettable, and maybe earlier
(20:52):
I gave the award to Flounder as being the worst
looking animated to live action character as far as design
and over were all how it looks compared to all
the other characters in the movie. But hands down, I
think I have to take that award away and give
it to Dopey because I still have nightmares of how
bad they made him look. Do get them away from me.
(21:13):
But at number one from twenty twenty two is Pinocchio.
This movie was so bad. Robert zamechis who Tom Hanks
worked with on classics like Forrest Gump. They did hear together.
Maybe they should stop working together. Actually, I thought, when
you have somebody like Tom Hanks and Roberts and Mechas
coming together to work on arguably one of the top
(21:33):
five Disney classics of all time. This movie was regurgitated garbage,
meaning that it was something that I ate expelled from
my body and then took that in my body and
did it again, because that's what they did. They took
something that was good and just made it a heap
of trash. I was personally offended by Pinocchio. I rage
watched this movie to the end because about fifteen twenty
(21:56):
minutes into it, I was like, this is bad. Pinocchio looks,
the story doesn't work. All the characters that are supporting
Pinocchio are terrible. There are no redeeming qualities of this movie.
I rage watched it till the very end because if
I don't fully watch a movie, I can't review it.
I'm like, I'm gonna watch this movie just for the
(22:17):
fact that I could rip it for ten to fifteen years.
The worst, not only the worst animated to live action movie,
one of the worst Disney movies of all time. I
gave it the lowest rating you can possibly give a
movie in my book, a point five. That is bad.
And we'll wrap it up talking about five animated movies
that I think would benefit from live action remakes, even
(22:39):
though I feel like no animated movie needs to be
I just know it's a business. Wherever there is a
level of fandom and ip, eventually there's gonna be a
live action remake of it. I would say we're probably
another ten years away from a Despicable Me. It's just
gonna happen, guys, it is inevitable. Well, the one on
(23:01):
my list I think would actually really work and not
feel like a cash grab is The Iron Giant, because
I feel that is a movie that is underappreciated. We
all watch it as kids maybe and didn't understand it
at the time, but if you go back and rewatch
that movie as an adult, it is really emotional and
if you think about the story in that, if you
(23:21):
think about the visuals, if they remade it now, it
would kind of feel like Transformers for kids. And we
have the technology now, we've had it since two thousand
and seven to make realistic looking metal characters. I just
think that would look fantastic if you could create that
energy that you get from an MCU movie or a
(23:41):
Transformers movie and take away it having to be cool
and appealed to like a PG thirteen audience, and just
make it for PG audiences. I think there's something there.
I think there is a level of film right now
that is underserving that level of fandom. Because the movie
is all about friendship and sacrifice, and you could still
(24:02):
get Ben Diesel to voice the Iron Giant, it would
be fantastic a Goofy movie. As much as I would
want an animated sequel, and as much as I don't
even know how a live action remake of the movie
would be, it could look atrocious, it could look like
a horror movie, but I just want that level of
Here is this movie that has this deep rooted cult
(24:25):
following from the nineties to have a moment now, much
like Lilo and Stitches. Having that just feels validating because
in the same way that I don't feel like people
fully appreciated Lilo and Stitch when it came out in
the two thousands, that that character has really grown a
just passionate rabbit fan base over time. I think that
is what has happened with a Goofy movie. So I
(24:47):
would like for that film to finally get its flowers,
and if it takes a live action remake to get that,
I'll take it. One of my favorite animated movies as
a kid. Pokemon the first movie which I rewatched, probably
one the year. They did make a CGI remake of
it back in twenty twenty, which was Pokemon Mutwo Strikes
Back Evolution, which basically follows the plot of the first
(25:11):
movie pretty much entirely and just recreates it with CGI.
That is the movie I've been waiting on my entire life.
I've just wanted to see exactly what I loved and
experienced as a kid. Just make it live action. I've
been wanting that. I remember having dreams of that when
I was ten years old. I don't want Detective Pikachu.
I don't want to spin off. I just want a
(25:33):
live action version of the first movie. Next up on
my list, I have dragon Ball Super Superhero, which is
a full length animated film based on the series. And
this is the movie that really got me back into
dragon Ball, even though I drew up with it. My
memories of watching it in Mexico with all my cousins
(25:54):
in Spanish was how I was first exposed to dragon
Ball Z and then as an adult, I went back.
I saw this movie first, and that inspired me to
go and watch all of dragon Ball Super which I
watched all one hundred and thirty one or thirty three
episodes of that show, and now I've gone back and
restarted dragon Ball Z from the very beginning. But dragon
Ball Super Superhero, I think would translate perfect into a
(26:18):
live action movie, even though they have failed doing this
and failed so badly. Was the movie that came out
back in two thousand and nine, dragon Ball Evolution. That
movie was a disaster. You have such high expectations for
how you think these characters are going to look. Piccolo
looked atrocious, Goku look datrocious. There were no redeeming qualities
(26:39):
about that movie. And if we're getting an R rated
Ninja Turtles movie, they're working on the Last Ronin, which
is a live action adaptation of the graphic novel. I
think if we gave that similar treatment to a dragon
Ball Super that would finally make it hit. And finally,
because there have been rumblings of this of who would
(27:00):
play Miles Morales, I would want to see a live
action remake of Spider Man into the Spider Verse. I
think this all comes down to casting. Can you find
the right person to play Miles Morales? Can you find
the right director and how does it fit into everything
else that the MCU is doing. Is it going to
be a part of the MCU. I think you have
to keep it completely separate, much like you do with
(27:21):
all the Spider Verse movies. And I think there are
a lot of fans who want to see Miles Morales
in Secret Wars or in Doomsday. I don't think that
is going to happen, but can you imagine the pops
across the country that that would get, much like we
had back with no way home? Could you imagine how
(27:42):
crazy people would go if that's how they decide to
debut Miles Morales as Spider Man and either do it
probably wouldn't be Doomsday. It would probably be Secret Wars.
They debut them in Secret Wars and then announce that
there's gonna be a live action Miles Morales movie. That
would be appen. That's why I want to see it,
although that could go downhill really fast. Just keep it
(28:04):
out of Sony's hands. Well, come back and I'll give
my spoiler free review of Materialists. Hi, I'm not my day,
ray Ol girl. Let's get into it now. A spoiler
free movie review Materialist, starring three superheroes in a non
superhero movie. You have Dakota Johnson aka Madam Webb, Pedro
Pascal who was going to be Read Richards in the
(28:26):
New Fantastic Four movie, and you have the one and
only Chris Evans aka Captain America. Can Dakota Johnson recover
her public image or her image with me? Not that
she cares about how I feel about her movies after
Madam Webb. And I was actually a big Dakota Johnson
fan prior to Madam web and even I thought, man,
(28:47):
if an actor does one movie, is it really going
to change my perception of them? And it wasn't just
that the movie was bad, it was also how she
handled it that made me think a little bit differently
about her. But I loved her in Peanut Butter, Falcon,
choch Real Smooth, And I think most people still associate
her with the Fifty Shades of Grave movies and I
never even got into those movies. But what this movie
is about. She plays a young New York City matchmaker.
(29:10):
She works at this business where it's kind of like
a bumble, except instead of doing it on the app,
you work with a person who helps you find people
to date, So kind of like a travel agent would
find you places to go and set up your trips.
You go to this person. It's very high end concierge, like, Okay,
(29:32):
here's what I want, here's what I'm looking for. And
her job is to set people up and she's really
good at her job. At the start of the movie,
she has been responsible so far for nine marriages and
she loves doing it. Problem is it starts to affect
how she sees people. She sees bank account, she sees
height and weight, she looks at people just as stats.
(29:54):
And she has an ex boyfriend played by Chris Evans,
and then she meets a new guy who is a
super rich, successful guy, charming, good looking, played by Pedro Pascal.
So what we have is a classic love triangle between
does she want to go back to her ex who
has a lot of imperfections and you find out more
and more detailed how long they were together, why they
(30:17):
broke up, or does she want to go all in
on this new guy who is coming in sweeping her
off her feet and able to give her a life
that she only imagined having because dude has a lot
of money. And there are three things this movie did
and brought back. That has me excited for rom coms,
which the rom com genre has evolved a lot since
the nineties and early two thousands, where we might associate
(30:39):
a lot of Adam Sandler movies, where the overall tone
of them is a lot more comical, probably leans more
into the comm and I think there are still those
type of rom coms coming out. Look at anyone but you,
with Sidney Sweeney and Glenn Powell, you still have a
genre that leans more into those classic things that just
make you feel good, just make you not really have
(30:59):
to use your brain a whole lot, and they're very predictable.
And the material List also still falls into that rom
com genre, but the comedy is much different. It's much
more subtle. So the three things I feel it is
bringing back. One was the classic trailer. A version that
they released of the trailer for the material List had
a two thousands esque voiceover, which I thought was perfect.
(31:22):
We have not seen that in a very long time
in the world of matchmaking. This weekend, your client is
getting sweet. No one plays the game better than Lucy
six to doctor Lawyer Banker and I get along much
better with girls in their twenties, but love isn't part
of her equation. I don't want to fight about money
(31:44):
with my boyfriend. You know how hard it is to
make you happy. Lucy and the Eternal Bachelora. I'm a guy.
I love forget a rich husband. Because that style of
trailer is so outdated. You don't really put out trailers
where you have the big voiceover guy anymore because it
doesn't really fit in today's world. Doesn't really make people
(32:04):
want to see movies anymore. I think trailers have a
really hard time fitting so much into two and a
half minutes. But I really enjoyed the version they put
out with that voiceover because it kind of gave me
a different perspective going into this, thinking, Okay, they're going
to try to bring back that two thousand style rom
com but make it feel very modern. Number two, they
(32:25):
brought back smoking, which is not good whatsoever. I don't
promote it, don't encourage it, but just to see smoking
in a movie again, I thought was a really interesting
play because that's just something you don't see anymore. Back
in the eighties and nineties, you'd see it all the
time and not even think about it. I think just
the idea of putting smoking in a movie in twenty
(32:47):
twenty five is a really bold statement. So to me,
that was saying, let's bring back some of these classic
Hollywood things. Is it weird to say things from the
nineties and early two thousands are classic Hollywood things now?
But it is because much around the two thousands where
we started to see really how bad smoking was and
stop trying to promote it to young people, which I
(33:08):
still believe, like you should not be promoting smoking or
vaping or anything like that that just has a crazy
effect on your body. But I think there's something, Oh
I hate to say it, there's something cool the way
it looks on screen knowing that they're not smoking real cigarettes,
because I don't really see Dakota Johnson's character and think
she's gonna be one to smoke, and when she does,
(33:29):
it makes me feel a different way about her. And
number three, it brought back really witty dialogue, which I
think that's a thing that doesn't really get emphasized enough
in modern rom coms is having great quotes, having great monologues,
having moments that are so impactful that you could pull
them from this movie and start to place them onto
(33:52):
these other iconic moments in rom comms that we all
remember because if people are still saying the monologue from
when Harry Met said is one of the best rom
com monologues of all time. I'm gonna throw something through
the window next to me here because I'm tired of
the same old things getting referenced all the time. We
need new moments like this. And why haven't we had
(34:13):
new moments like this is because nobody is writing them.
And now in this movie there are those moments where
it hits you in the fields, not only on an
emotional level, but even on a comedic level. Where are
all the movies with great movie quotes that we used
to have back in the twenty twenty tens. It was
one of the only movies I've seen this year that
(34:33):
I thought everything on the page was as important as
everything being shown on screen, not just the big stars,
not just the director. They thought, we need to make
a great script and turn it into a great movie,
not just Okay, let's take a decent script and then
kind of figure it out as we go. Maybe in editing,
through marketing, we can make this movie profitable. There was
(34:53):
also a lot of great chemistry between Dakota Johnson and
Chris Evans between Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pass which really
emphasized the love triangle. And as the viewer, you are
rooting for different people to end up with other people,
and that was the fun part about it. And I
know people, I guess hate the love triangle trope at
(35:15):
this point. I know even some actors will say, I
don't want to be cast in a movie where there's
a love triangle, and people will be like, Okay, we
won't put you in a love triangle. They get there
and they're like, read the script, Oh I'm in a
love triangle. So I feel like that formula is probably
a little bit cliche, but in this case it works
so well because at times I was like, oh, I
want to end up with this guy. No, no, no, no,
(35:37):
I want to end up with this guy. No, she
should definitely end up with this guy. I think the
love triangle, as cliche as that might be, it works,
especially in this movie because the two guys are so different.
One of them is down on their luck, but he's
the old boyfriend and there's always those feelings you have
towards your ex. In this situation with Dakota Johnson, and
(35:58):
then you have the new guy who is last she
get knew and has all these things he can flaunt
and money that he can just throw around. This movie
comes to us from director Celine Strong, who I mentioned
in last week's episode had her debut with Past Lives,
and I think is really starting to create a style
for herself, which I love the use of intimate cinematography
in this. I also love that even though we've seen
(36:21):
New York City a thousand times in movies, it really
felt like a character within itself because you had these
really big, up close and personal shots between all of
the lead actors, but then also peel back a little
bit and showed you New York City in a fresh way.
And I thought that was really like the backdrop of
it that fit perfectly, paired with a really great score
(36:43):
throughout the movie that was subtle and the way it
set itself apart from other rom coms. And maybe even
this was just a budgeting thing that they didn't have
money to spend on a lot of songs that were
well known, because that's what you've seen in a lot
of rom comms. It's just like, all right, let's throw
in some songs that are popular right now, that'll hit
with the demographic we want to go see this movie.
But instead of that, they used a really great score
(37:05):
that at times was like really kind of charging and
pushing the tension along. I thought that fit perfectly with
the backdrop of New York City and all these really great,
well dressed people. Dakota Johnson's fashion was at a ten.
Pedro Pascal was also like very sophisticated and rich looking,
and then you have Chris Evans, who just looks good
in anything. But Selene Strong has this blend of modern
(37:28):
and classic romance, and I think that's what really made
this movie set itself apart from anything else out there
right now, and what really is giving her films right
now a very unique profile. So the cast was stacked
three really great actors who are very highly in demand
right now, so much so that I wonder how many
dates they actually had with Pedro Pascal to film this movie,
(37:49):
because he is in so many things right now, I mean,
Last of Us, Fantastic Four. Dude just pops up everywhere,
and I think at times that just kind of showed
a little bit, because how can you be so in
demand and in so many things, And also dedicate enough
time to really have your character have enough presence throughout
the movie. I'm starting to feel the same way about
(38:10):
Sidney Sweeney too, where she's in so many things right
now and use in the marketing for all these movies
and posters and trailers, and then you actually watch the
movies and you think, man, I bet she was just
filming this in between filming something else. But the social
commentary was also top notched. There were some lines that
were really impactful from these characters that you really felt
(38:30):
it when they said them, and the balance of humor
was also perfect. One of my biggest complaints though in
movies right now, that just triggers me, and we got
to stop doing this. Stop putting the iPhone alarm sound
in movies. Use a different tone, use something else, because
whenever I hear that tone that I start freaking out,
(38:51):
I feel like I'm waking up out of a dream,
I'm about to be late for work. Let's stop putting
the iPhone alarm sound in movies. Even the phone ringing
is kind of annoying. If you're going to bring stuff back,
just bring back them having for some reason a classic
alarm clock. So this movie really lived up to my expectations.
It is rare for me to find a perfect movie,
but this one, I think is really close. Ah. It's
(39:13):
hard to compare it to Past Lives too, because they
are two very different films as far as the story.
Past Lives is much more emotional and this one has
more humor and overall I think just more romance. But
they're both fantastic and close to perfect for the materialists.
I give it four point five out of five dating services.
(39:36):
It's time to head down to movie mikes. Traylar Paul.
If an actor is in everything, are they really in anything?
That is my deep question for the trailer Park. And
what I mean is if an actor who is so hot,
so in demand, does so many projects, that says, oh,
everybody wants to work with them. They're making so much money.
(39:58):
For most actors, there's a or your limited amount of
time where you are this hot, where all the projects
are firing, everybody is calling because you're putting money in
other people's pockets. And I can't hate on an actor
for taking as many roles as possible, because in a
creative field you often don't know when your next role
is gonna come. But if somebody like Pedro Pascal, which
(40:22):
we've been talking about in this episode when talking about materialists,
how I started to notice that I don't know if
he's on set this entire time. I decided to talk
about the new trailer for Eddington, because here we are again,
Pedro Pascal in another movie coming out this year. If
he's in so many movies, is he really in anything?
I want to do an investigation on how many movies
(40:45):
an A list actor like Pedro Pascal actually has time
for in a year. I want to talk about how
that affects how we start to feel about these people,
is their oversaturation. But the movie is coming to us
from director Ari Astor, who has done horror movies like Heredit,
Harry at Midsummar, which Midsommar I think you'd probably say
at Midsummer, but I like to say it fancy like
(41:05):
Midsomar is a horror movie that I recommended to a
lot of people early on in this podcast because it
is one of my favorite horror movies of the twenty tens,
just because it's so dark and twisted and unconventional, and
I feel like when Hereditary came out, everybody loved that
movie I'm just a bigger fan of Midsummer, and when
(41:26):
I recommended that, I didn't realize how kind of messed
up and twisted that movie is, and now a lot
of people like it. That is the one I probably
got the most pushback for recommending. So now I don't
really ever recommend Midsummer anymore, because I think that's just
a style of horror movie that I just personally like.
I'm a fan of Ari's directing, and I think he
is a pretty interesting director overall, even though his last
(41:49):
movie didn't do as well, but he's still a relatively
new director, and now he is taking on a very
polarizing topic in his new movie. Because Eddington follows the
story of police and social turmoil in a fictional city
of Eddington, New Mexico, caused by the COVID nineteen pandemic.
It is taking place in a fictional town. Joaquin Phoenix
(42:10):
and Pedro Pascal are in this heated small town race
for mayor, and the movie is going to dive into
how chaotic it was at that time. It's going to
cover social distancing protests, conspiracy theories. Eddington is coming out
in theaters on July eighteenth, before we talk more about
this and about Pedro Pascal. Here's just a little bit
(42:31):
of the Eddington trailer. These are your strengths. So they're
your strengths. You know how death works of people are
going to be looking here. Now, keep your own office going,
but you're gonna run mine. So vote Joe Cost take
(42:53):
back our community. Oh yeah, save our soul. This movie
looks very stylistic. Trayler closes out in a very dramatic way.
It stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler,
and Luke Grimes. Joaquin Phoenix appears to be the main character.
(43:16):
He is the small town sheriff in this fictional New
Mexico town where he challenges the mayor played by Pedro
Pascal in a pandemic set situation. The movie is being
described as a Western thriller and black comedy film. So
Pedro Pascal is playing a guy named Ted Garcia who
is the mayor of this town running for reelection. Joaquin
Phoenix plays the town sheriff named Joe Cross. His wife
(43:39):
is played by Emma Stone playing Louise Cross. Austin Butler
plays a guy named Vernon Jefferson Peak and Luke Grimes
plays Guy, which I always thought that was an interesting name.
I always thought it was a fake name because I
only ever heard it in movies. I remember from Never
Been Kissed, the guy in that was named Guy. I've
never met a guy in real life name Guy. But
in this movie, Luke Grimes plays a guy named Guy,
(44:01):
and he's also a officer at the Sheriff's office. And
director Ari Astor originally thought this was gonna be the
first movie he was gonna make. It was actually written
five years before he even started Hereditary, but then decided
to make Hereditary Midsomar first. And it wasn't until he
started promoting his third film, Boa Is Afraid, which also
stars wa Quing Phoenix, that he said, my next movie
(44:22):
is gonna be one about the COVID nineteen pandemic, which
is also weird to refer to it as the COVID
nineteen pandemic, but that's how it's being described. So let's
talk about Pedro Pascal because it seems right now that
he is everywhere, and I think every actor aspires to
have this level of heat on them, where everybody wants
(44:43):
a piece of them. Their schedule is full and I
think to reach that level of fame at some point,
people have to be sick of you and Pedro Pascal,
it seems to a lot of people is maybe just
an overnight success, but he's been doing this a long time.
His breakout role it first came to us in twenty
fourteen when he was in an episode of Game of Thrones,
(45:03):
and even that came later in his career. He was
thirty nine years old when he was on Game of
Thrones and he's now fifty. So why is he so
popular now? I decided to do some investigating because I
think the thing that really started to put him in
the minds of everybody was him landing the role on
The Mandalorian, which started back in twenty nineteen. And I
(45:23):
think the thing that has really cemented him as of
late was being cast as Joel in the Last of
Us in twenty twenty three, where I think people started
to look at him differently, And that show was so
good and so groundbreaking when it came out. It started
to show people his emotional range, his dramatic power. People
started to kind of put the pieces together of other
(45:46):
movies and TV shows they've seen him in, like, oh,
he was the guy at Narcos, but now it's like, oh,
he's the star of this show. But for Pedro Pascal,
I think his next big role and the thing that's
really going to cement Um in this a list tier
is going to be his role coming up as Read
Richards in Fantastic Four. That is just gonna submentim there,
(46:07):
and that is kind of the pinnacle of anybody's career.
Can you be in a big Hollywood production and put
butts in seats? So if that movie proves to be
as successful as I'm hoping, I think that is good
to Cementum in. Okay, So it's not really that he's
an overnight success. It's that his long haul career is
starting to pay off, and to us it just feels like,
(46:28):
oh my gosh, we see him and everything now, But
really he's been grinding for so long. Very rarely in
Hollywood does somebody become an overnight success. You just have
to put in your dues, doing small roles and eventually
landing that one that really just starts to land with people,
and then you become this in demand because if you
look at the movies he's been in just the last
(46:51):
five years, I mean He was in Wonder Woman nineteen
eighty four in twenty twenty, which I think I'm the
only person who enjoyed that movie. But that also came
to us at a time where we weren't getting any movies.
It was in twenty twenty, which ties back into this
movie now, Eddington, because I was just so happy at
that point to have a good movie, superhero movie that
I was able to watch at home. That movie and
(47:12):
a lot of other movies that came out that year
that were new, have a special place in my heart.
Have I gone back and rewatched that movie since no,
So I'm just happy what that movie did for me
when it did come out. He was also in The
Unbearable Way of Massive Talent with Nick Cage, which I
thought was an underrated comedy. He was in Driveaway Dolls
(47:33):
last year, which was a really quick role pretty much
just in it at the beginning. And this is where
you start to see how limited he has been in
some of these movies. He was in Gladiator to last year,
He was a voice actor in the Wild Robot last year,
he was also in The Uninvited Freaky Tales, and then
this year has been in Materialists. Eddington will be in
(47:54):
Fantastic Four, and then it looks like he is also
going to be unless they change the release again, but
in Avengers Doomsday, because that's kind of what we're all
building up to. And on the TV side, of course,
he has been in the Last of Us and if
he start to look at all these projects, I have
to imagine a majority of his time had to go
to dedicating time to film Fantastic Four. Because on average,
(48:19):
top tier A list actors usually only do one to
two movies a year. It breaks down to first of all,
actors are picky at this level because they often wait
for the best projects, the best directors, the biggest paydays
and roles that are going to maintain their brand, because
that is what they have to think about. Now. It's
(48:40):
not just about Okay, I need to be able to
earn enough money this year. It starts to be about
I have to think of myself as an entity and
what is going to make sense in my filmography right now.
So Petro Pascal is an interesting person because he can
do anything. He has a very wide range where he
can do the smaller budget A twenty four movies like
(49:02):
we're already seeing them in this year, but then also
can do big movies like Fantastic Four and then go
back to HBO Max and do Last of Us. So
he has that on his side where he doesn't have
to account for a big action movie every single year
because you're gonna run out of good scripts if you
do that, he can actually hop around to different genres,
different mediums and just search for the best scripts. Another
(49:24):
reason they usually only do one to two movies per
year is because fans like us start to have expectations
on them and they always want to continue that hot streak.
So sometimes they might do three or more films in
a year, but if one of those dips just a
little bit, as we've seen and we're talking about earlier
with Dakota Johnson, that can start to change the way
(49:45):
you feel about your favorite actors. But if you have
your action guys like the Rock Jason Statham, they can
probably get away with doing two to four movies a
year because they're kind of always living in that same genre.
Their range of characters isn't as vast, so they're kind
of doing the same thing over and over again and
just trying to find a movie at least one that
really hits and they also will take on smaller cameos
(50:08):
in smaller roles, but oftentimes, through a little manipulation in
the promotion, you can put them right there on the
poster and say, we got Pedro Pascal in this movie.
His face is right here. But then when you go
watch that movie in theaters or click it at home,
you might think to yourself, man, he really wasn't in
that as much as they promoted him. He was all
(50:28):
over the trailer, but when I actually watched the movie,
he wasn't there as much. So they do that trickery
as well. So that is somebody who is still on
the up and up might not be as established as
other A list actors, because if you look at people
like Leonardo DiCaprio, he typically only does one movie every
two to three years. It is very unusual for him
(50:51):
to do one movie a year, which I think he's
at least leaning more into at least doing one every
two years right now, Like One Battle after Another is
coming out later this year with him and Benisio del
Toro on September twenty sixth. Somebody like a Ryan Reynolds
or Kevin Hart might put out two to three movies
per year, but maybe two of those are live action
(51:13):
and one of them is an animated movie that takes
less of their time to sit down in a booth
and do all the lines. But if you think back
to the height of the MCU, Scarlett Johansson at times
was doing two movies a year, two of those big projects.
So pretty much an average A lister will do one
to two major films per year if they are a
(51:34):
list and really busy and usually on the rise and
kind of a hot shreak. So your Pedro Pascal's, your
Sydney Sweeney's, your Austin Butler's, your Timothy Shalomee, your Zendayas.
They could do up to three, maybe four movies a
year to mix in. Genres have bigger and smaller roles,
and they also don't want to have a bunch of
(51:54):
movies coming out close to each other because then it
kind of becomes a mess to promote, which is what
kind of Pedro Pascal is running into right now. Because
Materialists just came out, Eddington is coming out on July eighteenth,
and right after that, on July twenty fifth, we have
Fantastic Four. So here's what I'm talking about. It's all
just jumbled up, so hopefully that is a great one, two,
(52:16):
three movie streak for him. I think even if Eddington
doesn't live up to expectations, it's not really good at
Dingham because I think the hype of Fantastic four is
gonna be too great. So good for him. A great
time to be his publicist and probably a great time
to be his money person. Heed. That was this week's
edition of Movie b Tramer Bar, and that is going
(52:37):
to do it for another episode here of the podcast.
Before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out
of the week this week. I'm going over to my
YouTube channel, which is YouTube dot com slash Mike Distro.
I think I just hit six hundred followers. I'm trying
to get to one thousand. So if you're listening and
you love YouTube and you want to watch individual movie
reviews over there and interviews as well, go subscribe. I've
(53:00):
hit the bell. You get brand new videos every single Monday,
the same day that this podcast gets released. But this
week's listener shout out of the Week goes to Fallow,
who commented on last week's review, where I talked about
is Wes and Henderson still cool after watching The Phoenicians Scheme,
and Fallow said, I find Wes Anderson movies to be
a bit hit or miss. When his films land, they're amazing,
(53:23):
but when they don't, I tend to find myself stuck
in some abstract, purgatory good vid though. Appreciate that, Fallow,
which I kind of forget that I'm a really big
Wes Anderson fan overall and that they're not for everybody.
So appreciate you guys indulging me in talking about one
of my favorite directors last week. But at times I
(53:44):
do feel that way about his work too, where I
wasn't the biggest fan of The French Dispatch, and even
if I love one of his movies visually and can't
get into it emotionally or story wise, it does get
tough for me too, So I can see that. So
maybe sometimes it feels to people who aren't a fan
of his work a little bit like having to watch
a movie for homework, and that's not fun. But I
(54:06):
honestly think The Phoenician Scheme was one of his more
emotional movies that actually had a good storyline to follow
along with all the kookiness and symmetrical visuals, so appreciate
that fallow. Thank you now for listening wherever you might be,
and until next time, go out and watch good movies
and I will talk to you later
Host
Mike D
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