The summer blockbuster season has come to end leaving the question for Mike, “What movie won the summer and his heart?” He ranks his Top 10 movies of the summer along with his 5 Biggest disappointments. IN the Movie Review, Mike talks about Spike Lee’s Highest 2 Lowest starring Denzel Washington on Apple TV+. It’s about a powerful music mogul who is targeted by a ransom plot and then forced to fight for his family and legacy while jammed up in a life-or-death moral dilemma. Mike talks about Denzel Washington’s lackluster performance, why the movie lost him and the real star of the film. In the Trailer Park, Mike talks about Bugonia where Emma Stone plays a CEO who is kidnapped by people who think she's an alien. Mike talks about why she and Jesse Plemons are two of the best actors in Hollywood right now, her shaving her head for the flu and why he believes in aliens.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's Movie Podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Today, the question is what
was the movie of the summer. I have my top
ten summer blockbusters. What will take the number one slot?
In the movie review, we'll be talking about Spike Lee's
new movie on Apple TV Plus starring the one and
only Denzel Washington, called highest to Lowest and in the
(00:22):
trailer park. I love how Emma Stone has committed to
the bit shaved her head for the new Yorgo slanting
most movie Begonia. We'll get into that. Thank you for
being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to
the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's talk movies
from the Nustville Podcast Network. And this is movie Mike's
Movie Podcast. Ask what started on Memorial Day weekend came
(00:44):
to a close on Labor Day weekend. It is the
summer blockbuster season. The sun has now set on my
favorite time of the year for movies. Why I love
summer blockbuster season, It's what gets me the most excited.
I think my passion for summer blockbusters is really what
fuels this podcast and why I love them so much
(01:05):
is because they are the movies that come out every year,
that have an energy to them, that have an aura,
And that is what I'm using to judge this list.
It's not just box office numbers, it's not just overall
how good the movie is. It's how much impact did
it have in pop culture? What was the vibe in
the lobby, what were the emotions like in that theater?
(01:26):
And also how did that translate into the real world
after Did it create a moment on TikTok? Was I
still thinking about this movie two three weeks later after
I saw it in theaters? Did I go see it again?
It is movies that demand the big screen, movies that
had a lot of expectation and anticipation going into them.
And overall, this summer blockbuster season financially did all right.
(01:48):
It matched the three point sixty seven billion dollars that
was collected in twenty twenty four, did that again in
twenty twenty five, So studios probably aren't ecstatic. But if
you're not going too much in the opposite direction, I
think we're still okay. Well, let's get into my list
of my top ten movies of the summer. Also give
my top five disappointments, which I don't believe are the
(02:08):
worst movies of the summer, but the ones that I
was looking forward to that didn't quite live up to
my expectations. But let's get right into the list at
number ten, I have Nobody to This should have been
a bigger movie. I think in five, maybe ten years,
this is going to be a cult classic franchise that
we look back on and think, man, why didn't we
give Bob Odenkirk more of a chance. This one also
(02:30):
came out in kind of a loll of the summer
season where it's kind of starting to taper off. It
also followed the weekend after Weapons, which Weapons had such
a big splash on opening weekend. This movie really went
under the radar and I think heard it overall. It
had a budget of twenty five million dollars and has
only made thirty six million dollars worldwide. So in order
(02:52):
for a movie to be profitable for the most part,
you have to double your production budget. So for this
movie to break even, it would have needed to make
fifty million dollars. So I don't know where we stand
on the state of another nobody movie in the franchise, which, man,
that sucks because I really think we need at least
a third because it's just a really great, solid action movie.
(03:12):
This one leans a little bit more into the comedy,
but you get more of that family aspect as well.
It just kind of had a weird window to operate in,
but a real standout in the action franchise. If you
haven't watched Nobody one, definitely check that one out before
you check out Nobody two. But that's what I have
at number ten, at number nine Materialists. With only a
twenty million dollar budget, it went on to make eighty
(03:34):
five million dollars worldwide and is number nineteen ranked in
the Summer Blockbusters. I think this is what a rom
com needs to evolve to in order to survive. But
I think people did have problems with the fact that
it didn't feel like you're conventional rom com that we
knew from the early two thousands. But if you look
at the DNA of this movie, it is a rom com,
(03:57):
But I think the comedy is a little bit darker
and dryer. You're not gonna fall out of your seat
laughing at material lists. And for me, where the movie
won me over was with the three leads. Chris Evans,
Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal together I thought were fantastic.
Those three names alone got people into the theater. I
remember going to see it on opening night and there
(04:19):
was an energy to that crowd, and I think it's
because Pedro Pascal is having quite the summer. Dakota Johnson,
even though has had some missteps in her career in
her last five films or so, I still enjoy her
in a movie like this. I think this is her
bread and butter, and Chris Evans is just fantastic and everything.
I don't really care what he does right now. I'm
(04:41):
gonna go see it and I'm gonna enjoy it. But
without those three leads, this movie wouldn't have had a
fraction of the success that it did. So that proves
to me that a list names still have a lot
of weight to them, because overall, I don't think the
story itself is anything groundbreaking in the genre, but it's
bringing those three acts together on screen that really made
(05:02):
this movie work. Quite possibly the most charismatic trio of
the year. At number nine, I have Materialists and number
eight is a big surprise for me. It is freaking
Your Friday had a budget of forty five million dollars
has made so far at one hundred and sixteen million
dollars worldwide, coming in at number fifteen in the Blockbusters
(05:22):
of the Summer. Financially, for me, this one had me
at the very beginning whenever I saw the popcorn bucket reveal,
because that has been a big thing this year, and
I believe it was on an episode maybe late last
year early this year, I talked about how theaters need
to give people an incentive to go to the theater,
something you can take away, some way to monetize that experience.
(05:45):
And I think this year theaters have really leaned in
to creative popcorn buckets, and Freaking Your Friday had the
second best popcorn bucket of the year in my opinion,
because the popcorn bucket was disguised as the So when
you got the popcorn bucket, it looks like there's already
a drink in there with the ice, but you pull
(06:06):
that top off and that's where your popcorn goes. And
then you get the popcorn bucket, but you pop that
lid off, and that is where your drink goes. And
that is taking the concept of your movie of two
people switching places and applying it to your popcorn bucket.
Whoever came up with that idea needs a raise, because
I have to imagine a lot of these studios now
(06:27):
in their advertising, in their marketing department, they have somebody
designated or maybe a team to creating interesting popcorn buckets
that are gonna make people want to go to the
theater not just to see the movie, but to buy it.
And sometimes at least one movie on this list had
people just going to the theater for the popcorn bucket alone,
(06:47):
So there is money to be made there, even though
some of these this year just haven't really hit. And
now when I go to Regal, it's almost this graveyard
of all the movies this year that had popcorn buckets
that just didn't quite hit with the audience. You gotta
be more creative, you gotta nail it like Freaky Yar
Friday did. But this movie was perfectly nostalgic but also
(07:09):
updated in just the right way. I would watch a
Freaky Friday three at this point. I definitely think they
set themselves up for one. And if it's Disney, you
know they're gonna keep cranking these out. So at number eight,
I have Freak Year Friday at number seven. I thought
this movie would be a little bit higher on my list,
But when I was working through all of my order here,
(07:30):
I remember being really hyped to go see this movie,
but afterwards, my overall love for it kind of fizzled
out a little bit. So I had to dig through
my notes and find how excited I was leaving the
theater in that moment, because I do remember really enjoying it,
and that's why I put Twenty eight Years Later at
number seven. The movie had a sixty million dollar budget
(07:51):
and went on to make one hundred and fifty million
dollars worldwide. This is a legacy sequel done right because
it came in at number thirteen overall in the summer
blockbuster season. Arguably, twenty eight Years Later could be the
best in the franchise. And I say that because overall,
I think twenty eight Years Later has the best world building.
(08:13):
Twenty eight Days Later, of course, sets the stage. I
still feel like that zombie genre was kind of in
its renaissance in the two thousands, and that was a
big part of it, that movie in particular, and twenty
eight Weeks Later was really just a continuation of that.
Didn't try anything new. But with Twenty eight Years Later,
it has an entirely different artistic palette and vision that
(08:37):
even if you didn't watch Part one or Part two
going into this, you wouldn't be lost, and you would
be so much more invested in this world now that
those would just serve as the prequels and not the
starting point. This could be the new starting point. And
I see the vision where they want to take this franchise,
building out more characters, really fleshing out this world, and
(08:58):
I think the performances in this movie are just so
much stronger. Aaron Taylor, Johnson, Ray Fines, you have all
these great actors to work with that are very unique.
This movie left me with a lot of curiosity and
anticipation going into this franchise deeper. They've already dropped another trailer,
so I will get into that in an episode later on.
But at number seven, I have Twenty eight years Later.
(09:20):
At number six is another movie I thought would have
been number one on my list for the summer, But
I have Fantastic Four, which had a budget of about
two hundred million dollars and made four hundred and ninety
two million dollars worldwide. So not the hit that Marvel
was expecting, just barely breaking even on this one, and
(09:41):
Fantastic four had really good momentum going in. What happened
is it just lost all of that after opening weekend,
took the wind out of the sales going into weekend two,
and then just never reached that destination by paddling this
giant ship because it was really just fighting for every
single dollar it earned after opening weekend. And why I
(10:03):
think that is because it is a good movie at
its core, but it didn't really create a moment like
another superhero movie did on this list. Later it came
and it was good and we all enjoyed it, and
as much as I wanted to go see it in
theaters for a second time, which I normally do all
the big summer movies, I just never was motivated to
go back. And I think all of the discussion around
(10:26):
this movie really fizzled going into that second week where
there were other movies this summer, where everybody was talking
about it for two to three weeks straight. For the MCU,
this movie was good, but right now it needed to
be great going into all of the new Avengers movies
and really pushing that momentum forward, So I still think
they are looking for that film that is really going
(10:47):
to reignite the fan base. And for me, I just
never really felt like Fantastic Four became a team. I
never really felt the chemistry between the entire cast that
I needed to really make me feel like I was
watching something special here. But I also haven't been the
biggest fan of all the Fantastic Four movies, so I
kind of knew that it wasn't going to be the
(11:09):
best Marvel movie ever, just given its history, what I
know from these characters from those films, what I know
from them from the comics. I thought it was interesting
that Marvel was investing so much in this movie being
a bigger hit. I just never saw that being the outcome.
I just think the MCU needs to take more risks,
and I'm hoping with all the things I'm seeing so
(11:29):
far about Avengers dooms Days, we are going to see that.
Me seeing Channing Tatum talk about his character of Gambit
and how in Doomsday he is kind of scaling back
the Cajun accent, which I think is going to be
a good move. I think his character was a little
bit too comedic in Deadpool and Wolverine, and that joke
(11:50):
was almost for just a very specific comic book fan.
He looked fantastic in that, but I think in order
to make that character a little bit more three dimensional,
he's gonna have to talk a little bit more regular
and that Cajun accident can only come out in like
big important parts, and that is what he was talking
about doing. I also didn't know Channing Tatum was forty
five years old, because he said he kind of injured
(12:11):
himself on set. He says, in his mind he's still
twenty six thirty years old, but he has to rely
now more on his stunt double to do some of
the things that his body cannot push himself to do.
So overall, for that movie, I'm just hoping that the
action is a little bit more substantial and that doctor
Doom is just the intense villain that we've been looking
for since stanos So at number six, I have Fantastic
(12:34):
Four getting into the top five. Now I have K
Pop Demon Hunters, and this is the first time a
Netflix movie has ever made it into my top ten
movies of the Summer, and it would have made it
even if it were just limited to a Netflix release,
but they did do the single long versions in theaters,
which also created a moment, and I think that added
(12:56):
to me putting this movie higher on the list. But
when you look at movie that made an impact this summer,
it is hard to deny K Pop Demon Hunters. At
the time of recording, this Golden is still number one
on the Billboard charts. It is very rare for a
Netflix movie to create a fandom, but now you have
a K Pop Demon Hunters fandom that ranges from young
(13:19):
kids to thirty four year olds like me. This proves
to you how an original animated movie can still have
an impact, and I think how this movie did it.
Going back and looking at what exactly worked in K
Pop Demon Hunters is that it didn't spend a lot
of time over explaining things. It set up the story
at the very beginning, here's who they are, here's their
(13:41):
history of the line of people that they come from,
and here's what they are trying to do, and then
just showed you all the fun, showed you all the
cool stuff, introduce things, and they just existed in this world.
They didn't need to over explain every single character in
every single detail. It gave you the fun, It gave
you the action, and it gave you the music and
then left you wanting more, therefore enticing this entire fan base.
(14:03):
So at number five, I have K Pop Demon Hunters.
At number four, I have Weapons. This has been for me,
the year of Horror, the year that I really feel
like horror has solidified itself as being the most original genre.
The movie had a budget of only thirty eight million
dollars and went on to make two hundred and ten
(14:25):
million dollars worldwide. Weapons Owned August, so much so that
after dipping out of the number one spot, it went
back to being number one Labor Day weekend. That is
the power of this movie. It came out right place,
right time, crushed everything else in its month, and it
really had a lasting impact from the memes. I had
(14:48):
so much anticipation going into this movie, just based off
of all the buzz that came in the two to
three days leading up to when I saw it. Just
in that little short window, this became a movie that
I couldn't not wait another minute to go and see,
and that rarely happens. Now. I watch new movies every
single week because I want to share with you my
thoughts on all the latest things, but this was one
(15:10):
that even if I didn't have this podcast, my desire
to see it would have been so high that I
would have found a time, no matter how busy my
schedule was, to go see Weapons in theaters. This was
the phenom of the summer because not only did it
make a lot of money at the box office, it
also had one of the highest ratings on all review
sites going into it and has maintained it. So a
(15:32):
rare case of a movie that has also won over
the audience but also won over the critics and made money.
That is three for three and checking off the boxes
of what a new movie needs to do from a
great director, an original story, not a part of a franchise.
That is why horror is king, and that is why
(15:53):
Weapons is going to be the horror movie of the year.
And it's only September. We haven't even got to Halloween season.
But I don't see anything else coming close to the
energy that was captured in Weapons. What a fantastic theater experience,
Like those jump scares got me a little bit. Didn't
have nightmarriages after this one because I don't think it
was too over the top but at number four, I
(16:14):
have weapons getting into the top three. Now at number three,
I have f one. I believe this is what a
summer blockbuster should be. Your A list star Brad Pitt,
who still looks fantastic, still has all of the qualities
about his acting performance that I love, just has charisma
oozing out of every pore in his body. Just his
(16:36):
cadence of delivering dialogue draws me into every single word,
and everything from his wardrobe to his hairstyle just screams
a list movie star that I might have paid no
matter what amount, to go see his movie in theaters.
And then it just has all the great qualities of
a sports movie, even though it doesn't reinvent the genre,
the format of a sports movie, in this case being
(16:59):
a motor sports movie, the formula of it, no pun intended,
is just all the emotions that I want to be
taken through in a summer blockbuster. You have your drama,
you have your story of redemption, you have your butt,
sweat and tears. You have your victories, you have your losses,
you have your controversies. All those things together is what
makes the perfect blockbuster in my opinion. You also have
(17:22):
the big score, the big soundtracks, a great action. The
sound design of this movie was fantastic because we saw
this movie in Scottsdale in a theater that was much
larger than the theater we are normally used to going.
Even though it wasn't an Imax screen, it was as
close as you can get without seeing it on Imax
and just having that feeling of a card taking up
(17:43):
the entire screen, having that first person perspective, making you
feel like it's you inside of that car driving it.
And then you pair that with the sound design which
at times during the races there are no other musical elements,
no score, just hear the sound of the car, the
revving engine, the tire screeching, all those things that really
(18:05):
make you feel like you are in that car yourself.
That is what I want to feel going to a
theater in the summer. I not only want to see
something great, I want to feel it in the pit
of my stomach, have me on the edge of my seat.
And maybe to some this is kind of one of
the biggest surprises of the year. Now that it's the
highest grossing auto racing movie of all time, it is
(18:27):
Apple Studio's top theatrical release of all time and also
Brad Pitt's highest grossing movie of all time of his
entire career. Opening weekend alone made fifty six million dollars
at the box office with a budget of two hundred
to three hundred million. Went on to make over six
hundred and thirteen million dollars worldwide, making it the number
(18:48):
four highest grossing movie of the summer. At number three,
I have f One at number two, one of my
personal favorites of the year already, it is now available
on Disney Plus if you haven't seen it, which at
this point, how did you not see it in theaters
because it even went back into theaters on Labor Day weekend.
But at number two, I have Leelo and Stitch. This
(19:10):
movie dominated, and I feel like Disney didn't know how
big of a movie this was going to be. You
talk about one of my most anticipated movies of the
year that lived up to my expectations. It is the
only movie this summer that I saw twice in theaters.
I had to because the first time when I went
to go see it, I was really just paying attention
(19:32):
to all the changes they made from the animated movie,
which is my favorite Disney movie. Of all time, and
I was watching it a little bit too analytically because
I was like, oh, and I changed this a little bit,
are they going to have time to get to this scene?
And although I still enjoyed it my first time, I
felt like I needed to go see it again now
that I knew what was coming and now that I
knew what to expect, and I could have a much
(19:54):
different perspective on it, and I loved it even more
the second time. It also had the best popcorn bucket
of the summer that now sits in this studio and
it still brings me joy every time I see that
Stitch popcorn bucket walking in here looking so cute and lifelike.
And talk about movie merch that really just crushed this year,
(20:16):
where you had people who weren't even going to watch
Leelo and Stitch Kelsey included just going to the theater
before the movie even came out to make sure they
could get their hands on one of these viral popcorn buckets.
And there were so many exclusives at all different theaters,
which also just shows you the power of the character
(20:36):
of Stitch and how well he is marketed and how
well he translates into merchandise. But the movie had a
one hundred million dollar budget, which for a summer blockbuster
really isn't that much. And I know it was supposed
to be a Disney Plus series originally, but it went
on to make over one billion dollars worldwide and is
(20:57):
the number one highest grossing movie of the summer. You
had all the millennials like me who just needed to
have that nostalgic it scratched with our favorite Disney character.
You had all the families who maybe kids were just
introduced to Leelo and Stitch because of Disney Plus. I
just love the theater experience of seeing everybody dressed in
(21:19):
Stitch shirts, some people dressed in Stitch sweatpants, all the things,
because there is Stitch everything right now. And I know
now that it's out on Disney Plus, this is going
to be a movie that parents get sick of their
kids watching. Soon after it started dominating in theaters, they announced, yeah,
we're making this Leelo and Stitch too. So I'm hoping
they spend a little bit more money on that one,
(21:40):
maybe get us some more characters that we didn't get
in the first movie. At number two, I have le
Lo and stitch my honorable mentions before I get to
number one, How To Train Your Dragon, which was a
little bit early on. I just felt like it didn't
have as much lasting power for me, but I am
excited to see them do more live action movies than
Naked Gun was also a big surprise for me. Bringer Back,
(22:03):
which is so far the only horror movie to actually
give me nightmares, was also a highlight of the summer.
Cot Stealing and The Toxic Avenger came out on Labor
Day weekend, which were both solid entries. But August is
also just kind of a weird month where I feel
like some of these movies just feel a little bit
tacked onto the summer blockbuster season. So those did not
(22:24):
quite make my top ten, But at number one, the
movie that dominated my social media for about two weeks.
It had what I believe to be the biggest moment
of the summer. It is Superman. It had a budget
of two hundred and twenty five million dollars and went
on to make over six hundred and eleven million dollars worldwide,
(22:47):
putting it at the number five highest grossing movie of
the summer. And I feel like this movie is the
reason that Fantastic Four didn't do as well as they
had hoped, because this took all the energy. This is
what made everybody excited. It made the Superhero film fun
again with the bright and vibrant colors. And I know
(23:09):
there was a lot of controversy over how Superman acted
in this movie, how some people felt like he needed
to be more of an intense character, he needed to
be stronger and more buff. But I think to the
people that this version of Superman is something that we
really needed in our lives because Superman is a beacon
(23:30):
of hope. He is doing good for the sake of
doing good, and always is of a sound and just mind.
I think that is exactly what we need in a
superhero character right now, just what we need in the
world in general. And unlike Fantastic Four, it held really
strongly going into week two, only had a fifty four
(23:51):
percent drop. And I attribute that a lot to James
Gunn because when he is proud of something, he continues
to promote it. He's still host in set pictures not
only a week after, but almost a month after. He
was still telling people go see Superman in theaters, which
I think that is something that directors and actors need
(24:12):
to do a little bit of a better job of
is they go on this big promotional run that sometimes
just kind of sparks the interests of the average moviegoer.
It takes maybe those two weeks of promotion for people
to see maybe an interview clip here and there and think, oh,
that movie is coming out soon, Maybe I want to
get tickets to that. You got to keep that moment
(24:34):
of going because if you create a piece of art
that you are proud of, that is a pinnacle of
your acting career or your directorial career, you got to
continue to be proud of that even when it seems
like people are sick of it a month after, two
months after, still take pride in your work and still
promote that work where it's not all about that opening weekend,
(24:56):
which is important especially for movies and how financial successful
they are going to be in their theatrical run. But
if you continue to show people that that thing is
out and how proud you are of it, I think
that goes a long way. It is just so weird
to me when a movie or even an album comes
out and people only promote it on its release day
(25:17):
and then this thing that they have been creating for
two to three years. They're just like, I'm not going
to promote this thing anymore. I'm no longer going to
make this a main talking point because now I feel
like it's a little bit old. No, I would still
be promoting Superman right now. And then James Gunn also
announced that mana Tomorrow is coming out in theaters on
July nine, twenty twenty seven. That's an addition to Supergirl
(25:40):
coming out next year. DC is about to crush it.
Superman was, in my opinion, the movie of the summer,
and since it came in at number one on my
Summer list, it has earned its spot already in my
top ten movies of the year. It is the only
pick that automatically qualifies. But before I wrap it up,
let's talk about my top five biggest disappointments. I don't
(26:02):
believe that these are the worst movies of the summer,
but these are the five movies that I was dying
to see. There was a lot of anticipation on my
side that I remember sitting down in the theater for
each of these five movies and thinking, oh, man, I
can't wait to see how good this movie is. Going
to be and then like a kid being told there
(26:23):
will be no Christmas this year. I was let down.
At number five. I know what you did last summer,
and maybe unfairly, I started to give myself a little
bit of hope going into this that it was going
to be something substantial, that it was going to be
a legacy horror sequel worthy of my time. This movie
just fell flat, and aside from Jennifer love Hewitt and
(26:44):
Freddie Prince Junior, I hated pretty much every one of
the performances, so much so that I was rooting for
the villain in this one. At number four, I have Eddington,
and that is because two of my favorite actors, Pedro
Pascal and Joaquin Phoenix together and kind of a grittier,
lower budget movie that I thought was going to have
a lot of great action and a really great story.
(27:06):
You also have Austin Butler at Emma Stone. But this
movie spent an hour reminding us how much the Pandemic sucked,
and overall was just one of the most boring movies
so far of the year. So I have that one
at number four. At number three, Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning,
the last in the franchise. I loved the film that
came before this. It reignited my love of the Mission
(27:28):
Impossible movies that really committed to big action sequences, big
expensive stunts, Tom Cruise going to extraordinary links to give
us something that we haven't seen before in this franchise,
and this one just felt like the entire Mission Impossible
franchise just kind of sputtering out and ending on such
a low note that there was really nothing exciting about it.
(27:49):
It was fine, but I thought it was going to
be so much better. But at number three, I have
Mission Impossible, the final reckoning. At number two, Happy Gilmour two,
I was holding onto hope that there was gonna be
a real story here, there was gonna be a reason
to make a happy gil More too, but it turned
into cameo fest. I think this is one Maybe in
(28:10):
another couple of months I could go back and revisit
and maybe enjoy it for what it is. But I
think for me, when it comes to legacy sequels, I
just hate comedy ones the most because it never really
captures that same energy. Maybe it's because my brain isn't
longer ten years old, but I just could not co
sign on Happy Gilmore too. Even though it had a
lot of people that I love in it, from Post
(28:32):
Malone to Bad Bunny, it was just too many cameos.
But at number one, my most disappointing movie of the
summer is Jurassic World Rebirth, even though, out of all
the movies on this list, was one of the highest
grossing movies. This story was so generic that dialogue was
(28:54):
at times just unwatchable, and I came here for the
dinosaurs and didn't get my dinosaur fix. This entire movie
felt rushed and just kind of slapped together and was
my worst theater experience of the summer when you factor
in how much I was expecting to love this movie.
Although it did look good as far as cinematically, there
was some technical aspects that I enjoyed about it, but
(29:17):
I was so let down by the story. I was
so let down by Scarlett Johansson. My most disappointing movie
of the summer goes to Jurassic World Rebirth. I'll come
back and I'll give my spoiler free review of highest
to lowest. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free
movie review of highest to lowest. The New Spike Lee
(29:39):
Joint starring Denzel Washington. It is the fifth time that
they have collaborated together, but the first time in nineteen years.
What this movie is about. Denzel Washington plays a music
mogul with the best ears in the business. He is
responsible for the careers of so many Grammy Award winning artists.
But times are a change. In its twenty twenty the
(30:01):
music industry is vastly different where he is so old
school based in Okay. We need to get artists who
really create this great music, and we build up their
careers and I take them from nothing into something great.
But now you have the world of streaming, you have
the world of social media, and he is trying to
adapt to that. He is also in a position in
(30:21):
his life where his business is kind of failing and
there's a rival record company down the street that wants
to acquire his business, and he is in the middle
of trying to figure out where he wants to go
next in his life. Does he want to take a
step back from this life that has made him who
he is, this king of New York City, continue to
go on that journey to discover more artists and continue
(30:44):
his legacy, or does he want to take a step
back and focus on his wife and his kid, who
is an aspiring basketball player. What does he want to do?
That is where we find our character. The stage was
set and I was all ready for a new Spike Lee.
I think he is a true visionary, somebody who has
done movies that are so uniquely him. Him and Denzel Washington.
(31:07):
It's like peanut, butter and Jelly. This is going to
be great. Very opening scene you see Denzel Washington at
the top of his penthouse overlooking New York City looks fantastic.
There is an absence of music in this moment. You
just hear him having a conversation on the cell phone
and You're like, I'm vatigated from every angle here. I'm
gonna get great direction, excellent cinematography, New York City, Denzel Washington.
(31:31):
This crime thriller that's supposed to be fantastic because what
happens to his character. His kid gets kidnapped while he's
going through all these business decisions, and suddenly he has
a whole other dilemma on his hands. How is he
going to get his kid back? And is he going
to put up everything that he has worked for in
order to do that? So you hear all these elements,
(31:53):
you think, Okay, how could you make this movie uninteresting?
This movie is called Highest to Lowis. I had high
expectations going in and I left with a low result,
and it started just happening little by little. Spike Lee
has a very unique perspective on film, always incorporating music
and these elements that for the viewer take you into
(32:15):
this almost fantasy land, I want to say, or moments
that don't really exist in reality in order to bring
a message home. And the unique thing about Highest to
Lois is it had an original score all the way throughout.
You just hear this really beautiful orchestra music. At the
most intense moments, there is underneath it this very beautiful soundtrack,
(32:38):
And in the beginning I thought it fit well. When
everything was going right and his world seem a little
bit more bright and sunny, you had this beautiful score
underneath that made it feel a little bit like a
nineties or early two thousands, almost family drama, and I
was just waiting for that to shift a little bit.
I think the entire time in this movie, I was
(32:58):
just waiting for crap to hit the fan and a
switch to turn and things to feel a little bit
more intense, And maybe it's my personal taste of when
I see a story like this on paper, I wanted
to have a little bit more of a sense of realism,
because there were things happening throughout this story that should
have been intense to anybody else and in any other situation.
(33:19):
And I start to feel this a little bit in
my brain of maybe I'm so used to everything being
so dark in movies and television shows where when somebody
gets kidnapped, I want emotions to be high. I want
people to be freaking out. Whenever Denzel Washington's character first
gets the call that his son has been kidnapped, he
(33:40):
is so cool, calm and collected that I'm like, your
son has just been kidnapped, and you reacted like somebody said,
your Uber Eats order has been canceled. I think us,
if humans, probably would have shown more emotion if our
Uber Eats order was canceled than Denzel Washington did in
that moment. I truly think that Spike Lee had his
vision come to life. But underneath all of these intense
(34:03):
moments and all of these twists and turns, which they're
not even that many twists and turns that this story
takes you on. There's just this music that doesn't fit
the situation. And if you ever wanted an example of
the power of music in a film, this is a
great example because you have these things happening that should
feel so much more intense, but it never comes across
(34:24):
that way because of that music that makes you feel
cheerful at times. It's like if you got a call
from your vet and said, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do.
We have to put your pet down, but underneath you
had this very bright, shiny music. You're like, Oh, I'm
really sad in this moment, but this music that you're
playing just kind of makes me want to move to
the beat. And it almost felt like they were acting
(34:45):
out a play where nobody felt like they were really
based in reality. The law enforcement in this movie was
probably the most frustrating because none of them seem to
have a clear or sound mind. They were terrible at
their jobs, and it was really really frustrating to watch
people just obliterate an investigation, people being angry for no reason.
(35:11):
Because this is actually a remake of a Japanese movie,
because I think in the original it's like a National
Shoes executive. Here you have this music mogul, and suddenly
you take that story, you place him into New York City,
and it's really about somebody struggling with their identity, struggling
with a sense of responsibility, doing what is right, but
(35:34):
also doing what is right for you. You have a
father figure who is trying to do right by his son,
show him a great example, but also be an authoritarian.
But in doing that, I feel Denzel created probably one
of the most unlikable characters that he has ever portrayed
on screen. And that is saying a lot because I
never really felt like there were any true intentions to
(35:55):
his character. Nobody learned anything in this movie, and it
was overall just really frustrating to watch every single performance.
And Denzel Washington is somebody who was great at improvising.
One of his famous movie lines of all time, King
Kong and got crap on Me from Training Day was improvised.
So we also improvised a lot of the dialogue in
(36:17):
this movie and it just wasn't it almost cringe worthy
at times, which is wild to say for Denzel Washington
at a time in his career where he says, I
got maybe three movies left to me and then I'm retiring.
I can't believe he's going out on such a low
note like highest to lowest. And maybe you saw the
clip of him talking about how he doesn't watch movies anymore.
(36:39):
I'm not entirely sure that he still reads the scripts
before we're going to film some of these movies, because
between this and the little things that came out earlier
this decade, he has been kind of a misstep so far.
I think a true test if you have a good
story is could you take this story elements place it
into another setting and would it still be interesting when
(37:00):
it comes to this one. New York City is such
a big staple in this film. They almost overshow all
of the elements of the New York setting, that if
you took this story and placed it into somewhere in
Delaware or Wyoming, it would suddenly become so less interesting
because so much of it is surrounded in this fact
(37:22):
that it's New York City. It's cool, but the story
itself is not substantial enough to carry an almost two
hour and twenty minute film that if you took out
the elements of New York City, you would just have
this boring story where I would say maybe three big
scenes happened throughout the entire film, and everything else just
(37:42):
feels like filler and exposition, And by the end of
it it falls off so hard. You're like, what exactly
were we doing here? What was the intention of this story?
And out of everybody's performance, Jeffrey Wright was the only
one who understood the assignment, the only character I felt
any sort of connection to, so much so that I
(38:05):
think the movie would have been much stronger if it
would have focused on his character, because I felt like
there was so much more mystery to him, there was
so much more intent behind his actions. I think he's
also just a fantastic actor, going back to movies like
The Hugger Games or American Fiction, or of course Him
and The Batman, I think he has fantastic range. I
(38:27):
think if he completely shifted the story from Denzel Washington's
character to Jeffrey Wright's character, it would be a much
more interesting film. But I think the story was just
drawn out, too many things thrown in there that nothing
really resonated with me. For highest to Lois, I give
it two point five out of five Headphones. It's time
(38:49):
to head down to movie Mike Trey Lar Paul. I
love it when actors go to extremes for a role.
That is exactly what Emma Stone did for Bogonia. She
shaved her head late last year. That is commitment and
that is something you get from somebody like Emma Stone,
who does have two oscars to her name, that level
(39:13):
of dedication, that passion for her craft. This is another
movie where she is pairing up with the or Vos Lantimos,
who is just a wild director, incredibly creative. I love
how weird he is and how mainstream enough he is
able to be at the level of weirdness that he is,
(39:34):
because that is hard to do. Here he is with
the brand new movie about two conspiracy obsessed men who
kidnapped the CEO of a major company when they become
convinced that she is an alien who wants to destroy Earth.
This movie also stars Jesse Plemons, so Emma Stone and
Jesse Plemmons together are fantastic. They are two of the
(39:55):
best working actors in Hollywood right now. And the thing
about both of them is they don't really feel like
part of the machine that is Hollywood. They are taking
these roles that are so obscure, feeling so unique, and
they are so comfortable where they are right now in
their careers. They don't feel the need in between these
movies to go and do a really big Hollywood blockbuster
(40:19):
movie where they feel the need to paint by numbers
just for a paycheck. So that I respect from each
of them. They probably have some of the best agents
in Hollywood who keep getting them these fantastic roles. But
it's not on all the agent of what roles you
can get. It's about how you show up on set,
what you're able to deliver, and how you're able to
(40:39):
bring attention to each of these projects. This one is
a movie. Just from the plot alone, it'll have you
hooked in and hopefully it will bring some people who
maybe aren't in the Yogo s Latmo's fan club right now,
because his movies are pretty polarizing, poor things. It's an
acquired taste. It is weird. It takes a little bit.
(41:01):
It's almost like when you get in a pool where
it's a little bit too COLDI you're like, I don't
know if I'm gonna like this. I feel uncomfortable. I
want to get out, But eventually your body warms up
to it and you're like, Okay, I get this now,
I get the hype. I understand why everybody's been jumping
in this pool. So maybe it'll bring some of those
people over into his camp and start believing in him.
(41:23):
He's also done movies recently like Kinds of Kindness, which
Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone did together. That movie was
a little bit more unconventional. It was three stories put
into one. I really love the third story in that movie.
The first two were a little bit too weird even
for me, but I respected the artistic vision. Yogos Lantimos
is also known for movies like the favorite The Lobster,
(41:44):
which was the first movie of his I saw. So
Before I get into more of his work and more
about this movie, here is just a little bit of
the Begonia trailer, which is coming out on Halloween of
this year. Greetings, welcome to the headquarters of Human Resistance.
Where's my hair? Your hair has been destroyed to prevent
(42:05):
you from contacting your ship?
Speaker 2 (42:08):
What ship?
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Your mothership?
Speaker 2 (42:13):
In the next forty eight hours, the police and the
FBI will begin a state wide man hunt. I'm a
high profile female corporate executive. I am crucial in all humility,
I can say that. Think of it like you abducted
the governor, but worse.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I believe the Bogonia trailer is a cinematic feat in itself,
because I found myself watching this trailer so intently, paying
attention to the cinematography. I always loved the color scale
in Yorgoslantimos's movies, where poor things really leaned into the
blue palette. This one feels more red to me and vibrant.
But here it's not only about what you see in
(42:49):
the trailer. It's also what you heard there in that clip,
those little sound effects, that little chilling indie movie sound
that is in almost every left of center film. Then
you have the laying the foundation, the glue that brings
it all together. And I found myself watching it so intently,
like I was already watching the movie. And that really
(43:09):
doesn't happen to me when watching a trailer, because when
I do it every week for this podcast, I'm taking notes,
I'm thinking about what is going on, how I'm gonna
talk about this. I found myself about halfway through completely
forgetting all about that. I wasn't even jotting notes down
at one point because I was so just enthralled in
this trailer and already living in this world where I
want to know what happens. And I know this movie
(43:31):
is actually a remake of a South Korean movie called
Save the Green Planet, but I haven't seen that movie.
I also didn't look anything up about that movie because
I want to be surprised going into Begonia. I don't
want to know how it ends. Although if I had
to make an educated guess, I think what people are
starting to speculate and what you kind of start to
(43:52):
see happen. Towards the end of this trailer, as Jesse
Plemmons and Emma Stone talk a little bit more, you
start to see the complexity of their relationship. Maybe she
knows a little bit more about him than he even
has an idea of because she starts to say, oh,
I know who you are, and you just shave by
it because you think I'm an alien and that's how
I communicate with my mothership. So I think where your
(44:15):
mind wants to go is you think the reveal is
going to be that Jesse Plemmon's character was actually right
and she is an alien. But I almost think that's
a little bit too simple here. I feel like if
it was a normal sci fi movie, which this does
lead into the sci fi comedy realm, which I think
some people who aren't familiar with this director's work would
have no idea how you kind of walk that line.
(44:35):
Because you watch this trailer and you feel all different
types of ways. It feels a little bit comedic, it
also feels really dark at times. Then you have this
other sci fi layer. I think that speaks to yourgo's
style is you can't really put him in one box.
So it's gonna have a little bit of sci fi,
it's gonna have some comedy, it's gonna have some action,
and it's probably gonna have some nudity at some point,
(44:57):
because most of his movies do poor thing really heavy
on that. So maybe that's another reason why some people
find his movies a little bit uncomfortable. But I really
think it's all for an artistic reason. There is intent
behind all of those dude scenes. When asked about this movie,
the two time Best Actress winner said, I believe in aliens.
(45:17):
Emma Stone said, I don't know about looking down on us,
but one of my favorite people who has ever lived
is Carl Sagan, and I fell madly in love with
this philosophy in science and how brilliant he is. And
he believed the idea that we are not alone in
this vastly expansive universe. Not that we're being watched, because
that's a pretty narcissistic thing, But she is coming out
(45:39):
and saying, I believe in aliens. So what she is
saying is that we are not alone. But it's almost
pretentious to think that aliens would want to watch us,
which is something I do think about. My head always
goes to the comparison of an ant hill, that you
and I as humans aren't really going to mess with
an ant hill. Maybe when you were a kid, you
(46:00):
would kick one and then you'd see them all like
disperse and you totally wreck their world. But otherwise you're
not just gonna go kick an ant hill. And that
ant hill is living in its entirely owned universe. There's
a queen aunt us as humans aren't gonna go and
study this ant hill unless you're some ant scientists, and
(46:20):
that's your job. But we have no real purpose to
monitor them, we have no real reason to mess with them.
We could be there aliens That's kind of how I
think about aliens, that we are so concerned that one
day there's gonna be this moment where they just beam
down and say, we are aliens. We've been watching you
this entire time, and now take us to your leader.
(46:43):
I don't think that is ever going to happen. I
think if there are aliens, which I do believe that
there are aliens, and I've been believing this since I
was probably in third grade. I've been fascinated with aliens
since it was just the thing and the tabloids, those
really weird ones that used to be at the grocery
restore checkout line headlines like bat Boy. Back in those days,
(47:04):
I was all about aliens. So I'm still here saying
I believe in aliens. But I think us as humans,
we are always in this mindset that everybody is thinking
about us. We have main character energy when it comes
to our existence, that it's all about us that people
are wanting to come here. So I do believe in aliens,
and I do believe that in this movie, Emma Stode
(47:27):
is probably not gonna be just a normal CEO. She's
gonna have some skeletons in her closet. Maybe in her mothership.
Maybe just maybe we see the end of the world
in this movie. That would be awesome. But again, Bagonia
is coming out in theaters on October thirty. First, Geez
said that was this week's edition of Movie Li Framer
(47:49):
Bar and that is gonna 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 Instagram d I had so much
reaction from just my clip of my cot Stealing trailer
where I talked about Austin Butler and his acting abilities.
So many people reached out to me and said, dude,
(48:12):
what is your problem with Austin Butler. Didn't even realize
it at the time that it sounded like I was
just dogging on the guy. But I think sometimes whenever
there is somebody deemed by the Hollywood machine that they
are next up, whether they are a male or female,
I always have this trial run with them, could be
two to three years, where I follow their work very closely,
(48:34):
watch all of their films. If they branch into TV,
I also watch their TV shows to really get a
feel for how much range they have and how I
see them actually succeeding because we see this every two
to three years, we're an actor almost out of nowhere.
Even though I don't believe in overnight successes, but to
us it feels that way that one day they're just
(48:56):
at everything. Every movie gets announced and that actor is
in it. So it starts to feel like a little
bit of oversaturation. And I try to balance that oversaturation
with the actual quality of their work. And again it
is my opinion how their movies make me feel. But
this is a DM I got from Jason last week
who said being an American leading man has nothing to
(49:18):
do with acting chops though. It's about cultivating a specific
personality and exaggerating it and then playing that person in
every movie a la Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington, etc.
American audiences don't care about acting chops. That's more of
a British thing. But I would agree that Austin Butler
seems to have a shorter runway than others with his
(49:40):
particular personality. Am I the only one who cares about
how good an actor someone is? I didn't think that
was a non American thing. Maybe when I think about it,
A little bit more intently, I do think us as
American viewers care more about the way movies make us feel.
I think that is why we a really deep relationship
(50:01):
with movies we see as kids and teenagers and in
our early twenties, where our brains are still forming, and
that is really the formation of our tastes. But I
do believe that the foundation of that is good acting.
And sometimes good acting doesn't come across as somebody giving
an Academy Award worthy performance. I think sometimes acting is
(50:23):
so good that you don't even realize it. It doesn't
always have to be really dramatic, over the top acting.
Comedic acting, to me is probably the hardest thing to do,
and if somebody is a good comedic actor, I can
still put them on the same tier as a Brad Pitt,
as a Leonardo DiCaprio. It's all about how good you
are at connecting with whoever is watching it. That is
(50:45):
how I see acting. So it doesn't have to be
somebody who is classically trained and knows all the mechanics.
It's about how can they make this story come to life?
And so far, all the characters that Austin Butler has
played have not resonated with me emotionally. Caught stealing got
close before that Bike riders got close as well. But
to me, he is somebody in that next up category
(51:08):
that actor to watch, and the next two to three
films for him are going to be really important on
whether or not we accept him into our rotation of
actors that we enjoy. Will he ever reach that level
of Chris Pratt where we get so sick of him? Maybe,
and I think that'd probably be a good thing for him.
That is what actors want, but appreciate that. DM Jason.
(51:29):
Thank you all for listening this week, especially if you
listen on release day, which is Mondays. That is why
I call you the Monday Morning Movie Crew. Thank you
all for being subscribed, Thank you for telling a friend,
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, the question is what
was the movie of the summer. I have my top
ten summer blockbusters. What will take the number one slot?
In the movie review, we'll be talking about Spike Lee's
new movie on Apple TV Plus starring the one and
only Denzel Washington, called highest to Lowest and in the
(00:22):
trailer park. I love how Emma Stone has committed to
the bit shaved her head for the new Yorgo slanting
most movie Begonia. We'll get into that. Thank you for
being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to
the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's talk movies
from the Nustville Podcast Network. And this is movie Mike's
Movie Podcast. Ask what started on Memorial Day weekend came
(00:44):
to a close on Labor Day weekend. It is the
summer blockbuster season. The sun has now set on my
favorite time of the year for movies. Why I love
summer blockbuster season, It's what gets me the most excited.
I think my passion for summer blockbusters is really what
fuels this podcast and why I love them so much
(01:05):
is because they are the movies that come out every year,
that have an energy to them, that have an aura,
And that is what I'm using to judge this list.
It's not just box office numbers, it's not just overall
how good the movie is. It's how much impact did
it have in pop culture? What was the vibe in
the lobby, what were the emotions like in that theater?
(01:26):
And also how did that translate into the real world
after Did it create a moment on TikTok? Was I
still thinking about this movie two three weeks later after
I saw it in theaters? Did I go see it again?
It is movies that demand the big screen, movies that
had a lot of expectation and anticipation going into them.
And overall, this summer blockbuster season financially did all right.
(01:48):
It matched the three point sixty seven billion dollars that
was collected in twenty twenty four, did that again in
twenty twenty five, So studios probably aren't ecstatic. But if
you're not going too much in the opposite direction, I
think we're still okay. Well, let's get into my list
of my top ten movies of the summer. Also give
my top five disappointments, which I don't believe are the
(02:08):
worst movies of the summer, but the ones that I
was looking forward to that didn't quite live up to
my expectations. But let's get right into the list at
number ten, I have Nobody to This should have been
a bigger movie. I think in five, maybe ten years,
this is going to be a cult classic franchise that
we look back on and think, man, why didn't we
give Bob Odenkirk more of a chance. This one also
(02:30):
came out in kind of a loll of the summer
season where it's kind of starting to taper off. It
also followed the weekend after Weapons, which Weapons had such
a big splash on opening weekend. This movie really went
under the radar and I think heard it overall. It
had a budget of twenty five million dollars and has
only made thirty six million dollars worldwide. So in order
(02:52):
for a movie to be profitable for the most part,
you have to double your production budget. So for this
movie to break even, it would have needed to make
fifty million dollars. So I don't know where we stand
on the state of another nobody movie in the franchise, which, man,
that sucks because I really think we need at least
a third because it's just a really great, solid action movie.
(03:12):
This one leans a little bit more into the comedy,
but you get more of that family aspect as well.
It just kind of had a weird window to operate in,
but a real standout in the action franchise. If you
haven't watched Nobody one, definitely check that one out before
you check out Nobody two. But that's what I have
at number ten, at number nine Materialists. With only a
twenty million dollar budget, it went on to make eighty
(03:34):
five million dollars worldwide and is number nineteen ranked in
the Summer Blockbusters. I think this is what a rom
com needs to evolve to in order to survive. But
I think people did have problems with the fact that
it didn't feel like you're conventional rom com that we
knew from the early two thousands. But if you look
at the DNA of this movie, it is a rom com,
(03:57):
But I think the comedy is a little bit darker
and dryer. You're not gonna fall out of your seat
laughing at material lists. And for me, where the movie
won me over was with the three leads. Chris Evans,
Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pascal together I thought were fantastic.
Those three names alone got people into the theater. I
remember going to see it on opening night and there
(04:19):
was an energy to that crowd, and I think it's
because Pedro Pascal is having quite the summer. Dakota Johnson,
even though has had some missteps in her career in
her last five films or so, I still enjoy her
in a movie like this. I think this is her
bread and butter, and Chris Evans is just fantastic and everything.
I don't really care what he does right now. I'm
(04:41):
gonna go see it and I'm gonna enjoy it. But
without those three leads, this movie wouldn't have had a
fraction of the success that it did. So that proves
to me that a list names still have a lot
of weight to them, because overall, I don't think the
story itself is anything groundbreaking in the genre, but it's
bringing those three acts together on screen that really made
(05:02):
this movie work. Quite possibly the most charismatic trio of
the year. At number nine, I have Materialists and number
eight is a big surprise for me. It is freaking
Your Friday had a budget of forty five million dollars
has made so far at one hundred and sixteen million
dollars worldwide, coming in at number fifteen in the Blockbusters
(05:22):
of the Summer. Financially, for me, this one had me
at the very beginning whenever I saw the popcorn bucket reveal,
because that has been a big thing this year, and
I believe it was on an episode maybe late last
year early this year, I talked about how theaters need
to give people an incentive to go to the theater,
something you can take away, some way to monetize that experience.
(05:45):
And I think this year theaters have really leaned in
to creative popcorn buckets, and Freaking Your Friday had the
second best popcorn bucket of the year in my opinion,
because the popcorn bucket was disguised as the So when
you got the popcorn bucket, it looks like there's already
a drink in there with the ice, but you pull
(06:06):
that top off and that's where your popcorn goes. And
then you get the popcorn bucket, but you pop that
lid off, and that is where your drink goes. And
that is taking the concept of your movie of two
people switching places and applying it to your popcorn bucket.
Whoever came up with that idea needs a raise, because
I have to imagine a lot of these studios now
(06:27):
in their advertising, in their marketing department, they have somebody
designated or maybe a team to creating interesting popcorn buckets
that are gonna make people want to go to the
theater not just to see the movie, but to buy it.
And sometimes at least one movie on this list had
people just going to the theater for the popcorn bucket alone,
(06:47):
So there is money to be made there, even though
some of these this year just haven't really hit. And
now when I go to Regal, it's almost this graveyard
of all the movies this year that had popcorn buckets
that just didn't quite hit with the audience. You gotta
be more creative, you gotta nail it like Freaky Yar
Friday did. But this movie was perfectly nostalgic but also
(07:09):
updated in just the right way. I would watch a
Freaky Friday three at this point. I definitely think they
set themselves up for one. And if it's Disney, you
know they're gonna keep cranking these out. So at number eight,
I have Freak Year Friday at number seven. I thought
this movie would be a little bit higher on my list,
But when I was working through all of my order here,
(07:30):
I remember being really hyped to go see this movie,
but afterwards, my overall love for it kind of fizzled
out a little bit. So I had to dig through
my notes and find how excited I was leaving the
theater in that moment, because I do remember really enjoying it,
and that's why I put Twenty eight Years Later at
number seven. The movie had a sixty million dollar budget
(07:51):
and went on to make one hundred and fifty million
dollars worldwide. This is a legacy sequel done right because
it came in at number thirteen overall in the summer
blockbuster season. Arguably, twenty eight Years Later could be the
best in the franchise. And I say that because overall,
I think twenty eight Years Later has the best world building.
(08:13):
Twenty eight Days Later, of course, sets the stage. I
still feel like that zombie genre was kind of in
its renaissance in the two thousands, and that was a
big part of it, that movie in particular, and twenty
eight Weeks Later was really just a continuation of that.
Didn't try anything new. But with Twenty eight Years Later,
it has an entirely different artistic palette and vision that
(08:37):
even if you didn't watch Part one or Part two
going into this, you wouldn't be lost, and you would
be so much more invested in this world now that
those would just serve as the prequels and not the
starting point. This could be the new starting point. And
I see the vision where they want to take this franchise,
building out more characters, really fleshing out this world, and
(08:58):
I think the performances in this movie are just so
much stronger. Aaron Taylor, Johnson, Ray Fines, you have all
these great actors to work with that are very unique.
This movie left me with a lot of curiosity and
anticipation going into this franchise deeper. They've already dropped another trailer,
so I will get into that in an episode later on.
But at number seven, I have Twenty eight years Later.
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At number six is another movie I thought would have
been number one on my list for the summer, But
I have Fantastic Four, which had a budget of about
two hundred million dollars and made four hundred and ninety
two million dollars worldwide. So not the hit that Marvel
was expecting, just barely breaking even on this one, and
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Fantastic four had really good momentum going in. What happened
is it just lost all of that after opening weekend,
took the wind out of the sales going into weekend two,
and then just never reached that destination by paddling this
giant ship because it was really just fighting for every
single dollar it earned after opening weekend. And why I
(10:03):
think that is because it is a good movie at
its core, but it didn't really create a moment like
another superhero movie did on this list. Later it came
and it was good and we all enjoyed it, and
as much as I wanted to go see it in
theaters for a second time, which I normally do all
the big summer movies, I just never was motivated to
go back. And I think all of the discussion around
(10:26):
this movie really fizzled going into that second week where
there were other movies this summer, where everybody was talking
about it for two to three weeks straight. For the MCU,
this movie was good, but right now it needed to
be great going into all of the new Avengers movies
and really pushing that momentum forward, So I still think
they are looking for that film that is really going
(10:47):
to reignite the fan base. And for me, I just
never really felt like Fantastic Four became a team. I
never really felt the chemistry between the entire cast that
I needed to really make me feel like I was
watching something special here. But I also haven't been the
biggest fan of all the Fantastic Four movies, so I
kind of knew that it wasn't going to be the
(11:09):
best Marvel movie ever, just given its history, what I
know from these characters from those films, what I know
from them from the comics. I thought it was interesting
that Marvel was investing so much in this movie being
a bigger hit. I just never saw that being the outcome.
I just think the MCU needs to take more risks,
and I'm hoping with all the things I'm seeing so
(11:29):
far about Avengers dooms Days, we are going to see that.
Me seeing Channing Tatum talk about his character of Gambit
and how in Doomsday he is kind of scaling back
the Cajun accent, which I think is going to be
a good move. I think his character was a little
bit too comedic in Deadpool and Wolverine, and that joke
(11:50):
was almost for just a very specific comic book fan.
He looked fantastic in that, but I think in order
to make that character a little bit more three dimensional,
he's gonna have to talk a little bit more regular
and that Cajun accident can only come out in like
big important parts, and that is what he was talking
about doing. I also didn't know Channing Tatum was forty
five years old, because he said he kind of injured
(12:11):
himself on set. He says, in his mind he's still
twenty six thirty years old, but he has to rely
now more on his stunt double to do some of
the things that his body cannot push himself to do.
So overall, for that movie, I'm just hoping that the
action is a little bit more substantial and that doctor
Doom is just the intense villain that we've been looking
for since stanos So at number six, I have Fantastic
(12:34):
Four getting into the top five. Now I have K
Pop Demon Hunters, and this is the first time a
Netflix movie has ever made it into my top ten
movies of the Summer, and it would have made it
even if it were just limited to a Netflix release,
but they did do the single long versions in theaters,
which also created a moment, and I think that added
(12:56):
to me putting this movie higher on the list. But
when you look at movie that made an impact this summer,
it is hard to deny K Pop Demon Hunters. At
the time of recording, this Golden is still number one
on the Billboard charts. It is very rare for a
Netflix movie to create a fandom, but now you have
a K Pop Demon Hunters fandom that ranges from young
(13:19):
kids to thirty four year olds like me. This proves
to you how an original animated movie can still have
an impact, and I think how this movie did it.
Going back and looking at what exactly worked in K
Pop Demon Hunters is that it didn't spend a lot
of time over explaining things. It set up the story
at the very beginning, here's who they are, here's their
(13:41):
history of the line of people that they come from,
and here's what they are trying to do, and then
just showed you all the fun, showed you all the
cool stuff, introduce things, and they just existed in this world.
They didn't need to over explain every single character in
every single detail. It gave you the fun, It gave
you the action, and it gave you the music and
then left you wanting more, therefore enticing this entire fan base.
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So at number five, I have K Pop Demon Hunters.
At number four, I have Weapons. This has been for me,
the year of Horror, the year that I really feel
like horror has solidified itself as being the most original genre.
The movie had a budget of only thirty eight million
dollars and went on to make two hundred and ten
(14:25):
million dollars worldwide. Weapons Owned August, so much so that
after dipping out of the number one spot, it went
back to being number one Labor Day weekend. That is
the power of this movie. It came out right place,
right time, crushed everything else in its month, and it
really had a lasting impact from the memes. I had
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so much anticipation going into this movie, just based off
of all the buzz that came in the two to
three days leading up to when I saw it. Just
in that little short window, this became a movie that
I couldn't not wait another minute to go and see,
and that rarely happens. Now. I watch new movies every
single week because I want to share with you my
thoughts on all the latest things, but this was one
(15:10):
that even if I didn't have this podcast, my desire
to see it would have been so high that I
would have found a time, no matter how busy my
schedule was, to go see Weapons in theaters. This was
the phenom of the summer because not only did it
make a lot of money at the box office, it
also had one of the highest ratings on all review
sites going into it and has maintained it. So a
(15:32):
rare case of a movie that has also won over
the audience but also won over the critics and made money.
That is three for three and checking off the boxes
of what a new movie needs to do from a
great director, an original story, not a part of a franchise.
That is why horror is king, and that is why
(15:53):
Weapons is going to be the horror movie of the year.
And it's only September. We haven't even got to Halloween season.
But I don't see anything else coming close to the
energy that was captured in Weapons. What a fantastic theater experience,
Like those jump scares got me a little bit. Didn't
have nightmarriages after this one because I don't think it
was too over the top but at number four, I
(16:14):
have weapons getting into the top three. Now at number three,
I have f one. I believe this is what a
summer blockbuster should be. Your A list star Brad Pitt,
who still looks fantastic, still has all of the qualities
about his acting performance that I love, just has charisma
oozing out of every pore in his body. Just his
(16:36):
cadence of delivering dialogue draws me into every single word,
and everything from his wardrobe to his hairstyle just screams
a list movie star that I might have paid no
matter what amount, to go see his movie in theaters.
And then it just has all the great qualities of
a sports movie, even though it doesn't reinvent the genre,
the format of a sports movie, in this case being
(16:59):
a motor sports movie, the formula of it, no pun intended,
is just all the emotions that I want to be
taken through in a summer blockbuster. You have your drama,
you have your story of redemption, you have your butt,
sweat and tears. You have your victories, you have your losses,
you have your controversies. All those things together is what
makes the perfect blockbuster in my opinion. You also have
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the big score, the big soundtracks, a great action. The
sound design of this movie was fantastic because we saw
this movie in Scottsdale in a theater that was much
larger than the theater we are normally used to going.
Even though it wasn't an Imax screen, it was as
close as you can get without seeing it on Imax
and just having that feeling of a card taking up
(17:43):
the entire screen, having that first person perspective, making you
feel like it's you inside of that car driving it.
And then you pair that with the sound design which
at times during the races there are no other musical elements,
no score, just hear the sound of the car, the
revving engine, the tire screeching, all those things that really
(18:05):
make you feel like you are in that car yourself.
That is what I want to feel going to a
theater in the summer. I not only want to see
something great, I want to feel it in the pit
of my stomach, have me on the edge of my seat.
And maybe to some this is kind of one of
the biggest surprises of the year. Now that it's the
highest grossing auto racing movie of all time, it is
(18:27):
Apple Studio's top theatrical release of all time and also
Brad Pitt's highest grossing movie of all time of his
entire career. Opening weekend alone made fifty six million dollars
at the box office with a budget of two hundred
to three hundred million. Went on to make over six
hundred and thirteen million dollars worldwide, making it the number
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four highest grossing movie of the summer. At number three,
I have f One at number two, one of my
personal favorites of the year already, it is now available
on Disney Plus if you haven't seen it, which at
this point, how did you not see it in theaters
because it even went back into theaters on Labor Day weekend.
But at number two, I have Leelo and Stitch. This
(19:10):
movie dominated, and I feel like Disney didn't know how
big of a movie this was going to be. You
talk about one of my most anticipated movies of the
year that lived up to my expectations. It is the
only movie this summer that I saw twice in theaters.
I had to because the first time when I went
to go see it, I was really just paying attention
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to all the changes they made from the animated movie,
which is my favorite Disney movie. Of all time, and
I was watching it a little bit too analytically because
I was like, oh, and I changed this a little bit,
are they going to have time to get to this scene?
And although I still enjoyed it my first time, I
felt like I needed to go see it again now
that I knew what was coming and now that I
knew what to expect, and I could have a much
(19:54):
different perspective on it, and I loved it even more
the second time. It also had the best popcorn bucket
of the summer that now sits in this studio and
it still brings me joy every time I see that
Stitch popcorn bucket walking in here looking so cute and lifelike.
And talk about movie merch that really just crushed this year,
(20:16):
where you had people who weren't even going to watch
Leelo and Stitch Kelsey included just going to the theater
before the movie even came out to make sure they
could get their hands on one of these viral popcorn buckets.
And there were so many exclusives at all different theaters,
which also just shows you the power of the character
(20:36):
of Stitch and how well he is marketed and how
well he translates into merchandise. But the movie had a
one hundred million dollar budget, which for a summer blockbuster
really isn't that much. And I know it was supposed
to be a Disney Plus series originally, but it went
on to make over one billion dollars worldwide and is
(20:57):
the number one highest grossing movie of the summer. You
had all the millennials like me who just needed to
have that nostalgic it scratched with our favorite Disney character.
You had all the families who maybe kids were just
introduced to Leelo and Stitch because of Disney Plus. I
just love the theater experience of seeing everybody dressed in
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Stitch shirts, some people dressed in Stitch sweatpants, all the things,
because there is Stitch everything right now. And I know
now that it's out on Disney Plus, this is going
to be a movie that parents get sick of their
kids watching. Soon after it started dominating in theaters, they announced, yeah,
we're making this Leelo and Stitch too. So I'm hoping
they spend a little bit more money on that one,
(21:40):
maybe get us some more characters that we didn't get
in the first movie. At number two, I have le
Lo and stitch my honorable mentions before I get to
number one, How To Train Your Dragon, which was a
little bit early on. I just felt like it didn't
have as much lasting power for me, but I am
excited to see them do more live action movies than
Naked Gun was also a big surprise for me. Bringer Back,
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which is so far the only horror movie to actually
give me nightmares, was also a highlight of the summer.
Cot Stealing and The Toxic Avenger came out on Labor
Day weekend, which were both solid entries. But August is
also just kind of a weird month where I feel
like some of these movies just feel a little bit
tacked onto the summer blockbuster season. So those did not
(22:24):
quite make my top ten, But at number one, the
movie that dominated my social media for about two weeks.
It had what I believe to be the biggest moment
of the summer. It is Superman. It had a budget
of two hundred and twenty five million dollars and went
on to make over six hundred and eleven million dollars worldwide,
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putting it at the number five highest grossing movie of
the summer. And I feel like this movie is the
reason that Fantastic Four didn't do as well as they
had hoped, because this took all the energy. This is
what made everybody excited. It made the Superhero film fun
again with the bright and vibrant colors. And I know
(23:09):
there was a lot of controversy over how Superman acted
in this movie, how some people felt like he needed
to be more of an intense character, he needed to
be stronger and more buff. But I think to the
people that this version of Superman is something that we
really needed in our lives because Superman is a beacon
(23:30):
of hope. He is doing good for the sake of
doing good, and always is of a sound and just mind.
I think that is exactly what we need in a
superhero character right now, just what we need in the
world in general. And unlike Fantastic Four, it held really
strongly going into week two, only had a fifty four
(23:51):
percent drop. And I attribute that a lot to James
Gunn because when he is proud of something, he continues
to promote it. He's still host in set pictures not
only a week after, but almost a month after. He
was still telling people go see Superman in theaters, which
I think that is something that directors and actors need
(24:12):
to do a little bit of a better job of
is they go on this big promotional run that sometimes
just kind of sparks the interests of the average moviegoer.
It takes maybe those two weeks of promotion for people
to see maybe an interview clip here and there and think, oh,
that movie is coming out soon, Maybe I want to
get tickets to that. You got to keep that moment
(24:34):
of going because if you create a piece of art
that you are proud of, that is a pinnacle of
your acting career or your directorial career, you got to
continue to be proud of that even when it seems
like people are sick of it a month after, two
months after, still take pride in your work and still
promote that work where it's not all about that opening weekend,
(24:56):
which is important especially for movies and how financial successful
they are going to be in their theatrical run. But
if you continue to show people that that thing is
out and how proud you are of it, I think
that goes a long way. It is just so weird
to me when a movie or even an album comes
out and people only promote it on its release day
(25:17):
and then this thing that they have been creating for
two to three years. They're just like, I'm not going
to promote this thing anymore. I'm no longer going to
make this a main talking point because now I feel
like it's a little bit old. No, I would still
be promoting Superman right now. And then James Gunn also
announced that mana Tomorrow is coming out in theaters on
July nine, twenty twenty seven. That's an addition to Supergirl
(25:40):
coming out next year. DC is about to crush it.
Superman was, in my opinion, the movie of the summer,
and since it came in at number one on my
Summer list, it has earned its spot already in my
top ten movies of the year. It is the only
pick that automatically qualifies. But before I wrap it up,
let's talk about my top five biggest disappointments. I don't
(26:02):
believe that these are the worst movies of the summer,
but these are the five movies that I was dying
to see. There was a lot of anticipation on my
side that I remember sitting down in the theater for
each of these five movies and thinking, oh, man, I
can't wait to see how good this movie is. Going
to be and then like a kid being told there
(26:23):
will be no Christmas this year. I was let down.
At number five. I know what you did last summer,
and maybe unfairly, I started to give myself a little
bit of hope going into this that it was going
to be something substantial, that it was going to be
a legacy horror sequel worthy of my time. This movie
just fell flat, and aside from Jennifer love Hewitt and
(26:44):
Freddie Prince Junior, I hated pretty much every one of
the performances, so much so that I was rooting for
the villain in this one. At number four, I have Eddington,
and that is because two of my favorite actors, Pedro
Pascal and Joaquin Phoenix together and kind of a grittier,
lower budget movie that I thought was going to have
a lot of great action and a really great story.
(27:06):
You also have Austin Butler at Emma Stone. But this
movie spent an hour reminding us how much the Pandemic sucked,
and overall was just one of the most boring movies
so far of the year. So I have that one
at number four. At number three, Mission Impossible, the Final Reckoning,
the last in the franchise. I loved the film that
came before this. It reignited my love of the Mission
(27:28):
Impossible movies that really committed to big action sequences, big
expensive stunts, Tom Cruise going to extraordinary links to give
us something that we haven't seen before in this franchise,
and this one just felt like the entire Mission Impossible
franchise just kind of sputtering out and ending on such
a low note that there was really nothing exciting about it.
(27:49):
It was fine, but I thought it was going to
be so much better. But at number three, I have
Mission Impossible, the final reckoning. At number two, Happy Gilmour two,
I was holding onto hope that there was gonna be
a real story here, there was gonna be a reason
to make a happy gil More too, but it turned
into cameo fest. I think this is one Maybe in
(28:10):
another couple of months I could go back and revisit
and maybe enjoy it for what it is. But I
think for me, when it comes to legacy sequels, I
just hate comedy ones the most because it never really
captures that same energy. Maybe it's because my brain isn't
longer ten years old, but I just could not co
sign on Happy Gilmore too. Even though it had a
lot of people that I love in it, from Post
(28:32):
Malone to Bad Bunny, it was just too many cameos.
But at number one, my most disappointing movie of the
summer is Jurassic World Rebirth, even though, out of all
the movies on this list, was one of the highest
grossing movies. This story was so generic that dialogue was
(28:54):
at times just unwatchable, and I came here for the
dinosaurs and didn't get my dinosaur fix. This entire movie
felt rushed and just kind of slapped together and was
my worst theater experience of the summer when you factor
in how much I was expecting to love this movie.
Although it did look good as far as cinematically, there
was some technical aspects that I enjoyed about it, but
(29:17):
I was so let down by the story. I was
so let down by Scarlett Johansson. My most disappointing movie
of the summer goes to Jurassic World Rebirth. I'll come
back and I'll give my spoiler free review of highest
to lowest. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free
movie review of highest to lowest. The New Spike Lee
(29:39):
Joint starring Denzel Washington. It is the fifth time that
they have collaborated together, but the first time in nineteen years.
What this movie is about. Denzel Washington plays a music
mogul with the best ears in the business. He is
responsible for the careers of so many Grammy Award winning artists.
But times are a change. In its twenty twenty the
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music industry is vastly different where he is so old
school based in Okay. We need to get artists who
really create this great music, and we build up their
careers and I take them from nothing into something great.
But now you have the world of streaming, you have
the world of social media, and he is trying to
adapt to that. He is also in a position in
(30:21):
his life where his business is kind of failing and
there's a rival record company down the street that wants
to acquire his business, and he is in the middle
of trying to figure out where he wants to go
next in his life. Does he want to take a
step back from this life that has made him who
he is, this king of New York City, continue to
go on that journey to discover more artists and continue
(30:44):
his legacy, or does he want to take a step
back and focus on his wife and his kid, who
is an aspiring basketball player. What does he want to do?
That is where we find our character. The stage was
set and I was all ready for a new Spike Lee.
I think he is a true visionary, somebody who has
done movies that are so uniquely him. Him and Denzel Washington.
(31:07):
It's like peanut, butter and Jelly. This is going to
be great. Very opening scene you see Denzel Washington at
the top of his penthouse overlooking New York City looks fantastic.
There is an absence of music in this moment. You
just hear him having a conversation on the cell phone
and You're like, I'm vatigated from every angle here. I'm
gonna get great direction, excellent cinematography, New York City, Denzel Washington.
(31:31):
This crime thriller that's supposed to be fantastic because what
happens to his character. His kid gets kidnapped while he's
going through all these business decisions, and suddenly he has
a whole other dilemma on his hands. How is he
going to get his kid back? And is he going
to put up everything that he has worked for in
order to do that? So you hear all these elements,
(31:53):
you think, Okay, how could you make this movie uninteresting?
This movie is called Highest to Lowis. I had high
expectations going in and I left with a low result,
and it started just happening little by little. Spike Lee
has a very unique perspective on film, always incorporating music
and these elements that for the viewer take you into
(32:15):
this almost fantasy land, I want to say, or moments
that don't really exist in reality in order to bring
a message home. And the unique thing about Highest to
Lois is it had an original score all the way throughout.
You just hear this really beautiful orchestra music. At the
most intense moments, there is underneath it this very beautiful soundtrack,
(32:38):
And in the beginning I thought it fit well. When
everything was going right and his world seem a little
bit more bright and sunny, you had this beautiful score
underneath that made it feel a little bit like a
nineties or early two thousands, almost family drama, and I
was just waiting for that to shift a little bit.
I think the entire time in this movie, I was
(32:58):
just waiting for crap to hit the fan and a
switch to turn and things to feel a little bit
more intense, And maybe it's my personal taste of when
I see a story like this on paper, I wanted
to have a little bit more of a sense of realism,
because there were things happening throughout this story that should
have been intense to anybody else and in any other situation.
(33:19):
And I start to feel this a little bit in
my brain of maybe I'm so used to everything being
so dark in movies and television shows where when somebody
gets kidnapped, I want emotions to be high. I want
people to be freaking out. Whenever Denzel Washington's character first
gets the call that his son has been kidnapped, he
(33:40):
is so cool, calm and collected that I'm like, your
son has just been kidnapped, and you reacted like somebody said,
your Uber Eats order has been canceled. I think us,
if humans, probably would have shown more emotion if our
Uber Eats order was canceled than Denzel Washington did in
that moment. I truly think that Spike Lee had his
vision come to life. But underneath all of these intense
(34:03):
moments and all of these twists and turns, which they're
not even that many twists and turns that this story
takes you on. There's just this music that doesn't fit
the situation. And if you ever wanted an example of
the power of music in a film, this is a
great example because you have these things happening that should
feel so much more intense, but it never comes across
(34:24):
that way because of that music that makes you feel
cheerful at times. It's like if you got a call
from your vet and said, unfortunately, there's nothing we can do.
We have to put your pet down, but underneath you
had this very bright, shiny music. You're like, Oh, I'm
really sad in this moment, but this music that you're
playing just kind of makes me want to move to
the beat. And it almost felt like they were acting
(34:45):
out a play where nobody felt like they were really
based in reality. The law enforcement in this movie was
probably the most frustrating because none of them seem to
have a clear or sound mind. They were terrible at
their jobs, and it was really really frustrating to watch
people just obliterate an investigation, people being angry for no reason.
(35:11):
Because this is actually a remake of a Japanese movie,
because I think in the original it's like a National
Shoes executive. Here you have this music mogul, and suddenly
you take that story, you place him into New York City,
and it's really about somebody struggling with their identity, struggling
with a sense of responsibility, doing what is right, but
(35:34):
also doing what is right for you. You have a
father figure who is trying to do right by his son,
show him a great example, but also be an authoritarian.
But in doing that, I feel Denzel created probably one
of the most unlikable characters that he has ever portrayed
on screen. And that is saying a lot because I
never really felt like there were any true intentions to
(35:55):
his character. Nobody learned anything in this movie, and it
was overall just really frustrating to watch every single performance.
And Denzel Washington is somebody who was great at improvising.
One of his famous movie lines of all time, King
Kong and got crap on Me from Training Day was improvised.
So we also improvised a lot of the dialogue in
(36:17):
this movie and it just wasn't it almost cringe worthy
at times, which is wild to say for Denzel Washington
at a time in his career where he says, I
got maybe three movies left to me and then I'm retiring.
I can't believe he's going out on such a low
note like highest to lowest. And maybe you saw the
clip of him talking about how he doesn't watch movies anymore.
(36:39):
I'm not entirely sure that he still reads the scripts
before we're going to film some of these movies, because
between this and the little things that came out earlier
this decade, he has been kind of a misstep so far.
I think a true test if you have a good
story is could you take this story elements place it
into another setting and would it still be interesting when
(37:00):
it comes to this one. New York City is such
a big staple in this film. They almost overshow all
of the elements of the New York setting, that if
you took this story and placed it into somewhere in
Delaware or Wyoming, it would suddenly become so less interesting
because so much of it is surrounded in this fact
(37:22):
that it's New York City. It's cool, but the story
itself is not substantial enough to carry an almost two
hour and twenty minute film that if you took out
the elements of New York City, you would just have
this boring story where I would say maybe three big
scenes happened throughout the entire film, and everything else just
(37:42):
feels like filler and exposition, And by the end of
it it falls off so hard. You're like, what exactly
were we doing here? What was the intention of this story?
And out of everybody's performance, Jeffrey Wright was the only
one who understood the assignment, the only character I felt
any sort of connection to, so much so that I
(38:05):
think the movie would have been much stronger if it
would have focused on his character, because I felt like
there was so much more mystery to him, there was
so much more intent behind his actions. I think he's
also just a fantastic actor, going back to movies like
The Hugger Games or American Fiction, or of course Him
and The Batman, I think he has fantastic range. I
(38:27):
think if he completely shifted the story from Denzel Washington's
character to Jeffrey Wright's character, it would be a much
more interesting film. But I think the story was just
drawn out, too many things thrown in there that nothing
really resonated with me. For highest to Lois, I give
it two point five out of five Headphones. It's time
(38:49):
to head down to movie Mike Trey Lar Paul. I
love it when actors go to extremes for a role.
That is exactly what Emma Stone did for Bogonia. She
shaved her head late last year. That is commitment and
that is something you get from somebody like Emma Stone,
who does have two oscars to her name, that level
(39:13):
of dedication, that passion for her craft. This is another
movie where she is pairing up with the or Vos Lantimos,
who is just a wild director, incredibly creative. I love
how weird he is and how mainstream enough he is
able to be at the level of weirdness that he is,
(39:34):
because that is hard to do. Here he is with
the brand new movie about two conspiracy obsessed men who
kidnapped the CEO of a major company when they become
convinced that she is an alien who wants to destroy Earth.
This movie also stars Jesse Plemons, so Emma Stone and
Jesse Plemmons together are fantastic. They are two of the
(39:55):
best working actors in Hollywood right now. And the thing
about both of them is they don't really feel like
part of the machine that is Hollywood. They are taking
these roles that are so obscure, feeling so unique, and
they are so comfortable where they are right now in
their careers. They don't feel the need in between these
movies to go and do a really big Hollywood blockbuster
(40:19):
movie where they feel the need to paint by numbers
just for a paycheck. So that I respect from each
of them. They probably have some of the best agents
in Hollywood who keep getting them these fantastic roles. But
it's not on all the agent of what roles you
can get. It's about how you show up on set,
what you're able to deliver, and how you're able to
(40:39):
bring attention to each of these projects. This one is
a movie. Just from the plot alone, it'll have you
hooked in and hopefully it will bring some people who
maybe aren't in the Yogo s Latmo's fan club right now,
because his movies are pretty polarizing, poor things. It's an
acquired taste. It is weird. It takes a little bit.
(41:01):
It's almost like when you get in a pool where
it's a little bit too COLDI you're like, I don't
know if I'm gonna like this. I feel uncomfortable. I
want to get out, But eventually your body warms up
to it and you're like, Okay, I get this now,
I get the hype. I understand why everybody's been jumping
in this pool. So maybe it'll bring some of those
people over into his camp and start believing in him.
(41:23):
He's also done movies recently like Kinds of Kindness, which
Jesse Plemons and Emma Stone did together. That movie was
a little bit more unconventional. It was three stories put
into one. I really love the third story in that movie.
The first two were a little bit too weird even
for me, but I respected the artistic vision. Yogos Lantimos
is also known for movies like the favorite The Lobster,
(41:44):
which was the first movie of his I saw. So
Before I get into more of his work and more
about this movie, here is just a little bit of
the Begonia trailer, which is coming out on Halloween of
this year. Greetings, welcome to the headquarters of Human Resistance.
Where's my hair? Your hair has been destroyed to prevent
(42:05):
you from contacting your ship?
Speaker 2 (42:08):
What ship?
Speaker 1 (42:10):
Your mothership?
Speaker 2 (42:13):
In the next forty eight hours, the police and the
FBI will begin a state wide man hunt. I'm a
high profile female corporate executive. I am crucial in all humility,
I can say that. Think of it like you abducted
the governor, but worse.
Speaker 1 (42:27):
I believe the Bogonia trailer is a cinematic feat in itself,
because I found myself watching this trailer so intently, paying
attention to the cinematography. I always loved the color scale
in Yorgoslantimos's movies, where poor things really leaned into the
blue palette. This one feels more red to me and vibrant.
But here it's not only about what you see in
(42:49):
the trailer. It's also what you heard there in that clip,
those little sound effects, that little chilling indie movie sound
that is in almost every left of center film. Then
you have the laying the foundation, the glue that brings
it all together. And I found myself watching it so intently,
like I was already watching the movie. And that really
(43:09):
doesn't happen to me when watching a trailer, because when
I do it every week for this podcast, I'm taking notes,
I'm thinking about what is going on, how I'm gonna
talk about this. I found myself about halfway through completely
forgetting all about that. I wasn't even jotting notes down
at one point because I was so just enthralled in
this trailer and already living in this world where I
want to know what happens. And I know this movie
(43:31):
is actually a remake of a South Korean movie called
Save the Green Planet, but I haven't seen that movie.
I also didn't look anything up about that movie because
I want to be surprised going into Begonia. I don't
want to know how it ends. Although if I had
to make an educated guess, I think what people are
starting to speculate and what you kind of start to
(43:52):
see happen. Towards the end of this trailer, as Jesse
Plemmons and Emma Stone talk a little bit more, you
start to see the complexity of their relationship. Maybe she
knows a little bit more about him than he even
has an idea of because she starts to say, oh,
I know who you are, and you just shave by
it because you think I'm an alien and that's how
I communicate with my mothership. So I think where your
(44:15):
mind wants to go is you think the reveal is
going to be that Jesse Plemmon's character was actually right
and she is an alien. But I almost think that's
a little bit too simple here. I feel like if
it was a normal sci fi movie, which this does
lead into the sci fi comedy realm, which I think
some people who aren't familiar with this director's work would
have no idea how you kind of walk that line.
(44:35):
Because you watch this trailer and you feel all different
types of ways. It feels a little bit comedic, it
also feels really dark at times. Then you have this
other sci fi layer. I think that speaks to yourgo's
style is you can't really put him in one box.
So it's gonna have a little bit of sci fi,
it's gonna have some comedy, it's gonna have some action,
and it's probably gonna have some nudity at some point,
(44:57):
because most of his movies do poor thing really heavy
on that. So maybe that's another reason why some people
find his movies a little bit uncomfortable. But I really
think it's all for an artistic reason. There is intent
behind all of those dude scenes. When asked about this movie,
the two time Best Actress winner said, I believe in aliens.
(45:17):
Emma Stone said, I don't know about looking down on us,
but one of my favorite people who has ever lived
is Carl Sagan, and I fell madly in love with
this philosophy in science and how brilliant he is. And
he believed the idea that we are not alone in
this vastly expansive universe. Not that we're being watched, because
that's a pretty narcissistic thing, But she is coming out
(45:39):
and saying, I believe in aliens. So what she is
saying is that we are not alone. But it's almost
pretentious to think that aliens would want to watch us,
which is something I do think about. My head always
goes to the comparison of an ant hill, that you
and I as humans aren't really going to mess with
an ant hill. Maybe when you were a kid, you
(46:00):
would kick one and then you'd see them all like
disperse and you totally wreck their world. But otherwise you're
not just gonna go kick an ant hill. And that
ant hill is living in its entirely owned universe. There's
a queen aunt us as humans aren't gonna go and
study this ant hill unless you're some ant scientists, and
(46:20):
that's your job. But we have no real purpose to
monitor them, we have no real reason to mess with them.
We could be there aliens That's kind of how I
think about aliens, that we are so concerned that one
day there's gonna be this moment where they just beam
down and say, we are aliens. We've been watching you
this entire time, and now take us to your leader.
(46:43):
I don't think that is ever going to happen. I
think if there are aliens, which I do believe that
there are aliens, and I've been believing this since I
was probably in third grade. I've been fascinated with aliens
since it was just the thing and the tabloids, those
really weird ones that used to be at the grocery
restore checkout line headlines like bat Boy. Back in those days,
(47:04):
I was all about aliens. So I'm still here saying
I believe in aliens. But I think us as humans,
we are always in this mindset that everybody is thinking
about us. We have main character energy when it comes
to our existence, that it's all about us that people
are wanting to come here. So I do believe in aliens,
and I do believe that in this movie, Emma Stode
(47:27):
is probably not gonna be just a normal CEO. She's
gonna have some skeletons in her closet. Maybe in her mothership.
Maybe just maybe we see the end of the world
in this movie. That would be awesome. But again, Bagonia
is coming out in theaters on October thirty. First, Geez
said that was this week's edition of Movie Li Framer
(47:49):
Bar and that is gonna 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 Instagram d I had so much
reaction from just my clip of my cot Stealing trailer
where I talked about Austin Butler and his acting abilities.
So many people reached out to me and said, dude,
(48:12):
what is your problem with Austin Butler. Didn't even realize
it at the time that it sounded like I was
just dogging on the guy. But I think sometimes whenever
there is somebody deemed by the Hollywood machine that they
are next up, whether they are a male or female,
I always have this trial run with them, could be
two to three years, where I follow their work very closely,
(48:34):
watch all of their films. If they branch into TV,
I also watch their TV shows to really get a
feel for how much range they have and how I
see them actually succeeding because we see this every two
to three years, we're an actor almost out of nowhere.
Even though I don't believe in overnight successes, but to
us it feels that way that one day they're just
(48:56):
at everything. Every movie gets announced and that actor is
in it. So it starts to feel like a little
bit of oversaturation. And I try to balance that oversaturation
with the actual quality of their work. And again it
is my opinion how their movies make me feel. But
this is a DM I got from Jason last week
who said being an American leading man has nothing to
(49:18):
do with acting chops though. It's about cultivating a specific
personality and exaggerating it and then playing that person in
every movie a la Tom Cruise, Bruce Willis, Denzel Washington, etc.
American audiences don't care about acting chops. That's more of
a British thing. But I would agree that Austin Butler
seems to have a shorter runway than others with his
(49:40):
particular personality. Am I the only one who cares about
how good an actor someone is? I didn't think that
was a non American thing. Maybe when I think about it,
A little bit more intently, I do think us as
American viewers care more about the way movies make us feel.
I think that is why we a really deep relationship
(50:01):
with movies we see as kids and teenagers and in
our early twenties, where our brains are still forming, and
that is really the formation of our tastes. But I
do believe that the foundation of that is good acting.
And sometimes good acting doesn't come across as somebody giving
an Academy Award worthy performance. I think sometimes acting is
(50:23):
so good that you don't even realize it. It doesn't
always have to be really dramatic, over the top acting.
Comedic acting, to me is probably the hardest thing to do,
and if somebody is a good comedic actor, I can
still put them on the same tier as a Brad Pitt,
as a Leonardo DiCaprio. It's all about how good you
are at connecting with whoever is watching it. That is
(50:45):
how I see acting. So it doesn't have to be
somebody who is classically trained and knows all the mechanics.
It's about how can they make this story come to life?
And so far, all the characters that Austin Butler has
played have not resonated with me emotionally. Caught stealing got
close before that Bike riders got close as well. But
to me, he is somebody in that next up category
(51:08):
that actor to watch, and the next two to three
films for him are going to be really important on
whether or not we accept him into our rotation of
actors that we enjoy. Will he ever reach that level
of Chris Pratt where we get so sick of him? Maybe,
and I think that'd probably be a good thing for him.
That is what actors want, but appreciate that. DM Jason.
(51:29):
Thank you all for listening this week, especially if you
listen on release day, which is Mondays. That is why
I call you the Monday Morning Movie Crew. Thank you
all for being subscribed, Thank you for telling a friend,
And until next time, go out and watch good movies
and I will talk to you later.
Host
Mike D
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