November 23, 2024 • 10 mins
ICYMI: ‘Later, with Mo’Kelly’ Presents – Mark Rahner’s review of the new ‘Paramount Pictures’ release ‘Gladiator II;’ Director/Producer Ridley Scott’s “epic historical action sequel to 2000s Gladiator” in ‘The Rahner Report’ - on KFI AM 640…Live everywhere on the iHeartRadio app
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI A M six forty Nature Key Mark talks about
pontificates about pop culture.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Ron Report with Mark Ronner.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome to the Runner Report. I'm Mark Ronner. This week
Gladiator Too, and I was feeling nostalgic, Joey.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
You like movies are about gladiators.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Don't call me Joey, And yes, yes I do. Bring
on the swords and sandals and the strange monkey creatures
who can split their heads almost in half when they shriek.
I've seen all the Spartacus stuff. I've seen that bredon
Circus episode of the original Star Trek, and I am
a fire hose of test asterone. I am good to go.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Now that you find these games frightening, revolting.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Proconsul in some points of the galaxy, I have seen
forms of entertainment that makes this look like a folk that's.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Right, folk dance. Gladiator Too. You absolutely know you want
to say Roman boogloo. You know you do. It is
the sequel. Absolutely nobody was asking for it to Ridley
Scott's Gladiator from two thousand. Here's a little bit of
the trailer.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
It is an art choosing gladiators, they're usually prisoners of war.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I claim this city for the glory of Rome.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
You have something in you rage, Never let it go.
People carry you to quaintness. I own you now.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
But whose head could I give you to satisfy you
a fury?
Speaker 4 (02:19):
The general will do.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Broome has taken everything from me, but I will have
my vengeance.
Speaker 6 (02:30):
Yeah, there's plenty of paying waiting for you in the
next life.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
I don't know why you are so greedy for it
in this one, and you get the idea of pain,
plenty of pain. Now.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
That original Gladiator from two thousand, I think that was
the one that really made Russell Crowe a superstar. He
played a general who got screwed over, he was made
a slave gladiator, and he vows revenge on the really
obviously hissable villain Emperor Joaquin Phoenix, which was even before
he went on to make Joker folly Od. The fact
that no one was asking for a sequel didn't mean
(03:03):
one hadn't been kicked around for years. One minor speed
bump to that was cover your ears. If you don't
want a spoiler on a twenty four year old movie,
Crow's character dies at the end of the first one. Also,
in case you hadn't heard this about Citizen Kane, Rosebud
is a sled. We're getting all the spoilers out of
the way tonight. One absolutely bat crap sequel idea came
from Nick Cave, the Musician. Ed involved Crow's Maximus in
(03:27):
the afterlife and becoming immortal and fighting in wars throughout history,
and the part of me that clicks on obscure to
be titles at four am kind of wanted to see that.
In addition to Christopher Plumber in the Hooker Cult murders
last weekend. How could you not watch that once you
know it exists. Well, that's not the Gladiator sequel that
(03:47):
got made. What got made is a lot more ordinary,
and I honestly don't see it becoming to kind of
hit the original was. But it's entertaining with some good action.
It looks fantastic and it'll make you forget about say
Elon Musk or bird Flew for two and a half hours.
It starts a fairly unknown Irish actor Paul mescal and
Chilean actor Pedro Pascal, who by law is in everything
(04:09):
that Gean Carlo Esposito isn't in everything that comes out
must have one of the two of them.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
And that's right.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
The two stars are Mescal and Pascal. But you're thinking,
Mark you Rascal. What difference does it make? Only that
it's hilarious that nobody seems to care about making the
Romans seem remotely Roman, which is in Italy. Also where
there are a bunch of black people in Rome like
Denzellis Washingtonius. Yes, and if there were, yes, did they
have really obvious New York accents like his?
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Who cares?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
He seems to be the only one really having fun
in this movie. Denzel plays an ambitious slave owner broker
type who buys Mescal's character and offers him the chance
to get say with me revenge on Pascal's character, who
is a general responsible for the death of Mescal's wife.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
Blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Much the same on that front, if you figured out that,
we're gonna call it G two is another fairly basic
revenge movie. Like the first, You're right and you win nothing.
Unexceptional but enjoyable. There's your pull quote. Publicist Meskel seemed
unexceptional to me as well at first by looks alone,
but I really liked him in this movie, and I
thought he had a bit of a Richard Harris riz
(05:18):
to him, and now I want to see him in
more stuff. Harris, by the way, was in the first Gladiator,
and there are explicit connections to Okay, Gladiator Prime and
to Crow's Maximus Connie Nielsen from the first ones in
this one as well, but I don't want to tell
you any more than that, since I've already spoiled the
first one and Citizen Kane for you tonight. I understand
actual historians have taken issue with elements of Gladiator two,
(05:41):
such as sharks being in the coliseum, but really, Scott disagrees.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
You expect me to pick a side there.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Like I said, it's not a history movie, it's not
a documentary. It's a movie about men, fighting, dying, and
sweating like men, and also a rhino. And there's nothing
even remotely homo erotic about any of these kinds of
movies and shows.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I'm entirely motivated by logic.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Loss of our ship's surgeon, whatever I may think of
his relative skill, would mean a reduction in the efficiency
of the enterprise.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
And they're not.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Why you're not afraid to die, s Buck. You're more
afraid of living today you stay alive is just one
more day you might slip, let your human.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Have peak out of your pants. If this one successful,
Scott has plans for a Gladiator three, and you're damn right.
I'd throw on one of those leather skirts and watch that.
And there's a name for those. They're not called skirts,
but you're gonna have to look it up. There's your
runner report, Moe. Now let me go back to some
things that you said.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
Yes, there were a lot of Africans in ancient Rome,
that's a historical fact.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Did they sound like Denzel, Well, that was my next point.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
Denzel Washington gave an interview and he said specifically he
wasn't even trying to do an accent. It wasn't meant
for to be like a period piece. And he's Denzel
Washington and he could do whatever he wants.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Just too big. He's bigger than ancient. Yeah, they can
adapt to him.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Look if it sounds like alongso from training day, so
be it, so be it.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Okay, I didn't mind.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I mean he looked like he was having fun, really
just eating the hole joined up and it's an entertaining movie,
even if it's not destined to be a classic. I
should point out that the original Gladiator, that is the
movie where Pearl Oliver Reed drank himself to death.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
Finally, you mentioned homo erotic, and there was another story
connected to Denzel Washington.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
I don't know if you saw it.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
Denzel was saying that there was a scene cut from
the movie of him kissing a man on the lips.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
No, I didn't, but some of that was implied because
some of the people in the movie clearly are how
do you say it, omni sexual?
Speaker 6 (07:47):
Yes, but that's also connected to the Roman Empire, so
that's you know, they bounce in and out of historical accuracy.
But I'm hearing nothing but good things about the movie itself,
which says, to your point, there will be a Gladiator three.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
We'll see.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
The budget for this is massive, and you know, it's
not like a horror film that cost fifteen million bucks
to make and is going to make you know, eighty
million its opening weekend. It's with these big budget movies,
it's always like the first weekend really determines everything. Everything
if it's got the stink of death on it, and
(08:24):
it only makes I don't know, like thirty million bucks
for the weekend.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
That's it. That's the end. That's all she wrote.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
It's got to make a half a billion dollars for
it to be profitable. The budget is two hundred and
fifty million and another one hundred million to promote. It's
got to do a half a billion, and to your point,
that means it's got to do at least one hundred
million this opening weekend to generate any type of momentum
to get it there.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I like movies like this, and I like the action.
The choreography was really well done. And like I said,
this Paul Mezcal guy. I'd never seen him before in anything,
and he seemed fairly ordinary to me. But he's This
is the advantage of casting actual actors in stuff like
this instead of just bodybuilders.
Speaker 6 (09:06):
He's really good. In fact, I think I will see
this one. I don't know when I'll get to see it.
It won't be this week of maybe over the Thanksgiving
Day weekend, which I'll have a little bit more time presumably.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah, this would have been a good one for the
boys to go out and have a couple of shots
before and then sit and well doze off like we
always do.
Speaker 6 (09:25):
But if you're trying to watch the movie at twelve
thirty at night on a work night, basically there's no
f and way, no not gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No save it for for a day when you've got
a free half a day. It's two and a half
hours long. It's not short. Was there an end credit scene?
Because movies are just doing that now, just because you know,
I'm such a sucker. I stayed to see if there was,
and I was the last person in there, and so
it's after three am and the poor teenage usher comes
in and turns on all the lights and I'm sitting
(09:54):
there and I felt like such a creep. I just left.
So I don't know if at the very end, so
you've felt like a creep. Yeah, okay, so it is possible.
I do feel bad, like I do feel bad because
they'll sit there with their the broom and the thing
they're trying to clean down.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
All right, dude, come on. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I always try to watch as much of the credits
as I can, even if it's not a Marvel type
movie that you think could have an end credits scene,
And there's always some poor Schmoe out there just waiting
to clean up, and you're like, Okay, I'm sorry, you
can get to work now.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
I didn't mean to keep you waiting.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Well, in theory, you know the movie's not over until
the lights come up, and the lights are not going
to come up until all the credits have run.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Unless it's on a weeknight and the movie gets out
after three a m. After three, I get ready to
go home.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yes, you're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand
from KFI AM six forty
You're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand from
KFI A M six forty Nature Key Mark talks about
pontificates about pop culture.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
Ron Report with Mark Ronner.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Welcome to the Runner Report. I'm Mark Ronner. This week
Gladiator Too, and I was feeling nostalgic, Joey.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
You like movies are about gladiators.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Don't call me Joey, And yes, yes I do. Bring
on the swords and sandals and the strange monkey creatures
who can split their heads almost in half when they shriek.
I've seen all the Spartacus stuff. I've seen that bredon
Circus episode of the original Star Trek, and I am
a fire hose of test asterone. I am good to go.
Speaker 4 (01:09):
Now that you find these games frightening, revolting.
Speaker 5 (01:18):
Proconsul in some points of the galaxy, I have seen
forms of entertainment that makes this look like a folk that's.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Right, folk dance. Gladiator Too. You absolutely know you want
to say Roman boogloo. You know you do. It is
the sequel. Absolutely nobody was asking for it to Ridley
Scott's Gladiator from two thousand. Here's a little bit of
the trailer.
Speaker 4 (01:42):
It is an art choosing gladiators, they're usually prisoners of war.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
I claim this city for the glory of Rome.
Speaker 5 (01:57):
You have something in you rage, Never let it go.
People carry you to quaintness. I own you now.
Speaker 6 (02:14):
But whose head could I give you to satisfy you
a fury?
Speaker 4 (02:19):
The general will do.
Speaker 5 (02:21):
Broome has taken everything from me, but I will have
my vengeance.
Speaker 6 (02:30):
Yeah, there's plenty of paying waiting for you in the
next life.
Speaker 5 (02:34):
I don't know why you are so greedy for it
in this one, and you get the idea of pain,
plenty of pain. Now.
Speaker 3 (02:43):
That original Gladiator from two thousand, I think that was
the one that really made Russell Crowe a superstar. He
played a general who got screwed over, he was made
a slave gladiator, and he vows revenge on the really
obviously hissable villain Emperor Joaquin Phoenix, which was even before
he went on to make Joker folly Od. The fact
that no one was asking for a sequel didn't mean
(03:03):
one hadn't been kicked around for years. One minor speed
bump to that was cover your ears. If you don't
want a spoiler on a twenty four year old movie,
Crow's character dies at the end of the first one. Also,
in case you hadn't heard this about Citizen Kane, Rosebud
is a sled. We're getting all the spoilers out of
the way tonight. One absolutely bat crap sequel idea came
from Nick Cave, the Musician. Ed involved Crow's Maximus in
(03:27):
the afterlife and becoming immortal and fighting in wars throughout history,
and the part of me that clicks on obscure to
be titles at four am kind of wanted to see that.
In addition to Christopher Plumber in the Hooker Cult murders
last weekend. How could you not watch that once you
know it exists. Well, that's not the Gladiator sequel that
(03:47):
got made. What got made is a lot more ordinary,
and I honestly don't see it becoming to kind of
hit the original was. But it's entertaining with some good action.
It looks fantastic and it'll make you forget about say
Elon Musk or bird Flew for two and a half hours.
It starts a fairly unknown Irish actor Paul mescal and
Chilean actor Pedro Pascal, who by law is in everything
(04:09):
that Gean Carlo Esposito isn't in everything that comes out
must have one of the two of them.
Speaker 5 (04:15):
And that's right.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
The two stars are Mescal and Pascal. But you're thinking,
Mark you Rascal. What difference does it make? Only that
it's hilarious that nobody seems to care about making the
Romans seem remotely Roman, which is in Italy. Also where
there are a bunch of black people in Rome like
Denzellis Washingtonius. Yes, and if there were, yes, did they
have really obvious New York accents like his?
Speaker 5 (04:39):
Who cares?
Speaker 3 (04:39):
He seems to be the only one really having fun
in this movie. Denzel plays an ambitious slave owner broker
type who buys Mescal's character and offers him the chance
to get say with me revenge on Pascal's character, who
is a general responsible for the death of Mescal's wife.
Speaker 5 (04:57):
Blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 3 (04:58):
Much the same on that front, if you figured out that,
we're gonna call it G two is another fairly basic
revenge movie. Like the first, You're right and you win nothing.
Unexceptional but enjoyable. There's your pull quote. Publicist Meskel seemed
unexceptional to me as well at first by looks alone,
but I really liked him in this movie, and I
thought he had a bit of a Richard Harris riz
(05:18):
to him, and now I want to see him in
more stuff. Harris, by the way, was in the first Gladiator,
and there are explicit connections to Okay, Gladiator Prime and
to Crow's Maximus Connie Nielsen from the first ones in
this one as well, but I don't want to tell
you any more than that, since I've already spoiled the
first one and Citizen Kane for you tonight. I understand
actual historians have taken issue with elements of Gladiator two,
(05:41):
such as sharks being in the coliseum, but really, Scott disagrees.
Speaker 5 (05:46):
You expect me to pick a side there.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Like I said, it's not a history movie, it's not
a documentary. It's a movie about men, fighting, dying, and
sweating like men, and also a rhino. And there's nothing
even remotely homo erotic about any of these kinds of
movies and shows.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
I'm entirely motivated by logic.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
Loss of our ship's surgeon, whatever I may think of
his relative skill, would mean a reduction in the efficiency
of the enterprise.
Speaker 5 (06:11):
And they're not.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
Why you're not afraid to die, s Buck. You're more
afraid of living today you stay alive is just one
more day you might slip, let your human.
Speaker 3 (06:25):
Have peak out of your pants. If this one successful,
Scott has plans for a Gladiator three, and you're damn right.
I'd throw on one of those leather skirts and watch that.
And there's a name for those. They're not called skirts,
but you're gonna have to look it up. There's your
runner report, Moe. Now let me go back to some
things that you said.
Speaker 6 (06:43):
Yes, there were a lot of Africans in ancient Rome,
that's a historical fact.
Speaker 5 (06:47):
Did they sound like Denzel, Well, that was my next point.
Speaker 6 (06:50):
Denzel Washington gave an interview and he said specifically he
wasn't even trying to do an accent. It wasn't meant
for to be like a period piece. And he's Denzel
Washington and he could do whatever he wants.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
Just too big. He's bigger than ancient. Yeah, they can
adapt to him.
Speaker 6 (07:07):
Look if it sounds like alongso from training day, so
be it, so be it.
Speaker 5 (07:11):
Okay, I didn't mind.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
I mean he looked like he was having fun, really
just eating the hole joined up and it's an entertaining movie,
even if it's not destined to be a classic. I
should point out that the original Gladiator, that is the
movie where Pearl Oliver Reed drank himself to death.
Speaker 6 (07:27):
Finally, you mentioned homo erotic, and there was another story
connected to Denzel Washington.
Speaker 5 (07:31):
I don't know if you saw it.
Speaker 6 (07:33):
Denzel was saying that there was a scene cut from
the movie of him kissing a man on the lips.
Speaker 3 (07:39):
No, I didn't, but some of that was implied because
some of the people in the movie clearly are how
do you say it, omni sexual?
Speaker 6 (07:47):
Yes, but that's also connected to the Roman Empire, so
that's you know, they bounce in and out of historical accuracy.
But I'm hearing nothing but good things about the movie itself,
which says, to your point, there will be a Gladiator three.
Speaker 5 (08:03):
We'll see.
Speaker 3 (08:04):
The budget for this is massive, and you know, it's
not like a horror film that cost fifteen million bucks
to make and is going to make you know, eighty
million its opening weekend. It's with these big budget movies,
it's always like the first weekend really determines everything. Everything
if it's got the stink of death on it, and
(08:24):
it only makes I don't know, like thirty million bucks
for the weekend.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
That's it. That's the end. That's all she wrote.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
It's got to make a half a billion dollars for
it to be profitable. The budget is two hundred and
fifty million and another one hundred million to promote. It's
got to do a half a billion, and to your point,
that means it's got to do at least one hundred
million this opening weekend to generate any type of momentum
to get it there.
Speaker 3 (08:48):
I like movies like this, and I like the action.
The choreography was really well done. And like I said,
this Paul Mezcal guy. I'd never seen him before in anything,
and he seemed fairly ordinary to me. But he's This
is the advantage of casting actual actors in stuff like
this instead of just bodybuilders.
Speaker 6 (09:06):
He's really good. In fact, I think I will see
this one. I don't know when I'll get to see it.
It won't be this week of maybe over the Thanksgiving
Day weekend, which I'll have a little bit more time presumably.
Speaker 3 (09:17):
Yeah, this would have been a good one for the
boys to go out and have a couple of shots
before and then sit and well doze off like we
always do.
Speaker 6 (09:25):
But if you're trying to watch the movie at twelve
thirty at night on a work night, basically there's no
f and way, no not gonna happen.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
No save it for for a day when you've got
a free half a day. It's two and a half
hours long. It's not short. Was there an end credit scene?
Because movies are just doing that now, just because you know,
I'm such a sucker. I stayed to see if there was,
and I was the last person in there, and so
it's after three am and the poor teenage usher comes
in and turns on all the lights and I'm sitting
(09:54):
there and I felt like such a creep. I just left.
So I don't know if at the very end, so
you've felt like a creep. Yeah, okay, so it is possible.
I do feel bad, like I do feel bad because
they'll sit there with their the broom and the thing
they're trying to clean down.
Speaker 5 (10:08):
All right, dude, come on. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:11):
I always try to watch as much of the credits
as I can, even if it's not a Marvel type
movie that you think could have an end credits scene,
And there's always some poor Schmoe out there just waiting
to clean up, and you're like, Okay, I'm sorry, you
can get to work now.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
I didn't mean to keep you waiting.
Speaker 6 (10:27):
Well, in theory, you know the movie's not over until
the lights come up, and the lights are not going
to come up until all the credits have run.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
Unless it's on a weeknight and the movie gets out
after three a m. After three, I get ready to
go home.
Speaker 1 (10:42):
Yes, you're listening to Later with Moe Kelly on demand
from KFI AM six forty
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