Damn You Hollywood: Weapons (2025)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The following may contain offensive language, adult humor, and or
content that some viewers may find offensive. The views and
opinions expressed by anyone speaker does not explicitly or necessarily
reflect or represent those of Mark Ratlage or W two
M Network. Please listen with caution or don't listen at all.

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Worad for Hollywood where stars are living large ken mansions
with their servants and their.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
Credit cards and charge with fame.

Speaker 2 (00:42):
That's fleeting, but the egos never change, where everyone's a
genius except the ones who really arrange. Hooray for Hollywood,
where the standos always sell, where every whispered secret is
a new Tablloyd's Tell, Oh, how we adore the endless

(01:04):
red cockpit, the law toay for Hollywood?

Speaker 3 (01:08):
Well less is always more.

Speaker 4 (01:12):
Hell Lo Lo Loo, Good evening, and welcome to damn
you Hollywood. I'm your host, Alexis Hana and let's just
go ahead and get into this. At two seventeen on
Wednesday night, he left his home and he was never
seen again, and then he somehow showed up on the podcast.

(01:34):
And we still have no idea what happened.

Speaker 5 (01:36):
Mister Robert Winfrey, you know, having considered the actual bit
of narration there when it just as the kids never
came back. When we get to the ending, that has
a slightly more chilling implication than you might think at first. Blush.

Speaker 3 (01:53):
Ok, very true.

Speaker 5 (01:56):
Also here with us is Jason Teasley back for the
second week in a row. We are running him ragged
over here. How you doing, Jason, I'm doing good.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Speaking of running Dragon sounds my job. That's a whole
different story. I can't complaint a kind of seven o'clock
thought I was going to be late. Then we had
some thought I was gonna be coming from La Void,
and then all of a sudden my camera starts working.
From here, we are at to talk weapons.

Speaker 5 (02:22):
As Jason mentioned, Yeah, we're talking the number one movie
of the weekend. Spoiler from when we briefly discussed the
money Mark and I talked about it last week just
a little bit. But yeah, Weapons outdueled Freaky or Friday,
and I'll take any hit to crappy nostalgia bait that
I can these days. Wow, fantastic four first steps fell
all the way to third and the panic at Marvel

(02:44):
is real. But we'll get again. That's for later. Yeah,
Weapons is and I'm going to infringe on Mark's gimmick here,
a twenty twenty five supernatural horror mystery hang.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
On slash psychological thriller.

Speaker 5 (03:06):
A mystery horror film There We Go, written, co produced,
and directed by Zach Creiger of Barbarian fame or infamy,
depending on where you stand on that movie el.

Speaker 4 (03:19):
Apparently, apparently Barbarian was big enough because to get this
some serious buzz. Apparently, the specscript for this film was
in a bidding war again with Universal, Netflix, Sony, and TriStar.
Part of the deal was an eight figure sum of money,
guaranteed greenlight for production, final cut, privileges for Gregor, interest

(03:39):
in a back end plot, and most importantly in the
closing of the deal, the guarantee of a theatrical release.
Gregor said, flat out, if you tell me you want
to get you know, you want to make this thing
and ship it to streaming.

Speaker 3 (03:52):
No, Also, I'll hear in a little bit, I'll drop
another little nuggative that adds to that. And that's the
reason why Muky Paul was actually in this and Jordan
Peele fired his both of his agents because they could

(04:13):
not secure the rights.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
That's true.

Speaker 5 (04:17):
Jordan Peele did yeah, because they they wund up passing
on the monkey. Instead he's producing him, which is a
more Jordan Peele movie where he can just blame the
rich white billionaire when it's all said and done anyway
that we will be actually yes, So Weapons stars Josh Brolin,

(04:37):
thank heavens on that later. Uh, Julia Garner, Carrie, Christopher Alden,
Aaron Aaron Reich, Austin Abrams, Benedict Wong, and Amy Madigan,
along with.

Speaker 4 (04:50):
A handful of faces from Barbarian reprising their roles. Because
lord no, Justin Long said, oh, go to horror movie
where I don't die. I'm in.

Speaker 5 (05:00):
He didn't die in tusks ologize for getting all of
you PTSD flashbacks there.

Speaker 4 (05:08):
I that that movie actually Legit freaked me out. I
had the worst time trying to watch it.

Speaker 5 (05:14):
All right, So before we jump into Weapons, let me
start with this very quickly because we're not getting into
the plot yet. But if this movie sounds interesting to you,
if you've had an inclination to see it, I would
encourage you to not listen to the plot synopsis. Go
in as blind as possible. The movie's a little bit
better off for it. So now we do spoil the

(05:36):
crap out of things here as a general rule. So
I say that just because you know, so you're aware.
And again, if you want to go see this movie,
go in as as blind as you can. You will
have a better time.

Speaker 3 (05:51):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (05:52):
A lot of critics actually said, if you can't, if
you haven't seen anything, if you want to see any
of the trailers, see the teaser, not the full trailer,
because even that, if you try to dissect, that may
give away too much. This is, I would say, very
similar to like the early works of m Night Shamalan,
in which the less you know, the more you're going
to enjoy this film.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
Yeah, I would avoid trailers altogether with this, I would
avoid everything possible pertaining to this movie. Just go in
with the open mind, definitely.

Speaker 5 (06:27):
All right, So before again, before we jump into this movie,
real quick, go around the horn real fast sort of.
So Craiger now has two movies under his belt, Barbarian
in this what led all of us to being interested
in this again, the marketing has been good. Let me
start there. But there's a lot of horror movies released

(06:47):
every year, fewer and few of them get theatrical because
that's just the world we're heading towards for better or
for worse. But what stuck out about this one? And
you know, if you wanted to give you like thirty
forty second thought on Barbarian while you're at it, because
it's not super relevant because my phrase this, it's not

(07:13):
like we have to review Barbarian here, but because that
was Craiger's first film, and what relationship that might have
to your enthusiasm before seeing Weapons or might have drawn
you to it, it's potentially a factor. So alexis you
want to start that off like what kind of drew
you to this one to begin with? Well, it's on

(07:34):
Barbarian because who doesn't love a movie that shifted its
tone halfway through radically?

Speaker 3 (07:40):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (07:41):
No kidding. Well, I know that I had approached you
guys about doing Together, which we reviewed last weekend, and
I can't remember one of you said are we doing Weapons?
And I had just seen the teaser for that, And
what caught my eye about Weapons was again very similar
to Barbarian, was the fact that the teaser revealed was

(08:03):
so bare bones, revealing very little about the movie, which
again Barbarian excelled at. You go into Barbarian You have
no idea what's going on, except it's linked to this
Airbnb slash verbo whatever vacation you know, home that has

(08:24):
accidentally been double booked by a man and a woman.
You know nothing else, and you know and you find
yourself guessing through the whole movie, like, Okay, so what's
going on? Is one of them evil? I mean, the
male is played by Bill Scarsgard, fresh off of playing
Penny Wise, so we're probably all thinking, Okay, yeah, he's
the monster, he's a serial killer, get it over with

(08:47):
And yeah, Andre and I watched Barbarian and we loved it.
We just loved how it was so surprising, so twisted,
and so well done. So when you see a movie
like this following a very soil played from the same
writer and director, you can't help but go, Okay, you're
obviously doing what works. Let's see if lightning strikes twice,

(09:08):
and frankly I think it did.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Terson well, I mean I seen half a Barbarian. I've
never completely washed it, so but that I know how
it ends. So there's not like some some big thing,
and I think it was. I think I may have
suggested this right after one of you suggested together because

(09:31):
I had seen we was reviewing something that I had
seen the teaser in in the theater, and it just
so happened to be that. And it was very bare
bones and the only thing you get to know is
there's a teacher whose class disappeared and nobody knows why.
And that instantly hooked me because it was one of

(09:54):
those okay, why you know, you starting your own backstory,
so you start questioning everything. You go, why, why is
it just her class? What's going on? What did she does?
She have something to do with it? And it was
very very shroud and mystery, uh, which which is something

(10:17):
that I love. I love the I love not knowing
and not being able to predict anything. Uh. That's what
we are into a lot in trailers out trailers give
away everything before the movie and it spoils the movie.
You There's very rarely movies that you can see a
trailer and go okay, that intrigues me without going okay,

(10:42):
that ruined a big surprise or a big review on
the film. We see it all the time, and we
complain about it all the time, but this was very
especially with the prepey voice sober that we heard during
the movie, and it plays out like an anthology, which
was a surprise to me. And it's just one of
those movies that just, I guess I kind of just

(11:04):
said it hooks said hook in me and just intrigued
me to the mystery aspect and the whole horror aspect
of creepy kids disappearing.

Speaker 5 (11:18):
Okay, I'll go briefly here. You may have gathered Barbarian
didn't really land for me. I've grown to appreciate it
more a little bit over time seeing some other people
talk about it. I still don't care for it all
that much, but I get why it kind of hit

(11:39):
the way it did for enough people, and I'm glad
it did for them. Not just because I'm glad they
enjoyed it. I'm glad it didn't blow up in Craigor's face.
I think my part of the problem that I had
with Barbarian, and is not the movie's fault, but part
of the reason it didn't land as well for me,
is I saw it right around the same time I
saw Malignant, which operates on some similar structural premises.

Speaker 4 (12:04):
Their posters were virtually identical.

Speaker 5 (12:06):
Yeah, and Malignant I just really enjoyed and it kind
of wildly overshadowed barbarian in that respect, which I think
also makes sense because James Wand really knows what he's doing.
And I'm not again, I'm happy I said this a
few weeks ago. I'm happy to kind of judge First

(12:27):
Movies a little bit on a curve. Craiger is still
figuring himself out as a director, So yeah, he got
a little bit overshadowed there in my head. But what
are you gonna do? Okay, So with that, with the
table being set here, last chance, everybody, if you want
to avoid spoilers, pick on the lots synopsis. So we

(12:49):
open with, as the narration suggests, a classroom full of kids,
all but one who disappeared. Nobody shows up for school
except being apart from one kid, Alex. Everyone else is gone,
and the police show up because of course they do.
And all the kids ran out of their houses at

(13:11):
two seventeen in the morning into the darkness of the night,
and nobody knows why. There's some of them that have
ring cameras or security cameras around the house that show
the kids running, but it's just like a field of
vision thing, like you see them run out. There's no
one abducting them. There's no threat, there's no it's just

(13:34):
these kids running out and it's a little unsettling, but.

Speaker 4 (13:37):
No evidence of a pre established plan, no emails or
texts or letters saying it's like, Okay, here's what we're
gonna do. They question the kid, Alex, about like, well,
did they say anything? Was there a movie or TV
show that maybe inspire this? Alex says, nope, got nothing.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
They questioned the teacher because of course they do, And
the story then jumps forward a month because this is
when the story actually begins. So the school's about to
reopen because the other kids have to like get back
to some degree of normalcy. You still have a school
year to complete. So there's a big parents gathering that

(14:21):
plays like a really awkward therapy session, and Josh Brolin,
God bless him, and I mean that he's great in
this gets up and says, I want to hear from
that because one of his his kid is one of
his son is one of the kids that's missing. And
he gets up and says, I need to hear from
the teacher. And he didn't know what's going on, and

(14:41):
this poor teacher, Julia Gardner Justine does not have answers.
She's as in the darkest everyone else, and everyone gets angry,
and there's still a lot of mistrust, and she starts
to feel paranoid and stocked, and somebody defaces her car
and she starts drinking heavily like you do. And also

(15:04):
needs to be said about this movie. I'm gonna go
through this about the way it's presented. But it's presented
in a nonlinear fashion.

Speaker 4 (15:12):
It's kind of apparently Kraiger was inspired by Magnolia.

Speaker 5 (15:15):
Yeah, which very very obviously, it's not quite pulp fiction,
because pulp fiction is not just nonlinear, it's really nonlinear.
Magnolia is kind of get to a certain point, back up,
follow another character until they intersect with that point in
the story, and then continue on from there, and that's
the structure this takes, whereas pulp fiction is like a

(15:38):
bunch of different segments that are cut up and aired
out of order, which, to be clear, is fine, like
pulp fiction is a great movie, oh sure, But just
for anyone out there looking for a point of comparison,
it's not quite pulp fiction. Yeah, Magnolia is a really
good point of comparison for this so she starts having
nightmares about Pennywise the clown or something very close to it,

(16:03):
And I.

Speaker 4 (16:04):
Honestly thought it looked like Jings Monsoon's character in the
most recent season of Doctor Who.

Speaker 5 (16:09):
I couldn't tell you, so I'll take your word for it.
So she starts drinking heavily. She heads up a former
friend of hers who's a police officer, and her story
briefly ends when she's hers ends when she's confronted by

(16:33):
Josh Brolin at the memory serves. I may be misremembering
her story.

Speaker 4 (16:39):
Okay, So she starts following Alex, the little boy who
was left.

Speaker 5 (16:43):
Yeah, she really wants to talk with him because they're
the only two survivors of this whole thing. And the
principal is like, no, this is inappropriate, and the police
are like, don't be stupid, and she tries to talk
with him, and Alex is like, don't follow me, crazy lady,
as he scurries back to his house. And so so

(17:04):
she stakes it out and then there's a creepy set.
There's a couple of creepy scenes. Yeah. Then we cut
to Gunner.

Speaker 3 (17:13):
Yeah, after her story ends after she gets the haircut. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (17:18):
Yeah, then we cut.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
Yeah, oh see, she does see that Alex's house. Something's
going on there because all the windows have newspapers plastered
all over them so no one can see into them.

Speaker 5 (17:28):
And she does, what you do in the privacy of
your own legally obtained home is your own business. And
I will not stand for this prejudice against those of
us who put newspapers on windows and wear tinfoil hats.

Speaker 4 (17:39):
Anyway, Yeah, and she can see inside briefly. She sees
two people sitting on the couch, not moving, not budging,
even when she makes some noise accidentally, it's like, okay,
it's like something here is not adding up.

Speaker 5 (17:53):
Yeah, something is definitely not adding up. So then we
cut to Archer, who is Josh Brolin's character, and he's
taking the disappearance of his son so hard at starting
to destroy his marriage. He's sleeping in his son's bed.
He's screwing up at work. He runs a construction company.
He's like not putting in orders, he's buying the wrong
paint colors, like it's he's causing headaches. We find out

(18:15):
he's the one who vandalized Justine's car, painting witch on
the side of it. He also has a nightmare where
he sees his son talks with him, son doesn't talk back. Yeah,
and he starts obsessing about trying to figure out where

(18:35):
the kids went. So he looks at his ringcam footage
and figures out, Okay, kid went out basically in a
straight line, so if I follow that line, it goes
to here off the map, finds another one of the
kids families says, this is weird, but can I see
the footage that you have? He also like yeah, goes
to see the chief of police because he's really invested

(18:57):
in the investigation for obvious reasons, and she at least
is like, man, we're doing everything we can. Yes, it's crazy,
go away.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
For the record, The chief please is actually pretty friendly
about it. He doesn't like threaten him. He's like because
he says, like, look, I understand because if you know,
God forbid it was my kid, I would be doing
the same thing as you. But we're working with the stay,
we're working with the feds. We are literally doing everything
we can.

Speaker 5 (19:27):
Yeah, it's just a bunch of frustrated people at cross paths,
is the way it plays out. So he then goes
to this other family says, can I see the footage
of your kid leaving the house, and the wife is like,
no weird person, So he waits until the husband gets
back and it's Justin Long and he asks, Justin Long,
can I see this real quick? And Justin Long, because

(19:51):
he's Justin Long, says, of course, come on in, I'm
sure that earned him. And out on the couch.

Speaker 4 (19:56):
Again. Justin Long goes just happy to be in a
horror movie where he does and look dead or disfigured.

Speaker 5 (20:02):
So he draws a straight line. He's able to use
some of his again construction and engineering expertise to figure
out the straight line that this kid was running down.
And if you have two straight lines, you can find
an intersecting point more or less. So he finds that
on his map and it's somewhere in this general vicinity.
It's not a specific location, but it's a reasonable approximation

(20:27):
of a search area, and he decides to start kind
of looking around that, and then he sees Justine pull
in to get gas in her car, and he goes
to confront her because he's still frustrated and angry at her.
So they start talking, and then the school principal, Benedict Wong,
who did not follow his own advice apparently about wizards

(20:47):
guard your mind. More on that. Later comes Naruto running
down from behind them and in a frenzy attacks Josh
attacks Justine. He runs over Josh Burl, and Josh Burwl
tries to defend her because whatever his issues are, he's
not gonna watch this crazy, blood soaked maniac kill her

(21:08):
in front of him. He's not that kind of a guy.
They ultimately are able to stop this because she gets
back in her car and funny scene they run. They
fight through the convenience store attached to the gas station.
The attendant does nothing in fact, as Justine is running
away after Rolin body checks Benedict Wong into one of

(21:33):
the drink displays, stops both of them for a minute,
and Justine starts running out. And she's looking at this guy,
going help me call someone, look at this and all
this minimum wage who knockoff does is get out of
my store, not even to thank you. Come again. He
is totally getting written up for that. So she gets
in her car and drives off, and Marcus the principal

(21:57):
chases her, and Josh Brolin gets in his car and
chases after them. And he and Marcus the principal gets
hit by a car and his head is crushed and
turned into a thin, crusted pizza, which we get to
see because of course we do.

Speaker 4 (22:14):
So I just got to add this because this is
one of the funniest things. Andrew Rosco, frequent collaborator on
our show, messaged me on Facebook. Well, he wrote of
this on my wall when I went to go see
weapons late last night. He said, so, is there ever
an explanation for the Naruto run, because if you see
the teasers and the pictures and the posters and everything,

(22:35):
the kids all run out doing the Naruto run with
their arms out like this, to which I write, no,
not explained, but strangely enough, it's a plot point.

Speaker 5 (22:49):
A little bit, yes, and I have sort of an
explanation for it later when we actually get to the review,
because it's not in the movie, but there is a
reason for it. So, uh, then Josh Brolin and.

Speaker 4 (23:05):
Oh you got wet. We get the cop, then we
get the drug. No, is it the cop, the principal
and the druggie or is it the cop, the Druggi
and then the principle.

Speaker 5 (23:16):
I think it's principle.

Speaker 3 (23:18):
No, the the Druggies last, because that's when everything starts
tying together.

Speaker 5 (23:24):
Alex is actually hanging on Alex's last last like okay, no, no,
I got it, I got it, I got it okay
sort of yeah, okay, I think I got it here.
So yeah, we cut to because we got to the
cop next because that's got because that there's some stuff

(23:46):
that goes on there. So this is the guy that
Justine wound up hooking up with. We found out he
is a local police.

Speaker 4 (23:52):
Officer recovering alcoholic.

Speaker 5 (23:55):
Yeah, we're covering alcoholic. His wife is out of town,
and and we see kind of what led up to
him breaking, falling off the wagon, and then cheating on
his wife. In another world, this role is played played
by Rayleioda, but we have what's his face here kind
of making up for it in the aggregate Junior Han solo.

(24:19):
Yeah yeah, uh no.

Speaker 4 (24:22):
Actually, Alden Eldon Reig is not a bad actor.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
No, he's really not. But he was in Ironhearts, so
I hope he doesn't the fire kidding. So he is
on patrol, he encountered. He sees a drug addict who
we've seen a couple of times. He's like tried to
hit up Justine for money, bumming around outside of the
liquor store. Uh, we'll get back to him in a
minute or two. He sees him trying to break into

(24:48):
a building is stop. Police traces him down, puts him in, coughs,
gets all the usual bs from the scumbag, puts on
the gloves to pat him down, and says, by the way,
do you have anything in you that's going to poke?
This is standard operating procedure. If you've never watched if
you've ever been arrested, if you've never watched cops or
op Live or anything like that, do you haven't evening

(25:08):
it's gonna poke me? And he goes, no, of course not.
I'm not carrying drugs. And as he begins patting down
the guy's pockets, he gets stuck with a hypodermic needle.
Overcome with frustration and fear of transit, of catching some
blood born ailment from this degenerate scumbag drug addict, he
punches him in the face, like you and under normal circumstances,

(25:31):
I don't think anyone would care. But he's in cuffs
and you're on your dash cam, so he's got a problem.
Now he decides to pick up this poor guy off
the ground and goes, Okay, buddy, you lied to me
and you got me stuck with this, and now I'm
worried about myself. Well, you hit me when I was
in cuffs. Yeah, so let's consider this a push. I'm

(25:54):
gonna take the cuffs off. You go your way, I'll
go mine. But if I ever see you again, we're
gonna have real problems. So he then this drug addict decides,
you know what, that's not a bad deal. So he
goes off, and now dealing with the stress of having
assaulted a suspect and custody and the cover up, he

(26:17):
goes and talk to his boss is also his father
in law. I ain't that a grand coincidence? Who says, Look,
you could be in serious hot water if anything comes
of this. If that guy shows up and lodges a complaint,
you're really you might be screwed. But if he doesn't,
the footage is just on one of our drive databases
and it'll get recorded over because all digital stuff does

(26:39):
after a certain period of time. But now he's stressed
out and annoyed with himself, and he and his wife
are trying to get pregnant. Apparently it's been kind of
an issue for them. So he takes Justine up on
a text offer, gets falls off the wagon, goes to
sleep with her, goes back home. His wife is back
early from her trip because of course she is, and

(27:00):
looks at him and goes, oh, what did you do you?
So now he's fighting with his wife and his father
in law is not pleased with him, and he goes
back to work. And who does he see walking towards
the police station as he arrives but the same junkie
who attacked who he dealt with earlier. And he then

(27:23):
chases off after him in his car, and that's where
we cut that story.

Speaker 3 (27:28):
No, he cances him, and then because the.

Speaker 5 (27:35):
Until we talk, we don't get that part of it
until the junkie story. The cops story cuts off as
he's chasing him. It's a weird point to cut it,
but that's where they did. So then we briefly get
the principle Marcus, and Marcus is a poor guy just

(27:56):
trying to be a good school administrator. We've seen I'm
a few times off and on throughout this, and what
comes about this is we get a flashback to a
conversation he had with Justine, who had called him and said, look,
I went to that. I went to Alex's house. He's like,
you're breaking all the professional protocols. You're a loose cannon.
You're on suspension. Sorry, uh, don't do this. He's like, look,

(28:18):
just talk to the parents. Something weird's going on over there.
Just please go over there. Talk to the parents. You'll
see I'm not crazy. And he goes, look, how about
I get the parents into my office for a sit
down before I have to try and involve child Protective
Services because that's a giant headache. And she goes, yeah,
that seems reasonable, because they do act reasonable in this movie.

Speaker 4 (28:41):
Oh say, there's very few characters who do the what
do we put how what do we usually call it, like,
do stupid things just because it's a horror movie and
somebody needs to do a stupid thing. We actually have
very few characters who do that.

Speaker 5 (28:55):
Yeah, oh right, Sorry, I forgot to mention. The plot
with Josh Roland cuts off in the middle of the
principal's attack. Now we don't get the whole thing there.
We get the whole thing at the end of what
happens with Marcus. Because Marcus calls in the parents. Parents

(29:15):
don't show up. Instead, an aunt shows up. This is Gladys.

Speaker 4 (29:21):
She's kind of important, and she is the pennywise looking
person that we have been seeing pop up in the
dreams of some of the other characters.

Speaker 5 (29:33):
We actually do see her briefly, believe it or not,
during an earlier sequence, very briefly, mostly obscured, and we
don't see the top of her body, but she's there.
So Gladys shows up and goes, look, I'm the aunt.
I'm the older sister of Alex's mom. They're ill there
at home. They sent me instead. I'm here. What can
I do for you? And Principle goes, look, normally I

(29:56):
could maybe do something with this with you being here,
but there's been some concern about Alex. I need to
speak to his legal guardians or the authorities have to
get involved, and she goes, well, they're they're just sick,
you know, a touch of the consumption.

Speaker 4 (30:16):
That line killed me. It was just like all the
fucking illnesses you could pull out of your ass, you said, consumption.

Speaker 5 (30:24):
It's a terrifying indicator of just how long Gladys has
been around for the record, for those of you who
don't know, consumption is an antiquated term for tuberculosis. That's
if they used to call it back in like the
seventeen eighteen hundreds, because if you got it, you wasted away.
It consumed you. And if you've never seen someone actually
die of tuberculosis, that's exactly what it looks like. It

(30:47):
is terrible.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
It's what killed. I want to say two or three
of Edgar Allan Poe's whis basically, your lungs fill up
with blood, and you drowned in your own blood.

Speaker 5 (30:59):
Yeah, you start losing lung tissue. Doc Holiday died of this.
You need another example, killed a lot of people. Wong's
response that I thought that was something you got in
the Oregon Trail, which is a thing not quite as
often as dying of dysentery, but you could die of
consumption anyway. She then shows up at his house, which

(31:22):
is weird where Marcus and his husband are just trying
to have a nice Saturday, but she kind of bullies
her way in and then reveals she's kind of a witch,
not metaphorically, she gets something of Wongs. She then cuts herself,

(31:44):
smears blood all over a stick, wraps some hair from
his husband around it and breaks the stick, and this
gets Wong to attack his husband and head butt him
to death. She's a bad way to go, very poor
headbuts by the way, but you know, head by technique
is a lost art. She then sends him after Justine.

(32:07):
We follow his run until he gets to her. We
see the rest of that fight, because again the actual
one with Archer cuts off midway through the encounter. Then
we get to where he dies, and then we briefly
get sort of the meeting of the minds of Archer
and Justine where they figure out what's going on because

(32:30):
Archer has looked at enough of the footage that's the
way he saw Marcus running. Was like, that's the same
way the kids were running.

Speaker 4 (32:36):
Like I said, plot point.

Speaker 5 (32:40):
Something was going on there, and he says, look, I
kind of figured out they went mostly a straight line.
It gives me about this area, and Justine looks at
it and goes, oh, Alex lives there. It's in your area.
So they go there to start staking that out.

Speaker 4 (32:55):
Oh, show where where was the junkies? Story? And all that.

Speaker 5 (32:58):
After that, because we get to them getting to that point.
Then we cut to the junkie, and if Mark we're here,
I have a couple of pro wrestling references I'd make
for this guy, because, boy, howdy, so this is the junkie.
We've seen him pop up in a few different places,
and we see his first encounter with the police officer.

(33:19):
Then we pick up from there more or less like
we see the backstory that leads up to that. It's
not super relevant, but we do see it. Then we
see what happens to him after he gets out of
the handcuffs and doesn't file a lawsuit and a complaint
against the city. He goes back to being a scumbag.
He starts looking for a place to break into, because

(33:41):
this is what scumbags do. He sees Alex's house because
there's a bunch of newspapers piled up on the driveway.
And if you're a scumbag looking for a place to
break into, you look for a place that has a
lot of newspapers or mail that hasn't been picked up.
It's an indicator that no one's home.

Speaker 4 (33:58):
Say, this is why if you still of newspapers delivered,
which I know is a rare occasion nowadays, or your
mail is delivered to your front porch. You ask your
neighbors or a friend to pick that stuff up for
you because that is a giant red flag for home intruders.

Speaker 5 (34:14):
Or you temporarily suspend delivery if you for a mail
if you feel someone climbing. The post office will usually
accommodate that anyway. So he goes to this house. He
wanders around, he climbs in through an upstairs window. He
gets a pillow case. He starts filling it up with crap.
He then encounters parents sitting on the sofa, not moving,

(34:35):
barely blinking, and he's a little weirded out, but not
so weird it out that he stops ransacking the place
because burglary. He steals a bunch of silverware, and he
winds up going into the basement, who knows why. He
also gives us one of the funniest lines out of
this whole thing, when he's looking through the DVD collection

(34:57):
and he goes, oh, fucking Willow, because they have Willow
on DVD. He then in the basement sees the missing
kids standing eerily still, but they turn and look at him,
and he freaks out and he runs out of the
place and he's a little bit freaked out, goes to

(35:18):
the not not freaked out, not freaked out enough to
you know, do the right thing. He still goes to
the pawn shop and sells his ill gotten goods. But well,
there he sees a reward poster. You see, there's a
reward for information leading to the return of the kids
fifty grand and he's like, hey, I know where those

(35:40):
kids are. He recognizes a few of the pictures, so
he calls and he says, hey, I know where those
kids are. Can I come get my money now? Because
he's a character from the wire.

Speaker 4 (35:52):
Yeah, it's literally I don't like police stations. Can you
have someone meet.

Speaker 5 (35:57):
Can I meet you somewhere and collect my money? Yeah,
So that's why he's walking up to the police station
as the as this disgruntled, frustrated, angry police officer is
coming out and sees him, and he then chases him,
runs him down, gets him in handcuffs, and the guy
and the junkie goes, dude, I know where the kids are.

(36:17):
That's what I was there for. I promise I wasn't
here to cause you any trouble, and he goes, fine,
where are they? I can take you there, So he
directs him to the house. You'ly okay, so were going in,
and he go like, no, I'm going in. You're staying here.
Person in handcuffs who is not trustworthy at all after

(36:38):
you stab me in the face with some with more needles,
which happened during the chase, And so the cop goes in.
The door opens creepily. He goes in and and he
is gone for like the day.

Speaker 4 (36:54):
Yeah, it's light. See it's light out when they go
to the house. It's dark. When we cut back, it's
literally just a cut and the junkie is still in
the back seat of the car, goings like, letting me out,
letting me out wire. It's like he is just going
nuts stuck in the backseat of this freaking car.

Speaker 5 (37:12):
Then the police officer comes angry walking out of a house,
drags the junkie inside, and then we cut to Alex,
and this is where we figure out the totality of
what's happened to this point. Alex is the only kid
who didn't disappear on that night, and we cut back

(37:33):
to see a little bit of his schooling. He's a nice,
quiet kid, kind of picked on by Archer's kid Matthew,
because Archer's kid, Matthew is one of those kids who's
kind of a jerk. But it's third grade. Most of
them are little sociopaths, which is just my way of saying,
I don't hold too much against the kid.

Speaker 4 (37:52):
Say, third grade was when I finally started seeing like
bullies in school, So yeah, you're not wrong.

Speaker 5 (37:59):
That's when you decide whether or not you're going to
be a functional That's when you start down the path
of being a functional member of society and a civilized
human being and force in the world, or the other.
Don't be the other.

Speaker 3 (38:10):
Anyway.

Speaker 5 (38:12):
We see that his aunt, his aunt Gladys, is supposed
to be coming there. She's ill and doesn't have anywhere
else to go, and she shows up, and that's the
Gladys character that we've come to know a little bit
at this point. Now there's an open question whether or

(38:34):
not this is actually his aunt Gladys, or if this
is just someone posing as her to gain access to
the family. But again open question. I tend to think
it's not actually his aunt, but that's just me. So
she's there, she's old, she's got wigs because she's like
she's the story is you know, end of life? Cancer

(38:59):
is my again the story, And then he wakes up
one day, comes downstairs and his parents are just sitting
at the table, not really responding zombie like if you will.
He's a little freaked out by this, as one would be.
And this is after, by the way, like he goes

(39:20):
to school and nobody comes to pick him up, so
he walks all the way home and finds them there
and Gladys demonstrates her magic powers for the kid and
gets them to stab themselves repeatedly in the face with forks.
John Moxley calls that an average Wednesday. I'm done with

(39:43):
my wrestling references now.

Speaker 4 (39:44):
I promise that moment that was the moment that freaks
me out the most. I hate to say it, that
was the one that I actually, like, like, just freaked
out so much.

Speaker 5 (39:54):
So she stops them after they've stabbed themselves repeatedly and says,
I can make them do that again, and you just
saw me do it. I can make them hurt themselves.
I can make them hurt each other. I can make
them eat each other if I want, I can make
them hurt you. So you're gonna promise me that you
don't tell anybody I'm here, or bad things will happen,

(40:17):
and I'll know if you break your promise and probably
a lie. But she's magic, so kid's not gonna risk it.
So he goes about life and it's bad. He feeds
his parents soup while they badly. While they sit at
the table, I imagine he has a lot of messages
to clean up. The movie doesn't go there but my mind.

(40:39):
And he then talks with his aunt at one point,
going why are you here? Who are you? And she goes, well,
I'm old and I've been sick for a really long
time consumption reference, remember, And I thought being here with
your parents would help, but maybe not. Maybe I'm just
kind of stuck here. I thought this would work faster,

(41:02):
and he goes, well, if you get better, will you
go away? Because he's a kid, and she goes, boy,
you're stupid. Sure you got any ideas? You got a
lot of classmates, don't you. Maybe them being here would
be really helpful. Bring me something of each of theirs

(41:23):
and we'll just see what happens. So he collects all
of the name tags from their cubbies in his classroom.
Then we get to the night when she summons them
all to the house, she drags them all to the
basement leaves them there. Now, this poor eight year old
is trying to feed gallons of chicken noodle soup to

(41:45):
his parents and all these kids, and he's starting to
come apart of the scenes a little bit. She gladys
starting to get healthier. If you pay attention to those
kinds of things. Her hair starts growing back in oh,
stuff like that. So her draining the life energy of
those around under her life draining spell is working, but

(42:08):
there's some complications. First there's the principle, and then there's
the cop that shows up, and she finally and after
the cop and the junkies show up and she gets
them under her spell, she says to Alex, yeah, pack
your stuff, we're leaving tomorrow. They've been able to hide
this for a while, but things are starting to come apart.

(42:31):
And as he's under this direction, and she also she
sets up some protective barriers and says, don't cross the
salt lines. Do you know anything about magic? You know
that's generally good advice, But she says, don't do that,
just get ready. And then right about then Archer and
Justine arrive and they're like, okay, so the cops here

(42:53):
because the cop cars out front, So what do we do?
Do we go knock? Do we call more cops? What
do we do here? Because they don't know what they're doing?
And right about then the front door opens and the
cop who Justine knows, comes out and creepily waves them in.
Nothing not about that and like, okay, let's go. So

(43:13):
the two of them go inside, and the cop kind
of coaxes Justine to step over the salt line, which
triggers him to attack her and the junkie to attack
Josh Brolin. We get a big fight. Josh Brolin hits
that guy like a whack a mole for fart. I

(43:36):
laughed about the fourth time. I genuinely laughed in the theater.

Speaker 4 (43:41):
Yeah. Yeah, the humor comes in on this movie.

Speaker 5 (43:48):
There is some, for sure. Around the same time, upstairs,
Alex has realized this is not gonna end well because
he's not that stupid, so he steps over the salt
line that gets his parents to it attack him. He
leaves them a slight marry Chase gets back around to
Gladys's spell room where she's doing things, but she's not

(44:09):
there at the moment, grabs her spell materials, gets some
of Gladys's hair, winds it around the stick that is
attached to all the kids. Now around the same time,
uh oh, Justine and Archer fight off those two. They
both get shot. The two zombies get shot in the

(44:30):
head because you have to kill a zombie with a
head shot. So they're down. Archer goes to the basement
where he finds the kids and he gets put under
a spell by her as well. He then starts choking
out Justine with actually a pretty decent, real naked choke
all things considered, It's a palm to palm grip, not
a full figure four. But I only bring that up
because she's in that for a while and would have

(44:53):
ended a lot badly for a lot worse for her,
all things considered. But because Gladys down observing Josh Brolin
strangle the Silver Surfer not Silver Surfer, he Alex is
able to complete this spell breaks the stick. Yeah, you
really do want the hooks in with that much size disparity.

(45:14):
It's not quite as necessary, but you really do. It's
more he's got this grip instead of he brought it up.
They was brought up by one of our viewers.

Speaker 3 (45:23):
That's why we still haven't got to the synopsis.

Speaker 5 (45:29):
Almost done. No, he completes this spell and six all
seventeen of these kids on Gladys. Thus we get the
weirdest iteration of Ferris Bueller's last run to his house,
where they run out windows to chase Gladys. Gladys runs

(45:50):
through a few houses, a few backyards, some guy mowing
his law and watches this old lady run between backyards
and is then followed by a passle of kids screaming,
I don't even know what I do, Like I can't.
This is one of those instances where you kind of
want to be like people react, how are they not reacting?

(46:13):
But the freeze reaction is what most people do in
confronted with something alien to them. Eventually, the kids do
catch up to her, drag her to the ground, and
like a pack of little hyenas, tear her apart, just
in time to prevent serious brain damage from being done
to Justine by Josh Brolin. Josh Brolin then shakes himself

(46:34):
awake make sure she's okay, follows the trail of destruction
freaks out the family as he walks through because nobody
reacts badly to the old woman, but the Josh Brolin
walking through they freak out about.

Speaker 4 (46:46):
Now they're freaking out about all the broken glasses.

Speaker 5 (46:50):
Like these kids, it's like the zombie, like the zombies
from World War Z just bam through anything.

Speaker 4 (46:59):
It's like broat broken windows broken.

Speaker 5 (47:03):
So Justine goes up. She sees that Alex is hugging
his parents and like, okay, we're okay here. Josh Brolin
finds his son, carries him off, and we get the
closing narration from the same creepy kid who's never identified
who does the opening narration says, yeah, it's all the Uh,
all the kids were. Alex's parents are still catatonic, and

(47:29):
someone else feeds them soup now but not him. He's
with I think they said another aunt, a nice one
or yeah, something like that, and all the kids were
reunited with their families. Some of them even started to
talk again this year. I'm that chilling note weapons comes
to a conclusion. So I've talked a lot there. I'm

(47:53):
gonna stop talking for a little bit. Jason, why don't
you kick us.

Speaker 3 (47:55):
Off after fifty three? Let's go.

Speaker 5 (48:01):
So I started at twelve minutes, so thirty five minutes,
thank you very much.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
Way too long. But this movie is early creepy, and
the creepiest part is the ending and it says some
of the kids, uh, and the kids never came back.
That is the most chilling part of this. It's because
physically the children were there. Mentally they're they're God, They're

(48:28):
they're never going to be the same. Also, you missed
a very big thing. She brings a tree that she
gets the magical tree. She brings it in and you
see her carrying it in at the beginning, and that's
where she gets these the bonds branches that she bonds

(48:48):
things together, which is a subtle thing that you kind
of it's kind of a blinking you miss it, but
you know because you can't wondering why she she keeps
bringing the where she keeps getting these twigs from these
bonding bonding branches and everything. But it's actually a tree
that she brought in from the house that she is,

(49:09):
you know, some kind of magical tree that gives her
the power of gray Skull or something or longer.

Speaker 5 (49:16):
If you if you buy into that level of like witchcraft,
you need specific wood that it is meant to carry
more specific properties. So whatever she's got there is a
specific kind of You can't use balsa wood from the
hard store for this from the hardware store.

Speaker 3 (49:30):
Right, you can't. You can't go down. You can't go down,
go down to Daniel, Daniel's son's smiles and get a
bond by a tree. Yeah, but this movie is it's
creepy on so many levels. One is the levels of
the kids just being catatonic and going through this, and

(49:54):
it's It's something that I posed while we was watching
the movie. I said, how are you going to explain
a circle of kids covered in blood who dismembered an
old lady on some ice front lawn, Because that in
itself is something that you want to have to explain.

(50:14):
I mean, there's these kids disappeared, They've been gone a month,
and all of a sudden they reappear and they have
this dis about and totally annihilated an old lady on
some ice front lawn that nobody knew existed. Because the
only person that even knew of this lady was the
secretary at the school and the principal. That's all the

(50:38):
cops knew.

Speaker 5 (50:39):
She was there for the questioning of this is why
we actually do see her very early because when they
do the scene with Alex being questioned by the cops,
when they put the coke in front of him, we
assume it's his mom and dad that are with him.
His dad is there. That's not his mom, that's Gladys.

Speaker 3 (51:00):
I never noticed that. I didn't understand. So yeah, I mean,
and these kids are cataconic, and it says that some
of them even are speaking this year, and you just
and it ties into the name of the movie weapons
because these children are basically she She was creating weapons

(51:23):
to take out people that basically opposed her and threatened her.
Her little Ponzi scheme of sucking life works out everybody,
and then the children was weaponized against her. And it's
it's something that I read a line. It really really
intrigued me because a lot of a lot of times
you see movies that the title goes into and plays

(51:47):
into the movie itself, and then but when you step
back and you just initially think of it, you're like,
how does this turn in? And then you start thinking
that she was weaponizing people to do her bidding and
make sure that her spell succeeded, and that is really
fun and interesting and creepy and kids are creepy. And

(52:10):
the fact that you know we had we had the
trains of the san uh look from the principal as
he ran dout as he attacked testing. Yeah. See, I'll
pull I'll pull a deep cut every now and then,
like last week, last week with basket Case. But yeah,

(52:32):
I mean this movie is It's an intellectual word movie
in my opinion, because you have to peel back the
layers sometimes, uh, and initially you don't see the whole picture.
But when you start sitting down to think of it,
you start seeing the layers peel back and start understanding
it more, which is phenomenal.

Speaker 5 (52:55):
All right, alexis it is?

Speaker 4 (52:59):
I I agree with Jason about the idea of why
it's called weapons, because watching I was like, I remember
seeing the trailer and thinking, well, why is it called weapons?
And you realize it's because Gladys is making the people
around her into weapons and it's so okay. Yes, yes,

(53:20):
our viewer here says, do I need to see it
in a cinema? Yes, you do, very do not wait
for this to come out on streaming, go see it
in a theater.

Speaker 5 (53:29):
Not so much. For the visuals. There's a few nice
things there, but there's a lot of stuff done with
the sound in this movie that really benefits from the
surround sound theatrical experience.

Speaker 4 (53:41):
Not to mention, and we're going to talk more about
this later on in the show, but this is a
movie that we need to see in cinemas because we
need to make sure Hollywood knows these are the kind
of movies we want to see on the big screen.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
You know.

Speaker 4 (53:57):
Yeah, It's like Jay Shearon once said, if the movie stinks,
just don't go. The opposite is true. If the movie's excellent,
go that's what we yep, gotta send that message to Hollywood.
One of the things I found fascinating about this film
is the way it starts a month after this has happened.
So many films that would try to do something like this,

(54:18):
we'd spend a lot of time getting to know Justine,
an Archer and Alex and maybe the junkie and the
cop and the principle. This one's roses into the thick
of it, and yet the character development is so natural
it's really good. Nothing feels forced. You learn about Justine
that she is a recovering alcoholic, who has pretty much

(54:39):
fallen off the wagon.

Speaker 5 (54:41):
You learn that she has a problem with alcohol, whether
or not she's ever actually addressed it remains.

Speaker 3 (54:47):
Alcoholics go to Meetia's drunks do not.

Speaker 5 (54:51):
Yeah, the fact that the first thing she does after
that meeting we see her in as go to the
liquor store and by two one I would have been like,
you know, maybe two.

Speaker 4 (55:05):
You got Yeah, and it's just straight vodka. It's not
even like I mean, I would have always.

Speaker 5 (55:11):
Bought to cut it with water. It's not even a mix.

Speaker 3 (55:18):
Yeah, it's owner.

Speaker 4 (55:23):
But and then yeah, we have a scene that we're
sitting in the car just adding it to a drink
cup from a fast food place.

Speaker 5 (55:33):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (55:34):
The scares in this were fantastic.

Speaker 5 (55:37):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (55:38):
There we talked in together about scenes whether or not
that actually you know, legit freaked us out or jump
scared us or anything like that. And I know we've
talked about, you know, the overuse of jump scares and
how so many directors use it as a crutch and
don't actually put any work in. It was just like, no,
that's just something to get the audience as adrenaline going.
But a jump scare, when utilized well is still a

(56:00):
very effective tool for a good horror movie. This has
some really good jump scares. So many scenes legit had
me freaking out. The scenes with the principal attacking, the
way his eyes are bugging out of his head.

Speaker 5 (56:18):
Yeah, he's got the bulls going there.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
The first time I saw him with the eyes bulged
when he's attacking Justine an archer before you find out
that his face is all bloody because he just headbutted
his husband to death. I thought he had like scratched
his face and scratched his eyelids off. I was like,
there is no way his eyes should be that huge
and that coming out of his skull. It is terrifying.

(56:43):
The scene of Gladys making the parents stabbed themselves in
the face with the fork, I'm not kidding, Like, oh
my god. My husband said, looked at me and said,
you just squeaked. I'm like, yeah, I didn't squeak. I
squeaked because I got really scared by that. And you
get really caught up in these people's stories. You find

(57:05):
yourself worried for what's gonna happen you. You know, when
you see Gladys torturing the parents and you see Alex
crying and how terrified he is of what's gonna happen
to this. First, you feel for them, You want them
to get through this. This isn't a horror movie where
it's like, Okay, where's the cannon fodd or where's the
Red Shirts. Let's go have some fun killing everyone, you know,

(57:27):
I mean, how many movies have we watched where it's like, oh,
I can't wait for that person to die. There is
no one in this aside from Gladys of course, there's
no one in this movie that you're just like, they're
gonna die and it's gonna be funny. You know, you
really care about all these characters. Josh Brolin, you were kidding.
I've often joked he's one of those actors it just

(57:48):
you add him and he just makes everything better. And
he is so so good in this. Again, he could
in the wrong hands, he could have come across as
just crazy, annoying, but you feel his pain. His son
is missing and he is he's looking for something anything.

Speaker 5 (58:07):
Not to lean into the meme. But because this is
not a meme, this is apparently legitimate. Originally that role
was going to be Pedro Pascal before scheduling conflict with Yeah.

Speaker 6 (58:22):
I.

Speaker 4 (58:23):
Think Pascal would have been good in this role as well,
but was phenomenal.

Speaker 3 (58:30):
I would have been cheering for him to die.

Speaker 5 (58:35):
I look, I'm not a big fan of Pedro Pascal.
That doesn't mean there's nothing he can do well. I
don't think this role would have suited him at all.
I think there's something about the way he acts that
this would have come off wrong, not sympathetic. Brolin is

(58:55):
able to inject a tremendous amount of humanity to this
character that could be put it this way. I think
if Pascal had been in charge of this character, it
would have come across a lot more like textbook toxic masculinity,
because that's the thing he likes to do with this
kind of thing. And I think Brolin intelligently between him

(59:20):
and the director, like, no, that doesn't mean the guy's
a superhero. He's clearly flawed, but that doesn't mean he's
just his flaws. And Brolan gets at the heart of
this guy very, very well. The scene it's in his
dream when he's talking to his kid and he can't
quite bring himself to say I love you, is genuinely

(59:42):
a little bit heartbreaking, like he loves his son. He
feels it, but verbalizing it can be hard.

Speaker 4 (59:49):
And you repeatedly hear him say to Matthew at the
end when he rescues him, well rescues him, he finds him,
he says, I failed you. You get the idea that
he has done a lot of reflecting on his parenting
style and realized he probably has made more than a
few mistakes. He also gives the absolute greatest w TF

(01:00:13):
read when he wakes up from that dream, just that
the way he's slaying, the screams, it.

Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
Was just sow and and the fact that you see
you see, you see Gladys in his dream because she
is the two girls over in the bed when when he's, uh,
he's dreaming and he thinks it's the side of stuff
and he said, and the blankets over and then it
reveals that it's actually Gladys rolling over in the bed

(01:00:42):
to look at him. And that was something that I
picked up on that was really creepy. And because she's
she's almost like a disfigured clown because of her makeup
and stuff, and it's it's really the disturbing and.

Speaker 5 (01:01:02):
She's got like old world Hollywood. Whatever happened to Baby
Jane make up.

Speaker 3 (01:01:07):
That I'm trying to remember it. What's the It's a
Disney movie about witches. They just remade it not long ago,
and the remake totally sucked, but the original was really good.
Was it the witches that they're like doll film? No,

(01:01:28):
I don't think it's I'm no, It's like it was
like they're in a ball and there's a mouse. I
can't think it might be the witches. I'm not really
at the end. Yeah, and the the one the one
lady in the Red of that movie really remind me

(01:01:50):
of Gladys And it really was. Really it was a
deep callback because that's where a lot of this stuff
was pulled from, was the early Hollywood interpretation of which
is and how they would be disfigured and haggard and everything.

Speaker 4 (01:02:08):
There's also, I feel a comparison to be made about
dealing with tragedy in a way you could very much
so compare this to how a community reacts to school
shootings and the loss of children.

Speaker 5 (01:02:26):
A lot people, a lot of people have brought that up.
Somebody brought it up to Gregor, believe it or not,
and he flatly rejected that interpretation.

Speaker 3 (01:02:37):
Yeah, there's no reasons, there's no reason trying to push
a political agenda in there. Well, hang on, they has
nothing to do with school shooting. And anybody that thinks that, oh,
I'm not talking.

Speaker 4 (01:02:48):
About I'm not talking about political about defend about you
know how we end. I'm not talking about gun control.
I'm talking about trauma and how a community reacts, especially
the fact that by killing Gladys not everything goes back
to the way it was. They don't explain it, but
I'm going to assume the longer you're under her spell,

(01:03:09):
the harder it is to get back to normal. This
is why Archer is only under it for maybe five
minutes and he comes out going like, oh, okay, fine,
I'm gonna go look for my son. But the kids
have trouble recovering, and Alex's parents are now institutionalized. They've
been they've been under this spell for a month, but.

Speaker 3 (01:03:28):
The community didn't rally around them. That's the thing. They
did a memorial out front and the thing before the
night of the school is just the parents of the
kids that are missing. It wasn't the whole school. It
was just the parents of the kids missing.

Speaker 5 (01:03:40):
No, that was the whole class.

Speaker 3 (01:03:42):
It wasn't just no no. It states that it was
just the parents for the missing kids.

Speaker 5 (01:03:48):
I guess in the movie. Okay, I may be misremembering.

Speaker 4 (01:03:52):
Again, that's just sort of the way I see a
little bit of the interpretation. You don't have to say
it's about the necessity of gun control or anything like that,
but I do see a parallel because again, you would.
It's the idea that even if you solve the problem,
it's not going to automatically fix everything. The kids do

(01:04:13):
not just suddenly wake up. It's like, oh, daddy, I
had the most terrible dream and the parent Alex's parents
are like, said, they're freaking institutionalized, you know, they they've
gone the way of Nevill Longbonham's parents, and knew you.

Speaker 5 (01:04:26):
Were that I had somewhere. Man was like, oh, yeah, yeah,
that's where she's going. Because you're a Harry Potter fan, so.

Speaker 4 (01:04:34):
Well, I was, well, yeah, I was like the waiting
to get the Superman review from making the Best of Times.
It was the blurst of times, A cute yeah you
saw me a bed reactor was like, yes, do it.
But but that's just the way I kind of see

(01:04:54):
it that there is something to be read into that,
whether or not Craiger intended that. I you guys know me.
I am a big fan of art that can be
taken in many different ways. I like the idea of
looking at something, be it a movie, a painting, a poem,
a book, and there's a lot of layers to it
that you could peel back and one person could see

(01:05:16):
one thing and another person could see total something totally different.
If you don't see that in this movie, that's fine.
It's not like it's like you don't get it, you idiot.
That's just how someone may compare it. And you know, again,
this is a legitimately scary movie. There were so many
moments that freaked me out. There were so many moments

(01:05:37):
that I remember thinking, how are they gonna get out
of this? How is this going to resolve? I was
worried for Alex, I was worried for his parents.

Speaker 3 (01:05:46):
I just hoped everybody died, because that would have been
the best outcome of ever. I wish it would have
had an ending. I wish it would have had an
ending on the level of a miss where where you
have that tragic but did it so awesome because you
realize he had to kill his family and everybody else
lived if he would have just waited five minutes.

Speaker 5 (01:06:09):
Yeah, there's an argument about that, but.

Speaker 3 (01:06:14):
Uh, but there's sort of.

Speaker 5 (01:06:20):
It's about the way it's presented, Like there's a slight
because of the way the ending of The Myst is
presented in film form. There's a way you can read
that sort of that is, Yeah, when you sacrificed the
kid like the crazy religious lady wanted you to, the
Myst went away. Just a thought.

Speaker 3 (01:06:41):
It's we all know The Myst was a prequel to
The Walking Dead. Anybody who gets that reference, You're welcome.

Speaker 5 (01:06:48):
Fair enough.

Speaker 4 (01:06:50):
Frank Daraban says the checks on the mail, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:06:55):
Him and Paul Hayman. Anyway, anything else, alexis Well.

Speaker 4 (01:07:01):
Again, we're going to talk more about horror movies in
twenty twenty five in general here and a little bit,
so I don't want to, you know, lead into that
too much, but seriously, guys, we had one of our
viewers ask if this was something that you should see
in a cinema. Yes, yes, a hundred times. Yes, this
is one of those movies you really really need to

(01:07:24):
go see in the theater. Do not wait for it
on streaming.

Speaker 5 (01:07:27):
If you're going to see it a second time, make
sure you see it with a bunch of other people.
And at about the halfway mark, get up and run
out with your arm straight at your side and just
watch what happened.

Speaker 3 (01:07:37):
Yeah, yeah, that's well, there is that actually get happened?
That happened in it, Like some major theater. A bunch
of friends, A bunch of friends went to a sold
out show, and they all say in different areas of
the theater, and about about halfway through when when one
of the bell when she rang the bell, when the

(01:07:59):
principal when they when they are they all got up
and did that and ran out of the theater. And
like they said, they said, people were in there complaining
to the mangers, like what happened and stuff one of
the refunds because they found that it was really affeking
people in the theater. Yeah, it was a pretty good break.

Speaker 4 (01:08:18):
Managers in there probably going well. At least they're not
bringing chickens into the theater like they did for Minecraft.

Speaker 5 (01:08:24):
That's the truth. I really enjoyed this movie. If that
wasn't already, this is really well done on pretty much
every level. And there's a few things going on here
that I'd like to point out. We already praised Josh Brolin,

(01:08:44):
who makes everything better. I'm gonna give some praise to
Julia Gardner, who I've kind of been down on as
a general rule, but she's good here. She goes through
a lot of stuff. She starts off as this kind
of like mousey victim, becomes an encourageable drunk, and then
finds her inner courage by the end of it. It's

(01:09:05):
a really nice arc and she does it really well
at every step.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
And she plays that beaten down, distraught and female wonderfully.
I mean, and the range that she actually got the
show and this was very applaudable.

Speaker 5 (01:09:24):
I'm Benedict Wong gets to be scary and that's a
new thing for him and he's really good at it.
So thumbs up there. I don't do this very often
because rarely is it all that relevant. But the child
actor who plays Alex is really good. Yeah, it's so

(01:09:46):
hard to be a sympathetic child actor. If we have
to spend time with you, we have to spend time
with Alex, and he does a great job with this character,
so to him.

Speaker 4 (01:10:01):
Yeah, trauma is not the easiest thing for anyone to act,
and especially younger kids. I mean especially because when we
try to act trauma, we try to think back on,
you know, what has traumatized us. Hopefully little kids don't
have something like that to draw back on. But yeah, again,
the scenes of him yelling a Gladys to get him,

(01:10:25):
just to get her to stop having his parents hurt, him,
trying to bargain with her, it's it's like, if I
help you, you'll leave, right.

Speaker 5 (01:10:32):
This poor little eight year old or whatever, trying to
make a deal with the devil. It's he figures it
out eventually, but man to that end. The actress who
plays Gladys is suitably creepy, not just in the like

(01:10:54):
pantomime horror villain creepy, but when she's scarier. When she's
not doing that, she's just being human and a domineering, manipulative,
malevolent force. It's creepy, and kudos to her for it.
She does a really good job.

Speaker 4 (01:11:15):
Apparently the actress have played Gladys Amy Madigan. She has
been a major actor for years. She's gotten nominations for
Oscars and Emmy. She's got a Golden Globe. Ward married
been married to Ed Harrison's nineteen eighty three. She was
in eight ton a ton of movies in the eighties,

(01:11:38):
anim Obey, No Where to Hide, Uncle Buck, Field of
Dreams with friends like these Gone Baby, She's yeah, she's
done a lot of suff.

Speaker 5 (01:11:48):
Is the mom and wife in Field of Dreams? Now
that I think about it, her face, I can see
it her face?

Speaker 4 (01:11:55):
Yeah, any kinsella? Any kinsella? Is that the character's name
and Field of Dreams?

Speaker 5 (01:12:02):
Kevin Costner's wife, Yeah, his character's wife.

Speaker 4 (01:12:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
No.

Speaker 4 (01:12:07):
She has been in so so much stuff and she
still looks relatively good. So that credits to the makeup
for quoting her up the way they did.

Speaker 5 (01:12:18):
They age her up a lot to begin with, and
then slowly draw it back. They do a really good
job there. The gore in this movie is good. It's
spaced out so it actually has impact when it hits,
so thumbs up for that understanding restraint and where something
needs to be applied for a maximum effect. The writing

(01:12:39):
of this is very reminiscent of certain Stephen King books
in a couple of ways. One strong characterization, because that's
really what Stephen King does best, is believable understandable characters
and the verisimilitude of the world. This one has very
strong characters, so that and if you've read certain King novels,

(01:13:04):
he will do this thing where he gives you this
like bigger picture of everything that's going on. There's big
sections of it where he just talks about the town
and the history and what's going on. The entire opening
bit of the Stand is basically one of these, because
it's like the end of the world and then the
immediate aftermath of the end of the world, so he

(01:13:25):
gives you this big, broad look. So taking this sort
of like hodge podge stitched together story does give me
very King vibes. Plus, this is a very Stephen King
kind of horror story. There's how did I hear this phrase?
I forget who said it. But if you look at

(01:13:47):
some of the film editing, especially earlier in this one,
there's a punchiness to the editing that's reminiscent of Scorsese.
A lot of the cinematography is reminiscent of Spielberg. The
Craiger doesn't quite have Spilburg's flair with camera motion, but
you know who does.

Speaker 4 (01:14:04):
There are some really good blocking and editing, especially the
scene in particular with the cop chasing after the junkie,
was done really well.

Speaker 5 (01:14:15):
As far as again potential interpretations of this Kraiger's intent,
and again, you how much you choose to care for
the authorial intent, I will leave up to you. He
viewed this as his like unpacking and treatise on alcoholism,
Gladys is kind of the stand in for what it does.

(01:14:36):
It sucks the life out of you, It damages you,
it it parentifies the kid to take care of his parents.
And again that theme is also there with some of
the other characters in Justine's alcoholism, the cop trying to
get into recovery and falling off the wagon, Like there's

(01:14:57):
you see it throughout because that's kind of what he
he's looking at, that's his intent when he's unpacking it. Again,
how much you choose that, I leave up to you
as an individual. I did find it amusing that a
lot of the non American reviewers did kind of but
it kind of went to the school shooting thing right away, Like,

(01:15:19):
come on, guys, just because it is it features horror
in a school. That's not the only thing that goes on,
That's not the only horrible thing that goes on in schools. Frankly,
depending on where you are, just existing in a high
school is more than enough. Oh yeah, for true.

Speaker 4 (01:15:37):
There was also a lot of leaning into the idea
of parasites, which I thought was really cleversome symbolism. We
see that Justine's class is studying parasites. I'm assuming they're
just studying like biological relationships, like a symbiosis and stuff,
because I remember.

Speaker 5 (01:15:54):
Saying that way, there's symbiotic, parasitic, and I can never
remember the third, which is beneficial to one but not
harmful to the there mm hm.

Speaker 4 (01:16:01):
And you see Marcus, the principal and his husband are
watching a documentary on how the pronounced cordyceps.

Speaker 5 (01:16:09):
I think it is. It's the it's the it's somewhat famous.
It's the parasite that takes over ants, gets them to
climb to the top of a tree, where they die
then a bird, or where they hang out until a
bird eats them. Because the next part of the life
cycle of this creature is triggered by being like being
excreted through birds.

Speaker 3 (01:16:30):
So what you're saying is this is the tree an
will to last of us.

Speaker 4 (01:16:36):
Most of Us could be yes, and is the fungus
in the Last of Us. It's just it's just finally
developed that it can take over humans.

Speaker 5 (01:16:45):
And there's another reason blad Pedro Pascal wasn't in it.
I didn't need that comparison being made, even as a joke.

Speaker 4 (01:16:53):
Very true.

Speaker 5 (01:16:54):
So this is one of my favorite movies all year.
It's incredibly well written. You might I saw the run
time and I was a little bit leery because two
hours is a feels like a bit of a stretch
for this. In execution, it doesn't really feel like a
two hour movie. It mostly nails that, So thumbs up there. Yeah,

(01:17:16):
this is absolutely going to be in my top ten
by the time it's all said and done. How close
to the top Well, we'll wait and see what else
comes out between now and then, but.

Speaker 4 (01:17:25):
Say, right now, this is in my top five if
it gets knocked out of that and into six to ten,
because I have no doubt that this is going to
be in my top ten. If it doesn't stay in
the top five by the end of the year, I
will be surprised. And also really though we're getting that
many good movies, But seriously, this is such a good film.
I love you.

Speaker 3 (01:17:44):
Yeah, I mean it's easily top top ten for me.
I mean, I really there's not a lot of movies
I'm looking forward to that will bump this anywhere out
of my tops in there's some movies I'm looking forward to,
but I don't think that any of thems will be
able to I don't think enough of thems will be

(01:18:07):
enjoyable for this to bump out of my top tien.

Speaker 5 (01:18:10):
This is, frankly, I think, probably my top three at
the moment. But my status on this is I don't
order them until I get, like near the end when
I have to order them on my list. Yeah, this
is on my list. So where it winds up remains
to be seen, but probably quite high. And I think

(01:18:32):
that's all of our craft review. So we're going to
talk briefly about the money, mostly so we can use
the jingle and segue into it. Then the bulk of
our discussion over there is actually going to be on
a slightly different topic. So let's get to the money
real quick, so we can talk about what Horror has
been doing for the studio and theatrical process all year. Okay,

(01:19:04):
Weapons was the number one movie of the weekend to
believe it or not, beating out Freaky or Friday, which
was its debut competition and shoving Fantastic four first steps
down to third. It debuted with forty two million, give
or take, which is a really strong opening for especially

(01:19:25):
for an indie horror film.

Speaker 4 (01:19:28):
It's got a budget of thirty eight million, currently sitting
at a box office of eighty one point three million by.

Speaker 5 (01:19:35):
The time we've gotten to where we are now. So again,
the forty on was domestic worldwide. Yeah, it's for the budget.
This is definitely a hit already. H and yeah, I'm
very happy about that, and to that end that that's
kind of where we're going to leave that worldwide. Nothing's
really changed. Listen to the money segment from last from

(01:19:58):
Yesterday when Mark and I go into it, because we
talk about that a little bit after.

Speaker 4 (01:20:03):
You listen to them suffer through talking about War of
the World.

Speaker 5 (01:20:09):
Yeah, it's bad, don't watch it anyway.

Speaker 4 (01:20:16):
Sorry, it's just so rarely I get to hear you
with that level of just despondence in your voice. It's
just every now and then it's like you're like, yeah,
it's like kind of annoyed, but notes like no, that
was shoot me level of hatred.

Speaker 5 (01:20:33):
Just rat movie damaged me almost as much as the
Cheaper by the Dozen remake.

Speaker 4 (01:20:43):
Better or worse than Snow White.

Speaker 5 (01:20:48):
Technically, I think worse, but I'm not sure, just.

Speaker 4 (01:20:52):
Asking because when Marc has you do you do the
worst of twenty twenty five, that question is gonna come up.

Speaker 5 (01:20:58):
It's a two horse between those two, and we're going
to see when I get to it.

Speaker 3 (01:21:04):
Again.

Speaker 5 (01:21:04):
Famously, the Cheaper by the Dozen remake was so like
damaging to my artistic and creative side that in order
to reconnect with what was real, I watched World War
two documentaries for a few hours to just feel like
a human again and reconnect with all that anyway, So
instead we figured for instead of talking about the money again,

(01:21:27):
the horror movie scene has been kind of a boon
to most of the theatrical most of the major studios.
This year. We've had two major horror releases that opened
very very strongly north of forty million this in centers.
We've had a few other horror releases that have been
good little money makers. Look, the secret, the dirty secret

(01:21:49):
of Hollywood is that it's horror is the fuel that
turns that machinery, and that's become a bit of a
point of it's been brought to the four this last
little bit this year when all the major movies have
been underperforming. And I'm not here to relitigate Superman or

(01:22:11):
Fantastic Four or any of those, because Mark and I
did that. Suffice to say underperforming. And please let's not
argue about that anymore. If you want to hear Mark
and I yell at all of you people for being
stupid about this, listen to yesterday's podcast. We devote a
chunk of time to that because Mark said it on TikTok,

(01:22:32):
because it's true, and he got a lot of pushback, like, No,
Superman's doing fine, Like, guys, you enjoyed it fair enough,
what are you to enjoy Oh, but they're already green
la a sequel. No one's saying they're gonna about face yesterday.
We're saying it's underperforming. It's not gonna hit seven hundred

(01:22:53):
million worldwide. That's an underperformance for it over I deserve
that fair enough. But a lot of the horror movies
have actually been overperforming, and we'd gotta kick that around
a little bit. So to the tune of overperforming horror movies.

(01:23:15):
We've had Sinners, which surprisingly which had surprisingly amount of
a surprising amount of legs like that stuck around for
a while. Twenty eight years later, definitely did a solid
enough job, especially because they shot that and its sequel
back to back and that's coming out next year. Together

(01:23:36):
was doing okay and definitely got some critical acclaim And
I mean you had a whole list, Alexis so chime in.

Speaker 4 (01:23:44):
Yeah this year alone. Okay, so Sinners twenty eight years later,
Final Destinations, Bloodlines, Bloodlines. I was just trying to remember
what number it was. I think it is technically six.

Speaker 5 (01:23:58):
Probably five, and that was the loop.

Speaker 4 (01:24:02):
Yeah Together. I know, Companion technically was listed under the
horror genre, even though I think we agreed that it's
not really horror.

Speaker 5 (01:24:12):
It's not at all messy horror, but it I think
it does fall into the horror category.

Speaker 4 (01:24:19):
Yeah, it's more suspense than anything that, but technically suspense
is a subcategory of horror, so we'll let it slide.

Speaker 5 (01:24:26):
And even leaning either way on that one, but.

Speaker 4 (01:24:29):
And even leaning into that. From twenty twenty four we
had no s Feratu and the substance. We have seen
a massive wave of horror, and yeah, we listed off
a couple of them were sequels. But more to the point,
we have seen a massive wave of original good horror.

(01:24:50):
We have seen original stories, not just milking franchises, not
just Terrifier four, which I mentioned in the group. Chatt
has been great, Lynn. It's gonna start filming before too
long for them.

Speaker 5 (01:25:04):
I'm glad people who enjoy those kind of movies have
that franchise because they're underserved everywhere else.

Speaker 4 (01:25:11):
You know what. David Thornton is a frequent guest at
the cons that I work. The dude is amazing. He
loves his fans, He is super friendly, he loves talking
to everyone. He is a great guy, so, you know what,
I'm happy to see him getting success with this new franchise.

(01:25:32):
And whether or not you can stand the amount of
gore in the Terrifire films, I know a lot of
people can't, and if you can't, that's fine, But I
would argue that Art the Clown is a welcome addition
to the new age horror icons right up there with
like ghost Face and Jigsaw.

Speaker 5 (01:25:51):
We haven't had a new one in quite a while.
I'm happy to welcome Art into that particular club for
whatever it's worth. But you know, this goes back a
few more years, but ironically enough, Terrifier three was a
pretty significant success financially well.

Speaker 4 (01:26:08):
Part of the other reason why we're seeing such a
wave of this is that horror movies, for the most part,
are genuinely very cheap to make. This is why we
see so many of them turn into franchises and to
a lesser extent, why we see so many of them
become franchises that you see into the dollar bins at Walmart.
The studio risks very little in making these, and we

(01:26:30):
have seen a lot of these coming out that, yeah,
are dirt cheap to make and are bringing in tons
of money for these studios. People said, for the longest
time that we've been discussing on the show for you know,
I don't know how long, speaking of the dead horse,
that studios are suffered. The theater, the movie theater industry is suffering,

(01:26:53):
and you can argue till the cows come home that
it's that we never really got things back up after COVID, which, yeah,
was definitely an issue, but for the most part, people
just stopped going to the theaters, and you can say
it was. Part of that was COVID. Part of that
was the streaming wars. I mean, you have no idea
how many times I see a movie and I go

(01:27:15):
to my husband and I say, hey, let's go see this,
and unless it's something that he's really interested in, he'll say, oh,
witchel streaming. And that has become the attitude of so
many people. But horror films like this are getting people
to go back to the theaters. They're getting stupid, they're
getting the movie theater's business. For the longest time, we
thought it was gonna be big successes like Superman and

(01:27:38):
Fantastic for Her and The Thunderbolts and all these other
big superhero films that were going to pull people back
in and get them back in their seats. And no,
it's horror movies. I genuinely believe that horror movies are
going to be the saving grace of the movie theater industry.

Speaker 3 (01:27:57):
Well, I mean, out for as many answers you had,
you had misses, big budget horror movies, miss like Megan
two point zero that dragstically shifted, but.

Speaker 4 (01:28:10):
It wasn't technically horror.

Speaker 3 (01:28:13):
It was labeled as a horror movie.

Speaker 5 (01:28:16):
It was sold as one. Whether that whether we would
categorize it as such a fact, it was sold as.

Speaker 3 (01:28:20):
One, right, just because they shift their tone. It was.
It was shocked as a horror movie. It was promoted
as a horror movie. You know. Drop Drop had a
great premise, a poor execution that fell flat out of space.
And I thought the premise of Drop was a was
amazing until I watched it.

Speaker 5 (01:28:41):
Here's the problem with Drop in a Okay, so Jass,
I'm gonna mispronounce your name, buddy, and I apologize for that.
Jess says that, to be honest, I think superhero movies
are kind of lame. I think we're kind of getting
there culturally, is I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:28:59):
Think because it's over saturated. You know. How about you?

Speaker 4 (01:29:08):
Oh Jason, I don't know what happened.

Speaker 5 (01:29:12):
Okay, your camera's gone, but we can still hear.

Speaker 4 (01:29:14):
He's been reclaimed by the reclaimed by the void.

Speaker 3 (01:29:21):
But yeah, I mean uh this, Yeah, she she did
have me under her spell for too long. But it's
one of those things that superhero movies. You've ran its court.
It's right, it squirts you and studios are trying to
grasp onto.

Speaker 5 (01:29:43):
Yah.

Speaker 3 (01:29:44):
Lesser known characters to build franchises. They kind of Marvel
kind of shot. Its slowed, you know, putting everybody in
the first couple of things with Avengers, you don't have
anything to go on. So now you're trying to build
franchises with like string t and iron Heart, which we

(01:30:05):
don't get me started there, and you're trying to build
off these basically D list characters and trying to build
franchise around it, and it's nothing what happened. So that's
where the lame I can I can understand where the
lameness comes from is because you don't have timp pole
characters to build onto.

Speaker 5 (01:30:25):
Yeah, it's real. Briefly, because I had a thing on Drop.
Drop would be either a really good shorter thriller novel
or a good short film. It's not a feature length film.

Speaker 3 (01:30:37):
Idea if they could have, if they could have pulled
it off well, but the payoff was was very lame.
You the set up, the payoff, everything was very lame.
And if you would have had it as a more

(01:30:57):
a threatening antagonist, that movie could be great. But when
when you get you get the build, it's like you
get the build and then you see how it plays out.
You're like Oh yeah, this guy, it's like you barely

(01:31:19):
You're trying to play a whodunny, You're trying to play
and it's just it's just so tired and it needs
to have that that payoff.

Speaker 5 (01:31:29):
My thought on that is it's basically a slightly reworked
Red Eye. And if Wes Craven Killian Murphy and like Rachel,
was that Rachel McAdams or was that keep bucking sale? Yeah,
if Wes Craven Killian Murphy and Rachel McAdams can't really
make that thing work, I just think that dog doesn't hunt.

Speaker 3 (01:31:50):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:31:52):
So my take on this is kind of as follows.
Josh Brolin had a bit of a SoundBite doing some
press ahead of this at He liked a lot of
what the horror movies are offering these days is stuff
that you can't get. It's not streaming slop. Now, Josh

(01:32:13):
Brolin is not above a paycheck for the record, nor
do I blame him, mind you, But the point being
raised there is there is a tone, a tenor, and
a feel to the generic stuff that Netflix, Amazon Prime.
There was a whole segment last night on Damn You

(01:32:34):
Hollywood where Mark and I went boy, these Amazon Prime
movies kind of suck, and Mark was like, at what
point did that start to hurt Amazon Prime? And I laughed,
you can't hurt Amazon Mark, you can't. It's not possible.
Doesn't matter how many bad movies they put out. They
could put out the worst things in the world, and

(01:32:54):
they could. They could green light five room sequels all
done by Tommy was so and they're still not going
to get hurt. It's not possible.

Speaker 3 (01:33:03):
Anyway, don't give him any ideas.

Speaker 5 (01:33:07):
Again, it's not possible. But a lot of these horror
movies there's a couple of things going for them. One,
as you mentioned, the budgets are usually a bit on
the smaller side. Two, there's an artistic freedom that the
horror genre allows, where in the past a lot of

(01:33:28):
the people trying to explore these ideas might have gone
the mid budget drama range, they might have gone a
few different other places. And because those kinds of movies
aren't being greenlit by studios for theatrical release for any
number of reasons, you twist it. You turn it into
a horror movie, and you can then not only get

(01:33:49):
it made, you can use horror to say something kind
of interesting. Some of the best art in the cinema,
in all of cinema, has come from the horror genre.
Not all of it, but some of it. You can't
look at stuff like The Exorcist or Silence of the
Lambs and tell me otherwise, I get out. The Substance

(01:34:13):
was nominated for Best at Picture last year, probably should
have won, but we won't talk about that.

Speaker 4 (01:34:19):
I'll say how many times have we said to me
Moore was robbed?

Speaker 5 (01:34:22):
She absolutely should have won Best Actress for that. But
conclave anyway, the conclave effect is how I should phrase that.
But the horizonta gives you all that space. And third, yeah,
a good inventive horror movie is not the kind of
thing you will find on browsing through the endless shelves

(01:34:46):
of Netflix or Amazon or Peacock or whatever. So there's
a little bit of novelty. There's talented filmmakers with something
to say and their studio willingness to kind of get
behind them for low risk, high reward reasons. It's kind

(01:35:06):
of a perfect storm, especially when a bunch of studios
are throwing the gross domestic product of the Central American
country at some of these things, and when they get
not that in result, it's causing you know, friction and panic.

Speaker 3 (01:35:24):
So yeah, I'm going to pose a question, do you
think we ever get a really big budget Marble ass
horror movie.

Speaker 5 (01:35:35):
I don't think Marvel has the creative stones to do it.

Speaker 3 (01:35:39):
No, I mean.

Speaker 4 (01:35:42):
Mutants, and we all know how that worked out.

Speaker 3 (01:35:46):
I'm just saying that somebody that's going to shell out
Marble level movie mar money to make a big budget
horror movie.

Speaker 4 (01:35:57):
Yeah, they tried that, and it's called The Nightmare on
Elm Street. Remain I refer you to my previous.

Speaker 3 (01:36:03):
Yeah, but he didn't have a massive budget in it.

Speaker 5 (01:36:09):
I hang on, Okay, hang up, look that up. Well,
I say, I wish someone would because for a long
time Guillermo del Toro has been trying to get an
at the Mountains of Madness adaptation going Please God. But

(01:36:31):
he said I'd need about one hundred million dollar budget. Now,
this was years ago. It might be different now because
of inflation. But even at James Cameron like willing to
kind of help produce that, and everybody said, no, we
can't do one hundred million dollar R rated horror movie,
even if you get Tom Cruise to star in it,

(01:36:53):
and I can't tell you how pissed off I am,
as a fan of both Del Toro and HP Lovecraft
that that thing died on the vine. I'm still pissy
about it.

Speaker 3 (01:37:03):
The only big budget I could think of is a
Tom Cruise failed Mummy remake, and I think that that
was just that failed because it just the movie sucked
and Universal was just trying to put something out there
paying the rights.

Speaker 5 (01:37:20):
Okay, did you have the budget on that, Alexis? Just
for the record, I was wrong.

Speaker 4 (01:37:24):
That was only thirty five million. That was actually right
around the same as Weapons. But at least that also
explains the shitty seed give. But I did manage to
get Google AI to give us a list of some
of the uh recorded highest budgeted horror movies.

Speaker 5 (01:37:41):
Okay, hang on, before you get to the list, I
do want to address what we have our comment on
screen here. The question is, can we do a Spawn
remake horror movie? Because spawns a little bit of a
horror character as a superhero.

Speaker 4 (01:37:53):
Oh sure.

Speaker 5 (01:37:54):
I don't know what the issue is with the rights
to Spawn, but at the moment, but I think you'd
have a hard time. You shouldn't, but you would have
a hard time selling it because the superhero Malaise is
set in and in an era where Marvel can't figure
out that just getting Blade in a black leather coat
and having him kill the vampires is the way to go.

Speaker 3 (01:38:13):
That's exactly what I was about to say, So.

Speaker 5 (01:38:17):
Anyway to your less Alexis, But yeah, I would. I
would dig a Spawn remake.

Speaker 4 (01:38:21):
We're supposed to get news on a Spawn remake with
Jamie Foxx years ago. That thing has been in pre production,
hell longer than the Blade movie.

Speaker 3 (01:38:30):
Yeah, I think. Okay, let's let's me and Robert. Since
Alexis has the list of front of her, what do
you think the we'll both guess what do you think
the highest budgeted horror movie is a dollar amount? I'm
going to say. I'm going to say sixty two million.

Speaker 5 (01:38:54):
Some of this might be older, so I mean, we're
not adjusting for inflation.

Speaker 4 (01:38:58):
Right, I'm simply going off the recorded budget.

Speaker 5 (01:39:02):
I assume I assume there's no adjustment there.

Speaker 4 (01:39:05):
So for the record, none of these movies are that old,
so the budget would be probably within the same.

Speaker 5 (01:39:12):
Okay, nothing crazy, all right, I actually think you might
get into the eighties.

Speaker 3 (01:39:19):
Okay, so sixty two and eighties.

Speaker 4 (01:39:24):
Al Right, boys, you were low balling it. The five
I have one, two, three, four, five, six, seven films.
The lowest one has a budget of one hundred million. Okay, okay, okay,
So at one hundred million, yeah, I am okay, one

(01:39:45):
hundred million. Okay. Number five is a three way tie
for one hundred million. What Lies Beneath, End of Days
and Day Shift from twenty twenty two.

Speaker 5 (01:39:58):
I understand how we got there with What Lies Beneath
an End of Days because What Lies Beneath has two
major leads for that time period, and you're not going
to get both Harrison Ford and h Yeah, okay, their
salaries take up the bulk of that page. And I
get it. End of Days stars Arnie at a time

(01:40:22):
when that meant something.

Speaker 4 (01:40:23):
Okay, it was crazy high on the c G I.

Speaker 5 (01:40:26):
In places, absolutely, And man, I got to talk with
somebody about that movie one of these days because I
got thoughts.

Speaker 4 (01:40:34):
Anyway, we need to do a Long Road to Ruin
or an on Trial for that right, we.

Speaker 3 (01:40:40):
Could do a criminal feature. We can do that in
the days Last Session Hero, and we'll find another arning.

Speaker 5 (01:40:46):
Movie, you know what, I'm there. There's ways we can
make that work anyway, Day shift surprises me that it's
that high that.

Speaker 4 (01:40:57):
I it was the it was the epic action sequences,
Jamie Fox's payment, and yeah, the special effects.

Speaker 5 (01:41:07):
Jamie Fox should not cost that month.

Speaker 4 (01:41:08):
Moving on, it's it's okay. Number four, Prometheus one hundred
and twenty to one.

Speaker 5 (01:41:19):
I I might argue that as well, but for the
sake of not arguing it again, it was sold a
little bit as a horror movie with the entire Cell
job was not high concept sci fi. The Cell job
was Ridley Scott's making an Alien prequel.

Speaker 3 (01:41:35):
That's right, So.

Speaker 5 (01:41:37):
By the same logic as a few other things we've
talked about. I understand it being there, and you know what,
fair enough, and I think.

Speaker 4 (01:41:45):
Promothe By Osmosis I like that.

Speaker 5 (01:41:48):
Wait, does that mean Alien Covenant is above it? Because
that cost more and was infinitely worse.

Speaker 4 (01:41:54):
It's not on my list.

Speaker 5 (01:41:55):
Okay, Yeah, Prometheus gets too much hate, but I understand.
I'll go to bat for that movie.

Speaker 4 (01:42:03):
Okay. Number three, we have a tie for one hundred
and fifty million. Okay, I am legend and the Wolfman.
I am legend again. Will Smith, Yeah, Wilson, Okay, I
am legend. Will Smith demanded a pretty penny and the
desolate New York City landscape was mostly practical sets. There

(01:42:25):
was very little CGI in that.

Speaker 5 (01:42:27):
So they built a lot of sets and then they
did all the CGI and that went to the creatures.
And when you look at all the creature of facts
like that adds up at that time for CGI. So
I had forgotten how much money they spent on the
Benicio del Toro Wolfman.

Speaker 4 (01:42:42):
Reshoots and changes in the Werewolf design called the budget,
yeah double, it was originally half that.

Speaker 3 (01:42:49):
Yeah, oh yeah, I remember, I remember that being a
huge thing with the reshoots.

Speaker 4 (01:42:56):
Yeah, that was before we knew reshoots were a little
more calm and sign of problems.

Speaker 5 (01:43:04):
There's also reshoots and then there's reshoots. Yeah, that was
the latter. I felt so bad for that movie. It's
got such a good cast and there's some sequences that
are genuinely good.

Speaker 3 (01:43:15):
But yeah, it's kind of a couple of it's kind
a couple of visuals that are like amazing. But then
you have the you have the whole spectrum of that.
And I don't mean that I'm on the spectrum, but
you have you have great things, and then you have
the paint the paint windows paint level.

Speaker 5 (01:43:41):
CGI in a few places. Yeah, all right, so yeah,
I forgot how much that one got out of hand.

Speaker 4 (01:43:47):
Okay, speaking of windows Paint CGI and number two with
one hundred and sixty to one hundred and seventy million,
Van Helsing.

Speaker 5 (01:43:57):
I feel that's another movie I feel real bad for.
It's kind of a guilty pleasure of mine. There's stuff
I don't like about it, but there's some really I
usually do you think there's some really good stuff in
that movie. Unfortunately it fell down with its casting of Dracula,
which really hurt it.

Speaker 4 (01:44:18):
Cape Beckinsale too a pair. You know, Cape bac ntil
is a really good actress. Whoever was her acting coach
and her accent coach her off?

Speaker 5 (01:44:28):
But I'm not going to complain about Cape about Cape
beck and Sale getting work as a general rule. And
Hugh Jackman, God bless him, carries as much of that
thing as he can. Again, it's a bit of a
guilty pleasure personally, but I fully understand the myriad problems
with it.

Speaker 3 (01:44:45):
I mean, Cape Beckinsale is underworld, yes, please.

Speaker 5 (01:44:50):
Okay, hang on one left on budget north of one
p seventy Yes, So.

Speaker 3 (01:44:59):
I want to say, get a lot of cgi.

Speaker 4 (01:45:02):
Mm hmm, extensive rewrites and seven weeks of reshoots.

Speaker 5 (01:45:10):
Okay, so they shot the thing twice basically.

Speaker 4 (01:45:13):
Yeah, the initial budget was one hundred and twenty five million.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
Give me, give me, give me one one story of it.

Speaker 5 (01:45:23):
Hanging Bay. Wait, have we mentioned it in passing yet
on the in the course of our conversation.

Speaker 4 (01:45:30):
Actually, I think we brought if I remember. I think
we actually brought that up earlier in the review when
we were talking about something else.

Speaker 3 (01:45:37):
So we talked, I want to say, is the Tom
Cruise Mummy?

Speaker 5 (01:45:42):
That's kind of where my head went.

Speaker 4 (01:45:46):
I'll give you, guys another guest. Do you want another clue?

Speaker 5 (01:45:50):
Yeah, give me a clue, one person associated with it,
not the lea, not necessarily the lead.

Speaker 4 (01:45:55):
Well, see, I can't do that because the lead is
the only actor who's worth talking about in this movie.

Speaker 5 (01:46:01):
Give me the director then, fuck.

Speaker 4 (01:46:04):
I don't remember who.

Speaker 3 (01:46:06):
Pull it up on the year even the year?

Speaker 4 (01:46:11):
Oh, the year twenty thirteen?

Speaker 3 (01:46:15):
Okay, twenty thirteen, okay.

Speaker 4 (01:46:19):
Directed by Mark Foster. I don't think that really helped
or for Mark Forster. Sorry that's the way it's pronounced.
But yeah, you guys aren't going to really recognize any
other actor. I mean, there's a handful of decent actors
in this, Matthew Fox, Peter Capaldi, David Moorees, James Baiale,
James badger Dale, but none of them have any real
screen time or any real staying power this movie.

Speaker 5 (01:46:42):
Remember Capoldi's limiting my options here. Hang on Froud thirteen.

(01:47:02):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (01:47:04):
I'm trying to I'm gonna think I should know this.

Speaker 4 (01:47:08):
Yeah, jass, don't no spoilers. You googled it. You know
what it is.

Speaker 3 (01:47:13):
Yeah, I'm looking. I'm looking. I haven't. Oh, oh, I know,
I know what you're I know what it is now
because the only person that is Brad Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:47:25):
Wait Capaldi is in. Oh he is briefly Okay, Yeah,
it's World War Z YEP.

Speaker 4 (01:47:34):
One hundred and ninety million dollar budgets, seven weeks of reshoots.

Speaker 5 (01:47:43):
They had to completely reshoot the ending.

Speaker 3 (01:47:45):
Yeah yeah, they Actually there's like four indings of that movie.

Speaker 5 (01:47:50):
There are so many, and it's the reason Brad Pitt
has said, like I will, he will never again do
something that doesn't have a finished script. Yeah, no kidding.

Speaker 3 (01:48:00):
Yeah, yeah, when you said I was thinking Matthew. When
you said Matthew Fox, I kind of went toward it,
and then I was like, no, I don't think that.
They don't think that Matthew Fox was in World WARSY.
And then when I looked it up and I was like, man,

(01:48:20):
the World War But also that movie gross had a
nice a nice theatrical gross even despite everything.

Speaker 5 (01:48:31):
Yeah, I seem to recall I actually enjoy it.

Speaker 4 (01:48:34):
Yeah, how much it made hang on a second, I
got it. Hang on, you got that one? Yeah, No,
it was Hey, this is not how he's saying. It's
like how much.

Speaker 5 (01:48:43):
Oh, it's okay. It struggled a bit when you look
at just how high the up end of the budget
might be. Right, reported budget is suwhere between one ninety
and two sixty nine. If it got to the real
high end of that, then it's five hundred and forty million.
Take wouldn't do it. I forget who Matthew Fox is

(01:49:10):
in that movie, but yeah, yeah, what threw.

Speaker 4 (01:49:14):
Me off Matthew Fox. It just says he's a pair
of jumper.

Speaker 5 (01:49:19):
Yeah, he's one of the background characters when they're in Korea.

Speaker 4 (01:49:23):
See that's why I couldn't say who else was in
it besides the lead, because it's like the many you
say it's a Brad Pitt film.

Speaker 5 (01:49:30):
Gives. I didn't hear you say Mary l Enos, which
would have done it for me, because I know the
I'm actually kind of familiar with a bit of her work.

Speaker 4 (01:49:38):
Oh okay, I have no idea who that is.

Speaker 5 (01:49:41):
She's the wife and that I became aware of her
because of her work in The Killing, the American remake
of the Danish TV show I think it was Danish
or Dutch.

Speaker 4 (01:49:55):
But I think it does go to show that if
you want to make a big budget horror film, it
can't just be horror, you know, with the exception of
what Lies beneath, And yeah, with the exception of what
Lies beneath, all of these are not just horror films.
They are major action movies, thrillers.

Speaker 5 (01:50:16):
You know.

Speaker 4 (01:50:16):
I mean Van Helsing was supposed to, you know, launch
all of these, like it was supposed to be the
relaunch of the universal movie Monsters.

Speaker 5 (01:50:28):
Boy, they cannot get that right. And I don't know
why they're so stupid. But they tried a little bit
with Van Helsing, and then they tried again with the
Dark Universe, and that Draquelae told I Frankenstein and the
tom Cruise Mummy, none of them winners, not a not

(01:50:49):
a looker among him as the.

Speaker 4 (01:50:51):
Yeah, and then we got an Invisible Man remake, which
was actually a good movie.

Speaker 5 (01:50:55):
Actually I stand by the ending being wrong. But listen
to our review of The Invisible Man if you're so inclined.
You can also listen to our review of The Wolfman
that came out earlier this year, if you're also so inclined.
I want to hear us talk more about Julie Gardner,
Believe it or not.

Speaker 4 (01:51:12):
Hey who doesn't want to hear us talk about Julia
Gardner and Lei Manuel Laywanell. That was I almost let
lin Manuel is like, no, lay Hell wrong.

Speaker 5 (01:51:26):
The female Pedro Pascal. That's where we're just going with this.

Speaker 3 (01:51:30):
But it's been a fun two hours. But I'm running
on fumes here, so I'm gonna have to wrap it
up on my end.

Speaker 5 (01:51:37):
I got hit your plugs real fast. Alexis and I
will take a brief trip through through rotten Tomatoes and
we'll call it good.

Speaker 3 (01:51:44):
I mean, really, I don't have anything coming up for
a little bit. I think my next appearance on anything
is I'm joining Alexis September third for Twist and Metal two,
So that's my next appearance on here, which this season

(01:52:04):
is I'm mixed on, I mixed on. It's it's got
some hides, it's got some lows, and it's struggling a
little bit in some areas, so I'm gonna have I'm
sure we're gonna have a lot of fun with that.
Then I'm back on September sixteenth for the Long Walk,
and September twenty second, I'm on Damu Hollywood for Him.

(01:52:29):
So I've got a couple of appearances coming up here
in exactly ten days. Is the New Christmas, as I tell,
as I tell everybody, the New Christmas is next Friday,
almust twenty second. That's when they realized that I was
born instead of Jesus. So with that, I'm want to

(01:52:50):
go ahead and say by goodbye. It's always been fun
and Alexis see you September.

Speaker 4 (01:52:55):
Thirty feeling man, have a good night.

Speaker 3 (01:52:59):
All right, you got.

Speaker 5 (01:53:01):
All right, Let's take a quick look at it.

Speaker 4 (01:53:04):
Love jazz like you guys watch yeah, trust all we
do is watch movies and TV.

Speaker 5 (01:53:10):
The number of movies that I watch just because it's
on the damn you Hollywood schedule that the ratio of
movies I would watch on my own two movies I
watch because of damn you Hollywood has gone like this
over the last few years pretty much.

Speaker 4 (01:53:28):
You don't want to know how many TV shows I've
had to watch this year.

Speaker 5 (01:53:34):
Alright, where is here?

Speaker 3 (01:53:35):
It is?

Speaker 5 (01:53:41):
Are you ready?

Speaker 3 (01:53:44):
No?

Speaker 6 (01:53:46):
I said, no, God, no, God, please, no, no, no.

Speaker 4 (01:54:00):
No, h this is this is encouraging.

Speaker 5 (01:54:09):
We have a ninety four percent on the Tomato meter
and the audience scores at eighty seven.

Speaker 4 (01:54:14):
Yeah, this has been getting almost worldwide critical acclaim Ai,
says Zach Craiger, spins an expertly crafted yarn of terrifying
mystery and thrilling intrigue in Weapons, a sophomore triumph that
solidifies his status as a master of horror.

Speaker 5 (01:54:29):
Mass is a bit strong.

Speaker 4 (01:54:31):
Yeah. I hate to say, guys, but I'd like to
remind you that's what we said with m Night Shyamalan
after Unbreakable. So let's please not Jinx the poor Man.

Speaker 5 (01:54:41):
So I'm gonna say, definitely one of the brightest up
and coming horror horror directors. We have to be sure
and frankly it's a good thing we have more of them.

Speaker 4 (01:54:54):
Okay, Well, listen, learned I actually have to stretch the
screen out a little bit here. I didn't realize it
was going to translate like that. Okay, So let's just
go ahead and look for some negative ones like this
one right here at the top Carson Tumar from Klepper
cast Well, Weapons has its moments of fun. Craiger's film
feels far more drawn out and imbalanced than it should.

Speaker 5 (01:55:11):
This is a person who struggles with nonlinear storytelling very much.
I guess about that. Yet, Look, if you came in
expecting a tot ninety minute mystery, horror mystery, that is
not what this is. It has a much more like
pseudo epic scope to it. It encompasses a lot. And

(01:55:35):
if the marketing of that throws you off, I understand,
because that's not what it's marketed as, but that's what
it is in execution. If you can't pivot as a critic,
I don't know. I seriously have to take you.

Speaker 4 (01:55:47):
Very Hurts from Globe and Mail top critic. The chapter
by chapter structure might have seemed cute on the page,
but it unintentionally reveals that Weapons is shooting blanks.

Speaker 5 (01:55:57):
Aren't you adorable? Yeah, I completely disagree with that one.
I actually think it lends a lot to the structure
in the way that it builds. But yeah, as I said,
there's people who didn't get pulp fiction either, and this
is a this is one of the risks you have
when you do this kind of storytelling. It is not
an inherent good. It has to be done right, and

(01:56:21):
even when you do it right, the breaking of structure
like that is a bit iffy. Didn't bother me. I
very much enjoyed it, but pointing it out as a
choice that was made, like, look, if you don't like pointalism,
you don't like pointalism in art, like, okay, but just
admit you don't like pointalism, I.

Speaker 4 (01:56:38):
Was gonna say. When we'd reviewed together, we pointed out
how many reviewers simply said they didn't said it was
a bad movie, but it was clear they didn't like
it because they don't like body horror.

Speaker 5 (01:56:48):
Yeah, well, let's see people uncomfortable.

Speaker 4 (01:56:50):
Yeah, and I get that, But at the same time,
it's like, well, we don't want to read a review
from somebody who's not the target audience and doesn't understand
the target audience.

Speaker 5 (01:57:00):
Again, even if it's not your thing, if you treat
it fairly, that's your job. So anyway, Oh, we have
a guy who takes Saudi blood money. What I'm pretty
sure wasn't no sorry, different magazine that's owned by Saudi
at this point, close enough and close enough in uh title,

(01:57:22):
because what's his nuts? Turkey Aloshak bought The Ringer or
bought the ring magazine Okay, not the boxing one. And
given what he does, it wouldn't shock me if he
did keep boxing, if he kept movie critics on par
there to just shill for the Saudi Sovereign Wealth Fund.

(01:57:43):
But that's a whole other topic.

Speaker 4 (01:57:45):
I don't name it from The ring Er, not The Ring.
The Ringer a suit again, top critic, a supersized showcase
that sadly spreads its makers gifts thin. It's a curious
and frustrating example of how sometimes more is actually less.
You get the feeling that some of these negative reviews
are from people with severe ADHD who after a while
just got tired of the multiple point of view story arc.

Speaker 5 (01:58:09):
A little bit. Again, it's definitely a choice as a filmmaker,
and when you do it, you do have to understand
there's some people who are going to struggle with it.
I understand a little bit of the point that sometimes
proper editing and proper reduction of scope and ambition makes
everything better. I'd argue this is one of those cases

(01:58:32):
when that's not quite true. I mean, Mark and I
have brought up numerous examples that doesn't strike me in
this case of being one of them.

Speaker 4 (01:58:40):
Chabra Gupta from the Indian Express again top critic. After
a point, though, it all starts to feel empty. Monsters
without motives are no longer interesting and the big reveal
takes away the much needed spence that that's the point
of the reveal.

Speaker 5 (01:58:54):
Okay, two things about this one. It doesn't take away
suspense when there's still suspense that derives from knowing the character. Yeah,
two monsters without motives are no longer interesting. I would
point you to Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Godzilla, among others, Like, no,

(01:59:15):
that's not true.

Speaker 4 (01:59:19):
It's gonna say we don't need I'm sorry, are you
upset that we didn't have Gladys sit down and reveal
like how long she's been alive and why she needs
to steal life force? Sometimes the viewer can simply pick
up on the concept that evil is evil and understand
that they're doing something wrong. We don't need, you know,

(01:59:40):
we didn't. Apparently from what I've read, there was going
to be a point where we were going to get
Gladys's backstory as another chapter in this.

Speaker 5 (01:59:49):
It's so unnecessary. I'm glad.

Speaker 4 (01:59:51):
Yeah, I agree. I'm not gonna lie. I think it
would have been fascinating, but unnecessary for the pacing.

Speaker 5 (01:59:58):
We're already at two hours, like we.

Speaker 4 (02:00:00):
Don't yeah exactly.

Speaker 5 (02:00:03):
Now.

Speaker 4 (02:00:04):
I do hope when this gets released on Blu right,
if they have it written or have maybe uh good filmed,
I would love to see that as a bonus feature.

Speaker 5 (02:00:11):
Yeah, as a bonus feature. That's really good. That's the
kind of thing that if you're interested in you want
to dig and find thumbs up. But it doesn't need
to be in the movie.

Speaker 4 (02:00:20):
Ruben Rosario from Miami art zine, Oh, you're right for.

Speaker 5 (02:00:24):
A zine that tells you everything I need to know
about you.

Speaker 4 (02:00:27):
I took the words right out of my mouth.

Speaker 5 (02:00:31):
And I write for I write for a pop culture website.

Speaker 4 (02:00:35):
As for the film's title, these are not so much
weapons as props as props, Kraiger moves around to satisfy
his basic bassist instincts. I ain't buying what I ain't
buying what he's selling, and what he's selling is vacuous nonsense.
Oh okay, honest question. Who actually is a professional writer

(02:00:57):
and uses the word ain't.

Speaker 5 (02:01:01):
This is someonet overcompensating because he's using vacuous in the
same sentence he uses ain't. I use ain't in conversation
on occasion. I don't write it out.

Speaker 4 (02:01:13):
Yeah, I'll use it on occasion when I'm talking as
I and I know I do this because my mother
has repeatedly said, don't say ain't.

Speaker 5 (02:01:21):
Yeah, I again, I try not to. It's not one
of my favorite words, but it occasionally slips into my lexicon.
If you have the time to write and edit and
you put it in there, you then overcompensate with stuff
like vacuous and pretend that this movie is pretentious and
it's really not. In fact. One of the other things

(02:01:43):
that I appreciate, Greigor said when doing press for this
was like a lot of us who watch a lot
of horror, He's more than tired of horror as emotional
trauma mechanism. Yeah, oh, this is all about emotional trauma. No,
you ain't. The Babba Duke go away.

Speaker 4 (02:02:04):
For the record, we've talked about that director. She does horror,
emotional traump through horror. We talked about not only The
Baba Duke but her contribution to Geraldale Toro's Cabinet of
Curiosities and how good that was.

Speaker 5 (02:02:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:02:18):
So there are some who can pull that off and
do it well.

Speaker 5 (02:02:21):
Like all things, it can be done well, but the
number of people who lean on it as a crutch,
I mean even the good movies that tend to overuse it,
I mean, talk to me was very much in the
same vein of like, oh, the trauma of like the
of drug epidemics in high schools, like I'm sorry, I'm
just I'm over it.

Speaker 4 (02:02:42):
Say something better, Okay, Archie send Gupta from Leisurebite dot com.
You know this is good when they actually have to
include the dot com. You can almost taste the potential
in weapons, but it ends up being just another okay
venture that is too goofy for its own good translation,
you felt that the chase scene at the end completely

(02:03:03):
destroyed the movie.

Speaker 5 (02:03:05):
Now, as I mentioned, I didn't compare that to Ferris
Bueller's epic run for his bedroom for nothing like that
is that is a thing. Freely admit it. Yeah, we
didn't mention it before. But the reason that the reason
they that everyone under her spell runs the way that

(02:03:27):
they do.

Speaker 4 (02:03:28):
Yeah, you said you had a Heggar said why he
had them do it.

Speaker 5 (02:03:34):
He thought it was the creepiest way to have someone run.
It just looks unnatural completely to be running upright, hands
back like that is just wrong.

Speaker 4 (02:03:47):
It feels like to me, it's not.

Speaker 5 (02:03:50):
The least people doing the Naruto run bend at the waist.

Speaker 4 (02:03:53):
Yeah, and that's done for speed, right. It feels like
you have given up all control. Okay, there's actually a
point I'm gonna remark to this. That's the way Bell
runs in the animated between the Beast when she's running
through the field. It's because she is like, I need more,

(02:04:14):
I want to feel so to the idea of running
like that. It really feels like there is nothing holding
these kids back. It is just about here, just forward exactly.

Speaker 5 (02:04:29):
So yeah, anyway, that's why. But uh, yeah, this movie
doesn't lean into goofy again. It's got moments they're whackable
sequence with h with the junkie is certainly one of them.
It's punch unconscious punch punch.

Speaker 4 (02:04:51):
I was waiting, I was waiting at one point for
Archer to just be like for like that scene in
Snatch where where the guys just for fuck's sake, just
like straight out.

Speaker 5 (02:05:04):
The fact that he then like gives him the attitude
adjustment a few times like throws them again. I'm not
saying there's nothing in here that might not elicited a chuckle,
but it doesn't go as goofy as Barbarian did. Frankly,
it's not even as goofy as the end of Malignant.
I loved that one. That's that takes a hard one.
Adie Tonally.

Speaker 4 (02:05:26):
All right, Uh, Gavin Spores from Media Media Media versity reviews.
Weapon squanders its potential by rehashing outdated stereotypes.

Speaker 5 (02:05:38):
Okay, this is the kind of person. How dare we
have an evil old witch? I guarantee you that's it.
That's the extent of what this idiot thought.

Speaker 4 (02:05:49):
I was gonna say. I'm sorry, next time the witch
will be a attractive transgender Asian.

Speaker 5 (02:05:56):
I don't know, but but we can't have evil female
characters these days. It's reductive. That's the level of analysis
Gavin Spores brings to this discussion. He's not to be
taken seriously.

Speaker 4 (02:06:09):
Yeah, no, kidding. Tina Kakadellis from Beyond the Cinerama Dome
Weapons proves Kraiger's death directing abilities, but begs the question,
couldn't there be a better reason for some kids to
run away in the middle of the night. In other words,
you probably came up with a better what you think
is a better story art, and you're mad that you
weren't right one.

Speaker 5 (02:06:31):
If you think you can do it better, and I'm
not saying this glibly, do it if this inspired you
to come up with the same similar premise, and then
do it better, go do try seriously. Second. No, Also,
that's not begging the question. I hate it because this

(02:06:52):
is a thing. Begging the question is not a way
of saying asking the question. Begging the question is a
rhetorical device wherein you ask the question in such a
way that it presupposes the answer. I hate how we
have destroyed the meaning of that phrase because it actually
means something very specific.

Speaker 4 (02:07:12):
Sean Burns from north Shore Movies. If this guy ever
decides to make a movie that's about something, he's gonna
knock it out of the park.

Speaker 5 (02:07:22):
In other words, if he actually becomes more pretentious, I'll
start pretending that I understand it. So for bad cred, I.

Speaker 4 (02:07:29):
Was gonna say, I'm sorry. Are you mad that this
movie doesn't have like a hard course Bielbergian style message.

Speaker 5 (02:07:37):
Or just a message that he agrees with?

Speaker 4 (02:07:41):
Richard Brody from The New Yorker tough critic.

Speaker 5 (02:07:43):
Oh, the vaunted New Yorker. You can tell the New
Yorker because he starts a sentence with facial.

Speaker 4 (02:07:51):
Yeah, forgive me, I actually see that word so rare
I didn't know how to pronounce it. Facial sensationalism cuts
the movie off from its own most power, powerful implications,
blocking any view of a recognizable world.

Speaker 5 (02:08:05):
Okay, ridiculous sense.

Speaker 4 (02:08:07):
They think my brain just blue screened a little there.

Speaker 5 (02:08:09):
Okay, As a guy who has access to a fairly
extensive vocabulary, you're doing that just to show off, not
because it's specific, And you're also doing it because you
think the New Yorker demands it. Third third in the list.
If you don't understand how this is actually a fairly
accurate representation of this kind of a place and how

(02:08:32):
people react. I can't help you. You're too used to
the urban wasteland.

Speaker 4 (02:08:39):
Zachary Barnes, Wall Street Journal top critic. Once mister Craiger
starts to let loose his revelations, though, disappointment creeps in
and the scale and soul of the film shrink before
our eyes, I'm giving a feeling that a lot of
these people were really hoping for something a lot more
if malicious and and conspiracy theory ask.

Speaker 5 (02:09:02):
Right, if this had been about government mind control, they'd
have been just all over it, because oh oh yeah,
I didn't talk about it a whole lot. But this
is kind of a real old school zombie movie. And
I mean when I say old school, I mean pre

(02:09:22):
George Romero. If you look at how original zombies were,
it was mostly mind control rather than undeath. That's more
what this is. And frankly, I'm glad Craiger resuscitated some
of that. It's not exactly that, but I'm cool with
the evil witch coming to town and the the indelible

(02:09:45):
mark that she leaves, being a stain on the soul
of the suburbia. Like that's not a bad thing.

Speaker 4 (02:09:52):
Agreed Ian Simmons from kicking the seat. Don't do that. People,
don't please that weapons is what you'd get if Neon
released a third rate mashup of it and Children of
the Corn is adapted by James Gunn.

Speaker 3 (02:10:07):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 4 (02:10:10):
First of all, James Gunn is right now the highest paying, biggest,
most winning director in Hollywood, so your little insult there
means nothing.

Speaker 5 (02:10:22):
So a couple of things about this one. You didn't
actually watch Children of the Corn clearly. Two, your knowledge
of it goes as deep as clown.

Speaker 4 (02:10:34):
Makeup and disappearing children.

Speaker 5 (02:10:37):
And your knowledge of James gun is way off. If
this was directed by James Gunn, the needle drops would
have been very different.

Speaker 4 (02:10:47):
I'll admit I did think Children of the Corn briefly,
but that's was during the scene at the climax with
the kids chasing them, because I was reminded of the
kids chasing Linda Hamilton. And I don't remember the lead
actor's name.

Speaker 5 (02:11:00):
Don't remember Christopher Reeve.

Speaker 4 (02:11:02):
No, No, he wasn't, that was it.

Speaker 5 (02:11:03):
He was.

Speaker 3 (02:11:03):
No.

Speaker 4 (02:11:03):
I'm talking of the original Children of the Corn, not
Children of the You're thinking of Village of the Damned.

Speaker 5 (02:11:09):
I'm pretty sure he's in Bolth.

Speaker 4 (02:11:11):
No, he is not in the original Children of the Corn.

Speaker 5 (02:11:13):
I will double check that, but it's somebody I recognize.

Speaker 4 (02:11:16):
He may have been in one of the Children of
the Corns. You're I think you're thinking of the Village
of the Damn that had Christopher Reeve and Christy Ally.

Speaker 5 (02:11:23):
Because that well, that was I know that one that was,
because that was a remake of the original. Mm hmm,
Well you're right, hang on, why did I Yeah, Peter Horton,
thank you. I think who it was, because yeah, I will.

Speaker 4 (02:11:38):
Never forget the scene of the kids chasing them through
the street and the one kid just do that style
crowd that still makes me laugh every time.

Speaker 5 (02:11:49):
The only thing everyone else remembers is Outlander. We have
your woman.

Speaker 4 (02:11:56):
Well, then in the guy who played the lead who
was just who you know what. It was a corneous
hell role, but he was freaking phenomenal. And the role
is Isaac.

Speaker 5 (02:12:07):
H child actor who knew how to be menacing.

Speaker 4 (02:12:09):
Not a child actor, all right. He has the condition
where he looks and sounds a lot younger, but he
was I think twenty five.

Speaker 5 (02:12:21):
Yeah, I'm glad you reminded me of that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:12:26):
No, I again, corny over the top is hell, but
I feel that that was what was required.

Speaker 5 (02:12:31):
For that pretty much. Yeah, so Simmons is weird.

Speaker 4 (02:12:38):
Another comment here from Jass, I feel like I got
to develop a list bear. I feel this movie may
be a bit too spiritual for me. I do prefer
actual viruses over witches or whatever supernatural stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:12:50):
At the point, it's fair like there is a bit
once the witch shows up, like you have to be
willing to go with the effects of mag of magic
that she brings.

Speaker 4 (02:13:00):
So all right, let's find like maybe one or two more,
because again, most of these are possible.

Speaker 5 (02:13:06):
Jeremy, Oh, where.

Speaker 4 (02:13:07):
Was did I scroll past?

Speaker 3 (02:13:09):
You? Did?

Speaker 5 (02:13:09):
Go back down a little bit? Just to me again?
Go back up and stop?

Speaker 4 (02:13:17):
Oh no, wonder it's only one line. The journey getting
to the end dot dot dot is pretty awesome.

Speaker 5 (02:13:23):
I wonder what's in that ellipsis. You can do a
lot of work with that.

Speaker 4 (02:13:31):
No, are you and jury?

Speaker 5 (02:13:32):
Okay? Anyone else down near the bottom. Not too many
people we recognize here.

Speaker 4 (02:13:40):
Walk Walker channel also scary, fund suspenseful, mysterious, and unpredictable.
We're in a great age for horror films.

Speaker 5 (02:13:46):
I hate agreeing with Doug Walker about a blind squirrel
finds it not every now and then.

Speaker 4 (02:13:50):
I actually watched his review and again I watch there's
a handful of critics that I do like to watch
their video reviews before we do ours, just to see
if there's something they picked up on that I may
have missed or to get a better idea of, like, oh,
that's actually an interesting point to talk about. And he
was one of the ones who talked about this, this
new renaissance of horror that were into. So I'm not

(02:14:14):
saying he was the only one, Like, I'm not saying, oh,
I got money idea from Doug Walker. There were several
who talked about it.

Speaker 5 (02:14:20):
He was it's the thing that's kind of been bubbling
up a little bit recently, and Weapons seems to have
been the tipping point for a lot of people to
start talking about it.

Speaker 4 (02:14:27):
Yeah, because he did also review together and he talked
about that and Sinners and Companion and how those were
all really he gave good reviews to all of them
and how much he enjoyed them, and he's right, you
know those are this is there are stories we talked
about that. Here's another one who recognized Grace Randolph Beyond
the Trailer deeply disturbing, but intentionally so. With some striking

(02:14:48):
visuals and clever storytelling, weapons will haunt You. Madigan becomes
an instant horror icon, while Aaron Reich and Abrams give
the sense give the film a lot of humor and
very good theater experience.

Speaker 5 (02:15:03):
Aaron Reich still trying to rehab from both Solo and Ironheart,
and God bless him, he's trying.

Speaker 4 (02:15:10):
Well, he can't.

Speaker 5 (02:15:11):
He make some faces in this movie that somebody I
heard somebody liking it to Rayleioda. Not quite that good
because Rayleioda was awesome.

Speaker 4 (02:15:20):
But I think Jeremy John's here's another one.

Speaker 5 (02:15:23):
Yeah, we already did that one.

Speaker 4 (02:15:25):
Oh yeah, sorry, okay.

Speaker 5 (02:15:30):
Uh, kurk Loader, how are you still alive? This is
basically a weekly wellness check on Kurt Loader, is what
we do.

Speaker 4 (02:15:45):
There's some fright l fright lightning chuckles, but the movie's
central intention is to creep you out and to knock
you back in your seat with highly persuasive demonstrations of
skin ripping and skulp pulping.

Speaker 5 (02:15:59):
You know, I do need to say very briefly of
all the kitchen implements you could use to try and
to listit a visceral response from the audience. The potato
peeler was not the one to go with this one.

Speaker 4 (02:16:13):
Oh that didn't creep you out? I was worming at that.

Speaker 5 (02:16:18):
Nope, there's other things you could have gone for. I
think I applaud the attempt for not just going to
like the corkscrew or well.

Speaker 4 (02:16:28):
We already got that with the companion.

Speaker 5 (02:16:30):
Again, for not going to the old reliables. I appreciate
you reaching out. I would have gone with the cheese
grater personally, but but.

Speaker 4 (02:16:42):
In all fairness, it wasn't about the implement itself. It
was about the fact that the stocked Yeah exactly. That's
what makes the scene so terrifying, is that, Yeah, she's
peeling his skin off and he's not even blinking.

Speaker 5 (02:16:54):
He's the problem again. I think where it kind of
missed for me is the non reaction to it. Is
it falls at like that's what we're going for, But
because it's like shaving, it doesn't quite read the same
as oh, he's not reacting to it, like, you know,

(02:17:16):
under the right circumstances enough adrenaline, maybe you wouldn't. I
would have gone cheese greater, like right across here, and
then when he doesn't react to blood starting to run
down his face, it's a bigger I think you get
a bigger reaction from the audience. But that's a real
minor thing, and that's just me. So you know, mileage varies.

Speaker 4 (02:17:40):
Okay, juneatan it Conan from toysto dot Net, I've probably
just masterred all parts of that. Weapons features brilliant performances
and a superlative first act, all let down by a
mess of a second half. Again someone who didn't like
the idea of using a witch.

Speaker 5 (02:18:00):
Yeah, there's a lot of people who are going to
struggle with that a little bit, I think, and I'm
again clearly not. Oh Dan Merle, let's go back up
a little bit.

Speaker 4 (02:18:08):
There he is Dan Merle reviews. Sometimes a slow burn
leads to a spectacular explosion, sometimes a fizzles out. Weapons
does both, in which one of the one of those
impressive slash angers you the most will ultimately decide where
you fall on the movie.

Speaker 5 (02:18:23):
You know what that is A I don't think that's
an inaccurate summation of the ending. I really don't. So
there's that.

Speaker 4 (02:18:32):
See if we can find anyone else we recognize. Why
are some of these getting highlighted?

Speaker 5 (02:18:37):
Oh, I look this, Travis Hobson from Punch Drug Critics.

Speaker 4 (02:18:41):
Weapons is a horror classic that people will be revisiting
for many years to come, establishing Craiger is one of
the best the genre has to.

Speaker 5 (02:18:47):
Offer, a little bit hyperbolic, but in general. Yes, oh wow,
Amy Nicholson liked something we never get that. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:18:56):
From the Los Angeles Times Top critic.

Speaker 5 (02:18:58):
Weapons this week, it's a lost Angelis's time. She bounces
around a lot.

Speaker 4 (02:19:03):
Well, she's a freelancer. I guess Weapons is an even
grander statement of disorder by design. A compellingly sloppy tale.
It splices together a half dozen protagonists and no heroes.
These six spiraling victims never grasp the full story behind
the violence.

Speaker 5 (02:19:19):
You know, that's a fair point that neither Archer nor Justine,
who are kind of the de facto lea big two. Yeah,
they never figure it out necessarily, they know something's up.
They show up because something's up there, and that's when
everything goes to hell. It's really only Alex who knows
the full scope of Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:19:42):
Yeah, I don't think Archer is ever going to totally
understand what happened to his son. Andre actually joked as
we left the theater, he said, so, do you think
Justine got arrested for shooting the cop in the head.

Speaker 5 (02:20:00):
I hunch would be not. But at that point there's
something about the way the kids opening narration that implied
there's a non trivial cover up.

Speaker 4 (02:20:10):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 5 (02:20:11):
So I imagine they just kind of went okay, things went
bad and chose not. And I mean, oh, William Bibiani, come.

Speaker 4 (02:20:21):
On, Willy, I'm friend of the show the rap, let's.

Speaker 5 (02:20:25):
End on, best friend of Mark Radlitch and frequent collaboration.
I'm the future ex mister Radlicch.

Speaker 4 (02:20:35):
What Craiger's getting at seems a lot less frightening and
a lot more contrived than it would have than it
would have had he not invited us to ponder more
powerful possibilities for over an hour before tipping his hand.
There are so many people really didn't like The Witch.

Speaker 5 (02:20:52):
Yeah, that that really is kind of the crux for
some of these reviews. All right, let's go ahead, Yeah,
we've past two and a half hours. Were longer than
the movie, Now, what's good?

Speaker 4 (02:21:04):
We had the plot alone, took for effort. In all fairness, folks,
if we had just simply gone the way the Wikipedia
thing is, because the Wikipedia actually says film presented in
a non linear narrative jump between various characters whose stories intersect.

(02:21:25):
The following is a linear summary of the plot. We
could have done.

Speaker 5 (02:21:29):
That could have, but it's not as fun.

Speaker 4 (02:21:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:21:34):
Sorry, and the whole thing's different.

Speaker 4 (02:21:41):
Sorry. I just saw another there was a breaking news thing.
I was like, please tell me, it's nothing. No, it's
something to do with Miranda Lambert.

Speaker 5 (02:21:46):
I'm fine, Okay, So thank you all very much for
tuning in. We deeply appreciate it. Hanging out. If you
were here live, you're after the fact, interact with us
please somehow, whatever your podcast platform of choice is, some
kind of interaction helps the algorithm. Doubly so on YouTube
because YouTube is trying things. They're trying things and uh

(02:22:11):
we're not sure it's a it's good, but they're trying.
So alexis, what do you have to plug for us?
This evening?

Speaker 4 (02:22:18):
All right? Well, like was mentioned before, I will become
I will be La La La. I will be here
tomorrow night for a very special TV party tonight. Jesse
Start and I are starting our Stranger Things retrospective.

Speaker 5 (02:22:31):
Uh all down here from season one.

Speaker 4 (02:22:36):
Jas. Thank you for all the comments. Man, We'll see
you next time. Hopefully we can see you again if
you're up for a TV party tonight. Starting at eight
o'clock Central time tomorrow, we're gonna be starting our Stranger
Things retrospective. We are doing one season per month leading
up to the grand finale in January, so we're gonna

(02:22:56):
be looking at four seasons and one books Stranger Things
meets teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, of.

Speaker 5 (02:23:05):
All the crossovers they could have.

Speaker 4 (02:23:07):
Done after that.

Speaker 6 (02:23:10):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (02:23:11):
I will be back next week with mister Mark Radlice.
We're going to do another TV party tonight talking about
season four of Resident Alien, because the world needs more
Alan Tutic, especially after the news broke this week about
what he had to go through with the I Robots
promotional tour.

Speaker 5 (02:23:27):
Poor guy's dad. All he did was get hung out
to dry on a.

Speaker 4 (02:23:35):
Harpoon pretty much. It does seem strange parting words. I
like that. After that, I finally get a week off
and then mister Jason Teasley will be joining me and

(02:23:55):
occasional collaborator Josh the You knowes talk season two of
Twisted Metal. Looking forward to that. Then our Unholy Trinity,
as we like to call ourselves, the three of us
who end up talking horror movies for the Rattlichen Broadcasting
Network because we're the three with the strongest stomachs. Sorry,

(02:24:18):
tell me I'm wrong. We're coming back to talk.

Speaker 5 (02:24:21):
I got Mark. I have desensitized a lot of Marks
stuff over the last five years. It's been a project,
but I think we've gotten most of the way there.
You know what.

Speaker 4 (02:24:30):
He put the substance on his top ten of twenty
twenty four, so you're definitely making some strides. Uh, we'll
be coming back to talk. The Long Walk. This is
the latest adaptation of Stephen King's work. We're all really
excited to see you.

Speaker 5 (02:24:45):
It's the only major adaptation of that. I think a few,
like small budget student films, have tried it, but I
don't think The Long Walk has ever had a major adaptation.

Speaker 4 (02:24:56):
Well, looking forward to it. Let's see if we can
find another anger a horror movie for twenty twenty five.

Speaker 5 (02:25:04):
How you want to categorize it. The Running Man is
also a Stephen King story. Also features Josh Brolin, who
we just talked about.

Speaker 4 (02:25:12):
I don't know if I'm on the Damn you Hollywood
for that, but I would like to be. I need
to take a look at my schedule see if I
can jump in on that, because I am you know,
we talk We talked about this on the network chat
with some of the guys saying calling it a flat
out remake. It's like, no, it's not a remake because
it is a more faithful adaptation of the book. Because
the original, Yeah, the original Running Man. They basically said, well,

(02:25:35):
here's the basic story. Yeah, but we cast Arnold Schwarzenegger
and the lead. Will screw this. It's an Arnold movie.

Speaker 5 (02:25:42):
Yeah, the original, which I don't have a lot of
funness for what other people do. So I'm not going
to be disparaging.

Speaker 4 (02:25:48):
If you like eighties cheesy Arnold movies, and you know
some people do love that kind of stuff.

Speaker 5 (02:25:53):
Go forward on the right night. I am not above it. Again,
I am not going to sit here on some kind
of like Ivory Tower and pretend otherwise I'm above that.

Speaker 4 (02:26:03):
You know what's still sometimes we all want to watch
Demolition Man and the original total recall, Yeah.

Speaker 5 (02:26:12):
They're great, but yeah, that one. It's because this movie
is not a remake of the original movie. It's another
adaptation of the source material, not a remake. Uh. Eighties
movies being the best from jazzed Uh. I go back
and forth on that one. My favorite movie decade is

(02:26:33):
in flux pretty constantly.

Speaker 4 (02:26:34):
But yeah, eighties did give us some really good so
eighties gave us the most trauma that we have continuously
put more generations.

Speaker 5 (02:26:42):
Through eight Eighties kids material raised I think some of
the more resilient adults that we've had, mostly because Don
Bluth understood how to speak to kids.

Speaker 4 (02:26:56):
Yeah, scared the ever loving shit out of them.

Speaker 5 (02:26:58):
No, his philosophy is very simple. You can make a
dark story for kids as long as you have the
happy ending. That's the important part for kids. Not that
everything's great, but no matter how bad it gets, it
can get better and it can have a happy ending.
And I don't disagree with that whatsoever. Don Bluth is great.

Speaker 4 (02:27:25):
Agreed. I still can't watch that scene and All Dogs
Go to Heaven where Charlie has the nightmare, and I
have never been able to sit through never ending story again.

Speaker 5 (02:27:34):
I My thing with All Dogs Go to Heaven was
I heard I find I found out the actual story
behind the final recording. Oh yeah, which if you've never
heard it will rip your heart out. Uh yeah, So
that one I struggle with now because I can't not

(02:27:58):
see what's actually going on there.

Speaker 3 (02:28:01):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (02:28:03):
God no, But yeah, so we got that, We got
a lot more TV party Tonight's coming up as soon
as we get a few more things on the schedule,
Jesse Starter. In addition to coming back next month to
discuss season two of Stranger Things, we're also going to

(02:28:23):
be discussing season two of gen V as we build
up to the finale of The Boys.

Speaker 5 (02:28:31):
Wow, it's going to be wild, right, And.

Speaker 4 (02:28:36):
Of course we also have Peacemaker season two, which is
coming out. I don't think the dates are set on
that yet, and I as soon as the dates are
also out, I wanted to talk to you and Jason
about potentially doing uh it Welcome to Darry. Thought that
could be a good entry for the three of us.

Speaker 5 (02:28:54):
I gotta think about that one. I've not been thrilled
with the material I've seen thus far, but I'll see again.
My schedule might also change, so I'm not gonna address that.

Speaker 4 (02:29:09):
Dude, Come on, don't depress us.

Speaker 5 (02:29:15):
That's uh you're gonna get me on a religious tangent,
and I know he's a militant atheist, so out of
respect for his beliefs not being mine, I'm gonna leave
it alone, all right.

Speaker 4 (02:29:27):
As far as the Honeysuckle hustle, Mark is going to
regret every day that he ever made that song about me.

Speaker 5 (02:29:33):
You should What you should do is put it on
the soundboard and play it as a jingle before you
do your plugs.

Speaker 4 (02:29:40):
If I knew how to work the soundboard, I would,
I honestly don't know how to do. Mark has not
trained me how to do that because he knows I
will abuse the hell.

Speaker 5 (02:29:49):
Out of it. That's fair enough, all right.

Speaker 4 (02:29:52):
Honeysuckle Rose Creations for fashion meats fandom at the intersection
of geek and chic. I have been working my butt
off because cause the week before last we were in
Omaha for Comic Con Nebraska, had a blast, great show,
and in two days I will be heading out to
Colorado Springs for the Colorado Springs Comic Con. We do

(02:30:12):
that one every year. I'm not getting into.

Speaker 5 (02:30:21):
When I say I respect. His atheism is not a
lack of beliefs, it's a lack of belief in higher power.
But when I say you'r but when I say, for
the record, when I say your beliefs, I'm just talking
about the way in which you order and go about
your existence with the world, not necessarily implying that you

(02:30:42):
have beliefs in a higher power. So he's a belief
structure because we all do.

Speaker 4 (02:30:47):
And hey, Zachary strobel yeay, I will be in your
neck of the woods. I'm not heading as far as Denver.
I will, like said, I'll be in Colorado Springs. It's
a great show. We've been doing it for years. Absolutely
loved expecting a killer turn out this year because we're
gonna have some amazing celebrities, including a good chunk of
the view as Kew universe, including mister Kevin Smith and
Jason Muse. Love it when they come out to the shows.

(02:31:09):
They always bring the fans as always. You can find
us on Etsy and Handmade of Amazon. I usually this
is usually part where I say our stores are fully stocked.
I should add an addendum at this moment, we have
had to take a few items off of our store,
namely our clue items. Honeysuckle Rose Creations specializes as in
upcycling game tokens into fun pieces of jewelry, and one

(02:31:33):
of our biggest sellers has always been our items made
from clue tokens, especially our charm bracelets. We have had
a massive, massive run on orders for those over the
last month. I don't know why. I don't know if
I got highlighted on some website or something, but we

(02:31:54):
have gotten so many orders in for them that I
realized that I had actually run out of tokens. So
I have managed to get enough to pull in to
handle these last few orders, but I have been putting
in bulk orders for a majority of shops that we
buy through on eBay. But until we have a decent

(02:32:18):
back supply again, I am not relisting those bracelets. I
don't want to fall back into this again where it's
a case of okay, now we gotta listen once again.
I'm out. So if you are interested in our clue bracelets,
just give it a little bit of time. I promise
they will be added to the store again before too long.
I just got to wait for these supplies to come in.

(02:32:39):
And of course you can always follow us on Facebook, Instagram,
Blue Skyscreen, Twitter, Not Looking Back and TikTok. That's Honeysuckle
Rose Creations, the intersection of geek and cheek.

Speaker 5 (02:32:48):
You can find me covering mixed martial arts and professional
wrestling over at four one one mania dot Com and
editioned all my work over here. I do ww smacked
on Friday's UFC events on Saturdays and occasionally pinch it
else where. In fact, this month I will be covering
events on Sundays, the twenty fourth and the thirty first.
I will be tackling aw's Forbidden Door in ww's Clash

(02:33:10):
in Paris. So any of that sounds interesting, stop buy.
I host a four to one one ground Pound MMA podcast,
wherein I yammer on about news and combat sports. And
this last week was a review of UFC on ESPN
seventy two, a preview of UFC three point fifteen, and
I was, as usual, a day late and a dollars
short because Monday after I recorded the UFC dropped news

(02:33:35):
that they dropped the new broadcast deal they're going to
be on Paramount and CBS. They are getting seven point
seven billion dollars over the next seven years. Paramount is
paying more for that over the same time period than
they are for south Park Premier League and one other

(02:33:58):
thing I can't remember combined it's crazy. So I will
be talking about all that this week. So if any
of that interests you stop on buy I do. I
record that Sundays goes up Monday. I can be your
companion on your drive to work if you still do that,
because that's the thing. What do you do?

Speaker 4 (02:34:20):
Man?

Speaker 5 (02:34:23):
So my coverage is actually on for one one. It's
the website's four one one media dot com. There's an
MMA zone. That's where all my updates go. I do
very little promotional worker. I might like retweet finishes that
I see, but I try and I'm fairly I'm fairly
benign over there. And I don't think I have alternate

(02:34:46):
social media accounts because I have never seen any gent,
any appreciable traction gained on them. But individual results will
vary as far as all of that goes anyway, That's
where you can find me on other places. So yeah,
all right, that's it for us. Thank you all very
much for tuning in again live or after the fact.

(02:35:06):
We appreciate the heck out of you. Stay safe out
there and continue to be well, be safe and behave

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