Actors Who Changed Careers  + Director Quit Science for “They Will Kill You” & What a Movie Producer Does + Movie Review: Michael + Trailer Park: Street Fighter

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike. Big episode for you today. First of all, we're going to talk about famous actors first careers. All these people were doing something entirely different before they decided I want to go make it in Hollywood. And that is because I will also be talking to the director of They Will Kill You, who I found out was going to be a scientist before we decided, you know what, I want to make movies instead. We'll also talk to the producers of that movie. Like I said, it's a huge episode for you today and find out what a producer actually does. If you've ever just wondered because you're like, so and so is a producer on this movie, what does that even mean. In the movie review, we'll be talking about one of the most controversial movies in a while.

00:00:40
Speaker 2: Michael, I'll give you my honest opinion on it.

00:00:42
Speaker 1: I know a lot of people were already ripping this movie to shreds, and I try to avoid all that criticism because I want my full, authentic impression of the movie. Historically, I do not rate music biopics high. So we'll see how I felt about that movie. And in the trailer park, we'll be talking about a movie that looks risingly really good. Street Fighter could impress me this year. So thank you for being here, thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. Those are all the people who listen on release date. They come out and started the week. And now let's talk movies.

00:01:15
Speaker 2: Podcast, movie mikes, movie podcasts.

00:01:20
Speaker 1: Let's kick it off with one of the most famous ones that maybe you've heard of, Harrison Ford. Before he was in Star Wars, before he was an Indiana Jones or blade Runner. He actually was trying to make it as an actor. He had some very minor roles in the sixties, but that didn't really work out. He got frustrated with Hollywood thought, you know what, this isn't for me.

00:01:37
Speaker 2: So what did he do?

00:01:39
Speaker 1: He went to a library and started reading books on carpentry and taught himself how to do it from reading books. Soon after visiting the library and reading these books on carpentry, he started building desks, custom furniture, and even recording studio spaces, and these skills ended up leading him back into the world of acting after he had already failed to do doing it he formed a relationship with casting directors for George Lucas Frentis Ford Coppola, who had them build cabinets for them. So he kind of found this way in through the back door, through building his own back door. This led George Lucas to cast him an American graffiti and years later changed his life when he was cast as Hans Solo in Star Wars. He said, through carpentry, I fed my family and begin to pick and choose.

00:02:26
Speaker 2: From the roles I was offered.

00:02:28
Speaker 1: He said this back in nineteen eighty six, because I could afford to hold out until something better came along. But I never gave up on my ambition to be an actor. I was frustrated, but never felt defeated by my frustration. So that just goes to show you just because you fail first doesn't mean you're going to fail forever. Sometimes you just have to find a different way. So shout out to Harrison Ford. Next up is Hugh Jackman. Before he was Wolverine or the Greatest Showman, he basically lived all these different kind of lives until finding well what was going to be his called and acting. In nineteen eighty seven, Hugh Jackman was going to school in the UK at the Uppingham School. He decided to take a gap year, which is something that I could never have done myself. I felt like I needed momentum, but I wanted to so bad. That's just sounded so cool. It was what all the cool people did in my graduating class. I'm gonna take a gap year. You mean you're gonna take a year and not do anything, go backpacking in Europe, which I think was everybody's dream that they had at one point in their life.

00:03:26
Speaker 2: But this is what Hugh Jackman did.

00:03:28
Speaker 1: And he worked as a pe teacher, a job that he later said gave him the ability to read people, command a room, and stay grounded, and these would be skills that would be way important later on. Which you think about being pe teacher or any teacher. You have to be able to get a bunch of people's attention, which is what an actor has to do.

00:03:47
Speaker 2: You have to command a room.

00:03:48
Speaker 1: Like you said, I think the roles of a leading actor, that is what you do. You walk into a scene, you own it, you work with the director, but ultimately it is you who is going to be up there on that screen.

00:03:59
Speaker 2: Skin that you learned from being a PE teacher.

00:04:01
Speaker 1: It's also just really hard to be a PE teacher because you have really hard students like me who do not want to be in PE class. So Hugh Jackman is originally from Australia. He was going to school in the UK and upon returning to Australia, he studied communications at the University of Technology in Sydney, majoring in journalism. And even as he was doing all this, he still wanted to be an actor. He said, as a boy, I always had an interest in theater, but the idea at my school was that drama in music were to round out a man. It wasn't one that somebody did for a living. And I got over that. So shout out to Hugh Jackman for taking some time to find himself and then winning our hearts over as the best Wolverine of all time and a role I think that should ever only be one. Next up, Liam Neeson. I think the role I always think of him of as first is his role in Taken, just because that was such a powerful and memorable role. But he grew up in Northern Ireland and Liam Neeson was a competitor boxer up until the age of seventeen, a sport that he says gave him all the discipline and resilience that he needed in life. That ended up working out because all those skills transferred over to being an actor. After leaving school, Liam Neeson briefly studied physics and computer science at Queen's University in Belfast, only to go on in search of a job to provide for himself and over the next couple of years before he made it as an actor, he did all these different types of jobs. He was a forklift operator. He was a lorry driver, which I don't know what it is, let me look it up. It is a person who transports goods, often over long distances, using large articulated vehicles. So basically whatever Ireland or the UK's version of a truck driver. So he was kind of like my dad. And he also worked as a substitute teacher. Despite all these careers bearing no resemblance to being an actor, he eventually found his way to local theater and then onto Hollywood. But he did all those things and changed careers before making it in Hollywood.

00:06:00
Speaker 2: Next up, Jason Stathum.

00:06:03
Speaker 1: I think about yeah, the Fast and the Furious movies, but I think of Snatch. I also think of Crank, but basically any action movie. I think of Jason Stathum. When he was a kid, he worked alongside his father and worked as a knockoff jewelry, perfume and bag seller on the streets of London. Can you imagine getting knockoff jewelry even from a young Jason Stathum?

00:06:25
Speaker 2: He would you like to buy this Rolex? How about this Geechee bag? I'd buy it from that kid.

00:06:31
Speaker 1: But he says that that job on the streets of London allowed him to master the art of persuasion and personal perception. So you think about the skills you get from being a salesman, not even that it has to do with selling counterfeit goods, but I think there is such strength in having those skills of being able to talk to people and connect with people. That is what acting is. Hands down the job that I could never do is being a salesman. You have to be so in your face and so persistent in a way that is outside of my skill level. I can be persistent, but when it comes to getting under people's skin and just getting them to the point of like, Okay, I'll buy this from you if it's something they really don't want to buy. And I'm thinking of like a door to door salesman selling knives or selling vacuum, something that people have to be convinced to buy, which is what I think about when I think of this type of salesmanship.

00:07:23
Speaker 2: That sounds so hard to me.

00:07:25
Speaker 1: Jason Statheum was also a competitive diver for the British national team for over a decade. He represented Britain. After narrowly missing out on the qualifying for the nineteen ninety two Barcelona Olympics, Jason Staleum decided to leave the diving world behind and bring that twelve year career to a close. He then started modeling for catalogs, did some music videos, and his big break actually didn't come until he was in his thirties, when Guy Richie cast him in his movie Block Stock and Smoking Barrels. Guy Richie said that he ended up being the perfect choice for a street wise criminal, which is basically all he does now. So that's what he did before he made it an acting Next up Morgan Freeman, who is not only one of the best actors of our generation, but also just has one of the best voices never really wanted to be an actor. He actually had dreams of flying airplanes and fighting for his country. After graduating high school, Morgan Freeman rejected a partial drama scholarship in order to enlist in the Air Force. Even though he loved movies, specifically war movies, he wanted to be in the skies versus on the silver screens. So we had hopes of becoming a fire pilot, but instead he was assigned as an automatic tracking radar repairman. In his four years in the Air Force, he rose to the ranks of Airman first Class, and even amidst the technical demands of the Air Force, Morgan Freeman's imagination still roam for the world of performing So although he got his dream of being in the.

00:08:49
Speaker 2: Army, he then thought, I want to be an actor. He said.

00:08:52
Speaker 1: I was sitting on the nose of a bomb when I realized the make believe dreams of millions on screen. From that moment on, I committed myself to becoming an actor. So he left the Air Force, moved to Los Angeles, and studied acting seriously while working as a clerk and a typist to support himself. And now he is one of the greatest actors of all time, but got his thought in the air Force. I got one more for you could quite possibly be my favorite one. Steve Buscemi, who spent many years doing something way more dangerous before he ever started in a movie, he had dreams of fighting fires in New York City. After high school, he took a civil service exam for the fdn Y, a decision that was really inspired suggested, maybe even forced a little bit by his father. Unfortunately that didn't work out. In the beginning, there wasn't a spot for him, so he filled his time by driving ice cream trucks and working at gas stations until he officially joined the fdn Y in nineteen eighty. He said firefighting gave him a sense of purpose that he had longed for, and said, I like the job, the guys.

00:09:56
Speaker 2: Ironic enough.

00:09:57
Speaker 1: I don't know if you can hear this, but right now outside my window is a fire truck.

00:10:02
Speaker 2: Can you hear that?

00:10:04
Speaker 3: Like?

00:10:04
Speaker 2: What crazy timing is that?

00:10:06
Speaker 1: But he said, I like the job, the guys I worked with, and the nature of the work. I think I would have been happy doing it if I had not had a greater passion for acting. And Steve Bushmi went on to be one of the most recognizable faces in Hollywood, and even returned to his roots as a firefighter to go and help the rescue efforts at Ground Zero following the nine to eleven attacks. He worked twelve hour shifts for five consecutive days along other firefighters digging through the rubble looking for survivors. Steve bushmi great actor. My favorite role of his is probably Big Daddy. Not only is he a great actor, he is a great American and he is a hero. So those are some actors who had entirely different careers before making it in Hollywood. And that'll lead us to our interview with key Real Sokolov, who directed They Will Kill You, one of my favorite horror movies of the year. It is hyper violent, a lot of action, some comedy. It follows a woman who takes a job as a housekeeper in this luxurious high rise in New York City finds out that all the people living inside of this building are part of this demonic cult and she is on a mission to rescue her sister. They Will Kill You will be available on digital tomorrow if you're listening to this on release day, but as of April twenty eighth will be available on digital, so if you're listening after that could already be available for you. It will also be on four KUHD on June thirtieth, But we'll get into it now. My conversation with Kiro Sokolov, who left Russia to come to America to be a director.

00:11:38
Speaker 4: Hey, my good, how are you great to.

00:11:40
Speaker 2: Get to talk to you. I am so in love with this movie.

00:11:43
Speaker 1: I went to go see it in theaters and I will believe this is the most original movie I've seen this year.

00:11:49
Speaker 2: I loved it so much.

00:11:50
Speaker 4: Thank you.

00:11:51
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you all about it. But I'm so fascinated with your career. You started out as a scientist. How did you go from this side? I don't want to do science anymore. I want to make DIY movies.

00:12:02
Speaker 5: It was very It was very big decision, you know, and I had a very like, very complicated conversation with my parents about that decision instead of going for PhD just like again, now I want to be a filmmaker.

00:12:18
Speaker 4: And they looked at me like I'm nuts.

00:12:21
Speaker 5: I think my father still kind of questioned my choices, but no, it was fun and then I just was always huge movie geek, and I watched a lot of movies in my entire life, and then on like somewhere in the middle of my university years, I just started to make short movies with my friends. And we like we started even with no scripts, just because we love the process.

00:12:44
Speaker 4: And we did short movies.

00:12:46
Speaker 5: We screened them in bars and restaurants and like wherever we can get the audience. And you know when you like, if you do something like that, and then you definitely know it and then you get lough or like immediate response from the audience and you understand that wait a second, I just crafted something that make them happier for this like couple of seconds. Oh shit, it's like the best reward you can even like dream about. And that's it. And I think I got hooked.

00:13:15
Speaker 4: And yeah, and here we.

00:13:16
Speaker 2: Are in your career.

00:13:18
Speaker 1: What was that first scene that you felt that that response from the audience that you're like, this is what I gotta do.

00:13:22
Speaker 2: That's it.

00:13:23
Speaker 5: Yeah, No, it's like it's I mean, it was a shitty bar and it was a small TV above the like above the bottles, and the sound was like really bad and it was stucky, but somehow it's just like going through all of that and people enjoyed it.

00:13:39
Speaker 1: Getting into talking about the movie, I think one of the things that stuck out to me at first, I was like I realized that there was some kind of vision here of like you have to be in the anime, you have to be in the video games, because I saw these all these elements kind of blending into it. And one of the things that really stuck out to me was the blood splatter. I loved the blood splatter. Can we talk about the science of blood splatter? Like, what was the approach to it in this movie?

00:14:00
Speaker 4: So yeah, thank you so much. It's like, what's a question.

00:14:03
Speaker 5: Basically, I'm huge fan of all of what you just said. And we literally I had to show people like our prosthetic team, like moments from different anime and like old Samurai movies, and we talked like, okay, these bloods were it must be twenty feet high, it must hit the ceiling and fall back, and it should be this, and then it should stay at like dusty red cloud.

00:14:28
Speaker 4: Hanging above the characters.

00:14:29
Speaker 5: And we really they build like pumps and use like different system to make it like explode.

00:14:35
Speaker 4: It just was a lot of fun and.

00:14:37
Speaker 5: Creative approach behind it, and I think it's like it's not only about blood. It's all like the whole practical aspect of this movie with dummies and prosthetics and special effects. We just I mean, I enjoy it in movies a lot when I see like handcraft and I kind of feel the like a real texture or real quality behind it. And sometimes it could be even goofy, but like charming. So we like like try to follow that path and do as much as possible.

00:15:14
Speaker 4: In real life.

00:15:15
Speaker 1: When it comes to doing a scene with a lot of blood, how hard is it with continuity if you get a scene that's like, hey, we need to do it again, but then somebody's covered in blood, Like how hard is it to get it off their skin?

00:15:25
Speaker 5: There is actually there is a simple math behind it. It's like very hard until some point. But then when you cross the line when there is so much blood that there is, doesn't it doesn't matter anymore.

00:15:37
Speaker 4: It's all it's all in blood.

00:15:40
Speaker 1: You kind of lit up there when you were talking about practical effects, and that was something else that I really noticed about the film that it makes it feel real. It gives it a lot of texture. The practical effect that really stick out to me was the fire and I heard I hear that working with fire is the hardest thing to do because we have all these safety precautions. So how hard was it for you to get real fire in this movie.

00:16:01
Speaker 5: It's like, it's it's cool because I wanted to do it from day one and constantly heard that it's impossible. The way how the scene constructed, it's like they had these clocks that were very like.

00:16:13
Speaker 4: Easy to catch that could be very easy to catch fire.

00:16:16
Speaker 5: But I think that you know, when you have real fire, you have a real tension.

00:16:22
Speaker 4: People are really afraid of it.

00:16:24
Speaker 5: It's like, I believe that the scene would feel different, so we kind of we pushed and we tried to find the same ways to do it, and it was like as the entire movie, but this specific.

00:16:35
Speaker 4: Scene like it was also rewarded. It was all planned.

00:16:38
Speaker 5: Were hurst every single shot separately, thinking how to make it safe. Zasi was running there with real fire. Funny enough, because we kind of were afraid of this scene so much and we prepared so well, it was the easiest for day of shooting from the entire movie. It's like it surprisingly was so smooth and so is it going.

00:17:03
Speaker 1: When you talk about your process there of just splashing out that scene with the storyboards, do you have an actual model of the building that you're looking at and kind of building out the rooms in the different levels or is it like a drawing that you kind of go off of.

00:17:16
Speaker 5: Actually, yes, you know when we's it appears even on the script level, on the stage of the script.

00:17:24
Speaker 4: When Alex Lacma, co writer and I we were working the.

00:17:27
Speaker 5: Script, I went to some website where you can, you know, plan your like apartment or something, and I just like, in a very simple way, build three D model of like our building. True, Yeah, try to understand, Okay, we have this room, this hallway connects to this place. Because the geography is very important in this movie, and it's like it has tunnels and his holes and everything. So not to get confused myself, we had to do this step and then it helped a lot to like when we actually start to prefer the movie.

00:17:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, because to me it felt like this living organism, like a character within itself that I feel like I could go there and maybe find my way through it.

00:18:05
Speaker 5: Oh, you will be likely on I'm not sure that I would survive that yeah, what would be your approach if you were placed into the building, would you.

00:18:12
Speaker 4: I'll just I'll join them, I'll join Okay, what do you want me to do?

00:18:18
Speaker 1: I mean, there were a lot of elements that I felt were new in things that I just never seen before in a film, and there were somewhat I felt were just odes to classic horror movies. One of the things that stick out to me was the title card, which I think is kind of having a return of having a big moment where you see the title of the movie. I loved how it was on the mirror. How did you come up with that idea?

00:18:38
Speaker 5: I've fascinated when the title card integrated in this story, and we wanted to make it like be a part of this story but also funny enough, I was thinking about it, but we had different working title, and like, while we were writing the screp the title was different, and then we wrote this scene with the message on the mirror, and then like, wait a second, this message is the title of the movie.

00:19:06
Speaker 4: And it was like basically backwards process.

00:19:09
Speaker 1: When you're working on this story, there's obviously the coll aspect.

00:19:13
Speaker 2: You see a glimpse of Satan.

00:19:15
Speaker 1: Do you have to like have a cleanse of your brain of like, Okay, I need to get rid of this in some of these dark thoughts and just go like watch something fun or kind of clear the palette.

00:19:24
Speaker 4: I mean, I.

00:19:25
Speaker 5: Don't know, it's so fun, you know, like shooting movie is very exhausting, Like you have a lot of emotions and a lot it's just like kind of but and also like when you think about it twenty four hours, you can't sleep. You Like, I go to sleep and in my dreams, I'm still on the set, keep doing it. So I had to find something that will turn and switch my brain. So every night after a shift on the set, I came back home and I watched one episode of Curb youw in twosiasm, and that show just turn me off and like help me to get through all of that.

00:19:59
Speaker 1: You talk about dreaming about scenes and like, I guess you're just still living it in your head. Was there any moment that made the movie that came to you in a dream?

00:20:08
Speaker 4: Woh, actually yes, one of my short movies. I remember.

00:20:12
Speaker 5: It was such a strange experience. It's called Siziphus is Happy, and it's in YouTube if somebody wants to check it and that movie. I fully saw it in a dream, like from the beginning to the end. It's just like such a weird thing. I just woke up and like I told this dream to my brother and then like wait a second, just like I'm telling you the movie and I wrote it down, and it's like it's it's very strange feeling, but it's like luck that comes to you once.

00:20:35
Speaker 1: I hope everybody checks out the movie. I truly believe it's one of the most original things I've seen. I've I'm so never seen an I become a character. I've never seen people rebuild their heads and all their limbs. Like, I really had a great time watching it, So it was great to get to talk to you.

00:20:52
Speaker 4: Thank you so much. I really hapey about that.

00:20:55
Speaker 1: Next up, let's talk to the producers of They Will Kill You, Andy and Barbara Mushaltti. They are known for directing and producing horror movies like Mama It, Chapter one, It, Chapter two, and even the series It Welcome to Darry on HBO Max. We'll talk what a producer actually does from day one to when the movie is actually finished, and in a world of sequels, franchises and remakes, why they wanted to fight for such an original movie and if it felt like a risk to them. But I'm so curious with the relationship between you guys as siblings growing up.

00:21:29
Speaker 2: What was home like for you?

00:21:31
Speaker 6: No, at this point, Yeah, it's smooth at this point. It wasn't easy, I guess over the years, but you know, we have each other's back.

00:21:38
Speaker 3: Yes, it was easy.

00:21:40
Speaker 4: It was easy and tough.

00:21:42
Speaker 6: We fight a lot, but we make up very very easily because we're bonded by blood and also we compliment each other very well. We have very different jobs, some intersectional decisions that we have to make sometimes, but it works.

00:22:00
Speaker 1: Did you guys grow up in a creative environment where you were kind of taught like, oh, there's a whole creative world you can get into and you can explore all your originality.

00:22:09
Speaker 3: Yes, And we were very lucky to have incredibly supportive parents that you know. If you know, I think if any of us would have said we want to, you know, make toothpaste, they would have said, yeah, great.

00:22:27
Speaker 6: Showed us, you know, you know, they taught us about the love for stories, the love for movies, the love for music, and and they let us, you know, do our thing.

00:22:37
Speaker 3: And they believed in usposed us.

00:22:40
Speaker 6: To horror movie, especially young, yeah, very young in our lives, and that created a love that it's still it's still going on.

00:22:48
Speaker 2: What made you believe in this movie that you wanted to become a part of it?

00:22:51
Speaker 6: Well, it's bonkers as a script that you know ten pages into it, you're you're in, Well the first ploot point, you're like, what, Wow, I want to see the rest of this. And then we met Kiril Uh, the director and creator of the story. We saw his previous movies, especially the first one, Who Is Waiting to Just Die, which is a perfect like road style, you know, proof of style of what they will kill you might be in terms of tone, and that's all we needed and we got very excited. It was a god movie for us, and we tried to make it easier easy for for kidding.

00:23:37
Speaker 1: When you have a movie like this that is so original, so many out of the box things, when it comes to the characters, when it comes to the violence, is it hard to fight for something so original to see the light of day and be able to come out in theaters in a world of like you got to kind of play it safe.

00:23:52
Speaker 3: Sometimes no movie right now is easy to make. There's not one movie, even one what one would think is the most formulaic. Yeah, sure to succeed. It's it's very difficult making movies. But you know, Kiriel had a very clear vision. We had incredible partners and in our studios that you know, wanted to be a part of this, and we just had to make sure to protect his vision and to to support him in everything he needed to make this movie real. And and here we are, and yesterday we screened it and you know, the audience gave us basically an eleven. It was unbelievable.

00:24:42
Speaker 6: But also I think I think that there is there is an appetite for for original stories. As you say, like you know, it's not it's not always a safe bet, especially for the industry and for studios, but there's an understanding that people need after so many years of franchises and sequels and stuff, people need original stories. So breath of fresh air and and and on that point, we all agreed, this is original, this is fresh, This is like crazy, it's fun, it's horrific, so thrill. We'll see if it works.

00:25:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's what makes the movie shine.

00:25:17
Speaker 1: Seeing things that I've never seen before, like an eye becoming a character or a flaming acts.

00:25:22
Speaker 2: Like what things are the hardest to get cleared?

00:25:25
Speaker 1: Is it the using practical effects with the fire scene or is it punching a kid in the face.

00:25:31
Speaker 2: The music, all the music that's out of everything.

00:25:35
Speaker 4: All of that, all of that you describe.

00:25:37
Speaker 6: It is easy.

00:25:40
Speaker 3: The music is very tricky to clear.

00:25:43
Speaker 2: But especially in the budget that we were.

00:25:45
Speaker 6: You know, we're playing with you know, of course, you get to the edit room and you put all the songs are a key, he'll put all the songs that he wanted because you use stemps, of course, and it's amazing. But then you have to deal with reality, which is like, oh, hey, we have to buy these songs. And unfortunately we had to pick or clearly had to pick its battles. Oh, in that.

00:26:05
Speaker 3: Sense, we had I'll tell you a little secret. We had a sequence I won't tell you which one it is, but cut to painted black and it was unbelievable. It was just unbelievable, but we couldn't afford it.

00:26:20
Speaker 6: Yeah, but we had to do a lot of search to make it to still make it unbelievable without painted black. But it's one of the word falls of temp music.

00:26:28
Speaker 2: Using those moments work with the music, like the moments just really hid in this movie.

00:26:33
Speaker 4: That's great.

00:26:34
Speaker 1: I kind of am fascinated with the role of a producer. What is day one like for you? When you say we're signing on, we're going to produce this movie. What is it like day one?

00:26:43
Speaker 2: What do you do?

00:26:44
Speaker 3: Well?

00:26:45
Speaker 4: You read?

00:26:46
Speaker 3: You have to you know, you meet the director. For us, it's important to see the body of work of the director, you know. That's that's very important because I have to tell you there's a lot of people that can talk in a room. God, they can talk, and they can sell you a lot, but you know, until you see what they can actually do, there's there's a world there. And with Kiril, Kitril had his first movie Why Don't You Just Die, which was incredible, and he's very scrappy. We are very scrappy, you know. We come from Argentina. You can do a lot with a little piece of string basically, and we felt the same about Carol. In this case, we had to fight for it because there was competition. So we basically sat down with Carol and we told him the truth. We told him everything we were going to do, which which was going to be to protect his vision above all, because we believed in his vision. We didn't want another movie. We wanted that movie. And from then on, you know, we started casting the movie work like Gang Bastard. It was amazing. Every single person in that cast was our first option. So that was a combination of Kitty being able to cast a Hollywood movie, which is not a simple thing to do because you're asking this incredible cast to trust you, to trust a newcomer, and then you know, you just start budgeting and where do we shoot. We ended up going for South Africa because that's where we were getting the most bang for buck. After that, you just jump in the pool, you know.

00:28:38
Speaker 2: Head first.

00:28:39
Speaker 1: I love that you mentioned the cast there because it does feel probably on paper, unconventional, But then when you see it on screen, you're like, this works together so well, Like I never knew like I would want all.

00:28:48
Speaker 2: These people in one movie.

00:28:49
Speaker 1: When did you know that everything was perfect as far as all the decisions that were cast.

00:28:54
Speaker 3: Well, you don't, you know, you don't until you don't see the movie edited. But we had an incredible feeling because they are all like uber talented and great people and what they each of them brought to the roles was golden. So once we saw the you know, the for the editorial cut, it was clearly a movie that was working.

00:29:22
Speaker 1: We talked about day one, what about the final day. How do you know when the movie is done?

00:29:26
Speaker 4: It's never done.

00:29:27
Speaker 3: If you ask Andy, it's a movie's never done, he would he.

00:29:30
Speaker 2: Would still be cutting done, of course.

00:29:32
Speaker 6: Like you know, the last stretch of post is like, uh, it's it's very pleasurable but tragic at the same time. You have to put your pencils down. And but it's beautiful. I mean it's it's it's the thing you have to at one point you have to stop and and and and give it, give it up for the audience. And that's when the big reward comes. You know, if you did a good job, they will they will let you know. And that's what happened yesterday.

00:29:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, you felt it there right up till eleven.

00:29:58
Speaker 4: Amazing, amaz incredible.

00:30:01
Speaker 1: Well, I appreciate it. I hope everybody checks out the movie. Thanks for the time, Thank you any.

00:30:12
Speaker 2: Let's get into it now.

00:30:13
Speaker 1: A spoiler free movie review of Michael at the top of this review. I want to say historically, I don't like music biopics. I love music, I love movies. I don't like music movies because oftentimes they are fluff pieces, especially when the person is still alive or their family is heavily involved in the making of this movie. When if you look at Michael, his nephew is playing him. He is playing his uncle Jaffar Jackson, who I think actually did a really great job. And it is hard to find somebody to embody Michael Jackson.

00:30:44
Speaker 2: They found it.

00:30:45
Speaker 1: You also have his sons and other members of the Jackson family as producers on this movie. Janet Jackson actually opted out of not being included in it whatsoever. I also knew the controversies going into it. It was hard to avoid on the internet, which usually I don't like that outside perspective before I go see a movie. And I say that as a movie reviewer. I've also been following this music biopick for a very long time, from the first time it was announced where initially this movie was three and a half to four hours long, and they did get into the allegations that happened in nineteen ninety three, but they had to cut that out of the movie because of a lawsuit and actually spent ten to fifteen million dollars in reshoots.

00:31:26
Speaker 2: That was a heavy part of the third act of this movie.

00:31:29
Speaker 1: Instead, they had to completely cut it out. I still think that we're probably gonna get that eventually, because this movie will probably do well enough that they use some of that footage they have already shot and cut from this version and end up making another Michael Jackson movie. What this movie is about mainly him as a kid starting out in the family band, the Jackson Five. And the thing I actually found myself enjoying about this is there was actually a story to grasp onto, which in music biopicks you often don't get that because they have to decide what to focus on. Are we just going to focus on the music aspect of it and have a lot of songs featured throughout full performances? Which I hate when they heavily focus on performances and songs throughout the movie to carry the story. I feel like it's such a distraction from what I go there to see.

00:32:18
Speaker 2: I want a movie.

00:32:19
Speaker 1: I want to know more about the person that I didn't know after I leave that theater. I want to feel more connected to them, and I actually did after watching Michael because while the music was a part of the story, you see him in the recording studio, you see him making music.

00:32:35
Speaker 2: Videos like Thriller.

00:32:36
Speaker 1: You see that creative process that was going on in his brain and in his life. It doesn't focus on the music alone to tell the story. And I really enjoyed that. What this movie is actually about is a ten year old boy and the biggest villain in his life his father, which I think having that villain of Joe Jackson and Michael was imperative because it gave you somebody to root against and somebody for you to root for. You are rooting for Michael who had his childhood ripped away from him at ten years old. Michael Jackson was forced to rehearse with his brothers, forced to perform because his dad, Joe Jackson, saw something in him money. That is what you learned in this movie. All he saw in his son's talent was dollar signs. And you had this villain that you were rooting against because everything he did was to manipulate his son, to get him to perform, and for him as the dad, as his manager, to cash in on him. Yes, it is about his rise to becoming the biggest pop star on the planet, but at the core of it, it is him versus Coleman Domingo as he is trying to be his own person, which it was a wild thing to think that as famous as he was getting, he was still afraid of his father because he was so abusive to him as a kid, would beat him and then mentally abuse him throughout his career, thinking you are nothing without this family, making him feel guilty for wanting to go and do a solo act, do solo albums and still being so controlling. That is crazy that you can be this superstar who is selling out stadiums because everybody loves you, but still feel like your dad could ground you. Still as an adult, felt like your dad was in complete control of your life. And that is what I learned about Michael by watching this movie, and also how great of a business person and visionary he truly was, how much he was dedicated to being a superstar, which now he is the biggest pop star who ever lived. I am not a Michael Jackson fan. I don't think I've ever sat down to listen to his music, but I know it because it is that massive. I didn't really know how much he actually worked towards being that superstar, because he was already super famous when I was a kid, He was at that icon status already. But seeing him actually fight for even getting his music played on MTV, and how mysterious he wanted to be to craft that I really wish though the movie would have leaned into more how isolating that was for him. You do get a glimpse of it as him as a kid, where he is like, man, these other kids just want to take pictures with me, and they don't treat me like a normal kid. But once he gets to his adult life, they focus more on him becoming an icon more so than the told that the fame took on him, how isolating it was, how weird it ended up making him, which I think is the thing that I was probably the most fascinated with in his life, because if you think about how crazy it was for him just to leave his house just to go to a restaurant, which he couldn't do the normal things in life that you and I think is just okay, that is just second nature.

00:35:42
Speaker 2: We do that all the time.

00:35:43
Speaker 1: He never had the chance to do because he was famous at such a young age, because it made me think of a story from Lionel Richie, who toured with the Jackson five and said that at times Michael Jackson smelled awful because his clothes couldn't be taken to the cleaners because if they knew Michael Jackson's clothes were coming in.

00:36:00
Speaker 2: Somebody was gonna steal those clothes.

00:36:01
Speaker 1: Crazy that you couldn't even send your clothes to be washed because as soon as somebody knew those were Michael Jackson's clothes, they were going to steal them. So he would just walk around and simple clothes. So I wanted more of those details of the level of fame that he achieved that nobody else has kind of touched on it a little bit, but no different than you see in Elvis, No different than you see in the Bruce Springsteen movie. No different than you see in the Bob Dylan movie. I think the movie itself should have been a little bit more novel because it is a once in a lifetime superstar. The movie didn't feel like that to me. It still felt very by the book, even though it wasn't as fluffy as I thought it was going to be. It also wasn't as dynamic as I think Michael Jackson's life and career deserved, because one of the craziest things about his life was featured in the movie, the fact that Michael Jackson owned a chimp named Bubbles. He also owned snakes and drafts. In the movie they are CGI animals, and you think about, Okay, it's probably easier to work with CGI animals.

00:37:03
Speaker 2: Where are you going to get a chimp? Where are you going to get a giraffe?

00:37:06
Speaker 1: Well, you think about the fact that this is a real story and Michael Jackson actually owned a chimpanzee, but in the movie they make about his life, they can't even get a real chimpanzee.

00:37:18
Speaker 2: This movie should have been weirder.

00:37:20
Speaker 1: It was interesting to see that Michael Jackson was basically just the big nerd because when he wasn't on stage performing for thousands, millions of people, he would just want to go home, eat popcorn, eat ice cream, and watch movies with his mom, which I think was the part that probably painted him the most as a human. How much he loved and was fascinated with Peter pan Charlie Chaplin, the Three Stooges, and how that was really the only time he got to be a real human. His mom was the only person who really knew who he was and knew he was special, but didn't treat him any different, and that is where you kind of started to see his fascination with things that would be associated with his childhood. The movie does show how much he loved Mickey Mouse and things that he was robbed of as a kid. It also showed how uncomfortable he was in his own body as he started to change his appearance. Also covers whenever he got burned while filming the Pepsi commercial and how that led to his substance abuse issues, And again it only touches on those things. At the very end, we don't really see how bad it got, and you know, by following his life and following how he died, how much that took a toll on him. But overall, in the most recent music bio picks, I would put this one as my favorite one. I don't think that is the biggest compliment because some of the most recent ones haven't been my favorite. It does kind of feel like they are building some Avengers team. If there was a cinematic universe for all these music icons Michael Jackson would definitely be the Iron Man. I think next to him, Captain America would have to be Elvis. Those two are the best music biopicks of the twenty twenty. If they were building it in the same way they built the MCU in the late two thousands, then you would have thor b, Bob Dylan, and The Incredible Hulk would for sure be Bruce Bringstein had the weakest movie, even though in my opinion, I do think The Incredible Hulk movie is severely underrated.

00:39:16
Speaker 2: But that is your Avengers team.

00:39:17
Speaker 1: I was almost expecting there to be a post credit scene where you see Michael Jackson come back again and say, I'm a sembling a team.

00:39:24
Speaker 2: Maybe they make a week Are of the World movie where.

00:39:27
Speaker 1: They all team up and take on the world through music, because I know, as horrific as that sounds to some people, you know that all these music icons coming together in one movie would be an event. I would pay to see that. Maybe having them all together in an Avengers style movie would actually make one movie completely worth watching. But when it comes to Michael, I have to give it a really strong four out of five. White gloves God to head down to movie Mike treylor Paul. The street Fighter movie looks way better than I was expecting, and I am excited for it. This is how you make a true video game adaptation that embraces all the things from the video game, doesn't stray away from it, doesn't worry about being so niche and alienating audiences. This movie is swinging for the fences, and this trailer shows it. It is jam packed with in game moves, video game accurate costumes, so many characters just loaded up in this The cast is star studded, well, some of them are stars.

00:40:37
Speaker 2: Other people are kind of weird. Some of the casting choices.

00:40:41
Speaker 1: I kind of questioned whenever they did that big reveal of who all was going to be in this movie, but I knew that they were going for a vibe. And some of these people I kind of find annoying in real life, or them as actors and them as people. But some of these characters that I'm seeing in this trailer are meant to be annoying characters, very over the top.

00:40:57
Speaker 2: This movie is going to be low it up.

00:41:00
Speaker 1: I truly think it's gonna come down to the runtime, which they haven't said how long this movie is going to be but it is swelling with video game goodness meant for the fans that grew up playing this game, which I do want to get into my relationship with Street Fighter. So before we get into more, here is just a little bit of the Street Fighter trailer, but only wonder which we'll be crowned World Champion.

00:41:28
Speaker 6: You're not a Warrior anymore, your sideshow.

00:41:33
Speaker 2: This is your shot at redemption? Are you gonna show? I'm on now that maybe it's Ken's turn to be champion.

00:41:45
Speaker 7: I'm positive that a fireball came out of Reus. Ye.

00:41:59
Speaker 1: So this movie is set in nineteen ninety three. What it is about a strange street fighters Reu? Oh, I think growing up I would say it Ryu, but it is re you, or maybe I'm saying it wrong now played by Andrew Kogi. It is Reu and Ken played by Noah Centiano. We have Riyu and Ken who are thrown back into combat when the mysterious Chun Lee recruits them for the next World Warrior tournament, a brutal clash of fists, fate and fury. But behind this battle royale lies a deadly conspiracy that forces them to face off against each other. And the demons of their past, and if they don't, it is game over. This is quite the cast. Andrew Coggi as re You, Noah Centiano as Ken, Kalina Lina as Chun Lee.

00:42:43
Speaker 2: Then we have.

00:42:44
Speaker 1: Roman reins in here. We have David Desmalchin, who is playing the villain in this movie. He is a really great horror actor. You also might remember him from movies like ant Man. He's a big nerd. I watched his house tour on YouTube like a couple of years ago for some reason, and he just looks so unique, especially when he's playing a villain, just because his entire aura and presidence just kind of draws you into him. If you saw him out in public, even if you didn't know any of his movies, you would know that guy is somebody. So I like him in this role. I think when they were casting this movie they said, Okay, we don't really need acting abilities. It doesn't need to be out of ten. We need people who look so distinct that can bring these characters to life, that make your eyes just want to fixate on the screen. That is the type of people we need. It also has a lot of interesting people from like WWE, so I really feel like this is playing to the modern movie market, getting people with large social media followings, because you also have people like Andrew Schultz, Eric Andre fifty cent, Jason Momoa, Orville Peck, so many people with followings and music and TV and all the things that you can just say, all right, all you guys, go promote this movie on your social media and hopefully people will come out. And I think the thing that is really going to set this movie apart from every other video game adaptation is it's not afraid of alienating the mainstream, which is something that if you look back on the history of video game adaptations, including the original Street Fighter that came out back in nineteen ninety four, it really didn't want to associate itself with the things from the video game because at that time it was seen as a risk. Even superhero movies at that time we're seen as a risk. Before nineteen ninety four, you had success with movies like Batman with Tim Burton that kind of showed audiences and showed investors that Okay, we can put out a superhero movie and it not be a joke. But it took us years and decades to get to where we are now where we are still fighting for comic book accurate things over in the superhero world. It took us up until Deadpool and Wolverine to get Wolverine in that yellow suit. And when it comes to video games, we really haven't had that one defining video game adaptation aside from the Super Mario movie. But that's not live action. That is an animated movie that kind of did the same thing. It brought all the things from our childhood to life in that video game. But it is a family friendly movie, but it has the billions of dollars at the box office to prove that.

00:45:18
Speaker 2: People do want this.

00:45:19
Speaker 1: So could Street Fighter be that defining movie in the video game genre in a year where we are already getting another video game adaptation Mortal Combat too, So we are basically living in the nineties again. But if you go back to the original Super Mario Brothers movie that came out back in the nineties, that was a mess, and that was a disaster that it kind of did the opposite of paving the way and made it nearly impossible to get a movie like this that audiences would expect. But here we are in twenty twenty six, and I think there is an appetite for this type of movie and taking things exactly from the video game and bringing them to life, not just kind.

00:45:58
Speaker 2: Of doing here's something a little bit for the fans.

00:46:01
Speaker 1: No, taking things exactly from the game like they were from the sound effects, from very niche things, not only the costumes, not only the fighting moves, but even things like beating up a car that you would really only know if you played the video game.

00:46:15
Speaker 2: A lot of these.

00:46:16
Speaker 1: Moves were ripped right from the arcade game that I grew up playing and I loved back in the day. I would play it so much with my cousins in Mexico, and each of my parents lived and grew up in these remote little ranches in Mexico. Basically what would be the equivalent of living out in the country here in the United States, where there is nothing around. There aren't any stores, and if you needed to go into town, you would have to drive at least twenty to thirty minutes to get to the New York City. But every little ranch had their own little stores that somebody who lived there would run and operate, and we would go there. We had one that was really close to my grandma's house, that we could walk to. But then we had one on the outskirts where we lived, almost to the main road that you would go if you wanted to go to the city, and it was called La Kemalta, which translates, I believe to just like the little burn, which I didn't really question that growing up. But it was so far away from where my grandma lived that my cousins and I would have to sneak off to go there and would have to ride bikes because it was way too far to walk. But I remember we would bike and bike and bike and finally get there, and they had a street Fighter arcade game in this little store, so we would go and you could get really cheap Mexican candy. We just called it candy, but we'd get some candy and we would just play street Fighter. And I didn't grow up with a lot of money, but the little money that we did have as a family.

00:47:42
Speaker 2: Would go a lot further in Mexico.

00:47:45
Speaker 1: So while I would feel so broke in the United States, like I didn't have a whole lot of extras, going to Mexico as a kid and seeing how they lived and seeing the way they looked at me, they thought I was rolling in it. So we would go Tula Ka Maita and we would play Street Fighter, and I would supply the money to you because I'd have a dollar and that would go so far playing video games, and they would always let me play first because I was supplying a lot of the money to play. And I loved playing as Ryu. Again I think it's Reu, but I loved playing as him because I knew how to get out a special move this move right here, and all my cousins would freak out every time I'd get out of But we played that for hours on end, so much show them. My parents would start to get worried where I was, but we were just playing Street Fighter. And I don't even think I played the video game so much in the United States. But there are a lot of things like this that I grew up with playing more in Mexico or watching more in Mexico, like Dragon Ball Z is another one that I watched with all my cousins there. But I loved this video game, and it was seeing all those things come out in this trailer that led me to believe that this is going to be something that's kind of going to be a moment this year because it looks so ridiculous and so over the time, not taking itself too seriously. I mean, just look at Cody Rhodes's hair, which Cody Rhods plays Gile in this movie, which his name looks like it would be Gooley, but it is Gyle because it rhymes with ile. But he wore this giant blonde wig that's like a flat top but so big and over the top.

00:49:18
Speaker 2: That is so accurate to the video game.

00:49:22
Speaker 1: And that is something that I thought, there's no way they're gonna pull that off and have it look like we're not gonna laugh this guy.

00:49:28
Speaker 2: Off the screen.

00:49:29
Speaker 1: But somehow it works because all of these characters look exactly like their video game designs, and I think that is going to go a long way, and it's going to get people excited, especially Blanca, who man if Blanca, the big green guy who is going to be played by Jason Momoa goes harder than the Incredible.

00:49:46
Speaker 2: Hulk in the MCU.

00:49:48
Speaker 1: It is going to be a travesty because he's only in the trailer for maybe a second or two and you see him kind of bust through this rubble and for so long I've just been wanting to see the Hulk be the Hulk in a Marvel movie. In the same year, we're also supposedly getting some kind of fight between the Hulk and Spider Man or something.

00:50:07
Speaker 2: Going on there.

00:50:09
Speaker 1: If Blanca overshadows the Hulk Man, the Street Fighter is gonna have a step ahead of all these other properties and just giving the fans what they want. The only problem I see with Street Fighter. If this movie is successful, so many people are going to copy it. And when you have so many people copying something that works, we're gonna get a lot of bad versions. Again, of video game adaptations, it's just natural. If this one works out, you're gonna see more properties get bought up, or people who already have the rights to certain video games that maybe we haven't seen a movie from, or maybe they did one back in the nineties or the two thousand's. You're gonna see all those people say, Okay, now's the time we gonna started making these movies and get them out.

00:50:57
Speaker 2: As soon as possible.

00:50:59
Speaker 1: But this movie very well crafted and thought out and a lot of fans service, which I think is something that the fans are just kind of tired of being ripped off of taking a video game name and just making a generic safe movie.

00:51:14
Speaker 2: We're over that. We don't want boring, we don't want safe.

00:51:18
Speaker 1: There are some movies we want to make us think and make us feel, but there are some movies that we just want to see some people fight against each other. We want to see people throwing fireballs out of their body, electric charge, mutant looking things. That is what we want and that is what they are giving us in Street Fighter. So hopefully this movie is successful. It creates an entire franchise, and we are back baby with video game adaptations.

00:51:43
Speaker 2: Maybe we get more, but we do have to wait.

00:51:46
Speaker 1: Street Fighter is coming out in theaters on October sixteenth of this year.

00:51:51
Speaker 7: And that was this week's edition of Movie Mikes Trailer Pars.

00:51:58
Speaker 1: And that is going to do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, I got to give my listeners shout out of the week. This week, I'm going over my classic email, which is Moviemike D at gmail dot com, and I am shouting out listener Jake who wrote in and said, Hey, Mike D, I want to chime in on you and Kelsey doing the joint podcast. I personally think that Kelsey adds a lot to the podcast. I enjoy her take on movies and love the edition of her book reviews. I also think that with her there to go back and forth with it gives another dimension. I also feel like you were the happiest with her near You always sound happy when talking about movies, but you seem happier on another level with your wife. As always, I appreciate your insights and enthusiasm. Listener, Jake, appreciate that Jake and you are in luck because we are almost at the end of another month, as April has just flown by, so it is almost time for Kelsey to return and for us to do our end of the month review where we talk about the best and the worst movies. We also recap the one TV show that we've watched for some and Kelsey throws in a book. So I always try to have a level of enthusiasm, whether I'm doing a solo episode like today did have some guests on the podcast today, or when I'm doing it with Kelsey. I think if I lose that enthusiasm, it's time to hang it up. And some people I get comments still saying like why do you laugh to yourself? It's just you in a room by yourself. If I do not have a smile on my face when I sit down to record this podcast, I won't hear record. So I have to be in a good mood, in a good place, because you know how weird it is sometimes to have a conversation with yourself. There is no one in here right now, I can yell as loud as I want to, and you just kind of have to have this maybe psychotic energy to have a conversation with yourself.

00:53:42
Speaker 2: But I'm really not.

00:53:43
Speaker 1: I'm talking to you right now wherever you are, even though I can't see. Oh man, I am going crazy sitting here by myself. But if I don't have that level of enthusiasm for movies, if I ever lose that, then it's going.

00:53:55
Speaker 2: To be time to close out the podcast. So appreciate that, Jake.

00:53:58
Speaker 1: Thank you wherever you are listening right now in your car at the gym.

00:54:02
Speaker 2: But I appreciate that.

00:54:04
Speaker 1: And until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.