What ‘A Goofy Movie’ Means To Me + Ryan Coogler on Representation in Film + Movie Review: Sinners + Trailer Park: Another Simple Favor

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's Movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike, and today we're getting a little bit personal. I'm going to talk about what a Goofy movie means to me. If you're a longtime listener to this podcast, you know I'm a huge fan of it. Disney Plus came out with the documentary. I watched the entire thing. I went back rewatched the movie and I have all my feelings on why this movie changed my life. In the movie review, we'll be talking about Sinners, which is directed by Ryan Kugler. I also got to talk to Ryan Kugler about representation and film, so we'll get to that. And in the trailer park, Oh boy, a lot of drama. Another simple favor. It's a sequel that's coming out, has Blake Lively, it has Anna Kendrick. With all that's going on in Oh just a behind the scenes of this movie. Will this movie be able to eclipse all that and rise above and just be good on its own? Or will it be terrible? Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to the movie crew. And now let's talk movies from the Nushville Podcast Network as this is the movie. Pots The documentary I watched was called Not Just the goof It's on Disney Plus. Before I get into what a Goofy movie means to me, what I learned after watching this documentary is that Disney didn't really know what they had. They almost messed up, they almost fumbled the bag, and I would argue, they still don't really know what they have because a Goofy movie has such a big, burning fan base and it is arguably one of the only Disney cult classics. Where Disney was when this movie came out. I'll start with the inception of it, because it was kind of in the late eighties that was starting to form this storm that led to a Goofy movie because in the mid to late eighties, Disney was in what is referred to as the Xerox era, where their animation just wasn't cutting it. It just wasn't making them a lot of money. Xerox refers to the process that they were using, which was a lot of repurposing of backgrounds. The character design was kind of lazy, and overall, the movement and the feeling of the movie is really just wasn't popping on screen. The movies weren't making money. Even though one of my favorite Disney movies, Oliver and Company, is a part of this era. If you go back and watch that movie, you can kind of see how it doesn't have that same feeling of animation that came in the Renaissance era that came with movies like Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and eventually Lion King. That just blew the lid off of everything. So they started to look around at the characters that Disney has had since the beginning, and you have Goofy, who has been around as what of Mickey Mouse's best friends, but has never had a full length feature. So they thought, all right, let's make a movie about Goofy. And they get a guy named Kevin Lima to direct the whole movie. And Kevin Lima has to decide, what do I want to make this story about? How do I flesh out a character who is really only known for his insane wackiness, his physical comedy. His one liner is, oh, like that is Goofy. He's very over the top, And how do you make a person like that human? And how do you give him characteristics that an audience is going to identify with. So Kevin Lima decides that this should be a story about Goofy and his son, and it has to be about them bonding, and that is the heart of a Goofy movie. If for some reason you've never seen a Goofy movie, here's what the movie is about. A Goofy movie is about Max, who has a crush on a girl and his dad happens to be Goofy. He goes through this big, elaborate scheme to impress her by dressing up and acting out a performance of a musician named power Line in front of the entire school. He gets busted. Goofy thinks that, oh man, Max is gonna end up in jail. He's gonna end up being a really bad kid and if I don't get through to him, because his best friend Pete has convinced him of this, So Goofy decides he's gonna take his son Max on a cross country fishing trip and that's gonna solve everything. Problem is, Max has already promised to go out on a date with his crush, Rock Sand and instead of saying I have to go with my dad, he lies to her and saying my dad is actually friends with that power Line guy that we're all a big fan of, and we're going to Los Angeles so we can be a part of his show. And you know what, I'm gonna wave to you once he brings us up on stage during that final number while you're at this party that I'm supposed to be at, and it's gonna be awesome and you're gonna be mine. And the reason I say Disney didn't know what they had is because there were a lot of changes that happened during this time of a goofy movie getting made. There were some changes in the powers that be, the head of the studio who was the champion of the movie, And what they were trying to do was make a movie for a relatively low budget. I believe it was ten million dollars that they were working with, and that is essentially an animated TV show budget. But they were trying to say, could we make it on this amount of budget but still make the amount that we make for a movie like The Little Mermaid? And once that head of Disney was no longer a part of the picture, the next guy who came in was like, what are we doing with this? Why are we spending so much money on a Goofy movie. We got to just get this thing out, and they downgraded the premiere. They scrapped all the merchandise, and they thought this is not gonna do any good. It rolled out into theaters, it got really bad reviews from critics. Ciskel and Ebert hated it. Everybody said that to Kevin Lima, like you ruined the character of Goofy. This is not the Goofy we know. And they didn't realize what they had because once they started putting it on the Disney Channel the VHS, it started connecting with audiences. The movie came out in ninety five. Like I mentioned, I was probably four years old. I didn't go see it in theaters, but I remember having that VHS tape, and this movie was so impactful on me because it didn't feel like any other Disney movie out there. It wasn't animals talking to each other, even though I mean, Goofy is like a half man, half dog, but it wasn't like Lion King. It wasn't like Under the Sea, didn't feel like a fairy tale. It didn't feel like there was this overarching, big moral like you would find in a traditional Disney movie, even though there are a lot of big themes and a lot of big morals in a Goofy movie. But aside from that, it also felt so nineties. If I had to say, what is the most nineties movie of all time, I think I'm going with the Goofy Movie. If you look at the music in this movie, the fashion in this movie, that is one of the only Disney movies that is so representative. And I'm only talking animation here, one of the only animated Disney movies that represents this time period just so well. From the opening number of seeing Max with the big sunglasses, the oversized clothes that are so colorful, the baggy jeans, the baggy shirts you have, the goth kids. Everything about this movie is so nineties. From the technology, it is fantastically nineties. And what Disney didn't see is how the movie was connecting with audiences because you really couldn't show your fandom for the movie, aside from buying as many VHS tapes as you could afford, which why would you do that. We would buy one that we'd pass it around among all the families. They didn't have merchandise. There was nothing for me to grasp onto to show how much I love this movie. But as a kid, I couldn't see a difference in animation between a goofy movie and The Lion King. Maybe later, once we had toy story and a bugs life and it got a little bit more digital, you could kind of start to see the difference. But to me, it was just a great story. I also loved the fact that there was no real hero or evil person, which in most animated Disney movies there's always like the evil Queen, the bad king, somebody awful that the hero has to fight and overcome and in some way defeat. This is such a grounded story that I think that they were worried that it wasn't going to connect with audiences, that it needed more of the goofiness and the wackiness, because there are so many moments of just realness and rawness in a goofy movie that it takes a lot of risk. It's also a shorter movie. In rewatching this movie, I was surprised that it was under an hour and twenty minutes, But that's probably why I watched this movie so much as a kid, because it was just on a continuous loop. So I think That was my main takeaway from watching the documentary is that Disney is all about capitalizing on things, monetizing things. They're just not in the bisiness of making cult classics, which here, thirty years later, we're still talking about this movie, and the fact that this movie is thirty years old is a little unsettling to me as well. I think the other thing after watching this documentary was how much attention to detail there actually was, primarily with the final scene whenever Goofy and Max finally make it to Los Angeles, make it to the power Line concert, there's a whole big dance number that I didn't realize. They had a real person come in and dances power Line, real backup dancers. They had someone stand in as Goofy, they had someone stand in as Max, and they filmed this all like they would a normal music video. And what the animators did was actually take all those dance moves and make that final number that we see on the screen. That is amazing to me. And they said that that scene wouldn't have worked if they had not done that, And that's kind of exp infensive to dude, to bring in real dancers to actually pull that off. But that's such an iconic moment. Kevin Lima just really wanted to make a great movie, and just how kind of dejected he was once he lost his champion, once he realized that it wasn't getting recepted the way he thought. Because he worked so hard on it, with all the animations and all the notes and all the things that went wrong, the movie almost didn't see the light of day because when they were animating it, they realized that there was this little black dot in the left corner of the screen that they had to go back and reshoot a whole bunch, which not film it reshoot, but when you actually animated movie, you're like taking pictures with an actual film camera, and there was a black dot in the corner the whole time, and they had to redo that, get a new contraption to do that, and that was really expensive. There were so many times that this movie easily could have been shelved. Whenever they filmed the scene of Max and Roxanne kissing, the two voice actors actually kissed in real life, and that was the awkward I don't think they needed to do that. I've never really heard an animation ever because it's also kind of rare that people are in the same room when it comes to animation and recording things. Usually they do it all separate. That's kind of the appeal sometimes to animation, as actors can come in do it on their own time. I think the last time I really remember this happening was when they did the last animated teenage Muan Ninja Turtles movie, and they had all the teenage actors actually in a room recording those lines together to kind of give it that feeling of camaraderie. But for the most part, they're never in the same room. In this case, Jason Marsden, who is the voice of Max, I had to kiss Roxane and relive. I don't know if that was necessary. I don't know if as a kid that emotion came across, but that was kind of wild to see. So that is what I learned from the documentary. Now what this movie means to me as a kid. This was kind of my guy book to those preteen and teenage years. Max is fourteen years old in the movie, and what I took away as a kid from watching a goofy movie is in order to impress a girl, you gotta be a rock star. That opening scene was so influential on me because that's what I wanted to be when I was thirteen fourteen years old. I wanted to be a rock star because up until that point, no girls showed me any attention, and I thought, man, if I could just be like Max trying to be like power Line, that is the way I gotta go, and that is what I did. I learned how to play guitar, started playing in a band, and for the majority of middle school and high school, that was really my only like, Hey, this is what I got here. I could play guitar. That was my only cool factor and that is what I relied on. And just like Max in a Goofy movie, I would get hyper fixated on one girl. I always had one crush and my only goal in life was to get that girl to notice me. And I thought, if she would just show me or give me the time of day, that's all I need. And that is exactly how I felt, and I was exactly Max in this situation where I had a girl in mind that I was all about just trying to impress and hadn't even had a conversation with her, didn't know if she knew I existed, or not, And it taught me about the links that we go through as teenagers to impress our crush. And the crazy thing upon rewatching this movie was that I don't really remember rock Sand actually being into him and showing those feelings back. I was like, Max, you got this due. She's already talking to you. To me, I never got to that point. I never got to the point of impressing a girl. Even learning how to play guitar, being in a band, playing shows, and trying to be somewhat level of cool. That ain't worked for me. And while I was watching this, I was like, Max, you had this. She actually got nervous around you. Dude, Why I actually do this earlier? You didn't need to dress up like Parallige. You probably just what it dated you. But I think that was the one point that they didn't really make in the documentary. What they focused on more was the story of Max and Goofy, and I did learn from that as a kid. What I took away from it then and why it resonated so much with me, is that I learned just because your dad can't express it, it doesn't mean that he doesn't love you. My dad and I have an interesting relationship. I love my dad. He's been a great dad. He has always been there to provide for me, to show me that he loves me. Showed me a lot of affection as a kid, but I think whenever I got a little bit older, it was harder for him to express that to me. And even though I knew my dad loved me because I saw the links he went through to put food on the table, to try to be there as much as he could, once I got older, he didn't really express it to me as much, even though I knew the love was there. We just kind of got a little bit more separated in those feelings because I think as I got older, started being into things that he didn't understand, like music with trying to impress girls, we started to have less in common. Where when I was a kid, I worship my dad. I was all about my dad, wanted to go on the road with him, riding in his eighteen wheeler, and once I became less interested in that, I think he thought we kind of drifted away a little bit. From watching a goofy movie and realizing that and seeing it from his perspective, it kind of allowed me to know that, oh, my dad is kind of probably worried that we're not going to be as close as we once were. And I think it was the scene with Max and Goofy after they have the encounter with Bigfoot and they realized that they're not in a good place and they're remembering back on stories of when and Max was a kid, which again this movie was based on the series goof Troop, which, Oh that was a good series. Oh nineties animated shows, Oh that was my jam. But in that series, Max was a little bit younger. And in this scene in the movie, they're talking back and remembering the things that Max would do as a kid, and he mentions high Dad's soup, where Goofy would make him soup and Max would spell out things in his suit like high Dad, and they're like remembering all the things that he would spell Max is making a joke about it, and then Goofy's like, oh yeah, or like I love you, and then there's silence because they're just not really communicating on that level where Max doesn't want to be like his dad. At the beginning of the movie, he has that nightmare that he's hanging out with the rock Sand and then he turns into Goofy that laugh, kicks in his teeth, get big his mouth, and it's now he just turns into Goofy. That is his worst nightmare. And Goofy's worst nightmare is that he's gonna end up in jail, and all the things that he does in efforts to prevent that from happening, all the advice he is taking from Pete. In that moment, they are just like, Oh, we're not good right now, even though the other doesn't want to say it. And that was kind of the other thing that I started to learn watching it now in my thirties, even though don't have kids, Kelsey's not pregnant, and I know a lot of people in my age now do have kids, and they talk about rewatching it in their thirties and feeling more for Goofy. And I can see that here too, because what the movie also focuses on and what it teaches you is there are different levels of parenting because you see Goofy who just wants to love his son and let his son be who he is and know that he's raised them in a way even though Mom's not the picture. They make references in the TV show that she has passed. They don't really mention it a whole lot in the movie, but you kind of assume that something happened to his mom. So he's been a single dad, just trying his best. But he believes in his son, even though he knows that his son's not traditionally all the things that Pete wants his son to be, because Pete is just training his son to respect him. That's all he cares about. He doesn't care if he likes him. He just wants to respect He wants him to get things done. He wants them to be at his side if he calls f rohim. He just wants them to respect him. Goofy just wants him to love him. And I think people who rewatch this movie now as an adult with kids, you probably start to side with Goofy because you think, Max, why don't you just want to hang out with your dad? Why don't you just want to spend time with him instead of running away and doing all these things to push him away. And you can probably start to feel like what my dad felt of that fear of drifting away from your kids, And it's just inevitable. It's a part of life that you're gonna change, Your relationships are gonna change, and you're gonna look back on those early days and realize they've gone by so fast. Again, we don't have kids, but even when I hear people talk about how time moves so fast that your kids grow before you know it, I'm already getting sad at the fact that my kids are growing up too fast and they don't even exist yet. So I think that was the main takeaway from the documentary and what I feel now more watching it with those eyes. What this movie also means to me. It's a great representation of pre teen angst, just that feeling of like nobody understanding you, wanting to do what you want to do, but still being a kid, still managing to find yourself in trouble. But at the end of the day, you still want to do the right thing, which is what Max battles throughout this movie. He starts to feel bad about his plan, even when him and Goofy start bonding. There's the point of the movie where they're really getting along, but Max knows that the reason they're getting along is because he's kind of faking it. He's changed the map. They don't end up at their fishing spot. They end up at the power Line concert in La and Goofy things just by easing up on him a little bit that he's allowed him to take a breath, and that is what has made their relationship flourish. But there are a lot of moments like this that go back and forth of them being good, not being good, being a little bit closer, but then being ripped apart. And you really see them be tested throughout every phase of this movie, and it does it really quickly, and they're just not really Disney movies like this anymore, where you feel this real life tension between two characters and get this level of emotional depth that I don't know that they were really thinking that this was going to come across the way it did. Because it also has a lot of fun gags. There's a lot of things that Goofy does that are traditional things that he would do. Max gets in on it a little bit, a lot of still ridiculous nineties things that make this movie fun. But it has one of the biggest hearts out of any animated movie ever, and I think that is why it has such a dedicated fan base now and also why it resonated so much with families at that time. This was one of my go to movies with my family that we would watch over and over again. So I pulled my top five quotes that my mom blows from a Goofy movie. At number five is a big part of the movie. You see it early on and you see it coming to play later in the movie. It's Goofy teaching Max an old family tradition.

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Speaker 2: Let me show you a little family seekly handles down throw well twelve or thirteen goof generations.

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Speaker 3: The perfect cast, the perfect What the perfect cast?

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Speaker 1: I think every time I've gone fishing. I have mentioned the perfect cast since then. At number four, the nerd who goes off very uncharacteristically and starts basically cat calling the girl at the assembly at the beginning of the movie, Y'll stay see Tunk to me tunct to the UK today. I always just thought that was funny. At number three, again, it wouldn't have been an animated nineties movie without Polly Shore and his character's obsession with cheese. Jet up jett out with it. At number two, this would be probably one of the movie quotes that my mom says the most. Two and one out of any movie ever out of the nineties. She quotes these all the time, and it's this one. Whenever Pete is telling goof that his son Max is trying to pull one over on him, and he gives them this advice check them app goof My mom says that all the time, just out of context for no reason. So that has become one of my favorites as well. But at number one was whenever they go to the possum part, because Goofy has taking him to all these places that he loved going to as a kid, things that he did with his dad, because now he can do them with his son. And they go to this old ratchet possum park, which is funny in itself, and they witnessed one of the most horrific animatronic shows of all time. And then afterward, Goofy wants to get a picture with two of the possums that are just hanging there on this branch, and Goofy embarrasses Max by also hanging on the branch and everybody just laughing at them, and then some random kid drops this gem of a line that's a great line, Dork and Dork Junior calling Goofy at Dork for wearing the possum hat that he bought him at the gift shop, and Max for wearing it as well after getting attacked by a possum. So those are my top five quotes from a Goofy movie, highly inspired about my mom, who also loves this movie along with my entire family. We'd watch it all the time on VHS until for some reason, my cousin decided to borrow it and not an everyday normal cousin. My cousin who at the time lived in Memphis when we lived in Dallas, outside of Dallas and walks the hat. We were watching it and I remember him saying, Oh, this is hilarious. You have to let me borrow it. You have to let me borrow it. Bro you live twelve hours away, you live in Memphis. You can't ask me to borrow it. And my mom, even though knowing we love this movie so much, she had us be nice and let him borrow a Goofy movie and maybe another movie that I can't remember at the moment, but I just remember after that never watched a Goofy movie again on VHS because my cousin wanted to borrow it. So shout out to my cousin, if you still have it, I would like that back, please. My top five songs from a Goofy movie, even though there might only be six or sive in my top five. On the Open Road, that's whenever him and Max are first going out on the Open Road. I feel like that's probably the song that most critics saw and thought, this is dumb and it doesn't really fit all the other songs in the movie. I think it's important to it, but it has the most TV lovel vibes out of everything else. But I still enjoy that scene. But I could see now watching it with my movie reviewer eyes. At times it feels like maybe they could have had a different song here, but it's still nostalgic to me. At number four, I have Leicester's Possum Park, which is the song that the animatronic possum scene. That was a great scene. I still remember my mom also quoting the little girl who was in the audience just loving it, laughing the entire time. Great song, a little terrifying, but great song. Number three, which is a great Top three after Today, which is the big opening number at the beginning of the movie when Max is declaring that after today's life is going to change because Roxanne is going to be all about home. That is just a fantastic sequence of animation and music. It also really speaks to how much I love summer. As a kid, I lived for summer. Last day of school was my favorite day of school because I cherished every moment at home during the summer. There was a period in time where I tried to see how long I could go without wearing a shirt in the summer, because that was me saying, that's like total relaxation mode. And I think I made it almost a week. But I love summer. And that is what that scene said to me at number two is standout, which at the very beginning of the movie that just has like a different feeling to me as a kid, Like that scene's felt so big to me. Rewatching it now, it doesn't feel as big to me obviously, but still I love the lighting and the animation, especially when you see Max on stage and he has the big shades and you have like the static behind him. That is just such a well orchestrated scene and the song fits it perfect, and that is pretty much the reoccurring power line song that is played until the ending. At number one is Eye to Eye, which I think is one of the best Disney songs of all time. Won't get the credit it deserves, but that song is a hit. They made a hit for this movie. I think if you would have put that song on the radio in nineties, it would have been a hit. I at number one and also would rank in my top ten Disney songs of all time, and for my final top five, the top five foods I wanted to eat from a Goofy movie. At number five, there's a moment where Max and Goofy are having a good time. They go to an amusement park and Max gets this amazing combination of junk food and I always remember wanting that chili dog that he had on that plate. Goofy eats it, then he gets sick on a run, but that always look really good to me. At number four, I have the shadowass. I always wanted to get cheese and a can as a kid. Well, my mom would never buy it for me because she thought it was too expensive. She's like, we're just getting regular cheese. And I tried it later, probably either a friend's house, maybe when I was like twelve or thirteen, and I was really underwhelmed. I was let down at the fact that it was not as delicious as they made it look in this movie. I would love that leaning tower of cheese that I wish I could have eaten at. Number three was the High Dad soup. Not only did I love any character based soup as a kid, but any character based mac and cheese. I was a big fan of the SpongeBob mac and cheese, also the Pokemon mac and cheese. Any kind of noodle you could fit into a letter or a character, I was all about. The soup looked delicious. It also really sparked my interest in cigarette lighters. I don't think I knew what they were until I watched this movie, and cars don't have them anymore, but I remember we had a ninety four Bronco that had a cigarette lighter, and after watching this movie, I was like, oh, I know what this does now. I pushed it in and then I popped it out, and I did not realize how hot it gets so quickly, and I burned myself with it. So I still don't think you could heat an actual can of soup with this, but I learned the hard way that those things get hot really quick, and sometimes that is why they have to edit out scenes in movies, because dumb kids like me try things they learned from movies. At number two is the diner. Breakfast movies in general had me believing that in my life I would be eating a whole lot more of breakfast foods in the shape of faces because Max gets a plate of food at this diner. The eggs are the eyes and the bacon is the smile. And I thought, man, at some point in my life, I'm gonna go to all these restaurants where I get egg guys and bacon smiles. I don't think I've ever had egg euyes and bacon smiles. But a Goofy movie had me believing that it'd be in my diet a whole lot more than it ever was. But add number one, and this would also go in my list of my top ten movie foods of all time. The motel pizza that they get with that insane cheese pool. Max and PJ are pulling this pizza out of the box and it's like, oh my gosh, that looks so good in this random motel room with the water bed and the neon kind of lighting that looks like maybe the there's a lava lamp in the corner. But all I could think about as a kid was like, oh man, that looks so good. How do they make it look so delicious? And the sad thing is that type of pizza just doesn't exist where the cheese looks that rich and thick. So that is why a Goofy movie means so much to me. If you were a fan and still haven't seen the documentary, I still highly recommended on Disney Plus I shared some of the big things, but I still think there's a lot you get out of it. Now that the movie is thirty years old, I think the question you have to have is should they make another one? Which they did make a sequel. An extremely goofy movie that I also enjoyed is when Mac goes to college. Extreme sports were huge at that time for me too. I was all into Tony Hawk, tried skateboarding myself and my cousin broke his ankle different cousin, by the way, and my mom said, no, you're not skateboarding anymore. But still love the sequel. But I think that is the question because in twenty twenty five, Max would be thirty years older. He would be forty four years old probably what Goofy was in this movi. Oh, I have to imagine he was probably in his thirties. Thirty was seemed way older back in the nineties. I was like, Wow, you're thirty years old. Or maybe it's just because now I'm thirty three, gonna be thirty four this year that I'm thinking, Oh, thirty four is not old. Maybe it's a lot of kids still, But thirty four in the nineties, just the way it was depicted on screen, just felt a lot older. Like Costanza in Seinfeld was like my age now, and he looks like he was fifty eight. But you have to wonder, is it time for another Goofy movie? Will it be announced by the time I put this episode out, Because sometimes that's how it happens. I started talking about something and not knowing it's actually a thing where you have Max now in the position where Goofy was not being able to identify with this kid. I have to imagine if they were to make another one, Max would have a girl just to kind of create a different dynamic, kind of be like a girl meets world situation. And then Goofy is the Grandpa. I think there's a story there power line on his reunion tour. Oh man, I don't even care care how much of a cash grab that would be. I think that would be monumental. And I think now with the fan base that this movie has, having older audiences that were a fan of the original who now have kids, that's not as straight to Disney plus release, that is a put it out in theaters make up for fumbling the first movie. I would gladly contribute to that cash grab. So that is what a Goofy movie means to me. I'll come back and give my spoiler free review of Sinners and talk to the director, Ryan Cougler before I get into this week's review. Here is me talking with director Ryan Kugler, who not only directed Sinners, he also wrote and directed Black Panther one and two, is currently working on three. He did Creed and he's just a really cool guy. So here's me and Ryan Kugler. Hey, Ryan, you're one of my favorite directors, and I think something that you're gonna be remembered for is the representation. I think that was huge for me, Like in Black Panther two, having the first major Mexican care in the MCU was like amazing. Was that something that you set out to do early on or something that kind of developed over time?

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Speaker 2: The power of representation, It's something that I set out to do early on, but it also wasn't something that I consciously thought about. Man. Like I grew up in Oakland, California, like in the nineties when it was just an incredibly diverse city. Man, I wasn't able to travel because I didn't have the money too, but I felt like I had the whole world right outside my door. You know, people from all parts of the world were they and they were proud of their cultures, you know what I'm saying. And they would share and we would share with each other. We were over each other's houses, eating each other's food, and listening to each other's music.

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Speaker 1: That was how I grew up.

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Speaker 2: And when I got enough enough means to travel, and I discovered that Oakland really prepared me for what the world. What the world was man, you know what I mean.

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Speaker 1: I got dropped off in Hong Kong.

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Speaker 2: I never forget and I was like, yo, this is like being it like being downtown San Francisco. You know what I mean, I almost knew my way around, you know. And for me, if I have this ability, it's blessing to be able to have a camera and write things that people that are going to have an opportunity to go see. I do fill up a responsibility to do my best to present the world as it is, you know what I mean. And I always find that rewarding when I'm watching a movie when the world feels like that, So I feel like that's my responsibility to continue to give that to audiences.

00:34:16
Speaker 1: So it means the world few to share that with me. Bro let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review of Sinner, starring Michael B. Jordan, who plays two characters. They are called the Smokestack Twins, and they went to Chicago to work for al Capone doing some gangster stuff, robbing people, butt in bulletin people. And then they decide to move back home to the Great State of Mississippi and they want to open a juke joint. They bring some booze with them from Chicago. They bring some other things you're maybe not supposed to have in the nineteen thirties, and they buy some property with the idea of starting this juke joint to give their community a place where they can go spend money, gamble, party, dance, play music, play the blues, all these things where they can do under a roof, where they can find salvation and not be persecuted by anybody, have their own little piece of home in Mississippi. But things aren't gonna go as planned, because things never go as planned, especially in the nineteen thirties. This movie is a supernatural action thriller, and even though it does take place in that time period, it doesn't feel like a period piece whatsoever, which is always something I struggle with And maybe it's because I'm dumb, but anytime a movie is set back in the thirties, it's always hard for me to get through that just dialogue barrier where it feels like people are talking and just saying words just like and it's hard for me to feel the emotion in a story like that. So oftentimes I don't seek out these movies. But you have director Ryan Coogler, who is one of my favorite directors right now. He has earned that level of respect for me, Like who cares about my level of respect and what I think? But anything he does, any movie he puts out, I am gonna go watch it, and this is the fifth time he has worked with Michael B. Jordan, frequent collaborators. That means these guys know each other. Ryan Coogler can probably push Michael B. Jordan in a way that other directors can't, and he probably needed a lot out of him because Michael B. Jordan's playing two characters, Smoke and Stack, the Smoke Stack twins. And it was their way of working together that made this movie feel like it was fresh and that even though it was set back in the nineteen thirties, the dialogue, the interactions with all the other characters felt like it could have been taking place right now given some of the wardrobe. But I think there's only one other director who has done that in recent history, and that is Quentin Tarantino. He does that a lot. He goes back in time, rewrites history and still makes it feel fresh, adding in maybe some words that they probably didn't say back in the thirties. But it kind of breaks that barrier a little bit. And it's a really fine line to walk because sometimes when you do a quote unquote period piece and you have little inaccuracies here and there, people want to strangle you for it. But in this case it totally makes sense because Sinners blends these two different genres, maybe even a little bit of three different genres into one movie, and it walks this line of here's this element of a period piece, but then here's this drama, here's this supernatural thing. You have a bit of horror elements in there. And in twenty twenty five, where I started to think that nobody could create a movie that I'd never seen before, and you always hear people wanting to blend genres in a film, Ryan Coogler has done it in a way that exceeded my expectations, and it is so rare to wow me in this way that led me to loving it. The movie felt like three different films in one, and you just can't get that when going to the movies nowadays. Where I was so invested in the Smokestack Twins and learning about their backstory, seeing them be ruthless, seeing Michael B. Jordan portray two different characters, one who is a little bit more ruthless, a little bit more just I'm gonna rough you up. I don't care who you are. I'm going to prove how hardcore. We are the other who has a little bit more empathy and that unravels as the film goes along, and two pretty well defined characters, which is hard to do. It is also hard to make a movie where you have one person playing two characters and not have it look weird. And I think it's because I spent a lot of time looking at the screen trying to pay attention to where Michael B. Jordan was there, and the other one was the superimposed image of him where they had a stand in and probably threw special effects put his face on his body. I could kind of point that out from time to time, but that's only because I was super hyper focused into it. I think, for the most part, this is the best I've seen it done, because oftentimes you have scenarios where they're placed on two different sides, but you have moments where they need to interact, they need to hand a cigarette to the other one, and you can't really get around that. I will say I did notice different elements of the story that allowed the two characters to be put into different directions, and I think that just becomes a money thing, because the more you spend on having them together in close proximity having to interact with each other, the more expensive that gets. So that is just clever filmmaking. But in no way was that distracting. Thought they did a really good job with that. Hailey Steinfeld is fantastic in this, and I think people really haven't seen how great of an actor she is, And this is one of those roles where I was like, Oh, she's actually really good at not only doing the Marvel voice acting stuff that I think has really put her on to another level. Edge of seventeen back in the day was one of my favorite coming of age movies, but now I got a totally different look what she can do, and I love this for her. She was a really great addition to this cast. They just had a lot of standout performances from everybody involved. So the acting was topp tire. The cinematography was topped here. This movie was filmed on Imax cameras. It is made for the big screen from the first opening scene, which I loved. I love a great opening scene, especially when it shot for Imax, because you get this really big scope of Mississippi in the nineteen thirties. The movie opens in a very chilling way where it starts at the end because the entire movie takes place in one day, which is another category of film I love. But what you see at the very beginning of the movie is actually the ending of the movie. So you see one of the characters, Preacher Boy, go up to the church. He is just covered in blood, looks like he's just been through hell, and he's holding a guitar neck that is broken off, and just the look of him walking into the church. They have these really low angles where you get the entire scope of the church. That scene looked fantastic. From the very beginning of this movie, I knew I was in for something special, and that is exactly what I got. This movie was essentially three different movies in one and in twenty twenty five. Where I thought there's no way a director could make a movie that would include things that I had never seen before done in one film, Ryan Kugler shattered that idea. I thought everything had been done. I think you could still make a great movie. Obviously, otherwise I would not be on this podcast right now talking about movies. But to go from just an almost straight ahead nineteen thirties drama to a supernatural, almost horror esque movie by the end of it, and you have these supernatural events happening, You have these moments where it even shatters those genres. There's these really big expositions where Ryan Coogler makes statements on music, makes statements on racial tensions that allow the to go into these almost fantasy lands, and the entire time I am writing with them, I don't feel it ever gets too weird because it always kind of stays grounded. Even when it goes very supernatural, very Oh, this is kind of starting to feel like a fever dream, it still wrangles you in because it keeps that emotion and I just haven't been moved by a film like this in a really long time. This year it is the first time that I started a movie didn't know how it was going to get through all these elements, and loved it by the end of it. I love the journey of all these characters. I think that blending of genres is something that I think the big directors can do and what is going to keep film alive. That is what is going to make it feel like a spectacle, something that you want to pay money to go and see, because it leaves nothing on the table in an era right now where some movies are afraid to take a risk because it's going to alienate the audience. It's going to become too unmarketable. If you start blending different genres of movies, you include the undead, and you include racial tensions, and you include fire, and you include shootouts, all things can exist and you can make a statement by the end of it, which is something Ryan Kugler has always done. By the end of a Ryan Kugler film, you were gonna have a message that he got across to you. Because not only does he make movies that are entertaining, not only does he make movies that are a pleasure for the eyes, he also makes movies that are so impactful. Think back to how much of an impact Black Panther had on a young kid watching who had never seen a superhero with the color of their skin. That was impactful, even for me at that time, where I still was probably an adult when that came out. And he did it again for me in Black Panther two, where he had a Mexican guy playing a villain in a big MCU movie. So he's not only great about getting messages across in his movies, but also including a very diverse cast that has a lasting effect, and I think that is something that transcends just making a great movie, is making a movie with representation on a scale of a big budget movie that is gonna reach a lot of people. And I think that's why this one works so well. Sinners was just effortlessly entertaining, and you don't have to be a big fan of horror movies to enjoy this one. I would say, if you are okay with the level of gore that you would find in a Walking Dead episode, there is a decent amount of blood, but nothing that's too overly graphic, which I have kind of an interesting relationship with gore and blood because whenever it's in a horror movie, I don't care. It doesn't affect me whatsoever. But Kelsey loves watching medical dramas, and I think it's because those are more realistic, like people getting shot or people getting impaled by something, and you have a doctor performing surgery where blood is gushing out. That is hard for me to watch. That is stressful for me, but she finds so much enjoyment in that. On the other hand, she can't watch a a horror movie if somebody gets like stabbed by Michael Myers or has their head ripped off in a horror movie, she can't do it. She gets freaked out and scared. But when it comes to sinners, it's not really your traditional horror elements. And I think sometimes when anybody hears that it's a horror movie, you automatically check out because you're like, I don't do scary. I think if you give this one a chance, if you can handle a decent amount of blood with a good little splash of supernatural, I think you can handle the gore and scary elements and sinners. As far as where it lands on my ranking of Ryan Coogler films, it is really hard to beat one, which is Black Panther. For me, that movie I feel is going to have the biggest legacy. It has the biggest imprint on the MCU, and was one that was not only great and entertaining, made a bunch of money, but also critically acclaimed. So one, I don't think it's ever going to come down from Black Panther. I kind of feel the same way about two, which is Creed. That movie reignited the Rocky franchise. It really made Michael B. Jordan a mega level star and has now spawned well an entire rebooted franchise of all the Creed movies that I'm all invested in if they decide to make another one, and I hope Ryan Coogler returns to direct another Creed movie. Number three. You also can't get away from the emotional impact of Black Panther two, the passing of Chadwick Boseman, and how that movie not only felt like saying goodbye to the Black Panther character, but also saying goodbye to him as an actor. That top three is gonna be very difficult to crack. And I love this movie so much, but can't love it more than Black Panther two, can't love it more than the first Creed, and I can't love it more than Black Panther. But I do love it right there at number four. So for sinners, I give it four point five out of five smokestacks. It's time to head down to movie. Mike Trey Lar Paul. Seven years after the original, we are getting a sequel to A Simple Favor came out in twenty eight eighteen. Now in twenty twenty five, we're getting another Simple Favor and Kendrick is back. Director Paul Figue is back. Most importantly, at least right now, Blake Lively is back. Blake Lively is a very interesting actor. To me, I wasn't a fan of Gossip Girl. I know how big that show was. I know that's why she was so famous. I don't feel like, however, her fame from that TV show has translated into movies, and up until last year with It Ends with Us and now all the drama and legal issues surrounding that movie, I don't feel like she had a signature role. If it wouldn't have been It Ends with Us, I would have said a simple favor from twenty eighteen was her signature role. She's been in a lot of big movies, but as far as like her as the star of a movie that people identify her with, I don't think she had it there. She was obviously in Green Lantern, which is where she met Ryan Reynolds. She was also in the Town The Shallows was probably the highest grossing movie that she starred in, which probably made a little bit more than a simple favor. But I still don't think people think Blake Lively and they think The Shallows. So up until last year with that ends with Us, which is now her highest grossing movie at two hundred and forty two million dollars. It was a simple favor, so that's probably why they are making a sequel to this movie now, which was originally announced back in twenty twenty two, and the way that movie ended, I just didn't think there would be a sequel, and I enjoyed a Simple Favor. It reminds me of twenty twenty even though it came out a couple years before. But there was a period of time during the early days of the pandemic where Kelsey and I watched a movie every single day. We ran out of movies to watch that the other hadn't watched, And A Simple Favor was one that I never watched. But I love Anna Kendrick and I enjoyed Blake Lively in it. I thought overall it was a pretty good thriller. This one from the trailer few very different though, and what it's about is a murder goes down at the wedding of Blake Lively's character. She essentially blackmails Anna Kendrick to come to a wedding after Blake Lively's character spent five years in prison from the events of a Simple Favor, which is another interesting thing because I do have a ten year spoiler warning. That's kind of my grace period. If a movie is over ten years old, I feel it is okay to spoil. But I almost feel like there should be a bit of a clause in there, because whenever a sequel comes out, this trailer spoils that one, and you can't really talk about what is going on in this one without kind of revealing what happened in the first one. So they spoil it themselves because you couldn't even have this movie have this trailer without leading you to what happened in the first movie. But a lot happens in this trailer. We'll break it all down, but before I do, here's just a little bit of another Simple Favor, which is coming out on Prime on May first. Emily, how are you here?

00:50:02
Speaker 3: I'm getting married?

00:50:06
Speaker 1: Maybe my maide up honor that I mentioned it was in Capri Capri? Why am I here? You think I want to make you pay for stealing my life? What did she say to convince you to come to this? Foss Ratter's side and Dannity Fraud and his girlfriend stuff.

00:50:23
Speaker 3: I have a surprise your own true family. You probably don't remember me. It's your auntie Linda. You've got your sister Ti wedding. She's in hissturance policy does I won't tell you both.

00:50:37
Speaker 1: So this movie was filmed on location in Italy. Blake Lively's character is out of jail. She met the love of her life, who is this extraordinary Italian businessman, and she goes to Anna Kendrick and says, hey, friend, remember me. You want to be a bride maid in my wedding. And Anna Kendrick does not want to go, but it looks like Blake Lively has some kind of blackmail on her and gets her to go with her assistant and while they're there, our murder goes down. And I had to watch this trailer three times because it felt so jam packed with a bunch of random moments and scenes, and it took me a while to even realize that a murder happened. During all this, there's a moment in the trailer where you realize, oh, somebody's gonna die, and Anna Kendrick is standing there with a hotel worker, maybe opening the door to her hotel room. Hotel workers screams and Anna Kendrick is just kind of staring. So I feel like this genre is kind of back the Who Done It? The murder mystery, the dark comedy. I feel like this one has a little bit less of a serious tone than the first one. It's almost like they're really leaning into Blake Lively's character. The wardrobe, her dressing at times, and very interesting like suit jackets and hats. I always find the wardrobe that Blake Lively wears in movies to be kind of interesting. I don't know if it's fashioned that I just don't understand, but it's bold. So I think she fits this role really well. I think this is a movie that she is really excited to make. Anna Kendrick I love in anything, whether she is in front of the camera, behind the camera, directing, and you get kind of classic Anna Kendrick vibes in this trailer, her mix of comedy, really good acting, and just somebody that you're root for. It does feel a little bit like a random sequel to me, because, like I said, the first one didn't really feel like it ended on a note of all, we're getting another one. But I have to imagine that there was just that demand there to make it, and with it coming out on Prime, I feel like they're trying to build some franchises over there, so that's probably a little bit of an influence. But director Paul fig is back directing this movie, who you might not know his name, but he has directed some really big movies like Bride'smaids, The Heat Spy, Ghostbusters from twenty sixteen, the original Simple Favor, which I mentioned. He also directed The Last Christmas in twenty nineteen, also created Freaks and Geeks, he didn't direct it. I think you think Judd Apatoo and you think the person associated with Freaks and Geeks, which was a show back in the nineties that launched the careers of so many people like Seth Rogan, James Franco, and Jason Siegel, just to name a few. And Paul Figu was also the skinny camp counselor in Heavyweights, the guy who would get made fun of by all the other kids because he was the one who actually lost the weight. I love Paul fig and looking at his list of movies and how this one kind of fits in, I feel like the project is in good hands. If you have the original filmmaker at the helm. It doesn't feel cash gravy. To me, where this movie gets interesting is all the negative press that it's getting because what is going on in Blake Lively's personal life and all the battles she is having to face online just promoting anything right now, And from the things I've read and before kind of doing some research on this, I thought her and Anda Kendrick did not get along, but it seems to me that whenever they were at south By Southwest, Anna Kendrick actually defended her. And where I feel Anna Kendrick's frustration is coming from. She said that she has no feud with Blake Lively, but I think she's frustrated by all this negative press that it is getting because everybody doesn't want to talk about the movie. They want to ask about, Hey, what's your relationship like with Blake Lively? And all the headlines that are getting written about this movie is all going back to the legal case between her and Justin Baldoni, which is ongoing, which, according to a New York Times article, she did sue her co star for sexual harassment and retaliation. Justin Baldoni denied these claims. He also followed a four hundred million dollars deformation counterclaim against Blake, but all defendants have denied the allegation. So with this ongoing, it brings me to the question, is all press good press, it's even bad press good press. I don't think it's that way anymore. I think that bad press can really bring it down. It could affect ticket sales in a world where you can get canceled so quickly for saying something, even though maybe all the facts aren't there. Once somebody has a perception of you, now they're gonna feel that way. So I think in today's culture, not all press is good press, because I feel that is where all the attention is going. And it's also hard to build hype around this movie when everybody just wants to put Blake Lively's name in headlines to get clicks not about this movie, but about everything else going on, with her and Ryan Reynolds all getting dragged into a Taylor Swift getting dragged into it. There's just so much happening. I have to imagine that the press tour for this movie has been excruciating, even though so far it has had pretty good reviews from critics, had a pretty good reception that sounds by Southwest. So I think the movie is going to do well on Amazon because you have two big A list stars attached to it. So in the end, I think that will translate to streams to people watching the movie. But it's hard to say that that press is wanted. So in some aspects it is good because it does bring that attention. It will get those numbers there, but I don't think that is how you want to promote every project right now. It's even affected me the way I talked about this trailer. I had to bring that up because it felt like I'd be leaving a piece of the puzzle out. But that being said, the trailer does look pretty good. I feel like it's gonna have more of a comedic vibe than the first one. I don't feel like it's gonna be as intense. I can kind of see the direction it's going in, but I have to imagine there's some kind of twist ending that's gonna happen, and maybe they're trying to build out an entire franchise here. I am a little bit surprised though that it's not coming down in theaters and going straight to Prime instead, So I'll definitely be giving it a stream on May first on Prime Video that this links the t's a movie on Flamer Bar and that is going to do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week. We had an interview last week. Thank you everybody for all the nice messages and comments. That ended up being a pretty powerful interview that during it, I just felt this shift in energy talking about the Oklahoma City bombing on its thirtieth anniversary. So if you missed that episode, just go back one in the feed. And this week's listener shout out is to the person who dm me on Instagram with the American flag emoji, which was the secret emoji from that interview. So shout out to Jackie Hardwick who said, I'm from Oklahoma. That was such a sad day. I can't believe it's been thirty years, which I think overall was the sentiment of all the messages and comments I got from all you Oklahoma listeners of remembering that day so vividly and it's still not being any easy a process, and that just living with you for so many years that those of you have went and watched the documentary and sent me a message about it of how it's just like reliving that day. So even hearing that from people who just lived in Oklahoma and then talking to Walter who was there, it just gave me a whole new perspective on life of people who go through really traumatic things and how important it is to navigate and talk to those people, check in on those people, because that is a lot of weight to carry. So thank you for listening, appreciate Jackie for sending that message, thank you for all the nice comments and messages. Highly recommend that documentary if you haven't checked it out yet, It is Oklahoma City Bombing, American Terror on Netflix now, so check that out. Thanks to Ryan Coogler, Thanks to you for listening. But how about we throw in another secret emoji for next week's listener shout out hit me with a vampire emoji on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook or X. I'll pick the first person who sends me that and shout you out on next week's episode. And until then, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.