The 5 Greatest Years in Film + Movie Review: Is Weapons Overhyped? + Trailer Park: Predator: Badlands

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike. Today I want to share with you what I believe to be the top five years in movie history and my top five movies from each of those years. In the movie review, it's the film I've been foaming at the mouth to talk about. I'll give my spoiler free review, very careful to be spoiler free thoughts on weapons and in the trailer park we'll be talking about Predator bad Lands, which looks awesome to me. This movie came out of nowhere and I can't wait to see it. So thank you for being here, thank you for being subscribed, shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's talk movies from the Nustville Podcast network and this is movie Mike Movie Podcast. As I put together a list of what I believe to be the top five years in movie history, meaning if I could only keep one year worth of movies, what years would I keep? And obviously it's going to be rooted in the years that I was alive I was born in nineteen ninety one have been really hard for me and I probably would have not been truthful to myself that I would have went back to the seventies, it went back to like the golden age of Hollywood. I just feel like that wouldn't be authentically me. So even though I considered those years, I just couldn't bring myself to put those on this list. Even though there are some historic years. But that being said, I still don't feel like these other years that came before it are even close to these years. Let's get right into the list. At number five, I have twenty fourteen. And why twenty fourteen is so important to me? This was an era for me where I watched so many movies on Blu Ray. To me, I associate twenty fourteen with being my year of the Blu Ray, and it was highly influential on the red Box, which is now gone. What would happen with red Box? Oh? Man? It just kind of sent there are no physical places to go get movies like this anymore. It's all gone, it's all streaming. But I was never a big Blockbuster kid because my parents didn't want to pay for a membership. We also didn't want to deal with late fees. But when I was an adult in college in twenty fourteen, I would walk to the seven eleven to get some snacks, and I'd always grab a red Box movie, or if I was going to the grocery store, shout out to HGB in Texas, I would get a red Box movie. They always had the latest ones. And it was so easy because for me, being a person with social anxiety, worst thing you could possibly make me do is call somebody on the phone, like I would never order pizza as a kid. Oh, whenever that all went to online, that was just like a dream for me. And the great thing about the red Box is you don't have to talk to anybody. You just go up to the kiosk find which movie or even video game you wanted to rent. And I just have so many great memories of renting red Box movies. In twenty fourteen, my top five movies of the year, which I all watched from red Box except for maybe the ones that came out later in the year. But at number five I have Whiplash, fantastic movie. Who knew you could make a movie about drumming be so hence filled great performances from JK. Simmons and Miles Taylor. Fantastic movie. Next best drumming movie would probably be The Sound of Metal, but I was way later. At number four, I have Fury, which is my favorite war movie of all time, Brad Pitt Shila buff. I just love the greediness of that movie. And after watching that movie in twenty fourteen, I wanted Brad Pitt's haircut, even though couldn't pull it off, and really it probably looks so good in him because he is so good looking. At number three, I have Nightcrawler, which is the best Jake Gyllenhall movie of all time. Blazy guy trying to make money by covering crime scenes and then he gets a little bit too into it, keeps trying to get the bloodiest shot because blood cells on the news, so he keeps taking it a step further and further and then does some really unethical things. A fantastic movie. And then at number two, I have Guardians of the Galaxy, which when this movie came out in twenty fourteen, it shook up Marvel a little bit, which was really just being super established obviously with two thousand and being the first Marvel movie. But in twenty fourteen, this was like, Okay, we have something different here, and it just changed the game. James Gunn started to become dominant in the comic book movie world. But at number one, my favorite movie from twenty fourteen is Interstellar. I did see it's coming out later this year in Imax, and that would be a real treat because this is one I didn't watch in theaters. I watch it on red Box, and obviously with anything Christopher Nolan, seeing it on the big screen you get that full effect. But some other notable movies from twenty fourteen, you have John Wick The Amazing Spider Man two, which back on Spider Man Day, we had the first look at Tom Hollins's new Spider Man suit and it looks so good. It kind of looks a little bit of what we got with Toby Maguire. It's like a great mix of that and also what the Spider Man suit has turned into now. But Amazing Spider Man two was fantastic, even though at the time I think a lot of people talk crap on it. We also had Gone Girl in this year, Had to Train Your Dragon to the Grand Budapest Hotel from Wes Anderson, one of his better movies, a top five movie of his American Sniper, which is another one of my favorite war movies. The Edge of Tomorrow with Tom Cruise, which I don't think I fully got when it came out in twenty fourteen, but maybe three or four years ago I rewatched and visited that movie again, and that's a really good movie. It has such a generic title though, you just see Tom Cruise in the Edge of Tomorrow and it really doesn't tell you much about that movie, but it's all about him, like reliving the same day and trying to crack this timecode. You also have The Winter Soldier. It follows one of the most underrated horror movies of the twenty tens, Days of Future, Pass from X Men twenty two, Jump Street, in the Hunger Games World, we got Mocking Jades, a lego movie, Big Hero six. There are so many great memories in twenty fourteen Transformers Age of Extinction, which isn't the best Transformers movie, but at this time in twenty fourteen, I was convinced that every Transformers movie I went to go see in theaters was gonna be great. The premise of this movie, I just do not like Mark Wahlberg in it. We also had Annabelle, Godzilla, The Theory of Everything, Boyhood, which I do believe is a bit overrated, but I watched it before everybody was rating it so high. I enjoyed it. But that's a movie that not a whole lot of people talk about anymore, with it being still groundbreaking. At the time. You usually had some comedy bangers like Neighbors, the first Paddington movie came out, The Interview, which was highly controversial, Tusk, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes TMNT, the live action Michael Bay One, which was kind of like a different version of Transformers but with Ninja Turtles, A Million Ways to Die in the West, which was a movie from the creator of Family Guy, Seth McFarland. Not the greatest of comedy movies, but I do remember going to see that movie in theaters. Saint Vincent, which starred Bill Murray, and Wild all those movies from twenty fourteen. That brings it in at number five on my list. Next up on my list at number four is nineteen ninety nine. Now we were just arguing the most influential movie years. I think you can make an argument for nineteen ninety nine being the most influential year because it closed out the nineties and really set us up for the two thousands. And gave us a lot of movies and styles that people have been trying to recreate ever since. This time was so edgy and cool and black and dark, where people just wanted kind of still the coolness of the nineties without the cheese, and that is what we got. More going into the two thousands with my top five movies from nineteen ninety nine. At number five is an underrated Disney movie as well, primarily because of the music. It's Tarzan. That was one of my favorite movies as a kid and as a family. Watched that movie so much. That movie is a classic that I'm glad they haven't tried to remake or make a lot. Well, they did kind of make a live action version that wasn't Disney, but that movie was so good with the music of Phil Collins, great voice acting. I have that one at number five. At number four, I have American Pie, which was the quintessential teen hookup movie and everybody wanted to be like American Pie. And I think now when we think of the greatest comedies ever in the movies we kind of craved the most. Where people say, why don't they make great comedies anymore? I think oftentimes we're talking about movies like American Pie and the trails that were blazed in that film, not only with its comedy, with its ensemble cast, but also the music. It really meant something in nineteen ninety nine to get your song in a movie, and this was a great reflection on the times. I mean, blank onin eighty two is actually in this movie. Their song Mutt is also in this movie. And then when it came time for American Pie too, it became more of a thing, and you had bands like some forty one New Felt Glory, which were so popular and so influential on me at that time. So it also takes me back to that era when it did mean something to have a song featured in a movie, and now just kind of like it doesn't even matter anymore unless you're James Gunn and using songs for a very specific purpose. At number three, I have Toy Story two, which was a movie that almost didn't see the light of day because again in the nineties, still computer technology and animation was still relatively new. They didn't have it fully figured out on how to back things up, and this entire movie was almost deleted entirely. But luckily one of the people working on the movie. One of the animators had a kid and was working from their home office and had a copy of this movie on their home computer. Otherwise they would have had to start all over and redo this movie entirely. At number two, I find a lot of movies from nineteen ninety nine that I resonate with or all animated, because at number two I have south Park, Bigger, Longer and Uncut. This movie taught me how to curse at a very young age. I should not have watched this movie at eight years old. This was a movie as a kid that I just had playing on a loop. Not at my parents' house. They did not owe me watching or knew about this movie. But at my cousin's house, we would watch this movie all the time. Time we'd be playing Tony Hawk pro Skater or Grand Theft Auto and just watching south Park, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. I wish they would make another full length animated movie like this and put it out in theaters. At number one, though, it's fight Club. Fight Club is the quintessential nineteen ninety nine movie, and I know some people are gonna say, well, that's obviously the matrix for me it is Fight Club. I don't really have a deep connection with The Matrix. I Love Again and it can appreciate how influential that movie was, but I would not put that in my top five of movies from nineteen ninety nine. But you also had, of course The Matrix, like I just mentioned, Big Daddy, The Mummy, Nodding Hill, Austin Powers, The Spy Who Shagged Me, a great comedy movie, The Green Mile Johnny su Nami, which I rewatched pretty recently. That movie still holds up. Some parks are a little bit weird, but I think that's the case for any Disney Channel movie. And it's also weird seeing how unsupportive his dad was, Like, Dude, your dad's just kind of a bad dad, just moved than you and doesn't care, has no remorse and doesn't want you to end up like your grandfather his dad. Like that whole dynamic was a little bit weird. So there are some things that I also didn't notice, like the two brothers, the one that owns the shop on one side of the mountain and the other one that owns the shop on the other side of the mountain. One of them is a snowboarder. One of them is a skier, and it turns out they're played by the same actor that blew my mind. I didn't realize that until now. You also had other Disney Channel movies from nineteen ninety nine like Xenon and Smart House. All this was like my era of Disney Channel. Also in ninety nine, you had American Beauty Eyes, White Shut Ten, Things I Hate About You, The Sixth Sense, Double Jeopardy. That movie blew my mind as a kid, The Boodendogs, Saints Dogma Life. I love this movie with Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence and the late Bernie Mack. You also have Lake Placid Varsity Blues, which is my favorite football movie of all time, Never Been Kissed, which is my favorite rom com of all time. And then you have these really random nineties movies that I love, and it was usually because I watched them on cable, But movies like Deep Blue Sea. I've seen that movie so many times. I don't think we ever rented it. I never saw it in theaters, but for sure watched it probably on USA so many times in the nineties and then probably carrying into the two thousands. Movies like Office Space, October Sky, She's all that, the Iron Giant, but the Blair Witch Project, Deuce Bigelows, Stuart little Man on the Moon, mistery Man, Blue Streak, which is my favorite Martin Lawrence movie of all time. Any given Sunday, Idle Hands, Detroit Rock City. Nineteen ninety nine is a great year. And again it's just because three and four and one are so just top level to me, because ninety nine is stack. But still, this is a really tough list to make. It comes in at number four. At number three, I have twenty nineteen. This year is very special to me. That is the year we launched this podcast, and it was a year that I didn't know how good we had it until movies shut down in twenty twenty. My favorit favorite five films from this year. At number five, I have Once upon a Time in Hollywood Quentin Tarantino. He said he was gonna make his final movie. It was supposed to be about a movie critic. I'm like, all right, I'm here, I'm ready cast me in your movie. And then he's like, I'm not making that movie anymore. But it's been too long since we've had a Quentin Tarantino movie a fantastic in theater experience and also has really great rewatchability. Wild thing looking back on that movie now is how many people were in it that are such big stars now, like Austin Butler, Sidney Sweeney, recent Oscar winning actor Mikey Madison. They were all cast in this movie and have smaller parts in it, but now they're all huge and could be carrying their own movie. It was almost like a prerequisite to be a star in five years. At number four, I have uncut Gems Adam Sandler in a dramatic role and in a stressful role like this is my favorite, speaking of stressful movies. At number three, I have Joker, the dive that this movie took from Joker one to Joker two. In my head, Joker two doesn't. I can't allow that movie to ruin what was created in the first one. One of my favorite in theater experiences of all time. It just left my jaw on the floor and really rattled me so much so that it was a really long time, probably two years until I was able to actually rewatch this movie. It is a movie that I didn't want to go back and revisit so soon and have my perspective changed because I left that movie. I gave my review and I gave it a five out of five, and I stood by that for a very long time, and I didn't want my opinion change because I knew how it made me feel in that moment, the energy going into that movie, with it being so controversial in some of the ways that it depicted violence, but I think it's just a great character study on somebody going through a lot of hard mental struggles, dealing with an illness and then kind of inciting a riot as a result of that. But yes, for me, this is a perfect movie, and Joker Too does not exist. At number two. I have Parasite, which was really influence on me giving international films more of a chance. And it wasn't that I was against them. I was never really against watching movies with subtitles, But it was this movie that really just made me think, like, why haven't I been seeking out movies from other countries, and why have I been hesitant to do that? Why do I look at them at sometimes being homework. This movie changed all that. And the thing it really changed with me is I always watch movies now in the language that they are made in with English subtitles unless it's animated. I feel like animation is a little bit different because when you watch an animated movie, oftentimes they get actual American actors, established actors to revoice those characters, and they treated the same way they would treat any movie. But when they do just Spanish dubs or English dubs, oftentimes it's just random people. They could still be actors, it's still a job for them, but I don't feel like they capture the same emotion that the actors do that are actually playing the parts in these countries that these movies are being released in. So I feel to get that real emotion, I have to watch it in their language. Even though I don't understand what they are saying, I feel the emotion that paired with me reading it allows me to enjoy these movies at times more than I do just standard American movies because I'm so dialed in because I'm reading and also hearing and feeling their emotion and the way that they speak in the acting. So that is something I always do. Even though Netflix or other streaming services sometimes give you that ability to also change what you were hearing. I want to hear their actual voice in their language, so that is something also that Parasite has influenced me, and it's really stuck with me since twenty nineteen. Number two is where I have that movie. At number one, I have Avengers Endgame, and depending on the day, I would battle on which one of those is two and which one of those is one. But where I placed them on for this list is because at least once a year I rewatched Endgame, and I would probably rewatch it more if it wasn't three hours long. So in total in my life I have rewatched Endgame more. So I have to put it at one. More notable movies from twenty nineteen some of my favorites Detective Pikachu obviously, Spider Man Far from Home. I think the Best Picture category was one of the best, at least in the last ten years. Parasite was also the winner of the Best Picture Award that year, but he had Ford v Ferrari. The Irishman watched all three plus hours of that on Netflix. Jojo Rabbit Joker also made it into the Best Picture category. Little Women Marriage Story, which now I hear they're using a clip of Scarlett Johansson to like word away like wildlife apparently like wolves and other things like freak out when they were to hear that scene, So that's an unexpected result of that movie. Nineteen seventeen Beautifully Shot also Once upon a Time in Hollywood was in that category. You also had movies like Midsommar Knives Out, John Wick Chapter three, The Rise of Skywalker, Lighthouse oh Man, Willem Dafoe, and Robert Pattinson Going at It It Chapter two, which was another really great horror movie experience, even though I love part one so much more, that one was just so cinis during the beginning. I love seeing that one in theaters. Movies like Book, Smart Bomb Show, Jumanji, Next Level, Toy Story four, even though I believe it should have ended a Toy Story three, The live action Lion King Godzella, King of Monsters, Frozen two, which I think is the better Frozen movie. We finally got the sequel to Zombie Land, Double Tap came out that year, Sound a Metal, which I mentioned earlier, Annabel Comes Home. You also have Fighting with My Family, which is based upon the WWE Superstar page, which I am so back into WWE now. It started with The Unreal Show on Netflix. Which I finished and loved, and I think they put that out perfectly because it led right into Summer Slam. And ever since then, I've been watching Monday Night ragain. I feel like I'm ten years old all over again, which is on par for this episode. You said us, Richard Jewell at Astra Aladdin the Platform Ready or Not Man twenty nineteen was stacked at number two, I have nineteen ninety four. Looking at this list, it is hard to believe that nineteen ninety four was real. And out of all the years on this list, if I could go back and experience just one year by seeing all of these movies in theaters for the first time, it would be nineteen ninety four because I've seen the least amount of these in theaters, obviously because I was three years old. But I'm gonna give you my top five to start this, because there are just mountains and mountains of so many good movies in nineteen ninety four, for one actor in particular, single handily their best year in movies of all time. But at number five, I have Forrest Gump. Think about that, at number five, I have one of the greatest movies of all time. That is how stacked this year is at number four. Now people are gonna argue that number five I was better than my number four. But to me personally, I have Angels in the Outfield, which I believe is the best baseball movie of all time. Angels in the Outfield could not be made today, not for a political sense, just because a movie as ridiculous as it sounds made sense in nineteen ninety four. We were in an era where we could believe that a team would say, Okay, this kid sees angels, we're gonna give him this signal. We're gonna make them come to every single baseball game. A plot as ridiculous as that did not feel ridiculous in nineteen ninety four. I just watched this movie so much as a kid, and then later as an adult, found it so hard to even track it down. It wasn't until fairly recently, maybe in the last year year and a half, that this movie was even available to watch on Disney Plus. So it almost felt like did I even experience this movie whatsoever? But it also has a lot of emotion in it, aside from all the fun of people running around trying to catch baseballs that are being thrown around by the angels in the outfield. Literally. You also have a story about a son who just wants to be reunited with his dad, but instead he's living in foster care and his dad is just a dirt bag. Tells him, you know this team that is historically bad, that just can't win a game to save their lives. If they're ever good, we can be a family again. And then that team ends up being really good, and dad is still like, Nah, I'm gonna leave you behind and leave you bawling in the courtroom. What a ridiculous plot, What a ridiculous premise. There is no reason this movie should pack as emotional of a punch that it does. But I have that one at number four. At number three is pulp fiction with Quentin Tarantino dropped this banger, and then everybody wanted a piece of them. Everybody wanted to rip them off. And I feel like there have been so many directors in the action genre who have tried to replicate this movie and just can't do it because they don't have the vision of Quentin Tarantino. But a movie that just has unorthodox storytelling, has such powerful and dynamic characters, such memorable lines, from the very beginning and images it is probably his masterpiece. Probably has other movies that are better technically, maybe at times have higher action, or without this movie, we would have never gotten any of those. And number two, I have Dumb and Dumber my favorite comedy movie, not only of the nineties, but my favorite comedy of all time. And again a movie that could not be made today because things that we found as funny and ridiculous in this movie just would not work. And I also think it captures what comedy is and why a comedy movie like this does work is because you have two people who are just utter buffoons who you try to figure out which one is dumb and which one is dumber because they're both idiots, but everybody else in the movie is normal, and everybody else finds them so ridiculous and gets frustrated with them and doesn't understand them, and they play the part of us as the audience. But the fact that you have that contrast between these characters, because if it was just them being stupid all the time, but also having everybody in this world being as stupid as they are or accepting of how dumb they are, this movie would not work. That is another problem I had with Happy Gilmore two is there was no contrast between anybody. Everybody was just dumb and doing ridiculous things, and there was no one there to say, hey, like what is happening here? Like why is everything so ridiculous right now? Which there was that and Happy Gilmour won. It just wasn't all ridiculous all the time. I really think that's kind of the source of why some movies now aren't as funny as they were back twenty thirty years ago, is because there's no longer that contrast. You have to make a comedy movie now and think everything has to be wilding out all the time. It has to be parody. But dumb and dumber is how you do it. That's at number two and number one. My favorite movie of nineteen ninety four is The Lion King. I still say it is the best made Disney movie of all time. Not my favorite, Lela Stitch will always be my favorite. But I think when you look at storytelling, even though some people argue that The Lion King just basically ripped off the Land Before Time, that even the makers of the Land Before Time said, whenever Lion King came out, they were like, what did they do? They just ripped off our movie, But it was more impactful, It had better songs, it had more memorable characters. So even if they did rip it off, they ripped it off really well. But also in ninety four you had The Usual Suspects, a movie that blew my mind and still will blow my mind even though I know what is going to happen. Has one of the best twists of all time, the Shawshank Redemption. The actor who had the biggest year in nineteen ninety four was Jim Carrey with the movie we mentioned earlier, Dumb and Dumber, but also had a spintera pet detective, and The Mask all come out in nineteen ninety four. You also had indie darlings like Clerks, one of the greatest action movies at the nineties, Speed Interview with the Vampire, True Lies, Clear in Present Danger D two, The Mighty Ducks, Little Giants. This was an era of great sports family comedies. Oh Little Giants is an amazing movie. Has one of the greatest sports villains of all time with the Dallas Cowboys. Even though I'm a fan of the Dallas Cowboys at the time, they're kind of the Villain, even though EMMTT Smith is in this movie. You also have movies like The page Master. That movie also feels like does anybody else remember The Page Master? Or Am I the only one that watched that movie as a kid with Micaulay Culkin, Major League two, Blank Check The Jungle Book, which was the live action movie in the nineties, and it even had the best good bad movies The Flintstones, I don't believe is a good movie, but I still watched it. I still loved it. Movies like The Little Rascals Street Fighter. As bad as that movie was, it's still a good bad movie in nineteen ninety four, and other Adam Sandler movies like Airheads that is nineteen ninety four at number two, before I get to number one, I have an honorable mention, and that honorable mention goes to two thousand and nine. I feel like this was the last year that film was really unified. It was right on the cusp of us being so consumed by social media and YouTube. The iPhone came out a couple years before this in two thousand and seven, and I feel like this was the last year, at least in film, that we were all unified and watching the same things because we were just before that era of there being so many avenues on where to watch things. Once Netflix came around and really started dominating with streaming, we were still going to the theater, all watching the same movies and then later watching it on Blu Ray. That's why I feel like two thousand and nine to me is very significant. My top five movies of this year were Up in the Air, which is my favorite George Clooney movie. Number four is Avatar and again I think right place, right time that went on to be one of the highest grossing movies of all time. And number three I would have up at number two The Hangover, which I believe to be the last great American comedy classic, again that we all watched collectively, back when we would all go watch a movie and then everybody would just be quoting it because we all went to go see the same thing. But at number one, speaking of Quentin Tarantino earlier, even though I believe Pulp Fiction is his masterpiece, at number one, and Glorious Bastard's is my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie, one of my favorite in theater experiences. Oh, I had so much joy while watching that movie and rooting on the good guys, and Christoph Waltz was just such a great villain. And again we had Brad Pitt be and Brad Pitt again. But honorable mention goes to two thousand and nine. But at number one I have two thousand and seven. This is the year where I really fell in love with movies. If it wouldn't have been for two thousand and seven, I would not be here today doing this podcast. I was sixteen years old. I was watching movies all the time. Also what era I refer to as the burn DVD age, where that it was just kind of running rampant. I remember having one of those binders where you would put CDs, but it was all filled with DVDs. I had a friend who made them, and it was just the gift that kept on giving because every week it would just give me another stack of movies. So I watched so many movies in two thousand and seven, and it was the year that I truly fell in love with movies, where I went from saying I like movies to final saying I love the movies because I started to see the inner workings of what it took to make these It was the year I started paying to directors and paying attention to cinematography, because I started noticing all these details, and I started to wonder, like, why do I like this movie? What is it about it that actually sticks out to me? I started to watch movies more analytically, and this was the year that all those lights and sensors in my brain just started going off, where I started asking more, where I started watching movies and not just paying attention to the cast, but also who produced it, who wrote it, who directed it. All those things in two thousand and seven started to matter to me. So that's why I went from just being a kid who watched movies to being a kid who now watched the films. And now that kind of sounds like, ah, you loser, called movies. Films are all movies. It's all the same thing. But that's the only way I can describe that of that switch in my brain that if I wouldn't have had this year with such great movies, I would not be in this position now. I would have never gotten to twenty fourteen, which was another year on this list, or twenty nineteen, So in no way would I still be here in twenty twenty five talking about movies. If it wasn't for two thousand and seven. My top five movies of this year at number five is The Simpsons Movie, which is funny because I was just talking about how I started paying attention to films and talking about directors, and then at number five, I have the Simpsons movie. But I am such a huge Simpsons fan and I'd been waiting for this my entire life. I loved all the promotion leading up to this movie. It felt like an event. Seven to eleven's were changed into quickie marts, and I remember going to see this and it blew my mind to see the Simpsons curse, some of the scenes where you see Bart in ways you didn't think you were going to ever see Bart. It just felt epic. It felt like the perfect story, and it just felt like something in my lifetime that I would never witness. At number four, I have Transformers. This movie changed me a lot. This movie also had a big impact on cinema and summer blockbusters, where I just associate watching a Transformers movie in the summer as a rite of passage. I just believe that that is a pillar of cinema more so than any other action franchise. If there is a year where a Transformers movie comes out from now until forever, I don't care how bad these movies get. I am going to watch it because it feels like a rite of passage. It feels like an event. Hearing Peter Cullen's voice in a theater as Optimist Prime through the booming theater speakers and seeing all the carnage of Transformers metal on screen and the explosions from Michael Bay that feels like summer to me. So I'm always gonna chase that. It's like a drug to me. I had my first hit in two thousand and seven, and I'm still chasing that high ever since. At number three Spider Man three, at the time, this movie got dragged, and it wasn't until maybe the last five years or so, especially whenever Toby Maguire came back, that I feel that Spider Man three finally got its flowers. Yes, it gets parodied a lot, it gets poked fun at a lot, But I love this movie when it first came out because we got black Suit Spider Man. Maybe I didn't love because the depiction of Venom, which was my favorite villain from the nineties, wasn't really portrayed in the way I wanted him to. I would not have cast to Ford Grace to play Venom, but it was what it was and it did so many things for me that I loved. So at number three, I had Spider Man three and number two is Juno. If I had to pick one movie from this year to really define what pop culture was, to really define what music was in two thousand and seven in fashion, I would show you Juno. I love everything this movie, from the wardrobe, from the quirky characters, from the memorable quotes. In two thousand and seven, it was so important to have a quirky movie with these really great quotes that you could put on a T shirt that you could sell at hot topic, And that is what I think about when I think about Juno. Also has really great music and a movie that I probably watched the most that year and it still holds up. I love Juno at number two. At number one, I Have No Country for Old Men, which would also enter into my top ten movies of all time, And this was the one movie specifically, like I was mentioning earlier, what changed in me in two thousand and seven, This was really the movie that did it. You have one of the greatest movie villains of all time played by Javier Bardem. Josh Brolin is fantastic in this movie. Woody Harrelson is fantastic in this movie. I also loved that the Cohen Brothers brought people who weren't real actors, but they worked and lived in these towns that they were filming in in Texas to add that level of Texas authenticity. My favorite scene added this entire movie is Anton Sugar, who was the villain, going to pay for his gas at the gas station and him having that encounter with the clerk there, and it's just so simple but just such great dialogue that there's so much tension in it, and that guy is the only guy to not die at the hands of Anton Sugar. He does not know how close he came to death to him that day. Some weird guy just came in with a funny haircut. He wanted coin toss and that was it. But he did not know in that moment how bad that interaction could have gone, and just how much tension you can build just through great dialogue and through great acting. A perfect scene. No Country for Old Man my favorite movie from my favorite year two thousand and seven, A comeback and give my spoiler free review on Weapons. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review of Weapons. He's gonna keep it very, very spoiler free. Weapons is now entering that over hype stage because when it first came out opening week and theaters were packed, Our theater was packed. Everybody was going crazy for this movie, big word of mouth. But now here we are, you're gonna start to see those people who are going to witness it now and they're gonna be like, that's what everybody was raving about. That movie is so overhyped. But that is okay with me because I would rather a really great movie be overhyped than have to fight for a really great movie that nobody has seen. Because there have been those this year where I'm like, everybody, you gotta go check out this movie, and everybody just doesn't want to. The movie doesn't do great at the box office, and then maybe six months down the line, when it's on a streaming service, then people start to catch wind of it. You could even argue maybe that's what happened a little bit with Barbarian Bam that cemented Zachkreigor as a really great director. People started to see how much of a visionary he is, and he is now up there on the horror directors I'm really paying attention to. I think Jordan Peele is still at the top of that list because he is somebody who is more established than some of the other people working now. But he was a person who wanted this movie, fired some of his management team because he could not secure this film. And now I know exactly why he wanted this movie because it is next level horror. And Zach Craiger is somebody I really enjoy now because he's only forty four years old. But just hearing him talk about this movie, how much attention to detail he has. So what this movie is about if you haven't heard about it yet, Seventeen kids go missing in this one classroom. Julia Gardner is the teacher in the classroom. The parents want answers, they are blaming her, and it is up to this town to unravel the mystery why all these kids went missing at two seventeen in the morning, exact same time, exact same night, in the exact same way. But nobody knows exactly why it also stars Josh Brolin, who plays one of the missing kids' dads, Alden Ehrenreich, who is a police officer in the town, Benanic Wong. So right there, you have Silver Surfer, you have Thanos, you have the guy from Ironheart, and you also have Wong from Doctor Strange. Also rounding out the cast, you have Austin Abrams, who plays a junkie in the movie. And let me just start with the cast just perfectly cast it. I couldn't see anybody else in any of these roles. And I know Pedro Pascal was supposed to play the role of Josh Brolin. I am so glad he didn't get it. And it's not that I don't like Pedro Pascal. It's not that I have Pedro fatigue. I watched all three of his big movies this summer. He's a fantastic actor. Because I actually think that if Pedro Pascal was in the same role, it would not have hit the same way. There was just something about his character that was more nuanced than I feel that Pedro Pascal could pull off right now. And the reason he didn't do it is because he had too many projects. Obviously, with all the commitments he has right now. So they had to recast almost this entire movie except for Austin Abrams, who was there from the very beginning. And not only did they give great performances, their characters were so well written and so well developed that I could put myself into the shoes of any of these people in this town and I would know what they love, what they hate, what triggers them. They all have very unique flaws, which is something that I really took away from Weapons is that there's not one character that is inherently the protagonist. Nobody in this movie is necessarily a good or bad person in the story, because I think they've all been through something traumatic, they all have some kind of blame pointed to them at some point because of something they've done wrong. That there's not one person that you're necessarily rooting for, And I think having that nuance of humans that have some good qualities about them but also can be kind of shady in other ways is what makes this movie feel more real life. That if this actually happened in a town, you wouldn't just have a good Kuy, a good Samaritan out there trying to figure this thing out. There would be some very mixed feelings between everybody in this town, and that is really what you see. You don't just see one shiny, perfect person trying to figure this thing out, trying to save the day. So not only were all their performances on the screen, I just believe all their characters were so well written on the page, which goes back to what I say about Zach Kreiger knowing his vision before he goes into his movie, not trying to find it in the process, and I think that is what really resonated with me. And not only that, but the movie just instantly dives into it. You start with the girl explaining the story how everybody went missing, and then you are right there in it. I love the format of the movie as it dives into each character individually, which is probably another reason why you do get to know these characters so well, is because it fully dives into where they were, where all these things started to happen, and show you all the things they have going on in their life. It doesn't really waste a whole lot of time with this crazy backstory of what happened before they went missing, diving into the characters backstories that way, because it doesn't tell you. It just shows you by just letting you live a day in their life. And I think that way of handling the story perfect and I feel like that added way more to the mystery because the movie was so unpredictable and in an era of filmmaking right now, especially in horror, where sometimes you can tell, Okay, I kind of see where this story is going, we're gonna get to this final battle. We're gonna all have it figured out by the end. I didn't know who was about what, I didn't know what was going on, but I was so in for the ride that in the two hour runtime, I never checked out. The horror elements were also fantastic, and I kind of knew going into it it wasn't gonna be a full on supernatural jump scare movie, although it did have those elements in there as well, it was really more of a horror mystery. I also feel like the movie didn't use a bunch of cheap tactics to scare you. There were some more of the traditional elements, a couple of jump scares here and there, but I think the movie just had a sinister DNA to it that aside from a couple of things early on, it didn't really rely on that. It also did a fantastic job of not showing you everything in the trailer, which is something that horror movies are notorious for, because there were some elements that I saw from different portions of the movie in the trailer, but even then, having all the pieces to this puzzle kind of laid out for you, you still had no idea how those things were going to play out. I think Austin Abrams was low key the MVP of this movie, even though his character didn't have the most massive role. Out of anybody else, I would still say Julia Gardner was my favorite part of the movie. Josh Bolin right up there with her, but I think his presence brought something that was just completely unexpected out of anybody else in the town. You don't really see characters like that. And he also brought a little bit of comedic relief. That was another thing I wasn't really expecting. There were moments in this movie where people were laughing, where even at its most sinister times, there was a little bit a levity and it wasn't cheesy, it wasn't forced, It kind of happened naturally. There weren't moments that it felt like, Oh, this is a punchline moment, or this is something we're gonna do deliberately to make you laugh. But I think just the way these moments were sprinkled in where you kind of took yourself back a little bit and thought, hey, that's kind of funny, made me laugh, it made everybody else laugh, And I think Austin Abrams's character was a big portion of those laughs. And I think what I love the most about Zach Kraiger now that he's going to be somebody that I pay attention to every single film. Because I wasn't the biggest fan of Barbarian, I enjoyed some elements of that movie. It felt a little bit unconventional to me, much like some people are gonna go watch Weapons and feel like, oh, this is so overhyped. That was kind of Barbarian for me. What I do love about him is how much he just has a passion for filmmaking. He said his three biggest influences going into this movie were Magnolia, Hereditarian Prisoners, which I was like, those are all contemporary movies that I feel like the general public has still seen. So to have somebody making movies with those types of influences and be able to make something that pools from those inspirations but feel entirely different. I think we're in good hands when it comes to horror. I think we're also in good hands when it comes to horror because of all the success that Warner Brothers has been having, which I've been telling you guys, horror is where it is when it comes to creativity. It's also where it is where it comes to strong female leads. Oftentimes that is the only place I can go where I can see somebody like Julia Gardner have a role where they're not typecasts in any way, where their characters aren't pigeonholed. But Warner Brothers became the first studio in history to have six consecutive forty plus million dollar openings. And if you look at this list, you have Minecraft with one hundred and sixty two point eight million, Sinners with forty eight million, Final Destination, Bloodlines with fifty million, f One with fifty seven million, Superman with the one hundred and twenty five million, and Weapons with forty two point five million dollars. And out of those six movies, fifty percent of them are original movies, so Warner Brothers still chases those big ips. If you look at Superman, Final Destination obviously is a long running franchise, Minecraft is a video game adaptation. But the threat in all these movies is that they also have really great directors who I believe truly are visionaries. And I think that is something that they have prioritized more than other studios and is why they are having so much success as they are finding filmmakers that know how to create a spectacle, and they also make movies where it starts with story first. It just has to James Gunn, who is a part of Warner Brothers, is the biggest proponent of that right now, saying we're not going to make a superhero movie unless we have the story. We're not just going to put some character out into the theaters because it has a big fandom. Man, We're not throwing in random cameos or post credit scenes just to introduce characters. If there's not a story there, we're not making the movie. And I think that is something that Marvel and other studios need to learn. In this world where a lot of people say they're superhero fatigue. People have been saying that everything is a reboot and a remake. For I think probably ever since I've been alive, people have been saying nothing is original anymore, and those movies still make a lot of money. It's not right now that we're sick of everything being part of a franchise or being a reboot. Is that we are sick of mediocre movies with lame stories that go nowhere. Even Josh Brolin was doing press for this movie and saying, I don't get on streaming services. Everything on there is so boring. Go see a movie like Weapons that is truly unique and worthy of your time. So I think for Warner Brothers they have figured that out with finding great directors who know how to make these great stories come to life. So Weapons, for me, it was an almost perfect movie. It's as close as you can get. I think I've just been more hesitant now about handing out fives, because now I truly feel that a five comes with time. It comes with seeing a movie maybe for a second time in theaters, or spending more time with it at home than it becomes one I throw into the rotation. So I feel like this is one that could grow. But I also think that Zach Kreiger hasn't put out his best movie yet. So for Weapons, I gave it four out of five kids running with their arms out like they're holding heavy bags at groceries four point five out of five of those. It's time to head down to movie mikes. Traylor Paul, the Hunter becomes the Hunted and Predator bad Lands. When I saw the trailer for this movie in theaters when it opened up, I was like, Ah, here we go, another generic sci fi movie. I haven't been one to dive into any of the Predator or Alien movies, but one movie earlier this year may have changed my mind because this is coming to us from the same director of Predator, Killer of Killers, which was an animated movie on Hulu, and when I sat down to watch that movie, I just love animation. Been talking about that a lot in the last couple of weeks. I'm just so drawn to it. I think you can tell such great, powerful stories with it. So I thought, Okay, I'm not fully into Predator, but you have a new R rated animated movie in the Predator universe. Let me check it out. And I freaking loved it. It is right up my alley has very sophisticated animation, some great action, and this is coming to us from director Dan Kratchenberg, who also did Prey, which is also a pretty big hit for Hulu, and ten Cloverfield Lane, which was a pretty good Cloverfield movie, one that also kind of went under the radar with John Goodman. The original Cloverfield is another movie I just have an affinity for back when found footage movies, we're kind of having a moment in the late two thousands. But Predator Badlands is not an animated movie. It is a live action movie coming out on November seventh. It's about this alien hunter who gets cast out from their klan and then forms this unlikely alliance with this android was played by el Fanning, except there's a little bit of a twist on her character that you see in the trailer that we'll talk about more. They go on the journey together and there's another bigger predator out to kill both of them. It looks like this movie's coming out on November seventh. Before we talk about it more, here's just a little bit of the Predator bad Lands trailer. And you've come to the most dangerous planet in the universe. If you're after a creature that can't be killed, the definitive apex predators. I could help you. Well, good luck with your journey here. You're not the predator, here the prey. We might not be alone in this hunt. This trailer got me hyped. I immediately thought, when does this movie come out? Because I cannot watch it soon enough. But it starts El Fanning, who you hear mostly in the trailer here because she is the one speaking English. She is an android, and the reveal in the trailer as as soon as Predator picks her up, she only has half a her android bodies, so just the torso. It's her torso and her arms and her head. It looks like she's just been ripped apart. At the very beginning of the trailer, she seems to be inside of some repair chamber, so somebody had it out for her and I can't wait to find out what happens more with her story. But this movie only has two people listed in the cast, l Fanning and Demetrius Schuster Colomuntaghi who plays the Predator, but he doesn't even speak English in this movie. He actually learned an entirely different language that was written for this movie by the same person who created the language used in the Avatar movies, And those are the kind of details that I really buy into because this actor is primarily a stunt performer, which in this case is probably all you needed. But in order to play this part, they learned this Predator language. And even though this movie is in the Predator universe, which isn't directly a part of the Alien universe, although they combine themselves a lot, a lot of the companies and characters kind of go go back and forth between each other, and I think those franchises fit really well together. If your favorite franchise is Alien or Predator, I feel like you are a really cool person because you don't care about the flashy things, Because I think the main ones when it comes to sci fi franchises, you're either a Star Wars fan or you're a trekkie, and those are just very two distinct They're the big boys in town when it comes to sci fi franchises. But if you are quietly into Alien or Predator movies, I just feel like you don't care about anything. You don't care about being cool. If you are into these movies, I also feel like your favorite sport is like baseball. That's not the sexiest of sports. It's not football, it's not basketball. But you're just appreciate something that puts as much detail into movies like this movie is doing, because they are trying to expand this universe kind of in the same world of where the animated movie I was just talking about exists in this new type of world that they are building. And I think Hulu is doing this with twentieth Century Student because they have this property, so also using the same director who did Pray. All these movies kind of tie into each other. So I am enjoying this entire universe that they are starting to build. And I think if you're hopping into this right now, it doesn't feel like you need to catch up with the whole lot. You could maybe go watch Pray, go watch Killer Killers, the animated movie, and then go see this one in theaters, and now you are into this world, which this trailer does a really good job at showing you how immersive the world is going to be. And that is really what stuck out to me about this trailer, because what we heard in that was a little bit of the story of them meeting him, not wanting to team up with her. They are able to understand each other. You see the subtitles of what the Predator is saying. Essentially, he doesn't want to believe that he is now being hunted. He's like, no, nobody hunts me. I am the Predator. I'm going to take this person down. She tells him, like, no, this person who is after you cannot be beat. So I think we're going to see him, like we see in the trailer, go up against somebody really big, and to have somebody who is an unstoppable force that, for the most part in this franchise is the hunter hunting the humans. This movie is flipping the script and taking that antagonist and making them the protagonist. So I always love a good anti hero story. Maybe it's a story of redemption of somebody who has done bad things in the past and somebody who probably doesn't really want to do good things, but man, they are not gonna let somebody take them out at something that they are known for. I first saw the trailer when we went to Fantastic Four and we saw that in Imax, and seeing this on a screen of that size just felt right. It felt like this movie should have come out in the dead of summer. But I think because of how competitive the twenty twenty five summer blockbuster season was, they maybe decided with the franchise like this that, even though it does have some power to its ip, it's not a Superman, it's not a Fantastic Four, it's not a Jurassic Park. Putting it out later in the year in November, I think maybe sets it up for having the most chance of success, because if I know nerds, they love coming out to support any movie that they want to see at any time of the year. But for people who are just casually going to movies, I think that is a good time to capitalize on things because in November we get a lot of the Oscar bait movies, we get some family movies that gear up more towards Thanksgiving. But kind of that sweet spot is that November seventh weekend where we've seen all the horror movies we wanted to see in October, and I think once October thirty first hits for a lot of people, they're over that. Even though I believe horror can be seen year round, it doesn't have a specific time for me. But they tend to put out a lot of horror movies, specifically around Halloween, and then once November hit, you're like, oh, that's disgusting. I don't want to see that anymore. So November seventh for a Predator bad Lands movie, I think is also fantastic timing. I think it could really capitalize with some strong marketing because I think this movie does have the power to be a hit because it is the seventh film in this mainline series, in the ninth film overall in the franchise. I can't wait to see all the other characters that are gonna arise also hunting them. There might be some callbacks to Pray, which that movie took back way in seventeen nineteen. It's not a sequel to that movie. It is still a standalone movie, but I feel like there might be some little connection there, at least a nod to that movie, because we do see some Easter EGX that a out the trailer, and I don't know why I'm excited just to see a movie that is going to force people to read subtitles in theaters. But again, this movie is coming out on November seventh, And that was this week's edition of Movie li Frame or 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. This week, I'm going over to my email, which you can always send me an email, Moviemike d at gmail dot com. All my socials are always linked in the episode notes, but this week I'm shouting out Tim, who wrote me and said love the podcast and thought you'd be the best person to ask. So I keep seeing all these offers for one month free of different streaming services, and I'm always tempted, but I never sign up. Why because they always ask for a credit card up front and I don't fully trust it. My question is, how do these free trials really work? Am I being overly cautious? I just feel like the second I enter my credit card info, I'm going to forget to cancel and get charged. Do you use these free trials? Is there a safe way to take advantage of them without getting burned? Signed Tim, And here's my answer. I get the hesitation. I hate putting in my credit card info for a free trial because I'm, like you said, it's free. But the reason they do that is because as soon as that one month is done, they're going to charge your credit card and for the most part, continue to charge you every month. You've just signed up at that point, but they give you that first month free as incentive. The time most recently I've done this was last year Peacock ran a promotion during Black Friday. It was like twenty dollars for an entire year of Peacock, and I thought, to myself, even if I don't use it that often, twenty bucks is a great deal for an entire year of a streaming service. And that was also around the time when the NFL was starting to put games specifically on Peacock, also with WWE putting their live events on Peacock, which that is going to go away next year. It's going to move over all the way to ESPN. But I thought, for that low amount, I could buy it, and even if I don't use it, it doesn't feel like a waste of money, because what is twenty bucks spread out over a year. So what I also did, I love scheduling me in email. I schedule myself on email to cancel it as soon as I hit sign up, one year away from the date that it's going to charge me. So like the day before he's going to charge me, I have an email schedule telling me to go cancel it. Peacock, at least, in my experience, has been an easy one to cancel. That is the one streaming service that I've just not kept insistently. Sometimes I'll have it, sometimes i'll cancel it because sometimes they have exclusive movies that I want to watch and I'll get it for like a month, or I'll utilize a free trial or take advantage of a sale like this. But that one lets you cancel pretty easy. I don't know how easy some of the other ones are to cancel, because haven't had to do that. Although sometimes when you cancel, they're like, no, don't go well over the price. So my advice to you is you might be a little bit overly cautious. They won't charge you. They can't just straight up charge you if you cancel before that, So just schedule an email, schedule a text on your phone, write it on your calendar, depending on how old school you are, and they will not charge you. Just make sure you have that reminder because if you don't, you're gonna get charged. And there are so many streaming services right now, I hate the way everybody is shifting things. It's getting annoying. I don't know what I have and what I don't have. Some things don't even feel exclusive anymore. We're basically just going back to cable. So I think that's the way this is going to go down in three to five years, where all these companies realize that they would make more money if they all just merge together. So we're going to go back to cable eventually. It's just not going to be like it used to be, hopefully, But they're not a scam. Just remember to cancel before they charge you. So thank you for that question. If you ever have questions like that, you can email me like Tim did, or you can send me a DM even if it's not directly podcast related. You just have a question you want to know, hit me up. Thank you for listening, thank you for being subscribed, And until next time, go out and watch Good Boobies and I will talk to you later