Alan Siegel (The Ringer) On The Simpsons in the 90’s and Famous Movie Parodies + Movie Review: The Electric State (Netflix) + Trailer Park: The Woman In The Yard

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike. Today we're covering one of my favorite topics of all time, The Simpsons in the nineties. I have on writer Alan Siegel, who wrote a book about the Simpsons coming out this summer. We'll talk about the golden age of the Simpsons, which is my favorite, and we'll also talk about how movie classics had an impact on the show in the nineties. In the movie review, I am defending a movie on Netflix called The Electric State, directed by the Russo Brothers, starring Chris Pratt and Millie Bobby Brown. This movie was being dragged through the mud and I'm here to say it is not as bad as everybody is saying it is. In the trailer Park, we'll talk about a new horror movie coming out this week called The Woman in the Yard. Am I going to hate it? Or Am I going to love it? Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed. And now let's talk movies from the Nastville podcast network. And this is movie Mike Movie Plot. Alan Siegel is a fantastic writer. He lives in Los Angeles and covers and makes some movies. Music TV show, sports, and general nostalgia. For the Ringer. You can check out his work at them. He has a book coming out on June tenth called Stupid TV Be More Funny, about the golden age of the Simpsons in the nineties. You know me from listening to this podcast. I am a massive Simpsons fan. Even though this isn't a TV podcast, I always find ways to incorporate the Simpsons in my reviews because when you look at the show's golden age, so much of it was influenced by famous, iconic movies. So I want to talk to Alan about that. I want to get to know him through movies. You can find the link to pre order his book in the episode notes. But right now, let's talk to Alan Siegel. Alan, how are you doing.

00:01:32
Speaker 2: I'm good. Thanks for having me.

00:01:34
Speaker 1: It is so rare that I get to find somebody who is as nerdy about the Simpsons as I am, somebody who has now dedicated so much of their life to write a Simpsons book. So I'm excited to get to talking about the book. But first, since it's the movie podcast, I want to get to know you through movies. Is that cool?

00:01:50
Speaker 2: Absolutely?

00:01:51
Speaker 1: We're gonna do what I call the first four movie questions. Question number one, What was the first movie you remember seeing in theaters?

00:02:00
Speaker 2: I think it was Oliver and Company. Oh, It's so good, nineteen eighty seven. So it's a Disney cartoon pre Disney renaissance with the songs of Billy Joel.

00:02:10
Speaker 1: Yeah, that is a great Disney movie. I tell people that is one of the most underrated Disney movies because it was kind of in that bunk era, that what they call the xerox era, where the animation was like just not very good. They said the ideas at that time were just unimaginative. But I love that movie. What do you remember about seeing that in theaters?

00:02:29
Speaker 2: I just remember the songs and kind of not being that impressed with it. I was really young, I was probably four, so I enjoyed it, but I didn't really know what was coming. And actually that there is a good Simpsons tie in, which is the animators that I talked to talked about sort of at that time, that was like the peak of what you could do as an animator. There really wasn't. There wasn't this ambitious stuff that came later for sure.

00:02:53
Speaker 1: All right, next up, if you're on a Desert Island. You can only bring one movie? What movie is that going to be?

00:02:58
Speaker 2: Terminator two? I would say absolutely. I think I can rewatch that anytime anywhere.

00:03:04
Speaker 1: Is that the movie you've seen the most?

00:03:05
Speaker 2: I don't think I've seen it the most. I think the most the movie I've seen the most probably is Major League, which my grandparents gave us on VHS in around nineteen ninety one. I think because there was like a baseball on the cover, they had no idea how profane it was.

00:03:20
Speaker 1: For sure, literally one of the most vulgar baseball movies you could give to a kid. All right. First, for number three, what is your favorite animated movie?

00:03:28
Speaker 2: That is a very good question. I think the Original Toy Story. I was twelve at the time, so it really it kind of showed me that there could be animated movies that weren't just sort of kiddy and yeah it was for kids, but it was just like a little more evolved than some of the stuff that we had gotten at the time.

00:03:45
Speaker 1: And final, in the first four, what movie character are you most like in real life?

00:03:50
Speaker 2: Man? I have to think about that one for a second, see.

00:03:53
Speaker 1: Because for me, like outside of doing something like this, I would say silent Bob because if I'm not talking about movies, if I'm not talking about the Simpsons, I don't have a whole lot to say. So in like normal everyday conversations, I'll say the least, but every now and then I'll get in that one liner and I was like, everybody's like, oh, that guy can talk, but that is kind of mine, Like I identify a lot with Silent Bob.

00:04:12
Speaker 2: I would say some combination of the three main characters and super Bad so mcluve, Michael Sarah, and Jonah Hill. I just think Christopher mintz plass his real name is not mc lovey. I would say, like that combo of you know, awkwardness and sweetness. I hope maybe I don't really know if I was that way, and as a teenager, maybe I sort of aspired to have the sense of humor that Jonah Hill's character did.

00:04:35
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think that's a combination of like everybody in high school as all those three characters, like you want to be cool, but you're also kind of a jerk, and you're also kind of a nerd, and we also probably love Simpsons.

00:04:47
Speaker 2: Yeah, the insecurities would come out in sort of ye, dickishness for sure.

00:04:51
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the book Stupid TV Be More Funny, all about ninety Simpsons. And before we get into that, I want to do something fun where we we draft our favorite Simpsons episodes from the nineties. So we're building a mount Rushmore of Simpson's episodes, and the rules are that will each pick one episode and once one is off the board, no one else can pick it. So we're gonna go four episodes here. Since you're the guest, kick us off with your first pick in the mount Rushmore of ninety Simpsons episodes.

00:05:20
Speaker 2: So it's a little bit of a don't know out there pick, But I'm gonna go first with Itchy and Scratchy and Puucci because I think it was sort of their best meta episode commentary about the fans and sort of about what the show became and how difficult it was to maintain its peak, and I think in a perfect world that almost would have been the finale of the show. I just think it really encapsulated the challenges that they had to again continue making the show the funniest thing on television, and really it showed how damn impossible it was and how you just couldn't please everyone. And it was sort of around the time where internet fans were becoming a thing. And as you can imagine, Simpsons fans are pretty eggheaded and nerdy, and I was one of them, and they were early Internet adopters, and they were saying that the show was going back in the early nineties, which is insane.

00:06:10
Speaker 1: I've never thought about it like that. That they didn't have to really take all that criticism that shows now get with social media because you had the people hating on it, but they didn't really see it as instantly as you do now.

00:06:22
Speaker 2: Yeah, some of the writers, again, they were at the time just sort of as nerdy and eggheaded as the fans, so they too would get what they had early dial up internet connections, and they kind of loved seeing what the fans said. But like anything with the Internet, it sort of devolves into this piling on and eventually they sort of got annoyed with that too.

00:06:41
Speaker 1: All right, So we're going with Itching and Scratchy and Pucci as your number one pick. For number one, I'm gonna go with Bart gets famous. I think for me working in show business doing radio and podcasts now as a kid, I thought it was the coolest thing ever, Like to see somebody working in show business and you're like, oh, you must have the coolest life. And I actually got into working in it, and I'll say I still love it. But there's also that side that people don't often see behind the scenes, of how much of a grind it is. My favorite quote from that is I wish I was dead. Wow, being in show business is like a dream.

00:07:15
Speaker 2: We're really lucky, aren't we.

00:07:18
Speaker 1: Which show was good?

00:07:19
Speaker 2: It's funny because I had interviewed Conan O'Brien about March Versus the Monorail, and he talked about people asking him all the time about creative work and what he's worked on, and he said it was always sort of disappointing to them because as much as he loved it, like these magic moments, he said, basically, we're just eating fried food, writing longhand on a notepad, driving his four tourus into the Fox lot on a weekend. You know, the magic came later after the thing was created. Creating it itself. It was rarely romantic.

00:07:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, even if you look at where they would write in the show, it's like this crappy, like hotel looking place where there's nothing going on there exactly. All right, what's your next pick?

00:08:01
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with mister Plow. I think it's a great combo of silly, emotional, ridiculous and started. It was right when the show started to scratch the surface of what it could do beyond family drama.

00:08:15
Speaker 1: I love that episode.

00:08:17
Speaker 3: Oh, mister Plow, that's my name? That name again is mister Plow.

00:08:22
Speaker 1: I feel that that is just one of those defining Homer moments out of the entire series. I think I just love the rivalry between him and Barney in that episode, because Barney, for the most part, is this unambitious, just character the entire time, and then out of nowhere, he's like, I'm gonna be the best plow guy in Springfield.

00:08:39
Speaker 2: It's it's definitely like a he, you know, breaks character to film a commercial with Linda Ronstat that you just don't like, get that kind of thing later with Barney.

00:08:49
Speaker 1: That's a great pick. I think with number two, I'm gonna go with twenty two short films about Springfield. I think it's just such an ambitious episode that they haven't replicated since. I just love how every single story intertwines, and I think as a kid, that is the episode that blew my mind the most, just because how complex it is.

00:09:07
Speaker 2: Yeah. Bill Oakley, who sort of shepherded that episode, talked about how he did not expect the idea to fly, and he was the showrunner, so I think he basically was like, all right, we're gonna do it and pushed it through. And I think they all sort of drew ideas out of it or drew characters out of a hat to pick how they would write the episode.

00:09:25
Speaker 1: All Right, what you got for your next pick?

00:09:26
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with last Sexit the Springfield.

00:09:30
Speaker 1: Ah, that's a good one that was on my list.

00:09:32
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's sort of a it's a cliche now, but people love that episode.

00:09:36
Speaker 1: That Oldlin Lisa needs Bracious Dan, Oldlin Lisa Needs Bracius.

00:09:42
Speaker 2: Has a bunch of good jokes. It's like a lot of social commentary in it with talk about unions and all the dental stuff is very very funny.

00:09:50
Speaker 3: If we give up our dental plan, I'll have to pay for less precious.

00:09:55
Speaker 1: That's an episode that gets referenced the most. I feel like that's a classic episode. That's a good for number three. For number three. I'm going to go with an episode that has been my longest favorite episode. I think it would be number one for probably the majority of my life. But it's Homie the Clown, and I think it's because of the story of how there was always going to be at one point a reveal that Krusty the Clown was Homer Simpson, and this whole time that Bart is kind of idolizing this character that it's actually his dad the whole time in makeup, Like, I wish they would have made that happen at some point. I get that Krusty becoming a bigger figure probably would have made that a little bit more confusing, but I think it was that whole idea of Bart idolizing somebody that easily could have been his dad, and then just hilarious like physical comedy in that episode, the.

00:10:42
Speaker 2: First maybe five minutes where Homer is being wooed to go to Clown College is definitely like a top five sequence in the show's history.

00:10:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, that whole sequel, like him seeing the billboard and then playing with his mashed potatoes and that's it. I'm going to Clown College. One of the most out of pocket things he's ever said in the series. Yes, Homie, that's it. You people have stood in my way long enough.

00:11:07
Speaker 3: I'm going to clone college.

00:11:11
Speaker 1: I don't think any of us expected him to say that.

00:11:14
Speaker 2: It's definitely an early like, Oh, Homer is getting more stupid and more out there and his family is starting to notice, which it was always there, but it wasn't quite as pronounced until then.

00:11:25
Speaker 1: I think I love that evolution of Homer where they he went from just being the dad to be I guess everybody watching kind of expected him to get dumber and dumber as the show went along, and maybe that was a little bit of a detriment to the show later in seasons, like getting into late nineties and early two thousands, where he got a little bit too dumb. Did you think Homer got too dumb in the nineties.

00:11:46
Speaker 2: I would say the nineties was the peak of his stupidity, and it really worked. I mean it was sort of fun. I think for the writers to take Homer again, make him stupider, and place him in these crazy situations where he should be smart but he's not, Like going to space. You know. That was controversial at the time but ended up being very funny.

00:12:06
Speaker 1: All right, your final pick and your mount rushmore of Simpsons episodes from the nineties.

00:12:10
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with Lisa's Substitute. It's a season two episode with Dustin Hoffman as the guest star. I think it was maybe the earliest, true, incredible classic of the show.

00:12:24
Speaker 1: I'm gonna miss you.

00:12:27
Speaker 2: I'll tell you what. Whenever you feel like you're alone and there's nobody you can rely on, this is all you need to know.

00:12:37
Speaker 4: Thank you, mister.

00:12:39
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:12:39
Speaker 1: The heartwarming Lisa episodes in the nineties were some of the best because she gave balance to the show in ways that the other Simpson's family members really couldn't. Because you have Homer, like we're talking about, being a complete idiot. Bart was like the rock star of the show in the early nineties, and then she kind of brought everything down to a human level. What do you love the most about Lisa Simpson.

00:13:01
Speaker 2: I mean, she's the show's moral center, and I think people kind of unfairly like view her as a kill joy, But she is the closest thing to the audience, I would say in terms of character, especially like hardcore Simpsons fans, you know, like again kind of nerdy eggheaded, sweet, but also likes to lord her intelligence over other people. She's definitely one of the more vulnerable characters, and that can lead to some really really good episodes. Anything with Lisa and Homer together, contrasted, is always really good.

00:13:33
Speaker 1: For my final pick, I think I'm gonna go with Marge Be Not Proud. That is an episode that I watch every single year. I think it's obviously the bone Storm reference is one of my favorites of all time, but I think that one has the most heartwarming message to me of like Bart getting older, him being so just distraughd, of not just making his parents mad, but you know, them being disappointed in him, And I think that's like one of his most defining moments of like, oh, Bart actually has some sensibilities here that aren't just like him doing dumb radical things.

00:14:05
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's very guilty about stealing the video, and it's funny that they or maybe not funny, but it's interesting that they so when he steals it, like it's like he steals it and he realizes he can't enjoy this thing that he stole. It's just kind of miserable to him after that dailing.

00:14:21
Speaker 3: How could you we live in a society of laws. Why do you think I took it all those Police Academy movies for fun?

00:14:29
Speaker 1: Well, I didn't hear anybody.

00:14:31
Speaker 3: Laughing, did you, except that that guy who made sound effects? Whoa whoom? Where was I? Oh? Yeah, stay out.

00:14:42
Speaker 2: Of my boots? All right?

00:14:44
Speaker 1: So those are our Mount Rushmore picks. The book is called Stupid TV, Be More Funny, which is a quote from an episode where Homer bangs on the TV trying to get the comedian on the screen to be more funny because he doesn't get the jokes TV, but TV more funny? Was this always the phrase that you wanted to pick for the name of the book?

00:15:05
Speaker 2: You know, it took me a little while to settle on that. I like it because, first of all, he was watching Garrison Keeler, which is really funny. That's what Homer was mad at. I don't think he understood Garrison Keeler at the time. Prairie Home Companion was a little advanced for him at that moment. I just thought it sort of summed up what The Simpsons was about, which was elevating TV in a way. This was sort of before prestige TV was a phrase and it was I think, you know, unequivocally smarter than anything else on you know, at the time, there were funny sitcoms, for sure, but the Simpsons was just on a different level.

00:15:39
Speaker 1: From that phrase, that quote. What are some other quotes that have kind of become a part of your everyday vocabulary because of The Simpsons? Because I have so many of these, I.

00:15:47
Speaker 2: Think it shifts. But lately it's been doctor Nick saying, you know, the most rewarding part was when he gave me.

00:15:55
Speaker 3: The most rewarding part was when he gave me my money.

00:15:58
Speaker 2: And that's it. You know, any kind of it applies to any sort of cynical either money grab or just like on a work setting when you're sort of down about something. It kind of reminds me of the you know, don Draper like that, that's what the money's for.

00:16:12
Speaker 1: One that has kind of creeped into my vocabulary recently that I realized I've been saying here for so long, is and how whenever Homer he's talking about whenever he learns a new piece of information, he forgets an old piece of information.

00:16:25
Speaker 3: Every time I learned something new, it pushes some old stuff out.

00:16:28
Speaker 2: Of my brain.

00:16:29
Speaker 3: Remember, when I took that home wine making course and I forgot how to drive.

00:16:33
Speaker 1: That's because you want drunk. And I've said and how so many times that I kind of forget that it's a phrase that nobody uses anymore. And then it's a phrase from like the nineteen twenties slaying.

00:16:44
Speaker 2: Yeah, that show was so good at taking these like little inconsequential phrases and kind of shoving them into the lexicon, like doe was originally written to the script as like annoyed grunt, and Dan Casselnetta just made it his own and the word met, you know, free word. I don't think the Simpsons came up with that, but they use it all the time. And I guarantee, you know, I'm forty one, people ten years younger, ten years older, like in that range. That's where they got the use of that word, for sure.

00:17:13
Speaker 1: So in your research for this book, how much of the Simpsons did you had to dive into and at what point did you get sick of them?

00:17:20
Speaker 2: I rewatched a bunch of classic episodes, but the thing is that was sort of in my media diet already, so I definitely didn't get sick of it. I would say towards the end of the research process, I was like, I just can't watch anymore. I don't want to get sick of it, Like this is my favorite thing in the world. I don't want to be susceptible to losing the love. And it never really happened. You know, since I've put the finishing touches on the book, I've definitely gone back and watched more.

00:17:44
Speaker 1: A theory I kind of have is when we I rewatched some episodes in preparation for this, and I realized how much they would reference things that were so niche and so obscure at a time when I didn't know what was happening. I didn't know they were referencing old TV shows, old songs, and it seemed like the writers at that time were just these hardcore Harvard nerds who would really dive into these really just deep things that nobody else was gonna get. But now it's the people who grew up with the show, like you and I, who are a part of the writing staff now, who are a part of it, who they're almost referencing the episodes they grew up with more than referencing those other things. Do you find that that is kind of what is happening not only with The Simpsons, but even other media franchises like Star Wars. It's that kind of evolution of the fan now becoming a part of the driving force.

00:18:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's definitely the trend. I think that can be good and bad. I mean, I think again, like in mid century directors, all these these guys and it was mostly men. You know, they fought in wars, they had lives, and you know, then you look at like Quentin Tarantino, who grew up on movies and all his movies reference other movies, which is great. I just think it sort of creates a different kind of cinema or TV. But yeah, like, no one who worked in the early Simpsons like obviously grew up on the Simpsons. Like I think Oakley and Weinstein, who were the showrunners in season seven and eight, were the first sort of Simpsons fans who really worked on the show, like hardcore Simpsons fans who ran the show, and they did a really good job. I think of thinking outside the box.

00:19:19
Speaker 1: Focusing now on some film based questions here about the Simpsons. What is your favorite movie that the Simpsons have done a parody of.

00:19:26
Speaker 2: It's kind of a normy pick. But The Shining I think is my favorite movie that they've parodied, just because they really do a full parody of it. It's not just a scene or one sequence.

00:19:38
Speaker 3: No TV and no beer, make home or something something oh crazy, don't mind it, but do.

00:19:52
Speaker 2: Hot out of.

00:19:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, they really nail every single reference from The Shining, from Homer busting down the door to the blood getting off on the wrong floor.

00:20:01
Speaker 2: Give me the Bat March, Give me the Bat. Yeah, it's very true to the movie, which is pretty incredible.

00:20:08
Speaker 1: Was there ever a episode that you watched that you didn't realize at the time they were perioding a movie and later you're like, oh, that was actually a movie, and I gotta go check that movie out now.

00:20:17
Speaker 2: So there are a bunch of those. I think one of my favorites is something that I realized was a reference maybe three or four years ago, and that was in Mister Plow. There is a scene with Homer's truck that's on a bridge and it is a shot for shot remake from Sorcerer, which is from nineteen seventy seven William Freakin Sorcerer, which is a remake of Wages of Fear and there's even a like faux tangerine dream score in the episode of The Simpsons, and I didn't know what the hell that was. I thought, you know, I was young. I was like, oh, is this a reference to Cliffhanger. I didn't really know. And then I saw Sorcerer here in La three or four years ago, and like something clicked in my head, and it was almost embarrassing because that's sort of the breadth of their references, like that movie in the early nineties source or you know, I think it came out right around Star Wars got buried by Star Wars, so it's not a movie that was in the zeitgeist at all, but they parodied it anyway, and it was sort of like Rich Moore, as an animation director, called it like a one percent or there was like one percent of the audience that might understand that, but they did it anyway, just because that's their sensibility, and that's the beauty of the show.

00:21:28
Speaker 1: Isn't that crazy when you watch some of these episodes of how down to the minimal detail that they get right when parroting something.

00:21:35
Speaker 2: They Again, this is something I really wanted to hammer home, which is this was before Google searches, like you could not find stills from movies easily, you know, you couldn't just collect them on the internet. So they would have interns and PA's run to the archives of various studios to find stills of movies whatever they were parotying, whether it was Psycho or The Shining or Chinatown or The Godfather, and that's how they did it, and it was so time consuming.

00:22:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think one for me that I didn't realize at the time was a movie was whenever Lisa is trying to do this experiment with bar in her hamster and he goes to grab the pancakes, I did not or the cupcakes, and I didn't realize that was a clockwork Orange reference. And then seeing a still of that later, I'm like, oh, I had no idea that that's totally like a not safe for work reference.

00:22:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, the show definitely educated us, I think in ways that we didn't realize at the time. And I think like Kubrick and Hitchcock are two directors that their stuff always comes up on The Simpsons.

00:22:38
Speaker 1: Aside from The Simpsons teaching us about movies, what is the biggest thing the Simpsons has taught you about life.

00:22:45
Speaker 2: I think to have healthy cynicism or skepticism, but also that you got to live, you know, you have to sort of throw yourself into the world. I think it's sort of a mistake that people sometimes people talk about how like bleak the show is, or their their attitude towards politics, basically that it doesn't work. But I really think it is. You know, it does point out these bidness of American life in some ways, but there's no giving up on the show, and rather the characters don't give up, and it's kind of like they have to live on. And that I think is what I took from the show for sure.

00:23:17
Speaker 1: I got that a lot too. I think, oddly the thing I've learned a lot from this show was about marriage. I think how good of a husband that Homer is, even though he has a lot of flaws, Like growing up, my dad didn't really talk to me a whole lot about like girls and what to do in these situations. And I went to the Simpsons a lot for some of that advice of like what happens in this marital situation that you have no idea about, Well, what did Homer Simpson do? Have you ever used Homer as any kind of like moral compass for you.

00:23:46
Speaker 2: I think usually with Homer it was sort of like what not to do, and then in the in the end it was, well, he still loves Marge, and you know, he'd really do you know, he'd do anything for his family. That's something that the writer John Swartzwelder basically he said, like he tried to write home or like a big dog, like you know, lazy, kind of not that smart, but he would like kill for his family. And I think there's something to admire about that.

00:24:13
Speaker 1: A stupid TV be more funny. Everybody, go pre order the book. I'm going to put the link in the episode notes of this podcast. What do you hope people take away from the book?

00:24:22
Speaker 2: So when I wrote it, I kind of struggled initially because I was sort of like, this is this giant titan of pop culture and I'm afraid, you know, I'm not going to get to everything I want to, and I basically was trying to make it definitive without being completest. And I think what I'm hoping is people can really gather how the show influenced America and how the Simpsons in America were intertwined in the nineties, like, I don't think you can really tell the story of one without the other.

00:24:49
Speaker 1: What was the first step you took in just sitting down and writing it? Because it is a massive amount to look for. It is so many episodes, so many voice actors, so many things that could include what was that first step you took up? Like this is me starting the book.

00:25:04
Speaker 2: So I made a list of things I wanted to hit on, like the you know, the merchandise craze in the nineties, because I remembered, you know, when I was a kid. It was absolutely insane. I think they sold fifteen million Simpsons shirts in the first year of the show alone. I wanted to hit on George H. W. Bush taking a shot at the show from the campaign stump and I do that. And I wanted to kind of get the flavor of the writer's room and how these guys and it was all guys for better and worse really made this thing all right.

00:25:32
Speaker 1: Final question, I am planning on getting a Simpson's tattoo. You are the Simpsons expert. What do you think I should get that represents the Simpsons in the nineties best.

00:25:41
Speaker 2: I think you gotta go Homer, and I think you just like a simple woohoo is a perfect Simpsons tattoo. I could get into like more intricate things, you know. I don't know if I would get Millhouse or you know, early bart but I think, actually, you know, for me, it would probably be a Lisa tattoo. I think that would be the most meaningful. But I think you gotta do Homer.

00:26:01
Speaker 1: I was feeling Lisa for you, like, if you've got a Simpsons tattoo from what you talked about, I think you're going Lisa.

00:26:06
Speaker 2: I agree. I think my tattoo days are over.

00:26:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, the one I was thinking of of just getting the line I call the big one BiDi. So we're kind of right there. On the Homer reference, Mindy has a motorcycle.

00:26:17
Speaker 2: I love the Homer like declarative statements.

00:26:19
Speaker 1: Well, this has been awesome. I hope everybody pre orders the book because why is that so important? I hear that all the time. Let the listeners know why pre ordering something is so important for artists and creators.

00:26:30
Speaker 2: Because pre ordering is the best way to try to get on bestseller lists, and pre orders count towards your first week of sales, and that's extremely important.

00:26:39
Speaker 1: So the book comes out in June, but go pre order it right now. Alan, Thank you so much for the time.

00:26:43
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me man.

00:26:48
Speaker 1: Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review of The Electric State, starring mainly Bobby Brown Chris Pratt, directed by the Russo brothers. Russo brothers have directed great movies in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, like Infinity War Endgame. Since then, they've done Cherry the Gray Man, which was also a Netflix movie with Ryan Gosling. I thought that was a fun action movie. But if you look at all the reviews and all the talk about The Electric State, you'd think this movie had kicked a dog. And I will say, is it the best movie ever? No, by no means, but does it deserve all the hate it has been getting. I don't think so. And maybe it's because of all the negativity that I went into this movie a little bit differently. But it's hard to avoid the Rotten Tomatoes number, and I never let that affect me or influence my review, but this one was staggering. A critics score of fourteen percent, but the audience score is seventy six percent, So even myself, once I saw the poster for this movie alone, I thought this looks bad. When I saw the trailer, I thought this looks kind of bad. I wasn't a fan of the costume design, the hair in particular, Chris Pratt's hair looked awful. I wasn't buying either him or Millie Bobby Brown in a role like this what the movie is about. It takes place in a retro futuristic nineteen nineties. Millie Bobby Brown has a really smart brother and he dies, at least she thinks that he dies, but then he comes back as this robot trying to get her attention, trying to get her to save him and in turn save the world. So she has to go navigate this robotic state where humans and robots have been at war. She's living with Jason Alexander as her foster prayer, which I thought was kind of a nice touch. But she has to go and team up with Chris Pratt's character to journey to this part of the world where robots have kind of been banished to You have Stanley Tucci kind of playing the bad guy. He's the person responsible for this technology where you can put on this helmet and in order to defeat the robots, they started to develop their own robots where they could take over. They put on this helmet and they are essentially able to power these drones remotely. My biggest problem with this movie is it felt like I'd already watched it before. In this movie, the robots get tired of doing the jobs that they were assigned to, so they become a little bit smarter, a little bit more self aware, and they start fighting back against the humans, and the humans find a way to defeat the robots and banish them, so the robots become the bad guys. But now that her brother is a robot, she has to save him. Aside from creating a semi interesting world, there wasn't anything that felt unique to this movie. Just kind of felt like generic futuristic robot movie. And I think it's also because I have a lower standard when it comes to Netflix original movies, despite them throwing every single actor in this movie from not only Millie, Bobby Brown and Chris Pratt, Acky Hui Kuan, Jason Alexander. Like I mentioned, Woody Harrelson is the voice of the robotic mister Penut, which at first I thought it was Matthew McConaughey. They do sound very similar, so who knows they might be brothers. Anthony Mackie is the robot best friend to Chris Pratt. You have Brian Cox, Jenny slat All doing voices, Jihn Carlo Esposito pretty much doing the same thing he's been doing in every movie playing the bad guy. He does it so well. It just felt like they took every big actor through it in this movie, put them as voices, and nothing really stood out. Because of that, when it comes to our two leads, let's look at the positives and the negatives. I like Millie Bobby Brown. I think her name alone is reason enough for me to watch a movie. It's the reason I continue to dip into these Netflix movies because I want her to succeed post Stranger Things, which I think is really hard for any child actor. And I think she and her people did a really good job of distinguishing her from the other cast of Stranger Things and making it very much her separate Mille Bobby Brown, who is a part of Stranger Things, but she wants to go on and do other movies like Damsel and Nola Holmes and adding more movies like this to her resume. I just think when it comes to her acting ability, it's just not quite there. And it could be because a lot of this movie is a lot of blue screen, which Russo Brothers do a lot of work in, and it just feels like at times her acting is a little bit empty, and sometimes she over sells the emotional scenes, which I found just a little bit distracting. There are moments that do require a little bit more emotion, but I just didn't really feel it in her performance, and I'm not sure she showed me that outside a Stranger Thing, and maybe it works in that Stranger Things world, but I just haven't seen that next level of acting from her outside of Stranger Things. And then we get to Chris Pratt, which I think is another major reason why people are ripping this movie to shreds. There is Chris Pratt fatigue that no matter what he comes out in now, people are going to not want to watch it because we've had so much of him. I'm still not quite there all the time. The only movie that I was upset he got cast in was whenever he was the voice of Super Mario. It just felt like the same Chris Pratt voice, and I wanted something a little bit more unique there. He is kind of like the industry standard. Hey, we need a straight white male in a role who can bring money at the box office or get eyeballs on a streaming movie. Let's get Chris Pratt. I'm not fully in the I dislike Chris Pratt and everything he does now, because he did do a lot of great things. I mean, just a couple of years ago Guardians of the Galaxy three. I don't think anybody felt that there is just everything outside in the action world. Whenever he is in a movie, I feel like people just automatically don't want to be a part of it. His acting in this movie was also a little bit flat, and I think when you put him next to Millie Bobby Brown, there's not really one person leading the charge here. But I honestly think what it comes down to you is it the blue screen nightmare. This entire movie is probably a victim of that. And that's what you get when you don't build a whole lot of sets and you focus a lot on CGI robots and backgrounds. But you have to do that in order to build a world like this. And they did spend a lot of money on making this movie. So while they did do I got a decent job at creating this world. About forty minutes in, I felt that that went by pretty quick. I think that was the sign of an entertaining movie. Again, it's not the most stimulating. It's unfortunately a movie that you could have on in the background and just kind of enjoy and still kind of go along with it. Kind of reminds me of when you would just throw on a movie on cable that was interesting enough. Like I could see the commercial breaks inside of this movie. It was that level of entertainment, and that doesn't make it bad to me. That is kind of the streaming standard now. So I found it entertaining enough through the end. Even though the movie felt kind of like painting my numbers, I kind of knew what was gonna happen, what was going to come. All the emotional ups and downs were already in my head happening, and I thought it was entertaining enough. I enjoyed living in this world. I think it's also probably catered to a younger viewer, so all the people ripping it to shreds online or probably people around my age older than me who think this movie is an abomination I also think this movie probably isn't for you. It's for the fan of Straights, the younger fan who is more of the gen Z audience and going to resonate more with Millie Bobby Brown. Of course, you're probably not gonna get it. And those people watching this movie and enjoying it haven't seen all those movies from the eighties that you think it's reminiscent of. Haven't seen all those movies from the nineties because those movies are ancient to them. So the Electric State does probably feel more fresh and new to them, and it could be their next favorite movie. And I don't want to keep some kid from enjoying that. I'm also not going to Die on the Hill by any means that this is a great movie that people are completely missing. It is pretty average by today's standards. But when I look at other Netflix original movies, which is always how I compare every single movie to you like what is around it in this genre? I think of Rebel Moon, which was a complete disaster. The first one was all style, no substance. The second one was much of the same, so bad that I couldn't even finish that one. This movie actually has some substance with a little bit of style. So it's like right in the the middle on both those. But the thing was I kept watching till the very end. Unlike those other Netflix original movies that I dipped out. There are movies on Netflix that I started, maybe got twenty thirty minutes of, and I was like, I don't care where this is going. I'm out the electric state. I watched it all the way through. And that is the big thing with Netflix. They want people to start and not only start them, but complete their movies. That is the sign of success here. That is why this movie is gonna be at number one on Netflix, because even though people are hating it, people are clicking on it and people are watching it. I don't love that because if all you're caring about is completion rate, I mean, Netflix makes movies now that they're like, okay, we got to overstate things because some people just have this on in the background. Some people are watching on their phone or their iPad. They have characters sometimes announcing things that they are doing for the people who were distracted doing other things while they are watching Netflix. I don't like that. For film, they might get to a point where they install or encourage you to install these little cameras, or they use your phones on your TVs so they can look at your eyes and when you're looking at the screen and not looking at the screen, and using that for data on how they make movies. I don't like that aspect of filmmaking, but I think that's just the state of the world and them deciding on what they want to invest in and how they want to make movies. That's a whole other streaming world that'll probably be different here in five years if they continue to lose money on movies like this, and I don't even think they're necessarily losing money on The Electric State, but it's not doing them any favors by all the negative reviews that they are getting. So maybe it's also me fighting a little bit for this movie because I don't think it's as bad as people are saying. Because I think for the most part, if you like sci fi movies and you click on The Electric State just looking for a popcorn movie that you can sit down and watch with your family on like a Friday night, I think this is actually perfect for that. It has a little something for everybody. It doesn't really excel at anything that it does, but it's a very crowd pleasing movie in my opinion, and some people are freaking out because they don't want this to be the last project leading into the Russo Brothers taking on the next Avengers movies. I think, to me, this still proves that they can deal with a lot of actors, can deal with a lot of action, which is going to be up to an incredible level in the next Avengers movies. I heard that I think Disney or Marvel gave the Russo Brothers a deck of cards with every single person cast in the Avengers movie as far as how many movies they have left in their contract, how much they are paying each of these people, and how much they have left to pay these people because it's so hard to keep track of. I think that's why you hire these guys, because they can deal with this amount of talent. There's two of them. They know how to make a movie set for the big screen, and I think they still prove that in the Electric State. It's just kind of a mix of probably all the movies that they grew up with and loved, so normally I probably would have given this movie a two point five out of five, but to combat all the negativity and the fact that I watched it and finished it all in one sitting and didn't feel the need to click off of it. For that reason, I give this movie three out of five robots, which is right there at that D level. I think it's probably a week three, but a really strong two point five. But for all that hate, I'm gonna bump it up to a three because I think that score is right there at that I still think it's worth a stream. It's not gonna change your life. It's not gonna be one of your favorite movies of the year. I think if it would have made two more wrong decisions, it probably would have been in the bad category for me. But for right now, three out of five robots for the Electric State.

00:38:43
Speaker 2: It's time to head down to movie.

00:38:45
Speaker 1: Mike Traylor, Paul, you know me, I love me a good horror movie, and I can't decide if I'm gonna love or hate this one. So by the end of this trailer park, that is the decision we are going to make here as part of the movie crew. It is called The Woman in the Yard. It is about a mysterious woman who keeps repeatedly appearing across in a family's front yard, keeps delivering these chilling warnings, saying all these weird things, unsettling messages, leaving them to question their identity, motives and a potential danger that she might possess. Now, what it looks like is you have a mom or two kids. Apparently the dad died somehow, probably in a car wreck, because in this trailer you see this car up here that's all smashed up. This trailer has a lot of cliches, but some good pieces of it. It is coming to us from the director of Black Adam, carry On an Orphan, which is a pretty vast different just selection of movies there. If you told me the same guy, he who directed carry On last year, which was the movie that was like die Hard in an Airport, which Diehard too is also Diehard in an Airport. But that's the best way to describe that movie that came in on Netflix and it was like their biggest movie of the year. For him to follow that up with this one, it just almost doesn't quite fit here because carry On was a bigger budget movie. Black Adam was a really big budget movie. Orphan is like still in that horror space. But to see somebody go from that to this, which feels like a really bare bones horror movie. It's coming to us from Blumhouse, who is notorious for doing this. I think they're one of the most profitable horror studios because they make movies for eight to ten million dollars and then really try to cash in on their investment by the marketing. And there are some red flags going on in this trailer. Before I give all of my ideas away, here was just a little bit of the woman in the yard trailer. And mom is a woman in the yard. Hello, can I help you out? My husband will be back very soon.

00:40:56
Speaker 4: We both know your husband's not coming home. I don't come unless i'm called today.

00:41:13
Speaker 1: Why is your face covered? How did she get here? I think she's closer, So today is the day. The question is where did this woman come from? What does she want when? And will she ever leave? Who's gonna die? Well, only the woman in the yard knows. So before I get into my red flags, let's talk about my green flags here. I do like the overall idea of a woman showing up in the yard and that being the horror element. There is a cool thing that she does to actually mess with the people inside the house and is able to manipulate things and move things. She uses the power of the sun to create shadows, and through that she can move the lif she invades the house. They even in this trailer kind of start to figure that out. But I think that is interesting, because how do you make a movie that's an hour and a half interesting of a woman just sitting there covered entirely in black, just saying things weirdly making things appear. This movie kind of feels like those episodes of TV shows they refer to as bottle episodes where they can't really go anywhere else. They try to limit the different sets so they don't have to spend a lot of money. This is what this movie is. It takes place pretty much primarily from what we see in this trailer in one location, which I do like when movies do that, because you have to be really inventive on how to move this story along and how to bring elements in, in this case from the supernatural that are gonna make it entertaining for those ninety minutes. So I think it's kind of a green flag, but also kind of a red flag because sometimes I've been burned by these Blumhouse movies that are ninety minutes long that give you this trailer which pretty much tells you everything that is going to happen. I really get a glimpse of the entire plot through this trailer, but they're trying to entice you in with showing you all those scary parts, and I fear that there's not gonna be anything else scarier in the actual movie. So in it having a small budget, I feel like there's gonna be moments that are really really stretched out to fill that time. It was almost like they said, we need to make this movie ninety minutes long. If you've ever written a paper that needed to be a certain page length, and you start writing sentences in way you would never say them in your real life, adding all these extra words and filler words to beef up that paper to give it some girth, and you're increasing the font to like twelve point five in a way that doesn't make it look completely obvious that you don't have a whole lot to say in your paper. That is also the vibes I'm getting from The Woman in the Yard so far. So I do like some of the horror aspects. I like the family dynamic at the beginning, where it's just them chilling, having a good time. Everything is normal. They make some eggs, the sun makes them with doritos, so hopefully there's a bit of a bonding moment there with the family, and there's the whole mystery of what happened to the dad. I gotta know, is you gonna pop up? Is the woman in the yard gonna make them a zombie and freak out all the kids? That could be cool, but there are a lot of cliches. So we'll get to the red flags now. They say the name of the movie in the trailer. I like it when they save that for the actual movie. It just feels like a really weird delivery, like there's a woman in the yard and that's the entire movie, all right, that's it. Just close up the windows. We don't have to pay attention to or end of movie. But really, the biggest red flag of this entire trailer, it does the big cliche, the cliche I hate in horror movie trailers that you know is coming. Whenever there's some kind of a ghost, there's some kind of a demon. There's always this part where the family or the main character gets into a situation where they're waiting for the monster to appear. It gets really quiet and dark, and you're just waiting for that moment for the jump scare where they give you a glimpse of the monster. You get a big sound effect. They appear boom in the trailer. Whenever a movie does that, I just don't know that there's nothing else that's gonna happen. There's no other moment to wait for to go see that movie. They've already given it to you in the trailer. That's a shot. I'm not gonna be anticipating that moment anymore because I already know it's coming. I experienced that in the first Smile movie. They showed you the oh, the best part of the movie that would have been a great jump scare in theaters, that was in the trailer. Blumhouse has done that with Imaginary. They show you the best part of the movie in the trailer, so then there's nothing to look forward to. It's the same way when you make a comment and you put your best joke in the trailer, you're not going to really laugh at it again when you go see it in theaters. So out of everything that is the biggest red flag for me. And I'll give you a warning now because I do want to play it just so I can explain to you how infuriating this to me. But be aware that there is a jump scare coming. So if you're listening in your car or in the gym, just know that there is a moment where it's gonna get really loud. So here's that moment and then boom and the trailer. They also use like the uplifting music method, where it's like, here's a really nice, cheerful song over some dark imagery that every horror movie does. Now they don't really incorporate it too much. But the other cliche that I see and hear a lot is that weird, creepy violin sound that almost sounds if you took rubber bands and put them on a box and we're just like twisting them over the box, like if we had a thing of takeout, you know, sometimes you put a rubber band over it kind of sounds like this, Like anytime a trailer has that and it's doing all these crazy cuts in between weird imagery, like a close up on an eye, a single blood drop, a doll in the attic with its head ripped off, and you hear this sound, you just know it's gonna be the horror movie of the year, the scariest movie in theaters. Ever, So, the real reason I think this movie has potential is because of the director to go from Black Adam and carry on an Orphan, which was a pretty good horror movie back in the day, at least the concept of it. It gives me a little bit more confidence that there's gonna be more to this story to actually make it worth seeing in theaters, that it's not just gonna be one of those fast fashion horror movies that you go see and you're like, man, I've already seen this time and time again. I feel scammed by this. And I don't say this to try to sound snobby. I don't try to say this to sound like a overly critical person. It's just I know who this movie appeals to. Like my mother in law saw this trailer and asked if I was gonna go see it, And I think it is those people that I want to have a great experience when they go watch a movie in theaters, because they're investing their time, they're investing their money, and if you go for the first time in a while and you see this and you're like, man, that sucked. Everything is terrible. Now, that is where I draw the line, Because there are great horror movies out there. You have to look for them sometimes, and I know sometimes the movies that get to the most people aren't the best ones. So I just hope, for the sake of my mother in law who's gonna go see this movie, that they don't let her down and they don't make her waste her time and waste your money. So I'm always looking out for you in that sense. That's why I'm so critical about these movies sometimes. But again, the woman in the Art coming out in theaters this Friday, March twenty eighth, And that was this week's edition of Movie Line Tramer par and that is gonna 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 x. I posted a clip from last week's episode talking about my top ten baseball movies. What I felt was the saddest moment in any sports movie was from Angels in the Outfield. This week's listener shout out is a reply to that video from Aaron at so Dak Jack Mama on Ax, who said, just introduce my seven and nine year old to this movie. They are hooked this and Little Giants is going on repeat at our house. That just warms my heart because I've been talking about how these movies that we grew up with in the nineties that don't really get made anymore. It is very rare that you find a film that comes out with an all kid cast and just has that nostalgic feeling of reminding us what it's like to be kids. So even though we don't have them coming out as frequently as we do now, I do love that Aaron and hopefully other parents are showing their seven to nine year olds the movies that we grew up with, and the fact that they are actually enjoying them and don't think they are relics and boring things that their parents show them is awesome. So I'm glad that people are now watching Angels in the Outfield more that it is available on Disney, plus that it's not just buried in the Disney vault, and Little Giants is an other great ones. So thank you Erin for sharing that thank you for listening, and thank you for commenting on socials. That means a lot to me. If you want to follow me there, you can always find the links to all my social media in the episode notes. That's where I pick my listeners shout outs, or you can email me Moviemike D at gmail dot com. And until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later