Best and Worst Movie Recap with Mike and Kelsey + Movie Review: Dune Part 2 + Trailer Park: Wicked

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host. Movie Mike joined this week with my wife and co host Kelsey. How are you?

00:00:07
Speaker 2: I'm great.

00:00:07
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about the best and worst movies, our first best and worst of the year February January. We're kind of slow, so we're grouping it all together. In the movie review, we'll be talking about Dune Part two, which you're not looking forward to because it's almost three hours long.

00:00:23
Speaker 2: It's very long, and I think I fell asleep during the first Dune Dune.

00:00:28
Speaker 1: Is it worth the runtime? We'll get into that in the movie review, and then in the trailer park we'll talk about Wicked, which I'm oddly surprised how good it looks, and I just have kind of this weird fascination with anything Wizard of Oz. I'm actually looking forward to it, so we'll talk about that in the trailer park. Thank you for being subscribed, Thank you for listening every single week. Shout out to the Monday Morning movie crew. Now let's talk movies.

00:00:52
Speaker 2: I would like to just say we're recording this.

00:00:55
Speaker 1: I've already begun the intro.

00:00:57
Speaker 2: What I'm the co host. I can cut you off. Okay, we're recording this on Thursday evening. I'm going into Dune saying I'm not gonna like it.

00:01:06
Speaker 1: Okay.

00:01:07
Speaker 2: I would love to come back to the movie review and say that I enjoyed it, but I'm putting it out there at the start of this podcast that I'm not looking forward to it.

00:01:16
Speaker 1: Okay, Hopefully it changes your mind.

00:01:18
Speaker 2: And to find out if I liked it or not, you have to listen to the whole episode.

00:01:21
Speaker 1: There you go. Now can we talk movies?

00:01:24
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:01:24
Speaker 1: Okay, and now let's talk movies.

00:01:28
Speaker 3: In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast, one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like never before in a movie podcast.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: A man with so much movie knowledge.

00:01:41
Speaker 3: He's basically like a walking IMTB with glasses.

00:01:45
Speaker 1: From the Nashville Podcast Network.

00:01:47
Speaker 3: This is Movie Mikes, Movie Podcast.

00:01:52
Speaker 1: All right, let's get right into it. Like we said earlier January February, where the dump months of the year meeting that student just kind of throw crap at the wall and see what sticks. And I think this year in particular, there's a lot of crap. It was a lot of crap. Like I know sometimes in January, we get like a horror movie that ends up being pretty good. I feel like this year so far, we've had some real bombs out there, just straight up not even the worst movies of the year, but the worst movie is in a really long time.

00:02:22
Speaker 2: I had to think long and hard about what was my favorite.

00:02:24
Speaker 1: Well, it's saying a lot when the highest grossing movie so far of the year is The Beekeeper with Jason Stathum. It's made one hundred and fifty million worldwide, which isn't that much for the highest grossing That is the highest grossing right now. If all movies were set and done today, the highest grossing movies would be The Beekeeper, Bob Marley, Mean Girls, Argyle, and Madam Webb. Did I just give you the landscape with movies right now? Kick it off with you first? What was the best movie we saw so far this year? For you?

00:02:51
Speaker 2: Like I said, I had to think long and hard. I had to re examine the list. It would be Self Reliance on Hulu, which I didn't even really want to watch.

00:03:00
Speaker 1: Now, I feel like people are you either loved that movie like we did, or you hate it because it's about Jake Johnson's character who essentially is playing this dark web reality show where if he can stay alive for thirty days, he wins a million dollars.

00:03:15
Speaker 2: And this is also not to say I loved the movie. It just is the best out of what we've seen.

00:03:19
Speaker 1: See. I ended up really enjoying it.

00:03:21
Speaker 2: I'm just saying it's not like something that I'm like, you must go out and watch it. It is just from the list of things that we saw.

00:03:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so far there's this year, there's not one movie that has implanted itself into my fiber of movie watching that this is a movie I highly highly recommend. Haven't got there yet.

00:03:38
Speaker 2: I would, I almost, but I know. We saw it on the thirtieth of December. We talked about it, but like I wish American Fiction could count because that would be my favorite.

00:03:46
Speaker 1: We'll see how it does it the Oscars next or this weekend.

00:03:49
Speaker 2: I guess, okay, that was my favorite. I don't really have much else to say. It was a decent, entertaining movie.

00:03:54
Speaker 3: See.

00:03:55
Speaker 1: That's probably the movie I was most excited to do a review one. And that was also the movie that a lot of people watched and told me, like, you got this one wrong.

00:04:03
Speaker 2: Bro, I'm more passionate about my worst film of the month.

00:04:05
Speaker 1: That's the other thing with streaming movies. They come out and they have about a shelf life of two weeks, maybe three if that. Because a movie is like number one for a while, people watch it, there's a little bit of buzz, a little bit of word amount, and then they're just gone. For my best of the year so far in the last two months, I'm going to go with Sometimes I Think About Dying, which I gave a four hine of five. It was a really good movie. The more I've thought about that movie, the more I was impressed by it, And out of all the movies we've seen so far this year, it's the only movie that's made me feel anything. And I really think it's because the Daisy Ridley's amazing performance in that movie and seeing a completely different side of her, and then also that it was dealing with such a heavy subject, which her character in that movie does what the title says. She thinks about dying, but tries to have a normal life, tries to make connections with people, but struggles to do that because she's socially awkward. She's a really quiet person. But in that kind of depressing prem it also has a lot of fun moments that we saw it in a sold out theater and there was a lot of people laughing throughout the movie.

00:05:06
Speaker 2: I was gonna say that socially awkward, did you relate to that?

00:05:09
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that was like exactly. I've never seen socially awkward portrayed so well in a movie that I was like, that is me, Like, that is how the struggles I have as a socially awkward person. I feel like you either watched that movie and think I know somebody in my life or that is me.

00:05:28
Speaker 2: I was once told by a boss that I'm socially awkward, and I was offended. Not all, I'm an introvert, but I'll make friends in the post office. Yeah maybe FF's with the trader Joe's cashier.

00:05:37
Speaker 1: Before we even leave, you were like, you can go and be very social and talk to people that you don't know. And then yes, you have your recharge moments where you're just like, I just want to go home a weekend. We don't go out anywhere, but I feel like you flourish in that social setting as well, unlike me where I just like.

00:05:56
Speaker 2: When she said that and I was like, I think she wanted me to like flirt with someone, and I was like, I just don't like this person. Like I don't think I'm socially awkward. I'm just picky.

00:06:07
Speaker 1: I don't you're not at all.

00:06:08
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you for reassuring me.

00:06:09
Speaker 1: Okay, So now we'll get into the movies. We'll be more passionate about our worst movies so far in the last sixty days. What is your worst, Madam web Yeah?

00:06:19
Speaker 2: What was that movie?

00:06:20
Speaker 1: Very pointless?

00:06:22
Speaker 2: It was so dumb, Like I have so many questions.

00:06:26
Speaker 1: Starting with keep it Spoiler Free.

00:06:29
Speaker 2: WTFF was the plot?

00:06:30
Speaker 1: The plot is weird because it felt like the same thing over and over again. Of again, I won't give too much away. Even if you go see it won't really ruin much for you. But it's it's the coda Johnson's character trying to figure things out and then leaving these girls behind. So in the movie, she discovers that she can see into the future, and then she's connected with these three other girls, and this whole time, they're just believing everything she says and going along with it, not questioning anything. And she's like, all right, you guys, wait here I'm gonna go research some stuff, leaves them there, and then later she's like, Okay, I'm gonna go do this. Now I'm gonna leave you here, and it just kept happening over and over. It didn't feel like a superhero movie to me because really nothing heroic happened in the movie. There was no qualities of her character that had anything superhero related. It was really just her running around the city doing normal things. And then it had the worst villain of all time, and just the movie that completely was like, what are we watching the entire time?

00:07:29
Speaker 2: Listen, no one has done having visions telling the future quite like, that's so raven.

00:07:35
Speaker 1: They should have just made it. That's so raven.

00:07:37
Speaker 2: Superhero movie would one hundred percent have been better. That's all I have to say about Madam Web. As my little brother would say, it was trash.

00:07:43
Speaker 1: And the thing I wondered about that movie is at what point did they realize that we have something really bad in her hands? And how are we gonna save this and try to make a little bit of money off of it?

00:07:54
Speaker 2: I mean, Dakota Johnson's press tour was indicative of it, because she was apathetic on inter i don't even know that she knit what the movie was about it. For being honest, she really didn't.

00:08:04
Speaker 1: Because she said that I have no idea if this movie is good or not, because I was just on a blue screen the entire time. So it's almost what I've been saying is that the issue with superhero movies not really having that energy to them those big moments anymore, is because the actors don't know what they are doing. They don't know how to act in those situations. With Dakota, Johnson has been not really in movies that cgi heavy. She's used to interacting with characters in a setting that she can. You know, you're there, you visualize it, you see like, I'm in the stream right now, this is how my character is going to be. But when you take that away and you're just acting to people in front of a blue screen, you're just getting all these plot points thrown at you and you don't really have a grasp on your character at all. It's just gonna feel like a bunch of random things that you're gonna hope in posts they cut it just right for it to make sense or have any kind of and they didn't gravity to your performance and they didn't. So it's really comes down to how these movies are being made, relying on so much special effects and you know, post production that you kind of got to go back to the basics of doing practical effects and doing things where the actor feels and can react to things.

00:09:14
Speaker 2: The ending scene was so bad. I audibly laughed.

00:09:17
Speaker 1: It was very bad. One of the worst endings of all time.

00:09:20
Speaker 2: And I've been seeing so many tiktoks of people like really enjoyed laughing out loud for two hours with a sold out crowd at Madam Webb, and I'm like, I love that it's brought us all together and that it was so bad and that we're all just like sharing that experience because bad movies and good movies are the same, and that they're best shared in camaraderie.

00:09:38
Speaker 1: I agree, But it has to be that level of bad to be enjoyable. Again, yes, because what my worst movie is wasn't that level of like it's so bad, it's good. But with Madam Webb, it did achieve that level that you could poke fun at it, you could make jokes and find some enjoyment in it because it was so off the wall.

00:09:56
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into your worst.

00:09:58
Speaker 1: My worst was Argyle so bad. It was also just like two and a half hours, which at least Madam Webb was a shorter run time.

00:10:04
Speaker 2: I got sick of Argyle just from the seven thousand previews we saw of it.

00:10:08
Speaker 1: Yes, they hyped that movie up so much, which is also an indicator if a movie has a preview shown at every single thing. Granted, we do go to the movies a lot, but when they spend so much money on advertising like that, you kind of think, oh, man, I don't think the product here is actually worth it, and they're trying to make it up of just everybody knowing that this movie is coming out and hopefully we make some money back now. After I did that review, it was kind of the opposite effect of when I reviewed Self Reliance is a lot of people said that I didn't get Argyle.

00:10:40
Speaker 2: There was nothing to get.

00:10:41
Speaker 1: I don't think so now the movie I understood what it was trying to do. It was trying to be this campy take on a spy thriller and be quirky.

00:10:50
Speaker 2: And a lot within a plot within a plot.

00:10:52
Speaker 1: Too many levels of it for it to really resonate.

00:10:55
Speaker 2: And as someone who loves books and thrillers. I don't even want to read the Argyle book. I don't think there was anything to get. I'm gonna agree with you on that. It wasn't even like campy. It was just dumb. It was a waste of money, Like you could tell they spent so much like the Apple film quality is great, like colors are just like vibrant.

00:11:14
Speaker 1: A lot of action sequences dumb ones. They weren't even good. No, two of the worst scenes I've ever seen in a movie took place in our gyle.

00:11:23
Speaker 2: Have we said what those are? No?

00:11:25
Speaker 1: It's I mean, you kind of can, but it's too spoilery. But it's just so I want to talk about one of them. It's just so I keep calling movies dumb, but it is so pointless, and it's trying to be so over the top that it's like, ah, this is fun. It's supposed to be that ridiculous. But I felt like the movie had a level of seriousness to it that you can't really do both at the same time. You can't try to be serious telling the story and then also have these supernatural elements that are so over the top. It just doesn't feel like it takes place in any one setting, so I wanted to leave that movie.

00:11:59
Speaker 2: We did consider it, and we were just kind of, h I guess we'll stick it out.

00:12:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. It got to a point of like, all right, I just want to see how this is going to end. And by the time it ended, I was like, yep, I was right waste the time. That was our best and worst. I did do some movie rewatches in the last month, and we'll go through some of these. One of them we did together, the Titanic. Yes, maybe a couple of them. We did together. Titanic, which I don't even know how we got started on wanting to watch. I think we were just looking for a disaster movie, and technically Titanic is a disaster movie.

00:12:26
Speaker 2: Yes, we were looking for something to watch. Really played scrabble.

00:12:28
Speaker 1: And we watched Titanic, And first of all, I kind of forgot about the opening sequence. I think we both kind of did. I remember watching it as a kid and just thinking that was like one quick scene of them getting into the story of Titanic, But it really was a It's a big significant part of the movie, probably like twenty thirty minutes of them finding her and all of the research guys trying to find and do all the backstory of the Titanic. I thought that was fascinating because I totally forgot about that part of the movie.

00:12:58
Speaker 2: I would like to say kids these days do not know the show having to change out the VHS.

00:13:01
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a long movie.

00:13:03
Speaker 2: It is a long movie because what VHS could only hold like two hours, so to change.

00:13:07
Speaker 1: It out a double VHS to get the three that was luxury.

00:13:11
Speaker 2: That was awesome when you owned that double VHS.

00:13:13
Speaker 1: But rewatching it, it just reminded me how many iconic moments are in Titanic, as far as like all the meme, like it's been eighty four years, like all those little things we.

00:13:24
Speaker 2: Said it together.

00:13:25
Speaker 1: There are so many things in that movie that are iconic that it's crazy to think a movie could even replicate that.

00:13:33
Speaker 2: Again, oh it couldn't. I also think it was such a cinematic feat of like James Cameron to do something on that scale, Like I mean even just watching the ship sink little by little and I feel like it still holds up. Like some movies you watch and they like look old, I don't feel like The Titanic's ever gonna look old.

00:13:53
Speaker 1: Because it has a lot of practical things in it. A lot of it is them actually building sets using regal water. They do use some trickery where they actually have like a small model of it and they make it look bigger. So some of the scenes where like the water is crashing through, yeah it's a small scale, but a lot of it is actual sets, so that stuff ages so much better. That's why I always prefer movies to use practical effects. And I feel like a lot of filmmakers now think, oh, we have all this technology, we should probably use visual effects to make it look better.

00:14:27
Speaker 2: They don't hold up.

00:14:27
Speaker 1: They don't hold up, and I think that is a great reason why movies like that, even movies like Star Wars that use practical effects have a more timeless feel. There are moments in Titanic, I think particular, when like the smokestack things are falling down, like some of that stuff is ninety cgi, but it doesn't take you that much out of it because everything else that's so big and elaborate is actual practical effects. I even saw the actor who's gonna play the thing in the new movie saying that, oh, the new thing costing will probably be sy effects because practical effects are so outdated. And I just felt like that what he said didn't hit well with me because I don't think practical effects are outdated. It's almost harder to do.

00:15:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like it takes a special team to be able to put together better practical effects.

00:15:17
Speaker 1: I think, Yeah, I think that is much more talent than Okay, we'll just put you in a suit and put some tracking on you, and then we'll put it all on special effects, and then if it looks bad, everybody's gonna hate it.

00:15:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I'll have to say Titanic still a great film, still.

00:15:31
Speaker 1: A great movie. The other movie, we don't. I feel like we had watched it at some point, but then I don't think we did. We watched Geostorm because we were itching for a yet again a disaster movie. We were thinking of one on Hulu called what super Cellic? It looks like a dollar bin movie, that one.

00:15:49
Speaker 2: The special effects are clearly special effects.

00:15:52
Speaker 1: But I think even the worst disaster movie I still find enjoyment in.

00:15:57
Speaker 2: Oh I've watched sci fi disaster movies that are made on probably a five dollars budget. I love I love a weather related disaster film.

00:16:05
Speaker 1: And Geostorm has basically all the cliche points of a standard hit them all disaster movie. It hits them all, and by the end of it, I was like, oh, that actually wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. Because we ended up watching the movie we didn't think about exactly. But I don't really recommend that one. But if you're like us and you're itching for a disaster movie.

00:16:25
Speaker 2: Here's the thing. Number of the good ones are free and streaming. I wanted the day after Tomorrow wasn't available. We need to just buy it. We do watch the movie, we do.

00:16:33
Speaker 1: Want it a lot. The other movie I watched that I was a little bit embarrassed to buy because I rented it was the Pokemon first movie from the nineties.

00:16:40
Speaker 2: Can we tell people about this? So I'm going through a bank account and I see an Apple charge and we rented Anatomy of a Fall on Apple but it was like six dollars. I was like, we have a ten ninety three charge, just trying to figure out what it was. You were like, huh, sure it was an Anatomy of a Fall. I'm like, no, it wasn't really, I don't know. Five minutes later, you really the Pokemon movie, and I was like, why didn't you just tell me?

00:17:03
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that movie since I was a kid, and I've been getting more back into Pokemon lately. Pokemon Day was just this past week, and I wanted to rewatch it, and there's nowhere you can scream it.

00:17:14
Speaker 2: But why were you embarrassed to tell me? I went to two stores with you last week to find the Pokemon magazine, and I drove thirty minutes each way yesterday to buy you Pokemon Funko pops, Like, I don't know why you were ashamed to tell me you rented the Pokemon movie.

00:17:28
Speaker 1: I don't know. I guess it's just that I like, of all the movies to pay for, it was that one, and it was like four bucks to rent and the movie is only like an hour and fifteen minutes. And then I don't know.

00:17:37
Speaker 2: I just I felt I don't judge you for your hobbies.

00:17:41
Speaker 1: I know, I just feel childish watching it. Sometimes.

00:17:44
Speaker 2: I literally get excited when they put a Mary kay in Ashley film on Hulu.

00:17:48
Speaker 1: Those are good and those go way back.

00:17:51
Speaker 2: I watched Passport to Paris. Our lips are sealed. Nothing to be embarrassed about nostalgia.

00:17:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like heavily searching out nostalgia right now.

00:17:59
Speaker 2: We see kids movies in theaters. We have tickets to Kung Fu Pana before next weekend.

00:18:03
Speaker 1: Man, wait for that one. But Rewatching it as an adult for the first time since I was a kid was interesting because I remember that movie feeling so big and I just remember being so excited to see it in theaters. I went with my brother, I got the card that came with your ticket, and then rewatching it, I was like, oh, this doesn't look as good as I remember. It doesn't really hold up as well because it feels a little empty to me, which I was like, oh, man, I remember this movie being like NonStop action and like fast paced.

00:18:36
Speaker 2: Well, how old were you when you saw it.

00:18:37
Speaker 1: I was probably eight or nine years old exactly. It's just weird because at that time I was like, oh, man, a Pokemon movie. To see him more than twenty minutes at a time, which I was so used to watching the TV show. It felt so big and longer to me that watching it now was like, oh, not a whole lot happened in this movie. And I also went and saw like the critic reviews when that movie came out, and they were like ripping that movie to shreds, which it made me think about, like everybody who was an adult film critic now probably didn't get it, Like they probably hated the fact that a movie like that was making so much money. And when all these other movies are coming out that are more like film darlings, and then you have all these kids going to watch Pokemon. I just love now that those kids are my age and doing things like this now. And when a Pokemon movie comes out now, it'll probably get good reviews, but because it will be all those people who watch it as a kid and can appreciate it and be able to talk about it from a way of understanding it. Back then, it was just like this is dumb, this is for kids, this is garbage.

00:19:41
Speaker 2: I also feel like we're in an era of reclaiming our hobbies and like the things that make us happy. And I feel like it's cool to like own your hobbies and be proud of it. And if you enjoy Pokemon, great, like I don't care. I enjoy watching grown women on the Housewives yell at each other every week to each throne that was the.

00:20:01
Speaker 1: Other point I made of I was thinking of how I feel kind of not ashamed of it. I just feel like it's a nerdy thing to like Pokemon, even though a lot of adults like it. Now being a nerd is cool. Yeah. I think the person who has made me be more comfortable with it recently was Miles Turner when whenever he's the NBA player, plays for the Pacers, and he was talking about playing with legos, building legos. So I was gonna say, and for somebody like that, who people.

00:20:28
Speaker 2: I want his budget to buy legos?

00:20:30
Speaker 1: I know who people see like, Oh, he's an athlete, he must be cool doing all these awesome things. And he's building legos, watching Pokemon. He has a Miles Morales tattoo on his leg. And just to see somebody like that be into nerdy things and kind of be a spokesperson for it kind of made me feel a little bit more like I should embrace it more.

00:20:50
Speaker 2: I think we're also ingrained still, like that train of thought in high school that like nerd is a bad thing, Like it's like a pejorative term when you get to college. Was being ad was cool in college?

00:21:01
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean being yeah, I do feel like I.

00:21:03
Speaker 2: Was a nerd. I'm still a nerd. I read books. I read science books for fun, like I sit at my desk and I have several books about like genes and like virology. I think learning and like having nerdy hobbies at school. I hope our future kids have nerdy hobbies.

00:21:18
Speaker 1: Because I was also thinking of in terms of other things I was a fan of as a kid that I'm still a fan of now that I love just as much. It's like it's more socially acceptable for me to be as big of a Dallas Cowboys fan as I am. The reason I'm a big fan is because I grew up in the Dallas area in the nineties. I was surrounded by it. Like my earliest memories of watching sports on TV were the Dallas Cowboys. I don't think in any way that's different of me liking them now for the sake of it reminding me of my childhood than liking Pokemon now or being such a big Spider Man fan. It's really all the same. It's just that sports is seen as cooler, more manly, more ah. Yes, sports are more acceptable and if you collect Pokemon cards you're weird and a nerd. It's really the same thing. Wearing an adult man wearing an NFL jersey is in my eyes, just as nerdy as a grown man wearing a Pokemon T shirt. I mean, and both are acceptable. Do what you want, you.

00:22:15
Speaker 2: Know my thoughts on fantasy football, It's exactly It's a grown man drafting a made up team.

00:22:21
Speaker 1: It is no different than playing World of Warcraft.

00:22:24
Speaker 2: I've I don't think I've talked about it on hare, but my favorite podcaster besides you, of course, Kate Kennedy of b there in five, just wrote a book about like being a fangirl and loving pop culture and loving makeup and like just all the things that enjoy what you want to enjoy. If it's something nostalgic, great, if it's something nerdy cool, if it's sports, like I'm just like life is hard enough, like it is hard to just be a human, and if you have something that brings you joy, go for it.

00:22:55
Speaker 1: I think this has inspired me to go back and revisit more movies from my childhood that I haven't seen in a long time and not be afraid to watch them. I think the one I watched before this was probably Max Keeble's Big Move. You did watch that, which was another one that didn't really hold up as much because I love that movie as a kid.

00:23:11
Speaker 2: None of those hold up.

00:23:12
Speaker 1: It was one of the first movies that I got on DVD because I got it at the flea market and I was like, ah, I want to go because I didn't see it in theaters, but I saw it on DVD and I watched it NonStop because it was one of the only DVDs we had, and then rewatching it on Disney Plus, I was like, not as funny, not as good, but yeah, let this.

00:23:33
Speaker 2: Let us be a reminder if you have any nerdy hobbies that you're like, it's not cool to like that. So what like, if there is something that brings you joy in the evenings or the weekends after working and just like paying bills and trying to be a functioning member of society, do it. I don't care what it is. If you want to make those like little things that you put beads together and like iron them together, if you want to paint, if you want to do puzzles all the time, like cool Sudoku, crosswords, read a book, bird watch, I don't know. Just if there is something that like brings you joy in this life.

00:24:08
Speaker 1: As long as you're not hurting other people.

00:24:10
Speaker 2: Yes, do it.

00:24:11
Speaker 1: I don't hunt for humans for sport. Probably not a good idea, thank you.

00:24:14
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone really thought that was their hobby.

00:24:16
Speaker 1: Somebody may have been like I was on my I was.

00:24:18
Speaker 2: Really on my soapbox. Coming there.

00:24:19
Speaker 1: I'm going to follow my dream of hunting the human race.

00:24:23
Speaker 2: Okay, legal dreams, Legal dreams, al right.

00:24:26
Speaker 1: We always wrap it up with our honorable mentions with TV shows and a book and a book. I think collectively, the show we both loved the most was one two three Smith. I love Donald Glover, probably have a bit of a man crush on him. Probably he is my music comedy fashion like he is. He's just he is my muse, so I'll watch anything he is in. And when it was first announced that he was going to be a part of a Mister and Missus Smith series, I was like, that doesn't sound good to me. But after watching the first episode, completely hooked, it was so good.

00:25:01
Speaker 2: I loved it.

00:25:02
Speaker 1: Probably the fastest we've watched the show in a very long time. Of every episode, roll it roll it in like forty minutes or so.

00:25:07
Speaker 2: Every other show we've started, we're on like episode three and like six weeks behind, but that one we were like, gotta watch it.

00:25:13
Speaker 1: Same basis as the movie, but I feel like it works so much better as a series because every episode has its own mission, digs in a little more and it it's so much more emotional and grounded in reality. I love the way that he acts in that he has like this very it almost feels like he's not acting because he's so chill and calm, and I just love the way that he speaks. It's like a normal human speaking and not acting, but he is acting.

00:25:40
Speaker 2: So he's just so good at your crush about Donald lover now, but a great show. I feel like the movie is overshadowed by the fact that it's when like Brad and Angelina got together. I honestly, that's all I can say. Yeah that overshadows me the movie with Yeah.

00:25:55
Speaker 1: That overshadows it for me. But collectively, that is the best TV show we've watched. The worst show is one that I am not going to finish. You'll probably finish is Death and Other Details on Hulu.

00:26:08
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I it doesn't work every time we try to watch it on the Hulah app or TV, so I might not finish it.

00:26:14
Speaker 1: The first episode was interesting. I like, this was good.

00:26:17
Speaker 2: It's kind of like a death on the Nile Knives, murder on the Orient Express, et cetera.

00:26:23
Speaker 1: Visually, it's very colorful, colorful and fun. But it really lost me after that first episode of like, I don't really get what they're trying to do here. I'm out.

00:26:31
Speaker 2: I honestly kind of forgot about the show, so maybe, yeah, maybe I won't finish it.

00:26:35
Speaker 1: I did the Shark Tank. I'm out.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: I'm out for that reason. I'm out.

00:26:39
Speaker 1: And your honorable mentioned book The.

00:26:41
Speaker 2: Women by Kristin Hannah. It is almost five hundred pages and I read it in forty seven hours.

00:26:46
Speaker 1: That is impressive.

00:26:47
Speaker 2: I stayed up late two nights in a row and power through. She does historical fiction really well, but unlike most of the ones I read, it is not World War Two. It is set in the Vietnam War, and it is about a female nurse who enrolled in the army and goes to Vietnam, and it's about like the friendship she makes, and it's about trying to assimilate back into life in the us after the Vietnam War, and just like the power of female friendships and just the power of like women in general. And it was fantastic. I think Kristin hann is one of the best writers. And interestingly enough, I don't even know if you knew this, the movie rights have already been purchased. Yeah, film, and I think that'll be really good. She did an Instagram post and was asking people just like who they wanted to see cast, and Glenn Palell was a very common suggestion.

00:27:35
Speaker 1: Everybody wants him right now, I do.

00:27:38
Speaker 2: I can picture a character he'd be really good for. I think he could be good in it. So read the Women. It's fantastic, very ahead of reading the book before the movie. On that one, Yeah, that's my book recognition. And then an honorable mention. TV show would be One Day on Netflix. It's based on the book, and there was a movie in twenty eleven with me in Halfway. But it's fourteen episodes. Some of the I'm only like twenty minutes. We'll slow at times, but it's sweet, it's good. I stayed up late finishing it one night. I knew how it was gonna end, and I still was like Okay, those are my honorable mentions. Oh my favorite one, Kate Kennedy won a Millennial. I'm just gonna plug her on this because I listened to her podcast all day long. Her book's fabulous. That's what it's called. One a Millennial, and it's just about like girlhood and nostalgia in the nineties and Mary Kate Nashley and sleepovers and American girl dolls, all the fun things.

00:28:35
Speaker 1: There you go. We'll come back and give our review of Done two.

00:28:39
Speaker 2: Did I or did I not like it?

00:28:41
Speaker 1: And then the trailer park we'll talk about Wicked. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free review of Dune Part two, a movie that had so much hype built around it. Again, I don't go read reviews. I don't listen to reviews going into a movie, but it was hard to ofvoid all of the tweets and people posting in their stories of how much they loved it. But that's where I stopped going into it. But I knew that there was gonna be more action in this one, just given the trailer given with the director dnievil Knew, who said that the first one was essentially setting up all the big action in the second one, and I was not a fan of Dune Part one. Quite frankly, I found that movie to be very boring. It was a lot of walking in the sand. It felt like Game of Thrones in the desert to me. Trying to build this big, elaborate world in just one film for me felt like too big of a task. So I wasn't the big a fan of it. I didn't hate it by any means, because I still think visually it looked amazing and the action that we did have towards the end of the movie had me excited going into this one. And really I just wanted to see Timothy shallow May write a word. I was all in it for that. And this movie has an incredible cast with Timothy Schallo, May Sendaia, Josh Brolin, Austin Butler who did a really good job in this movie. They brought in Florence Pew Dave Bautista, who is proving that he can really do it at all, and I love that he takes on every single role with so much just charisma and power, and he can do so many different things, and for I know, I compare him to The Rock a lot, because they both came from the WWE, but the Rock will only do movies where he is the star. Dave Bautista will do roles in a big movie like this as a supporting actor and completely crush it, which I think is a great, great value to you as an actor. You don't have to be the star every time, and for that reason, I think he is winning in the game of WWE wrestler's turned actors. You also have Christopher Walkin, Javier Bardem which seeing him and Josh Brolin in a movie together gave me no Country for Old Men vibes. So I love the cast. I love the director denievil Neuve, who has done movies like Blade Runner, twenty four, forty nine, Secario, and of course he did Part One, so he is somebody who has a really big grasp on doing big action movies, big sci fi movies. He also finds great cinematographers to make his vision come to life. Greg Frasier in this movie crushed it. And that is where I want to start, is the visual aspect of this movie. That first action sequence had me on my toes and there were these really slick movements that were definite upgrades from Part One. That led me to believe that this movie was gonna have so much more action and have a completely different profile than doing Part one, leading me to believe that the director wasn't lying and this is where all the action is going to be. So there are so many great things I can say about how good this movie looked visually, and I think where it really shined was the action. It had such beautiful explosions. I'm not sure I've ever described an explosion as being beautiful, but there were these big bursts of flames, and you combine it with the unique sound design that this movie had that it had the theater rumbling, and this is a movie that even if you're not the biggest fan of the franchise, or the characters or the story, it still demands the big screen because of the scale of the sets, because of the scale of the action. And this is a very very cinematic movie that I think seeing it in theaters is the only way to see it. But that being said, I don't think this movie is for everybody. And this is coming from me who as a self proclaimed nerd. I tell people that I'm into sci fi, but this movie has to me questioning whether or not I'm into this type of sci fi. I think there are two different levels of nerds. One that's a little bit more fun, lighthearted, still nerdy stuff, and there's this more like refined, hardcore nerdom. The way I describe my nerd friends is I have some who are more into Star Wars and I have some that are more into Star Trek. If you were more into Star Wars, you might not be the biggest fan of do Un. If you're more into Star Trek, you probably love it. And I know what the comments are gonna say is that Dune was essentially ripped off by Star Wars, which is a little bit more of a digestible, family friendly, appeals to kids' version of Dune. The book came out before the first Star Wars movie, so George Lucas pulled a lot of inspiration from Dune and you can see that. So when I sit down to watch a sci fi movie, a movie like Dune is one that I kind of need to spend more time with. And I know after watching this movie it was by no means bad. I just feel like it's not entirely for me. I have trouble connecting with the characters and the themes in this movie, which there are very big, complex themes. What it is about essentially is Timothy Shalomay's character trying to seek revenge against the people who destroyed his family. He teams up with India and her crew and they are going into war defeating these enemies, and the overarching theme is him having to choose between the love of his life and the fate of the universe. He's having these visions of what is going to happen in the future. And then there's this other big theme that has a lot of religious undertones about what it means to have a messiah, what it means to be waiting for a person who is said to you know, guide you, be your beacon, be the person you are going to follow those religious undertones, but really it is a story about good and evil, with Timothy Shallowmay being the hero, Austin Butler and Dave Batista being the villains here. And while I understand this, and I can already read the comments again of people saying, well, you just didn't get it. I understand all that, but the level of storytelling that it has, even though I'm understanding these plot points and following along all these characters, which it does take a lot of paying attention. This is a movie you really have to be dialed into, because if you miss one line, if you miss one little part, you may be confused throughout the movie, even if you understand all the plot points. For me, anyway, I had trouble connecting with the characters and really feeling the things that I normally feel in a movie of this scale. And that was even with this one having a little bit more levity to it, with Javier Bardam's character cracking some jokes here and there. There was a little bit more camaraderie, people poking fun at Timothy Chalomey. This one had a lot more of those elements that lacked in the first one. But it always comes back to that connection between the spice and the moisture that is so specialized to me that I don't really care about it. And that's probably my dumb brain of not wanting to grasp that concept or think it's that interesting that I'm like, they're doing this all because of spice and moisture. So I was just trying to visualize exactly where this is taking place in the world and allow myself to fully be a part of that world, but there were things throughout that just took me out of it. And as much as I loved tim with the Chalo May, maybe it's because it was coming off Wonka, it was I found it hard for me, probably unfairly, that he is the person for this role. And maybe it's just because of the way he talks to me. He just sounded like Timmy tim delivering some of these speeches and talking so just normally when everybody around him has a cool accent, they're speaking a different language, which his character did too, But I just found it to be like, Oh, it's just Timothy Shallome in there. So I think this is a movie in about five years, much like I did with Interstellar that I didn't love the first time I saw it in theaters, but years later, after revisiting it, learning more about it, researching more about it, I understand that film and what it was trying to do and what it was trying to say. Same case will probably be here and I'll look back and think, ah, I really got this review wrong upon my first reactions. But I couldn't come on here and tell you that I completely loved all of the storytelling elements and that I'm fully into dune, because I didn't really leave with that impression in those first ninety minutes. If it would have ended there, I'd have came on here and give it a four point five out of five. But after about that ninety minute mark, towards the back half of Act two into Act three, it got Doney again, and by Douney again, I mean it got a little bit boring. The dialogue started to feel a little bit more like a chore, and when all of these big epic moments start happening, I don't have that connection with these characters to really make me get riled up in my seat and want to cheer along. And maybe it's because my brain has been ruined by the MCU of expecting some witty catchphrase or some big heroic moment for something to pop to get me excited. I just didn't really have that feeling. And once it was over, I thought it went on probably twenty to twenty five minutes too long. Probably unfair for me to say that if it just made it shorter, it would have been better. But when it started to dip for me, it dipped pretty hard, and I just kind of wanted it to be over. But I just know that there is such a big fandom for this movie of people who truly get it, because if you look at the box office numbers in the United States, it made eighty one point five million dollars. Worldwide, it's almost one hundred and eighty million dollars, So the fandom is there. I just think there are two different kinds of nerds again, the more refined nerds who are going to love this, people who like sci fi with big, complex themes, a lot of characters, different languages. If you're more into like reading a book and then going to see the movie, this is all for you. But if you're like me that usually gets more invested in the emotional side of things, likes a little bit more action throughout the entire movie and not just a lot of dialogue of people speaking in these weird chambers, then you might find it to be a little bit boring and tedious at times. The one thing I think we can all agree upon is that cinematically it is unmatched. This is how you do special effects. All of the action sequences were magnificent, seeing Sandaia shoot these amazing guns, seeing all of the choppers, those little things that they would use to attract all of the worms. So the action and the visual aspect are amazing, So I still think you will enjoy that even if you don't enjoy the other themes. So for Dune Part two, I give it three point five out of five sandworms. And now that you've heard of my thoughts, Kelsey will now give her uninterrupted feedback on Dune Part two, Take it Away.

00:39:26
Speaker 2: I came up with the punt. I do not like it. It's bad, okay bad, but that's how I felt. It wasn't for me. I understand why people like it. I can see that it's like cinematographically really cool. You got a great cast. The color palette's a little brown. Visually did not keep my eye. I understand it's desert. You didn't I talk about it. I like the color palette, Oh I didn't. Didn't keep me going. Yeah, I think I probably should have rewatched the first one. But to be fair, the first one did put me to sleep.

00:39:54
Speaker 1: Was boring, so I was a little confused.

00:39:58
Speaker 2: Should have refreshed myself on what spice was because the whole time I'm like, are we fighting over? Like Paprika? Turned out spice as a hallucinogenic substance. I learned that last night of Wikipedia when I was like trying to understand and I get that this book was in nineteen sixty five, huge Dystopian, really revolutionized dystopian novels. Maybe I'd like the book better, but it wasn't for me.

00:40:19
Speaker 1: What do you rate it?

00:40:20
Speaker 2: Hmmmm? I mean the cast was amazing. I'm gonna give it one point five.

00:40:26
Speaker 1: She went low folks.

00:40:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that is attributed to Zindia.

00:40:30
Speaker 1: All right, we'll come back and talk about Wicked. It's time to head down to movie.

00:40:38
Speaker 3: Mike Tylor Paul.

00:40:41
Speaker 1: I have always had this odd fascination with The Wizard of Oz. The original one from nineteen thirty nine. I believe is one of the best movies of all time because it is a spectacle. And that is what I love about filmmaking, movies that go to extreme lengths to make something look so cinematic. And I can only imagine what it would have been like to watch the original Wizard of Oz in theaters back in thirty nine. There are so many elements of that movie that still watching them now, just realizing the technology or lack thereof, they had back in the thirties making that movie, thinking of all the awful stories that are like this urban legend, but they actually happened. About the horrors those actors went through to make that movie. Judy Garland's life was basically ruined by the Wizard of Oz. People were burned, injured, later died as a result of the makeup they used in the process of making that movie. The lion wore an actual lion fur, and oh my gosh, all these crazy things they did to make these movies because they didn't have CGHI. But we've been talking on this episode about the use of practical effects, and that is why that movie holds up because you can watch it now, and yes, it does look like it was made a long time ago, but because they used so many practical effects in big sets, the movie still holds up. And that's why it continues to be such a fixture in American film, and now this year it is celebrating its eighty fifth anniversary. Eighty fifth anniversary is crazy. So I've always had a weird place in my cinematic brain for that movie that I'll sit down and watch it really just to study it. I don't know if I just love the concept of the movie, the songs in the movie. I think, I just love it as a piece of movie history, so I like to watch it to see how exactly this came to be and the legacy it has left on filmmaking. But it also led to me to want to go see the twenty thirteen version Oz the Great and Powerful, that was the origin story of the Wizard. James Franco played him in that movie, and the story was okay as a prequel. But what I really thought that movie got right with director Sam Raimi were the visual I thought that movie was very esthetically please to me, didn't really cement itself in Wizard of Oz history. But I still think that it's a pretty good movie if you happen to miss that one back when it came out well eleven years ago now. But with that being said of me loving the original movie loving the twenty thirteen prequel, I am not familiar with Wicked whatsoever. I've never seen the musical. I've heard about as far as what the plotline entails. It is essentially the origin story of the Wicked Witch of the West. But everybody I know who has seen the musical says they love it. And obviously I am missing out on something here. I am a fairly new lover of musicals, which after talking to director Paul King and of the last couple musicals I've seen in theaters, I realized that I've been lying to myself for a very long time saying that I don't really like musicals. I really do enjoy them, but for some reason in our mind, we just think a musical is going to be lame. But since I hadn't seen this, and knowing that throughout history of different types of iterations of the Wizard of Oz, they have been hit or miss and they haven't done a live action movie in a long time, since twenty thirteen, so I didn't really have the highest expectations for this movie. But after seeing this trailer and really getting a sense of the tone they're going for in this movie, but not only that, of how much this trailer honors that original movie, and really how good the visuals look with all the cast members in this movie, now I am really looking forward to seeing this. So Wicked is coming out in two parts. Part one is coming out this Thanksgiving. It'll be followed up with Part two, which is coming out November twenty six, twenty twenty five, so about a year apart. So what this movie is about? And again, if you're familiar with Wicked, you know all this. And if I get any details wrong, forgive me because I am looking at this merely as the plotline of this movie without any real knowledge of the musical. But it is set in the land of Alle before and continuing after Dorothy Gale's arrival from Kansas, and its centers around Alphaba, who is a green skinned woman and explores the path that leads her to becoming the Wicked Witch of the West, all while forming this unlikely relationship and rivalry with Glinda Upland, who will go on to be Glinda the Good. In this movie, you have Cynthia Arrivo who is playing Alphaba, Ariana Grande who is playing Glinda. You also have Jonathan Bailey, Michelle Yao, Ethan Slater, Bowen Yang, and Jeff Goldbloom as the Wizard of Oz. So before I get into more of Wicked, here is just a little bit of the trailer. The best way to bring folks together is to give him a real good anime. You agree, I am something is not the same.

00:45:53
Speaker 2: Something just takes over me. And what it does bad things happening, wants you.

00:46:02
Speaker 3: To harness your emotions.

00:46:05
Speaker 1: Sky's the limited. I think this movie is going to be made with the cast. I think sometimes when pop stars get cast in a movie, it leads me to believe that the movie isn't going to be very good, because sometimes in musicals they just cast somebody who has a major following and obviously somebody who can sing. But I feel like that is more oftentimes a marketing tactic than it is who can we get that is the best person to play this role. So when Ariana Grande was attached to this movie, I was a little bit hesitant because of that. Even though Ariana Grande got her start in acting on Nickelodeon, she hasn't really done a whole lot of movies that make me think of her as an actor before I think of her as a musician, which is fine, but again I was just thinking, Oh, they're going for somebody who has a major following, going for a big pops star, and hopefully we bank on the fact that her audience is going to come in and watch this movie and make it successful. I thought that was merely why she was cast in this movie. But after seeing her on screen as Glinda, it makes sense and all the other members of this cast look fantastic. So this movie is based on the book that was later turned into the musical, which was really made popular back in two thousand and three when it debuted on Broadway with Kristin Chenowith and Adina Menzel. That is where all the success of this story came from. And this movie has been in development for a very long time, going through different directors and different cast members, and now we finally have the first look of it, and I think they got it right. The movie is based on the book that was turned into the musical. The premise of it, Glinda and Alphaba are students at his university, where despite their differences, they form a relationship, navigate friendship, go through magical training, and even little bit of romance while discovering their own identities. However, the world of Oz takes the turn whenever Alpha but is wrongfully deemed the Wicked Witch. So this part one and Part two are going to show how she becomes the villain and her connections with the other Wizard of Oz characters. There's also going to be a couple new songs in this movie that were not featured in the play, which really to me, all of these songs are going to be new because I haven't seen any of them. I am familiar with the couple just because Dina Menzel and Kristin Chenowith made those so famous that I remember those cutting over it into the mainstream. But still nothing from Wicked is really cemented in my head of knowing all of the story's elements. So really what resonates with me from this trailer is there are a lot of shots that are odes to the original movie, everything from the flying monkeys crashing out of the glass window to even the framing on some of these shots on Glinda coming down in the bubble or the Wicked Witch of the West having that same kind of profile look in this tray as well, it looks like they are very much playing into the cinematography that made the nineteen thirty nine version so memorable and so iconic. And again, I think what is going to really make this movie is the incredible cast that they landed. Cynthia Arrivo plays the Wicked Witch of the West, Ariana Grande plays Glinda, Michelle Yao plays Madame Morrible. Jeff Goldbloom is the wonderful Wizard of Oz. Jonathan Bailey is a prince who meets Alphaba and Glinda at school. Ethan Slater plays a munchkin who is in love with Glinda. Bowen Yang plays one of Glinda's college friends. So it is interesting that they are splitting this movie into two. I am hoping it's because whenever they tried to tell the story in one, they decided, Oh, there's actually a lot more of the story to tell, and not a case of, oh, we could probably get more out of this movie. We unfairly split it into two and make people wait a year and get their ticket money again on the back end. Hopefully that is not the case. I also thought it was cool that there is a scene where you see Dorothy, the tin Man, the Cowardly Lion, and the Scarecrow for like a mere second. It's kind of them walking and it panning in behind them as they're walking up to meet the Wizard of Oz. Which with the little research that I did, a lot of people were upset about that because, again, as I understood it, it's a prequel long before Dorothy gets there, So is that a way to bait people into thinking that Dorothy is going to be in this movie, who or maybe like me, not too familiar with it. Also, when the description of Part one and two, they are saying that part of the movie may take place after Dorothy's arrival, which I don't believe is in Wicked. So some true hardcore fans are probably a little bit upset about that, But for me, I would love to see at least just a little hint of that as long as it doesn't take away from the integrity of the story. I just think the fact that it has been eighty five years and it's coming out in the year of that anniversary is a pretty big deal, and if it's just a small little glimpse of it, nothing too overstated, doesn't take away at all from the legacy of Judy Garland, who deserves to be remembered forever as Dorothy Gaale. I think I'm okay with it again. This movie is coming out this Thanksgiving, with Part two coming out next Thanksgiving. I think this will be a movie that's gonna crush at the box office and definitely warrants the big screen at that.

00:51:23
Speaker 2: For was this week's edition of movie.

00:51:26
Speaker 1: Line Framer 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. And last week we had an interview with Paul King, the director of Wonka. If you miss that, just go back one in the feed and listen to that full interview. You can also watch it on my YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash Mike Distro. You can always find all those links in the episode notes of every single podcast. But every time we have an interview, I always give a secret emoji. All you have to do is comment with that emoji on Facebook, TikTok or Instagram or Twist, and I'll pick one of those comments to be next week's listener shout out. So this week I'm going over to Facebook and the shout out goes to Denise Watson, who left the comment with the chocolate emoji and said, great job, Mike. I love hearing you geek out when you do some of these interviews. It reminds me that you are a real fan, just like I am. Thank you Denise for that comment. And I think primarily when I do interviews now, I don't do them a whole lot. I like to do them when I'm really passionate or a big fan of the project or the person, And I think that's because I owe it to you guys to do interviews that I'm actually looking forward to do, asking questions that I genuinely want to know the answer to, and not just doing interviews for the sake of doing interviews for somebody to promote a movie that I really don't care about. I think when that is the case, everybody wins. Whoever is promoting their movie, they get the great promotion of somebody actually asking questions that other fans would want to know. I get a lot out of it because I feel like I'm able to form a better connection with pe people who I'm actually a fan of their work. And then for you guys, I think that is the best quality that comes through the podcast of hearing a genuine conversation between two people who actually have some respect for each other. So thank you Denise for hearing that come through in the interviews. That is always my goal here, So thank you. You're this week's listener shout out of the week. Thanks to everybody. Hope you have a great rest of your week, and until next time, go out and watch good movies. And I will talk to you later.