Mike Crowns A Winner to CinemaCon 2023 and Top 5 Movie Studio Power Rankings  + Movie Review: Guy Ritchie's The Covenant + Trailer Park: The Flash (Final Look)

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike. Today, I am breaking down CinemaCon twenty twenty three for you.

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Speaker 2: I am crowning a winner.

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Speaker 1: I am ranking all top five major movie studios based upon all the announcements they made, all the movies they're teasing, all the trailers and footage they've shown. I'm telling you who has the best things coming out in twenty twenty three and twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: In the movie.

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Speaker 1: Review, I'll talk about Guy Ritchie's The Covenant, which is a war movie starring Jake Gillenhall. And in the trailer park we have the final look at the flash. So thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed and listening every single week. Shout out to the Monday Morning movie crew. He now, because I've an itching to do it, let's talk movies.

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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.

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Speaker 2: A man with so much movie knowledge. He's basically like.

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Speaker 3: A walking IMTB with glasses From the Nice Podcast Network.

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Speaker 2: This is Movie Mikes.

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Speaker 1: Movie Podcacast CinemaCon is an annual convention held in Las Vegas. It is one of the top three movie events I look forward to every single year. So it's a convention for movie theater owners and they all get together to come listen to all the movie studios talk about their upcoming releases.

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Speaker 2: They bring out actors and directors.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of like a pep rally for the movie industry where all the studios say, hey, we're bringing.

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Speaker 2: All these big new movies.

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Speaker 1: So you, as movie theater owners, should be really excited and you don't have anything to worry about. So what I did is I crowned a winner of the entire thing based upon all of the trailers they showed, all the movies they announced, and who I think is going to dominate at the box office based on all the big titles they have coming out from their studio. And then I ranked all five major studios on that same criteria. So we'll be talking about Universal Paramount, Warner Brothers, Disney, and Columbia Slash Sony. So, because I want to talk about what I I'm the most excited for, I'm gonna hit you with my winner right now. The winner of CinemaCon twenty twenty three, and the number one slot is Paramount. They're the studio I'm the most excited about. The announcements that Paramount made were about their upcoming movies Mission Impossible, Dead Reckoning Part one, Killers of the Flower Moon, Transformers one, and a new untitled Smurfs movie. I also just really love their mission statement. Paramount CEO Brian Robbins said that theatrical needs to thrive in order for streaming to work, so essentially that all these movies need to come out in theaters in order to have success in streaming, which I've been feeling a shift in the last year because after the pandemic, a lot of models switched to all right, we're gonna put these movies out either same day on streaming and in theaters, or we're just gonna invest in some streaming movies. But now I feel like the best movies are coming out in theaters. In the last year, nothing has really caught my interest that came out just on streaming. Some decent rom colms, maybe a Netflix action movie.

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Speaker 2: I feel a little.

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Speaker 1: Bit that streaming has turned into what straight to video used to be back in the nineties and two thousands, So I think we're kind of done with that, and I love that. Paramount came out and said that, and they opened up CinemaCon with a big presentation on Teenage Mutant Ninja, Turtles Mutant Mayhem. A Paramount executive came out of a manhole cover and a turtle mask and gave the crowd pizza. I just love that commitment to their movies. It just brings me joy that the people behind the decisions on these movies actually love what they're doing, actually invest in their properties to do something like that. So their panel opened with that, a dance performance a DJ breakdancers wearing TMNT inspired outfits.

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Speaker 2: I love it.

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Speaker 1: At CinemaCon, Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg said they have finally made something that parents can show their kids and not be awful parents for doing it with them, which, if you know Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg, they have not made a kid friendly movie ever. Paramount also showed what is being described as an insane twenty minutes for Mission Impossible Dead Reckoning Part one, which comes out on Wednesday, July twelfth, twenty twenty three, which is now two days earlier than the original release date.

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Speaker 2: Doesn't really change.

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Speaker 1: A whole lot, I don't think, but in the scene they showed it features a high speed what they call adrenaline filled chase through rome that involves stolen police cars, two people handcuffed to each other, some gun battles, and a very mismatched car race. And it's hard for me to get excited about a Mission Impossible movie. But I feel like Tom Cruise and Paramount have really kind of saved movies in the last year and are some of the biggest drivers behind making films for the silver screen. Another thing Paramount announced that Cinema Con is that Transformers one is coming out. This is an animated Transformers movie that stars Chris Hamsworth as a young Optimist Prime, Brian Tyree Henry as a young Megatron, and Scarlett Johansson as Alita. Transformers one is coming out in theaters on July nineteenth, twenty twenty four, and is directed by Josh Cooley, who did Toy Story four. I was just saying this last week, when I was talking about Spider Man into the Spider Verse, how a lot of those type of movies, superhero movies in particular, would benefit a lot by doing animated movies that are a little bit more visually appealing, not just cartoons for kids, but doing something that really cuts through. And I guess I never really thought about Transformers as being the same category as superhero movies, but when you break it down, all the elements are basically the same. So I can't wait to get the first look at this. You also have among the cast Keegan Michael Key as Bumblebee, John Hamm as Sentinel Prime, and Laurence Fishburn as Alpha Tryon. They also talked a little bit about Transformers Rise of the Beasts, which is coming out on June ninth, twenty twenty three, which the.

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Speaker 2: Trailer just dropped for that as well.

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Speaker 1: What I loved that they said about that movie is they tried to use as little green screen as possible, and they really wanted to film on real locations, And I really think that as a level of depth to movies like this. When I've watched superhero movies in theaters recently, I am very aware that it's just a bunch of actors on a green screen. Especially when I went to go see ant Man, I was just trying to picture it in my head the entire time that this really didn't feel like it was set in any kind of reality, and I know that movie was set in the quantum realm, so it didn't really lend itself to be able to be viewed like that. But I just love getting back to putting superhero movies or big action movies in the actual real world. And I've always just given Transformers movies the benefit of the doubt. So hopefully they don't let me down on that one, but I'm excited about it. Paramount also announced Gladiator two is coming out. Filming begins soon for that movie. Paul Meskal and Denzel Washington are attached to that movie. They also announced that Rihanna will start at Smurf fet and a new Smurfs movie, and she is also a writing and performing original songs for the Smurfs movie. I feel like that's the only time Rihanna puts on new music now is whenever it's attached to a movie now. Her work on Black Panther Waconda Forever amazing. I don't know how that's going to translate into a Smurfs movie, but I'm into it. That movie is set to release on February fourteenth, twenty twenty five. Paramount also announced a new SpongeBob movie. I love me some SpongeBob. Even as an adult, I still get excited every time they announced a new SpongeBob movie. It is called The Search for SquarePants and it's promised to be SpongeBob's biggest film yet. We're going back into Bikini Bottom and SpongeBob will face off against the Flying Dutchman. That movie is set to release in theaters on May twenty third, twenty twenty five. They also revealed the trailer for a new Bob Marley movie. It's called Bob Marley OneLove, will come out in theaters on January twelve, twenty twenty four.

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Speaker 2: It is a biopic. I wonder if they're ever going to.

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Speaker 1: Run out of movies to do biopicks on. It just seems like every famous historical figure in music and history.

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Speaker 2: Now kind of has their biopick.

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Speaker 1: I wonder if they're going to run out of people and just start doing pop stars who are alive right now. We also got the first look at A Quiet Place Day One. The movie takes place in New York and follows a mother trying to survive following the alien invasion, so it's kind of the origin story of what exactly went down in a quiet place. John Krasinski was also there talking about his next film called If. It is a live action movie combined with animated characters, so it's being described it's kind of like a live action Pixar movie. Ryan Reynolds is one of the main stars of that one, along with John Krasinski. The movie is an animated tale about a young girl who can see people's imaginary friends who have been abandoned as they grow older. That's coming out on May twenty fourth, twenty twenty four. I just love the concept behind that reminds me of who framed Roger Rabbit from back in the day, where he makes real life humans and animated characters. And finally, they announced that there's a sequel coming to Smile calls Smile two.

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Speaker 2: It is in.

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Speaker 1: Development right now, which really isn't a surprise, and I hope they can make some improvements to the first one, and I just kind of hope they go all out on the second one, don't leave anything on the table, which that is the reason I didn't.

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Speaker 2: Fully love the first one.

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Speaker 1: It just felt like it was going to be a setup to a sequel, So give me more Terror in Smile too, So Paramount gets an A plus in my book. At cinemacn we'll go through now the other four remaining studios I want to talk about. At number two, I'm going with Warner Brothers. I love their mission statement. Warner Brothers CEO came out and said they no longer have any interest in doing direct to streaming movies. They are all about the big screen right now. They showed a bunch of trailers to all their DC movies coming out, like The Flash, Blue Beetle and Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom, so a lot of big things coming on the DC side.

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Speaker 2: But they also gave a look at.

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Speaker 1: Doune Part two, Barbie Wonka, and they confirm a sequel to the Tim Burton's Beetlejuice, which came out originally back in nineteen eighty eight. They also announced that Final Destination six is officially in the works. The director of Tom holland Spider Man trilogy, John Watts, will be writing and producing this movie. I feel like Warner Brothers is always just solid. Out of all those movies, I am still the most excited about Wonka, which they also announced that Hugh Grant will play one of Timothy challow May's umpa Lumpas which the movie is the story of a young Willy Wonka before he opens the chocolate factory. At CinemaCon, Timothy Schallomey said that he ate too much chocolate on the set of this movie and swam in actual chocolate, which in the first movie it was clearly fake chocolate. It was just brown water that probably smelled and tasted disgusting. So I can't wait to see what a real chocolate river looks like. Wonka is coming out this December. On the fifteenth, twenty twenty three. Oprah also stopped by to reveal the first footage of The Color Purple, which is coming out on December twenty fifth, twenty twenty three, and Dune Part two. The first trailer was released, and the biggest takeaway from that is that Dune two was shot one hundred percent in Imax. They're supposed to be a scene where Timothy Chalomey's character is writing a sandworm and the movie takes place right after Part one. Dune two is said to have a lot of action. It's supposed to be the apex of the Dune series, so that has me excited for this movie because I love the visuals in Dune one, but honestly, I felt the movie was a little bit boring. Beyond that, with so many great looking characters, so many great looking sets, I just found nothing really to grasp onto that made me excited for that movie. So it is being described as an action packed epic war movie now that I can get into. So that's coming out on November seventeenth, twenty twenty three. Warner Brothers still really solid. But as I talk about all these movies, they're all remakes, sequels and just revisit. It's to other intellectual properties. I just don't feel like they are taking as many risks over at Warner Brothers, which I feel is important to the advancement of cinema. But at the end of the day, I just want some entertaining movies, so I don't hate it. At Number three is Sony. Sony CEO Tom Rothman came out and said streaming does not create movie stars, only.

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Speaker 2: Global theatrical hits do.

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Speaker 1: What a statement really saying that, hey, movie stars are still here and they are in the movie theater. At Cinema con Sony boasted trailers and movie clips from Spider Man across the Spider Verse, Craven the Hunter, Grand Tarismo, the movie Bad Boys four, in the first look at Ridley Scott's Napoleon. They also showed the trailer to The Equalizer three, starring Denzel Washington as he returns as a former government assassin, and they showed extended trailers to Insidious, The Red Door, and footage from Ghostbusters Afterlife. What I love the most coming out of Sony has to be that Craven the Hunter is going to be Sony's first R rated Marvel movie. So with Marvel, you basically have two sides. You have the Disney side, which has all your Avengers, and then you have the Sony side, which kind of has all the Spider Man universe characters. That's where it gets a little bit confusing because you have Tom holland Spider Man on the Disney side, but on this side is where you have Morbius and Venom and now Craven. So Aaron Taylor Johnson came out and described the movie as a Marvel movie grounded heavily in the real world. In the trailer at CinemaCon, they had the first look at Craven, who is a fierce hunter who brutally kills his victims using claw shaped weapons, and the fact that the movie is rated ror was met with huge applause. I really want to see that footage. That trailer is coming to us the general public this summer. I think that is what the Sony side of Marvel needs to do to set themselves apart. Forget about PG thirteen, forget about making family friendly superhero movies. They should own the R ed Marvel movie genre.

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Speaker 2: That's it.

00:14:02
Speaker 1: That's how they are going to win. Stop putting out movies like Morbius. Just make them rated R. I think that'll get more people interested in all these titles. Focus more on the villains like they have been doing. Venom has seen some success over there, but I want to see Venom get nasty, so hopefully Craven is a start to that. Sony also gave the first look at their GameStop movie. It is called Dumb Money, where Paul Dano plays a YouTuber who puts all his money into GameStop. The character is based on a real person. It also stars Seth Rogan, Sebastian Stan Pete Davidson, Shalen Woodley, and Vincent Dinafrio. So this movie starts out on January twenty fifth, twenty twenty one, in Miami. In the trailer, you mainly get an introduction to all the characters, where basically all these people on Reddit just started investing in GameStop. So this movie comes out on October twentieth, twenty twenty three. Will Smith and Martin Lawrence also announced that Bad Boys four is in its fourth week of shooting. The only mishap there is they already use Bad Boys for Life for part three, and that would have been a much better Bad Boys four title, but they didn't think they would get to this point. So overall, Sony gets a B plus at number four is where I put Universal. Universal gave us looks at Oppenheimer, Kung Fu, Panda four, Asteroid City, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, three, Driveaway.

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Speaker 2: Dolls, The Holdovers, and Fast X.

00:15:27
Speaker 1: But the thing I'm probably the most excited about when it comes to Universal is the new Exorcist movie.

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Speaker 2: It's called The Exorcist Believer. It's a direct.

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Speaker 1: Sequel to the nineteen seventy three original, and it's about two possessed girls. It comes out this year on October thirteenth. This is what they say in the movie is about two girls become possessed after being dropped off from school and they never come home. They are finally found in the woods after three days, thinking they were only gone for three hours, and then it quickly becomes clear that these girls are possessed. One of the girls walks into a church during communion and drenched in blood, screaming the body and the blood in a demonic voice. There's just something about movies that involve possessions, that involve exorcisms that give me nightmares. As desensitized as I am to horror movies, these movies get me. Watching the original Exorcist is still something I have to psych myself up for, so I am really excited about this one. They also showcased a movie called The Fall Guy starring Ryan Gosling. He plays a retired stunt performer who gets called back into the film industry by his ex girlfriend, who is directing her debut feature movie. And then Vin Diesel announced that Fast X will be split into two movies, which I thought I already knew this. So part one comes out later this month on May nineteenth, and the second part will be released in twenty twenty five. He also said something that a lot of people were upset about, claiming that the Fast franchise is the longest running movie franchise to have the same actors playing the same characters. He also kind of took a shot at the Oscars, saying that he liked the room much better at CinemaCon than he ever did at the Oscars. That's probably due to the fact that he's never been nominated for an Oscar. But I just love how passionate he still is about Fast and the Furious movies. I will be going to see Fast X. They still hold a special place.

00:17:16
Speaker 2: In my heart.

00:17:16
Speaker 1: I think they are big, fun movies, so it will be kind of sad to see them come to an end, if they ever really come to an end. Will there be an end of the Fast franchise, I don't really think so. I think it'll be much like when artists say we're going on a farewell tour, and then a couple years later, hey, we're coming back. So I don't think that this movie or the next movie will be the last we see of Fast and the Furious. So overall, for Universal, I'll give them a BNUS. That great is greatly helped by the fact that I'm so excited about that Exorcist movie. But at number five in the bottom of all the major studios, I have to put Disney. I'm not really excited about anything they have coming out. And the big thing they kind of teased at Cinema Con is they gave a twenty minute look at Elemental, which got a lot of praise from everybody there. So Pixar's Elemental is an animated movie about the residence of element City, each of whom belong to a different element group land, air, water, and Fire. In this twenty minute clip that they showed, it focuses on the Fire character named Ember, from the time that she was a baby to her younger years. Ember is one who is unable to control her temper and she causes the disaster, which brings in her conflict with water element character Wade. So it's an entirely original story, which I like. From the people who saw this twenty minute clip, they are saying that the animation is great, and when it comes to Disney and Pixar as of late, I feel like they've become a lot more reliant on all of their big historic titles that we all know and love. It's a lot of remakes, it's a lot of reboots, it's a lot of sequels over there, And I feel like the imagination has really been sucked out of Disney. Where is the inspiration now? Even with some of their animation styles, it all kind of starts to look the same. I kind of feel like they've been making the same movie for the last three years. Elemental kind of looks like Inside Out. It also kind of looks like Soul. It just feels like they altered the same story just a little bit and then crank another movie out of it. Give me some imagination. You are Pixar, you are Disney. You're supposed to be the best at this. You're supposed to be the ones making us feel emotional about animated characters. I want to be an adult sobbing while I see a Pixar movie, not just thinking, Eh, that was all right, that's forgettable, Move on to the next one. They also showed some new footage on their other movie called Wish, which has now added Chris Pine as King magnific Old. That movie is coming out on November twenty second, twenty twenty three. I just think that something big has to change at Disney and Pixar, and what I didn't see them come out and say, like all the other movie studios did, is we are focusing on theatric releases, or we are focusing primarily on Disney Plus.

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Speaker 2: They're still kind of in this in between.

00:19:58
Speaker 1: They want to have the best of both worlds, but it's not really working for them. I don't know where to go to find the best Disney content. Is it supposed to be on Disney Plus, like they just dropped Peter Pan and Wendy but that feels a little bit like they don't really care about it, or is it going to be in theaters?

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Speaker 2: I don't know.

00:20:14
Speaker 1: And what's the point of watching all their new movies when they're just remaking their old classics that are all up on Disney Plus. I'm just gonna go watch Toy Story again until they get it right. So for Disney, I give them an F.

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Speaker 2: That's an F. So that is it.

00:20:28
Speaker 1: That is my recap and ranking of all the movie studios and their announcements at CinemaCon.

00:20:33
Speaker 2: What are you the most excited about? Let me know. Was I a little bit too unhinged there at the end? Yeah?

00:20:38
Speaker 1: Probably, But man, I just missed the golden age of Disney and Pixar. So let me know what you're excited to see. Hit me up on social media at Mike Distro or send me an email Moviemike d at gmail dot com. Let's get into a spoiler free movie review. I want to talk about Guy Ritchie's The Covenant. The modern war film is one of my favorite genres if you get it right?

00:21:03
Speaker 2: Did Guy Richie get it right?

00:21:04
Speaker 1: Did Jake Dyllenhall prove to me yet again that he is one of Hollywood's most underrated and versatile actors in the entire game.

00:21:11
Speaker 2: He's done the war movie before? Can he do it again?

00:21:14
Speaker 1: Before we get into my full thoughts on The Covenant, here is just a little bit of the trailer.

00:21:19
Speaker 2: For three weeks, this family believed you were dead.

00:21:23
Speaker 1: We owed a man in your life.

00:21:25
Speaker 2: There wasn't enough for him to carry me across those mountains. He's hiding in a hole somewhere. I should be in that hole. There is a hook in me. Ahmed and his family are in trouble. We can't intervene. I am gonna actually get him out myself.

00:21:46
Speaker 1: So what The Covenant is about? Jake dyllen Hall plays a sergeant named John Kinley. He goes into the Afghanistan War and he needs a new interpreter after one of theirs gets killed in battle, so they hire a new guy named am I played by Dar Salim, and they are going on this mission to track down these ied factories to shut him down. And that is just Jake Gillenhall's character's mission. But I felt like it was kind of hard to get a grasp on his character. Is he a good guy, is he a bad guy, or is he just a person who has a range of different emotions. It was hard for me to really kind of hone in on what his character was all about, so I needed a little bit more backstory on him.

00:22:24
Speaker 2: So I love the modern.

00:22:25
Speaker 1: War movie because usually they are based on a true story, either one or a group of soldiers who have been in the Afghanistan War, and just tell it scene for seeing exactly what happened. Sometimes you embellish a little bit for Hollywood, but for the most part, a lot of my favorite modern war movies are just true stories. The Covenant is different because it's not based on one actual true story. It's a culmination of a lot of different stories from interpreters in the Afghanistan War. So I felt like that hurt the movie a little bit, because if you're gonna make a movie about a fictional soldier, I feel like I got a hone in on what his personality is, what his mission statement is, and really just create his fibers as a human being to really make that resonate with audiences. I really didn't get that from Jake Jillenhall's character. Now, he's a very versatile actor, and he plays the soldier role really well. We also saw it in jar Head. Whether he is in his full military uniform or just in a baseball cap with his beard, he looks the part. And the thing about Jake Jillenhall is he is able to go to places that I don't really see other actors go into.

00:23:31
Speaker 2: So quickly.

00:23:32
Speaker 1: He goes from just being a normal person to having this fit of rage that sometimes makes me question exactly where does he go in his mind? Because he's able to have this ability to just kind of freak out as a character, and we see that in this movie.

00:23:45
Speaker 2: We've seen that in a lot of his other movies.

00:23:46
Speaker 1: I think my favorite one where he does that is probably Nightcrawler one of his most underappreciated roles, So we saw a little bit of it in this movie, but I almost feel like it didn't really make sense in this scenario. I almost feel like they got this movie wrong on who it's supposed to be about. I really think this movie would have been a lot stronger if it would have just focused on the story of Ahmed. That is what I was drawn to personally, because I think that was the overall message of this story is all the things that the interpreters in the Afghanistan War had to go through, all the things they sacrifice to help the United States. In this story in particular, shows Ahmed and his incredible bravery to save John Kinley and put his own life in danger to get Sergeant Kenley out of harm's way. So I feel like, overall, it would have been a better movie to just focus on his story, but I guess that would have been a harder movie to sell, and when you have Jake Jillenhall as the star, so I feel like the focus on his character and what his character goes through wasn't as impactful to me as what Ahmed's character goes through in this entire movie. So would have just been stronger if they'd focus more on Ahmed, because in that second act it proved to be the best.

00:24:57
Speaker 2: Out of the entire movie.

00:24:58
Speaker 1: So for that reason, I it felt like the tone was off a little bit in the beginning of the movie. It felt a little bit too over dramatic, which I think when it comes to a war movie, it's better to be over dramatic than under dramatic and not create any kind of sense of urgency, any kind of sense of, Oh, things are about to go wrong, And that is exactly what this movie does. It creates a lot of anxiety. If you like going into a movie and being on the edge of your seat, having your stomach and knots, this is the movie for you. You're always kind of like on edge, thinking, Oh, what's going to happen next? Is something really awful gonna happen. I love the tension that this movie created, and also just the overall cinematography that helped me really put myself into a position that I was there in Afghanistan with these soldiers. I loved all the drone shots of the mountains. I was able to as a viewer feel the heat of this movie and what it would be like to be walking alone in this desert trying to survive.

00:25:56
Speaker 2: It was like the set was living and breathing. So I felt like Chie.

00:26:00
Speaker 1: Did a really good job in getting that tone correct, especially when it came to the lighting and the coloring of this movie. Sometimes you can go a little bit too green and dark in a war movie, but I felt like this one had it just right, some nice mid tones, and the night scenes didn't feel washed out, like you weren't able to see everything going on on screen. So overall, visually, I thought it was really well done. And also when movies like this just go straight into the action. I have to give them a lot of praise. Usually those first twenty minutes are crucial, and this one got to the action pretty quickly. But what I felt like this movie needed was a little bit more backstory. I think if it would have went head on just like it did with all the action, and then gave us a little bit of a peek into Ahmed and Sergeant Kinley's lives through flashbacks, it really would have helped me get a little bit more emotionally invested in these characters.

00:26:51
Speaker 2: So I just felt like.

00:26:51
Speaker 1: The writing was a little bit unhinged when it came to character development. Again, if you're not basing them on actual people, you really need to drive home all the characteristics of our characters and get us wanting to root for them so much. And this one just didn't quite get there. And it's inside of a genre that I really love, the modern war film. I think my favorite theater experiences have been in movies like This, Zero Dark thirty, The hurt Locker, Lone survivor American Sniper. These are some of the best movie theater experiences I've had in the last fifteen to twenty years. So where I would put The Covenant in relation to those other movies, it would be at the bottom of those movies.

00:27:31
Speaker 2: Still a fun.

00:27:31
Speaker 1: Movie theater experience, it still gave me that anxiety. I just really feel like I didn't get the guide Richie Grinn in this movie, and some of the scenes where they were really trying to show the courageous efforts from both of these characters really just played out more like a folk story. The interesting thing about this movie is they used no real guns in the movie, and I feel like I couldn't even tell as a viewer they didn't even shoot the thing in Afghanistan. Obviously they shot it in Spain. Couldn't tell that either. Without Jake Gyllenhaal, this movie probably wouldn't have had my interest as much as it did. But I feel like Dar Salim really stepped up as being the real star in this movie. His character story was really the most impactful and really was the main message this movie was trying to make. So if it was going up that hill, it would be like almost almost there in that four category. But for The Covenant, I would give it three point five out of five rescue missions.

00:28:25
Speaker 3: It's time to head down to movie Mike trailer Paul.

00:28:30
Speaker 1: The Flash was screened at CinemaCon, which we've been talking about all episode long, and it reportedly left audiences in tears, which I've been going back and forth how I feel about the Flash movie, and by the end of this trailer park, I will determine if I think it's going to flip or flop, and what I mean by that, is it going to flip our perspective on what we think about DC movies. I've always hyped them up so much to myself, probably more than they needed to be. Just be in the movie that changes the way we all feel about them or is it gonna flop and not do so well at the box office and kind of kill their momentum going into this new James Gunn headed operation. So this trailer, it looks amazing, It looks really slick. It really has a different feeling than the trailer that came before it, and oh boy, there's a lot to talk about. There's some cool stuff in this trailer. So before I get into my full thoughts about the Flash coming out on June sixteenth, here's just a little bit of the brand new trailer.

00:29:32
Speaker 2: I lost my parents.

00:29:33
Speaker 1: That pain made me who I am.

00:29:36
Speaker 2: I spent a lifetime trying to right the wrongs.

00:29:39
Speaker 1: Of the past. As if fighting.

00:29:43
Speaker 2: Crime would bring my parents back, you actually did it. You want to get nuts, Let's get nuts.

00:29:57
Speaker 1: So what this trailer served as was giving us a much better look on how impactful Michael Keaton's Batman is going to be in the Flash. I love the reference to the original nineteen eighty nine Batman.

00:30:12
Speaker 2: Now you want to get us, come on, let's get nuts.

00:30:15
Speaker 1: So the Flash is set thirty years after Batman returns, and Michael Keaton, I've said on this podcast numerous times He's the best embodiment of Batman when you combine his work as Bruce Wayne and his work as Batman, like that is who I picture. Maybe a little bit biased because he's also the Batman I grew up with, and seeing him come back and have more screen time in this trailer, it really gets me excited about this movie. So I read a review after CinemaCon. I don't really dig too much into reviews, especially early screenings, but this headline caught my eye talking about the Flash and the subject matter, and they described it as kind of a back to the future slash No Way Home. And I really get that feeling more in this trailer. This trailer feels a little bit more dramatic to me. The first ta just felt like your average superhero movie and they were really just selling the Flash. This movie is really selling it on an emotional level. I love that little part of Michael Keaton connecting with the Flash, who has been able to travel through time and try and go back and save his parents, but also creating a bunch of havoc. So that is the parallel between this movie and No Way Home. But the way I think this movie will differ in a good way is. I don't feel like Ben Affleck and Michael Keaton's Batman in this movie is as gimmicky as.

00:31:31
Speaker 2: Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire.

00:31:33
Speaker 1: And No Way Home. Now, don't get me wrong, great cameos. That scene alone changed and really kind of fulfilled a lot of my childhood to see them back on screen, but the reasoning for them being there didn't seem as impactful to the overall story. You could have taken them out, and I think that still would have worked as a great moment for Peter Parker's life and No Way Home, but here feels a little bit different, like they're actually going to play a big part in this entire movie, not just a quick cameo, not just a quick cash grab. So seeing Michael Keaton back, seeing Ben Affleck back and looking better than ever. I always said that I love the way his suit looked in all the movies that he's played Batman in. I've just never really loved his storyline in any of those movies. I'm a big fan of that big Batman logos, So seeing that again makes me happy and gives me hopes that people won't ridicule him for his portrayal of Batman.

00:32:25
Speaker 2: In this movie.

00:32:25
Speaker 1: You also get a better look at Supergirl, focusing on the s meaning hope, which is a reference back to Man of Steel. And we didn't get a look at gal Gado as wonder Woman, but she is reportedly going to be in this movie and probably will be the last time for her to play wonder Woman, which is a bummer to me because I'm a big wonder Woman fan. I'm a big fan of all these DC characters on their own. It's just that they haven't really clicked in a movie yet, so I'm hoping this one will get it right. But it's also weird that if this movie gets it right and there's nothing else to really build on, because they aren't really saying there's going to be another Flash movie. Obviously, everything going on with Ezra Miller, it doesn't look like they are going to continue into the new DC universe that James Gunn is creating. So if they make something magical here that everybody loves and then it just kind of goes away, it'll be kind of a bummer. But I'd rather them go out on a high note, give us a great movie and leave us wanting more. So when it comes to will I think this movie will flip or flop. Right now, I think it's going to flip. I think it's going to change the way we think about DC and give some really great momentum going into all the changes they are going to be making. If the early reviews are saying it's leaving audiences in tears, I think the real struggle they will have to face is gaining the trust of the general public to go back and watch another DC movie after what just happened with Black Adams. So if first reviews are good again, it's cinema con it's movie theater owners, so there's a little bit of bias in those reviews. I think they will be okay, but they are banking on some nostalgia here. I think having Michael Keaton back will definitely get a lot of old school DC fans to get back into a theater to see Michael Keaton on screen. But aside from that, the action in this trailer looks really impressive to me. Michael Keaton's Batman is unlike any other depiction of Batman I've ever seen in any movie. He is flying, he is bulletproof. He looks hardcore, but not hardcore in the sense of the Dark Knight. He feels more like a superhero, and the suit just looks so great in twenty twenty three. I think that was a really important thing for it to look updated. But also, just like that classic Batman suit with that black and yellow logo, all of the action in this trailer looks like it demands the big screen, and that was really a treat for me to see big, bold and colorful fight scenes. It doesn't look like it's being suffocated by that two thousands metal dark look that Zack Snyder used in all of his movies. You also have the return of Michael Shannon as Zod With She asked for the blessing of Zack Snyder to return in this movie, which I guess was cool of him, But you don't really need to do that. DC has made it clear that they are moving on without Zack Snyder. I don't think they owe anything to him. It's not like they're taking away something that just had so much success. It was a little Man for the entire run. So let's move on to some fresh blood. So again, I think it's a flip. I think it's going to change how we think about DC movies at a time where they really need it again. The Flash is coming out on June sixteenth.

00:35:30
Speaker 2: At that for was this week's edition of Movie b Tramer Bar.

00:35:35
Speaker 1: And that's gonna do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week. We had an interview last week with Alex Conberry, the writer of Air, and every time we have an interview there's always a secret emoji, and since he was the writer on Air, the emoji to use was the basketball. I picked a comment at random, and the listener of the week is it's Beco ONEC on Instagram, who commented with the basketball and said, great interview. I always enjoy your reviews and point of view, even though I don't always agree, but it's a different perspective and I can appreciate that.

00:36:08
Speaker 2: So thanks for that comment. Becca.

00:36:09
Speaker 1: I always say, that's what this podcast is all about. Movies are so subjective, and that's what I love about it. I always give you my honest opinions, my honest thoughts, sometimes a little bit unhinged and unfiltered, but it is just how movies make me feel and I want to share that with you. I also try to tell you the point of view that I'm coming from certain genres. I'm just not the biggest fan of certain actors. I'm just not the biggest fan of So I always try to be upfront about those things so you can use your best judgment in picking movies that are for you, that you're going to enjoy. But I love talking about movies. I love discussing them with you in the comments. I just love being a part of a movie community, and I think that's what we've created here with this podcast. So thank you, beca thank you for listening every single week, for being subscribed, for telling a friend. We have some new people on the podcast after we went viral, so welcome to all you new listeners. If you hear me reference the Movie Crew, you don't have to sign up to be a part of it.

00:37:04
Speaker 2: It's just the name we have here for all the listeners of the podcast.

00:37:08
Speaker 1: So have a great risk of your week, and until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.