5 Fascinating Documentaries You Should See + Movie Reviews: Val (Amazon Prime) + Free Guy + Changes to HBO Max Streaming Same Day Theatrical Releases

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's Movie Podcast, your go to source for all things movies, and I'm your host Movie Mike a k A. Mikedico, and today covering a topic I haven't covered before. Documentaries. Five fascinating documentaries that I think you should see and why. I'll also get into my review of the new Val Kilmer documentary on Amazon Prime, a spoiler free review of Free Guy with Ryan Reynolds, and then some changes coming to HBO Max which may change the way you watch their same day theatrical releases coming next year. Lots to talk about this week, so appreciate you being subscribed and listening to the podcast every single week without any further ado, Let's get started. In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast, one man stands to infiltrate the years of listeners like never before in a movie podcast. A man with so much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking AUDIMDV with glasses. From the Nashville podcast Networking is Movie Movie There So a great documentary I think will take you on a ride and sometimes change your perspective on the world, depending on the topic of the documentary. Sometimes it exposes you to a world that you never really knew existed, And for me, I think those are the best documentaries. One where they can take something or a topic or some kind of sport that you've never really heard of, but they're able to present it in a way like this is the most fascinating thing I've ever seen. And there's also the ones that you know are about things that maybe you heard about in the news, maybe you read about and experienced, but you really don't know the whole story. So that's why I love a good documentary. And I think I've kind of been on a documentary kick the last couple of weeks that I've watched two new documentaries that came out, and I just put together a list of five that I just found fascinating. They're not necessarily the best documentaries ever, but I think the topics they cover I found really interesting, and something about these five specifically struck a chord with me, so I wanted to share these with you. If they sound like something you maybe in you learning about or watching, I recommend these, And then I'll also hear some honorable mentions of other ones that I thought were somewhat interesting a little bit more specific in the different kind of topics. Maybe not for everybody, but I would still say are good documentaries because a good documentary, when done well, is a very powerful tool. So first up, I want to talk about wood Stock, Peace, Love and Rage, which just came out on HBO Max this year pretty recently, and it's the only music documentary I put on this list, and I think one because it's a new one that I think you should go watch right now, and also because I really don't remember all the bad stuff happening that they showed in this documentary. And of course every documentary they skew it a little bit. They focus on one thing. They're essentially making a movie, so they have their kind of perspective going into the movie. They know what they want to showcase, and they know how to invoke an emotion out of you through that storytelling. So with any of these documentaries, you kind of got to know that there is an agenda being put into making it an entertaining piece as well as informative and getting all the details in there. But I remember as a kid, I was eight years old in n and watching the footage from MTVS Woodstock, because they would always go out and cover all these big concerts they'd have like spring break things. I just remember those being an event on MTV, and I don't remember them being as crazy and chaotic as they described in this documentary. And after watching this, I realized, Man, this was absolutely an insane festival. It basically makes every Coachella Lallapalooza, even when I would go to Warp Tour back in the day, seemed like a Disney World compared to what went on in wood Stock ninety nine. And the craziest thing I found about it was that they were trying to recreate what wood Stock was back just a few years before, and then the original wood Stock back in nineteen sixty nine, but they did it in a way that they took away like all of those artists that invoked peace and freedom and all the things that kind of embodied what you think about Woodstock, just people hanging out, listening to good music and kind of vibing and chilling out, and instead put all the bands relevant to and it was a very angry lineup when you think about it, from Limb Biscuit to Corn and Metallica, and then you put all these people and basically an airport hangar slash military base, and it's a bunch of people who have been there dehydrated and going insane at this point, and just there for some angry music. So you're going to invoke some chaos. And I'll admit that parts of this documentary will make you feel a little uncomfortable, and fair warning, since it is an HBO title, there is a lot of nudity in this. But what I think I loved about this one and found itself fascinating because it really kind of captured the turn of the century from to everybody kind of bringing in the new millennium. And I feel like this in a way showed how it was like a last horror for music, the last time for people to be absolutely insane without a whole lot of consequence. You couldn't do a woodstock now, like it just wouldn't happen. I don't think people could handle it it. And also I think from the festivals I've been to, like you couldn't really put on something like this from a liability standpoint, it just couldn't happen. But if you want to watch that one, it's on HBO Max and free to watch. I think if you're a fan of that era of music. If you want to learn about something totally completely insane, and parts of it will make you feel uncomfortable, I'll just give you that warning. Due Next up on my list is a documentary called The King of Kong A fist full of Quarters, which came out at two thousand seven. If you want to watch this one, I actually saw. The whole thing is available on YouTube if you just search that. And I love documentaries that take you inside a world that you never knew existed, and this documentary does exactly that. It's about this rivalry between these two guys who are these gamers, and they are experts at the arcade game Donkey Kong. So it's this guy Billy who's basically the villain in this documentary, and then this other guy, Steve, who you kind of root for to beat Billy, and their whole rivalry is at the enter of this documentary. And you never think something like playing Donkey Kong on an arcade would be as competitive and as intense as it is, but this documentary bruise greatly otherwise. And now this is long before the days of Fortnite. Now, you know they have big competitions in stadiums where people make a lot of money. This was basically just bragging rights for somebody to be so good at King Kong, they wanted that world title. There's not a whole lot of money and is there basically two of the biggest nerds. And I say that coming from a nerd who just love Donkey Kong. And you'll end up hating one of the guys and really rooting for one of the other guys as they both try to become the record high score holders. And I won't ruin the documentary in any way, but I just found from all the ones that I've seen, this really has like the greatest rivalry that probably could have been a movie on its own. So especially if you're into gaming old school games specifically, I would say check out a fist full of quarters. Next up on my list is black Fish from back in and you probably remember the impact that this documentary had. And for me, a fun fact about me is that I love Orcas and it all started as a kid. My family would take family vacations to see a world in San Antonio and from seeing Shamoo doing all these crazy tricks, from seeing them work with the trainers, and you know, I think that's what my love kind of developed for them. And after I saw this documentary, I realized, like the harsh conditions that they were in, they're not really meant to be inside of these basically bathtubs compared to what they lived like in the ocean. And it also just really learned after watching this how intelligent Orca's actually are. And I watched this one knowing that they, of course we're making a film. They wanted to make something as captivating as it could be, but also bring light to a really serious issue, which you ended up doing because it changed the culture of Sea World after this documentary came out, the trainers were no longer allowed to be in the water with the Orcas like they had been doing all those tricks writing them that that was gone. And I actually went to See World again after this documentary came out for the very last time and saw that change, and it was through me myself doing my own research after watching this and learning more about or because that, my love for them really kind of grew. And it's insane how smart they really are and how really just their majestic creatures. And I've never gone back to See World since, so I do think this is an important documentary to watch, and if you're like me, you'll probably end up loving Orcas after this. And if you want to do some research, well, there's a lot of other videos you can watch on YouTube, and this one's actually for you now to watch on YouTube as well. But still like one of my bucket list items is to go Orca whale watching and see them in their own natural environment, their own natural habitat. And I still love a great Orca YouTube wormhole or now like a TikTok wormhole of people encountering them in the wild. So one of my favorite animals, great documentary, very powerful, how to put it on this list? Next up on my list is Won't You Be My Neighbor? From eighteen And even though Mr Rogers neighborhood was before my time, I still remember watching reruns as a kid on PBS and being just comforted by his calm demeanor and the puppets and all the things that he would do. His sweater, even just watching him take off in his shoes and tie them was fascinating to mus a kid. It was just like a big comfort blanket TV show. But as a kid, I didn't realize how groundbreaking it was. The stuff he talked about, the people he brought on his show, and overall what he was trying to do to change the world. And after watching this documentary, I realized like Mr Rogers was a saint. And you see him as just the clean cud guy with a sweater, but he was really trying to make a change in kids lives and put on this show as a way to talk to kids on a higher level. Really, and the documentary explains how he never really talked down to kids. He always talked to them like he was on their own level. So it was really cool getting to learn his story. And I remember being excited after I watched this for the movie that came out with Tom Hanks, which is a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood. And I think this documentary is just far superior than that movie, mainly because in that movie, he's not really the main character in it, and it's more so the journalist who's doing a story on Mr. Rogers. But if you really want to get to know the life of Mr Rogers and how much that show really changed programming for kids, I highly recommend watching Won't You Be My Neighbor if you haven't seen it. Yet just to be prepared with some tissues like it's it's still a little bit emotional. It's not sad in anyway. It's just great to see that there was somebody who made such an impact on this world that even years after he's passed away, we still kind of look at this show was like, all right, that is how we should be talking to kids, and not every show on television has to be mindless cartoons. Basically speaking of mindless cartoons, the final documentary on my list is called The Orange Years The Nickelodeon Story, which also came out in available on Hulu. If you want to watch this one, and if you're a nineties kid like me who grew up with shows like Double dare all that the Nicktoons like rug Rats, Rocos Modern Live like that is my jam. I have Paramount Plus right now, and I love watching all these old Nicktoons on there. It's again like my comfort shows because I remember watching every single episode as a kid, and I was always a Nickelodeon kid. There was a kind of a divide between Disney Kids and Nickelodeon kids, but it was something about Nickelodeon programming that I identified more with because the network felt like it was kids running it. From the little promos they ran in between cartoons to the actual content of the shows. It felt like it was kids writing these shows and acting in them, and the live action shows. I never felt like it was an adult pulling all the strings and writing all the scripts and putting things on that would be funny. From a different perspective, I really felt like it was a kid run network. And I think, after watching this doc menory, that's exactly what they set out to do, and I think why I found this one so fascinating, and I really love just the way they formatted this one. They basically went through and go through all of their biggest shows and the cultural impact they had when they came out, and again kind of like Mr. Rogers, a lot of that stuff was pretty groundbreaking, from having live action shows made for kids and also being like the network that first developed their own cartoons, not just taking cartoons from other people. They were creating their own cartoons in house. And they interview a lot of the original cast members from these shows, and they even get into the whole building of the Nickelodeon studios and what that world was like. From the opening of it to the closing of it, so it covers all that stuff, and I think as a kid, I really wanted to someday be on the Nickelodeon show, so it was cool for me to see the behind the scenes of it, and also how some of it wasn't all that glamorous as we thought. So that's my list of five that I found fascinating, and I think you should check out. Of some of those sound interests to you, and you haven't seen any of those yet, I would recommend those. Some honorable mentions though, Free Solo, which is on Disney Plus, which is about professional rock climbing. Again another kind of world you really didn't know existed, but when you watch this documentary you're completely sucked into. And I also saw that they're kind of making not a sequel to it, but there's a trailer for a new documentary call of the Alpinist, which is about somebody who takes what he didn't Free Solo to another extreme level. Another great one is called The Perfect Bid, which is about a Price is Right contestant who basically figured out how to win the show just by watching it episode after episode and making a spreadsheet of all the prizes and all the words like all that, but the crazy kind of controversy that happened when somebody got a perfect bid. Also got to mention one of the o G documentaries, Supersize Me, and also the parody to that called super High Me with Doug Benson, who basically does the same thing he did with McDonald's food, but did it with marijuana. And of course Worst the documentary everybody was talking about just a couple of years ago, Firefest, the Greatest Party that Never happened, Another mind blowing one. But I felt like a lot of people have probably seen that by now and that whole craze has kind of comeing gone. But if you haven't seen that, one, still a good watch. So there you go. That's the list. If you end up watching any of those, let me know what you think. You can tweet me at Mike Destro or send me an email movie Mike d at gmail dot com. Alright, keeping the theme of documentaries, I do want to get into a movie review of Vowel, which is available now on Amazon. Documentary unlike one I've really ever seen before, and I saw a lot of people talking about it. So if you haven't seen a trailer of it, yet he was just a little bit of the vowel trailer. My name is Val Kilmer. I'm an actor. I've lived a magical life. You have captured quite a bit of it. I was the first guy in new to own a video camera. Were filming or s. Yeah, that's really cool. Though. I have thousands of hours of videotapes and film reels that I've shot throughout my life and career. I will keep it on until we reversed oh down. So this is a documentary style that I've never seen done before and maybe we'll never see again. It's about the story in the life of Val Kilmer as told by him. He made this documentary, and the amazing thing about it is that he took forty years of never before seeing footage of him filming his entire life. It's basically vlogging before vlogging was a thing. So Val Kilmer had a YouTube channel back in the eighties and nineties and early two thousand's and now this would have been his vlog. And the other thing you might not know about Val Kilmer is that he was diagnosed with throat cancer. He was able to fight it, but as a result of that he lost his voice, so he is not able to speak. He does speak a little bit throughout the film, but it's in places hard for him to get words out, sometimes hard to understand, so he has his son basically narrate the movie. So it's just really cool to see all of this footage that he just happened to be a guy with a video camera taking it on sets with him from top Gun to Tombstone to Batman Forever from the Doors movie he did, and you learn about his life and you not only get to hear him talk about it, but also see what he was like during that time and the things he would see behind the scenes. And I think the biggest takeaway, and being completely honest, I never really saw or we think of Val Kilmer as being one of the best actors of our lifetime. He just really doesn't come to mind, even with the great movies he has been in. If I were to make a list of like ten or twenty actors, he probably wouldn't be on the list. But after watching this documentary, you'll kind of get a sense of like how much he cared about acting. And that sounds weird to say, but he really cared about the art of acting and putting on a great performance, to the point that I felt like it showed that directors didn't like working with him for that reason, because he wanted to get the character really specifically down to like, all right, what's my motive here? How can I make this character the best through my acting abilities. He didn't want anything easy. And there's a movie specifically in this that he's working on and that he has kind of a fight with the director, and it's knowing that it's not because he's a diva, it's not because he is wanting to be difficult to work with. It's because he has a vision for his acting. And you learn about his story of going to Juilliard and being a basically a classically trained actor but going on to being a very commercially successful actor, and it's kind of that balance you play of, like all right, do you want to do something commercial or do you want to do something for filling. So I think as a film fan, it's an interesting documentary to watch, especially learning about especially when he talks about Batman Forever and I won't ruin the kind of points that he may about that movie, but he basically described that as being the ultimate leading role and talks about his decision not to do another Batman movie, even though he was offered one. So I thought the documentary was very well done and it's extremely personal. It's a little slow and you have to get into it a little bit. Maybe you split it up and watch half at one point and watch half later, but nonetheless, it's really great to see him tell his story and really makes you root for the guy. I would give it four out of five Batman suits. Joined now by my wife, Kelsey, How are you good? We're about to get into a review of Free Guy, the new movie starring Ryan Reynolds. If you haven't seen it yet, here's just a little bit of the trailer. Guy there's no reason way to say this this world it's a video game, not real, please, and the guy responsible for this world was going to destroy it. You've met God? Yes, he's as rolls exist. So Free Guy is basically at Ryan Reynolds character. He is a background character in a Grand Theft Auto like video game. He learns that and then basically has to save his entire world from ultimate destruction. Is basically what the movie is about. And I was really excited for this movie and you weren't as much, but you ended up liking it more than I did, Right, I did just because I had zero expectations or it was one of those that I didn't want to see, but I just kind of go along with whatever you want to see that week. And I think I kind of described this movie as being a little bit of The Truman Show meets Ready Player One meets Wreck It Ralph, because he becomes self aware and he finds out that he is living in a video game, and then there's this whole aspect of people watching him from the outside world. So you like that the fact that this wasn't a remake of anything, right, Yeah, I just liked it for its originality, which I mean you described that it's kind of a m mash up of other things. But it wasn't a reboot, it wasn't a sequel. I hadn't watched the trailer. I just don't really watch movie trailers anymore. I just kind of take your word for it. Okay, Well, do you find Ryan rayl Ryan Reynolds to be funny. I think he's hilarious on Twitter, but his movies, I can't really think of the last thing that I saw him in. I think he's pretty funny and I like him as Deadpool, but I also kind of feel like he's just become that character now and seeing him in this movie, I felt like he was just doing the Deadpool thing in a different scenario. And it is from the same producers, but it's like Deadpool mixed with Buddy the Elf basically left what you said he was like, he was basically like Buddy the Elf. He was Buddy the Elf in a video game. So I felt the movie borrowed a lot from other movies. They even had some references to other things that even though, like you said, it wasn't a remake, it didn't really feel like it was ever its own movie to me. And I also kind of wanted it to be bigger and a little bit more fun because they were in this video game kind of world where they can basically do anything. But I felt like they held back a little bit. Aside from like that opening sequence where it's like everything being blown up and getting you know, the chase scenes, they never really got back to that, and it could be a thing like they didn't have the production value the money to make it that big and expensive and crazy, So I felt like, if you're gonna make a video game movie that's original, go all out. And for me, I found it a little bit cheesy at points, especially when they came back to like the real life stuff of like news coverage about the movie or about the video game character. Like, I get it, you're creating a fictional world, but it just felt a little unbelievable to me. I don't know if that's like making a dumb point. I think it's reading more into it than I did. Okay, well, I just found it. Also, I'm not the one of the movie podcast. I just go along and watch things for entertainment value. It was entertaining though it was fun. I wasn't bored at all, but at one point I just felt like I was ready for it to be over. Yeah, I'm starting to feel that way about two hour movies. I used to think I wanted my money's worth of a movie, and now like over like one forty, I'm like, all right, let's wrap this up. This one was under two hours, but I'm kind of under two hours. I know, I'm just saying barely. I think for me now, when I look at a run time, I wanted to be under two hours even if it's an hour and fifty nine minutes. I don't think I want to see an over two hour movie right now. We saw Suicide Squad in that was two hours and minutes, but that never felt like it was two hours for me, Yes I did. I feel like that was perfectly time. So I think for a movie like this under two hours, I still feel to feel like an hour and a half was a little bit too quick, like unless it's a shorter story that can be developed quicker, like when we watched Joe Bo that movie only need to be an hour and a half. I couldn't movie would have been sad or if it was longer. But I just felt this movie as excited as I was going into it, and it's as cool as the trailer looked in the concept was I felt like it missed in places, and I also didn't feel like it was that funny, like I felt like the humor was a little bit geared more towards kids. I think kids would find it hilarious, like your brothers would probably love this movie. Younger kids would probably love it even though it's PG thirteen. I just felt like it was marketed to somebody like me. But nerd, a nerd who loves video games. But when you go see it, I didn't feel like it was for me. It was made for an entirely different audience. So that's probably why I didn't like it as much. You ended up liking it more than you thought. Yeah, so if you had to rate this movie, what would you give it? Three and a half out of five blue shirts? Blue shirts? I would go a little bit lower. I'd go three out of five. Gamer tags super nerdy ring gamer tags. I don't even know what that means. It's your your name when you play video games online. I don't like you user name. Yeah, like you use your name gamer to egg. Your brothers played video games all the time. You don't know what a gamer tag is? No, because I tune out when they talk about their video games. Okay, well, I think the movie will end up doing pretty well among younger audiences. And I saw Ryan Reynolds did say on Twitter that it's probably going to get a sequel, so I don't think. I don't think I'm in for it. Would you watch Free Guy too? If it was free it was? Literally? Okay, so that is the we thing about Free Guy? All Right, let's get into some movie news now, Warner Brothers announced some changes of the way they put out movies on HBO Max, which kind of bums me out. And the greatest thing about HBO Max right now is that once a movie comes out in theaters, it's available same day to watch on streaming. But I guess they struck a deal with AMC Theaters and now they're gonna wait forty five days after it comes out in theaters to be on their streaming services, which I think greatly takes way of the appeal of wanting to get HBO Max. That was basically the biggest deciding factor of me after the first time I turned off my HBO Max and got it back, because all these movies were coming out this year, and that was an important thing for me to be able to choose which movies I wanted to pay to see on the big screen and which ones I could probably just watch at home. But it looks like starting in it will have that forty five day window, kind of how Paramount plus is now to wear any movie that they have, it's gonna be a while before you get to see it at home, and I feel this kind of takes away that appeal and it's kind of and I feel like this is basically like at the same time you would go by the Blu ray for it, it's just when it's available back at home and taking away from people having that ability to make a decision where they want to watch a movie. And I get that we're still living in a pandemic now and we don't really know how it's going to be for the rest of the year for movies. Even though I did see A Free Guy ended up doing pretty well at the box office, made more than a thought. So by next year, maybe this whole plan for everybody having same day releases really goes away and we see it more and more with people fighting back about this happening. So if you have HBO Max and are loving that feature, just know next year it's going to change unless something else happens between now and then up next. In movie news, Sylvester stallone he's now topped the box office six decades in a row. That's right, six decades in a row because he was just in Suicide Squad. He voiced and acted as King Shark that landed him a number one at the box office for six consecutive decades and He's put out forty six movies, nearly half of them going number one, which is a big deal for any actor, and I think he's somebody who doesn't get a whole lot of credit from the Rocky movies, from Rambo, from Cliffhanger, and then him kind of having his resurgence in The Expendables and now doing King Shark in the Suicide Squad. So shout out to Salivester Stallone, and finally up in movie news, Sony has pushed back the theatrical release date for venom Let there Be Carnage was supposed to come out on September, but now we'll hit theaters on October. And this is really the only movie I've seen delayed again since everything kind of got back on schedule. We're all going to the movies again. So on the other end, Marvel hasn't announced any other delays in their movies. The Legend of the Ten Rings is still as of now, it is supposed to come out on September three. So if both of those movies are able to come out and nothing else changes, hopefully that means that Spider Man No Way from Home is still going to come out on December seventeen. I've really been waiting to see this movie. I'm tired of hearing all the fan theories and watching all the things that this movie is supposedly supposed to be about. We also haven't even got a trailer for this movie yet, which is pretty crazy to me at this point to not know anything about what it's gonna be like or look like, which is crazy for me that we really have no idea what this New Spider Man movie is gonna be like. But I'm excited for it. Hope it comes out on time. But that's gonna do it. For this week's episode, I usually do a listener shout out at the end of every single episode, but for this week, I just wanted to shout out you specifically who are subscribe to this podcast and have been listening every single week, some people from the very beginning. I actually put up this message on Twitter and Instagram that I've been seeing just a lot of comments over the last month or so. I think it all started when the Bobby Bones show went on vacation and we didn't have any new episode of that show for a while, and I saw a lot of people come over here and check out this podcast. For the very first time in a comment I see a lot in regard to the podcast. It's like, Hey, I'm surprised it's actually good, and I get it. I don't talk a whole lot on the Bobby Bones Show. Even when I'm on the Bobby Cast. I say a few words here and there. It's not really my thing to talk there. I like to talk about things that I'm passionate about and I know a lot about. And I think that's why this podcast has had some success because it's kind of my vehicle for that. If I'm able to bring a subject or a topic on that I know things about, I could talk for as long as I do want or it's the only place that I can do that. So for anybody who's come over because of that, and also to all those who have just been with me from the very beginning, and then some people who just are looking for movie recommendations and listen to this podcast really appreciate that. So any new listeners just want to say thank you, Thanks for telling a friend, thanks for being subscribed. And I know that you might not agree with all my movie opinions, you might not take all my recommendations because and I don't expect you to. I'm just the guy who loves movies. I don't consider myself a movie critic. I just want to talk to you and share with you my passion for movies and what I think about all this stuff. So listener, shout out of the week is to every single one of you listening right now, and I hope you come back next week because I have a very special episode. I have a story artist from Pixar, the guy behind a lot of movies like the toy story films, up rat A, TUOI, Monsters, Inc. He's worked on all these movies. He's created the stories for these movies. He's basically the guy responsible for making you cry and all these movies like you know that opening scene and finding Memo. He's the guy behind that. So we're gonna go through and break down a bunch of the Pixar movies. It's gonna be a great episode if you're a fan of Pixar, So make sure you're subscribed so you get that episode when it comes out. I hope you have a great rest of the week and until then, later