Best and Worst Movies of the Month with Mike and Kelsey + Movie Review: Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 + Trailer Park: "The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes"

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host. Movie Mike joined today, but my co host and wife, Kelsey.

00:00:05
Speaker 2: How are you other than my broken foot? I'm great.

00:00:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll talk about that a little bit later, but we're gonna do our best and worst of the month with movies. In the movie review, we'll be talking about Guardians to the Galaxy Volume three spoiler free. Of course you won't be joining me for that review, but just give me your five second reaction emotions, all the emotions. And then in the trailer park we'll be talking about the Hunger Games prequel. Thank you for being here, shout out to the Monday Morning movie crew, and now let's talk movies.

00:00:31
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, a man with so much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTB with glasses from the Nashville Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike's Movie Podcast, So.

00:00:55
Speaker 1: We're about to get into our best and worst of the month. But we'll talk about what you addressed earlier. You heard your foot, I did what happened let everybody.

00:01:02
Speaker 2: Know it's really lame. I really need to come up with a better story. I was making our bed and I ran into one of the bedposts.

00:01:09
Speaker 1: With my left foot, and what is broken?

00:01:12
Speaker 2: My third metatarsal? Your Tozier falangees and then like the long.

00:01:16
Speaker 1: Bones blangies just sounds made up to me. I think of friends Regina falange Yes.

00:01:21
Speaker 2: Or bridesmaids when they're like, there's something wrong with the left falangy. There's no that's friends still because Phoebe calls it the falangy and I walked on it for a week.

00:01:30
Speaker 1: We did not know that it was broken.

00:01:31
Speaker 2: Ah your marathon. When I was running from mile twenty to the finish line, it.

00:01:36
Speaker 1: Was broken and it felt bad.

00:01:38
Speaker 2: I mean, I still would have done it anyways. I'm so stubborn even if I had the boot on. Yeah. Now I'm in a boot for six weeks, two weeks in slightly losing my mind because I can't I can't go for a walk, I can't go work out.

00:01:49
Speaker 1: So we've had plenty of time to watch movies.

00:01:51
Speaker 2: We've watched a lot of movies, something.

00:01:53
Speaker 1: Going to like two movies a weekend.

00:01:55
Speaker 2: Really getting our money's worth out of what did you say? We say we have.

00:01:58
Speaker 1: Said so we're are Egal Unlimited members, not a sponsorship, but it is not Regal hit us up. They send me an email with all the money we've saved, five hundred and ten dollars.

00:02:09
Speaker 2: It's not surprising.

00:02:10
Speaker 1: It's pretty crazy.

00:02:11
Speaker 2: We go to the movies all the time. We get ten percent off drinks, and you get like credits every time you go. And I don't think I've paid for I never paid for popcorn. I get like seven dollars worth of popcorn free every time.

00:02:20
Speaker 1: It is amazing to see it go from sixteen dollars down to six.

00:02:24
Speaker 2: It is very satisfying. It is like a little thing.

00:02:26
Speaker 1: They're like sixteen eighty six. You're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, skin my barcoat. I am a Regal Unlimited member.

00:02:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, we go a lot. That's one of the things that we can both agree on is going to see a movie.

00:02:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we're gonna do our best and worst of April. You want to kick us off with your.

00:02:40
Speaker 2: Best, I will. I have The Covenant, that's your best?

00:02:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, what made you love that movie?

00:02:45
Speaker 2: I thought the story was really good. I thought Jake Jillenhall was really good in it.

00:02:49
Speaker 1: How do you feel about Jake Jillenhall. I like him. I think he's underappreciated.

00:02:53
Speaker 2: You.

00:02:54
Speaker 1: I don't know if you're the biggest fan of him as an actor, but you liked him in that movie.

00:02:57
Speaker 2: I did. I'm a diehard Taylor Swift fan.

00:02:59
Speaker 1: That's that I was gonna say.

00:03:00
Speaker 2: So, I don't know that I love Jake Jollenhall as a person.

00:03:05
Speaker 1: I don't feel like he's that bad.

00:03:06
Speaker 2: Like, I don't think he's that bad.

00:03:07
Speaker 1: I'm just a diehard Swifty Okay, So it's just that because I feel like he's a good guy on off screen.

00:03:11
Speaker 2: It's it's just the Taylor Swift like I can't can't root for the opposite team. But I do like him as an actor, so.

00:03:18
Speaker 1: You can separate the art from the artist and enjoy his movies. Yes, that was a really good movie. And I feel like you aren't necessarily drawn to the movies that induce anxiety.

00:03:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've talked about that before, and like especially war movies. I don't like the like intense, like anxiety inducing, but I like the story.

00:03:36
Speaker 1: And that's a tough one because it felt like at any point something was gonna go wrong.

00:03:40
Speaker 2: There was one point though, towards the beginning of the movie where something went wrong and I jumped and spilled my popcorn all myself, and I knew it was coming. It was a predictable like you could. The scene was building and I was like, this is coming, this is coming, this is coming. And then it happened, and I was a good.

00:03:53
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's great that a movie can do that. I'd excite you can catch you off guard. It's not a horror movie.

00:03:59
Speaker 2: I just don't want to be scared. I'm scared of a lot of things. I don't want to be scared in a movie. I go to a movie to turn my brain off. I just I'm a high anxiety.

00:04:06
Speaker 1: Person, as am I. Yeah, but you like.

00:04:09
Speaker 2: The things that are like not gonna happen and give you anxiety, like you like a movie, like a horror movie, because like, this isn't gonna happen. My anxiety brain is like, oh my god, what if this does happen? What was that when a stranger calls terrified me? Is that the one where it's like the calls coming from inside the house. Yeah, terrified, terrified?

00:04:26
Speaker 1: Okay, I tied. You get freaked out about those movies like The Strangers Home Invasion, Oh that a little bit. Okay, see your best is The Covenant. Yes, my best would easily be Air Oh so good. That was like the first great movie of the year, and it is coming out on Amazon Prime this Friday.

00:04:45
Speaker 2: I would have gone with that one too, but it was kind of both of our favorites.

00:04:48
Speaker 1: So I love that they believed in that movie so much they decided to put it out in theaters, and now it goes to streaming. I kind of feel like movies have two different lives right now. I think the best movies are still going to come out in theaters, but I kind of like those second wave that comes that all the people who didn't go watch it in theaters then start talking about it again, like this week when this one hits streaming services, and now I kind of feel it's like when you discover a band early, you're like, no, I was telling you about it when it was in theaters, and then everybody kind of it reignites it whenever it goes on to streaming. So I feel like really good movies now are going to have this double life of they get all the success from the box office, and then they get the people who rather watch a movie, And I think you determine how you want to do it, how you want to spend your money, how you want to spend your time. But I think the great movies will still go to movie theaters first, and then if they do well there, they'll do well on streaming.

00:05:38
Speaker 2: Okay, so a question there, like when somebody catches the second wave, do you get annoyed that they weren't in the first wave? Or are you just glad the movies being appreciated, Like in your example about bands, Like you're a diehard Phoebe Bridges fan, you are currently wearing your Yeah Bridger shirt. She's opening up for Taylor Swift, so I feel like a lot more people are discovering Phoebe. Are you annoyed that people that Phoebe was like slept on? Are you happy that she has a bit your fandom and she can get more success.

00:06:02
Speaker 1: I think there's a part of me that gets a little bit annoyed when when I recommend something and I believe so much in it, and I come on and do a review, I'm like, everybody needs to go see this movie. But I get it. Not everybody goes to theaters. It's expensive, but I'm like, I told you it's a good movie, and then you feel like you discovered. You're like, no, you have like this attachment when you're the first one to tell people about things. And I am feeling that with Pepe Ridges right now, because I was listening to her way back in like twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, when nobody really knew her, and now I feel like when people go see here in a stadium, I'm like, no, I saw her in a club. I feel that a little bit. But when it comes to movies, I'm just glad that things still come out and they can have some relevance, so I don't really care how they end up being seen. But I am just such a proponent of going to see a movie in theaters that I feel like I want more people to experience it that way. You know, as long as the movie's being watched and appreciated, I'm good with it, And as long as people go back and check out my initial review, then I'm even better with it. There we go, all right, So what is your worst for April?

00:07:02
Speaker 2: Worst in the sense that it wasn't my favorite Super Mario Brothers.

00:07:06
Speaker 1: Yeah, that one hurts me a little bit, but I never played. Yeah, that's still astonishing thing to me. Explain yourself on that. I just feel that everybody growing up, no matter what age group you are, at some point somebody plays Super Mario Brothers.

00:07:20
Speaker 2: I mean I was an only child for twelve years.

00:07:22
Speaker 1: Okay, I guess that makes me more And it was.

00:07:24
Speaker 2: Just my mom and I for six years or three depends on how you look at the timeline. But before my mom got remarried, it was just us for a while. So like my mom wasn't playing Super Mario Brothers, Like, oh no, we're watching Friends in r That's why I'm such a medical nerd.

00:07:42
Speaker 1: That makes more sense to me now because the way I was exposed to Nintendo. I have an older brother, yeah, seven years older than me, so he had the first ever Nintendo. We always got systems four or five years after they were relevant when you could get him at a garage sale, but he had one, so I remember I would always go dig it out of the closet and play Super Nintendo. So I just grew up with it always around me.

00:08:05
Speaker 2: I had one of those little I think about have been a game boy. It was like a tiny little flip screen like a dys Maybe yeah, but I had like a bunch of like Mary Kate Nashley games, and I broke it because I stuck the cartridge in the wrong way on accident. I wasn't paying attention.

00:08:19
Speaker 1: So I could see why you didn't enjoy that movie as much, because I really think that movie was made for the fans of the video game. I think that's why that movie has done so well now making a billion dollars in the box office, because it's been the best adaptation of taking what we experienced as game players and putting it on the big screen. So for you not having that experience, I could see why it lost. It just felt like you were watching a cartoon.

00:08:42
Speaker 2: I got really into which version was a PS two. I was really good at Frogger, and then the snowboarding game that like SSX. I remember that game well, that game I was. I mean my snowboarders always crashed. But see like that, those are the things I played.

00:08:55
Speaker 1: You're stealing now, like we got to get a Nintendo Switch, we got to get you played and some Super Mario Brothers. And then when the sequel comes out, well, you'll appreciate it more.

00:09:04
Speaker 2: You have a birthday next month, and it is the only thing on your wish list.

00:09:08
Speaker 1: So your adult thirty year old husband starting thirty two once a Nintendo Switch.

00:09:13
Speaker 2: I mean, we all have her things. Whatever makes you happy, whatever makes you happy. I honestly need you to have a hobby.

00:09:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have no hobby.

00:09:20
Speaker 2: I need you to have a hobby. And like I love that it's portable, like we can take it places and I can read a book and you can play a Nintendo Switch. Because right now you don't have hobbies.

00:09:28
Speaker 1: This is my hobby. Watching movies is still my hobby.

00:09:30
Speaker 2: Yes, but you've also need something that I don't know, other stimulating trying to get you to read. Yeah, we did just get you a Quentin Tarantino book.

00:09:37
Speaker 1: And I'm going to read it because it's about movies, cinema speculation.

00:09:41
Speaker 2: It's called It's a in the list of other books you have.

00:09:43
Speaker 1: I have a sack of books, which I'll get into later when I talk about Hunger games of my issue with not finishing books. But my worst for April would have to be Peter Pan and Wendy, which came out on Disney plus one of the most lifeless, boring Disneys at I've seen, and they did the exact same thing that happened with the Pinocchio movie.

00:10:04
Speaker 2: Was it live action?

00:10:05
Speaker 1: Is live action?

00:10:06
Speaker 2: A lifeless live action film? That's pretty bad.

00:10:08
Speaker 1: So it was essentially the original animated Peter Pan movie, just live action, almost seen for scene. And I just can't really believe that Disney is just rehashing all these movies again and again and not changing anything.

00:10:22
Speaker 2: Stop making everything live action.

00:10:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're gonna keep doing it forever and ever and ever and ever.

00:10:29
Speaker 2: Monster Sync, you're gonna make that live action finding Nemo.

00:10:33
Speaker 1: Oh well, I'm having issues with the Little Mermaid movie coming out because of Flounder and all the sea creatures looking weird.

00:10:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, what about aren't they doing le Lewin Stitch?

00:10:42
Speaker 1: Yeah? H that one. I'm yeah, I have issues with that too. That's my favorite Disney movie of all time, and I don't want them to ruin it for me.

00:10:50
Speaker 2: I'm just like, that's the great thing about an animation is its animation. We don't have to put real people into every single film.

00:10:58
Speaker 1: It made a little more sense.

00:10:59
Speaker 2: Was like the Princess movies, Like yeah, like being the beast, those kinds of things. But like when we're starting to get into like the mythical realms.

00:11:06
Speaker 1: Disney right now it feels to me like a rapper who was trying to stay relevant on their hit.

00:11:12
Speaker 2: From the nineties, Vanilla Ice.

00:11:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd be like Vanilla Ice, like Ice Ice Baby, I'm doing a redo, doing a part too.

00:11:17
Speaker 2: I mean he does play like events and stuff.

00:11:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what Disney feels like to me. They are the Vanilla Ice of movie studios.

00:11:25
Speaker 2: Don't come after us, Vanilla I. So I do love Ice Ice Baby. Yeah, it's a great song, all right.

00:11:29
Speaker 1: I had a bunch of other movies that I watched while you were gone.

00:11:32
Speaker 2: Yes I did. I was away for the weekend.

00:11:35
Speaker 1: I was gone.

00:11:36
Speaker 2: Makes it sound like I was gone for a while. I left you for three and a half days. Yeah, I went home to Texas for three and a half days.

00:11:41
Speaker 3: Well.

00:11:41
Speaker 1: I watched like four movies in that weekend. My runner up for the worst movie of April. I watched a movie called Fall, which is about these.

00:11:49
Speaker 2: Oh that one looked terrible.

00:11:50
Speaker 1: It's about these two girls who they're kind of adrenaline junkies and they go and climb this radio tower and they get stuck at the top, and the entire movie is them trying to get down from it. But it's one of these movies where it has a great concept and you could easily pitch that to somebody, like, Hey, you want to watch this movie about these Yes, that sounds amazing to me. But it had some of the worst special effects I've ever seen in a movie. And it's a decent plot, but the novelty of it wears off pretty quick, and it had some of the worst acting I'd ever seen in a movie.

00:12:17
Speaker 2: I think I would feel triggered by the heights as someone who unknowingly climbed a fourteen or in Colorado and then with no training, with no training and one bottle of water, and then had to crawl down. I think just looking like those big heights, I think the movie would scare me. I don't really have problems with heights. Yeah, a lot of problems heights. I can't do like three D stuff. I can't do virtual rides, m M. I get really bad at something with my bad eyesight, and like my equilibrium just gets thrown off and so I just start to feel really dizzy.

00:12:51
Speaker 1: That's how I knew you were the one whenever you came out to see me in Los Angeles. And my favorite show of all time is The Simpsons. We went to Universal Studios and we went on the three D Simpson's.

00:13:00
Speaker 2: Ride and I literally hit it every second of it. But you begged me.

00:13:03
Speaker 1: And you did it, and it was great. And now they may shut down that entire Simpsons land.

00:13:08
Speaker 2: Well, I'm so glad we got to see it.

00:13:09
Speaker 1: So we got to see it. My runner up for the Best of April was Dungeons and Dragons, which that was quietly a really good movie. I never even had a chance to review it because so much came out and a too long.

00:13:20
Speaker 2: The comedy was good because.

00:13:22
Speaker 1: I find us referencing it more and more like post the movie.

00:13:26
Speaker 2: There is one funny part that we reference.

00:13:28
Speaker 1: It's in the trailer. It's whenever they oh, it's in the trailer. Yeah, it's in the trailer. So whenever they go and try to get answers out of these dead bodies.

00:13:35
Speaker 2: They can ask them five questions and then they like die again. But on one of them, they only asked the guy for questions and then he's like, guys, guys, that was only.

00:13:45
Speaker 1: Four but I feel like the more I think about that movie, the more it sticks with me. And I think it was the comedy. I think I was expecting it to be, I guess a little bit more magical because it's dungeons and dragons. I thought there was gonna be more well dragons, It was really only like one main dragon.

00:14:01
Speaker 2: There's just a lot of dungeons.

00:14:03
Speaker 1: It was a lot of dungeons, so I just thought it was gonna have a little bit more of a big cinematic feeling. But as a comedy, it was pretty good. I did enjoy it, and it had a really good cast. So I feel like that movie was just jumbled in between all these other good movies in April that I kind of like forgot about it. Well, it came out at the end of March, actually, but we ended up watching it in April.

00:14:22
Speaker 2: I feel like the saw a lot of movie, so there were.

00:14:23
Speaker 1: So many movies and I was like, uh, oh, I'll find the time to record that review. Never got to it, so I was like, oh, here, we are doing this one. But I think that is a fun movie. And I think if I would have seen that movie as a kid, I would have loved it. Even more like that. I think is a movie that i'd been like it made a Dungeon and Dragons.

00:14:39
Speaker 2: Movie from two nerds, Like Dungeons and Dragons was just like another It's a different realm of nerdy.

00:14:44
Speaker 1: It is because I'm a nerd, and I'll admit it, I'm into nerdy things. But when I heard somebody was into Dungeon and Dragons, they'd be like they were into hardcore drugs, like that, dude's doing Dungeons and Dragons, D and d Billy's going the way of the That's how I always felt about it. So well, I thought the movie was going to have a little bit more to do with the game. So I don't know that people who are hardcore about the game would feel like it did them justice.

00:15:08
Speaker 2: But yeahs, people who have never played the game, we enjoyed the movie.

00:15:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen the game, never touched it.

00:15:13
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have a couple of friends who've played it. Although one of those friends is really into board games, the board game Junkie.

00:15:21
Speaker 1: The other movie I watched while you were Away, Well, okay again, three Days.

00:15:25
Speaker 2: You make it sound like I'm like a win off for a long time, like on a journey I watched three Days.

00:15:31
Speaker 1: I rewatched a movie because of a TikTok. This guy did this story about the movie called Idiocracy, who is directed and created by Mike Judge who did King of the Hill, and the TikTok was about the shoes they used in that movie, and the shoes they made them wear were Crocs. But at the time, Crocs was a really new company. I think they started in two thousand and two. The movie came out in two thousand and six, but they filmed it in two thousand and four, and to save money, they wanted these shoes that just looked futuristic but looks so dumb that nobody would actually wear them. So they found Crocs and they were like, what if these become popular and we haven't been our movie.

00:16:06
Speaker 2: The idea of Crocs looking futuristic futuristic is sending.

00:16:11
Speaker 1: Me yeah, So they were like, we just need something that looks dumb looking, because if you haven't seen Ideography, what it's about is he goes about a thousand years into the future and everybody's just gotten dumber. Everybody's just drinking mountain dew, and the IQ level has gone all the way down. So this guy goes a thousand years into the future, and he was just a regular dude in the two thousands, but now he's like the smartest man in the world. So they're all wearing these crocs that are supposed to be dumb looking shoes, but at the time the movie came out, crocs started to become popular, and now they're having a resurgence.

00:16:41
Speaker 2: That is funny.

00:16:42
Speaker 1: So seeing that TikTok made me want to go back and rewatch that movie, which reminded me that that movie probably couldn't be made today. And also, visual effects have grown so much in twenty years, because if you watch that movie, it almost looks like a school project with some of the special effects. But the fact that some of the things they predicted in that movie kind of came true is kind of funny. So if you've never seen it, you want to see something ridiculous and it's a good watch. And then also because we watched The Covenant and I really enjoyed that, I went back and watched another. Even though Jake Jillen hawesn't play a soldier in the movie, I watch Brothers with him and Toby Maguire.

00:17:20
Speaker 2: I'm a little annoyed that you watched that without me.

00:17:21
Speaker 1: You wouldn't want to watch it again, and that movie is pretty brutal, Like.

00:17:25
Speaker 2: But see, when I'm gone, you just watch all these movies. You're not like, hey, would you want to watch this? You just watch it without me. Yeah, it's kind of like when you watched Coda without me, which I still have not forgotten.

00:17:34
Speaker 1: And you still haven't seen no because you watched me.

00:17:37
Speaker 2: I woke up one morning and I saw it on your Insta story from the other room. I was like waking up scrolling and you were like Saturday Morning Cinema and I barge out of the bedroom and I'm like, you watch this without me?

00:17:49
Speaker 1: After that, I try to ask, but sometimes I feel there're movies that you just wouldn't be interested in, So I just.

00:17:54
Speaker 2: I would still like to be asked.

00:17:55
Speaker 1: So should I have asked you about Fall?

00:17:57
Speaker 2: Absolutely not.

00:17:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, see I think you'd be into that one, okay.

00:18:00
Speaker 2: But brothers, like, should have asked.

00:18:02
Speaker 1: The other movies I watched. I got into a kick of trying to watch movies from Texas because I just like seeing how they depict Texas and also if there are things that I recognize, Oh yeah.

00:18:14
Speaker 2: You watched that one with the Wilson Brothers.

00:18:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, Bottle Rocket, Yes, which is a Wes Anderson movie, his first movie primarily shot in North Texas, which is where I'm from. I didn't really recognize a whole lot of it, but because it's just dirt roads, just dirt roads, but they do go into a lot of like outskirt farm roads, and I'm like, that looks like it could be by my parents' house. I also got onto that put me onto a Wes Anderson kick. So I watched Grand Budapest Hotel. I think that's currently my favorite Wes Anderson movie, and I'm trying to rewatch all of his movies before Asteroid City comes out later this summer. And then I watched another movie from nineteen ninety six called Suburbia, who is by director Richard Linklater, who also directed School of Rock. He did Days Confused. He's from Houston.

00:18:55
Speaker 2: He did that one at Boyhood.

00:18:57
Speaker 1: Yeah, he did Boyhood.

00:18:58
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:18:58
Speaker 1: So he has a lot of movies that are based in Texas and this movie, Suburbia is primarily shot in South Austin, which is where I lived in Austin for seven years. And it was weird seeing all the things from all the places I went to and how they originally were in the nineties. So I feel like I like going back and watching movies that feel like a time capsule.

00:19:19
Speaker 2: I like anything that features Like right now, we're watching the last thing he told me on out. Yeah, and it does my campus and I miss it, and I love seeing ut and love seeing all the buildings that I know where they are, because I mean I went to school there and worked there for a total of seven years combined. So I mean that the campus was my life every day for seven years.

00:19:39
Speaker 1: And that brings us to our next point, which we usually wrap up this portion of the episode talking about the favorite TV show we do our honorable mentioned TV show. You were talking about that show. Is there another one that's been the best thing you watched in April?

00:19:52
Speaker 2: Absolutely? It's a Netflix docuseries called American Manhunt.

00:19:58
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Bostin Marathon Bomber. That was an intense documentary that was good. Very rarely do we get on something and want to watch every single episode in one sitting, and that was one where.

00:20:10
Speaker 2: We could have finished it.

00:20:11
Speaker 1: We could have finished it when I would have had time.

00:20:13
Speaker 2: There's three episodes through an hour each and it is like the real footage from that day.

00:20:19
Speaker 1: Which we've seen that week. I guess, yeah, it's all week. It's Yeah, there's a lot of things I did not remember about that.

00:20:25
Speaker 2: And especially seeing like the real like not the dramatized version of it. It was really crazy.

00:20:30
Speaker 1: Which that has inspired us to go back and watch the movie with Mark Wahlberg Patriots Day. Yes, so it's a really sad thing. It's also crazy that it's been ten years since that. Yeah, but it was really well done to the point to where I learned a lot of things I did.

00:20:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's yeah. We were talking about how it's weird to say that something like that is good, and I think with the docuseries like that, it's not so much that it's good, it's well done. We felt the same way about the nine to eleven docuseries on that came out in like twenty twenty one. It was eight episodes, incredibly well done, and I think there's something to be said for taking the time to put something like that together as opposed to like this is a pop culture example, but like there's already an Aaron Carter thing on Hulu and it's just those things that you can tell are like thrown together to get something out there, to put the story out. Yeah, but I think what Netflix did so well was like weaving in and out the stories and the interviews and the footage.

00:21:27
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:21:28
Speaker 1: I think when something comes ten years after or the other one that was twenty years after, it shows that some work was put into it.

00:21:34
Speaker 2: And I feel like it's when you respect an event, it doesn't desensitize people to it because it's done in a way that makes you reflect on it and it's not just like, Okay, we slap this together, watch it. So I thought it was really good. We both really liked it the whole time. We were just like, oh my gosh, h tough to watch. It's tough to watch, especially with the real footage. It hits a little harder than just seeing a dramatized version. But yeah, that would be my recommendation for me.

00:21:58
Speaker 1: My TV show for April was The Mandalorian. Even though this wasn't my favorite season, it was the show I stuck with throughout the entire month and made sure I watched it and it felt like an event to me. And there are very few shows now that I have to watch the day they come out or the following day, and that was one that I Every Wednesday I go to watch the Mandalorian and when it comes to Star Wars, I feel like that's the best Star Wars story, even more so than the movies that came out the last trilogy. I feel like this season was very much focused on just the Mandalorian people instead of so much on Grogu aka Baby Yoda, and I feel like that upsets some Star Wars fans because they're like, guy, we want more Baby Yoda, we want more Luke Skywalker references. But I like that this season stuck to that. I just felt like it got a little bit to feel like a Saturday morning TV show. I just felt like the first and second season had a little bit more action that felt I don't want to say more adult, but it felt like a little more serious. And then it just kind of became more of like, Ah, this is just our fun show. Now it's still good, so I still enjoyed it. I'm just not as excited for a season four. But that is it. That is our best and worst of the month. Anything else you want to say, Kelsey.

00:23:06
Speaker 2: Four, you go, I don't think I own anything else. Okay, as I sit here and snuggle, we have a weighted stitch.

00:23:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, he takes your seat when you're not here.

00:23:13
Speaker 2: It's very comfortable.

00:23:14
Speaker 1: All right, Well come back it do this one off the rails the spoiler free movie review for Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three After this, about to get into a spoiler free movie review of Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three. I've never had to prepare myself this much to keep it together during a movie review, but that is what I'm going to do today because this movie tugged on every single one of my heart strings. It hit me in the gut, it went places I did not think it was going to go. I was a little bit unwell after watching this movie, so again I will keep all my thoughts spoiler free, not even going to hit the trailer because I want to get right into this review. So what this movie is about. We have our heroes back, and we knew going into this movie it was going to be their final ride. The mission on this movie is pretty simple. The Guardians are trying to save their friend Rocket Raccoon from the High Evolutionary and I was really not expecting this movie to be a full on Rocket movie. The first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was very much Peter Quill and his relationship with his mother. The second movie was him and his relationship with his father, finding out that the guy he'd been seeking after really wasn't the guy who was expecting him to be. Instead, he had his real father figure Yondu with him the entire time. Part three is much a deep dive into our heroes, them getting to accept themselves and just trying to save their friend. The first two movies have the best opening sequences, not just in the MCU, but really in anything I've seen in the last fifteen years. They really just always set the tone of being a lot of fun. But the difference in Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three, it was a lot more subdued. You don't really get that at the beginning of this movie and instead hit you with some high stakes knowing that Adam Warlock the High Evolutionary are all here and they all mean business, and we find our friend ro At Raccoon in a bad spot from the very beginning of this movie. Another thing I've always loved about the Guardians of the Galaxy is we never had to go through all of their origin stories, much like in Star Wars, which there are a lot of parallels in the Guardians and Star Wars. They just kind of existed in this world. We all just accepted what they were going through where they had been, all of their characters that just went along for the ride. And that's what made those movies great. That's what set them apart. In the MCU and throughout the entire Infinity saga, they always felt a little bit isolated, and I liked it. They kept it that way. I think that was James Gunn's vision all along to make his own version of Star Wars inside the MCU, and this served as the best final chapter possible. This movie transcends the superhero genre. I always feel like, as a person who has trouble battling their own emotions and expressing them sometimes, I always trying to find movies that make me sad. I feel like that is something I try really hard to find, something that's going to make me a little bit weepy, make me kind of be in tune with my emotions, and I just haven't really found that yet. Now I have it. It is Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three, and I love how it maintained this somber tone throughout the entire movie, and you feel this throughout the entire movie a lot with Peter Quill as he is trying to save his best friend but also dealing with the fact that the Gomora he knows and fell in love with is no longer there, and at times their relationship in this movie is very awkward on that account of him just trying to face the reality that she is no longer there. But I love that this movie shifted away from Peter Quill's story and all the other Guardians to really focus in on Rocket, who now I feel has subtly become one of the best characters in the MCU. This movie served as his origin story, and it is almost that of a super villain. I still can't put my head around the fact that all these things that he went through and he still wanted to go on and do something good and become a member of the Guardian into the Galaxy. We never really got that in Volume one and Volume two. The funny thing about this movie is that even if you haven't seen one or two, you can dive right into this movie. They reset everything pretty quickly. I feel like all the Guardians of the Galaxy movies are pretty self contained because they are all kind of deep dives into one specific element of all of our characters, and I feel like this movie shows you the true meaning of that of them learning what it means to be a guardian of the galaxy, a protector of those who cannot protect themselves, and with them learning that. It takes you through every emotional level possible. And I've never felt so sad for a raccoon, for other little animals. So I would say, if you haven't seen this movie yet and you are an animal lover, it is probably going to hit you into some fields. There's one line specifically that I don't want to ruin because I wanted to give you the same weight that it gave me. When I saw it. It just hit me in the gut. And I'm still thinking about that line over and over again because it sparked an emotion in me that I was just surprised I was going to be this invested in a character I did not think was this complex. James Gunn proved me wrong, and as a director, he nailed everything down to the last minute detail, even back to the intro, how everything from the text was very orchestrated, the way the fonts lined up and all the characters walked out and the logo came up behind them. Everything was just beautifully done in this movie, from the cosmic color palette to how the soundtrack and the score blend together so well in between all the action where you have this fight sequence, it hits, and then this song perfectly hits to mix in that scene into the next scene. Watching this movie is the same thing as listening to the perfect song. How did somebody put all these elements that I know and love into one little piece of art that just hits on every single level possible? And this movie has ten times more creativity and imagination than anything in the MCU right now, everything down to the music which I've been talking about, but the makeup in this movie, the cost and design. They deserve an Oscar nomination right now for that. It looks magnificent, better than any sci fi movie that really comes to mind. And you're gonna say it doesn't look better than Star Wars. This movie looks better than Star Wars to me. I know we hold that original trilogy to such a high level, but when are we going to advance from that and say that there have been sci fi movies created that are better than Star Wars. I'm gonna say it. I enjoyed Guarding to the Galaxy of Valu one, two, and three more than the original Star Wars trilogy. I didn't grow up with them. I discover them later as an adult. So if that takes away all my credibility as a film reviewer and enthusiasts, so be it. But I have not felt the emotions that I felt in this movie in anything Star Wars related ever, So I know we hold that to some old standard like nothing can touch Star Wars. Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three is better than anything I've ever experienced when it comes to Star Wars, I can know and appreciate those for what they did. And of course this wouldn't exist if Star Wars was never created. A lot of the elements in this movie are otes to Star Wars. Even the whole creation of the Guardians of the Galaxy in the MCU is a node to Star Wars. So I understand that. But what James Gunn has done with these characters and their evolution and making you care so much about not only the main characters but the side characters, even characters that seem like background insignificant characters. In this you care about everything in this movie. The villains may not be as iconic as other Star Wars villains, and it may not create as big of a world that can expand like Star Wars, but this movie is just so much more satisfying to me, and I'm gonna remember this one more than anything Wars, and yeah, you may call me a Marvel stand And part of it was that it felt like the last little thread to the Infinity saga with some of the references to Thanos. It kind of felt, yes, like that last little piece of my young adult life having its final chapter here. So if I'm ranking it as one of the best sci fi trilogies of all time, without a doubt, it is the best trilogy in the MCU. Nothing comes close, not Captain America, not Iron Man. There are four Thorp movies, so that kicks that one out. There are four Avengers movies, so that kicks that one out of the conversation. There are three in the Spider Man trilogy right now with Tom Holland, but I am expecting that fourth one. So this is what I feel is the only true trilogy in the MCU. All the other ones had these other little building blocks that were building towards the Avengers movies and having all these other stories interconnected. But if you just sat down and watched these movies, it would feel like one big, cohesive story that moves from one to the next seamlessly. There are so many more things I want to share with you about this movie, but I want to keep this spoiler free for those who haven't had the chance to see it yet. So there will be a spoiler review up on the feed, which is something I do whenever such a big movie comes out. And there are all these details I want to dive into, but I don't want to ruin it for you, So a spoiler edition of The Guardian's review will be coming soon and we'll get into more. But there is nothing bad I can say about this movie. It made me feel, It made me laugh, it made me excited, it made me cheer. And this movie takes you so very very low. It gets dark, it gets sad, it gets to a point where you think, man, I thought Marvel movies are supposed to be a fun time. There were no rules in this movie. It was James Gunn going all out giving us his all, saying this is it for me in the MCU, I'm going over to DC and working on Superman now. But in doing that, he gave us one of the best movies in MCU of all time. And I think it is James Gunn's best work, and a lot of it comes down to his attention to detail. I think people will take a lot of enjoyment in the music he picks and how selective he is and how he goes after songs that are really hard to get to put him in this movie. I think my favorite use was probably No Sleep Till Brooklyn by The Beastie Boys. This just proves why he is the best at what he does and also proves why Chris Pratt was really the best choice here as star Lord. And I know he gets a lot of crap too for being in everything, for not being that great of an actor. He gave a performance of his lifetime. Zoe's Aldonna as Gomorra not only shows you the range of her as an actor, but also how she can evolve one character and give them all these different looks. What more can I say about Dave Batista that I haven't said already and how I'm becoming a big stand of his. And I would say, I feel like Bradley Cooper as Rocket Raccoon doesn't really get that much credit for what he does with this role. But I was specifically just listening to the range of different emotions we heard from Rocket Raccoon in this movie. And I know we don't give out oscars and awards for voice work, but we need to do that. Bradley Cooper deserves some kind of award for what he has done with Rocket Raccoon, and I understand if they did create an OSCAR for voice acting, the MC would already be out of the conversation because they'd never get nominated for anything cool. It put me on the verge of tears. I was very close to crying. I didn't quite get there because I think at the moment it got the most emotional. I was also aware of my surroundings, so I was like, ah, I'm probably not gonna cry right now, but I was really close. If my heart wasn't made a stone, I easily would have cried in this movie. So for Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three, I rarely give out this rating, usually only once maybe twice a year. My highest rated movie of the year so far, Guardians of the Galaxy Volume three, five out of five zoons.

00:34:55
Speaker 3: It's time to head down to movie Mike Treylar Paul, you have.

00:35:00
Speaker 1: To go back back to Panem. Taking a look today at the new trailer for The Hunger Games The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes. It is a prequel to The Hunger Games based on the book that came out in twenty twenty. And I have to say, before I saw this trailer, I really wasn't that excited about this movie. Now, the Hunger Games the book series was one of my favorites. I think it was the one I had the most investment in prior to seeing the movies. Now, I grew up with the Harry Potter movies with the Harry Potter books, but at the time as a kid, I really wasn't that interested in reading. So these books came to me when I was in college, and I probably wasn't even the key demographic for these books or these movies, but I found myself so heavily invested in the story of Catnus in those books that it is probably the quickest I've ever read a book. Series. So I was so hype when those movies came out, and I still feel like those movies didn't live up to THEO And I guess that's how a lot of people feel about whenever they see movies based on books. But the reason I feel that with Hunger Games, a lot of it is the internal monologue in her head that really fleshes her out as a character and really fleshes out the entire struggle with the Capitol and everything going on in the world, and you don't really get that in those initial movies. You get a lot of the love triangle between her, Gail and Peta, and that is kind of what those movies focused on. And at the times maybe it was a little bit based on the fad of the dystopian young adult novel book adaptation, which we saw have great success with Harry Potter, which I feel that Harry Potter, even though not really in that same category, led the charge on that in the two thousands, But then you had Twilight and you had all these other books kind of do the same with the Divergence series. But I felt like in all that, Hunger Games really was able to set itself a part and I'm kind of surprised that Hunger Games doesn't have as a passionate base is all those other books, as Harry Potter, as Twilight, and I feel like it's because they didn't get those first movies down completely. I wasn't the biggest fan of the visual effects, and that was even back watching those movies originally in theaters, but now most recently I went back and watched all the movies and looking at some of those special effects, I was just thinking, how did they let this make the final movie. So after getting a glimpse of this trailer, I feel like that has greatly improved. And the look of this movie makes me a lot more excited about it. And I also feel like it's gonna be a little bit more of a grittier story. And I'll admit, since I really wasn't excited about this movie being made, I have not read the book yet, so this is the first for me of not reading a Hunger Games book before watching the movie. So you may crush me for that, but I want to be upfront with you, so before I get into more about this Hunger Games trailer, here's just a little bit of the Ballad of Songbirds and snakes.

00:37:56
Speaker 2: I have someone to you all here for the Tentthaniel Reaping ceremony, in which we choose two children from each district to fight to the death in the Hunger Games.

00:38:04
Speaker 1: From District twelve, Lucy gray Bear, there has been a change this year.

00:38:11
Speaker 2: As a mentor, mister Snow, youral is to turn these children into spectacles, not surprivors.

00:38:19
Speaker 1: What does my mentor do besides bring me roses? I do my best to take care of you. You really want to take care of me in that arena? Start by thinking I can actually win. So what this movie is about. It takes place sixty four years before Catnus Everdeen ever volunteered as tribute, and it essentially serves as the villain origin story for who would later become President Snow. But this is long before he ever becomes President of pan M, So this movie will follow the story of a young Snow and a tribute that he mentors named Lucy gray Baird, played by Rachel Zegler, who you may recognize from Shazam Fury of the Gods. She was actually really good in that. The cast also includes Peter Dinklic, who you heard in that trailer as the creator of the Hunger Games Hunter Schaeffer, who you may know as Jewels from Euphoria. I think she looks incredible in this trailer. You also have Jason Schwartzman, which I felt was an interesting casting, and Viola Davis, who I feel can do no wrong. So a pretty solid casting here. And I always just have a bit of a problem with prequels. They always feel like a little bit of a cash grab to me. And I know that this movie is based on the book, so they have source material to work with, but I'm just not the biggest fan of it jumping in ten years after the Hunger Games have already been going on. I honestly think a more interesting story would be the first ever Hunger Games. But I guess you're trying to flesh out the character of President Snow and his backstory, so it makes more sense to make it now as he is mentoring someone else, much like Catnus was mentored in the original Hunger Games. I gotta admit they're going to have to prove me wrong here, but I don't really feel that invested in knowing more about President Snow. It's like, do we really need this? Is this really necessary? Is me learning about his backstory going to have any effect on how I feel about the original movies. So before I saw this trailer, I thought maybe that story in this movie wouldn't be entirely necessary. But now as I see this trailer, I do feel like this movie will have a little bit more of an edge to it that I felt like the original movies kind of lacked because the Hunger Games was all about the war going on. It was all about how the people were being done wrong by the Capitol. There was always a lot of tension, and I never really feel like that translated as much as it needed to in the original Hunger Games movies. So I feel like if this movie, which it kind of looks like it will dig into a little bit more deeper and makes the games more intense and brutal and violent and make them out to be a real travesty, this movie could pack a little bit more of a punch. I also love that the visual effects look a lot better in this movie. That design looks great. You have all the same great looking costumes a little bit less over the top and jarring in this trailer, So maybe that will have a better effect on the overall tone in this movie, and I am glad that they are making this a movie and not going the way of some of the other book franchises and making TV shows and series. There is a Harry Potter series in development at Max which will be based on the original books. I feel like that is going to diminish the value of those original movies. They really shouldn't touch it. They really shouldn't remake anything. And then you also have them making a Twilight series which isn't attached to any network or streaming service yet. But I feel like when you do that, you get away from the source material and instead you're kind of just using the name and that fandom to your advantage to crank out a series when it should probably just be a movie. And that's also due to the fact that there are just so many TV shows out right now and so many things that you can invest your time in. I just want to see the movie. I just want to see the best parts. That is always why I'm just the biggest fan of movie over TV. If you haven't been able to tell, I'm very much a person who likes completion. I like going into something knowing there's gonna be a beginning, middle, and end. And that is it. I don't want to invest any more of my time on something that, if it's a book adaptation, could be pretty mediocre. So glad they're making this a movie and not a series. So essentially, this movie will serve as the backstory of President snow and show us how he turned out to be as messed up as he did when we get to know him in the original movies. But I kind of would have rather seen somebody else who won the Hunger Games, like hey, Mitch, maybe they make more movies later down the line of showing all of the victors and their stories, you could really go on forever, and this could be the start of a revival for the series. It seems to still be teenage focused, just looking at all the casts, looking at the fact that it is an eighteen year old snow Here mentoring Lucy, who is also a female tribute from District twelve, much like the original movie, So a lot of parallels in this one. So I was honest expecting this movie to feel like another cash grab, but this trailer has me convinced otherwise. I think there's some real cinematic value here. So this movie is coming out later this year. In theaters on November seventeenth. I could see it crushing going into the Thanksgiving holiday, and it looks like if I wanted to, I would have enough time to read the book. But my wife has a copy of it and it is a thick book. And my problem recently is I've started about three books and not been able to finish them, and I would say probably two years. So I don't see that changing right now. Sorry, but I'm just going to watch the movie. And that was this week's edition of Movie by Framer Bar and that's going to do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, I got to give my listeners shout out of the week, which is something I've been doing since the very beginning of this podcast. All you have to do is tag me in your Instagram story, dm me or email me Moviemike d at gmail dot com. And this week's shout out is to Amanda Pritchett, who tagged me in her Instagram story. It was a greenshot of her listening to the episode about ten things in film that twist my nipples, and she wrote, this episode was the most relatable thing. Loved it worth the listen and not only that, but also linked up the podcast. So this is my thanks to you for sharing the podcast with all your followers. You are this week's listener of the week. Thank you for being a part of the movie crew. Also will give a bonus shout out to Warner Brothers who just sent me the five film Superman collection, so it has all five original Superman movies from nineteen seventy eight to nineteen eighty seven. The weird thing is, I was just thinking about how I wanted to rewatch all the Superman movies. With all the talk about James Gunn working on the next one, it made me realize that I hadn't seen the original movies in a very long time, probably since I was a kid. And then, shortly after thinking that, what shows up in my mailbox this five film collection with all the four K movies. So I'm excited to dive into those movies. This collection is actually coming out on May ninth, So if you are like me and still enjoy colecting and owning physical media, that is something you can pick up. There are just very few franchises that I feel connected to to the point to where I feel like I need to own them. I need to own something physical, to feel like it is real, and you also just get better quality when you watch it on Ultra HD or Blu ray. And I am a stickler for quality. As much as I love the visual aspect of movies, I love when movies go back and get remastered and you're able to see them in an entirely different way. So I've always just been very particular on the quality of movies I watch at home. So thank you for listening. I will talk to you again next week, and until then, go out and watch good movies, and I will talk to you later