The Greatest Musical Scenes in Movies + Top 5 Highest Grossing Movie Franchises of All-Time + Little Women Movie Review

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to movie Mike's Movie Podcast. I am a movie Mike on Twitter and Instagram at Mike Destro that's Mike d E E. S t r oh. And today I am talking about the greatest musical scenes in movies, according to me, because of what happened to me is I heard a song on the radio the other day and immediately I didn't think of the artist. I didn't think of the actual song. I thought of the movie I associated with. So what I did is I went through a lot of my favorite movies and picked songs that I thought were just used so well in the movie that I identify them with the movie more so than the actual song. So I'll get into that. I also have the top five highest grossing movie franchises of all time because I am currently rewatching all of the Star Wars movies and I just kind of realized just how well done those movies were for being released back in like the seventies and eighties, and how they just crushed it at the box office. So I just wanted to see overall where they ranked on the top five movie franchises of all time. I also tell you what my favorites are and I will get into my review of Little Women, which was the last on my list of Best Picture nominees to see and probably the one I waited the longest to see just because I didn't think I would like it that much, so I would give my thoughts on that. Again. Just thanks for hitting planned a podcast. Um, thanks for tagging me in your Instagram stories. But if you don't mind, after you listen to this episode, if you're listening on Apple podcasts, just go through scrolls to the bottom and leave a five star review, right a little something, because that helps so much for me to get bumped up there so other people can just when they're scrolling through looking at podcasts there like hey, hey, what's this podcast? I'll check this out. So if you leave a review, hit those five stars, it just helps other people come on board and be a part of the podcast. So let's get into this week's episode without further ado. Let's get started. 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 on it MTV, which rise from the Nashville Podcast Network Movie Movie Podcast. So today I wanted to share with you guys, but I think are the greatest musical scenes in movies ever. So this is all of my own personal taste. There's no statistics in this really because the other day I was driving and I heard this song come on the radio, and I'll get to it later in my list, but immediately I associated with a movie rather than the actual band, and I just thought this scene was just so iconic in this movie. And I found it interesting that this song wasn't written for the movie. It was just a song they picked for this scene. So what I did was I compiled this entire list of just songs that were used in movies not written for the movie, because there is a difference because their songs like um Lose Yourself is by Eminem, So that song was written by Eminem for the movie eight Mile, or Selene Dion my lot, my heart will go on, excuse me, that song was written specifically for Titanic, or even something like I've Had the Time of my Life, which was in Dirty Dancing, And they came to those songwriters and was like, we had this movie called Dirty Dancing, we want you to write a song for it could potentially change your life. They wrote that song, made a demo for it. It got put into like a stack of demos that they were going through picking songs for the movie, and they filmed that entire movie out of sequence. So actually the final scene in that which where this song is playing, it was the first thing they ended up filming didn't have the song at the time, and then they used that demo and we're like, it was the last thing that they found in a stack of just all these tapes, and they were like, that's perfect. But that song was written with the attention of it being in a movie called Dirty Dancing. So what I took was songs famously used in movie bes and big scenes that we weren't written for it. They just happened to be placed into the movie and later gained popularity because of the movie. So the song I heard on the radio was the Pixies. Where is My Mind? Here's a little bit of the Pixies. So I hear this song come on and immediately I think of the movie Fight Globe. So this is the song and here it is used in the movie Fight Club. Trust Me, Everything's gonna be fun. You met me had a very strange time in my life. We didn't see such a great scene. If you haven't seen Fight Club, I mean, it's a cult classic. You got Edward Norton, Brad Pitt, and this scene is just I think one of the best scenes ever paired with the song. And it was written on and released on the band's first album, and it was never released as a single, but after it was used in this scene in the movie, it kind of helped the Pixies be introduced to a whole new audience because they're like kind of like me. When I heard the song, I was like, who is that band? And then I started listening to the Pixies after that. You just look at one frame of this scene, um with the scene of Edward Norton and Helen Bombham Carter like holding hands where the entire world is just collapsing in front of him, and I could just see that picture and immediately associate that song with this movie. So that's why I throw it in here. We didn't another one. I was thinking of one of my favorite Martin scores aging movies as Good Fellas, which he had The Irishman last year. It's up for some of words, but I think Good Fellows is just his masterpiece. But there's a scene in the movie where they just pull off this huge heist and then there's like this falling aftermath action and this song plays. Jimmy was cutting every link between himself and the robbery, but it had nothing to do with me. So Martin Scorsese he actually planned out this entire sequence, like with this song specifically in mind, but it wasn't written for the movie, and he even like synchronized like every single part of this scene to the song. The weird thing about this song though, is also the part we know is this piano part. Like it's actually a much more rocking song. So it's written by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon and it was released by Derek and the Domino. So what the song sounds like from the beginning is this. So it's a pretty straightforward rock song and then it kind of gets into this piano breakdown. Martin Scores says, you to hear this song and to know, like, I want that breakdown piano part to be in the movie. So here's where it breaks down in the song, and there it is the part we know, and Goodfellas just right there, like maybe four minutes to the song, because it's like a seven minute song. I just thought that's interesting in a really great use of music in a movie. And that scene is pretty iconic just because it's the really the fall and the aftermath in that movie from When All the Times Are Good. Um, if you don't know, good Fellow's about based on a true story about Henry Hill and his involvement with organized crime, and at the point where this song plays is where everything starts going wrong. So pretty cool to know how that song sync up with that movie and how they took just the middle of that song and made it so iconic. Next up on my list is a song that the only reason I know this song is because of this movie. Probably I would say one of the saddest scenes ever in a movie. Now I am Mexican American, and maybe it's because the character and this is also a Mexican American that I kind of identify more with this movie than anybody else. But I would have to encourage you if you haven't seen this movie. It is on Netflix now. And every time I hear this song, I get sad, even if it's out of context from this movie. But it's a scene that still gets me. While I was even loading the clip for this podcast, I generally got sad again. Um, the song gets called Sleepwalk and it's by Santo and Johnny. It's an instrumental and here it is. But the movie is La Bamba, which is about the life of Richie Valence. It gets me right there, but here it is used in the movie. I'm gonna try to not cry while this clip is playing. No not rich, never stop Rich. I am weeping in the studio right now. But this song was written by Santo and Johnny as an instrumental, and they had like lyrics for this song, but they decided just not to use them because that, I mean, just that still guitar in that is really what kind of just it's so sad, and the acoustic guitars in this it gets you. But that song, crazily enough, an instrumental went to number one on the Billboard Top forty back in August of nineteen fifty nine. I've never really heard of an instrumental going number one. But of course, the most heartbreaking part in this entire sequence is when his brother Bob breaks down and screamed the name of his brother and that is a lot of bombay ladies and gentlemen. Again one of my favorite movies and just overall, I think one of the saddest scenes ever in a movie. R I p ritchie Vallens. Alright, So next up on my list is a little movie called Wayne's World. You know the song but he Me and rap City from Queen This real is this just fatside escape from reality? And here it is used in the movie. I think we'll go with a little Bohemian rhapsody gentlemen, good call, I see a little silhouette of a man, So there it is. The song originally came out in nineteen seventy five, and it gained popularity again with this movie in because once it hit theaters like the song re entered the Billboard Hot one hundred and it ended up peeking at number two, just behind Jumped by Criss Cross. But it did it again in when the movie Boheman Raptidi came out. So it's one of the only songs that is peaked in three different decades and the seventies, the nineties, and again in the tense. Crazy thing Also about the scene in the movie is that if you watch close enough. Dana Carvey, who plays Garth, he doesn't know the lyrics to this song, so whenever they kind of moved to him in some like parts, he's just kind of moving his lips and like banging his head along because he didn't learn the lyrics before they filmed the scene. So again, the opening scene in the movie took a total of ten hours, mainly because he didn't know the lyrics. And then by the end of it, all the actors complained that they had nick pain because their head banging throughout the entire scene. So um, they had to do so many takes just to get that right. But I kind of went back and watched it and I do pick up on it. I also noticed a lot that they kind of just showed the car driving, so I wonder if a lot of it was just done in editing because they couldn't really get the lyrics to sink up very well. And I have one more on my list, and what I think is just a very underrated movie starring Ryan Gosling. It's called Drive, where he plays like a getaway driver who gets into like a really bad situation. Um, he gets this girlfriend who has a kid, and I think one of the most underrated movies of like the last ten years or so. It came out inn and there's a scene in the movie where all he does is takes his girlfriend and their kid for a drive. So here it is used in the movie I want to see something. Yeah, okay, but it's just such a like calming, peaceful scene and what Otherwise it's kind of a crazy, chaotic, kind of ominous movie. Um and just this scene kind of ties it together and creates a really special moment. So the song is by College featuring a electric youth, and here it is from the start of the hook. So what they're saying in the chorus here is a real human being and a real hero. And it's because this song was actually inspired by Captain Sully and him landing that plane on the Hudson. And there are other lyrics in the song that kind of revealed that I didn't know that about this song until I was doing some research on it. But there's another part where the lyrics are a pilot, a pilot on a cold morning, fifty five people on board. Would you just straight up about that incident? So what it was is he had a conversation with his grandfather and who was telling him about Captain Sully and how he thought he was just the hero, and there's the line. So yeah, he just had a conversation with his grandfather who was just so kind of in awe of the heroic thing that Captain Sully did. And then he took that and made that song about it. So the song wasn't written for the movie Drive. It was put out maybe two years before the movie came out. Ryan Gosling and one of the editors on the movie approached the Drive director with this song and like, hey, we should feature this song into the movie. So they eventually used it in that sequence and what they ended up doing in that movie was like a really scent heavy, kind of eighties feel on all the music in it. So again, a really cool movie, a really great musical moment that I thought and still think about all the time just how perfectly that fit in that scene. Also just the movie I kind of recommend you go and watch if you're a fan of Ryan Gosling. I think one of his wrongest movies. There's also a recent musical moment that I was going to include in this list, and it was one that actually kind of got some backlash on So you might know the song called rock and Roll apart two. It's by Gary Glitter, who is actually a pretty awful human being. He's currently serving sixteen years in prison for abusing three girls. And the movie that used it was Joker in the scene where he's like dancing down the stairs, one of the most iconic scenes in film history, I would say recently, and they kind of got some backlash just because of how bad a guy, this Gary Glitter guy is and using his song in a really big movie was just seen as a little untasteful, which I agree. You could probably pick a different song for this movie just given the context of it. But what I do like about it is that it's at a point in the movie. Again I'm not gonna spoil anything, but it's kind of when he comes the Joker, and I think the contrast of how dramatic that scene is to where how kind of uplifting this song is. It is a tactic I really like to see us in movies where it's just really sad in a down in the dumps kind of part of the movie, but you put an uplifting song under it, and it just creates like this whole iconic scene of like, oh man, this is really a disturbed guy to where he just committed a really awful crime, but in his head he hears a cheerful song like this and feels like dancing. So again, I think they probably could have picked a different song, but I do like just the contrast and the moment it created in the movie. Um, it's a movie. It's a song now that I kind of associate with that movie because of that recent controversy. But again, they probably could have picked a different song because Gary Glitter not a good dude. He's saying prison for a re a long time. Alright. So that is what I think are the greatest musical scenes in movies. If you want to hit me with your own what you think it's the best use of a song and one of your favorite movies, just send me a tweet or send me an Instagram message at Mike Distro. Alright, So now I want to get into the list of the top five highest grossing movie franchises of all time. I thought about this because right now I am rewatching all of the Star Wars movies. I just got through Return of the Jedi. It just kind of occurred to me how big of an impact those movies had at that time, and how they just dominated the box office unlike anything before and until recently, we're like the highest grossing movies until another franchise came along, which I'll get into. I wanted to kind of take a look at what ranks up there with those movies. So at number five it is Batman, with a total number of eleven movies and a gross in the United States of three point five billion dollars as about three and twenty million dollars per movie. The biggest movie in this franchise was The Dark Night. So this includes all of the Batman movies, the original ones, the Dark Knight series, and even like the spinoffs now with like Suicide Squad and all that kind of stuff. It's kind of interesting to see the evolution of Batman because he started out really comic book heavy. Those movies were just a little more cartoony, aside from the very first one with Jack Nicholson as a joker, like there was the use of guns in that movie, a little more violent, but in like the nineties, they were just more comic book style and even like a little more goofy with like Jim Carey as the Riddler. But it wasn't until like Christopher Nolan came around and started directing the you know, The Dark Knight series that really just changed the game, not only for Batman, but for comic book movies as a whole, because they were really just taken more seriously. So it's just kind of cool to see how they really legitimized the comic book movie, where some movies you don't even see them as the comic book movie, like The Dark Knight. That's just a great movie all around. And I'm interested to see how Robert Pattinson kind of takes on playing Batman. Hopefully they get that right. At number four, you got Harry Potter with a total gross in the United States if three point five nine billion total number of eleven movies, which is about three twenty six point five million per movie, and the biggest movie in that was the first one, Harry Potter. And The Sorcerer's Stone comes from the book series, which the book on its own was just a global phenomenon. Who J. K. Rowling was at one point nearly homeless, like living in her car, and became the highest paid author in the world. And these movies really reison resonated with me because I was a kid when these movies were coming out, and I kind of grew up with the characters and the whole like Wizarding World of Harry Potter is just like a really big escape for kids and almost nostalgic now. And I'm kind of curious to see how they kind of continue this franchise on because aside from the other franchise in this list, they're not making new Harry Potter movies. They're doing like some prequels with like The Fantastic Beasts, which also are included in this total. But I'm curious to when the discussion begins of a rebooting the original Harry Potter movies because the first one came out in two thousand one, and now we're in nineteen years after that, and right now you have just movies being made all the freaking time, and I just think it's a matter of time before they kind of like maybe approached Dake careality of like, hey, what do you think about rebooting this series? Which I don't really know what a reboot of this would look like, but it just seems like there's so much money kind of being lost here or untapped to where I just think they're going to have to do something eventually, a retelling of the stories, or maybe just a prequel with Harry Potter based on the books. I would like to see that a number three. You got the James Bond franchise with the total growth of five point eight nine billion dollars in the United States, a total number of twenty five movies, which is an average of two and thirty five point six million per movie, the biggest movie in the franchise being Thunderball. And for me, the James Bond movies is really a franchise that I just don't really get. They're not really for me. Um, I just o seeymore James Bond now with the video game Golden I, which was on Nintendo sixty four, which was where I spent most of my time with anything with James Bond. But even like the new ones, UM, No Time to Die comes out on April ten, which will be Daniel Craig's last time playing James Bond, and there's plans to do more after him. Overall, I just think it's not that great of a franchise, mainly because so many of these came out in like the sixties and seventies, so a little before my time, and I didn't really find the reboots with Daniel Craig to be that great to me. So with everything in the top five, I think this is one that's not really worth investing a lot of time in, especially with twenty five movies in this And then at number two you get The Star Wars making six point eight seven billion dollars in the United States with a total number of eleven movies, which comes out to about six hundred and twenty four point seven million dollars per movie, the biggest movie being The First School in Star Wars and New Hope Now the original one was released in nineteen seventies seven, and I rewatching all these right now, which really holds up not only story wise but visually, like the special effects and it don't look like they are from the seventies. I like that they really used real props, they made real puppets for the movie, and it doesn't feel like I'm watching a movie from the seventies, even the acting and the characters in it. I feel like you can kind of put that out maybe ten years ago and you wouldn't really notice the difference. So I just finished Return of the Jedi, where they kind of get a little more ambitious with the c g I and kind of go away a little bit more from using puppets. So the next Star Wars movie won't come out until two and that's about all that we know about it. I'm am curious to where they take the franchise from here on out and if they will ever come close to being in that top slot again. Because at number one, the highest grossing movie franchise is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, with a total gross of eight point eight billion dollars in the United States, a total number of twenty three movies, which is an average growth of three and eighty five point nine million dollars per movie, the biggest movie being Avengers End Game. So there's a bit of a distinction you need to make here. So the Marvel Cinematic Universe is all the Avengers movies, Iron Man thor so. Anybody you see in an Avengers movie is who's falls under the umbrella of the m c U. But there are actually other Marvel franchises that make the top ten list, because at number seven you have X Men, and at number six you have Spider Man, which are franchises within themselves because what Marvel did initially is they license out their comic book characters to other movie studios. So they sold the rights of X Men to Fox, and they initially sold the rights to Spider Man to Sony. So all of the X Men movies and stuff like Fantastic Four, those movies all fall with under their their Marvel comics, but the rights are sold to Fox. So that's why you would never see Wolverine in the Avengers, and while a lot of the battle right now going on with Spider Man because Sony still owns Spider Man and they licensed him to the m c U a k a. Disney once Disney bought them to use him in the Marvel movies. But why also, White Spider Man probably won't stay with the Marvel forever because it's pretty expensive to keep him around. But there it is. Those are the top five highest grossing movie franchises of all time. If I had to pick a favorite, it would easily be the Marvel Cinematic Universe, just because there's twenty three movies to pick from, and I'm a big Marvel fan. I've seen every single one start to finish. But if I had to go number two. Now, I don't consider myself a Star Wars fan, but kind of going back and watching these movies, it's kind of reigniting my love for Star Wars. And I think I would still be unfair for me to call myself a true diehard Star Wars fan, But seeing these original movies again, it kind of gives you that feeling of like, oh man, this is so brand new, this is cool. They were so innovative at this time. I would easily rank that as my top two franchise, and then what I would probably put as number three would be the Harry Potter movies. But anyway, yeah, those are the top five highest gross movie franchises of all time. All Right, I want to get into my movie review now of Little Women, which is up for six Oscars, and it was the last movie on my list of Best Picture nominees to see, and I just put it off for a while just because I didn't know that the movie would be for me. Um. So I'll get into that here in a second. But it's directed by Greta Gerwig based on the novel Little Women. Um. She also did Ladybirds, so you'll see searcher Ronan, who's also in this movie, was in Ladybird if you've seen that. But here is a clip of Little Women. I'm holy and I'm awkward, and and you'd be ashamed of and we would quarrel because we can't help it. Even now, I'd hate elegant society. You'd hate my scribbling, and we would be unhappy and we wish we hadn't done it, and everything will be horrid. So right away, going into this movie, I knew that the cast was pretty stacked. You got Searcher Ronan, Timothy Shalomi who plays the neighbor in this Emma Watson from the Harry Potter movies, and a bunch of other stuff. Laura Dern plays the mom, Meryl Street plays the ont and you got Bob oden Kirk. Just a bunch of people in this movie was really just strong acting talent, and I thought the story was great. Started a little bit slow. So basically what it does is it follows the life of this poor family during the Civil War, so it kind of goes through all four of the sisters who get their own plot line throughout the movie, and it overall just felt really real and authentic. The thing about it, though, is it feels kind of like a play, which this movie was. You know, it's been done in play for him before, and I don't think that it's overly dramatic, but it's very theatrical, and I think that for me kind of takes a little bit away from it because when I see like just theatrical acting, it's harder for me to connect with the characters because I kind of am aware that they're acting. And it's also just a little bit confusing because throughout the movie it shifts chronologically. It goes from present day to kind of back into their lives, so it'll happen whatever is happening now in their lives, it will go to a scene and maybe like a few years ago, which was a little confusing for me because it's kind of hard to distinguish um aside from like, oh they look slightly different or maybe they kind of changed the tone or the feel of the look at the movie, so it's a little bit hard to pick up on while you're watching. So maybe about halfway through I felt this movie really just started to shine through where the story just kind of grabbed me because it's about like the struggles of women during that time and their ability to live their lives kind of without a man, and how it was so hard for them just to struggle to find a career to where they could support themselves and without worrying about having to marry somebody who's going to make enough money to be able to live a comfortable lifestyle at that time. And the main character, Searchernin, is kind of just battling this idea of being kind of lonely because she doesn't want to, you know, just do what everybody says and be only fit for a marriage and love, and she didn't want her worth to be measured by who she finds as a husband. And I felt overall this movie was just a little bit sad too unexpectedly, there was a lot of sobs in the theater. There is some humor in it, but again, like I said, the acting is just so theatrical that I didn't find it really funny. I didn't laugh throughout this movie. Other people were laughing, and it just wasn't my kind of sense of humor. Um. I thought it was shot beautifully, the cinematography and this is great. It's just overall a very artsy movie, maybe too arty for me, maybe my taste just isn't refined enough to really enjoy this movie. It's very dramatic, which I liked. It's just the talking sometimes the accents kind of takes me away from connecting with the characters. So it's not that it's a it's not a bad movie. It's a really great story. It's really well done. I just think specifically for me, I like the story that we're connected with with women and the struggles of just everyday people in that time period. How they also kind of reflect the times of now. I really like that part an element of this movie. I think just the overall artsiness of it made me kind of loose that a little bit on this movie. So I give it three point five out of five course sets, and I will stick to my idea that I don't think it will win for Best Picture, although it's nominated. I think Greta Gerwig is a great director and she should have been nominated for Best Director this year because I really loved all the characters in this here. Sharonin was great, Timothy Shallow may what a dreamy guy, and Emma Watson was also really good in it. But I think maybe just way down the line where it's streaming and watch it then. So those are my thoughts and review on Little Women. All right, and that's the episode for this week. Before I hop out of here, I gotta give my Instagram shout out of the week to at Gizelle eighty, who tagged me in her Instagram story that she was listening to the podcast bright and early on Monday morning, So that means a lot to me. Again, if you want to Instagram shot out, all you have to do is just screenshot wherever you're listening to this podcast and then post that on your Instagram story and tag me at my destro and I'll repost a bunch of those and give a shout out next week. Also, watch out on my Instagram store because the week of the Oscars they come up on February nine, So that week I'm starting a contest where all you have to do is screenshot this image that I've made with um what I have of the top list of Oscar dominees and you right on there. You pick all your picks and see how they fare against mine, and tag me in Instagram story and it will enter you to win a fifty dollar movie gift card and a little movie price pack that I'll put together so again, So that contest will start on February three, and it'll cut off right before the Oscars on February nine. So on February three, watch out on my Instagram story on how to enter with that. But it'll be really easy. You just put it in your story, you swipe through and use X off all your picks and then tag me in it and then it enters you to win. It'll be that easy, alright. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. I'll talk to you again next Monday right here on Movie Mix Movie Podcast. I will see you later