Movie Mike’s 10 Core Movie Memories  + Movie Review: Bottoms + Trailer Park: Thanksgiving  + Why Rotten Tomatoes Can’t Be Trusted

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's Movie Podcast. I am your host Movie Mike, and today I want to share with you my top ten core movie memories. What that is exactly, I'll explain, but essentially, it's ten moments for movies that have stayed with me through my entire life. In the movie review, I'm excited because I have the best comedy in the last five years.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: In the trailer Park.

00:00:20
Speaker 1: We have a new horror movie that was actually based on a fictional trailer. It's called Thanksgiving. And I'm also going to talk about why Rotten Tomatoes cannot be trusted. Thank you for listening, Thank you for being subscribed, Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's talk movies.

00:00:37
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.

00:01:00
Speaker 1: A core memory is a specific memory that holds some kind of emotional value in your life.

00:01:07
Speaker 4: They are the building blocks of what make you a person.

00:01:11
Speaker 1: I feel like as a human being, I can trace back several things to very specific times in my life, and these little moments that have whether it have been traumatic or been joyful, have shaped the person I am today. And I'm gonna take not my human life, but my cinematic life and share with you the top ten core movie memory moments that have changed or altered my well being or my mental state, or just moments that I have not forgotten and have stuck with me in film throughout my entire movie watching life. I think even for me, sometimes it is easier for me to speak about my feelings when I can relate them to a movie. Sometimes I just feel like it's hard for me to open up about emotions or to express exactly how I'm feeling. But if you throw a movie in front of me and something emotional happens, I'm able to open up so much more by relating to that character and speaking about the film and speaking about their development, that I in turn and able to look into myself and think, oh, I relate with that because there's something I experience.

00:02:15
Speaker 2: I think that is why I love movies so much.

00:02:17
Speaker 1: And I think at the core of this that is why I do this podcast because if I didn't have movies, I probably wouldn't be able to work out all of these things inside my brain. And I think where I got the concept for this episode was from the Pixar movie Inside Out, which the entire movie revolves around core memories and what they are trying to do for Riley in order for her to have the best childhood ever and look back on it with only these bright, colorful memories. And the entire plot of that movie is, well, not everything can be super bright and positive and joyful. That sometimes you have to experience the sadness because it's all those experiences that really shape you as a person. So I think my list will reflect that. If you haven't inside Out, here is just a little clip from that movie explaining the core memory process.

00:03:05
Speaker 5: These are Riley's memories, and they're mostly happy, you'll notice, not to brag, but the really important ones are over a year. I don't want to get too technical, but these are called core memories. Each one came from a super important time in Riley's life, like when she first scored a goal that was so amazing real.

00:03:25
Speaker 2: So that is what I have for you.

00:03:27
Speaker 1: So I'm going to do these starting back in my childhood and working up to my adult life. So let's kick it off with number one. My first core movie memory moment was from nineteen ninety four and it was Mufasa Dying.

00:03:39
Speaker 2: Scar Brother Help Me Long Li fucking.

00:04:00
Speaker 1: Wow, And even listening back to that scene now as an adult, it still very much hits me on an emotional level. And Disney did us all dirty with this movie, but I felt it served a very specific purpose to teach kids about death. Essentially the worst thing that could happen to you as a kid losing your father like this in such a tragic way. But this was the first time I learned about death, So to be a kid four or five years old learning about death through a Disney movie is pretty intense. But I think for me growing up, I learned so much that I did not learn from my parents. There was just some things that they did not teach me, and speaking about emotions was just something that didn't really happen in my household. We were trying to survive, we were trying to get by. My parents were concerned with just keeping food on the table and a roof over our heads. That we never really spoke freely about the way we were feeling. We were just trying to live and trying to eat me. I don't really hold that against them. I love movies more for that because they were able to teach me with movies like Lion King on how to cope with death and how not to run away with your problems. That this was one of the biggest first lessons I learned in my life. So I credit that to Disney, and I credit.

00:05:20
Speaker 2: That to The Lion King.

00:05:22
Speaker 1: So that is my first movie core memory at number two from nineteen ninety seven Leave It to Beaver, And maybe I'm the only kid who was excited about to Leave It to Beaver movie. But there was a time in my life where I got really into forties, fifties and sixties television, and Leave It to Beaver was one of my favorite shows, mainly because everything in that show was so perfect. They had the perfect house, the perfect life, the perfect family, and I thought to myself, what would it be like to.

00:05:52
Speaker 2: Have a life like that?

00:05:53
Speaker 1: And then in the nineties it got the movie treatment, which was a lot different than the original show, but there was just something so wholesome still about this movie that I loved, and I feel like this is a movie from the nineties that was one of my favorites, but really isn't regarded as a great movie from the nineties, but it came out in nineteen ninety seven. The core memory moment for me from this movie was the scene where Beaver gets his bike stolen by the bully, and he had this amazing bike that he got for his birthday. It was a red GT with the pegs and the tires. It was a beautiful bicycle, and growing up, I wanted a GT bike just like this. I think that was the height of this type of bike. They were so cool, and I just thought that if I had it, I would be the coolest kid in the trailer park. I was also a chunky kid, so I couldn't run very fast, but I thought if I had a GT bike that was so light and so quick, that I could suddenly be the fastest kid in the trailer park even though I couldn't run, I could maybe out bike somebody. So I think it was the appeal of the bike, but also the story in this movie of Beaver kind of being an outcast kid, the smallest kid, not being good at football, him lying to his parents. But the ultimate moment is this bike he's been dreaming of wanting for his entire life, even though he hasn't been around that long.

00:07:16
Speaker 2: He finally gets it.

00:07:18
Speaker 1: Let's a bully do some tricks, and then the bullies last trick is to steal the bike. And I remember watching this moment on the big screen. It was like the first movie I ever went to see in theaters. And I think it was because of that, but also the fact that he had his bike stole and I will never forget this moment. And like I said, maybe I'm the only person who cared about Leave It to Beaver from nineteen ninety seven. And maybe that's true because I couldn't even find a legit clip of this moment. It was just somebody recording their TV. But here is that moment from Leave It to Beaver.

00:07:51
Speaker 5: I got a few more tricks?

00:07:52
Speaker 2: Really cool?

00:07:53
Speaker 5: Can you show me?

00:07:54
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:07:55
Speaker 1: Sure, I got one.

00:07:56
Speaker 5: You'll never forget.

00:08:02
Speaker 6: Don't worry.

00:08:03
Speaker 1: I just need to whip up a little pork p Telviza baby, And then the entire movie is him trying to get his bike back. The other memory I associate with Leave It to Beaver from ninety seven was. Like I said, it was the first movie I remember going to see in theaters at the Buffalo Creek six in Watsahatchie, Texas. And this was back at a time where you had to call to hear the movie times. It was either this or the super old school way of looking it up in the newspaper. But I remember I would just call the movie theater. I still remember the number. It is nine seven two nine. I'm not gonna say the whole number because probably somebody else has it at this point, because now that theater is gone. But you'd call the number, it would be the movie theater manager in this case, who would record a new message every single week. And there was just something special to me about hearing the new movie out, the one that came out that Friday that everybody wanted to see that I'd.

00:09:07
Speaker 2: Been seeing on TV.

00:09:09
Speaker 1: And even though I didn't go to the movies a whole lot as a kid because we couldn't afford it, I would still call it every single week to hear what was playing. But the core movie memory here is leave it to Beaver getting his bike stolen at number three. I have another movie that I have a great theater experience with It's from nineteen ninety eight and it is Pokemon the First movie. So really this whole experience is a core memory for me because I was such a fan of Pokemon as a kid. It was the thing that I fully got into every aspect of the fandom, and the thing I remember just associating my entire childhood with because not only was it the trading card game, it was also the TV show. And then I got really into collecting all of the toys. There was just so much great merchandise from Pokemon. But then you also had the game Boy video game, the N sixty four games. But at the height of all that was Pokemon the First Movie, and I was just so excited because I was such a big fan. I'd been collecting the cards and really doing everything I could to get my hands on everything Pokemon that I remember.

00:10:21
Speaker 2: This was the first time I felt I need to see this movie.

00:10:24
Speaker 1: Nothing will stop me from seeing this movie, and finally I got to go. I got the commemorative promotional mewtwo card. Whenever you go watch the movie, you'd also get the free card. And I remember seeing this movie in theaters and it being packed, and the core movie memory moment came at the final scene, the final battle, where mewtwo and Mew are fighting and Ash is just trying to put the violence to an end, and he gets caught in the middle of the fight and Ash turns to stone. He's petrified and essentially just.

00:10:57
Speaker 2: Lying there dead.

00:10:59
Speaker 1: And then his best Pokemon, his best friend Pikachu who we all know and love, goes up to Ash and tries to bring them back to life and just breaks down crying, and I think everybody in the theater at this moment was doing the same make and just hearing him now trying to revive Ash by shocking him back to life. I still remember that moment. I still love Pokemon now, and that is a core movie memory moment.

00:11:39
Speaker 2: Number three.

00:11:41
Speaker 1: At number four is a movie I probably should have not been exposed to at such a young age. The movie came out in nineteen ninety five, but I probably watched it in ninety eight or ninety nine, and the movie is The Usual Suspects, And the core memory from this movie was the ending, which I still believe is the best ending in cinema of all time. And the reason this is a core movie memory moment because I remember my mind being blown as a kid when it's finally revealed that Kaiser SoSE was Kevin Spacey's character all along, and he was making everything up. He was being interrogated and just putting together his story by all the things he saw in the detective's office. So then you find out at the very end of the movie that he was Kaiser SoSE. So the reason I feel that this is the best ending in any movie ever is because it's a movie that's entirely reliant on that ending. If you didn't have that ending, it would just be an average, every day nineties action drama movie. But that ending takes it up on such a different level, and it is made by the ending. It's entire identity is in that ending and in that reveal, and I don't ever think I will have that same mind blown moment ever.

00:13:08
Speaker 2: Again, the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist.

00:13:15
Speaker 1: So that is memory number four. At number five moving into the two thousands, is a memory I have of being scared onlike I have ever been in my life from a movie that's not even particularly a horror movie. It is from two thousand and two. It is Signs from director m Night Shamalan, who I don't really consider him a horror director, even though his movies have horror elements to them, They much more deal with supernatural. It's much more sci fi. But I have never been more scared of a reveal of a monster than I have going to see Signs in theaters. Going back to that Buffalo Creek Theater six in Waxahatchie, Texas, moment where the alien is on the screen for the first time in this movie scared me to death. Not only freaked me out, but freaked the entire theater out that I remember so many screams and to the point that I was scared to go home after watching this movie just because of that moment. I thought there was going to be aliens waiting for me outside the theater. I remember going to see this movie with my cousins and my brother and my cousin and I had to ride in the back of the truck out to the country to the way home, and I was so freaking scared that I closed my eyes and I just thought an alien was going to get us. So this is the most scared I've ever been. And I went back and watched the scene, and it's a little bit weird to think that the special effects really aren't that great. And as a kid, I remember thinking, I just saw a real life alien.

00:14:58
Speaker 2: That is what they look like in real life.

00:15:00
Speaker 1: It looks so realistic, but looking back at it now, it looks a lot more cartoony. So I credit a lot of that feeling to the tension that this movie created, the build up of them not showing the aliens, which is a great mechanism to use in a movie. Don't show the monster until you need to, and then when you do, you just get a little peek at it, and it makes it so much more scary. So this moment probably doesn't scare me now, but I will never forget how it made me feel back in two thousand and two.

00:15:33
Speaker 3: Move Children Phomenals.

00:15:51
Speaker 1: Paired with that suspenseful music there That is my core movie memory number five at number six from two thousand and nine and Quentin Tarantinos and Glorious Bastards. The thing I really love about Quentin Tarantino movies is how he rewrites history and puts his own take on it and makes it so much more gratifying to the viewer. Because if you can go back and change things and make the good guys win in the most epic way and the most cinematic way, where you're creating this entire story where the villain is winning the entire time and dominating and being this force to be reckoned with and being this force just unleashing terror and unleashing justice negativity throughout the entire movie, and then you get this heroic moment at the end for our hero to shine and whenever it's happens in a way that didn't happen in history but you wished it did. That is what you get into a Quentin Tarantino movie, and it provides these really epic moments. And that is what happens in Inglorious Bastards at the Cinema and the third act of the movie where the Jewish theater owner sets her own theater ablaze to take out all of these Nazis there for a German movie screening with Hitler in attendance. And this is my favorite Quentin Tarantino movie because of all the tension that happens throughout this movie and how much it makes you hate Nazis even more, and it was just so gratifying and satisfying to see them take out Hitler and to see them take out all these awful people in one of the most ba ways that I've ever seen done. And this was the first Quentin Tarantino movie I ever went to see in theaters. I went to see it with my brother in the summer of two thousand and nine, and that was also at a point in my life where I was going from high school to college and moving, so there was all these things going on. But for this moment, my entire life slowed down because I was wanting to jump out of my seat and scream as this moment happened, because I was just so happy for the little guy to win.

00:18:01
Speaker 2: Who wants to say that? Six to Germany.

00:18:05
Speaker 7: The research for Jenny and I want you to look deep into the face of the June.

00:18:11
Speaker 4: Who is going to do it?

00:18:23
Speaker 1: Show Shanna's Revenge. That is my core movie memory number six at number seven. Moving ahead to twenty ten Toy Story three, I think this was a full circle moment I had because I grew up loving the franchise starting in the nineties, Love Toy Story two, and then as an adult in twenty ten, we were going to say goodbye to our toy story friends. And it's the moment that Lotso betrays Woody and the gang, and you think they are all going to die. They are all Holy Hints together going into the flames. And in that moment, I felt like the kid and me came out and was so sad to see it end. And I think, oddly this was the first time I actually got emotional in a theater while watching a movie, and maybe in a way it was me finally saying goodbye to my adolescence because I was nineteen, about to be twenty, no longer going to be a teenager, and not that my entire life was behind me by any means, but it was all the things that I loved as a kid and still continued on as a teenager, being the nerd that I am. I was kind of saying goodbye to that in a way and thinking I had to grow up a little bit more, even though I was an adult already. It was like saying goodbye to a specific part of my life, and that is what I felt in that moment, maybe a little bit more than most people felt. It was just sad to see some toys about to die, but That is a core movie memory moment for me. Just them holding hands, going into the fire, and then of course they get saved last minute, so it all lands good. And then lots of gets what's been coming to him this entire time. But that is a moment I will never forget. And I wish they would have ended Toy Story after three. It came out with four and it kind of left a bad taste in my mouth. But now they're gonna make five, probably six, seven, until you know, they come up with a better idea to rehash movies. Eventually we're gonna get a live action Toy Story movie that's just gonna happen. It's gonna come out straight to Disney Plus, and it's gonna be terrible, and I'm gonna be even more sad. But this is a moment they can't take away from me. That is core movie.

00:21:01
Speaker 2: Memory number seven.

00:21:04
Speaker 1: At number eight, let's skip ahead almost an entire decade. What happened between twenty ten and twenty nineteen that I've either suppressed or just wasn't that impressed by. But in twenty nineteen, it's when all the Avengers assemble an endgame. This moment is special for so many reasons because it was a culmination of everything that happened in the MCU, and really every single movie leading up to this was defined by.

00:21:33
Speaker 2: This moment, an endgame. This memory is.

00:21:36
Speaker 1: So special and important to me because it can never happen again.

00:21:41
Speaker 2: And there were different.

00:21:42
Speaker 1: Moments throughout the Avengers movies where Captain America wanted to say Avengers assemble, but he never said it because it really only needed to be said once when it was super important and super special. And there was just so much emotion leading up to this moment, especially with the way that in Infinity War ended that this was so gratifying, and I just remember getting this feeling of oh man, they are there to save the day. And in any superhero movie when I go into it, I want to experience that yeah moment, that moment where you get so excited because the hero finally has what it takes to take.

00:22:21
Speaker 2: On the villain.

00:22:22
Speaker 1: And that was that moment times a thousand, because you had every single superhero on screen fighting against Stanos and just that moment of them all coming out one by one, group by group, and standing behind Captain America to take on Thanos.

00:22:40
Speaker 3: Captain Damn you hear me on your left.

00:23:04
Speaker 1: Avengers assemble, but I have the Avengers assembling an endgame at Core movie Memory number eight at number nine, we'll keep it in the superhero family. Really throughout the rest of this list, I have From No Way Home Andrew Garfield and Toby Maguire returning as Spider Man, and it's really the moment when you first see Andrew Garfield. And I remember going into this movie being convinced that Andrew and Toby were not going to be in this I really wanted them to. Spider Man is my favorite superhero of all time, whether it be Toby Maguire or whether it be Andrew Garfield or Tom Holland. And I even did an episode before that movie came out saying there's no way they're going to be in it. And really what that was, I'll reveal this now. It was me trying to not set myself up for disappointment, because in my heart, I really believe that they would be in it. But I didn't want to set myself up to be disappointed, mainly because I just thought they were done with the character. So this was a moment that I never thought would be possible because of all the issues that come with Spider Man being a Sony property and Disney having to pay so much to work out a deal for Spider Man to appear.

00:24:30
Speaker 2: In the MCU.

00:24:32
Speaker 1: I thought, we're lucky enough to have Tom Holland as an Avenger, but to be able to get Toby McGuire and Andrew Garfield back in this movie and have them all be together, I thought it would be a logistic nightmare. So the reason this is a core movie memory moment for me is one that I never thought was going to happen. Being as big of a Spider Man fan as I am, my mouth was grinning from ear to ear when this moment had happened, and I was so excited from.

00:25:02
Speaker 2: This to the end of the movie.

00:25:04
Speaker 1: But it was really that first moment where I realized that it was Andrew Garfield Spider Man. I could tell just by the suit, because, like I said in another episode, he has the best superhero suit of all time, it is the best Spider Man suit.

00:25:20
Speaker 2: And it was that moment.

00:25:22
Speaker 1: Where I saw his Spider suit that I thought my entire life now has purpose, and it was meant to watch this film right here, right now.

00:25:31
Speaker 2: I just wish we could see Peter.

00:25:35
Speaker 5: Was that.

00:25:37
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it has.

00:25:38
Speaker 1: To be Peter.

00:25:39
Speaker 4: Hey, I Peter here?

00:25:41
Speaker 1: Yeah?

00:25:47
Speaker 2: Oh hi hi?

00:25:51
Speaker 6: No no no, no, no, no, it's okay.

00:25:53
Speaker 2: It's okay.

00:25:53
Speaker 1: It's funny listening back to it now realizing that they left some pauses in there for audience reaction. Really nothing happens there in the first few seconds because they knew how big of a pop it was going to get to see Andrew Garfield. That is core movie memory moment number nine, and we finally made it to number ten. Yes, it is another superhero movie memory moment, and it is the chase scene from The Batman from twenty twenty two, and the memory comes from the chase scene between the Penguin and Robert Pattinson's Batman. And even though this scene, in this moment was in the trailer, the way it hit in the movie is a moment that I remember feeling this is something special. I had so much excitement in my heart, in my bones, in my every single nerd atom in my body that I thought, this is something special. And it reminded me in twenty twenty two that you can still make a great superhero movie where I feel like post twenty Nineteens Endgame. Going into twenty twenty twenty twenty one, we started to think that there was this superhero fatigue happening and they were all just the same movies.

00:27:10
Speaker 4: Being made over and over again.

00:27:12
Speaker 1: But then what Matt Reeves did with The Batman of creating this whole new chilling tone that in no way was copying The Dark Night and no way was really replicating anything that had been done in a superhero movie, and instead make this really great psychological thriller was Batman as a detective and him doing anything in his power to take down the bad people and Gotham. And it was this moment that really proved that and showed that vision of Batman chasing down the penguin, and I even forget that Colin Farrell played the penguin because he is so unrecognizable just physically but also his voice. Hearing it in this clip here, and that was just the best scene out of the entire movie, and what made it for me.

00:27:57
Speaker 3: Wo O gotchasycho got So.

00:28:18
Speaker 1: It's him celebrating thinking he is outsmarted Batman beat him in a chase, losing him in the explosion, but then through the flames you see the batmo'piele running through, rushing towards the penguin and then knocking him off the bridge and just completely deflating the penguin and winning. That is something so special, and my brain felt like it got to wrinkle after that, like I was like I just experienced something so special. I remember even sitting in the theater and turning over to Kelsey and saying.

00:28:54
Speaker 2: This movie is amazing.

00:28:56
Speaker 1: That is core movie memory number ten. So that has been my top ten core.

00:29:03
Speaker 2: Movie memory moments.

00:29:04
Speaker 1: If you want to share one with me, you can hit me up on email, Moviemike d at gmail dot com, tweet me, thread me, TikTok me, instagram me at Mike distro on all socials will come back and talk about Bottoms, and then in the trailer park we'll talk about a new horror movie called Thanksgiving. And we still got to get to white rotten Tomatoes cannot be trusted.

00:29:30
Speaker 2: Let's get into it now.

00:29:31
Speaker 4: A spoiler free movie review.

00:29:33
Speaker 2: The movie is.

00:29:34
Speaker 1: Called Bottoms, and it is hands down the best comedy of the year. I'm gonna just say it now. It is the best comedy in the last five years. And in a landscape of cinema where everybody keeps saying they don't make great comedies anymore. All the great comedies were in the nineties and the two thousands. Well, now there is one here, So you have no excuse if you don't go watch this movie to say that they aren't making great comedies anymore. What this movie is about. It's about these two girls who are outcast and losers in high school. I say that as a loser outcast from high school myself, and they're trying to meet other girls to hook up with them.

00:30:11
Speaker 2: What do they do.

00:30:12
Speaker 1: They start a fight club, and that is essentially the premise of the entire movie. So the great thing about this movie is it feels familiar in a way because it's about twenty five percent Fight Club, twenty five percent American Pie, twenty five percent Super Bad, and then twenty five percent Mean Girls. So you roll all those movies into one and it just has that familiar feeling. But it doesn't really rip off those movies because this movie has its own unique voice and its own unique style. I just completely was sold into watching this movie from the very beginning, and I'll give you my theater experience going to watch Bottoms because I went to see it at the Bell Court, which is a local independent theater in Nashville. And that is one obstacle going into this movie that it's not in as many screens across the entire country, so you may have to go to one that you're not familiar with because it just doesn't have the budget to get on as many screens as a comedy may have had back in the two thousands or even early twenty tens.

00:31:15
Speaker 2: So finding this movie may be an obstacle.

00:31:17
Speaker 1: But I think going to see it in a smaller theater added to the experience because it was almost sold out for the most part, and I feel like everybody in that theater wanted to laugh and wanted to have a good time. And I will say this movie has a different comedic approach than all those movies I mentioned before that it resembles because it is so over the top. It is so much of a hyperbole of what high school is like and what these girls are going through, but it's so self aware because it's doing that on purpose. All the really outlandish things are taking up to ten. So if you like very just cut and dry comedy and want everything to be believable, and not outlandish, not be the comedy for you. If you want to see Barbie and enjoyed that and got that comedic aspect from it, and that was to your taste, you're gonna love Bottoms. Although it is a lot more raunchier being rated are I can't even tell you exactly what the title is without getting into more of the raunchy details. But what I loved about this movie is it owned that aspect. It owned the raunchiness, It owned the violets. And what the girls in this movie are trying to do is give other female students the power back to be able to defend themselves from guys, and this group just becomes a safe place for them. Still funny because they are actually going and having this fight club.

00:32:38
Speaker 2: While they try to teach.

00:32:39
Speaker 1: Them fight moves, they essentially get into these bloody fights themselves. So it's very outlandish and very over the top. And their mortal enemies in this movie are the jocks, the high school football team in particular, who are the villains, and they are very much a hyperactive version of what somebody who is really popular and has the entire school's attention is like. And it's these two girls really trying to find their identity and trying to find friends, but really at the end of the day hook up with the hot girls in school. The other element that I really enjoyed about this movie is it stars Marshawn Lynch, who was a former NFL player played with the Seahawks, and he is a funny person, but by no means is he a great actor.

00:33:24
Speaker 2: But every single.

00:33:26
Speaker 1: Time Marshawn Lynch was on screen, my entire theater was laughing because his character is a teacher who is so over the top as well and just has these really quick, pointiant, funny lines throughout this entire movie that it just made me fall in love with this character, even though I'm never going to look at Marshawn Lynch and think, ah, he is such a great actor. Sometimes bad actors all they need is a great script.

00:33:52
Speaker 4: And to have a good time while they are acting. I could go into.

00:33:57
Speaker 1: Another comedy with bad actors and think, oh, this entire thing is terrible because I don't really buy into their performance and it doesn't really match the entire tone of the movie. But Marshawn Lynch was perfectly cast in this movie and was like the cherry on top with all of the comedic elements throughout the entire Bottoms film.

00:34:14
Speaker 2: The other great thing about.

00:34:14
Speaker 1: This movie that reminded me of movies from the nineties and the two thousands was the great soundtrack, which we don't really have anymore, and throughout this entire movie, it's actually two artists essentially doing just about every song in this movie, Charlie XCX being one of those artists, and it gives this movie a sound identity that I fell in love with because even though I wasn't familiar with any of the songs, I love the sound of them, and a lot of these songs were written specifically for this movie, and the music just complimented all the scenes so well. It was like this dark synthpop that just played at very key moments. So it had the sound identity that I just loved on another level so much showed that I actually sought out listening to the soundtrack after going to see this movie because it was so influential. Which they could have just went to Billboard and got all the top ten songs and threw them in this movie would have done a fine job, but I love that extra level it went to really make it feel unique to this movie and almost made it feel timeless in a way because they don't really say specifically when this movie takes place. They are a little close throughout the entire movie, but at one point one of the football players is talking on the razor phone, so it has that almost two thousands field to it anyway, but the soundtrack makes it feel like could have been taking place right now. But out of everything, this movie inspired me to know that you can still make a great comedy like this.

00:35:36
Speaker 2: That all you need is a.

00:35:37
Speaker 1: Great director who has a very promising career. Now you need a great script, a great cast, and a great soundtrack, and.

00:35:45
Speaker 4: You don't really need to look at all the.

00:35:48
Speaker 1: Things that are the reasons that people say great comedies can't be made anymore. You're gonna risk getting canceled, or you're gonna risk maybe in five years people looking back and thinking, oh, how could you make that joke?

00:35:59
Speaker 2: This is proof that we need to.

00:36:00
Speaker 1: Invest more in comedies and not try to make the same thing over and over again. And you can still be influenced by those great comedies that have shaped us, but just give it your own spin and give it your own voice, and you can make something totally unique. I still think about this movie a week and a half after watching it, And if you are looking to have something that feels familiar but also feel refreshing when it comes to comedies, I highly encourage you to check it out.

00:36:27
Speaker 4: Hopefully it's playing somewhere near you.

00:36:29
Speaker 1: But also you have to be into raunchy comedies because that's a big part of it too. So for Bottoms, I give it four point five out of five Bloody Noses.

00:36:41
Speaker 3: It's time to head down to movie mikes.

00:36:43
Speaker 2: Traylor Paul. There is a lack of Thanksgiving movies.

00:36:48
Speaker 1: The best one that comes to mind planes, trains and automobiles.

00:36:53
Speaker 2: But really there isn't a demand.

00:36:55
Speaker 1: For Thanksgiving movies because we want our Halloween scary movies and our and when we get to November, we're really just starting to think about December. So when is there gonna be a Thanksgiving movie viewing time? There isn't one. Maybe there's gonna be one now because there was a new movie coming out called Thanksgiving from director Eli Ross, who has directed horror movies like Hostile and Cabin Fever. He was also the Bear Jew in Quentin Tarantino's and Glorious Bastards and the thing about Thanksgiving, it was actually a fake trailer before it was ever a movie. Back in two thousand and seven, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino came out with a double feature called Grindhouse, which was made up of two movies called Planet Terror and Death Proof, and Thanksgiving was actually a fake trailer during that double feature. So throughout that movie, in between they would have these fake trailers of horror movies that never saw the light of day until now, because that fake trailer is now a real movie that takes place after a Black Friday tragedy that spurs a serial kill. So before I get into more about this movie, here is just a little bit of the Thanksgiving trailer.

00:38:04
Speaker 7: Thanksgiving is a time for appreciation. It's a time to remember our many blessings, to celebrate with the ones that we love the most, and it's time for all families to be together.

00:38:24
Speaker 1: So the movie is about a serial killer that terrorizes the town of Plymouth, Massachusetts, which is the birthplace of Thanksgiving, and the trailer is filled with a lot of Thanksgiving themed slasher killing moments. So it all goes back to that original fake trailer from Grindhouse.

00:38:43
Speaker 2: Here is a little bit of that trailer this holiday.

00:38:45
Speaker 6: Season, prepared the top. The stuff will scared out of view Thanksgiving. What an uninvited guest has arrived this year, there will be no leftovers.

00:39:02
Speaker 1: So I think why that trailer in Grindhouse was so memorable was because there were just so many outlandish kill scenes, and it looks like they are actually bringing one back into this movie. There is a scene from that original fake trailer where this woman is jumping on a trampoline and then goes down to do a bounce and the killer has placed the knife through the trampoline and it hits her in a very unfortunate spot. So there are very many kill scenes like that in that trailer that it looks like they are going to bring out in this movie.

00:39:35
Speaker 2: And I kind of.

00:39:36
Speaker 1: Feel like the slasher has been dead for a while, so maybe I'm just itching for one. I feel like horror movies in general have shifted to a whole other different space. We're more focused on the paranormal, suspenseful, psychological horror. That is what modern horror is right now, and for so long in the eighties and nineties, it was all about just great slasher movies, and I think those have become more campy over time and feel a little bit more nostalgic, but always just a little bit more dated, because you don't really get scared by a slasher anymore, and you kind of have a similar experience that you do going to watch a comedy that you do when going to see a slasher, because you're not taking it fully serious. Sometimes you just laugh at the deaths because they are so over the top and outlandish and sometimes just silly. So by the looks of this trailer, it looks like that's what this movie is going to be. I don't necessarily think it's going to be a straight on, really dark take on the holiday, but it's going to be seems like pretty campy. Seems like a lot of fun, bloody scenes and over the top ridiculous things, So I don't really know that that is what I'm looking for right now. I do enjoy Eli Roth's work, so I think there will be an element to it that has something for every horror movie fan, and I do like that they are trying to make a Thanksgiving horror movie, and if it happens to do really well, that means this is a movie that somebody could watch every single year around Thanksgiving, which we really don't have a whole lot of movies to pick from when it comes to great Thanksgiving movies. And I think out of this entire movie being put out into the world, I just love the idea of fake trailers that were hits online or hits as a part of another movie getting the treatment of a full feature film. And if there is one fake trailer that I could turn into a real movie, it was this fan made trailer that came back out in the twenty tens, maybe fourteen years ago, whenever they were still going to make the Andrew Garfield spider Man, and somebody made a trailer saying that it was rumored to be that Wes Anderson was going to direct the Spider Man reboot, and they gave Spider Man the Wes Anderson treatment. Here's a little bit of that trailer.

00:41:54
Speaker 6: I've been bitten by a Spider Man. Does it hurt? No?

00:41:58
Speaker 2: I've am stronger. Actually, so I heard your uncle die. That's horrible. You gotta keep your head up high. Though you're an amazing photographer. You've seen my photography. I have heard great things.

00:42:14
Speaker 4: Remember Pete with great power comes great responsibility.

00:42:19
Speaker 1: I love you, and a lot of it come I know. I just think Spider Man getting that quirky coming of age story with the stylistic lego Wes Anderson would be such a fun time. And who knows, maybe in twenty years, when every single superhero has been exhausted, we start remaking movies in the.

00:42:43
Speaker 2: Styles of other directors. That is exciting to me.

00:42:46
Speaker 1: For a big movie like Spider Man, or even like an Iron Man or Incredible Hulk, to get an indie feel to it and like a low budget, straight ahead dramedy, I think that would be an amazing thing. So maybe Thanksgiving we'll start that trend of fake trailers becoming real movies sixteen years later. So again that movie is called Thanksgiving. It's coming out right in time for Thanksgiving. On November seventeenth.

00:43:13
Speaker 3: Hed That was this week's edition of Movie Line Tramer bar And.

00:43:17
Speaker 1: Normally I wrap up the episode at this point of the podcast, but I got to talk about the Rotten Tomatoes controversy, and if you don't know my history with Rotten Tomatoes, I have been trying to become a certified critic four years now and I've been reviewing movies professionally since twenty sixteen. I started on The Bobby Bone Show and I would do my movie reviews on the air, So I've been reviewing movies now for seven years with a record to show for it. I started this podcast in twenty nineteen, so I've now been doing this for almost four years. And I've been trying since I started this podcast to become a Rotten Tomatoes critic because.

00:43:59
Speaker 2: They were one of one of the first real.

00:44:01
Speaker 1: Reasons I wanted to get into reviewing movies, and I held them to such a great standard and kind of looked up to them and looked to what they do as guidance for what I do. And over the years of me trying to apply to become a critic, I've been denied. And it's so hard to become a critic. So I've been rejected by them probably three or four times now, and every time they told me the same thing, that you need a minimum of two years experience and that my output does not meet their standards of being a legit reviewer, which is bizarre because I've been doing this podcast consistently for four years almost and I also have references with the Show and all these other places that I've been putting my reviews that it's clear if you even just looked at the links that I sent them, that I do this consistently. So it feels like it's so hard to become a reviewer. And then the story comes out saying, according to report, a PR firm in Hollywood has essentially been buying up positive review scores for some films. One example given is the twenty eighteen film Ophelia starring Daisy Ridley. Reportedly, PR firm Bunker fifteen recruited obscure, often self published critics who are nevertheless part of the pool tracked by Rotten Tomatoes and pay them fifty dollars or more each to review the film positively, and Rotten Tomatoes in respond to said that they have integrity behind their scores and they don't tolerate any attempts to manipulate them. So they are denying that they had any part to play in manipulating scores. And for the most part, I believe them allegedly all the things I need to say legally, but I just find it crazy that these people could even be cleared to become approved Rotten Tomatoes reviewers when they have this strenuous process just to become one, and me as a legit movie reviewer who has never been paid one time for a review, because I want to be able to give you my honest opinions on movies without any influence. So I don't even look at Rotten Tomato score for the most part unless it randomly pops up into my feed. I don't seek them out before I do reviews. I don't listen to anybody's on TikTok or read anybody's anywhere because I don't even want that influence. So I don't even want anybody else's opinion going into this microphone. I don't want anybody's money. I don't need that because I just do this for fun. I do this because I love movies. So it's just bizarre to me that somebody who just has this passion like I do that just wants to become a Rotten Tomatoes critic and can't that there are these other people they refer to as obscure, often self published critics or are approved by their Tomato meter and are able to influence these scores to the point that those.

00:46:56
Speaker 2: People can be bought something.

00:46:58
Speaker 4: To me, just does really add up here.

00:47:01
Speaker 1: And also, if you're Rotten Tomatoes, you have to know a little bit when there's some discrepancies in numbers between what the critics say and what the audience says, that there has to be something up there. If I ran a site, I would know that there's something up there. When a movie gets a ninety percent score from critics and a forty eight or thirty from audiences, those are the movies you have to watch out for. So I believe that Rotten Tomatoes is a site that has become the authority on how people decide on what to watch. A good Rotten Tomato score can influence you on watching a movie. Even if you end up hating that movie because it had a great score and you are let down, you still watch that movie. They still get that money from you. So having a good Rotten Tomato score still has a lot of weight to it. But maybe after this you start to question it a little bit and not believe the score.

00:47:57
Speaker 2: That is why I encourage you to listen to.

00:47:59
Speaker 1: This podcast, because again we don't have to agree on everything. You were probably gonna listen to my reviews and maybe be inspired to go watch a movie and end up haating it, and that is fine, but just know you are always getting my true, honest opinion without any influence, with no money being passed underneath the table. The only influence I have is how it makes me feel. That is this entire podcast is how movies make me feel. And I don't care about my integrity as a movie reviewer. And I mean that by I don't think I have to have these really thought out.

00:48:33
Speaker 2: Thought provoking reviews.

00:48:34
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna tell you exactly how I felt when I left that theater or when I hit stop on a streaming service. That is what I come on here and do. And I have always just believed the reason I had been denied.

00:48:46
Speaker 2: Was because of that.

00:48:47
Speaker 1: They listened to my reviews and maybe thought, oh, he has somewhat of a different opinion that goes away from what a.

00:48:54
Speaker 2: Critic's opinion should be.

00:48:55
Speaker 1: Because I feel like that is what I am at times that I can look at some thing that was nominated for Best Picture and think that has no cinematic value to me. But I could also look at something like Blue Beetle or even Fasten the Furious movies and think there is an audience here that needs to be represented because those are movies that people are actually going to see, and even though it's not pushing the envelope in the traditional way of what cinema needs to be, they are still a moment in movie history. And the whole thing is people going to watch something and be inspired by it or just being able to turn your brain off and have a good time. Those movies too to serve a high Rotten Tomatoes score. So I was here to fight for those movies and they don't want me, but look at them now. People are starting to question that Rotten Tomatoes score, and suddenly I don't care if they ever approved me or not, because I have you, guys, and that's really all I need. So that is all I'm going to say about that. But before I go, I do have to give my listener's shout out, which I do every single week, and it kind of ties into what I've been ranging about here about Rotten Tomatoes. This week's listener shout out is to Karen Springer, who tweeted me and said, might skip Grand Turismo based on your review.

00:50:03
Speaker 2: Have you seen Rush?

00:50:04
Speaker 1: It's a really great racing movie. I have seen Rush again. I just don't really love racing movies. Although, to clarify what I thought about Grand Turismo, maybe something I didn't say during that review.

00:50:16
Speaker 2: I still think it is.

00:50:17
Speaker 1: A pretty good movie, but it's so average that you don't need to see it in theaters, and once it comes to streaming, I do think it's worth a watch. I think that's another level that I should maybe mentioned in my reviews of if it's not worth watching in theaters but it's worth a stream later because through doing this podcast, I see a lot of you who either don't have time to go to the movie theaters or maybe don't have the money to go to a movie theaters, which is totally fine that you even question watching it on streaming. There is a different level because I feel like, if you're gonna pay money for a ticket, you need to see something that is an experience that was worth leaving the house for.

00:50:53
Speaker 2: So I'll try to.

00:50:54
Speaker 1: Be more clear about that, because Grand Turismo is a movie that I don't think is worth the movie theater money, but it provides a pretty entertaining experience that once it comes to a streaming service, if you have that streaming service, it is worth a watch. I think a lot of People have been asking me about The Flash that I did not love in theaters, but I.

00:51:12
Speaker 4: Still think now that it's on Max.

00:51:15
Speaker 2: It is worthy of a stream.

00:51:17
Speaker 1: But I would say, if you don't like it after twenty or thirty minutes, you're not going to like the rest of that movie.

00:51:22
Speaker 2: There is some value there.

00:51:24
Speaker 1: I think it's worth a stream, so I'll start including that too in my reviews. Thank you for listening, and until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.