Best and Worst of the April + Movie Review: The Fall Guy + Trailer Park: Mufasa: The Lion King

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

00:00:05
Speaker 2: How are you.

00:00:06
Speaker 3: I'm great, it's sunny, it's the beginning of May, it's almost the anniversary of our first date.

00:00:11
Speaker 1: So many things, and it is time to talk about our best and worst movies we saw in April. In the movie review, we'll be talking about Emily Blunt and Ryan Gosling and The Fall Guy. And in the trailer park Mufasa the Lion King. Is it another Disney cash grab? We will answer that question. So thank you for being here, thank you for being subscribed, Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew.

00:00:32
Speaker 2: And now let's talk movies.

00:00:33
Speaker 4: You don't want to talk more about our first date anniversary?

00:00:36
Speaker 1: Oh, you can get into that when we started the episode. I'm trying to get to the meat of the episode.

00:00:41
Speaker 2: My bed ready, Let's go.

00:00:43
Speaker 5: 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 IMTV last from the Nashville Podcast Network.

00:01:03
Speaker 2: This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast. All right, let's get right into it. What was the best movie in your opinion?

00:01:11
Speaker 3: From April Easy Challengers. I love Zundeia. I thought it was so well done. The casting was perfect. I liked the going back and forth in time. The cinematography was great, like some of the shots where you like, feel like you are the tennis ball. Like I just thought, overall, it was an extremely well done movie.

00:01:28
Speaker 1: And overall it was one that evoked a lot of emotion in the audience. In our theater, there was a lot of reactions during several different parts.

00:01:36
Speaker 3: One girl leaned over to her friend I could hear, and she goes, what is this movie?

00:01:40
Speaker 2: It's one of those movies.

00:01:41
Speaker 1: And I was talking about in my review of it that I was surprised by not the level of nudity that it had, but the level of male nudity.

00:01:49
Speaker 3: Watching HBO, which is yeah, I was like, I don't, We're watching euphoria.

00:01:52
Speaker 1: We're used to seeing That's true, We're used to seeing that at home more than we are in theater. Was that jarring to you to see the male wiener and the male butt in a public setting?

00:02:02
Speaker 3: No, Because one time I took my Grandma to a movie and there was male nudity, and I felt so bad.

00:02:10
Speaker 4: If you can just imagine me me being like.

00:02:12
Speaker 1: Oh, it's just so much more assaulting, like female nudity in a movie we don't really notice, which there's not really.

00:02:19
Speaker 3: No, that's not true because in Oppenheimer, all anyone could talk about was always all Florence Pew's boobs.

00:02:24
Speaker 1: We also saw that in seventy millimeter Imax, so it was the entire screen was just their boobs.

00:02:29
Speaker 3: People are always talking about female nudity, They're always talking about should I go back to my free the nipple tangent.

00:02:34
Speaker 1: But it's not as surprising when you see a Wiener on screen.

00:02:38
Speaker 2: It's like whoa saying that?

00:02:41
Speaker 6: What?

00:02:41
Speaker 4: We yes?

00:02:42
Speaker 3: But also like this isn't a spoiler. It's in a locker room context, like you kind of. It wasn't like he was just like whipping it out right.

00:02:48
Speaker 2: It was a locker.

00:02:50
Speaker 4: Room where you're like, okay, yeah, like men are taking.

00:02:52
Speaker 2: A shower, and there it is.

00:02:54
Speaker 3: We've just watched so much HBO in Victoria that at this point I'm just like, there's another one.

00:02:58
Speaker 1: Like I wasn't as shocked, but just seeing other people react to it. I thought one that movies have kind of got away from having nudity in movies. The R rating keeps some people away from seeing it, and some people are still aren't fully comfortable with nudity. So just to see it on a movie of this scale, commit to it. I was like, oh, yeah, some people aren't going to like this.

00:03:21
Speaker 4: Listen.

00:03:22
Speaker 3: I was more offended visually shocked when they caught off her head at the start of Napoleon.

00:03:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, the movie's very brutal. Not a spoiler, it happens pretty soon in the movie like that.

00:03:33
Speaker 4: To me, it was like cover my eyes.

00:03:35
Speaker 1: That movie as a whole I had some pretty brutal violence, not only to humans but also to animals.

00:03:40
Speaker 4: But this I was like, whatever, Yeah, I loved it.

00:03:44
Speaker 1: Still, I stand by my four point five out of five rating.

00:03:47
Speaker 2: What would you give it? You have it a five oh five.

00:03:50
Speaker 4: It kicked off the summer blockbusters.

00:03:52
Speaker 1: I feel like April as a whole was a really solid month. It was there were so many great movies. For me, my best I think I'm still a little bit too close to Challengers. I have a little recency bias that I feel like saying that was my favorite overall would be too soon to say that, although I do have it on my list of potential best movies of the year, like I already put it on that list because I think it was that good.

00:04:15
Speaker 2: But for me, I'm gonna go best to still Civil War.

00:04:18
Speaker 3: Also, it's very hot that you just said recency bias, like that's such like a public health term. I know you're using it in a movie context. Oh really, that was a good one.

00:04:26
Speaker 2: I've just heard that a lot.

00:04:27
Speaker 1: But I would go at Civil War because it is the movie I've seen this month and have continued to think about and go back to, and it's one that right now I immediately want.

00:04:37
Speaker 2: To go back and rewatch it.

00:04:39
Speaker 1: Rarely do I go back and rewatch a movie in theaters, just because we already go once a week. It's hard to go back and revisit a movie have time while it's still in theaters because there's always something new coming out that I need to go see. But this is one that I can't wait until it goes on to streaming, which it'll probably still be another thirty forty five days. But I need to see it again because I was expecting something when we first went to go see it, and now knowing what it is, I think I will be able to enjoy it even more and it could move up from the four out of five that I gave it to a five, because I do think it's that good, it has that much potential. But in my head, I thought it was going to be more about the actual Second Civil War going on and more about the backstory, and what it really was was about photojournalism and the implications that come along with taking photographs of really awful things.

00:05:28
Speaker 3: Well, this is a great segway because I loved it, but I'm going to give it my least favorite of the month really because it wasn't what I was expecting and I was so physically stressed during the whole thing. It reminded me of how stressed I felt during Joker, Like at one point, I like scrunched down in my seat and hid behind the guy in front of me his head because I just needed like a little break from what was on the screen. Least Favorite not because I didn't like it, but because my blood pressure was elevated.

00:05:51
Speaker 1: I think that's where we differ in I like stressful movies. You love a stressful I like movies that at times will literally keep me on the edge of my seat.

00:06:00
Speaker 3: It's shocking because you're already a high stressed person, and like, why do you want to be further stressed.

00:06:04
Speaker 1: I think it's because I like movies that evoke an emotion in me. To be able just to sit there in a room and watch something that'll get my heart rate up, that's a powerful thing. So I like feeling that. So that's why I like horror movies.

00:06:16
Speaker 2: That's why I like.

00:06:16
Speaker 1: Really intense thrillers. The way Civil War did that was with really loud sound effects, which was by design of these very visceral sounding gunshots and rumbles that while you're watching it, when you're not expecting it just boom. And that also adds to the level of anxiety that the characters are going through. So the director Alex Garland was able to also make you feel that stress as well. So I find that to be powerful. But I could see if you don't like those situations, how you would not have a good time watching that movie, especially in theaters. I think it would be different watching it at home because it's not as loud, it's not as much you're engulfed in it, So I wonder if people would still be as stress watching that movie at home.

00:07:00
Speaker 4: One of tho Storre.

00:07:00
Speaker 3: I felt so stressed, I didn't even want my movie snacks, and we all know that's my favorite part of a movie.

00:07:04
Speaker 2: You gotta have your snack.

00:07:05
Speaker 4: Couldn't eat it.

00:07:06
Speaker 2: So that's your worst, my worst favorite worst.

00:07:10
Speaker 4: Okay, it wasn't a bad movie, true least favorite.

00:07:13
Speaker 1: For my least favorite, but I'm gonna say worst is Rebel Moon Part two, The Scargiver.

00:07:21
Speaker 4: I didn't even realize that was out. When did you watch that?

00:07:23
Speaker 1: I watched it last weekend. But here's the thing. I didn't finish it, so it's not a movie. I will give my full review treatment too, but I decided to include it here because it was so bad. Now the first one came out and I was able to stomach it. It's Zack Snyder and it's almost him trying to do his own.

00:07:39
Speaker 2: Version of Star Wars. The first one was all over the place.

00:07:43
Speaker 4: I watched like fifteen minutes of it with you, and I was like, what is this.

00:07:47
Speaker 1: It's a lot of slow motion action shots, but some of it actually looked pretty cool, and the story moved along enough to make me complete that movie. But he filmed these two movies together, put out part one last year and put it out part two this year. They're both about two hours, so dude can't make a project under four hours, apparently, And this one was so bad within the first fifteen minutes, I could not finish it, so I kept going. I probably watched forty five minutes of the movie before deciding there's no point in me finishing this movie. The story didn't make sense. It was those same visual things in the first one that were so repetitive and so overused. I just feel like streaming movies have really taken a dip in the last two years when it comes to creating the same level of quality that you can go see in theaters.

00:08:31
Speaker 3: It was giving budget hula movie from what I remember, and it was not a small budget, oh not at all.

00:08:36
Speaker 4: That's what it was giving.

00:08:37
Speaker 1: But it's very apparent while watching it that it was filmed in a big warehouse and it just lacks so much authenticity, which Zack Snyder has been kind of notorious. Not a great director, he started out as a really great cinematographer, which is what this movie does have. Like there are some shots that look really great, and in principle it's probably more visually appealing than some of his other work, but there's just nothing to the story, and it's trying to create this really big world that just isn't there. So that was my worst. But we did see a lot of other good movies. Monkey Man was good, which I gave out a lot of fours this month.

00:09:11
Speaker 2: I don't think I.

00:09:12
Speaker 1: Gave out anything lower than a four. When it came to the movies I saw in theaters. Monkey Man, Civil War was a four. Also saw Unsung Hero, which I guess I had a screener to that gave that a four out of five, Challengers a four point five out of five. We also went to see The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare, which was a movie I wasn't expecting to like from Guy Ritchie. Ended up loving that movie, really enjoyed it. That is a movie that didn't do well at the box office. It had about a fifty to sixty million dollar budget and made like twenty five percent of that.

00:09:42
Speaker 4: It's not a good return on investment, but.

00:09:43
Speaker 1: It also proves to you they also didn't have it in as many countries as some of these other movies. But just because a movie doesn't do well at the box office doesn't always mean that it sucks. I just think it's hard to have any kind of buzz around that movie. I don't think Henry cavill has really demanded that the box office, yet, as big of a star as he is.

00:10:02
Speaker 4: I think it'll do well in streaming.

00:10:04
Speaker 2: It looks really good.

00:10:04
Speaker 1: Even though it's him trying to do kind of an inglorious bastard's version of his own. It's still a really good World War Two movie based on a true story.

00:10:13
Speaker 4: We all know. That's why I saw it.

00:10:14
Speaker 1: The creation essentially of guerrilla warfare and really fun cast and a lot of really sharp action.

00:10:21
Speaker 3: I really liked it because a lot of the World War Two books that I read are about the SOE, which is the Special Operations Executive, which is what this was kind of part of. It was like the underground, unsanctioned missions of World War Two.

00:10:36
Speaker 1: The other movie we watched that we weren't expecting to enjoy, which I think it may have come out even in March and not in April, but was Ricky Staniky.

00:10:46
Speaker 4: I loved this movie.

00:10:48
Speaker 2: This is like right up.

00:10:49
Speaker 1: Your alley for raunchy comedies that feel like two thousands comedies which you just love.

00:10:55
Speaker 4: I do love it.

00:10:56
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like Hangover era Bride. There's like a good era of movies.

00:11:02
Speaker 1: There's a category of movies a lot that Zach Effront even starring like Neighbors, all those types of soft moment I guess rooted in the twenty tens, but where they're not good movies on paper. And it's not really a comedy movie that I would recommend to somebody because if I recommended Ricky Sanicky, you would watch it and think I'm an idiot for enjoying this movie.

00:11:23
Speaker 4: I'll recommend it because I thought it was funny.

00:11:25
Speaker 1: But I feel like there are certain movies that are so bad they're good, but there are some movies that are so dumb that they're funny, and I think that is the category that this movie falls under. It's pretty self aware in knowing how dumb and ridiculous it is. It's about these group of friends that got into trouble as kids, and they created this fake friend who doesn't exist, and they named him Ricky Staniky and.

00:11:48
Speaker 3: They like pin things on him, and into adulthood, they're still pinning things on Ricky Staniky.

00:11:54
Speaker 1: And then people start to become more inquisitive about Ricky and they want to meet him. So then it's them meeting John Cena's character and having him play Ricky. So yes, it is a ridiculous plot, but I found a lot of enjoyment in it. I giggled, and I think John Cena is just a great comedic actor, and he also has, like I think in this one shows another level of acting that, even though it is rooted in stupidity, I feel it showed a different side of him that he can do a little bit more than just the big muscle guy, which he is still big and muscly in this movie, but his character almost has like this other level of depth and at time sophistication, even though he's pretending to be somebody he really isn't.

00:12:36
Speaker 3: I've been John Cena's biggest fan ever since I found out that he has the record for the most like Make a Wish visits, and I just think he has such a big heart.

00:12:45
Speaker 1: Just seems like a good dude just trying to do good things outside of wrestling and build a career. Can't hate on him for that, and that actually leads us into some movie news here. This story came out about Dwayne the Rock Johnson from The Rap saying that his tardiness on the set of his newest movie has cost them fifty million dollars. What so, the story is that he is showing up seven to eight hours late.

00:13:11
Speaker 4: That's a whole work day. That is just missing the workday.

00:13:13
Speaker 2: That is not showing up late.

00:13:15
Speaker 4: That is you missed the workday.

00:13:16
Speaker 1: That is you're just missing out. Apparently he works out three hours a day. He only wants to be on set for five hours while he's on set. This has also came out in this story from the Rap that in order to save time, he'll pee in a bottle and have people have to dispose of that bottle, and this led to other stories coming out about him being chronically late. He was also in a movie called Red Notice with Ryan Reynolds and apparently they got into a screaming match because Ryan Reynolds was so upset with the Rock being so late.

00:13:47
Speaker 4: Give it to him, Ryan Reynolds.

00:13:48
Speaker 1: And apparently they did not speak for a while and they have since worked that out. They are working on a Red Notice two. But it all seems to be rooted in the Rock being cron late.

00:14:01
Speaker 3: So he just thinks the world revolves around him, like he thinks he's at that level of celebrity that the world just revolves around him.

00:14:06
Speaker 1: I think he has a lot on his plate. He does a lot. He shows up to WWE events, he shows up to XFL events. Maybe it's bad scheduling, but it also feels like, like, how are you seven to eight hours late?

00:14:21
Speaker 4: Tying this back into our first date. You thought my three minutes.

00:14:23
Speaker 2: Was bad, Yeah you were. You were three minutes late, not seven to eight hours late.

00:14:27
Speaker 1: I don't think that it makes me feel different about him because I kind of already knew this about him. There was the long standing beef between him and Vin Diesel, which I think this has also rooted in. He would probably show up late to fasten The Furious movies make it seem like his time is so much more important than everybody else is because of the level of star that he is, but not even the level of actor that he is. So I think Vin Diesel was trying to tell us this.

00:14:50
Speaker 3: Nobody listen justice for Vin Diesel.

00:14:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, And I just think that it's put that on a T shirt. It's him trying to do all these things, thinking there are no hours in the day, and then having no regard for the hundreds of crew members that are there who just sit around waiting, which good for them for still being able to get paid for that, but obviously getting paid to sit around and do nothing is probably tiring. You would rather be working. So it just seems to me that he has this huge, huge ego. That is one thing, but also to make that so bad that you're also showing up, that's a whole different level of ego.

00:15:27
Speaker 4: That's disrespectful.

00:15:29
Speaker 3: Yeah, it just sounds like he thinks that he is above everyone.

00:15:33
Speaker 1: I don't like that, and I think it'll it'll probably catch up to him eventually. But he is also such a big pool when it comes to box office numbers, but one or two anymore.

00:15:47
Speaker 4: And I liked that Tequilas there's my stand.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: The other story that came out last week was Chris Hemsworth admitting that he became a parody of himself and thor Love and Thunder. I think that was him letting a lot of the criticism get to him about that being one of the worst MCU movies, which I don't think so. I enjoyed Love and Thunder.

00:16:04
Speaker 4: I didn't hate it, and then we were shocked when everyone was like that was terrible.

00:16:07
Speaker 1: We saw that opening night, I was watching the same movie Guys for a new MCU movie. Yes, the movie was a more cartoon like, childish comedy.

00:16:17
Speaker 4: Thor movies have always had a hint of comedy.

00:16:19
Speaker 1: That's what they've been, and I think that's what brought those movies back to life, because the first two are a little bit more serious and also viewed as I think it's also been hard to get the Thor character down in the movies, and Thor Ragnarok was the movie that broke through and had critical acclaim and that the fans loved. So this movie was really in the same vein as that one, but just a little bit more on the wacky side.

00:16:41
Speaker 2: And that's what he said.

00:16:42
Speaker 1: He said, I got caught up in the improv and the wackiness and became a parody of myself.

00:16:46
Speaker 2: I didn't stick the landing.

00:16:47
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting when actors come out and say, hey, I didn't do so well in that I apologize for that.

00:16:53
Speaker 2: He's also was.

00:16:53
Speaker 1: Saying that the extraction movies that he did weren't really fulfilling to him, which I thought was a pretty big thing to say, because as he's trying to build out his resume and do movies outside of the EMCU, to kind of be dragging those movies, so not that far removed from it.

00:17:09
Speaker 2: I think it's interesting.

00:17:10
Speaker 4: I don't know that he's dragging it.

00:17:11
Speaker 3: He's not saying it's a bad movie, just that it wasn't fulfilling. Like I think he's getting tired of being the beefcake in every film, like he probably wants to be taken seriously. If we are talking a bad about any like superhero type thing, let's talk about Madam Web.

00:17:28
Speaker 2: Hey, it's about it be on Netflix.

00:17:30
Speaker 3: I mean, I know it's not an MCU, but that's one of the worst like superhero type movies like that felt like a parody.

00:17:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess there was a level of expectation with an MCU Thor movie, probably higher than a Sony Madam Web movie that also nobody really asks for. But I think it's also Chris Hemsworth, because he's out right now promoting mad Maxpiriosa, which is a bit of a different look at Chris Hemsworth.

00:17:55
Speaker 2: So maybe he is also trying.

00:17:56
Speaker 1: To say, like, these are the movies I want to be doing, These are the roles I want to see in my future. So I'm going to invest more of my time in doing these projects. Well, so I think if that movie ends up being successful, maybe that will lead other people to see, oh, there is some potential here of him not just being thor or not just being the extraction action guy. The other news story I wanted to bring is Americans think the perfect movie length is ninety two minutes, which I did an entire episode on how I think different genres of movies deserve different run times. I think the only movie that should be ninety two minutes is an animated movie and a comedy movie. Yeah, I don't think ninety two is universal.

00:18:37
Speaker 4: No. I here's the thing.

00:18:38
Speaker 3: And this could also be because I work from home in the house all the time. Like, if I get out of the house to see a movie, I want it to be like an hour forty five, like even two I'm good with. Like I need it to be an experience.

00:18:51
Speaker 2: I am minimum two hours. I want to see a two hour.

00:18:54
Speaker 3: Movie unless it's just like repeating the plot over and over.

00:18:56
Speaker 1: I think it also has to play into the budget of the movie. Yes, a two hundred and fifty million dollar movie minimum two hours. I have no problem with a two hundred and fifty million dollar budget movie being two and a half hours, because that budget does demand that.

00:19:11
Speaker 3: And we'll say that we did just get tickets to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and that is two hours and twenty four minutes, and that's a lot of time for.

00:19:19
Speaker 1: Apes, but it's a big franchise. I feel like that movie warns that run time. But when it comes to like an a twenty four movie, I'm good with a ninety minute runtime if it's more leaning towards comedy. With a movie like Civil War that was right around two hours, I'm good with that.

00:19:34
Speaker 3: And see, even though it was my least favorite and month, Civil War could have been longer. I would have liked a little more backstory For what it was. It was the perfect length, but if it had been more of what I wanted, could have been longer, If that makes sense.

00:19:44
Speaker 1: I do think there's some power in leaving audiences wanting more. You'd rather have that than people looking at their watch in the last twenty minutes of like, all right, let's wrap this thing up, which I do sometimes some movies. Yeah, some movies do feel like, oh, this should not have gone on this long. But I think a good movie should be at least two hours.

00:20:02
Speaker 4: Challengers could have gone on for another hour and I would have watched it.

00:20:04
Speaker 1: That was a movie I told you after we leveled like that, literally melted by.

00:20:08
Speaker 3: It could it could still be going on almost a week later, and I'd still be watching it.

00:20:11
Speaker 1: I don't think ninety two minutes is the perfect movie length. I would feel a little bit ripped off if every movie I went to go see was ninety minutes, because some stories just demand more, and some budgets just demand more. I think once you go out, you sit in a theater, and to be out in ninety minutes, to me, feels a little bit.

00:20:30
Speaker 2: Like a waste.

00:20:30
Speaker 4: Unless it was the Meg Ryan Airport movie.

00:20:32
Speaker 2: That movie should have been two minutes. It should have just been the trailer.

00:20:36
Speaker 1: But we'll wrap up here about you wanting to talk about big dates coming up.

00:20:40
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I was just gonna say it's been six years since our first date and then or three year wedding anniversary next month.

00:20:45
Speaker 4: I don't really need to expand on it.

00:20:46
Speaker 2: I just, oh, you were not seven hours late.

00:20:48
Speaker 3: I was three minutes. And again, as I've said, I was trying to find a parking spot. You just had to uber there and get dropped off. I had to find a parking spot. It was stressful.

00:20:57
Speaker 2: I wasn't but I thought you weren't gonna show up, But.

00:21:00
Speaker 4: Then I did. Then look look at where we are now.

00:21:02
Speaker 2: Six years later.

00:21:03
Speaker 4: Six years.

00:21:04
Speaker 3: Haven't gone a day since that first date without talking, which is kind of crazy because I feel like after a first date, you don't jump into like talking every day.

00:21:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean well, we were also a long distance for two years, and in order to keep that relationship going, we had to communicate every day because you weren't. You didn't even have like the meetings in between of seeing each other. We had to create that constant line of communication. Otherwise it feels like it would have just gone away.

00:21:29
Speaker 3: I was laughing because I was searching through text today to find like what I sent you after our first date. But I was laughing because the text before that was me sending you my number, but I just put like kelsey l Like I didn't even give you my last name on our first date.

00:21:42
Speaker 4: It turns out. You'd already found me.

00:21:43
Speaker 3: I found you, but I just was like so weird, like to go back to that like mindset of like a first date, like do I like this person?

00:21:51
Speaker 2: They're like me, let me not give a full name right now.

00:21:54
Speaker 4: Didn't want you on my identity.

00:21:56
Speaker 1: We also usually mentioned a TV show which I can go first, while you of years, I.

00:22:00
Speaker 3: Have nothing for this month. This month, no, I take the back. We are the lucky ones on Hulu. But I think I might have said that for March, so I'll just say that again.

00:22:09
Speaker 1: Well mine is I'm still watching X Men ninety seven, which is the show I'm continuing to watch, which is in its as of now, last two episodes leading up to the finale.

00:22:17
Speaker 4: You will be heartbroken when it's over.

00:22:18
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be so sad. I'm going to need a support group to deal with my emotions after that is over. But I did start and finish Fallout on Amazon, which is based on the video game which you did not enjoy. You didn't even started with me, but just the moments you saw me watching it.

00:22:33
Speaker 4: I had to leave the room. It was too gruesome.

00:22:36
Speaker 1: It is I think one of the best video game adaptation series in a long time. I would probably compare it to last year with HBO's The Last of Us, which The Last of Us is a little bit more dramatic, it plays more to the beats of the game, and Fallout is kind of along those same lines, but it's more immersive in a world, and the action is so much more brutal and violent, which I enjoy too much blood, and it revolves around three characters and how their lives come together, and it's already been renewed for a season two and I'm excited. It's also cool seeing a video game franchise that has has been around for so long and it's been just so dominant now be mainstream and people learning about it. So there are so many movie adaptations at the wazoo right now, but I feel like that was one of the best ones. The show I wish would have been better was the Halo Show on Paramount, because that's a great game that I played a lot growing up. It's terrible, So I was glad that this show ended up being really good.

00:23:34
Speaker 4: What's next a Frogger TV show?

00:23:36
Speaker 1: Maybe I'd watch that. That'd be a great animated show. There is another Sonic the Hedgehog Show leading up to the movie Knuckles. I may, I may start that.

00:23:46
Speaker 4: Okay, that can be your new Saturday Morning, but then I.

00:23:48
Speaker 2: Got to get paramount plus again there's so many services.

00:23:51
Speaker 3: Oh no, he's on a tangent. Yeah, mine would be we were the Lucky Ones. And again, if you haven't read the book, read the book. First show's only eight episodes and it just has to condense a lot. The show's beautifully done, so well done, does a great job, but you get so much more detail.

00:24:06
Speaker 4: And then another book recommendation.

00:24:08
Speaker 3: I'm gonna do something different, and I'm gonna give a recommendation of a book that I'm only forty percent of the way through because it's that good.

00:24:13
Speaker 2: You've been reading it and posting about it. Leading Oh no, this is a different, different one.

00:24:19
Speaker 1: Oh I thought it was the one you hadn't finished yet that you've still been posting about it.

00:24:22
Speaker 3: You know. I love reading several books, but I can talk about that one. That one's called Evicted by Matthew Desmond, and it's a study of like eight not a study, but he follows about eight families in Milwaukee, like right after the financial crisis of two thousand and eight and about poverty and like how often people get evicted in low incomereas and it's just mind blowing. But no, the other one is called Becoming Madam's Secretary, and it's about Francis Perkins, who was the Labor Secretary under FDR.

00:24:52
Speaker 4: I knew nothing about her. It's really interesting, really good.

00:24:55
Speaker 3: I'm forty percent of the way through, and that's the one that I read at night and then tell myself, I'm going to better so one.

00:25:01
Speaker 2: When I wake up at midnight and you're still reading that, I'm like, you're still away.

00:25:05
Speaker 4: Yeah, that happens often.

00:25:07
Speaker 1: We'll say the other show that we watched and finished that we don't really recommend His three Body Problem.

00:25:12
Speaker 3: Yeah, my little brother is very mad that we didn't like it. It started off so strong and then it was just like snooze fast.

00:25:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was a really underwhelming finale. Those last few episodes felt like an entirely different show. So it was a show that started out with a lot of potential, and just like it felt like a short to watch.

00:25:31
Speaker 3: We forced ourselves to finish it because we have such a long list of things that we've started and haven't finished.

00:25:35
Speaker 1: It is hard for a series to keep my attention throughout the entire thing, and even now with seasons getting shorter and shorter, that was only eight episodes, but by about episode four I was over it. It just seems like we're getting so many TV shows that it's quantity over quality.

00:25:53
Speaker 3: This is why I go back and just watch things I've already watched. This is why I rewatch Er, This is why I just turn off the TV and read, because I'm like at least books or novel no pun intended like new concepts that I just get bored with TV shows like we never finished Masters of Air. Yeah, can anyone let us know if that gets any better? Yeah, let us know, let us know if we should invest the time to finish that out.

00:26:13
Speaker 1: That's why I started going back and rewatching Community, even though now they took it off Hulu. Now they take it off Netflix. First, Now, you watched.

00:26:20
Speaker 4: Enough Community in the past like month to tide you over.

00:26:23
Speaker 2: I got three seasons in before I went away, watched a lot of Community.

00:26:27
Speaker 1: But all right, that is our best and worst of the month. That is some movie news and other TV show and book recommendations. Come back, give my review of The Fall Guy, and then we'll talk about Mufasa the Lion King.

00:26:38
Speaker 4: And I would just like to say, there is an edit you had to make in this and I was censored.

00:26:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, you cursed. There's never been a curse word on this podcast.

00:26:46
Speaker 4: That's not true.

00:26:47
Speaker 3: You let me say badass female heroines.

00:26:50
Speaker 2: I don't consider that a curse word.

00:26:52
Speaker 3: Okay, fine, but yes I was two quote Oprah, were you silent or were you silenced?

00:26:56
Speaker 4: And I was silent?

00:26:57
Speaker 2: You said one of the big three?

00:26:59
Speaker 4: I did.

00:26:59
Speaker 3: Sorry, it was fitting in the contact, but anyways, I got censored.

00:27:03
Speaker 2: All Right, we'll come back. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review of The Fall Guy.

00:27:13
Speaker 1: Have a bit of a bias going into this review because I'm a huge Ryan Gosling fan. Drive has been one of my top ten movies for as long as I can remember. Whenever I go back and retool what my top ten of all time is, I feel like that one still makes the list because he is just such a great, versatile actor, and he is somebody that I just count on to show me a different side of him in every single movie. He's coming off Barbie, which was massive for him. Now, going into The Fall Guy, I was still all team Ryan Gosling when it comes to the two ryans that some people always confuse and sometimes I'll probably even say the wrong name on this podcast Gosling and Reynolds. I'm much more on the Gosling side. I just think he has more of a range, and The Fall Guy really proved that to me, even more than anything else he's done before. And I thought it was interesting him talking about in interviews for this movie saying that he will no longer do a movie that'll put him in a bad headspace, which I found really interesting because I always wonder how much a movie role affects an actor. If you're doing something so dark and really getting into your character, spending so much time learning about them and trying to think how they would act in certain situations, does that really take a toll on your emotional state. When he takes on movies now, he thinks about how it's going to affect his family, and if it's going to take him there, he won't take on the roles. So it is interesting to see how his career has shifted in the last five years. He's also doing fewer films back in the twenty tens. I feel like he was in a new movie every single year. In the last five years. I think he's done three movies, but they've all been big, massive movies, so he is still that raining movie star.

00:28:53
Speaker 2: So what the movie is about.

00:28:54
Speaker 1: Ryan Gosling plays a stuntman who leaves the business after a bad accident.

00:28:59
Speaker 2: He is completely out of the.

00:29:00
Speaker 1: Game, but then goes back to work on a movie directed by his ex played by Emily Blunt, and he is kind of put in charge of finding the star of her movie because star's gone missing and this movie is a big action movie. Emily Blunt character directorial debut, so she has a lot of her career writing on this movie riding on finding this missing star. And the star of this movie is kind of somebody who resembles Tom Cruise. They make a lot of references at the Tom Cruise, so I have to assume that maybe a lot of this movie is based on how Tom Cruise really is on set. Maybe doesn't really have to be the case here, Maybe they loosely based it on some stories, because I think a big part of enjoying this movie is knowing director David Leach's story, who was a stuntman for twenty years he was working as a stuntman in the late nineties, but more specifically, he was Brad Pitt's stuntman in movies like Fight Club, The Mexican and Ocean's Eleven and that is where he got his start. So this movie is a love letter to stuntman, the unsung hero, if you will, of the movie industry, because they're the ones oftentimes doing all of these things that you don't really see their face for, you're not supposed to see their face for, and they don't really get a whole lot of credit. And that is what this movie story sets out to prove. And David Leach went from being a stuntman to being a producer. He worked as a co director on the John Wick movie, so that is very much his style. He worked on Captain America Civil War if you remember the airport fight scene from that.

00:30:33
Speaker 2: Movie, which was epic. That was David Leach.

00:30:36
Speaker 1: And he went on to direct movies like Bullet Train where he got to direct the person that he used to be the stuntman for Brad Pitt. He also directed Atomic Blonde and Deadpool two, so that is kind of his style, which Deadpool two also had a Brad Pitt cameo, so he really has a knack for action, and action sequences are his specialty, so it was cool seeing him get to make a movie that was so personal. And I think that's really important to know going into this movie because it feels very unorthodox at times. This movie felt a little bit weird in the beginning because I was expecting a full on action movie, and that is really what the trailer kind of played it off to be.

00:31:16
Speaker 2: It was going to be a.

00:31:17
Speaker 1: Movie about a movie focused on the stunt work of a movie, and the first better half of the movie, maybe the first thirty minutes really didn't feel like an action movie at all. It felt like a rom com, which was not what I was expecting. The story of Emily Blunt's character and Ryan Gosling's character and their relationship history of being together early on in the movie, him going away for a year and not speaking to her and then going out to Australia to be a part of her movie, and the awkwardness of encountering your ex and then having to work together was very much at the forefront of this movie. So when you break down all of the acts of this movie, it felt like a lot of different genres worked into one. The first act of the movie was that rom com then we got a little bit more into a drama slash mystery, and then the final act of the movie is full on action movie. And what ends up happening is the movie becomes really meta because if you're making a movie about a movie by people who have worked in the industry, and you have other people playing producers and it feels very much in the weeds at times of the movie making process, you kind of have to get used to it. It reminds me of whenever I would go and swim in a body of water that was way too cold, and you think, there's no way that I'm going to feel comfortable in this, and you see other people out in the water, like, how are they swimming in this? It is so freezing. But eventually, if you allow yourself to sit there for a while, you get used to it. Your body temperature starts to regulate, and then you are comfortable in that water. Going from thinking oh, there's no way I'm gonna feel comfortable. I want to get out immediately, and then you kind of live in it and you said in it and you think, oh, this actually feels really good. I'm glad I got to this point. That is how I felt, because it felt a little bit empty at times and almost like a Saturday Night Live sketch in the beginning when it was really going for comedy and I was like, what exactly are they doing here?

00:33:20
Speaker 2: The dialogue feels a.

00:33:21
Speaker 1: Little clunky, and I didn't really get the dynamic they were going for between Emily but and Ryan Gosling. But then as the story moves along and it kind of shifts genres a little bit and you get more invested in the characters, and then the action ramps up. And the thing I loved about it, as the action is ramping up, there are parts of it that have to do with the stunts. Ryan Gosling's character has to do as the stunt performer working on the movie. But then there are these other stunts that he is doing that are a part of the other storyline of him trying to find the A list actor who has gone missing. So it's just him out doing stunts in the quote unquote real world, not on the movie sets. So I liked the correlation between the two and how you just kind of assume, like, oh, he is just an awesome character. Not only can he do these on a movie set, but he can do these in the real world and you don't really question it, and he kind of feels like a superhero at times. I just thought it was cool how it goes back and forth between that, and it all works together really nicely because at times when they are talking about things they want to get right on the movie. There's one scene in particular where they want to get this car roll done and have it flip a certain amount of times to be a record so it looks really good on the movie, and that shot is important to the trailers that they want to show at Comic Con. That same flip was actually, againness world record in the real world, so not just what they did in the movie. The fall Guy actually has that record because they were able to do it. So again, very meta at times. So once you get used to the format, once you get a little bit more invested in the characters, this movie becomes.

00:34:59
Speaker 2: Real, really enjoyable.

00:35:01
Speaker 1: So I'm really glad I watched this movie in theaters. It worries me though, because with a movie like that, with our attention spans, I wonder what it's going to be like to people who just watch this movie on streaming, because I'm not entirely sold in the first twenty minutes of this movie. And I talk about a lot on this podcast how those first twenty minutes are so crucial to a movie. And it's a lot different when you go watch one in theaters and watch one at home, because you're already there in the theater. You're not going to leave unless it's so blatantly bad. It takes a lot to walk out of a movie. But when you watch a movie at home, if you're not sucked in in those first twenty minutes and I think, do I really want to watch this it's two hours long? Do I want to sit here? Or do I just want to skip onto something else, that's a lot harder to do. And that is why completion rate is so crucial when it comes to Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus and all those services. So it is a bit of an investment because it feels so different. But I ended up loving the fact that it felt like an unfamiliar format because that is what this movie needed to do. And yes, it is based on a TV show from back in the day, but it doesn't really feel like a remake of any sorts. It's not a TV show I was that familiar with, so it doesn't really have that same feeling. Oh, they're just throwing out another remake right now, because I feel like nothing really correlates with what happened in that show and what happens in this movie. There are also just a lot of little inside jokes that are self contained within the movie.

00:36:31
Speaker 2: So if you're watching as the.

00:36:33
Speaker 1: Viewer, there are little things you pick up on, little quirks from the characters that pay off later in the movie, and I thought that was a nice touch. There were a lot of little inside bits that were treats for everybody watching the movie. There's one in particular of Ryan Gossling's character just wanting to have a cup of coffee and can never get a cup of coffee, so you have to watch the movie to find out does he get this cup of coffee?

00:36:56
Speaker 2: Again, a little dumb little bit, but.

00:36:58
Speaker 1: It was this nice little touch that showed me that they had attention to detail and we're not only focused on the action of this movie, but also focused on the comedy, the other interesting part of this movie. It's the second major movie that I've seen film in Australia in the last year. The one before this was Anyone But You with Sidney Sweeney and Glenn Powell, that rom com movie, and now The fall Guy was also shot in Australia, and I found that Australia has some filming incentives right now. They're trying to get more people to film there, so the same way that a lot of Hollywood movies are filmed in Canada because they have filming incentives there. It's cheaper to film there, you get some tax breaks. So I think Australia is a really good backdrop for a movie like this. I love all the scenes of the action happening on the beach, and then you have the Sydney Opera House, which is the second time I've seen it in a movie. So I hope that movies don't use it too often because then it's going to become a little bit repetitive. But I guess it is a nice break from having everything based in Los Angeles and being so familiar with that landscape, or having movies filmed in New York so many times we just kind of get.

00:38:03
Speaker 2: Used to that.

00:38:05
Speaker 1: But I feel like Australia is just so distinct and you have to have a real reason to go out there and put your characters there. So I'm curious to see how many more movies are going to be filmed and based in Australia because of those tax incentives. But the movie debuted at twenty eight point five million dollars in the United States made about sixty five million dollars at the global box office. I think is a little bit under what they were expecting this movie to do. With having two big stars as Ryan Gosling and Emily Blunt. It's about fifty percent down from last year, whereever Guardians of the Galaxy three came out, So maybe not the biggest start to the summer blockbuster season, which I feel like May is a little bit too early for me to really feel like it's summer blockbuster season. I really get that feeling more at the start of June or that very last weekend. It may feels like the kickoff to me. But comparing it to last year, I feel like, yeah, it's a little bit down. But it costs about one hundred and twenty five million dollars to make, not including advertising, so I think and hope this movie will end up making some money given the word a mouth of it because it is a fun movie. It has that summer blockbuster feel, but a little bit of a different taste that we haven't had before. And I think David Leach is that kind of director who is not here to make the same movie again and again. And I will say my favorite character out of the entire.

00:39:24
Speaker 2: Movie is the dog. So for the fall Guy, I give it four out of five car flips.

00:39:33
Speaker 5: It's time to head down to movie Mike Traylor Paul.

00:39:37
Speaker 1: I'll have to admit I was a little confused about what the story is going to be in mu Foster The Lion King, but we have our first look now. The confusing part was the director came out recently and said it is both a prequel and a sequel to the movie that came out in twenty nineteen, which is a quote unquote live action Lion King, which I don' I think we should call it that.

00:40:01
Speaker 2: It's not live action.

00:40:02
Speaker 1: They're not going out to Africa and filming animals and doubbing it in a studio. It is just animated in a different way. So maybe it's the technology that they're using, or maybe it's because they don't want to make it feel like it's a blatant cash grab. They don't want to call it an animated movie because people are already saying that nobody asked for this, why are they putting this out? And Disney gets a lot of heat right now for rehashing their old EPs in order to make more money off of them, which I think it's an introduction to a new generation, which I'm okay with, but I think you have to have a reason to do it, and do it in a style that really hit you in the emotional gut.

00:40:43
Speaker 2: That is what Disney is known for.

00:40:45
Speaker 1: They don't just put out movies for the sake of putting out movies. They put out movies that last a lifetime. They become the building blocks of film lovers. They become movies that I and everybody who grew up and had a childhood watching movies. It's the pillars of what you enjoy and then later in life what you were nostalgic for. So Disney has bigger shoes to fill when they're filling their own shoes, but what they've been going to back a lot is just old eyeps and doing these live action versions. So I feel like the same way there's a little bit of superhero fatigue. There is that Disney live action fatigue. So the fact that this is both a prequel in a sequel does seem a little confusing after watching the trailer, because it's supposed to be the story of how Mufasa became the ruler of Pride Rock, and the tagline of this movie I feel sells it a little bit more. It is orphan outsider king, So I guess in a sense it is supposed to be a Racks to Riches story and how he became the king. But if you think about that process, that is really just the Lion King again, which is what they did in nineteen ninety four with their original anime movie and then what they remade in twenty nineteen as this quote unquote live action. So now they are just almost doing it for a third time, but this time it's Moufossa and you get to see him in Scar's relationship and how that ends up going badly is what I assume we're going to get to by the end of this. But at that same time, you also have Nala and Simba who are now together and have a daughter who is voiced by Blue Ivy Carter in this movie. So that is the plot line of the movie that is moving the story forward. So it's going to go back between two different timelines. What I have imagined is it'll be Nala and Simba talking to their daughter about the history of their family, so you'll see her probably rise to another level here. Hopefully that story advances, and then you'll go back to Mufassa's time and see how he rose to be the King of Pride rock. I have so many thoughts on this, as you can tell. Before I get into more, here's a little bit of the mofa a Lion King trailer.

00:43:06
Speaker 6: This story begins far beyond the mountains and the shadows on the other side of the light, and lion was born without a drop of nobility in his blood, and lion who would change oble lives forever.

00:43:27
Speaker 2: Oh fu.

00:43:30
Speaker 1: So what they said is there's gonna be some stuff that is cannon, which means it falls into place with everything the Lion King has already established, and there's gonna be some stuff that makes this movie its own thing. So hopefully they don't change too much about the core story, otherwise we're all gonna be confused when it comes to the visual aspect, the only scenes that really stick out in this teaser are the scenes whenever they are in snow. Those look really crisp. You have them on a big snowy mountain, this ice coming down. That forced me to go and research can lyons even survive in the snow. I thought they were going totally off the rails here to make this movie more visually appealing.

00:44:09
Speaker 2: Turns out they can. Their fur will grow thicker.

00:44:13
Speaker 1: The hard part for a lion in a colder environment is finding enough prey to eat, So hopefully they will make that make sense. And I was already getting ready to not have any Simba, not have any Timon and Puma in this movie. But now looking at the cast and looking at the plot for this movie, looks like we do get the original voice actors back, which Beyonce voiced Nala. Childish Gambino aka Donald Glover, who is one of my favorites, is back voicing Simba. You have Billy Eigner and Seth Rogan back as Timon and Pumba, and you see them in this trailer, And that was the moment for me that I was like, what are to Moon and Pumba? Doing here in a Mufasa story, so I feel like they are trying to keep some of the integrity of what everybody loves about the Lion King while advancing it. I hope this wasn't a big compromise that the director had to do, which is no longer Jon Favreau, who did the first movie. Barry Jenkins is directing this movie, who also did Moonlight, and if Beal Street could talk, I hope that wasn't a compromise between Barry Jenkins and the studio of saying got to keep some of those familiar characters which we do see Rafiki I believe I did see Zazu in the trailer as well. But what I think this movie is going to come down to is emotion, because what hurts the live action version of The Lion King so much is it's hard to have an emotional attachment to these three D realistic characters. I don't know why it's so much more easier to feel emotion to a lovable, more bubbly, two D animated looking character when it comes to the Lion King. I could be associating that with my childhood and loving animated things at that time, but seeing it now as an adult, it is hard for me to really get into the story and really get into wanting to feel something from this movie because it just looks like a photorealistic line which the design in the characters looks pretty similar to the twenty nineteen version. So I feel like they're going to really have to bring that story in this movie to have audiences resonate with these characters and have any kind of lasting ability, because the twenty nineteen version did do really well back in twenty nineteen, making one point six billion dollars at the box office, but I don't know that anybody was itching for this and when it happened. We also had more curiosity back then of what a live action line King movie was going to look like. Once we saw it, we got it. I don't know that we want to see that again. So it's going to come down to that emotion and making a movie that has some lasting power that becomes one of those building blocks of life, not only for the kids going to see this movie for the first time and be introduced to the Lion King, but also for the adults who grew up with the original one now wanting to have this other piece in their heart filled, and that is what Disney does. Disney creates these life lasting movies, and just by the looks of this trailer right now, it is not giving me vibes that it's going to reach the same potential as the twenty nineteen version. This does not look like a billion dollar movie to me. It is coming out on December twentieth, which right now would put it up against Sonic the Hitchhog three. I feel like one of those is going to have to move and it's probably gonna be Sonic. Lion King feels a little bit more like a Christmas movie time for me, not that it's associated with Christmas, but it has that big epic feeling, that family togetherness that you'll all go watch it around the holidays, which I just have a great association with any movie that comes out during the holidays. There is something special about going to see a movie in late December, and Mufasa has more of that feeling to me than Sonic the Hedgehog three. So I feel like it would be beneficial for Sonic to maybe move up a week or even move into January, because I think.

00:48:08
Speaker 2: That movie on its own could do really well.

00:48:11
Speaker 1: I find it interesting that They're coming out so close to each other because they are both family films. It's almost like splitting the vote there. That could bode really well for both of these movies, even though they are competing studios. I feel like Sonic will end up moving up, although a good January release could be great for Sonic as well. But again, Mufasa is coming out on December twentieth. I will be there and I hope they prove me wrong.

00:48:37
Speaker 4: And that was this week's edition of Movie Li Framer Park.

00:48:42
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's gonna do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, got to give my listeners shout out of the week, which I have been posting a lot on TikTok sometimes things you don't see on Instagram, so if you don't follow me on TikTok, make sure to hit that follow button over there. You can always find all the links to my social media in the episode notes. But this week's listeners shout out goes to j WK fifty, who commented on TikTok on my Challengers review and said, I really enjoy you on TikTok and listening to your podcast. Keep up the good work and being you informative and entertaining, which is the best compliment I could ever receive, because I do try really hard to research everything, be as knowledgeable as I can for you guys, and go see a movie in theaters every single week, and sometimes I question whether or not I'm doing anything that matters at all, or if I'm just talking about things that I'm nerdily passionate about that nobody else cares about. So it's these comments I get, like this one from JWK fifty that gives me that little bit of reassurance.

00:49:46
Speaker 2: That I am going in the right direction. So appreciate that comment.

00:49:49
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening, thank you for being subscribed as always, and until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.

00:50:00
Speaker 3: No