Ticket or Skip It?  New "Star Wars" Trilogy Is in the Works + Movie Review: A Real Pain + Trailer Park: Dear Santa

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike today, gonna put my money where my mouth is, playing a game called ticket or skip it. All these big movies that got announced in the last week, Oh man, there's been just movie news oozing out my pores. I'm gonna let you know what, I buy a ticket to them because I'm excited, or want to skip them because they don't really interest me that much. In the movie review, we'll be talking about A Real Pain, which is directed and stars Jesse Eisenberg, my favorite fast talker. And in the trailer park we'll be talking about a new Christmas movie coming out later this year with Jack Black and a cameo from my favorite artist, Post Malone. It's called Dear Santa. Thank you for being here, thank you for being subscribed, Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now you know what we're gonna do. Let's talk movies.

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Speaker 2: 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.

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Speaker 1: A man with so much movie knowledge.

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Speaker 2: He's basically like oh IMTB with glasses from the Nashville Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast.

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Speaker 1: It is time to play ticket or skip it. I have a lot of movie projects that have been announced in the last week or so. We're gonna run through them and I'll give you my verdict, ticket or skip it? What I want to buy a ticket to go watch this movie in theaters? Or what I want to skip it all together? Let's get right into it. I think the biggest movie project that got announced in the last week that has all the nerds, myself included, in a tizzy. They have announced a new Star Wars trilogy is in the works, and I think the thing that people are the most upset about is that it's not continuing on with the Skywalker saga that all finished up, and the way Star Wars movies have always been released in chapters and one, two in three have all been together. So you have the originals from back in the s seventies and eighties, and then you have the prequels to those that came out in the late nineties and early two thousands, and then you have the Skywalker saga that came out in the twenty tens that right now everybody hates, but give it twenty years and everybody is going to love them, maybe because so many people hated that project, which really is any Star Wars project right now. This new trilogy that they are working on will focus on an entirely new story, new characters for the most part, and there's no real word on when it takes place. The thing about it, though, is they said that Ray played by Daisy Ridley, is going to have a role in several of these Star Wars movies that are being developed, So again, it's still unclear on who is going to be in these movies when they are going to take place. Will it be way out in the future from when the Skywalker saga happened. I think that is a possibility. I really don't see it taking place right after and picking up in a timeframe that we saw Ray in. And I have been one of the only people, at least in my friend group and online who has been a fan of the Daisy Ridley movies. They really reignited my I don't even say my love of Star Wars. I enjoy Star Wars, but they are not my go to sci fi franchise. And after watching those movies in theaters, I was like, oh, this is what movies should be right now, big fun action. Don't think too much about it. But for the people who love the Star Wars lore and live and breathe that grew up with those original movies, I think there are some elements of the story that felt like a little bit of a slap in the face to you. You could credit some lazy writing here and there, but I still think at the core those movies did really well for me as a casual Star Wars fan, especially with the Force Awakened. That was a big moment, a big cinematic moment that maybe kind of went down from the second and third movie, But altogether I really enjoyed that trilogy, So I would have been a fan if they would have done one more. But I think what they want to do is shift the model a little bit and take maybe what has been working over on Disney Plus, which there have been some really solid Star Wars franchises over there. The Mandalorian has been my favorite so far, which there is also a Mandalorian movie in the work, so I don't think they are lumping it together with this trilogy. Maybe we see the Mandalorian in this trilogy, but I don't think so. I think for the most part they're gonna keep all those things separate in different timelines. But this trilogy is being developed by Simon Kinberg, who is one of the creative minds behind the X Men movies. So oh man, if they could give it an X Men flair to it, I think that would be awesome. But like I mentioned earlier, the Mandalorian and Grogu movie is supposed to come out on May twenty second, twenty twenty six, and these other Star Wars movies are supposed to come out on December eighteenth, twenty twenty six and Summer seventeenth, twenty twenty seven. So still in way early developmental stages, but glad to know that these movies are coming for a new Star Wars trilogy. I'm gonna buy a ticket to it. I am all in on seeing more Star Wars movies on the big screen and keeping the medium Star Wars characters to Disney. Plus, I think it'll be interesting to see how the Mandalorian transfers onto the big screen because that last season, oh it started to feel kind of like a Saturday morning, very family friendly TV show, which I just thought there was more on the line in that first season more that you've learned about the character, and now it just kind of has this formula of, oh, here's a problem in this episode, let's figure it out, and it's all wrapped up in a nice little bow by the end of it. So hopefully they bring back some of that energy from the first season to give you some real grit to the character, some better action and fighting sequences. Otherwise, so why do I care about seeing it on the big screen when I could just go back and watch season one? All right? All right? Moving on now to our next project. Tom Cruise reportedly wants Glenn Powell, Yes, Glenn Powell from Twisters, from Hitman, Anyone but you. He wants Glenn to replace him as the lead in the Mission Impossible franchise after It looks like Tom Cruise is maybe going to dip out after the next one, which that trailer just dropped recently. Maybe I'll feature that in the trailer park next week. And it seems like they have become friends because they were both in Top Gun together, and I really think that Tom Cruise maybe somehow sees himself in Glenn Powell, even though Glenn Powell, I feel is a much better looking actor. Obviously at this point in his career, Glenn is still in his thirties, has nowhere near the success and recognizability and bankability that Tom Cruise head at that age. But I also think right now we live in a world where it's so hard to create big movies. But if there is somebody on the cusp of that of being that big a level actor, it is somebody like Glynn Powell. So maybe Tom Cruise recognizes that a little bit. He's been on a string of hit after hit movie. I would say his last three movies all together, we're just banger after banger. So maybe Tom Cruise looks at him and says, Okay, I can't do these movies forever. Because Tom Cruise is notorious for doing all of his own stunts, breaking his ankle as he jumps from one building to another, riding off ramps and motorcycles and throwing in mid air and shooting off a parachute in order to win. And I think that does add a lot of great production value to a movie like this that you need people to go see on the big screen in order for it to be profitable. So to get people back into the seats you have to give him a reason to and Tom Cruise is really good at that. Even though I don't really like him as a person. I find him a little bit off putting. I don't think I would want to be in a room with Tom Cruise. I mean, I would interview him, because that would be awesome. He's had so many great movies. But I think if it was just like, oh, you want to hang out with the Hollywood actor, Yeah, do you want to hang out with Tom Cruise? I think I'm good. But in the case of Tom Cruise, I can kind of separate the art from the artists because as much as I love movies and will always encourage people to go to the theater to enjoy a movie, to really be able to escape and take it in and it's full glory, that is really what I support him on and believe he is trying to keep alive. He brought back a shot of blood into our old krusty cinema body with top gun, and I was kind of surprised about the numbers from the Last Mission Impossible movies, because I did think that was a big, fun movie, but it didn't really live up to expectations. So I wonder what this next installment is going to do at the box office, and whether or not there will be a franchise left on the table for Glenn Powell to even pick up. But somebody did ask him about it, and he reportedly said his mom would never let him do that, which leads me to believe if you give an answer like that, in the back of your head, you know you can't say anything and you have to make a joke. So I do think there is some truth to this. He has probably had a conversation. Maybe it's not set in stone, maybe he can't talk about it yet, but I think there probably is at least a conversation, just based on what I've seen from him and Tom Cruise. But the ruling here is what I pay for a ticket or what I skip it to see Glenn Powell in a Mission Impossible movie. I don't even think that is a question. I for sure would buy a ticket to that I did see, though the Mission Impossible movie has had a lot of difficulties. Apparently it has a budget approaching four hundred million dollars and they're already done filming this movie. It's all in post production, so maybe they're doing some crazy special effects, maybe to close it out. They're making a three hour movie. But that is a huge, huge budget, and if it does cross that four hundred million dollar mark, it'll be the fourth film to do so. Oh my gosh, that is just so much money. I would feel this immense pressure for it to be a hit. It is almost like an NFL team at the beginning of the season. And I could say this as a Cowboys fan that if you go into a season and the goal of that season is either we win a Super Bowl or we are a laughing stock, that is kind of the situation you are in here. You can't put this movie out that has cost four hundred million dollars make fifty million dollars your opening weekend. You either have to have a smash hit on your hands or just cut your losses at this point, but the only other movies that have cost over four hundred million dollars have been Star Wars, The Force Awakens, Star Wars, The Rise of Skywalker, and Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom. I forget how expensive those Jurassic World movies are because of all the special effects, But all those movies have come to us in the last ten years. That is just a scary amount of money to pay for a movie. Next up, I know I've talked about this before in the Trailer Park, but recently a new trailer for Captain America Brave New World came out, and the big takeaway from this is we got a better look at Harrison Ford as Red Hulk. If you're not familiar with what is going on in this Captain America, Anthony Mackie has taken over for Chris Evans. He is the new Captain America. If you didn't watch the Disney Plus show, I don't really recommend you go back and watch it. You might learn some things about where the character is going into this movie, but I don't think they will be expecting everybody to have seen that show. And hopefully they reset everything within like the verse five minutes to do a quick little recap so we can move on to the next chapter of Captain America. But in this movie, Harrison Ford is trying to become resident. He tries the team up and befriend Captain America even though they have butted heads in the past, and the result of Harrison Ford's character He's thunder Bolt Ross who eventually turns into the Red Hulk, and now we get to see what he looks like as the Red Hulk, and I am surprisingly really excited about it. And I always liked every iteration of the Hulk, even back to the original with Eric Bannon. I'm talking only in movies, not the old school Hulk TV show, But in that version, we had some very cool, comic accurate things about the Hulk, of how high he could jump, how strong he really was, how fast he could run. I think overall the story and we weren't really at the best place with CGI when that movie came out, so I do think there were some things that really hindered that movie and made it look too cheesy for audiences to take seriously, which has kind of always been the struggle of the Incredible Hulk. And then in two thousand, the Ed Norton version. I love that movie, and that was the kicking off of the MCU before it was the MCU, and still people did not enjoy that version of the Hulk, and I do think the look of the Hulk wasn't quite there yet, and what they changed from that version of the Hulk to the Mark Ruffalo version of the Hulk is now they do the mapping on the face, so you're actually seeing the actor's face on the Hulk when he hulks out. So you have this connection between the two characters where it's not just Okay, I am the human version here and then when I'm the Hulk, I am this completely different person. And I think it shows even better with the Harrison Ford version where it doesn't look as goofy, and I think the Hulk needs to be mean, the Hulk needs to be angry, and in a lot of the verse, well it wasn't even a lot of the versions, but in the versions that came later of the Hulk with smart Hulk, which I don't think they should have ever done, that really kind of killed the character. But he started to become more friendly, he started to become more in tune with his emotions, and I want the Hulk who is just an all out just rage ball, can't listen to anybody, smashes everything, is a force to be reckoned with the strongest avenger on the field. I want that version of the Hulk. So seeing this evil red version of the Hulk really excites me because we might finally get that grit. And even though he is the villain and you're probably not going to root for him. I want to see that fight now with him and Captain America. And when you think about Captain America, like, what real power does Anthony Mackie's version of Captain America have Because he wasn't given the same serum as Steve Rogers. He just kind of like, hey, here's the shield, now here you go. Now you're Captain America. Is that really all it takes? I hope they answer that question in this movie. And I was already sold on this movie before that, but now I'm not only buying one ticket, I'm buying two tickets. I don't know why I need two tickets, but I'm so sold. I am buying two tickets to this new Captain America movie. All right, Moving on now, there is an Idle Hands remake in the works at Sony. Idle Hands is what I believe to be a forgotten film from nineteen ninety nine. It is a horror comedy, which you don't really get much these days, and Idle Hands is very much a movie that if you did not experience it when it first came out, if you weren't young when this movie came out. It's not a movie you can go back in twenty twenty four and watch and think, oh, that is a really well done movie. And every time around Halloween time it is a movie I always watch. It was on Amazon, so I did actually watch this on Halloween this year, and now so many years later, it doesn't quite hold up as much as I remember it being so funny and being one of my favorite movies as a teenager. I think it was my impressionable mind back then that found things funnier and I want to remember the memory of when I first experienced this movie, and I think a remake of that is going to go nowhere. And attached to this project, you have Finn Wolfhard who is writing the script, and you would know Finn Wolfhard from Stranger Things, which, Oh, that final season is coming out next year and I cannot wait for that. I think. I don't want to say Stranger Things is an underrated show, because it's quite possibly one of the most overrated shows on Netflix. But I think a lot of people who were so invested in the first and second season have kind of dipped out by this point. But that last season was one of my favorite seasons of any show I've ever seen on Netflix, and I'm so excited for the finale of this and essentially each episode is going to be a movie that is kind of the level that Stranger Things is at now, every episode of the movie. That's how I view it. I don't really see that as a TV show. A lot of TV shows now really kind of walk those lines of being just short films or being one big, long film split up into chapters. That's really all it is now. I think those best TV shows are really just good movies in disguise and more digestible format, because everybody has a problem with long movies these days, but nobody has a problem with watching eight episodes of a show. But anyway, he is attached to this project. He is writing it along with Billy Burke, and they might codirect this movie. This is a definite skippet for me. I just don't like reimaginations of cult classics because there is nothing you can do to make this movie better. It is what it is. And I hate that cliche phrase, but you are never going to live up to the memory of something that was so niched back in nineteen ninety nine. What this movie is even about is ridiculous and does it make sense? And as I was rewatching it, I was like, oh man, this movie is just all over the place, but it's funny for the time in a world where movies could just be fun for the sake of being fun, where you didn't have to explain things. Essentially, it is about Devin Salwas's character, who is a stoner, has no ambitions in life, has a big crush on the girl who lives across the street, who is played by Jessica Alba. He gets possessed by this demonic force where he is no longer able to control his hand, and his hand just wants to kill people. That's pretty much it. He kills his best friends, they come back as zombies, and it's all the highjinks they get into together. It is a very animated stoner comedy from the nineties that is so so nineties. And I think this is a movie that will not benefit from a remake. It wouldn't benefit from a sequel or a prequel because I don't think it was a big enough movie to really get people caring about it. There are some movies that should just be let be, don't mess with them. They were good for the times. I don't want to tarnish the memory of this movie, so I am definitely gonna skip it. Next up on the Ducket, Denzel Washington revealed that he is going to star in Black Panther three. When I first thought about this, I thought that was immediate ticket, and then I think more about it. Denzel Washington in a Black Panther three movie that I really didn't know where they were on developing this movie, but he said. Ryan Kugler, who is the director of one and two in the Black Panther franchise, is currently writing a role for Denzel. I immediately was like, oh, yes, this is an immediate Yes, I'd buy a ticket to this, And then I thought about whenever the MCU brought in one of the best actors of our generation and completely wasted him, and that was Christian Bale as Gore, the god butcher in Thor, Love and Thunder. Now, Ryan Kugler is a much better director than in Taikoba Titi, who I feel has just after Ragnarok and him having success with that movie and being able to do another Thor movie and really now being able to do any movie he wants to direct, at least in his world of like comedy, and I think he really wanted to tank the character. I almost feel like that movie was a bit of a joke to him, thinking I'll just do whatever I want. They can't help me know that. He took one of the best actors, Christian Bale, who has been in a comic book movie. He has been Batman. But I feel like Christopher Nolan's Batman is a much different world than anything in the MCU. And if there was anything in the MCU that I would compare it to, it would be Black Panther because it's a little bit more set with a serious dramatic tone, especially with all that happened in the real world that had to mirror itself onto the plot of Black Panther two. But I just fear that an actor of his caliber just doesn't compute in the MCU. As much as you think, oh, yeah, you put a really great actor in the MCU, it's going to be a success, I don't think that is a guarantee because there is a different method of acting required for MCU movies. There just is. Just because you're a great actor doesn't mean you are a great actor in the MCU. And what you see is a lot of the people who had success in the MCU times struggle crossing back over into having a career out of these superhero movies because you could be so good in these and so typecast know exactly how to play all these characters, create these larger than life people that only exist in the pages of comic books and on the big screen inside of a franchise that has just a dedicated fan base. But outside of that, sometimes it's hard to get taken seriously. And I think the reverse of that is also an issue that sometimes you can have an actor who is so good at all these things. Denzel was out here probably going to get an Oscar nomination for Glad eight or two. Haven't even seen it yet, but it just seems like from what people have been saying, he's going to get another Oscar nomination and add to his collection of Oscars. And he even said that he is going to retire after this next batch of films, Black Panther three being one of them. He's going to be in a movie about a military leader named Hannibal. He's going to be in a new film with Steve McQueen, a film adaptation of Othello I think that's how you say it. And he's going to be in a King Lear project, and after that probably seeing Denzel dip out, which isn't too surprising giving that as one, two, three, four five projects movies can take one sometimes one and a half to two years, so you're looking at about a decade of working right there. Denzel is currently sixty nine years old, so yeah, I could see him around eighty saying yeah, it's time to hang it up. So that could be the next decade for him. Maybe he does another one or two after that, but I could see him having a good next decade and then saying, hey, I've had my run. I have all these oscars. There's nothing else I need to say. There's nothing else I need to do to prove anything to people. Some other actors I think should retire Harrison Ford and I know I'm excited for him to be in this next Captain American movie, but dude is eighty two. I feel like he has earned the respect, made the funny, been so many iconic over his life, from Indiana Jones to Hans Solo, Blade Runner, all these things that he has done. I think he would leave behind such a great legacy if he retired within the next year or two. Tom Hanks, I also think he should retire, especially after seeing his very mediocre films in the last five with A Man called Otto being his best film so far, but no way rivaling anything he has done in his prime or even in the two thousands, even in the twenty tens he was better. And he's only sixty eight years old. But I think he should retire from acting and focus on directing. That's kind of where I wanted to see Tom Hanks right now, because if he keeps taking roles like here and movies with a very limited cast, which is really all he kind of does now. If you look at the last five movies he did, it is really just him a co star and like a handful of supporting characters. I want big Tom Hanks movies with elaborate casts. I think the closest he got to that was in Elvis. So I'd say Tom Hanks retired, just start directing some movies, throw your sons in there and call out a day. I also think I don't know how he hasn't retired at this point, but Clint Eastwood, he's ninety four years old and for the most part. He's just a director now, but there are a lot of movies still that he directs and stars in. At ninety four years old. I just think that he is set on not slowing down because he believes that once you've slowed down, that is kind of punching your ticket. But man, dude looks tired ninety four years old. What a legacy he has had. I think you should enjoy it. I don't really I want to see new Clint Eastwood movies anymore, especially when it looks like it's so detrimental to his health. But that's what he likes to do. I just couldn't imagine myself at ninety four years old still wanting to work. And I guess being able to make movies is a dream and probably one of the coolest jobs. At the level that he is at, where he calls all the shots, he can make any movie he wants. But man, I'm calling it quits. So for that reason, back to Denzel, I don't think I am an immediate ticket for this movie. I don't really know the direction they are going to go in with the next Black Panther movie. And I think the reason Part two was so impactful was because of the death of Chadwick Boseman. Now, unless Danzel is going to come in and so now becoming the new Black Panther, maybe I'm in. Could you imagine Black Panther dropping the F word like Denzel does now that I would buy a ticket for. But I think as of now, when I really think about it, Denzel and Black Panther three, As of now, I'm gonna skip it. All right. I got a couple more things here to talk about. Ice Age six is in production with the original cast returning. Okay, why didn't y'all tell me that they made ice Age three through five? If you would have put a gun to my head a week ago before this news came out and said how many Ice Age movies are there, I'd probably say two. I don't really remember anything past Ice Age two, and I think this was a franchise that really got run into the ground. But now that Disney has bought Ice Age, oh man, they're about to further run it into the ground. Ice Age one came out back in two thousand and two, and that was a peak time for DVDs where you could have a movie come out in theaters do really well but where it became ingrained into American culture was through those DVD sales rentals raning movies back in the day, which oh, there's still a red box by my house that apparently you could just go in and ask certain locations that have red boxes and you could take the whole thing because they're having to pay to have these removed. They don't want to pay to have them removed. Supposedly depending on the location that it's at. Some are at Walgreens, a lot of them are at Walgreens or CBS, but apparently there are some that are like built into the structures of certain buildings, so they're just going to be there forever. But apparently you can go and say, hey, I want to take this off your hands, because I did see somebody on Reddit with a red box in their hand. What I do want to do is they're still for the most part working, and you can go and just get a free DVD because if you put your credit card in to pay for it, it's not connected to any business anymore. They're completely bankrupt. But back at a time when DVDs were just king in the early two thousands, Ice Age was one of those movies that I just remember watching so much because it was one of like the four DVDs that we had at our our school when we would have movie day. Ice Age two came out in two thousand and six, and after that, I don't really know, but John liqu was almost coming back, Ray Romano's coming back, Dennis Leary. For me, this isn't easy, I'm gonna skip it. And I don't really feel like Ice Age is a highly praised franchise. So unless the goal of these movies is to introduce them to a new audience that I really don't think kids now are going to get or really care about. Unless you bring in some gen z actors to voice some of these characters, I don't see this movie doing particularly well. And also I don't really want to live in a world where Disney owns every animated franchise, which even back in the day, I feel like a lot of people assumed anything that was animated, anything that was like an animal story, you just kind of assumed it was Disney. Even some people think that Shrek is Disney, but it's not as DreamWorks. So I think the big animation studios that are left have just been competing with Disney for so long, and now Disney is taking over some of these properties that they bought up whenever twentieth Century Fox went under. So I just don't want to live in a world where everything is a Disney character, because as we see now with Disney, their model really isn't hey, let's make some new, fun, innovative characters and movie franchises and take risks. No, they just want to do sequels and sequels on movies that are gonna make them billions of dollars. So I don't want to see that model spread out over all of these franchises. And really we do not need a nice Age six all right? And last stup, god Zella Minus one. The team behind that movie is making a follow up. Takashi Yamazaki, who directed that movie, who I love him as a director. I love that he is so much a believer in American movies that when he got interviewed at the Oscars about what are his favorite movies of all time, he listed big, fun movies like Back to the Future, which most times when you ask any director, it's always something very niche and specific and old and indie. But to hear the creators of God's Ella minus one go on the red carpet and say their favorite movies of all time were Alien, Blade, Runner, Jurassic Park, and Back to the Future. Just really inspired me to have filmmakers who are innovative in their own right believe in just big, fun Hollywood movies that at the core of what movies are the most essential to us, like those are the foundation. We can't continue on in cinema without having movies like that. And I know everybody wants to win an Oscar, to have a little Indie darling, to have something that's really sophisticated and mind altering to people's lives in that way. But there's also so much greatness in creating the next Jurassic Park, in creating the next Back to the Future, that I'm glad there are still minds out there looking to make movies like that to be impactful and hopefully bringing on a new ip. And I know I'm talking about the team behind Godzilla Minus one, which has one of the biggest just numbers of movies inside of this franchise's like sixty Godzilla movies. But still there is that need to create these big Hollywood blockbusters. So for that reason, I am all in on whatever they're cooking up. I don't even need to hear the details to know I am buying a ticket to that. All right, I'll come back and give my spoiler free review of A Real Pain, and in the trailer park we'll talk about the new Christmas comedy with Jack Black and Post Malone called Dear Santa. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review of A Real Pain starring Kirion Colkin and Jesse Eisenberg, also written and directed by Jesse Eisenberg. This is what I'm going to call a no notes review, and it has a lot to do this movie, which i'll get into. I don't know how emotional I'm gonna get during this review, but for those watching on YouTube, I usually have this iPad right in front of me. You can't see it, but I'm usually looking down at it because I make a lot of notes about all the movie reviews I do. Because I want to give my most knowledgeable approach to every single movie review, even though I don't get a whole lot into, like all the technical aspects and what like a real acclaimed movie critic would talk about. I want to be prepared so it doesn't seem like I just come on here and go off the fly, go on whatever, and just like spit things out because I like to be prepared, because I think it's important for me doing this show and for you listening that I give a crap about what I'm doing. I know what I'm talking about, even though I feel a lot of my reviews come from pure emotion that I think that is how I approach movie reviews, how movies make me feel, because I know that that is my truth. What I heard one time Quentin Tarantino talking about one of his favorite movie reviewers, or his favorite movie reviewer of all time, who he asked why she never wrote a book or talked about it more, and she was like, because I give a piece of myself away in every single movie review I do. And that is what I like to do here, because on the surface, this is a movie podcast where I come on here, talk about mood reviews, make fun of movies, rise up, maybe glaze some movies here and there. But I also like to give you a little bit of myself because talking about movies is talking about life. And I think if I could get through to some people who are maybe hesitanting about checking out the podcast, thinking, ah, I don't watch movies, like movies are dead. I don't need to do that just because you don't watch movies, that's like saying you don't want to experience life. Sometimes movies unearthed things that I didn't know was like built up inside of me, And that is exactly what A real pain did. It was almost like it reminded me of when I'd be cooking out with my dad and he never used charcoal. He would always use real wood, take forever to burn. It always had to add an hour to the cook time whenever we were supposed to start, but it would burn forever, and sometimes into the night. When we're gonna put out the fire, you think it's completely out, and then you move it just a little bit, move it a little bit more, and suddenly this big, roaring fire is happening all again, just because you kind of picked at it a little bit. I feel like that is what this movie did to me. And the reason I have a no notes review is because I feel like, when I think about these characters and what it just really struck a chord with. You have two very opposite people here. Jesse Eisenberg plays a character named David Harry and Cochin plays a character named Benji. They are cousins. They are at this point and they're like mid to late thirties where they're kind of had a falling out, and you learn more and more details about their relationship as the movie unfolds. But the movie starts with them going on a trip because their grandmother just died. They're going to poll In and it's the first time they've seen each other in a very long time. And what I loved about the start of this movie is within five minutes, you know all the details about these characters that you need to know. And that was a really strong opening because starts out with Jesse Eisenberg's character driving to the airport. He's in an uber and he calls his cousin like five times because he is so anxious and just telling them, Hey, there's traffick here. If you haven't left yet, I hope you've left by now, Hey calling you again. Don't want to leave it another message, And that tells you everything you need to know about that character, being very high stressed, just very tightly wound, worrying about every single detail on this trip. And then you have Kirie and Colkin's character, who hasn't replied any of his phone calls, hasn't listened to any of his messages, and he's just hanging out at the airport. He's like, Yeah, I've been here for like a couple hours, a few hours because I like to come here and people watch. So that really tells you the complete opposite nature of both of these characters. And the more and more you learn about each of them, the more I realize how much I am like Jesse Eisenberg's character. And I have to say, it didn't make me feel that good, because that's something I've been struggling with recently, because being so anxious and worried about just the little parts of life and having things in order, worrying about your job. In this movie, he is married, also has a very young son, So not at that phase of my life yet. But all of the characteristics of Jesse Eisenberg I saw myself in, and all the characteristics of Benji played by Kirie and Coulkin, I saw what I've been trying to achieve my entire adult life. And there's some moments in this movie where they butt head so much because they're so different and you could say they're like a no odd couple, but I feel like that's such an old reference to an old movie of like what's really clean and one's really messy? How will they get together? It's not really like that. It's more that Jesse Eisenberg has changed over the course of his life to be more adult because he is in his mid to late thirties, and Kirian Colkin is very much just still care free and has a much different approach to life. Doesn't give a crap about anything, and that is something that I have strived to be a little bit more. I would love to be bore care free, and not just because I feel like I would have less stress. I think I would always carry the stress with me because that is something I've had since a very young age. But I think there are moments in this movie that I thought, I want to be more charismatic and be able to light a room up when I walk into it, and I feel that that is something that I've just tried to do. But because over the course of my life, I've always been known as the quiet guy, which I hate. I mean, I come on here and I talk forty five minutes to an hour a week about movies and I could do that every single day and I would still be the quiet guy. And there was something about this movie bringing out Benji's character of him being able to connect with people. That is something I've been just trying to do my entire life of if I ever we'll hang out with a new group of people, oh, I feel very tense. That is hard for me to make new friends in a small group big groups. I go on stage and tell jokes. That's no problem to me. I'm connecting that way because to me, that doesn't feel real. You give me five hundred people, a thousand people, it doesn't matter. I've done that before. That is easy to me. But but connecting with just a small group of people, I can't do it. And if I went to hang out with people like for a weekend and like hey, here's Mike, and you hang out for the entire weekend, I don't feel like I would bond with those people. And I feel that that is something I've tried to do because I have met people that I enjoy after just an hour a meeting with them, and I want to be around them more. I want to know what they have thoughts about and there are people I like so instantly that I always wish that I could be that type of person. Some of my friends are those type of people who can just talk to anybody, strike up a conversation, and get all these he details out of people because they are so warm and friendly and inviting. And there's a moment in this movie where Kirian Colkin learns something about the other members of this tour group that they go on, because they go on this trip to Poland, but they are joining this tour guide who has like a very interesting cast of people with him, and you have Kirian Colkin's character who is learning all these things about other people because he's genuinely curious. He likes talking to people, and they all start to like him. Some of them don't like him for that same reason, but some of them form like a really strong relationship with him, just because he has that warm nature, that charismatic nature. Who he is somebody who just comes into a room says what he says, and people connect with that. And I've always wanted to do that because I feel, over the course of my life that sometimes I feel that people just don't like me, not just that they don't like me. It's that I don't do enough things for people to have an opinion on me, where I don't say a whole lot. I don't put a lot out there. So it's not that people don't like me because like I don't like that guy. It's just because I feel that I kind of blend into the background sometimes that people don't like me, but they also don't like they don't hate me, and I think that's almost worse. That is something I've just been fighting because, like I said, going back to that example, if if you met people, spend a weekend with them, I feel like I'm so forgettable for that reason. And I think people genuinely think I'm a nice person. I'm a nice guy, but there's just something about not being able to connect with people in that way that I've been striving to do my entire adult life, maybe even since I was a teenager, Like I didn't have friends then, but I feel like even growing up now, like I just want to have that. And there are moments in this movie where it really was like, did they make this movie just for me? Jesse Eisenberg, did you like hack into my computer and find all my journals and all my notes and listen to this podcast. Of all these things I've struggled with, and I haven't watched a movie that just nailed that aspect of my life, because this is probably something I should talk about in therapy, but it just really struck a chord with me and unnersed something in me that I really felt some type of way after watching this movie, thinking more and more about just this year I've been struggling with this and thinking this, and to see it play out in this way and to see it that it is something that other people struggle with was really something I don't even want to say refreshing, but just something I needed to know that there are other people out there who are like this. Like all my entire life, I've been a David and I've just been trying to be a Benji. And then getting back to the movie a little bit, I think the reason this message came across so well is because they are both fantastic actors. Jesse Eisenberg, I feel, has been a little little bit typecast. I feel like he's gotten away from it now. But Mark Zuckerberg that he played him in the Social Network and that was like his role when I think of Mark Zuckerberg, I think of Jesse Eisenberg, and then from there, I also think of him in Zombie Land, where he's kind of the same person a little bit or an Adventureland, and throughout the course of his movies he is that kind of nervous energy person, a very fast talker. I don't even know how you teach that, or how you learn that, or how to take a character on like that, Like I don't know if Brad Pitt could play somebody like that, that's just not in his arsenal. But this is the role that was just perfectly Jesse Eisenberg. And you have Kirie and Colkin, who is a fantastic actor. You probably know him most as Mcolay Colchin's brother or if you watch Succession, which I never watched that show, but he's a really great actor, and I feel he's having success in his later part of his thirties and forties now, and you can tell just how much every role he does now that he really kind of absorbs. And I've heard stories of him being really great at learning dialogue, like he would go onto the set of Succession and they would completely change all the lines on them, like Day of and like, oh, we changed all your lines, so you're gonna have to relearn these real quick. He would sit down in the makeup chair and by the end of his makeup session he would already have him figure it out. So there's something in his brain that he can absorb lines and memorize them really well and then completely nail the emotion because he has so much emotion throughout this entire movie where he goes on the highest highs, where he's just wanting to have fun and doing things out of pocket and making funny jokes that aren't really jokes. So if you're into dark comedies, you'll very much be into his humor. You see more examples of how different they are. There's one scene in particular where Benji wants to take kind of funny pictures at a serious monument and Jesse Eisenberg character like, now, we shouldn't do that. It feels disrespectful, but he starts doing it anyway. Jesse Eisenberg's taking the pictures, but then everybody else in the tour group joins in and it's a big fun moment, and then Jesse Eisenberg's character is just there taking the pictures, never gets in on the fund, so you see more of that throughout the movie. And I think it's Kiri and Kolkin's ability to do drama really well but also to have like this really good comedic timing that I think he is going to get a nomination for Best Supporting Actor in this movie. I feel like this movie is also a shoe in to get a Best Picture nomination because it feels very novel to me. I haven't really seen a movie like this where there's not some grand plot like what I told you earlier, that's the entire movie. They go on this trip, they have all these connections. There is a lot of dialogue, but the dialogue is really important, and you have two people who are just really great at having this chemistry that even though they're cousins, they kind of feel like brother So maybe a little bit too, I saw a bit of my brother and myself in this because that's kind of our personalities, a little bit like I'm one way, I would say very much, my brother is more of like Akiri and Kolkin in this movie, So maybe I saw some parallels there too, like even the trip itself, because there are some really heavy moments where they go to concentration camps, and it takes this other emotional level that I wasn't really expecting it to go on. So as you're feeling bad for both of these characters, you also feel bad for the world. And I haven't seen a movie have this course of action from beginning to end and also only be an hour and twenty two minutes. Like before you think twice about this movie, it is over. So for a real pain, I give it four point five out of five. I would say that point five is more of the emotional impact that had on me, So for any other person who doesn't struggle with that, it's probably still a four out of five. A really great movie, though definitely it out. If you want to get in early on some of the movies they're going to be nominated for Best Picture.

00:46:07
Speaker 2: It's time to head down to movie Mike treylor Paul I.

00:46:12
Speaker 1: Gotta tell you something that blew my mind. Jack Black, who's in this new movie called Dear Santa that we're about to talk about. He is only worth fifty million dollars at least according to the Internet. Sometimes these things aren't completely right, but it kind of gives you a ballpark on what a celebrity is worth. You know, Jack Black listed at fifty million dollars. I've been watching Jack Black since I was a kid at School of Rock, pick A, Destiny, Shallow, How He's been in so many movies and as a blade, I feel like he's only doing video game adaptations, massive movie star, tropic thunder like. The list goes on and on for movies that Jack Black has been in, and to only have a fifty million dollar network seems absurd to me. Maybe some of his movies have been smaller budget cult classics, but he's had some massive movies King Kong that was kind of like a differensona Jack Black. It just kind of blew my mind that at the level he is that in his career having I guess he doesn't always have top billing in movies. For the most part, he is a bankable movie star. I feel like it should be in the one hundred like Doubles. At at least. That blew my mind. But the movie we are here to talk about today is Dear Santa, is coming out next week on Paramount Plus. Yes, it is a straight to streaming platform movie, which I don't feature in the trailer park a lot now that I think about it, and not by design. Really. It's hard to build hype around a streaming movie now, but they one caught my eye for a couple of reasons. One because I like Jack Black hasn't really been in a great comedy recently. I feel like he's kind of in that stage of his career where he's just trying to make some money. I think a lot of these actors get to that point where they have been famous for so long, maybe feel like I just wanna be able to go in and do a good jump and make some money so I can leave behind a really big nest egg for my family. And I can't be mad at them for that. I can be mad at them when they make me sit through mediocre movies, but I can't be mad at them for securing that bag. But what Dear Sanna is about to beat? A kid who writes a letter to Santa innocent enough, except kid not so bright. He misspells Sanna and he writes Satan. So instead of getting his wishes to Sanna, Satan gets his letters and grant some three wishes, and at the end of those three wishes pretty much makes the deal that hey You're gonna have an awesome life right now while we're hanging out. But then I'm gonna take your soul. Also in this movie, Keegan Michael Key, who is just in everything since he's been in Key and Peel. If there's any animated movie that comes out, Keegan Michael Key is gonna be a voice on that. You also have post Malon, which I'm gonna get into my entire breakdown of his filmography. But right now, here's just a little bit of the Dear Santa trailer. My friend are getting three wishes. They stole that from me. By the way, after you make your wishes, I'm taking your soul.

00:49:12
Speaker 2: You ain't never had a friend like me.

00:49:15
Speaker 1: Okay, that I may have stolen from Aladdin. Now we're even let me show you a few of the things that could do for you. Now, this movie has a pretty low budget thirty million dollars, which isn't a whole lot to work with. There. I imagine a lot of that went to not even paying post Malone, but probably paying Jack Black. I really want to see a larger role here for post Malone. I'm not sure we're going to get it here. It kind of feels like what they featured so far in the trailer is really just maybe an extended cameo, which is really all his filmography has been up to this point. But I'll get into more of that here in a second. It does look a little cheap, though, and I'm having to look past that because I don't want to sound like this curmudgeon who hates on anything that resembles any kind of fun. And when I look at this movie specifically and look who's behind it, you have the Fairy Brothers who did movies like Dumb and Dumber, who did a lot of movies like the ones I mentioned earlier with Jack Black Shallow how they've also are responsible for the Something about Mary Stuck on You fever pitch earlier this year, Ricky Stanicky movies like Me, Myself and Irene. They have a large library of comedy movies. And if you look at their comedy specifically, all those movies are stupid movies. Dumb and Dumber on Paper is a stupid movie. And I love how all the premises to their movies start. They're about something that if you just saw it written on paper, if you just read the script, you read the plots. Synopsis that is funny. It is really hard to take a plot synopsis that is funny and flesh it out into an entire feature film. That is kind of how I'm feeling about this movie. It sounds funny of just to say, hey, what if a kid just misspelled something and he wrote dear satan instead of dear. That sounds like a funny idea. But I almost feel like when they were starting to make this movie and thought, oh, man, is this strong enough to make an entire film? And I feel like me on any other day, if I saw the trailer for this, I would rip it to shreds and think, God, this is dumb, this is a waste of time. But I started to consider all of the pieces here. Jack Black, who really I feel like he just wants to spread joy with this movie. He wants to bring people things that are gonna make you smile and gonna make you happy. And I'm okay with it in this situation because it's only a thirty million dollar movie. It's nothing crazy. And I do think we have gotten away from movies just being allowed to be fun for the sake of being fun, where you don't have to think about him a whole lot, especially a movie like this completely geared towards kids I do have. There's still a little bit of me that can't get over how bad this CGI looks. It looks in parts of this trailer that Jack Black is not even there, like he's entirely green screened into scenes where they maybe I couldn't get him on set for a day, they filmed the scene and then digitally put him into this scene, and the makeup on his face even looks digital, which is weird. That is an entire pet peeve I have of movies now using CGI to CGI in things that you could just go to the store and buy it, and makes me just go insane. But I'm looking past all that because I just want to be thinking back to me as a kid, and that is exactly where I put myself in this situation. If I was ten years old, maybe eight years old, and I saw the trailer for this movie, how would myself react to that? I think at that age, I would think this is hilarious and I would love it, and this would be a movie that I would watch at that time in my life and enjoy, and somebody older like me would say, ah, that's a bad movie. And this is gonna get bad reviews. I can guarantee you it's going to be a thirty to twenty percenter on the review site that I don't name because they don't want me a part of their review site. But the more I thought about The Fairly Brothers, and I thought it'd be un fair to say this looks stupid when I like some of their other stupid movies. I Love Dumb and Dumber. I put it in my Desert Island movie I Love Me Myself and Irene, And because when I first watched those movies as an impressionable kid teenager. Whenever I saw those movies, they were funny to me, and this movie is probably going to be funny to somebody. And if you look at some of the comedy elements in this trailer, you do see the Fairly Brothers in there. You can see their comedy there. And it's just us who haven't really aged with their films. But I do like that they are still committed to it, although I'm still really holding it against them how much they let me down on the Three Stooges movie that I thought was gonna be great, because I grew up loving the Three Stooges, even though they're way before my time. It was just the TV show my dad and I just bonded over and I was like, Oh, they're probably gonna make it into a movie. I hold that against them, and I hold Dumb and Dumber two. But looking back on some of their early work, I mean, Stuck on You, I thought was the funniest thing ever because it's such a dumb premise, and that's what they commit to, stupid premises and spending millions of dollars on them. So I do think we need directors like them who still want to bring that innocent joy to movies. Not every movie has to be serious, but I think you still have to take into consideration giving the audiences something worth paying for or something worth spending their time on if they already have this surface. So there is a fine line to walk between oh, it's just a fun movie, you don't have to think too much about it, but there's still some artistry that has to go into it, actual writing, actual jokes, actual punchlines that are going to be memorable and going to be worthy of somebody's time. So it can just be fun, turn your brain off, don't think too much. About it, but there also has to be some intention there, because that is what actually makes it a good movie. And I can't really remember the last time I saw a good Paramount plus original. I think the last one I Want was a Good Burger Too, and that movie let me down. It felt like just a TV special. It was more just the nostalgia surrounding that cult classic that even peauked interest in me wanting to watch that movie. But I want to see post Malone have a little bit more of a role in this movie. And looking at all the movies he's done so far, I've seen them all. I've seen every single movie, and for the most part, they have really just been glorified cameos. I don't think he was really trying to be a legit actor. I would love him too. I think he gets off for things and it sounds fun to do. If I was that famous, that rich and famous, I would take every single offer to do anything like this because it's fun and it's awesome. But I've seen him in Spencer Confidential in twenty twenty, Wrath of Man, which was probably my least favorite of all these Good Morning Teenage Muwan Ninja Turtles was great, but he had a very limited role. He was rightfully refille that last year. I think he should do more animated work up until this point. I think that's probably a best role so far. He was also in Roadhouse earlier this year, which that appearance let mean down a lot. He was heartily in that barely had a line. And the thing I enjoyed about this trailer is I was actually getting to see post Malone like he really is because he is playing himself. And I think that's what a director, a writer, or whoever is casting him in these movies need to pitch to him a role where he gets to be himself, because he gets typecast as the criminal because he is a dude, has a lot of tattoos, he looks really hardcore, but if you really know him and watch him on social media, he's a really kind and sweet guy and a funny guy and has this kind of I don't care energy and just on stage, it's very fun dancing around. And you see that a little bit in this trailer, and I think that is what would really translate onto the big screen into a movie. Capture that and put that in a movie, make his character be more like he is in real life, and I think it would be great, So I hope he has a little bit more screen time in this movie. Has a pretty significant amount of screen time in this trailer, which probably more than I've seen him from his appearance as another movie, so that is a good sign. But it kind of looks like they go to a post Malone concert he turns into post Malone Jack Black's character does, so I don't know how long that whole sequence will play out, but I hope it's pretty extensive. But again, in the movie is called Deer Santa and it's coming out next week on Paramount Plus on November twenty fifth. And that was this week's edition of Movie Lin Tramer Park and that is gonna do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week. This was a funny one. Shout out to Joel on X who wrote, just in case you missed it at Mike Distro, Red One is coming out on November fifty laughing crying emoji and Joel posted a picture of a giant display on Red Because I've been ripping that movie to shreds ever since I featured into the trailer Park. It caught some strays last week during the trailer park, and I did not go watch it this weekend. I couldn't commit myself to it. I wanted to commit to the bit and go and watch it and rip it to shreds. That movie is two hours. I just couldn't put myself through it. There are some movies I just decide that I'm gonna protest. That was one this year. The Crow was one earlier this year, and I feel like when I commit to protesting a movie, I have to follow through with that bit and not go see that movie. Even though I am a movie reviewer, a movie enthusiast. I will watch it eventually when it comes out to streaming, or if we get to the holidays and I have nothing else to watch. I will commit to going to the theater then, but I won't give it the satisfaction of going opening weekend and proving to them that all these random advertisements worked on me because they didn't. But appreciate you join getting it on that joke and getting another A little jab in there for Red One shoving that movie down our throats. So if you want to see who got the last laugh, there I wouldn't even report their numbers, but go look at them, go look how it's in theaters, and then pay attention to the fallout that is going to come in the next couple weeks. And pay attention whenever they immediately slap that thing on Amazon and say Red one is now available to watch at home, and then see how the Rock is going to react and what his next role is going to be. But I guess M one to two is coming out soon too, so I think it'll be all right. So thank you Joel for sending that in. Appreciate you for listening. Appreciate you all for listening, for spending any amount of time with me, especially if you've made it to the end of this podcast. Thank you so much from the bottom of my heart. And until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you here.