Movie of the Month (Dec) with Mike and Kelsey + Movie Review: Sonic 3 + Trailer Park: Love Me

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host. Movie Mike joined this week with Kelsey. How are you?

00:00:06
Speaker 2: I'm great?

00:00:07
Speaker 1: Are you good? It is snowy at the time of recording this episode, and I never opened the window in here, and you're like, I want to see the snow.

00:00:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, we don't even have curtains in here. You tacked a blanket.

00:00:19
Speaker 1: On the wall, a movie blanket, a.

00:00:20
Speaker 2: Movie blanket to block out the light from when you're doing videos. But if you're going to require my assistance in recording and I can't be near my window by my desk, I want the window open in here.

00:00:32
Speaker 1: I kind of forgot there was a window, and then we opened it up and we just see the snow falling. It's kind of.

00:00:36
Speaker 2: Nice, so peaceful.

00:00:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, But we're gonna do our movies of the month everything we watched in the month of December, which we saw a lot of things in theaters we did, we watched a lot of things at home. So we'll get into what is the best and the worst. In the movie review, we'll talk about Sonic three. And in the trailer park, there is a new post apocalyptic romance movie called Love me that I think is going to be a movie maybe only I like, But we'll get into all that. Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's talk movies from the Nashville podcast Networking Movie Mike Movie Podcast. We watched so much in the month of December, so let's kick it right off. What was the best movie in your opinion in theaters or at home?

00:01:19
Speaker 2: Might go Baby Girl?

00:01:20
Speaker 1: Really, Baby Girl?

00:01:21
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:01:22
Speaker 1: Why did you like that movie so much?

00:01:23
Speaker 3: Well?

00:01:23
Speaker 2: One, we saw it at the Bellcourt, which is I feel like seeing any movie there makes it infinitely better because it's just got this like old time theater kind of vibe, like they have curtains on the stage and people respect the like no cell phones, no talking.

00:01:39
Speaker 1: That is the only theater we go to, which we only go to really to that one into Regal, but nobody pulls out their cell phone ever. You never see it. You don't even see really, people leave, I guess to go to the bathroom, but I lit.

00:01:52
Speaker 2: Their snacks, which I must say they do dollar popcorn and drink refills and I take advantage of that every time.

00:01:58
Speaker 1: Which when we go to that theater. It is a small, independent theater. We always try to buy snacks there. I know sometimes I take my own snacks when we go to Regal, but it's like a big chain. We also have the Yeah, I still get drinks and popcorn. I don't really have anything I can eat there, But at Bellcourt we always make it a point to support them because that's how they make a lot of their money.

00:02:20
Speaker 2: We are remembers now with the bell Court.

00:02:21
Speaker 1: So if you go to a local theater, always buy snacks. Was it also getting to see her afterwards that maybe heighten it a little bit? Oh?

00:02:29
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah.

00:02:30
Speaker 1: I can feel kind of the presence of her being there afterwards and hearing her talk about it made me enjoy it more. It's kind of like whenever they have premieres at like film festivals and the person is actually there. I think that's why sometimes those movies get really big standing ovations that are like eleven minutes long, because there's something about them being there. But I still think even without her presence, I enjoyed that movie way more than I was expecting.

00:02:54
Speaker 2: To, as did I, which is why it's my best in the month.

00:02:57
Speaker 1: My best of the month for December. We saw a lot, and I'll run through it more once we're all done with both of our picks. I'm going to go with a complete unknown.

00:03:06
Speaker 2: Really good.

00:03:07
Speaker 1: It was, I think because of my low expectations for music biopicks right now that coming off of Elvis, which was totally glossy and flashy and didn't really feel like a traditional biopic it's very fantastical. This one was a little bit more set in reality, and it also didn't focus on his entire career, which I enjoyed. It was pretty much how he got discovered, how his first album didn't really work out well, and then all leading up to whenever he went electric, so comes famous and then totally wants to change what he's doing. So I think it was the fact that it didn't try to cover his entire life, which sometimes just feels like way too much to fit into a two and a half hour movie. I think that is why I ended up enjoying it more. It was focused more on early leading up to one point, so unlike most your additional biopics that are just their entire life all trying to be into one movie, I feel like it told a story better because it was like, here's this guy just trying to get his music heard by people, ends up changing a genre, bringing new life into it, and then has this dilemma when he kind of wants to step away from that a little bit. And also, Timothy shallow May I thought did a really good job as Bob Dylan, even though there are some moments where you can tell, ah, that's Timothy Shallo May being Timothy shallow May.

00:04:26
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were a few where like just his personality came through, and I feel like that's hard to.

00:04:30
Speaker 1: Do because I felt that too in Dune too, where there is some intense moments, but then it's almost like the way he speaks, where everybody in Dune speaks so like almost theatrical and like old school, and they have like this different dialect. Sometimes he just sounds like a California I don't think he's from California, but it kind of sounds like that Hollywood kid.

00:04:52
Speaker 2: I laugh because I don't know if you've seen any of the tweets about like when he and Kylie Jenner first started dating, and but people like, why does everyone just assume that Timothy Chalamea is just like astute Shakespearean lover of literature, Like just because he's been in like Little Women and other like intense serious movies, They're like, he might not be as like Shakespearean intense as people think he is.

00:05:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, he is a theater kid, so he has that aspect to him. But I think, like you were saying, people were so surprised when he went on college game day and knew a lot about football. It's like he's like a mid twenties.

00:05:30
Speaker 2: White dude on SNL Pete Davidson, And.

00:05:35
Speaker 1: When you see him outside of his roles, he seems like a normal dude. Like all the press he did for this movie seemed like a normal dude.

00:05:42
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe his name too, just Timothy chela May.

00:05:44
Speaker 1: It's true, it's a weird way to spell Timothy. It already looks regal. Timothy chela May just rolls off the tongue. It sounds like a very regal name. Like when he's fifty, it's gonna sound like, oh yeah, it's Timothy Chalomage in the same way we look at Denzel Washington now has that feel? What do you think about Edwin Norton looking very much older?

00:06:04
Speaker 2: I legit had to IMDb during the movie because I was like, who is that? He looks so familiar, and I was like, excuse me, former mister incredible Holk.

00:06:11
Speaker 1: Yeah, they made him look really old. He's only fifty five.

00:06:13
Speaker 2: They made him look very what's the word I was about to say.

00:06:18
Speaker 3: Daddy, but that's not what I meant, like dad, like Dad, core, Dad, Core, thank you. I'm even more grandpa core. He looked very old, but I thought he was.

00:06:29
Speaker 1: He was good in that. I could have seen somebody else in that role. Yeah, But I think overall the movie taught me about Bob Dylan.

00:06:39
Speaker 2: When I knew nothing about Bob Dylan.

00:06:40
Speaker 1: I didn't really know anything about it his story as far as how he got to start his whole relationship with the other singer, Johan Baiaz in this movie, I didn't really know who she wants. To be honest. There are about four Bob Dylan songs that I like, and after watching this movie, I did go back and listen to him. I enjoy them, but it wasn't the same way whenever I went to go see Bohemian Rhapsody that I got very into Queen's music. I don't think I'll have that same trajectory after watching this movie.

00:07:12
Speaker 2: I think I liked the Wonka soundtrack more.

00:07:14
Speaker 1: Yeah, we did listen to that. More. We listened to Bob Dylan on the way home from watching this movie. You cute it up and we haven't really dipped back into it since, so I think that's about where I am.

00:07:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think he's great, it's just not my musical taste. Like I respect him as an artist and think he's very talented, just isn't what I want to listen to.

00:07:35
Speaker 1: I also enjoyed that it did show him being a dick.

00:07:38
Speaker 2: It did. Yeah, it wasn't glossy like Bob Dylan's the best. It was kind of like, oh, we kind of screwed some people over and like left behind the people who helped him get a start.

00:07:48
Speaker 1: And most times when biopics come out where the person is still alive. That is the reason I don't like it, because not that he he still gave some approval on this movie than a producer or anything on it, but obviously they wanted to put it out with his blessing, and he watched it before and approved of it. He thought Timothy Shalam did a good job portraying him. But it was the fact that they still left in some of the things that didn't paint him out to be a saint, which they always try to paint whoever they're making a bio pick out to be the perfect person, like they.

00:08:19
Speaker 2: Didn't realize her.

00:08:20
Speaker 1: Because if you look at what Elvis is versus what the movie Priscilla is, two totally different movies, they very different sides of the thing. They don't show anything bad about Elvis, so I enjoyed that aspect of it. I thought also, the music on its own was really good in the movie, with Timothy Shallame singing, and for a movie that had a lot of music throughout, not even Bob Dylan music, but other music, it did a really good job at holding my attention, because sometimes when you put music in a movie that people don't enjoy, it's like, oh, man, you're gonna bore people.

00:08:53
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:08:53
Speaker 1: I wasn't bored, but yeah, that's why my best of the month goes to a complete unknown. I stand by my four point five out of five. So now moving on to the worst of the month, What is the worst movie you saw?

00:09:03
Speaker 2: I'm so sorry it's gonna hurt your feelings. With Sonic three, Oh don't do it. I was so bored.

00:09:10
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm gonna give my full review later in this episode.

00:09:13
Speaker 2: I thought Sonic two was so funny when we saw it, I was expecting to get so you did like that one I did. Ten minutes into this one phone came out. I was like, brighten its down, scroll in Twitter, bored out of my mind.

00:09:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess I still loved it. I won't say too much else about it. I give it my thoughts to my review, but I will say it's harder for people I think who weren't a fan of the video game, which you haven't played any video games? Am I correct?

00:09:42
Speaker 2: That's not true. Frogger Okay, that skateboard no snowboarding game SSX, it's a good game. And then I had a game Boy and I played Mary Kay Nashley games until I stuck the cartridge and rock and broke it.

00:09:54
Speaker 1: You played Sims No No, No, Sims.

00:09:57
Speaker 2: Roller Coaster, Tycoon, that's what it was, Tycoon, School, Tycoon, and then School.

00:10:02
Speaker 1: You hadn't played Super Mario, but we have played Mario Kart together. Yes, showed you had to play that on the switch, and I got pretty good at it because also going into the Super Mario Brothers movie. You didn't really connect with any of the references from the video games, correct.

00:10:17
Speaker 2: So I almost feel like I was like the because I'm kind of like tail end of millennial, and I feel like Mario Sonic were like early nineties, yeah, which I mean, you're ninety one, but I was born in ninety four. I'm the oldest. I didn't have older siblings, so it's like I dictated the interest, and I was an only child for twelve years, so it was just my interest. That's true, Polly Pocket and Barbie Dolls.

00:10:41
Speaker 1: Because my older brother and sister born in the eighties, so I was exposed to a lot of things that they grew up with. And I just like he Man. He Man really wasn't popular when I was a kid, but I know it more because my brother was super into he Man. Even same thing with Ninja Turtles that was more in the late eighties, and I just kind of adapted it from the early nineties.

00:11:04
Speaker 2: I picked up my mom's interest, so I was watching Friends from day one. They both came out in ninety four, so I was like eight months old and I was already watching Friends.

00:11:13
Speaker 1: The same thing with video games, like my brother had a Super Nintendo, so then I played the old Super Nintendo. Also the fact that we were broke. I feel when you are broke, you get the technology later. So when I was, you know, five years old, I was still using old technology from like the late eighties because it was cheaper and we had it. You kind of stick with that. So it's like we didn't get the other things until much later. It's like it comes out, it's new to everybody, they get it, and then we get it once it comes down in price. So there was that aspect of it too. But what else did you mean about this movie?

00:11:50
Speaker 2: I can't give any spoilers.

00:11:51
Speaker 1: Jim Carrey as a whole.

00:11:52
Speaker 2: You did not like, didn't love it.

00:11:55
Speaker 1: Well, whenever they come out they are going to come out with Sonic four. I guess I'll go watch it alone. Sad, all right? For the best, My worst of December was Y two K. Yeah, and it's because I had not high expectations for it, but I thought it was gonna be different.

00:12:11
Speaker 2: I thought it was gonna be funnier and less bloody.

00:12:13
Speaker 1: Which for the first twenty minutes I thought it was pretty funny before it got to before it became a slasher fit. Yeah, before it went into horror mode, I thought the overall dynamic between the two best friends was funny. There's a lot of good jokes in there. I thought the dynamic was good. And then it just went into full slasher mode and I feel like it kind of lost its aura, which it was supposed to kind of be a nostalgic movie based in nineteen ninety nine. Right at New Year's Eve. Technology takes over.

00:12:47
Speaker 2: If but like it's almost as if the technology were Transformers that just wanted to murder everyone. Yeah, I like super Killer Transformers.

00:12:56
Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought it was gonna be more of things and not working and not so much they turned into killer robots.

00:13:04
Speaker 2: Yeah.

00:13:05
Speaker 1: And then all of the gore in it was very very gory, like B movie level gore where it was cheap gore and there there's a time and place for that. I enjoyed some B level horror movies like that. Like I was big into Trauma where it's all about like people getting body parts ripped off and there's like blood squirting out and it's like over the top. It's a little different than like a Jason movie.

00:13:32
Speaker 2: I want to see them less. It's ungraz anatomy.

00:13:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it's yeah, it's it's different than like a Michael Myers or Jason movie where it's scary. This is more campy and over the top, where you're not necessarily frightened by it. It's just shocking. We'll run through all the movies we saw in December. We went to the theater a lot. Like we said, White two K was the first thing. I give it a three out of five, which is still a fair score.

00:14:00
Speaker 2: It's higher than i'd give it.

00:14:02
Speaker 1: What would you give it? I still by the end of it and that third act I found some redeeming qualities. It was just like that middle thirty minutes or forty minutes or so, and the movie's only ninety.

00:14:14
Speaker 2: I was gonna say, the middle thirty is the third of it.

00:14:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, the middle thirty, first thirty, you're good, last thirty, you're good. It's that middle thirty. So two thirds of it are good. Three out of five. Carry On, which is now like the biggest Netflix movie of all time. Yes, I gave a three point five out of five. I enjoyed more that it was a big Netflix movie that I thought was entertaining and that a lot of people watched and talked about. I think that is important. We need movies that anybody can watch and have opinion about it and it makes a splash.

00:14:49
Speaker 2: I love Jason Bateman.

00:14:50
Speaker 1: I thought he people were saying that they couldn't see him as a villain. I thought he was a good villain.

00:14:54
Speaker 2: He has like a great like villain voice because a lot of it he's just like talking through the year piece.

00:14:59
Speaker 1: I think he's pretty versatile when it comes to playing like the funny.

00:15:02
Speaker 2: Gu and watched Ozar. Yeah, not a nice guy in that.

00:15:06
Speaker 1: I found him very believable as a villain. Now where some of the plot lines believable.

00:15:11
Speaker 2: Plot line was not believable, but he as a villain was believable.

00:15:13
Speaker 1: And I think that's why some people get upset with this movie, because yes, it is ridiculous.

00:15:18
Speaker 2: Guys, a movie is not always supposed to be believable. Also, have you looked outside of the world. There's things that happen every day that I'm like, are we living in a simulation? What is believable anymore?

00:15:28
Speaker 1: Yeah? I every now and then like a ridiculous movie like this where it could never happen in the real world. But it's a fun chase. It's a fun ride, lots of action, and you kind of escape reality for a little bit. Even though it is based in reality, it just feels like this is never gonna happen. Let's just let's just ride it out.

00:15:48
Speaker 2: That's what a movie is.

00:15:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought it did a fantastic job. We also watched The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which was a movie that my sister wanted to watch her home for Christmas.

00:15:59
Speaker 2: She literally fell as twenty minutes in. She was the one who picked it out.

00:16:03
Speaker 1: She was like, ah, I saw a trailer for that, I want to watch that. Twenty minutes in.

00:16:07
Speaker 2: She only woke up when it stopped working and she had to fix their mote and she went back to sleep.

00:16:12
Speaker 1: But I gave that one. Uh, I mean, I rated it less than y two k, but it's not my worst. I gave it a two point five out of five.

00:16:20
Speaker 2: It wasn't terrible. I just don't know that we were the audience.

00:16:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just don't think.

00:16:25
Speaker 2: My mom took my Mimi to see it, and Mimi loved it in theaters.

00:16:27
Speaker 1: That's probably more the audience.

00:16:29
Speaker 2: The older Mimi wants a heartwarming story like it's.

00:16:32
Speaker 1: One of those movies where it wasn't like you said, it wasn't for us. It wasn't bad. I just didn't really. I thought it was gonna be funnier.

00:16:39
Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't a comedy.

00:16:40
Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought it was gonna have more comedy. For some reason, we also, well, I guess you didn't go see this one. I went to see.

00:16:48
Speaker 2: And you haven't stopped singing it.

00:16:49
Speaker 1: Since it's what William Dafoe's character says in the trailer.

00:16:53
Speaker 2: I'm like, yeah, I didn't care to see that one.

00:16:56
Speaker 1: I thought it was gonna like this one more.

00:16:58
Speaker 2: You also went the day after we got home from traveling, and I was like, leave mebe in my pajamas in the house.

00:17:05
Speaker 1: The movie was very slow, pretty long, and it takes place like one hundred years ago, so they speak very.

00:17:13
Speaker 2: Weird, sounds like all of my least favorite things in one film.

00:17:16
Speaker 1: And that was the hard part for me. Maybe I'm just too uncultured, but I couldn't get I struggle with period pieces, and whenever they talk like this for so long and just go into so much dialogue that I feel adds up to nothing, I lose interest because they're just going on and on and saying all these words, and at this point I need subtitles, not because I can't hear, but because I don't understand them. And so it goes into a lot of exposition of what is going on in this town, and then once it actually gets to the horror elements, I'm a little bit bored by then. So there was so little action and it's essentially a throuple. It's like this woman and then this vampire, and the vampires trying to hook up with a woman, but the woman's with his new dude in Twilight. Yeah, Twilight, but it.

00:18:05
Speaker 2: Took sorry describing the flood of Twilight.

00:18:08
Speaker 1: So it is a remake, and the horror elements once it actually gets going are pretty good, but it's very old school monster movie. I was just expecting a little bit more. Willem Dafoe was the best part of the entire movie, just because No, But aside from that, I wanted to love it, and I gave it a three point five out of five. A complete unknown, which we talked about Sonic three, which I'll get into more later, Baby Girl. I gave a four out of five Juror number two, which we watched on Max directed by Clint Eastwood. Movies started out great. It is about this dude who gets called into jury duty and then realizes he might have a connection to the crime. Yeah, and premise was good.

00:18:53
Speaker 2: It lacked a little action, and yes it was more like an exposit expository position. Yeah, but what you described as like expository, I think I think that's word.

00:19:05
Speaker 1: It just could have gone so many better places than it did. And I had this big idea of what it was going to turn into, what it was going to become, what we're going to learn about the case, and it just kind of like fell apart.

00:19:19
Speaker 2: Expository a sword expository got inted to explain or describe something.

00:19:23
Speaker 1: But Nicholas Holt was also in that. He was in Nostu.

00:19:26
Speaker 2: Yes, we also watched the six Triple eight. Yes, did you have that on your list?

00:19:31
Speaker 1: I did. I was going I was going down my list. You talk about it.

00:19:33
Speaker 2: It was the first all black female regimen in the army and they were tasked with sorting like seventeen million pieces of male that were backlogged during World War Two, and it was a ton of male, seventeen million pieces, like warehouses full of male airplane hangers.

00:19:49
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh yeah, hangers.

00:19:51
Speaker 2: It was hangers full. They were like, is it just this one? They were like, no, it's every hangar surrounding this.

00:19:55
Speaker 1: And they gave them six months to do it, and they did it in ninety days. It's wild. The only problem I had with that movie, it's directed by Tyler Perry, is it looks too glossy. It looks too nice. I like my period pieces, especially in World War two, to feel like World War two. But I get that Tyler Perry wants to make modern looking movies. It just didn't feel right to me the way it looked. I like it to look grittier. I know the story is supposed to be more uplifting and inspiring, and it's supposed to teach you about these women, but if it would have just had like a different color grade on it a little, there were just moments that I realized that it wasn't really cold there and they were just building on a day where yeah, they're just here. This was a call time, and Kerry Washington was there and they hit called action and they did the scene. I like those movies to feel with a little bit more production value, especially with the war scenes, which felt a little empty to me. But aside from that, the story was great, acting was good. It just looked too glossy for my liking of a war piece movie. That's fair and that's really the only thing I didn't like about that movie. And even like the wardrobe looked too nice to put together. Yeah, it looked too new. Everything looked too new. I need to like wear and tear on some things and make it lookal like because when they show the old photos at the end, I'm like, yes, that looks right.

00:21:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they were new ish because women hadn't been at serve.

00:21:23
Speaker 1: So we also watched Lee, which was another movie you wanted to watch around that same time period.

00:21:30
Speaker 2: Yes, it is Kate Winslet starring as a famous journalist who was formerly a model and then turned into a correspondent for like Vogue and other publications during the war.

00:21:43
Speaker 1: Andy Samberg is also in that. That was a movie that I wasn't expecting to enjoy as much as I did, And.

00:21:49
Speaker 2: I wanted to watch that one before award season because Kate Winslet was up for Globes.

00:21:54
Speaker 1: Which brings me to the next movie. I watched Conclave on Peacock, which is all about the pope dying and them having to elect new pope. And this movie I feel as in contender for Best Picture. It was really good. I think the movie that I'm rooting for is a real pain. Yes, but I could see Conclave also having the best shot. I think for me, there's not really a movie that I'm so invested in that I really want to win. Thinking like last year, I really wanted Godzilla minus one to win. The year before that, I really wanted The Whale to win. But there hasn't been a movie that has struck me. So it's normally an emotional movie, something that hits me in the feels that I'm like, oh, that movie has to win, they have to win for Best Actor. It hits me on a lot of levels. There isn't that movie this year.

00:22:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think a real pain would be.

00:22:46
Speaker 1: That has come the closest. But even that movie four point five out of five for me, not a five out of five. There's not a movie that I would fully put my I know this is gonna win. It's gonna be a tough one this year, like WI could win. Yeah, I think Wicked has a chance.

00:23:02
Speaker 2: I think that movie, I mean for the fact that they did live singing stunts.

00:23:07
Speaker 1: The production value, the wardrobe, how much money it made, which you have to factor into.

00:23:13
Speaker 2: Is turning Cynthia Rivo green every day?

00:23:15
Speaker 1: The fact that it kind of checks all the boxes in a very historical I guess you called the Wizard of Oza franchise, but a part of that world. I would be good with that one winning too, but I don't know if the Academy would vote that way. It didn't do too well with the Golden Globe.

00:23:31
Speaker 2: It basically just won like box Office Achievement, Like y'all made a lot of money.

00:23:34
Speaker 1: Here you go.

00:23:35
Speaker 2: I wanted Glenn powdawin.

00:23:37
Speaker 3: Yeah.

00:23:38
Speaker 1: I did like that they did have the Box Office Achievement ward because it was at least acknowledging those movies. And that was also the only category that we had seen every single movie. So I'm still catching up on some of these. I hate the fact that you can't watch all of them right now at home, and some of them are still coming out in theaters.

00:23:55
Speaker 2: Oh, I just thought of what we want Twin sing Sing.

00:23:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was good.

00:24:00
Speaker 2: I want that to take home some awards. It's coming back out in theaters before, like Oscar season. I think it comes back out next week. Earth as the time when this comes out this week January seventeenth. Coleman de Bengo was so phenomenal in that it was a life changing movie. I would love to see that one win.

00:24:17
Speaker 1: And then we still have to see The Brutalist, which I think just based on the other people have seen it, which is a really long movie three and a half hours. There's an intermission with an intermission, which is wild. As many as long movies that we've gone to hasn't been an intermission one.

00:24:32
Speaker 2: Like we'll be seeing that at the Bell Court.

00:24:34
Speaker 1: Yeah. Oppenheimer was three hours, no intermission.

00:24:38
Speaker 2: Could have had an intermission.

00:24:40
Speaker 1: Endgame was three hours, no intermission. It just makes the process. I mean you're gonna be there four hours.

00:24:45
Speaker 2: Yeah, but it gives people like a designated bathroom break. Yeah, and as someone who needs those, I appreciate it.

00:24:52
Speaker 1: What was the TV show for you this month?

00:24:55
Speaker 2: The new season of Queer Eye.

00:24:57
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, we did devour that pretty quickly.

00:24:59
Speaker 2: We I tried to stretch it out. It was ten episodes this season.

00:25:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was more. Usually we watched them all in like a couple of days. We spanned it out a little bit.

00:25:07
Speaker 2: There were a couple episodes that I was a little like, not as heartwarming, but for the majority of them.

00:25:12
Speaker 1: I sobbed puffed. The Magic Dragon one not as heartwarming, Yeah that.

00:25:17
Speaker 2: Was Yeah, that was probably the one. I mean, he was nice, I just didn't tug at my heart strings. But the rest of them, the new edition of Jeremiah doing the houses remeny tears every time.

00:25:28
Speaker 1: Made me want to go to Vegas. Not you, no, I love the smell of a casino.

00:25:33
Speaker 2: Nothing about it made me want to go to Vegas.

00:25:35
Speaker 1: My show for December was Squid Game season two. I could have watched that entire series in one day, but I saved the finale for the next day, so I watched six episodes than one episode. I would say less gory than the first one, but I thought overall, the story and the message that they're trying to make was a lot more impactful. It was way more focused on the characters in their lives and the entire dynamic between money and power and poverty and debt. So really impactful in that sense. And I think the second half of the season, which it's called season three, but it's really just they filmed all at one time and split it into two, which is kind of Netflix's motto at the time. It's like, hey, let's do this and split it up into two so we make more money off of it. But the second I guess the third season is coming out this summer.

00:26:23
Speaker 2: I'm also gonna do another show because queer, I have someone watch together a solo show.

00:26:30
Speaker 1: Again, which we have these We have the ones we watched together.

00:26:33
Speaker 2: Bingo the Madness on Netflix.

00:26:35
Speaker 1: Oh yeah.

00:26:36
Speaker 2: I watched seven episodes in one day and saved to the final for the next day. So good. My younger brother watched it and he was like, I think you would love this.

00:26:43
Speaker 1: I would dip in and out of episodes and it looked good. It held my attention while I was watching it.

00:26:48
Speaker 2: It was phenomenal. The story like evolved and it turned into like kind of something that you weren't expecting in the beginning.

00:26:56
Speaker 1: What about your book of the month, which we did the entire top ten book to twenty four.

00:27:02
Speaker 2: Do one that I read in December that wasn't on that list. It was The Lies We Leave Behind by Noel Salazar. Shocker, It's a World War two book. Hadn't read one of those in a while, and it was kind of two points of view throughout the book. And I don't want to give too much a way, but it was about this nurse who met a soldier fell in love with them. They had the six sweeping romance, and then life happens, and that's all I'll say. That one was really good.

00:27:31
Speaker 1: I haven't finished a comic series this month. I have a lot of comics that in graphic novels that you got me for Christmas, and I'm going to read this month, so maybe i'll have one next month.

00:27:42
Speaker 2: Also, I just have to I think her name is Ash if she listens to this. I commented on a TikTok about podcasts and she commented about my favorite podcast be there in five and I just like randomly responded to it. I'm in the comments of like most podcasts and book tiktoks, and she commented and she was like, by any chance you Mike D's Kelsey, I love your book reviews. And it was the funniest, just like most random interaction. So if you're listening to this, that made my day. I love that you love my book reviews and that you saw me on TikTok. And then she was like, if you're not her, I'm so sorry.

00:28:15
Speaker 3: This is heir.

00:28:15
Speaker 1: It was me things, it was you.

00:28:17
Speaker 2: I thought it was funny.

00:28:18
Speaker 1: So yeah, people were loving all that content we did of into the bookstore.

00:28:22
Speaker 2: If you miss oh yeah, we haven't talked about that.

00:28:24
Speaker 1: If you missed that video, it is up on my Instagram and TikTok. And we also did the episode like I was mentioning earlier with your top ten books of twenty twenty four. If you missed that episode, you can go back a couple in the feed that is there as well.

00:28:36
Speaker 2: I could have done better at the bookstore, I thought.

00:28:39
Speaker 1: I guess when I thought of the ninety seconds, I thought you would go harder quickly.

00:28:45
Speaker 2: Okay, So here was the problem. I didn't want to just start picking up random books.

00:28:50
Speaker 1: Which is what some people said, like why I would have gone crazy, But.

00:28:53
Speaker 2: It's like I I like what I like to read, so I didn't want to just pick up something and it not be something that I wanted to read, which makes sense because I also feel like you wouldn't have like let me put them back at the end, like I kind of had to get. So I had a list of books I keep a note on my phone, and so I had a list of books, and I'd been checking the Parnasa's website and they had most of them in stock. But the problem was most of them they only had like one in stock. So I was looking alphabetical order by the author. But it was like trying to find a needle in a haystack because it was just one book. It wasn't like a whole section, Like I wasn't picking out like a new popular book that they had twenty of. I was picking books that they had like one on hand and a paperback, so it was smaller hidden. There was one I spent too much time looking for. There was another one I'm glad I didn't look for because it actually turns out already own it. I was organizing my bookshelf, so yeah, I could have done better, but I was happy it Also married, we share a bank account. Like at the end of the day, I was like, I kind of have to pay for these two.

00:29:50
Speaker 1: That's what people didn't realize, Like it wasn't like it wasn't a free It wasn't free. We didn't have a deal with the bookstore.

00:29:56
Speaker 2: Mike just used his credit card.

00:29:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, because that was the case.

00:30:00
Speaker 2: You could have just like, oh, yeah, if I didn't have to pay for him. But I was like, oh, I like technically got enough to pay for this too.

00:30:07
Speaker 1: It wasn't like go in and like take the cash register type situation, start peeling things off the wall.

00:30:13
Speaker 2: But I have a better plan for next year. I think we should do that every year. It was fun. I like it, what I do think ninety seconds was too short, and I think you realized that.

00:30:20
Speaker 1: Gave you the bonus thirty. I guess now that I realize how difficult it is to find them, maybe next year we can up the time.

00:30:27
Speaker 2: A little bit. We'll discuss it.

00:30:29
Speaker 1: What story you're gonna drop me into and let me grab as many things as I want for my birthday, either Great Escape or Rix I like riskay, anything else you want to say.

00:30:40
Speaker 2: I don't think so. We're gonna do a Harry Potter episode.

00:30:42
Speaker 1: Oh yes, that was the other thing we watched over the break.

00:30:46
Speaker 2: Yeah, we couldn't watch any new movies. We spent too much time. We watched the first one over Thanksgiving and then we devoured the other seven.

00:30:53
Speaker 1: Which that's all we're gonna say. We will do an episode where we recap our full Harry Potter rewatch and rank them a little bit, because I've always felt one way about which have been my favorites, which have been my least favorites, But after this last rewatch, it has changed.

00:31:08
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna pop quizy on if you can name them all, because.

00:31:11
Speaker 1: Oh, oh gosh, see I didn't read the books.

00:31:14
Speaker 2: You have that to look forward to you.

00:31:16
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll study. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review of Sonic the Hedgehog three. My relationship with this franchise at a time we were at our darkest in most recent movie viewing history. The year was twenty twenty, and only a few movies came out in theaters that year that I really remember. I remember going to see Bad Boys, I remember going to see Onward With The movie that stayed with me that for the longest time of that year, because nothing else really came out after that was Sonic the Hedgehog, and it went on to be one of the highest grossing movies of the year. At a time, there was a joke circlating online that it should be nominated for Best Picture because it was that impactful and also because nothing else came out. They did just announce recently that unfortunately, Sonic the Hedgehog three is not eligible. I don't know why. They also said like Madam Webb is not eligible. I don't know why do they just say that so people click on it? Should we be at a place where a movie like Sonic the Hedgehog three could be nominated for Best Picture? I mean the Golden Globes. They just had their Box Office Achievement Award wherever Vin Diesel came out. He was like hey, Dwayne, which was the best part of that entire award show. And he was there saying like, hey, I'm happy, I'm finally here, Like where's my recognition been. I've been a part of one of the highest grossing movie franchises of all time, but I never show up to these awards in a world of nostalgia bait, I think, and I don't even think. This is going out on a limb to say Sonic is the best video game franchise of all time and this movie solidified that. And if you look at video game movies as a whole, they are always seen as a big cash grab. Whatever video game has generated a lot of interest that has the most players, that has had the most revenue over time, it's easy to say, let's make a movie about it. We have the Minecraft movie coming out later this year. We had Borderlands last year that was just ill timing. Sonic by all means, is the best one, and out of any video game adaptation, it is the only one that has a solid stake in the ground of being a real franchise. There are other ones right now that are building. But when you look back at all these video game adaptations, usually that are one and done because usually they are so bad. But what I love about Sonic they did it in one, they did it in two, and they did it again in three. It is the subtle nods to the video game and how much they really show that the people making these movies care about those aspects, which is somebody like me who I didn't grow up with a sega. My cousin had a sega and I would go to his house and we would play so like The Hedgehog one Sonic the Hedgehog, who just had a really good Mighty morph Empower Rangers game that I remember playing all the time after school at three pm at his house. Because I love Sega but that was my relationship with the character, and Sonic was cool, and he was supposed to be Sega's Super Mario, and the way they counterprogrammed was saying, hey, super Mario at this points kind of dated. He's not very cool, He's a plumber. The gameplay at the time was very revolutionary, but now kids are kind of getting board of it. They said, what can we do to embody the attitude of the nineties and create our iconic character, and the result was Sonic. He was fast, much faster than Super Mario. He had attitude, he had cool shoes, and he made an impact in video games and very much rival Nintendo because of that on the Sega platform, and Sega did well for a majority of the nineties. They did compete. Ultimately Endo one out, Ultimately Nintendo went out. Sega really isn't the thing anymore, but Sonic lives on, and where he lives on best is in movies, and if you even look at any other attempts at video game franchises, it's just not really there. I think there are some Building five Nights at Freddy's. They have a sequel coming. Even though I wasn't a fan of that video game didn't play. It wasn't even a fan of the movie. I do think there is some potential there. Super Mario Brothers obviously did a really great job with that animated movie. If Illumination can do that again with part two, maybe we can talk franchise there. Mortal Kombat obviously you have the originals from back in the nineties, which the first one was good despite the CGUI now that doesn't really hold up. First one was good. I even find some redeeming qualities in two. But the remake in twenty twenty one, it's not really a remake, it's the rebooting of that entire franchise is also good. I got enjoyed that movie, and I'm excited to see a second one, But we're still not ready to talk franchise. Their Sonic is by far the best video game franchise of all time. There's just no competition, and in this one and with really every sequel into Sonic, starting out with the first one, which was his landing on Earth being lonely, just wanting a family, that was a really heartwarming story. In the second one we get a new character, Knuckles, voiced by Eater's Elba, and then in this third one, we have Shadow voiced by Keona Reeves. So with every sequel they've introduced a new character. There's tales, of course, they are a whole family. They are a whole unit. What I just love is the character design of Sonic and how the Internet changes all that. Where he looked freaky and beady eyed in that first trailer they released and everybody was like, yo, this doesn't look good. And now he is so warm and cuddly and fun and friendly looking. And even just the fact that he was a lot smaller and skinnier and scronnier in the first one, and as he has become more loved by humans and his family, he has grown. He is beefed up a lot leading into Sonic three. And the thing about Sonic three, if you took away the fact that it was Sonic and you just took this action and character arc and story and plugged it into the MCU, we wouldn't bad a die it saying this is a family film. It's not a family film. The only real thing that makes Sonic a family film is Doctor Robotnik played by Jim Carrey. He is so wacky and outlandish in this character and it's kind of what brings it back down a little bit, and I get you're kind of fighting different generations here. You have the people like me who grew up with Sonic Cartoon back in the day. Oh I love that cartoon with Joe Little White as the voice of Sonic. I still go back and watch episodes of that. He taught me a lot about, like those little life lessons at the end of those episodes. I learned so much. But you have the thirty year old mid thirties even late forties fan like Meme. You have probably people who discovered him in like the two thousands, and then obviously everybody in between. But then you have the young generation, kids who have really only watched the movie from twenty twenty and beyond and that has been their introduction into the character, because really the video games aren't even as prelevent anymore. I think you have to include the wackiness of Jim Carrey, which he does a really great job at. He's Jim Carrey. He is the best at doing that. It's wild to me still that this is the movie franchise that brought him out of acting retirement. Like this is what he said, you know what I want to come back and play this character because it feels so unlike anything in his filmography, but he does it really well, and in this movie he plays two different characters. He plays robotic and he also plays his grandfather. And I really believe that this movie didn't need Jim Carrey. I don't know if he's going to come back for a fourth movie, which they did announce there is going to be a fourth movie, obviously, with this movie only costing one hundred and twenty two million dollars to make, which is a lot of money, but not for the level of movie this is. And at the time of recording this it has already made over three hundred million dollars, so easy that they're going to make a force will probably make a fifth. Keep introducing new characters. You can keep breathing a lot of life into this story by doing that, and I think at this point you don't really need him anymore. Whenever he was on screen, those were the only moments I found myself not enjoying the movie. And I love one, two, and three. Now I still think number one is the best out of all of them, but I will now put three in that second slot because I think the action was really that good. One hundred and twenty two million dollars was really well spent, and you see that from the opening scene of this movie. There was a lot more gunfire and flames and just overall destruction in this movie than I was expecting. And not only that, but seeing the transformation not only of Sonics character, but also had one of the best backstories for not just somebody in a video game character in a family friendly movie, but I would say of most villains that we've had in the last two to three years, the entire story of Shadow and why he is the way he is, his origin story is just trying to have somebody to understand him. Story his relationship with Maria was just so unexpectedly impactful to me that I thought, like they're creating some real substance here, which is what I love that directors and filmmakers do in family movies of not dumbing down these concepts to kids. They're smart, they can get it. They want to feel too. They also want to laugh. So obviously, like I said, you have to include those doctor robotic bits which are pretty dumb, like seeing him dance through lasers. Like I hated that part of the movie, but the other moments really brought this one up for me. And going back to the evil of Sonic, he is still that fun, full of life character in this movie, but you really start to see an edge to him, especially once he goes Super Saiyan. Super Saiyan Sonic was hardcore. Super Saiyan Sonic was going to save his family, going to save the world no matter what. And I love a movie with a hedge, a movie with unexpected edge, I would say, and that is exactly what they brought to us in Sonic three. The final Battle was I would say, even better than the Final Battle in one and two. But I think overall it was just the comedy that wasn't really cutting it for me. I think if they cut that out, this franchise would be stronger. But again I'm saying that as a thirty year old adult. Overall the movie looked great. Taught you about family, it taught you about loss, It taught you about teamwork, which I think was really important. Even for me. It reminded me, man, you can't dip out on your friends. Once you're in something together, you gotta stick together. You can't abandon people, well especially the people who got You There? So I really feel like the evolution of this story from one, two, and three has really held together, which is hard to do in any franchise. Usually by three it's the worst one, you know, how hard it is to make a solid trilogy. I think they'll continue to make Sonic movies as long as they're making that Sonic money. But what really won me over in these films was the subtle nods to the fans from back in the nineties, seeing tales and knuckles tap their foot like they would when they were waiting around in the video game. I love the real subtle nods to the music where they have like these stripped down almost orchestra versions of like then then like that is just like oh yeah, just right there, Crispy. You're also playing the older ears, like oh yeah, throw in some classical music on this Sonic film. So overall, a really solid installment in the franchise. Still not the best, but for Sonic three, I give it four out of five gold rings. Maybe it's time to head down to movie. Mike Trey Lar Paul. I love a movie that takes risks when it comes to creativity, and maybe you make a movie which for the most part, is supposed to reach the masses that anybody can watch it and enjoy it. That's kind of the purpose of media to an extent, at least blockbusters if you want to make money. But sometimes movies come out and I feel like the filmmakers know that it's gonna be a niche audience, and this movie is probably going to resonate with a very specific group of people. But those people are gonna love it, and I think, for the most part, those other people who end up watching this movie, if they even discover it, will end up hating it. There are types of movies like this, especially associated with AI, which is what this movie Love Me is about. It's a post apocalyptic romance film, which is already a lot like how do those categories go together? And the movie is about all of humanity is extinct. We've been wiped out. Doesn't specifically say for how long. But there is a booie voice by Kristen Stewart, yes, a booie that you would find out in the ocean, and a satellite voiced by Steven un and somehow they start communicating with each other. They have this AI consciousness that is trying to understand humanity, and they do that through the Internet. It shows their characters watching YouTube videos and seeing other humans and learning about emotions like love and happiness and sadness, and then it looks like they almost go into this metaverse type situation where they are able to create these avatars. You know, whenever the metaverse came out and it was so big and everybody was just saying that virtual reality was gonna be the next big thing, that we were all gonna put on these things, these goggles, and we would be able to go into the metaverse and have meetings. You see them as avatars, and then you see them as humans and they take the role of the human body of Christian Stewart and Stephen Yun and they have a real life together. They have a kid in this trailer, and they're just ai trying to feel human. And this movie is asking that question of what it means to be human and what qualifies living or not. And I have so many theories on this because I've been thinking about this a lot. So before I get into more, here's just a little bit of the Love Me trailer in here.

00:45:29
Speaker 2: We can create a world just for us, don't you ever wonder what it's like, what life?

00:45:40
Speaker 1: What does it feel like to be alive?

00:45:42
Speaker 2: This is amazing.

00:45:43
Speaker 1: Well, let's date night.

00:45:45
Speaker 2: Have you ever considered how impossible it is that we found each other?

00:45:47
Speaker 1: But who are we supposed to be? So there are a lot of movies that Love Me reminds me of, and I'm all about anything post apocalyptic, anything futuristic. Her It's one of my favorite movies of all time. That movie came out over ten years ago, before AI was as prevalent, even before smart devices in smartphones, we had them, but it wasn't in the capacity that we have them now that at that time, the concept seems so crazy to fall in love with your phone, fall in love with your operating system. And now in the last two years, we've seen that happening with AI, So that movie was ahead of its time. It reminds me a little bit of that. There are parts of this trailer that also remind me of Inception and Whenever. Leonardo DiCaprio's character and his wife in that movie, they dive into the world of dreaming and it is there where they form their perfect life. They build their perfect place where they can live, and they lived there for years and to them that is their reality. This movie also reminds me of Wally, controversially one of the worst Pixar movies to some. To me, that is one of my favorites because I love the concept that that movie brings, the loneliness, the isolation of Wally, also the state of the world and it's commentary on that. I kind of feel like it's Wally an Eve from that movie come to life. Those are the parallels I see between these characters, and I think this is such a unique concept. I haven't seen a movie trailer even look like this. There are scenes of it where it's just a YouTube video and you see Christen Stewart like YouTuber vlogging. There are scenes that are animated, and then there are scenes that look like more of a traditional indie movie. So there are a lot of different layers. So visually, I think this movie is gonna have a lot to say. It's also only ninety minutes. With the concept like this, I wonder how long can it go without falling apart? And also how long can a concept like this keep your attention, especially something with the limited cast that's gonna really rely on the stars of this movie here, which you have too really great people. Kristen Stewart has been crushing it lately, who started out obviously with Twilight, which is what still most people know her from, has done the whole big studio movie run, and in recent years has gone more of the indie route. Last year with Love Lies Bleeding was one of my favorite movies of the year. Didn't make my top ten, but it was still one of my favorite movies. She has really leaned into being a part of movies that feel fresh and probably challenge her a bit as an actor and don't feel like the traditional things that she's done over and over again. Stephen You and you may remember him. I feel like people still think of him as Glenn from The Walking Dead, but also in recent years has been crushing it. He was great in Beef on Netflix. I am loving him right now as Invincible over on Amazon Prime. That is one of my favorite animated shows of all time. It was so good that I waited so long to watch season two because season one came out a while ago, and whenever season two came out, I didn't want it to be over, So I waited until Christmas Break to actually dive into that. And I'm still watching that right now, but he is fantastic in that as well. So I think we have two really great actors who have the ability to make this movie work. But again with a concept like this, sometimes it just falls apart, and sometimes I get too bought into the premise of a movie. I think we can do that sometimes that within twenty or thirty minutes, you think, ah, this isn't really good to go anywhere. But there are also movies like this that I just know I'm probably gonna be the only dude who enjoys these movies. Just looking at the overall temperature of what people are saying about this film at this moment, there is a movie. It also reminds me of Passengers with Chris Pratt and Jennifer Lawrence. I love that movie, one of my favorite hidden gems of the twenty tens. But for the most part that has not seen as a good movie, but kind of in the categor glory of movies we've been talking about here, that one does take place in the future. They're supposed to go on this journey that's supposed to last years, and Chris Pratt's character ends up waking up early in the trip starts living out his life alone on this big spaceship, stumbles upon Jennifer Lawrence's pod that she's sleeping in. He's like, oh man, that girl's beautiful. I'm a find a way to wake her up, and then they have a relationship and all the things that happened in that movie. Again, that sounds like a great concept, and maybe it doesn't meet the expectations of everybody who went into watching that, but I love that movie. So sometimes I just accept that there are going to be films that really play to my interest. Anytime in a science fiction movie where it's post apocalyptic futuristic, have to do with technology and there's a love story, that is my weakness in this category. That is my weakness in sci fi. In horror, it has to be haunted house and there's a kid talking to a dead person. That is also my weakness. Superhero movies, anytime Spider Man is anything, that's my weak or Wolverine. So I have these movie weaknesses that I'm gonna have a bias in because it is just my favorite. It is the stuff I seek out not only in movies, but comic books I read and articles like click online and TikTok or YouTube videos. Those are just my specific interests in me as a human being that I don't care how not much of a home run that they are, as long as they are speaking to that specific niche audience like me. Like I was saying before, sometimes a movie knows it's gonna be so niche, but it's gonna find his audience into those people, it is gonna be great. So even just basing it off of this trailer and the production, it does look like a lower budget movie. But sometimes it's those that are just necessary and it's gonna be a movie that in five ten years, I'm gonna look back and think, man, I'm just glad that this got made. There are a lot of movies like that that they won't do well financially, even though the actors believe in them and they'll promote them, they just won't stick. And in a world where people are still just complaining that everything's a remake or a reboot, and then you have movies like this that come out that people still don't see, you wonder like why. But then I will still always think like I'm just glad that this got made and this art exists and the other point I was going to make that I was talking about earlier with Dreams in this trailer and in this story, it looks like they are trying to use the Internet as their guide and learn what it means to be alive and to fall in love, even though that this world that they are falling in love in and creating they can get their perfect place doesn't really exist. It looks like the human forms of them are just going to be essentially avatars and they're still gonna be that booie and that satellite. But again, in this movie, it's called Love Me. It is coming out at the end of the month on January thirty. First, I may be the only one who watches this movie, but I had to tell you guys about it.

00:52:56
Speaker 2: And that was this week's edition of movie Line or Bar.

00:53:01
Speaker 1: Now that I sound like a complete crazy person, let's close out the episode. That's gonna do it for this week. But before I go, I got to give my listener shout out of the week. This week, I'm going over to YouTube and I pull a very specific comment because I want to talk about and address this kind of my goal for the year. This week's listener shout Out of the Week goes to Betty G fifteen, who commented on Kelsey and I's review of Baby Girls. So if you heard that review last week, or maybe you missed it, you can always go watch full individual movie reviews on my YouTube channel YouTube dot com slash Mike Distro click the link directly in my bio. It's in all my socials. You can find it pretty easily. But Betty G fifteen wrote, would be nice if you guys look at each other smiley face. And the reason I wanted to talk about this comment and to give Betty the listener shout out of the week is because I just want to say that I do have a goal of working on my YouTube channel more this year. And the reason Kelsey and I don't fully look at each other when we're doing the movie reviews because we only have one camera at the moment, So I'm trying to add a second camera, learn how to work that, and overall just add some production quality to the YouTube channel. So would really appreciate if you go subscribe over there, follow along watch some videos over there to help me out because over there, I'm still a small creator. I still don't have that many subscribers. Don't get a whole lot of views, but I find myself just trying to invest in that more. So that is a goal of mine this year. And when Kelsey and I do have our own cameras and I can operate that we'll look at each other so I can switch back and forth and said, right now, we're just looking at the same camera, which is how I do all my reviews. Right now, just look at it straight on. I like to look you right in the eye, deep into the soul in my movie review. So that is why so is a goal of mine for twenty twenty five. Wanted to share it here to hold myself accountable. So appreciate everybody who watches over there. Thank you for listening. Until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.