Top 10 Final Girls in Horror Movies + Movie Review: Smile 2 + Trailer Park: Babygirl

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike, and today I want to share with you a list of the top ten final girls in horror movies. Even if you don't know exactly what a final girl is, I'll explain that run through the list. I'll give you my picks on who should have made this list, because there are a couple on there that I thought, how could they not include these two people? In the movie review, we'll keep that theme alive and talk about Smile too. Did it improve upon the first one? Because I left that first one thing and ah, that wasn't it. But the trailer for this one, all the hype around this one was similar. Can they cash in on that momentum? And in the trailer park there's a new erotic thriller from Nicole Kidman. She loves doing erotic thrillers. It's called Baby Girl. We'll talk about 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.

00:00:52
Speaker 2: In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast, one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners before in a movie podcast a man with so much movie knowledge he's basically like a walking IMTB with glasses. From the Nashville podcast Network. This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast.

00:01:16
Speaker 1: If you're a fan of horror like I am, you already know what the final girl is in a movie, but if you're not too familiar with it, the final girl is the woman at the very end who survives with the killer. She kills him or her in some way. Sometimes the killer is male, sometimes the killer is female. The final girl is usually portrayed as somebody who is resourceful, resilient, morally, uptight, smarter than Oliver appears in this movie because she knows how to survive. Whenever I think about the final Girl, it takes me back to the first screen movie in nineteen ninety six, which obviously some characters from Scream are going to make this list, But whenever Jamie Kennedy's character is giving the rules of surviving a horror movie, this is exactly what I think about.

00:02:00
Speaker 3: There are certain rules that one must abide by in order to successfully survive a horror movie. For instance, number one, you can never have sex sex even seth okay. Number two, you can never drink or do drug sin. It's an extension of number one and number three. Never ever, ever, under any circumstances say I'll be right back because you won't be back.

00:02:23
Speaker 2: I'm getting another beer. You want one?

00:02:25
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, I'll be right back. So the final girl in any horror movie, I feel like those rules kind of laid out the blueprint. Even though that movie came out in nineteen ninety six and there have been final girls way before that movie came out. I always reference back that clip to think of what do you need to do in order to survive a serial killer in a horror movie. So let's get into this list again. This is from rinker dot com, so a lot of people on the internet voted on this list. At number ten, they have Sally from The Texas Chainsaw Massacre played by Marilyn Burns nineteen seven twenty four. If you want to watch The Chainsaw Massacre now, the original one, it's on Peacock or it's on tub. I have to say I have become an adopter of tub. It is free. You do have to watch a significant amount of commercials, but it's really no different than if you were watching a movie on TV on cable. Back in the day really has that same kind of viewing experience. And the great thing about to B now is before, if you didn't have an account, you couldn't start a movie back where you left off if it started from the very beginning, so you'd have to find your place where you left off and start the movie again. But now all you have to do is sign in. The account is free. I think somebody bought out to be so you can go and watch all these movies that not all of them are the best, but look, they have the text a chainsaw massacre. To me, tob is the streaming equivalent of the dollar bargain bin at Walmart, which had some great fines. You had to dig in that thing to find them. But I remember going to Walmart a lot and finding some really good d and there are some great movies. So I don't say that as a slight to all the content on tub, but if you spend enough time on it, you can find some gems in there, and you can watch it for free. In the world of today, where everything is so expensive, you take what you can get for free. But this is a fantastic example of a final girl in a movie. Sally ran for her life. In this movie, she jumped through two windows. She went through it in order to survive leather Face, and what I'm about to say, I don't want to discredit her journey. How important the Texas Chainsaw Massacre is to horror, how important leather Face is. It is one of my favorite movies. It combined all the great things back in the seventies where it walked that line of people believing did this actually happen? Is it all made up? Because I grew up thinking that the Texas Chainsaw Massacre actually happened in my home state. Even though it's just loosely based on a serial killer. There's no real leather Face. But if you have that mis that aura surrounding your film, it's gonna have a bigger impact once people go see that in theaters, much like the Blair Witch Project had success in the nineties of people thinking was this or was this not real? Even though that whole thing was entirely fake. That is the beauty of horror. So it is an important film has one of my favorite final scenes ever of Leatherface in that sunset, wielding that chainsaw around It is a beautiful movie. If I go back and rewatch a Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. It is the one from two thousand and three with Jessica Biel. That is my Texas Chainsaw Massacre that I grew up with. Does it have those same qualities like the warmth of the film. Is it as iconic?

00:05:44
Speaker 4: No?

00:05:44
Speaker 1: But to me, that is one of the first movies in horror that solidified me as a horror fan as I was growing up. Watched that movie, I was probably twelve years old, and at that time I had already been exposed to all the Halloween movies, all the Chucky movies. Those movies had already given me nightmares. But it wasn't until this version of this movie that I had nightmares again. And I think Jessica Bile is just great in horror. She's dipped her toes into it in her acting career. But I wish you would go back and do another Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie. So again, the pick here on the list is Sally from the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre played by Marilyn Burns. But I'm gonna throw in Jessica Biel as an honorable mention because I would have put her in my top ten at number nine is Heather lang in Camp as herself in Wes Craven's New Nightmare, which came out in nineteen ninety four. If you want to watch this movie, you have to have slang, which I don't know anybody who has sling, so you probably don't have sling, but maybe you do. If not, you can rent it for three ninety nine wherever you rent your movies. I feel like Wes Craven's A New Nightmare was entirely ahead of its time coming out in nineteen ninety four. It is a pretty meta Freddy Krueger movie that I did not understand growing up. It is Freddy Krueger coming into the real world and haunting the real cast and crew of all the Nightmare on Elm Street movies, so all of those actors play themselves. I remember watching this movie as a kid and thinking it was a documentary. I didn't really get it, and for that reason, I didn't really enjoy this movie. This is one on the list that I need to revisit and see if it holds up. And I feel like now in the twenty twenties, we are getting more into that meta horror era. With the last two screen movies really digging into that. But the first screen movie did that with the clip I played earlier, they were inside a horror movie talking about how to survive a horror movie. So I think Wes Craven, who directed, of course, This New Nightmare in ninety four, went on to direct Scream. I feel like this was him kind of dipping his toes in can audiences handle something this meta? So he drove it more into the ideology of Scream really being at the forefront of that. Fran and I think as a whole, the mind of Wes Craven was so innovated. I love how a lot of his movies were rooted in practical effects. So I think that's why a lot of his movies have stood the test of time over the years. Rip to Wes Craven. I can respect this at number nine, but I don't think this version of Nancy and it's not really Nancy heather Lingencamp in this movie. I don't think I would have put her in my top ten, but I respect to pick here from ranker. At number eight is Aaron Hansen from the movie Your Next played by Sharnie Vinson, came out in twenty eleven. If you want to watch Your Next now it is on Netflix. This is an underrated horror film, so I love it coming in at number eight. The reason I feel that most people didn't give Your Next a chance, didn't really have great marketing when it came out back in twenty eleven, and also I feel like that's a bad title. Your Next feels so generic and so empty and doesn't really say anything about out what makes this movie awesome, what it's about. It's kind of like The Strangers meets the Purge. Aaron Hansen is the character here, and all she wants to do is go out hang out with their boyfriend's family. They're having a family reunion, and then this group of mass murderers decide that they want to pick off each of the family members one by one. I think it's a great pick because overall of the movie is awesome. The character Aaron has a fantastic backstory that you learn about as all these crazy things unfold. If you are somebody who likes horror movies where the action in it can actually happen, because you're not really dealing with supernatural events, You're just dealing with psychos, these crazy killers that have this fascination with taking people in a very vulnerable state and exposing them and trying to murder them so that freaks you out. It will make you never want to go to any remote house ever again. But the character of Aaron is very triumphant in this movie, so I love that. One Umber eight at number seven is the character Mattie Young from a movie called Hush, played by Kate Siegel. Came out in twenty sixteen. If you want to watch Hush, it is on AMC Plus again, another service that I don't know anybody who has AMC Plus unless maybe you have cable. You have AMC and they give you AMC Plus. I've never even seen the app on my TV. But you can also rent the movie wherever you rent movies. For the longest time after this movie came out in twenty sixteen, this was my go to horror recommendation to anybody looking for something that they haven't seen before. What Hush is about is the character Mattie is a deaf, mute woman who gets targeted by this mass killer. Now, the mass killer in this movie has a very generic look. It is just this blank, hockey mass looking thing, kind of like Phantom of the Opera, kind of like Jason, except it's not really a hockey mask. There aren't any holes in it or anything. It's just like this plain, glowy white mask and they wear a hoodie. So it's creepy enough because there is an absence of any kind of emotion, much like Michael Myers. But I wouldn't really look at the character and instantly associate it with the Hush movie. But she goes out to this remote house in the woods. Again, why do all these final girls go out into these houses where there aren't anybody around? That alone sounds like a nightmare to me. Also because I bet the Wi fi isn't really great out in the woods. But you go outside, it's pitch black, you can barely see your hand in front of your face, you hear animals in the entire time I would be out at a remote house like this, I was thinking, there's somebody coming around the corner and they're gonna kill me. Nothing ever good happens in a horror movie in a remote wooded area. But I love this pick here because Maddie is a final girl unlike any other, because she is deaf and mute. She has to find really strategic ways to fight off her killer because she can't hear him coming inside the house. She can't even hear he's right behind her. She can sense it, and of course some of her other senses are probably heightened, but she is so smart and so resourceful. And this movie really doesn't have a lot of bells and whistles, but it is a very solid horror movie that if you haven't seen it, I do recommend it unless you have any vacations or trips planned to a remote cabin somewhere. Otherwise, don't watch this movie or maybe any other movie on this list. At number six is Gail Weathers from Scream, played by Courtney Cox. This movie came out in nineteen ninety six. If you want to watch Scream the original, it is available on Max. Max actually has a really great selection of horror movies right now, the classics. If I want a classic horror movie, I'm probably going over to Max. First second, I would probably go over to Hulu. They're doing Hulu. Weeen over there have some good more recent movies, but I think if you want the classics like Scream, the Nightmare on ELM Street movies, those are all right there on Max. I don't really love Gail Weathers at number six, at least not Gail Weathers in Scream. Maybe in the later Scream movies. I feel like Courtney Cox really came into her own later in the franchise, But I would have to say I was probably more of a fan of her parody character in Scary Movie Gail Hailstorm. Can I put Gail Hailstorm in as an honorable mention at number six? They're much better final girls you could have put in that number six slot, but that's what they have here. At number five is Nancy from a Nightmare on Elm Street played by Heather Lincoln. Camp came out in nineteen eighty four. If you want to watch the original Nightmare on Elm Street, it is available on Max. Like I've been talking about, I rewatched it before the interview a couple of weeks ago. In this movie still holds up. I think what gets overlooked From a Nightmare on Elm Street is the fact that Nancy was the original Kevin McAllister from Home Alone. The way that she defeats Freddie is very innovative. She finds a way to take him out of the dream world and bring him into the real world where he can be defeated, where he is vulnerable, and then she uses booby traps around the house to take him out, very much like Kevin McAllister did with the Wet Bandits and Home Alone with the paint can coming and hitting them in the head, the door knob and the flamethrower catching his head on fire. A Nightmare on Elm Street could have easily turned into the Three Stooges or Home Alone Before It's Time again Wes Craven being ahead of his time with the booby traps to take out the killer. But Nancy is a very underappreciated female character. Really, when I think about the strongest females in film, you have to go to the horror genre. That is where the best and strongest characters are written. It's the entire reason that there is the term the final Girl, because they have to do something that is smarter and proved. They are more capable than anybody else in the movie as long as they follow those three rules to survive a horror movie. At number four is Grace from Ready or Not. This movie came out in twenty nineteen. If you want to watch it, it is available on Hulu. Grace is played by Samara Weaving. Another one on this list that I'm glad has made it at number four in the top five because to me, this is a top five pick. It's another case that I feel good movie, bad title, not great marketing because it is a horror movie. Also has a kind of campy style. But what this movie is about. The character Grace gets married at the beginning of the movie and then finds out she has to play as part of a tradition to this rich family that she's marrying into this game where they draw a card and then as a family, you have to play that game. And what is Grace pull the hide and seek card and she thinks, oh, man, are we really good to play hide and seek? Like a bunch of five year olds. She wants to impress her new in laws, plays along with the game, but then discovers that in this game of hide and Seek, all the other members of the family have weapons and it is their job to murder her before the sun comes up. So her character has to spend the entire movie hiding fighting with these people, trying to make sure that they don't kill her. It's a great mix of horror dark comedy, and just overall a character that you really start to root for. I love that she starts out very innocent, thinking what exactly is happening here, and then turns into a total badass by the end of this movie. It is such a great character transformation. And they just announced that they are making a Ready or Not too, with Samara returning in the role, the original directors of the movie coming back. I don't really know where the story is gonna go from here, but I think with all the original people back, it is going to be something awesome and I feel like this should be an iconic movie. But again, I think the marketing for this wasn't the best. The promotion of the role out even the title of the movie again just wasn't the best. But her character throughout the entire movie is wearing this wedding dress. She has on these Chuck Taylor's that should be a Halloween costume every single year. So hopefully it can bank on the kind of cult following it has now going into the sequel and will become more successful. I can't wait to see it again. They just announced it, so we probably won't get it for another two or three years, but I'm ready for Ready or not two, but that is in at number four, getting into the top three now. And number three is Ellen from Alien played by Sigourney Weaver, came out back in nineteen seventy nine. If you want to watch this Alien movie, and I think some of the other ones are on there as well, it's available on Hulu. I love that meme that was going around on X whenever the last Alien Romulus movie came out saying is it safe to say that nobody else has the name Sigourney? I cannot think of another Sigourney besides Sigourney Weaver. Alien was a movie that I didn't watch until maybe like I was teenager. And the reason I was exposed to Alien is because I used to play a game called Conquer's Bad Fer Day, which was a game on at the time N sixty four that was rated M for mature, and I played it as a kid because it was exposing me to very not so kid friendly things. But in that video game, they parodied a lot of famous movies, and the level on this game where they parody Alien was one of my favorites. And then I realized later, oh, that's from a movie, and maybe it's because of that being the reason and how I was exposed to this movie that I never really thought of Alien as a horror movie. Obviously has a lot of iconic imagery, a lot that they also pulled into Alien Romulus, and while I do think that Sigourney Weaver's performance was the success of this story, I don't really put it in the same category of having that true final girl definition. To me, even with the recent editions we've been talking about, I would take Samara Weaving over Sigourney Weaver on this list. I think the reason she is probably in at number three is because again, all of these final Girls have to use some ingenuity to take out the killer, in this case it being an alien, and I think her character, Ellen Ripley, has maybe one of the most memorable and thoughtful ways to take out her killer, and through that she shows really how fearless she is. But still I don't think that his top three worthy. I did really like Kaylee Spainey and Alien Romulus, who pooled a lot of inspiration from Sigourney Weaver but also made that character her own. So I do like the direction that the Alien franchise is going in. So even though I respect Sigourney Weaver at number three. I don't love it at number two. Getting to the heavy hitters, now you have Sidney Prescott from Scream played by Nev Campbell. Came out back in nineteen ninety six again and it is available on Max, which we mentioned earlier. Sidney Prescott is the best modern version of a final Girl in mind. My opinion, I do think the screen movies kind of lost their way even when Wes Craven continued to direct them. Scream four became the first one that he didn't direct because he passed away, but that one came out in twenty eleven and he died in twenty fifteen. But the formula did become a little stale. That was until, in my opinion, Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera were introduced into the cast. Those movies rebooted the franchise and also got super meta with referencing the screen movies and redoing things from that one and including them here. So wasn't really a remake, wasn't really a reboot. It was kind of just taking all the elements of Scream and using gen Z actors to make you feel that same way when you watch the first screen movies. So I hate now that the fate of these movies is really in the balance, that Jenna Ortega and Melissa Barrera are no longer going to be attached to them. I hate the way they exited these films, but it looks like some of the original casts will still be a part of them. I just don't really think that there's much left there to really make these movies interesting, and they lost what was making them work, what was making the younger audience go to the theater to watch these movies. Now you're just gonna be trying to make these movies to people of my generation millennials, to go and be nostalgia bate. But that really doesn't work with horror franchises anymore. You gotta keep it new, you gotta keep it fresh, You got to keep those actors at the forefront. And Nev Campbell would have been the best to do it as far as being the it Final Girl if it wasn't for number one, the og the original Final Girl. The best Final Girl of all time according to this list, and according to me, it is Lrie Strode from Halloween, played by Jamie Lee Curtiz. Came out in nineteen seventy eight. It is available to watch on Crackle of all services, Netflix, Hulu, Disney Plus. Even you can watch Halloween on Crackle. I feel like I've watched maybe two things on Crackle in my life. Actually I take that. I think it was only one movie, Joe Dirt I Beautiful Loser, the sequel that nobody asked for, but it was available as a Crackle original, So you can go watch Joe Dirt two, and you can go watch Halloween again. Much like to B Crackle is also the dollar bin, but maybe not even at Walmart, probably a like family dollar dollar tree. I would never find anything good in those bins. It'd always be like really weird movies or like movie three packs of black and white horror movies that were made back in the forties. And the reason I agree with this list why Lourie Strode is the best final Girl is that final scene where she is making it her main objective to save the kids but also save herself make sure they're out of harm's way, and has the most iconic scene in any horror movie. It is the blueprint of how to make a great final act. Luri Strode in the closet with Michael Myers breaking down the door is a scene that all turd my brain's chemistry. If there's one scene in Horror that I wish I could go back and rewatch for the first time, have my memory erased, just so I could experience it again, it would be this scene. Jamie Lee Curtis did a fantastic job as she was being introduced into the world. Halloween two takes place right after the events of Halloween one, and growing up, I would always just watch those back to back every Halloween, and two isn't as iconic as one, but if you watch them all together, it makes for a great movie night. The entire journey that Lorie Strode goes through all of the movies doesn't really make sense. They kind of change her character from movie to movie, create this backstory of her and Michael being related. Are they related? Are they not? I enjoyed it as they moved into Halloween h two O. Even though I think people hate that movie, that is one of my favorite Halloween movies. And then they reintroduced her again in the twenty eighteen version, which I thought was fantastic, but I hate how that run ended. Twenty eighteen was a great reboot Halloween Kills in twenty twenty one was pretty mid and I completely hated Halloween Ends. But I can look past all that to go back to the original Lourie Strode at number one as the best final girl in all of horror. Come back, I'll give you my review spoiler free of Smile Too, and then in the trailer park we'll talk about Nicole Kidman's new A Rick thriller. Why I say that so weird? Let's put a smile on that face and get into it now. A spoiler free movie review of Smile Too. I had a few questions going into this movie. Is it going to improve upon the first one? I wasn't the biggest fan of the first one. I rated that one a two point five out of five because I felt that movie came to a screeching halt in the second and beginning of third act where it got so boring. It spent so much time focused on the curse and unraveling the mystery of the curse. If you're not familiar with Smile it's basically somebody commit suicide in front of you with the smile on their face, passing along this curse to you, much like the ring from back in the day. You have seven days until this curse takes you out, and it keeps moving from person to person. I believed in the idea of the first one. If I were an investor, I would have taken my money and invested in Smile Too. Knowing that director Parker Finn had something there had people talking about this movie just didn't really have the movie down quite yet for me as a horror movie fan. So is this one going to improve upon Smile one and really cash in on that hype? The second question I had is it going to rely again on jump scares. I find jump scares to be pretty cheap. When I think about my favorite moments in horror, it's never around a jump scare, and they do get me from time to time. You're in a theater, it's dark, big loud sound has an impact on you. Watching this movie. I did jump out of my I mean not fully out of my seat, but it got me a little bit. My heart rate going it'll get you. But when I think about my favorite moments in horror movies, it is never a jump scare. It's fun, but I feel like it's almost cheat because you're just taking the audience kind of for granted there, because yes, they are in this vulnerable state, and if you played anything really loud and comes out of nowhere, you're going to scare people. But that's not gonna be the most memorable thing about your film. You have to really create an energy and create memorable experiences by building that tension, not just relying on big loud sound effects to scare your audience, unless that's all you want and unless that's really how you get your kicks when going to a horror movie, but for me, I don't love them. And the third question is was it going to be so predictable? And I know this is an annoying thing about me, but I always like to predict movies after watching the trailer. That's why on this podcast I do the trailer bark, and it might be annoying to you when I'm like, Okay, I see this in this trailer. They are focusing on these parts. This is what I think is going to happen in the final act, and I don't like that because I feel, well, especially in horror, I want things to come out of nowhere and when I can pick apart everything that is going to happen it's just not that enjoyable to me. I feel like you could be a little bit more imaginative. But I get why they do it. They're trying to appeal to a mass audience. So those are my three questions going into this film. Let's get into what actually Smile two is about. It takes place six days after the original, which I like that these movies are tying into each other, and after watching Smile Too, I really feel like these are both definitive chapters. They are still inside the same world, but they have an entirely different feeling, and I think that is something Smile to really benefited from, because the entire tone of this movie changed. This one centers around a pop star named Sky Riley played by Naomi Scott, who did a fantastic job. She is about to embark on this big world tour after just going through something pretty dramatic. It starts out with her going on to Drew Barrymore's talk show talking about how she appreciates her fans sticking with her through a really tough time in her life. Talks about doing drugs, gives a little glimpse into her dark past, and you learn more about that as the movie and story develops. This movie is a big commentary on the pressures of fame, trauma, and overall what it feels like to go completely crazy and have nobody believe you. Because everything is writing on this tour that she's about to go on, because it is going to be the definitive moment in her career now, because this tour to her is going to make or break her career. But she has a lot of things to get through in order to make it happen. One of those being a big injury that she is dealing with that is causing her a lot of pain and not being able to perform the way she wants to. So she goes to a drug dealer's house to get some pain medication, and that is where if you've seen the trailer, you see Lucas Gage's character there unlive himself, and that is where the fun begins, because it starts to blend the line of what is actually happening in the real world and what is just happening inside her mind and all these illusions that are being created because of this curse. My biggest problem with the first one is it spent so much time talking about this curse and trying to unravel the secrets, and Smile really try to be a much more sinister movie than it was, really diving into the past and had one of my worst tropes in horror movies of all time is whenever you go on a big mission to try to figure out what is happening here, you unravel this secret and you try to figure it all out before it's too late, then you have a big lame battle at the end. I hate that whole driving to another town, another city to talk to somebody who may have some information on this. And what Smile Too did was take all that out of the movie, out of the plot line, and focus more on sky Riley and how the curse is affecting her, and you really see her fall into this just manic state happen and unravel. Piece by p that was just really fun for me to watch. I do like it. At the beginning of the movies where the actor comes on says a little something about the movie thanking you for coming to the theater, and sometimes I think that has no effect on me, but Naomi Scott said something in that that kind of set up my expectations of, Hey, go on this ride with me join me in the story of Riley, and I thought about this movie a little bit different of Okay, I'm gonna take this journey with this character and experience it the way that they are experiencing it. And I feel like as the viewer, if you really let yourself dial into this movie, you start to feel it too. I will say it does it kind of like the first one, in a very slow approach, where you start out just little by little, and it's really not that scary in the beginning, because when watching it on the big screen, just having somebody standing there smiling really isn't that scary. And what do they do? They still rely on that jump scare. The biggest moments that came, I would say, in the first and part of the second act very much rely on catching you off guard with a big sound effect, and some of the visuals are pretty bloody and mildly disturbing. But I would say it doesn't really become to me a full on horror movie until that second and third act. In those last forty minutes, it becomes an entirely different movie when all the chaos starts unfolding, when all of the big actions starts happening in the sky. That is when it really gets good. And that is such an improvement from the first one, because in those last forty minutes of the first one, all the action was in those last ten And there was a point in that movie where I almost fell asleep because there was nothing happening. It was a lot of dialogue. The entire plot line of that main character was kind of a snoozefest. But here you had multiple layers going on with sky Riley, not only the pressures of needing this tour to work and having her mom slash manager control all the aspects of her life, trying to do all these appearances, trying to just be a human at the same time, where you have fans trying to approach you, you're trying to do a meet and greets. That in itself was a story that I was interested in. And then you have all these horror elements happening on top of it, of her going crazy and not being able to know what is actually happening in real life, really not even knowing that she has a curse on her because she has no idea what is happening. That is an entirely different thing going on at the same time. So combining those things together really made me invest in her character and made this movie really entertaining for me. But was it predictable? Yeah, it was predictable. Hate to say, but I probably predicted everything that was going to happen in this movie. But even though it was predictable, it was still enjoyable. I knew what was coming, I felt it, I could see it in the writing, just because I feel like this movie didn't really take a whole lot of risk, but what it did it did well. So even though it was predictable, I didn't find myself being unsatisfied with the results. I actually enjoy living in this world. That felt a little bit more grounded than the first one. Like I said, the first one felt like it was trying to be much more sinister, felt more like a nightmare tale. This one really felt more like how you and I would experience this happening to us. So this one just had much more of an effect on me, so much so that I had a nightmare after watching this movie that I too saw certain things happening in my dream where I was walking by a poster and it was like a picture of somebody and then suddenly their smile got really big and I started to freak out thinking that this was happening to me too. So it definitely had much more of an effect on me. But what really made me enjoy this movie was Naomi Scott's performance as Sky Riley, who is the character that you don't entirely root for the entire time because she has some good qualities about her, actually very few when you think about it, and a lot of bad qualities about her. So I like movies where you don't present the person going through all this as somebody who you entirely root for because she has done some things in her past. I think for me, I just hate when they have somebody who is like a global pop star, but they make sure to say it in every interview. If you think about the most famous people in music right now, they don't go on TV shows and everybody's like, welcome global pop sensation. You just know if Harry Styles goes on a talk show, if Selena Gomez goes on a talk show, which is about the level of fame that Sky is in this movie, they don't need to give any qualifiers of how famous this person is. And I don't know why that bothers me, but it does. And how they put so much emphasis on this world tour like everybody is talking about it. That really doesn't happen now unless you're Taylor Swift going on the Era's tour. Nobody is talking about a world tour like there's so much pressure. But as an artist, I think they feel this pressure when they put tickets on sale, when they go out in these cities, this is their entire world. They do feel that, I think, so I think it did portray that of how to you and I, we see a concert go on sale, we think do we want to go see that? Do we want to pay that amount of money? And that is just something we think about in our week. But to this artist going on this tour, they can feel that, they feel if this is going to make or break them. But I just think that the way they portrayed this character isn't entirely true to how somebody at this level would be. But I do think it showed some of the things they have to deal with, like super obsessed fans, if you get bad press and how hard it is to recover from that, and just overall the pressures that not everybody sees when you just see people on Instagram or on TV shows. Naomi Scott went all in on this performance and the movie left nothing on the table, which is usually my biggest criticism when it comes to a horror movie that is trying to build a franchise, leave some things in mystery. But this movie gave you everything. It went all out, It cranked it up to eleven and said we're gonna give you the best performance we can in this movie. So they really capitalize going into this movie with more momentum, having more people talking. They still did all the promotion like they did for the first one, which I think is something that really sets a movie like this apart. Because there are other good horror movies that have come out this year. I don't think this one is the best one, but it's probably the one that is stuck in more people's minds because of that promotion. And that's what you have to do really when it comes down to having a successful horror movie. Right now, it's all in the promotion. How can you get people talking? Look at what Terrifier three did? They put all that press out themselves of saying people were walking out of the theater vomiting there was nobody vomiting. That's all marketing, and it went on to beat Joker Too. I think in order to succeed and set yourself apart, you have to do things like Smile is doing. Create that aura not just around the stars of this movie or even the characters, it's just around the idea of it. Because you have that image in your mind as somebody smiling, that poster can terrify you alone. So I found myself enjoying all two hours of this movie. Definitely a major improvement on the first one, which that one I give a two point five out of five. But for Smile Too, I give it four out of five.

00:37:16
Speaker 2: Pop Stars, It's time to head down to movie Mike.

00:37:23
Speaker 1: Traylor Paul Christmas movies are my least favorite genre of movie, New Christmas movies in particular. It is so hard to create a new classic. And the reason that we all love Christmas movies is because they were something that we grew up with and we have this memory attached to them that we love. So it's all the movies we rewatch every single year that give us that feeling again, that feeling of being a kid. But if you break down exactly what a Christmas movie is the fiber of a Christmas movie is not good. It's predictable, it's the same thing over and over. The acting isn't anything that's going to move you. So as a movie on its own, they're not great movies. Doesn't mean they're not fun. They don't bring you back to having good memories. If I'm just sitting down to watch a movie, I'm only watching a Christmas movie around Christmas time. I'm not watching them in March in July. There's a reason they only come out around the holidays. It is so much a reflection of the Christmas season, and it's so hard to make a new classic, and they keep trying. Only movie I can think of that has come out in the last twenty five years that has cemented itself as a Christmas classic that you can watch every single year is Elf. That is the only one. And a movie that is twenty plus years old, almost thirty years old at this point, is still considered a modern classic because it's so hard to do, and maybe it just takes that amount of time for a movie to be out out for us to watch again and again and again every single Christmas to really cement it as a classic. Much like classic cars need like twenty twenty five years to be a classic car. Same thing here applies to movies. So to really set yourself apart as a new Christmas movie, you have to do something innovative. And I think that is what Baby Girl is doing with Nicole Kidman because it is an erotic thriller centered around Christmas time. So does it embody the Christmas spirit? No, because it's all about her playing this character, who is a business executive, has an affair with a young intern played by Harrison Dickinson, who was really great in The Iron Claw. I also liked him a triangle of sadness. This movie happens to take place around Christmas, and it wasn't until I saw the trailer and heard the music and saw all the imagery that I was like, oh man, they might actually be onto something. So before I get into more about Baby Girl, here's just a little bit of the trailer.

00:39:56
Speaker 4: We're gonna do this. We need to set some rules that you and I post agree on. Did you order this starting with I tell you what to do when you do it?

00:40:10
Speaker 1: Funny fect out guys?

00:40:12
Speaker 4: No, what get on your knees now?

00:40:17
Speaker 1: Is that what you want. You're very young. I don't want to argue. Oh my gosh, I feel like I should get out of the room and leave them two together. I wonder what Nicole Kidman looks for in a script. Are these movies being pitched to her because they have her in mind for these parts, or is she actively seeking out these types of roles. You look back on the movies and probably more in particular the limited series that she's done, which I think she in the last five years has done much better work in limited series than she has in movies. I feel like the movies she has done have been a little bit more of a paycheck because she is at that status. She could go in make fifteen twenty million dollars on a movie because you bank on the Nicole Kidman name. And I think where she's really shown how great of an actor she is is on all these limited series, everything from Nine Perfect Strangers, Lioness ex Pats, The Perfect Couple earlier this year. Because if you look on the movie side, in the last five years, she's done movies like The Goldfinch, Bombshell, The Northman Being the Ricardos All Command in The Lost Kingdom. She did a Family Affair on Netflix earlier this year. So if I had to take Nicole Kidman in a limited series versus Nicole Kidman in film, I would take the limited series. But if you look at her characters in those limited series, she always kind of goes for roles like this, and she does them so well of being this person who is so dominant, a true driving force, but then also having relationships like this that are toxic but are so intriguing. And I have to imagine that a lot of these roles take a bit of a toll on you as an actor to put yourself through that mental anguish, And I just wonder where in her does she go to to get these amazing performances that she does. And I don't know if she's actively seeking roles like this because she finds these to be the most enjoyable, or directors know in order to have these stories really come to life, they need Nicole Kidman to portray this character. Living in Nashville, I've actually seen Nicole Kidman around town in the most random places. I think both of them have been at the Mall in different locations of the mall. But the thing about her is she is so nonchalant. When you run into her, you wouldn't even know. Because sometimes you see people out in public and they look famous. They're dressed a certain way, they have people around them, and you can just tell. Maybe I don't know exactly what I know them from, but I can tell that that person is famous. When I've seen Nicole Kidman out, she looks just like everybody else. She sticks to her own lane. She doesn't make a big fuss out of anything, and it looks like just running into anybody, maybe your friend, your neighbor out at the mall, but it's Nicole Kidman, Academy Award winning Nicole Kidman, just doing some shopping at the mall. Now, she has a much larger bank account to work with than any of us. While shopping at the mall, I don't really think she needs to look at price tags, even though that story came out that she prefers to drive her SuPAR Rue over the Lamborghini that her husband, Keith Urban bought her, which is another wild thing because I've seen them both out together, and you have one a list movie star on the right, flash TV star, and one a list country star on the left, And really, when you see them together. The only defying factor that you can tell that they are famous is Keith Urban's tattoos make them look famous. So I just find it crazy that their level of famous so high and they seem to be so low maintenance when just hanging out in public. So back to the movie Baby Girl, which is coming out on Christmas Day, an erotic thriller on Christmas Day. Who would have thought, especially with this holiday season being so so competitive with Sonic and The Lion King. This is almost the counter programming to that. Because I have great memories of going to the movie theater around Christmas time. There is a warmth to it. I think when you're hanging around your family for more time than you're probably used to around the holidays, the movies are a good escape, and there's just the feeling of going to the movie and watching something where the world has kind of slowed down. Hopefully you're enjoying some time off and you can go and relax and watch a movie. And this is not something I'm used to going to see around that time of year, something that's probably gonna get my blood boiling a little bit, because by the looks of this trailer of Nicole Kinman's character going behind the back of her husband this dude showing up at her house. I feel like there's going to be a lot of good cringe those moments where you're like, oh, man, I can't believe this is happening, but I cannot look away. And Nicole Kidman does not shy away from taking very steamy roles, and just by the looks of this trailer, it looks like her and Harris Dickison have some very great chemistry, which is really how you sell this movie anything where you're really needing as the audience to buy into the romance, you have to buy into that chemistry. Last holiday season, it was Sunny Sweeney and Glenn Powell completely keeping everybody on their toest thinking are they together? Are they not together? Completely selling that movie and giving that movie a big life in theaters and even more so once it went to streaming. I don't know that Baby Girl is going to be one that everybody's going to be rushing to watch around the holiday season. But if there is a name that could do that in a role like this that I think people are now starting to associate her with more, I think it could be Nicole Kidman. Again. Baby Girl is coming out this Christmas on December twenty fifth.

00:45:24
Speaker 2: At that was this week's edition of Movie by Tram or.

00:45:28
Speaker 1: Bar 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, and this week it is a collective shout out to the movie crew. Thank you all for voting in the awards for the best Podcast in Nashville. We came in three guys. That's pretty good. I'll take it. We did win a couple of years ago in twenty twenty two, taking home first place for best Podcast, but twenty twenty four, I'll take third place. I'm kind of in that place of I'm just happy to be on the podium because I would have loved to been up there at number one. But if we would have landed in number two, I would have felt like, man, we were so close to number one? How many more votes do we need? Could I have talked about it more, promoted it more, and got us the number one? But coming in at number three, I'm like, you know what, I'm just glad we're here because if I would have looked at the list and it wouldn't have been listed. I would have felt like, oh man, this sucks. Maybe it's time to close up shops. So happy to be on the podium. You're listening to and are a part of the third best podcast in Nashville. So thank you everybody for voting, everybody for listening, for telling a friend, for being subscribed, coming here on release day which is Mondays or maybe Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, whenever you have time. It means the world to me, So thank you from the bottom and the depths of my heart and bowels. And until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later.