The Best and Worst Live-Action Remakes of Animated Movies + Movie Review: Did Materialists Bring Rom-Coms Back? + Trailer Park: Eddington - Why Is Pedro Pascal So Popular?

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I am your host Movie Mike. Today, I want to talk about what the best and worst live action remakes of animated movies are. In the movie review, we talked about Materialists. Some people felt doup by this movie because they really leaned into the marketing of rom comms. Are back. I want to talk about how the genre of rom comms has evolved. And in the trailer park we'll be talking about Eddington, which start Jaquin, Phoenix, and Pedro Pascal. I want to do a whole deep dive on Pedro Pascal because he is in so many movies right now, and I want to talk about when somebody gets so busy, are they able to dedicate enough time to each role to really have a presence on the screen that resonates with audiences. Or can you be so in demand that your overall products starts to diminish a little bit. We'll talk about that. Thank you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. He Now, let's talk movies from the Nashville Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike Movie Podcast. I thought I was going to have an easier time coming up with my best live action remakes of animated movies. And I know I've been critical of them really heavily in the last couple of years, but I thought they'd been doing them for so long that surely there are enough good ones to make a top five. Surely you can't be serious. I am serious, and don't call me surely, but I really had to fight for my top five. I tried to include other studios that were not Disney, but when doing my research, primarily all the live action remakes of animated movies come to us from Disney, so that is just their business model. It appears that only one non Disney movie made it into my top five. So before we get into the best and then the worst, and then I also have five that I think should have live action remakes done. I want to talk about. The first ever Disney live action remake came out back in nineteen ninety four. Can you guess which one it was? Because before for this, they had done live action animation hybrid movies that were kind of remakes, but not really what we consider to be a remake right now. This was the first movie to adapt a classic Disney animated feature and turn it into a full live action film, which all we're gonna get into some discussion later about how some of these don't even feel live action to me. But can you guess the movie that came out in nineteen ninety four. It's based on the original animated Disney film that came out back in nineteen sixty seven. It was the last animated feature film to be personally overseen by Walt Disney before his death. Can you guess the movie? The answer is The Jungle Book in nineteen ninety four. I remember when this movie came out because my cousin had it on VHS and I became obsessed with the character of Mowgli, primarily because I was also a brown skinned kid who liked running around without his T shirt on. So anytime i'd be outside, I always gravitated towards climbing trees. I always said I wanted to be like Mowgli, but this was the first to do it, and I thought they did it well. Does this movie hold up? I don't know. I haven't seen this movie since the nineties, but The Jungle Book was the first live action remake, and then they remade it again in twenty sixteen, The Jungle Book came out directed by Jon Favreau, So that movie does not quite make my list, but I wanted to give you a bit of a history lesson before we dive into my top five. Let's get into it now. At number five, I have The Little Mermaid, which I gave a three point five out of five. It came out in twenty twenty three. I thought Hailey Bailey did a fantastic job as Ariel Harvey a Bardem I thought was also a good king, but hands down, I think the person who really solidified this as being a good movie to me was Melissa McCarthy as Ursula. And this was a Disney movie that actually had benefit from turning it into a live action movie, because you have a world that I was actually interested in exploring under the seat. They actually made that look pretty good, and I thought overall, the story fall up pretty close to the original animated version, which I think what Disney usually tries to do, especially with these old classics, is go back and fix plot holes or update things that maybe seem a little bit outdated. I like the Disney movies that really stick to the original story as much as possible. But The Little Mermaid was one that I actually went to see in theaters and was entertained throughout the entire film. The major problem I had with it was Flounder, who looked just grotesque. He is one of the worst looking on screen characters of all time. With the use of CGI, he looked like he was in pain. His eyes were bugging out, and overall that was the hardest part of me getting into this film, and overall that is going to be the theme here. It is really hard for me to become invested in realistic looking animals because there's a different level of magic when you're watching an animated movie and you're not trying to associate them with the real thing. You could go out back in upond and fine, or go out to the ocean. It's so much harder to do. But The Little Mermaid comes in at number five. At number four, I have Beauty and the Beast starring Emma Watson, and maybe the reason I love this one so much I remember going to see it in theaters alone back in twenty seventeen. I saw a lot of movies alone. In twenty seventeen, I was in my second year of living in Nashville by myself. I don't even think I was really actively dating at that point. Now by twenty seventeen, I probably was. I think the entire time I was here, I was sort of dating, but I was really bad at it, and I spent a lot of time going to movies alone. And quite frankly, the memory I associate with Beauty and the Beast is going to watch it alone and then doing a review for it in my car afterwards on Snapchat. But I think it's because I am such a huge fan of Emma Watson, and unfairly she is an actor who I just associate with Hermione Granger, unfair of me and all of the Harry Potter cast. I think I've come out of feeling that way about Daniel Radcliffe because he's done a lot of great movies like Swiss Army Man, and Emma Watson has been an actor who has been really selective about her work post Harry Potter, so much so that she hasn't really retired from acting, but she's kind of taken a hiatus where she's much more concerned about other things going on in the world and what film she is going to do next. But I thought. Overall, this movie actually made me care more about Beauty and the Beast, which I know how groundbreaking that movie was when it came out back in nineteen ninety one. It became the first animated movie to be nominated for Best Picture in nineteen ninety two at the Oscars, and it was because of how groundbreaking the animation was, the level of artistry, which was a theme of the nineties Disney Renaissance era, the level of storytelling, the technical achievements, and this was pretty revolutionary at the time. Because I'm still in twenty twenty five fighting for animation at the Oscars. We're just talking about this last week as well. But a major milestone for this movie to be nominated for Best Picture way back in nineteen ninety two, because it had critical acclaim, it had commercial success, and overall just left a lasting impression on animation. And because I was a baby when it came out, I wasn't really alive to know about its impact, and later as a young kid, it wasn't really a movie I gravitated towards. It had some really fantastic songs in it, but I always just saw the movie as being an old classic movie that I remember one of my aunts having in those classic big Disney VHS cartridges, and we borrowed it from her and watched it, and I thought, Okay, that's a pretty good movie. But it wasn't until I watched it in twenty seventeen in a live action format that I thought, Oh, I actually get the story more. I feel a little bit more connected to Belle, even though I feel the story is more vibrant and animation, which again that's gonna be a theme throughout this list is I'm always gonna prefer the animated version or the live action version, because even little things like the color of Bell's dress and the way it looks in the live action version isn't as iconic as it is in animation. But those things aside, it stays pretty close to the original story. Maybe adds another storyline in there that some people feels a little bit unnecessary, but I enjoyed how they kind of change Gaston's character a little bit in the live action version. Maybe the connection between the beauty and the Beast wasn't as strong in the live action version, because I feel like there's much more romance whenever it's an animated beast and an animated lead female character. It starts to become a little bit harder for them to have chemistry in a quote unquote live action movie, even though they didn't get a real beast. But it's still one I would revisit today, so it has some rewatchability. But at number four, I have Beauty in the Beast at number three. Most recent addition to this list, I just watched it How to Train Your Dragon, which I give a three point five out of five. I love the animated version, and this was one where pretty much they stayed really close to the original story. I would say beat for beat if you watch the animated version and then go watch the live action one, it is pretty much a reflection of that original story because you have the same director. Oh Dean, who also worked on Leelo Wins Stitch is now one of the first people ever to not only be a part of the animated version of a movie, but also the live action version of a movie. And I think that really showed as well, so much so that he brought back Gerard Butler, who is the voice of the Dad and the animated version and is now playing him in real live action. Now, could you get some of the other actors to do that, no, because they're all much older now. I mean, you couldn't get Jonah Hill, although that would be funny. You couldn't get Christopher mince Blas who is Aka mclovin and super Bad Jay Barrokale, who voices Hiccup in the original animated version. I think he brings a lot more life to that character. And that's no disrespect to Mason Thames, who played Hiccup in the live action version. I thought he did a really good job. I just think overall the qualities that I love about Hiccup in the animated version aren't quite there in the live action version. His quirkiness, aside from the way that his hair looks, I think his overall mannerisms and what make Hiccup Hiccup you see more in the original version. But with all of that being said, the action is there, the dragons look good, the fire is there, the village is just how you see it in the animated version, and what DreamWorks did with this blows a lot of what Disney did out of the water. And the only reason that two and number one rank higher is an a visual thing. I think visually this one takes the cake out of any other Disney live action remake, and it comes down to wardrobe and set design and just overall how this feels like a movie that doesn't feel like a family movie, even its runtime is almost two hours, and I think, aside from the fact that there's not blood and guts in it, at times, maybe not exactly like it, but it's almost like taking the story from How to Train Your Dragon and making it look like a Game of Thrones episode. Again, not as hardcore and dark as you would get in a Game of Thrones episode, but I think if they really wanted to push it a little bit further, which How To Train Your Dragon movies do get a little bit darker going from one to two, where things start to get a little bit more serious. As you can see, I'm now going back and rewatching all of these movies, but I think if they wanted to go there, if they wanted to age it up just a little bit, they definitely could. And that is something that Disney is not doing. And I think it's a great time for this movie to come out fifteen years after the original, and I overall was really quite excited of how well this can be done. And again if it wasn't for the classic storytelling and number two and number one on this list, I think this one could have easily had a chance to rank higher. I was also exposed to this movie when I was a little bit older. Came out in twenty ten, so I was already nineteen years old. But now to people who were kids when this movie first came out, I think you probably resonate with it a lot more seeing it in live action. And I think now by seeing how much more I was inspired by this movie and how it really compares to everything else, I'm bumping it up on my rating scale. I now give How to Train Your Dragon four out of five flames, and at number two you probably think this one would have been number one for me because this room I'm sitting in right now is littered with this character. I have Leelo in Stitch, which I gave a four point five out of five. I've seen this movie twice now in theaters. I loved it more the second time because I got to see things that I kind of missed the first time around. I can't wait for it to come out on Disney Plus, which is probably gonna be a while so I could rewatch it for a third time. This movie inspired me to go back and rewatch all the animated Leelo and Stitch movies that are on Disney. Plus Stitch has a glitch, which I wonder now if and when they make a sequel to the live actionle Load and Stitch, if they're going to follow that story, which I think could be a good story for them to follow, because that's all about Stitch trying to battle his inner badness and him trying to do good things, but then he has a force making him be bad when he doesn't want to be bad anymore. I think that story will probably take a little bit of tweaking to make work for another full feature film. And the only reason this one didn't come in at number one is because after watching it for a second time, after reading more about it, I feel that Disney did not invest enough in this movie. They didn't believe enough in it that it was going to be a success, And now that it's one of the biggest movies of the year, they're like, oh, yeah, we have a big property on our hands that people love and are passionate for. And it's that and the fact that it wasn't even at first going to be a feature film. It was originally going to be put on Disney Plus maybe as a series, and I started to see that the second time around because I thought, oh man, they did kind of cut some corners here, and I think that is primarily for me visible with Pleikly and Jumba, who weren't even their full cells throughout the entire movie, I feel like they cut corners and making them revert to their human form, and for the most part, you see Zach Galifanakis instead of Jumba throughout the movie. So that led me to believe and solidify that. I think they didn't believe in it enough from the start, but hopefully now seeing all of the support for Leelo and Stitch, seeing all the fandom and again, they'll probably do this now because they're like, Okay, we can capitalize a whole lot more on this, We can sell a whole lot more of Stitch merch by investing more into the sequel to this. I hope they get better visual effects. I hope they bring back some characters that they didn't include in the first one. So I have higher expectations now for Lilo and Stitch too, whenever that happens. But That is why I have Lilo and Stitch on my list at numbers two and at number one I have twenty nineteen's The Lion King. And I feel like this being at number one is kind of cheating because it's not really a live action movie. They did not go out to Africa and film a bunch of wild animals. It is computer generated graphics. Now, is it really sophisticated and thought out and cinematic computer generated graphics? Yes? Was it technology that was I don't even think it was the groundbreaking at the time because they did it with the twenty sixteen Jungle Buck version that was kind of the precursor to this one, which was also directed by Jon Favreau. So what I loved about it is it stuck completely to the story. It is essentially the nineteen ninety four movie brought to life with different animation. So it's almost like when you have a formula that is so good, you have this recipe that all you need to do is follow it. Your mom leaves you behind a recipe to a world famous chocolate chip cookie. All you have to do is follow that recipe, take them out when the timers up, and don't burn the cookies. That's all you have to do. You have the recipe, which is astounding to me that they don't just do that for every other movie and stop this whole discussion of people being outraged every time a film comes out and they change some things. If they just step to the original plots of all these movies that everybody loves, I think there would be less outraged. Or maybe they want the outrage. They need people to be discussing them, be ranting about them, because maybe that drives more people to see them, because outrage sparks curiosity. But still at number one, I have The Lion King, which is still a four point five out of five to me, because the original is a five out of five, and that is the highest rated live action remake. There's no way you can achieve anything better than the original. So I'll never rank one of these movies a five. I don't think I could ever rank any remake of five because you just can't be better than the original. Some honorable mentions here. I thought Aladdin would It was pretty good, but I think if you didn't have Will Smith as Genie, I probably would have loved it more. He really just kind of killed that character. For me. The other movie I wanted to put on this list, but I don't think it counts as Kruella because I loved Emma Stone as Kruella Deville. But it's not really a remake. It is a prequel to one oh one Dalmatians, which also had a live action version in nineteen ninety six with Glenn Close that I believe is a pretty bad version. But as a kid, I enjoyed it. But I think that is probably on the lower end of live action adaptations, and I only like it for nostalgia purposes. And like I mentioned earlier, nineteen ninety four is the Jungle Book was the first to do it. It would have made it if I was making a top ten. And there is a weird connection because Jason Scott Lee was the actor in that movie who played Mowgli. He also went on to be the voice of David in the animated version of Leelo and Stitch, and then he happened to be in Mulan twenty twenty, and then they brought him back again since he was the voice of David in the original Lelo and Stitch, they brought him back as the person who owns the restaurant that non he works at. So dude has been in The Jungle Book, Leelo and Stitch, both animated and live action, and was in the live action remake of Mulan. We did the best, now let's do the worst. Speaking to Mulan, I have it at number five. I just think that movie did not feel like Mulan. Was it a bad movie? No, But when you're remaking a classic Disney movie that has a lot of comedy in it and you take away all the comedy, you don't have the dragon voiced by Eddie Murphy anymore, you don't have the dragon character at all. It just took all the life and Disney magic out of that movie and just made it feel like a really cold war movie. Overall, the action and everything was fine, but it was so forgettable. And also the fact that it came out in twenty twenty, and what they were doing at the time was make you pay full price to watch movies on Disney Plus. I remember paying twenty dollars to see Mulan and feeling so robbed by that. So at number five, I have Mulan. At number four. I have Alice in Wonderland from twenty ten. I decided to include not one, but two Tim Burton films because I think it just ruined some classics by making them overtly tim Burton and taking away everything that made the animated versions great. And this was what I felt was a string of just bad Tim Burton films. I'm not sure he's entirely recovered from this, because at number three, I have twenty nineteen's Dumbo that just felt like a complete mess and took all the charm out of Dumbo. At number two, I have snow White, which came out earlier this year, and that was primarily just because again, whenever you make something live action, you take away the comical joy out of it. There was no joy in the Seven Doors that were really creepy looking to me. All the drama that went into that I also feel like took away from any hopes of that movie being good. I don't think gal Gado deserves as much hate as she gets for her acting, but there are some isolated moments that you could pull from her performance in that that just feels so flat, and I honestly think she is doing what directors want her to do. She is placed in these roles that they maybe at times set her up to fail, and I think that's primarily on the director because was her performance really flat in this movie at times? Yes, but also what she was saying that she has no control over that was on the page was also bad. The only real redeeming quality of Snow White was the fact that the costumes look pretty good. But overall, the set, design, the production, the special effects were atrocious. The songs were pretty forgettable, and maybe earlier I gave the award to Flounder as being the worst looking animated to live action character as far as design and over were all how it looks compared to all the other characters in the movie. But hands down, I think I have to take that award away and give it to Dopey because I still have nightmares of how bad they made him look. Do get them away from me. But at number one from twenty twenty two is Pinocchio. This movie was so bad. Robert zamechis who Tom Hanks worked with on classics like Forrest Gump. They did hear together. Maybe they should stop working together. Actually, I thought, when you have somebody like Tom Hanks and Roberts and Mechas coming together to work on arguably one of the top five Disney classics of all time. This movie was regurgitated garbage, meaning that it was something that I ate expelled from my body and then took that in my body and did it again, because that's what they did. They took something that was good and just made it a heap of trash. I was personally offended by Pinocchio. I rage watched this movie to the end because about fifteen twenty minutes into it, I was like, this is bad. Pinocchio looks, the story doesn't work. All the characters that are supporting Pinocchio are terrible. There are no redeeming qualities of this movie. I rage watched it till the very end because if I don't fully watch a movie, I can't review it. I'm like, I'm gonna watch this movie just for the fact that I could rip it for ten to fifteen years. The worst, not only the worst animated to live action movie, one of the worst Disney movies of all time. I gave it the lowest rating you can possibly give a movie in my book, a point five. That is bad. And we'll wrap it up talking about five animated movies that I think would benefit from live action remakes, even though I feel like no animated movie needs to be I just know it's a business. Wherever there is a level of fandom and ip, eventually there's gonna be a live action remake of it. I would say we're probably another ten years away from a Despicable Me. It's just gonna happen, guys, it is inevitable. Well, the one on my list I think would actually really work and not feel like a cash grab is The Iron Giant, because I feel that is a movie that is underappreciated. We all watch it as kids maybe and didn't understand it at the time, but if you go back and rewatch that movie as an adult, it is really emotional and if you think about the story in that, if you think about the visuals, if they remade it now, it would kind of feel like Transformers for kids. And we have the technology now, we've had it since two thousand and seven to make realistic looking metal characters. I just think that would look fantastic if you could create that energy that you get from an MCU movie or a Transformers movie and take away it having to be cool and appealed to like a PG thirteen audience, and just make it for PG audiences. I think there's something there. I think there is a level of film right now that is underserving that level of fandom. Because the movie is all about friendship and sacrifice, and you could still get Ben Diesel to voice the Iron Giant, it would be fantastic a Goofy movie. As much as I would want an animated sequel, and as much as I don't even know how a live action remake of the movie would be, it could look atrocious, it could look like a horror movie, but I just want that level of Here is this movie that has this deep rooted cult following from the nineties to have a moment now, much like Lilo and Stitches. Having that just feels validating because in the same way that I don't feel like people fully appreciated Lilo and Stitch when it came out in the two thousands, that that character has really grown a just passionate rabbit fan base over time. I think that is what has happened with a Goofy movie. So I would like for that film to finally get its flowers, and if it takes a live action remake to get that, I'll take it. One of my favorite animated movies as a kid. Pokemon the first movie which I rewatched, probably one the year. They did make a CGI remake of it back in twenty twenty, which was Pokemon Mutwo Strikes Back Evolution, which basically follows the plot of the first movie pretty much entirely and just recreates it with CGI. That is the movie I've been waiting on my entire life. I've just wanted to see exactly what I loved and experienced as a kid. Just make it live action. I've been wanting that. I remember having dreams of that when I was ten years old. I don't want Detective Pikachu. I don't want to spin off. I just want a live action version of the first movie. Next up on my list, I have dragon Ball Super Superhero, which is a full length animated film based on the series. And this is the movie that really got me back into dragon Ball, even though I drew up with it. My memories of watching it in Mexico with all my cousins in Spanish was how I was first exposed to dragon Ball Z and then as an adult, I went back. I saw this movie first, and that inspired me to go and watch all of dragon Ball Super which I watched all one hundred and thirty one or thirty three episodes of that show, and now I've gone back and restarted dragon Ball Z from the very beginning. But dragon Ball Super Superhero, I think would translate perfect into a live action movie, even though they have failed doing this and failed so badly. Was the movie that came out back in two thousand and nine, dragon Ball Evolution. That movie was a disaster. You have such high expectations for how you think these characters are going to look. Piccolo looked atrocious, Goku look datrocious. There were no redeeming qualities about that movie. And if we're getting an R rated Ninja Turtles movie, they're working on the Last Ronin, which is a live action adaptation of the graphic novel. I think if we gave that similar treatment to a dragon Ball Super that would finally make it hit. And finally, because there have been rumblings of this of who would play Miles Morales, I would want to see a live action remake of Spider Man into the Spider Verse. I think this all comes down to casting. Can you find the right person to play Miles Morales? Can you find the right director and how does it fit into everything else that the MCU is doing. Is it going to be a part of the MCU. I think you have to keep it completely separate, much like you do with all the Spider Verse movies. And I think there are a lot of fans who want to see Miles Morales in Secret Wars or in Doomsday. I don't think that is going to happen, but can you imagine the pops across the country that that would get, much like we had back with no way home? Could you imagine how crazy people would go if that's how they decide to debut Miles Morales as Spider Man and either do it probably wouldn't be Doomsday. It would probably be Secret Wars. They debut them in Secret Wars and then announce that there's gonna be a live action Miles Morales movie. That would be appen. That's why I want to see it, although that could go downhill really fast. Just keep it out of Sony's hands. Well, come back and I'll give my spoiler free review of Materialists. Hi, I'm not my day, ray Ol girl. Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review Materialist, starring three superheroes in a non superhero movie. You have Dakota Johnson aka Madam Webb, Pedro Pascal who was going to be Read Richards in the New Fantastic Four movie, and you have the one and only Chris Evans aka Captain America. Can Dakota Johnson recover her public image or her image with me? Not that she cares about how I feel about her movies after Madam Webb. And I was actually a big Dakota Johnson fan prior to Madam web and even I thought, man, if an actor does one movie, is it really going to change my perception of them? And it wasn't just that the movie was bad, it was also how she handled it that made me think a little bit differently about her. But I loved her in Peanut Butter, Falcon, choch Real Smooth, And I think most people still associate her with the Fifty Shades of Grave movies and I never even got into those movies. But what this movie is about. She plays a young New York City matchmaker. She works at this business where it's kind of like a bumble, except instead of doing it on the app, you work with a person who helps you find people to date, So kind of like a travel agent would find you places to go and set up your trips. You go to this person. It's very high end concierge, like, Okay, here's what I want, here's what I'm looking for. And her job is to set people up and she's really good at her job. At the start of the movie, she has been responsible so far for nine marriages and she loves doing it. Problem is it starts to affect how she sees people. She sees bank account, she sees height and weight, she looks at people just as stats. And she has an ex boyfriend played by Chris Evans, and then she meets a new guy who is a super rich, successful guy, charming, good looking, played by Pedro Pascal. So what we have is a classic love triangle between does she want to go back to her ex who has a lot of imperfections and you find out more and more detailed how long they were together, why they broke up, or does she want to go all in on this new guy who is coming in sweeping her off her feet and able to give her a life that she only imagined having because dude has a lot of money. And there are three things this movie did and brought back. That has me excited for rom coms, which the rom com genre has evolved a lot since the nineties and early two thousands, where we might associate a lot of Adam Sandler movies, where the overall tone of them is a lot more comical, probably leans more into the comm and I think there are still those type of rom coms coming out. Look at anyone but you, with Sidney Sweeney and Glenn Powell, you still have a genre that leans more into those classic things that just make you feel good, just make you not really have to use your brain a whole lot, and they're very predictable. And the material List also still falls into that rom com genre, but the comedy is much different. It's much more subtle. So the three things I feel it is bringing back. One was the classic trailer. A version that they released of the trailer for the material List had a two thousands esque voiceover, which I thought was perfect. We have not seen that in a very long time in the world of matchmaking. This weekend, your client is getting sweet. No one plays the game better than Lucy six to doctor Lawyer Banker and I get along much better with girls in their twenties, but love isn't part of her equation. I don't want to fight about money with my boyfriend. You know how hard it is to make you happy. Lucy and the Eternal Bachelora. I'm a guy. I love forget a rich husband. Because that style of trailer is so outdated. You don't really put out trailers where you have the big voiceover guy anymore because it doesn't really fit in today's world. Doesn't really make people want to see movies anymore. I think trailers have a really hard time fitting so much into two and a half minutes. But I really enjoyed the version they put out with that voiceover because it kind of gave me a different perspective going into this, thinking, Okay, they're going to try to bring back that two thousand style rom com but make it feel very modern. Number two, they brought back smoking, which is not good whatsoever. I don't promote it, don't encourage it, but just to see smoking in a movie again, I thought was a really interesting play because that's just something you don't see anymore. Back in the eighties and nineties, you'd see it all the time and not even think about it. I think just the idea of putting smoking in a movie in twenty twenty five is a really bold statement. So to me, that was saying, let's bring back some of these classic Hollywood things. Is it weird to say things from the nineties and early two thousands are classic Hollywood things now? But it is because much around the two thousands where we started to see really how bad smoking was and stop trying to promote it to young people, which I still believe, like you should not be promoting smoking or vaping or anything like that that just has a crazy effect on your body. But I think there's something, Oh I hate to say it, there's something cool the way it looks on screen knowing that they're not smoking real cigarettes, because I don't really see Dakota Johnson's character and think she's gonna be one to smoke, and when she does, it makes me feel a different way about her. And number three, it brought back really witty dialogue, which I think that's a thing that doesn't really get emphasized enough in modern rom coms is having great quotes, having great monologues, having moments that are so impactful that you could pull them from this movie and start to place them onto these other iconic moments in rom comms that we all remember because if people are still saying the monologue from when Harry Met said is one of the best rom com monologues of all time. I'm gonna throw something through the window next to me here because I'm tired of the same old things getting referenced all the time. We need new moments like this. And why haven't we had new moments like this is because nobody is writing them. And now in this movie there are those moments where it hits you in the fields, not only on an emotional level, but even on a comedic level. Where are all the movies with great movie quotes that we used to have back in the twenty twenty tens. It was one of the only movies I've seen this year that I thought everything on the page was as important as everything being shown on screen, not just the big stars, not just the director. They thought, we need to make a great script and turn it into a great movie, not just Okay, let's take a decent script and then kind of figure it out as we go. Maybe in editing, through marketing, we can make this movie profitable. There was also a lot of great chemistry between Dakota Johnson and Chris Evans between Dakota Johnson and Pedro Pass which really emphasized the love triangle. And as the viewer, you are rooting for different people to end up with other people, and that was the fun part about it. And I know people, I guess hate the love triangle trope at this point. I know even some actors will say, I don't want to be cast in a movie where there's a love triangle, and people will be like, Okay, we won't put you in a love triangle. They get there and they're like, read the script, Oh I'm in a love triangle. So I feel like that formula is probably a little bit cliche, but in this case it works so well because at times I was like, oh, I want to end up with this guy. No, no, no, no, I want to end up with this guy. No, she should definitely end up with this guy. I think the love triangle, as cliche as that might be, it works, especially in this movie because the two guys are so different. One of them is down on their luck, but he's the old boyfriend and there's always those feelings you have towards your ex. In this situation with Dakota Johnson, and then you have the new guy who is last she get knew and has all these things he can flaunt and money that he can just throw around. This movie comes to us from director Celine Strong, who I mentioned in last week's episode had her debut with Past Lives, and I think is really starting to create a style for herself, which I love the use of intimate cinematography in this. I also love that even though we've seen New York City a thousand times in movies, it really felt like a character within itself because you had these really big, up close and personal shots between all of the lead actors, but then also peel back a little bit and showed you New York City in a fresh way. And I thought that was really like the backdrop of it that fit perfectly, paired with a really great score throughout the movie that was subtle and the way it set itself apart from other rom coms. And maybe even this was just a budgeting thing that they didn't have money to spend on a lot of songs that were well known, because that's what you've seen in a lot of rom comms. It's just like, all right, let's throw in some songs that are popular right now, that'll hit with the demographic we want to go see this movie. But instead of that, they used a really great score that at times was like really kind of charging and pushing the tension along. I thought that fit perfectly with the backdrop of New York City and all these really great, well dressed people. Dakota Johnson's fashion was at a ten. Pedro Pascal was also like very sophisticated and rich looking, and then you have Chris Evans, who just looks good in anything. But Selene Strong has this blend of modern and classic romance, and I think that's what really made this movie set itself apart from anything else out there right now, and what really is giving her films right now a very unique profile. So the cast was stacked three really great actors who are very highly in demand right now, so much so that I wonder how many dates they actually had with Pedro Pascal to film this movie, because he is in so many things right now, I mean, Last of Us, Fantastic Four. Dude just pops up everywhere, and I think at times that just kind of showed a little bit, because how can you be so in demand and in so many things, And also dedicate enough time to really have your character have enough presence throughout the movie. I'm starting to feel the same way about Sidney Sweeney too, where she's in so many things right now and use in the marketing for all these movies and posters and trailers, and then you actually watch the movies and you think, man, I bet she was just filming this in between filming something else. But the social commentary was also top notched. There were some lines that were really impactful from these characters that you really felt it when they said them, and the balance of humor was also perfect. One of my biggest complaints though in movies right now, that just triggers me, and we got to stop doing this. Stop putting the iPhone alarm sound in movies. Use a different tone, use something else, because whenever I hear that tone that I start freaking out, I feel like I'm waking up out of a dream, I'm about to be late for work. Let's stop putting the iPhone alarm sound in movies. Even the phone ringing is kind of annoying. If you're going to bring stuff back, just bring back them having for some reason a classic alarm clock. So this movie really lived up to my expectations. It is rare for me to find a perfect movie, but this one, I think is really close. Ah. It's hard to compare it to Past Lives too, because they are two very different films as far as the story. Past Lives is much more emotional and this one has more humor and overall I think just more romance. But they're both fantastic and close to perfect for the materialists. I give it four point five out of five dating services. It's time to head down to movie mikes. Traylar Paul. If an actor is in everything, are they really in anything? That is my deep question for the trailer Park. And what I mean is if an actor who is so hot, so in demand, does so many projects, that says, oh, everybody wants to work with them. They're making so much money. For most actors, there's a or your limited amount of time where you are this hot, where all the projects are firing, everybody is calling because you're putting money in other people's pockets. And I can't hate on an actor for taking as many roles as possible, because in a creative field you often don't know when your next role is gonna come. But if somebody like Pedro Pascal, which we've been talking about in this episode when talking about materialists, how I started to notice that I don't know if he's on set this entire time. I decided to talk about the new trailer for Eddington, because here we are again, Pedro Pascal in another movie coming out this year. If he's in so many movies, is he really in anything? I want to do an investigation on how many movies an A list actor like Pedro Pascal actually has time for in a year. I want to talk about how that affects how we start to feel about these people, is their oversaturation. But the movie is coming to us from director Ari Astor, who has done horror movies like Heredit, Harry at Midsummar, which Midsommar I think you'd probably say at Midsummer, but I like to say it fancy like Midsomar is a horror movie that I recommended to a lot of people early on in this podcast because it is one of my favorite horror movies of the twenty tens, just because it's so dark and twisted and unconventional, and I feel like when Hereditary came out, everybody loved that movie I'm just a bigger fan of Midsummer, and when I recommended that, I didn't realize how kind of messed up and twisted that movie is, and now a lot of people like it. That is the one I probably got the most pushback for recommending. So now I don't really ever recommend Midsummer anymore, because I think that's just a style of horror movie that I just personally like. I'm a fan of Ari's directing, and I think he is a pretty interesting director overall, even though his last movie didn't do as well, but he's still a relatively new director, and now he is taking on a very polarizing topic in his new movie. Because Eddington follows the story of police and social turmoil in a fictional city of Eddington, New Mexico, caused by the COVID nineteen pandemic. It is taking place in a fictional town. Joaquin Phoenix and Pedro Pascal are in this heated small town race for mayor, and the movie is going to dive into how chaotic it was at that time. It's going to cover social distancing protests, conspiracy theories. Eddington is coming out in theaters on July eighteenth, before we talk more about this and about Pedro Pascal. Here's just a little bit of the Eddington trailer. These are your strengths. So they're your strengths. You know how death works of people are going to be looking here. Now, keep your own office going, but you're gonna run mine. So vote Joe Cost take back our community. Oh yeah, save our soul. This movie looks very stylistic. Trayler closes out in a very dramatic way. It stars Joaquin Phoenix, Pedro Pascal, Emma Stone, Austin Butler, and Luke Grimes. Joaquin Phoenix appears to be the main character. He is the small town sheriff in this fictional New Mexico town where he challenges the mayor played by Pedro Pascal in a pandemic set situation. The movie is being described as a Western thriller and black comedy film. So Pedro Pascal is playing a guy named Ted Garcia who is the mayor of this town running for reelection. Joaquin Phoenix plays the town sheriff named Joe Cross. His wife is played by Emma Stone playing Louise Cross. Austin Butler plays a guy named Vernon Jefferson Peak and Luke Grimes plays Guy, which I always thought that was an interesting name. I always thought it was a fake name because I only ever heard it in movies. I remember from Never Been Kissed, the guy in that was named Guy. I've never met a guy in real life name Guy. But in this movie, Luke Grimes plays a guy named Guy, and he's also a officer at the Sheriff's office. And director Ari Astor originally thought this was gonna be the first movie he was gonna make. It was actually written five years before he even started Hereditary, but then decided to make Hereditary Midsomar first. And it wasn't until he started promoting his third film, Boa Is Afraid, which also stars wa Quing Phoenix, that he said, my next movie is gonna be one about the COVID nineteen pandemic, which is also weird to refer to it as the COVID nineteen pandemic, but that's how it's being described. So let's talk about Pedro Pascal because it seems right now that he is everywhere, and I think every actor aspires to have this level of heat on them, where everybody wants a piece of them. Their schedule is full and I think to reach that level of fame at some point, people have to be sick of you and Pedro Pascal, it seems to a lot of people is maybe just an overnight success, but he's been doing this a long time. His breakout role it first came to us in twenty fourteen when he was in an episode of Game of Thrones, and even that came later in his career. He was thirty nine years old when he was on Game of Thrones and he's now fifty. So why is he so popular now? I decided to do some investigating because I think the thing that really started to put him in the minds of everybody was him landing the role on The Mandalorian, which started back in twenty nineteen. And I think the thing that has really cemented him as of late was being cast as Joel in the Last of Us in twenty twenty three, where I think people started to look at him differently, And that show was so good and so groundbreaking when it came out. It started to show people his emotional range, his dramatic power. People started to kind of put the pieces together of other movies and TV shows they've seen him in, like, oh, he was the guy at Narcos, but now it's like, oh, he's the star of this show. But for Pedro Pascal, I think his next big role and the thing that's really going to cement Um in this a list tier is going to be his role coming up as Read Richards in Fantastic Four. That is just gonna submentim there, and that is kind of the pinnacle of anybody's career. Can you be in a big Hollywood production and put butts in seats? So if that movie proves to be as successful as I'm hoping, I think that is good to Cementum in. Okay, So it's not really that he's an overnight success. It's that his long haul career is starting to pay off, and to us it just feels like, oh my gosh, we see him and everything now, But really he's been grinding for so long. Very rarely in Hollywood does somebody become an overnight success. You just have to put in your dues, doing small roles and eventually landing that one that really just starts to land with people, and then you become this in demand because if you look at the movies he's been in just the last five years, I mean He was in Wonder Woman nineteen eighty four in twenty twenty, which I think I'm the only person who enjoyed that movie. But that also came to us at a time where we weren't getting any movies. It was in twenty twenty, which ties back into this movie now, Eddington, because I was just so happy at that point to have a good movie, superhero movie that I was able to watch at home. That movie and a lot of other movies that came out that year that were new, have a special place in my heart. Have I gone back and rewatched that movie since no, So I'm just happy what that movie did for me when it did come out. He was also in The Unbearable Way of Massive Talent with Nick Cage, which I thought was an underrated comedy. He was in Driveaway Dolls last year, which was a really quick role pretty much just in it at the beginning. And this is where you start to see how limited he has been in some of these movies. He was in Gladiator to last year, He was a voice actor in the Wild Robot last year, he was also in The Uninvited Freaky Tales, and then this year has been in Materialists. Eddington will be in Fantastic Four, and then it looks like he is also going to be unless they change the release again, but in Avengers Doomsday, because that's kind of what we're all building up to. And on the TV side, of course, he has been in the Last of Us and if he start to look at all these projects, I have to imagine a majority of his time had to go to dedicating time to film Fantastic Four. Because on average, top tier A list actors usually only do one to two movies a year. It breaks down to first of all, actors are picky at this level because they often wait for the best projects, the best directors, the biggest paydays and roles that are going to maintain their brand, because that is what they have to think about. Now. It's not just about Okay, I need to be able to earn enough money this year. It starts to be about I have to think of myself as an entity and what is going to make sense in my filmography right now. So Petro Pascal is an interesting person because he can do anything. He has a very wide range where he can do the smaller budget A twenty four movies like we're already seeing them in this year, but then also can do big movies like Fantastic Four and then go back to HBO Max and do Last of Us. So he has that on his side where he doesn't have to account for a big action movie every single year because you're gonna run out of good scripts if you do that, he can actually hop around to different genres, different mediums and just search for the best scripts. Another reason they usually only do one to two movies per year is because fans like us start to have expectations on them and they always want to continue that hot streak. So sometimes they might do three or more films in a year, but if one of those dips just a little bit, as we've seen and we're talking about earlier with Dakota Johnson, that can start to change the way you feel about your favorite actors. But if you have your action guys like the Rock Jason Statham, they can probably get away with doing two to four movies a year because they're kind of always living in that same genre. Their range of characters isn't as vast, so they're kind of doing the same thing over and over again and just trying to find a movie at least one that really hits and they also will take on smaller cameos in smaller roles, but oftentimes, through a little manipulation in the promotion, you can put them right there on the poster and say, we got Pedro Pascal in this movie. His face is right here. But then when you go watch that movie in theaters or click it at home, you might think to yourself, man, he really wasn't in that as much as they promoted him. He was all over the trailer, but when I actually watched the movie, he wasn't there as much. So they do that trickery as well. So that is somebody who is still on the up and up might not be as established as other A list actors, because if you look at people like Leonardo DiCaprio, he typically only does one movie every two to three years. It is very unusual for him to do one movie a year, which I think he's at least leaning more into at least doing one every two years right now, Like One Battle after Another is coming out later this year with him and Benisio del Toro on September twenty sixth. Somebody like a Ryan Reynolds or Kevin Hart might put out two to three movies per year, but maybe two of those are live action and one of them is an animated movie that takes less of their time to sit down in a booth and do all the lines. But if you think back to the height of the MCU, Scarlett Johansson at times was doing two movies a year, two of those big projects. So pretty much an average A lister will do one to two major films per year if they are a list and really busy and usually on the rise and kind of a hot shreak. So your Pedro Pascal's, your Sydney Sweeney's, your Austin Butler's, your Timothy Shalomee, your Zendayas. They could do up to three, maybe four movies a year to mix in. Genres have bigger and smaller roles, and they also don't want to have a bunch of movies coming out close to each other because then it kind of becomes a mess to promote, which is what kind of Pedro Pascal is running into right now. Because Materialists just came out, Eddington is coming out on July eighteenth, and right after that, on July twenty fifth, we have Fantastic Four. So here's what I'm talking about. It's all just jumbled up, so hopefully that is a great one, two, three movie streak for him. I think even if Eddington doesn't live up to expectations, it's not really good at Dingham because I think the hype of Fantastic four is gonna be too great. So good for him. A great time to be his publicist and probably a great time to be his money person. Heed. That was this week's edition of Movie b Tramer Bar, and that is going to do it for another episode here of the podcast. Before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week this week. I'm going over to my YouTube channel, which is YouTube dot com slash Mike Distro. I think I just hit six hundred followers. I'm trying to get to one thousand. So if you're listening and you love YouTube and you want to watch individual movie reviews over there and interviews as well, go subscribe. I've hit the bell. You get brand new videos every single Monday, the same day that this podcast gets released. But this week's listener shout out of the Week goes to Fallow, who commented on last week's review, where I talked about is Wes and Henderson still cool after watching The Phoenicians Scheme, and Fallow said, I find Wes Anderson movies to be a bit hit or miss. When his films land, they're amazing, but when they don't, I tend to find myself stuck in some abstract, purgatory good vid though. Appreciate that, Fallow, which I kind of forget that I'm a really big Wes Anderson fan overall and that they're not for everybody. So appreciate you guys indulging me in talking about one of my favorite directors last week. But at times I do feel that way about his work too, where I wasn't the biggest fan of The French Dispatch, and even if I love one of his movies visually and can't get into it emotionally or story wise, it does get tough for me too, So I can see that. So maybe sometimes it feels to people who aren't a fan of his work a little bit like having to watch a movie for homework, and that's not fun. But I honestly think The Phoenician Scheme was one of his more emotional movies that actually had a good storyline to follow along with all the kookiness and symmetrical visuals, so appreciate that fallow. Thank you now for listening wherever you might be, and until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later