Best and Worst Movies We Watched with Mike and Kelsey + Movies You Can Watch At Home Now + Movie Review: Transformers: Rise of the Beasts + Trailer Park: Bird Box Barcelona

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

00:00:06
Speaker 2: I'm good. I'm better than I was the last time I recorded one of these.

00:00:09
Speaker 1: We'll get into that here in a minute. We're gonna do our best and worst of the movies we saw in the last month. In the movie review, I'll be given my thoughts on Transformers, Rise at the Beasts in the Trailer Park. We'll be talking about a new bird Box movie coming to Netflix.

00:00:24
Speaker 2: Well, well, well they're doing another Birdbox as in, like the Sandra Bullock one. They're doing a new one, a spin off that we watched when we were dating. You made me watch it. I was scared very early on memory. Yeah, it was Christmas time after we watched it. Yeah, that was our first ye're dating.

00:00:38
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:00:38
Speaker 2: All I remember is that you were sick and we like canceled all of our plans and just stayed in my apartment and watch movies.

00:00:46
Speaker 1: We watched a lot of movies.

00:00:47
Speaker 2: I think that's all we did was watch movies.

00:00:49
Speaker 1: So we'll get into that. Thank you for being subscribed, listening every single week, telling a friend shout out to the Monday Morning movie crew, and now let's talk movies.

00:00:58
Speaker 3: In a world where everyone in your mother has a podcast, one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like never before in a movie podcast. A man with so much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking IMTB with glasses.

00:01:16
Speaker 1: From the Nashville Podcast.

00:01:17
Speaker 3: Network, this is Movie Mike's movie.

00:01:20
Speaker 1: Podcast, about to get into the best and worst movies we saw in the last month. But before, let's give a couple life updates. You are out of your shoe, which tell everybody what happened if they didn't listen to last month's episode.

00:01:34
Speaker 2: So I broke my left foot like broken ony metatarsels making our bed.

00:01:40
Speaker 1: I kicked the bedposts. The coolest injury.

00:01:42
Speaker 2: Ever, coolest injury. Uh, I do that all the time. I'm very clumsy. And there's also not a lot of space on the other side of our bed between the wall.

00:01:50
Speaker 1: It's where we store everything. It is.

00:01:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I just happened to kick it, and I do that all the time, and I didn't think anything of it, and then it turns out my foot was broken. So I spent six weeks in a postop.

00:01:59
Speaker 1: Shoe, not the boot, just the shoe.

00:02:01
Speaker 2: Yeah, the like really hard sold orthopedic shoe is literally what it is.

00:02:06
Speaker 1: And you got really used to just wearing one shoe. Yeah.

00:02:09
Speaker 2: I went to Texas, like right after I broke it, and I just packed the right shoe of every pair of shoes. And then I went to New York on my last week in the boot to see Taylor Swift, and I did sixty thousand steps in the city over three days in the shoe.

00:02:21
Speaker 1: That's a lot impressive.

00:02:23
Speaker 2: Thank you. Yeah, but we're no longer in the shoe. We're healing, can't do anything high impact yet, but we're we're going on walks again, getting outside. I have reasons to leave the house other than to go spend money, because going for a walk at the trail is about the only free thing I leave the house for. So when that was taken away, it was a dire month for the credit card.

00:02:42
Speaker 1: But it's good now that you are out of the boot. Now we'll get into our best and worst of the month. What is the best thing you watched in the last thirty days.

00:02:50
Speaker 2: I feel like you should go first, okay, because you have what we would both pick, but we wanted to give a variety of movies, so I'm gonna let you go.

00:02:58
Speaker 1: My best is still Guardians three. I know I've talked about it so much with the initial review, with the spoiler review, but I still think about this movie at least every other day. In the beginning, it was every single day I was still thinking about this movie. But now a month out from it, at least every other day I think about it.

00:03:17
Speaker 2: I think about baby Brocket raccoon.

00:03:18
Speaker 1: That is what I was gonna say. I think we say the quote hurts so many times now and I cannot look at a raccoon any other way. After seeing this movie, well, and.

00:03:28
Speaker 2: I showed you a TikTok video earlier of these two dogs that were in a shelter and they were separated by a wall, and one like jumped over the wall but with its friend, and it reminded me of Rocket and his friends and like their little cages.

00:03:41
Speaker 1: That movie just made me love animals more.

00:03:44
Speaker 2: But also those two dogs were adopted together.

00:03:46
Speaker 1: And you being just such a big animal lover even before this movie, I feel like it just intensified your feelings of wanting to rescue every single animal that you see on the internet.

00:03:54
Speaker 2: Oh, I cry over every post of a dog that needs fostering, adopting the countless amunt of gofundmes that I have donated to do for people's pets.

00:04:04
Speaker 1: You always just come to me sobbing, like we have to donate to this dog.

00:04:08
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm donating this dog has cancer.

00:04:11
Speaker 1: But the movie has I feel like held up. Sometimes when Marvel movies come out and in that first week, I'm so hype about it, but then look back a month later and think, oh, maybe I jumped agu in a little bit too much. I e Thor, Love and Thunder.

00:04:23
Speaker 2: I was gonna say Thor. We got a lot of pushback for liking that one.

00:04:26
Speaker 1: I was so hype on that one, and then a month later it feels like that review didn't age will even though I still enjoyed that movie. But I feel like, unlike any other Marvel movie, this one is going to not only be my favorite of the year, but also one of my favorites of all time. So go over to you, now, what was your best? If it can't be Guardians.

00:04:45
Speaker 2: People are gonna laugh me for this. It's gonna be Fast and the Furious ten. It was so entertaining. I spent what two hours and twenty minutes, like highly engaged in it. It's dumb and it's action packed and like predictable, but the Yeah and left me wanting more, and no other Faster than The Furious movie has ever done that.

00:05:04
Speaker 1: And you're not even the biggest fan of the franchise at all, right.

00:05:07
Speaker 2: I mean, I think they're fun to see. I don't hate it like you can see them and not have known, although I was like googling during the movie trying to remember who's like related to who and who's been friends and so if you don't have that background info. But I'm gonna go Fast and the Furious. It was entertaining.

00:05:21
Speaker 1: And I think the issue that people are having with the Fast and the Furious movies is maybe you haven't seen one since the original movies from the early two thousands, and you think it's going to be just like that, and unlike me and other fans of the franchise, you haven't really evolved with it and seen it go from being drag race to heist movies to now them basically being superheroes and immune to everything. It's been a slow transition throughout the entire franchise that if you've grown with it, you can get to fast X and not think, oh, this is completely different than what I remember.

00:05:52
Speaker 2: Jason Momoa was a star.

00:05:54
Speaker 1: Enlist loved him in it.

00:05:56
Speaker 2: He was hilarious. He played such a good villain. So yeah, that's mine.

00:06:00
Speaker 1: But I also think that at the time this movie came out, it was the biggest thing for like one week, and now it's kind of dropped off, which all the other movies have had a little bit more lifetime at the box office. But I think that was always like their claim to fame. We still make a lot of money at the box office. This one, I think it underperformed just a little bit. So I'm questioning now how they're going to move into the next chapter. And they even thought about breaking this movie specifically up into three chapters. I don't think they have the momentum going into it after this one, so I'm hoping that the next one is just the last one. They go out on the highest note possible and that's it.

00:06:38
Speaker 2: And I get answers. That's what happened at the end of the week.

00:06:40
Speaker 1: We need I got a lot of questions. We need ansos all right now, getting into my worst of the month. It is a movie that came out on Netflix. It is called The Mother with Jennifer Lopez.

00:06:51
Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it was terrible.

00:06:53
Speaker 1: It was so like it started out with a lot of promise. I like Jennifer Lopez, and she is a really great actor. I like many people, first became a fan of her when she played Selena back in the nineties. But it's put out consistently good movies, good rom coms.

00:07:08
Speaker 2: She has a rom com Queen I mean, Made in Manhattan, The Wedding Planner.

00:07:13
Speaker 1: And then she recently showed a little bit more of her dramatic side in Hustlers. But this was her step more into the action role. It kind of felt like what Netflix did with extraction in Chris Hemsworth. So what the movie is about. Jennifer Lopez plays a dangerous assassin and she has her baby at the beginning of the movie, but then can never see your baby again because all these bad people want to kill Jennifer Lopez, so she has to go into hiding and therefore to protect her daughter, can never see her sounds like a decent enough premise, but then the entire thing just gets really weird. Their relationship is confusing, and the whole time you're thinking, like, what is the point of this movie? And that is my biggest takeaway of the Mother is what was the point of that? There was nothing in the story that developed that made me care about Jennifer Lopez's character. They made me care about her daughter in the movie or any of the action. It was just very pointless two hours of nothing.

00:08:10
Speaker 2: I gave up and read a book.

00:08:11
Speaker 1: I think the only benefit of that movie, and sometimes Netflix putting out pretty subpar quality films, is that you can just watch him at home, and if you really want to, you can just turn it off. And there's no harm done in you wasting your time to go see the movie, spending money just to do that. You just turn it off. So that is what I should have done in that movie. Just turned it off. So what is your worst of the month.

00:08:36
Speaker 2: Oh, that's easy, it's Jennifer Lobez's husband. Yeah, then afflex Hypnotic.

00:08:40
Speaker 1: Crazily enough, they came out on the same weekend.

00:08:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was not a good weekend for them movie wise.

00:08:45
Speaker 1: So a married couple disappointed us both in the exact same weekend. Twenty years after they disappointed us with Jeli, which they both start in, and now they have a couple of their other biggest bombs of their career.

00:08:57
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I won't say much more about Hypnotic because.

00:08:59
Speaker 1: We did it. Yeah, we did a lot on that one.

00:09:01
Speaker 2: So we did a whole like spoiler review because you can't not spoil it. But yeah, it was it was bad.

00:09:06
Speaker 1: I would still say out of those two, I much less enjoyed the Mother, Oh absolutely. At least Hypnotic had a little bit of ambition, trying to do something different.

00:09:16
Speaker 2: It had an idea.

00:09:17
Speaker 1: The Mother was just nothing. So collectively, do we hate the Mother the worst? We do? All right, now, I want to get into the question I get a lot is for people who don't go to the movies. They want to know what you can watch at home. So I have recommendations from each of the major streaming services and the best movies you can watch on there right now. In my opinion, given that I'm always going to recommend the newest movies just because I'm a fan of the things happening now, I don't want to recommend movies from the twenty tens or two thousands that you've probably seen already. I want to encourage you to check out some things maybe you haven't seen yet, some new movies. I will also be ranking all of the streaming services on this list. So who I think has the best original movies and who I think has the worst? So at number one in my power rankings is Hulu. I think they have the best original movies out of anybody. They've put out movies that I feel just have more unique concepts, even though they're not the ones with the biggest A List stars, which I feel like that power goes to Netflix. I just think in the last year and a half they have put out movies that have really stuck with me. And the first movie I would recommend on Hulu is a movie called Not Okay. It's about this girl who is so desperate to get followers on Instagram that she fakes being in Paris during a bombing, puts all of it on social media, and then tries to come back and play the victim yeah, and then write about it, get a job about it, allow it to boast her professional career, but also just mainly get a bunch of followers on Instagram. And it's all the things that happen with her trying to fake that entire situation. So if you like movies that make you feel kind of cringey because of the characters, I think that is a great one because I think that's a really tough emotion to have while watching a movie, just that feeling, oh, why are they doing this? Stop doing this?

00:11:06
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like you hate the character and what they're doing and you're just like, oh, this is not gonna end well.

00:11:12
Speaker 1: And it's really rare for me to like a movie so much when I don't like the main character. When the main character is not a good person. Yeah, she's just not likable. So that is my go to recommendation right now on Hulu. In that same vein, my runner up would be a movie called I Love My Dad, kind of the similar idea behind it. It's a dad trying to Catfish's son, and that movie is probably even more cringier than I'm Not Okay, it's just a different, more comedic approach to it. But that is a movie that by the end of it, you just not feel good. And there are certain scenes in that movie that made me feel really, really uncomfortable. So I would say unless you like movies that the cringiness is turned up to attend. Maybe not for you, but if you're like me and like those kind of movies, it is a perfect watch. So that's why I have Hulu at number one. At number two, I have Amazon, and I think the reason is because they have the biggest variety of movies, and they also have a lot of movies that we saw in theaters earlier this year already available there, so maybe you've heard the review on the podcast and haven't had a chance to see it yet. A lot of those movies now are on Amazon, and I think that's because they have, maybe next to Apple, having the most money to throw around to licensing all these movies and having them on their service, and that just really benefits their library. So I think the best thing you can watch on there right now is Creed three if you didn't see that one in theaters, which I think maybe that's a movie a lot of people missed, a movie I didn't really feel like benefited a whole lot from seeing it on a big screen. So definitely one that would have a similar streaming experience. And then runner up to that, if you still haven't seen Air yet, that is now on Amazon. We've also talked about that movie a lot. Also on Amazon is Jackass Forever, The Las City, Ticket to Faraday, Nope, Ambulance, and Smile. So they're just getting a lot of big movies that came out in the last years.

00:13:05
Speaker 2: Was really good.

00:13:05
Speaker 1: Yeah. So if you like theater quality movies but don't want to pay the theater price, I think Amazon is the best streaming service to have, which we just kind of have that because we have Amazon Prime.

00:13:17
Speaker 2: Also, did you admit that you really liked to Ticket to Paradise?

00:13:20
Speaker 1: Yeah? Wow, I did like it. George Clooney, Julia Roberts. It's a match made in heaven.

00:13:26
Speaker 2: It really is like the two of them together. I want them to make movies together forever.

00:13:29
Speaker 1: And that movie works so well in theaters that I feel like if you just watch it on streaming, you would love it, probably even more. At number three, I have Max, which is formerly HBO Max.

00:13:40
Speaker 2: Okay, Well, are they like trying to be like Prince, like the artist formerly known as Prince Now?

00:13:45
Speaker 1: I just feel like if I just said Max, people would no.

00:13:47
Speaker 2: I know, But I'm just like, why did they even change it? I guess because they merged.

00:13:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, they merged, so they're trying to take away the HBO brand and just be one big brand, but Max just doesn't really feel like it means anything to me. So I just still want to say HBO Max.

00:14:01
Speaker 2: Too many apps.

00:14:02
Speaker 1: They don't really have a good amount of original movies, but since they are partnered with WB, they get all the big WB movies. So the movie I would recommend on there first if you haven't seen it, is The Menu, which that was a movie that we saw in theaters, but a lot more people have discovered as it's come to streaming. So if you haven't seen that movie yet and you like even for you you don't really like horror movies, I.

00:14:27
Speaker 2: Would describe it, you know, because it's The Menu. I would describe it as deliciously twisted.

00:14:32
Speaker 1: And it's more suspenseful. It's more of a thriller than it is just a straight on horror movie. It just has horror elements.

00:14:38
Speaker 2: There were a couple parts where I was just like, oh look, it was more like gore, Yeah, gore, So I covered my eyes a couple times.

00:14:44
Speaker 1: That is one of the best movies in the last five years. So if you haven't seen that, check that out on MAX. Runner Up for me on Max would be The Bansheese of Indus Shearing, mainly because when I first watched that movie, I thought it was good. I didn't think it was oscar a Worthy good. But I find myself thinking about that movie more and more and also doing the impression quoted a lot. It has a lot of great quotes, which is something you don't really get in movies anymore, especially when it comes to comedies, which I think of that movie as a comedy. Some people said they've watched it and thought it was really depressing and thought, how could you think of that as a comedy. I think a lot of the elements and a lot of the writing is just so comedic, and to me it kind of feels like a super Bad but taking place in Ireland in a way, I feel like that's a bit of a stretch. It's a bit of a stretch, but that's how I felt after watching that movie. It's just a really small story on a big scale. So that is why I liked Banshees of Intersharing At number four. I would have Netflix again. I think that their original movies really haven't been quality lately. I'm waiting for Extraction too.

00:15:49
Speaker 2: Their original shows, in my opinion, are a lot better, which.

00:15:52
Speaker 1: Is weird because they started out as a DVD company.

00:15:56
Speaker 2: But you could get TV shows on DVD. That's true because my mom and I used to Netflix one disc of er at a time.

00:16:03
Speaker 1: I remember the getting the one disc of a show at a time.

00:16:06
Speaker 2: I think you could get up to three at a time, but we would usually have like one movie for the family, one disc of R and then something for like my little brothers.

00:16:14
Speaker 1: But I just feel like a platform called Netflix should really have the best movies out of anybody, but they really don't. And looking at what made my go to recommendation on Netflix isn't an original. It is A Man Called Auto, which is a movie that a lot more people now, like all these other movies, are discovering no good because it's on Netflix. And we saw that movie in theaters and bawled our eyes out.

00:16:37
Speaker 2: It's so so, so, so, so so good.

00:16:40
Speaker 1: One of Tom Hanks's best movies. I love an older Tom Hanks. So if you haven't seen A Man Called Auto yet, you need to check it out. Go do yourself a favor and watch that movie. Runner up to that would be another movie recently added that we also saw on theaters. I don't think we ever reviewed it, but it was Missing, and it is the eat I.

00:16:57
Speaker 2: Had to think about that we see so many movies.

00:16:59
Speaker 1: It was the sequel to Searching, which is a pretty novel concept because the entire movie takes place over different kinds of screens, whether it be a laptop, whether it be a FaceTime called text messages. And I like those type of movies. I like movies that spin what filmmaking can be and how you can present a story. And I feel like the novelty will probably wear off if they make another addition in this series. I don't think it's as good as the original one, so if you haven't seen Searching, you don't have to watch that one for this one. It makes sense, but it's it's the better. It's the better. It's still good, and it's on Netflix. So if you watch Missing, go back and watch Searching and know that that one's even better than this one. I feel like the action and story in this one still has the same essence of the first one. It gives you that same kind of feeling of excitement and wanting to yell at the screen. I just feel like it wasn't as well executed as the original one, but still another good watch. At number five on my list is Apple TV Plus, which I feel like when it first came out, it was kind of the boutique of streaming services having maybe one or two good shows. If it wouldn't have been for Ted Lasso, probably really wouldn't have been that big of a player. So I feel like Apple TV Plus is the one I would invest in now because they have more shows coming out, and I hope they have more original movies coming out that are actually worth it. But my go to recommendation on that would be Chaschaw Real Smooth and runner up would be the Greatest Beer Run Ever with Zach Efron. Again, both of these movies I enjoyed the first time we watched them, but I don't really find myself ever wanting to revisit them. So I feel like Apple TV plus is still waiting for their one real big hit. When it comes to movies.

00:18:48
Speaker 2: I'm surprised those were your two and that Cherry didn't make it with Tom Holland.

00:18:52
Speaker 1: Yeah, that movie was good, I just don't really remember what happened in that movie, so it didn't really have that big of an effect on me. But the thing I love about Apple TV it has the best quality when it comes to the visual aspect. Yes, they look so good. Unfortunately, their interface isn't really good and for us it crashes a whole lot. Maybe it's because the quality is so good that our TV can't handle it. I don't know if other people have the same experience. Just crack your neck. Yeah we picked that up. Oh sorry, I don't know if other people have that same experience with Apple TV Plus. But that is my biggest complaint with it is the interface before it was max, but I feel like when they changed now the interface is a lot better, So I feel like that took care of a lot of their glitches. But Apple TV Plus, get your things together and make a better platform. At number six, I'm going with Disney Plus. They really don't have a whole lot of original movies, and the ones they do have are all reboots or remakes, so that's why they ring so low on my list. So really, what they have going for them is they have every single Marvel movie, well at least most of them. If you want to watch every single Marvel movie, I can't say that they are all on Disney Plus just pretty much everything in the MCU. So you have the Marvel movies, you have Star Wars, and then you have all the Disney classics. So I don't really go to Disney Plus for new content when it comes to movies. They have a lot of good shows, but when it comes to movies, that's why they rank solo on my list. So might go to recommendation on Disney Plus would be Avatar The Way of Water. If you miss that one in theaters, I would say, treat it like a TV show. It's three hours long, so watch it in hour increments. Basically every act is an hour, so spread it out and I think you will enjoy that movie because I enjoyed it so much in theaters. I think breaking it down that way makes it feel more like a TV show, which nobody has any issues when it comes to binging a TV show, but you give them a three hour movie, it's like, oh my gosh, three hours. So now you have it on Disney Plus, break it down, watch it like a series. I think you will enjoy that movie. Runner up would be any Marvel movie that you missed in theaters. So they recently added the latest ant Man movie, but if you miss Wakanda Forever, it's up there as well, so I would recommend checking those out. And really that's the main reason I use Disney Plus to go back and watch all the MCU movies and warm my little Marble Heart. And finally, at the bottom of my list at least when it comes to the major streaming services is Paramount Plus. So much so we don't even have it anymore. We got rid of it because we never used it.

00:21:19
Speaker 2: No, but I did say they have a new show coming out Swim, might I have to get it again.

00:21:22
Speaker 1: But I did see they have some pretty good movies over there. My go to recommendation there would be Dungeons and Dragons, which we talked about.

00:21:29
Speaker 2: Being shockingly enjoyable. Yeah, for people who've never played the game.

00:21:33
Speaker 1: It was like a sleeper hit that we found ourselves quoting more and more. Came out at a really busy time, so I really didn't feel like it had that big of an impact. But now that it's on Paramount Plus, it is definitely worth a stream and a very underrated movie of the Year. Runner up on my list would be Bumblebee from twenty eighteen, mainly because I'm so I don't know, oddly hype for all that is Transformers right now. I'll get into my review of Rise of the Beast here in a bit, but that is the movie that made me like the Transformers franchise again because I think Hailey Steinfield did such a great job. So if you haven't seen that one, it really is the best one since the originals with Megan Fox and Shia above. So those are my recommendations of movies you can see at home. Let me know which one you decide to watch. And it closed out this segment we always give our honorable mentioned TV show Kelsey. You can go first.

00:22:23
Speaker 2: I have two. First, I'm gonna go season seven of Queer Eye on Netflix.

00:22:28
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I forgot about that show.

00:22:30
Speaker 2: There were only seven season episodes this season, which I'm very sad about, so we like watched them sparingly, but it was really good. I think it's some of my favorite episodes ever in this season.

00:22:39
Speaker 1: I would definitely agree.

00:22:41
Speaker 2: And then my other pick, which I would rank one above, I would rink Queer Eye too, and I would rank A Small Light, which was a not geo show, and I think you can watch it on either Disney Plus or Hulu.

00:22:55
Speaker 1: I've seen it both places. Yeah, yeah, incredible.

00:22:58
Speaker 2: It's the story of Meep Geeze, who is the Dutch woman that helped tide the Frank family during the Holocaust, And it was phenomenal, like just the storytelling, the acting, the casting, one of the best depictions I've seen. And everyone, not everyone but Jean Main Now I love like World War two.

00:23:19
Speaker 1: It is your favorite subject.

00:23:20
Speaker 2: Yes, in books and movies, not just like my favorite subjects, Like I'm not gonna bring it up at a party. Yeah.

00:23:26
Speaker 1: That's another thing about this show that we've mentioned before. It's weird to say it's so good because of the subject matter, but it.

00:23:34
Speaker 2: Was well done in telling the subject matter.

00:23:36
Speaker 1: It's so Yeah, it's so dark and the things that happened during that war are so awful, but yes, they handled it and told the story really well. And also just great production quality on this series that it had a cinematic feel to it the entire time. It feels like they spent a lot of time and probably a lot of money making this show look so good. My favorite show that I watched this month was Barry. I think had one of the most satisfying finales of TV in the last ten years, and it's one that I feel has gone a little bit under the radar because compared to other HBO shows, it maybe hasn't been the biggest hit. I feel like everybody's been talking about Succession and that finale we've never watched such I have no interest in watching Succession looks like a snoozefest to me, and everybody just says there's so much dialogue in it, but it's so good, and with the amount of seasons that are out with that show, I feel like it's too much an investment for me to really get into wanting to watch it.

00:24:37
Speaker 2: I've read to many spoilers at this point.

00:24:39
Speaker 1: That that's another thing too. I already know kind of what happens in it just by reading spoilers. I think The New York Times spoiled one of the biggest plot points out of that show. And I've had a thing recently where it's really hard for me to focus on a TV show unless we're watching it together. I can't start a show and want to finish it. I just start a bunch of random things and then go back and finish it. And I know I'm biased because I love movies so much more. But I just feel like movies are so much better right now. I feel like television has kind of reverted. I think in the twenty tens it was maybe the golden age of television, but I feel like streaming services are struggling to put out new shows, and a lot of things that get recommended to us are always dramas, and I'm kind of tired of dramas. And I think that's what's different about movies and TV right now is almost every time somebody recommends something to you that's so good, it's always this straight on drama about murder.

00:25:34
Speaker 2: I love a drama still.

00:25:35
Speaker 1: I think when it comes to movies, there's just so much more variety. You can watch things that are bigger, larger than life. You can watch things that are animated.

00:25:42
Speaker 2: So A's the guy who's seen like a thousand superhero movies.

00:25:45
Speaker 1: Yes, exactly, even inside the superhero genre. I feel like there's more variety than there's been in TV shows. Yes, I'm gonna back to you. Yes, Yes, anyway, that has been our best and worst of the month. Anything else you want to say, Kelsey before you go.

00:26:00
Speaker 2: We just celebrated our to year wedding anniversary we did. That was pretty cool.

00:26:03
Speaker 1: But I feel like, even more so than our wedding anniversary, it's just weird for me to look back and think of a life without you.

00:26:11
Speaker 2: Yeah, we have been together five years now.

00:26:13
Speaker 1: I guess I don't look at it in that we've been married two years. It's more important to me of how long we've been together.

00:26:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just it feels like it was just yesterday. It's more just like I can remember everything about our wedding day and I'm like, wow, that's already been two years. Time is flying.

00:26:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that's a fun part of it is to think back on our wedding, everything that went right, everything that went wrong, and all of those memories. But I think when I think of our relationship collectively, I like to look back on everything.

00:26:41
Speaker 3: Well.

00:26:41
Speaker 2: That also, like our anniversaries are really close to each other, from like when we celebrated our five year and then like a month later, so it's all kind of like the same time period.

00:26:49
Speaker 1: Yeah. But anyway, happy anniversary again. Have you anniversary to you, and we'll come back and we'll talk about Transformers Rise of the Beasts after this. Ifout to get into a spoiler free movie review of Transformers Rise of the Beast. But before we get into what this movie is, which it serves as kind of a prequel to the two thousand and seven movies but a sequel to Bumblebee from twenty eighteen with Hailey Steinfeld. Before we get into talking about this movie, I want to tell you about my relationship with the Transformers movies. Going back to the year of two thousand and seven, sixteen year old me, who is highly impressionable. Living in the greatest year of movies, sixteen year old me was exposed to movies like Juno, No Country for Old Men, super Bad, There Will Be Blood, There's a tmn T movie, there was I Am Legend, Shrek the Third, the Simpsons movie Knocked Up All came out in two thousand and seven, and one of the most impactful movies to me of that year was also Transformers. I am the biggest fan of the summer blockbuster and nobody did it better that summer than Transformers, the original one from two thousand and seven, directed by Michael Bays starring Shila Abuff starring Megan Fox, and I didn't realize it at the time, but how impactful those special effects were in that movie. We had not seen it executed like it was in that movie. Of creating these special effects on these hard surfaces, it didn't look cheesy by any means. And because of that technology, it went on to inspire other filmmakers, particularly Marvel, who was also developing their entire universe, and now that they knew that these special effects could work and could look good on screen, it opened up the door for Iron Man to really utilize that technology. But aside from that, Transformers at that time just meant a lot to me. All the excitement, all the fun, all the action, all the visuals. It just embodies everything to me of what makes a summer movie worth it. And I stand by the original trilogy of the first three movies, all with Shila Abuff. I still enjoy all of them. I think for the most part, people like the first one and then they don't really like the rest of them. So I see everybody saying that Rise of the Beast is the best one since the original. I think it did capture what made that movie great, and it has some of those same elements, but I've been in it. The only ones I think are actually bad Transformers movies are four and five with Mark Wahlberg. Number five being one of the worst movies I've ever seen in theater, So those are the only two I would consider bad. But we had a really good breath of fresh air in twenty eighteen with Bumblebee with Hailey Steinfeld, and I think Rise of the Beast is using the same tactics from that playbook to make the movies as exciting as it was back in the two thousands. So let's talk about Rise of the Beast now it is based on Beast Wars. When it comes to the Transformers, I'm really just a fan of the movies. It was a lot more popular in the eighties, which is right before me growing up in the nineties, so I wasn't a big fan of the cartoon or even had any of the toys back in the day. I am all about the movies. I didn't really watch all the TV shows either, so I know a lot of people really love Beast Soars when it comes to the toys and the storyline in the TV show, but I am just looking at it based on what I've seen from the movie. So this was really me getting to know about Optimist Primal, who is the Beast version of Optimist Prime, and you learn that from the opening scene of this movie. So the movie takes place in nineteen ninety four. You have Optimist Prime, the leader of the autobots. You have the Maximals, which are all the animals that you see in the trailer, who are essentially the animal versions of all the autobots, and then you have the terra Cons, who are the bad guys in this movie. On the human side, you have Anthony Ramos who plays Noah, who is an ex military electronics expert. He has a younger brother who has a lot of health issues. He has sickle cell anemia and he is struggling to find work in order to cover his brother's medical bills. Also on the human side, Dominique Fishback, who plays Elena. I am more familiar with her work in the Amazon shows Swarm, which I thought she did a really great job in, so I was excited to see her now quickly hopping over into the big screen. And though I do think it is the human element that grounds these movies, what really surprised me was all the voice acting in this movie. I think it far exceeds the actual humans acting in this movie to the point that I felt more emotional for the autobots and the Maximals in this movie then I did the human element. I think Kelsey probably clung more to the human element, But for me, I was all about the voice acting and the special effects in this movie. And I think what they're getting right now when they did it with Bumblebee and they did it again here is there's actually some character development. It's a bit of a bold approach to spend so much time on new characters when really we just want to see a lot of Transformers action, a lot of fighting. They get to that, but they also really getting to know Noah and Elana's character early on in this movie, and that really helped making things more impactful later in the second and especially in the third act. But I would say on the voice acting side, my favorite is still Peter Colin as Optimist Prime. Hearing his voice in a full movie theater in June just feels right. That feels like summer to me, that feels like what I go to the movies for. Hearing the rumble of his deep voice as Optimist Prime, as the leader of the autobots is what I crave in a Transformers movie. And the thing that surprised me that I thought was just the lazy casting tactic to get people interested in this movie. But it was Pete Davidson as Mirage, who you first see him disguised as a Porsche and then fully shows all of the cool things he can do with making these mirages, and I thought he was just gonna give a really phoned in performance and he was just like, ah, I'll do a transform was movie on a Tuesday, and that's the Pete Davidson we were gonna get. But I felt like a lot of his huge shine through and even had me believing that maybe he wrote his own lines or through his own ad libs in there. That showed a lot of his personality. And it's not that I don't like him as a person, don't like him as an actor. I think he is hilarious. I've maybe just had a lot of him in my newsfeed lately that I was just thinking that, Nah, Pete Davidson isn't really going to show up in this movie. He did, so seeing him as this new character Mirage was my second favorite part next to Optimist Prime, because you're not gonna take that slot for me. I think the reason I have such an attachment to Optimist Prime is because I just love him as a leader, and when he is in disguise as the eighteen wheeler, it reminds me of the truck my dad had as his very first eighteen wheeler. My dad has been a truck driver for I guess over thirty years, because if I'm thirty one about to be thirty two, he was truck driving way before I was born, so he has been probably thirty five close to forty years on the roads. And the very first truck he had, I only remember it from old pictures, but it looks exactly like Optimist Prime. It was red with the splash of blue, and every time I see it on screen, I think, Man, if only my dad was into movies. My dad does not watch any movie whatsoever unless it's an old eighties action movie that he doesn't really have to pay a whole lot of attention to. But I was just watching this movie thinking, man, my dad was into Transformers movies, he would love Optimist Prime. So what this movie ends up being about is the Maximals have beef with the terra Cons and they are trying to gain back this key that can open up this portal, the Maximals took it with them to Earth, hit it there, and then themselves hid up until the point that it has been discovered, and that is where Elena's character comes in, because the artifact gets shipped to her museum and that's when everything hits the fan. The terra cons realize where it is, so they come to Earth, the autobots come out, and they all have to come together because if the bad guys get it, things are gonna be bad. And if the autobots can get their hands on it, they can find a way to go back home, which is usually the theme in the Transformers movies. The Transformers are hiding until there's an opening for them to go home, and there's always some crazy artifact that they have to get their hands on. So, like I said, I was oddly hyped for this movie, and maybe those high expectations had me wanting just a little bit more from the plot, even though I was entertained for the entire two hours. To me, they flew by, although when it was over I was ready for it to be over. And usually when it comes to Transformers movies, I just want a little bit more. This one, the runtime pretty right on I don't go into Transformers movies wanting a plus acting. I just needed decent acting at best, and Anthony's almost as Noah, it was all right. I wasn't really a fan of him and in the Heights, so I wanted to give him a chance in this movie. But you can tell that it is probably hard to act to nobody. He is in a scene where it's all autobots around him, and I very much notice how hard that is for him because I don't really feel his emotions. It just sounds like he is reciting lines at points. I didn't really feel an emotional connection to his character, even with what was going on with his brother. I didn't really get that much of depth to him. Although I will say the fact that this movie was shot on a lot of real locations really added some depths to a movie that could quickly get into just special effects world and look like it was entirely shot in a warehouse on a green screen. I enjoyed the fact that they actually went out to locations in Manchu Picchu, Montreal. They did some shooting in Brooklyn and Los Angeles, and that adds a lot of real world depth to this movie and makes it a lot more enjoyable to watch when it feels like it is a living and breathing movie and not just a bunch of CGI. Another thing I paid very close attention to was the fact that this movie is set in nineteen ninety four, And one of my pet peeves is when a movie is set in a year and they use songs on the soundtrack that haven't come out yet. So you best believe that I was looking if Waterfalls by TLC actually came out in nineteen ninety four, if Cream by Wu Tang actually came out in nineteen ninety four, And luckily, all the songs I fact checked were actually out by the time that this movie was placed, so they didn't let me down there. So I would say, if you like a big action movie, and I won't even say if you like a big dumb action movie, that is the Fast and the Furious franchise. The Transformers movies are a step above that because you can turn your brain off a little bit and enjoy this movie. There's not a whole lot of layers to it. There's not a whole lot of big plot points that they're trying to really drive home. And although they're not trying to push the envelope and really change cinema with this movie. It is just providing a very big, fun adventure for you, your friends, your family to go on. So if you were a fan of the original Transformers movies, I think you're really gonna enjoy this one, because I sure did. And if you haven't seen bumble Bee from twenty eighteen because you were burned by Transformers four and five, you don't have to watch that one to enjoy this movie. You really don't have to see any other Transformers movie to go into this one and enjoy it. But if you watch bumble Bee on Paramount Plus and enjoy it, I think you'll have those same feelings for Transformers Rise of the Beasts. So what I give this movie? I guess just because I had the overhyping going into it, I probably would have rated it higher if I had very low expectations. But it's a franchise I love. It's a franchise I have history with. So for Transformers Rise of the Beasts, I give it four. Ah, I give it almost went a little too hard there. Transformers Rides of the Beasts, I give it four out of five autobots. It's time to head down to movie. Mike Traylar par It's My Bird in a Box. Netflix is coming back with a new bird Box movie, but instead of a straight on sequel from the twenty eighteen version with Sandra Bullock, we are getting a type of spinoff of bird Box and I don't like it. And in a world where I just think there are too many sequels, too many reboots, this is a movie I just wanted to see the continuation of a story. It didn't come out that long ago. Twenty eighteen is only five years ago. I think it's time for another installment to find out what happened after Sandra Bullock's character ended up where she did in the original movie. But instead what we're getting is bird Box Barcelona, which is coming out on Netflix on July fourteenth. It is a spinoff that expands the story, and you have a father and his daughter trying to escape these demons in Barcelona. So essentially this movie series is expanding on the world of bird Box and exploring what is going on in the rest of the world following similar events that happened in the original movie. A lot of problems I see from this trailer. Overall, it just doesn't look very good. This looks like a movie that would have come out on DVD back in the two thousands and ended up in the dollar bin. And I think the twenty eighteen version was so captivating because of the concept at the time. If you see the monster, you die. It was a great premise, well executed, well directed, and also had a really great cast. So before I get into more of my thoughts about bird Box Barcelona, here's just a little bit of the trailer. Those things they take our fears and they twist them thousands of cases in stray. I would commend that man at a Barcelos Pertal contact with Isual Conesto said, these creatures are changing. So I like what this movie is trying to do. It's trying to create this world where this one pandemic is affecting every single country and exploring how different people are reacting and the different variations of these demons. So I think that's a little bit ambitious because instead of just making a direct sequel, you are trying to expand the world and create this type of anthology, which I think is an ambitious idea. But looking at this trailer, I don't feel like it's going to be well executed, and there have been other movie series that have done this pretty well. The first one that comes to mind for me is Cloverfield, which the first one was pretty groundbreaking at the time, really making in on the lost footage of having a comeback moment in the two thousands, and then ten Cloverfield Lane was a completely different movie than Cloverfield, but still existing in that same world. It was far after the events in that movie and exploring a different character having a complete different experience with the same monsters. And I actually enjoyed that movie with John Goodman. Even though it wasn't the most novel concept, that movie worked on a lot of levels for me, and it worked underneath the Cloverfield brand. Netflix then made a part three called Cloverfield Paradox, which was alright, not as good, but it didn't have that same feeling because they took the story into space. It just felt a little bit more sci fi and less of what the essence of Cloverfield was. And I kind of feel like that is what they are trying to do with bird Box. Take this brand that they created with the first one and just use that name to make all these other post apocalyptic stories. But after watching this trailer, it doesn't have any of the essence that made that first movie great. There's nothing really connecting it to that world. You gotta have somebody from that original movie, and to me, it feels like they couldn't afford to get Sandra Bullock or she didn't want to do a sequel, so they're just trying to make these elseworld movies to try and tie in with Birdbox, even though it's a completely different concept. Because you don't have the same director here. It's only from the same producers of bird Box, which doesn't really mean a whole lot to me just because you have the same producers. I just feel like that's a cheap marketing tactic to make it feel like it's coming from the same people that created the first one. So bird Box Barcelona is the first of a series of movies that Netflix is planning inside of this bird Box universe. But I'm worried after watching this trailer that nobody's going to care after this one. The visual effects look really cheap, look like the entire production took a really big downgrade. And in a world of TV shows like The Last of Us that have really just dominated what a post apocalyptic story is supposed to look and feel like. You have to step it up with your visuals. You have to step it up with your storytelling. And after watching this trailer, I don't have any sense of the mystery of what bird Box Barcelona is going to be. It doesn't evoke any kind of emotion to make me think, huh, I wonder what that's about. I wonder what they're hinting at. I wonder what the twist in this movie is going to be, or how these demons are going to be different than the ones we saw in the twenty eighteen version. I was just looking for that hook to make me want to start sniffing around and find more of this story. But nothing about this trailer has any kind of originality when it comes to the sci fi horror genre, and that is one of my favorite genres if you can do it well. And I would hate to k not get for not having any star power. I don't think a movie needs a big A list star to be successful. Sometimes I often think that could be the kiss of death for certain franchises, just baking on your A list star to bring eyeballs to the screen. You know that eats up a lot of your money and in a smaller budget movie like this, I don't always think that is the great way to go, but when the original movie had one of the best actors of our lifetime, Sandra Bullock, and this one has nobody recognizable, but I just feel like this should have had the return of Sandy B in bird Box two and then after that sequel. That's when you start expanding the world. Bird Box Barcelona, bird Box Canada, Birdbox Mexico, bird Box Australia. I would have watched them all, but give me Sandy be first aid that B was this week's edition of Movie Live tramor par and that's gonna do it for another week here on the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week. All you have to do is comment on my Instagram or my TikTok, where I've been posting a lot more videos lately. So if you don't follow me on TikTok, go do that right now at Mike Distro on all social media platforms. I don't know why I sound like a robot when I say that, but yeah, I go check it out. This week's listeners Shout out is to Kara Burke, who sent me a DM on Instagram and said, liked your episode last week with your Disney list. We're about the same age, so it was funny to hear which movies hit you the hardest. Leelan and Stitch is another one that is so different and sad when you watch as an adult. Mostly agreed with your review of The New Little Mermaid Flounder was just a hoof, but I actually liked the connection between Eric and Ariel when they went to the market and seem much more like real life. I am also skeptical of the remakes, but this is one I definitely enjoyed. So thanks Kara for sharing your thoughts on that episode. If you missed it, just go back a couple in the feed and check out what movies made my list of my top ten most influential Disney movies as a kid. And then that was one of my favorite episodes I've done because I enjoy going through all the comments, reading your emails about the movies that influence you from Disney, and I think it all comes down to what year you were born and which ones hit you the hardest. So thanks Kara for that note. Thank you for listening to the podcast, and until next time, go out and watch good movies and I will talk to you later