Building an A-Z Collection of 90’s VHS Tapes! + Movie Review: M3GAN (In-theaters) + Trailer Park: Missing

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Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome back to Movie mis Movie Podcast. I am your host Movie Mike, and together today we are going to build the ultimate VHS collection from the nineties. In the movie review, we'll talk about a new horror movie that's really brought people together and that is what I love about horror movies. We'll talk about Megan and I'll give you my thoughts on that movie. And in the trailer Park, we'll talk about a sequel to a mystery that I think looks really good. It's called Missing. Thank you all for listening to the podcast this week. Thank you for being subscribed. Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's talk movies. In a world where everyone and their mother has a podcast, one man stands to infiltrate the ears of listeners like never before in a movie podcast. A man with so much movie knowledge, he's basically like a walking Audi MTV with glasses from the Nashville Podcast Network Movie mis Movie Podcast. So I wanted to bring together two things I've seen on TikTok and turn them into an episode. One of them is called the alphabet game, where two people have a conversation or they play a game going through all twenty six letters of the alphabet, either having a conversation naming animals, but today we are applying it to movies. And my other fascination is this guy on TikTok who makes custom VHS. I just saw him do one for fight Club where he took a normal black VHS tape that Fight Club was on and move the film into a pink one and made it look like a soap bar. And I've always just loved the aesthetic of a VHS tape. I think of anything that a film can be on, the VHS is just most appealing to me because of its three D nature, Because when you put it up on a shelf, you have the spine and then you have the art. It just feels the best in your hands. I think it's the best display of the movie art. So if I had more space, and if I had a VCR, I would probably have a custom VHS tape. So that brings me to how I'm going to combine my two fascinations. Right now. We are going to go through all twenty six letters of the alphabet and we are going to pick one movie from the nineties for each letter of the alphabet. There's twenty six movies. I asked you guys on social media what your favorite movie from the nineties was. I went through all those recommendations and then I have my own personal list, so that will kind of go into play on which one we end up picking. And these won't be the definite best films of the nineties, but if I could only pick one and it would be the one that I could watch forever on this VHS tape, this would be the nineties movie I would pick. So let's get right into it with letter A. A is for Angels in the Outfield. And the main reason I picked this one over movies like Armageddon or Laddin is because you can't find this movie anywhere unless you have this old VHS tape, which I used to It's not on DVD, it's not on Disney. Plus you can't even own it digitally anywhere. So I would take Angels on the Outfield and put it on my shelf. And there's just something special about a Disney movie on VHS. And the thing about VHS, if you don't remember this, is that they would have all these previews at the very beginning of it, so you would press play on a VHS tape. Hopefully it was rewound to the very beginning, but you would get trailers, you would get commercials. I remember seeing Burger King commercials on VHS tapes and there were just something special about pressing in a VHS tape. And then when it came to Disney Movies, every time I heard this sound, it was like, all right, the movie is about to start, and now our feature presents ATIP. So for that reason, A is for Angels in the outfield, B is going to be for Beethoven. I feel like this is a bit of a controversial pick, but when it comes to movies that embody the nineties, these are the type of movies I love that came out of the nineties, completely ridiculous concepts that you could not make today. Beethoven now would not work. And not only did they make one of these, there were so many sequels of these, and they were all basically the same movie. And it's just a perfect nineties film. So I wouldn't put Batman Returns. I wouldn't put Beauty of the Beast Bugs Life was almost in there. I almost considered blank check, but the movie I could watch over and over again and still laugh. I would go with Beethoven. Moving on C is for Cohn Air. Kind of the same way that Beethoven embodies that for family films, coln Air embodies that for nineties action movies that are completely cheesy but completely self aware. I don't even remember the first time I watched conn Air. This is a movie that I don't remember sitting down and watching from beginning to end, but it just always happened to be on TV. So for that reason, I think this movie deserves its place on our v h S shelf. I wouldn't put Child's Played two, I wouldn't put Clerks, I wouldn't put Casino. I'm going with Connair. D there's a clear winner. For D. D is for Dumb and Dumber. No other movie embodies comedies better in the nineties than Dumb and Dumber. Jeff Daniels at his best, Jim Carrey at his best. There are very few comedies that I consider perfect, but Dumb and Dummer is completely that. So this was no question. I don't even need to mention any other movies. For D. D is for Dumb and Dumber. Same case for E. E is easily for Edwards, Scissor Ends, Johnny Depp rose to fame in the eighties, but I felt like the nineties really solidified him as a list star. He continued that on into the two thousand's, but I feel like Edward Scissord Hands was him at his best. I don't think any other E movie of the nineties even comes close. So E is for Edwards Scissor Hands. F is a bit of a tough one. You have Fight Club, you have Free Willie, you have Forest Scump. But the movie I have seen the most that starts with F and that I could not live without. I would need to watch this movie at least once a year, a movie I purchased for the first time at a flea market and still have this movie on VHS in my parents house, so I would keep it for me. F is for Friday. Ice Cube Chris Tucker one of the best comedic duos of all time. The only tragedy here is they never reunited for another Friday. A lot of that reason is because they were paid so little to do this movie. I think ice Cube only got ten thousand dollars. Chris Tucker only got ten thousand dollars, and all the other main stars he got like half of that they got five thousand dollars, So that was one of the biggest reasons that Chris Tucker never returned to the role of Smokey. Why would you return to ten thousand dollars for a movie when after this he got the paycheck for twenty million to do Rush Hour Rush Hour two, There was no reason for him to come back. Another comedy that I considered to be perfect. So for me from the nineties, F Is for Friday. Following up with that, I believe G Is for Good Fellas. It is my favorite mobster movie ever made. It has a top five casting out of any movie in my opinion. With ray Leota, Robert de Niro, and Martin Scorsese directing this movie, the only other movie I would consider would be one from my childhood. I would put Goofy movie in this conversation just because I feel like that's another underrated movie of the nineties. But when it comes to movies that I could not live without, I would have to go with Good Fellaws, So G Is for Good Fellas h comes down to two movies for me. On the Disney side, I would go with Hercules, which I think has one of the best soundtracks out of any Disney movie, Vie and on the left is another Disney movie, but a live action Disney movie, and one that I felt really spoke to me being a chubby kid growing up, and that is the one I just have the most connection with, the one I think still holds up to today. So in this collection, H is for Heavyweights, I is a clear winner for me. I Is for Independence Day one of the most influential films in this entire list, one of the biggest movies of the nineties, such a big summer blockbuster because this movie was a spectacle. You had to go to the theater to watch this movie. It may not seem like it now because we get so many big action movies really throughout the entire year, still more specifically in the summer, but it was still a really big deal in the nineties, will Smith punching an alien was something we all wanted to see on the big screen. So I Is for Independence Day. J actually comes down to to Robin Williams movies. On one hand, I would put the comedic drama Jack. On the other hand, I would put Jumanji, and if I were able to carry a v just tape with both feet, holding that one together would be Johnny Tsunami, which was a Disney Channel movie, which they didn't really put those on VHS tape, so I won't really consider that one in the conversation. So we're dropping that one and we're going with Jumanji. Feeling pretty good about our list so far. Letter K is actually a tough one. I went through an entire list, I went through your suggestions, and really only one movie stuck out to me that I actually enjoy so on this list from K is for Kindergarten Cop. As much as I like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his straight ahead action movies, I think putting him in a comedy is even better than that. So okay is for Kindergarten Cop. L is a no contest. L is for Lion King, one of the best, if not the best Disney movie ever made, because it has it all. It has the musical numbers, it has the animation, it has the long lasting characters, it has the humor, it has everything you look for in the nineties animated movie, and more. It gets no better than the original Lion King. It also reminds me that kids movies used to be so dark. I can still put myself into the position when I first saw that scene with Mufassa dying, Why did they do that to us as kids? One of the best movies nonetheless, So L Is for Lion King m I also feel is a pretty clear cut winner and shows you how big of a deal Will Smith was in the nineties. From m Is for Men in Black. My only runner up here is Mall Rats from Kevin Smith, mainly because I feel that movie really embodies the nineties with the cast, with the plot, with it being such a great comedy, and also being a movie set in the mall in what I would consider the golden age of the mall the nineties, so that would be my runner up. But a clear cut winner here is m Is for Men in Black, And as a tough one, there are really only two movies I would even consider putting on the shelf from this letter, the second one being Notting Hill, but I was never really a big fan of that movie, so my pick would be from ninet Never Been Kissed, which is actually one of my favorite romantic comedies of all time. I would put that in my top ten on any given day. And this was also like right almost at that turn of the century, we got a lot of good movies, especially in this genre, right at the mark before cinema made a really big shift into the two thousands. So I think these movies really thrived in the nineties so for that reason, and is for Never Been Kissed. Oh, I'm going with another comedy from nineteen oh is for Office Space. Like I said, ninety nine was a great year. The other old movie from ninety nine I would consider it would be October Sky with a young Jake Jillen Hall, mainly because that was a movie I remember watching an elementary school in my science class because somehow it was kind of educational because I think at the time we were building rockets in our science class, so that's what they do in october Sky. And I just remember that feeling of the teacher willing in that big TV on that car to with the VCR at the bottom, and that just meant, all right, it's movie day. And I associate that with a lot of Disney movies, october Sky being one of them. The other movie that comes to mind is another one I associated with school and one of the first movies I remember reading the book and then watching the movie from nineteen ninety two of Mices and Men Again. Kids movies used to be so dark, but nonetheless, OH is for office space. P is for pulp Fiction, a perfect Quentin Tarantino movie, the one that really put him on the map and made everybody want to make a movie like pulp fiction. I feel like there were so many copycats in the nineties of Quentin Tarantino's work, but he did it the best and continues to do it till this day. The one I would also almost consider putting on this list out of the PE category would be Parent Trapped from nineteen because I watched that movie time and time again, usually in school, but I'd even sit down to watch that one now. And my other one would be Pokemon, the first movie, which was one of the first movies I remember seeing in theaters. But still P is for pulp fiction. Q. There was only one clear cut winner here, and it's actually a pretty good one, a Best Picture nominee from nineteen, which was the best year for movies in the nineties. Q is for Quiz Show hands down. Queue is a tough letter when it comes to any movie, but luckily we have a Best picture now. Many here are R is for Rush Hour, Jackie Chan, Chris Tucker, NonStop action, NonStop humor, a killer soundtrack. Rush Hour is quietly one of the best comedic action franchises of all time. I know Jackie Chan has done interviews. Recently, he did a panel teasing that there may be a rush Hour for I really won't believe it until I see a photo from the set and see Chris Tucker actually saying he's on board. Because they've been talking about doing a rush Hour for for so long now. I don't really want to buy into that hype until I see an announcement, until I see a release date. But I feel like they have one more rush Hour movie in them. My honorable mention in the our category would be the rug Rass movie, and that's because I would love to have an orange Nickelodeon tape on that shelf. But aside from that, R is for rush Hour as is a tough one. It's just a popular letter. There are so many movies that start with s from Space Jam, Small Soldiers, The sand Lot, Scream, South Park, Bigger, Longer, and Uncut, shawsh Ank Redemption one of my favorites s l C. Punk, So you really can't go wrong with any movie with the letter S. But we are picking movies to put on the shelf that are the most rewatchable, the ones that embody the nineties the most, and the ones that will be the most aesthetically pleasing on the shelf. So I feel like for that reason, for me, it comes down to three movies sand Lot, shawsh Ank Redemption, and Space Jam, which I love shawsh Ank Redemption out of those three, it is the best on paper, but I don't feel myself wanting to go to that shelf and pulling Shawshak Redemption from time to time to rewatch it time and time again. You've watched that one maybe two times, and I'm kind of good with shawsh Ank Redemption, so I think that one is eliminated. So I'm down to sand Lot and Space Jam, both sports movies, both great stories. But when it comes to what I thinkly embodies the nineties a little bit more, it has to be Michael Jordan's. It has to be the Loony Tunes. So S is for Space Jam, maybe even harder than S is the letter T. You have one of my favorites from n Twister. You have Titanic from nine, which would actually be the two double VHS tape collection. You have Toy Story, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the one that I saw so many votes for. I did not know that you guys love this movie so much. But ten things I hate about You. This is a tough one for me. I love Titanic. I love the fact that it's on two VHS tapes. I think that would look great on the shelf. Twister is one of my favorite movies of the nineties of all time. I'm excited for that remake. But Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, I just think that is such an embodiment of the nineties. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles were huge in the eighties, but these movies in the nineties were so amazing in movies they rewatched so many times. But out of all these movies, one I go back to the most, the one I've seen over fifty times. I'm gonna have to go with Twister from so t is for Twister, you no argument here. You is for Usual Suspects. I think one of the first movies that really blew my mind. And yes, I watched this movie entirely too young. All of the language and violence I should not experience. I think I watched this movie when I was eleven years old. Probably shouldn't have done that. And some people say that this movie is all about the ending and it wouldn't be anything without that, but who cares. It's a freaking amazing ending, one of the best twists in any movie of all time. So you is for Usual Suspects. V another clear cut winner for me. V is for Varsity Blues. One of my favorite football movies. And maybe it's because I grew up in Texas and saw a lot of this culture in my everyday life, growing up in a small town where football is so important. But I love this movie so much. I wanted my high school experience to be much like this movie. But I didn't play football. I wasn't any good at it. The only movie that would well this as one of my favorite football movies would be Friday Night Lights, but that came later in the two thousand's, and I'll probably do a football episode culture to the Super Bowl. But when it comes to these circumstances, V is for Varsity Blues. W I really only have two movies here that I would feel comfortable picking from. One of them would be Wayne's World, which I know is a very influential nineties movie. I just never got that into Wayne's world. I never found those characters that funny, even though I'm a big fan of rock music. Maybe I don't like so much the classic rock Maybe that's why I'm not so drawn to this movie. I just never thought Wayne and Garth were that funny. If I sit down to watch a Mike Myers movie from the nineties, I'm picking Austin Powers. But I can't deny how influential this movie was in the nineties. But for W, I'm going with water Boy. I needed Adam Sandler movie on this list. I didn't pick Big Daddy. I didn't pick Happy Gilmore, I didn't pick Billy Madison. So for W I'm going with an Adam Sandler movie. W is for water Boy, Slim pickens for X but one of the greatest series of the nineties. You get your alien sci fi fix here. X is for the X Files movie from nine enough said there. Why is another tough category to pick from, and luckily there is a great Tom Hanks movie that starts with the letter Y from why is for You've Got Mail. I did see this movie at least a little bit of it recently, and it's just kind of funny that the only things that don't really hold up from the nineties are any references to technology. The fact this is all about email, Yeah, that really doesn't hold up anymore. So if I were making a movie, ever, I would try to limit anything that has to do with technology, even showing cell phones. Any references to website will completely and easily data movie every single time. But why is for You Got Mail? And letter Z is another one that has very very slim pickens, maybe even more so than any other letter. But the one movie that remains is another comedy, and it's actually a really great influential comedy from the nineties. Z is for zoo Lander. So there we go. We did it, everybody. We now have our a through the nineties VHS collection. If there's a movie you think I missed, I probably did. Just know that I went with my heart on these picks. But if you want to let me know, hit me up on Instagram Mike Destro or send me an email movie Mike D at gmail dot com, and remember be kind rewind. Let's get into a spoiler free movie review. Now I want to talk about Megan which is a horror movie kind of unifying the country, and I think that's really what I've come to love about horror movies. Unlike any other genre, they really have a way of bringing people together. We saw this last year with Smile, and I think now early in having that same experience with Megan. It's something I really enjoy and I like going to watch a movie like this in a theater full of people and that enhancing the entire movie. And that's exactly what Megan did. It was a little bit different than what I was expecting, and I'll get into all that. So before I get into my full review of Megan, here's just a little bit of the trailer. I designed Megan to protect Katie from feeling lonely. She will recognize you as her primary user, and when you do that, you're going to pair with her. Crazy. It's insane, right, I can have I done something to upset you? I know you think you're maximizing your objective function. Oh really, So what you have in Megan is an eight year old girl who tragically loses her parents and then she is sent to live with her aunt, who is now required to take care of her. But her aunt has a really hard time sitting down and discussing what happened with her parents, But instead of working through all of those emotions with her, she goes to what she knows best technology. She works as a toy creator, and she has this prototype called Megan, which has the ability to pair with the kid and then basically become its parent. Megan can each Megan can be there emotionally, Megan can do all the things that sometimes become mundane to parents, and it causes Katie to form this bond with her and really helps her in that transition period of missing your parents, but raises a bigger question on the ethical scale, is it okay to let your kid form a bond with AI technology? So I really love that concept. I love how it dealt with that, And what I wasn't expecting from Megan is how cheesy it was going to be. The trailer kind of led you to believe that it was going to be a little bit more of a straight ahead horror movie. What I wasn't expecting in this movie was for it to be as cheesy as it was, and I thought that was going to turn me off a little bit, but it actually made the movie a lot more enjoyable, and I think it's because Megan, throughout the entire movie was very self aware, and I thought the actual horror elements in the movie and the cinematography made it to where it didn't feel like it was just a bad movie. They were doing these things on purpose. I wasn't expecting a musical number, I wasn't expecting a dance number, but that really kind of brought character to Megan, and I think now is what a lot of people are really enjoying about this movie. So as I'm watching this in the theater, I feel like all these people I'm surrounded by kind of have this bonding experience, and more people laugh throughout the entirety of Megan than any other comedy I've seen in theaters. So I kind of feel now that horror movies are slowly rebranding to comedy movies. And maybe it's because through scary elements, it's almost funnier to laugh at sometimes. And maybe that's because when it comes to horror movies like this, it's just a lot more fun to laugh than to be scared. So if you think of this movie as a scary slash horror movie, it's really not. It has some scary elements, but there are no things like jump scares. It's all pretty straight ahead, so it doesn't really feel cheesy or forced anyway. But I think the big takeaway from this movie is it's a comment on our attachment to technology as it all becomes so much more advanced and it's easier to automate things and push things onto a device to make our lives easier. It raises the question what do we need to do as humans to actually experience life, especially when it comes to kids. And I know this movie got a lot of comparisons to Chucky, but it never felt like a copycat to me. It surprisingly felt really fresh to me. Maybe it's because it had the female lead. Maybe it's because of the origin story of Megan. It's nothing like the origin story of Chucky, so I never really found myself comparing the two. I loved Megan as a villain and I want to see more. And I know they've already confirmed a Megan sequel, and that is immediately what I said after watching this movie. I'm ready for the next one. And I feel like this movie took a lot from the success of Smile last year. They also had a viral marketing campaign wasn't as big as the one for Smile, but having the group of Megan's do the dance number at the NFL game, I thought was a nice touch. So I feel like the movies really cutting through right now are horror movies, the ones that people just organically talk about, and that is what I love as a horror fan. Even though it's not the most traditional horror movie of all time, even though it's a lot more cheesy than I was expecting, I love that bonding experience. And after this movie ended, the people in my theater clapped at the very end. That didn't even happen when I went to see Black Panther. So I feel like this movie has a lot of momentum going into now announcing a sequel. So if you're not a horror movie fan whatsoever, if you see this trailer and thing Nope, that is not for me. I feel like this movie could be your bridge into horror movies because it's really not that scary. It's actually a lot more comedic, a lot more light than the trailer would lead you to believe. So maybe even if you don't want to go see it in theaters, because you don't want even to run the risk of being scared. I would say give it a chance when it comes out on streaming. So when it comes to Megan, I would give it four out of five Killer Dolls. It's time to head down to movie. I find myself being more and more drawn to mystery movies. The idea of watching something and trying to figure it out as you're putting all the pieces together yourself with the main character. I've really come to enjoy that. I think it's a whole new level of a movie experience that I'm not completely familiar with. I was just never really drawn to them. But there's a new mystery coming out this Friday called Missing. It's about this daughter who is trying to find her mom. She went on vacation with her new boyfriend in Colombia and never returned. And the idea behind Missing is that it all takes place over technology, kind of like a found footage movie, except it's all through emails, text messages, facetimes, ring camps. That is how the entire movie is displayed, So a new approach to the found footage movie, much like Blair Witch Project back in the day. But before we get into more about missing Here is just a little bit of the trailer. Mom never came home from her trip. I don't know where she did. I'm calling about a guest you had. Um. Does anyone speak English? Please meet your help. Guy doesn't have jurisdiction to investigate the Columbia. So is there anything I can do? The best thing you can do to help us is just way by your phone. But I'm not giving up on my mom. So this is actually a sequel to a movie that came out in ten called Searching, although this story is completely independent from that. But the idea behind Searching, which I really enjoyed, was all about this father trying to discover what happened to his missing daughter. And the way you see it as the viewer is you're just looking at a computer screen. You're looking at a phone screen. There is no camera footage like a traditional movie would be shot. And I'm really into this genre of found footage, and this is kind of a new take on that. It all started with Blair, which back in the day, but also movies like clover Field Chronicle, Unfriended, which is kind of one of my guilty pleasure horror movies. We saw it most recently in the horror movie called Host, which all took place over zoom. But I thought Searching in eighteen took elements from all those movies, except it wasn't a horror movie at all. It is just a mystery where you're trying to figure it out, and I think that makes the movie watching experience fun. So I think this movie will use a lot of what made that movie a really great watch and turn it up a little bit. This one has obviously some more technology to play around with now that green cams are so prevalent, and all other types of social media will be seen a lot more in this movie. The only issue I have with this one is that there is so much revealed in the trailer of this movie. I only played you a short little clip because even when I sat down to watch this trailer, I felt like they gave away so many details, so many things that unravel as you watch this movie that I feel should be shocking as you watch it. They shouldn't give it all away, And I think that's why I ended up enjoying Searching so much. The original is because I didn't know a whole lot about the story, didn't watch the trailer going into that one because with the movie like this, the fun part is learning all the details and having it all kind of blow your mind as it is happening. And I felt this trailer revealed a little bit too much about the boyfriend about the mom and hopefully that was only scratching the surface and there are more crazy things that come out in this movie. Otherwise I feel like I'm gonna be wasting my time after I just watched a two minute trailer that went through all the details. So I don't know why movies keep doing this. I know it's harder to get people into the theater, it's harder to get people invested in a movie that's not really a big franchise, doesn't really have an A list actor, But I just need giving away too much takes away from that experience. So hopefully they didn't do that. And I also think there is only a small window for a movie like this to be novel and for this use of filmmaking to still be interesting. So this one, I hope lives up to the hype I've created for it. But again, this movie wee is called Missing and it comes out on Friday, January twentie. This makes edition of movie Law. And that's gonna do it for another episode here of the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my listeners shout out of the week, and this week I'm going over to my Instagram d m s and the shout out of the week is the Tyler And here's what Tyler said, Tyler Road, glad to see you using letter Box again. Man. I discovered it last year and it is my favorite social media had made a few really good friends on it. A follow back would be so dope. Also, your Whale review has me more excited to watch it. And Tyler, you've been one of my favorite people to talk movies with on Instagram. We've been going back and forth on DM for a while now. So appreciate the message, Appreciate all the feedback. I love when you guys share your thoughts with me because that's why I do this podcast, to connect with you guys and talk about movies, because literally it is my favorite thing to do. And I am on Letterbox now, which is a social media app for film lovers, and I used to use it a lot when it first came out. And what you do on letter Box is you log all your movie reviews they have like I do on the podcast, the five star rating system, and you write a little review, and it's kind of cool just to keep track of all your movie reviews. But I found it a little bit overwhelming because I felt like I was putting my reviews everywhere. I put them on the podcast, I do them on the radio show, I do the blog, I have my YouTube channel now. So I felt a little bit overwhelmed of like, oh man, I gotta put one review all these places. But my goal for is to keep up with my letter box because I just like going back and being able to see them all. But if you're on letter box and want to follow me, my name is just Mike de stro Or. I will put the link in the episode notes of this podcast. So appreciate that. D M. Tyler appreciate you for listening to this week's episode. If you don't mind, share the podcast with a friend to somebody else you know who loves movies and loves spoiler free reviews. Next week we'll be talking about the new Tom Hanks movie A Man called Auto. Kelsey will probably be in for that review because it's already one of her favorites of the year, and we're only in January, so until next time, go out and watch good movies and I'll talk to you later. Mmmmm