All right, here we go, quiet. Hello, welcome to the Big Picture podcast, where we take a look at the latest movie news, the films of today and yesterday, and put them all in this sort of context. Seated across the microphone from me is film buff online aficionado, rich trees. And Seated across the microphone from me is film buff online contributing editor Natasha Ogotsky.
You completely hesitate there, because you couldn't come up with anything else. Yeah, no, I was like, is gonna shoot for the joke? And then I was like, ah. And you did improv in college?
Yes, and improv joking. That's all I need to say, ladies and gentlemen. That's just her. You're welcome.
So welcome back. It's too late. We'll have to remember to do this on the back side of this. I forgot to take room, Joe.
Okay, that's fine. Okay, moving along. Welcome back. Welcome back to the airwaves.
It's been almost two months since we've been busy. We've been very busy. Yeah, because I miss these times when we just get together on Sunday and talk about what's going on in the movie world. And I'm glad someone does.
Wow, I know I'm in fine for me. I'm sorry, I apologize. I will chill. That would be nice.
Love you. Love you too. I should be nice. You made me eggs.
I know. Anyways. But now I do miss these times together. Aww.
So yes, we are recording on Sunday morning. Hopefully we'll have this out in the day or two. And the first thing I wanted to bring up, though, was something I just kind of saw as we were getting ready. The great Bud Friedman, the founder, owner of the New York Improv, one of the most influential comedy clubs of the 1980s stand up comedy boom, passed away last night at the age of 90.
He had a long and fulfilling life. And I don't think his influence can ever be underestimated, excuse me, overestimated. Because he was just so influential in getting so many careers started here in New York on the East Coast. If you often hear about Los Angeles as the comedy store and how MIT's sure built that up and it became a great place where people like Letterman and Leno got their start, Jim Carrey.
And the list goes on and on. The improv is pretty much the same thing that happened here on the East Coast at approximately the same time. I even might have started a little bit earlier than Mitzi shorted. That's just going on my memory.
I'd have to actually go back and look it up to be absolutely sure. So take that with a grain of salt. And I've been to the improv, saw some great shows there in the 90s. Bud comes out with his trademark monocle, you know, but even before that in the 80s, he was one of the first people to get like stand up, just stand up shows on television.
Usually he had Johnny Carson and then like Letterman or somebody else and doing late night. They'd have a stand up comic. Two, five minutes, sit down on the couch, tell another two, three minutes worth of jokes on their act in the form of a fake interview. And that's how you saw stand up.
Friedman had a show called A&E's A Night at the Improv. And it was a half hour show, but you got three comics. And so you got maybe a seven minute chunk out of each comic. And at some point, A&E was running up like five nights a week at 11 o'clock at night or something like that.
So if you were like me at that time and were very interested in stand up, you got a shmorgish board of great comics. I'm thinking like Judy Goldling, Boozler. Here's one. And you probably, I'm not even sure you knew that person was a stand up.
I remember Michael Keaton being on an evening at the Improv. Not surprised. Not surprised. I mean, when you think about where you got started film-wise, you've often made the jokes every time Mr.
Mom is going to be Batman. So no, I'm not surprised by that at all. Well, yeah, it's, you know, just I'm still kind of like processing this here. I had the deadline article here.
It's a bad week for comics. Yeah, this was not a good, this last week, it feels like there was a couple of comic book artists who passed away. The Great Gallagher. Gallagher.
That really hurt. You were a fan. That was my first comedy show. Yes.
Yes. I know. And the fact that, you know, he brought me up on stage for the finale and I got to smash the watermelon. That just, it made my experience forever more just perfect.
True. And getting floured on. Oh, yeah, yeah, having that floured on to you. And it's ironic, though, because, you know, Gallagher was very key in a part of the great comedy strike at the Comedy Store in the late 70s when the young comics were like, can we at least got like five bucks to cover gas to come here every night?
And Mitzi Shore was like, no. And then the comics were sitting there watching how much the bar was making. And that kind of changed the whole dynamic of how comedy clubs worked. And he was kind of influential in that he provided a space for a lot of the main comics in that movement, a place to come and meet at his house or his apartment or wherever he was living.
So it's kind of odd that, you know, two people who, obviously, Bud Freeman, very, very, very much a key figure, but Gallagher also, you know, and I'll admit, I'm not much of a fan as you are. But, you know, he had a key linchpin role in the evolution of what stand up comedy is today, if not for his act, for his actions. Yeah. And what really just drove it home was that that evening I sat down to watch Weird, the Yankovitz story with Daniel Radcliffe, and they had someone playing in Gallagher in the film.
And I'm not going to lie, I got the sniffles and I teared up a bit because it was just too soon. It felt like it was too soon. Yeah. Well, yeah, I'm trying to remember who that was, actually, who played Gallagher.
Oh, it was Paul F Tonkins. If you were to look for the exact pendulum swing opposite of Gallagher's act, it would probably be Paul F Tonkins, you know, so, which is amazing to me. I mean, that whole sequence, and we're going to talk about Weird in a little bit. So so I'll hold off all my thoughts there.
One other thing I wanted to talk, one other passing I wanted to make note of, Kevin Conroy. Yes, I knew you were going there. Yeah. Speaking of comics and Batman.
Yes. Yeah, Michael Keaton. There we are. That's what you're talking about.
Looking at the dots, ladies and gentlemen. Growing up as a kid, the animated superhero stuff I got wasn't great, you know, super friends and I know a lot of people out there who are comics nerds have warm memories of super friends. They're going to hurt a bit. Oh, it was in the 70s and 80s.
While at the Hall of Drusters and it was okay. It was fine when you're eight. Nice way of putting it. Yeah.
Looking back, I don't have many fond memories. It was when I was, it was, yeah, after college, like in the early 90s when Batman, the animated series came out and they were taking Batman seriously and they were doing different iterations of Batman. Yeah. I, I, I've never actually watched any of Batman, the animated series.
However, I know of its influence and its deep respect. I know a lot of people who are friends of mine who watch that in Batman Beyond Growing Up and it became so much a part of who they are and of their ideology that you almost feel a kinship to Batman, the animated series and to Kevin Conroy through what your friends are telling you. It's not just those two shows. I mean, he went on to play Batman, Voice Batman and a number of other animated things, the Justice League, Justice League Unlimited, some other shows as well as a number of video games.
He was considered, you know, the definitive Batman actor outside of, yeah, look at Christian Bale. Everybody else. Nope. It was Kevin Conroy and apparently he was the world's nicest guy too.
But if you're looking for probably one of his best performances in the role of Batman, it's actually when he's playing Bruce Wayne in the episode with Robin's origin and he comes, you know, Bruce comes into the, the one of the studies or whatever at Wayne Manor and Robin, Dick Grayson is just kind of like sitting around moping, you know, it's been a couple of weeks since his parents have been dead and Bruce has, you know, brought him into his home as his ward and he's like, Dick, I'm really sorry I haven't been around and then they have a conversation about how Dick felt helpless while his parents and while watching his parents die and you can hear in Kevin Conroy's performance of Bruce, how he talks about I had, you know, how he went through the same thing when his parents were gone down in crime alley and there is an emotional level there, there's a sensitivity there, there's just an incredible performance that it's a, it's a cartoon aimed basically at teenagers. You didn't need this level of craft and excellence, but Kevin Conroy brought it and it's a moving moving scene, you know, I saw a number of, this is one of the first things I thought of when I saw the news of his passing, I saw a lot of people mentioning it on social medias as well, along with a lot of other things, I know later on this weekend I'm planning on going back and rewatching Batman, Mask of the Phantasm, which I think is just one of the better Batman movies altogether, live action or what, but yeah, so it was, it's been a bit of a downer week, unfortunately, to the point where I wanted to write something about it being the 50th anniversary of the launch of HBO this past week, especially because we are in the very first market that HBO was in, here in the Wilkes-Reis Frayton area. In fact, there's a plaque down on, Tom Goughlin put it up, yep, I saw it the other night, yeah, commemorating, you know, HBO started here a little, and then as soon as it got enough money, they moved out and are in New York and LA now, but that sounds like any child moving out of their parents eyes. I love that analogy, I do, and it's so weird to think that, yeah, we're just we have, you know, we got some movies we're going to show you and you pay us 10 bucks a month or whatever it was at the time, and now look at it.
Yeah, it's massive. I was actually, I was on it last night watching Cleopatra and a few other things, the Queen. I've been in a weird stay, you want to talk about Bummer though, and this ties with HBO because I walked in and I saw Darren watching Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, and I walked in just as their approaching haggard about how did the hearing go for Buckbeak? And just the sensitivity of Robbie Coltrane, I flopped on the sofa at that moment and I almost burst into tears.
Yeah, we've been losing a lot of good ones lately. Oh, the voice of the sorting hat was this week as well. Oh, geez. I wish I could remember his name off the top of my head, but it's just been, it's just been, it's coming to that time, and I think we all kind of reach it in our lives where something that we loved as a child, you know, we're coming to adults, so they're going to an older age.
We're going to start losing them, it's like losing a beloved parent, someone that helped you. I've been living this life for 27 years, but no, I'm reaching that area where you're starting to lose key figures. Oh my God, when I lose Maggie Smith, I'm going to be a freaking mess. It's also the anniversary this past week of Stanley's passing.
Let's just pile on the sadness, shall we? This is getting to be a bummer episode, guys. This is turning into like a serious immemorium, and I apologize. This should come with like a Kleenex or something.
Trigger warning. Hey, I think on the iTunes thing, I'm just going to, in this episode, Rich and Natasha talk about a lot of dead people. Yeah, it's a funky gloomy day here. I drove through a hailstorm to come here to record and we start talking about dead people.
Yes. So, anyways, weird, the Al Yankovic. I have that. How about that, Andy?
Let's not go there. I don't want to spoil a lot of that movie because it's so good. It's hard. I know.
It's so good in that. It's funny. I think every joke works. Usually you get a comedy and there's a couple of jokes at Klunk.
I can't think of a single joke where I was like, there's an inside joke in that movie to Harry Potter, by the way. There is what? Yeah. Okay.
What did I miss? When he's talking to Dr. Demento for the first time, he goes, wait, you want to be my mentor? He goes, no, I want to be your D-mentor.
Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then if you look really quickly, there's a cutaway back to Daniel.
He goes, and that would be where a video podcast worked, ladies and gentlemen. Yeah. See, I'm such an old school Dr. Demento.
My God, this movie opens up with the original Dr. Demento opening, but it's just Raine Wilson doing the voice of Dr. Demento, but that's how the old, that's how his radio show would start. I was still a little bit of it.
Yeah. And I'm sitting there and I saw this at the Philadelphia Film Festival and we can touch on a couple of other things. I saw there too. But the second year it would be good with the Boba Demento.
You know, I was like, whoo, whoo, you know, when you hear the horns and the squeaky toys and I broke into the biggest smile. I was just like, I was transported back to maybe a few years older than I was sitting in my bedroom at a Sunday night listening to Dr. Demento. One, it's funny.
He was in two, he was in two different markets that kind of overlapped where we were living. So I could tune in onto the one channel at nine o'clock, you know, and I'd listen from nine to 11. And if any point during that show, I heard a song I wanted to record onto a mixtape. I would just make a note of time tuned over to the other channel where he started at 10 o'clock.
Okay, it's about 20 after I know it's coming up after fish heads and play record. You know, and I get the song on, you know, just recorded it off of my stereo. I had like 15 90 minute tapes. I really, really want to talk about the, it's hard, but God, I want to talk about the Pablo Escobar section.
Yeah. It's hard not to I know it's, I don't know if that goes too far into spoilers. The movie's been out for like a week and a half already. Okay.
Okay. So if you haven't gotten to watch weird, the Al Yankovic story on the Roku channel yet, sorry, we're going to go into a little bit of spoiler territory. We'll be back there. You can skip ahead a little bit.
And I'm not sure where we're going to start our Black Panther, we're kind of forever discussion. I'm not sure how I'm going to transition from weirdo to Black Panther, but I'll figure it out. Sorry. Anyways, go ahead.
Pablo Escobar. That was the most fucked up Matrixy bullshit I've ever seen in this film. And it's, I mean, this movie's a parody film, which makes sense because we're now is like the king of parodies. So of course there would be the movie that would be made about him with the parody of his life.
Oh, of course. There's no word. Genius. Absolutely not.
Yeah. Some of it was border on cringe and some of it was like, this is fucking genius and my jaws on the floor. And the moment Madonna gets kidnapped out of a diner when he says, If I don't, if I lost you, I don't know what I would do. And all of a sudden he just becomes his bad ass super like he's like, he does order up.
Sticking the guy's head in the freaking waffle maker. I was like, Oh, God damn. Now back in, I mentioned this in my review ad film buff. Like in 1999, I had the opportunity to interview Al.
Running With Scissors, the album was just coming out, which had his Don McLean parody on it, The Saga Begins, which is all about the Phantom Menace. And they were getting ready to go on tour. And so it was kind of like a, one of those Alec Renaissance's that kind of seemed to bubble up every couple of years, where he has a bunch of things happening all at once. And then that kind of happens for about a year, and then he kind of like bubbles down a little bit in pop culture, and then five, six, boop, he's back.
It's an amazing career cycle for 40 years where most other musical comedy acts have been like in, well, in the rock era, I would say one hit wonders, two hit wonders. You know, they only last a couple of years and then they flam out. So yeah, so as longevity at this point is ridiculous. It's because everyone at any point in their life can turn on weird out, and it's like being a child again.
Yeah, okay, yeah, because it's just a fun silliness too that he does. It's enjoyable, it's awesome. And I think also that since pop music is always recreating itself and reinventing itself, he has that ability to come in and go, what I do, I'm still gonna do, but I'm doing it with different material now. You know, they're fundamentally writing something like white nerdy or Amish Paradise, is it's the same kind of comedic muscle he's operating as fat, you know, the Michael Jackson parody of that, or edus.
So, you know, it's just that music is changing. He just keeps doing the same thing. And that's, I think, the genius of his longevity. But one of the things I loved about this film is in some of your major roles, it's all child actors.
Did you notice? You had like Evan Rachel Wood as Madonna, obviously with Daniel Radcliffe, one of Daniel's band mates, Spencer Tree, Clark, who played Lucius and Gladiator and the kid from Unbreakable, like, you get to see some of the people who weren't destroyed by the industry, who grew up probably with Al and maybe even kept him sane during some of that and to be able to just come into this and just, you can tell they're all just having a fucking blast. Oh God, yeah, that was like the most fun set ever. But I wanted to go back when I was interviewing Al though, one of the things that was happening for him at the time was VH1's Behind the Music was doing an episode on Weird Al.
Now, at the time, VH1's Behind the Music, their bread and butter was all the tragedy and shit that was going on in a band's career. You know, like, and then the guitarist got hooked on heroin. You know, it was stuff like that. And Al's like, there's no controversy in my life whatsoever.
I'm a nice, yeah, I've never gotten into big beefs with anybody. I never had a drug abuse problem. I'm not drunk, you know, he was actually kind of bemused and kind of laughing at the fact that VH1 wanted to do a behind the music episode on him. And I kind of see weird, the alley-ank of experience.
It's a parody of that. As, you know, his kind of like comedic reaction to what a VH1 Behind the Music episode could have been. Yeah, because like in this, he's having beefs with Dr. Demento.
He's having beefs with his band. He turns into a drunk, he's fighting with his parents. And it's hitting every single stereotype in the biopic handbook. And it's doing it in a funny way and a different way than something like, what car the do-we-cock story does.
In fact, these two movies will be hella fun to watch back and back. I mean, I probably wrench my back from laughing. I spend the entire movie, however, like a Leo meme from what's upon the time in Hollywood. Like someone would just pop up on screen, like, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Lay my mouth, Miranda. At one point. That's okay. I was at the Philadelphia Film Festival screening of Al, of Weird.
The one of the program directors is on stage. And because he was actually in town, because they were performing at some theater the next night, Al comes out on stage for about 30 seconds just to say hi, thanks for watching this utterly true story. So already the place was like, oh shit, weird, I'll just show it up. And went bananas.
And then, you know, so already the energy level in this room is like 900%. And, you know, that whole opening thing, you know, it starts, you know, that crashing of the gurney through the hospital room, through the hospital into the operating room and everything. And then the doctor pulls off his mask and it's lit men on the bread and the place. I thought people were gonna rip up seats and it's just like what I gotta do.
Oh no, the one that gets me is the waiter. Did you notice who the waiter was at one point? Oh, when he's out with Madonna? Yeah.
Oh crap, it was- Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just walked off for one second, said one line and walked out and I lost it laughing and Darren's looking at me going, wait, who was that? I like, John Jerome and he's like, no. I was like, yes, and I had to turn it back right in the rewind the freaking face so you could see it.
In that party, the barbecue, a Dr. Dementos house. Oh God, that's just a big point and you're hitting something. It's a point and oh my God, that person cameo event on two levels because when you're like, oh, it's deep guys from Divo.
Oh, look, it's Andy Warhol. Coon, Conan O'Brien, Andy Warhol. You're like, oh, it's Conan O'Brien is Andy Warhol. Oh, it's Emo Phillips as Bali.
Oh my God, Jack Black is Wolfman, Jack. Oh, look, there's David Bowie and- David Demulsion. And then there's standing in the back, Kate Pearson of the B-52s. And these are all people I would actually expect at a Dr.
Demento party because they're all people that Dr. Demento has played over the years. And of course, Gallagher in there as well, Paul of Tompkins. I'm sorry, David Demulsion is the basis from Queen.
Like that was genius. Yeah, and it's funny because I think the great thing about how they're playing with the stereotypes is, you know, if you're an Alfan, you know that, yeah, Weird Al wrote his Queen Perry, another one rides the bus and recorded it in a bathroom at his college radio stations, at the men's room of his college radio station, and then sent the tape into Dr. Demento. And that part I know is true.
So most of how they recast that story into, it becomes a challenge, you know, from the basis of Queen to do this at a party after he's already achieved a certain amount of fame by being on the Dr. Demento show. It's like, okay, this is an entirely bullshit way how this song came about. And yet, and yet, they have one little granular piece of truth in there.
Bermuda Shorts, Weird Al's longtime drummer, who's still with him, actually he's all three of his band members are still with him after 40 years, wow. You see Bermuda Shorts take the accordion case and start playing drums on it. That's the drum sound that's on the actual recording of another one rides the bus. Cause they could obviously they couldn't fit drums into the men's room.
So it was just Bermuda Shorts doing a little rhythmic bongo tapping thing on the accordion case. Yes, so I appreciated that even within the silliness of it, they were like, well, here's one little actual bit of truth. And that's why they threw like him recording my bologna in the, in the bathroom. Yeah, yeah, they shifted, you know, that part to there.
And wow, it's, it's, you know, I've just, I keep thinking back to that screening and how much fun it was. And like once, you know, like Tom Lennon shows up as the traveling accordion salesman, you know, you're like, oh, you know, it's like, man, I know Al seem to be in interviews, okay, that it's going to Roku, you know, for streaming. And most people, you know, 99% of the people are going to see it, you know, sitting at home with maybe a couple of friends and some pizzas and stuff, which is fine. Yeah, he was, he was so okay with it.
He's like, you guys could do VPN or tour it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for, yeah, fan from Australia was like, hey, we don't get Roku down here. And Al basically all but said, just pirate it. I don't, I don't have, I just, I know that you were kind enough to, you know, let us watch it on yours.
So thank you for that. Of course, of course, my, I'm just disappointed that, you know, not everybody got to see it in a theater, because I think it would have been a lot of fun. It would have been a real party to see it in a theater. Cause it was, it was for me and some movies are meant to be like, I mean, when I still think of everything, everywhere, all at once, it is definitely the first time I saw it in the cinema down at, you know, Philly.
Critics screening, yeah. Right. And I saw it three times in the theaters at three different theaters and God knows how many times at home so far. And my brain is always transported back to that critic screening.
Cause I had never been in anything like that before. That theater, you go to a Marvel movie, you're expecting, you know, some fan service and all of a sudden the place goes wild when someone shows up in cameos. But everything everywhere, all at once was a perfectly original film when you're sitting there with a bunch of, bunch of critics, which obviously sometimes you get this in your head that they can be a little jaded through years and years of just watching movies and you don't see anything that really surprises you anymore. So you get bored and then that wasn't this screening.
That was, I've never heard so many ooze and awws and laughter and oh, and everything. And then by the end of it, we were all on our feet, full audience standing ovation for this movie. And it would just bloom. My God damn mind.
And so I can imagine how weird was. It's definitely on my list of best films of the year. Fairly high at the top. Same.
This is of course my first year of voting in a critics organization. And I'm excited to see, but I'm excited to see how my friends who are also in this organization, how they're going to vote. I know we've had discussions already and both this and RRR have featured in those discussions, which is interesting. I mean, some of these were talks we had before, like the end of the year Oscar bait material comes out.
And I still have a lot of stuff to watch in the next couple of weeks. Yeah. Speaking of movies for the rest of the year, there's only two blockbustery kind of movies left for this year. The rest of it's Oscar work because I went down the listing the other day for Dan because he was asking me what's coming out that he would like to see.
And I'm like, pretty much the only things left for you are Nizal and Way of the Water. And then the rest of it's all just awesome. You'd be interested in like the Fablemans? No.
OK. No, that's. He wasn't interested in Belfast. Why the hell would he be interested in the Fablemans?
And out of the two directors, I know which one he likes better. And it's definitely Kenneth Brona. Oh, wow. OK.
I mean, actually, I'm seeing a glass on you tomorrow. I told you, I told you, this is my makeup from Missing It at the Film Festival because my car broke down on the school expressly. I know I forgot all about it. Now I just have to say this for the record.
Fuck you. If I could bring you, I would. But Netflix is a critical only. Yeah, they're poopy about that that way.
Critics circle, or just critics. Critics. If you're on the critics list with Allied, I need to get you on to Allied's list then. That might be a conversation we have off air.
OK with that. But no, there aren't a lot of blockbusters left, which is why this past weekend, I think was so important because it was our last big superhero film of the year. Wakanda Forever. And thank you.
I'm mouthing nice transition to her, because I wanted to acknowledge it in the moment, but not make it part of the text of what we're talking about. Yeah, but it's still hilarious. Just derailed you, and I'm sorry. No, it's OK.
Anyway, there aren't a lot of movies that are superhero left for the year. I think Wakanda Forever was kind of the perfect way to close that out. So let's get into it. Yes.
And oddly enough, I think the first thing we have to talk about with Wakanda Forever is that it deals with grief. And we're back to the beginning of this podcast. Yeah, yeah. That's not how I wanted all of this to come together.
Technically, we had multiple transitions in the play. Yeah, I guess. Not quite how I want to get this. But to be serious.
They waste, I don't want to say they waste no time in establishing what happens. But because that kind of sounds a little almost flip. But the film starts off with within two minutes of T'Challa, which had been played by Chadwick Boseman, passing away. And it's a gut punch way to start your movie.
And it gives you, I think, two individual moments that brought tears to my eyes, at least, right at the beginning. You have Shuri being hit with the news that her brother is dead. And she was not able to save him. And then, damn it.
The mural. No. No. The Marvel Studios logo.
Oh, yeah. I've never seen tears during that. When they pull back. And it's all the different superhero movies and the little, you know, to show the breadth and width of the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
It was all just Chadwick Boseman and Black Panther. And right now, even, I'm like Goose pimples. It's just was like, oh, I was kind of like a new Kevin Feige. It's too early in this movie to start crying.
I heard you sniffle him next to me. That's the second time. And I was ready for it. I mean, when I was at the screening earlier in the week, I was like, yeah, I'm sitting next to one of my friends there.
And I was like, I'm not crying for this dude, but at the same time, I would ride my way through the entirety of this movie. It was hard not to. Yeah, right from the start, they hit you in the face with it. And they're like, we're going to take you on this journey because I think the audience and the fans in general are still kind of, you know, it's been two years.
But I don't think that we, as a group, have been able to grieve. I think we haven't been given the proper opportunity to. The last movie that we saw of Chadwick's was Ma Rainey's Black Bottom. And I'm sorry, I know that for most Marvel fans, whether you were a Black Panther fan or not, they didn't see it.
No, they probably didn't even know about it. And to be honest, that's a hard one to watch because you can see just his degeneration. You can see him that he's ill. Yeah.
And then after that, he did a little couple of episodes of What If, which are probably recorded way in advance. And the couple episodes of What If are Good, but it's their not, it's his voice, but you're not seeing him. And I don't think, you know, they're not built around anything outside of a fun story in the Marvel multiverse. Yeah, whereas here, this, I think, allows people to heal and kind of move on.
And with Shuri, we have to get through the level of anger and vengeance and pain and bargaining. And we go through the stages of grief. Yeah. I was going to say, I haven't sat down and consciously thought, you know, Coogler Ross, you know, how that plays out across the script.
But it feels very natural how she moves through her grief over the space of like a year and I would say almost a year and a half that the story plays out until she gets to where we find her at the end. And that acceptance and being able to move on. And then everything else and we're not going to spoil that. Yeah, but in addition to all of that stuff, I think works really well.
And the fact that Ryan Coogler was able to create a story and also weave into it the other more mundane concerns of advancing the overall Marvel Cinematic Universe storyline by introducing Iron Heart and Ruby Williams and introducing Namor, which is a biggie. That's a big element to be introducing. It's an incredible juggling act here. And I don't think the film is quite as good as the original Black Panther, but it's a darn close second.
Yeah, no, I agree. And I love that those are really only the two major elements that are going to be overreaching through the rest of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I like that this film is kind of its own entity. It doesn't come with post credit.
It doesn't, they're not throwing something in your face that, hey, this is coming your way. Like, no, it's very an emotionally contained story. And it's not, I don't think this story is for the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is for the people.
I mean, Coogler had said, you know, writing and shooting making this film had been an act of grieving itself and an act of processing. So it's kind of weird that, you know, the act of telling a story about processing grief is its own act of processing grief, which I think is fascinating. And if I was better versed in psychology, maybe I could be talking about this a little bit deeper, but I just, you know, at least want to note that it's there. Yeah.
Now, I heard some people mention that they thought like, oh, you didn't agree with Williams in this. I'm like, well, you needed somebody in there because she does perform vital plot points. You know, she's the one who creates the vibranium detector, which is how the people of Namor's undersea kingdom, you know, feel threatened and that becomes the main conflict. And then she becomes something, you know, people are just setting her up for the Iron Heart series that's going to be on Disney Plus next year or whatever.
I'm like, I don't see it that way. Yes, the character is going on and we know that going into the movie, but I think her use here works just fine for me. I like the idea also that it helps Shuri kind of in a weird way, she becomes a big sister. So she switches in the middle somewhere and she becomes Chitala to Shuri.
She has someone that she needs to care for, that she needs to protect who is intelligent. Kind of reminds her of her. So yeah, oh, yeah. She's very much a different version.
Ruby is very much a different version of Shuri. They're both, you know, comic book level super geniuses and you know, can make stuff out of anything. And it's just they have different backgrounds, but they're, you know, they have that commonality as well. So, you know, obviously, like you said, Shuri is seeing something of herself in Riri.
And steps up to a mantle, I think, even earlier on in the story than we expect and becomes her protector, her guardian, as I said, her elder sister. And I think that kind of one of the things that she may have needed was to find someone who she could say that she could protect. It was almost like the universe giving her a second chance of being able to save someone else. She failed to do it for her brother.
She was not going to fail again for this little one. Yeah, and that's what drives her. Yeah. You know, granted we get some big action set pieces towards the end because it's a Marvel movie.
And they're a lot of fun. They're a little horrific at times, I thought, you know, with the Atlantians, I want to say Atlantians because I'm trying to be more being, you know, from Atlantis, but DC already caught, you know, caught that one for the movies. And so, okay, well, let's talk about it. The whole reshaping, the name or character into a, you know, an ink and, of ink and descent.
And which also gives them an opening to talk about colonizers and white European conquistadors in both Africa history and Central American history. Did you think that worked overall? Honey, I didn't even know who Namor was. So, yeah, sure, it worked.
Okay, so like, when he said Empirius Rex there at the end, that meant nothing to you. Because that was kind of like Namor's battle cry in the comics. Empirius Rooks, because he's the ruler of an undersea kingdom, which is Atlantis, which, you know, has its vague lat, you know, Greek, Greco-Roman roots. So, you know, they would have spoken Latin there.
And then both of them. It meant nothing to me. Okay. Sorry.
I'm not the comic person. I have enough comic knowledge to keep me going. I don't get into more of the minor characters or majors of minors or minors of majors. Like, I don't know all of that.
Okay, that's fair. So, what was your reaction when he said that? Did that mean anything to you? You're just like, wha?
It was a mixture of wa and a mixture of, I was actually doing the translation in my head, trying to figure out if there was a particular reason for why he said those words. Obviously, I know Rex means king in period, you know. So, I did the translation and then I went, okay, that still doesn't mean shit to me. Anyway, moving on.
Honestly, I'm thinking about it. You're right. It shouldn't. It shouldn't even be coming out of his mouth.
No, if they make him ink it. Yeah. There's no way that they set that up. Yeah.
That element, that's absolutely fanservice then. I think we just solved that. And, you know, because at the moment it's like, ooh, it's an appearance, right? And but now I'm thinking about it.
Yeah. But I also did like now knowing that we have his battle cry. So the Wakandan battle cry. Yes.
And she just blows him away. And literally and figuratively. So you can kind of see which one is more powerful. Yes.
It's a great moment in the fact that they're kind of exchanging their mottos or what have you. But yeah, about beyond the surface. If you look under the surface, strangely enough, choice of phrasing here, it doesn't work. No.
But I think that's really about the only thing that didn't work here, everything else. His disdain for the surface dwellers comes slightly from a different place for this version of the character. Yeah, then from the comics version of the character. I mean, the comic version of the character hated surface dwellers.
But it was nuanced enough that they would have him team up with Captain America and some other characters during World War II as the invaders. So it was like, well, OK, the Nazis are really bad. So I guess I can put up with you guys over here in America. And we'll fight them.
But I'll go back to hating you guys. Don't worry. Well, when you think about it, subs. Yeah, submarines.
There was a lot of war going on in the freaking ocean. And that may have been threatening at the time to his people. That's true. Yeah, the Atlantis was obviously in the Atlantic.
So there was a lot of sub warfare going on in the North Atlantic. You're welcome. I would love back in the 70s, early 80s, there was a great run of the invaders. And I would love to read that whole thing.
I got to track down like the four or five hardback volumes of it. And I got to find out if I have $200 or so to invest in all of that. But one of the things that I truly loved, however, was there was two interesting, I don't want to call them, they're not romantic connections. But it almost felt like I'm trying to think of the right word here or right phrase I want to use, alliances.
That could be made with Shuri, one with Namor and one with Umbaku. By the way, Wilson Duke is Umbaku with literally my favorite character in this fucking film. He is fantastic. He has grown so much from being just this buff king, I mean, in the first one, he felt definitely more animal and less brain.
Here, you actually get to see a lot more of what his duties entail. And he is so freaking intelligent and strategic. It's, yeah, he's still a little brash. He's still a little brash of, hey, he's a threat.
Let's kill him and he's no longer a threat. But then he starts to think about it later on. And he's like, no, they call him Kukukan, the feather serpent god, which means if we fucking kill the god, we got an eternal war on our hands. Like, it's interesting to see his process as mentor, as friend, to Shuri, almost her Jimmy Cricket.
Yes, and he reveals that what I told your brother, I would be here, and this is what I'm doing. And he said it in a way that was felt like a very, look, you know, I promise I'm going to be here for you. He said it like very openly and like, I'm going to be here for you. But at the same time, I felt just a hair of undercurrent of, and you have no choice about this, which I like.
And I think his performance is fun. Like his entrance when he just walks in and he's like munching on that character or whatever it was, turn up, I don't know. And he was so casual, I'm like, here's an actor who knows that it's a prop and just have fun with it. Oh, God, yeah, I mean, like, I've always said this about anyone.
You hand them a piece of food in a scene that is supposed to be about power, and that character becomes the most cockiest son of a bitch in the room, which we see in the J.J. Abrams for a Star Trek movie during the Kobayashi Marousine, and he's just munching on the goddamn apples yet. Because he knows he knows he's reprogrammed everything. Yeah, exactly, I like that.
You never thought about that? I think we've had that discussion before. But now that you bring it back, I was like, yeah, that works here too. Yeah, that works here too.
Yeah, no, and I love her kinship that she has briefly with Namor when they're at Toulacan, it's so beautiful. Honest, I was getting freaking James Cameron vibes through that entire, you know, let's explore the city underwater. And I'm like, motherfucker, that's in a month. Yeah, yep.
But it's still beautiful. I think it still works. I was getting vibes back to Atlantis, the Lost Empire, when that ball of that was supposed to be like their son underwater came out of the building, and it floated above the city. And I'm like, if that's the closest we ever get to a live action, Atlantis, the Last Empire, I guess I'll just fucking take it.
But I mean, that's kind of what I was seeing there. And I like just how much they are very similar, heard in him. And but at the exact same time, he plays an ultimatum. He's not willing to waver in any sense, which I kind of show how out of touch he is with the world being underwater and being so far away.
He doesn't move with the times. He's forever stuck in their underwater bubble. Yes. And that's the character in the comics, too.
For the most part, for decades. Now, granted, I haven't read a whole lot of Marvel stuff in the last 10, 15 years. I'm not sure what they've been doing with Namor. If they've gotten a little bit more political and flesh that side out, I know recent runs of Aquaman over DC, they've done things like that.
They've gone back to the idea that Arthur Curry is actually the king of Atlantis there at times. Sometimes he's not, depending on what they decide to do. Like I've been on and off the throne so much, there's probably a joke about a bathroom in there somewhere that I'm not finding right now. But I would like to see something like that.
I mean, they establish some of the politics of what's going on, which I always find interesting. When you start introducing fantastical concepts into a world, what are the political ramifications of that? We saw that with the scenes in the UN, Richard Schiff. Yeah, I was just about to bring him up.
I'm like, don't forget about our special guest star, Richard Schiff. I guess that is actually a credit. He gets more movies need to have special guest artists. They used to do that all the time in like the 60s.
There was one little thing that when I left the theater, I think I don't know if I said it to you, but I know I definitely said it to Darren and I go, I can just imagine Julia or Louise, drive us as Valentina and Martin Freeman's character. Can't remember his name right now, Ross. I knew it started with an R, I was thinking Roy. Having the kinkiest goddamn sex in the world.
Jesus. Like those two, that's a power move right there. Do you really think Martin Freeman's Ross, maybe Martin Freeman in another character, but Martin Freeman has Ross, is just gonna lay over and take it from her? I don't know.
To a certain extent, but I think he puts up a- This is conversation we usually don't even have off like. But it was kind of funny. I was, they had a wonderful tension. Oh yeah, when you find out that they were formerly married.
Yeah, and then she's his superior at the CIA. Like that, you could see like the marital tension, and you could also see the work tension, and maybe that's why my brain went there. I'm like, this, I want to see a film of just those two working shit out. Now those two obviously are gonna be showing up later on in things.
We already know, you know, we've seen Julia Louise Dreyfus' character popping up in a few places already. Thunderbolts. And yeah, most likely, you know, heading towards Thunderbolts. So we know Ross is gonna be back for secret invasion.
Also over on Disney Plus. I am so excited for that because of its political thriller vibes that I'm getting. And like society paranoia. Like I am so behind that right now because I'm getting bored with Marvel and Star Wars.
Okay, well, first of all. I'm liking Andor because it's like that. Okay. It's different.
But you're way behind on Andor, I know. I know, I'm way behind on it. I only watched the first episode. Yeah, well, that's nine episodes behind.
I've been busy. I know, I know. And I don't get up at five a.m. They'll watch it, but we're going to work.
I like my sleep. I anxiously awake the call after episode 10. That's all I'm saying. Okay.
But yeah, to finish off this side bar discussion here really quick. Andor, Andy Serkis and Stone Stegarsgard have been turning in fantastic performances. When don't they? That's true.
But this feels like even next level. Okay. Yeah. That's all I'm going to say about that.
But yeah, I'm excited about what's going to be happening in the Marvel universe. But I don't think this outside of, I think, the Ross and Vowel stuff, this movie doesn't make a whole lot of big hay about it. Yeah. I mean, obviously, we know Riri Williams is going to come back.
She's going to build her another suit and. For a while, I don't want to see another Black Panther film. I would like to see, obviously, characters split in and out of the rest of the Marvel universe. But in order for people to still have that chance to breathe, to become accustomed to our new Black Panther, show us what that character can do outside of their own film.
And then we'll come back around. But for a while, I think we should be done in Wakanda. Well, I know. Googler is supposedly developing a Wakanda series.
I know it's okay. But they haven't officially announced it. But it's going to be a while probably before it's on the roster. And I'm okay with that.
I will admit, though, I want me some more unbuckle. I have a feeling we're not going to go back to Wakanda until maybe. Was it early 2024 when Captain America New World Order comes out? Something like that, yeah.
So yeah, we're not going to see Wakanda again for a while. And that's fine. I mean, there's a lot of the Marvel world to explore. Yeah, we're about to go into the quantum verse.
Yes, next February. We're going to be taking on a whole new world. Hey, see what I did there under water. I hope you will.
Also, a couple of years down the road, we have the Fantastic Four. And do they do they introduce Dr. Doom in that movie? And then we get Latveria in the Alps, a little country that he's the despotic ruler of.
So the one movie I am just dying for right now, I hope they can get their shit together. You know which one played. Oh, yes. Oh, my God.
Yeah, I know. Yes, it's please get your shit together. This movie needs to be made. I know.
I'm anxious to see it because it'd be interesting to see how they define magic. Well, not the magic so much. Supernatural, like ghosts and stuff like that. And yeah, you could say, oh, ghost or, you know, astral projection, which we see in Dr.
Strange. But like supernatural creatures like vampires. Yeah, we've had them mentioned. And the same with mutants.
In fact, they use the term again in Wakanda, but. Yeah, I think we're going to get cockties with mutants being sorry now and then for a good one. I don't know. Do you think we're going to see them before the end of phase six and the next two Avengers movies?
Yeah. You think we're actually going to get an X-Men film or at least a couple of those? We're not getting an X-Men film, but we're getting Deadpool. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Honestly, I'm raising an eyebrow as to how much Deadpool will play into the overall MCU. I have a feeling it's going to be really fast and loose. And I mean, yeah, it'll be way better way if we wanted to. It'll be fast and loose, but it depends on who they decided to bring into cameo.
Obviously, we know that we're going to get Hugh Jackness, Wolverine, again. You seem like to be the only person on the planet who's not enthused by that idea. I'm so over him right now. Wow, interesting.
As Wolverine, I am over him. He was given one of the best endings to someone playing a role for almost 20 years ever. And I don't care if they hand wave it away as it was a different part of the multiverse or this or that. This is supposedly takes place before that movie.
I know it takes place before it, because obviously the timeline. But I already grieved and moved on. I don't want to fucking return to that. For me, at this point, it is just pure fan service.
Okay, that's fair. And that's how you process a lot of your affection for characters. Yeah, we went through an emotional process with Logan. We were given the chance to watch him grow old, to fight for the next generation, to almost in a weird way, have a daughter, to die.
We have gone through that entire thing. And us as the audience, we had to go through our five stages of grieving. And it feels like such a fuck you to just have him come back just so you can go. Well, here he is with Deadpool, like you've always wanted to see.
I'm okay having a Wolverine Deadpool crossover. I'm just don't want it to be Hugh Jackman. He's the only one they have not at this point recast in any sense of the word. Don't you think it's fucking time you let someone else have a crack at that role?
Oh, yeah. I have a feeling this is kind of like a victory lap for the character and for Jackman. And to, okay, you guys got what you wanted. And now in a MCU proper, we're going to introduce a whole new gang of people to play the X-Men.
Much in the same way as we got Patrick Stewart and Dr. Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Kind of a little hat tip goodbye. Thanks for coming around.
And by the way, here's the animated X-Men theme just so you can hear it in a big theater. I know, it just drove me nuts. It drove me nuts when that was announced. I was like, what?
Are you fucking kidding me? Like that was literally my reaction to it. I am all about a third Deadpool movie. I think Deadpool is absolutely fantastic.
I like that it's the weird owl of the Marvel universe. It's just completely parodying and fucking everything up. I love it. But there's a difference between fucking around with your audience and then really, for me, that felt like a fuck you to the audience.
For those who were emotionally invested and went through that process. That's an absolutely valid point and I can see it. No, obviously I'm going to go see it. I'm going to go see Deadpool 3.
It's not going to make me boycott the fucking movie. I'm going to go see it and I'll probably enjoy the hell out of it. But I am still probably going to stand by how it's going to make me feel. It doesn't mean I'm not going to end up enjoying the results that are created.
It's just until I see those results, I'm angry with them for screwing around with me. That's fair. And that's an interesting view. I have not really seen Express elsewhere.
So thank you for that. And I think on that note, we're going to wrap things up. You can currently see Weird, the alley-ankovic story on the Roku channel. Black Panther Wakanda Forever is currently in theaters and was there anything else we talked about?
That's what we need to remind people where it actually is. And some of us. Andor, what if? Andor's over on Disney Plus.