All right, here we go. Roll up. 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 into some sort of context.
See it across the microphone from me right now. It's film buff online editor in chief. You know him, you love him. You may sometimes get annoyed by the shittiest ass guy.
I'm not doing. It's Rick Treat, everyone. Wow, that's. That's certainly an introduction, isn't it?
Because sitting across the microphone from me is film buff online contributing editor, my moviemaking partner, one of my best friends on the whole planet, Natasha McGook. He's gone blushy now. How you doing? I'm wearing a lot of pink.
Yes, you are. It's discerning. It's disconcerting. Excuse me.
Wow. You're not normally a pink girl. You know what I'm saying? Am I a funny girl, though?
Nah, that's the worst segue ever. You started it. I just don't call it. I wasn't intending that to be the segue, but okay, let's get into it.
Funny Girl. Barbra Streisand's Broadway debut and a wonderful film. And a wonderful film. It launched her into her stardom and got her an Oscar.
And amazingly, it's never been revived on Broadway for 50 years until just now with book smarts being Kelsey. Yeah, it went into previews last night, and it's not doing well. I saw EW's article headlined was pretty much saying that it was a decent performance, but can't get past the miscasting in the center. Ooch.
Ouch. Yeah, like, they were, like, something about it. I think they said that doesn't have the shoes of Streisand. Well, no one is able to step into the shoes of Streisand, to be honest.
I think going with Beanie Fellstein is an interesting choice. And considering that Funny Girl is basically the life of Fanny Brice, one of the first Jewish comedians on the vaudeville circuit, one of the biggest from that era. She's a good choice because she's a funny lady. And as an actress, she's, you know, she makes me laugh in Book Smart and then in American Crime Story when she plays Monster, she's layering really good there.
So she has the drama chops as well. So I'm a little disappointed to hear that it's not doing well. Well, but then again, it's opening night of previews. It is the opening night of previews.
Yeah. Yeah. I'm not worried until I see the New York. New York Times.
Yeah. When's the Times tragedy? I mean, isn't it sort of like, considered declassee or little off limits to discuss the work before the opening, before the actual opening, to do a review during previews? I would consider that, yes.
I don't know if that's actually the rule or not. I don't know if it's a rule, but maybe an unspoken rule, a bit of gentlemanly code of conduct, perhaps. Gentlemanly code of conduct died when the Internet was invented. That's true, too.
And maybe. Maybe I should just kind of. You were the last of a dying breed. Thank you.
But I'm realizing that perhaps I might not be as innocent in this regard myself. We ran a review of Book of Mormon during its previews. Like the second weekend of wow was in previews. Because I saw it, I loved it, I ranted and raved about it, and I wanted to tell the world about it.
Okay, it was a positive review. But, you know, should you only do positive reviews then during a preview period or during things like that? Or should you just. Even if it's.
Even if it's positive, should you hold off and then do your review once the show officially opens? I don't know. But I will say the problem with Funny Girl, I've seen the show, I've seen the film. I've seen plenty of local performances of it.
Everyone has. For the last 50 years, anytime there has been a production of Funny Girl, the lead always tries to recreate the voice and walk of Streisner. It has pretty much become an impersonator show. It's great for mimics.
Beanie is coming in, trying to do something completely different. Maybe her voice is not up to par or up to powerhouse standards. I don't know what it could be. I don't know who could be up to that standard of Streisand, which is why you have to kind of set that to the side, which is maybe what the EW critic is having an issue with.
Well, here's the issue. Not to cast versions on. You say no one could have have that kind of wow. But almost 10 years ago, maybe a little longer.
Originally, I believe it was Theater Mania had run an article stating that Lady Gaga was going to be originating the role of Fanny Brice on Broadway for that revival. That would have been fantastic and would have been a powerhouse voice. Yes. Now, I will say over the weekend or last Thursday, Friday, somewhere in there, I was listening to NPR and they had an interview or a Feature piece in the news about this revival and, you know, a little bit of the history, how it launched Dry Zand and stuff.
And they played a little bit of people who need people from her singing it. And then later on, they talked to the new director and they talked to Beanie Feldstein, and then they played a little bit of her singing people who need people. And I thought it was perfectly good, perfectly fine. It wasn't.
Like I said before, she was striking level, but I thought it was, you know, it was professional. It sounded nice, it sounded good, it sounded clean. It was. Nothing I would ever say was cringey or like, oh, my God, what were they thinking?
But the problem that you run into is if they are. If the center is not strong enough, that whole entire show can easily fall apart. Okay. Entirely based on that.
Yeah, yeah, that's. That's the issue that I always had with the show itself is it has this big ensemble. It has the. The husband role and all that.
And when it comes down to brass tacks, it's all on the shoulders of whoever's playing Fanny because no one has as much stage time as this person. I wouldn't even say the husband is really a co lead. I would put him in a supporting role. There are a lot of musicals where, you know, there's a couple of lead characters, and if one of them's a little bit weaker than the other, you know, they still kind of make up and, you know, hold up that slack and the show still works.
I'm really trying to rummage through my head like, okay, if one person is terrible in this, it screws the whole show. The only other thing I can think of is like, Annie. If you get a bad kid actor in Annie, everybody else, Billy Elliot. Billy Elliot.
Okay. Yeah, something like that. All the adult actors in the world acting their asses off aren't gonna save that show if the kid is just terrible. I would say Cabaret.
Okay. I mean, yes, you have your mc. Yes, you have the boyfriend or another boyfriend, her friend, who in film is played by Michael York. I can't remember the characters name right now.
I've never seen a stage vers version of Cabaret. I don't recall. I have seen the movie like twice in the last second was years ago. Yeah.
I have watched recordings of stage versions. But yeah, I would say that if you have a not great center for Cabaret, it could. It could fall apart on you too. Yeah.
So. And the beauty of Cabaret, despite how Liza Minnelli did it, is that your lead is actually supposed to Be just kind of meh. Yeah. The Sally Bowles character.
Sally Bowles is in the play. She's more. She doesn't have the. She's not supposed to have the talent chops.
Eliza Minnelli. She's just. She's supposed to be confident, but she's not supposed. And she's ambitious, but she's not supposed to be talented enough.
Yeah, that's always awkward when they're. When your character is supposed to have skill levels at a certain level, but you cast an actor or actress whose skill levels are way above that level and try to blend it together, they won't play down to what the character is. I wouldn't say playing down. I think what you need to do is be able to find the nuances in the performance that it will sound like you don't know what the hell you're doing, whilst, in fact, you're imbuing it with so much power, it singles out the performance.
Yeah. And that is really, really fucking hard to do. Do you think, though, if most people do hold off on doing their reviews until opening night, will that EW review still. That they did during previews from last night, will that still hurt it?
Or do you think if they manage to fix the issues or straight, you know, tighten and it's a much better show in a couple of weeks when it does get, you know, officially open, will that be enough to carry the day? Maybe if there are changes, it might work. It also might be, hey, it's preview jitters. It's my.
It's my debut on Broadway, I'm nervous as hell and someone just wrote a bad review. Like, there. There are a million things that could have happened here. And that doesn't mean that it won't be a bad show or that she won't get a fantastic performance.
True. And so take her a week or two or three more. Get comfortable. Yeah, exactly.
I don't have a problem with that, you know. Yeah. And when you're doing long runs like that, sometimes it's best if you can kind of ease into it. That's what previews are for.
It's for making mistakes, for fucking up. And. And that is why you charge audience members a reduced ticket. And it also allows you to tweak lines and stuff, too, because there were a couple of jokes that I recall not being in the preview that I saw, Book of Mormon that weren't there.
When I went back about a year later, they were just gone. And they were substituted lines, which is fine. It keeps it fresh for the actors. As well.
But let's get onto the meat of our episode this week. Oh, shit. We were talking about the wrong show on Broadway then, apparently. Well, we're talking about something that's had some bad reviews in the past.
The Fantastic Beasts franchise. Our Harry Potter prequel series of films that have not seemed to gone over well with fans and with critics, still make just enough money to least get a second sequel now. Third sequel. Yeah, it's the third film.
Yeah. The Secrets of Dumbledore. Dumbledore, yes. You almost like Granvald.
I did. Because I'm still kind of stuck on that. Yeah. Grimwold, the Secrets of Dumbledore and.
Well, first of all, let's just preface this conversation by saying there's gonna be spoilers. I'm gonna have to deal in spoilers to talk about some of this stuff. I would agree. Okay, so right off the top, where are you feeling?
Okay, let's. Before I add, at the end of the last film, I want to start literally with us walking out of the theater at the critics screening. Four Crimes of Grimdalwolf. I was ballsy that night.
Yes, you were. I was on fire. We were coming out with a bunch of critics. There's also some average folk there because it was a word of mouth screening as well.
And the publicists from the marketing firm who do, you know, that run all the stuff in our region, approached you for a kind of pulling, you know, the critics who were there for, you know, for some quotes or some feedback. And I jumped in and she knew me because of. Just from working with me all the time. I don't think she realized that you, outside of being my guest at Escane, were also like my podcast co host.
But I was trying to politely beg out because I just didn't think Crimes of Grindelwald was all that good. I was disappointed with it. I thought it was a sloppy mess. Slightly less sloppy than the first Fantastic Beast movie.
And you were far kinder than I was. And I was just in the process of just trying to be like, let me go. Let me slide out of here without hurting anybody's feelings or anything. And you said, I have a quote for you.
I think J.K. rowling needs to go back and read our own books. Yep. And I guess they didn't take it too seriously because we continue to get invites back to screenings.
But you've never seen me like that. No, you were livid. I was very, very, very. You're a super diehard Harry Potter fan, though.
Well, there are definitely more die hard fans Than I. Well, true, but I would consider myself a Potter fan. Yes, yes, you're much more of a Potter fan than I am. I like the movies.
I'm intrigued by the lore and the world building and I'm fascinated by some of the mechanics of the wizarding world and how they relate to the mundane world and things like that. But this just didn't feel right. It didn't feel good to me how they. Some of this stuff in terms of exploring these.
The larger world with the character of Newt Scamander. And I was very disappointed in the second film because it kind of moved even further away from what the first film had promised us in a way. You follow what I'm saying? Yeah, it was definitely setting things up in a different light.
I liked what they were doing. I liked the idea of starting a wizard Muggle war. I mean, that has been something that Harry Potter has really kind of delved into a lot was this idea of Pure Bloods, Wizards vs. Muggles, and whose world is it actually?
And why do we have to hide? And for their sake. Because Muggles are idiots, but they're like ants, so that need to be squished or conquered. And it felt like it was heading towards World War II, which we're late 20s, probably heading towards early 30s at this point.
So I thought that was a nice we're under 10 years away kind of thing. But the end sequence of the last movie where it is announced by Grindelwald, Johnny Depp at the time to a character by the name of Credence played by Ezra Miller, that he is a Dumbledore by blood and that his name is Aurelius Dumbledore. I was. Did I actually audibly yell what the.
In the movie theater? I don't recall. And if you had, I probably would recall that. So I might have mumbled under my breath.
So do you. How do you feel about how they further explored that with Secrets of Dumbledore? Okay. I.
Now that I know kind of what they were getting at for this movie, I feel a little bit better about it. But had other elements of that backstory with Aurelius come into play? It hadn't come into play, I would still be absolutely lit about it. The problem I always ran into is in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, there's pretty much a chapter, almost a chapter and a half, about Dumbledore's backstory and his relationship with Geller, Grindelwald and their.
Their obsession over the Deathly Hallows, the Elder Wand, the Resurrection Stone and the Cloak of Invisibility which were said to make one masters of death. Gellert has the elder one. Yes. And we know Dumbledore obtains the cloak of invisibility from James Potter and he had the Resurrection Stone.
But it talked about their. Their friendship. They never actually describe it in the books as being that they were lovers, but it was always kind of insinuated outside of the books by J.K. rowling.
She told us they were, and it was. They were together. But it also dealt with his family relationships with his sister Aurelia, who is very young when she died, his brother Abba, forth their mother, who was killed in an explosion of a building caused by Aurelia's magic that she couldn't control. Kind of almost in the way that Credence is.
And how all three of them, meaning Grindelwald and the two Dumbledore brothers, had been in a fight that caused Aurelia's death. Like all of that was in Deathly Hallows, but never discussed in the movies. It was never talked about. It never went into any sort of backstory.
It was just like, Here, here's ABBA 4th Dumbledore. We're throwing him in because he actually does need to be in the last movie, but we're not going to tell you why he's here or that he even existed prior to this. That's. That's part of the process of adaption, though, when you have, oh, blame me.
I know. But once we got here and Dumbledore was starting to play a little more of a role when he was younger and considering the relationship between him and Grindelwald, it felt necessary that we need to see more of the Dumbledore brothers of Aberforth in the last movie. I was very angry at the end of the movie that they had introduced this. I'm gonna say this a fake Dumbledore, a new fake Dumbledore, instead of actually explore the ones that already exist that got gypped in the last series.
Okay, that's fair. When he was a very integral part of that relationship, that three way relationship. I think we got a lot of him though, this time around. Exactly.
Which is nice. And had they not done that, I would still be as pissed about the Aurelius introduction. But making Aberforth his father makes more sense. Okay.
It did feel, as I'm thinking about it now, think looking at how mad you were back then and everything, and how much I think caused, you know, as a buzz within Potter fandom. It was kind of like Potter fandom's Luke, I am your Father moment in Empire. And, you know, I had three years to wait to find out if that was true or not. That's pretty much what happened with us.
We had about three years to wait, but most of us. Well, Covid is partly responsible for that, but we didn't take it very well because it was a slap in the face to that backstory, that wonderful, fantastic backstory that we got about Dumbledore and Grindelwald and Aberforth and Aurelia and their mother and all that. Like, that was very, very important that we see finally shown. Considering this story now is dealing primarily with Grindelwald and Dumbledore.
So come on, if. Okay, you're fine with Revelation now because of how it was developed in this movie, right? Yes. So if they had given some of that in the previous movie, do you think that would have allayed your fears going in or coming out of the second film?
If you had. If they had at least introduced Aberforth, just see him in one scene, one little scene, and that we knew that somehow there would be a chance of that story being told, we would have been able to stomach that final reveal at the end of Times of Grindelwald a little bit better. Okay, okay, that's fair. The ending of this film, where to break that blood oath when Grindelwald shoots his wand to kill and both Dumbledores raise their wands to protect.
I thought that was a really nice moment of, you know, Albus puts his up to defend against Grindelwald, but Aberforth is defending his son in that moment. And I think that that helps heal the wound caused by what happened. I think Albus at that moment is defending his nephew. Yeah, but also he's trying to stop Grindelwald from doing something that he thinks Grindelwald will be remorseful about or regret later.
He's like, I don't want you to be a murderer. Although I think that ship has already sailed. What I see here in that moment was history repeating itself as it. That's pretty much what happened with Aurelia.
All three of their wands. Well, they said in the backstory there that all three of their wands went up. They couldn't tell which style killer. So I like the idea that instead of those two firing back at Grindelwald, they were pretty much creating a shield for a victim.
So history didn't repeat itself. Now, part of my problem with this movie, though, is what you just said. A lot of backstory, a lot of explanations, a lot of yapping. We've got.
We get some backstory and explanation about the Dumbledore boys. And by the way, that's the same painting. Yeah, it is. It's the same room, too.
Oh, okay, okay. From Deadly Hollows. And was it because I watched the first two Fantastic Beasts again right up before, you know, like a couple of days before I went to see did it again. Secrets of Dumbledore.
Secrets of Dumbledore. Did they use the Room of Requirement in this one or the last one? This one. This one.
Okay. So, yes, there's another, you know, Potter Potter reference there. Feels like they're trying to tie it a little bit more towards the original series. I don't know how much they can do if, you know, your.
Your main story is at 60 years before everything else, but. Well, actually, it can get pretty, pretty close because we're about 20 years away from Voldemort open not even 20 years away from Baltimore opening chamber secrets, probably about 10 years. So if, I mean, there is a possibility you can start laying things down. And Grindelwald did kind of inspire Voldemort to begin with.
And for all of you guys, boys and girls, listening at home waiting for this great giant epic battle where Dumbledore and get like, fight to the death. You should probably know that Gellert does not die canonically. No, he doesn't. No.
And there's actually a scene in. In Deathly Hallows where Voldemort goes to visit him to find out who has the Elder Wand, and he's the one that tells Voldemort, guess what? It's buried with a guy that you had murdered. So.
So where does the franchise. Okay, let's set aside the fact that right now this is the cursed franchise. Between Covid delays, J.K. rowling's transphobic statements on Twitter, Ezra Miller being his own giant issue for two franchises at Warner Brothers, right now, having to deal with Johnny Depp.
If this franchise goes forward and the box office right now doesn't look too promising, if this franchise goes forward, do they continue to do stuff and maybe, you know, get up to that moment of Tom Riddle opening the Chamber of Secrets? How do you see these last two allegedly planned movies playing? What should they do to bring fans back? Because it doesn't seem like the fans are flocking to these films in even a small fraction of how they used to come to Harry Potter films themselves.
I think they need to introduce a couple of players from the original story. We started to see that a little bit in this one where we got Minerva McGonagall. She was in the last one, she got, like, two lines. It was like, oh, wait, isn't that supposed to be McGonagall and that.
Yeah, but I would have casted someone a little bit if they're going to expand on that role over the past, a bigger name. The problem you're running into right now is most of the people in the cast, and I applaud them for doing this, but it's also not a box office draw, is they were casting a lot of unknowns. I mean, Catherine Waterson, Eddie Redmayne are well known. Dan Vogler is well known in certain circles.
I love him, but he's known in certain circles. He's wonderful. And he's not exactly the biggest boss office drop. They give him so much to do here.
Oh, he's so good in this. He's so good. He's the center of, I think, this entire franchise. Not so much Eddie Redmayne as his Muggle portrayal.
What I would like to see done with this is you and I were talking about this the other night. This film ends with finally Dan Fogler's character of Jacob Kowalski marrying Queenie Goldstein, who is a witch. I said Queenie Goldstein. I know.
I'm just. Oh, yeah. Who is a witch. So we are seeing one of the first major players of a inner intermatic, intermagical marriage.
And it was being used at the end of the movie by Grindelwald for a brief moment, as this is what they want. They want us mixing. He pointed at them as if he knew that by those two getting married, he may not even have to make a statement. They're going to make a statement of their own, and the magical community will be up in arms about it.
I think he manipulated that just right. But he's pretty much just trying to start a race war. Yeah. Oh, God, yeah.
And I mean, for the time period, too. That's great, because, you know, you're in the late 20s. This is like when the Kuxlan was starting to rise in the South. I think that's an interesting parallel.
I wish the movie had some stuff that took place in the US So you can maybe see that. Some more stuff, like in the south of the U.S. yeah. And I love how in the magical community, obviously color and race is not an issue whether you are magical or not.
And how much of your. Your family is magical is more the issue. Yeah. They have their version of that.
Yeah. It almost becomes a cast system for wizards and witches, too. Yeah. But again, spoilers for pretty much the end of this movie.
The. The plot line of Queenie going over to Grindelwald side and coming back. That's resolved. We have a happy ending here for credence.
For credence. Queenie and Jacob get married after being sidelined for the entire movie. Probably because the actress said she stood with trans people. Also, she might have been filming something else.
Maybe both. I'm not sure she was filming other things. But, yep, she's back. And she and Newt seem to look poised to continue their relationship.
Everybody's kind of got a happy ending. Except the only loose plot thread you have is Grindelwald still out there. If they don't go forward, do you think this is a satisfactory conclusion to this arc of the movies? If they decide to not go forward?
They've kind of wrapped it up quite nicely here. The magical community has turned its back on Grindelwald after his attempt to hoodwink them into making him the ruler of pretty much a confederation of wizards across the world. That's why it's a confederation. Is this a the first time we've seen or heard of that?
Because I always just assumed that, okay, the wizarding world's nations broke down along the same borders of non magical nations. Yeah. So, like, it was just. Yeah, we had the US Congress of Magic or whatever that was.
So, you know, it was all just. It's something was like, there's something introducing, like, you know, this other thing that's on top of that. And it's their version of the un but the UN has an actual governing body. Yes.
And this is like somebody's gonna be the head of their version of the magical un. Was that ever mentioned before Zenith Books, or is this just something new that was layered on the border section has been mentioned before. Just like other nations have other schools. The confederation, I don't remember.
I don't think it has. Or if it was. It was just kind of a brief, you know, meh. And then it just continued on its own way.
It felt like, oh, there's this other thing, and that's what he's gonna take over this time. It felt, I don't say forced, but I was like, oh, really? Suddenly we have this. You know, it just seemed to come back.
I think it might have been mentioned one other place at one point, but it was never actually delved into. The issue that I've always had with breaking down the borders and all that is that Voldemort was never really the biggest threat. I never really considered him the biggest threat, comparatively to Grindelwald. Grindelwald's plans were always bigger they were.
They were worldwide plans. Whether or not they succeeded, he definitely was thinking on a global scale. Whereas Voldemort makes everything personal. He does darker shit.
He will kill and torture. And his stuff is, he is worse than Grindelwald in his crimes and his acts, but he was pretty much just England. I'm pretty sure I'm recalling Voldemort not really caring or probably tacitly instructing Bella. Bellatrix, Bellatrix to kill a baby at one point in the movies.
And like the last one or the second to last one, like they had already killed the people in the house and then there's just like the baby sitting on the floor and they both kind of come in and he walks out and you just hear a zha. And the babies go. And they don't say that, yes, she killed the baby, but. Or was it.
Maybe it was. I can't. I honestly can't remember where it is now. Maybe it was in between rewatching all the Harry Potter movies just a few months ago for the 20th anniversary.
I don't think that's in the movies at all. Then maybe. Is it maybe in the Fantastic Beast movies then? Because I can't.
I. That was in Fantastic Beasts. Okay. That was in.
That was in Crown. It was in one of the apartments in Paris. Okay, that's it. See, it all starts to smush together after a while, unfortunately.
I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No. But Bellatrix never needed really any prodding.
She was. She was his right hand. She was just as bad as she. As he was.
But they don't work. She doesn't work without him. Yeah. She is.
The Dark Lord is the only person that she is subservient to. Everyone else is terrified of her and she makes it so she is a power in her own right. His crimes were definitely worse, but he wasn't thinking big enough because it always became very personal. It was always about him, his vision, and the Potters to kind of get back though, to Fantastic Beasts.
And one of my major disappointments with this franchise. Yes, we discover we have new beasts that are introduced every. Every movie now. But it's not just to explore the wonder of the wizarding world.
It seems like some of these new beasts and creatures are there because the plot needs them to do something for us. I mean, obviously the Niffler is hung around for a while. Yeah, he's a platypus with a shiny disposition. And to use an old Dungeons and Dragons magical item, he has a bag of holding for his pouch.
He can Just throw anything in there and just keeps going there and going there, just waiting. And of course, we have the bloodsharkle. Yeah. But it seems like in the last movie there was like one or two things that just kind of helped them.
All of a sudden, we never see again this movie. We had that thing that turned into a balloon and floated them away. And I guarantee you, if this franchise or we're never going to see that thing again ever. It just felt like, oh, we need to get them here.
Let's make a magic beastie to do it. And then we had to. I would actually have to pull out my copy of Fantastic Beasts and go through them. They might not actually be in the book.
The book is not an actual, like, novel. Yeah, I know, I know, I know. It's an encyclopedia. Yeah, it's a fictional encyclopedia.
Yeah, it might be in there. Like those Star Trek ship of the line books and stuff like that. And that's the thing is, most of those, I would have to go back and actually look in the book and see if those things are in there or not. And if they are, that's fair.
But I'm looking at it as a, you know, just from a movie standpoint, it feels like very convenient that certain things show up that they can use. And we also have the magical deer horse thing that shows who has the purest heart. And that's how they vote for the president of this confederation. And I hate to say it, I hate to say it, but this level of how they portray the.
Don't go Phantom Menace, please. You were about to compare the Phantom Menace. This is about as exciting as the taxation of trade routes. I like the taxation of trade route.
That's actually. That was the best part of the film for me. Oh, you are a nerd, my dear. It just seems like an odd thing to hang the film on, ultimately.
And. Well, no, I think. I think it's a very valid point to have in a story, particularly one aimed at kids, is this idea of having a pure heart, of being kind of being gentle, that even in politics, sometimes your greatest leaders are obviously the ones who are the most uncorrupt. I like the idea of it trying for a new generation, given our current climate in the past few years, to kind of instill a bit of hope in our governing bodies.
That's fair. Okay. I'll give you that. It's just that I love, like, layered political discussions and stuff like that, you know, scooped into a movie because, you know, politics are in the real world.
Why not in your Fantasy world as well. They're going to move. You know, everything's politics, really. But here I was just kind of like, I just wasn't.
For whatever reason, it just didn't click with me. And I felt also, I felt the ending just kind of drug on once they get to, you know, once they start going up this. The hill. Up.
Yeah, up all the steps to the top of the temple or whatever. And there's parts where we see like Newt running up those steps to stop something. And like, how come no one seems to see him? Because this looks like a lone crazy person barging into something.
And why aren't there any guards? Why is he allowed to run like this? There was. There's a lot of things that I was just like, this needs another polish.
This needs a little bit more of a reef of a think through on some of these things on how this all plays out. Now, granted, this script is so much better than the last two. Steve Clovis. Yes, Steve Clovis, who adapted seven of the eight movies of the main Potter franchise.
I'd love to see the original script that Rowling turned in versus what they shot. I'd love to sit there and just do a page by page comparison to see exactly what he brought. Because I think it's probably really fantastic what he brought. No pun intended.
Fantastic. But I need to talk about something that we have not even touched upon. I don't even think we've mentioned their name. Okay, go.
Mads Mikkelsen. Mads Mikkelsen. We haven't even said his name once on this podcast. Fucking wonderful.
Is he as Grindelwald, the replacement for Johnny Depp? Oh, my God. I liked Johnny Depp as Grindelwald. I didn't think it was his greatest performance, but it felt nice that I could actually see Johnny Depp giving a performance instead of his makeup giving a performance for once.
You see, I thought Depp was a little too architect. Not quite super self conscious that I'm playing the bad guy, but he felt like I'm the bad guy here. I felt for the first two films, I feel like that's what was needed. But once you get into this story, you needed something more layered.
Yes, Mads Mikhsen definitely brings it because this is much more about the character of Grindelwald. He's not, as I referred to him recently, either here or when I was guest hosting over on Loud and Nerdy. He's not magikiller this time around. He's actually a much layered character and I like that.
And Mads brings it. Him and Jude are perfect. It's amazing. I think the first scene is so good.
The rest of the movie does suffer in comparison. I would agree with you. I was blown away by that opening sequence. When he shows up and turns and looks at Jude Law for the first time.
It was almost like that there was a twinkle in his eye and a pain. There was a lot said without words in that sequence. I know, and it was one of those things. I'm sitting there in the theater going, oh, my God, why are people sleeping on this movie?
I understand, you know. You know, being upset with Rowling and the Ezra Miller and Johnny Depp of it all, but, oh, my God, this scene is. And then the rest of it was okay, but. But it wasn't.
It wasn't as good as that. That opening sequence and that opening sequence. If it cost Warner Brothers $200 million just for that opening sequence, I'm fine with that. Yeah, me too.
It's, you know, and it's a shame that, you know, it was just so good out of the gate that it had no choice but to stumble. It wasn't going to sustain. Great way to kind of open the film and get people hooked thinking that it was going to be better than what it was. This movie is good.
It is definitely the better of the two films that I saw that day in the theater, as I saw Morbius that morning. And as much as I will say this really quick, Jared Leto and Matt Smith in the first half of the film feels like Mads and Jude here in that first scene. Yeah, okay. And then the second film, second half of the film of Morbius goes so far deep down into the shitter, it just can't recover here.
This one only stumbles and falls to its knees. It doesn't go straight down to hell. Now, openly, though, Fantastic Beasts, the Secrets of Dumbledore is still just slightly worse than the worst of the Harry Potter films. Whichever Harry Potter film you don't like the most or whichever you don't like the least or you like the least, this is still gonna be below that.
I actually don't think there really is any bad Harry Potter film. I don't think so either. But there are some that are definitely much better than others. I think the first two, and I said this before, which is interesting, considering the first two have the most amount of Academy Award nominations to it.
Say, yeah, yeah, I know. This is my feelings here. Fly in the face. No, no, with three.
That's when it got an energy to it. Yeah. The first two, I think are very. They're for children, are almost too referential to the books and they don't allow themselves to flex and be movies telling the same story.
So that's. That's my problem. That's my beef with the first two. If I was to just rewatch a Harry Potter movie just for the heck of it I had a rainy Sunday afternoon, it wouldn't be the first two.
I probably pick up with either three or four. I think the first two are great for the holiday season. There's something about it. It does make it feel like it's good for, like.
Yeah, it does feel holidayish for some reason. But. But even though. Even though Secrets of Dumbledore is the best of the fantastic beast movies, I'd still put it a little bit below the first two Harry Potter movies, which I feel are subjectively the worst of that part of the franchise, even though they're still fairly good movies.
I have to ask you a question. Consider, and I think I asked you this same question when the last movie came out. But now that we've seen how the character develops, do you think Jude Law is playing a good Dumbledore? He's the only character from the Harry Potter franchise that has a very large role in this one.
So we have 60 years from the point where Jude Law's Dumbledore is to the beginning of the Harry Potter films. That's a lot of room for growth and change. However, I can see the Dumbledore that we are familiar with from the Harry Potter films within his performance. He's got a twinkle.
He's got a little bit of a twinkle. Earnestness, Faith. He has faith in the goodness of people, which I think is very important because that comes into play very much in the Harry Potter films or books too. I love that he is very honest.
Right out the gate. I need you to trust me. Even when every instinct tells you not to. That is something I think that even in the Harry Potter franchise has always been prevalent that people will blindly follow him because his nature is.
It's not just powerful, it is a force for good and change in the world. Yeah. And we can see in both three versions of the character because there's two actors who played. Who played Dumbledore in Harry Potter that, you know, they're still carrying.
Even though he got some sort of closure in this movie, he's still carrying that. That pain of losing his sister, of not having a good relationship with his brother and the star crossed lovers. Yeah. And ultimately, you know how things unfortunately fell Apart with his relationship with, and even with all of that, he still remains positive and forward looking.
That moment with the chillin bows before him and he kneels down to it and he's like, nope. Well yeah, he says no. But I think he also realizes that he doesn't desire power almost in a way that if Gandalf had the One ring, it wouldn't be good, it would corrupt him. And he, I think that is a fear of his, that drives his witness.
I, I don't think if he were in that position though, he would allow himself to be corrupted. At worst, I would see him possibly paralyzed at points as to what to do because he's trying to avoid being corrupted and he might even be afraid of that as well. I, I think Dude Law's portrayal in this is just ah, this is, this is going to be a rough thing to say considering it's the film itself. I think it's one of the best performances he's given in a very, very long time.
Obviously King Arthur didn't do it. Sherlock Holmes didn't do it. I like Sherlock Holmes, but it's not a big performance role. No, no.
Like he's been so attached to these big blockbusters that are not exactly the most character driven aspects. I mean Captain Marvel. No, Anna. Anna Karenina back in 2012 was like the last character based role I saw him do that was 10 years ago.
And I was very impressed that between him and Mads, they just brought a next level to the performances in this film. And I feel, I feel terrible. Freddie Redmayne, he gets himself an Oscar, ends up in a nomination next year for Things Girl Books. Fantastic Beasts.
It's his first headlining, you know, franchise and now he's just kind of stuck in it. He didn't do anything for a little while and he was just in Cabaret as the MC in the West End. But it was a limited run, him and Jesse Buckley together. He's kind of just so strapped into Fantastic Beasts right now.
He really hasn't been able to do much of anything else and I think it's gonna hurt him. Well, like I said before the box office on this, you know, we're now, we're late to review this, so it's about 10, we're about 10 days out from the release of this film and it's not looking great. It's looking better overseas, but it's not looking great here in the US and Warner's hasn't given the go ahead for 4 and 5 yet. So like I said before though, maybe this is the conclusion of this thing.
Because hey, most people do have a happy ending here and you just have one major plot thread hanging. But that can be addressed elsewhere, maybe never again. Because we sort of know what happens ultimately to begin with. I mean, yeah, arrested and tossed in the Puskow.
Well, there was. There was talks of a potential Potter spin off series for HBO Max at one point. If they decide to end it here and then try to continue with something maybe 10, 12 years from now, maybe right during World War II. But make that for the.
For television set, it might do better maybe because then we can see that his plans to create a war happen within a war using World War II as cover to start his own war against the Muggles manipulating countries into. Well, if I can get them just to exterminate themselves, it's a whole lot easier. And it would also add in the extra level of Voldemort being at school right around the. Right around the same time or a little bit after.
So of course he would be very much aware of the tactics of Grindelwald and he would already be formulating his own plan within himself. I think I would really like to see that development because in the books there were a lot more scenes going back in time discussing the Horcruxes he went after. Like we see him at an old lady's house, kind of taking care of her. But in truth he's going after the cup of Helga Hufflepuff that she holds.
So we know she's now dead. Yeah, I mean, like I said, there's a lot to explore. I would be welcome to seeing more of that exploration. Warner has a lot of difficult decisions ahead of themselves to.
I'd like to see a show about the Marauders. So young Rennes, James, Lily Severus, Peter and Sirius from their time at school. I think it'd be interesting to see the development of the Death Eaters and how they were, you know, brought over to the Dark Lord side. I think it'd be interesting to see Voldemort's young age finally portrayed up on the screen and how he may have taken some of the teachings of Gillette Grindelwald and utilize those for his grand plans.
Lots, lots of potential there. Hopefully Warners will be able to develop it in ways that will excite more of the fan base we will be seeing. And hopefully the next few weeks we'll hear an announcement either way. True.
But I think that about wraps us up though for this week. Remember, you can find us [email protected] and we are now available on itunes, Stitcher and Google Play. So either use the link in the show notes post or head directly there. Search and hit subscribe.
And if you like what you're listening, feel free to give us a positive review because that always helps us connect with more listeners. We'll be back next week with more news and reviews, and that's all right here on the Big Picture Podcast. Never believed in things that I couldn't see I said if I can't feel it how could it be no, no magic what happened to me and then I saw you I couldn't believe it you took my heart I couldn't retrieve it said to myself what's it all about? Now I know there can be no doubt you can do magic you can have anything that you desire magic and you know you're the one to get without the fire.