Alright, 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 some sort of context. Seated across the microphone from me, as always, is Film Buff Online, editor in chief, rich trees.
And seated across the microphone from me. As always, and I'm so glad it's always Film Buff Online, contributing editor, Natasha but Gutsky. How you doing? Hey, not bad.
Hey, I wanted to, um, to have a production meeting with you right here on the air. Okay, let's, let's just start off with that. Yeah, I'm just the trailer segment. Can we bring that back?
Ladies and gentlemen, do you want us to bring that back? Oh, I hope not. Well, it was about an extra two hours of production work. Made editing a bit.
Yes. And remember, we refined things down a little bit to cut out production time. I know, but every now and then there is, there's a good trailer that pops up, and I'm just like, I want to share this with the world. Is there a specific one you saw this week that you want to talk about, though?
No. Okay. Alright, well, I mean, we can always, if one definitely catches our eye, we can do that. Yay.
Okay. So, but, um, what did you catch your eye this week in terms of? Oh, come on. You know what you want to talk about.
So just get cut to the chase. What do I want to talk about? There's so many things I want to talk about. Oh, there you go.
Uh, you mean the news from earlier today, which I messaged you at work? Uh, okay. Yes. Very exciting.
It was announced today that a sequel is now in the works for one of the best movies of 2018. A simple favor. Whoo! In their return.
Wait, is Paul big returning to drink? Yes, he is. Thank God. Blake Lively wouldn't be Blake Lively's character without that damn walking sick pauphics, which was amazing.
Um, yes, both Anna Kendrick and Blake Lively are back. No word yet as to any of the other, uh, moms and dads from the school group coming back like Andrew Reynolds and I can't remember who else was in there. Um, but I'm excited. So am I.
I mean, I really loved this movie and not just because of the clothing or it's use of French music. Oh, the French pop stuff. Oh, that was fantastic. Yeah.
I still can't get my hands on that soundtrack on vinyl, by the way. They had it briefly on Amazon and then it just went go bluey. And now I am on the hunt. So if anyone has a copy, I'm willing to pay for it.
Um, no, I really, really love that movie. I thought it was fun. It really introduced Henry Goldling, one of his early movies that kind of introduced him to the world. If you happen to miss Crazy Rich Asians, uh, this was before that.
Oh, yeah, that's right. I think he filmed Crazy Rich Asians before this, but this came out first. Mm hmm. Yeah.
It was definitely that time period of like you got Gone Girl, Woman on the Train, like thrillers like that that were female centric as not being the good guy. But here it was just not necessarily like a femme fatale either. No. So that was, yeah.
So yeah, that's, that's one thing I appreciated about it. Yeah, um, but here it just, it was funny. It felt more real. It was stylized in a particular way that you didn't really need to go as heavy and just overdramatic as possible.
They were having so much fun with it. You could tell that whole third act. Oh, yeah. It's a twisty attorney, uh, but it all holds up very well.
Yeah, and the whole, I shot my, you know, I shot my husband. I killed this person, this person. You think I don't have the, the goal that killed my best friend? It's like, wait, I'm not really your best friend.
Like you're not just saying, no, of course not. Like there's fun and poetry and there's a rhythm to the dialogue that makes it snappy and just a joy to watch. Oh gosh, yeah. Um, yeah.
The movie was made for like $20 million grossed, 97 million worldwide at the box office. A lot of people still slept on it, um, but it's been making the rounds recently. Yeah, I definitely say, you know, it's found a bigger audience even beyond that. Um, yeah, definitely on video on streaming.
Um, also, I've been noticing, I know I say this a lot in flux of people enjoying it over on TikTok. Um, there is, there's like a, like a bi lesbian side of TikTok that craves and loves movies, like a simple favor, oceans eight, so on and so forth. There, there's that vibe. Yeah.
Without it kind of being text. Exactly. No, not just being text, not being played for the laugh or anything like that. It's just there.
Okay. Which is great. Which is something I think we talked about, uh, in terms of, you know, things that we may eventually get to make. Yeah.
Where character's sexuality is part of the character, but not part of the story. Exactly. Um, kind of like killing even away. I would definitely say that simple plan came out.
I mean, we're going to four years, right around the exact same time. So there was, there was also that, um, what movement of films like that. Yeah. Where we had oceans eight, we had, we had a simple favor.
We had killing Eve on television. Like all these characters, these women who are strong, they're threatening. They are slightly LGBTQ, um, they're, they're, but they're just normal. Like it's not like we have to make a big thing about it.
They're just there. Now the, there's two points about this story though that I'm a little, just a little leery about. One, um, the original film was based on a novel. Yes.
There is no source material for this sequel. So they're going to be kind of moving forward, creating their own thing. Um, on the plus side though, the screenwriter who adapted the novel for the movie is the one who's doing the script for simple favor part two. Oh, that's marvelous.
So I've always said that the person who kind of knows the material is the one who should definitely be working it. Like, oh yeah. With Secrets of Dumbledore, sorry, JK Rowling, you may know your books, but Steve Clovis knows the material and knows how to adapt it properly for film. Yes.
Yes. Yeah. That's a whole separate conversation and, but like I said, if you miss, if you want to know more about that conversation though, go back and check out our Secrets of Dumbledore episode. Trust me, we go into it.
Yes. And, um, the other thing that kind of bums me out, it wasn't specified, but this is being produced between Lionsgate and Amazon. Which means you're afraid it's going to go to streaming. Yes, it's going to go straight to streaming.
And I'd rather sit in a theater with people and watch this. I would agree with you. This is a fun one that I feel like should be in the theater. However, it found its base on streaming.
Yeah. It didn't, it made waves in the theater, but not as much as it should have. And when it went to streaming, when it went to Hulu and a few other places, like I didn't catch it, it was on Hulu. I mean, I remember it briefly hitting a wave and I was just like, I got other things I want to see.
And I'd never caught up with it. Man, was I an idiot, but I think, because I saw it in the theater and I went by myself. And I think I even called you afterwards. I was like, I think you'd really like this.
I think you did too. And I just never got around to it until I was in quarantine with COVID. And I was busy people. It's okay.
Yeah. And I was knocking out movies left, right, and center, you know, for two and a half weeks. And I finally caught up with that one. And I think I called you afterwards going, I'm a moron.
You don't normally admit that either. So the fact that you would, while I'm recording is certainly something. I was a moron about this. But there were many things that he bows to me.
True. True. Oh, it did that. But not just, you know, this film and not seeing it in a theater.
It's part of this bigger pattern of small and mid-range budgeted films that are just getting chucked at streaming and bypassing the theatrical window altogether. But we don't know that yet. There's still a possibility they may stick it in the theater if they do. It won't be for long.
Oh, yeah. But there is always the possibility that that can happen. Yeah, in this particular case. But in general, we're seeing a lot more of, you know, comedies and films going, you know, mid-range stuff going to director streaming and theatrical becoming more of a blockbuster only thing.
Yeah. I would agree with you with the exception of A24, which is they kind of, I don't want to say they refused to have anything to do with streaming, but they prefer the theatrical experience. I would say like some genre stuff, like the A24 stuff, the Blum House is also really good about, you know, getting a theatrical, because you want to go see a film like nope in the theater with a bunch of people. You don't want to sit at Blumwatch.
It's not going to be a mid-range film. They got Jordan Peele as the executive producer, which is their guarantee. Yeah, but the budget on that can't be more than 50 million. But he always guarantees a blockbuster.
True. So it doesn't matter what the mid-range budget is. It matters what you think your number at the end of the day is going to be. Yeah, but I'm talking more about mid-range budgeted, like dramas or sometimes comedies, things like that.
And that's- Yeah, you're not going to see a whole lot of those outside of awards season at this point in the theater. Yeah, I'm going to miss that if that trend continues, because- Unfortunately, I'm pretty certain it will. I know I've warned you that theatrical as well as physical media will sooner or later just become obsolete. Oh, exactly.
It will. And I think- I don't want to call it another nail in physical media's coffin, but today, and I don't have it pulled up here in front of me. I apologize. I'm just remembering what I read earlier.
Redbox was bought, and they're doing away with the vending machines and going to become a streaming service. Yeah, that was bound to happen sooner or later, because I had started to see a decline in the Redbox rental vending machines in this area for probably the last few months. I have a friend who regularly will go to them because he doesn't have a car. Or on occasion, he'll be like, look, I'm sick at home.
I really want to watch a movie, but I don't feel like walking to Redbox. Can you pick it up for me? Or he'll ask me to drop one off on my way home. But more and more, I've been having a hard time finding them when I need to return one.
And yeah, this is going to hurt. Yeah, it's definitely going to hit the major studios. Because let's face it, Redbox gets the major films. They don't get them suddenly not buying physical discs for every title, a couple thousand for all their locations.
It's not going to significantly impact Criterion or Shout Factory or some of those smaller boutique labels. They'll still continue. This is going to definitely hurt Warner Home video. There's a lot of VOD stuff, though, that goes to Redbox.
Really? Oh, yeah, down near the bottom, right above the family movies. That's where you'll find them. Because I don't rent from Redbox.
Yeah, I used to see one at the wise market around the corner from me when I used to go in there. It wasn't a Redbox. It was like a generic Redbox machine. Movie box.
It was something like that. And they would always have the big major blockbusters and their releases near the top, filter it through different genres. And then they would show the family movies at the bottom. Where the little kids can see them and go.
I'm sonic. Exactly. A couple of years ago, when you would go into, say, Walmart in their movie department, there was always a case of everything's kind of mixed together, all these little B-level movies, low budget. I remember there were a lot of them that were made by Nick Cage for a while.
And I was like, oh, Nick Cage. I'm like, put it down. It's a piece of shit. I'm like, just look at the cover art.
So I don't think that there's no offense to Nick Cage. He's making a comeback. Oh my goodness. And you have not seen.
No, I haven't seen Pig yet either. And I've heard Pig is really, really fucking good. Same here. But I think a movie like Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is just it's very much Nick Cage and acknowledging Nick Cage, as well as just really good.
It's on a certain level where it's like a deconstruction of himself. In a way, I don't think we've really ever seen in a movie before, which I really like. And I love that because there are not a lot of actors out there that have built up this mythos around him of not only being a good actor, but being an absolute shit actor, just go watch Wicker Man. And the bees.
Of being an amazing actor, of being a shit actor and being just knows not to take himself too seriously and does what he needs to do. He'll take whatever work during that time when he was going through his financial problems and has gone through this level and still kind of made it back to the top with his reputation still intact. I've seen books that are already out about Nick Cage's career. And I'm like, guys, I appreciate it.
But it's like trying to write a restaurant review mid-slurp through your spoonful of soup, because we're not done yet with this at all. And I'm anxious. I wish him a longer life. I wish me a longer life so I could get the whole arc of his career.
I don't want to die going, I wonder what Nick Cage is going to do first. I love Russell Crowe. You know this, but he's gone through almost something similar. He's had a very unusual career arc.
Yeah, he was riding high for a while, then his little incident with the phone happened, and he started to slump down. He was still kind of riding high for a while, where he was leading man work, and then all of a sudden bought him. Wife divorces, and he has to start taking whatever he can get, whatever he offered. It's not the biggest name anymore, but he's cracked out some really good work in between that.
There was that one about, oh god, I can't remember the name of it at this moment, but with Nicole Kidman a couple of years ago about the gay conversion. Yeah, I didn't watch that though. I have not seen that. I haven't either.
My mom has a copy of a mean to borrow it, but I've heard great things about it. But then, of course, you get the mummy. The mummy is not his fault at all. No, he was great in it.
The fault there in might lie upon the lead of you in the film. The first person who is listed on the call sheet for that. To be honest, because of that bullshit, he is really pissing me off, and I don't really enjoy seeing a lot of his movies anymore. They're pretty much all the same at this point.
I'm getting dragged to see Top Gun, and every time I see the trailer, and he cracks that little witty joke at the beginning and does his charming smile, I want to punch him in his goddamn face. That's the problem. There are times when Tom Cruise can be absolutely charming, and I find him charming at times. Yeah.
I kind of like what he does in the Mission Impossible films is Ethan Hunt. That is like the exception to the role at this point. Um, and I think he's turned into like a fantastic performance in some films, like Magnolia. Oh, yeah.
But you admit it's still like, wow. Yes. But there are other times where he's just coasting and he's so smug and you're right. You just want to plaster his nose across the inside of the back of his skull.
Am I right about that moment in the trailer? Yeah. I was never a fan. Here's my problem with the first Top Gun, and I know everybody lives Top Gun.
I haven't seen it in so long. I can't fucking even remember it. It's very well made. I will give it that.
It's very, very, very well made. But his character is such an irredeemable dick through the whole movie. I just, it's not even like a, oh, this guy's a dick, but I'm kind of rooting for him. It's like, ugh, this guy's a dick.
You know, and I just, okay. Maybe because the first time I saw it was in high school on a date, and my girlfriend was like, but you're like, I'm not getting laid the night because she's going to be thinking about him. Yeah, there was, there was no backseat rumbles to that night. Was it Val Kilmer, Tom Cruise, or the volleyball scene?
Probably all of it. She was sitting next to a weird, skinny meat. Did you have the mustache? No, not till college.
Okay. You know, even in like one or two subsequent viewings, I still was like, ugh, he's awful. Why am I supposed to like him or cheer for him or anything? You know, and it's like, so I've been monumentally unenthused about this sequel.
Yeah, my, Darren and the boy, and Emmett, yeah, when I say the boys, I obviously, I just mean Emmett, are like, oh my god, they did these, you know. Again, it's the filmmaking I'm interested in. Yeah, it's all like, oh, they did all these tricks with the jets themselves, and I'm like, I just don't give a fuck. I know.
Here's what's funny. Because I have to try to watch this movie. Not only do I kind of have to go back and revisit the first, which I'm knocking on doing. Yeah, I have to do that too.
And we should probably pick an evening and a bottle of wine or two and dive into it. Yeah, but the mythos around Tom Cruise in this movie, yeah, you're trying to root for him. You're trying to root for his team. And the only person in his team that I know is Miles Teller.
And I'm not the biggest Miles Teller fan outside of fucking Whiplash. So, like, what is there really to kind of glue me into this, apart from Jennifer homie? Yeah. And John Hamm.
Okay, that's right, John Hamm. But John Hamm looks like he's just going to be a backseat character. Like, yeah, he's like the big devil who shows up at the beginning and the other people at the end of something. Yeah, like, you want to talk about a weird career trajectory, apart from Beirut, I can't remember a movie or a TV show in like the past five to six years that he was the lead for.
I know one thing that he's going to be the lead in that's coming up, I think later this year, I'm not sure of the exact date. You give a lot of work. Don't get me wrong, he's always good. And I'm, but I'm really excited for this, though.
Fletch. Oh, yeah, I remember using this. And it's based on one of the Fletch novels, which I read all in college and I think I reread in my 20s, early 30s. And I probably should find time to go back and read them again.
I'm fine time. Yeah, right. I loved, loved, loved him in Good Omens. Oh, he's fantastic.
Yeah, he's great in anything Tina Fey does, where they like throw him in like 30 Rock or Kimmy Schmidt. Oh my God. You haven't watched Kimmy Schmidt yet. No, I haven't.
He's really good in that. I'm not going to tell you the part plays just when you get to it, you will lose your, you will lose your shit over it. I loved him in Bad Times at the Elroya. Granted, that's a hell of an ensemble.
That's another own song jam. Yeah. Agreed. That's like a simple favor.
Yes. And Chris Hemsworth is playing the most un-Chris Hemsworth ever. And I fucking lived for every moment of it. It would really just get to me out and I loved it.
Again, it's a stylish thing. And there was like this brief moment where we're getting something with like some real cool style to it. Some of these movies had swagger. Some of them were just really great ensemble pieces.
That's one of them. And it sucks that they didn't get more traction because that would allow more directors to do an attempt similar things. And when it doesn't happen, we kind of like fall back. I mean, we do see some other films that try to have that same kind of cool quotient to it.
I'm thinking like Gunpowder Milkshake, which didn't come out all that well, unfortunately. It was, I understood what they were trying to do with it, but it just what, it didn't hit the market. Yeah. But I appreciate that they tried.
Oh God, yeah. That could have been done as a very generic action film that just happened to be, you know, mostly female wet. It's that they tried to give it a little more visual of which didn't work all that well. But atomic bomb is still one of my favorites that came out.
I'm still trying to track down that graphic novel, by the way. It's out of print. I've been, I've been looking. Damn it.
Yeah, sorry. I do keep an eye out for it in my travels, though, when I pop in the comic shops in other towns. I do. It's so good.
And that's one I would love to see get a sequel for. Because Shirley's there on his entered her bad ass, you know, don't fuck with me. Liam Neeson taken face, but she's giving a little more variety. Between, you know, Fast and Furious and Atomic Blonde and now Clea, like, I'm living for her action moments.
Yes. Well, now that you kind of blew the mid-credits scene for Doctor Strange in the multiverse. I didn't blow anything. It's all over social media today.
This is me trying to. It's been almost a week since the movie came out. So let's transition. Circle back to the beginning of the movie.
And okay, installments, 28, I believe, of the Marvel Cinematic Universe at this point. Yeah, 28, then Thor is 29. And Black Panther 2 is 30 at the end of the year. Yeah.
Wow. I can't even, even if I can't repeat again, the whole thing of like, if I time traveled and told my 12-year-old self this was going to happen, I wouldn't believe me. I have come to terms with the fact that within 11 years, Marvel's cooked out more movies than James Bond. And they're just as good.
I would say overall, the quality in the MCU is much better, actually, is more consistent. Yeah. You'll have a couple of stink burgers in there. Yeah, but you're looking at like, for the dark world.
But as I've been watching Doctor Who, that just really hurts, by the way. But no, you're right. But you're looking at when James Bond maybe cooked out 25 movies over, not 25, but over 60 years. However, for the first 15 to 18 of them, they were single adventures.
They were not strung together by a narrative. Whereas here, holy shit, the narrative is so freaking complex. Boy. And I would say too, I mean, the analogy kind of falls apart too with Bond when you look at it as each of those Bond movies within a certain lead actor's era.
It's always that lead actor. The Sean Connery ones after Doctor No, they kind of cranked out the next two or three in fairly quick succession one year. But moving on. You've got to have some of the, oh, we're just going to lead the second guy in the take.
Yeah. Yeah, there's a couple. What was I? I was watching one of them.
I think it was one of the Roger Moore's, wasn't it? Yeah, I was watching a Roger Moore one within the last six months. And I think it was the spy who loved me. There's a fight, you know, in this dressing room where the showgirls are, you know, changing.
And the camera's kind of moving back and forth as they move, you know, kind of back and forth through the room. And at one point, you know, the set was dressed so the mirrors would be angled in a certain way as to not catch the camera crew. And they bumped into the damn dresser with the mirror in the mirror tilted. And hello, lighting guy.
It was the boom operator. No, I think it was the assistant camera man just on the side of the thing, pulling focus or something. And either they didn't catch it at the time or they caught it and said, well, this happens too fast. How are people going to see it?
Because we didn't have home video at that moment. And they just kind of left it in. But even beyond that, though, you only have like one lead for your movies. So you have to take, you know, okay, we have to take, you know, some time off, write a new script, film it, release it.
So that involves, you know, a certain amount of time for that one actor. And there are times when probably Roger Moore and everybody else was like, you know what? I want to go to another project in between here. So that kind of pushed out those release dates.
Whereas with Marvel, you have, you know, eight, 10 different lead to potential lead characters for your movies. So you always have like two or three films in production at any time. So you can keep throwing them in other figures once every three or four months. Yeah.
I'd love to see how much Marvel has made, like as a whole. Like money? Yeah, back from all of this. Oh, I'm thinking in terms of General Gross, it's got to be somewhere around five or six billion at this point.
It's got to be more than that. From Iron Man all the way through. That's, yeah, it's probably more than that. It's got to be at least twice or three times that at this point.
Yeah. In terms of, in terms of what they, what they get, you know, back after theatrical split and other distribution costs, promotion costs, things like that. Whatever is actual, actual profit. And I'm talking like real profit.
Not the bullshit profit they put on their books to screw people out of their percentages on the back end. Is probably still a very, very, very big bag with a dollar bill on it. This is, hey, it's Disney. It all goes into Scrooge McDuck's pool of gold coins.
So he can go take a bath. Yeah. So he can go take a bath and sit around in it. Small is jealous.
And that works because it's a bit of a cover bag. Yay. We're back to Dr. Shane.
Okay. Boy, as an old school Sam Rainey fan who saw Evil Dead in college in the dorm room with some beers. You are having a nerd gasm through this movie. Yes, I was.
There was so, it's not an entire, it's not full 100% uncut injected into your eyeballs. Sam Rainey, but it's about a 75% of Sam Rainey movie. Oh, my favorite. There was a meme I saw a couple days later where they're like, we want Dr.
Strange. And it, you know, they give you like a huge thing, like a bubble. And it says, Dr. Strange, like right on the outside of it.
And inside it says Evil Dead 4 inside it. Okay. Okay. I've seen that, but done with like a Trojan horse.
That's what that's the one I saw. Sorry, yeah. Okay. But yeah, it's, it does.
And I'll say, okay, spoilers for all of Dr. Strange at this point. At the end, the, the makeup on Benedict Cumberbatch for the zombie version of Strange is very much in that same style of Evil Dead. The evil spirits that kind of attack him and taunt him and that high cackling voice is absolutely all Evil Dead.
Yeah. You know, you could take out, you could over dub anytime somebody says the dark cold with the Necronomicon and you'd be fine. The Necronomicon. No, not the cookbook, the Necronomomomicon.
No, there's no icon on the end of it. It's just the Necronomomnomnomnom. No, Necronomnomnomnomnomnom. Okay.
It is a book that sends me into hysterics every time I see it. I know, I can't even get close to that top because I get the giggles, like a goof. Sorry. But yeah, even some small things.
Like the one point at the end of his first conversation with Wanda, where it's all very dark and then one kind of comes into focus and slides away. Yeah, I know. I audibly heard you go, oh my god, that's such a rainy transition. Yes, exactly.
There's certain camera moves and whip pans the way the camera would tell. I know everybody's like, oh, of course, Bruce Campbell's in it. That's why it's a Sam Raimi movie or whatever. You also have the classic that car that's always in all of his films as well, with the exception of the Quick of the Dead.
Although he claims it is in a shot, but with a covered wagon on top of it, a covered wagon shelf. So technically it might be in the movie, but we can't see it. I know, but there's so much more in terms of his actual craftsmanship, that it permeates his movie. And I'm here for it.
I am just all about it. And I was actually, honestly going into the movie a little nervous about it. Simply because for the most part, Marvel only gives their directors so much wiggle room to do their thing. Yeah.
They definitely want things to be roughly the same. So you're never going to get a Wes Anderson Marvel movie or anything like that. Which was interesting, but I'm trying to picture a Wes Anderson movie that's all scored to like mid-60s, early 70s, the kinks. And what's the idea?
Let's go to that. Where's my phone number for Kevin Feigy? I know we can capitulate this to him right now. But actually, when we were promised at the Phase 4 announcement back in 2019 at San Diego Comic Con, that Dr.
Strange multiverse about this would be our first horror movie of the MCU. It was tamer than I thought it was going to be, actually. Well, that's interesting because initially when they made that announcement, Scott Derrickson, who directed the first Dr. Strange movie, and I think Robert Cargill, who wrote it, were both signed on to do the second one.
And then Derrickson left because they just had some disagreements about the direction that was going to go or whatever. But it was allegedly very amicable. Cargill and Derrickson went off and did the black phone, which is opening soon, and looks monumentally scary. It actually looks pretty badass.
We'll save this for the end. But even Hawks have had an interesting career trajectory as well. But bringing Sam Rainian, who of course comes with, not just Sam Rainian Street, but Marvel Cred. Marvel Cred for the Spider-Man movie.
Yeah. I think that kind of was like, yeah, Sam knows how to play within the certain restrictions. And I think he does a great job. Oh, and the eyeball fell out of the monster.
I was like, oh. Yes, exactly. I was a little shocked by that. Not like the gore itself, but kind of like, wow, that's kind of gory for a Marvel film, which is pretty like clean and it's violent.
And then we got the guy who's head blew up. Yeah, black bolt. And a character who got Darth Mauled. And when I say that, I mean, they got chopped in half.
Yes. Yeah. That was not a scene was rough. Yeah.
But even then, the scene with that scene where we see black bolts head kind of and the other character, I'm going to respect your decision not to reveal who that is. Not yet. We'll get it. We'll get in the spoilers.
We already are in spoilers. I already said gave a spoiler word. Okay. Well, then even Captain Carter.
Yeah, Captain Carter, but she gets sliced in too. It still happens off screen and we just see her fall over. But we know what happened. You know exactly what happened.
She went full dark. It got total Darth Maul. Yeah. There's right now.
There's a lot of nastiness that happens that is off screen. And this fantastic turn into spaghetti. That's yeah. And that was a mercy.
That was a mercy compared to some of the others. Oh, God. Yeah. And I like though that, you know, it was a little barker in terms of that kind of a tone, but they still kind of it happens off screen and anything else is in your mind.
You know, it's it's a key trope in horror movies to kind of do that. You know, everything from like the blob to the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Well, when I was thinking of it being more of a horror movie, I'm going to reference one of the worst made Marvel movies ever. I was expecting somewhere along the lines of the darkness of New Mutants.
Okay. That's what I was expecting. Okay. When you're talking reality and, you know, the multiverse and Scarlet Witch, I was figuring a lot more of it was going to be psychologically reality based.
Not, oh, we're going to bring in monsters and, you know, it's going to be gory kills. Or, you know, you're going to get zombie strange to the whole third act. But no, I was expecting there was going to be more jump scares, playing with the things in the dark. Literally the only moment in the entire film that got relatively close to what I had in my mind was when she came through the, the metal or the gong.
Okay. Yeah. And kind of like with her body bent in unnatural positions and then kind of cracking it back. Yeah.
Into that was that was the only moment that actually got close to what I had hoped or expected from this movie. There was, I mean, yeah, still they have to play a PG, PG-13, excuse me. There were some other moments that I thought were pretty creepy when Professor Xavier was in her mind, had a little bit of creepiness to it. Only when the smoke showed up.
There was how she kind of was like coming after them in those tunnels underground. Oh, kind of dragging her foot behind her very dead. Yeah. It felt more like like the unstoppable killer of like a Halloween or a Friday the 13th movie.
I would agree with you there. Yeah. So, you know, there were a lot of elements overall. I was like, you know, this wasn't like a movie where I would be like, I don't like it because it's too gory for my tastes.
You know, in some horror movies that are rated are definitely are. I just found it interesting that there was at least a little bit of conversation about is this too gory for kids. And well, guess what? It's PG-13.
Know your kids. Maybe go see the movie first without them and figure it out for yourself as if this is something they can handle it on. And actually in this day and age, yes, there's the whole, oh, we have to worry about the screen, you know, the PTA of or sorry, NTA or whatever you fuck you want to call them who rate the goddamn movies. Yeah, you have to worry about them.
But the parents, most of them take care of their kids to see fucking Deadpool. And we have been at more than one R-rated movie. Oh my god, the baby fucking it. Yes, exactly.
It's after two. And no, I was speaking of Deadpool. That was a conversation we had on the way home in the car from Dr. Strange was what happens because I mentioned how in tonally I had assumed this film was actually going to be a lot harder and a lot scarier.
And they're like, well, I can't wait for them to do Deadpool. I go, I really fucking hope they don't. Because the beauty of Fox doing Deadpool was they were outside of the MCU, which allowed for certain leeways to what they can do with the character. If they tried to bring, and if they tried to bring Deadpool into a Spider-Man movie, trying to rein him in did not work when they tried to do it once before.
And what did they have to do? So it's got damn mouth shut. Now, I bringing Spider-Man into a Deadpool movie wouldn't make more sense because you're playing within the parameters that are already set up by the Deadpool film. By the Deadpool films, yes.
But having Deadpool join the MCU is not going to work well for the character. And you're not going to get your first R-rated Avengers movie with Deadpool in it. It's not happening. True.
Deadpool is a very tricky proposition for Marvel right now. Fans want to see another Deadpool movie. I think Ryan Reynolds wants to make one. He enjoys those movies.
Joy's getting paid. Even Logan would have never been made by Marvel. No, no. And and Logan's one of the best Marvel property films that is non-Marvel to come out.
Yeah, something that's not MCU. Yeah, non-MCU property. Oh, I would definitely agree with you there. So yeah, so those are, you know, and there are a lot of people who are expecting Deadpool to be showing up in this movie.
As well as Tom Cruise as a version of Tony Stark. As well as, you know, there was so many stupid theories floating around. And a lot of it was just like. I hope we were going to get more X-Men.
Honest, I really did. I didn't know anything about the Illuminati at first. So when he got marched in and we heard Professor X, all I could think of is finally we're going to get the X-Men. I would have loved to see James Marster sitting up there.
I know. Honest, I know. I think he has a character who was completely under fucking utilized. James Marster, James Marston as Cyclops.
I think he was underutilized in those films. And then he was wasted as just, oh, the boyfriend. I don't think though that when the MCU introduces their version of the X-Men, I don't think we're going to see anybody who we've previously seen in those characters. Oh, I don't think so either.
At this point, honestly, I love Patrick Stewart. I want James McAvoy. Patrick Stewart is basically too old at this point. They want somebody who's going to go for 15 years.
And as much as it hurts to think about it. That's why they got him in for like two seconds, gave the fans what they wanted, and then they wasted him. Literally. But yeah, I love McAvoy.
I think some of the more recent castings have been really good. But I think Kevin Feige is going to want to go with a clean slate for his X-Men. Oh, God, yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. Every now and then he might have someone pop up and be like, hey, I'm from this universe. Do you need a hand or give him some useless information and be like, okay, now I've got to pop back to mine. I'm sorry.
I can't say. But yeah, it'd be interesting to see where they go with the multiverse stuff. Days of Future Past didn't multiverse before MCU did, and it was a damn solid film. True.
Yeah. I'd say probably one outside of Logan, probably the last Logan. X2. I love X2.
No, from moving forward, that was probably one of the last good X-Men films. That Logan and the Deadpool films. Apocalypse could have been good. The ending to that film is fucking solid.
When they all turn around and she goes, you're no longer kids anymore. You are X-Men. And you feel like they're just going to, something wonderful is going to come for these characters and you're ready to go on the next trip. And nothing happened.
And with all the time travel stuff, the X-Men, the Fox X-Men continuity is kind of wonky. I mean, I kind of came up with an idea once and sketched out how it kind of actually worked in terms of, at some point going back in time, also changed some other things. And then this other thing happened and that's why this happened. I got really kind of like deep in the weeds and dirty with it.
And then I was like, am I doing, I'm wasting a perfectly good Thursday, not doing this or whatever it was. But again, multiverse though, does the multiverse take away the importance of specific characters if we know other versions are out there? I mean, we love our Doctor Strange and the regular MCU. But does knowing that he exists but other versions of Doctor Strange are out there, does that kind of take away from his specialness a little bit?
Or do you think it kind of solidifies it? Because they made that point that America Chavez didn't have any doppelganger through the multiverse because she didn't dream. So does that make her more special than Doctor Strange? Because we know there are shit ton of Doctor Strange's across various earths.
I think her character is her power and the fact that she's the only one makes her probably the rarest and most important person in all of the multiverse. And it also means that she will always be in fucking danger because of it. Well, that's probably why we saw her at the end training with the other monks. But I don't think it says anything about whether or not Doctor Strange is special or not.
We know that across whatever timeline he's then, he's there to protect the people in his universe. But I think that's pretty special to me. Okay, good. You're not crazy.
Because on the flip side, we've got Wanda who knows that there are versions of her kids out there and she's basically willing to kill a version of herself become their mom. It kind of slightly goes on set. But ultimately, that's what's going to need to happen. And that is really messed up.
It is very messed up. And if it wasn't for the kids' reaction of just how much they feared her, I'm sorry. You and I both know I absolutely adore Scarlet Witch and I have since Ultron. Yes.
This film broke my heart for her. It really did. Like she has lost her parents, her brother, the only man she ever loved. Her kids give this woman a fucking break.
I think she's absolutely justified in just asking for a little bit of peace in her life. Everyone else gets to have some measure of it. I mean, even Natasha Romanov, who we've always seen as kind of alone, always had Hawkeye. And then near the end of her life found Helena, Yelena.
And she had hers. Yeah, but that's what makes, I think, her compelling character. Compelling tragic character. And things don't always go well for tragic characters.
That's part of the tragedy of it all. Honest, she for me is becoming the anti-Loki. And I am absolutely okay with that. Meaning how Loki went from being spoiled.
I don't want to call him a villain, but became almost a hero. She's going the opposite way and she's completely justified in my brain. Yeah, no, well, the best villains have good arguments for what they are doing. The question is, what is going to be the endgame?
She's already tried this and found that not only did it not work, it hurt her way too much to keep trying, so she shut it down. So do you think she really is dead? I mean, it's comics. It's a comic book movie.
They're not dead until we see a body and even then. Yeah, no, I don't think she's dead by any stretch of the imagination. You believe we will see her again on the big screen? Well, we've said, well, think about the end of WandaVision.
She's just kind of like snapped her fingers and just disappeared. You're telling me she didn't have the power in the last second here to go, okay, I'm out of here. There is that flash of red in that cloud of debris and dust and everything. So is that her dying and releasing all that power?
Is that her going, you know what, I'm out. And I think it's played that way that should Elizabeth Olsen want to leave the MCU after all this time? She has an L, but if she wants to stay in, she has an N. Yes, I think there's still things to explore with that character if they choose to continue.
If they say, you know, I think this is a good stopping point for this character, that's fine too. I would miss that character. I think there are certain things along the way that people were hoping to see, like House of Am where she is. Yeah, that was me.
That was me. Yeah, everybody was hoping for that. Honest, the thing that really got me about this movie that I would have loved to see and never had the opportunity to was I wanted to see Cliff show up. They had that connection in Ultron, where I kind of like an older brother in a way.
But, you know, he's the one who says to her, if you go out there, you're no longer want to max them off. You're an Avenger. And they never really kind of explored that in any of the other films. But when it came down to this, you know, after everything with Pietro and all that, I wanted to see him to show up for a moment to talk to her.
I don't know how they would have fitted in. I'm not sure either. But at this point, bring Hawkeye in on top of everybody else that you had, you know, some people have kind of criticized this thing as being a bit of a cameo parade because of like the Illuminati sequence. And I disagree.
I mean, you go to another Earth, you're going to see different characters. That's fine, I understand. And it's fun to see that these are some of these characters are different variants of people we've met already in the MCU. I think it would have been great to see Clint as part of the Illuminati, because during that segment where she's killing everyone, the fact that Pietro, her brother gave his life for him, would have been that moment, that brief moment of weakness for her, where she may have incapacitated him.
But that's how we know she's not completely fucking gone, because she spared his life. True. Because they had that connection at one point. Well, given what we know is coming in the next year or two, I don't think we're really going to see her in terms of movies.
Like we said, we've got four love and thunder. We've got the mid-life crisis, the war film, apparently, is like, what TV has named it. Which, oh good, a Marvel movie I can really connect with. You know, we've got Black Panther 2.
We've got the Guardians Christmas special. And then going into 2023, you know, we'll have Guardians 3 and the Marvels. And there's something else coming. There are a couple of other things of development.
And then we get Blade. Blade, I think, is supposed to be the end of phase four. And on the TV side, we have Ms. Marvel coming up.
She hulk. She hulk. And what else is there? There's something else.
Secret Invasion. Yes, Secret Invasion. I think are the last three things for this. We're getting Olivia Colman.
Yes. Sorry. I want to see her and Sam Jackson hanging out. I think that would be the most ridiculous, amazing pairing ever.