I Have Some Notes

Kumite! Kumite! Kumite! David Rae of Quantum Kickflip returns to the show to Dux it out with Bloodsport. Together we cast aside an unnecessary military subplot and while making the Tanaka family ties to the fighting tournament much more explicit. Oh, and we also unpack the many lies of Frank Dux! Thanks for listening, and make sure to check out Season 4 of QK over at quantumkickflip.com!  

Quantum Kickflip's Robyn Slack returns to take a pass at another lukewarm script: The Simpsons Movie. The cast was sharply divided on whether Homer's first ride on the big screen had any comedic worth, but we did agree the plot needed a lot of work. Many set pieces hit the cutting room floor including the Simpson family's trip to Alaska. We'd pitched ways to get the town of Springfield more involved, and brought back a familiar rake-smashed face as the central villain. You can catch Liam and Robyn starring in season four of Quantum Kickflip on June 3rd, so fired up your podcast app and subscribe today!

Okay, The World Is Not Enough is uneven. And yes, it's bland. And sure, the cold open is 10 minutes too long and ends with a hot air balloon ride. But, hey, Shirley Manson sings the Bond theme, and that kicks ass. This Brosnan blockbuster had a great many things go wrong with it, so we couldn't just gently stir in some plot beats. No, the whole thing needed to be shaken. I promise the episode is better than these puns!

Video game adaptations have always been dodgy, but I dare say Resident Evil (2002) is among the dodgiest. Vacant of gory R-rated fun and unoccupied by characters of the slimmest depth, the only true resident seems to be an obnoxious soundtrack.  In other words, this movie is speaking our language. We completely overhaul the film's opening to both drive the mystery and bring the motivations of the main characters into view. There's much back and forth whether to keep the amnesia plot, or dump it entirely. And we had a METRIC TON of insightful listener comments.

This episode is a bit of a unicorn in and of itself, as we struggle to come to a consensus on a cohesive new pitch for Death of a Unicorn. Plenty of interesting ideas get debated, however, as we attempt to add more bite to the satire, as well as the featured creatures. Let us know who's pitch you liked the most and why it was Gregg's.

A little bonus/gap filler episode for you this week in the form of movie/TV recommendations. We may or may not have recorded this some time ago, back when Fallout's second season had just dropped. Still, there are some gems in here that can help bust the endless Netflix scrolling cycle.  See you in two weeks for a full episode!

Jack Quaid may not feel pain in Novocaine, but we did. You'd think after nearly ten years of consuming the most mediocre films Hollywood can disk we'd be somewhat numb by now, but no. Though, truth be told, Novocaine is a pretty fun high-concept action thriller. You've got a charming young actor and a premise that invites all kind of bloody mayhem. But, as always, we find a way to Monday Morning Screenwriter this into something that will rock the senses.

Having been burned back in the 90s with one of the most infamously bad movie adaptations in history, Nintendo clearly had a one word mandate for The Super Mario Bros. Movie: safe. Make every safe decision you can, don't do anything interesting or take any kind of risk that could reflect poorly on the brand. And hey, it worked. Super Mario Bros. made all the money and kids loved it. But, what if the Nintendo made SOME choices, and took SOME risks? How much better a showing could this have been for the little Italian plumber? Josh Skaar of the Talking SMAC podcast joins us once again to find out! Together we work out a stronger arc for Luigi and a really fun and organic way for the Princess to be in another castle. Let'sa go!  

Nic Cage stashes his bags in the overhead bin and settles in for his second round of IHSN punch-ups. This was a really fun one as we got to play with a long manifest of colourful characters in a brainless action setting. Steve Buscemi in particular gets an elevated roll in our reimagined pitch.  Listen in and then join us on our Discord channel to continue the conversation! See you there.

For those old enough to be big Troma fans, The Toxic Avenger undoubtedly holds a special place in their hearts. When the remake was released in 2023 those hearts ceased to by mutated by radioactive sludge, instead slathered in the thick, inescapable goo of nostalgia. It comes for us all, my friends. But honestly, this remake was pretty good. Peter Dinklage mops it out of the park as Winston/the voice of Toxie, serving up plenty of slapstick gore. But like most films, it ain't perfect, and we have fun developing our own mutations of the script. 

The Ghostbusters are back, cleaning up the town! The gang is all here: Ray, Winston, Venkman, Janine…Pheobe, Callie, Trevor, Gary, Lucky…uh, Podcast. Postcast is here. Walter Peck. Oh! The library administrator. You remember the library administrator, he's the guy that says "what has that got to do with it?" Classic. Yes, it's a nostalgia romp like no other, which makes it oh so hard to believe it didn't work out, doesn't it? But, if there's anyone who can uncross the streams, it's the I Have Some Notes crew. Listen in to our final (probably) Ghostbusters episode!

We watched a ton of GOOD movies in 2025, and we're going to talk about them! That's right, we do, on occasion, watch films that don't stink and don't require page one rewrites. We sat down for our annual chat about the most engaging and inspiring movies we saw in the last 12 months. Enjoy! For those who like to skip around, here's the time stamps for the episode: 00:04:38 – 28 Years Later 00:11:17 – Black Bag 00:16:10 – Bugonia 00:23:00 – Frankenstein 00:28:23 – It Was Just an Accident 00:32:00 – The Naked Gun 00:38:27 – One Battle After Another 00:44:27 – Sinners 00:49:43 – Superman 01 :01:46 – Universal Language 01:10:57 – Wake Up Dead Man 01:17:39 – Weapons 01:25:18 – Listener Comments

Everyone has wanted to see Santa do a Diehard, right? Of course! He's the most wholesome, selfless mythical character we've got, and we want to see him kill people. YAY, violence! Boo, children! Violent Night is a solid romp, but doesn't quite hit the satirical notes it needs to become a classic. We pluck on the film's heart strings to maximize the fun in contrasting holiday cheer with righteous violence. As previously mentioned this is our last episode of 2025. Thanks so much for sticking with us for another year, we're blessed to have such a smart, witty community of armchair screenwriters. Take care of yourselves over the holidays, and we'll see you again soon in 2026!

I.S.S. has all the modules necessary for an epic sci-fi thriller, but if we're reviewing it you already know it doesn't all fit together as intended. We explore the possibility of a few deft edits and key moments that could makes this cold war allegory much more explosive.

We were all set to perform our usual punch-up on the 1983 cult classic Deathstalker, when we hit a snag: the movie sucked. And not in the typical way movies we watch for the show suck. Completely devoid of plot and characters of any notable intrigue, we decided to do something a little different. As it turned out, an excellent Deathstalker remake was a week away from release, making our punch-up rather redundant when the real thing was about to hit VOD. Instead, we decided to spend the episode comparing and contrasting two B-movies with the same name but very different levels of success. Trigger Warning: This episode discusses sexual violence. If you'd prefer to avoid this portion of the episode skip to 00:35:41.

Final Reckoning may not end up being Ethan Hunts's last appearance, but as far as we're concerned, it's mission complete. There's only so much of the mega star's God complex we can take. Tom Cruise will just have to live without our Monday morning screenwriting, not that the blockbuster deity was asking. On the plus side, David Rae from Quantum Kickflip returns to accept this last impossible mission. Or at least it seemed that way, until Scott fixed the film in virtually one sentence. How? You'll have to hit play to find out!

This week we foist our brand of armchair screenwriting upon a slice of Canadiana, our country’s very first animated feature film, Rock & Rule. And how did that go for Canada? Well, we believe after making $38,000 at the box office 42 years ago it’s really gaining momentum. Joining us is a rock star in his own right, JP Fournier of The Movie Jerks. Together we break down this interestingly flawed feature, workshopping how we could bring depth to the characters and add a whole lot more music to this “rock opera”.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines hubris (ˈhyü-brəs) as "exaggerated pride or self-confidence." After 11 seasons of "fixing" films written by professional screenwriters, we have finally amassed enough exaggerated self-confidence to scribble red ink all over one of the greatest writer/directors of all time: Alfred Hitchcock. Are we humbled by the task? NO! It's pats on the back all around as we rework a new pitch for The Birds.

Everyone loves a legacy sequel right? Everyone has been a banger with no exceptions. And now that Adam Sandler and Netflix have jumped on board we're about to see some of the greatest– I can't keep doing this. Happy Gilmore 2 is about what you'd would expect from a Sandler vehicle in 2025. A smattering of brief laughs buried in cameos and product placement. Comedies are often the toughest to fix, but we look to come in under par on a rework caddied by a stronger comedic premise.

Eleven seasons and counting! The armchair screenwriter crew are back to fix another fourteen to eighteen movies. Our episode count is about as uneven as the movies we watch! Speaking of uneven, our flick this week is Supergirl. Despite making plenty of capital “C” choices, this first attempt at showcasing the caped crusader’s cousin is a real challenge to sit through. Interminably long and unable to find the humour in all the camp, even with Faye Dunaway crushing it, Supergirl is desperately in need of a rewrite. Luckily there are plenty of fun ideas for us to play off of, and maybe some character arcs that were intended by the original screenwriters, yet go unrealized. Listen now and let us know what you think of our solutions for this famously bad movie.

Another round of summer recommendations with a twist! This episode includes recs for a cult classic, a TV series and a an inspiring book for difficult times.

Would you be shocked to learn this is the first time we've tackled a proper Nicolas Cage movie? Well, BE SHOCKED, armchair screenwriters! Because it's true. Listen in as we explore the long trail of riddles and clues that are key to unlocking a better version of National Treasure.

It's a bonus summer show! We talk about three movies we think you should watch RIGHT NOW. Well, not now now. You have to listen to the episode first to find out which movies. And then now!

We all know that the experience of watching a movie has degraded in the 21st century. Theatres have been abandoned, both by audiences and those who manage them. Streaming services offer convenience at a steep cost and at great sacrifice in quality.  Normally our hubris is saved for fixing movies, but why not aim higher? Why not try to repair the entire modern viewing experience as we know it? Yeah, now that's what I call unearned white-guy-podcast confidence. LFG!

It's the season 10 finale! How in the name of the Q Continuum have we managed to do this for almost ten years? Largely thanks to you, honestly. Without your support, whether its been generously donating your own hard-earned cash or furiously working to submit your movie fixes every two weeks, this show wouldn't exist without you. So, as always, thank you so much! Now, sit back and enjoy us needlessly picking apart your childhood's favourite gang of puppets. Remember, you support this nonsense.

In the wake of the Andor series finale – arguably the best prequel to anything ever – we decided to go back and revisit our episode on Rogue One: A Star Wars Story. With Andor's re-contextualization of the story, and the benefit of 8 years of hindsight, we wanted to find our if our fixes still hold up and if the film lands any different now. One thing we can say for sure, Saw Gerrera's appears makes way more sense. Tune in to us I Have Some Note-ing and episode of I Have Some Notes! Links: Our Original Rogue One episode Andor: Anti-f*scist Art (Just Write video Liam recommends) Discord Server Link Tree Patreon

Lately Marvel movies have been making for easy podcast fodder. Their blandness has only been outdone by their mediocrity. Unfortunately for us, as we were screening Thunderbolts*, we had to admit it was pretty sick. So sick, in fact, than even Gregg gave it 4 1/2 stars on Letterboxd. Gregg! That makes our job a bit of a challenge. But, to paraphrase the old maxim, a movie is never finished, merely abandoned. To that end we throw a bunch of spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks like the Brylcreem'd mane of a golden god and what falls into the void below.

A team of scientists unearth an ancient gate in the Egyptian desert that opens the doorway for humans to travel across the known universe in the blink of an eye. What marvellous wonders will they bear witness to, what awesome sights will they glimpse that no other human has glimpsed? Sand…mostly. Yes, as good as the premise is, Stargate is a cinematic snooze-fest that needs fixing. We sprinkle a little exposition dust to lift this story off the ground and get it running through the gate instead of walking.

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension is beloved by those bold enough to embrace a fantastical new reality, and abhorred by those aghast at this bizarre spectacle of unknown providence. It’s a film as divisive as it is confusing as it is gonzo, but we've assembled a massive crew of colourful weirdos to help make sense of it all; just like Buckaroo would have wanted! I Have Some Notes welcomes David Rae and Laena Anderson from Quantum Kickflip. QK is an actual-play podcast about teen hoverboarders traveling to strange new dimensions to explore, get into trouble, and look cool doing it. Dave and Laena have two seasons worth of multiverse adventure storytelling experience, so they might be the only ones clever or crazy enough to handle the wild trip that is Buckaroo Banzai. Listen to Quantum Kickflip, including the upcoming Season 3 dropping June 4, at www.quantumkickflip.com. Follow them on Bluesky at quantumkickflip.bsky.social. The I Have Some Notes Discord Server is a great place to keep the conversation going. Let us know what you thought of our pitches and share your own thoughts on the next film we cover!

Old John Wick is warn out, friends. He's been on a revenge tour for three movies, and now he's going to have to drag his Freedom 55 ass through another two and a half hour gun-fu marathon. But not to worry, the schtick is only as derivative as the needle-drops.  Liam, Scott and Gregg fight through the urge to relentlessly critique and eventually find a solid new big picture direction for a better Chapter 4.  After you listen be sure to drop by our Discord Server and let us know what you thought of our pitch!

There are two forms of novel adaptations: thoughtful interpretations of the book and its themes and hack scripts stapled to a recognizable book title. Now which route do you think Netflix took for The Electric State? If you guessed the former, you must be new here. Hi! Welcome to I Have Some Notes!  No guest this week, so it’s up to the classic threesome to find some kind of fix for the Russo brothers’s latest streaming “blockbuster” that doesn’t amount to just “do it like the book.” We get there…eventually.

With Canada/US relations at their lowest point since we burned down their White House, we felt we should try generating some cross-border goodwill. We invited good friend of the show Josh Skaar (TalkSMAC podcast) to share in a bit of Canadiana as we take on Sean William Scott’s GOON. Surprisingly our first hockey centered movie, GOON is largely a fun, competent comedy that we all liked. Of course, because we’re a bunch of movie snobs, that doesn’t stop us from beating up on this one a bunch. For our non-Canadian friends, here is a link to the Halifax Explosion we mentioned at the end of the episode. Once you’re done listening, keep the conversation going on our Discord channel!

Captain ███████: Brave New World may be one of Marvel’s better cinematic efforts of late, but it’s also one of their better efforts of late. Disney’s former golden goose has become just a regular old goose, and if you know anything about geese, you know they suck. Still BNW isn’t completely devoid of fun. There are two monster action sequences that make this film worthy of some touch ups. Good friend of the show and walking cinematic encyclopedia, Robin Taylor, joins us to rip the script apart with all the ferociousness of an 80-year-old man in a CGI Hulk suit.

At this point the true trap for us is an M. Night Shyamalan movie. They're just bad in very, very interesting ways! TRAP is maybe less of a mess than some of his more recent efforts, but it still features wild decisions from strange cinematography choices to straight up playing the nepo-baby card with abandon. As always, we try to play script doctor, working to keep the trap in the movie TRAP as well and shuffling the character deck for some fun thematic changes. Enjoy!

If you can get past the Tom Cruise of it all the Mission Impossible series is generally quite good. Each new addition offers clever heists, death-defying stunts, and occasionally a man reloading his arms like some kind of sexy human shotgun. Also running. Lots of Tom running. Dead Reckoning: Part I, however, struggles to match the thrills of its predecessors. Its omniscient AI-run-amok plot is derivative enough to have been written by ChatGPT itself. If that weren’t bad enough, it’s interminably long and gets bogged down by the ego of its star. But where there’s mediocrity you’ll find the I Have Some Notes crew. We dive into the AI plot to make it more fun, while rearranging some of the main characters so there is less…fridging.

As a movie podcast, we are bound by law to collect our thoughts and broadcast our picks for the best films of the year. We may have no choice in the matter, but it's our favourite episode of the year all the same.  It's also, as is tradition, our longest episode of the season, so let's get to it! Hopefully, we'll inspire you to add some new movies to your watch list. If you prefer to jump around here's a breakdown of our discussion by timecode: 00:01:36 – 2024's Top Box Office Earners 00:04:56 – Super Hero Movie Reprieve 00:08:44 – The Year of *whispers* Musical 00:11:36 – The Year of AI 00:18:48 – Hundreds of Beavers 00:22:16 - The People's Joker 00:26:58 – Speak No Evil 00:31:42 – It's What's Inside 00:35:28 – I Saw the TV Glow 00:43:41 – Love Lies Bleeding 00:52:44 – Stand Up Solutions 00:58:28 – Heretic 01:02:03 – Conclave 01:06:29 – Challengers 01:13:30 – The Substance 01:20:31 – Megalopolis 01:27:55 – Nosferatu  01:35:41 – Civil War 01:50:16 – Listener Comments

Fresh off the heels of watching Robert Eggers' superbly grotesque Nosferatu, we decided to screen another, less well-regarded, Dracula film. THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE DEMETER travelled swiftly through theatres, perhaps faster than warranted. It sets up the stakes and principal characters nicely and skillfully envelopes the audience in a creaky nautical atmosphere. Still, even though there was a lot to like about this Alien-Vampire mashup, it left us wanting in the way that makes it a perfect candidate for the show. Join us for a retelling of the retelling of The Last Voyage of the Demeter!

Every year, we float the idea of watching a Hallmark Christmas movie for our traditional holiday episode, and every year we chicken out. The trouble with Hallmark is that their formula is so streamlined that not one film stands out above the rest. So how do we tackle these movies in an interesting way? Then it occurred to us…if every Hallmark Christmas movie is the same, it shouldn't matter which movie we choose. In fact, we could all watch a different movie, and fix the Hallmark formula itself!  So that's what we did! Liam watched Jingle Around the Clock, Scott screened Every Christmas Has a Story and Gregg sat through Crown for Christmas. We then evaluate the Christmas movie mill and give the studio some notes on how to improve the product. Happy holidays, Armchair Screenwriters! Show Note Links: Liam's Sketch Group The Debutants

I Have Some Notes boldly goes to the one branch of the Star Trek franchise we’ve never gone before! Star Trek (2009) offers an exciting blockbuster reimagining of the classic Original Series, captained by the one and only J.J. Abrams (and thank goodness there is not more than one of him!).  Liam, Scott, and Gregg riff on ways to clean up the convoluted time travel plot, add some depth to the supporting cast, and try to put the third act back on trek…er…track.

Some weeks back our Discord channel erupted in a lively discussion over a recent article from Variety titled Toxic Fandom: How Hollywood Is Battling Fans Who Are ‘Just Out for Blood’. In it, journalist Adam B. Vary reports about the effects toxic fandom is having on the personal lives of actors and how studios are combating it from hiring security firms to focus grouping diehard fans. The article inspired us to explore the topic more deeply in a Side Notes episode. This was an inspiring and enlightening conversation, and I hope you all get as much out of it as we did. Back next week with another movie fix, see you then!

It's nearly Halloween and we wanted to watch a creepy, blood-curdling movie for this week's episode. Unfortunately, we watched Insidious instead, a film whose spine-chilling twist is that it's not a haunted house movie, it's a haunted kid movie. Eat your heart out Wes Craven. Liam, Scott, and Gregg propose a cold open with some fun ambiguity that adds much more intrigue to Patrick Wilson's character. They also work in music that plays a central role in the climax, something that was honestly a huge missed opportunity.

After years stuck in development hell, all Sony could muster was to poop an incredibly mid adaptation of its triple-A video game UNCHARTED. Almost perfectly miscast, Uncharted succeeds only in misunderstanding what made the games so appealing. Liam, Scott, and Gregg restructure the cold open in a way that unlocks a potentially fun adventure script with consistent themes and plenty of treasure-hunting intrigue.

We're back to season 10 of I Have Some Notes! It's a new season of cuts, keeps, punch-ups, and tweaks on your favourite (?) mediocre movies! It's been a while since we circled back to the Alien franchise, which is surprising considering how plagued the series is with stinkers. But we'd inevitably try to fix Ridley Scott's follow-up to Prometheus, Alien: Covenant, and here we are. Follow along with us this season on all our social media, especially Discord where we're having a blast discussing movies every week. Don't bother following us on Twitter, however, we have officially left the platform for reasons I'm sure you implicitly understand.

For our Season 9 finale, we dawned our nerdiest pair of boxing gloves for a Franchise Fight to determine the best science fiction franchise of all time! Gregg argues for Star Trek (obviously), Scott backs Star Wars, and Liam makes the case for Doctor Who. Thanks to all our listeners for making Season 9 a success, despite some turbulence in the spring. We appreciate you all and are so happy to have built this little niche community of armchair screenwriters. Onward for Season 10!

In a fortuitous confluence of events, we all happened to see Deadpool & Wolverine in the theater opening weekend and figured we can't NOT do an episode on it, right? And episode we did! While we all quite liked Ryan Reynold's love letter to the 20th Century Fox era of Marvel movies, we found a couple of things that might have tightened the film up. 00:07:17 – General Thoughts 00:13:11 – Trailer/Plot Summary 00:15:29 – Movie Review 00:44:03 – Pitches and Fixes 01:04:35 – Listener Comments

Twister, not to be confused with Twisters, is a disaster/thriller directed by complete loose cannon, Jan De Bont. The former Roar DP shoved Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton in a dirty truck and drove them up and down Tornado Alley stopping to shoot at random locations without a concern for coordinator or safety. We appreciate that kind of shoot-by-the-hip filmmaking, as we are shoot-by-the-hip writers who aim to fix a movie in, oh, say an hour. An hour and a half tops! Listen in to our rewrites now!

Once every couple of decades Jerry Seinfeld gets bored enough driving classic cars and bottomless pots of coffee to make a movie. So what inspires this behemoth of comedy to pen a script worthy of the storied history of the silver screen? In an increasingly divided world, what draws this titan of jest to cut through the noise to deliver a heavy cultural impact? Bees. And Poptarts. Robyn Slack joins us again to remaster and rehabilitate the script for UNFROSTED! Together we find stronger motivations to hang the comedy off of and delete some pointless references to current events.

We're back from hiatus and for our return, we wanted to pick an exciting, uplifting movie that would match our excitement of being back…and for some reason, we chose Star Trek: Nemesis. The movie that ended the golden era of Star Trek is truly a depressing watch. It's dark, rapey, and far from the optimistic future depicted in The Next Generation's 7-year TV run. We certainly had our work cut out for us imagining a rewrite for this one. Still, it's good to be back! Thanks for your patience while we were away, we're excited to bring you new movie rewrites all summer long.

Welcome to the first-ever Intellectual Property Lottery! We took 20 of your suggestions for IP that have yet to be turned into a feature film and with the roll of a 20-sided die, randomly selected one for each host to pitch how they would adapt it. Comedian, musician, director, playwright, and all-around talented dude Robyn Slack joins us for another episode of slinging elevator pitches. His band, Success 5000, has a brand new album called Sad Forever, so please check that out, cause it's great! But also sad. But great! But sad. Forever. 00:02:56 – The Property Draw List 00:04:32 – Chrono Trigger 00:22:27 – Scrabble 00:34:25 – Shadow Run 00:42:30 – Megaman 00:56:35 – Alpha Flight 01:00:23 – Axe Body Spray 01:04:54 – Fraggle Rock 01:08:08 – Captain Planet

Baseball diehard Scott Belford of The Walk Off podcast joins us to rewrite our very first sports movie! Well…sports adjacent movie, anyway. The only problem is Richard Linklater's Everybody Wants Some!! is a pretty good movie, you guys. We give it the old college try, though (Get it?!). Scott and Scott find an opportunity to add a secondary protagonist, Liam seeks to pass the Bechdel test, and Gregg questions whether adding any kind of central conflict would just undermine the whole point of the movie. 00:14:01 – Plot Summary 00:15:09 – Movie Disussion 00:30:50 – Fixes 00:55:38 – Listener Comments