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Chronicle
145 Plays4 years ago
Want a good movie to pair with Brightburn? Derrick's got the perfect suggestion for you—2012's Chronicle, the movie that launched Michael B. Jordan to the top of people's watchlist. We take out our frustrations on the "found footage" technique, explain why Max Landis is a piece of shit, and wonder just how suits watched this movie and then said, "Josh Trank is the perfect choice for Fantastic Four."
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Transcript
Promotion Announcement
00:00:00
Speaker
Hey, Derek, guess what? Hit me with it. We just got a promotion with Audible. Audible, fantastic. I love Audible. Do you know what the cool thing about this deal is? What's that? If our listeners go to audibletrial.com slash supercinemapod, they get a free trial with Audible. And do you know what they get with that?
00:00:22
Speaker
What do they get with that? Tell me. They get one free audiobook of their choice and they get two free Audible Originals, which is special content that Audible makes available free for all its subscribers. Are you kidding me? That deal is so good I may go myself and sign them. Do you think they let you keep the books after you're done?
00:00:42
Speaker
No, you're not gonna tell me they let you keep the books after you done. Yes, in fact, you can go sign up for a trial and you can cancel before the trial ends and you get to keep the books you've already downloaded.
00:00:55
Speaker
Well, I don't see how you can beat that with a stick. Exactly, yeah. And you can, lots of great books, especially for fans of the show. You can listen to Super Gods by Grant Morrison, which is all about like how the superhero comics have changed and evolved over time. Or you can check out Marvel Comics, The Untold Story. Which is a terrific book. I have that both in hardcover and I listened to that on Audible myself in my car while traveling back and forth.
00:01:21
Speaker
And there's also another similar book that's called slugfest, which is about like the wars between Marvel and DC Comics. Oh, okay. So that's another one you got to check out too. So yeah, head on over to audibletrial.com slash super cinema pod and start your free trial right now. You got one free audio book and two free audible originals and you can keep them even if you cancel before it's over.
Apex Predators and Ecosystems
00:02:02
Speaker
I'm doing a lot of reading, you know, like online about, like, just, like, evolution and, like, a natural selection and how, like, there's this thing, right? It is called the apex predator, right? And basically what this is is the strongest animal in the ecosystem, right? And as human beings, we are considered the apex predator, but only because, like, smaller animals can't feed on us because of weapons and stuff, right? Lion does not feel guilty when it kills a gazelle.
00:02:32
Speaker
Right? You do not feel guilty when you squash a fly. And I think that means something. I just think that really means something.
Japan on Film Podcast Update
00:02:45
Speaker
Welcome to the Superhero Cenophiles podcast. I'm half of your host, Perry Constantine. And as always, I am the other half, Derek Ferguson. How you doing today, Derek? I am doing quite well, thank you. I spent a very nice, relaxing,
00:02:59
Speaker
day at home. I finally finished my Sebastian Red Anthology. Oh nice. I finally finished that and I caught up with all my podcasts. I spent very relaxed today listening to all my folks because for some reason a lot of the podcasts that I followed they dropped episodes today or yesterday. So I got caught up with a lot of them including your
00:03:24
Speaker
Japan on film, which has a wonderful interview that I recommend everybody go listen to. I wouldn't even dare try to pronounce the name of your interviewee, so you go ahead, you do. Thank you, yeah. We've actually got the upcoming season of Japan on film. I've almost got all the episodes recorded, so it's planning to start in December. And then Eri, which is Eva DuVernay's
00:03:54
Speaker
distribution studio, they emailed me, a representative from them, like it wasn't Ava DuVernay herself, that would have been awesome, but one of their representatives emails me and she says, you know, we got this new movie coming out by Takeshi Fukunaga, who's the director of, I can't remember the other movie he did, but he did this other movie that was based in New York about a Liberian immigrant,
00:04:19
Speaker
who goes from working on a rubber plantation in Liberia to becoming a cab driver in New York and was all about like his journey and stuff like that and immigrants. Yeah. Sounds good.
00:04:30
Speaker
So that was a pretty cool thing to find out about. And then they said, you know, he's got this new movie coming out, this new Japanese movie called I Knew Most Here. And they said, you know, we're offering free screeners and if you want to watch the movie and we'd love it if you could give a review or if we could set up an interview. And I said, okay, yeah, sure.
00:04:50
Speaker
I emailed them back and I said, you know, I would love to, I'd love to meet him to sit down and do an interview as long as it's okay. Like, I'm not, because I didn't know anything about the guy. So I'm like, you know, if he can communicate in English or with a translator, then yeah, I'd love to sit down with him and do an interview. And they said, oh, yeah, yeah, he can do English, you know, and I looked him up. He's been in, he's lived in New York for like 16 years. So obviously he's fine. Right.
00:05:14
Speaker
So yeah, we scheduled the interview on Zoom. We did it Monday. We did it. And then I just got the episode cut together and it just came out yesterday, you know, at the time that we're recording this.
00:05:25
Speaker
And yeah, it was great. Like I got to see the movie for free and it was a really good movie. And it's, you know, the, and we talked, because you were on Japan on film and we were talking about Unforgiven and the I knew subplot in that, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I actually taught that movie in my class this week too. Like this is our Unforgiven week in my film class. So all of this comes together like right at the same time. And I'm just like, oh, this is like the perfect time to talk about this.
00:05:54
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. That was an aspect when he started talking about that. I said, Oh, okay. Now I got to, now I definitely got to watch this movie because I, because that was one of the subplots of, I'm forgiven that I was really intrigued by. Yeah. Yeah. So you'll, you'll definitely like this movie and it's on, it's on Netflix now. So you should definitely. Yeah. Yeah. I got Netflix. Like I said, like I said to you before we started recording, I had said to my wife, because she's always like, Oh, okay. We got to find someplace to watch. Got to find someplace to watch. I said, okay.
00:06:23
Speaker
I got something for us to watch. Yeah. So, uh, let me know what you think about it. Cause I, I watched it and I just loved it. It was a, it was a great, and it's really cool. Well, you know this from the interview, but he, he didn't use like regular actors. Like he went to these, I knew villages and he cast the actual people to play his role. So, and he got their input on the script and everything. And, and yeah, it's really, really awesome.
Snyder Cut Trailer Critique
00:06:48
Speaker
Okay, so we got some news today coming out. We got news. We got news, yeah. You're gonna have to find some sound effect that's got like the ticker tape like it used to be. Why are you giving me more work to do? Why do I need to do it? I got you.
00:07:13
Speaker
No. All right. So we got a new trailer for the Snyder Cut this week, which I could not tell the difference from the old trailer. I mean, there were some extra shots of Dark Side I noticed, and there were some extra shots of Superman in the black suit. But other than that, I'm just like, this trailer seems completely unnecessary. You even reuse that. I don't know.
00:07:38
Speaker
Can someone please sit Zack Snyder down and just tell him, look man, I know you like Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, but there are other songs you could use in the superhero trailer. Yeah, and apparently he's never really listened to the lyrics to that song.
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Those of you who have, who do the other lyrics of the song, right now you're nodding, because you know what I'm talking about. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so yeah, I have no idea, but it makes about as much sense as them using the Beatles come together, you know, for the trailers. Oh, which wasn't even the original one. It was some awful hard rock cover or something. Yeah. But even that was better than, it made more sense than Hallelujah. Yeah. You know, but listen, at this point I could do,
00:08:24
Speaker
We're not hearing any more about this particular iteration until it actually comes out. Well, you're going to love the next piece of news because it's also another Justice League piece. Oh, well. So anyway, he was asked because, you know, all the Snyder fans are expecting that, you know,
00:08:46
Speaker
When just when the Snyder cut comes out at HBO Max like it's going to mean that he's going to have this return to to come back come back to the DC you and he's going to do his whole Justice League trilogy that originally planned but Snyder himself has has quashed that now. So he said that he there's no plans for Justice League to.
00:09:08
Speaker
Here's what he said. He was talking with ping pong flicks, and he said, I don't have any expectation that there would be more movies than this. If that happened, that would be amazing, but that bridge is far away. Frankly, I'm cool. Listen, you have Wonder Woman, you have Aquaman, you have this new Flash movie. All of these are branches from a tree that I planted a long time ago. I couldn't be prouder. I couldn't be more excited about what's happening with Wonder Woman 1984. It's amazing, those talented people.
00:09:34
Speaker
Patty is a genius and Gell is the greatest Wonder Woman ever. Anytime those guys add a chapter to the world, it's great. But for me, I have a very singular vision of how my track is supposed to go. So it sounds like he is not going to be doing Justice League 2 unless there's some massive change.
Zack Snyder's Future Plans
00:09:52
Speaker
Well, I think that, first of all, I think that if we do see another Justice League movie, it's going to be completely different from what we've seen before, because apparently,
00:10:04
Speaker
DC slash Warner Brothers is going in a different direction with the DCU. They're going in a completely different direction. And actually, I think what they would probably do, they would probably offer it to somebody like James Gund.
00:10:21
Speaker
based on his track record you know because I mean like they just like threw they just like threw suicide squad at him and said listen we don't care do whatever you want to do yeah you know which when you're dealing with James Gunn probably is the best way to go oh yeah definitely you know just let him do what he just turn him loose and do what he do best so and I think that based on the success of
00:10:43
Speaker
the Suicide Squad, which is going to make a billion dollars, of course, depending on if we can still go see it in the theaters when it comes out. But yeah, I think that what they, okay, my gut is saying that
00:11:00
Speaker
If that movie does as well as they think it's gonna do and they hope it's gonna do, then they're gonna offer Justice League to James Gunn and let him do that. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that would make the most sense. Because you give it to someone like that and if there's anyone who could completely remake the Justice League and turn it into something that would probably please everybody, it's James Gunn.
00:11:24
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, because I mean, because before Guardians of the Galaxy, if they had told you that Guardians of the Galaxy was going to be that good, you'd have left yourself into a hernia. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, everyone everyone back then was because I remember even I was like, wait a minute, you just did Avengers and now the next team movie you want to do is Guardians of the Galaxy. What? Yeah. Yeah.
00:11:48
Speaker
It made no sense. And everybody was like, yeah, no, this is stupid. There are like tons of articles. You couldn't swing a dead cat on the internet without hitting some clickbait article about why Guardians of the Galaxy will be Marvel's first flop. Oh yeah, exactly. Everybody expected that movie to fall flat on its face. And the fact that it turned, but the genius of that movie is that that was a movie literally for everybody.
00:12:14
Speaker
Everybody went to see Guardians of the Galaxy. Even people that had never seen a Marvel movie previous to that, they went to see Guardians of the Galaxy and loved it. My wife, right? When we first started dating, she told me that she didn't like superhero movies.
00:12:28
Speaker
So one night we're over here at my place and we're trying to find a movie to watch. I'm like, well, let's watch Guardians of the Galaxy. She was like, oh, okay. So we showed her that and she loved it. And then after that, she's like, oh, I want to, and like, she came over a few days later. She's like, I want to watch the second one. I'm like, okay, so we watched the second one. Then we went in from that and I, and now I got her hooked on superhero movies after that point. Bingo. Bingo.
00:12:50
Speaker
Yeah, and that's a great way to introduce people to that world because it's not so deep in the Marvel lore. So it's very easy to have that as an intro point to people who aren't really predisposo, or whatever that, you know what I'm talking about.
00:13:06
Speaker
I gotcha. Yeah, it's very easy to then take them from that movie and then lead them into other superhero movies. It's accessible. Yeah, very accessible. Yeah, it's a movie that you can sit back and have a good time with. And for those of you who may not know, we did do a whole episode about Guardians of the Galaxy 2, so you know, go listen to that.
00:13:27
Speaker
Yeah. Another Zack Snyder piece of news is... I don't know if this is... You might be interested in this one. This isn't about Justice League, but it is DC related. But he said that he would love to make a live action version of The Dark Knight Returns. Which I think I would actually be interested in seeing that because that is a movie much more tuned to his sensibilities.
00:13:59
Speaker
I would like Zack's snot. You know, okay. You know what Zack's a snot that should go make, seriously? Don't laugh. Go do a man-bat movie. Okay, that's an interesting choice. I can see that. Go do a Phantom Stranger movie.
00:14:15
Speaker
I don't know if that would be so much in his wheelhouse, but Man-Bat would be interesting. Go do a demon movie. Demon might be interesting. Yeah, demon would probably fit. Go someplace where he can explore the darker aspects of the DC universe instead of pulling the lighter characters into the dark.
00:14:36
Speaker
And, you know, if that is your wheelhouse, if that is your worldview, and I'm going to get into this a little bit more when we start talking about Chronicle, but if that's the way you look at the world, well, then go to those characters that you can best explore your worldview. And that's what you, and that's what I think Zack Snyder should really do. Instead of trying to
00:14:57
Speaker
mess with characters like Superman who belongs in the light and everything like that and trying to you know turn them into this dark moody angsty character. Well go get you a dark moody angsty character and go twist the night away. I mean I I understand I agree with you for the most part although if you're gonna do
00:15:18
Speaker
If Snyder wants to do a live action Batman movie, I think Dark Knight Returns is really the perfect vehicle for him. Well Batman is closer to his worldview than Superman. So it's not that I don't think he couldn't do a Batman movie, but he could with his eyes closed. I just think that at this point, I don't know about anybody else, I don't know about y'all guys out there.
00:15:41
Speaker
But I'm pretty much burnt out on Zack Snyder. If I never knew Zack Snyder's name for the next five years, I'd be perfectly happy with it. Don't get me wrong, it's not that I dislike the man. Actually, I think that we probably met. We probably have a very good time. But I'm just tired of hearing his name. I'm tired of hearing about him. I'm tired of hearing about his projects. I would much rather hear that he already done something rather than what he wants to do or what he's going to do or bring it back old project.
00:16:10
Speaker
you know, move forward, man, you know, go forward with your life.
Wonder Woman 1984 Release Strategy
00:16:14
Speaker
So, well, moving on from Snyder, but still in the DC verse, we got a Wonder Woman 1984, which we talked about, you know, it looks like it's not going to get another delay, but it's coming this Christmas in theaters, but it's also going straight to HBO Max. So we only have to wait a little longer for Godot.
00:16:37
Speaker
Okay, I had to bring it back again. Well, listen, that that's cool. It worked for me. I got HBO Max that worked for me. Yeah, you know what, I was looking at it because I've been I've been putting off starting the the free trial of HBO Max and and
00:16:53
Speaker
Because I wanted, I was waiting, because I'm looking on it last night. And because they had this, so I was doing a podcast deep dive and I started listening to stuff about, you know, the 1980s satanic panic and like the the McMartin trial. You remember all that stuff? Oh, yeah. Yeah. So and then I found out there was a there was a movie that HBO did in back in like the mid 90s called indictment, the McMartin trial. And it's all about like, you know,
00:17:18
Speaker
the trial and what happened in it and how like there was all this media hype that totally basically ruined the lives of these people who got indicted in this, you know, what ended up being like a crazy woman's, you know, bizarre, twisted, you know, alcohol-fueled fantasies. But it caused this, you know, nationwide panic.
00:17:40
Speaker
Right. And so this movie and this movie was like the first time when people when the media started to turn the page on that and started like looking back on themselves say like, hey, you know, we fucked some shit up.
00:17:51
Speaker
Right. So, so I found out there's this movie and I'm like, oh, I'm like, well, it's an HBO movie. It's got to be on HBO Max. So I search on HBO Max and it's there. And I'm like, well, do I want to start the free trial just for this movie? And then I'm looking to see and they don't have any of the DC animated shows like, you know, Batman, the animated series, Superman, the Justice League, Unlimited, all that. None of that stuff's on there. So I'm like, ah, I'll put it off. And I end up finding the movie indictment on YouTube anyway. So I got to watch it there. But
00:18:19
Speaker
But then so, but now this right so Wonder Woman 1984 it's coming out December 25 on Christmas Day, then I think I'm going to hold off and I'm going to start my free trial when it comes out. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's good idea. Yeah, I mean, I mean, you know, we already had HBO so right and and
00:18:40
Speaker
We have DirecTV, that's our satellite thingy. So they have a deal with them that if you already subscribed to HBO, then you get HBO Max for free. And that's why I waited so long because I wanted to watch Doom Patrol and Harley Quinn and all the other DC stuff that was previously on DC Universe. Yeah, yeah.
00:19:05
Speaker
But I had a friend to put a bug in my ear and said, no, don't subscribe to DC Universe. I said, why not? He said, just wait. And then I saw what he meant when I heard about that it was gonna move all that stuff to HBO Max. So then I said, okay, now I got a reason to get it. So, which is what I did. So, yeah. Do patrol and Titans and all that other good stuff that's on there.
00:19:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, so I'm looking for because I've seen the first season, first seasons of Doom Patrol and the first season of Titans. And I'm looking forward to checking out the second seasons because second season of Titans is out is second season of Doom Patrol is out as well, right?
00:19:43
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I'm looking forward to checking out those. Plus they had the third season of Young Justice. They brought that back for a third season. Yeah, they brought that back. Yeah. What are my favorite animated shows? Oh, that show was like, I remember when that show was announced, it seemed really weird. Cause they're like, whoa, wait, they're going to have the Teen Heroes be like the Justice League's covert ops squad. It didn't seem to make any sense, but then you watch the show and you're like, whoa, this is actually pretty brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I mean the writing on that,
00:20:12
Speaker
it's so which again always brings me back to the thing is that well why don't they just let the people that are who let the people who do the animated work let them do the live action movies yeah i mean why well not only that but the the the tv stuff in general right you got the yeah the young justice series like give brandon vietti and greg weisman uh
00:20:36
Speaker
a movie or, you know, Greg Berlanti, give him a damn movie already. For the life of me, I don't understand that, you know, but I've been saying this ever since the days of Batman the Animated Series and Justice League TV, you know, why don't they just simply go ahead and just let the people do the animated, let them do the movies.
00:20:55
Speaker
because they don't listen to us. Because we should be running the studios, but they're not listening to us. Because it's so obvious that they understand the characters way better than the people who are motivated just by their vision.
00:21:12
Speaker
Well, I have to go with my vision of what I think Superman is. Okay, yeah, we see how well that worked out. Oh, yeah, yeah.
Thor in Guardians of the Galaxy?
00:21:20
Speaker
So jumping from the DC side to the Marvel side, Vin Diesel has just landed in Australia. So there's speculation because Christian Bale's in Australia now and
00:21:37
Speaker
Chris Pratt will apparently be in it as well as Star-Lord and now there's speculation that since Vin Diesel's popping up in Australia, he might be making an appearances group in Thor Love and Thunder. Yeah, it seems as if they're going to be combining
00:21:57
Speaker
the two, you know, the Guardians of the Galaxy and Thor, which, you know, only makes sense because as we saw in, near the end of the last Avengers movie, you know, the Infinity War, you know, Thor basically joined the team. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Which, and I was kind of hoping, hopefully it'll be more than just like, you know, this is how we get him off the team and back on earth type of thing, right? Because I'm hoping we'll see, I still hope we'd see him in like Guardians 3.
00:22:26
Speaker
Yeah. You know what? I actually think that, yeah, for, I mean, you know, the time being, yeah, let Thor hang out with the Guardians of the Galaxy for a while before returning him to Earth. You know, let a whole new Avengers team get, you know, started up.
00:22:42
Speaker
And, you know, then he comes back and, cause you know what? I kind of liked the idea of Thor being like the grandfather of already superheroes. And, you know, he looks at, you know, they look for him for advice. He's kind of like the grumpy grandpa. Yeah. Yeah. You know, you know, I'm kind of looking forward to them pushing him in that, you know, direction. And he's kind of like proud to see what the Avengers had become and they thrive without him and all that other kind of stuff. So yeah, I, yeah.
00:23:10
Speaker
Yeah, and apparently Chris Hemsworth, well, and I hate to say this because I like him as an actor, but since his career isn't exactly being on fire in any other direction. Well, I mean, he's doing some stuff, but it's just, I think he's gotten to a place where his thing was
00:23:30
Speaker
My take on it was that he didn't like the direction the Thor movies were going. And then when Taika came on, you know, that kind of changed everything. Now he was able to have more input and like how he was able to portray the character. And so now he's having a lot more fun with it.
00:23:44
Speaker
Yeah, now I don't know. I thought in the Ghostbusters one, he was brilliant. Oh, yes, yeah. I mean, him and Kate McKenna was the funniest things in the movie. It was the best things in there as far as I was concerned. Oh, definitely. And I know he did that movie for Netflix that while everybody else loved it, I didn't care too much for it, but apparently it was successful enough that they are doing the sequel to it. Oh yeah, that was very successful, yeah.
00:24:12
Speaker
So he's got that, and I'm glad for him. I like Chris Hemsworth. He seems to be like a guy who, who, who truly enjoys what he's doing. And he hasn't let it go to his head. That, that, and just like, he's a really well-rounded actor, right? Like you, I wasn't expecting it when I saw Thor, but then you see him in, you know, he did, he, I mean, the way he portrays Thor now compared to, it's like almost like a completely different guy, but still the same guy. Kind of like when you're talking about, um,
00:24:39
Speaker
how Ben Affleck and Jeremy Irons made you think of Michael Keaton and Michael Guff. Right. And it's almost like, I feel like Hemsworth is kind of the same. Cause they're both played by Chris Hemsworth, but it's like a diff, it feels different yet the same. Yeah, exactly. You know, and I always, I don't know, maybe it's because I have that same quality, but you know what? I always instinctively trust a guy that don't mind making a fool of himself.
00:25:06
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And being a goofy and silly and everything like that. Because he's a big good looking guy and he can trade on that, but he doesn't. Oh yeah. Very good looking guy. Like I told, um, we were watching some movie that he was in and I told my wife, I'm like, you know what? If he made a pass at me, I'm cheating on you.
00:25:24
Speaker
Listen, okay. I was like, listen, I'm not gonna, he's a big, good looking guy. You know, if he, if he winked at me, I'm not gonna, I'd wink back. I would. I ain't gonna lie. All right. So, and other Marvel news, which is kind of disappointing is that WandaVision got delayed to 2021.
WandaVision Delayed
00:25:47
Speaker
Basically got a month delay. Cause it's coming out in January now and it's got, uh,
00:25:52
Speaker
See if there's an official, yeah, the official premiere date now is January 15th on Disney Plus. Which I'm not, I don't know why they're, I don't really know why they're delaying it because they, it's done and it's, it's, they got no theatrical release to worry about. I mean, I don't understand. I had to crack up the other day. Cause when it was announced, like our friend Van Allen, Plexico, he lost his mind.
00:26:21
Speaker
And I was like, oh, they got bad piss. Oh, yeah, yeah. Don't best stop pointing this thing. But you're absolutely right. I mean, it's done. Why do you keep pushing it back? I don't know. Yeah, I'm at a loss. The only thing that I can figure is that it's in December, and the Mandalorian will still be running in December. That's the only thing that comes to my mind. They don't want to take people's attention away from the Mandalorian. Because that's like their bread and butter.
00:26:49
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Now, you know, and everybody is focused on that. So, to my mind, that is the only reason I could think of why they would push it back, that they don't want people to be, you know, they don't want people to be distracted. Yeah. All right. Now, another thing. Were you ever a Darkwing Duck fan? Oh, of course. Well, they're doing a reboot on Disney+.
00:27:14
Speaker
I figured that sooner or later they would, yeah. And it's gonna be Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. And I know people, when they hear Seth Rogen's name, their assholes start to clench up, but Seth Rogen's a really good writer and a really good producer. Like he's the reason the boys is the thing. He's the reason Preacher's a thing. So with him doing a Darkwing Duck series, I trust that. That sounds like it would be a good thing.
00:27:39
Speaker
Cause as a matter of fact, when they had the Disney afternoon, I was still working for the board of education at that time. So of course by three o'clock, all the kids were, you know, we got the kids out of the building and everything like that, but we had to stay till five.
00:27:55
Speaker
So, I mean, once we had the kids out and we had the building locked up and everything like that, I went and I found me a TV set and I was watching Disney afternoon, you know? Yeah. I mean, Rescue Rangers, Tailspin. Tailspin, oh yeah, Duck Tails, Darkwing Duck. That was, it was so interesting that was happening. It was like part of the Disney revival in the early mid-90s, but there was this whole, like Disney went straight pulp for their afternoon lineup.
00:28:24
Speaker
Tailspin, for those of you who have not ever seen Tailspin, and if you have never seen Tailspin, I have no idea where you've been. And you know what, you've got no excuses, because if you got Disney+, you can watch it. Yeah, exactly. That was like the best pulp action adventure that I've seen in a long, I mean, it was straight up, the original two-hour movie that kicked it off is like,
00:28:49
Speaker
is Raiders of the Lost Ark, the mummy level of pulp adventure. It is, it's that good. And it's usually derided as just being a knockoff of Tales of the Gold Monkey.
00:29:02
Speaker
Mm hmm. You know, the live action show. Right. But but it's much but it's its own animal. It is. Yeah. I mean, so yeah, so they have a darkened up with tailspin. It was rescue Rangers and dovetails, which also had a lot of both. Yeah, it also had a lot of a pulp feel to it as well. Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah.
00:29:22
Speaker
And yeah, and it was just like this great, and then slowly over time, right? They started to go back to the straight up slapstick type stuff when they got like the goofy show and all that kind of stuff. But there was this period there where they were just doing like these straight up pulp stuff and it was great. It was amazing.
00:29:40
Speaker
that two-hour block in the afternoon, forget about it. They would call me on the radio and everything like that. I said, listen, unless the kids are storming the school again, what are you bombing me for? You know, there's a guy, oh, I love that kind of stuff. Yeah, so yeah, Drunk Wing Duck, I'm glad to see him back. Yeah. Now, another thing too is
Constantine Sequel Rumors
00:30:03
Speaker
Peter Stormare, he posted a picture of himself from Constantine on Instagram, and he captioned it, sequel in the works. So it looks like, and we mentioned before, there was a possibility of a Constantine 2 with a sequel to the Keanu Reeves movie, and it looks like it might be happening.
00:30:26
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, nothing, nothing is off the table anymore. Like I know that, you know, it used to be that we would go around saying, okay, well they'll never make a sequel to this. They'll never make a sequel to that. But here's the thing. You have all of these streaming services now that, that need content. So nothing is off the table when it comes to a reboot, a revamp, a remake,
00:30:52
Speaker
whatever it is. So it's not like it used to be that I would hear that they're going to, you know, do a sequel or something. That's sad. It's just bullshit. No, no, they may do. Why in the world they won't make a sequel to Speed Racer? I have no idea, but hey, that's a whole nother story. Yeah.
00:31:08
Speaker
Also, one part, it's not superhero related, but it's kind of in that same realm of movies, action movies that we talk about. Apparently, Mel Gibson says that Lethal Weapon 5 is coming, and Glover's gonna be in it again, and Richard Donner is gonna be back to direct. You know what? No, okay, here's the thing.
00:31:31
Speaker
I love Lethal Weapon. I rewatch that series at least once a year, usually during the summertime. Got it on Blu-ray. I love it. I love it because that's probably the most consistent
00:31:48
Speaker
because everybody who was involved in it in the first movie was involved in the second, the third, and the fourth. Yeah. So, I mean, it was everybody. Richard Donner did them all. They had the same writers. They had the same actors. They had everybody who was with it for the long haul. So there was a consistency in that film franchise you don't see in a lot of other ones. Right.
00:32:10
Speaker
simply because everybody was in there from start to finish. And I feel that they should have left it off the way it was. What they actually should have did, and I probably said this before, if I had folks excuse me for repeating myself, basically they should have just turned it into rush hour with Chris Rock and Jet Li taking over.
00:32:33
Speaker
Oh Chris, oh I see what you're saying. I thought you're talking like the actual rush hour guys. I'm like, I don't know about that. No, no, no, no, no. No, cause I can't stand a rush hour movies. Yeah. Yeah, but no, but I mean it that you would have had a black guy and the Asian cop teamed up together. They could have said that Jet Li's character was actually undercover cop.
00:32:54
Speaker
Yeah. And then he was going to stay in Los Angeles. And this way, you could have kept the series going with the younger guys doing all of the really action stuff and let Gibson and Glover do the comedy stuff. They would have still been around as like mentors to the younger guys. Right. And they could have did their comedy shtick and everything like that. Well, now the interesting thing is, because Lethal Weapon 4 came out in 98, right? So that was what, like a little over 20 years ago, right? It's 22 years ago. Right.
00:33:24
Speaker
You have Glover's grandchild, right? And you got Gibson's child, right? They were born at the end of that movie, right? You had, you know, Riggs and Renee Russo's character, they had a baby at the end of the movie. And then Murtaugh's daughter with Chris Rock's character, she had a baby at the end, they had a baby at the end of the movie too. So now you've actually got a case where these two babies are of age. So they could actually be a perfect way to hand the franchise off.
00:33:54
Speaker
Okay, see, that's the only way that I can see this going, that, you know, we have Gibson and Glover and they hand off the trash and they hand off the franchise, like you said, to a younger, you know, although I don't know what it is now that
00:34:12
Speaker
Okay. We seem to have gone from a thing in this culture where once upon a time it would have been unthinkable that an 80 year old man would be an action hero. But yet we've got Indiana Jones five coming too. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know,
00:34:28
Speaker
So, I mean, hey, you know, this is, I don't know, the culture has definitely changed. Whereas now we look at, okay, Mel Gibson and Danny Glover, and we don't think it's inconceivable to look at them, okay, well, I'm gonna go see the Ether Weapon Five. I mean, I don't know, it's just me. No, no, you're right, you're right. But I don't know, it's always interesting when they go back to the well like that, like they're doing it with, this is a, we got this weird,
00:34:59
Speaker
I can't remember what was the movie that started it, but we've got this thing now where it's this wave of nostalgia, which in some ways is a good thing. I'm not saying it's all bad, but it's just an interesting thing where people are going back to these movies from like, you know, 20, 30 years ago and making a new sequel for it, as opposed to doing a reboot, which I kind of like better than doing a reboot, because it is kind of nice to give them, you know, the kind of like one last ride type of thing.
00:35:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know what? And I'm not opposed to that. As a matter of fact, I actually like the concept of
00:35:31
Speaker
exploring what happens to heroes when they get older and they can't do the stuff that they did before. So now they have to find new ways of doing it or they're passing it on to somebody that's younger. You know, I actually don't mind that kind of stuff. I'm just saying that is, that is, but then again, not really that unusual because I remember back in the seventies and I guess it's a thing that happens every 20 or 30 years. Like you said, just wait.
00:35:56
Speaker
Dowager comes along because in the 70s we had all these TV shows and movies about the 1950s.
00:36:04
Speaker
That's because people who were teenagers during the 50s, now they were adults in the 70s and they wanted to look back at the stuff that they enjoy. So I guess now we're doing the same thing now. We're looking back at the stuff 20, 30 years ago that we enjoy and we want to see that stuff again. So that's why we're getting like Ghostbusters Afterlife. That's why we got...
00:36:27
Speaker
you know, Dark Fate, the recent Halloween sequel that, you know, was a direct sequel just for the first movie and stuff like that. Right, yeah. Like I said, I think it's something that just happens in pop culture every
00:36:42
Speaker
20 to 30 years that we went back and we have this desire to see the stuff that we saw when we were younger and we wanted to see it again. And I think a lot of it is because we not only want to enjoy it again for ourselves, but we want to feel like it's being passed on to another generation and they can discover what it was about it that we love, but in a new way. Well, it also gives a new way to introduce it to a new generation of viewers too, right? Because like,
00:37:11
Speaker
you know, if you take a teenager now, you know, maybe they don't want to watch Ghostbusters, right? Maybe they look at it and they think, oh wow, that looks really old, right? But then you show them Ghostbusters Afterlife and then they're like, oh, you know, now I'm interested in seeing the original.
00:37:29
Speaker
You know what? I think, also, that what it is, you really have to catch them at the right age with their receptive to that. Like, my nieces and nephews. I turned them on to Ray Harryhausen at a young age, and they were fascinated about it. But I caught them at the right age. Right. And they trusted me enough that, you know, I told, listen, this is really cool. You're really going to watch this. And they said, Uncle Derek, I said, and they're watching it. And they're watching Jason and Argan now. It's 15, 20 minutes into it. I can't pull him away from the TV set.
00:37:56
Speaker
Now, of course, the teenagers and stuff like that, I can't get them to watch jack shit. But they will still sit down and watch Jason Organos with me if I'm watching it. Oh, wow, did you? Or anything with stop motion, they'll watch it. That's because I caught them at an early age. Oh, yeah, definitely. I think that has a lot to do with it. Well, you know what? It happened to me because my parents, they sat me down and I was watching Westerns with them, which is where my love of Westerns
Lethal Weapon 5 Plot Speculation
00:38:21
Speaker
come from.
00:38:21
Speaker
Well, that's how I got same thing. That's how I got into James Bond, because, you know, my dad would sit me down and we'd watch like Dr. No. And from Russia with love. And so, you know, like we talked about when we talked about Sean Connery's passing that that was how Sean Connery became my James Bond. Yeah. Because even though at that time when I was when I was when I was getting into that during that time period, Timothy Dalton was in the movies. But for me, it was, you know, Sean Connery was the first one I saw.
00:38:46
Speaker
Right, exactly. You know, for me, you know, even though I think of Timothy Dalton as being more like the James Bond of the books, when, if you say James Bond to me, and you say with Derry, if you had one James Bond movie that you had to watch for the rest of your life, I'd say with no, oh, Diamonds Off Ever. Because that's the one I saw with my father. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
00:39:08
Speaker
Okay, so enough jawjacking. Let's move on to today's movie, which was your pick. And that's 2012's Chronicle, which introduced the world pretty much to Michael B. Jordan.
00:39:20
Speaker
Yeah, um, I haven't really looked it up, but I'm pretty sure he probably has some minor roles before this was like the first major thing that he did. Yeah. And this was, this was like the launching point for, for his career. Cause after this, he went and did a fantastic. He went and did a creed. He did a, you know, black Panther. So this was really where like he, he got, this was like his launching pad.
00:39:42
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, this is where it all started. And I picked this movie because we did Brightburn a couple of weeks ago. And then watching Brightburn, I was struck by a lot of similarities that I saw in Chronicle. And in fact, I see how this could very easily take place in the same universe. Yeah, watching this movie, I got that same feeling. Like I definitely understood where you were coming from.
00:40:10
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Matter of fact, the spaceship that these three guys find could probably come from the same race as the one we saw in Brightburn, but maybe the baby that was in it died or something like that, but somehow through alien osmosis, it passed on the powers to these three guys, whatever like that. I don't know. I don't care. I don't get that deep into it. All I know is that I was,
00:40:33
Speaker
This reminded me a lot of Brightburn, and I could see where, because at the end of Brightburn, you had mentioned, you said, yeah, that they had the guy that was talking about these other superpowers, people, one of us will be Wonder Woman, one was Aquaman, that were wreaking havoc around the world. I said, yeah, well, this could be a universe where pretty much if you get superpowers, you become an asshole. Yeah, yeah. I can see it. You know something?
00:40:59
Speaker
When you were talking about that, I actually was thinking that this idea popped in my head is that maybe it's not like from the same race that Brandon's race is from, but maybe it's like a competing race or something. Yeah. Okay. I can see this being like kind of like a cold war metaphor, right? Like the, you know, the proxy war thing. Oh, okay.
00:41:26
Speaker
I like that thought. So that was something that came to mind. I got to remember that for putting something together. Yeah, right. Listen, write them ideas down, son. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But OK, so this was actually the first time seeing this movie for me. Oh, you've never seen this before? No, I've never seen it before. It came out in 2012. I was already in Japan. And you know what the thing that put me off about it is, is that it's the found footage thing.
00:41:54
Speaker
I am just, I hate the found footage concept. I think it's just, a lot of times it's just used as a way for, hey, let's be lazy or let's be cheap because we don't have enough money to invest in, you know, in tripods.
00:42:15
Speaker
Thank you. That's the way I look at it, except with some exceptions. Matter of fact, the only two found footage movies that I can say that I like Cloverfield, because there was a reason for the guy to have the camera and for him to be holding. Because see, here's my thing. Nobody in their right mind is going to be holding onto a camera through all of this shit. That was one of my problems watching this movie. Nobody's going to be holding onto a camera, really.
00:42:45
Speaker
and but in Cloverfield there was an actual reason for the guy to be holding on to this because he was a filmmaker and he was trying to document this because he said there needs to be a record of this. Oh I said okay and then there's another other there's another picture that is a remake of a Spanish horror movie I think it's called Rec
00:43:05
Speaker
short for record where is this film? Oh right yeah yeah I've heard of that. Right they go into this building where that's been infected with some kind of disease or something like that and they go and
Introduction to Chronicle
00:43:16
Speaker
they sneak in there you know trying to get the story but again there's a reason why the guy is holding on to the camera because he's a trained cameraman he's supposed to be you know in this movie there is no reason for you know no I can't buy it. Well especially because
00:43:30
Speaker
when he goes into the hospital at the end, Andrew, right? They're not doing found footage. They switched to like regular, you know, regular single camera setup. So it just seems really strange. And yeah, so for me too, there were also two movies. Like I haven't seen the two you mentioned, but my two are two different ones. One is The Last Exorcism.
00:43:54
Speaker
The last exorcism because this was, the way it's structured is there's this guy who goes around performing fake exorcisms, right? He like bilks people out of money. He's like running the scam about exorcisms. Oh, cool.
00:44:10
Speaker
And he wants to expose himself, right? Because he realized like, I think he's worried about, I can't remember exactly, but he has a justification for doing. He's like, he realized, comes to this crisis of conscience, realized like, I should not be doing this. So he hires this documentary film crew and he says to them, listen, I want you to come with me, document everything. I'm gonna show you how I go through the whole thing.
00:44:31
Speaker
And of course, the thing is, the case he ends up going on ends up being a real exorcism. But it's not like, there's a twist to it, right? It turns out there's like this, it's got a really cool ending too. I'm not gonna say anything in case you watch it, but that makes sense as well, because they're a documentary film crew going on to this and then all this other shit happens in the middle of it. So that's a movie where it makes sense for the guy to be carrying a camera all the time.
00:44:58
Speaker
Right, exactly. If you give me a character who's a trained cameraman, okay, I understand why he's holding on to the camera, because that's what he's been trained for. No matter what you do, you keep filming. Yeah, yeah, especially when it's a documentary film clip. Right, but don't give me this thing where it's an ordinary person and they're being chased by the thing with 40 eyes and they're still holding on to the camera. You throw that shit to the side and run like your ass.
00:45:25
Speaker
There's another movie, Searching, with John Cho. And this was a found footage one, but it was a very unique one because it wasn't someone carrying around a camera, right? It was how cameras from all our different devices are capturing us in every day. So his conversations, right? He's talking with the police, trying to find his daughter. They're FaceTiming, right? Right. That's the one where the daughter goes missing. He finally, she had a whole secret life he didn't know about. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:45:56
Speaker
So that was a really good movie. Well, it was a really good use of found footage, but the ending, they kind of shit the bed in the ending.
00:46:05
Speaker
There's another one also that I can recommend we found footage called The Last Broadcast. Now, a lot of people didn't see this or dismissed it because it unfairly got the tag of being a knockoff of the Blair Witch Project. But trust me, this was far superior to Blair Witch, which I cannot stand. That movie should never be allowed to be shown in public again. I don't understand why this movie
00:46:35
Speaker
Well, I understand why I took off the way it did because it was such a brilliant marketing plan. Oh, wait, I just thought of another one, Behind the Mask, the Ryan Leslie version. That was a great movie too.
00:46:51
Speaker
Yeah, now, yeah, if somebody had never seen the found footage movie, I'd probably give them that one. Yeah, behind the mask. That was a great movie. I was really impressed by how well they did that. I was. Tom DJ recommended that movie to me and I saw, man, you know how I hate these movies. And he said, no, no, no, trust me. He said, you're going to like this one. And he was right. I said, oh, shit, this is, yeah, this is good.
00:47:15
Speaker
You know, actually, now that I think about it, that's where I heard about it the first time. I heard about it from you guys talking about it on Better in the Dark. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We did a whole episode of it. Yeah, because I remember watching the, I remember seeing it all the time in like video stores, like back when Blockbuster was still around and they were selling the used DVDs. And I remember always seeing this movie there. I'm like, oh, that's just some cheap, crappy B-horror movie. I'm not gonna waste my time on that. Yeah, right, yeah.
00:47:42
Speaker
But then when you guys talked about it, I'm like, oh, I got to check this out. And yeah, it was really well done. Really well done. So see, folks, you got a whole bunch of found footage movies. If you don't like found footage movies, we just gave you a list of movies for people who don't like found footage movies. Now, that brings us back to this movie, because like you said, it makes no sense for this to be a found footage movie. No, no, no. This has a straight, you know,
00:48:10
Speaker
Like there are some ways where it does make sense. Like I can understand him, you know, being this weird kid filming everything at the beginning, but like he's taking this massive fucking camera into a nightclub. Oh my God. And yeah, especially now when you look at that, consider the technology that we have now where all of that stuff he's lugging around is in a cell phone. You know, he just looks ridiculous. I mean, this movie came out in 2012. iPhones had been a thing for two years by now.
00:48:42
Speaker
So I think that the whole thing was that because remember his mother is sick, you know, she's dying really. The father is an alcoholic mess. So he doesn't really have money to buy, which is, I guess, you know, the point that they were trying to make that, you know, he really didn't have money for a new camera. And later on, I think his cousin buys him a new camera or something. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because they lose the first one when they go into the tunnel. Yeah.
00:49:11
Speaker
And the father played by Michael Kelly from, he was in Man of Steel as Steve Lombard, and he was also in House of Cards as Doug Stamper.
00:49:24
Speaker
Yeah, I could put you know what, when I saw him, I said, Oh shit, I know that guy. Yeah, he's one of those guys who's been in so many different movies. Yeah, because I haven't seen this movie, you know, like in years, really, I literally haven't seen it in years. And so yeah, and he's been in so much since then, like you said, like House of Cards. Yeah, it's like that. So when I saw him, I said, Oh shit, I know that guy.
00:49:46
Speaker
Yeah. So yeah, I did the same thing because I didn't recognize him. I didn't quite recognize him completely with the beard. So then I had to look him up. And then when I saw him, I'm like, oh yeah, I remember him now. That's what threw me off, you know, the beard. But then there's a scene where he's sitting across from his son and he's talking to him and I got a real good look at him and I heard the voice. I said, okay, I know that guy. Yeah, same here. I think that was the same scene where I realized it too.
00:50:11
Speaker
Now, for those of you who have not seen this movie, briefly, what happens is that we have these three high school friends. Andrew, Steven, played by Michael B. Jordan, who is like the school jock. He's the most popular kid in school. He's running for class president. And there's Matt, who is Andrew's cousin and his friend. And pretty much his only friend, really. His only friend. And of course, Andrew is your typical alienated teenager.
00:50:40
Speaker
and he's got this camera that he gets and he takes it around with him everywhere and he's recording and he freely admits that he does it because it's a barrier between him and the world he does not understand. One night they go to a party and for some reason that's inescapable to me, they all of a sudden just find a hole in the backyard of where this party is being held at and they go down in the hole
00:51:07
Speaker
where they find an alien spaceship. And the three of them proceed to have nosebleeds and they hear this high pitch whining and they pass out. And then we cut to the next day. We never find out how they got out of the hole or whatever. But it turns out that through some kind of osmosis, this alien spaceship has given them superpowers.
00:51:34
Speaker
specifically telekinetic superpowers. Telekinetic superpowers that, that grow stronger the more they use them. Right. They, they describe, they do a really good job of describing, right? He says it's like a muscle. The more you work it out, the more, the stronger it gets. Right. And we see them, you know, first they're moving around Legos and stuff like that. And you know, they're having fun and they're being kids and, you know, they're playing around. It's like a new toy that they've got. And then now they can move cars and,
00:52:02
Speaker
now they can fly. Yeah. Let's just say that the stronger their powers grow, the worse the situation gets. And that's basically the premise of this movie. Yeah, yeah. And also, I want to mention that Dane DeHaan plays Andrew. And he was also after this, like, you know, both DeHaan and Michael B. Jordan, they end up moving into more mainstream superhero movies because
00:52:29
Speaker
Jordan, obviously he was the human torch in Trank's fantastic move, Fantastic Four. And then he was Killmonger, you know? Amazing take on Killmonger in Black Panther. And DeHaan, he went on to play Harry Osborn in the second Amazing Spider-Man movie, which is less amazing. And you know what? He's really good in this movie and playing the alienated,
00:52:57
Speaker
Andrew. Yeah. Yeah. And know what? Okay. Here's the thing. I know we're supposed to feel sorry for him, but you get the distinct impression that he kind of might kind of have deserved the treatment that he gets from people because he's, you know, there's just something off about his character where I think that, that, you know,
00:53:26
Speaker
Okay. Trang tries to have it both ways, but I don't think you can have it both ways with his character in this movie. You know, either he's a put-upon kid who for some reason everybody picks on and nobody likes, you know, he's got an alcoholic father, he's got a dying mother. Okay. But then he does some things in the movie that, you know, you say, well, you know what, maybe he's just not all that nice of a guy. Yeah.
00:53:55
Speaker
I mean, you know what, especially after he gets his powers and he starts really feeling himself and he's saying, you know what, I really start fucking over some people. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I got, I got the same feeling like it and you know, it's, it's kind of a missed opportunity in a lot of ways because you look at, um,
Character Dynamics in Chronicle
00:54:19
Speaker
uh Matt or you look at uh Steve they're much more likable characters and they have a if one of if one of them ended up getting the powers and going bad I think it would have made a lot more we would have felt that journey a lot more right it would have been right because you see them they're they're nice well-adjusted kids which also is kind of
00:54:43
Speaker
a little, I felt a little scummy with the fact that it's like, hey, the kid who gets bullied is really secretly an asshole and deserves it type of stuff. Yeah, yeah. To me, it would have been more interesting if it had been Steve that turned out to be the asshole. And he said, well, you know what? Cause he's a jock anyway. He feels, you know, he's on top of the world anyway. He said, well, now I got these, I could really be on top of the world. And it was Andrew that had to reign him in. Yeah, yeah. You know, it would have been more interesting because yeah, because
00:55:10
Speaker
The way that this movie is set up, you say, yeah, well, of course Andrew turned out to be an asshole, you know, cause he was an asshole just starting to, you know, to begin, it's like, um,
00:55:21
Speaker
I don't know if he actually originated this, but I'm going to attribute it anyway to pass the AR Bernard anyway, where he said, one time I went to church and he had said something about money and he was talking about money. He said, yeah, I know that people always say that money is the root of all evil. He said, but money only turns you into more of what you already are.
00:55:43
Speaker
So if you were an asshole to begin with, well, just having more money just gives you the latitude of freedom to be more of an asshole. Right. Which is pretty much what happens in this movie. Oh yeah, definitely. You know, superpowers give these characters a little bit more latitude to be assholes. Yeah, I think that he's definitely right about that.
00:56:06
Speaker
And that was one of my problems watching this movie is that, well, and I wouldn't say a problem because it's not trying to reinvent the wheel, but it reminds me of Brightburn in the way that it's not surprising you at all, right? You see this movie and you see when they get powers and you're like, okay, Andrew's gonna become an asshole.
00:56:28
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can see what's coming. I mean, you know, like a mom and to give it his credit, this isn't a long movie. It's only barely like 90 minutes long. Oh yeah. It's like 84 minutes or something like that. Right. Yeah. It's not a long movie because yeah, you can see what's coming. It's like, and you put it the best way. It's not reinventing the wheel at all. It's not, but okay. And here's the thing that I really want to get into. If I can take a steal a couple of minutes from you. Absolutely. It's a thing I really want to get into.
00:56:57
Speaker
You remember Fantastic Four, the director of Fantastic Four. Okay, that movie came out and people lost their minds because, and with good reason, it's a bad movie. Oh God, it's terrible. It's a bad movie, like any stretch of the imagination. There are some good parts of it, but on the whole as a movie, it's a bad movie. And most of those good parts have to do with Michael B. Jordan. You're right, exactly, Michael B. Jordan.
00:57:25
Speaker
Now, here's the thing that makes people mad at me. When I say, I do not blame Josh Trank at all for that movie. And I don't. And here's why. Okay, you've seen Chronicle, right? Yeah. I wanna ask you a question. Seeing Chronicle, was there anything in that movie that made you thought that Josh Trank could direct the Fantastic Four movie? No fucking way. Okay. No fucking way. Like, I don't know who watches this movie and thinks, you know what? That guy can make Fantastic Four.
00:57:53
Speaker
Thank you. This is the point I always try to make to people. Put the blame on the asshole in the suit at Sony that hired Josh Crank to make Fantastic Four. Or at Fox. Or at Fox, excuse me. Sorry, Sony. At Fox, yeah. See, blame that idiot. Yeah, yeah. Because like you just said, I have no idea who in their right mind could have seen this movie and say, you know what? This guy's be perfect for Fantastic Four. Yeah, no way.
00:58:24
Speaker
So that's why I'm gonna blame Josh Tranford. And to give him that money and that property when he plainly needed a few years to build up his directorial muscles, where he could have made a movie like, now I'm not saying that 10 years from now, he might very well have made a Fantastic Four movie that we liked. But he was given the keys to a Ferrari when he had just learned how to ride a bike.
00:58:54
Speaker
You know, so yeah, so I don't blame Josh Tranford. This actually is a well-made movie. It is, no, it's a very well-made, like my complaints about found footage aside, like it is a very well-made movie. It's very well-told story. It's very tight, like you said, right? It's less than 90 minutes. Yeah. Yeah, this movie is good. And also going back to what I was saying earlier, okay.
00:59:23
Speaker
We know directors such as Steven Spielberg and Alfred Hitchcock and Martin Scorsese and stuff like that. All of these guys, you can sit down. I can sit you down blindfolded.
00:59:34
Speaker
and start up a movie and take off the blindfold and you could tell what director is doing it. Yeah. Without even knowing what the movie is, right? Because they have a unique worldview. They have a vision. Yes. Yeah. Okay. And I believe that every filmmaker, no matter how crappy his movie is, he has a worldview. He has a vision to it. Well, this movie is Josh Trank's worldview. Yeah. Yeah. You know, he,
01:00:00
Speaker
which is completely the opposite of what the Fantastic Four is. No, exactly. You're right. And that is the main problem, is that you look at Fantastic Four and it's very much in this worldview of Chronicles. Exactly. It's very much in this worldview. Now, if you're using that worldview for something like, I don't know, like the image books, like this image superhero books, like Stormwatch or Wildcats, that makes sense.
01:00:28
Speaker
Right, it makes sense to show superheroes in this skewed type of way, but it doesn't work for Fantastic Four.
01:00:38
Speaker
Yeah. And I just feel that Josh Trank, you know, he unfairly took the hit for the failure of Fantastic Four, where I felt it wasn't his fault. And it's just that simple. I don't feel the failure of that movie is his fault. Of course he didn't turn it down. People say, well, he could have turned it down. No, he couldn't. Who in their right mind is going to turn down a chance if somebody gives you $100 million until you go make a movie?
01:01:03
Speaker
And also, it should be noted, too, that the studio, you know, treated him like shit throughout the entire production of that movie, too. Yeah. So I mean, we let's we got to put some blame on their heads as well. Like everyone will, because here's what gets me, right? Because
01:01:19
Speaker
Everyone will make excuses for Sam Raimi about Spider-Man 3 until the cows come home, right? Oh, yeah. They'll be like, oh, well, it wasn't Raimi's fault. It was the Sony forced him to use Venom. So I'm like, yeah, okay, fine. But then you turn around and you're blaming Josh Train for everything that went wrong with Fantastic Four. Exactly.
01:01:41
Speaker
Exactly. And me, I'm sorry, but if it's your name that's on the movie, well, then you take responsibility for that movie, no matter how it turns out. Good, bad, or indifferent? Yeah. Matter of fact, as far as I'm concerned, okay, every book I write, I put my name on it so people know who wrote it, right? Yeah. Okay. So, ultimately, if somebody loves that book or hates that book,
01:02:06
Speaker
I'm responsible for that. I can't say, well, you just didn't understand, which a lot of writers do, which pisses me off. Oh, yeah. Well, I don't like that book. Well, you just didn't get it. No, maybe you didn't write it so that they could get it. My thing to that is I say, if someone says, why didn't I like the book? I look at what else they're interested in. And I might say, well, you're not the right audience for it, which is a different thing than saying you don't understand it. Right. There's a lot of things that go into it. Yeah.
01:02:33
Speaker
because I do remember I did get this review from one of my Vanguard books. And the guy had said, oh, well, this movie, this book is just like the Marvel movies, right? So, you know, so I don't know why, so I don't like it. I'm like, well, yeah, it wasn't for, you're not the audience for it then. Well, you're not the, yeah, exactly. I mean, yeah, it's made for people. Matter of fact, it's made, the book is for people who do like Marvel movies. Exactly, yeah, yeah.
01:03:01
Speaker
So, why are you reading the book? That's a whole other episode about people that pick up books and they say, well, I don't usually like this type of book. Then what are you doing reading it for? Or read what you like? Well, I thought I'd try something different. Well, okay, then what are we talking about there? You tried something different and you didn't like it. Is that my fault?
01:03:27
Speaker
It's like the episode of the Flintstones where Barney and Fred, they have to be quarantined together because they got like the measles or something like that. So there's a cake. That's on the thing. There's a big piece and there's a little piece.
01:03:42
Speaker
So Barney takes the big piece. And Fred said, well, what are you doing? And Barney said, well, I took the piece of cake. And Fred said, yeah, but you took the big piece. And Barney says, well, what would you have done? And Fred said, well, I'd have been a gentleman and I would take the little piece. And Barney said, well, you got the little piece. What are you bitching about? I don't know why that, what reference, I don't know what relevance that has to what we're talking about, but it can't be that much.
01:04:11
Speaker
I just thought I'd throw it out. Anyway, back to the movie. Back to the movie. Now, one of the things that kind of disappointed me is that Steve dies very early on in this. Wait a minute, you actually thought he was going to live through the movie? Yeah, the black guy always dies. Yeah. But that's also another reason why it's disappointing, right? It's so predictable.
01:04:35
Speaker
Yeah. That the new Black friend is going to be the first one to die. Of course. And to die in such a shitty way. Right. Yeah. And the thing is too, but like Michael B. Jordan is such a, does such a great role, has such a great role in this movie. Like he does such a good, he gives such a good performance that I would have much preferred. If you're going to have Andrew be the villain, I would have much preferred that Steve's the one who takes him out, just so we could see more of Michael B. Jordan. And as a matter of fact, do you notice
01:05:04
Speaker
that once Steve dies, what happens to the movie? Oh, for me, it kind of like dropped. I lost a lot of interest in the movie after Steve dies. After Steve dies, the movie stops relying on the characterization
01:05:26
Speaker
and the interaction between the characters and it becomes all special effects. Oh, you know what? You're right. I didn't even realize that, but you're absolutely right. Yeah. Yeah. That's when we get the big superhero fights and everything like, yeah. Yeah. We have that. Okay. Before Steve dies, it's all about these three guys and their relationship. Yeah.
01:05:45
Speaker
and how they're dealing with these powers and they're exploring them and everything like that. Once Steve dies, that's it. All that goes out the window and the special effects take over and carry us through the rest of the story. Yeah. Yeah.
01:05:59
Speaker
Yeah, there's also a lot of, you know, and this may have been intentional, right? When Andrew's like filming himself and he's like talking about apex predators and all that, and he's acting like it's some great revelation, where it's like, I'm watching that, I'm like, well, yeah, no shit, dude.
01:06:20
Speaker
Well, it was kind of funny because, you know, we had Matt that was making all these, you know, philosophical, you know, connections at first. And then I took it as kind of funny that all of a sudden that now Matthew, he's like making this connection that Matt would have realized a long time. Yeah. Yeah. You know, just like you said, he said, well, duh, dude. Yeah.
01:06:43
Speaker
So it was kind of funny to me that, you know, he said, cause in the beginning, you know, Matt is quoting all these great philosophers and thinkers and stuff like that. And I said, Oh, well he's trying to show off how smart he is, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Which would have pissed me off if I was Andrew too, to be honest, you know, dude. Okay. So you read a couple of books, big honking deal. Yeah. Yeah.
01:07:07
Speaker
And then, yeah, we have him later on. He's sitting there, and he's in the junkyard, which I assume is also making some kind of philosophical statement. And he's piecing this together and everything like that. And I said, OK, OK, I see where this is going. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, once he came to the, quote unquote, revelation that he's now an apex predator, at that point, I'm just kind of like, yeah, I know where this movie's going from here. Yeah, yeah, you know where it's going.
01:07:35
Speaker
Which is after, you know, which is after Steve dies. So again, it becomes it. Yeah. Once Steve dies, like all the character leaves the movie and it just, when we get into cliche territory. Yeah, it does. It does. Once he, once he dies, it shifts into another gear altogether. Yeah. Yeah. Which, which of course, you know, does nothing but, you know,
01:08:03
Speaker
Okay, to me, makes even more of the point that Steve was the heart and soul of these three guys. Yes, definitely.
Chronicle's Financial Success
01:08:16
Speaker
But overall, it's got good performances. It's got really good effects. And especially when you consider this movie was made on a budget of $12 million. So they really got their monies worth. And it definitely made it back because the box office take was $126 million. Oh, this was a very successful movie. Oh, yeah. Very successful. Yeah.
01:08:32
Speaker
So yeah.
01:08:35
Speaker
I mean, I watched it based, and did I say this? I don't believe I saw it in the theaters. I think I rented it or something like that. But anyway, I did it because, yeah, I just heard so much about it. And I watched it. And the first time I watched it, I liked it on a technical basis, but I just didn't like it because to me, it was a very bleak, depressing movie.
01:09:03
Speaker
You know, even though at the end, it kind of gives you some hope where we have Matt, where he pledges that he's going to, you know, use his powers to help people and stuff like that. Yeah, yeah. And I said, okay, well, he's going to be Superman. Right. Basically, he, you know, he's going to be Superman. So, but then like I say. There was a script, sorry, go ahead. No, no, no, you go, you go. I was just going to say that there was, that there is a script for a sequel. Oh, okay.
01:09:30
Speaker
But part of it, like Trank had said that this past year, Trank said that he was never on board with the sequel. And while he said the sequel script was fine, he felt that it had nothing to do with why I wanted to do the original film. And he says, I really didn't ever want to see Chronicle 2 happen. That was my worst nightmare. First of all, I'm not doing it. Second, if somebody else does it, then you know it's going to be a piece of shit.
01:09:57
Speaker
You know, he's probably right. Yeah, but still, I mean, like, you know, tone it down a little bit, baby. I mean,
01:10:07
Speaker
Okay, for me, I know, given what we were talking about before, if I was gonna do a sequel, it would be a combined sequel with Brightburn, where we have Matt, he hears all of these stories about this creature tearing up, you know, and he goes to investigate. Yeah, yeah. And that's what it would be, and it would be a combination.
Sony and Disney Crossover Possibility
01:10:26
Speaker
It would bring those two franchises together and establish them as being in the same universe. Yeah, we have to get a- That's what I would do.
01:10:34
Speaker
Well, now that Fox is owned by Sony, so that means Disney has the rights for it, or not Fox is owned by Disney now, and Disney has a good relationship with Sony, and Sony did Brightburn, so maybe there's a possibility that something like that could happen.
01:10:49
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, if you wanted to go for another superhero franchise, that's a little bit darker to satisfy people who need to have their superheroes be dark and psychotic and everything like that. Well, yeah. OK, now we've got this universe where there really are no superheroes. You have a bunch of psychotics with superpowers flying around carrying on cranky. But the thing is, comparing this to Brightburn,
Brightburn vs Chronicle
01:11:15
Speaker
My whole thing is that Brightburn took these two different genres and took like the cliches of those two different genres and combined it together. And that made it feel new. Chronicle doesn't really do the same thing, right? It just gives us a dark superhero story with a very, by the numbers morality play type thing. And it just, the only real twist it has to it is the found footage.
01:11:45
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. That's the, that's really the only thing about this movie that makes it original, which is I guess why Josh Trank wanted to film it as a found footage movie. Cause if he had filmed it just as a straight, you know, and also of course, you know, found footage movies was the big thing back then, you know, brother was making a found footage movie. Oh God. That I, if, if there's one trend in film, I just want to die a gruesome
Critique of Found Footage Films
01:12:12
Speaker
death. It's that one. Yeah. I don't, I don't,
01:12:16
Speaker
I don't miss that. That's a genre. I'm sorry. I don't get the appeal of that. And apparently there's a lot of people that love found footage movies. I mean, they have to, they made a whole bunch of them. Yeah. And I don't get it. I just don't get it. I like actually being able to see what's happening on screen.
01:12:42
Speaker
Yeah. Like I've never understood people who, Paul Greengrass is a perfect example, right? It's not male footage, but it's the shaky cam thing. Everyone's like, oh, it's, but it's so good because it makes you feel like you're in the center of the action. I'm like, I don't want to feel like I'm in the center of the action. I want to watch a well choreographed fight scene. Listen, if I want to be in the center of the action, I'm going to a Klan cookout with two white women on my arm.
01:13:07
Speaker
I liked seeing, you know, I liked seeing what's happening. What was that movie I went to? I went to see what was it, Green Zone? And I was so disgusted with that movie, you know, and I don't walk out of movies. I almost started to walk out that movie because I could not tell what was going on. I mean, it was,
01:13:28
Speaker
It was what was it when he Oh, he also did United 93. I hated that that movie. Yeah, I hated that. But listen, Paul Greengrass has never made anything that I've liked. No, no, I don't because you know what, to me, that's lazy in film making. Yes, I'm sorry, but to me it is. Yeah, I mean, dude, learn how to use a tripod.
Directors and Action Styles
01:13:49
Speaker
You got the camera wildly whipping around in all directions. And I can't tell who's doing what to who or where they're at and everything like that. And he's supposed to be some rep. That's why, to me, the first Bourne movie is the only one that I like and the only one that I'll watch again. Absolutely. Yeah. Doug Lyman did a great job with that movie. Why he didn't get to do the sequels is beyond me.
01:14:11
Speaker
It's beyond me. I have no idea why the born movies directed by Greengrass are held in such high esteem when the first one is the best one. That's it. And he also did, speaking of Doug Lyman, he also did Live, Die, Repeat, the Tom Cruise sci-fi movie with Emily Love. Oh, yeah. Oh, that was terrific. That was amazing. Yeah. I loved it. It's one of the best video game movies I've ever seen. Oh, yeah, yeah. That's not actually based on a video game. Right, yeah. It's actually based on a manga.
01:14:40
Speaker
Yeah, but the structure of the movie is just like a video game. And he's also doing, that's coming out with a sequel too. Oh really? Yeah, he says it's in the early planning stages. But you know, he's coming back onto it. Oh my God, this is so disappointing. He was supposed to do a Gambit movie.
01:15:02
Speaker
Really? Yeah, I would have loved to see him do a gambit movie like because he knows action and you pick like you you do a gambit movie and like the style of born identity that would have been amazing. Oh yeah yeah and as a matter of fact Doug Lyman he's one of them directors that okay I see his name and okay I'm gonna go see it because yeah again like I said at least I know I'll be
01:15:25
Speaker
Knowing how to direct action is an art. It is, yeah. And a lot of directors don't have. And I can usually go to a movie and I could tell, because yeah, because now I'm kind of like wise
Max Landis Controversy
01:15:39
Speaker
to all the tricks that they use. But as I tell people all the time, you can tell who knows how to direct action and knows how to direct fight scenes. Because fight scenes and dance scenes
01:15:53
Speaker
should be directed in the exact same way. So that you can see the hands and feet and know who's doing what to who. Right, yeah. You know, a lot of directors don't do that. They, you know, they do the fancy editing and the cutting away and da da da da da da da. They do all that little distracting things, you know, because they don't know how to work with the choreographer and the fight coordinator to actually, you know, choreograph the fight scene, you know, so.
01:16:21
Speaker
Your green grass green grass apparently had will have nothing to do with that kind of stuff you know he's an or tour so. yeah and you know what get over yourself. But no you're absolutely right like and.
01:16:37
Speaker
Isn't it, it's pretty telling that all the best fight scenes, all the best action scenes that are always sighted are usually just like this one long continuous tape, right? Like the classic scene in Hard Boiled, the hospital scene, the hallway fight scene in Daredevil, right? These are all just, the fights, a similar hallway fight scene in Old Boy. Old Boy, yeah. All of these just one, they just set the camera there and they just let the action play out in front of it.
01:17:04
Speaker
Exactly. That's what you're supposed to do. When I go see an action movie, I want to see the action. That's what I'm paying my money for. I'm not paying my money to watch a blur go around or watch a bunch of fists being thrown willy nilly. What is this crap? Yeah.
01:17:25
Speaker
All right. And yeah, something else I just got to mention about this movie is this movie was also written by Max Landis and fuck that guy.
01:17:36
Speaker
because- Okay, you know what, I'm glad you brought this up. Okay, because I didn't even look him up prior to this and I wanted to give you a chance to talk, because I know there's something going on with Max Landis. I just don't remember what it is, refresh my mind. First off, he's a misogynist. And second, he's been accused multiple times of sexual assault and sexual abuse and harassment. And it's just like, he's just a total fucker.
01:18:04
Speaker
Now, he's the son of John Landis, correct? Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right. Which is one of the reasons why, you know, he hasn't faced any real retribution. It's because his dad still has pull in the industry. Well, you know, his dad had that thing where he got, what's it called, a big moral kill, and two child actors. Really? The Twilight Zone movie. Yeah, you don't know that story? No, I never heard this story. Yeah, look it up. He directed Twilight Zone, the movie. Yeah.
01:18:34
Speaker
the act of Vic Morrow. And I believe it was two- Oh yeah, yeah. Two child acts killed by a stunt helicopter crash. Yeah. Holy shit. And there was a whole big trial about it and everything like that because apparently John Landis was negligent. Jesus. Yeah, yeah. Director John Landis violated California's child labor laws. Yeah. By hiring them without the permits. They're also responsible for labor violations. Oh Jesus.
01:19:04
Speaker
You know, never learn about your heroes, because Jesus, fuck down ladies too. Yeah, yeah. Well, like here's the thing. So in June 2019- Have I ruined the Blues Brothers for you for all time? Well, you know, it's the same thing with like Rosemary's baby and Roman Polanski, right? Fuck Roman Polanski, but I won't watch another movie he makes, but I'll still watch the movies I've already seen before. Yeah, okay, there you go, yeah.
01:19:30
Speaker
Yeah. You won't support anything he makes now, but ones made already. Well, you know, Hey, exactly. Yeah. What can you do? Um, so anyway, his, uh, Landis is, um, so anti harassment activist, Zoe Quinn, she posts about land is saying that his abuse of women was an open secret in Hollywood and that they've been withholding the story because him and his dad are powerful figures. And, um,
01:19:56
Speaker
He was accused of sexual assault by his former coworker Anna Akana. Mad magazine editor Allie Gertz, I'm probably pronouncing that wrong. She said several weeks earlier before that, this is in 2017, that she couldn't imagine someone more scared in a post Harvey Weinstein world than a famous director's son.
01:20:19
Speaker
which pretty much everybody and everybody else pretty much said that, yeah, Landis has that reputation. His ex-girlfriend posted on Twitter saying that he did horrific, inhumane things to me. The Daily Beast published accusations from eight women about emotional and sexual abuse by him, one describing him as a serial rapist, gaslighter, physical and psychological abuser. Wow.
01:20:45
Speaker
Josh Trank actually came out about this too. And he supported the accusers. And he said that he had banned Landis from set during filming. And also in 2013, Landis had an interview with a self-styled sexologist called Shelby Sells. And he said, I'll try saying that five times faster. Self-styled sexologist Shelby Sells.
01:21:16
Speaker
And he said, he made a lot of comments about women in this interview. One of the things he said is the most fucked up thing was that I cheated on a girl who I also gave a crippling social anxiety, self loathing, body dysmorphia, eating disorder too. And Jesus Christ, this guy's just a fucking scumbag. Yeah, apparently so. Like I said, I know I had heard some things about him and I'd started to look him up before
01:21:42
Speaker
But I said, no, you know what, I'm going to wait until me, you actually talking and you know, yeah, that's really, wasn't he supposed to be, but wait a minute, isn't he writing and directing this new Ghostbusters movie? Afterlife? No, no, that's Ivan Reitman's son, Jason Reitman. Ivan Reitman's son, okay, thank you very much. Okay, I'm about to say, wait a minute, how did this guy, yeah, but you know what?
01:22:08
Speaker
And I'm glad that you put that in there where you were reading that off and you were saying that it's an open secret. Because anytime I hear these stories about these guys that have been sick of predators and they prey on women and children and stuff like that. And don't get me wrong. I believe that anybody that abuses a child
01:22:33
Speaker
should be put to death. I'm sorry, they should. To take the innocence of any child to me is a sin. But here's the thing, these people do this stuff and they have help. They do not work in a vacuum.
01:22:54
Speaker
We not only need to go after these people that commit these horrendous crimes, we need to go after the people that enable them. Yeah. And they know them. Look at this Lane Maxwell. Now, this is a woman that went out and got other women for a sexual predator. Oh, God, yeah. I mean, does it get any lower than that? That, you know, I mean, really, R. Kelly, you can't tell me that there weren't these people that didn't know what he was doing. But hey, as long as he was getting a check,
01:23:21
Speaker
They were fine with it. Brian Singer, too. That was an open secret in Hollywood, too. Yeah, exactly. These people know, but know something, all these people are making money. Harvey Weinstein, too, was also an open secret, right? Everybody knew what he was really doing. This
Chronicle Recommendation
01:23:36
Speaker
is what I'm saying. These people, you know, we need to not only go after the people that actually do it, we need to go after the enablers, the ones that knew and were just taking the check or they were getting something. They were getting something.
01:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, whether, whether they were also in on the, on the abuse on the physical and psychological level or they were getting paid. They weren't just doing it because you know it was the thing to do. Yeah, yeah, you know, so yeah that's yeah that's.
01:24:04
Speaker
That's deplorable. We'll see. I'll never watch this movie again. Right, man. I mean, the only thing I see bad about right, man, is he's a libertarian. So but other than that, like he, you know, he directed Thank You for Smoking up in the air. That was another great movie. So I'm looking forward to seeing Ghostbusters Afterlife.
01:24:25
Speaker
I don't, you know what, I, but Ghostbusters is one of the franchises that I think maybe it's run its course and they need to stop trying to resurrect it. I can see that, but we'll see how, we'll see how it works out, but we'll see how it turns out. I mean, you know, Hey, I think it's got Paul right in it. So, I mean, I'll watch anything Paul runs it because you know what, if it doesn't make any money, we're not going to see it anyway. Yeah. Yeah.
01:24:50
Speaker
All right, so now we kind of digress from Chronicle. Anything else you want to mention about it? We always do. We always do. We always do, yeah. Listen, I ain't heard nobody complain about it yet, have you? No, which just means that maybe nobody's listening. No, listen, you'd be surprised how many people tell me, oh, I listened to this episode. I listened to that one. I said, oh, what'd you think about it? Well, Perry was good, but you don't know what the fuck he does.
01:25:19
Speaker
I don't figure people would say the other thing. They'd probably be saying, I'm the one who doesn't know what he's talking about. And they like listening to you. They say, we like the white guy. You don't point. You point the line. Buy a clue. Anyway. OK. My final word on Chronicle. I recommend this movie.
01:25:43
Speaker
Of course, for the performance. If you want to see early performance of Michael B. Jordan, of course, watch this movie because he's good in it. He's very personable. He's very charming. Everything that you've seen of him in later movies. It's in this movie.
01:25:58
Speaker
And if you're a fan of superhero movies and you want to see something a little bit darker, a little bit more offbeat, a little, like I keep saying, and you're probably sick of me saying, to me, I would pair this up with Brightburn. These two movies together would make a great double feature because I could see them taking place at the same time in the same universe. It's a well-made movie. Josh Trank, like I said before,
01:26:23
Speaker
I believe that he's a good director. He just, you know, was done dirty by a studio that entrusted him with a project that he shouldn't have been given in the first place. He should have been given something more along the lines of this. And I think he would have done much better, you know. So, yeah, but this is not like a must-see, you know, I'm not telling you, yeah, drop everything you're doing this week and watch Chronicle.
01:26:51
Speaker
If you happen to see it on one of the streaming platforms that you subscribe to and you got nothing else to do, yeah, check it out. Yeah. Yeah. Well worth a watch. If you do do it as a double feature, I would suggest watching Chronicle first and then watching Brightburn, because I think Brightburn is actually the better movie.
01:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, it is. So that's what I would recommend doing. But otherwise, yeah, it's a good movie. I enjoyed it. And it's not going to take too much of time out of your schedule. So you don't have to worry about that. No, that's the best thing. Yeah. As a matter of fact, that's the best thing about this movie. Which is also what we said about Brightburn too. So that's one of the nice things about these movies is you can easily do a double feature and it's not going to suck up your entire night.
01:27:37
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. You're not going to burn up your whole afternoon, or you're not even... Matter of fact, you could watch both these... Depending on what time you start watching them, you could watch them both and still have time left over to watch the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yeah. If that's, you know... I mean, if that's what you wanted. This is... This is very... I love the pacing of this movie. It's a nice, tight story. There's no fad on here at all. There's no extraneous characters. The only characters in this movie is the ones that's got to deal with the story. Pretty much, yeah.
01:28:06
Speaker
Yeah. That's it. We don't get like a whole, you know, there's, matter of fact, there's no subplots in here at all. Right. Yeah. Maybe, maybe the only subplot that we have is that we have the one with the girl who's also walking around with the camera. Right. And, and it's like, it almost, that, that is the only thing that feels kind of extraneous because it's like that we never really see anything else from that.
01:28:29
Speaker
Yeah, you know, she, there's a hint that it's like kind of a romance for Matt. Yeah, and like a love triangle type thing, but it never really, it never really goes anywhere.
01:28:41
Speaker
you know okay again and we got to go back folks to the things about these found footage movies the only reason why they give her the thing with the camera because she's supposed to be making these videos for her blog or stuff like that so that we can have an excuse for her to have a camera because Matt comes to her door and she's got the camera set up in the door yeah which for what wait a minute you video people coming to your why
01:29:04
Speaker
Yeah, you know, so yeah, so I don't know, to me it's kind of awkward for her to be toting around. So now we've got two characters in the movie that are toting around cameras all the time for no reason. Yeah, yeah.
01:29:19
Speaker
I mean, she at least has some more of a reason because she, you know, she talks about doing it for her blog, but even still. Yeah. Yeah. Even still. I mean, there are moments in this movie where it, I'm sorry, it's just simply awkward for her to be having a camera. Yes. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Especially the scene at the end when she's in the car, you know, which one I'm talking about. Oh God. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:29:41
Speaker
Okay. But the found footage thing, it just still doesn't really make sense because like I said, they drop it completely when the dad comes to visit Andrew in the hospital. Yeah. And they pretty much drop it completely when Andrew and Matt are fighting it out. So it's just, yeah, it's just, they did not need to do the found footage thing.
01:30:03
Speaker
Yeah, the movie would have been a lot stronger for me if they had just dropped the whole foul footage angle. But hey, I didn't make the movie. And also, as I said, I wouldn't let that stop you from watching it, folks, if you decide that you do want to check it out. Because like I said, the best thing about this movie is that it's a nice, tight movie. There's no fat on it. It's not going to burn up your whole afternoon or your whole evening watching this movie.
Upcoming Discussions
01:30:32
Speaker
Yeah.
01:30:33
Speaker
Okay, so that does it for Chronicle, and now we're going to talk about next because we actually, this is actually my pick is supposed to be coming up next but you had a good idea. And so we kind of worked it out before the show started and we figured out because
01:30:49
Speaker
We've got two more episodes before our big 50th live commentary, which we're going to do Avengers. And you pointed out, rightly, that New Mutants is now available. So next week, we're going to do New Mutants. We're going to cover that. And then the week after that, we're going to do Iron Man because that's the only one of the pre-Avengers origin movies that we haven't done yet.
01:31:12
Speaker
Yeah, I was telling Perry before we had started recording this episode. I said, you know what? I actually almost started to email you last night and say, listen, you want to save Chronicle for next week? Or do we have to whatever we do? And I only said that, folks, because
01:31:32
Speaker
I could not, there have been a few movies, maybe Justice League, maybe one or two others that has been riddled with such controversy and reshoots and retakes and whatever as new mutants. I remember one joke, there was like one of those, I think it was like an onion article or something else. It was like a new mutants cast reflects on 20 years since the film hasn't been released. Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, there was seriously,
01:32:02
Speaker
one period there where we were actually wondering if we were ever gonna see this damn movie. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was like, yeah, well, you know, well, we're never gonna see it. And then of course everybody was saying, okay. And then the COVID hit and then, okay, well, what's gonna happen with it now? Is it gonna be released, you know, for streaming? Is it still gonna go to theater? What? And it turned out eventually it did have a limited theatrical release. Yeah.
01:32:29
Speaker
because that was part of the, I believe that was part of the contract. Like it had to have a theatrical release. Right. So there's something about that. I think it may have been involved at the Disney sale or something, but Fox didn't want it just shuffled off into onto streaming service without getting a theatrical release. So that was part of the deal, I think. And so they had to, and then of course COVID hits, they had to, they finally put it out in theaters and then,
01:32:56
Speaker
Now it's going to be, now it's available on VOD, but it's not on Disney Plus and it's supposed to go to HBO Max first because they already had a deal in place apparently. So it's going to be on HBO Max for like two years or something before it'll finally make its way over to Disney Plus or Hulu or whatever.
Thanksgiving and COVID Safety
01:33:15
Speaker
And actually, this movie has gone from being very low on my priorities to watch, because as far as I'm concerned, Logan, you know, that was the end of, you know, The Fox, X-Men, Mutant France. Yeah. You know, that was the perfect ending. There was no reason for us to have any more movies.
01:33:35
Speaker
Yeah, they they there's no reason to give us dark phoenix. There was no reason. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. So I had no interest in seeing it. But with all of the stuff I've heard about it and all of the pushing back and this and then they wrote and then they went back. Didn't they go back like twice and reshoot scenes? Something like that. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so now color me intrigued. Now I want to see you mutants just to see what all this shit was about. Yeah. Yeah.
01:34:04
Speaker
Okay, so come back next week, we'll talk about new mutants, then two weeks we're doing Iron Man, and then three weeks we're doing Avengers. Finally.
01:34:17
Speaker
All right, that does it for us. Thanks so much for listening, as always, and, you know, stay safe, wear a mask, because we're seeing things rising up again, so. Yeah, it's getting, I really do. Thanksgiving, my mother, because usually,
01:34:35
Speaker
my sisters and my wife and I, we go over to my mother's house for Thanksgiving and she's still gonna cook, but she says, but nobody is staying in the house. She said, I'm just gonna wrap up the food. You just come inside and get it, take it and go. Do you know what Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her family are doing? What? They're all making the same recipe and then they're gonna all eat together in front of Zoom.
01:35:02
Speaker
Oh, okay, see, that's a good, yeah. That's a pretty good idea, yeah. Yeah, that's a pretty good idea. I mean, I think that, because of course, over here, you have an overwhelming number of people that have very public leads that, well, they don't care about, they wanna see their family for Thanksgiving. So there's a lot of people gonna be gonna see that, which I predict is just gonna make it worse. Oh, absolutely, yeah, things are gonna get, they're gonna go crazy. This is going to be a very bleak,
01:35:30
Speaker
You had that idiot Tommy Tuberville who thinks the three branches of government are the White House, the Senate, and the House of Representatives saying that he's gonna have a big Thanksgiving dinner. I'm just like, all right, well, see how well that works out for you.
01:35:46
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. And you know what? Listen, I am not entirely heartless. I understand people are burnt out and they want to see their families and they want to have some semblance of normalcy in their life. But, you know, the way this is going.
01:36:03
Speaker
All I got to say is that I'm glad this is not a zombie apocalypse. Yeah. Because we'd be fucked. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, seriously, we would. Well, this is one thing that COVID taught us, right? Because every time you watch the zombie movies and you see there's
Podcast Conclusion
01:36:19
Speaker
that one guy who refuses to let people know that he's been bit. And the only thing that's now unrealistic about those movies is that it would be like half the people are doing that.
01:36:30
Speaker
I, you know what? And I say this, I will never again watch a horror movie and laugh at the people for doing stupid things. I'm not because I, because I see, listen, I see it on news every day. People that have a blatant disregard for not only their lives, but for the people's lives. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, but, but listen, on the other hand,
01:36:59
Speaker
I have hope, I have optimism, and I do believe that everything is going to work out for the best. I do. So I just want everybody out there to be safe, you know, take precautions, you know, whatever you do.
01:37:17
Speaker
Be safe. That's it. That's all I can say. Safety first. Think of others, think of yourself before you do something. That's all. Well said. All right. Okay. Thanks again for listening. We will talk to you next time. Until then, enjoy your week. I think actually this has come up. So wait, this episode, we usually drop episodes on Monday. So I think, yeah.
01:37:41
Speaker
We're gonna do the episode before Thanksgiving, but this is gonna be our last episode before Thanksgiving. So for everyone who's listened to this, stay safe, be careful if you are gonna do a Thanksgiving dinner or whatever. And if you're gonna do Black Friday, just stick to the online sales, don't go to the stores, don't be an idiot. Absolutely, happy Thanksgiving all y'all.
01:38:11
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Superhero Cinephiles Podcast. If you have any questions or comments about this or any other episode, or if you have a superhero movie or TV show you'd like us to cover in a future episode, you can email us at superheroescinephiles at gmail.com. Or you can also visit us on the web at superheroescinephiles.com.
01:38:31
Speaker
If you like what you hear, leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts. Each review helps us reach more potential listeners. You can also support the show by renting or purchasing the movies discussed, or by picking up our books, all of which can be accessed through the website, as well as find links to our social media presences. The theme music for this show is a shortened version of Superhero Showdown, a royalty-free piece of music, courtesy of pheasantudios.com.