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Episode 007: Tommy's Corner (Letterboxd Recap)
66 Plays7 months ago
This week on the show Tommy gives a run down on what he has been watching recently and his opinions on “Civil War”! We hope you all enjoy the episode and we will see you next week!
Lastly, thanks to our editors of the show Colin Gallagher and Carson Stienstra for making this show happen!
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Tommy: Tommy_Cresta
Ryan: Foran12
The Show: The_Popcorn_Podcast
Editor: colingallagher.3
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Transcript
Introduction and Episode Overview
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome back everyone to episode 8 of Tommy's Corner. I'm going to be doing another letterbox breakdown and recap of things I've been watching and just kind of just talking, letting everyone know what's up and yeah.
The Weight We Carry: Film Debut
00:00:13
Speaker
So starting off, going into my life a little bit, our short film finally debuted, The Weight We Carry, the film that me and Ryan wrote and directed together, which I play the lead character. I don't want to go too far into the actual film because it's been talked about in a lot of the episodes here. Just quickly, if you're new to the show, it is loosely based off my life, and everything that takes place in the woods was how I planned on taking my own life a few years ago.
00:00:39
Speaker
But yeah, so far, the critical success has done pretty well. It's doing a lot better than I thought it was going to do, much better than I think Ryan thought it was going to do. But yeah, I'm very happy
Film Themes and Success
00:00:50
Speaker
so far. I'm happy with everyone that's watched it. To all the people that have reached out to me privately and.
00:00:57
Speaker
have told me how this helped them and let them feel empowered about their own eating disorder, their own depression. That is what this film was made for. I can be happy with saying even if the film didn't do great, if it affected anyone positively, then the film was a success to me and it was a success to Ryan. But going on from that, so yeah, thank you again to everyone who watched it. It was very, very cool to see
00:01:24
Speaker
all these people that wanted to see what we had watched and yeah, um, it was just, it was really cool to finally get to put something out there that had worked on for so long. And it felt like it was part of my everyday life for the last year, probably two years now. And yeah, I'm, I'm very happy with
NYU Filmmaker Program Excitement
00:01:45
Speaker
that. Everyone liked it and that everyone wanted to
00:01:50
Speaker
listen to us, they wanted to see what our story was and that means a lot to Ryan and I so yeah, thank you guys so much for that part moving on from that I got my first little bit of school news to give you guys I got accepted into NYU's filmmaker program so I started that today I had a couple of assignments to get done and yeah, I'm very excited it's really cool, I have a mentor that I get to work with one-on-one it's gonna help me with my next short film and it's just been
00:02:19
Speaker
It's been really cool getting to go through all these different schools, get to see different school, the way that they handle filmmaking and teaching filmmaking. And NYU, of course, NYU itself is such a well-documented, well-known film program, and to get accepted into their actual filmmaking specialty program was really exciting.
Review: Abigail
00:02:43
Speaker
Yeah, so that's pretty cool, but besides that I'm trying to figure out why I can't get my letterbox movies I just that I've done reviews on recently Okay, so starting off I think I talked about Abigail last night last not last night last episode But Abigail first off this film had no right being as good as it was
00:03:08
Speaker
It was an absolute blast, lots of violence, some really good humor, and I really was genuinely shocked on how much I liked it because I did nothing but trash target for a couple days, a couple months, and I really thought it was gonna be awful. I went and saw my friend Sam, and we both agreed that it was really well done. The little girl, she was in Matilda as well. She was really good in this. She wasn't really good, she was great. And the whole use of being a vampire, this one, and not feeling like, it felt like a mix of Fright Night,
00:03:38
Speaker
I'm trying to think of what else it could be. I'm not gonna lie, it's more like frightening and a heist movie put together. It was pretty cool. I really, really enjoyed myself. But moving on to that, Monkey Man, a movie that me and Ryan already did a review
Review: Monkey Man
00:03:51
Speaker
on. I have it at three and a half stars, which I didn't think was a bad score for it. I think Daf Patel, first director of debut, really killed it. And I'm really excited to see what he does next. I like the fight sequences. I like the Hindu lore and all of that. Getting to learn more of the history of Hinduism.
00:04:09
Speaker
and learning about all the gods, so that was really cool. I think, I think his next one is going to be a great film, whatever he ends up making.
Review: Guy Ritchie's Film
00:04:18
Speaker
Moving on from that, I went and saw The Ministry of Ungenerably Warfare, this new Guy Ritchie film starring Henry Cavill, Alan Ritsen, Henry Goldman, Izzie Gonzalez, I mean a stack cast, and it's Guy Ritchie, so I mean,
00:04:33
Speaker
We knew it was going to be a really fun time. And it was. It was exactly that. It was a really, really fun movie. It's not a great movie. I think the villain that they set up, quote unquote, I think he was a little weak and I think it was more the writing, not the performance. But all the comedy landed for me. All the fight sequences were really good. I wish they cut away less from some of the violence because from Guy Ritchie, you're expecting some violence. And that's that's part of the film. It's about killing Nazis.
00:05:01
Speaker
And they cut away in certain scenes, which I think would have been really cool. Like there's a scene Alan Rickson's character gets his hand on an axe and it's just a room full of guys in him. And you don't see what happens. You just see the very end where he's just standing there and they're leaving it up to imagination and all that kind of stuff. But I want to see it. I want to see him. I want to see him fight some guys with an axe. But all in all, I think it was a really good film. I know that the main criticism of the film is that sometimes it loses its
00:05:29
Speaker
its tone a little bit and I can agree with that because when you follow Henry Cavill's side of the story it's very light hearted in a way like it's more violent and comedy while on the other side when it's Babs Luca Moken who plays Mr. Herron and then Iza Gonzalez's character it's much more serious so we're going back and forth on this one
00:05:55
Speaker
I wish they kind of just stuck with the light hard side a little bit more But again, the stories are drastically different that we see so it makes sense and I also forgot Hero Phineas Tiffin is in this Carl Ewers Alex Pettifer, that's how I always say it But I really liked this film I did I had a really good time and it was really cool that you get to learn of course more about these guys who are
00:06:22
Speaker
Pretty much infamous in the war history.
00:06:27
Speaker
because what they did was an unsanctioned, was unsanctioned missions. But yeah, I was, I really enjoyed it. And yeah, I'm, I mean, so I like Guy Rituso, of course, I'm a little bit of a sucker about that. But yeah, I'm very excited to see what he does next. And I love seeing Henry Cavill and Alan Richardson because they're two of my favorite actors. And seeing Alan Richardson next to Henry Cavill and him making Henry Cavill look that small, that man might need to just play Batman for James Finn's universe.
00:06:54
Speaker
Moving on from that I have one more film and I'm gonna actually like dive into a film a little bit The first one I'm gonna talk about is Alien.
Alien: Theatrical Experience and Legacy
00:07:01
Speaker
It was just back in theaters Which was awesome to get to see in theaters, especially because the film about 40 years ago now No, I think it's 40 something years ago. I'm gonna say 40 and it's 45 but
00:07:16
Speaker
Love alien. I love Ridley Scott. I love James Cameron and I love Dave Fincher in the all directing alien movie so Alien getting to like so when we got into the theater I was taking my buddy Connor who I like the other movies with he has never seen alien but he knows what the xenomorph is from Mortal Kombat and other games But it was really cool
00:07:39
Speaker
that before the film started, a lot of the times we do anniversary things. There's a little like segment before the actual movie starts. And it was cool because in this one, it was Fedi Alvarez, director of Don't Breathe, Evil Dead remake from 2013, I think it's 2013 or 2016, 2012. And Ridley Scott sat down and talked about Alien and some of the filmmaking tricks he used throughout it. And they also use
00:08:04
Speaker
Then they showed bits and pieces of Alien Romulus, the new one that Fedi Alvarez has directed and Ridley Scott's producing. It was just cool to get to see these drastically different types of filmmakers and different attitudes of people. And they sat down, they just talked and you could tell Ridley Scott's a very
00:08:21
Speaker
I wanna say grumpy, he's a very stern dude, doesn't smile a lot, doesn't make a lot of jokes. He genuinely loves the Alien franchise, I think with all of his heart. Cuz he was so happy to get to talk more about Alien, talk about getting to work on Romulus again. And yeah, I'm a sucker for this movie, I gave it five stars, I had a four and a half, but I forgot how good the filmmaking is in this one, and how good Sigourney Weaver is, Tom Scarritt, John Hurt, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm.
00:08:49
Speaker
Uh, yeah, Picado, who's my favorite character, plays Parker. And then, what's his name? Bolgi? Bodego? Bodeo? He, um, he plays the Xenomorph, and he does a great job, cause I think the Xenomorph is the scariest in Alien 1. I do have to watch, I'm gonna be watching, uh, Prometheus and Alien Covenant.
00:09:09
Speaker
I'm gonna be watching alien resurrection alien covenant Prometheus when we were watching all them so I might be different after that but the first The first alien is so scary the entire film the score is so perfect
Ridley Scott's Filmmaking Techniques
00:09:25
Speaker
Uh, they use the violin. They do the high strung violin. Oh my god. Amazing. And it was just, it's such an awesome, awesome movie. I think Ridley Scott's direction is perfect. Uh, there's sequences. There's a lot of exterior shots of the alien ship when they're, when they're walking outside of it in their suits. Shut the fuck up toilet. I'm doing a podcast. Do you not hear me?
00:09:50
Speaker
but it's really cool because you see he explains to make the sets look bigger because they didn't have the budget to make these massive sets is that he had his kids wear the suit wear their own version of suits to make the things look so much bigger because they're just little kids which is another version way of like that old-school low-budget filmmaking where you gotta make things work and I think really Scott's just
00:10:16
Speaker
I mean, he's got to be one of the goats. I mean, the dude does nothing but make amazing films. Well, some of you don't like. Oh, my God, what are his two films now? I'm forgetting. Well, some of you don't like The Last Door, which is ridiculous, because that's one of my favorite Scott films. OK, forget the one, the one I absolutely adore.
00:10:36
Speaker
Why can't I think? Yeah, Kingdom of Heaven. Everyone who dislikes Kingdom of Heaven, you're a loser. I love that movie. Edward Norton, best part of that movie. I will say Napoleon wasn't great. I will say that. But all in all, look at this man's filmography.
00:10:51
Speaker
Blade Runner like this dude. Let's do that guy. I love Ridley. He has a very specific type of filmmaking too, which I think is just it works for him so well. And but he's also shown that he can do everything. He's done the Gladiator from he's done Napoleon biopic. So the alien friends did marching the kingdom of heaven Blade Runner last duel. The man's just a great, great, great, great director and
00:11:17
Speaker
Yeah, I loved Alien and getting to see it on the big screen was such like a little kid moment. Cause I, when I first saw those, you know, I thought about being a little kid and watching it in my house and it was, it was pretty, it was pretty cool to get to do that.
00:11:33
Speaker
Moving on from alien though We're gonna be talking about something. I think super exciting. I think everyone needs to check out So if you didn't know right now all the spider-man movies are coming out every Monday So I think this upcoming Monday is going to be the amazing spider-man the last three Mondays prior were spread my one two and three Sadly, I can't go see the amazing spider-man one Because I'm gonna fill his game with my our editor Colin Excuse me
00:12:01
Speaker
But yeah, but the following Monday is the amazing experiment too, which I am going to be seeing and I'm so so so excited Excuse me Jiminy crickets I am I haven't seen a maze experiment to of course since I went saw in the theaters With my mom and dad, which was the
00:12:22
Speaker
Jiminy Craig, I got like something stuck in my chest. I'm sorry, that was wrong what I just said. I've talked about this before, but the main Spider-Man duology, I really want to call it, the two films, they're the films that made me fall in love with the actual, I've always loved movies, but those are the movies that made me fall in love with filmmaking.
00:12:39
Speaker
Mark Webb took a lot of chances with these movies. He did a lot of practical web slinging, fight sequences, stunts. So I give him a ton of credit for that kind of stuff. He tried out villains that we didn't get to see on screen. I know the lecture doesn't work for everyone. It doesn't really work for me either. But all in all, I think that film is so good. Both of them. I love both of them. I know I'm in the minority on those ones.
00:13:09
Speaker
But I really am excited for me to get to go back into the theaters and watch them for the first time. But yeah, that's going to be Monday, next Monday. Sorry, I was trying to... an editor of ours was texting me.
00:13:36
Speaker
But yeah, uh, sorry, that was a little weird part of the episode. But yeah, the main experiment to back in theaters, not the upcoming Monday, the following Monday. This Monday's is. The main experiment, but last thing I want to talk about before I let you guys go, because I know this is supposed to be the short episodes, is I want to do a little quick review of Civil War, probably the most.
Discussion: Civil War
00:13:55
Speaker
divisive film that's come out a long time and I think it has a right to be divisive it's it's about an American Civil War it was to happen now currently sitting at 7.6 out of 10 on IMDB 82% on Rotten Tomatoes 75 on Metacritic 75 on Google and on Rotten Tomatoes the audience score is a 71 so far the critic consensus on Rotten Tomatoes is that tough and unsettling by design civil wars are gripping close-up look at violent uncertainty of life in the nation in chaos
00:14:24
Speaker
Totally agree. I think Alex Garland knocked this out of the park. I didn't give it as high as I thought I would. When I first left the theater, I was like, Oh, I don't know if it's actually that good or like, like I gave it like a high 80, but the more I've sat with it, the more I've grown to really, really love the movie. I think Kaylee, Spain, he was great. Kristen, Kirsten Dunst, Wagner, Maura as Joel, Nick Offerman, like the president, Stephen McKinley as Sammy, Jesse plums for his five minute sequence.
00:14:54
Speaker
Those characters, those six right there, are absolutely phenomenal. Rob Hardy, who did the cinematography, was absolutely incredible. It was some of the best cinematography so far this year, in my opinion. It had some of the best performances. Every time Kirsten does the Kaylee Spaney talk to each other, it was...
00:15:12
Speaker
Amazing to watch they're just both so talented. I said this before I'm gonna say it again Kaylee spinning is the future of Hollywood This girl can do nothing wrong right now. She kills in Civil War. She's fantastic in Priscilla And I think she's gonna be even she's gonna be great in the rhyming list Which I think might give her may shoot or just skyrocket her
00:15:32
Speaker
Uh, White No More of course was good as Joel. And of course, for those who don't know, the synopsis is, in a dystopian future America, a team of military-embedded journalists races against time to reach Washington's DC before the rebel factions descend upon the White House. Which I think the synopsis is kind of weak, because yes, it follows the three journalists of Kaylee Spaney, Kirsten Dunst, and Wagner. Um, I'm sure you'd call them Joel, Lee, and Jesse.
00:15:54
Speaker
And watching, they're really, they're racing as time before. They're not even really rebels. The U.S. has broken up into three different colonies. And the Western forces are coming to the White House because Nick Offerman has won for a fourth term as president, which, of course, we know can't happen. So this I think this is what would happen if someone does try that, because it's just not what we don't want that we don't want someone to just feel like they have power to just keep being president, even though they pass their term.
00:16:23
Speaker
But I think what this film did really well, which I don't know if people dislike or like what I really like about it, is that it doesn't pick a side. These people are just journalists. They're just there to take the wartime photos and to get the interviews they want.
00:16:37
Speaker
And that's, that's the whole point of the movie. There's no sizes. Everyone is bad in a way. Everyone has their negative sides, which I think was so well done. I know some people are like, Oh, like you're going to do this. You got, there doesn't need to be a side to everything. War is not a good thing. Um, people talk about a lot, a lot of veterans, uh, combat veterans. We'll talk about the, the average U S S and the average human being doesn't have the stomach to accept what war truly is. And I think that this movie does a really good job of showing what war actually does.
00:17:07
Speaker
War is violent, war is evil, war is bad, but it has to be done. War is necessary, in my opinion, and I think Alex Garland's direction showed how scary it is, even if you're just watching it, and something really cool that I thought about when I was sitting in the theater, me and my dad talked about it, it was the way that the rounds sounded when they were being fired from the firearms, from the M4, the 2-4, the .50 cals, the pistols, whatever weapon system they were using in the scene.
00:17:36
Speaker
And it's because normally they'll edit over it and add a different firearm sound. He used the actual sound from when they were filming, which is so much louder and so much more explosive because it's a blank. But it's so much louder, so it doesn't feel calming. It actually freaks out the...
00:17:56
Speaker
human brain which was so such a good idea because there are so many scenes where like your heart is pounding out of your chest they do a lot of room clearing in this movie really well done sequence where they're following some of the quote unquote rebels the western faction as they fight against the military through like a apartment complex really well done scene you see what happens to uh either side when they're captured they really they interrogate for a little bit but then they just brutally killed them
00:18:23
Speaker
And yeah, I think Civil War is a stunning film visually. I was so excited to see that cross a hundred million dollar mark on a 50 million dollar budget, which is the highest budget in a 24 history.
Alex Garland's Filmmaking Future
00:18:35
Speaker
And for Alex Garland to decide before this movie comes out, they done directing. He's lost his love for filmmaking. And this is still the movie we got. It isn't it's incredible. I'm so excited to see what he does next because I know he is writing things for 28 years later with Danny Boyle. So I'm very excited for that.
00:18:53
Speaker
And yeah, I don't want to spoil anything with Civil War. Please go check it out. And if you're a military police or anything like that, I think you'll really like the realism of the gunfights. They use semi-automatic weapons. There's a sequence where they're clearing a building. I don't want to say anything else about it. But the actual way that they clear the rooms, they use their flashbangs really well. They use movement really well. They use signals.
00:19:17
Speaker
And it's just a really well done sequence. And I think people are people who know what it's supposed to look like will be very impressed with how well they did it. But yeah, I gave it a four and a half stars actually raised my score. I gave it a half star more than I originally had it at. Yeah, that is Civil War. And I think that's all for this week's episode.
Patreon Promotion and Future Content
00:19:37
Speaker
So, yeah, go check out.
00:19:39
Speaker
Abigail go check out Civil War go check out monkey man. Go watch alien again. Go watch aliens I just rewatch that I love that movie But yeah, um great franchise Great movies all around recently super excited to see the fall guy this weekend most likely and yeah Thank you guys so much for tuning in. Oh, oh go go subscribe to our patreon We have a $2 a $5 $20 to $2 here you get to pick any movie you want or review it on the patreon page $5
00:20:09
Speaker
it was oh yeah you're a producer on the show and you still get to pick a movie once a month for us to review and $20 you actually get to come on the show with us and review any movie of your choosing which will post on the main channel now on patreon main channel that's what $20 a month gets you so please continue please use our patreon more money to me and ryan needs better episodes which means cooler stuff we get to try
00:20:30
Speaker
And yeah, thank you guys so much for tuning in. Thank you again for following us on all of our socials. Tommy underscore Cresta, Fran 12, the underscore popcorn underscore podcast and everything in between. Thank you guys so much. And I will see you all later.