Mike wanted to take a moment and recognize movies from A-List actors that he would consider underrated. Either because they weren’t as well received as their previous work, didn’t perform as well at the box office or overtime have just been forgotten as time has passed. Everything from movies of the 70’s to movies of today. Mike gives a spoiler free review of Red Notice which is now Netflix’s most watched movie to date. And in the trailer park: Mike takes a look at the new Jurassic World: Dominion 5 minute prologue that’s been released and the new animated DC movie.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mix movie podcast, your
go to source for all things movies. I am your
host movie Mike, and today I am breaking down underrated
movies by A list actors. These are movies maybe you
haven't heard of, maybe you haven't seen for some reason,
but I think needs some attention brought to them because
they are really great performances by some of my favorite actors.
Plus a movie review of now the biggest movie on
(00:22):
Netflix Red Notice, and then in the Trailer Park will
take a look at Jurassic World Dominion. They just dropped
this prologue. Thanks for being subscribed and for listening every
single week, especially if you're listening on Monday, which is released.
A shout out to the movie crew. Without any further ado,
let's get started. In a world where everyone and their
mother has a podcast, one man stands to infiltrate the
(00:45):
ears of listeners like never before in a movie podcast.
A man with so much movie knowledge. He's basically like
a walking audimdvie with classes from the Nashville Podcast Network.
So I wanted to take this episode and recognize some
movies from some A list actors that I think are underrated,
(01:09):
maybe because when they came out, they weren't as well received.
They were a bit of departure for some of these actors.
Sometimes they didn't just perform as expected as the box office,
and in other cases, I think there's some that over
time they've kind of lost their cultural impact and we
just kind of forgot about these Sometimes they just get
a little bit forgotten, and I feel like in the
(01:29):
grand scheme of things, they start to become underrated the
less and less people reference some of these movies. So
I want to start with the movie that inspired this
entire list that I finally got around to watching, and
it was one that I just hadn't really heard much about,
and it's a movie called One Hour Photos starring Robin Williams.
Came out back in two thousand and two, and immediately
(01:49):
upon reading the synopsis in the overall plot for this movie,
I was completely hooking. It's about Robin Williams who plays
this really lonely technician guy who's working at kind of
a Walmart slash Walgreens photo development department. And he plays
this character named Si, who has worked at this photo
lab for years, and over the years of working there,
(02:11):
he's developed this kind of obsession with his family, whose
photos he's been working with for years now to the
point to where he's followed their entire life through pictures
when they had a kid. And the movie starts out
innocently enough, kind of focusing on this story, and I
kind of resonate a little bit of what it's like
to be a lonely guy and want to, you know,
just be a part of someone else's life, of what
you think is the perfect life. And it kind of
(02:33):
turns into this psychological thriller, which I'm a big fan of,
and I really love any movies that depict somebody's descent
into madness to when they start out as a regular
enough person, but through the torment in their life, through
the pain and suffering that they have, you know, whether
it's deep down internalized in them, it just starts to
(02:54):
spill out a little bit a little bit in this movie,
and you see Robin Williams character just kind of all
out looks it. So he goes from just kind of
idolizing this family of what he would look like, you know,
painted into those photos, and over the years he has
been making duplicates for himself, which is really creepy in
keeping them, and the entire movie kind of turns once
(03:16):
his boss realizes what he's been doing, and then his
entire world gets kind of shifted upside down. So why
I think this movie is underrated is because it is
something unlike anything I've ever seen from Robin Williams. And
he was greatly known for his comedic roles, is more
dramatic roles, but this one is almost, I feel like,
one of his best performances I've ever seen. And it's
(03:38):
also just kind of sad knowing that there are people
like this, people going through similar things like this, and
you just want to be kind of recognized and something
that could start out so innocently enough of just feeling like, oh,
you're taking some pictures for your own personal enjoyment, which yes,
sounds very creepy looking back on this. While you're kind
of disgusted by what he is doing and what he
(04:00):
kind of the level he takes it in this movie,
you also kind of feel bad for him, knowing that
he is suffering greatly. And the other thing I really
enjoyed about this movie, while I feel it's underrated, it
really kind of encapsulates that moment in time going from
the nineties to the two thousand's the whole idea of
kind of film being you know, taken out of the
(04:20):
equation of nobody really using disposable cameras and nobody really
using film anymore. It all goes to digital. It kind
of has a parallel in this movie of his life
of like, oh, what I once had is no longer there.
The times are moving. So it's a really kind of
great transitional piece of going from nineties movies to two
thousands movies. And it felt like a very two thousands
movie when I watched it. And I think now, as
(04:43):
we are in the twenties, which is weird to say,
but I think we're seeing more and more in pop
culture of you know, references now and back to the
early two thousands of what that kind of time period
is now and what kind of represents that time. And
I think you see that a lot when you watch
this movie, being that it came out in two thousand
and two. So at the top of my list and
(05:03):
underrated movies from a list actors, I would go with
a one hour photo starring Robin Williams, and you can
watch that as of now on Hulu. That's where I
watched it. Next up on my list, I want to
go all the way back to the seventies. I think
I got an email one saying that I don't talk
about movies from the seventies enough, so I want to
add an underrated movie from the seventies one of my
favorites that I just feel like, so many comedies now,
(05:27):
oh so much to this movie. And when you know,
I see all these lists of like the funniest movies
of all time, I feel like this one doesn't get
reference enough. For one, how groundbreaking it was, to how
much movies kind of borrow from this formula now, and
three just kind of how it changed only comedy movies,
but college party movies in general. And the movie is
(05:47):
Animal House from Night. The A list actor is John Belushi,
which at the time when this movie came out, he
was as big as it got in comedy, but he
was mainly known for TV. He was a star cast
member on SNL and that's really where he was a star.
But this was kind of his first film as that
established stars. So he was twenty eight years old, hadn't
(06:09):
been in any movie yet, but you put him in
this movie and it really just changed everything when it
came to comedy movies, and you also have a young
Kevin Bacon and they're just kind of starting out his
film career, and Animal House really just set the blueprint
for college comedies. Without this movie, there would be no
like American Pike To, no Project X, no Neighbors, no
(06:29):
Old School. I think all those types of movies kind
of owe all their credit to what Animal House did.
And it's really one of the funniest movies of all time.
I just think that it came out in night when
you come up with a list in you know, people
listening their funniest movies. It kind of now just starts
in like the nineties, the two thousands, and then even
(06:51):
since then. I feel like comedies really haven't been a
thing in the last ten years. One because it's really hard,
you know, to make things that are funny to a
massive amount of people now too. You probably couldn't make
a movie like Animal House today. A really a lot
of those seventies eighties comedies are based on things you
couldn't really do now anymore. And Three, I don't really
(07:12):
think we have that many comedic stars anymore, and the
ones we do have, I feel are so type cast
that there's not really kind of an ensemble comedy cast
like we've had and probably ten twenty years. So many
great lines in this movie, like that I'm a ZiT,
the Toga chant, and I think one of my favorite
ones is when they get all called into the Dean's
(07:32):
office to list out and told their grade point averages.
I think that's one of my favorite scenes out of
the entire movie, when John Belushi's character he gets told
that he has a zero point zero great average, Mr
Blue zero zero. On my List, the underrated movie from
the A List actor John Belushi is Animal House from eight.
(07:54):
If you haven't seen that movie, put it on your list.
Next up on my List, it's a movie I watched
as a kid back in nine and it's called Small Soldiers.
A couple of A List actors in this. Actually the
main toy character is voiced by Tommy Lee Jones and
he plays Lieutenant Chip Hazard in this movie, the leader
of the bad guys in this and then you also
(08:14):
have Kirston Dunce who was already an all out star
from when she was a kid. And what this movie
is about, it's basically like toy story gone wrong and
a lot more violent than you would expect the kids movie.
Now it is ready to PG. Thirteen, But I remember
the kid and being totally marketed just towards any kid,
and you also had the entire toy aspect to it,
(08:36):
the same way that Toy Story was. You go watch
the movie, then you want the toys. It really had
the same kind of effect. But when you watch Small Soldiers,
you realize that this movie was really just the movie
for adults, kind of pitch to kids. The violence was
more intense, the kids actually get hurt of this movie.
There's a little, not a whole lot of suggestive language,
(08:56):
but I mean even the toys and one senior kind
of sexualized. So in disguise, it was kind of a
kids movie that was kind of marketed more towards tweens
and teenagers. So basically what happens in the movie is
there's this teenager named Alan. His dad owns a toy
store a bunch of boring toys, So what does he
want to do. He wants to take this shipment of
(09:16):
these new Commando elites to bring back and drive sales
to the store. But what he doesn't know is the
makers of this toy put some like really intense military
chips into them, so they are so smart that they're
actually able to fight back, and they try to essentially
take out humans. And I say that not lightly like
their actual goal in this movie is to kill humans.
(09:39):
But it's a movie that feels very much like a
nineties movie and one I just feel like gets overlooked
a lot when talking about movies from our childhood, and
I think I owe a lot of loving this movie
is the voice of Tommy Lee Jones. He plays a
really good kind of disgruntled military guy. I think every
movie he does he's a disgruntled guy. So I would
say this is one of my favor Tommy Lee Jones performances,
(10:01):
a movie I think is underrated from him, and also
an underrated movie from Kirsten Dunn's early career. So on
the list would go Small Soldiers from n Up. Next
on my list, we'll go back a little bit more
into the eighties, which is another genre I don't talk
a whole lot about, but I have a lot of
favorite eighties movies, and I think this is one of
my favorite eighties movies of all time, and it's from
(10:23):
Jeff Daniels in a movie called Something Wild, and I
remember the first time I watched this movie. Now, as
a kid, I didn't have a whole lot of VHS tapes.
We couldn't really afford those a whole lot unless we
were getting them from the garage sale. So I would
always just kind of scan the channels for anything just
played on regular TV, anything that I could get by
moving the bunny ears on the old Zenith TV. And
(10:45):
I would sit there on you know, Saturday afternoons and
just scan anything. And a lot of my favorite movies
came from movies I would just find randomly on TV.
And one movie in particular was called Something Wild, starring
not only Jeff Daniels but also ray Leota, and for
a while it was just one of my favorite movies. Now,
what the movie is about. Jeff Daniels, he's really just
(11:06):
like a uptight banker and he gets kidnapped by this
kind of free spirited, off the wall, complete opposite of
him woman played by Melanie Griffith, and she basically kind
of quote unquote kidnaps him and tries to take him
on this just crazy adventure. She wants him to pose
as her husband at a high school reunion. They go
(11:28):
to the high school reunion, and that's where you meet
ray Leo and his character who is her ex, and
he basically confronts them, and that's kind of the synopsis
of the movie. But I think why I love this
movie so much is because I had actually seen Dumb
and Dumber before I watched this movie. But I remember
being so kind of captivated at how Harry from Dumb
(11:50):
and Dummer was playing a more serious role. And I
think since Dumb and Dumber, everybody kind of thinks of
him as that character a lot, but he's still a
lot of serious roles, since if you look at his
entire movie catalog, that's really the only straight up comedy
he's done, that kind of crazy en off the wall.
(12:11):
But for me, it was this first role seeing him
like this that I really enjoyed seeing a movie that
feels very eighties and I would describe as being one
of my favorite eighties movies of all time. One of
Jeff Daniels roles I just feel is underrated. So on
the list, I'm going with Something Wild from nineteen next
up on my list. A few a list stars in
(12:33):
this one that I feel it's an underrated movie for
a movie starring Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, and Jesse Eisenberg
from two thousand and nine. In the movie is adventure Land.
It's a movie that takes place in the eighties. Again
the eighties theme here that we have going. But what
I loved about this movie is, although it does take
place in the eighties, it's not your stereotypical eighties looking movie.
(12:56):
I think movies that you know, are made twenty years
after the eighties, they often kind of represent the Eighties
in the same way, and the stereotypes, you know, the fashion,
the music, the overall plots, the set designed, the clothes,
all those things are kind of just stereotypical eighties and
you know movies made later. But what I loved about
this one is it really kind of just incorporated and
(13:19):
encompassed that time of like what it would be like
for normal people, and it's not overshadowed in any way
that it's taking place in the eighties. It just feels
like a modern take on the eighties, which I loved.
And at the time Jesse Eisenberg was I felt like
in every movie. You know, he did really well in
the late two thousand's early probably more of an A
(13:42):
list star at that point than he is now. But
then you also have Kristen Stewart coming off of Twilight,
Ryan Reynolds still kind of on his rise but still
well known name at the time, and then also you
can throw in Bill Hayter and Kristen Wig who are
all in this movie. So it's a really big cast
of all these big actors, and I just feel like
this movie gets overlooked a lot. So it's about Jesse
(14:03):
Eisenberg's character plays a college kid who has this big
trip planned to go to Europe. Turns out his best
friend Bales, his parents tell them they're no longer going
to pay for the trip, so he has to take
a job at this local amusement park. And it's really
kind of a coming of age story of that period
of your life. And it all takes place over the summer,
which I love a movie that takes place over the summer.
(14:25):
So came out in two thousands and nine. I recently
watched it again on Netflix and still thought it held up.
It's not a straight on comedy, it's kind of like
a drama da and I just really like Kristen Stewart
and Jesse Eisenberg together. They did another movie together called
American Ultra. I just think they have a lot of
on screen chemistry. But this is my favorite from the
both of them. So on the underrated movies from a
(14:47):
list actors Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, and Ryan Reynolds, I'm
going with that adventure Land from two thousand and nine.
All Right, I have a few more here that I'll
run through on my list. One is my favorite George
Clooney movie from and it is from Just Till Dawn.
It's a movie about these two brothers. One is George Clooney,
the other is Quentin Tarantino, and they're on the run
(15:07):
from the Texas Police and they do so by basically
hijacking this family's r V and forcing them to drive
them into Mexico where they go to a bar to
meet these people, and then you find out that everybody
in this bar is a vampire. I think George Clooney
was arguably his best in the nineties, and he's just
so charismatic in this movie. Plays a great lead because
(15:31):
it's a mix of action. It's a mix of horror
with a splash of weird, which I love and the
movie was written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez,
a movie I can't recommend enough. My favorite George Clooney
movie I think is underrated from him from Dust Till
Dawn from another one I wanted to mention was one
(15:54):
of my favorite actors is Mark Wahlberg. I feel like
he's a very underrated actor in general, known mostly for
his act in movies. But where I think Mark Wahlberg
kind of shines a little bit more is it's comedic movies,
and I think one of his underrated movies is Ted
From Now. It's from the mind of Seth McFarland, who
was the creator of Family Guy, and the best way
I kind of described this movie, it's kind of a
(16:16):
live action Family Guy, and I think that's why I
loved it so much. Seth McFarland, who was a lot
of the voices on Family Guy, from Stuie to Peter
to Brian Griffin. He is the voice of Ted, and
I almost feel like he does the exact same voice
that he does for Peter Griffin. But I think that,
paired with Mark Wahlberg's comedic performance in this movie, makes
(16:38):
it one of my favorite comedies. And yes it's dumb,
Yes it's ridiculous. Yes it's pretty much downright stupid. It's
basically the story of Mark Wahlberg's character who got this
teddy bear as a kid. The teddy bear talked and
they became friends and then stayed friends through his entire
teenage years, and now he's an adult and basically living
the same way he did when he was a kid
(17:00):
with this teddy Bear. So if you're able to get
through that dumb premise, it's actually a really good comedy.
Mark Wahlberg Milacoonis. I think a lot of people just
write this off as another dumb comedy, but I feel
like it's very underrated and Mark Wahlberg at his comedic best.
So from underrated movie from Mark Wahlberg is Ted And
then finally on this list, as I was rounding through
(17:21):
my favorite A list actors and their underrated movies, I
came across one with two actors that I really loved
at the time that this movie came out. Jennifer Lawrence
and Chris Pratt start together in a movie called Passengers,
and I think this was probably their biggest decade, you know,
with the rise of like the Jurassic Park reboots, Guarding
(17:41):
into the Galaxy, Jennifer Lawrence coming off of The Hunger Games,
and you know, doing these big oscar movies like Silver
Linings Playbook. They did a movie together, And I think
what I loved more about this movie was the premise
behind it. I love sci fi, I love movies set
in space, I love movies set far into the fewer
and this movie felt like maybe a dream I had
(18:03):
at some point, and it was. But I think I
enjoyed the premise so much that no matter how the
movie was going to be executed, I was going to
love it one because it already had two of my
favorite ALIS actors, Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. But set
a story about all these passengers going on this voyage
to this new planet where everything's supposed to be amazing,
(18:24):
but they're putting these pods to go to sleep and
not meant to wake up until years later to where
they're awakened at this new planet. But what happens is
Chris Pratt's pod malfunction and he woke up ninety years
too early to when they're supposed to meet their destination,
and he starts to fall in love with the idea
of this other passenger by just reading about her story.
(18:44):
That passenger ends up being Jennifer Lawrence. So what does
he do. He decides to wake her up so he
has somebody to spend the rest of the time with
because he's probably not going to live to see this
new colony planet. So the movie is one part sci
fi and one part room Man's So I think the
movie just kind of also raises a bunch of questions
of what you would do in that situation. You know,
(19:05):
the comment struck and damaged the ship, forcing you to
wake up, you live a year in solitude. Would you
wake up another person just to have somebody to spend
your time with? Would you in turn fall in love
with that person? And then would you tell that person
what you did? Would you admit to lying to them
about it? So I think this is an underratted movie
from both Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. I think the
(19:27):
movie really wasn't that well received by critics and didn't
perform as well as the box office as everybody was expecting.
It was at a time where, you know, space movies
were still big, but kind of on the way out
a little bit kind of falling off the success of Gravity,
but I still thought myself really enjoying this one. If
you're into sci fi and romance, I think you may
like it too. So that is what I have on
(19:49):
this list, some underrated movies or some A list actors.
If there's one you think you would add to the
list from one of your favorite actors, let me know.
Send me a tweet, send me a d m at
Mike Destro on Instagram and Twitter, or you can always
shoot me an email movie Mike d at gmail dot com. Alright,
(20:09):
going to get into a spoiler free movie review now
talking about what is now Netflix's most watched movie of
all time. The movie has red Notice, starring Dwayne the
Rock Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gado, three big A
list actors all in one movie. So how could it fail? Right?
A movie I wasn't entirely like hyped to watch. I
(20:30):
think I'm kind of just a little bit tired of
the Rock being and everything. I'm a little bit over
Ryan Reynolds after watching Free Guy. I like gal Gado
as wonder Woman, but I haven't really got into any
of our other movies, so I was curious to see
how three actors of their caliber and how their chemistry
would be on screen. So before I get into this review,
(20:50):
here is just a little bit of Netflix's Red Notice.
Pew Clever, Key Strokes and Bye Bye and John Hartley.
She's gonna steal Cleopatra's eggs. They're priceless. We cut her
together like a queer in my name, and I'll help
(21:12):
you become the number one thief in the world. Again
in your neck. If I did partner up a few,
you still only have one brags. So let's get into
what Red Notice is about. It's about Ryan Reynolds character.
He is an international art thief said to be the
self proclaimed number one art thief in the world, and
(21:34):
he is trying to steal one of these eggs, and
they are Cleopatra's eggs. There are actually three of them
in the world, and the goal of all the bad
people in this movie is to acquire all three eggs,
which at the start of this movie, I just thought
that premise was a little bit dumb. It started out
very cheesy. It kind of felt like a nineties old
(21:56):
school kind of action movie that you would like I
was talking about earlier, probably watch on like a Saturday
matinee on some random network TV channel. And in the movie,
The Rock plays an FBI agent who comes into foil
Ryan Reynolds's plan to steal this first egg, and in
turn he gets set up by gal Gado's character, who
(22:18):
is known as the Bishop in the movie. Again, this
is all from the trailer, so it's not a spoiler
in anyway. She frames The Rock as being kind of
in cahoots with Ryan Reynolds to steal this egg. So
The Rock has to team up with Ryan reynolds character
to in turn stop gal Gado from her evil plan.
So again, that's kind of a lot to explain, but
when you watch the movie, it becomes a little more
(22:39):
apparent what they're trying to do. I just feel like
they were trying to do too much in this movie.
And the initial thing that kind of took me out
of this movie was the acting. And I felt like
The Rock was a little bit too much The Rock.
I felt like Ryan Reynolds was a little too Ryan Reynolds.
He was he now I feel was a little bit typecast.
He's kind of the wacky, wise cracking, kind of dead
(23:02):
Pool character in every single movie that he does. And
after watching Free Guy. I kind of had enough of that,
and I like Ryan reynolds movies. I was just talking
about adventure Land earlier, but I just think, for the
first time, I'm having a little bit too much Rock.
I'm having a little bit too much Ryan Reynolds. And
I know he's actually about to take a break from
acting after his movie comes out next year with Will Ferrell,
(23:22):
so maybe even Ryan Reynolds is feeling a little bit
of Ryan Reynolds fatigue. So I actually think that my
favorite part of this movie was Gal Gadot's performance. But again,
all of their characters felt a little bit too campy,
and the whole kind of story felt a little bit
too textbook movie, which isn't a bad thing, and I
guess I was expecting a little bit more levels or
layers to the story, but it was very straightforward. So
(23:45):
while the acting wasn't there for me, while the comedy
wasn't there for me, I just felt like the jokes
kind of fell flat. There were a lot of just
kind of your same quirky references that Ryan Reynolds character does,
you know, just your references to pop culture, your references
to internet culture, all those are kind of just in
there and kind of expected. So the movie didn't really
make me laugh at all. The only time it really
(24:05):
made me laugh was the scenes that were so kind
of cheesy action, which I enjoyed so kind of in
the moments that I think maybe you weren't supposed to laugh,
I found myself laughing. But given all of that that,
I didn't really love the acting or the comedy in it.
I thought that straight up action and it was exactly
what it was supposed to be, a big Hollywood production
with big explosions, big guns, big fight scenes, and I
(24:27):
think the pacing and that really kept me entertained throughout
the entire movie, and it kept me kind of wanting
to go along the entire two hour ride in this
So why I felt it didn't kind of meet my
expectations of it being kind of the next level kind
of step for Netflix. I thought I did a really
good job of taking away what you expect a streaming
(24:48):
movie to be. And now that it's Netflix is most
watched movie of all time, I kind of see now
more and more how that's going to happen more effectively
now just their past Bird Box of being the movie
that most people have seen on Netflix, which I found
surprising because when that movie came out a few years ago,
and I felt like that was one that we all
experienced together. It was over Christmas break and I felt
(25:10):
like everybody watched that movie, and it was such a
big accomplishment for Netflix to have like that real first
big movie hit to where people, you know, didn't really
just think about them of having all these successful TV series,
We were like, Okay, Netflix actually puts out quality movies
that kind of hold up to all the other movies
coming out in theaters. I didn't really felt like this
one had that same effect. I think what it was
(25:32):
was having three big actors like this to where it
was kind of too big to fail. When you have
the Rock promoting this movie on Instagram with video after video,
post after post, story after story, I felt like it
got out there so much. And a lot of that
is it being so well promoted, aside from the content
of the movie, you know, really spreading through word of mouth.
(25:53):
I just think it was right there big on the
splash page when you turn on Netflix that a lot
of people went to watch it. And Netflix also has
a lot more subscribers since bird Box came out, so
I don't really feel like that title holds as much
as it did for bird Box, But I do see
the direction now that Netflix can go with putting out
the same quality movies as you would see in theaters
and not think anything different about it. It's just about
(26:16):
getting eyeballs on the screen at this point, and Netflix
has the power to do that. The most people are
going to see it, and you have them paying the Rock,
Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds twenty million dollars each for
this movie, and they spent in total two million dollars
for this movie. So yeah, it was going to be
the most much movie just by how much they invested
(26:36):
in it. It had to be. So overall, I would say,
this is just a really good popcorn movie. And where
I think this movie kind of shines is that it's
a very good escape as a movie, a movie. I
didn't really think about anything else while I was watching it,
and I think that's what a good movie does and
what we actually turned to movies for. It doesn't have
to be the most captivating thing, doesn't have to be
(26:57):
the most groundbreaking thing, But for those two hours while
you're watching Team this movie, you just kind of feel
good like you're not thinking about real problems. The movie
doesn't have any real political references. There's just nothing about
this movie that makes you kind of think about the
real world. And that's really what a good movie like
this is supposed to do. It's supposed to appeal to everybody.
And yeah, maybe the joke's fall a little flat. But
(27:19):
while they don't, you know, really hit on me as
a thirty year old movie nerd, they probably kind of
resonate more with like a younger kid or teenager, So
I get that. I think it's a movie that critics
will probably slam pretty hard for, you know, not meeting
those standards. But a movie now that I would say,
if around the holidays you're just looking for something to
watch for the entire family, something just like simple, kind
(27:39):
of just it is what it is movie. I think
it's a solid pick. I will end by this. I
did find some of the plot lines in this movie
just downright infuriating that I wanted to at some point
just see I'll come on at the screen like I
was supposed to buy into this, But I was fine
with it. I finished watching the movie and just thought, overall,
I enjoyed it. I don't think I could give this
(28:01):
movie a solid three, like it's right there on the
border of that. It took me a bit of the
movie to kind of fully be into investing my entire
time into it. So just for the sake of continuity
of my rating system, I will give this movie a
light three out of five golden eggs, a good not
great movie. And I hate giving it that golden egg
(28:23):
reference because I just thought that was kind of the
dumb part of the movie, like that they have to
really be finding eggs. It seems very cheesy to me.
But I'm curious to see how this movie continues to
grow over the holidays as more and more people watch it,
and what movie will kind of knock this movie out
of the top spot, because I think the next big
movie they do, they're gonna want it to beat this movie.
(28:44):
So I just think that kind of title of being
the most watched Netflix movie doesn't really hold what it
used to. But those are my thoughts on Red Notice.
And now it's time for the part of the podcast
where I break down movie trailers of movies coming to
streaming in theaters very soon in a segment we call
(29:05):
It's time to Head Down to movie Mike Trail Lard Paul,
and the first trailer we're looking at today is Jurassic
World Dominion, which they pretty much just released the entire
first five minutes of this movie, so something I haven't
really seen a lot of movies do before, they released
the entire prologue. So before I get into what I
think about this new Jurassic World movie, after seeing this,
(29:27):
here's just a little bit of that Damn, I don't fit,
you fit, you can't run forever. So I do think
(29:48):
that was pretty cool. They put up the first five
minutes of the movie, so if you searched that up
on YouTube, you can also watch the first five minutes
of this new movie. Now, this is the third installment
of this Jurassic World reboot, and I feel like these
movies haven't been as memorable as the original Jurassic Park movies,
but I still find them very enjoyable. I still think
they're very fun. I think for me, while I was
(30:10):
watching this, I get kind of taken out of it
by the special effects, something that was so kind of
special about the first movies. Granted they were made in
the nineties where a lot of this technology really wasn't
there they were basically having to figure out how to
do these computer graphic generated dinosaurs in this movie and
(30:31):
technology that wasn't even created at the time. So what
they did a lot in those movies is they made
actual animatronic dinosaurs that they used and the actors could
interact with, which I thought gave a different feel to
that first Jurassic Park movie to where it felt a
little bit more like an emotional connection there and between
the animatronics and the actual special effects that it did.
(30:53):
In the first one, I thought it did a really
good job of the really close personal scenes, felt like
there was an act to old dinosaur there in the
presence of the actors. But when you get into the
movies now, it's really just all c g I computer generated.
What will you see in those entire five minutes, it's
basically sixty five million years before it gets the current day,
and then you see several dinosaurs escaping and basically reading
(31:17):
havoc at this drive in movie. So I wouldn't say
the first two movies in this reboot series have been
the best. I do find them enjoyable to watch in theaters.
I think Chris Pratt does a pretty good job in
these movies. Again, it's just a lot of Chris Pratt.
I feel like we're kind of maxed out on all
the A list actors Hollywood is using right now. So
we're getting a new Jurassic World with Chris Pratt, and
(31:39):
then we got the Super Mario movie voiced by Chris Pratt.
He's going to be in the next Guardians of the
Galaxy movie, and he's also been announced as the voice
of Garfield in an upcoming movie. So it's a lot
of Chris Pratt. But good thing about the Jurassic World
movies is I feel like the dinosaurs are the star,
so I think I'll be okay seeing them again in
this one. Next up in the trailer park is a
new animated movie Hall DC League of Pets. You basically
(32:03):
have a d C movie if you were taking like
The Secret Life of Pets and doing that with superhero characters.
A lot of big name voices in this from Dwayne Johnson,
John Krasinski, Kevin Harkey on the Reeves, Kate McKinnon, the
list goes on and on and on. It kind of
just sounds like they took the approach of getting a
bunch of big names to sell this animated movie, which
I'm not the biggest fan of, But here's just a
(32:23):
little bit of that trailer. If it isn't The Justice
League Superman, what's fine on? You're super strong? I should
be a lot more dead right now. Right my best
(32:43):
friend is in danger and you have to help me.
We're just a bunch of shelter pets, but they're stronger
than you think. So what happened in this movie. It's Superman,
who was voiced by John Krasinski, and his dog is
voiced by The Rock. The Justice League gets captured by
Lakes Luthor and all the super pets have to come
together to rescue their owners. So it's all the other
(33:03):
members of the Justice League's pets from like Batman to
Wonder Woman, and they all have different superpowers. So if
you've seen the animated movie The Secret Life of Pets,
I feel like this is exactly that movie. I feel
like it's exactly that movie. Even the casting in this.
You have Kevin hard in this movie. He was also
in the Secret Life of Pets. So I actually like
The Secret Life of Pets the first one that is.
(33:25):
I'm not embarrassed at all to go see a kids
movie as an adult man by myself. I like the
added element of there being some superhero references to this,
but I do have to say this is not the
direction I wanted DC to go in mainstream animated movies.
I recently talked about a movie called The Death of Superman,
which I thought was one of the best DC movies
I've ever seen, live action or not, being an animated movie.
(33:47):
I thought it was amazing, and I think their storytelling
really is able to cut through animation to the point
to where you don't even realize you're watching an animated
movie while watching that movie. If you want to check
that one out, it is on HBO Max. But I
kind of wanted them to go more in that direction.
I think that would definitely make them stick out for Marvel,
which I think it is a bit tough to get
(34:08):
people in adults to want to go see an animated
movie meant for adults. So I think they're looking for
a hit here because one, you got the A list cast,
Two you have an appealing to kids, Three you have
the superhero elements. So I think this movie will make
a bunch of money at the box office, kind of
a cash grab. It feels like to me, and it
also doesn't feel like it has a place in the
(34:28):
DC world, Like I don't think this movie is necessarily
going to line up with all the other things they
have going on right now. What looks like a fun
and cute movie, one I won't be rushing to the
theaters to get to see. Well, probably when it comes
out on HBO Max I will watch this one, but
it does hit theaters on MAO, and that's gonna do
(34:49):
it for the trailer park, and that's gonna do it
for this week's episode. But before I hop out of here,
every single week I give a shout out to one
of you who listens to the podcast and sends me
a message on Instagram, tweets me at my de stro,
or shoots me an email at movie Mike d at
gmail dot com. And this week I'm going over to
my Instagram d m s and the shout out is
to Silas, who sent me a d M about last
(35:11):
week's episode, and Silas wrote another solid episode, agreed completely
on Spider Man and wanting to wait to feel those
reveals in theater. Hope you have a great holiday and
safe travels. F y I. I was having a bad
start to the day, but at work, do you help
me take my mind off that and get stuff done.
Thanks again and love your podcast. I appreciate that, Silas,
(35:31):
and to anyone who listens to this podcast, and it's
kind of your distraction of the week, Like that really
hasn't said in my brain while I'm doing this podcast.
I really started this as a passion project because I
loved movies so much and review them just online anyway,
that this has kind of been my outlet for that,
and I think that's also why I like to keep
this podcast just completely talking about movies the entire time.
(35:53):
And you know, even when I was reviewing Red Notice earlier,
I was talking about how that movie was kind of
a form of escape as them and that sometimes what
we look to in entertainment. So I always just want
to bring you movie content. And you know what you
get when you click play on this podcast if all
you want is thirty minutes of just some guy ranting
and what he likes about movies, what he doesn't like
about movies. I want this to be that place for
(36:16):
you to come and enjoy, to share with your friends,
to tell people about, but just kind of building this
little movie community has really meant a lot to me.
And if this podcast is anyway is able to get
your mind off of, you know, the bad days you're having,
the rough stuff you're going through in your life. You know,
that's why I really look to movies. That's when that's
always been to me my entire life, and why I
(36:37):
do this podcast. So I think altogether, collectively us watching
movies talking about movies, that's the entire goal here, to
have this safe space to where we can just only
think about that for the entire time we're listening to
this podcast. That's why I love doing this for you,
silas for anyone else listening who just needs to hear
that I am here for you. I can admit the
(36:59):
last couple of weeks in my life have been a
little bit chaotic. If you're not familiar with the Bobby
Bones Show, we did announce on there that we are
currently doing the radio show and now in turn of
this podcast from a country in Central America and related
to this podcast, I think one of the hardest things
for me is I haven't been able to go to
a movie theater in like three weeks now because there's
(37:21):
not a movie theater around here and I think the
closest one to me just shows like really old movies,
so I couldn't really go watch a lot of the
new movies and theaters that I want to go see.
So if you've noticed, a lot of the reviews have
switched to movies that I can watch on Netflix. So
I can't wait to get back home, go to a
movie theater and check out probably King Richard, and really
(37:42):
can't wait to watch the new Spider Man movie in theaters.
That's been kind of my light at the end of
the tunnel, getting to see that movie. So I appreciate
you for listening to this week's episode. I hope you
have a great rest of your week, and until next time.
Later
Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mix movie podcast, your
go to source for all things movies. I am your
host movie Mike, and today I am breaking down underrated
movies by A list actors. These are movies maybe you
haven't heard of, maybe you haven't seen for some reason,
but I think needs some attention brought to them because
they are really great performances by some of my favorite actors.
Plus a movie review of now the biggest movie on
(00:22):
Netflix Red Notice, and then in the Trailer Park will
take a look at Jurassic World Dominion. They just dropped
this prologue. Thanks for being subscribed and for listening every
single week, especially if you're listening on Monday, which is released.
A shout out to the movie crew. Without any further ado,
let's get started. In a world where everyone and their
mother has a podcast, one man stands to infiltrate the
(00:45):
ears of listeners like never before in a movie podcast.
A man with so much movie knowledge. He's basically like
a walking audimdvie with classes from the Nashville Podcast Network.
So I wanted to take this episode and recognize some
movies from some A list actors that I think are underrated,
(01:09):
maybe because when they came out, they weren't as well received.
They were a bit of departure for some of these actors.
Sometimes they didn't just perform as expected as the box office,
and in other cases, I think there's some that over
time they've kind of lost their cultural impact and we
just kind of forgot about these Sometimes they just get
a little bit forgotten, and I feel like in the
(01:29):
grand scheme of things, they start to become underrated the
less and less people reference some of these movies. So
I want to start with the movie that inspired this
entire list that I finally got around to watching, and
it was one that I just hadn't really heard much about,
and it's a movie called One Hour Photos starring Robin Williams.
Came out back in two thousand and two, and immediately
(01:49):
upon reading the synopsis in the overall plot for this movie,
I was completely hooking. It's about Robin Williams who plays
this really lonely technician guy who's working at kind of
a Walmart slash Walgreens photo development department. And he plays
this character named Si, who has worked at this photo
lab for years, and over the years of working there,
(02:11):
he's developed this kind of obsession with his family, whose
photos he's been working with for years now to the
point to where he's followed their entire life through pictures
when they had a kid. And the movie starts out
innocently enough, kind of focusing on this story, and I
kind of resonate a little bit of what it's like
to be a lonely guy and want to, you know,
just be a part of someone else's life, of what
you think is the perfect life. And it kind of
(02:33):
turns into this psychological thriller, which I'm a big fan of,
and I really love any movies that depict somebody's descent
into madness to when they start out as a regular
enough person, but through the torment in their life, through
the pain and suffering that they have, you know, whether
it's deep down internalized in them, it just starts to
(02:54):
spill out a little bit a little bit in this movie,
and you see Robin Williams character just kind of all
out looks it. So he goes from just kind of
idolizing this family of what he would look like, you know,
painted into those photos, and over the years he has
been making duplicates for himself, which is really creepy in
keeping them, and the entire movie kind of turns once
(03:16):
his boss realizes what he's been doing, and then his
entire world gets kind of shifted upside down. So why
I think this movie is underrated is because it is
something unlike anything I've ever seen from Robin Williams. And
he was greatly known for his comedic roles, is more
dramatic roles, but this one is almost, I feel like,
one of his best performances I've ever seen. And it's
(03:38):
also just kind of sad knowing that there are people
like this, people going through similar things like this, and
you just want to be kind of recognized and something
that could start out so innocently enough of just feeling like, oh,
you're taking some pictures for your own personal enjoyment, which yes,
sounds very creepy looking back on this. While you're kind
of disgusted by what he is doing and what he
(04:00):
kind of the level he takes it in this movie,
you also kind of feel bad for him, knowing that
he is suffering greatly. And the other thing I really
enjoyed about this movie, while I feel it's underrated, it
really kind of encapsulates that moment in time going from
the nineties to the two thousand's the whole idea of
kind of film being you know, taken out of the
(04:20):
equation of nobody really using disposable cameras and nobody really
using film anymore. It all goes to digital. It kind
of has a parallel in this movie of his life
of like, oh, what I once had is no longer there.
The times are moving. So it's a really kind of
great transitional piece of going from nineties movies to two
thousands movies. And it felt like a very two thousands
movie when I watched it. And I think now, as
(04:43):
we are in the twenties, which is weird to say,
but I think we're seeing more and more in pop
culture of you know, references now and back to the
early two thousands of what that kind of time period
is now and what kind of represents that time. And
I think you see that a lot when you watch
this movie, being that it came out in two thousand
and two. So at the top of my list and
(05:03):
underrated movies from a list actors, I would go with
a one hour photo starring Robin Williams, and you can
watch that as of now on Hulu. That's where I
watched it. Next up on my list, I want to
go all the way back to the seventies. I think
I got an email one saying that I don't talk
about movies from the seventies enough, so I want to
add an underrated movie from the seventies one of my
favorites that I just feel like, so many comedies now,
(05:27):
oh so much to this movie. And when you know,
I see all these lists of like the funniest movies
of all time, I feel like this one doesn't get
reference enough. For one, how groundbreaking it was, to how
much movies kind of borrow from this formula now, and
three just kind of how it changed only comedy movies,
but college party movies in general. And the movie is
(05:47):
Animal House from Night. The A list actor is John Belushi,
which at the time when this movie came out, he
was as big as it got in comedy, but he
was mainly known for TV. He was a star cast
member on SNL and that's really where he was a star.
But this was kind of his first film as that
established stars. So he was twenty eight years old, hadn't
(06:09):
been in any movie yet, but you put him in
this movie and it really just changed everything when it
came to comedy movies, and you also have a young
Kevin Bacon and they're just kind of starting out his
film career, and Animal House really just set the blueprint
for college comedies. Without this movie, there would be no
like American Pike To, no Project X, no Neighbors, no
(06:29):
Old School. I think all those types of movies kind
of owe all their credit to what Animal House did.
And it's really one of the funniest movies of all time.
I just think that it came out in night when
you come up with a list in you know, people
listening their funniest movies. It kind of now just starts
in like the nineties, the two thousands, and then even
(06:51):
since then. I feel like comedies really haven't been a
thing in the last ten years. One because it's really hard,
you know, to make things that are funny to a
massive amount of people now too. You probably couldn't make
a movie like Animal House today. A really a lot
of those seventies eighties comedies are based on things you
couldn't really do now anymore. And Three, I don't really
(07:12):
think we have that many comedic stars anymore, and the
ones we do have, I feel are so type cast
that there's not really kind of an ensemble comedy cast
like we've had and probably ten twenty years. So many
great lines in this movie, like that I'm a ZiT,
the Toga chant, and I think one of my favorite
ones is when they get all called into the Dean's
(07:32):
office to list out and told their grade point averages.
I think that's one of my favorite scenes out of
the entire movie, when John Belushi's character he gets told
that he has a zero point zero great average, Mr
Blue zero zero. On my List, the underrated movie from
the A List actor John Belushi is Animal House from eight.
(07:54):
If you haven't seen that movie, put it on your list.
Next up on my List, it's a movie I watched
as a kid back in nine and it's called Small Soldiers.
A couple of A List actors in this. Actually the
main toy character is voiced by Tommy Lee Jones and
he plays Lieutenant Chip Hazard in this movie, the leader
of the bad guys in this and then you also
(08:14):
have Kirston Dunce who was already an all out star
from when she was a kid. And what this movie
is about, it's basically like toy story gone wrong and
a lot more violent than you would expect the kids movie.
Now it is ready to PG. Thirteen, But I remember
the kid and being totally marketed just towards any kid,
and you also had the entire toy aspect to it,
(08:36):
the same way that Toy Story was. You go watch
the movie, then you want the toys. It really had
the same kind of effect. But when you watch Small Soldiers,
you realize that this movie was really just the movie
for adults, kind of pitch to kids. The violence was
more intense, the kids actually get hurt of this movie.
There's a little, not a whole lot of suggestive language,
(08:56):
but I mean even the toys and one senior kind
of sexualized. So in disguise, it was kind of a
kids movie that was kind of marketed more towards tweens
and teenagers. So basically what happens in the movie is
there's this teenager named Alan. His dad owns a toy
store a bunch of boring toys, So what does he
want to do. He wants to take this shipment of
(09:16):
these new Commando elites to bring back and drive sales
to the store. But what he doesn't know is the
makers of this toy put some like really intense military
chips into them, so they are so smart that they're
actually able to fight back, and they try to essentially
take out humans. And I say that not lightly like
their actual goal in this movie is to kill humans.
(09:39):
But it's a movie that feels very much like a
nineties movie and one I just feel like gets overlooked
a lot when talking about movies from our childhood, and
I think I owe a lot of loving this movie
is the voice of Tommy Lee Jones. He plays a
really good kind of disgruntled military guy. I think every
movie he does he's a disgruntled guy. So I would
say this is one of my favor Tommy Lee Jones performances,
(10:01):
a movie I think is underrated from him, and also
an underrated movie from Kirsten Dunn's early career. So on
the list would go Small Soldiers from n Up. Next
on my list, we'll go back a little bit more
into the eighties, which is another genre I don't talk
a whole lot about, but I have a lot of
favorite eighties movies, and I think this is one of
my favorite eighties movies of all time, and it's from
(10:23):
Jeff Daniels in a movie called Something Wild, and I
remember the first time I watched this movie. Now, as
a kid, I didn't have a whole lot of VHS tapes.
We couldn't really afford those a whole lot unless we
were getting them from the garage sale. So I would
always just kind of scan the channels for anything just
played on regular TV, anything that I could get by
moving the bunny ears on the old Zenith TV. And
(10:45):
I would sit there on you know, Saturday afternoons and
just scan anything. And a lot of my favorite movies
came from movies I would just find randomly on TV.
And one movie in particular was called Something Wild, starring
not only Jeff Daniels but also ray Leota, and for
a while it was just one of my favorite movies. Now,
what the movie is about. Jeff Daniels, he's really just
(11:06):
like a uptight banker and he gets kidnapped by this
kind of free spirited, off the wall, complete opposite of
him woman played by Melanie Griffith, and she basically kind
of quote unquote kidnaps him and tries to take him
on this just crazy adventure. She wants him to pose
as her husband at a high school reunion. They go
(11:28):
to the high school reunion, and that's where you meet
ray Leo and his character who is her ex, and
he basically confronts them, and that's kind of the synopsis
of the movie. But I think why I love this
movie so much is because I had actually seen Dumb
and Dumber before I watched this movie. But I remember
being so kind of captivated at how Harry from Dumb
(11:50):
and Dummer was playing a more serious role. And I
think since Dumb and Dumber, everybody kind of thinks of
him as that character a lot, but he's still a
lot of serious roles, since if you look at his
entire movie catalog, that's really the only straight up comedy
he's done, that kind of crazy en off the wall.
(12:11):
But for me, it was this first role seeing him
like this that I really enjoyed seeing a movie that
feels very eighties and I would describe as being one
of my favorite eighties movies of all time. One of
Jeff Daniels roles I just feel is underrated. So on
the list, I'm going with Something Wild from nineteen next
up on my list. A few a list stars in
(12:33):
this one that I feel it's an underrated movie for
a movie starring Kristen Stewart, Ryan Reynolds, and Jesse Eisenberg
from two thousand and nine. In the movie is adventure Land.
It's a movie that takes place in the eighties. Again
the eighties theme here that we have going. But what
I loved about this movie is, although it does take
place in the eighties, it's not your stereotypical eighties looking movie.
(12:56):
I think movies that you know, are made twenty years
after the eighties, they often kind of represent the Eighties
in the same way, and the stereotypes, you know, the fashion,
the music, the overall plots, the set designed, the clothes,
all those things are kind of just stereotypical eighties and
you know movies made later. But what I loved about
this one is it really kind of just incorporated and
(13:19):
encompassed that time of like what it would be like
for normal people, and it's not overshadowed in any way
that it's taking place in the eighties. It just feels
like a modern take on the eighties, which I loved.
And at the time Jesse Eisenberg was I felt like
in every movie. You know, he did really well in
the late two thousand's early probably more of an A
(13:42):
list star at that point than he is now. But
then you also have Kristen Stewart coming off of Twilight,
Ryan Reynolds still kind of on his rise but still
well known name at the time, and then also you
can throw in Bill Hayter and Kristen Wig who are
all in this movie. So it's a really big cast
of all these big actors, and I just feel like
this movie gets overlooked a lot. So it's about Jesse
(14:03):
Eisenberg's character plays a college kid who has this big
trip planned to go to Europe. Turns out his best
friend Bales, his parents tell them they're no longer going
to pay for the trip, so he has to take
a job at this local amusement park. And it's really
kind of a coming of age story of that period
of your life. And it all takes place over the summer,
which I love a movie that takes place over the summer.
(14:25):
So came out in two thousands and nine. I recently
watched it again on Netflix and still thought it held up.
It's not a straight on comedy, it's kind of like
a drama da and I just really like Kristen Stewart
and Jesse Eisenberg together. They did another movie together called
American Ultra. I just think they have a lot of
on screen chemistry. But this is my favorite from the
both of them. So on the underrated movies from a
(14:47):
list actors Kristen Stewart, Jesse Eisenberg, and Ryan Reynolds, I'm
going with that adventure Land from two thousand and nine.
All Right, I have a few more here that I'll
run through on my list. One is my favorite George
Clooney movie from and it is from Just Till Dawn.
It's a movie about these two brothers. One is George Clooney,
the other is Quentin Tarantino, and they're on the run
(15:07):
from the Texas Police and they do so by basically
hijacking this family's r V and forcing them to drive
them into Mexico where they go to a bar to
meet these people, and then you find out that everybody
in this bar is a vampire. I think George Clooney
was arguably his best in the nineties, and he's just
so charismatic in this movie. Plays a great lead because
(15:31):
it's a mix of action. It's a mix of horror
with a splash of weird, which I love and the
movie was written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez,
a movie I can't recommend enough. My favorite George Clooney
movie I think is underrated from him from Dust Till
Dawn from another one I wanted to mention was one
(15:54):
of my favorite actors is Mark Wahlberg. I feel like
he's a very underrated actor in general, known mostly for
his act in movies. But where I think Mark Wahlberg
kind of shines a little bit more is it's comedic movies,
and I think one of his underrated movies is Ted
From Now. It's from the mind of Seth McFarland, who
was the creator of Family Guy, and the best way
I kind of described this movie, it's kind of a
(16:16):
live action Family Guy, and I think that's why I
loved it so much. Seth McFarland, who was a lot
of the voices on Family Guy, from Stuie to Peter
to Brian Griffin. He is the voice of Ted, and
I almost feel like he does the exact same voice
that he does for Peter Griffin. But I think that,
paired with Mark Wahlberg's comedic performance in this movie, makes
(16:38):
it one of my favorite comedies. And yes it's dumb,
Yes it's ridiculous. Yes it's pretty much downright stupid. It's
basically the story of Mark Wahlberg's character who got this
teddy bear as a kid. The teddy bear talked and
they became friends and then stayed friends through his entire
teenage years, and now he's an adult and basically living
the same way he did when he was a kid
(17:00):
with this teddy Bear. So if you're able to get
through that dumb premise, it's actually a really good comedy.
Mark Wahlberg Milacoonis. I think a lot of people just
write this off as another dumb comedy, but I feel
like it's very underrated and Mark Wahlberg at his comedic best.
So from underrated movie from Mark Wahlberg is Ted And
then finally on this list, as I was rounding through
(17:21):
my favorite A list actors and their underrated movies, I
came across one with two actors that I really loved
at the time that this movie came out. Jennifer Lawrence
and Chris Pratt start together in a movie called Passengers,
and I think this was probably their biggest decade, you know,
with the rise of like the Jurassic Park reboots, Guarding
(17:41):
into the Galaxy, Jennifer Lawrence coming off of The Hunger Games,
and you know, doing these big oscar movies like Silver
Linings Playbook. They did a movie together, And I think
what I loved more about this movie was the premise
behind it. I love sci fi, I love movies set
in space, I love movies set far into the fewer
and this movie felt like maybe a dream I had
(18:03):
at some point, and it was. But I think I
enjoyed the premise so much that no matter how the
movie was going to be executed, I was going to
love it one because it already had two of my
favorite ALIS actors, Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. But set
a story about all these passengers going on this voyage
to this new planet where everything's supposed to be amazing,
(18:24):
but they're putting these pods to go to sleep and
not meant to wake up until years later to where
they're awakened at this new planet. But what happens is
Chris Pratt's pod malfunction and he woke up ninety years
too early to when they're supposed to meet their destination,
and he starts to fall in love with the idea
of this other passenger by just reading about her story.
(18:44):
That passenger ends up being Jennifer Lawrence. So what does
he do. He decides to wake her up so he
has somebody to spend the rest of the time with
because he's probably not going to live to see this
new colony planet. So the movie is one part sci
fi and one part room Man's So I think the
movie just kind of also raises a bunch of questions
of what you would do in that situation. You know,
(19:05):
the comment struck and damaged the ship, forcing you to
wake up, you live a year in solitude. Would you
wake up another person just to have somebody to spend
your time with? Would you in turn fall in love
with that person? And then would you tell that person
what you did? Would you admit to lying to them
about it? So I think this is an underratted movie
from both Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt. I think the
(19:27):
movie really wasn't that well received by critics and didn't
perform as well as the box office as everybody was expecting.
It was at a time where, you know, space movies
were still big, but kind of on the way out
a little bit kind of falling off the success of Gravity,
but I still thought myself really enjoying this one. If
you're into sci fi and romance, I think you may
like it too. So that is what I have on
(19:49):
this list, some underrated movies or some A list actors.
If there's one you think you would add to the
list from one of your favorite actors, let me know.
Send me a tweet, send me a d m at
Mike Destro on Instagram and Twitter, or you can always
shoot me an email movie Mike d at gmail dot com. Alright,
(20:09):
going to get into a spoiler free movie review now
talking about what is now Netflix's most watched movie of
all time. The movie has red Notice, starring Dwayne the
Rock Johnson, Ryan Reynolds, and Gal Gado, three big A
list actors all in one movie. So how could it fail? Right?
A movie I wasn't entirely like hyped to watch. I
(20:30):
think I'm kind of just a little bit tired of
the Rock being and everything. I'm a little bit over
Ryan Reynolds after watching Free Guy. I like gal Gado
as wonder Woman, but I haven't really got into any
of our other movies, so I was curious to see
how three actors of their caliber and how their chemistry
would be on screen. So before I get into this review,
(20:50):
here is just a little bit of Netflix's Red Notice.
Pew Clever, Key Strokes and Bye Bye and John Hartley.
She's gonna steal Cleopatra's eggs. They're priceless. We cut her
together like a queer in my name, and I'll help
(21:12):
you become the number one thief in the world. Again
in your neck. If I did partner up a few,
you still only have one brags. So let's get into
what Red Notice is about. It's about Ryan Reynolds character.
He is an international art thief said to be the
self proclaimed number one art thief in the world, and
(21:34):
he is trying to steal one of these eggs, and
they are Cleopatra's eggs. There are actually three of them
in the world, and the goal of all the bad
people in this movie is to acquire all three eggs,
which at the start of this movie, I just thought
that premise was a little bit dumb. It started out
very cheesy. It kind of felt like a nineties old
(21:56):
school kind of action movie that you would like I
was talking about earlier, probably watch on like a Saturday
matinee on some random network TV channel. And in the movie,
The Rock plays an FBI agent who comes into foil
Ryan Reynolds's plan to steal this first egg, and in
turn he gets set up by gal Gado's character, who
(22:18):
is known as the Bishop in the movie. Again, this
is all from the trailer, so it's not a spoiler
in anyway. She frames The Rock as being kind of
in cahoots with Ryan Reynolds to steal this egg. So
The Rock has to team up with Ryan reynolds character
to in turn stop gal Gado from her evil plan.
So again, that's kind of a lot to explain, but
when you watch the movie, it becomes a little more
(22:39):
apparent what they're trying to do. I just feel like
they were trying to do too much in this movie.
And the initial thing that kind of took me out
of this movie was the acting. And I felt like
The Rock was a little bit too much The Rock.
I felt like Ryan Reynolds was a little too Ryan Reynolds.
He was he now I feel was a little bit typecast.
He's kind of the wacky, wise cracking, kind of dead
(23:02):
Pool character in every single movie that he does. And
after watching Free Guy. I kind of had enough of that,
and I like Ryan reynolds movies. I was just talking
about adventure Land earlier, but I just think, for the
first time, I'm having a little bit too much Rock.
I'm having a little bit too much Ryan Reynolds. And
I know he's actually about to take a break from
acting after his movie comes out next year with Will Ferrell,
(23:22):
so maybe even Ryan Reynolds is feeling a little bit
of Ryan Reynolds fatigue. So I actually think that my
favorite part of this movie was Gal Gadot's performance. But again,
all of their characters felt a little bit too campy,
and the whole kind of story felt a little bit
too textbook movie, which isn't a bad thing, and I
guess I was expecting a little bit more levels or
layers to the story, but it was very straightforward. So
(23:45):
while the acting wasn't there for me, while the comedy
wasn't there for me, I just felt like the jokes
kind of fell flat. There were a lot of just
kind of your same quirky references that Ryan Reynolds character does,
you know, just your references to pop culture, your references
to internet culture, all those are kind of just in
there and kind of expected. So the movie didn't really
make me laugh at all. The only time it really
(24:05):
made me laugh was the scenes that were so kind
of cheesy action, which I enjoyed so kind of in
the moments that I think maybe you weren't supposed to laugh,
I found myself laughing. But given all of that that,
I didn't really love the acting or the comedy in it.
I thought that straight up action and it was exactly
what it was supposed to be, a big Hollywood production
with big explosions, big guns, big fight scenes, and I
(24:27):
think the pacing and that really kept me entertained throughout
the entire movie, and it kept me kind of wanting
to go along the entire two hour ride in this
So why I felt it didn't kind of meet my
expectations of it being kind of the next level kind
of step for Netflix. I thought I did a really
good job of taking away what you expect a streaming
(24:48):
movie to be. And now that it's Netflix is most
watched movie of all time, I kind of see now
more and more how that's going to happen more effectively
now just their past Bird Box of being the movie
that most people have seen on Netflix, which I found
surprising because when that movie came out a few years ago,
and I felt like that was one that we all
experienced together. It was over Christmas break and I felt
(25:10):
like everybody watched that movie, and it was such a
big accomplishment for Netflix to have like that real first
big movie hit to where people, you know, didn't really
just think about them of having all these successful TV series,
We were like, Okay, Netflix actually puts out quality movies
that kind of hold up to all the other movies
coming out in theaters. I didn't really felt like this
one had that same effect. I think what it was
(25:32):
was having three big actors like this to where it
was kind of too big to fail. When you have
the Rock promoting this movie on Instagram with video after video,
post after post, story after story, I felt like it
got out there so much. And a lot of that
is it being so well promoted, aside from the content
of the movie, you know, really spreading through word of mouth.
(25:53):
I just think it was right there big on the
splash page when you turn on Netflix that a lot
of people went to watch it. And Netflix also has
a lot more subscribers since bird Box came out, so
I don't really feel like that title holds as much
as it did for bird Box, But I do see
the direction now that Netflix can go with putting out
the same quality movies as you would see in theaters
and not think anything different about it. It's just about
(26:16):
getting eyeballs on the screen at this point, and Netflix
has the power to do that. The most people are
going to see it, and you have them paying the Rock,
Gal Gadot and Ryan Reynolds twenty million dollars each for
this movie, and they spent in total two million dollars
for this movie. So yeah, it was going to be
the most much movie just by how much they invested
(26:36):
in it. It had to be. So overall, I would say,
this is just a really good popcorn movie. And where
I think this movie kind of shines is that it's
a very good escape as a movie, a movie. I
didn't really think about anything else while I was watching it,
and I think that's what a good movie does and
what we actually turned to movies for. It doesn't have
to be the most captivating thing, doesn't have to be
(26:57):
the most groundbreaking thing, But for those two hours while
you're watching Team this movie, you just kind of feel
good like you're not thinking about real problems. The movie
doesn't have any real political references. There's just nothing about
this movie that makes you kind of think about the
real world. And that's really what a good movie like
this is supposed to do. It's supposed to appeal to everybody.
And yeah, maybe the joke's fall a little flat. But
(27:19):
while they don't, you know, really hit on me as
a thirty year old movie nerd, they probably kind of
resonate more with like a younger kid or teenager, So
I get that. I think it's a movie that critics
will probably slam pretty hard for, you know, not meeting
those standards. But a movie now that I would say,
if around the holidays you're just looking for something to
watch for the entire family, something just like simple, kind
(27:39):
of just it is what it is movie. I think
it's a solid pick. I will end by this. I
did find some of the plot lines in this movie
just downright infuriating that I wanted to at some point
just see I'll come on at the screen like I
was supposed to buy into this, But I was fine
with it. I finished watching the movie and just thought, overall,
I enjoyed it. I don't think I could give this
(28:01):
movie a solid three, like it's right there on the
border of that. It took me a bit of the
movie to kind of fully be into investing my entire
time into it. So just for the sake of continuity
of my rating system, I will give this movie a
light three out of five golden eggs, a good not
great movie. And I hate giving it that golden egg
(28:23):
reference because I just thought that was kind of the
dumb part of the movie, like that they have to
really be finding eggs. It seems very cheesy to me.
But I'm curious to see how this movie continues to
grow over the holidays as more and more people watch it,
and what movie will kind of knock this movie out
of the top spot, because I think the next big
movie they do, they're gonna want it to beat this movie.
(28:44):
So I just think that kind of title of being
the most watched Netflix movie doesn't really hold what it
used to. But those are my thoughts on Red Notice.
And now it's time for the part of the podcast
where I break down movie trailers of movies coming to
streaming in theaters very soon in a segment we call
(29:05):
It's time to Head Down to movie Mike Trail Lard Paul,
and the first trailer we're looking at today is Jurassic
World Dominion, which they pretty much just released the entire
first five minutes of this movie, so something I haven't
really seen a lot of movies do before, they released
the entire prologue. So before I get into what I
think about this new Jurassic World movie, after seeing this,
(29:27):
here's just a little bit of that Damn, I don't fit,
you fit, you can't run forever. So I do think
(29:48):
that was pretty cool. They put up the first five
minutes of the movie, so if you searched that up
on YouTube, you can also watch the first five minutes
of this new movie. Now, this is the third installment
of this Jurassic World reboot, and I feel like these
movies haven't been as memorable as the original Jurassic Park movies,
but I still find them very enjoyable. I still think
they're very fun. I think for me, while I was
(30:10):
watching this, I get kind of taken out of it
by the special effects, something that was so kind of
special about the first movies. Granted they were made in
the nineties where a lot of this technology really wasn't
there they were basically having to figure out how to
do these computer graphic generated dinosaurs in this movie and
(30:31):
technology that wasn't even created at the time. So what
they did a lot in those movies is they made
actual animatronic dinosaurs that they used and the actors could
interact with, which I thought gave a different feel to
that first Jurassic Park movie to where it felt a
little bit more like an emotional connection there and between
the animatronics and the actual special effects that it did.
(30:53):
In the first one, I thought it did a really
good job of the really close personal scenes, felt like
there was an act to old dinosaur there in the
presence of the actors. But when you get into the
movies now, it's really just all c g I computer generated.
What will you see in those entire five minutes, it's
basically sixty five million years before it gets the current day,
and then you see several dinosaurs escaping and basically reading
(31:17):
havoc at this drive in movie. So I wouldn't say
the first two movies in this reboot series have been
the best. I do find them enjoyable to watch in theaters.
I think Chris Pratt does a pretty good job in
these movies. Again, it's just a lot of Chris Pratt.
I feel like we're kind of maxed out on all
the A list actors Hollywood is using right now. So
we're getting a new Jurassic World with Chris Pratt, and
(31:39):
then we got the Super Mario movie voiced by Chris Pratt.
He's going to be in the next Guardians of the
Galaxy movie, and he's also been announced as the voice
of Garfield in an upcoming movie. So it's a lot
of Chris Pratt. But good thing about the Jurassic World
movies is I feel like the dinosaurs are the star,
so I think I'll be okay seeing them again in
this one. Next up in the trailer park is a
new animated movie Hall DC League of Pets. You basically
(32:03):
have a d C movie if you were taking like
The Secret Life of Pets and doing that with superhero characters.
A lot of big name voices in this from Dwayne Johnson,
John Krasinski, Kevin Harkey on the Reeves, Kate McKinnon, the
list goes on and on and on. It kind of
just sounds like they took the approach of getting a
bunch of big names to sell this animated movie, which
I'm not the biggest fan of, But here's just a
(32:23):
little bit of that trailer. If it isn't The Justice
League Superman, what's fine on? You're super strong? I should
be a lot more dead right now. Right my best
(32:43):
friend is in danger and you have to help me.
We're just a bunch of shelter pets, but they're stronger
than you think. So what happened in this movie. It's Superman,
who was voiced by John Krasinski, and his dog is
voiced by The Rock. The Justice League gets captured by
Lakes Luthor and all the super pets have to come
together to rescue their owners. So it's all the other
(33:03):
members of the Justice League's pets from like Batman to
Wonder Woman, and they all have different superpowers. So if
you've seen the animated movie The Secret Life of Pets,
I feel like this is exactly that movie. I feel
like it's exactly that movie. Even the casting in this.
You have Kevin hard in this movie. He was also
in the Secret Life of Pets. So I actually like
The Secret Life of Pets the first one that is.
(33:25):
I'm not embarrassed at all to go see a kids
movie as an adult man by myself. I like the
added element of there being some superhero references to this,
but I do have to say this is not the
direction I wanted DC to go in mainstream animated movies.
I recently talked about a movie called The Death of Superman,
which I thought was one of the best DC movies
I've ever seen, live action or not, being an animated movie.
(33:47):
I thought it was amazing, and I think their storytelling
really is able to cut through animation to the point
to where you don't even realize you're watching an animated
movie while watching that movie. If you want to check
that one out, it is on HBO Max. But I
kind of wanted them to go more in that direction.
I think that would definitely make them stick out for Marvel,
which I think it is a bit tough to get
(34:08):
people in adults to want to go see an animated
movie meant for adults. So I think they're looking for
a hit here because one, you got the A list cast,
Two you have an appealing to kids, Three you have
the superhero elements. So I think this movie will make
a bunch of money at the box office, kind of
a cash grab. It feels like to me, and it
also doesn't feel like it has a place in the
(34:28):
DC world, Like I don't think this movie is necessarily
going to line up with all the other things they
have going on right now. What looks like a fun
and cute movie, one I won't be rushing to the
theaters to get to see. Well, probably when it comes
out on HBO Max I will watch this one, but
it does hit theaters on MAO, and that's gonna do
(34:49):
it for the trailer park, and that's gonna do it
for this week's episode. But before I hop out of here,
every single week I give a shout out to one
of you who listens to the podcast and sends me
a message on Instagram, tweets me at my de stro,
or shoots me an email at movie Mike d at
gmail dot com. And this week I'm going over to
my Instagram d m s and the shout out is
to Silas, who sent me a d M about last
(35:11):
week's episode, and Silas wrote another solid episode, agreed completely
on Spider Man and wanting to wait to feel those
reveals in theater. Hope you have a great holiday and
safe travels. F y I. I was having a bad
start to the day, but at work, do you help
me take my mind off that and get stuff done.
Thanks again and love your podcast. I appreciate that, Silas,
(35:31):
and to anyone who listens to this podcast, and it's
kind of your distraction of the week, Like that really
hasn't said in my brain while I'm doing this podcast.
I really started this as a passion project because I
loved movies so much and review them just online anyway,
that this has kind of been my outlet for that,
and I think that's also why I like to keep
this podcast just completely talking about movies the entire time.
(35:53):
And you know, even when I was reviewing Red Notice earlier,
I was talking about how that movie was kind of
a form of escape as them and that sometimes what
we look to in entertainment. So I always just want
to bring you movie content. And you know what you
get when you click play on this podcast if all
you want is thirty minutes of just some guy ranting
and what he likes about movies, what he doesn't like
about movies. I want this to be that place for
(36:16):
you to come and enjoy, to share with your friends,
to tell people about, but just kind of building this
little movie community has really meant a lot to me.
And if this podcast is anyway is able to get
your mind off of, you know, the bad days you're having,
the rough stuff you're going through in your life. You know,
that's why I really look to movies. That's when that's
always been to me my entire life, and why I
(36:37):
do this podcast. So I think altogether, collectively us watching
movies talking about movies, that's the entire goal here, to
have this safe space to where we can just only
think about that for the entire time we're listening to
this podcast. That's why I love doing this for you,
silas for anyone else listening who just needs to hear
that I am here for you. I can admit the
(36:59):
last couple of weeks in my life have been a
little bit chaotic. If you're not familiar with the Bobby
Bones Show, we did announce on there that we are
currently doing the radio show and now in turn of
this podcast from a country in Central America and related
to this podcast, I think one of the hardest things
for me is I haven't been able to go to
a movie theater in like three weeks now because there's
(37:21):
not a movie theater around here and I think the
closest one to me just shows like really old movies,
so I couldn't really go watch a lot of the
new movies and theaters that I want to go see.
So if you've noticed, a lot of the reviews have
switched to movies that I can watch on Netflix. So
I can't wait to get back home, go to a
movie theater and check out probably King Richard, and really
(37:42):
can't wait to watch the new Spider Man movie in theaters.
That's been kind of my light at the end of
the tunnel, getting to see that movie. So I appreciate
you for listening to this week's episode. I hope you
have a great rest of your week, and until next time.
Later
Host
Mike D
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