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April 5, 2025 44 mins

Mike sits down with Tim Key and Tom Basden, the stars of The Ballad of Wallis Island. Mike talks to them about the difference in US and UK pop culture, why it’s important to support indie movies, being stunned by meeting famous people and what the movie motivated Mike to do in real life. In the Movie Review, Mike talks about Disney’s Snow White.  He shares why he thinks Wicked has ruined us on musicals, Gal Galdot’s performance as the Evil Queen and how it features one of the worst live action characters to date. In the Trailer Park, Mike explains why he thinks Freakier Friday is going to be the remake we deserve. Lindsay Lohan and Jaime Lee Curtis are back as Tess and Anna who discover that lightning may indeed strike twice as they navigate the myriad challenges that come when two families merge.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to movie Mike's movie podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike, and today I'm sitting down
with Tom Basdin and Tim Key. They are the stars
and writers of the Ballad of Wallace Island, which is
a fantastic movie in theaters right now. We'll talk about
all that went into making that movie and why you
should be supporting independent films like this right now. Some
great music in it, some great comedy. In the movie review.

(00:23):
We'll be talking about Snow White, which is getting dragged
through the mud right now, people calling it the worst
live action Disney movie of all time. I might be
defending it a little bit, but we'll get into that,
and then we'll keep the theme alive in the trailer park.
We'll talk about the Freaky Your Friday trailer, which has
Lindsay Loewen and Jamie Lee Curtis returning this summer. Thank
you for being here, Thank you for being subscribed. Shout

(00:45):
out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now let's
talk movies from.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
The Dustville Podcast Network. This is Movie Mike.

Speaker 1 (00:53):
Some movie pop about to get into my conversation with
Tim Key and Tom Basden. They are the stars of
the Ballat of Wall Island. Not only did they star
in the movie, they also wrote it. It started as
a short way back when and now is a full
length feature out in theaters right now, and I highly
recommend it. It's about Tim Key's character, who is this
superfan of a group called Maguire and Mortimer. They are

(01:16):
a duo. Tom Basden, who sits down with me in
this interview, is the male in the duo, and then
Carrie Mulligan is the female in the duo. And they
were a really big deal back in the late two
thousand's early twenty tens. They were like together, there's some
romantic tension, and then the duo broke up and haven't
seen each other since. But this guy won the lottery.

(01:37):
He is a superfan, kind of weird, so he invites
them to come play as Island for a lot of money,
and that is the first time they reunite. They get
hired to play this show, but can they pull it off.
The movie is a mix of comedy music and has
some really heartfelt moments. I found this movie to really

(01:57):
resonate with me because I am oddly nostalgic for music
of the twenty tens, particularly indie music of the twenty tens,
which anytime I hear an acoustic guitar and some mellow
music and mellow lyrics. Uh, that takes me back to college.
But Tim and Tom are from the UK that've been
in the US touring this movie, going around to screenings,

(02:18):
telling people about it, and I just think it's really
great that a movie like this can be made right now,
So let's get into it now. My conversation with Tim
Key and Tom Baz then the stars of the ballot
of Wallace Island, sitting down with them and my favorite
theater in Nashville, the Bell Court. If I said Bob Barker,
would you get the reference?

Speaker 3 (02:36):
Yeah, well, because he's beat up at him so there, Well, yeah,
a lot of that conversations about but Buka.

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Yeah, we're we'll going to those listening or to those watching,
we are holding really long marcrophones.

Speaker 2 (02:50):
That is the Bob Barker reference.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
You guys being from the UK, I wondered, like, does
Bob Barker get over there?

Speaker 4 (02:56):
No?

Speaker 3 (02:56):
Well no, but if there was a guy in the
UK who has a longer microphone than.

Speaker 4 (03:01):
This than this, yeah, we're he's not around it anymore. We're
not messing around In the UK.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
It just goes like, as long, give me the longest
microphone you can find.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Tory Woken. It's longer and it's thiller.

Speaker 1 (03:12):
Okay, I'm gonna go to Google area.

Speaker 5 (03:15):
Freddie Merkley used to perform with a microphone on the
stand that didn't touch the ground. It's a different thing,
so it'd be like a kind of four foot long
stand that he would hold.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
No, No, that doesn't, that doesn't doesn't the conversation at all.

Speaker 2 (03:28):
Does it feel.

Speaker 1 (03:29):
Weird to you guys that I feel like I know
each of you after watching this movie.

Speaker 4 (03:33):
I think that's terrible because my character is quite specific.

Speaker 1 (03:37):
How much how much of yourself did you put it
into each of your characters at all?

Speaker 4 (03:44):
Well, I'm zero, but I think I think.

Speaker 5 (03:48):
There's a huge amount of him in Charles, and there's
a fair bit of me and her.

Speaker 6 (03:53):
I would say.

Speaker 3 (03:54):
He was asked this last night and I thought I
was We haven't talked about this, but that was an
incredible insight when he's said that his character is seventeen
year old himself and my character is his mother at
the time, and I think it's I know his mother
love his mother's paces. But yeah, I can see there's
a lot of his mother in my character.

Speaker 1 (04:17):
Now, you guys both have a background in comedy, which
I have toured doing stand up. The thing about doing
stand up is you get an immediate reaction. You know
if a joke is good or not based on how
the audience responds.

Speaker 2 (04:28):
When you put out a movie. What is that like?

Speaker 1 (04:30):
Now, when the movie's coming out, people are starting to
watch it, You're starting to hear rumblings of reviews. How
is that different from that instant comedy approach.

Speaker 3 (04:39):
It's totally different and kind of mind blowing. We did
the first time we saw the film was in sun Dance,
And I think with any kind of new stand up show,
it just starts as a tiny acorn in front of
thirty or forty people and gradually grows, and you gradually
work out what works and what doesn't, and prove it

(05:00):
and get it better and better. By the end of it,
you might be planning to quite a big room, but
with complete assurance that everything sort of works. Whereas with
this we didn't have any screenings at all. We didn't
know what exactly we had. We knew we liked it,
but we didn't know you know, exactly how much would
sort of grow to be more affectionate of our own movie.
It's the first time we saw it was in front

(05:21):
of fourteen hundred people, and it's kind of petrifying because
you know, if you could be city, it could be
a very long hour and a half. You know, you're
waiting in that first ninety seconds to see whether this
movie can create any kind of a connection with an audience.
You hope it will, but yeah, that is the difference.
There's no you get everything all at once, right at

(05:42):
the end, when all of the work has been done,
and you're just sort of praying that people will like it.

Speaker 1 (05:46):
And how does that feel watching yourself back for the
first time at Sunday and seeing like, oh.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Like that's my performance.

Speaker 1 (05:51):
I'm seeing people reacting here like is this a motion
going to come across?

Speaker 5 (05:55):
I mean it's yeah, it's really exciting, and I mean
I was just found it very movie when I was
watching it.

Speaker 6 (06:00):
Some mus I don't like watching stuff that I'm in
very much.

Speaker 4 (06:06):
If you see his body of work, isn't that weird though?

Speaker 1 (06:09):
In the creative space where it almost feels weird to
take in your own work something you work so hard on,
and you're like, if I sit around listening to my
own jokes or watching my own movies, it feels like
I'm self absorbed here.

Speaker 2 (06:20):
But it's like, I'm proud of that.

Speaker 5 (06:21):
But I don't know if it's self absorption as much
as you just want to sort of you just want
to focus on the thing that you're working on in
a way, and once you've done it and you've finished it,
it's lovely to talk about it, and it's lovely to
sort of see people enjoying it. But in a way,
it can be quite torturous to watch stuff and go, oh,
that could have been a bit better, or I could
have done that there, or I could have you know.
And I think that's what's funny about when we watch

(06:41):
the film now, because we've both come from comedy, I
think it's actually a really good thing that we didn't
watch it with audiences at a point where we had
the chance to go back into the edit, because I
think we'd put some jokes back in.

Speaker 6 (06:51):
It's the truth.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
I think when you watch it with an audience and
they start laughing, you go, oh, they would have loved
that joke, and they would have loved that joke that
we can and you forget that. Actually, what you're doing
is you're crafting a story that's got to be sort
of coherent, and it's got to have a certain pace
and rhythm to it. And if you start cramming it
with jokes, because you can tell that they Audiers like
certain jokes, you then you unbalanced the whole thing. So actually,

(07:14):
I'm very glad that we didn't get the chance to
fiddle with the film after people had seen it.

Speaker 3 (07:20):
We might have been quite greedy and self sabotaging. But
our director is very he's got a very good eye
for it and a very good he's more he's wiser
than us and sort of knows that actually, if we
get to a certain point in the movie by you know,
eighteen minutes, then that would just be much much better
for the movie. And so it doesn't help if us

(07:40):
two were saying it'd be great to have a decent
joke about a vacuum cleanerough to find next movie.

Speaker 1 (07:46):
So going into the filming process talking about like, oh
we would have changed some things. Was everything that's in
the movie exactly what was on the page?

Speaker 5 (07:55):
No, No, But but you know, a fair bit of it.
I think there's obvious, you know, you can tell watching it.

Speaker 6 (08:01):
I think that.

Speaker 5 (08:01):
There's a fair bit of improv particularly in that first
act between Herb and Charles. You know, there's there's scenes
where they go quite loose and they and we and
we sort of play around a bit. But a lot
of it is pretty you know, it's pretty tightly written,
and we wanted to kind of we wanted to be
able to sort of drive the story on at certain
times in the film and didn't want it to feel

(08:23):
loose at all. So you know, in the edit you're
kind of trying to calibrate when you when you want
little periods that feel quite meandering and feel quite characterful,
but nothing's much is happening, and periods when suddenly you
go through the gears and a lot happens in the
space of five or so minutes.

Speaker 4 (08:39):
I'd say most of the improv is.

Speaker 3 (08:40):
A lot of the improv is instead of a little
interaction that's two lines long, those lines might just get
chopped into five bits and just happen really really quickly,
like more and more like what a conversation would be like.
So you get I think, yeah, if it was written
like that it would be so weird on the page.
I think, so we know exactly what we want to say,

(09:00):
and then after we've done it a couple of takes,
maybe it then becomes a little bit more detailed.

Speaker 6 (09:05):
I think that's true.

Speaker 5 (09:05):
I think I think it's it's like a blueprint for
us that we stick to you pretty closely. But we
couldn't other actors couldn't do it because it's not like
we say the exact words as they're written, because it
just wouldn't kind of feel right.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
But then when the other actors come in, they can
do it because that was really It's not like Carry
Mulligan is kind of going, how on earth are you
doing this?

Speaker 2 (09:29):
That brings me to my next question.

Speaker 1 (09:31):
With the scenes with Carrie and you figuring out the songs,
you know, rewriting after all this time, how much of
that was actually you two learning those songs for the
first time.

Speaker 6 (09:42):
I mean, you're very perceptive, like.

Speaker 4 (09:46):
It hadn't you prepared for that scene?

Speaker 6 (09:50):
We hadn't. We hadn't had a lot of time.

Speaker 5 (09:53):
The mad thing was that that Carry turned up the
evening before she started shooting, and she brought her baby,
who was a few weeks old maybe what seven eight
weeks on and you know, and as soon as she
was there, she threw herself into it, and we you know,
was very happy to kind of talk through characters and
rehearse some stuff and try out the songs and all

(10:14):
these things. But we didn't have a lot of time,
and we just had to kind of go with our
gut a little bit and what felt right and just
you know, as you say, hope that you can organically
create an atmosphere as two actors that feels very very
close to what the two.

Speaker 6 (10:29):
Characters are doing. And I think I think we did
do that.

Speaker 5 (10:32):
But it's it's a risk, you know, you don't quite
know what you're going to get. But that's that is
what's sort of lovely about it, I think for us,
and was particularly nice during the shooting was it was
it was a genuine surprise to all of the crew
and to Tim, like when we started playing songs in
front of him, you'd never heard us play songs before.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
No, that's so there's that's that first time you see
my character listening to their music. That's also the first
time my nature's character, my character in real life me.

Speaker 6 (11:03):
Yeah, I.

Speaker 4 (11:06):
Heard it as well.

Speaker 1 (11:07):
That is the moment that hit me the most emotionally
seeing you react to your love. Yeah, in the in
the first moment when you hear it, and then also
at the concert performance.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
Where where do you go to there? Because I could feel.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
The backstory of your character come out of what's what
he's been through. But where do you go to as
an actor to get that performance?

Speaker 4 (11:26):
Yeah? Well, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
I mean, actually that first time where I see them
around the dinner table, I think there's a lot going on.
I feel like for me and Tom that we are
we are quite kind of passionate about this project. It's
taken a long time to come to fruition. I think
all of that is.

Speaker 4 (11:45):
Going into it.

Speaker 3 (11:46):
So when they're when they're singing, I loved hearing them sing.
But also there's like pinch yourself moment that you're the
movie is being made and that Carrie Mulligan is in
front of you singing with your pal and the music
so nice, And I think it was a real moment
for all of us where the crew were really invested.
We were shooting it really quickly, probably only did that

(12:07):
take about that scene about two or three times. And
Griff the director is like behind the camera just you
can see that he's kind of like welling up. It's
kind of a moment for all of us. So yeah,
there wasn't really a great deal of acting. It's just
sort of this is.

Speaker 4 (12:22):
It was quite a moving moment. I wasn't. I wasn't.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
I wasn't drawing on other times where you know, beloved
folk duos had sung to me, this is insane that
this is happening.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
So it kind of came.

Speaker 3 (12:35):
I think if it was hard to draw emotion, I
think I'd struggle.

Speaker 4 (12:39):
It sort of came quite naturally.

Speaker 1 (12:41):
Can you guys speak on that a little bit, because
I don't think people realize not only how hard it
is to get a movie greenlit, how hard it is
to get a movie made, but to get a movie
in theaters, and to be here sitting here today talking
about that, like hearing you reflecting on that moment on
the set, which is huge. Yeah, Like how important is
it to support a movie like this?

Speaker 3 (13:00):
Oh?

Speaker 6 (13:00):
Well, I think it's it's vitally important.

Speaker 5 (13:02):
And I think it's been so lovely for us to
go to screenings this last week and see these full
cinemas of people just really enjoying it.

Speaker 6 (13:09):
But also genuinely, you know, surprised.

Speaker 5 (13:13):
By this, this this story that they knew nothing about,
and going into the cinema completely blind, you know, not
seeing a reboot or a sequel or something that they
kind of know what it is. After five minutes, they're
seeing a completely new story and and just going with it,
just being taken up by it and being carried along
by the other people in the room. And there's something
that's just just magical about that. And you know, I'm

(13:36):
quite greedy for it, I think, having seen it, you know,
experienced it the last few days, I just feel like
I just I just really want to want everyone to
see it that way.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, yeah, I think I think we don't take it
for granted. And I think, you know, we do lots
of different things in lots of different areas live and TV,
and I think you sort of know when you're doing
this one that with kind of something is connecting. And
I feel very lucky that, I mean, this could not
see the light of day.

Speaker 4 (14:01):
We could make it.

Speaker 6 (14:03):
Obviously.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
The first thing is no one could have filmed it
because no one likes the script. Once it's filmed, there's
a chance it's a movie which not many people see,
so to see it playing in a cinema is kind
of I don't think we take it for granted.

Speaker 4 (14:15):
No, I don't think we do take it for grant.

Speaker 3 (14:16):
Of course, now you know it may never happen again
for us.

Speaker 1 (14:19):
So I think I love the movie, and a great
movie inspires you to do something. Do the number seven, eleven, eighteen,
twenty seven, forty five, forty forty eight, forty seven, forty.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Eight mean anything?

Speaker 6 (14:33):
You are lucky numbers.

Speaker 2 (14:34):
They're a lucky number. Where do those originate from?

Speaker 4 (14:36):
It's a great question.

Speaker 6 (14:38):
What do you mean, why do we pick them?

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Yeah? Why did you pick those?

Speaker 6 (14:41):
Yeah? But he went and bought a lottery ticket in it?

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Yeah sure, yeah, yeah when we made the short film
years ago, I must have bought the lottery ticket. But
it feels like they could numbers now. I like when
I'm like saying them on screen. They've got a good
rhythm to them. I love forty seven and forty eight.
Who could think of writing that?

Speaker 4 (15:00):
Brilliant? But no, there's there, They're not.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Or are they such long a time a game? Maybe
they are significant? Maybe don't we each picked one or something?

Speaker 6 (15:09):
Maybe it might have been a lucky dip.

Speaker 5 (15:11):
In the UK, you can do a thing called the
lucky dip where you get the computer to pick your
numbers for you.

Speaker 3 (15:15):
It might have been that, yeah, but yeah, the directors
is starting to play those numbers.

Speaker 2 (15:20):
Now, well, I believe in doing things.

Speaker 4 (15:23):
Into the inside.

Speaker 1 (15:24):
I went today, here we go, and I got the lottery,
played the numbers as the game happened. Yet there's one.
I bought two tickets, so one is happening tonight, and
there's one happening Friday night.

Speaker 5 (15:35):
And if you win, would you feel compelled susplicit with us?

Speaker 1 (15:39):
I would feel compelled to hire you to come at Okay, great,
if you guys won the lottery, who would you hire
to come play your house?

Speaker 4 (15:49):
Oh yeah, yeah, you go first?

Speaker 5 (15:52):
I think, hmm, do you know what we were talking about,
Happy Gilmore? We were Adam Salma's got some really good
comedy songs that he did when he was first starting out,
and I'd quite like him to come around and he
could maybe do a couple of them and then we'd
sort of have dinner and that'd be nice.

Speaker 6 (16:09):
I'd like to hang out with him.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
So, you know, I saw him randomly at the airport,
and it was like seeing a ghost because it's like
somebody you've seen for so long in so many movies.
You're like, that person shouldn't be here right now.

Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah, when you see a really famous person, is it's weird? Yeah, yeah,
it's because I had that when I first met Ricky Gives.
Just it doesn't it doesn't seem right that he's an
actual human being. He's still sat there. I'm thinking, that's
that is that's actual Ricky gives. I mean it sort
of goes away that feeling off well once you sort.

Speaker 4 (16:37):
Of talk to someone.

Speaker 6 (16:38):
Yeah, it's a weird feeling.

Speaker 2 (16:40):
Dolly Parton probably Dolly Dolly is great.

Speaker 1 (16:43):
She is somebody who like people who are really famous
and really successful, they do the little things. And she
came into our studio once and had no reason to
say hi to me. But I hear like these heels
coming down the hallway and then with her in them, yes,
and his voice comes down and says, who is in
there with wilder than mine?

Speaker 2 (17:01):
And I'll never forget it.

Speaker 1 (17:03):
She had no reason to talk to me, Like I'm
a producer in the back hanging out and she comes
by and like makes my day.

Speaker 5 (17:08):
You have a scene by Dolly Dollywood in Nashville or
it's in Gatlinburg.

Speaker 1 (17:13):
So it's just like, we can't make it there tonight.
If that's what you're on.

Speaker 2 (17:18):
We had a movie at a wise Far How Far
was talking probably like four hours.

Speaker 5 (17:22):
Oh okay, you're like, I hear it's close.

Speaker 6 (17:27):
It's close for America, but that's not close for us.
That's a long wait for us.

Speaker 1 (17:30):
Something else that stuck out for me for the movie
was the wardrobe. I feel like wardrobe gets overlook, like
nobody gives love to the wardrobe.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
But for actors, does that put.

Speaker 1 (17:41):
You in the mindset of your character of like when
you put on the clothes they're wearing, to kind of
transform into them.

Speaker 4 (17:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (17:47):
The first time we did it was with the short film,
which we've seen like several times over the years, and yeah,
that's definitely my Dad's Cardigan where I must have gone
home for the weekend right before shooting and raided is
is wardrobe basically, So it kind of feels like, yeah,
sort of sentimental watching that one and this one. They
had seen it the wardrobe department, that short film, and

(18:10):
then they just created Yeah beautiful. I mean, weirdly, my
Charles's costume is also herbs costume for the majority of
the film because he gets wet and has to go
into my clothes, so it's kind of a sea of
these yeah, Charles Heath clothes and it looks Yeah, I
agree when you Yeah, they've done a really great job
on the costume.

Speaker 6 (18:30):
Yeah. I think you're right, though.

Speaker 5 (18:31):
I think that people often focus on costume when it's
like sci fi or something, or like Wicked or something
where it's just like completely otherworldly kind of costume as
opposed to character for costume, which is just clothes that
exists in the world, but they're just selected in such
a way they tell you so.

Speaker 6 (18:48):
Much about the character.

Speaker 5 (18:49):
Yeah, and I love that about particularly Charles's costume, and
it's the kind of you know, the cardigans with the
whale embroidered into.

Speaker 1 (18:56):
And I'd say, I saw you were green cardigan. I'm like,
I gotta find the like I want to wear there.

Speaker 3 (19:00):
Yeah, that first the first shot of that, when you
see Charles for the first time facing away from camera
putting the record on. That's a pretty spectacular cardigan.

Speaker 6 (19:09):
It is.

Speaker 4 (19:09):
It's a lot of while on the back.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Yeah, there was talk at some point of that being much,
so I'll look.

Speaker 5 (19:15):
Into that that exact one or getting loads of them.

Speaker 4 (19:19):
I mean, merch can't just be one. Getting loads of
them is not right. The bedrock of merchandise Oka.

Speaker 1 (19:28):
Was Maguire and Mortimer, based on any real duo, because
I have an affinity for anything. Twenty ten's like that
was when I was in college. That's like the music
I go to when I need to feel comfort? Was
it based on the specific being?

Speaker 6 (19:39):
I mean, I'm the same, I'm sort of very much.

Speaker 5 (19:42):
You know, sometimes in my head I still think it's
kind of twenty ten, and then I forget in terms
of a lot of the music that I've sort of
you know, it's kind of glued to my brain.

Speaker 6 (19:50):
It's sort of from that period.

Speaker 5 (19:52):
No specific bands, I think, but people like maybe Gillian
Watch and Dave all into that kind of like Double
Act and you know, I don't know a little bit
of David Crosbian and Roger mcgwinn kind of you know,
those kind of groups where those are sort of falling out.
Buckingham Nick's a little bit, you know what I mean,
like that kind of bands who were together and then

(20:15):
fellow fell out again. But yeah, in terms of the
kind of sound certainly sort of that I don't know,
sort of Ryan Adams, kind of like twenty ten sort
of period, that kind of if it's been quite a
lot of thing.

Speaker 1 (20:27):
Well, I love the movie. I hope everybody goes to
watch it. I really appreciate the time. It's been really
great hanging out with you guys.

Speaker 2 (20:33):
Thanks so much, Thank you.

Speaker 1 (20:38):
Let's get into it now. A spoiler free movie review
of snow White, the new one live action in theaters now.
Although I don't really know if you can spoil this movie.
The original one came out in nineteen thirty seven. If
this movie is spoiled for you, it's probably because you
are the target audience, which is kids and families. I'm
not gonna be harsh on the spoiler rules on this
episode because it's an old story. It's almost one hundred

(21:01):
years old. So what this version is about. You have Galagadot,
who plays the evil Queen. Rachel Zegler is snow White,
living in perfect peace and harmony with her mom and
her dad until her mom falls ill. Her dad meets
up with Galagadot, they start hanging out, they get married,
but then he dies, so Galagadot, the evil queen takes

(21:22):
over and she ruins the kingdom. She turns all the
farmers into soldiers and takes all the riches for herself
and then vanishes. Snow White actually tries to kill her
after she's talking to her magic mirror and says, who
is the fairest of them all? And he's like, it's
not you anymore, lady. You were the most beautiful person,
the nicest person, up until snow White came around and

(21:45):
started to be more fair than you, and the Queen
can't have it. The Queen's like, no way, I gotta
be the fairest of them all. Look at this skin.
It is the best skin. You don't lie to me,
magic mirror. So what does she do? She plans and
tells one of her huntsmen takes no White out apple picking,
tell her to put on a really nice dress that's blue, yellow,

(22:06):
and red and go out and pick some apples, and
once she's done picking those apples, you kill her. But
then obviously she doesn't die, because otherwise she would have
died in the first act of the movie. But obviously
the huntsman gets a little bit of like, oh, I
can't kill her, go into the forest and never come back,
hide from the evil queen, and that is where she
encounters the seven dwarves, and you have to decide what

(22:28):
does she want to do. Does she want to go
back and fight against the queen? Does she want to
find out the truth about her dad? Is she going
to live up to the princess that everybody wants her
to be? I would say that is kind of where
this one differs from the original nineteen thirty seven version.
It plays and puts more of an emphasis on snow
White being a little bit more independent, which obviously you

(22:50):
would do in a twenty twenty five movie. I think
that is what Rachel Zegler was trying to say whenever
she was first interviewed about this film that I feel
put a lot of bad taste in people's mouths about
this where she kind of didn't really praise the first one.
She's like, the first one is so old, which she
is right. When you look at a lot of classic
Disney movies that are based on these fairy tales, they

(23:10):
are very outdated. I think even the theme of having
seven doors is a little bit outdated, and you run
into some controversies when trying to update these movies because
it's like, how do you honor the original ones but
also update them to reflect today's moderns and today's standards.

Speaker 2 (23:28):
I think that is what.

Speaker 1 (23:28):
She was trying to say, but it came across as
she didn't want to be a part of this movie,
didn't like the original one, and was kind of hating
on the entire ideology, which I think was just a
bad way to answer that. You could have answered that
much differently while not sounding like you're trashing the movie
that you're about to make an adaptation do I would
have been like, you know, the first one, it is

(23:49):
a classic and there's a reason for it being a classic.
But I wanted to approach this role differently and bring
new life into snow White, the character me, I don't
look traditionally what you would think of snow White, and
we want to also update the values and not have
it so focused on her needing saving. So that is
what they kind of tried to a little bit steer

(24:11):
this story in, but I don't really think they nailed
it because pretty much it's the same one beat for beat.
There's not really a moment that this one becomes its own,
which has been kind of the formula with all the
Disney live action remakes. They just take the first one
and to quote unquote, make them live action, slap the
sticker on it and put them out in theaters and
hope that nobody notices, and hope that people just enjoy

(24:33):
that first one so much that they don't really care
that they're seeing exactly what they've seen before. And I
realized it while sitting in this theater. I realized when
I saw all the outrage online people saying how bad
it was, because I was going into it thinking this
is going to be terrible. I've been pretty outspoken on
not liking a lot of these live action remakes. I
think Pinocchio by far is the worst of all time.

(24:56):
Little Mermaid had its moments, that's probably the best one
in recent history. But once I walked into that theater
and I saw families enjoying the film throughout and laughing,
I think the most heartwarming thing that kind of hit
me in the Feelds was afterwards I saw another group
of kids and parents coming in, and it was a
dad taking his daughters to go see this movie, and

(25:17):
they were taking a picture in front of the cardboard
cutout of the snow White display in the lobby and
they look so happy, And just the thought of a
dad taking his two daughters to go see this movie.
That is who this film is for. And the Disney
adults are gonna be outraged because it's not for them.
They don't really update it, they don't really add any
adult themes to it, so obviously you're gonna have a

(25:41):
problem with it. For the most part in my theater.
Even though this was a March release when I saw
it and kind of on part with all the other
March releases, is pretty lowly attended. Just by looking at
the first week numbers, who it was rough snow White
opened to forty three million dollars domestically, and before this
the two movies I saw that were also number one

(26:01):
at the box office. Novacane opened at eight point seven
million dollars and that was number one. A number one
movie made eight point seven million dollars. Eight point seven
million would maybe gets you top five maybe, And before that,
leading up to snow White, Mickey seventeen was also the
number one movie in America with nineteen million. That's pretty low.

(26:23):
I was surprised to see it make this much, And
I think it's because the people who are actually going
to see this movie aren't the people writing reviews online.
They aren't the people trashing it and saying how lifeless
it is. It is just families with young kids looking
to have a good time at the movie theater. And
I think I try to remember that when talking about
movies and recognizing when movies aren't for me. And I

(26:45):
think that is why I love going to the theater,
actually seeing the people who are putting their money where
their mouth is and going to the theater to watch
these movies, because sometimes I get so sucked into the
comments section of people replying to things, people posting things
on x on TikTok, and all the comments are just
like this is stupid, this is terrible, nobody wants this,

(27:05):
who asks for this? And sometimes I get in on
those as well, because there are moments that I feel
slighted against from Disney, and I think they are the
major offender. But if you look at those comments and
actually ask those people like, hey, what is the last
movie you saw in theaters? I don't go to the
movies anymore, so why are you commenting online?

Speaker 2 (27:21):
Why do you care?

Speaker 1 (27:22):
Why are you trying to take away that joy from somebody.
A kid going to this movie isn't good to look
at reviews. They see the poster, they see the trailer online,
or they see it while watching TV, and I'm like,
I want to go see that. I want to go
see the new Disney Princess movie. Because if you ask
the kid in that moment, what are they gonna say?
Five out of five hundred percent, I loved it. So

(27:43):
I think that is why I still love going to
the theater and actually seeing people take in these movies
and getting that audience response and listening to people laughing,
people cheering, because I think that is a bigger indicator
of what is actually happening with movies, instead of the
small comment section that we focus on so much. Every
time I see a negative comment, it just sticks with me.

(28:06):
There's still a comment that haunts me to this day.
I did a review of Priscilla and somebody compared me
to fat Elvis, and I think about that all the time,
the one just meet us comment ever, But it's always
that one comment. It's always the comment section with the
negative ones that stick with us and seem like the loudest.
But I don't think we need to always make those
the narrative for everything. And that is why I like

(28:27):
doing longer movie discussions here because there is new ones
two reviews. You can have good things to say about
a movie and also bad things to say. There will
always be multiple layers. But when you just see a score,
when you just see the outrage, it's like, man, that's
a bad representation of it. So overall, I felt the
movie just wasn't for me, and I don't think it's

(28:50):
the worst live action Disney remake that they've ever made.
I got a little bit into it the problem I had.
It just felt so awkward. The acting was pretty bad,
and I know everybody's ripping Galagadot to shred, saying she's
a terrible actor, saying she doesn't deserve the stars she
got on the Hollywood Walk of Fame posting compilations of

(29:11):
her acting like kaal hell no. And I think she
did what she needed to do in this movie, even
though it is pretty flat. But it wasn't just from her.
There was one moment where one of the huntsmen, and
I wrote down the line because it stuck with me
so much. He yelled to snow White, go before I
changed my mind and it just felt so empty. That

(29:31):
was probably the worst line of acting out of the
entire movie, and there was a lot of that from
everybody involved. And I also think coming off of Wicked,
there is such a higher standard for a musical. Even
looking at the budgets, this movie cost over two hundred
and fifty million dollars to make. Meanwhile, Wicked only cost

(29:52):
one hundred and forty five million dollars, which I know
they made two at the same time, so they probably
ended up spending like three hundred million. But whatever that
When you just look at the numbers, where did the
two hundred and fifty million dollars go. It wasn't to
the set design. The set design looked really empty. It
wasn't to the CGI because the seven dwarves looked creepy.

(30:14):
I was freaked out by them the entire time. I
think Dopey in the live action is probably the worst
Disney character ever put on screen. He took the slot
from Flounder from The Little Mermaid in twenty twenty three
that Flounder looked like he needed to be taken out
of his misery. But Dopey didn't work because all the
other seven Dwarfs, they looked more cartoonish and more like

(30:38):
mythical creatures. Dopey looked a little bit too human realistic,
and it just felt weird. I felt like at some
point he was gonna pull out a knife and stab
snow White himself. It just felt really creepy. And even
all the animals. And I know it's hard to make
lifelike animated animals, but you're Disney. You're spending two hundred
and fifty million dollars on a movie, and all the

(31:01):
characters looked so bad. And again, I know the kids
probably aren't gonna care so much about that. I've just
seen things look more realistic with a smaller budget, and
for something that's supposed to be a classic, and when
they put out a movie like this, it's supposed to
be able to live forever. This is not going to
live forever. The nineteen thirty seven hand drawn, hand animated movie.

(31:24):
There's a reason people can still go back and rewatch
that movie. I think when they made that it costs
a million dollars. There is just something being lost here.
Maybe they spent too much money getting Dot and I
think the reason they cast her, which is another thing.
People say, like, why do they keep casting her? I
think it's because she looks flawless, like her skin is flawless.
There were mega close ups on her, and you're like, man,

(31:44):
she is like the perfect human when it comes to
her face complexion and when you put her in all
the different costumes. That's the other thing. Wicked kind of ruined.
Had amazing set design, had amazing costume and wardrobe and makeup,
and it just felt like Wicked was the Broadway me
musical and this was the high school musical. And you
have movies coming out like Wicked that are top tier

(32:06):
that people are just itching to rewatch listening to the soundtrack.
Nobody except where these kids and families are going to
listen to the snow White soundtrack. I would say the
major standouts, of course, the classic high ho whistle, why
You Work, and outside from that, none of the other
songs really hit that hard. I kind of liked the
Princess Problem song. So it wasn't that the songs were bad,

(32:26):
they just weren't as memorable and at that a level
tier that you need for a musical right now. So
I went into it thinking it was going to be
the worst Disney Live Action remake. It is a little
bit lifeless. It is a little awkward, but I realize
again these kids and families don't care about that. They
still paid money to go see it. It did better

(32:46):
than I thought it was going to. I think in
its theatrical run it'll probably do okay, maybe earn back
its production budget. But again, I still feel like you
could probably wait to watch this on Disney Plus. For
snow White, I give it two point five out of
five Poison Apples.

Speaker 2 (33:09):
It's time to head down to movie Mike Trayler, Paul,
you thought things were freaky before? Hey, did you think
things are freaky before?

Speaker 1 (33:18):
They're about to get freakier freaky? Your Friday is coming
out in theaters on August eight.

Speaker 2 (33:23):
Hey, you think things are freaking before?

Speaker 1 (33:26):
I knew you thought things were freakyer. Lindsey Lohan is back,
Jamie Lee Curtis is back, and apparently I have lost
my mind because after watching the trailer for this, I
honestly thought it was gonna be continuing the theme here
of Disney Live Action remakes legacy sequels. I thought it
was gonna be rinse repeat something we've seen time and

(33:48):
time again. When I started looking up how many new
original movies Disney has released, I thought, maybe in the
last five years. It has been over a decade. We've
got a movie like the original Freaky Friday, which came
out in two thousand and three. Two thousand and three,
it's been twenty two years, and we do not get

(34:08):
Disney movies like this anymore. And I guess it's because
I grew up in such a privileged time where it
was the norm to get a live action Disney movie
that had no affiliation with any big Disney property. It
was in a Cinderella. It wasn't anything based on their
legacy movies. It was just these original fun movies. Sometimes

(34:30):
it was Tim Allen as a Dog, but a lot
in the early two thousands, it was Lindsay Lohan. It
was movies like Freaky Friday. If you look at Lindsay
Lohan's first five movies with Disney, which I'll also include
her Disney Channel original movies. In ninety eight, the Parent
Trap that was Disney two thousand Live Size, the Disney
Original Channel movie Great Movie. Followed that up with Get

(34:50):
a Clue in two thousand and two, then moved into
theaters with Freaky Friday in two thousand and three, and
then in two thousand and four, also with Disney, Confessions
of a Teenage Drama. That is a great five film
introduction for Lindsay Lohan, and we just haven't had those
original movies anymore. After that. She did Mean Girls in
two thousand and four. That's when she really blew up,

(35:12):
and she did also with Disney Herbie Fully Loaded, which
was a remake. But she also did movies like Just
My Look, A Grand Prairie Home, companion Bobby in two
thousand and six, Georgia Rule in two thousand and seven.
Also in two thousand and seven did a movie called
I Know Who Killed Me. In two thousand and nine,
she did Labor Pains. In twenty ten, she did Machete,
which was an interesting casting for her. And then finally

(35:35):
she did The Canyons in twenty thirteen, and that was
the last major movie that Lindsay Lohan put out. She
went away. She has since returned and had a bit
of a resurgence over on Netflix, movies like Falling for Christmas,
Irish Wish. When Freaky Your Friday comes out in theaters
this summer, this is gonna be her apex of her
career as part of her comeback. This is the first

(35:57):
time Lindsay Lohan is going to be in theaters for
over a decade. And I have to say, after watching
this trailer, it just feels good. It feels right. Does
it feel a little cash grabby? Yes, it does. But
before I get into that, here's just a little bit
of the Freakier Friday trailer. Oh my god, who's that?

(36:19):
Oh no, not again?

Speaker 6 (36:20):
What's happening?

Speaker 1 (36:21):
It's body, It's okay, it's me, harp, it's mom. Wait
what if you're.

Speaker 4 (36:25):
Me and I'm you?

Speaker 2 (36:26):
Then you was that? I'm grandma?

Speaker 6 (36:29):
Sweetheart? My face looks like a broken bag that's been
left out in.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
The sun to run.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
So what this movie is about. It takes place years
after Tess, who is played by Jamie Lee Curtis, and Anna,
who is played by Lindsay Lohan, went through everything that
went down in Freaky Friday. Now Lindsay Lohan's character has
a daughter and as soon to be stepdaughter, and it
looks like the old people trade places with the young
people as heard in that clip. So pretty much happened

(37:00):
in the original movie, but now there are four people
involved instead of two, and oftentimes when you hear the
long awaited sequel, it's just a way for them to
build anticipation that isn't quite there. But I would have
to say Freaky or Friday is actually a sequel that
I saw people wanting. A lot of times from Disney,
we get sequels that nobody wanted, nobody asked for, and

(37:22):
then they're like a long awaited sequel.

Speaker 2 (37:24):
Who was waiting for this?

Speaker 1 (37:25):
Nobody was anticipating this sequel. But I think it's because
Lindsay Lohan has had this resurgence and her movies are
so nostalgic all the ones I've been talking about here,
that people actually want more from her. People are actually
rooting for her, and this movie actually looks like it's
gonna be a lot of fun. This is the first
time a movie that's come out in theaters from Disney

(37:48):
actually has a little bit of that magic that they
captured in the early two thousands. It feels like a
real live action Disney release that isn't just you're taking
an animated movie and making it live action. So I
think this is a great step for Disney. Also the
fact that they're not pushing this straight directly to Disney
Plus tells me that they spend some more money on it.

(38:08):
The only real problem I have with this, because I
gotta have a problem with it, is it looks just
a little bit too polished to me. And this is
something that's just a personal preference for me, and I
have to get over it in twenty twenty five. But
back in two thousand and three, the first Freaky Friday
movie and a lot of those movies that we grew
up with were actually filmed using real film. When you
compare a shot from that or from The Parent Trap

(38:31):
to twenty twenty five Freaky or Friday, they look vastly different.
Some would say the twenty twenty five frame would look
better because it's more clear, a little bit more vibrant.
But to me, there's just something about those old classic
movies we grew up with that actually looked like they
were filmed on film. And I know it's more expensive
to shoot it on real film. Also, it's a much

(38:53):
slower process where you could just do it digitally and
crank out this movie a lot faster, which is what
they're going for here. But every now and then I
wish when they did these remakes that they actually try
to make it look somewhat like the original, and I
think by shooting it on real film, what actually make
it feel like that. And it's not too much I'm
asking for here, I don't think so. But I just
feel like that adds a little bit to the lasting

(39:14):
effect of these movies and just doesn't feel like a
quick cash grab putting it out in theaters as quickly
as possible, trying to make a buck. Because when it
comes to these legacy sequels, they always kind of do
the same thing, and I'm okay with it in this situation,
whether it's Freaky Your Friday or when it's Girl Meets World,
whenever they bring back the legacy actors and now they
are older and have kids of their own, it's kind

(39:37):
of the same thing over and over again. Where it's
the young kids. In this case, it's going to be
the gen Z kids making fun of the millennials and
making fun of the boomer In this situation, Chad Michael
Murray in there, which that whole scene, it's like, oh man,
he's really back. Like he was itching for this, he
needed this, he had been waiting for this ever since
One Tree Hill Went Away, And he's done all these

(39:58):
random Christmas movies, which, yeah, I mean, it's just hard
for actors to stay relevant and keep working, So I'm
not hating on him for that, but I can only
imagine he was just waiting and couldn't believe when he
got the call from Disney that they wanted him back
because they easily could have done it without him, didn't
really need him.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
He still looks good in the trailer.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
He's forty three years old, so probably right at that
right page for this role to still makes sense for him.
So good for him, Get that money, get that bag.
So I don't really care about him returning. Who I
do care about that looks like is returning in this
movie are the members and the band Pink Slip. Because
you get a shot of Lindsay Lohan playing guitar, and
it looks like Christina vdal and Haley Hudson are listed

(40:37):
as cast members on Freaky or Friday, so we're getting
that Pink Slip reunion. I had a huge crush on
Christina vdoll back in the early two thousands, her and Brink.
Oh yeah, that was my girl. So is this movie
gonna be cheesy? Oh? Yeah, is it gonna be predictable.
Oh yeah, because I just feel it's gonna be the
exact same thing we got in Freaky Friday. Probably beat

(40:58):
for beat. There's gonna be your fortune Cookie involved. They're
gonna switch bodies, They're gonna freak out like we heard
in the clip and we see you in the trailer.
They're gonna try to figure out how to come back.
They're gonna do all the same things that happened in
the first one, make some gen Z references, talk about TikTok.
You have Jamie Lee Curtis using lingo that she can't use,
and the young kids cringing and making fun of her,

(41:20):
all those things. There's gonna be product placement out though.
But so even though I think the case is cash grab,
I'm still all here for it. For Freaking Your Friday.
It's coming out on August eighthez head.

Speaker 4 (41:32):
That for is this week's edition of Movie Live Tramer
Bar and.

Speaker 1 (41:36):
That is gonna do it for another episode here of
the podcast. But before I go, I gotta give my
listeners shout out of the week this week. I'm going
over to my YouTube channel, which is YouTube dot com
slash Mike Distro. If you ever forget that or any
of my socials. They are always linked in the episode notes.
But this week's listener shout out goes to venom Z
seven six eight to two, who wrote on my The

(41:58):
Electric State review, who said, I agree, definitely not as
bad as the reviews are making it seem. I do
feel like it is just getting hate for the sake
of it, trying to find anything they can justify for
not liking it, which I do believe is the case
when it comes to review bombing, when it seems like
one big publication or reviewer puts out a statement and

(42:20):
then everybody who kind of copies the same opinions think, well,
if they said that about that, they don't like it.
I can't be out here liking that too. I don't
buy into that. I will never read another review and
say I got to form my opinion based on what
they think. That is also why I speak so much
on emotion in my reviews, because I can't sit here
and say I know a whole lot about the technical aspect.

(42:43):
Even when I talk about cinematography, I talk about how
that cinematography makes me feel, and the angles and the
placement of things and the effect that has on the viewer.
I'm not breaking down what lenses they use or what
kind of lighting, because that's not me. And I'm never
going to get on here just to hate on a
movie for the sake of hating it.

Speaker 2 (43:03):
I'm not above hating a movie.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Sometimes I do watch movies that I straight out don't like,
and I get heat for that as well, but it
will always be my genuine hatred for a movie. But
I do believe movies like this, movies we talked about earlier,
like Snow White, which now has the lowest rating on
IMDb ever, are gonna be subject to that from time
to time, So I appreciate that. Venoms, thank you for

(43:26):
watching over there on YouTube. And this week we did
have a guest, So if I post over on socials,
I will give out the secret emoji. I'll make a
post over on Facebook, Twitter, my Instagram, and TikTok probably,
but you can comment with the guitar emoji and that
is where I'll pick next week's listener shout out of
the week. So if you're new to this, anytime I

(43:47):
post about having a guest, just throw the emoji in
the comments and it's a way to say hey, I
listen to the interview, and I enjoyed it. Sometimes when podcasts,
I listen to postings and I enjoy it. Sometimes I
just don't know what to say. I'm like, oh, I
should I say, oh a great episode? Should I say
something about a comment that they've made? And sometimes just
putting an emoji is easier. It's saying, hey, I watched this,

(44:08):
I recognize this. I'm not the best at commenting sometimes
because it feels weird, so just drop an emoji. So
thank you for being here. Next week is gonna be
awesome too, because I'm sitting down with the stars of
Hell of a Summer, which is a new horror movie
coming out this Friday. Actually, Finn Wolfard, who you probably
know from Stranger Things. He plays mic on there. He
was also in it. He was also in Ghostbusters Afterlife

(44:30):
and Ghostbusters Frozen Empire.

Speaker 2 (44:32):
Great actor.

Speaker 1 (44:34):
He directed it, he also stars in it, made it
with a couple of his buddies who are also big
actors that we'll talk about. So be back for next week.
Be subscribe to this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts
right now because you're not gonna want to miss that episode.
Tell a friend thank you for being here. And until
next time, go out and watch good movies and I
will talk to you later
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Hosts And Creators

Bobby Bones

Bobby Bones

Amy Brown

Amy Brown

Lunchbox

Lunchbox

Eddie Garcia

Eddie Garcia

Morgan Huelsman

Morgan Huelsman

Raymundo

Raymundo

Mike D

Mike D

Abby Anderson

Abby Anderson

Scuba Steve

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