MOVIE MIKE'S MOVIE PODCAST: Mike shares his favorite ‘mid’ movies that he thinks would fail today. He chooses movies that are nostalgic, cult classics but didn’t perform well at the box office and found success with physical media sales and rentals. In the Movie Review, Mike talks about Mickey 17 starring Robert Pattinson. It’s a sci-fi comedy about an "expendable" who goes on a dangerous journey to colonize an ice planet directed by Bong Joon-ho who also did Parasite. Mike talks about how underrated Robert Pattison is as a character actor, how the movie was no. 1 but still has a long way to go to make money and where it ranks on his Top 5 Bong Joon-ho movies. In the Trailer Park, Mike shares his thoughts on Death of a Unicorn starring Paul Rudd and Jenna Ortega. They play a father and daughter who accidentally hit and kill a unicorn with their car, and his boss tries to exploit the creature's miraculous curative properties.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's Movie Podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Gonna be a nostalgic episode.
I've been fired up since last week talking about mid movies.
I want to talk about the best mid movies from
my childhood that would not succeed today. These movies would
fail by today's standards, and that makes me sad. In
the movie review, we'll be talking about the new Robert
(00:21):
Penson movie that I've been waiting for forever, Mickey seventeen.
Was it worth the almost two year wait to finally
see this in theaters and in the trailer park? We'll
be talking about the new A twenty four movie Death
of a Unicorns, during Paul Rudd and Janet Ortega. They
play a father and daughter who hit a unicorn with
their car and then discovered that well, unicorns have magical
(00:43):
healing powers that all the corrupt people in the world want.
Movie maybe hits a little bit too close to home,
but thank you for being here, thank you for being subscribed.
Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now
let's talk movies from the Nashville podcast Network. As this
is Movie Mike's a movie pot this might be one
of the topics I am the most passionate and fired
(01:05):
up about, so much so that I was working on
this list and it just goes on and on and
on that I just want to get on here and
rattle off movies from my childhood that I think would
not succeed by today's standards. Last week got into a
big discussion about mid movies and why movie can't just
be average anymore. There's nothing wrong with being average. I
am an average movie reviewer. I have made a career
(01:27):
out of being mid and through my lifetime there have
been movies that have just been okay. But sometimes these
movies resonate with me more than I think, And maybe
they're not the movies that run to the top of
my list of these are the best movies ever. But
these movies, specifically with my childhood, built the foundation. They
were there for me when I had nothing else to watch,
(01:47):
and are they might go tos right now if I
go sit down and watch a movie. I love watching
nostalgia things. If I'm gonna go back and watch things,
that's probably gonna be the top two, stuff like Toy
Story and All the Big Ones or Shrek. But these
are the movies that were there for me in between
those movies in the dark days when there was nothing
else to watch, where I was scanning through broadcast channels
(02:09):
or basic cable channels or in a hotel somewhere in
another city and I just had to watch something. These
are the best mid childhood movies for me, in my opinion,
that I think would not exist by today's standards. I'm
going to focus on the year's nineteen ninety one to
two thousand and three, which would be what the Internet
(02:30):
defines as childhood zero to twelve years old. This would
be my childhood. The nineties was an incredible time where
you can make movies about anything. And one movie from
my childhood that I love that I still reference now
to this day. That just makes me think of a
time where it was so important for there to be
trailers before a VHS that you would see all the
(02:52):
things coming out soon on home video. I have in
my memory associated with certain of my favorite movie I
remember all the pretrailers, some of them had Burger King commercials.
I remember a mom There are a lot of movies
that I never got to see, but I know those
trailers from the beginning to the end. And one trailer
that always stuck with me was the Homeword Bound trailer
(03:13):
from nineteen ninety three. This movie would not exist by
today's standards. Homeward Bound The Incredible Journey. It is about
kids who have to say goodbye to their childhood pets.
The family moves away, so they leave them on a
farm with some other family, which is a wild thing
remembering what this movie was about. I remember just watching
(03:34):
a movie about a dog who was the leader, a
dog who was kind of a dummy, and then the
cat who was Sessa, and I just thought that was fun.
But I kind of forgot why did they leave the
dogs and the cat with a family member. Why didn't
they take them. I'm sure they had an explanation why,
But that seems kind of sad if you thought about
(03:55):
that happening today, of somebody saying, Hey, we're moving across
the country and we can't take our dogs because we're
moving into the city, or we're moving where we can't
have dogs. These would be the most terrible people in
the world by today's standards. But back in the nineties,
you make a movie about it, a Disney movie where
the dogs and the cat are so sad that they
have to go find their owners. But I want to
(04:16):
take you on a trip back and put you back
in the nineties. Here's a clip of the VHS trailer
for Homeward Bound. Just listen to the sounds and tell
me if this doesn't instantly take you back to a
time when everything was more simple. Look for these hit
movies that you can owe from Walt Disney Home Video.
(04:37):
We're Gonna miss you so much. Left behind with family friends,
how can I vacation and far from their home? Three
beloved pets take matters into their own paws, he shadow,
Something doesn't smell right, She's sassy. Cats rule if dogs drill,
He's Chatz. Get out life, Getting nine at one. In
(04:58):
the classic tradition of War Disney Entertainment comes whole word
Bomb The Incredible Journey coming this fall on video cassette
that instantly takes me back. Another movie that this reminds
me of was Wild America, which came out in nineteen
ninety seven. You had Jonathan Taylor, Thomas, Devin Sawah, and
Scott Barstowe who played three brothers, which that is an
(05:20):
incredibly nineties cast. But they go out on a cross
country camping trip. I didn't know it at the time,
but this movie was actually based on a true story.
This movie felt incredibly deep to me as a kid.
It came out in ninety seven, so I was like
six years old, and I was at a point in
my life where I was only watching animated movies and
really just movies geared towards kids. But this almost felt
(05:44):
like that in between time. And I think at that
time I idolized any kind of teenager, and I saw
these kids as like being the coolest. They had the
very nineties bolish haircut, which was such a statement back
in the nineties. I was like, oh, man, if you
have that haircut, you are so cool. I always wanted
to grow my hair out because of that. I always
wanted to get highlights, even though I would look terrible
(06:06):
with that in my hair. And we think about now
making fun of some teenagers who have like the broccoli
cut or the really foofy hair and think, ah, these
kids look ridiculous. Do we not remember the bowl cut
that was so popular in the nineties, that had a
chokehold on every nineties heart throb on the cover of
Tiger Beat, that bowl cut was annihilating in the nineties.
(06:31):
I would say it was more ridiculous than anything that
kids have nowadays and teenagers, so I thought this movie
was super cool. I was always inspired by any kind
of nature movie, even though myself I've never really been
into camping, but when it comes to movies about it,
I find it incredibly inspiring. It's movies like Wild America
(06:52):
and later down the line Into the Wild where that
movie got me onto an incredible kick of transcendentalism and
the focus of like loving nature. I got super into
that for a while in my teen years, but it
all goes back to movies like Wild America, and you
couldn't really make a movie like that anymore, so I
included that in my list. Here another movie, a big
(07:13):
one from the nineties. It's a Blank Check from nineteen
ninety four. Although this movie did have pretty decent box
office success, had a budget of thirteen million dollars and
went on to make thirty point six million at the
box office. It's all about a kid who cashes a
blank check for a million dollars. But a movie like
this would not happen anymore for a couple of reasons.
(07:36):
One is because it is hard to make a kid's movie.
Now with somebody who isn't famous, and this kid, by
no means was famous whatsoever in the nineties, you could
really just sell the idea that right there, a kid
gets a million dollar check and what you would expect
a kid to do with a million dollars buy a
bunch of crazy things and blow it in a few weeks.
(07:57):
And not only that, there's a really questionable scene in
the movie that's now been debated a lot. I covered
it a long time ago and now people talk about
it all the time. But he starts to fall for
this undercover agent who was trying to expose his boss
that he's actually posing as that doesn't really exist, but
at one point in the movie they share a kiss,
and it's really weird. I haven't rewatched the movie since
(08:19):
on Disney Plus, since it kind of became more of
a thing of how weird it is, So I'm not
sure in between the time when I got Disney Plus
and maybe rewatched it back in like twenty twenty before
that's been a little bit more publicized if they've gone
back and taken out that scene. But that is a
no go by now. I think there was always a
weird theme in the nineties of like younger kids trying
(08:40):
to get after adults, which is really weird when you
think about it. And at the time it didn't feel
weird because I was a kid watching it thinking that
makes sense. Like me as a kid, I would probably
have those thoughts. But when you think about that, this
was a movie that an adult wrote the script, an
adult directed it. There were so many adults working as
(09:01):
the cast and then the crew, somebody should have said something.
So for those reasons, because you don't have a bankable star,
because now Disney movies don't really take a whole lot
of risks anymore, and because of the questionable scene, this
mid movie would not be successful today. Next up on
my list, I Have Little Giants from nineteen ninety four.
(09:21):
The movie had a budget of twenty million dollars and
only made nineteen million dollars at the box office. That
sounds crazy to me because I see this movie as
a success because I didn't see it in theaters, which
looking at those numbers, I guess not a lot of
people did. But it ran so much on TV. I
remember watching it on Disney Channel ABC Family. It would
run all the time, and I think that's probably where
(09:44):
a lot of us were exposed to it. It's about
a group of misfit kids who form a football team
trying to compete against the big boys in town. About
the Little Giants versus the Cowboys, which obviously in the
nineties everybody hated the Cowboys or you loved the Cowboys
based on their success. Man, if we could get a
little back of that right now, that's why everybody hates us,
because we haven't been good since the nineties, and we're
(10:07):
still so arrogant every single year. If you don't know,
I'm a huge Cowboys fan, and I think it's because
every year we're optimistic and say it's it's gonna be
our year. And the fact that we keep saying that
and haven't won anything significant since the nineties, I think
is why people hate us so much. But you look
at this movie and think, oh, man, those glory days
when they were then what the chiefs are now of
(10:28):
getting all the hate in the world. But back to
the Little Giants. This movie is so fun, so dumb
and irreverent, and such a pivotal part in all of
our childhoods that you have to wonder what the equivalent
is going to be these days of a movie like
this if it doesn't have success in theaters, which we
have a lot of family movies that come out in
(10:49):
theaters and they bomb, and some see a second life
on streaming, but it doesn't really have that same weight
as it did before, unless it's like a big Disney
movie that gets put onto Disney Plus and then get
streamed over and over again. It is hard for a
movie that doesn't succeed in theaters to go on a
streaming service and have a second life like these movies
(11:10):
that didn't have success in theaters but had a second
life through either TV, airplay, DVD, or VHS sales. So
what is that gonna look like nowadays? Are kids gonna
have any of these type of movies like we did
when we grew up? That makes me a little bit sad,
speaking of sports movies, a mid movie that would not
work by today's standards and just not have the success
(11:32):
that it did back then that it would now airbud
from nineteen ninety seven. This movie only costs three million
dollars to make, which is buy a big movie standard
pretty dirt cheap. If you look back on the trailer
and rewatch this movie, you could see that the movie
wasn't that expensive, but it was the idea of a
dog being able to play basketball in the original one.
(11:55):
He went on to play football and all these other sports.
Dude could do it all. Could you imagine get benched
so they could put Airbud in. I don't even like
I wouldn't have a problem playing against the dog. But
if I was on air Buds team and I was playing,
I was a starter, and they're like, you know what, Destro,
You're out of there. We're putting in Airbud, I'd be like, dude,
(12:15):
I just got benched for a Golden Retriever and he's dominating.
I couldn't do it. I would switch teams and go
play against Airbud because that would be less demoralizing. But
the movie went on to make almost thirty million dollars
at the box office, and I think overall, it's a
mid movie. Like a lot of what we associate with
all these movies is the memory of it because we
(12:36):
grew up with it and we experienced at a time
where our brains were smaller kid brains. That is why
we love these movies. If you were to watch him now,
with fresh eyes of if I went back and watched
a movie from the nineties, I wouldn't feel the exact
same way. I wouldn't build that nostalgia. So a lot
of these aren't like the top tier kids movies. They're
(12:58):
not the Lion Kings, they're not the Aladdin's, they're not
the Toy Stories, they're not the Monsters, inc. But they
did play a big role. And if you think about now,
if they tried to make a three million dollar movie
about a dog that can play sports, it wouldn't happen.
It wouldn't succeed, no way. Would they even make the
thirty million dollars that they made off the first one,
(13:18):
which they made a lot of sequels, A lot of
them went straight to videos. So maybe who knows. They
were rebooting everything at this point. Maybe they bring back
air Bud. Another movie I wanted to include because it
holds a very special place in my heart. It's a
movie I feel maybe the most of you haven't seen,
but it was the first movie I saw in theaters
back in nineteen ninety seven. Nobody talks about this movie,
(13:42):
but it's leave it to Beaver had a budget of
fifteen million dollars and only made ten million dollars at
the box office, which I didn't realize how big of
a bomb. This movie was again a mid movie by
critic standards and now looking back on how much it earned.
But to me, this was one of the best movies
(14:03):
of my childhood. It was based on the TV show
Leave It to Beaver, which was way ahead of my time.
The thing about things being ahead of my time, it's
different when you're broke. We grew up without a whole lot,
including TV. We would really only have cable. I think
my parents would sign up for like a free month
of cable. We would have it for a little bit,
(14:24):
then they'd cut it off. So there was periods of
my time as a kid where I did have cable. Well,
for the most part, it was just watching regular TV.
And sometimes on regular TV there'd be channel where they
would just reshow a bunch of old shows. I know,
I think it was on TV Land was actually on cable,
but there was a random channel, like at the very
(14:45):
end of all the channels that they would reshow black
and white TV shows. That is where I was exposed
to shows like I Love Lucy, where I watched a
lot of Three Stooges and also where I watched a
lot of Leave It to Beaver. So even though that
TV show was way ahead of my time, I knew
all about Wally and the Beeve and his parents the Cleavers,
(15:05):
way before this movie came out, and I think that's
why I was excited for it, maybe one of the
only kids excited for it, because I was exposed to
the TV show before, and this movie was all about, Okay,
we're gonna take those same members of that family, but
now they're placed into the hip nineties where it's not
the nineteen fifties anymore, and it's all weird because you
can't have this wholesome family like you did back then
(15:27):
work by today's standards. But the movie didn't do well.
It tanked at the box office, it got bad reviews,
and I think there was a period in the nineties
where a lot of just classic things from back in
the day, like Leave It to Beaver, Little Rascals, Flipper
and Casper, those shows that had a life way way
(15:48):
way back were brought back and made movie adaptations of
so remakes have always been a thing. I think that
would almost be similar now to a lot of things
from the eighties being remade today because anything in that
thirty to forty year window, it feels kind of like, Okay,
it's time to remake this. And you have a lot
of people who maybe you grew up with it or
(16:08):
knew about it way back then, but now we're going
to reintroduce it to an entirely new audience. So there's
no way this movie would even get made today. Another
great Disney movie that had a second life through VHS
sales was Heavyweights, came out in nineteen ninety five. The
movie had a budget of about ten million dollars and
made seventeen point six million dollars at the box office.
(16:31):
This was another instance of it was a movie made
by adults but four kids, and some of the subject
matter was I don't want to say darker, but a
little bit more adult. If you look back on the
best kid movies, in my opinion, it was always ones
that kind of pushed the boundaries. You have people farting,
you have people making innu window jokes, and you have
(16:54):
in this movie kids who don't look like your typical
kids that you would expect in a Disney movie. And
that's why I love it and it's just a ragtag
group of individuals, and it's all about the camaraderie and
it's all about the friendship. And I think that is
why that movie has had so much success and nostalgia
over the years, because that is what we remember from it.
(17:15):
And for me, being a chunky kid, I was like, man,
there's finally a movie where kids look like me. I
haven't seen a movie now, by today's standards, where a
kid look like I did back in the nineties, And
if there is one, which I think they've probably gotten
away from it now. It's always like the token chunky kid.
And I hated being the token chunky kid because they
(17:36):
always treat them the same way, they always write them
the same way. He's never a cool kid. He's always
like the lame one who doesn't get the girl. But
heavyweights flip the script on that ahead of its time
in the nineties where the chunky kids were the cool
kids and they made fun of the skinny kids. The
movie this year is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. I don't
(17:57):
really want a sequel, but it would be cool to
see a reunion. I know a lot of them, some
of them have gone on to be successful from Heavyweights.
Some of them have gone on to live some harsh days,
some harsh lives, But I think it would be pretty
awesome to see them all come together and do a
Disney Plus special. Another one that Heavyweights reminded me of
was House Arrests from nineteen ninety six. The movie cost
(18:19):
about five million dollars to make and only made seven
million dollars at the box office. It's about this group
of siblings that lock their parents in the basement to
prevent a divorce, and then other kids from the neighborhood
get wind of this idea, get wind that their parents
are locked up, and they're like, hey, my parents are
going through something right now. They're struggling and they're always fighting.
We're going to lock them down in the basement too.
(18:41):
It's movies like this with wacky premises that we've been
talking about that just don't happen anymore. Studios don't want
to take risks on dumb ideas anymore, and I know
I'm putting a lot of blame on studios not taking
the risks. I will also say that I think audiences
have become harsher when it comes to things that are
weird and we're so quick to shoot things down if
(19:04):
it's not a level of sophistication. And I'm probably guilty
of doing this from time to time, but sometimes can't
we just have fun while watching a movie. There are
certain movies that I just want dumb things from a premise,
like House arrest It has a dumb premise, but it
also has heart. And maybe that's where some things miss
(19:26):
out on. Is if you're gonna have as ridiculous of
a premise of a group of kids locking their parents
in a basement, you have to have heart. And that's
what this movie did. You have. The lead character played
by Kyle Howard. His name was Grover, which oh Man.
Kyle Howard was some good movie in the nineties. His
character in this movie had a lot of heart. He
(19:46):
was just trying to prevent his parents from divorcing, and
then he also develops feelings for Jennifer Love. Hewitt's character
who she was like my biggest crush in House Arrests
is probably another big reason why I enjoyed this movies
so much. But he had heart. Not only did he
want his parents to get back together, but then he's
also trying to get the girl. He's trying to be
(20:06):
a good brother, trying to be a good friend. There
are a lot of layers here of just having good characters,
which maybe that's the other thing of just movies like
this lacking development in the writing. You gotta write a
good script, especially when it comes to kids' movies, when
it feels like, oh, you can just throw out any idea,
it's all for kids, it doesn't really matter. I just
(20:26):
feel like these types of movies used to try a
lot harder to actually make a good movie. But House
Arrest is right up there. But still it's a good movie.
It's not one of the best movies of the nineties. Again,
we're talking about mid movies here, a great mid movie,
a top tier mid movie. House Arrests from nineteen ninety six,
just what to succeed today. Now we'll get into later
(20:49):
nineties and early two thousand. Office Space was a movie
that barely made its money back in theaters, but it
became a huge hit on VHS and DVD sales and
was really big with cubicle workers. A comedy like Office
Space I just don't think would work because even though
it laid down I would say the foundation for the
(21:11):
Office and other. Not that Office Space was a mockumentary,
but it kind of laid the ground for other workplace comedies.
Not that it was an entirely new concept, but it
was something about it being set in a workplace that
felt familiar but also had a bunch of wacky characters
and had a comedy style that resonated with a lot
(21:31):
of people in hunt in theaters but later through VHS.
And I think it's hard for a comedy like Office
Space and really any comedy to have success now is
because we're also used to short form comedy and office
spaces well. And you really got to lean into watch
the entire movie, because I'm not sure that there are
a lot of just individual bits from Office Space that
(21:53):
I remember thinking being the funniest parts, obviously, like when
they go and break the computer in slow motion, the
soundtrack to this movie, the old guy in this movie.
There are some key moments, but overall, it's the composition
of the movie. It was a movie in the nineties,
like a lot of other comedies, where you put in
that VHS and you watch it from beginning to end
(22:15):
and you just enjoy taking in the entire movie. And
I remember just there's a point in my life where
I just had movies on a loop. Just turning on
a movie felt comforting. We don't really do that anymore
because we're so intentional, and we have this feeling if
we can't be bored at all. If I get up
on a Saturday morning and I don't have a set
thing to watch, I feel like I'm wasting time. And
(22:37):
I can't really scroll through channels anymore and just pick
something random. I had much more freedom in the nineties
to just watch whatever I wanted. Now I feel like
I gotta be watching something new. I gotta start a series,
I gotta watch this movie, I gotta watch that movie.
It just feels like there was a little bit more
just like enjoyment and watching things then, when there was
(22:57):
less to watch, when we didn't have phones to constantly
show us these things coming out and watching short form content,
there was more intention to sitting down to watch a
comedy that, like with office space, you could just sit
down and enjoy it and be free of distraction. I
think that's why comedies also have a problem now, and
(23:18):
really all movies, is because it's so hard just to
keep your attention if you're not going to see it
in theaters. You're looking at your phone, you're talking to
your smart device. They are all these distractions that don't
allow us to focus in, and a movie like Office
Space does still require your attention. So it is hard
for a movie like this to succeed by today's standards
(23:41):
and go on to be as big of a hit
as it is, as much of a staple as it
is now because we just don't have the attention span
for a movie like Office Space with its dry comedy
and workplace humor. So that is sad man to think
a movie like Office Space wouldn't work by today's standards
is really said, I'm about to go watch all these
movies after this, just to feel my knee, to go
(24:04):
back to the nineties. Moving out of the nineties. Two
thousand and one, Saving Silverman was a comedy that came
out and got pretty bad reviews. It only made twenty
six million dollars against a budget of twenty two million dollars.
And I pulled an old review for Saving Silverman that
was also published in two thousand and one. This review
(24:25):
comes to us from a guy named Ryan Buell published
it on three twenty two, two thousand and one on
Penn State's website. So I think he was a movie
reviewer for Penn State back in the two thousands, and
I was like, Man, I just like going back and
reading old reviews right when the movie came out, because
I do believe Saving Silverman is a great mid movie,
(24:46):
an underrated comedy with Jason Biggs, Jack Black Steves on
about them trying to save their friend Silverman from making
a bad mistake and marrying a girl that they can't stand.
So here is a review from two two thousand and one,
Saving Silverman is nothing but a washed up PG thirteen
to want to b version of their Something About Mary.
(25:07):
The grow test jokes and sexual humor just don't work.
The sad thing about today's society is that anyone can
get away with ripping off a movie. More than likely,
Silverman will do well at the box office, but in
a few years no one will remember it. However, Columbia
Pictures isn't trying to make a decent film. It's just
trying to cash in on other gross out comedies such
(25:30):
as There's Something About Mary and American Pie. It looks
to me like the producers took the screenwriter placed them
in a burlap bag and beat them until he came
up with the cinematic piece of crap. But then again,
you get what you pay for. Poor Silverman needs more
than Neil Diamond to be saved from this bomb of
the movie grade D minus. Ryan from two thousand and
(25:54):
one Penn State website went in hard on Saving Silverman.
A couple of things he got wrong, he said, in
a few years, no one will remember it. This was
published in two thousand and one. It is twenty twenty five.
I remember Saving Silverman. I love this movie. A lot
of great scenes in this movie, a lot of physical comedy,
(26:15):
a lot of what makes Jack black Gray a comedy
are in this movie. And it's wild to think that
he's saying that this movie was ripping off There's something
about Mary, which he mentioned it twice in American Pie.
I think that's the connection between Jason Biggs, because looking
back on it now, I think he got that wrong.
I don't think this movie was trying to rip off
(26:35):
those films whatsoever. And I don't even associate this with
being a ripoff movie or trying to be something else.
I feel like Saving Silverman is very uniquely itself and
the only argument he has is that it has Jason
Biggs in both of them. So it just proves to
you how wrong some people can be about a movie's success.
(26:56):
He also said that it was going to do pretty
well at the box off. It did do very well
at the box office, but still it is a movie
that people remember. And this review also allows me to
take a moment and look in inwardly of movies I
have ripped to shreds and think that maybe in twenty
years someone will pull a clip from my podcast and say,
look what this idiot said about this now cult classic.
(27:19):
He said it was dull, he said it lack of imagination.
He said thirty minutes of this movie could have been
cut off. He said it's a wasting your time. You
should only watch it in streaming services. So maybe sometimes
I'll think about that. I'll try to be at times
less harsh on movies that I think other people could
find enjoyment in and think twenty years down the line.
(27:39):
But again, I always speak from the heart. I speak
with my feelings, I speak with my true intentions when
reviewing movies. So hopefully an old review doesn't come back
to bite me in the butt. Like it did for Ryan,
but shout out to Ryan from Penn State in two
thousand and one. Close out the list with a couple
of more from my childhood rounding out the two thousands.
Dude Wear's myke Car in the year two thousand was
(28:02):
actually a pretty successful movie. I would say, pretty big
pivotal roles for both Ashton Kutcher and Sean Williams Scott.
But that movie is so dumb. It very much encompassed
the comedy of the two thousand, which it was right
on that line in ninety ninety two thousand, so maybe
it's still a little bit of the remnants of the
comedy from the nineties. But a movie with such a
(28:24):
premise of two dudes being too stoned and too messed up,
do not remember where they left their car, running into
a group of hot chicks who were undercover spies, going
through a drive through and taunting the box, and all
the crazy characters that the encounter them trying to find
the continuum transfunctioner. It's just such a bizarre movie that
(28:45):
would not succeed today. It would probably be a movie
that I would give a review much like the guy
did from Penn State and say This movie is another
piece of crap, but for the time it worked. Although
I don't think Dude, Whar's My Car is really a
movie that I go back and revisit. I don't partake
in the recreational activities that would probably enhance this movie
(29:06):
and make it funnier, but it is a great mid
movie from the two thousands. And finally from two thousand
and one, Super Troopers, which did not do that well
at the box office, but this movie skyrocketed. I would say,
is one of the most successful DVDs from the two
thousands that spawned a sequel that launched The Broken Lizard
(29:26):
to create their entire cinematic universe to create more movies
like Beer Fest, Slam, and Salmon, which all feature a
lot of the same cast they direct these movies. This
was a movie that was notoriously passed around in middle
school and high schools across America. These guys have become
(29:46):
legends because of this movie. They have made careers out
of this that people, myself included. I've had the guys
from Super Troopers on this podcast to talk about it.
A movie that came out now twenty four years ago,
still has this legac and they're still making new movies.
I enjoyed their last movie, Quasi, which was their first
movie that went directly to streaming. It was on Hulu,
(30:09):
didn't have a traditional theatrical release, so it's interesting to
see them have to navigate that of not having what
they have relied on a lot of their career, of
having titles in their filmography that haven't been the biggest
at drawing a lot of numbers at the box office,
but have developed a cult like following through people watching
(30:32):
them on physical media. You don't have that anymore. So
I would be curious to talk to them again just
to see how they felt after that movie came out
onto streaming and what kind of impact it actually made.
Is it only important that people watch your movie by
any means, whether they're paying for it, whether they're watching
it for free. Do you only want people to consume
(30:54):
your art or do you want to make the money
like you could with physical copies. I mean it's hard
to say no, I don't want to make the money,
but I think there's something to now just having your
product be seen. When you spend so much time making
your art, you just want to get it out to
as many people as possible. Is that worth more now
(31:15):
than having the DVD sales to rely on because you
could just not put it out in theaters and try
to do it the old school way, but then you
get even less people watching it. So that is my list.
There are some other honorable mentions like Baby's Day Out, Beethoved,
Dennis de Menaz, mouse Hunt, even though that was a
pretty successful movie at the box office. But movies like
(31:35):
Richie Rich Dudley Do Right, or really every Earnest movie
Ernest Scared Stupid in particular, those movies would not succeed
by today's standards. I'll come back and give my spoiler
free review of Mickey seventeen. Let's get into it now.
A spoiler free movie review of Mickey seventeen. This movie
(31:56):
has nothing to do with Disney, not that Mickey different
Mickey much more disturbing Mickey in a way. It is
the new film from Bong June Hoe, his first movie
since Parasite. Much anticipated in this room because man, I've
been waiting for this movie to come out for so long.
It's been delayed. It took forever just to get made,
but it is here. You have Robert Pattinson, who plays inexpendable.
(32:19):
He is a guy who is down on his luck,
has a really bad financial investment with a dude who
really screws him over, so his way to get out
of it. It takes place in the year twenty fifty four.
I believe he can go to this planet and become
inexpendable who doesn't really know what he's signing up for.
But essentially they're going to make him do a bunch
of harmful experiments and he dies time and time again.
(32:42):
His entire conscience and memories are uploaded on this hard drive,
so that every time he dies, a version of himself
actually comes back with those memories intact. So it's not
just them reprinting an entirely new human that looks like him.
It pretty much resembles him in every way. Each version
is a little bit different, has a slightly different personality,
but at the core of it, it is still Mickey,
(33:04):
who is kind of dumb but very lovable. And I
think Robert Pattinson doesn't get enough credit for how good
of a character actor he is, especially when it comes
to accents. Mickey seventeen sounds unlike any other character he
has ever done before, so whether it's the Lighthouse, whether
it's good time, even going back to Twilight or Devil
all the Time too. That was another good Robert Pattinson movie.
He just kind of surprises you in these different looks
(33:25):
that he can give you, even doing Bruce Wayne and
The Batman. And there's still some people who can't see
Robert Pattinson as not the vampire guy that was so
long ago. That's so two thousand and eight, everybody. So
this was a movie. Going into it, I thought I
was going to instantly love, no matter what I'll say,
I had a bit of a bias that. Given the director,
(33:47):
who has done some great movies, some of my favorite
movies of all time, I would put Parasite on my
top fifteen, especially of The Last Man. Thinking back, twenty
nineteen is in five years ago. Now that's the last
six years in the past ten years. Probably top ten
for me of my life, probably fifteen or top twenty.
That movie changed me. And Bong June Ho is known
(34:09):
for his sci fi movies. He's known for his more
realistic movies. He is really great at building worlds, and
although this movie is based on a book, it still
feels very original to me. So going into it, he
is a type of director now that I'm gonna have
that bias of like, man, I'm kind of a fanboy.
I'm kind of gonna like anything that he does or
appreciate it. But even with that bias going into it,
(34:31):
I had to warm up to this story because it
felt a lot different than what I was expecting. It
felt different than anything I'd really see in the sci
fi genre, or I would say it took me a
good forty minutes to really settle into it, but once
I was it, which sounds like a lot of time. Normally,
I say, if you don't love a movie by those
first twenty minutes, that you're gonna have a bad time.
(34:53):
It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it in those first
twenty minutes. It was just a lot of world building,
and they kind of hop around in time because what
you see in the trailer actually happens later in the story,
so it kind of goes back and forth of him
already on the planet to how he got to that planet,
and then it kind of leads all back around. So
(35:13):
those first forty minutes, I was just trying to get
used to Robert Pattinson's dialect, the character interactions, and just
trying to get my grasp on the story. But once
I was in about that forty minute mark, I was
totally in. In The movie is about two hours and
ten minutes, but by the end of it, I was
really satisfied. I thought the sci fi elements were fantastic.
(35:34):
Bun June Hoe I feel in this movie took inspiration
from all of his films. One that I really loved
that he drew inspiration from was Okja, which he creates
these very mythical creatures, and there are these animals, these
alien type animals in Mickey seventeen called creepers. I thought
that was amazing and unique, and in a world where
(35:56):
we kind of just keep regurgitating everything sci fi, this
felt fresh to me. Like I said, it is based
on a book, but it feels very much original. And
if you're gonna want to go see something unlike you
haven't seen before, and you don't want to take a
risk on a movie like Mickey seventeen, then you can't
say they're just making remakes, that they're just throwing out
another Star Wars movie. In the sci fi genre, you
(36:18):
gotta check out what is out there. In Bung juneh.
Whether it's this movie where he's drawing inspiration from Okja,
I also saw a lot of inspiration from snow Piercer
in this Maybe it's because it was an ice planet
and also being on a vessel. In this case, it
takes place pretty much entirely on a ship, which sometimes
when movies have limited locations it gets a little bit boring.
(36:39):
But there was a lot of places to explore in
the ship. They go outside a bunch, interacting with the
creepers off and on the ship I thought were great.
And then there were even some Easter eggs from Parasite
in this movie, a little bit of his movie The Host,
So it was kind of him borrowing and being inspired
by himself. And I almost feel like he made Parasite,
(37:01):
which got a lot of critical acclaim, won the Oscar,
and now he is wanting to make movies that he's
always wanted to make and being able to be a
big nerd, which is awesome. I love it when nerds
are filmmakers and are able to create these worlds and
they have a lot of freedom now and what they
are able to do when you are a level of
(37:21):
director that Bon Jun ho is, but also just knows
how to make a great story, knows how to make
characters you root for, which by the end of this
movie you feel for Mickey seventeen and all the crazy
things that he encounters. And even though it's so futuristic
and dystopian, there is some heart there and there's a
lot of comedy in it too, which I feel could
turn some people off. Mark Ruffalo's character is a very
(37:44):
eccentric one, and some of that stuff I could see
people thinking like, Oh, this is kind of dumb, what
is Mark Ruffalo doing? But I think his character, much
like a lot of Bonk June Hoe's characters, are used
to get a message across which every movie of his
has that overall arching social and moral dilemma. Because this
one does make a big statement on how people can
(38:04):
take over a planet or it could be a country
and kicking out the people who are already there. It
also makes a statement in a more sci fi way,
of human cloning and the morales of that, Like I
started thinking about it, what I sign up for this?
The hard part would be dying, And throughout the entire movie,
they keep asking Mickey, like, what does it feel like
to die. That's what everybody wants to know. And he
(38:25):
struggles with answering that question. Obviously it hurts. He gets
more and more used to it as he gets through
all the numbers, which that is why it's called Mickey seventeen.
They number him each time after he die, so he's
Mickey one, two, three, four, five, and then whenever he
hits seventeen, that is when something goes wrong. And there
are duplicates, and you see this all in the trailer,
(38:45):
so it's not a spoiler, but it's that moral dilemma
of what happens when you have two of these people. Now,
I don't know that I could be inexpendable because, oh man,
some of the things that he is put through and
the pain he must still feel. Because even though you
come back with your memory is intact and it's still
you and you no longer fear dying as much because
you know you're going to come back, you still have
(39:07):
to feel it. And sometimes we don't know how bad
dying hurts because we can't really report back from those people.
He can report back, and he knows the worst ways
to die. But I think I would be open to
them taking all my memories and putting them on a
hard drive. Also in a way, it made that idea
seem a little bit more plausible, like it could happen
(39:28):
and we're not. I don't know if AI becoming so advanced.
I feel like the first step would be like us
putting some kind of chip in our brain where we
can see things and have a computer in our brain.
I think a level after that would be human printing.
I mean, we have three D printing, which whenever that
first started, we were like, what is three D printing?
This sounds so weird and futuristic. But now kids in
like high school are working with three D printers and
(39:51):
building things, and that's become a little bit more normal.
Twenty years we start human printing. Right now we're all like, oh, ay,
i's got to replace everybody. It's good to take all
our jobs. Once AI becomes a little bit more like, oh,
that's the norm. So I don't know, man, But that's
the other message of this movie and moral dilemma where
this movie ranks on my favorite Bong June Hoe films
(40:13):
because I think my Robert Pattinson list is probably different.
And that's a whole other episode I could get into.
But I would say Mickey seventeen is in my top
five now at number five. I would put the Host
at number four. I would put Mickey seventeen at number three.
I would put Okja at number two. I would put
snow Piercer with Chris Evans, which is fantastic, and at
(40:33):
number one, I would put Parasite. If you aren't familiar
with his work and go see Mickey seventeen or planning
to see it down the line and just want to
get ahead of it, I would say start in that
reverse order. I would say start with Parasite, because I
feel that it is the one, even though it's in subtitles,
which I love what he said whenever he won the
Oscar for that movie, saying that one inch barrier that
(40:54):
people can't get over, I get over it. You'll be
exposed to a whole new world of films if you
can just get over that one inch barrier and watch
movies that aren't in your language. So aside from that,
I think it's the most widely recepted of all of
his movies, and the one you can dive into and
enjoy because the story in that movie is really powerful.
It is so well done, shot beautifully. There's nothing bad
(41:18):
I would say about Parasite. It is a rare five
out of five movie in my opinion. Snow Piercer has
a little bit more action also, so has that moral
dilemma of like social statuses. Oh, those both are really good.
I still say start with Parasite, then go to snow Piercer,
and then Oakja is a little bit more sci fi,
a little bit more fun and comical, and then Mickey
(41:40):
seventeen is kind of right in between there too. It
has a great deal of sci fi, has some comedy
in it as well, and then has I wouldn't say
a horror aspect to it, but there are some bloody
and violent scenes here and there. And then The Host,
I believe is just the all out great horror movie.
So those are my top five of his movies. The
sad part about this, even though the movie was No.
One at the box office making nineteen million dollars, it
(42:03):
had one hundred and eighteen million dollar budget. And that
was the sad part is we went to the movie
on a Saturday and I hadn't seen the theater this
empty in a while. We got in line for snacks
and there was nobody there. We got into a theater,
which normally when we go see a movie on opening
weekend it's pretty full. There were so many empty seats.
(42:24):
I think I counted there's probably four other people on
our row, maybe another four people on the row ahead
of us, and that was it. This felt like a
really slow time at the box office, so it's gonna
have a really hard time making that money back. It
must feel kind of weird to have the number one
movie in the country but only have made nineteen million dollars.
(42:46):
Like before at a time where it was like when
you're number one, you're making one hundred million dollars or
even like fifty million dollars. To make nineteen million dollars,
it's like, oh man, we're number one, but who are
we going to make any money off of this? But
I'm still rooting for it. I think Robert Pattinson gives
a really great performance, maybe not his best performance of
all time, but it's an entirely different look, so he's
(43:08):
taken some risks there. I love it when an actor
takes risks and do things that require them to act.
Steven Ewen was also great in this. For Mickey seventeen,
I give it four out of five expendables. It's time
to head down to movie Mike Trailer Paul another week
(43:29):
and time to talk about another A twenty four movie
coming out. I'm not trying to be a A twenty four fanboy,
but when it comes to original ideas, interesting concepts, great trailers,
A twenty four is right there at the top of
the list. When it comes to just movies that I
never thought could be made. Sometimes I didn't know I
(43:53):
wanted these movies. Death of a Unicorn, which you're about
to talk about, is one of those movies. I'd say
it's right up there with A twenty a neon that
those are the studios that I look to when I
want something that's not super mainstream, even though I feel
like those studios now are becoming mainstream because they are bigger.
They do have movies in a lot of theaters at
(44:13):
any given time, but still, compare to your universals, your disneys,
they are on a much smaller scale. But a couple
of parallels here because also Paul Rudd is in this movie,
Will poultr is in this movie. We've talked about them
both recently in two different A twenty four movies. Paul Rudd.
He's gonna be in that Tim Robinson movie Friendship. Will
(44:34):
Poulter was just talking about last week. He's gonna be
in Warfare. This one stars Paul Rudd Jenna Ortiga. They
play a father and daughter duo. It is a horror comedy.
They get caught between a retreat with a billionaire boss
played by Richard E. Grant, and then this mythical unicorn
(44:54):
appears that could be well, the key to living longer,
the key to all these diseases, the cure to cancer,
even eternal life. But then it brings up this moral dilemma.
If you kill this unicorn and harvest it for parts,
are you an evil person? It looks like Paul Rudd
and Jenna Ortega are going to try and stop the
(45:16):
unicorn from dying from being harvested for parts. But it
also looks like this unicorn isn't gonna go down lightly
and GOODI fight back against the humans. A lot of
thoughts on this trailer. It is pretty unique. But before
I talk about it more, it is coming out soon
on March twenty eighth. Here is just a little bit
of the death of a Unicorn trailer. Unicorns used to
be seen these divine monsters because people fully believe that
(45:38):
they could heald it early anything, it's an opportunity, but immortality,
we have a moral imperative to harvest every last one.
You're gonna kill her, don't called it. There's no negotiating
(46:06):
with monsters. So that is the premise. I think this
is going to make a statement on why we as
humans can't have nice things, because if you have something nice,
like a unicorn, you're gonna have people who want to
exploit it. You're gonna have those who want to harvest
it for parts and make money off this thing, especially
(46:29):
if it's the cure for cancer, the key to eternal life.
This is why we can't have nice things. If there
were actual unicorns in the world, or any mythical creature
for that matter, we would try to find a way
to harvest its parts. You see this right now. That's
why we have endangered species because we can't be trusted
as humans, we can't have nice things. So I think
(46:50):
that's gonna be the message here. Obviously, it is a
very wild premise. If you watch this trailer, there are
moments that it feels like Jurassic Park, and instead of
the t Rex. You have the unicorn because there's a
moment where Paul Rudd is running by this car and
he's kind of looking overneath it. There are a couple
of moments you have the scene whenever Paul Rudd is
(47:12):
running he hides behind a car. It's at night, and
the unicorn is creeping beside the car, very much like
the t Rex would be breathing into the jeep whenever
they get caught in that situation. In the first Jurassic Park,
you also have Jenna Ortega coming face to face with
the unicorn. I don't think throughout this entire trailer you
see the unicorn in all of its glory, but in
(47:32):
that moment you see its mouth enter the frame. It's
this very just like gnarly snout that looks much like
a t rex's mouth would look with the teeth. It
is growling, looks like it's about to bite her head off,
And that really gives me a lot of vibes of
Jurassic Park as well. So it's almost like you take
Jurassic Park, you remove the dinosaurs, and you add in
(47:55):
the unicorn, which, if you think about the plot of
Jurassic Park, not only the first one, but in the
Lost World, that is essentially kind of what I've been
talking about so far. Is in the first movie, obviously
it was all about getting people to pay to go
see the dinosaurs at the park, and then in the
(48:15):
Lost World you have these people trying to capture the
dinosaurs to be able to use them and exploit them,
and then later down the line of the franchise people
turning them into weapons. So that is the thing about
us as humans is we can't have anything nice. We're
gonna either harvest it for parts or want to use
it in our military. Thinking about other instances where unicorns
(48:38):
have been in movies. In the Harry Potter series, you
see Voldemort drinking the blood of a unicorn, and in
the Harry Potter world that is like the ultimate crime,
killing a unicorn, because that means, well, it could destroy
a kingdom, tarnish the food supply, turn the water to sind.
It puts this curse on anybody who kills a unicorn,
(49:00):
and so you don't want to do that. I really
liked the pairing of Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd. I
don't think I've watched a bad Jenna Ortaga movie, even
though Beetlejuice Beetlejuice wasn't it was never gonna be as
good as the original. I enjoyed it. A lot of
people riped that movie to shreds. My only thing with
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is it kind of just came and went.
(49:21):
There was a lot of anticipation because it was a
legacy sequel. I thought the movie itself, the plot was
kind of all over the place. But I found that
movie enjoyable in theaters, and overall I left thinking, Okay,
wasn't a total cash grab. I think the fact that
Tim Burton was still a part of it, and it
still very much felt like a Tim Burton film. It
(49:42):
just felt a little bit too overly polished at times,
and almost like it had a little bit too of
a big studio feel to it. When the first one
felt obviously more novel because it was back in the eighties,
but it almost felt like it was more Tim Burton
being very punk rock and making the first Beetlejuice. This
one just felt like, Okay, we got to check a
(50:03):
lot of boxes. A lot of the special effects weren't
exactly the same. I guess there's just some charm into
the stuff from the eighties not looking as good, So
it was almost like the gloss of a big studio
with more of a budget took away from the heart
and soul of that movie. But overall I enjoyed that.
(50:23):
I just can't recall a Jena Ortega movie that I've
seen and thought, you know, that wasn't very good. I
really liked her in the screen movies. Sad she's not
going to be a part of those anymore. She had
a pretty decent role in X, one of my favorites
of hers, even though it is kind of a dark,
not depressing movie, but not obviously about the brightest. The
(50:44):
subjects to fall Out, which was a movie on Max.
It's about a school shooting and the effects that it
has on the students who were there that day that
weren't injured, but they kind of have to live with
that trauma for the rest of their lives. A pretty
simple story obviously packs a lot of emotion in that,
and she's really good in that. That she's only twenty
two years old, that is wild. She's already been in
(51:06):
so many big movies, has more coming out, and to
think that all of her best movies are probably still
ahead of her. That is wild. Obviously you have Wednesday
on Netflix, which I'm excited for that to come back
this year. And then Paul Rudd. I feel like he's
in that point of his career where he's just doing whatever.
He has the Marvel money. Even though people didn't like
(51:27):
the Last ant Man movie. I enjoyed that movie in theaters.
I have not revisited it since I don't really think
I need to. I thought it was a mid Marvel movie.
I didn't think it was terrible. But now it's came
to conqueror not being a thing anymore, there's not a
reason to revisit that movie. So he has that money,
he has that Marvel bag. I feel like he can
do smaller movies like this and Friendship and kind of
(51:49):
do whatever he wants at this point, which it's a
really big deal for an actor of his caliber to
do a movie like this. Because I heard Nicole Kidman
whenever we went to go see Baby Girl, which is
another a twenty four movie, talking about how it's a
much different set. They are usually longer days because they
have less days to shoot, and when they are there
and rolling, they are trying to get this entire movie
(52:10):
just cranked out. I think Baby Girl was probably filmed
in like a month's time, not altogether, but I think
the total amount of days was probably a month's worth.
I would have to imagine probably the same with the
movie like the Death of Unicorn, but it looks like
it could be fun, hopefully some laughs in there. I
can't wait to see the full reveal of the Unicorn.
(52:30):
I like the fact that they just kind of tease
it up a little bit, much like you would any
other monster movie, even in the first Jurassic Park movies,
where they really just kind of tease you with the
t Rex and you don't really get them until that
third act. So hopefully they have something in store for
us like that. Death of Unicorn is coming out in
theaters on March twenty eighth. And that was this week's
(52:53):
edition of Movie by Framer Bar. You bet it was.
And that's gonna do it for another week here on
the podcast. But before I go, I got to give
my listeners shout out of the week this week. I'm
going over to TikTok. I did post a bonus episode
last week with a full Oscar review. I posted a
clip over on TikTok and this person it was kind
(53:15):
of a nice troll. I've had some mean comments on
TikTok and YouTube primarily, but I'm gonna shout him out anyway.
Maybe I'll shout out a good comment as well. But
Disco Duck on TikTok wrote talking about me, said I
wouldn't trust this character to fix a tuna fish sandwich,
let alone the biggest award show of the year. So
(53:35):
this was in reference of a clip I posted of
me talking about how I could fix the oscars, And
it was just an idea to make the entire show
move a little bit faster, because what was supposed to
be a three hour show turned into an almost four
hour show. And I just said, at a play clock.
As soon as that play clock expires, your film gets
(53:56):
a penalty. If you get too many penalties throughout the
course of the night, the movie behind you gets a
chance to win. And I also felt like they should
have a little bit more discretion on the amounts of
votes that each of these movies get, much like you
would on election night show the percentages of what is leading.
So Disco Duck, I know you're trying to be mean
(54:17):
towards me by saying you wouldn't trust me to fix
you a tuna sandwich. And I know in the clip
I did look ridiculous. I was wearing my tuxedo hoodie
and I was also wearing those straight hoodie over my headphones,
so it looks like I have a giant Spaceballs helmet on,
so disco duck. I know you're trying to troll me,
but that wasn't that bad. And I don't want to
challenge you because I know you'll come out and just
(54:38):
start poking more and more. But I'm okay with that one. Sometimes,
I oh, I just have that anticipation of going to
look at the comments because I'm like, man, I got
to be in the right headspace because you never know,
it's always those negative comments that just kind of stay
with you. Like I can think back to random comments
that I got like months ago, and you're like, man,
those just kind of cut through. But Gray Streak Glass
(55:03):
also commented on this TikTok and said, Mike d thoughts
on the Demi loss sad face and I said, in
that episode, the recap episode, I was sad for I
was really pulling for Demi Moore and the substance as
a whole to win more awards at the Oscars. I
was glad you won the Golden Globe because that was
a big moment for her. The Golden Globe was the
(55:24):
first ever award she won in acting ever, so I
just wanted to see her hold that oscar take it
home for a horror movie. As much as an advocate
as I am for horror movies, modern horror, to prove
to people it is a valid genre and we need
to have more Oscars come to us out of horror movies.
So that is one shout out positive, one shout out negative.
(55:47):
Thank you everybody for listening this week. Hope you return
next week. I hope you a tell a friend, And
until next time, go out and watch good movies and
I will talk to you later.
Hello, and welcome back to Movie Mike's Movie Podcast. I
am your host Movie Mike. Gonna be a nostalgic episode.
I've been fired up since last week talking about mid movies.
I want to talk about the best mid movies from
my childhood that would not succeed today. These movies would
fail by today's standards, and that makes me sad. In
the movie review, we'll be talking about the new Robert
(00:21):
Penson movie that I've been waiting for forever, Mickey seventeen.
Was it worth the almost two year wait to finally
see this in theaters and in the trailer park? We'll
be talking about the new A twenty four movie Death
of a Unicorns, during Paul Rudd and Janet Ortega. They
play a father and daughter who hit a unicorn with
their car and then discovered that well, unicorns have magical
(00:43):
healing powers that all the corrupt people in the world want.
Movie maybe hits a little bit too close to home,
but thank you for being here, thank you for being subscribed.
Shout out to the Monday Morning Movie crew. And now
let's talk movies from the Nashville podcast Network. As this
is Movie Mike's a movie pot this might be one
of the topics I am the most passionate and fired
(01:05):
up about, so much so that I was working on
this list and it just goes on and on and
on that I just want to get on here and
rattle off movies from my childhood that I think would
not succeed by today's standards. Last week got into a
big discussion about mid movies and why movie can't just
be average anymore. There's nothing wrong with being average. I
am an average movie reviewer. I have made a career
(01:27):
out of being mid and through my lifetime there have
been movies that have just been okay. But sometimes these
movies resonate with me more than I think, And maybe
they're not the movies that run to the top of
my list of these are the best movies ever. But
these movies, specifically with my childhood, built the foundation. They
were there for me when I had nothing else to watch,
(01:47):
and are they might go tos right now if I
go sit down and watch a movie. I love watching
nostalgia things. If I'm gonna go back and watch things,
that's probably gonna be the top two, stuff like Toy
Story and All the Big Ones or Shrek. But these
are the movies that were there for me in between
those movies in the dark days when there was nothing
else to watch, where I was scanning through broadcast channels
(02:09):
or basic cable channels or in a hotel somewhere in
another city and I just had to watch something. These
are the best mid childhood movies for me, in my opinion,
that I think would not exist by today's standards. I'm
going to focus on the year's nineteen ninety one to
two thousand and three, which would be what the Internet
(02:30):
defines as childhood zero to twelve years old. This would
be my childhood. The nineties was an incredible time where
you can make movies about anything. And one movie from
my childhood that I love that I still reference now
to this day. That just makes me think of a
time where it was so important for there to be
trailers before a VHS that you would see all the
(02:52):
things coming out soon on home video. I have in
my memory associated with certain of my favorite movie I
remember all the pretrailers, some of them had Burger King commercials.
I remember a mom There are a lot of movies
that I never got to see, but I know those
trailers from the beginning to the end. And one trailer
that always stuck with me was the Homeword Bound trailer
(03:13):
from nineteen ninety three. This movie would not exist by
today's standards. Homeward Bound The Incredible Journey. It is about
kids who have to say goodbye to their childhood pets.
The family moves away, so they leave them on a
farm with some other family, which is a wild thing
remembering what this movie was about. I remember just watching
(03:34):
a movie about a dog who was the leader, a
dog who was kind of a dummy, and then the
cat who was Sessa, and I just thought that was fun.
But I kind of forgot why did they leave the
dogs and the cat with a family member. Why didn't
they take them. I'm sure they had an explanation why,
But that seems kind of sad if you thought about
(03:55):
that happening today, of somebody saying, Hey, we're moving across
the country and we can't take our dogs because we're
moving into the city, or we're moving where we can't
have dogs. These would be the most terrible people in
the world by today's standards. But back in the nineties,
you make a movie about it, a Disney movie where
the dogs and the cat are so sad that they
have to go find their owners. But I want to
(04:16):
take you on a trip back and put you back
in the nineties. Here's a clip of the VHS trailer
for Homeward Bound. Just listen to the sounds and tell
me if this doesn't instantly take you back to a
time when everything was more simple. Look for these hit
movies that you can owe from Walt Disney Home Video.
(04:37):
We're Gonna miss you so much. Left behind with family friends,
how can I vacation and far from their home? Three
beloved pets take matters into their own paws, he shadow,
Something doesn't smell right, She's sassy. Cats rule if dogs drill,
He's Chatz. Get out life, Getting nine at one. In
(04:58):
the classic tradition of War Disney Entertainment comes whole word
Bomb The Incredible Journey coming this fall on video cassette
that instantly takes me back. Another movie that this reminds
me of was Wild America, which came out in nineteen
ninety seven. You had Jonathan Taylor, Thomas, Devin Sawah, and
Scott Barstowe who played three brothers, which that is an
(05:20):
incredibly nineties cast. But they go out on a cross
country camping trip. I didn't know it at the time,
but this movie was actually based on a true story.
This movie felt incredibly deep to me as a kid.
It came out in ninety seven, so I was like
six years old, and I was at a point in
my life where I was only watching animated movies and
really just movies geared towards kids. But this almost felt
(05:44):
like that in between time. And I think at that
time I idolized any kind of teenager, and I saw
these kids as like being the coolest. They had the
very nineties bolish haircut, which was such a statement back
in the nineties. I was like, oh, man, if you
have that haircut, you are so cool. I always wanted
to grow my hair out because of that. I always
wanted to get highlights, even though I would look terrible
(06:06):
with that in my hair. And we think about now
making fun of some teenagers who have like the broccoli
cut or the really foofy hair and think, ah, these
kids look ridiculous. Do we not remember the bowl cut
that was so popular in the nineties, that had a
chokehold on every nineties heart throb on the cover of
Tiger Beat, that bowl cut was annihilating in the nineties.
(06:31):
I would say it was more ridiculous than anything that
kids have nowadays and teenagers, so I thought this movie
was super cool. I was always inspired by any kind
of nature movie, even though myself I've never really been
into camping, but when it comes to movies about it,
I find it incredibly inspiring. It's movies like Wild America
(06:52):
and later down the line Into the Wild where that
movie got me onto an incredible kick of transcendentalism and
the focus of like loving nature. I got super into
that for a while in my teen years, but it
all goes back to movies like Wild America, and you
couldn't really make a movie like that anymore, so I
included that in my list. Here another movie, a big
(07:13):
one from the nineties. It's a Blank Check from nineteen
ninety four. Although this movie did have pretty decent box
office success, had a budget of thirteen million dollars and
went on to make thirty point six million at the
box office. It's all about a kid who cashes a
blank check for a million dollars. But a movie like
this would not happen anymore for a couple of reasons.
(07:36):
One is because it is hard to make a kid's movie.
Now with somebody who isn't famous, and this kid, by
no means was famous whatsoever in the nineties, you could
really just sell the idea that right there, a kid
gets a million dollar check and what you would expect
a kid to do with a million dollars buy a
bunch of crazy things and blow it in a few weeks.
(07:57):
And not only that, there's a really questionable scene in
the movie that's now been debated a lot. I covered
it a long time ago and now people talk about
it all the time. But he starts to fall for
this undercover agent who was trying to expose his boss
that he's actually posing as that doesn't really exist, but
at one point in the movie they share a kiss,
and it's really weird. I haven't rewatched the movie since
(08:19):
on Disney Plus, since it kind of became more of
a thing of how weird it is, So I'm not
sure in between the time when I got Disney Plus
and maybe rewatched it back in like twenty twenty before
that's been a little bit more publicized if they've gone
back and taken out that scene. But that is a
no go by now. I think there was always a
weird theme in the nineties of like younger kids trying
(08:40):
to get after adults, which is really weird when you
think about it. And at the time it didn't feel
weird because I was a kid watching it thinking that
makes sense. Like me as a kid, I would probably
have those thoughts. But when you think about that, this
was a movie that an adult wrote the script, an
adult directed it. There were so many adults working as
(09:01):
the cast and then the crew, somebody should have said something.
So for those reasons, because you don't have a bankable star,
because now Disney movies don't really take a whole lot
of risks anymore, and because of the questionable scene, this
mid movie would not be successful today. Next up on
my list, I Have Little Giants from nineteen ninety four.
(09:21):
The movie had a budget of twenty million dollars and
only made nineteen million dollars at the box office. That
sounds crazy to me because I see this movie as
a success because I didn't see it in theaters, which
looking at those numbers, I guess not a lot of
people did. But it ran so much on TV. I
remember watching it on Disney Channel ABC Family. It would
run all the time, and I think that's probably where
(09:44):
a lot of us were exposed to it. It's about
a group of misfit kids who form a football team
trying to compete against the big boys in town. About
the Little Giants versus the Cowboys, which obviously in the
nineties everybody hated the Cowboys or you loved the Cowboys
based on their success. Man, if we could get a
little back of that right now, that's why everybody hates us,
because we haven't been good since the nineties, and we're
(10:07):
still so arrogant every single year. If you don't know,
I'm a huge Cowboys fan, and I think it's because
every year we're optimistic and say it's it's gonna be
our year. And the fact that we keep saying that
and haven't won anything significant since the nineties, I think
is why people hate us so much. But you look
at this movie and think, oh, man, those glory days
when they were then what the chiefs are now of
(10:28):
getting all the hate in the world. But back to
the Little Giants. This movie is so fun, so dumb
and irreverent, and such a pivotal part in all of
our childhoods that you have to wonder what the equivalent
is going to be these days of a movie like
this if it doesn't have success in theaters, which we
have a lot of family movies that come out in
(10:49):
theaters and they bomb, and some see a second life
on streaming, but it doesn't really have that same weight
as it did before, unless it's like a big Disney
movie that gets put onto Disney Plus and then get
streamed over and over again. It is hard for a
movie that doesn't succeed in theaters to go on a
streaming service and have a second life like these movies
(11:10):
that didn't have success in theaters but had a second
life through either TV, airplay, DVD, or VHS sales. So
what is that gonna look like nowadays? Are kids gonna
have any of these type of movies like we did
when we grew up? That makes me a little bit sad,
speaking of sports movies, a mid movie that would not
work by today's standards and just not have the success
(11:32):
that it did back then that it would now airbud
from nineteen ninety seven. This movie only costs three million
dollars to make, which is buy a big movie standard
pretty dirt cheap. If you look back on the trailer
and rewatch this movie, you could see that the movie
wasn't that expensive, but it was the idea of a
dog being able to play basketball in the original one.
(11:55):
He went on to play football and all these other sports.
Dude could do it all. Could you imagine get benched
so they could put Airbud in. I don't even like
I wouldn't have a problem playing against the dog. But
if I was on air Buds team and I was playing,
I was a starter, and they're like, you know what, Destro,
You're out of there. We're putting in Airbud, I'd be like, dude,
(12:15):
I just got benched for a Golden Retriever and he's dominating.
I couldn't do it. I would switch teams and go
play against Airbud because that would be less demoralizing. But
the movie went on to make almost thirty million dollars
at the box office, and I think overall, it's a
mid movie. Like a lot of what we associate with
all these movies is the memory of it because we
(12:36):
grew up with it and we experienced at a time
where our brains were smaller kid brains. That is why
we love these movies. If you were to watch him now,
with fresh eyes of if I went back and watched
a movie from the nineties, I wouldn't feel the exact
same way. I wouldn't build that nostalgia. So a lot
of these aren't like the top tier kids movies. They're
(12:58):
not the Lion Kings, they're not the Aladdin's, they're not
the Toy Stories, they're not the Monsters, inc. But they
did play a big role. And if you think about now,
if they tried to make a three million dollar movie
about a dog that can play sports, it wouldn't happen.
It wouldn't succeed, no way. Would they even make the
thirty million dollars that they made off the first one,
(13:18):
which they made a lot of sequels, A lot of
them went straight to videos. So maybe who knows. They
were rebooting everything at this point. Maybe they bring back
air Bud. Another movie I wanted to include because it
holds a very special place in my heart. It's a
movie I feel maybe the most of you haven't seen,
but it was the first movie I saw in theaters
back in nineteen ninety seven. Nobody talks about this movie,
(13:42):
but it's leave it to Beaver had a budget of
fifteen million dollars and only made ten million dollars at
the box office, which I didn't realize how big of
a bomb. This movie was again a mid movie by
critic standards and now looking back on how much it earned.
But to me, this was one of the best movies
(14:03):
of my childhood. It was based on the TV show
Leave It to Beaver, which was way ahead of my time.
The thing about things being ahead of my time, it's
different when you're broke. We grew up without a whole lot,
including TV. We would really only have cable. I think
my parents would sign up for like a free month
of cable. We would have it for a little bit,
(14:24):
then they'd cut it off. So there was periods of
my time as a kid where I did have cable. Well,
for the most part, it was just watching regular TV.
And sometimes on regular TV there'd be channel where they
would just reshow a bunch of old shows. I know,
I think it was on TV Land was actually on cable,
but there was a random channel, like at the very
(14:45):
end of all the channels that they would reshow black
and white TV shows. That is where I was exposed
to shows like I Love Lucy, where I watched a
lot of Three Stooges and also where I watched a
lot of Leave It to Beaver. So even though that
TV show was way ahead of my time, I knew
all about Wally and the Beeve and his parents the Cleavers,
(15:05):
way before this movie came out, and I think that's
why I was excited for it, maybe one of the
only kids excited for it, because I was exposed to
the TV show before, and this movie was all about, Okay,
we're gonna take those same members of that family, but
now they're placed into the hip nineties where it's not
the nineteen fifties anymore, and it's all weird because you
can't have this wholesome family like you did back then
(15:27):
work by today's standards. But the movie didn't do well.
It tanked at the box office, it got bad reviews,
and I think there was a period in the nineties
where a lot of just classic things from back in
the day, like Leave It to Beaver, Little Rascals, Flipper
and Casper, those shows that had a life way way
(15:48):
way back were brought back and made movie adaptations of
so remakes have always been a thing. I think that
would almost be similar now to a lot of things
from the eighties being remade today because anything in that
thirty to forty year window, it feels kind of like, Okay,
it's time to remake this. And you have a lot
of people who maybe you grew up with it or
(16:08):
knew about it way back then, but now we're going
to reintroduce it to an entirely new audience. So there's
no way this movie would even get made today. Another
great Disney movie that had a second life through VHS
sales was Heavyweights, came out in nineteen ninety five. The
movie had a budget of about ten million dollars and
made seventeen point six million dollars at the box office.
(16:31):
This was another instance of it was a movie made
by adults but four kids, and some of the subject
matter was I don't want to say darker, but a
little bit more adult. If you look back on the
best kid movies, in my opinion, it was always ones
that kind of pushed the boundaries. You have people farting,
you have people making innu window jokes, and you have
(16:54):
in this movie kids who don't look like your typical
kids that you would expect in a Disney movie. And
that's why I love it and it's just a ragtag
group of individuals, and it's all about the camaraderie and
it's all about the friendship. And I think that is
why that movie has had so much success and nostalgia
over the years, because that is what we remember from it.
(17:15):
And for me, being a chunky kid, I was like, man,
there's finally a movie where kids look like me. I
haven't seen a movie now, by today's standards, where a
kid look like I did back in the nineties, And
if there is one, which I think they've probably gotten
away from it now. It's always like the token chunky kid.
And I hated being the token chunky kid because they
(17:36):
always treat them the same way, they always write them
the same way. He's never a cool kid. He's always
like the lame one who doesn't get the girl. But
heavyweights flip the script on that ahead of its time
in the nineties where the chunky kids were the cool
kids and they made fun of the skinny kids. The
movie this year is celebrating its thirtieth anniversary. I don't
(17:57):
really want a sequel, but it would be cool to
see a reunion. I know a lot of them, some
of them have gone on to be successful from Heavyweights.
Some of them have gone on to live some harsh days,
some harsh lives, But I think it would be pretty
awesome to see them all come together and do a
Disney Plus special. Another one that Heavyweights reminded me of
was House Arrests from nineteen ninety six. The movie cost
(18:19):
about five million dollars to make and only made seven
million dollars at the box office. It's about this group
of siblings that lock their parents in the basement to
prevent a divorce, and then other kids from the neighborhood
get wind of this idea, get wind that their parents
are locked up, and they're like, hey, my parents are
going through something right now. They're struggling and they're always fighting.
We're going to lock them down in the basement too.
(18:41):
It's movies like this with wacky premises that we've been
talking about that just don't happen anymore. Studios don't want
to take risks on dumb ideas anymore, and I know
I'm putting a lot of blame on studios not taking
the risks. I will also say that I think audiences
have become harsher when it comes to things that are
weird and we're so quick to shoot things down if
(19:04):
it's not a level of sophistication. And I'm probably guilty
of doing this from time to time, but sometimes can't
we just have fun while watching a movie. There are
certain movies that I just want dumb things from a premise,
like House arrest It has a dumb premise, but it
also has heart. And maybe that's where some things miss
(19:26):
out on. Is if you're gonna have as ridiculous of
a premise of a group of kids locking their parents
in a basement, you have to have heart. And that's
what this movie did. You have. The lead character played
by Kyle Howard. His name was Grover, which oh Man.
Kyle Howard was some good movie in the nineties. His
character in this movie had a lot of heart. He
(19:46):
was just trying to prevent his parents from divorcing, and
then he also develops feelings for Jennifer Love. Hewitt's character
who she was like my biggest crush in House Arrests
is probably another big reason why I enjoyed this movies
so much. But he had heart. Not only did he
want his parents to get back together, but then he's
also trying to get the girl. He's trying to be
(20:06):
a good brother, trying to be a good friend. There
are a lot of layers here of just having good characters,
which maybe that's the other thing of just movies like
this lacking development in the writing. You gotta write a
good script, especially when it comes to kids' movies, when
it feels like, oh, you can just throw out any idea,
it's all for kids, it doesn't really matter. I just
(20:26):
feel like these types of movies used to try a
lot harder to actually make a good movie. But House
Arrest is right up there. But still it's a good movie.
It's not one of the best movies of the nineties. Again,
we're talking about mid movies here, a great mid movie,
a top tier mid movie. House Arrests from nineteen ninety six,
just what to succeed today. Now we'll get into later
(20:49):
nineties and early two thousand. Office Space was a movie
that barely made its money back in theaters, but it
became a huge hit on VHS and DVD sales and
was really big with cubicle workers. A comedy like Office
Space I just don't think would work because even though
it laid down I would say the foundation for the
(21:11):
Office and other. Not that Office Space was a mockumentary,
but it kind of laid the ground for other workplace comedies.
Not that it was an entirely new concept, but it
was something about it being set in a workplace that
felt familiar but also had a bunch of wacky characters
and had a comedy style that resonated with a lot
(21:31):
of people in hunt in theaters but later through VHS.
And I think it's hard for a comedy like Office
Space and really any comedy to have success now is
because we're also used to short form comedy and office
spaces well. And you really got to lean into watch
the entire movie, because I'm not sure that there are
a lot of just individual bits from Office Space that
(21:53):
I remember thinking being the funniest parts, obviously, like when
they go and break the computer in slow motion, the
soundtrack to this movie, the old guy in this movie.
There are some key moments, but overall, it's the composition
of the movie. It was a movie in the nineties,
like a lot of other comedies, where you put in
that VHS and you watch it from beginning to end
(22:15):
and you just enjoy taking in the entire movie. And
I remember just there's a point in my life where
I just had movies on a loop. Just turning on
a movie felt comforting. We don't really do that anymore
because we're so intentional, and we have this feeling if
we can't be bored at all. If I get up
on a Saturday morning and I don't have a set
thing to watch, I feel like I'm wasting time. And
(22:37):
I can't really scroll through channels anymore and just pick
something random. I had much more freedom in the nineties
to just watch whatever I wanted. Now I feel like
I gotta be watching something new. I gotta start a series,
I gotta watch this movie, I gotta watch that movie.
It just feels like there was a little bit more
just like enjoyment and watching things then, when there was
(22:57):
less to watch, when we didn't have phones to constantly
show us these things coming out and watching short form content,
there was more intention to sitting down to watch a
comedy that, like with office space, you could just sit
down and enjoy it and be free of distraction. I
think that's why comedies also have a problem now, and
(23:18):
really all movies, is because it's so hard just to
keep your attention if you're not going to see it
in theaters. You're looking at your phone, you're talking to
your smart device. They are all these distractions that don't
allow us to focus in, and a movie like Office
Space does still require your attention. So it is hard
for a movie like this to succeed by today's standards
(23:41):
and go on to be as big of a hit
as it is, as much of a staple as it
is now because we just don't have the attention span
for a movie like Office Space with its dry comedy
and workplace humor. So that is sad man to think
a movie like Office Space wouldn't work by today's standards
is really said, I'm about to go watch all these
movies after this, just to feel my knee, to go
(24:04):
back to the nineties. Moving out of the nineties. Two
thousand and one, Saving Silverman was a comedy that came
out and got pretty bad reviews. It only made twenty
six million dollars against a budget of twenty two million dollars.
And I pulled an old review for Saving Silverman that
was also published in two thousand and one. This review
(24:25):
comes to us from a guy named Ryan Buell published
it on three twenty two, two thousand and one on
Penn State's website. So I think he was a movie
reviewer for Penn State back in the two thousands, and
I was like, Man, I just like going back and
reading old reviews right when the movie came out, because
I do believe Saving Silverman is a great mid movie,
(24:46):
an underrated comedy with Jason Biggs, Jack Black Steves on
about them trying to save their friend Silverman from making
a bad mistake and marrying a girl that they can't stand.
So here is a review from two two thousand and one,
Saving Silverman is nothing but a washed up PG thirteen
to want to b version of their Something About Mary.
(25:07):
The grow test jokes and sexual humor just don't work.
The sad thing about today's society is that anyone can
get away with ripping off a movie. More than likely,
Silverman will do well at the box office, but in
a few years no one will remember it. However, Columbia
Pictures isn't trying to make a decent film. It's just
trying to cash in on other gross out comedies such
(25:30):
as There's Something About Mary and American Pie. It looks
to me like the producers took the screenwriter placed them
in a burlap bag and beat them until he came
up with the cinematic piece of crap. But then again,
you get what you pay for. Poor Silverman needs more
than Neil Diamond to be saved from this bomb of
the movie grade D minus. Ryan from two thousand and
(25:54):
one Penn State website went in hard on Saving Silverman.
A couple of things he got wrong, he said, in
a few years, no one will remember it. This was
published in two thousand and one. It is twenty twenty five.
I remember Saving Silverman. I love this movie. A lot
of great scenes in this movie, a lot of physical comedy,
(26:15):
a lot of what makes Jack black Gray a comedy
are in this movie. And it's wild to think that
he's saying that this movie was ripping off There's something
about Mary, which he mentioned it twice in American Pie.
I think that's the connection between Jason Biggs, because looking
back on it now, I think he got that wrong.
I don't think this movie was trying to rip off
(26:35):
those films whatsoever. And I don't even associate this with
being a ripoff movie or trying to be something else.
I feel like Saving Silverman is very uniquely itself and
the only argument he has is that it has Jason
Biggs in both of them. So it just proves to
you how wrong some people can be about a movie's success.
(26:56):
He also said that it was going to do pretty
well at the box off. It did do very well
at the box office, but still it is a movie
that people remember. And this review also allows me to
take a moment and look in inwardly of movies I
have ripped to shreds and think that maybe in twenty
years someone will pull a clip from my podcast and say,
look what this idiot said about this now cult classic.
(27:19):
He said it was dull, he said it lack of imagination.
He said thirty minutes of this movie could have been
cut off. He said it's a wasting your time. You
should only watch it in streaming services. So maybe sometimes
I'll think about that. I'll try to be at times
less harsh on movies that I think other people could
find enjoyment in and think twenty years down the line.
(27:39):
But again, I always speak from the heart. I speak
with my feelings, I speak with my true intentions when
reviewing movies. So hopefully an old review doesn't come back
to bite me in the butt. Like it did for Ryan,
but shout out to Ryan from Penn State in two
thousand and one. Close out the list with a couple
of more from my childhood rounding out the two thousands.
Dude Wear's myke Car in the year two thousand was
(28:02):
actually a pretty successful movie. I would say, pretty big
pivotal roles for both Ashton Kutcher and Sean Williams Scott.
But that movie is so dumb. It very much encompassed
the comedy of the two thousand, which it was right
on that line in ninety ninety two thousand, so maybe
it's still a little bit of the remnants of the
comedy from the nineties. But a movie with such a
(28:24):
premise of two dudes being too stoned and too messed up,
do not remember where they left their car, running into
a group of hot chicks who were undercover spies, going
through a drive through and taunting the box, and all
the crazy characters that the encounter them trying to find
the continuum transfunctioner. It's just such a bizarre movie that
(28:45):
would not succeed today. It would probably be a movie
that I would give a review much like the guy
did from Penn State and say This movie is another
piece of crap, but for the time it worked. Although
I don't think Dude, Whar's My Car is really a
movie that I go back and revisit. I don't partake
in the recreational activities that would probably enhance this movie
(29:06):
and make it funnier, but it is a great mid
movie from the two thousands. And finally from two thousand
and one, Super Troopers, which did not do that well
at the box office, but this movie skyrocketed. I would say,
is one of the most successful DVDs from the two
thousands that spawned a sequel that launched The Broken Lizard
(29:26):
to create their entire cinematic universe to create more movies
like Beer Fest, Slam, and Salmon, which all feature a
lot of the same cast they direct these movies. This
was a movie that was notoriously passed around in middle
school and high schools across America. These guys have become
(29:46):
legends because of this movie. They have made careers out
of this that people, myself included. I've had the guys
from Super Troopers on this podcast to talk about it.
A movie that came out now twenty four years ago,
still has this legac and they're still making new movies.
I enjoyed their last movie, Quasi, which was their first
movie that went directly to streaming. It was on Hulu,
(30:09):
didn't have a traditional theatrical release, so it's interesting to
see them have to navigate that of not having what
they have relied on a lot of their career, of
having titles in their filmography that haven't been the biggest
at drawing a lot of numbers at the box office,
but have developed a cult like following through people watching
(30:32):
them on physical media. You don't have that anymore. So
I would be curious to talk to them again just
to see how they felt after that movie came out
onto streaming and what kind of impact it actually made.
Is it only important that people watch your movie by
any means, whether they're paying for it, whether they're watching
it for free. Do you only want people to consume
(30:54):
your art or do you want to make the money
like you could with physical copies. I mean it's hard
to say no, I don't want to make the money,
but I think there's something to now just having your
product be seen. When you spend so much time making
your art, you just want to get it out to
as many people as possible. Is that worth more now
(31:15):
than having the DVD sales to rely on because you
could just not put it out in theaters and try
to do it the old school way, but then you
get even less people watching it. So that is my list.
There are some other honorable mentions like Baby's Day Out, Beethoved,
Dennis de Menaz, mouse Hunt, even though that was a
pretty successful movie at the box office. But movies like
(31:35):
Richie Rich Dudley Do Right, or really every Earnest movie
Ernest Scared Stupid in particular, those movies would not succeed
by today's standards. I'll come back and give my spoiler
free review of Mickey seventeen. Let's get into it now.
A spoiler free movie review of Mickey seventeen. This movie
(31:56):
has nothing to do with Disney, not that Mickey different
Mickey much more disturbing Mickey in a way. It is
the new film from Bong June Hoe, his first movie
since Parasite. Much anticipated in this room because man, I've
been waiting for this movie to come out for so long.
It's been delayed. It took forever just to get made,
but it is here. You have Robert Pattinson, who plays inexpendable.
(32:19):
He is a guy who is down on his luck,
has a really bad financial investment with a dude who
really screws him over, so his way to get out
of it. It takes place in the year twenty fifty four.
I believe he can go to this planet and become
inexpendable who doesn't really know what he's signing up for.
But essentially they're going to make him do a bunch
of harmful experiments and he dies time and time again.
(32:42):
His entire conscience and memories are uploaded on this hard drive,
so that every time he dies, a version of himself
actually comes back with those memories intact. So it's not
just them reprinting an entirely new human that looks like him.
It pretty much resembles him in every way. Each version
is a little bit different, has a slightly different personality,
but at the core of it, it is still Mickey,
(33:04):
who is kind of dumb but very lovable. And I
think Robert Pattinson doesn't get enough credit for how good
of a character actor he is, especially when it comes
to accents. Mickey seventeen sounds unlike any other character he
has ever done before, so whether it's the Lighthouse, whether
it's good time, even going back to Twilight or Devil
all the Time too. That was another good Robert Pattinson movie.
He just kind of surprises you in these different looks
(33:25):
that he can give you, even doing Bruce Wayne and
The Batman. And there's still some people who can't see
Robert Pattinson as not the vampire guy that was so
long ago. That's so two thousand and eight, everybody. So
this was a movie. Going into it, I thought I
was going to instantly love, no matter what I'll say,
I had a bit of a bias that. Given the director,
(33:47):
who has done some great movies, some of my favorite
movies of all time, I would put Parasite on my
top fifteen, especially of The Last Man. Thinking back, twenty
nineteen is in five years ago. Now that's the last
six years in the past ten years. Probably top ten
for me of my life, probably fifteen or top twenty.
That movie changed me. And Bong June Ho is known
(34:09):
for his sci fi movies. He's known for his more
realistic movies. He is really great at building worlds, and
although this movie is based on a book, it still
feels very original to me. So going into it, he
is a type of director now that I'm gonna have
that bias of like, man, I'm kind of a fanboy.
I'm kind of gonna like anything that he does or
appreciate it. But even with that bias going into it,
(34:31):
I had to warm up to this story because it
felt a lot different than what I was expecting. It
felt different than anything I'd really see in the sci
fi genre, or I would say it took me a
good forty minutes to really settle into it, but once
I was it, which sounds like a lot of time. Normally,
I say, if you don't love a movie by those
first twenty minutes, that you're gonna have a bad time.
(34:53):
It wasn't that I didn't enjoy it in those first
twenty minutes. It was just a lot of world building,
and they kind of hop around in time because what
you see in the trailer actually happens later in the story,
so it kind of goes back and forth of him
already on the planet to how he got to that planet,
and then it kind of leads all back around. So
(35:13):
those first forty minutes, I was just trying to get
used to Robert Pattinson's dialect, the character interactions, and just
trying to get my grasp on the story. But once
I was in about that forty minute mark, I was
totally in. In The movie is about two hours and
ten minutes, but by the end of it, I was
really satisfied. I thought the sci fi elements were fantastic.
(35:34):
Bun June Hoe I feel in this movie took inspiration
from all of his films. One that I really loved
that he drew inspiration from was Okja, which he creates
these very mythical creatures, and there are these animals, these
alien type animals in Mickey seventeen called creepers. I thought
that was amazing and unique, and in a world where
(35:56):
we kind of just keep regurgitating everything sci fi, this
felt fresh to me. Like I said, it is based
on a book, but it feels very much original. And
if you're gonna want to go see something unlike you
haven't seen before, and you don't want to take a
risk on a movie like Mickey seventeen, then you can't
say they're just making remakes, that they're just throwing out
another Star Wars movie. In the sci fi genre, you
(36:18):
gotta check out what is out there. In Bung juneh.
Whether it's this movie where he's drawing inspiration from Okja,
I also saw a lot of inspiration from snow Piercer
in this Maybe it's because it was an ice planet
and also being on a vessel. In this case, it
takes place pretty much entirely on a ship, which sometimes
when movies have limited locations it gets a little bit boring.
(36:39):
But there was a lot of places to explore in
the ship. They go outside a bunch, interacting with the
creepers off and on the ship I thought were great.
And then there were even some Easter eggs from Parasite
in this movie, a little bit of his movie The Host,
So it was kind of him borrowing and being inspired
by himself. And I almost feel like he made Parasite,
(37:01):
which got a lot of critical acclaim, won the Oscar,
and now he is wanting to make movies that he's
always wanted to make and being able to be a
big nerd, which is awesome. I love it when nerds
are filmmakers and are able to create these worlds and
they have a lot of freedom now and what they
are able to do when you are a level of
(37:21):
director that Bon Jun ho is, but also just knows
how to make a great story, knows how to make
characters you root for, which by the end of this
movie you feel for Mickey seventeen and all the crazy
things that he encounters. And even though it's so futuristic
and dystopian, there is some heart there and there's a
lot of comedy in it too, which I feel could
turn some people off. Mark Ruffalo's character is a very
(37:44):
eccentric one, and some of that stuff I could see
people thinking like, Oh, this is kind of dumb, what
is Mark Ruffalo doing? But I think his character, much
like a lot of Bonk June Hoe's characters, are used
to get a message across which every movie of his
has that overall arching social and moral dilemma. Because this
one does make a big statement on how people can
(38:04):
take over a planet or it could be a country
and kicking out the people who are already there. It
also makes a statement in a more sci fi way,
of human cloning and the morales of that, Like I
started thinking about it, what I sign up for this?
The hard part would be dying, And throughout the entire movie,
they keep asking Mickey, like, what does it feel like
to die. That's what everybody wants to know. And he
(38:25):
struggles with answering that question. Obviously it hurts. He gets
more and more used to it as he gets through
all the numbers, which that is why it's called Mickey seventeen.
They number him each time after he die, so he's
Mickey one, two, three, four, five, and then whenever he
hits seventeen, that is when something goes wrong. And there
are duplicates, and you see this all in the trailer,
(38:45):
so it's not a spoiler, but it's that moral dilemma
of what happens when you have two of these people. Now,
I don't know that I could be inexpendable because, oh man,
some of the things that he is put through and
the pain he must still feel. Because even though you
come back with your memory is intact and it's still
you and you no longer fear dying as much because
you know you're going to come back, you still have
(39:07):
to feel it. And sometimes we don't know how bad
dying hurts because we can't really report back from those people.
He can report back, and he knows the worst ways
to die. But I think I would be open to
them taking all my memories and putting them on a
hard drive. Also in a way, it made that idea
seem a little bit more plausible, like it could happen
(39:28):
and we're not. I don't know if AI becoming so advanced.
I feel like the first step would be like us
putting some kind of chip in our brain where we
can see things and have a computer in our brain.
I think a level after that would be human printing.
I mean, we have three D printing, which whenever that
first started, we were like, what is three D printing?
This sounds so weird and futuristic. But now kids in
like high school are working with three D printers and
(39:51):
building things, and that's become a little bit more normal.
Twenty years we start human printing. Right now we're all like, oh, ay,
i's got to replace everybody. It's good to take all
our jobs. Once AI becomes a little bit more like, oh,
that's the norm. So I don't know, man, But that's
the other message of this movie and moral dilemma where
this movie ranks on my favorite Bong June Hoe films
(40:13):
because I think my Robert Pattinson list is probably different.
And that's a whole other episode I could get into.
But I would say Mickey seventeen is in my top
five now at number five. I would put the Host
at number four. I would put Mickey seventeen at number three.
I would put Okja at number two. I would put
snow Piercer with Chris Evans, which is fantastic, and at
(40:33):
number one, I would put Parasite. If you aren't familiar
with his work and go see Mickey seventeen or planning
to see it down the line and just want to
get ahead of it, I would say start in that
reverse order. I would say start with Parasite, because I
feel that it is the one, even though it's in subtitles,
which I love what he said whenever he won the
Oscar for that movie, saying that one inch barrier that
(40:54):
people can't get over, I get over it. You'll be
exposed to a whole new world of films if you
can just get over that one inch barrier and watch
movies that aren't in your language. So aside from that,
I think it's the most widely recepted of all of
his movies, and the one you can dive into and
enjoy because the story in that movie is really powerful.
It is so well done, shot beautifully. There's nothing bad
(41:18):
I would say about Parasite. It is a rare five
out of five movie in my opinion. Snow Piercer has
a little bit more action also, so has that moral
dilemma of like social statuses. Oh, those both are really good.
I still say start with Parasite, then go to snow Piercer,
and then Oakja is a little bit more sci fi,
a little bit more fun and comical, and then Mickey
(41:40):
seventeen is kind of right in between there too. It
has a great deal of sci fi, has some comedy
in it as well, and then has I wouldn't say
a horror aspect to it, but there are some bloody
and violent scenes here and there. And then The Host,
I believe is just the all out great horror movie.
So those are my top five of his movies. The
sad part about this, even though the movie was No.
One at the box office making nineteen million dollars, it
(42:03):
had one hundred and eighteen million dollar budget. And that
was the sad part is we went to the movie
on a Saturday and I hadn't seen the theater this
empty in a while. We got in line for snacks
and there was nobody there. We got into a theater,
which normally when we go see a movie on opening
weekend it's pretty full. There were so many empty seats.
(42:24):
I think I counted there's probably four other people on
our row, maybe another four people on the row ahead
of us, and that was it. This felt like a
really slow time at the box office, so it's gonna
have a really hard time making that money back. It
must feel kind of weird to have the number one
movie in the country but only have made nineteen million dollars.
(42:46):
Like before at a time where it was like when
you're number one, you're making one hundred million dollars or
even like fifty million dollars. To make nineteen million dollars,
it's like, oh man, we're number one, but who are
we going to make any money off of this? But
I'm still rooting for it. I think Robert Pattinson gives
a really great performance, maybe not his best performance of
all time, but it's an entirely different look, so he's
(43:08):
taken some risks there. I love it when an actor
takes risks and do things that require them to act.
Steven Ewen was also great in this. For Mickey seventeen,
I give it four out of five expendables. It's time
to head down to movie Mike Trailer Paul another week
(43:29):
and time to talk about another A twenty four movie
coming out. I'm not trying to be a A twenty four fanboy,
but when it comes to original ideas, interesting concepts, great trailers,
A twenty four is right there at the top of
the list. When it comes to just movies that I
never thought could be made. Sometimes I didn't know I
(43:53):
wanted these movies. Death of a Unicorn, which you're about
to talk about, is one of those movies. I'd say
it's right up there with A twenty a neon that
those are the studios that I look to when I
want something that's not super mainstream, even though I feel
like those studios now are becoming mainstream because they are bigger.
They do have movies in a lot of theaters at
(44:13):
any given time, but still, compare to your universals, your disneys,
they are on a much smaller scale. But a couple
of parallels here because also Paul Rudd is in this movie,
Will poultr is in this movie. We've talked about them
both recently in two different A twenty four movies. Paul Rudd.
He's gonna be in that Tim Robinson movie Friendship. Will
(44:34):
Poulter was just talking about last week. He's gonna be
in Warfare. This one stars Paul Rudd Jenna Ortiga. They
play a father and daughter duo. It is a horror comedy.
They get caught between a retreat with a billionaire boss
played by Richard E. Grant, and then this mythical unicorn
(44:54):
appears that could be well, the key to living longer,
the key to all these diseases, the cure to cancer,
even eternal life. But then it brings up this moral dilemma.
If you kill this unicorn and harvest it for parts,
are you an evil person? It looks like Paul Rudd
and Jenna Ortega are going to try and stop the
(45:16):
unicorn from dying from being harvested for parts. But it
also looks like this unicorn isn't gonna go down lightly
and GOODI fight back against the humans. A lot of
thoughts on this trailer. It is pretty unique. But before
I talk about it more, it is coming out soon
on March twenty eighth. Here is just a little bit
of the death of a Unicorn trailer. Unicorns used to
be seen these divine monsters because people fully believe that
(45:38):
they could heald it early anything, it's an opportunity, but immortality,
we have a moral imperative to harvest every last one.
You're gonna kill her, don't called it. There's no negotiating
(46:06):
with monsters. So that is the premise. I think this
is going to make a statement on why we as
humans can't have nice things, because if you have something nice,
like a unicorn, you're gonna have people who want to
exploit it. You're gonna have those who want to harvest
it for parts and make money off this thing, especially
(46:29):
if it's the cure for cancer, the key to eternal life.
This is why we can't have nice things. If there
were actual unicorns in the world, or any mythical creature
for that matter, we would try to find a way
to harvest its parts. You see this right now. That's
why we have endangered species because we can't be trusted
as humans, we can't have nice things. So I think
(46:50):
that's gonna be the message here. Obviously, it is a
very wild premise. If you watch this trailer, there are
moments that it feels like Jurassic Park, and instead of
the t Rex. You have the unicorn because there's a
moment where Paul Rudd is running by this car and
he's kind of looking overneath it. There are a couple
of moments you have the scene whenever Paul Rudd is
(47:12):
running he hides behind a car. It's at night, and
the unicorn is creeping beside the car, very much like
the t Rex would be breathing into the jeep whenever
they get caught in that situation. In the first Jurassic Park,
you also have Jenna Ortega coming face to face with
the unicorn. I don't think throughout this entire trailer you
see the unicorn in all of its glory, but in
(47:32):
that moment you see its mouth enter the frame. It's
this very just like gnarly snout that looks much like
a t rex's mouth would look with the teeth. It
is growling, looks like it's about to bite her head off,
And that really gives me a lot of vibes of
Jurassic Park as well. So it's almost like you take
Jurassic Park, you remove the dinosaurs, and you add in
(47:55):
the unicorn, which, if you think about the plot of
Jurassic Park, not only the first one, but in the
Lost World, that is essentially kind of what I've been
talking about so far. Is in the first movie, obviously
it was all about getting people to pay to go
see the dinosaurs at the park, and then in the
(48:15):
Lost World you have these people trying to capture the
dinosaurs to be able to use them and exploit them,
and then later down the line of the franchise people
turning them into weapons. So that is the thing about
us as humans is we can't have anything nice. We're
gonna either harvest it for parts or want to use
it in our military. Thinking about other instances where unicorns
(48:38):
have been in movies. In the Harry Potter series, you
see Voldemort drinking the blood of a unicorn, and in
the Harry Potter world that is like the ultimate crime,
killing a unicorn, because that means, well, it could destroy
a kingdom, tarnish the food supply, turn the water to sind.
It puts this curse on anybody who kills a unicorn,
(49:00):
and so you don't want to do that. I really
liked the pairing of Jenna Ortega and Paul Rudd. I
don't think I've watched a bad Jenna Ortaga movie, even
though Beetlejuice Beetlejuice wasn't it was never gonna be as
good as the original. I enjoyed it. A lot of
people riped that movie to shreds. My only thing with
Beetlejuice Beetlejuice is it kind of just came and went.
(49:21):
There was a lot of anticipation because it was a
legacy sequel. I thought the movie itself, the plot was
kind of all over the place. But I found that
movie enjoyable in theaters, and overall I left thinking, Okay,
wasn't a total cash grab. I think the fact that
Tim Burton was still a part of it, and it
still very much felt like a Tim Burton film. It
(49:42):
just felt a little bit too overly polished at times,
and almost like it had a little bit too of
a big studio feel to it. When the first one
felt obviously more novel because it was back in the eighties,
but it almost felt like it was more Tim Burton
being very punk rock and making the first Beetlejuice. This
one just felt like, Okay, we got to check a
(50:03):
lot of boxes. A lot of the special effects weren't
exactly the same. I guess there's just some charm into
the stuff from the eighties not looking as good, So
it was almost like the gloss of a big studio
with more of a budget took away from the heart
and soul of that movie. But overall I enjoyed that.
(50:23):
I just can't recall a Jena Ortega movie that I've
seen and thought, you know, that wasn't very good. I
really liked her in the screen movies. Sad she's not
going to be a part of those anymore. She had
a pretty decent role in X, one of my favorites
of hers, even though it is kind of a dark,
not depressing movie, but not obviously about the brightest. The
(50:44):
subjects to fall Out, which was a movie on Max.
It's about a school shooting and the effects that it
has on the students who were there that day that
weren't injured, but they kind of have to live with
that trauma for the rest of their lives. A pretty
simple story obviously packs a lot of emotion in that,
and she's really good in that. That she's only twenty
two years old, that is wild. She's already been in
(51:06):
so many big movies, has more coming out, and to
think that all of her best movies are probably still
ahead of her. That is wild. Obviously you have Wednesday
on Netflix, which I'm excited for that to come back
this year. And then Paul Rudd. I feel like he's
in that point of his career where he's just doing whatever.
He has the Marvel money. Even though people didn't like
(51:27):
the Last ant Man movie. I enjoyed that movie in theaters.
I have not revisited it since I don't really think
I need to. I thought it was a mid Marvel movie.
I didn't think it was terrible. But now it's came
to conqueror not being a thing anymore, there's not a
reason to revisit that movie. So he has that money,
he has that Marvel bag. I feel like he can
do smaller movies like this and Friendship and kind of
(51:49):
do whatever he wants at this point, which it's a
really big deal for an actor of his caliber to
do a movie like this. Because I heard Nicole Kidman
whenever we went to go see Baby Girl, which is
another a twenty four movie, talking about how it's a
much different set. They are usually longer days because they
have less days to shoot, and when they are there
and rolling, they are trying to get this entire movie
(52:10):
just cranked out. I think Baby Girl was probably filmed
in like a month's time, not altogether, but I think
the total amount of days was probably a month's worth.
I would have to imagine probably the same with the
movie like the Death of Unicorn, but it looks like
it could be fun, hopefully some laughs in there. I
can't wait to see the full reveal of the Unicorn.
(52:30):
I like the fact that they just kind of tease
it up a little bit, much like you would any
other monster movie, even in the first Jurassic Park movies,
where they really just kind of tease you with the
t Rex and you don't really get them until that
third act. So hopefully they have something in store for
us like that. Death of Unicorn is coming out in
theaters on March twenty eighth. And that was this week's
(52:53):
edition of Movie by Framer Bar. You bet it was.
And that's gonna do it for another week here on
the podcast. But before I go, I got to give
my listeners shout out of the week this week. I'm
going over to TikTok. I did post a bonus episode
last week with a full Oscar review. I posted a
clip over on TikTok and this person it was kind
(53:15):
of a nice troll. I've had some mean comments on
TikTok and YouTube primarily, but I'm gonna shout him out anyway.
Maybe I'll shout out a good comment as well. But
Disco Duck on TikTok wrote talking about me, said I
wouldn't trust this character to fix a tuna fish sandwich,
let alone the biggest award show of the year. So
(53:35):
this was in reference of a clip I posted of
me talking about how I could fix the oscars, And
it was just an idea to make the entire show
move a little bit faster, because what was supposed to
be a three hour show turned into an almost four
hour show. And I just said, at a play clock.
As soon as that play clock expires, your film gets
(53:56):
a penalty. If you get too many penalties throughout the
course of the night, the movie behind you gets a
chance to win. And I also felt like they should
have a little bit more discretion on the amounts of
votes that each of these movies get, much like you
would on election night show the percentages of what is leading.
So Disco Duck, I know you're trying to be mean
(54:17):
towards me by saying you wouldn't trust me to fix
you a tuna sandwich. And I know in the clip
I did look ridiculous. I was wearing my tuxedo hoodie
and I was also wearing those straight hoodie over my headphones,
so it looks like I have a giant Spaceballs helmet on,
so disco duck. I know you're trying to troll me,
but that wasn't that bad. And I don't want to
challenge you because I know you'll come out and just
(54:38):
start poking more and more. But I'm okay with that one. Sometimes,
I oh, I just have that anticipation of going to
look at the comments because I'm like, man, I got
to be in the right headspace because you never know,
it's always those negative comments that just kind of stay
with you. Like I can think back to random comments
that I got like months ago, and you're like, man,
those just kind of cut through. But Gray Streak Glass
(55:03):
also commented on this TikTok and said, Mike d thoughts
on the Demi loss sad face and I said, in
that episode, the recap episode, I was sad for I
was really pulling for Demi Moore and the substance as
a whole to win more awards at the Oscars. I
was glad you won the Golden Globe because that was
a big moment for her. The Golden Globe was the
(55:24):
first ever award she won in acting ever, so I
just wanted to see her hold that oscar take it
home for a horror movie. As much as an advocate
as I am for horror movies, modern horror, to prove
to people it is a valid genre and we need
to have more Oscars come to us out of horror movies.
So that is one shout out positive, one shout out negative.
(55:47):
Thank you everybody for listening this week. Hope you return
next week. I hope you a tell a friend, And
until next time, go out and watch good movies and
I will talk to you later.
Hosts And Creators
Bobby Bones
Amy Brown
Lunchbox
Eddie Garcia
Morgan Huelsman
Raymundo
Mike D
Abby Anderson
Scuba Steve
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