Has the superhero genre finally met its kryptonite? This episode pulls no punches as we take aim at the cinematic disappointments that marked 2023, with a particular side-eye at the superhero fatigue that "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" so clearly embodies. We throw down the gauntlet on Marvel's relentless release schedule, debating its toll on even the most die-hard fans. But it's not all doom and gloom; we shine a light on "Across the Spider-Verse" for its breath of fresh air in a stifling year for the industry.
You thought "Barbie" was just child's play? Think again. We strip down the layers of misguided marketing that left us with more than we bargained for, peeling back the political veneer that the trailers carefully concealed. In an era where even the heavyweights like David Fincher stumble, we dissect the disconnect that left "The Killer" in the shadows of his past glory. And as for the legacy sequels like "Indiana Jones 5," we grapple with the question: Are they redefining classics or just riding on nostalgia's coattails?
We wrap things up with a reflective glance at the year's challenges and a hopeful gaze towards the horizon. Despite the stumble of DC films and the waning allure of the big screen, we spot a flicker of hope in the surprising dynamism of "Godzilla Minus One." And as we bid adieu to the year with a mixture of humor and weariness, our anticipation for "Deadpool 3" proves that our love for cinema burns eternal. So join us as we raise a toast to the past and set our sights on the cinematic adventures awaiting us in the new year.
Has the superhero genre finally met its kryptonite? This episode pulls no punches as we take aim at the cinematic disappointments that marked 2023, with a particular side-eye at the superhero fatigue that "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania" so clearly embodies. We throw down the gauntlet on Marvel's relentless release schedule, debating its toll on even the most die-hard fans. But it's not all doom and gloom; we shine a light on "Across the Spider-Verse" for its breath of fresh air in a stifling year for the industry.
You thought "Barbie" was just child's play? Think again. We strip down the layers of misguided marketing that left us with more than we bargained for, peeling back the political veneer that the trailers carefully concealed. In an era where even the heavyweights like David Fincher stumble, we dissect the disconnect that left "The Killer" in the shadows of his past glory. And as for the legacy sequels like "Indiana Jones 5," we grapple with the question: Are they redefining classics or just riding on nostalgia's coattails?
We wrap things up with a reflective glance at the year's challenges and a hopeful gaze towards the horizon. Despite the stumble of DC films and the waning allure of the big screen, we spot a flicker of hope in the surprising dynamism of "Godzilla Minus One." And as we bid adieu to the year with a mixture of humor and weariness, our anticipation for "Deadpool 3" proves that our love for cinema burns eternal. So join us as we raise a toast to the past and set our sights on the cinematic adventures awaiting us in the new year.
Whoo no, we bring on the shit storm. Oh yeah, I actually liked Oppenheimer.
Speaker 2:But what are we All right? Hey everyone, and welcome to another episode of movies worth seeing, movies not worth seeing. Well, on this particular, barrel oh. God, it makes me absolutely fuming this year. It does you need to take a shit or something? What's going on? How?
Speaker 1:appropriate because the contents of this toilet stool looks like the release schedule of 2023.
Speaker 2:God makes my blood, my blood, to the boiling point. I love how, even when you're trying to be angry, you're still not.
Speaker 1:As you can tell, we're doing the polar opposite of the other episode that we actually just finished recording, which was an episode all about the positivity that came out of this year, and so what is the opposite of positive?
Speaker 2:Today's episode is about the worst of 2023. Horrible. They're the movies that made us cringe, the movies that we hated, the movies that we almost walked out of the theater.
Speaker 1:That is assuming I even entered the theater in the first place. A lot of some Well like.
Speaker 2:These are the only ones that I accidentally ended up watching and didn't avoid purely for your Enjoyment, for your entertainment makes my blood boil. This year does. Oh man, I wasn't gonna watch Barbie. There's no way I was gonna watch Barbie if not for this. But I did. I Sacrificed myself, your viewing pleasure, and now you didn't even balance it.
Speaker 1:You didn't even try balancing it out with Oppenheimer, the Yan to the Ying, you know dude, I'm done.
Speaker 2:I'm done with Nolan. Okay, and it turned me off of.
Speaker 1:Nolan, just give it a chance.
Speaker 2:I know what to expect now with Nolan, and I'm just not. I just Just give it one more chance, man, I just give it one more chance. It's no, come on.
Speaker 1:It's a return to form for for Nolan, and they actually Pay attention to sound design and it's actually telling a very compelling sort of like character piece. All right, and it had you know cold war political thrill into it. That was actually engaging.
Speaker 2:It's not. It's not the top movie. Fuck, I can't do three our movies bro I.
Speaker 1:Can't there, is that okay? Well then, you'd have to then include the Martin Scorsese movie into it as well. Three and a half hours, yeah well, I didn't watch that either.
Speaker 2:I should just make a list of movies that I Should have reviewed this year, but I just could not be fucked. Killers of the flower, moon and Oppenheimer definitely on there. Anyway, let's start off the actual list of stuff that we did watch. Okay, you saw this one. I didn't Amp in.
Speaker 1:I have not, no. So yeah, look, I'm just gonna say it up front, I've given up everything. Marvel across the spider-verse was the exception To the robot. I just think it's not just a superhero fatigue or superhero burner, it's more sort of just like movie burnouts in general this year. There's just so much content when, when you have tentpole films after tentpole films not doing so well at the box office, that is what's going to sour the general mood of the average consumer, which again I brought this point up in the positive episode, but here in the I'll just reiterate it it's not just the Marvel fans and the DC fans that are coming to the theaters and making box office monies, it's also the average consumer that's not bought into the whole summer blockbuster thing. They'd like people did not rock up to watch blue beetle, aquaman 2. They don't care anymore.
Speaker 2:They don't care anymore, just don't care.
Speaker 1:We're done Exactly and everyone hated secret invasion. And then just Disney's putting all of their bags into Jonathan Majors and then him turning out to be prosecuted.
Speaker 2:So you know, slow down, modern, you'll have plenty of time to shit on Disney later on.
Speaker 1:But just a super cliff notes introduction to like the amount of topics that we're gonna dive deep, deep into in terms of the General sentiments of the audience and therefore, why 2023 has been such a Falling off a cliff. Hollywood in general, man.
Speaker 2:I just can't believe really like ant-man needs three movies.
Speaker 1:Really. Yeah, it was always the underdog of. Like the MCU, it never was the biggest box office draw and Marvel knew that. So they made it smaller stakes. But then they attached Kang the conqueror into it.
Speaker 2:That's the whole thing for me is like the first ant-man was actually a surprise heat that like I don't think anyone was expecting to be good, but yeah neither did Marvel, I think yeah, no, but I had. Yeah, I'd had the generic Marvel villain that was underdeveloped. But you had all this other cool stuff like a fight scene on a toy train, because both characters are shrunken down or like when they're fighting in this briefcase. That's dropping from the sky while playing the cure, I was like, oh my god, this is unique.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's actually different friend. This is shit. I don't see all the time in these movies and all of that just gets taken away in Ant-Man and the wasp quantum mania and then it amplifies all the worst parts of my. So you've watched it? No, but I watched enough to know what I watched enough like research and shit and looked at reviews in that I wasn't gonna fucking pay money to see this shit. No, you kidding me, I'm fucking so fatigued.
Speaker 2:Yeah the only reason I watched across the spider-verse is because I feel different about the animated stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that was always the exception to the rule, the spider-verse franchise, if we can call it that yeah, well, the first one was amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah and ha ha, because spider-man amazing anyway, good pun there, mr missionary pun pun intended. The superhero movies this year were just some of the laziest shit. Marvel just bombed a lot. She ain't been bombed flash bombed Aquaman to bombed just.
Speaker 1:Movie fatigue, not just a super, I mean accelerated by the whole superhero movement, where James Gunn's is still wanting to develop a whole bunch of DC characters.
Speaker 2:Just give it a break. I think Marvel and DC need to like take like five years, yeah, and just don't produce anything for a while. Well, let us miss you. Let us fucking miss you. We can't miss you if you're always fucking there. Yeah, exactly that the issues like right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you need like a gap between releases, and it's amplified by, like, how Common the episodic series are. It's like there can be one episodic release that's like drag out for months and months and then, after the series ends or before it ends, there's already a, the next movie comes, has come out, and so there's no spacing in between. Because, you know, in between movie releases there's like at the TV series run and, and so it's like you always feel like you're being bombarded with some Marvel content all the time, that you don't feel that absence in between.
Speaker 2:And then, if you let's say you do watch the show, for example, wanda vision. People almost got punished for watching Wanda vision and then watching multi-versa madness because Of all these inconsistencies with the story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then the other side of that is like with the Marvel's where they pretty pretty much made Wanda vision miss Marvel, whatever it's called, the one with Iman Vellani like. But they made like those two series pretty much essential viewing because if you only watched the movies you would be so lost as to who the little girl is and who Monika Rambo was like. That was being Like standing shoulder to shoulder with Brie Larson's character. Are you even gives a fucking? So there's this like really interesting commentary I saw online I missed the Sunday movies where they said we're kind of in a phase now where it's sort of comparable to this right you had in the comic run. They had the death of Superman and that was like the big, big draw for people. That was like the big world-ending events. Worlds came crumbling down because of that and then, after such a big, monumental event, they then tried to recreate that sort of moment with something like, say, maybe Bane breaks Batman's back or something, just something to like up the ante. And the thing is is that comic book numbers have just not been the same since when you have such a big event and like stories since then have only gotten better. There is that, but the sales numbers have just never been the same since, and we're kind of in that phase with the movies.
Speaker 1:After you end off so conclusively with Endgame, which had a decade plus of build-ups and so on, now you end off with such a huge battle and everything. The only times the post-Endgame movie seems to be doing well is if it's something similar in terms of like Avengers scale of like threats, world-ending events. They have to bring back legacy Spider-Man characters to draw people in After you have Endgame, unless it's yet another world-ending events. People don't care to watch the movies that have lower stakes, like I think you brought that point up in Doctor Strange 2, where it's like, now that you have this post-Endgame, why doesn't he just bring in the other Avengers? It's like, how do you get the audience to care about something that's not as serious as like a Thanos, like world-ending, universe-ending events? It's like you can't get us to care about these sorts of things anymore.
Speaker 2:I think most Universal Madness had a whole bunch of issues. That movie was just all over the place and it had some really dumb moments that are meamed to death because of how stupid they are. And I think the problem with Marvel is there's no cohesiveness, there's no feeling that everything is building towards something, and even when it is supposed to be Ant-Man and the Wasp introducing Kang Conqueror. He gets defeated really easily. And then Kang has been mentioned in Loki, and that's about it.
Speaker 1:Well, loki, season 2 seemed to have ended off like Loki's character arc, where now the Kang's are no longer out of the picture. Now, because now Loki is the one that sits at the epicenter of everything, instead of this Kang variant that's called he who Remains, instead of just building up to like Avengers 5 or something. See, the thing is that despite the huge cast of characters that they introduced in phases 1, 2 and 3, there was still a central 3 characters there was Iron man, there was Captain America and there was Thor. That's like the 3 swordsmen, if you will, the Old Guard, and so, yeah, there was that cohesion to it where everyone else was like a supporting character. And you could extend that definition to beyond to say include Black Widow and Hawkeye and the Hulk, the original Six Avengers member. But after that you can't no one can clearly articulate who the central figurehead is for Phase 4 and onwards.
Speaker 2:You could point to Iron man being like the number one Exactly. It was all like his arc in a way. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:But now that he's gone it's almost like Marvel doesn't know who the next central person is meant to be or whoever the central antagonist is going to be now because of in real life court trials and prosecutions, and even if Jonathan Majors wasn't guilty, there still has been a big writing issue where they tried to treat TV series the same as movies, where you kind of have to pace it out differently, though that's the problem. But Kevin Feige was trying to run the productions like as if it was just a film, but it doesn't work like that, though.
Speaker 2:It makes the audience feel like you're doing homework for the movie Exactly Like.
Speaker 1:In order to understand that movie, you needed to have watched this, this and this series. Just to understand something that runs for less than two hours, that's a hard sell.
Speaker 2:Bro, I can't even watch. I struggled to cover like one show. I struggled for time. I can only imagine, you know, families with children and stuff like that. They don't have time to watch all these fricking shows and then go to the cinemas and be like, oh, I know everything, you know, like they just want to take the kids, to shut them up for an hour and a half, two hours and have a fun time. And they can't do that because then the kids are probably like I don't know what's going on and the parents are like I don't know what's going on either. Can't I just watch a fucking movie?
Speaker 1:You know and not have to have you know all these prerequisites in order to understand the premise of this movie. It's like as if we're just jumping in in the midst of an act two. Yeah, again, it's just movie fatigue, and I'll extend that definition to just content fatigue in general, when so much stuff is releasing simultaneously that people still haven't watched, and or they still haven't watched like all the other Disney Plus series, because so much stuff has come out that they've just been back lock and you will burn out just having just staring at your screen for so long. To the point, so much like superhero and sci-fi shows and Star Wars shows are just can't be bothered.
Speaker 2:It takes an hour to work out. Like all right, where do I even start with this shit?
Speaker 1:Oh yes, like it's overwhelming, yeah, and too many cooks in the kitchen as well, like when you have too many. Like TV shows and movies, they are all going to have different show runners and directors, and Marvel is infamous for its secrecy, even amongst its own people, and so when Sam Raimi is doing one thing with this character he doesn't know what sort of transpired in WandaVision. He was only like, given a Cliff Notes version. You're going to start having and we're seeing this take effect now where, beyond the overwork stuff, you're seeing just a lack of cohesion in terms of, like, well, we were going to take this character in that direction, but then this one director sort of took a different direction and now we kind of have to retroactively work with whatever, however, they ended off that character's arc.
Speaker 2:No one has their different visions intact. We got hooked on Multiverse of Madness because Sam Raimi is directing it, so you can expect a Sam Raimi movie. And then we watched him. Well, like, this doesn't feel like a Sam Raimi movie, this just feels like a generic Marvel movie. How'd this happen? And then you go watch Thor and you're like, oh my God, this is a complete Tycho Wattiti disaster. There's movies that do have the director's vision, and then there's other films that the director's vision has clearly been silenced completely.
Speaker 1:Just follow these dot points that we've laid out, these blueprints that we've laid out.
Speaker 2:You're just there to do a job so yeah, they just want these gun for hire directors now to just do what they want, and no one has a creative kind of voice. It's all. They just can't all get on the same page. And it's too many, you know, like you said, too many cooks in the kitchen. But we could talk and shit on Marvel and Disney till 2024, which is only a few days away at the time of this recording.
Speaker 1:Yes, I want to move on In two days.
Speaker 2:I want to move on to another movie that I'd love to talk about, because, as a white male, I'm not really allowed to talk about it. Apparently, according to the internet, you can see where this is going.
Speaker 1:You have the floor, you have the mic. You can see where this is going.
Speaker 2:That is all. That's all I'm allowed to say. The less said the better. Yeah, barbie. It was pretty funny actually releasing the Barbie review this year with my partner because I thought to myself oh well, having a woman on the show also saying that it's shit kind of proves my point that it wasn't just me saying it's shit because I'm a white guy, but it just was a shit movie. It objectively was not a good movie.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the interesting point you raised in your review of it which I didn't consider but it made sense when you said it was that like putting like the politics of society, she's also not just a really likeable character. It's not really any personality traits about her beyond the politics that makes us sort of feel like feel engaged no, everyone's more engaged in Ken and his arc and his story.
Speaker 2:He has more of a change from the start of the movie to the end of the movie. He is more likeable. Ryan Gosling is funny. He doesn't take himself seriously.
Speaker 1:I'm just Ken. So really, barbie just gets pushed to the side in a way, because she's not interesting as a character and what troubles me is that the same examples that we would draw to critique its messaging are also the exact same examples that, like the opposition, draws in support of the movie.
Speaker 2:If the marketing for this movie was honest about what it was, Mission Impossible could have beat this. I feel If people knew it was woke garbage from the trailers, they were very clever with their marketing because they knew we can't show too much on this movie because then people will know what it is. They'll know the piece of shit it is.
Speaker 1:It's an on the nose political commentary that's not even trying to hide it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because because as soon as that movie starts, you know exactly what you're going to get.
Speaker 1:And they liked it and they omitted all that in the trailers.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's too fucking late, because you're already they've already got you in. Yeah, okay, they already hooked you through your kitchen kitchen kitchen bait and switch. You know it was funny. I was in JB Hi-Fi and there was a couple that walked in there and the stupid Barbie DVD was right at the front, Uh-huh. And the woman was like, oh my God, this looks so lovely Like we should. She was checking it out.
Speaker 1:She never knew this, like the whole barbenheimer phenomenon. I don't know, she was like we should watch this together, wouldn't? This be lovely.
Speaker 2:And the guy was just like he didn't even say no, he just like made a grunt and was like, ah, okay. And I was like good call man, good call bro.
Speaker 1:You just got to pick your battles, you don't? You don't need to like explain away like the entire ins and outs of like why you shouldn't just say no and then move on, because you're going to open up a whole can of worms.
Speaker 2:I've never watched a movie that had such a condescending tone to a particular part of the audience. In my whole life I've never seen a movie like that.
Speaker 1:I've had someone say oh well, you need to watch it repeatedly because it's a credit girl. We're moving because it's a credit girl movie. So that's why you didn't understand it the first time. I watched it twice.
Speaker 2:Not willingly.
Speaker 1:There's no ambiguity to the kind of messaging that they're trying to like shove in people.
Speaker 2:That was the worst part was all the bullshit from people online. Just been like you just don't get it, man, you just don't get it.
Speaker 1:Okay, well then explain away then. What is the nuance that we are missing? What is it that we are a totally glossing over? That supposedly our ignorance of the messaging speaks to our biases and our so and so that we are part of the problem because we don't get it. Yeah, the movie is all about you. You're the problem because you're the one that doesn't get it. Ha see, Gotcha, the internet having that gotcha moments thinking they pooned you because you know the internet comments section is Fabulous like that. They think they want an argument, bit You're. They're met with silence.
Speaker 2:Yeah, pretty much so there's no point Glass half full. I do like the Ken song, I would admit that, and I was singing it, I was listening to it, I liked it. Also, there's a heavy use of matchbox 20. The song push and that's a good song too, even though the movie's trying to use it in a way of saying like, oh, because he's a man, he's trying to push her around or whatever. I was like go get fucked. I like matchbox 20. So I don't care. Yeah, lots of horses, I have to say.
Speaker 1:What is with the weird obsession with horses?
Speaker 2:Okay, anyways, the less set up about Bobby, the better, and the other thing about Bobby is now everyone is going to use it as an argument to be like, see, you all say get what go bro, but Bobby did it, bobby did it. And it's like, yeah, because no one knew until it was too late that it was woke. They had already been in the switchboard. And you also had Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's that too.
Speaker 2:And you had an intellectual property that kids are going to want to go see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Bobby is an international figurehead, yeah for sure. Yeah, it's not just an American thing.
Speaker 2:So you can get away with that. We. What's an example? If you made a new Spider-Man animated movie or new Spider-Man movie, people are going to go watch it. Yeah, and even if it's woke, it's probably still going to do well at the box office. The reception won't be good, but it'll probably still do well. They still got your ticket.
Speaker 1:I wonder then if it's a blessing in disguise that with the strikes, that the Actors couldn't go on to those press tours to then push the movie, and so on. Maybe blessing in disguise is not the right time, because by the lack of us hearing anything about barbenheimer is what drove people to watch the movie without any preconceived like bias or knowledge of the contents of the movie and the political messaging of the dual feature releases.
Speaker 1:Well, that was also the thing you had two movies going up against each other that was so Radically different from each other and we didn't know anything about it because of the lack of press tour, with the ongoing strikes For bidding them from, so the only way you could find out what the fuss is about is by watching it. So then, maybe that also contributed to the box office phenomena that we saw, with, like it, grossing over a billion dollars, or something like that. So I think it's a combination of them, omitting the on-the-nose political agenda pushing and also, with the perfect storm of this, the of the strikes going on. That then led to a lack of knowledge about what the movie is really about and the only way to, and also just the intrigue of how do you make a movie about Barbie that is, people were like all right, how's this gonna work?
Speaker 2:I thought it was a musical, I thought it was gonna be a fish out of water story.
Speaker 1:Oh, actually I should have say I thought it was gonna be. It should have been a fish out of water story about the Misadventures of Barbie and Ken discovering Southern California. Like well, what the hell's this roller-skating? And it should have just been that, and then that's it, and that would have been serviceable.
Speaker 2:That's the other thing is, yeah, you get away from all the politics stuff and just look at it for the way the story unfolds and you're like this movie is trying to do so much all at once. It's going in so many different directions. I'm like I can't like Just pick one lane and we could have a movie here. It's trying to say too much, you know, and it's not entertaining about how it's trying to convey its message at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm just.
Speaker 2:Ken is I guess an exception, but well, that's why that's a highlight of the movie is because it's the most entertaining part, because it's getting across the characters, motivations and struggles through the musical and there's like all this fun visual imagery. You got the guys like fighting each other but water guns and shit and it's fun and funny. But that's the only part. The rest of the movie, there's none of that the other Musical scores were not as memorable.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I only remember the. I'm just Ken.
Speaker 2:And yeah, they had other choreographed songs in there, but I don't remember any of them the only other one was the part that's the catalyst, where Everyone's just like happy, go lucky, like oh, baby, cool day. Yeah, I'm putting my shoes on the water doesn't work, but oh well, I'm still having a show. And then it goes like that for ages and ages, before the moment where Barby's just like hey, does anyone ever think about dying?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, that was pretty funny. Yeah yeah, that was out of left field.
Speaker 2:What? All right. Moving on the killer I felt the killer was just disappointing in slow burn, very, very fucking slow movie. Such a slow movie in the worst part. Another movie where everyone else was like you just don't get it, man, when you're watching him. Just sit there. It's a metaphor, man, I'm like I don't give a fuck.
Speaker 1:You clearly don't understand the deeper meaning behind Michael fast bender sitting butt naked in the shower and are seeing his butt crack through foggy.
Speaker 2:Doesn't actually happen, right.
Speaker 1:No, doesn't that make the cut or something? Isn't there a shot of him like in the shower, just like sitting butt naked or something in this and then that's. You don't see his ass or anything. No, I'm saying through the foggy like shower, lots of shots of like Michael fast bender just staring at shit.
Speaker 2:That's like the whole fucking movie. Okay, whether it's in a shower while he's taking a dump, whatever the fuck he's doing listening to music, there's just a lot of staring. Look, michael fast bend is amazing. He's a great actor. His performance in this, in the killer, is fantastic. Nothing wrong with it when you see him. I even said my review. I was like actors would will study his performance in a movie like the killer. I'm sad that that doesn't mean the killer is a good movie.
Speaker 1:I haven't watched the movie but I guess my counterpoint would be okay regarding your comment about actors Is looking into his performance. Is that a Michael fast bender thing or is that just an editing thing where they employing the whole cooler Shove effect? Do you know the whole? Like you have a shot of a man staring, then a cutaway to something pleasing like Mother with children, then cut back to him smiling.
Speaker 2:So not cool a shove effect, no, no, because it's the exact opposite. The shots are lingering. But he's just staring at stuff fast bender while there's voice over narration. Okay, maybe through the voice over narration.
Speaker 1:But what if they, like, took those same shots and then did a cutaway to like an ice cream cone or something? They don't do that?
Speaker 2:They don't cut away to anything.
Speaker 1:Oh, it's just just him, it's just okay, all right, fair enough then.
Speaker 2:right sure, despite that his acting is very interesting and engaging and there was moments where I was like holy shit, michael fast bend is doing that single tear thing or Just stuff with his eyes where you can see the whole story through just his eyes and it's incredible to watch. It's just a shame that there's not enough going on in the movie for me to actually care. Yeah, it was dull, bland and boring. I felt like I was playing a Mortal Kombat like test your mind minigame and I just couldn't do it. It actually took me multiple tries to get through the whole movie because I kept falling asleep. It just reminded me of better films from David Fincher that I. I watched seven the other day and when I started watching it, even though I've seen seven multiple times, I still just Could not look away. Even though I know how it's going to end and I know every little step of the film, I can't help but watch it.
Speaker 1:It's just it's the world building, it's the theme, it's the characters yeah, the detective duos yeah, it's the backdrop of it all. It's the religious undertone as well. The seven deadly sins, the opaqueness of the identity behind the mastermind, behind it all it's all these things that come together to make for an engaging watch that keeps you going forward and it's building towards this mystery.
Speaker 2:You want to find out who the killer is, why they're doing this, what the fuck is their story? There's so much that you're intrigued by.
Speaker 1:It's a constant raining. You know it's criminal underworld, yeah, man, so see no rays of sunshine.
Speaker 2:Even as we're. As I was talking about the killer, we got off tangent onto seven and now I'm like stuck talking about seven because I'm like, oh my God, that movie is so much more interesting. Can we just talk about seven? And when did that movie?
Speaker 1:come out.
Speaker 2:Bro. That movie came out the year I was born. And it looks like it could have came out today If not for the fact that, obviously, morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt have aged. That movie looks like it could have came out today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just when that movies took their time to for, in terms of world building, that film timeless looked nothing like anything else that came out that year.
Speaker 2:If you go back and look at what movies looked like in 1995, you would not think that was released in the same year. It was just so ahead of the curve.
Speaker 1:You're talking about the visual aesthetic of the movie. Yeah, okay. Well, what about, like thematically?
Speaker 2:as well, was it?
Speaker 1:also just like wow, like groundbreaking in terms of like, how dark it got.
Speaker 2:Everything about it. How dark it was. Religious undertones you know the themes and credibly fucked up. Some of the situations were the shock ending. Oh, yes, it was without flat out showing the gore, but alluding to the gore. Fuck him for nominal movie. If you haven't seen seven, go watch seven. Don't watch the killer, watch seven and then watch every other movie David Fincher's done except for this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh God, it's much more interesting, it's much more engaging talking about seven and all of its intricacies than the killer then yeah. Oh, dude, I can talk about seven for ages, yeah, but the lack of passion. In talking about the killer's monotony, it just goes to demonstrate just how much of a fall from grace it is. In like his filmography, you know, it's just like.
Speaker 2:It's kind of making me think, right. So like in seven, for example, have you seen seven? Yeah, yeah, okay, all right, great. So, for example, in seven they subverting expectations of you know the way an investigation goes right, like how you investigate a serial killer and trying to get inside their mind.
Speaker 1:They sometimes have to not play by the book or whatever the phrase is like doing things by the book.
Speaker 2:You know, yeah, yeah, they have to skirt the lines and like you see them struggle to investigate and find out what this guy's deal is and where he's going to go next. You see that you see them go to the library Morgan Freeman's character and try and find the connections with biblical references and stuff like that. But it's interesting to watch him work it out.
Speaker 1:So yeah, to watch everything unfold and also, you know, just seeing what lines detectors will cross, like smashing through the door and then paying someone to pretend to be an eyewitness, blah, blah, blah, in order to get in without a search warrant. You see, you know, just like we have to get to the bottom of this, no matter what, the everything is just so engaging. It's the layering effect and the fact that we're talking about it in the year 2023.
Speaker 2:still, what's in the box? You know that's in the box.
Speaker 1:And like that infamous scene is everyone seen that one scene, but that's just like a small part of the whole equation.
Speaker 2:That's like there's people that haven't seen the movie and know what I'm talking about. Exactly, that's transcendent.
Speaker 1:That's shocking in it, that's seen a shocking itself. But you are doing yourself a disservice if you don't watch everything that had led up to that moment to really feel the gravity, the culmination of every moving Jigsaw piece that had led up to that moment.
Speaker 2:Maybe the problem with the killer is that David Fincher is so good at his job, he's such a great innovative director that the killer, in comparison Like if it was any other director, I would be like, oh yeah, whatever, it's all right. But because it's David Fincher, I think to myself what the fuck is this?
Speaker 1:shit. Interesting observation. It's the contrast, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's that expectation of that pedigree that you know and love, and the disappointment when you don't get that. That, I think, is what made me so pissed off and negative with the killer.
Speaker 1:I think it's only natural that when you have a movie director that has released something so phenomenal, it's inevitable that their other releases can't stand up to the same amount of love and cult classic status as the biggest work. Like you know, shindless List or Jurassic Park. There has to be that plateau. That's still like more of a passion project and it's not that you can't have every single one of a movie be to the same high. Even Tarantino, you know he's got what 10 movies in his whole life or something.
Speaker 1:He's saying that like his 10th will be his, like very last or something like that. But like you can't accept, I expect all 10 of those movie to be of the exact same. Like high caliber. Some are going to have to take the hit Some are going to have to take the fall. And I think that's where you're saying your disappointment came from that this is one of the lesser like David Fincher movies.
Speaker 2:It would have been a fun experiment to watch that movie, not knowing David Fincher was the director. And see what I thought You're going over the bias that this is a big name movie director. Maybe that is the problem, because it's also the same thing that scares me off of watching the Irishman.
Speaker 1:Killers of the Flower.
Speaker 2:Moon is. I hold Martin Scorsese in such a high regard that I don't want to see this down for when their hearts not in it or they're just too fucking in a twilight of his in his late 80s or something. Or they're just too stuck up their own ass to realize that not every fucking thing they do is going to be brilliant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that hesitation to watch, like the later movies, which is something that I think is also what happened with Indiana Jones 5. If we were to transition to talking about that movie, everyone thought to themselves James Mayn, god's directing it.
Speaker 2:It'll be good. He did, logan, he's a good director. And no, that's not what happened.
Speaker 1:I had my skepticism. Still, what was your skepticism? Despite knowing that he's an accomplished director, it's still the circumstance, the reality that this was a character that we did not need to see his story continue onwards. When you end off a timeless trilogy with the shot of the four horsemen riding into the sunset, you don't need to see and this is an overall, bigger Disney problem. That also happened with Luke Skywalker, where we are now seeing legacy characters as a shell of their former selves. We don't see them go out in a blaze of glory. We're now witnessing these characters live out the rest of their mortal life as a shriveled old man who's past their prime and can't seem to do as much and has become a bit more jaded. We don't want to see our beloved character now become senile and be going against their past ideals when they were more youthful. We don't want to see that. That's just tapering off.
Speaker 2:We also don't want to see other characters just shit on them, yeah, especially when they're meant to be characters that we like, like his God daughter, whatever the fuck she was. We don't want to see her just put shit on him the whole time Because you're old and because you're a man and this and that it's like that's the only way you want to go see. When you see Indiana Jones, maybe you can subvert expectations with the character. You can reboot the character, like Batman or James Bond. We saw that, we can see now Royale, we saw that with Batman Begins. But you can't do this thing where and I guess the problem is with Indiana Jones is that he's synonymous with Harrison Ford, so you can't just get a new actor to play Indiana Jones. That's not going to work either as a reboot or a retelling it worked for.
Speaker 1:I guess it worked for Mad Max few road with Tom Hardy. It actually yeah. A retelling of the same character, the same lore. But yes, that's not exactly applicable to Indiana Jones, as you said, because of just how synonymous Harrison Ford is with Indiana Jones, where the two are pretty much like blurring together.
Speaker 2:But with Mad Max at least you had George Miller returning, so you had the original voice. Yeah, that's true, yeah, yeah, he's DNA and his philosophy you could tell that with Mad Max Fury Road it was almost like this is what George Miller wanted to do with the old Mad Max films, but he was limited by the technology and the way that action was filmed and the budget, but when he was given everything, he, he just yeah.
Speaker 1:No instead like after this, no instead of after the film movie or whatever. Like he's just got busy with doing happy feats, so that's that too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he did other stuff, so so you didn't know what to expect. There was such a big jump and the other thing as well, as I think Mad Max three wasn't as good, so it was almost like making up for that, what like.
Speaker 1:Fury Road was making up for three. You're saying yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:Whereas with this, for example if Indiana Jones free of making up for four, yeah, but instead people, people were ready to look past for and be like, yeah, we're just going to ignore Four and pretend that it ended at three, yes, but now they have to ignore two movies.
Speaker 1:Oh wow, it's a. It was a gamble they tried to take and it's failed as well.
Speaker 2:It didn't feel like they were going in trying to address issues that were done with four. If anything, they doubled down on what made it so bad? Man, oh why?
Speaker 1:And, like Harrison Ford, is not going to get any younger, and it's impossible to recast someone that capture the Harrison Ford persona in Indiana Jones.
Speaker 2:So, oh, my God. It's just make you say GI and just yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess. But there's the Harrison Ford effect. So like, okay, they should have maybe to cut their loss and end off with four as much of a black sheep as that is. But now the consequence is just even more dire than if they had just left it alone. Left it well enough alone.
Speaker 2:I mean, I guess at least if you had just done a John Wick four and just ended it and been like, yeah, he's gone, at least people would have been like, well, at least I had the balls to fucking kill him off and just be like, no, we're not going to do anymore, that's it.
Speaker 1:And in stark contrast to just like book ending a character. Well, this year we can finally say goodbye to a decade long franchise, which is the DC extended universe. Just to briefly touch on that, you know good read. Good readings to that. The less said the better about those again.
Speaker 2:Wait a minute, so we're not going to get a blue beetle to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyways, yeah. So about the death of the DC? No, no, look man, it was just the perfect storm of everything that could go wrong. Going wrong which you know the whole content fatigue, the, the prosecution of Amber, heard, the disinterest in anything that's not Batman and just just streaming shows everywhere, People knowing that James Gunn is going to take over for a new revitalization.
Speaker 2:I find it interesting that back girl got cancelled, but then they kept going with the flash.
Speaker 1:Why did they double down on that?
Speaker 2:It just makes me feel like what the hell did back girl do to be cancelled? But the flash wasn't? Yeah, like I legit feel like Ezra Miller could have killed someone and they still would have been. Like we're still going to release it. This red carpet is as red as the blood of your victims.
Speaker 1:Oh man, why did the flash Shazam 2 and Aquaman 2 need to come out? Well, it's because it's kind of a case of the horses left the barn, and so it's like they've already too deep into filming, into production, that it's just like it has to be thrown out, to be dead on arrival. It had to be something that they've already invested too much into it to just shelve. But then again, yes, again, good point Back girl. Why did they shelve that? But then continue on with releasing these three as DOA releases.
Speaker 2:At least with back girl. It would have been a different character and we didn't. We wouldn't have known what to expect. Shazam 2, Aquaman 2 and the flash they were all characters from other movies or their sequels. So we knew what we were getting. I think, maybe they didn't want to take the gamble of. It's a new character that people aren't familiar with.
Speaker 2:Okay, again, this is against the backdrop of James Gunn rebooting everything, Because not only did the Flash, have the Flash, but you also had Michael Caden's Batman Returning, which was the big selling point for most people.
Speaker 1:The only selling point. Like Luke Aegis, our friend Luke Aegis, who was in the Scream review, he had no idea he is categorized under the general consumer who's not into the whole superhero movie at all. He had no idea the Flash was coming out and he was like we're talking about people who don't care at all the whole news about Michael Caden coming back and stuff, and it's those audiences that DC and Marvel is missing out on. You just can't get people to care about. Even if you're trying to get nostalgia back from like legacy characters that came from like four decades ago, people just have not shown up. It just it despised the cameos from Michael Caden and George Clooney as well. So you just can't get audiences to care about it anymore. Apart from just the criminal charges of the main star, no one cares about movies in general nowadays, which is a really bad sign of as to the health the states of Hollywood in general. You know.
Speaker 2:The test for me was I said to my brothers who are older than me, who grew up like they were kids, when Michael Caden, batman, came out. I said to them Michael Caden is in the new Flash movie as Batman, he's back and they were like why. They were like why I don't get it what the fuck?
Speaker 1:There's either like indifference or just the whole why aspects Like why bring back like decades or legacy characters? So they had everything working against it. Yeah, it wasn't like no Spider-Man, no way home, where people were felt the excitement to bring back those characters. It felt this was the opposite.
Speaker 1:It felt like desperation, desperation, yes, just throw in some like cheap lines from like how much do you weigh? And it's like let's you want to get nuts, let's get nuts. Instead of it being a crowd pleaser moment, it was just maybe met with a that felt obligatory. It felt like he was phoning it in just trying to do nostalgia bait.
Speaker 1:So yeah, it was indifference or hesitation. It did not feel earned and people just are not going to the cinemas anymore. And I had a watershed moment where the only good Marvel thing to come out apart from Loki season two and the what if? Season two is like with the Guardians three, where it's just like I know it's good, like it was the only good thing to come Marvel stuff to come out this year, but because of the burner I just did not feel compelled to watch it. So just 2023 in general, it just it just gave up on watching movies to be honest, I thought you were going to say I gave up on live.
Speaker 1:But yeah, general audience has given up on the Hollywood machine which is you know the backdrop of why we had flops after flops of all these 10 pole movies.
Speaker 1:That's all it takes for the general consumer sentiments to really go down in the dumps. And so, leading into 2024, with the sag strikes and stuff, it's going to be a drought of content. So hopefully the lack of releases in 2024 is going to give Hollywood that reset, maybe a sort of blank slate, but then it's going to. I just feel it's going to be a repeat of 2020 COVID, where the lack of content will then convince executives to then overproduce for 2025 onwards, which then would lead to more news articles about overworked film staff and so on, and then we're going to be back to the same old song and dance again. So, just to end off this round of negativity, we had bad movies, which against us a very sour year. If we want to get even more depressed, we could go into the economy, recessions and stuff, but 2023 is not a good year for movies, for the Hollywood industry in general.
Speaker 2:Well, on that note, on that happy note, I'm going to watch Godzilla minus one.
Speaker 1:So that is really good. Okay, I will admit there's light at the end of the tunnel. I will give it that.
Speaker 2:I think that we need to step away from American movies and branch out more, and that might be the secret. Because when I was looking at, that Rotten.
Speaker 2:Tomatoes Top 100,. A lot of those movies were international, like different countries, so it made me think maybe the American cinema is just in a real bad state right now. But this represents an opportunity for the other countries to avoid those pitfalls by not going down those routes of political virtue signaling and superhero shit and tired franchises being resurrected because they don't have those franchises to rely on. So they have to be more creative, which ends up creating better content in the new year.
Speaker 1:Yeah so maybe the strikes leading to a drought of content is a good thing. It's going to give Hollywood time to a bit of reassessment, because it's been stuck in a feedback loop of just like overproduction, overworked stuff, unhappy working conditions and just revitalizing of franchises that nobody wants we need to look at this year as a giant wake up call to Hollywood.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and be hopeful that it took a couple of years but it is catching up to them and that is how I'm looking into 2024. But we are definitely going to look at like movies coming out in 2024 or the lack of movies which breath of fresh air.
Speaker 1:I'm looking forward to the lack of movies in 2024 because it gives that gap, give us the time to catch up. Yes well, not just to catch up, but also the absence makes the heart grow fonder. Give us time to miss stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, man, so that is the worst movies of 2023 covered. If you enjoyed the show, please like, share and subscribe and leave us a review. If you enjoy the podcast and that is me- guys.
Speaker 1:So ends a sour year and so ends a sour episode. On a sour note, and to wash that taste away from your taste buds, watch the polar opposite, the antithesis of this episode, and I think that corner over there the I icon for good movies of this year, because there actually are positive sun rays at the end of the tunnel. That is 2023, despite all the sag, strides and everything, there were good stuff that came out this year, and when I was saying good as a point of comparison, I'm saying like it was actually phenomenally good, you know. So watch that episode, you'll see what we mean.
Speaker 1:As we try to really put on the poker face of a smile, as we try to keep, as we try to like push down this negative energy that we had in us as we were doing that whole entire episode, because we had a lot to say. As you can tell, that really was our sentiments. Like, yeah, let's smile through the pain that is 2023 and all the crap that came out of that year. And now that we have let out all this negative sentiments, we can release our shoulders. It just feels like a huge weight has been lifted. My heart feels lighter as well.
Speaker 2:So looking forward to less movies. It's like the moment when you admit like you're an alcoholic. It's just good to just let it out. You know I need a shot after that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, he needs to visit the doctors to cure all that. So, happy new year everyone. Happy new, see you whenever. Maybe Deadpool 3, which is slated to be pretty good.
Speaker 2:The outro has gone really fucking long. Just wrap it up, modern.