0:01

Mr. Snow. After

0:04

everything you've seen out there in the

0:06

world, what are the Hunger Games for?

0:20

The Hunger Games, they're to punish the distraughts. Those

0:23

tributes don't have a choice. Your

0:26

role is to turn these children into

0:29

spectacles, not survivors. Da da da da

0:31

da da da daaaaaaa! You

0:34

sound insane. Do you realize that? Oh, yeah. The

0:38

whole world gone crazy!

0:40

Seriously? It's show time.

0:43

That's the plan. It's

0:45

the return to Panem. Panem? Pan

0:50

America? I

0:52

can call this whole Pan Pam thing. That's

0:55

great. That's great. Thanks. I was confused. So

0:59

you can give us some insight on this. We're

1:03

talking The Hunger Games, the ballad

1:06

of songbirds and snakes. That

1:09

would fit real well, I feel like, with Rise

1:11

of the Dawn of the War

1:13

for the etc. But we'll leave

1:15

it at that. It's the prequel

1:18

to a very successful franchise. One

1:20

of the more successful franchises of the Mad

1:22

About Movies era, actually. Which

1:25

is how I think everybody refers

1:27

to this decade. It's the

1:29

golden era of Hollywood. Classic Hollywood,

1:32

the golden era. Peak

1:35

TV era. Peak TV and

1:37

then Mad About Movies era.

1:41

I'm Brian Gill, joined as always by

1:43

Kit Garrison and Richard Barden. My lovely

1:45

co-hosts, boys. Good to be

1:47

here. Good to talk to you guys. Hope

1:50

you guys had an enjoyable Thanksgiving break and such. Listeners,

1:53

you as well. If you're in Canada, hope

1:55

you had a nice week last week. You

2:00

guys big Thanksgiving guys Number

2:02

one holiday for me. Bye. Bye the way.

2:04

I like yeah, I like I like Thanksgiving

2:07

I'm a Christmas guy over overall, but I

2:09

like Thanksgiving the thing with Thanksgiving for me

2:11

That's a little a little much is

2:13

it's a lot of People

2:16

it's a lot of gatherings in a short period of

2:18

time. I feel like for me at least This

2:20

is this may be a little bit unique to me given

2:23

my job schedule and everything like that, but Christmas

2:27

Gatherings and whatnot are are more

2:29

spread out. So like Thanksgiving week

2:32

one of the reasons we didn't record last week was

2:34

I Literally had Wednesday

2:36

night off. That was it every other night

2:39

like Friday night through the

2:41

Sunday night after Thanksgiving I was

2:44

I had something every single night and Wednesday nights

2:46

usually like my my prep

2:48

night for Getting stuff ready

2:50

for Thanksgiving meals and all that kind of stuff.

2:52

So Super super slammed

2:54

and then Christmas. It's like it's the same

2:57

a number of activities probably in gatherings whatnot

2:59

But it's just it's spread out over two

3:01

and a half weeks instead of one week

3:03

or whatever So but I dig

3:05

the concept you guys have a good good week. Yeah I

3:09

don't know where you guys were on Thanksgiving, but

3:11

I know where you weren't and

3:13

that was seeing wish I Thought

3:16

I wish the day after Thanksgiving. Oh, yeah, you did

3:18

one of the one of the one of the ten

3:20

that's on Yeah,

3:23

it had original songs Is

3:27

this a are they

3:29

tired of Getting knocked off

3:31

on wish calm and this is just their

3:34

way to combat that Jets

3:38

scenario Maybe

3:40

so you take Google Disney frozen, you

3:42

know, and so now you can't find

3:44

Walt Disney's frozen head So

3:47

now Disney wish ain't

3:49

finding anything on wish calm

3:52

Perfect the good strategy says it made no money. So

3:54

I don't know that it's gonna gonna

3:56

but maybe the news is all the matters Yeah,

3:59

we need to do

4:01

some kind of college course

4:03

on what is going on

4:05

with Disney. And this would be

4:08

an amazing movie to dissect

4:11

why over

4:13

Thanksgiving, it made $30 million. It's

4:17

pretty amazing. It's a bad

4:19

year overall for Disney. I

4:22

believe I saw that the highest grossing movie of 2023 for

4:24

Disney was Avatar, which

4:28

came out last year. So you've

4:30

not done well.

4:33

Wait, what? Say that again? Pretty sure.

4:35

Now, if I'm wrong, somebody can correct

4:37

this. Avatar 2 has

4:39

made like $250-ish million this year, and I believe that was the

4:44

highest grossing movie on

4:47

domestically or when we talk about that. The Little

4:49

Mermaid did well, so it can't have been. Maybe

4:52

it was domestic. I don't know. And here's

4:54

the thing. James Cameron

4:56

still owns that. He just licenses or

4:58

Disney just distributes it. It's not even

5:00

like a Disney production. Right.

5:04

Yeah. It's stuff. Iger

5:08

had a big meeting with the shareholders today, so

5:10

we'll see. But it's going to take a while.

5:12

It's not going to fix itself overnight for sure.

5:14

So there's a lot of things that need to

5:17

be taken care of. We're

5:19

not talking Wish tonight. We are talking this

5:21

Hunger Games prequel. Do you

5:24

guys, let's start here. Do you

5:27

remember the Hunger Games movies? Do you care about the

5:29

Hunger Games? Are they movies you rewatched? I'll start with

5:32

You Can't. Hunger Games Legacy, go.

5:34

They are not movies I have really

5:37

revisited. They're super fun.

5:39

But I have fond memories of

5:42

them. It's not one

5:44

that I was expecting or necessarily

5:47

hoping for another reboot

5:51

of, but here we are. I

5:54

find myself really intrigued by the

5:56

premise and I think of

5:59

all of all but of a lot

6:01

of these young adult

6:04

adaptation franchises this

6:08

is probably my favorite in terms of the

6:10

actual world building or the

6:13

the plot of the hunker games themselves

6:15

the actual games I find pretty

6:18

interesting there's not a lot

6:20

of fantasy element

6:22

to it which I enjoy and

6:24

maybe they try to cram a little bit

6:26

too much of that into

6:28

this to make it fantasy

6:30

versus just I don't

6:33

know dystopian sci-fi

6:35

but I have fond memories of the originals I

6:38

really liked J loss for some reason saw all

6:40

of those in the theater I

6:42

remember seeing every single one of those

6:45

with friends oh yeah it's well more

6:47

the show first one the first

6:50

one came in 12 I think so it was I don't think

6:53

we did the first one I know we did catching

6:55

fire and right and locking J

6:57

locking J ones yeah yeah

7:00

very fond memories of them and Katniss

7:02

and like I said a few

7:04

weeks ago I think Utterson has some things so

7:06

looking back at that I think that's a

7:09

good a good call this though

7:11

I wasn't fond

7:13

of a the idea

7:15

of the reboot but I

7:17

gotta say this cast is way better than the

7:20

original cast in my opinion as

7:22

an ensemble yeah you

7:24

know what's funny like I

7:26

yeah when I re-watch these

7:29

maybe the two weeks or so leading

7:31

up to this movie because

7:33

Cooper had never seen him and he was kind of

7:35

interested in this movie so we watch those by

7:38

the time you get to let me get

7:40

how do you like it was pretty dark for him yeah

7:42

he didn't really dig the first one but I

7:44

was like look if you don't like catching fire

7:47

that's totally if you're out after that one then

7:49

that's totally fine we don't have to watch mocking

7:51

J's but catching fire is like a pretty good

7:54

like legitimately good action movie in

7:56

addition to this kind of entry

7:58

and he really dug that one that kind He's like okay.

8:00

I'm I mean yeah, he was a little bummed out by

8:03

kids killing kids. He's weird. He's kind of soft Yeah

8:08

Yeah, yeah for sure target

8:10

on you But

8:14

but kid by the end of mocking

8:16

Jay There was a point

8:18

where I like turn the Lindsay and I was

8:21

like there's like five Oscar winners on screen right

8:23

now Like it's yeah, I did have Hoffman. Yeah,

8:25

it's they get Philip Seymour

8:27

Hoffman Julianne Moore a mother to us

8:29

all Mahershala Ali and

8:33

Jai and Woody are all on screen

8:35

at one time. You know It's a pretty

8:37

impressive. I think the combo And

8:40

Jeffrey right too. I don't he doesn't have one he

8:42

may get one this year or nomination anyway, but y'all

8:44

Jeffrey Wright is great Yeah, he's coming on. I

8:46

think the combo of Zegler

8:49

Viola Davis Dinklage

8:52

and Schwartzman. Awesome. Just

8:54

yeah perfect people every time

8:56

they're on screen. They're awesome.

8:58

I wanted more of them wish

9:01

there was more of them and That's

9:04

probably one of my main complaints in a two and a

9:06

half hour movie way too

9:08

much love story walking

9:11

and talking For me,

9:13

there's so much interesting about this world the

9:15

politics of it The

9:17

reasoning for it that I wanted more maybe

9:20

they want to lean more into the kid

9:23

the PG-13 element like the you

9:26

know high school element of the story rather than

9:29

let's get adults talking and we

9:31

lean into what adults want to see

9:33

what this movie but I Think

9:36

if they did that if there was an

9:38

R rated version of this with Dinklage and

9:40

Viola Davis and everybody I Think

9:43

it would do pretty well Yeah,

9:45

I can see that I can see that it's the

9:47

audience for this old now though like what

9:50

Hunger Games was 2012 That's 11 years ago. So

9:53

if you were 15

9:55

when you saw that sure you're

9:57

probably wanting an R rated one. I don't know if

10:00

they're trying to get a new audience with this. What

10:03

is thinking there? It's interesting. Yeah, I don't

10:05

know. I mean, Suzanne Collins is

10:07

a YA author, so the book is

10:09

YA just as much as this movie

10:12

is. So,

10:15

I mean, that may be some of the deal too.

10:17

Maybe some of it is you want it to fit

10:19

with the vibe of the other movies, because it is

10:21

a franchise or whatever. I kind of, I

10:23

get that too. I'm fine with wearing it

10:25

up. I read the book like

10:27

a couple of weeks ago. I

10:30

had initially said I'm not going to, because I

10:32

just, I didn't think

10:34

Suzanne Collins is a particularly good author. I

10:36

think she's fine, but

10:38

I didn't think, I didn't think

10:40

those books were great. I thought they were a great

10:43

idea and concept and kind of

10:45

middling execution at times. And

10:47

also, my

10:49

wife was really excited when that book came out. She

10:51

was like, she can't wait to read it and got

10:53

it on Audible immediately and all this. And I was

10:55

like, I just, I don't really need the sob

10:58

story on why a terrible

11:01

child-murdering dictator became a child-murdering

11:03

dictator. Like, that's just not

11:06

of any interest to me. I don't really understand

11:09

what the value of this concept is. And

11:12

she kept being like, it's not really that. Like, if

11:14

you read it, you'd understand, I was like, I don't

11:17

really, but I did go ahead and read it

11:19

a couple of weeks ago, because I was out

11:21

of Audible credits and I was just like, it's fine.

11:23

I'll check this out. And she's right. And it did,

11:26

the book does a good job, and you kind of see it in the movie here

11:28

and we'll get into it here in a second, but it's

11:30

not just the sob story about why

11:32

this guy turns into a terrible child-murdering

11:35

dictator. It's more about, he

11:37

was probably always kind of a bad person the

11:40

whole time, and you just kind of see that come out

11:42

more and more throughout the course of the book. I

11:45

don't know if it successfully translates that on

11:47

screen, but that was- What a

11:49

charming actor. Yeah, sure. You

11:51

know? Sure. To his

11:53

credit. It's like, that guy

11:55

did a, like I don't know if he did a good job. Yeah.

11:59

He was good. I think one of my, and then I

12:01

wanna get your general thoughts overall, Arby, and we'll

12:03

go from there. One of my concerns coming into

12:06

this movie was the

12:08

portions of the book where you

12:11

do get a glimpse into this person just

12:13

kind of sucks. Yes, he's had a rough

12:15

childhood, but who hasn't? And he

12:17

sucks. He's a bad person. Most of

12:19

that stuff, those hints at those things

12:21

at the turn of what's going to

12:23

come are like internal monologue kind

12:25

of moments. Him

12:28

being like, there's a moment in the

12:30

book where he expresses,

12:33

internally he's thinking and kind

12:35

of rolling his eyes at

12:37

music in general. He's just like, when are

12:39

they gonna stop playing music? And things

12:42

like that. And it's like, right, but you're quote

12:44

unquote in love with the person whose entire life

12:46

is music. So that's probably

12:48

not gonna go great. Things like that. That

12:52

stuff, a lot of it is, like I said,

12:55

internal monologue or sort of subtly hinted

12:57

at more than just outright here are things that

12:59

he is saying and doing and whatnot. And

13:01

instead, the movie ends up relying on

13:04

kind of like, well, he murdered that one kid who

13:07

was trying to stab him in the

13:09

arena and things like that. So

13:11

I don't know. I don't know how successful they were at

13:13

conveying that. And that was kind of a

13:15

concern I had coming in, that maybe the

13:17

book, readers of the book would have a little

13:19

more context. To kind

13:21

of contextualize why

13:24

this person was – why Snow is a bad

13:26

person from the jump, not just he turns into

13:29

that. And I don't think any of us are

13:31

– like I said, I don't think any

13:33

of us are uber interested anymore if

13:35

we ever were in origin stories

13:37

of how terrible people became terrible people. It's

13:41

just not really super high

13:44

on my list of what I want in a prequel.

13:47

The Star Wars prequel treatment? George

13:49

Lucas, yeah. Yeah, right. Okay,

13:53

you're like Darth Vader? I ain't good to see

13:55

him being a little kid. That's

13:58

how it happened. What was

14:00

your general thoughts on Hunger Games' ballad of

14:02

songbirds and snakes or something? Well, originally I

14:04

remember going to see these, at least a

14:06

couple of them, because they are of the,

14:09

whatever, hundreds of movies that we have seen in

14:11

theaters for this silly little show.

14:15

I think two of the seven my wife

14:17

has joined me on were these. It's

14:20

like this, Gone Girl, a couple others maybe.

14:23

But so I thought, yeah, I've seen these. Cool, I know this

14:25

world, whatever. And then I'm reminded of, when

14:27

I was in college, because of

14:29

my schedule, I had to take, for

14:31

foreign language credit, just because of how it worked out,

14:33

wanting to graduate on time and stuff, I took ASL.

14:38

And we had to memorize

14:40

these kind of speeches in ASL. They

14:43

were like quarterly, you know, as we went through

14:45

each semester. Once a month you have to do

14:47

like, start it off with 30 seconds. By

14:50

the end of the fourth semester, you're doing like 10 minutes. And

14:53

I would basically write a speech and

14:55

then look up the signs for it

14:57

and memorize it like a dance, right?

15:01

Within 30 seconds of walking out of that classroom doing

15:03

it, it was out of my brain. Like I didn't

15:05

know it at all. I don't speak ASL. You

15:09

could spell my name in ASL and I wouldn't remember that.

15:11

That's no insult. I think ASL is an awesome, really interesting

15:13

thing. But for some reason it did not stick. I

15:15

could learn it. I made A's and did fine

15:18

for the test and it was immediately gone. And

15:21

I have not felt that feeling until I

15:23

watched this and I didn't remember any. I

15:25

was so lost. I mean

15:27

not lost. The movie exists on its own and you

15:29

go, like, oh, that's okay.

15:33

I agree, Richard. That's right. I

15:36

felt so lost watching this. Like

15:38

halfway through you're like, oh, that's

15:40

crazy. This is super dense. Like

15:42

the world is so dense and

15:45

that's, it shouldn't be that

15:47

way because it feels very

15:50

simple on the surface. I don't

15:52

know if that's a compliment or an insult

15:54

to this movie that it feels like I

15:58

need to get, when I left this I was like, I need to get this. I

16:00

needed to go do, I need to go

16:02

read all the books to basically understand the context of

16:04

what I just saw. So

16:07

I was a little confused, I mean not confused. Still

16:09

totally fine linear plot that makes sense, but like a lot

16:11

of things they were referencing, I'm sure I missed some stuff,

16:14

but I had to really think through and

16:16

then I deep dive Wikipedia when I came out and

16:18

go oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right, yeah,

16:20

okay, yes, yes. That's right,

16:22

Donald Sutherland is in those. Yeah,

16:25

that's right, yeah, I hated that

16:27

guy. It like came back in

16:29

a weird wave that did

16:31

not come back as I was watching the theater,

16:33

which is my fault, that's not a particular movie.

16:36

All right, Confession Alert, we talk about this, I

16:39

don't like Rachel Ziegler, sorry.

16:42

Man, half the discourse could be real upset at

16:44

you, but that's fine, you already did your check-in

16:46

for this course. Yeah, I said

16:48

sup. At least one third of this

16:50

podcast too. Right, I know. We're not

16:52

on speaking. No, I think probably two

16:54

thirds, right? You guys are team, don't

16:58

get it. I don't know if Brian is currently, but. I

17:01

like her a lot, I do, yeah. I don't think

17:03

she's a movie star. I do. I

17:05

think that she is, I love her

17:07

voice. I liked her voice less

17:09

in this than West Side Story because she's doing the

17:11

kind of southern accent,

17:13

I guess, sort of, which is not

17:16

quite right on

17:18

her, but that's fine, like I'm not Bill

17:20

Simonsing about a Boston accent that doesn't, I

17:22

feel like that's ultra-lover. Yeah, he's doing it,

17:24

totally doing it wrong. It's more like, yeah,

17:26

we're good guys, yeah. So,

17:31

yeah, so, but on the whole,

17:33

I actually, I'm

17:36

not arguing with you, Brian,

17:38

but I found the origin

17:40

of all of this, and not so much the

17:42

origin of the character, I didn't even, that's a

17:44

little Hannah Kinney, but the origin

17:47

of how it all played out and

17:49

what the situation was that caused that

17:51

rise in him to be interesting.

17:55

I did find it interesting. It made me wanna watch the

17:57

other ones again, it really did. So it served that

17:59

purpose. Sure. And I haven't yet, and I

18:01

probably won't. But I want to, and

18:03

that's what it gets. Right. That's

18:06

the important thing here. Yeah,

18:08

that's their call to action. But

18:12

I didn't find her as a compelling sort of

18:14

muse for him or

18:16

foe for him and everything, kind of

18:18

presents. But I did, I found

18:21

him, I found that actor, Tom Blythe, as

18:23

I say it, Blizz, Blithe? Yeah, I think

18:25

so, yeah. Oh, you're all in, like him.

18:28

That's a tough character, I thought he did. He

18:31

did it almost two times, like I said, maybe

18:33

he didn't actually execute the assignment because Suggling's

18:36

so hateable in that role. And

18:38

I found him a little more endearing. And I think

18:40

that's kind of the point, but

18:43

I like him a lot. I mean,

18:45

we have kind of a glut

18:48

of creepy looking dudes. Like

18:52

in a world of dame to hand, do we need this

18:54

guy? But I don't know. But

18:57

maybe we do. But he was

18:59

very good in this and charming and creepy.

19:03

And I haven't thought of dame to hand in

19:05

a long time. And then I was watching the

19:08

GameStop movie last week, Dumb

19:11

Money, and he's like the ninth billed actor in

19:13

that. He popped up, he was an Oppenheimer. We

19:15

talked about him, an Oppenheimer. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I

19:17

know him, that's right. I forgot he was part

19:19

of, so maybe this is his lot in life

19:22

for me personally, is that every

19:24

six to 18 months, he'll pop

19:26

up in a movie and be like, oh right, that guy,

19:28

oh okay, all right. And just go back

19:30

to not remembering him anymore.

19:34

Yeah, to your point, I think

19:36

the thing that this, these

19:38

movies, these books have going for them more

19:41

than anything else, in my opinion, is

19:43

just the world. I think the world's interesting

19:45

and kind of fun. Setting

19:48

aside kids killing kids, there's

19:51

a lot of interesting bits in here

19:54

and how we got to all these things and the

19:56

development. That was the part of the book that I

19:58

found the most interesting was. It's like

20:01

a realistic post-apocalyptic thing with for sure It's

20:03

but without a whole lot of fantasy or

20:05

anything, but it kind of scratches the fantasy

20:07

itch in a weird way Mm-hmm

20:09

because of how like bare bones they have to

20:11

get back to fight back, but it it isn't

20:13

that it doesn't you can I rip out all

20:16

of the no orc right all

20:18

the attempted magic in this of the

20:21

mocking jays and and you

20:23

know basically the Mythology

20:26

of this and just

20:28

at the surface of the class

20:30

dynamic. Yeah, it's great and can

20:32

be Anything they

20:34

want it to be I don't know why that has

20:37

to lean so far into the Kind

20:40

of whimsical nature of this

20:42

it's trying to be too much to be Harry

20:44

Potter or something like that It doesn't

20:46

have to be it could be its own thing or

20:48

Twilight. Yeah, I would I don't see it I

20:51

don't see the Harry Potter connection at all

20:53

because there's no magic here like at all.

20:55

It's all technology so that

20:57

you know, but but yes like Maze

20:59

Runner and On

21:02

down the line of like divergent even

21:04

that kind of like Harry Potter

21:06

in a lot of ways Harry Potter and then

21:08

Twilight I like kind of Brought

21:11

YA into the mainstream in a lot

21:13

of ways or made it a huge

21:15

a much more successful thing

21:18

and then I Think

21:20

a lot more of the books that came

21:22

after were closer tied to Twilight

21:25

and then Hunger Games than they were to Harry

21:27

Potter. There's plenty of Harry Potter knockoffs. Don't get

21:29

me wrong, but Twilight

21:31

for sure. Yeah, but there's a way I

21:33

think there's way more It's like

21:35

you can see the evolution from Harry Potter to

21:38

Twilight to this Sure. Yeah,

21:40

okay. Okay. I can see that. I like

21:43

the mix of like kind of old technology

21:45

with new technology That's always a thing. I

21:47

dig in science fiction and

21:51

Fantasy when fantasy wants to touch on

21:53

I hate steampunk and this Deers,

21:56

I think does a pretty good job of like

21:58

kind of there's like steampunk elements

22:00

but it doesn't really lean into it. It's

22:02

more in this because it's older, right? I

22:05

didn't feel like that in

22:07

the later Hunger Games felt

22:09

futuristic. This feels more steam-punky.

22:12

Right. So this

22:14

is like 65 years before the

22:16

first Hunger Games movie. When

22:19

you get those shots at the Capitol and you see kind of

22:22

stylistically speaking older looking

22:25

cars and some

22:27

of the fashion and whatnot, I

22:29

think I like that. I always like when

22:31

I always enjoy the

22:34

bit of old has become

22:36

new and this is kind of the

22:39

trend on all these things technologically

22:41

and fashion. All that kind of stuff. This thing is pretty

22:43

cool. So I love the world. I think the world is

22:45

really interesting and there's a lot that can be done here

22:47

and it's pretty

22:50

relatively open too, which is cool. And

22:53

I dig all of that. I really like Rachel

22:55

Ziegler. I like her in this role too. I

22:57

like her, like I said, more in West Side

22:59

Story. But I'm – I don't know. I think

23:01

you have the highest stock in – This movie

23:03

was more challenging on her instrument. I

23:06

saw her said that. I was just like – Yeah. I

23:11

saw that she turned this down and they kind

23:13

of came after her a few more times.

23:15

She ended up doing it. I

23:17

wonder why she initially turned this down because it seemed

23:19

– I know she

23:21

attempted to get on the franchise train with

23:23

Shazam and that didn't work

23:25

out. Liked

23:28

her way more in this. This seems way more

23:30

suiting of showing off her talents than

23:32

Shazam would in terms of the songs

23:35

and the acting and the age group

23:38

it's going after, all that kind of

23:40

stuff. Fan base it's going after. I

23:43

mean this is a girl who's done

23:45

what, two movies? Aside

23:47

from that, the last thing she

23:49

had done was her senior

23:51

play production of Shrek the Musical.

23:54

Like she has no experience

23:57

and is only – I

24:00

think she's a real legitimately

24:02

good actress. I thought a lot of

24:05

the scenes of just

24:08

the way she was mistreated, I thought

24:10

she handled that like

24:12

a professional actress did it. And

24:15

not to mention, guys, I think her voice

24:18

is heavenly,

24:21

just like God himself kind of had

24:24

a hand in the vocal cord process kind

24:26

of things. A

24:28

combination of Fergie and Jesus, you're saying?

24:32

Her voice sounds so much like

24:34

Olivia Rodrigo and I didn't realize

24:36

it until this movie. And it's

24:38

funny because Olivia does the soundtrack

24:41

theme song to this movie. She does.

24:44

But yeah, her voices are very similar.

24:46

And Olivia, like you guys know,

24:48

I think she's got a one-of-a-kind

24:50

voice too. You

24:52

stack all that and then the years

24:56

if she gets the right material – I mean she did

24:58

work with Spielberg, but I feel like if

25:01

there's a director who can utilize

25:04

her singing ability and

25:06

just with a little bit of acting, I think

25:09

she's going to have a really strong career. And this is

25:12

just a step in the right

25:14

direction. I'm surprised

25:16

that this is made as much

25:18

as it has because I

25:22

didn't know if people wanted another Hunger Games

25:24

movie. And I thought the

25:26

Rachel Zegler backlash was

25:28

going to affect it way more than it

25:30

has. And I'm happy

25:32

to know that there might not

25:35

be as much backlash as we thought with

25:37

her and the Snow

25:39

White fan backlash and

25:41

all that. That will

25:43

be interesting to see what comes with

25:45

that. We'll see. This game can trigger

25:48

people in weird ways. Both sides, right?

25:50

Right. Yeah, that could be – They

25:52

can, but they were coming after her,

25:55

what she was saying about, oh, here's what the movie is. They

25:57

were coming directly at her. Yeah,

26:00

I just think that's online for – you know

26:02

what I mean? That's just a crime. I'm glad

26:04

it is. I'm glad this movie made money and

26:07

Rachel Zegler can have a career because if

26:09

this had tanked, they would have pointed to

26:12

that. Oh, well, Zegler has tainted – don't

26:15

cast her in your movie because the

26:18

online bros don't like her and they'll make

26:20

sure everything she does fails. Yeah.

26:24

No, I think she's very good. She's very good

26:26

in this. I love – I'm with you on

26:28

the singing especially because she's an incredible singer. I

26:30

just don't think she's a movie star in terms

26:32

of – and that's

26:34

fine because there are not any movie stars,

26:37

so none that are under the age of 70.

26:40

So I'm

26:42

not sure you put her face on a poster and it

26:44

brings people to the theater and that's okay.

26:46

I don't think it's an insult to her. She had

26:48

been in La La Land. I mean, come on. But

26:51

no, I don't think anybody goes to see that movie

26:53

for her on it. Not for her. I mean, some

26:55

do, but not like – not mass audiences. I

26:58

think this is proof that people will go

27:00

see – it's still just – it's the

27:02

property. This was a property win for

27:04

the studio more than the

27:07

faces on the poster. Again,

27:10

that's fine because especially if

27:12

you're a studio, you'll take any win you can get. But

27:16

also this –

27:18

it's made 100 million in two weeks

27:20

basically. I mean, that's

27:22

not going to get Hollywood excited. I mean, it's

27:24

a big win as compared to a lot

27:27

of the other movies that we've seen in 2023. But

27:31

I mean if you go back and you look at the

27:33

box office for these first series of movies, this

27:36

is by far the lowest of

27:39

the four – of the five, excuse me. But

27:42

that's – how

27:45

much of that is the movie? How much of that is

27:47

just like this is the reality of the movie? That's the

27:49

reality. I mean this movie's already made what? $100 million more

27:51

than it costs. It costs 100. It's made 200. That's

27:55

a win in 2023 already. It

27:57

is. It is. It definitely is.

28:00

It's just – it's not like

28:02

a south for the industry.

28:04

That's all I'm saying. Speaking of

28:06

that, why was this two and

28:08

a half hours? Why didn't they split

28:11

this into two? They must have thought this wasn't going

28:13

to make money or were scared. It wasn't going to

28:15

make money because there's clearly enough material

28:17

here and in the book for two

28:19

movies. It felt crammed.

28:21

To me it should have ended when

28:24

Snow gets kind of exiled

28:26

for cheating. He could

28:28

have a whole other movie of him kind of

28:31

in the wilderness and doing that whole bit and

28:34

delusions, all that. It could have been

28:36

a whole other thing. I

28:40

think the main reason they didn't do that is because it was

28:42

such a huge mistake with the last one. Francis

28:45

Lawrence, the director, has said as

28:47

much through the course of this press tour of like

28:49

– if I was making Mockingjay Today, I

28:51

would never in a million years cut it into two movies.

28:53

That was a huge – that was

28:55

a mistake. They made a lot of money out of that two movies.

28:58

But if you – having watched those

29:00

last week or whatever, it's

29:02

one movie. It's one movie that's been cut into two

29:04

parts. You were definitely right, Ken. I felt that I

29:07

watched it or read in the book, I was like

29:09

this is a – this

29:11

might be much, much more geared

29:13

to a two-part movie

29:15

than Mockingjay was. So

29:19

it is a little bit surprising maybe that they

29:21

didn't go that route because it does feel

29:23

like too distinct. Like reading

29:25

the book, Hunger Games ends and I'm like

29:27

geez, I got like eight hours left or

29:30

six hours left on this thing. What are

29:32

we doing for the next six hours?

29:34

Okay, well here we go. It's

29:36

a whole other story that comes into

29:38

play at that point. So you're

29:40

right. Yeah, I think it could have been two movies

29:43

pretty easily, but I think that's just a

29:45

direct result of the last time was

29:48

a mistake. So I'm with you,

29:50

Richard. I thought Tom Blythe was really good.

29:52

I didn't love the slim,

29:54

shady look at the end. That was

29:56

the part that kind of lost me just a little bit,

29:58

just on the look. to look a little, maybe

30:02

intentionally, is looking a little smarmy, but also was just

30:04

kind of looking like, I don't know, does this guy

30:06

turn into the dictator? I'm not really sure that I

30:08

totally buy that, but that's just kind of, that's more

30:11

of a look aesthetic thing than anything else. Performance-wise, I

30:13

thought he was very good, and the two

30:15

of them, I thought, had, it

30:18

wasn't like perfect chemistry,

30:21

but in some ways, I feel like that's

30:23

appropriate for this movie, because it's not a,

30:26

it's not a situation where you would

30:28

develop great chemistry, right? Like, I think

30:31

it fits in, that

30:33

fits with the dynamic

30:35

of these two characters on screen and the way

30:37

that they meet and come together and sort of

30:40

first form an alliance before

30:42

anything else, and how that

30:44

would potentially not necessarily translate

30:46

to some great

30:48

romance or whatever, chemistry-wise.

30:51

I didn't, that wasn't a knock to me. It was

30:53

like kind of a, yeah, that's fine, that fits. It

30:56

fits with what we're doing

30:58

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get started. What

31:55

else? Kayla Davis, always a treat. Kinda

31:57

weird to see her play a full-on,

31:59

really. really bad villain, not

32:01

like the Amanda Waller villain in

32:04

the Suicide Squad movies. She

32:06

was really effectively

32:09

creepy and eccentric and

32:13

I always love – she's one of my favorites. I

32:15

always love Viola Davis. What do you think of her

32:17

turn here, Richard? Really really good and

32:20

insane in a good way. Like they pulled

32:22

it off. High tight rope here, but yeah

32:24

for sure. She was great. You

32:27

mentioned Swartzman Dinklage, this

32:29

whole very well-rounded, respected,

32:31

good acting cast. What

32:34

sticks out to you with this supporting cast here

32:36

with these guys? What makes

32:38

the Swartzman – Swartzman was super fun,

32:41

entertaining. It's

32:44

like sobering watching him do this routine

32:46

while again literally children are dying right

32:49

on the screens in front of them

32:51

and stuff. It's kind of surreal and

32:53

sobering, but he's great in the role

32:56

and on down the list. What sticks out to you? I

32:58

mean the entire dynamic of the hunger,

33:01

get the point of it or at

33:03

least the point from the creator's standpoint

33:05

and in this version of, oh we

33:08

really want to play up the ratings. So

33:11

we're going to be judging on popularity

33:14

and ratings more than we are on

33:16

who actually wins. So

33:20

them having to broadcast that

33:22

is very creepy. I

33:25

wouldn't have thought that

33:27

Swartzman and Stanley Tucci could play off

33:29

each other so well, but there it

33:31

was. I thought

33:33

Swartzman was perfectly cast and

33:36

each generation of what

33:39

he brought was excellent. Couldn't

33:41

have asked for more from the supporting cast.

33:45

I mean Dinklage was great. That

33:49

seemed like a perfect, almost written

33:51

for him. Didn't you write this book

33:53

a few years ago? Did you

33:55

write this book with like, oh we're going to

33:58

cast Peter Dinklage in this role? It

34:00

seems like almost like

34:02

all the dialogue and everything seems like

34:04

perfect for. Dinklage

34:06

and what he that I want to

34:08

Shakespearean kind of delivery that he

34:11

brings. Dinklage is great.

34:15

I was pumped when I saw that when I

34:17

again when I read this book and was like oh that's the

34:19

dinklage character okay that's going to be cuz you're right can look

34:22

it does feel like it was written for him. He

34:24

to me is his character is one

34:26

of the great missus

34:29

of this book and then that a

34:31

little bit in the movie it's there's

34:33

a lot of depth there and it

34:35

kinda gets. It's not even

34:37

the story it's kind of like the the see

34:39

your D story within the book I wish that

34:41

it had been fleshed out more and then that

34:43

kinda comes to fruition again. In

34:46

the movie it's like two lines of dialogue to be like

34:48

oh by the way I was your father's best friend and

34:50

he he ruined my life

34:52

with these things. I

34:54

think that could have been I wish that

34:56

would for all the time that we spent in

34:59

the theater in this thing you know cuz it is

35:01

a very long movie. I

35:03

wish we could have had a little more time spent on

35:06

that character just kind of fleshing out what's going on there cuz

35:08

I think there's some. I think there

35:10

was some good story elements there and they just

35:12

didn't really get to the screen but they're also

35:14

not super on the page either so. That

35:17

that's part of the part

35:19

of the deal. Let's

35:21

see we talked about the world world really

35:24

good dig that enjoy that that segment I

35:26

don't know what. Future plans

35:28

are for this thing as far as

35:30

world building goes or

35:32

you know future movies and whatnot at this point

35:35

it doesn't sound like she has any

35:37

plans for another book and I don't know if

35:39

she has total control to where. Right

35:42

they're not going to make any more movies and take

35:44

care of patters yeah yeah exactly exactly I have no

35:46

idea I don't know where that stands I would imagine

35:48

the studio is like hey we'd like to do more

35:50

with this. But I think

35:52

he's an executive producer of this and

35:54

the last one was written with

35:57

the full intention of this is going to be

35:59

a movie. But didn't

36:01

all of the book – isn't all of

36:04

it in this movie? What else is there? She's going

36:06

to have to write another book to do another movie

36:08

unless they branch it off on their own,

36:10

make it a TV show. I don't know. Right. Yeah,

36:13

I mean you could easily do – I mean if

36:15

you're a studio, I'm not saying these are good ideas.

36:17

I'm just saying here's a studio idea. You're

36:20

like this was the 10th Hunger Games.

36:22

We've seen the 74th and

36:24

75th Hunger Games. There's a

36:26

whole lot of Hunger Games we could get into.

36:28

I think it'd be great if the TV show

36:30

of each season was one of

36:33

the years of the Hunger Games. I mean sign

36:35

me up for that. Yeah, I mean

36:37

very quickly you would get into what

36:40

we're running into with all of these

36:42

other series and franchises and cinematic universes

36:44

of – Well, just say we're not

36:46

doing movies. This is going to be the Hunger Games on

36:48

HBO or whatever it is. Sure,

36:51

and that'll work for a year or two and

36:53

then eventually it will dilute the product. But I'm

36:55

shocked that this – so that leads me to

36:57

believe that maybe she has some kind of control

36:59

over what gets made and what doesn't as far

37:02

as spinoffs or other ideas

37:05

that get done within this world because it is a really

37:07

interesting world. And again, I think that's the best part of

37:09

her writing. She

37:12

did a good job of creating a cool

37:14

and interesting environment and world that

37:16

just happens to also involve children killing children. That

37:20

she might have ripped off from Battle Royale. From

37:23

whatever Battle Royale, yeah,

37:25

which is – bring that up as well.

37:28

So we're

37:30

fully in spoilers at this point. Did

37:34

the arena itself live

37:37

up to your expectations given

37:39

that it is – again, it's like

37:41

65 years before the Hunger Games

37:43

movies that we know. How

37:46

did that arena element work for you,

37:48

Kent? Was it – are we –

37:52

obviously, you're getting a lot of like, hey, this

37:54

is the first time we've done some of these

37:56

things – the bedding, the delivering of

37:58

gifts and all the pain. and that kind of

38:01

thing, but yeah, how did you feel on

38:03

the action element of this thing? I'm

38:07

kind of leaning more towards the old

38:10

style. Like I said, to be more

38:12

futuristic, almost

38:14

squid game style of

38:17

Arena, then this felt just

38:20

more like I had to put them in

38:22

a cage and throw

38:25

some knives in there and maybe

38:27

bet on it. Yeah, they didn't even come up

38:29

with that until a little bit

38:31

later in the movie. But yeah,

38:33

I'm more for the evolved version of

38:35

the Hunger Games. Yeah,

38:39

I'm with you too. I mean, I think part

38:41

of that is just how much of this is

38:44

not even really about the Arena and the Hunger

38:46

Games itself as much as it is the development

38:48

of the Hunger Games and

38:50

what it means and then obviously this character

38:52

and what he will become in the future.

38:56

I did like the kind of the little

38:59

notes of like seeing

39:01

where this will go and what it

39:04

will become over the next 60 plus

39:06

years with like the

39:08

betting and the patronage and the,

39:12

it turning into, I mean, they kind of hint at

39:14

this used to be like a 24 to 36 hour

39:17

event and now it's weeks or

39:22

days and potentially weeks long and stuff like

39:24

that. That's a cool

39:27

little thing, like a

39:29

little tease of like, okay, here's where we're gonna move

39:31

forward in the movies and books

39:33

that we know already. So

39:36

it was a cool, it was interesting concept to see

39:38

how that all comes through. I thought the snake scene

39:40

was really good, really creepy. Richard,

39:43

anything from the Arena that sticks out as a

39:45

pro or con here? I

39:47

could have used more of it. I thought, I

39:49

mean, it's hard to say you want more in the US.

39:54

I don't know, I don't know, two

39:56

and a half hour movie, but I could have used more of

39:58

that in less of the like. Lute

40:00

plane romanticism because you know why

40:03

I'm there in the movie theater

40:06

But yeah, no, but the stuff that worked

40:08

was great I mean, I thought I actually thought

40:10

the actually pretty pretty cool and not

40:12

to you know These kind of

40:14

movies always worry me that like you don't have that

40:16

cheap like tier 2 Effects

40:18

piece and it didn't really to me. I thought it

40:21

actually felt well produced Yeah,

40:23

I agree. I think the production value at least

40:26

feels a lot of like practical stuff but

40:28

you don't feel the I Mean

40:31

in my opinion. This is so much more

40:34

than what they're doing with Fantastic

40:36

beasts like this is way more entertaining

40:39

to me. Yeah that they agree. Yeah

40:43

Yeah, that's it's so funny cuz I

40:45

think it's a again, I

40:47

think that the Harry Potter books are so

40:49

well written as compared to These

40:52

books that I don't I don't think they're the third That

40:55

well done but the you're exactly

40:57

right can't like man those those

41:00

fantastic Beast movies are so uninspired and

41:02

kind of lame and The

41:06

film installments of this series for the most part

41:08

have been been pretty solid and there there is

41:10

a lot that can be done Here I think

41:12

within this with this concept within this world for

41:14

sure. Yeah, that's a good point All

41:17

right. So in the back third of

41:20

the movie if not more is all takes

41:22

place in District 12 and it's It's

41:25

it's no hand and his

41:27

sort of romance and like

41:30

signs of things to

41:32

come How does

41:34

that segment of the movie work for you?

41:36

I'll go to you first Richard and we'll get into like

41:38

I want I have one more thing I want to talk

41:41

about I don't know if you guys have other other notes

41:43

to bring up but how's that back third work for you

41:45

once you get to District 12. Yeah, I mean it works

41:47

Well to your point that you said earlier like it it

41:49

establishes pretty early on that like I have sup

41:52

girl I got them fascist tendencies

41:54

what? And

41:57

so, you know, it's not he It

42:00

doesn't take a drastic leap. It

42:03

is funny, there's the exact same scene

42:05

in the field as, is

42:08

it clones or? Yeah.

42:10

Yeah, where they're like. The type of clones. Yeah, where

42:12

she realizes that this handsome blonde

42:14

boy has got

42:17

some controversial political.

42:19

Problematic tendencies. Exactly,

42:21

they're in the exact same setting. I'm

42:24

gonna take Sarah. He also does not enjoy sand, I

42:26

think. I'm gonna take Sarah there in a couple of

42:28

weeks. I do not realize that, that's not true. So,

42:33

she'll find out about my, I

42:36

got a few hot takes. But,

42:41

no. But yeah, but I

42:43

thought that pays off

42:46

pretty well and it makes

42:48

him, yeah, he did a good job

42:50

of telling that story as an actor and the

42:52

writing does a good job too of, you

42:55

kinda get there pretty organically. By

42:57

the time we're getting there to District 12,

43:00

he's pretty heinous and

43:03

then you go, wow, this guy's gonna just keep getting more and

43:05

more heinous over the next 50 years, isn't he? All right, let's

43:07

write. Sure. And he's gonna give us Kiefer.

43:10

So that's great. Could

43:13

we not have focused on, I mean, she

43:16

writes what she wants to write about, but could we

43:18

not have focused on Katniss's family

43:20

history or the

43:23

protagonist's backstory? I

43:26

gotta be honest with you, I'm the

43:29

opposite on that. I'm glad that it

43:31

didn't get Skywalker-ed, where everything has to

43:33

fit within the Skywalker saga or

43:35

the Everdeen saga.

43:38

I was nervous reading the book that there

43:40

was gonna be some stupid kind

43:42

of forced, and here's the

43:44

Katniss of it all and really all it

43:47

is is it turns out that she's named

43:49

after a swamp potato or something. Yeah, okay.

43:52

And I was glad for that. Then

43:54

after reading the book, I was like, they're definitely gonna do it

43:56

in the movie, right? They're gonna do some kind of a, some

43:59

direction. correct correlation weird thing like by

44:01

the way Lucy Gray's or great grandmother

44:04

or something like that and

44:06

I'm I'm thankful that we did not

44:08

get that personally I don't need the

44:11

ray connection to Palpatine flash Skywalker

44:13

or whatever else right on a

44:15

bit personally I that's

44:19

a lesson learned I think for

44:22

me anyway can't

44:24

any how do you feel in the in

44:27

district 12 we with the way that

44:29

that all turns out with no and

44:31

Lucy great yeah I

44:33

agree I wish that would have been the second

44:36

movie I was

44:38

so tired at that point and

44:41

I'm with you you know

44:43

where it's going and then once it gets there it's

44:45

like oh god I remember

44:47

looking down like the trial scene where he's

44:49

getting sentenced to sure twelve and it was

44:51

like another hour left when I hope man

44:54

God yeah this really I mean 20 more

44:56

minutes and you got another movie I mean

44:59

he could have stretched it a little further

45:01

couple deleted scenes boom but

45:04

but there you are yeah I

45:06

do I agree with you this limb

45:08

shady side of it was was pretty

45:10

funny but it made me want to

45:12

watch that Billy the kid show that

45:15

he's in yeah that's like his only credit

45:17

really and I've seen ads for it but

45:20

I've never I've never seen the show yeah

45:22

he's very good in here me Ellen white

45:24

about to play him in a movie or

45:26

something yeah that sounds right

45:28

in the bear kid kid from the bear yeah so good

45:31

yeah that's a to be

45:35

honest I was knowing

45:37

Zegler and and knowing again while I don't

45:39

think she's necessarily a movie star I think

45:41

she is very very good and

45:43

then not really knowing anything about this guy kind of

45:45

worried that she was gonna gonna just

45:47

completely eat him up and and he wouldn't have

45:50

anything on screen that works or he just feels

45:52

overshadowed or whatever but I didn't I thought more

45:54

than held his own I thought he was very

45:56

good and gives you really good taste

45:58

of like yeah this guy Again, he becomes –

46:01

you kind of see – obviously you

46:03

see the behaviors and the tendencies and

46:06

all that sort of stuff, but you also get a

46:09

good glimpse into like you really can't

46:11

become this level

46:13

of dictator without some kind of

46:15

charisma and appeal and whatnot, especially

46:18

kind of as it starts. You can't just come out of

46:20

the game being like, let's kill kids. You

46:23

got to work that in later. And

46:27

yeah, I think you fulfilled that really well and

46:29

did a great job of it. It's

46:32

Barry Keogan not – he's

46:36

playing though as a kid. I would never

46:38

trust Barry Keogan or Keegan. Keegan probably. I

46:40

would never trust him. This

46:43

guy might fool me. I don't know. Lindsay

46:45

loves to watch cult shows. I don't know if you guys know this.

46:48

Like any three-part

46:50

Netflix special on a cult, Lindsay's like, that's

46:53

our next show. That's what we're watching. And

46:58

95% of the times, like these are

47:00

the stupidest people in the world. There's no way anyone

47:03

should fall for this freak

47:05

show. And then every once in a

47:07

while, one of the ones we watch, I'm like, I

47:09

kind of get it. I understand why these people fell

47:11

for this. Like this guy's really charismatic. I understand. This

47:14

guy has it a little bit. You could –

47:16

this character, you can kind of see how this

47:18

becomes what it becomes. Great point.

47:20

Yep, for sure. Which is cool. That

47:23

could have been – the whole thing is –

47:25

Yeah, Anakin does not. I think that character doesn't feel that. Right.

47:29

Right. Last thing for me, this is really

47:31

more a criticism of the book than the movie,

47:33

although the movie just does the exact same thing. I

47:36

felt like the twist at the end where

47:38

it goes from not only are we so

47:40

in love, we are so in love that

47:43

I'm going to leave all this behind and

47:45

move to Canada or something

47:47

with you. And then he

47:50

finds the guns and one second later

47:52

he tries to murder her. Like it

47:54

is the quickest switch of

47:57

a – flip of a switch, excuse me, ever.

48:00

And it kind of he was just

48:02

trying to murder the mocking jays same bro. Yeah

48:07

I was kind of hoping to move

48:09

because I do think there are moments especially catching

48:11

fire is is Better if

48:13

not much better than the book is and

48:15

some of that is like choices that were made to kind

48:17

of like Hey, maybe we buff this up a little bit

48:19

make this a little stronger. I was kind of hoping we'd

48:21

get Something here. That's a little stronger

48:24

than it was in the book and they didn't it's pretty

48:26

much Straight on what what was

48:28

in the book? So it's a light criticism.

48:30

But yeah, it feels like one page one

48:32

page in the book He's like, all right.

48:34

I'm done. It's time to do some murder.

48:36

But yeah, so it's a little little little

48:38

criticism there, but overall You're

48:41

seeing who this person is throughout the course fit and so

48:43

it is what it is Any last thoughts

48:45

you guys want to grade this thing and weekly recommended

48:47

to get on out of here. Let's do it. Let's

48:50

grade it All

48:52

right, Kent. I'm gonna go to you first. Yeah,

48:54

I like this world I Didn't

48:57

I didn't think this was a good adaptation of the

49:00

book. I thought the dialogue was just explaining

49:03

Yeah, the plot for you for two hours.

49:05

It was dialogue

49:08

that was In

49:11

service of the plot instead of serving the

49:13

plot if that makes sense And

49:15

so I take a little bit off for that. I'll give it

49:18

a B plus. I do like this

49:20

world Super fair

49:22

Richard, I'll go a little lower than that.

49:24

There was some tacky stuff in it But

49:26

I I really liked snows performance

49:28

and all of that. So blinds for and so ever

49:30

I'm gonna go Be

49:34

minus okay a

49:37

little higher than both you it's a weird It's

49:42

for me It's a movie that feels a little

49:44

greater than some of its parts and places like

49:46

I and I had a good time with it

49:48

I enjoyed it it is and then I think

49:50

about like all the criticism like yeah, it is

49:52

it is too long There

49:54

are some kind of crappy story on you.

49:57

You said would you say cheesy Richard? I

49:59

or tacky? Yeah, totally. There's some little

50:01

notes here and there that don't really work,

50:04

but overall, I still feel like it was a strong

50:06

entry into it and I ended up just being like,

50:08

I just liked the movie. So

50:10

I'm going to give it a little higher. I'm going to give it an A-minus. It's

50:13

getting really good. I mean, Rotten

50:15

Tomatoes is fine, but amongst the

50:18

audience and within our own Discord, most of

50:20

the grades here have been like three and

50:22

a half stars and higher. So it's played

50:24

well with the audience and it's

50:27

good. It's nice to have a

50:29

movie that actually is sort of

50:31

successful. Yeah. Actually, it's good for the industry. Turns

50:33

out that's just as a whole, I like that.

50:36

All right, cool. And we'll see what happens with

50:38

this thing moving forward. Again, I just Googled, at

50:40

this point, she's saying, she's in college is saying

50:42

no future plans

50:45

at this point for more books, but beach

50:49

houses need to be built and stuff. So

50:51

maybe that changes before too long.

50:53

We'll see. We'll see what comes out of this as we

50:55

move. All right, before we go, let's

50:57

do a quick weekly. Richard,

51:02

I'll get to you first, my friend. What's

51:04

your weekly recommend? Man, it's

51:08

been a

51:11

content rich fall, even with the strike

51:13

and everything, a lot going on, a

51:17

lot of options. But trying

51:20

to think, I'm going to try this out

51:22

between a couple books here. You

51:25

know what I would recommend? Excuse

51:28

me. I'm going to recommend a book

51:31

that you guys would like, both of

51:33

you, I think, for different reasons. It

51:35

is a dorky soccer book. But Lars

51:38

Sverzyn, who Dallas is

51:40

owned on radio, our Norwegian soccer

51:42

expert here in Dallas, wrote, and

51:45

it's the only person I really tweet

51:47

with a lot. But he

51:50

wrote the definitive biography of Erwin Alland,

51:54

that's actually doing really well. And he's

51:58

listened to mad about movies before. We've

52:00

got a friend with a book out, so we'll

52:02

recommend that. It's a really

52:04

interesting book on not just Holland's

52:08

incredible, meteorotic, how do you say that,

52:10

whatever, crazy rise when he's young. He's

52:13

like a 21-year-old soccer phenom, but really

52:16

the Norwegian sporting

52:20

culture and kind of actually

52:23

overall culture that kind

52:25

of raised him. It's really, really interesting. All that stuff's

52:27

great and the background and all that. And then the

52:29

great background of all the clubs he's played for, Moldy

52:32

and Borussia Dortmund and

52:35

Manchester City is really interesting as well.

52:37

It's a really well-researched, great

52:40

sports biography and we love Lars, so we

52:42

ride for Lars and I'll recommend that. Holland

52:45

by Lars Seversen. Very

52:47

nice. Very nice. Love that. Love

52:51

to support a friend of the show.

52:53

Yeah. Richard. No, not Richard. I can

52:55

go again. Let's see. Yeah,

52:58

that was such a good one. Give us another, bud. Kent,

53:01

what's your weekly recommend? Yeah,

53:04

definitely a lot less

53:10

intellectual than Richard's recommend. I

53:12

wouldn't say. It's a silly

53:14

soccer book, but it's done well. Well, it's a

53:16

book. So I'm

53:19

going with a guilty pleasure movie,

53:22

guys. Have to recommend

53:25

Good Burger 2. Oh,

53:28

is it out? I want to watch it real bad. It

53:31

is out. It's on Paramount? And

53:34

it's, yeah, Paramount plus.

53:38

It's definitely like a kid's movie in

53:40

tone and feel and all that. I

53:42

mean, it's just like Good Burger. But

53:45

I got to admit, it's had

53:47

me smile a couple of times. Great

53:51

nostalgic callbacks to the

53:53

original 90s kids, all that kind of. Sinbad

53:56

is not in it. I will spoil that. But

53:59

there are some. I think it's a great callbacks to

54:01

the original movie that I will not spoil. But

54:04

that would have been a great one. Mr.

54:06

Wheat. Yeah,

54:08

but great to see Kelly

54:11

Mitchell doing his thing and then Keenan got

54:13

a – I mean this

54:15

is it. He's just doing good

54:17

birding stuff whenever they call him. I

54:20

meant Sinbad. What's Sinbad up there? Sinbad? I don't think

54:22

he's doing well. I feel like he's on – Oh,

54:25

he did the voice. You believe how bad Sinbad looks at

54:27

me. He voices the business manager on the phone. I

54:30

will spoil one cameo for the sake of

54:32

the podcast because I need your reaction to

54:34

it. I'm looking at it now. I know

54:36

exactly what you're going to say. The cameo

54:39

from the former Mavs owner plays

54:41

a role in the movie. Let's just say that. Don

54:45

Carter, are you old? I was going to Carter? I

54:47

was going to say he

54:50

sold the team to pursue an acting career because I

54:52

saw his work from Good Burger too. He's

54:56

got Entourage. He's got Good Burger

54:58

too. Things are looking up. But

55:02

yeah, no. You'll only appreciate it if

55:04

you were a kid and saw the

55:06

original. I would not recommend this

55:08

to anyone who has no context.

55:12

I went out to see my dad in Phoenix

55:14

when this came out, the first Good Burger. He

55:18

didn't know what to do with me, which

55:20

is totally understandable. I was like,

55:23

we'll go see Good Burger. He went and sat through

55:25

Good Burger as an adult with just me laughing. Then

55:27

three days later, he ran out of ideas and stuff to do

55:30

with me. So we went and saw Good Burger again. I

55:32

really love it. It's

55:37

fun times. All right.

55:39

I'm going to recommend a movie I watched today. I

55:41

think I'm the first of the three of us to

55:44

see this. I won't go into too

55:46

much depth on the recommend because I imagine we'll do

55:48

an episode at some point. I watched

55:50

the holdovers today and it ruled.

55:53

Alexander Payne's back beat. So

55:55

here's- Stopping, added to the

55:57

list. Yeah, it definitely means it.

56:00

Yeah, it got a it got a tier

56:02

or three. It's very good. It's very good

56:04

and has Three

56:06

of the better performances that way this year. So

56:09

yeah, you guys well, I think you guys will

56:11

both really dig it so And

56:13

I'm sure usually if you're new

56:15

to this thing to this Mad about movies this

56:17

crazy wild ride that is Mad about movies In

56:22

January and October January February we

56:24

usually do some like

56:26

catch-up reviews on the movies that are Oscar

56:29

nominated or Oscar contenders and stuff. I imagine

56:31

holdovers will be yeah one of them You'll

56:33

get episodes on all of them Yeah,

56:36

we just we could have that in like a week

56:38

or two because there's usually kind of some dead zone

56:40

at the top of yeah December so sometimes we'll do

56:42

those there but Movies that are gonna

56:44

be nominated for Best Actor and Best Best Actress

56:46

Best Picture that kind of thing usually will do

56:48

our best To get an episode on

56:50

each of those we can't they all decide to come out

56:53

a lot of times on Christmas Day here You know because

56:55

we don't get to live in one of the big

56:58

metropolitan areas like your New York like

57:00

your LA like your st Paul, Minnesota's

57:02

that gets them all early So we

57:05

have to wait till Christmas Day a lot of times to get

57:07

them. So that's why we'll do them if you know we

57:09

can get our hands on them beforehand because we do like to space them

57:12

out, but Normally, we have a

57:14

suddenly a list of 14 movies

57:16

to see That's the

57:18

only thing I like I hate that the Oscars are in

57:20

March But it

57:22

does help us like it would really suck if the Oscars are

57:24

like For just it would be better for

57:26

everyone else because it makes more sense, but it would suck for

57:28

us at the Oscars were like January 18th Yeah,

57:31

cuz we have to see like time to get

57:33

our list together And like also if you need

57:35

about to this show and everything mad about movies

57:37

We usually do our like end of year best and

57:40

worst Usually the last week

57:42

of January because it takes a while to get caught

57:44

up again because we're not the same Paul residence We

57:46

don't really don't get to be that luck if only

57:48

you know they've got holdovers like two and a half

57:50

years ago He's

57:58

great I like him You know, you ever

58:00

seen sideways? You know,

58:02

I've always wanted to go to Napa, but it's a little

58:05

spendy. I just offended. I just offended

58:07

the entire... That's part of the movie. His

58:10

character makes a joke about smelling

58:12

bad. I'm like, he's listening to the show.

58:14

Yeah, good fan of the pod, Paul Giamatti. He gets it.

58:17

Cool. Is there any BDSM in

58:19

it or no? Not yet. Not yet. Maybe

58:22

in the outtakes. All right. Nice. All

58:25

right. Thank you for being here. Thank you for

58:27

listening. If you like what you heard, well, guess what? If you want to

58:29

get more content, you can go to podcast.com/VIP. Sign up for our

58:32

VIP content on Patreon and

58:35

you'll get an extra episode every single week,

58:37

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58:39

we do fun bonus episodes. Sometimes we do

58:41

AMAs. We do all kinds

58:44

of cool stuff over in the VIP and

58:46

there are literally hundreds of episodes

58:48

at your disposal there and a new one comes

58:50

out pretty much every single week. You also

58:52

get access to our exclusive discord where you can

58:54

talk to movie fans like

58:56

you all over the world like

59:00

all day. Like all day you can be in conversation

59:02

with these people and they can become your

59:04

new family. You don't have to see your

59:06

family on Thanksgiving. You can just talk to all the people in

59:08

the discord and isn't that really the dream? Isn't that what we're

59:10

all looking for? That's the dream. All

59:13

right. Next week, I don't know. We

59:16

might do Napoleon. We might do the holdovers. Who

59:18

knows? Who knows? This

59:20

is the wild time of year where there's like Richard said,

59:22

there's 400 movies out and

59:24

kind of we never really know what we're going to do

59:26

until like three days before we do a movie review.

59:28

So keep on your toes for that. The

59:32

throwback this week in the VIP is Kent

59:35

and Richard on The Graduate, I believe,

59:37

as well as a retrospective

59:41

on the disaster that is John Clare.

59:44

Thanks for being here. Thanks

59:46

for listening. Stay safe. Stay healthy.

1:00:00

Oh, see, baby, but I got

1:00:02

you, pig. Ha, ha,

1:00:04

ha, ha. But I don't know

1:00:06

what to do with those tough salads

1:00:08

and scrambled eggs. They're

1:00:12

calling again. Scrambled

1:00:15

eggs all over my face. They're

1:00:19

making me aga. They're

1:00:21

calling again. They're

1:00:26

calling again. Ha,

1:00:29

ha, ha, ha.