Black Christmas (1974) / 2012 (2009)

[00:00:00] Let's get together, talk about the movies that we saw this week.

[00:00:04] We'll have discussions, talk film news, we'll laugh a lot, and act like he's a...

[00:00:07] Sometimes we'll have a guest or two, sometimes it's just the two of us.

[00:00:09] I'll expect some jokes and tell some folks to come along and hang with us!

[00:00:12] I can't buy go to the movies,

[00:00:17] I can't buy go to the movies, yeah!

[00:00:25] You have chosen wise. what our Mike Makes Mike Watch movies were for the entire year, and we stuck to it. We didn't make any changes or anything like that. We just watched the movies. You didn't forget about it? Yeah. I mean, that was a real possibility. Do you have any highlights from Mike Makes Mike Watch? Any movies that you're thinking of that like, you're glad I made you watch?

[00:01:40] I was actually getting ready.

[00:01:41] I was starting a list on Letterbox for like my favorite discoveries, like things I watched

[00:01:46] for the first discoveries this year, maybe. Okay, I'm not sure it's going to make my 10 discoveries list, but it is. I did like it a lot. That was good. That was fun. So yeah, absolutely. I was going to try to defend the net, but then I remembered when I tried to rewatch it for the podcast, I didn't make it all the way through it. So it's pulling the rip cord on that one.

[00:03:02] Yeah, that's probably a good call.

[00:03:04] But yeah, we've been doing this all year long.

[00:03:06] Really, we've been doing this longer than that, once we got vaccinated, I was going to the theater a lot, but you took you kind of a little bit of time to kind of get back out there and start going to the theater again. And then it was like, well, I don't know, we're kind of out of the rhythm of it now. Yeah. We're in this. And Mike D's not like an AMC, so is A-list member or anything. He's got to spend money on these movies. Yeah. I don't know if we were going every week,

[00:04:20] I guess I would have signed up for that stuff.

[00:04:21] But yeah, and then we got into doing both podcasts

[00:04:26] weekly instead of alternating every other week.

[00:04:28] That's true. for never named. We did name it eventually. It was a guest makes Mike scream, I think, was what it was called. So anybody right off the tongue. Yeah, for any brand managers listening or anything, hit us up in the Twitter DM. Yes, help help you boys out. If anybody would like to do our social media for free, that would be amazing.

[00:05:42] That's the caveat.

[00:05:43] Yes.

[00:05:44] So what was I saying?

[00:05:45] Oh, yeah, that it's nice.

[00:05:46] It's a nice like, you know, okay, here we go.

[00:05:48] It's just we're going me watch that one. And then because it's Christmas time, I made Mike D. Watch a movie called Black Christmas, the original Black Christmas from 1974, which next year is celebrating its 50th anniversary. Interesting.

[00:07:00] Yeah, I think Black Christmas,

[00:07:02] I hadn't seen it before, but it's like,

[00:07:04] why is this movie a remade every 20 years?

[00:07:06] What's going on?

[00:07:07] Why is this movie like one of the most remade movies Yeah, it's not really hewing too close to the original film here. But yeah, so which of these movies would you like to type my first mic? I guess let's start with Black Christmas, just for funzies. Sure, all right, let's do it. It's time for for Mike Makes Mike Watch. And that was from the trailer for Black Christmas, directed by Bob Clark from 1974, starring Olivia Hussey, Keir De Lea, Margot Kidder, and John Saxon. So, Mike D, you had never seen Black Christmas before. Correct. And I think that was basically my main reason for making you watch this, because you're such a horror guy.

[00:09:41] Yes.

[00:09:42] You're a big horror guy.

[00:09:43] This is a pretty big horror pillar.

[00:09:45] And it's been a few years since I've watched this movie.

[00:09:47] I did not get the chance where all the stuff, right down to starting with the POV, heavy breathing guy looking through the window, moving through the house while it's full of people and getting right down into the slashing stuff in the first, you know, the cold open basically. And the thing that is so interesting about this movie

[00:11:02] to me on top of all the like, you know,

[00:11:03] seminal stuff and foundational,

[00:11:06] the foundational text of the slasher movie stuff. does starts doing a slash in basically. And it's not, I think there's like I said, one slash actually, the other is on like suffocation with the plastic, which is crazy. And then just like we're also for as unviolent as it is, like also grotesque that keeps those like smash cuts to, I forget that act characters name that's like dead

[00:12:20] in the attic in the rocking chair in the window.

[00:12:22] We just like keep smash cutting to her close ups

[00:12:24] of her face throughout the weekend

[00:12:26] that this is all happening to watch just as that kind of foundational thing being like, oh yeah, and this is where everything came from. I think it's the story of when John Carpenter was making Halloween, he talked to Bob Clark, who made Black Christmas, and Bob Clark's suggestion was to be like, hey, set it around a holiday.

[00:13:41] Because no matter what, people will want to watch

[00:13:45] the movie around that holiday'm not really aware of. He definitely did, I mean, so yeah, this in the Christmas story are kind of two of the big ones, and then you know, they're both very different Christmas movies.

[00:15:00] Yeah.

[00:15:01] But yeah, Bob Clark also directed the first

[00:15:03] two Porky's movies, Porky's and Porky's two.

[00:15:05] Okay.

[00:15:06] He directed a movie called Death Dream, real version of Christmas story. Like I sat down and watched it all the way through. Really? Okay, yeah. Because I know my parents don't like it. They don't like it, really? They don't like it, yeah. Which makes me think that they would probably have never put on that 24-hour thing. And I just, like, yeah, whatever. And then now I'm too old to watch a Christmas story now. That's like one of the- Is it possible that you've never seen a Christmas story? It's 100% possible. Is this gonna be a mic makes mic watch for next Christmas?

[00:16:21] Oh, gosh.

[00:16:22] She's only Bob Clark's.

[00:16:24] Yes, 12 Bob Clark movies next year.

[00:16:26] Can't wait. Maybe you never even found the killer. I'm not really sure. Unclear about that. Right. But yeah, it's this, I forget, I don't know the actress, I forget their names, who has survived, right? And she's like in shock and they sedate her and put her in bed. And I think this shot is like actually incredible. A whole, this whole sequence at the very end of the movie where she's been sedated and it's all the police

[00:17:40] and the hubbub and the doctors.

[00:17:41] Like, oh, she's gonna be out for eight hours.

[00:17:43] You know, all this stuff kind of thing.

[00:17:44] And somebody comes into the room and is like,

[00:17:46] they don't have enough, the morgue or the hospital, feature thing that we always try to do. Maybe we should start with Black Christmas because it ends so sad. So dour. And in 2012, despite having a much higher body count, is it does end in a more uplifting note, I guess. Yeah, it's more dumb and uplifting and exciting. It feels more like a walking out of a double feature fist pump and kind of movie. Not like the end of Black Christmas.

[00:19:01] Right, yeah, which is incredibly bleak.

[00:19:03] And yeah, I mean, you mentioned John Saxon

[00:19:05] and Margo Hitter, she's like the kind of the party person

[00:19:08] in the group the whole movie. Basically, they kind of sort of imply towards the end of the movie. And then he chases Olivia Hussey's character into the basement. She locks the door and then there's a window, like, you know, a little window into the basement. And then Peter shows up and he's like, oh, are you in there? Blunt knocking on the window after they've like, it's sort of been setting him up as the killer.

[00:20:21] And then, yeah, and then it ends like that.

[00:20:24] So it's like, huh, she she kills him, but off screen.

[00:20:27] So you don't say the line, the call is coming from inside the house. Right.

[00:21:40] You gotta save that for when a stranger calls.

[00:21:41] Exactly.

[00:21:42] Somebody was like, cut that out,

[00:21:43] put it in a different movie.

[00:21:44] But they do the thing.

[00:21:46] So that you're like, oh, timing's a little off on that one. But because like we said, in 1970, so January, we're doing a whole series called

[00:23:02] Solid Gold 74, where we're gonna be playing

[00:23:04] a lot of movies from 1974.

[00:23:06] Like movies are celebrating their 50th anniversary. All right, yeah, so a black Christmas from 1974. Mike, do you like it? Like it. Thumbs up. Check it out. It's on Shutter right now. Cool. All right. Listen and decided that people have the right to fight for their lives. We have barely fifteen minutes left. We're gonna die. No, we're not. The moment we stop fighting for each other, that's what we're doing. The moment we stop fighting for each other, that's what we're doing. That's what we're doing. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die. We're going to die.

[00:25:40] We're going to die.

[00:25:41] We're going to die.

[00:25:42] We're going to die.

[00:25:43] We're going to die.

[00:25:44] We're going to die.

[00:25:45] We're going to die.

[00:25:46] We're going to die.

[00:25:47] We're going to die.

[00:25:48] We're going to die. It's Maggie Gyllenhaal. It's a ton of people that are in that movie in 2012. Same deal. So Mike D, why did you wanna make me watch 2012? One, cause I think it's funny to make you watch 2012. Two, understandable. Yeah, I got that. Two, this is definitely a guilty pleasure like favorite of mine is movie. I think I saw this in college in 2009,

[00:27:02] like in the theaters with my friends.

[00:27:03] Depending on when it came out that year,

[00:27:04] I don't remember exactly the release date and stuff.

[00:27:07] But I feel like I should also maybe give some context for this movie because people don't really talk about this anymore because the date passed, but for years and years, I remember this when I was in junior high in high school and stuff, it was always one of those things where kids would tell you, oh, you know, world's gonna end on December 21st, 2012, the Mayans said so.

[00:28:21] So the Mayan calendar ended, so.

[00:28:23] Yeah, that's when the Mayan calendar ended.

[00:28:25] They ran out of stone on their tablet.

[00:28:27] They just like, oh, that's it, ended, so now the world is ending. And so this movie is just, okay, what if the world is ending and you have to try to survive it somehow, right? Right, and so that was the reason why this movie came out in 2009, three years before 2012, which seems like a missed opportunity. Yeah. It'd be like if they remade the Omen

[00:29:41] and didn't release it on 6.6 or 6.

[00:29:43] Exactly, yeah.

[00:29:45] Like what are we even doing here?

[00:29:47] And I will say heard it was bad. And now all these years later, my D is making me watch it. I assume you chose this for December because that was the date that it was supposed to be, right? Correct, yeah. And that was just, yeah.

[00:31:00] It all sort of worked out.

[00:31:01] I was like, October is when the perfect storm happened

[00:31:04] in real life, December is when 2012 was supposed to end. really overstays it's welcome. And so despite all the great destruction stuff, I think there's maybe just too much of it. And so by the last hour, I was kind of like tapped out. And a lot of the goodwill that I had towards the movie was depleting at a rapid pace. That's sort of how I felt about it. But Mike, dude, sounds like you watched this movie relatively recently at Collins, right? At Collins, yeah.

[00:32:20] I think it was earlier this year.

[00:32:21] I didn't have time to watch it this weekend.

[00:32:23] But I'm just sort of always thinking about 2012

[00:32:25] in some capacity or another.

[00:32:27] In particular, there's the scene where correct. The Illuminati is real basically. Yes. They've built these arcs to sustain them and their families and all this stuff, post-apocalypse and stuff. And that whole thing is just so much fun. I don't know. Woody Harrelson has the crackpot in Yellowstone. Woody Harrelson playing himself. Absolutely. Just wandering on the set, spouting conspiracy

[00:33:41] theories and rolling Emoryks like, man, we got Lee movie. I never actually watched that one. Last thing I saw him in was Love and Mercy, which was 2014. The Brian Wilson biopic with him and Paul Dano, which I liked a lot. I thought he was very good. And I heard that was very good. Yeah. Yes. Or actually, you know what? The last thing I saw John Kuzak in Arsenal.

[00:35:02] It was Arsenal with Nicolas Cage.

[00:35:03] We do, yeah.

[00:35:04] Yeah.

[00:35:06] Which he's in a few of those like a Nick Cage directed DVD movies,

[00:35:08] I think, right?

[00:35:09] Yeah. And by the way, the new husband that Amanda Pea has is Tom McCarthy, who is the director of Spotlight. I just wanted to make that known. Cause I was like, I think that looks familiar for some reason. And yeah, Tom McCarthy, who was an actor, he was like, he was on the wire and stuff. But yeah, he directed Spotlight. And I was like, oh, wow, weird.

[00:36:20] That's cool.

[00:36:21] Good for him.

[00:36:22] But yeah, they escape and they make it to Yellowstone

[00:36:25] and then they have to escape Yellowstone

[00:36:26] because of that explodes

[00:36:28] and Woody Harrelson's to try to find them. But it's only supposed to be like, you know, the significant important people, right? The ruse. The ruse. Exactly. The rich people get to go on the arcs and the poor all die. And so John Kusek and his family are trying to make it to one of those arcs and they get there and they get there with the Russian guy and then he abandons them.

[00:37:41] Yes, that's right.

[00:37:42] And he like leaves them to the snow to Pretty cool to see it in that role. Yeah. But yeah, and I do like, you know, you mentioned the Woody Harrelson and it kind of coming in as the conspiracy theorist dude. And I do like that kind of unhinged conspiracy theory aspect of Emoryx stuff. And that is something that you got in Moonfall in spades, man.

[00:39:01] So much.

[00:39:02] And that's, I think why I liked Moonfall

[00:39:03] is because the conspiracies were so insane

[00:39:06] and they were these helicopters and planes that are flying by carrying, like, giraffes and riseruses and elephants just like in the, and it's just a wild sight to see this plane carrying a giraffe and a net

[00:40:22] in the middle of the Arctic.

[00:40:23] Yeah.

[00:40:24] Tim O'Emric is just a psycho, I think, you know.

[00:40:27] Yeah, he's the only one there. Yeah. But in the alternate ending, apparently Chua tells you for his dad survives somehow. Well. Just miraculously. There's a thing where he's on the phone with him and his cap sizes and overturns in the movie.

[00:41:42] It's a title-aver, whatever.

[00:41:44] Yeah, and in the alternate ending, he's alive somehow.

[00:41:48] You know what could for him. That movie absolutely should be 90 minutes long. Yes, that's also true. Moonfall also 210, by the way. So yeah, 2012 might be his longest film, actually. Wild. But yeah, so you asked me to do kind of a Roland Emmerich ranking. Yeah, I would say independent state number one, no question. Very, very good. Great movie. We reviewed it for a very long time. And then the Goldbloom podcast a couple years ago,

[00:43:00] people should go listen to that.

[00:43:03] I would say after that, I might go Universal Soldier,

[00:43:07] the original Universal Soldier. and moon fall. That's the Emmerich filmography. What is that person doing? That is crazy. I mean, some of the biggest hits of the 90s and 2000, some huge blackbusters. So I was like, I have not seen Stargate. I have not seen the Patriots. Really? I have not seen the Patriots. I mean, I haven't seen it in a really long time, but that's just got big accidentally watched this on TBS5.

[00:44:22] You know?

[00:44:23] Yeah, I think at one point, a history class of mine

[00:44:26] might have shown it.

[00:44:26] Yeah. I remember, like, I know it's an objectively bad movie, but like, I feel like I kind of like Godzilla 98.

[00:45:42] I wouldn't mind watching it again. Certainly. I think that there you go. Independence Day 1, 10,000 BC last 2012, a couple spots higher than 10,000 BC. Okay. We take that. Definitely better than 2000 BC and Independence Day resurgence. So there's definitely definitely big recommend Stargate. Love that BB. Yeah. I think I actually almost watched Stargate once. I had, so there was a coworker of mine

[00:47:01] back when I was in New York who just got rid of a bunch of our DVDs. And I was like,

[00:47:05] I'm going to take all these DVDs. And I took have watched 2012. Yeah. I instead watched it on Saturday morning at like 10 a.m. Like that's with the blinds opens that you couldn't see. Just like it works. Possible. Yeah, exactly. I didn't set myself up for like a great screening of the movie or anything. That's fair. Some movies don't deserve it, you know. But by 2012, currently streaming on Netflix

[00:48:22] if anybody wants to watch it.

[00:48:23] That's how I saw it.

[00:48:24] And Black Christmas is on a shutter.

[00:48:26] And is that going to be it today, Mike?

[00:48:27] Is that going to be about, you know? We kind of really peaked with Avatar Way of Water, so like what's Stephen the point, you know? Right, exactly. Yeah, I mean, so end of the year,

[00:49:40] we always do this like end of year blockbuster episode.

[00:49:42] The first time we did it was Star Wars,

[00:49:44] The Rise of Skywalker.

[00:49:45] And then the year after, maybe Zack Snyder's Rebel Moon could be the movie. And everything I've heard about it is like, man, this movie sucks. You know, I keep getting tricked every time, every time. And he hasn't made a good one in years. But yeah, I did kind of like the Snyder cut.

[00:51:00] But yeah, I mean, they had rough stuff.

[00:51:05] Yeah, I don't know.

[00:51:06] So yeah, we were kind of talking I keep doing that all the time. Don't worry. Yeah. That time of the year where you write it and you're like, fuck, and you got to cross it out and write 2034 down. Don't worry. Yep. But in the meantime, you can find me at MD Film Blog on Twitter and Letterbox and Blue Sky. And if you would like to donate to support the show, you could do that at our Ko-Fi page, which is Ko-Fi.com slash Mike and Mike Pods.

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