Off Mike - Lee Cronin's The Mummy, The Pitt, Speed Racer, and more!

[00:00:02] Let's get together, talk about the movies that we saw this week. We'll have discussions, talk film news, we'll laugh a lot and act like geeks. Sometimes we'll have a guest or two, sometimes it's just the two of us. Let's crack some jokes and tell some folks to come along and hang with us! Mike and... Mike Smith

[00:00:28] Hey Lee Cronin! Looks to me like you're on the wrong side of the... But I've got all the horses. Exactly. It's Mike and I Go To The Movies. I'm Mike Smith and your enemy as always is someone who knows that racing has nothing to do with cars or drivers. All that matters is power and the unassailable might of money. Mike Ducrucian. How'd you do today, Mike?

[00:00:54] Well, it's an act of personal violence that you would ask me that question in the year of 2026 while I have fucking COVID. Yes. Like an idiot. Otherwise I'm fine. How are you? I am sorry to hear that you have COVID, Mike, and we just recorded our Elijah Wood episode as well. So you're now on podcast number two of recording through active COVID, which is an incredible feat and I applaud you for it.

[00:01:21] Once again, I'm going to note, as I noted in the Elijah Wood episode, I did give you the out if you wanted to not record today. You did specifically after we finished that episode. We're like, we can stop unless you want to do the second one. And I was like, no, I can do it. And now I'm going to be grumpy about it. Uh, yeah, I'm sorry that you have COVID, Mike. This is at least your third time having it, right? I, yeah, I don't want to talk about it, but yeah. Fair enough. Stupid. I, I still haven't gotten it yet. It hasn't happened yet.

[00:01:50] Well, isn't that nice? Hello, Mr. Fancy Pants. I'm just saying. Yeah, I don't know. I, I, uh, I don't know where it came from. Nobody at work is sick. I have, don't go other places. So I don't know what the fuck happened. Um, weird. Somebody at work has it. It has to be. Yeah. I'm sure that's the case. Yeah. Um, but has it at least given you time to hang out and just watch movies? Wouldn't that be nice? But we've invented this thing called working from home. Um, where jobs are like, well, but you get still work though. Right. Right.

[00:02:19] Which I guess I could, I did use one sick day and I guess I could push back and be like, no, I'm taking off. But what if I have to use those sick days for other things? You know? Right. What if you got a concert you gotta go to and want to take off the next day? Exactly. Use the sick day. I can't use my sick days now while I'm sick. What if I get sick in the future? You know? Exactly. Yes. But, uh, today should be a pretty loose episode. We're doing an off mic discussions. Uh, like we've done many times in the past, uh, in which, uh, we both just talk about, uh, the stuff that we've been watching lately. Uh, just kind of the

[00:02:49] random stuff here and there. And I feel like in the past, like in, in the last few months, it's often like at least a month will pass before we get to a new discussions this time around. I only, I feel like it's only been a couple of weeks since we last did one. So it could be a shorter episode. So that's nice. That'd be nice. I think, was it the last time? I don't remember what we were like, well, we're going to keep this under an hour. And then we went, we went way over. Oh, not way over, but we went over. We went like an hour and a half. I think, uh, yes, you are correct. I don't remember why we had to keep it under an hour or why we started recording late, but I don't remember why. Yes.

[00:03:19] We started recording late and that was my fault. I had work, uh, I had work until like six 30 or something like that. That's on me. But in any case, we'll try to keep this one under an hour. That'd be nice. We'll see what happens. The lie detective determined that was a lie. Uh, but all right, let's get into some discussion.

[00:03:53] All right. It's time for some discussions here on Mike and Mike go to the movies. Uh, and should we start Mike with the movie that we both went to go see recently? Yes, I think so. Okay. So, uh, Mike and I both went to go see Lee Cronin's the mummy, or as it appears on screen, the Lee Cronin's mummy. Dead don't open inside. Yeah. Yes. So this is the new, uh, Blumhouse reinterpretation of the mummy. Uh, it's not officially part of like the universal monsters cannon or whatever. Right.

[00:04:22] Because I think it's a WB movie that Blumhouse produced or something like that. WB distributed, whatever it was. Who knows? But yeah, obviously there is the original universal classics monsters, the mummy starring Boris Karloff. And then of course there is the much more famous 1999 Brendan Fraser version with a directed by Stephen Summers that Mike D has watched conservatively like 150 times since we started recording this podcast 10 years ago.

[00:04:46] So yeah, a million times. Yeah. Uh, many, many times. Uh, and so, you know, that's a huge movie that looms large on this podcast, obviously. And then there was the Tom Cruise one in 2017. Uh, and now they're the Brendan Fraser ones coming back. They're doing the radio silence thing. Like their reports keep coming through every couple of weeks being like, yeah, it's filming next year. It looks like 2028. It's coming out all that stuff. But at the same time, now we have Lee Cronin's the mummy kind of this offshoot sort of thing. Yeah. Uh, and uh, yeah. What did you think of a Lee Cronin's the mummy Mike?

[00:05:14] Yeah. I, well, so I'm kind of a little bit mixed on it, but I don't really know why. So, I mean, initial responses to, it was like, Oh, this is awful. Like I was the original reactions. I saw like right before it, you know, like the day or two before it came out, everyone was like, this is a mess. It looks like, doesn't make any sense, all this shit. And I was like, okay, that's, this is bizarre. Okay, sure.

[00:05:35] So I go to see it. And well, first off the evil dead burn teaser trailer plays before it. So it didn't play before mine. Whoa. And I was, I was furious. I know it came online today and I didn't get the chance to watch it, but I haven't seen it yet. It's pretty sick. Uh, and it's got a, uh, I won't like spoil necessarily what's going on, but it's got a really long, I mean, it's like, you know, whatever it's a 30 second, like one shot thing happening and you don't really know what's going on. And then there's just a slow, like, you know, the, the title reveal and evil dead rise where like it comes up out of the thing. Yeah.

[00:06:05] It does a similar thing like that, where it's like evil dead burn. And my react, my theater had a bigger reaction to that than the Avengers fucking whatever. What's the doomsday, the doomsday trailer. Yeah. Before avatar, which was complete crickets. But in the theater for the, for the mummy, the evil, the evil dead burn, everyone was like, yeah, like everyone was hyped, which is hilarious.

[00:06:26] Yeah. That rules. So the movies are back is what I'm saying. Um, so anyway, Lee Cronin's the mummy. Yeah. I think, I think I had fun with it. It's a gross, gory time. It's pretty cool for that aspect of it. Um, Jack Rayner is great. I think, uh, the, the performances are all great. I think the story is a little, uh, weak or weird or like interesting that like, like why'd they, why'd they do that? You know, for some of the stuff. Um, and I think I ultimately was wishing or thinking about it.

[00:06:56] It being a different movie than the movie actually is. And that's like kind of unfair to be like, well, you didn't do the thing I want. Like, like, that's not what this movie is. Um, where I kind of wanted it to be like, as it was progressing, I was like, oh, is this sort of going to be like the omen where it's like kind of a like conspiracy mystery. He's a journalist and he's going to team up with this cop and they're going to uncover this cult or whatever the hell is going on. Um, and that's 0% of this movie. So, I mean, but it has like some investigation stuff, which is annoying. Like the tagline,

[00:07:26] is like what happened to Katie, but like the movie's called the mummy. We know what the fuck. Yeah. Like this was my big issue with it. I, I liked the movie quite a bit. I thought I had, I had a good time with it. I thought it was very fun. Goopy, you know, a lot of great gore effects, all that stuff. Uh, the movie is two hours and 15 minutes long. And it really feels like if this was like a tight hour 40, Oh man, man, you'd be great. You cut out all the police procedural stuff, any exposition that you get from the police procedural stuff. I think you can easily give to the archeology professor who shows up for one scene. Uh,

[00:07:54] and just like have him on cover thing. I think I rolled my eyes really hard. Unfortunately, even though the scene rips in the movie, when he goes to the archeology professor and then he's like, I've got this cassette from 1932. If this conference or whatever, where they were going to tell you the whole history, but it's the same exact fucking scene from evil dead rise, where the kid plays the vinyl of the conference from the 1920s. And we're going to tell you the whole history of the Necronaut. And it's like, okay, you've done this exact thing already.

[00:08:24] Even though it's really cool and it's, it's played to a really good effect and it's scary and all that, but it's like, we've done this already. If you wanted to just do an evil dead, do a second evil dead movie. Yeah. That's sort of what it feels like. And that's kind of why I had, I maybe had fun with it. It's like, Hey, I'm down for more evil dead, whatever. Uh, but yeah, Lee Cronaut obviously directed evil dead rise, directed this movie. And I think this movie at its best feels like, Oh yeah, this guy was definitely like a student of Sam Raimi films, uh, for a long time. Right.

[00:08:50] I mean, the dentures alone is enough to be like, that's the Sam Raimi thing. Yes. The dentures is great. Uh, a lot of like quick cuts, a lot of crazy, like camera movements. Uh, this movie has more split diopters than any movie I've ever seen in my entire life.

[00:09:03] Yeah. And they rule every time I was in, I don't know. I've seen a lot of weird backlash to the one, the amount of split diopters and then to just the title, like putting Lee Cronin's the mummy as if like he's got like, it's John Carpenter's the thing, you know, or whatever. Right. But I've, but like, I don't know that doesn't bother me the way. Like I remember when a strange darling came out and everyone was like, how dare you put a title card saying that this movie was filmed on 35 millimeter. And everyone was like, fuck you movie. And I was like, I don't understand you guys. Like, why are you mad at that?

[00:09:32] Like, I think it's just a, I think the filmmakers are psyched that they got to make it on 35 and, uh, yeah. And the movie looks good. You know, it's cool. Yeah. I don't know. But I think people just find a thing to like latch on and be like, who does Lee Cronin think he is to put his name? Like what? Yes. From, from what I understand, it wasn't his idea. Yeah. I think it was like Blumhouse's idea to like, I think you needed to do something to differentiate it from the other mummies that exists, especially because they're making a new one with Brendan Fraser.

[00:10:02] Right. So it's like, you got to do something to differentiate it. And so calling it Lee Cronin's the mummy, I guess you could have called it Blumhouse's the mummy. And maybe that would have even been a more marketable title necessarily. Like more people would recognize that. But even so, like it's, it's more just like a differentiating kind of thing. Like you gotta, you know, figure it out somehow, you know?

[00:10:20] So ultimately I had like a pretty good time, I think. And then now I've seen in the week since, like actually a lot of people being like, well, wait a second. Um, so like, I've seen it kind of turn a little bit, like the word of mouth that like, I'm very, very limited, you know, scrolling or whatever. So I think maybe like when I watch it again, when it's on VOD or something like, Oh, I'll be able to like not have my preconceived, like, Oh, is it going to be this kind of prejudice against it where it's not going to meet my, uh, omen desire or something? I don't know. You know, I don't know.

[00:10:49] Like, cause I also saw a lot of people comparing it obviously to the exorcist, which I think it definitely does have a lot of comparisons, obviously heavily influenced by that. But I don't know. There's other stuff in there too. Yeah, absolutely. One other thing too, is that, uh, you know, I, and I, I enjoyed this movie and I really liked evil dead rise. Uh, but watching this movie again, I'm like, this guy hates kids. It's just something about, something about possessing children that, uh, he, it's so funny you say that he was just on, uh, uh, this week's episode of the movies that made me, uh, Joe Dante and Josh Rolson.

[00:11:19] And, uh, he was talking about, uh, I don't remember what movie specifically, but he was like, a family is like so important to me. Like, it's like the most important thing, despite everything I do in my movies. He was like, I know people probably think I hate kids, but I don't, I swear. Like I love family, family is so important to me. Um, so it's hilarious that you specifically said that.

[00:11:39] That's funny. Yeah, no, he, uh, yeah, he puts the kids to the ringer in this movie and, and all the kids are really good. Like the, uh, the main girl who plays Katie, uh, gets to do a lot of gnarly stuff and sells it very well. Yeah. And so all that stuff is very fun. Um, yeah, no, all that's great. I do think, uh, I don't like the ending of the movie. I think, uh, the last, the last like five minutes feels really tacked on. Should we just like say spoilers for Lee Cronin's The Mummy right now? I think spoiler section right now. Skip ahead a couple of minutes.

[00:12:05] Yeah. Spoilers for, uh, Lee Cronin's The Mummy, but, uh, essentially it's the ending of this movie. You know, they eventually figure out a way to transfer the curse of The Mummy onto another host. And Jack Rayner sacrifices himself, uh, in order to like transfer the curse from his daughter onto himself. And the family then has to like bury him, put him in the sarcophagus and like keep him in the basement and all that stuff. So far so good. I'm on board for that.

[00:12:28] Yeah. And like, if the movie had ended there, I was like, all right, good. Like, uh, you know, that that's, you know, it sucks that that happened to this family, but like, that's a good way for this movie to end. Yeah. Uh, and then it just keeps going and it turns, and they figure out a way to, uh, transfer the curse again from Jack Rayner onto the woman who cursed Katie in the first place. Yeah. Who was like stuck in an insane asylum or something like that. Like she's in prison or something. Yeah. Yeah. Locked, locked away. Uh, and so like the, you know, the police officer shows up and like the family and like,

[00:12:58] they've transferred Jack Rayner over and it ends with them like doing the curse again onto her. And it just feels like, man, that kind of cheapens the sacrifice that Jack Rayner made, I guess. Like, Oh, well we could fix it. Like it's just, yeah, we fixed it. You know, everything's fine now.

[00:13:12] No, well, evil has been punished. We just, we beat the lady who cursed our daughter. Yeah. It's the front, the evil has been defeated from, uh, yeah. It just feels like there's a, you know, a lesson somewhere in, or even just like, you know, the sick, like this is the ending of a horror movie that should end in like a, you know, there should be some kind of sacrifice on the family's part in order to save the daughter. Right. Like that you're dealing with an ancient evil here. You can't like, you know, whatever it is.

[00:13:37] That's the thing for me, actually, like that movie, that, that moment positions it as like a great revenge that we are, the family is taking on this woman that, that curse that kidnapped Katie and did all this as if they're villains.

[00:13:50] But clearly from that videotape, this is a burden that her family bloodline has had for 3000 years to keep this thing trapped. It is not like, it's not that they are worshiping this evil entity. It's like, no, they're, they're preventing this thing from destroying the planet by unfortunately having to kidnap children and curse them with the mummy curse.

[00:14:11] So when it does that thing and it's like, and then we slam the door and we hear them start doing the chant. I was like, well, wait a second. Hold on. Yeah. It's bad. They did that to Katie. Like, I feel like, you know, there's like an implication that it's like these Egyptian people picked a white person and then now we must destroy them. Um, but it's like, they're not the villain, like necessarily. They're villains of this story for this family, but they've been saving the world for 3000 years.

[00:14:38] Yeah. I do think the, uh, that mom character like takes some kind of glee in it. There is a little bit of that in it. Yeah. For sure. She's got like an evil energy to her. She does. You know, and her daughter was like very much like, oh, I hope, I wish we didn't have to do this, but you know, it is what it is. The mom seems like she's all about it. Like, yeah.

[00:14:56] You know, I mean, there, there is actually like part of it, but I was like, oh, hold on. Yeah. Wait a second. But yeah, I do agree that that from the, the moments after, um, Jack Rainer sacrifices himself to the end of the movie, it was like just scratching my head a little bit. Like, hold on. And five minutes earlier. And this is a great, like, you know, great moment. But yeah, it just, uh, feels off. But, uh, yeah, that is Lee Cronin's, The Mummy, uh, which, uh, you know, I, the sense that we both enjoyed, we both had a pretty good time with, I really think if this was a half hour shorter, you cut out all the police procedural stuff,

[00:15:26] like we could have a, it would be a banger. Like it would be really, really good. Cause there was a lot of really good, effective, gory, goopy family horror stuff. Uh, that just is unfortunately couched in like too much exposition, too much story, that kind of thing. Yeah. I can't tell if I, I mean, yeah, I agree with you there, but I can't tell if I want more the other version where it's like about the investigation to find Katie. And it's like them digging into the underworld of these artifacts and stuff. It's a totally, totally different movie. Like I agree with that.

[00:15:55] If there was something more interesting going on. Um, yeah, I think, I think you got to it where it's like, yeah, I, the movie is called The Mummy. So I know what happened to Katie. I'm waiting for them to catch up. Yeah, exactly. And I think that's a part of it. Yeah. It's just the same thing over. I was going to say that like, you know, they spend so much time being like, no, she'll get better. And you're like, no, the movie's called The Mummy. Like, yeah. Like when she shows, I was kind of like, I understand the impulse to want her back in the house, obviously. Cause she's been missing for eight years and all that stuff. But like, you take

[00:16:25] one look at her and you're like, well, that's a mummy. That's a rotten corpse. Like what are you? Yeah. Come on. Like regardless of what the Egyptian doctors are saying, like that's a mummy right there. Right. She needs like medical attention, not in the house. At least put her in a hospital or something. Come on. But yeah, The Mummy. It's, uh, it's, I think a decent time, but all right. What else have you been watching, Mike? I guess you can talk about The Other Mummy because, uh, you did watch that again recently. I did watch that. Yeah. Yeah. When I, uh, went, I forget what day this was. I think it was Sunday over the weekend.

[00:16:55] I had some stuff to do. I was not, I was just starting to be like, Hmm, why does, why does my body hurt? Like I was just starting to feel a little sick. Um, so I came home for my morning chores, errands, and then sit down on the couch. I'm flipping through HBO and it says The Mummy 2017, you know, the Tom Cruise, The Mummy. Yeah. And the one that no one remembers exists. Correct. But when I stop on the channel, uh, which I don't even know why I did, cause I don't like, I've seen that movie. It's not good, but I did stop to like, let me just see where it is.

[00:17:25] And it was the opening title card of the 1999, The Mummy. And I was like, wait, hold on. And yeah, they had the wrong thing listed, but they were playing, it was HBO was playing the 1999 Mummy. And I was like, well, I guess this is what I'm doing right now at my Sunday morning at 10 AM. And, uh, so I just watched The Mummy. What a great fucking movie. 10 out of 10, no notes. Perfect movie. I hope everyone comes back. I know Jonathan, the brother is coming back. I saw, um, I hope they announce, uh, I don't know if they have, I should know his name off the top of my head, but I don't.

[00:17:54] Uh, yeah. I play as Imhotep. Are you thinking of? Not Imhotep. Uh, the kid. Uh, I guess he's not in the first one. Oded Fair, who plays, uh, the, the like Magi guy. Okay. Yeah. Hope he comes back. He rules. Sure. So yeah. Great movie. Hopefully now you're going to finally hashtag. Yes. My Evelyn. After.

[00:18:14] It is, it is cool that Rachel Weisz is coming back. Uh, it's, we, I think it's going to be interesting to see if they just ignore the events of mummy three or if they just act as if she was in mummy three the whole time in the same way. We're like, uh, they're going to pull a Halloween 2016 or whatever and be like, well, the first movie and the second, like those don't have, or 28, whatever year that was. Yeah. I think mummy returns would probably still count. Uh, they're probably still, you know, that was, you know, it's, uh, it was made so quickly after the first one. And, you know, it still has a lot of,

[00:18:43] a lot of big stuff in it. People still like that one. Yeah. Tomb of the Dragon Emperor. I could see them just ignoring and saying it doesn't exist. But at the same time, uh, the Phantasm movies recast the main guy for Phantasm two and then brought him back for Phantasm three. Like it's a different actor playing the main character in only the second one, but one, three and four, like the original actor is there. So like, so there is precedent for like, just, yeah, it was Maria Bello in the third movie, but she's back as Rachel Weisz in this one. And the third one's still in continuity.

[00:19:12] Yeah. I don't know. I mean, they probably, they could like, it's the mummies who care. Like, come on. Um, but people are so obsessed with that shit now after the Marvelization of like continuity, like it'd be weird. Uh, but Marvel has recast before too. You know, Don Cheadle, uh, is war machine. Now he replaced Terrence Howard. Mark Ruffalo was not the original Hulk, all that kind of stuff. So yeah, yeah, yeah. It's possible. It's, it's possible. I mean, they haven't like, I guess, I guess Marvel hasn't done a thing where like they recast and then brought back the original guy to replace the recast. Right.

[00:19:43] That hasn't happened. Like they haven't recast Mark Ruffalo with Edward Norton back. Yeah. Right. So yeah. What were you gonna say? I, I feel like I remember there being a moment in the curse of the dragon emperor or whatever the hell, the tomb of the dragon emperor. What is it? The tomb of the dragon emperor. Which we covered on the complete works, uh, with Michelle Yeo is in it. Right. Don't they like, like wink wink at that? It's like, that it's a different Evelyn now. I feel like I remember there being like a, she's, isn't she like doing a like book reading or something?

[00:20:09] And there might be some kind of like winking joke to that kind of thing. In the same way that like Iron Man two does that when Don Cheadle shows up where it's like, it's me, get used to it or whatever. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But yeah. Anyway, the mummy 1999, what a classic, what a picture. Still, still every moment still stands. All right. What else have you been watching Mike?

[00:20:27] Um, as you quickly want to reference, uh, or, or confirm that I watched, uh, two, two heavy Mike Smith recommendations. I don't know if there's been a stronger recommendation that you've ever given me than crime one of one. Which I think I recommended to you in our last discussions episode. I think so. Yeah. I think it's when it came up. Cause I was like, dude, I think you would really dig. You're like, you're the den of thieves guy. You're going to love this shit. Uh, correct. That's a fucking rocks. It's so fucking good.

[00:20:57] I was, I was already on board. Uh, but when it gets to the moment about halfway through where, uh, they need to drop a live version of a Bruce Springsteen song, I was like, this is the greatest movie of all time. Yep. 10 out of 10. Made in a lab for Mike D. Yes. Crime 101. So yeah, big recommend. And I think this had a lukewarm response to it when it was out in theaters to people. I mean, I saw a similar, like, you know, it's the cheap, not cheap, uh, but like knockoff heat and like all that stuff. Yeah.

[00:21:24] I'm like, I don't know. Heat's a pretty great movie. Knock it off. Like, come on. Like, yeah, absolutely. If, if more movies could be like B grade versions of heat, uh, we'd be in a much better cinematic, uh, landscape right now. Yeah. No, I, I think the response to it was kind of lukewarm. I'm curious if it gets any kind of like den of thieves style reappraisals a couple of years down the line or whatever. I feel like when den of thieves came out, there was still a couple, there was a couple of shooters like from day one.

[00:21:48] Yeah. And like people just started discovering it in the years afterwards. So I think crime 101 could be in the same vein. It just took 10 years for, for the dead of thieves train. Um, so yeah, I can see, I mean, uh, Chris Hemsworth, Holly Berry, Mark Ruffalo, Nick Nolte. Like that's a pretty stacked cast. Um, yeah. And then you've also got Barry Keoghan and Jason Lee.

[00:22:08] Yeah. Like, Whoa, great movie. Um, so yeah, I had a fun, the twisty turniness of it all. Uh, the action is pretty good when there is action. I really enjoyed it. And the titles of pun. That's incredible. Um, yeah, always great. So then the other, the other Mike Smith heavy recommendation was, uh, Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Yeah. So I finally got around to that incredible picture. I don't think this movie is allowed to like this. Like this, like this is insane. The whole thing with this movie. Um, I mean, at a certain point, a character turns to the camera and says, if you're

[00:22:38] seeing this in a theater, it's a miracle. Ridiculous. Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, shenanigans, like I, like I had said, I'd never seen, I've, I was familiar or had heard of the concept of like that it was a web show and then the TV show. And now this is like the movie version. And also it's the band, the show, the movie thing. Um, but I was not like, had never seen any episodes or anything like that. And just like, wow, instantly in love with these guys and this whole thing, uh, and had a total blast with this movie clearly made by people who love movies, obviously like the whole movie's a riff on it.

[00:23:08] And other movies, uh, yeah. Other movies specifically like back to the future part two, which we talked about very recently on the Elijah Wood podcast or hasn't been published yet, but we recorded that episode a while ago. Exactly. Yeah. So that's very fun. And, and the thing I had seen the trailer for this or part of the trailer or something where it's about them jumping off the CN tower and like this whole, all this, and like, that's the first 15 minutes. Like I thought that was the whole movie. Um, and so then there's a whole other movie that takes place after that, which is crazy. Um,

[00:23:38] it's a big recommend on Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, and also crime one Oh one. Very nice. All right. Uh, going to move on into a movie that I got to see recently, which is the drama. And this is the new film from director Christopher Borgley, uh, who directed dream scenario, the movie with Nicholas Cage, uh, that we talked about on complete worst couple of years ago. Remember that movie? I do. Yeah. Good movie. Yeah. It was a good time. I feel like I haven't thought about that since it came out though, but yeah. I just kind of forgot. Yeah. I remember liking it a lot. I remember Cage being really great in it.

[00:24:05] And I remember there's a, there's one moment in that movie that I still think about every time, every once in a while, which is when he like farts and comes at the same time, uh, during like one scene. He goes to cheat on his wife. Yeah. Yeah. Doesn't he like dream himself in the big suit or something from, uh, from stop making sense. Yeah. That might happen. Yeah. I, I gotta, I should rewatch that. It's a movie I liked a lot. I thought it was really funny. Uh, and Cage was great in it. Um, but yeah, this is Christopher Borgley's followup. So this is the, uh, the new film, which are Zendaya and Robert Pattinson.

[00:24:35] And this is a dark comedy in which, uh, these two are getting married. Uh, and then, uh, one of them discovers a secret about the other one. I'll be vague about what that secret is, but Robert Pattinson essentially discovers something about Zendaya that kind of comes out in a conversation they're all having with their friends. Each of them kind of revealing the worst thing that they've ever done. And when Zendaya reveals what the worst thing she has ever done is, uh, it sends everything into a tailspin. It sends, you know, they suddenly there's a new thing about it.

[00:25:05] Uh, Zendaya that Robert Pattinson didn't know about. Uh, and he's having to reckon with that. Uh, and I'm keeping it purposefully vague because it is, it is the premise of the movie. Like it happens very early on in the movie. It is like what the movie is about, but it is like kept deliberately. Like it's not in any of the trailers. It's not in the marketing. All the trailers are like built around in a similar, like what happened to Katie thing. Uh, and you're like, we know the movie's called the drama. Like, huh? Yeah, exactly. Uh, it is, it's, it's, it's a lot of the trailers are built around like, what is it that's in it? Zendaya, Zendaya.

[00:25:35] It did. What did you do? Uh, and it worked. The movie did really well at the box office. I saw it in a sold out crowd. Uh, and it is, I think a very funny, very dark movie. Uh, I saw someone online compare it to, uh, basically a very long corporate enthusiasm episode, uh, in which our Pattinson's playing Larry David role. And, uh, yeah, accurate. No, that's, that's exactly what it is. Honestly. Yeah, no, I, I really liked it. Uh, it's, it's very funny. It, uh, is incredibly complex.

[00:26:01] Alana Heim plays one of these supporting characters who is really terrific in the movie and totally insufferable. Uh, she's great. Yeah, no, I, I really dug the drama and Robert Pattinson, I think especially is giving like a plus performance here. He's, he's doing a great, a great job. Nice. That's awesome. Yeah. I kind of, I, I don't know. I heard about this. I think I thought it was more like a romantic comedy or, or like, I guess a comedy of errors kind of thing or something, which I guess it sounds like if it's, if it's being compared to curb, then I guess. Yeah.

[00:26:27] Yeah. There's definitely a comedy of errors element to it. Uh, but it's, it's very much a, a dark comedy. There's a lot of like incredibly dark stuff that, uh, this movie is doing. So, uh, yeah, but worth checking out. So that's the drama, uh, which is out now and, uh, also got to see, uh, they will kill you recently, which is a new movie, uh, uh, starring ZZ beats, uh, that came out right after ready or not to came out, uh, and has the same plot. It is the, uh, but, but it is very fun. I had a good time with this.

[00:26:55] So, uh, ZZ beats plays a woman who, uh, shows up in this hotel kind of undercover pretending to be like the new cleaning person. Uh, and everybody in the hotel is trying to kill her. And it is, uh, an ancient satanic death cult, uh, sort of thing, uh, much like in the ready or not films. And also like ready or not too, this involves, uh, her relationship with her sister. Uh, it's about her trying to save her sister as well. So again, similarities abound, um, really wild cast. This movie has it's a ZZ beats, but it's also Patricia Arquette, uh, Tom Felton, who is

[00:27:25] Draco Malfoy in the Harry Potter movies is in this, uh, Heather Graham is in, uh, this movie too, which, uh, we were just talking about in the bow finger, uh, like, Whoa, we haven't seen Heather Graham in a movie in a while. She's in this, uh, which is cool.

[00:27:37] And what differentiates this one is that the director is clearly a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino, uh, and especially the kill bill movies. Uh, and all of the action is extremely stylized in the, in a very similar way to kill bill. Uh, and it's pretty, it's pretty cool. I like kill bill. If more movies were B grade kill bill, I'd have, we'd be in a better cinematic landscape. Yeah. Yeah. Keep ripping off 10 out of 10 movies and we'll be in pretty good shape.

[00:28:03] Exactly. Uh, so yeah, I had a pretty good time with it. Uh, it's, it goes into some insane directions. The last 20 minutes are completely bug nuts and it's a good time. ZZ beats is a great action star. So I loved seeing her pop up in this too. So they will kill you. Uh, good time. Nice. Yeah. I remember, was she, she in Deadpool one or two? I forget. She's in Deadpool two as Domino. Yeah. She's great in that movie. Yeah. And I remember being like, Whoa, what a breakout. Like I can't wait to see her in every, and then like, she, I don't know. I haven't seen her in anything really.

[00:28:31] I don't think they didn't even bring her back for Deadpool three. What the hell, you know? What the hell man? Yeah. Um, so that's cool. I'm glad that movie's good. Yeah. All right. What else you got, Mike? What else on your list? I got some not that great movies. Well, that's a bummer. That's a shame, isn't it? Well, first is, um, the new Netflix joint directed by Tommy Workola, who, uh, directed, uh, violent night, which I really liked. Um, he's also directed the dead snow movies.

[00:28:58] There's like Nazi zombie mountain, whatever movies or something. Yes. Also did Hansel and Gretel witch hunters too. Yes. Correct. Um, and this movie is called a thrash and this is a new shark movie. It's a shark movie. It's about, um, these people that live in a small town. They get hit by a category five hurricane that destroys the levees. The ocean floods in and wouldn't you know it. Goddamn. There's sharks.

[00:29:21] Okay. Cool. Now you're, I mean, you're a shark movie guy. I am a shark movie guy. You know, uh, obviously jaws, big movie for us. We've talked about it many times. You went through the 47 meters down movies, uh, somewhat recently. Uh, and last year dangerous animals was in your top 10. Right. And that movie rips. So yeah, absolutely. So yeah. Thrash is fine. Like whatever. Yeah. Like where does thrash fall? But it sounds like it's, it's, if anybody was like primes to like this movie is what I'm saying. Like you would have been right.

[00:29:50] I was expecting to, I was really hoping to, um, it also has a Damon Honsu who's great in this. He, he plays, uh, like the main character's uncle who is a, what's the, I'm trying to, he's a shark, a shark doctor. I don't know. I can't remember.

[00:30:03] I'm trying to remember what they're a shark, exactly. Um, and so there's some, there's a lot of fun to be had where, you know, he's, uh, they've like tagged and tracked a bunch of sharks. Uh, and he like, you know, they pull them up. Uh, he pulls up like the tags on the saddle on the GPS and sees they're just like in the streets, you know, like around the houses and stuff. Um, so that's fun. But I think the problem with this movie, it has kind of three plot lines going on. Damon Honsu, uh, and his shark doctor friends.

[00:30:32] Who he's the uncle of this main character who's agoraphobic. So she doesn't leave the house when the evacuation order goes out. She's trapped in her house. She doesn't want to leave. It's this whole thing. He it's his niece. So he's got to like rush in the boats to go get her and try to save her in time and all this stuff. And then there, there's a pregnant lady with her that's gets trapped there. They're together. They're one storyline. Yeah. And then there's this other one. That's the, these three like foster kids with these like dead Pete foster parents that are

[00:31:02] just using them to get the check from the government and they're like not letting them eat. And it's got that, that storyline like fun is like the zany one. Cause they're like wild kids and they're like climbing the trees and, and all this stuff. And the, and, and they discover the basement has like guns and like whatever. Like they're, they're the, uh, the family in tremors with Reba and her husband that have like the prepper basement and stuff like that. Um, that the foster parents never let them go into, but the floodwaters break the door.

[00:31:29] And they discover that, that like, wait a second, you've got all this food down here and you're starving us. Like kind of thing. But that plot line, a hundred percent unconnected from anything else going on in the movie. So it's just like, what are we doing? Like every time it cuts between like that plot line is kind of the zany or funny one. And then the other one is very serious. And this woman is pregnant. My God, she's going into labor right now. And, and then Damon Honsu and all that. So it's just like kind of all over the place. And I mean, it's a 90 minute Netflix shark movie. Like, well, what are you really expecting? But I, like you said, I was sort of

[00:31:59] like the guy primed a little bit to be pretty heavy in favor of this movie. And, uh, right. I feel like it, it, it doesn't have enough of the wackiness in it. There's clear moments. There's like a straight up moment where they're, those kids are trapped in the house. There's a bull shark that has come in the, the big picture window has shattered. And so it's like their sharks are just in the, in the living room, in the house with them. They have to go down into the basement and get the stakes that they discovered are down there to use as bait. Right. And they also, while they're down there, they discovered

[00:32:29] dynamite. And so they make a bomb with the still, they wrap the stake around the dynamite and they're going to use it as a bait to blow up the shark. But it is edited exactly like how Ash makes the chainsaw hand in you'll dead to like, or like an Edgar Wright edit quick edit. Sure. Yeah. And I'm like, Oh shit, too bad. This is an hour, 20 minutes into this movie. Like if it had this energy at any point earlier in the movie, I'd be all over it. Um, but so, and it has the, the, uh, you know, the kind of Sam Raimi,

[00:32:58] the kind of energy at some point it's like a little too, too late to, too, too little too late. Um, okay. It's where I'm going with thrash. So yeah, like whatever it's fine. I don't know. It's put it, put it on. It's actually, I'm looking at it now. It's 85 minutes. So it's pretty, you know, but it felt, I guess I felt very like it was a lot longer than that. So take that for what it's worth. All right. That's thrash. Okay. What else is on your, uh, your bad movies list, Mike? Well, I also watched whistle, which I don't know what that is. It's a movie. It's the, it's the whistle that kills you. Basically. I'm listening.

[00:33:28] Yeah. Go on. So this is directed by Corin Hardy, uh, who also directed The Nun, which is like one of those movies I liked from The Conjuring movies. Um, or is it The Nun 2? Yeah, no, it was The Nun was the one that I, I thought was like a weirdly like a D&D campaign. Um, okay. Anyway, this is a horror movie that stars, uh, Daphne Keene. Speaking of Deadpool and Logan and all that, uh, she was Laura Linney or, uh, Laura. She was Laura Linney in these actual movies.

[00:33:56] She was Laura Linney. Yeah. We'll chalk that one up to COVID. Um, yes, there you go. Yeah. X-23, right? Whatever her name is. Yeah. X-23. Yeah. Stars Daphne Keene and, uh, Sophie Nellis, I think is her last name, who is from, to me, Yellow Jackets, but Heated Rivalry also now. Uh, okay. Everyone's most favorite show. And this is a movie, uh, where their high school students, they find a whistle that kills you, basically.

[00:34:24] I don't know. It, there's a, it starts with a really cool, like, visual thing where it's like, uh, this big final, you gotta win the championship basketball game. And there's like this, like, smoke fire demon thing haunting the basketball court that only this one kid can see. And whenever he dies, that's the cold open. And, uh, Daphne Keene is new to town. She gets assigned his locker. And when she opens the locker, that, oh, that kid dies. Uh, she opens the locker and there's this whistle in there.

[00:34:51] And she's like, what is this? That's it. Whatever. Nick Frost is their, uh, like history teacher. And for some reason he can decipher what's written on it. He's like, I think this is ancient Mayan. And you're like, wait a second, you're a high school history teacher. Uh, archaeology 101 and Lee Cronin's the mummy. Um, right. So anyway, this thing's cursed. And it's, if you hear the whistle, your, your death will come for you. Uh, and of course they blow it at a, it's like a bunch of kids hanging out at the, the, the backyard hot tub when mom's not home and they blow it.

[00:35:20] And so it's like the six friends are now being hunted and killed one by one by their future deaths. Um, and it's fine. It's kind of gory. It's not that scary. It's whatever. It's cool. Uncover the mystery of this whistle. And how do we break this curse? It's got a little bit like final destination e vibes. Cause it's sort of a, um, the whole thing is like your death from the, however you will die in the future comes to you in the present.

[00:35:44] So it's not like quite Rube Goldberg, like final destination, but like they die in weird, like one guy is like just starting his job at the steel factory. And he has a vision that he's going to fall in like a metal chipper thing. And so he gets chopped up, you know, like, you know, shit like that. I don't know. Um, and it's fine. I don't know. It's a, you know, 90 minute hot teens get killed movie. Okay. Yeah. It's whistle. That's whistle. Yeah. Where can you watch whistle again?

[00:36:11] I it's probably on prime, but you know, around one of those, one of those vibes, one of those movies. Okay, cool. Yeah. I got a horror movie to talk about Mike. Uh, and this is a really good one. I'm out there and that is the new remake ish of faces of death. Okay. Uh, which, uh, just came out a couple of weeks ago. I saw in a totally empty theater. Uh, it did not play long near me, but this is a, I believe shutter produced it. So it should be on shutter at some point in the near future. But yeah, this is a sort of re-imagining of faces of death.

[00:36:40] So faces of death is one of those like legendary horror movies in the seventies that kind of became like a cult classic of the time in terms of like, oh man, you won't believe how fucked up this kind of, this movie is. Right. It's all real. Right. Yeah. It's, it's a movie that presents itself as a documentary about death, uh, and about like the different, the many faces of death. Right. And it's like this professor who's like explaining death to you over an hour and a half. And you're watching footage of people dying in horrifying ways. It is a fictional movie, but it was presented as like a documentary.

[00:37:10] And so it was kind of like a cult object in the video era of like people passing around this like videotape and being like, you got to see this man. It's so fucked up like that, like that kind of thing. Yeah. It was one of the video nasties, right. That got like banned in the UK and like all that stuff. Yeah, absolutely. So I had never seen the original faces of death. So I watched it in preparation for faces of death.

[00:37:30] 2026 gotta say the original, not very good. Didn't it? Didn't, uh, sucks. Yeah. It's, uh, you know, it's an interesting artifact, I think. Uh, and I think there is like an element to it that is like, you know, like the, the professor, Dr. Guy who narrates it is like a, you know, a compelling horror voice. And there's a couple of sequences that are like pretty engaging and like impressive in terms of like the gore they're able to achieve and all that kind of stuff. Cause it's extremely low budget, but, uh, yeah, no, it's, it's a movie that is just kind of the same thing over and over.

[00:38:00] Again for an hour and a half without any kind of like real narrative behind it. So yeah, it's not, it's a movie that's kind of boring, but I'm glad I watched it because it gave me good context for the new one face of death. 2026, which takes place in our worlds in the present day. Uh, and it's about, uh, this character by Barbie Ferreira who works at a company that is like a social media platform, uh, that works a lot. Like I guess like Twitch or something like that. It's like, she essentially is a content moderator, uh, for this.

[00:38:30] Uh, online platform. And she is basically going through loads and loads of the most horrifying videos you'll ever see every single day. Uh, and deciding whether or not like she should flag them or not basically, and like remove them from the platform. And she discovers these videos of this guy committing murders. And there's this question of, is this guy actually committing murders? And if not, we can put them on the platform because like people want to see fake horror shit, you know, that kind of thing.

[00:38:58] But it's very realistic looking. And so he could actually be killing people and turns out, yes, he is in fact killing people. And he's doing it in a way where he is recreating the murders from faces of death, the original. Oh, interesting. Uh, and create recreating them as like viral videos, but he's actually killing people and doing them like, you know, for publicity and all that kind of stuff. And, uh, yeah, so Barbie forever become like goes on this like investigative path to try to find this guy.

[00:39:23] Uh, the serial killer is by Dacre Montgomery, who was a Billy and stranger things, the, uh, older lifeguard, uh, Max's older brother. He's great, really like cool and chilling in this movie and all that stuff. And yeah, so it updates faces of death and makes it about like kind of the modern internet culture. Uh, this movie is directed by Daniel Goldhaber, who also directed cam a few years back and, uh, feels kind of a, of a companion piece to that. He also directed, uh, how to the pipeline, uh, which is a movie that I loved.

[00:39:50] And I think also has a similar urgency to it, I guess, as face of death has. Uh, and there's some real craft behind this one too. There's a lot of really cool, like one takes and, uh, just some really good gore effects and all that stuff. So, uh, yeah, new face of death. It rocks, uh, had a great time with it. Uh, and I think I'm glad I watched the original so I had more context for this. Cause I could now like, I could point to those murders that were happening and be like, Hey, I remember that monkey scene that, uh, that happened. I saw that, you know, but I don't think you need to watch the original if you want to watch the new one. You can kind of just go into the new one blind.

[00:40:20] Okay. Yeah. I watched, uh, about a half hour of, uh, the original one. And I was kind of just like, why did people think this was real? Like, um, you know, I mean, not, not that, not that the, the effects look bad. Like when there are effects, you know, I think that they look usually pretty good when there are stuff. Um, but it's like the stuff that's like the, the, in particular is the, I had always heard about the alligator attack or crocodile attack.

[00:40:45] I forget when the game warden guy falls off the boat into the, um, and when that happens in the movie, it's just like cross cut to hell shaky. Like you can't, like you can't, you don't actually see it. You see a guy tip out of the boat and then, oh my God, shaky cross cut. Oh my God. We're looking at the feet. We're looking at the sky. We're looking at the water. Like how, why do people think this is real? Like, I don't understand. And what, what is funny about the new one too, is that, uh, because it is like, it's using the faces of death, you know, brand, all that stuff.

[00:41:10] Whenever they do talk about the movie, cause they have to talk about the movie quite frequently in this, but everybody who talks about it, like who knows what the movie is like, oh man, that movie's crazy. It fucked me up as a kid, all that stuff. And I'm sitting there thinking like, we kind of sucks. I don't know. I mean, I guess if I was young, uh, 13 or whatever. And like, you know, like we talked about, well, what were we talking about last? I don't remember where it was like my friend's older brother, you know, um, oh, tenacious D, right? Like I was saying like that just kind of missed us.

[00:41:40] And like, we would go into my friend's older brother's room and steal his DVD of Jane Silent Bob Strike Back and watch that. Cause we're 11 and they say the click commander and that's hilarious or whatever, you know, stuff like that. It's true. Uh, but like I could see if, if this was, we'd snuck into his older brother's room and stole his VHS of faces of death and we're 11 and we're like, oh my God, like we should, this is literally illegal in the UK. Like, you know, I could see where we build this allure and cult and all that stuff. So anyway, but I haven't seen this one.

[00:42:09] I didn't see the new one cause I kind of was like red rooms exist. What do I need to watch? Yeah. I mean, it sounds very different, but yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But it sounds like it's actually a very like different angle at this kind of thing. Um, yeah. Yeah. Where I thought it would just be like faces of death, but it's on the internet now, you know? Um, yeah, it sounds kind of different. So yeah, no, it's a, it's a really fun, like kind of horror slasher movie. So, uh, worth checking out faces of death. Uh, but then I also actually saw the other movie that shutter had in theaters recently that I guess will be up on the streaming service at some point soon.

[00:42:38] Uh, and that is forbidden fruits, which, uh, yes, new movie directed by Meredith Alloway stars and produced by Diablo Cody and stars. Lily Reinhardt is kind of one of the main characters, uh, as well as Victoria Pedretti, uh, from, uh, the haunting a hill house. Lily Reinhardt from Riverdale. Uh, also, uh, I have not watched this show, but, uh, Lola Tung, who's, I think on the summer I turned pretty, which, uh, is supposed to be a big thing. I've heard of that. Yeah, I've heard of it. I've never seen it.

[00:43:03] But anyway, this is a movie, uh, about a group of girls who, so there's this, like, it's a trio of, like, a, a clique of, like, mean girls kind of thing, right? Who work in the mall, uh, and, like, this upscale fashion store. And this one girl, uh, enters and, uh, joins their group. Lola Tung plays that girl. Lily Reinhardt is, like, the leader of this group. Uh, and very quickly it's revealed that they're also a coven and they are witches. Sick. Uh, and so they do, you know, witchy shit.

[00:43:29] Uh, and so half the movie is, like, Lola Tung sort of investigating this crew because there was a death about a year ago that is sort of connected to them in some way. And she's, like, kind of trying to get a sense of who all the people are, uh, while also, you know, kind of being the new mentee to, uh, Lily Reinhardt's character who kind of takes her under her wing and all that stuff. And I think the movie is solid enough. It, like, kind of, uh, it does that sort of, Diablo Cody didn't write this, she produced it, but it has that, a similar vibe of, like, kind of making its own.

[00:43:59] Making up its own language of teenage girls sort of thing. And so it does that. And I think there's some solid stuff throughout. Like, I was never bored while watching this movie, but I wasn't, like, super engaged. However, there is, like, a five-minute sequence towards the end where it becomes, like, a Final Destination movie. And that was a lot of fun. I had a great time with that. It's a great scene involving an escalator that is, uh, if you're looking for the horror stuff, like, that's it right there. It does a good job there. And so, yeah, Forbidden Fruits, I think it's worth checking out. I think it's solid. I think Lily Reinhardt's great in it.

[00:44:27] It's fun to see Victoria Petretti in this. Alexandra Shipp is the other one who played Storm in the newer X-Men movies, like X-Men Apocalypse and Dark Phoenix. Cool. But, yeah, no, so it's a solid time. So, yeah, it's Forbidden Fruits. Yeah, hopefully that comes to Shudder soon-ish, and I'll check it out. That sounds fun. Yeah, absolutely. All right, what else is on your list, Mike? I got two more movies. Okay. Um, one is absolutely dog shit, um, and that's unfortunate. Yeah. And that's also on Shudder.

[00:44:55] Uh, it's a new movie that just dropped for them in the last week or two or so. Um, and that's called The Mortuary Assistant. Okay. Um, and this is based on the video game, The Mortuary Assistant. Have you ever, famous video game guy, Mike Smith? I am unfamiliar. Yes. I've been playing Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for the last six months on and off, so I haven't gotten around to The Mortuary Assistant yet. Okay. Um, yeah, so this is, it's a horror game, obviously, um, where I've never actually, like, played

[00:45:22] it, but I've, my friends have, like, streamed it in Discord and we've played it together. It's sort of like that kind of, like, I think I talked about, um, Until Dawn was the same similar thing, where it's like, one person is in control, and they're like, what do I do left or right? We're all like, ah, you know, we're all, it's a whole thing. So we're having fun. But, uh, you play the, a new, in the game, you're a, uh, new employee at The Mortuary. I, I think there's a time limit, which I think is the thing that this movie needed, uh, because it adds all the pressure.

[00:45:50] Obviously, you can't do, like, an hour-long movie, but whatever. It just, this movie takes 8,000 years to get through all 91 of its movie minutes, you know? It's just, like, takes so long. But there's a demon in this mortuary, basically, uh, and you have to perform autopsies to discover clues, uh, and to do puzzles and stuff, or, not autopsies, embalmings, whatever they do to prepare bodies, and figure out the name of this demon so you can banish it back to hell. But there's, it's sort of like a, not like a time loop thing, but, like, because there's

[00:46:19] a time limit, like, you're not gonna solve it your first go. So, like, you're gonna get, you're gonna get got, and you gotta go back, and oh my god, we, okay, we know these first two puzzles, we can do them real quick, we gotta get to the third one. So there's a lot of that is part of the fun to it all. But, so this movie is based on that. It's, uh, you know, a new mortuary, uh, employee gets called in to work the midnight shift, you gotta get down there, you're the new girl, get in there, and, uh, turns out maybe that guy sent her there on her night shift for nefarious reasons. Ooh! Yeah, okay.

[00:46:49] And it just sucks. Yeah. It's just, it's just so slow, it's, everything is so wooden. Um, what's, who's the main person? Willa Holland, who I've heard of, but I can't remember. Yeah, she's in, uh, Arrow. She, she's, uh. Right. Yeah, Oliver Queen's sister on Arrow. Yeah, she was the voice of Aqua in Kingdom Hearts Birth By Sleep. There you go. Or you would know a Kingdom Hearts, uh, voice. Um, so like she's. Recently I was watching Hacks and Jesse McCartney made an appearance on, uh, Hacks and I was like, oh, Roxas?

[00:47:19] Wow. Everybody knows Jesse McCartney from Kingdom Hearts. Kingdom Hearts 2, specifically. Oh, wow. But yeah, so because it's a movie, it has to flesh out. We gotta have flashbacks to her life before the mortuary. We gotta discover there's an, uh, a recovering addiction plot line. Like, you know, it's just like, what are we, come on. It's, we'll give you the 45 minutes, like, quick, oh my god, we're so jump scares, uh, scare a minute video game. And then you slow it out to an hour and a half and we're adding characters and AA meetings and you're just like, shut up.

[00:47:49] You know, um, so whatever. It's just, I thought it was gonna be more fun, uh, more scary than it, than it ended up being. I mean, the, the effects, because, you know, it's autopsy, it's bodies and stuff. Like, those look really good. Um, they all look very practical. The, the demon itself, uh, is creepy and disgusting, uh, and it looks practical. Um, okay. So that's cool. Uh, there was a guy credited in the credits as like demon or something, um, which is neat. So, you know, swing and a miss on, uh, the mortuary assistant. Okay. That's a bummer.

[00:48:17] Your last three movies have all been movies that disappointed you. Does your last film, uh, improve that? Redeemed cinema? Yeah. Does it bring it back or is it also bad? Oh baby, we're back. We're so bad. Okay. Great. Yes. And this is the, uh, new movie called Redux Redux, um, directed by, uh, Kevin and Matthew McManus. Okay. Um, whose last movie was The Block Island Sound, which I never saw, but I've heard about. And I think that's like a smaller, uh, horror movie.

[00:48:45] This is a horror adjacent sort of thriller kind of thing, uh, Redux Redux. And this is about this woman whose daughter before the movie starts is killed by a serial killer. Um, and I don't know, I guess it's not really spoilers ish. It's like not really a reveal, but it's like the whole plot of the movie. Okay. That, uh, she, the, the woman who's played by their sister, uh, Michaela McManus, who's in, she's a fucking incredible is universe hopping.

[00:49:14] She's got this technology that allows her to travel through the multiverse, uh, hunting the serial killer in every possible universe that killed her daughter and killing him. So just unending revenge. Um, and it's, we, we, we join her. She's already been on this journey. It's already going on. And she, she's, you know, kills him, goes into his like, uh, serial killer, uh, chest and pulls out the strand of hair from number 12. That's, and we, you learn that's her daughter.

[00:49:41] It was his 12th victim until one time she, uh, you know, that's, that's the whole setup of the movie. She, till one time she breaks into his scariest serial killer house and there's a 13th victim held there. So she can't save her daughter, but she can save this girl. Uh, and then shenanigans ensue basically. Um, so it's, you know, it, it's, it's horror adjacent thriller, you know, it's serial killer stuff, revenge stuff. Um, but it's really emotional.

[00:50:06] I think the, the, her and the young girl who's a Stella Marcus is are great together. They're really fun. And they have sort of a Logan X 23, she's not that young, but it's got that kind of thing. Um, and, uh, Jim, Jim Cummings is in this as a small supporting character, which is fun. I love that guy whenever he shows up. And so, yeah, it's a good time. Sci-fi, you know, weird sci-fi multiverse stuff. And then they like kind of diverts into that where they're like, what do you mean you can jump multiverse? It's like, hold on. And so they explore that stuff.

[00:50:36] They explored the revenge. Is she, you know, losing a bit of her humanity every time she kills this guy kind of thing. Yeah. You know, themes to analyze and think about. Um, great. And it's really good. And that's called Redux Redux. Um, nice. I had no familiar, I've not heard of this at all. So, uh, I'm curious about this. Yeah. They were on, uh, also on, uh, the movies that made me, um, which is very cool. And I don't remember where it's available. I think it's prime. Yeah. It's available to rent on prime. Very cool. All right. That is Redux Redux.

[00:51:05] Uh, and then I've got a couple of more movies to talk about. Uh, one of which, uh, is from 2004 and that is House of Flying Daggers. Nice. Uh, which, uh, I had never seen before. So this month at the Roxy, uh, the International Wildlife Film Festival is going on. Uh, and whenever that happens, that means there's a little bit less, uh, you know, regular rep programming kind of thing because the festival takes like a whole week. So instead of doing like a full on, like, you know, long month long series, that's usually just three films. And this year they did three films, uh, call and they called it blades in bamboo.

[00:51:35] It was three woojah classics. Oh man. They're right up the Mike Smith alley, baby. Yeah, exactly. So, and I, the first two I had seen and I didn't end up going to them, but, uh, they were Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, which of course we've talked about many times in this podcast before. And then hero, uh, which, uh, I played for Inferno back when I did that at the Roxy a couple years back, but, uh, House of Flying Daggers, uh, is directed by Zhang Yimou, who also directed Hero, also stars, uh, Zhang Ziyi from Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. So there's like connections to all three movies here.

[00:52:03] That's what I was like, wasn't, I thought this was like connected to Crouching Tiger. That's, there it is. Yeah. Um, but yeah, House of Flying Daggers fucking rules. It's so good. Have you ever seen it, Mike? I don't think I actually have, but I think it's the coolest title of a movie that's ever existed. Yeah. So the movie starts and it has like, you know, an opening scroll that kind of gives you like a little bit of exposition backstory kind of thing. Uh, and it's like, you know, the year is 859. It's the Tang dynasty. Right. Uh, and it's like the, there's a corrupt government, a small rebel group calling themselves the

[00:52:31] Flying Daggers have emerged. And I was like, all right, I'm, I'm steeping my fingers. I'm going in. The next line comes up. They robbed from the rich and give to the poor. It's like, ah, yeah, here we go. And so essentially the movie is, uh, Zhang Ziyi plays the daughter of the person who was the leader of the Flying Daggers who has since died. And she is trying to find her way back to the Flying Daggers, uh, after a sort of a mission gone wrong. Uh, and she's being escorted by this guy who is actually working for the government. Uh, no.

[00:53:01] And the betrayal. Yes. And she doesn't realize that he said he saved her life, uh, and is secretly working for the government at, to try to find the Flying Daggers. And the movie has all the beautiful woojah action you would expect. I mean, it just looks incredibly gorgeous. Its use of color is spectacular. And also it's extremely heightened emotions. And there is an insane twist every 10 minutes. Uh, there are like, there are betrayals. There are double crosses. There's so many different things happening in this movie. Uh, it's a wild time. Uh, and I had a great time with it.

[00:53:31] House of Flying Daggers. And yes, there are many Flying Daggers, uh, in the movie. Uh, there's a, there's a lot of moments where they throw a dagger and it flies and it'll do like the wanted curve, uh, where it just kind of like goes around and like hits somebody in the back that like, you know, all that kind of stuff. It's great. Uh, so yeah. House of Flying Daggers. It rules. High recommend you check it out, Mike. Nice. Yeah. It sounds great. I feel like, yeah, that was all, you know, post crouching tiger here in America. It was like, oh, wait a second. We got a bunch of those movies. Uh, yes. So yeah, I'll have to check that out. Yeah. Worth watching.

[00:54:01] And then, uh, I also went to go see the, uh, the one day IMAX re-release of Speed Racer, which of course is a movie that we've talked about in the past because I think it was a Mike makes Mike watch. I think I made you watch it for the podcast a few years back. I think it was one of the very early Mike makes Mike watches. Yeah. I think it was. Yes. And, uh, it was a Mike makes Mike watch because, uh, I have always been on the ground floor of being a Speed Racer fan. I was there opening day, May, May, 2008. Uh, the weekend after Iron Man came out and you were like, yeah, that was cool.

[00:54:31] But what about this movie? Yes. And I had to convince some friends to go and, uh, to their credit, my friends liked it. Uh, but we were the only ones I knew that liked that movie for years. Yeah. I remember like after seeing it in theaters, I was like, wow, that was incredible. I love the Wachowski so much. I was so high in the matrix and that's why I was so excited for Speed Racer. And of course that bombed. But I remember like renting it on Netflix shortly afterwards and like trying to show it to my family and it did not go over. Like people, they were not into it.

[00:54:58] And yeah, no, it was a movie I loved for a long time and like would defend for many, many years. And it's been very cool to see the cult of this movie kind of grow over the years. Uh, and I hadn't seen it since I made you watch it for the podcast. Uh, I looked back and I did watch it then for the Mike makes Mike watch. And I think at the, at that time I gave it like three and a half stars in letterboxd. And I can't imagine why I rated it that low, uh, because I've always been pretty high on it. Uh, and it must've just been like, I think what happened is I watched it on hoopla at the

[00:55:27] time, the, uh, the library streaming service, which I don't think really exists anymore. Or if it does like, you know, it's off on its own thing or whatever. Uh, I'm not sure if it's affiliated with libraries anymore, but I think I had to watch it in like standard death on hoopla. It was like four 20 P or something like that. It didn't look good. And so rewatching it now and glorious IMAX, uh, just one of the most like dazzling eye popping crazy movies. And yeah, I, the visual language of this movie, just like it's so of its own thing.

[00:55:56] There's no movie that looks like speed racer, even within the Wachowski's own filmography. And it just, uh, it was an incredible experience to, uh, watch it in a much more packed theater this time than I did seeing it in 2008. Uh, you know, it was, it was a good group of people and it was a group of people where I knew like half the theater. Like it was a fun, like, Oh shit. I know that guy. I know that guy. Like it was like speed racer, like brings people together in a weird way. Uh, and it was such a blast to, uh, rewatch that on the big screen. So yeah. Shout out to speed racer.

[00:56:24] I feel like you were kind of like, I think you were kind of like, yeah, it's pretty good when we watched it from my Facebook watch, right? Yeah. I was just looking it up on letterbox. Yeah. I gave it three stars. Um, and yeah, I didn't see it obviously at the time when it came out. Uh, and then it was just kind of like, yeah, that's bad, right? Like obviously, you know, but that was before the kind of a cultural reappraisal and all that stuff, uh, critical reappraisal. And yeah, I don't, it just kind of, I haven't really thought about it since then. Honestly, since I watched it for those pod, um, didn't land hard for me, but maybe I'd

[00:56:54] have to rewatch it, check it out and see if it, if it connects more. I think you should. Yeah. It's, it's an incredibly sincere, earnest movie. I think it would play well if you like put, if you put it on the discord and just, uh, started playing with people. I would bet you may have a couple of speed racer fans in your friend group. Uh, if I, if I had to take a stab at it, but yeah, no, it was a great to watch it on an IMAX screen. Uh, and yeah, no, it just, uh, it rocks. I had a great time. So yeah, speed racer 2008.

[00:57:24] It's it's, it took 17 years, but people are starting to come around on it. One day crime one Oh one will join. Exactly. The right in, in the year 2046, we're going to be seeing the IMAX re-release of crime one Oh one on four 20 crime one Oh two. Yeah, exactly. Uh, but all right, those are all the movies I had to talk about. And then, uh, before we wrap up the episode, Mike wanted to give a quick shout out to, uh, our favorite show, the pit, which, uh, just wrapped up. It's a second season and, uh, I thought it was excellent whole way through. I had a great time with it.

[00:57:54] Yeah. Wonderful. Great season. I had a, I had a blast. Um, even though this season was much more intense, um, emotionally, I think than season one, you know, I, and I think that's kind of thrown people a little bit in terms of like their perception. I mean, Hey, the, I don't know you're off Twitter now, so you maybe aren't seeing the worst of the pit fandom, but the pit fans are insane. Uh, yeah, I saw, um, a lot of articles on police guy and stuff from like critics being like, you're watching the pit wrong. Yeah.

[00:58:22] I forget who, who, which, uh, critic wrote that one, but it was like, yeah. Yeah. And I think, I think part of it is a lot of people, uh, did catch up with like binge watched for the first season. Um, yeah. You know, watched it all at once, like after it had come out and like caught up with it and are now forced to watch it week to week. And so the structure of the show feels different to, to them in that capacity. Yeah. I think that could be a factor in there. And then, yeah, there was also the, uh, the story that came out that, uh, the actress who plays, uh, Dr. Moen is not coming back for season three.

[00:58:51] Uh, you know, which, uh, was one of those things that like, I feel like that's sort of built into the structure of the pit as a show. Like the, uh, the idea that like, you know, some actors are probably not going to come back, you know, for like the next season, because like, that's the nature of the ER situation. Right. And, you know, and there's been a lot of like backlash against it among the pit fans. But I also think like, you know, that whole character's arc this season was like, do I come back or not? Like, you know, what do I do with this? Yeah.

[00:59:20] Built into the story of the show, you know, that kind of thing. So, you know, all, uh, you know, regardless of, uh, how people are watching the pit man's show rules. Uh, and it's, I think the season was different in terms of like the first season really build up to a very like big disaster, right? The mass shooting at pit fest, uh, right. At the, uh, in the first season, this one doesn't really have that. It kind of like has like a couple of like red herrings where it makes you think something like that's going to happen. Like the water slide emergency. Yeah. Uh, and that kind of thing, which was very fun, but it's really more about, uh, you're, you're fighting, you're watching Dr.

[00:59:50] Robbie fight for his very soul and, uh, you know, try not to kill himself by the end of the season. Yeah. Yeah. I know. I found that incredibly moving. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. I was totally in for that. Yeah. I saw an interview, I think, or whatever with, from the, one of the creators, um, talking about like, yeah, we can't like do that every season where it's like a now another disaster. Like how do we up ourselves? That's just like a lose, lose situation before you. Right. Cause then you turn into Grey's Anatomy or something, right? Like that's. Yeah. Yeah. And then like, you're just painted yourself into a corner.

[01:00:20] It's like, well, and then the world blows up. Like, what do you, where do you go next? Right. Kind of thing. Um, so I think it's interesting that they did avoid that this season. Um, but yeah. And then I saw everyone, uh, or a lot of people, uh, you know, reacting to that shot of him holding baby Jane Doe where he's framed against the sun on the painted on the wall where it looks like a halo. Yeah. Um, and I was like, you know, one, one cool, uh, even if that is like on its surface, cool shot.

[01:00:46] Um, and then two, I think it was Alan Sepinwall or someone who's another TV critic guy, um, like pointed out, yeah, the scene right before that is Langdon completely dressing down Dr. Robbie for his fucking savior complex. Yeah. And then the show does that. And it's like, yeah. Do you not think this might be ironic? Like, do you not understand like how these two scenes talk to each other? And it was like, damn, yo. Yeah. Uh, we need more hashtag analysis in the world. Um, yes, absolutely.

[01:01:13] So, uh, yeah, I mean, Mohan, I'm sad about that cause that character is great, but like it totally tracks that her, her arc, this whole steps, this whole season was like, I should quit. Yes. We're going to a different field. Yeah. And I think, you know, that's going to be the nature of the show in terms of like every season, there will probably be like at least one or two people that aren't coming back the next season, that kind of thing. But it also introduces a lot of new characters. Uh, like this season introduced a lot of characters that weren't in season one, like Dr. Al Hashimi and Ogilvy and Joy and, uh, you know, all these characters that, uh, it

[01:01:43] does a really good job of like introducing new characters for you to care about, I guess. Yeah. Yeah. They, they, it's like, they have the setup of like, this is a teaching hospital. So every season in theory, there'll be a new class of med students for us to learn about. Um, yes, which is cool as hell. I do think though, I saw a lot of people talking about also like the fact that it's been like two women of color that have left the show or been written out. Yes. But the first season though, I forget her name. Uh, uh, Collins, Dr. Collins, Dr. Collins.

[01:02:13] Was only not brought back after it was revealed that she was part of like a deeply homophobic religious sect in the UK. Right. Wasn't that like, it was, there was some kind of weird behind the scenes stuff there. Yeah, absolutely. And so it's like very weird for people to be like, ignore that. Like maybe she was fired for problematic stuff and to be like, well, how dare they? Um, I don't know. People are weird. I also think, you know, I, it is, I think if it was another show, I feel like that could be an issue where it's like, oh yeah, it's weird that they keep like swapping out the women of color.

[01:02:43] The pit is like a very multi diverse cast. Like there's, you know, there are probably more women of color on the pits than most other shows on TV right now. So it's like, yeah, if you're going to have a show where like people are going to be coming in and out every season, like, yeah, it's, it's going to be people of various colors. You know, that's, that's going to be what it is. Yeah. No, I, I really enjoyed the pit season too. Do you think we'll ever get a pit night shift? Cause God damn, they keep like teasing it in this season when the, when the night shift finally shows up and they keep just being the coolest fucking cowboy doctors ever.

[01:03:13] And you're like, yeah, I mean, I want a night shift so bad. The night shift rocks, obviously Dr. Abbott's a rockstar. He's the coolest. Um, but yeah, this one also introduced a, one of the night shift doctors is played by the guy who plays Sean on shrinking. Uh, and so I, and I've been watching shrinking, so I was excited to see him pop up, but yeah, all the night shift guys, Dr. Shen is great. You know, just sipping on his Duncan the entire time and all that stuff. You know, I, I part, part of me is like, yeah, do the pit night shift. Like I will watch another season of the pit happily.

[01:03:39] I love having this like appointment TV show at every Thursday night kind of thing. Keeps me going some weeks, you know, it's like, oh, I have the pit in two days. Like I gotta make it, you know? Uh, you're joking, but that's so fucking real. Right. Exactly. Yeah. The key to living a long and healthy life is to have a prestige TV show that you look forward to watching every week. This is why we need, we need the weekly format of television. You know, this is it. This is it right there. Yeah.

[01:04:07] I think a pit night shift spinoff series would be awesome. Um, but at the same time, I think, uh, yeah, I think Noah Wiley was talking about it in an, in an interview recently and said something to the effect of like, you think you want a night shift spinoff, but like, you know, you don't actually like what makes them cool is that they show up in the last like two episodes of the season and like, you know, and they get to rock at rock and all that kind of stuff. Then we have to like develop, you know, new character arcs for them and everything. I don't know. It's, I think, I think it could work, but it's a, yeah, we'll see what happens. It would be a lot of work. I get it. Yeah. But a Dr.

[01:04:37] Abbott show would rock. It'd be great. That'd be so cool. But then maybe he wouldn't be able to show up on the actual pit and like, you know, we don't want that either. We want him, we want him hanging out with Dr. Robbie, you know, but it was funny that like Dr. Abbott was such a huge like fan favorite in season one. They were, they were like, okay, well how do we work him into the day at some point this season before he gets to show up for the night ship? It's like, okay, he's on a SWAT team that shows up. He's a SWAT medic. Like, yeah, okay. Why not? Sure. Great. Yeah, absolutely.

[01:05:03] So yeah, the pit, it feels like it's a sort of a prestige show, but it also feels like the return of like old school network television in a, in a really successful way. Yeah. Yeah. No, season two rocked. It was a lot of fun. Good times. I know, um, I was talking with my parents about it or my mom about it and she was like, oh my God, I can't believe we have to wait till like January now. Like, oh my God. I was like, you know how many years it's been since like house of the dragon that you're so desperate to watch or yeah. Which is back in June. So there's that. Yeah.

[01:05:31] But like, I didn't watch euphoria or don't watch euphoria, but like that was three years or whatever between season. Like, yeah, there was three years in between severance season one and two, you know, that's the stranger things had like a four year gap between season four and five or something like that. Yeah. No, that's, that's the era of TV that like has evolved over the last few years. And the pit is just very old school and it does feel like, oh man, I can't believe I have to wait till January, but it's because I like the pit so much and I want to keep watching. Exactly.

[01:05:57] Uh, so yeah, the pit season two, it's on HBO max, uh, it rocks. And, uh, we'll be talking about season three, uh, in eight months when we get back to it in, uh, in January, which, uh, is exciting. Can't wait. Yeah. All right. And I think that's going to wrap things up for today, Mike. Uh, we went over an hour, but not that much over, not that much. We'll survive. Yes. All right. Uh, Mike D where can we find you online this week? You can find me at MD film blog on letterbox and blue sky. And if you'd like to donate to support the show, you can do that on our coffee page, which

[01:06:27] is coffee.com slash Mike and Mike pods, where you can also donate $50 and pick a topic for the bonus episodes here on Mike and Mike, go to the movies. If you want to make me watch a movie, that's good. You can do that on our coffee page, coffee.com slash Mike and Mike pods. And if you want merch, we have merch available on our red bubble, Mike and Mike pods. Red bubble.com. That's right. You can find me online at M Smith film blog on Twitter and blue sky, Mike Smith film on letterbox radio, Mike sandwich on Instagram. Thank you for listening to you. Mike, my go to the movies. I'm Mike Smith. It's my degree show. Don't forget to rate and view the show on Apple podcasts or any other podcast app.

[01:06:56] And if you want to contact us, go to a complete works pod on blue sky. Uh, you can find the rest of our podcasts and rapture press alongside many other podcasts, what kinds of comic books and movie news and all that good stuff. Check out the main podcast, the complete works where season five is shaping up our theme song created by Kyle Cullen, uh, Kyle's podcast, email.com. And our logo is dined by Mac beer at fearless garden, blue sky. That is the end of this episode of Mike, Mike, go to the movies. We'll see you on the other side.