Hello and welcome to another episode of the American Movie Podcast. We are your hosts, Chris and Raymond, and today we have a very special episode i'm just kidding it's not that special but happy halloween everybody yay yeah what are you gonna go as for halloween this year raymond Indiana Jones. Oh yeah. You didn't have to sound so thrilled about it. Well, I just realized you already told me that before. Yeah. The costume came together pretty well.
I have everything I need for it. I was actually able to find, too, a nice little prop accessory of the Golden Idol he steals from the start of Raiders, and I got a... replica of his grail diary from last crusade so uh it's coming together pretty nice oh okay what are you going as i mean you're already scary enough but what are you going as i'm going as the annoying
kid that just sits in his living room watching a really shitty horror movie this year uh in my to hand out candy i'm not doing anything um this year i think i'm gonna watch the sequel of the movie i watched last year oh no Yeah, Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey 2. Dude, come on, why are you doing that? Why not? Why?
I mean, that's just what I do every year. I watch a really shitty horror movie. I started it a couple years ago with the Nightmare on Elm Street remake. Have you seen the original Nightmare on Elm Street? Yes, I have. Okay, thank God. Yeah. But I started this tradition a couple years ago, and I watched that. And I really enjoyed watching that while doing homework, while also handing out candy. So I was like, okay, I'm going to start doing that every year. And I did.
You got to tell us now what were the other years or what were the other movies? So I did it. It was Nightmare on Elm Street. The next year, I think I don't remember. I think I wasn't home. I think I had to work. I think I was at the theater for the second year, so I couldn't do it that year. The year after that, I didn't do it. Again, because I actually went out and trick-or-treated for the last time.
And then last year was Winnie the Pooh. This year is going to be Winnie the Pooh 2. You know, you could do like a good horror movie. There's so many good ones you haven't seen yet. There is. But why have fun? I choose... I think of it more as I choose to do a really bad one because I don't actually fully pay attention. And if I choose a good one...
I have to get up and like hand out candy in between it. So if I choose a good one, I'm going to want to sit down and actually pay attention to it. And getting up is going to prohibit that. So I just sit there and I don't actually pay it fully attention. Now that...
I understand that. That makes, that makes sense now. Cause I was going to say there's so many like great horror films out there to watch, but like, obviously, you know, you want to pay attention to them. So yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Well, On that note, we should probably get into our first segment, which is weekly movie reviews. Do you want me to go first or do you want to go first?
I'll go first. I got a slightly older movie, so we'll go in a release order. Okay. So since I haven't seen anything new for this year since Transformers 1, I decided to... Kind of go with some more movies on my backlog. So the only other movie that I haven't talked about yet that is one of my favorites of the year is Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.
Now, we'll just address this part right off the bat. No, it's not as good as the Caesar trilogy, Rise, Dawn, and War. Because those movies were fantastic. And it's going to be hard for... any follow-up to live up to those especially when they're connected to it but that doesn't mean this movie is without its merits it's a really good follow-up to the trilogy
When I first saw it, the way I felt about it was kind of, I mean, not quality-wise, but kind of in the sense of the story, I felt the same as Blade Runner 2049, where you really don't... need to watch the original to get this one and this one doesn't try to stand like higher than the original but it just kind of takes what was presented in that one and gives its own spin on it and tries to say something new and slightly different. Obviously, Blade Runner 2049.
a lot of people think is better than the original, not so much with Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, but I think the analogy still works to a degree. Like I said, a lot of the ideas it presents, I love a lot of it.
I think the story is very interesting, especially with the villain. He exemplifies the moral questions behind the movie perfectly, but he's just not... there enough and that's kind of my biggest issue with the movie like um he's played by kevin durant and he plays him perfectly and anytime he's on screen he he commands presence. You gravitate right towards him. He's just not there enough. You don't see him enough. But on the topic of...
you know, him playing the character perfectly. I think all the performances are great. Owen Teague, who plays the main ape, obviously, he is, he's great. Um, it's very funny because after the fact, you know who plays the main ape in this movie? No, I don't. You've seen, uh, it, uh, 2017, right?
yes i have yeah why did it take me so long to think of that i don't know it takes you long to think in general um you remember the bully that gets killed in the sewers with the like little makeshift oh oh oh yeah i know who you're talking about too i forget his name in real life but the his character what was it patrick hockstetter yeah yeah that's oh that's owen teague
Oh, really? Yeah, he's Noah in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Oh, that's sick. That's funny. You never would have guessed it, but... You know, he does great in the film. Gotta shout out William H. Macy as well. He's not in it for too long, but he's great as usual. But the motion capture and the CGI continues to be stunning. That's one thing that does carry over from the Caesar trilogy, but they improve upon.
Obviously, because, you know, the years have gone by and they're able to improve on the technology. But the motion capture is great. The CGI is great. Shout out to whoever decided to put like. the quote unquote raw cut of the film onto the Blu-ray release where you can just watch the actors do the motion capture. I wish more movies would do that.
I think that's a really cool idea, but that doesn't pertain to the movie in particular. But yeah, motion capture, it's amazing to watch. I love it. I was very... very ready to rag on the film's ending because The way they were playing it out, I was sitting there in the theater thinking they're not going to do that. They better not do that. Please do not do that. I won't get into what it is.
But let's just say I was expecting them to tie it back into the very original Planet of the Apes. And I was going to be like, this is going to be so stupid if you do that. I'm not going to like that at all. But then the...
They kind of pull the rug out from under you a little bit, and I think they knew that people were going to be expecting that certain twist. So that's why they kind of did something a little different with it, and they... played it up as if it could be revealed to be that but then they just do a bait and switch i think it works but man i was i was ready to be like nope the ending fumbled it um
And kind of speaking of tying into the original Planet of the Apes, the thing that I already spoke to it a little bit before, the thing I like, or one of the things I like most about this movie. is that it links to the Caesar trilogy a lot. There's a lot that happens within this movie that... obviously wouldn't have happened without Caesar but like even just if the characters didn't know about Caesar or some of them didn't um it would have played out very differently um so
It's very important to the events of those movies. But somehow you don't even have to like... see the Caesar trilogy for it to make sense which I find very fascinating um and I think some of why that works is the main character Noah because he doesn't know about Caesar So you could hypothetically start the film with him. You don't know what's going on just like he does. You're already in.
bought in with his story because he's just a very likable character he's very heartfelt and you're you're willing to go along with him and then you start learning more and more that the other characters tell him and then you're learning it too It would make for an interesting experience both ways. Having seen the Caesar trilogy or just starting off with this movie, it would make for a very cool experience one way or another. And the movie...
The great part is the movie still wouldn't be lost on the viewer depending on what you have or have not seen. And again, I can't really emphasize enough how much I appreciate that they tried something different. They very easily could have just retreaded old plot lines from some of the previous movies and then called it a day. I'm a little, a little worried.
That's what they're going to do with some of the sequels because they said they have like five sequels confirmed to be in development or something like that. i can't remember for this this specific like character arc uh just just for this like time frame of the of the events i guess um i i was more i i was willing to be like oh okay if you announce just one i'll obviously be on board because i like this movie a lot as you can tell but and then they were like oh no we could do like
I can't remember exactly what they said, but they said something along the lines of we could do five, like five sequels. And I was saying to myself, like, hmm. You know, there's five movies in the original Apes series, and those kind of get bad after a certain point. Yeah. I really don't want to see that again. Just focus on one at a time. Focus on making it good and then just go from there. If it happens, it happens. If it doesn't, you made something good.
I think just in general, if a movie comes up, when you make a movie and you're like, oh, we have ideas for five sequels, then people kind of get off, like, it's off-putting for people, I think, because then you're like, instead of, you know... getting happy for a sequel to come out you're you're now well i gotta wait now i know there's five so i gotta wait for all five to come out and some people like are turned away from the series until they're all out so that you can't see it not everyone but
it does happen it's it's kind of a similar effect to like star wars or marvel where just so much comes out and and one would look at and be like
oh, I don't feel like doing all that. And it just comes out so quickly. If you stagger it and do one at a time and don't try to like... jump the gun on any of it people will be more likely to look at it and go i can i can keep up with this yeah you you announce five and you say five are coming out people are going to say well that's that's that's too much It's too much. But overall, I liked this movie a lot. I gave it a 4 out of 5. Solid follow-up movie. I'm excited to see what they do next.
Please, please, please, please just go one at a time. Do not jump the gun. I don't want to see you screw the story up. So I still have yet to see this at all. and like it is one of the ones i've been waiting i like i have on like i will be i will catch up on it before the end of the year have you seen any of the apes movies i've seen i saw i've seen one of them
I think I watched the first of the Caesar trilogy I watched. Oh, Dawn? No, not Dawn. Rise. Rise. I watched that one. But... what was it i had hadn't seen i didn't watch the other two of that series but then before kingdom came out um i know i think what i think it's war is the third one yes yes so
that one had like a big resurgence on TikTok. And I loved that, especially because, so I didn't, I haven't seen that one. So. it just had it just all the like the clips of specifically bad ape just popping up all the time and like the meme of the oh no meme just being like big was like it was great and i you
use that quite a bit but yeah and just steve zahn as a as an actor in general like he does a great job in that role i mean he's great in uh the white lotus as well as the dire even would be kid uh trilogy He was also in, um, that thing you do. That was, that was a good movie. Yeah. He's just, he's a great, I like Steve's on, he's just so like kind of well-rounded and I'm, I'm glad you bring up.
I'm glad you bring up War for the Planet of the Apes because that is my favorite Apes movie. That's one of my favorite movies in general. That is a fantastic movie. And Steve Zahn is one of... he's one of the many highlights in that movie because his his performance is like you'd think it's mostly comedic and yeah he's mostly meant to be like a you know
not heartfelt, a lighthearted character to kind of give some levity because war can get pretty intense. Yeah. He has some scenes where he gives just such a... heartfelt and driven performance and it's it's so fascinating to watch yeah that's a great movie you don't want to get me started on that movie i will not shut up about it it's fine i don't shut up about a lot of movies either so but
We're going to go into my review. Jack and Jill is great. Shut up. The Dunkachino lives in my head rent free. I'm sorry. Yeah. OK, so the movie I'm going to talk about today, I did see a couple of weeks ago. It's came out, I think, mid-September. It's Speak No Evil. I don't know. I think I talked about like seeing this in the last episode, but.
Anyway, I'm going to actually fully dive into it. So when I first saw the trailer for this, when I saw, I think, Maxine in the summer, I thought it looked really good. I put it on my Letterboxd watch list. I was waiting to see it, and I finally got around to see it. and it did not live up to my expectations at all um you thought the trailer looked good i thought it looked i mean okay maybe not good is the word but i thought it looked decent i liked the i like i thought you know james mcavoy's
like, performance in at least the parts of the trailer were what drew me in. I was like, I gotta see that. Like, I like James McAvoy. And, yeah. But the entire, like, I was like, okay, this could be good, maybe. as like a good thriller or something like that. Did not live up to my expectations going into it. I found myself like quite confused for a good portion of the film. Like I mainly feeling is like the main family that this movie revolves around.
we're just overreacting a bunch to just the minor conveniences that occur at the farmhouse that the main setting is. I very much viewed a majority of the film as... a more economically privileged family being put off by these minor issues that arise while they're staying at a lower middle class farmhouse
They're just continually complaining about everything while expecting the hospitality of this farmhouse to be like that of the Ritz-Carlton. It just stayed like this in my head. I'm like, what the hell is like... They just... complaining about everything until there's like a specific part I'm like okay yeah they're not good people but for the majority of the film I was fully on James McAvoy and his like the family that like his his character's family the entire time I'm like
I'm on his side. Evil Professor X. Yeah, so... Ultimately, like he put McAvoy puts on a phenomenal performance. It's not his best thriller horror performance that I've seen, or at least in my opinion, because I think his performance in split still puts that to shame or puts this to shame, at least. but he's like the only big name actor on it like in it so like he blows everyone else out of the water well that's that's something james mcavoy is generally good at like yeah a lot of people
didn't really like it chapter two, but I, I believe at least I can't totally recall. I think a lot of people did praise. his performance in that movie. He had a good one in that too. I still think his... I mean, it's hard to top the split personality.
performance because he does that very well and in split i i think too he also got overshadowed by bill hater in it chapter two yes bill hater is my favorite part of it chapter two He stole the show in that, obviously, but I think McAvoy and Chastain were trying their best to equal Hayter, but he was obviously the best part of it.
But yeah, McAvoy, his performance in Speak No Evil, it excels. The other adult actors, they're lackluster. The child actors, they show promise. They're not great. They're not phenomenal, but they don't... like take away from anything they're not terrible it's not like really bad that you're like okay
and you need to say something about it. That's the most you can ask for a child actor sometimes. But exactly, like, they're new. I haven't seen them in anything yet. Like, I think they were, like, I think both of them, it's, like, early projects for them, if not their first. Well, yeah, there's several moments in the first act of this film and throughout that of specifically McAvoy is that like a show off his comedic timing and his like friendly presence that he's trying to like.
So he's showing that he's trying to convince this family that he's a good person and friendly. There's one in the beginning where when they first meet, they're on vacation, I think, in Italy or whatever. And there's another family that wants to sit and eat lunch with them. And he starts making a wiping ass and toilet paper comment. Being like, oh, I rolled the ball up in a... i i fold it up do you or do you just wipe and something like that i'm butchering it but he it's it's hilarious
And then there's another moment later on in the movie where they go out to dinner. It's like just the two parents, like the two sets of parents and they go out to dinner at like this like house and it's like private. And then the James McAvoy says something.
And him and his wife in the movie are, like, they're talking about, like, oh, you need to, like, stay, like, in love and, like, having, like, being, like, pleasuring your partner. And then... she gets down and like there's like a it's like a pretend blowjob moment and it's like awkward for the other family because they're just sitting there and James McAvoy's like making a face being like yep yep
Yep. And then she pops up and like nothing happened. And they're like, haha, got you. And it is funny. But it's also like you can like feel the this is really awkward for this other family that's just sitting there watching this occur. Yeah, that would be very awkward. Yeah. Throughout the movie, I found myself laughing at moments that I probably shouldn't have been laughing at just because I thought they were hilarious, but ultimately they probably weren't.
It's fine. I thought it was more funny than scary. But anyway, they're supposed to be very suspenseful, they just played off wrong, and I just laughed. And it does do a lot of the common horror trope of something very small and minor being a reason for the protagonists to turn back and put themselves back in harm's way. It's because they read the script. Yeah.
but it's yeah but it's just so it's so annoying because there's several times you're like just leave and then they're like okay we're gonna leave and then they do and then like oh no I left my stuffed animal. And then they turn around and put themselves back in harm's way over a stuffed animal. I'm like, really? Are you saying you wouldn't? No. I was going to say, don't tell me you wouldn't do that.
Again, if you're really feeling, like, creeped out, yeah, maybe you go back, but then you grab the stuffed animal, you leave. But they grab the stuffed animal and stay. Wait, they grabbed it and stayed?
yes they went back they turned around and i think so i wrote for my letterbox review um that the Tesla windshield is the MVP of the movie, because there's a part where it gets shot with a shotgun and it doesn't completely shatter, which completely, like, contradicts the, uh, especially the, uh, Cybertruck, like...
thing that happened where they throw they're like it's indestructible and then they throw like a like a little rock at it and it completely shattered i'm like wow the with the windshield on the regular tesla can withstand a shotgun the cyber truck so is this confirmed to be a fortnight crossover maybe it's not a cyber truck it's just a regular tesla oh yeah sadly but yeah ultimately i
It's not the worst movie I've seen this year, but it's not my favorite. What is the worst movie you've seen this year? I believe the worst movie I have listed, I gotta pull up my letterbox, but I think it's a movie called Breathe, and it was like a direct-to-DVD, direct-to-video thing that my, yeah, my, uh... stepdad was watching and i was like i'll watch it with him and it's like i think it's mila jove mila oh mila jovovich mila jovovich and what's his name the main actor in
um avatar oh oh sam sam worthington yeah no the two of them are in it and it's like a it's really weird and i think jennifer hudson and common are also in it It's a very weird cast, but the movie was awful. That sounds great, man. I don't know what you're talking about. Okay. Has Mila Jovovich ever been in a good movie? I don't know. I don't think so. I don't know.
There's probably some people out there who think like the Resident Evil movies or something are good, which I'm sorry if you do. My mom, like, I don't I've never seen it, but my mom's like she she bought. The fifth element. And she was like, oh, this is good. And I was like, oh, okay. And I haven't heard. She was in that, wasn't she? I believe so.
Was that her? Yeah, I think she is. I think. Yeah. Hold on. I want to look this up before I go saying it. I want to confirm this before we get made fun of at work. Yes, it is. Okay. It is. Okay. that's another movie i haven't i haven't really seen that movie in full okay so mila jovovich has okay she's been in a few good movies yeah she was in dazed and confused i know a lot of people like that one i haven't seen that myself
I mostly associate her with like Resident Evil and Monster Hunter and those like Paul W.S. Anderson movies. Yeah. Which, you know, the not a lot of people like those for for good reason. Yeah. Well. Now we move into our next segment, which is box office rundown. So we go into the last two weeks for box office numbers. Smile 2, it opened. So for October 18th, the 20th. Smile 2 opened. at 23 million dollars taking the number one spot um ching
Yeah, Ka-ching. Wild Robot remained at number two, earning another $10 million in its fourth week. Terrifier 3 falls down to three, making... 9.3 million in week two. And then Joker Folly Ado only made only 2.1 million in week three. Womp womp womp. Womp womp. Yeah, I think it lost it. Everyone that wanted to see it saw it. Week one. Saw it and didn't like it week one. Saw it and didn't like it week one because I still haven't seen it, but a lot of singing apparently. Way too much singing.
I have seen bits and pieces of it. I've seen maybe about 45 minutes worth of it. Roughly, roughly. So take it with a grain of salt. I was mostly excited for this movie because I heard it was going to be a musical and I was like, okay, that's wacky and weird. I'm down. Yeah. And then like most of the musical parts that I saw. were just padding it added like two minutes when you could just establish the idea of it in 30 seconds and you're done right there yeah so that's really upsetting
Yeah. So then for this past weekend, Venom, The Last Dance, opened to $51 million opening. That was number one. Smile drops to number two, making it nine and a half. Wild Robot made $6.8 in Week 8. Conclave opened at $4, making $6.6. We Live in Time made $4.8 million as it got a $2,000. to around 2 000 increase like theater increase so it's real
became less limited. Terrifier 3 made another 4.7 in its third week, which now puts its domestic gross at $44.5 million, which is insane considering it... was made on like with a $2 million budget and then another half million dollar marketing. So making bank. Say what you will about the Terrifier movies. Love them or hate them. They really do make bank. They make money.
They're cheap to produce and they make money. I just did see something earlier, like I think yesterday, last night, that apparently the fourth one is going to be Terrifier in Space, maybe. There's no way. And I was like, that can't be real. But so like, it's probably just TikTok like gaslighting me. But I think I did see. that someone said it's going to be Terrifier in space, and I think that's just a random thought. We need to start selling a shirt.
like branded merch for this show and it just says tick tock gaslighted me okay then no um come on man it would be funny nor anora and it's very limited release made Just under a million dollars. I think it's like $980,000. Not bad. Not bad. 20 like 35 theaters oh my goodness i didn't know it was that limited no it's extremely limited wow to make that much money in only that in that little theaters is very well i think it's
Once it gets more widespread, I definitely will see it once it gets more widespread because it's supposed to be phenomenal. It's too bad we weren't able to talk about this last episode because I know Michael was really excited for that one. I know. He was very excited. It's trying to get us to get them tickets for it. Speaking of profitability to smile, too, is doing really well because in its first weekend alone, it already nearly matched its budget because it.
It's at about 28 million for a budget, I think, roughly. Let me check the number on that. And the thing with that one, they probably didn't have to do too much with marketing because they didn't market it as hard as they did the first one, but they really didn't need to. yeah there were some simple things that they did that went a long way so it was a 28 million dollar budget but no i what i have seen for marketing and and it's more of like i've seen some like billboards or like apparently
There's billboards in like L.A. that have like Naomi Scott's character because she's a pop star in it. Sky Riley. They're like they've been promoting her as like an actual pop star. in all around LA. Oh, that's kind of cool. Yeah. So, like, they're trying to get people to be like, oh, it's a real pop star. So, like, we'll go in and see a real pop star getting...
whatever happens to her. But then I saw the same thing like at sporting events. I'm pretty sure they had someone during the MLB playoffs sitting right behind the catcher.
yeah that's true doing the smiling thing again where which it's just so creepy but they're just standing there the entire game standing up just smiling at the camera whenever they're on it it's easy marketing it's very easy it's very low cost like and it's easy but it's still off-putting so then it gets you like oh i gotta see that yeah it worked for the first one because the first one did very well
It's worked for the second one, I mean, to the point where... And both times, I've seen a bunch of... It's a very, like... It's rated R, which is... But the premise of it is like something that you would see with like a PG-13 movie. So a bunch of like teenagers are trying to get in to see it. And it's. It's.
so i've like one of our managers the other day like i was leaving and they're like oh i need to kick people out because i refunded them tickets and sent them to a different show but they still went into smile i was like fun but yeah Yeah, so now we go into rapid-fire reviews. So I'm going to start this one. Ironically enough, you asked me about A Nightmare on Elm Street.
Whether or not I've seen it, that is my first rapid fire review today. Oh, good. Good. So I gave it a four star. I said, I remember hearing from a lot of people I know who were young.
during the 80s saying that this movie terrified them which i can understand it based on the film's premise however some of the special effects are just ridiculously funny freddie's stretchy arms johnny depp being sucked into his bed the mom ragdoll being pulled through the door at the end of the movie the mom ragdoll that's yeah that's not a fair one no i mean you can also talk about the like jello glue stairs
Oh, yeah. When she starts like home aloning the house. Yeah. Yeah. But I am very glad that the film doesn't dive too heavily into the pedophilia like that awful remake.
yeah they leave it they leave it more subtle and they more so leave it up to the viewer which i think makes it a little scarier yeah whereas just diving into it you're just like okay why like yeah if i was a parent i'd probably do that too yeah it's not it's not quite as heavy-handed yeah well your turn okay that's it that's all okay um my first movie um for rapid fire reviews it's halloween resurrection oh okay i i watched this movie not like two weeks ago um
I can't remember what happens in the movie other than a useless subplot about someone watching a computer live stream and then Busta Rhymes beats up Michael Myers. Yeah. That's it. That's it. that's all i remember that's funny i think that's one of the ones i haven't seen in that franchise it's awful yeah it's genuinely awful i they have to have had like maybe 20 pages of the script written and they were like okay we'll just figure out the rest as we go along we'll be fine yeah it was awful so
My next one is It 1990, the TV miniseries with Tim Curry. I gave it a three and a half star. Because I remember after watching this for the first time, I was scared to take a shower for a week because I was afraid that Tim Curry was going to push the drain open, open wide and start telling me really bad jokes.
Come on, man, that'd be awesome. Yeah, but Tim Curry is easily the scarier of the two Pennywises, in my opinion. I agree, I agree. So, just to have that looking up, like, I have, we have the standing glass. at my house we had the standing glass shower and it's very it's not a big shower like big like area so the drain being pushed wide open and just having tim curry looking up at me from like right at my feet
Being like, I forget what the joke he tells in the library of that one is, but he's like spinning the weird thing. He's like, oh, you better let the poor guy out. uh-huh yeah that i that's just what i was envisioning and i was like nope not doing it i was gonna say you are You were talking about this as if it actually happened. No, I mean, I was just scared to take a shower for a week. I was going to say, did it happen to you?
No, it didn't happen to me. But I was just I'm telling you, I was scared to take a shower for a week because it was like in the part with like the kid and he's in the like the school locker room shower. It's a much bigger shower. Yeah, we had the same like drain in the floor.
and I'm just like I'm like this this is gonna like spread open wide and I'm just gonna see a giant clown looking up at me oh my goodness you better have Prince do you have Prince Albert in a can I i think that's the better telling of the story honestly compared to the the two new movies yeah I think the miniseries is superior. I think it just flows a little better. Pennywise in...
The miniseries. Nothing against Bill Skarsgård. I think he's a terrific actor. I just think Tim Curry makes for the scarier Pennywise. Yeah. I mean...
I'm pretty sure it was the first hour and a half. So the first half was night one, and then the second half was the next night. So you watched it over two days, as opposed to... you see go see one movie one year and you're like okay cool it's over and then you the next year they're like oh here's part two they're now old they're old now you remember them kids well guess what
They're old. I thought you were going to make a joke about the movie Old. Oh, no. That movie was weird. I don't want to talk about that movie. Moving on. Yeah, okay. Go to yours. For my next one, I picked Hellraiser. The original Hellraiser. That's the one with the weird guy with the nails in his face. Yeah, Pinhead. Okay. It's...
This is a classic case of the book is better than the movie. I think there's plenty of books. It is. It's based on a novella, The Hellbound Heart. Clive Barker wrote the novella and then he directed the film as well.
I think there's plenty of good things in the movie. A lot of the performances especially are great. The special effects... are at an all-time high but you can say that for a lot of other 80s horror films like the fly or the thing or the blob you know they're just terrific looking special effects My big issue with the movie is the story structure is very weak. There's too much prevalence placed on what come down to just minor motifs and small driving forces for the greater story in the book.
And even separating it as a movie and not looking at the book, it's still hard to focus on. after a certain point because the movie kind of has the Jurassic World Fallen Kingdom problem where halfway through the movie it becomes something completely different. And it's very just like in Fallen Kingdom, it's very jarring and very weird. But Doug Bradley, who plays Pinhead or lead Cenobite, as he's credited in this movie.
He does a great job. I met him at a convention not too long ago. He's a really nice guy to listen to. Yeah, he was a good guy to meet. So my last one is The Shining. I watched this for the first time in my American cinema class during my junior year of high school. Terrifying movie. Not the murder part. but the part where the guy gets head from the guy in the bear suit. Yeah, no, I can agree. Like, terrifying. Especially just being in school and then being like, what the f-
What the fuck? And then no one's saying anything about it. No one still knows exactly what that means either. Yeah, it beats me. I wonder, I really do wonder if Stanley Kubrick knew before he died. Yeah, I don't know. I'm very curious. Maybe he just put that in there for fun. He was like, yeah, people will get a kick out of this. And then...
They still talk about it nearly 50 years later. I'd say it worked. Four and a half stars. Sorry, I didn't say that. My last movie is... the thing from another world okay excuse me uh not to be confused with the john carpenter version um because this movie gets very it gets lost in the weeds a lot um and i don't i don't think it really deserves that um yes i do think it's inferior to the john carpenter one because they are both based on the same novella but that doesn't mean this movie
like is bad because i think i think this movie is really good there's a lot of great back and forth between the two main leads um kenneth toby and margaret sheridan they the the way the dynamic that they have is really fun to watch and it really helps you to buy into the movie um a good chunk of the other characters are endearing or at least memorable
But that's one of my issues with the movie is that there's a few too many of them. There's only a handful that feel memorable or that you care for. Oh, God. I keep yawning. And the rest of the characters are kind of just cannon fodder, so to speak, for the titular thing from another world. that's that's really my only issue though and it doesn't even bug me that much because the story itself is very strong and it really does make up for some of the weaker links with the characters um
The creature itself is very different than what the source material depicted. The John Carpenter one did get it more accurate with like a shapeshifting alien that can take the form of anybody. But with this one, it's more like a plant based.
monster but i think it works for the story it's a good example of when you change something uh it helps it helps the narrative rather than hinders it because you're changing up the context and there's a reason for the change you're not just just switching it up to switch it up and be different like there's a legitimate reason um and i i know i i've i pretty much prefaced this by saying but it's a solid movie that is
Yes, it's inferior to... Oh my god. Stop yawning. I can't. It's inferior to the John Carpenter version. But I still don't think that's it's a it's a fair case for this movie to be forgotten because it is a very good movie. Well, after that, we now move into our next segment, which is yours. Raymond Disc Fun Time. It's funny I go from talking about The Thing from Another World because now the release I'm talking about is Scream Factory's Blu-ray release of John Carpenter's The Thing.
Now, if you don't know me, you'll know there's a lot of horror movies I love. Like, I love Alien. I love Evil Dead 2. But the real... MVP in my heart when it comes to horror is The Thing. I love this movie to pieces, and I think the Scream Factory Blu-ray release is the best way... the the best physical version that you can own of this movie um i usually i like to go over a brief overview of everything it has to offer um but i'm just gonna
I just want to read off the special features because I think this is what makes it really worth it. On disc one alone, you have a 2K scan of the movie, which was supervised by Dean Cundy. the director of photography for the film, an audio commentary with him, a commentary with John Carpenter and main lead Kurt Russell, theatrical trailers, TV spots, radio spots, which...
Those were really fun to listen to. Disc 2, you have new interviews they recorded for the disc. You have the documentary feature, Terror Takes Shape, which is just about the general making of. uh for the movie um you have other making of features outtakes the tv broadcast version which was aired sometime in the 80s which i have watched it's They definitely butchered some of the nuance of the movie.
A vintage product reel. It contains a condensed version of the film. I think like a 20 minute version that was wound up shown to some early test audiences as well. So much more behind the scenes footage, a production archive. They have, like, art and storyboards and location scouting, special features. Like, all this in this movie, you get two discs.
The base film looks really good. It's a really good transfer. It's like $10 on Amazon right now. If you don't own this movie and you want to see it, this is the best way to do it. Trust me. This isn't like an affiliate thing. I'm not trying to sell copies of it. I am, as one avid fan of this film, the Scream Factory Blu-ray is the best way to own this movie. And that's going up against the 4K Blu-ray, which already looks fantastic.
fantastic that was one of the 4ks that was transferred very well because a lot of older movies look kind of rough on 4k this one does not this blu-ray is the best way to own the movie Case in point, $10 on Amazon. Go buy it. If you haven't seen it, go watch it. God, I will. I love this release so much. And I don't think I need to explain it anymore. No.
No, I mean, that is a lot of... You said $10? $10! It's $10! You can get a lot of, like, actual features and stuff for that. That's insane. It's... I mean... I was thinking about going with another Scream Factory one, but Scream Factory does have a lot of different releases. I have their Halloween 2 one. um and i think um oh no the army of darkness one yeah that's scream factory um
They always load these discs with special features. But I think for The Thing, it especially helps because there's so much that goes into that movie. And you can glean so much from the behind the scenes. um obviously the nature of the movie is very ambiguous and you're not gonna get any like special clues from it because they made it to be purposefully ambiguous like yeah they know they're gonna raise questions but
You can appreciate so much like a lot of the behind the scenes stuff and just how they crafted the film. I can't like shut up about this movie. It's one of my favorite movies. Every winter, I have a Thing sweatshirt. That's the only sweatshirt I have. And that's what I wear. I love this movie so much. And I think the Scream Factory Blu-ray is the best way to watch it. And that's it. Well, you're definitely their biggest supporter right now, like at this exact moment in time. But...
We'll now move on to our last segment of the day. Thanks, Chris. You're welcome. You're welcome. Which is Letterboxd Laughs, which I have, I found four reviews on Letterboxd. Three of them are very quick. For one movie that I really enjoyed. What movie? The 2005 Charlie at the Chocolate Factory. I... I...
Watched this movie a lot when I was a child. I hate this movie. This movie, you know, I watched this a lot. So, the first review, I'm going to... say is it's this is the review i didn't get a star i didn't remember the star rating it says fuck halloween fuck friday the 13th fuck scream fuck a nightmare on elm street this is a slasher the next one is sure
The next one is a half star review. He touched kids, right? Like, without a doubt, this guy likes minors. Oh my god. The next one is another half star review. It says, who's wonking their willy? Oh my god, I've seen that one. I've seen that one. And then the last one, I didn't get a star rating on it either, but it's from... I did... Actually, on this one I wrote... the name down to give them a shout out. It's Jordan Beaumont Anderson. They wrote...
So Willy Wonka closes his factory, which collapses the local economy and replaces his employees with actual slaves. He then creates a contest, a quote-unquote contest, which functions purely as a marketing gimmick to line as possible. This entire time, he continues to specifically target children with his product, locking many of them into a lifelong struggle with binge eating and diabetes.
He summons several families to an industrial workplace filled with OSHA violations, which directly leads to the injury of multiple children. Finally, like any predator, Wonka tries to recruit a young boy into his world of capitalist decadence. Willy Wonka is a monster. I mean, he is in the Tim Burton one. Yes. I hate that movie. I hate that movie so much. Which I think is very ironic because we've talked about a lot of remakes and movies that have been remade today. And I think...
I think this is the worst one, but it is a slasher. Okay. It might not be for Halloween. It might not be the worst. There's probably another remake of another movie that I'm not. Well, I mean like Wicker Man. That's a good example. Yeah. I just personally have a very immense disdain for this movie. It's garbage. I hate it. Let's let's move on. Yeah. OK, your movie and your reviews.
I got a couple different movies, actually. Okay. A couple different reviews. The first one is a one-star review of Halloween Resurrection, because, you know, why not? Yeah. Did Michael Myers just get roundhouse kicked in the head by Busta Rhymes? Did you write that one? No, not me. My review for Halloween Resurrection was maybe the real Halloween Resurrection was just the Halloween Resurrection we made along the way. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
I got a five-star review for The Exorcist from Peaceful Stoner. This review is based on a true story. last night a human being watched this stoned and almost had a heart attack from fright that's it um thanks uh let's see where is it okay now we got a four-star review of the fly another remake and again this is i i talked to i did i talk about this movie last week no i didn't i was going to but i didn't um so this review
four-star review come find out if my basic instincts of fear and disgust are stronger than my inherent attraction to jeff goldblum hint no which i feel that um and then we got this is the last one A five-star review of The Fly. I'd fuck it. I was gonna be done. When I found that last review, and then I found that one, I was like, well, I can't not. I have to have that one.
No, in looking at the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ones, I found so many reviews of just, um, oompa, oompa, oompa, just literally just saying oompa loompa. for like five star reviews. And then there was one where it was like, this is pure cinema. And then this is my favorite quote from the movie. And it was just the, uh, no one would eat Augustus chocolate, chocolate covered Augustus flavored gloop.
Or whatever the quote is from the movie. Is that a line in the movie? Yeah, he's like, she's like, oh, they're gonna make, they're gonna sell him by the pound. Like the mob. Augustus' mom after she falls in the chocolate. and he's like augustus flavored chocolate covered gloop no i remember that now yeah it's not a good quote but anyway not a good movie i
As a child, I loved it. Do I need another reason to bully you? You don't need it, but you could. I have it now. I mean, you're just gonna bully me anyway, so mine as well. I mean, I am. Yeah. That's what I'm good at. I wouldn't say that, but... You gotta stick to your skills, man. Skittles? Now you see why I bully you? Yeah, whatever. Who cares?
I care. Yeah, well, no one cares about you. Oh. Yeah, I know. Actually, now that I'm thinking of it, let's check in on... I'm going to check in on the guy, the reviewer I... The person I followed last week for the last time we did Letterboxd reviews, I want to see if they have any funny new reviews, because they might. Because they're funny. Find out. Hurry up. I'm looking. I'm looking. I'm looking. They just did one of the wild robot. Shed a tear when the wild robot said, I am a wild robot.
oh that's great that's great yeah i wish more movies did that like can you imagine if during empire strikes back like they're attacking the echo base and then han turns to leia and he goes Wow, I guess the Empire is really striking back, huh? There's so many. We might as well go with the original Star Wars, just, you know. Luke, at one point, Luke turns to Ben, or Obi-Wan, whatever you want to say, and he says, I really want to help with the Star Wars. I feel like I'm a new hope for the galaxy.
I laugh myself silly. I just found this other review because he commented on it and he goes... What if it's for the substance? It says, what if instead of the substance, it was the sub sauce? And when you signed up, they sent you a week's supply of footlong cold cut trio subs that you had to eat.
in order for your younger, perfect self to take over. Is this anything? The sub-sauce? The sub-sauce. I don't understand that part of it. I mean, honestly... You could have just said the sub-sandwich. Like... Well... the the the subway stints substance yeah i mean you kind of already got it in there the substance you know so yeah
I see what he's saying, though. I mean, I think that'd make for an interesting movie. The Substance was already a pretty interesting movie. Or this one with Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Oh, no. Don't skimp on the meat. That's it. I haven't seen Texas Chainsaw 2, but I know what goes on in it. Have you seen the first Texas Chainsaw? No. Why do I even talk to you? I don't know. I really don't. Sometimes... Sometimes maybe I just think... I don't know. I'm not...
Sometimes maybe I just think. I'm not going to continue. What was it? Nothing anywhere close to what we were just talking about. Kind of similar to my just not trailing off.
Or, like, not finishing my sentence. Yesterday I was in class and, like, we were doing a thing of, like, we had to figure out, like, a problem and, like, how to come up, like, out of the book that, like, it was listing problems of, like... language barriers or whatever and as a group we had to come up with like find the problem we thought and then find a solution for it and
Someone in my group goes, yeah, so this is the problem. List states the problem. And then so I was like, okay, now what's the solution? And then like, how do you fix that? And he goes, you just don't. And then stop talking. like so there's no solution you just don't i mean honestly like when a problem arises how do you solve it you just don't like i just don't you just don't man yeah don't
But yeah. That's great. That's great. Yeah, sometimes school's good for that. Just random quotes to live by. You just don't. Is that all school's good for? Yeah, yeah. That's it. Good talk, Chris. Good talk. You're welcome. I figured you'd benefit from that. Do you agree? No. Fakers. Are we going to end this episode or what? Yeah, we probably should. We're just going off now. Yeah, we're going off the rails. Yeah, well, that is...
Finally, all for today's episode of the American Movie Podcast. You can feel free to leave a review, a rating if you liked what you heard, and make sure to tune in, be on the lookout for our next episode. You can stay up to date with us by following us on Instagram at the American Movie Podcast or Twitter at AMPWRayAndChris.
And if you have any questions or ideas for either of us, you can send us an email by sending it to the American movie podcast at gmail.com. Yeah. And once again, we thank you for listening to this. This podcast. The American Movie Podcast. We thank you and we're also sorry. Yeah. And happy Halloween, everyone. We hope you have fun with whatever you do, wherever you go as. Raymond will be Indiana Jones out there somewhere lurking. What do you think I do on Halloween? I think you're just creepy.
anyway yeah well that's all thank you uh and cut