This, this is this is gonna have to be I'm gonna have to do it. You turn it on, tell me how I see it? It's on. Oh I can't hear anything. Why do you not hear myself?
I hear you just fine, okay, it's it's coming through fine, yeah, okay, Yeah, then you don't hear yourself.
I don't hear myself at all. No, maybe plug in and maybe plug in the blanking headphones again.
I was wondering why you pulled your mouth away from the microphone.
I'm like, do you not do it?
Because I'm like, yeah, we are recording, but like, are you leaving all this in?
No? Okay, good, all right, all right, well now I'm good. I can hear myself. I don't know why. I just assume it's plugged in. I plug in my own headphones in the score studio all the time. I just assume I picked these up and they're plugged in.
Yeah, you made fun of me about the headphones on the way in here to make fun of you.
I just you remembered them, which was good. I can't you.
Took the time to make a comment.
I mean, well, yeah, I can't. I mean, at least you remember to plug them in. I can't even remember that. I don't remember to bring them though. I get that.
Well, Okay, I gotta I gotta come clean with you about some that I felt bad about making us do Running Man this week because I, as I told you off during your show yesterday, I didn't realize that now you three me had come out.
They're that's what I'm calling it.
That's what I'm calling it at the very least, And I knew that you wanted to see it, and I was like, Oh, if I would have known, I'm happy because we have a good we have a symbiotic relationship, like we do a good job of just seeing what the other people want to see.
My whole thing was we were going to see both of them anyway. So what difference is that?
No, I get that, but I like because I like doing things for people that do things with me. It's like, if that's what you want to see, I still wanted to see that as well. And you weren't just sold on this. But I say all that to say I don't feel bad anymore because that movie, fucking rock It was a good movie. It was so good, it was fun. I'm so happy we went to go see that.
No, so we saw The Running Man with is it Running Man or the Running Not running Man? Glenn Powell, Josh Brolin, a remake of the nineteen eighty seven Arnold Schwarzenegger film based on the nineteen eighty two novel Stephen King.
Yeah, second one of the Bachmann books that we're doing here in the last.
That Long Walk was the other one. Yeah, in the last the trio here. Yeah, So yeah, I guess for me going into this, it was fine, Like I didn't mind seeing it at you know whatever. I don't remember a lot of the original that I saw. Yeah, And I think part of the reason is because I maybe didn't like it all that much. But then when we got talking about like eighties action movies, and this was originally an eighties action movie, right, and and so why
wouldn't I like it? You brought that up, you know, you talk about expendables and Diehard and all this other stuff. Why wouldn't you like it? I'm like, you know what, I should like this? And I did. Spoiler alert, I did like this movie. Did you rewatch the original?
No?
I did not. I did not the There's so much to unpack here and I don't know which way you want to go right away, but I think we can talk about who we identify in this movie. Yeah, I think at least for me and Ben. My mind was racing once the rules of the game of the Running Man game show we're being listed out for us as the audience. I'm like, Okay, how do I circumvent this? How do I like, how would I play this game if I was the running ban Did you do that?
As of course, of course, I even mentioned to John Jordan about an hour ago, wapl legend, John Jordan, Yes, I said, you know, there's a pretty lengthy rule explanation that can sometimes slow the pace down. I said that about F one as well. I said, if I already knew the rules, I might find myself a little bored about kind of going over this stuff that people. Yeah, exactly,
this didn't slow like it was. I think it was necessary because it eliminates a lot of your like, well, I would just do this, and it's like, well, you have to video yourself and mail it every day, so you can't. You can't just tuck yourself in a hole somewhere, right, And like there's just like little moments like that that do away with a lot of plot holes that otherwise would exist.
I will say this, Yeah, you get a billion new dollars as they call it. Yeah, I love it. Yeah, I love with Schwarzenegger on on the on the on the bills, which I thought was great. And you also noticed there was an Obama street this as well. Okay, anyway,
a billion new dollars? Yeah, what's to say that you don't hook up with somebody who swings by some random place every day, maybe with a lot of people bringing supplies in, taking the tape, dropping it in the box different times every day, so there's no pattern, and you just split the billion dollars. Why wouldn't that work?
That was probably the biggest plot hole in my opinion, is that they pay three thousand dollars as a finder's fee if you tip the police.
If you what do they call it record and reports. Yeah, so if you get video of the of one of the Running Man contestants and then you you.
Which leads to a kill, you get three great, right, right?
You get you tip off the hunters and if the hunters kill them, then you get three thousand dollars.
And if we just handle it on your own and it's ten thousand.
Ten thousand, which is still nothing.
So I'd say one hundred million. I wouldn't even lowball them, Like it's not like I'm coming in a million. I'd say, I'm giving you ten percent of what I'm walking away with in this if you do not take me out. And there are friendly faces throughout this, which I did appreciate. Very similar long walk where you wouldn't expect to find friends, but again similar idea here as well.
Well, I think that the whole friend aspect of it is is not necessarily I think it was. It was different with Bill Macy's character because I think he clearly was a friend of Glenn Powell.
Which that was the most heartbreaking. He's like, I was going to give you a job. It's not a spoiler, it's five minutes of the movies, Like, you didn't need to do this. I was going to give you a job. And I was like, I call that Homeward Bounding. If you've ever seen the movie Homeward bound Bound, do you remember that one? No, It's like it's it's Michael J. Fox and two other people that I'm blanking on who plays them? And they play two dogs and a cat
and they escape like they voice the animals. It's a live Actually, the entire movie is an hour and a half and I was like six when it came out. It was one of my favorite movies of all time as a child. And like they'd be at the vet and the vet was portrayed as an asshole, and then it would turn out that he was just trying to help them and the family was on their way, and right as the family would walk in through the door,
the dogs the cat would escape. There's some kind of over the top means, and then they'd end up at this homeless encampment, and the homeless encampment seemed like it was evil, and then it turned out that it was actually there to help them. And just as the owners were getting to the homeless encampment, the animals would escape, Ah forcots and every ten minutes, like you're just screwing with these six year old lives. I felt like I was getting homeward bound in that moment. I'm like, why
didn't you tell him this yesterday? We could have avoided all of this. See, when I had a job, he wouldn't have needed to do this. He could have helped his kid, and now we've got a whole premise and it hurts in that way. I made that term up. You feel free to steal it?
Yea, that makes sense. Yeah, So the point I was making was I don't think they're necessarily friends, like especially with the family that kind of takes him in for a little bit. Yeah. I think that that was more of just like, hey, we're both against the network and we're both against this government. And by the way, this is setting like a dystopian future. Is it for the United States? Is it okay? The stuff that I saw in this movie I have not seen exist to this degree in reality.
Yet I thought it did a good job of emulating today while being in the future. The technology was advanced, and again they start filming the stuff two years ago. So there's some things that happened in this movie that I'm just like, oh wow, that's very prescient for what's happening right now. And there's it. It's the kind of thing a lot of these movies held. The original one takes place in the future that felt like a much more distant future than this did. This felt like essentially
contemporary America with fancier things. The dependence on reality TV. They have their version of the Kardashian The Kardashians.
It was great. Yeah did you see who played them? And I know Debbie Maysur was one of Oh I didn't. I didn't see who the other ones were. But I mean, like some of the like the television in the hotel room, I mean stuff like that doesn't exist.
No, no, absolutely not. But there was just the element of having come from a corporate radio station when he's dealing with the boss and there's no real understanding. I was part of a unionization effort, so when unions are kind of used as a reason to fire somebody, Like, there's just a lot of moments that feel very relevant to today's America, just in uh a more. I compared it to Black Mirror with a friend of mine yesterday after I got out of it, and I said, it
reminds me of Black Mirror. Nothing in Black Mirror exists today, but you're like, this feels like five years away, Like it doesn't feel like we're that far off from having this kind of stuff.
I thought it was. It was such an authoritarian existence, you know, where like we we don't. There's a lot more Glenn Powell's in society today than there were in this movie, where it just seemed like everybody is just browbeaten into the ground. You think, yeah, at least at least initially, and then you know, you talked about how the original this was all a distraction to keep people
talking about anything else other than life. Than life, Yeah, and the basically, you know, these people who have nothing, I mean literally nothing, like they're their only respite is to go to the network free V and try out for these games shows.
It's a fast channel.
Okay, ye, so so they put they give you psychological tests, intelligence tests, physical fitness tests, mental tests, everything. And the amount of people that were going in there on a random whatever day of the week it was makes me think that the majority of this population is destitute and this is their only solution, and everybody does it because they had, i mean, they had hundreds of people showing up. And then they tell you what game show you're going on.
Game shows that can cause death, like The Running Man or therely.
A wipeout allegory if you're familiar with the ABC game show Wipeout. When people are running, they show you people just messing themselves up because they're trying to get money for meds and they're running on this goofy obstacle. Course we're all laughing watching them get bopped in the face with this stuff, and like they're I say it all the time on my show. I'm a big game show guy.
Like I like game shows so much that, like before the internet really took off, the Game Show Network would like let you text in answers on live shows and play along. And I got so good at the show. Wow, Yeah, I didn't know that I got so good at Chain Reaction that I play sixth in the nation and my
name was on TV. Like, I loved game shows. And because I do outside the box so much as I get older, as I meet so many people in the situations like what we see in The Running Man, Yeah, it's hard for me to watch people trying to stack paper clips on top of one another for a million dollars and watching them have a mental breakdown when they lose, and I'm like, you know, I don't know if this is as much fun as it used to be anymore.
And that was kind of the vibe that I was getting watching them play this game.
Here did you notice? So the first game show that they shows this guy running on a hamster wheel and he has to answer questions with his heart rate elevated. The host of that was named Gary Greenbacks. I mean probably a stage name, right. Sure, do you know who what actor played him? I can't even remember the face? Go ahead, he had the glasses. Yeah, the Sean Hayes from Will and Grace. Oh really? And and Sean Hayes.
It's so wild because he always plays this you know, well it doesn't always play it, but he played this over the top performer on Will and Grace for years, right, And now the last two things I've seen him in this where he was I don't want to say he was reserved, but much more quiet and you know, well the stuff is happening behind him, He's just this is like normal. And then he also played I Believe a
Psychiatrist for a season on curbyr. Enthusiasm, where he was very understated and reserving, like I can't believe this is still Sean Hayes. Yeah. Crazy.
And that's not the only time. Are you a black mirror person or no? Like talk about black mirror? I mean I know of it, yeah, but you didn't watch it. If I said fifteen million credits. You don't know what episode of that nine Okay, well there's.
A well was the one that you were telling me about. That's one with Jesse Plemmons was in like.
Oh yeah, there's one the Uss Calister. That's the one in the fifteen million credits one. It takes place in a future where ninety percent of the population pedals bikes for a living. They're like stationary bikes, and pedaling the bikes generates the energy that keeps society running, so they pay you. But a certain percentage of the population is too heavy to pedal the bikes, and their role in
society is they are the janitors. So everyone treats the janitor people like crap and they are ridiculed for their size.
And it seems like it's.
A recurring theme in a lot of these futuristic movies that that kind of and it popped immediately. That was where my mind right when I was watching the Hamster reel thing there. Yeah, and it it feels it feels relevant, Like I say, it feels relevant to today. And to be perfectly Frank, I was gonna make the joke when you were setting up before this could have we could
have just replayed the intro to The Long Walk. Yeah, oh, a bunch of people that don't see any other option other than to take part in this contest in order to make the billion dollars and get your one wish
and do all these things. Very clearly, Stephen King was going through some things, and it it's it's kind of comforting to know that in the early eighties a lot of people were looking well, at least he was looking at society through the same lens that I think a lot of people look at it through today, because this felt relevant today that years again, right, and think about this too, like that's for years, that's when orwell's nineteen eighty four, this is when we're like, okay, how much
of this came true?
Yeah? You know, so like we were looking at there, We had a very futuristic viewpoint on that novel for years, and then as we're coming up on the actual timeline and that people looked at it like okay, well where are we at here? And and Stephen King was one of them, clearly.
Yeah, absolutely and h And.
By the way, like I don't think he was like Stephen King capital letter Stephen King at this point, right, he was he was he was still making his way. So maybe he was one of these starving artists that like, you know that.
That was exactly it just so happens it hit for him. Yeah, all right, it's just like the NFL. You only ever see this guy was living in his car. Now is the cornerback for the Green Bay Packers. You don't see the fifty other people that were living in their car that are living in their car. Stephen King's the guy that emerged stories that feel that they just transcend. It feels very real, and I could watch a thousand of these kind of movies.
Glenn Powell's portrayal of Ben Richards in this film Likable Unlikable.
I'm going to say this, and I'm interested in your thought. I think he wanted to be John McClain very badly, but I don't think he's a Bruce Willis type.
All right, hold on, hold on, Glenn Powell wanted to be John McClain, not Ben Richards.
Yeah, okay, I think he wanted to be portrayed the smart ass guy who's whooping ass while he's doing it. But he's got all these sassy one liners and he's a goofball. But he's also, you know, just like an every man type of guy, like he has Okay.
So the difference to me and that is a case of motivation. The motivation for John McClain runs wrong time and he's a cop. Yeah, what else is he going to do? This is what he does. Yeah, it was survival for him and his family. Sure, you know. And I think that's the differing factor here with how Glenn Powell had to play this character.
There is a roar shark test where he's like, I see fluffy bunnies, Like I just felt John McCain oozing out of him.
Well, okay, so that's what I'm saying, Like, like, and and he almost portrayed a cartoonish level of anger in the first thirty minutes in this movie, maybe first forty minutes. Yeah, And I'm like, boy, do they want us to like this guy? I mean, he's yelling on the set of
The Running Man and just freaking out or whatever. He seemed to me a little unhinged, Whereas like the guys I like to root for in these me against the world scenarios are these reserved guys that are always three steps ahead of everybody else, calm, cool and collected that wasn't Powell.
Let me present this to you through a different light though, because I noticed that as well, and I was talking to a friend of mine that's not from the area who also had seen the movie, and I say to him, we are well beyond the years of Uncle Buck or what's an I wish I had a second example. We now, I think, have a much more gritty and realistic portrayal of what it is to live paycheck to paycheck, to
be broke. And you are angry, you are frustrated, You're You've got a kid who's sick as hell that you can't figure out a way, even though you see his work experiences. He has all these skills, he can do all.
This, but he also has these massive he gets keeps getting fired for insubordination.
But insubordination is you know, it's not what we think of insubordination.
That's okay, that's true. But even his wife or his wife or girlfriend, I'm not sure she kind of was like worried about his anger issues. And then they said in a portion of the movie, I don't think this is a spoiler.
Maybe it is nothing really to spoil this movie.
I'll just say, like when he was getting the psychological testing done, they even said, you are the angriest person we've ever tested before. And I'm like, why are they driving this anger thing home so hard? I don't. I don't and so so to me, like I wanted to root for him, and clearly I was rooting for him he throughout this whole movie, but it was it was more of a struggle than I thought because of like,
I don't know if this guy's like a nice guy. Yeah, he loves his wife and he loves his kid, but he's he's he's so angry, and and I guess they intersperse, you know, helping the guy out when they were in line who needed the doctor who like threw up or seizure or whatever. He grabs the guy on the rock the guy on the rock wall. Yeah. Absolutely, so, I mean there there, there is that those redeeming qualities, but they just really wanted to hammer homeless anger aspect.
I think I brought up parasite in the last episode of this show, but that's so that's the whole point in that movie. They say the wealthy family is nice because they can afford to be nice. The people who are typically angry or meaner are the people that go through this every single day. That was actually the point
of Jordan Peele's movie US as well. There's a whole separate society where you have a doppelganger who's a much worse version of you because he didn't or she didn't have the same kind of upbringing that you were fortunate enough to have here. I absolutely loved it, and for the record, I think the first forty minutes of this movie was the best part of the movie, when they've set up the setup and the first couple days. Because what I compared it to, and I'm sure you haven't
seen it, but there's a movie called It Follows. It's a scary movie where there's a bean that can look like anybody that's following you all the time, and the way you get it to stop following you is you have sex with somebody and then it's following them. It's all metaphor for STDs, and once it kills them, it's back to you. So you have to create basically a sex chain, but you never really know when all the people before you ended up dying. Everyone loved that movie.
I thought it completely underwhelmed. I think they missed an awesome premise that really could have been fun to have fun with this movie, I think executed. It follows premise because you don't know who to trust. You don't know The first person he meets entering the game is a guy in the cab, and you're like, is he yeah calling on him right now? Is he actually his friend? And you have that feeling. Eventually they kind of draw
the lines in the sand. These are the people that you can trust, these are the people that you really can't. And there's not really many surprises in that way. But the first couple days of that contest, I was like this. I was on the edge of my seat. I thought I was blest I loved it.
Yeah, I did too, because it's it's interesting to see where you start and how how you would go. But like, okay, at Clean Slate, Fresh Slate, all three of these contestants, what do they do? How do they handle this?
What did you think of the wife and the call right when she finds out that he's doing the contest? It was very stand offish, Like was that to like that? No?
I didn't think it was standing I thought it was gonna be much worse. I was a little surprised when she asked him, what did you do? She already knew what he did, right.
Okay, And then she's just like, I gotta take the kid to the hospital.
And there was no like, there was no I thought she would be livid, yeah, and be yelling at him or crying, and she's just I think she was just resigned to her fate. And maybe this is because they live in poverty and this is you know, they're used to having bad things happen. She was just like, okay, and there's nothing that she could do about it.
So and can I say she's the wife is played by Jamie Lawson. She was in Sinners and apparently she was in The Batman.
Who is she in Sinners?
I don't remember the characters well enough, But I know that I recognized that because I just recently saw that.
That's the only reason.
But I don't know that I have a firm grasp on the first ten minutes of The Pluck. She's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. Oh, I thought she was distractedly attractive.
Yeah, I did not get that.
And I'm not that person, Like I'm not that guy that watches the movies like that. But I'm sitting there, like, this woman is stunning in this movie, and I can't literally, I'm not listening to what people are saying. And I noticed that if I had a note Pat, I would be like, make sure you highlight that that woman is distractingly attractive. Yeah, for the first couple of minutes, but
I thought she does the role very well. Not in it for very long, but for the part she's in it, it, Uh, let's just say it felt very relatable, probably to a lot of people.
The advice that Josh Brolan gave Glenn Powell was to hang amongst his own kind for the first few days of the contest to make it last longer. William H. Macy's like, that's the worst thing you can do, because these people are going to turn you in as soon as possible. And so what does he do? Hob knobs with the rich, right, And how much money did they get to start?
I think a thousand new dollars.
Okay, so a thousand. I don't know how far that goes on.
It seems like a lot, because five hundred was enough to solve all of the medical problems for the dogs.
That's true. So and and you also had a really nice hotel that he afforded with with you know, in part of that thousand dollars. Okay. So the other thing that Brolan said to Glenn Powell when he was trying to convince him to do The Running Man, which Powell did not want to do, is I say that to all the contestants on The Running Man, but this is the first time, I mean it, you could actually beat this thing. Yeah. Do you think that was a ruse? Yeah?
Do you honestly believe that Brolan's character believed that Powell said this or does he say that to literally everybody? You know, I say this to everybody, but you're the one who could win this game.
Yeah, I mean, well, we know the game is essentially unwinnable in a lot of ways.
And so that's what Michael Sarah's character said.
It's as doable as they want you to believe that it is.
Do you And I can't remember the actor's name, but the big bro who the family took him in, he hosts this sort of conspiracy theorist reel behind the scenes of The Running Man or whatever. Did you glean much out of that you know, as far as like how they fix it or maybe I just it was lost on me.
I think it was more so that there were just certain archtypes in each set of there, and what's funny is one of them was the angry one, but he wasn't the angry one, despite very clear being angry.
He was the final guy.
He was the final guy, and I was like, well, that's kind of a redundant flot thread there, but no outside of that, I think that was just to set up the fact that he kind of was in on the game. If you ever saw the second Purge movie, the dude that played Omar in the wire and blanking on his.
Own, oh, Michael Michael Michael K. Williams, Yeah, that is okay.
Yeah, he plays like essentially a guy that has a thorough understanding of how the Purge works, how it's rigged, and how it's used against society. That's essentially the rule that this guy fit here. And I thought they did an excellent job of incorporating him in there, and I won't say how, but they work him back in later in a way that's very fun.
You're talking about pictures the end, Yeah, yeah, what about this could be a spoiler. What about Michael Sarah's decision yeah, which which obviously was a catalyst for a big action sequence of the movie. Yeah, why did he do what he did?
So, I'll be real with you, that is who I related to the most, Michael Sarah.
Yes, I can see that. Yeah, because you're not angry enough to be Pat Richards. And I'll be real with you. Uh.
There's a common refrain that I say on Outside the Box when I'm talking about myself, because I'm a debt free guy that owns a home, And I said, the system is designed for me to tell you I'm better than you. I'm smarter than you, I work harder than you. And if you were just more like me, you could live this kind of life too, to the people that don't.
Necessarily have that.
And Michael Sarah has a line in that movie where he says, a good person with a conscience is the system's worst nightmare.
A good person with a yeah, And like you know.
A person with a conscience is the system's worst nightmare. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, Yeah, this fucking guy. And I think I think he knew he was dead to rights the second he walked in that house. I think he knew what he was getting into, and sure enough, you know, we know where it ends up going in
the long run there. I think he caught him in because he saw an opportunity to take his pound of flesh on the way out the door, and he absolutely and hit the best Kevin McCay alister way you could possibly imagine gets it all to happen there. I loved his role in that movie, obviously, the connection coming from Scott Pilgrim versus the world. Edgar Wright and Michael Sarah have a working relationship. I thought he did the role well. I haven't seen him in a movie in the minute here,
and I thought he did well. Fent a little bit and I think it fit perfectly with him, and I loved what his character was. And it did bother me that he pushed the button, but at the same time, you keep the plot roll and I can tell it kind of got your goat a little bit though when he pushed it.
I didn't understand it. Yeah, I didn't understand. I didn't understand what was going on, and he.
Acted like he just came to the realization that would bring them there, as if like that wasn't common knowledge, you know what I mean. But at the same time, I don't know. I loved it. I loved the way that they decided to get them in there.
And yeah, Michael Sarah the Phoenician Scheme the latest Wes Anderson movie.
Yeah, you never saw it, but okay, I do remember that now that you mentioned it.
I remember seeing him in the trailers. He also played the role of Alan in Barbie. Really, yeah, he was in Barbie. I do remember that too, Okay, I forgot and then and then honestly, the the only other movie that he's done in the last seven years that I recognize. Here, did you see Sacramento with Kristen Stewart or no, okay me either. Molly's Game. He was player action in Molly's Game? Oh really? Yeah? Yeah, he was the guy that was sort of the way that it was described. It was
a combination of did you ever see Molly's Game? By the way, he was His character is based on mostly Toby McGuire, but some Leonardo DiCaprio rolled in there as well, And so that's Toby maguire. I get. I get the feeling he is a total a hole. Yeah, like you, just like the way that the portrayed him in this movie. Everything he did, like, it's interesting. I get the feeling he's not a good guy. Did you feel like and and we'll get into more like Coleman Domingo, I thought
was was cool in this He was. He was a lot of fun. I'll tell you.
He is taking the role of Richard Dawson from the original Who. Richard Dawson is a premier game show host. It was a very fun give to have him doing this over the top, campy, I'm celebrating your death kind of guy when he's gonna go do family feud in a couple hours after he wraps up. I loved his portrayal in that movie. He's a perfect kind of camp and I was like, I don't know how he's gonna be able to do it. And I thought he crushed it. I thought he absolutely killed it.
He is one of these guys that just the screen is not big enough for him.
Yes, yes, And I say all the time about what we do, we're very fortunate to have the jobs we have. I always say, people can talk about stuff just fine. And he is one of those people that lose this track of you're not the show like anybody could realistically go. He has a knack for it. It's he's definitely not bad at it, but he acts like he's the end all bell. I believe at one point he's even like there's a line to the effect of don't pinch or
pinch yourself. You really are talking to me right now. Here's something to that effect when you first meet him.
And complaining about Bluefin and his sushi or whatever. Right now, I'm gonna be that guy. Where was it weird for you to see not a whole lot of female actors in this movie? I mean there were some, but they played such small roles. No, I agree, and it did.
What's funny is is it sticks out in twenty twenty five to me. I mean, hell, when I watch the original Avengers now, it's kind of strange, uh, comparatively.
To like one. At least Scarlett Johnsen had like a I mean.
Oh yeah, but it's six white people, Nick Ferry, you know what I mean? Like it just it really stands out when you're watching this stuff now. And I don't want to be that guy either, But after so many years of seeing it actually look a little more diverse with different types of people in different roles. It now does stand out. And I'll be real, the messaging of this movie's pretty woke, like like, yeah, they're subtle. They're subtle about it. There's a there's an all goons are bad,
uh graffiti in the one scene. There's like those little moments, and it is shocking to me to see it for trade that way. I didn't hate it. I don't think it took away.
No.
I think the women that were in it were strong female characters. But it did stick out to me that, uh.
It was just weird, you know, to me that And again I think that you're right. In twenty fifteen or twenty ten, I wouldn't you know, I wouldn't even notice it, right, But I'm watching this, I'm like, God, there's not a lot of women in this moment. Yeah, just kind of weird.
Yeah, And it doesn't. I'm not saying it has to, although although.
I will say the one woman a contestant, she was portrayed as gay, right, lesbian?
Yeah, I'm pretty sure Katie m O'Brien, and she was allegedly the angry one right because the other guy was the fodder or whatever the hell is The first guy.
Yeah, the hopeless guy. This guy, yeah, which was Martin Hurley from SNLS Please Don't Destroy Fame?
Yeah, and he was great, like he Oh and the way he gets got is perfect.
Yeah, I mean, like, what do you do you go through all that to get on The Running.
Man twenty four hours in? Like it's not even, It's not even. It's like Luigi Mangioni taking the mask off while he's talking to the girl at the coffee shop. Yeah, like it's really not that far if you think about it, what he decided to do the literally asking people about The Running Man?
Edgar Wright directed this? Yeah, did this feel like? Did you when you got done? If and you didn't know who directed it? If I told you Edgar Wright was one, Like, let's say I gave you multiple choices, Yeah, and Edgar Wright was one of the choices. Would you have said that Edgar Wright would have been your choice? Like, oh, yeah, I could tell it that he directed this.
There was one scene when he's hanging off of building and there's letters on the building and he's hanging off of the why and he pulls it and it starts to fall and he goes why Why?
That was some shawna the Dead stuff, right.
That was Edgar Wright, and I swear to god that was the only moment in two hours and thirteen minutes, you know.
You know, it's funny. It's like, I uh, I always think of Shawn of the Dead and I think this is one of the best. I don't know why. I mean, it's not one of the best lines ever, but it just gets me every time. When they're in the Winchester Bar and the zombies are like coming in and one of them, something happens in the jukebox starts and it starts playing Don't Stop Me Now by Queen Yeah, and so then and so, like you have this great fight scene set to that song, which is a great song, and then.
Uh, very underrated Queen song.
Yeah, very underrated. Yeah, and then uh. In fact, I was just watching an SNL rerun and it was a cold open from a few years ago, I think during Trump's first presidency where they had they they had a whole song and dance with all the Trump and and Milania and everybody's singing don't stop Me, don't stop him now, yeah, because he's having a good time anyway. But then Simon Peg says he says the Nick Frost character's like kill
the queen, you know. So when he said the lock thing, I'm like, oh god, it's the first thing I thought of.
I don't know why, but like Baby Driver is underrated, it's a cult classic in my opinion, and I enjoyed that movie quite a bit. Solid cast, awesome premise, and like the entire movie is set to uh soundtrack right, Like everything.
Is happening is deaf right?
Yeah, okay, and the whole thing, Like if you go and watch it like I you might not even notice it. The entire movie is musical. Everything gunshots are to the beat, car doors or to the beat. The entire movie is set to the tone of a beat. And it's wild how well they do it. And it's that kind of creative. And as I mentioned, like low Ki, I don't know if it's in my top ten, but if it isn't it is just on the cusp. I love Scott Pilgrim versus the word.
Yeah. I love that movie.
The World's End I think is better than This is the End, which got way more uh uh success commercially with James Franco study exactly. But I think the World's End was smarter and more fun in terms of the actual movie, and it's a similar type of flick there.
I hold Edgar Wright in high regard and this did at times, I don't want to say out like generic action flick because I'm telling you, guys, and I said to you off the air, I don't know if it's got the endorphins because I went straight from the gym to the movies. But I was smiling and into the movie.
For two straight hours, right.
But like, it didn't feel like Edgar Wright, but it definitely felt good.
But yeah, it did, and I totally totally agreed, did not feel like a like a classic Edgar Wright film, but I loved it. I just I couldn't wait to see what was going to happen next, you know, the whole movie now. I said, I was going to tell you a story yes on the air the other day, and we didn't get a chance to. Glenn Powell hosted SNL this past week Pight weekend to promote Running Man, what have You? And I don't want to turn this into a whole thing here, but there's a lot of setup.
He found out like four or five years ago he was gonna he had to call the host SNL and he was he loved it. He was hanging out with his family on their front porch and a UPS driver came up to deliver a package in Texas was where he lives, and and he's like, oh, what's going on? And he's like, oh, I'm get to host SNL whatever it was a few months or not a few months, few weeks from now, and he's like, oh, that's great. And they took a selfie with the UPS driver, you know,
like to commemorate the occasion. Well, then COVID hit and Top Gun two got delayed and Lorne Michaels called Glen Powell or Glen Powell's representation and they said, like, no offense without Top Gun, Maverick, nobody's going to know who you are. Sure, so they canceled it. Yeah, couldn't be on. So then he gets to call the host SNL again. Okay, who are you? That's what I would say, and yeah. So so he happily agrees because this is to help
promote his movie. And so he tells his family about it, and his sisters were like, we got to find this UPS guy to tell him to tell him the news. And I guess they're pretty like, what do you call it? Intrepid? Like they they will get you know, they're they're very good at getting things done. Sure, contact UPS. They find this UPS driver who's still a UPS driver, and they tell you, they tell him, they tell him about this and he's like, oh, that's awesome that he gets the
host again or whatever. He's like, no, no, no, Glenn wants to fly you to be in the audience at SNL. So he brings so Glenn tells the whole story and then they already saw the selfie. And then you see this guy this his name is Mitch, big bearded, red beard guy, and he's sitting in the front row and every he's like, bitch, yeah, this is great. And then he brings up up on stage and takes a selfie with him to day another selfie, which I thought was
very cool. Now he said he flew Mitch to SNL to New York coach because he's like and he said this he I just don't know how well Running Man is going to do yet. I have not looked at the rotten tomatoes. I have not looked at the box office numbers for this at all. Do you think it's going to do well.
So I you see the box office. I did see the box Office before I even went. Yeah, I do love it, okay did audience tone of voice, Yes, it's not good. It's the numbers were not good. I'm assuming I haven't looked up reviews. Now you three me definitely out played uh that that was the box office King When I went to the app that I used to book my tickets, Yeah, there were easy three times as many theaters, which now you see me to.
Me is kind of bizarre because the last now you see me when we came out like like eight years ago or.
So, sure you know, but Zombie Land two, there's something about that Eisenberg Woody Harrelson connection that these movies there were ten years in between Zombieland and Zombie That that's true, and it absolutely and who hasn't seen Zombies Done to death? At this point, Zombieland two shows up and they're selling out tickets everywhere. But I'm getting the exact numbers on Running Man box Office right now, and.
Then I'd like to get into the popcornimeter too, because I still have not looked.
Twenty eight million globe. I know, what was the budget for this movie. Ah, that's a good question. But see you say that about now You See Me three. There's no contingency of running even as someone who enjoyed the first Running Man. It's not like I'm like, oh, we need another one. If we weren't doing this podcast, I don't know that I would have taken I would have
seen it. I obviously see I was gonna say, but I don't know that I would have taken the time to go see it in theaters, and I might have just waited. And again, that would have been more out of deference to Edgar Wright than out of any excitement about actually seeing Glenn power this movie at all. Let's see what we got here.
It should be.
Why are you giving me the nineteen eighty seven? Oh thirty two million? Oh no, that's the yeah budget, it says Running Man slash budget. One of them says thirty two million, one of them says twenty seven.
For this, I'd never go.
Budget one hundred and ten million. Yeah, box office twenty eight point seven million. That's a shame, because it really is. It's solid. But again this see now I'm gonna soapbucks. This is why we get so many remakes and sequels and superhero things, and everyone complains, why don't we get new stuff? Not to say this is new, this is a remake, but you would never confuse this movie for the original other than the general premise of the film.
Isn't there isn't there something to be said for that, Like, Okay, for the longest time, Hollywood studios would only make stuff that was proven, proven, you know, assets, And now you have Running Man, which I mean, I don't remember how successful it was in eighty seven. No, I mean obviously it lived on and I wouldn't say it's it's gotten a cult level. But but now you see this movie being made and you're like and you're like, oh, another remake,
another reboot, another redo, and it didn't do well. Maybe this is this is the signal that to to studios, directors, screenwriters, we need fresh stuff. We're not interested in all the you know and Marvel. You know, it all comes back to Marvel there coming out with a lot of the stuff, and there's Marvel fatigue going on there. Yeah, well and there has been for like the last six or seven years.
So I don't know. I mean, maybe this is a message that we will get more creative original stuff going forward.
See, I watched an interview with Matt Damon and he was talking about this movie called Candlelabra and I can't behind the Candle Opera. Yeah, okay, so you've seen this. This is I don't know if it was a movie. I think it was a mini series. It was him and Michael Douglas and it was the Oh god, he was from Milwaukee. Why can't I the gay pianist Liberaci. Oh, it was all about Liberaci.
Okay, And so Michael Douglas played Liberacci and Matt Damon was sort of like his lover. I guess, but I think it was a mini series on HBO.
So that's actually some good backstory then, because he wanted it, he being Matt Damon, he wanted it to be a movie, and he asked, why wasn't it made into a movie? He says, okay, Well, let's break this down. Based on production costs, marketing costs, the cost for the cast, and all these other things. You're looking at between one hundred and twenty five and one hundred and fifty million dollars when you go out the door. Because when you see
the budget, that doesn't even include marketing. The budget is just literally what it's what costs to make a movie. There's a whole marvel bringing back to that. Oftentimes has one hundred million dollar budget on top of their two hundred and fifty million dollar budget.
Right.
So, uh, you look at Running Man nineteen eighty seven, The entire budget to make the movie was twenty seven million dollars. It ended up making thirty eight point one worldwide. Here's the kicker. That's partial movie theater ticket sales, but that's also VHS sales. That's also did you go back and buy it on Blu ray later? There was a whole second box office, And Matt Damon kind of lays it out there. He says, there was your original box office, then you had a second spite at the Apple to
try and recoup all your losses. He says, in this day and age, trying to sell Candelabras, a movie taking one hundred and fifty million dollar risk on a love story that nobody really knows much about. Hell, I knew the name of the movie, had no idea what it was about, didn't even know they actually made it. I thought it was a hypothetical that goes to show you right there. He says, these big execs are no longer willing to take those chances because you're losing out on
that second half. Not to mention, granted, time goes slower when you're a child, so maybe I might exaggerate.
This a little bit.
It felt like I remember seeing Toy Story in theaters, and it felt like Toy Story was in theaters for a year really before it was available to buy on VHS, because I wanted to own it so bad, and it felt like it stayed in theaters forever. And now there's times I wanted to see the I Know what You Did last summer remake that sucked. It's on Netflix now, and in ten days it was out of theaters, like like in the time it came and went, it was like bing bang, we made whatever a couple million we
were gonna make, and we're calling it a day. And I have a feeling in two weeks, Running Man is not going to be in theaters.
You know what I mean.
If you're not listening to this this week or next week, you probably missed your chance.
Yeah. Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, and especially consider like I think you mentioned this earlier. Now you three me had like three times the amount of theaters yes or screens then Running Man yes, which.
Which lends itself to more tickets. And I mean, I'd argue I might have been the youngest person in my theater.
Granted I go.
It was three pm on a Tuesday, so it's not like, you know, people got jobs.
And a lot of blue hairs in there.
Yeah, And you could tell because there's definitely a working class bent to this show, like like you were stronger together than we are, you know, fighting with one another, which is always going to sell me on it. There was a palpable tension, like I think, I feel like some people were a little off put by what was taking place in the movie and other people were like
I was really into that. And it was interesting because like I was listening to people as I was walking out, and you could tell there was a there were some people that were like a little overwhelmed. There was the silence was deafening when when the movie first ended, and like the credits hit you like a ton of bricks.
There's music play and it's a fun animated thing at the end there or you're not animated, you know what I mean, Like graphics put together and you could feel that there was that like, I don't know how I feel about what I just saw, but they were all a lot older, and I don't know if they got exactly what they were expecting or not.
I don't think they did. I don't think I I. And that's was to lead me into because I think I talked about everything I wanted to talk about except for the ending. What did you make of it? Is it as nebulous as that? Maybe there's a lot of different See this is where I don't like to spoil stuff. I think. I think the ending mostly does not lend itself to interpretation. Mostly, yeah, I don't think it does.
But there are there are some questions that I have one specific question, and this goes back to the Alfred Hitchcock mcguffin thing, where in Psycho this briefcase full of money sure is talked about at the start of it and never really talked about it until the end, or not even at the end, and you're like, well, somebody asked him like, well what about the money? What happened to the money? And Hitchcock and I can't remember how it got the name mcguffin, but this is how it's
being referred to. It's the mcguffin. It's something that is in the movie, something as part of the plot, but it doesn't really mean anything the ultimately it's not it's not a part of the end of the movie. It doesn't have to resolve itself. In other words, the new money, the billion dollars and new money? How's he get it? Did he get it? Did he get it right? I mean, I don't know. Did he survive the ending? Do we know what we saw in front of our eyes? Given
all the weird dream sequences the end of inception? Right? Sure? Did that really happen? Did it not happen? So? So I think mostly if we look at this for what it's worth, and if we look at what Edgar Wright has done in his career, I think that we can kind of figure out how what we saw we saw what? You know, it's like lost what what what happened really happened? Right? But the billion dollars though, see.
The only so they were down there, not downloading, They were depositing the money into the account daily. Now did she get the whole billion?
I think me and they were depositing them amount they.
Would show in the bottom left hand corner, like it'd be like day twenty four, fifty two thousand dollars, Hunter killed one hundred thousand dollars, like they would show you. And like, I'm pretty sure because what's stuck out to me was you see his wife and his daughter and they're at like essentially a whole foods, Like they don't actually call it a whole food It looks like a very nice grocery.
You're talking about towards the end, yeah, yeah, And.
Based on how they were living at the beginning, they weren't shopping at any place that looked like that at the beginning of the movie. So that right there says to me, she didn't all of a sudden find money. So like it says to me, there at least some of the money. And if five hundred dollars got you what you needed to get done, there were he would was doing shit that got one hundred thousand dollars. He was doing stuff for fifty thousand. Whether or not they
got the whole billion, I don't know. But like, as my brother always jokes with me, if you dropped, just like he would always joke, and I feel like if I could drop sixty grand in your lap, you just retire and find a way to live off of that, and like, you're not wrong, You're not wrong. Have a very simple lifestyle. And like if I were expecting a billion, yeah, one hundred and fifty thousand be a letdown, but like I could make it work.
So let's phrase it like this, assuming he won the game, which I think we know whether or not that to be the case. Let's assume for the sake of this, that he won the game. Do you think, and given how this was talked about all film that this was a fixed game show, an unwinnable game, do you feel like that that billion ever was even an scrow like it? They could have even paid it if they wanted to. I know, this is the most popular game show on free TV, free TV, free V excuse me, but they've
never paid it before. And given how what happened at the taping of the season premiere of The Running Man, Yeah, I want to say, I'm not sure if that billion ever made it to again in a vacuum it seemingly in theory. I'm not sure it ever made it to the Richard's household. Yeah, or doesn't it matter? Maybe it just doesn't matter.
I'm willing to bet because I mean, the game it's all a metaphor, right, The game is rigged as a metaphor for life for life. Yeah, so the life is rigged is essentially what they're telling you there, and like the trajectory of life seems as though that was a little less rigged, and I feel like that was kind of what they were going for, but I think they
could have paid it. It seemed like one of those kind of corporations, like like you know a lot of these future movies always make it look like three companies control everything, and let's be real, like right now, we're like at eight, so like right around that corner from being at three as well, And this seemed like the media empire if you weren't on, Like all the game shows were funneled through this one company.
I just get the feeling that that was the only media company, Like, yeah, all things media was through this, which.
I haven't seen these these numbers updated in a while. I can't speak for anything since probably twenty twenty two, but after Disney bought twentieth century Fox the year the first full year that they owned the twentieth century Fox, Disney was responsible for sixty eight percent.
Of the year's box office.
Wow, so two thirds of the box office generated. Now, some of that goes to you know, billions of dollars coming out of you know, Avengers movies and whatnot, But by and large it's because any Star Wars movie coming out is part of the Disney box office. Any Pixar movie coming out, it's part of the Disney box office. DreamWorks come, Papa, you know they're a partner. Now, all these different movies that feel You see the Pixar, you see the DreamWorks, you see the Marvel studios, you see
the Star Wars. You see it's still twentieth century studios. They still put that at the front, but it's Disney.
Like.
All these things feel different. So the idea that one media company is controlling it, I don't feel is that far off. You could be rare. We are right now, and I couldn't help but reflect on I felt like we were watching ow my Balls from.
Uh oh, from my mediocracy.
Yeah, like that was the vibe that I got, total buddiest watching what's happening. I'd like to think I would have because I'm not a big reality guy, Like I'll be honest and I don't mean, I don't know if this was your thing as well, And I don't mean to shit talk anyone who likes it. I'm telling you. In Pittsburgh right now, the day after the new episode of Survivor, no one's talking about Survivor in my group. You walk around Woodward Studios the day after Survivor and
it's like, don't spoil it. I didn't have time to catch it right now.
Listen. I watched the first season a Survivor two Richard one. I remember that, yeah, and then I was kind of like, I don't need to see this anymore. That's exactly what my brother and my mother after the episode ends, we'll have like an hour long phone call my after you believe that? Yeah, My, After I get done with church on Sunday, I go to the seven thirty service with my parents, and there's a nine o'clock service of which
one of my mom's friends goes to. And in between after our service ends, before there starts, my mom is always like, oh, Deb's over there. I got to talk with her about Survivor. She's a bit service, so it's still pretty prevalent. That's what. But I mean, I have no like I am survivor illiterate. There's so many weird immunity challenges and idols and hidden things and fake things. I couldn't even keep up with it.
So do you think we would have stained or is it more like watching sports? Because in my mind, I'm saying, because I don't like reality TV, I'm not particularly keen to real world violence.
There's a number of.
Things I think I would be beyond the Running Man in a world where that existed.
Okay, there was no sports talked about on free V.
Yeah, I don't know if there's sports or not.
And wouldn't people consider Running Man to be the devolution of sports? Yeah? The most dangerous game, right, Maybe that's what it was. Maybe that was that was live sports. You know. Yeah, they could be.
They very well could be. And it's not even There was mid two thousands movie The Condemned starring Stone Cold Steve Austin. They put ten convicts on an island. One person can lead. They've they stream it to the society and the dude gets his goal is more viewers than the super Bowl, and he gets it. Yeah, and uh, and this felt like a very similar premise here. But
you're right, there was no reference of football. But this just seemed like the kind of world that's rife with gambling and generously and all these different like and they don't go into any of that. I'm absolutely speculating, which speaks to the world building that I'm able to jump to these kinds of conclusions.
I mean, for the for the most part, this story was really told from the have not side. We did not get any halves side like we did in Good Fortune. Yeah, or I guess we didn't have long Walk either. But weird casting. Bulky's weird casting note here part two, because I think I did one already. Do you remember Agent Doug in this movie? Agent Doug was the guy who received Glenn Powell after he met with Josh Brolin.
Yeah, was took the sock in the Yeah.
Do you recognize them for anything?
I didn't didn't even register. You know, he's been in some stuff.
He is a rapper with a stage name of Slain. I believe it is. He's performed. He formed a supergroup with I can't remember who and House of Pain, and he's been in this well. Yeah, Slain was in Oh man, I'm gonna forget now. He was in a Ben Affleck movie.
Okay, the account and the town. Well, I'm gonna get to the town in a second. He was in a Ben Affleck movie just as sort of like an extra or something, and I guess Ben Affleck liked him, so then he hired him a cast him in the town. He was the driver that drove the ambulance at the end of the town. That he was like their wheelman. Yeah and that, And so as soon as I'm watching on this, I think that's the dude from the town. And I looked it up.
Sure enough it was him that but I can't remember the first a It might have been gone, baby, gone, now baby, that's what it is.
He's actually, ironically enough, in a Frank Grill Frank Grillo vehicle named the Wheelman.
Oh there, I wonder if he was the wheelman.
He's actually got I'm looking at the first half dozen right here. He was in the worst movie he ever made, the Joker sequel.
He was in h I didn't realize he was in that.
Yeah he's in Why block that movie out? But he's in a ton of stuff, so yeah, but so yeah, I didn't even reckon.
Yeah, because the way he talked, you know, he's you know, some of these actors, they just can't hide where they're from. Billy Bob Thornton, I think is one of them. This guy definitely mean, I can't tell. This guy is like Boston bred, yeah.
And realistically the only likable person within the establishment. Like he does what he says he's going to do, He tries to come through, he's he's courteous, he's respectful. Everybody else kind of sucks.
I think there's there's something something to be said for, like I, okay, so I know somebody like this in real life, and how he treats people who are you know,
have nots or whatever. And I know how hard this dude worked to have what he has, And sometimes I think it's weird the way he communicates and talks with and treats some of these people and and and to me it's like, well, I think he does that because he recognizes that maybe there's a couple of breaks that went his way where where if they didn't go his way, he would be like, you know, living living in a
similar lifestyle to these people. And I think that was sort of like what Agent Doug had too, where like you know, if if you know he was fortunate enough to get this good job, but yeah, something goes differently. Maybe he's he's forced to do the Running Man as well.
Yeah, I mean where we're never that far removed, and I have to ask you did your casting thing here? So I go ahead because I couldn't help, but ask myself this, and I genuinely don't have an answer, because who would you did you want to punch in the face more Josh Brolin in this character or uh Luke Skywalker? I'm blanking on his name. Oh Mark uh Mark Hamill?
Mark Hamill from The Long Walk who was more punishable this movie, because Mark Hamill was a little more cartoonish, but Brolan did lean into the camp quite a bit in this movie. So like there's a little bit of I resented both of them.
I would say Mark Hamill because I think at times I do feel like Josh Brolin was really rooting for for Glenn Poll maybe selfishly ratings wise, yeah, but I think he was. He was taking the time to meet with them. It's he was looking out for his own self interest. You know. The longer this dude survives, the better my ratings are going to be. The more people are going to be watching the better my life's going to be. But I do think he was kind of
genuine in that Hollywood would chew you up book. Yeah, I know they would, Yeah, Mark Mark Hamill, he gave us kudos and his props to these guys, but it was a real gruff terse way. And and I don't know, I just maybe I am gullible when it comes to that. And and you saw right through Brolin's thing, and he's not a redeeming character. I didn't like him, but I probably liked him more than I liked Mark Hamill's character in Long Walk.
I'll be I'll be real, just even in my own life. As you know, I'm not going to go into details, but I've been dealing with some higher ups in different media areas and I'm always and they're not trying to sign me up for something that's gonna kill me over the course of thirty days. And I'm like, you know, yeah right, And I'm like, what is your ulterior motive here?
And so we have talked about this before. Everybody's got an agenda, Yeah, everybody? Yeah, you and I have an agenda. Yes, It's just that's that we're humans. We can't help.
Absolutely, And like again, I think I trend a little more towards Brolin because there was something just so extra seedy. Like I do believe Mark Hamill for all of his faults and flaws, and he did suck. I do think he actually believed in the Long Walk, Like I think he was a cog in a machine that he was just as much a part of as anybody else. Roland was like a puppet master. He was like, yeah, I am furthering this degeneration. I'm in charge of it, like this is my thing.
Yeah, this is this is what I do, and everybody else does what I say. You know, he he got Ben Richards to sign on the data. By the way, did you think that there is going to be more of a fight there for Ben Richards to not sign off to be on the running man. He seemed to give in pretty quickly there.
You know, I did think there would be more. But at the same time, I don't hate it because it.
Was desperation time for his daughter, clearly.
Right, and you know he's going to sign it like like that. That is a like let's get to the part that we all know why we're here and what stuck out to me. And I don't know how well you remember the original, but the three people that go into the game all coordinated. Like I was sitting there waiting for the three contestants to meet up, like that's what stuck out to me. And apparently minus the ending, this is very faithful to the book. Okay, so I guess it's more relevant for the way things right.
I just feel like, just from a from a strategy standpoint, I don't want to see those two contestants at all because because if I'm close in proximity to him, guess who the hunters are going to be focusing on? Sure, you know, and then you got more of a chance that where if I'm like totally separated from everybody, and then what's that?
What's the rules of where you can travel? It didn't seem like there were Could you have gone to Australia? Yeah, if you could get through the you know.
Of course you got to drop them off in that that stupid video in the mail. Yeah, that's what gets you in Australia.
I'll tell you I'm flying to Thailand at the end of January and there's a fourteen hour just one of the flights am on this fourteen hours, so like, you know, you're playing with fire at that point, you know.
Okay, I think it's time for us to rate this. I have a feeling this is to me the second time ever. Yeah, you are going to give a film a higher rating? Yeah, I have a feeling too. Are you in the nine category? Wow? Yeah? Significantly, So I'm gonna go seven on this one. Yeah. So it was fun, it was enjoyable. Didn't move the needle for me, you know, in a lot of ways that that I like my needle to be moved. Clip that. Yeah, it was fine, it was good. I liked it. I I was eagerly
waiting to see what happened next. I perhaps my expectations on seeing more of a traditional Edgar Wright film has has me kind of like down a little bit on that. Sure, But yeah, I mean for what it was, seven, I think it was well acted. I think the direction was solid, and I think the story was fun. Nothing blew my socks off. And seven is not a bad score, which is why I give it a seven. Yeah.
You know, this I think is an example for me of the sum being more than the total.
However you say it, yeah, because it's the sum is greater than the parts. Yeah.
Yeah, the acting, none of it's gonna blow your mind.
None of it's bad.
But it's not like there was like a Heath Ledger Joker performance in there, you know what I mean. Like, it's nothing that's going to be talked about in a year. Remember Glenn Paul is being a teargate. Yeah. The plot, this is like the seventh ninety nine percent versus one percent movie that you and I have discussed on this
It's not revolutionary in any way. The outcome, the ending, there's there's no ending, And honestly, you and I talking about it makes me realize as an Edgar Wright film, they basically just redid the ending to Scott Pilgrim versus the World. And that's all I'm going to say about that, because I don't want to go into anything else other than that. But there's actually quite a few like he just kind of did the same thing he's already done.
Nothing stands out as original. But as I mentioned, the first forty minutes was probably one of the most into an action movie I've ever been because I was so excited about it, and as that novelty wore off, what began to wear on for me was the Richards Lives movement. Yeah, watching society come together, the fact that people weren't on his side, and quite frankly, stuff that I would prefer to see happen in the real world a little bit.
I use the word Pollyannis either a week or two ago, and there was an element of Pollyanna to me in this. But I you told me, it's like the naive outlook, just like, Okay, the media is here to inform us. They don't have an agenda. Bulky said, they have an agenda. But the media is here for the news.
No, they're not.
They have their spin. We all know they have their spin. There's polyanners. Did the billionaires getting their come up? And does that happen in real life?
Not often?
Like it doesn't, and I would I like to see it more, yes, But like there were different components that kept me just happy and engaged. And as I mentioned, there were two or three lines that made me think, does that get right? Listen outside the box because like I've said specifically that multiple times and it was awesome. So like, I'll be real with you, man, I was walking out of that theater and I'm like, Ben, you can't show up tomorrow and give this a ten because
he's gonna look at you like you're ridiculous. This is the first perfect movie. I was like, find something. So the ending was a little convoluted to me. Yeah, and I'm gonna go it a nine and a half because of that ending. And I had to talk myself down to a nine and a half because I thoroughly and I for the record, still think Scott Pilgrim versus The World is better than this movie.
Yeah, but well let's see how this one lives on.
Yes, and I saw Scott Pilgrim when I was in my early twenties a little confused on life, which is exactly where he was. So there's much like in that movie. I related to Michael Sarah in that movie there, so uh. But to me, I thought this was an awesome interpretation, nothing john Wick style. I said in the john Wick episode that john Wick kind of ruined action flicks.
Yeah, to a little, to a certain extent.
But this doesn't lean into it. I expected it to be more graphic. There were graphic moments, but it was by no means at Gorefest. No, not a whole lot of death in general, and there's even moments where he abstains and he's like, you're telling me to kill these people and I'm not going to kill him, like, which which I thought was an interesting take. It's the kind of creativity or lack thereof it's hard to explain. It's hard to explain how this movie hit on so many
levels for me. But I know what I like. I don't know what's art, but I know what I know when I see it.
Yeah, and I love this So the other thing too, I think that that kind of held me back. I thought there was going to be portions of because you got to survive thirty days, right, yeah, And I thought they're'd be like, Okay, Days one through six, he's hold up here, Days seven through eight, he's on the run. Days nine through eleven he's hold up here, which I think we like. They spent so much time on the first two days, right, first two or three days, and
then and he didn't make it a spoiler alert. He doesn't make it till thirty there's a something happens before then. But then there was just so much like I that was maybe it would have been too boring to tell, but I was looking forward to more like, Okay, this guy's got to keep moving. He can't just hold up somewhere. Yeah, that's the advice in Walking dead Man. Once you settle down, you die. You always got to keep moving, right, Yeah, And that was true in this movie too, No for sure.
And I there's a movie Ready or Not where a rich family, like a poor a girl from a blue collar family is marrying into a very wealthy family and they make you play a game because they made their fortune on games, and all the games are just normal games, like if you get Shoots and Ladders, you just play Shoots and Ladders, But if you get Hide and Seek, the entire family's trying to murder you. And there's a whole plot as to why I remember I say tomorrow.
Weaving is the main actress. He's phenomenal. It's a great movie.
Yes, okay, all right.
And at one point, like there's cameras all over the house and they're like, no, no, no, we play this like our forefathers did when the games were invented. We don't use any of the technology. And you're sitting there You're like, they're absolutely used.
And then.
And so in this movie you see like, oh, we're not tracking you. We're not doing this field, that's what. And I immediately I was like, they're absolutely the.
Orange bracelet thing. Yeah, I mean you're telling me this, you know, the the videotapes and and like that, the camera and everything. There's no tracker in there. Give me a break. Yeah. Yeah.
So there there's a there's a lot of moments in it that just like I would highly recommend this, don't let the box office scary. And even while we were talking, I looked up reviews. They're they're decent, They're two thirds for critics and audience, so.
And I think that's deservedly. So I I don't I don't think it's really if you go into this movie and you watch it and you come out and you say, yeah, I didn't. I didn't like that. I mean I don't think you like movies. Yeah, I gave it a seven. Yeah, that's right. Much more. What is it? Bearish on this one? Like it? Yeah?
Right, that's what I thought. Okay, so a little bit, you still like it, but you're more bearish than I.
Yeah, bearish it. That's not the right. I'm less bullish on it. Yeah, I think that's the way I would.
I would say, yeah, solid stuff. Though next week I'm optimistic about next week as well. We might be going back to back here.
I'm gonna tell you this right now. I'm going to give this movie no, no smaller than an eight and a half. Yeah, I have already made up my mind. I'm going to like it. I love this series, and I don't care what I mean. I haven't looked at the reviews or anything. I don't care what they are. I'm not going to be able to unbiasedly talk about this. Yeah, next week I'm not gonna be able to. So when you listen to our now you see me now you don't episode bear that in mind. Now I'll give a
disclaimer at the start of that episode too. I'm like, you know what, guys, I love this movie, but I said on last week's show that I was gonna love this movie. So take it with a grain of salt.
And you've said as much about movies in general that you much more so go in knowing you're gonna like it or a little.
It's not it's not knowing, it's just making up your mind. Yeah, you know, if you believe you're gonna like something, or if you if you believe you're not gonna like something, then that's the way it is.
That that's the beauty of cinema. Man, Like, no, it's not the beauty.
It's it's it's the wrong way to do it. It's an extraordinarily closed mind view of title look at things.
Oh sure, but like, we watched Nuremberg last week and I walked I walked in, I'm like, what am I really getting into? And I enjoyed it and the performances were good. And then I saw this yesterday. I was like, oh my god, I forgot this is this is how I'm supposed to feel walking out of the theater. Am I a Cretan?
I don't know, but I know it's like you had your cup of coffee with Nuremberg and then you you did your your your eight ball. Yes it's running man, you know exactly to turn into a horse.
It's fantastic.
That's gonna do it.
For this episode, guys, catch us on w S C O and w HB Y exactly where you're getting this podcast as well the show with Balky outside the Box with me.
We'll talk to you then