MOVIE REVIEW: Longlegs w/ Nick DiNizio

Hey, this is Daniel Warren Johnson, creator of books such as Murder Falcon, Extremity, Wonder Woman Dead Earth, and Beta Ray Bill, and you're listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host, Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles. Hello everyone. Welcome to episode 163 of the Oblivion Bar podcast. I'm Chris Hacker. I'm one of your co -hosts here. And joining me this week is not Aaron Knowles. is officially, he is off this week again.

I had to kick him out of here because I had to bring in one of my good friends in the podcasting world. One part of the former FN Nerds, Nick Denizio is here on the Oblivion Bar. Welcome Nick. Thank you, man. Thank you for having me.

What a pleasure it is to have you here because I knew once I found out that Aaron couldn't be here, I had to bring in the big guns for this week's episode, which We're going to be reviewing the latest neon, some say instant classic long legs of the many friends, the mutuals that we've had from the history of the oblivion bar podcast.

You were one of the very first people that I thought of when I came to like, who could I seriously bounce off of and have like a really great conversation about this very, you know, it very divisive, but also very interesting film. And you were like the first person I thought of. I appreciate that man. Yeah. It's very, It's very a 24 ask if we can go into that. mean, obviously the first the first episode that we did together was for the Green Knight.

You know, we had we had our talk of of a 24 films. And it's funny because neon is kind of in that same vein of a 24 is this very I guess I guess you could say at this point highly respected like indie label that just does these these very original films. And it's definitely it's definitely an interesting film to talk about. I can't wait to get into it. There's there's For all the hype, there's also that much controversy too. So I can't, I can't wait to delve into that.

Yeah. It is very much one of those films that requires a conversation. Like if you go into this movie cold, not knowing what it is, not even seeing a trailer and sort of just trying to gather your thoughts. Cause I actually saw this on Thursday and we'll get into it here in just a bit. Sort of talk about the evening of and all that.

I saw it on Thursday and I remember walking out of the theater with my girlfriend and we were trying to discuss the film and I, and I had a hard time sort of wrapping my brain around You know, like I couldn't fully grasp it in the way that I wanted to. So I'm excited to sort of get your perspective and then sort of go through everything that I've found about the film since seeing it.

So before we get into that, though, I want you to sort of lay out for the listener here, explain the Effing Nerds what that was or what it is and also kind of what you're doing now. So the Effing Nerds podcast was something that me and my good friend Martin, we started back before the pandemic. We actually started two months before the pandemic happened. And it's funny too, because I think a lot of the podcasting friends that we've made along the way were born out of the pandemic.

So it was a very interesting time to really get into podcasting during that time. And we did it for a couple of years and then both of our jobs kind of took center stage and we had to stop because I mean, know better than anybody how much work goes into having a podcast, the quality that you want to try to keep up with. And as soon as it starts to dip, you start to lose.

You know, it's not that you lose interest, that that motivation just isn't there when things aren't working like how you want them to. But, you know, it wasn't like anything bad happened. It was just one of those, you know, organic things that was just like, you know what? Like, we're just going to stop for a little bit. And if we end up coming back to it, we'll come back to it. I've definitely had the itch.

So I'm happy that you that you hit me up because I was like, I'll bring him of retirement. Yeah, man. It's fun. It's it's a lot of fun, man, because I love doing this. I love talking movies. I love talking, you know, all kinds of nerd stuff. So. Yeah, so once that ended, his job took him into new directions. He got great opportunities and I'm really proud of what he's doing now.

And then for me personally, about two years ago now, I left my original job and I started working for a visual effects company. So I work for Brainstorm Digital and we do visual effects for movies and TV. And I've been trying to break into the movie industry for years and finally. finally got in and it's been such a blast. Obviously it's a little bit of a tough time right now because we went through the strikes last year. We were out of work for a couple months.

We literally just started back up like a month and a half ago. So that's been the only bummer is like I finally get in and then all of a sudden these strikes happen and work's not there. So, but other than that, it's been great. That's incredible. Yeah. And to kind of speak of what you were saying earlier, well, first of I'm really proud that you're finally in the industry.

know even back then you guys, both you and Martin were trying to get And what I always really loved about the FNRJ is you guys had a quality that I really appreciated. You could just see it, see it. mean, you guys obviously did video and stuff, but you could hear it immediately in your show that, and I know you would be the one to edit it, but it just matched that quality that I think podcasters strive for.

And to kind of speak on what you're saying about how like when you're going through changes in your life, one of the first things that goes is maybe the podcast because not because you don't want to do it because you can't put the time into it that you want to, you can't put the quality in there. And I've definitely felt that here on the Oblivion Bar. I totally understand it. do selfishly hope at some point you guys bring it back in some capacity, even if it's only ever so often.

But I totally get it. You guys are doing other things and we can at least appreciate the time that we had the FNRTS because you guys were one of the best movie podcasts around, at least from my perspective. I really always enjoyed the show. Man, it's awesome hearing you say that, man. I really appreciate that. I mean, but also too, man, for you, you know, obviously we all kind of started out at the same time and seeing where you guys started to where you are now. The growth has been insane.

The guests you've had on has been insane. And I'm really proud of you guys too, man. You've just absolutely crushed it. And I can't wait to see like where you're going to go in the future. I appreciate that. Yeah. It's a, it's a labor of love. think that's a good way to sort of surmise that's the best way. Yeah. nerdy podcasting landscape is the labor of love. It deserves our participation. It requires it.

And we're just trying to put a little love into that, you know, movies, comics, television, video game corner of the world. It's the best, but, it brought us And here we are talking about long legs. absolutely. Before we get there, let's talk about how they can support the show here on the Abilene Bar. It's patreon .com forward slash Abilene Bar Pod for your support. You could have access to the grid, is Aaron and I's weekly bonus podcast.

Every week you get an extra 30 minutes of Aaron and I just shooting the shit, doing the most random conversations you can think of. It is total stream of consciousness without filter, letting our freak flag fly over there on the grid. You never know what you're going to get, but it's always a good You got episode transcripts, what Nick and I are reading from here today. Everything that I put together for the show, you have access to that. So you can see what we're talking about.

You can see sort of our process, what we were able to bring to these episodes, early access to the episodes you're listening to right now. Patreon nicknames? Question mark? How do, what is that? I don't know. It's something that we do over there. If you join the Patreon at the highest tier, we'll give you a Patreon nickname. It's really fun. And then a special shout out at the end of each of the episode, which Aaron generally does, but I will do today. And it is the best way to support the show.

If you want to support the show in a freeway, five star reviews, you can rate the show out of five on Apple podcasts and Spotify. An actual written review is great as well. Those are freeways. But if you enjoy what we do here and want to sort of help us funnel all that money back into showing and you know, things that we do here, patreon .com forward slash oblivion bar pod, check it out. It's in the show notes, all that good stuff. One more piece of news here.

I will be at San Diego Comic -Con at the end of this month. Nick, have you ever been to San Diego Comic -Con before? I have not. man. I not. You know, I've been to New York a couple of times. Actually, we actually finally met in person two years ago at New York Comic -Con. So that was great. But yeah, San Diego Comic -Con is one that I eventually will get out there for.

I've kind of been doing the Star Wars celebration circuit lately, but yeah, San Diego Comic -Con is definitely on my list to get out there at least once. I mean, New York is incredible. I was trying to explain to someone the other day, sort of the difference between New York and San Diego, because I think they're like 1A, 1B in the comic book convention landscape. And New York Sensory overload.

It's everything all at the same time and you're never gonna get to everything that you want to, but you're gonna have fun and it's gonna be tiring. San Diego is like a diet version of New York, but it's the same amount of incredible talent, but smaller, if that makes sense. Plus Hall H. Well, Hall, I mean, that's the thing. I feel like people think that San Diego is bigger because of Hall H. Because you have just these massive announcements, you have all these big stars.

That's where usually Marvel is, that's where DC is. You know, New York in terms of that, in terms of star power is a little bit lesser, but still pretty big. But I feel like I've heard people say that if you're a comic book fan, New York is the better place to be than San Diego. 100%. Yeah. If you're, if you were a true blue Wednesday warrior, New York Comic -Con is a, it has to be on your bucket list.

It's, mean, to put it in context, I guess you could say, and to sort of speak on what you're saying with San Diego and New York is that San Diego has become much more entertainment, television, movies, what have you. Anime is also really big at San Diego, which it is at most conventions anyway. But San Diego artist alley is I would say less than a hundred creators total. I would say maybe like 80 to a hundred creators total. So that's maybe like six or seven rows.

New York Comic -Con is A through Z, nut to butt all the way through a giant exhibitor hall. I'd there's over probably four or 500 creators in New York. It's insane. It's almost overwhelming. Like you mentioned sensory overload. That's what artist alley is in New York Comic -Con. It's just, wild. It's a wild place to walk through. Yep. And trying to meet folks and like coordinate through all that is incredible. I yeah, I'm so excited about San Diego.

is by, I mean, I wouldn't say it's by far my favorite con, but I always look forward to it. It's a good halfway point in the year. It's something I can look forward to and it's just, it's the best, but I'll be there Wednesday through Sunday. If you happen to stop by the Comic Sketch Art Lane there in San Diego, we have a bunch of creators that are going, please come and say hi. That'd be incredible. and I'll probably be running around losing my mind anyway.

if you happen to see me, just grab it real quick. We'll take a photo or whatever. But Nick, if you're ready, we'll get out of all the disclaimer stuff. Let's go ahead and get into our news and notes. and notes. Our News and Notes is sponsored by Omnibus, backed by some of the top publishers in the medium. Omnibus hosts an extensive back catalog from Image Comics, Boom Studios, Dark Horse, IDW, Ahoy Comics, Massive Publishing, Titan Vault, and many, many more.

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All right, so first up, and Nick, this is interesting because there was some news that happened over the last couple of weeks. We got like a new look at the Superman logo and some of behind the scenes stuff. There was a couple of things that happened, but a ton of trailers dropped in the last two weeks. I know you saw this. Too many. Too many to the point where we can't even talk about all of them. We would have to dedicate an entire episode to sort of deep dive into each one.

We're actually, Aaron, I talked to him about this before we actually set this episode in stone. And I wanted to preview a new segment which we're gonna call Trailer Train Choo Choo. This is a new segment on the show where we just dedicate our entire News and Notes to trailers, because we all love trailers. One thing before we get into these trailers, I have to get your opinion on this, and I go to the movies a lot, I'm sure you do as well. The movie theater is like our chapel. It's sanctity.

You walk in and bless the screen and you walk to your seat. Too many trailers, man. Nick, there are like 12 trailers in front of these movies. What is going on? Dude, saw, so I saw Long Legs last night. Yep. There were so many trailers, so many, like it's seriously like the movie is supposed to start 745. Long Legs didn't get started until almost 820. It was insane. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong.

I was happy to see like a lot of the trailers and some of them were actually going talk about today. I mean, the big thing, it's not on the list, but seeing the Alien Romulus trailer on the big screen. was magic. cannot wait for that movie. yeah, way too many trailers, a lot to just to just go through like it's the point where I'm just like, wait, what movie am I seeing again? So yeah, it's it's a lot. I mean, don't be wrong.

Like I love trailers, but we need to cut this down to like five or six at most. 100%. Yeah. Like unless it unless it's a big film that a lot of studios want to just promote their big movies that are coming out. I understand that. But a small movie like Long Lake should not have 10 trailers in front of it. I'm sorry. I will say it was funny to see a trailer for Deadpool, Deadpool, Wolverine Long Legs. was wildly different movies. It was a weird tone to set before Long Legs. That's for sure.

Yeah, same thing. I've seen A Quiet Place Day 1, Maxine, and Long Legs. I went to the movies three times this week. Hell yeah. I would say that the most annoying part of each of those viewings was just the multiple trailers. Like you said, more than 10 at least.

Yeah, and that's the thing too, is when you have somebody like us who goes to the movies a lot, obviously for the average moviegoer, they're probably not going as much as we are, but when we go a lot and we see the same things over and over again. It's like, my God, like let's just, let's, let's get this going, man. Yeah. Yep. All right. Well let's get into some of these strategies.

So we have, here's a couple that have released and we're just not going to talk about them in depth unless you have something quick you want to say, Nick, but I'm just going to go through them and you just stop me if you want to talk about something really quick. So we got Paramount smile too. Stop. Okay. Go ahead. No, I don't want to say anything crazy, but I'll just say that the first smile was such a surprise to me. I didn't expect to love it as much as I did. Really great body horror.

really like if you, people have seen the movie, know the ending for the ending. Fantastic, like practical effects, really good stuff. The trailer for Smile 2, I love Naomi Scott. I think she's awesome. I can't wait to see her in this. the trailer was, I think the trailer is great. I really do. Like I really like this trailer. It gets the point across as to what it's going to be about, you know, dealing with the whole music industry as well.

And then, you know, there's some stuff in there that reminds me of Suspiria. So I can't wait to see what they kind of like cook up with this trailer, but very excited. Yeah. I don't know why I thought that was Blumhouse. Did you think that as well? Or yeah, you know, I did too. I thought, thought that was Blumhouse and it's, it's, we're going to have a Blumhouse film that we're about to mention too.

But, uh, I had this conversation with Martin kind of how Blumhouse has fallen off a little bit with their quality. They've at least a lot of quantity over quality, a lot of movies lately. There were some, they teamed up with universal. They've, they've been putting out a lot of direct lately. So I'm, I, I'm wanting to come back. They make money. They money. That's what it comes down to. They make money. So that's what it's all about. It's just pump them out.

And then one of them pump them out for 10 to 20 million. And one of them will hit a hundred, you know, it'll be like a Friday night at Freddy's. Like it's one of those sort of situations where they're just shooting their shot. They're like a, they're like a horny 40 year old at a bar at 2am. They're just shooting their shot in every direction and they'll hit, they'll hit Peter at some point. They're going to hit something.

Yeah. They will penetrate something, whether it's a hole in the wall or otherwise. But we've got three A24 trailers this week. We live in time starring Andrew Garfield and Florence Pugh, which destroy me. I already know for a fact that dude, I just looking at what the subject matter is. I just already know it's going to just bring tears to your eyes. know, real man tears will be absolutely for sure. We have Herrick by Hugh Grant. Did see that one? I did. You know what, man?

The movie itself, I'm a little iffy on because it's from the guys that wrote A Quiet Place and other than A Quiet Place, their track record is not good. Correct. So I'm a little hesitant on this, but I love where Hugh Grant's career has gone these last couple of years. I don't know what started off, maybe it was like Cloud Atlas where he played like a cannibal in that, but played a lot of characters in that, but one was a cannibal. since then, he's had such interesting picks.

He's teamed with a guy, Richie, a couple of times, which I've loved. So I'm all for this new career that Hugh Grant has done. I just watched Honor Among Thieves the other day and I just love his character in that movie. Oh, he's so good in that he's so good in that. And then we had a surprise one. I actually saw this before. Long Legs, the front room starring Brandi Norwood. Welcome back, Brandi. What is welcome? Where was she at the last 15 years? I have no idea.

This is another one, too, where it's it's kind of a toss up. You know, it kind of looks like it's it's it's pulling from like Get Out a little bit and a couple other films that if you see, you know, like it's inspirations. But yeah, I don't know. Well, it's this is one's question mark for me. Like the trailer was fine. So we'll see if it's any good.

You know, speaking on what you're saying a moment ago, Blumhouse, and I don't want to, I don't want to speak ill about my, boys, a 24, you know, I'm a big a 24 shell. Of course, of course I'm nervous. I'm very nervous because since they bought or they were, who were they purchased by? it, I actually, don't know. I don't know if they officially got purchased. They probably did, but I know what you're talking about.

Cause there was a story that came out a couple of months ago, how they needed to kind make money, they have to start making money. Because regardless of how critically acclaimed their films are, whether audiences like them or not, their movies don't make enough money. that was the worry from the start is that A24, while they're able to do all these original films, if you're not making money, you're not going to last long. that's kind of where they're at right now.

And they've been signing big talent. In the last couple months, they've gotten Dwayne Johnson, doing The Smashing Machine with Betty Safdie. I just saw Jennifer Lawrence is going to do a movie with them. They have a comic too. based on exactly based off a comic. I know they're going after big talent. And so that's my worry too, is they're going to become like Blumhouse and start, you know, but we'll see, we'll see, we'll see what happens.

It hasn't happened yet, but you know, we'll see, we'll see where this goes. Cause that used to be the thing with A24. You knew when you went into an A24 horror film, you were going to see something very specific and whether you're, know, it matched your quality or not was sort of up to the viewer, but it was going to be a very centralized, specific view from a filmmaker. And you knew that it was probably going to stick with you and more times than not, it was going to be very good.

Of these three, I will say the only one that I'm truly interested about, is the one that's not a horror film. It's the, know, Herrick and the front room. I'll probably see at some point, but we live in time is the only one that I'm truly interested in. Yeah. No, I agree. I think it has to do with the fact that it's Andrew Garfin and Florence Pugh as well. You got these, two A -list stars, fan favorites that everybody loves. So that's, that's definitely a big pull for them.

And if I believe it or not, uh, past lives was also a 24, right? It incredible. was. So, so I like how eight 24 is kind of moving into like this other genre a little bit more now too. And they're kind of broadening their horizons. Yeah. And Civil War was kind of like their first big box office try. I don't know, actually I'm not familiar with the box office, but I think it was relatively well received. It was. It was very well received.

want to say it made, I know it made over a hundred million worldwide. And I think it's, I think to this point, I think it's their second highest grossing film. Behind Everywhere All At Once. Yeah. Yeah. Yup. Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, let's move on here. We've got Max's, The Batman Spinoff, The Penguin. Do see this I did. I'm excited. Yeah, me too. I'm excited, man, because like, you know, the fact that the Batman part two got pushed to another year, which is insane to me.

I don't know what's what is happening. But but I'm excited for this. Colin Farrell is the best and his Penguin was definitely a highlight of the first film. Yeah. I'm hearing rumors that Pattinson might show up for an episode or two. So we'll see what happens there. But even if he doesn't, I'm excited to get back into this world. I'm excited to see what they do. And it's the Penguin's rise. It's how he becomes the Penguin. I can't wait to see how this all plays out.

looks like the Sopranos in like DC comics. So I'm all for that. I kind of want just for the funny part of it. I want them to keep doing these spinoffs and just call it the something like the Catwoman, the scarecrow. Like just keep doing these books in the front. to just make sure everyone knows that it's in the patents and exactly that continuity. All right. This one I'm excited about Robert Eggers, Nosferatu. Yeah, it looks it looks awesome. I know Chakra. I mean, put it this way.

Even if you're not a fan of Robert Eggers, his films always look top tier. They look like cinema. Cinema and just like big yellow letters above your When I watch this, I'm like, yeah, this trailer is cinema. The cast is phenomenal. I can't see what Bill Skarsgard does with this character. Quite honestly, if you've seen a Robert Eggers movie, you kind of know what to expect. A lot of his movies are slow burn.

don't know if this is going to take that same route because it looks a little more intense than some of his previous films. mean, even the Northman for thinking it was going to be an action movie for two hours was not. So it could just be a really well edited trailer, but yeah, this is definitely on my list for, and it comes out the end of the year. So I can't wait for that. Yeah. Speaking of Blumhouse, we've got, it's afraid, but it's like a fra AI D it's about a killer AI everybody.

That's all it is. I will say just note of it. And Nick, I'll let you sort of talk about it as well if you need to, but a good friend of the show, David Dasmal. She was somewhere in the film. I didn't see him in the trailer, but he is credited on IMDb and it's somewhere. So I'm wondering what he, what he's doing there. Yeah. Which, tells me maybe he's, he's, he's got like almost like, it's not like a secret role, but maybe they're kind of keeping it under wraps a little bit. But yeah.

Also, congrats for getting him on. That's awesome. And I love David Dasmatch and he's great. Yeah. but yeah, again, this kind of falls under, you know, Blumhouse just making these really cheap, like horror films. I mean, this way they pumped out so many between Night Swim, Imaginary, like and none of these movies have been good either. this I don't know if it I don't know man I just saw this I'm like this is gonna be the first of many you know killer AI movies that are probably gonna come out.

And who's gonna be the first one to do it Blumhouse? Exactly, exactly. So I don't have any expectations for this if it ends up being you know at least halfway decent maybe I'll check it out when it's on you know streaming or something but other than that it's a hard pass for me. Well, speaking of low to no expectations, we got Venom the Last Dance. Wow. I don't know how Sony keeps doing this. Who keeps giving them money? What is going on? OK, so for Venom, right?

Obviously, the first movie comes out. No one expects. I mean, no one expects it to be like as bad as it was. Actually, some people find it to be a guilty pleasure, which I can definitely see. But when you're doing a movie about Venom, should at least be somewhat decent. Yeah. The second movie comes out, has Carnage. Me and Martin went to go see it and I can't tell you how packed that theater was and how into it the audience was throughout the whole thing. The first two made money.

First two made so much money and Let There Be Courage is a trash movie. It's terrible. but the audience was so into it. I was so surprised. was like, am I watching something different than everybody else? So there's an audience. Is this the comic book movie version of like Fast and Furious? Like this is brain candy. It's just colors and lights. Exactly. That's exactly what it is. So there's obviously an audience for this.

And the thing with Venom and this is my stupid headcanon is I kind of hope that this movie does well just so that, you know. Warner Brothers can see this and say, hey, Tom Hardy has some some star appeal and he can pull an audience and maybe we should just go ahead and make that Mad Max Wasteland movie, even though Furiosa bombed. Yeah, yeah. You know, 100 percent. You're absolutely right. It's did you see the bike riders with him in there? I didn't. didn't. I've it's you it's funny, man.

All these movies that come out now, it's like they're they're in theaters for a couple of weeks and then they throw them around streaming. So it's like the bike riders. I obviously I'm going to go see try to see in the theater first, you because I'm trying to like get away from streaming. I don't want to do any of that stuff. You know, I'm definitely gonna try to go see that in theaters, but my, my family saw it and they said it was great. They loved it.

It's my second favorite movie of year behind doom part two. Is it really? Yeah. Nice. the moment you can get to it, I would recommend it. Austin Butler's great in it. Jodie Comer, incredible. John, John, she crushes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hardy's incredible in it too, but let's actually get into what we wanted to talk about here. there's no, there's nothing to talk about venom guys. I promise. Go watch the trailer if you want.

We're not interested on, at least I'm not, I don't know if don't know if it is either, but, it'd be curious to see if it makes money again, Nick, I'm going to pass this off to you. We've got four trailers that came out this week that we really wanted to talk about. these are the ones we're to go in depth with a little bit. I'm going to pass off to you because I know you're very excited about this film. I am. I'm put this way. I'm cautiously optimistic about this one, but let's get into it.

So Paramount has released the first trailer for Ridley Scott's highly anticipated Gladiator 2. The story takes place years after Maximus gave his life upending the leadership of the decadent and corrupt society. The sequel centers on Lucius, the son of Lucia. the nephew of Commodus, the son of Roman leader Maximus Aurelius, who murdered his father and seized the throne.

Commodus met his downfall in the gladiator ring against Maximus, who despite being mortally wounded, took down the emperor before passing on to reunite with his family. Maximus had saved Lucius and his mother, leaving a lasting impact on the young boy. The first gladiator took place in 100 AD, and it is rumored that gladiator two is likely said about 19 years after the original in the year 2011 AD.

The film stars Paul Mescal as Lucius, Kanye Nielsen as Lucia, Denzel Washington, who we're going to talk about as Macronus. You motherfuckers. That's honestly, I saw the best comment for that, that like everyone's talking with an accent and Denzel sounds like a corrupt cop from Yonkers. It's just training day two, in 2200 AD. So good. Joseph Quinn is in this is Emperor Gita and Pedro Pascal as Marcus Akeis. Yeah, I think I said that Yeah, no, fantastic cast.

The trailer, absolutely like, I love the trailer and there's controversy around it, surprisingly, because unsurprisingly, I guess unsurprisingly, it's so stupid, man. It's like, who cares? So they put they put No Church in the Wild, which is a Jay -Z Kanye West song. And it's like it's first of all, it's not the first Denzel movie that's gotten that song before. If you want to go all the way back to Safe House with the Ryan Rells, it also had that same that same music.

Like, is it a little out of place? Maybe, but it's not the first time a historical epic has used modern music. It's not the first time any movie based on wherever has used modern music. So I don't know what this uproar is. It's really weird to me. And then I saw something that like it's one of the most downvoted like trailers of all time on YouTube. Like it's some fucking far right idiot getting the rage bay on YouTube and then all these minions and morons all are.

It's just culture war bullshit. It's all it is. It's stupid. The trailer looks great in my opinion. And I agree with you 100 percent. The music I think it set a pretty good tone for the trailer. They're obviously not gonna fucking play Jay -Z in the Coliseum. Let's move everybody. No, they're not. Everyone's like, they got rid of Hans Zimmer for Jay -Z.

It's like, first of all, if you watched the, if you want to go all the way back to Gladiator One, there was a Super Bowl spot for Gladiator One and they played, what they play, I they played Creed or something in the, the, promo for that. So it's like, it's like, it's like movies have. You know, marketing departments have done this for years. It's nothing new. I don't know where this outrage came from. It's just nonsense that somebody tried to conjure up for clout and it's just it's so stupid.

regardless of that, I think it looks great. I mean, it's funny there was a I someone was like, you know, gladiators should never get a sequel. Wait, there's water battles in this is totally true. And for those that don't know the Coliseum did have naval battles back in the day. So this it's all that's that's 100 % accurate. So that I can't wait to Paul Mescal is obviously a huge rising star right now.

And the fact that got Pedro Pascal in there too, mean, who's just has completely blown up in the last like three years. Joseph Quinn. Joseph Quinn, who's now also just blown up. Yeah, he's on the rise right now. mean, on the rise, man, a quiet place, stranger things. And then now he's gonna be a fantastic for next year is Johnny Storm.

So, then this, like, I mean, yeah, I would say, but I was gonna ask you about this between Paul Mescal and Russell Crowe, but I think you could make a strong argument that like, you know, there's like, there's a good mixture proven stars. then people were on the rise between Joseph Quinn, Paul Mescal. And then I think Pedro Pascal is like there. Like I think his star has risen, but he's still, I think there's still room for him. Right. I agree. I agree.

And you know, it's funny too, between him and Joseph Quinn, both fantastic for now. So I mean, that's, that's, that's, gonna, that's gonna skyrocket him even further now. But yeah, no, I agree. I think it's a very smart cast because I don't know who decided to do the casting for this, but it's, to me it's, it's genius because you have between Paul Mescal, Joseph Quinn, Pedro Pascal, rising stars.

Denzel Washington obviously is just like, as soon as people see Denzel, that's automatically gonna peak so many people's interests. So I thought that that was just a really great pick. And then obviously you have Connie Nielsen who was in the original way back when. So she's kind of that connection to the original film. Yeah, I mean, I can't wait. And obviously the reason why I'm cautiously optimistic is because as much as I like Ridley Scott.

His track record is very hit or miss, especially in the later years of his career. get the last duel and then you get the, what's the Emperor movie he did with Joaquin Phoenix? was that? Napoleon. Napoleon, yeah. Napoleon, yeah, which is not good. And then he did like House of Gucci, which was terrible. So it's like, he's very hit or miss. And like, I would even say he hasn't made a really good movie since like The Martian. And even before that, there was also a gap.

yeah, I've heard He's getting up there in age too. I think he's close to 80. Yeah. And he's still, he's still pumping out these movies. like hats off to him for still doing this. and to be fair, even if you didn't like Napoleon, the battle scenes in that were, were top tier. So I think it's going to be the same for this movie. It's just, hopefully it has a very compelling story. I I've heard early word is, is, is good so far on this. some people are even calling it Oscar worthy.

I don't want to jump to that far just yet. mean, cause Oscar worthy could mean it gets nominated for its clothing. You know what I mean? So special effects and visuals and know, set clothing. I'm sure it'll get a lot of that. It'll get looks for that. Yeah, yeah, I'll get a lot of tech awards, yeah, but we'll see. I'm definitely pumped for it. have, like I said, cost you optimistic, but my hopes are high. So we'll see. are your thoughts on the reqri I said it again.

What are your thoughts on the recent acquisition of Paramount Pictures by Skydance? Do you see this? It was bought by Skydance for $8 billion just a week ago. Now, I don't think this is going to change anything with like, let's say gladiator, Just in terms of like, want to get your cinema brain reaction here. Yes. The sixth oldest movie theater in the world. The second oldest in the United States has just been bought by Skydance. What's happening here? Yeah. So it's, it's, it's really funny.

So, you asked me about this. I'm wondering why it didn't happen sooner. And the reason why I say is because Skydance has had a relationship with Paramount for the longest time. If you go back to watch Paramount Phillips, whether it's You know, the most recent Star Trek movies, every Mission Impossible movie, Skydance, Skydance's logo is always over that stuff. So they've been working with them for years. And from what I hear, David Ellis is who who owns Skydance Media is very great to work with.

And he cares a lot about films and filmmaking. So he has a very he has a big appreciation for it, which I think is missing from a lot of studio heads these days. Sure. So I think it's I think it's a good move. You know, it's funny, too, because I didn't realize Paramount was in such a bad hole. until until recently with all this was going on and I have a friend that works for CBS Sports, which is under Paramount. So they're directly affected by that. So luckily their job is safe.

But but still it's one of those situations where you know, it could have gone horribly wrong. mean, I still don't agree with Disney buying up 20th Century Fox. You know, I don't I don't like to see these studios eating each other alive like that discovery buying Warner. It's got me my word, which is which has been horrendous so far. It's been terrible.

The is as well as cutting, wholesale, not releasing movies, cutting jobs, putting a bunch of my, dating my uncle and my baby is 600 pounds on Macs. Like just the worst shit possible you could do. He's like capitalizing HBO. It's terrible. Yeah. And that's what I was talking about is like you have studio heads who aren't film people. They're either business people or whatever. And they have no clue as to what makes films work, know?

And case in point, is funny though, how like Warner Brothers still can put some solid films, like, know, Dune falls under Warner Brothers still, you know, so they - Yeah, Barbie, Oppenheimer and Dune part two in the last nine months. That's what I mean. it's like, it's crazy how they're able to still put out like these high profile films and them not be completely messed up. But yeah, but you know, going back to this, I do think it's a good move.

I don't think much is going to change in terms of like the landscape and what kind of films they're putting out. My hope is that with David Ellis in charge, maybe he can kind of the ship a little bit better, but you know, from what I know, Paramount has not been - hurting in terms of like on the theatrical front. think a lot of the movies that come out, I think they're successful. I think they make money at the box office. So hopefully this just means they're going to get better after the fact.

I have one more question for you before we move on from Gladiator. I wanted to just kind of get your thoughts on the comparison, sort of the star power comparison between let's say 2000s Russell Crowe and presumably the star of this Gladiator 2, which is Paul Mescal. 2024 has been, I would say 2023, 2024 has been great for Paul Mescal. I think is again, as we said earlier, his star rising incredibly fast. You've got After Sun, all of us strangers. He's been doing a lot of incredible stuff.

So I'm curious between 2000s Russell Crowe, who Russell Crowe at that time was doing a lot of sort of small budget crime. He was the leading actor, but it was like small movies. Smaller films, Like LA Confidential and things like that. Yeah, you could make a case that like Gladiator was the movie that maybe pushed him over the top into true stardom. So what are your thoughts there? What's the comparison? Yeah, I would definitely agree.

I Gladiator definitely you know, catapulted Russell Crowe into that stratosphere of being a really like powerhouse A -list actor. That's kind of where it really all started. And for Paul Mescal, this could absolutely do the same thing. I mean, it's very similar, I think, in terms of not so much like the films that they've been doing, but in terms of where their kind of star power is, one before a Gladiator film hits.

Yeah, I mean, and Paul Mescal really like, and it's not just Gladiator, like his plate is full. Like he's getting picked up for a lot of different films. He's showing the range that he has and that he can kind of jump genres and kind of do different things. So that's very good. But I mean, for you, though, how do you feel about like, how do feel about Paul Mascall in general?

How do you feel about him kind of leading this film, you know, as opposed to going up against someone like Denzel Washington, Pedro Pascal, who, you know, is established in this kind of world. So what do you think? I am in agreement. think Paul Mascall is one of our best young actors. I think he was the only one missing in Dune Part 2 as like the old heads and the younger generation, the passing of the torch.

Like if they could have just somehow put Paul Mascow in the background somewhere, it be perfect. Cause you have the young guard of like Florence Pugh, Austin Butler. Why am I spacing with the main actor, fucking Paul Atreides. Oh, Timmy man, Timmy Charlie. Timmy Charlie, thank God. What am I doing here? And then you've got like, you know, the old heads that were all, you know, you've got one of the scars guards, you've got. Which about Christopher Walken Josh Brolin.

Well, it's it's funny man Yeah, hit that on so on you hit the nail on the head on that one yet Dune Dune has Literally probably one of the best cast in terms of like the young generation the current generation and the old generation it literally has such a wide variety of of actors and yeah, Paul Paul's definitely he's the only one that's missing from that group of You up -and -coming young actors.

Yeah. Yeah, and I think I'm excited to see what Paul does with his career I think again, I think this is gonna be sort of I would be really excited for people for this to be like the first time they see his potential as an A -list star. think this could push him over the edge and get him some serious leading work. Yeah, I think so. Let's move on to something here that I was maybe a little more Luke Warmon, I'll say.

Studios drops the first teaser for the upcoming WandaVision spinoff, Agatha, all along. So in this series, have Catherine Hahn's Agatha Harkness starring in this new series. Here's the synopsis, sort of a broad synopsis. Sets off. On a dangerous, mysterious adventure filled with trials and tribulations, Agatha finds herself down and out of power after a suspicious Goth teen helps her break free from her distorted spell.

Which I'm assuming is the spell that Wanda put her in at the end of WandaVision. So we have showrunner Jack Schafer is back from WandaVision and I think the entire writing staff of WandaVision is just bloop, putting right into this Agatha all along. Which is sort of exciting because I'm curious to hear your thoughts really quickly, Nick. What was your thoughts on WandaVision being like that first Disney plus COVID series? To be honest, it was a blast.

had so much fun and even like for podcasting, it was a blast talking about it because we had done and I think a lot of podcasts were doing it too, like just basically taking doing weekly recaps of the series, giving our speculations of what we thought was going to happen. And it was so much fun to do that because also too for Marvel, this was their first TV show. So everyone was excited for that aspect too.

And I think it was successful for the most but WandaVision took a dive for me and its final episode. thought it was, know, and there was obviously reasons as to why that happened because it apparently got rushed because of COVID, but I thought it was such a disappointing, end to everything, especially from the sort of promise that was like being shown to us throughout the series. And it really didn't deliver as much as I wanted it to.

looked like they were trying to do something different in the beginning with the eras and like trying, truly trying to deviate from the quote unquote superhero method. Yes. final episode, big pink, blue sky and CGCG fest. And what's funny is that this one division kind of set that precedent to what Marvel shows were going to be from from here on out. I mean, from what we hear now, they're going to change that up.

I think after Agatha is done, like we're now going into like the era where there are TV shows supposed to have like showrunners now and, you know, take more time to develop. So hopefully that's that's the case. But but yeah, it's been it's been a rough go for Marvel TV since one division, I would say. minus like Loki season three and yeah, Loki's been fantastic. What I liked Miss Marvel.

I thought she hook was OK in certain spots, but mostly it's lukewarm to bad, just outright bad secret invasion. I'm looking at you. Yeah, I feel I feel I feel like everyone everyone has like their you know their their favorites and like I honestly liked Hawkeye more than I think most people did. I liked I like seeing the the boots on the ground aspect of that even even I mean we're going talk about Captain America in a little bit, but Falcon Warrior Soldier.

Again, was another one that was played by a rushed ending, but I liked majority of it leading up to the ending. Agreed. So let's see here. We got the cast here. So Joe Locke's Billy Kaplan, aka Wiccan. So we got an upgraded, you know, updated Wiccan on the show. We got Shashir Samada as Jennifer Kale, who is a Marvel character. I'm not familiar though. Maria de Dizda. We got Paul Aldenstein.

Aubrey Plaza as Rio Vilda, who is apparently a original character, not from the comics, which is kind of interesting. Yeah. And like I said earlier, the entire writing team of Wandavision is returning. All Along will be nine episodes and will premiere on Disney Plus on September 18th with a two episode debut. temperature check on Agatha All Along, Pretty cold. I'm not gonna lie. Pretty cold. really, I mean, look, I say this with as much love as I can.

I love Catherine Hahn. think Catherine Hahn's amazing. She's an incredibly talented actor. You know, not even just for comedy, even though I think that's where she excels is in comedy. I mean, anyone seen Step Brothers, she steals all of her scenes that she's in. She's absolutely hilarious. I'm put you a little ball and throw you in my vagina. She's so good. She's so good. And like, obviously she was a scene stealer in Wandavision.

So, I mean, like it's one of those things where, you know, that character works in small doses. I don't know how it's gonna play out in a full series where their character's front and center. I don't think we really needed this. I think they're just kind of trying to capitalize on WandaVision hype. But you know, it have been a smart neck is that they would have capitalized on it. They capitalized on it two years ago after WandaVision. we're four years away from WandaVision.

dude, it's kind of crazy how long it takes some of these some of these these projects to drop. It's crazy. And to the point where you would just lose all that momentum. but yeah, I mean, like I really don't have any any interest in this. I don't think I'm going to watch it just because I mean, it's not even just for out Not caring about it, but also to it's really hard to keep up with everything nowadays between movies and TV.

There's so much stuff and you really have to pick and choose what you're going to watch. There is an audience for this. Don't get me wrong. There's people that absolutely love WandaVision that are going to be all over this. It has like that flair that I know that people are just going to flock to. It comes out in September, which is right around spooky season. So it's you know, it's about witches. It's supposed to end right around Halloween. So that's perfect then.

So yeah, so it's people are going to watch it. No doubt. But for me, I mean, it's a it's a pass for me. Nick, I envy you because as someone I'm to say this in the most annoying voice ever, I will watch this progressively. I'm not excited about it, but I will be watching it. And, you know, I'm hoping that Deadpool and Wolverine sort of reinvigorates the love of the MCU inside of me. Marvel.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, guys, listen, if you're listening to this right now and you weren't around for Endgame, I just, feel for you. Like you had to be there for that era of Marvel Studios where it was banger after banger. even the, even the movies that were not the best were still fun. Right. And it just seems like since, know, since end game, there've been a couple of highlights, guardians, the galaxy volume three, Shang -Chi, Spiderman, no way home, a couple of TV shows here and there.

But for the most part, it's just been averaged to bad. And I honestly, think the average ones are more disappointing than the bad ones because they're not even there. They're unworthy of even talking about, there's no love in them. They have zero personality, which is bad to say, because I know it's hard to create things.

I know, you know, this like It's tough to go out there and create stuff, but when you put these movies and these stories on conveyor belts and try to put them out in mass quantity, they're just not gonna be good. Yeah, and I also think that Disney Plus has a big thing to do with that because when that initially launched, it's like we have to have content for this, so let's just get as much going as we possibly can. And to be fair, I honestly think that it's really hurt the brand.

It's hurt the Marvel brand and we're not talking about Star Wars, but the same thing with Star Wars. think it's hurting the Star Wars brand too, just with the shows that they're probably not. me, real quick. Sorry, not to cut you off, but give me a three word synopsis of the acolyte. haven't seen any of it. Just give me three words to describe the show. just want to know. A poorly written show. Right. That's what I'll say. It's got to, it has some things going for it.

And obviously there's man, and this, this is a whole nother topic too, that I'll just, quickly sum up, but obviously, you know, you get to this, this thing where it's hard to be, it's hard for people to take your criticism seriously when you have a lot of douchebags running around that are bigots that are, you know, you know, talking down to the cast. sending death threats, which I don't, I don't still understand why people do that.

Please refer to your gladiator to conversation just a moment ago. Exactly. Same exact folks. have that same thing, you know, whether they don't like that, there's, you know, minorities in the cast, whether it was women in cast like that, to me that I think that I think the cast for the accolade is solid.

What they're doing is semi interesting, but it's just so poorly executed that it's, it's, it's honestly maddening to me and I'm not trying to you know, down, downplay anyone that's, that's saying that it's a good show, but I don't see how you could think that it's a good show. It's just, it's like, I mean, I look at things, it's a whole nother, it's a whole other thing to get into that. I just kind of want to cut off at its head.

but I, I honestly hope that, I mean, obviously we have Andor coming out, Andor season two, so that's going to be another high point. But, but yeah, I, was very disappointed with Accolade. I thought it was going to be a lot more than was given. It's kind of like retreading over things that you've already seen in Star Wars, but they're doing it even worse. yeah, that was very disappointing.

But yeah, but it just goes back to, you know, just Disney Plus in general, them just needing content and them kind of just letting anybody with a lot of money do whatever they want with no, I guess, control over it. While at the same time, trying to keep that IP train rolling, like at a very brisk pace. it's not even like a slow, steady pace. It's like two Star Wars, two Marvel. Let's write two, two series of each and then maybe two movies of each at the same, all of that at the same time.

And they're all going to be average. it now. Right. the, but the problem is, is that people are still eating it up and, and, that, and that's kind of going back to what I was saying to about, know, because of certain things being super critical when people actually do want to properly criticize something there.

I feel like that, like their opinions aren't taken because it just kind of gets lumped into, well, you don't like minorities exactly when, my thing is look until we're able to properly like criticize something, studios are not going to listen. They're just going to keep making the same thing over and over and over again. And because they're like, well, it's making money. So we're not going to we're not going change anything. You so it's like we have to be critical these things.

We can't just let average things pass. So that's that's my whole thing with Marvel and Disney and Star Wars and how they're doing things. It's like if something's not good, they need to know about it. Otherwise, we're to keep in the same thing over and over again. Yeah, we can't keep feeding the machine as someone who is totally a slave to pop culture and Marvel and Disney. It Disney owns all the things I love, unfortunately. Exactly.

You know, it's one of those things where like I want it, but not like this, like, you know. But speaking of things that I really want, I'm full of transitions. I know what's going on, but things I really want. I want you to talk about this next one here. I'm very excited about this next entry. Me too, man. So Apple TV has released their first teaser for Brad Pitt and Joseph Kaczynski's F1. It's going to a little plot summary.

Pitt plays a seven time world champion Formula One race driver who comes at a retirement to race again. and to also mentor a promising rookie. is also actively driving an actual Formula One car in the film, which is crazy. And if you're an F1 fan, you've definitely seen him at these races in the last year and a half. F1 made in collaboration with Formula One and the F1 community, including the 10 teams and their drivers, the FIA and race promoters.

Cooper CEO Penny Thro serves as executive producer. As we say at the top, this film was directed Tron Legacy and Top Gun Mavericks Joseph Kaczynski. Yeah, buddy. Joseph is in. He's on a hot streak right now between that. on. He did Spider Head two right on Netflix, which was pretty good. If I remember, I never saw it. I know it got I think got a bit of a mixed response, but I liked it a lot. you liked a lot. OK, cool. mean, like it's a Netflix film and those are usually like toss ups anyway.

You never really know what you're going to get. But yeah, man, he's I like I like Kaczynski a lot. I mean, obviously Tron Legacy, Top Gun Maverick, Oblivion as well, which is a a underrated film that I love a Yeah, man, I'm really excited for this, but kind of going back to it. So Kaczynski said that his team was determined to make the most accurate, impressive race movie anyone has ever seen.

Seeing people react to an in -camera authentically captured film like Top Gun Maverick makes us all feel good that our approach works and is appreciated by all audiences. This is definitely the thing that I'm most excited about too, because when I saw the trailer, I was like, this is 100 % just Top Gun and cars. Yeah, which is the most obvious part about this whole thing, which is really funny because if you want to go.

If you want to go all the way back to when they did the original Top Gun that Tony Scott made a couple years later, he did Rolling Thunder. No, it's Days of Thunder. That's what I said. Not Tropic Thunder. No Tom Cruise me. But still, but yeah, no, Days of Thunder, which was also Bill, this Top Gun in cars. Right. So it's kind of funny how history is kind of. And it was I think it's produced by the Bruckheimer team. Bruckheimer too.

Yeah. We're all just doing coke and had prostitutes on the scene. my God. Absolutely. I heard the behind the scenes of that movie was just insane. I mean, lot of Brock Hummer productions were like that. It's crazy. But yeah, but the cast for this is what I'm excited for. know, obviously, you know, with Brad Pitt, have Kerry Condon, who I'm very big on lately, Javier Bardem, Tobias Menzi, Sarah Niles, Kim Bouda, Boudinier, if I'm saying that right.

Samson Kyle. And then there's the rookie is Damson Idris, who is in Snowfall. He plays the rookie in the film. And he's another one who I kind of have high hopes for that his star is going to just like kind of skyrocket. Sure, because I didn't see all snowfall but what I saw of it he's very good in it and I've seen interviews the guy he just sees he's a very he's a very cool guy to hear to hear talk. But yeah, I'm definitely pumped for that.

But wrapping this up, F1 was filled with IMAX enhanced cameras and will be available on Apple TV and in theaters via Warner Brothers on June 27 2025. We're gonna wait another year for this. I didn't realize I thought I was gonna come out this year. Crazy man, but the behind the scenes on this one's very interesting too Yeah, Chris, give me your thoughts. What would you think of this trailer? I was fucking in, man. The entire from start to finish with the song choice.

I like initially would kind of like win, so it was like Queen. We're doing Queen right now. It's a little corny, little cheesy. But how do you not get invested? Like, how do you not like immediately as soon as he gets in the car and you hear the revving and you see all the in -camera work from Kaczynski? And again, as you said, Brad being in the actual seat, he's right there. Like, there's no way they could take this. It's it's chilling. It looks incredible.

tickles that part of my brain the same way that watching Top Gun Maverick. I hope it's as good. Top Gun Maverick is a very high bar to reach. I will tell you here on the show, there's only been two things that I've ever given five stars out of our five stars on the show, which was Top Gun Maverick and X -Men 97. There's only two things I've ever given a perfect score. That's crazy.

Well, I mean, to be fair, I actually, just did a rewatch because it was 4th of July and I was in the mood for some, for some patriotism. So I watched Top Gun Maverick again and That to me is like a once in a generation type of film. It's very rare that you find a film that hits every single bar, checks every single box. That movie's incredible. It really is. And the more I watch it, the more it's just gonna like, the legend's gonna build in my head about how fantastic that movie is.

Another movie you had to be there for. I saw it in theaters four times. And you had all types of folks seeing this. You had dads being there, you had young people. Everybody. Yeah, it's one of those movies where it definitely has captured everybody when it came out kind of like what Barbie did last year. It's in that same kind of vein. Yeah. And I really hope that that this is at least half as good. Yeah. If it's like a half or I'll have a great time. Yeah, exactly.

And like you said, like as soon as you see those shots of of the racing, it's going to be it's going to be awesome. It's just going to be taking us into the next practical era of movies. Like, is he going to be the one sole voice that is just avoidance like CGI? He's going to have some CGI like most of course. Is he going to be the one that really makes that sort of like Spielberg effort to be on camera?

I hope so, dude, because I remember having discussions about this, too, is like, we have Nolan, we have Denis, know, we have Scorsese, Tarantino, you know, we have these we have these these directors have been around for a long time. But who's who's the next generation that's going to kind of pick up the torch of really caring about filmmaking, how to make a film, whether it's shooting on film or not. mean, I just saw the new Twisters film that comes out next week.

that they shot that on film because of how they want that film to look. And I love that that was the approach. It's not like we're not just gonna do it cheap. Like film has a certain look. We want it to look this way. We're going for it, regardless of how much time it takes. like, I can't wait to see like what this next generation of directors is gonna kind of, like I said, pick up that torch, carry it forward.

That really just wants to make a great film, no matter what, not be, know, integrated or anything like that, or trying to make it as fast as possible. It's like they're gonna put as much love and care into it. And I really hope F1 is successful. Cause like I said, There's been reports that its budget has ballooned over 300 million. But is that Apple has that blank check? Apple has a blank check. So that really doesn't matter. And I think this should do decent at the box office.

It's coming out in prime summer. It's going to have that IMAX appeal. It's building itself as an event film, which is I think is what gets people into theaters nowadays is making sure that's an event film. This must see you have to go see it no matter what. In the theater, like in the theater, have to see on the biggest screen in the loudest. Yeah. Right.

know, and like I said, like they're and they're still filming like like Pitt was at I guess they just had an F1 event and Pitt was there filming scenes for it. So you know, and unfortunately, the strikes delayed it. So that kind of ballooned the budget a little bit. But yeah, I appreciate what they're doing with this. The fact that they're actually there. I think it makes a world of difference. And yeah, man, we'll see how this turns out.

Yeah, I think that it just my internal movie brain is working here 300 million. has to double its budget to make profit or just to break even, then just to break even. that's 600 million dollars. have to just write. That's your bar. If you don't hit 600 million, this is a wash. Right. That's including marking probably either. this thing has to get a billion dollars, like basically to like get some kind of decent profit to really break even.

Now, now, Brookheimer came out recently that once the trailer launched, they did a huge spread on deadline where they were interviewed. It was him, Kaczynski and somebody else. And they were they they mentioned the budget and they basically said that the three price tag is exaggerated. Now, whether that's them doing damage control or not, we don't know, but they said obviously they're getting tax breaks and things aren't costing as much as being reported. So it's Hollywood math, know?

mean, they hide figures all the time. So you're never really gonna know whatever the reported budget is, and they'll try to spin it. the hope is that a movie like this does do well because I am always for these types of event films, especially something that's not tied to a pre -existing IP. And then also too, Hans Zimmer's doing the music for it.

And if you've seen Rush, which did not do well in theaters, which was another racing movie, Rush is a phenomenal film that nobody saw, which I hope people go check out. But his score for that's intense. And I can't wait to see what he does for this too. Hell yeah. All right, let's get into our last trailer here. Nick, we said before with the recording, we're going to do about 30 minutes of Oh my God, I just saw the time. We're at like an hour. All right, let's get through this one here.

We've got the first teaser trailer for Marvel Studios, Captain America Brave New World. This is highly anticipated by everybody online. People are so excited. It was rumored for a while that it was going to come out this week for anticipation for Deadpool will reign. This is the new Marvel thing. You have to sort of expect this at this point when there's a new Marvel movie coming out. They're going to release the trailer for whatever the next one is week, like maybe a week or two before.

Get people excited and then show it in the actual movie. yes, as many people know, Anthony Mackie, Sam Wilson officially took the mantle of Captain America in the finale of Marvel's aforementioned the Falcon and Winter Soldier or Captain America and Winter Soldier. Here's the synopsis.

So after meeting the newly elected US president, Thaddeus Ross, played by Harrison Ford, making his MCU debut after the passing of the great William Hurt, Sam finds himself in the middle of an international incident. Sam must discover the reason behind an nefarious global plot before the true before a true mastermind has an entire world seeing red.

When previously talking about the film, Kevin Feige said he's looking to capture some of the magic that they delivered with Captain America, the Winter Soldier by leaning into the whole political thriller aspect of the story. I think that it was pretty obvious. mean, I think they've been trying to recapture that Winter Soldier magic since Winter Soldier. And they haven't come close. Yeah. This is the same thing about Black Widow. This is the same thing about Falcon and Winter Soldier.

They keep saying they keep making this benchmark of Winter Soldier and it's just, yeah, it's not going to happen. I don't think even even Secret Invasion was the same thing. They're like, this is going to capture the Winter Soldier spirit. And that definitely did not. Right. Before I go on thoughts, just kind of overall thoughts on the trail. What were sort of your thoughts on the trailer? I thought the show was fine. I didn't love it. I didn't hate it.

There was some things about it that looked pretty cool to me. Red Hulk, someone that they've been talking about since think William Hurt initially came in as the character that was going to happen. Unfortunately, he passed away and Harrison Ford's picking up that mantle, which is a very interesting pick. I didn't think Ford would be down for something like this, to be completely honest with you. It's kind of weird seeing him play this character and just knowing how he is in person.

all the actors to push off the superhero genre, I thought Harrison Ford would be leading that I honestly did too, but he's here. I got, know, hopefully he brings, he brings that Harrison Ford charm to this, to this character. But yeah, you know, and it's, it's unfortunate too. And obviously the general audience is not going to know about this, but we do cause we're a slave to all this stuff. We know the production hell this movie has, has gone through and is going through currently.

know, they talked about the reshoots and they said how it's only adding action scenes. I don't buy that for a number of reasons. guess what? If they were doing that, if they were just doing action scenes, Marvel will just CGI the fuck out of that movie. That's all saying. That's all they what I'm saying. Yeah. So I think these reshoots are changing a lot of aspects of the story. One could be a certain controversial character that's in here. I might talk about them here in a minute.

Exactly. But I think another part of it is that they were saying that it just wasn't working like they wanted it to, which kind of leaves me a little little wary, especially because the director who like, obviously the thing, the thing that's funny, because everyone always attacks directors and writers and you never know what goes on behind. closed doors behind it, you what happens on a production. Sometimes it's not the director's fault. Sometimes it's not the writer's fault.

Especially in these movies, especially in the big budgets. Especially in these movies. Yeah. Yeah. Cause a lot of times their voice is not heard, especially if it's not a big, a big name director. They're like fourth on the list of people they go to for a change. like, okay, let's talk to Kevin. Talk to the two executive producers. We'll talk to the hairstylist for Anthony Mackie. We'll talk about, we'll talk to Anthony Mackie's dog, then Anthony Mackie and then the director.

And then the director. Exactly. Yeah. There's a low man on the totem pole. But with this, know, again, it's like, I don't know why Marvel and Star Wars and Disney in general is kind of handing their big IPs off to unproven talent, you know? And I'm not saying that they don't deserve a shot, but it's almost like let them get more movies under their belt. Let them deal with big budget productions before you give them something like this. It's something that's been happening a lot.

It happened with the accolade. know, Leslie Hedlund has not done anything like that before. And the fact that she just has, they gave her $180 million to do that show to me is wild. And it's, I think it's happening here with Marvel. Marvel has done this before, you know, in their previous, you know, in the infinity saga.

Yeah. I was going to say a lot of the directors, I would not, I would say all of them, a lot of them, Russo brothers being a good example of this were first time directors on Winter Soldier. As we just said, they came from fucking community to Winter Soldier. Exactly. Exactly. So, so it has worked in the past with this kind of stuff, but lately it feels like it just hasn't been working with some of the talent that they've been bringing in. So I don't know where that's changed.

I don't know if it's because maybe Infinity saga. they knew what story they were telling and they knew that there was an end game, no pun intended to where they were, they were where they were leading. So there was always a through line that they had to kind of stick to certain bullet points that kind of kept some kind of continuity. Sure. But late, but lately with, this, with the multiverse saga as we're calling it, there's it's been all over the place.

So that's what I'm worried about is that they, brought somebody in that didn't really have a good hand on what they were doing and it's a mess. now there's reshoots and yeah, it's interesting. We'll see. mean, I've heard the same thing and cautiously. I'm not, I don't know if cautious optimistic is even the right word. I think I'm just cautious. I think I'm just nervous about this movie in general.

know this feels like it was part of the dark times at Marvel studios when this was truly in development. I think Deadpool was always in its own little segment. Like there's certain movies in the MCU that just sort of get put off to the side and are sort of just held by one creative. thinking of guardians of the galaxy. I'm thinking of the Russo brothers. thinking of, Ryan Reynolds and Sean Levy and Jackman.

like they'll, when Marvel has again, if you have a proven record, they will leave you alone and let you sort of do your thing at least more so than the new guys. But when you're so heavy handed and so involved, that's when a lot of times stuff like Secret Invasion happens, for instance. Exactly. And then you mentioned Sean, Sean Levy too. mean, obviously he's done big budget things before. He's done a lot of big budget stuff before.

So regardless of whether or not you think he's a great director, he just knows how to play in the sandbox. So that's why I think it's going to work for Deadpool Wolverine. But for this year, mean, We'll see how it shakes out. But I'm cautious on this one for sure. You know, I will. We'll see. I've heard that Sean's getting himself a Star Wars movie. Do see that? I did. I didn't. He got he got a writer for it now, too. So see if we if that if that that actually happens.

mean, Star Wars has been horrendous with. So this has been horrendous with announcing movies and them not happening. So I love when when a director is hot. Star Wars is like here. Come here. We're going to do something with you. Come here. But then there's never happened so much development by the time the directors about to get into the Star Wars chair, they do a bunch of terrible shit, i .e. like Patty Jenkins, for instance. And then they're like, uh, maybe I see no Taika Taika. Same thing.

11 Thunder comes out and it's like, ah, maybe we'll see about your Star Wars movie. Same thing with the guys from Game of Thrones. They had Game of Thrones. Who was it? I'm forgetting their names now, but they had them. Actually, that's why Star Game of Thrones is so terrible because they were trying to hurry up and get out of there so they could do Star Wars. And then they did Game of Thrones and they didn't get it.

the total sidebar, but I don't know you're watching House of the Dragon right now or not. course, but it's incredible. But it's so good. But obviously, like because of that, you know, I'm catching episodes of Game of Thrones again, too. Like some of those early scenes are so phenomenal and I just can't believe how bad they fumbled that show. It's it's it's it's it's honestly legendary. It's a legendary fumble. We need a documentary series on the fall of Game of Thrones for sure. Absolutely.

Let's continue on here with Brave New World. We got Tim Blake Nelson's Samuel Stearns, a .k the leader. is said to be the big bad in this film returning from Incredible Hulk from 2008. We haven't seen him since his head ballooned up there at the end of that film. He's not in the trailer, but I think it's just known at this point that he's in the film. They're seeing behind the scenes. It's not really even a spoiler. I don't think what was sort of a surprise.

I know this was like there was some behind the scenes stuff that was shown, but I think this is the first time like general audiences are knowing this is that Giancarlo Esposito is going to be in the film rumored to be playing George Washington Bridge. which is a very, very deep cut dark horse Marvel character. If you don't know who G .W. Bridge is, I totally get it. I don't. I have no idea. Yeah, I get it. I get it. He's an X -Man.

So, you know, it's one of those things where he's just one of those 90s X -Men that showed up for a moment in our Liefeld book and then went away. But, know, speaking of which, George Washington Bridge showed up in 91. His first appearance was in 1991's X -Force No. 1 by Nakeza and Liefeld. Bridge is a former mercenary turned shield agent traditionally associated with which is cool. we get, I swear to God, Nick, if we get cable in this movie or some reference to cable, everything's forgiven.

I'm like, just give me, give me, give me Nathaniel. I'll take it. That's what Marvel does. Whether or not the movie is like really great or not, they give you enough. They just feed you enough to be like, right, all right, you got me. Hawk, all right, fine. guess it's fine. Bridge was also part of cable six pack team along with Deadpool and Domino in the nineties. So that was pretty cool. We get a quick look at Red Hawk, as we said earlier.

Yeah. I think there's a freeze frame and people have already been sort of using their magnifying glass on this. I did not see a mustache, which is a bummer. No, I did not see a mustache either. So, mean, cause like they even make that little joke in the beginning that he had to shave it for the election. So I guess that's, that's maybe why, but yeah, wouldn't it be funny if he grew one when he was a hawk and then it went away when he wasn't a hawk? That would be hilarious. me all of that.

I would hope. all right. So the film stars, Danny Ramirez is Joaquin Torres, AKA the new Falcon. have Shira Haas is Ruth Batter Sheriff. We have Liv Tyler back as Betty Ross. Again, first time seeing her since Incredible Hulk in 2008. And it was crazy that they got her back. Yeah. I'm curious because it's not even, it's not Edward Norton. And I don't think that Mark Ruffalo's Hulk is in this either. So I don't think so either. So I'll be curious, curious to see how she fits in.

Yeah. And then this was a cool surprise. Carl Lumbee is going to be back as Isaiah Bradley. So the first, technically the first Captain America will be in this film as well. So this is, as we said earlier, this is being directed by Julius Onan. He did the girl is in trouble in 2015 Cloverfield. Paradox in 2018, Loose in 2019, as you said, unproven. And the things that he has proved is that he makes an average movie. Yeah. Yep. Or bad paradox. We're looking at paradoxes. Horrendous.

Yeah. To be fair, was a Netflix movie that they just sort of took a script and just supplanted it and put it in the Cloverfield universe. So I can kind of forgive that a little bit. Yeah. And this comes out on February 14th, 2025. Valentine's Day weekend take your boo to go see the new world the new world of Captain America Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, you know obviously with you know talking about the film itself. I am excited to see Carl.

Let me back He was one of the highlights for me for Falconware Soldier. What were your thoughts on Falconware Soldier? I'm gonna great. I think the first the first four episodes were cool I thought the flag smashes was a pretty weak villain overall and then the ending as cool as it was seeing Sam finally in the suit I just was like And then like us agent, like I, I kind of didn't like how they just were like, yeah, come help really quick. And then all is forgiven.

Like it just feels kind of messy and sort of without direction. Yeah. That was my thing is like by the time you get to the end, if just rushed like a lot of potential story there too. And, but like, like I said, for the most part, I, the thing that I think the show was successful on is it sold me on Anthony Mackie becoming captain America. I thought it did a very good job of putting him forward, you know, showing how he has to earn the shield and.

you know, what he has to do to become Captain America. And I thought it was very successful in that. So it made me excited to see what he's going to do as his character going forward. So in that sense, good job. Yeah. But yeah, like I really hope that just just for him as first crack at the character on the big screen, that this movie is not a complete mess, you know, because it'll give the misogynist idiots the bigots and everybody just more ammo to go. Why is black? Captain America. Exactly.

know, go woke, go broke, that bullshit. know, so yeah. Why did all these trailers have like, besides F1, that's the only one that the bigots and the incels will love. I guarantee it. the other three, they're going to be like, this is woke bullshit. Why are there Lady Jedis? This is bullshit. Exactly. Yeah. Kathleen Kennedy needs to be hung at... Just terrible.

Okay. Last thing I want to talk about really quick, Nick, is, and this is, we don't have to spend a ton of time on this, but I think it's worth mentioning is that... As you said earlier, Shirah Haas is taking on Ruth Sarif as a Sabra. She is a former black widow and Israeli super heron. She's a member of the Mossack and the many characters that she interacts with are generally portrayed as misogynistic, anti -Semitic and violent.

Not to mention the ongoing Israeli -Palestine conflict currently going on. It just seemed like kind of an odd, she's got a spotlight in the trailer. And I don't really know what the right answer is with this. want to, again, I want to get your thoughts on this because I don't know if we want to just immediately take her out of the film. That seems that doesn't seem fair either. It's just a weird tightrope.

Yeah. I mean, because obviously, you know, tensions are really high and everyone has an opinion on what's going on overseas, which is very unfortunate of what's happening over there. It's really sad, you know, just seeing the this this conflict go on. But just just in terms of like this, this film and this character, I mean, obviously I don't know enough about the background. But obviously it's a lot of controversy.

A lot of people are saying a lot of things online about, you know, wanting to boycott the movie because this character is in the film. It does make me wonder if the reshoots are kind of maybe taking this character's a lot. You know, like to be to be fair, maybe the character can't be completely cut out because they might be somewhat integral into the plot. So you might be you might be handicapped in the cutting movie off its legs if you cut this character out completely.

But maybe they're like downplaying the character, maybe. they end up not becoming the superhero at the end of it. You know, so I don't know what they're going to do. But yeah, it's they could just cut out the part where she gets her suit like the more you know, that Marvel adage where like they help for a bit and at the end they get their suit. Exactly. Exactly. You know, you know, they could be reducing the roll down to like a, you know, a five minute cameo at this point. You know what mean?

We don't we don't really know. I mean, but like, you know, she she gets up, she gets a hero shot in the in the in the movie. You she has she's front and center in the trailer. So I don't have a strong opinion on this. But yeah, it's just it's it's unfortunate that, that this has to happen and I mean, we'll see, we'll see what Marvel does with it. I'm similar thoughts. Like it's pretty much like the words right out of my mouth. I don't know what the right answer is.

I have my opinions on sort of that conflict, but truly truthfully, they're unimportant in this situation. And I, know, it doesn't really offend me that she's in the film at all. But again, I have a sort of a loose. you know, sort of reference on a white sis dude in the Midwest. like that's what I think about anyway. Exactly. I'm the same way. Like I'm not I'm not the person that I think needs to have an opinion on this.

think I just probably which is just I'm better off just staying quiet and just doing my thing over in the corner over there. Exactly. All right. Well, that'll do it for our news and notes. Thank you for joining me on our very first edition of trailer train. Choo Choo. Nick, we went way over. Sorry, everyone. I know you're here to hear us talk about lung lays and we're about to get in right now. But when I got Nick on the show, we got to talk about trailers, man. We got to talk about movies.

know. know. It's funny too. Like you said, you brought me out of retirement. I haven't done this in a while. So I got my brain is flying right now with what I want to talk about. Well, I'm telling you, as someone who's fresh off the lawn chair, you're doing quite well on the podcast. It's like you're riding a bike. You never forget, man. You never forget. All right. Well, thank you again to Omnibus for supporting and sponsoring our News and Notes segment.

We're gonna go ahead and get into our review of long legs, but before we get there, we're gonna take a quick break and we'll be right Aaron, do you remember what it's like when we first started recording? If the world of podcasting was not hard enough to figure out, we also often experience issues with unreliable internet connections, dropped or lagging calls, or the limited recording times from the other online recording studios. Absolutely, man.

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That's riverside .fm and tell them the oblivion bar sent All righty, here we are reviewing Long Legs. Again, the neon, I'm gonna say again, question mark, instant classic. Spoilers ahead, if you've not seen Long Legs, please, of the many films that we review on the show and then we do spoilers, this is a movie that think you probably should avoid as much as you can before seeing the film, and that includes trailers, although Nick will get into it, the marketing for this film, incredible.

Maybe that's a good place to start even, I'd be curious. Just in terms of the marketing, I work in marketing. know you're really, if nothing else, really interested in movie marketing. What were your thoughts on all the different marketing tactics they took for this film? It's one of the best marketing campaigns I think I've seen in a long time. It might actually be too good because I feel like it's giving people the wrong impression as to what to expect when you go into a film now.

It's one of those, and you probably have stronger opinions on this too, is you have to kind of toe that line. as to understanding that marketing is just meant to get you into theater and it might not completely reflect as to what the movie is going to be. So when you have early word and people saying that this is the scariest movie in like the last 20 years, it's going to kind of probably set you up for disappointment. You're 100 % right.

Yeah. Yeah. Not that I'm going to like, you know, say that's a knock against the film, but it's just one of those things where you kind of have to understand marketing is marketing and the movie is the movie. So just know that when you're when you're going into a film like this. But yeah, as someone that works in marketing, like what you had, you feel about it.

Yeah, mean, so to speak on what you're saying there, marketing, the whole point, like you said, is to get people in the seat, but you don't want to overhype it to the point where people are coming out disappointed because it's not fucking Rosemary's Baby or Seven. You know, like, yeah. And this movie is not that.

I'll say that firstly, and this will kind of bleed into my initial thoughts, I think, is that Long Legs is a movie, I think the one thing that I can say about it is that it's worth contemplating. It's worth discussing. It's worth seeing again. But I said this to my girlfriend as we were leaving. I'm This is a movie very similar to a movie that I saw a couple months ago called I Saw the TV Glow from a 24 that did you ever end up seeing that by the way?

No, I heard a lot of hype for that movie though. Like it like it was was the hype's warranted for that one because like everyone was saying that saw it. They were like this movie is amazing. It is good. I'll say this. Okay. So just to kind of reference and I know you have one but letterbox I have letter I have letterbox and I always rank each movie throughout the year that I don't know why I don't follow you. I have to follow you.

Yeah, I we need to get together because I don't think I follow you on there either So Letterboxd lets you rank all the films you've seen. think I've seen 36 films total this year, 36 new, you know, 2024 films. And I currently have, I saw the TV glow and long legs back to back, I think at four and five for me on my overall list. There's a spoiler for how I feel about the film, I guess everyone. But it's not a perfect film. I'll say that for sure.

But it is, what I found really interesting about it is that again, it's worth discussing, it's worth thinking about. And I knew from the jump, almost from the very first that we were in good hands from behind the camera. Oz Perkins knows what the fuck he is doing in this movie. The cinematography is incredible. The sound design is incredible. I think everything outside of one particular aspect of this movie worked extremely well for me.

And Nick, I'm going to, I'm going to leave you hanging on that unless you know exactly what I'm curious. There's one particular part of this movie that is just so odd that I had to look up afterward and see what the inspiration was. Why was this included? Why is this person acting this way? I think everyone can take a guess at who that is. But go ahead. So what were your sort of initial thoughts on the film overall?

OK, so obviously going into it, was very excited from the marketing campaign itself and then hearing early word from it. But then also, because I'm kind of a slave to just movie tracking and how a movie is going to do, I saw the noise kind of turn a little bit against the film. People saying that they're disappointed walking out from it. So I'm like, OK, we've seen this before a million times.

There's been so many whether you want to call it like, even though I hate this word, elevated horror, where these movies come out, they get amazing critic reviews and people see them and then you see the audience come around to me. was like the fifties because everyone's like this movie sucks. I was worried this was going to kind of be in that same vein. Do I think it's as good as the credit score might suggest?

No. But I also want to come back and revisit this movie after the hype has died down and kind of really take it for what it is and see how I feel about it. But my initial thoughts is I like this movie. I think it's good. I think it's a good solid film. And like you said, with Oz Perkins, if nothing else, the guy knows how to shoot a film. He knows how to make a film look good. He knows how to just like inject creepiness into his atmosphere.

Like I'm watching this movie, like even the trees are creepy in this film. You know what I mean? Like just everything about it just has like this unnerving feeling. And I think that's what the movie's most successful at is that it's not like jump scary in any way, but it's unnerving. gets under your skin. It's just like, you feel dirty after you watch it. feel like you're being watched in every Exactly.

And like every scene I'm watching, especially with Michael Monroe, who I know we'll talk about, she's phenomenal, I think, in this film. I think Michael Monroe in general is phenomenal. You want to talk about up and coming young actors. She's one of them. like every scene that she's in and the way the camera is focused on her, I'm waiting for long legs to pop out of the corner or something. I'm waiting for someone to just walk into the back.

It just has that creep factor that you're just always waiting for something to happen. And I think that in this case, the film was very successful in doing There's a one particular scene that I think not only perfectly describes what you just said there, but also sort of reiterates what I had said a moment ago with Oz Perkins just being sort of a mastermind behind the camera. And it's the scene where Lee is opening up the letter from Long Legs in the film towards the beginning.

And it's the shot where you've got with her back to the doorway, Nick, what are you doing? And it's wide open. What is going on? My eyes were there the whole time. I wasn't even watching what she was doing with the letter. was like, what is she doing? I don't know. I have no idea. I'm looking at not only the doorway, but there's another door that goes to her backyard, sort of behind the in the in the kitchen. And that's so purposeful, by the way. I know there's no way that was an accident.

even know. no, no, no. Everyone knows this about me, that I'm a big stickler for like movie theater etiquette. Don't talk, don't text. I'm not I'm not an aggressive person. But if ruin the cinematic experience for me, you will hear from me at some point. And at one point I had to lean over to my girlfriend just very quietly and go, this shot, it's like wide, it's too wide. Something's gonna happen. that, you don't set the shot up like that unless something's gonna pop out.

And then it didn't, nothing happened. Nothing happened. But it had you just on that edge. And I remember there was a certain point in the movie where nothing was happening, but I could feel my heart rate elevating. And it's not like I was super scared or anything, but I just feel like that the images that I was seeing and the way that like my brain was processing it, I think my body was reacting to like what was going on.

And I think I was just like, my body itself was just getting genuinely creeped out. Now that's not me saying that you're going to have that same experience. I'm not trying to like build this up for you as for something you're not going to get, but there was just that point that like the way the things were edited, the way things were shot, it was just so effective that my brain was just responding to it. I think in the way that they, that they wanted to, but yeah.

And then like the, thing about cinematography, I'm gonna get a little nerdy for a second. Everything feels tall and like big in this movie, like the way it's shot, like almost everything if you to not to get too nerdy. no, is why I had you on Nick. This is why I had you here. I want you to do it. Perfect. But you know, if you're looking at like a, you know, a typical like, you know, film, you know, and the you always pictured of it being cut up in the third.

So you have like your upper third, your middle, your mid thirds, your lower thirds. A lot of things are put either in the middle, the mid thirds or the lower thirds, so that there's so much headspace. Yeah. Same with comics too actually, because they put the word balloons up in the top half. Right, right. So and same thing with like you said, like with how it was shot where there's so much like extra space, you can see what's going on behind them. It's deliberate.

And if nothing else, it's also a credit to whoever the production designer, set decorator, because like the lens is always filled, there's always something going on. And like to me, that's such an important part of making your film look interesting is how well you fill your shot so that even though there is a lot of space, it just gives like this overall like, you know, specific feeling. And that was one of the things I loved about it.

It's like the cinematography to me is like, I think it should get an Oscar nomination. I absolutely love how this film was shot. Will it? Absolutely not. Probably not. Because Oscar, Oscars don't give a fuck about horror. Never have, never will. I don't think, at least not, not while we're alive. I'd love to be proven wrong there, but it's like stunt work and horror just did not get their love and they never have. And yeah, we'll see. But I think this movie is incorrectly billed as horror.

What are your thoughts on this? think this is very much not a horror film. No, it's definitely more thriller. mean, I think that there are scenes that you could definitely classify as horror, especially obviously we don't want to jump into the what the third act twist is. But I think, think once it, once we get to that, I think that's when it kind of dips its toe into horror territory.

But for the, for the most part, this is, this is a very, FBI procedural in the vein of something like silence of the lambs or seven, you know, has like, has like that Fincher flavor, has that John to Demi flavor. But it's still very much its own thing. Where do you think that switch was in the film though? I'm just curious. Because I agree with you. I sort of have a point in the movie that I think it switches from thriller to sort of religious, cryptic. I guess you could say culty.

My brain keeps wanting to say horror, but I just don't think that's what it is. I think for me, obviously where it turns is I think when they catch Long Legs and they have him in that room. Yeah. And you get that, and you get that conversation with between Micah and Nick Cage. Yeah. I think from, and then how that ends from there, think that that's when we kind of jump into, into, into horror territory, but that's exactly where I was thinking as well.

The moment we get that one -on -one with Lee and long legs. Yeah. It, the movie switches almost immediately. does. Yeah, it does. And you know, I don't know we want to transition into, Nick Cage's performance here. Yeah. Let's talk about that. You, that's, I mean, I feel like Noteworthy, right? Like this movie was purposely built without Nick Cage really being a part of it until the very end.

think towards the end of the marketing campaign, Nick Cage was sort of a little bit more hinted at, but never the focal point at any point. No, no. And I think you wouldn't have realized he was in the film unless, you know, somebody had said, hey, Nick Cage is actually in this movie. It's like, well, I didn't see him in the trailer. scouring the IMDB. And you see that he's that he's actually playing the serial killer.

that, quite honestly, I mean, me being a Nick Cage fanatic like that initially had me hooked. It was he's gonna play the bad guy in this. I'm like, all right, cool, let's see what he can do. And maybe to some people's disappointment, he does what you expect him to do when you wanna just amp him up to 11. He has one freak out where I'm like, this is Castor Troy from Face Off. You know what I mean? This has that kind of crazy, crazy vibe to it.

And I think for some people, it might turn them off to how big he gets in this movie. He chews the scenery, he goes wild. When he sings in this movie, it's like, what, what movie am I watching right now? What is, what is happening? And I think for some, like I said, it's not going to work, but for me, it does work because everything else in this movie is so flat, but not in a bad way. It's like, it's cold. It's stoic specifically Lee in the movie, Mike, Mike Monroe, Mike Monroe, her performance.

Like she's, she's a, she's a very stoic, cold type of character. So when you cut to those scenes with Nick Cage, the energy level just goes through the roof. So it creates this like kind of off kilter, uneven dynamic. But I think for the movie, I think it's purposeful and I think it works. I think that's what makes you unsettled is when you go to his scenes, it's just so outlandish and wild. can't help. You're going to laugh and you're going be creeped out at the same time.

Yeah. And laughing is what humor or trying to find the humor and scary moments is a sort of a direct response for most folks is that when they're scared, they laugh, right? Or they're upset, they laugh. That's like sort of the fallback for that. And you hit on the I was speaking about earlier about sort of where I was a little uneven. I'm also a giant cage fanatic. I love Nick Cage and I'm always a fan of if I'm not a fan of the movie, I'm always a fan of his swing, whatever it might be.

Right. And I think he swings, he's and he swings, baby. He's fucking Barry Bonds. He's up there fucking swinging for the fences every time. And, know, in this movie, I will say, and I'm curious to hear his thoughts on this. I actually had to listen to an interview from shout out to the big picture, Sean fantasy over at the ringer. How'd I love those guys? Yeah. love those guys. interview with Oz Perkins about Nick K, not the movie in general, also specifically Nick cage's role in this movie.

And I'm not generally a fan of directors or creatives in general telling me this is what I meant to say. I like a lot of times for a little ambiguity that way I can sort of make my own mind up, but it was interesting to hear Perkins talk about this where he said This movie takes place in Oregon in the nineties and in the eighties and early nineties, music was under fire and a lot of religious rule America was constantly attacking rock music and metal for being satanic.

It was like a big thing at that time. I remember that time too. And speaking of Maxine, which I saw the same week, I saw it on Tuesday, similar thing. there's, it's weird. Have you seen Maxine yet? I haven't. I want to though. There's a lot of weird. parallels between this movie and that movie in terms of like the tone and the quality, in my opinion, are wildly different.

But there's a lot of psycho inspiration and we'll talk about the inspiration of psycho and why that's so important in this movie, but also the sort of the attack of music in the early, in the late eighties, early nineties. And in this movie, Oz Perkins said outright that long legs is obsessed with metal. And there was these rumors or at least I think it was all made up bullshit, but parents claim that the devil was speaking to them through the music.

And in this movie, it's proven that Nick Cage actually was spoken to via his music. And the reason why he is dressed up in a white and he's wearing scarves and he's got sort of this flair to him is that he's obsessed with music and that he's obviously mentally ill, but the devil spoke to him from that. And that's also explains the plastic surgery. At that time, a lot of rock musicians would get plastic surgery in a very terrible way to stay young.

Nick Cage, who again is a very mentally ill man in Oregon, was doing the same thing. So all that to be said, that's sort of the inspiration. I did not catch any of that in the movie. Not one bit of it. None of that. But when you think about it after the fact, his singing and his sort of flair and his outfits and his look, the long hair, right? Like that's another thing. All of that makes so much sense to me now.

And I think it sort of contextualizes it in a way that I can maybe go back and watch it again and get a lot more out of Right. You could appreciate it a little bit more too. And I think they also said to the, the white face, cause he has like, he's got such a pastel, like white face. I'm pretty sure he also talked about, mean, obviously it could also be from, you know, the performance, the performers and you know, rock bands and things like that.

But he also said that he remembers his mother when he was younger, wearing like this, like designer cream that would make her face white and how it used to scare the hell out of him. And he said that he wanted to put that into this. So I found that to be interesting too. was that Nick cage or, or Oz? That was Nick Cage. Okay, cool. We'll talk about, actually, I have a note on that about how both Perkins and Cage both said that they dedicated this movie to their mothers in some way or another.

Very interesting. I want to know their thoughts on that. I do too. And with Oz Perkins too, him being the son of Anthony Perkins and doing Psycho, which is also a movie very much about mothers. You know what I mean? So it's very interesting that they're kind of doing that here too. If you're a mom listening this right now, go hug your son right now. Just do it. Just inherently.

So set in Oregon in the 1990s, I said, FBI agent Lee Harker is assigned to an unsolved serial killer case that takes an unexpected turn, revealing evidence of the occult. Harker discovers a personal connection to the killer and must stop him before he strikes again. So before it's opening, Long Legs had an unblemished 100 % on Rotten Tomatoes. I know we talked about this again, as you just said a moment ago, how the hype for this movie was pretty damning overall.

Like at every chance they could, they were promoting this as like the next great horror film, right? Director Oz Perkins requested that Nick Cage not be included in any of the posters or trailers leading up to this release, despite him playing a central character. And to promote the film, speaking of the marketing for this film, Neon created a phone number. Here's the phone number if you want to try it out for yourself.

458 -666 -4355, which if you dialed it, you would play a pre -recorded extremely disturbing message from Nick Cage as long legs. So I might try to include a clip here of that if it's still around. I see it So what's your name? Little angel? I just actually care. That's it. That's all you need. That's That's a, that's cool stuff. I like that quite a bit.

And then to sort of speak on sort of the, again, the marketing, also Mike Monroe's first established shot of Nick Cage, which as we spoke about was that interrogation scene halfway through the film. Mike Monroe was kept completely in the dark about co -star Nick Cage's transformation to the titular serial killer, Long Legs, and had never seen Cage as the character until they shot their first scene which happened to be Cage's final scene of filming on the set.

During the filming, wore a microphone on her shirt, which had managed to capture her heartbeat. Monroe's initial resting BPM was 76. When the scene ended, it had spiked to a rate of 170 BPM. which I don't know if we have any runners listening to this right now. 170 is pretty high everybody. That's pretty high. Yeah. That's not a normal amount. The of her panicked heartbeat was used in the final production trailer prior to its July 12th release. Did you see that on social I I did that.

That was one of the first, I think that was this week, I think. I think they did this at the top. At the top of the week, they dropped that. Yeah. And it was, that got me like super hyped. I was like, Oh God, can't wait to see this. I have a question for you here. So what do you think it is about? America's sort of obsession with not only serial killers, but the media about fictional and non -fictional serial killers. What's so pervasive about that?

as podcasters, you tell someone that you do a comic book or a movie podcast. They're like, okay, cool. And you ask them, do you listen to podcasts? And if they do, what's the first thing they say? Always serial killer podcasts. Crime junkies. Crime junkies, yep, yep. Wait, so a personal question for you. Is your girl into serial killer podcasts and documentaries? The only thing that she, yeah she is and it's all podcasts about serial killers.

It seems like, no joke, half my buddy's girlfriends, they're all into watching those documentaries and things like that. So I don't know what it is that always piques their interest about that kind of stuff. But yeah. They're like knitting on the couch while listening to some gruesome murder. Watching this the most horrific thing ever. And he was peeling her toenails and eating them and she's like crocheting a fucking blanket. But yeah, I don't know what it is.

It's something about that horrific act that hopefully none of us ever act on, but we always think about it. it's like those dirty little things in the back of our head that we just have this interest in. And that always seems to tap into it. And to be fair, I kind of agree with it. Like anytime there's movies that deal with serial killers or things like this, there's just something very interesting about seeing that dark, evil side of people.

Yeah, just speaking of what you're saying, absolutely. It's sort of the, it's the, examining of the other, right? Like we are in relative terms, you and I normal quote unquote, right? And while we have road rage sometimes, and while we get pissed off at people, I don't think that I would ever be capable of killing someone unless like a family member or someone was attacking my dog or something like, and I think even then I don't know if I would be able to go all the Right.

Yeah. It's one of those, one of those things, I guess they always say like that, that fight or flight kind of mentality. It's like, don't really know until you're actually in it. Yeah. but yeah, but in, that dog, in dog, but in, some people's cases, they, they don't have that, that thing that holds them back from those, those sort of acts, guess you could say. Yeah. And it's probably a hundred percent of the time mental illness, right? It's someone I would, I would think so.

It's someone who just doesn't have that levy, doesn't have that humanity in them to say I am taking a person's memories. I'm taking their accomplishments, their failures. I'm taking all of it and I'm ending it right now. everything, yeah. And it takes a certain kind of someone to do that. And it is interesting. I do think that like our glorification of serial killers is sort of perverted and gross. And I think this movie is having that conversation with us as the audience.

Like it's, think Oz Perkins and Nick Cage are saying like, stop glorifying serial killers. Like. Seven is a good example of that. Zodiac is a good example of that. Silence of the Lambs is the ultimate example of that. The more we glorify these mentally ill people, the more that they're going to think that this is going to immortalize them because they don't care about death. The death penalty. I'm sorry.

I don't mean to get political here, but like the death penalty is for no one but suburban moms who believe that the street is safer. It's not going to take more crazy people off the street because they're crazy. We need to solve that problem before they get crazy. Everyone, know, them dying. is just part of the story. They will be immortalized forever. I eat Ted Bundy and so on.

Well, look at, look at, I mean, I guess a perfect example is, that the Dahmer show that came out, think two, years ago, right? I so many people watched it because they love Evan Peters. You know what I mean? And regardless of whether or not, you know, Jeffrey Dahmer was, was bad or not. You got a lot of, you know, and we'll say like female, female fans that love Evan Peters and think he's a good looking guy. So they're going like two minutes Exactly. That's what I'm saying. it's it's weird.

It's just weird when you get that kind of thing. So I totally agree with what you're saying about how, we need to stop glorifying these people and literally immortalizing them like that. Totally agree. Yeah. So we have a budget here of $8 .5 million. Now for people who, and people listen to the show, know we're talking about Doom part two and Avengers Infinity War.

$200 million is like a drop in the bucket to these big studios, but Neon and A24 and studios like this, don't operate on the same level as those other big studios. $8 .5 million is kind of the standard for these small budget horror films. Yeah, and the good thing about this too, and not even just in long lay's case, which I do want to take mention of what's gonna make this weekend, but it's gonna make money and it's automatically gonna turn a profit after it's opening weekend.

mean, you can thank the marketing campaign for that because this is a movie that if it didn't have as good of a marketing campaign, it probably would have opened in a single digits. You and I would have seen it with one other person in the theater. Exactly, exactly. But because the marketing campaign was so strong, and they really pushed it, it got a lot of people to say, hey, let me go check this out. Regardless of whether or they're disappointed, it doesn't matter.

Because at end of the day, it's not a franchise. There's not going to be any kind of sequel that's coming for this movie. It's a one and done. If they make their money, they're good. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what anybody says if they're disappointed. It does not matter because they're going to turn a profit immediately. It's going to make a lot of money for the studio.

It's a win for And if there's a, in a landscape where movie theaters are on the brink of destruction and the movie industry is just in a weird turbulent phase currently with again, with the strikes and sort of the realignment of just the studios and everything. The only sure bet now, cause now the superhero movies are no longer a sure bet with the Marvel's making like, you know, less than $200 million overall. Right. Which is crazy.

The only sure bet in terms of genre is low budget It's the only thing that's going to turn a profit. then maybe it's 40 million. Maybe it's like $40 million, but $40 million is not nothing. You know what mean? Nothing. Especially when you always spend 8 million to make it. You know? Right. Absolutely.

And, know, and with, uh, you know, with neon only making this for 8 .5, I mean, I honestly, I honestly thought that that was, that was somewhat high for, for a movie like this, because to me, like, there's not a whole lot that's going into this movie. Quite honestly, I don't know what kind of salary Michael Monroe is getting. I can't imagine it being too, too much, even though she probably deserves it. Nick Cage, I definitely did not take his usual salary here.

mean, he's also a producer on the film too. So my assumption is he probably could have foregone his salary and might be taking a cut of the profits he might have back in as a producer. He might've just completely forgotten it. Because Nick Cage is at this point now, he made his money and this is why I love him. He's doing whatever he wants to do now. And he's appearing in good projects. He did Dream Scenario, which was a solid movie.

Obviously, Pig, which I think is one of the his best performance probably ever. You know, Mandy, which I absolutely love, even though that's like, you know, kind of if you want to take acid and watch a movie, that's the way to do it. But yeah, he's he's kind of in the stage now where he's just making the films that he wants to make.

And I'm happy that he's getting more he's appearing in more like high profile projects, because obviously he was in like a lot of low budget stuff, straight to DVD things, you know, that wasn't really doing anything. And, you know, last couple of years, he's kind of really come on high. And now he's going to be in a Spider -Man Noir project for Amazon. That's where he's his money, right there. He's going make all his money right there.

Yeah. He could do 20 low budget projects only because he's doing a Amazon driven Spider -Man show. Like that's gonna make so much, he's gonna make so much fucking money from that. insane. He'll be able to buy another copy of Action Comics number one with all the money he makes from that. I know, right? I also can't believe he's, I also, like that's a project that I just never thought was gonna happen. Especially with him.

Like I thought they gonna make it, I thought they'd pick somebody else, but the fact they got him. And it being live action? And it being live action. So, and like, are they gonna try to tie that into, into the Spider -verse? Yeah. Well, maybe. We'll see. I don't know. Well, you mentioned a minute ago about profit and how like, if he's going to make any money off of this, it's probably gonna be a percentage of the movie.

And. Based on the box office here, that seems to be a pretty good bet because Long Legs actually hit three million domestically on Thursday, preview night, and then 7 .2 on Friday last night, which are both records for neon overall. Quorum box office, which as you know, as many people know, is sort of the staple of terms of like box office projections and sort of just a hub for information. Tracking predicts that the film could do 17 to 20 million in the entire weekend.

which we had Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum's lead, Fly Me to the Moon came out the same day. We'll get about 12 to 15 million in its opening weekend. To put that in context for everybody, again, Neon being sort of a very specific example with this, there are only five Neon films that have ever made over $10 million just total, just overall domestically in the box office.

Ferrari made 18 .5, Itania, which I actually didn't know was Neon, made 30 million, and then Parasite, unsurprisingly after the Oscar buzz and everything, made 53 million. Where do you think Long Legs will sort of plant itself at the end of its run? Will it be Parasite at 50 or will it be more of like Itania at 30? So I want to say that it's going to pass Parasite. But my worry is that, you know, obviously movie goer word of mouth is mixed on this film, which is to be expected.

I knew that was going to happen. So I don't, it's probably going to take a pretty big nose dive next weekend. It's probably going to drop a lot as most horror movies do in general, but it doesn't matter because it's already made back its budget. But obviously, I see you have here that it could open 17 to 20. That projection has been bumped up to 20 to 23 right now. Oh, damn. Because there's a lot more walk up business than they were expecting.

So if this opens on the higher end at 23 million, that's insane. That's absolutely wild. So it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at this point. But obviously, if it does open to 23, it has that outside chance of at least getting really close to parasites final. I hope it does. I hope it makes a good amount of money because. You know, even though I don't think it's, you know, the scariest horror movie ever. I think it's a well -made film.

I think you have two actors in it that are, you know, working at the top of their game and it's, it's, it's just, it's, it's an original film. It's an original movie that does something different. And you know, people always complained about how they want it and, they never go support it. So this is one to go support. This is a movie that like demands our support. This is the type of movies that we need. If we don't want, you know, live action remakes of Disney films forever.

and average Star Wars and Marvel movies. This is the movie movies that we need to back. for sure. I think, you know, speaking of what you saying there, Thursday and Friday registered a 68 % of, let me just preface this really quickly because Aaron and I very rarely ever, ever reference Rotten Tomatoes, but I think this is interesting because Rotten Tomatoes is a very divisive sort of unreliable. resource, right?

You know, and as it should be, think, I think there was a couple of years ago where studios really took Rotten Tomatoes as a marketing ploy. They use it as a marketing device. And I think a lot of people don't understand exactly how Rotten Tomatoes works as an aggregate, not an actual reflection of how good the movie could potentially be. Right.

Yeah. And, you know, speaking on that Thursday and Friday, it had a 68 % on Rotten Tomatoes for audiences, but it earned a critical score sitting right around 90 % certified fresh in terms of critics. which as you said sort of indicates the divisiveness between reviewers and general audiences. I want to ask you really quick, when you went to go see it, what was sort of the general audience for this viewing? It was, first of all, my theater I to was packed.

It wasn't sold out, but almost every seat was filled in the theater. So much so that I had to sit in the back of the front section, which I normally don't like doing, but this theater was big enough that I wasn't like solely up on it. Sort of like looking up at long legs. Yeah, I wasn't breaking my neck looking up at it, but yeah, it was pretty packed. And it was kind of a mix.

mean, obviously it was more younger audiences than it was older audiences, but, and even coming out of it, like, you you always, if you walk out and if you're standing there, you can always see people chattering about the movie, their quick thoughts on it. And it was mixed. Some people were really liked, some people were creeped out by it, but other people thought it was bullshit and they didn't care for it. You know what I mean? But that's how goes with horror movies. know what I mean?

Horror is like comedy, whereas everyone has a specific thing that either makes them laugh or makes them scared. And if the movie doesn't hit that for them, it's not gonna work. And that's just how it goes. You know, for me, I, actually, did you find any of this like to be like really like unnerving and scary to You know, it's crazy because I went to this movie extremely hyped and I was like fully drinking the Kool -Aid that the marketing team was putting together. I was on board 100%.

And I think nothing really stuck with me. I will say, I think I just admired it sort of from afar. What I really wanted was sort of that hereditary effect where like it haunted me for days afterwards and I couldn't stop thinking about it, but I just, at no point did I, I think they were close a couple of times. Again, I really liked the sound design. I really liked the establishing shots, the ambiance of Just everything about it was like totally my jive.

Like I was really, I was into it as my jam. But even that, that, opening scene where he's like hiding behind the house, you see him for a quick second. He goes away. I'm like, my God. I was like, this is going to be the greatest movie. You know what I mean? From that first thing it's set, it set the tone. was like, all right, here we go. Yeah. And it, and it had that effect of where it was like an old camera. I don't even know what that ratio would be.

It's not, it's not like Zack Snyder, you know, cornered, you know, black, black sides, but, and they even do something pretty cool. This is way. farther in the movie, but they expanded that ratio from like a passing and they made it into a wide wide like 17 by nine. I think it's the wide is that wide screen. Yeah, 16 by 16 by nine. That's right. Yeah. So that was cool.

And again, just to kind of summarize it, you know, similar to what you had in your theater, we went to go see it in a relatively small theater. I think it was like maybe less than less than 70 seats in the theater. But but the theater itself, like the screen and the sound, everything was great. people were, it was mostly younger, I would say people like maybe in their early twenties ish and people seem to be in it. Like I was actually really, this is funny.

I was really proud of this audience for being engaged based on the content. Like I thought based on who I was seeing walking into the theater, I was sort of nervous that people were going to be rude or stupid. had to, I would have to yell at some 17 year old. I had that same worry too man. But people were cool. Like honestly, for the most part, everyone, the only person that was like annoying was they had this old person whose phone went off at one point. But outside of that, everyone was cool.

So, know, like I think, I think the movie reflects it though. Cause I think like when you watch it, like the way the movie's made and the way it's shot and how it's edited and like the sound design, like it keeps your attention. Like the movie to me is never boring. It is a slow burn for the most part, but it's never boring. And you're always, like I said, cause you always have that, that inclination that something's going to pop out of the corner and get you. You know what I mean?

There's always So keeps your attention. I think it's whether or not it really delivers at the end of the film that if you're gonna think it's a success or not. And I wanna get to that, because that's very important. I agree with you 100%. I wanna continue on to sort of set the stage, but the ending is something that we need to speak on specifically because not to spoil anything quite yet, but that's where I feel like I may have made a turn or at least had some questions at the end.

So why don't you go over to the director here? Because I spoke about a little bit. Oz Perkins is someone who I think is maybe one of the more interesting voices upcoming in the movie scene. He is, and I have to make a confession too. I have not seen any of his other work other than this film. You know what? That's fine. Honestly, I've seen the Black Coat's daughter and Hansel, Gretel and Hansel, neither of them. So yes. Yeah. So I know, know they're, you know, Black Coat's daughter has its fans.

That also has Karen Shipka in it as well. Yeah. Yeah. Who's in it here. And I think her scene is very effective in this movie too. Yep. And then obviously Gretel and Hansel came out and I remember when it came out, I remember how great it looked. Yes. The trailer looked incredible. Symmetography was so good. And then when the movie came out and I was gonna eventually check it out and then I heard that the cinematography was the only thing it had going for it and not much else.

like, all right, I guess I'll wait. If I can catch it, I catch it. If don't, I don't. But yeah, I haven't seen any of his other work, but I do know that his stuff is mixed and not a lot of it gets great reviews. So when this was like getting great reviews, I was like, maybe he's made that step now. Because all directors, any great director always has that movie. where they take that next big step.

And it's like, they just elevate themselves to a different stratosphere that they weren't working in before. So I thought that this might've been it. And obviously I can't really talk about it because I haven't seen any of his other work, but just from my own opinions of watching it, it's a really solid film. Like from a technical aspect, I think it does get the creep factor right.

think, if you're not too accustomed to horror films, think you will, at least some of this stuff will stay with you after you see You know what I mean? So I think it's successful in that aspect. I think where it sort of loses me a little bit, not that the ending takes me out of it, but I think it's a little predictable. I think the writing is not as strong as it needs to be.

I think it could have hit its cards a little bit better because when that third act twist does happen, there's a big kind of exposition dump. And even though don't think it's bad in any way, I don't think they needed to spell it out as much as they did. I thought they could have maybe done a more clever job as to unveiling as to what's going Isn't that the fun of horror, right? Like good horror is a lot of times leaving it up to the audience to connect the dots.

And the moment you sort of spell, I think, and I just said it a moment ago, hereditary, think is a good example of that where they don't really lay anything out for you. And by the end of it, when things are really hitting the fan and there's no explanation of what's really going on, sort of, it rewards upon rewatch.

And I want to say really quickly, just to contextualize sort of Oz Perkins and his filmography is that I've seen Gretel Hansel, not great, the Black Coach daughter, we talked about this on your show on the FN Nerds back in the day with Martin. sort of a 24 as a whole, right? We like, we sort of just surmised like the studio and what we liked about it, what we didn't like about it. And I made a list through COVID when I went through and watched every single a 24 movie.

And I still have that list on letterbox. The, the black coats daughter is at 84th out of, out of 107 films. not great everybody. Not great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think it was one those movies too, where I think one the things I heard about it is that it's got an interesting build up and then the ending doesn't deliver like it should. And think that that's kind of seems like it's been in Oz Perkins wheelhouse.

Unfortunately, that he's he makes interesting films, but they don't normally deliver. I think this one delivers in the way that it gives you what you want and are expecting, but it doesn't surprise you in any way. And I think that that's probably my biggest knock on and why.

Like, I don't think it kind of has left into like that great category in terms of like me saying this is a great movie because like you can kind of if you've seen enough movies, you can kind of really pick it apart from the beginning. Like can see where things are gonna eventually go. Now there were a few things that caught me by surprise that I wasn't expecting, but for the most part, especially where we end up and what happens, I kind of expect that to happen.

And to make that connection again, Hereditary is one of those, exactly what you're speaking on, where I went into a movie with a certain expectation and it just wildly blew it out of the water based on its unpredictability and sort of the way that the film, the journey it took me on in the film. And I think to compare it, Hereditary would be a really fun roller coaster that at the very end throws you in some water.

Whereas this film is a roller coaster that you can see the entire ride from the track and you see where you're going the entire time and it's fun, but you're probably only going to ride it maybe one time and then maybe tell folks that maybe they should just give it a shot and see what they think about it.

Yeah. And it's kind of in the same way too, where, like you said, after you watch it, there is a discussion to be had about it because I think there are interesting things in it and I think it does some interesting stuff. And one of those things is I almost kind of like when a movie you think it's not gonna go in a certain direction and then it ends up delivering something that you weren't expecting. To put it in, to give an example, 10 Cloverfield Lane, right?

So 10 Cloverfield Lane is a movie where you think it's about an alien invasion, but you're like, is it just this crazy guy? Is it just gonna be a thriller in this bunker? And for the most part, it is that. And then at the very end, it actually does deliver on it being an alien invasion movie, spoiler alert. It's From a movie that came out like 2016. From a movie that came out, exactly. If you haven't seen it, it's on you. It's the same thing here though.

It's like, you this whole thing you're hearing about religious, religious, religious, you know, the devil, all this other stuff. And you think that it's just going to be this police procedural with them catching a serial killer. They caught him good. No, it actually is about the devil and it does deliver on that front. And I did like that. I just kind of wish there was more to it.

So doubling back on Oz Perkins, Oz Perkins is the son of Anthony Perkins, who is best known for playing Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's The Psycho, as well as three sequels. Have you seen any other Psycho movies other than the first one? I've seen the first two. Okay. What'd you think of the second one? Second one's better than people say. think people give that's what I hear that it gets a bad rep, it's much watching it after the fact.

what, again, as you said earlier, kind of like after all of the hoopla dies down, uh, it's worth, it's worth a watch. think. Yeah, definitely. Yep. Uh, Perkins is actually currently working on another neon horror film called the monkey starring Theo James, Tatiana Maslany and Elijah Wood. That's a good, that's a solid cast. That's a really solid cast. Uh, and it's based on a 1980 short story by Stephen King.

You know, Elijah was another one who's, kind of sneakily like doing the things that he wants to do. And he also produces a lot. He produced Mandy. He does a lot of, he has like, I'm pretty sure he has his own label, but he does a lot of like indie horror films, which is pretty cool. That's what those guys that did the early Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, like Dan and Red Clef, a good example of that too. They're just doing whatever the fuck they want. Cause they made all that money.

They got all that money. All that money. the hell they want. It's great. That's great. I absolutely love it. And then surprisingly enough, Perkins actually played the younger version, Norman Bates in Richard Franklin's Psycho 2. And he is credited as uninteresting guy in the 2001 kind of Now That a Teen Movie. He was also in Legally Blonde as well. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go back and watch Now That a Teen Movie and he's the guy that gets hit on by Chris Evans' sister.

My name is Catherine. Yeah, I know. We just had sex five minutes ago. Yeah. It's so funny how some of these guys, what they do in their early careers. Yeah. Especially in the early 2000s where you're just getting work where you could. Exactly. Exactly. So the composer is interesting. And as we said earlier, the sound design is pretty great. I think it's one of the highlights of the film. Did you say, did you think that as well? Yeah, no, I absolutely thought so too.

And that's, that's a big part of our films. You have to have really great sound design. You know, it's already get that creepiness across. So this is really interesting. The composer for this film is credited as Ziji. I think it's how you say that. Is that you would say that? I think so. No other work. First time on a film. And I had to do a little deep dive on this and it's been sort of rumored.

It's not confirmed, but this I think is a pseudo name for Elvis Perkins, who is his brother, also the son of Anthony Perkins, who previously worked on Perkins' previous films, The Black Coast Daughter and Now I Pretty Thing that Lives in this House. So that's interesting. I don't know why he switched to like a pseudonym or, you Yeah, I don't know why he would want to do that, especially since he's already done work with his brother before. So that's that'd be interesting.

I think he's an art like he's an actual musical artist outside of his composing. So maybe this is the way that he can sort of separate his work between, you know, behind the scenes filming and then like his actual all that other work. So runtime is an hour and 41 minutes. Pretty good amount. Never once did I look at my clock and go, OK, we're going to feed this thing up. What's going on here? Is this movie over yet? Yeah, I think it was it was a perfect amount.

And I think, I think even my girlfriend, Olivia said at one point, she's like one hour and 40 minutes. That's like a good amount for a horror film. And my sort of thought on this, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on it. Our like a 90 minute horror film is like perfect for me. If you can tell me a good horror film in 90 minutes, bam, I'm in and out. good to go. Yeah. I mean, I kind of live by the whole notion.

think Roger, Roger Ebert said this, no good movie is too long and no bad movie is too short. So, mean, but yeah, I'm totally with you. Like I think, I think we need to kind of get into a rhythm where more movies really focusing on like, cause I've seen, I definitely seen so many movies where I'm like, you could just lob 20 minutes out of this. Like it does, it does not need to be this long. think Netflix is as, as a real big issue with that because they really don't police that kind of stuff.

It's like, we need to kind of really like kind of focus on telling a solid story and cut out a lot of the extra junk. And if you want to do a director's cut, cool. I'm all for director's cuts. I'm all for, I'm all for Snyder cuts. I love the director's cut as long as it's not direct, as long as it's not Zack Snyder who does them every time. every time and it's become a marketing thing now with him. But yeah, but you know, I think for this movie, I think they got it right.

I don't think there's any fat on this movie. think it's the perfect length. I think it tells an effective story and what it's trying to do. And now you, throughout this review, I could feel you sort of nudging and wanting to talk about the cast. So I'm going to hand the baton off to you. Will you go over the cast here and then we can sort of just divulge it? Because it's the most interesting part of the film, I think. I think so too. So got Michael Monroe, who plays Lee Harker.

Nicholas Cage plays Long Legs, obviously. Blair Underwood, Agent Carter, I think he's great in this movie. of the better character actors since the 90s, think. Very unsung hero. 100 % agree. Alicia Witt as Ruth Harker, Michelle Koy Lee as Agent Browning, Dakota Dubly as Agent Horatio Fisk, and then Kiernan Shipka as Carrie Anne Kamara, who has only one scene, but her scene is very effective. You've got freaking Sabrina the Teenage Witch in this movie, which is pretty cool. Oh, right.

Yeah, that's right. But yeah, so, so Michael Monroe and I see that you have it here, which is, which is fantastic. Is she one of our best modern screen queens? I 100 % think that she is. How do you not include her in that? She has to, she has to be. And I think people sometimes forget about her because, because a lot of her movies while they're good, I think they fly under the radar.

mean, obviously it follows for me, I think is one of my, like, it was one of my favorite movies of like the last decade. I'm very interested to see because now it's getting a sequel, which I'm a little nervous about, but it is the same, you know, team coming back. So we'll see how that goes. But I absolutely love it follows. And then I actually got to give a shout out to Martin on this one because Martin's a big horror guy. He showed me Watcher.

she was in that she was in, I think came out two years ago now that's on Shutter now. Really good. Another one that's a slow burn, but absolutely delivers on the ending. And she has like I don't want to was just pulling things. I do want people to check it out, where her character kind of goes and how it ends up. Like she's, I just think she's the best. She's so good. Have you seen her work with on the guest is the 2014 film with Dan Stevens. You seen that one? Yes. Very good.

Yeah. And Dan Stevens is another one not to get too off topic, but Dan Stevens having stuff a year right now. Yeah. I had a good between this and Cuckoo and Abigail and then Cuckoo's got coming out. We saw a trailer for I'm like, I fucking love Dan Stevens. Yeah. I think we're to get a real Dan Stevens research, a search here in 2025 will be big for I think so too. absolutely think so too. But yeah, no, but like I can't speak enough about Micah Monroe. Very reserved.

Real quick, just while we're on the topic, give me, do you have, just off the top of head, sorry, I don't mean to put you on the spot. Yeah. Three modern scream queens that should be just immortalized right now as definitive scream queens. You got Micah, of course. Yes, I would put Micah Monroe in there. I would put, can we say Mia Goth? Meaghan, I mean, at this point, yeah, between the X trilogy, what was the one she did last year with with Cornyn Burst kid. Infinity Pool. Yeah. Infinity Pool.

And then I would probably also put Samantha Weaving. Okay, yeah. Yeah. I'll put her in there too. I think I think she's she's another one obviously ready or not. She opened Scream 6 last year. And then the Is it the babysitter's girlfriend? that what the movie's called? Yeah. I'm like, yeah, but I think she's another one that definitely deserves to be in there. mean, Melissa Barrera could also, you could also throw her in there too. Honorable mention for Jenna Ortega.

Jenna Ortega now, who's now getting a ton of work. Yeah, I mean, there's definitely a lot of current younger scream queens that I think are kind of really knocking it out of the park lately. Who of that crew are you most excited to see what they do next? think Micah Monroe, honestly. Yeah, agreed. think it's between her and Mia and I think it's Micah for sure.

Yeah, think Micah is one of those ones where like I wouldn't be surprised if you know, mean, because it's again, like these actors are so young, you never know where their careers are going to take I think her time isn't even here yet. I think she's just starting out. were here before the lights got turned on. here first. When everyone gets on board, like, can't get on this train. No new fans. That's it. No filthy casuals up in the Micah fan club.

But yeah, mean, it's one of those things where if she wins an Oscar, it wouldn't surprise me because I think that she just has this incredible range and I really cannot wait to see. what this movie is now gonna springboard for her going forward. know who she, her, so to get into the, I know you wanna get into this, but I'm just, I wanna kind of put it off the top that Micah Monroe's character in this so heavily reminded me of the lead character in Paprika, the anime.

You know what I'm talking about? You've got - yeah, yeah. I never saw it, but I what you're talking about. Asuka Chiba, I think is her name. We actually covered Paprika here on a Midnight Rewind segment and sort of the stoic, almost unhuman sort of delivery that is just by the books and has a goal. Everything about Micah's performance in this movie is just, you could tell before you even meet her mother that she has been raised in a very, very odd way. I'll say that. Yeah, to say the least.

Yeah. And then when we meet her mom later in the film, who's obviously herself is not only mentally ill, but also a hoarder. It was a very subtle way to connect that dot. For sure. And I the first phone call that they have, could tell something's not right here. There's something that's very off. I think that that's kind of where you can start kind of putting the piece together as to where the story is going to go. But yeah, it's very interesting.

And then obviously, like she, they kind of start this off, and this is also a bit of a spoiler too, where she's somewhat psychic. She has somewhat kind of psychic abilities and you kind of don't know why that's happening.

Eventually you do find out what the reasoning behind that but yeah, and then obviously the first interaction that she has with, agent Carter's kid when they're sitting in the bedroom, which is like one of those moments where editing really makes like a funny moment because you get like a hard cut and she's just sitting on the bed with her and you can't help but laugh. Cause it's just so awkward. Yeah. She's like inviting her to birthday and Mike is like, sure. Okay. I'll be there. I'll be there.

Yeah. Yeah. Which of course is the finale of the movie, And to be in the finale. I think that that's where you can kind of see, like, once you start piecing together the whole birthday thing, it's like, OK, I kind of I kind of know what's going to happen here. But yeah, but she's I think she's she's really good in this. She's she's very good. Like I said, it's a very stoic performance.

I think it's a tough performance, too, because, you know, you got Nick Cage, who can act as crazy and outlandish as he wants to. But she kind of really has to kind of hone it in. And I think a lot of, know, and it's not it's not an emotionless performance either, because while she is cold and stoic, when she gets in these things where she has to like draw her gun. She's huffing and puffing and she's scared shitless.

I was just about to say, I think that every time that she pulls out her gun and she's huffing and puffing, that's a deliberate character decision because she is not used to this kind of aggressive environment. Like she is so used to being sort of calculated and in her groove and unbothered. And the moment that something pops up, I'm not saying she's not, she doesn't have the ability to take control and figure it out, but like internally, again, that fire flight takes over.

And a lot of us would think to be like sort of quiet. and like keep our cool and not make ourselves sort of a target. She just inherently starts like huffing and puffing like a 90 year old, you know, smoker. Right. Yeah. Yeah. No. And I, but I love it though, because like, even though she is scared shitless, she's still going to go for it. Yeah. Every time she was. So she's, she's, going to go into it full bore and, but yeah, but that, that felt like a very real like thing.

Like that was authentic to me that you would be scared shitless in this moment. You know what I mean? So I, I really love that as a character trait. At what point did you notice the devil behind her in those scenes? Because I noticed it in the very first establishing shot when she is looking over all the pictures and she's on the floor without her shoes on. You see him in the corner at one point and I noticed it. I didn't catch that.

Because I feel like the devil's hidden a lot in this movie because I saw this with Martin last night and he said he only saw it a couple times but there were moments where I noticed that he didn't. There's one where Long Legs is sitting in the basement. and he's kind of looking out into like the empty hallway and you could see it in the corner and it was one of the creepiest shots. But yeah, but I didn't, I didn't catch that one where it was, it was kind of peeking up behind her. That's cool.

Yeah. And I was, I was expecting at some point, again, speaking of that shot, talked about at beginning of the review where she's sitting at her desk and she's got her back to the doorway. I was just wanting, I was just wondering if something was going to walk by or if you're going to see something. That's what I was wondering too. Yeah. I wanted to make a quick point. I thought it was interesting that B Perkins, who's the daughter of Oz is the unfazed teenager clerk.

that we see that interacts with long legs at the convenience store. I didn't know that. That's cool. She's like, dad, the weird guys here again. Weird guys. Which I think shows sort of his pathetic face value appearance and sort of his like this unfazed teenage girl has zero fear over this guy. Which also to me feels oddly authentic because I feel like kids today, they have their phones, they can see anything that they want.

So they're almost desensitized to this kind of stuff that it wouldn't creep them out to see this weird creepy guy just walking around. You know what I mean? And I thought there's one shot where it's sort of wide, but there's a there's a pillar on the counter of the convenience store where it splits the B Perkins character and then long legs, but you don't see long legs face. You just see his like hair and the back of his body.

Yeah. And I thought at some point he was just going to freak out on her and like smash her head or something. Never happens again. Playing to the idea of our expectations. Oz Perkins is very, very aware of what he's doing here. And he's playing to that idea of like, and then it happened. Like there are multiple times this movie where you think something's going to happen and it does. And there's times where things doesn't happen and like you think it's going to and it doesn't. Right.

Like, so like he's like purposely playing with that sort of expectation. Right. And I think if you're, if you're also wanting a little bit of brutality, mean that this movie has, has its brutal moments where it gets very, it gets very brutal. You know what I mean? And you know, whether you want to go into the interrogation room or how it's revealed, you know, the, you know, Lee's mother that that reveal is wild. That's a wild moment. And then obviously the ending too.

But but yeah, so I mean, even though like you are playing with expectations, you do get that brutality as well. I want to kind of finish off the review here talking about the finale. So towards the end of the film, we realized that you've got Underwood and his family have been taken under control from Lee's mother. Lee's mother has been in on it the entire time. She's been the one actually killing folks. I don't know if it's ever really established if Long Legs has killed anyone necessarily.

It's She's doing it for him and the devil. Yeah. It's, it's a, and they funny cause dude, they mentioned, they mentioned Charles Manson. Yeah. It's like, know, is he like a Manson type? And that's, that's kind of what they're going for is where like Manson is, I mean, don't be wrong. I don't want to, you know, misspeak, but I don't think Manson actually ever killed anybody. I think it was just, he always had to hold over the rest of his cult to make them go out and do that. Everybody.

You heard it here first. Nick is a Manson sympathist. He believes that he is the innocent man. Release him. Release him. Yeah. He's now, I think, but it's fine. Yeah. God, isn't that true though? How you could easily twist somebody's words like that. yeah, no, but that's, but that's kind of, think what they're going for is that he actually didn't do any of the killings. He was basically summoned by the devil to kind of deal out his bidding.

He was creating the doll and then the mom was killing the dolls and everything. Yeah. And whatever creepiness was going into the brains of the doll. And then that would kind of be the, what took people over. I didn't get the ball. Did you get the silver ball? The only thing that I got from that is that somehow, and this is the one thing that they don't explain.

is somehow a piece of the devil goes into that ball and it goes into the doll and then from there, I guess because the doll, I guess almost using the child as a conduit and then from there it kind of spreads to the family. That's kind of how I viewed it. I'd be curious to hear about why that is, why that silver ball, because I feel like that's significant in some way, but I just didn't make the connection. Yes, as to why.

And it's funny too, because for a movie that kind of explains everything else to you, it doesn't explain that. Right. Exactly. So yeah, we get there at the end, Lee shows up at the house, you know, the entire Underwood family is just gone. I'm sorry, not Underwood. I'm saying Blair Underwood as the actor. It's actually Agent Carter. The Carter family is, they're gone. They've been Completely taken over. They've been sort of taken over by the devil.

You've got, know, Ruth is there, which is Lee's mom, and they're just waiting for things to happen. And eventually you've got Agent Carter who you don't see it, but he kills, takes his wife into the kitchen and sort of unsettling sound is heard and he comes in, of course, Lee shoots him and then takes one last chance to let his mom, let her mom sort of be done and at least let her take the daughter and doesn't happen. She shoots her mom. That's sort of the end of the film.

were your thoughts there? I was, I was kind of, and it was one of those things too, where I'm like, this is classic, like indie type horror, where we're just going to kind of end it in a point where you don't really get a complete resolution. This is one where I kind of thought you needed something a little bit more. to happen there at the end because, and I thought something was going to happen because she was trying to shoot the doll and she ran out of bullets.

So I thought like, is the devil gonna take her over now? And she's gonna basically take her mom's spot and this is where we're gonna go from here. And I thought maybe that might've been more of a satisfying horror type ending. But then it just kind of leaves you there where she has the girl and she's like, come on, we're gonna go. And then it's just her standing there holding the gun and then it cuts to black.

Or no, it cuts back to long legs laughing, singing happy birthday and then it cuts to black. Yeah, I think you need a little bit more there to kind of really like really hammer home what was happening and what was going on. I kind of wish there was more to it than that. And that's that's kind of my overall feelings of the movie is that it's good, but it doesn't give you enough to make it great. You took the words right out of my mouth. That's exactly what I thought.

I thought I had a good time with this movie, but this ending and certain aspects of the film just didn't give me exactly what I wanted. Or if it didn't give me what I wanted, it didn't give me things that I didn't know that I wanted, which is maybe more important. I think that's really what I go to horror for is to sort of be surprised.

You know, there's some interesting thoughts on why humans are so obsessed with the idea of fear and why we purposely go to films like horror film or go to go to you see horror films or investigate serial killers or go on roller coasters or skydive or whatever. We're putting ourselves in danger for the thrill of fear because humans and I'm speaking as a male who's over six foot and can take care of himself in a general setting. I don't feel fear in a general time, like in most times.

I don't feel like genuine fear and it's fun to sort of trick yourself in that way. And I think sort of the only, one of the real downfalls of this movie is that as you you said it perfectly earlier, is that it's just sort of paint by numbers and a certain aspects at the end. I think they tried some cool, think Oz Perkins and co made some interesting decisions through the film. And then at the end, they just sort of tied a bow and said, all right, here you go. So that's kind of my thoughts on it.

I had a good time with it, but I think it just didn't really, it wasn't the best horror film of, know, I think for me, I had it between this and the first Omen as my favorite horror film of the year. Have you seen the first Omen? No, but it's, I know it's on streaming now, so I definitely want to check it out. Cause I heard, I heard the first Omen like did a really good job of kind of taking you back to like seventies horror.

Yeah, it's very, I think first Omen did exactly what I just spoke about, which is surprised me. This movie has no right being, this prequel has no right being this good. And yet it is. I think you should definitely give it a look and tell me what you think because everyone listening right now, the first Omen is great. I currently have long legs above First Omen by one spot, but I think it's only from the technical aspect.

Like this film, again, I cannot harp, and we've talked about it constantly throughout this review. This movie is beautiful. And it is like, if you're a movie goer, it is fucking scrumptious to ingest this movie. It's just some of the more tech, like some of the story aspects, as we said, it's just not really Yeah, yeah, no, from, from, from a, if we're just grading this on a technical aspect, I think it'd be, I won't just give this close to a perfect score.

But I think in terms of like a horror movie, it's one of the best looking ones and its structure and how it's edited. I think it's all top, top tier. All right. Let's, let's end this thing with a couple of fun facts here. So despite the film taking place during January of January in Oregon, it's still light outside when the clock reads seven or sorry, six 30. Uh, and it's visual from the Harker's family home. So at one point you see a clock there and it's six 30.

So in reality continuity error because in reality the sun would actually have set at 5 p .m. over on the west coast. So that's interesting. Maybe that's that's not a huge deal but you know it's one of those things. Yeah. Right. It's one of those things. Yeah. We spoke about it earlier but test audiences described this film having the same sort of feel and imaginary vibe of Silence of the Lambs cure. Have you seen cure.

No but I heard somebody say that cure is long legs but a better version of it. So I kind of want to check that out now too. There's a criterion for you should definitely check it Okay. Zodiac and Seven, which we, those are all pretty obvious and there are probably more examples, but yeah. Yeah. And not that I would put this movie on the same level as those ones, but the, but the inspiration is definitely there for sure.

Is Seven better, or sorry, is Long Legs better than any of those four movies? Well, I haven't seen Curiant, so I don't want to speak on that one, but I'm going to say no. I'm going to say no to, mean, I think, I mean, a lot of people want to say Zodiac is Fincher's masterpiece. I actually think it's social network, but that's more of an opinion. That's more of an opinion, but but I think Zodiac is great, but that's another movie where it's all procedural. And Fincher's a master.

mean, between that and Seven, it's tough to go against Fincher. And obviously Jonathan Demme, Silence of the Lambs is just an absolute classic. I actually rewatched that one not too long ago and still holds up really well to this day. Yeah, no, I mean, I also don't think Longleys is trying to beat any of those films, even though I think you could see the inspiration in But yeah, it doesn't reach those heights. Those movies are like, those are top tier in their fields, you know?

Yeah, it's funny you say that because actually one of the next ones we have here is when asked about the influence of Silence of the Lambs, Perkins said, yeah, I ripped it off. I'm not going to pretend that I didn't. That's the whole fun it. Well, there you go. He said it's meant to be sort of pop art, right? Like it invites the audience to sort of say, you remember Silence of the Lambs? It made you feel good. And it's sort of like doing a little bit of a magic trick.

With one hand, you say, this is Silence of the Lambs. And then with the other hand, you say, it's actually not Silence of the Lambs. So he's outright saying that like it's an inspiration, but to try to recreate any part of Silence of the Lambs would be a disservice to your film and Silence of the Lambs in general. 100%. I totally agree.

Yeah. Nick Cage and Oz Perkins, as we said earlier, both dedicated this film to their mother and said that they were sort of inspirations, which we should probably look into that. Perkins only thought of two actors when thinking of long legs. It was Nick Cage and Brad Pitt, which is interesting. Yeah, I mean, after watching when the cage did, I can't see Brad Pitt in this role at all. I think it'd be completely different. Yeah, it'd a completely different role.

Yeah. And then the Russian title for this film actually translates to soul collector, which makes sense. of. It does make sense. All right. Final thoughts on long legs. Nick, what are your overall arching thoughts on this film? So I think it's I think it's a solid, solid movie. It's not the scariest film of all time. Not even close. But I think it's a very decent thriller. It's well made. It's well acted.

I mean, if you just want to just go seeing, you know, Michael Monroe, who I think is a really big up and comer. And just if you enjoy Nick Cage doing Nick Cage things, you're going to absolutely get what you want out of this movie. Yeah. And I think it gives you it's not like it's not a movie where I don't think anything happens. I think you'll go there and I think you'll be satisfied. But just don't go in expecting like the greatest thing known to man. You know what mean?

It's not it's not anywhere near any of that. But I think it's just it's a solid movie. It's a it's a really good movie. And I think it's a movie that deserves to be supported in the theater. Agreed. You took my exact thoughts right out of my head. This is why I wanted you to have me on the show, Nick. You get it, man. You understand what I'm talking about here. It's so nice to be around kindred spirit because it's just the same thing for me.

I really enjoyed myself at the theater watching this movie. I think it does reward upon watching at a theater with the sound design and such. Yeah. And obviously seeing some of that imagery on a big screen too. Yeah. Which truthfully and selfishly, I say that with every film, everything, every film. know. Yeah. For sure. Absolutely. We need to the theaters alive.

You know, the only other thing I'll say about this too is, I kinda, I do want to revisit this like in a couple months, like maybe when it comes out on physical and just kind of just watch it again with no, expectations. Obviously all the hype will have been died down and it just kind of want to watch it for what it is and see if my thoughts change a little bit on it or not. Sure. All right. Well, cool.

Let's go ahead and give this thing a rating out of five David A. Weiner's now are you familiar with David A. Weiner at all? You familiar with his work? I am not, but I know that this is your guy's grading score. I know this is you grade yourself. I'll give you a little inside baseball and everyone listening if you're not familiar. like episode two, we did a piece of news that was David Weiner. He's a director and he does like horror inspired directing, which is funny. We're talking about this.

He directed a documentary series called In Search of Darkness, which is a complete crazy three -part deep dive into 1980s horror. And it's incredible. It's so good. That was the piece of news that we were talking But if you look at the way his name is spelled, it's Weiner. It's Weiner. And we, and I, while we enjoyed the topic and we were curious about what the movie was, we could not stop laughing at the fact that we thought his name was David A. Weiner. Weiner. Anyway, he reached out to us.

He heard this and he really, yeah. And he's like, it's Weiner guys. And he's been on the show multiple times. He's a great friend of the show. that's awesome. Yeah. He's, he's awesome. We'll have him on the show because he's actually doing in search of darkness. The nineties, he did part one and he's doing, he's doing part two now. So he's gonna come on the show in the fall. Everyone, there's a spoiler. We talked to him already.

He's gonna come on in the fall and talk about part two of In Search of Darkness 90s. that when it drops in the fall or is it? That's when they'll start promoting it. That's when the campaign starts. Cause he crowd funds all of his movies. And they're incredible. You wouldn't even know, like not to discredit crowdfunding movies, but like this looks like a big budget documentary. Right.

So anyway, out of five David Weiner's, Nick, what are you gonna give Long So I'm going to go with a three and a half. Okay. More three and a half. think it's a solid. And if you want to translate that up to what, what, is that out of 10? It's a seven out of 10. think it's, think it's, I think it's a good solid movie. Um, I think you'll have a good time with it, but don't go in expecting anything more than that. Yeah. I'm to give it a four out of five David A. Winer's.

think it's a strong recommend. I think it's more of a curiosity rating for me. I want to see what people that aren't big horror movie buff fans like you and I, would love to see their response to this movie. And I think that if you are like Nick and you will appreciate this movie even with its flaws. So it's a strong recommend. It has some downfalls, but overall I had a good time with this movie.

I think it's worth seeing in the theater, as I just said, and I'm excited to see what Oz Perkins does next. Always excited to see what Nick Cage does next and maybe more so than either one of those two. I'm very excited to see what Michael Monroe does next. So that'll do it for our very, long review of long legs, everybody. Thank you so much for sticking around for two plus hours of Nick and I. You know, when I see my buddy Nick, I can't keep him here for an hour. gotta, I gotta double up.

I know, man. I didn't know that it was going to take this long, but I'm so happy that did Nick. And I want to thank you so much for subbing in for Aaron this week and joining me here to talk about long legs. As I said earlier, just been a big fan of yours in general, been a good friend since the beginning. Since we started podcasting. I'll be honest. I miss the F and nerds.

I know you guys are all doing things you and Martin are good things right now, but I hope again, one day that it comes back. And I think that to bring you back out of retirement, even if it is for, it's like my, it's like Jordan and Neil, like, you know, for, brought you back for one, one season, you changed your number and then you're just going go right back to golfing and gambling when you're not here. Exactly. Exactly. No, but no, but honestly, man, thank you for having me on, man.

This was an absolute blast. You said, haven't done this in a while. So it's, it's, it's an honor to be on, on this show. And like I said, man, congratulations on all the excess of living bars having, can we see what you guys do next? And you know, if there's another episode down the road you need me for, just hit me up. We're gonna have you on for Romulus for sure. Yeah. That's happening. We're gonna bring you out of retirement in like a month. Hell yeah.

I'm gonna put you back in retirement and then we're gonna bring you right back After that trailer came out, became my most anticipated film of the year. And I'm a big fan of Fede Alvarez, loved his Evil Dead. And this is like his next big thing, because I don't know if he did anything between this and Evil Dead. He's probably done some TV and such. He did Don't Breathe. that's right, which is good. I like Don't Don't Breathe is good.

mean, he's a good guy at Atmosphere and again, gory ass horror. So I think Alien is going to be a return to form for Questionable story plots for Don't Breathe. If you've not seen Don't Breathe, Buckle in because it's an interesting turn there at the end of the movie. But Nick, how can people follow you? How do people keep in touch with you? If they liked what you had to say here.

So, So, I mean, the the FNRDs are still active on Twitter, not so much on Instagram, but we're like I said, we're still there. I always like to throw out my opinions on, you know, random things still interact with people. But yeah, I mean, like obviously. you movies and pop culture and nerd stuff is something that I love. And, you know, even though we don't do the podcast anymore, I still, I'm still in that world, still, still talking with people and everything.

So yeah, so I think it's at F and underscore nerds on Twitter and also on Instagram. So that's where you can find me. Perfect. Well, good deal. Next week, everybody on the show for episode one 64 of the oblivion bar podcast, we are joined by our good friend, one of our best friends in the comic book world, Christian Ward will be back on the show to discuss his campaign that actually is already funded as of this recording.

We had this conversation a couple of weeks ago, it is already within, I think less than a day. His art book over on Zoop has been completely funded, but Ghost still support it. We'll also be talking to him about his upcoming Batman project with Patrick Reynolds within the Brave and the Bold storyline. And then we might talk about some other things, maybe some surprise stuff that you'll want to check out for sure if you're a fan of Christian Ward like we are. So that'll be next week on the show.

Last but not least. Subscribe to the podcast, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Audible, iHeartRadio, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, that's where the oblivion bar is. Thank you to our patrons.

Big breath here. Alex, Alice, Aaron, Bada from the short box, Brad B, Cassidy, Chris from the Bada Boom Pod, Chris Y, Christie, Danny, David, Elliot, George, Greg from the First Issue Club, Haley, Ham6, Jake from Spektales, Jake S, Jeremy, Kenny, Kyle, Lossi, Mac, Miles, Mike, Robert, Sean from I Used to Like This One. Travis, Zach and Brad Lisa from the comic book couples counseling. Thank you all so much for your patronage.

Thank you for being, you know, so in supporting the show and just keeping this train rolling. If you want to support the show without spending any money again, five star reviews and ratings are always welcome over on Apple podcasts and Spotify. If you don't give us a five star review, or if you don't want to give us a five star review, don't give us a review or a rating. Just don't listen or don't do it. The fours and the threes, they're not good. That's stupid. Don't do it guys.

Do you hate that when you're on the evidence and people give you like a four or five or three or whatever? Yeah, exactly. It's like, it's like, all right, I guess. Thanks for the three star review. Thanks. Thanks for the three star review. I mean, I don't know where I guess we either fall. mean, I guess it's better than not being completely dog shit or being the greatest thing ever. So at least maybe it's a little more honest, it doesn't help. Yeah, it doesn't. doesn't help.

It doesn't help the algorithm at all. It doesn't. All right. Follow us on social media, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok, blue sky and threads on oblivion bar are sorry at oblivion bar pod. we're on everything annoyingly, but gradually we're on everything. want to Nick, if I'm being honest, I just, I want to get rid of social media in general. just like, know I do too. I just want to be done with it. I just want to do the podcast and people listen. That's it. I like it's great. It's great.

It's great to connect, but it is, it's, it's so much, it's so much extra work on top of that. And it's a headache you don't need. All right. Thank you to Omnibus for sponsoring the show. Use the link in our show notes to upgrade how you read comic books digitally. Official merch of show can be found on our website, www .oblivionbarpodcast .com. Thank you to Kevin Ziegler for all of our Oblivion Bar art. is at the Zig Zone on Instagram.

Thank you, Dream Kid, for our incredible Oblivion Bar musical themes. Thank you, DJ Skyvac, for a great theme. And do not forget to tip your bartenders 20 % or more. Always. Nick, you know this. If you tip less than 20%, you're a bad, that's a bad deal. That's bad. You're a piece of shit. That's exactly right. You're a piece of shit. You deserve to get killed by long legs and his weird, uh, by Ruth. Creepy dolls. That's right. All right, everybody.

Thank you so much for listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast. We appreciate it. We will see you next week for episode 164. I see, get it out. So what's your name? Little angel? Nice to meet you. That's it. That's all you need. That's Thank you.