MOVIE REVIEW: Madame Web

Hey, it's David Weiner, writer, director, producer of the In Search of Darkness trilogy and the upcoming In Search of Darkness 90s and In Search of Tomorrow, and a guy who's constantly on eBay trying to reclaim his childhood one toy at a time. And you are listening to The Oblivion Bar. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host Chris Hacker and Aaron Knowles.

Hello everyone, welcome to episode 145 of the Oblivion Bar podcast, the official podcast of the fantasy shop in St. Charles, Missouri. I'm your barefoot murderer on a mission to kill three teenage girls, Chris Hacker. And joining me this week is the man who has known every single word to Britney Spears' smash hit Toxic since 2003, my co-host and BFF, Aaron Knowles. Los arañas, donde esta Spider-Man? And that's translated to Aaron? Where is the Spider-Man? That's right, perfect.

Welcome everybody to the Oblivion Bar podcast where not only will we be teaching you Spanish, but also be talking about, oh boy, Aaron, just- El Diablo. A movie. It is a movie that came out this weekend. Aaron, we've talked about in previous episodes that we weren't even going to cover this, right? Like it was not even on our schedule. And I said, Aaron, if you wanna talk about Craving the Hunter in October, We have to talk about Madam Webb, which is what we're talking about today.

I, so, I don't know how I, I asked for this situation to occur other than wanting to actually talk about Craven because I'm kind of excited about Craven. But let me ask you this. Do you think, do you honestly think that Craven could be worse than this? Absolutely. Oh no. Oh, not even like a slight doubt. Will I put any confidence in Sony going forward unless it's an animated film starring Miles Morales?

There is nothing that Sony can do with the character of Spider-Man or his adjacent side characters that I will have any confidence in. And I think that Craven will be as bad if not worse. There's no way that it's any good. And there's zero possible. We'll see chance. There's there's a slight chance that it's better because we love Aaron Taylor Johnson, but. There's no way that it's going to be good. Right. I mean, honestly, I like, I think that it could be good.

Okay. You remember how I've said there's only been one movie that I've ever walked out of the movie theater on? Yes. There was almost two. There was almost two. There was almost two. Can I tell a quick funny story before we get into like our news and notes and everything else, Patreon, all this stuff. It better be fucking riotous riotously hilarious. It is. Okay. So throughout this film. I was in a mostly empty theater. It was like me and probably 15 other people.

It was on a Wednesday night, so this Valentine's Day, right? And I'm sitting kind of like in the middle of the bottom part of the theater, and there's this couple that sits down, they come in late, they come in like 10 minutes in the movie.

And throughout the entire film, I would, well, not throughout the entire film, but throughout the majority of the beginning of the film, they're talking, I would say like normal volume, not like loud, not really quiet, but just kind of like, how you and I would be talking, we were face to face. And there was a time during this movie that I thought, is it worth possibly getting in a fight over Madame Webb?

Because you know me, Aaron, we're exactly the same way that when we go to the movie theater, we want the respect of people paying attention, regardless of whether it's bad, which it was, but if I'm going to pay money to see a film, which I did, I spent $18 to see this film in IMAX. Jesus. On opening night, who's the idiot here really? But like truthfully, not only does that. pissed me off.

But now I have these two yuck yahoos over here talking at a normal volume, just having a normal conversation. Point of the story is that I eventually told him to be quiet, but regardless that there was a point in the movie where I thought, is it worth it? Should I just let these two people have it like a fine time, like a fine date? No. Madden web.

No, there it's, there's this like, um, clip going around to the internet and it's the guy who is like a, he's like a loss prevention officer and it's about, it's from this movie, I think it's on Netflix about this woman who's like an extreme coupon or who ends up going to jail because she's like frothing. Anyways, so the clip is this guy who's sitting on the window seat of an airplane and this woman's like, sir, will you let my daughter look at the window? It's her favorite part.

And he just looks at her and goes, no, even if I could, I wouldn't. She needs to learn a valuable lesson here that the world doesn't work the way that she wants it to. That's what people need to learn in the theaters these days. And what's funny is that I had the same experience. Oh, no kidding. I had the same experience.

So it's a 3 p.m., 3.30 p.m. showing, obviously not 3.30 a.m., but it's a 3.30 p.m. showing at the theater that's actually right next to my comic shop, that my local comic shop now. I sit down and like further up front, like this group of probably four or five school age, high schoolers, boys. They get up for some reason to decide some for some reason to sit in the row behind me and not just in the row behind me, but like directly behind me.

And they start talking and it's like they're talking to the trailers. Okay, I get it. Trailers aren't necessarily something you don't talk through. But then the movies opening credits start talking or start going and they still continue to talk. And normally I'm not somebody like I'm not somebody I avoid confrontation. But I paid good money for this movie. I was already kind of in a grumpy mood because I'm not looking forward to it. Because you're watching Madam Web.

Because I'm watching Madam Web. I was also like a couple of minutes late. So like, I didn't start the movie late, but like I didn't see all the trailers. But anyways, they're talking. So I just casually leaned over my shoulder. I said, just wondering, are you guys gonna talk through the entire fucking movie? Cause I'd like to know now. I'm just checking. And they're like, no, we're not going to. And then one of their friends decides to go, thank you.

And they didn't say anything else through the entire movie, except at one point, somebody decided to open the biggest fucking bag of chips in the world. They don't sell chips at theaters, by the way. You have to bring that. Yes. It was like three minutes. It was like three minutes of them opening this bag. And I felt like it was intentional. The other thing was, there was a gentleman in front of me who thought that this movie was fucking hilarious. Like he's laughing the entire movie.

Like, not like a, Like he's laughing at the movie, but like, uh, like he's like, like chuckling at the things that are going on in this movie. And I'm just like, the fuck did I sign up for today? Yeah. What is this crowd? But we'll get into Madam Web and all of its, uh, whatever it is. Aaron, tell the people how they can support us on Patreon. Absolutely. So the best way to support us and this show, because we are one in the same is join the Patreon.

Okay. It's patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. And for your contribution and support you have access to the grid, which is our weekly, uh, patron exclusive episode. It's a bonus podcast. Uh, it's basically the oblivion bar after dark. It's unformatted consciousness. It's a stream. Yeah, just it's, it's mouth vomit. It's like word diarrhea.

It's just like where we talk about anything and everything from our relationships to our jobs, to the shitty movies that we've watched or the great movies that we didn't cover on the show. It's really kind of just like it is what it is called the grid because it's the it's the sandbox. It's our world to play with. You also get early access to transcripts from the episodes. You can see what we're going to be talking about early access to the actual main episode.

So you hear it before anybody else. And you also get a special shout out at the end of each Oblivion Bar episode, which you'll hear later on that I'll do. It's really the best way to support the show. Chris and I pour everything back into the show and it We just want to make this show better because we love it. We love getting to hang out with each other and we love getting to hang out with you guys, so, you know, that support is just us supporting you guys back.

And you can also link and listen to Patreon exclusive content on Spotify. So check out the banner on if you go to the oblivion bar podcast on Spotify. At the top, it'll say like exclusive content or whatever. You can tap that and you can link your Patreon to Spotify and listen to it via Spotify. And we also just love giving free shit away. So, you know, every once in a while you'll get a free sticker or we've given out free comics or we give, we've given out t-shirts.

So, you know, that, that in itself pays for the, you know, the subscription itself, you know? Absolutely. Yeah. Patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. Aaron, let's go ahead and get into our news and notes. and notes.

Alrighty our news and notes segment is sponsored by Omnibus backed by some of the top publishers in the medium Omnibus host an extensive back catalog from Image Comics boom studios dark horse IDW Ahoy comics Titan vault and so many more and most importantly Omnibus sports in-app purchases Download Omnibus now on any iOS device and follow them over on social media at Omnibus app Omnibus by fans for fans. It's bitchin Aaron's sub It's bitching.

If you don't, if you guys don't wait till the end of the episode, each episode, you don't know what that means, but he says it every episode. I see on official tag. It's our tagline. It's our tagline for omnibus. It is. So are the guys that work there, by the way, Carl Weathers. So our first bit of news and notes is a little bit of a sad one. It's about Carl Weathers, which, you know, this happened, I want to say maybe like a week ago, a few weeks, February 1st, February 1st.

Yeah. A little over two weeks ago. A sad way to enter February, but. You know, he passed away at the age of 76. What a, just a specimen of just Hollywood sports, uh, weathers who majority people know started as Apollo Creed in the first four Rocky films and appeared in predator, the Mandalorian, happy Gilmore, action Jackson, arrested development, dozens of other films and TV shows. He passed away from atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease.

It's basically the hardening of the arteries caused by a buildup of plaque in the inner lining of the artery. To be honest with me, this is pretty much like a natural cause because animals suffer from it. Humans do it also. So it's just something that, you know, if you don't if you're over 35 and you don't have a pulmonary specialist, a cardiovascular specialist, a heart doctor, go get your heart checked. Take out Carl Weathers. It can take you out as well.

Yeah. Born January 14th, 1948 in New Orleans, Weathers was an exceptional athlete and was a star football player at San Diego State University. Weathers would eventually sign with the Oakland Raiders, which is something I didn't know until I found this out recently. He was an undrafted free agent in 1970. He played for only one season. However, Weathers was also auditioning for acting roles while playing football and would eventually get his big break with Rocky in 1976.

as the dancing destroyer, the king of sting, the master of disaster, the one and only Apollo Creed. Man, he, he killed that role.

He had the stars and stripes shorts, the, you know, he had the top hat, he had the robe, you know, just, we see a lot of actors that go from being a sports celebrity to the rock, you know, some other people and, and Becoming an actor but this guy found his true passion and he was good at it You know and he did he played in a lot of roles that really shaped You know myself for starters probably you Chris as well, you know, and he's and he's been doing it ever since I mean like again Dylan you son

of a bitch Dutch Yeah, oh Dutch. That's right. He says it right? No. No, no, hold on Dutch. No, sorry Dutch is Arnold Schwarzenegger Yeah, is Paul. Yeah, or see me Carl Weathers You have me psyched out there because I know you know your 80s film. I do. So 1976, though, I mean, that's almost 50 years. Yeah. Almost 50 years in Hollywood. So so I mean, longer than you and I have been alive. I'm almost combined. He's been doing like he's been changing the world in his roles.

And so it's just it's a it's a sad time. I mean, but I think that's what we need to kind of like be like. We need to start accepting as we get older, we start losing people. that changed our childhood, which is. It's happening a lot more than it used to. Yeah, sad realization. Absolutely. Aaron, do you have a favorite role from Weathers, particularly like of all those you just listed or otherwise, is there a particular role from Weathers that you appreciate more than the other?

I mean, I would say, you know, obviously Predator is a huge thing for me. Love a new Predator, yeah. And then also, I mean, believe it or not, as somebody who's not like a huge like sports gamer or sports movie watcher, plenty of them. And honestly, you know, Carl Weathers role as Apollo Creed is, is it was phenomenal. It was amazing. And, you know, he was still, he's still making an impact with the Creed movies that are going on. So that's like a lasting, you know, what do you call that?

That's a legacy. Thank you. So yeah, what about, I mean, what about you? Like what's, what's one that stands out for you? Yeah. I mean, obviously Apollo Creed is definitely top of the mountain top. That's pretty easy. But I guess if I had to give a couple of dark horses You know, Mandalorian, he's great in that. He actually won an Emmy as a side character for that, you know, playing Chubbs and Happy Gilmore. I mean, I think truly as a kid, you know, in the hips, it's all in the hips.

Got to be a little taparoo, a little tap taparoo. That's probably my very first exposure of Carl Weathers, believe it or not. It wasn't Rocky. It was actually Happy Gilmore, because, you know, as a kid of the 90s, growing up, I was watching Adam Sandler films and he was in that, you know, and. I actually, to this day, I have not seen Action Jackson, believe it or not. So that's going to be something I'm going to watch because I have, I'd never heard of it.

I know he stars in it, but, but yeah, no. And then of course Predator is my all time favorite action film. So yeah, it's very sad that we lost Carl Weathers. It seemed kind of out of nowhere because he had a Superbowl commercial with Gronk for the, the field goal kick for fan duel. And then obviously that had been playing leading up to the Superbowl. And then when the Super Bowl aired, obviously Carl Weathers had already passed away.

And they actually had like a little thing where he had, you know, the, whatever character he was playing in the commercial was kind of just standing there with his arms crossed and had, you know, Carl Weathers with his, you know, birthday and then his past date. So definitely going to miss Carl Weathers, going to miss him just, you know, as an actor and as an influence and, you know, the media and all of those things. So come on. What's the matter with you? Tomorrow. There is no tomorrow.

THERE IS NO TOMORROW! Let's move on to our next bit. We kind of spoke on a little bit here, but we got a bunch of new trailers for upcoming 2024 movies during Super Bowl 58. So Aaron, we're going to go down the list here, talk a little bit about each one and kind of just what we took away from it. Some of these are going to be more, you know, our speed than others, but starting us off here, we have Inside Out 2, which releases on June 14th.

A few of Riley's more familiar emotions pop up, but there's one new one, Anxiety, voiced by Maya Hawke. It's clear that Riley has grown up since the original film. And as everyone knows, that's not easy to do. A lot of times as we grow up that, that ever so wondering feeling of anxiety crops up as we get into our preteens and into adulthood. Aaron, we actually watched this trailer before recording here. What were your thoughts while watching it? I don't really care. I don't care.

I love the first one. The first one had me balling. You know, especially when they lost the elephant, Bobo or whatever the hell his name was. Like I was, I was an emotional wreck. But yeah, it's I, I don't know. I, I. Is it a Pixar thing or is an inside out thing? Because, you know, Pixar has been cool. We've been cool on Pixar for a while. Yeah, it's an inside out thing. I just, I don't have. Okay. A lot of Pixar films, there's not a lot of revisiting it. Oh, revisiting those worlds.

I mean, other than like. fucking Toy Story. I love Coco. I love Moana Pixar. I think that might just be Disney animation. I think. Yeah. But there's that first one is good. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. So I mean, I don't know. We have we have very much. We have very much cooled on the Pixar crazed brand. But, you know, they still got some good stuff. I mean, I'll still help Moana is a it's a vibe, man, as the kids say. It's a move. I think Moana is Disney.

Yeah. But I do what else I really I'm not going to lie. As much as it's I don't know if this is a hot or a cold take. I'm not sure anymore. I liked Lightyear, but you know, lightly Lightyear was a cool. That was a cool movie. Yeah, we reviewed it here on the show, and I think we both kind of enjoyed it. But I think the main complaint with picked with Lightyear was that we weren't really sure who it was for. You know, it was a little more grown up.

It was a little more streamlined because it was supposed to be the movie that Andy saw when he bought it. Inspired the craze of the Buzz Lightyear toy line when, you know, from the first film. So yeah, it was, I don't know. I'm kind of excited, but I, it may not be one that I go and check out. I don't think it's one that we need to review. No, we're definitely not reviewing it for sure. Up next, Aaron, we have a quiet place day one, which releases on June 28th.

So just a couple of weeks later, this is the spinoff prequel that's being directed by Michael. Saranowski previously directed the neon film Pig starring Nicholas Cage. And the cast includes Lupita Nuonga, Joseph Quinn, who we'll talk about here in just a moment, Alex Wolf and Jimon Honsu. So I know, Aaron, you're not like a giant fan of the quiet place. Like you're notoriously like for some reason don't. Why do you hate good quiet place?

And also Emily Blunt for some reason, like you hate both of these. I don't hate Emily Blunt. I don't hate. I never said that. I don't. Why do you hate beautiful things? Why do you hate Emily Blunt? Tell people, tell the people why you don't like a quiet place. There's one main reason that always cracks me up. It's a stupid ass plot hole. You can drive a mini van. Yeah. It's like a fucking, you know, acme, like fucking train tunnel that somebody painted on a fucking rock wall.

I don't understand if they know that being near a waterfall stops the creatures from hearing them, why not live next to the waterfall? Yeah. Hmm. Makes you think it's the, it's the easiest. fucking answer. Well, what about so in this trailer we see Lupita Nwanga, she's in the middle of a city, which people are speculating that she is like a mute, which is why she's able to survive.

I guess throughout the film, she can't speak and make no, I mean, she obviously can make noise but like not say words. And there's obviously like going after folks in the city while noise is happening everywhere. So I don't know, maybe they pinpoint on one noise and kind of track it that way. I'm not sure. Maybe we'll find out during this movie. It's, I mean, okay, so I'm just gonna throw this out there. This movie is just a re-imagining of Tremors. Okay, sure. Just gonna throw this out there.

That's fair. But I am excited for it. And I'll say that, and I'm gonna justify it, I'm gonna quantify it, I'm gonna qualify it. I'm gonna say that because we have yet to understand where these creatures came from, and I'm pretty sure that they might be mutated humans. And if that's not the case, I will gladly be wrong, but I'm excited to find out the origin of these creatures. because I don't believe they're extraterrestrial.

I believe that something was brought down that changed people into these creatures. Interesting. I mean, we do see in the first movie and in this most recent trailer, like a bunch of comet looking kind of asteroids falling to the sky and then these monsters are everywhere. But who knows? Again, you may be correct that they may zag while we're thinking they're gonna zig. But speaking of adaptations and speaking of kind of re-imaginings, Aaron, we also have Wicked.

which is going to be released on November 27th. Aaron, you're the musical freak here. I'm not much of a musical guy myself, but the film adaptation of the hit Broadway musical has been on its way for a very long time. And we finally have a trailer. The film stars Cynthia Irovo as Elphaba. Elphaba? Yeah. Elphaba. Okay. The future Wicked Witch. I can't just call Wicked Witch of the West. And then Ariana Grande as Glinda. The Good, which I'm guessing is the Wicked, or the Witch of the North, right?

And then we have, it's being directed by John M. Chu, who directed Crazy Rich Asians. And also Jeff Goldblum as the wizard. That's correct, yes, you're right. Absolutely, I forgot about that. What are your thoughts on this? So, okay. I've been wanting to see the musical, not the movie. I've been wanting to see the musical for a long time, and I'm actually, I think I'm gonna try and go do it like sometime around my birthday, which would be amazing. which is in less than two weeks, yay.

And thankfully this movie doesn't come out for seven months so I have time in case that doesn't happen. I am interested in seeing this after I've seen the musical. Sure. I am not excited for Ariana Grande. Nothing against Ariana Grande. I just don't think that she may, I have not seen her in anything that proves that she has the acting chops for a feature film. She was in Don't Look Up, that Netflix show with, Netflix movie with Leonardo Caprio and Jennifer Lawrence.

And Jonah Hill. Yeah, and Jonah Hill. Remember, she plays like the pop star. Yeah, sure, yeah. I mean, again, give me a reason that she should play in a feature film. She can sing really well. Yeah, yeah. It's funny that we keep saying yeah, because that's what she says in her music. She goes, yeah. Yeah. I have no interest in this. She sings like somebody with a really large tongue. Okay, I don't. I don't know if I can picture that, but I can see where you're coming from.

Sure. OK, I have no interest in this. None, because this looks like CGI throw up. It just looks like none of this was shot in real life. I wouldn't be surprised if most of the people are not even on the same set. And that's coming from someone who reviews superhero movies on the daily basis or on a weekly basis, I should say. So moving on to something that I am very excited about, Aaron, I think you are as well. Twisters releasing July 19th, starring Nipple Twisters.

What's my favorite Helen Hunt movie? Do my favorite Helen Hunt movies. Twister. Starring starring Daisy, Edgar Jones, Glenn Powell and Anthony Ramos, Aaron Anthony Ramos from Why isn't he in Why isn't he playing the wizard? Why is he right? He's been in a few musicals. Yeah, in the Heights. He was in Transylvania. Yeah, he was also in he was in Hamilton. Correct. He was also in Dumb Money in a small role. He was like a. He was a GameStop employee. So anyway, let's see here.

We have, this is meant to be a sequel slash reboot of the 1996 film. It is also being directed by Lee Isaac Chung who directed 2020's 824 film, Minari. So I saw the trailer for this at the front of Madam Web and I'm excited. What can you do with the franchise of Twister besides add another Twister? Still got those little bally things, those little weather balls. I- Thought that was a one-time thing. How has tornado slash twister science not changed in almost 20 years?

Why are we still using these little weather balls, Aaron? Tell me that. Is it 20 years or is it 30? It's 30 years. Oh my God, you're right. 30 years, Jesus. I can't math. The little weather balls have stunted my knowledge. Okay, so clearly those are 5G weather balls. Yes, we moved on to 4K weather balls. That's what gave us COVID. Yep. Obviously. No, we're making stupid jokes. I don't know, I am excited to see, I love the movie Twisters. It's one of those ones that's on TNT like 18 times a year.

Yeah. You know, and you're like, you'll flip it through the channel and it's absolutely there. And you can't, you cannot not, like you have to watch it. You have to watch it. The scene where they get eggs and bacon, they're like, food, you know, I like, it's one of those movies you could probably almost, you know, say, like just every word through it, because you know it so well, you know. Also shout out to an RIP to two greats from that film, Bill Paxton and Seymour Hoffman, both in that film.

Both are awesome in that movie. Yeah. And, you know, I was just looking it up really quickly. I just wanted to see. So the original budget for the first twister was $80 million. Just ballpark. Aaron, what do you, how much do you think it made at the box office domestically? 75 million. No, this thing killed back in the day. Not only did it kill it in theaters, 300 million. You're pretty close. Four hundred ninety five million dollars. Five hundred million.

It made a half a billion dollars on an eighty million dollar budget. And it still has it still has a like an attraction at several theme parks. Yeah. If you ever have you ever done like twister the experience? No, I haven't but I'm familiar. Yeah. So they do like a little like they show like how a twister like can you can you can have like a fire twister. They do that. They have like. the scene where they're at the movie theater and it's like a regular scene.

All of a sudden the twister comes in and like shit starts falling apart. There's flames and there's like the signs falling sparks and it's crazy. But it seems weird that it's been 27 years since they've done anything with this. I think there was some movement with Joseph Kaczynski, who we know from Tron Legacy and Top Gun Maverick. He was attached to twisters for a while. And I think he eventually just dropped out. And I think that's why it's now being directed by Lee Isaac Chung.

So I think it was originally, it was connected to Joseph back in like 2018. And it just has been stuck in production purgatory for the longest time. And now of course we've got the rise of Glenn Powell and his stardom and of course, oh shoot, who's the other one? Daisy Ridley or Daisy Edgar Jones is also a pretty big star as is Anthony Ramos. All three of their stock is rising pretty heavily. So it makes sense that they would release it now. and kind of get it into production.

So moving on to another film that's been kind of somewhat stuck in like production purgatory for a while. We've got kingdom of the planet apes which is releasing on May 10th. So we don't have to wait too long for this one. This one's coming out in just a couple of months.

The next installment, which is directed by Wes Ball who was the director of all of the maze runner film adaptations seemingly takes place 300 years after the events of 2017's war of the planet of the apes which Aaron, you know, I love. I love all of those Matt Reeves directed. of the ape films. I've been trying to get you to watch them for a while now. I hope you do eventually because they are awesome.

It seems like this film is where we have a new leader, Proximus Caesar, voiced by Kevin Duran, perverts Caesar's teachings to enslave other clans and search the remnants of human technologies. Noah, portrayed by Owen Teague, embarks on a harrowing journey alongside a young human named Nova, Freya Allen, to determine the future of apes and humans alike. I am excited for this movie. This is also another trailer that I got at the beginning of I'm really, really excited for this movie.

I don't know how long they've been working on this, but the CGI looks incredible. What are your thoughts? I even got a lukewarm on this for a while. I don't know why, but I just cannot seem to get excited for any of these Planet of the Apes films. And maybe it's because like I just don't give a shit. But also because I got so excited because I think it was Tim Burton that did the like Planet of the Apes movie with Mark Wahlberg. Mark Wahlberg. And I was like. I was pumped for that. I loved it.

You know, like give me Planet of the Apes and then give me the guy from space who lands. There's like a time war, blah, blah. Loved all that. And I'm assuming none of that fucking counts anymore. No, it doesn't. I think that was actually in the like the 1960s canon. Yeah. So like. But this is new. This is the new this is the new one, Aaron. I think you would like the Matt Reeves ones for sure. Like I've said many a times the different films. So there's Rise of the Planet of the Apes. There's.

War is the last one and there's one in the middle. I'm Dawn, Dawn of the Planet Apes. Dawn. Okay, do any of these previous films actually play a part into the next one? That seems to be the prevailing theory right now is that this takes place 300 years in the same canon as those three previous films from 2017 and beyond. So because they're referencing Caesar, Caesar is played by, oh shoot, what's his name? Hold on, Andy Serkis. So Andy Serkis actually plays Caesar throughout those films.

of course, they're again referencing one of the characters is named Proximus Caesar. So I think that they're saying that this Proximus Caesar is taking the tea because Caesar acts as kind of like a revolutionary in those films and kind of like uproots the plant, you know, the apes of the planet kind of creates that war between humans and apes. But in the end realizes that they have to work together for the survival of all of them.

And I think that this, you know, this Proximus Caesar is just kind of is trying to like, again, it says pervert. Caesar's teachings and basically say that apes are the superior being on earth. So like I said, looks good. I'm excited about it. We don't have to cover on the show, but I, maybe I need to watch it just so I don't, I'm not talking shit. You would love it. You love it. Up next, we have monkey man releasing on March 11th. That's just in a couple of weeks. This is upcoming action.

Thriller film is directed by and stars death Patel in his feature directorial debut. Here's the synopsis, Aaron kid and anonymous young man working in an underground fight club. sets out to exact revenge against a group of corrupt leaders who are responsible for his mother's death and also taking advantage of poor people. So I've heard some people say this, Aaron, you tell me if this sounds correct. Sounds a lot like Indian John Wick. Yeah, I was going to say this is Bollywood John Wick.

Bolly Wick. This is basically what this is because I think it's an all Indian cast as well. Yeah. And it's Jordan Peele is a producer. Yep. Which I'm. I'm excited for this. It looks it looks really cool. It just looks cool. It's dark. It looks like violent. It looks just intense. There's a scene where the guy's got the monkey mask on and he's just like, and I'm just saying, is beating his chest right now. I was like, I'm like pumped. I'm like, I'm like, let's do this.

Yeah. And finally let's get to the main attraction. This was kind of the big one. This actually came out before the game even started. We have Deadpool three or out as it's known now. Deadpool and Wolverine, which is releasing on July 26th. It's already the most watched Marvel Studios trailer of all time, passing Spider-Man No Way Home at 365 million views on YouTube. Of course, this is the third Deadpool installment and has way traversing the multiverse for something. We still don't know.

And this is the only MCU film to come out in 2024. Aaron, what were your thoughts? We actually rewatched this trailer again before recording. What were your thoughts while watching it? I'm excited for it. I think... It's a good, it's going to be some kind of vehicle for some, you know, some people are saying it's going to bring the X-Men into the MCU. Some people are saying it's going to introduce, you know, the actual, the, it, okay.

Potential vehicle to introduce the new villain or the new version of King because, uh, you know, Jonathan majors is no longer, uh, supposed to be, you know, he's out. He's out in the bend. So, so I'm, I'm excited. Uh, obviously we, you know, we know that. There's going to be huge, huge Yakman. Huge Yakman. Yep. Um, we know that there's, there's going to be a whole lot of stuff in this as usual. And it's going to be fun.

It's Ryan Reynolds. Ryan Reynolds would not sign up for a Deadpool movie unless it was done the right way. So I have, I, you know, I, I trust in Ryan Reynolds. Here's the real question though, Aaron. Are we back? No. Are we so back? That's what everyone's saying. Everyone says we're back. Like the MCU is back. It's it used to be bad and used to be good. And then it was bad, but now it's good again. Are we back or not? I don't, I need to know, Aaron, are we back or not?

I feel like you're waiting for me to say something specific and I can't answer this question. No, I need to know, do you think are we back or not? I just need an honest answer. No. We're not back. Not yet. This doesn't give you any true confidence that the MCU is good again? It was never gone. We've been here.

Like you said, it does start Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman back as Logan Wolverine Some have speculated that Emma Corrin who is casted as the lead villain will portray Cassandra Nova the sister of professor Charles Xavier from the grant Morrison and Frank Wiley new X-Men run from 2001 and We only see the back of their head but that makes sense.

So I'm very excited about this, you know Personally like you had kind of you know kind of alluded to there anything that Ryan Reynolds does with this character It just I'm not sick of it. I actually I have a more of an attention span and more love for the character of Deadpool in the movies than I do in the comics. Deadpool in the comics gets on my nerves way quicker than Ryan Reynolds does as the character in live action. Do you agree or? Yeah, no. Do you not agree?

You like him still in the comics? Okay, so I think it's a very, it's a divided fan base. Okay. You know, you have, you have a lot of people who've been like diehard Deadpool comic fans for the longest time. And then now you have even more people who are brought to the comic because of Ryan Reynolds. Sure. Yeah. But I feel like, I don't know, Deadpool is done in so I feel like, yes, yes.

Um, I'm trying to think of the best way to kind of, uh, compare this because there are certain people who act like they're, they're on screen or other, they're off screen portrayal of that character so well that it's almost seamless. RDJ is a good example. Yeah, yeah, that's a perfect example. So, but that doesn't mean like, you know, Iron Man's still hugely popular just in his own fan base. Well, yeah, no, I'm excited for this.

And again, we'll definitely cover on the show seeing how it is the only MCU film of the year. So, Aaron, we gotta cover it. But speaking of the MCU, we've got one final piece of news. And obviously as everyone can tell by now, we are taking, we are like stretching this news and notes out as long as possible and covering a lot of stuff because we're trying to wait out our main topic. But Aaron, we have one. Yeah, exactly. We have one final bit of news. Why don't you take us into it?

Okay. This is something that I'm surprised Chris handed to me because I thought he was going to handle himself for how much he loves the Fantastic Four. But we finally have our Marvel Studios cast for Fantastic Four. Okay. Valentine's Day, Marvel Studios shared an exciting sneak peek into the upcoming Fantastic Four movie, not only confirming an incredibly talented cast, but also revealing the story will be set in the space age of 1960s.

And now I have my own theories, but I'll save this till the very end. But the cast is now known as, of course we have drum roll, please. Drum roll. I love this casting. I do keep going. We have, we have Zaddy, Pedro Pascal, the last of us. The Mandalorian is Reed Richards, Mr. Fantastic. Vanessa Kirby from the crown, mission and possible dead reckoning as Sue Storm, invisible woman, Joseph Quinn, which I'm pretty pumped about that one.

Lay Miserab. Stranger Things as Johnny Storm the Human Torch. So if you remember I forget his name from Stranger Things. Eddie Munson. Yeah, Eddie Munson Yeah, he's playing the guitar. He's playing, you know the on top of the trailer Metallica I think is a like Inner Sandman or something even Moss back rock is gonna play From see me from the bear and no hard feelings as Ben Grimm cousin thing Have you seen the bear yet? No. Oh shoot. All right. That's good. You love it.

I keep I keep telling Aaron to watch it. It's very good. Yeah. Fantastic Four is going to be directed by Matt Schachman, who produced and directed WandaVision. So pretty good there. Yeah. All right. And has directed episodes of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Fargo and Game of Thrones. The film is set to release on July 25th, 2025. You know, obviously holding off that there's no delays or postponements, whatever. Two weeks after James Gunn and DC Studios Superman Legacy.

I wonder if that was planned. Yeah. It was a master puppets, by the way. That was the way they master puppets. That's what he asked. So Chris, I'm going to ask you this, then I'll answer it myself once I hear your answer. But why do you think the film is set in the 1960s? Hmm. Well, the first family plays best in the 1960s. They are known as the first family.

And 1963 is kind of the year that a lot of people attribute to Marvel and also comics jumped from the Golden Age to the Silver Age, which was the birth of the Fantastic Four. And I think that those characters are so intrinsically tied to that. time period because everything about who they are when they become the fantastic four is tied to the space age, right? They get their powers from going up into space.

That being said, my thoughts, I'm trying to remember who had this theory, but it's perfect. They said that these characters are actually from modern day. So Reed, Sue, everybody is from modern day and they go up into space to do something and something happens up in space and it flings them back into the 60s while also getting powers. So that's kind of my theory.

And it also, it's kind of like, it's the Marvel's excuse for doing a period piece again, because we haven't seen a period piece since Captain Marvel. And on Truly, we haven't really seen a period piece since I would say Captain America, the first Avenger. So what are your thoughts though? I think it's gonna be the opposite. Okay, so it's gonna be in the 60s and they come forward? Yes, I think it's gonna be like starting in the 60s.

They're gonna be, you got Reed Richards, he's an amazing, brilliant mind. but it's going to be very much the Anthony Stark, kind of like the technology's not here yet for me. So I think he has a lot of capabilities. Because in this graphic that we're looking at of the reveal of the cast, you mentioned that Ben Grimm is reading a specific time magazine, I think, from after Kennedy was shot. Yep, it's got Lyndon Johnson on the cover.

Yeah, so if you look at the, well, maybe I'm wrong because, but I was gonna say, if you look at the picture of Ben Grimm on the wall behind him, it's a astronaut, like it is a space suit, a modern era space suit versus like the 1960s era space suit, which wouldn't make sense if it was my theory now that I think about it. Well, who knows? I mean, that could just, I mean, this is just a image, so who truly knows, right? But that's what I feel like.

I feel like it's gonna be like a family out of time. And that's what's going to bind them so close to each other because they're not, you know, everything they know is gone. Everything of their old life is gone because they're now these superheroes. They're, you know, we haven't seen or heard from them. And this was maybe like a secret space program that sent them into space for some reason. So I feel like that's what we're going to see. Yeah, absolutely. I'm very excited about this.

As soon as we got the news that this was happening, I love every single one of these castings. And obviously what I'm truly waiting for is the Dr. Dooms casting, which is also, you know, Kind of why I think that these characters are actually in present day. Like I think what happens is that Pedro Pascal knows Victor in present day. They get flung back into the sixties.

They come back and Dr. Doom has become, you know, the leader of Latveria has like truly taken over that whole country and has become somewhat of a force in the MCU up to that point. And they have to like, go at it after that. So, uh, yeah, no, this is great. I'm very excited about this. So. That'll do it for our News and Notes. Thank you to Omnibus for sponsoring our News and Notes. Aaron, we have to do it. We have to do it. We finally have to talk about Madam Web.

But before we get there, Aaron, let's take a quick break. We'll be right back. 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 you. Alrighty, Aaron, here we are talking about Madam Webb. Now, spoilers ahead for everyone. If you, for some reason, actually, you know what? Fuck that. If you have not seen Madam Webb, don't even take, like don't watch it. I'm telling you right now, let's just get into our initial thoughts, Aaron. Don't watch it. Don't spend your money on this, people. I'm telling you right now, Aaron, do you agree?

Yes. This is not one, you know, usually you're like, you should go see this for yourself because obviously opinions vary and you might love it. This is not one of those cases, everybody. This movie is terrible. It really fucking, it really is. It really is. Oh my God. It might be more entertaining to listen to us talk about this movie than actually watch it. Yeah. I think truly. I mean, that's not saying anything and you'll have wasted less time. Yeah, exactly.

You'll listen to this an hour and a half. This movie is almost two hours long. So there you go. God, it felt like it. It felt like. All right. So initial thoughts, Aaron, let's just, you know, kind of broadly, what were your thoughts walking out of the theater after Madam Web? It's over. It's I felt I felt like Frodo. It's done. Were there any redeeming qualities whatsoever during this viewing? Cause we don't want to just like dive in. We talked about this before the recording.

We don't want to just like lean into this movie. Yeah. It's not good. Everyone knows that. It's hard not to. It's going to be hard not to like truly destroy this movie, but like we wanted to not take a bite out of that low hanging fruit and just like crush this movie. We want to like talk about it. To me, no. Sure. No, that's fine. You don't have to. I find something. Yeah. I'm not going to try. I'm not going to break my back. I'm not going to break a sweat.

I'm not going to break a mental sweat to even consider. Like I just, I, I sat there and the most fun I had was telling people to shut the fuck up behind me. Yeah. It was, it's not good guys. This is a, just a chopped up movie in post, whatever they had plans, original plans for this movie were destroyed sometime in 2022, which we'll talk about. It has no connection to any of the other Spider movies, which it doesn't really need to. You can enjoy a movie by itself.

But I think with that type of liberty, you would have thought they would have taken some chances and actually had some quality. Nope. This is a la Electra, a la Catwoman. We're talking same level of quality. Yeah, it's just, I mean, it's bad, but bad. We're going to cover it. We're still going to cover it. So Aaron, why don't you give us a summary? Cassandra Webb is a New York City paramedic who starts to show signs of clairvoyance.

Forced to confront revelations about her past, she must protect three young women from a mysterious adversary who wants them dead. Yeah, so like we said, Sony began development on Madame Webb to be included in a shared universe in September of 2019. It was announced at the end of 2022 that director SJ Clarkson that it is actually in its own universe, which is fine. That's kind of a red flag, but we're in the multiverse era of superhero films.

So like, truly, it doesn't matter what universe this takes place in because they could just do a flip. Not to mention, Madame Web is literally the center of the Spider-verse. Like, she could do anything. So, the film was review and barcode by Sony up to the release. Madame Web has since received universally negative reviews from critics and audiences. Star Dakota Johnson even admitted that she still has not seen the movie.

And this film is loosely based on the Book of Ezekiel storyline from 2004's The Amazing Spider-Man 506 to 508 written by J. Michael Zizinski and illustrated by John Romita Jr. Three issues. Three issues of this entire story. Again, loosely based. There are elements of like Spider-Verse because Madame Webb has a kind of a big role in that. I want to say it's not Brian Michael Bendis. I want to say it's Dan Slott wrote that first in like Spider-Verse storyline.

And Madame Webb plays a big part in that storyline. So, Aaron, before we get into the budget, what did the, was this a good looking movie to you? Like did any of this? No, okay, same. I just want to check because there's not truly even one scene in this movie that I thought was like convincing in terms of CGI, right? Everything about this looks bad, like truly horrific. Godzilla minus one did it better for less. Yeah, this movie costs $80 million.

And I think, didn't Godzilla Minus One cost like 20 million? It's like 15. Yeah, something crazy like that. 15 million. Wild stuff. Maddenweb looks like it'll finish second in the domestic box office right behind Bob Marley's biopic One Love this weekend, with an estimated domestic haul of $26.8 million. Aaron, that is currently slotted to be the worst opening of any Spider-Man movie, Spider-Man related movie of all time. Why don't you go over that next bit of news because it's pretty...

We're seeing a trend is I guess all I'll say. Yes. So in this current Sony Spider-Man adjacent universe, 2018's Venom earned 80.2 million in its opening weekend. Venom to let there be carnage or as I like to say, let there be carnage. Our stinker of the year in 2021 earned 90.3 million and Morbius earned 39 million in its opening weekend in 2022. And didn't they fall for the it's more of a time re-release? That's bullshit. Yeah. God damn you meansters. It's true.

I think that like the big banner, if I'm seeing one kind of theme throughout this movie, it's that it's worse than Morbius. This is worse than Morbius. Like I would rather watch Matt Smith dance with his shirt off and like go in and out of a very terribly CGI vampire face. Then watch this movie again. Correct? Like, do you agree? Yes. This is the, I was gonna say, do you, do you think this is better than Morbius or no? No, no, this is again.

There's I've only ever walked out of one movie and it almost became two. What, what point in the movie did you start to feel like you were going to walk out? Um, probably the first opening scene. Okay. So in the opening scene, we see, uh, Cassie's mother in the, in the, I think Peru is where she's at and she's studying Amazonian rainforest. And it's like, it's a pregnant woman in the middle of the Amazon looking for spiders that secrete a special venom. That makes no fucking sense.

It is a, that is far worse than any comic book logic I have ever heard in my entire life. And then this guy who apparently she trusts with her life, who she apparently didn't know was like plotting against her who's like taking like, has like a secret mini camera, is like taking pictures of her, like come on. Yeah, which we actually find out why he wanted that. We never find out actually why he wanted all the spider stuff. And he eventually kills Cassie's mom, right?

Accidentally or otherwise, it doesn't matter. But then the, what do they call them? The Los, what do they call it? The Los Aranjas. Los Aranjas. They save Cassie's mom. I'm forgetting her name now. Cassie's, we're just gonna call it Cassie's mom. They save her. Cassie's mom. Does not have it going on. Does, nobody knows what's going on. They try to save her life. They fling through the Amazon and put her in this like water. No, they don't fling. Oh. Let's get that straight.

Yeah, there's no thwipping. Not. A single time. Okay. So you know how there's this joke about Spider-Man and how he'd be worthless in like a, like the farm lands. Yeah. Put them in Kansas. See what happens. Yeah. Send them to Kansas. What's going to happen because it's like literally a guy in a Spider-Man suit running around, like just running around. That was this movie. Yeah. Are you talking about with Ezekiel or with the, with the with Ezekiel? Okay. Both. But that was this movie.

Not a single thwip, not a single web. Not a single fucking anything. Like it was literally watching a guy who for some reason has a Spider-Man costume when there's no Spider-Man. This is much earlier than Spider-Man. Fucking like running around the subway. Like literally crawling and running around the subway. And like, sorry, I have so many things to say about this movie. I've had so much time to think about it. Well, here's the thing.

Here's my main issue with Ezekiel outside of the fact that he's barefoot for no reason in this movie the entire time. Like he has no reason to be barefoot outside of the fact that he's barefoot in the comics, which to be honest, everyone as a comic reader, I don't remember why Ezekiel is barefoot in the comics. But the thing that really bothers me about Ezekiel is that his motivations are nebulous at best, but also- Thank you. But also his costume is Spider-Man. It's a Spider-Man costume.

Yes. And we see the birth of Peter in this movie. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Yes. So that was another thing. Okay. I'm just gonna say this. There is a line that Ezekiel States many times in this movie, especially when he's threatening the life of the one employee that he apparently pays with his massive, with his massive, I don't even, do we even get her name? I don't think we get her name. No. So, so the entire movie, he's threatening his like hacker computer user.

Uh, and this is like the nineties and she's got like some like fucking 2003. 2003. She's got some amazing computer where she's hacking the CIA. She's hacking like cameras and things like that. She's got like facial recognition in 2003 and he's like, I have not built everything to lose it because of your incompetence. Like we have no idea what you've built.

The only, the only office we ever see is the one apartment that he's banged some CIA agent in and then poisoned her, which kudos to her for being an older CIA agent. CIA agent who was very attractive and could get it and apparently did get it. You know, she got it. She got it. She got it. And then, and then, but she got murdered for it. Um, and also why is he like telling her about this incredibly crazy dream and talking about death after hooking up with her? Thank you.

That is the one night pillow talk. No, not at all. You know, so like that to me, that was, to me that was one of the most glaring things of this movie is we had the, a villain.

So in this era of amazing, um, Amazing villains we have become a society where we can craft an amazing backstory for just about any villain Whether it's Thanos whether it's killmonger whether it's you know, I Almost said I was gonna say the fucking villain from Batman v Superman, but like that doesn't count No, no Lex Luthor we already got has a better backstory than a Zhekel but it's like He all he says is like, I have not built all this so that you can take it away from

me so I can be murdered by three young girls. The what are you talking about? Your condo in downtown Brooklyn, like nobody knows what you've built, man. Nobody knows what your struggles are. Like you have no backstory. You have no reason to do this. You're just a dude who made a really bad suit, can climb on walls and is running around fucking New York. He's essentially just a bad Spider-Man. Just like he's just bad Spider-Man before Spider-Man. Yeah. And it's like, it makes no sense.

And then another thing is like, we don't see, like, so like we go back to, we go back to Peru at one point so that Cassie can, can sow her oats and she sees one of these Los Aranjas guys, but apparently he had to leave the jungle and get a real job because he's actually dressing like professional adult now. Like, I don't get it. Like none of, none of this makes sense. Yeah. And I'll tell you this, Aaron, I can kind of surmise my thoughts on this film in basically two genres.

My two least favorite genres as of today are Spider-Man movies without Spider-Man in it, and no, I'm not counting the baby that was born at the end of the film, and films that portray Sidney Sweeney as a 16-year-old girl when she is clearly one of the hottest women in the world at 29 years old. Those are my two least favorite because not only am I watching a bad Spider-Man who is again, one of the hottest women in the world, portraying a youth, a preteen.

Let's, okay, you want, let's talk about the girls. Let's talk about the girls. Why should we talk about when it gets to the cast? Let's talk about the director runtime really quick. We'll get back to the girls, okay? So talk about the director. I'm about to go on a fucking fit, man. The director is S.J. Clarkson. This is Clarkson's first feature film that she's directed, but she's also directed Heroes House, Dexter, and Ugly Betty. Now I enjoyed Heroes, but Heroes failed miserably.

I enjoyed house is amazing Dexter. You know, I haven't seen much of it. And then I've never seen anything about ugly Betty. So I love Dexter. I think the episode that she directed was in season four, which is kind of essentially where the decline started for Dexter, like Dexter was incredible until season four runtime of the film hour and 56 minutes. This is the longest running film in Sony's Spider-Man universe. And I'm going to tell you this, man.

I was sitting there just waiting for it to be over. I'm like, I kept looking at my watch, I'm like, God, we're two hours in, it doesn't feel like we've even broke the surface of the story yet. Like it just felt like it was forever. So the first half of the film is a fucking slugfest. Like it's very slow. And then when we get to the second act where we kind of meet like Mary Parker and Cassie starts to experience her powers, we meet the three girls.

That's where I genuinely think it starts to pick up a little bit and I'm starting to like somewhat kind of enjoy what's going on a little bit. But then we get into the third act and it just nose dives way past act one. Yeah. Into just one of the worst. So I want to quickly revisit where again, this, this took a shit for me, which was seen her scene two or whatever. When we first meet Cassie as an adult and she's rushing to the rescue of somebody in a car. With uncle Ben in the back.

But here's where, so she or no, or maybe I'm sorry. I'm talking, let me get to the next thing. The one where she falls in the water and dies and drowns. Oh, sure. Okay, so this is like, yeah, going into the second act. Yeah. Yeah, okay. So this is, she has expressed no powers yet. Bonks her head. And I'm gonna tell you this, in any situation, the fire department is going to secure that vehicle before any of the paramedics attempt to make a rescue. Aaron's not putting so much logic into it.

Not in any world. I don't care what Spider-Man fucking universe you're in. Do the paramedics rush in before the fire department has an opportunity to pin down the car so it doesn't slide off the fucking bridge? I'm just saying, OK, let's get in the cast now. OK. OK, so the cast is Dakota Johnson as Cassandra Cassie Webb, Tahar Rahim as Ezekiel Sims, Sydney Sweeney as Julia Cornwall, Isabella Merced.

as Anya Corazon, Celeste O'Connor as Maddie Franklin, Adam Scott as Ben Parker, who I always I love Adam Scott and just about everything. Yeah, absolutely love Adam Scott. Yeah. Emma Roberts is Mary Parker. Random baby at the end of the theme of the film is Peter Parker Spider-Man. Yeah, we got to credit the baby because that is Spider-Man. Spider-Man is in the movie. So that's pretty cool. Do you want to talk about the three girls really quick?

Do you want to talk about Sydney Sweeney, Isabella Mersenne and Celeste O'Connor? It's all negative. Do you mind? Yeah, I'm fine with that because I've said many times I'm a big Sidney Sweeney fan and I think she's great in euphoria And any and every other film that I've seen her in she is Horrific.

I don't understand how she is this bad at Acting I don't know if I'd necessarily blame it fully on her because the films that I've seen her in were all bad films Anyone but you this she's also in a film called reality where she's not bad, but she's not great either. So what are your thoughts? Okay, I Carly went and saw this with me. Okay Carly is Aaron's wife for everyone else. In case you're first time listening.

So I asked her when we got out of this film, I said, are you not offended as a woman? Okay. She said, what do you mean? And I said, this movie portrays teenage girls as the worst stereotypical teenage girls I have ever seen. I don't give a- Like 1990s teenage girl. 1990s teenage girls. I don't give a shit how teenage girl you are. If you just saw a bunch of cops murdered, the next thing that you're gonna do is probably not wanna go talk to boys. Should we? I don't know. Should we? I don't know.

Tie your shirt up and show them. Tie your shirt up. Let's go dance. You know what? Let's go get fries. I want a burger. Let's order everything. Let's get on the table and dance at this bar when we're supposed to be like quiet and not be seen by anybody. This is the stupidest betrayal and the worst betrayal.

To me, if I were a woman, I would be so offended by how they betray these young girls because all they want to do is talk to boys and be, you know, mischievous and Rebelle against the system and not listen to Cassie He's trying to save our lives from the murder that we just fucking saw we just saw him and we just saw him You know, so to me it's like The worst fucking and the other thing is like we don't even like we get about 30 seconds of them in suit with powers

And in the trailer, it makes it seem like these girls are going to get their powers. They're going to fight this bad guy and they're going to be the spider girls of whatever earth this is. We get 30 seconds of them in suit and it's all. And it's one of the movie back of the movie. That's it. It's so fucking bad. It's so bad. Not only that, but goddamn, did Dakota Johnson obviously not want to be there. She so did not want to be there. That's a good point.

Thank you for saying that, because it kind of leads into our next bit here. Yeah. Dakota Johnson said while doing press for this movie, I have never really done a movie where you're on a blue screen and there's fake explosions going off and someone's going explosion and you act like there's an explosion. That to me is absolutely psychotic. Johnson also left her agency WME in favor of CAA less than a week after the first trailer had dropped.

According to Variety, this raised industry eyebrows and generated rumors that Johnson did not like the movie, especially after she made fun of it while hosting Saturday Night Live. That making fun of... resulted in this. Johnson advertised the film during her monologue on SNL. She called it Madam, or she said, it's called Madam Webb, it's in the Marvel Universe, and it also stars Sidney Sweeney. So kind of like if AI created your boyfriend's perfect movie.

And according to Dakota Johnson, the interview with The Wrap, the screenplay underwent extensive rewrites to the point that it no longer resembled the film that she signed up for. The original screenplay, which was described as darker and very Terminator inspired. would have had Madame Webb and the Spider-Women trying to protect a pregnant Mary Parker from Ezekiel Sims who wanted to kill her to prevent the birth of Peter Parker.

So I think you were onto something when you said that we'd barely get any of those suits, but we do get them. And I think that was from the first script. This movie was supposed to be something wildly different. And then when they realized that it was shit, they chopped it up in post and we got this monstrosity. Like it's wild that they even thought that this would be a good idea to even put this thing out. They should have done the whole WB thing and tax write off. Just don't even release it.

But I think they- WB. I think they thought, okay, we have, and I think Dakota Johnson is onto something here. This is probably exactly what Sony pictures the execs thought. They go, well, it's Spider-Man. So that's our big money property. So it'll at least, the nerds will at least go see it. And Aaron, guess what? We fell for it because we went and saw it. Two, Sidney Sweeney- It's your fault. Yeah, it's my fault. Sidney Sweeney's- Her stock is rising.

She's one of the hottest stars in Hollywood right now. And she's in it in a very small, almost mysterious, totally against her normal character role. They obviously filmed her and got her for this movie way before the stardom had started to come out. So that's why they released it. They knew this movie was shit and they still put it out. Do you wanna talk about the story? Do you wanna talk about the final act at all? Do you wanna talk about how Ezekiel Sims got ran over twice in this movie?

Do you want to talk about how he was killed by the S and the Pepsi sign? Oh, don't forget the P fell on him also. Oh, the P as well. Yeah. He got P on he got P'd on. He got P'd on. I made that joke in the theater. Do you want to talk about how, uh, towards the end of the film Cassie visits that Santiago character in Peru. And at one point he says, when you take on the responsibility, power will come. Yeah. You don't want that at all or no, no. This movie is traumatizingly bad.

It's so bad. Today, Aaron, I think our lowest rated film that we've ever reviewed on the show was Artemis Fowl, which ironically was the very first film we ever reviewed on the show as well. Then we both gave it one stars each. We'll get to eventually what our rating is at a five day of Winer's, but I have a feeling that Matt and Webb is gonna be competing for that last title. but let's get into some fun facts. Again, I don't think we need to talk about this movie much more.

Obviously we didn't like it everyone. I'm literally racking my brain trying to figure out what there is to talk about. We get the scene, we'll talk about here in a moment and fun facts, but we get the scene of the three spider women and Cassandra in her full costume. Okay, here's one thing I want to talk about really quick. And I saw you jump up there. So I think you want to talk about it too. What is up with Cassie's complete personality change at the end of the film? That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying. Like that's she clearly did not want to be there. And she's probably like trying to. She probably had no idea who Madame Webb was. And she's like, but I've been walking and talking and seeing and doing things all fucking movie. And now in this last scene, I'm just supposed to sit in this wheelchair and pretend that I'm blind and fucking can't walk. Like, what is this? What is this?

And she and she's like, yeah, but there's a but if I could justify one thing in that moment, it would be. her demeanor has changed from a person. So, okay. I don't know if you ever saw, did you see Lucy? Yeah. With Scarlett Johansson. Yeah. Yep. Do you remember how when she like finally became like one with everything, she had that like almost monotonous monotone voice.

Yeah. Um, the same thing with, uh, Johnny Depp was in a movie where he like was uploaded to a computer by his wife cause he was dying. Same thing, you know, when you can see everything and like you become less than human. Oh, Dr. Manhattan's a good fucking comparison. You just become like not really human anymore. And so she's so connected by everything. That's the only thing I can kind of explain that she's just like, oh, I'm everywhere. I can see better.

Everything that the girl say, she's like, oh, I saw that coming years ago. Yes. Like that's how she talks. Yes. I can see better now than I ever have before. I'm surrounded by all the people I love. Everything I need. So fucking bad. I know it's not what I'm thinking. So I know that that's not the case because that would be giving them too much credit and too deep of a pool to dive into. This is them. Again, she clearly didn't want to be there. She didn't understand what was going on.

It just didn't make sense. I think again, just the complete e-break into a new personality just kind of blew my mind. And kind of the reasoning why she became blind at the end of the film. What was it? How did she get hit in the face? She got hit with a like a like a firework when she fell in the water, a firework like right in her eyes knocked her right in the head. OK, that's right. Yeah. The thing I didn't realize, though, that's what I was trying to figure out. How did she get paralyzed?

Did she did she maybe she maybe she hit something on the way down, but I don't remember her. Again, we're trying to explain. We're trying to explain the script. Yeah. So but that was the thing that was kind of questionable the entire time is going into this movie. I'm like, how the fuck is she, Madame Webb? Madam Web supposed to be like an older lady and in a wheelchair and blind and they gave her the biggest fucking glasses I've ever seen. Let's talk about it.

Aaron, let's go over some fun facts. Why don't you take us here? All right. So towards the, oh, you already said that one. Uh, Epic games strongly refused to collaborate with this. Epic games who's a family guy skin for Fortnite, everybody. Yes. Who sells out to everything. Yeah, strongly refused to collaborate with this film and Fortnite due to its unfavorable drastic changes made during reshoots. That's fucking funny.

That's funny. Sydney Sweeney and Zosia Mehmet previously starred in the eight twenty four film Under the Silver Lake, together with previous Spider-Man actor Andrew Garfield. Madame Webb first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man number 210 November of 1980 and was created by Dennis O'Neil and John Romita Jr., which you stated earlier. Yeah, Sydney Sweeney plays Julia Cornwall, who was really supposed to be Julia Carpenter. first appearing in Secret Wars number eight from October of 1984.

Julia Carpenter is known as the second Spider-Woman, later known as Arachne, and then the second Madame Web. Julia was created by Jim Shooter and Mike Zeck. Isabella Merkhead plays Anya Corzine, who was created by Joe Casada and writer Fiona Avery and artist Mark Brooks. We know Mark Brooks, he's pretty cool. Yeah, we know Mark. Yeah, Anya made her first appearance in Amazing Fantasy number one in August of 2004 under the pseudonym Aragna. Aragna, is that what you said? Aranya.

Aranya spider and later in Young Allies number five in October of 2010 with the code name spider girl She has a latina daughter of a Puerto Rican father and a Mexican mother Celeste O'Connor plays Maddie Franklin who first appearing in the comics in Amazing Spider-Man 441 from a November of 1998 Maddie was created by John Byrne and Rafael Kayan in I think is how you say that Los Aranhas translates to Aaron common spider common spider Maddie Franklin says she knows someone who

may be able to help. She mentions her uncle Jonah. And while she doesn't speak to him and we don't see him on screen, it feels like this could be a nod towards the memorable Spider-Man character J. Jonah Jameson. What are we gonna call this guy? Doctor Octopus. That's crap. Science squid? Crap. Doctor Strange. That's pretty good. But it's taken. Wait, wait, I got it. Doctor Octopus. Julia, Maddie and Anya head to the diner and lay low. You mentioned this, Aaron, being crazy teenagers.

when Ezekiel is hunting them down. However, it is not just any diner, it is the four star diner, which is a nod to Marvel comics. During his college years, this was the location that Peter Parker used to frequent with his pals. And in the final scene of the film, when we see Cassie sport her Madden Webb costume, it takes heavy influence from Amazing Spider-Man, the animated series. Basically the same exact costume.

And it is so, at one point we get a closeup of her hand and it looks like a Halloween town costume. Like it's not even like form-fitting. It looks you can see like the stitching on the side. She's got these giant 1980s glasses. She's got red lipstick on. It's just it's wild stuff, everybody. Just don't see this movie period like we've told you. Don't blame us. If you go see it, just know that we tried to tell you not to go see it. So Aaron, final thoughts on Madame Webb. Bad, bad, bad.

It's bad, y'all. That's it. There's we're not going to keep bragging on this movie. It's not good, everybody. It's not even fine. It's not even fine. Out of five David Weiner's, Aaron, as everyone knows by now, David Weiner, our Lord and Savior, director, producer, filmmaker of In Search of Tomorrow, In Search of Darkness. We've had him on the show many a times. Aaron, what are you going to give out of five David Weiner's, Madam Webb? I can I give it no stars?

No, you have to give us you have to give it a star or five. Well, we don't do point fives or anything. We don't do we do. We do. OK, yeah, we do. Yeah, you do. You do point five if you want. I'm going to give it a point five. Since I can't give a zero, I'll give it a point five because that's the thing. I'm sorry. I'm just going to say it to go with my rating. My final thought is just I cannot find anything remotely. redeeming about this film. Sure, yeah.

We're not ones to like purposely rag on something if it's not good, we try to find the good in it. There are plenty of times in films, during reviews of films on the show that if there's some redeeming quality, we like to highlight it, but ultimately, this is not good everybody. And kind of speaking on Erin, I'm gonna give it a one. I'm gonna give it one David A. Weiner. And only because of Sydney Sweeney. Like her and my attraction to her.

That's the beginning and end of what I, and you know what, actually Dakota Johnson is, she's very attractive herself. All right, what, point five for Adam Scott then. Okay, there you go. Yeah, point five for Adam, yeah, I'll give it a one for the inclusion of Dakota Johnson, Sidney Sweeney and Adam Scott. Yeah, and you know what? When you include Uncle Ben and Mary in this universe, in this movie, in this story, that just makes your universe seem so fucking small. I hate when they do that.

I hate when you bring in a character who has nothing to do with the mythos or, or I won't say with the mythos, but has nothing to do with the actual story and just include them because audiences will know who that is. It makes your universe seem small. Like New York is a big city. There's no reason why Cassie and Ben need to know each other. And not to mention part of the allure of Spider-Man is the fact that he is just a normal person.

He is just a normal kid who accidentally gets bit by a spider and becomes Spider-Man. Like that's his whole thing. With great power comes great responsibility. So to like tie in all of this like mythology and all of this like predetermined you know, whatever, it just makes it more boring. I don't know, again, one star, 0.5 from Aaron. That'll do it from Adam Webb, everybody. Let's get into a segment that I actually enjoy. It's one that I've been missing here. We haven't done it in quite a while.

It is Aaron's Arcade. It's time for Aaron's Arcade. What's up? Welcome to Aaron's Arcade. Aaron's Arcade is sponsored by G Fuel. Whether you're a casual gamer, a content creator, an everyday Joe or an e-sports pro, G Fuel sugar-free antioxidant and vitamin-fortified focus enhancing and high-performance energy products will give you the edge you need to fuel your grind. While stocking up at gfuel.com, use your code OBP at checkout for 10% off your entire order.

Once again, use our code OBP at checkout for 10% off your entire order. And today's Aaron's Arcade is about a glorious television show from the early 90s that I didn't know that I needed. I walked into my local comic shop this week and I was like, what's that? And I saw in their case this amazing box set, this DVD box set of the show Viper. And if you don't know what Viper is, just go and Google a Dodge Viper. This is a show that's built around... that particular car.

Let me read you the synopsis real quick because it sounds crazy. Like just think of Knight Rider, but not a smart car nor a fuel efficient one, okay? It prowls the streets in the pursuit of justice. Its origins are secret. Its technology, 21st century. Its existence, officially disavowed. Its presence, undeniable. The perfect weapon for an imperfect future. Viper!

The action adventure TV series Viper follows a special task force set up by the federal government to fight crime in Metro City, California. Perpetually under siege from one crime wave after another, the Viper team relies on the Defender, an assault vehicle that masquerades as a Dodge Viper, RT-10, Roadster, and coupe. So basically they take the same kind of idea of Knight Rider. They find a guy who has no memory. They basically... give them, you know, new identity. They put them in this car.

This car is amazing. It's got like active camouflage. It's got a little drone that comes out of the roof and that's really about it. But it's still really cool. It's still a fucking cool TV show. And it's just, it actually had a co, it was so like, I mean, it was only four seasons, but it was successful enough to actually have a spinoff called Manta, which is about a guy in a wheelchair who creates almost an Iron Man like suit and fights crime.

So this was like, 1994, I would say 1994, where it was a very interesting era for action TV and what we were seeing, you know, Hercules, legendary continues. The legend continues, excuse me, was a very popular show along with, you know, Xena. So you had those older, like those shows. And then you had like futuristic ones like Viper and Seaquest and the Invisible Man. And these shows were almost so like realistic, like surreal, but at the same time had a nice little twist.

And Viper was really cool because it was really, it came out about around the same time that the car came out and they created an entire almost lore behind this unnecessarily powerful car. And it's just a cool show.

Like it's again, if you like Knight Rider, if you like, um, just like science fiction, if you like car chases, if you like crime shows, if you like you know, kind of, uh, you know, rogue, uh, CIA, rogue government agencies that go and fight crime in a specific city, because for some reason, uh, federal government needs to work in Metro city, you know, California, which none of it makes sense. It's just a really cool show for four seasons. Check it out.

Uh, keep looking back on our, on the oblivion bar podcast website. I am going to do probably a season by season run through of it for you guys. And I'm really excited because again, this was very much an impulse buy, which I'm guilty of all the time. and I'm so excited to watch it and bring it to you guys. So if you haven't heard of it, check it out. But up next is actually my favorite part of the show.

We haven't heard this segment in so long, but I love hearing my best friend talk about comics and stuff. Here comes Chris's corner. It's time for Chris's Corner.

All right, Chris's Corner is sponsored by the fantasy shop since 1981 the fantasy shop has been the best place to find comic books graphic novels board games role-playing games and card games in the greater st Louis area check them out at fancy shop online.com and make sure you stop by the next time you're in town The Punisher war zone volume 1 from 1992 written by Chuck Dixon and illustrated by John Romita Jr. Is my Chris's Corner pick this week Aaron.

We are both big Punisher fans, you know, we often will Try to defend him in his actions, even though we know he's Kind of a maniac, but he offers this kind of interesting parallel in the comic universe, whereas he's like the ultimate power fantasy. As someone who has been done wrong in the universe, having his family killed and also kind of taking crime into his own hands, there is often that idea of like, why don't superheroes just kill their villains?

Like truly if they want to stop crime, why don't they just kill their villains? And of course there's a lot of ethical and moral issues there in terms of like what Frank is doing. You can't deny that a lot of times Frank and his mission is at least effective, right?

And in war zone from 1992, Chuck Dixon, who is mostly known for his work over on Batman over at DC comes over to Marvel and writes this story war zone, which some people may remember from the, um, the movie from the two thousands starring the late great Ray Stevenson.

We miss Ray Stevenson and his, you know, his, uh, portrayal of Frank from back in the day, uh, criminally overlooked, I would say even in that movie, but Frank castles war on crime as the Punisher turns the Marvel universe into a war zone who is shotgun and can Frank infiltrate the Carbone family from within as posing as a simplistic cousin of Mickey Fondanzi.

So in this story essentially what happens is that at the beginning Frank is kind of just going about his day as the Punisher and kind of taking on crime and he gets in this giant argument with Micro and him and Micro essentially break up in this in the very beginning of this issue of this storyline and that basically just means that to fight the Carbone family. And what he essentially, what he does is he kind of portrays as like this kind of like dumb cousin to a low level criminal.

Again, Mickey in the story is this kind of like low level criminal in the Carbone family. Basically what he does is he threatens Mickey that if he doesn't help him out, he will kill him. And Mickey agrees and he becomes, there's this cool dynamic between Mickey and Frank throughout the entire story because Frank is.

partnering up with this villain who he's fought multiple times in the comics and they have to like go up the food chain and kill all these big ranking, you know, lieutenants in this crime family.

And I mentioned shotgun in here as well, which shotgun is a really cool, you know, speaking of Carl Weathers, I feel like if they had ever made a Punisher adaptation of this in the nineties, I could totally see Carl Weathers playing shotgun because shotgun is basically just like an African American version of Punisher. Like he is. Shotgun is actually a previous platoon member in. in war with, in the army with Frank from back in the day.

And throughout the book, you're often, we're cutting back to shotgun and we're thinking that shotgun is actually to go after Frank, but you find out that shotgun is actually there to help Frank. So it's really cool. John Romita Jr. I'm not like his biggest fan, but he's really great in this. I think his work really lives best in like the eighties and nineties. And I think this is just, uh, it's a fun book. It's kind of over the top and that's Punisher, man. You love it.

So once again, that's Punisher Warzone, volume one, 1992. Warzone has continued on, like it's kind of become its own title. So you'll see that there are multiple versions of Warzone throughout time. So yeah, Punisher Warzone, that'll be Chris's corner and Aaron, that'll do it for episode 145 of the Oblivion Bar podcast. We got through Madame Webb and we're better, I think we're better people. We've all grown, right? I'm still healing. We're talking, we talked our feelings out.

Yeah, I got some things I gotta work through. Yeah, well next week on the show Aaron we got a little bit lighter of an episode We're bringing in Tyler crook who is an amazing artist, but also a really great writer as well He currently just finished up the lonesome hunters the wolf child over at dark horse comics and we sat down with him to talk about Lonesome hunters love tyler.

He's one of my favorite artists in the game right now So when dark horse reached out to us to talk to tyler I jumped at that opportunity and i'm really excited for everyone to listen to that conversation. So That'll do for episode 145. Aaron take us out of here Subscribe to our podcast, Apple podcast, Spotify, YouTube, Audible, iHeartRadio, wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts, that's where we are.

Thank you to our patrons, Alex, Alice, Aaron, Cassidy, Christy, David, George, Greg from First Digi Club, Haley, Ham6, Bodder from the Short Box, Jake from Spektales, Jake S, Jason, Jeremy Kyle, Losey, Mac, Miles, Mike, Robert, Travis, and Brad and Lisa from Comic Book Couples Counseling. Whew. Follow us on social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Blue Sky, and Threads. at oblivion bar pod. Thank you Omnibus for sponsoring the show.

Use the link in our show notes to upgrade how you read comic books digitally. It's bitchin official merch of the show and art can be found on our website, obli That shit is awesome. Thank you Kevin Siegler for all of our oblivion bar art. He's at the ZigZone on Instagram. Thank you. Dream Kit for all of our musical themes. Thank you DJ Skyvac for our grid theme. Thank you fantasy shop for sponsoring the show.

And last but not least, do not forget to tip your bartenders 20% or more or your teeth might fall out. You suck as bad as Madam Webb. And that's a fact, Jack. Ooh, damn, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. Burned. All right, everybody, that'll do it for episode 145. Thank you so much for joining us here on the Oblivion Bar podcast. We will see you next week for episode 146.