Excuse the Intermission
Alex and Max take you on a journey through film with this discussion podcast about movies.
Excuse the Intermission
Deadpool & Wolverine + the Future of the MCU
What if the superhero genre isn't dead but just in need of a radical reboot? Join us for an in-depth breakdown of "Deadpool and Wolverine," the highest-grossing R-rated film ever, and its seismic impact on the Marvel Cinematic Universe. We'll navigate the complexities of integrating 20th Century Fox characters into the MCU, offering fresh perspectives amidst the so-called superhero fatigue. Alex chimes in with some outsider wisdom on why timing and innovation are crucial for reviving interest in the genre.
We also tackle the current state of the movie industry, from the struggles of smaller theaters to the communal joy of watching blockbuster titans like "Avengers: Endgame." Debating the mixed reactions to Robert Downey Jr.'s MCU return, we question the missed opportunities for new talent in iconic roles. Plus, we provide a unique breakdown of the "Deadpool and Wolverine" universe, setting it apart from the primary MCU timeline.
Our conversation continues with a critique of the MCU's narrative evolution, especially its reliance on fan service and nostalgia. We compare this to the cohesive storytelling of earlier phases and discuss the challenges of creative control in a multiverse saga. Wrapping up, we share insights on the juxtaposition of fast-paced superhero films with the slow, introspective narratives of movies like "The Beast," and drop hints about our upcoming episode on M. Night Shyamalan's filmography. Whether you're a die-hard Marvel fan or just curious about the future of superhero cinema, this episode has something for you.
welcome to a chatter network production. I'm max fosberg and I'm alex mccauley, and this is, excuse, the air mission, a discussion show about marvel jesus. This week, alex and I review the monster box office hit that is deadpool and wol Wolverine and dive into a conversation about the bigger picture surrounding the Marvel Cinematic Universe. So grab your chimichangas and prepare for maximum effort on the other side of this break. This episode is brought to you by the Seattle Film Society. The Seattle Film Society is a filmmaker-run project dedicated to organizing, cultivating and celebrating the region's filmmaking community Through screenings, educational opportunities and community initiatives. Seattle Film Society strives to be a centralizing force for Seattle-area filmmakers.
Speaker 2:Their monthly screening event, Locals Only, is held at 18th and Union in Seattle's Central District and spotlights local voices in independent filmmaking.
Speaker 1:tickets start at ten dollars and are available at seattlefilmsocietycom to keep up with the seattle film society, be sure to check them out on instagram or letterbox at seattle film society or on their website seattlefilmsocietycom come be a part of the next generation of seattle filmmaking today alex how you doing today. Uh, we are here again in the studio. I have commandeered the uh host, the intro ship.
Speaker 2:You dug up all 270 of my bones and I around. Yeah, you put the claws on. You did it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, how are you doing here again on a Tuesday? Yeah, this has been kind of a fun morning.
Speaker 2:We're coming off a great lunch down in one of our favorite spots here in Tacoma Shout out to the church cantina. I usually don't leave the house on Tuesdays unless for like an early movie, so that was kind of fun to get out. It's been a little rainy here in the Pacific Northwest, so kind of odd summer weather, which has also made me feel more reclusive. But getting out and seeing this movie, of course, was the thing to do this weekend, so I'm excited to talk about it and to kind of be second chair today.
Speaker 1:This is not my area of expertise as the listeners know.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's going to bring a really great insight to things and, like you know, I'm not going to sit over here and just monologue at you, except for this next part. But yeah, I, I I've been really excited about this, that that we're covering this movie, because usually we don't cover marvel movies or really like superhero genre pictures on this on this uh podcast, but because this is such kind of an interesting time for this movie to come out and listen. It is gigantic. Uh, at the box office, which is always good for theaters.
Speaker 2:It is yeah, I yeah, I mean it's record setting. It's good for this is weird to say it's good for R rated films to produce like this at the box office. I think this is now the most successful R rated film ever.
Speaker 1:Yeah, um, which I believe it was Joker before it was I think it was.
Speaker 2:It was one of the it films, okay, and then I think Joker, and now this yeah, so I wonder if Joker 2 will snatch you back it won't, it won't. This movie is a behemoth.
Speaker 1:So the movie, of course, that we're talking about is Deadpool and Wolverine, is the newest entry into the MCU and has had a gigantic opening weekend clocking in over $211 million domestically and another two worldwide. $211 million domestically and another two worldwide, so it's definitely already a half a billion there worldwide and could definitely eclipse half a billion domestically here in the States by the time it leaves theaters. This is also an interesting movie because it is officially the beginning of crossing the comic book characters that were owned and handled by 20th Century Fox for the past 20 years into the MCU, which Fox was bought by Disney a couple years ago, I believe. And this movie comes at a time when the MCU is pretty much at the lowest of its low. In its short lifespan Seems that superhero fatigue has caught up with Marvel.
Speaker 1:Last November, marvel delayed two movies that were supposed to come out in 2024 to 2025, meaning this is the first time Marvel has released only one movie in over a decade, and that was the Avengers in 2012, which, of course, was a, you know, big event team up movie that they had been building to since 2008,. The new multiverse saga, which is the MCU that we are in now, after leaving the infinity saga, which crescendoed with Avengers end game, started in 2021. It wasn't eternals, no multiverse. It started in 2021 and has seen 10 movies, nine live-action TV shows and two animated series in just three and a half years. That output has been prolific, but the results have been mixed at best. If all of this wasn't enough, some huge MCU God, I'm going to get tired of saying that. Mcu news was dropped this weekend at San Diego Comic-Con. That is a ton to unpack. But first, alex, what did you think of Deadpool and Wolverine?
Speaker 2:Well, I think that it came at the right time. We'll start there. Yeah, because the fatigue was felt, I think, across the cinematic landscape, by not only those of us outside of this demographic, but really everybody within.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I know Guardians of the Galaxy, volume 3, had its fans and its supporters.
Speaker 2:But again kind of a swan song right Again, yes, a send-off type of film that I think for the legacy purposes you were going to get audiences out to see that film regardless. But the numbers you just listed off, all the animated stuff, the TV shows, the movies that were, to a varying degree, less and less successful, I think of like one, one of the only mcu mcu movies I've ever seen is black widow and I'm like, why did I spend two hours of my life watching black widow during the pandemic? But again, there it is. It's because there was nothing else to do.
Speaker 1:I suppose it's crazy to see 10 movies that have been released in the past three and a half years. I I'm kind of I'm pretty plugged in because I I really like the behind the scenes stuff of this mcu thing. But like I, I don't think I could name the 10 movies that have come out in the past three and a half years yeah, I mean, let's just it's.
Speaker 2:It's black widow, it's etern, it's Black Widow, it's Eternals, it's Shang-Chi.
Speaker 1:Black Panther 2. It's Black.
Speaker 2:Panther 2. Gosh, that's five, so we've done half of them, half of them off the top of our head I guess isn't bad.
Speaker 2:But again, like if you're going to do this exercise again once, like phase six really starts hitting and you talk about this, this turning of the page. You're going to be like it started with Deadpool and Wolverine and people are going to remember that because they finally did MCU, kevin Feige, all the people, disney. They did the right thing by not convoluting the release schedule with a spring release, a TV show that's going to bridge the gap and make you got to watch this so that you can enjoy the thing that we're going to release in the summer. No, you just can go to the movies at the end of July to watch this big blockbuster action movie. And really I mean, like I rewatched the first Deadpool before going to this.
Speaker 2:I saw a lot of people logging that and the sequel on Letterboxd, a couple of people revisiting Logan, some other Wolverine things, but you don't really have to do that. This movie is, of course, going to give you tons of exposition and get you caught up, regardless of kind of where your footing is in these movies. So it did all that stuff right. It just came out at the right time.
Speaker 2:It waited for, kind of like that, that iso at the top of the key where it's just like give me the rock and I'm going right down the paint, nothing's in my way. So it has that going for it. And then I mean it had to have been planned right. But all the comic-con stuff just like allowed for marvel to basically hijack the spotlight away from twisters, hold it for themselves. And now like, yes, you and I and some other weirdos out there are really excited for trap and, yeah, cuckoo and alien romulus and like I, like I literally cannot wait to get back to those movies it feels like long legs was so long ago now, all of a sudden.
Speaker 2:But this is going to be Marvel and Deadpool and Wolverine. That's what you're going to see in the news at the top of the box office. You're going to hear about the records that it continues to break for the next month, until the end of summer, basically.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, I also did not, I did not answer your question as far as like, did I like the movie?
Speaker 2:Because I guess I'll just start with that I like what the movie did. You know we've talked about 2024 being the year of so many different things legacy, sequels, a banner year for horror films, a fantastic year for just film marketing, huge win.
Speaker 1:And I didn't realize that this movie was slated for the same weekend as Comic-Con, and I don't know if Marvel has done that before, but what a brilliant way to do that and really match Also, I think, comic-con. I've also heard that Comic-Con the last couple of years has been pretty lackluster and of course so now Marvel having this big release. And then also we teased it already the huge news that Robert Downey Jr, who is probably one of our great actors.
Speaker 2:I mean, he's literally coming off a supporting actor, win yeah.
Speaker 1:He's been nominated for Oscars before. I was so excited when he got out of the MCU. He has been announced that he will be returning to play Doctor Doom, which is going to be this next big villain, apparently, that we're supposed to be excited about. I mean, and we can, we'll get into Deadpool, wolverine, but just to get this out of the way, what a sellout.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I find it so weak, just like really selfish. It continues to hammer home this idea that at the highest levels in Hollywood, there's just less and less creativity. There's just less and less creativity, like I keep using this term creatively bankrupt, where we're just kicking the tires on the same people, the same stories, the same motifs, over and over and over again, and it's across genres. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that, like comedies are in a great place. Sure, I think that horror is in a pretty good place, and yet there's so much pastiche going on and, you know, homage to things that have come before. And like you can still get an original movie like long legs is an original screenplay. Right, guess what if you didn't fuck with long legs?
Speaker 2:I hope you're having fun with deadpool and wolverine, because this is what if you're not like, if you're not going to go out and support what is an original screenplay, right, like, yes, it's pulled from Silence of the Lambs and all these other crime thrillers and tons of homage to the 90s and stuff Any movie is so much right, but there's two sides of the coin.
Speaker 2:Like there's the Marvel, ip, tentpole universe and then there's original filmmaking whole universe and then there's original filmmaking and one of those is far more important to the success of the box office and hollywood and movie making and it's not the one that we would like to see.
Speaker 2:Like I wish that celine song got paid and past lives made 200 million dollars at the box office, but like that's not the world we live in.
Speaker 2:So like when those movies come out, or when something like long legs comes out, or even Maxine some of these films are out there Like it's so important to go out and support them because that's going to let people who program theaters know that there's still a market for that stuff, and not just Deadpool and Wolverine or twisters to a lesser extent, or Disney, pixar, animated films. And now we'll get into like, like we'll, we'll kind of circle back, but then still there's a bigger discussion to be had about, like what movies like this can do for theaters and especially struggling movie theaters. And we're seeing theaters close left and right, not only around this part of the country but I'm sure, all over the United States. Yeah, and so like these are the movies that are important. Hollywood making comic-con happen and blow up social media and start to get people excited for what's going to happen in 2025 and 2026 is good for movie theaters because those movies are going to do great. Like isn't the word like Avengers back in the title of some of these films?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's so it's yeah. They announced two Avenger movies.
Speaker 2:I'm surprised they're not selling tickets already.
Speaker 1:Avengers doomsday. See yeah, and Avengers secret wars, yeah, um so it's ridiculous, it's, it's not.
Speaker 2:It went away for a little bit and things were good, but again, like the box office wasn't great. And so, as a movie lover and as somebody who wants to be able to keep going to the movies, to watch movies like it's less, I'm less optimistic that smaller theaters will still be able to stay in business if they don't choose to show movies like this. So, like, keep making them. They're just not for me and that's okay.
Speaker 2:I do my part by going out and seeing the films that I want to in the theaters and then trying to convince people that like no, they're still merit behind these movies. Like go out and see them and, if not, wait to watch them at home. But I'm never going to sit there and tell somebody like you're a sellout for going out and supporting the mouse. And like just wait and watch this on disney plus or wait and do this. Or like these movies are bad or whatever. Because like no, like they're, these movies are totally fine and they do what they're supposed to do. And like do I laugh at the jokes? And I'm no. Do I even really engage in them? Like no, I don't. Like I counted I've seen this is now the seventh mcu marvel movie. Not marvel movie, because I've seen the spider-mans and stuff like that, whatever. But like from the mcu deadpool, wolverine, I think is the seventh movie I've seen yeah and yeah, it's, it's I.
Speaker 1:I have very complicated feelings because growing up really into marvel comics was a comic book collector, loved, worked at a movie theater when iron man came, when the whole machine started, was very in, very in the you know, all the way up, probably until Endgame. I remember I went and saw Endgame. I was like working up north and like it was like midnight and instead of coming home and sleeping I went and saw it by myself in a theater, you know, packed full of people.
Speaker 2:Well, and again we want to. You know we read books or you listen to roger d bird on old episodes.
Speaker 2:Talk about like seeing star wars in a movie theater totally in a movie theater and people freaking out and losing their mind and having this amazing communal experience like as much as I wish that would happen while I'm, you know, in the theater watching the first omen that's. It's not the case like. But you will get that at avengers endgame. You will get that at deadpool and wolverine, where people cheer when certain actors come on the screen when the credits begin, you will get applause right yeah, but yeah, I just find it.
Speaker 1:you know, since, since that moment, since that endgame moment, that like marvel has really like obviously they, they started pumping out a lot of stuff, it all wasn't very good. Blah, blah blah. I definitely fell off the wagon a bit, um, but now to to revert back and to take Robert Downey Jr Away from us again for the next, I mean, and but also like such a kind of a weird move by him. Like you just won an oscar, like you talked so much shit when you left the first time and was like I'm gonna go make real movies now I'm I'm burnt out.
Speaker 1:I'm so excited I would say good for him to do the craft double cross right, but and now like, and now you're just back in the MCU, it just feels extremely desperate.
Speaker 2:Do you think he's made? No, I shouldn't go there. Is he bad at money?
Speaker 1:I can't imagine what they backed up to his fucking driveway the size of the truck. Yeah, with the money, I mean he might be getting paid like 80 million.
Speaker 2:That's the number I read.
Speaker 1:That's 80 million. I've read. That's the number I read. That's insane.
Speaker 2:But he's made reportedly over 500 million for playing Iron man.
Speaker 1:So like why? Why do we have to do this? I thought you were an artist, an actor, like go win three more Oscars.
Speaker 2:Yeah, go see what the Safdies are up to. Go do something other than this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that was very disheartening over the weekend.
Speaker 2:Well, and not only that too, but like not that, like doomsday is a character that I have any close tie to, but, like you know, it's not going to help pull in any new fans. Is like you'll, you'll entertain the people who you already have in your corner and there's plenty of them, so listen to them.
Speaker 2:Don't listen to me on this, but I'm just saying you're not going to pull in any new fans by doing this. You're just going to get the side eye. Folks are going to move along. If this would have been Ewan McGregor, if this would have been Nicolas. Cage. If this would have been Nicolas Colster-Waldau. If this would have been Nicholas Colster Waldo. If this would have been. Killian Murphy, if this would have been somebody else who's like 10 years, 15 years younger than.
Speaker 1:Robert Downey Jr.
Speaker 2:And who you could see like this being their late career renaissance. Not that like somebody like Killian needs it, but like when Robert Downey Jr took over Iron man, it set him up for the next 15 years. Like do that was give somebody else a shot at that.
Speaker 1:Couldn't find anyone else, Anyone else out there so we both went and saw Deadpool and Wolverine. Yes, what we've kind of been doing with these reviews is the where, the who, the how and the what. So the where is you know? You, you're gonna have to tell me where this movie took place so we start out in deadpool's universe, which is our universe, well, no. So 616 is the sacred timeline, okay, which is the mcu proper universe. So that's like where Iron man, captain America, the Hulk, the Avengers, all that.
Speaker 2:But that's also the same universe that, like Deadpool 1, takes place in right.
Speaker 1:No Deadpool, oh okay, here we go, see okay so it's really confusing, because Deadpool was owned by Fox right and so Disney wasn't allowed to use it, didn't have the rights to that character, so they could never use that character and along with the mutants, fantastic for all of that stuff. So that all took place. Now what they're saying is in an alternate universe, which I think they called the one zero, zero, zero, zero five universe or something like that.
Speaker 2:Our universe that is deadpool's universe from, like the first movie, from the first movie, which is our first movie, the second movie, which is our universe, because he's making pop cultural references to things that we know.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I guess it's a version of our universe.
Speaker 2:Where superheroes exist.
Speaker 1:It depends on what universe you want to live in. Do you want to live in the Fox universe, or do you want to live in the MCU universe, fox, okay, so yeah, then it's our universe. Yes, yeah, and so that's where this movie starts. And then I, I don't. I, I'm really interested to know if, like, how confused were you when those tva agents showed up because that's from a marvel tv show.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's from the Loki TV show. Go for two guys.
Speaker 1:And they are the keepers or the protectors of the timelines of the different universes.
Speaker 2:So they exist somewhere, the universes that look like the scalp massagers, right, yes, yeah, very interesting way to diagram a universe.
Speaker 1:I know right, it's a straight line.
Speaker 2:It's like flat earth kind of. Yeah, a little bit. There's a flat earther joke in this movie that did not land, but I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:So Deadpool is pulled in and is told that in his universe that there's always an anchor character, and once that anchor character dies, dies, then the universe begins to die as well. Of course that anchor character is much to much to deadpool's chagrin.
Speaker 1:Yes, not, it's not deadpool himself which, of course uh, it is logan wolverine, played by hugh jackman, who, of course, in the movie logan, which also is like a, takes place, takes place in Deadpool's universe, but like in the far future, so there's some time difference there as well, but he has died in his movie Logan, and I don't know. I think you saw Logan.
Speaker 2:I've seen Logan. That's not MCU, though, right.
Speaker 1:It's not Well. I mean, technically it is now yeah, but yeah. So Logan has died, so the universe is dying. So Deadpool is offered the choice to join the 616 sacred timeline, which is the Marvel Cinematic Universe, or die in his own universe, whatever. So then he goes on a mission to find a wolverine and then they decide to team up and take down the tva. Once they decide to do that, the tva then banishes them to this place called the void, which, again, this is all very meta because, like the void now is some like desert, that house a bunch of forgotten heroes, or here is just trying to be mad max it is trying even a joke about how like this is ip infringement totally well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, deadpool has that whole moment where he's like I hold furiosa's head, yeah, um, so yeah which I'm like is this too?
Speaker 2:this is feels way too soon. Way too soon parodying this, yeah timely.
Speaker 1:It must have been in the reshoots, uh, but yeah, so in the void, which again is just some weird place, he teams up with forgotten superheroes or superheroes from fox properties that you know didn't have. I think the whole idea is like oh, that didn't have. I think the whole idea is like oh, we didn't get to finish our story.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So you have Wesley Snipes as Blade show up, which was kind of exciting when he walked on screen. Jennifer Garner as Elektra, which I've never seen. That movie, oh, I don't know if 10 people have ever seen that movie. I'm one of them. Okay, there you go. I've never seen that movie. Oh, I don't know if 10 people have ever seen that movie.
Speaker 2:I'm one of them. Okay, there you go. Nothing that Jennifer Garner made from 2000 to 2006. I didn't miss any of it.
Speaker 1:And then I can't imagine what you thought of this. Channing Tatum shows up as Gambit.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It meant nothing to me, well, other than just like channing tatum's there.
Speaker 2:You know what I cared the most about, honestly, uh, and I'll let you keep going because you're cooking right now but I was like, hey, I had a juggernaut action figure. No, uh, gambit or juggernaut, juggernaut, yeah, yeah, I know my juggernaut.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's a great toy yeah, gambit as or chan tatum as. Gambit was a movie that was in production hell for years and years and years and then finally got nixed once disney bought fox, but apparently that has been like channing tatum's like dream project to do. Um, which is odd, because gambit it just looks so weird on screen and like the goofy louisiana accent, like it was all just played for jokes. I wonder if it was gonna be a comedy that way he was trying to make I don't know um, and and daphne keen from logan uh, who of course is x23 from that movie.
Speaker 2:Uh, and they and then chris, one of the chris's oh and yeah. Okay, so yeah.
Speaker 1:And chris evan, yeah evans shows up and you think, of course he's going to be captain america. He then yells flame on and it's revealed that he is johnny storm from the 2005 which was fantastic for perfectly fine.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed that yeah, so.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of the where and kind of the who. They they fight, and they fight against villains from past movies as well. As you said, a version of jugger juggernaut even though there's been like three different juggernauts, I think this was a new actor playing. It wasn't vinnie jones from x-men last Stand, and it wasn't whoever played him in Deadpool 2. And Toad was there and Pyro Like Toad with the long tongue.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And the devil guy from X-Men First Class, and they are all working for or controlled by Cassandra Nova, who I guess is Xavier's's twin sister which I don't even know that lore, so very confusing. Um, so of course they battle in there. Then they get back to the deadpool universe and take down the tva and everything is saved. At some point also, a bunch of other deadpools show up. Because I gotta happen, I guess.
Speaker 2:I guess there's a bunch of other deadpools show up because I gotta happen, I guess I guess there's a bunch of other deadpool universes, different wolverines, there's a bunch of different spider-mans yeah yeah, so, um, so that is kind of I mean, that is a terrible summary of the movie, but it is kind of the movie in a nutshell.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I listen, I, I, I loved. I I'll start with the good. Hugh jackman is the best thing ever to come out of superhero movies. He really is a professional actor. He brings real emotion and gravitas to any role he does. He is really honestly so amazing as Wolverine, I was going to say he's perfectly cast. Perfectly cast.
Speaker 2:He has bookmarked this for a future episode too, because we've started talking about how, like when an actor is just like, there's certain actors that are born to play certain roles. Hugh Jackman, you could say, is as great of actor as he is in something like Prisoners and you look back across the filmography super accomplished Les Mis. But he was born to be Wolverine.
Speaker 1:Which is insane, because he originally was not going to be Wolverine. They originally hired Duggery Scott, the villain from Mission Impossible 2.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Scott from the villain from Mission Impossible 2. Okay, and right before the filming began, duggery got hurt doing a stunt on Mission Impossible 2 which led to him being let go for the role and then bringing in Jackman. Uh, with like three weeks, I think they had already shot like three weeks of principal photography. Um, so very like uh sliding doors.
Speaker 1:Sliding doors right um and so because jackman now has played wolverine, I think, in nine or ten movies, uh, whether it's a full role or a cameo, he's usually been the best part of those movies best part of those movies.
Speaker 1:So he's been doing it. He's been doing it for 24 years now, um, so I I think the best thing about this movie is that hugh jackman is in here and again he is very convincingly a different wolverine than the one that we know that died in logan. Right, right, yeah, he's pissed off, yeah, he's drunk and like he. Just he does have a different demeanor and like there's a whole different backstory, which is also really. But again, there's odd choices throughout this movie. The fact that they just talk about what happened to his universe or in his universe and they never show it, I thought was really, really strange, um, and like I.
Speaker 2:You could have sean levy's like there's not enough cgi for that.
Speaker 1:Oh my god, sean levy, so yeah, so that's the best thing about this movie. There's a lot of bad uh-huh the exposition dumps yeah I mean the whole first, like 40 minutes is pretty much exposition after exposition, after exposition where it's.
Speaker 2:It's a lot of. It is not only setting up for this movie but, like just in case, this is your first marvel movie your first deadpool right here's everything you need to know, which, like when you watch the first deadpool movie, it's so awesome because you don't get any of that.
Speaker 2:You don't need any of that. It's the introduction to a new character. So I understand that when you're making the third film in a franchise you have to hold people's hand a little bit. But like this just went so far in the opposite direction of kind of what made the Deadpool movies fun and appealing, as like this counterculture movement to comic book films, where this just began to feel like everything that I loathe.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, and and I think a lot of that messiness has to do with now Disney owning these characters and they have to integrate them into their already built universe and so, like that just ruins a lot of the fun, especially when the story is being told in a way that you can tell Disney's uncomfortable with so like.
Speaker 2:The humor in this movie was just like so like inappropriately pervasive and nonstop in a way that, like the first Deadpool movies, feel a little bit more punk than this one, whereas this one just feels like it's just, it's so try hard.
Speaker 1:Well, and even the look of it right, I think the cinematography is is some of the worst cinematography I've seen in a big blockbuster in a long time. Like there's nothing creatively shot about this movie there's, it is. It is all very flat. No-transcript. It is all very flat. It's all very saturated. It is. It is what Marvel has become to be known as like it looks. It looks like shit and it looks like green screen and it looks like you are on a soundstage.
Speaker 2:And and. At the same time, it looks really cool if you're like a 14-year-old boy.
Speaker 1:Listen, if I'm 12 right now, this is probably my favorite movie of all time.
Speaker 2:Oh, 100%, it is. Because that's where the quote-unquote creativity is. It's in these action set pieces that you and I can watch and say this looks like trash, right, but even just that opening sequence where whether, whether or not in sync holds any value, so strange yeah.
Speaker 1:A lot of music cues from the 90s.
Speaker 2:Which I feel like is that's direct. Yeah, that's to us. At us, that's nostalgia bait for people who are like 28 to 40 years old.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And again, I'm sure that's probably that's your like, key demo for this film is, you know, mostly men, but like young people ages 25 to 40. So you got to do that, I guess, but at the same time, like you think, we're not really showing up for that.
Speaker 2:We're showing up for what we've come to like and appreciate from like really good superhero movies like x-men, first class or logan, or like how refreshing the first deadpool movie felt. And so then, when you just kind of like pull the rug out from under us the moment we get in the theater, like that just sucks, like that's.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the feeling I have while watching this movie, just like this sucks yeah, and you know, I also wasn't expecting this movie to kind of be a a huge send-off for the fox, right, it's really trying to to honor the fox, uh, characters and legacy that those movies were. So, again, kind of a weird choice to do all these nineties references when, like, those movies took place in the two thousands to the 2010s.
Speaker 2:And even throwing it back further to like there's like planning to the apes references where, like the statue of Liberty, instead of the statue of Liberty being covered by sand, it's it's the 20th century Fox logo and I'm just like who's that for?
Speaker 2:that was another, that was just like one of the big questions that I had throughout this entire movie. It's just like I know when you want me to laugh, I know when you want me to be excited by the kills, I know when you want me to try to be emotionally invested, but like I'm just not and again, no knock against anybody who was but I'm just kind of like who's, who's this for? Like how I don't know it's, it's a bigger, more existential question, but just like, how do people get to the point in their movie, going patterns to where this is what you can consume like 30 times in a row? Because this just felt like how I, even though I've never seen an Avengers movie this is how I imagine an Avengers movie would feel, but with like less. With like less thrill behind it, where, like, I'm not thrilled by anything that I see in this film.
Speaker 2:Like I understand if you watched all the Avengers movies or whatever, all the superhero movies leading up to Avengers, and then you're finally getting this like culminating big showdown with Thanos, and like that's going to, that's just like going to mean a lot. Yeah, you know, because it's a, it's a narrative story and there was a vision behind it and everything else. But, like in this case, I'm like no, this movie didn't exist, like probably three years ago, and so you've just like manufactured all this and it just had that really. It just had that feeling of being really just like manufactured and like built in a lab.
Speaker 1:Well, and I think that's been the biggest problem with the MCU, right, that first saga that they did had a narrative story all the way through and led to something when now, because they've decided to do this, multiverse and so much fan-fic fucking baiting. Yeah, fucking baiting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I just feel like there's they're kind of grasping at straws and once something is, I guess, deemed popular or is accepted by the culture, then that's what they will decide to run with. Yeah, Kind of where. Like, where does Loki come from Thor's universe? Yes, so, like, at some point there was a discussion in a boardroom where it was like to continue this story. We're gonna focus on loki, but we're gonna take it to television. There's gonna be an audience for it and we'll see what happens after that. And to some degree that worked, whereas, like, I think, if black widow and I'm, maybe there's gonna be a new black widow movie or a florence pew spinoff from that universe or something like that.
Speaker 2:So again, it's just kind of like we're gonna try to take these things that we think people liked and extrapolate onto them, because that's what we think will work next, like if shang chi would have made deadpool, wolverine numbers, we already would have gotten another shang chi movie. Yeah, now that. But do you see how? Like fucked up? That is because if you have another shang chi story to tell, just tell it, just tell it. Yeah, don't wait to see what the returns are on certain things, whereas, like, what do you do now? Because obviously this movie is a huge, huge, huge hit, but you've done this whole send-off thing well, well, and yet that, so that's.
Speaker 1:The other odd thing about this movie is that it doesn't even really integrate these characters into the new, into the new big MCU universe.
Speaker 1:It actually closes them off and kind of kind of felt like an end right, like an end for Deadpool, an end for again Logan, right, like an end for Deadpool, an end for again Logan, an end for all the Fox properties, because they do this whole montage thing during the credits with a bunch of behind the scenes stuff, which is also really awkward too, because it's just like there's a looming shadow over all those movies named Bryan Sinner.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, really really just an odd, odd movie, and I'm a little perplexed because I feel like, especially as someone who has somewhat kept up with these movies, I'm in the minority. As like this is, this is not good, like like we are, like there was a, there was a chance here to maybe course correct with the character deadpool and and like wipe the slate clean, and really they just kind of doubled down on everything, um, including, you know, and and again, fan service, fanfic, fan service, multi-universal variants. You know, the whole Robert Downey Jr thing is like is he Victor Von Doom as Dr Doom, or is he a variant of Tony Stark that is evil as Dr Doom? And it's just. I just don't understand why we're. It's like the machine is eating itself from the inside.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're just kind of like yes, we're circling the drain and yet, like there's enough momentum that comes with that to where you know he starts to shoot back up and we start to fill the sink a little bit higher and think that, okay, we can, if we can get this person back for another movie, if we can tell a story in this way that maybe feels unique a little bit, or if there's something here that we think works, yes, we'll double down on it, it, and I think that there's something maybe that you can commend with deadpool and wolverine for being like when it comes to the humor and like we're gonna break the fourth wall a bunch.
Speaker 2:Of course, we're gonna talk to the audience, we're gonna make jokes about mcguffins and tropes within the superhero genre and play with the idea that, like, superhero movies just are not original anymore and we'll we're just kind of going to unapologetically present that to you, which is what this movie does like. You can kind of commend it for that a little bit, because that is sort of what the deadpool movies have done all along. But yet I think it's the disneyfic, the Disney of vacation of this film is that like. But you know that there was a real serious attempt to make this like a shocking, thrilling, like exciting, fresh new thing that we hadn't really seen before, while also doing this thing at the same time.
Speaker 1:That is like making fun of itself, like it's self-aware, and yet it's also very it's also got at the very end like two guys holding on to like some reactor beams. Yeah, you know, trying to stop a bad guy, yeah, it's ending the world.
Speaker 2:It's really like again, it's what it's, it's fan service, it's what audiences want to see. But it also just feels like I don't want to say like condescending or anything like that, but like I just feel like as as an audience member, as an everyday movie goer who's not invested in this stuff, Like I'm just not. I just don't feel like my.
Speaker 2:I don't feel like my creative intelligence is being respected by the filmmakers at that point where I'm like you're not challenging me at all by showing me this stuff, Like I'm just like not invested in this and you're not going to get me invested by doing this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and unfortunately, I think you're always going to find that if you hire the director who made free guy, such things as free guy or real steel, uh, which is why he was brought in, because he is a favorite of the two lead- actors, people in your audience reacted all when we saw the cavalry uh, I I let out a oh, come on oh, you did.
Speaker 2:Okay a negative. Okay, a negative response.
Speaker 1:Um, but yeah, yeah, there were some.
Speaker 2:There were some like those are the moments I'm talking about where I'm just kind of like and again I'm like I'm not here to say that like that makes you a lesser movie connoisseur If, like, that's the kind of thing that excites you because the kind of thing that excites me is also pretty trivial and pretty stupid. Yeah, and that's like nick cage and a bunch of makeup right doing funny voices, and so, like I get it. We all have our different things that excite us, but I just, I don't know, maybe it's the response. I'm not like I hope I'm not coming off as sounding just like salty or bitter or anything like that when you look at this movie's results and what it's done, because again, I think that's fantastic. And this can kind of go into the conversation that we teased a little bit earlier about like, how these kinds of movies, regardless of how you feel about them, like, if you like movies, you should still be supportive of this venture.
Speaker 1:They're good.
Speaker 2:They're good for the economic state of the theater Absolutely, and State of the theater Absolutely, and so like. If by doing, by having Henry Cavill show up for literally 15 seconds in your film to play a variant of a Wolverine in another universe it's a fan, it's a fan service.
Speaker 1:Yep Fan cast it just like they did.
Speaker 2:People are going to hear about that and they're going to say I got to go see that just like they did with Krasinski, as reed richards in multiverse of madness.
Speaker 1:Uh, the doctor strange, the most recent doctor strange.
Speaker 2:Yes, thank you. I'm like what are you talking?
Speaker 1:sorry, almost the exact same move. Okay, uh, because again that was a very like fan casted, like wish and, and that I I understand listening to your audience, but like, at some point you can't let them drive. You know you still have to. I I wonder, you know it's almost like these marvel movies make movies. They don't make movies for the the artists that are making them, right like they make them. They just make movies for the artists that are making them right. They just make them for people on the internet and it's disheartening.
Speaker 2:And again, people on the internet.
Speaker 1:We like you, we love you. Yeah, of course, of course you are important to the movie machine, absolutely.
Speaker 2:But I understand what you were saying, and especially when somebody like Chloe Zhao decides to go and make the Eternals and maybe she had 100% creative control of that project, maybe she had 10%, who's to say.
Speaker 2:But like Chloe Zhao, I hope we get you back. Yeah, right, I want to see this Dracula movie that you want to make. I think I just saw something about casting for one of her new films and it's going to be like a period piece. So that's fantastic. But again, when you are taking independent directors and you're giving them a chance to get the bag and make some money, I hope that they are still getting to do what they want to do. Because look at something like Twisters and how Lee Isaac Chung is able to do. Because you look at something like twisters and how lee isaac chung is able to do it in the most like professional and exciting way possible with twisters, where he really shows off his skill, shows off his filmmaker tells you about him personally and also, just like, makes him a ton of money and and turns him into somebody who can just go out and make whatever he wants.
Speaker 2:Now, like, guess what this means this means sean levy can just go out and make whatever he wants. Now, like, guess what this means this means Sean Levy gets to go out and make whatever he wants. Now also, which is like which. I thought he already did that, but he'll continue to be like all right, ryan, what do you got? Hey, free guy too.
Speaker 1:So who says no? That's the other. Who in this movie is Ryan Reynolds, who, of course, back in 2015 or 2014, whatever, whenever that first Deadpool movie came out. So Ryan Reynolds has been connected to Deadpool, the character Deadpool, for a long time. He was in X-Men Wolverine Origins, which came out, I believe, in 2009, after the original X-Men trilogy had ended. It was a Wolverine spinoff movie. Deadpool is in that movie. Ryan Reynolds plays Deadpool. Of course, it's famous for being known as the bastardization of Deadpool. They sew his mouth shut. He turns into this weird zombie creature with swords coming out of his arms.
Speaker 2:I'm going to have to YouTube this. Yeah, what the heck. Yeah, you might take it Worried what I might do for my algorithm.
Speaker 1:So Ryan and you know there's even a little clip in the montage at the end of him being interviewed on that set being like Deadpool, has always been my favorite character. I've always really connected with him. And so Reynolds then goes to on to make Deadpool, deadpool two and now this movie, and he is very intricate into the making of these movies. Right, he's credited as a writer.
Speaker 1:I believe, on all three movies he puts up a lot of his own money to to get the picture made, at least for the first two, because those were much more of independent films than than what this is. And you know, quite frankly, he is kind of the perfect actor to play this character. Granted, it's almost like he kind of based his acting style off of deadpool before he became deadpool, because he has always just been like this quick-witted sarcastic sarcastic funny like too cool for for school kind of guy which he plays.
Speaker 1:I mean, he does that in every single one of his roles. I don't know if he's ever played anything other than Ryan Reynolds. Come on, brother.
Speaker 2:Come on, the Amityville horror remake. Okay, okay, yep, yeah, you're right, you're right, that's probably about it, because even in like Blade Trinity.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Shout out to Blade Trinity, but he is still playing like the high school quarterback with a sense of humor.
Speaker 1:Wisecracking sidekick. So, and again, I love Reynolds in this role, right, I think he is very charming. I think he is funny for the most part.
Speaker 2:You know not all jokes land, but I think he handles the material pretty well, listen, I'll put it this way If Reynolds wasn't good as Deadpool, this movie, in particular Deadpool and Wolverine, would be unwatchable.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:He's good in the role, if not lowercase letters, great. He's great as Deadpool, and that's what makes the movies work from just an entertainment. Deadpool, right, and that's what makes the movies work from just like an entertainment standpoint.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And again it feels like this is the end of that and who knows if we will ever see Reynolds again in the suit.
Speaker 2:I mean this is like we were talking about this off earlier. These are superhero moves. In 2024. You can never assume that someone's dead.
Speaker 1:It's like playing video games online.
Speaker 2:You can never assume that someone's not cheating like you can never assume that that not the script writers, not the directors, but that, like the studio heads at companies like dc and at marvel and if mickey mouse is pulling the puppet strings, all like whatever you can just never trust that they are going to honor the narrative integrity of killing off their characters right.
Speaker 1:Well, yeah, I mean there's even a joke throughout this movie where deadpool keeps telling wolverine you're gonna do this till you're 90, yeah. Or telling hugh jackman that yeah, um, yeah, uh, what? Uh, we kind of touched on it earlier. What'd you think of blade showing up?
Speaker 2:I mean again, all that stuff to me is just I'm not the target audience for it. I I I get it because those are the superhero movies, the shitty ones, if you want to call them that. That like I grew up less successful yeah, the less successful ones, but the ones that I like grew up renting and watching from video stores and like was a little bit of me, almost like are we getting we getting bricked up here? When's michael chiklis showing up?
Speaker 1:Where's my guy?
Speaker 2:Because you know, you just kind of started thinking about all those movies or whatever, so like that was fun. But, empty, right, but so empty. Did it do anything creatively for the story? No Like was it just? Is it just like again, just a quick little like consolation prize towards nostalgia.
Speaker 1:A hundred percent, yeah, just like again. Just a quick little like consolation prize towards nostalgia 100, yeah, and really actually kind of sad to see I feel like whenever wesley could sit, he was sitting. Yeah, yeah, that guy's, he's old yeah and that's another again. I guess it is really aimed at us because, like does a 19 year old know who wesley slight snipes is?
Speaker 2:let it like, let alone blade. Do old know who Wesley Snipes is?
Speaker 1:Let alone Blade, do they?
Speaker 2:know who Wesley Snipes is yeah, yeah. No, I don't think they're firing up New Jack City is not just like being reran on TNT.
Speaker 1:Yeah, someone would be like, oh no, he was in White Men Can't Jump or Can't Jump, whatever it's called, and he's like oh, the Jack Harlow movie.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sit down, yeah, or can jump, whatever it's called, and he's like oh, the jack harlow movie, yeah, yeah, sit down, yeah, so that I and again I know that that is. That is one of the reasons that is in the same ballpark as, like, the post-credit stingers. That is why people go to these movies is for the cameos, for the, the tease of something new, what, what's going to come next, who's going to show up, the fan casting of it all. And so again, like, does it have its place? And am I happy that it made other people excited 100%.
Speaker 1:Like wholeheartedly 100%.
Speaker 2:It's just not for me, dog.
Speaker 1:This is a safe space. Oh, people know how I feel about this stuff like.
Speaker 2:If you want me to tell you that, like it's crap and that this is just like the gutter and this kind of movie, these kind of movies suck like, I can tell you that if that's what you want to hear.
Speaker 2:And if you want to get mad at somebody, like sure I'm your guy, but I, I I am wholeheartedly saying that like these movies are important, yeah, and the fact that they make a ton of money and can keep struggling theaters.
Speaker 2:If arthouse, independent movie theaters choose to program a movie like this. And now you know, maybe you have one screen and you really want to show Thelma because your target demo is going to come out to Thelma for three weeks in a row, then show Thelma. But like, if you want to make some money and you have maybe two screens or three screens or you can show it at a six o'clock and a nine o'clock, you know window, then then do that. Like take advantage of when a movie like deadpool and wolverine comes out. If you are a smaller theater and I get it if you have and if you have like a critical integrity, if there's a board that determines these kinds of things and these sorts of decisions are just like not in your control as a programmer, then like I feel for you, dog, like I really do, because a movie like inside out too, I believe is now over 1.5 bill worldwide and it's like one of the top 10 most successful films of all time. I hope that some smaller theaters out there got in on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I hope that some smaller theaters out there got in on despicable me for right. I hope that some smaller theaters out there got in on Despicable Me 4. I hope that Twisters is doing well down at the Grand Cinema right now. I think it's awesome that they're showing that. That's smart when you saw Dune 2 playing in some of these smaller theaters earlier in the year. That's smart. Show Wolverine and Deadpool, deadpool and Wolverine at your movie theater. Do it, it's going to make sense. You're going to be happy at the in the long run.
Speaker 1:Do we think anything will come close to challenging this as a bigger release this year? Is this the biggest?
Speaker 2:release. Yeah, I mean, I think it's the eighth biggest opening of all time. Did I read that? I don't know. Maybe, maybe I don't know. So this year, no, I mean, it's got to in the long run. It's got to beat inside out to like what we just talked about, which is remarkable Maybe that's what I read is that inside out, too, is now the eighth most successful box office film of all time. That literally might be what I read. That's um, which is wild remarkable. Just adele uxartropolis. Congratulations um.
Speaker 2:And so I've been thinking about a lot about her recently um just watched the beast with lais they do, and I just can't wrap my brain around. The fact that blue is the warmest color actually happened one time. Um, I digress, I'm very distracted. All of a sudden, Okay, so when you have, what was I talking about? Is anything going to top?
Speaker 1:Deadpool and Wolverine. No, it's not.
Speaker 2:It's not. I mean, this is like the cinematic moment of 2024.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and like it will have, this is the Barbenheimer of 2024. Yeah, a hundred percent.
Speaker 2:There'll be clips of this movie at the Academy awards. For one reason, like in one way or another, like this I'm not listen. Let me make this very clear. I'm not saying that this movie like deserves to be nominated for anything. I don't think it or that no, it just won't. It won't nominated for, but it will be one of those montage-esque moments where they're showing a recap of movies and, like you, should probably put ryan reynolds and blake lively at the academy awards you should get him presenting something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you should get hugh jackman there. You should like make this lean into this again. It's. It's like the movie theater thing, like academy, if you want your show to be a little bit more relevant this year, like lean into Deadpool and Wolverine. It was a huge moment, do you?
Speaker 1:think that releasing one Marvel movie a year should be the way to go.
Speaker 2:Yes, it was so. First off, it was so refreshing not to have that spring release this year, not only for the purposes of this show, but also for the fact that it just like didn't feel like, didn't we just get one of these? It kind of opened it up, it did, it really did, and now, like the spring you could say was lacking a little bit, but it gave us time to actually like let challengers breathe at the box office for a little bit and and make some money. It gave us a chance to like revisit something like the first omen a couple of times like this movie's fucking awesome. Yeah, dune part two did its thing. I don't think anybody probably wanted to get in the way of that anyways and yes, that's ip on another level, but like this just felt right having there be one big moment that you could see coming, but that like I don't think anyone expected for it to be like this tidal wave of success, definitely not Financial success?
Speaker 1:Not not, especially when you think of, like, where the franchise was, you know, coming into this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so again nobody, I think, was saying, we need a third Deadpool movie, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, yeah, and, and I mean I think the proof is that there were supposed to be three Marvel movies this year. Two of them got pushed to 2025 and now we will be back in the Marvel cinematic universe in February of 2025, which is oddly, I mean, that's still like half a year away.
Speaker 2:It is, but again that is now signaling this return to something that's still like half a year away. It is, but again that is now signaling this return to something that it's like gosh, we're gonna I think we're gonna get at least two next year right and it's like we haven't maybe like taking a year off. Good, smart, good on you guys.
Speaker 2:Do it again, though you know, like don't just think that we're ready it's back now because, who knows, maybe I like, maybe it is quote unquote back, but it's not like we're so back. It's not like we're back to the point where everyone knows about the infinity stones and thanos and you can hear that iron man died and all this others. You know, like we're, you're just never going to get back to that level of relevance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. And again that kind of goes back to this whole bringing back Downey Jr, like that is what makes it feel so desperate, so desperate. So, yeah, I think, anything else you want to comment on on Deadpool.
Speaker 1:I mean, as I was watching it I was kind of like these are some funny jokes that we could kind of poke fun at, or whatever you know I thought it was good that it it took a lot of shots at disney it did, but at the same time, at the same time, it's a disney movie. Yeah, like they were cleared.
Speaker 2:You know, it was almost like the roast of tom brady, and you better run every single joke by tom before you go out there and say what you want to say.
Speaker 1:That's how it felt to me yeah, yeah, it's unfortunate, it's, it's too bad because it also kind of you know, it made me feel sad for fox. You know, 20th century fox was a huge studio for so long and they had so many good pieces of of ip I guess is what you want to call it because alien is a fox movie, bro, I know, yeah. Well, no, it's a disney movie.
Speaker 2:Now, now, brother it's can't wait to go see disney's new film alien romulus.
Speaker 1:Are we gonna see xenomorphs walking around disneyland?
Speaker 2:I don't know man right like we're xenomorphs walking around Disneyland. I don't know man Right Like were xenomorphs in Ready Player One. I don't even know Like. It's really hard to say.
Speaker 1:It's going to be. So I just, I hate that everything is under one thing. You know, we got to spread it back out. We got to spread it back out and hopefully mid-majors like fucking a24 blumhouse neon continue to do stuff. I mean, don't get into the ip game, but, like, just continue to exist because unfortunately, a lot of what we loved from you know the 20th century is now all under one one wing, one banner one banner.
Speaker 2:It's tough, it's tough. You want to do five minutes on the beast?
Speaker 1:I would love to because, uh, I was, if, if I can lead off, I was, uh, I I thought it was disturbing, beautiful, extremely confusing. Yet the more I've thought about it, it I've kind of wrapped my mind around it. I, as soon as it ended, I kind of really hated it. But talking especially talking with kaylee, because I watched it with her talking through it we both kind of came around on it and was like, actually, that was pretty, that was pretty like devastatingly gorgeous. This is a French film. Do you have the filmmaker Bernardo Bertolio.
Speaker 2:I don't know if that pronunciation's I can pull it up here.
Speaker 1:Starring Lea Seydoux and George McKay, kind of a romance spanning hundreds of years, a sci-fi, horror, romantic drama, little bit of comedy sprinkled in. Really interesting Bertrand Bonello, bertrand Bonello, yeah, really interesting filmmaking going on in this French film.
Speaker 2:Listen, I will welcome anybody back to the Cloud Atlas table who wants to come. All right, because as more people come to this movie and it becomes celebrated, everybody should just get to make their cloud atlas kind of movie, because that's what this is. Yeah, this movie is. You're right, it's it's time spanning. You have multiple characters or you have you have the same actors playing multiple characters across different time periods I believe it's 1910, 2014, and 2044.
Speaker 2:And it plays with this idea of past lives and future lives, and I mean, honestly, multiverses. Well, generational trauma and how that can impact people. No-transcript, all exposure to things that have harmed her in past lives and that will protect her in a way that numbs her senses, that dulls her emotionally going forward for her future lives. It's a little bit of a commentary on AI, but also a lot like how Eternal Sunshine and the Spotless Mind is giving people the idea to erase this filled relationship from your memory. Go back 100 years, go back 200 years, take this away from anything that could be affecting you in present time. So I really like that about it, cause, yes, it's this. It has those dystopian science fiction motifs that I really respond to and that you're just kind of like this is new, this is again, it's it's cribbing from other things, but like I love, I always love to see a new take on something like this and then it turns into this.
Speaker 2:So then we go back to 1910 and it turns into this very like Joe Wright-esque Pride and Prejudice atonement type of like Victorian love story that is so classical and that feels just like a warm blanket. And yet you know that there's like there's something, yeah, like beautifully devastating happening here, because it's kind of a forbidden love and just the way that romantic partnerships were negotiated back then where usually, like, the men were a lot older than the women and they play with that quite a bit, um, and and it starts to show you these reoccurring themes that are going to take place in these characters' lives, which is then very David Lynch-esque, where in David Lynch's world it's owls. The owls are not what they seem, right Famous quote the owls in that story can kind of transcend time and space and and carry these, these I don't want to say like messages, but they can help carry this energy between places. And this film is pigeons very interestingly. Another like winged bird, um, the rats of the sky, um, and so.
Speaker 2:So you get. You get dolls, which also I love. Big year for dolls and movies, guys, um and so dolls, and also the way that, um, the way that they say dues character is. It's beginning to try to dull her senses and like she looks very porcelain, ask in the beginning, beginning and then in these later stories, like some of these dolls, and her husband in the 1910 version was a doll maker. So there's all just these little like similarities.
Speaker 1:Right, there's a. There's a doll at the house. She's house sitting right but then she's also numbing her feelings with constantly drinking vodka. Then in the, in the future, the dolls are these androids that are walking around assisting people and that she's she's like having in the 2044 version of of this story.
Speaker 2:She is in a romantic relationship with a like with a sex doll I don't know who that actress is, but the black woman. They're laying in bed together and she has a moment where, like, her voice glitches and you're like, oh shit, like a wild moment, awesome moment in the film. So I don't know. I I really responded to everything that it was that it was trying to do, that it was trying to say the 2014 version, um, the 2014 chapter of the story, has some real horror energy to it where it basically becomes like a home invasion film
Speaker 1:a stalker film in cell Yep yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, just a man angry at the world, a man angry at women, and I thought that that was really affecting because, like our guy McKay could not have been more charming in the first iteration of their meeting, and so I thought that was really interesting to to show that you know every single life can be so different from the other, while still being the same, because she still has this like odd attraction to him, even though he is so aggressive towards her.
Speaker 2:So I don't know this. This I know Cause I saw that you, you liked my letterbox review and so for my sports people out there, I was like this movie. This movie is Anthony Edwards or like this, and I was trying to think of maybe a football player that would make more sense for more people to like grab, grab onto, but I just kind of couldn't work. But like, for those of you who don't know, anthony edwards, small forward on the minnesota timberwolves, a team that nobody really like cares about, they're starting to make, they're starting to make some noise in the playoffs. But like anthony edwards is sort of trying to be anointed as like the next big, like the, the second coming of, like he's going to take the throne from lebron james one day or something like that. Now, maybe that's more so towards like Lea Seydoux's performance in this because she's just electric. But like you can compare Anthony Edwards to Kobe, to Tracy McGrady, to Vince Carter, to LeBron, to all these other great small forwards and all these other wing players that have come before him and that's all very true. So you can say that like the beast is like the best parts of cloud Atlas and it's Lynchian and it feels like eternal sunshine and the spotless mind at times and it, it, it bends genres together. It does all that, but like again, while being its own thing.
Speaker 2:Now, it's not necessarily an original screenplay, because this pulls from like a 1900s short story about a man. It's written by a man and it's called something, something the beast within, and that's where this movie gets its name the beast, and it's basically about a man saying that like he is going to, he's going to repress the desire to go out and contribute and engage in society because he's so nervous that like he's not going to do the right thing when presented the opportunity to go out and be in public spaces and to go out and just like be a functioning member of our society. And there's this beast, there is this like looming doom and they do a really good job. Like Lacey do's character throughout her three lives, and this film is talking about how she is so nervous that there is like something out there, there's something tragic waiting that's going to happen to her and that's why she wants to get this procedure done Right To like remove this dread from her life, so that that goes back to the original story, where it's.
Speaker 2:It's about a man who just feels like they're not so much as like an evil, but there is just like there's a monster out there in the universe. There's something that's going to happen to him if he goes out and whether it's engages romantically or professionally or whatever it is in the world, and so he's going to just like eliminate the possibility of that happening to him by not contributing. And so this, I don't know this movie. I need to watch this movie like three or four more times, but just because it reminds me so much of these other stories that I just love, I responded to it really well the first time, but I can't wait. I think that after another week or so goes by, then I think it's going to go, because this was a live, that a live streaming premiere that was exclusive to the criterion channel very cool have they ever done that before I?
Speaker 2:don't, not for a new release, I don't think so. They have a live channel, that's just like on 24 7, yeah, but as far as like premiering a movie that way now this has been at festivals and been in theaters internationally, um, so there's ways to watch it already, but I think it's going to then just be on the criterion channel, which is really exciting because I can't wait to fire this up again and watch for all those small little clues and little details it was crazy watching this on the stream, because as soon as this movie ended its premiere, what came on?
Speaker 1:it was like the middle of breaking waves and kaylee and I were just like oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, yeah, we just spent two hours and 20 minutes Very perplexed or invested or whatever.
Speaker 2:However, you guys were feeling about it.
Speaker 1:Pretty much like the ultimate opposite film from Deadpool and Wolverine. My goodness, yeah, do you find the term slow cinema a derogatory term?
Speaker 2:not at all.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, not at all this is very much slow cinema.
Speaker 2:I would I would say right, I would agree. The last well, especially do when you pace a film this way, because the 1910 stuff is just it, a lot slower of a pace, um, and I think that was my favorite storyline too I, I think it was mine as well. Um, and so then that can kind of create this like rewarding. There's a there's a feeling of gratification when watching a film like this, once you get past something like that, I suppose like you can still be really into it.
Speaker 2:but I love when a movie not in the way that maybe something like barbarian takes a turn halfway through, or the way that maybe something like barbarian takes a turn halfway through, or the way that even something like psycho takes a turn halfway through, but like when a movie like this this is why I love cloud atlas so much, because it does this so many different times but when a movie like the beast is so melodramatic and and slow, but like graceful and it's in its delivery, and then it turns into this movie that takes place at nightclubs and has like strobe lights and rap music and a home invasion and an earthquake and like security alarms going off, like that just felt like, oh my gosh, here we go, we we have like, we're doing, we're telling basically the exit, the exact same story and just like such a different way.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I don't know, I definitely just talked for more than five minutes about it, but I I really enjoyed it.
Speaker 1:I think it's, I don't know maybe seven on my list right now for 2024 four films, yeah, yeah, yeah, I again like coming directly out of it. I was like woof, but the more I have sat on it, the more I've talked about it and, as always, listening to you speak about film, and especially movies like this, it is.
Speaker 1:It is such a interesting, fascinating, intriguing film and challenging in the best way exactly and so if people fire this up, like, just go into it thinking like, okay, this is a, it's a workout, you're gonna, you're gonna sweat a little bit in the most right.
Speaker 2:Please hear this in my most non-pretentious voice possible, but this is cinema as art.
Speaker 1:Very much so.
Speaker 2:Okay good, there's even art in this movie that is kind of crude and I think that's a little self-aware. So I really enjoyed that about the movie as well.
Speaker 1:I really hope it gets a costume nomination.
Speaker 2:That would be great.
Speaker 1:Because that was one thing that that throughout the movie we're just like, wow, look at, look at what they're wearing yeah amazing when they're in the doll factory. The the get up that george mckay has on so stylish, yeah, so stylish.
Speaker 2:And her hair throughout, like later on she just kind of gets a traditional sort of you know, like shortcut bob look or whatever, but like her hair is like calise level game of thrones stuff. Yeah, it's wild at the beginning it's, it's so good. And again, just like leia, did cinema start before you entered our lives.
Speaker 2:I don't know like you, we are just we are all the better for movie stars like her maybe she'll be in the next marvel movie that are stop that, that are continuing to do movies like this and work with interesting directors and if they're gonna do some big ip, it's showing up and playing a very interesting character in something like dune part two, right, or going and being in like an anthology Wes Anderson film, like if that's how American audiences get exposed to you, like that's the way to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, she's great and and does need to be in more things, but the right things, um, okay. So that is ETI on Deadpool and Wolverine and the beast. We hope you enjoyed yourself. The beast is Wolverine, right. I guess, so Right, no, the beast is blue. Actually, the beast is Hank McCoy, the scientist. Part of the X-Men.
Speaker 2:Oh, I was like you lost me, but now I know who that is. I do know who that is. I thought that was Sabretooth at first.
Speaker 1:When Sabretooth showed up, in Deadpool Wolverine no, it's the Beast.
Speaker 2:How funny is it that Michael Chiklis' character's name is just the Thing? And again, I know he wasn't in this movie, but he's the Thing, the Thing.
Speaker 1:You're not the Thing bro.
Speaker 2:The Thing lives in Antarctica, Don't worry man.
Speaker 1:We're getting. We're getting a fantastic four movie soon, very soon, and it's got the thing in it, so you'll you'll be happy.
Speaker 1:It's not Michael Chiklis, it's not Michael Chiklis in a rubber suit, unfortunately not. So next week we are covering M Night Shyamalan and the new movie trap. I believe we are going to be perhaps looking at his whole filmography and maybe doing some sort of game, whether it's power rankings or a draft or whatever. You'll have to listen to find out, uh. In the meantime, please, uh, check us out on instagram and check out our letterbox accounts to see what we are watching. In between shows, a lot of Josh Hartnett films and until next time, this has been Excuse the Intermission where movies still matter.
