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Words On Film

Today on "Words On Film", Dan Burke reviews "Twisters", "Despicable Me 4", "Longlegs", "The Exorcism", and "Janet Planet". Mr. Burke also runs down the movies subject to being released into theaters for the week of July 22nd - 26th, 2024.

Duration:
52m
Broadcast on:
22 Jul 2024
Audio Format:
mp3

Today on "Words On Film", Dan Burke reviews "Twisters", "Despicable Me 4", "Longlegs", "The Exorcism", and "Janet Planet". Mr. Burke also runs down the movies subject to being released into theaters for the week of July 22nd - 26th, 2024.

For today's show, I have 5 movies to review for you. One of them is technically brand new as of the date of this recording, because it came out the weekend of July 19th through 21st, 2024, it actually came out in theaters on July 19th, but I'm just saying that weekend. So that's the only really brand new one that I have for you. I was off last week, I was out of town on a pleasure trip, and I have 4 other movies that I've seen in the last couple of weeks, but they're not technically brand new, but they're new to me, so I'm going to be reviewing them for you, because I haven't reviewed them on this show yet until today. So the first movie I'm going to be reviewing for you is Twisters. Is this the sequel to the 1996 movie Twister, sort of? It's described as a standalone sequel, which to me is an oxymoron, because a standalone movie is a movie that is original, not based on any other materials, and is absolutely not a sequel. The reason this is a standalone sequel, I guess, is because it doesn't have any of the characters from the original 1996 movie in it, which I was actually a little disappointed by, but at the same time, the original Twister movie had some problems with this narrative. Of course, the special effects were amazing and looked great on the big screen, but once Twister came to VHS, a lot more people saw some of the plot holes and some of the character development that didn't really need to be there, like the love triangle and the unnecessary antagonist, but Twister has kind of gone on to become sort of a modern day classic, and people have kind of looked beyond those imperfections of the movie and liked it for what it is. And I will say that there are other things to like about the original Twister besides the special effects and the tornadoes, especially the iconic scene of the cow that's being blown away by the tornado. And its sequel, Twisters, or its standalone sequel, does not pull back in terms of its impressive special effects. In fact, I think this movie actually shows how far special effects, particularly CGI have come over 28 years, but that's not the only reason that I liked this movie. So this Twister's movie takes place in Oklahoma primarily, and the director of the film Lee Isaac Chung is actually from that Midwest, southern Midwest area, and he actually insisted that the film be shot on location in Oklahoma, and it's a good thing he did, because Oklahoma is pretty much its own character in this film, the flatlands and everything like that. And one thing I did think that Twisters had, as an advantage, one of many things that had over the original was that it actually showed the devastation that tornadoes can and do to small towns that are in tornado country. I particularly live in tornado country, and while I've been fortunate enough not to have had my home devastated by tornadoes, I know that there are people who are very close to me who are not quite as fortunate. So I could appreciate some of these scenes as well, but in addition to that, it would also, in my opinion, has better characters than the original film. Now even though none of the characters in the original Twister are depicted here, or even I don't even think they were really mentioned, there is a credit that's given here that the movie is based on characters created by Michael Crichton and Anne Marie Martin, who created the characters and a vast majority of the story for the original, but this is an original story by Joseph Kuzinski, and the screenplay was written by Mark L. Smith. And the movie primarily centers on a woman that we, at first, see as a college student, whose name is Kate Carter, who is studying to be a meteorologist, not necessarily the one you see on TV, but an actual meteorologist who does study the weather and weather patterns. And when we're introduced to her, she is a college student who works in Oklahoma with a storm chasers team, and there are characters in here to whom you are introduced at first, but don't get too comfortable with them because a little bit of a spoiler alert, although this happens in the first 10 minutes of the film, they don't exactly last very long. But what Kate Carter is trying to do is launch barrels of sodium polyacrylite solution into a tornado to reduce its intensity, and at the beginning of the movie, they do this successfully in the sense that they have the sodium polyacrylate solution into the tornado, but unfortunately, the tornado grows into an EF5, which, for those of you who are not familiar with the strength of tornadoes, is the strongest tornado there is. So Kate is devastated by the aftermath of this tornado, even though what happened was nature and it wasn't her fault, but then she works at the NOAA office in New York City five years later when one of her friends from the storm chasers team, whose name is Yavi, who's played by Anthony Ramos, who a lot of people may remember from the underrated musical film In The Heights, which didn't get as much accolades as it deserved, but anyway, he says that there is an opportunity for her to try her experiment again, and you meet a lot of colorful characters who are part of this storm chasing team, or rather other storm chasing teams, including one YouTube sensation by the name of Tyler, who's played by the co-star of this film Glen Powell, and I forgot to mention this before, Kate Carter, by the way, is played by Daisy Edgar Jones, and she has a lot of great scenes, particularly with Glen Powell, but one of the things that I really appreciated about this movie is the fact that Daisy Edgar Jones and Glen Powell are very good-looking people, but the movie didn't create a love story or a love triangle. That may be a little bit of a spoiler, but there is some flirtation going on between the two of the characters, but what I really liked about the characters was that they were very focused on studying tornadoes as well as creating scientific experiments to potentially reduce the impact of tornadoes. So this movie, arguably unlike the original Twister, actually took its science very seriously without reducing the power of the narrative, and that is what I really appreciated about this film. There are some other great supporting performances in this film by the likes of Moratierny, Sasha Lane, Daryl McCormick, and others, and this movie at times was so well acted, it felt less like a narrative film and more like a documentary. And there are also some character tropes that have been in other movies before, including the original Twister, but what worked about this film was the movie didn't get to the point where it was pandering to people who liked romantic comedies, for example, and it also took seriously the damage that Hurricane, excuse me, tornadoes can actually do. I really appreciated the seriousness of that part of the movie, not to mention the character development, the stronger story than the original Twister. So there were sometimes where I kind of wished that this Twister's movie had a call back to the movie that was made 28 years ago, maybe with a cameo by somebody like Helen Hunt. But I also really appreciated the fact that it stood on its own as a movie that really showed the devastation of these natural weather patterns, and also took climate change into consideration as well, because that's what a lot of people are talking about, whether or not they believe it. Everybody has an opinion about climate change. I have mine, but I don't have time to give it for you right now. I will say, however, that Twisters is by and large a very satisfying sequel to the original Twister and a better movie, which is why I give Twisters my rating of a knockout. It is a very well acted film, it tells a great story, the special effects are amazing, but unlike the original Twister, the special effects are not the only great thing about this film. There are a lot of other great things, and this movie did have me, for lack of a better term, on the edge of my seat, but not just because of the special effects. Welcome back to words on film, the spoken word showed dedicated to moving pictures. I am your host and movie critic Dan Burke. The next movie I'm going to be reviewing for you is Despicable Me 4. And this is a film that of course is the 4th installment to the Despicable Me movies as well as the 6th overall installment in the Despicable Me franchise. There was of course the first 3 Despicable Me movies that were made in 2010, 2013, and 2017 respectively, and there were also the Minions prequels as well. I've seen the first Despicable Me movie and I've seen both of the Minions prequels and the first Despicable Me movie was very good. I didn't really care too much for the Minions movies, but I suppose they could have been worse. But Despicable Me 4 was released in the theaters originally on July 3rd, 2024. And honestly, this is one of those movies I kind of knew that there would be an influx of children who were going to this film, and I also presumed that the movie was not going to be as good as the original film, largely I was right, but I'll get into more details as of why. But in this 4th Despicable Me chapter, Grew as well as his wife Lucy and their adopted daughters Margot, Edith, and Agnes welcome a new member to their family, Grew Jr., who is intent on tormenting his dad. And Grew faces a new nemesis in Maxim Lamal and his girlfriend Valentina, and the family is forced to go on the run or into hiding. So not only is Grew's family going into hiding, but the Minions are as well, and the reason is because I guess kids can't get enough of the Minions, whereas I have pretty much had enough. So Steve Carell has come back to reprise his role as Grew. His wife Lucy is voiced by Kristen Wigg. The arch villain in this film, Maxim is voiced by Will Ferrell, and his wife Valentina is voiced by Sofia Vergara. So you have a lot of really talented voice actors in this film, but as I was watching the film, I did actually get a few chuckles from the Minions. In fact, there's one scene where many of the Minions, all but three of them are staying with Grew's family, all the rest, you know, however many there are, 20 or 30, are going on a bus to the headquarters where they'll be kept safe. And the way the Minions were kind of acting like kids and fooling around on the bus did make me chuckle. I will admit that. But then when they get to the headquarters and they're being put under scientific experiments, some of the Minions get superpowers. Like one can stretch his limbs. I assume they're all he because I can't imagine that they have any sort of gender and I certainly haven't seen any female ones. There's one who can fly, there's another one who is made out of rocks like he's the thing, but the problem is when they get these superpowers, they don't really do anything with them. The story doesn't, you know, and it almost seems as though they get these superpowers just so they can goof off a little more with that added gag that they now have superpowers. But they don't use their superpowers until much later in the film and they also don't use it to do what what you want Grew to do in the movie to Maxime and Valentina. So it just seems like the Despicable Me movies are now just pandering to kids and there's really nothing that adults, particularly parents who are taking their children to see this Despicable Me movie are really going to like about this film. Also, there doesn't seem to be anything that kids who grew up watching the Despicable Me movie who are now in high school and college would really like about this film either. So to me, this was a film that had a few chuckles here and there. The Minions admittedly made me laugh in a few places, but I eventually got really sick of the Minions as I do as I did with the previous Minions prequels to which I had previously I think either given my rating of maybe a checkout to the first Minions movie and a strikeout to the second but overall the Despicable Me universe and the Minions are getting really old to me but my guess is they're probably going to be another prequel and probably a part 5 but based on this film it doesn't look like one to which I will be excited about going later on and I doubt that I'm the only one and I'm not just talking about being the only film critic it is serviceable the animation is pretty good but in terms of its animation and story it doesn't hold a candle to inside out to and it probably doesn't even hold a candle to light year either which is why I give Despicable Me for my rating of a strikeout it does basically what a sequel to a kids movie is I guess supposed to do at least in terms of the way Hollywood sees kids which is it kind of panders to them and there are also some jokes about Greus younger son who is the father son relationship there which is fraught compared to the mother son relationship and that just seems kind of like a sitcom subplot which it pretty much is and by the end of the film even though there were some cameos from some other villains although they're just cameos on camera I don't think any of the other previous voice actors like Jason Seagull, Sandra Bullock, Taraji P. Henson actually came back to reprise their roles and if they did they just kind of phoned it in to Steve Carell, Kristen Wiig and Will Ferrell and Sofia Vargara's credit they didn't foam this one in but it seemed like the writers of the film Mike White and Ken Dario largely did and that's really unfortunate so there will probably be more despicable me films and minions films and they'll keep making them as long as they keep making money but I'm honestly getting sick of them. Welcome back to words on film the spoken word show dedicated to moving pictures I am your host a movie critic Dan Burke the next movie I'm going to be reviewing for you is long legs this is the latest serial killer movie that is known as a crime thriller but it also has some notable horror elements and there were some parts of this movie that did genuinely scare me but there are also some missed opportunities here but I will explain that in a little bit the movie is about an FBI agent who in pursuit of a serial killer uncovers a series of occult clues that she must solve to end his terrifying killing spree and the killer in this movie is named long legs and he's not a supernatural creature but he is somebody who is a Satanist and uses his powers of Satanism to terrorize children long legs in this movie is played by Nicholas Cage who with the makeup that he has in this film is largely unrecognizable he kind of looks like I can't exactly tell you who he looks like but he definitely doesn't look like himself but Nicholas Cage very typical of the films in which he acts either as a protagonist or antagonist definitely goes all out in playing this character who is a very very creepy man the only thing is the one thing that kind of took me back from this film was that it seemed like people were not as freaked out when they encountered long legs regardless of whether or not he was going to kill them as they ultimately would be for example in the very beginning scene which is actually had really good cinematography you don't you see long legs from the nose down to the knees you don't see his eyes and I actually thought that was a great start to this film but you do hear him talking and the girl who encounters him doesn't seem to react like probably any other child would presumably react I know if I ever met anyone who was like long legs not necessarily somebody with long legs but somebody who looked and spoke and used the same words as Nicholas Cage does in this film it would not take me more than three seconds to turn around and run as fast as I can screaming for my parents but the girl in this movie does not seem to do that and what results a little bit later is also kind of improbable but the agent who is on the lookout for this serial killer whom she at first doesn't exactly know as long legs is named Lee Harker and she's played by Micah Monroe and Micah Monroe is one of those actresses you've seen in some notable horror films the one I remember Micah Monroe in in acting is it follows which hard as it is to believe came out ten years ago so Lee Harker had a troubled and sheltered childhood in fact her mother Ruth Harker who's played by Alicia Witt is borderline senile and also has her own problems and you know that not from here here speak on the phone but when Lee Harker comes home to visit her and her home is cluttered so much so that even in a movie theater even in a clean movie theater you could probably smell the must and mildew that's probably coming from that house and another part of the improbable thing about this movie is you would imagine with Lee Harker being a well adjusted adult that she would try to get her mother out of this house and maybe get her some psychiatric help or at least put her in an assisted living facility but that doesn't really occur to her to do that but the best parts of this movie are when Lee Harker is being terrorized by long legs and also when she begins to decipher the clues that long legs leaves behind because apparently long legs knows about children and when their birthdays are and he leaves them gifts and these gifts include a doll that is life size and also the likeness of the child to whom he is giving this gift and this is the kind of gift that would make a boy run out of the house screaming it certainly would me especially if that doll looks exactly like me but it's kind of mysterious because long legs doesn't really use the doll for anything other than what seems to be a McGuffin now would be one thing if he kidnapped the kids killed them and then replaced them with the doll that would probably be creepy but instead he gives the child the doll and through some sort of satanic magic kind of hypnotizes them and that part of the film did not really make sense to me and also a little later in the film you find out that long legs has an accomplice but then when it's determined who the accomplice is and I won't give that away at all that also doesn't make sense in the grand scope of this film either so long legs has some very good atmosphere it has some excellent cinematography mica Munro acts very well in this film Nicholas Cage acts completely bonkers and Blair Underwood who plays the supervisor of this serial killer case agent Carter of also of the FBI acts very well in this film is probably the person who has the most clarity about the things that are going on and is not heavily involved in this case other than coming by and analyzing autopsies but there were a lot of things that didn't make a lot of sense to me about this film particularly the fact that the killer is called long legs and you would think that a supernatural thriller that has some horror elements would make long legs a supernatural creature whose long legs are dangerous and Nicholas Cage is taller than average he's six feet tall but I don't know exactly why he got the name long legs I didn't exactly know how that tied into his character and that also took me out of the movie not to mention the fact that when the FBI eventually catches up to long legs what happens afterwards doesn't really make a ton of sense and the way that some characters who are supposed to be of sound mind react to the way that long legs reacts to certain things and I won't give away too much also doesn't really make sense in the grand scheme of the narrative so long legs is a film that is a narrow check out for me because I did really like the atmosphere of this film I thought Nicholas Cage played somebody who was particularly unforgettable but the climax of the film left me scratching my head first of all it didn't really explain a ton of things including some characters reactions I also thought that the Satanism in this film was shoehorned in so there were some things I liked about long legs but when all was said and done there weren't as many scary points not to mention that the idea of Satanism wasn't really tied into the killer's motivations as much as I would have thought they would have been and also it seemed like Satanism was a plot device rather than an explanation for the way certain characters react the way certain characters act and overall long legs left for me more to be desired but I did think that the atmosphere and the acting in this film made up for what some of the story during the third act particularly lacked. [Music] [Music] Welcome back to words on film the spoken word showed dedicated to moving pictures I am your host movie critic Dan Burke the next movie I'm going to be reviewing for you is the exorcism and like despicable before the exorcism is a film I didn't really go out of my way to see and it's one of those new films that comes out that I can always find something about or rather there's always a movie that I think would be better for me to review first than the exorcism so I put this on the back burner I saw it for the first time a couple of weeks ago and it was just as impressive as I thought it would be which means that it really wasn't all that impressive just giving you a heads up the movie is about a troubled actor whose name is Anthony Miller and he's played by Russell Crowe who begins to exhibit a disruptive behavior while shooting a horror film and the horror film in this film is about you guessed it the exorcist or rather an exorcism and his estranged daughter whose name is Lee Miller and she's played by Ryan Simpkins and yes that is a woman not a man wonders if he's slipping back into his past addictions or if there's something more sinister at play so when I first saw this movie I went into it other than the fact that Russell Crowe was in it I didn't know anything about it I also assumed that it might be related to the movie The Pope's Exorcist which came out last year and also starred Russell Crowe as an exorcist only this time he's an exorcist who works for the Vatican well as it turns out the Pope's exorcist and the exorcism are actually not related and Russell Crowe is in this movie playing an entirely different character altogether he plays an actor who was raised Catholic and also had some past trouble with the Catholic Church and I'm not going to reveal what that trouble is but it does play an important plot point in this film and while he didn't become a priest or anything like that he is looking to make a comeback in playing a priest specifically an exorcist in this movie which you would imagine would be the exorcist basically it's the same exact plot as the exorcist and this movie tries to be clever by having characters list off the names of famous horror films including the exorcist but largely even though this film has a creative angle in creating a film that could be distinctive from every other movie about an exorcism especially the exorcist it basically follows the same sort of exorcist movie cliches that even the exorcist reborn which came out last year and was considered by many critics to be one of the worst films of the year also fell into unfortunately and that's really too bad because this movie does have some an excellent roster of actors Russell Crowe, Ryan Simkins, Sam Worthington, Chloe Bailey, Adam Goldberg, David Hyde Pierce and the list goes on and I thought there was an interesting angle where David Hyde Pierce in this film plays a real priest named Father Connor who serves as an advisor on the set of this exorcism film that is being shot but where the movie really fell apart was where Russell Crowe's character Anthony Miller begins to be possessed by Satan himself and the way other characters react to him not to mention the way that the people who are on the crew of this film within a film react does not seem particularly probable or logical as a matter of fact there is one scene where Russell Crowe is clearly possessed by Satan and even though the movie is not filming at that point the director yelled cut nobody does anything when Russell Crowe begins to exhibit this very bizarre and baffling behavior as he is in the throes of Satan's power and of course you could argue that some people would be in shock and wouldn't know what to do and that's a valid point but you can also rest assured that with at least three cameras on the set that somebody would be filming this maybe they wouldn't take the footage and incorporate it into the film but it would be probably as far as Hollywood works a money saving tactic if they actually did this but that's another thing that didn't make sense about the film also you know that during the climax there's somebody who's going to take in the powers of Satan and save the person who needs to be exercised which is exactly what happened in the exorcist in its sequels and also the other films that were a knock off of the exorcists so the exorcism is a film that has some decent acting it has some very good actors in it but the real fault here is the story they could have done something original with somebody who is filming a movie about an exorcism but largely they don't and the horror in this film is very predictable and that's really too bad because there are some scenes in this film like for instance there's one scene where somebody creates an animatronic head that's supposed to be one of the actors in this film you know and it's made for special effects and I thought that animatronic head particularly where the skin of the face was off was creepier than anything else in the movie so the exorcism like the pope's exorcist is overall a disappointing rehash of exorcist movies and for that reason the exorcism gets my rating of a flunk out this is a film that could have had some other angle to an exorcist story similar to the exorcism of emily rose which was not so much a horror film as much as it was a courtroom drama with horror elements but even then that's an original take on an exorcist type plot because you would think that this case that results from a controversial exorcism would be interesting to watch and in the exorcism of emily rose it was but the exorcism provides nothing original really it's just the same old satan powered song and dance [Music] welcome back to words on film the spoken word showed dedicated to moving pictures I am your host of movie critic Dan Burke the next movie I'm going to be reviewing for you is Janet Planet this is an indie film that was made on a shoestring budget that is the feature film directorial debut of Annie Baker who also wrote the story and the screenplay this film was originally released at the telly ride film festival the 50th annual telly ride film festival last year on september 1st 2023 and was released to select theaters in the united states including my favorite theater in nashville tennessee the bellcourt theater on june 21st of this year 2024 and it's a film that is one of those slice of life dramas in the sense that it doesn't really have very much of a plot but it does show you the lives of the people within this film particularly the titular janet planet who is played in this film by julienne nickelson and i don't know if planet is her last name but it's shown from a sign that her acupuncture business which keeps her afloat in rural wooburn excuse me medford massachusetts is named janet planet but the movie primarily focuses on janet's daughter lacy who's played by zoey ziegler who is making her feature film actually her overall acting debut in this film and there are a lot of parts in this film that don't feel like somebody acting and actually feels like you're watching a documentary in fact if it weren't for familiar faces in this film like julienne nickelson will patent elia elias coteas and academy award nominee sophie okinito i would probably not i would probably mistake this film for a documentary and the movie is particularly slow paced but i'm not gonna false the director anne baker on that too much after all this is her directorial debut i think she directs the actors very well and there wasn't a moment of this film that i didn't believe the actors in their particular roles i do think this film could have resulted it could have used some tighter editing overall because there were there were scenes in this film that drag on and on and at one hour fifty three minutes you felt some of these scenes drag and i feel like some of the parts of this film could have been edited a bit better so as to make some of these scenes briefer without contributing to the loss of the the story here it could have used some better pacing overall and the movie doesn't spoon feed you what the movie is about you can largely get what the movie is you also get a sense of what time period in which this film takes place because in this film nobody uses a cell phone nobody uses a computer and it was a little bit later that i found out that this film actually takes place during the summer and early fall of 1991 and you could probably argue that with the internet and with smartphones this movie might take a different narrative direction it could potentially be semi-autobiographical as well but there are clues here and there that give you an idea of the time period in which this film takes place but largely this is a story about a daughter who is not teenage yet i think she could probably be considered a tween because she's presumably around the age of 11 who's very close with her single mother Janet and they're also in a rural area where making friends is very hard to do for Janet Julian Nicholson's character finding a meaningful relationship is even harder to do but you also watch this film wanting that girl lacy who is very shy and very mousy to branch out and actually make some friends but you also can understand from her perspective why that is hard for her to do but there are also some things that lacy does to use as a reason to be sheltered by her mom that also are probably mistakes that some sheltered and introverted kids make as they are growing older but the point is not about her character development necessarily it's about what it's like to be in that shell where you feel comfortable but the world is changing around you and the audience members could probably extrapolate that this person would probably be best just breaking out of that shell but the movie is also about the mother Janet breaking out of her shell although unlike her daughter lacy she's actually trying to do that the movie did also make a mistake and this may be not the this may not be the fault of the director anti-baker but naming the film Janet Planet when the focus of the film is largely on the character of lacy but then again Janet Planet is an appealing name although some people might consider it science fiction and other people particularly members of generation x would probably have the schoolhouse rock song interplanet Janet automatically playing in their head when they see this or rather when they hear the name of this film but Janet Planet is a good first effort from anti-baker who i think as a director and a writer is going to get better and Janet Planet does get my rating of a check out i do think that this movie probably would have been stronger if the pacing of the film would have been a little bit better but if you're going into a film preparing to get atmosphere as opposed to story you might not be disappointed with this film but there are some moments in this film where the editing could have been tighter the pacing could have been better but largely i like the fact that the movie didn't spin spoon feed you what the film was about what the journeys of the characters in this film particularly the titular Janet and her daughter lacy entailed it was through a lot of great acting and Julian Nicholson and newcomer Zoe Ziegler anchored this film very well and the supporting performances here by the likes of Will Patton, Sophie, Okonito and Elias Kotius also made this film what it is which is very well acted and it almost sort of fools you into being a documentary that's the thing i liked about it but the editing could have been tighter for this to be a better film than it ultimately was. welcome back to words on film the spoken words show dedicated to moving pictures i am your host of movie critic Dan Burke and now that i've reviewed all the movies that i have to review for you for this show it's now time for me to get into my final segment which is what's coming up next this is a spoken word preview of movies that are subject to being released in theaters for the week of july 22nd through july 26th 2024 and if i have time movies that are being released on streaming during that time period but it is unlikely i will get to those given the time that i have for the rest of this podcast but there are some interesting movies that are subject to being released in theaters for example on july 20th a saturday and i very much doubt that this film is going to be released into a theater near me and one of the biggest reasons is because of the title of the film which is and this is true a film that's being released in july a very vermont christmas so i presume this film is going to be taking place around christmas time why is it being released in theaters in july i don't exactly know but rest assured because it's being released on a saturday is not a wide release but the movie stars kate leclerc ryan mikpartland joanna harington and john forest my guess is you'll probably see this film on streaming before you see it in theaters because the fact that it's called a very vermont christmas and also the fact that it's a romance presumably a romantic comedy probably means that it would fit better on the hallmark channel or on g_a_n_ or lifetime if they still do christmas movies i'm not sure if they do because i don't have cable then they would in a theater but if you want to see a very vermont christmas there it is look out for it chances are i probably won't see it a movie that is subject to be released in theaters on july 23rd 2024 is a movie that's called the story of tom and jerry and i actually don't have very much information about this other than the fact that there are it is presumably an animated film but uh the there are only three voice actors that are here listed on my resource page there's eric baza who's the narrator there's uh pierce gagnon and gabby sproul who are voicing some of the characters none of whom are tom and jerry themselves and according to the synopsis here tom boy and jerry rabbit go to school and evil doctor zu turns tom boy and jerry rabbit into cat and mouse oh boy um i love tom and jerry i don't know if i would see this film but you know it's kind of interesting because the movie is titled the story of tom and jerry the title of the movie originally was going to be and this is true and i quote the tom and jerry show movie the origin of tom the human boy become cat and jerry the rabbit become mouse end quote there is not a single word that i miss spoke it does actually say in the original title the origin of tom the human boy become cat not the origin story of how tom the human boy became a cat because that would be grammatically correct so i don't know i i guess judging from the original title of this film it seems like a foreign company just took the characters of tom and jerry and created whatever movie they wanted so chances are i'm not gonna see this film and if it comes out of the theater near me i might check it out but chances are i probably won't but on july 26th 2024 which is a friday there are a number of big movies that are coming out first and foremost is going to be deadpool in wolverine and this is the third movie where ryan actually the fourth movie where ryan rentals plays deadpool but it's the third one where he's the star and this is also not the first time that ryan rentals and huge acumen have played deadpool and wolverine respectively in the same movie the only problem is when ryan reynolds first played deadpool he played him where deadpool literally didn't have a mouth and didn't speak and comic book fans and some movie fans were livid that deadpool didn't speak but then ryan reynolds came out with the movie deadpool which actually saved his acting career and maybe some people like me kind of wished that ryan reynolds would have spoken less but you know it is characteristic of the character of deadpool the original deadpool i gave my rating of a checkout because after a little while ryan reynolds breaking the fourth wall and his talking sporadically was just getting kind of old to me but it worked a little bit better in the second deadpool movie where they actually had a number of very neat plot developments and some also laughable cameos including one very funny one by brad pit where i don't actually know if brad pit appeared in the movie or if his likeness was just used in cgi in there i don't know but either way it was a funny appearance but in this film ryan reynolds of course reprises his role as deadpool slash wade wilson huge acumen reprises his role as wolverine slash logan you also have monoch marina backerin reprising her role as vanesa and leisley ugms reprising her role as blind al you also have uh interestingly enough jennifer garner appears in this film as alectra and my sources tell me that patrick stuart is rumored to appear in this movie as professor x i don't know if he's actually going to but according to imdb he's still rumored to be i guess we'll find out at the end of this week so also another disclaimer i will be taking next weekend off as well so deadpool and wolverine is a movie that i will see i just won't be reviewing it for next week's show but chances are i will be reviewing it for my show in two weeks another movie that's subject to be released in theaters is another film that also stars women most of whom are over sixty five it's a movie that's called the fabulous four and there have been a number of films recently that have come out that have had these actresses like diane keaton cathay baits alphrey woodard mary stein virgin and the list goes on i can name a lot more actresses and i'm actually very glad these women are getting acting work especially in an industry where previously it was thought that if you were a woman over forty your acting jobs would dry up and that's one of the biggest reasons why jessica alba semi-retired from acting to start her own business and she ended up being really successful with that but my god if you consider jessica alba old i i don't know what's wrong with you maybe of course we're all getting older but jessica alba of course is still dropped at gorgeous and she's also married so i will move on but anyway the fabulous four is about four women who are not as old as read a morano they're not as young as jessica alba but they consist of bet midler susan serandin meghan malali and shara lee ralph all of whom are together in this movie where uh apparently there are two friends who traveled to be bridesmaids in a surprise wedding of their college girlfriend now bet midler is the one in this film who is getting married i don't know if susan serandin meghan malali or shara lee ralph are considered the best friends in the two out of three of them are best friends but it looks from the poster like shara lee ralph is also a friend of theirs so i don't know why she wouldn't be one of the best friends and some of the other actors in this film include michael boulton who's playing himself that automatically makes me roll my eyes but that's the only other well-known person that i know who's going to be in this film so the fabulous four is a movie that i will see sooner or later and chances are i will review it for you on my next show but if not the next show it will be on a future show another movie that's subject to be released in theaters on july 26th is a movie that's called d-d and this is a foreign film and i am just about to get the synopsis about this but this is a movie that takes place in 2008 during the last month of summer before high school begins where an impressionable 13-year-old Taiwanese-american boy learns what his family can't teach him how to skate how to flirt and how to love your mom i don't know why his family can't teach him how to love his mom but this seems like an interesting coming coming of age movie i don't know if it's going to be one of those films that's going to be coming out in the theater near me but it's a movie that i will seek out and i'll let you know what i think on a future show that just about does it for this episode of words on film words on film is the spoken words show dedicated to moving pictures and i am your host of movie critic Dan Burke reminding you that the views and opinions expressed on words on film about movies or other topics are solely those of your host of movie critic Dan Burke they not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of any employees or volunteers who are working at wbca or the station as a whole until i watch a whole bunch of brand new movies this is Dan Burke saying i'll see you at the movies [ Silence ]