Out Now With Aaron and Abe
Out Now 591: The Crow
this week, I don't know if they're named, we're talking the crow. Well, my feathers and call me happy. We are now recording and this is out now with Aaron Abe. I am Aaron as always. This is Abe. Hello. How are you, Aaron? Uh, there. Thank you. I, I'm doing well. It's been a, it's been a relaxed, I had a busy week. So it's been a nice week into relax, which I did jellyfish. I got not everything's going to boil down to jellyfish. Okay. Right. Yeah. I mean, it's relaxing. We don't get stuck by one, right? It is. I just don't need to relive the memory every time. But I know I had a good, I had a good way. How are you doing? I'm doing well. It is, it is quite warm this weekend. I don't know how warm it is over in SoCal. I'm sure that you guys are, you know, living it up in like the 80s and 90s per usual. Yeah. But it's a, it also was, I guess, snowing in California and the mountain areas too. So, yeah, it's a, we're, we're, we're going through everything. It'd come like in German Maguire. You need your surferski. It's one of those weekends where you could presumably go for the mountains to the surf within one day and be like, look at this accomplishment. They weren't kidding about the California terrain. Out now as a film podcast. We're even at discuss new bookies weekly. We did get to fill be emotions for your review. The occasional commentary track or some other fun movie topic. This episode, 951, 951, that's the, that's in that fire. I said that wrong. This is episode 591. Okay. I was like, that's why we're almost at a thousand. Welcome to the 951ers. We are technically at almost a thousand, given all the commentary as about as we do all the bonuses, all the, all the specials. Yeah. Yeah. In 591, Riverside County. 591, you mean 951, 591. Really? Yes. Did you have a bet? I know I'm pretty sure it's 951. It's 591. The area code? Yes. I doubt it. I doubt it. Looking at it right now, 591. Why would it reverse? Here's what happened. Yeah, exactly. Your brain is. No, no, no, I have 591 typed into my thing on the lower of the thing, though. It says, what area code is 951 of the USA? Why would it reverse the left? Exactly. Yeah. I was like, no, I used to live in the Atlanta empire. And I know that it's 951. Well, you haven't been there in a while. Maybe they have to split it out. Like we have to multiple area code. This is very important to the show. I'm glad that we got to write. Episode 591, we're talking the crow, the long development reboot of the James O'Barr comic graphic novel series and oh boy, that is a movie we're definitely going to talk about and joining us to do such thing. Resurrected for this podcast in particular from Cal State Fullerton. It's it's Professor Michael. Thank you for having me on coming to you from three to three. The Mazda model number, appreciate coming on and listening to the hard hitting journalism that I associate with your show. Yes, this is what we do here in Detroit, where some of the crow takes place in some of the universes fire it up. We're off to a great start. That's what we're doing. All the the rah rah stuff. It's what I like about this show so far. How great of a start we're off by. How are you doing? Good, I did want to I told you guys earlier before we recorded. I am a bit under the weather. So just for listeners, if my boy starts giving out or starts crackling, do forgive me or he just mysteriously disappear. It's because you've passed out. We continued the show without you. Oh, bang. Fuck, I'm dead. Man, isn't that a good movie? OK, anyway, we're going to talk about another movie. Before we get to that movie, though, let's do some show notes here. First up, speaking of Professor Mike Dill is on with us today. We've had a couple bonus episodes of recent weeks, which are a lot of fun to record. First up, we did a creep show episode with Mike just a few weeks ago, which was really fun. We also did our right. We also we also watched other now now nights. It's episode covering Coraline making now. And now that means we've now covered all the like of films on this podcast at some point. And we just got our new commentary track for the month. Every month, we do a commentary track. And for this summer, we've been going global with different going to different countries. We're different, uh, different commentary, different movies. And we talked about Kiki's delivery service for its 35th anniversary. So that's available right now. That just went up not too long ago from the time of this recording. And you could find that over on iTunes or Spotify where you can also give us a rating interview if you search our show out now with her today on any of those places. You can give us old star rating and maybe even write some words down for a review. Thank you so much in advance. Mythical formula is welcome. We will get one one day, a theorem, maybe. I don't, you know, whatever comes in. What else? Well, I know what else the 12th annual summer movie gamble. Oh, Mike, I believe you might be aware of what we do here during the summer. Uh, now we have a contest or even a lot of many other frequent guests of the show predicting top 10 highest grossing films in the domestic box office for the summer. And we are almost at an end. Um, we think it's going to wrap up next week on Labor Day weekend, uh, but this week, in case you thought the crow is going to be a spoiler, you, you, I don't know why you'd think that because you'd be dead wrong. But the crow came in eighth place this week with $4 million just to provide, just to provide some perspective on that. That is lower than the second week of the rerelease of Coraline. Coraline made another $5 million this week. It's the crow, they got a second week. It is the crow, a new movie made less than the second week release of the rerelease of a 15 year old movie. Well, you never know. Maybe if you were just busy trying to watch a whole bunch of stuff, that's clearly what they're doing. They're busy watching at least seven other movies more than what the crow had to offer them. Uh, definitely. There we are. Yeah, we get here. Like a, like a tree of assholes. We, we got to get the people what they want, Mike. We got to get the book and clearly what they wanted was the movie that made $4.6 million in its opening weekend. Meanwhile, Deadpool made another 18. Uh, it took number one again. It's at 577. Alien Romulus dropped 61%, which is about on par for like a four movie of this kind in a summer that's crowded. You know, there's 16 million. It's at 72. It's a 200 worldwide, by the way. It's like killing in China, apparently. Uh, it ends with those men and other 11. That's at 120. That's going to be, uh, up there in the old, uh, summer gamble by the time of the sense, uh, blink twice debuted at 7 million. Twister has been another six core line. I've mentioned made five and whatnot. Yeah. So funny things making money, uh, except the crow. Um, it's not quite as much of the disaster as borderlands, uh, will be, uh, budget wise in comparison, but, uh, Lionsgate, this isn't the strongest, uh, strongest, strongest month here by any means. Uh, so we'll, we'll go from there and we'll talk more about the crow soon enough. But let's move on now. Let's get some out of cookies. Good. Mark. You two can out now. We'll be with you. Talk about a little bit. Chayed, Mark. Thank you. Mike, what have you been watching recently? Um, I have seen a bunch of new things that I could list. But before I get into it, yeah, or in lieu of it, if you're short on time, is if you'll indulge me, I have all the time in the world all the time. So one of my all time favorite actors passed away last week at 80 years old, uh, the French actor, Elaine de l'on. Yes. Mm hmm. So I've been revisiting some of my old favorites and for you guys or any listeners who may be less familiar, familiar with this body of work. He was gorgeous and graceful and just one of the coolest figures of that era. Um, he could wear a hat too. Yeah, I mean, the war hat, the way he smoked a cigarette and just he was a style icon while outside of his films as well, particularly in the 60s and 70s. And so by way of just paying a small tribute to him, I hope your listeners will go check out some of his stuff. He's most famous for over here anyway, for a trilogy of films he made with the director Jean-Pierre Melville, that's a red circle, the samurai and a cop. Um, they're all great. They're all crime thrillers. Um, so, so those are, that's a, that's a really obvious entry point into Dylan's work, but I wanted to draw people's attention to a couple of other films. He's also in something called purple noon, which is a thriller from, I believe 1960. It's the same here as psycho. Uh, I thought it might be of interest because to my knowledge, it's the first ever adaptation of the talented Mr. Ripley from the high Smith novel. He plays Ripley. Yeah. Uh, and then the other one I really wanted to draw all of your attention to. There's a film called Red Sun, which I love introducing to people. It's a, it's a spaghetti western. It's kind of a buddy film between a brain robber, a wild west train robber and a Japanese samurai. I'll play by Charles Bronson and Toshiro Mifune, who reluctantly team up the travel across the wild west to track down an evil gunslinger played by Dylan. If you guys haven't seen Red Sun, it's exactly as awesome. As it sounds, I was like, that sounds dope as shit. So check that one out. And, uh, yeah, RIP. Um, otherwise the main thing I've seen that's new is strange darling. Um, Aaron seen this, I'm guessing. Yes, I have. So you'd agree. It's a difficult phone to talk about. Yeah, the media spoilers. I went in blind and I wouldn't I would say it's a similar experience to like, um, barbarian, where it's easier to just say, go see this movie and just try not to look too much into it, then. Trying to describe like a basic premise of what it is. But yeah, it is a little tricky to kind of like, you know what I'm saying? It's a thriller. Um, I left feeling strong about it, but in the days since I've soured on it a little bit. So, so I left, which I would say to say about barbarian. I left the theater thinking, well, this is a clever little thriller. But then the more I thought about it, I realized it's more accurately a movie that thinks it's being clever. So it's maybe it's a little high on its own supply. Um, again, difficult to get into details. And I do think if people are going to go, they should go in blind. Um, I think it's the kind of thing where when you have a new director, I don't, I give it a little slack as far as if they're trying to make an impression. They're, they are making one. I, you know, that is necessarily make the movie automatically good. But I can, I can accept that there is a flash value there that I might not afford to someone that, you know, quote, unquote, knows better. Have you guys read the, um, this, this is going to sound a little tangential, but have you read the Jennifer's body graphic novel? No, I didn't know there was a graphic bill. No, it's, it's a little thing that came out at the same time as the film as part of a marketing tie in. Um, it's quite interesting. If I recall, so the Jennifer character is basically not in it. I think it has. So I think she kills maybe five boys in the course of the film. And the book has five chapters, each one centers on one of the victims and sort of not unlike the structure of strange darling. And I'm actually just now realizing Kyle, Kyle Galner is in both. Um, every, every chapter in the graphic novel jumps back in time to trace what each boy was doing in the 24 hours before he's killed by Jennifer. And it really upends and makes you question and rethink who was the victim and who, quote, unquote, had it coming. Um, so that's, it's interesting. It's kind of a tenuous connection, but I was reminded of that while I was watching strange darling, because it's a film that plays around with your assumptions pertaining to issues of consent and violence and, and ways that are kind of fascinating. So I'm not ready to give the strange darling an enthusiastic thumbs up, but it's the film I'm looking forward to more people discovering so that I can get into conversations about it. That's fair. I guy, because I, I like the film, but I would, like I was saying, like it, there's certainly an impact it has from seeing it in a theater or at least seeing it blind that I don't think will be. It will become less special. The more awareness there is of it, which is, you know, it's its own kind of problem, but it also speaks to the quality of the film, where I do think I think the film is worthwhile. And I think, you know, watching it on its own, it will work. But I do think there's a value in the fact that it is kind of got sprung up on audiences, has a very high critic score and is out there, you know, building a lot of buzz. Also saw Hellhole by the Adams family. How's this? Because I have the screener and I was like, oh, the Adams family have a new joint. Yeah, we've talked about them pretty regularly on our annual seems like it. Yeah, yeah. So for those who don't know, they're a family of horror filmmakers. Slash heavy metal musicians who put out these little films and do their own music, not related to the notable family. Adams with the movie. I think this is maybe one of the weaker entries I've seen from them, but, but come on now, even if the film's waver from time to time, you have to kind of get on board with this really charming idea of, you know, of a family going out and making horror films together. I kind of want to be a member of this family. So, so this one's sort of a parasitic body horror film. It's very squishy and gooey and gory, but it's also very tongue in cheek. It's a fun time and go support it. It's on Shutter. Oh, well, I can rapid fire the rest. I've seen a Swedish dark comedy called The Hypnosis. It's about a couple who are also business partners and they're trying to launch a mobile startup and they're, they're attending like a workshop retreat and things start to come apart. So it's, it's very cringe comedy as they keep stumbling into embarrassing situation after embarrassing situation. Yeah. That's kind of fun. Uh, I'm guessing Aaron, you've seen Yannick, the new Quentin de Pew. Well, I saw that like months ago down at this point, but yes, I was a fan. So that, um, that's a fun one. I quite like that one a lot. Yeah, it's not as bold and nutty as some of his other stuff, but still quite funny. Uh, and then lastly, I saw that the documentary Sugar Cane is, which one's that it's, uh, it's about several generations of Native Americans who were forced to enroll in Catholic mission schools as children, where they were where they suffered all kinds of abuse and sexual use. It's, it's very good. It's very emotional and powerful. It tells a familiar story about the predatory behavior of priests and the subsequent cover up by the church, which is a familiar narrative, but it directs that narrative toward a community that hasn't received proportionate attention. Um, so it's very illuminating. It's also very raw. They, they did a good job with it. All right. Um, that's a film worth supporting. I think that's it. Is that out already or is that streaming or? No, I, well, I saw it in a theater. So I think it's in limited release. I'm not sure future is going forward. Fair enough. Great. Hey, how about you? Well, I can't match anything that Mike has said, because mine was just Connor or Malley's comedy special on YouTube because I saw that Connor or Malley was, was a guest on South Myers, where he's the right. Um, and, uh, if you're into a very absurdist, very, uh, strange and loud comedy, Connor or Malley is your guy. Um, you might have seen him from his work either in Detroit or where he plays like the brother of Tim Robinson and or, uh, any of his other various, uh, side character roles in movies and film most recently in I saw the TV glow where he's like the manager, uh, of like the little fun house. Um, but, uh, yeah, but, um, no, I have not really watched anything else this past week. All right. But would recommend color or Malley's again, he's, he's very loud and very like absurdist, strange and loud. What a way to recommend some, you're doing it. Uh, I've seen a number of things that I'll go over quickly here. First up, um, I started the series city of God. The fight rate is on on HBO city of God. The 2002 film from Fernando Marais is one of my favorite films ever. And I say ever like I put that very high in the, in that category. So the idea that there is a new sequel follow up series that takes largely the same, the same cast members from, you know, 22 years ago and has them back in for this thing that had my interest and I'm enjoying this so far. It's only one episode in, but just seeing these, some of these characters back once again, uh, dealing in the favelas still and having new areas to go down. Uh, I am intrigued by this. I should note that Fernando Marais isn't directly involved. He's not directing the episodes or I can't even tell if there's a producer credit for him, honestly. So it's like it's certainly trying to approximate his style as opposed to. Doing something different within the time real, but as far as just like continuing this story, like I'm, I, I am liking what I'm seeing so far. We'll see where it goes from there. I was curious about that one. Cause, uh, everything that you just mentioned there with no, uh, no coming back of the director and I also did watch city of God, because I'd watch it a while and it's like, Oh my God, this movie rules. It's also like a tough watch and, you know, not one that I would think like, we should get a series about this. I mean, they did have what they had city of men, which went on for multiple seasons. They had a movie and are there things in it that are difficult? Sure. It's also a very engaging, but it's like, it's very much, you know, it has a Scorsese kind of quality as far as the, the way it's building the, the fun that comes from this lifestyle, despite the obvious like setbacks that you're seeing, of course, it's not as, it's not as fantastical as seeing the mafia. Versus seeing literal, poor people dealing with various, you know, difficult situations, but there's an energy to it that I think really, that's, it's why I like it so much. It, it works as a, as a watch. Yeah. Um, you talk about strange darling. Uh, I watched the killer. John was remake of his own 1989 classic action film. Peacock on Peacock. Um, this version stars, uh, what's it in? Natalie Emmanuel, and Omar Sy, um, it's, well, it's less of like a direct remake and more of a, I hate the word reimagining since we're going to talk about that again in a few minutes. Uh, but that's really what it comes down to. It's taking the broad strokes of what the killer is. As far as there's an assassin, there's a cop, the assassin takes pity on somebody that gets harmed due to collateral damage and things go from there. But outside of that, it's kind of doing its own thing. It's set in Paris. Um, I like this. I had fun with this. Um, like the killer is a classic, like that would be rules. I wasn't sitting there thinking John was about to deliver me another one of those. I was just thinking, I hope this is a good time at best. Mike, you and I both, uh, uh, uh, silent night back in December. John was first like theatrical US release in a while. And we were both, uh, disappointed, I would say, um, in, in the results there. Cause even if there's some action that worked as, you know, as John, we know, said I do. This is a slightly different tone cause it's a, it's just a more fun film based on just the story that's going on. And I think if you approach it in that sense, there's enough there. I think the action works. It looks nice for being a direct to streaming peacock release nicer than some other blockbusters I've seen of late. Um, there's at least three cool, like John Woo style shootouts that I had a lot of fun with and like, you know, for a movie that's under two hours from John Lou, that's free. Yeah. I mean, it works. It does the job for me. No. I had a good time here. Um, less of a good time. I watched the union. This is the Netflix. Action comedy starring Mark Wahlberg and Halle Berry with this movie. Okay. Exactly. This movie. It's auto, it auto plays the trailer when you get on Netflix. I turn that off. So nothing auto plays for me because I am tired of that. Um, why dad hasn't. So whenever he turns on Netflix, I hear it. Uh, I will say this about the union. It's not as bad as Red Notice and some of the drags that I've mentioned over the years when it comes to Netflix original fake blockbusters. It's still not good. In fact, it's quite dumb, but I didn't like have a terrible time watching this compared to those were ghosted on Apple. This one, it still has this like bizarre, very dad movie premise of Mark Wahlberg plays a average construction worker in Boston, whose ex-girlfriend, Halle Berry randomly recruits him to be a part of a secret spy society because apparently his average nature is what's going to help him infiltrate something to help them save the world. I, this sounds like like Arnold Schwarzenegger walking into recall that like choosing this, like that's what it feels like. Um, that said, Wahlberg and Berry are movie stars and they at least you didn't know how to use that on camera. I don't know what excused Reynolds and the rock and others have when they just like seem to have no presence on these Netflix movies. So it's like, all right. And at least, at least these two like still know how to like make this stuff look good, even if the movie's garbage, which it pretty much is. Yeah. So, um, I also watch Jack Pot. Oh, yeah. Mission point. Yeah. The latest Paul Feig film. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want you to shut on to my friend Jefferson Sage. He's the production designer. Hey, I really like the premise of this movie, which is California a few years from now develops a lottery system where somebody randomly wins and they will get that money as long as they can survive the entire day without being murdered. And you can't use guns to murder them because, because the reasons, I guess that's what you've established. So Aquafina plays like a former child star who's come back into LA and randomly wins the lottery. She doesn't know how the lottery works. It's like, Oh, my God, what's happening? And everyone's trying to kill her. John Cena gets involved as he does as a protection agent who for a slice of the jackpot will protect her from the people that are coming her way. Seemu Liu is also in this as like the villain. He's like he he owns a rival protection agency, but he has more nefarious means for for things side note. Seemu Liu needs to stop playing villains and dickheads in movies. I really don't think it's helping out his career. I let we like she's getting typecast or something. I mean, every movie I've seen him in that's not Shaqhee since Shaqhee is him playing some kind of villain or dickhead in a movie, whether it's Barbie. Or that Jennifer Lopez movie Atlas or this movie or any number of other movies where he pops up and he plays like, I guess, I'm like the foil or an asshole or something. It's like, stop doing this guy. Like, I don't know about sure. Um, you know, it's going to be a long time between now and Shaqhee too. And when we get to that, it's going to be like, do I still, is he still like hero? It's like he hasn't done that in a long time. Anyway, jackpot. Um, Cena and Aquafina rhyme intended have a good chemistry. I like their chemistry. There's a lot of like bits in here that are fine. However, for a movie like this, which is like a weird comedic spin on like the purge and other things. Feed spends like there's no time spent like delving into the premise of this thing, which I was disappointed by. I'm not saying I need to like a sharp social commentary from Paul Feig involving this specific premise at the same time, doing absolutely nothing. Feels like it's wasting some value in favor of like, you know, improv skits between actors, talk and machine on Kelly, for whatever reason. Uh, just saying lines and whatnot that are like shouted at them off screen. That's funny. So it's like, it wasn't a terrible time watching this, but it's not what Paul Feig's better films, I don't believe and, uh, you know, it's on prime. So it's again, it's not a hard watch, but could have been better. Last thing I'll mention here, Mike, I know you've seen this life after fighting. Yes. Um, what's the, what's the, uh, star slash directed? Brendan Foster, Brendan Foster. Um, this is, I don't know if I'll see a better like kick as a direct video action movie this year. This would be fucking novels, like I had so much fun with this thing. It, it's about this guy. This guy played by Brent Foster star of a deep blue C three. Uh, but he, um, he owns a, um, next week, he owns a, a fight studio, uh, where he teaches martial arts. Um, and bad people get involved eventually. And it becomes a human trafficking plot. We're like, bad guy kidnaps the daughter of one of his students. And he has to like get it back. That's like, that's the bare minimum of plotting. Like that's the, like, but what really matters is Brendan Foster fucking kicks ass in this movie. And there is, it's two hours, the first hours, like plot, plot, plot. Let's get through this stuff. Cool. There's some action, the, the second hour and it's nearly, it nearly is an hour. It's at least 40 minutes is all action and it's really well staged, really well choreographed. It looks great. It's moving rocks. I had such a good time. I like this. It's like it was like watching sound of freedom, except instead of all the weird politics, you get fucking kick ass fight sequence. Cause that's what the movie is. It's also really ambitious in ways that it's not obliged to be at all. So the fight choreo action design is all very solid, like you say, but. So remind me, cause I did see this, um, earlier in the summer, there's, there's, there are fight scenes that take place in the dojo, right, the fight. And you have these wonders as the hero is taking out waves of bad guys. And at multiple points, the camera is passing in front of mirrors on the left. Yes, right. Oh, whoa, without reflecting the camera crew. And so I was thinking, this is obviously this modestly budgeted film. Did they incorporate all these VFX into the shot as well? Cause there's no reason for them to make it harder on themselves. Because the minutes action are the fights, right? And yet they're being ambitious while also being subtle about it. I don't know if that's the correct assessment. I'd be curious to ask the filmmakers, but I would too. Cause I, yeah, I was curious if it's like, do we have like, just like who really hidden cameras like far away and they're just zooming well? Or is it actually like these guys were in like green suits, like using handicaps. Now it's rain style. They're actually the cloth of the seats. It's just the level of detail that I really appreciate because it's, there's no need to go there, but they did, you know, yeah. But yeah, this movie rocks and it's currently available on Hoopla. Once again, who was delivering the goods guys? There are some good things in Hoopla and also a canopy. Great work. It is just rock in the house, but no, this movie ruled. Like I was so happy I watched this. It go well with what's it? Fist of the Condor from last year as far as just like seeing these guys. That's Mark Zoror, who's in John, the John Wick 4, like seeing these guys go from like Villains and henchmen to I'm the star of the show and you're going to see how fucking kick ass I am when I get to fight sequences. So yeah, that's what I've watched. Great. Yeah. So I'm wondering if you've seen this movie. There's a movie I've been pushing Aaron to check out from Canada called Red Rooms. Have you seen that yet? I have the screener for it. I have not watched it yet, but I will. Yeah, this is so I couldn't help but notice that it's starting to play at my local theater, I think next week. Um, yeah, it's a French Canadian thriller. I think it's brilliant. I know we have months left to go before the end of the year and spooky season is on the way and you know, hopefully will each of us fall in love with a few titles, you know, and but this Red Rooms is my contender for best horror film of the year. I think, okay. Well, I was told the embargo is like September 6th or something. So I'm like, hey, I gotta, I have to wait until I, since I have to wait to write because I was like, I don't have to rush to watch it, but I, it's, I, I am looking forward to watching it. It's on my thing. Red Rooms got it. Okay. Yeah. All right. Well, that's how the quickies trade back. Let's move on now. Let's get to our trailer talk. We're talking about one of the newest movie chairs of the week when it's coming out, but we thought it would have you. And this week, we're talking the Lord of the Rings, colon, the war of royal room. That's probably the way to say it. I don't know. I was like, yeah, I was actually king and like, yeah, he pronounced fine. Yeah, yeah, we're not going to get, we're not going to get angry letters from the Lord of the Rings fans. When this comes, when this comes out, I did my own sort of like, that sounds wrong. Who cares? When it, when we get to December, I'll have it. So that, that's way, that, that's how he got through it. I think you rolled your ours enough, but the Rohim, something like that. I don't think they have a Latino representation in the middle earth very much for some reason. You got to go baby steps because it's like, you know, they already, they already put a, a black dwarf in the, in the prime series of the war and the world lots. It's fucking mine for some reason, but because fantasy creatures, don't get me started on the Star Wars fans. But anyway, this is this new Lord of the Rings feature film is an anime fantasy film. It's from director Kenji Kamayama, who is, I think most notable for his work on the Ghost in the Shell TV series and other things. So see, right? Sorry, SAC. So yeah, the Ghost in the Shell media is called stand alone complex. So yeah, I'm only vaguely familiar with this stuff, but I know that. Yeah, he's known for Ghost in the Shell. He's been the game for a while. He was doing background stuff on like Akira and the just recently talking about Kiki's delivery service. Yeah. But yeah, he's helping this. It's from the, it's from the, the, the, the Peter Jackson, Philip Boyens kind of production team. Like it has that backing despite being an anime feature and not like a wet up production specifically. And this play takes place like little under 200 years before the events of the Board of the Rings trilogy. And it deals with, I don't know, some drama in Rohan, because why not? Oh, okay. We'll follow that said. Abe, you were surprised that there even was a Lord of the Rings movie coming out in December. What did you think of this trailer? I was. I was like, oh, I thought that it was just a television series. That they're going to explore more of, but Aaron was like, well, there's a trailer exclamation point and I want to go check it out. And I, we talked about with Hiki's delivery service. I love animation as an art form and the way that you can show a lot more in terms of magic powers, magic spells, the way that you can kind of convey things that are in a fantasy world environment. So I'm very looking forward to everything that I'm going to be looking or seeing on the screen because while the, the movies were really good and really fun and really adventurous, there was magic spells in this world, you know? And so I'm, I'm very curious to see how that all plays out. But the War of the Rehearum is something that I'm sure that my friends would be a cat about and I would love to hear more from them around. Perhaps like what they're expecting because I'm not expecting a whole lot. I don't really know this lore that well, but I'd be curious to see what all the, the, the Tolkien heads have to say about this. Now, Mike, you've recused yourself from watching this trailer because you generally don't dig into trailers very much. But do you have any thoughts on just more Lord of the Rings coming to theaters? Uh, it's the reason I didn't bother watching it. I'd skip the assignment. I have no investment in anything related to Lord of the Rings. Not at all. Not even like, I did see the original trilogy. Um, I haven't seen a single Hobbit movie. You don't need to. Hey, it's fine. Never caught up. So sure. All right, well, I am a similar with you. I'm not, I'm not like a ringer. I, I know what they're called. That's what they're called. That's what the documentary starring Dominic boy to hand call is called. So there's all called riggers, like ring worms or nothing would make Tolkien heads more proud of being called ring worms. I'm sure they all, they all lift up. They'll lift up the shirt and show up the small. If they're back that they have the tat, the official tattoo. It is. It's a very, you know, it's disgusting. It's an action. Yeah, it's budgeting Carter on that or they, they show like the back of their calf or something, something just, any kind of gross red worm that they purposely get so they could be part of the club. It's treatable. Yeah, let's talk more about this. Um, no, I, um, no, I like, I like Lord of the Rings. It's not like my thing, but I certainly appreciate the, uh, the trail, the first trilogy and the hobbits that I rightfully said I was not super into what it first came out, except all of the, all you guys on that podcast were super into. And then the next year, you guys are less into it. And I was like, see, I told you, um, I outside of this, I really like the Amazon Prime series so far. I like the first season quite a bit. And the idea of doing just more in this universe. I'm down with, I'm more down with because up until a couple of months ago, we had no idea what this thing was going to look like. And then they revealed, Oh, it's an anime and it's like, okay. Now I, I do have like, I've gotten, I've gotten, I've become more intrigued by what this potentially has to do because of how, you know, it's, you know, the limits of animation already pretty unlimited, but like going anime with it. It's like, that's just, that's a very specific choice. Yeah, especially for like, like a, a large release. Yeah. And for it, yeah, and for middle earth, no less, like, that's just not something I would have like seen coming and not that they're the same studio or have any real connection, but like when Spider-Man was first announced, it's being like, there's going to be an animated Spider-Man movie. We were like, okay. And then we started seeing stuff from Spider-Verse. I was like, well, this looks neat. And then it proved, you know, to be so do I think that LOTR T W O T R is going to be top it, stop it right now. You heard the man err and you stop it. Do I think it's you do? I think it's going to be, you know, up to that level. I don't know, but I am still very intrigued. And I like what I'm seeing so far in the, you know, the two minutes that we get. The story is kind of besides the point for me. We're like, yeah, all right. Somebody's upset in the kingdom and they got to, you know, fight it out. And they're specifically doing it in Helms Deep, which is where like the best action sequence and that trilogy happened. So it's like, okay, cash in a little bit on the, on the nostalgia there. But outside of this, sure, give me this. Let's see what it is. Let's let's see a 2D anime feature film in Set in Middle Earth. I'm down. Yeah, deep. Is that the fortress? Helms Deep is where they lay siege and in two towers. I've been the climbing and the climactic battle in that in the same way. I've been a battle sequence. I'm going to do the wall, right? Yeah, we're, yeah. We're the one guy. Yeah, the one guy. He's like, he's, he's a line backer and he runs in with like the flames to like ignite the bomb that they put in the bottom. Legolas. Legolas. Look, it's not failed. Air, air boards are like, Legolas! And he like shoots like three arrows at the guy. He's like, I'm just going because somebody got it. I have so much roids and PCP and me it's insane because I'm at work and then he fails and they blow up the giant ball. It's, it rules. It's really fun. Uh, no, tell us more. Yeah. So they blow up the thing and they start, they start like leading in and oh my God, there's all these armies. They're the King of Rowhead. Oh, yeah. That's it. That's it. Yeah. I like the second one a lot. That one, that one, that's what I, if I like, if I'm a big fan of like OG, so I love fellowship more than the others for the world. Yeah. A lot of people do. I don't. A lot of people love return the King. Like the thing that's like, you know, like the captain, I hear more fellowship love. I hear that all the time and I'm always sitting there and being like, I like most of it. I think Galadriel starts talking for a long time. I just like Gandalf dies. They play jets, just ruining all the momentum. And I'm just saying to be like, what? Okay. Does that end? We do. What was your question like? I was just trying to remember, which is the Lord of the Rings film with all the CGI armies? That's return of the King. That's all of the. It's return of the King. It's a point. It is specifically return of the King. That's the load of all the CGA. All right. No one's really have that CGA got better over the years that they're big. It works out that way. All right. I'm just, I'm just saying, you're trying to be snarky. I'm just saying they don't really have any CGI battles with the other two. Lord of the Rings. WOR, WTR arrives at the earth December 13th this winter. So stay tuned. Great. All right. Let's move on. Let's get to our main review for the Crow. When someone dies, a crow carry the soul to the land of the dead and sometimes something so bad happens and the soul cannot rest until you put the wrong things right. You were given the power of a god, but you're running out of time to save her. I'm going to kill them. Are we single one of them? That should have been some of the trailer for the Crow. Alex Preus is the Crow arrived in theaters back in 1994 and was a success. At least part of that can be attributed to the circumstances surrounding the film in which Star Brandon Lee was accidentally killed by a dummy around during the filming of the character's actual death scene. The popularity of the film, however, extended to its look, the soundtrack, and with Miramax naturally wanting to capitalize on this. That led to three more sequels, only for Lionsgate to obtain the rights and pitch a plan to deliver a reinvention of the original James O'Barrr comic. This began back in 2008 and since then many directors and actors including Bradley Cooper, Mark Wahlberg, Luke Evans, Jack Houston, and Jason Momoa were all attached. Finally, things settled with the live action director, live action ghost in the shell director, Rupert Sanders and star Bill Skarsgard making a film together. In it, we once again see lovers Eric and Shelley brutally murdered by an evil element only for Eric to be resurrected, made invulnerable and guided by a Crow who killed those who killed his beloved. Mike, at the beginning of the year, you said I cannot wait to talk about the Crow. This movie can't lose. It's just going to be the best I can't wait to talk about it. What the fuck are you talking about? I definitely need to be on the out and out and out of every day podcast and talk all about the Crow, a movie that I am definitely looking forward to. So was it all worth it? Nice to be quoted accurately. It's a shame that this is an audio medium you can't your listeners can't see the look of. Yeah, the look is just staying on Mike's face. Yeah, well, can I can I preamble a little bit? Sure. Yes, please do. Give us your history of the Crow. Yes. So I have a high opinion of the original it's it's it's imperfect, obviously, but I think on balance it holds up really well. And as you alluded to it arguably has the best soundtrack of the 90s. So in addition to that, I think it's important to lay my cards out. I have a I do have a history with that film along two lines that I think I need to explain because of my approach to the new one. The first is personal. You know, I was a kid at the time. I was getting really into action films and I was studying martial arts and Bruce Lee was a little ahead of my time and of course there's there's Jackie. But being half Asian myself, I idolize Brandon Lee, man, even before the crow and I have a fire with your jail. Yeah, rapid fire also, you know, not for nothing to show down a little Tokyo is fun for it. Yeah. Yeah, I have memories of being really devastated and having trouble processing after learning you died. I still get emotional thinking about it. And so that film does have kind of a place it's carved into into my life into my heart. And the second thing and Aaron knows this, but I put a lot of effort in my teaching to be an advocate for the stunts community whenever I can and whatever small capacity I'm able. I bring stunt people into my classes all the time to celebrate what they do and talk about what they do with my students. And in the course of those conversations, we inevitably kind of spend a little time talking about issues of onset safety. And so I've been doing this for years and up until recently, until the Helena Hutchins incident on rust, all the years we've been teaching, if we were talking about something going horribly wrong on a phone set, the go to example is Brandon. And I mean, I haven't interrogated myself that much about it, but I suspect one small reason that I make this such an important part of my curriculum has to do with my resentment and my anger over people being negligent about safety on a film set, which took Brandon from us and took his Hutchins from us. And so the original film has ended up playing a role in my life both personally and professionally. So I am one of those fans. And so at the same time, I think it's important to say upfront that I don't think the first film is sacred. I'm not precious about it in any way at all. In fact, I think the more success or reboot like this garners for itself, the more it directs people to check out the original and celebrate its merits and keep a certain legacy alive. Right? Reboots have that value potentially. That's the ideal. Yeah. Yeah. They don't overwrite or replace the original. Right. As much as people want to say they do, that's correct, they do not. Yeah. So I went into this new one determined to keep an open mind because it strikes me as being no enviable task to try to balance making an entertaining and meaningful film that stands on its own right and speaks to 2024 while also knowing that doing so requires some amount of delicacy. Right? I keep reminding myself that whether this film works on its own merits and succeeds at what it's doing versus whether this is a worthy remake/reboot that manages exactly that balanced approach to reinvent the story while also respecting this kind of really raw spiritual baggage that comes with this IP are two separate questions, right? They're two separate criteria. So I was really trying to bear that in mind. And all of that said, I was surprised and exhausted by how badly it fails on both registers. Yeah. And how like, unput together it all ended up being. I'm honestly struggling to make sense why this film exists other than maybe to demonstrate that mediocre white male directors tend to fail upward in Hollywood, you know? Awesome. I need to stop talking, but I wanted to plant a flag here and lay out that dynamic between the two approaches to critiquing this film because it's kind of the crux of probably everything I have to say as we dive further into details. Sure. You similarly were like, I'm going to put this at the top of the summer gamble as it can't lose. Yep. I was like, you know, people have been dressing up like, like the crows since the 94 for Halloween, you know, it was very popular. And I was like, yeah, it's going to be number one of the boss stuff in the summer. So what'd you, what'd you, what'd you take away from? What is your connection with the crow? And what'd you take away from this film? I thought it was an excellent movie. I don't know what Mike's talking about. Like, I'm in a fucking murder boat, these guys were slandering me. I my connection to the film is I remember watching it. I remember being, being hearing the news, like in Premiere magazine, you know, you, you, we didn't have a lot of entertainment outlets back in the day. You know, you kind of had like entertainment tonight. And maybe like, I don't know, was access Hollywood still around? Yeah, I guess so. Yeah. But then I remember just being pretty shaken up by it because I grew up idolizing Bruce Lee, right? Because of all the martial arts films and everything that. And so kind of like hearing his son had passed away because of this and kind of just people were kind of, we talked about this, like maybe like, I think like when we talked about the crow, like not that long ago, but people were kind of talking about maybe it was like a cursed family or a cursed set kind of thing. And then it kind of gets explored a little bit more like the, the in dragon, the Bruce Lee story with, um, uh, Jason Scott Lee, Jason Scott Lee, um, and perhaps it is, perhaps it isn't, but, um, I wouldn't have this movie kind of just very little expectations. I think that you and I have talked about Rupert Scott. Is it that, that director Saunders, Rupert Saunders, quite a bit in terms of his visual aesthetics and how he likes to make things look cool, but maybe they're kind of empty and meaningless. And I was like, well, you know, maybe he's changed, maybe, maybe it's like it, it can be visually appealing, um, and have like a semblance of a storyline, kind of like left disappointed, mostly just because like, I don't think that it's like unwatchable, but it's kind of unwatchable, uh, it's kind of near unwatchable in that there's not a whole lot going on here. Like there, I had the same question that Mike had, which is in my brain when I was watching this movie three times in this theater screening, I was like, why did they remake this movie? Like, is there something that he's trying to say with this? Or was it just like IP that they have to like remake kind of thing? Um, but I was watching this movie and I was thinking to myself, there's, there's not a whole lot to these characters that makes me invested in the characters. And there's also a lot of like senselessness in what's happening here. Um, and it actually lingers back and forth until like this mid realm, uh, versus like the earthbound realm and you're just like, why is Zappin, who's this guy in this platform? Uh, talking to him, talking to, to Eric Draven. And then, uh, when he goes back, he like, you know, I don't even know much about him. And I finished this movie and I haven't revisited the crow in a while, mostly just because of all the things that Mike had mentioned. And it's kind of hard for me to go watch these things where you know that something unfortunate has happened, um, especially during the filming of the movie. And I remember, or I was watching the 1994 crow and I was like, wow, this movie is really good. Like, this movie is much better in terms of, uh, while you don't have a lot of like, you know, uh, Eric Draven and, and, uh, his, uh, Shelley, like you do get a sense that they were going to get married. There was like the love of his life kind of thing and all these flashbacks I played through. And you're like, well, I, I would be devastated to have this happen, but you also have supporting characters that really helped drive the movie, including like the little kid, the little girl who's like just helping to like be the, um, the, the, uh, exposition. But then you have Ernie Hudson. That's just like playing like a pretty good dude, um, and helping Eric Draven out. So there's like this humanity side of this dead, dead Eric Draven, uh, but then you also have like the, the, the, um, the killing Eric Draven, the one that's like, you know, driven by revenge and, um, I just found that this 2024 remake of it, it has no repersonality for Eric Draven. Like, I don't know what's his deal kind of thing. Um, and that is unfortunate because it could have been cool. Like, uh, I think that there was like some neat visuals at the same time. It's pretty repetitive. There's a very weak character, a very weak villain and I just don't know how this movie has to deal with, you know, the things that, that, um, the original author, uh, oh, is it OBAR? James Obario. Yeah. James Obario. Like how, how this has to deal with like, you know, coping with loss and grief. You know what I mean? And in the ways that he has expressed in the past and why he originally made the Crow and why he's lamented even like the Netanyahu for version of the Crow with, um, with the unfortunate incidents there. So yeah, it's, it's a bad movie. Um, and I, you know, last week, you and I are talking about Borderlands and I was like, well, it's not unlatchable, at least like you can watch and kind of like be entertained to some degree too. This one is like, I don't know. There's not a whole lot here. I, I honestly don't really know when I would recommend people to go check this out. But yeah, what about you, Aaron? I'm a big fan of 94 or is the Crow, um, it recently had a 4K rerelease, um, and it looks fantastic. I mean, it did. Yeah. And it gets into the holds up game because it just kind of just, you know, like films or I don't like film. But I mean, it, it's a very stylish film. It has a lot of great qualities to it that reflect both the 90s era of superhero movies and just what you can do with a director that has a vision for a property they're into. Yeah. And you know, even if that was just a stepping stone to dark city for director Alec, probably it's a particular, it still works. It's just a solid gothic action film with some great performances, whether they're over the top or not. I think Michael Wincott's a fantastic villain in that film already Hudson, like you mentioned, is a very good human character in that movie, or even like those like four weird henchmen guys. Yeah. Yeah. David Patrick Kelly from the Warriors. I mean, there's just plenty of stuff there that I really appreciate. But like Mike mentioned, yes, I, there's no, you know, having a film version of that movie doesn't negate the idea of doing it again. I wouldn't say I necessarily needed that, but I'm not inherently against it. I do question the idea of what do you think is the success of a success factor of a movie like this where the 94 version is so clearly embedded in people's minds as being a very unique property, a unique property that like the success of that stems from the circumstances surrounding the death of Brandon Lee. Sure. Yeah. You're not going to get any of that in a new version of this, but here they, they went for it anyway. And so nearly 20 years of development online skates part, all the work, all the directors, all the actors, all the pre production of various iterations of this thing. And this is the result it's, it's, it's on, it's honestly, it's pathetic. Like I'm happy to see effort being put in by people that clearly gave a fuck. But when you just, you think about the amount of time that was spent going into something that you could tell them in 2008 was a bad idea that would not make money and that would not be regarded well. And that they stuck it out. And here we, this feels like a producer situation, except there's no like, there's no like fun ending to it in the Melbourne, like in the Melbourne's movie, instead it's like, no, it's just bad. Like everything. There's movies awful, like, is it unwatchable? No. The images are coherent, sure. It has nice shoes, like, yeah, it's the lowest of confidence you can give this because there's nothing to say, like it just from the ground up perspective from like where it starts from. It's, it's not about source fidelity, like, but you have to, you would think that if you're adapting James O'Barr, the crow, the Eric Drain story specifically, you would want to at least stay within the bounds of what makes that story interesting, or at least how to tell it. And this version even strips that away, where James O'Barr is very much dealing with a random occurrence where his girlfriend, wife, was killed in a car accident and he doesn't get her back. This movie doesn't even have that going for it. Like there's a plot of this movie where Bill Skarsgard's crow Eric Draven, he's doing all of this because he's bringing Shelley back, like that's the idea. That's like fundamentally that's wrong, right, right away. So it's like, that's just the base of this. There are so many other lit, there's litany of issues with this movie that just make it ridiculous. We're spending so much time not seeing the crow be the crow in this movie where it's like, are we past this? Are we past the, like, let's like wait around till the end of the movie to see him do the thing? Like the first movie didn't do that. The first movie he's the crow in like 20 minutes, he gets ready to do it. When said in this movie, we spend like a half an hour developing Eric and Shelley's romance. Again, it's not about just comparing it to the other movie, but if you just mentioned it, like we get that, we get their romance right away, like we don't need a whole lot of time to be like, oh, this is who they are. And even then, we don't really know them that well, we know they just got to appear, you know, Eric is booty. They have a meat cute and in their second style. Yeah, exactly. And then run away with like pop punk. It's nonsense. I mean, there's, I will say Bill Skars got an FKH twigs. They're fine. They're doing the job. It's maybe the bare minimum, but I do think they're putting the effort in where it counts. I wouldn't say that there are a relationship for the ages, but like of the issues I have this movie, it's not the performances of these two people. I think they do what they can with what they're given. However, however, dot, dot, dot, there's a little thing is I, this ties back to that central question I wanted to put out there, which is to kind of give the movie its own space to do its own thing, even if it's making departures. Right. You know, if the swings were really big and ambitious, I think we would appreciate that. And I think this whole love story angle, like there's some potential I feel like in the film's defense. There's definitely some potential to the emphasis on mental health and trauma, right? There's the notion here that these are two people who empathize with each other and the shared recognition of each other's hurt can be the basis of a really deep drop, right? That's the thesis of this movie, but the execution here is what's awkward at best, right? The focal point of the story is that Eric's death has to run so deep that it, no, Eric's no. So in the moment of his death, Eric's love has to run so deep that it transcends the boundaries of life and death itself, right? That's what needs to happen. But in this film, he feels that strongly about Shelley because the film needs him to not because it's earned. Yeah. Ever. And they spend what appears to be a weekend together having sex and rolling around. We have no real idea, like the time makes no sense of this. It's very brief, like what Meg is saying. And I would go back to even a step there if you're talking about like the what it's aiming for of its real beds. My issue right away is it's very lopsided. Shelley just becomes a fan girl for Eric. That's it. Like he just sees someone that's like, oh, she looks cute. And that's it. That's like his thing. He comes back to him, just like, I'm going to check out your room in this place where they don't allow a fraternization between men and women, but they never get in trouble for it. And I'm just going to check out your stuff. And I'm going to do this and that because I support you no matter what, for no reason. It's weird because like I think Mike is also driving out like it's lopsided in that Shelley is like the real driver of this relationship. And the passenger is Eric Draven. Eric Draven is like, well, I guess she's got to go protect this girl for she's not telling me everything. And it's weird and mysterious, but I guess I'm I'm into her right now. So, uh, and she is the one that's actually driving him into like a lot of harm's way. It's weird. She the things that she's involved with are what drive the plus she's just nothing. She's just like a person that happens to have seen stuff, which it is another issue right away. There's no mystery in any of this, like, we were given every it's all front loaded with information. We have what's what the problem is, why bad guys are after the fact that Danny Houston's also supernatural in some way, all of that's given to us from the get go. So there's no intrigue in any of this movie. We're just sitting there waiting waiting for Eric to catch up with everything else that we already know, which makes it fucking boring to watch for so long to see first to see half hour of a love story where we're sitting there going, hurry up and die, which is a weird thing to think. So we can see the crow stuff and the crow movie we came to see. Yeah. And on top of that, we're not going to discover anything because they already told us. It's nonsense. It's a nonsense. Like, where are you going to say? No, I was just saying that there is an inversion, right? All the other films involved, the hero seeking revenge against killers and then stumbling into a larger criminal conspiracy or criminal network as he fights his way to the top. Yeah. This movie is inverted, which is that the conspiracy comes looking for them. And as a result of what Aaron, I think, rightly called all the front loading, right, you just kind of have to bombard us with all this information. And so we're meant to believe that this love story is rooted in this really weird, frolic montage that's filled with stupid shit like they're hanging out at the lake and they're kissing through a curtain veil and other completely uninventive imagery. And like, I was glad not to be a teenager anymore and think that there's anything sexy or romantic, right? There's a line that my eyes got such a workout rolling back in my head. I wrote it down, Shelley says, if I'm ever hard to love, love me harder. Yes. And I also, my eyes also rolled here. Yeah. Well, okay. First of all, it doesn't make sense grammatically to put lifting definitions of the word hard in the same sentence. So you're mixing metaphors there, Shelley, but also like a cornball line like that really wounds the film's credibility, right? Because the love story at the center needs to be rock solid in a crow film. You have to believe man can love someone so totally that he would come back from the dead for her. And if that part of the film seems corny and inauthentic, then nothing comes after it. It seems corny and again, like to my view, it's like not exact. This is the word that's like too strong for it, but it feels manipulative on Shelley's part where it's like, what are you doing to this guy? Like you're, you're making him love you, even though you know that you're this person who has done some bad things on video because of like some demon spirit, but still, it feels very brief. And so that's why, you know, juxtaposing it with the Eric Draven from Nine to Four Crow, where it's like, you actually don't even get a lot of Shelley and Eric except for in flashbacks, right? And but in flashbacks, you're like, Oh, this guy deeply loved this woman. And they had like a deep connection. They were together for a while, and he was going to get, or they were engaged and they were going to get married. And then terrible things happened. And that's like, even just him touching Ernie Hudson's face and be like, Oh shit, like my, my fiance suffered for like 30 hours kind of things like. And yeah, you break for him credit to pry us to because the flashback structure of the original Crow signals to the viewer that no, no, this is his subject of memory. We are being treated to his feelings. So we believe he loves her because the film is visually telegrapous. This is a film in which we're supposed to ostensibly watch the budding romance in real time, right? Which doesn't work. And all you're really showing us is that the mysterious supernatural forces that work in this film can't tell the difference between two teenagers infatuated with each other versus kind of deep, deep, deep love, like, yeah, you would be like dragon back to hell for a lot to think about Robin Williams as monologue and Goodwill hunting about his wife, right? That's a scene everyone should go back to from time to time and by plagiarized for your wedding vows. That's deep affection and deep love that this film is just sort of too busy and too cluttered to kind of get at in any substantive way. Yeah, I think you're right about the collider part. I want to actually get to Aaron, you mentioned, you're like, you know, I'm way for this guy to die. You're getting some Crow stuff. Even when we get to the Crow stuff, he's not crowing. He's just like, I don't know. He has to level up to be all to the Crow like it's like, it's actually like, it's kind of cool visually from like a quote unquote like Gore aspect. But even though I'm just like, I don't think it is, but we'll get to that. It's mostly just because like, Oh, isn't this neat how it will talk? We'll talk about the action. We'll play it. You're right. Like, it actually doesn't do anything for this sort of for the middle of the movie. Even when the yet in the third act, you're like, you've seen a lot of it from the trailer. I have a complaint about this because they repeat a line that cuts across the entire franchise, which is the Crow will guide you to make the wrong things right. That's a key line across the franchise, except the actual Crow in this film doesn't do a goddamn. No, the Crow is hardly a factor in this movie. It shows up at the right position and the right. How does he know how to find the bad guys? He gets text messages that tell them that right at the upper house, right? He gets tech with the visual motif. This movie is a horse covered in barbed wire. It doesn't even know what thing it wants to use to guide guide us here. It's the deer from get out. They think the root of his trauma can be symbolized in that. I'm not sure, but I don't think I remember seeing a single shot in which Eric and the Crow are in the same shot unless the bird is CGI, right? That's true. Accurate, yes. Yeah. It's nice back to, you know, I'm confused about the cherry picking at play and balancing, you know, where are we departing in our own direction versus what are we recycling because I would put it to you that one of the most iconic shots of the original film is Eric has just like created some mayhem and he's walking away like a boss. The music is operatic and the Crow floats down and perches on his shoulder. It's so great, right? So it's clear that they've made the calculation in this film that, well, it's not a Crow movie unless he ultimately wears a trench coat and paints his face. We can alter the look a little bit here and there, the detail. Nonetheless, we have to do this for it to be a Crow movie. And I would say no. You can absolutely have a Crow themed movie that doesn't involve face paint, but you can't have a Crow themed movie with no fucking bird in it. Yeah. Aaron, play something smart. You're not wrong. It feels very much Crow entitled only, but even part of that comes from what Sanders is offering as a director. Now, would I say like, oh, I was so excited that Rupert Sanders signed on to the Crow? No, because I haven't liked his movies. However, at least those movies showed me he's trying something visually, like, you know, whatever you may think of Snow White and the Huntsman or Ghost in the Shell, Snow White and the Huntsman does have style. Like I can't say it doesn't have style and Ghost in the Shell, like there's interesting uses of CG in there, regardless of the movie, right? This movie weirdly has nothing going on for it, which was confusing to me. Like I get that it has a perhaps lower budget compared to a film from Universal and from Paramount. And this is a Lionsgate thing, but even then there's like, no, no, no. One could argue you don't want to, you know, redo what Alex Poryas already did very specifically, but there are other ways to do stylization. And there's just like, none the stylization this has is let's just put a code of John Wick over this, except the John Wick movies also look much better than this movie does. Yeah. They have camera choices. They have colors. Correct. They have things going for it. This movie just feels like a standard, like it's set in a real world, I guess, except when they go to limbo and limbo just looks like train yards with CG backgrounds. There's nothing here. Like it does, it's empty beyond just be beyond being empty as far as what we've already talked about. It feels visually empty as far as again. If you're remaking the crew, like, what are you, what are we taking from this? What is Lionsgate saying? People are finally going to see this reimagining. What was reimagined exactly? Because it just feels like you just shot on some wet streets, you took away things that make the crow the crow, you've switched around other stuff because why not, I guess, and then just slapped a label on it. Yeah. Some of you guys mentioned earlier is that Poryas actually had like a vision for things or at least he has like a stamp on things. And in this one, there's not a whole lot of atmosphere that's being generated and not a whole lot of like feeling of like, what is actually happening like in the city. Not that we have to like know what's happening in the city, but again, 94 crow, like it sets up that the city is like just a piece of like a shit hole city and like, it's raining all the time. There's fires like it's controlled by like basically a faction of a bunch of like gangsters all headed up by Michael, what's his face, Michael Wincott, Michael Wincott. And in this one, like, you kind of get it, I guess it's Chicago, but they kind of just go to different sets. And that is really unfortunate because I don't really have a sense of anything in this movie. There's no real direction that this person is taking. Go ahead. No, it's a great point because it's not just the 94 phone, even the sequels I feel do a better job. No, they try. Yeah. Yeah. They look at LA, like he's trying something. It's got its, you know, part two, yes, City of Angels has stuff in it that they probably should have saved for a better movie because there are some interesting visual elements in there. And I think all the films, more or less to varying degrees, do a decent job, certainly a better job of showing a city in some state of decay, which sets up important dynamics between classes and sort of the downtrodden versus those who exploit them and this impossible position of law enforcement and maintaining order, all the rest. The production design in this film makes no sense, right? Because like, think of the asylum in the first act of the film. It's like a giant art center with individuals that are larger than studio apartments in Manhattan. It seems like a corporate retreat, not someplace you go when you've hit rock bottom, right? The whole kind of look of the film moves from one kind of strange inexplicable space to another. There's a lot of decisions that are being made that kind of don't feel as though they've taken into consideration the previous things that the movie has set up, which kind of like nitpick of this is just like Eric is getting bullied by a bunch of people telling him to like say something. And when he first meets a FKA Twigs and you're just like, oh, well, he's not going to say anything. He just says, what's up? Like, I hate this place too. I'm like, where did this mystery go? Like, you just it like all the mystery just evaporated from like your whole entire aura here, my guy. And so it really doesn't help out that again, this movie actually just moves too quickly in trying to get to the things that we're supposed to get to. But even when we get to where we're supposed to get to, it's actually very boring. Like, I was trying to give Bill Scarsgard because I'd like he's putting effort, like physically, he's certainly putting effort in, but like, there's something he's going for. And you know, it's neat to see him exploring things that aren't villains between this and the, um, what's the video game movie he was. Something Geshan mentioned. Boy kills world like I, because I liked him quite a bit in that movie. Like I liked him more than I had ever liked him, even though the movie's like, it's fine. But like, I was into what he was doing here. I completely agree. Like, we're set up with him just being brooding for reasons. He has all these tattoos for reasons. He's being bullied. Okay. And then he's instantly like, yeah, cool. I can talk to girls like there's like, there's nothing to this guy. It does, if it come more interesting when he comes invulnerable, not really beyond the fact that this film really wants to emphasize that he goes through the pain that happens when he gets hit by shit for at first. And then that kind of goes away too, but like it's tried, but like there's just nothing else there. It's unclear what the rules are. It's unclear what the rules are. It's unclear. Because it has like a weird sense of progression and it's like, why are there levels like just make them the crow like this, like this shouldn't be like, well, you have to really feel, you really have to think about it. And then you can be like super crow, like, you know, you don't have to crow mushroom or something to grow up. Like metric or mushroom. And then there's even the point where it's like, well, why did I actually die? It's because you didn't believe hard enough, man. I was like, what is happening here? Like, does he have to die like multiple times? Like I never know that was a possibility. So you're right about that. It's annoying. I actually like kind of liked the brief subplot that involves him doubting, Shelley. He sure. I guess we're not doing spoilers, but he learns a few things that makes him question whether he truly loves her and that causes him to lose his powers. That's not a bad twist on the formula. The problem is they just don't do anything with it. Exactly. It's all too quickly. And again, if you don't buy that, that he loves her that much to begin with, because why would he then, then that becomes a problem, right? Similarly, as far as subplot that seemed like they could go somewhere and they don't, I liked meeting Shelley's mother, and I thought that was going to go somewhere. And then they're like, nope, never mind. And they get rid of her. It's like, yeah. I was like, what are we doing? I was like, they're spending some time with her. There must be a reason why we're spending time with her. And what she's drinking here, it looks like a, which I'm going to call a bloody Mary, but it's like, maybe it's not a blade, maybe she's like pure blood. And she's like, and she's an entity or something. No, she's just going to lose it. I've seen some of the worst editing I have seen in a studio film since Cocaine Bear. It's so jumpy, but I frankly, I found it unprofessional, how bad that scene is. I think the film would have, would not have suffered from just removing that character altogether. Yeah. I'm sure even how they did nothing with something that seemed like I had some potential to yeah, get rid of it because it didn't do anything. You definitely could have excised a lot in this movie. I think just going back to scars go real quick, I think he's actually, it's cool that he's in this movie just from the standpoint of like, I like that he's choosing projects or his agent is helping him choose prizes, et cetera, like very different from each other versus like, you know, because he did this, especially like Borkio's world. He was like in John Wick being like cool, bad guy, he was in barbarian for like a brief spell. Like it's cool. I kind of dig to his career right now. I'm just like, no, I'll be in, I'll be in like genre movies and I'll be in like small roles. Like that's fine with me. But I think that FK twigs is like just bringing nothing to this. I think that she's, she's actually not very good in this movie. She actually annoyed me a lot. Just from her being on the line came like whisper talking and I was like, this is, I don't know how this is supposed to amount to something in which, you know, this person like falls in love with you and like, like you're an artist maybe, but you also have like this weird rich person past. I don't even actually know what's happening here. So, but I didn't think that she was bringing anything to the table. I'm like our guy, Danny Houston, not doing a whole lot. But at the same time, it was like, I guess it's just, they needed Danny Houston to come on board to be villain guy because that's like all he does now. So, but is he actually Satan in this film? Is that? I don't think so. I don't think he's like, he's, he's sold his soul to Satan. It's true. He's a minion. He's a minion. Yes. Yes. He's trying to, I was trying to think this through. And it seems like there's a significant. So the earlier films, they all have villains who dabble in the occult. Yes. Right. Yeah. Well, they neither have villains that will make hold or they have like a side person who's like, Hey, I'm your cold guy. I'll do something for you. Yeah. So, but the difference though to me is that those are all worlds in which the resurrection by the crow is a super, how do I put this? It's a supernatural intervention in a disordered human world full of scum and villainy, right? Yes. Recast as resurrection as part of a larger cosmic battle between heaven and hell. Yes. Yeah. Like, it makes it really impersonal, right? I think I think the supernatural elements to a crow film work better without explanation. Yeah. Uh huh. One of those lines, the main villain, the Michael Wincott character, top dollar, and actually Judah from part two, that they're more interesting villains because they are hedonists who are finding ways to carve out power and seek more power for themselves because something in their lives is leaving them wanting not because centuries old vampires who love the fun things in life, like classical music and opera, and they commit acts of evil because Satan question mark, it's boring, right? And I love Danny Hughes. But Mike, how would you, why would, if we didn't have that background, we wouldn't never get the line. I was born in Vienna. Uh, the cradle of music when we call it. No, but I think you're right about that because in 94 crow, um, his mission is very quick is like, I'm only here to get the four people that were involved in my slang and that'll be it. And then Mike Wincott's like, fuck you, I'm going to bring you back to kill me too. And I was like, this is, see again, like what you're saying, it's very, it's personal in that way, right? And this one, you're right that it's trying to expand it. And again, the guy in the platform, I was like, who is this guy from ghosts that they're trying to remake to say he just doesn't get the line get off my train? Well, he's the skull cowboy. Do you know about this character? No. So it's kind of a deep cut. The skull cowboy as a significant character was cut completely from the original film after Brandon died because they hadn't completed the scenes yet. And he sort of a mentor figure played by, um, Michael Berryman. Okay. Um, yeah, he, the, so the major, okay, so the major rule in the first film is that Eric is not allowed to meddle in the affairs of the living. Yeah. Now, he's, he's been brought back specifically to take up the four guys responsible for his murder and show his murder. And that's it. And the skull cowboy explicitly explains to him those are the rules. So there's a scene that they did shoot with a little bit of footage. You can look this up is when Eric is rushing into the church toward the end to save Sarah, the skull cowboy appears on the steps and says, Hey, you, you can't do this. Yeah. You proceed. You're going to forfeit your invincibility. And all that stuff about if you kill the crow, you destroy the man was apparently added after the fact because they need to look around. So, so just just for you crowheads, there's a, there's a crucial scene that was cut after Eric intervenes and rescue Sarah's mom and sort of forces the morphine out of her system. Yeah. He loses his powers in that moment because he meddles in her life and there's supposed to be one more scene in that, in that moment when fun boy attacks, he comes, he revives and comes back and slashes Eric's hands with a straight razor, but he's not able to heal much to his surprise. And so that's why he grabs electrical tape to tape up those wounds, which is why in the original mass of continuity error in the film, which is that late in the, the film, his hands are inexplicably covered in tape. Right. That's what this clothing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so there always was meant to be kind of a mentor guide figure. Yeah. Yeah. They got rid of that character who was basically there to give exposition that they had to switch to the voiceover that you get in the first film from Sarah, which totally makes sense. Because like what Aaron was mentioning, like with 90s action here movies, like there's always that kind of character that's like shepherding you. Yeah. Yeah. Just do a quick Google Google for crow skull cowboy. It's a, it's kind of cool looking character. Two things. One, I, what I love about 94 of one of the things I love about 94 is it's a very efficient film. Now what that, you know, that's largely because it just means, but I like that you can get rid of certain things early as they're able to and figure out something anyway, and the whole movie comes in at, you know, like a tight 100 minutes. It works in that, like they do what they need to do to get past that for this movie. I was confused by this guy, just like guys, one of those mentor guys that you get in these kind of movies every now and then the problem is just like it's a big nothing. It feels like I'm just wasting time with this. Exactly. Like if you're walking into the crow, I know what the crow does. Like I don't need this character to be like, please tell me crow guy. Like what's, what's, what's going on here? And then the movie is like, we're going to tell you, we're all still going to make you wait to see this stuff happen. And it's just, it's such a slog to like have these scenes involved in a movie that already is taking its time to get to like the stuff that we ideally want to see, to get to the villains that we're speaking, you know, that we'll get to Houston in a second. But I mean, you mentioned top dollar, you mentioned Fun Boy, these are characters that I remember and are played by, you know, interesting character actors to some degree. This movie has anonymous faces that meet nothing to me by the time Eric is like doing damage to them. And it's really unfortunate, like that should be a big part of this film, right? That he, we're seeing the vengeance he's getting by, you know, taking out certain people and it's just like Bond lady cop, like for a cop, other guy, like, yeah, it's nothing. They don't mean it. And I'd be curious to know how much they actually looked at the original film because, because I don't, they're not under obligation to sometimes you hear about film or actors who say they chose not to look at the original film when they're doing a remake or I decided not to read the book that the movie's based on because which I think is a perfectly legitimate way to handle things. Yeah. But it seems to me that the process of making a new and fresh version, or at least a version that's like unanchored to the original, if that's what they're going for, they've overlooked a lot of things that make the original work, right? Uh huh. One thing that gets overlooked about the original film because it's central ethos is about tragedy. It has a sense of humor, right? Yeah, it does. First one has really pulpy, noir dialogue that pushes things point of parody, I think, and so there's a, there's a playfulness to Brandon's performance at times and villains are wacky. You've got John Polito screaming. I mean, what do you also need? Like, there's a lot of stuff that's in there. Michael Wincott's entire performance is very fun to watch. That's the thing. Emphasis placed on Brandon's legacy, understandably, that people get that what you guys have both touched on, which is the supporting cast and particularly the villains are superb, right? You've got David Patrick Kelly's, uh, there ain't no coming vaccine, John Polito and Michael Wincott's voice. Yeah. Yeah. Like it's like an evil cigar came to life and grab the sword. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, you combine this abs again, yeah. You combine this with the production design by MacDowell and the first film is doing a lot of world building, right, and it's populating that world with really colorful personalities that the actors are clearly enjoying playing. And so, and they replicate that in, in part two with the villains and to a lesser extent, in part three, um, but those films can't quite capture. And I feel like these are the elements that helps the first film hold up so well. It's not simply because it's that one movie that's infamous because an actor died. Right. It's hard to know what went a skew here, but I think it really, it reinforces the argument that, but you're welcome to profit off of this IP and make more Chrome of these. Like I said, that's not the issue, but filmmakers who would crack at this should also recognize that the first film has yet to prove to be something that can be replicated. Yeah. There's an outcome work in the first film that no one's really been able to tap into. And, and if anybody can, it's not going to be Rupert Sanders. Definitely not. Definitely who's like really invested and or, you know, has like a personal stake in things. Two things very quickly. One of them is that you're mentioning that, you know, the first Crow, 94 Crow, um, kind of has like a playfulness to Eric Draven and everything else too. But he's also, again, he establishes himself as like a guy who has like a sense of menace too. And like while we do see things like him killing people and everything else, but there's like this, there's the scene where Tony Todd comes into the room and Eric Draven is just like, he just goes, and like pops out the window like, this is crazy. Like this guy scares me. But then there's also the part where he gets shot at the church and Michael Woodcott shoots him and he's like, Brandon Lee says, Oh, fuck. And he just like falls down. It's like, see, this is, this is playing with the character. The second thing is, um, like what you're saying there earlier, Mike, you're talking about how this movie kind of maybe touches on some things, but it actually doesn't really touch on anything is like kind of what we've all established. And that's unfortunate because you could have gotten into like this weird power corruption from like the top, you know, like Aaron, you're talking about like John Wick and the series like, yeah, there's like a lot of powerful people at the top there that reminded me a little bit of something like you were never really here. Or you're never really there. I forget what it's called. One with the walking Phoenix. And you have that kind of power corruption thing, but you also have the, the corruption of like the police, right? And she's like, well, see, you're not exploring any of these themes and any of these items. So when they come into a room or when mopsus come into a room and your, your buddy who is a tattoo artist is there and gets murdered for no real reason, you're just like, what is fucking happening right now? And then like later you have a cigarette sitting next to like these people who like, this is supposed to be cool or this supposed to be like weird or like, what is happening? Because this actually doesn't mean anything to me at all. You've established nothing about this character or this world that make me like, Oh, this is, this is what the crow is all about. Getting the only reason that scene is there is because this movie has a weird fetishization of tattooing that in anything I've seen. I mean, it openly rips open. We've seen Aaron's tattoo, he's got a big crow on his biceb. Aaron's like, I love him shaking his head. No, I mean, the opening credits rips, rips off girl with the dragon tattoo, fincher's version anyway. And even that film didn't focus on the tattoo despite it being in the title. I mean, I don't understand why there's so much emphasis on this. So did you guys clock the crying freeman Easter egg? So talk. Yeah. So we mentioned Marc de Cascost crying freeman is a 90s film starring Marc de Cascost. That's okay. And of course he played Eric Draven in the crow TV series, which didn't last, but anyway, there's a blink and you'll miss it poster hanging in the wall of the town. Nice. Interesting. You mentioned that intro really quick. I also thought of girl, the dragon tattoo, but like the diff, you know, seeing that I'm like, so is this movie going to deliver anything of value in that sense? And it's like, no, like drag it into it's like, I find that intro a little weird because it's like, that's pretty strong for like a weird bond opening to this movie, but, but it's David Fincher. So it's like, well, at least the, you know, he's still going to fincher it up throughout the week. This movie is like, okay, they spent a lot of money on that, I guess. And then there's no follow through with anything that ever looks nearly as interesting as that is that splash of like goop and people coming out of it stuff that's going on in that title. That getting real quick back to Danny Houston. I think he's awful in this movie. Yeah. I don't. I, I, I hear what you're saying about FCA twigs, but I'd still, I would still attribute that to direction and script. Okay. Compared to like her ability, I think she's doing what she can with what it is. Just that I think has no excuse beyond, well, the check that he got to make this movie and the suit that I presume he put in his closet that he got to wear. Like he, he plays like this in his sleeve. He does. It is. It is. It is entirely like there's nothing here to this thing. There is, he's not doing anything to make it menacing at all. Like it's just so by the book standard to the point where I'm like, what is Danny Houston done in the last like 10 years that like make me like him? Cause I'm like, I, I do like Danny Houston at the same time. Like, what has he actually done lately that like, that deserves the kind of regard that I seem to have for him because he just shows up at this thing all the time. He's done exactly this role. Cause like in the 2000s, I was super, he usually plays like a guy that maybe as your friend was actually corrupt, but it's like the constant gardener or children of men kind of. Yeah. Yeah. Or even like 30 days of night, he plays like the lead vampire. It's like, at least that's menacing, at least he looks fucking cool in that movie. This movie, he's just not like, and like so many roles like this, whether it's what Wonder Woman, another one, like he's just playing the same kind of guy where it's like, I'm the guy at the top that's, you know, really powerful and I have a new British accent that I can lead into Angel is fallen like so many of this like this thing. And I'm just really, if he showed up playing the Ernie Hudson role, I'd fucking apply because at least that's like, because at least that's something, right? That'd be like, oh, I didn't think that he used to play like the nice cop though. That's like when Gary old would shows up as Gordon and Batman begins like, this is neat. I mean, like he's, he's like a good guy. All right. And he lives in like a modest apartment. See where this goes. I don't know. Look at this. Like that's, that's what I need Daddy used to do to do. I need him to show up at like randomly at a good guy or with a mustache. So like when I was really, really happy that walking Alameda showed up in the mitt, was it missing? What's the, what's the other one? Uh, the, uh, walking Alameda, walking down me to, uh, what's the one that like, there's the john show searching is the john show when missing is the other one. The, the one that's all like, Oh, yeah, he shows up as like a good guy. He shows up to like help out the girl, find them, find the mother and it's like, oh, he plays like a nice person. That's not menacing whatsoever. That was such a nice surprise to see him. I always play. He always plays villains and it's like, that's fun. I need Daddy used to do this for me because I think he's fucking sucks in this movie. It's boring to watch him do the thing that we know he's going to do. Yeah. It's like, I am happy that like guy here's lately has chosen to not play the guy who was secretly the villain all along and he's actually played heroes again in movies. I forgot about what you know, Alameda kind of being like a really nice like Uber driver being like, oh, I will help you. And I was like waiting for the other shoe to drop and you're just like, no, he's actually just helping her the whole time. He's just up. Yeah. Um, okay. So the action in this movie, the crow stuff that happens now, there's not much of it because why have action in action movie, that sounds ridiculous. But the end, how these as this big drama, man, this movie, this movie has a giant signature set piece at the end, which is already in clips online. So it's like, why are you showing that? That's like the thing you should be saving away. Right. Here's the thing. Like, does it look neat and is the editing neat because it's mixed with like an opera, whatever? I don't know. I guess. But again, it's already our rated, which is standard for the crow. It's coming from a studio that gave us four John Wick movies. So there's nothing here that's like, look how hardcore this is because I've seen this over it. This is the studio that gives us saw movies, like seeing a guy riddle with bullets. I don't know. There's nothing really there. On top of all that though, aren't the guys that he's like murdering heavily, just like security guards at an opera, trying to do their job? Like, what? What is what? I don't know what pleasure I'm supposed to derive from any of the stuff that's happening here. I mean, that's kind of like where we're talking about where we don't really have a sense of how evil these people are, what the corruption level is because I actually have more questions about these people that are watching this opera are not hearing like hundreds of gun shots like in the, in the, it's allowed, it's allowed. Oh, okay. Yeah. I mean, they keep the doors pretty heavy. So you purposely can't hear outside. Yeah, I guess. And there's also like going to be a lot of surprise faces when they go back outside rushing out. I mean, the opera already ended with him like holding two decapitated school. I mean, I don't think they're going to be like, Oh my God, I can't believe this is also happening. There's so much blood. Yeah. Mark, or like, no, I, I was wondering. Is it possibly kind of offensive? It is. Right. Because the, so, I mean, the fight scene itself, I mean, it's conceptually got some interesting things. Yeah, film. He bleeds black blood. And so that adds an interesting visual dimension to the violence. I can't explain why they felt they need to be so gory. The sequence is distracting the gory. And that's fine. Okay. Do your thing. The comic movie. I can see where it's doing. Yeah. Well, what I found maybe because exactly what you guys point out, it's happening. The lobby of apparently the world's loudest opera and the audience remains blithely unaware of all the carnage outside. I mean, I think doors are side of like door technologies, pretty high. I was wondering about the wisdom of this, because you have to be mindful of the fact that one of the urgent real world fears that we have to deal with in this country is the prospect of being at the opera, or a concert, or at school, or at the office and hearing gunshots outside. And those gunshots were getting closer and closer. That's a real thing. And so to depict what's essentially a mass shooting in a public space with zero consequences on the surrounding public, it seems a little tone deaf to me. Very valid point. Yeah. If there was any kind of establishment of like, is this like an evil opera? Is it all the worst people are watching this opera? Like, and that would also all they had to do was be like, everybody here is one of my demon minions. They did. They did. And then you would have been like, Oh, it's cool. He's like, kill all of them with that. They needed to bad boys to it where they're like, that's the favelas where they make drugs and then they can. Okay. Cool. We could run on V through all of these hopeless checks there. We were talking about very briefly, like some of the track needle drops. And after the sequence, when he's driving to, you know, this large estate of Danny Houston, they play one of like the songs where it was like, just turn the song off. Like, I, I really don't need this song. There's like very tiny cheek about like what's, I'm supposed to be like, love is eternal, love is forever. I was like, just turn this off. Like, I don't want to hear this right now. And I've never said that in a movie before. And I was like, this is, why are you guys going on with this? Like this is too much. I've said turned off the song a lot of times the movie before. I mean, suicide squads, and he's the example right there where they just like, Oh my God. But if you want to talk about the soundtrack, though, I would offer what soundtrack. I mean, there's, I assumed that there were music that was played, but I couldn't tell you a single thing. And then FK has like a song that's in the tracks and where, but yeah. And I just had a thought about going back to the point one of you made about he's just blowing away hapless security guards who are just wounds for hire, right? They're getting to the sort of the theory about there must have been contractors on the Death Star who like had families and didn't deserve to have gone up. The thought I'm just having is that the violence that he enacts on the bad guys. It's not just that they're low level employees, but the violence is so brutal and gratuitous that I felt like it could almost spill over into having the audience turn against Eric, which I thought could have been really interesting, right? To turn the morality of what he's doing on its head and making him more of an anti hero by raising the obvious question, which is, which is all of these movies are about a man who adopts this persona and paints his face to create an alter ego in order to enact righteous violence, right? So it does make sense of him to, to, it does make sense for the films to invite this question of, is it justified? Does he justify his own gruesome murder by committing a serious gruesome murders himself? There's a moral dimension there. Interesting. I would welcome exploring that. But you can't do that when the villain you're up against is literally working for Satan, right? I think the Crow franchise comes with the next same problem that's in the DNA of all superhero films that defend vigilantism, which is a kind of fishistic fantasy. The whole, in the first film, for instance, the whole point is that Detroit is hell on earth. It's always dark and raining, and there's crime everywhere. So it's not just that Eric takes out the, like, four guys directly responsible for his death. It's that he manages to take out the entire crime network of the city and becomes the savior that the city, and it's completely ineffective police force desperately needed, right? So there is something kind of fishistic that's embedded in all superhero narratives about taking matters into your own hands. That doesn't change just because he's motivated by loss and real pain. And so this films, like both of the films credit and not credit, this is I think the closest I've felt to feeling like this was a film that was at least flirting with the idea that Eric is ultimately a selfish and destructive character. But then again, this film, this is the opportunity to go anyplace provocative because, you know, it's probably an unfair criticism because that's, we need to criticize the film we saw, not the better one playing in my head. I mean, I just, I don't give it is a big, it distract me as a big all what could have been, I don't give it, I don't give it the credit to begin with because the reaction in my audience to the big, violent action sequences are, Oh, and, and how, you know, it's a, it's a measure of, isn't it cool that we're seeing this? There's no reaction whatsoever to suggest that there's a regrettable feeling going on or, Oh man, it really sucks for those people that died and like, what's Eric up to it? Like there's no, there's no one is thinking that that is not, that is never an impression I'm getting. It's a, it's a civil war issue. I have those Zack Snyder's watchmen where when a sequence early on where we see Sally, Sally Jupiter, young, young silk specter and Dan like fighting random criminals in the comic, it's made clear that when they're doing violence, they're doing violence and it sucks. It hurts. You know, what, what a story they want to do violence and we're not supposed to look at it thinking how cool the violence is. But Zack Snyder doesn't have that level of nuance in his filmmaking. So when you see him fighting, when you see them fighting off these gangsters, it just looks really fucking cool because it's slow motion and it's has all these, you know, there's these filters on and everything to make it like it goes beyond the idea of what this means because the director has a visualization that gives you a gives the audience a reaction that they're expecting, which I think extends to a lot of his work. This movie, I think function similarly, I don't think Sanders has it in him to depict violence in a way that's ever going to make you feel anything more than it's really cool to see the violence that's taking place on screen, particularly in that opera sequence. Earlier on, yes, it sucks to see Eric take damage, but there's the, I mean, that's your hero being harmed, which you don't want to see the movies making that clear. It's like, oh, it's, that's a gory visualization and you're a horror fan or what have you cool. They made that work in the, you know, 2024. But in terms of the emotion you're supposed to have of it, it's not packed if anything more than it sucks for Eric, but he's going to get better later on. It's Oh, look how cool it is that he's murdering these guards all over the place and stabbing them all these, all these swords and whatnot. Like it's just, it doesn't have anything. It doesn't have anything to say like we just established early on that like there's method here as far as they're putting a movie together and they probably have the best intentions in mind as far as how to regard the original yet do their own thing. But in terms of the final product, it's just sloppy. It's sloppy and lifeless and meaningless, which the worst kind of combination because like, what was it all for? Like, what was, what was here? Sure. I actually feel like defending. And again, I'm going to circle back to your exact same point, which is that what they have done, the execution is atrocious, but I feel almost wanting to defend the, so the balance between the sort of romantic, tragic story, the love story, and then the action elements, right? Because you do need some combination of the things. And I feel like I'm open to the idea of a crow themed movie that is heavier on the, the relationship and the romance than on the action. I do think that one thing that really dates the original film is the, the sincerity around themes of love and loss and true love never dies. It hearkens back to the graphic novel, but it's so sincere that there's a cheesiness to it now on the most obvious images of Brandon Lee's era, strumming his guitar while he tears up photos of his fiance and tossing them into the father. I mean, like, is it really true love unless you dress in black and kneel in front of a tombstone in the dead of night? You know, that's the full like emo goth glory of the first phone. It is. It's also comic book frames. Like I could pick like that at an era where you're not making many comic book movies, that's, yeah, I suppose being a director that's very deliberately doing stuff that evokes panels from a page, which you don't see after the nineties very much. You see, but also kinds of interpretations. Reg is coming up big and this movie, like 94 grunge is like, oh, yeah, it's like the grunge and the very specific period of time. Super of its moment. Yes. What I'm saying is that going into this film and sort of having lived with the original crow for so long and then understanding the balancing act it's doing, I was going into this film curious whether it would lean into that sentimentality or sidestep it in favor of nonstop action. And what are they going to do with that total mix, which is already built into the DNA of the franchise. And so I do, I'm very open to the idea of tilting the balance one way or the other. It's just that this isn't it, right? This is the balance. Well, yeah, that's I mean, I hear what you're saying. I would agree. I would be happy to see a film that knows how to embrace certain qualities of what the original story was and take it in its own direction and have something interesting to say about that or visualize it especially or, yes, solidify the Eric Shelley relationship in a manner that's like, oh, that's a neat way to take it or give me anything at all about these people that just makes me interested in them. The problem is it doesn't do anything at all with these things. It has ingredients. I wouldn't necessarily say I needed all of all of these ingredients because it was over complicated for what it's trying to do. And again, you just hired Danny Houston. But it could at least try to do something. And you know, this movie is coherent. It doesn't feel edited within an inch of its life, even though it's it's long enough. But that's, you know, what else am I commenting here? Because there's nothing that nothing I'm seeing that works or feels challenging in any way beyond. Okay, we wrote this script that kind of takes things in different directions. But like, for what, like, what did it accomplish? It ultimately comes back to that question of, are you going to chart out a new territory in which case, go forward and we'll critique as needed versus are you trying to build on a legacy and give us a different spin on something that is of some really raw value to people? So I mean, are you guys familiar with the original marketing campaign for the first pro? No, like, do you guys know that it was originally supposed to be a Michael Jackson musical? Did I know that? No, I know that was not aware of the song. James O'Barr. James O'Barr has spoken very disparagingly about this. They were going to make it sort of a thriller-esque Michael Jackson dark musical thriller. And it, it didn't happen, obviously. I'm not sure. But that would have been in development around the time the accusation started coming out about Michael Jackson. So maybe that caused him to withdraw from certain projects, maybe. I don't know that the timing seems relevant. But so the original, so the tagline for the first pro is believe in angels. If you're right, it's on the posters, which is obviously pretty heavy-handed. And it's a sentimental approach to the film that they adopted once it became about honoring Brendan Lee. But the original tagline for the crow was darker than the bat. A lot of people don't know that. Um, so yeah, the crow, you know, people, people talk about it as this sort of sacred object, but it's always had this sort of dual identity because it was always a cash grab. It was a post Batman cash grab when there was a sudden marketplace for darker secrets. All the studios grabbed no different comics. And you had your shadow and your rocketeer or dark man. Dark man. Yeah. They all fit into this period. And so, you know, so if we're being accurate, despite my obvious love of that film, the crow is a cash grab that transformed unexpectedly into this cult object because it became associated with this tragedy. And the kind of eerie parallels between the story content and the production history. Brendan Lee was supposed to get married a couple of weeks after the accident himself. So it's all very sad and it has this shadow over the film. But that mixed identity between being ultimately an IP, right? It's, it's, it's a money, it's a money thing, it's dollars and cents. Versus just a mirror max. I mean, I mean, I mean, but I'm saying like that's every piece of crow media is going to have to navigate that balance. And I do want to sort of have a little general, a little bit of generosity and film wants to want to take a crack at this. It's just unfortunate that this one languished as long as it did and left us, I think pretty confused as to what mid-level executive development executive was grinding away at this for years and years, trying to get this off the ground only to produce something with nothing going on. Well, there's soap. I mean, we all saw the opening sequence of this film, all of the strangely, all of the executive producers were accredited first before we get a director, before we get stars. It was one of the, one of the odd things that I've seen in a, for a film of this nature. I thought that I was going to pick up on that too. It was, it's so like, all the financiers in the opening, and then at the end credits, who's, who's like, it's actually like all the first ADs, the second ADs, and then it's like a film by, by Rupert Saunders. But by having all of these, by having all these producers listed upfront, that tells me, that paints me a very clear picture of just how long we've been dealing with this and how, why the film is the way it is. It's because everyone's, everyone's dipped their pen in this film's ink, and it's like, and again, over nearly 20 years of development, what did it lead to? A disaster. It has terrible reviews. It made no money. Like, what, what, what was this for? Like, I can, I, I can respect defending aspects of this as far as the approach or what someone was attempting to do. But at the end of the day, it's a, it's a nothing of a movie. Like, it has nothing to say about anything. It's not going for anything. It feels weird that it got this far and was released at this scale, and means nothing. Like, look at the, the sequels to the crow are not great, but at least they're trying to do something, and they don't need to exist either. There, those are films that were like, well, the first one was it hit, I guess. So let's just, you know, let's get Bob Weinstein on here, and he can, you know, help to mention out to make more crow sequels, I guess, and at least they hired people that tried to do something with it. Like, I do think City of Angels has merits. So I think Wicked Prayer is attempting something to say with like corrupt cops. I can't tell. I, I have a, I have a pretty bonkers performance from Aiki Pop. He's, so I, so I rewatch City of Angels, because I had seen it since '96, and I've always held on to the idea that Iiki Pop is actually really good in City of Angels, and I watched it again. And I was right. He is, he's good in the movie. He's doing what Aiki, what I want Aiki Pop to do as a villain in a crow movie. He's doing the job, which I respected. But this movie, again, you hired Rupert Saunders, and he didn't even deliver like Rupert Saunders visuals. Like, I just don't know what to say about any of this. And too, because the failure of this movie pours cold water on any, anyone else with a unique take on this stuff that might want to do it in the future. But I mean, it should. I hear that. I mean, this is, it's only the latest example of long, just dating IP that we just have to develop that turns into a nothing that's a bad movie that nobody wants to go see. Yeah. Like, I don't, I'm not mad about, not bad about cold water and something when it's like, yeah, let's not do this more. Let's do other things. Let's make better movies, original films, at least something that tries. No, I understand. And again, at the end of the day, like, this is actually like, this might be like inspiration for some, some kid who watches this for the first time. That's fine and good. It's not a good movie. But at the same time, like, yeah, I definitely don't want to what you said earlier, it actually makes sense for people to try these things and try their hand at remakes and or like their takes on certain projects or, or IP. But at the same time, you know, if you don't really have like an invested stake in it, it's kind of unfortunate that your name is attached to it. And just like, this is a bad movie. It's going to get like, you know, terrible reviews. If this movie, if this movie stopped the latest version of Robin Hood or Tarzan or whatever the fuck we're getting made good, because we should do something else. So you're saying that this should be a cautionary tale. And with that, that's all that she wrote. I had to get it in there, leave it in. Oh, I'm definitely going to leave it in self important podcast guests. I don't think so. The crows currently playing in theaters and IMX, once people see this movie, like, when should they see this movie? Yeah, why don't you go see it? You know, I mean, this may seem counterintuitive, but I think if you're a fan of the original, then it might be worth watching. I mean, don't rush out to the theater or anything, not that it's going to be in theaters for very long. But I think there's arguably value in being able to have an opinion about it and participating in conversations, like the one we just had. So thank you guys. If you're not keyed into this franchise, though, and you just want to see an action film, then I'd say skip it altogether. You might get some cheap thrills out of the opera scene and some of the action scenes, but someone's going to clip that on YouTube before long anyway. The lions get already put it online before they do. Yeah, that's online. I thought it was just like, you can pull irators. You can watch the opera fight action sequence online. Wow. On Lionsgate's YouTube page. Wow. You know, I would say to people, if you find this movie hard to love, love it harder. Hey, this is a movie where you can watch on TV with commercials. This is not very interesting, but at the same time, like, again, thematically acting action-wise, like, you're going to be a band. If you're a fan of Bill Skarsgard, sure, you're going to see him with his chiseled body, and that's cool. But at the same time, it doesn't really offer anything that I would say you can run with and say, this is super inspirational for me to go make my own movies. This is the strongest case for why watch this when you can watch that that I've seen in a long time. I don't see value from this. I think everyone involved has done something better. Film-wise. You can skip this. It would be entirely. So we've talked about the crow. Let's move on. What time is it now? Time for a good game here. Let her know in fact, Mike, did you know that? That sounds for real? Yeah. That's fine. I thought that was some, like, button you pressed. No. It's like, this is a real podcast. Not one of those joke shows, like, The Rewatchables. For the listeners, we can see each other on Skype and your Zoom, sorry. Like this xylophone popped into screen. No. Yeah. It lays it fresh. It's all unique, every one of them is unique. What would think that 13 years in, I'd get better at it? And I have. Well, it's still not buying it, but, you know, we're good there. Man, you guys are pros. I've got a couple of games for you guys this week. The first one is called The Rewake versus Remake. This is where I will call on somebody and it's kind of just back and forth. But you can tell me if one of these has a higher score on the IMDb scale. No taking turns. If you get it wrong, the other person gets it right. So Mike, since you are our guest here in the first question of Remake versus Remake, what do you think has a higher IMDb score? The Thomas Crown Affair, 1968, or the Thomas Crown Affair, 1999. Wait, so this is audience submitted reviews, right? The audience submitted reviews all in my videos. Yeah. I'm going to go with the Remake. That is interesting. So the Remake is better received among audiences. That's the question. Inside, it's whoever is on IM to be voting for it. So yeah, unfortunately, that is-- The McQueen versus correct. I'm going to go up here as Brosnan. Incorrect. Aaron, what do you think the answer is? Well, I suppose it's the original. I mean, you could have gone with the other one. It's 6.9 for the original versus 6.8 for the Remake. Pretty close. Okay. So that's not because I was going to stick because the Remake is better. I can argue that the original. Yeah. You give me this look like-- I don't think the Steve McQueen paid out only one is all that great. I think it's fun. I think there's improvements in the Remake with the Remake here. That's why I went with the Remake. Okay, you're going to be a look like I'm wrong. I got crazy. I'm like, I think the original is like, it's fine. But the Remake has some juice. Yeah, cinnamon. I'm still mulling over the xylophone. That's why I'm kind of-- I dig it. Haring off of the space. Aaron, got into seconds, 1974. Got into two seconds, 2000. I mean, most people don't even know it's a Remake to begin with. I'm going to say 2,000 just because people seem to have a weird nostalgia for the fucking TBS movie. That's correct. Okay. Was it at 0.5 versus 6.3? Okay. All very close here. Mike, Pete's Dragon, 1977. Pete's Dragon, 2016. I'll go with the original. Just because it's kind of a Disney classic, right? That is incorrect. I think it's incorrect because it's not really a Disney classic. I think it's just a movie that people know exists. So I guess the-- That's how it would have characterized the new one. It's like, gosh, I like that David Lowry. I think it's better than the Mickey Rooney thing, where it's like, yeah, all right, he's a dragon. Aaron, what's your answer? The 2016 one, I suppose. Thank you. 6.3 for 1977, 6.7 for 2016. Aaron. That's one of those movies where Robert Redford has a coffee cup, and it says, yep. Aaron, I'm sure in charge of something over here. You kids have fun. The Italian job back in '69, the Italian job 2003. I'm going to be annoyed if the '03 one has more, because I think the movie is very average. And the British classic is literally a classic. Give the ID beers to CERN this. I'd like to think so. I'm going to say the original. That is correct. Don't fuck with me. It's 7.2, which is 7.0. 7.0 for that movie. For the 2003 Italian job. For fucking Seth Green making jokes. Mike. 7.0. I didn't do this to you. Thomas Crowder has like 6.9. Okay, whatever. True grit, 1969. True get 2010. So on the one hand, you've got John Wayne. Yep. Iconic John Wayne role. But then again, how do you square that up against the dude? It's a low icon, John Wayne. Yeah. I'm going to go with the Cone Brothers, the new one. That is correct. Yeah, that's got to be right. 7.6 to 7.4. Aaron. Feel your hands. 13 assassins, 1963. 13 assassins, 2010. The Maikki, the 2010, the new one. The 2010 one? The new one. That is correct. Yep, it's okay. 7.5 for the new one, 2010. 7.4 for the '63 one. I feel like as a rule, if the only reason people know that there isn't original is because the remake is so badass, then you got a lean remake. Probably going to leave. Yeah. Well, that was a remake versus remake. The second game here is called Brothers of Feather Part 2, version 2. This is where I will name you guys. This is actually a top build game. I will name you guys some folks that are top build. Why do we have a Birds of Feather? What was the first Birds of Feather? I think that was a... We were talking about what movie were there were a bunch of Birds. That's what I wonder if I forget. I will name you guys some of the top build here, and you can buzz in and tell me the name of the movie. First one here is just like a sample here, but we've got people like Angel David or David Patrick Kelly, Ernie Hudson, Michael Windcott, Brandon Lee, would be like the most obvious one, and the buzz and answer would be the crew, right? Who could? That was what the bird movie was. That's what it was. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. This first one here. So do we just-- So do we just-- So do we just-- Yeah, how about our name? Yep. Yeah, yell out our name. Yeah, yell out our name. Give me the name of the movie. Yeah. Timothy Spall. Miranda Richardson. Aaron. Aaron. Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow is incorrect. I'm going to keep going here though. Bill Daniels. Julia Swalla. Mel Gibson. Oh, Mike. Mike. Chicken run. Chicken run is correct. Oh, good. Birds. Yeah, I forgot. Well, I mean, I don't know. The theme made here. Mike, can you get that one? Next one here. Yeah. Next one here. Wanda Sykes. Leslie Mann. George Lopez. Anne Hathaway. Aaron. Aaron. Is it Rio? Rio is correct. The next one here. Rosa Salazar. Jackie Weaver. Sarah Paulson. John Malkovich. Travante Rhodes. Sandra Bullock. Aaron. Aaron. Bird box. Bird box is correct. I forgot Malkovich is in that movie. John Malkovich, John Malkovich. Are those birds moving? Not really. They're certainly boxes for them. Oh, the next one here. Ally Wong. Chris Messina. Aaron. Aaron. Birds of prey. Yes, that's correct. And the fantabulous. Adventure of Harley Quinn. And the presentation of Harley Quinn. Let me know what Harley Quinn. There you go. Okay. I just got more here. Lois Smith. Beanie Feldstein. Lucas Hedges. Aaron. Aaron. Ladybird. Ladybird is correct. Again, no birds. Last one here. Sarah Paulson. Been a lot of birders, I guess. Luke Wilson. Jeffrey Wright. Nicole Kidman. Ansel Elgort. Oh, Mike. Mike. Is it gold finch? Yes, I will accept it. Gold finch. The gold finch. Yes. That was. Birds of feather volume two. Aaron, you won that game two. So congratulations to you naming these movies that have a bird in their title of some kind. The gold finch. Remember when we were like, "Hey, that movie looks great." And then he was like, "This is a terrible movie." I don't recall saying it looked great, but it was a bad movie. That was games. Thank you. Thank you for those games. That was fun. You're welcome. And a good time to remember the gold finch. Yeah. Everyone's favorite, the gold finch. So we can't lose. All right. Let's move on now. Let's get to some. I'll not feed back. Feed back, feed back, feed back. This is where I go over the various questions. Answer the Facebook page. Please put the comments on our podcast. We have some questions. The listeners, they gave us some answers. Mike Field will throw anything you come up with as we go through these. First question here is, "What are some long-in-the-work remakes that you would want to see? Brandon Peters, right? Star Wars called The Rise of Skywalker, which is an ongoing joke. They should remake that. Make it a good movie. That would be a good idea. Somehow, Palpatine returned. I mean, he wouldn't return to my version. He'd stay dead. They had a planet full of clones. Well, there wouldn't be a planet. I figured he'd hit this. He'd not be there. That's in my precious. Long-in-the-works remake site I want to see. My answer remains the same. I will really want to see David Fincher's 20,000 leagues under the sea with Brad Pitt. I was really interested in what that could have been. And it seems like that's gone by the wayside by now. But that sounded so fascinating to me. Fincher could wrestle a budget for that and make 20,000 leagues new. Well, I mean, it's famous because the squid just hard doesn't negotiate with. So Aaron, don't blame the actors. I mean, I'm trying not to. Yeah. Anything from you, Mike? Long-in-the-work remakes that you want to see? I'm not sure I follow what sort of passing through development stages that much. I do know that OX has been trying, well, I don't know what the limbo status of this is now. But for 20 plus years, they've had the right suit, an Akira. Oh, yeah, that's right. Sure. An adaptation, then a remake. But I don't think it's going to work. I think it's spinning its wheels, so to speak, for decades for a reason. It's kind of an unfilmable thing. So I would say leave it alone. We already have a good one out there. But if someone somewhere can get that one really right, and if they did, that would be awesome. The last person kind of named as the director for that title. Well, I believe it's still attached. I'm not a fan of that. Yeah, I would have to. I'm not sure how I feel about that yet. Before that was the appeal. And he was like, you know what? I like making original movies, and he did that. Sure. Yeah. I mean, it's probably the wiser move. But he put the Akira slide into a-- into a-- No, no. Yeah. All right. I'm looking at the update. It's on indefinite hold right now, currently. So I'm sure, like, TV's moved on already between his other projects and whatever else it's going to do. You know, I also wouldn't be-- I would be too upset about a crow remake. There you go. One with a-- One with a lady crow. Yeah, that's a positive spin on this. We should talk about that. Go with Erica Draven. Break up the formula. Yeah. There is a lady crow in one of the comics later on. It doesn't-- Does salvation try that, too? Like, Edward Furlong. Edward Furlong is a wicked prayer. Salvation-- Salvation of the Kirsten Duns one, then. Yeah. I get the title screwed up because they don't matter. But I meant, okay, so I meant wicked prayer. Anyway, next question. What are some great films about characters who came back from the dead or caught in some kind of limbo? Chris Cleveland has entered the void or truly, madly deeply. And Philipart has Groundhog's Day. Oh, because he's in limbo or because he's back from the dead? No, he's definitely back from the dead. He died. He's also a zombie throughout the movie. Most of the time they feel killed. It's next to Monroville. Wouldn't have the living dead take place. There was a resurrected characters. Yeah. There's zombies count? Of course. I did. I have to. I'd argue the character itself makes a difference there. So if you thought, like, I don't know, Fido or something. Yeah. I'll just throw him frank and weenie. Just go to the top of my head. Brings his dog back to life. Oh, we got a classic one. Hit it. A 24 is a ghost story. Hey, okay. Definitely stuck in limbo for a long time. Yeah, from Pete's Dragon's David Lowry. That's right. Let's see. Back from the dead. Adam Shanley. I mean, I guess dark man didn't really die. But he was kind of resurrecting in a sense. I don't know. You only go twice. James Bond gets shot a bunch. And then he, you know, looks back. And eventually he turns Asian because that would be holds up well. What's the next one? Dark City can be seen as kind of a limbo purgatory movie, right? That interpretation is out there. Yeah. That's fair. Yeah. How about the Archers film? What's it? I'm a matter of life and death. There's a better answer. Yeah. The better answer is the remake of Flatliners. Got it. Okay. Good Lord. Yeah. The next question here. What are some great films featuring love stories cut short? Philip Hart has Coriata's Maborosi. Chris Cleveland has Mr. Wick and Death Wish. Justin Wetherby writes the original Crow for sure. Also Ghost. Yeah. Tony Goldlin trying to take all that money. Maborosi. Okay, Philip. We get it. Watch good movies. Jesus. Love stories cut short. Well, dude. Romeo and Juliet. Thank you. There you go. That lasted about as long as it was going to all versions. May they bring you in? Let's see. Johnny Cage dies right away in Mortal Kombat Annihilation. So, you know, the Haven Sonya never really got off the ground on that one. Oh, that is sad. Honor Majesty. She could have bought a movie. She could have bought a lot. He could have bought her Majesty's Secret Service. Like, you know, they got married and they're like, "Oh, that's over." And so, you know. Well, Austin Powers of Spyroshag. I mean, she was a femme about the whole time. So, I mean, that really goes out the window too. Yeah. Okay. These are good answers. Not bad. I was thinking about this question earlier. I mean, I could think of plenty of nuanced answers to give you or what have you, but like, I did think once again of seeking a friend for the end of the world, Abu, that I really do love. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you do love that movie. But there's different circumstances or surrounding why the love story has cut short, so to speak. Anyway, next question. What are some great depictions of birds in cinema? Mark Hoff, my friend of the show, writes, "Steven Segal in the Chappos." That's pretty funny. Christopher Hill has Lady Segal. Segal. I know. Segal. Christopher Hill has Lady Hawk, Birdman of Alcatraz, Jonathan Livingston Segal. Yes, it's a movie. Yeah, I know. Thanks, Chris. Chris Cleveland writes, "Piper, the Pixar shorts, and Philip Bird has the Eagles in the Lord of the Rings trilogy." Great depictions of birds. Wasn't I on a pod with you guys talking about the birds one time? Yes. Yeah. And it's a great depiction of birds, birds that are fed up. Yeah, they're just like, you know what? No, you can't make this phone call, Lady. Pay phones are only from birds. I'm going to say it's been coming up a couple of weeks in a row here now, but the rest of the year is down under. That golden eagle. No, I'm talking about John Candy as the Alcatraz. Wilbur. Who's the bird in the first movie? It's not John Candy. I know, it's not because I believe it's a little better. I think, right? Oh, no, it's Wilbur's uncle or something like that. I forget. I forget. I'm going to go with the little owl puppet thing from Clash of the Titans, the original Clash of the Titans. Oh, Bebo? Bebo? Is that his name? I believe so. Have the name? He does have the name. Of course, that's the name. Yeah, like Sonic Owl looking creature. Yeah. All right. Well, Aaron links that up. I'll go to the next question here. No, I had an answer for this question. Oh, and it was, it was, it's Petey from Double Dumber, of course, the parakeets that they chopped the head of. Boo-boe was the name of the owl. That could also count as a short-lived love story. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. For any bird, for any bird. How sad. I like, I like other fairly brother's movies more, but that gag gets me for some reason. For some reason, it's just so like, it's, it's more, it's more mean than anything else in there. Because they're generally not mean filmmakers. So that's why, I think that's why it gets me. It just feels so uncharacteristically mean where they're like, we sold it to Capitate and Burn to a blind boy. Oh. And then he's just petting him. He's petting him later on. And he doesn't realize that it's like, it's, because it taped his head up. It's, it's, it's, it's pretty bird. Oh, how can we go on after this? Well, the next question here. The next question is, that's Boo-boe is great. He's got like that cool, like, you know, like, circular, like cool, close-in eyes. Boo-boe, the Boo-boe that, from Clash of the Titans. That's, thank you. It's odd that the new, the new one who Sam Worthington was like, we can do a lot of things, but we can't recreate Boo-boe. That's one sacred stone that cannot go unturned. Well, I'm the other one that needs to go, that needs to go unturned. Uh, that is a question here. What are some great, or what are some films featuring characters who take a lot of damage that keep on going? Tyler Minow has the Terminator. Christopher Hill has the born trilogy, Universal Soldier, the long-kissed good night, Captain America Colin, the Winter Soldier, Michael Lee writes Black Knight for Monty Python, and Holy Grail, perfect answer. Chris Flyn has Mr. Wick and The Bride. Philip Hart has no country for old men. Just one of the rewrites, Ethan Hunt. El Sandra Masjia writes Die Hard, and Michael Desanjors writes The Crank movies. -Chapuchelios. -Chapuchelios, yeah. Character's taking a lot of damage to keep on going. I mean, Chapuchelios and The Black Knight are like, "Those are pretty much the best answers that I can think of." Will Ferrell and those Austin Powers movies. He's still alive. He gets badly burned, and he falls like a canyon. He breaks his leg, and the poem comes out. Jaws from Bond movies, because we're talking Bond movies. They drive a little shark, and I was like, "I guess." The shark chaps, because he comes, he's coming back. -He keeps coming back, and he keeps coming, yeah. -They're sick a lot of damage. I mean, Michael Myers, I mean, he took like, what? -That's a good answer, here you go. -He took a hanger to the eyeball, and then like-- -Let's mark it all down. He took a hanger to the eyeball. He took a knife to the chest. He took four at least gunshots from his total presence, a fall from a tall place, and he was blown up. -Well, I'm only talking about it. I'm talking about it in the first one only. -Well, yeah, we can keep going, but then he was-- No, he was shot in both eyes, and then in the second one, he was shot in both eyes, and then blown up. -That's right. -And then he still kept coming. -Yeah, he's back for more, and that's why he's so funny. -I got you guys. -I hit it. -Is it wet? -The wet bandits. -The wet bandits. -We just talked about this last one. -No, this should have been Abe's answers. Beloved duties. -How Kevin McAlzier is it a psychopath? Just trying to kill these two adults by throwing bricks at them from four stories up and hitting them in the face of paint cans? -Hey, we see Daniel Stern's skeleton when they become the sticky bandits in the next movie. -That's a good call. Yeah, the wet bandits, they can take a letter. -Then a back from the dead reference as well? -I mean, he does seem resurrected in some form. -Yeah, that's true. -All right, last question here. What is some great films featuring a lot of gothic imagery? Todd Levy now writes Batman. Gilbert has Crimson Peak and Chris Cleveland has what we do in the shadows. -I'm getting answers here. -Is there fun answers? -Yeah. -Well, I've got lots of gothic imagery. -Hmm, I'm going to have to be the film studies professor here. I have an int of Dr. Caligari. -Okay, let's all go to the 20s and hang out for a while. -That's fair. -Spiral staircase. The haunting. -Oh, okay. -Oh, the gothic imagery in these, yeah. I mean, you mentioned it earlier. What's his face? Chris, we're walking in C.P.H. Hello. -I'm sure, yeah. That's plenty of Burton movies of gothic imagery in there. -Yeah, you know, Bram Stoker's Dracula, yeah. -But not in the end of the dragon. The only Bram Stoker's Dracula. -That's the only one. That was the first time they're like, "You know what? We could take this gothic." -That's right. That's the only one. -Darryl was like, "I'm not going to sign on unless it's gothic." -That's not enough feedback. -Exactly that feedback. And that's going to bring us to the end of this week's episode about now with our own aid. You can find more of my work in my personal sub-stack pays the code of zet.substack.com. Everything I do ends up over there. I'm the editor-in-chief at Weave Entertainment for a movie reviews you can find. For Blu-ray and Criterion Reviews, you can go to Wyse the Blue. I am the co-host of the summer of 2004 at 20. Scott Mendelssohn and Brandon Peters and I all talk about the summer movie season of 2004. And we're at the end of the summer of 2004. So you know what that means. Nothing but hits. There's Exorcist at the beginning and Anaconda hot for the blood orchid movies that definitely came out and were seen by people. -Okay. -And you can find everything I do. All the social stuff I'm at Aaron's PS4. Abe? -You can find more of our friends at permanescom.ab.mo and twitter.com/worldersmith hashtag Shelly. Shelly? -Is that Reeves audition? Is that what that is? -No, that's just... I actually, I should count how many times that he says Shelly in this movie. That's... We should ask Markov Meyer to do that for granted. -Okay. Mike Dylan, anything you want to plug? -Yeah, I want to plug something. A director friend of mine who's... He's been to my class. He's been really gracious to me and my students. He has a new film coming out in two weeks. It's called Rebel Ridge. -Ooh! -Yes! -Jeremy Salia is a new movie. -Let's go! -Jeremy's new film is coming to Netflix. I'm singing myself in a couple of days. He's brilliant and I hope people pop on and support it. It's going to be great. -Great. -Yeah. -Looking forward to that. -Big fan of a murder party, and blue ruin, and green room, and the one that doesn't have white in the title, but it's setting a lot of snow, so it should have called white something. What's that one called before? -Jeremy Jeffery Wright. -The dark. -Hold the dark. That one has a big shoot out in the middle of it. That's like really gnarly. Anyway, cool. Rebel Ridge. Yes, I'm looking forward to that. Looks like a lot of first blood vibes going on. Anyway, yeah, we're walking though. -You can fight either or... -You can fight all the other episodes about now with any of my iTunes, Audible, Spotify, and Sissure. -Santclap.com, man. It's just a real deal. Feel free to email us at nuppackas@jumble.com. -Check in our Facebook, Facebook, and I'm @Pikest, or Twitter, Twitter. Twitter.com says down in the Instagram podcast. -And Instagram.com, so I don't know. We'll underscore podcast as well. Mike, thank you very much for joining us this week. -Thank you, Mike. -Thanks, guys. -Next week is the end of the 12th annual summer movie gamble. -That'll be. -That'll be an episode for sure. Not a ton of major new releases, so we'll see if we have anything else in store for you, but we just gave you like three bonuses. So give us a break. So thanks to those who are listening. Thanks, Mike, for joining us, and that's gonna do it for now. So until next time, so long. -And bye. -Goodbye. [MUSIC PLAYING]